Gospel of John, 17:25-27

Okay, we are in lesson, or chapter 17, we're in lesson 37, and we're working on the verses 25 coming down, which really are just the last two verses. O righteous Father, the world has not known you, but I have known you, and these have known that you sent me. I have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them. And so, I think I've gotten to question eight, am I right?

How will Christ further declare the name of the Father? How will he do that? How is he going to do it in the future? He says that he's going to continue. He has declared the Father's name. and he's going to continue to do it. How does he do it? Does he do it now? Today?

If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, right? So, the Lord Jesus is in you. and have the Spirit of God in you, what is he doing? Conforming you to the image of Christ. As the image of Christ is manifested through you, they see him and they also see the Father. And the reason he says this is because he's the Logos of God. He's the Word of God. He's the one person of the Godhead that is designated to be the revealer of who God is. He's the only one.

You won't know You wouldn't know God via the Holy Spirit. You can see the results of the Holy Spirit's work, but you never see Him. You can know that God exists, the Father exists in His creation and in your conscience, but you don't get a handle on the character and the person of who God is without Christ. You just don't.

Because that's what He was here to do and will continue to do. I wrote down Whatever we will know of God in time and eternity, Jesus will be the teacher. Whatever we shall see of God, Jesus will be the manifester. And whatever we shall enjoy of God, Jesus will be the medium for that.

So how does the Gospel carry out the statement in verse 26, And I have declared to them your name, and will declare it, that the love of you above me may be in them. is the means by which God reveals himself via the word. The written word is the mirror, where the spirit reveals the Lord, reveals the Father, that they may see his glory. But it's the gospel of Christ that is imparted to us, that good news. And so my question is, How is it carried out?

And essentially it's the same question as the one before, except that you don't know Christ without the gospel or the good news. What does the gospel tell people? What does it say to a lost sinner? What does it say to a believer? Just the pure gospel, the good news. Christ died for your sins. It's the good news.

But we look at it very subjectively at first, don't we? Because I'm the one that needs the saving. It's only after a while that we begin to realize that, boy, the character of the one that came up with this thing is just overwhelming to me. The father would send his son to die on the cross for my sins, and not only mine, but those of the whole world. that he actually did die, he was buried, and then he was resurrected.

And this resurrection, this brand new life, that alone gives you an incredible amount of knowledge of who God is. A God that would do such a thing. If Jack and I were God and we were working on this salvation thing, trust me, it wouldn't have been that cool. It wouldn't have happened that way. First of all, I probably wouldn't have wanted to become a man.

You know, there's a little bit. I have heard of it. And it reminds me of King David. You see the word vat? And like in 26, vat, the love with which thou hast loved me may be as the heaven and I in death. Yeah. Purpose. That's the purpose. Yeah. So, does the gospel demonstrate the love of God? God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son? Absolutely it does. It demonstrates the character of our God in that he would do that. That he loved enough to give his son.

And then, although John 3 doesn't say that he died, we know in the Gospel that he died for us and to propitiate the Father. And that establishes a couple of things. One, it establishes fellowship with the Lord Jesus. If you want to know the one who did it, The second thing that that does is that belief in the gospel imparts the Holy Spirit into a believer and sheds a broadening heart of love for God. Christ himself is informed in us and he's the hope of glory.

And guess what? There's nothing beyond that. Is there? Are you hoping for more? Do you get a shiny new car when you go to heaven? So let's, along those lines, let's spend a couple of seconds in question 10. Is Christ more interested in us than we are in him? How many think no? Now think how self-centered you are before you answer. Is he more interested in you than you are in yourself? Answer yes. Why is he so interested in us? Say that again? We belong to Him.

I made a list of all of the things that demonstrate in John 17 that proves that Christ is interested in us. I'm going to read them to you. And the list, just so you know, and this is just from 17. That's the list right there. And these are the things that Lord Jesus Christ said to the Father that proves how interested he is in you and me. He said, I have manifested your name to the men you have given me out of the world. He said, now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you. For I have given to them the words which you gave me.

