John 17

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Father, we thank you for this wonderful day that you have given us. We thank you for being a good, good father. And Lord, we know that you never stop working, even when we don't see it or feel it. And we just thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you that you are always there and you're always working and you're always providing.

Father, we thank you tonight that you have brought us together to worship you, to hear from your word and to grow in your spirit today. And we ask that you will be with us as we do that in hiding us from the distractions of the world around us. We thank you for these things. It is in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

All right, so quick announcements. Next week is Easter Sunday, so just remember that we will have two services. Our normal 11:00 service will be canceled next week in lieu of our sunrise service. So for everybody local, we are meeting here at my house at 07:00 a.m. we will be providing breakfast for everybody who shows up.

So please let us know if you're coming so that we can provide breakfast for everybody else who is not local. We will be, we'll have a Zoom meeting up like this so that you can worship with us. And that Sunday morning we will be talking about the evidence for the resurrection. Paul tells us in one corinthians, he says that Christianity hinges on whether or not Christ rose from the grave. If Christ did not raise, if he did not resurrect, then we are following a false God, we're following a false system and our faith is in vain.

But if he did resurrect, then he is everything and we believe that he did. And we're going to talk about the evidence for that next week. In the morning, describe how we know, how we can ascertain that he rose from the grave, not just on blind faith, but on the evidence that was left behind. And there is evidence for it. Then in the evening, we will pause our study in John and look at a resurrection message that said service, worship.

Easter morning will start at 7718 am mountain time. So for those on the west coast, that is 06:18 a.m. i know that's a little early. And those on the in central time 818 and Eastern will be 918 am. So just, just for everybody in your own time, that's when we will be starting worship and broadcasting on Zoom.

With that said, I think that's all of our announcements. So we're going to continue our study through the book of John. Today we're going to be in John chapter 17, just a reminder of what we looked at two weeks ago before I got sick. We didn't meet last week due to illness. So just a reminder of what we looked at is Jesus had begun to tell us the things that will come both to the disciples in his absence after he goes back up to the father.

But even in our lives today, futuristic, that we would be persecuted, hated, mocked, scorned, ignored and treated the way he was treated. But he also told us he would turn that sorrow into joy. Right there would be sorrow when he died and was in the grave and that would be turned to joy when he resurrected. And that same joy is available to us as well. And then we saw that Jesus was the victor as well.

When we ended, he told us that he has overcome the world. He is victorious. And that is how we ended.

Last message. So today we're going to look at chapter 17 and just a reminder, everything that we've been reading for the last five chapters takes place in 124 hours period leading up to the resurrection. Chapter 17 is the final chapter before Jesus is arrested. When we look at chapter 18 next week, Jesus, or two weeks from now, Jesus will be arrested and go to his trial. Then he will be sentenced to death and crucified and then resurrected.

So this here, this chapter is it before his arrest, trial and death sentence. So what do we see? If we're looking at the very last thing that happened to in the book of John before he is arrested, what do we see?

For those familiar with the other gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke? The events that we see here, I believe, took place in the garden of Gethsemane. If you remember, he brought his disciples up with him, some of them, and asked them to stay awake and pray with him. And he went off and they kept falling asleep and he kept coming back and saying, can you not stay awake with me? And then it says that he went back in praise.

If you look at chapter 17 of John, he is praying. This is his prayer immediately before he's arrested. And he was arrested in Gethsemane in the garden. So I believe that the contents of chapter 17 here is the contents of his prayer in the other gospels. I might be wrong on that, but it's an assumption I'm making based on the chronological order of events and the way it plays out and the correlation between the other gospels.

So as we begin looking at this, he's going to pray for three people tonight. Very first, he's going to pray a personal prayer. He will pray for himself at the beginning of this chapter through verse five. Then verses six through 19. He is going to pray for his disciples, the ones who are with him right now.

He's going to pray for them next. And then in verse 20 through 26, he is going to pray for all believers, both believers then and future believers, us included. He is going to pray for everybody who would call upon his name.

