Glorify the Son

Good morning. Good to see you. If you’ve got a Bible going to John 17. We’re beginning a new series this week. We are calling praying for your church. We’re going to think this summer together about how we pray, not just for the church like big see, you know across the world, but how we pray for one another. Now we’re if this is not your church home, if you’re visiting this week, and you’re returning to another church, encouraging you how to pray for that church, where you are a member of the body. As you’re turning there, just want to want to do a little side note here, if you will, we have something to celebrate this week, in a decision that came down from the highest court in our land, one that represents we believe the justice of God and protecting unborn lives, it’s a really good thing. So we believe that’s a good thing. Let’s remind ourselves because of our theology, that all people are made in the image of God. So to protect the vulnerable is part of God’s justice. It is part of his righteousness. It is a good thing. Now, let me remind us as well, while we celebrate that, give thanks for that. Often, you know, we find ourselves sometimes, we talked about being exiled last week, right. So we just ran with, we don’t fit here, this is not our home. So often things that get ensconced in law decisions that get made in courts, they don’t align with our values. So it’s good in the common grace of God to see that he has brought to bear something we would affirm and say yes, and amen to. This is justice. This is good, this is righteousness. But let’s remind ourselves then, as well of this, that when we see that take place, and we give thanks for it also reminds us that there’s a job in front of us, there’s a work to do. It’s a work of caring for women in need. It’s a work of caring, and working and partnering with crisis pregnancy centers. It’s a work of foster care and adoption, which we’ve been actively engaged with for years and years. I just want to invite you again, to consider God’s invitation to you to engage in that work. It’s a, it’s a work of caring for young ones and moms in need. When we say amen to that. It’s important work, I want to invite you to consider it and reminders that this is what God invites us to engage with. Then I want to say as well, and I just need you to hear me here. If abortion is part of your background, it’s a part of your story. I want you to hear that you belong here, and that you are loved here. We just saying what we believe what we just saying when we say the precious blood of Christ speaks a better word over us or word of forgiveness, when we come to Him, the sin of our past is done away with in Christ and we can be renewed. We just want you to know that we are a people who know how much we’ve been forgiven. If that’s something that’s in your past, that there is forgiveness and grace in Jesus, and you will find it here in this church as well. You find the grace of Jesus, so. So we want you to know that now let me pray for us as we turn to God’s word, okay. We begin our study on how we can pray for one another in these days this summer. That’s what we’re going to focus on. So, Lord Jesus, we thank you, for the gift of a good decision made by our Supreme Court, we are thankful for it. We’re thankful for the hard labor that has been done, to bring it about. And we pray, Lord Jesus, that you’d sustain it, we do believe that it represents justice and righteousness. And we thank You. We thank you that we get to experience the fruit of that and we pray or Jesus for those who would see it as something other than justice, something other than righteousness, Lord, that You would that you would draw them into yourself. We think for the unborn lives that will be protected. We believe that honors you and glorifies you. Help us to be a church that doesn’t just celebrate that, but also then steps into the hard work of caring for real people in real need. Help us to do that. Well. Help stupid people have mercy, forgiveness, grace, and truth. All of these things together. Would you not glorify yourself in the preaching of your word, as we meditate upon your word, ask in Jesus name. Amen.

