Turn to 1 John chapter 1 and
let me read. And after this, Craig will come
back and lead us in a song. 1 John chapter 1. Let me get there. I want to read this chapter, but
as I said to the Bible class, I'm not a visiting speaker no
more. It's really, I was telling Judy,
I'm glad to be here and fearful, fearful. You have no idea the
emotion just running through me right now. I can, Henry told
me one time when he was in the preacher school, he said, when
you get nervous, just slow down, just slow down. So it may take
a long time to get through this. But I felt compelled to do this. I pray God give us a prosperous
time together, spiritually prosperous, grow in grace and knowledge of
Christ, and that the worship here will be sweet, the fellowship
be sweet. If our fellowship with Jesus
Christ is sweet, It'll be that way with one another. I've learned
that over the years. However my relationship is with
Christ is the way it's going to be with you. That's exactly
the way it'll happen. All right, let me read 1 John
1. And then I'm going to preach. Then second, when I come up here
in a minute, after a couple songs, I'm going to read from the Gospel
of John 17. So you'll know where we're going
from there. Alright. "...that which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word
of life. For the life was manifested,
and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested
unto us. Life was manifested to us. And what he's saying here, life
is a person. And that person was given a body,
a human body. And we have looked, we have touched
life. We've touched life. We have looked
into the face of life. That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you. that ye also may have fellowship
with us. And truly our fellowship is with
the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. This is where our
fellowship is established. True fellowship. Fellowship is,
as Rolf Barner said, it's fellows in the same ship. That's what
fellowship is. And it's around the Lord Jesus
Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may
be full. This then is the message which we have heard of Him and
declared to you that God is light and in Him is no darkness, no
sin at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with Him and walk in darkness, we lie. Do not the truth. But
if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship
one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ
His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins every
time. You know, sometimes I feel like
I'm going to wear out the mercy of God. But he said, no, you
confess your sins every time He forgives it. Every time. And
to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make Him a liar. We call God a liar. And His Word
is not in us. Alright, Craig's going to lead
us in a song. Turn to the Gospel of John chapter
17. John chapter 17. I'm just going to read the first
five verses of this chapter. These words spake Jesus, and
lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour has
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. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And
now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the
glory which I had with thee before the world was, before this world
ever existed. Let me have that glory again.
Let's pray. Our Father, thank you for your
word that you've given us this morning. Pray for a spirit of
worship. Help me and help this congregation
to give unto you the glory due unto your name. Help us to hold
forth the gospel in its truth. Pray for those here, Father,
who are sick, afflicted, under heavy trials. We know that all
things are under your hands. We know that nothing comes our
way but is for our good and your glory. And Lord, we pray that
you give us the grace to go through whatever you send our way. We
recognize, we acknowledge that thy grace is sufficient for every
trial. Help us to worship. Father, arrest our attention
this morning. Arrest our attention for a little
while. And help us to set our mind,
our affection on things above where our Lord sits at thy right
hand. In his name we pray and ask these
things and amen. Now Mike's going to sing a special. Often I have gone to pray A sinner,
so what could I say? Then I was told of His blood Jesus, my Lord. I have the way
to the blood that's the ale, to the holy of holies with God. in the path that he trod. There
in the presence of Jesus I stand, the Revived Son and the Father
tried Now I have found, claiming the
price now alone. Taking this blood way, I'm on
solid ground. Oh, I found the way through the
blood, past the veil, to the holy of holies with God. There,
by His power, over sin, In the presence of Jesus I stand.
Glorified Son and the Father's right hand. There I can be, I
can go anywhere. Now a new heart of His grace
is begun. Singing, I know He'll relieve. Nothing I did for I take and
believe Jesus' praise. To the Holy of Holies with God.
There by His power, over sin, I prevail. I can walk in the path that of Jesus Christ. Thank you, Mike. That's such
an important part of worship, singing praises to our God. They do in heaven. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain. And I thank God that He gives
us a heart to sing with. Turn back to John 17. Title of
the message, The Hour of Redemption. has come. It's come. That's why He's saying. This is one portion of the Word of God where I feel like when Moses,
you get a sense of when Moses stood before the burning bush.
And God said to Moses, Take off your shoes. You're standing on
holy ground. I want to impress upon you this
morning what you are about to read, we are about to look at. We are allowed of God to listen
in on the intercession of our High Priest on our behalf. Let's not just look at this.
