What is the glory of God? John 17.1-11

John 17:1-11

Madonna, the mega star, was being interviewed. They asked her if she prayed. She said that she did. She said that before she went on stage, she gathered her crew around her and she prayed, ‘God, make them love me’.
I speak of Madonna, but I suspect that that is a prayer that each of us might want to pray.

In John 17 we are shown Jesus at prayer.

At first glance it might look like Jesus is praying what Madonna prayed, only bigger. Not ‘make them love me’, but ‘glorify me’!

Is Jesus praying, Glorify me: let me be a star, let me be there in the headlights, let them love me and praise me, let them say their great big ‘ура’ about me?

But as we read through this prayer, we begin to realise that true glory is so much more.

 

1.      When Jesus prays ‘Glorify your son’, he is praying for that his Father will complete his work in Jesus, will make him perfect, through the cross.

Jesus has already lived a perfect, authentic life: a life that was driven by love of God and love of people.

He loves Father God and puts his complete trust in Him.

He knows that everything he has comes from the Father: his authority, the work that he has been sent to accomplish, the people who have come to him. He was sent to speak the Father’s words, to make the name of the Father known and to give eternal life to all whom the Father brings to him.

And now he prays, as he faces the cross, ‘I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now Father, glorify me in your own presence’.

‘The hour has come’. (v1) Everything in Jesus’ life has been leading up to this moment. This is to be his moment of glory. This is when his work will be concluded and he will be made complete.

But that will happen only as he goes to the cross.

Jesus has already spoken twice in John’s gospel about how he will be lifted up (as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness) and all people will be drawn to him.

In Hebrews we are told that the Son of God was made perfect through what he suffered. That seems strange. Was not Jesus always perfect?

Yes, but there are degrees of perfection. It is easy to be obedient when what I want and when what God wants are the same thing.

A lot of my prayers are about my trying to persuade God that what I want is what he wants, and he should give it to me! But when what God wants of me is difficult and painful for me (e.g., forgiving someone, saying sorry, letting go of someone, going somewhere I don’t want to go, standing up for what is true, going public with my faith), then of course it is harder to be obedient; it requires a denial of self, a costly obedience and a greater trust.

And I will only know complete perfection when I am completely obedient in the hardest of circumstances.

Jesus will be glorified in this his hour.

He has resisted everything that the devil has put in his way to prevent him going to the cross, so far.

And now he will be obedient to the last. He will pray ‘not my will, but yours be done’.  He will trust in the promise of God.

So be careful when you ask God to glorify you. You are asking God to perfect you, to complete you. It was Irenaeus who said that the glory of God is a human being fully alive. And we will only become fully alive when we allow God to perfect us, and to complete the work he has begun in our lives.

When you pray, ‘Father, glorify me’, you are asking God to take you to your cross.

 

2.      When Jesus prays Father glorify me, he is praying for us: for our protection, our love for each other, our joy and our holiness!

The glory of Jesus is the glory of the people of God.

In v10 he prays, speaking of his people, those who have received him, who have believed in his name, ‘All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them’.

It is like a teacher who loved her children and who was with them through the grades. She looks at those children as they grow and flourish, and as she looks at their achievements she can say, ‘they are my glory’.

And as we, those who follow the Lord Jesus, live in love with one another, and as we are made holy, so Jesus is glorified in us.

So when Jesus prays that he will be glorified, he is also praying for us.

John 17 is Jesus’ prayer for us.

He prays for our protection and our unity.

‘Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one’ (v11).

He is praying that God will protect us from all that would tear us apart from one another: from sin, unforgiveness, pride, lies, hatred.

He prays that we will be set free from the demon of self-glory that separates us from other people. It is so often because I want to be glorious, it is because I want to be recognised and honoured as number one, that I will push ahead of you and push you down.

He prays for our joy: the joy that comes from being part of each other, and part of him. ‘I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves’ (v13)

And later he prays that we might be ‘sanctified’, made holy, made perfect, brought to completion: ‘Sanctify them in the truth’. (v17). Because it is as we are made perfect, complete, that we will know joy, we will united in love and he will be glorified in us.

Throughout this prayer Jesus speaks about being in the Father and the Father in him.

But he also talks about how those who believe in him are in him, and he is in them. He is part of us and we are part of him.

Or to use language that is probably a little simpler to understand.

Jesus is like the conductor. He has composed the music and chosen the members of his orchestra – us! He has given us each a score, written for us, perfect for us. He spends time with each of us and teaches us how to play our part. And now he is bringing us together.

