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This week, we return to the 17^th chapter of John’s gospel where John records this prayer of Jesus to his Father only a few hours before his crucifixion.  We saw last time that Jesus begins his prayer with God’s highest priority because he repeatedly asks that he and the Father would be glorified—receive glory. We also saw (as we will see in this week’s section as well) that Jesus’ prayer reveals and celebrates the glory that God receives from his sovereign role in the salvation of sinners.

That is—that eternal life for sinners is something Jesus alone can give, but those to whom he can give eternal life is limited by those sinners the Father gives him to be saved.  God’s complete control over who is saved glorifies both the Father and the Son.  Finally, Jesus defines eternal life in an absolutely God-centered, God-glorifying way.  Verse three says, ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  That implies that we should not think about eternal life in terms of going to heaven or being spared hell.  What makes eternal life so astonishingly glorious is that—eternal life is about knowing the Father and the Son.

After the first five verses where Jesus prays for God to be glorified, in verses six through 19–Jesus prays for those who had been with him during his three years of ministry.  Part of what makes this section a challenge to understand is that leading up to the first petition in verse 11 is a kind of self-evaluation from Jesus as to his ministry to his disciples as he looks back on his ministry to the 12.   As Jesus is reflecting on his ministry to these disciples, he focusses on that fact that he had his faithfully completed doing the one thing that mattered most to him and is a huge part of him bringing glory to the Father.  That is—he manifested or revealed the Father to his disciples.  This was the driving passion of his life and ministry and this prayer reveals that he had perfectly accomplished this.

This is what he is saying in verse six when he says, “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.”  The word “manifest” literally means “made visible.”  When he says that he had manifested “your name” that phrase in the Bible is synonymous with “your Person”—who you are.  So, Jesus is affirming that in his incarnation he manifested or made the invisible God visible which is another way of saying that he “revealed” his Father.  The best way to bring glory to the Father is to in some way allow others to see his glory and Jesus continually did that in his ministry to the 12.

This theme of Jesus as the Revealer of his Father runs throughout the gospel of John.  In chapter one, John spends the first 18 verses introducing Jesus and what he is about as he previews the major themes in the book.  The conclusion of this introduction is in verse 18 where John says, “¹⁸ No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”  The fact that John concludes the introduction to this book with Jesus’ mission to reveal his Father tells us it is central to how Jesus sees his life and ministry.

In chapter 14, as part of Jesus’ final teaching before his crucifixion, a bewildered Philip asks Jesus, “⁸ “…Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” ⁹  Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”  Jesus is amazed that, after three years of ministry alongside Philip, he (and the other apostles) doesn’t know the most basic truth about the identity of Jesus.  That is—that Jesus is the revelation of God the Father in human form. 

Finally, at the end of this prayer in John 17, notice what is Jesus’ concluding request in verses 25-26. “²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known...”  It is clear that John presents Jesus as the Son of God sent to glorify God and he did that by manifesting him/revealing him to his followers.

In the next few verses in his self-evaluation of his ministry to the 12 Jesus gives three proofs/ways to show that he had revealed the Father to his disciples.  The first proof Jesus cites to show that he faithfully revealed his Father to the disciples is in verse seven.  He says, “Now they know that everything you have given me is from you.” That seems unnecessarily redundant.  Why does he say, “Everything you have given me is from you?”  What’s he’s saying is something like, “I know that everything I have comes from you and I have been careful to communicate that I have nothing of my own, but I have only what I received from you.

This is one of the major themes of Jesus’ ministry to his disciples in John’s gospel.  In 5:19, Jesus says to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”  He says much the same thing just 11 verses later in 5:30. “³⁰I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me.”  Again, in John 8:28, Jesus says, “… “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me.”

Finally, in 14:10 he says, “¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”  Jesus had been very intentional in revealing that all that he gave out was what the Father had given to him.  He intended his ministry to point to the Father more than to himself.

A second proof that Jesus had fulfilled his mission to reveal or make his Father manifest is in verse eight.  He says, “…they…have come to know in truth that I came from you…”  Jesus reveals or manifests the Father by affirming that he had come from the Father.  This is yet another repeated theme of Jesus’ ministry in John’s gospel.  In chapter eight Jesus is in a heated dialogue with the Pharisees and says in verse 42, “…If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here...” 

Jesus tells his disciples in 16:27, “²⁷…the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”  Three verses later, the apostles tell Jesus, “³⁰ Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.”

A third proof/way that Jesus had faithfully manifested or revealed the Father is in the next phrase in verse eight when he says about the disciples, “they believe that you sent me.”  This is a bit different than saying that he came from God.  The point here is that Jesus not only came from God, he came at GOD’S initiative, not his own. He was sent from the Father—he was on a mission from his Father to reveal him.  Again, Jesus emphasizes this truth throughout John’s gospel.  In 11:4, Jesus is praying for the resurrection of Lazarus as he is standing outside his tomb and prays, “…Father, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴² I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus raising a man from the dead in response to his prayer to his Father was a clear indication that he was on his Father’s mission.  In John 3:17, Jesus teaches this again.  He says, “¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”  Finally, later in this prayer he prays for the unity of the church.  He prays about the church and says in verse 21, “²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”   The Father not only wanted Jesus’ disciples to know that he sent him—he wanted the world to know that Jesus had been sent by him.

Those are three proofs Jesus cites that he had been faithful to manifest the Father to his disciples.  But HOW did Jesus manifest the Father?  We’ve seen from some of these other references in John’s gospel that he did this in part through signs and wonders and in the Father answering his prayers, but Jesus tells us in verse eight the main way he has explicitly revealed the Father to his disciples.  “For I have given them the words that you gave me and they have received them…”  Jesus manifested the Father to his disciples by teaching them the Word of the Father in the Old Testament.  The fact that Jesus makes a point to reference this as the main way he revealed the Father tells us that the best way for us to receive a clear revelation of God is to dig deeply into his word because he has given his word to us for the purpose of revealing himself.

We’ve said repeatedly that the Bible is a book about God.  When we read it—is that our motivation—to know him?  Do we pray as we read the Bible, “Father, I want to see you and your Son, Jesus in the pages of this book?  Reveal yourself to me—show me your glory through what I read of your mercy and patience and power and love.”  That should be our motivation in reading the Bible because that is the main reason God has given us his word—to reveal himself to us and in so doing bring glory to himself.

So, we’ve seen three proofs that Jesus had been faithful to manifest the Father to his disciples.  We’ve seen HOW Jesus manifested the Father to the disciples—through his word.  But a third question is, Why?  Why was the Father so intent on Jesus revealing him to the disciples and why did Jesus do that?  We get the answer in verse six.  Jesus says, “⁶ I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”

That makes sense.  Jesus manifested the Father to his disciples because HE HAD GIVEN these people, HIS people to Jesus for that purpose.  Again, we mentioned this last time in reference to verse two where Jesus says, “…You [the Father] have given him [Jesus] the authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”  The Father has given authority to Jesus to give eternal life to people, but only those people who he had given Jesus.  We saw last time that the Father determines who will receive eternal life based on who HE gives to Jesus to save.

Jesus expands on that here in verse six.  He says that, not only are these people God has given to Jesus, these people personally belonged to the Father. Likewise, in verse nine Jesus says, “…I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”  The fact that this is the third time that Jesus asserts that those who will receive eternal life are those the Father gives him and who personally belonged to him before he gave them to Jesus means its important.  This is a powerful testimony as to how important it is to God for all to know that HE is sovereign in the salvation of sinners.  That is—HE determines who he will save. Theologians call this election.  God’s people are his own elect people.

When Jesus says to the Father about these people, “yours they were, and you gave them to me” its meaning is clear enough.  One scholar says this about this truth.  “Let this be personal.  How is it that you came to belong to Jesus…Jesus says it is because the Father “gave” you to Jesus.  And how is it that the Father could give you to this Son?  Jesus answers…” because you already belonged to the Father…Why does it include you?  Why are you among those who belonged to the Father before he gave you to the Son?  Was it because you had some quality, and God saw this and chose you to be in the group that he would give to Jesus?  Did he see that you were willing to come to Jesus or willing to believe on Jesus, and for that reason counted you to be part of those who were his?”

“No.  Because in John 6:44, Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”  In other words, being willing to come to Jesus was not something God saw in you, but something God worked in you.  No one is willing to come to Jesus on his own.  Only those who are drawn by the Father can come…Because we belonged to the Father, we listened to the truth; and because we belonged to the Father, we believed; and because we belonged to the Father, we were draw by him to Jesus; and because we belonged to the Father we were willing to believe.”[1]

This becomes even more clear when we think about someone who Jesus says did NOT belong to the Father and therefore did not listen to the truth or believe in him.  This was a man the Father did NOT draw to Jesus.  That is–Judas.  Jesus says in verse 12, “I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”  Jesus gives Judas the title the “son of destruction.”  The title “the son of destruction” means that Judas was not simply a disciple who decided Jesus wasn’t who he thought he was, so he chose to betray him to the authorities.

No—this title speaks of a person who was destined to betray Jesus as the son of destruction. That’s why Jesus didn’t guard him.   This word translated “destruction” in the New Testament always speaks of eternal condemnation.  The antichrist who is to come is called the “son of destruction” in Second Thessalonians 2:3. “³ Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction,” Judas is placed in the same category as the antichrist.  The antichrist does NOT belong to the Father.  He belongs to Satan.  He is destined for condemnation—just like Judas.

The response that some have had toward this truth about Judas being destined for destruction is to feel sorry for him because he “had no chance.”  The way that Jesus speaks of Judas during his ministry however was not that AT ALL!  Several times in Jesus’ ministry he acknowledges that one of the 12 would betray him.  John 6:70 says, “…Did I not choose you, the Twelve?  And yet one of you is a devil.”  Many people have wrongly pitied Judas as some kind of victim, but that doesn’t in the least reflect Jesus’ attitude toward him.  Jesus calls him “a devil” and he very much holds him responsible for his actions.  He said of Judas in Luke 22:22,” …woe to the many by whom the Son of man is betrayed.”

For our discussion, the point is that Judas had not belonged to the Father and according to Jesus’ prayer here, THAT’S why he did not receive eternal life.  If we’re genuinely in Christ, we must always remember to see ourselves within this utterly God-centered perspective.  What I mean by that is this.  If you are in Christ, it’s because, from eternity past, God chose you to belong to him and HE placed you into Christ.  If you are part of Christ’s church, you are part of the Father’s gift to the Son. The emphasis is on the Father’s proactive role in owning us and the Son’s role in receiving us as his gift.

This is not just a doctrine explaining the eternal workings of God in our salvation.  This has some glorious implications.  For instance–THIS is where we find our worth…that God, for his own sovereign purposes would choose us and present us as a gift to his Son—a gift we know he purchased with his own blood and which he deeply cherishes.  Do we see ourselves that way?  Does that truth frame our sense of who we are?

To the degree that it does, it’s so liberating because we tend to place ourselves at the center of our universe and then experience the great pressure and stress that comes from that.  As we’re so busy running around–feeling responsible to run the world and manage our lives and rescue those around us and fix all our problems, it would do us all a world of good to regularly pause and, in a mid-course correction remember that— “You know—I’m not fundamentally a manager or a rescuer or a problem-solver.”  Here’s what I am—I’m part of the gift the Father has given to the Son (deep sigh of relief).  I’ve been taken OUT of that performance-based, world system where I had to achieve something in order to feel worthy and good about myself.” 

It’s just not about me and what I can do for God—it’s what he has done for me in Christ.  The Father gave these disciples as a gift to his Son before they’d done anything all that spectacular.  And up to this point, they had (in human terms) been a fairly high-maintenance gift!

Think about these incredibly sinful attitudes these disciples had manifested.  “I want to be the greatest, most renown disciple.”  “Jesus, we would like for ourselves the position of highest honor next to you in heaven.”  “Master, I must rebuke you for thinking you’re going to die a criminal’s death in Jerusalem—you’re quite wrong about that.”  “Hey Jesus, how’s about we call down fire from heaven on these lousy Samaritans.”  “Jesus, would you just show us the Father?” 

Only a gracious and loving Jesus could see these disciples (or us) as a gift when we so often seem more like a curse.   Yet, Jesus is thrilled to receive us as a precious gift from his Father and in verse six, Jesus says of these disciples, “…they have kept your word.”

In the second half of verse 11 is the first real petition he asks of the Father about his disciples.  “Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”  When people familiar with this prayer think of it, they probably think of Jesus’ prayer for the unity of the church.  That’s fair because he prays for it three times in this chapter and we’ll look more closely at that request, later.  But Jesus ties verse 12 with verse 11 by citing another truth.  In verse 12, Jesus cites a ministry he had been performing for the disciples and asks his Father that, in his absence from them, he would continue.  In verse 12 Jesus says, “While I was with them, I kept them in your name which you have given me.”

Whether it’s the Father or the Son doing it, what does it mean to “keep” the disciples?  What Jesus is praying for here is that the Father would keep the disciples faithful to expressing the Father’s character just as HE had kept them faithful to express God’s character.

