Prepared | Glorify | Neil Crouse | September 20, 2026

Our scripture passage today is taken from the first ten verses of John chapter 17.

John 17 · chapter mention

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.

Since you've given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you've given him.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

I've 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.

Now that they know that everything that you've given me is from you, for I've given them the words that you gave me, and they've received them and come to know in truth that I came from you, and they believe that you sent me.

I'm praying for them.

I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you've given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them.

This is the word of the Lord, and may he add his blessing to the reading and hearing of his holy word.

You can have a seat.

Thank you, Vince.

Appreciate you reading our main text of the day.

Well, welcome everyone to Forward Church.

If you're new with us, I want to let you know that we do preach verse by verse through books of the Bible.

And what Vince is one of our elders, what he just read, is uh the beginning of chapter 17, as we have been going since January, verse by verse, through this gospel of John.

Well, the chapter that we are diving into now records the longest prayer of Jesus.

So this is going to be a very important.

All scripture is important, but I think this is just a very important text for us to look at and understand and know because of the it being the final prayer that he prays over his disciples and over the church.

So we will um pick up here and recognize that Jesus has just finished giving his final directions to the disciples.

He has spent time in the upper room with them, and then we've been journeying with them as they left the upper room towards the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's continuing to teach them.

And last week we learned about how Jesus was giving them final directions on how to love God, how to love others, and how the Holy Spirit would come to empower them to love as well, even in the face of adversity.

So he finishes chapter 16 with a warning about persecution for following Jesus, and he lets them know that you are going to face, you will face persecution, that you will be killed for your faith is what he's telling the disciples.

So he's giving them some very um very concerning news, and then he goes right into this prayer for them.

Now, again, this is a prayer that Jesus says over his disciples.

This is the night before he is arrested.

He's hours away from going to the cross.

So it has a ton of significance to it.

The context of it is very important that we understand Jesus knows exactly what is ahead for him.

He knows that betrayal is coming in the garden, that Judas, one of his close followers, would betray him.

He knows that an arrest is coming.

He knows that he'll be falsely accused, and he knows that the cross is just hours away.

Yet the focus of his prayer is on the glory of God.

And he prays for the people that God has trusted to him.

So want us to think about that.

Jesus, hours away from the cross, yet there's no panic in his prayer.

There is purpose, there is confidence.

So as he prays over his disciples and over the church, there's a deep awareness that everything happening is a part of the Father's plan.

And we begin to see what matters most to Jesus in this prayer whenever we dive into it.

So if we look at verse one, it says, 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.

Now, throughout this study of the Gospel of John, we have seen many times that Jesus would say, The hour has not yet come.

And we've talked about that as we've studied verse by verse that over and over again, he would say, The hour has not yet come.

And he would say that because the hour had not yet come for him to be crucified.

So therefore, he would perform a miracle and then he would slip away because the hour had not yet come for him to be arrested.

He would heal someone, and then he would say, Don't tell anybody because the hour has not yet come.

It wasn't time for word to spread as fast.

And that's why he kept saying the hour has not yet come.

But now he says, The hour has now come.

He's recognizing that it is time.

You see, he's been waiting on God's timing for the crucifixion, and now it's time for that.

So he says, the hour has now come.

Therefore, glorify your son that the son may glorify you.

So we have to look at that statement and say, well, what does that mean?

Glorify your son, that the son may glorify you.

And the word glorify means to magnify or to praise.

So glorify, magnify your son so that you may be magnified.

So when you glorify something or someone, what you're doing is you're making it bigger.

You are putting on display, you are praising that object of your glorification.

See, think about it.

If you're all about self-promotion and look at what I have accomplished and lifting up self and thinking about your name only, then what you're doing is you're glorifying self.

You are glorifying your own name and gratifying the desires of the flesh because you're glorifying self.

Jesus is all about glorifying God the Father.

He is pointing to God the Father, and he says, the time has come for him to die on the cross.

Therefore, God glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.

So you see, the cross is an incredible expression of God's glory.

Now, the cross magnifies who God is, and it magnifies God's love for us.

The world would look at the cross and would look at the crucifixion, and they would see shame and humiliation and blood and death, and it was a shameful death to die on the cross.

