Remembering, as I was sitting here, as I
looked at you all, valiant souls that came
up tonight, brought your bodies along with you,
the first time I went to help a
little in the work in Costa Rica, the
Christians arranged for us to meet in the
little hall there, and we sang, and we
talked, and we sang some more, and we
prayed a little, and then we sang again.
And after our visit was over, they told
us, now, don't forget we're going to meet
in the little hall again before you go
tomorrow.
So, we'll go the following day.
So, I was quite impressed, because when we
got to the little gathering, it was much
larger than it was the one when we
arrived.
Not only did we sing, and pray, and
chat, and talk, and so forth, but we
also had food supplies.
Tamales.
Any of you who know anything about tamales
know that in these Latin American countries, they
make it, and they make it in different
fashion.
We had a companion with us, and he'd
never seen tamales before, and when he opened
up the banana leaves, and saw this little
corn cake in there with a prune, or
a piece of pork, or something in the
center of it, he didn't think he could
go for it at all.
It was greasy, it was running with oil,
and so he sat over against the window,
and he disposed of this undesirable object outside,
and it wasn't long before we had some
four-footed friends come around and help him
out with the disposing of it.
So, I was asked to say a few
words before we left, and I said, well,
I'm very much impressed the fact that you're
all here tonight, and that there's a larger
company here tonight than when we arrived, and
also that we've got food now that we're
going, so I must, I can't do anything
else but conclude you're much happier to see
us go than you were when you arrived.
So, uh, they said, oh, no, no, no,
no.
I said, well, I'm just comparing one occasion
with the other, that's all, you know, so
this is our last night together, and I
think it was considerably larger than last night
was, so maybe, maybe I'll draw the same
conclusion.
We're just delighted to see you go.
We all want to be there to say
bye now.
All right, I wasn't aware of the fact
that I had promised to speak with you
last night on the subject of glory.
Well, John said that.
I did say I know that we were
going to look at the subject of glory
in this chapter, but I didn't know that
I had specified it was to be last
night, so if I have let you down
in that, just chalk it up to experience,
yours, and don't hold it against me too
long.
However, we're going to look briefly at the
subject of glory in this chapter this evening,
and I think I did suggest to you
on another occasion, it's a very difficult word
to define, it's a very difficult word to
describe because of the varied uses that are
given to it, to this word in the
scriptures, and that I think I suggested we
have celestial glories and terrestrial glories, we have
human glories and we have angelic glories, we
have even material things of which we read
in the scriptures that there is a glory
attached to them, so it isn't easy to
just put in one short sentence the full
complementary meaning of the word glory.
It's not easy to do, and I think
I did suggest to you too that even
in the marriage relationship that we were speaking
of a little this morning on a formal
occasion, we have the man being made in
the image and glory of God, and that
the woman is the glory of the man,
and then that the woman's glory is her
own, and so on, so that it's a
wide consideration, it's a wide field, this matter
of glory, which reminds me of a little
incident that took place in connection with this
man-woman relationship, partnership, companionship.
My wife said to me before I came,
now look, don't be telling too many stories.
You never used to tell stories when you
were preaching years ago.
What in the world is getting done to
you?
You're telling far too many stories.
Well, wives are not only supportive, but they're
kind of corrective too, you know, at times,
and not that we public speakers don't need
just that, but it reminded me of an
incident over in England when my father was
a young man.
There were two brothers over there.
I don't know if anybody here will remember
the Goodman brothers.
There was George Goodman and Montague Goodman, and
they were contemporary with my father back then
when they used to get on their bicycles
and go out and do what they called
the village work.
George Goodman had a very ordinary sort of
a name, George, you know, let George do
it, but they were both able teachers of
the scriptures and able gospel preachers as well,
but George, he's written several books.
Some of you may have some of George
Goodman's books, and I don't know that Montague
wrote any books or not, but anyway, he
had a very elitist name, didn't he?
What's George alongside Montague?
You can see right away I put him
in another category altogether, and Montague was quite
an elaborate speaker.
He was a very fluent orator actually, and
was much in demand speaking in the assemblies
in England back in those days.
So, his wife, his companion, she also got
to be quite in demand for speaking to
ladies' meetings and ladies' conferences.