Well, so as we begin this new series, let me tell you something, I wake up every day with two pictures in my head of what it means for us to be the church God wants us to be I hope you have a vision, in your mind. What it means to be the church is not just a place, you come to sing some songs and listen to some sermons, but you have an actual vision in your, in your mind a picture of the mountaintop, if you will, what it looks like when we are being the kind of church that God wants us to be and what it looks like for you to be a part of that. Let me tell you the two pictures that are always in my head every morning when I wake up. The first is one of purple fingerprints. I don’t know why they’re purple, but they are purple, which is they can be whatever color you want them to be. But the thing that I see when I wake up and I think about us being who God made us to be is your fingerprints in every part of our society. I think about the fact that when you leave here on Sunday, and then you wake up Monday morning, that you’re going to hospitals and schools that you’re going to office places that you’re going to neighborhoods that you’re going to all these places and in the name of Jesus, you are placing your fingerprint Since for the glory of God in those places, because I believe we are successful, not based on what happens here on Sunday morning so much as what happens on Monday morning. What happens when you leave this place? Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday? Do you know? Are you able to? The question I asked myself all the time is, am I helping them? How do I help them put their fingerprints for the glory of God in the places where you are sending them tomorrow? Not so much right in this moment. My prayer is that we are equipping you to apply the message of the gospel, and a biblical worldview and a framework into every place where God has sent you. That’s the picture I have in my head, I can see it. It sounds strange. When I drive up and down the Carlisle pike. When I drive through neighborhoods, I see purple fingerprints. I see them everywhere. I want to see more of them. I want to see him touching every sector of society. I want to see when I drive past our State Capitol, I want to see him when I drive across the bridge. I want to see him when I drive past Mechanicsburg high school, I want to see him when I drive past those Deloitte offices that I drive down on Hogestown, I want to see him when I go past the Target on Carlisle Pike. I see them everywhere. I wonder if you see them, I see him. I believe there are more to come. The other thing that I see is what it looks like when we come into this place. The other picture that’s always in my head is a picture of those who believe and those who don’t believe streaming in the doors of this place with a sense of expectation that God shows up here. You’re going to meet him when you come here. The result is this just resounding sense of expectation and excitement that’s sort of bubbling over in you to come to this place, both because you expect to meet with God and receive His word and also because you can’t wait to see each other. Because there is a deep love for one another in your heart that you like I’ve missed them all week, and I can’t wait to see them. Those are the pictures that are in my head. When I think about coming here. How many of you I went to Texas A&M big football school. I know we got a lot of Penn State fans. How many of you been to a Penn State football game? When people show up at a Penn State football game and I’ve gotten to go to one it’s almost as good as an A&M football game almost. I love you but I call it like I see it. You know, I call it like I see it. When you when you show up at a Penn State football game. How many people walk into a Penn State football game going? Yeah, I mean, I’m okay. I’m here. You know, it’s like, I mean, I’m here I guess. I mean, maybe I’ll maybe maybe I’ll enjoy what’s about to happen. I’ve never seen that when I go but I see is people who cannot wait to get into that stadium. People who are really excited to have their wideout shirt on and walk in and chant we are fans, so I knew somebody would do it. Right there’s, there’s this this palpable sense of like, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be than right here right now. Because these people are gonna throw a ball and hit each other really hard. Somebody’s gonna really fast into a section of grass, and I’m gonna go bonkers because of it. Now, look, I’m as big a football fan as the next guy. But this is way more exciting than that. You’ve come to meet with the living God, and to share the love of Christ with somebody else who needs to be encouraged, edified, you know, comforted, maybe challenged. My prayer is that there would be more excitement here than at a Penn State game on a Saturday morning, more sense of expectation, more excitement, more enthusiasm, more overflowing with praise, certainly, than the praise we would offer to some 19 year olds who are really fast, right? That’s the picture in my head. Now. Here’s why then here’s how that connects to this series. As we come together, there’s probably no tool that we have given to us that will better help us accomplish that vision, that picture to bring it about that we would be the church God wants us to be. There’s nothing we have in our tool belt that is more important than prayer, all the strategy, all the thinking, all the planning, all the structures, all the all the different efforts at ministry that we make, and that we do, they’re all good, I really believe that they’re good and right. But there is no tool that we have that is bigger and more important than the tool of prayer, that we have been given the gift of going before God interceding for one another and asking him to do a work. There is no weapon in our hands. That is more effective than that. Which do you believe that? You agree with that? So this summer, that’s what we’re going to spend our time talking about, how do we pray for each other when we pray for each other? How do we pray for one another, we’re going to