John 14:8-17
Thank you, God, for sending Jesus;
Thank you, Jesus, that you came;
Holy Spirit, please now teach us
More about his precious name.
Philip said to Jesus, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied’ (John 14:8).
Thank you, God, for sending Jesus;
Thank you, Jesus, that you came;
Holy Spirit, please now teach us
More about his precious name.
Philip said to Jesus, ‘Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied’ (John 14:8).
The audio of the talk can be found here
Philip is asking to see the source of all honour and glory and power - the God of Glory.
It is a big prayer.
Only a very few people had seen the glory of God.
Moses and Isaiah had seen the glory of God.
The people of God had seen the glory of God, the shekinah of God, in the cloud which led them through the wilderness.
They saw it when the glory of God filled the temple that Solomon had built. It was so real that nobody could enter it.
Peter, James and John saw the glory of God in the transfigured Jesus on the mountain.
And Paul later mentions a vision which he is given, which is so wonderful he cannot express it in words.
Philip is asking Jesus, he is praying that he might see the glory of God.
People have been transformed by that vision.
Three months before he died, Thomas Aquinas, the great Catholic theologian of the C13th, according to a strong tradition, had an encounter with God. He spoke about it: ‘The end of my labours has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me’.
Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, scientist and inventor had an encounter with God on the evening of November 23, 1654. He wrote it down and sewed the piece of paper into his coat: ‘Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob not of the Philosophers and of the learned. Certitude, Certitude, Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ … Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God. ..’
Or I think of Tony. You won’t have heard of him. In 2017 he was dying of cancer in, I think, F9 ward of Bury St Edmunds Hospital. I went to see him a week before he died and all he could say to me was ‘Wow, wow, wow. If I had known he was like this I would have told everyone’. And I don’t think it was the drugs.
When Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, he is asking Jesus to show them the glory of God
And Jesus answers Philip
1. He tells Philip that the glory of God is standing in front of him
‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’.
He is saying, “You have seen the Father, the glory of God, in who I am. I have come from the Father and I will return to the Father. The Father is in me, and I am in my Father. I and the Father are one: one in nature, one in our desire and our will, one in eternity and one in glory.
Philip is asking to see the source of all honour and glory and power - the God of Glory.
It is a big prayer.
Only a very few people had seen the glory of God.
Moses and Isaiah had seen the glory of God.
The people of God had seen the glory of God, the shekinah of God, in the cloud which led them through the wilderness.
They saw it when the glory of God filled the temple that Solomon had built. It was so real that nobody could enter it.
Peter, James and John saw the glory of God in the transfigured Jesus on the mountain.
And Paul later mentions a vision which he is given, which is so wonderful he cannot express it in words.
Philip is asking Jesus, he is praying that he might see the glory of God.
People have been transformed by that vision.
Three months before he died, Thomas Aquinas, the great Catholic theologian of the C13th, according to a strong tradition, had an encounter with God. He spoke about it: ‘The end of my labours has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me’.
Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician, scientist and inventor had an encounter with God on the evening of November 23, 1654. He wrote it down and sewed the piece of paper into his coat: ‘Fire. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob not of the Philosophers and of the learned. Certitude, Certitude, Feeling. Joy. Peace. God of Jesus Christ … Forgetfulness of the world and of everything, except God. ..’
Or I think of Tony. You won’t have heard of him. In 2017 he was dying of cancer in, I think, F9 ward of Bury St Edmunds Hospital. I went to see him a week before he died and all he could say to me was ‘Wow, wow, wow. If I had known he was like this I would have told everyone’. And I don’t think it was the drugs.
When Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, he is asking Jesus to show them the glory of God
And Jesus answers Philip
1. He tells Philip that the glory of God is standing in front of him
‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’.
He is saying, “You have seen the Father, the glory of God, in who I am. I have come from the Father and I will return to the Father. The Father is in me, and I am in my Father. I and the Father are one: one in nature, one in our desire and our will, one in eternity and one in glory.
If you have heard me, you have heard the Father because I speak only what the Father gives me to speak”
And, Jesus continues, “You have seen the glory of the Father in the works that I do. The turning of water into wine. ‘This was the first of the signs of Jesus and he revealed his glory and his disciples put their trust in him’ (John 2:11). Or the last of the seven signs that John tells us of, the raising of Lazarus; Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you put your trust in me you would see the glory of God’.”
John, as he later reflects on all that Jesus was, said and did writes, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory. Glory of the one and only Son of the Father’.
2. Jesus tells Philip that if he puts his trust in Jesus, he will do works which will reveal the glory of God in far greater ways than could happen before the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We pray that the glory of God will be revealed every time we pray, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’.
This is currently how I understand ‘the greater works’ of John 14:12
“Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son”
I am not convinced the ‘greater works’ are more wow miracles, although God does still do remarkable things.
But I suspect that the greater works are when people’s eyes are opened and those who have been blind to God see the glory of God; when people who are spiritually dead come alive.
They are when people who have not seen Jesus meet together to worship and praise him.
