John 17:1-5 - “Father, Glorify Your Son”

Main Idea: Jesus came to earth so we could know God personally and glorify Him forever.

HOW GOD IS GLORIFIED

• God is glorified in faithful suffering.

• God is glorified in obedient trust.

• God is glorified by relational love.

HOW GOD HAS MADE HIMSELF KNOWN

• God shows us Himself through Jesus Christ the Lord.

• God shows us Himself through His gift of eternal life for believers.

• God shows us Himself through His Word’s revelation.

• God shows us Himself through the work He’s called us to.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Now, in John 17, we are right before the Garden of Gethsemane. We are right before Jesus' trial, his beating, and his crucifixion. I want to ask you today, if you got to pick your final prayer before you died, what would you be praying for?

Jesus, as we'll see today, next Sunday, and on Easter Sunday, he spent his last times of prayer, praying for God's glory, for the disciples that would abandon him within a couple hours, and he prayed for you and I today.

Even with all of the hardships that he was about to encounter, Jesus' primary prayer was for God's glory. God's glory is that God is viewed rightly as good, forgiving, just, perfect, holy. And that's what Jesus was concerned about.

God, I want to make you look good. For you today, what are you praying for? Hopefully none of us are in our last, like, 24 hours of life.

God forbid, I want to see all of you next Sunday. But we, even though we're not at our deathbed yet, we pray for some things. And I wonder if our primary concern is what Jesus' primary concern was.

The glory of God that others would go, God is good. Jesus is wonderful as a result of how we live and how we speak. Is God's reputation your chief concern, as it was for Jesus?

As Jesus hears praying in these verses, he knew that God's glory would be accomplished by Jesus' mission, which is that Jesus came to earth so we could know God personally and glorify Him forever. To know God personally and to glorify Him forever.

We're going to see two specific aspects of that today. What it looks like for God to be glorified and what it looks like to know God personally. For many of us, maybe you know God personally.

You have entered into a relationship with Jesus Christ by faith in His finished work on the cross. And so you know God personally, but you today are going to be encouraged from Jesus' example to live your life so that others would think well of God.

That they would worship and adore Him as a result of your speech and your actions. Or perhaps, I know in a room this size, there are several people that might not ever have placed their faith in Christ.

And I want to encourage you to do that even today.

2:55

Glory in Suffering

The first of these that we're going to look at is how God is glorified. So if Jesus came to glorify God and help us to know Him forever, we want to know how God is glorified.

And first in this passage, we can see that God is glorified in faithful suffering. Look there at verse number one. Jesus speaking, He looks up to heaven.

So He has taken His eyes off of the disciples that He spent the last three chapters talking with. And now He's no longer going, all right, my last words, my last will and testament is to Peter or to John.

He says, God, if I'm going to go through the anguish of the cross, then I need to speak with you. And He says, Father, the hour has come.

We've heard about this hour all the way from John 2, Jesus' first miracle in Cana of Galilee, where His mom wanted Him to show His glory, His majestic power. And so she said, hey, son, they've run out of wine here at the wedding. Can you help?

And He says, my hour has not yet come. Of course, knowing Jesus, knowing His goodness, that He couldn't help but helping, He did do that miracle there in Cana of Galilee. But now He tells the Father, the hour has come.

Jesus' greatest glory, the thing that you and I look back on and say God's goodness is most greatly shown in Christ Jesus on the cross, that they're taking your sins and my sins in His own body on the tree.

He died, separated, enduring the punishment that you and I justly deserved so that we could be freely forgiven forever, so that God is not looking at April, or God's not looking at Fern and going, okay, I paid 98% of this, you're only responsible for

2% or you're responsible for just getting, you know, I gave you a boost, I gave you a stepladder to get into heaven, and you just need to take that last little jump. No, on the cross, Jesus declared it is finished.

And so on the cross, in Jesus' suffering though, He did nothing wrong, He suffered for us. And so God's glory is shown in the faithful suffering of Christ. He says, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you.