But what does Jesus mean by referring to the Father’s name as the name “which you have given to me?”  He’s asking the Father that he will keep the disciples faithful to display his character—which he had perfectly manifested to them.  We know that part of what he’s asking for in this “keep them in your name” prayer is for the disciples’ spiritual protection because Jesus says in verse 12, “I guarded them, and not one of them has been lost…”  The implication is—if the 12 are to display God’s character-most fully revealed in Christ—then the Father will need to guard them as Jesus guarded them as the Good Shepherd.

This is crucial.  We cannot manifest the character of Christ unless God keeps us faithful to do that and part of what is involved in that is his protection of us.  God not only saves us; he KEEPS us saved.  This is a common theme in the New Testament.  Paul writes in First Corinthians 1:8, “[The Lord] will sustain you (keep you) to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

He says to the Thessalonians, “May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it” [1 Thessalonians 5:23–24)].  Jude begins his letter with “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you” [Jude 1–2]. In each of those verses we see that the God who calls us to himself in Christ is also committed to keeping us in Christ.

Just as Jesus says the reason that none of the disciples were lost—none of them fell away, so also– no genuine believers will fall away because the Father is keeping us from walking away from him just as Jesus kept the disciples from falling away.  The assurance we have is powerful.  As God keeps us faithful to express his character—as he protects us from the world, the flesh and the devil, none of God’s people will be lost.  None of the 12 were lost and no genuine believer will be lost.

No, if you’re genuinely in Christ, Jesus has prayed that the Father would keep you faithful to manifest God’s name, his character.  We know from the disciples’ checkered performance that this doesn’t mean sinless perfectionism on our part, but it speaks to the general pattern of our lives. The Father will keep us faithful and protect us from anything or anyone that could cause us to shipwreck our faith.

Jesus’ prayer for his disciples is riddled with reassuring gospel truth.  The gospel is sufficient to keep people saved so we can manifest the character of God.  THE GOSPEL is the power of God for salvation—our past salvation, our ongoing salvation and our future salvation.  The gospel should form our sense of identity–not our appearance or our age or our gifts or our gender or what others think of us or what honors we have been given.  All that is shifting sand—it can be here one moment and gone the next.  What enables me to be both humble and confident is the fact that I am part of the gift of the Father to the Son who died for me—my identity is wrapped totally up in God.

Listen to some implications Tim Keller gives for a person whose sense of identity is totally wrapped up in God and what he has done for them in the gospel.  He says, “When circumstances in my life go wrong, I struggle but I know all my punishment fell on Jesus and that, while he may allow this for my training, he will exercise his Fatherly love within my trial. When I am criticized, I struggle, but it is not critical for me to think of myself as a ‘good person.’”

“My identity is not built on my record or my performance but on God’s love for me in Christ. I can take criticism.  My self-view is not based on a view of myself as a moral achiever.  In Christ I am …simultaneously sinful and yet accepted in Christ. I am so bad he had to die for me, and I am so loved he was glad to die for me. This leads me to deeper and deeper humility and confidence at the same time. Neither swaggering nor sniveling.”

Do we hear the security in that?  We are SAVED by God as a cherished gift—a cherished BRIDE the Father has given to his Son.  We are KEPT by God so that will glorify him by manifesting his name even when we would otherwise walk away from him.  We must bask in that security and allow it to soak into our souls and give us the peace and rest we’ve been given in Jesus.  May God give us the confidence to know that we belong to him—that he will keep us faithful and that our identity is rooted not in what we can do for God, but in what God has done for us in Christ for his glory and our joy.

[1] https://www.desirisimply nggod.org/articles/before-you-believed-you-belonged

This week, we move into the 17^th chapter of John’s gospel.  This prayer is often called “Jesus’ high priestly prayer” and today we want to look at just the first five verses.  This is a uniquely helpful section of Scripture because it gives us a unique opportunity to see Jesus the Son speaking privately to his Father about his redemptive work and his much-anticipated return to his former glory in heaven.  This prayer actually gives us the opportunity to eavesdrop on an extended communication between one member of the Trinity and another.

First, let’s give a bit of context here.   John writes, “After he had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come…”  That introduction is there to show us that the chapter of Jesus’ earthly teaching ministry with his disciples is closed and now he’s focusing on the great work of redemption the Father has called him to do.  That’s what he means when he says, “The hour has come…” The hour is the hour of his passion and throughout John’s gospel, Jesus has said at various points in his ministry, “my hour has not yet come.”

Here, the hour HAS now come, and we must read everything in this prayer and especially these first five verses with his impending crucifixion in mind.  It hangs over this prayer and everything in here is colored by it.  When he begins this prayer asking for the Father to glorify him, that he may glorify the Father, he’s talking about the glory he will receive by dying for his church and purchasing her with his blood and how that will glorify the Father.

In these first five verses of Jesus’ prayer, he reveals his great passion–what is most important to him.  We know that because this is what he begins with. This is the starting point for Jesus as he thinks about the cross.  We know that what he begins with is most important to him because when he teaches the disciples to pray in the Lord’s Prayer, he tells them to begin with the most important petition and it’s basically the same petition. When he tells his disciples to begin praying with, “…hallowed be your name” he’s asking them to begin their prayer asking that God—his name—would be hallowed, set apart…glorified.

So, the central truth revealed in these verses is: God’s supreme passion is for his own glory.  His main petition here is this one in the second half of verse one.  “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you.”  That is his laser-beam focus here because everything else is simply an extension of Jesus’ request for him and his Father to be glorified.  Today, when so many believers read the bible, NOT as a book about God, but as a manual for solving life’s problems or to help them grow spiritually, biblical texts like this one that speak about the glory of God can sound strange or at least, not all that practical.

You’re going to have to really focus on God today to get the most out of these five verses.  Because they are so focused on the glory of God, for many believers, they can seem so high and exalted that they’re a bit out of reach.  Even though the glory of God is arguably the CENTRAL truth in the bible, many believers simply don’t think much about it and what it means to them.  For many believers, when they think about God and what is really important to him, their answer is “love,” or something strongly related to love and that’s in some ways understandable.

First John chapter four says, “God is love” [1 John 4:16].  It’s hard for God to identify more closely with one of his attributes than equate himself with it.  Also, Jesus tells us the two great commandments are “You shall love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” [Matt. 22:37] and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [Matt. 22:39].  When you see the incredible value God places on love, it’s easy to understand why, for many believers, love would seem to be his highest priority.

When you start talking about God and “his glory,” it gets a bit fuzzy for many believers.  In this very superficial world we all live in, “glory” isn’t nearly as accessible to us as love is and many believers aren’t sure of all that the glory of God embraces.  That’s why–before we look at this text, we need to see how Jesus’ burden for his glory and his Father’s glory is all over the bible.

The Scripture—from Genesis to Revelation consistently teaches that God’s highest priority is in receiving glory and glorifying himself.  We see this first in why he created the world.  In Numbers 14:21 God says, “²¹ But truly, as I live,… all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD,” His glory is God’s ultimate purpose for this planet—that it would be a staging area for his glory to be manifested and seen by all people and all the heavenly beings.  In Isaiah 43:6-7 God commands, “…Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, that God’s children are those who have been called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

The human race—every sector of it—was created for the primary purpose of displaying God’s glory.  In the Old Testament, if you examine all of God’s saving works as he related to his covenant people, you will see that his ultimate purpose for each and every one of them is the same–his own glory.  This is also true of his greatest work—the rescue of his people from the penalty and power of sin through his Son, Jesus.  When Jesus in John chapter 12 looks at his impending crucifixion, his burden is exactly what it is here in John 17. “27Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. 28  Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

Jesus’ main redemptive purpose for dying on the cross, what drives him to persevere through the profound agony and torment of his passion is …the glory of God.  It should be no surprise that he has this identical motivation for his second coming in Second Thessalonians 1:10.  “¹⁰ when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.”  Jesus is returning to this earth to rule, to reign, to destroy all evil and bring justice.  But ALL of those will be done for the same purpose we see throughout Scripture–that he will “be glorified in his saints.”

This is the beating pulse of the bible, and we must never forget this.  It also begs a question.  That is—If God’s highest priority—if his greatest passion and ultimate motivation for doing all that he does is receiving glory, how can that NOT be self-centered?   Or, to put it a different way–how can God be good if he ultimately seeks his own glory?  After all, he calls us to continually deflect all personal glory away from ourselves.  Why doesn’t that ethic apply to him?

Think hard with me about this question as John Piper tells us why these rules of humility do not apply to God… “Because God is unique.  As an all-glorious, totally self-sufficient Being, he must be for himself if he is to be for us.  The rules of humility that belong to the creature cannot apply in the same way to its Creator.  If God should turn away from himself as the Source of infinite joy, he would cease to be God.  He would deny the infinite worth of his own glory.  He would imply that there is something more valuable outside himself.  He would commit idolatry.”[1]

Some of you haven’t thought much about this so hang with me here.  In other words, because God is the highest, most glorious, most praiseworthy Being in the universe and God always does or pursues what is best, then he absolutely MUST have as his greatest pursuit—the praise of his own glory.   If the glory of God is the highest possible good, then God, who, as God, always pursues the highest possible good, could do nothing less than to seek after his glory.

The reason our pursuit of personal glory is evil is because we’re not seeking after the glory of the most glorious, most praiseworthy, being in the universe.  We’re seeking to glorify a human creature instead of the infinite Creator.  This is why living for our glory or recognition always ends up ultimately making us feel empty and miserable.  We’re simply not wired by our Creator to live for ourselves and our own glory.  It’s our sin that warps us to want to do that.  For us, seeking after our own glory is an empty pursuit because we’re giving our passion to a pursuit that cannot possibly bring satisfaction.

This is NOT light thinking, but it’s intensely important to understanding God and the bible.  Piper concludes, “God is the one Being in all the universe for whom seeking his own praise is the ultimately loving act.  For him, self-exaltation is the highest virtue.  [Here’s the reason for that] When he does all things “for the praise of his glory,” he preserves for us and offers to us the only thing in all the world which can satisfy our longings. ”[2]  To put all that in shorthand as Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”

The more glory we seek to give to God, the more joy and satisfaction we receive.  The bible teaches that God’s glory and our joy run on the same set of tracks.  Unless we’re running on the tracks that lead to God’s glory, we can never know our highest joy because the only tracks that lead to our highest joy are the tracks that terminate in God being glorified.

The bible teaches that God’s glory is at the heart of every believer’s conversion.  In Second Corinthians 4:4-6.  Paul is speaking of those who do NOT know Christ and are perishing in their sin and says,  “⁴ In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing [What is it unbelievers have been blinded from seeing but MUST see in order to be saved?  They must see…] the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  Don’t miss this!  His glory is so central to who Jesus is that his gospel—the message of his sin-atoning death and his resurrection is called “the gospel of the glory of Christ.” The one theme that unites the entire bible which is—God’s redemption of fallen humanity has at its very center—God’s motivation to bring glory to himself and his Son.

Paul continues in verse five, “⁵ For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. ⁶ For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Stay with me now because this is important.  In verse four, Paul tells us that Satan has blinded in the minds of unbelievers from seeing “…the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”  He has blinded them from seeing the glory or, the all-satisfying beauty of Christ revealed in the gospel.  According to verse six, that means that what happens in our conversion is this–We are given by God the capacity to know or see his glory–the all-satisfying beauty of God in the face of Jesus Christ as he reveals that in the gospel—his death and resurrection.

One scholar explains that, as a result of this sight-restoring work of God in our conversion “Christ is no longer boring.  Christ is no longer mythological.  Christ is no longer a mere tradition.  Christ is the …all glorious, all-satisfying Savior, and the Lord and treasure of the universe.”[3]  That is at the heart of what happens to us in our conversion—we are awakened out of spiritual death so that we can, for the first time, see the glory of God in the perfect life, sin-atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Salvation is not fundamentally about getting us to heaven or losing our bad habits or discovering the wonders of the bible.  Those are simply echoes of what is at the center.  The salvation of sinners is the most powerful way God reveals his glory by means of his self-sacrificing, saving gospel.

If you’re not used to thinking about God’s glory as his highest priority, this might take a while to sink in, but once you’ve embraced this, it will cause the Bible and God himself to come alive for you in a new way.  It will also give you a greater passion to make, as the purpose for your life, bringing glory to God because you will know that, as you do—you will find your highest joy and satisfaction because you will be fulfilling God’s  purpose in creating you!  Now that we’ve set the table for this prayer, let’s look at three ways Jesus expresses in this prayer that God’s greatest passion is for his glory.

The first way we see God’s ultimate passion for his glory is the most obvious.  That is Jesus repeatedly asks for glory for the purpose of glorifying his Father.  He makes this explicit request in two of the five verses–verses one and five.  Again, verse one says, “1When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you,”  What does Jesus mean by asking the Father to “glorify” him?  As we’ll see from verse five, the word “glorify” in this instance means, “To clothe with splendor.”[4]  Jesus is asking the Father to clothe him with splendor and that will in turn, glorify him.  Why is it that—when Jesus is glorified, the Father is glorified?  On one level, this is just one more example in John’s gospel of Jesus’ repeated teaching on the profound unity he and the Father share.  “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.”  We also see in other Scriptures WHY when Jesus is glorified, that also glorifies the Father.  In Hebrews 1:3, the author says of Jesus, “He is the radiance of the glory of God…”

That means that Jesus is “the outshining of the brightness of God’s glory, or…the reflection of that glory.^[5]”  When you look at the sun, you see this blinding yellow orb, but blazing out from the sun in all directions, you see dazzling light radiating out from the sun—you see its outshining. When you see Jesus—you are seeing the outshining of the blinding glory of the Father.  Think about the time in Jesus’ ministry when God revealed just a small part of the glory of Jesus in his transfiguration.  Matthew describes this in 17:2. “² And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.”