Jesus says this dying on the cross is going to be for the glory of God.

This is to magnify God, this is to bring praise to God for who he is.

So isn't it amazing that just before Jesus is arrested, just before he's accused and beaten and crucified, he's laser focused on the truth that this would ultimately be for the glory of God.

So it says Jesus lifted up his eyes to the heavens and he saw the glory of God, the Father, coming in what was about to come.

So he lifts his eyes to the heavens and he's focusing on glorifying God.

And that's what faithful living looks like.

It's lifting our eyes to the heavens and recognizing that whatever is going on is for the glory of God.

I would say that from this text, what we should do is say, Am I lifting my eyes to the heavens every day?

And saying, Father in heaven, thank you for bringing me into your day.

I think we often try to invite God into our day.

We talked about that Friday morning in a men's Bible study that so often our prayers are, God, would you come into my day?

When in reality, God is allowing us to come into his day.

You see, if we put him first, then we recognize, God, thank you for giving me another day of life.

Thank you for letting me be a part of your day.

May you be glorified in everything that I do.

And this day might be really difficult.

We might know there's something coming ahead of us in this day that's going to be hard.

So we say, God, um, when I face this difficult circumstance, may you be glorified.

Maybe it's something simple, like, God, when when that person cuts me off in traffic, may my response glorify you, not the flesh.

You know, there's little things like that as well, right?

Every single moment should be bringing glory to God.

When I get overlooked at work for the things that I did, and I get passed up for the promotion, God, I pray that my response, the way that I react, would bring glory to you.

If my faith is tested today, if I have an opportunity to share the gospel, may you be glorified by my words and by how I live.

Jesus lived his life that God would be glorified, magnified, and praised.

And we too are called to do the same.

Well, we see what Jesus continues with in verse 2.

He says, Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

So we have to remember Jesus is praying this prayer with and over his disciples.

So he's there with the eleven men that are his disciples, and he's praying this prayer with them.

And he says, Father, you have given me authority over all flesh, and I have authority to give eternal life.

So the disciples, put yourself in their shoes, their sandals, they would have heard that, and they would have either full on believed it, or they would have heard that and thought, Jesus is crazy.

He's claiming to have authority over eternal life.

So either he is God in the flesh, or he's crazy because he's claiming to have this complete authority and power of salvation.

And once again, I've I've said this over and over as we study through the Gospel of John.

There's absolutely no doubt that Jesus claims to be the Son of God, that Jesus claims to be the Messiah.

Some people who don't know the Bible, they will make these false explanations and say, well, he was a good teacher, or he was maybe even a good prophet.

But there is no way that Jesus was a good teacher or a good prophet by claiming to have authority and power over the flesh and power over life and death, and to be able to resurrect from the dead and to have authority to give eternal life.

So either he was really God or he was a madman.

Jesus himself, in his own words, if we take him at his word, we either have to believe him as the Son of God, the Savior of the world, or a lunatic.

So there is no in-between with Jesus.

You're either all in on who he is or you're all against him.

He has authority over all flesh, the Bible says, and he has the he is the one that offers eternal life for those who believe in him, which is amazing news for our future in heaven, but it's also amazing news for our life right now.

See, I think far too often we think about, well, when I get to heaven or, you know, in eternity.

But the authority over the flesh is available to us right now as believers.

By faith in Jesus, you have his Holy Spirit.

And we've been talking about that for the last few weeks.

The Holy Spirit of God is living inside of every single Christian, every single believer in Jesus.

He gives you the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

So the Holy Spirit that you have is the same Holy Spirit that I have, is the same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

It's not a different Holy Spirit, it's not a junior Holy Spirit.

You have access to the Holy Spirit of God as a believer in Jesus.

Therefore, you have access to power over the flesh.

The very power of God is living inside of you as a follower of Jesus.

And we have to understand that the Holy Spirit is there for us to give us power over the flesh.

It's by His Spirit that we have access to His power, and then we can defeat the desires of the flesh.

Which means this: the next time that temptation comes your way, you could put a lot of guardrails in place.

I recommend having guardrails.

You could try to live a disciplined life.

I recommend living a disciplined life.

