17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.116 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.17 Sanctify them2 in the truth; your word is truth.18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.19 And for their sake I consecrate myself,3 that they also may be sanctified4 in truth.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Footnotes
[1]17:15Or from evil [2]17:17Greek Set them apart (for holy service to God) [3]17:19Or I sanctify myself; or I set myself apart (for holy service to God) [4]17:19Greek may be set apart (for holy service to God)
17:1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.116 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.17 Sanctify them2 in the truth; your word is truth.18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.19 And for their sake I consecrate myself,3 that they also may be sanctified4 in truth.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one,23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
Footnotes
[1]17:15Or from evil [2]17:17Greek Set them apart (for holy service to God) [3]17:19Or I sanctify myself; or I set myself apart (for holy service to God) [4]17:19Greek may be set apart (for holy service to God)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Joel Brooks:
If you would turn in your bibles to John chapter 17. If you did not bring a bible, it should be there in your worship guide. We're actually gonna take time to read through the entire chapter, all 26 verses, even though I might only get to a couple today. We're gonna be in John 17 for a little while. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.
Joel Brooks:
Glorify your son that the son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.
Joel Brooks:
Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me. And they have received them, and they have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
Joel Brooks:
All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I no longer in the I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be 1 even as we are 1. While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled.
Joel Brooks:
But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth.
Joel Brooks:
Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be 1. Just as you, father, are in me, and I in you, and they that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I've given to them that they may be 1 as we are 1, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you loved me.
Joel Brooks:
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you. And these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them. This is the word of the Lord.
Joel Brooks:
Pray with me. Our father, all that I can think in this moment is that we are dust, so give us life according to your word. And that Spirit of God, you would speak mightily in this place, that you would bring incredible clarity and conviction to your word as it goes forward. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. The Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:
We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. It's been a while since we have been in the gospel of John, at least a couple of months. And so let me remind us of where we are. It's the night before Jesus's death.
Joel Brooks:
It's hours before his betrayal, and Jesus, he's been having this final meal with his friends, His closest friends, who we know as the disciples. This is the Last Supper. Chapters 13 through 16 16 is what we call the upper room discourse. This is when Jesus takes his disciples essentially through a graduate level class in discipleship. That's why you see all of these letters of red in 13 and 14 and 15 and 16.
Joel Brooks:
These are some of the richest chapters we have in all of the Bible And yet, can I just say this, they do not compare with chapter 17? With chapter 17. This is where the bottom simply drops out. And I feel like I need to confess something about a year and a half ago or 2 years ago when we're thinking about going through John, I really really didn't want to go through John for one reason. I did not want to have to preach through John 17.
Joel Brooks:
I dreaded having to preach through this chapter. I've listened just over the last week to over 20 different sermons on John 17 and can I say they are all terrible? Every one of them. I mean, really good, gifted preachers, and and they're they're terrible in the sense that they all fall incredibly short of the glories that are there. And I am not gonna fare any better because this is the Mount Everest of scripture.
Joel Brooks:
All I can hope for is that we at least take one step forward. If this is the ocean before us, then we can at least get our feet wet as we go into this. Now Jesus' words in chapter 17, they're unique for a couple of reasons. One, these are the last words that Jesus is going to say before he is crucified. And when people only have an hour or so left to live and they know it, gone is the chitchat.
Joel Brooks:
You're not gonna talk about the weather. You're not gonna talk about sports. What you're gonna talk about is what really matters, the deepest things of your heart. And so what we see here is the deepest things in Jesus' heart in these last words. The second reason this is unique is that Jesus is praying these words.
Joel Brooks:
I know we like to think of Jesus as as praying a whole lot, and he certainly does throughout scripture. We read when you go through the New Testament, I think 21 times we see Jesus praying. Sometimes he would pray all through the night, yet we remarkably have very little of the actual words he prayed. I mean, we have the Lord's Prayer, but he's teaching the disciples to pray that. That's not actually him praying.
Joel Brooks:
When you actually add up all the words that Jesus actually prays, it's about 2 sentences in the New Testament. And here, you get an entire chapter. You get to listen to what Jesus is praying during the most critical moment of his life. We get to overhear what he is saying to his father. Have you ever overheard somebody talking about you?
