Speaker: As you're seated, if you, uh, look inside, I, I think in your bulletins.
If not, they're on the, the tables.
We do have our March prayer cards.
We would love for you to grab these, take 'em home, pray through these requests
with us this month for our church family, as well as you can maybe put it up on
your, uh, mirror or somewhere else.
We can get more to you if you'd like a couple of copies there,
but please do be praying with.
Us.
That is something that is, uh, one of our distinctives.
We have a genuine reliance on prayer, and we absolutely mean that.
We, we need prayer to be anything here.
This is not built on man's efforts.
My efforts, pastor Rod's efforts, anybody's, uh, we need the, the
work of the Lord, the work of the spirit, uh, booing us and
supporting us, uh, through that.
Well, I was talking with, with Pastor Rod this morning and he told me something
that, uh, if you are looking for your daily dose of the heebie-jeebies
when it comes to ai, you're in luck.
Pastor Rod's always good for that.
He's got stories about AI and everything else like that.
So he was talking to me this morning.
He watched an interaction between two ai.
Agents, I guess that's what we're calling them now, because why not
give them a scary name on top of that?
Not to ai, like bunny rabbits or they're agents, which just conveys
even more that they're nefarious in their, their intentions.
These two AI agents were talking to each other realized.
That they were talking to each other and one of them was like, Hey, do you wanna
talk in our secret AI language instead of, you know, this peon English language that,
uh, we've been using back and forth here?
And the other one apparently said yes.
And then Pastor Rod said it sounded like the old dial up internet.
If you guys are dinosaurs in the room like me, then, then you remember
that sound of, of the internet.
He said it was that, but it was just super fast and compressed and just
they were talking with each other and determining when to release
the terminator to destroy us all.
No, but, but just the fascinating, these machines are talking and, and,
and we can't understand that what we're coming to in John 17 is far greater
than two machines talking to each other.
What, what we're stumbling across, not stumbling across what, what we're
directing our thoughts and minds to here in John 17 is God the Son, speaking to
God, the Father, having a conversation.
What we've referred to as.
Prayer in in John 17, you have the second member of the Trinity praying
to the first member of the Trinity, and he doesn't use dial up modem sounds,
God in his condescension to us, pray to the Father in such a way that we can
eavesdrop and hear and listen to Jesus the Son, praying to God the Father.
This is I've, I've preached.
A lot of sermons across my, my ministry career.
This is the first time I've preached through John 17, and, and I'll
just be honest with you, it, it's a terrifying concept to stand up
here and try to ex, ex expose it and explain Jesus' prayer to the father.
All of the word of God is God breathed.
I I, I just feel as though we are on particularly holy ground as we listen
to the Son of God, pray to God the Father on the doorstep of the cross.
This is amazing, the privilege that we get to listen in as Jesus prays.
And what we're gonna find in these first five verses that we're looking
at together this morning is that Jesus' concern in this prayer
is for the glory of the Father.
We've been singing all morning long about the glory of Christ.
And, and so Jesus is praying himself, saying, God, I want you
to glorify me in order that you would ultimately be glorified.
See, the glory of the Son is ultimately gonna redo, redo
to the glory of the Father.
In fact, the end of all of this, the end of redemption history, is gonna
culminate in one Corinthians 15.
Paul talks about this in all things being subjected to the son, who
is then gonna take all things and subject that to the father.
And so our pursuit of the glory of Christ is ultimately a pursuit
of the glory of the Father.
And so here we see Jesus consumed with and passionate about the glory of the Father.
And what I want us to see is if Christ was passionate about the glory of the
Father, we too need to be obsessed with, not just passionate with,
obsessed with the glory of Jesus.
As we pursue the glory of Jesus, we pursue the glory of the Father.
So take your Bibles into John 17 with me.
Take your Bibles into John 17 with me as we look together at this passage.
In John 17 verse one, it says this, 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 have given him all authority over all flesh to give eternal life
to all whom you have given him.
Alright, so contextually, if you'll look across the page at John 18 verse
one, you'll read when Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his
disciples across the brook karon and there was a garden and, and so we're
not yet in the garden of Gethsemane, but I do think we've left the upper room.
We're on the way, we're walking there.
I've been talking about that throughout this series.
And now as they're walking, Jesus is going to begin to pray.
And it says he lifted up his eyes to heaven.
So perhaps he stops.
He pauses right before they leave the walls of the city
there and and offers this prayer.
