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“Father, Glorify Your Name”
John 12:27-36
John 12:27–36 (ESV)
27“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But
for this purpose I have come to this hour.
28Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I
will glorify it again.”
29The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An
angel has spoken to him.”
30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.
31Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.
32And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
33He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die.
34So the crowd answered him, “We have heard from the Law that the Christ remains
forever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of
Man?”
35So Jesus said to them, “The light is among you for a little while longer. Walk while you
have the light, lest darkness overtake you. The one who walks in the darkness does not
know where he is going.
36While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
When Jesus had said these things, he departed and hid himself from them.
Our passage is a continuation of Jesus’ words in John 12:23-26 following the raising of
Lazarus and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
Main point last week *** “My dying for your salvation is also my design for your
imitation.”
4 hard things about Jesus’ words
vs. 24- The grain of wheat must die
vs. 25- Jesus calls us to hate our lives in this world
vs. 26a- Jesus calls us to follow Him on His Calvary road
vs. 26b- He calls us to serve Him
4 Glorious things about Jesus’ words
vs. 24- If the grain dies, it will bear much fruit
vs. 25- If we hate our life in this world, we will keep it for eternal life
vs. 26a- Whoever follows me to Calvary is my servant who is with me
vs. 26b- He who serves me will be honored by my Father
One of my favorite Christmas scenes in the Bible is Luke 2:11-14
Luke 2:11–14 (ESV)
11For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.
12And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and
lying in a manger.”
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13And
suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God
and saying,
14“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is
pleased!”
Glory to God, Peace to men. The angels crystal clear statement. The son of God has
come into His creation to display the glory of God and to reconcile men from separation
from God to peace with God.
John Piper says it like this. “Jesus came to make God look good in Salvation and to
make men glad in God.”
So we see today that this is exactly the prayer of Jesus. “Father glorify your name!”
Jesus is that this will actually happen at His most important moment in His earthly life.
He is the grain of wheat who has fallen to the ground and is about to die so that it will
bear fruit. And the fruit is going to be the rescue of sinners. He knows this is going to
happen.
And it is painful, and the man Jesus is overwhelmed with anxiety. Not only is he about
to suffer a death of pure butchery. But for the first and only time in eternal history, He is
going to face the impossible. He will be separated from the Father. The Word who has
always been with God won’t be.
Look again at John 12:27-30
John 12:27–30 (ESV)
27“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But
for this purpose I have come to this hour.
28Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I
will glorify it again.”
29The crowd that stood there and heard it said that it had thundered. Others said, “An
angel has spoken to him.”
30Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not mine.
Powerful truth for your application that has little to do with the message of this sermon
today. When have you ever said or been tempted to say, “I don’t know how God will get
any glory in this...”
You need to know that Jesus empathizes. You need to look to your elder brother as
your model. My soul is troubled. The prayer, “Father save me from this.” is on my lips.
In my mind. But the truth is I was born for this. I am exactly where God wants me to
be. For this purpose I have come to this hour. Here is my prayer. “FATHER, Glorify
your name!”
*Main Point: Why should any of us live for the glory of God? Because God lives
for the glory of God. Jesus lives for the glory of God. We should be passionate
about God’s glory because God is passionate about His glory.
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So we need to understand what the glory of God is and why Jesus and God want His
name glorified.
In my studies, I spend a lot of time looking and reading the thoughts of contemporary
agnostics and atheists. Some of the big reasons that continually come up as to why
they don’t believe in God and reject Christianity is they have had a tragedy in their lives
that causes them to doubt the love or care of God, or they are angry about something in
their lives in the past and God didn’t seem to help them or fix the problem.
Dinesh D’Sousa calls them wounded theists as opposed to atheists. For what
ever reason, they can’t see God as He is, pick a circumstance or situation either in their
own lives or outside of their lives and render a verdict on the goodness and rule of God
based upon that situation. It could be a tragedy or disappointment. It could be
hypocrisy or bad churchianity they see, observe, or are forced to live in while they were
young.
So many of them say they can’t believe in a God who is always seeking glory. He is a
megalomaniacal narcissist who only really cares about Himself. Not a God to live for or
worship.
The atheist doesn’t believe in God, the wounded theist is angry with God.
