Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Reading of Scripture

[ Prayer ]

A reading from John 17:1-5 —

This is God’s Word.

[ Say Amen ]

Introduction

This Christmas season, we are asking the question:

Why did Jesus come?

Why did heaven come down to earth?

Why did God become a man?

Why was Christ born into the world as a baby, born of a virgin, in Bethlehem?

The simple answer “to save sinners, such as me” is sufficient but not complete.

Why did Jesus come?

— It is a Christmas question.

And in search of a more complete answer, we are turning to prayer.

Not just any prayer, but —

The Prayers of CHRISTmas

which are the prayers of Christ Himself.

John 17 is a prayer of Jesus.

So this Christmas, we are moving from incarnation to intercession, completing the circuit of the Christmas story —a story which did not begin on earth with a donkey, a stable and a manger — but a story which began in Heaven before the world was created, as the star, the angelic hosts, and this prayer remind us.

Heaven came to earth - the Word became flesh, so that earth might see “his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1.14).

If we want to learn why Jesus came, we must look at what Jesus prayed.

We can tell a lot about a person by the context, the posture, the address and the content of that person’s prayers.

Listen to how someone prays, and you will see the heart exposed.

You will see passions, the will, the motivations and desires.

What do our prayers reveal about us?

What did Jesus’ prayers reveal about Him?

In John’s gospel, Jesus had just finished his “final discourse” - his final message to his disciples before the cross.

In his final words of his final discourse, he spoke about “overcoming the world” as an already accomplished fact by which his followers should take courage.

Then at the beginning of Chapter 17, God’s Word says —

This was the FIRST prayer of Christ —

“glorify your Son”

It was a prayer of anticipation.

Jesus did not do anything without prayer.

This prayer came as the hour had come for fulfilling what Jesus had longed for and lived for.

It was also a relational petition: God was His Father — not Joseph, but God — the Father, the holy Father, the righteous Father.

And He was God’s Son.

In perfect Father-Son relationship, Jesus asks first and preeminently, that the Son be glorified for a purpose - so that the Son may glorify the Father.

Jesus has a purpose for his prayer and a purpose for his coming — and that preeminent purpose is His Father’s glory.

The Father is glorified as the world learns of His steadfast love and faithfulness through the obedience of the Son.

The Father is glorified as the world knows Him, the only true God, through Jesus Christ whom He has sent.

II.

The Exhortation

The second prayer of CHRISTmas is like the first.

In verse 1, Jesus prays “glorify your Son.”

In verse 5, we are given the second prayer of Christ:

“glorify me”

Not — “glorify your Son” but “glorify me.”

Both prayers are prayed by and prayed about the same person — Jesus.

But the words shift in a significant way —

In the first prayer, Jesus speaks of Himself relationally as “Son,” but in the second prayer, Jesus speaks of Himself personally as “me.”

Why does Jesus pray “glorify your Son” and then pray “glorify me”? —

What is the difference?

The difference is Christmas!

The difference is the incarnation.

The difference is Immanuel!

Jesus prayed two prayers for glory, one in view of his humanity - He is man, and the other in view of his divinity - He is God.

In the first prayer, “glorify your Son,” Jesus desires that His Father be glorified through His work on earth - as Son.

This is the glory of the Son’s humanity - God becoming man to bring the Father glory on earth.

But in this second prayer, “glorify me,” Jesus desires the glory he had before - the glory he left - in the presence of His Father in Heaven.

This is the glory of the Son’s divinity.

(See Pillar, 557).

Why is this distinction important?

Why is this second prayer important?

Because

It reveals to us that Jesus is God - and we are not.

Jesus is God, and we are not.

This prayer “Glorify Me” is a prayer that only Jesus can pray.

Yet, it is a prayer that we regularly pray for ourselves, and don’t realize it.

“Glorify me.”

That’s what we really want, in our flesh, isn’t it?

That’s what I really want humanly speaking, isn’t it?

It’s what happens in a prayer meeting when someone begins to pray and makes the prayer all about himself or herself.

“O God, I really need this…I really want that…I really hope for this...”

We make prayer all about my desires, not God’s.

We make the prayer all about what I want, not what God wants.

We begin with me, not with God.

It’s like singing “I exalt me....I exalt me....I exalt me…O Lord.”

Make much of ME.

Raise up high — ME.

Make great — ME.

We think too highly of ourselves to the point that we seek the glory of ourselves.

We climb the ladders so that WE might be the ones on the top.

We aspire to oversee so that WE might be in control.

We are sinfully predisposed to make much of ourselves and apart from Christ that will never change.

This is sin.

One that we are to avoid.

One that the apostle Paul wrote about to the church in Corinth [ 1 Corinthians 1.26-29 — ] when he wrote:

We, as human beings, have no reason to boast in the presence of God.

Yet Jesus prays here, in verse 5:

“glorify me in your own presence.”

There is something special about Jesus’ humanity.

This is a prayer that only Jesus can pray, for Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and the Scriptures would have us understand therefore, that this means

Jesus IS God.

Yes — the baby in the manger, is the Word that was with God and that was God, in the beginning with God, through whom all things were made, whose light is the light of men, whose light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn 1.1-5).

Jesus IS God.

Without this second prayer of Christ, “glorify me,” we would lose a powerful statement of Christ’s divinity.

A reminder of His eternality.

And Jesus is the only one who can pray this prayer.

This is a personal prayer.