Well, if you would please turn with me to John chapter 17. John chapter 17. And I'd like to read verses one through eight. Verses one through eight of John chapter 17. I hear now the inerrant and the infallible and the inspired words of God. These words spake Jesus and lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee. As thou has given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou has given him. And this is life eternal. that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Thou me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest to me out of the world. Thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. May God add his blessing to the reading and to the hearing of his most holy word. One of the things that I find most interesting about this chapter is Christ is speaking this what we call a high priestly prayer out loud. Normally we can see Christ going off somewhere and it says that He prayed. But here Christ is gathering in front of His disciples and He's speaking His prayer out loud to the Father. And this isn't just an accidental thing. This is a purposeful thing that is being done, I submit to you, so that His disciples can hear the prayer. In the previous chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16 we hear and see Christ teaching His disciples. what we have done in the past is we've taken each one of those chapters and we've shown how they're tied into John 17. So, all these things that Christ has taught in those prior chapters He's now praying in the hearing of the disciples to the Father. It's an amazing thing when you stop to contemplate that all these things that He taught weren't just good teachings. These were things, he's praying to the father and we know that the father will grant his son's petitions. What encouragement that must have been to disciples. And so we, as we have been in Sheboygan working through this chapter, we've made our way down to chapter, or it's verses seven and eight. And this is something I wanted to share with you today. And I'll begin by asking this question, I don't want you to answer out loud. question is have you ever wondered when your salvation actually began? My background in the Church is somewhat varied. And I remember being taught that my salvation began the moment I did something, and you can fill in the blank because every church has a different way of doing that. For me it was repeating a prayer. I think my head was bowed and my eyes were closed, or something to that effect. And I was told that's when my salvation actually began. But I submit to you that when we work through this, you'll see that that's not when our salvation began. It wasn't when we first believed. It wasn't when we took the steps to walk forward. It wasn't sitting on that trembling bench that we hear about. It wasn't even at the moment that Christ died on the cross. But our salvation began before the world began. Before creation began, our salvation was in the works. Before the galaxies were formed, before the stars and the angels sang, something astonishing was already in place within the members of the Trinity. Within the infinite, radiant fullness of the triune God, an eternal purpose was being set. And it wasn't set by necessity. It wasn't set by compulsion. but simply by sovereign, overflowing love. This is what our redeemed forefathers would call the covenant of redemption, that agreement, that eternal counsel taking place between the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit, where Father chose a people and willed to display His glory through that, not only in creation, but through the rescuing, if you will, of a fallen people. people that He had foreknown, foreordained, and chose to love before the world began. And the Son, eternally equal with the Father, agreed to redeem those people. And the Spirit, also eternally equal with the Father, and the Son agreed to go and apply that salvation to the people. All of this happened before the world began, before we were born. Our salvation was already planned by the Father. Think about that for a second. Even before Adam fell, before the first second ticked in time, the Son had already been given a kingdom and a people and full authority to bring them home. Spirit had already consented to go and apply that salvation to those people. So, when we look at John 17 we're not just seeing another prayer being offered. We're seeing the salvation of the chosen people being brought in time within the hearing of those disciples. And now within our hearing and our reading as we're able to go back and read that very prayer that has been transcribed and preserved for us over the centuries. And it's helpful if you read through this with the understanding that when Christ is speaking here, he's not speaking necessarily as a son of God. He's speaking in His mediatorial role. And if we keep that in our mind that will help protect us from several heresies. Thinking that somehow the Son of God wasn't complete. That somehow the Son of God had to be given these things because He didn't possess them before. We want to set that aside and realize He's speaking in His mediatorial role. And we'll touch upon that a little bit later on this morning. So now, as we see this curtain, so to speak, being lifted over John 17, we find ourselves listening in upon the high priestly prayer. And I submit to you, these are not ordinary words. It's not, as I mentioned earlier, just another prayer. But this is, if you