Giving Glory

Since the beginning of time, human beings have sought to cultivate deeper relationships. We recognize our need for community, trust, love, and shared anticipation of what the future may hold. In fact, we have so sought deeper communities and personal relationships that we have created all kinds of avenues to help us connect, celebrate, and nurture our relationships.

Get to know you events - harvest festivals

coming of age rituals - story telling traditions

We write songs and poetry expressing our convictions and desires for one another.

Marriage ceremonies may be the deepest expression of this relational desire.

But even if you practice the “7 steps to to the perfect friendship,”

or, if you choose to embrace all of the ways in which mankind has aimed to know and understand one another, there is still a better way. Songs and poetry express what we know, feel and desire, but over time those desires change. In the same way, we have seen rituals, traditions, and even marriages that faded over time. Yes, we need to embrace tools to help us cultivate relationships, but perhaps the best, most needed tool of all is the least used.

What if I told you, there is an ongoing way in which you can build trust over time? What if I told you that you can continue to know and understand the deeper convictions and desires of those around you? That as their lives change, they grow, and their desires change, you can track with them all along the way. As long as you prove to be trust worthy in how you care for them, you can help create a space for them to share their deepest convictions and concerns.

If you can learn all of their ongoing, inner thoughts in an ongoing way, than you will come to know, love, and naturally compliment their deepest convictions. We are talking about relationships that not only last, but thrive. The reason you can thrive is because you have come to their heart.

Perhaps some of you already guessed it, but the answer is prayer. When we learn to pray together with regularity and in vulnerability, we are making the best relational investments. But these types of investments come over time. As trust is built, as you learn to before the Father together. But I assure you, the reward in your relationships is well worth it.

This is one of the reasons we have embraced a culture of prayer. Because we want to be a body of believers who are united, who know each others longings and spur each other towards what the Lord has placed on our hearts. While there is tremendous fruit in praying together, we do not pray with the fruit being the focal point. Instead, we keep the Lord at the center of our prayer life. He is the focal point of all of life and it is our relationship with Him is of utmost importance. Which is why as a church we embrace Scripture-Fed, Spirit-Led, Worship-Based prayer. Because we want to keep our focus on the Lord as individuals and as a community.

Here is where we find a great beauty in life. As we learn to pray with and for one another, by keeping the Lord as our focal point in prayer, we not only get to learn each others heart, but we get to learn and know His heart. Because we are created in His image, as we get to know His heart, we will naturally be compelled to grow into all that God desire’s for us. Friends, we are talking about the answer to all of life’s deeper questions, we are talking about Jesus.

Today, we are starting a five week series on John 17. This is a chapter that records Jesus’ prayer life as He approached His most pivotal point of ministry. We not only get to hear how Jesus prayed, but we have the opportunity to discover some longings of His heart.

What compelled Him as he looked forward to the future.

We get to see His inner longings put on display and how we, here in this room were part of them.

Our aim in this series, is to draw very near to Jesus as we seek after His very heart.

Let’s pray, that He would guide us as we study His word.

Today we are going to walk through our passage just one verse at a time. As we consider these introductory verses, we need to know that they function as the header to the rest of the chapter. These verses are the main point, everything to follow are sub-points that are based on the reality. What follows is a great value for us, yet, it is only able to follow because of the truth found here.

John 17:1 “ When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven.”

This may be something small that we don’t always consider, but I think it is important especially given the recent weeks in the Psalms of Ascent. You see posture in prayer matters. It’s not that you have to find the right physical posture in order to pray. You can pray wherever you are regardless of posture. Yet, posture matters. Meaning that it is about finding your place of reverence before God. Being intentional in small ways and big ways to come before the Lord with a deep sense of respect and awe. We see Jesus model this practice in a number of passages.

Kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:41-42.

Falling on His face in the Garden, Matthew 26:39.

Lifting His eyes and His hands to the Lord - Common Cultural practice

John 11:41-42.

Mark 6:41.

We see Jesus posture Himself in different ways to express His worship to God. It is a lesson that we should also learn. That our posture, our attitude, our stopping for a moment to remove distraction and simply focus on God are all ways for us to intentionally be reverent before God. If Jesus made it a practice to intentionally posture Himself before prayer, shouldn’t we aim to do the same?

My own Prayer life - Feeling compelled to change my posture.

Raising my hands

praying on my knees

laying down with my face on the ground

Not because it is comfortable, and yes, I can get a little self conscious -

But I want to show God honor and respect.

