Sermon Tone Analysis

I. The Reading

[ Pray ]

A reading from John 17:1-3 — This is God’s Word.

This is God’s Word, Amen.

[Scripture Reading ~less than 1 minute ]

II.

The Exhortation

The word “advent” means “arrival,” “appearing”, or “coming.”

It is during this season of Advent that we, the Church, experience feelings of anticipation and expectation for the coming of Christmas, which is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.

If you have children or grandchildren in your home, you feel anticipation as those children watch and wait for presents to appear under the tree, counting down the days and hours until they get to open them!

Advent tests our patience!

When Christ first came, he came at an appointed time and place - to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, when Caesar Augustus had issued a decree that all the world should be registered, during the time Quirinius was governor of Syria.

The timing of Christ’s first coming was not accidental.

It was providential.

It was prepared and planned for and directed by the sovereign God for the right time - for the right hour.

It was God’s time, to fulfill God’s purpose and God’s plan.

This Advent season exhorts us all to wait on God and to trust Him.

Are you waiting on God to act in some way?

Does it seem like God is silent, absent, or even late?

Be patient.

Have faith in God.

Endure!

These are the lessons of Advent— for in the right time, Christ came.

In the right time, God acts.

In the right time, Christ is coming again, Church!

Jesus understood God’s timing.

It might surprise you to know that Jesus understood the expectation of the Advent season too.

Jesus knew what it was like to live with anticipation for the hour of God.

Jesus knew what it was like to wait on God’s timing.

And when the time came for which Jesus had long awaited, the time for his passion, the time for his cross, the time for his glory, Jesus stepped into that hour not in panic, but in prayer.

The Prayers of CHRISTmas.

The Prayers of CHRISTmas are the prayers of Christ that reveal the reason for His first advent.

The prayers of Christ here at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry in John 17 are not isolated from the Christmas story.

This is the Christmas story, in its more complete form.

The prayers preceeding Christ’s cross are intimately connected to the purpose of Christ’s coming.

If we want to learn why Jesus came, we must listen to what Jesus prayed.

This Advent season exhorts us all to listen.

To move from Christ’s incarnation to His intercession.

To listen as Jesus communes with His Father in Heaven through prayer.

To listen as Jesus exposes His heart, His will, His desires, His anticipations - and to live with those same anticipations in our own heart too.

It’s not enough just to await Christ’s birth.

We must wait with anticipation for the purposes of His birth.

If I were to ask you,

“Why did Jesus come into the world?”

— What would you say?

How would you answer that question?

Would you say “Jesus came into the world to save sinners, such as me?”

If so, understand that Jesus did come into the world to save sinners such as me.

But there’s more — so much more!

Sitting in this Sanctuary right now, or listening to this message right now, someone has settled for a simplistic Christmas.

Not a simple Christmas, but a simplistic Christmas.

“Simple” is a good word.

It means something is easy to understand.

“Simplistic” is a bad word.

It means something complex is being treated simpler than what it really is.

Someone has settled for a simplistic Christmas, treating the coming of Christ as a means of your salvation and nothing more.

Someone has reduced Christ to an escape from judgment and the fires of Hell and nothing more.

Someone has a testimony of attending a meeting, walking an aisle, saying a prayer and serving a church, and nothing more.

Someone, in one hour of life, had some kind of experience with Jesus, and believed that was all that was needful, that was all the reason for Jesus’s coming, and then treated Jesus like an Elf on the Shelf by setting him aside, and hiding him away where he has been for 50 years!

That’s not Jesus.

That’s not salvation.

That’s not eternal life.

That’s not the reason for Christmas.

Let us listen together to the prayers of Christ which are The Prayers of CHRISTmas, and learn who Jesus is and the fullness of what Christmas is about.

In these first 3 verses of John 17,

Jesus prays about —

His glory, His gift, and His God.

His glory (v.1),

His gift (v.2), and His God (v.3).

III.

The Teaching

Look with me at verse 1 —

“When Jesus had spoken these words.”

THIS IS THE CONTEXT OF CHRIST’S PRAYER.

Prayers have a context.

Meaning, prayers are not offered in a void, have you noticed?

We pray in response to circumstances.

We are to pray in response to all things!

The words of 1 Thessalonians 5.17 instruct us to —

What words had Jesus spoken?

He had finished speaking what is called his “final discourse.”

His final message to his disciples before he turned his face to the cross.

The last words of his final discourse are recorded in John 16.33 —

What an encouragement for us all on this “peace” Sunday of Advent!

Jesus desires for all of us to have peace at the hearing of His word.

Yes - we are still in the world.

Yes — we will have tribulation in the world.

But we may have peace in the world through Christ and His word!

We may take heart (that is, to take courage, to have confidence) because Christ - even before His cross, has already overcome the world.

“he lifted up his eyes to heaven”

THIS IS THE POSTURE OF CHRIST’S PRAYER.

Christmas directs our eyes to earth as heaven comes to earth - God becoming a real man, the donkey, the manger, the stable.

But the Christmas star, the angelic hosts appearing to the shepherds and this prayer, balance our gaze back to heaven!

Completing the circuit of the Christmas story.

Jesus in his humanity recognized where he came from, and where his help comes from!

We are accustomed to bowing our heads in prayer.

Why did Jesus lift up his eyes to heaven?

Because that is where His Father is.

“and said, “Father.”

THIS IS THE ADDRESS OF CHRIST’S PRAYER.