will, heaven speaking to heaven. It's the Son communing with the Father moments before He's going to the cross. hear something very stunning in verses 7 and 8. We hear this where the disciples that once they were so weak in their faith, so frail, so slow to believe. that they're being described now as having known. It says, now they have known that all things whatsoever thou has given me are of thee. See, Jesus says, they know. Not that they guess, not that they feel, not that they suspect, but they know. And this is a deep God-given certainty that they now have. It's not just some vague spiritual insight, this is a doctrinal clarity that they possess at this point. And so with that, we would think that our task today is rather simple. Just going through verses seven and eight, it seems that these things are very straightforward and easy to understand, but I submit to you, they are at the same time very weighty for us to deal with. So the first thing we're going to look at here is, what is it that they know? It says they have known. Well, I want to understand, well, what is it that they know? And then I want to understand, how did they come to know this? So that I might understand how I might come to know those same things that the disciples know. Well, the only way that I know how to do this is by looking at the grammar. So, I ask again your indulgence as we go through this grammar for a little bit. The first word that we see here is the word now. That word now, you know, and we want to make sure that we don't interpret this as they didn't know anything before and now they know something. This is a different application of this word know. It means that something has settled within the minds of the disciples. You know, from a pragmatic sense, you can think of it as finally, or at last, they know. seed of truth that has been planted within their minds from the first moment they laid eyes upon Christ. That this truth through all of Christ's teachings and illumination of the Spirit that now they know it has ripened into recognition. Sort of like a breakthrough that they know it. It is a conviction that they hold within themselves. It's sort of like when we study our catechisms. We learn our catechisms and we don't really quite understand what they mean when we first memorize them as children. We just know that we're supposed to memorize this answer and this question. And so we do, we memorize the answers and the question. But somewhere in our Christian walk, there are more than just questions and answers. Somewhere they become insight to us. Somewhere along the lines we understand what it means. This is how we are to understand this, that now they have known, and that have known is in the perfect tense. It communicates to us a completed action with an ongoing effect. The way that I can describe this is, in the English we say, I've eaten a sandwich. That's kind of like a perfect tense so to speak. But in that sense it doesn't have an ongoing effect. It's a present consequence, you eat and you feel full, but then eventually you're going to be hungry again. In the Greek when we come to a perfect tense it's much more forceful than that. Think of it as I've eaten a sandwich and now I'm going to be full forever. That ongoing effect. This is what they have known. They have known these things as a fixed knowledge and it's going to impact the rest of their lives. It's a settled conviction. It's more than just what we read earlier with being at the base of Mount Sinai and you hear the law being read. It's more than just hearing. Now they stand knowing it. It's a knowledge that has been sealed and confirmed within them. They have a grasp on this knowledge. And what else does he say? Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou has given me are thee. All things, all things. Earlier we heard about how, and I'm sorry, I don't remember your name, how you like sweeping with your brothers. And if you think of that broom, a broom has edges. And so when you sweep, you have corners, you can only sweep so much where the broom goes. But this is all things whatsoever. This is a broom without edges. This is all things are caught up when you move that broom across the floor. They understand that all things whatsoever, all things have been given to Christ. Not just as miracles, not just His ability to heal or to multiply bread and fish, but all things, everything that Christ has in His office as mediator has been given to Him by the Father. And this is important because nothing outside of Christ's mediatorial role wasn't given to him by his father. Don't you love double negatives? It makes it very difficult to understand. But all things have been given to him by the father. And that's very hard for us to understand these days, because when we say all, we use that word all with conditions. I'll eat all of my vegetables, and we'll leave two or three on the plate. Or, I put all my clothes away except for the socks laying under my bed. But not so here, when we see this word all things it means every single thing. And so, when you think about the Father choosing to redeem a people and He's sending the Son to go do that. Christ's mediatorial role. He gives Christ everything necessary to fully achieve and effect the salvation of those people such that none will be lost. This is why Christ can say, all that you have given Me I will hold in My hand and none will be lost. Because Christ isn't lacking anything as the mediator to save