I want to worship Him with all that I have and posture can communicate something.

Take a look at what Jesus prays in verse 1.

John 17:1 “1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,”

Jesus says “The hour has come.”

We see throughout the book of John that Jesus is on divine timetable. We get these little comments that indicate Jesus is aware of what is about to happen.

This tells us that Jesus truly is God in the flesh. The fact that He knows when He is to heal, deliver, or cast out. The fact that He knows all about the woman at the well even though he had never met her. Now we see, that He knows the time of His own death.

Consider this with me. We read all throughout the gospels that Jesus had a habit of prayer. That He prayed with the disciples, and that He had a regular habit of removing Himself so that He could spend time with the Father in prayer. Yet, this is the only extensive prayer of Jesus that is recorded in the gospels. How should that elevate the way we evaluate this prayer that is recorded? How much more intently should we study it, knowing that Jesus prayed this the night before going to the cross?

I don’t know about you, but in my life, when I get fearful, when I grow deeply concerned, when it appears to me there is a threat against my life - I pray with a little more seriousness. I pray with a little more focus.

We know from the scriptures that this moment was weighing heavy on Jesus. That in the Garden of Gethsemane, He was sweating drops of blood and had to be strengthened by an angel of the Lord. In this prayer, Jesus was very focused, very direct. If we pay attention, we find that in this short chapter, He reveals much about His heart as we see deeper longings flowing out of Him.

In verse one we see that He cares about posture and His living on a divine timetable is an evidence of His divinity.

Thirdly, in verse 1, Jesus says, “glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.”

Its another phrase, that reveals His claim of being God in the flesh. In Isaiah 42:8 “8 I am the Lord; that is my name; my glory I give to no other.” Isaiah 48:11 “My glory I will not give to another.”

To pray that God would glorify Him is first, a claim to be God. God only gives His glory to Himself. It is not a token to be given away - no one else could ever handle it. Therefore, no man can ever claim the glory of God, but it is the gift of salvation that gives us hope of being in glory with Him.

Secondly, this is a longing of Jesus that is reflective of the operations of the Trinity. How God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are in perfect union with one another. A perfect love relationship where they are three persons in one being. It’s this perfect unity and love between them that not only allows them but compels them to freely give, to freely share glory. And it would seem that when they give glory to one another, what they are actually doing is as they receiving it they give it. What is so magnificent about this is we are actually going to find that it appears it not only only is a constant sharing of glory, but the function of giving glory actually moves God’s cause of redemption and restoration of the cosmos.

Perhaps, this sounds familiar to you. Maybe it sounds similar to a principle that we talk about here at Grace church. A principle given by God to Abraham that is a call for all of God’s children, in all times, and in all places.

That we are “blessed by God so that we can be a blessing”

That as His children we can freely give because we have been freely given.

And when we as the people of God live out that frame, that understanding that the God of all creation, the God of the universe has promised to meet my every need, I can be so generous towards other people. Because I will never be able to give away more than He has given me.

You see, just as the giving of glory from one member of the Trinity to the other moves the Cause of God forward, so it is when we choose to live life with the understanding that we are “Blessed to be a blessing.”

Take a look at Verse 2

John 17:2 “since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”

The father gave authority to the Son. He gave Jesus authority over all flesh, over all the world. With that authority Jesus healed, cast out demons, raised the dead, calmed the storms, walked on water. Again, again and again, Jesus revealed His authority over all the world. This statement to the Father is almost like a report. It is almost like He is saying, “Father, you gave me this authority for a purpose and it was to reveal yourself to this lost world. Father, through my ministry they have seen your authority.

So in a sense, the Father glorified the Son by giving Him authority and with that authority the Son glorified the father be revealing the power of His presence among the people.

Now, you may have noticed that Jesus said “to give eternal life” and Jesus continues to build on that line in verse three:

John 17:3 “3 And this is eternal life, that they KNOW YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

According to Jesus the definition of having eternal life is as simple as this: you must know God.

It is not some form of knowledge or mental understanding. It is not because you are able to quote the Ten Commandments or John 3:16. It is not from your own wisdom, from your good works, it is not because you were worthy or that you somehow cleansed and purified yourself.