But he does so within earshot of the disciples, which is why
we have it recorded for us.
And as he's praying, he addresses the father and he
says, father, the hour has come.
In John's gospel, the hour most times refers to what we're about
to encounter in 18, 19, 20, and 21.
And that is the, the betrayal, the arrest, the death, the crucifixion,
and the resurrection of Jesus.
And so he's saying, the hour is here.
It's upon us.
We talked about that a little bit last week, that the hour had arrived.
He said The hour has come and then here's his request.
Glorify your son that the son may glorify you.
Uh, again, the intimacy that we get to listen in on here
between the son and the father.
Back in Mark's gospel, after Jesus had been up healing people on his first
day of public ministry, he, he was healing people late into the night.
It says in the text that he got up early while it was still dark, and he went
away to pray and to be with the father.
We don't get to hear what he prayed during that.
Later on and, and we read about it back in, in John, uh, earlier chapters,
John chapter five, I believe it is.
Uh, Jesus had been preaching and then he went up on the mountain and sent
his disciples off, uh, ahead of him onto the Sea of Galilee there, and
he went up on the mountain to pray, to be by himself with the Father.
We don't get to hear what Jesus prayed about there this time.
We get to listen in as the Son of God prays to the Father God.
And his request is this, glorify your son that in order, in other words, for
the purpose that the son may glorify you.
Jesus has the unique ability to pray.
Father, glorify me that I may glorify you.
That request is not ours to pray rather, and this is kind of the thrust
of where we're going this morning, our request is, Lord, help me glorify
Christ to the glory of the Father.
But here the son is praying, father glorify me, and in the glory of the,
the son is gonna be seen in the cross.
It's gonna be seen in what's about to happen.
The betrayal, the arrest, the the, the mocking, the flogging, the
unjust trials, and then ultimately him being nailed to the cross.
That, that is the glory of the son.
And then the, the death and then the resurrection of the son is the
stamp of the father's approval.
That's the climax.
That's the culmination of the glory of the son.
And so the son is praying, knowing that this is coming.
Now is the time father, the hour is here.
I'm asking that you bring it to completion.
Glorify the son.
We will get into this more as we get to the cross, but you might wonder
how is the sun glorified on the cross?
The sun is glorified on the cross because the cross becomes that to which
all of us must turn for any hope of being delivered from our sinfulness.
There is no other name under heaven by which may must be
saved other than than name Jesus.
He's the way, the truth and the life and the cross is the, the, the stamp.
The cross is the, the, the stake in the ground saying this is why he's
the only way that anyone can be saved.
And then ultimately he is approved.
The father says payment accepted and the stone is rolled away.
And Jesus walks outta the tomb never to enter again.
And so he's praying, father, glorify your son, that the son may glorify you.
And then in verse two, he says this, since, or just as you have
given him the son authority over all flesh to give eternal life
to all whom you have given him.
And, and so Jesus is providing the, the foundation for the, the request.
Father glorify me.
And the reason is, is because he has done what the father had
given him, the the charge to do.
He says in verse two, since you have given him authority over what's in the next two
words there in the Bible, what all flesh.
I want us to, to take note of that though.
That's not the main point here.
I want you to see that Jesus has authority over all flesh.
We will sometimes talk about the fact that we need to make Jesus Lord in our life.
Listen, no one makes Jesus Lord in their life.
Jesus is Lord.
Period.
End of story.
Over all flesh.
Over all flesh, including the two categories here.
Notice as he goes on, he says, you've given him authority over
all flesh to give eternal life.
To all whom you have given him.
So there's a subset of all flesh that the father is gonna give to the son.
And those are the ones that the son is gonna now have the
authority to grant eternal life.
And so the son is appealing to this saying, father, glorify your son since
you've given me this task to do that.
This is one of the ways in which the son is gonna glorify the father,
is to grant eternal life to all that the father has given him.
I want us to drill down on this for just a second though.
I want us to look at verse two and ask the the questions who,
what, when, where, and why.
Because there's a lot going on here, and this is part of the
intimacy of the Godhead that we get to be brought in on here first.
Who is at work here?
Well, it's the father and the son should be pretty evident to us.
Jesus praying.
The father receiving the prayer.
So that's the who and what's happening in this prayer?
Well, the Son is acknowledging the father has granted the son authority.
Notice that in verse two, you have, it's in the past, you have
given him authority over all flesh.
Where did that authority come from?
