March 5, 3:30 p.m. 
Speaker: Michael Reeves
Passage: John 17:1–3

Message Summary: 

The glory of God is the epicenter, the genesis, the principle of all healthy mission. When the mission of the church goes wrong, it is always because she has become man-centered.

Sometimes it is that Christians fear man more than God. Sometimes they lose sight of God’s truth. Sometimes they love the glory of man more than the glory of God. And nobody notices the problem because they seem orthodox, they seem zealous. But they preach Christ out of selfish ambition, making little empires for themselves.

And so as a remedy, we look today at the first 3 verses of John 17, at Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer.

Here we look behind the curtain to see a heavenly conversation—one that lifts our eyes to heaven. All of John’s gospel has been building toward this moment and now the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. This is the hour for which Jesus came. And His whole purpose is that the Father might glorify the Son, that the Son might glorify the Father.

See the logic of verses 1 and 2: The Son’s glorification of the Father is the consequence of the Father’s glorification of the Son. The Son’s giving of eternal life is the consequence of His being given authority. Condensed: “Glorify your Son, that He may give eternal life.”

Life flows from the glory of the Son, which glorifies the Father.

In other words, mission starts not with you. It starts with the glory of God. The giving of life is the consequence of glory with this God.

And so, for our health and the healthy mission of the church, we need to refocus on the glory that gives life.

The Nature of This Glory

Jesus’ glory is something entirely unexpected. We assume that glory means searching for the acclaim of others, but Jesus says, “I do not seek my own glory” (John 8:50). His glory is not a self-preening, self-grabbing glory. His is a self-giving glory.

When you’ve seen the self-giving of the Son, you’ve witnessed the very heart of the Father who sent Him. You’ve recognized the super-abundant goodness and graciousness of God Himself, loving first before we ever loved Him.

God is glorified and revealed for who He is in the giving of life through the lifting up of the Son. And that is why the glory of God is the epicenter of mission. God gives life because He is so gloriously super-sufficient, so full, so overflowing. That is His glory.

The glory of this God makes Christians delight to lift Him up. Because the only true God is so full, so overflowing with life, mission simply flows from who He is. When we proclaim Him, we are joining in with a preexisting mission. We are joining in with the divine outgoing—with a mission that does not depend on us for its genesis or its momentum.

If the glory of God outshining is the delight-giving motivation that makes saints go out and speak of Him, it means that if you take your eyes off the glory of Christ, the thought of proclaiming Him to the ends of the earth will feel overwhelming to you.

See the glory that gives life, and you will be enlivened. His glory will eclipse yours and be a greater motivation that precedes and stirs up any zeal that you have.

The Nature of the Eternal Life He Gives 

Because life is in God, you cannot have any life apart from God.

Life is found in Him, and so in knowing Him. If you would have much life, be a theologian. Be a knower of God.

We must not separate mission—making Christ known—from knowing God. As if knowing God is an impractical nicety we put on one side when we feel like being active and going out and doing this thing called mission. No, a good missionary must be a good theologian.

It’s only those who know God who have life and can go out and give life.

Knowing God is the source of life, and it must then be the source of healthy mission. No knowledge of god, no mission.

The Nature of True Knowledge

We easily imagine knowledge as a merely cerebral thing. But the knowledge that Jesus speaks of here requires glorying in God.

To glory in Jesus is not an optional extra for some emotional types. You simply cannot know the only true God without glorying in Him. Because God is so glorious, He is not known where He is not adored. If God is not glorious, if He is not your delight and treasure, you may know something about Him, but you do not have the knowledge that is eternal life.

The heart of our transformation into the likeness of the Son is our deep delight in the Father. In our love and enjoyment of the Father, we’re being like the Son. And in our love and enjoyment of the Son, we’re being like the Father. This is eternal life.

This is why the glory of God is the genesis of mission. When we glory in God, knowing and enjoying Him as He is, we have life. And when we glory in God, we will overflow with life and go out radiantly like Him, in mission, participating in the work of the Spirit to make Jesus known in all the earth.