The Glory of Jesus Christ

So I'm excited because today we are starting a brand new series.

And it's called What Jesus Wants.

What Jesus Wants.

All of us have things we want.

In fact, many of us have things we want so badly that we pray for it, and maybe we pray for it often.

Jesus was no different.

When he walked the earth as a human being, Jesus had things that he deeply desired to see happen.

And he prayed for those things.

In fact, John 17, which is what we're going to be studying for the next six or seven weeks, John 17 is this amazing portion of scripture that shows us word for word a prayer that Jesus had to God the Father.

Right before he went to the cross, and he's praying for what he wants, what he wants to see happen.

What he wants to see in the lives of his followers.

What's so amazing about John 17, and we can talk about it for weeks, in fact we are, is that we actually have the ability, as followers of Jesus, to live lives in such a way that we answer his prayer.

Think about that for a second.

We can conduct ourselves, we can live our lives in such a way that we are answering the prayer that Jesus prayed to God the Father in John 17.

We're going to see that as we explore this over the next few weeks.

I don't know about you, but I love Jesus very much, and I daily, hourly fall short of the man that I want to be in order to bring him the most glory and to reflect him in the best way possible to the people around me.

But the idea that I could somehow do something or behave in such a way that makes Jesus go, yes, that's exactly what I was praying for.

That's exactly what I wanted to see happen.

That is a that is a challenge and a privilege and an opportunity that gets me excited.

I hope it does for you as well.

We can actually live lives that answers this prayer.

This prayer, there's really nothing like it in Scripture, as we're going to explore a little bit today.

But it reveals to us the heart of Jesus, the things that Jesus actually cares deeply about in such an intimate way.

It allows us to be so much closer with our Lord and Savior as we process what he prayed, as we think about it and really understand who he is, who we're following, who we're serving, who we put our faith and our trust in.

I am, I am so excited.

We're gonna get started just by reading it.

I think that's appropriate.

We're just gonna read John 17 in its entirety right now, and you're gonna see really quickly why, although I'm excited about this series, this last week I've been pretty nervous.

I've told multiple friends of mine, I think I bit off way more than I can chew.

This is extremely deep, layered, nuanced, heady, heavy inspired.

I mean, it's it's Jesus praying.

It's God talking to God, and we're gonna talk about that in just a minute.

Like how much, I just don't want to mess this up, I guess that's what I'm saying.

So before I say another word, let's just read it in its entirety.

Here we go, John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

After saying all this, after saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you.

For you have given him authority over everyone, he gives eternal life to each one you have given him, and this is the way to have eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one who you sent to earth.

I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.

I've revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world.

They were always yours.

You gave them to me, and they've kept your word.

Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, for I have passed on to them the message you gave me.

They accepted it, and they know that I have come from you.

They believe you sent me.

My prayer is not for the world, but for those you've given me, because they belong to you.

All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory.

Now I am departing from you, from this world.

They're staying in this world, but I'm coming to you.

Holy Father, you've given me your name.

Now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are.

During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me.

I guarded them so that not one was lost except the one headed for destruction, as the scriptures foretold.

Now I am coming to you.

I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they could be filled with my joy.

I've given them your word.

And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.

They do not belong to this world any more than I do.

Make them holy by your truth.

Teach them your word, which is truth.

Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world, and I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them, so they can be made holy by your truth.

I am praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message.

I pray they will all be one, just as you and I are one, as you are in me, Father, and I am in you.

And may they be in us, so that the world will believe you sent me.

I've given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one.

I am in them and you are in me.

May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.

Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am.

Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began.

Oh, righteous Father, the world doesn't know you, but I do.

And these disciples know you sent me.

I have revealed them, I've revealed you to them, and I will continue to do so.

And then your love for me will be in them, and I will be in them.

That is uh Jesus praying to God the Father.

It's beautiful, it's powerful.

It's it's really interesting.

There's really nothing like this in all of Scripture, I will say.

Whether you're someone that's been following Jesus for decades or you're brand new, you're just checking out church.

If you are brand new, welcome.

This is just one of the deepest, most uh interesting and difficult and nuanced passages in the entirety of the Bible.

Here we go.

But it's cool.

Even if you are new, by the way, you were created by God with the capacity to know him.

So you're fine.

This is not gonna go over our heads because it's all over our heads.

Does that make sense?

This is over all of our heads.

But but God has a way through his spirit of translating it into our hearts and giving us understanding that we really couldn't have any other way.

You're gonna get this.

This prayer is so unique.

Jesus prays things here that only Jesus could pray.