follow some of the prayers of Paul as he prays for different churches in the epistles. We’re going to begin if there’s if you’re going to begin there’s no better place to begin than in John chapter 17, where Jesus prays for the church on the night before he goes to the cross, and to see what he prays. Now here’s the thing as we go through these prayers, what I’ve done is I spent time going to everyone now asking what things get prayed multiple times what things get prayed once all All of the things that are prayed are important. But you’re even going to be surprised by some of the things that come up over and over again in the prayers of Paul and in Jesus as He instructs us how to pray. So we’re going to look the next two weeks this week and next week at John chapter 17. And this prayer divides into three parts, and divides into the first part is Jesus praying for His own glory from the Father. The second part is just praying for the disciples. The third part is Jesus praying for the future church, those who would who are yet to come to faith yet to be born, but whom he knows will come as a result of the testimony of the disciples. So we’re gonna look at those second two parts. Next week. We’re gonna look at the first part this week. Here’s what I want you to see, as we look at this, this is Jesus doing something that he does from time to time, we see it in John chapter 11, as well, when he raises Lazarus. He says, in essence, hey, the thing that I’m praying Father, right now, I’m not actually praying, because I don’t think that you hear me, I’m praying for the benefit of those listening around me that they need to hear what my conversation with you is going to be like. That’s what these first five verses of John chapter 17 are going to be like, he’s going to instruct us by allowing us to listen into the prayer that he prays to the Father for His own glory. Then there’s going to be some specific things that he says, will help us grow in an understanding of the glory of God and the glory of Christ. The question for us is, well, what are we to do with that? What are we to make of that, because he’s not saying, This is what I pray for the church. He’s saying, This is what I pray for me, Father, as I talk to you, but He lets us witness it, if you will. So it becomes instructional to us becomes instructional to us, in the same way that Paul praying for these churches in the epistles that we’ll look at. He is praying for them and sort of letting us who aren’t a part of those churches, listen in. All of those things are meant to help us to learn how to pray, how to pray. So Jesus is going to instruct us now, the importance of this, these first five verses this, Jesus could just begin by going here’s the things that I pray for the disciples, here’s the things pray for the church, I’m about to leave, I’m going to depart again, remember, this is at the this is in the upper room, the last supper, and Jesus praying over the disciples thing could just begin there and we can kind of go, okay, here are the things he prays. So we’re going to pray those same kinds of things. But he doesn’t begin there. He begins by praying that the Father would glorify Him so that He might glorify the Father. Now, let me say there, if you’re new to church, or faith, that might be an unusual concept to you. And in our human thinking, we often think, well, it’s wrong to self glorify, and that would be right, right for me to say, Hey, give me a lot of glory would be inappropriate, because I’m not a being that’s worthy of glory. I’m a fallen, frail, faulted human being. Yet God is not like us. So let me just put that to rest for you, or help you with that. If you maybe wrestle with that God is the only being in all of existence for whom it is right to say, give me glory. He is the only one, the only perfect, perfectly righteous, perfectly power, powerful, omnipotent, perfectly righteous being for whom it is right and good and writing good for us for our benefit, that he would say glorify Me. So Jesus is joining God in asking him to glorify himself. But the thing I want you to see even more than that, I hope that’s helpful to you, my church family, that thing I want you to see as Jesus begins here, because this becomes a foundation for all our other prayers for one another, everything else we’re going to be guided to pray, whether it be that we would pray for hope, or for love, or for compassion, or, or that we would pray, be praying, praying for peace, or boldness, all of these things are going to show up in how we pray for one another. But I believe that Jesus as He instructs us here gives us the very foundation for everything else we would pray in this this, that we would pray for an increasing hunger and longing for God’s glory in one another’s hearts, that we say what I want for you more than I want the peace of God more than I want his love to be manifested. Do I want those things greatly, but before and underneath them all? What I want is that you would hunger for the glory of God revealed through your life. So that as you would pray for me, let’s say that that would be the first thing, the foundational thing that you would pray. Here’s the thing, apart from that foundation, our prayers often lean towards whatever would make the person who is the object of our prayers comfortable and happy. But when we make the foundation of our prayers, that God would be glorified in them, that there would be a longing and an hunger for the glory of God through their lives and in their lives, then we can begin to pray some bigger prayers. Would you agree with that? Some bigger, more profound, much more challenging, much more difficult, much less, just make them happy kinds of prayers, and let me just say that is also the thing that God Just from going down the road of idolatry towards a person in our prayers, that we would actually only want what would make them comfortable or happy, but that we would actually be able to pray some of the more challenging things that would come into the life and that we’re going to see in these prayers that we look at. So that is the foundation.