In fact, she was very capable, evidently, and
one night she was coming home from, just
to show you how wonderfully supportive these wives
are, not to mention corrective, she came home
from a ladies' conference, and Montague, my lord,
was sitting in his study at his desk,
and she came in the front door, was
walking down the hall, and she stopped at
the door of his study, just to say
good night to him, and he's sitting there
very deeply engrossed in his study, you know,
and then he senses that she's there at
the door, so he said, uh, hello, my
dear, and uh, he said, hello, and uh,
how did you get along tonight?
She said, oh, fine, thanks.
He hadn't looked up yet.
He's still deeply engrossed in his book, you
know.
One of these men who, uh, isolates himself
into his books, and his study, and his
concentration, and so on, so he hadn't even
turned a glance to her at all at
this point, and I guess his wife kind
of felt it.
It was sort of an automatic response, so
she, he said, she looked up, and he
said to her, um, oh, my dear, which
of my sermons did you preach tonight?
And she said, neither of them, and here
is a man who was noted for his
voluminous collection of messages and sermons.
He, he had them by the score, and
that was the, that was the end of
that lesson.
She let on that he only had two.
Well, we need these, uh, wives, you see,
sometimes this woman is the glory of the
man.
All right, uh, let's look at the glory.
There are six or seven of them.
Distinctive glories in this chapter 17 of the
Gospel of John, and we will run over
some of them, uh, rather quickly, and then
get to the others.
We have already looked at the first verse
when our Lord said, speaking to his father,
that the hour has come, and he said,
glorify thy son, that thy son also may
glorify thee.
This word glory, we have it in the
noun form, we have it in the past
completed verb tense form, we have it in
the conjunction, conjunctive form, rather, and so it's
interesting to see how the word actually is
used, and the occasion, the surrounding material.
Glorify thy son.
The son is requesting to be glorified, in
order that thy son also may glorify thee.
Now, right away, you see, you have a
problem to understand just exactly what the word
is used, and how it is used, and
what the Lord is meaning.
He says, the hour has come, is looking
forward to the immediacy of the cross, and
all that lies before him before the cross,
and all that the cross itself will involve,
he was to go from Gethsemane, to Gabbatha,
to Golgotha, and he knows, as we have
mentioned before, all the details which are going
to happen to him.
And he says this, in relation to the
fact that the hour has come, that hour
which from, we say, eternity past, has been
known, it has been planned, it has been
anticipated.
And now, as our Lord stands here in
the hour, encompassed, it seems to me, in
all the features, and all the incidents, and
all the experiences, that that hour is going
to mean to him.
And he says, Father, the hour has come,
glorify thy Son.
And I say to you again, I believe
that these first statements of this chapter are
in relation to the cross.
And you ask yourself immediately, what did the
Lord Jesus mean when he speaks to his
Father, and says, glorify thy Son?
And the complementary statement to that is, that
thy Son also may glorify thee.
It is to be a mutual and reciprocal
glory, and it's in association with the hour,
that very intense hour, that hour that was
so filled into the congested, compacted experiences of
all the ages past, for he was ordained
from before the foundation of the world to
be, and to come to, just this hour.
He says, glorify thy Son.
And I have puzzled over this.
I really confess to you.
What did the Lord mean when he said
to his Father, glorify thy Son?
And all I can see in it so
far, some future date, I hope to get
more understanding in this matter, all I can
see in it so far is that he
is asking the Father to accept his submission
to go with him into the hour.
They have come together, they have planned this
from before, as he says later, the world
was, and they've come down through the succeeding
ages of the Old Testament experiences, and now
they have come to this supreme moment unto
which all past ages converged, and from which
all succeeding ages will emerge.
It is the focal point, it is the
center, it is the climax, it is the
ultimate, there is nothing higher than
this.
And all that we have, and all that
we expect to have, and all that we
enjoy in our Lord Jesus now, is going
to proceed from this hour.
And I think he is saying something to
this effect, because it is twofold.
Father, glorify thy Son.
By accepting his submission, his obedience, his offering,
his service to thee in this hour.
For whatever God is pleased to accept from
our hands, glorifies our offering, doesn't it?
And whatever expression of submission and obedience we
realize, because of what he has called us
to, and commissioned us to perform, adds to
that concept.
He is glorifying us because he is receiving
something at our hands.
And then, when you go on to the
next statement, he says that thy Son also
may glorify thee.
And how is the Son going to glorify
the Father?
By willingly, submissively, moving to this hour.
By willingly and submissively and humbly come to
all that the hour is going to bring
him, simply because he has come in obedience
to him who sent him.