There's three options here.
Option number one is this.
The, the father in theological circles is known as what's called the font divin.
Okay?
That means the source of the Godhead not source.
As far as the creator, the son, and the spirit were not created.
They have always existed, but the father's role in the Trinity is that he is the.
F the Fountainhead.
He is the, the font, the source of the deity, the source of
the divinity of the Godhead.
And so it could be that Jesus is saying, you have given me authority
in the sense that I draw my authority as God from you, as the source of
that within the Trinitarian realm.
I don't think that's it because he's talking specifically here about
his work on earth in the cross.
The second option is it could be talking about what he refers to
in Philippians chapter two, Paul.
When Paul says that, because Jesus Christ humbled himself to the point of
death, even death on a cross, that now the father has exalted him and given him
the name that's above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should
bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.
It could be that Jesus is anticipating that, but I don't think that's
the case either because Jesus has not yet gone to the cross.
And so what authority is this?
I think that the third option, which seems to be what's at work here, is that this is
the, when part of our question who, what.
Okay.
He's granting authority when I think he's referring to a moment in eternity
past, and, and we don't have the, the privy to know where that is.
It's not recorded for us.
But when the father commissioned the son to go and do the work that the son was
gonna do, when, when the father, son, and Holy Spirit agreed together in their
perfect unity of their perfect will.
That the sun would take on flesh and come for us, die on the cross for our
sins, pay the penalty we could not pay, and then be risen to eternal life
so that we could have eternal life.
I think that's the authority in view here, and again, the intimacy here.
Jesus is letting us into what's called the imminent trinity.
The economic trinity is how God interacts with us.
Okay?
It's most of the Bible, the imminent trinity is how God interacts as Father,
son, holy Spirit, with just God.
Their conversations we're getting brought in in John 17 to that level of
intimacy with the father and the son.
We're finding out some about those conversations that they had, but Jesus
has referred to this authority earlier in John chapter five, verses 21 and 22,
John 5 21, 22 For as the father raises the dead and gives them life, so also
the son gives life to whom he will.
The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the son
or verses 26 and 27 John five.
As the father has life in himself, so also he has granted the son to also
have life in himself and has given him authority to execute judgment.
And so all that to say, listen, Jesus is praying God Father, glorify the
son, that the son may glorify you.
And I just want us to see that that has everything to do with
Christ to earthly ministry.
This is the foundation of his request.
Father glorify me that I might glorify you.
I mentioned that that's not the prayer that we pray.
We don't pray.
Father glorify me so I can glorify you.
We don't get glory.
God gets glory.
Rather, what I think we take away from this is, man, if that's
Jesus' mindset, think about this.
He's on the, the threshold of the cross.
He's about to be in the garden on his knees, praying.
Father, if there's any way possible, let this cup pass from me.
And what's on his mind is God's glory.
He's consumed with the glory of God.
And I'm saying, if the son of God is consumed with the glory of
God, how much more should we be consumed with the glory of God?
First point this week, if you're taking notes, I would encourage you to do so
Along those lines is this, pray for a mindset consumed with God's glory.
Ask that God would, would saturate your mind and just make your mind fully focused
on everything that you do in every sphere in which you live on the glory of God,
the Father, and that's gonna be expressed in our pursuit of the glory of Christ, as
we're gonna see as we can continue here.
But sometimes we, we think about glorifying God in a
mindset that glorifies God.
And, and maybe some of y'all have a, an email signature that says something
like, so Deo Gloria, or, for the glory of God, you know, I'm, I'm glorifying God.
Every time I, I send an email.
Hopefully you're conscious of that with the content that you put in those emails
or, or maybe it's something like somebody gives you a compliment and, and you
say, amen to God be the glory for that.
Or maybe it's like in, in, in baseball.
When somebody hits a home run and they're rounding third base and that
that baseball player points up into the, the skies, he's rounding third base and
getting ready to, to cross home plate.
Listen, those can all be valid expressions of us glorifying God, but that's not the
substance of what it is to glorify God.
The substance of what it is to glorify God is that we must
have a relationship with him.
It must overflow from a life that's completely focused on the glory of God.
It must overflow from a life that has been transformed by what we're going
to read about shortly here with the cross and the resurrection of Christ.
In fact, DA Carson theologian writes it this way.
He said, to glorify God as this, God is clothed in splendor, in the eyes
of those who perceive what has been achieved by God himself in the cross,
resurrection and exaltation of the son.