Joel Brooks:
I mean, it's this weird kind of feeling because you get to know what they really think. You know, you you go to a coffee shop and you're sitting there and you see 2 of your friends come in, but they don't see you, but you see them and all of a sudden, you hear them talking about you. You actually get to know what they really think about you. When you overhear someone talking about you, you actually get a a real glimpse into their heart. We're overhearing Jesus talk about us.
Joel Brooks:
We get to know what Jesus really feels about us. We're overhearing Jesus talk to his father, meaning we're getting a sneak peek into the inner workings of the Trinity here. How does the son relate to the father and how does the father relate to the son? There's nothing like this in the rest of scripture. There's no parallel to this outside of scripture overhearing God talk about you, overhearing God talk with God.
Joel Brooks:
And so when we come to this, I just want you to know that we are on holy ground. And one of the things you might have noticed as we were reading through John 17 is it kind of felt familiar, not just because some of the lines are recognizable in there, but there's a familiar outline to it. And it's because Jesus is walking through the Lord's Prayer. The same themes you have in the Lord's Prayer are the exact same themes that you have here with the exception of Jesus praying, father forgive me of my sins. He doesn't have to pray that, but everything else is there.
Joel Brooks:
The hallowing of the name of the Father. Here you have in verse 11, Jesus calls his father holy father. It's the only time he ever says that in scripture. Or verse 25, he calls his father righteous father. It's the only time he says this.
Joel Brooks:
He's hallowing the name. He prays for the kingdom to come. He prays for the provision and the protection of his friends. He prays for deliverance from evil for them. And then, the overarching theme of it all is glory.
Joel Brooks:
Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. And it's this forever glory that is really the heartbeat of this entire prayer. Glory for the father, glory for the son, glory in this present moment, and glory for all the future. So let's let's just dig in. Let's start working through verse 1.
Joel Brooks:
Let me read it again. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you. So we see here that the consuming of desire the consuming desire for Jesus is that he might receive glory so that he might in turn give glory to the father. That's your little sneak peek into the heart of the trinity where we see this father and the son trying to give endless glory to one another.
Joel Brooks:
It's this selfless giving relationship of persons in which their only desire is that the other one might be glorified, and this goes for all of eternity. The delight of their hearts is for the other to be seen as glorious. Now the glory that Jesus is talking about here in particular in this first verse all depends on this this hour. Father, the hour has come. There's this hour.
Joel Brooks:
Really, we we we should think of this as the moment. The moment has arrived for glory. And all throughout John, Jesus has kept saying, the hour has not yet come. He won't do things because the hour has not yet come. It has not yet come and then finally you get to this point point and he says, It's here.
Joel Brooks:
The moment has arrived. This is the climactic point of Jesus' entire life and the moment that has arrived is the hour of his crucifixion. It's the hour of his death. His death is going to be his glory. Glory is going to come to Jesus in the most unusual of places through his crucifixion, not through his coronation.
Joel Brooks:
And so when Jesus is lifted up on the cross and he's drawing all people to himself, he is being lifted up in glory. Now, of course, this is so counter cultural. This is not at all what we think of when we think of crucifixion. You you think of the opposite of glory. You think of humiliation.
Joel Brooks:
When when a person is is on a cross, everything about it screams, I've lost. I've completely lost as as Jesus' hands and his feet are nailed into the wood and he is hanging there, stripped of all of his clothes for all to see and for all to mock him. It is the picture of total humiliation. Yet Jesus here is saying, this is the hour of my glory, my hour of glory. Perhaps we need to revisit that term, glory.
Joel Brooks:
What does glory mean? What exactly is this glory of God? Well, we know that the glory of God is seen through the revelation of both who God is and what he is. The glory of God is seen both in the revelation of both who and what God is. And and so we see his glory all the time.
Joel Brooks:
You know, you you go out at night, you look up at the stars and you're reminded of Psalm 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God. And what's happening is as you're looking at all of these stars and you're thinking about that and you're like, wow. There there are more stars in the heavens than there are grains of sand in all the beaches and all the world. And you begin thinking about that and that God created all of those and God knows them all by name, your jaw drops and you think, glory. From what he has revealed, all of a sudden you get a new insight into who he is, what he is, and you think, glory.