So he says, Father, glorify thy Son.
Accept at my hands the submission of myself,
and all that I am going to experience
as an offering to thee.
Glorify thy Son in this hour.
And if then this is done, he said,
that thy Son may in turn glorify thee.
And as I suggested to you once before,
I believe in John chapter 12, when the
pressure of the cross was increasing, as he
had done when he left the north part
of Galilee, and came down by that eastern
route through Jericho, and up the long road
to Jerusalem, on the way to the cross,
his last journey, when we have some of
his famous parables, some of his memorable sayings
that is taking place along the journey, when
some of the weakness and frailty of his
disciples is brought out to light as the
Lord moves into the ever-encroaching, ever-closing
in on him, the moment of the cross.
And he says, let thy Son glorify thee
by accepting his submission, his work, the fulfillment
of what thou hast sent him to do.
I realize the deficiency of that explanation, but
at the moment I don't know how better
not only to understand it, but to express
it as well.
This again is the prime object of his
heart.
That's when he said in John 12, now
is the judgment of this world, now shall
the prince of this world be cast out,
and I, if I be lifted up from
the earth, will draw everything, everything, everything, and
all men unto me.
Well, what am I going to say?
My soul is troubled while I say, Father,
save me from this hour, but for this
cause I came unto this hour.
Father, glorify thy name.
So it comes out again, as we have
it here, that this is the deep ambition
of the Lord's heart.
That though he is troubled in anticipation, yet
what is of prime importance to him is
that the Father would be glorified in what
he is going to experience.
And I suppose that is one of the
deeper lessons of life that you and I
experience, that regardless of the situation, regardless of
the turns that life takes, regardless of the
shadows that fall across our pathway, and they're
not, of course, as somber or as frightening
shadows as the shadow of the cross increasingly
made itself felt in our Lord's heart and
soul, but regardless of the circumstances, gain and
loss, misfortune and good fortune, failure and defeat,
that in all things, as we read this
morning in 1 Peter chapter 4, God might
be glorified through our Lord Jesus Christ in
us.
That's the example that the Master gives to
us in this passage.
Then we move on down.
These are two distinct glories, though in part
of a kind, and now we read from
verse 4, and we're not going to carry
here too long, and I call this the
glory of an accomplished or a finished work.
I have glorified thee on the earth, or
I glorified, perfect past tense, I glorified thee
on the earth.
The Lord is considering himself as no longer
being in the world, you remember, and I
did not, I know, adequately explain that to
you when he said that later on, I
am no longer in the world.
What he was saying is not where he
was physically, but where he was in the
course of his service.
His commission was fulfilled, and I think that
is proven to be true when he says,
I am no longer in the world, but
these are in the world, his disciples, they
are here, and they have a work to
perform, they have a commission to fulfill, because
they are in the world, I am not
in the world, I'm no longer in the
world, my mission is fulfilled in the world,
and I remind you again that what the
Lord is saying here is what is in
the past, not what is yet to come,
because he has fulfilled these things that we
noticed the other night as the details of
his personal stewardship.
So he says, I have glorified in the
earth, having finished the work which thou gavest
me to do, and my brethren and sisters,
this will be our glory in the day
of our departure.
If we finish the work that he gave
us to do, if we complete the task
that he has imposed upon us, if we
have carried out the service that the gift
with which he has endowed us has led
us into, if we have finished that work,
we will have glorified him on the earth,
and if this is our main object, and
our chief goal and aim, then let us
move forward to it.
Finish the work that he has called us
to do, for there is none of us,
there is no one of us who has
not been called to service, there is no
one of us who has not been given
a task to perform, and a work to
fulfill, and you will remember that that's what
he said about Sardis in his complaint, in
his criticism of Sardis was this, I have
not found thy works perfected, or finished, or
fulfilled before God.
One who had a name to live and
were dead, one who had works to fulfill,
and they had not fulfilled them, they showed
in themselves what I suppose is a natural
human deficiency, I don't know how you get
along, but I have a lot of things
that I plan to do when I get
older, and I have a number of things
which I started and never got finished, I
don't suppose any of you have that difficulty
in life, but I planned all kinds of
things, in fact the first time that I
read that the Lord spent all night in
prayer, I thought well that would be a
wonderful thing to do, I think I would
try to do this.
Did you ever try it?
No?
Oh, well I was reading Hevick of India
one time, that remarkable man of prayer, and
the miracles that were performed by his messages,
he didn't even understand Hindu language, but he
was over there and he was constantly in
prayer.