That is where we were beginning. Let’s look at John chapter 17, verses one through five, only five verses when we’re going through First and Second Kings, how many he found it hard to go like 58 verses deep sometimes. So five verses today, you are welcome. All right, we’re gonna look at five verses, and how it instructs us that we might pray. By the way, that’s gonna be the application every week, all summer long, pray. So super simple. All right, look at verses one through five with me. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, since you’ve given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given him. This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. Now Father, glorify Me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. So six ways that we pray based upon the this prayer of Jesus and how he offers it to the father here at the outset, I’m gonna give you six. So the first one is this, pray that we, as a church would see the glory of God and the glory of Jesus are never separated, that we would see the glory of God and the glory of Jesus are never separate. And they’re never two separate things. You see that in verse one and verse five. So in verse one, again, what we saw Jesus say, is lifted up his eyes to heaven, and he said, Father, and call addresses him as father and intimacy. Then he says, The hour has come, glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You. So the first thing Jesus says is Father, give me glory. Now, we need to pause there and understand what that means. What is a request for glory, from Jesus to the Father. And then when I say to you pray for one another, that we would see the glory of God and the glory of Jesus are never apart from one another. We’ll come to that never separated part in a moment. But the first thing I need you to understand is, what are we actually saying when we pray for glory? So Old Testament to New Testament, let’s, let’s trace a little bit of the development of this idea. So in the Old Testament, the predominant term for glory is this Hebrew word kavod. Kavod typically means something like weightiness. And so the idea is when you see Moses talking to God saying, show me your glory, he’s saying something like, show me your weightiness, the very depth and breadth of your character, you are so through and through good and write everything about you is splendor, that you would show me that I’m asking you to give me a sense of the very weight of your nature, and its impact on all things around it. Does that make sense? That so when we talk about that sense of having glory, we’re talking about a weight of character. Now, the New Testament takes a little bit and takes certainly has that, but builds upon it a bit with this Greek word doxa. Doxa, essentially, is the opinion that a person holds of someone else in their estimation. So that when Jesus is saying, Let me have glory, let me have doxa, what he’s saying is, let the perception of me be increasingly majestic and clear increase in splendor, so that when I say pray that we would see the glory of God and the glory of Jesus are not apart. The first thing that we are saying is pray that Jesus would increase in splendor in our perception. So it makes sense, because of his weightiness of character and nature. Pray that we would see it. Let me give you an illustration of what that looks like. Now, the thing to recognize is that Jesus value his worth, his splendor, His Majesty, it doesn’t ebb and flow. It is static. It is a fixed point, he is never less glorious than he is at any moment in the past, and yet our perception of it can grow or estimation of it can grow. Think about this way. My wife when we got married right now, a lot of you guys get married these days and outdoor ceremonies, it’s awesome creations beautiful, but you know what you miss you miss the moment. We’re in the back of the church, the doors fling open, and you see your bride because my wife is stunning. You know, so we’re having this moment all the time I was dating her she’s she was stunning. There was no doubt about it. She’s a beautiful woman, I was captured by her beauty. Yet, at this moment that we get married, I’m standing at the front of the church and the doors open and I go weak in the knees, like I’m having trouble staying upright, got my best man behind me, helping me out, right. And I’m thinking I might go over, because the doors open. There’s my wife, with my father in law, who’s a handsome man, but not nearly the eye candy that my wife is. She’s clothed in white. What I’m seeing is a woman who has saved herself for me, is covered in the purity of the blood of Jesus. He’s chosen to give herself to me in covenant for the rest of our lives together. The weight of that and the beauty of her in that moment, as my bride coming down the aisle increased my estimation of her beauty. Her beauty didn’t change it was there the whole time. But my estimation of a change that that’s, that’s a moment that’s burned into my brain. Those church doors opened, and my wife came through those doors. We are meant to increase in our estimation of the beauty and the majesty and the splendor and the glory of Jesus. So when we say pray that we would see the glory, we’re saying, pray that we would have an increasing measure of an understanding of the splendor of Jesus that he would increase in our estimation. Everybody follow? Make sense. So now let’s tackle the next half of the sentence, that we would see the glory of God and the glory of Jesus are never separated. So when Jesus says, glorify me, Father, the hours come, glorify me recognize that he is saying something really radical, because he is asking the Father to whom all glory belongs to glorify Him. That’s a big deal, because we see things in the Old Testament, like in Exodus, chapter 20, verse five, when God is instructing his people through the 10 commandments, and he says, Don’t create idols, and don’t worship false gods and why? He says, because I am a jealous God, and I do not share my worship with anyone else. I don’t do it, because I’m the only one worthy of it. And so for Jesus to come and say, glorify me, Father, so that I might glorify you. He is saying, our glory is together, it’s right and good father, for me to say, glorify Me, because my glory and your glory are always hand in hand. So what does that mean? It means a couple of really wonderful, beautiful things. It means that when we glorify Jesus, we are always glorifying the father, there’s no shred of glory, that you would give to Jesus, in your estimation of him that he would reserve for himself and say, no, no, this doesn’t go to the Father, this is mine alone. He says, no, no, no, this always then glorifies the father, isn’t that good to know. You never run the risk of saying, oh, glorify Jesus and praise Him, and somehow that won’t reflect upon the father rightly. And well. The other thing it means is that you cannot glorify the Father without glorifying the son. He is the only pathway to glorifying the father, you cannot imagine that you would glorify the Father and give Him praise and increase the estimation of him and increase the majesty the sense of Majesty and a brother or sister, unless you glorify the son, he is the only avenue to it. There is no other way to glorify the Father, but then through the Son. Now, friends, that’s does that increase our estimation a bit of him, that’s my hope. We need to pray these kinds of prayers and listen now. These kinds of prayers are the remedy for the heart that loves the Son, but his reticent towards the Father. I’ve talked to plenty of folks over the years, for whom this is the case. It’s often rooted in a bad relationship with your own dad, via a bad relationship with your dad. I’ve talked to believer after believer who often will say, I feel close towards Jesus, I feel like he is loving but the father feels distant. God the Father feels like I’m, I feel kind of estranged from it, and just recognize that understanding that the glory of the two are always hand in hand is a part of the remedy of saying, no, no, the father is not disturbed because the father is not separate from the son, to glorify, want us to glorify the other part of the remedy that we need for that kind of reticence. So that’s, that’s number one, that we would pray that we would always see that their glory is together.