This is the final thing that he is going to do before being arrested. So let's look at his prayer for himself, verses one through five. Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and he said, father, the hour has come. Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you, since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. This is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and the one you have sent Jesus Christ.

I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.

This is an uncomfortable prayer to me, and it's not uncomfortable because of the contents. The contents of the prayer are God glorifying. It's uncomfortable to me in the sense of, we know what Jesus is about to endure. We know what he's about to go through.

This is what he is praying. And there's that element of me where I would not be praying like this. If I knew in 15 minutes I was going to be arrested and tried and crucified, I would not be praying this way. Look what he's praying for. He begins, Father, the hour has come.

We've seen this several times over the last few chapters. He says, the time has come. The hour has come. The time is now. And prior to that, he's been saying, the hour has not yet come.

The time is not yet. And we said it's appropriate to begin saying the time. And the hour has come because it's the day of his arrest. But when he says this now, when he says this in the prayer, he's not saying it in terms of the time is near, the time is coming, or it's the day of he's saying it literally, the hour has come, come more than likely here. Within the next hour, maybe two, he's been arrested.

So when he says the hour has come, there's a little bit of a different meaning here as we look at the literal aspect of the hour has come. But he doesn't pray. And we know from other gospels that he does pray. He says, father, if there's any other way, if there's any possible way to do this different, let this cut pass. And then he says, nevertheless, not my will, but yours.

We don't see that prayer in here. What we see instead is he's not begging for help in terms of save me from this, spare me. He's not begging to be hidden, to be taken to escape the wrath and judgment of God that's going to be poured out on him. Instead, he is begging for the glory of God.

And there's a. I can't understand and comprehend. This is what makes it uncomfortable. I can't comprehend his mind in this.

He knows what's going to happen. And he doesn't just know that he's going to be arrested, tried and crucified. He knows exactly how the trial is going to go. He knows he's God. He knows everything.

He knows exactly how many times he's going to be whipped, even though they've not made the decision to whip him yet. He knows exactly how many thorns in that crown will be pressed into his head. He knows exactly how long he is going to hang there on the cross alive and in pain.

And even though he knows all of that, in his mind, he's praying for the glory of God. He says, glorify your son so that the son may glorify you. So even if you look here, he's not praying. He's not saying, give me glory. I want glory.

He's nothing. This is not a selfish prayer. His concern here is not himself. His concern is the father. When he says, glorify me, give me glory, God.

He's not saying, give me glory because I want glory. He's saying, give me glory so that I can glorify you. His entire mental being, mental awareness, is oriented toward Goddesse, oriented toward glorifying his father.

Despite the fact that for the first and only time in history, the first time in history past and the only time in the eternity of all things, the father is going to turn his back on him.

We see that when he's on the cross, he cries out before he dies. He says, abba, abba, why hast thou forsaken me for a moment. The father has forsaken the son. The father has turned his back on him, has shunned him, has disowned him for a very brief moment in time so that he could judge him and punish him for our sins. And so not just knowing the pain he's going to go through, but knowing that the father is going to turn away from him, his concern is still the glory of God.

Can we do that?

I can't comprehend his mindset, but we are supposed to follow the example of Jesus, meaning that even if we knew that all the townsmen were going to come with pitchforks and burn down our homes and take us and our spouses and our children and murder all of us, and even if we felt, because we know that God will never turn his back on us, he has promised us that. Even if we felt that, could we still say, God, let me glorify you in all of this. I think that would be very hard to do.

This is the view in Jesus mind, that was the glory of God. He says that the Father gave him all authority over all people. Christ has all authority to command our lives. He has authority of all people. But he was given that authority, he says, so that I can give eternal life to everyone that's been given to me.

Isn't that interesting? Again, there's no selfishness in this. If I had the ability to go and give somebody all authority, ultimate authority over everybody, what do you think is going to happen to them?

If I just came to you and said, okay, you have all authority over everyone, more than likely that person's head is going to bloat up. It's going to become massive. Their pride and ego is going to shoot through the roof. I was in a meeting right before church. It started at five.