This is our High Priest provided by God for us to represent us
and to intercede for us. The disciples one time, hearing
our Lord pray, And that had to be something. And they said, Lord, teach us
to pray. And what people call the Lord's
Prayer is really the disciples' prayer. Our Father which art
in heaven. The Lord's Prayer is truly John
17. That's the Lord's Prayer. That's
His intercession for you and me and all His people. He said,
I pray for them, not for these alone, but for them also which
shall believe on me. 2,000 years ago, this prayer was prayed and it's
still in effect. It's still in effect because
He said, I pray for them which shall believe on me through their
word. Through the preaching of the
gospel, God has brought some of you to faith in answer to
this prayer. These were the last words that
our Lord spoke to his disciples before going to the cross to
redeem his people. Yes, his people. A multitude
the Scripture says that no man can number, given to him by the
Father. You can't read this chapter and
deny that. You have to be blind as black
can be to deny that. If God had not given him a people,
we would not be saved. The scripture says that God looked
down from heaven. And this is for our information.
See if anybody sought after him. And it says none. None sought
after him. They're all gone astray. The
imagination, he said, of all men and women is evil, and that continually. See, we can't see, nor do we
measure good and evil naturally as God measures it. When God
speaks of good, it's perfection. It is absolute perfection. Now,
when you and I speak of good, it's something we can get along
with. You see, God's standard is perfection. Our standard is,
if it works, go with it. That's our standard. And you
ladies know that about us men. If it works, just go with it.
That's us. I thank God. I thank God He chose
the people. Because I'd never choose Him.
He said to His disciples, you didn't choose me. Let's get this
straight right now. You didn't choose me. I chose
you. And over in 1 Corinthians it
tells us The ones He chose. Not many mighty, not many noble,
not many wise. He chose, He says, the foolish
things of the world. I thank God for it. Now He says here many times,
here He says His hour has come. But many times before this, He
kept saying, My hour has not yet come. My hour to be glorified. to be
revealed. It has not yet come, but here
He says it's come. It's come. He lifts up His eyes
toward heaven and He prays, Father, the hour has come. Glorify Thy
Son that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. I do believe that the only
reason if we could get to this point, if we ever get to this
point, to pray and ask God to do anything for us, if it would
really be to His glory. If this will glorify you, I pray
for this. Our Lord could do that. He's
about to die. He's about to endure the hell
of God's wrath. He's about to endure the hell
that I would endure if He didn't take my place. But notice here He says, Father.
God is His Father. The Jews said, we know you You're
the carpenter's son. We know your brothers and sisters.
We know your family. We know who you are. No they
didn't. He's God's son. That's who Jesus Christ is. He
is the Son of God. He is God manifested in the flesh. That's who He is. He's Almighty
God. The Father is the one who purposed
salvation. You just go over and read Ephesians
chapter 1. It starts with who? The Father.
chose us in Him and blessed us with all heavenly blessings in
Christ before the world began. He's the one, the Father, purpose
salvation. He's the one who sent the Son
into the world. He didn't come into this world
on His own. He was sent. I pray I didn't come here on
my own, but God sent me here. Time will tell. Time will tell. I believe He did, but He sent the Son to be the
Savior, to be the Savior, the Redeemer. The Father chose us
and the Son redeemed us. And the Holy Spirit calls us
and regenerates us and we're sealed with the Holy Spirit of
promise. It takes the whole Trinity to bring you to heaven. You know
that? It takes the whole Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
That's why we are baptized in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. They each have a part in saving
us. Now the hour for our redemption has come. It's here. That's what
he's saying. It's here. The hour has come.
God never wastes time. Think about that. How much time
do you and I waste? I was thinking about this as
I was going over this message. Every second, every second has
a purpose. Absolutely every second has a
purpose and a time for that purpose to be fulfilled. I was talking
to someone about coming down here this past week. All of these
years, all that I've gone through, everything that me and my wife
has dealt with has been preparing me for this hour. Every bit of it. Christ never wastes time. God
never wasted. Every second has a purpose and
a time for that purpose to be fulfilled. And our Lord never
wasted time. As a man, every step he took
had a purpose. Every word he spoke was wisdom
and had a purpose. He spoke in infinite wisdom.
He didn't just waste words. Every word flowed out of his
mouth was of God. God speaking, God speaking. The scripture says he went about
doing good. He would pray all night. He would
meditate. He was always, he always was
about his father's business. I wish I could describe my life.