Here's a man who could get up and
preach, in the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth, and the soldiers of the
British army were all moved to tears and
saved through his ministry, and I was reading
about his prayer life, and I thought this
is what I have to do, I have
to enlarge my usefulness and fulfill my work,
I have to do what Hevick was doing,
I have to do what the Lord did
on more than one occasion, spend all night
in prayer.
If you want to know how weak you
are, I suggest you try it.
I tried it, and I wasn't down beside
my bed very long before I found I
had more places that were itching, needed to
be scratched, and more pains here, there, and
everywhere, more times my position had to be
altered, and it was just a horrendous task,
I couldn't nearly begin to complete it, I
don't think I got a quarter of the
way through the night before I capitulated, I
just couldn't do it, I didn't have the
stamina, I didn't have the strength, I didn't
have the dedication to do it, to spend
just one night in its entirety in prayer,
get up in the morning, go to work,
I couldn't do it.
The Lord did this more than once, and
this is how it shows to us His
total dedication, and the care that He had
for His own, and that He was working
towards glorifying His Father by completing the work
which His Father had given Him to do,
and if He had to do that, if
He had to spend these long hours in
prayer, how can I expect to accomplish what
I am supposed to do if my prayer
life is so weak, and so empty, and
so short?
He said, I have glorified thee on the
earth, I have finished the work which thou
gavest me to do, so there is the
glory of an accomplished task.
Then He comes down to verse 5, and
He says, Now, O Father, glorify thou me
with thine own self, with the glory which
I had with thee before the world was.
Now, I am thrilled in the consideration of
these words.
I do not have the mental or spiritual
capacity to embrace all that the Lord is
saying here.
He steps out now of the work of
the cross, and He's moving forward, and He's
looking in anticipation at that which was waiting
for Him, and He says, Glorify thou me
with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was.
An anticipated glory, and a past-remembered glory.
The glory that I had with thee.
How do you describe this glory?
It's the glory of the fellowship of the
members of the Godhead before there ever was
a world, before there was anything that is,
before anything came from His own hand as
a product of His creatorial power.
Here we look back, and we say, we
talk about going back into eternity, but I
don't think that's a very good expression.
Eternity is hard in the past, except in
the connotation that we give it in relation
to time, here we are on earth.
But I remember saying one time, we used
to have an old hymn we sang at
home, you know, time ends and then eternity.
And I said to my audience one time,
I said, there's no such thing as time
ending.
We talk as though we're here, like this,
and we go across the stage of time,
and then we drop off, and we go
into eternity, and there's no more time.
But that's a fatal concept, isn't it, of
what time and eternity are, the one in
relation to the other.
For time is not a platform set up
in eternity with a beginning and an end.
And you don't come to the day of
your death and drop off time, or out
of time, into eternity.
For eternity surrounds all...
I was going to say time, but that's
too soon, isn't it?
It surrounds all time as the universe surrounds
the world, so that this globe of ours,
this world in which we live, is surrounded
by the universe, and there's no beginning or
end in that sense.
So, eternity is all about us, and we
who live now are living in eternity.
For don't you have eternal life?
Well, then, if you have eternal life, you
have that life which is eternal.
That means you are in eternity now, and
you're not going to step off time and
fall into eternity.
You're living in it, and isn't the life
that you have eternal life?
Well, then, the characteristics of the life that
we have are to be retained in the
ages that lie before us.
And I said to you, of course, that
there's no such thing as an end to
time.
And one brother, he very kindly took me
to task about that, and he quoted me
the verse in Revelation chapter 10, when the
angel stands one foot on the scene, one
foot on the land, and he lifts his
hand to heaven, and he swears by the
God of the universe that there'll be no
time no longer.
But, you see, the word is improperly translated
time, because the word means there shall be
no more delay.
The judgments of God are running their course,
and there are specific periods of these judgments.
But when you come to chapter 10, having
waited all through these pre-ages, now they
have come to the moment when the angel
says there shall be no more delay.
He's not saying there's no more time, because
you know that eternal life is described in
the Bible by the Greek expression unto the
ages of the ages.
Now, if there are ages, that's time, isn't
it?
Of course there's an age, and then there
are succeeding ages.
We've already had that in connection with the
history of the world.
