John 17's Sermon's End

(Listen to the full sermon here.)

This is the prayer of Jesus for his Church. The Church, the vehicle of God to communicate his great gospel to the people of the dying world; those whom he has chosen out of the world to behold his glory.

You, me, us, we, the Church. Saved, redeemed, sanctified by the sheer grace of God for the glory of God.

Not because we were good enough, smart enough, strong enough, or witty enough; not because of physical beauty or spiritual charm; not because of the way we understand doctrine or study the Scriptures or disciple others; we are not saved by anything we do, say or think.

We, the Church, are saved to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he sent; To see Jesus’ glory that was given to him by the Father because the Father loved Jesus his Son before the foundations of the world.

So we must see here in the High Priestly prayer that none of this is about us.

It never has been and never will be. The story of redemption is about God. We are the bystanders in our own salvation; we are the dead revived to life by God and for God.

And we should thank God that God is about God! We are now free to hope in him, to have justice in him, to have grace in him, to have freedom in him, to have our refuge be him.

We, men, are not the hope of God and because we are not the hope of God we are free to be free in our radical hope in God.

And so forever we will find out more and more about who God is because God has loved us so much that he has given us himself.