Jesus is praying for you. What’s he praying?

Steve Brown:
Jesus is praying for you. What’s he praying? Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
If you’re sick of guilt and manipulation, and if you’re looking for an honest and thoughtful presentation of Biblical truth, you’ve come to the right place. This is Key Life with the founder of Key Life Network, Steve Brown. Keep listening for teaching that will make you free.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. And Hi Matt. Those are two different Matthews, by the way. The one you just heard and the one you’re going to hear. Matt Heard is here, by the way. He lives in Colorado and comes in, one of the voices of Key Life. And he comes in and I love spending time with him. And during this Holy Week, we decided that we’re going to go on a journey to the Cross. And if you were here on Monday, we talked about how to abide in Jesus, and then we talked yesterday about the Holy Spirit and his job description. Today we’re going to talk about the great high priestly prayer. Actually, this is the Jesus prayer, the real one, and then on tomorrow we’re going to talk about Peter, prone to wander. And then on Friday we’re going to talk about the day death died. But right now, what we’re doing is talking about Jesus praying, and at the beginning, by the way, I told you this before. Listen to me, if you want to see something that’ll blow your socks off, go to ThriveFullyAlive.com. I don’t have the time to tell you the ways that God is using Matt Heard, but he’s using him in an amazing way, in a lot of places. And you need to be familiar with this ministry. The ministry’s called Thrive and the website is ThriveFullyAlive.com. Okay, back to the 17th chapter of John, and this is how it opens.

When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the our has come; glorify thy Son that the Son may glorify thee, since thou has given him the power over all flesh, to give eternal life to all thou has given him. And this is eternal life, that they know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou has sent.

Eternal life, talk to us about eternal life.

Matt Heard: Well, hello, by the way. I don’t think I’ve said anything yet today.

Steve Brown:
Well, that was amazing for you. It’s not often that you don’t say anything.

Matt Heard: Oh, I’ve just listened all those wonderful things you were saying about Thrive. And I just want you to know, being a partner with you and Key Life is in the top 20 things that I do.

Steve Brown:
And that goes back and forth at top. Maybe 30, I guess.

Matt Heard: No, so what we’re doing this week, is taken a journey through John 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19. I want to encourage you each day just kind of read that chapter, because these are some of the last hours of Jesus’s earthly life. And we’ve already looked at 15 of that relationship of abiding, in 16 where he says, I’m going to send my Holy Spirit. Now, Steve, I love this passage because in the moment of his great need, we eavesdrop by the Holy Spirits’ insight given to John. And John was there hearing this prayer where Jesus is calling out to the Father, regarding us, and you know, what’s Jesus’ heart posture towards me. And this is it, I mean, he just goes through so many things, but, all right, you mentioned eternal life and he starts it out, that’s the only time that he ever defines eternal life. And he couldn’t say it more clearly, he says, I’ve come, you’ve given me authority, my purpose is to bring eternal life. And this is eternal life, and what he defines is different from what you’ll hear from most people cause what you say eternal life. What do the majority of people think immediately?

Steve Brown:
Going to live forever.

Matt Heard: Yeah. Yeah. And it’s this notion of heaven. Okay, eternal life he came to give us heaven, he did, but eternal life isn’t synonymous with heaven. Eternal life is a, it’s present tense as well as future. Now, the beauty is we’ll experience eternal life. I mean, this won’t be the first time that heresy has been, kind of dabbled with in this studio. So, before people get the heresy cards out, yes, eternal life will be experienced in heaven, but eternal life is not synonymous with heaven. Eternal life is something begins to happen the moment that we trust him. And here’s what he says, he says.

And this is eternal life, that they may know you.

Steve Brown:
Yeah.

Matt Heard: And so this, that intimate relating with God in all of life, that enables us is to flourish, to thrive, to to do life for his smile, to his glory. And the deal with eternal life so often is we emphasize the adjective and not the noun. My high school English teacher would be so proud of me that I remember the difference, we focus on that adjective, eternal, the quantitative, which we should, I mean the living forever. But we don’t emphasize that Zoe life, that life of God, you know, it’s this, it’s quantitative, it’s qualitative. It’s not just quantitative. John, his big theme throughout his gospel, is this whole notion of, I’ve written these things that you may believe that Jesus is Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have Zoe, life in his name, that’s in John 20:31. He starts the gospel by saying.