You and I could not pray this prayer.

We could pray aspects of this prayer, we could say, hey, let me be unified with my family and my church and my community, but we could never pray.

Father, the glory that you gave me before the world even existed, may it be given back to me so that I can give it to my followers.

If anyone prays for that now, not named Jesus, they should be locked up.

That's that's a crazy person, right?

Like we can't pray this prayer.

This is so unique.

It's really beautiful.

And as we explore this over the next few weeks, it's going to be very practical because there's a lot of things that Jesus prays for in here that we're meant to do.

Things that we can look in our lives right now and go, man, I can do that, I can change this, I can adapt in this way, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna live this out.

Today isn't so much about what we're supposed to do, it's really more about what we're supposed to know, what we're supposed to understand.

We're gonna focus mostly on this concept of the glory of God.

What does it mean when Jesus prays, Father, give me glory, glorify me?

It doesn't mean what we might think, it's at the very least, much more, it's just much more than what we think when we think of the word glory.

We'll say that.

But before we get into that, I do want to take a quick moment and just deal with this idea of God praying to God.

I love how the Holy Spirit works.

I didn't know what songs we were singing this morning.

Like I did, I can see the list of songs, but I I don't work with the worship team and pre-plan and pick those.

And it's funny, I didn't know the scripture that Matt was going to read as he was leading us in worship today.

That scripture is in the message from Exodus chapter 20, which is crazy.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

And we just got done singing this song, God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity.

I didn't realize that that lyric was something we were going to sing, but this is a portion of the message today, is to understand that concept.

Because I've talked to a lot of people in the last few weeks leading up to this.

I've had a lot of conversations with some great people.

In fact, on Wednesday nights, we're always studying stuff connected to the message.

And on Wednesday nights at our Bible study, I was walking through talking to some people, and some people grabbed me at their table and they asked me about this very thing.

Like, what's this idea of God?

Jesus is God, but he's praying to God.

How does this work?

And we believe, because it's how God has revealed Himself to us, that God is one being, one God, three persons God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

If we can be honest with each other, has anyone ever had a hard time grappling with that concept?

You know what I mean?

Yeah, it's it's interesting at the very least.

We see it in the very first pages of Scripture.

In fact, in Genesis 1, God says, let us, plural, make man in our image to be like us.

And then over the course of scripture, God slowly reveals more and more of himself.

He brings it into focus and gives us more and more detail, but it's a long process.

Here in John 17, we have God the Son praying to God the Father.

Normally when we're reading scripture, and it just says God, often that that's shorthand for God the Father.

But we have Jesus, God the Son, praying to God the Father.

In Matthew chapter 3, Jesus gets baptized, and in that moment we see all three active at the at the exact same time.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

And so Matthew chapter 3, verse 16, after his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were open, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him.

Matthew 3:16

And a voice from heaven said, This is my dearly loved Son who brings me joy.

So we have Jesus the Son being obedient, being baptized.

We have we have God, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, descending upon God the Son in Jesus, and we have God the Father speaking to God the Son, Jesus, as God the Son, Jesus, is being baptized while God the Spirit is descending upon him.

There it is.

Very simple.

We all got it.

No, look, it's an interesting place where we find ourselves as believers because we have, we do have an intellectual faith.

We have a faith that is meant to be thought out.

We should all have a well-thought-out faith in God.

And some of the most brilliant people who have ever lived, who have ever walked the earth, have submitted their lives to Jesus Christ and written volumes going through all of these concepts.

We do have an intellectual faith.

At the same time, we've got to be careful to make sure that we don't become trapped by the limits of our own intellect.

Because there's a limit to what we can understand.

We're finite people.

Finite people cannot fully understand an infinite God.

But that doesn't mean we can't try.

And so if you've ever wrestled with this concept of how in the world can God be talking to God, because that's what we're going to study all throughout John chapter 17, God the Son talking to God the Father.

John 17 · chapter mention

And talking about things that God the Spirit is going to come later and help all of his followers do.

Let's think about three words real quick just to help this.

This is kind of a sidebar for our main focus today, but I'll make it as quick as I can and then we'll get focused on the glory of God.

But three words: natural, present, and personal.

Think of those three words.

Natural, present, and personal.

I am a natural person, you are all natural people, which means we are limited by the laws of nature.

We can only grow so tall, we can only run so fast, we can only live so long.

None of us can defy that.

But we know that God is a supernatural God.

He is more than natural.

He's not bound by the laws of nature, he breaks those all the time.

When he does that, it's called a miracle.

