THE VISION AND MISSION OF CHRIST JESUS
I. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: THE PASSIONATE HEARTBEAT OF THE CROSS – JOHN 17
A. John 17 commonly known as the High Priestly prayer which reveals to us Jesus’ zeal for the eternal purpose of God
and the knowledge of God. The central theme of the great prophetic prayer is the knowledge of God. This chapter is
probably the clearest expression of the heart Christ for the knowledge of God to be the inheritance of the people of God.
What is seen in this chapter is the heartbeat, the vision and the mission of Christ as it pertains to the knowledge of God.
On His way to the Via Dolorosa the first and foremost thing on the heart of Christ is the knowledge of God.
“…having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in
Himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in
Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.” Ephesians 1:9-10
B. The premier vision of God is for the earth to be filled with the knowledge of His glory. The centerpiece of God’s
eternal purpose is for Jesus to come back to fully establish His Kingdom rule over all the earth as He joins the heavenly
and earthly realms together. Both heavenly and earthly dimensions must come together to fully express God’s personality
and purposes – the knowledge of God’s glory filling the earth.
C. The One who was hidden in the bosom of the Father is the one who made the Father manifest. This will ultimately
happen when the full reconciliation of heaven and earth made possible through the cross is made manifest that God might
release the fullness of His personality in heaven and on the earth. The central issue is that Christ came to the earth to
make visible and clear the truth concerning His Father. This is still His central mission.
“For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to
Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His
cross.” Colossians 1:19-20
“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.” Genesis 1:1-3
“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6
“…but truly, as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD.” Numbers 14:21
“And blessed be His glorious name forever! “And let the whole earth be filled with His glory.” Psalm 72:19
“And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!”
Isaiah 6:3
“For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea.”
Habakkuk 2:14
D. True preaching confronts earth with heaven in that it is the proclamation of the knowledge of God. The nature of
true preaching is the proclamation of the only true God and His Christ. The Apostle Paul tells that his preaching was to
shatter false paradigms concerning the knowledge of God.
“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are
not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.” 2 Corinthians 10:3-6.
E. The knowledge of God is truly the central issue before the church in this hour. It is vitally crucial that our hearts
and minds be daily renewed by the knowledge of God.
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you
from being priest for Me; because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.”
Hosea 4:6
“Let us know, let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He
will come to us like the rain, like the latter and former rain to the earth. Hosea 6:3
“For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6
F. There is great need for the proclamation of the knowledge of God. True prophetic preaching is saturated with
the knowledge of God which confronts vain imaginations and earthbound ideas about the Uncreated God.
G. Our view of God is critical to the way that we live. Our view of ourselves, others and live in general is fundamentally
and profoundly affected by our idea or view of God.
H. It is crucial that the revelation of the knowledge of God found in Christ Jesus becomes the premier focus, top priority
of our lives that the knowledge of God would become the foundation of our souls. The knowledge of God must be intensely
pursued. It is absolutely vital that we live a life that is conducive for the pursuing and the cultivating of a proper view of God.
“One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days
of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD (the knowledge of God), and to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4
I. It is important to know that the knowledge of God is more then a concept. The knowledge of God as a reality to be
encountered on a deep heart level. The knowledge of God though filled with many intellectual concepts is a theology of the
heart. The revealing of God to heart is most exhilarating and powerful.
II. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: THE VISION OF THE CROSS – JOHN 17:1.
“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your
Son, that Your Son also may glorify You …” John 17:1
A. 17:1 The culmination of Christ ministry is in the cross in which He accomplished the will of God forever but setting
into motion God’s eschatological purpose. (Ephesians 1:9-10; Colossians 1:19-20; Isaiah 6:3
B. This desire and mission of Christ is also to become the mission of the apostolic church throughout history but in
particular at the end of the age.
“As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” John 17:18
C. The way to glory is through death. The experience of the knowledge of God is related to embracing the cross.
(Phil 3:8). Christ here states that His heart is ready to walk out that for which He came. Jesus came to serve and the give
His life as a ransom for many. The cross is the door way into the glory of God. The Father glorified His name by sending
His Son to the cross and die. It was fitting for the Father that His Son would suffer in order to bring many to glory. The
vastness of God’s splendor is revealed in the Cross of Christ.