But you can have all the guardrails in place and you can live a disciplined life.

But the reality is you still live in the flesh, but you're called to live by the Spirit.

So when you face that temptation, and every single one of us will, you will face a temptation again as a believer.

When you face it, you can either give into the flesh and sin, or you can call upon the Holy Spirit of God and you can say, God, I'm struggling with this temptation.

By the power of your Holy Spirit that lives inside of me, would you help me overcome the flesh?

And you will overcome the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit when you rely upon him and his word and he empowers you to do that.

We have that power available to us because, as Pastor Blake said last week, the Holy Spirit is undefeated.

So why wouldn't we rely upon the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us to defeat the flesh, defeat that sin and help us live according to what God has for us?

He wants that fullness of life for you.

He wants you to defeat sin because he's already defeated it.

So you trust in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will strengthen you.

And then you can rest in assurance of your eternal life because you understand that He holds the authority for eternal life.

Eternal life belongs to Jesus, not to anyone else.

Jesus Himself said it this way in John 14, 6: I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

It is Jesus Christ of Nazareth that holds the power of everlasting life.

And then look at what he says in verse 3.

And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Now, this is very important.

He says, This is eternal life.

Circle that, highlight it, do whatever you got to do in your Bible.

This is eternal life.

We should all just lean in and our ears should be attentive because Jesus is claiming, here is eternal life.

So what is it?

What is eternal life?

This is the most important thing any believer, any person could ever listen to.

He says, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Eternal life.

That's it.

That's the gospel.

Eternal life comes through knowing the one true God and accepting his Son, Jesus Christ.

Now, there are two ways in the original language to express the word no.

So we need to understand that in the original language they could use two different words for the word no, and they would mean slightly different things.

So one word would mean to know by observation.

The other word would be to know by experience.

So let me explain it this way.

You can know by observation that breaking a bone is painful.

You saw somebody else break a bone, you think that looks like it's painful.

I know by observing that it must be painful.

But you can know by experience when you break your own bone just how painful it is.

The word used here for know the one true God, and to know Jesus is to know him through experience.

So you don't just know about God, you intimately know him.

You have experienced him, you have spent time with him, you have seen him work, you have um learned from his word and allowed his word to transform you.

It's knowing him intimately and experientially.

So it's experiencing God.

Um, some women in our church are going through a study right now titled Experiencing God.

And that's what it is.

It's that we have to experience him and truly know him intimately, because the reality is we can know about God and miss out on salvation.

I know that sounds like a strong statement, right?

We can know about God, we can know about Jesus and still miss out on salvation.

But when we truly experience God through his word and by the power of his Holy Spirit drawing on your life, and then you surrender to him and you submit to his will, then that true relationship of intimately knowing him brings you into eternal life.

You see, it's not just merely knowing about God, it is intimately knowing him that saves us.

It is experiencing him.

And here's another strong statement: even Satan and his demons know about God.

They know about God, but they're not surrendered to him.

They don't experience him.

Satan wanted to be magnified.

Satan wanted the glory.

That's why he is cast to hell for eternity.

He was about himself, not about glorifying and magnifying God.

So therefore, he knows about God, but he doesn't experience him in a loving and intimate relationship like we can.

So we have to surrender to, not just know about.

So we know God by experiencing him and having true relationship with him.

So truly knowing him is that surrender.

And when we surrender, it glorifies God.

Then in verse 4, it continues, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

So the whole life of Jesus Christ is glorifying his Father in heaven.

And he didn't just wait until the cross to glorify God.

The cross will bring glory to God as well.

But everything about the life of Jesus was to glorify God.

Scripture tells us that he was without sin.

So he grew up, lived his whole life without sin, glorifying God.

Scripture tells us that he performed miracles.

Every time he performed a miracle, it was to point people to God, make God bigger, glorify God, magnify the name of God the Father.

He taught what God told him to teach, therefore, he was glorifying God by teaching God's word and staying true to the scriptures and the prophecies about him.

Therefore, he was glorifying God in what he taught.

He did the works that God had given him to do, and his work is now finished, except the final work on the cross.

So he says in verse 5, and now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

I love this verse.

