I'm I'm If you're a believer in Christ, do you realize God had your salvation planned even before the world existed?

We'll learn why that's true today on Truth for Life, and we'll hear how each person of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, is involved in the process.

Alistair Begg is teaching from chapter 17 in the Gospel of John.

What we've done so far, I've tried to do so far, in the first five verses,

is pay attention to the timeline in relationship to what Jesus says as he begins his prayer,

the hour has come, so that we've thought about it, if you like, within the framework of time.

But here in verses 4 and 5, we actually move beyond that.

And so we consider verses 4 and 5 the words that he addresses to his father in light of eternity.

And we have this amazing phrase that closes verse 5, before the world existed, which comes

back again in the 24th verse, when he says, Father, I desire that they also, you have given

me, may be with me where I am to see my glory, that you have given me because you love

me, and here we go again,

before the foundation of the world. I want to make two observations from this this morning,

first of all, to observe the report that Jesus gives in verse four, to which we'll come, and the request which Jesus

makes in verse five, which is where we'll begin. His request there of the Father is clear,

and now, Father, glorify me in your own presence, with the glory I had with you before the world existed."

And with these words, Jesus takes us beyond the realm of time and takes us across all the years

that ever existed. Before there was time, before there was anything, there was God. The created world was

brought into existence by God. There is God, who is the ultimate reality, and then there is everyone and everything else. It's very,

very important that we understand the way in which the Bible makes this perfectly clear. God,

the Creator, and then everyone and everything else, the created.

God in charge of it all.

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