Dan Lee
John 17:22-26, For Love and Glory (Part-2)

Jesus prays regarding two kinds of glory. He speaks of glory in the present age for His people’s sanctification. God’s elect grow in conformity to Him as they behold His glory in Christ. Jesus also prays for future glory, that His people behold His full, divine, eternal glory in heaven. We are to behold the glory of God now for our sanctification and the glory of God in the future for our glorification.

Dan Lee
John 17:22-26, For Love and Glory

Jesus concludes His prayer with love and glory. Love is the focus of this sermon. The Lord prays that we would come to experientially know (taste) of the Father’s special love. This is the special love of the Father like His love toward His only begotten Son. Like that love, the Father loved His elect from eternity past and “in love predestined us to adoption as sons.” This is the love which Jesus wants us to savor. May the Holy Spirit reveal to us more and more of this awesome love of God.

Dan Lee
John 17:20-23, Salvation Blessing for the World

Jesus’ prayer reflects the heart of God that seeks salvation blessing for the world. Jesus sees the church as the vehicle by which the elect of God worldwide will come to faith in Him unto salvation. In this first installment on a two part sermon, we explore the facets of the church, our mission, our godliness, and the special love of God toward the elect (next sermon).

Dan Lee
John 17:14-19, A Dangerous Mission

Jesus’ prayer for His disciples is undergirded by the reality of a dangerous mission. He knows we will be hated by the world and targeted by the Devil. As such, we will need divine protection. Hence, He prays, “Keep them from the evil one.” Moreover, we will need to live holy lives if we are to make any meaningful impact for the gospel that reconciles and restored sinners to the holy and righteous Father. Our own lives would have to be sanctified in order for us to be useful to the Lord in leading the rest of His elect to this salvation. Therefore, the Lord prays, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” The word of God that has regenerated us is the same word that will sanctify our lives. May the Holy Spirit through His word evermore conform us to Christ that we would be like Him on earth and make disciples for His honor and glory.

Dan Lee
John 17:9-13, For the Joy of God's Elect

Jesus’ first petition for His disciples is found in these verses. Jesus prays that the Father would keep them in His name. Jesus prays for a special people, His disciples and He does so because He was about to physically leave His disciples. What He would no longer be able to do in His physical absence, He asks the Father to accomplish. May the Lord grant to us a greater work of His Spirit to draw us to walk in Jesus’ ways and thus live with His joy evermore in our hearts.

John 15:9-11, The Love And The Joy of God

The Lord Jesus Christ loves His people with the perfect love of His Father. He loves us with a love that is like the astonishing and spectacular intratrinitarian love of God. He calls us to then abide in that love so that our joy would no longer be meager, but that it would be full and complete. Jesus calls us to obedience to His commands toward this end. May the Holy Spirit evermore teach us to live a life of obedience in the footsteps of Christ so that we would know this magnificent love and joy which He seeks for His people.

Hebrews 11:4-10, Examples of Faith

Throughout our devotions together over the weekend camping trip, we give attention to four examples of faith: Abel worshipped God (11:4), Enoch pleased God (11:5-6), Noah listened to God (11:7), and Abraham hoped in God (11:8-10). All of these were acts of faith, teaching us how men of old exercised their faith in the LORD and how He accepted and approved of their acts of faith. May the Lord evermore build us up to live as men and women of faith who know how to trust in our God and live by faith not by sight.

Hebrews 11:1-3, Biblical Faith

What is faith according to the Bible? This is a pivotal question since the nature of our faith makes all the difference as to whether we truly belong to the Lord, whether we are recipients of His blessing, whether we are forgiven of our sins, and whether we possess eternal life. In this kickoff study to our four-part devotions during our annual vacation together (“Examples of Faith” from Hebrews 11:4-10), we examine the definition of biblical faith, how that is proven by the examples of faith, and what is the fundamental starting point of that faith. May the Lord ground us and strengthen us in true biblical faith which is based on God’s self-revelation to us in His faithful word.

John 15:1-8, To the Glory of God

All things exist for the glory of God. Jesus shows us this in this discourse on fruitfulness and abiding in Him that our chief end is to glorify God. Jesus brings up this fundamental truth of God because this is the underlying reality from which all biblical revelation issues. Jesus points our attention to the glory of God because the glory of God is the purpose and the reason for the existence of all things. May the Holy Spirit open our eyes to see and savor the glory of God as the fountainhead of all blessing and good and the rarest gem which is the source of our great enjoyment and delight.

John 15:1-8, I in You

”I in you” are the words of our Lord to capture His manifest presence in His people who abide in Him. This speaks not only of the power and life of Jesus in us, but His very presence in us through His Holy Spirit. The only way to be sanctified and live the Christian life is for Christ to live in us, and Jesus shows us this is what is true of those who abide in Him. May we attain to the measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ as we learn to daily abide in Him.

John 15:1-8, The Fruitful Life

To live a life that bears much fruit is to live according to God’s intent for our lives. In this passage, Jesus explains to us what the fruitful life of a Christian is. He shows us that a life that conforms to the Lord Jesus Christ is the product of the Father’s expert orchestration of all things and the Son’s provision of all that need for life and godliness. Jesus explains this to us with a beautiful picture of a vineyard wherein the Father is the vinedresser, the Son is the vine, and humans are the branches. In this part 1 of the study of the fruitful life, we examine what fruit-bearing is and how it is that God operates in this world to bring about maximal fruitfulness in His people: cutting off the fruitless branches and the pruning of the fruitful ones.