In thee alone, complete. We complete in him, Colossus. We ask some silly questions.
We are as complete as He is, God Almighty in human flesh and
fullness of the deity dwells in Him. Okay, turn in your Bibles
back to John Chapter 17 and I want to just finish what we were looking
at a little earlier on and I want us to look at the wonder of what
he says at the end of this. There is a purpose in his prayers. Let's read these verses. He says,
I pray for them, I pray not for the world, but for them which
thou hast given me, for they are thine, all mine are thine,
and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And then he goes on in the next
two verses to speak so wonderfully, doesn't he? And he says, and
now I'm no more in the world, but these are in the world, and
I come to thee, Holy Father. Keep through thine own name those
thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name, those that thou gavest me. I have kept, and none of them,
this them that he's praying for, none of them is lost. but the son of perdition that
the scripture might be fulfilled. I pray for them. There is a purpose,
there is a culmination, as it were, in his prayer, isn't it? And that is that he will be glorified
in them. He says, just listen to what
he says, am glorified in them. What's missing? There's no if in it. What does
he say? What does he say of those that
the Father gave him from the foundation of the world? Of those
that he says are mine? Of those that he says are the
Father's? He says, I am glorified in them. He's not making a supposition
here, is he? It's like so much of what he
said previously in John chapter 17. He's just declaring the reality
of the work of his sovereign grace in the hearts of his people. He is declaring the outworking
of the eternal covenant in his blood He's declaring the outworking
of the Father's electing grace, the Son's redeeming love, and
the Holy Spirit's quickening grace in the hearts of all of
his people. you must be born again to see
the Kingdom of God. A new creation alone sees the
Kingdom of God. If the Gospel accounts and all
of history show us anything about people and their relation to
God, they can have a whole lot of knowledge and know a whole
lot of scripture and do a whole lot of amazing things and not
have the foggiest notion of who God is. If you are with religious
people, I beg of you, if you can, take John 17 and say, can
we just read this prayer? Can we read the Lord Jesus Christ's
declarations of what he gets glory for? He gets glory for
manifesting his father's name. He gets glory for giving his
people his word. He gets glory for creating faith
in them. He gets glory for saving them. He gets all of the glory. All of the glory. How much does
he get? All of the glory. I will not
share my glory with another, says our great God. Salvation
is of the Lord. It's His in origin, it's His
in design, it's His in purpose. People might be horrified when
they hear the Lord Jesus Christ declare on this night before
He was about to shed His blood, I pray not for the world. Why
would He pray for them? His prayers can't fail. If He
prays for you, You must be saved. If he loves you, you must be
saved. If he shed his precious blood
for you, you must be washed perfectly clean. All of God's children,
that's why he says, they're not of the world, their origin was
in heaven, with him in heaven. And because of all of those eternal
covenant promises, he came into this world and he came, as he
prayed, to glorify himself, to glorify his father, to glorify
all of the glorious attributes of God. And no wonder he prays
this prayer about being glorified on the night he goes to the cross.
All of the glory of God is seen in the cross of the Lord Jesus
Christ. The glory of His name, the glory
of His absolute sovereignty, they did exactly what they wanted
to do and they did exactly what God had determined before the
foundation of the world must be done. It must be done. The glory of His holiness. He
cannot, He cannot wink at sin. glory of Him perfectly fulfilling
the law. All of this is glorified. All
of this glorifies His Father. He glorifies His grace. He glorifies
His love. He glorifies His mercy. He glorifies
all the attributes of God. You go to the cross at Calvary
and look up at a bleeding saviour and you'll see the glory of God.
But listen to what he goes on to say in this prayer. I am glorified
in them. We can understand his glory.
But I am glorified in them. Glorified in his sinful, straying,
weak sheep. Listen to what Paul prayed in
2 Thessalonians 1 verse 12. He says, that the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in him. How's that? According to the grace of our
God and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what he prays. Wherefore
we also, we pray always to you that our God would count you
worthy of this calling. What an amazing calling it is
for us to be the recipients of even hearing these words from
God. What an amazing privilege it
is to be in the company of people who not only hear them but embrace
them and rejoice in them with joy unspeakable and full of glory. God would count you worthy of
this and fulfil all the good pleasure of His goodness and
the work of faith with power. that the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ may be glorified in you and you in Him. That is the calling
to which our God has doing this work that he's finished here,
isn't it? He says in chapter two, verse
13, on the same page in 2 Thessalonians, we are bound to give thanks.
He says, what do you give thanks for? We are bound to give thanks
always to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord. I'm looking
at brethren who are beloved of the Lord. I'm bound to give thanks
for you. I thank God for you. I thank
God that God has raised up a place where his gospel of free and
sovereign grace is proclaimed with faithfulness and clarity.
We just read what God says and we love it. We're bound to give
thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord.