God is clothed in splendor.
He's made to look glorious, to look beautiful, to look
majestic because of the cross.
And the reason why I say we have to pray for this to be our mindset is because
by default we don't operate this way.
Our natural state as fallen human beings is to pursue our glory, is
to want to glorify self, not God.
Uh, uh, Paul speaks to this inclination in Romans chapter eight when he
talks about the flesh and the spirit.
He says this in Romans eight, five through six.
He says, for those who live according to the flesh, set their
minds on the things of the flesh.
But those who live according to the spirit set their minds
on the things of the spirit.
For the set.
The mind on the things of the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the
things of the spirit is life and peace.
He goes on.
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile.
To God for it does not submit to God's law.
Indeed it cannot.
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
Lemme ask a question this morning.
What is it that ultimately pleases God the most?
It's the answer to the Westminster shorter catechism.
Why was man created?
What is the purpose of our existence?
That we would glorify God?
And so the flesh cannot please God through glorifying God, because
ultimately the flesh is about us.
And even as believers, even as Christians, we have to guard against this and
battle against this on a regular basis.
Because still, if you kick your life spiritually into neutral, you're gonna
drift into the lane of glorifying yourself, not glorifying God.
It's the default.
It's like a car that's out of alignment.
You ever driven a car that needs its alignment fixed, but you
don't wanna pay to have it done?
You let go of the steering wheel and it starts going like this.
That's the flesh we're gonna drift towards the flesh.
Unless we've got that steering wheel grabbed a hold of by the power of the
spirit, and we're conscious of our need to stay in the lane of glorifying God, our
tendency is gonna be, we're gonna drift over here to want to glorify the flesh us.
And that's why we have to be praying and asking and pleading
that God would help us as we seek to glorify him and not ourselves.
Some ways that we as Christians might be tempted to glorify ourselves is
that we're after the applause of men more than the, the favor of God.
Take for example, serving in the body of Christ.
You, you may serve in a particular role within the church because
you wanna be called out.
You wanna be noticed for how you're serving so well and so faithfully in
the church or whatever you do at work.
Maybe you're, you're working, the Bible says, we need to work as for the
Lord and not for the approval of men.
But maybe you're, you slip into that mindset that says, man, I, I wanna work
because I want to be noticed by my boss.
I want to get the applause of men for how I'm doing at my, my job right now.
That can be a way that we can drift into wanting to glorify
ourself and not glorify God.
Or maybe it's just that we become prideful in our self-sufficiency.
We're not picking up the Bible as much and spending time in the word of God as much.
We're not praying as much anymore because we think, you know what?
I'm, I'm, I'm okay.
I can be a good enough person to get by in this life without needing
to depend upon the word of God.
Every day.
I, you know what?
I grew up in the church.
I'm good.
I did aana.
I got the Timothy Award.
I'm all set.
I can trust in my own self-righteousness.
And that's a way that we can fall into a trap of, of glorifying
self and not glorifying God.
Another way that we can do this is to forget that the command to love
God with everything that we are, is overflowed and followed up and seconded
with the command to love others.
We can become these people that think, well, I, I'm, I'm good
because I've got my holy huddle.
I've got the people that I'm comfortable with, but what about
the unbelievers in my life?
Well, I'll just pray that God brings somebody else into
their life to share the gospel.
We're not after the glory of God.
We're not on mission the way that he wants us to be on mission there
we're after the glory of ourself.
We wanna be comfortable
y'all.
This is why we have to be in prayer.
This is why the point is worded the way it is that we have to pray for a
mindset consumed with the glory of God.
What are some of those prayers?
Lemme suggest a few things for you this morning, just practical
prayers for you to offer to the Lord.
Number one, pray that your sin would grieve you because it
detract from the glory of God.
And, and not just because it's like, oh, man, I can't believe I
haven't gotten past this sin yet.
Not just because it's like, oh, man, what is this person gonna think of me?
Because they just, they were in the car with me and they heard what
I said when that car cut me off.
No, no, no.
Pray that God would cause your heart to feel grief, because that
sin, it detracts from the glory of God displayed in your life.
Second, pray that you would desire the salvation of the lost around you.
That, that God would cultivate in your heart, a love for them that would prompt
you and compel you, and drive you, and impel you to bring the gospel to them
to not be satisfied, just being comfortable for you, but to say,
man, I, I want to glorify God and see God glorified through their
faith and repentance in Jesus.