I pray for them. I am glorified in them. Keep through your name those whom you have given me, that they may be one as we are one. I kept them in your name. They may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word. You should keep them from the evil one. Sanctify them by your truth.

For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they all may be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may be one in us. The glory which you gave me, I have given them, that they may be made perfect and one. Those that you gave me may be with me where I am. that they may behold my glory which you have given me. For you love me before the foundation of the world. I have declared unto them your name, and the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them."

Trust me, that is more interest in you than you have in yourself. That's the God of the universe talking to us and telling us how interested he is in us. I'm amazed when we start to study stuff like this that we get so easily sidetracked with, oh, what about my terrible circumstances, or my fears, or my this or my that. The Lord, just in this prayer, talks about his interest in you and me that's just overwhelming. Trust me, your spouse isn't that interested in you. They aren't. Nobody on this planet is that interested in you. But the Lord Jesus is. To the point that he actually prays to the Father specifically about you.

I think the interest is based on what it cost him. Oh, you think that's it, huh? That's good. You know, those are kind of results of it. But I think the interest is based on what it cost him. It cost him a lot. I think the interest is based on what it cost him.

He took all the sins, had to die, had the wrath of God upon him. It's a bad analogy, but if you had a million dollar picture or whatever, he protected, cherished it, whatever. It cost him the most valuable thing he had. Most valuable thing. Yeah, sure. And that's why. So my question, you would be. Didn't you have the interest and count the cost before he did it? Yeah. But he knew what it cost. Yeah. I mean, it's the cost that you know why he's interested in this because it cost him everything.

Other comments on that? That's kind of humans. What's that? That's kind of human logic. Well, he's a pretty human guy. But that's what is based on love. Yeah. I mean, I mean, what what more than a man die for someone, you know, and all the things in love and why, you know, he gave his only begotten son. What's interesting about it is that when you read through that, I agree, but there's no sense in his language of, well, see, look what I've done. There's none of that in the sense that now you owe me. It's just that he went and took care of everything so that so that the father and the son could have intimacy and go through the list. We could spend weeks just on that list, which we have actually.

It gives you a revelation of the character of our God, who he is and how he views things. He comes at us that way, in grace, full on all the time. There's never a time when he gives you the stinky eye. He doesn't give you the stinky eye. He always loves you, and He's always trying to manifest all of His grace towards us all the time. We had a little discussion after the election on Tuesday, and one of the guys tried to make the case that, well, we deserve what we get because God isn't real happy with the way we've been doing things in the country. And I said, no way. No way is He unhappy with us. How could He be? based on this. How could he be? He took care of everything. He doesn't base his feelings or what he does on how we are. He bases it on what he is and what he's done.

So you think there's no correlation with the fact that the majority of our country seems to have turned their back on him? Absolute correlation. But it doesn't change God's attitude towards me. Not towards you. Or towards our country. But some things that may happen in or to your country may have a repercussion on your circumstance. Absolutely.

It means you live here amidst Sodom and Gomorrah. If you read Romans chapter 1 And you look what God has done and what he requires of man, right? And if man doesn't honor him as God and is not thankful, what happens? What does God do? No. No. What does he do?

He gives you to who? To you! You go to God and say, I don't want any of you. He says, OK. You want you? You got you. But your foolish heart is darkened because you turned away, not because he turned the volume down. So our country says to God, you know what? We're not interested in you anymore. We want to do it our way. He says, OK. Go ahead. Help yourself.

And believers, people like to think, well, now God's really mad. No, he's not. He's not mad. He's not inflicting retribution on our country, it's just that if we refuse to do things and to honor God as God and we want to honor ourselves, He'll let us do it and we get to pay the consequences. Isn't that a fun deal?

So the consequences are produced from our sin nature, it's not necessarily God's wrath? Yeah, because His wrath against sin is already over. It's already done. And you read these things in John 17. Is that a God who says, now if you screw up, none of these are true? No, they're true all the time.