And I found that very few people have a hard time understanding or at least reconciling in their minds the concept of a supernatural God.

If he's God, of course he's supernatural.

What kind of God can't do more than we can do?

So we don't typically have a hard time with the idea that God is supernatural.

He's more than natural.

Take the word present.

We are all currently present.

I am right here right now.

You are right there right now.

I cannot be in two places at once.

I cannot be in two times at once.

If I move to this spot, now I'm right here.

I used to be right there.

I can't be in both.

But God is described often as being omnipresent.

He is in all places at all times.

He's not limited by time and space.

So God is with us right now.

When we worship him, when we're here, when we open up his word and we open our hearts and say, Lord, be with us, meet with us, speak to us.

He's here.

But this is going to shock some of you.

He's also at the other churches in Cherokee County.

Like he is right now.

He's at most of them.

I'm just joking.

I mean, I just don't know enough about all of them to make that claim.

But I'm saying, no, he's everywhere.

He's he's all over the place.

He's across the seas.

He's in other continents.

He's active.

It's not like God is saying, hey, I'm sorry I wasn't there.

I was busy.

I was in Asia, right?

Give me time.

I'll come back.

No, he is in all places at all times.

And I've actually met very few people who have a hard time believing that.

We don't tend to get tripped up on, like, yeah, he's God.

Of course.

He's he's everywhere all at once.

We can believe that.

Then think of the word personal.

Like, we're all personal because we're persons.

Some have chosen to believe in an impersonal God.

They've chosen to put their faith in some impersonal idea like the universe or whatever that you can't know, we'll never talk to you, we'll never have a relationship with you, but you just trust that that impersonal entity or force created everything and keeps everything moving together.

But we don't have a God who's simply personal.

We have a God who is super personal.

Just like he is supernatural, just like he is omnipresent, he is super personal.

You are one, one being, one person.

That's what you are.

That's what I am.

I mean, sometimes it feels like there's more than one of you inside, but you are one.

But God is super personal.

He is one being, three persons.

And even though that's hard for us to think about because we don't live life that way, I mean, some of us, we kind of do if you think about it.

We have a body, we have a will, we have a mind.

Sometimes our mind and our body are at odds, and our body, like this morning, my alarm went off.

I get up early on Sundays, and my body's like, nope, more sleep.

My mind is like, you need to get yourself focused, you need to pray, you need to run through the message in your mind so that you're you're on top of that.

And then my will is like having a different conversation, like get out of bed.

So we have that a little bit, but it's usually dysfunctional.

At best.

God is He is one being, three persons.

He's just more than we are.

He's just more.

And we've got to be okay with that.

Just like He's supernatural, just like He's omnipresent, He is superpersonal.

One God, three persons.

And as we study John 17 over the next several weeks, we are we're gonna be talking about that.

Jesus is God.

He is God.

He is God the Son, and He's praying to God the Father.

And again, as much as we can think it through, we're always gonna come to an end of our intellect and our wisdom and our ability to understand.

1 Corinthians chapter 1 uh talks about that.

1 Corinthians 1 · chapter mention

It just basically says that God has made the wisdom of man foolishness.

There's only so much we can understand about God through pure human wisdom.

Eventually, we we have to rely on what God reveals to us.

And this is how he has revealed himself to us.

One God, three persons.

Now, I hope that helps.

And if you're more confused, I have failed, and that is possible.

Uh, because I am not uh all-knowledgeable, I'm not God.

So keep reading scripture, keep asking God to help you understand it if you struggle with that.

But let's let's move on to the main focus of today.

That's what Jesus actually prayed.

I want to go back to John chapter 17, let's look at verses 1 through 5.

John 17 · chapter mention

It says, After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come.

Glorify your son.

Glorify your son, so he can give glory back to you.

For you have given him authority over everyone.

He gives eternal life to each one you have given him, and this is the way to have eternal life, to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one who sent you sent to earth.

I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.

Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.

Jesus prays for glory.

Glory.

I had someone on Wednesday night stop me and say, Hey, what's this about?

It feels a little selfish, right?

It feels a little self-aggrandizing.

Like if you if you walk by someone and you were able to hear their prayer, they're praying, and they're praying out loud, Father, glorify me.

Give me glory.

Lord, more and more glory.

Give it to me.

You'd be like, what a selfish thing to pray.

I mean, it's just it's strange, right?

But again, Jesus is praying here certain things that we could never pray.

I'm not saying you can't have situations in life where you can pray like, hey, Lord, bless me.

Hey, Lord, raise me up so that I can accomplish big things for you.

