The Glory of Relationship

I'm pretty sure we've all experienced at some point a magic trick, yes?

Have you ever seen a magic trick and just been baffled, bewildered?

How did they do that?

And the worst thing is when it's your seven-year-old son, and you've got to make it, they're looking at me going, who was it?

But it's just when the kids do, probably Lockie to be honest, when they do a card trick, and you're like, everyone knows how you did that.

How did you do that?

It's not until the magician takes you behind the curtain, as it were, to see the workings, that you understand how it was done.

Prayer can seem a little bit like that, can be like a mystery.

I was thinking, there have been very godly people in my life that I've seen praying, and I've thought, what is going on?

It's like they've got one of these virtual reality goggles.

They're experiencing something with God, but it's private, it's over there.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

It's like, whoa, what's going on between you and God?

Of course, Jesus did that regularly.

He would disappear off into the hills all night sometimes, and the disciples would just be looking on going, what is going on with the master?

What's happening between him and heaven?

Him and our heavenly father?

But on a few occasions, the curtain was drawn back on these incredible prayers of Jesus.

And we actually find out what he was saying.

In John 17, we just heard a little bit read of, like if you've got a Bible, have a look at John 17 and just see how long the prayer is.

Like it's 26 verses.

We read five verses.

Lord willing, we're going to look at the rest of it next week.

I'm calling it The Great Prayer because I think it is.

I think it's the most significant prayer Jesus ever prayed.

And we're going to look behind the curtain and ask some investigative questions.

It's actually a hard message to preach.

It's a hard portion to look at.

So I hope you get something good out of it.

I did.

We're going to ask questions like who, how, when, what, and why Jesus prayed.

And think about how that means something for us in 2023 this year.

For those online that didn't hear Carolyn's excellent Bible reading, I'm going to read it again.

So let me read from John 17, 1.

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son that your son may glorify you.

For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

Now, this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

So let's start with who.

First one, after Jesus said this, who is praying the prayer?

It's pretty obvious that there's no prize for saying Jesus.

In fact, in Christian circles, it's always a good go to answer.

What is it Jesus like if you're in a Sunday school exam?

This is the Lord Jesus who's praying this prayer.

He is a Jewish man living in the first century.

We know that he started out life under dubious circumstances, like he's conceived out of wedlock supernaturally, but he goes on to live the most extraordinary of lives.

And then throughout John's gospel, of course we're in John now, John gives us more insight into who he actually is, this Jesus, than really any of the other gospels.

He's the bread of life, John chapter six.

You might remember some of these words Jesus said about himself.

In other words, he himself is what nourishes a person's soul.

That's who Jesus is, the guy praying, the bread of life.

He's the light of the world, John chapter eight.

He guides people who are in darkness.

That's who he is, the guy praying.

John 10 says he's both the gate you pass through to life, and he's the good shepherd who cares for people like a shepherd cares for his flock.

John says Jesus is the resurrection and the life.

He knows the way to life after death, through the resurrection.

John chapter 11.

Chapter 14, it sort of says something similar, but we're told that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

He shows us how to live and how to get to eternal life, and we've been told in John's Gospel that Jesus is the true vine.

We find life when we abide in the vine, as we remain in him.

That's who is praying.

And since Jesus claimed to be God's son, and he said many times things that everyone listening to him thought he was claiming to be not just God's son, but God himself, I'm sort of thinking that it's fair to say this is a really, really significant person's prayer.

Would you agree?

Jesus, I mean, we get used to who he is, but he's a significant person to have a think about what he prayed.

That's who.

How did Jesus pray?

We're told he looked toward heaven and prayed.

I honestly so want to imagine this being filmed in special effects Marvel style and, you know, Jesus starts praying and the portal goes to heaven and the lightning flashes even though it's inside a room.

But it's not Jesus' style.

In a similar way to John 11 verse 41, when Jesus brought back Lazarus from the dead, it just says, Jesus looked up.

He moved his body, his posture mattered.