They are when the power of and presence of God is shown in human weakness, when people are faithful to God in persecution and suffering, when they show outrageous sacrificial acts of love.
Someone described it as saying that the greater thing is when a widow walks out of church behind her beloved husband’s coffin, singing the hymn, ‘Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father’
The commentators are vague as to what the 'greater works' are, but we do know three things. First, they are the sort of things that Jesus would pray for; second, they are an answer to our prayer; and thirdly, they bring glory to the Father.
3. The Father will send us the Holy Spirit
“I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate (helper, comforter) to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16f)
Today we remember the first coming of that gift.
He is the Spirit of truth.
How we see shapes our thinking and our living. The Holy Spirit enables us to see reality as it is.
He enables us to see Jesus – not as a Palestinian Jewish peasant but as the eternal Son of God.
He enables us to see other people. Not as pieces of meat, who are born, live, mate and then die, but as people created in the image of God, who are unique, who can be part of us and we can be part of them, and who have – together with us - a potentially glorious destiny.
He enables us to see the world; he makes visible the barely hidden glory.
Last week Alison and myself visited Norway. We sailed in the fjords. They are amazing, beautiful, glorious.
And, Jesus continues, “You have seen the glory of the Father in the works that I do. The turning of water into wine. ‘This was the first of the signs of Jesus and he revealed his glory and his disciples put their trust in him’ (John 2:11). Or the last of the seven signs that John tells us of, the raising of Lazarus; Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you put your trust in me you would see the glory of God’.”
John, as he later reflects on all that Jesus was, said and did writes, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen his glory. Glory of the one and only Son of the Father’.
2. Jesus tells Philip that if he puts his trust in Jesus, he will do works which will reveal the glory of God in far greater ways than could happen before the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We pray that the glory of God will be revealed every time we pray, ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name’.
This is currently how I understand ‘the greater works’ of John 14:12
“Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son”
I am not convinced the ‘greater works’ are more wow miracles, although God does still do remarkable things.
But I suspect that the greater works are when people’s eyes are opened and those who have been blind to God see the glory of God; when people who are spiritually dead come alive.
They are when people who have not seen Jesus meet together to worship and praise him.
They are when the power of and presence of God is shown in human weakness, when people are faithful to God in persecution and suffering, when they show outrageous sacrificial acts of love.
Someone described it as saying that the greater thing is when a widow walks out of church behind her beloved husband’s coffin, singing the hymn, ‘Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father’
The commentators are vague as to what the 'greater works' are, but we do know three things. First, they are the sort of things that Jesus would pray for; second, they are an answer to our prayer; and thirdly, they bring glory to the Father.
3. The Father will send us the Holy Spirit
“I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate (helper, comforter) to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16f)
Today we remember the first coming of that gift.
He is the Spirit of truth.
How we see shapes our thinking and our living. The Holy Spirit enables us to see reality as it is.
He enables us to see Jesus – not as a Palestinian Jewish peasant but as the eternal Son of God.
He enables us to see other people. Not as pieces of meat, who are born, live, mate and then die, but as people created in the image of God, who are unique, who can be part of us and we can be part of them, and who have – together with us - a potentially glorious destiny.
He enables us to see the world; he makes visible the barely hidden glory.
Last week Alison and myself visited Norway. We sailed in the fjords. They are amazing, beautiful, glorious.
But they speak of their creator and sustainer, of one who is more beautiful and more glorious.
George Herbert wrote, “A man that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye; or if he pleaseth through it pass and then the heaven espy”.
It is the Spirit of truth who begins to enable us to look beyond the material to the eternal.
And the Spirit is the Comforter.
He is God with us for ever. God in us.
It is the Holy Spirit who, Paul writes in Romans 8, lives in us and teaches us to pray, indeed he prays for us. He inspires in us desire for God and the longing that the whole of creation will praise the glory of God.
Philip said to Jesus, ‘Show us the Father. Reveal to us the glory of God’.
If we love Jesus, we too will want to pray that prayer.
George Herbert wrote, “A man that looks on glass, on it may stay his eye; or if he pleaseth through it pass and then the heaven espy”.
It is the Spirit of truth who begins to enable us to look beyond the material to the eternal.
And the Spirit is the Comforter.
He is God with us for ever. God in us.
It is the Holy Spirit who, Paul writes in Romans 8, lives in us and teaches us to pray, indeed he prays for us. He inspires in us desire for God and the longing that the whole of creation will praise the glory of God.
Philip said to Jesus, ‘Show us the Father. Reveal to us the glory of God’.
If we love Jesus, we too will want to pray that prayer.
It will be answered. One day we will see that glory. Maybe one or two of us will be given a glimpse of the glory of God this side of heaven.
But we can also pray, ‘Father, send us your Holy Spirit. Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray for the greater things so that your glory is seen. And Spirit of Truth help me to see – to see Jesus with the eye of faith, and to see your glory in your creation’.
But we can also pray, ‘Father, send us your Holy Spirit. Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray for the greater things so that your glory is seen. And Spirit of Truth help me to see – to see Jesus with the eye of faith, and to see your glory in your creation’.
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