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Book: John
 Print ( PC Only )
John 17:25,26
I. O Righteous Father, the world has not known You.
A. The world does not know God.
1. Man has his many concepts of God.
2. These concepts are born of man's imagination.
a. If I were God, this is what I would be.
b. This is how I would do things.
c. This is where I would live.
d. So man makes his gods after his own image.
3. Man made idols to represent the things that he
idolized.
a. That which you idolize is actually your god.
b. Man made gods to represent pleasure, power,
possessions, or one of the many other passions
that mastered his life.
4. In Romans 3:11 Paul said there is none that
understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
a. No man really understands God apart from God's
revelation of Himself.
1. God is an infinite being and completely
incomprehensible to man's finite mind.
2. I am always amazed at the
misconceptions men have concerning God.
b. Many people are seeking the benefits that God
provides.
1. They want the help in the time of
distress.
2. They want the healing for their
physical problems.
3. They want peace in their soul.
4. They may seek these things, but they
are not truly seeking God.
c. The psalmist said,
PSA 14:2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to
see if there were any that did understand, [and] seek God.
PSA 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are [all] together become filthy:
[there is] none that doeth good, no, not one.
PSA 14:4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my
people [as] they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD.
d. Zophar said to Job, "Can you by searching find
out God? can you find out the Almighty one to
perfection?"
e. Paul said that professing themselves to be wise
they became fools, and because they did not
want to retain God in their minds, God gave
them over to reprobate minds.
B. It is interesting how many worldly people think that they know
God.
1. They speak with great authority concerning God.
2. They are happy to explain to you all about God.
3. The truth of the matter is that they really do not know
God. In ICor. 1:21 Paul said that the world by wisdom
knew not God. He also said that the natural man
understandeth not the things of the Spirit, neither can
he know them for they are spiritually discerned.
4. How shocked and surprised they will be when they stand
before God.
II. "But I have known Thee."
A. This is why the words of Jesus are so important for us to hear
and heed.
1. When Jesus speaks of God He speaks with authority.
2. When He spoke on any subject He spoke with authority.
B. I cringe when I hear men tampering with the words of Jesus.
1. For a council of men to gather to determine which were
the true sayings of Jesus, I am shocked and abhorred by
their impertinence.
2. Yet for men to declare that they know more than Jesus
concerning the book of Isaiah because He was not privy
to modern day scholarship is the height of blasphemy.
a. It will be interesting to see them when they
stand before God and try to defend their
liberal theological positions, and the damage
they did in the minds of young students through
them.
b. I will accept the authority of Jesus any day to
these modern PhD's who think that they God and
the word of God even better than the Son of
God.
III. "And these have known that You have sent Me."
A. I believe that the these are both the disciples and those who
would believe on Him through their words. Or you and me.
1. We believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
2. We believe that the Father sent Him into the world.
B. The word known comes from the Greek ginosko, which is to know
by experience. The disciples saw the proofs of His claim to
have come from the Father.
1. Jesus said that the works that He did bore witness that
the Father had sent Him. 5:36
2. The disciples had seen the wonderful works that Jesus
did.
C. In verse 8 Jesus had said that the disciples had believed that
the Father did send Him. Here He asserts that they disciples
have known that the Father sent Him.
IV. "I have declared unto them Thy name."
A. That glorious name of God. Yahweh. "The I Am, The becoming One.
1. That name by which God becomes everything to you that
you might ever need.
2. The name Jesus is Yashua, or God our salvation.
B. When God came down on the mount and proclaimed His name to
Moses, He declared, "Yahweh, Yahweh, Elohim, merciful and
gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth."
1. John said concerning Jesus, "And the Word was made
flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory as of
the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth."
2. The life of Jesus was a living revelation of the name
of the Father, as He fulfilled every need of the
disciples. He became to them all that the ever needed.
C. "And will declare it."
1. On the cross what a declaration of mercy and grace to
us.
2. The purpose of declaring to us the name of the Father,
D. "That the love wherewith You d Me may be in them."
1JO 2:5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of
God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
1JO 4:12 No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God
dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.
1. As you look at your life, can you say that the love of
God has been perfected in you?
2. God wants to love the world through you.
3. Even as Jesus was a demonstration of God's love to man,
Jesus wants your life to be a manifestation of God's
love to the world.
4. Just when we think we are getting somewhere in our
progress in the Lord, he brings along some truth like
this and makes us realize that we have not yet
apprehended that for which we were apprehended, neither
are we perfect. But with Paul let us press toward the
mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ
Jesus.
E. "And I in them."
1. This is the key to how it can happen.
2. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
3. It is through Him dwelling in Me that God's love is in
me.
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