Troubled Souls, Honest Prayers

Our Daily Bread

Date: December 30, 2023

Scripture: John 12:27-36

Main Verse: John 12:28

Father, glorify your name!

Prayer:Lord, we thank you for the gift of your Word and as we think on these things, open our hearts and our minds to hear you. Amen.

Titled: Troubled Souls, Honest Prayers

Three days before a bomb blast rocked his home in January 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had an encounter that marked him for the rest of his life. After receiving a threatening phone call, King found himself pondering an exit strategy from the civil rights movement. Then prayers emerged from his soul. “I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But now I am afraid. I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I can't face it alone.” After his prayer, there came quiet assurance. King noted, “Almost at once my fears began to go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.” In John 12, Jesus acknowledged, “My soul is troubled” (v. 27). He was transparently honest about His internal disposition; still He was God-centered in His prayer. “Father, glorify your name!” (v. 28). Jesus’ prayer was one of surrender to God’s will. How human it is for us to feel the pangs of fear and discomfort when we find ourselves with the option of honoring God or not; when wisdom requires making hard decisions about relationships, habits, or other patterns (good or bad). No matter what we’re faced with, as we pray boldly to God, He’ll give us the strength to overcome our fear and discomfort and do what brings glory to Him—for our good and the good of others.

By: Arthur Jackson

Lesson

John gives a clear and straightforward statement of his purpose for writing this book: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:31 niv). To achieve this purpose, John shows, throughout the Gospel, that Jesus was, in fact, the Christ of God, the prophesied one, and the only source of salvation. This is the dominant theme of the entire book.

As we come to our lesson this morning in John’s gospel, we are getting in just on the tail end of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Palm Sunday has just passed with all the hosannas and all the hail the king still ringing in the ears of Jesus, we find Him now completely changing the scene. He has moved from Bethany after the resurrection of Lazarus with the great multitude of people, He has been met by another multitude surging out of the city upon hearing of the resurrection of Lazarus. This massive multitude is crying “Hosanna,” and “Hail the King,” and Jesus moves into the city and to the temple and there begins to speak. Jesus knows that all the hosannas and all the hails are totally superficial. He knows that the crowd is as fickle as they could possibly be. He knows that the same crowd that is now hailing Him is going to cry for His blood within a matter of days.

The greatest thing in the world that any body or anything can aspire to, is to glorify God. This is what the world exists for, and even though it was derailed by sin and death, God is working to make even the insurrection of humanity something that glorifies Himself and is good for us.

That’s why we say, “What is the chief end of man? to Glorify God and Enjoy Him forever!”

Say it with me! “What is the chief end of man? to Glorify God and Enjoy Him forever!”

Jesus came to glorify God in the mission that the Father had given him. And the Father had answered from heaven to back-up what Jesus was saying.

So when we come to our text in John 12 this morning there is no surprise when we hear Jesus praying that this would actually happen at the most important point of his earthly life, namely his death and resurrection. That God would in fact be glorified, in the rescue of sinners. Look at John 12:27–30.

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? [We know he means the hour of his death because in verse 24 he had said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”] But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.”

In verse 27b Jesus says, “For this purposeI have come to this hour.” What purpose? Answer: verse 28a, “Father, glorify your name.” That is why my death approaches.

The Father hears Jesus’ prayer and answers in verse 28b, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” He had just glorified his name in the resurrection of Lazarus (John 11:4, 40), and now he will glorify it in the death and resurrection of Jesus.

And don’t miss the emphasis on God’s own commitment to glorify God. The text doesn’t just say that Jesus prayed for God to glorify God. Verse 28: “Father, glorify your name.” It also tells us that God himself says, I have and I will. God sent angels to say it in Luke 2. And God himself says it in John 12:28b, “I have glorified [my name], and I will glorify it again.” The deepest reason why we live for the glory of God is because God lives for the glory of God. We are passionate about God’s glory because God is passionate about God’s glory.

And what makes this such good news especially in the Gospel of John is that the glory of God is full of grace and truth. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The most glorious thing about God is that he is so completely, fully self-sufficient that the glory of the fullness of his being overflows in truth and grace for his creatures. He doesn’t need us. And therefore in his fullness he overflows for us.

Everything God does is the display of some aspect of his glory—his beauty, his greatness. And in today’s text, John calls our attention to four ways that God glorifies himself at this supreme “hour” in Jesus’ existence—the hour of death and resurrection—the hour when the seed falls into the ground and dies and bears much fruit. We see today some of that amazing fruit.

I’ll mention these four ways that God glorifies himself in the death and resurrection of Jesus and then we will look at them briefly. 1) God glorifies himself by judging the world; 2) God glorifies himself by casting out the ruler of this world, Satan; 3) God glorifies himself by drawing all of his sheep to Jesus; and 4) God glorifies himself by shining as the Light of the world in the lives of those who believe in Jesus. That’s the order that they come in the text. So let’s look at them one at a time in that order.