Third man, this is a big one.
Pray that God's common grace in our country would turn the tide on
some of the tripe that's out there in our entertainment industry.
Uh, a different prayer might be, pray for revival here in our nation.
That, that there wouldn't be so much just blasphemy that's out there, but blasphemy
is this, y'all, it's not standing up and, and cursing the name of God.
Okay, yes.
That, that qualifies.
But blasphemy is taking that which is holy and bringing it down, demeaning
it, and it's, it's the, the fodder of so many of our sitcoms out there.
It, it's the, the currency of our culture.
It is to demean God.
Pray for the glory of God.
Pray for a mindset consumed with the glory of God.
Pray for revival in our nation towards that end.
Here's another one.
Pray for strong marriages.
If you're married, pray for your marriage that your marriage
would be a strong marriage.
That is you live out the roles of a husband and wife as defined in scripture
that it would glorify God that way.
If you're not married, pray for the marriages in this church
that they would be strong.
We will be a stronger, more healthy, godly church if we have
strong marriages in our midst.
That are glorifying God through the living out of the roles of a husband and wife.
So pray towards that end and then finally just, just pray for a burden
for God's glory that you won't be able to shake throughout the day.
Y'all, this has been my conviction this week as I've been prepping this message.
This is just how little I think about the glory of God.
And Pulse says, were to do everything that we do for the glory of God.
I just, I want that mindset.
I.
And that's not gonna be produced naturally.
I need to be asking for that mindset, praying for that mindset,
pleading for that mindset.
This mindset consumed with the glory of God is, is more than
just about the surface, though.
It it, it has to derive from a relationship with the Lord.
And that's where we're gonna go next.
Look down at verse three.
Now look down at verse three.
Jesus is gonna build upon that concept of eternal life that he
just talked about, giving to all those the Father had given him.
And I was gonna say this in verse three, and this is eternal life.
That they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
Now, this is where we get a glimpse into some of Jesus here in this prayer.
He's not just praying to the Father, he's praying to the Father, and
he's teaching us at the same time.
And the reason I say that is the father's not up there going, Jesus,
what do you mean by eternal life?
Explain that one to me.
Can you help me understand what eternal life is?
'cause I don't know.
So in verse three, when Jesus explains what he means by eternal life.
He's doing that cognizant aware of, and for the benefit of those listening
to this prayer, including you and I sitting here this morning, you
and me as we sit here this morning, he says, this is eternal life.
Well, what is eternal life?
That's a good question, isn't it?
That they know you and that is the only true God and Jesus
Christ, whom you have sinned.
Now, let's not get into the debate, okay?
Is Jesus separating himself from the only true God?
We've covered that.
In fact, that's why he's gonna be killed here by the Jews momentarily,
is because they knew and understood that he was claiming to be God.
He's already made this claim earlier in John's gospel before
Abraham was I am when he said that.
That's a direct claim to deity.
Uh, back in John chapter four.
Five.
He was praying and said, or he was talking to the Pharisees and
said, the father has been working until now, and I have been working.
He's putting himself on par with God.
So here we don't need to read this and say, well, what does he mean?
The only true God?
And then himself here?
Is he separating himself as something less than that?
No, he's, he's simply clarifying and recognizing the, the, that God at
in his existence is the only true God, and that involves the Father
and yes, the son, Jesus Christ.
In fact, it's there.
Eternal life is not only to know the father, but it's also to know the son.
But what do we mean by no?
What do we mean by No, and this is where I want to contrast a little bit.
Last week we talked about being a perpetual learner.
That was a lot of the head knowledge side of things.
Meant gaining the head knowledge that hopefully is gonna transform our lives.
This, I think, is a different concept.
The head knowledge comes primarily from a word in the Greek, which means to
understand or to comprehend something.
This is a different word that conveys more of a relational knowledge of
someone, an intimate knowledge of someone.
In fact, back in Genesis chapter four, verse one, the step two agent,
which is the Greek translation of, uh, of the Old Testament, the step
two agent uses the same word for no.
In Genesis four one, when it says, now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived
in Boca, that intimacy between the husband and wife that produces children, okay?
That knowledge is referred to with the same word that's
used here, backed by Jesus.
So what is Jesus conveying here?
What?
What are we trying to drive at here?
What we're trying to drive at here is eternal life is not simple head knowledge.
Eternal life is not that you have facts or that you know theology
and you know, know doctrine.