The second prayer that we can pray is that we would see that the path to glory for Jesus went through the cross, that we would see that the path for glory or to glory, for Jesus went through the cross. Go back to verse one again, we’re still there. When he said, lifts up his eyes to heaven and says, Father, the hour has come. Now that phrase, The hour has come throughout the Gospels always means the hour of his death, the hour of His crucifixion, you’ll find Jesus saying things like no one knows the time or the hour, you’ll see him say that my hour, the time or the hour has not yet come. So when he’s talking about that, he means the hour of His death, right? He’ll say at different points. The reason that the crowd couldn’t take him and throw him over a cliff is because his hour had not yet come. In other words, the time of his death. Now you come in now Jesus comes to this moment, the night before his death, and he knows the time has come. Therefore he says, The hour has come. But then what is the what’s the very know what are the very next words out of his mouth, we already talked about him, glorify Me, so that I might glorify you, what’s he just done, he’s connected his death on the cross to his glorification, when he prays glorify Me, and connects it to the hour of His death having come he’s recognizing that part of how the glory of the Father will glorify Him is through His death on the cross, there is, give me what I need to go through this moment now glorify Me by raising me up on the tree on the cross. So that healing might come to all those who would look upon me, and believe and trust. So he recognizes and teaches us that the path to His glory, the most horrific instrument, the cross is the instrument of His glory. Now, here’s what that means a couple of things for us. First, it means that when we look at the cross, and we are prone to first see it as the instrument of our salvation, and of course it is, and it’s rightly held up as such. But the first thing that we should see is not the instrument of our salvation, we should see it as the instrument of the glory of Jesus, it is first and foremost an instrument for His glory. The result of that is that it’s bringing salvation to us is that it is glorifying to him and to the Father. Now, what that means as well is that if this is the path to glory for the Father, that part of our prayer for one another is that we would never despise, loneliness, humility, suffering for the sake of righteousness, humility, that we would embrace these things because they were the path to glory for Jesus and to imagine that we would walk any other path is to be outside the mind of God and His heart for us that we would walk in those things. So friends, and listen, in our flesh, we despise suffering in our flesh, we despise loneliness and humility and being made less of. But when we understand the path of Christ, and we pray over one another one of things we must pray for one another is that we would estimate those things as a path to glory for God, not a path away from it for him, and that we would never seek to never cease to embrace meekness and suffering. These kinds of prayers, if the first is the remedy for that sort of cure, as a cure for the reticence towards the father, but love for the sun, and these kinds of prayers and the remedy for the heart that loves the things of the world. When you begin to pray this way, maybe your heart is too attached to the things of the world, these kinds of prayers, loosen our heart, from their attachment to the things of the world.