those people. What wonderful comfort that should give us today, that we know that when we are saved, we are saved indeed. It wasn't a best effort. It was a completed, completed, perfect accomplishment by the son. And that word given, we mentioned earlier, this is where sometimes people get confused. That word given is in perfect tense again, so it's a gift that God gave the son, and it belongs to the son by an ongoing right, always to remain, always to be his as mediator. So when he mediates for the disciples in John 17, and he mediates for us today, and he mediates for our grandkids years from now, he still has everything necessary to achieve the salvation of those people. We should comfort us as well. Because sometimes we think as time goes on, whatever it is that we have, we're thinking about is weakening in its efficacy. It wasn't as good as it was back then. And we hear that a lot. Oh, I remember back in the day. Or things just aren't as good as they were when I was young. They don't last as long as they do. But not so with Christ. Christ is perfect from the moment He began His mediation to the end when He comes a second time and takes us all home. Every soul that is saved is perfect and completely saved. And just to put a very fine point on the end of this, he says, now they have known that all things whatsoever thou has given me are of thee, that the father is the origin and the authorizer of the son's mission. You see, this isn't about Christ's eternal deity, which is underrived. This is about his office as mediator. And this is what the disciples have come to know. that all the redemptive resources that Christ has is given to Him by the Father. And when we think about this, too, should also cause us to realize that this means that Christ is not a self-appointed prophet. happened a lot in these days. We'd always have someone rise up as a prophet and go off and take disciples. And you see this group of men following this guy, and these disciples over here following this guy over here. It was very common during these days. But Christ was not one of those who so to speak in our parlance hung a shingle out on the wall and said, I'm going to be a prophet. He was appointed by God Himself, the Authorized Redeemer sent and fully supplied by God the Father. And what is it that he brought? In verse eight, we see he's given unto them the words which thou gavest me. He brought the words of God to the people. And so what we understand here also is that the disciples came to this knowledge through the words that Christ gave to them. We see nowhere anything about self-reflection or becoming one with nature or meditating up on a mountaintop to center yourself. All of this happened with the words that were given to Christ, which he gave to them. And so I submit to you that without the words of Christ, there is no faith. And we forget that too in this day. We think that we can find Christ within ourselves, that we can find salvation within ourselves as whatever, we'll use the word, the Spirit teaches me inside myself is all I need to know to be saved. And we forget the importance and the necessity of the words of God. We must not forget that it's the words. They have known that all things whatsoever thou has given me are thee. How for I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me. And as I commonly do when I read a verse, I look at this and it says, now they have known that all things whatsoever thou has given me are thee. Have you ever stopped to think what were those things that were given? Certainly we know the word was given, but it says all things whatsoever thou has given me. It's an interesting study. If you go through the gospels, you can find a long list of all the things that God gave the son in his mediatorial role. first of those is pretty common, or easy for us to call out, and that would be the people. God gave the people to the Son, the elect. We see that in John chapter 6, "'All that the Father giveth Me shall come to Me. And this is the Father's will, that all of that which He hath given Me I should lose nothing.'" John 17 and verse 2, "'As Thou hast given Him power over all flesh.'" that He should not give, or that He should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given Him. And then in John 17, we see thine they were and thou gavest them me, for they are thine and thou gavest me. He gave the Son of people to redeem. We also see that He gave them the office of prophet. the office of prophet, John 17 in verse eight, which we have started looking at. For I've given unto them the words with thou gavest me, I've given them my word. And isn't that what a prophet does? A prophet speaks the word of God to the people, declaring God's words to them. John 12, 49 and 50, the father which sent me gave me a commandment, what I should say. In John 3, he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God giveth not the spirit by measure unto him. He gave him the office of priest. This is sounding familiar in our catechisms, isn't it? God gave him the office of priest. As a father hath life in himself, so he hath given to the son to have life in himself, and the works which the father hath given me to finish, he will surely finish. Those are the jobs of the priest, that reconciliation, the restoration, making that atonement on behalf of the people to God. He gave him the office of king. In John 17 too, we see that he's given him power over all flesh. In John five, the father hath