As in his transfiguration when the man Christ Jesus was glorified, here in his prayer for the Father to glorify him, Jesus is not asking the Father to remove his humanity so that his deity can be seen.  No.  He’s asking that his own eternal, infinite glory as the Second Person of the Trinity would shine through his sinless, glorified humanity as it did in a very limited way in his transfiguration.   The reason the Father is glorified when the Son is glorified is because—the outshining of the glory points back to the glory of the Father that it shines out.

In verse five, Jesus repeats this request. “5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”  The fact that this request to be glorified is repeated means that Jesus intensely longs for this—he deeply yearns for his pre-incarnate glory.  There are however two additional elements of his request here in verse five NOT found in verse one.  One is that he will be glorified “in your own presence.”  That is—he wants to be glorified in the presence of his Father.

He clearly yearns to once again be in the manifest presence of his Father which he had experienced for all eternity past.  Second, Jesus communicates the eternal nature of his own glory when he says, “I had [it—this glory] with you before the world existed.”  This pre-incarnate glory was something the Son had radiated for unfathomable eons before God created the universe.  Here, Jesus is just expressing what we’ve already seen–God’s supreme passion is for his glory because this is his very first request and he prays twice that the Father would glorify him and thereby, glorify himself.

We also see God’s passionate desire for glory in verses two and three.  Let’s get the context by citing part of verse one as well.  Jesus prays, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”  Again, we see the truth that when the glory of the Son is manifested, that will also bring glory to the Father.  But as Jesus is thinking about his great saving work on the cross, he specifically alludes to his work on the cross as it relates to his and the Father’s glory.  “…since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”  The second way God’s ultimate passion for his glory is seen has to do with the cooperative relationship between the Father and the Son in giving eternal life to sinners.

This is important because what Jesus says here tells us that the decision as to those who receive eternal life is not a matter ultimately left up to the sinner— even though the sinner must make a decision to receive Christ.  Jesus says here that his authority over all people that the Father has given him includes his unique authority to give eternal life to them.  The question of who gets eternal life is a matter under the authority of Jesus.  But he tells us something else very important about this authority he’s been given.  That is–he tells us that his authority to give eternal life to people is limited—it’s restricted by something.  He can’t use his authority to save people– to give eternal life– to just anyone.  He tells us that he can use it to save ONLY those people God has given to him to save.

So, the second way we see God’s ultimate passion for his glory is:  Jesus’ sovereign authority over humanity and their salvation brings glory to the Father and the Son.  The question is: how specifically does that authority the Father gives the Son to give eternal life to certain people—how is that related to Jesus asking his Father to glorify him?  Because that’s what it says— “glorify your Son…since you have given him authority…”

Here’s how.  Again, it has to do with this cooperation between the Father and the Son in saving sinners.  Jesus asks the Father to glorify him by showing in his passion that HE is the one who has authority to give eternal life to sinners.  Because he alone as the Son has that awesome authority, that glorifies him.  And when he is glorified by showing that authority to save certain sinners, that brings glory to the Father.  It glorifies the Father because when Jesus shows his authority to give eternal life to certain people, those people are determined by the Father.  The Father is glorified because HE uniquely is the one who determines who will receive eternal life through the authority of Jesus.

The salvation of sinners is an expression of God’s sovereign authority because if the Father has not sovereignly given a person to his Son to be saved, the Son cannot give him/her eternal life.  Notice who it is who sovereignly initiates this giving of eternal life.  Notice the role of the believer is minimized—he/she is ultimately the beloved gift the Father gives to the Son based on the Father’s pre-selection of that gift/person.  It’s the Father who personally chooses the bride for his Son and both the Father and the Son are glorified in that.  This is nothing new to John’s gospel.

Jesus has said this before in John 6:37. He says, “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”  ALL those whom the Father gives WILL—no doubt about it–come to Jesus—but ONLY those he gives to Jesus.  This coming to Jesus is absolutely and sovereignly determined by who it is the Father gives to Jesus.  God’s sovereign control over every aspect of the salvation of sinners is part of what brings glory to both the Father and the Son. 

A third and final way we see God’s ultimate passion for his glory is:  He defines eternal life in a way that puts him [God] in the absolute center.  God does many things in the people he saves.  He forgives them, he makes them legally right with him, he adopts them as his children, they’re brought from darkness to light—from slavery to freedom and from death to life and ALL those things are important.

But when Jesus is talking to the Father about eternal life, notice in verse three where he places the emphasis.  “³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  Jesus places the focus of eternal life NOT on going to heaven or being spared from hell or being liberated from sin and the devil or living forever.  Jesus defines eternal life in terms of the relationship—the sinner comes to know God!  Eternal life is knowing God.  That’s utterly God-centered.  It couldn’t be any more God-centered.

This is so important because sadly—as we’ve said before–so many professed believers today think about eternal life too much in terms of pearly gates and streets of gold and reuniting with departed loved ones.  That’s so wrong because eternal life is about knowing God, fundamentally—it’s not about us!  This verse proves that all or most of the books written by people who’ve claimed to have gone to heaven in a near-death experience must of necessity be fiction.  Whether the authors are perpetrating a fraud or whether they have been deceived, I cannot say, but what most of them write cannot possibly be the experience of one who has truly visited heaven.

The reason we can know that is because—from what I know, the primary emphasis in those stories is always placed on the opulence of heaven and reuniting with departed loved ones. Jesus here declares that THAT is NOT fundamentally what eternal life is about.  “And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”  That means that anyone who might have temporarily visited heaven, in their account of that experience, will write on page one, line one something like— “I cannot possibly hope to convey to you what I witnessed in seeing Jesus Christ in all his glory.”

By an immeasurable distance, that’s the most powerful appeal of heaven for the genuine believer—everything else is little more than window dressing compared to that.  The reason heaven is glorious is because GOD dwells there.  The glory of heaven comes from HIM and points to HIM.  The glory of heaven is a reflection of HIS glory!

Knowing God is, throughout Scripture, the ultimate goal in God’s plan of redemption. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah speaks of the New Covenant relationship God will establish with his people.  In 31:34 he says, “³⁴ And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”  The reason God forgives sin is not fundamentally to get us to heaven, but so that we will be able to know the LORD.

That’s the message of this first five verses of John 17.  But what difference does any of this make to us?  So what? — if God’s ultimate desire is for his glory and he demonstrated his glory by sending his Son and giving him authority to save those he has given him—so what?  So what?–that Jesus repeatedly asks for glory—the glory he had before he came to earth?  So what?–that God defines eternal life by knowing him and not simply ending up in heaven?

One answer to those “so what” questions is—because we were created to glorify God—that—his glory—should therefore be THE focal point of our lives.  Remember that Isaiah 43:7, speaking of God’s children says, “7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”   Revelation 4:11 says, “11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”  God is worthy to receive glory and honor and power because he created all things.  That’s why he created all things.

We were saved from our sin fundamentally for his glory.  Psalm 79:9 says, “⁹ Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!”  We can so easily make our faith about all the wrong things—good things perhaps, but not ultimate things.  We must regularly remind ourselves that Christianity is not mainly about getting to heaven and avoiding hell.  It’s not about living a morally excellent life.  It’s not about loving and helping others.  It’s not about fulfilling religious responsibilities like attending church.  It’s about living for the purpose of bringing glory to God within the context of a relationship where we are constantly striving to better know God and his Son Jesus as well as we can.  All those other things—as important as they are, fall far below this.

God has given us the most powerful incentive imaginable for living for his glory because when, we live for the glory of God—we will know our highest and deepest joy and satisfaction.  This is because–when we live for the glory of God, we are fulfilling the purpose for which he created us.  If a believer seeks anything other than this highest goal—to glorify God—that’s the ultimate shoving of a square peg into a round hole.

Flowing from that truth is a second one.  For the believer–pursuing our ultimate joy and pursuing God and his glory should look exactly the same because the one leads to the other.  Pursuing our highest joy means pursuing the glory of God and pursuing the glory of God means pursuing our highest joy.  If we’re pursuing joy, we’ll look for it in its ultimate source and the ultimate source of joy is knowing and delighting in God.   “4 Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.”   May God give us the grace to see God’s passion for his glory and to make his glory our ultimate pursuit–for his glory and our ultimate joy.

[1] Piper, John, (1996), Desiring God—Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, Multnomah Books, pp. 47-48.

[2] Piper, John, Desiring God…p. 49-50.

[3] From a message found here: https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/the-gospel-shaped-mouth

[4] Carson, Pillar, Gospel of John, Electronic version.

^[5] Morris, L. (1981). Hebrews. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Hebrews through Revelation (Vol. 12, p. 14). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

Today is Sanctity of Life Sunday.  The reason we recognize this particular Sunday is because on January 22, 1973 the Supreme Court legalized abortion in all 50 states.  So, we want to take a week away from John’s gospel to shine some light from Scripture on abortion.  Though the abortion rate in America is declining, with 25% of all women having abortions before they turn 45, abortion remains the blight of our nation.

About 18% of all pregnancies in America end in abortion and the total number of abortions performed each year is now more than 862,000.  That equates to more than 2300 unborn children being killed every day in America.  Nearly all these statistics come from the Guttmacher Institute.[1]  The total number of legal abortions since Roe V Wade is about 60 million unborn children—more than three times the population of New York City.

The discussion in the public arena surrounding abortion can get very complicated because it touches so many areas of society.  There is the most basic question of a woman’s so-called “right” to choose an abortion versus the unborn child’s right to remain alive.  There are questions about abortion in the case of rape and incest, which is an issue in only about 1% of abortions. There are questions about abortions where the life of the mother is at stake.  With 93% of abortions due only to unwanted pregnancies, the question of adoption as an alternative to abortion is also part of the discussion.  There are evolving prenatal technologies that have greatly increased the viability of unborn children even as early as 22 weeks’ gestation.

The development of much more vivid ultrasound images to see unborn children in the womb has also had influence—so technology also is a factor in this discussion.  And because black and Hispanic women have a disproportionately large number of abortions for their percentage of the population, there is also a racial element to the discussion.  Then there’s the issue of taxpayer funded abortions through Medic Aid.  ALL of these facets of the discussion are part of the ongoing debate on this issue.

In the midst of this deafening din of legal, medical, ethical, financial, racial, social and political discussion, by comparison, the voice in this debate of so many people who claim to be born-again believers reaches little more than a whisper.  The reasons are numerous.  Many believers are concerned about being identified with abortion clinic bombers and other crazy extremists who kill abortion providers.  Too many believers fear guilt by association and that fear shuts their mouths.

Likewise, many of us have blushed with embarrassment as we read pro-life editorials from people claiming to be Christians, but who do a shamefully poor job of representing Christ and the Scriptures on this issue.  In our self-conscious desire to disassociate ourselves from those people who are often filled with hate and vitriol, we have too frequently gone silent.

Church leaders are too often more concerned about growing large churches than being faithful witnesses to the truth on what is the incontestable moral scourge of our age.  They’ve ignored the example of men like Martin Luther who said, “If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that … point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.  “Wherever the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved and to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that one point.”[2]  That is to say—our faithfulness in confessing Christ is seen in our willingness to take a stand on issues where we’ll be attacked for doing so.

 Another reason so many believers are mute on this issue is because there are many evangelicals who have had abortions. Almost 20% of those who have had abortions identify as born-again, evangelical Christians.[3]   More on that, later on.  The common thread linking many of these reasons for our silence is our hatred of the possibility that someone, somewhere might think we are the intolerant, uniformed, judgmental idiots that much of the media says we are.  Tragically, we often fear the rejection of godless people more than we fear God.

Another reason for the silence of much of the church on abortion is because many do not have a firm grasp on the clear condemnation of abortion found in the Scriptures.  Too few of us could cite the main Biblical texts speaking to this issue or give a solid, truth-driven defense of the unborn.  What passion we DO have on this issue is often fueled more by emotionalism than by convictions rooted in the clear teaching of Scripture.  If we’re not grounded in the teaching of Scripture, which is our ultimate authority on this issue, we will probably not remain faithful in a culture that assails the sanctity and rights of the unborn.

This morning, we want to highlight some of the main Biblical truths and texts and principles on this topic to better equip us to know God’s revealed will on this issue.  Our goal is that, as we are reminded of these truths, by God’s grace, our faithfulness and our influence for Christ will increase in this area.  This morning we want to unpack the main Biblical arguments against abortion and there are three basic elements.

The first and most basic truth of the Scriptures regarding abortion is: Human life is sacred and therefore abortion is a murderous sin against God.  Murder is sinful on several levels but the first and most important reason murder is sinful, and God hates it is because the Scriptures repeatedly teach that human life is sacred and the reason it’s sacred is because we’re created in God’s image.