The third thing that we see Jesus pray here, that helps us pray for His glory to increase among us, as it is that we would learn to pray that we would see the glory of Jesus in His authority over all humanity. So now he’s just prayed about his lowliness, the path to His glory. But then watch what he says next in verse two, having prayed that then he says, Since verse two now since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom You have given him, now he prays, specifically their father, you have given me already, he’s not praying, give it to me. Now he’s saying, you have already given me authority over all flesh. Then he gives a specific practice that comes about as a result of that, to give eternal life. Now, we’re going to talk about the eternal life part in the next point. But the first thing I want you to see there is that the Son is saying to the Father, you have given me authority over all flesh, it’s a statement, not just that he has authority in his ability to give eternal life. But it’s a broad statement of sovereignty. It’s a broad claim that he has authority over everyone everywhere at all times, that every one owes their allegiance to him. He exercises perfect authority over them. Now, listen, if we began to pray this way, how might we begin to look at one another? How might we begin to look at those whom we walk out of these doors and see, I was in New York City recently, not too long ago, with a few friends. And it’s a really good thing to go to a big city from time to time, like we don’t live in a really big city, but to go to a big city and just be around a whole lot of people. To watch the vast variety of people that are everywhere you go, and honestly, how odd looking some of them are. You ever stop on a sidewalk in New York City? You’re gonna get some interesting smells and some interesting looks. All right, and they’re probably looking at me going Yeah, you too, bud. All right. Where’s your man been? Um, I don’t have the hair for that anymore. All right. But one of the beauties is what if when you stopped in did that? What if instead of seeing people as an inconvenience because the Holland Tunnel was too backed up, and it took me forever to get through it? Or you know what these people are just in my way, like, gotta wait too long get where I’m going, What if instead of that you stopped and you look at every single person who said that’s a person over whom Jesus has exercised authority, and over whom not just He has authority, but for whom he has love? Whom he has created in the image of God? What if that was in our hearts towards people? Yeah, one of things I love to do, I like to run. So when I’m in New York City, I like to run in the park I’ll run in. One of the reasons I love the run is not just for the exercise, I love to run particularly where there’s a lot of other people running, because there are as many running strides as there are people. It’s some people look like It’s utter agony to be running at that moment. Like this is the last place I want to be in. I’m thinking, why are you doing this? You look miserable. Other people look like a stinking gazelle. Like they could just run. They’re like on a cloud. I’m just like, well, that’s ridiculous, that you can do that, right? But every single one of them looks different. One of the things I’m always reminded of when I watch that person who I’m like, Ooh, you need to stop fighting. So hard, relax, or that person like, and that’s impressive, is that there’s just no two people run the same. They all look different. There are runners, are you with me? Yeah, absolutely. There’s different body types and heights and weights and colors, and just everything. I’m always amazed. The thing that always reminds me is man, you created every one of them. God created every one of them. It helps me get that perspective back.

The fourth thing that Jesus Oh, let me say this actually, I think that kind of prayer. When we pray, Jesus, you have authority over all humankind. It helps be the remedy for the fear of man that’s in us. This is something I hear from a lot of people is just a fear of what other people think fear of what will happen to me what other people might do to me a lot of different types of fear of man that manifest themselves among us. Can I just tell you, that when you begin to pray into the authority of Jesus, overall humankind, it helps remedy that quite a bit. helps get rid of that fear of man, you worry a lot less about what other people think about how they’re going to react to your decisions about whether they’re gonna like you or not like you accept you or not accept you. Because you recognize the authority of Jesus over all people. The fourth thing that we see geez, giving us an example to pray, like is this, that we would pray that we would see the glory of God in giving us to Jesus, and Jesus in giving us eternal life? Now, look, I don’t want to get too technical here, right. But I want you to walk with me through this. Because look at verse two, again, I said, the next one, we’re going to hit the eternal life piece. He says, you’ve given him the son, authority over all flesh. Why? One reason to give eternal life to all whom You have given him. So here’s the picture, Jesus just painted, instructing us, he said, The Father has people he has chosen them for himself and called them unto himself. Then he gives them to the Son, and the son then accomplishes the salvation for them and gives them back to the Father and that beautiful picture, that he’s just painted for us. That we would pray that the glory of God would be revealed to us because of the way he has worked our