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John 17, we'll read the first 10 verses. Please stand together with me for this reading from God's Word.! After Jesus said this, He looked toward heaven and prayed, The only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you.
For I gave them the words you gave me, and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for them.
I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And the glory has come to me through them.
Well, we're in John chapter 17. And it's nighttime in Jerusalem, and Jesus is alone with his 11 disciples.
Judas has already left to go get the arresting mob. Jesus has eaten the last Passover with his disciples, and has instituted a new ordinance, the Lord's Supper.
He has told them that one of them will betray him. He has told them that he is going away, but he'll return to them. He's instructed them in many important things.
And then he prays. And it's the privilege of the disciples to listen in on his prayer. It must have been an amazing thing to hear the eternal Son of God, who came and became a man, now speaking to his Father in heaven.
And they hear him praying first for himself, that the Father would glorify him, that he might glorify his Father. And then they hear him as he starts praying for them, and their ears must have perked up even further.
And he says, I've revealed you to those whom you've given me out of the world. They have obeyed and accepted your word. They believe that you have sent me. And I pray for them.
I'm not praying for the world. I'm praying for them. And then he said it. Glory has come to me because of them.
And at this point, perhaps the disciples were looking around to see who he was talking about. Who is it that has brought him glory? Remember who these eleven are.
Earlier that night, they were proudly arguing about which of them was the greatest. None of them had been willing to stoop down and to assume the task of a servant and to wash each other's feet.
They had been so dull of understanding and so slow of heart to believe everything that the Lord had taught them. They were so weak and faltering.
And yet, in spite of all their shortcomings and sins and failures, Jesus is able to say in truth, Father, glory has come to me because of them.
Now, these are the men who at times were confused and doubting and fearful, whose zeal could quickly go to seed and and spill out in false fire.
Sometimes they were so out of touch with Christ's mission that Peter would actually pull him aside and rebuke the Son of God, saying, no, Lord, that will never happen to you.
You will never be crucified. They were men who sometimes had in mind the things of man, not the things of God. Sometimes they were powerless and unbelieving, sometimes sleeping when they should have been praying.
So far off the beam that they would rebuke the parents of who brought little children to Jesus and so deserved a rebuke from Jesus themselves. And even as he prays, our Savior knows that in a short time, all 11 of them will forsake him and leave him all alone.
And Peter three times will deny that he even knows him. And yet it's precisely of these men that Jesus says, Father, glory has come to me because of them.
These are not sinless angels. These are not perfect men. They are disciples of Christ who were often stumbling and falling, but who kept getting up and kept following, kept believing, kept washing in that fountain open for sin and uncleanness.
And I find a word of encouragement in that. And I want you to be encouraged with that as well, children of God. We feel our failures so keenly, don't we?
There's nothing that we do in life, but that afterwards, looking back, we see things that we could have done better. We see our shortcomings. We see our mixture of wrong motivations and what we did.
There's much to be confessed and repented of. Oh, we want to glorify our Lord Jesus. That's our chief end in life, to glorify him.
But we wonder, don't we? We wonder if anything we do really does glorify him. Some of you are so conscious of your sins and failures that you're slow to believe that this could be true of yourself.
Must be talking about some other disciples here. Not me. I fall so often. My mouth gets me in trouble so much. My self-control is so sporadic.
My devotional life is not what it ought to be. My love is cold. My faith is so weak. And so you conclude that Jesus would not say this about you.
But then you hear him saying this about Peter, who so often had to pull his foot out of his mouth, and saying it of James and John, those sons of thunder, vying for the best seats in his kingdom, saying of a Thomas, who would not believe until he would have his fingers in the nail prints of our Savior's hands.
Brothers and sisters, we need to hear these words spoken about these disciples and take the comfort to ourselves.
Father, glory has come to me because of them. Because of them. Simple words.
But this is a flower of encouragement that we need to hover over and suck out the sweet encouragement in it.
And so we'll see the truth stated and then illustrated and applied in many different ways. First of all, the truth stated. What is the truth of this sentence? It's this.
Glory comes to Jesus Christ through his disciples. There is a people on earth who give Christ the glory he deserves.
They honor him. Their words and their lives speak well of him. Something of Christ's splendor and majesty is made known because of them.
