Okay, let's turn back in our
Bibles with me to John Chapter 17, this glorious, glorious passage. And I just wanted to look very
briefly at the first five verses and I got a book from Brad some
years ago which had a sermon on every verse in John chapter
17. It's a great, great book of sermons
and I would love, it's about this thick one, I've had it photocopied
and I sometimes envy the people, our ancestors who could stand
and preach for hours and have others sit and listen for hours
and then walk home six or eight or ten miles and rejoice over
the feast that they had had. But we live in a different age
now. I'm struggling and praying the
Lord will give us all together sort of wisdom but also give
us just a simple delight in these amazing words and simple Simple,
just belief that this is what God says. This is the prayer
of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don't you love what he said to
Peter? I spoke about it last week. He said, Satan's asked
to sift you. If you live as a child of God
in this world, Satan sifts you. And when he sifts, he sifts really
well. And all sorts of things that you just never saw in yourself
will be sifted to the surface. And all of what you thought you
might be holding onto is sifted through the sin. But isn't that wonderful? He
says, I've prayed for you. I've prayed for you. Turn with
me just very briefly over a couple of books in the Bible to Romans
8. I want us to see something. People
quote John in Romans 8. We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God, to them are the called
according to His purpose. But it's extraordinary, isn't
it, that on either side of that verse which we love. And so many people quote. In
verse 34 it says, Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that
died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God, right now he's at the right hand of God, who also
maketh intercession for us. In verse 26 of that chapter just
prior to that, a couple of verses prior to that famous verse, it
says, Likewise, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities, for
we know not what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit
itself. maketh intercession for us with
groanings that cannot be uttered. And he that searches the hearts
knoweth what is the mind of the spirit, because he maketh intercession
for the saints according to God, according to the will of God. Key prize. These words spake
Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father,
the hour is come, glorify thy son, that thy son also may glorify
thee, as thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he
should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ whom
thou hast sent. Eternal life's knowing him. Eternal
life's not just knowing about him, but it's knowing him. But
if you know him, you'll know all about him. And if you know
him, you'll find everything that he says about himself in John
chapter 17 and in the rest of the scriptures, you'll find delightful,
delightful. He lifted up his eyes to heaven. This is, this is the true Lord's
prayer, much more so than the prayer that's so often quoted
out of Matthew and Luke's gospel. And people sometimes ask, is
there something for us in this prayer other than the fact that
he's praying these glorious things for us? And there's some really
wonderful things that we can learn and take away for ourselves
out of these prayers, this prayer, aren't they? He starts by reminding
us of the words that he says. How precious are the words of
God? How precious are the promises
that he's made? And then he says, lift up your
eyes to heaven. I don't know about your eyes. He lifted up his eyes to heaven.
He lifted up his eyes and he saw into heaven itself. And he
saw exactly what was going on in heaven. What a remarkable
view the Lord Jesus Christ had of all of these things. But what
a challenge for us. Where are the troubles of my
heart? Looking around here. Where is
the peace of my heart? Where is the rest for my soul? It's looking up to heaven, isn't
it? It's looking up. We spend so
much time looking down and looking around and we look in and we
look at others and we look at our circumstances and then we
look at what possibly lies ahead. And we're 100% wrong almost always,
aren't we? We get it wrong every time we're
speculating about what might happen. This is what's happened
so far, therefore we're wrong. One day, like Nebuchadnezzar,
we'll learn that the heavens do rule and God's people are
made to rest and to wait. The other thing that I think
is so important for us personally in this prayer is that the Lord
is primarily concerned with the glory of his father. Again and
again and again he says, Father glorify thy name. Glorify thy
name. When his soul was troubled in
John chapter 12 and 13, he says glorify thy name. If his soul
is troubled, his one desire is that his father would be glorified. And he was focused on others. His focus was his father in heaven,
but he had a focus of other people. I hope to God that we would find
ourselves being led to imitate him. And he prays, and don't
you love the way he speaks of his father? He says, father. He calls him
my father, but not in this prayer. And he says, oh father. And he
says, holy father. And at the end of the prayer
he says, Righteous Father. In verse 3 he says, This is eternal
life, that they might know Thee, the only true God. The only reason, the only possible
reason he would have said that is that we live in a world where
there are so many other gods and so many other Jesus and so
many other Christ and so many other Gospels. And so many other
gods that don't bear any resemblance to His name whatsoever. The ones
that are most dangerous are the ones that look closest to Him
and bear much of what He says. He says, O Father, O Father,
the hour has come. This hour of all hours, this
hour which determines all other hours, this hour for which this
world was created, this hour, my hour, it's the one promised
in eternity, the one that was in the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God that must come to pass. We have on our
pulpit, and had it for many, many years, that verse out of
John, chapter 12, verse 21. So we would see Jesus, and all
the way through the gospel account, he says, my hour hasn't come,
you can't touch me, my hour hasn't come. And he tells his mother
to be mindful of the fact that he is now God Almighty in human
flesh, and she doesn't tell God what to do, nor does anyone else.