There's glory in that for sure, but what Jesus is praying here is something that only he can pray.

None of us can say, God, give me the glory that I had before the earth's foundations.

But he's praying for that.

And I want us to understand, and not just us, I want to understand myself, the full measure of God's glory to the best of my ability.

One day when I see him face to face, it's gonna blow me away.

But on this side of heaven, as much as possible, I want to understand just how glorious my God is and what that means.

So to make our way through that, to understand and wrap our minds around this concept of glory, what Jesus is actually asking for, I want us to think about three words.

And these three words are more important than the last ones we just looked at.

So we're gonna put these on the screen to kind of guide us through.

Three words to help us understand what Jesus is praying for when he asks for glory.

Number one is justice.

Jesus is praying for justice.

Number two is restoration.

This is a prayer of restoration, of God doing something in Jesus and through Jesus that has already happened in the past.

So it's justice, it's restoration, and the third word is wait.

Wait.

We're gonna talk about this.

When Jesus asks for glory, he's not asking for something that he shouldn't be asking for.

He's not stepping out of the bounds of what is appropriate to pray to God.

He is asking for what is right.

It is right that Jesus is glorified.

It is right that we worship him, it is right that he is celebrated, it is right that he is worshipped, all of those, it's right, it's the right thing.

Some of us may have a really strong sense of justice.

Some of us have a looser sense of justice.

You know who you are.

You know you have a looser sense of justice, and I'll be honest, I am, I'm like that.

Or you find yourself like talking yourself into things, you're like, well, if you think about it a certain way, really, I'm doing you a favor, right?

Have you ever had those conversations?

I have I have one child, my my only daughter, who has a very strong sense of justice.

Honestly, it's annoying how strong her sense of justice is.

All kids to a certain degree have this.

That's why all kids tell on people.

All kids have this innate sense of that's wrong or that's right, and they like to tattle.

So, for example, when my oldest, who's who's 15, when he was three, we drove halfway across the country together to Missouri to visit my family who lives in Missouri.

And on the way back, it was like a 13-hour drive there, and I was just me and him, and I had to stop a bunch of times to feed him and to entertain him and just to help him make it through.

And we were at this one random place in Kentucky.

We pulled over, we got some food, and he wanted to run and move around.

He was tired of being in the car.

And so I saw a park right across from where we were eating.

So we walked across the park, and he's playing on these slides and all this stuff, and then he comes to me, he's like, Dad, I gotta do the bathroom, I gotta go now.

And I'm looking around, there was no one around.

No one around.

There was no bathroom.

Some parks have like little bathroom stations, and I was like, all right, man, here, come here.

And we came around this tree, and I was like, just, you know, just go.

And he looked at me like, no.

And I was kind of panicking because I'm thinking I don't want him to go in his pants, and then we gotta get back in the car, and I wasn't prepared for this, and all this kind of stuff.

And I was like, dude, I'm trying to like move it along.

I'm like, hey, listen, just go.

And he goes, Mom tells me not to.

And I cut him off.

I said, When you're with dad, you can do things mom doesn't let you do.

That's what I said.

And so we peed on a tree.

Seven hours later, we arrive.

I have forgotten all about this.

This couldn't be further from my mind.

We pull in the garage, we walk in the house.

The first thing that Liam says at three years old to my wife is, guess where I peed?

First thing he says.

And then she looks at me and I'm like, that sounds way worse than it really was.

And he said, Yeah, dad says he I can do things you won't let me do when I'm with him.

And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, hold on.

This is like, again, what are you doing?

What are you doing to me?

Like, What's going on?

You know, kids have that.

They have that natural desire to tell, to tattle, because something inside of them is very, very consumed with what's right, what's wrong.

My daughter, she's on a different level.

Like she's way past the tattling thing.

For her, it's like she cannot bring herself to do anything that may be against the rules.

And sometimes it's ridiculous.

In fact, right now she's homeschooled.

And the other day, I was the parent at home.

I was working remotely and I had some meetings, and so I left the house, and she's old enough to be there.

And so she was she's going through her work, and I get back, and I'm gonna take her to dance.

And she's like, Dad, I've I've got so much school left.

And I was like, Oh, how?

When when I left, you were in a good spot.

And she said, Well, yeah, but I opened up my reading book and it said, read this next section to a parent and you weren't here.

And I was like, Oh, yeah, you don't really have to do that.

I mean, I was like, Lily, it just wants you to read it out loud.

She says, but it says read it to a parent and you weren't here.

And so I and I was going, like, you didn't skip to the next section?