I was in it until about 06:05. So. And we were talking about Daniel three. I don't know who remembers what happens in Daniel three? We went through it a few months ago before we started revelation.

A king, Nebuchadnezzar. He is currently the king over all the known realm, at least to them. They've conquered everything. And what does he do in chapter three, right? He's got all this power, all this authority.

And what does he do? He builds up a statue, it says 60 cubits, and he makes it of gold, of himself, and tells everyone, you must worship this. If you give man all authority over everyone else, we're going to find ways to use that authority for our own selfish ambitions. But look at Jesus. He does.

He has all authority. But he doesn't use that authority to whip us into shape and make us crumble at his knees and provide slave labor and go work the mines and build statues and everything else. He uses that authority, he says, so that I can give eternal life. I have this authority and I want to use it to save you and to save you and to give you life and make you happy and joyful and bring you to the presence of your God so that you will have no more sickness or death or illness or anything else. That's what he does with his authority.

And it says to everyone that has been given him, if you have been given to Jesus, you will have eternal life. And here is eternal life that we will know the Father, the only true God, and the Son Jesus, who has been sent eternal life, is to know them, is to be with them. Apart from God, there is no life.

Notice it says that those who find their life here will lose it, and those who lose their life here will find it. Yet we are all resurrected. It says that those who are in Christ are resurrected into eternal life, and those not in Christ are resurrected into a resurrection of damnation. So we're all resurrected. All of us are in a physical way living.

But notice that they're resurrected into death, that just, we can't comprehend that mind blown to be resurrected into death. But we can understand if we understand right now that the world, though it may be alive, it's already dead. Right? It's the same thing. Though they might physically have a body and physically be alive, they are not alive in any way because they are apart from God.

So this is life that they may, that we will know God. He says, I have glorified you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. This is interesting. The work's not complete yet, right? The ministry aspect of the work is complete.

We have not seen Jesus engage in ministry for five chapters. He's done preaching, he's done walking around and healing, he's done doing all these things. The last five chapters, this final day of his life he has spent with his close friends. So he's finished the ministry aspect. But notice his work isn't done.

He still has to go to the cross. But being God, he's looking at big picture. It's already complete in his mind. He's going to be arrested, going to be put on that cross and going to resurrect. And in the mind and view of an eternal God, it's done.

And he says, I've glorified you. I have done the work you gave me to do. And now that I've done it, he says, glorify me in your presence and look what he wants. He wants to be in the presence of the father with the glory he had before the world existed. Why do you think it is that we could look at Christ?

We know that no one could look at God and live. And yet God came down to earth in the flesh, physically walked around. He was still God. He didn't stop being goddesse, walked around, ate with people, slept next to people, camped with people, traveled with them, healed them, preached to them, probably played and told jokes with them. And yet none of them died.

Why do you think it is that we were able to look at Christ humanity and not die? This verse tells us that he no longer has his glory, even though he is God. When we read in Philippians, I believe it's in Philippians, he left his glory. It says that Christ being equal with God, he did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but he emptied himself of his glory and came down to earth in the likeness of man. He left all of his glory behind.

And now he prays. He says, give back to me what I left behind, what I had before the world had existed. That's his prayer for himself. We're going to start. We're going to read verses six through 19 right here, and we're going to see the prayer that he has for his disciples.

After he prays for himself, he prays for the men and women who are currently with him. He says, I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have is given from you.

Because I have given them the word you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you have sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those who have given me, because they are yours.

Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine. And I am glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world. I am coming to you, Holy Father. Protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them is lost except the son of destruction, so that scripture may be fulfilled. Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. I have given them your word. The world hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

I am not praying that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

I sanctify myself for them so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

All right, so he says, I've revealed your name. He's revealed God to the people he gave them. He says they were yours. That all people where initially, if we understand the words of Christ here, we're the fathers, but the father has given us to Christ. He has given people to Christ.

And he says that they have kept your word. Right? As they received the words of Christ, they kept it. They believed it. They obeyed it, they followed it.

And he says, as a result, they know now that everything I have is from you. And they have received your words that you gave me. Says that they now know for certain that I came from you. If you remember, at the beginning of this, even the disciples weren't. They called him teacher, rabbi, by the end of this, they're calling him lord and master.