So, if there are ages yet to come,
there must be endlessness in this eternal life
that we have, and there is no such
thing as there be coming to a point
where one of the ages of the ages
of the ages is going to terminate, and
there'll be no more ages.
I haven't lost any ages, have I?
Right, so what our Lord is saying here,
He says, the glory that I had with
thee before the world was, I cannot capture
that concept.
For when we move back in our thinking
to the beginning, we come to a blank
wall.
We have nothing to judge by.
We have nothing to go by.
We have no point of reference.
You go back in your mind, you say,
well, in the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth.
Yes, but before that, before that, our Lord
says, and here he is standing in all
the fullness of his humanity, born of the
Virgin, he has lived his life as man
in service, and he is saying, this man
here, with his disciples on the edge of
the garden of Gethsemane, glorify thou me with
the glory that I had with thee before
the world was.
I can understand that, because my thinking cannot
grasp what it must have been like when
there was none and nothing but the Godhead,
and he was dwelling with the Father.
Did you notice it was a mutually participated
glory?
The glory that I had with thee before
the world was.
Of course, it's an explanation of his eternal
person.
It's the endlessness of the Son of the
Eternal.
He was always the Son, as the Father
was always the Father, because he's speaking to
the Father.
He speaks about the glory that he had
with the Father before the world was.
Then we move down farther down the chapter,
and he speaks about the disciples, and he
speaks about being glorified in them, and that's
verse 10.
I just want to make a brief comment
on that.
He says, speaking of the disciples, he says,
all mine are thine, and thine are mine,
and I am glorified in them.
Now, prior to saying that, and subsequent to
saying that, the Lord has mentioned that these
are they who have believed that he was
sent from the Father, and I judge, this
is what the Lord is saying here, I
am glorified in them because they have believed.
It was very important to our Lord that
those whom he had chosen realize that he
was the one who had been sent by
the Father, and he says, I'm glorified in
them because they have believed that thou didst
send me.
They believe that I came forth from being
beside thee, which is the preposition that is
used there.
So, there he was with the Father, the
glory that he had with the Father, he
relinquished, and he comes down to earth as
God manifests in flesh, and he says that
he was sent, as I've mentioned this already
to you more than once, he was sent
to the world.
He was sent into the world.
He was sent to represent the Father.
He was sent to display the Father, and
it was very crucial to the Lord, and
very important to the Lord, that these disciples
had believed that the Father had sent them.
I don't know if we understand that correctly
or not, or if we adequately know what
that meant to the Lord, but he repeats
it.
They have believed that I came forth from
beside thee.
They have believed that thou didst send me,
and he says, for that cause, they have,
or I am glorified in them.
So, my brethren, let us remember that our
confidence and our faith in our Lord, who
he is, why and where he came, glorifies
him.
Faith in himself, for that matter, glorifies him.
Now, I want to come down to what
I consider to be perhaps the most important
part of this little study on the glory,
and read with me in verse 22.
I call this the transferable glory.
The Lord speaks of glory here in this
chapter that was unique, unique to himself with
his Father, that was pre-world experience.
But now he is going to speak of
another glory, which I want you to notice
with me is very important, and which is
transferable.
He speaks about having sent the disciples into
the world as the Father sent him, and
that's in verse 18.
As thou hast sent me into the world,
even so have I also sent them into
the world, and for their sakes I sanctify
myself that they also might be sanctified in
truth.
Then he goes on to say, neither pray
I for these alone, but for them also
which shall believe on me through their word,
that they all may be one.
Please notice that they all may be one
as thou, Father, art in me, and I
in thee, that they may be one in
us, that the world may believe that thou
hast sent me.
Here we have the expression again.
Then he says, and the glory which thou
gavest me I have given them.
Now, here's a very interesting statement.
The Father conferred upon his son glory, and
the Lord says, the glory that thou gavest
me I have given to them.
Now, he's not talking very evidently about the
glory that he had before the world was.
He's not talking about the glory that he's
requesting from the Father, or to be glorified
by the Father in the early verses of
the chapter.
He's not even talking, which comes later, about
the glory that awaits him.
He's talking about a glory that he was
given by the Father when he came to
earth, which he in turn has given to
his disciples.
Now, what glory is that?
It's rather thought-provoking, isn't it?
He has a glory that he is turning
over to them.
It was a glory that was given to
him on coming to earth.
Now, he's leaving.
He's no longer in the world in this
capacity.
He's going away from them.
He has been glorified in them because they
have believed him.