The reality of mankind is that we are morally bankrupt, totally depraved - even if we were able to straighten up, turn our lives around and live a life separate from sin.... we would still carry the stench of our wickedness. There is one way to have eternal life and it is to intimately KNOW GOD. This is knowing the very person of God. It is walking with Him, listening to Him, trusting Him, surrendering control. Choosing to live life His way instead of my way. To Know God means that you do all of this, not to earn your salvation but because you are saved. Once the Holy Spirit grabs hold of your life, once you have invited Him in you are called to know Him in Prayer, to seek Him in His word, to watch His transformative power change every fiber and desire in your being.

Here at Grace Church, our vision is to KNOW GOD and because we KNOW HIM, because we have WALKED with HIM, Because we have SEEN what He is able to do, Because WE KNOW EVERY GRAIN OF TRUTH THAT HAS EVER EXISTED IS FOUND IN HIM. Because we have tasted that presence of His glory and have personally known Him we long to also MAKE HIM KNOWN. Because He is the prize and the joy of life.

Throughout Jesus’ teaching He has made it very clear that “If we have seen Jesus, we have seen the Father.” Meaning, that we can know the Father because we have known Jesus and we can know Jesus because we have know His HOLY SPIRIT who lives in us.

Now, pay attention to this because everything that Jesus has said so far carries deep theological truth that reveals His inner longings as well as the Fathers. Every phrase and every line is worthy of our careful consideration.

But now in verse 4-5, He comes back to His primary, over-arching purpose:

John 17:4–5 “4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

It is almost as if Jesus is giving reasons for the Father to answer His prayer.

Father, with all you gave me, with all the authority over flesh, over wind, water, over spiritual beings, in every area I have used that authority to bring glory to your name. I have accomplished the task, I have fulfilled all of the prophecies. The work is done. Except for one thing. There is still one more piece and it is significant.

In verse 5, looking to what is about to happen, knowing that He is going to die on the cross, that His time here on earth as a man will come to an end, Jesus prays “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

There are three implications to this critical line.

In asking the Father to glorify Him, Jesus is asking the Father not to leave Him in the grave but to bring Him back into His presence, meaning that He would have to pass from the grave into eternal communion with the Father. By going through with it, He is demonstrating great trust and confidence in the Father.

If Jesus left the luxury of heaven to experience the hard realities of physical life so that He could reveal the goodness of God to you, so that He could die on the cross for your sin, so that He could raise to life again, securing eternal life with Him for anyone who would believe. If He did all of that for you, and He demonstrates this level of trust towards the Father, that the Father should raise Him from the grave, how should that inspire our trust in God?

The second implication of verse 5 is that in becoming a man Jesus removed Himself from the glory of God’s presence. He asks that He would again be glorified in God’s presence - meaning that He once was... but part of the humiliation of God becoming man was that He would step out of the eternal communion that had always been known between The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. Meaning, that even for Jesus to come in the form of a man came a serious cost. Part of the price that He paid to make salvation available to you.

Jesus’ longing for glory is to restore eternal communion.

Friends, what we learn about God in this passage, is that there is a longing to freely share glory with each other. By freely giving glory by humble sacrifice, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are able to live perfectly united, with the same clarity of mission, with the same love and affection for one another. The Trinity is the perfect love of God put on display.

Furthermore, these actions of glorifying each other, are actions that invite us into the perfect love of God.

John 17:6–10 “6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.”

As we consider these first ten verses of Jesus’ prayer, we get a sneak peak at the longing of His heart. First and foremost, Jesus wants to see the Father glorified. So He committed Himself to doing what would bring the Father Glory. Secondly, Jesus longs for the perfect love relationship with the Father. To be re-unified in each others presence where they continue to eternally share glory with one another.

The beautiful reality God functioning this way is that there is a by product.... and its us.

What is glorifying to God is the redemption and restoration of His people. Who were so consumed with wickedness that they could not know or see God. Yet, God not only broke the curse, but He took it to the grave.

I think we all understand that there is value in righteous people praying for us.

Proverbs 15:29 “The Lord is far from the wicked, but he hears the prayer of the righteous.”

We know that it is good and right to pray for one another. How much better is it to know that Jesus also prayed for us? He prayed that we would know God, the fulness of truth that resides in Him. And He also prayed for the Father to permit us eternal life.

In verse three, Jesus defined eternal life as knowing God.

The heart of Jesus longs to see the Father glorified

The heart of Jesus longs to be glorified with the Father

Jesus is glorified in saving our souls for eternity. Thus, Jesus longs for you to walk intimately with Him. Knowing Him, trusting Him, Giving Him Glory.