Yeah, I think sometimes that we expect God to treat our country the way he treated the Israelites. And like every 40 years, they got judged and they had problems and so forth. But they were unique in what he was doing at the time. And we have not replaced them. in God's plan, that we expect to be treated and we think we're going to get harsh judgment. But I appreciate what you're saying is that his attitude, he lets us have ourselves. That's what he does. He doesn't bring, but at the end time he does bring judgment on the nation. Oh yes he does.

Is there any nation that you think, since Israel was dispersed, you think any nation has actually been judged by God? Or is that at the end? No, I think it's at the end. But I think what happens in the nations of the world is that if they're run by godless people, okay, if you live in a sewer, you can't expect to have light. You just can't. And we collectively think that as we have taken God out of our country over the last 60 or 70 years, we've just taken him, and he says, okay, do it yourself. It's like telling your 12-year-old son, OK, go get a job and live. How good is he going to do? He's not going to do very good. Why? He doesn't know what he's doing. We don't know what we're doing.

This is the God of the universe who says all these wonderful things about us when he prays to the Father. And what does he ask us to do? Just to believe him. If we lived like that and believed him, the circumstances around us would be different. But if we turn our back on them, we get what we ask for. The Jews got what they asked for. They went to God and said, you know, we don't want this. Give us a king and a bunch of laws. He said, OK. And he gave them what they wanted, right? The thing that they didn't understand is that the law was going to condemn them. And he was going to give them kings instead of himself.

Not a good change. Not a good exchange. So, you know, I think it's a false premise for Americans to think that we are somehow especially blessed by God just because we have been materially, we have materially prospered. I mean, if I've been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus, how does that compare to whether I have two cars in my garage? It doesn't. And we're not, by the way, just so you know, we're not from here. We're not citizens of this planet. We're not. We're heavenly citizens. We're just here for a while.

And we're here to do what? To manifest Christ to the world. Let's see, how does his interest in us benefit us? How does Christ's interest in me benefit me? It's intimacy with Him. Miles Stanford, I think he stole it from J.B. Stoney. When we come to realize how intensely Christ is interested in me, it frees me up to be interested in Him.

You hear that? In other words, if I'm praying and praying because I've got this terrible circumstance in my life, if I recognize from a biblical standpoint it's your job to pray for me, then I don't need to pray. It's your job. You're doing it. I don't need to worry. You guys are real tight with the Lord. I know He's going to do something because you're all praying. You see that? The thing about it is that when you start to get a handle on how intensely interested Christ is in you individually, just by reading those things that I read off, every single one of those is intensely true of every one of us. Read Dom 17 selfishly, and when you get done, think, well, gee, he missed one. No, he didn't. No, he didn't. And that's what's interesting.

Our worry, I'm convinced that our worry and our fretting is because we don't realize how interested God is in you and your circumstances every minute of every day. And not only that, He's way out ahead of you. Way out ahead of you. He's doing stuff in you today that is going to pay off not only 5, 10, 15, some of you won't make it 20 years from now, but in eternity. You will. In eternity. He's planning and forming and conforming us right now for stuff we're going to be involved in in eternity. So, interest? Yeah, I think so.

Therefore let no man glory in men, for all things are yours. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or present things or things present or things to come, all are yours. And you are Christ and Christ is God. That's who you are. That's who we are.

So does Christ mean for us to enjoy the Father's love while we're still here? Or do we have to wait? Yeah, I mean, my goodness, he says. And I've declared to them your name, and we'll declare it, and here's the reason. That, like Jack says, the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them. Now, how many times have you read the gospel, and the Lord Jesus kind of goes off, and he's going to spend some time with his Father, and you're thinking, oh, wouldn't it be cool to kind of, boy, be right there with him? You know, I envy and long to have that intimacy that the Father and the Son had When the Lord Jesus was here, there was never any disconnect between them. What is he saying here?