Genesis 1:27 says, “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them.”  Humans are not simply highly developed primates as the evolutionists claim.  We may have many genetic similarities to say, the chimpanzee. But human life is essentially different than animal life and the main reason is because only humanity bears the image of God.   God created human beings so closely patterned after, and so clearly expressing himself that, to kill a human being is to directly assault God.  Theologians debate precisely how we image God, but that’s not our point this morning.

The point is that we are infinitely more than a collection of bones, organs, chemicals and fluids.  Human life is immeasurably more than the sum of its biological parts because it is uniquely, a representation of God himself.  Whatever the image of God is—the sinless angels don’t have it—only humans.  Because God has uniquely invested himself in humanity by sharing his image with us, that makes human life sacred—set apart…like God is set apart.

 That means that to commit murder is to destroy something uniquely precious to God—his own image in the murder victim.  It would be hard to imagine a more direct or more personal assault on the Person of God than to destroy his own image in one of his creatures.  You’re not simply attacking something he owns or has created—as if that weren’t evil enough.  Murder is a direct and personal assault against HIM.  Because human life uniquely has that kind of sacred value, murder is in a class of evil by itself.

As Brian read earlier, in God’s covenant with Noah in Genesis 9:4-6, God tells Noah, “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. 5″And surely I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it. And from every man, from every man’s brother I will require the life of man. 6″Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.” [NASB] Notice that the ground of the prohibition against murder is the fact that man is created in God’s image.  So, the first truth is—human life is sacred and therefore abortion is a murderous sin against God.

The second major biblical truth more specifically addresses abortion.  It is: Unborn life is sacred and therefore abortion is murder.  This is an extension of the first truth.  Human life is sacred, but the question related to abortion is, “How does the sanctity of human life relate to the unborn?” Abortion is murder only if the Bible speaks of the unborn child in the same manner and with the same reverence it does everyone else.

If the Bible taught there was some essential difference between the unborn and the rest of us, that might leave room for permitting abortion.  The truth is–the Bible makes NO such distinction and in fact repeatedly and with great clarity teaches that unborn children bear the image of God just as much as the rest of us.  Therefore, to kill an unborn child is to destroy the image of God through murder.  Several texts teach or imply this but the most powerful is in Exodus chapter 21.

The Ten Commandments, God’s basic Old Covenant stipulations are given in chapter of Exodus 20.  In chapters 21 and following, other laws that apply these commandments to every-day situations are spelled out.  For instance, the sixth commandment says, “You shall not murder.”  That is the broad statutory law—a statute. But what is meant by “murder?”  What if you accidentally kill someone?  What if your ox, through no fault of your own, gets lose and gores your neighbor?  Does that violate the sixth commandment?  Is the owner of that animal subject to the death penalty?  The laws governing those kinds of questions are in the form of specific case laws and those case laws are spelled out in the section following the Ten Commandments.  One of those case laws speaks directly to this issue of the value God places on the life of the unborn.

In Exodus 21:22-25 we read, “And if men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she has a miscarriage, yet there is no further injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him; and he shall pay as the judges decide. 23″But if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” [NASB] The “case” that this law addresses is if two men are fighting and one or both of them unintentionally injures a pregnant woman who, as a result, has a miscarriage or a spontaneous abortion.

This text makes a very strong statement about abortion in at least two ways.  First, the word translated “miscarriage” is a compound Hebrew word that literally means “her child flows out.”  So, the Bible teaches that in a miscarriage or spontaneous abortion a child is born, not a mass of tissue.  The NIV captures the spirit of the word by translating it–if the woman “gives birth prematurely.”  You give birth to a child, not a mass of tissue.  This Hebrew word meaning “child,” in each of its 70-plus occurrences in the Old Testament, is used to refer to BOTH children in the womb as well as children outside the womb.  In God’s eyes, there is no difference between the child in a womb and a child outside the womb—the same word is used for each.

We see the second argument against abortion in this case law in the set of circumstances addressed by the law. There are two contingencies in the case of a woman who has been struck.  The first contingency is directed toward a woman who, as result of the accident, miscarries but there is “no further injury.”  In other words, “neither the mother or the child is injured, nor do they die.”  If there is simply a premature birth because of the accidental striking of the woman with no resulting injury or death occurring to the mother or the baby, then the law states that the matter must go before the courts and a judge will decide damages based on the facts of the case.  Because the law is as concerned with the state of the unborn child as much as it is the mother, it implies that life of the unborn child is of equal value to the life of the mother.

The second contingency speaks even more clearly to the value God places on the life of the unborn.  It says in verse 23, “but if there is any further injury, then you shall appoint as a penalty life for life, 24eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.”  You’ll notice the difference in this case.  If the two men are struggling and a blow is unintentionally struck to the pregnant woman and EITHER THE MOTHER OR THE UNBORN CHILD IS INJURED OR DIES, then the guilty parties are subject to the death penalty–they forfeit their life for the life they have taken—mother OR unborn child.

Don’t miss this.  If a person accidentally injures or kills, not only a pregnant mother, but also her unborn child—he is liable to execution.  The fact that the law calls him to forfeit his own life for the life of the unborn means God places the same value on the life of the unborn child as both the mother and the perpetrator.  The death penalty is invoked for killing an unborn child just as it is for killing the pregnant mother.  What’s even more powerful about this is seen when we compare this statute with a previous one in 21:12-13.  This case law states, “He who strikes a man so that he dies shall surely be put to death. 13″But if he did not lie in wait for him, but God let him fall into his hand, [implying an accidental death] then I will appoint you a place to which he may flee.

Do you hear in this law that intentionally killing someone is a different crime than doing so unintentionally?  Our laws recognize the same distinction.  There is a different penalty for pre-meditated murder than for manslaughter.  If a Jew were to kill someone accidentally, the law shielded that person from the vengeance of the surviving friends or family of the victim by permitting that person to flee to what was called a “city of refuge.”  There were six designated cities in Israel where people could flee and be assured of protection until a legal court could rule on their guilt or innocence.  God clearly gives a level of protection for the perpetrator until his case is heard.

By contrast, the statute in verses 22-25 that speaks to the accidental death of a pregnant woman or an unborn child in the case of two men fighting calls for the death penalty.  There is no provision for protection by fleeing to a city of refuge.  That means that, not only is the unborn child given the same legal consideration as adults, in this law the child is actually given more protection (along with pregnant mother) because their death brings the death penalty even if its accidental.  The point is —God’s law recognizes the unborn is of completely equal value as other human life and is given an even greater degree of protection than children or adults.  As it relates to abortion, the mother has no more right to kill her unborn child than she does to kill anyone living outside the womb.

Because this law speaks clearly and directly to the value God places on the life of the unborn, this passage would definitively define God’s stand on abortion– even if it were the only text in the Bible speaking to this issue.  But there are numerous other texts that also powerfully address this issue.  Another one is Jeremiah 1:5.  God is calling Jeremiah to be a prophet and he says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”  God knew Jeremiah as a human being before he was born.

God says to Jeremiah, “I knew YOU.”  He DOESN’T say, “I knew that you would be born” but “I knew YOU” before you were formed in the womb.”  Before Jeremiah was conceived, God had already called him as a prophet to the nations.  That means that God in a personal, intimate way knows aborted babies before their conception.  Abortion is the killing of a person with whom God is intimately acquainted.  David makes a similar point in Psalm 51:5 when he says, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

David doesn’t just say that the sinful state of humanity is embedded even in unborn fetuses.  He said, “I—David, the future king of Israel, the Psalmist, the man after God’s own heart—I, as an individual, was sinful from the moment of my conception.”  The implication is that David, this individual who was an ancestor of the Messiah—this person came into being at the moment of his conception—even to the point where he was drenched with his own sin in his earliest moment of life.

Another group of texts supporting the sanctity of the unborn include ones like Psalm 139:13. David praises God saying, “For you created my innermost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.”  A similar text is Job 10:8-13.  In the anguish of his suffering Job says to God, ^8” Your hands fashioned and made me, and now you have destroyed me altogether. ⁹ Remember that you have made me like clay; and will you return me to the dust? ¹⁰ Did you not pour me out like milk and curdle me like cheese? ¹¹ You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews. ¹² You have granted me life and steadfast love, and your care has preserved my spirit. ¹³ Yet these things you hid in your heart; I know that this was your purpose.”

Do you hear some of the words the inspired writers use to describe what God does in his creation process in a mother’s womb?  In the womb, God is at work fashioning, clothing and knitting a human being.  Those are obviously metaphorical—God doesn’t knit but the truth is clear.  That is– the creation process occurring in the womb is NOT simply a random biological process.  Biological development is surely occurring, but the Bible says that this process in the womb of the mother is the shaping, molding, clothing and knitting work of the Creator.

God is directly superintending the creation process in the womb.  John Stott said, “…the growth of the fetus is neither haphazard nor automatic but a divine work of creative skill.”  That means that, from God’s perspective, aborting an unborn child is like violently barging into God’s private art studio (with him looking on), taking one of His unfinished masterpieces—shredding his canvas and throwing the remains out the window.  Abortion is like storming into his sculpting area and smashing at his feet his glorious but uncompleted work.

But it’s even more arrogant than that because the unborn child not only represents his masterful creative work, it bears his very image.  That unborn child reflects him in a way that no painting could ever represent a human artist.  Its destruction is as much an act of violence against the Creator as it is against his creation!  What do you suppose God thinks about that?  When you think about that for a moment consider this–that murderous violence, that immeasurably arrogant act against our Creator occurs about 2300 times a day in the United States.  Daily in America, 2300 of God’s human canvases are ripped up and expelled… with their Creator looking on.

That leads us to a third and final Scriptural truth about abortion.  That is: This shedding of innocent blood brings the judgment of God.  God absolutely hates the shedding of innocent blood.  One of the seven deadly sins in Proverbs chapter six –sins that are separated out by God as being uniquely detestable to him–is the shedding of innocent blood.  God poured out his wrath on Israel for this, and his disposition toward this sin hasn’t changed.

Abortion brings the wrath of God on a nation and what is even more sobering about that is what we read in Romans one.  You may recall that in Romans 1:18 Paul writes, “The wrath of God is being revealed [present tense] against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth [like the truth about the unborn] by their wickedness.”  Although the wrath of God clearly has a future element to it, Paul here reveals that today God is revealing his wrath against sin.

Paul says that the main way that God is currently revealing his wrath is seen three verses later in this chapter.  In verses 24, 26 and 28 Paul says the wrath of God is today being revealed through God “giving people over” to the sins they want to commit.  In other words, the ongoing wrath of God is seen when he removes his restraining influence from a culture and allows people to sin without limit.

This means that Roe v. Wade was not only a disastrous, landmark legal decision; it also expresses an unseen spiritual reality that should make us shudder!  In the spiritual realm, legalized abortion was an expression of God’s present-day wrath—a “giving over” of our nation to its sinful and selfish desires.  Do you hear this?

What this means is that –not only are we as a nation storing up the future wrath of God that we deserve for these 60 million legal abortions.  The removal in 1973 of that legal restraint on abortion is an expression of the present-day wrath of God on our nation. We’re not simply a nation awaiting the wrath of God; we are a nation under the wrath of God because of abortion.  Do we hear this?

Those are the sobering truths from Scripture about abortion but the question is–what can we do about this?  First, plead for God’s mercy not only for the coming wrath, but for his mercy today–that he would graciously put back in place the social and legal barriers to abortion and our nation would no longer be given over to our sin.  Second, ask God to show you his heart on this.  We must be God-centered in this and unless that happens, you’ll be just another person with a noble cause.  Abortion on demand is not about a cause or a law or the makeup of the Supreme Court. As we’ve seen, abortion is about GOD!   Ask Him to forgive you for not having his heart on this and pray for him to give it to you.  Third, do something to express his heart on this and the opportunities are many.  This afternoon attend the Pro-Life Rally at Menominee courthouse.  Contribute financially or do volunteer work for Bay Area Pregnancy Services.  And stop being ashamed to voice bible-based convictions on this issue.

Finally, if you have had an abortion or helped or influenced someone else to have an abortion, first, call it what it is and confess it to God.  Second, know that God’s grace to forgive and heal and make all things new is far greater than even our most heinous sin.  Abortion is not the unforgivable sin.  God is willing, he’s anxious to forgive you and as you confess it and repent of it, his arms are open wide for you.  He also knows the hurt and the grief your abortion has inflicted on YOU and he wants to show you his Fatherly love.  He is a God of great mercy and he will forgive you as you humble yourself before him.

Proverbs 24:11 says, “¹¹ Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter.”  May God give us the grace to know the truth about abortion and live faithfully in response to it for his glory and our joy.

[1] https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/induced-abortion-united-states

[2] http://www.forerunner.com/champion/X0029_Luther_quote.html

[3] https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/40519-why-do-so-many-churchgoers-have-abortions

This week, we come to the end of Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse.  We will spend a few more weeks in chapter 17 of John’s gospel, but the passage Andy read marks the end of Jesus’ final teaching time with his disciples before his passion.  Jesus is concluding his treatment on what the disciple’s lives will be like after he returns to his Father and sends the Holy Spirit to be with them.  For us who live after the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost—we experience this life in the Spirit every day, but the disciples were still several days away from that. Today, as we see Jesus telling his disciples some final blessings they will experience when the Spirit is sent, we want to think about what those blessings mean to us.