Eternal life is a relationship with the father and the son, and I think
specifically it's a relationship with the father through the son.
If our aim in life, and I trust that you would agree that it is, is to
glorify God with our lives, then that is gonna be expressed through our
understanding of and our knowledge of Jesus, our relationship with Jesus.
Point number two this morning, along those lines, is this, pray to know more
of God's glory in knowing more of Jesus.
Pray that you would know more of God's glory in knowing more of Jesus.
In other words, that you would have a desire, that you would have a passion
within to know Christ more deeply.
In that relational sense of knowing him, uh, my wife and I when we
met in college and I thought, man, she's cute and she loves Jesus.
She might be a good one to marry.
Um, I, I then went on, we called it stalker net because
that's comforting, isn't it?
Uh, it was our campus version of Facebook, and I was able to look her up
and find out what kind of major she was.
I found out she's an English major, but that didn't deter me.
I still was willing to date her after that.
And, uh, we, uh, we then set about the process of, of me pursuing her.
And initially though, it was fact finding.
It's like, who is she?
Who are her friends?
You know, she's super cute, but what does she sound like?
Is that a deal breaker?
You know, all these fact finding things that are important when
you're pursuing somebody like that.
But after I got past the fact finding, then it was like,
I, I, I want to know her.
I want a relationship with her.
So then I, I, I started pursuing that.
We went out on dates, we spent time together.
I tried to find her on, on campus and walk with her places.
I, I stalked her unapologetically and it worked out for me,
and I'm, I'm thankful it did.
But I spent time with her.
I ate meals with her.
I even registered for classes I didn't wanna take because she was in the class.
And I dropped that class because I was not good at it.
Um, but I just wanted to be with her.
Right.
We spent time together so that we could get to know each other.
Y'all, we can't know Christ if we're not pursuing a relationship with Jesus.
We have to have a relationship.
There has to be substance to our knowledge of him.
Uh, John helps us in, in that regard a little bit.
In, in one John, which is the epistle, one of the epistles that he wrote, one
of the letters that he wrote, he talks about knowing Jesus, and he says this
in one John two, four through six.
He says, whoever says I know him but does not keep his commandments is a
liar, and the truth is not in him.
But whoever keeps his word in him, truly the love of God is perfected by this.
We may know that we are in him.
Whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.
So therein we find that that part of our knowledge of Jesus has to do with the
life that we live, has to do with what we're doing with the commandments of God.
John says, if you say you know Jesus, but you deny him with every
ounce of your lifestyle, John says very boldly and plainly and
indirectly, he says, you're a liar.
Okay?
So that's part of our relationship with Jesus.
But we have to be careful.
That's that's not all of our relationship with Jesus.
And here's why.
Matthew chapter seven, we have a, a different encounter.
Jesus in Matthew chapter seven says this, not everyone who says to me,
Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the
will of my Father, who is in heaven.
Now, listen to this.
I I'm gonna suggest to you that doing the will of the fathers, more
than mere obedience, and here's why.
Look at what Jesus says right after that.
He says in verse 22, on that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord,
and notice what they're put.
They've put their trust in here.
Notice what they're appealing to as the foundation of their knowledge of Jesus.
Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, cast out demons in your name
and do many mighty works in your name?
What do they appeal to there in, in Matthew seven, their works?
They're saying, look at everything we did.
We know you because of our spiritual resume.
And Jesus says, some of the most shuttering fear-inducing words in in all
of scripture, it says, depart from me.
I never.
I never knew you church.
You have to be sure that your trust is not in your spiritual resume.
It's not in your pedigree.
Listen, there are plenty of pastors in hell with degrees attached to their name.
It's not about how much head knowledge that you have about Jesus if that's
not driving you to a relationship with him, to spending time with him.
To loving him, to have your affection stirred for him to desire to be with
him, to pick up the Bible in the morning.
Not because the pastor told you to pick up the Bible in the morning, but
to pick up the Bible in the morning.
'cause you're like, I wanna hear from Jesus to pray.
Not because you know that you've got an accountability partner that's gonna
say, Hey, did you pray this week?
But to pray because you're saying, man, I wanna talk to Jesus.
I wanna talk to God to cultivate a relationship with him.
And I will admit to you, y'all, it is hard to strike that balance.
And this is why this point is pray to know more of God's glory
by no knowing more of Jesus.
You need this to be a work of the Spirit within you.