Don't get stuck praying only one way.

This is a little application detour.

I think it's fair to say, pray standing, pray out loud as well as silently, pray walking, pray lying, prostrate.

That's a real favourite of mine.

It just takes you somewhere different.

The dust in the mouth from the carpet is something special.

Actually, I'm not even joking.

It's actually, if you've never done that, for it on the carpet, dust in the mouth, hands out, you try it.

Prostrate prayer is like, whoa, Lord, I can't get any lower.

Sometimes we kneel.

Praying with tears is a good thing to do.

Pray with laughter even.

In the greatest of prayers, we're told something about Jesus' posture, how he prayed.

And we're told when.

We're told when he prayed.

Father, the hour has come.

He's praying with his disciples at what you could call the most poignant of times in history.

Poignant means significantly sad, poignant.

There's no more poignant time in the history of the world.

Throughout John's Gospel, several times, he says, My hour has not yet come.

Remember back in Cana, the wedding in Cana, his mum comes to him and says, Hey, could you do something, Jesus?

And Jesus says, Woman, why do you involve me?

My hour has not yet come.

His disciples early on about Chapter 7 of John's Gospel, they say, Jesus, we should take this on the road.

Like, you're really good.

Let's get you a bigger audience.

Get it to the big smoke, to Jerusalem.

And Jesus responses, My time is not yet here.

But this, in the upper room, this is the hour that history has waited thousands of years for, isn't it?

This is it.

So the when of this prayer really matters.

The prophet Daniel said about 500 years before, in 69 weeks of years, Messiah will come.

God, the Father is going to deal with sin.

Thousands of years before, God said in Genesis 3 to Adam and Eve, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head.

This is all coming together now, in this hour, when Jesus says the hour has come.

He's praying this most significant of prayers, the Great Prayer.

He's about to fulfill in his life and death, every blood sacrifice that is a type of this event, that went through the story of the Old Testament.

Every time there was a blood sacrifice that meant anything, it was pointing to what's about to happen, when this prayer was being prayed.

He's already entered Jerusalem.

You might not have picked it up, but he's come through Jerusalem Palm Sunday on the fold of a donkey.

He's washed his disciples' feet, John 13.

So he's gone into the upper room in Jerusalem, and he's done these crazy things, washed their feet there, all like, what are you going on?

And then they have communion together.

And then after that, he tells them about the Holy Spirit, and then he does this prayer.

That's where it fits.

And after he does this prayer, he goes directly to the garden, and it's on.

So can you see what I mean?

This prayer is so significant.

This is an insight behind the curtain of the Saviour of the World inside his heart.

Like, what is going on in his mind and heart and spirit?

What matters?

In fact, it's a funny sermon, this, because there's not a lot of application.

It's just good stuff, amen?

Like, looking at Jesus going, whoa, what did you pray just before Judas betrays him in the garden?

Well, this is what he prays.

The hour has come.

That's when he prayed.

But what he prays is glorify your son, that your son may glorify you.

This moment that history has been waiting for, it's about glory, the glory of God.

And the weirdest thing is he says glorify your son, but if you know your Old Testament at all, what does it say about God's glory?

Said God won't share it with anyone else.

He says it himself, I will not share my glory with anyone.

The son says, can I have some of that glory again?

I'll give it straight back to you.

And God the Father's like, yeah, for sure.

How would you describe the glory of God?

If I said, stand up and just explain to someone who doesn't know what the glory is, what the glory is.

Here's the definition, it's not the only one.

The glory of God is the magnificence, worth, loveliness and grandeur of his many perfections, which he displays in his creative and redemptive acts in order to make his glory known to those in his presence.

It affects people, the glory of God.

God's glory is revealed through creation, is identified with humanity's creation in the image of God.

It's linked to the great Exodus rescue event.

You know, it was like the glory of God was being displayed when he opened up the red scene, and says, come, my people, from the Egyptians.

The glory of God fills the earth all throughout the Bible.

It filled the temple.

It's above the heavens.