They have accepted the fact that he came
from the Father, and they have set their
whole affections on him, that he was the
sent one of God.
Now, he says, I'm leaving them, and the
glory that thou gavest me I have given
to them.
Now, you've heard this verse quoted, in fact.
You know that they all may be one,
and it is quoted often in the sense
of ecclesiastical confederation or confederacy.
In fact, I remember the present Archbishop of
Canterbury in one of his early speeches, if
not the time when he was inaugurated or
whatever they did to him, I remember him
saying, quoting this verse from John chapter 17,
I've heard it several times from theologians since,
that this was the desire of the Lord
that we should all be one ecclesiastically, a
confederation of one body composed of many segments
of that body.
We should all be one ecclesiastically, and he
said, he made it quite clear that he
was looking forward to the day when the
Anglican Church and the Roman Catholic Church would
fulfill this desire of the Lord Jesus and
become one, and he must have infuriated some
of the historians of the Anglican Church, and
I think of some of these divines whose
works I have, and Dean Farrar, and some
of these very spiritually minded and very astute
intellectual men, and what it cost many of
them to stick to the division that existed
way back yonder, the Church of England, the
Anglican Church, the distinction that was made, the
separation that was enforced between them and the
Catholic Church, and now here's the Archbishop of
Canterbury saying that he's looking forward to the
time, he is looking forward to the time
when these two will become one again in
fulfillment of the Lord's request as stated here,
and he said, of course, we understand that
the Pope will be the preeminent leader, and
I guess he never wore an orange sash
and never will, but I was really shocked
when I heard him say that.
Does this man not know his own history?
Does he not know the history of his
own church?
Does he know how they suffered persecution, how
they suffered execution, in order to make this
division between the hierarchy of the papacy and
what they were going to enjoy in the
freedom of the clergy amongst themselves?
But what bothered me most was he quoted
this verse, the Lord said that they all
may be one.
Now, please, please stop a minute with me
to notice when the Lord said it and
why he said it.
Look what he said, Father, the glory that
thou gavest me.
Now, what glory is that?
I have given it to them.
What did he give to the disciples of
the glory that the Father gave to him?
Let's look back here a little bit.
Back at the close of verse 11, he
says, Holy Father, keep through thine own name
those whom thou hast given me, that they
may be one as we are.
Second in, he's dealing with the Ecclesiastical Federation.
Is that all the churches coming together?
And then he comes down and he says,
of course, they don't belong to the world
because he's given them his word.
And then he goes down to say, in
verse 18, that he sent them into the
world.
Why?
What for?
Then he goes on in verse 20 to
say, Neither pray I for these alone, but
for them also which shall believe on me
through the word, that they all may be
one as thou, Father, art in me, and
I in thee, that they also may be
one in us, that the world may believe
that thou hast sent me.
And the glory which thou gavest me, I
have given them with a view to, and
this is a conjunction purpose, clause of purpose,
that they may be one, even as we
are one, I in them, and thou in
me, that they may be made perfect in
one, and that the world may know that
thou hast sent me, and hast loved them
as thou hast loved me.
I refuse to believe for one second that
this has anything to do with church federation.
I don't see how we can think that.
When you read words like these, is it
three times he says, that they may be
one, as, according as, in like manner as,
thou, Father, art in me, and I in
thee, and he that hath seen me hath
seen the Father.
What's he saying?
What was the glory that God conferred upon
his son when he came in human flesh,
with a human nature, a human home, human
sensitivity, and human senses?
What was it?
Here is man, totally man, barely a man,
truly man, and there's been a glory imposed
or given to this man that no one
else ever had.
What was that?
It was a oneness with the Father, the
invisible God.
He who saw him saw the Father.
That was the glory, that there's a man
walking on earth who is the full expression
of the unseen God in heaven.
That was the glory, a man who in
himself displays, represents, shows out that he's one.
As thou art in me, and I am
in thee, that they, he says, speaking of
his own, may be one in us.
What's that got to do with church federation?
Nothing, nothing whatsoever, but it is a glory,
not only of representation, that takes us back
to Adam, doesn't it?
Let us make man in our image, you
remember, that we may represent God on the
earth.
Now says the Lord, this is the glory
that I have carried while I'm here.
He says something similar in John chapter 6,
as I live by the Father, even so
he that eateth me shall live by me.
As I am one with the Father, even
so these, my disciples, I give to them
that glory, that they may be one in
us.