Let’s read the text again, beginning with verse 25.  Jesus is summing up this entire discourse and says of it to his disciples, “²⁵ I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.”  What does Jesus mean by speaking in “figures of speech?”  It wasn’t so much that Jesus’ words were unintelligible to the disciples.  The point is that so much of what Jesus had taught his disciples could be fully understood only after his saving work on the cross and his resurrection.

His teaching could only be fully understood when seen through the light of the cross and even this late in his ministry, the disciples couldn’t comprehend their Messiah dying a criminal’s death on a Roman cross with God’s curse on him.  Part of the reason Jesus taught in vivid figures of speech to the disciples was not to obscure the truth, but to heighten its impact when later they were able to understand it.

So much of Jesus’ teaching makes little sense apart from his cross and resurrection.  That’s why Jesus often would say things to his disciples like— “You cannot receive this now” or “You don’t understand this now.”  Likewise, in 16:12 Jesus says to his disciples, ¹² “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” The Upper Room Discourse began with Jesus using himself as an example of the kind of servant he was calling his disciples to be as he washed their feet.  In 13:7 we read, “⁷ … “What I am doing you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.”   The kind of radically other-centered, servant lifestyle Jesus was calling them to live only made sense through Christ’s ultimate sacrifice on the cross.

As we’ve seen, much of what Jesus had already taught them in this discourse is related to later when he would send the Spirit and how that would impact their lives and ministries.  For instance, when the disciples first heard the vine and the branches metaphor, they could only understand it superficially because the point in Jesus using that metaphor is to illustrate the believer’s union with Christ through the Holy Spirit.  That union didn’t happen in the disciples until the Spirit came at Pentecost.

As we saw last time, the disciples didn’t understand what it meant that they would be sorrowful, but their sorrow would soon turn to joy.  In four days, (after the resurrection), they would understand that, but not here on the night he was betrayed.  So Jesus says to them in verse 25, “…The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.”  The “hour” of this plain speaking he’s referring to a future time after the Holy Spirit is sent.  He said as much back in verse 13.  “¹³ When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”

After Pentecost, these figures of speech Jesus taught–that must have seemed at times a bit cryptic to the disciples– would all be brought back to their memories by the Spirit.  He would give them clear insight to understand them on the other side of the cross.  The disciples must have had countless “aha” moments, when the Spirit would apply to their lives something Jesus had earlier said to them— “Oh, that’s what he meant when he said that!”

They probably understood the teaching at some superficial level when Jesus first taught it to them, but after Pentecost the Spirit would remove all the fog and it would make perfect sense.  Today, let’s look at this final teaching of Jesus through our lens—not the apostles’.  This morning let’s look at two characteristics of this life in the Holy Spirit and one poignant reminder that even with the Spirit’s presence, we can still do foolish things.

Jesus seems to be saying something like—”Whenever in the future I speak with you concerning my Father, it will be with clarity.”  He doesn’t limit it to just his post-resurrection appearances which were few and barely mentioned in the gospels.  Back in verse 14 he told the disciples, “…he [the Spirit] will take what is mine and declare it to you.”  What Jesus is talking about ultimately when he makes this promise of no longer speaking in figures of speech is what he will say to them and through them in the Spirit-inspired New Testament.

This is the best way to understand this clarity he will use in speaking with the disciples because the basic meaning of Scripture is accessible to everyone—that’s foundational to Protestantism—the Bible is for everyone, not just the clergy.  Beyond that, the New Testament is a book written totally from the perspective of what God is doing and saying after the Spirit has come.  This post-Pentecost promise here is:  Jesus will speak by his Spirit clearly and with the cross in full view in the pages of the New Testament.  God’s Spirit worked powerfully through the apostles as he spoke the gospel through them.

The four gospels convey Jesus’ life, his teaching and his redemptive work on the cross and resurrection.  The rest of the New Testament is basically a clarification, an interpretation and application of the life, teaching, death and resurrection of Jesus.  The Holy Spirit speaks clearly and directly through the apostles in the New Testament as they break down into bite-sized chunks the gospel and teaching of Jesus and apply it to life.

Jesus describes this in verse 25 as “I [through the Spirit] will tell you plainly about the Father.”  For Jesus, the gospel is ultimately about the Father. The gospel was the Father’s idea and the Father initiated all of his gospel work by sending Jesus to this world—“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  All the glory Jesus receives from his work in the gospel echoes back to the Father.  Jesus wants us to see that the gospel and its New Testament teachings are ultimately a revelation of the Father’s heart.

That’s what he’s talking about in verse 26, when Jesus continues, “²⁶ In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”  Jesus has five times before in this discourse told the disciples that they would be able to ask the Father for things in his name.  Here, he helpfully clarifies to prevent a possible misunderstanding of that.  Jesus wants us to know that when we pray to the Father through Jesus, it’s not as if Jesus is some cosmic telephone operator who, alone, can connect us to God.

No, praying in Jesus’ name does NOT mean that we don’t have direct access to the Father.  Jesus does intercede or advocate for us to the Father, but that’s not what he’s been talking about in the discourse.  He’s saying that– in prayer, we have direct access to the Father.  When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he taught them to begin with “Our Father in heaven.” The Father can be the direct recipient of the prayers.

Jesus assures the disciples that the Father loves them “because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.”  The disciples were rightly related to Jesus.  We’ll see later in chapter 17 that the Father loves his adopted children with the same love he has for his one “natural” Son, Jesus.  Many believers are weak in our understanding of how we are to relate to the different members of the Trinity. That leads to believing ridiculous lies like, “When I sin, the Father is really mad at me, but Jesus restrains him from punishing me.”  There is no conflict within the Trinity on anything—much less about God’s people.

The Father loves us with the same love the Son has for us—there’s no difference.  He loves us AS he loves his Son because we’re one with him through faith.  Before the foundation of the world, it was the Father who chose his elect people that would be bought with the blood of his Son. The Father was the Person of the Trinity who sent Jesus to the earth so that he, the Father, could have a new relationship with this new race of people he was creating through Jesus.

The first characteristic of life after the Spirit comes is:  We have in God’s Word an unambiguous revelation of God and his love for us.  Next in verses 28-32, we are witness to a significant misunderstanding of the apostles about how committed they really are to with Jesus.  This is typical of the kind of overestimation ALL of his disciples are prone to have with Jesus.  Jesus says, “²⁸ I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. ²⁹ His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! ³⁰ Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” ³¹ Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? ³² Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”

This is a bit of digression from the main point.  The disciples derail Jesus’ line of thought here for a minute with this misunderstanding.   This part of chapter 16 seems to be structured like a sandwich—with two characteristics of life in the Spirit and in the middle here is this reminder the disciples give us of our tendency to think and foolish things.  The truth we could say this way:  Even though the Spirit has come, we remain vulnerable to being self-deceived about the depth of our love and devotion to Christ.

In verse 28 Jesus says, “I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”  Jesus had promised that “the hour is coming when” his speech would be.  He’s clearly speaking of a time AFTER he has died and been raised.  The disciples hear this statement Jesus makes in verse 28 and mistakenly assume that this statement was Jesus beginning to speak with this promised clarity.

The reason Jesus makes this declaration more plainly than he has before has nothing to do with any categorical shift in the clarity of his speech.  It’s just that– in this entire section of teaching, his emphasis has been on the Father–he’s mentioned the Father three times.  It would have made no sense in this context for him to ambiguously tell them–as he had earlier– that “I will soon leave you and then return” or “your sorrow will turn to joy.”  No—the Father has been the main topic of discussion and so it only makes sense that Jesus would now explicitly mention his coming from and going back to the Father.

The disciples however wrongly see this as a ground-breaking example of the dawning of a new, clear-speaking Jesus—without the figures of speech.  So, in response to what they see to be this new-found and much clearer form of speech, they spew out this bold pronouncement in verse 30, “³⁰Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.”

They are saying— “Now that we’ve heard plainly from you about the Father being where you came from and where you are going—we see even more clearly who you are.  We now see that you comprehensively know the truth about God, and this is why we believe you came from him.”  This is a complete misreading of Jesus’ statement and I wonder if John didn’t blush at the apostle’s foolishness as he wrote this.  They celebrate this apparently newfound clarity in Jesus’ teaching when that wasn’t his point at all.

The scholars agree that this was a misunderstanding because of Jesus’ response to their great affirmation in verse 31. “³¹ Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? ³² Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”  Jesus shows an appropriate level of cynicism toward his disciples’ bold claim.  He knows that–in spite of this declaration of their undying faith–their profession is far more bold than their actual commitment to him.

“Do you now believe?” is a question loaded with sarcasm from Jesus.  We could paraphrase it, “Oh, is that so!? Well, let me tell you something–you titans of the faith– when I am at my most vulnerable and weak, you will leave me to suffer it all alone.” Jesus has already told Peter that he would deny him.  Here, he tells ALL of the disciples they will abandon him.  In Matthew’s gospel, he explains the disciples’ cowardice by revealing that it’s a fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy.

There he says, “…You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.’”  They all scattered when their Master was stricken.  Even though John managed to hang around the cross with Jesus’ mother, he never identified himself with Jesus strongly enough to bring about his own arrest.  None of these disciples were there to stand up and suffer with Jesus.

In his hour of greatest need—his human friends all deserted him.  D.A. Carson says this text teaches us that, “It is part of the character and genius of the Church that its foundation members were discredited men; it owed its existence not to their faith, courage, or virtue, but to what Christ had done for them; and this they could never forget.”  That’s a good reminder for us as well.  It is Christ, not us, who builds his church and his glory is seen in that he does that through fallen and very weak vessels. Whatever we accomplish for Jesus in our lives, families, this church will happen NOT because of our great faith or courage, but in spite of our weakness and failings.

Most of us can easily relate to this overestimation of our level of love and devotion to Christ from the apostles.  We go to a Christian conference or a concert or listen to a song or a message that really strikes a chord in us.  We feel energized and renewed and in that moment we’re certain that our love for Jesus is beyond question.  “Bring on the persecution—Jesus and I will face it down.”   We feel we can leap tall buildings in a single bound.  Then, perhaps only minutes later, the Holy Spirit prompts us (for instance) to strike up a spiritual conversation with an unchurched neighbor or co-worker and all of the sudden—our lion-like boldness completely vaporizes.  In our cowardly silence, we deny the same Jesus to whom we had moments earlier been so deeply devoted.

Like the disciples, our profession is frequently far more impressive than our performance.  Some of our most painful denials follow shortly on the heels of our most impressive professions.  We can be like Elijah who, one minute, is risking his life by boldly proclaiming the supremacy of God over the pagan Baals on Mt. Carmel.  But in the next, he’s wallowing in a pool of unbelief, whining that he alone is faithful to God.  God uses those situations to humble us—to cause us to learn—again and again, that we are sinners whose boldness—whose holiness—whose power in ministry comes only through humble dependence upon God as he expresses his boldness, his holiness and his power through us.  Unfortunately, even though the Spirit of God has come as our Helper, we are easily self-deceived about where we are with God.

A final characteristic of life after the Spirit that Jesus speaks about is:  We live in an evil, hostile world which has been defeated by Christ.  This is the point of verse 33.  “³³ I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”  Believers have a precious inheritance from Christ.  Part of that inheritance is his peace—a sense that God is near, and things are well–and it’s not just any peace—it’s HIS peace with us.  It’s like the joy he gives us—it’s HIS joy we demonstrate as we abide in him.  Likewise, his peace also flows through us by virtue of our union with him through the Holy Spirit.  And this peace is NOT dependent on the circumstances.

Jesus always has peace.  Except for those hours on the cross when he took sin upon himself and experienced his Father’s wrath—Jesus has, for all eternity, known nothing but peace.  That’s who he is—he is the God of all peace.   Paul says in Second Thessalonians 3:16, “⁶ Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in every way.”

So, because believers are united to this Lord of peace who always has peace, we will always have access to his peace–HIS peace, not ours.  This peace is not something we conjure up by taking our mind off our troubles or emptying our mind of stressful thoughts.  It’s seeing our comparatively tiny troubles in the light of Jesus and the peace he gives us.  The tribulation in this world that Jesus speaks of here is both the ordinary troubles we all have—disease, sickness, death and interpersonal conflict–as well as those troubles unique to believers. The persecution and hatred of the world who detests Christ whom we represent on earth.

Jesus is dogmatic here.  It’s not “IF you have tribulation.”  It’s, “In this world you will have tribulation.”  The world is fallen—we are redeemed.  The world is dark, we are light. The world is deceived—we have the truth.  The world hates Jesus—they will hate his followers.  That’s oil and water—they don’t ever mix well.  There is tension here between the tribulation we will experience and the peace of Christ—they don’t seem to belong together.

Theologians explain this tension through the rather strange phrase, “the already/not yet.”  That is—on the one hand, Jesus has already brought the kingdom with its peace to this world and it’s found in the church through the Holy Spirit.  But, on the other hand, we are not yet perfected—we still live in a fallen world filled with difficulties and hatred for the church.  One the one hand, the peace is already always available to believers in Jesus, but in the face of a hostile—peace-hating world, it’s not yet ours without a fight for it.  That is–we must work hard to trust God for it in the midst of the tribulation.

