Welcome to the Westminster Pulpit, an extension of the worship ministry at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Please contact us for permission before reproducing this message in any format, and may this sermon nurture your life in a meaningful way as we proclaim our Savior. We now join our senior pastor, Dr. Chris Walker. I'm gonna ask you to open your Bibles to John chapter 17 tonight, John chapter 17. The theme for this Lent series is the glory of Christ. And tonight I want to really introduce that theme of the glory of Christ, but that's a weighty theme. How do we begin to really plumb the depths of the glory of Christ in 20 or 25 minutes here? But our goal is to look at one verse here from John 17 and my goal in doing so is to consider Jesus' desire on the night before he went to the cross. Jesus was contemplating the cross and looking at the cross the next day. What was it that Jesus was desiring and wanting for his people. I think it's a principle probably pretty well established, we all understand and know, that we will go to pretty great lengths to secure something that we really want. that we have a deep desire for. This struck home to me recently as I was reading the story of Suzette Kilo. Some of you who are familiar with the legal world might recognize that name, but Suzette was a nurse in Connecticut, and she had one dream in life. Her one dream was to own a home that looked out over the water. Now, as a nurse in Connecticut, that was way above her pay grade, but One day, she found a run-down property on East Street in Fort Trumbull, Connecticut. It overlooked the Thames River where it intersected with Long Island Sound there in Connecticut. And it was very run-down, but she was able to make a down payment on it. So getting this rundown property, she started working extra shifts so that she could hire contractors to renovate the home. And then she poured just hours and energy and sweat and tears to make this into a home until it was redone and beautiful and she could finally relax on her back deck and look out over the water. Unfortunately for Suzette, her dream was short-lived because the city of New London right next door needed more tax revenue. And they had an opportunity to get that when the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said they were willing to come to town if their entire development plan would be approved, but they needed the entire East Street of Fort Trumbull for their development. And so they came knocking for buying out the homes, but Suzette refused. So they came with a higher offer and Suzette refused. So they said they were just going to take it by eminent domain. So she took it to court and then to the state Supreme Court and then to the United States Supreme Court. Can you imagine all the lengths that Suzette was willing to go to for her dream home? Now, sadly, she lost on a 5-4 decision at the Supreme Court in a case that both sides of the political aisle have decried as one of the worst decisions ever, as that whole street lost their homes. But as I read this story, I thought about the battles she fought and the energy she poured out, what she was willing to do to get what she so desired and wanted. Of course, when we turn to John 17, Jesus prays for a number of things in this chapter. He prays that God would keep His people secure so that not one of them would be lost. He prays that God would sanctify us in the truth. He prays that his people would be one in unity with God and with each other. But there's only one time that Jesus uses the word desire. Father, this is what I desire. And Jesus was not just willing to pour his life into achieving this desire. He was not just willing to fight legal battles or put blood, sweat, or tears into it. He was literally willing to shed his blood and give up his life in order to attain this desire. And what's that desire? Well, look at verse 24. We're gonna look at just one verse tonight. John 17, verse 24. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Father, I just pray that you would be with us tonight, that you would be with us as we look at this text, and that you would give us a greater love for Christ as we look at his glory, and we pray it in his name. Amen. Here's Jesus' desire. Jesus' great desire is that we would be with him so that we could see his glory. Now maybe that surprises us a little bit that the one thing Jesus would desire, that he would state in this sense, is that we would see his glory. But I think the testimony of Scripture is that beholding Christ's glory is the greatest blessing and the highest reward that we could imagine. And I want to consider why that's the case tonight. So first I want you to note that Jesus expresses His desire that all of His people, all those that the Father has given them, all those who would follow Him in faith, that His people would be with Him where He is. Jesus says, I desire that all you've given me would be with me where I am. And this union with Jesus, this being with Jesus where He is, is the repeated object of our salvation and the source of our hope throughout scripture. Just think of some of