Does It Honor God?
Notes
Transcript
introduction
We often view God on what we think God should be like. We also have a tendency to make him have our ideals and preferences. But last week we learned that God is holy. Who remembers what holy is? His character is perfect and unchanging and we can be confident that anything he asks us to do will fall right in line with his righteous character.
Some of us are prone to talk about ourselves and making ourselves look good. We are encouraged promote ourselves and look out for #1. This comes naturally for some of us but may not be God honoring. John Piper said “The chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying Him forever.”
This can seem daunting and impractical but, this can happen daily. Seeking to live in obedience to the great commission and the great commandment (or golden rule) are ways we can glorify him daily. John also teaches us that our love for one another will display God’s glory to the world.
First, the great commission calls us to make disciples of all nations. Not all of us are called to be international missionaries, all christians are called to reach the lost.
Second, Jesus taught that the great commandment instructs us to love God and others. Jesus said “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
The practical and real-life way we can glorify God is through obedience to the commands of Jesus to make disciples of all nations, to love God, and to love others-especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.
In this chapter, we hear Jesus pray to the Father. There have been mentions of him praying as he did this a lot but here we hear the details. We are behind the veil and see the Godhead communing with himself.
You may look to the Lord’s prayer but that really wasn’t the Lord’s prayer. This chapter IS the Lord’s prayer. Jesus was telling us how we should pray but he didn’t pray that prayer, because what does it say.
We honor God when we share about the eternal life Christ offers.
We honor God when we share about the eternal life Christ offers.
Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him. This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.
There are 3 phrases in this section we need to take a close look at.
When Jesus says “these things”, Christ is speaking about the end of Chapter 16. It ends with a long discourse after Jesus had washed the disciples feet, shared the Passover meal, predicted Judas’s betrayal, and Peter’s denial. He taught them about the Father, promised to send the Holy Spirit and told them to remain in him. Afterwards, Jesus tells the disciples about what is going to happen in the immediate future and beyond.
They would abandon him. We often think about how bad Judas was and that Peter denied him, but in reality, all the disciples abandoned him. They didn’t step forward during his trial, they weren’t even present. They were all guilty.
Second, Jesus told them they would face persecution. (John 16:32-33)
Indeed, an hour is coming, and has come, when each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
When John wrote “these things”, he was referring to the idea that the disciples would deny and desert Jesus.
We should remember that Jesus was not scolding the disciples. He was telling them these things because he wanted them to know that he would not be left alone. He wanted them to have peace. God the Father would be with him. When he looked to heaven, he was supremely confident that the Father was with him. God is faithful in all circumstances.
The second phase is “The hour has come.” Prior to this reference, Jesus had referred to the hour in two different places.
John 2:4
John 12:23
When praying to the Father, he mentioned his hour twice. First, being troubled and disturbed asking to be saved and then he resolved to move forward.
John 12:27
What is the hour that all these verses are pointing to? The arrest, torture, false trial, conviction, crucifixion, death and burial. It’s at this point the entire book of John points to. “It’s the hour the entire world has been anticipating. It’s the fulfillment of a promise made in the garden that God would send a rescuer to save humanity from sin.”
The third phrase relates to the concept of glory. The Father would glorify the son and the son would glorify the Father. What is glory? It refers to the demonstration of the power, majesty and beauty of God. It is divine radiance or divine splendor.
In Hebrew, Kavod means something like honor or importance and is connected to the idea of physical weight. Throughout the Old Testament, power, majesty and radiance is in view when this word is used.
In Greek, doxa has the same meaning. So when we sing the doxology, it is a formula for praising God. When we think about the idea of glory, we should think about the recognition of power, honor and radiance of God.
Now that we know what glory is, how could these events be glorifying? He was accused of crimes he did not commit. As I said earlier, he was tortured, crucified and buried.
God would be glorified because these events were planned be God before the foundations of the earth were laid.
Acts 2:22-24
Ephesians 1:3-5
1Peter 1:18-20
Jesus seems to pray here as if he already stood within the veil—not pleading in agony as he did in the garden of Gethsemane but speaking with that authority with which he is clothed now that his work on earth is done.