Believers can experience this peace of Christ because –Jesus says, “I have overcome the world.”  Jesus has defeated Satan and all the worldly powers under him.  He hasn’t yet banished them completely to hell, but they have lost their authority to control how we feel.  Because we’re united with Christ, we can by his grace experience his peace in the face of the world’s tribulations.  The world no longer has the power to steal our peace.

We can (and unfortunately often do) forfeit his peace through unbelief, but there is no ONE and no THING that can take it from us because its Christ’s peace and in his victory over them on the cross, he rendered them unable to steal our peace.  Paul puts it this way in Ephesians chapter one.  When God raised Jesus from the dead he “seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”  Christ is in a place of absolute authority over the demonic powers of this world.

Verse 22 continues.  “And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church.”  This means that by virtue of the fact that the church is united with Christ, the demonic powers that oppose us are under our feet as well.  We are seated with Christ in a place of absolute authority over this evil, demonic world system.  If we are in Christ by the Holy Spirit but aren’t experiencing peace in the midst of tribulation, it’s not because we can’t have it.  If we’re in Christ, we have it because it belongs to Christ and we are one with him.

Our problem is—we forfeit his peace when we choose to take our focus off Christ and his victory over the forces of this world and instead focus on our troubles.  When we focus on our tribulations instead of Christ—we surrender his peace.  And when we forfeit our peace to the troubles of this world, we’re giving up our birthright—the peace Jesus purchased for us on the cross.

As we close, let’s think a bit more closely about life in the Spirit as Jesus has taught it here.  First, we have the words of Jesus spoken plainly, parsed, explained, interpreted, expanded, clarified and qualified because we have the Holy Spirit inspired Scripture.  Yet, sadly, tragically many professed believers forfeit this blessing by not studying the Scriptures.  The church would be so much more like Jesus if all believers would daily have a meaningful, mind-renewing, Christ-conforming time studying in the Scriptures.  We may jet through the Bible reading, as one Puritan writer says, “like water through a pipe,” but we don’t chew on it, meditate on it, allow it to move us to worship — allow it to assure us of God’s peace and promises.  We just don’t know the Bible very well.

As a pastor, I am shamed especially when I read sermons written in the 1700’s.  There are dozens and dozens of Scriptures cited in each message—some of them obscure references in places like Second Chronicles and Obadiah.  And these men had no concordances and no study helps or computers to help them.  They just knew the Word.  As many have said, if you stuck them, they would bleed Bible.  The Holy Spirit speaks clearly through the Scripture—may we spend more time listening to him.

Second, like the disciples we can with our mouths make bold pronouncement of our love for Christ while betraying those words with our cowardice.  We would do well to take James’ words to heart.  That is to be “quick to hear and slow to speak.”  We must place far less energy in our profession of love for Jesus and far more on actually pursuing the Jesus we profess.

Finally, we must believe that Christ’s blood-bought peace can be ours— that he really did defeat the powers of this world.  We must fight for his peace, not to win it—it’s already been won—but to keep the world from stealing it from us.  And that’s a fight we never need lose because Christ has defeated those who would seek to steal our peace and we share in his victory.

Do we believe that?  Do we live as if Christ defeated the powers of evil and do we believe that the forces of this world are under our feet because the Spirit has come and we are seated in the heavenly places in Christ?   As we finish this treatment of the Upper Room Discourse, may God give us the grace to live as people who are united with Christ, abiding in him, equipped with the Spirit and those who through Christ have overcome this world—for our joy and his glory.

This morning we continue in Jesus’ Upper Room Discourse in John’s gospel, chapters 13-17.  Today, we move into a conversation between Jesus and his disciples that teaches some vital truths about one of the most basic and important elements of the Christian life—joy.  Though these verses are very straightforward and easy to understand, there is a challenge for us to know how to apply these verses to us who are 2000 years removed from these events.

That is—in this text, Jesus is speaking to a situation that was uniquely experienced by the 12 disciples.  We will never know the sorrow of seeing Jesus crucified, the Messiah who we thought would rule the world.  Neither will we know the joy of having that crushing disappointment erased in his resurrection.  We can relate to their experience in only  limited ways.

In one sense Jesus’ predictions to his disciples about how they will respond to his death and resurrection is not directly applicable to us.  BUT that does not mean that we cannot find much precious truth from this. The truths that are important for us are not about the specific sorrows and joys the disciples uniquely experienced connected to Jesus’ death and resurrection.  For us, what Jesus says, on a more general level about joy and sorrow are however, very helpful.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of what the Bible teaches about joy in the life of a believer.  The Psalmist prays to God in Psalm 16:11, “¹¹ You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.”  Heaven pulsates with joy—joy permeates it because the fullest experience of joy possible—far more joyful than any experience in this world–is found in the presence of God.  God radiates joy!  We will have that joy all the time in heaven because nothing will hinder our experience of the Lord’s presence.  But what this verse also means is that whenever in this world we sense God’s presence, the one infallible indicator of that is .joy!

Love is the identifying mark of a Christian’s behavior and attitudes, but Joy is the fundamental disposition or temperament of the follower of Christ.  It’s rooted in the truth of God, God’s love for us and what he has done for us in Jesus.  We saw this already in chapter 15.  After Jesus admonishes the disciples to keep his commandments, he explains his loving motivation when he says, “¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”  In that one statement, we see that, not only does Jesus have joy, he wants his joy to be in us and that we may experience it to the fullest.  That’s why he wants us to show our love for him in obedience to him—that we might know JOY!

The New Testament teaches that the main aim of the Christian life is NOT being a good, moral person.  That’s Islam and many other religions, but it’s not biblical Christianity.  Christianity is about knowing, loving and finding our highest joy in Jesus Christ.  Bringing glory to God through finding our highest and everlasting joy in God is the ultimate goal of the Christian’s life.  We are commanded to find our joy in God. “Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing” (Psa 100:1–2)! “Delight yourself in the LORD” (Psa 37:4). “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” (Phil 4:4).  Find your joy in God.

An overarching truth of Scripture is that–whatever we’re trying to find our highest pleasure in is our God.  That’s why we must pursue our pleasure in God.  Paul says in Second Corinthians 1:24, “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we are workers with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.”  Paul’s goal in ministry was the joy of those to whom he ministered.  He worked for their joy!  Jesus says in Matthew 13:44, “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”  If finding joy in God isn’t our daily passion and pursuit, then we have the wrong goal in life.  THAT should be on our minds from our earliest waking moments in the morning—finding our joy in God.

All that means is–it is good for our souls to know as much as possible about what the bible teaches about joy and our text for this morning is a rich deposit of truth about joy.  In verses 16-19, Jesus predicts the disciples’ sorrow at his impending death and their subsequent joy at his resurrection.  Jesus again points to the imminence of these events by saying that both the disciples’ sorrow at his death and joy at his resurrection will be in “a little while.”

The crux of the first four verses is found in verses 19-20.  Jesus says, ¹⁹ … A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’? ²⁰ Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”  Though Jesus is referring to his literal death and resurrection that only the 12 apostles would experience, again, there are more general truths here for us as well.

Looking at these truths that extend beyond the original disciples, the first truth Jesus teaches us about joy is that: Just as life flows from death, joy can be, and often is, birthed out of sorrow.  In this text, Jesus is consistent with all New Testament teaching by revealing that there is in life a flow– a God-ordained rhythm for believers.  That rhythm in the life of every believer, is typically death followed by life and/or sorrow followed by joy.  The template that establishes this for our lives is Jesus himself whose death was followed by his resurrection.

For the believer, death gives way to life—not only in terms of physical death followed by the joys of heaven, but across many fronts.  Augustine wrote in his “Confessions,” “everywhere a greater joy is preceded by a greater suffering.”  We see this pattern repeatedly in the New Testament.  Suffering as a gateway to joy and death as a gateway to life–is NOT exactly an American cultural value, but as we’ll see, it’s clearly taught in Scripture.

Knowing this truth about this God-established pattern for our lives is so important because it shows us that suffering and the sorrow it brings are not simply bad experiences to be endured and gotten over—they aren’t unnecessary interruptions in our joy.  No—they ultimately bring about some means of joy.

It’s true that the most vivid example of this is seen in the believer’s physical death followed by a bodily resurrection.  Paul says in First Corinthians 15, “²² For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”  A few verses later Paul says, “³⁶ You foolish person!  What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”  Paul states that as an axiom—there can be no life apart from a preceding death.  And frequently, no great joy apart from great sorrow.  Let’s look to support that contention by briefly citing three examples of this pattern in the New Testament.  Each one of these examples is worth a series of messages but we are looking at these from 10,000 feet and the point is not to carefully explain them, but to prove that the New Testament teaches many expressions of life must flow out of death.

Jesus lays down as an unchangeable principle of life is in John 12, “²⁴ Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”  New life or fruitfulness is produced only after something dies.  This isn’t just true for acorns—Jesus is mainly talking about the life of the believer.  Jesus says in Matthew 16, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  If we want to find life and the joy that comes from eternal life, we must, through self-denial, pick up our crosses and die to our own self-centered desires that keep us from God and are ultimately harmful to us.  As we die—that is, deny ourselves the fallen, self-centered pleasures and priorities of this sinful world, we find new life and joy in Christ.

There are other kinds of death also spoken of in the New Testament–all of which result in life and joy for the believer.  Another “death” that all believers must experience if we’re to know life and joy is death to the law.  Galatians 2:19, says, “¹⁹ For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.”   We know that the Law of God in the Old Testament demands perfection from us.  Because no one is even close to perfect, the law therefore condemns us to spiritual death.  That means we must DIE to the law—that is—we must allow the Law to reveal to us how sinful we are and how unable we are to be good enough for God.  As we allow the Law to do that work in us, that will “kill” our efforts to try to be acceptable to God by obeying the Law.  Its only after that happens that we will be able to look in faith to Christ and what he has done for us to save us and give us life in Him.  That’s what it is to “die” to the law. Death to the law makes it possible to live to God in faith.

Peter speaks of still another kind of death believers must experience if they are to experience spiritual life and this is death to sin.  First Peter 2:24, speaking of Jesus says, “²⁴ He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might DIE to sin and LIVE to righteousness…”  The right response to who Jesus is and what he did for us is, by God’s grace, to increasingly turn our back on all evil.  That is –we must die to sin if we are to live to God. Paul states this repeatedly.  Romans 6:7 says, “⁷ For one who has died has been set free from sin.”

Because we have died to sin and its controlling power over us, we can refuse its sway over us—we are liberated from its power.  It’s this death that enables us to live in righteousness.  Notice how Paul says that death to sin is worked out in our lives in Romans 8:13.  “¹³ For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” Again, the point for us is simply to see that this is another example of life coming out of death.  And the corollary is that joy comes out of sorrow.

Again, the rhythm is the same—after death comes life.  Death, then resurrection–death, then living to righteousness—death, then freedom from sin—death to sin, then living by the Spirit.  The pattern is unmistakable and in John 16, Jesus is making the same point only stating it differently when he ties death to sorrow, and resurrection to joy.  Again, he’s not just speaking to this one-time experience of the 12 disciples, he’s also reinforcing a larger pattern clearly taught in Scripture.  That is—just as life comes out of death, joy is often birthed out of sorrow.  Psalm 30:5 says, ⁵ …weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.”  That sounds like what Jesus tells his disciples in John 16:20, “You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.”

This is what gives us hope when we as believers are experiencing deep sorrow.  In our culture, we’re conditioned to see pain and sorrow as unwelcome intruders—things to be avoided.  That is just NOT the truth of Scripture.  For the believer, sorrow is temporary—it’s like a dark tunnel we must go through on our way to our destination.  That dark tunnel is not arbitrary—for the believer, its headed somewhere—its headed for joy!

One place where we experience this pattern of sorrow turning to joy is in the area of God’s loving discipline of us.  All believers have experienced the truth that when we sin, the Holy Spirit brings us godly sorrow that leads to repentance and that repentance restores our joy.  The author of Hebrews writes, “¹¹ For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.”  The pain of God’s Fatherly discipline and the sorrow that accompanies that pain are not pleasant, but for the believer—as we repent and learn what God is teaching us and are trained by his discipline, the peaceful, life-giving fruit of righteousness will follow.  And a big part of the fruit is JOY!

The pattern that Jesus marks in John 16 is clear—death, then life—sorrow, then joy.  Again, this is so practical.  This means that –if you’re a believer experiencing sorrow right now, you have the right to believe that it will eventually give way to joy as you seek after what God has for you in the midst of the sorrow. 

A second truth about joy in this text speaks to the nature of our joy in Christ.  That is:  Joy overwhelms and overlaps sorrow; it doesn’t eliminate it.  As we mentioned earlier, in verse 21, Jesus uses a very common Scriptural illustration of a sorrow that is overwhelmed by joy.  That is–childbirth.  Jesus says, “²¹When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.”

Notice that Jesus says the mother “no longer remembers the anguish.”  He doesn’t say it erases the pain as if no pain ever existed.  For you women who have given birth without the aid of epidurals, you know the  tremendous pain of that.  The joy of childbirth doesn’t eliminate the pain.  It’s just that the joy that comes from the birth of your child is so great that it causes the memory of the pain to dim by comparison.

