Glory

Safe and Sound (John 17:9-10)

Do we truly realize what our Lord Jesus Christ has done for us?

Our Lord gave us life. Scripture teaches that Christ was the Word which was in the beginning with God, and was God. That all things (ourselves included) were created by Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The Lord created man and gave him life, so that he became a living soul. Our consciousness, creativity, dreams, and problem-solving ability are all effects of this life that the Lord gave us.

And when man rebelled against God, not only through disobedience, but through an attempt to overthrow God’s power and authority through that disobedience, the Lord redeemed us from the death and condemnation that came as a result.

To do that, He became man, lived the life of a man, endured the same trials and tribulations we do on a daily basis, yet He did so without sin (Hebrews 4:15-16).

Scripture says He came into His own, and we didn’t receive Him, nor did we recognize Him. In fact, we rejected and betrayed Him, turned Him over to the Romans and had Him crucified.

That is the greatest sin ever perpetrated in the history of the world, the sin of rejecting Christ and nailing Him to the cross.

Yet, even in that, He endured the wrath of God on our behalf, so that we could be cleared of all guilt and could stand faultless before God. He even prayed, “Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Having paid for our sins on the cross, the Lord resurrected on the third day, conquering death and the grave, and later ascended to the right hand of the throne of God where He ever lives to make intercession for us. He maintains our salvation by continually putting our cause before the Father in Heaven.

So, in John 17:9-10, it makes perfect sense that Jesus would clarify to the Father that He is praying for us. He said, “ I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”

In that statement, Jesus said that He prays for us, that we are securely His, and that He finds glory in us.

Jesus prays for us. He earnestly pleads before the Father on our behalf, and He advocates for us. He stated that He prayed for “them,” and not the world. “Them” are His disciples, and not only His disciples, but all those who would believe based on their words. Therefore, since we have all become believers based on their words, then this prayer is for us as well.

And we know that Christ prays for us, because Hebrews 7:25 says that He “ever liveth to make intercession” for us. He intercedes, advocates for us. Advocacy… we don’t often associate that word with Christ, but it is truly what He does for us.

1 John 2:1-2 says “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

John told us to sin not. That means to leave sin behind, to leave the sinful lifestyle behind, to leave “the life.”

However, if anyone sins, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” He truly is our advocate.

His advocacy is one reason we are secure in our salvation, if we know Him as Savior.

Jesus said in John 17:9-10, “all mine are thine and thine are mine.” We belong to God, and in John 10, Jesus said, “no man is able to pluck them from my hand.” We have been passed from death to life, from condemnation to salvation, from guilt to innocence.

Then Jesus concludes this verse by saying, “and I am glorified in them.”

When Jesus said He was glorified in His disciples, it means His disciples bring him honor, renown, and cause Him to be well-known in a good day. This was something Jesus said had already happened. Simply by following Him, remaining faithful to Him even when all others walked away, and preaching His Kingdom, the disciples had already glorified Jesus.

When we remain faithful to the Lord, we glorify Him as well.

So, in light of this passage, knowing that Jesus prays for us, has secured our salvation, and is glorified in us, let us spend time in prayer, trusting in His forgiveness and redemption, and promoting His Gospel.

And Now… the EPIC Moment!

The Greek language has a beautiful aspect to it… it puts the central thought of the message at the beginning of the sentence. So, when Jesus said in John 17:5, “ And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was,” the central thought was “And now…” meaning “This moment.”

Christ was asking God to glorify Him in that moment, not the same way an impatient child wants their birthday present “right now,” or the way I wish my download would complete “right now,” but rather, Jesus was saying, “In this moment, glorify Me.”

The moment Jesus was talking about was the Gospel, His death, burial and resurrection for our sins, according to the scriptures. It is in the Gospel that Christ is truly glorified, because in the Gospel, His mission is completed. In the Gospel, His claims of Messiahship are validated. In the Gospel, He has His complete victory.

The Gospel is the culmination of all the promises God made in the Old Testament. It is the fulfillment of the Law, and it was the subject of the prophets. It was the inspiration of the Psalms. When Jesus Christ died for our sins, redeeming us from condemnation and shame, completing that redemption with the resurrection, the disciples saw their faith become tangible. From that moment, they could keep silent no more.

Because of the Gospel, Jesus Christ is the central figure in human history. Secular history can neither deny the existence of Christ, nor can it deny His impact on the world. While secular history ingores the divinity of Christ and His redemptive work through the Gospel, secular history records how the teachings of Jesus have influenced the greatest philosophers ever since. The teachings of Jesus have also influenced Western literature, and if we are to be honest, the ministry of Jesus is the foundation for Western civilization.

You read that right.

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Without Jesus, there would be no Western civilization, at least not as we know it. Northern and Western European peoples were barbarians before the conquest of the Roman Empire. Secular history records that fact. Furthermore, the Roman Empire was heavily influenced by Christianity. With the rapid spread of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire (much of it in that first generation after Jesus rose to be at the right hand of the Father,) Roman culture was heavily influenced by the faith. And when Constantine had his conversion a couple hundred years later, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire.

The conquered barbarians were now civilized, living by Christian values, even if those values were forced upon them. The influence of Christianity then gave rise to literature, architecture, education, the Sistine Chapel, art, and culture.