Same thing. Same thing. If you think of yourself, well, I'm a little, you know, I'm not deserving of that. No, you're not. But you know what? He says, go ahead and do it anyway. Because he prayed for it. He asked the Father to do it. Do you think the Father is going to say, no, I'll give you a 9 out of 10. I can't give you the 10. No. For us to think that we cannot approach and have the same intimacy and love with the Father that he had while we were still here is a lack of faith. It really is.

Oh, it has to be through Christ. In other words, when we spend time in the Word of God or we are praying, who do you pray to? That's a good question. Who do you pray to? The Father. Can you pray to the Son? Can you pray to the Father? Can you pray to the Holy Spirit?

Yes. What do you think? Yes. Now think about what their jobs are. And they took the jobs themselves. I didn't give them to them. What is the job of the Father? He is to glorify the Son, right? What's the job of the Holy Spirit? Same job, to glorify the Son. So what are they engaged in doing? They're engaged in revealing the Lord Jesus Christ to us who belong to Him.

And then the Lord said, if you know me, you know the Father. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. So I don't think it's inappropriate to cry, Abba Father. He's our My Father. I don't think it's inappropriate to talk to him, but I don't understand about him without Christ. I behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, not the glory of the Father, but it's the same glory according to John 17.

He says the glory that I had with you before the world began, it's the same glory. So he can reasonably say, if you have seen me, if you behold my glory, you're beholding the glory of the Father too because it's the same glory. Do you see how aggressive he is about intimacy with the God of the universe, the Father and the Son? Did I answer your question? Kind of? There's no knowing the Father without the Son. The Son's job is to reveal God to us, which includes himself and the Father. And you can't do it without the Holy Spirit, because the Spirit of God is the one that opens it up to us.

2 Corinthians 3.18 says, Beholding us in a mirror with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord. Who is he talking about? No, he's talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. Beholding us in a mirror, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What happens? I am changed, transformed, into the same image from glory to glory. Oh wow, you mean I get some of that glory? Yeah, that's what he says right here. The glory you've given me, I'm going to give it to them. So we get transfigured into the same image from glory to glory, and who does it?

Even as by the Spirit of the Lord. He's the one that does it. He's the one that enables you to behold, and he's the one that does the revealing. And so the conformity is done by him, but what are you doing while he's conforming. You're beholding the glory of the Lord. The Lord is the Son of God. If you see Him, you see the Father. There's not different characteristics of the Father than there is in the Son. The Father's not taller. He's not older. He's not wiser. They're the same in terms of their glory.

Does that make sense? Back to the love part of it. Maybe the present active subjunctive, which I thought, yeah, interesting. He does it if we allow it. The subjunctive part is if we allow if we allow it. You just have to receive it. So I have to ask the question, how do you allow it? If it's subjunctive, all of this is going to happen if I allow it. How do I do that?

Behold. Believe. Again, I encourage you, read John 17 and every one of these things, when you see it, tell the Lord you believe him about that. I believe you. Okay, I agree with you. I believe you. So the believing is the thing that makes it receptive. What's the word? Appropriation. That's how you appropriate things you believe God about. Lesson 38. We're done with 17. It only took us how many weeks? Five? We could spend another five. There's really cool stuff there. Now, I would say just in a time frame.

The Lord Jesus is in 18. He's going to go to the garden. He's going to be arrested. He's going to go down to Annas' house. He's going to have a little bit of a hearing. Then he's going to go to Caiaphas' house. He's going to have a trial. Then he's going to end up in front of Pilate. All this is going to happen.

