specifically verses 9 and 10
again, from the point of view of what it means for us to be
gods and for us to glorify the sun. As I've said the last two weeks,
preaching in itself can become something different for different
people. It can become a lecture where I could teach you some
things contextually, which would be good, out of the text, exposition. Or I could teach you something
topically or theologically, which could be inferred in the text,
or we'd have to go to other places to examine that teaching directly,
which would be exposition. This morning we see what the
scripture says, we know what the Bible says holistically concerning
the glory of God and the glory of Christ and the divinity of
God, the divinity of Christ as God, etc. But I want to pause
this morning in this sermon and I want you to think about what
implications are truly here in verses 9 and 10. And I'm just
going to read those two verses. It says, I am praying for them,
Jesus speaking. I am not praying for the world,
but for those whom you have given me, for they are all yours. All mine are yours, and yours
are mine, and I am glorified in them. Of course, teaching of scripture
is for instruction, for rebuke, for correction, for training
in the holiness of God, understanding the imputed righteousness of
Jesus Christ, the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ. But when we think about sermons,
sometimes we think that where is the application coming from?
Where is the application going? What am I supposed to do with
this? And we can look at all sorts of things in the Bible,
and you can go back and see, this is week 129, by the way,
of John. You can go back and you can say,
okay, what's the application? What's the implication? What
practical outcome comes from this? But you know what the ultimate
end of all the word of God is? Exaltation. And that is the primary
and premier and supreme application. Exaltation. And another word
that I want to use for exaltation is glorifying. Glory. Glorying. Exaltation. The joy
as we read Psalm 149 and 150 this morning. We rejoice with
all that we have. We come together as a family.
We are not attending church. Beloved, I want you to get, let
me get on my soapbox for just a second or two. Let me go in
and let you know, you are not attending church. You have not
come to a place or to an organization. You are not a member of some
type of faction of Christianity. You are a spiritual family who
have made a covenant promise to one another as unto Christ
to be together and be accountable in the good, the bad, and the
ugly. We don't have a right under the Word of God to decide, well,
I think I'll just go down the road and try another church like
it's a fast food joint. It's wicked, evil, sinful, fleshly,
and demonic. Soapbox off. Now what's that got to do with
this? Because if we are, what's the
ultimate thing that Jesus says here? I am glorified in my people. So if Christ is glorified in
us, then something's wrong in the American church when we can
just flit around with no concern from one another. And we don't
recognize the established perfection that is ours in Jesus. where
we can play games with Christ and Christ's people by considering
it an Americanized option. I feel like sometimes through
the years when I look back at all the different things that
I teach and that I approach the church, the body of Christ, and
all the pastorates that I have held, not many, but all of them
combined, And I think that there's one thing that I've always tried
to stress is what is the church? Who is she? Who are we? And I always get agreement. Amen.
Amen. Amen. That's right. That's right. That's
right. That's true. That's true. That's true. But when difficulties come, it's
amazing how quickly that philosophy is thrown away for the fleshliness
of what world religion really is. And I feel like Paul sometimes,
not presently, but even in certain circumstances, where Paul says,
did I labor in vain? Sometimes I wonder if the preaching
about the church is not as necessary as the practice. And so in that way, I want to
make sure that I emphasize that the practice of our gathering,
which is what the church means in its misnomer translation, is exaltation, is intimacy and
exaltation. Praise to God together for the
sake of one another in joy because of Christ who is the glory of
God in whom we find life. And Jesus says here, let me just
walk in this for a second, I am praying for them. For who? Well, we see that, and we talked
about this last week. Look at verse 8. For I have given them the words
that you gave me, and they have received them, and have come
to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed
that you sent me. And if you'll remember last week,
I emphasized that as probably one of the clearest expressions
of the gospel of grace in this chapter. Because it deals with the divine
nature of Jesus as God come to save His people. It deals also
then in verses 7 and 9 that only those He saved are the people
that God has given Him. And now He says in verse 10 that
He has glorified in them. Now think about that for a second.
Jesus is praying. And I don't know what time this
hit me, but it hit me last night. Jesus prayed this prayer 1980
plus years ago. And the answer to the prayer
is still, yes. It's still effectual for you.
It's still effectual for me. What is the prayer? What is it
that He is wanting the Father to do? What is He requesting?