That would be a very strange part of a prayer if one of us were to say something like that, a normal human being, but Jesus is no normal human being.

Jesus is fully man, but he's also fully God.

He came fully man in the flesh, and he stepped away from glory with God to be with us in the flesh, to be the perfect sacrifice for us.

So he says, Glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world even existed.

So this is a glimpse for us into the Trinity.

Jesus existed in glory with the Father before the world was even created.

And we know from the Old Testament passage in Isaiah 42 that the one true God who is called Yahweh, he shares his glory with no one.

There's another passage in I think it's Isaiah 48 that talks about how he shares his glory with no one.

So for Jesus to make this claim to share glory with God before the earth was even created, it reinforces the biblical doctrine of the Trinity that God is three and one, that he exists before time and before we have time here on earth as the Father, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And Jesus is referring to that shared glory right here in this prayer.

And he's looking forward to going back there.

Then in verse six, Jesus changes the focus of his prayer.

First five verses are basically Jesus praying in relationship between him and his father.

But now he's going to begin praying for his disciples.

So in verses six through seven, he says, 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.

Now they know that everything you have given me is from you.

So Jesus begins to pray for his disciples, and as he talks to the Father, he recognizes it's God the Father that chose the disciples.

Now, of course, we see in Scripture that Jesus chose his disciples, but when we look at what the Bible says about that, it says that Jesus spent the night in prayer all night before he chose his disciples.

So he went to the Father in prayer, and the Father told him whom to choose.

So with his father's guidance, Jesus chose the disciples.

And now there's eleven of them left, and they're standing there with him praying.

And Jesus says, I have manifested your name to them.

So there Jesus is referencing the three years that he spent with the disciples, teaching them, clarifying that he was not simply teaching them about God the Father, but he was manifesting God the Father in their presence.

That word manifest means to demonstrate, to make visible, to make known, or to put on display.

So Jesus, with his life, is making known and displaying the character of God as he lived out and taught about the character of God.

And now today, as Christ followers, we see his disciples that are waiting to sing his prayer, and you and I are now reading his prayer as followers of Jesus.

We as followers of Jesus are called to manifest Jesus to the world.

And again, manifest is to make visible.

So we in our life are to make Jesus visible in everything that we do.

Now, I've got something in my pocket, and none of you know what it is because it's in my pocket, and you can't see it.

You don't really know what it is.

But if I take it out of my pocket and put it right here, I got little Jesus.

Little Jesus in my pocket.

Now You didn't know that I had that in my pocket until I took it out and I showed it to you.

And I gave you a little bit of Jesus.

What God is calling us to is way more than just a little bit of Jesus.

He's calling us to magnify him and make him known in everything that we do.

He's not calling us as Christians to say, well, I got a little bit of Jesus and He's going to get me through the day.

He's not calling us as Christians to say, well, I showed up at church on Sunday, so I got a little bit of Jesus and that ought to get me through the next week.

He's saying, no, we should magnify him, glorify him, manifest him to the world around us.

Now, I considered, as I was preparing for this sermon, I considered trying to find like a 10-foot blow-up Jesus that I could then have up on the stage and be like, you know, this is what it should look like.

It should be overwhelming when people meet us.

But I thought, okay, it's not being a good steward.

What would I ever do with that?

And out of context, that could be really weird.

You know, um, you see that.

So I didn't do it.

But the reality is, everywhere I go, with everything I do, I should be manifesting Jesus to the people that I encounter.

Because the reality is the world cannot see Jesus unless believers, followers of Jesus, are manifesting him to the world, making him visible, making him known with the way that we live our life.

So we are called to show the world Jesus, because the world is blinded by sin, and you as a follower of Jesus are called to make Jesus visible to the world by proclaiming him as your Lord and Savior, by letting people, when they come into contact with you, say that person believes in and follows Jesus.

That's how we manifest Jesus, just as Jesus was manifesting God the Father to his disciples.

So here's what makes that possible it's the power of his Holy Spirit.

Jesus has been talking about, I'll send the Spirit, He'll be your helper, he will be with you.

And he is manifest through believers by the power of his Spirit and according to his holy word.