It was like, no, this is the first thing.

And it said, first, read this to a parent.

I'm like, I'm I'm grateful that you have such a sense of right and wrong.

And in a weird way, I guess as a father, I have to slightly corrupt my daughter just a little bit so she can say, hey, that doesn't really matter.

Move along.

It's crazy.

So she has that level of a sense of justice.

And actually, I I all jokes aside, I'm glad she does.

We need that.

We need more of that in our world.

God is just.

Sometimes when people say, hey, why doesn't God just look the other way?

Because he's good.

And you can't be good and just look the other way when evil is happening.

That's the opposite of good.

And when God returns, when Jesus Himself returns and this world is made as it's meant to be for all eternity, he's gonna make everything right.

And I just say that for us to understand that when God says anything, it is right, it is good.

When God says something is wrong, when he says something is sinful, it is sinful.

And oftentimes we can look at it and go, yeah, I get why it's sinful, it's destructive, it's harmful, that's that's we're all in agreement.

But sometimes God says something is sinful and we don't agree as people who are like, well, I don't think that should be a big deal.

Well, we're not God, we don't have the authority.

Every time we decide what is good and evil and what ought to be good and evil for us, it goes really poorly.

God has that authority.

What he says and what he does is always right.

So in the book of Exodus, chapter 20, when God gives us what we call the Ten Commandments, the very first one is verse 3.

Exodus 20 · chapter mention

You must not have any other God but me.

Don't worship anything else than me.

I'm the only God.

One God, three persons.

That that's that's all we worship.

And you can look at that and say, well, that's a little selfish.

It's not.

It's right, it's just.

He's the only God.

He's it.

And when he asks us to worship him, it's not petty.

It's not it's not like we're trying to stroke his ego or something like that.

No, no, he is asking us to do what it what it is right for us to do.

It is right for us to worship him.

That's why as followers of Jesus, we don't have to make any apologies for the fact that we worship Jesus.

There's no need to apologize for that.

Because he is the name above all names, and one day every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

He is the one true God, and it is right to glorify him.

Amen.

So when Jesus prays for glory, this is not selfishness.

This is not him being self-aggrandizing.

In fact, Madison, our worship pastor, put it really well.

We were talking about this the other day.

It's just Jesus being self-aware.

He knows who he is, and he is comfortable with the idea of being worshipped because that is right and that is good.

Let's move on to the second word restoration.

When Jesus prays for glory, he's praying for something to be restored to him.

It is very easy for us to think of Jesus in terms of his human years.

Jesus was a man for 33 years.

But Jesus has always been and will always be God.

He became a man.

And he took on the name Jesus when he became a man, but he is God and he's always been God.

And so he he prays in John 17, 5, now Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.

This is something Jesus claimed.

Jesus claimed to pre-exist his human life.

He makes this claim often.

And the rest of Scripture speaks to this.

In fact, the book of John opens with these words.

And it's going to talk about Jesus using this phrase, the word.

The word.

In the beginning, the word already existed.

And the word was God.

The word was with God.

He existed in the beginning with God, so God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him.

Then it goes on later to say that the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Jesus Christ is eternal.

He is God.

He existed at the foundation of the world.

Everything was made through him.

Everything belongs to him.

So when he's praying for glory, we have to understand he's praying that he simply returns to his natural state.

He left that aside.

He put that aside when he came to this earth to become one of us and to die for us ultimately.

That's what Philippians chapter 2 tells us, verses 6 through 11.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

It says, though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to.

Though he was God, he set that aside, that status aside.

And instead he gave up his divine privileges, he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being.

And when he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal's death on a cross.

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

When Jesus prays for glory, he's asking for restoration.

And in our world, it's it's cool when you see something that's brand new and it's shiny and it's beautiful.

But there's something even better about seeing something that's ancient, fully restored.

About seeing something brought back into its former glory.

Jesus, it's so hard for us to think about this, to understand this.

It's hard for me.

I don't think I can really contemplate how much he gave up before he came to this earth.

We think of his sacrifice purely in terms of the cross, and obviously, yes, when he died on the cross, he was giving up his human life.

His human life was flowing out of him, literally.

He was bleeding.

But long before the cross, Jesus sacrificed more than we can ever imagine.

To give up your status as God, to give up all the privilege and the glory, like in heaven he was worshiped, to give that up, to come to this earth, to live life as one of us, to have a job, to have an earthly family, to have people tell you what to do, to have people critici, to have the people that you created criticize you and judge you.

Can you imagine?

Jesus did that.

So again, it's only right that he prays for glory, and it's glory that already belonged to him.