But when he said, my hour hasn't come, they came and they said,
sir, we would see Jesus. And he says, my hour has come.
My hour has now come. This is the hour. This is the
hour above all other hours. This is the hour in which God
will be manifest in all of his glory. This is the hour in which
you will be manifest in all of your sinfulness. This is the
hour when the salvation of God is going to be manifest in the
most remarkable way. This is the hour when all of
the glorious attributes of God Almighty, the God that we will
meet when we leave this world, this is the hour. You want to
know about God and you want to find out, who God is and who
you are, then we just need to go again and again and again
to the cross if you were to find your peace and find a place where
you're washed in his blood. You go as close to the cross
as you possibly can and get as low as you possibly can and be
as covered as much as he will allow. This hour, this hour has
come. It's an hour that's come from
God. It's an hour that's come for his glory. It's an hour that's
come for the eternal spiritual good of all those in him. And
he says, glorify thy son, that thy son may also glorify thee. He's praying as, not as God Almighty
doesn't need to pray to himself, but he's praying as our mediator.
He's praying as our representative. He's praying as the man, Christ
Jesus, the One that God had sent into this world, the One whose
body was prepared beforehand, the One who came as the Great
High Priest, the One who came as the Anointed King and the
Anointed Prophet of God Almighty, and here He is, as it were, standing
at the place of sacrifice at the very altar. about to go into
the Holy of Holies in heaven with his own precious blood,
and taking all of his people in with him, with their names
written on his heart. It's an extraordinary word, glory,
isn't it? It's a word that seems in so many ways sort of hard
to define, isn't it? And if you think about the circumstances
that are coming into the life of the Lord Jesus Christ in this
next bit less than 24 hours you would wonder in the next three
days you'd wonder where the glory is where's the glory when he's
bleeding in that garden and great drops of blood are pouring from
his broken body in the anguish of him being made sin, in the
anguish of him holding a cup in his hand that the Father had
given him and looking into that cup and finding in that cup the
one thing that God detests in the most horrible, horrible and
holy way. His holiness rises up in wrath
when he sees the sin and the Lord Jesus Christ took that cup
and he upended that cup and he drank it dry. The apostles said that we beheld
his glory. We beheld his glory. John chapter 2 says he manifested
forth his glory. That was when he turned the water
into wine. And it's a glorious picture of
the new birth. It's a glorious picture of what
it is to him to create from nothing something. He didn't make the
water to look like wine. He made the water wine. And he
declares that his people are righteous. they are righteous. When he declares that his people
are holy, when he declares that he's going to present his people
unblameable and unblemished and holy in the sight of God Almighty,
he is doing the creative work of God. And it was typified in
that. He was glorified, he's going
to be glorified when The Holy Ghost comes and takes the things
of the victorious work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross
and makes them known to us, John 7.39. He says to Martha and Mary
and the others, he said, if you would believe, you would see
the glory of God. Lazarus from the dead you'd see
the glory if you'd believe Lord help us to believe He says father glorify thy name
and John chapter 12 verse 28 and the voice came from heaven
And if you go and read that passage again, you know, it's amazing
isn't it? There's a voice came from heaven that he heard and
understood completely and the others thought all sorts of things
thought it as thunder and The voice that comes from heaven
is interpreted and brought to us by the Lord Jesus Christ alone. The voice came from heaven and
he said, I have both glorified it and will glorify it again.
