How Our Savior Prayed in the Shadow of the Cross
Part 1: Jesus Is Worthy of the Glory of God
The Gospel of John
John 17:1-5
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church – February 28, 2018
(Revised April 28, 2020)
BACKGROUND:
*Please open your Bibles to John 17. Tonight's Scripture continues John's remarkable focus on the night before Jesus died on the cross for our sins. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, John has been focused on that night ever since John 13:1.
*Here in John 17, Jesus and His disciples have almost arrived at the Garden of Gethsemane. And before they crossed over the Brook Kidron, the Lord paused, looked up to Heaven, and began to speak to His Heavenly Father.
*That makes perfect sense, because no one has ever had a stronger prayer life than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Except for a brief time on the cross, the Son of God was in constant communion with His Heavenly Father.
*God's Word shows the Lord in prayer many different times. Jesus prayed early in the morning and all-night long. He prayed before He chose His disciples. He prayed with praise and thanksgiving. He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. And even on the cross, Jesus prayed.
*Our Lord's life was filled with prayer, but God tells us very little about what Jesus actually said in His prayers. Outside of John 17, here are the only prayers of our Lord recorded in the New Testament:
-From Matthew 11:25-26 and Luke 10:21:
25. . . "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes.
26. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight."
-From John 11:41-42:
41. . . "Father, I thank You that You have heard Me.
42. And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.''
-From John 12:28: "Father, glorify Your name.''
*Then Jesus prayed 3 times in the Garden of Gethsemane. Matthew 26 records two of those prayers. In vs. 39, "O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.'' And in Matthew 26:42, "O My Father, if this cup cannot pass away from Me unless I drink it, Your will be done.''
*The Bible also reports 3 of Jesus' prayers on the cross:
-In Luke 23:34, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.''
-In Matthew 27:46, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?'' that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?''
-And in Luke 23:46, "Father, 'into Your hands I commend My spirit.''' And having said this, He breathed His last.
*Other than here in John 17, these are the only prayers of Jesus recorded in the whole New Testament! It only takes a minute to read them all. And it's amazing to me that God gives us such a tiny sample of the Lord's conversations with His Heavenly Father. (1)
*But when we get to John 17, God gives us a much longer look at the Lord in prayer. This is a very important prayer.
*God wants us to see how our Savior prayed in the shadow of the cross. First, Jesus prayed for Himself, and when He did, He asked the Heavenly Father to glorify His Son. Please think about the glory of God as we read vs. 1-5.
MESSAGE:
*God wants us to see how Jesus prayed in the shadow of the cross, and first, He prayed for Himself. Jesus asked the Heavenly Father to glorify His Son.
*In vs. 1, Jesus "lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.'" Then in vs. 5, Jesus prayed, "And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was."
*The Lord asked His Father to restore the glory Jesus had before He humbled Himself to be born as a man. He prayed for the glory of God. But what is the glory of God?
*It helps us to know that God's Word speaks of His glory around 300 times. About half of those are in the Old Testament, and half are in the New. The first time we see God's glory is in Exodus, the second book if the Bible. And the last time we see His glory is in Revelation 21:23, where the new city of Jerusalem was described. There the Bible tells us that "the city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it, and the Lamb is its light."
*Almost from cover to cover God's Word speaks of His glory. God's glory is tremendously important to Him, and since it's important to Him, it should also be important to us.
*But again, what is the glory of God? The Old Testament word picture for "glory" is a weight, something heavy. And God's glory is heavy indeed. It is something we should never take lightly.
*John Piper tells us that "Glory is a very hard thing to define. It is like the word "Beauty." We all can use it and communicate with it but to try to reduce it to words is very frustrating. It is easier to point to examples."
*A beautiful sunset seen from the tallest building in Monroe, that's a taste of nature's glory. A hole-in-one, pitching a no-hitter, a grand-slam home run, LSU winning the National Football Championship, and the Saints winning the Super Bowl: These are all examples of athletic glory.
*And John Piper said that God's glory "is the beauty and excellence of His manifold perfections. It refers to His infinite and overflowing fullness of all that is good. God's glory is the perfect harmony of all His attributes in one infinitely beautiful and personal being." (2)
*We need to get a sense of the overpowering awesomeness of the glory of God. In Exodus 24, Moses went up on Mount Sinai to meet with God for 40 days and 40 nights, and God's Word says:
16. Now the glory of the Lord rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.
17. The sight of the glory of the Lord was like a raging, consuming, devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the eyes of the children of Israel.
*In Exodus 33, Moses made one of the bravest requests that has ever been made to God.
18. (Moses) said, "Please, show me Your glory.''
20. But (God) said, "You cannot see My face; for no man shall see Me, and live.''
21. And the Lord said, "Here is a place by Me, and you shall stand on the rock.
22. So it shall be, while My glory passes by, that I will put you in the cleft of the rock, and will cover you with My hand while I pass by.