the places where this comes up. You think of Jesus. Do you remember where Jesus is hanging on the cross and the thief is next to him and expresses faith? And do you remember what Jesus says to the thief? He says in Luke 23, 43, truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise. The key is you will be with me. I think of what Paul says in Philippians 1.23. Remember, Paul's having this sort of debate over which would be better, to keep on living or to die. And we think that's kind of a morbid debate for Paul to have with himself. But what does Paul say? Philippians 1.23, my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. Or I think of Paul when he talks about our hope in 1 Thessalonians 4.17, he looks forward to the great hope of all believers at the return of Jesus and he says, then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so, We will always be with the Lord. You see this repeated emphasis of Jesus' desire, of Jesus' statement, of the epistles telling us to be with Christ. That's this great goal and hope of our salvation. It's in the Old Testament, too, in those beautiful verses from Psalm 16. The psalmist says in Psalm 16, verse 11, in your presence, there is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And so what I hold out to you is that the repeated claim of the scriptures in the Old Testament and the New is that Jesus, Jesus is our highest joy, our greatest hope, our eternal security, and the best thing that could be offered to us is to be with Jesus. And really, what could be better than being with the lover of our souls who gave himself to redeem us from sin in this present evil age? But I want you to look again at John 17, 24, because this is clearly this end and object of our salvation to be with Jesus. But there's something that particularly draws my attention about John 17, 24. And the thing that particularly draws my attention, and you might have noticed this as well as we read through it, is that Jesus does not actually present being with him as the end goal. He wants his people to be with him for another purpose. You see what it says there? He prays that we might be with him in order that, the Greek literally says, that they might be with me in order that we might see his glory. His reason for wanting us to be with him is that we might see or behold his glory. And I wanna try to understand Jesus' desire tonight by asking two questions. First, what is Jesus' glory? If he wants us to behold it and see it, what is Jesus' glory? And second, why is it that beholding Jesus' glory is his greatest desire for his people? So those are the two questions I wanna ask. So first, what is Jesus' glory? When Scripture talks about God's glory, or that word glory, it refers to the splendor of God in all that He is. You might think of God's glory as the sum of all of his attributes. If you put together and stack up all that God is and all of that majesty and perfection and splendor of all of his attributes and who he is, that is God's glory. It is his righteousness and his justice, his power and his majesty, his mercy, his love, his faithfulness, his truth, the sum of these things. is His glory. God's glory is the beauty of all that is praiseworthy about God's nature and God's character. The beauty of all that is praiseworthy about His nature and His character, that is God's glory. And of course, God's glory then is reflected and seen in so many ways. We get a glimpse of God's glory in creation as His character is reflected in creation. We get a a vision of God's glory from his works and how he interacts with his people through scripture. And of course, we get a vision of his glory through his salvation. But the full weight of his glory, of course, is something that's beyond us. You might remember how Moses asked God that question back in Exodus, and he said, God, will you just show me your glory? And God says, well, I'll give you a sneak peek at the backside of my glory. But if I were to show you the full weight of the splendor of who I am, you would die. because our finite mortality cannot handle the weight of it. It's just like we can't get an up-close, right-next-to-it view of the sun. We would die, right? And in a far greater way, to be next to the infinite glory of God, we could not survive that look. But from before the foundation of the world, the Father, God the Father's plan was for God the Son to play a particular role in revealing God's glory to the world. And so Jesus' glory is particularly seen in the way in which He reveals God to His people, and in the way in which He accomplishes God's plan of redemption for His people to do so. You might think of Hebrews 1.3, and Dr. Rogers is really going to focus on this element next week, which says that Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature. In Jesus, particularly, we see the nature and character of God. I think of John 1, verse 14, which says, The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So in Jesus, this one who is overflowing with grace and truth from his very nature, we see the nature or the glory of God. And so Jesus' glory is particularly evident in the