“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Mark 10:45
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came
to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, saying, “I have both glorified it and
will glorify it again.” Therefore the people who stood by and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said,
“An angel has spoken to Him.” John 12:27-29.
“For it was fitting for Him(Father), for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons
to glory, to make the captain of their salvation (Christ Jesus) perfect through sufferings.” Hebrews 2:10
III. ALL AUTHORITY: CHRIST THE DISPENSER OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD – JOHN 17:2
“ … as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life (the knowledge of God) to
as many as You have given Him.” John 17:2
A. 17:2 Christ suffered in obedience to the Father and thus He was given authority over all flesh. The Father has
entrusted leadership to Jesus over all humanity to lead them into the knowledge of God
B. The authority and leadership of Christ Jesus is to lead humans into the fullness of God. The dispensing of the
knowledge of God is about bringing humanity into fullness. Christ is the forerunner who went beyond the veil into the
Presence and secured a place for us. Jesus has the authority, the permission of the Father to bring humanity into the full
experience of the knowledge of God. It is through Christ and Christ alone that we have access to the knowledge of God
which is not just a subject but is a realm in the heart of God and an experiential reality.
“…where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the
order of Melchizedek.” Hebrews 6:19-20
Forerunner: “The writer to the Hebrews uses a most illuminating word about Jesus. He says that he entered the presence of
God as our forerunner. The word is prodromos. It has three stages of meaning. (i) It means one who rushes on. (ii) It means
a pioneer. (iii) It means a scout who goes ahead to see that it is safe for the body of the troops to follow. Jesus went into
the presence of God to make it safe for all men to follow.
C. Jesus makes it very clear that there is only one God who alone is true. The issue of the true knowledge God is and
will be crucial in this hour because of the increase of syncretism and religious mixture. The essence of the prayer of Jesus
is that He would be glorified and that the Father would be glorified through Him. God is glorified in many ways but the
ultimate expression will be when the fullness of God’s glory fills the earth.
D. The Man Christ Jesus is the only authorized Dispenser and giver of the knowledge of God. In John 17:26 Jesus
declared to the Father that He (Jesus) will continue to declared the knowledge of God to His people. The very countenance
of the Son of God reflects the Father’s glory. To see Jesus through the meditation of the word is to see the Father
(2 Corinthians 4:6). The Father has granted Jesus authority for the sole purpose to lead the human heart into the
knowledge of God.
“And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in
them, and I in them.” John 17:26
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these
last days spoken to us by His Son …” Hebrews 1:1-2
IV. ETERNAL LIFE: TO BE SWALLOWED IN THE GODHEAD FOREVER.
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
John 17:3
A. 17:3 True life, true contentment or fulfillment is only experienced in as much as our beings are filled with knowledge
of God. The knowledge of God is more then a subject but rather it is a realm of encounter and the experiencing of God.
It is the reality of the intimate knowing God.
B. It is such a surprising concept that the Uncreated God who has need of nothing desires and longs to be known by
humans. The knowledge of God is the only way to find life and the true rest for our souls. Jesus is seeking to point the
reality that would come are their troubles and their fears (John 14:1).
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be
filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding…” Colossians 1:9
C. One of the definitive realities of death is ones inability to responsive. Before we were in Christ we were dead in our
sins; death was operating in our spirits making it impossible for us to respond to the knowledge of God, which is the very
source of life.
D. The born again experience made us alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11) Through Christ we are now able to
live in that we can know receive and respond to the knowledge of God. To live is to experience God. True live is to commune
with God, to be satisfied and to have our spirits fed on the beauty and splendor of Almighty God.
“My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:26
“When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. Colossians 3:4
“Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 6:11
V. OUR CAPTAIN MADE PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS BRINGS US TO GLORY.
“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory,
to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” Hebrews 2:10
“I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work (Heb 2:10) which You have given Me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
John 17:4-5
A. 17:4-5 the knowledge of God is the gift of God dispensed and administrated by the Son of God. We receive the
knowledge of God by putting our hearts before the Lord Jesus and asking Him to declare the Name of God that we are
filled with the knowledge of His will. The work of Jesus on the earth was to glorify the Father which He did by revealing
Him by word and deed.