committed all judgment unto the sin and hath given him authority to execute judgment. In Luke 22, I appoint unto you a kingdom as my father hath appointed unto me. And in Mark 28, all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. He was given the office of prophet, priest, and king. He was given a name that God hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every other name. He's given him a cup, the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it? And this commandment have I received of my father from John 10 verse 18. So, we might say that He has given Him a plenitude of things, everything needed to accomplish redemption God has given to the Son as Mediator. And then make it clear, John 3, He comes out and says, the Father loveth the Son, hath given all things into His hand. Matthew 11 and Luke 10, all things are delivered unto me of my Father. And then in Psalm 2, ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance. That's not even an exhaustive list. But we see all of this was given by the Father. Christ receives nothing in His deity that He did not already possess, but as mediator. But as mediator, He receives all of this from the Father. Not for His sake, but for ours. This is a fullness that we wanna make sure we understand is a fullness, not in essence, but in office. All this giving is what we would call economic. It's not essential to who Christ is. It's an economic giving because the son of God is underrived and lacks nothing. God the son lacks nothing, can be given nothing that he doesn't already possess. So when we keep those two roles separate, God the son as deity, and then God the son as mediator, we can understand and make sense of what he's saying. that he is appointed and fully furnished to accomplish every task that is necessary. And he was given all of these things so that he could come and give us his word. I'll say this again, that without the words of Christ, there can be no faith. things as I mentioned earlier did not come to them through any sort of self-reflection or discovery, it was through the words of Christ. Everything that they have come to know has been given to them through the words of Christ. And he was able to do this. Christ did this because of all the things God gave to him. And this teaches us something, doesn't it? It teaches us how salvation comes to us. It's from the father to the son, through his words to us and the application of the spirit, from the father to the son, to his words and the application of the spirit unto us. It never originates within us. It never originates within us. We do not wake up one day and say, you know what would be nice? I think it'd be nice if I just start going to church today because I want to be saved. It doesn't originate from us. We are not the authors of our faith. This is where I started earlier today. When do you think salvation first began for you? I used to think it began when I said some prayer. I was wrong. It began with God. God the Father is where it begins. We call this an economy of revelation. The Father's the source of all redemptive truth. The Son receives and faithfully delivers that truth to the disciples who hear it, believe it, and proclaim it. And the Spirit illuminates that and applies it to our hearts. Really the only thing that we do is we hear. And then we believe, but we only believe because we've heard And only because then the Spirit applies it to us so that we can understand what it is that we believe and understand what we've heard. And I say it this way because there is a method of responsibility on our part. But even that ability we have is given to us by God through the Spirit. It's very humbling when you think about where our salvation truly began. And that's exactly how the Westminster frames the prophetic office of Christ. that Christ is our prophet reveals to us by his word and spirit, the will of God for our salvation. We look in verse eight, for I've given unto them the words without gave us me. received them, have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me." The words here we have where it says, I've given them the words is the Greek word, remata. And I haven't studied Greek so I may be pronouncing that wrong, bear with me. I can barely pronounce Hebrew properly. But this word is remata and it means simply the words. That's what we need, the words, the spoken sayings. Not empty syllables, not a babbling, but a words, Christ's audible words, life imparting revelation. And He is pinpointing the method through which that occurs is through this articulated speech. It is through the remata, the words spoken by Christ. And we see in verse 8 also again that the Father gave Him the words to say. And then what do we see? The Father gives the words to Christ. And then Christ gave those words to the disciples. It's that pattern that we have. And if you remember our discussion about the perfect tense, we have this here again in the words given. It's that given with ongoing effect. And if you think about that the same power in those words that were here in the High Priestly Prayer are the same power in the words that we read today 2,000 years later when we come to this text. It's the same words, the same life-giving words in the text of the pages of Scripture. And I know this may not come clearly through in English, because if you look in John 1 we have the word, and we come here in John 17 and we have the word. And we might think in our mind, well it's the same