Because He's established a lot of things about who they are
and how they are and whose they are. And then in verse 12, as we'll
see next week, He's saying He guarded them. Now He asks for
the Father to guard them, to keep them, to hold them, to protect
them. Jesus is praying for them. And
then he says there, I'm not praying for the world, but for those
whom you have given me. And we talked about that. This
is rerun. We talked about the fact that the world in the context
of John's gospel every single time deals with the whole of
fallen humanity. Remember, we talked about Ephesians
1, Ephesians 2, how we were part of out of the world. and we're
by nature children of wrath like the rest of the world, like the
rest of humanity? Jesus is not praying, nor has
He ever prayed, listen to this church, for every person in the
world. Why? Because it would be blasphemous.
It would be evil for the Son of God to pray to the Father
for every person in the world. It would be demonic for Jesus
to ask the Father to do that which the Father had not willed
to do. And that's why this is so conflicting
for so many people. Because in the culture that we
live, the Jesus of culture is a Jesus of universalism, a Jesus
of universal opportunity, a Jesus of hopeful and wishful thinking,
a Jesus of grand love that's ineffectual, that did nothing,
that provided nothing, that produced nothing. A powerless pansy of
a Savior who hopes with every fiber of his being that some
people will come, but he's powerless over them. Jesus is praying for those that
have been given to Him by the Father. And that should ring
all the bells that we've heard thus far in John's Gospel. It is blasphemous that Jesus
will be praying for all the people of the world. Now I want to say this, unconverted
Christians, I know that sounds, it's an oxymoron. but unconverted
people who are labeled themselves as Christians. This is not a
theological debate. This is a debate about the glory
of God and seeing Him for who He is. And this is a contrast
between what the flesh can produce in its understanding versus what
God can grant in His power. There is no hope for the world. in Christ. Let me say that loudly. There is no hope for the world
in Christ. There's a sound bite that'll
get me in trouble. It bothers me that people approach
that type of thing that approached John 17. Oh, you are seeing this
through the lens of a Calvinism. or a traditional view of reform
doctrine. No, I'm not. Fifteen years ago,
I had no idea what those things meant. I had no idea what reformed meant.
I thought that's what you got when you went to prison. Reform. That's mostly what Christianity
is today. Reform. There's a whole bunch of people
living for themselves. Now we plug them into some type of thing
and assimilate them into a social order. Call it Christianity.
Call it a church. And we reform their lives from
doing this to doing this. And we call them saved. Oh, now he's antinomian. No,
I'm not. But I'm as antinomian as Paul
was, and I'm as antinomian as Jesus is. So we're in good company,
beloved. Those who are His who are in
the world are not of the world, as we'll see in the close of
today's sermon, which will be the introduction for next week. The world will not be saved by
Christ. His people out of the world will be saved. The gospel
in its purest expression is that God sent his son to save his
people from their sins. And believe it or not, that's
an exact quote from Paul. That's an exact quote from the prophets.
That's an exact quote from Jesus. I came to do the will of the
one who sent me. What is it that we must do to
be doing the will of God? This is the will or this is the
work of God rather. What must we be doing to do the
work of God? This is the work of God. That you believe in the
one whom he has sent. So God is most glorified in the
redemption by the election of grace for his people through
the person of Jesus Christ. When the scripture says there
is no room for boasting, humanistic approaches to the gospel of grace provides room for boasting. I mean, if I get a free prize,
but I have to buy a ticket to get it, then I've got room for
boasting. If I win the lottery, but I have to pick numbers, then
I've got room for boasting. You know what? I played. I bought. I scratched. If I have anything to boast on
whatsoever, even how some people say, well,
God makes me able to believe. That's not what the Bible says.
The Bible does not say anything about God making us able and
then giving us the freedom of choice. The Bible doesn't say
anything about the reprobate choosing to go to hell. They
are condemned to death. You are not. That is why God granted you faith,
to believe that you were not. You are His and you will not
be lost. Friends, if the gospel was preached
in America, thoroughly, there'd be a lot of empty church buildings. Jesus is praying for His people
and He says it. I'm not praying for the world. I've gotten this habit over the
last few years. I say and expound and illustrate and then I read
what I just did in scripture. And I find that frustrating for
me because I get ahead of myself. I'll be down in chapter 18 in
my mind and just be, you know, oh well, let me show you why
that's true. And it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But the cool
thing is that I think it works better for me, and that's why
I do it, in the hearing of some assertions, and then all of a
sudden I show you the proof of it, and it's like, oh yeah. So
that's sort of gotten my patter, if you will, and how I teach. Jesus says everything that I've
just said in this sentence. I am not praying for the world. I am praying for those you gave
me out of the world. So the prayers of Jesus, along
with the work of Jesus, along with the life of Jesus, along
with the teaching of Jesus, is for His sheep. And they will
hear His voice. And they will follow after Him.
What does that mean? They'll believe in what He's
saying concerning Himself. Because the Spirit testifies
to our spirit that we are children, adopted. through which we cry,
Daddy, to God the Father. As Paul would write in Hebrews,
we have boldness and confidence to enter into the holy places
with assurance of a heart clean and a body washed by grace. We're not worried about the sin
that we know is ever-present. When we walk into the righteous
presence of God, we know that we will be received as beloved,
perfect, holy children. Why? Because Christ's blood was
shed for us, and His perfection was credited to us. Therefore,
when Jesus prays by the will of God the Father for His people,
this prayer is effectual only for His people. How is it that God could give
people to the Son? And how is it that the Son could
pray for these people? He says there, for they are yours. That's sovereignty. Now, this isn't the proof text
for sovereignty, but it works. Sovereignty is illustrated all
throughout the Bible. God Himself speaks that He is
God and there is no other. He determines the beginning from
the end, all the steps of man. And I love well-intended philosophers
who say, well, now God is on call then for sin. What, pray tell, have you ever
done in rebellion to God that He made you do? That you didn't
just want to do? Nothing. I've never had a war
with the Holy Spirit where He wanted me to rebel and I wanted
to obey. No, God, don't make me sound
like that. It's the opposite, isn't it? So that's a silly argument. The problem is people in their
blindness want to feel some sort of Fairness in God's doing, as
if God is some earthly king, some monarch that deals justly
with people under the doctrine of man's idea of fairness. Couldn't
say fairness doctrine because that has a historical significance. How is it that Jesus can save
the people that God has determined to save because they belong to
Him? Now, the argument can be made, well, God owns all things.
Yeah, but there is no other place, no other issue in Scripture,
no other teaching in Scripture that shows a particular and explicit
separation of creation except out of creation comes the elect
of God. The elect of God are loved by
God in the actions of God and the plans of God and the power
of God through the person of God, the Son, Jesus Christ. But Jesus expounds on that in
this last sentence to give us a bigger picture of just how
this looks. Not only is God sovereign and
has us and we are his to give, but he gives us to the Son. So
he says, all mine are yours. Now that's an easy statement.
You know the old adage, what's mine's mine, what's yours yours,
and you get married, what's mine's mine, what's yours mine, that
type of thing, depending on who's saying it. But who in the right mind of
humanity can ever claim to God, all of us could say, yeah, everything
that is mine is yours, Father. That's good. He owns the cattle
on a thousand hill. He owns the sky. He owns the
earth. He created all things by the word of his power. Jesus
Christ, the Colossians 1, is the one who sustains it all.
Hebrews 1, he holds it all. He keeps all things together
because he's God. Everything he's made, he owns.
So for me to say that everything I have is by the hand of God
and from the hand of God, James even says that, all good gifts
are from above. It's no big deal. But Jesus doesn't
stop there. Jesus doesn't stop there. Jesus
goes on to say, then everything that belongs to you belongs to
me. Now that's a different story.
Because the first iteration of that we see chronologically in
the scripture is the fall of the enemy. Lucifer, an angel
of glory, falling Because in his heart, he said, what belongs
to God is also mine. That glory, look at me. That glory, I look like God. So that glory belongs to me too.
I want to share it with Him. And that is the same reality
that the devil tempted the first people with. in the Garden of Eden where the
first humans are there and they have been given everything they
have by God. The world is theirs in the sense
of a created world. The physical, tangible world. Not the same world that is used
in John's Gospel. The world that's used in Genesis
1 and 2. So they have been given everything.
So they can literally stand in the garden in the presence of
God the Son, walking with Him in the cool of the day, and Adam
could say, Lord, everything I have is Yours. True. But what happened when the serpent
deceived them, is he said, you know what, God's withholding
something. And everything that God has, could be yours. You want it? And they said, yes. You will be like God and you
will know good and evil. Here, take it. Show God you can
take what's his. I'm going to say this, beloved.
When people think the operation of their volition gives them
eternal life. That's like taking what belongs
to God against His will. When people look at the effect
of certain reformation in their own morals and mind and they
brag and boast humbly. You know what a humble brag is?
We had a conversation about a friend of mine last night who posted
something on Facebook. Like a humble brag. I don't have
any more room in my safe for all my gold. Look, I mean, that
kind of stuff. We can have that humble brag. We think, oh, it's all of God,
but look what I did with the Lord's help. The Pharisee and the public,
and as Jesus teaches that parable, that's the only example of that.
Followed with how Jesus talks about the slaves of the first
century Palestine. and how when they work real hard
in the field, they're paying off a debt. Y'all read the Old Testament,
you know how it worked. And until you paid off the debt, you remained
property of those families. And when the debt was paid, you
were free. But what did he say about the servant in the field,
the farmhand? The farmhand worked real hard, and he came inside
to sit with the master at supper. Put your feet up, man, you've
worked real hard. He says, no, now it's time for you to clean up and
get my food. In the same way, we don't get
accolades, we don't get better brownie points with God because
of the reform in our life. We are only doing that which
is our duty. To be submissive to the Lord
of all things, the Lord of heaven, the Lord of earth, and the Lord
of those under the earth. At all times, eternally, Jesus
Christ is the Lord. No one makes Him Lord. No one
accepts Him as Lord. No one puts Him in the position
of Lord. He's Lord, and for the reprobate,
He will show them, and for the elect, He dies for them. So that He's
the Lord over life, He's the Lord over death, He's the master
over salvation, and sovereignly He is the owner of all things
that belong to God, and by that right, He saves His people. He prays for His people. He keeps
His people. Jesus, in His humanity, is claiming
rightful ownership of what belongs to God the Father. That's a strong
thing. So to believe, what has he just
said there? I've given them the words you gave me and they received
them from me and come to know in truth that I came from you.
And they have believed that you sent me. I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world,
but for those you have given me because they are yours. Eternally yours. I will have
mercy on whom I have mercy. I will have grace on whom I have
grace. I find it horrible and horrifying
when I talk with people who are in Pastoral circles with me sometimes
and they deal with that reality in a way that exalts man that
God responds to man's desires. And he gives mercy based on man's
desires. Gives mercy based on man's. Choices. Based on what God shows
him. No one is righteous. No, not
one. No one seeks after God. Nicodemus
was probably the most moral man that lived in Jerusalem. Probably
one of the most humble members of the Jews. And he came really
joyfully to Christ and said, we know who you are. I've studied
the Scriptures, and we know who you are. We know you are the
One come from God, the Christ, the Anointed One, the Chosen
One. And Jesus says, unless you're
born again, you cannot see Me. Unless you're born again, you
cannot claim to be in Me. Go back and listen to that sermon
if you've forgotten, or those sermons, if you've forgotten
that text. Or just read it. You can get
more out of it to read it. So to believe in Christ is to
know that you belong to Christ. To know that you belong because
of the work of Christ. To know that Christ is God. To
know that Christ has satisfied your sin debt to the Father.
To know that Christ judicially has justified you through His
death. To know that the promise of eternal life, which is secured
by the Holy Spirit in you, that you are sealed for Christ, for
God, for the day of redemption. To know that it is yours. To
know, as I like to joke, that you know that you know that you
have eternal life is not to be established in something you
have done, but it is to trust fully in the revelation of God
through Jesus Christ the Son concerning what He has done. That is something that the flesh
of a religious person cannot stomach. How are we able to forgive those
who sin against us? With that truth? We don't need
books on forgiveness or charts on forgiveness or classes on
forgiveness. How in the world are we able
to see an affection for people who hurt us? From the truth of the gospel,
by the Spirit. It's not within us. Why is it that so many people
who profess Christ are not hungry for the truth of the gospel?
Because they don't belong to Him. But I'm not talking about
how much or less you are in the Bible or how desirable you are. Listen, if I take a month and
just get into a bad routine, my hunger can die. But when I
hear it, it is food, it is joy, it is refreshing, it is awesome,
it is filling and I want more. You ever not been hungry and
drive by a Burger King? If it tastes like it smelled,
I'd still be there. But they pump that smoke into
their grill so that it fills the air and you're pumping gas
and like, I haven't had a Whopper in a while, I think I'll eat
six. I mean, you know, you just, You're
not even hungry, but when you smell that, it opens up something
in your mind and your body, begins to release hormones that cause
you to feel like you can eat. It's appetizing. So even in the
darkest of our spiritual days, as the children of God, when
the word of God, when the gospel of free grace and the gospel
of sovereign grace is expressed to us, is expounded and declared
to us, our ears become hungry, our soul becomes hungry. Oh yeah,
I remember eating that. That's good stuff. Don't measure just because you're
in a dry spell or that life has overcome you or that you're overworked
and underpaid and underappreciated. That you're painful or sick or
frustrated or sad or depressed. Don't gauge the promises of God
on your emotions and your feelings and your practices. You belong to Christ because
the Father has given you to him. And to believe in Christ is to
understand. That to be Christ's is to be
God's. Because Christ is God. That's why we can assert very
clearly if one does not believe that Christ is God, he is not
born of God. And how is this done? I've said
it seven, eight times today. By the power and the will of
God alone. But that's really not what I
want to talk about today. What I wanted to talk about today
is this last thing that Jesus says. And I am glorified in Him. I am glorified in them. Excuse me. I am glorified in
them." Think about all the different
ways in which Jesus has expressed glory in the Gospel of John. I mean, we could take 15 minutes
and I could walk through every chapter very quickly, but we
have seen his glory. Glory is the only son of the
Father. We have seen his glory in that he is the better bridegroom.
He reveals the perfection of God as a husband. which is very,
very literally an allusion to the Old Testament where God would
call his chosen elect people that he snatched out of the pagan
world to become his own by his choice. A picture of salvific
spiritual eternal election in a temporal sense. The cleansing of the temple,
the talking with Nicodemus, I'm the light of the world. People
love the darkness rather than the light. But those believing
have eternal life and so on and so forth. In chapter 4, I am
the living water. Chapter 5, do you want to be
healed? You want to be healed? The man there, and as Moses wrote
of me, he will indict you. The glory of God. God is revealed
continually through Jesus Christ, and every time he's confronted
and called out being a charlatan or someone who's taking self-interest,
he always exclaims with one solid refrain, I do not come to do
my will, but the will of the one who sent me. And the one
who sent me is the one from whom I come. the Father. We know John 6. We know the bread
of life. We know the words of eternal life. We understand that
Jesus, even revealing himself to certain
people, they cognitively come to the realization this could
be the Christ. This is the One. This is the God. But they can't
believe. In John 8, after we get through
to verse 12, He teaches again that he is the fullness of the
glory of God, revealed that everything that God is in character and
nature and essence and work and word is Jesus. To know Jesus
is to know God. And he even tells the Jews, unless
you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. But the truth will set you free. You're blind and so on and so
forth. I'm not going to go through it
all, but you get the point. God is glorified in the Son, but
in chapter 17, when Jesus prays, He says, the hour has come, Father,
and commands of the Father, glorify the Son, that your Son may glorify
you. Reveal me for who I am. Why is that not selfish? Why
is that not self-serving? Because it is never self-serving
for God to be seen. as he truly is. And when he's
seen as he truly is, he is exalted by those who can truly see. And
more than that, we have joy in that exaltation. I'm glorified in those that are
mine that are yours because all minor years and all yours are
mine. I am glorified in them. How is
it that Jesus is glorified in that? And then I want to close
today with a thought about how this is extremely important to
our assurance. I'm glorified in them. Who are
them? Those that you have given me
out of the world, who are they? The believing ones. When Jesus said it is finished
and gave up his spirit and died, The judicial work, the legal
work of justification was finished. He paid for sins in full. I just happened to be teaching
Hebrews on Tuesdays, and there are several times that Paul deals
with that in Hebrews, that he dealt with sin once for all.
There is no longer a sacrifice remaining for sin. So what is it that we must bring
to God in order to satisfy the debt of sin? What is it we must
do in order for there to be a satisfaction of sin to the Father? Nothing! It's the way you've got to believe,
you will believe. But faith in and of itself is
not the effectual justifier. What's the effectual justifier?
Christ, His work. What's the motivation of that
work? Love, sovereign will, decrees. What's a big word that overcomes
all of that, that encompasses all of that? Grace. Faith is a necessary condition.
It will be true of all the believing ones. But your faith, your believing
doesn't trigger some special switch for God where you are
now condemned to justify. Because that's faith in one's
faith. And that's self-condemnation.
And when you can't have faith in something that you haven't
truly mustered in your own self, the gift of faith is something
God does. You believe all the truth concerning
the gospel. You believe everything concerning
the person, the work of Christ, and for whom He did it all, to
the glory of God. And you trust in it. You rest
in it, even when you war over it. You come to the conclusion,
I just have to believe, in the teachings and the promises and
the work of Christ. It's Him. So even in faith that
you exercise in your mind, it is a gift. So when we come to
the terms of how our humanity, our fleshliness has to find a
way of measuring that faith, that is where the Phineites and
the Graham's and all of these historical so-called evangelists
have produced all of these measurable outcomes and measurable actions,
which can be checked off a list where you can go back in the
depths of your despair, and you can say, look at what I did on
September 4th, 1968. I prayed, I came, I went, I did,
I believed. You know that's not a testimony
of a believer. You know the testimony of a believer is, I know that
my Redeemer lives. The testimony of a believer is,
I know my God has saved me by His mercy. The testimony of a
believer is Jesus Christ is my righteousness without which I
cannot see the Lord. See, that's what it means in
Hebrews. The testimony of a believer is
whether I walk in a reformed way morally or whether I struggle
my entire existence battling over sin. I'm in Christ. And I belong to
him and he is satisfied. My sin. Oh, God, help me in my
unbelief. See, all these are biblical expressions
of gospel testimonies, what God has done, that God has rescued.
I know the war stories of my life,
young adult, childhood. Back before there was 9-1-1,
you know, you see something, you call, you have to memorize the
number, you call the police department, you call the fire department,
and you save the day. Now you press 9-1-1, you save
the day. You saw the bad guy, you went and you intervened,
you wing-chung-chopped yourself into victory. I mean, you know,
it's just always, oh, the good guy with gun, we stopped all
the badness. And everything you turn, it's always looking, praising
these heroes. Well, friends, we can be heroes
in a temporal sense in this world, but we can never be the heroes
of our own salvation. And my earthly vessel in mind
wants to be a hero. I want to be a hero. I want to
teach in a way that can cause you to believe. I want to expound
in a way that can make you see. I want to give you joy that even
I don't have, but it's out of my hands. It's out of my hands. And there have been many times
that I've went to superhero training. I got certifications in counseling.
I got this degree. I got that degree. How can I
help everybody? See, you can't. I even confessed
to some of the brothers yesterday that I still am so overly grieved
by certain people who have been disciplined out of our family.
When is that going to stop? I don't think it ever will not
be a burden for me. But the problem comes is when
I sinfully think that maybe if I just approached it a different
way, it would have had a different outcome. Maybe if I could just
deal something right now, maybe if I could just bake them a cake,
they'd see that I love them. Jesus is glorified in those He
has redeemed because they have always belonged to the Father.
It has been the eternal plan of God to save His people. Jesus
is glorified in... Now remember what that means.
He is seen for who He is in the fullness of all His attributes,
everything. He is seen and the outcome of
seeing truly is worship. Jesus is glorified in us because
we have been given to Him. by the Father. Jesus is glorified
in us because the Son's people are the Father's people. But
more than that, everything that has ever belonged to the Father
also belongs to the Son. It is a true thing that the Bible
teaches that God's glory is the ultimate end of all things. to the praise of His glorious
grace." Ephesians 1. That's why we are adopted. That's
why we are redeemed. That's why Jesus is our propitiation,
to the praise of His glorious grace. And it's not maniacal. God is worthy of all praise.
When we see Him through divine work, we know that that is true. And in this life, the whole reason
God created the world and everything in it and created the first people
is that in His eternal glorifying decrees, He purposed that in
His wisdom, the greatest glory that He could receive is to create a people and save
them from their sin by sending His Son to be like them. I mean, are you supposed to be
able to write a thesis on that? No. Could you? You could try. It'd be the longest
thesis in the world because it's never going to end. How many
years have I studied John's Gospel and read John's Gospel and written
about John's Gospel, and yet every day, every week, I get
more and more enthusiastic and more empowered You want an escape
from the world that we live in? Get into the Word of God and
let it reign. We are glorified in Christ because we are found in Him and
the Son has glorified the Father in all things. We are not a separate
consideration. We are the point. But what is
the ultimate point? God's glory. Yes, we are nothing
but worms in the scope of righteousness. But beloved, we are elect worms
who have been called saints and made saints. We are the righteousness
of God. Stop wallowing in condemnation. Christ has died and been condemned
for you. You want to deal with sin in
your life? Great. The gospel of grace is the most important
thing to remember. What does that say? That Christ
has already dealt with your sin. One of the main reasons is that
believers stay stuck in certain habits and certain battles is
because they're not intimate with the true body. We don't let people in. And that is God's means of grace
through which the Bible will become a living, breathing reality
in our instruction, in our accountability, in our life together in love. Jesus has glorified the Father
in all things. He has shown everything that
Jesus has ever said, done, eaten, digested, exposed, accomplished. And I'm being funny when I say
digested, but you know it. has revealed to us the true character
and nature of God for His people. And we're glorified in. We glorify
Christ in that reality. We glorify Him. He says, I'm
glorified in them because Jesus has glorified the Father in the
redemption of the Father's people. And this redemption is complete. It is lacking nothing. I've finished
the work. Look what I've done. Look what
I've accomplished. This is God. This is your God. God writes His law on our hearts, which means He shows us Himself.
We see Him for all that He is. And the law bears witness to
his true righteousness and his true righteousness is Jesus Christ.
The law is a shadow, a commercial of the coming true. Jesus is
true. We have eternal life. We have
been purchased by the son that glorifies him. Our existence
reveals the fullness of his glory. It's not the first time we see
that. Paul deals with that in Ephesians. Paul says to the church of Ephesus. Well, if I get in the right passage,
I'll be there. In chapter three. So that through the manifold,
through the church, The manifold wisdom of God may now be made
known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places. I want
you to see this again. If you remember when we went
through Ephesians, what does that mean? What's the context
of rulers and authorities in the heavenly places? That's the
demonic, fallen, non-elect angels. And if you remember the point
I made in that contextually is that because the church exists,
because the redeemed are redeemed and we exist, it proves and reveals
to the devil and demons that Christ is God. And they're able to see non salvificly
the fullness of his work through the body of Christ. Paul would
iterate that same idea for himself. He would say to the Thessalonians,
you are my crown and my joy. And numerous times we see Paul
using that phraseology concerning a group of Christians. And so if the church can be the
crown and the joy of one of Christ's people, how much more is the
church the revelation of the redemption of God, the son. I'm glorified in them. And those who were not of the
world, but were given to me out of the world from the world,
We are a part of the glorious revelation of the character and
the perfection of God's essence, or we are a result of his sovereign
grace. So we're a picture of it. The heavens declare the glory
of God. the work of his hands, the artistry of his wild, perfect
imagination. I'm just going to use those terms.
Those are not theological terms to deal with God. But there are
things that we are yet to discover in this world, creatures and
plants that have yet to be seen by a human being that blow our
minds when we find them. Things that are in the depths
of the oceans that when we see pictures of them We think, there's
such a thing as that? The vastness of just the landscape
of the geography or the topography of just the world is unbelievably
amazing. And it speaks to the ineffable
glory of God as creator. How much more then? Should we
know the heart and the mind of the expression of an artist than
when we see what he or she would paint on a wall out of his or
her mind and will and desire? What greater painting of the
glory of God than Jesus Christ? And what greater illustration
of God's redemptive God's glory than in the redemption of his
people? You might think, boy, you playing
with fire now. You being all fruity cake on
us and talking about things that aren't biblical. You are God's
workmanship. created in Christ Jesus to do
good works. That has to do with the context
of the local assembly. We love one another. Just like
in Hebrews, exhort one another daily unto love and good deeds.
It's about serving the body. That's the good works that we
look for. It's the good works in the book of James. Love one
another. And this is how you do it. And
we get all those things from the epistles. We are the workmanship of God,
created in Christ Jesus to do good works, that God is glorified. As a matter of fact, Paul closes,
doesn't he say that in Ephesians 3? I should have just stayed there.
I don't know why that's in my head this morning. Ephesians 3, the
very last thing he says is a prayer. Now, a doxology, now to Him,
verse 20, who is able to do far more abundantly than all that
we ask or think, how? According to the power at work
within us. And then we praise Him. To Him
be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations
forever and ever. So it is. So what does this leave us? What
is the sovereign grace? What is this glorying Christ? How is it that there's something
more than this? For me than just this knowledge,
friends, I pray this knowledge will give you a greater assurance.
A greater sense of worship. as parents and grandparents and
uncles and aunts and sisters and brothers and people who have
relationships, husbands, wives, and you name it, that we would
take opportunity as this is growing in our hearts and minds to express
it to others when the opportunity comes. We had a general conversation
yesterday about what is the work of an evangelist? And our culture
has done a terrible job of expressing that in systems. Here's the foundation of being
an evangelist in your life. Knowing you glorify the Son in
your salvation. Knowing that He glorifies the
Father in His redemption. Knowing that God has given you
to Him and you belong to Him and there is no way possible
that He will ever cast you away. And that is the antidote to every
poison that this life could ever pour into the soul of our beings. It is the inexpressible, ridiculous,
almost insane. Recipe for joy in the midst of
impossible circumstances. If you eat this and pour this
into your life, pour this into your mind, you will pour it out
into others. Friends, we share that which
we spend most of our time with. Here's where our assurance of
eternal hope and sovereignty and God's powerful grace. This
is what we need to remember concerning our assurance is that Jesus is
praying for those who belong to him. And Jesus' prayer is effectual. They belong to Him by the sovereign
power of God the Father, not by any action or will of their
own. It is not you who came to Christ, it is Christ who died
for you. We are justified by the cross
of Christ, by His death, And there is no other means to justification
except by the propitiatory substitutionary atonement of Jesus. He became
sin. He took on guilt. He stood in
our place. We have the promise of God by
the authority of Jesus, who is God, who raised Himself from
the dead. This is not a possibility or
a wishless thinking or hopeful thinking, wishful thinking, whatever
I'm trying to say there. This is a promise of God that
is secured in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He said, I am
the resurrection of the life, and He is, and proved it. Our assurance is perfected by
the prayers of Jesus. He is always looking to glorify
the Father who is glorifying His Son. And this is seen in
the purpose of Jesus' incarnation, the redemption of His people
out of the world. Jesus tends to the necessity
of our salvation by the will of God the Father. Jesus comes
to do the will of God, which is to save God's people out of
the world. And now we see at the end of
Jesus' earthly ministry before the cross, He's about to finish
it, He prays an effectual prayer for us, and this prayer is done. We see the illustration that
Paul establishes in the book of Hebrews, a polemic against
the shadows of Judaism. It doesn't show two covenants
of salvation, it shows a shadow of the true covenant of grace. The Scripture says there that
Christ is able to save to the uttermost. And that He is a high priest,
eternally, forever, fulfilling the role of the Lamb of God. That He sat down at the right
hand of majesty because He has finished paying for sin. He has given His life for the
ransom of His people. And He prays for us. But it's
not just for we who are now believing. It wasn't just for the eleven
that were there. But it was for all those who
will believe. All those He has died for. All those who do belong to the
Father and have been given to the Son. And so if there is no assurance
there, there is no assurance anywhere. If that is not sufficient for
hope, where else are you going to look? There's nowhere else
to look. And I know it's conflicting with
the world in which we live. But beloved, the Bible is clear.
And the Scripture is true. And when God gives us the eyes
to see, it's because we belong to Him. Let's pray. We thank you, Father,
for your free and sovereign grace, for your mercy, for your love,
for your kindness toward us, for causing us to be born again
to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ
from the dead. Thank you, Father, that you have
kept us that you have chosen us before the foundation of the
world and you have given us to Jesus and Jesus saved us for
your glory and for his glory. And one day we will share in
that glory because we are his body. What an amazing truth. We are a reflection. In a small way. of the perfection
of you fully. So Lord, give us a great confidence
in this truth. That our hope and joy may be
full for that is what Jesus, your son, is praying here for
these believers and for all believers of all time. So help us to be
joyful. Father, I continue to pray for
us as a family. Guard us, keep us, hold us together. Help us to be quick to forgive,
slow to anger, to listen more than we speak, to share our burdens,
to be at peace. Open our lives to others in the
faith that we may be encouraged. For at the end of it all, it
is not about our kingdoms of this world, but it is about Your
glory and the kingdom of Your Son. Help us to stand in a way
that glorifies You as Your elect. Giving praise to You for Your
grace. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.