Sermon Tone Analysis

v 22) Prays that the church would be marked by glory

What is glory?

glory: The created brightness that surrounds God’s revelation of himself.

In another sense of the term, it refers to God’s honor.

(13E.20)

As God the Father shared His glory with God the Son:

So Jesus gave glory unto His people.

In what ways does Jesus give us glory?

The glory of His presence

The glory of His Word

The glory of His Spirit

The glory of His power

The glory of His leadership

The glory of His preservation

Paul also understood that Jesus give His glory to His people:

In all these aspects, there is the essential aspect of the presence of Jesus, God the Son.

Scripturally speaking, when God gives or displays His glory to His people, it is some type of manifestation of God’s presence.

God’s glory is, in some way, the radiance or shining of His presence, His essential nature.

It is very important to remember that the glory that God the Father gave to God the Son was glory that often appeared humble, weak, and suffering.

It was glory that was ultimately displayed in radical sacrifice.

The glory of Jesus is almost the opposite of the self-glory and vain glory of man.

The glory of Jesus was ultimately displayed in His work on the cross.

John 7:39, 12:16, 12:23

The presence of glory- among the Persons of the Godhead and the member of Jesus’ church- this glory contributes to the oneness and unity of God’s people.

Where there is a sense of God’s glory, unity is so much easier.

Lesser things that often divide us are set far in the background when there is a sense of God’s glory at work.

v 23) Unity in love

Jesus again referred to the living, organic unity He prayed would exist among His people.

This isn’t the totalitarian unity of coercion or fear, and it isn’t the unity of compromise.

Jesus prayed for unity of love and common identity in Him.

What I find intriguing about this is the similarities of this unity to sanctification.

This oneness is simultaneously something already achieved and something that needs perfecting.

Jesus is also taking the idea introduced in John 17:21 (so that the world may believe that you have sent me) and expanded it.

Pay close attention to the repetition and the expansion of the idea.

He expanded the idea, now praying that the unity among generations of believers to come would also demonstrate to the world that Jesus loves His people, and loves them after the pattern of God the Father’s love for God the Son.

This clues is to the importance of unity and love among Christians.

It is as if Jesus gave the world permission to doubt both His mission and His love if the world does not see unity and love among believers.

This is difficult, because sometimes the most unloving and critical among the followers of Jesus directly justify their divisiveness and sharp criticism as love, as in “I only demand that you be exactly as I am because I love you.”

This is difficult, because sometimes it is true that there must be criticism, correction, and rebuke in the name of love.

This is difficult, because even as we understand the words of Jesus here, we also understand that there are many, many other reasons why people don’t believe:

Christians have a great responsibility to display Jesus to the world through their love and unity, but often Christians are too quick to blame one another for an unbelieving world.

“But what a sad thing was it, that a heathen should soon after have cause to say, no beasts are so mischievous to men, as Christians are to one another.”

What’s the application?

v 24) “See my glory”

Jesus asked the unity between Himself and His people be completed.

Remember His promise not that long:

The words “I desire” mean something.

They mean that Jesus for the consummation of all things, greatly desiring for His people to be gathered to Him in heaven.

Jesus longed for heaven’s completion of all things.

“Where I am” Jesus was not in heaven yet, but He spoke as if He already were there.

In a sense, we are called to do the same, understanding that we are seated with Jesus in heavenly places even as we remain on earth.

“Was he not carried away by the fervor of his devotion?

Where was he when he uttered the words of our text?

If I follow the language I might conclude that our Lord was already in heaven.

He says, ‘rather, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory.’

Does he not mean that they should be in heaven with him? of course he does; yet he was not in heaven; he was still in the midst of his apostles, in the body upon earth; and he had yet Gethsemane and Golgotha before him ere he could enter his glory.

He had prayed himself into such an exaltation of feeling that his prayer was in heaven, and he himself was there in spirit.”

-Spurgeon

When talking about Jesus’ glory what sticks out to you?

What blows my mind is that Jesus said this would occupy the attention of His people in heaven- to behold the glory of Jesus.

There must be something so deep, so enthralling, so vast to the glory of Jesus that it can occupy our attention in the life to come.

Jesus clearly connects the glory that the Father gave to the Son to the fact that God the Father loved him before the foundation of the world.

This glory was given in the context of a love relationship, and a love relationship extending into eternity past.

This again gives us insight of what was going on before creation, there was unity and harmony between the Persons of the Godhead, the Trinity.

Even if Jesus had not specifically told us this, we might have understood it by other Biblical truths, understanding that God is eternal:

and that God is love:

There was never a time when God did not love and was not love.

Genuine love must have an object outside of itself to love; therefore love existed between the Persons of the Godhead before anything was created.

The Triune nature of God is not only Scripturally correct, it is a logical necessity given what we know of God through His revealed word.

vv 25-26) The conclusion

[25] Jesus understood that His present and soon-to-be-endured pain did not diminish the righteousness of God the Father in even the smallest ways.

The world failed to see God revealed in Jesus.

But a few disciples did, and they believed that God had sent Jesus.

On the eve of His crucifixion, there were only a few faithful hearts in the whole of mankind- and even those were about to forsake Him!

Jesus first mentioned this idea earlier in this prayer:

Whatever their weaknesses and failings, the disciples understood that God the Father sent God the Son.

[26] Jesus declared the Father’s name to His disciples when He was with them.

This meant that He revealed the Father to them.

His words and works were the words and works of the Father.

They saw in Christ a perfect expression of the Father.

The world called Jesus a blasphemer:

a drunk, a glutton, and an associate of sinners:

A demon-possessed pagan:

An illegitimate child:

Jesus received love from God the Father, and this love relationship was the strength and sustenance of His life.

Here, concluding His great prayer, Jesus prayed that the same love that was His strength and sustenance would fill His disciples (both near and far).

This speaks to the essential place of love in the Christian life and community.

Jesus thought it so important that He specifically prayed for love when He might have prayed for many other things.

Take love from joy and you have hedonism.

Take love from holiness and you have self-righteousness.

Take love from truth and you have a cold bitter orthodoxy.

Take love from mission and you have conquest.

Take love from unity and you have tyranny

“And I in them” Jesus prayed that His disciples would not only be filled with the love of God the Father, but that they would also know the indwelling presence of Jesus Himself.

This continues the emphasis on abiding and the indwelling Jesus from the words of Jesus earlier that evening.