They have come to a point where they know. They know for certain that Jesus is the Christ, that he's the messiah, and they know for certain that he was sent by the father. And they will know for certain pretty soon that he is God, and they have believed it. So he says, I pray for them. And he is very specific here in verse nine, he says, I pray for them.

He says, I am not praying for the world right here. He is not praying for the lost people at this time. There are many lost people in the world. When he says this, who will believe in him? He's not praying for them.

There are many people who will never believe in him. He's not praying for them. He's not praying for the leaders. He is praying for those who are currently his, for his disciples.

And he is praying for them because they belong to God. He says, everything that I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I'm glorified in them. He says, but I will no longer be here. I'm coming back to you. So this is what prompts his prayer, is he's leaving.

He was here. He says, I protected them when I was here. You have given them to me. And I protected them. I've guarded them, but I am leaving and I am no longer here to protect them.

So he says, father, protect, protect them by your name. By your name that you have given me. And he has a, he adds another clause in here. He says, so that they may be one as we are one. So this protection isn't just protection, but this is protection of the purpose that we might be one.

Jesus wants us to be united.

Jesus wants us to not be divided. He wants us to not be arguing and bickering. He wants us to not be living selfishly in, especially in the context here of, if you look at the world, the context of all the christians who are fighting amongst each other, Christ doesn't pray for that. He prays that we would be one, as he and the Father and the spirit are one.

He wants us to be that same way. He says in his prayer, he says, not one person that you gave me, except for the son of destruction, has been lost.

He has protected his disciples so that none of them would be lost.

And he says that he speaks these things now I'm coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. So he tells the father, remember, he's praying. He's not speaking to the disciples. They're just recording the prayer. But in his prayer, he tells God, he says, I'm saying this prayer here out loud, verbal, so that they could have joy, so that they will know my heart, they will know what I'm praying.

Christ could have prayed this privately. He could have done it in his heart, in his mind, silently, or he could have even waited. In just a little while, he will be with the father. But he says these words so that our joy will be complete, right? So that his joyous will be complete in us, so that we will know that he's protected us, but also know that he intercedes on our behalf.

Christ goes to the Father for us, right? That is exactly what he is. He is the intercessor, the great intercessor, not just to intercede on behalf of our sin, but to intercede on our behalf in all things.

He says that the world has already hated them. So look at that. This is interesting. He doesn't say that the world will hate them. He says, the world does hate them.

The world hates you and me because we are not of the world at the moment. We get saved, that we get reborn. We are no longer just fleshly, worldly beings, but we are spiritual beings. We are. We are members of another kingdom, another world that is not here, and we are hated as a result of that.

But nonetheless, he says, I'm not praying, though, that you remove them from the world. It's not Christ's intention that we are not here. He wants us here still. Why? Because we are his witnesses.

We are the ones who are taking forth his message, his gospel, and his peace, and sharing it with the world. So if we're going to be here, he says, protect them from the evil one.

And he says, sanctify them by truth. This is an interesting concept we read two weeks ago in the morning service. We were in romans twelve. And in romans twelve, it says, do not be conformed to this world, but renew your mind. Renew your mind through the washing of the word.

So this is interesting. Here we are being told to be saint. He's praying that we would be sanctified by truth. And then he tells us what this is. Your word is truth.

So how do we get renewed? How do our minds go from being corrupt to not corrupt? How do our hearts go from being hard and being closed toward God to being soft and open? And how do we go from being wicked people to being sanctified to becoming godly people and moulded in the image of God? We do that through his word, right through the word of God.

Only the word of God can have that power in our lives. And then he says, as you sent me into the world, remember, the Father sent Christ here. He was sent to do a job. He says, so, as you sent me, I am now sending them. He's going back.

But the mission, that the overall work is not done. The work of Christ will be done. His ministry, his preaching, his crucification, death, burial, resurrection is done. But there's work to do. We still have to tell people about what he did.