On the cross, one of Jesus' last words that He says, we have about seven different sayings that Jesus said during His hours on the cross, but one of the very last of them is, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit.

Jesus, as He's on the cross, is drawing attention to the Father. He is worshiping God.

Even the very famous verse that we know, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me, is the beginning of Psalm 22, the end of which says, He has not forsaken or abandoned me. I will stand before the Lord in the land of the living.

And so even there on the cross, if you will, it's us singing, death was arrested, alone in my sorrow and dead in my sin.

You could think of, if you say that initial line, especially now that we've just sung it together, you guys would remember, oh yeah, death was arrested and my life began. I am free forever, I'm free.

And so Jesus, even in his death on the cross, is bringing attention to God.

In Jesus' trial before the Sanhedrin, as they're levying false accusations against him, he declares the word of God, that he is from Daniel 7, the son of man, the one who will rule over all of the nations of mankind, ascending to the right hand of

the Father. Jesus, in his suffering, drew attention to God. Even as I mentioned to you guys, this week's been a little crazy across our church family, as you are suffering, are you bringing attention and glory and worship to God?

God is glorified in faithful suffering. And you might say, well, how in the world could I do that? Well, I want to give just a few real life examples for us.

One of these is Fanny Crosby. And many of you, like me, grew up singing some incredible Fanny Crosby hymns. To God Be the Glory would be one of the most famous.

Blessed Assurance would be one of my personal favorites. And as Fanny Crosby, she was blinded by a doctor who was attempting to fix her and make her eyes better in infancy.

He did not succeed and actually ended up blinding her for the rest of her life. And she wrote over 7,000 poems, songs, to praise the God that had allowed her to encounter blindness from year one of her life onward.

In fact, she was often asked, hey, if you could get your eyesight back right now, would you want it? And she said no, because it means that the very first face that I will ever see after my blindness is the face of my Savior.

So Fanny Crosby gives us a great example of those going through incredible suffering can find glory in God, that she made God look good for, you know, she died in 1915. So for over a hundred years, we have been praising the Lord. This is my story.

This is my song, praising my Savior all the day long, are the words that Fanny Crosby wrote. Many of you might also be familiar with Joni Erickson Tata.

After a diving accident, she was left a quadriplegic, and she, for the last 40 or 50 years, has been advocating for those with disabilities.

She was instrumental in passing a lot of the ADA accessibility things, and all of that was in large part due to the work of Joni Erickson Tata.

But she has a profound faith in Jesus, and I've loved, every time I've gotten to see interviews with her, of her speaking to people about her love for the Lord, even going through incredible hardship in her life.

And then Elizabeth Elliott is a wonderful example from about the 1950s. Her husband, Jim, and three other men went down to South America, and they were going to be missionaries to the Alka Indians that were there.

Unfortunately, on a second trip, they were killed as they got on to the beach nearby the tribe, by the tribe themselves. But that did not turn Elizabeth Elliott against the Lord.

Instead, she, as well as the other wives of the men, themselves became missionaries and helped to reach the Alka tribe with the gospel of Jesus, so that even today, there are saved individuals as a result of someone who suffered incredibly, but who

faithfully suffered and trusted the Lord and made God look good even through suffering. For you today, do you speak well of God, his plans or his character in your hard times?

Do you continue to obey the Lord even when you're struggling in your health, your finances, or your relationships?

10:23

Glory in Trust

God is glorified in faithful suffering. But second, God is glorified in obedient trust. Jesus says, the hour has come, glorify the Son.

And because Jesus is God the Son, he deserves all of the glory. We would read even in Isaiah that God says, I will not give my glory to another. So Jesus is this same God that we read about in the Old Testament.

He is Yahweh. But the super, super cool part about our God, Father, Spirit, and Son, that wonderful Trinity, is that God is giving and God is also the only one who ought to be glorified.