The reputation of his greatness and his goodness is advanced because of them. Glory has come to me.
Glory has come to me. It's a perfect passive. It speaks of both a past and a present reality. Glory has come to me and continues to come to me through them.
So are you a disciple of Jesus this morning? Are you a follower of the Lamb? Whatever is true, whatever else is true of you, this much is true of you.
Glory has come to Christ through you. Through you. Now let's notice the truth illustrated and implied. How is it that Jesus' disciples brought him glory on earth?
The answer will also point the way to the applications to our own lives. How is it that we bring glory to our Savior? Well, first of all, by their conversion. Do we appreciate how much the salvation of every sinner is a great glory to Jesus Christ, the Savior?
Are you saved this morning? Glory has come to Jesus because of you. Sin is such a horrific offense to the holiness of God that it deserves eternal damnation and no amount of our good deeds or religious rituals could undo the offense.
The Lord would not be pleased if we made sacrifices of a thousand rams or if we offered ten thousand rivers of oil or if we even sacrificed the firstborn of our own family.
That would not undo the offense of one of our sins against the Almighty. So great was our offense.
But he was pleased to give his one and only Son for us that would forever remove the offense through his blood, through his righteousness. So God the Son, without beginning or without end, took our humanity, became a man, the God-man, and he lived here for over 33 years.
And every one of those years he ended. And he could look back upon the year and not one command of God was broken.
Perfect obedience to his Father's commandments. Here's a perfect sacrifice, who then in his 33rd year went to the cross and stood in the place of judgment and received the righteous wrath of God upon sin and satisfied God's justice.
For every believer who trusts in Jesus, and there they are, the disciples, and there you are, the disciples, converted, saved.
What is the glory of Jesus' blood? What is the merit of his righteousness and of his life? That it would forever change your eternal address.
Forever and ever, saving you from the torments of hell into the glories of heaven. Oh, much glory comes to Jesus through the conversion of his disciples.
When we trust in Jesus alone to save us, we honor him, we glorify him as the only Savior of sinners. We give him the glory due his name.
He is called Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. And when he saves us, we place honor upon him. Indeed, he does save his people from his sins.
Exhibit number 10,964 or whatever we are, we're an exhibit of the saving power of Jesus Christ. And it brings glory to him.
When we make the finished work of Christ our only trust, we magnify his work. When our faith looks away from anything in ourselves and anything we do and looks away and rests completely on what Christ does, well, then we glorify his work and not our own.
He is greatly glorified through us, through our conversion. He's done enough. He's obeyed enough. He's suffered enough.
He's bled and died enough. He's risen enough. He lives enough to have forgiven all my sins and to made me right with God. So glory comes to the Lord Jesus by the conversion of every sinner.
He came to his own and his own received him not. But here and there some receive him. And when they do, glory comes to Jesus.
There's Matthew and he's a Jewish tax collector and he's sitting at his tax booth and Jesus is passing by and he draws alongside of the tax booth not to pay his taxes, but to issue a call.
Follow me. And Matthew got up and left everything and followed him. And glory came to Jesus that day because Matthew followed the Savior.
He counted Christ as his chief treasure as more important than anything he had. And the word spread around town like it does among his old tax collecting cronies.
Matt's gone off with the preacher from Nazareth and their jaws would drop open and say, say it ain't so. You're kidding. Why would he do something like that?
These jobs just don't drop in your lap every day. This is a lucrative business. There's good money to be had here. Why would he just walk away from it all?
For what? And Matthew says, for him, for him, he is worth it. And I want you all to come over to the house for a banquet on Friday so that you might meet Jesus for yourself and bring all your friends.
And they showed up in great numbers. The Gospels tell us that large crowds of tax collectors and sinners, the lowdowns of society, were eating and drinking with Jesus at this banquet at Matthew's house.
And they're amazed at his love. He's eating with us. He's drinking. He's talking to us. He's respecting. He's loving us, this man. And his words.
He's calling us to repent and to believe the good news that there's forgiveness of sins for the undeserving, for those who deserve God's wrath.
And then they saw the Pharisees standing away off, criticizing Jesus for eating and drinking with them. And they hear Jesus say in response, it's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.
I have not come to call the righteous, but to call sinners to repentance. Here's a savior for sinners and glory came to Jesus that day because Matthew invited his friends to meet the Son of God.