word. But it's not the same word. It's different. In John 1, we have the logos. It's describing Christ as a logos. It's more broad. It's more of a message or the word in totality to think of. Some think of it as meaning the logic. It's Christ himself. He is the logos, the incarnate word. And then we come down here and it's the Ramata. It's a different usage of that word. Remember, those were spoken instructions, specific utterances, certain words that are being delivered. And when you think about this a step back, you go, well, Christ is the word himself. And he's coming down and he's speaking those words to us. We can't fully comprehend the word. We can't comprehend the logos. but he takes that down, distills it into spoken ramata, spoken words that we can understand. Words that we can grasp, that we can hear, that we can receive, that we can believe. And we reflect upon that as shaping how it is our salvation again comes to us. Christ is setting the example here for us of speaking those words to the disciples. The disciples are gonna take these words and go out and speak those same words to the uttermost parts of the world. And that's how we receive it today. We receive those words through the preaching behind the pulpit. And then we hear those words with that spiritual act, and we understand because the Spirit enables us to understand. And our assurance should be anchored in the words of Christ, not in how we feel, right? We don't find assurance in our feelings. We find assurance in the words of Christ, because we believe what he says is true. And doesn't that reinforce Romans 10, the hearing of that word? How will they call on him of whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? We need the ramantas, right? We need those spoken words so that we can hear because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And isn't it interesting how we think about that Romans 10 ties in at John 17, the word must be given, the word must then be preached and it must be heard or else no saving faith can arise. Sometimes we are accused of being hyper-Calvinists. We are accused of thinking that we think you can come to salvation if you just sit in the pews and people will just magically find their way in. They must hear the Word preached. You must go and hear the Word preached. This is how salvation through those ordinary means has been decrees through the preaching of the word. And it's even modeled for us here in these pages because Christ the Logos himself spoke the words. Now he could have come down, walked among the people and brought them salvation without using those means. But in God's wisdom, he decreed that the means to bring people salvation would be the spoken words of Christ. So you don't improvise on that. We don't try and improve or change. We simply go with what God has set for us and we preach those words. No word, no hearing, no hearing, no preaching, right? No preaching, no hearing, no hearing, no believing, no believing, no calling and no calling, no salvation. So in this, we see reinforced within the hearing of the disciples that the word is not optional, but it is indeed God's appointed means for creating faith. Now in this, I would also like to point out two things, if you will bear with me for just a moment longer. We talked about saving faith, and there are some fancy terms that are thrown about talking about saving faith, and there's three of them. We'll get to the third one this evening. But the first two are what's known as notitia and a census. And I don't speak Latin, so I might be saying those wrong as well. But notitia and a census. Notitia is the receiving of a knowledge, right? Turretin will tell us, Francis Turretin will say, faith is not born in a vacuum, it rests on knowledge. and embraces truth as truth, which he calls a census. But that knowledge is the noticia. And we've seen today that the disciples have known that now they know and they have received from Christ. In verse eight, they have received them and have known surely they came out from thee and they have believed. But the first two, received and have known, we're going to look at. Received and known. So what are we to understand with Notitia? What does that mean? Why did you even bring that up? Because it talks about the content of our faith. It talks about those words, the Ramata that Christ is bringing to us. We have to have knowledge. We have to know what it is that we say we're going to believe. We can't just wake up one morning and say, I believe, and don't say, what is it you believe? Well, I just believe. You have to know who it is that you believe, in whom it is that you believe. I have had discussions with people that will say, I don't need a creed because I know what I believe. So what is it that you believe? Well, I just believe the Bible. Okay, well, what in the Bible is it you believe? Well, I believe all of it. And you can imagine how that just continues to cycle around. We must have knowledge and objective content must undergird our saving knowledge. It cannot be based on mystical dreams or spiritual sensations or the shiver going up your back when you sing a song. It has to be based upon the Ramata, the words spoken by Christ. this verse 8 reveals the mission of Christ. And I use that word hesitatingly because it's been used in so many different ways. But Christ's authority, His mediation, His redemption is all based upon the source of the words that He comes to preach to His people, so