Joel Brooks:
Moses caught a glimpse of God, just a little revelation of God, just just a little glimpse of God's back, and yet he saw enough glory that it made his face shine like the sun. And you could go through all scripture and you can find all of these little revelations of God about his glory, but then you come to Jesus. And there is nothing compared to looking at Jesus who as the author of Hebrews says is the radiance of God's glory, the perfect representation of God's glory. And Jesus here is saying, and actually me on the cross is the blazing center of the glory of God. You want to understand the glory of God?
Joel Brooks:
You see me bleeding on a cross, because that is the greatest revelation of both who and what God is. If you want to understand this, you've got to go back to the Old Testament, to Exodus 34 in which you come to the greatest prayer in the Old Testament. We're looking at the greatest prayer in the New Testament. The greatest prayer in the Old Testament was uttered by Moses. He's taken up on Mount Sinai.
Joel Brooks:
He's already received the Ten Commandments. People have already broke them while he's up there. They've already created a golden calf, bowed down to it. Moses prays to God on their behalf. He pleads with God to forgive them.
Joel Brooks:
God does. And then Moses who's emboldened by this answer to God's prayer, to his prayer, Moses prays this. Lord, would you show me your glory? Would you show me your glory? You can't get a bigger prayer than that.
Joel Brooks:
Just could you reveal to me who you are so I can see your glory? God says, Moses, nobody can see me and live. How about this? I'll hide you in the cleft of a rock, I'm gonna put my hand over you, and I'm just gonna kinda walk by. And as I'm walking by, I'll I'll let off my hand and you can just catch a glimpse of my back, and that'll be enough glory to forever change you.
Joel Brooks:
And so that's what happens and we read about this in Exodus 34, because as this happens, the Lord reveals who he is. We read, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood before Moses there and he proclaimed the name of Yahweh. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed Yahweh, Yahweh, A God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Keeping steadfast love for 1,000, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the 3rd 4th generation. And Moses quickly bowed his head and worshiped.
Joel Brooks:
So so the Lord, he reveals to Moses his glory by proclaiming his name, by revealing who he is, and he says, I am Yahweh. I am Yahweh. I'm a merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger. I'm abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.
Joel Brooks:
God is merciful. He is he is a forgiver. He forgives 1,000 of their iniquities and their transgressions of sins. And so that is the glory of God. That's who he is.
Joel Brooks:
And as we we experience that and we see that we we can't help but say glory. That is glory, but that's not all of who God is. Right after God says he is forgiving, he's not forgiving, yet I will by no means clear the guilty. And I will visit the iniquity of the fathers on the children and theirs children's children. And so you have this declaration of who God is, this revelation of who He is, and yet it seems to be at odds.
Joel Brooks:
He is loving and he is merciful. He is slow to anger, he forgives. And he will by no means clear the guilty, but he demands payment for sin. And that's who God reveals himself and says, I'll show you my glory. There it is.
Joel Brooks:
And Moses goes away scratching his head, as did all of the people who followed this time, wondering what is meant by this. Moses got a glimpse, but we get to see the glory of God on full display because both of those things come together when we see Jesus on the cross. There it is when we see the Son of God bleeding for us. We see the love and the mercy and the faithfulness of God and the forgiveness of God and then we see how he does not by any means clear the guilty, but there is payment for sin. And it all beautifully comes together when we see Jesus on the cross, who is the blazing center of the glory of God.
Joel Brooks:
Gosh. We gotta move on. We we have to move on. We're not in through verse 1. So verse 23.
Joel Brooks:
I'll read 1 again. Jesus has spoken these words. He lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all you have given?
Joel Brooks:
And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Jesus says that he has the power to give eternal life And then he defines exactly what this eternal life looks like. It's knowing the true God, not just any God, not whatever you think about God, but actually knowing the real true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. Now when Jesus is talking about eternal life here, he's not talking about the quantity of life. He's talking about the quality of life.
Joel Brooks:
Now, of course, eternal life means it's going to go on and on and on forever and that it will never end, but that's not all eternal life is. It's not just eternal existence. This is eternal life. Eternal life is not just going to heaven when you die and existing in the same state that you are now, but now it just goes endlessly through all of eternity. That is not what Jesus is talking about.