So when you are living according to the Word of God and you're allowing the Spirit of God to guide you through life, then you are now manifesting God the Father through Jesus' Son to the world.

And it's a gift from God.

And then he goes on in verse 8.

And they have believed that you sent me.

So at this point, the disciples did not understand everything about Jesus, but they knew enough.

They have received the words from God, and they know the truth, that Jesus is from God the Father.

And Jesus says they have believed that God sent him.

And that's enough at that moment.

So listen to this.

That's where the disciples were at that point, and maybe that's where you are today.

You believe that God's word is true.

You believe that God sent Jesus, but you aren't sure yet of what all that means.

You don't understand all the scripture.

That's okay.

You're on your spiritual journey.

The disciples were at that point in their spiritual journey.

They didn't really know everything yet.

They didn't understand everything yet.

They didn't even know what was coming with the crucifixion yet.

That was going to be a shock to them, and they would scatter.

But they would soon understand much more about Jesus, and they would become fully devoted to following him.

But it would take his death, burial, resurrection, seeing his resurrected body, and then him ascending into heaven, and then him sending his Holy Spirit to empower them before they would fully understand and know and begin to be radically changed and to magnify Jesus and God the Father to the world.

So for now, Jesus prays for them.

In verses 9 and 10, he says, I am praying for them.

I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I'm glorified in them.

Now, Jesus makes a statement here.

He says, I'm not praying for the whole world.

I'm praying for these eleven disciples because it's about his disciples right there in that moment.

Some have looked at that verse and taken it out of context and tried to make the claim that, well, Jesus doesn't care about the world.

He only cares about his disciples.

And that's clearly not the case.

We can look at the whole of Scripture and we can see that Jesus definitely cares about the whole world.

John 3, 16 through 17 is a very easy text to look at.

For God so loved the world.

Not just a couple people, for God so loved the world, which means all of mankind, that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

It's available to everyone, anyone who will believe.

For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

It's clearly God's heart to save all who will believe in his son Jesus.

So in this particular prayer, in this moment, Jesus is praying specifically for his disciples, not necessarily for the world in this moment, because Jesus knew that his disciples would be the way to reach the world with his gospel.

So he's praying for them in that moment.

And he says something that I find striking, something that makes me question, what does that mean?

He finishes the verse with, I am glorified in them.

So he's saying that he will be glorified through his disciples.

And what does that mean?

Well, it means what we just talked about, that we manifest as his disciples, we manifest Jesus to others by the words that we speak, by the way that we live, by showing Jesus to the world, by following and being sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

When we do that, Jesus is glorified through his disciples.

Certainly those eleven, but that applies to us as well, as followers of Jesus.

We are disciples, which means students of Jesus.

The Apostle Paul understood it this way when he wrote in Colossians 1.27, to them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Christ in you, living through you, on display through the way that you live your life according to God's word by the power of the Holy Spirit.

And when you live your life that way, you are manifesting Jesus and God the Father to the world.

And that brings glory to Jesus through you.

And that's why he's praying for his disciples here.

And I believe it's what he prays for you and me as his disciples today.

Because he prayed that for his 11 disciples there in that moment just before he left them.

And then Romans chapter 8 tells us that Jesus sits now at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and he's interceding on behalf of guess who?

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Believers.

On behalf of you as a follower of Jesus.

He is at the right hand of God the Father interceding.

He is praying for you.

And I believe he's praying the same thing.

He prayed for his eleven disciples, that you would manifest him to the world.

I believe he's praying that for you right now.

How amazing would have been to be one of those eleven as Jesus prayed that over them.

Each of them, though, would soon fail him.

They would abandon him in the coming days.

Yet Jesus knew that when they received the Holy Spirit, they would glorify him with their lives.

And that's the purpose for every believer.

Once you place your faith in the saving grace of Jesus, his Holy Spirit enters you.

And Jesus is praying for you to glorify him with your life.

Don't just show people a little bit of Jesus.

God's not saying just to have a little bit of Jesus, but to be filled to overflowing, magnifying, making Jesus bigger than anything else in your life.

That's what he's praying for you to do.

And that will glorify him.

So we see Jesus in this moment, just before going to the cross for all the world.

He knows exactly the suffering that is coming for him.

