Glorify Me

Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You . . .” (John 17:1).

We used to say, with regard to financial stewardship, “We give to get to give.” In other words, receiving is not the point of giving - giving is. The more we give to God, the more He gives to us so that we may give more to God. The same is true with the stewardship of experiences. God allows our faith to be tested so that our faith will develop and become strong in Him. In turn, we are then equipped to help others who faith is weak. God allows us to go through experiences not for the experience's sake, but so we can help others who are going through those same experiences. Jesus prayed, Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You (v. 1) . . . O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was (v. 5). This is the only personal petition Jesus prayed in this prayer. All other requests were for others.

To ‘glorify’ (doxazo, from which we get the English word ‘doxology’) is to praise, magnify, exalt, and to give the greatest and highest honor. In this prayer, Jesus asked that He be glorified, the Father be glorified, and the disciples be glorified (v. 22). Didn’t Jesus already say the Father glorified Him when Judas Iscariot left the upper room to betray Jesus (John 13:31-32)?  Yes. It refers to His impending death on the cross the following day. Four times in this prayer Jesus spoke of this glorification, all with regard to His death on the cross. What did He mean by it?

First, Jesus was glorified on the cross as the only acceptable sacrifice for sin and its propitiation. In His death, Jesus satisfied the righteous requirements of God justice against sin for all who would believe in and receive Him as the Messiah, the Lord and Savior. And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:13-14).

Second, Jesus defeated sin and the power of sin by His sacrifice. . . . knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin . . . For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 6:6; 8:3-4).

Finally, Jesus defeated Satan and his ministers, ending the power and threat of death they possessed . . . that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Hebrews 2:14-15). He is glorified above all, for there is no man who has achieved this. Amen.

Pastor Martin