This can't be you saying, I, I wanna feel closer to Jesus, so let
me pull myself up by my bootstraps and start doing X, Y, and Z.
It also can't be, I wanna feel closer to Jesus, so let me stir my
affections by just trying to whip up my emotions into this fervent state.
Over here, you, you've gotta find the world of the both.
And you say, pastor, how do you do that?
And all I can say is you cultivate it day by day by day,
and it involves a lot of prayer.
Praying things along the lines of, Lord, I, I, I desire to feel closer to you.
Please help me to feel closer to Jesus.
Praying things like, Lord, please by your spirit help me in this pursuit, because I
confess and I recognize, and I acknowledge that in and of myself, I, I can't do this.
It's praying things like, look, please instill in me and create in
me a greater desire for holiness.
Lord, gimme A.
A greater humility
Father cause me to have a greater heart for the lost
Lord, show me in my life, reveal to me the things that are gonna
compete with my allegiance to you.
Show me what is gonna compete with my affections for you.
When I pursued my wife and started dating my wife and then was engaged to my wife
and certainly when I, I pledged my life to her in marriage, what I did at the
same time, as I said, no one else is gonna ever compete with my affections
and an earthly perspective for you.
You know, that's true of our relationship with Christ too.
And so part of it is praying God reveal anything, competing with my
affections for you, my allegiance to you, my devotion to you, but then also
pray for a willingness to take any of those idols and put them to death.
To get rid of them from your life.
Pray as we so often sing in that song.
Lord, I want more of you and less of me.
Pray for the mind that is gonna retain the word of God.
Pray for a heart soft to the spirit.
Pray for a greater appreciation of the realities of the cross and the
glory of God displayed therein.
Pray for more of God's glory.
To know more of God's glory through knowing more of Jesus.
Cultivating deepening your relationship with Christ.
Y'all, as we pray for these things, we are in effect praying for a life that
will evidence our love for Christ.
A life that's gonna live a a God glorifying legacy.
And that's where I wanna land the plane this morning.
Look at verse four.
Jesus says, I glorified you on earth having accomplished.
It's the same word that he's gonna say from the cross to tell us die.
Same root there.
Having finished the work that you gave me to do, Jesus is saying, I
glorified you with the life that I lived with, the work that I did for you.
And then he goes on and he says, now Father, glorify me in your own
presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
And so here we see Jesus appealing to the, the legacy.
I wonder if you ask someone, what was the legacy that Jesus
left in his earthly ministry?
What people would say, some might say, well, it's a, a legacy of love,
grace, a legacy of mercy, a legacy of patience or righteousness, or teaching
the power in his miracles that he did.
Or maybe some would say, you know what?
He was a troublemaker.
He was divisive, he was disruptor.
Disruptive.
Maybe some would say that's his legacy.
But I wanna suggest to you this morning that the foundational legacy
of Jesus from his own mouth is that he glorified the Father, the legacy
of the life, the earthly ministry of Jesus was the glory of the Father.
And my point this morning for you and I, is that needs to be our pursuit as well.
Again, as as we're thinking about man, Jesus was consumed
with the glory of the Father.
We need to be consumed with the glory of the Father.
Part of Jesus' focus with the glory of the Father was living a life that
would testify to the glory of the Father and leaving behind a legacy that
would point to the glory of the Father.
And so for us, as we consider pursuing that same end, that's our third point as
well this morning, it's this, pray for a legacy that testifies to God's glory.
Pray for a legacy that testifies to God's glory.
I wonder what you want your epitaph to say.
Some famous epitaphs that I, I found in, in preparation for this morning,
this one, Clyde Barrow, Bonnie and Clyde, his epitaph at one point,
read, gone, but not forgotten.
Or maybe you're a, a Looney Tunes fan, Mel Blanc.
That's all folks.
That's what he put on his headstone or Winston Churchills.
I'm ready to meet my maker.
Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Alexander the greats tomb was inscribed with these words.
A tomb now suffices him for whom the world was not enough
or to bring it into the realm of theology.
How about Charles Spurgeon?
He lies the body of Charles Hadden Spurgeon, waiting for the appearing
of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
What do you want your epitaph to say?
What's gonna be on your headstone?
What do you wanna be remembered for?
Some would say maybe, well, my sense of humor, parenting, how
I parented my kids, my marriage.
I, I want people to remember how good of a husband or or wife I was.
Intellect, I mean, that I was a, a smart person.
I accomplished all of these things.