Joel Brooks:
He says there will be a new quality of life And quality of life is not determined by your possessions. It's not determined by what you're really doing, your quality of life is determined by your relationships. And Jesus says that we will know God. We will be in relationship with God and that is life. We're not going to just look through a mirror dimly, we are going to see God face to face.
Joel Brooks:
We're going to get to stand in his presence. And as the psalmist says, in his presence is fullness of joy and his right hand are pleasures forevermore. An eternal life is is a life with relationship with God that is far greater in its joys, far greater in its laughters and its loves than we can ever comprehend. And through this relationship, we're we're getting we're getting to know all of these deeper joys and these deeper lives now, and so much so that when you look at your life before you were a Christian, yes, you laughed. Yes, you had some joy.
Joel Brooks:
Yes, you had some pleasure, but you look at the life before you knew Jesus and you said, that person was dead compared to who I am now, alive in Christ. I'm a completely different creature in my capacity to experience joy in life now in Jesus. We're about to jump in now. This has all been light. Okay?
Joel Brooks:
There's a couple of odd things in verse 3 that needs to be addressed. One, why does Jesus talk about having eternal life smack dab in the middle of a section that is all about his glory? Right in the middle, He talks about our eternal life, smack dab in the middle of a section that's all about His glory. 2nd odd thing we need to look at is why does Jesus refer to Himself in this prayer as Jesus Christ? It's unusual to refer to yourself in the 3rd person by name in a prayer.
Joel Brooks:
So let's look at these two things. 1st, why does Jesus talk about eternal life smack dab in the middle of a section that is all about His glory? And the answer is this, God has forever tied His glory to your salvation. He is forever tied his glory to your salvation. You knowing him, him knowing you is now and forevermore part of his glory.
Joel Brooks:
We see this in verse 24 when Jesus prays that he desires for us to be with him and to see Him in glory. He doesn't just pray for glory. He doesn't just want glory. What he wants is for us to be there with him in relationship forevermore basking in his glory. That's his heart's desire.
Joel Brooks:
So his glory is tied to our salvation or to us being in a relationship with him. Alright second, why does Jesus refer to Himself in the 3rd person using the name Jesus? Don't you think it's kind of odd that Jesus would pray and talk about Himself like that. I mean, if I'm praying about my relationship with my wife, I wouldn't pray things like, you know, Lord, and help Lauren to really come to know Joel Brooks. Like, it's just odd.
Joel Brooks:
You you don't talk that way. And sure enough, if you go through the entire bible, you will never find Jesus doing this other than right here. Every other time he is talking about himself, he's either gonna say me or my or I. If He does refer to Himself in the 3rd person or or call Himself a name, it's always gonna be a divine name. He's the Son of God or he is the Son.
Joel Brooks:
But here he uses his human name Jesus. It's the only time this ever happens. And he uses his human name Jesus when he is referring to his future glory, and this is hugely important to us. You see, the Son of God did not always exist as the person of Jesus. He didn't always exist as the person of Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
This is why we celebrate Christmas each year. That's what Christmas is all about. It's the incarnation. It's when the Son of God who's existed for all of eternity, he steps into time, he puts on human flesh, and he becomes a man. And he lives among us and he is named Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
This is when the word became flesh. This is when God became man. It's what we celebrate in Christmas. And when you think of this, you need to understand this as this was an incredible condescending of God coming down to us. Paul describes it this way in Philippians 2.
Joel Brooks:
He says that the Son of God emptied himself. He empties himself of all the glory he had before. He empties himself and he takes the form of a servant Being born in the likeness of men and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. So hear me. The the son of God, he empties himself of the glory he had beforehand and he becomes human.
Joel Brooks:
And the reason he became human and and he went from God to man and and having a physical body was so that he could have hands and feet that could have nails driven through them. So that he could have a back that could receive lashes, so that he could have a head in which thorns were were pressed in on his brow. This is why the Son of God decided to become human. Being human was necessary for humiliation. He couldn't be humiliated unless he was human.
Joel Brooks:
So being human was him giving up glory and embracing a humiliation. But when Jesus rose from the dead and he gets his new resurrected body and 40 days later, he ascends to the heavens and he sits down next to the father. He returns to glory. Now hear this, when he returned to glory, he didn't give back his humanity his humanity. He didn't say, okay, I was human for a while.