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God.

Just think of this old man putting a quill to parchment by candlelight. All his friends have died, been martyred. He, as far as we know, he’s the only one who wasn’t martyred though he was persecuted. And he comes with up with a one word summary of Jesus. In him was, and what would you put? Well under what the Holy Spirit was doing in his life, he could have said in him was great teaching, in him were beautiful, powerful miracles and, but he says in him was Zoe. In him was life. And that life was the light of all mankind. So, there’s this notion of this was a human being that was fully alive relating with the Father. He knew that Zoe. And it’s not just a matter of the quantitative eternal,. It’s a matter of the qualitative life. And I have, I bet you’ve had this happen. I’ve had folks, you know, especially when they find out on an airplane who they’re trapped next to, and have you ever had someone. Over the last few years, I’d say the last 10 years, I’ve had at least three people say to me, two men, one woman at different times. You Christians talk about wanting to live forever. I don’t, why would I want this to go on forever? Why would I want this life to go on forever? And I think some of that is our fault in the church cause we’ve emphasized the adjective without the noun. We’ve emphasized the quantity and not the quality of the beauty of relating with God on a daily basis.

Steve Brown:
You know, we seem to be saying that unbelievers go through heaven to get to hell. And that believers go through hell to get to heaven. And that’s a lie, it’s just not true. At the moment we come to him or he comes to us, we’re new creatures. And life starts happening in a way that could never happen before that. And not only that, when Jesus prayed for us, and he does even now, that’s what he’s praying about.

Matt Heard: He is praying that we will experience, what does it really mean to be a human living to the glory of God. And that, you know, we’re born dead. We’ve got the, there are a number of Greek words people hear me talk about, but Bios you know, biology, heart beating life. Psuche, the consciousness of life. But we’re born without the Zoe. He came to restore us to the Father, so that we could know. I mean, you go through this passage and you hear him praying that we’ll glorify the Father, and you could take these and read through John 17, look at how he talks about and wanting us to know him and love him. He prays for us. He’s in his last hours that will trust him. You keep going around, that we’ll live life as loved men and women. You can tell when somebody knows they’re loved. That we’ll live nourished, that we’ll live with joy. And he even talks about not just kind of our upward walk with God and that inner sense that we’re loved by him, but he talks about our relationships. He prays for our unity. He prays that we’ll live a life of contrast with the world that will care for people, that we’ll be compassionate, we’ll live with confidence, that God will protect us even in the midst of the darkness. So, his heart for us is it will experience eternal life. And that eternal life is not just heaven. It’s something far more beautiful and it’s something to to chew on during this Holy Week.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, it really is, it’ll make this week. And by the way, there’s something here that’s really interesting, when he prays, he prays for us, but he prays for all us. Not just y’all, but as Southerners say, all y’all. And he prays for our unity. He prays for our closeness. He prays that we would love each other, so that the world would know him. And when you begin to realize that is where evangelism comes from. And so Matt, when you love me, you can lead people to Christ. And when I love you, it will lead people to Christ. And not only that, Jesus himself is praying that, for you. Even the people you don’t like, that is the heart cry of Jesus Christ. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Jesus is praying for you. Jesus is praying for me. How cool is that? That was Steve Brown and our good friend Matt Heard, continuing to guide us through the book of John this Holy Week. Still two days left on this journey and you don’t want to miss that. And hey, by the way, if you have missed any episodes this week, just swing by Keylife.org that’s where you can find all of our shows and stream them, for free. We also have some very exciting features for you to enjoy. If you go to keylife.org/biblereading you can hear Steve reading entire books of the Bible. In fact, we just recently went live with the entire Gospel of John. Also, check out Keylife.org/simplysermons that’s our latest podcast, and it features digitally remastered full length sermons from Steve, no commercials, no interruptions. What a great way to spend your daily commute, right? Oh, and if you’re looking for a new read stop by Keylife.org/store. And of course, all of these features are free, thanks to the generous support of listeners like you. If you’d like to donate, just call 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. If you’d like to send your donation by mail, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada or e-mail [email protected]. You can charge a gift on your credit card. You can include a gift in your envelope. And of course now you can gift safely and securely through text. Just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950 that’s Key Life, one word, two words. It doesn’t matter. Text that to 28950. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And as always, we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.