There's Andrew and Peter. They're brothers and they're fishermen. And they had already spent time with Jesus. They had heard his words and they had believed that he was indeed the Messiah.
Sometime later, Jesus was walking along the Sea of Galilee and he sees them there casting a net into the lake and he says, come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.
At once, they left their nets and followed him. A little further along, he sees two other brothers, James and John, who were also fishermen and they were in a boat with their father, Zebedee, preparing their nets for their next catch and Jesus called them.
And immediately, they left their father in the boat with the hired men and followed him. Well, the word that night around this fishing village among the older men in town would have been how foolish these were to give up all of that to follow the Nazarene.
We thought they were stable young men, so promising, well on their way to taking over their father, Zebedee's business. But now they've thrown it all away.
Poor Zebedee for having such flighty sons. Yes, these four fishermen had left everything to follow Jesus. The comforts of home, of family, of friends, their job security, their business, even their reputation.
They were willing to lose it all, to lose their life as they had planned in order to venture it all for Christ. And when they ventured it all on Christ, they considered themselves the gainers, not the losers for having done so.
And when they did, glory came to Jesus because of them. Who is this Jesus? What is his love that those who know him say, I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold.
I'd rather have him than riches untold. I'd rather have him than houses or lands, than anything this world could offer me. Who is this Jesus?
Nothing compares to him. So in a world that runs after momentary pleasures of sin and cheap treasures of time, Jesus is glorified when you, brothers and sisters, follow Jesus and say, I'd rather have him than anything.
And you live that way. Glory comes to him through you. Secondly, not only by their conversion, but by their faith.
Their faith in the face of the world's unbelief. Wasn't a lot of people believing in Jesus when they believed. And here are these disciples bringing glory to Jesus by believing his words when most of the world was rejecting them.
Here he is teaching and they're soaking it in like a sponge. They're taking it on board. They're changing the way they live. They're saying, this is true. Jesus' word is reliable.
And they place their faith in him. He claimed to be the son of God. God was his heavenly father. That's laughing words to a Gentile. And those are killing words to a Jew.
For any man to claim to be equal with God. God's son. And for those words, they were ready to stone this Jesus.
And eventually, they would kill him for such a claim. But these disciples believed his claim. You saw it in the text read for you.
He says, I gave him the words you gave me and they accepted them and they knew with certainty that I came from you and they believed that you sent me. They believed when hardly anyone else did.
And on more than one occasion, they declared, surely, surely, you are the son of God. Who do men say that I am? Oh, they think you're a prophet.
Who do you say that I am? And Peter, the spokesman for the group, says you are the Christ, the son of the living God. They believed his claim.
They believed him when he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. They believed him when he said, I am the bread of life and he who comes to me will never go hungry and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.
They believed him when he said, whoever believes in me will not perish but have everlasting life. And they believed these things when doing so would get you thrown out of the synagogue and would bring upon you the hatred of the Jewish leaders.
They believed on him when even his own stepbrothers did not believe on him. They believed him when others were saying he's demon possessed and insane to talk like this.
And when they believed in him, glory came to Jesus because of them. And when you believe the words of God and you believe what he says about the unseen and the unknown to man that there is a heaven and there is a hell and there is a God of justice who has promised to punish all sinners in hell forever but there is a way of escape, there is a way of salvation one way in his son and you run to that son, you take him at his word and you believe on the son of God.
Glory comes to Jesus because of you. Your faith in his deity glorifies him as God. Your faith in his saving power glorifies him as Savior.
Savior. But then thirdly, they glorified him by their obedience. By their obedience. They didn't just sit and listen.
They changed the way they live because Jesus had spoken. Wow. What is the power of this teacher?
Now think of some of the commands that Jesus gave these men. These were not easy commands that he gave them to obey. He sent the twelve out like sheep among wolves.
Okay, go get him sheep and preach the gospel of the kingdom. Go. And they went. Like sheep among wolves. They go.
And they preach Christ. And every time they did, Jesus was glorified because of them. Or take this command to two of his disciples.
He says, go to the village ahead of you. And as you enter it, you'll find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. And if anyone asks you, what are you untied?
Why are you untying it? Tell him. The Lord needs it. Ready to go? You ready to go? Get that?