salvation one, the scriptures are so clear again and again, that if you are in Christ is because God has chosen you and set you apart for himself. You did not choose him, he chose you. He came for you. He said, You didn’t love him first. He loved you first. This is what the scripture is testifying to, he has chosen you. He has chosen you. Just let that sink in for a moment. The father, eternally existing forever in perfect glory, needing no one not creating people because he needed someone to relate to, but in his own sovereign free will and goodness and kindness, then has chosen you before the foundation of the earth Ephesians chapter one tells us chosen you. You begin to pray that way that you’d have eyes to see that that others here would have eyes to see that. You will begin to experience an understanding the love of God that is richer and deeper and fuller than you have known. Then that he said, I have chosen you and I’m giving you to the sun. And that here’s what the sun does. The sun accomplishes that work of salvation for everyone whom God gives him. In other words, there’s no one that falls through his fingers. No one that the father chooses and gives to the sun. Then in no time does the sun go oh, I fumbled them, like you and I like In my earlier days, I had an apartment like on the third floor and I go get the groceries, right and at these armfuls guys, because I didn’t want to go up and down three times, because I’m very male, right. So I’m like, now I’m getting them all. My arms are loaded with groceries. Invariably what happens, one of the bags breaks and it falls down and rolls down four flights of stairs, and I’ve got to go down and get it. Because I can’t carry everything is too much. I can’t carry a handful of subreddits, and cans, Jesus is carrying every person whom God has chosen, and he loses none of them. Not a single one has ever fallen out of his hand. Not only do we marvel at the love of God, that increases our estimation of His glory, we marveled the power of Jesus, to hold and to keep, and to bring to salvation, everyone whom God has given him. That’s what Jesus is saying here. Part of his glory is and accomplishing and achieving salvation for everyone whom God has chosen. I believe those kinds of prayers are the remedy for an apathetic heart. If you are apathetic towards God, and the purposes of God, I believe prayers like that begin to bring into that apathy and recharge you into love for him.

The fifth thing that He guides us into praying is that pray that we would see the glory of God, and Jesus in being the sum total of eternal life. Look at what he says in verse three. After he says, given life to all whom You have given him, then he says, and this is eternal life, so he’s just said he accomplishes it. Now he’s going to say what it is. This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent, what he’s just done, for instance, he’s just defined what eternal life is, and what he said to you and I, if you can imagine an existence that goes on forever in time and space, but is apart from God, that would in no way be life, there’s nothing about that there would actually be like, you might be physically living forever in time and space. But it wouldn’t be life because the essence of eternal life is what they would know the Father and know the son. What he’s just that is the very essence of life is relationship, reconciled relationship to the Father, not just continuing to exist. This is the remedy for the heart that only wants to escape hell. The purposes of God are much deeper and bigger for you than just that you would escape hell, the purposes of God, you would know him closely, personally, intimately and deeply on a day to day basis, knowing that when you wake up in the morning, he is there relating to you, when you put your head on the pillow at night, he is there in every moment in between he is there. That you speak to him and receive from Him and hear Him and obey Him and walk with him. One of the things that always, this is just my opinion, okay, so you can take it or leave it. But I really am baffled by why people and Christians in particular ever get fascinated or starstruck by anyone who’s famous. It doesn’t make any sense to me. Why we are in awe of someone are like we’re in the presence, someone who can throw a ball really well. We’re like, wow, or someone who’s really good at pretending to be someone else for a living because they act. That’s a weird profession. Right now, look, I like a good movie as much as the next guy. I’m a big sports fan. But it’s not all that big a deal that someone can jump really high in the air. It’s not that all that big a deal. I don’t know why we would ever be starstruck because every day we get to live in the presence of Jesus. Every day, he’s there. We seem less in awe of that, than we are of walking into a room where a famous athlete is. Just like the hope of brushing shoulders with them gets us like excited. Just think to myself, well, who cares? Like I said, my opinion is fine. If you’re excited about whoever, whoever your favorite athlete is. But please be more excited about Jesus. Please be more excited about the fact that you know the King of kings and Lord of lords and that right now in this moment he’s relating to you. Then when you leave this place, he’s gonna keep relating to you. Then tomorrow when you wake up, he’s gonna be there eager to spend time with you and to guide you and instruct you and to just whisper to you, I love you. I care about you. Right? Yeah, LeBron, not that interested in you. You might love him. He doesn’t return that love to you, I promise you.