Don't you wish I could describe your life? I must be about my
father's business today. Now the hour he's speaking here
is not like an hour on a clock. He's saying that the purpose
of God in redemption is here. It's here. The purpose for me
coming into the world is now. It's here. He's about to go to
the Garden of Gethsemane. He's about to be made, listen
now, He's about to be made sin. I was born in sin and shaped
in inequity. That's me. Sin doesn't bother us. Not until
God does something for us, does it? It's like a skunk doesn't
stink to itself, does it? A skunk, he don't have no problem
with himself. I didn't have no problem with
myself until God sent the gospel to me and gave me life. Job,
at the end of dealing with God, after God stripped him, he said,
I abhor myself. I absolutely abhor myself. That takes the work of God to
absolutely show me, show you, this is it. This is who you are. The scripture says in Ecclesiastes
3.1, there is a time and a purpose for everything under heaven.
And our Lord is saying, the time of redemption has come. It's
come. And this hour is the hub of all
other hours. They all revolve around this
one. If he fails, it's over. Thank God he didn't fail. He
did not fail. That's what it says in Isaiah
42. My servant shall not fail. He cannot fail. He shall not
fail. He will not fail. He redeemed. Did the Redeemer redeem? Absolutely. Absolutely. When I was a young man, when
I was a young man, or young teenager, when I realized I was a teenager,
I grew up in Armenianism and there's a couple guys trying
to get me saved. They're trying to get me saved.
Trying to get me to accept Jesus as my personal savior. I remember
this just like it was yesterday. And I wouldn't do it because
I thought I was a tough guy. I thought I was the only one
in my family holding out. And I liked what I was doing.
I liked the life I was living. And it was just rotten. And then one day I heard the
Gospel, and I realized, He may not save me. It's not that you
let Him, He may not. Mike, He may not. I realized
God is sovereign in this matter. He may save me and He may pass
me by. I'll have mercy on whom I'll have mercy and whom I will,
I'll harden. He has that royal prerogative. It's His. We are His creation. You create a world, you run it
like you want to. But He's going to run this one.
He's going to run this one. It's His. He's the potter and
we're clay. I'm the clay. And here's the Son's request.
Glorify thy Son. What does that mean? It means
this. Glorify means to render or esteem
glorious. That's what it means. It means
to make glorious. It means to be full of or have
glory. It means to honor and magnify. As God, He can say that. He can say that. And what a glorious person is
the Son of God. None like Him. Son of man, real man, Son of
God, very God. Absolutely a man in every way
except sin, and absolutely God Almighty. He's the Creator. All things were created by Him
and for Him. And without Him, nothing exists. Absolutely nothing
exists apart from the creation of Jesus Christ doing it. In
the beginning, God. Who is that? That's Jesus Christ. That's who that is. The Word
of God. The Word was made flesh. Who
is that? Jesus Christ. And that's why
He can say, Father, glorify Thy Son. Jesus Christ is the embodiment
of truth and grace. It says the law was given to
Moses, or given by Moses. It was given to Moses. Moses
took it to the people. Grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ. He is the embodiment of grace
and truth. If I have real grace and real
truth, it's because I have Him. That's because I have Him. He
didn't just tell me the truth. He said, I am the truth. Truth
is a person. Life is a person. It's a person. You know, this matter of salvation
is, and I've said this before, it's not a matter of places.
It's not missing a bad place and going to a good place. We'll
see this in this chapter. I think I'm going to go through
this chapter over the next few weeks. It's about being made
one with God. Being made one with God. Having
communion. Think about this. Having real
communion with the Almighty. That's astounding. You know what's
astounding to me? Now, it wasn't before, but that
the whole human race gets its breath, every breath from God.
It gets its food from God. He rains on the just and the
unjust. He makes everybody's garden grow. And nobody seeks
after Him. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? Such a person deserves to be
glorified. He deserves to be glorified.
Listen, He deserves to be worshipped. God said, let all the angels
of God worship Him. Now He wouldn't have said that
if He were not God. Anything short of God is not to be worshipped.
Anything, anyone short of God is not to be worshipped. And
He said, let all the angels bow down to Him and worship Him.
Such perfection, now get this, such perfection commands honor
and glory. It is only right to worship Him. It's just right. It's just, now
it'd be an ego trip for me. It was an ego trip for Satan,
saying, I'll be like God. I'm gonna ascend to heavens and
I'll be God. That's an ego trip. That's sin,
that's sin. That's sin at its worst level. But such perfection as our Lord
commands and is only right and deserves our worship. It deserves it. And He's asking
here as a man, listen, He's asking the Father to sustain Him. You
know, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, he said, if you don't
help me, I'm gonna die right here. I'm paraphrasing. He said,
I'm gonna die right here. Remember, the disciples fell
asleep and he went back and he said, can you watch an hour?
And he went back. He said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from me. As a man, here's what we see.