So if God was all by himself, who in the world could he give glory to?

Well, what we read in Scripture is that the Father eternally glorifies the Son, and the Son glorifies the Spirit, and the Spirit glorifies the Father, that within the Godhead, there is mutual love and community and glorification that happens.

God would still be glorified. Father, Son, and Spirit, even if you or I did not exist, there was nothing in and of ourselves that we can add to God that he did not already have in and of himself.

But out of his love, out of his desire to have a relationship with you and I, he created us and he made us. And God is glorified in this obedient trust. So Jesus says, the hours come, glorify the Son, so that the Son may glorify you.

He says, God, I want you to make me look good, so I can make you look good. I think here of obedient trust, of those stepping out into incredible hardship, so that they can see God work in some amazing ways.

Certainly Jesus here, he's not like, okay, God, I want you to give me a million dollars so that I can give a million dollars to the poor. Jesus is saying, I'm going to be put on trial, beaten, crucified, and placed into a grave.

And God, I want you to make me look good in that, that I look right, that I look loving, that I look forgiving towards others. I want you to do that so that I can point to how good you are.

For you and I today, I don't think many of us living here in kind of the Baltimore area in 2026, most of us are not going to have to die for our faith. I'm not aware of a single person that that has happened to, at the very least this year.

That's not a normal state of action. But what God does ask is that we would obey Him in what He has called us to do, the everyday Christian life.

And that as we obey Him and trust in His ability to work, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, we can draw attention to the goodness of God and we can sing out with the words of that great song, All my life you have been faithful, and

all my life you have been so, so good. Back in about 1986, there was a young man, 23 years old, named Paul Chappell, who went down to, it's kind of by Palmdale, California.

It's, if any of you guys have ever seen Top Gun Maverick, all of the places where the planes are flying is right there in that area. It's a very desert-y area of the world.

And there was a little church, Lancaster Baptist Church, that had about 12 people left, and they called this young 23 year old pastor to come and to be their preacher. And they had a building, it was a small building, not like our one that we have.

They had a small building, but they couldn't even meet in the main sanctuary of the building.

They had to meet in an upstairs room because they were renting out the lower portion of the church facility in order to be able to like sustain their church at all. And so they're meeting in an upper room starting in 1986.

Paul Chapel believed that the Lord could work in and through that little group of 12 people. And now 40 years later, every single week, 6,000 people come from all across the desert of Southern California.

It's gonna say South California, and that's not it. Southern California, and right there in that area. And God is able to do incredible things.

Far above and away from 12 people 40 years ago to now over 6,000.

They have a Christian school that has trained hundreds of kids in good Christian education, equipping them for our world today, as well as a Bible college, a seminary, that both myself and my wife attended.

And I'm so thankful that through Paul Chappell's faithfulness to the Lord, of him just saying, I want other people to hear the gospel, that the word faithfully preached, accomplished incredible things through obedient trust.

And God is glorified today, every single week, as people hear the gospel, as they are discipled and trained for the work that God has for them. We can see incredible things happen. I also love the story of George Mueller, who lived in the 1800s.

He was, he had started off his life as kind of a thief, but then he got saved, he met the Lord, and then he said, well, I'm going a totally different route with my life. And he started an orphanage in England.

And the incredible thing about his story is that he never had, if you will, I'll use a term Gen Z would know, he never had subscribers to help support the orphanage.

Instead, he operated solely by freewill offerings, that he didn't go around soliciting, like, hey, there's these kids, they need clothing, they need food. Would you help give to this?

He just prayed to the Lord and asked that God would provide for the needs, both of himself and his family, as well as all of the kids at the orphanage.

And over the course of his life, he saw over and over and over again, God provide richly and abundantly for that orphanage. I also love, he became a pastor of a church, and during that time period, it was very in vogue for people to rent pews.

So like, you know, we have you guys there on the second row, and so it would be like, okay, that's, you know, three pounds or three shillings. I don't, I don't know. But it'd be like, okay, yeah, three shillings for that.