Isaiah saw the glory of God in the temple. And what happens
when you see the glory of God in the temple? You hear the angel
of God saying, holy, holy, holy. You can read about it in Isaiah
chapter six. And the first thing that comes out of your mouth
is, woe is me. I'm undone. Everything that I
thought about myself is unraveled and dissipated. How do you prepare someone to send
them out? to a lost and dying world with
the only message that can bring possible salvation to any of
them. You've got to do that to an Isaiah, haven't you? A live
coal touched his lips and the Lord said, I've taken away your
sin. This is that altar that the Lord Jesus Christ is now
bringing his broken body and his shed blood to. He saw his
glory. When Judas went out and joined
hands with those children of Satan, the Lord Jesus Christ's
first response was, now is the Son of Man glorified. Now is
the Son of Man glorified in that betrayal and in what happened
at the cross. Again and again, he says to us,
If you shall ask in your name, he keeps saying to us in John
14, 15, and 16, he says, ask. He calls on his people to be
asking. Here he is making these prayers
and he makes these requests to God that we might find ourselves
enjoined in them and the recipients of them, but also be people that
crying out to him, ask, he said, ask. He said, what shall I ever,
you shall ask in my name, that will I do. What a remarkable
promise. You do it in His name. Do it
in His name, and that's His name is His character, His holiness,
His righteousness, His justice, His wisdom, His goodness, His
grace, His mercy, all of the attributes of God which are going
to be revealed on the cross. You ask in that name, and He'll
do it. He says, Lord, help me to believe. Help me to repent. Help me to
come, come, and come, and come again. All do that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. He has glory, he gets glory in
the fruit that he brings into the lives of his people. The
fruit of faith, the fruit of joy, the fruit of love, the fruit
of just simply bearing his name and living for him in this world. The Holy Spirit's work is to
glorify the Lord Jesus Christ. by taking his things and making
them known to us. How completely dependent we are. So this is the prayer, and this
is how he begins that prayer. Father, glorify thy name. Glorify, the hour has come, glorify
thy son. And goes on down further, doesn't
he? So glorify thy name. Again, what is it to be glorified?
It's all of those things that we've just looked at. But also,
God is glorified when we just honour Him in His Word. We honour Him in His attributes,
in His perfections. We honour Him in what He's doing
in this world, in providence. We honour Him in providence and
grace. We honour and glorify God when
we just believe the record that God has given of his dear son. We honour him when we lie low
and come to the footstool of grace to find help in time of
need. God is all glorious in himself. The attributes of God don't change
in response to anything that we do. He's absolutely sovereign
whether you believe it or not. That's exactly what he says in
the next verse, doesn't he? You've given him power over all
flesh. What's that mean? He absolutely sovereignly rules
all people all the time. And he always has, and he always
will. His sovereignty doesn't change
whether we believe it or not. His faithfulness, his attributes
don't change. We come and bow. We come and
bow. He's all glorious in himself. He's glorified when we come to
be receivers. Zachariah says that in that day,
this day, this hour, there's a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. How do you honour a fountain?
How do you glorify a fountain? Come and drink. Come and drink
freely. Come and drink freely. We come to receive, not to give. No wonder Isaiah would say, is
thy God thy glory. Moses asked that a wonderful
prayer in Exodus chapter 33. He says, show me your glory,
show me your glory. He'd seen the most remarkable
glory of God in the defeat of a whole superpower and the drowning
of Pharaoh and a whole army in the depths of the Red Sea. And
he says, show me your glory. Show me your glory. And the Lord
says, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and I will
proclaim the name of the Lord. Don't you love the fact that
God proclaims the name of the Lord to his people? Show me your
glory. Show me your glory. He says of his church, of his
gathered assembly, of his people throughout this world, wherever
he comes and declares his glory, wherever he comes and is proclaimed
in his glory, he says, the church, he says, I'm going to be a wall
of fire, Zechariah 2 verse five. I'm gonna be a wall of fire around
about and glory, but glory in the midst of her. I'm going to
protect her and surround her The church is said to be a glorious
church. He makes us glorious. A glorious church, Ephesians
chapter 5. And what is salvation? What is
salvation? 2 Corinthians chapter 4 is a
verse that we just love reading and love quoting and are amazed
by what God says in there. If you turn with me there just
briefly we'll have a look at it. He says in verse 3 If our
gospel is hid, it's hid to them that lost, in whom the God of
this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest
the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of
God, should shine unto them. It's hidden from them. It's hidden
from them. The previous chapter says particularly
it's veiled from those who think that they can go back to the
law of God to establish their righteousness and honour God
in some other way than by simply looking to the Lord Jesus Christ.
For we preach, verse 5, we preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus
the Lord and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake. For God who
commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory
of God in the face of Jesus Christ. What is the hope of glory? Colossians
1.27, it's Christ in you. Let's read this verse again and
leave the parenthetical statement out. It says in verse six, For
God hath shined in our heart to give the light of the knowledge
of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Where does he
shine? In the hearts of his people.