Joel Brooks:
I accomplished my work. Now, let me get rid of the human form so I could return to my glorious state I had with you for all of eternity. He doesn't. The Son of God now and forevermore reigns in heaven as the person Jesus Christ in all humanity. He will forever keep the scars in his hands and his feet.
Joel Brooks:
He will forever be both human and divine. He will forever be the Son of God and the Son of Man. And this is huge for us in so many levels. For one, it means we actually have a high priest in heaven who's just like us, who understands our weaknesses and who can intercede for us. We'll look at that in the weeks to come.
Joel Brooks:
What I want to do right now is just see how the forever humanity of Jesus is all about his glory and yours. Right now as you picture Jesus in heaven seated on the throne in his resurrected body, do not do not do not think of him in a forever state of humiliation. As if by keeping his human form, he has now downgraded his eternal existence. No. Verse 5, Jesus is praying that he would return to the exact same glory that he had with the father beforehand, and he does, but this time in human form.
Joel Brooks:
And and so now he remains in human form with the exact same glory as before. So it is not a humiliation of him, it is a elevation of us. When Jesus in human form now, forever reigning in heaven is there, we see our future. That's us, Because when we see him, we will become like him. The glory of Jesus and his resurrected human form is our hope because he is the first fruits and we're gonna come in from we're gonna come in behind.
Joel Brooks:
When we see him in all of his glory as a human, we see what awaits us. This is absolutely necessary for us because our bodies right now are not capable of standing before the glory of God. Throwing a chunk at you, aren't I? It's a chunk. You you can feel this now, this failing of your body.
Joel Brooks:
I mean, I see this when I do weddings all the time or if you think of the happiest moments in your life, maybe when you got married, or maybe when you had your first child, and you're filled with this incredible joy. I mean a real joy, not like my team won the football game kinda joy, but like this is a deep, deep joy. Your body begins to break down. So I've seen the most manly, you know, men men just like these guys are men and then their bride comes through the doors and they just break down crying. Their bodies start to tremble.
Joel Brooks:
They get up there, they're trying to say the vows, and they can't speak. I mean, no other time do you have to remind people, bend your knees so you don't pass out. Okay? I mean, you never have to tell that guy to not pass out on any other time, but but in that moment when joy fills his heart, his his body fails. When when a newborn is is placed in his mother's lap and the mom looks at this child, a lot of times there's a bursting of tears and there's a trembling.
Joel Brooks:
Not because they're sad, but because they've never experienced so much joy and their body has reached the capacity where they can't absorb it anymore and it begins to break down. They they don't have the strength to take in all the joy that's before them. It's what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 3 and Paul's greatest prayer, all the prayers tied together. It says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. That you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
Joel Brooks:
In this prayer, Paul doesn't just pray, I want them to know God. He doesn't just pray, I want them to know your love. He prays for strength. He says, Lord, if you were to pour out your love, this all surpassing knowledge of who you are and the height and the depth and the breadth and the width, if you were to pour that in our hearts, we'd break. So what we're praying is will you through your spirit hold us together, strengthen our inner being so that we can just have a little bit more of the fullness of God, just a little bit more of that joy.
Joel Brooks:
Otherwise, we simply won't have the capacity to do it. Our present human body does not have the capacity to hold the joy and the life that awaits, but it will not always be this way. When we see Jesus Christ in heaven ascended, we see our hope. We see our glorious resurrected body, and when we see Him we shall become like Him, and we will all have an infinite capacity for joy. An infinite capacity for life as we bask in the eternal presence of our Lord and savior, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:
Pray with me. Lord, I pray that you would allow us, give us the strength to absorb what we've heard. We're just scratching the surface of what's here, but that will forever change us. Jesus, you are the high and exalted supreme one. You currently reign now in glory.
Joel Brooks:
When you took on human flesh and you came to die, that was for your humiliation, but when you ascended, it was for both your glory and ours. And we eagerly await that time when we will be resurrected as well, and then our bodies will have no limit, no limit to the amount of joy in life that we can receive. We long for that day. May it break through now at this moment. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus.