I asked Mike if he'd sing that
song for us this morning, and he said, well, I'll give it a
try. My old voice can do it. Mike has never been better. Never
been better. Thank you. Let's open our Bibles
again to John chapter 17. The title of the message this
morning is The Finished Work of Christ. We begin in verse
4 where our Lord says, I have glorified thee on the earth.
I finished the work which thou gavest me to do." Now our Lord
says, I have glorified thee on the earth. The glory of God is
much too great for any of us to be able to comprehend. We
can't think that high. We can't think that great. We
can't comprehend something that glorious. It's the glory of God. But we do know something about
the glory of God. We know what God has been pleased
to reveal to us in his word about his glory. We know something
about the glory of God in creation. Paul said in Romans 1, for the
invisible things of him from the creation of the world are
clearly seen. David said in Psalm 19, the heavens
declare the glory of God, the firmament show forth its handiwork.
We can look at creation and see something of God's glory. We
can see something of God's glory and providence. You think how
the Lord overrules every event of this world to work together
to accomplish His purpose. I'll give you one example. Think
of how the Lord overruled every event to bring the children of
Israel to Egypt and then bring them out. The Lord overruled
every event so that everything happened in a perfect, timely
fashion for the good of his people. Before he sent Israel's children
to Egypt, he sent Joseph there first. He made his brothers hate
Joseph and they sold him into slavery. He sent him to Egypt
where he spent a number of years in dark, difficult trials until
one day he was made king so that when his brethren came, He provided
for them. He gave them the best of the
land of Egypt. And everything was wonderful for them there.
So wonderful they would have stayed forever. They would have
stayed right there. God needs to bring them out of
there. They cannot stay in Egypt. Well, and there arose a pharaoh
that knew not Joseph. That pharaoh put the children
of Israel into slavery. And they spent nearly 400 years
in slavery until the Deliverer was born. Moses was born. Well,
all the boy babies were supposed to be killed. Moses' life was
miraculously preserved so that Pharaoh's own daughter raised
Moses, raised him up, educated him in the house of Pharaoh,
raised up the deliverer. And Moses came of years, he's
going to go deliver Egypt. He's in a prime of life. He's
strong. He's the second most powerful
man, I suppose, in all the world. He's going to go deliver Egypt.
No, he's not. He got kicked out of Egypt, didn't
he? Spent 40 years on the back side of the desert. Spent 40
years watching sheep. So long, he forgot how to even
hold a conversation with people. And that's when God said, now
I'm going to use you. I'm going to send you back. And you're
going to deliver My people for My glory. And sure enough, He
did. He let them out of Egypt. Brought
them to the edge of the Promised Land where Joshua brought them
in. God overruled every event to make that happen. You think
how the Lord raises up rulers and raises up nations to accomplish
His purpose and He's done with them? We saw that in Wednesday
night. He wads them up like a piece of paper and throws them away.
He's done. You think personally how the Lord worked every event
of your life to bring you to hear the gospel. Only the Lord
could do that. That's God's glory in providence.
We see a little bit of it, don't we? But we see God's glory most
clearly revealed when we look at His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we see God's glory
in Christ because in His person, the Lord Jesus Christ glorified
God on earth. In His person as the God-man.
There's never been another man like Him. His perfect obedience
glorified His Father. His life of perfection. He loved
His Father perfectly. That glorified His Father. His
righteousness does exceed the righteousness of the scribes
and Pharisees. Yet he's loving and kind. You
know, the Pharisees thought they were so righteous they were mean
and hard on everybody else. Here's a man whose righteousness
exceeds theirs. But he's a loving, kind, compassionate
man. Publicans and sinners flock to
him because they're comfortable in his presence. Every miracle
our Lord performs. glorified His Father, showing
everyone who He is, who God is, His power, His ability. Christ
lived a life of wisdom. He's all wise. He's so wise,
He can forgive a woman taken in the very act of adultery and
forgive her, yet never condone her sin. And in His wisdom, when
He did that, He glorified His Father. Christ lived a life of
all power. Here's a man who has the power
to control the weather. In the midst of a storm, he doesn't
tell the storm to stop and it slowly calms down. In the midst
of a violent storm, he tells the waves to stop and the wind
stopped and instantly the sea became like a sheet of glass.
This man has power over the weather. He has power to create food. He has power over germs and sickness
and disease. He even has power over life and
death. He raised the dead. This man has all power, yet never
one time did he use that power to help himself. He always used
his power for the good of others, to help others. The Lord Jesus
Christ is the glory of God. Look at Hebrews chapter 1. If
you're interested in looking at the brightness of God's glory,
all you've got to do is look in the face of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Hebrews 1. Verse 3, who being the brightness of his
glory, and the express image, the exact image of his person,
and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had
by himself purged our sins, he sat down on the right hand of
the Majesty on high, being made so much better than the angels,
as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
There at the Father's right hand, if you look, is the brightness
of God's glory. Now the Jews, here's this man. As a man, glorified God, he comes
to his own. His own received him not, but
he came into his own, that Jewish nation. Finally, after all these
years of waiting for the promised Messiah, here he is. The Jews
had been under the law of Moses for 2,000 years. And they love
that law. They love the ceremonies and
all the things that set them apart from all the other nations.
And that law does show us some of the attributes of God, doesn't
it? We can see some of God's glory in the law. We see the
glory of God's holiness. We see his justice in the law.
But the law can never show us the glory of God. It can never
show us the true glory of God because the law can never show
us anything of God showing mercy to those lawbreakers. Look in
Luke chapter 10. The message of the law is due. Due and keep doing. Due and always
due. The message of the law is due.
Christ came and the message of Christ is done. The message of
Christ is it's finished. Look here at Luke chapter 10
verse 25. And behold, a certain lawyer
stood up and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit
eternal life? And our Lord is going to meet
him on the ground on which he came. What shall I do to inherit
eternal life? For our Lord said unto him, What
is written in the law? How readest thou? He answered
and said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart,
with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy mind,
and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast
answered right. This do, and thou shalt live. The message of the law is due. The message of Christ is it's
finished. Christ glorified God by finishing
a work. And he finished that work on
earth. He finished it where sin is,
on earth. Christ came and finished the
work that Adam ruined. Where Adam did not glorify God?
On the earth. That's where Christ came to glorify
God. And he glorified God by restoring
what Adam lost, by wiping out what Adam did. Christ came to
wipe out the sin of God's elect and restore them to fellowship
with God. He came to do what Adam could not do, to keep God's
law for his people and to make them perfect in Him. A glorifying
God. and finishing the work that the
Father gave the Son to do are closely tied together. It took
both the life of Christ and the death of Christ to glorify the
Father and finish the work that the Father gave Him to do. And
in this prayer, our Lord gives us five things that He has done
to show us what is the work that the Father gave Him to do. He
said in this prayer, the five things that He finished, He finished
the work. The first one is this. The Father
gave Christ the work of making the name of God manifest. Look at verse 6. I have manifested
thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine
they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word. Now this word manifested, it
means to make known or make understood. Now to know someone's name means
to know who that person really is. Christ came to make men understand
who God really is. Now, I have always tried to take
care of my name. I told our girls that all the
time they're growing up. Take care of your name. Take
care of your name. And by that, I mean take care of your reputation.
Take care of what people think when they hear your name. If
people hear the name Frank Tate and they think the first thing
that comes to their mind is cheater, dishonest, a coward, a backstabber,
then that's who I am. At least to them, that's who
I am. I hope that's not who I really
am, but that would go with your name. But if people hear the
name Frank Tate and they think, honest, kind, faithful, trustworthy,
then to them, that's who I am. Now you can know what my name
is by looking it up in a phone book. You can go on the internet,
you can say, wonder who lives in that house? You see the address,
you put the address in, the internet will tell you who lives in that
house. You can look up what my name is. But you can't know who
I am unless I spend time with you. Men can know the names of
the Lord by reading the Bible. Just read it. You can know His
name, the name Jehovah. It's right there for you to read.
You can know that's what His name is. You can understand His
name is Jehovah Jireh from reading about Abraham. You can read that
His name is Jehovah Sidkenu by reading in Jeremiah. You can
read His name as Jehovah Shalom. You can know that that's what
His name is. But you'll never know what that
name means until God comes and spends time with you. That's
what the Lord Jesus Christ came to do. He came to spend time
with men so that we would know who God is. So that when we hear
men talk, we know if they're talking about Him or not. You
know, someone gets on the Internet and does this address search,
and they learn the name Frank Tate. And they see you. And they
say, I know this name, Frank Tate. Fell 6'4", he's got jet
black hair. He can run like the wind. You're
going to say, you might know what his name is, but you don't
know him. I know him. I know better than
that. That's the way it is for the believer who knows the name
of God. So that when you hear this false
prophet talking, you'll know, you might know what his name
is, but you don't know him. I know him because Christ came
and manifested, told me what God's name means, told me who
God is. God told Moses, Moses, I'm going
to proclaim the name of the Lord before thee. I'll be gracious
to whom I will be gracious. I'll show mercy to whom I will
show mercy. That's who God is. That's his
name. Now, I know what the name of
God means when I see the Lord Jesus Christ coming to show mercy
to a sinner like me by becoming my substitute. Look in Isaiah
chapter 42. Isaiah 42, verse 8. I am the Lord. I am Jehovah. That's my name. And my glory
will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images. He
says, that's my name. Now, what's he talking about?
What characteristics of that name is he talking about? Well,
it's what we read in the verses that come before this. Verse
1, Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect. in whom my soul delighteth."
Christ is God's first elect, and we're electing Him, and the
Father is delighted with His Son, and He's delighted with
His people in His Son. Verse 2, "...he shall not cry,
nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A
bruised reed shall he not break, and a smoking flask shall he
not quench. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth." This is
the humility and tenderness of Christ. This is Jehovah. He doesn't crush the weak. He
saves them. Verse 4. He shall not fail nor
be discouraged. For he hath set judgment on the
earth, and the isle shall wait for his law. Christ is the successful
Savior. Whatever it is He came to do,
He did it because He's the successful Savior. Verse 5. Thus saith God the Lord. He that
created the heavens, and stretched them out, hath spread forth the
earth, and that which cometh out of it. He giveth bread unto
the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein." Christ
is the Creator. He gives life. He created the
earth, and He gives life to everything on the earth. It all belongs
to Him. He is the Creator. Verse 6, I
the Lord have called thee in righteousness. Christ is our
righteousness. We don't have any righteousness
of our own. he came to establish righteousness for his people.
The rest of verse 6, And I will hold thine hand, and will keep
thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of
the Gentiles. Christ is our mediator. He's
the mediator of a better covenant, a covenant of grace. That's the
work he came to finish, the covenant of grace. Verse 7, He came to
open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the and
them that sat in darkness out of the prison house. Christ came
as the healer of every spiritual disease and he came to set his
people free. Free from bondage of sin. Free
from the powers of sin. Now the Lord says, that's my
name. That's who I am. And my glory will I not share
with another. This is the glory of my name.
Salvation is of the Lord. All of it, from beginning to
end. And you and I are completely dependent on the Lord to save
us. Now, if we're dependent on Him,
what should we do? What should we do? What does
the book say? The book says, call on His name. Now, what does it mean to call
on the name of the Lord? To call on His name is to call
on the name of Christ out of my need and out of my weakness.
I call on Christ my righteousness because all I am is sin. I'm
saying I don't have any righteousness. He's my righteousness. That's
why I call. I need Christ to be my righteousness. That's why I call on Him. I call
on Christ my prophet because I'm too stupid to figure anything
out on my own. I need Christ my prophet. I need
Christ to be my wisdom, to tell me who God is, to tell me how
God saves sinners. I call on Christ my priest because
I'm so sinful. The only way I can be justified
is if Christ justifies me. If he's my high priest who offers
himself as the sacrifice upon the altar, that's the only way
someone like me can be saved. I call on Christ my king because
I'm too weak to come to Christ on my own. That's what we looked
at in the Song of Solomon this morning. He must draw me. Draw
me, I pray. And I'll come running. That's
calling on the name of the Lord. Christ came to make God's name
manifest. And he did it. He finished the
work. Second, the Father gave Christ the work of making the
word of God known. John chapter 17. I'm sorry, verse
8. For I have given unto them the
words which thou gavest me, and they have received them. And
known surely that I came out from thee, And they have believed
that thou didst send me." Now this Word that you're holding
in your lap is the Word of God. It's the very Word of God. The
verbally inspired Word of God the Holy Spirit. Now God's holy. So His Word's holy. God is perfect. So His Word's perfect. God is
life. So this Word that you're holding
in your lap is life. And the Lord Jesus Christ came
as the Incarnate Word. We can only understand what God's
Word means by knowing who Christ is. Because Christ is the message
of every verse of Scripture. We may read a verse of Scripture
and see. That gives me some pretty good
advice on how to live in this world. You read Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes Wow, that's pretty good advice on how to live in
this world. You know, people like you and
you'd be a better person. But if that's all you see, you
have not seen the message of that verse. I promise you haven't.
The message of every verse of Scripture is Christ. God's Word
tells us how God gives life to dead sinners. Not so much how
to live in this world, although it does, but God's Word gives
life eternal life to sinners. Well, how does it do that? The
Scripture is full of God's law, isn't it? Is it through the law?
The Scripture is full of ceremonies. Is it through the ceremonies?
No. What does God's Word say? God's
Word says life is ours through faith in Christ because He fulfilled
the law. He kept all the ceremonies. Look
back at John chapter 6. This written word, which reveals
Christ's Incarnate Word, is eternal life. John 6, verse 60. Many, therefore, of his disciples,
when they heard this, said, This is a hard saying. These are hard
words. Who can hear it? When Jesus knew
in himself that his disciples murmured at it, he said unto
them, Doth this offend you? What if ye shall see the Son
of Man ascend up where he was before? You haven't seen anything
yet. It is the spirit that quickeneth,
the flesh profiteth nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
their spirit and their life. But there are some of you that
believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning
who they were that believed not, and who should betray him. And
he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto
me, except it were given unto him of my father. From that time
many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.
Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will you also go away? Then Simon
Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the
words of eternal life, and we believe and we're sure that thou
art that Christ, the Son of the living God. Why did Peter say
that? Christ made manifest the word
of God to him, and he believed. He understood that life is in
Christ. And we have life through faith
in Him. Look back over at John 17. Faith believes God's Word. Our Lord says, I have given unto
them the words which thou gavest me, and they have received them. They believe them. I know they
believe them because they know surely that I came out from thee.
And they have believed that thou didst send me. And we'll deal
more with this later on, but what is it to believe that the
Father sent Christ? We're getting coming up on this
time after Thursday in my house, we're allowed to talk about Christmas
and have Christmas music on stuff. Not so after then, but after
then, everybody's going to become mighty interested in this baby
Jesus, aren't they? Most everybody in our area of
the world believes God sent his son into this world, but they
don't know God. So what does it mean to believe
the father sent his son into this world? It means this. that the Father sent his beloved
Son to save me, to be my representative, to be my sacrifice, to be my
righteousness. That is to believe God's Word.
You could only believe that by knowing Christ. He finished the
work. Thirdly, the Father gave Christ
the work of saving God's elect. Verse 12, while I was with them
in the world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest
me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition
that the scripture might be fulfilled. None of them is lost. I saved
every one of them." Now this word kept our Lord uses here,
it means to change them and to keep them changed. It means to
save them and keep them saved. Now our Lord prays to his Father,
Father I saved Everyone you gave me to save. Now that's God's
elect. God has an elect people. He gave
them to Christ and Christ came to save those people. He didn't
come to save everybody. He did not come to give everybody
a chance to be saved. Christ came to do this work. To save God's elect. To save
those that God chose. Now everybody needs to be saved.
Because everyone, without exception, is a sinner who deserved eternal
death because of our sin. Christ didn't come to save everybody.
He came to save God's people. Now, whoever it is that Christ
came to save, you and I don't know who God's elect are. He
does, but we don't. Whoever those people are, those
people are eternally, absolutely saved, redeemed from all sin. I look over in Daniel chapter
9. This is a prophecy given to us in the Old Testament of how
Christ is going to come and save his people. Christ saved his
people by putting their sin away through his sacrifice. He took
their sin away by taking their sin and his own body on the tree
and putting it away through the shedding of his blood, the sacrifice
of his precious body. Now Daniel 9, verse 16, this
is Daniel praying. He says, O Lord, according to
thy righteousness I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury
be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain,
because for our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers,
Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all them
that are about us. Now therefore, O our God, hear
the prayer of thy servant and his supplications. and cause
thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate, and do this
for the Lord's sake. O my God, incline thine ear and
hear, open thine eyes, and behold our desolations, and the city
which is called by thy name. For we do not present our supplications
before thee for our righteousness, but for thy great mercy. We're
not praying to you because of any righteousness we have or
any goodness that we've ever done because we don't have any.
We're nothing but sin. So we're begging you for mercy. And the Lord answered Daniel's
prayer. He told Daniel, the Messiah is going to come. God's going
to be merciful to his people through the Messiah when he puts
the sin of his people away and makes his people righteous. Verse
24. Seventy weeks are determined,
those seventy weeks, each week is seven years, exactly, I think
it's 490 years from the time this prophecy was given to Daniel,
Christ came. Seventy weeks are determined
upon my people and upon my holy city. And here's why he's coming.
Not when he's coming is not as important. This is what's important.
Why he came. To finish the transgression and
to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity.
and to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up the vision and prophecy,
and to anoint the most holy. Christ came to do this work,
to finish the transgression, to make an end of it, to make
an end of sin. He came to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to make his people righteous. Now how can he accomplish
those two things? He's going to accomplish it by
making reconciliation for that iniquity. He's going to take
the sin of his people into his own precious body. He's going
to be made sin for his people. He's going to be made guilty
of that sin, and he's going to suffer the penalty of the law.
He's going to suffer and die for the sin of his people. That's
what verse 26 says. After three score and two weeks
shall Messiah be cut off. But not for himself, not for
his own sin, for the sins of others charged to him. He's going
to put their sin away by a sacrifice. And He will make them righteous.
He's going to bring in everlasting righteousness. He's going to
trade His personal righteousness for the personal sin of His people.
The sin of Adam and his people. He's going to make that trade
and He's going to make His people righteous. And He's going to
keep them righteous. That's what that word kept means.
Change them and keep them changed. Make them righteous and keep
them righteous. That's how God saves sinners. Through the work
of Christ. And our Lord says, I finished
the work. It's done. How sure is the purpose of God? Our Lord says it's done. This
is God's purpose, to save His people through the sacrifice
of His Son, to make them righteous in the righteousness of His Son.
How sure is that? Is the blood of Christ powerful
enough to cleanse us from all sin? Really? From Adam's sin
and my sin too? How sure are we that I know in
eternity past the father determined to kill his son as a sacrifice
for sin. But when the rubber meets the
road, how sure are we that the father really is going to accept
the sacrifice of Christ as payment for all that sin? How sure are
we? Here hours before he goes to
the cross, our Savior speaks in past tense. Brethren, it's
done. It's finished. It's sure. Before he ever offered his own
self as a sacrifice for the sins of his people, he said it's done. That's how sure the purpose of
God and the salvation of his people is. None of us were born
then. How do we know we're going to
hear about this? How do we know that this blood that he sheds
here in just a few hours is going to be applied to my heart? Our
Lord said, it's done. I've already done it. The purpose
of God is sure. Now the salvation of God's elect
is sure. It's done. But they still have
to be brought to faith in Christ, don't they? Well, how will that
happen? Well, here's the fourth work
the Father gave Christ to do. The Father gave Christ the work
of sending men into the world to preach the gospel. I pray not that thou shouldst
take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them
from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of
the world. Sanctify them through thy truth.
Thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the
world, even so have I also sent them into the world." Now man-made
religion sends men and women into monasteries. They keep them
separate from people. They don't want them to come
in contact with the rest of the world. You know, they're afraid
it will happen. Well, what good does it do if these holy people
are locked up in a monastery somewhere? That's like buying
salt and keeping it closed up in a box and putting it up on
a shelf where it stays safe. If you do that, that salt's never
going to preserve any meat. That salt's never going to flavor
any meal you ever have. Brethren, we are the salt of
the earth. We who believe Christ, we who
know Christ are the salt of the earth. Now you go out in the
world. I know it's a horrible place.
Go out into it and be the salt of the earth. Preserve the earth
and preserve the world and flavor the world by telling people about
Christ. Religion keeps men out of the
world. Christ sends his people out into the world. How else
is the gospel going to be preached? He sends his people out into
the world. Well, then let's go out into
the world and preach the gospel. I know everybody's not a preacher,
but everybody can be a witness. Everybody can tell people. Every
believer here, we may not be able to preach the gospel. You
may not be able to study the scripture and lay out an outline
and be able to present it to folks. But I'll tell you what
you can do. You can go home. And you can tell your friends
and your neighbors what great things Christ has done for you.
You can do that. The Lord saved me. You can tell
people that. Be a witness. Tell them about
Christ. Tell them about His love and
His power and His sufficiency. You can go out in the world and
get a job. Support the ministry so we can
send men out in the world. Tell them about the Savior. Go
live a life that shows you've been with the Lord Jesus. That's
being the salt of the earth. People watched those disciples
and they took note. Something about them. They'd
been with Jesus. We can live life like that. That's
how we'd be the salt of the earth. God sends his people out into
the world to preach the gospel. Look at verse 26. Our Lord says,
I've declared unto them thy name and will declare it, that the
love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them and I in them.
I've declared your name and I'm going to keep declaring it. How?
through his people going out into the world and preaching
him. That's how. Go preach the name of Christ.
Go tell people about Christ. I guarantee you somebody's going
to hear. Somebody's going to believe it.
I guarantee it. Because here's the fifth work the Father gave
Christ to do. The Father gave Christ the work of glorifying
his people. Verse 22, And the glory which
thou gavest to me I've given them, that they may be one even
as we are one. Now how can sinners like us be
given the glory that the Father gave the Son? We already said
we can't imagine that glory. We just don't have any concept
of that glory. How can we be given the same
glory that the Father gave the Son? It's through union with
Christ. That they may be one even as
we are one. That's union. So whatever it
is the Father gave the Son, He gave all of His people. Because
we're one with Christ. And this glory is not something
a believer has to wait for. You don't have to wait until
you wake up in heaven to have this glory. A believer has this
glory right now. Now, I know that's not the way
we see ourselves. That's not the way we think of
ourselves. But that's the way we are if we're in Christ. Our
Lord here is speaking in past tense again. I've already given
it to Him, He says. I've already given them that
glory. Look over Romans chapter 8. Here's the work that the Father
gave Christ. And our Lord says, I finished
it. Romans 8 verse 28. And we know that all things work
together for good, to them that love God, to them who are called
according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow He also
did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that
he might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover, whom
he did predestinate, then he also called. Whom he called,
then he also justified. Whom he justified, then he also
glorified." That's speaking in past tense. You've already been
glorified if you believe Christ. Look at verse 31. What should
we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be
against us? This is done in the past tense.
Well, alright, I see that. But what does that mean? I'm
not in glorified flesh. I'm not in a glorified state
of any kind. All you've got to do is look
at me. You can tell that. So what does this mean? Well, look
in Colossians chapter 1. Colossians 1, verse 12, I can
show you exactly what this means. Verse 12, giving thanks unto
the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance
of the saints in life. That word meet means made fit
or qualified right now. Paul is speaking in the past
tense again. God's already made you fit. He's already made you
qualified. You who believe right at this
moment are as qualified to enter into heaven as you'll ever be.
Just as qualified. Now your flesh is not. You have
to get rid of the flesh. But you are. You are as qualified
to enter into heaven as you ever will be. The you that's been
born in the new birth. That new man. You're so qualified,
you've already changed citizenships. Look at verse 13. Who hath delivered
us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us. He's
transferred us into the kingdom of his dear son. Now that's the
work that Christ finished. He glorified his people. Now,
what is the result of the work of Christ that he finished? Well,
back in our text, John 17, verse 5, And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was. Now, our Lord prays, Father,
I have glorified you. Now would you glorify me by giving
me the glory that I had with thee before the world was? Now,
our Lord's not asking this as the Son of God. He's praying
as a man. He's praying as our mediator,
as our representative. As the Son of God, He can't be
given any glory. He always has had all glory,
so no glory can be added to Him. But He's praying as a man, as
our representative. He's praying for His personal
glory. The glory that He earned by finishing
the work the Father gave Him to do. He says to His Father,
I humiliated myself, I humbled myself to do everything that
it took to redeem my people. I humbled myself to finish the
work that you gave me to do. Now, give me the glory that's
mine, because I finished the work of redemption." And it's
right, it's only right that our Lord ask this of His Father.
Because in the eternity past, God the Father and God the Son
struck hands. They entered into a covenant,
a covenant of grace. They entered into a covenant
that would accomplish the salvation of God's elect. And in that covenant,
the father agreed that he prepare a body for his son. That he send
his son in the body of a man. And that at the end, in the fullness
of time, the father would make the soul of his son to be an
offering for the sin of his people. And then, after that offering,
because of that sacrifice, Isaiah told us that the father would
then divide the spoil of the strong with him. That when he
finished the work, the Father would glorify him as the Savior
of his people because he finished the work of salvation. Now Christ
says the work is finished. Now glorify me with the glory
that I had with thee before the world was. Now why is that so
important? What does that mean to you and
me? Christ is asking to be glorified as the Son of God in human flesh. And if the Father glorifies Him
in that way, if the Father brings Him to glory as His Son in human
flesh, then we know beyond a shadow of a doubt the Father accepted
His sacrifice for His people. If the Father glorifies His Son
and brings a man into glory and sets a man on the throne of glory,
then we know heaven's opened and there's going to be many
more. Everybody He came to save, He said, I saved them. I glorified
them. Every one of those people in
glorified flesh are going to appear before that throne in
heaven to be with Christ eternally because the Father accepted the
sacrifice of Christ for their sin and He made them just like
Christ, just like His own Son. Only our Lord could say, Father,
I have glorified thee on the earth. I finished the work that
you gave me to do. So only Christ could be glorified
as the Savior. Now if you look over to Hebrews
chapter 10, I want to end the message reading a few verses
in Hebrews chapter 10. Christ was glorified as the Savior.
And the only way sinners like us can be glorified is in Christ. Through the finished work of
Christ that he accomplished for us. Hebrews 10, verse 4. For it is not possible that the
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me. And burnt
offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come. And the volume of the book is
written of me. We read one example of that in Daniel. I come to
do thy will, O God. I come to finish the work. Above,
when he said sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering
for sin, thou wouldst not, neither has pleasure therein which are
offered by the law. Then said he, Lo, I come to do
thy will, O God. I come to finish the work. And
he taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.
By the which will? were sanctified through the offering
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. For every priest standeth
daily, ministering, and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices,
which can never take away sins. But this man, after he offered
one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of
God." He sat down because the work is finished. "...from henceforth
expecting to his enemies be made his footstool. For by one offering
he hath perfected forever them that are whereof the Holy Ghost
also is a witness to us. For after that he said before,
This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days,
saith the Lord, I will put my laws in their hearts, and in
their minds will I write them, and their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. Now, where remission of these
is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren,
boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of by a new and
living way which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that
is to say, his flesh, and having a high priest over the house
of God. Now, because the work is finished, because we have
union with Christ, let us draw near with a true heart and full
assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil
conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. And let us hold
fast the profession of our faith without wavering, for he is faithful
that He promised he's going to finish the work. He finished
it. The work's done. Now let's come
before the throne of Almighty God with boldness in our Lord
Jesus Christ, accepted in Him. Alright, let's bow in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, how thankful
we are for the good news of the Gospel, that it is finished. That Christ finished all the
work that is required for salvation. And that your children can rest
in Him. That we'll be accepted in Him.
That we have union with Him so that everything you've given
your son, you've given your people. That we're glorified. That we're
accepted. That we're cleansed from all
sin. That you've given us faith to believe your word and cling
to your word and to know your name. through the Lord Jesus
Christ. We know who you are because in
your mercy you declared your son to us. Father, we're thankful. And we ask you to make us faithful.
Oh, make us faithful. Faithful to continue looking
to thee and clinging to thee. Faithful to continue preaching
the gospel to this world. That you'd make us faithful to
be the salt of the earth. Father, we're so thankful. We're
thankful for this occasion that we're about to celebrate. We
ask that You'd bless this food that we're about to eat. We're
thankful for the occasion, thankful for Kendon as we celebrate his
birthday. Father, we pray Your richest
blessings be upon him. We pray Your mercy that You'd
cause him to grow, as all of our children grow in strength
and in knowledge, that You'd preserve him and protect him.
We're thankful for him and for all of our children. Bless us,
we pray, Father, in the name which is above every name, the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.