If you're beloved of the Lord, I've got every reason to love
you. Because God hath from the beginning
chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the spirit
and belief of the truth. The truth is a person. It's the
truth of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, the truth of him manifesting
who God is. Listen to what he goes on to
say. Where unto he called you by our gospel? There is only one gospel. There
is only one Lord Jesus Christ and the true gospel declares
him and defines him according to the word of God. But listen
to what he says. He's called you by the gospel. The gospel goes out as a call,
doesn't it? The Word of God calls His sheep
to Himself and they'll all come, every single last one of them,
none of them is going to be lost, to listen to what is going to
happen. To the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are always dealing in words
and concepts which are way beyond our tiny, tiny puny brains. And
that's way, way, way beyond my tiny, puny brain. I would love
to see the Lord in His glory. Won't it be amazing when we close
our eyes here and we open them instantly in heaven and we look
at Him and behold His glory. But listen to what He says in
verse 22 of John 17. If you're back there again, He
says, I'm talking about us being glorified
in him and he says in verse 22 and the glory which thou gavest
me the glory which you've given
me, I've given them. I'm glorified in them, says our
Saviour, that they may be one even as we are one, that we will
be We will be living exhibits of this eternal union, bone of
His bone and flesh of His flesh, united in love eternally to Him
and united in love eternally to the Father and united in love
eternally to all of His people. All of his people. This is a
remarkable statement of sovereign grace. It's just a gracious activity.
He says this is what I'm going to do. Just like he said at the
beginning of this creation, let there be light. And let there
be stars. And let there be a creation.
He's saying exactly the same thing here. It's a declaration of truth.
His grace isn't it? Now I wonder if Paul
says to Timothy, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed
God which is committed to our trust. The Gospel is glorious. He is
full of grace and he is glorious. It's the Father's glory to give
a bride to his Son and it's the Son's glory to receive them and
to be their surety and to live for them, to die for them, to
reign and to rule for them. The works of grace are glorious,
aren't they? Isn't it amazing, if he has manifested
the Father to you, by the words that he's given you, you will
see God the Father as glorious. You will read this book and you'll
say, what an amazing God we have. What a glorious God. What a gracious
God. The only true God. The holy Father, the righteous
Father. It's glorious, isn't it, that
he gives and causes the receiving of his word, which we read in
John 17 verse 8. It's glorious that he creates
faith in his elect, and they know surely and receive the engrafted
word, and they believe him. What glorifies God here now? In the hearts of his children.
Believing Him. Believing Him glorifies Him.
Believing Him honors what He said. Believing Him delights
in what He's done. He's made glorious in them by
their owning and receiving and their embracing Him as their
Saviour. I love what is said of Peter
at the end of this Gospel. He says he declares what's going
to happen to Peter, how he's going to be crucified, and someone
will carry him and carry him to where he wouldn't want to
go. And then the Holy Spirit says, thus spake he, signifying
by what death he should glorify And when he, I love how this
goes on, and when he had spoken this, he said unto him, And Peter looks around a little
bit and looks at John and the others and the Lord says, don't
you worry about anyone else. You just fix your eyes on me.
You just follow me. And you will glorify him in your life and in your death. I'm glorified in them. and glorified when we ascribe
all that God is to God, isn't it? We glorify God when we just
acknowledge how absolutely sovereign He is over all things, how He
reigns and rules over all things. We glorify Him when we declare
His perfections, His works. We glorify Him in just believing
His Word and holding on to His Word. They receive His Word and
they guard His Word and they guard it as something that's
precious to them. We've heard and listened to so
many remarkable promises from our God today. If He could just
give us the opportunity to hold on to them, to guard them, to
treat them as precious, We give Him all the glory, we work worthy
of Him in our lives. It's a glorious union. There's glory given, there's
glory seen and made manifest and there's glory beheld. Let's
just go back and look at the descriptions of glory in John
17 briefly before we come and remember the Lord. In John chapter
17 verse 1, he speaks of the glory of that hour, he begins his prayer at the cross. He says, Father, the hour is
come. Just one hour, one hour declares
all of the glory of God, the glory of the cross. The hour
has come, glorify thy son that thy son may glorify thee. The beginning of this glorious
work and the reason for this amazing prayer is because of
the finished work of the Lord Jesus on the cross. He says in
verse four, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished
the work which thou gavest me to do. Is it finished? Or is it something you have to
do to make it be finished? Do we rest in a finished work,
or do we have to do something to make it effective in our lives?
I get told that all the time. Surely there's something we must
do. Yes, there is. It's called sin. And if God works grace in your
life, and gives you a new creation, a new heart, and gives you spiritual
life, then that new heart will worship God and trust Him and
live for His glory. And glory in the fact that it's
a finished work. He says, I've finished the work.
It's not the same word, but this word means accomplished on the
cross. He said it's finished, it's been paid in full. All the
debt that all of those that you have given me, O God, is paid
in full is what it means. God's children owe God nothing
and they owe him absolutely everything. All of God's children. We long
to live for His glory on this earth and we long for the proclamation
of that glory. Verse five, and now, Father,
glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I
had with thee before the world was. If you're going to declare
the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have to start with eternal
glory. He was glorious before he came. He came in glory, the
heavens declared the glory, the angels came and sang, and it
was a glorious time when he came. And all of his works were glorious.