The cross is just hours away.

And yet Jesus is not questioning the Father.

He's not wondering whether the Father has abandoned him.

Instead, Jesus basically says, Father, I've come to this moment.

I've done what you sent me to do.

Now glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.

Jesus is very aware of who sent him.

Jesus knows exactly why he came.

He knows what he has accomplished, and he knows where he is going.

And his goal is to glorify his father in heaven.

That's the confidence we see in Jesus throughout this prayer.

But there's something else I don't want us to miss.

Jesus is not only thinking about how he himself will glorify the Father, he's thinking about his disciples.

His disciples were imperfect men.

His disciples don't understand everything yet.

They're about to scatter.

Peter is soon going to deny that he even knows them.

And yet Jesus says, These are the people that the Father has given me.

Jesus knows their weaknesses, he knows their failures, and he still calls them his own.

And that should encourage us because the confidence of Jesus is not based upon the perfection of his followers.

The confidence of Jesus is based on the faithfulness of the Father and the finished work of the Son.

And notice back again in verse 3, Jesus defines eternal life.

He says, This is eternal life, that they know you, the one, only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

Eternal life is far more than simply living forever.

It's about knowing God in perfect relationship through his Son, Jesus Christ.

And Jesus came to accomplish that work.

He came to reveal the Father, and he came to give eternal life, to complete the work that the Father had given him.

And now at this point, he's preparing to go to the cross and he begins praying for the people which belong to him.

So I think the main idea of this first little section of his prayer is that we see Jesus acknowledges he came from the Father.

He acknowledges that he has completed the work that he came to do.

He's acknowledging that he will soon return to the Father.

And he's acknowledging that he will not leave his followers behind.

He is bringing his disciples before his father in prayer.

And the cross will be the completion of his work to save us, which he will soon cry out on the cross before his last breath.

It is finished.

We'll get to that in the next few weeks.

But for now, we focus on this first section of the prayer.

And the heart behind his prayer is to glorify the Father, to magnify the Father, to make the Father the biggest thing in our life.

He wants disciples to glorify him.

Maybe you need to receive salvation today through believing in the one true God and believing that he sent his one and only Son Jesus to sacrifice his life for your sin.

Eternal life is believing in that one true God and accepting that he sent his son Jesus to die on the cross in your place so that you could have eternal life.

Maybe you need to receive that today.

We just open up the altar in just a moment.

We're going to pray.

Maybe you just need to come and just confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord.

And the Bible says you will be saved.

Maybe today you're just recognizing that you just need to lay some things at the foot of the cross.

Maybe you're recognizing you need to live by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Maybe you believe in Jesus, but you've been walking around kind of with the mindset of, I just need a little Jesus to get me through.

Maybe today God's making you recognize that He's calling you to something far greater.

He's calling you to magnify, to glorify, to make big the name of Jesus in your life.

So maybe you need to lay some things at the altar today and just walk out of here saying, God, I want you to be seen in everything I do.

Let's stand together.

We're going to pray, and then we are going to respond to God's word.

Father in heaven, we come before you and I'm just thankful for your scriptures.

I love John chapter 17 because we see Jesus praying and we see his heart to glorify you and his heart to pray for his followers, that we would glorify you as well.

John 17 · chapter mention

So, Lord, as we continue worshiping you in these next moments, God, we just confess that sometimes we've had the mindset of, I just need a little Jesus.

But God, may we recognize today that we need a whole lot of Jesus.

We need your spirit to fill us to overflowing, to empower us, to strengthen us, to encourage us, to give us comfort, to help us live this life in a way that will magnify your name.

God, that's our heart's desire.

Is that we would magnify and glorify your name, that we would make known that Jesus is King by the way we live our life, by the words that we speak, by the way that we treat others, by the way that we show love.

May we magnify your name in all that we do.

So, Lord, for those that your spirit is prompting to come to the altar, I pray, Lord, you just give them that boldness, that courage to just come and bow before you.

Some need to receive salvation.

I pray they come and confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord today.

Others just need to lay some things before you and ask you for that boldness and confidence to magnify your name.

Whatever it is, we come before you, Lord, now.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.