We see the real manhood of Jesus Christ. Being made sin, you know
what that had to be like for Him? Such perfection, such holiness. Holy, holy, holy, holy. We don't know much about that,
do we? Holy, holy, holy. And then to
be made sin. Can't comprehend that. Listen,
even after God has saved you and convicted you of your sins
and you see what you are and you feel like Job said, I abhor
myself, but has anybody here ever sweat great drops of blood
because of your sin? No. He did. He sweat great drops
of blood, so strained out, so put under the stress of that,
that He sweat blood. He sweat blood. Well, He said, Father, sustain
me, sustain me. And the reason He prays to be
glorified, to be sustained, is for this sole reason, this sole
reason, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee. Lord, and we can
say, Lord, sustain us through this trial for this one purpose,
that we bring glory to Your Name, that I glorify You. When the
Son is glorified, the Father is glorified. There's one thing
I'm confident of. If we desire God's blessing on
this congregation, on this ministry, I can tell you how that's going
to happen. He that honoreth the Son, honoreth
me. And He has promised those who
honor the Son, what does He say? I will honor. I will honor. If we stand here and this church
honors Jesus Christ, God will honor this congregation. When the Son is glorified, the
Father is glorified. His prayer is to be glorified
for the purpose of glorifying the Father. That's the sole purpose
of it. Glorifying the Father. Everything
that our Lord did was for the glory of His Father. All that
he preached was for the glory of his Father. All the healing,
all that he said, his existence was for the glory of the Father.
I hope someday when my time is
over, I would like this to be said. His life was for the glory of
God. Spent for the glory of God. Wouldn't that be good to put
on your tombstone? Wouldn't that be good? His whole being was for the glory
of His Father. And now where's God's chief glory
seen? He said, glorify thy son, that
thy son may glorify thee. Well, the chief glory that He's
praying about here is our redemption. The chief glory of God is not
the creation of the world, the universe, and all that's in this
world, the chief glory of God is you. Can you imagine that? Your redemption. Bringing you
home. Conforming to you to the image
of Christ. That's His chief glory. Moses
said this, Lord, show me thy glory." What did he do? He put him in the cleft of the
rock, put his hand over him as he passed by, and he said, here
it is. I'll have mercy on whom I'll
have mercy. I'll be gracious to whom I'll
be gracious. Redemption. Salvation. That's His chief glory. And for
anybody to ever stand in a pulpit and mess with that, he'd be better than a millstone
hanging about his neck and drowning in the depths of the sea. He'd
be better than if he was never born. The one thing we don't
ever want to mess with, and I told this to a young man not too long
ago, don't mess with the gospel. Don't mess with the gospel. That's God's chief glory. And notice here what's given
to him. Notice what's given to him in verse 2. He prays to be
glorified. He says, The hour has come. Glorify
me that I may glorify you. And he says in verse 2, As thou
hast given him power over all flesh. I'm telling you something. This is not a battle going on
between Satan and Christ and Satan trying to get you and Christ
trying to get you and before you die you make a decision.
You just, like you and I are standing on neutral ground, and
hopefully before we die we're going, no, no. We're born lost. We're born in
sin, shaped in inequity, every one of us. And he says here,
for the purpose, now listen, as a mediator, he's the mediator,
for the purpose of redemption, For the purpose of saving sinners,
God has turned over absolutely everything into the hands of
that man, Jesus Christ. He says, you have given him power
over all flesh. Pilate one day, Pilate said,
don't you know, you know, I'm sure he was popping his suspenders.
Don't you know that I have the power to release you? And I have
the power to, don't you know that? Don't you know who you're
standing before? And our Lord wouldn't speak to him. But then
when he said that, the Lord said, you have no power at all except
to be given to you from above. You're nothing but a worm." Isn't
that what he called Jacob? Thy worm, Jacob? He has to put us in our place,
doesn't he? He said, Pilate, can you imagine looking at a
dog, you know, a little dog, and a dog thinks he just has
all the power in the world. He don't have no power at all. The only thing, the power you
have is what God gives you. And that's the only power Satan
has. It's what's given to him from above. When he attacked
Job, when he went after Job, he had to get what? Permission. He had to get permission. And
God said, you can touch all that he has, but you can't touch his
life. And the reason you can't touch
his life is the same reason you can't touch our life. Our life
is hid with Christ in God. And that can't be touched. Because
you'd have to kill Christ. You'd have to destroy God in
order to touch my life because He is my life. We're going to
see this. Well, I'm not going to have time.
I can tell I'm going too long. But anyway, he says, I was giving
him power. Let me move along here. The word
power means this. And this is real power, okay? Power is not how much you can
lift. That's a show of strength maybe, but it's not power. Power
is the ability to act or produce an effect. That centurion said, Lord, speak
the word only. He said, I'm a man under authority.