From the time that Judas leaves the upper room until this time is about two hours. Two to three hours. He leaves the upper room, he goes over to the temple, gets the boys together, and they go out to get Jesus. So this is the time frame. I don't know what night it is, but we think Good Friday is Good Friday. So this is Thursday night stuff. It's happening really fast. Like I said, from 14 through the end of John's Gospel is about two weeks time. Maybe less than a week, or maybe 10 days. Okay,

18. The first is, When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples over the brook of Kidron, where there was a garden which he and his disciples had entered. And Judas, who betrayed him, also knew the place, for Jesus often met there with his disciples. Then Judas, having received a detachment of troops and officers from the chief priests and Pharisees, came there with lanterns and torches and weapons. Jesus, therefore knowing all things that would come upon him, went forward and said to them, Whom are you seeking? So my first question was, did Jesus go to the garden on purpose?

How come? Seems kind of dumb, might have been hiding. He was appointed. What's that? He was appointed. He was appointed? Yeah. He's clearly going forward in perfect knowledge of what's going to happen, right? There's no hiccups here. He's not shunning, but he's actually seeking the sorrow that's about to come. And why is he doing it? Why is he so aggressive about this? Because of the joy set before him. He was going to please the Father by what he was going to do.

So, why do you think that John's Gospel doesn't reveal the Gethsemane scene? And by the Gethsemane scene I mean where he prays and he goes a little farther from the disciples and he prays and he sweats blood and it goes back and forth a couple of times. John doesn't talk about that. How come?

What do you think? emphasizes his glory and his deity, I think. There's an emphasis here by the author, and the emphasis is his sonship. And he brings before us the divine Son of God. The Gospels that portray his suffering is more that he's the Son of Man.

The other reason is, I'll read this from what I found John, who alone of all four writers of the gospel was near the Lord, actually nearer than Matthew, John is the only one who does not describe the conflict at all. And this, not because it was not infinitely precious to his spirit, nor because the others had given it to us, but because what he gave us, as they also, was by inspiration. And in no way a question of human judgment or feeling. It's there because that's the way God wanted it to be. it's not there because that's the way God wanted it to be. It was in some other gospel.

Does that make sense? Because he's writing by inspiration and thirty some years later and he remembers he remembers things that none of the other writers of any of the gospels none of the other ones talk about this prayer in 17 although they all heard it. He's the only one who talks about it. It's critical to Say that again.

It's not critical to the process that is death and burial and resurrection. It actually isn't. Not as the son of God, no. It really isn't. It is if you're studying the humanity of Christ. It's really important because it shows you how a human body can't really deal with spiritual situations.

The body sweats blood. The father had to send some angels. A guy told me one time that God sent angels to keep him alive to get him to the cross. because he knew how stressful it was. It wasn't the fact that he was going to suffer physically, it was the fact that the father was going to turn away from him. He knew that was coming.

So what didn't Judas understand by coming with the army? Why did Judas bring all these reinforcements? What didn't he understand? When Judas has been with him three plus years, I think he thought of him as a man and as a king. What didn't he know? God's will. What didn't he know about Christ? That he was the son of God and if he didn't want to go he could command legions. That's true. Think about the Lord Jesus' view here. What didn't he ever pick up about Christ?

He wasn't going to resist. That's right. This was his purpose. He was going. He could have called him on the phone and he'd have shown up at the office. He didn't have to send an army out there. The Lord Jesus is the one that set his mind to go to Jerusalem to be crucified. He's the one that was going. Judas could have said, hey, over here, and it would have been that simple. He did not need to take an army with him because it was his purpose to go to the cross.

You talk about a good example of man left to his own information and desires and direction. How smart is Judas here? Not very. From his human perspective, living in darkness, he thinks he needs a bunch of guys with swords to bring Christ in, when he really didn't. So when we want to run the world without God, how much do we miss the mark? By a whole bunch. by a whole bunch. We've got to spend a whole lot of money to do a whole lot of stuff that we don't need to do.

And then he says to them in verse 5, after 4, Jesus said, Whom are you seeking? In other words, who do you want? And they answered, Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said, I am he. Those of you who have studied Acts kind of know what this Jesus of Nazareth business is about. What kind of a term is Jesus of Nazareth? We don't think it's, you know, it's just, well, it's kind of his title. What do you think?

