João 17

João 17

Piper - What Does Jesus Want for Christmas? —John 17:24 We can see the answer in his prayers. What does he ask God for? His longest prayer is John 17. The climax of his desire is in verse 24. Among all the undeserving sinners in the world, there are those whom God has “given to Jesus.” These are those whom God has drawn to the Son (John 6:44, 65). These are Christians—people who have “received” Jesus as the crucified and risen Savior and Lord and Treasure of their lives (John 1:12; 3:17; 6:35; 10:11, 17–18; 20:28). Jesus says he wants them to be with him. Sometimes we hear people say that God created man because he was lonely. So they say, “God created us so that we would be with him.” Does Jesus agree with this? Well, he does say that he really wants us to be with him! Yes, but why? Consider the rest of the verse. Why does Jesus want us to be with him? … to see my glory that you [Father] have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. That would be a strange way of expressing his loneliness. “I want them with me so they can see my glory.” In fact, it doesn’t express his loneliness. It expresses his concern for the satisfaction of our longing, not his loneliness. Jesus is not lonely. He and the Father and the Spirit are profoundly satisfied in the fellowship of the Trinity. We, not he, are starving for something. And what Jesus wants for Christmas is for us to experience what we were really made for—seeing and savoring his glory. Oh, that God would make this sink in to our souls! Jesus made us (John 1:3) to see his glory. Just before he goes to the cross he pleads his deepest desires with the Father: “Father, I desire [I desire!] that they . . . may be with me where I am, to see my glory.” But that is only half of what Jesus wants in these final, climactic verses of his prayer. I just said we were really made for seeing and savoring his glory. Is that what he wants—that we not only see his glory but savor it, relish it, delight in it, treasure it, love it? Consider verse 26, the very last verse: 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. That is the end of the prayer. What is Jesus’s final goal for us? Not that we simply see his glory, but that we love him with the same love that the Father has for him: “that the love with which you [Father] have loved me may be in them.” Jesus’s longing and goal is that we see his glory and then that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the Father has for the Son. And he doesn’t mean that we merely imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the Father’s very love becomes our love for the Son—that we love the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the Spirit becomes and bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the Father through the Spirit. What Jesus wants most for Christmas is that his elect be gathered in and then get what they want most—to see his glory and then savor it with the very savoring of the Father for the Son. What I want most for Christmas this year is to join you (and many others) in seeing Christ in all his fullness and that we together be able to love what we see with a love far beyond our own half-hearted human capacities. This is our goal in these Advent devotionals. We want together to see and savor this Jesus whose first “advent” (coming) we celebrate, and whose second advent we anticipate. This is what Jesus prays for us this Christmas: “Father, show them my glory and give them the very delight in me that you have in me.” Oh, may we see Christ with the eyes of God and savor Christ with the heart of God. That is the essence of heaven. That is the gift Christ came to purchase for sinners at the cost of his death in our place. J C Philpot - John 17:24 Nothing short of the revelation and communication of this glory could satisfy the heart of God; and nothing short of the partaking of this glory can satisfy the heart of man. Heaven short of this would be no heaven to his soul. Not to see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; to have no view of the glory of an incarnate God; not to be conformed to His glorious image, so as to be perfectly holy both in body and soul—were these things denied, there would be no heaven at all for the redeemed among the children of men. But God, in giving the saints heaven as their happy home, gave them with it an eternal weight of glory. He has designed that all whom he has chosen unto salvation should reach the heavenly shore; that none should suffer shipwreck by the way; that sin should not be their ruin; that Satan should not succeed in any of his devices against their eternal safety; but that every member of the mystical body of Christ should be for ever which their glorious Head in the realms of bliss, to behold and to be partakers of the glory which shall be revealed when He comes and all His saints with Him. It is the prospect of this glory which animates the Christian in all his battles against sin, and encourages him never to quit the field until victory crown the strife. It nerves his heart in all the troubles and trials of this mortal state, still to press