way in which he makes the nature and character of God visible and clear to us by coming and speaking to us and then accomplishing our redemption for us. It's the great plan of God for our salvation. And over the next seven weeks, we're gonna look at a number of different aspects of Jesus' person in His ministry and how they demonstrate His glory. But I think what I want us to note here is that when we think about Jesus' glory, we think about the way in which He reveals to us the sum total of the nature and the character of God and who He is. Now, we need to make a little bit of a distinction here, because it would be important to note that if you were the apostles, or you were a resident of Palestine in the first century A.D., and you were walking and talking with Jesus, it would be true and appropriate to say that you had seen Jesus' glory. That's true, and the apostles did say that on several occasions. Peter says that, and says that, but Jesus' glory was also veiled in His time here on earth. And this is why if you were to look up at verse 5 in John 17, if you have your Bible still open to John 17, in verse 5 Jesus makes a particular request of his father. In verse 5 he says, now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed. In other words, having come to the point of finishing his earthly ministry, Jesus is praying that the Father would restore this glory that is rightfully his, that he has had. In other words, that glory has been veiled at some level during his earthly ministry. I think it's kind of like, and of course, he veiled that on purpose so that we would be able to see it and understand it. It's like a Nobel scientist who comes to explain physics to third graders. Everything he says to those third graders is perfectly true and accurate. Of course, they only get the tiniest fraction of the knowledge he has of physics, but it's certainly true and right and accurate. And in the same way, in our humanity and here on earth, we get a true and accurate picture and vision of the glory of God even though we're not getting the fullness of it. And so we could say that living in the presence of Jesus, we got a true vision of His glory there in the first century AD, even though we didn't get the fullness of it, which we will see when we are with Him on the last day. But now, as Christians, we can say, okay, well, we're not even living with Jesus, so what do we have when we can't look and see Jesus physically and bodily here? Well, Paul says that we can see Jesus' glory by faith. We see it by faith, if not by sight. We don't see him visibly or in person, but we do behold his glory by faith when we consider all that he has done for us and all of who he is as he's revealed in the scriptures. And as we rest on him and trust in him by faith, as we consider him and meditate on him and see him in the scriptures, we do by faith see the glory of Jesus. Then there's that day that's coming when we'll stand in His presence and see His full glory on display. And that's the great hope, the great excitement, the great goal that's out there that we look forward to on the day when we will be able to see His glory fully and in person in the full splendor of all of His excellencies and the glory which He had with His Father before the world existed. And that's what we'll see on that last day, and that's what Jesus desired that we would see. Jesus' great desire that we will be with Him where He is so that we would see His glory. That's like a 10,000 foot summary of what we mean when we talk about Jesus' glory, but the question is why? Why is beholding Jesus' glory our greatest good? Why would beholding Jesus' glory be the one thing Jesus said he desired for his people to have? Well, I think we can give a couple of answers to that question. On the one hand, because there is nothing more overwhelmingly beautiful than the splendor of the excellencies of God. and all of God's glory will forever be seen most clearly to us or for us in the face of Jesus Christ. And so we will get our most beautiful, most full picture of the most excellent and splendid thing we could possibly imagine, and it's the glory of God through Jesus Christ when we are looking at him and gazing on his glory. I think of the way Peter put it in 1 Peter 2, 9, if you remember that passage when Peter says that God had called us as a chosen race and a royal priesthood and a holy nation. Why? Why did God do that? we might proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Beholding that glory and proclaiming those excellencies, delighting in them, being satisfied in them, rejoicing in them, giving them the praise that they deserve. That's our great purpose and joy. So yes, to delight in the excellencies of God as we see them in the face of Jesus Christ is a great and high good, and at the core, the center of the purpose that God had in redeeming us. But in addition, seeing the glory of Christ is our great hope. And here, if you have your Bibles, it's the same author, different book. I wonder if you'd flip over to 1 John. 1 John. is we get a little glimpse into John's thinking. John is the one who records Jesus' desire here, and then he writes this epistle, 1 John later on, and in chapter three of 1 John, 1 John chapter three, he's talking about what it's going to be like one day when we get to see Jesus as he really is. That is, when we get to see Jesus in all of the glory that he had with the Father before the world existed. We see that. Note what he says there. 