He's not asking for anything that isn't already his.

But let's look at that third word, wait.

And this is where I think it starts to hit a little different, at least for me.

The Hebrew word for glory is the word kovod, and it means wait, which is cool because I've put on a lot of glory in the last couple of years, you know.

Some of us have too.

No, it's a different kind of weight, unfortunately.

Have you ever met someone that has just an air about them that affects the people around them?

Oftentimes it's someone who is seen by the world as a really important person, someone who has status, someone who's accomplished something great.

I have this very specific memory.

Some of you who know me well, you know my story a little bit.

Um, I used to do sports journalism, and so I spent several years covering college basketball.

I did it for CBS, I did it for Bleach Report, which is a big website, and uh had a lot of fun doing that.

God really opened some doors, it came out of nowhere, it's a whole God story.

And I covered the ACC.

And so I grew up a huge basketball fan, college basketball fan, the ACC, you know, that was my conference, and it was a dream come true.

And I'll never forget, in 2009, I was covering the ACC tournament.

And I had press passes, and I'm I'm in the locker rooms after every game, talking to coaches, talking to players.

And you know, just like in anything, there's levels.

You know, there's levels.

So in the ACC, you know, there's there's Boston College, no offense to anyone from Boston College, but you know, the line to talk to the coach of Boston College is not a long line.

Just saying, I've been there.

And then you've got, you know, the upper echelon.

It's like North Carolina and Duke, right?

Those two schools have just been have been there.

And other schools like Georgia Tech and Wake Forest, like that, schools like that have kind of flirted with it and then come back down and they're there, but man, Duke and North Carolina.

And so that's always who you want to interview.

That's who you want to try to get to are those schools when you're covering that conference.

And so I'm at this huge tournament, and I've talked like Coach K.

He was the former coach at Duke.

I'd talk to him in a press conference, I'd ask him questions and all that, but I hadn't had a chance to like interview him one-on-one, sort of personal.

And I was looking for that opportunity.

And you have to be opportunistic if you want to do that kind of thing.

You can't just kind of wait in line.

You gotta you gotta find some ways around the lines sometimes.

And so I happen to be walking through, and I see down this long hallway Coach Kay and his two top assistants at the time, a guy named Steve Ojahowski, a guy named Chris Collins.

Both of those guys were McDonald's, all Americans in high school, which is a big deal.

Some of the best players in the country.

Both of them would go on to become Division I coaches themselves.

The three of them are walking down this hallway, and it's just me at the end of the hallway and the three of them.

And it's a long hallway.

And I'm like, this is my chance.

I'm gonna go, I'm gonna walk toward them.

And I'm gonna have a chance to talk to these guys, to interview Coach K one-on-one.

And so I'm walking, and it's it's amazing when I look back at this memory how small they seemed from far away.

And I felt like, yeah, I felt equal in a weird way.

Like I'm walking, we're in the same hallway.

I'm walking here, you're walking here, that kind of thing.

But as we got closer, the intimidation factor started to grow.

I was 27, 26.

You know, these guys were older, they've accomplished a lot more than I still have.

Uh and and they're all pretty big dudes.

Like Coach K is 6'1, 6'2, maybe.

You don't think about that, because they're always surrounded by giants, but they're still he's a pretty big dude, and these guys are all like six foot and I'm 5'9 and three-quarters.

So uh that counts.

And so as I approach them, I just start feeling smaller and smaller and less and less important, and and they, you can tell on their faces they do not want to talk to me.

Like they thought they were in a private hallway and I shouldn't have been there, and I was where I was not supposed to be, and I knew it, but I'm like, I gotta take my chance.

And I remember by the time I walked up to Coach K, the weight of just his reputation and his level of importance, and these guys around him, and they're wearing suits, and they just I I kind of like got smaller in myself, and it was the most, I had to have looked the most pathetic.

I'm like, uh Coach K, sir, uh just just one moment.

And they both, like one of the coaches, he looked at one of his coaches, didn't even say a word to me.

He looked at one of his coaches, and the coach would go back to me, hey man, this really isn't the time.

And I was like, Yeah, but if I could just, you know, and then he was gracious, and Coach K was he was stuck.

He's in a hallway.

So he went, All right, yeah, what do you got?

And I just asked him so I didn't really know what I was gonna ask him.

I was just that excited about the opportunity, so I had to come up with something on the on the fly, and it was it was pretty miserable.

Um but man, I felt the weight of a person.

And now, if you didn't know who that was, you could, I mean, you could be at the grocery store and he could walk by you.

