John 17:1-10 "The Glory of God"

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                For the remainder of this Lenten season, we will be looking at what is commonly known as the High Priestly Prayer.  It’s found in John 17 and is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus.  It comes immediately on the heels of Jesus’ time of sharing the Passover Meal with his disciples in the Upper Room (known as the Last Supper) and his final words of instruction for his disciples that we looked at a little bit last Sunday.  We said that Jesus spent a good bit of time teaching his disciples and preparing them for life without him.  At the conclusion of that teaching, we see Jesus immediately turn his attention to God.  “When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said…”  There’s no passage of time.  There’s no changing of locations.  There is this immediate prayer that comes at the end of Jesus’ teaching, seemingly akin to our pastoral prayer that we offer up after a sermon.  John Stott so eloquently states of Jesus’ immediate prayer that “he now waters the seeds of prayer which he has been sowing.”  And you know, this is sort of an odd thing to find in the gospel accounts.  Every other time that Jesus finished teaching or preaching or healing or some other work, he retreated into solitude for a time of intimate prayer with His Father.  However, here in John 17, we’re given a glimpse into the type of prayer life that Jesus had with the Father.  It’s often said that the faith of a man can many times be evaluated more by his prayer life than anything else.  It’s not necessarily what we say, but the emotions and the convictions and the faithfulness with which we say it.  Here in John 17, we see the real desire that Jesus has for himself, for the Father, and for all those who follow him.

                Now, before we really dive into the words of the prayer itself, I want to ask you a question and I want you to keep it at the forefront of your mind as we look at our text for today.  I want you to just sort of really quickly think about why you’re here.  Now, I don’t mean this physical place, although that is a good thing to ponder as well.  What I’m talking about is this:  why did God create you and make you the way that you are with all of your gifts and abilities and everything that makes you, you?  In other words, what is your reason for being?  Maybe your answer has something to do with work or family or helping others.  Well, just remember that and we’ll pull it back out later on this morning.

                Looking quickly at Jesus’ prayer, we notice two words or concepts that really seem to stick out in the first 10 verses.  The first is that we see Jesus refer to God almost exclusively as Father.  Our Women’s Bible Study group walked through a book on prayer a while back and the author of the book pointed out the beauty of being able to call out to God and refer to Him as Father, a title of intimacy.  I know as a father myself that there are no more precious words that anyone can say to me other than one of my kids calling me Dad or Daddy or some other variation of that title.  However, the author of this book that we looked at also pointed out the fact that some people haven’t had the best earthly fathers in their lives, so they struggle with relating to the notion of a loving father.  While that may be true, it’s important to know that God the Father isn’t like any earthly father that has ever been or ever will be.  God the Father is eternally good.  There is no sin within Him and there is nothing in Him that is not completely holy.  The title Father is not meant to be a deterrent in our relationship with God, but a blessing.  It is a special thing to call someone father.  I tell my kids all the time that they are the only three people in the world who can call me Dad.  Anybody can call me by my name, but only they can call me their father.  Jesus referring to God as Father shows the intimacy that exists between the Son and the Father.  It speaks to the special relationship that exists between Father and Son.  Prior to this, the concept of referring to God as Father would have been pretty foreign.  Don’t get me wrong, the fatherhood of God as it pertained to His people was well known, but praying to God and using the title Father was virtually unheard of.  It was a much more formal relationship that existed between God and His people.  Yes, He was in a relationship with them and yes there was a love that existed there.  However, it was not a relationship of intimacy like we see here between Jesus and the Father.  If you’ve ever heard anyone refer to their parents by their first names (at least in childhood), there usually isn’t much intimacy in the relationship.  Now that’s not always the case, but I feel more intimate with my kids when they call me Dad than if they were to call me Tommy.

                The second thing that we see repeated throughout this text is the concept of glory, in particular, the glory of God the Father.  In the first five verses alone there are numerous uses of the word itself.  “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you…I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”  Jesus was acknowledging the fact, during this intimate time of prayer, that all that he did during his life on earth was not for his own glory, but for the glory of God.  Now, ultimately, Jesus is glorified through his work because he is God.  We’ll come back to that thought in a moment.  However, when you or I do some good work, it is not ourselves that ought to be the recipients of any glory, but God.  R.C. Sproul, in his commentary on this passage, says that when we seek glory, we do so at the expense of God.  As I read that comment this week, I stopped and pondered on it for a while because I didn’t really know how to take that.  I was having trouble understanding how anything that I do to bring about glory or praise upon myself could inherently be an affront to God.  I mean, I can understand if I was going around and seeking for people to tell me how great and wonderful I am, then that could be a bad thing, but not something that I would consider an offense against God.  Then, I sort of started off on this whole rabbit-trail of studying the word glory, and what I found was that the word glory is kind of hard to really define.  I won’t take the time to play back everything that I found for you, but I’ll give the cliff notes version.  Glory is typically understood as meaning something along the lines of honor, renown, an especially divine quality, the unspoken manifestation of God, or splendor.  It has to do with a weightiness or heaviness.  Ultimately, it has to do with the majesty and beauty of God.  As I said, it’s really kind of one of those things that we know what it means, but we can’t really put it into words.  We just know that it is something of God and it’s something good (which is redundant).