God's glory has been manifest in the New Testament.

In the incarnation of Jesus, that's a fancy word for saying God in Christ, in a human.

God in Jesus.

In the miracles of Jesus, we see the glory of God.

And in his transfiguration, you know, he's up on the mountain, and he turns into this sort of shining bright version of himself.

But it's at this hour, the glory of God is to be revealed in its most incredible and unlikely form.

On a lonely hill where you execute criminals, the glory of God is going to come.

It's going to come on Jesus when he hangs on a tool of execution of torture on a cross, and he's going to be hanging between two criminals in only a matter of hours.

And you can't help but think of that classic conversation that the mother of James and John had with Jesus, that James and John's mom, you know, she's looking after her sons.

So she grabs a quiet moment with Jesus, and she's like, hey, Lord, is there any chance you could make a deal with me?

I'm just wondering if when you come in your glory, could my boys be at your left and right?

And Jesus is like, it's not for me to say, the Father has appointed who will be at my left and my right when I come in my glory.

When did he come in his glory?

Well, on his left and right were two criminals.

It was on Calvary's Hill, wasn't it?

I mean, in his glory is when he rises from the dead, and he will come in glory, but there's no doubt when he was hanging on the cross, he was showing the glory of God, amen?

That God who created the universe is a God who would come down and love humanity so much that he would die in their place.

That's the glory of God manifest.

Jesus prays for glory, and it's going to end up going to a cross.

Why?

Well, he says, why he's praying, he says, God, Father, you granted me authority over all people, and then he says he, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

Now, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God in Jesus Christ whom you sent.

Why does Jesus pray?

He prays that he might complete the final stage of his calling, his vocation, to go to that cross.

That's his call, his destiny, to die and rise again in order that he might give eternal life to the church God the Father has predestined for him to enjoy as his bride.

Jesus prays on that evening, that poignant moment 2,000 years ago, so that you and I, that's what he's praying for.

That you and I would place our faith in him and receive eternal life.

He's not praying primarily that us in this room and everyone who's ever come under the sound of the gospel in the last 2,000 years, he's not saying, Father, I'm praying that people would come to know you through me, that they'd live for an eternally long time.

Like, that's not primarily what eternal life is.

It is a long time.

He says what eternal life is.

It's the quality of eternality.

It's relationship.

He says this is eternal life, that they might know you and me.

How does that sit with you?

Relationship is the end for eternity with the God who made us.

You see, if you strip everything back in the universe, I love sort of reflecting on this, and I've said it a hundred times here.

If you strip everything back and you go beyond the beginnings of biology, which is sort of the beginning of the earth, and you say, I'm not even interested in a Darwinian conversation about evolution.

Let's go back beyond that.

Let's go back to the origins of the cosmos, cosmology.

You only have two options.

You have eternal matter at the beginning of a Big Bang, or you have eternal personhood at the beginning of a creative event.

It's the truth.

And the Bible teaches that the latter is the truth, that there is an eternal God who is three in one.

He has a community of oneness eternally there.

He is relationship.

And out of that relationship of love and oneness, He creates, hallelujah.

He creates the world, not more than the world, the universe.

He creates people in His image, eternal life.

And this is what Jesus is praying for, that He could give it to the ones who would believe in Him, is about relationship.

And I would put it to you that there is a God-shaped hold in every one of us that we are longing for, not just God theoretically about Him dying for my sin or something.

I am designed to know God, to walk with Him.

The with God life is what I need.

And I would put it to you, it's what you need, to know God.

I'll tell you about what's happened with my health in the future, but it's been a really challenging, like we all have stuff that is challenging, challenging couple of months.

And when you're in a hard time in life, you are so aware of the pointiness of your need for a relationship with a loving God.

When things are going great, it's like, well, I think I've got this sorted Lord.

Relationship, yeah, look, I'll come back to that later.

But when things are out of your control, you're like, I need to walk with someone who is transcendent, who's above my junk.

Amen?

That's what we're talking about here.