B. Christ Jesus is longing to return to the glory He once possessed with the Father in eternity past. The entry way and
the pinnacle of this glorification is seen in the reality of the crucifixion. The height of the glory of God is seen and revealed in
the cross of Christ which is a stumbling block for the Jews and foolishness for the Gentiles.
C. God in His perfect wisdom conceived of the idea of Lamb slain before the foundation of the earth. The very depth
of God’s creative wisdom was “exhausted” to dream up the plan that the convergence of heaven and earth would be filled
with His fullness and in that context He would dwell forever with humanity who empowered by the power of the resurrection
accomplished in the cross would freely choose to love God forever.
VI. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD: THE MISSION OF CHRIST JESUS – JOHN 17:6-8.
“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You
gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” John 17:6
A. 17:6 Jesus declares to us in a more specific manner the nature of His mission on the earth. The mandate of Christ
is the knowledge of God.
B. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians in Ephesians 1:17 surrounds us in the realm of the knowledge of God while
Colossians 1:9 fills us with the knowledge of His will. There is such power in the inner man with Christ Jesus by the 3rd
Person of the Trinity manifests the name of the Father in us.
C. This is what we were created for. In John 17:5 Jesus refers to the glory that He possessed with the Father before
the foundations of the earth. It is from that reality that came to the earth, laid aside the form of God, took on the form of a
man to reveal the knowledge of God. It is so amazing to think that God’s purpose for making all things was for the purpose of
Divine Self-disclosure to produce the love of God in the human soul. (“Let there by light”).
D. In order to secure an environment of voluntary love the cross had to be central to the God’s purpose. The only way
that love would be valuable to Him is if there are real choices and real decisions so that humanity’s love back to Him would
indeed be love. It was only with the context of real choices that the full extend of the love of God could be revealed and
love for God could be cultivated.
“…that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation
in the knowledge of Him …” Ephesians 1:17
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be
filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding …” Colossians 1:9
“…the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His
saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles:
which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Colossians 1:27
E. God knew that in giving humanity choices, that sin would enter in but all that fit within the perfect plan of Him coming to
broken, rebellious humanity and reveal the height of His love through the Cross of Christ, dealing with the problem of sin. It
was in the fullness of time that Christ came to bring redemption which means that He came under the optimum conditions
in which the height of the love of God could be expressed.
“But when the fullness of the time had come (the conditions were optimum from the perspective of the
divine counsels), God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were
under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. (God wants sons)” Galatians 4:4-5
VII. HOLINESS: THE CONTAINER OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD - II PETER 1:3-9
A. Jesus declares that the disciples received and kept the words concerning the Father that Jesus gave to them. As
Christ gives us the knowledge of God we much give a diligent watch over the word of God. Christ mission was not just the
imparting of the knowledge of God but it also was equipping and training His disciples to maintain and grow in the knowledge
of God. It is the pursuit of the Sermon on the Mount lifestyle that allows as to grow fruitful in the knowledge of God. The
keeping of the knowledge of God is done lifestyle producing encounter. It is not just a matter of study though study is a
vital part of the pursuit of the knowledge of God. The knowledge of God is kept as we not attain but aggressively pursue
lives of 100% obedience in the grace of God.
5“But also for this very reason (the reason of having been empowered by the knowledge of God), giving all
diligence, add to your faith(Heb 11 the gift of God that connects us with eternity) virtue (moral excellence i.e. eyes
and speech), to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge (the knowledge of God) self-control, to self-control
(self-government over one’s soul and its desires) perseverance, to perseverance (persistence in the context of
the oppositions of life) godliness,7to godliness (living a devout life, fasted lifestyle, spiritual disciplines) brotherly
kindness (reality of affection and favor fitting for brothers), and to brotherly kindness love.(strong affection with
personal ties Heb10:25-26) 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor
unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Peter 1:5-8
B. That disciples kept the word of God means that they were responsive to the knowledge of God in pursuing Jesus
towards 100% obedience. The disciples were not by any means perfect which a clearly established point all throughout
the gospels but rather they were men who had fully thrown themselves into the embrace of Christ Jesus. They said “Yes!”