                Then, as I was muddling through these linguistic waters my lifelong Presbyterianism kicked in and I remembered the Westminster Confession of Faith.  All of you in here who are familiar with WCF (which is hopefully everyone) can probably already guess where I’m going with this.  The first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism asks “what is man’s chief end (or primary purpose)?”  The answer is “to glorify God and enjoy him always.”  You see, I’m not here, we’re not here, to do anything but glorify God, which allows us to enjoy Him.  We’re not here to glorify ourselves.  The glory of God and the glory of man are opposing forces.  When we do things that bring about glory for ourselves, we are taking glory away from the Father.  It’s become cliché in our world for athletes, actors, or anyone who wins a contest to thank God and give Him the glory (saying, “I just give all the glory to God”), but in reality, that is exactly what we’re supposed to do.  We’re supposed to deflect from ourselves and say that it’s not because of us but because of the glory of God, Soli Deo Gloria (glory to God alone). 

                So, when Jesus petitions in verse 5 for God to glorify him, is that a violation of this principle of glory to God alone.  Well, if you were paying attention a moment ago, you heard me say that when Jesus is glorified, so is God because Jesus is God.  Jesus is praying for the glory, for the relationship that he had with the Father “before the world existed.”  Now, y’all know that Amy and I deeply love our children.  However, we do on occasion look at each other and ask each other, do you remember what it was like before kids?  Don’t you just wish we could go back there?  Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to come home on a Friday and decide at the last minute to take a trip and be able to do it?  Wouldn’t it be nice to go out of town and not require an SUV and a suitcase containing only snacks and stuffed animals for sleeping?  It’s not that we don’t love our kids, but there are times when we think about how nice it would be to revisit those times.  Well, Jesus is in essence saying to the Father, don’t you remember when it was just us?  Don’t you remember the type of intimacy and relationship that we had at that point, back before humanity and the world ever was?  Wouldn’t it be great to go back there?  That doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t love us, the same way as it doesn’t mean that I don’t love my kids.  It’s simply an acknowledgment of a reality that used to exist.

                The truth of the matter is that Jesus has been working for the glory of God by fulfilling his mission.  He has been laboring at the task that the Father gave to him.  And the details of that task are revealed to us beginning in verse six.  “I have manifested your name to the people, whom you gave to me out of the world…For I have given them the words that you gave me…they have believed that you sent me.  I am praying for them.  I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.”  The work of Christ was to manifest, to make known, the name of God, particularly to those whom the Father had given to the Son.  This is the group that is referred to throughout the New Testament as the elect.  The Son has conveyed to them the words, the message that the Father has given him.  This is the same message that Christ then gives to his Church for us to proclaim this day.  Notice that Jesus isn’t saying that he’s told everyone and that everyone has benefited, but that the ones whom the Father chose have believed.

                The logical question naturally becomes, “how did Christ manifest the name of God to the people whom the Father had given to him?”  Well, he did so through teaching and preaching, as well as through miracles and healings.  If we were to look at the gospel accounts, studying all of the miracles and healings, we would find that in almost every instance there is recorded evidence of Jesus giving the glory to God.  “Don’t praise me,” Jesus says, “praise the one who sent me.”  Jesus’ miracles aren’t to show Jesus’ power, but the glory of God.  Jesus invites others to himself so that they may come to know him, and thereby come to know the Father.  His teachings aren’t about himself, but about his Father. 

                I know that we brought up Philippians 2 last Sunday in our look at John 13, but we’re going to bring it back up today.  And there’s a good chance that we’ll bring it back up every week between now and Easter; not just because it’s one of my favorite chapters in Scripture, but because it is such a beautiful summation of the work of Christ.  I’ll start reading it to you from v. 8, “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.  Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  So you see, when Jesus is glorified, God is glorified.  Jesus doesn’t detract from the glory of God because he is God.  When the Son is exalted so is the Father.

                The beautiful thing is that we can participate in the glorifying of God.  Make no mistake, God will be glorified in everything, but there are some specific things that we can do to bring about glory to God.  Several times in John’s gospel, Jesus tells those around him that we glorify God by believing in him whom He has sent (Jesus) and when we are obedient to His word.  So, we have faith in Christ and we adhere ourselves to the teachings of Christ, which as we said were about the Father.  In other words, we have to know Christ.  The Father is glorified by our having faith in the Son.  The difficult part is having true faith and obedience to the Son when our hearts are so inclined in the opposite direction.  That’s what makes the Church so indispensable.  That’s what makes corporate worship so vital in our lives.  It’s funny the different ways that some people view worship.  Some view it as a part of the weekly routine.  Some call it the best way to start the week.  Others view it as the spiritual “fill-up” that their souls require.  For some, it’s a time of encouragement in their standing with God.  While it is partly some of those things, it’s not any of those things.  I guess I’m odd in that I never want to feel good about myself leaving worship.  I know that sounds strange, but it’s true.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to be encouraged leaving worship, but encouraged about the one that I worship.  I don’t want to be encouraged about myself.  In fact, I know that I have actively and truly taken part in worship when I see my sinfulness with shame.  In worship, we are to see the fullness of our brokenness and the glory of God and respond with hymns and songs of praise.  We are to respond with prayers of thanksgiving and adoration in light the revelation of our fallenness.  It’s in worship where we learn to worship the Creator instead of the created.

                Paul, in his letter to the Romans, said, “Oh, the depth of the riches and the wisdom and knowledge of God!  How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!  ‘For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?’  ‘Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?’  For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever.  Amen. I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”  Your worship, your lives, are to do but one thing; they are to glorify God.  That’s why you’re here.  That’s why you’re who you are.  It’s not those other things that you thought of earlier, but your purpose is to glorify God.  And that is what you are called to do with this day, the next day, and all the days that God has given to you.