His servant was sick. He said, I'm a man under authority.
I say go, and he'd go, come, and he comes. And he said, Lord,
just speak the word. And he did. He just spoke the
word. And his servant was healed. Power is to bring about a given
result. I'm looking at it. I'm looking
at the given result. Save sinners. Eternal life. Redemption. Did
He do it? Did He accomplish it? Absolutely. Absolutely. Christ has power
over all flesh, all creatures for the purpose of giving eternal
life to as many as the Father has given Him. And brethren,
that's a number you and I can't number. And that's a group of people
who wouldn't have anything to do with Him for anything if it wasn't
for that. He has the power to overrule
and rule. He says in Isaiah, concerning
Israel. Now listen, I can't remember
the chapter, but he said, I gave Seba and Sheba for you. I destroyed those two nations
for you. For you. He said, I gave them.
I got rid of them. And then notice this word here,
the word should, that thou should give eternal life to as many
as thou has given him. And I'm going to read you this
because I got this, I believe it's Matthew Henry. This is good. This has
to do, he says, with an obligation such as fulfilling a contract
that binds one to a course of action. Christ obligated himself
to the Father by the covenant of grace to a course of action.
His incarnation, His obedience to the law, His obedience to
die, that He might give eternal life
to as many as the Father gave Him. And what is that eternal
life? We talk about how long we're
going to live. Everybody's going to live forever.
Everyone that's ever been born into this world is going to live
forever. That rich man that lifted up
his eyes in hell, being in torment, he's still there. He's still
alive. He's still alive. Abraham, Isaac,
Jacob, they're alive. They're alive. They're alive. This is life eternal that they
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
sent. One can't be known without the other. You can't know the
Father and not know the Son. Can't do it. And eternal life,
as I read to you out of 1 John, is a person. It's a relationship
with God. It's union with God. If I have
eternal life, I have God in me. It's the life of God in the soul.
That's what eternal life is. It's not how long it is, it's
the quality of it. It's the life of God. He's made us partakers,
it says, of the divine nature. That's what He's done. He says in verse 4, and I'll
wind this up. I have glorified Thee on the
earth. Everything He did was for God's glory. He glorified
Him in every way. I have finished the work. Listen,
He hadn't even gone to the cross yet. He hadn't even gone to the
cross yet. But He can speak that way. He
calleth those things which be not as though they were. It's
done. I have finished the work. It's
done. I've glorified you on the earth.
This man of redemption was settled before the world was created.
Now God is a God of order. He's not a God who's trying to... He's not a reactive God. He's
not reacting to something, that's what we do. He's a God of order. God is infinite in wisdom and
knowledge and understanding. And you're going to tell me that
God is going to leave the end result of this to someone like
me who hates him? By nature? Who has a mind that's
at enmity with God? He's not going to leave that
to me. That's not infinite wisdom. That would be infinite stupidity.
We wouldn't do that. I wouldn't crucify my son. I
wouldn't put my son through hell. I wouldn't put my son through
what he put Christ through and then leave it to the people that
hate me. No. I can tell you a lot. I put
my son through that. Whatever I'm going to promise
I'm going to do for you because of that, it's going to happen.
I can see that. God's a God of order. Order. David said he's ordered in all
things and sure. That covenant. That covenant
of grace. That's between the Father and the Son. That's an
order. That's established. That's who God is. I have finished the work. Now
what else does that tell me? I don't have to do anything.
I don't need to add to it. If it's finished, you know, just
look it up in the dictionary if you want to see what that
word means. It means finished. Done. You don't owe anything. If the debt's paid, guess what?
I'm not going to go back and say, well, you sure? Let me pay
some more. Let me pay some more. Let me feel good about myself. Someone told me the other day,
or a few weeks ago, they said to me, I hope I get it right
before I die. I said, you listen to me. Jesus
Christ got it right. He's my righteousness before
God. I never get it right. Jesus Christ is my rightness
before God. He's my righteousness. I finished it. It's over. It's
done. It's done. I finished the work which thou
gavest me to do, and now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own
self, with the glory which I had with you." There's his eternality.
You can read that over in Proverbs chapter 8. "...with the glory
I had with you before the world was." You know what our Lord
counted as his chief glory? And you know what is going to
be our chief glory? being with Him. That's it. That's it. My chief glory is
not what I've accomplished. It's not all the accomplishments
I make in this life. My chief glory, when this is over, is Jesus Christ,
my Lord, my Savior. Okay, Greg.