That's what Jesus prays at this moment.

He's like, God, I know they need you.

And I want to give them an opportunity through my death and resurrection, through faith, that they might know the living God and me too.

And we could enjoy each other.

Relationship with the one who is truly glorious is the thing we're looking for.

Last weekend, I don't know if you guys, as in Saturday week ago, anyone do anything good on that hot Saturday day?

We, Leanne and I, went down to Clairville on pit water for a swim late in the day.

And it was a glorious thing to do.

It was so lovely to go down there.

It was a bit windy.

It wasn't perfect.

But I don't know how Hamish organized a perfect day for his proposal to Mel.

But we were down there.

And I had this odd experience.

I was looking at the scope, looking up north to the horizon.

You sort of set perspective out there in the open pit water.

The wind was on the waves, on the water.

Sun is setting in the west.

And I'm looking at these cloud formations, and it's just expanses going off in the massive big trees at Clearville.

And I have this moment of, rather than praise and worship, I have a moment of unbelief.

What sort of pastor do you guys have?

I would see that, and I'd have a moment of unbelief.

I thought to myself, I've been praying heaps to you lately, Lord God, more than probably normal.

And I thought, how could I even talk to it?

If you made that, and that's just like a scratch on the universe.

How on earth could I, I don't even know if this is real.

And that depressed me in moments, you know, just momentarily.

I thought I was actually like confronted with unbelief.

I thought, how on earth could this be true?

My whole world view that I could know a God who was so vast, so other, how could I know him?

And I just, I know the answer because I'm a pastor.

The answer is only if he showed initiative and came close to me.

That's the only way.

It could possibly work.

If there is truly a God who creates everything and is personable.

I'm not getting close to him without him showing the initiative, amen?

But he did, and that's the Gospel.

The Gospel is God became a human being 2,000 years ago, walked among us, was not indifferent to suffering, because some of us ask the question, why is God, you know, allowing suffering?

Well, that's a very complex question.

It's a mysterious question.

But the main thing we know is he's not indifferent to it because he became human and suffered unto death for us.

This is eternal life, that we know God through Jesus.

And it's a glorious thing, it's a glorious thing.

Jesus prayed, I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.

So he had a calling, a vocation, a destiny.

He had a job to do.

He's come to the end, he's had to not sin.

And he's got there, got there, he's about to go to the garden.

It's like it's scary, but he's like, I've done what needed to be done.

And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

That's how John 1.1 began, isn't it?

In the beginning was God, and the word was with God.

That's Jesus.

Jesus was God from the beginning.

So we pull back the curtain on the greatest prayer of all time in that upper room.

And we see what Easter is all about, and it's this.

There's a sense of corniness in this next slide, the relationship slide.

I think this is the essence of the prayer and of what life is about.

There is a relationship of the glorious.

Jesus is glorious and he's interacting with God who is glorious.

And the weird thing, too, is you are glorious because you've been made in the image of God.

We are glorious only because we reflect God who is glorious.

But there's this connection, I know it's a bit abstract, but there's this connection in the prayer of beings who are truly glorious.

And in the midst of this glorious encounter of prayer, what comes out of it is the glory of relationship.

Like, do you know what I'm saying?

Like, when you put the most glorious beings together in the universe, what they talk about is relating to one another.

Like, you have glory in the image of God, but it's not enough.

You need a relationship with him and with each other.

Because if you strip everything away, you find relationship.

So I found it interesting and helpful myself to reflect this week on the word glory and relationship.

And when it works, it is truly a glorious thing.

I wonder if we could come at our heart, our spirit, our mind from a different angle.

Steph and Ben are going to sing a song for us.

It's about the glory of God.

And I want to ask two questions after they sing for us.

And they're these two questions.

Do you know that you know you have eternal life?

Because that's what Jesus prayed.

A glorious hope of eternal life with the glorious one.

And the second question I want to ask is, do you live as though you have it?

Do you know that you have eternal life?

But if you do, do you live as though you know the glorious one?

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