The last thing that we see is that we would pray that we would see the glory of Jesus in his co eternity with the Father. I’m using that theological term very intentionally because I want it burned in your brain. That we will see the glory of Jesus In his co-eternity with the Father, look at what he says next, verse four, he says, I glorified You on earth, having accomplished the work that you have given me to do. And then he says in verse five, and now Father, glorify Me in your own presence. So again a request glorify Me, and your own presence, with the glory that I had with you, before the world existed. What Jesus is saying there is that he has eternally existed alongside the Father, and get this now, because when he says, glorify me, Father, with the glory that I had with you, before the world exists existed, what kind of glory was that if we said that glory is a right, or a growing estimation perception of the one whom we’re glorifying, then before the world existed? Who was there to have that perception? Who was there when Jesus I had a kind of glory with you? Before the world ever existed? Well, who was the one who was looking at Jesus and saying, Oh, I see you with a right estimation, it was the father in the Spirit. What Jesus saying is that, during my incarnation, there’s a type of glory that’s been mine. But it’s been far from what is actually true of me. What I know is that from eternity past, you and I have been together, and I have had a right estimation of you, and you have had a right estimation of me, and we have glorified one another. The Spirit as well, the three of us in trying perfect relationship, glorifying one another was deeply more satisfying than the kind of glory I’ve received here on Earth. Now I’m returning to you on the other side of this cross, and I am eager to return to the place of my great glory with you as co-eternal. I have no beginning just as you have no beginning. We have existed together forever. We have created everything, and we glorify one another imperfect fellowship, and relationship. Is that astounding? It’s amazing. Think about that. When Jesus said, yes, yes, yes. Let me go back there. Look, at the end of the day, isn’t it? Let’s, let’s understand this. Okay. It’s hard to be misunderstood. Would you agree? How many of you have ever been misunderstood? You thought, how do you not understand what you’ve tried to say something, explain something. Whoever you respond to is like ships passing in the night, you you weren’t catching one another. This is something a man and I talk about with every young, engaged couple that we get to spend time with, we say there’s this expectation often that in marriage, my spouse is going to understand me perfectly. Normal married people laugh. Now, listen, it’s the most intimate relationship in life, and it’s a great gift. There is a way in which that person gets you in a way prayerfully I hope the other people don’t trust you, and they, they see you. But here’s what every married person will tell you. No matter how great their understanding of me is, they don’t they cannot understand every part of my heart, there is still misunderstanding between us, I still say things and they hear it away, I didn’t intend or I say it imperfectly, then there’s this. There’s always this letdown of like, Man, I thought you were going to really know me. Yet they couldn’t do it to the full degree that we needed it. The reason that exists is because no human can give that only Jesus can. So that’s one of the ways our marriage is pointless to him. That’s part of what Jesus is saying. He’s like, look, as much as there has been an effort to glorify Me, in my incarnation on the part of the disciples and very imperfectly. No one has seen the fullness of My Glory, the way father, you know, the fullness of my glory. Now I’m returning to you, where the fullness of My Glory will be given to me again. Here’s the beauty, when He comes again, we will not miss estimate his glory, we will not see it for lesser than it is because all things will be made new and may right. We will see the fullness of His glory in all its splendor that he has had from eternity past with the father that raise our estimation of him a bit. Prayed does, I pray it does.

So these six things church, Jesus guides us to pray. Now, here’s my challenge to you this week. My challenge, I want you to pick three people in our church family, I want to make the application of these sermons so simple for you. I want you to pray. This week, I want you to pray specifically for three people. I don’t care if they’re in your life group or they’re in your home, or they are someone that you know, you sit near in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings, pray, you don’t have to pray all six of these but pray at least some of these six for someone every day for three people every day this week. Would you do that? Let’s just begin to take God at His Word that He’s given us this tool of prayer and begin to pray for one another. Watch what he does. Watch the glory for Jesus that gets released among us as we begin to take up the great gift of intercession for one another before the Father. Right, let’s pray together. Jesus, we’ve come to your word. Now, as always, we pray that You would take it and fulfill your promise to us that your word does not return void. So what I’ve said that is accurate and helpful and instructional, take it and plant it in our hearts, where it has been a right exposition of your word, anything that I’ve said that is unhelpful or untimely, just let it be moved from our minds. I pray, Lord Jesus, that you would get more glory from us. That’s the foundation of every other prayer that we want to pray that we will pray in the coming days. This is first, glorify yourself, glorify the Father. More and more in us, give us eyes to see a glory greater than we have seen. Increase it. And now we’re Jesus, our desires to turn to you and praise and song as we do that make us mindful in this moment that we now the one we’ve just put our minds upon through the scriptures is the one we sing to you now, you are the one we sing to. And we pray that as we glorify you, you glorify the Father. We know the Father glorifies you, the spirit lifts up our glorification of you to you, and it’s glorified in doing so. So receive it now Jesus be well pleased with it, we pray. In your mighty Name, Amen.