“What has this concern of yours to do with me, woman?” Jesus asked. “My hour has not yet come.”
Jesus replied to them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
“Now my soul is troubled. What should I say—Father, save me from this hour? But that is why I came to this hour.
“Fellow Israelites, listen to these words: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know. Though he was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him. God raised him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by death.
Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him. He predestined us to be adopted as sons through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you.
Jesus said he was willingly laying down his life. (John 10:15-18)
So although his death was the result of sinful human action, it was the plan from eternity past. Isaiah 53:10
Jesus declared that the Father had given him authority over all people. Some translations say all flesh. The idea is that Jesus has authority over all creation. This is focused primarily on humankind. Whether people acknowledge his Lordship or not, doesn’t change the fact that he is their creator and sustainer.
Philippians 2:10-11
We need to remember that Jesus doesn’t need anyone to submit to his lordship in order to legitimize it. He is who he is, Lord over all people. But we will see later that he relates to us in a special way that sets us apart from the rest of the word.
The purpose of this authority is so that Jesus may “give eternal life to everyone you have given him.” Even though he has lordship over all people he has a special relationship with a certain group of people. Those whom the Father has given to Jesus are those whom Jesus gives eternal life. Eternal life is what distinguishes his own from the rest of the world.
What does John 3:16 say?
Jesus is the only way to eternal life. At another time during Jesus’s ministry, people were turning their backs on him. Peter recognized that Jesus was the only source of eternal life. Jesus asked him if he would stop following him. Peter replied in John 6:68.
Eternal life does not merely refer to an existence that lasts forever. After all, everyone will live eternally, either in heaven or in hell. To receive eternal life, then, is to enter into the divine realm with the goal of experiencing an intimate relationship with God through Jesus, a relationship that will grow throughout eternity. It is the uninterrupted, deepening knowledge and experience of God. This is the purpose for which we were created.
The essence of eternal life is knowing God. We should remember that there is a difference between knowing about God and knowing God.
We can know facts and stories from the Bible without knowing who God is. You find God between the popular stories. That is where you get to know who he is and how he loves and relates to you. You know God not just by the stories but by the whole thing.
Give analogy about red pen logic favorite color, song, band, food. Or parents.
Also, you can’t know God unless you know Jesus. If you truly know Jesus then you know God. John pointed this out in 1 John 4:2-3.
Knowing God is inseparably linked to knowing Jesus. There are plenty of religions out there who claim to be christian, but if they deny that Jesus is God incarnate, then they have not only denied Jesus but also the Father, and therefore, do not know God.
just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep. But I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen; I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. Then there will be one flock, one shepherd. This is why the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own. I have the right to lay it down, and I have the right to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.”
Isaiah 53:10 (CSB)
Yet the Lord was pleased to crush him severely. When you make him a guilt offering, he will see his seed, he will prolong his days, and by his hand, the Lord’s pleasure will be accomplished.
Philippians 2:10–11 (CSB)
so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow—in heaven and on earth and under the earth—and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life.
This is how you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming; even now it is already in the world.
We honor God when we continue the work He has given us.
We honor God when we continue the work He has given us.
I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.
Jesus said he had glorified the Father”by completing the work you gave me to do”. Even though the cross was still in the future, it was certain.
If you look at v. 1, Jesus stated “Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you” and now he says “I have glorified you.” What does this mean?
The truth that Jesus was obedient not only in death and burial but also living a sinless life. He lived a sinless perfect life and was faithful in everything that he did to the Father. He was the perfect sacrifice for our sins based on perfect and sinless life.
Hebrews 9:23-10:18
The glory that Jesus was predicting is, in one sense, not new. This glory extends back before the sinless life of Christ or even his birth. The glory that he is referring to existed before the world came into being. The glory that would be made known through the death and resurrection of Jesus would display “the glory I had with you before the world existed.”
In reality, Jesus’s glory doesn’t change. It doesn’t get stronger and weaker, it is the constant radiant center of the universe.