And that's how the church facilities were up kept, is you rented pews. Well, George Mueller was like, no, because what if someone comes in and they don't have any money? We need them to have a place to sit in church.

And so he did away with the pew rentals. And instead, he just said, hey, whoever wants to come, and I'm going to have faith in a big God. And as I obey him and as I trust in him, he will provide over and over and over again.

17:22

Glory in Love

So God is glorified in faithful suffering, and God is glorified in obedient trust, but God is also glorified by relational love. We read there together in verse number five.

He says, now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed. Though Jesus' humanity was taken on him 2000 years ago there within the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Son of God is eternally existent.

He was never created. He always was experiencing the glory and relationship with God. And God is glorified in you and I when we love him and when we love others.

Relational love is better than accomplishments. So I could tell you guys, oh, yes, you know, what's Samantha like? You know, she has this degree and she does this and here's her job.

And you might hear some of her accomplishments or things that she does. And you might go, oh, cool, she sounds like a nice person. But if I were to tell you, man, she is so kind, she is patient when I'm a knucklehead.

And all of you guys that are here at Tabernacle regularly know, Bryon's a knucklehead. And so I could extol the relational virtues of Samantha.

And that would make her look better even than the accomplishments that someone would say, wow, I want to be friends with her. It sounds like you love being friends with her. And I do.

She's great. You can pay me the 20 bucks after, babe. So God is glorified by relational love that we would love God and we would let others know about the love that we have for God.

Can I ask you, that doesn't just, though, go for your relationship with God. A love for God, a true love for God spills over, or to use Pastor Ron's word, it sloshes over into love for other people as well. How do you treat those that are around you?

Are you known for cutting others out of your life when they don't agree with you? Do you curse at those that God has placed in your life? Are you a gossip constantly maligning the choices, looks and failures of others?

If we want God to be glorified, then as we suffer, may we faithfully suffer, drawing attention to our good God.

May we operate in obedient trust, believing that God can do far and away above all that we can ask or think according to His power that is at work within us.

But it also means we need to have relational love, love with the Father that spills out into the way that we treat one another. So often, the accusation that is levied against Christians is that we are hypocrites.

And so often, we have earned that title through the way we have failed to show others the love that our God has shown to us.

20:07

God Through Jesus

So God is glorified by relational love. And then lastly today, how God has made himself known. So Jesus came so that God would be glorified and so that we would know him and glorify him forever.

So how has God made himself known? First, God shows us himself through Jesus Christ the Lord. We read there in verse number two, since you gave him authority over all people, that Jesus is the image of the invisible God, as we read in Colossians 1.

He is the exact imprint, the exact impression of God's nature, as we would read in Hebrews 1. That when we see Jesus, we see that Jesus is in charge. He is Christ the Lord.

And God is our Lord. And so we need to recognize who God is. God is in charge.

God is not just a friend, though he is the friend that sticks closer than a brother. God is not just our Savior, though he is the Savior of all that will believe. God is also our Lord.

He is the one that gets to call the shots in your life and in my life. We don't get to say, I don't want to obey. I don't want to follow the word.

We have a King who is in charge of us. And so this one who has authority over all people has made himself known as our Lord. Can I ask you today, have you accepted that Jesus is in charge of your life yet?

Scripture tells us we either, if you will, bow the knee now or we will one day. That one day, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Are you acting like he's in charge of your life even today?

21:47

God Through Eternal Life

Secondly, God shows us himself through the gift of eternal life for believers. We read this in verse number two. You gave him authority over all people so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.

If you will, you and I, as believers in Jesus, we are the present from God the Father to God the Son. He is not sad that you are his child. He is not sad that you belong to him.

Instead, the Father has given the Son a precious gift, and that gift is you. So God has shown us himself through his gift of eternal life for believers. You can tell a lot about a person by the gifts that they give.