And it really will not work if you are on the drums and you are beating the drums all the time because you want people to notice you, to ‘love’ you. In fact, it will make the other members of the orchestra either jealous or angry with you, and the sound will be appalling.

No, it is only as we look to the conductor, follow him or her, follow the score, as we listen to each other, and faithfully play the part that has been given us in the way the conductor has taught us, then the music will sound as it was meant to sound. And at the end the audience will rise and applaud. There will be glory.

And when Jesus prays that he might be glorified, he is praying it in the same way that a conductor might pray it. If their orchestra play together and produce a wonderful sound, then each member of that orchestra will be glorified, the orchestra will be glorified and the conductor will be glorified.

So when Jesus prays Father glorify me, he is praying for us: that we too will share his glory. That we will be made perfect, made complete in love.

 

3. When Jesus prays that God will glorify him, he is praying that his Father might be glorified

“Father, glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you” (v1)

Glory, in the Bible, is all about relationship.

The glory of the Son is not something, but someone: the Father.

The glory of the Father is not something, but someone: the Son.

It is like a father standing on the touchline watching his son play football. The son makes a great save. The father gives glory to the son, but he also shares in the glory of the son.

It is very hard to exactly say what glory is. One way is to think of it like this:

When we talk about a relationship between two people, we can say that as they look at each other their eyes ‘light up’. We say there is a chemistry between them. We use the language of electricity: sparks fly between them.

Perhaps one way of thinking about glory is thinking about it as the brilliant, dazzling, lightening sparks that fly between Father and Son.

It is those sparks that are the unapproachable light, of which Paul writes to Timothy: “It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honour and eternal dominion”. 1 Timothy 6:16

But there are times in history, and maybe in our own experience, when in the mercy of God, he has revealed to us glimpses of his glory.

Moses asks to see the glory of God. God tells him that nobody can see his glory and live. But God in his mercy gives Moses a glimpse of him from behind. Exodus 33.18,20.
And we are told that Moses, whenever he met with God, came away from the meeting with a radiant face. The sparks had set him on fire.

Or we think of Isaiah who is given a vision of God, high and lifted up, and he says ‘Woe is me! I am lost’. Isaiah 6:5 But because of that vision he was sent out to be one of the greatest prophets for God

Or we think of Peter, James and John who are up the mountain with Jesus. Theysee him transfigured and shining with a dazzling pure radiance like the sun. Peter becomes a gibbering wreck, and they are terrified. Luke 9:33f. But later Peter writes, ‘we [were] eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when that voice was conveyed to him by the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, my Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain.” 2 Peter 1:16-18

They saw those sparks of love.

And it is that relationship, those sparks flying between Father and Son, which is at the very heart of creation. It is those sparks which created the world, which sustain the world, which transform the world. Those sparks have life in themselves. They are called Holy Spirit.

Do you notice how often in this prayer Jesus talks about the disciples coming to know the relationship between the Father and the Son. It is almost the most important thing.

“They know that everything you have given me is from you” (v7)

“They know in truth that I came from you; and have believed that you sent me” (v9)

“These know that you have sent me” (v25)

The witness of the disciples to us is not just that Jesus came to us, lived among us, taught, healed, died and rose again.

It is their witness that Jesus was the Son of God, was sent by the Father, that he lived in total trust in and obedience to and love for the Father, and is now with the Father.

It is the witness to the sparks that flew between Father and Son.

They saw those sparks: when Jesus turned water into wine; when Jesus publicly called to his Father and Lazarus was raised from the dead.

That is why John can write at the beginning of his gospel:

“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth”. John 1:14

So when Jesus prays that the Father will glorify him with the glory he had in his presence before the foundation of the world, he is praying that he might come home to be with his Father, that it will not just be sparks that fly between them but that one eternal flame, and that his Father will be glorified.

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So, yes, pray that God will glorify you – that he will enable you to share in his love.

But realise that in praying that prayer, you are asking God to make you perfect, and that will mean that you are willing – if he asks you - to go to the cross, to go through the fire, so that you might become fire.

It will mean that you are praying for others:  that they will be given joy in unity and be made holy: because you realise that you are part of them and they are part of you, and that you cannot be glorified unless they are glorified.

Perhaps instead of praying, ‘Make them love me’, we could pray, ‘Help me to love them’.

And it will mean that you are praying for the glory of God

At the same time that I heard about Madonna, I heard an interview with Dana, Ireland’s winner of the Eurovision song contest back in 1970. She was asked if she prayed before she went onto stage. She said yes, I do. I pray, ‘Father whatever happens tonight, may your name be glorified’.

If you are glorified, with a true God given glory, Jesus will be glorified and the Father will be glorified.