We still have to show them his love and his light and his grace and his mercy. So we are being sent out into the world. Specifically in this prayer, his disciples are being sent out. And then in verses 20 through 26, Jesus goes from praying for his disciples, those who he has with him, to praying for all believers who will come in the future. Let's read.

He says, I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me so that they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me so that they may be made completely one, so that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you love me before the world's foundation. Righteous father, the world has not known you, however, I have known you and they have known that you have sent me. I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.

Before I comment on the rest of his prayer. This is all one prayer, not three separate prayers. It's just segmented. But this whole prayer, this is a beautiful prayer. And the entirety of the prayer is centered around the glory of God.

But if you notice, the vast majority of this prayer, prayer wasn't even centered around Christ. It wasn't centered toward. It was centered toward us, his disciples and his future believers. Jesus, in his final moments of freedom, before he is arrested and crucified in this final moment, he is concerned about us. That's the love that Jesus has for us.

He says, I pray not only for these in verse 20, not only for his disciples who are with him, he says, but for everyone who will believe in me through their word. Jesus is no longer preaching, so all new believers hear about Christ through the testimony of the disciples. So he says, I pray for everyone who will believe because of what they say. And may all of them be one. He says, as you and I are one and you're in me and I am in you, let them be one with us and even in us, in us and them.

It is the will of Christ. It's the will of God that we are united, that we are one with each other, but also that we are one with Goddesse. He says that the world. He says, I'm in them and you are in me so that they may be completely one. He says, so that the world will know that you have sent me and loved them as you have loved me when we are one, regardless of our denomination, regardless of whether you're non denominational or Baptist or Pentecostal or Methodist, when you are one.

When we are united in Christ, the world will know that Christ was sent by God and that he has loved us.

He says this in verse 24. He says, Father, I want to be with them. I said earlier, he says, I'm not asking you to take them from the world yet. But he's also expressing. He says, I want them to be with me where I am going.

I want them to be with me in front of you. He says, I want them to see my glory, what you have given me, because you have loved me. And then he says, righteous father, let's just look real quick. Look at how he always. As.

How he addresses the father. He begins in verse one, he just says Father. Right? So he just addresses him as father. And he addresses him again as father in verse five, he just says Father again.

He addresses him as father throughout this, but then he changes the way he addresses the father. He addresses him as righteous father in verse eleven. Holy Father. So just pay attention to the way that Jesus addresses God as Father, as the Holy Father, as the righteous father. And he does that here in verse 25.

Righteous Father. The world is not known. The world has never known the Father. In fact, the Father, until Christ has come, had never been revealed to the world. Only Jesus, Yahweh, in the Old Testament, the great I am was always Jesus.

The world had not known the father. But he says, I made you known to them and will continue to make it known so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them. So Jesus is making known the father so that his love will be known and so that he can be with us. This is the. This is the final things.

And I I made a mistake earlier today. I don't know why I did it. When I said, I believe this was the prayer in the garden, I I did make a mistake. This prayer was not done in the garden. So I apologize for that.

And we know that immediately following verse 18, after Jesus said these things, he went out with his disciples, and there was a garden. So we know this was not done in the garden. And I had a dumb moment. So sorry. But immediately after this, when we looked at it, says, they went to the garden.

And when they get there, the guards come to arrest him. And he asks, who are you seeking? And they say, Jesus of Nazareth. So this is it. When we come back and look at chapter 18 together, next time we meet, we will see Jesus arrested almost immediately.

Next time we come back, he will be arrested. We will see that he is tried. We will see that Peter denies him. We will also see before Pilate, and we will see. We'll see the full trial take place as we come to a close tonight.

And this is just next week, is Easter Sunday.

And so as I'm reading his prayer, there's a bit of weight to it that's weighing on me right now. We know he's about to be arrested. In fact, Friday, this coming Friday, it's known as good Friday. And I'll probably send a reminder out to everyone. This coming Friday will be the day roughly 2000 years ago that Jesus was nailed to the cross.