All of his words were glorious. All of what he did was glorious.
And then he returns via the cross, having finished that work, and
he returns to the glory of heaven. If we're going to declare the
gospel, we have to declare the eternality of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Don't we love saying Jesus Christ
is God? And God doesn't do something
and it fails. God doesn't try and fail. When God says his work is finished,
it means it's finished. There's no glory in a God who
tries and fails. He's glorified every attribute
of God and he's glorified God's holy law. That's why those who
are led of the Spirit are not under the law. In verse 10 he
says, this verse that we're looking at now. All mine are thine, and
thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. He's glorified in his
work in their lives. He's glorified in his presence
in their lives. It's Christ in you, the hope
of glory. How can Christ dwell in us? By his We are perfectly fit, children
of God, to be a place where God can dwell. We're perfectly fit
to be a person where God can live and commune with us, which
is why this work is glory. Verse 22, we looked at it earlier.
And the glory which thou hast given me, I have given them,
that they may be one, even as we are one. the glory of eternal
union, glory given and glory received. But I love verse 24. He says, Father, I will. We say,
Father, your will be done. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
great mediator. He can say, Father, I will that
they also whom thou has given me. There is a particular group
of people that them he prays for, that them he is glorified
in. be with me where I am, that they
may behold my glory. Isn't that amazing? What's the
glory of heaven? Being with the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you're with the Lord
Jesus Christ, what do you behold? Glory. Glory. which thou hast given me for
thou lovest me before the foundation of the world. There is a them
he prays for and he's glorified in them. And I love, we'll just
close with these thoughts, but I love the fact that he goes
on in John 17 to talk about how these people are kept in these
truths. They're kept in the manifestation
of God. They're kept in the words that
have been given. Listen to what he goes on to
say. Maybe Lord willing we'll talk more about it next week.
But while I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy
name. He's manifested the name and
he keeps us in it. How much do we need to be kept?
Norman and I spoke about it at the break. We need to be kept
all the time. I need to be kept. I can't trust
myself for a single thing. I'm always wondering. I'm a strange sheep. Lord, seek
your sheep. Listen to what he says, that
thou hast given me, I have kept, and none of them is lost. In
verse, sorry, in verse 12. I have kept,
he says, keep them. He wants them kept. How we need
keeping. You are a child of God, the Father's
gift to his Son, but you must be kept. And he does the keeping. We're regenerated, all of God's
children are born again by the Spirit of God, but we still must
be kept. We've been redeemed by the Son
on the cross, but we must be kept. Grace has been powerfully
shown to us. But you must be kept. We've been
through trials. You're going through trials and
trials await you. But you still have to be kept.
You have to be kept all the time. Kept from error. Kept from Satan. Kept from sin. Kept from falling. Kept from division. Kept from
discord. That they may be one. I wanna be kept from indifference. I want to be kept from the coldness
of my heart about how glorious he is and how little I bask in
the glory of this gospel. I want to be kept from being
presumptuous. I want to be kept from just thinking
that everything's right because of what I believed in the past.
It's what we believe now that matters, brothers and sisters.
It's always a now. Faith is always a present reality. Kept. We don't ever grow beyond
the need of being kept. What a people, what a people,
to have such a saviour. And him call you mine. I'll finish by quoting an amazing
verse from Isaiah 43 verse 7. And it says, Isaiah 43 verse
7. He speaks of his gathering his
people. He says in verse five, fear not
for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the
east and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north,
give up and to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from
afar and my daughters from the end of the earth. And listen
to how he describes them. Everyone that is called by my
name, As a husband and a wife share a name, we share his name. For I have created him. You see, he's created him, and
all of us are in him. I've created him for my glory. I have formed him, yea, I have
made him a body thou hast prepared. will be broken. That body will
be a perfect body throughout all eternity. A glorious, glorious
God and Saviour. Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father,
we thank You again for the opportunity that You bring into our lives
to just read Your Word and to hear about Your dear and precious
Son and read these remarkable promises. Heavenly Father, may
it be our portion that the Lord Jesus Christ would fulfil that
promise that he has given them the word that you gave him. And may it be given to us, and
may it be given in such a way, Heavenly Father, that it is received
as the very word of God. And we find ourselves rejoicing
and delighting in the glory of your dear and precious Son and
his finished work. O our Father, we pray that you'd
cause us to know him and to know you, and for that to be eternal
life for us. And as we take these elements
which are in remembrance of his broken body and his shed blood,
heavenly Father, may those of us who know him be caused yet
again to remember. the glories of his sacrifice,
the glories of his sin bearing, the glories of your Son upon
the cross of Calvary. Let us eat and drink in remembrance
of him, our Father. We can only, by your grace, do
so, and we pray that we might do so for his glory and for your
glory, our Father who sent him. Bless us for Christ's sake, our
Father, for we pray in his precious name. Amen.