So I got, actually, from my birthday a few weeks ago, Teresa got me a cake from Herman's. Yeah, got me a cake from Herman's, and it was delicious. It was amazing.

My daughter loves strawberries, and so she loved that cake too, because there were strawberries on top of that thing, and some strawberry filling. But if you know Teresa, if you're like, man, okay, Teresa's going to give a gift.

I wonder what Teresa might give. It's going to be food, because she loves food. Some of my ministry friends have joked, I love Bibles.

You might go, yeah, that tracks, that makes sense. But it has then meant that whenever one of my buddies, like they need a Bible, they need a preaching Bible or something, I'm like, man, I know, I'm right on top of that. I was talking to Ms.

Pat the other day, because she wanted to buy a Bible for a family member, and I was like, listen, I know exactly the one that you need for your situation with this person, and it's a guy, and here's his age, and here's all the things you need for

this. I love Bibles, and so I give Bibles. God is known that He is the source of life, and He gives eternal life. God is the source of community and of love, and so He has given us the community of believers, the body of Christ, and His love.

Today have you accepted Jesus' gift of eternal life. It is a gift that He has freely given to all those who would call on Jesus as their Savior. I want to encourage you, if you have never made that decision, you can make that choice today.

Next, God shows us Himself through His words' revelation. Jesus says that He may give eternal life to everyone you have given Him. Verse number three, This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God.

Through the Word, we read about our redemption and our salvation. We read, yes, about our guilt, but also about the one who took our guilt and nailed it to the cross.

God has not left us to guess what He is like, or how we should worship Him, or what His emotions towards us are. They are all laid out with perfect clarity within the Word of God. Can I encourage you, spend time within the Word?

It is one of the clearest ways that God has made known to us who He is.

24:52

God Through Our Work

And then, last of the day, God shows us Himself through the work that He has called us to do. You can look there at verse number four. Jesus says, I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Jesus had a mission. Come to earth, live a perfect, sinless life. Be the one who would be our guide, our example, the one who would, doing everything right, be able to atone for those of us who can never get it all right.

And as a result of trusting in Jesus' sacrifice, we are able to experience salvation. So God gave Jesus a work to do. But I want you to know that Jesus has given you a work to do even today.

What someone asks you to do shows you what they think is important and what they think about you. So if someone gives you like a really high impact, a very important job, they probably think a lot of you, and they view that as important.

If someone is giving you busy work, that might show that maybe at that particular point in time, they don't view your skill set as matching up with what is very important in their life.

God has called us to be his ambassadors, the representatives of his kingdom, inviting people into a relationship with him, and being his body here on earth. If I ask someone to watch B&EV, like, I trust you implicitly. I trust you with my life.

My kids are the most important thing to me. God has tasked you and I with bringing his children to the kingdom, that we would invite people into a relationship with the father, to be his ambassadors, his representatives here on earth.

There is no more important mission or more clear declaration of God's estimation of your worth and value than the fact that he has given you the mission of inviting people into his kingdom.

And what a joy that even as Jesus brought glory to the father through what he was doing, that as we do the work that God has called us to, we actually get to know God better through serving, like through serving others, through accomplishing what God

wants us to. We get to know God better. We get to see how God is kinder than us as we deal with difficult people. We see how God is working in families and places far beyond what we ever thought was possible.

We see God's wisdom through his word as it's applied to people's lives. My friends, the greatest thing that we can live for is the glory of God.

To know him personally, to enjoy a relationship with him, and to call other people into that relationship, whether it's through faithful suffering, whether it's through obedient trust, relational love, we can bring glory to God even today.

But God didn't just want you to bring him glory, he wants to know you personally. And so he sent Jesus. He gave you eternal life if you have placed your faith and trust in him.

He is the one that has shown us through his word what he's like, and he has given us a work to accomplish today. Today, will you with Jesus adopt a mission to know God personally, and to glorify him forever?