That animal? Doesn't belong to you? They went. They found it just as Jesus had said. Later in the same week to Peter and John.
Go. And as you enter the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him to the house that he enters and say to the owner of the house, the teacher asks, where's the guest room where I can eat the Passover with my disciples?
And he will show you a large upper room all furnished. Make preparations there. I'll be gone. And they went. And they found it just as Jesus had said.
These men obeyed their master. And every time they did, glory came to Jesus because of them. They obeyed him with implicit obedience.
Anything you say because you say. Remember, Peter's fished all night and caught nothing. He's dog tired. He's cleaning the nets.
And as soon as he's done, he's out of there. He's back to get some shut eye. And Jesus says, put out into the deep and let down the nets for a catch.
And that was the last thing Peter had on his mind. It's the last thing his body felt like doing. You talk about feelings. He wasn't even on the the feeling meter for doing this.
He knew they weren't biting. He had tried all night. He's ready for bed. And Jesus says, let down the nets for a catch. Master, we've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything.
But because you say so, I will let down the nets. Because you say so. And you remember what happened when he did. They caught so many fish that both nets, the net were was breaking and both ships or boats that they came to bring it in were sinking because of the weight of the fish.
they received his teachings and obeyed it. It changed the way that they live. And brothers and sisters, when when you alter your course, just because Jesus said so, he is glorified.
Wives, every time you submit to your husband as unto the Lord, because Jesus says so, he is glorified. Husbands, every time you lay down your life in self-denying ways to serve your wife because Jesus says so, he is glorified.
Children, every time you obey your parents because Jesus says so, he is glorified. Parents, every time you instruct your children in the ways of God and discipline them because he says so, he is glorified because of you.
He is honored as the one lawgiver and judge, as the gracious king whose law is the perfect law that gives freedom. There are no happier servants in the universe than the servants of Jesus.
Disciples take it as their privilege to serve him. They counted a privilege to suffer for his sake. They gladly do right. They run on his errands.
They keep his commands because he has set their hearts free. And that's where freed hearts run. What a master they serve.
And glory comes to him because of their obedience. And glory comes to him because of their love in number four. Their love in the face of the world's disgust and hatred.
Oh, how the world hated Jesus. And there is no question as to why they hated Jesus. Jesus tells us in John 7, 7, the world hates me because I testify that what it does is evil.
And people don't like to be told that what they're doing is evil. They may be in the synagogue on the Sabbath day thinking they're worshiping God. And what they're doing is evil because they're doing it to be seen by men.
And Jesus called the shots and he told it like it was. And they may think that they've not committed adultery with their neighbor's wife. But Jesus says when you've lusted after it, you have broken the seventh commandment.
And they didn't like to be told that what they were doing was evil. And that hatred you have for your brother, it's murder in the heart. And so they hated Jesus.
This is the verdict that light has come into the world. And men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. And they hated the light and they would not come to the light because their deeds were evil.
Oh, but in the midst of a world full of hatred for Christ was a group of disciples who loved him. They loved him. And oh, how Christ was glorified because of them.
And fifth, they glorified Jesus by their perseverance even when others were turning back. We're into John chapter 6 now and Jesus was not too far into his public ministry.
In fact, the Bible tells us that large crowds were still following him. Over 5,000 men had just been fed by him. Many who were professing to be his disciples were following Jesus.
And on that day, Jesus preached a sermon that thinned the ranks dramatically. They took offense at his words. They started grumbling and refused to accept his teaching.
You can read it. The whole sermon is full of flesh-withering truth. God-glorifying truth. And they didn't like it. They were offended by it.
Their pride was stabbed. Their self-righteousness was humbled. And John marks this as a watershed moment in the ministry of Jesus saying, from that time on, many of his disciples turned back and followed him no more.
It was a sad day. You remember what happened when Jesus saw one rich young ruler walk away sad.
Jesus' own heart was hurt because he loved him. Can you imagine if one walking away stabs the heart of the Son of God? What must have happened that day in John 6 when a great host of those who had professed to be his followers followed him no more?
And he turns to his disciples and says, you do not want to leave also, do you? And Peter, again, spokesman for the twelve, says, to whom shall we go?
