The Hour is Come

Text: John 17:1 These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.

John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world, ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Introduction:

As a child, I learned the “Lord’s prayer.” But really that prayer – Our Father who art in heaven…” is really our prayer, the model prayer Jesus gave to his followers. The true Lord’s prayer is better shown in the entire 17thchapter of John. It is 26 verses long, and the longest recorded prayer of Jesus, when He faced the crucifixion and prayed to His Father just prior to His betrayal. In this prayer, he prayed for a number of persons – for Himself, verses 1-5, for His disciples, who would soon be parted physically from Him, verses 6-19, and for us, verses 20-26. In this prayer, we see many things:

1.??????? Jesus has overcome the world – the world system. See above in John 16:33. The “world” has a number of meanings. Here it is used to speak of the system dominating our world today. I John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him. 16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but of the world. We are to love God with all of our being, and our neighbor as ourselves. This we cannot do in our own strength, but it is possible through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

2.??????? Christ lifted his eyes to heaven. That is where we are to have our priorities. Colossians 3:1 If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. 2. Set your affection on things above, not on things of the earth. 3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. 4. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

3.??????? Jesus Christ accomplished our salvation: John 3:16 For God so loved the world (a different use of the word, meaning the inhabited world), that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

During this night of his betrayal, Jesus was singing psalms, including Psalm 118:24 This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Shortly thereafter, while hanging on the cross, he cried out: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Psalm 22:1 His prayer was a cry to God for strength as he died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins and make reconciliation possible with God.

His hour had indeed come when he died for all mankind. Let us reflect on what his hour shows us. In eternity past, before the foundations of the earth were established, it appears that God the Father and God the Son had covenanted for the salvation of mankind before mankind even existed. Known to them was the hour when this would be consummated. On several occasions, Jesus was quoted as saying that his hour had not yet come. But on the night when he offered this prayer to His Father, the hour had arrived. In this prayer, we can learn many things. I will outline a few of them below.?

We are loved with an everlasting love. Let us respond to his love for us with loving Him and obeying Him.

Jeremiah 31:3 The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore, with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. His love is everlasting. It had no beginning, and it has no end. We did nothing to earn his love at the beginning, and nothing we do will stop him from loving us. However, if we die in our sins without receiving Jesus Christ as savior, we will be separated from God in the future, not because he stopped loving us, but because we have rejected the way of salvation.?

We have a mediator between God and man.

Job suffered more than any man in the Old Testament. He bemoaned that he had no person to mediate between himself and God. However, we now have a mediator, the Lord Jesus. He is the true God-man, 100% God and 100% man. I Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one man between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. He alone was able to atone for our sins and reconcile us to God. Notice what God did at the cross. II Corinthians 5:21 For he (God the Father) made him (God the Son) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. In this prayer, he is praying for us to the Father.

We are a precious gift of from God the Father to God the Son:

I had never thought about the fact that we believers have been given to Jesus by God the Father. He mentions this seven times in this prayer. John 17:2 As that thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him….6. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word;….9. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me: for they are thine…. 11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee.? Holy Father, keep them through thine own name whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. 12 While I was with them in the world I kept them in thy name; those that thou gavest me have I kept… 24. Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the world.

?Even now, Jesus Christ sits at the right hand of God interceding for us. We often fail him, but he never fails us. When his hour had come, he successfully completed our salvation, dying for us on the cross. After his resurrection, he ascended into heaven. He has been working as our High Priest praying for us. He lives forever, and his intercession for us will never cease.