1 John 3, verse 2. Beloved, we are God's children now. We know that. And what we will be has not yet appeared. In other words, I don't even know what it's gonna be like when we are with the Lord fully. But notice what he says. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as He is. We will see Him as He is. That was Jesus' desire, right? That we would be with Him to see His glory. His glory as it really is. The glory that He had with the Father before the world existed. And what will we happen when we see His glory? When we see Him as He really is? We will be utterly transformed by it. we will become like him, John says. In other words, this great desire that God has to see us sanctified, purified, fully remade into the image of God, brought into that vision of what God intended us to be, that's going to be completed when we see him as he is and we behold his glory. We will be like him because we will see him as he is. Now that statement itself is mind-boggling, isn't it? I mean, what business, we say, does God have telling us that we will be like Him? And I start thinking, here I am, this guy, I got a clean grime out of my fingernails from working in my garden, and I gotta wash the sweat off my body, and I can't even love my wife and kids the way I ought without my sin and selfishness coming out. What business do I have reading something like this, that I will be like Jesus? And I will see him as he is. But this isn't just one verse that we kind of say, well, I'm not exactly sure what that means. Let's put it aside. This is actually the repeated hope of what scripture tells us, that we shall be like him when he is. Think about a couple other passages. I'm going to flip back to John 17. If you want to flip back there with me, I've got you hopping around your Bibles tonight. But I want you to see something else that Jesus says in this prayer of his. John 17, Jesus again is praying for his people. We read verse 24 about his desire, but if you just look up two verses from there, John 17, verse 22, take a look at what Jesus says there. The glory that you have given me, I have given them. What? The glory that the Father has given to Jesus, Jesus is now giving that glory to his people. A glory that You have given Me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as We are one, I in them, and You in Me." Same thing I think that Peter, the Apostle says in 2 Peter 1 verses 3 and 4 when he says, Jesus called us to His own glory and excellence. by which He has granted to us His precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature." That is a stunning statement, that Jesus called us to His own glory so that we might become partakers of the divine nature. Now, let's just pause and say, That does not mean that we are going to share in the divine essence of Jesus. We don't become divine. That's not the point at all. We will forever be the creatures who are falling down at the throne with the cherubim and the seraphim and the thousands upon thousands saying, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive blessing and honor and power and wealth and wisdom and might and glory. So there's no category confusion here. But, we were created to be image-bearers of God. We were created to reflect the beauty and the righteousness of His character. If God's glory includes the sum total of His attributes and we were created to display those attributes to creation as His image-bearers, then we were created to display and to share in some of this glory that belongs to the character of God. See, it's like, maybe a little bit like a painting that shares in the beauty of its subject. Not because it is the subject, but because it reflects and images that beauty accurately and truly. Well, in a similar way, we were meant to share the glory of God's character and righteousness and holiness. And part of what Jesus died to accomplish, what Jesus invites us to receive if we will turn from sin and self to follow him in faith, is to be restored and renewed in the image of God. And so to partake, Peter says, in the divine nature, not as being, not as essence, but in his character. Jesus says it's to receive glory from Him. What a stunning, stunning statement here. The goal and result of our salvation is to be with Jesus, to behold His glory, and then to be changed into His likeness, to reflect and participate in that glory. The goal is to be united again with God through Jesus Christ, knowing God's love, and displaying the glory of His character. And so is there any doubt that this is the greatest good that we could ever fathom? To be with Jesus, to behold His glory, that we might be changed to be like Him, to image and display His glory. What an unfathomable promise. It just gives us the greatest hope we could imagine for the future, doesn't it? And no wonder that Paul would say, yeah, I'd rather depart and be with Christ, beholding His glory, displaying His glory. It's far better. Well, we're coming to an end here tonight, but I wonder if I could just end by suggesting that we don't have to wait until heaven to behold the glory of Christ. We have to wait to heaven to behold it fully, but we are invited to behold the glory of Christ now by faith, meditating on who he is and what he has done for us. And doing so now brings us great reward. And just think about some of the things scripture says. Paul in 2 Corinthians 3.18 says that even now, it is as we behold the glory of Christ by faith that we are beginning to be changed more and more into his likeness. Here's what Paul says. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. In other words, that process, which is going to be complete when we are with Him, is starting now. And it's starting now when by faith we behold the glory of Christ and have our eyes fixed on the glory of Christ. our sanctification, our progress in being made more like Jesus, our being changed from our fleshly enslaved to sin selves into our sharing in Christ's glory selves as image bearers of God, it happens now, it begins now by the work of God's spirit in us as we consider and meditate on the glory of Jesus and all that he has done. So we begin now, and that hope of our growth and righteousness and sanctification happens now as we look at His glory. But if that wasn't enough, we could add beholding the glory of Christ also brings us strength, comfort, and assurance to our hearts now in the face of our anxieties and our troubles and the lure of this world's pleasure. You remember, Paul, I quoted Paul earlier when he said that our great hope is that we will be with the Lord forever. But do you remember the first words he wrote right after that? Therefore, comfort one another with these words. See, the hope of what we have in Christ is comfort. I think also of what Paul says in Romans 8, verse six, that to set the mind on the Spirit and the things of the Spirit is life and peace. Life and peace come from setting our eyes on Christ in the Spirit. Here's how John Owen, John Owen is the one who wrote this little book called The Glory of Christ that I'm kind of jumping off of for our series this Lent. John Owen says this, our minds are apt to be filled with troubles, fears, cares, dangers, distresses, ungoverned passions, and lusts of the world. But where the soul is fixed on the glory of Christ, the mind finds rest and peace. And he goes on and says, if we desire strong faith and powerful love, we must seek them by diligently beholding the glory of Christ by faith. On Christ's glory, I would fix all my thoughts and all my desires, and the more I see of the glory of Christ, the more the painted beauties of this world will wither in my eyes, and I will more and more be crucified to this world and drawn to Christ. Beholding Christ. begins now this process of sanctification. Beholding the glory of Christ brings us rest, life, peace, comfort, and weans us from the world. And if that isn't enough, I would end with beholding Christ's glory now by faith gives us a tiny joy of the splendor of heaven to come. See, in heaven our joy will be fulfilled as we dwell with Jesus and behold the glory of Jesus in union with God forever. And now we're invited to get a tiny glimpse of that by beholding the glory of Christ by faith. We're like the kid who's told, don't tell your siblings, but come on in the kitchen and you can have the first cookie off the tray and you can dip your finger in the frosting as we get ready for the birthday party tomorrow. By faith, we are invited to behold the glory of Christ and to begin to taste now that joy and that splendor that we will delight in for all eternity. And so if all of this is offered to us, Then my prayer for us over the next seven weeks is that seeing the glory of Jesus will be our great desire, just as it was Jesus' great desire on the night before he went to the cross. So let's pray. Father, these are deep waters because we're talking about the character and the excellencies of the God of the universe. And if we're talking about the character and the excellencies of the God of the universe, these are greater depths than we can even physically imagine in our current bodies. And yet, Lord, you've given us Jesus Christ and invited us through him to begin by faith to see, to behold your glory in him and what he has done for us. And so I pray, that we would do so. And as we look on Christ, may we be weaned away from the world. May we grow in righteousness and in holiness. And may we look forward with greater anticipation to the joys of heaven forever with you. We pray it in Jesus name. Amen. The Westminster Pulpit is courtesy of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. You are welcome to worship with us on Sunday mornings at 8 or 11 a.m. To learn more or have questions about the gift of salvation through Christ Jesus our Savior, contact us at westpca.com. Thank you, and may Christ be glorified through this ministry, the Westminster Pulpit.