Demeaning. Huh? Demeaning? It's very demeaning. Why? Nazareth was not well thought of. That's right. It's like saying Mike from Commerce City. I don't know, Watson, pick a place, I don't care. You know, or Mike from the other side of the tracks kind of thing. And so it's a derogatory term. He says, who are you looking for?

And they say, Jesus of Nazareth. That's a slam against his character right there. And I'll tell you where you see that a lot is in the first part of Acts. It's really neat there because Peter, knowing that, stands up and proclaims Jesus of Nazareth, whom you crucified. You know the one that you've been demeaning?

Jesus of Nazareth? He's the Messiah. Peter uses that wonderfully in Acts to contrast who Christ really is with who they thought He was. Jesus of Nazareth? That's who you think He is? He's the Messiah of Israel and the Son of God. That's who you need to repent about. Change your mind about who He is. When he was getting the disciples out, when Nathanael said, nothing good has come out of Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Yeah. Can anything good come out of that Doyle family? I don't think so.

Why do you suppose that there was this demonstration of power in Jesus' answer? And here's what happens. I am He. And Judas who betrayed him also stood with him and now when he said to them, I am he, they drew back and fell to the ground. Whoa! What is that all about? He is in my mind, he is the I-man. The I-man? Do you think there was some sort of invisible force that knocked them all down?

This is the part of the section where he keeps saying, I am. And the God of the universe named himself, I am. Echo Aimee. I am he. So he's saying, I am the God. How about something more simple than that? You get your army together and you come to get him. And instead of him being sheepish about it, he stands right out in front of his disciples, right in your face, and says, I'm he.

Like that. Would that have an effect on you and your boys? It sure would. You would take a step back and say, wait a minute. I thought we were going to have to hunt this guy down. And he says, no, I'm he. Here I am. I'm the one you're looking for. And he steps forward. And he doesn't do it sheepishly.

So I'm not so sure that there was some sort of a divine intervention there where the people fell down, actually fell on the ground. They did. But I think they were rushing to get him or rushing in on the scene. And he stood right out to him. You know, in my mind, what happened is that Judah stops and the captain stops and everybody sort of bumps up behind him because it's like, well, he's.

He's not resisting. As a matter of fact, he's in our face a little bit. I'm he. I'm the one. So might have frightened his captors and they shrank back. I don't know. Maybe they just fell down because he said I'm he. You think there might have been kind of an unseen power there? I don't know.

Most commentators say there is. But when I read this other thing last week where this guy said that He demonstrates his courage by meeting them head on and he frightened his captors. I thought, well boy, that makes as much sense as anything. Now, in verse 8, Jesus answered and said, I have told you that I am he. Therefore, if you seek me, let these go their way. Let all my disciples go.

What kind of a role is he portraying there? What is he doing? Yeah, and so that would be the role of the shepherd. That's what he's doing. He's protecting the sheep and he's demonstrating the power he has to keep them from harm because he puts himself between them and the soldiers so that they might escape. Now, I would think that if I had a band of soldiers and I had been given the job to go get Jesus, I would bring in all the guys with him. You know, if you're going to go raid an Al-Qaeda camp where Osama Bin Laden is, you're just not going to take him, you're going to take everybody that's with him, aren't you? But the Lord Jesus stands between those guys and his and says, let them go.

So he demonstrates the role of a shepherd. He protects his sheep. So as you start to look at this, who's really in charge of these events? The only reason they can take him is because he lets him. His time had come. With one stroke, like Peggy said, with one stroke he could have saved himself. He's God. But his surrender was a loving thing.

So Peter draws his sword. What does it show about old Peter being in harmony with Jesus? He didn't get it either, did he? No, he didn't. He draws out his sword and he cuts off Malchus's ear. What does it show us about Peter being in harmony with the direction that Lord Jesus was going in? He wasn't.