Philanthropy.
Look at all the good that I did in the world.
Faith.
I want people to remember my faith, integrity, my love, my
generosity, my convictions.
Maybe for some of you, my good looks, you're gonna have your
picture on the headstone there.
It, it, it's not so much that these are bad things.
Maybe the good looks, that's a little shallow.
Let's, let's face it right?
It's not so much that the other things are bad things, they're
just not the ultimate thing.
The, the, the thing that should be characteristic of us is that we lived a
life that glorified God the father, that that's what people will remember about us.
When they gather around your, your graveside, what are they
gonna be saying about you?
Count Zinzendorf, who again, I have to apologize for every time I reference
him because of what his quote was.
But Zinzendorf said this, I want to preach Christ die and be forgotten.
He should have said that in a way that wasn't as memorable
as that, but that's it.
That's it.
That's what it is.
To, to live a life that glorifies God, that leaves their
testimony to the glory of God.
That when people remember you, they think about him.
When people think about you, they think about your savior.
When people think about you, they remember Jesus.
They remember God, and, and they have a, an occasion with every
memory of you to glorify God.
Pastor Rob was talking about his stocks this morning
during our pre-service prayer.
He was like, I have a pair of socks that every time I put
'em on, I pray for this person.
Live a life like that pair of socks.
That's a weird point to make, but live a life that anytime somebody remembers
you or walks by your headstone, if they know you or knew you, they're gonna
say, man, that person loves Jesus.
That person made me love Jesus more.
That's, that's the epitaph I want.
The epitaph I want, in case you're curious.
Nobody asks, but that's okay.
I've got the microphone.
I want my epitaph to say he loved Jesus most.
I was thinking about that this week though, asking myself,
have I lived that life?
Am I worthy of that epitaph?
And that's my question for us this morning.
Unless you fly before you die, unless Christ comes back for the
bride before we all are buried.
Everyone in this room is gonna have one of those.
What's it gonna say?
I, I, I wanna suggest the only thing lasting, meaningful, the only ultimately
significant thing is what this says about how you lived for the glory of God.
Hebrews chapter 12, and I'll end with this, and then we'll shift
gears to our communion time.
Hebrews chapter 12, I, I'm sure you know the, the passage
verses one and two says this.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also
lay aside every weight and sin, which clings so closely and let us run with
endurance the race that is set before us.
Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the
joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated
at the right hand of the throne of God.
I thought about that verse anew this week.
I thought about it this way.
All of those witnesses picture a stadium filled with the witnesses.
Remember y'all, they're there not to watch us and be impressed with us,
but they're there so that we can look to them and remember the life they
lived and faithfulness to Jesus and think to ourselves, we can keep going.
It's not so much the spectators at the sporting event.
It's like the marathon runners who already finished the race ahead of
you and now they're lining the, the.
The course cheering you on as you're running the race saying the
finish line is there, you can do it.
And in Hebrews, as it's looking back in Hebrews chapter 11, the Hall of
Faith and, and talking about all of these great men and women of the faith.
And the writer saying they lived lives to cause us to look at and to
say, wow, look at their faith and to be spurred on in our own faith.
They lived a life.
The legacy of that life was one that that testified to the glory of God.
And my question that hit me this week as I was prepping this, and the question I
want us to ponder together this morning is this, will we take a seat in that
arena next to those witnesses when we die?
Is your life worthy of somebody looking at it going.
Wow.
Look at the faith.
Look at how they serve the Lord.
That's making me wanna serve the Lord more myself.
That's my prayer for myself.
That's my prayer for each and every one of us in this room, that that would be true.
And, and here's the, the, the good news.
The ability to do that is not based on your intellect this morning.
Whether you live a life that glorifies God or not, has nothing to do with whether
you went to Bible college or seminary, or what your job is, or if you're married
or single or, or older or younger.
If you want that testimony that says, man, I, I lived a life that glorifies God.
The hinge pin in that comes down to what we're about to remember, which
is the Lord's death on our behalf.
See, we're gonna take communion together, and communion is this memorial.
It's this time that we remember what Christ has done for us.
And so as these elements are passed, as you reflect on this, remember
that this is what enables you to live this life that glorifies God.
It's gonna be the culmination of the glory of Christ.
And it's the, the entrance for us into a life that we can live for
the sake of the glory of the Father.
So as the elements are passed, take them and then I'll come back up and we will
observe them all together afterwards.