“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come,” John 17:1

We go a little further in our study and notice the first words of Christ to His Father.

1. THE SAVIOUR WAS PRAYING FOR HIS PEOPLE AT A TIME WHEN HE WAS VERY CONSCIOUS OF HIS DEATH.

“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come,” verse 1. The Lord Jesus is ‘omniscient’. He knows all things! Calvary was no surprise, Matt 16:21.

To be thinking of us at such a time as His crucifixion drew near, illustrates that his love for His people came before all else.

Another illustration of this is found in 1 Cor 11:23. “That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread, . . . ” He instituted the Communion Feast for His people. Nothing comes before the wellbeing of His Flock. “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands,” Isaiah 49:16. Some would claim that Christ tried to avoid the cross (Garden of Gethsemane). NO, John 13:1.

2. WHAT IT IS THE SAVIOUR IS PRAYING FOR.

The next verses indicates what it is.

* He was thinking of those to whom He came to give eternal life, verse 2.

* The Lord Jesus has the RIGHT and the POWER to impart eternal life. He alone, not Mary, saints or angels!

* Those he gave this life to were those the Father had given to Him.

See John 10:24-29.

3. HE TELLS US JUST WHAT ETERNAL LIFE IS.

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent,” John 17:3.

To ‘KNOW’ God and that through His Son, is to have eternal life. To KNOW God is to be brought into a wonderful relationship with Him, whereby He imparts to us a ‘NEW NATURE’ and we become NEW PEOPLE.

“According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust,” 2 Peter 1:3-4.

Boys and girls, we can know ABOUT someone, like King Charles. But that is not the kind of knowledge we have of Mum and Dad! We love them, live with them and are cared for by them! That is a picture of what it is to KNOW GOD.