Love God (John 17:1-11) - Pastor John Kim
SERMON NOTES
Every year we take the beginning of each year to go over our mission statement. Our mission statement is: “City Church Honolulu is a community of Gospel-transformed people who are committed to knowing, loving, and serving God, one another, our city, and beyond through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.” This is our mission and what we want to be as a church.
What does Jesus want for the church to be? John 17 tells us. This is Jesus' longest recorded prayer in the New Testament. It's also one of the last recorded prayers before he was crucified. His prayer was centered around the church. The term "glory" is at the center of what he envisions for the church. Not our glory, but God's glory. So what does it mean for our church to glorify God?
To glorify God means to know God
verse 1-2, Jesus prays to God the Father to glorify him so that he can give eternal life to all whom God has given to him. What is eternal life? Jesus means not just a life that never ends, but also a full and meaningful life (which is called "Zoe" in Greek). That's what Jesus wants to give to us.
How do we get that full and meaningful life? Not in the things of this world, but by knowing God and Jesus Christ (John 17:3). When it says to "know" God, that means that we know him intimately and deeply, like a married spouse. The more we "know" God in this way, the more we will experience that full and satisfying life.
To glorify God means you're being transformed by God
In John 17:17, it says "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth." The church is not to stay as we are once we're saved by Christ, but we're meant to change more and more (which is what sanctified means) in the image of his Son.
We should be able to look back at our lives and see that God has been changing us in various ways (We're more patient, gentle, forgiving, loving, etc than before we met Christ).
The way that we change is through our relationship with God. The closer we become to God, the more we will see change in our lives. We can't change ourselves. We need the grace and love of God to pour into us in order for us to experience true and lasting change.
To glorify God means to rest in Him
In verse 1, Jesus prayed, "Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son." "The hour" is referring to Jesus' death. His crucifixion. The only way that we can experience his glory is when Jesus lost his glory on the cross on our behalf. He was willing to be humiliated, beaten, mocked, and killed on our behalf, while we gained the righteousness, acceptance, and glory that Jesus deserved.
The more we can rest in what Jesus did for us and revel in it, the more it should compel us to glorify God and live for him.
-John
SCRIPTURE Reading
JOHN 17:1-11
The High Priestly Prayer
17 When 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, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
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. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.