As thou, Father, art in me, in me,
and I am in thee.
What is the glory that he gave to
his disciples?
It is the glory of being the expression
in a human body, in a human relationship,
with human sensitivities and human experiences, the representation
of the Father in heaven as was seen
in the sun on earth.
Now it is our turn, that the world
may know, he says, that the world may
know, not by church federation, but by a
oneness of essence and life and character displayed
in daily experience, they who see us to
see him.
That, my brethren, is the glory.
We are in frail, mortal frames.
We are here with all the deficiencies, with
all the defects, and all the weaknesses of
a human body, soul, and spirit.
But his prayer here, which has been answered,
is, I have given them the glory that
thou gavest me, and the glory that thou
gavest me was that he who sees me
should see the Father.
And he has made us now one with
himself.
I don't know, I don't know how to
say it.
How do you say something like this?
In all the vicissitudes, in all the experiences
that we have in our human lives, in
our human weaknesses, in all of that, he
has so made us one in himself, in
essence, in life, that they who see us
are looking at the glory again of God
manifest in human form.
Terrific concept, isn't he?
Well, if I were a little more charismatic,
I'd have said, hallelujah, right there.
But I know you would be greatly disturbed
if I had done it.
But when I pause to think of this,
do you mean to say, Lord, that I
am in a position here on earth that
you occupied when you were here?
You were living by, in, and through, and
with the Father.
And I, in my spiritual experience, tend to
be living by, with, and in both you
and the Father.
And that's my glory.
My glory is that he has made me
so one with himself that I am here,
not only to be with him, but to
display him.
The world may know, but we are not
of this world, but we are of our
glorious Lord.
Please, when you think about this expression, that
there may be one, read all the verses
here that speak of it, and then you
put it together, and you say, what a
marvelous honor this is.
We should be so one with the Father
and with his Son.
We are here to be as he was
when he was on earth.
Now, one closing word.
Yes, I've got a second and a half
on this block.
I've lost a minute on that.
Now, he says here, Father, I will, verse
24, Father, I will, that they also whom
thou hast given me be with me where
I am.
Companionship.
We talked about the marriage relationship, didn't we,
earlier in the week, the essence of which
is companionship.
The first important feature of marriage, by the
way, you marriage folks who weren't here that
night, on that day, is companionship.
That's certainly missed with a lot of men
I know.
They forgot why they have their wives.
They forgot the wives had forgotten what they're
supposed to be with their husbands.
The very first reason in a marriage relationship
in Genesis 1 and 26 was to establish
companionship on a compatible level that can't be
found anywhere else.
Now, Father, I will.
This is one of the times, the very
few times, that the Lord expresses his own
will.
Here's his prayer.
I will, this is my desire, that they
also whom thou hast given me be with
me where I am.
Now, you move from likeness in essence to
companionship in presence.
He says, I will, that those whom thou
hast given me be with me where I
am, that they may behold my glory.
Now, here's a glory that is yet future,
and that is visible, that we haven't seen
yet.
We probably have never in all the attempt
of our minds to grasp what it would
be like, but it will be.
The word is to behold.
That's the word that John uses in his
epistle, you remember, and he also uses it
in his gospel, to behold, to look very
intently on something, to study it, to examine
it, to make it part of yourself, that
they may behold my glory, he says, which
thou hast given me for thou lovest me
before the foundation of the world.
There's a glory, brethren, that we are yet
to witness and to share with our Lord
in the fulfillment of the prayer that he
made.
Father, it is my will that the ones
whom thou hast given me be with me.
Companionship, the Lord desires it of you and
of me, and that we in turn may
look on the full orb glory, part of
which he had with the Father before the
world was a magnificent, majestic, incomprehensible future that
lies before us.
Let us live up to the level of
our relationship with Christ, and also to the
character and kind of the future which lies
before us, for we are called unto glory.
Our Father, we give thanks.
What shall we render unto the Lord for
all his benefits towards us?
We who have the cup of salvation, we
who partake of the cup of the covenant,
we who partake of the cup of blessing
shall yet partake of the cup of the
glory.
We thank thee, our eyes shall see, and
our souls and spirits shall embrace something of
that which we cannot really understand or imagine
now, the glory that he had with thee
before the world was, and the love that
has given to us the glory now of
being one with him on earth, he with
him who is in heaven.
Let my blessing be with us, Lord, and
receive our thanks in the name of the
Lord Jesus.
Amen.