For you have the words of life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God. They confess their faith, their persevering loyalty to Jesus when a host were denying him and leaving him.
And when they did, glory came to Jesus because of them. Brothers and sisters, glory not only comes to Jesus through your conversion, but every day that you continue in the narrow way, glory is coming to Jesus.
Jesus. Every day you persevere in Christ is a glory to his name. He's the one who prays to keep you from falling.
And look, you've been kept another day to the glory of his name. He's the one who supplies you with persevering grace so that you don't turn your back on him and go away.
Many today are having nothing to do with your Jesus and his word. but glory is coming to him because of your persevering loyalty to Jesus Christ.
It says loud and clear he's worth following all the way home. Though none go with me, still I will follow. No turning back. No turning back.
Jesus is the dearest friend I know. He's never forsaken me. I'll not forsake him. Then follow on. that more and more glory might come to Jesus.
And when you persevere in the face of trials, brothers and sisters, glory comes to Jesus. We learn that in the book of Job, don't we?
That book opens up two lessons on this point of glory coming to Jesus. When we persevere in our trials, we don't turn and run. And one lesson that we see is that this watching world is only one audience before which Christ is glorified.
There is an unseen world of God and angels, both good and bad. And glory came to God when before the watching angelic world, Job loses his entire family in a series of disasters and still blesses and praises God.
He's not cursing God, he's speaking well of God. And though there was no one on earth to hear him, there was a God in heaven who heard him and there was a devil and demons who heard him and good angels that heard him and he was greatly glorifying God by persevering in his trial.
The other lesson we learn is God's pleasure in the perseverance of his buffeted child, Job. This is something he boasts about to Satan. Have you seen my servant, Job?
Have you seen him? There's no one on earth like him. He's blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil, and he still maintains his integrity, though you incited me against him to ruin him without any reason.
You said he only worshipped me because I was good to him. You said if I took away his family he would curse me to my face. His family is in the grave and he's still praising me.
Have you seen that? Do you see the pleasure in God? Do you see the pleasure in Jesus Christ? If there was no human being to see what you're suffering in your home and in that situation and in that ongoing trial, there's a God in heaven who takes pleasure in it and Jesus is greatly glorified because of you.
When you don't know what to do, but you look to him and you bring your troubles and broken heart to him and you confide in him and you cast all your cares upon him, glory comes to him through you.
And then the glory came to Christ in the sixth place by their holiness, holiness, by their becoming more and more like Jesus. It wouldn't be long before Peter and John, two of these men would be drugged before the Sanhedrin and upon listening to them, they would take notice of them that they had been with Jesus and they would conclude there's something of the marks of the Son of God or of Jesus of Nazareth in these men.
The courage that we see in these men reminds us of Jesus Christ. And already in these eleven disciples, they're bearing the likeness of their Lord, not perfectly, but distinctly and clearly.
They're seeking first his kingdom and righteousness. They're loving what he loves. They're hating what he hates. They're seeking eternal values as he has told them to. And it's greatly to his glory to have a whole family of God conformed to his likeness, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
The whole family has this family resemblance of Jesus. Oh, how that glorifies him. When the disciples of Jesus are holy and are conformed to his image.
In this chapter in Jesus' prayer in John 17, the disciples, he says, I'm leaving them in the world, Father, but they're not of the world. They're in the world, but not of it.
Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. Think what glory comes to Jesus Christ, to have a holy people living in an unholy world, to have a holy Daniel in an unholy Babylon, to have a holy church in an unholy Corinth, in an unholy Bremen.
man. Leonard Ravenhill says the greatest miracle that God can do today is to take an unholy man out of an unholy world and to make that man holy and to put him back into that unholy world and to keep him holy in it.
And brothers and sisters, that's you. That's you. And great glory comes to Jesus by your holiness in an unholy world.
Because every bit of true holiness in your life is the work of Jesus Christ in you by his spirit. So whenever there's any holiness, he's glorified.
It's his work. Peter falls, but he repents and he grows in holiness to the praise of his savior who breaks the power of reigning sin. And so in every battle that you have with sin and temptation, when you refuse the offered pleasures of sin, because Jesus' smile means more to you, he is greatly glorified.
Because unbroken fellowship with the son of God means more to me than the pleasures of sin that lasts for a season. Great glory comes to Jesus through you.