In the hearts of his people, a glorious, glorious God, a glorious,
glorious Savior. He says, Father, Father, Father, Father,
Holy Father, Righteous Father, He says, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son that thy son may also glorify thee. As I said earlier, it's an extraordinary
thing to think of what was going to transpire in those next three
and a half days that he was going to be going to shed his precious
blood. He's going to have his back pulverised
beyond recognition by the scourging that they did to him. And then
he's going to be nailed on Calvary's cross and have his blood pour
onto the ground there until he cries out, it is finished. And
then he's going to be buried in a tomb. Where's all the glory?
Where's the glory? I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. I don't know about you, I'd like
to be able to finish some work. I seem to spend my life having
a whole bunch of unfinished things lying around all over the place.
That's been the sort of story of my life. My poor, dear, beloved
wife has had to put up with the fact that we sort of... It's
just life, isn't it? It's life. We try, don't we? We do the washing up and you
turn around in no time at all, you've got to do it again. You
do the washing in no time at all, you've got to do it again.
We don't finish things, and he says, I've finished the work
that thou gavest me to do, the work of his power, the work that
he should give eternal life. The work of causing His Father
to be known as the only true God in the face of Jesus Christ
as the sent one. I have glorified Thee on earth. I have finished the work that
Thou gavest me to do. Do you find the fact that He
is absolutely sovereign over all things glorious? Do you find
the fact that he was before he came and he came as the sent
one on a mission on the purpose of God into this world? He came
to bring in everlasting righteousness. He came to fulfill all of God's
will, everything. He says, I always do those things
that please him. He loved God. He magnified the law of God and
he made it honourable. He satisfied the justice of God. In putting away sin, God must
be a just God and a saviour. He magnified God in treading
on the serpents and crushing the serpent's head. He abolished
death. He conquered the grave. He came with a mission to save
his bride, and by his precious blood he saved her. Which is
why when the people of God go out to proclaim the gospel, We
love to declare, he says, you, Colossians 1.21, you who were
sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works,
hath he now reconciled in the body of his flesh through death
to present you holy and unblameable? and unreprovable in his sight,
if you continue in the faith grounded and settled, not moved
away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached
to every creature which is under heaven. Whereof I, Paul, am a
minister." That's what he's done. And that's what's being done
now, isn't it? He's raised ever more, glorifying the Father,
ensuring that all the promises will be made, his made will be
completed in all of his people. He declared it's finished. He
just said it is finished. Don't you love the fact that
it says, means he's paid him for all He's a perfect sacrifice. It must be perfect to be accepted.
His offering is the offering of a perfect life. His offering is the offering
of an infinite life to bear the wrath of the holiness of God
and to display the name of God in his holiness. He comes to
magnify the righteousness of God. He called the righteousness
of God. A righteous father he calls him.
Mercy by mercy and truth is iniquity purged. Righteousness and peace
have kissed each other. Our sins have separated us from
God. No one comes to the father but
by him. No one comes to the father but
in him and with him. Righteous father, don't you love
that description of him of his father in this prayer? Righteous
father. a just God and a Saviour. All of the attributes of the
holiness and justice of God that were poured out in that broken
body on Calvary's tree are the greatest comforts of the children
of God. God cannot remain holy and just
and ever punish sin in any of those to whom the Lord Jesus
Christ died. It is impossible. Judgment is
finished. Judgment is finished. A just
God and a saviour. Holy Father, he calls him. Holy Father. All His glorious
attributes are magnified and established in time and history. And now all those glorious attributes
are the comfort and good hope of His people. He's praying for
us. He ever lives to intercede for
us. You can read about it in Hebrews
chapter 4 and 5 and 7 and in so many other places. He prayed
for the glory of his Father's name. Father, glorify thy Son,
that thy Son might also glorify thee. All of our salvation and all
of our peace and all of our comfort is tied up in the glory of God.
The glory of God revealed in the crucified Saviour. And now
we pray the same prayer, don't we? Lord, Father, glorify your
Son in our midst. Glorify your Son in our hearts. Glorify your Son in our thoughts
and in our prayers. Our glory and our comfort is
one with his glory. Our righteousness is one with
his righteousness. Our future glory is as secure
as he is. One day soon, Lord willing, we'll
join him to see his face, to hear the praises of the glory
of his grace. Lord, cause us to cry out. that you would be merciful to
us, that we might just simply be found in him, be found in
him and rejoice, be made to rejoice in who he is. May the Lord bless
his words and bless his prayer to the hearts of his people.