Tim Keller says, “In the world, joy and sorrow cannot ever overlap.  They are mutually exclusive.”[1]  Those who are not believers have no understanding that joy and sorrow can overlap.  For unbelievers, they can try to forget their pain through things like narcotics or booze or sex or material wealth or reputation or power—things like that.  They can try to avoid the pain, which means that they work to extract themselves from painful situations.  A job gets tough, so you quit.  A marriage becomes painful, so you divorce.  Finally, those in the world can choose to deny the pain.  “Oh, I’m not troubled by that—I’m just fine—all is well, don’t worry about me.”  Those are ways the lost people around us try to escape the pain.

The healthy believer doesn’t need to try to escape the pain—he/she acknowledges it—is realistic about it, but we DO have access to a joy that can overwhelm the pain.  We have a Savior—we have a gospel—we have a life in Christ and, like a new mother who forgets her pain when she sees her child, when we focus on those truths, joy can overwhelm our pain.  Keller writes, “A Christian says, “Look, the world is just as bad as this.  I’m not going to try to numb my mind to it.  I’m not going to tell myself little stories to try to get out from under the weight of it, but I have a truth; I have the gospel, the message of Christ.”

“What is that?  It is truth that God’s Son came to earth.  Did he die to pay all my debts?  Does he now live to put his glory in me?  Does he now reign in heaven to control all things for me and all of history? Is he returning to judge the living and the dead and to put everything right?  If that’s true, then I have a truth that overshadows the problems.  These problems, as bad as they are, are going to end someday.  These troubles, as bad as they are, have a consolation that is stronger than them.” 

Finally, he adds, “Conversion makes the heart big enough that both peace and pain, hope and desolation, pain and joy are able to live in there together…joy is not the absence of pain, but rather you have something that overshadows and enables you to come up over the pain….Joy is not an abstraction; it’s a person.[2]

This is a wonderful reality for the believer.  To know that, whatever sorrow we may experience, there is a joy-producing truth that we know will eventually overwhelm it.  When we experience the sorrows of life, the answer is NOT to try to avoid them, or drown them in 1000 diversions or put on a phony grin and deny them.  No—we face it honestly and grieve whatever the loss may be, but we also know that because of what Christ has done for us at the cross, there is a greater joy that can and will eventually overwhelm our sorrow.

A third truth revealed here about joy in Christ is:  Joy is not rooted in our earthly circumstances.  This is implied in what we’ve said so far, but it’s worth saying it explicitly because of verse 22. ²² So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”  This is an amazing truth!  If you’re a follower of Jesus, no one and no circumstance can take your joy from you unless you voluntarily surrender it.  No one has the power to rob you of your joy because NO ONE can change the truth of the gospel which is the source of our joy.  Biblical joy is far more durable than our circumstances—than the pain we’re experiencing.  The Bible clearly teaches that if a believer isn’t experiencing joy on a regular and increasing basis, something is badly wrong because there is nothing that can take our joy from us. 

This is where joy differs from “happiness”.  The English word happy comes from the Middle English word “hap” which means “chance” or “luck.”  The etymological meaning conveys–if by chance good things happen to you, you will be happy.  Happiness is by definition rooted in what is happening to you—your circumstances.  If you are living on that, purely worldly level then–if your circumstances go from positive to negative, you go from being happy to hapless.

Joy is very different because it’s not rooted in what happens to us.  As we’ve seen—real, biblical joy is ultimately rooted in a person, Jesus.  The joy-giving truths of the unchangeable gospel don’t change.  Because our joy is rooted in them, our joy should not evaporate when life becomes difficult.

This is a reminder to us that —we must be very careful NOT to pursue satisfaction the way the world does–through the uncertain, fleeting pleasures of this life.  The world says, if life gets hard—make a change—run away—move to a new state—avoid that difficult person—complain, gripe, whine—desperately work to “fix” whatever is broken with your life so you can be “happy” again.  That’s the world—that’s fallen.  That’s also a recipe for frustration because if you’ve lived very long, you know that if you’re looking for happiness from your circumstances, you will experience profound disappointment.

The healthy believer going through trials trusts that God will use those trials to conform him/her to the image of Christ.  And that is a very good thing.  If conformity to Christ is our aim in life (as it should be), then the assurance of that brings joy in the midst of sorrow.  William Cowper in his hymn “God Moves in a Mysterious Way” says it as well as anyone.  “You fearful saints, fresh courage take; the clouds you so much dread–are big with mercy and shall break in blessings on your head.  Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for his grace, behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour:  The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.[3] 

Do you hear this pattern of joy coming out of sorrow in that hymn?  The dark clouds of suffering and difficulty threaten to bring fear for the believer, but the truth is—those clouds are actually filled with hidden mercy and blessing.  Likewise, as Cowper says, there is often in our life—a “frowning providence”—that is—difficult outward circumstances.  But the truth is—behind the “frown” of that outward difficulty, there is “a smiling face”—the face of God who loves us and who is at work in us for our good through the difficulty.  Likewise, after the “bitter bud” of painful circumstances a “sweet flower” of blessing is produced.

For some of you, ALL that you are experiencing in your trial is the taste of the “bitter bud.”  You know only the anxiety that comes from the dark clouds of difficulty in life.  You’re overwhelmed by what Cowper calls God’s “frowning providence.”  We must know that this is sub-Christian.

We must remember that our trials are only external and temporary.  Trust God and rejoice in faith for the blessings that will soon fall from the dark clouds filled with God’s mercy.  Trust and rejoice in the smiling face of God that lies behind the frowning providence.  By faith, rejoice in the sweet flower that always comes after the bud’s bitter taste. Only a person who knows Christ can find joy even in the midst of pain and as the Scripture teaches, pain is intended by God to lead us to ultimate joy.

This is the pattern Jesus established for us. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”  It was for joy that Jesus endured the pain of the cross.  His suffering produced a joy so strong it rendered powerless his shame on the cross.[4]

For the believer, joy should be a fire within us that we regularly stoke with the fuel of the good news of the gospel.  Sadly, some believers who have perhaps known great joy in the past are bereft of it now. There are things that can dampen our joy—things that can smother the fire in us to a faint flicker.  Here are a few common joy-killers in the life of a believer.  First, if a believer forgets that the goal of his/her life is finding our joy in God—that will hinder joy.

We can become so wrapped up in the things of this world that cannot bring lasting joy—family, friends, money, possessions–that the goal of finding joy in God has slipped off our radar screen.  If someone were to ask you the purpose for your life, could you honestly tell them that you believe you were placed on this earth to glorify God by finding your highest joy in him?  If we aren’t shooting for that, we won’t hit it.  For some, we lack joy because we forget its centrality to our life in Christ.

Sin and a guilty conscience will also kill your joy.  If you’re living in a pattern of unrepentant sin, that will quench the fire of the Holy Spirit and Galatians chapter five tells us that joy is a fruit of the Spirit.  Whatever quenches or grieves the joy-producing Spirit within us can’t help but hinder our joy.  Our joy will smolder under the blanket of constant guilt and shame and it doesn’t matter whether this guilt is deserved—in response to genuine sin–or if it’s the unearned guilt of false condemnation from Satan.  If you’re feeling out of fellowship with God because of sin, that will chase away joy.  If joy is to radiate through our lives, we must repent of our sins and trust in the gospel promise that “there …is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

A final joy killer is–joy disappears if you are not living in faith in God’s goodness and promises—if you’re not fighting for the joy that is yours through Christ.  If you’re allowing your heart to be more influenced by your circumstances than the promises of the gospel, then you’re living in unbelief because you’re not trying to find your joy in God, but the things of this world.  If, however, you’re looking for your joy in Christ, then as he promised–you will have joy.

Joy is the natural state of the believer—Jesus purchased our joy on the cross.  If we’re not experiencing it, it’s because we’ve allowed something to steal it from us.  If you claim to be a believer but have never experienced a joy that can overwhelm your painful circumstances—seek God to see if your conversion was genuine.  A joyless Christian is an oxymoron—a contradiction in terms.

Perhaps you’re here today and you’ve not placed your trust in Christ.  If so, then you may have experienced great happiness at times, but it’s rooted in the happenings of your life—not in Jesus Christ.  Perhaps your life has been difficult, and a lot of happiness has eluded you.  There is eternal joy waiting for those who have looked at their attempts to be good enough for God and have renounced them and run to the cross for their forgiveness.

They turn from their own attempts to be good enough for God and run to Christ for his forgiveness and his righteousness that we need to get us to heaven.  If you haven’t given up on your own futile attempts to be right with God—do that today—place your trust in Christ alone and what he has done on the cross to purchase your forgiveness and a right standing before God.  In his presence you can know fullness of joy.  May God give us the grace to know the joy of the Lord as our strength for his glory and our joy.

[1] Keller, T.J. (2013).  The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive, New York City:  Redeemer Presbyterian Church.

[2] Keller, T.J. (2013).  The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive, New York City:  Redeemer Presbyterian Church

[3] Cowper, William.  1774 God Moves in a Mysterious Way.

[4] http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/running-the-race-looking-to-the-finisher

The Christmas text that Andy read this morning from Luke’s gospel has come to be known as “The Annunciation” or, the announcement of the birth of Christ by the archangel Gabriel to a virgin named Mary.  There is so much here in these verses.  There is so much theology here, that we must in some small way unpack these verses.  On a purely human level, Mary is the heroine here.  In many ways, when we meet her here as a teenager, she is in the midst of her finest hour.  She is rightly admired for the astonishing grace and poise she shows here in this absolutely unique situation.

But as we’ve said many times, what we must first look for in any bible story… is God.  HE is the ultimate hero in any story in Scripture and when we look for him in this story, we’re dramatically struck by the incredible display of God’s sovereign rule embedded within this announcement by Gabriel.  This morning let’s look at this text through THAT lens—looking for God’s sovereign majesty displayed as he announces his plan for the birth of the Savior.  This is a plan that would first, impact Mary.  But what takes place here between Mary and this angel will also endlessly ripple outward to impact all people at all times in all places.

This text, as do so many others in the bible, reveals the magnificent reality that God is in total and absolute control of history.  What is meant by that is this–this plan Gabriel announces for the birth of Jesus of Nazareth involving the virgin Mary was conceived by God in eternity past.  Luke’s account of the birth of Jesus records this glorious intersection between God’s eternal plan and this temporal realm as the eternal God—in the person of Jesus of Nazareth– quite literally steps into time as he begins life in the womb of the virgin Mary.

This divine intersection between the eternal realm and this time/space dimension was initially revealed to only a very small group of people.  The clue in this story that tips us off to the fact that this seemingly obscure event is in fact of eternal significance is the presence of this angelic figure, Gabriel the archangel.  Interaction between humans and angels in the bible, archangels in particular, is reserved for events of only cosmic significance. This event was of such unique importance in salvation history that it required a personal announcement from one of the most celebrated messengers in history.  This is the same Gabriel who, 500 years earlier had appeared multiple times to the prophet Daniel as he unfolded to him God’s end time plans for this world.  Here, this same Gabriel will later appear to Zechariah the priest and will remind him that he (Gabriel) “stands in very the presence of God.”  This is a very special messenger because his message is very special.

As we look for God in this familiar story, I want us to see the intense level of God’s forceful (many today would say almost brutal), sovereign control as he exerts that over these people and circumstances.  We see three amazing expressions of this sovereign rule of God—first, in his unquestioned Lordship over Mary, second, the comprehensive nature of God’s reign in Mary’s life and third, his unchangeable decree about his Son, Jesus.

For the next few moments, try to forget the fact that you’re familiar with this story.  By God’s grace, let’s labor to read this through the eyes of a person who is trying to learn more about God.  Let’s first notice the unquestioned Lordship God has over Mary in the manner in which he chooses her.  Here, we see God’s very forceful sovereignty over this teenage girl. 

What I mean by forceful sovereignty is seen in several ways in this narrative.  First, notice that God doesn’t issue an invitation to Mary to become part of his plan.  When I was in seminary, I had an instructor who loved to speak about God who invited her and other people to do things.  I listened to her talk about this “God who invites” and wondered who on earth she was talking about.  In all the time I had been a follower of Christ, I did not recall God once inviting me to do anything. The sovereign King of the universe doesn’t invite people because implicit in an invitation is the option to refuse the invitation without consequence.

If you invite someone to a party, he/she has the genuine option of refusing your invitation and can do so without fear of negative consequences.  God doesn’t invite Mary.  Neither does he host an angelic focus group to determine the best way to approach Mary to ensure a positive response.  Gabriel doesn’t bring any consent slips with him for Mary to deliberate over.

 This is NOT an invitation, it’s an annunciation(!) That is–the announcement of what God IS going to do.  Mary has only one option here—this decision to use her in this very strange way was made for her in eternity past.  God is now simply doing Mary the favor of announcing to her what she will do as she carries out her role in this plan God is now announcing.  We mustn’t allow our familiarity with this story to minimize the radical nature of this announcement.  Make no mistake–to put it crassly, God is hijacking this teenager’s life.  All the plans SHE may have dreamed about for a typical Galilean domestic life are erased in an instant and this obscure teenage girl will now, by God’s sovereign decree, become the most celebrated mother in history.