Now, boy, we look in the Word of God to try to distinguish between human wisdom and godly wisdom. So we're all there with our swords and here comes Judas and his boys. What are we going to do? Oh, we've got to defend him. Isn't that human reasoning? We've got to defend him. Now, never mind that he told us that he had to go up to Jerusalem to die. We've got to defend him. Don't we feel that way now? We feel like those left-wingers are coming to get us. We're going to have to defend ourselves. Really? Do we? Do we? I think we ought to check and see what the Lord would want us to do before we drew our sword. Do we?

It's very interesting because Peter is such a great example, and always is, such a great example of human emotion, reaction, Impulse. And very seldom is he on the same page as the Lord is. He just never is. Because he's so human. His intentions are good, but he doesn't know the mind of the Lord. And that's the really cool thing about John 17. Really what's going on there is the Lord Jesus is saying, I want them to know your mind like I know it. I want them to be in on things. I want them to think like we think. I want them to see circumstances as we see them.

We have in our house, a lot of people in our house, when you come down the stairs from the second story, Donna had scrolled up on the wall up there, it says keep looking down for your life is hid with Christ and God. That's a really good place to look at things from. Don't you think?

Peter didn't know about that phrase. I think also this is in the training and how he deals with people and individuals. You think of what he did with Peter in particular. No one else in the whole group. You got all the Roman cohort, you got all these soldiers. Peter's not afraid to go up and slice the ear off.

But then the Lord says, you'll deny me three times. And to the woman, you know, and all the low or the people around the fire or whatever. The Lord knew him and that was totally devastating to him and changed him from that point on. Do you know what I love about Peter? He missed. He didn't intend to cut that guy's ear off. He was going to whack him good right in the middle of the forehead. He missed.

And when you go back and look at Luke, what happens? The Lord Jesus rebukes Peter and heals Malchus. Now wait a minute, isn't that backwards? Doesn't it seem like it would be backwards? Peter is one of his disciples and Malchus wants to take him and get rid of him. But he rebukes Peter and he heals Malchus.

Isn't that interesting? That shows you a frame of reference. How they are looking at things. So what does verse 11 teach us about our wills? I'll read down to there. In 9, the Lord says that the saying might be fulfilled which he spoke of, those whom you have given me, I haven't lost a single one. Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus. So Jesus said to Peter, Put your sword into the sheath. Shall I not drink the cup which my father has given me?

So my question is, what does it teach us about our own wills? I think one thing that's interesting is that in Matthew 16, and I'll just read it quickly. From that time forth began, Jesus showed the disciples that he had to go to Jerusalem to die. So I'll cut that part off.

Then Peter took him and began to rebuke him. And you talk about courage. He took the Lord and started rebuking him, saying that this thing is far from you, that you would be crucified. It shall not be unto you. And he turned. The Lord turned and said unto him, Peter, get thou behind me, Satan, for thou art an offense to me. For thou savest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

So actually behind Peter's actions was Satan, the third person. That's really right. That's really right. And if you look at this event from that perspective, you'll see the work of Satan and his boys in the group that came to get Jesus, in Judas, you'll also see it in Peter.

Because he's thinking with his, I'll say it this way, he's thinking with his sin mind. his natural mind about the circumstances. And his will, he never stops to say, Lord, should I pull out my sword and defend you? No, no, he's going for it. He's running on emotion and adrenaline. So my question was, what does that teach us about our will as it relates to the Lord's will?

We should at least let Satan use it. Because Satan would be behind us to put thoughts in our head concerning what we might think is right. And the thing about it is it's not right. So how do you protect yourself from that? How do you do that? Oh boy, you have to wait until next week. Yeah, you have to know the Lord's will. And how do you get to know the Lord's will? You have to get to know the Lord.

Dear Father, how we love you tonight, and we thank you for today, and we thank you for letting us in on what your heart is, and your will is, and your intent and purpose is, our Father. How thankful we are, and how thankful we are for the Lord Jesus himself, and we pray in his name. Amen.