forward to win this immortal prize, that he may safely reach that land where tears are wiped from off all faces, and where the glory of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost will be seen and enjoyed through the glorified humanity of Jesus without a cloud to dim its rays, or intercept its eternal lustre. (Ears from Harvested Sheaves.) J J Knapp - John 17:24 Father, I Will After having prayed for Himself and for the disciples, the Messiah prayed finally for those who would come to believe by the word of the apostles. He prayed for their unity in life. However, He also thought of their future after the earthly life, and with this in mind, he said: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” “Where I am,”—behold how He described heaven. Often the world questions in a mocking way whether there is any heaven, and where it is, and what it is. But Jesus simply answered: “Where I am.” The Holy Scriptures speak of that blessed world in many ways. A paradise with frolicking streams. A city with gates of pearl and glistening walls. A wedding full of joy with playing of stringed instruments and new songs. However, the richest description of heaven is contained in the sober word of our text: “Where I am.” Indeed, if we were to enter the heavenly Jerusalem and walk over the golden streets, but our eye looked in vain for Jesus, then heaven would be removed from heaven, then the joy would have left heaven, then the salvation was gone from heaven, and that heaven full of treasures would be a hollow, empty space to our soul’s experience. The Messiah added that we shall be with Him, and He answered with that the deepest need of our soul. To be with Him is good, to be separated from Him is the beginning of perdition. To be with Him already in this life on earth, to taste how good He is. To be with Him in the hour of death when leaving this world, to be comforted by His staff and rod in the valley of the shadows of death. But also, to be with Him in eternity to behold the glory that the Father gave Him! Who would ever bring us to this blessedness if it were not the faithful Saviour, who could say: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am.” No sinner would ever be able to speak like this. He would wish and hope and pray and believe that at some time he might inherit such glory. However, to demand this of a holy God with an “I will,”—that cannot and may not be. Jesus, however, could demand. He had fulfilled everything to open heaven for sinners after they had closed it by their sin. By virtue of His work He obtained the full right to heaven. He holds the keys to paradise on his girdle. He opens and no one shuts. It is on the basis of His merits that He may say, “Father, I will!” Blessed, when He says so, pointing to each one of us. Blessed if we prepare for that heaven by already being with Him now. Thrice blessed when He shall soon unlock the pearly gates and beckon us with a “Father, I will,” into that glory. John Broadus ——John 17:24 (from sermon “The Saviour Praying for Us,”) I mention one more petition. They had beheld his humiliation, those who accompanied him, and he longed that they might be with him to behold his glory. He offers the same prayer for all that would believe on him through their word. There are two reasons why Jesus Christ made this petition. He asked it partly for his own sake. Did you never imagine that he was sad at leaving his disciples? You know that they were sad, but wasn’t he? Did you never suppose that he longs to have those who love him more immediately with him? He said to his disciples, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me” (John 14:1), and it will all be well. “I am going … to prepare a place for you. And … I will come back and take you to be with me” (vv. 2–3). He says it not only to comfort them, but more than they know perhaps, he says it to comfort his own heart also. And so Jesus said, “I want those you have given me to be with me where I am.” He wants to have his people with him. But the other reason is more obvious to us; he made the prayer for their sake. He makes the prayer for our sake, “I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory.” To be with him is to be delivered from all the infirmities and imperfections and conflicts of this earthly life. I do not suppose we could bear all this if it were not for the fact that it is to end—and to end in victory. I suppose we would give up the struggling effort to do right and to do good in this world were it not for the assurance that we will at last be conquerors and “more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). To be with him will be to be with all who have loved us and who have gone before us to him. To be with him is to be free from all sin, and safe. Safe! O my soul, safe from all temptation to sin. To be with him is to behold his glory. So the Savior prays for us, and how grateful we are. Let us strive to fulfill his petitions that one day we may be with him. The Heidelberg Catechism: Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death? Answer: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him. J C