that He can believe, so that when He dies upon the cross for their sins, they know what that means. They know why that's necessary, and they know who Christ is. And without that knowledge, you can't have faith, because you don't know what your faith is founded upon. See, that notitia is, to put it in clinical terms, would be the data, the data of the gospel, propositional truths, specific, and we see here in these verses, directly from God through the Son to us. As Calvin says, faith rests not upon ignorance, but upon knowledge. and that knowledge leads us into a census. And there is some arguments, there's some debates. The following one is fiducia, faith. And some people argue, well, where does one begin and the other end? And for our discussion, we're just gonna keep them separate, because it makes it simple for our discussions. But a census is the conviction of that truth. Now you know that all things that you have given me are from you, right? Now they have known that all things whatsoever that was given me are of thee. They know what they know, and this known isn't casual. It's that perfect tense. It means, remember, it's that settling of the knowledge, the conviction of that knowledge. They didn't just hear the words, and certainly we hear words all the time. We hear words all day long, and we never really know what they're talking about. But we hear it. But this is the hearing of those words and it's moves down to something a little bit deeper. It moves into an acceptance that I know it's true. I accept it as being true. I'm convinced that it's true. It's agreeing with it inwardly that the truth what you have heard. And they recognize that Christ here is not speaking as a man. He's not speaking as some self-appointed prophet as we mentioned earlier. He's speaking as the very Son of God. He's speaking the words that God the Father has given unto Him. And this is precisely what Reformed theology calls a census. It's the understanding of the Gospel message. It's when the mind by grace says, this is true. This is from God. And this is what they have known, that the words which thou gavest me, they have received. And they know surely that I came out from thee. And later this morning or this evening, we'll talk about what it means to believe and how that relates. let me quickly wrap up with some applications and uses for this. The first use for application that I would submit to you is the one for instruction that we see the necessity of divine revelation. reminded of the absolute necessity of divine revelation, what we often call special revelation. That Christ gave the words to the Father, sorry Father gave the words to Christ, the Son. He delivered them to disciples who then delivered them, and delivered them, and they come to us through our ministers. and then we deliver them unto you. It's all the same words and they are necessary. We must become students of the words Christ has given to us. The second is that we must find our encouragement and assurance that our salvation begins in a mind enlightened by the Word. Do you see how that words are still connected into this? That our assurance comes from the words of Christ. That when He says, this is what I do, we believe that this is what He is going to do. And sometimes that assurance we find ourselves in our lives with times of small, little assurance. And sometimes we might have a great assurance. And at various times in our lives, we're on this continuum back and forth. And we are tempted at times saying, I don't even know if I believe anymore because of what we're going through in our lives. encourage you that the same words the disciples heard then are the same words that we are hearing now. The same power that was then is the same power now. And if Christ says that He will keep you, He will keep you. So even if you have a low level of assurance at this point, don't despise that low level of assurance you may be struggling with. Hold on to it, grow it, read the scriptures, let it grow in your understanding. Let your assurance grow through the words of Christ. And let me just give you one for your proof. Beware of a faith without doctrine. We are warned that true faith cannot survive and cannot exist without doctrine. Today many of us prize our religious feelings and we scorn doctrinal clarity. We don't want to hear the word preach. We don't want to hear that. I just want to hear a nice story. Make me feel good preacher so when I go home I'm distracted momentarily by the cares of this world. I don't want to study. I don't want to be challenged. Don't read the Bible. Tell me a fishing story. Instead, take my mind off of my life. Tell me it's going to be okay, but don't prove to me that it's going to be okay. But Christ's prayer here teaches us different. Disciples knew what to believe because of the words spoken by Christ. They spent years with Him, studying and learning from Him. Faith cannot grow where the mind is not fed. Emotion without truth, you can think of it this way, is like a fire fed only by gasoline. You pour gas on a fire and it gets really big and roaring, you think it's huge and great, then the gas is gone and the fire dies. brief, wild, and soon extinguished. Please do not seek experience and pit it against doctrine. If you claim that you love Christ but have little care for his truth, you might wanna see if you have kindled a false fire. We must have doctrine to support our faith. Well, that ends our look at John 17 this morning.