23. Then I will take away My hand, and you shall see My back; but My face shall not be seen.''
*Thinking about these verses and the overwhelming power of God's glory, Robert Crilley said: "Speaking with the Almighty is one thing. Actually seeing His face is quite another. Like trying to drink from Niagara Falls, the unveiled glory of God would simply overwhelm us." (3)
*2 Chronicles 7:1-3 tells part of the story of the dedication of the Temple that Solomon built for the LORD. There in vs. 1-3, God's Word says:
1. Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
2. And the priests could not enter the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house.
3. When all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the Lord on the temple, they bowed their faces to the ground on the pavement, and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying: "For He is good, for His mercy endures forever.''
*There are other good examples of the wondrous power of God's glory. Think of Peter, James and John trembling on the mountain when Jesus was transfigured before them and His face shined like the sun. Speaking of Jesus, in John 1:14, the Apostle would later write: "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
*Also think of the Apostle Paul, struck to the ground and blinded by the glory of the Risen Savior. Paul would later testify, "Since I could not see for the GLORY of that light, being led by the hand of those who were with me, I came into Damascus." (Acts 22:11)
*God's glory is awesome beyond our wildest imagination. And God has great passion for His glory. He is driven to protect and proclaim His glory.
*God opened Isaiah 42 with a prophecy of the coming of Jesus Christ. Then the Father speaks to the Son and says:
6. "I, the Lord, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles,
7. To open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house.
8. I am the Lord, that is My name; and MY GLORY I WILL NOT GIVE TO ANOTHER, nor My praise to graven images.
*This helps us understand the glory of God. And that's what Jesus prayed for here in John 17. It would never be proper for us to pray a prayer like that. But It was a righteous request from the Lord because Jesus was always worthy of the Father's glory. Tonight's Scripture helps us see why.
1. FIRST: JESUS IS WORTHY OF GOD'S GLORY BECAUSE OF HIS PURITY.
*Jesus is worthy of His Father's glory because the Lord is always perfectly pure. Here in vs. 1, we see that His motives were pure. Again, Jesus prayed, "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You."
*A. T. Robertson pointed out that Jesus didn't simply pray for strength to go through the agonies of the cross. He prayed that that His death, resurrection and return to Heaven would give glory to His Heavenly Father. (4)
*Jesus Christ always wanted to exalt His Father above Himself. We see this truth in John 8:48-50. There, Jesus was speaking to some unbelieving Jews, and the Bible says:
48. Then the Jews answered and said to Him, "Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?''
49. Jesus answered, "I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.
50. And I do not seek My own glory; there is One who seeks and judges."
*Then in John 8:54-55 the Lord said:
54. . . "If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God.
55. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, 'I do not know Him,' I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word."
*Jesus is and always has been worthy of the Father's glory because He is perfectly pure in every way. John Phillips explained that "there are some who believe that Jesus could have sinned and He was tempted by Satan to see if He would. Nonsense! In His incarnation, Jesus assumed everything that was essentially human, except for a sinful human nature. At the same time, Jesus relinquished nothing that was essentially divine.
*God cannot sin. Jesus went through temptation -- through fires and furnaces hotter than anything we could have faced -- to prove it! He was sinless. He was pure. (5)
*Jesus is and always has been worthy of the Father's glory because He is perfectly pure in every way. So, Hebrews 7:24-26 says this about our wonderful Savior:
24. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood.
25. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He ever lives to make intercession for them.
26. For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens.
*What a testimony for our crucified and risen Savior! He is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens!
*But what does it mean to be "holy?" The idea of the original word is that Jesus is "The Holy One," free from wickedness, pure, kind, and good in every way. That's our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! He is the essence of holiness, so think about God's holiness.
*R. C. Sproul helped us understand God's holiness when he said, "The first prayer I learned as a child was the simple table grace: 'God is great, God is good and we thank Him for this food.' Those two virtues are the essence of God's holiness: infinite greatness and infinite goodness." (6)
*This is the holiness of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But the Lord is not just holy. He is holy, holy, holy!
*Bruce Goettsche explained: "Of all the attributes of God, holiness is the one that seems to take center stage. You see, in the Hebrew language the way you emphasized a word was to repeat it. For example if you said a rock was big it would mean one thing. If you said the rock was big, big, you would mean it was a really big stone. But if it was big, big, big, that would mean it was a gigantic boulder.
*In Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4 the angels declare that God is "holy, holy, holy". And this is the only quality of God that is emphasized in this way. God is never called "love, love, love," or "mercy, mercy, mercy." But He is called "holy, holy, holy." This is the perfect purity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! (7)
2. HE IS WORTHY OF GOD'S GLORY BECAUSE OF HIS PURITY. JESUS IS ALSO WORTHY OF THE FATHER'S GLORY BECAUSE OF HIS POWER.
*Again in vs. 1-3, Jesus prayed:
1. . . "Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,
2. as You have given Him authority (or power) over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.
3. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
*Jesus Christ surely has the power to give us eternal life. But it's crucial to know that eternal life is all about knowing God in a personal way. Again in vs. 3, Jesus said, "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent."
*Jesus has the power to give us eternal life. And it comes by knowing the love of God that we find in Jesus Christ. God the Father loved us so much that He was willing to send His only begotten Son into the world to die for us.
*God the Son, Jesus Christ loved us so much that He was willing to come and die on the cross for our sins. Jesus did that because there was no other way for us to be saved. His loving sacrifice was the only thing that made God's mercy for our sins possible. His loving death was the only thing that could take away our eternal death.
*Now we can know God in a personal way through our Risen Savior Jesus Christ. And if you are ever tempted to doubt God's love for you, look back to the cross, where Jesus suffered and died for us!
*My godly Aunt Helen passed away on February 10th, 2018, and I love the story of how she came to know Christ in a personal way. It happened at a Billy Graham Crusade about 70 years before she died.
*At the time, my aunt and uncle were living in a tiny apartment with 4 children. Billy Graham was coming to town, and the lady across the hall invited my aunt Helen to go to the Crusade.
*My aunt really didn't want to go, so she lied to the lady. She said, "I would like to go, but I don't have a baby sitter."
*Aunt Helen couldn't believe it when the neighbor replied, "I'll be glad to stay here with your children, so you and your husband can go." Helen was trapped by her lie, so she did go, and she got saved!
*Before she died, Helen had been very sick in a nursing home for four years, and it was a mercy that the Lord took her home to Heaven. My Aunt was surprised to see her daughter Susan there. Susan died of breast cancer about the same time my aunt went down so much. And the family didn't see the sense of adding that loss to her sufferings.
*When my Uncle Bo called to tell me the news, I told him that my Aunt Helen also got to meet Billy Graham in Heaven. And she did. Helen got to welcome Billy Graham home four days after she went home to be with the Lord.
*My aunt had never known Billy Graham in a personal way. But here's the wonderful truth: She had known Jesus Christ for almost 70 years! Glory to God!
*Now my aunt is alive forever because in vs. 3 Jesus said, "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
3. JESUS CHRIST IS WORTHY OF GOD'S GLORY BECAUSE OF HIS POWER. HE IS ALSO WORTHY OF THE FATHER'S GLORY BECAUSE OF HIS PERFORMANCE.
*In vs. 4, Jesus said this to the Father: "I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do."
*"I have finished the work," Jesus said. Notice here that the work of the cross was so sure that Jesus could already speak of it in the past tense!
*J. Vernon McGee explained that "the Lord Jesus is handing in His final report to the Father. He hasn't died on the cross yet. But, as far as God is concerned, He speaks of things which are not as if they are. Future tense for God is just as accurate as past tense. Our Lord Jesus is going to the cross to die and then will rise again.
*On the cross in John 19:30, Jesus said: 'It is finished.' That means our redemption was finished. Jesus has done everything that was necessary. We can put a period there. We cannot add a thing to His finished work. Therefore, the Gospel of salvation is not what God is asking you to do. The Gospel is God is telling you what His only begotten Son has ALREADY done for you." (8)
CONCLUSION:
*That's why Jesus is worthy of God's glory. And if Jesus is worthy of God's glory, then He's worthy of our glory too!
*As Paul said in Philippians 2:5-11:
5. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6. who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7. but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a servant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
9. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name,
10. that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth,
11. and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
*Jesus Christ is worthy of God's glory! And I am really looking forward to singing the song in Revelation 5:11-12. There, the Apostle John said:
11. Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands,
12. saying with a loud voice: "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!''
*Worthy is the Lamb!!!
(1) Sources:
-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prayers_of_Jesus
-https://www.focusonthefamily.com/faith/faith-in-life/prayer/learning-from-the-prayer-life-of-jesus
-http://www.prayers-of-jesus.info/
(2) Adapted from SermonCentral sermon "GOD CREATED US FOR HIS GLORY" by John Piper - Isaiah 43:1-7 - July 27, 1980
(3) ChistianGlobe.com sermon "Veiled Glimpses of God's Glory" by Robert S. Crilley - Exodus 33:12-23
(4) WORD PICTURES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT by Archibald Thomas (A. T.) Robertson - Published in 1930-1933 - John 17:1
(5) Adapted from EXPLORING THE PSALMS by John Phillips, Kregal Publications, Grand Rapids - "Lord, Hear Me!" - Psalm 17:1-6)
(6) Adapted from "Essential Truths" - p. 47 - Source: SermonCentral sermon "The Holiness of God" by Bruce Goettsche - Isaiah 6:1-8
(7) Adapted from SermonCentral sermon "The Holiness of God" by Bruce Goettsche - Isaiah 6:1-8
(8) Adapted from THRU THE BIBLE COMMENTARY by J. Vernon McGee - Thomas Nelson Publishers - Nashville - Copyright 1981 - John 17:4
