Aug. 20th Sermon

I've decided I'm going to start taking notes on Sunday and studying the verses again on Monday. Here is a take on the first Sunday:

John 17:1-5
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may also glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."

Jesus - revealer, making the Father known

Verses 1-2 Reveals the plan of God
- Verse 1 - The Son will be lifted up, deliverance & healing is needed
- Verse 1 - Son lifting up Father in Cross (Rom. 3:25)
- Verse 2 - Eternal life, authority of Christ

Verse 3 Reveals the Purpose of God
- Verse 3 - Eternal life, knowing God

Verses 4-5 Reveals the Pleasures of God
- Verse 4 - Speaking in past tense, assurance as if already taken place
- Verse 4 - Submission
- Verse 4 - God and Jesus delighting in one another, glorifying one another
- Verse 4 - Everything was accomplished that needed to be accomplished to reveal God
- Verse 4 - Jesus identified himself with God
- Verse 5 - Jesus has fellowship with God forever & has always since before the world existed

Know perfections of Christ
- Perfections of God reveal imperfections of man
*** Three ways to react to perfections of God
*****Fist up - Pride, arrogance, rebellion revealed in man
*****Fences up - Ignores perfections of God & disregard who God is - replace God with other things
*****Face down - True revelation, reaction of humility, light truly revealed, face down before a holy & just God

Know deliverance in Him
Know fellowship with Him
Know blessings from Him

We need redemption, not recovery - there is no 12 step plan

My thoughts (what stuck out most):

- Son lifting up Father through the Cross

I never thought of Christ dying on the cross as the Son lifting up His Holy Father. However, who did Christ and every action He did point to? His very being was to point a lost people to a most Holy Father. I was just reading another study and it stated that the very cross is up and down and left to right. Up and down points from earth to the heavens, while left to right never ends. The act of Christ dying reaches as far as the east is from the west. It was for all nations and people, tongue & tribe. The act of Christ dying was to bring the peoples of the earth to a most holy God.

Romans 3:25

"whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,"

It was God who sent his One and Only begotten Son, not only to save us through blood, but to point a lost people to Himself so that we might be saved.