Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome

Welcome back everybody!

Glad we could all make it.

Today we are going to be jumping into the Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, which is where we see the heart of Jesus revealed.

We are going to meditate on this and ask some questions on what He says in this prayer, but before we jump into our lesson for today, lets kick it off with some small group discussion:

How has your New Year been?

What does it mean for God to love?

Before we jump into the High Priestly Prayer, lets look at some of the passages leading up to it to establish context.

There is a special love that Jesus has for believers.

God, being infinitely more complex and complicated than we are yet so simple that all of His attributes and qualities flow together seamlessly.

This is a big reason church history is so important, there are 2,000 years worth of people who have looked at these scriptures and meditated on them and help us interpret them in the right way.

This is what is called orthodoxy.

Or saying things that align with what the correct vein of church history has spoken on.

Chances are if you are hearing something brand new, something fresh off the presses in the realm of Christianity, chances are that its heresy and incredibly wrong.

So many people have an opinion on scripture but so few have studied it.

I want us to know Church history and continue on in the orthodox teachings of the church to shine more light and help us to understand the revealed word and will of God.

Theology is important, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, and everybody is a theologian.

Theology is the study of God, if you read your bible you are studying God, congratulations you’re all knighted theologians.

However, the problem with the Christian church is, in the words of Voddie Baucham,

“The modern church is producing passionate people with empty heads who love the Jesus they don’t know very well.”

– Voddie Baucham

This is a problem, because the church has so diminished the value of good doctrine and theology, people now don’t really know who Jesus is, and i want us to know who Jesus is.

If I say something ever and you disagree with me that is fine, I am fallible and i get things wrong and mess up all the time just ask my wife, but if what i’m saying I am literally reading directly from scripture and you disagree what what scripture is saying then the problem certainly is not with what the Bible says but with you and your heart.

We are students of the Word.

We are molded by the text.

We do not try to mold the text into what we want it to say.

With That said, lets continue on,

Jesus, talking to His disciples, says that you did not choose me, but I chose you, or in the words of John the apostle in first John, because God is love, and the only way that someone can love is by knowing God, we love, because He first loved us, and appointed us to go and bear good fruit, only possible through the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit, this new life that we have been miraculously given.

Jesus in in the midst of His goodbye tour, He knows what is before Him, He knows what He is going to do, He goes on with this mindest for 2 chapters and caps it off with this.

In me you may have peace.

If you are a believer, you will be persecuted.

I am not saying you may, I am saying you will.

You will be hated.

You will be plotted against.

Because you are not of this world but Chosen out of this world that we go and bear fruit through the power of the Holy Spirit.

So take heart, have peace in Jesus, the one who has overcome the world.

With this morbid yet victorious final statement, Jesus begins His High Priestly prayer.

We are in the endgame now.

Jesus has authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all that the Father has given Him.

Then he goes on to define what the eternal life is that He is giving, knowing God, and Jesus, Himself.

If you know them, not just in a head knowledge, but an intimate, salvific affection, that is eternal life.

Now, this is an important question to grapple with.

looking at Jesus saying “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished all that you gave me to do.” Lets ask the question:

What was Jesus’ mission?

Lets continue reading, this is what was accomplished:

This is right before Jesus is arrested to be crucified.

Jesus here is praying over the sacrifice He is about to make.

Himself.

Note this sacrifice is not for the World, but for all whom the Father has given Him.

What is this?

I’m not reading from some distant crazed theologian, these are the words of Jesus Himself.

So Jesus is about to pay the price and atone for the sins of those that the Father has given Him.

Who are these people?

How do we know who they are?

Lets take a quick step away from John 17 to John 6, Jesus uses this language all throughout His Ministry.

So the Jews hear what Jesus is saying and get upset with Him, this happens frequently throughout the Gospels.

In response to their grumbling, Jesus says this,

This is something that I do not want you to miss.

Up until I had this laid out to me, the idea of the trinity’s role in salvation did not make much sense to me.

The Father gives those to be saved to the son, The Son pays for the sins of those that the Father has given Him, this is what we have just read, this is what Jesus our Messiah is saying.

And where is Holy Spirit?

John 3 We know John 3, Nicodemus sneaks away from the other pharisees to tell Jesus He sees He is a teacher sent from God.

How is one born again?

The Holy Spirit causes the regeneration, this new birth, which applies the sacrifice of the Son to all who come to Jesus, which are those that the Father has given Him.

You might be thinking to yourself, wait a minute Peyton, I see we are in John 3, lots go ahead and jump to verse 16,, how does this stand up against the most popular verse in all of Scripture John 3:16?

Very well.

This doesn’t say that everyone will be saved, it says that whoever believes in Him will be saved, which is exactly what Jesus has said in John 6 and 17 and throughout the entirety of His Gospels.

And who believes?

Those that the Father has Given Him.

Now that we clarified that a bit, lets finish out John 17: l

Jesus is praying that the Father keep them in His mighty sovereign name, and Jesus has guarded them, and hasn’t lost one.

Except, the son of Destruction, who is that?

Judas.

So that the scripture might be fulfill.

God has decreed, He has so said that Judas would betray Jesus and it was so.

Judas was lost.

But He is the only one who was or ever will be lost once Jesus has them.

Because it was not because Jesus did not have the ability to save Judas, but because the Word of God must stand true and the scriptures must be fulfilled.

Like Jesus said before and throughout His whole ministry, If you are saved, you are not like anyone else.

You are not like the world.

You actually resent everything the world stands for and call out its evils, and that is why it hates you and that is why it hates God.

Now, some people like to interpret this High priestly prayer and all these other places in the gospels I have pulled from today and say that they are just talking about the immediate disciples, just the 12. It’s not talking about the salvation of everybody.

That would be a compelling argument, if Jesus didn't say this.

You loved them even as you loved me.

How did the Father love the Son?

Before the foundations of the world.

If you are a believer or will become a believer, It is because God has loved you since the foundations of the earth had been laid.

God can never stop loving you because He never began.

From eternity past He has loved you.

There’s never been a time He hasn’t, even at your worst we cling to this hope.

The Gospel, that while we were still sinners Christ died for us.

Jesus finishes His prayer:

Jesus has made known the sovereign holy name of the Father.

and this is how Ends His prayer over you and every believer that ever be, in the same way He started, with Love.

From here, the Son of Destruction acts in accordance with the scriptures, betraying Jesus with kiss to His cheek.

Jesus is arrested, the apostles and believers scattered.

Peter denying Jesus.

Jesus goes to trial.

Then is beaten, spat upon, humiliated, tortured.

Carried the cross, the instrument in which the Son of God would be nailed to and put up on display for all to see.