If you had no idea who it was, it's just some dude looking for chips.

But to me, someone who grew up as this huge fan of college basketball, he's one of the most accomplished coaches of any sport ever, and just walking toward him and him getting closer to me with his entourage, I felt small.

I felt the weight of his presence.

There are people on this earth who have a certain status, and with that status comes some weight.

And you've probably experienced that.

At least when you were a kid, it's like when the principal walked in the room.

He's like, oh, we gotta change.

Ultimately, all of that here on earth is manufactured.

Like no person in and of themselves actually has more grandeur or glory than any other person.

It's just that people accomplish things and we kind of add that to them.

But God, Jesus, in and of themselves.

God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, in and of themselves, themselves, it's hard for us to process.

There's glory, there's weight.

One of the things I love about the Holy Spirit is how he works things together.

Like I said, I didn't know that we were gonna be singing God in three persons.

I didn't know the scripture that Matt was gonna share earlier.

I have the same story.

Exodus chapter 33.

Exodus 33 · chapter mention

God is talking to Moses, God the Father talking to Moses on Mount Sinai.

And Moses asked, Show me your glory.

We're gonna see it here, verse 17.

The Lord replied to Moses, I will indeed do what you've asked for, for I look favorably on you, and I know you by name.

And Moses responded, Then show me your glory, show me your glorious presence.

The Lord replied, I will make all my goodness pass before you.

And I'll call out my name, Yahweh, before you, for I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I'll show compassion to anyone I choose.

But you may not look directly at my face, for no one may see me and live.

He's not saying I'll kill you if you look at my face.

He's like, You can't handle it.

I mean, it's like if I would have walked up to Coach K and made eye contact with him and just died.

You know what I mean?

Like that didn't happen.

It may have felt like dying after the conversation, but that didn't happen.

He's saying, You can't handle it.

Like my glory, it's too much for you.

So here's what he says.

Look, stand near me on this rock.

And as my glory, as my glorious presence passes by, I will hide you in the crevice of the rock and cover you with my hand until I've passed by.

Then I'll remove my hand and let you see me from behind, but my face will not be seen.

He's like, just I'll let you see me as I'm walking away.

And it says that when Moses came off the mountain later, just by being that close to God's glory, that his face, it was shining such that like people were having a hard time looking at him, like what whoa.

It affected him.

God has real glory, he has real weight.

Being in his presence is is heavy because of who he is.

And Jesus is no different.

In fact, in John chapter 18, Jesus gets arrested.

John 18 · chapter mention

And check this out, verses 4 through 6, it says Jesus fully realized all that was going to happen to him.

So he stepped forward to meet them.

He sees the soldiers coming to arrest him, he knows what's going to happen, he knows about the cross, so he goes and meets them.

That's epic.

Who are you looking for?

He asked.

Jesus the Nazarene, they replied, I am he, Jesus said.

Judas, who betrayed him, was standing with him.

And as Jesus said, I am he, and there's a play on words here because I am is the name that God gave himself when he first shared his name with Moses, I am.

When Jesus says that, I am, they all drew back and fell to the ground.

And Jesus is sort of letting them know, hey, um, I'm letting you arrest me.

Jesus has glory.

You talk about throwing your weight around, we have that phrase.

Like Jesus threw his weight around in that moment.

And he let that glory, that weight of who he is, be felt, and it knocked everyone there to the ground.

And that that's what we have to understand.

It's like the idea of being in the presence of Jesus, if Jesus himself, as he is, uh showed up in this room physically, like in a way that we've never experienced.

It is not that we would stand up and shout and cheer and yell, like we wouldn't be able to get off the floor.

Because that's who he is.

But this is uh this is where it hits home.

In fact, we're gonna take Lord's Supper as we wrap this up.

And if you're new, by the way, uh at the back tables we have these little cups with bread and juice.

And if you didn't grab one, um, feel free to get up and grab one now.

You're not gonna interrupt anything if you want to go do that.

But we wrap, we we take Lord's Supper every single Sunday.

It's it's part of our worship time together.

Um this meal represents the sacrifice of Jesus.

The bread is his body, the juice his blood.

You know, glory is an interesting thing.

When we think about glory in human terms, we usually think about being celebrated, being honored, being put on a pedestal, being cheered for.

That's why people might say things like, I'm not in it for the glory, right?

They mean I don't need to be praised.

But no, Jesus, he will be praised.

In fact, when Jesus was making his way into Jerusalem, we see this uh, oh, where do we have this?

John.

Oh, Luke chapter 19.