It was Christianity which motivated the pilgrims to seek a new life in the new world, and serious historians cannot deny the influence of Christianity on the American colonies and the new nations emerging in the Americas. They may deny or disagree with the faith, but they cannot deny its influence.

With this influence apparent, it becomes evident that without Jesus, there would have been no Western Civilization. What more glory could the Lord ask for than to be the bedrock of our culture’s history? I tell you, it is to be the foundation of our faith, which He is. Hebrews 12 says He is the author and finisher of our faith.

Christ was truly glorified in the Gospel, in the moment that He asked God for the glory. Next, Christ will be glorified when He returns. When Christ returns, there will be no debate about Who He is or What He is. There will only be the decision to surrender to Him, or to fight against Him. And many, unfortunately, will choose the latter.

So, with that, the glory of Christ is truly that He is the turning point of human history, the beginning of Western Civilization, but more importantly, the foundation of our faith, a faith which looks to God for forgiveness and righteousness, and trusts Him for redemption when He returns to this world and establishes His Kingdom on Earth. That truly is epic.

Promoting God

As He prayed the high priestly prayer, Jesus told God in John 17:4, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”

The word “glorified” comes from a Greek word which means to make one renown, to show or demonstrate one’s honor, basically to promote and show the value of one.

When Jesus said that He glorified God on the earth, He was saying that He showed the world how great God is, how gracious God is, how loving God is, how powerful God is, how good God is, and every other positive attribute that you can ascribe to God, Jesus demonstrated it in His life and ministry.

Like Jesus, we too should glorify God.

This sounds like a big task. How much effort and Spirituality it must take to glorify God!

But in all reality, glorifying God is not that much different than glorifying our favorite brands. Ask any Apple or iPhone user, and they will extol the virtues, features, vision and mission of Apple products. They will tell you how much they identify with their devices, or how much their devices seem to enable them to do what they do.

The same is true for Samsung users, PC users, and fans of Adobe or Office.

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In Texas, we love our brands. If a brand has successfully identified itself with the Lone Star State, we offer it undying loyalty whether it’s a superior product or not. Such is the case with Wolf Brand Chili. Go to any championship chili cookoff, and you will not find a chili similar to Wolf Brand anywhere near the top of the field. However, we buy Wolf Brand by the case, and we love it.

“Texan? When’s the last time you’ve had a bowl of Wolf Brand Chili… oh that’s too long.”

However, Blue Bell Ice Cream truly is a superior brand, and it’s Texan, so Texans will not so much as entertain the notion of buying anything else.

We fall in love with brands, and we tell each other why we love these brands. Why we find them to be better than other brands. Whether it’s quality or identity, we gravitate toward them and tell others about them.

We glorify them. We cause them to become renown. To be valued. To be adored.

Same way with Christians. We love our Christian brands… Chick-Fil-A, Hobby Lobby, and In-N-Out Burger. We promote them, stand with them during PR crises, and back their efforts wholeheartedly.

However, when it comes to God, suddenly we don’t know what to say.

What if we identified ourselves with God as strongly as we identify ourselves with our cell phones, computers, food brands, favorite restaurants and retailers? What if we could extol His virtues and benefits the way we can extol the virtues and benefits of the latest car we drive, or TV we’ve purchased.

The reason we fail to do this is possibly because we fail to truly realize the blessings He has given us.

Jesus glorified God by showing through His life and ministry Who God is. In His death on the cross, we see the righteousness of God, the grace and mercy of God, and the desire of God to redeem His people. We see God’s passion. We see His love.

In the resurrection of Jesus, we see God’s power. In the teachings of Jesus, we see God’s truth. In the miracles of Jesus, we see His compassion and power. Jesus truly glorified God on this earth.

We have the same ability to glorify God, albeit we will do it a little differently.

We glorify God when we believe the Gospel. We show His glory when we follow the Lord in Baptism. We show His death and our redemption when we observe the Lord’s supper. We show His power and His character by living in obedience to Him, demonstrating His transformation on our lives.

And we extol Him by telling others about Him and discussing our faith, with the same passion, attention to detail, and drive that we have in discussing our favorite brands.

But to do that, we have to truly believe. If we do it out of obligation, we will fail.

So reflect on what God has done for you, then show that glory to others.

Every Step Toward God’s Kingdom

No doubt, Patmos was a horrible place. A wretched, rocky prison island, upon which the Apostle John found himself as a result of a sentence handed down by a Roman judge for the crime of preaching the Gospel.

John was the disciple whom Jesus loved, the disciple who was closest to Jesus, who spent his life preaching the Gospel of Jesus. Yet, he found himself upon this wretched island, persecuted and forsaken.

Yet, on the Lord’s day, John was in the Spirit, and worshiping. It was at that moment that the Lord appeared to John… an overwhelming, yet welcome sight. The Lord’s appearance set off a divine Revelation to John that, despite the troubling things shown in the future, left John feeling at peace and thankful, resulting in the final words of the book, “Even So, Come, Lord Jesus.”

Oh, to be able to look through the pain of today toward the glory of God. Welcome, to our new YouTube series.