Christianity Is All About Glory!

7th Sunday of Easter, 5/21/23 John 17:1-11a Christianity Is All About Glory! I. The glory Jesus gave to his Father II. The glory we give to Jesus There are daily things in our lives which are easy to define with a word. For instance, how do you define the relationship between a parent or a grandparent and a young child. That’s easy! Love. All love, all the time. Or, how do you define marriage in a single word? I always ask that of engaged couples during pre-marriage counseling. Some of them struggle to answer it. And that’s when I tell them, “Marriage is commitment, a lifelong commitment to live as husband and wife.” Or, how do you define life in the military with a single word? “Order” quickly comes to my mind. But there are things in life that are hard to define with a single word. For instance, describe your relationship with your siblings, if you have them, in a single word. Or, define your employment situation in a single word. Not so easy, is it? That are many facets to these last two things in life and describing them with a single word won’t do them justice. So, what if I asked you to define your Christianity in a single word? What word would you choose? Some might choose the word “love,” after all, God is love. Some might choose the word “salvation” or “Jesus” or “heaven.” And I couldn’t argue with those answers. All of them are fine choices at an attempt to define Christianity in a word. But there’s another one found in the prayer Jesus spoke on the night before his death, the words before us this morning from John 17. Did you catch it? Did you catch it without looking at the sermon theme as printed in your worship folder? It’s the word “glory.” In the 11 verses before us, that word appears several times. Here is Jesus on the night before his death. He could have prayed to his heavenly Father about all sorts of other things, such as the horror of his impending crucifixion or the abandonment of his disciples at a time when he needed them most of all. But he doesn’t. Instead, he prays about glory. And that’s a most-fitting prayer for Jesus to pray at this moment in his life because that’s what Christianity is all about. It's all about glory. Let me explain how as we focus on this prayer of our Lord. Part I. I’m sure there are many things that annoy you in your attempt to have a relationship with someone, be it personal, casual, or professional. One of them is that you can’t stand it when someone lies to you. Another one is that it’s annoying when someone tells you it’s not about them but you quickly come to the conclusion by what they say and do that they think it really is all about them. It makes you wonder, “Whom do they think they’re kidding? And why would someone be like that?” Well, it’s part of our sinful nature. We’re bent in on ourselves. We’re prone to think that it’s always about us. How refreshing, then, to hear the words of the prayer that Jesus spoke on the night before his death. Listen to them once again. “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” Even though Jesus asks twice in those sentences for the Father to glorify him, it’s for one purpose only and Jesus states it twice: that he may glorify the Father. It’s crystal clear…what Jesus is all about is not himself; he’s all about the Father. His focus is on glorifying his Father with every fiber of his being. He wants every moment of his life to bring glory to his Father. When his life is literally being squeezed out of him in about 12 hours as he hangs on the cross, his plea is for people not to look at him but to look at his Father. He wants to glorify his Father. But just what does that mean? How can and did Jesus glorify his Father? In several ways. First, by showing the entire world who the Father is. From nearly the beginning of the world, human beings have wanted to know who God is. On more than one occasion, Jesus stated clearly that he revealed the Father to the world. In other words, if you want to know who the Father is, look at and listen to Jesus. What’s more, Jesus gives glory to the Father by revealing what the Father wants for all people. The Father is not in the business of damning sinners; he’s the business of saving sinners. He doesn’t want a single soul to go to hell. He wants every person to enjoy life with him in heaven. There’s no one like him. What glory! And he backs up his will with his actions. He not only dreams of spending eternal life with every sinner; he makes it possible, and it took nothing less than sacrificing his dearest treasure, his only-begotten Son. Think about that! He sacrificed the eternally holy for the temporally sinful. He sends the heavenly One to the cross for the hellish ones. He substitutes the eternally blessed for the eternally damned. It makes no sense, not to us, anyway. But that’s what the Father does. And he does it through Jesus who gives him the glory. And once again, it’s not all about him. Not about Jesus. Not about the Father. Then who is it about? You. Me. Every sinner. It’s all about us. The Father’s glory is wrapped up in what he does for us. Incredible! Throughout history, human beings have invented all sorts of gods with all sorts of motives. But never was the glory of these invented gods about anything but themselves and their own base desires and thoughts. Not so with your God and with the Christian faith. Christianity is all about glory—the glory Jesus gave to the Father. So, if Jesus is all about giving glory to God and that happens by what the Father wants, and thinks, and does for us, why don’t we see it in our lives? If the Father’s glory is all about what Jesus did for us in keeping with the Father’s will and plan, then why is life so difficult? Why is defining our lives as glorious not even close? Why are we scratching and clawing our way through so much of life? Why is it that glory for us seems like a pipedream? Why do the disappointments of our lives far outweigh the joys and successes? Because we’re looking for glory in all the wrong places. Ask yourself, “What does the Father want most of all for me?” To spend eternity with him in heaven. Done! Finished by what Jesus did for you! And the path to that crown of glory is through the crosses of this life. This life won’t be glorious. It never is, not completely. But Jesus gave glory to his Father by winning a perfectly glorious life for you. Christianity is all about glory! Part II. But on this night in prayer, Jesus wasn’t only concerned about his efforts to give his Father glory, he was also concerned about yours. That’s right, he wants you to give glory to the Father. It’s part of what your Christianity is all about. Listen to these words of his prayer, “Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them.” “Glory has come to me through them.” How is that true about you? About me? Well, it starts with recognizing who we are. I’m not the so great and neither are you. I came into this world under the curse of sin, not the blessedness of holiness. I have nothing to offer God that he should love me for a fraction of a second, let alone for my lifetime or for eternity. Scripture tells me that I am a God-hater by nature. Pretty ugly, right? The same goes for you. But look what Jesus has done. He took sinners condemned to hell and destined them for eternal life. He held filthy sinners in his holy hands and washed them clean with his blood. He made sinners into saints. What I am today—what we are today—is all the Lord’s doing. Praise God! Give him the glory! But just how does that happen each day? Listen again to Jesus, “I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.” In other words, we give glory to God when we know and believe who Jesus is. Even the youngest among us can say it, “Jesus is my Savior.” And no one came to that saving knowledge or faith on their own. That’s all the work of God the Holy Spirit. In other words, everything we are is due to the gracious plan and work of our God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And in that truth, my dear friends, is glory. God’s glory. Christianity is all about glory—the glory we give to Jesus. How long has it been since you asked yourself, “What does Jesus want out of me as a Christian?” Does he want me to be a better spouse, grandparent, neighbor, student, employee, or employer? Does he want to me discover ways in which I can positively impact the lives of others? Does he want me to be more effective in the various callings he has given me? How can I become a better Christian? How can I more accurately project who I am and what I believe? Those are all probing questions, but don’t start with asking yourself any of them until you’ve asked yourself, “Who am I in Christ?” Daily ask that question and daily repeat this answer: I’m a worthless, condemned sinner on my own, but Jesus loves me so much he redeemed me and made his own for eternity by his holy life and his sacrifice on the cross. And solely by the working of the Holy Spirit, I am a Christian, set apart from the unbelieving world and now I live each day to glorify God. That’s God the Father’s plan for me. God the Son made me his own. I’ve been reborn through the work of God the Holy Spirit. And now I get to glorify God with everything I say and do. Christianity is all about glory! God’s glory! Your glory! Amen.