Luke 19 · chapter mention

Let's read this.

Luke 19, 37.

Says, when he reached the place where the road started down to the Mount of Olives, all of his followers began to shout and sing as they walked along, praising God for all the wonderful miracles they had seen.

Blessings on the king who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven, and glory in highest heaven.

But some of the Pharisees among the crowd said, Teacher, rebuke your followers for saying things like that.

And he replied, If I kept quiet, the stones along the road would burst into cheers.

Jesus is like, It is not wrong that they are worshiping me and giving me glory.

If they didn't, the rocks would.

He is he is God, he is glorious.

That glory that he's praying for, it is right that he has it.

It is what he's always had.

It's just the restoration of the way things have always been, and it it's it's his weight, it's his majesty, it's his goodness, it's his holiness, it's all of that wrapped into it, and it's oh, it's heavy.

But it's not a glory that didn't come with a price.

Like I said, for us, glory usually means praise and adulation, but real glory, no, it's glory that you only get if you if you carry the weight.

Here at His Hands, we have a lot of first responders and police officers, a lot of firefighters that are part of this church.

And it's an honor.

Those of you who serve and do that, you guys are amazing.

And we've had several, we've had several funerals here over the years for firefighters, for example, police officers as well.

They're very unique experiences.

I'm actually really grateful that I've been able to be a part of those because they've they've given me a perspective that I would never have otherwise.

We had a funeral recently for a firefighter who died of cancer.

In fact, a lot of firefighters experience that because they're consistently breathing in really harmful things when they run into burning buildings.

You do that over and over again, you expose your body to a lot.

And when that memorial service was over, all of the first responders, all of the firefighters, all the police officers, they they made this kind of human tunnel in our hallway.

And then, you know, I walked with the family through that, because that's what we were told to do.

And and as we're walking through and as we're pushing the casket through this this tunnel of people, every single person, as the casket comes, raises their arm and salute.

You want to talk about a heavy feeling?

Ooh.

I mean, it's like all you could do to not cry, and none of us were able to hold it together fully.

And that was like this experience of glory that I've never experienced in life.

It wasn't just being celebrated for being good at something, it was this honor that is due to you because of the weight of how you lived your life and who you are.

That's the closest human version of that I've ever experienced.

When Jesus is praying for glory, he's praying for the weight of everything to be put upon him.

When he's saying, Father, glorify me, he's not just saying, Father, celebrate me, Father, let me be praised.

Let him, let him write songs about me, Father.

No, no, he's praying, Father, hang me on the cross.

Put the weight of everything on my shoulders, put all the sin, put all the brokenness, put all of the junk, put everything on me, let me pay that price so that it's done, it's covered, it's over, and then I will be glorified, which is why Philippians said that because he humbled himself and died on the cross, he has been given the name above all names.

After he raises from the dead in Matthew chapter 28, right before he ascends to heaven, he says, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

He got all that glory because of what he did, because he bore the weight of our sin.

It's not glory that comes cheap, it's glory that he paid for, it's glory that he suffered for, it's glory that he earned.

It belonged to him.

It is right for him to be worshipped.

He had it before the world began, but then he gave it up, he left it in heaven, wherever it was, he put it aside, he came to this earth, he lived a perfect life, and he died carrying the weight of all of our sin so that now we have a restored life with God.

Now we can share in God's glory.

That's what he prayed.

Lord, let them share in my glory.

That's crazy.

But the only reason we have that is because Jesus carried all of the weight of our sin upon himself.

And he paid the price and he covered us all.

That is glory, and that's what he did for us.

And so, with that in mind, let's take the bread and let's thank him for it.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Son.

Jesus, we thank you, we glorify you, we praise you, we honor you, we celebrate you, we worship you, we acknowledge you, and we recognize, Lord, that the glory we give you, the glory that is due to you, that glory is a glory that you suffered for.

Glory means weight, and you took the weight of our lives and our failures upon yourself.

And your body was crucified to free us, and we need it, and we'd be hopeless without it, Lord, and we thank you.

Let's take the breath.

Now the juice, Lord, we thank you for this cup.

This is your blood.

An offering that cleanses us, that washes away our sin.

You are so good.

Without your blood, Lord, without your sacrifice, we would be hopeless.

Hopeless to know you.

And certainly, Lord, hopeless to share in any ounce of glory.

We could never earn that, but you've brought us into it.

You've earned it on our behalf.

You've paid the price for our sin.

So that in the eyes of our Father, we're we're unblemished.

We thank you, Jesus.

We love you.

Let's take the juice.