Hebrews 9:23–10:18 (CSB)
Therefore, it was necessary for the copies of the things in the heavens to be purified with these sacrifices, but the heavenly things themselves to be purified with better sacrifices than these. For Christ did not enter a sanctuary made with hands (only a model of the true one) but into heaven itself, so that he might now appear in the presence of God for us. He did not do this to offer himself many times, as the high priest enters the sanctuary yearly with the blood of another. Otherwise, he would have had to suffer many times since the foundation of the world. But now he has appeared one time, at the end of the ages, for the removal of sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—so also Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.
Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come, and not the reality itself of those things, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, purified once and for all, would no longer have any consciousness of sins? But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said:
You did not desire sacrifice and offering,
but you prepared a body for me.
You did not delight
in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings.
Then I said, “See—
it is written about me
in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, God.”
After he says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings (which are offered according to the law), he then says, See, I have come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all time.
Every priest stands day after day ministering and offering the same sacrifices time after time, which can never take away sins. But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. He is now waiting until his enemies are made his footstool. For by one offering he has perfected forever those who are sanctified. The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says:
This is the covenant I will make with them
after those days,
the Lord says,
I will put my laws on their hearts
and write them on their minds,
and I will never again remember
their sins and their lawless acts.
Now where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer an offering for sin.
We honor God when we pray and disciple others.
We honor God when we pray and disciple others.
“I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.
“I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, because they are yours.
Jesus has a special people set apart for himself. That there is a subset of people whom he reveals the Father. The idea of people being set apart for God has been seen throughout scripture. Noah was set apart and saved from a worldwide flood. Abram was called was for people to be set apart. The entire book of Leviticus is about how God’s people should be distinct from all humanity.
The call to follow Jesus is a call to come out of the world and everything that it has and follow Christ. The word church in Greek, ekklesia, refers to the gathering or assembling together in the name of God or Jesus.
This subset is set apart by God and for God. Those who are not, do not belong to him in a salvation sense. As members of this group, we should invite those who are outside. We should not act as if they are apart of this community though. We serve by telling them about Jesus, who he is and what he did and that there is no salvation except through repentance from sin and putting their faith in him.
These people that Jesus refers to have always belonged to the Father. “They were yours.” The Bible is full of this idea about people being set apart for himself.
Jer. 1:5
Acts 13:48
Romans 8:29
Here we see that the people whom the Father gave to the son always belonged to the father.
Jesus described this group of people when he says “They have kept your word”. The life of a true disciple is marked by love and obedience. Obviously it’s never perfect though.
Jesus said “Now they know that everything you have given me is from you, because I have given them the words you gave me. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.” God’s people recognize the works and words of God.
Unbelievers might observe the works and hear the word of God, but they don’t see them as signs pointing to Jesus. The gospels are filled with stories of people who didn’t get the point.
All four gospels tell the story of him feeding the 5000. This was meant to point people to the power, authority and deity of Christ. Instead, people just looked for moire signs and wonders. Jesus said that many pursued him to fill their stomachs and not for salvation.
John 6:26-27
Jesus said that he was praying for them and not the world. Why do you think he says this? Doesn’t he love the world? Of course he does!
Look again at John 3:16! But here he is speaking about the special kind of love he has for his people.
There are 5 ways the Bible speaks about love.
The first is the intra-trinitarian love: the love the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have for each other.
The second is God’s love for his creation.
The third is God’s salvation love for the world.
The fourth is God’s unconditional love for His people-meaning we can’t do anything to merit salvation.
The fifth is that God’s love is conditioned on the obedience of his people-He expects us to be sanctified.
Sanctification does not mean sinless perfection, otherwise Christ could never say, “I sanctify Myself” (v. 19), for He had no sin. A sanctified Christian is someone who is daily growing in the Word and as a result is separated more and more from the world unto the Father.
I chose you before I formed you in the womb;
I set you apart before you were born.
I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
When the Gentiles heard this, they rejoiced and honored the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed to eternal life believed.
For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs, but because you ate the loaves and were filled. Don’t work for the food that perishes but for the food that lasts for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set his seal of approval on him.”