It'll be the day that he was arrested, tried, flogged, mocked and nailed to the cross. Sunday's the day he rose from the grave. But Friday is the day that he was nailed. And I just know that's coming up and I'm reading this. I don't know how to close because I always know, but I don't know how to close in light of this, because of his love for us, because of his love for God, other than to say this, if you are hearing this tonight and you don't yet know God, I hope you know of his love for you.

I hope you know that three quarters of this prayer was for you.

He talks about this. He says, I want to be with you. I want my joy in you. I want them to know the love that God has for you.

And we live in a world where many people feel unloved, where many people feel abandoned and hopeless.

But everything that Jesus did, he did for you. The whole reason he was here was for you. The whole reason for this prayer is so that you would know that he loves you. The whole reason that he will have died five days from now, from today, physically on that Friday, 2000 years ago, was for you.

And so I want to ask you, I want to beg you as we close tonight, to not let all of that be in vain, to not let that be a waste.

Receive Jesus. Be made right with God. You know that you are not right with God. So be, be made right, be reconciled. Let Jesus do for you what you can't do, what I can't do.

And in doing so, not only will you glorify God, not only will you bring God the greatest joy and happiness that he desires, but you will receive joy and peace, you will receive mercy, and you will receive everlasting life.

So how do you receive him?

If you're ready for this? You're asking right now. Stop talking. Just tell me what to do. If we're to receive Christ, we need to admit that we are sinners and we know we're not right with God.

So let's admit it. Let's own that and tell God, hey, I am a sinner. We need to believe that Christianity is not work based. You can't earn it. You cannot deserve it.

There are no works you can do to get saved. It's based on your belief. You need to believe that Jesus Christ is God. You need to believe that he came here, that he not only created, but he came here and lived among us, that he died for us. But further, you need to believe that he rose again from the grave.

If you don't believe that he's God, if you don't believe that he resurrected, there's no salvation for you. We need to believe in our heart that he was resurrected. And if we believe that in our hearts, then we will confess him as our Lord, our God and savior. So many people want to confess him as savior, but won't confess him as lord.

We need to make him lord, too. So as we close tonight, as we go to our prayer, I'll walk you through that. We'll pray that to God, we'll admit that we're a sinner. We'll believe who he is, and we'll confess. But you need to know that saying this prayer with me tonight will not save you.

You can not believe it and utter the words, and the words are powerless. This prayer is not a prayer to be saved. This prayer is a prayer to admit to God, to confess to him that you do believe and ask him for it.

So if you're ready, please repeat that with me. Immediately after serving, will partake of the Lord's supper, his communion. I invite everyone who would like to participate to stick around after church so that we can partake of that together. A final reminder, next week we'll have service at 07:00 a.m. or that's when we'll gather.

We'll start at 718. And then one announcement I did forget at the beginning. I remembered halfway through. We are coming to an end of our revelation Bible study. We only have a couple weeks left, so to prepare for our next book, I want to let everyone know we will be going from revelation to the letters of first and second Thessalonians.

So anyone who likes. I know some people like to know in advance of this is. You'll notice that as soon as we finish revelation, that's where we'll be going. So you can begin getting prepped for that. With that said, let's pray, let's close out, and then I'll see you after for the Lord's supper.

Father, I admit that I am a sinner. I admit that I'm corrupt, that I'm depraved. My ways are not your ways, God. And I believe that Jesus, you are creator. You are God.

And that you became incarnate. And I believe that you did that for me because your word says you did it for me, and your word says you love me. So I believe that you love me. And I believe that you went to the cross and you were buried and you resurrected three days later. I believe that in my heart.

And so, Jesus, I confess you as my lord. I confess you not just as my savior who saved, but as my lord. You have all authority over me, control my life, Jesus, and dictate my life for your glory and your pleasure and your needs. You are my God and my king. And I ask you to just give me this gift of eternal life, this gift of salvation that I may rejoice in you and glorify you.

Father, I thank you today for. For the knowledge of your son and what he has done. Thank you, Lord, for. For coming down here and doing what you did. And thank you for the example you gave us in the face of this persecution, of this impending doom, to see God's glory and not your own.

We praise you and thank you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. I.