She will do something no woman had ever done or ever will do.  As a virgin, she will give birth to the Son of God.  Almighty God would become a human being and it’s her genetic material that will supply the human element.  And again, God doesn’t bother asking her opinion on the matter.  When you look at the objectively, this is a titanic display of absolute divine authority and one which runs absolutely counter to so many of the values most 21 century Americans hold dear.  Let’s walk through this dialogue between Gabriel and Mary.  Gabriel begins this exchange with Mary with encouraging words that the end up troubling Mary.

In verse 28, he greets her by calling her “O favored one.”  This statement troubles Mary because she didn’t know what it meant for her to be highly favored with God.  After this powerful, but rather vague statement of encouragement, Gabriel then announces God’s plan to abduct her life and bring it into the flow of his pre-ordained plan to redeem his people.  As much as this forceful display of authority may go against the grain of our hyper feministic, anti-authority culture, it doesn’t bother Mary in the least.  It’s clear that part of God’s sovereign plan for this young virgin was also to do a special work of grace in her life to prepare her for her unique role in history.

Luke tells us that when she hears of this radical re-ordering of her life, she is greatly humbled by it, but there is absolutely no sense of resistance here.  What follows in her response to Gabriel (that has come to be known as “The Magnificat,)” is an eloquent song of praise to God that is absolutely drenched in Old Testament Scripture.  In ten verses she quotes or alludes to the Old Testament over 20 times.  This young woman is saturated with Scripture.  What she tells us here reveals that Mary had been conditioned to respond the way she did.  We know this because she understood two very important truths that we can easily forget.  First, Mary understood who she was in her relationship to God.  She states this in verse 38.  “…Behold, I am the servant [literally “slave”] of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”  Mary knew who she was—she was a slave and she knew slaves don’t have rights—slaves don’t give their permission and they don’t negotiate for better terms.  They don’t sign consent slips and they DON’T refuse their Master.

What’s more, Mary’s response helps us to see that Mary also knew, loved and trusted her Master.  In verse 49 she says of God, “For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”  Being told that you are going to be pregnant out of wedlock where, under Jewish law, your betrothed husband could have had you stoned to death, may not seem to fit under the category of “great things” to many people, but they did to Mary.  And the reason is because she knew, loved and trusted this God who had sent her this amazing message.

Her response to this announcement is to worship God crying out, “holy is his name.”  Instead of responding to this summons with hesitation (like Moses did;) Mary responds in worship because she understands that she had been given a truly unique opportunity to magnify the Lord.  It’s clear from this story that magnifying the Lord was Mary’s agenda, not preserving her personal autonomy.  If you know you are a slave, if you know, love and trust God and you have devoted your life to magnifying the Lord, then whatever God asks you to do will be a cause for worship.  Mary models that here for us.

To Mary, this didn’t feel like heavy-handed treatment.  It was a glorious opportunity and privilege because she loved God more than anything else and if God chose to do with her something amazing, unprecedented and that bore great cost to her, that was great with her. She was God’s loving slave who trusted in him implicitly.  And when God calls us to do something that feels extreme to us and we chafe at it instead of singing His praises, we know from Mary’s example that it’s because we have forgotten our slave status and/or we don’t love and trust God very much.

Notice a second and related observation about God.  That is–the comprehensive nature of God’s reign in Mary’s life.  In one verse of sacred scripture, God sets the course for the rest of her life and in particular, the next nine months.  Verse 31 says, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”  This is an absolutely “full-service plan” God has for Mary.  That is—Mary doesn’t have ANY decisions to make.  God will, through the Spirit, conceive this child.  HE has predetermined its gender and has even supplied his name.

She doesn’t yet know that God has also determined that, in her ninth month of pregnancy, she will have to ride 100 miles on a donkey to get to the place God has predetermined the child will be born—a little town called, Bethlehem.  All those details and many, many more, have all been taken care of.  All Mary has to do for the immediate future is bear the child for the next nine months and in this predetermined time and place, give Him birth. God’s sovereign control over Mary was comprehensive.

Third, notice God’s unchangeable decree about His Son.  In verse 32, God says about this little one Mary was to bear, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end.”  I used an important theological term a moment ago that must be explained, and that word is “decree.”  What does that mean?  The answer may seem like we’re getting off into the weeds, but it’s actually important so please hang in there.

Theologians divide God’s will into two categories.  First, there is his will of command.  That is, what he commands people to do.  These commands can and often are, broken by sinful people.  The fact that sinners can break God’s commands doesn’t however, mean that God is not sovereign over this area of his will.  He is infinitely bigger than people’s sinful choices to rebel against his commands and, in fact, somehow, in ways we cannot know, he sovereignly enfolds even our disobedience into his plan.  That does not make it right when we disobey his will of command.  It is sinful and when we do it, there will always be painful consequences for us.  But it doesn’t frustrate God’s over-arching plans.

In addition to his will of command is a second category of God’s will.  This is his will of decree.  Unlike his will of command, this expression of his will is utterly unchangeable and unbreakable.  One popular definition of God’s decrees are– “his plans for history and they always happen.”  These decrees of God in scripture often include major events in redemptive history such as the birth of his Son to this virgin named, Mary.  The second coming of Christ is another example of God’s will of decree.

There is NOTHING that can stop Jesus from returning as promised and bringing judgment to this world and eternal joy to his people.  These decreed events WILL inescapably happen and there is no way any human can hinder them.  Like Mary, the people living out his decrees are given no option of saying no and God does whatever he needs to do in their hearts to ensure their compliance to his will of decree.

We see this two-fold nature of God’s will in several places in the bible and sometimes there is tension between the two.  Think about the Exodus.  God through Moses commands Pharaoh on numerous occasions, “Let my people go.”  That is a clear example of God’s will of command issued to Pharaoh through his prophet, Moses and Pharaoh repeatedly broke that commandment.  But in Exodus 7:3, before the first plague was announced, God ALSO says this to Moses about his commands to Pharaoh, “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,” Pharaoh will not listen to you…”  This is God’s will of decree.  God’s will of command in this context was “Let my people go.”  His will of decree however was that his glory would be seen through the plagues and in order for his glory to be seen to the fullest, he hardened pharaoh’s heart to his repeated commands.

We see this same dynamic in another crucial event in the history of redemption, the death of Christ.  In Luke 22:22 Jesus says of his imminent death, “The Son of Man will go as it has been decreed, but woe to that man who betrays him.” [NIV] Here in one sentence we have the will of decree—Christ WILL go to the cross according to the eternally pronounced decree of God.  But also implied is God’s will of command.  Jesus pronounces a curse on Judas who clearly disobeys God’s command by betraying the very Son of God.  Judas was held responsible for his sin in betraying Jesus to the cross even though Isaiah 53:10 says, “Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief…” 

All of that is to say that– what was to come about in the life of Mary as it relates to Jesus was God’s will of decree and what Gabriel says about Jesus in verses 32-33 is simply a restatement of what the prophets have predicted about him hundreds of years before.  In fact, there are at least five Old Testament prophecies about the coming Messiah alluded to in this announcement from Gabriel to Mary.  All of these are part of God’s will of decree as it concerns the birth of his Son as a baby in Bethlehem.  The first of these is in verse 27 where Luke introduces this announcement by telling us that Gabriel went to visit a virgin.

This of course is in fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14 where the prophet says, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”  One of the distinguishing marks about this birth (and boy is it distinguishing!) is the fact that the Messiah would be born to a virgin.  Luke doesn’t want us to miss the fulfillment of this prophecy, so he skillfully weaves it into the introduction of this exchange between the archangel and Mary.

The other four prophetic fulfillments embedded in this announcement are in verses 32-33.  Let me read those verses again.  Verse 32 begins with Gabriel saying, “32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,  33and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  These particular verses are drawn from one of the most important prophetic sections of the entire Old Testament.

Gabriel’s words reflect the truths contained in the covenant God made with King David back in Second Samuel chapter seven.  This prophecy was announced to David as he was reflecting on what was to him, a terrible irony.  Namely, that he was living in an opulent house, while the Lord of Glory lived in a tent.  He badly wanted to build God a house—a temple where he would be worshipped.  In response to David’s offer (which God rejects for the time), God through the prophet Nathan establishes this glorious covenant with David. Each of these four statements Gabriel makes about Jesus are in some way a fulfillment of God’s covenant with David. Let’s read this covenant from Second Samuel chapter seven and as we read it, listen for what applies to David’s son, King Solomon and what applies to King Jesus that Gabriel alludes to in his conversation with Mary.

God promises David, ^“12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. ¹³ He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.  ¹⁴ I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, ¹⁵ but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.  ¹⁶ And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’”

You may have noticed that there are two separate lines of promises given here to David.  Scholars sometime describe prophecies like this as being like a mountain range.  When you look at a group of mountains from a distance, they may look like they are all there side by side.  From a distance, you cannot tell that are huge valleys between the ranges that separate those mountains.  This prophecy is like that.  It contains “mountains” that are close—those about king Solomon as David’s son.  But it also contains “mountains” that are far away but don’t appear to be distant from the prophecy.  That is—those promises about Jesus, the great Son of David.  One line of promises is those that God will more fulfill to David in his immediate successor to the throne, his son, Solomon.  The second line of promises are those that will not be fulfilled until a thousand years later when the great King that David points to comes on the scene—the true Son of David, Jesus the Messiah.

Notice in Luke 1:32 Gabriel says of Christ, “He will be called the Son of the Most High.”  Notice two things about this designation.  First, it fulfills the Davidic covenant where God says of the son of David in 2 Samuel 7:14, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son…”  This is not only a son of David by lineage.  This will also be a Son of God.  First, Jesus is the Son of God and second, he is the Son of David, the one who would fulfill David’s kingly role.

David represented the high-water mark of Israel’s kings. Though he was sinful and capable of doing great evil, he was also the human example that every other king would be compared to—a man after God’s own heart.  And yet, he was only beginning a reign that would ultimately be fulfilled and completed in his “Son,” Jesus Christ.  Another fulfillment is seen in verse 33 where Gabriel says of Jesus, “and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.”  Again, notice the difference between David and Jesus, the One to whom David points.

David died and his son Solomon took the throne and his family was represented on the throne of Judah until 587BC when the last Davidic king was taken away in shame, exiled to Babylon.  There was, however, within Israel a great hope because of this very Davidic covenant promise– that this dynasty of King David’s was not over, but only interrupted.  The Jews were constantly looking for this King who would come in David’s line but unlike David, whose reign would never end.  The initial dynastic line of David reigned over the kingdom of Judah not even 500 years, but this Son of God, Son of David would establish an eternal reign.

King David captured the Jebusite stronghold of Jerusalem and made it Israel’s capital.  King Jesus would establish and reign over the New Jerusalem that would never be captured or torn down.  King David brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem signifying the very presence of God among his people and he wanted to build a permanent sanctuary for it.  King Jesus IS the radiance of God—the Son of God who IS God and he will reign as King and dwell among his people forever.  King David planned to build a house for God.  Jesus says in Matthew 16:18, “I will build [the word literally means to build a house] my church [my house] and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”  His coming kingdom, which includes his church, will, unlike David’s kingdom, never end.

Gabriel told Mary all this would happen, and it all happened precisely as he said it would.  That should be of tremendous encouragement to us for at least two reasons. First, it should encourage us because it gives us a rock-solid hope that the remainder of these yet unfulfilled promises about Jesus will absolutely and without doubt be fulfilled.  I don’t know about you, but when I watch the news or read the newspaper and I see the putrid mess we are making of things on planet earth, my heart longs for the King, the One who is called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.  Don’t you cry out for the King of Kings to come back and take the government of this world upon his shoulders?  Don’t you long for the eternal reign of King Jesus and the New Jerusalem?  Don’t you long for an end of the sin in this wretched world we live in?  Don’t you long to live under a King who knows you and loves you and died for you?

Do you know why we can be utterly certain that all that will happen?  Because God decreed it would happen and as we have seen, the decrees of God cannot be violated—God’s plans for history ALWAYS happen! The other reason we should take encouragement from God’s sovereignty over history is not so much on a global or kingdom-wide level, but on a personal level.  Our lives can become intensely messed up through our sin, or the sin of others.

We wonder how God could ever be in control of the mess we or others have made of things.  Yet this text reminds us that the same God who decreed to a peasant, teenage virgin from Galilee that she would be the mother of the Son of God also promises us through Job in Job 42:2, “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” This God is on still on the throne and he reigns over my life and over your life.  He is bigger than our sin and he will take our sin and out of our manure piles of iniquity, he can grow beautiful things.  Only God can do this.  Only God can take our mess and redeem it into something glorious.

That means that you don’t have to give up on yourself as a lost cause because of past sins.  God can redeem even the most costly sins and mistakes because he is infinitely bigger than them.  Don’t believe the lie that your life is doomed to misery and failure because of past sins and mistakes.  God’s purposes for your life cannot be thwarted…even by YOU!  This should encourage all of us because our lives are filled with sinful messes.

This should encourage us to come back to our sovereign King and ask him, as only he can, to take our lives, our marriages, careers or whatever and do what only the Great King can do.  That is—come and reign over it and make it into something that by his hand, can magnify his name.  May God give us the grace, as Mary did, to say with our hearts to our king, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” for his glory and our joy. Let’s pray.