And lastly, he is glorified by their fruit bearing. It was the same night in the upper room that Jesus turned to the disciples and said, I am the vine, you are the branches.
If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit apart from me, you can do nothing. It is to my father's glory that you bear much fruit.
There's that glory, much fruit. Glory comes to the father. Of course, he's the gardener. He knows how to use the pruning shears to bring about the most fruit.
Oh, but glory also comes to the vine. What is the fruitfulness of this vine? What is the sap of grace found in him that should make a gnarly old branch like you to bear the fruits of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control.
What a vine. What a fruitful vine. And whenever you love God and love your neighbor as yourself, glory comes to Jesus who turns our self-seeking, self-pleasing hearts away from self to love God and to love our neighbor.
That's him producing that fruit. And so I say there's a world of encouragement in this one phrase in the prayer of Jesus.
Glory has come to me because of them. And we learn from these words that even weak faith brings some glory to Jesus Christ.
That even imperfect love and imperfect obedience does not go overlooked and forgotten by him, but contributes something to his honor and praise on the earth. faith and before his throne on high.
Glorifying the Lord Jesus is not just our chief end in life that we view as an unattainable goal. I'm here today to glorify Christ, but oh, poor me, I'll never be able to achieve that.
According to Jesus, it's already happening and it's happening in your life. Believe it, brother. Believe it, sister. how this enriches the whole of life. It fills and suffuses every moment of every day with great significance.
Is it not enough, brother and sister, to know that Jesus is being glorified? Does that not make it worth going through whatever trial, whatever suffering that we have here?
Does it not make you willing to wait another day longer to deny yourself and carry your cross another day to reject temptation one more time because he is being glorified because of you in these ways?
Nothing else matters. If only Jesus be glorified, we learn from this verse how precious to Jesus is the glory brought to him in this dark world through his disciples.
something he mentions to his father in this personal prayer. Oh, believe it, brother and sister, that your king in heaven takes great delight in the glory that comes to him through you.
If no one else even knows you're alive, he does. If no one else even sees what you're doing and enduring for him, he does. And it matters greatly to him. no higher privilege than to have your life bring glory to the Son of God.
Then let us do so more and more. Let's wake up every morning when this is our goal. That I may praise you. Let me live that I may praise you.
That I might be used to bring glory to your name. And anticipate that great day when the Lord Jesus himself will stand with his people and he will present us to the father.
And what will he say? Well, here I am in the children you have given me and glory has come to me because of them. And if you're unconverted, this is what marks you out as lost.
You have no desire for the glory of Jesus, but you seek your own glory, your own honor. you live to advance your own name, not Christ's.
You would honor Jesus if you owned nothing good in yourself and cast yourself as a hell-deserving sinner upon him to save you.
Oh, what honor that would give to the Savior, but you refuse to do so. You would have some honor for yourself. You're not willing for Jesus to have it all. Oh, do you see the wickedness in unbelief, the wickedness of not coming to Christ and trusting in Jesus only?
Get rid of your pride and self-righteousness and come to Jesus. As one old brother said, when I came to Jesus, I had to leave two things behind, and here was a pile of all his sins.
He needed to turn his back on his sins and come to Jesus. But over here is a pile of all his good deeds, and he turns his back on all of them.
None of that is able to make me right with God, and he came as an empty-handed sinner for Jesus to save him. Come to him today.
Come and find that glorious life that is life eternal and knowing Jesus Christ and the true and living God through him.
Let's pray together. You give him your life if you've never done so, as we pause for silent prayer. Dear Christian, give yourself up again for this day, for this week, to live for the glory and praise of God.
God, I'll close in prayer after we've had a moment of silent prayer. Have dealings with Christ. Our Father, thank you for your Son.
Thank you for giving him up for us. Lord Jesus, thank you for your life and death for us. Thank you that you have worked in our lives, many of us here, transformed us by your power, and that our lives as insignificant and yet stumbling and sinful as they are, are part of your big plan to bring honor to your name.
Oh, give us to see the glory and wonder of it, and to seek it with all of our hearts. Pardon all of our sins. Cleanse us again in that fountain open for sin and uncleanness, and give us that singleness of heart and mind that Jesus be glorified.
We ask in his name. Amen.