Darwin was preparing for ministry when his beloved daughter Annie got sick and died.
Instant agnostic.
Christopher Hitchens when he was a college student, his mother eloped with a former
Anglican clergyman and later the two of them made a suicide pact and carried it out.
How did that experience influence the future atheist’s thinking about God? His brother
Peter Hitchens is a believer and has written an excellent book on the defense of
Christianity. So tragedy can point you in two different directions.
I believe there is a basic misunderstanding about God’s passion for His glory.
The word glorify in the greek is a word that means “ascribing honor to Him,
acknowledging Him as to His being, attributes, and acts.”
In other words, God is glorified when we know Him as He is in all His attributes and acts
and honor that. That is, esteem it highly.
We see God as He is, His Glory, and we respond to that Glory through honor, and
worship, that is whether we eat or drink or whatsoever we do, we do it for the glory of
God. That is, He is the most important thing about everything we do. Believer, is that
your life? To put God’s glory on display so others will see it? See Him?
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You know what Satan’s agenda is for you? He wants to ruin your view of God. He
wants God to look less in your eyes than He is. Evil even. He wants to keep you from
seeing God as He is. In short, Satan does NOT want you to see His glory.
He knows that if you don’t know the God of your circumstances, you will judge God by
your circumstances. Has He done that to you? What is going to change the lie he has
been telling you into the truth. You need to see God’s glory. You need to see God as
he is. The whole truth about God is right here in the Word. Not snapshot truth, not
mostly truth, but the whole truth.
Look what John says about the glory of God.
John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His
Glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The glory of God is full of two things. Grace and Truth.
In other words, the most glorious thing about God is that He is so completely, fully selfsufficient that the glory of the fullness of His being overflows in grace and truth for His
creatures. That’s us. He doesn’t NEED us. So in His fullness, he overflows FOR us.
Jesus’ cry was, “Father, glorify your name.” These people need to see your glory.
Show your glory in what is about to happen to me. “I have glorified my name and I will
glorify it again.”
To live to glorify God is the life to live.
Jeff Anderson up at the court house. He wants to show the love and salvation of God.
He shows the Holiness of God. Many have rejected him. He has given the gospel to
several and has seen fruit of belief and salvation. He wants people to see the glory of
God in the gospel.
Everything God does is the display of some aspect of his glory, his beauty and
greatness.
John in our text calls our attention to 4 ways that God glorifies himself at this most
important hour of Jesus’ earthly existence- The hour of his death and resurrection.
This is the hour when that seed falls into the ground and dies and bears much fruit. We
are going to see some amazing fruit today.
Four ways that God glorifies himself in the death and resurrection of Jesus.
1-- God glorifies himself by judging the world
2--God glorifies himself by casting out the ruler of this world, Satan
3-- God glorifies himself by drawing all his sheep to Jesus
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4--God glorifies himself by shining as the Light of the world into the lives of those who
believe in Jesus.
So let’s start with #1
1-- God glorifies himself by judging the world in the cross of Christ.
John 12:31a, “Now is the judgement of this world.”
Most of the times, we think of God judging the world in terms of the last days, the
tribulation, the final great white throne judgement at the end of the millennial reign of
Christ. But Jesus says that the judgement of the world is NOW!!!
Let’s look at some other passages from John that shed light on what this means.
John 5:27, “And God has given Jesus authority to execute judgment, because he
is the Son of Man.” Judgement is going to happen through Jesus.
John 5:28-29, “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will come out,
those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done
evil to the resurrection of judgment.” So there is a future judgment that’s coming
after the resurrection of all people--- the good and the evil.
John 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him
who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed
from death to life.” In other words, those who trust Christ to reconcile them to God will
not come into judgment. Why? Because they have already passed from the
condemned state of death into the justified state of eternal life. Their judgement has
already happened.
So when did that happen? That’s what our text tells us in John 12:31, “Now is the
judgment of this world.” Judgement is separation. Now. The death of Jesus. In
other words, the death of Jesus becomes the dividing line between the condemned and
the vindicated. If you trust Jesus, you are united to Him and his death is your death.
(Galatians 2:20), and His condemnation is your condemnation (Romans 8:3).
And if you never trust Jesus, you stand condemned both by your sin, and by your
rejection of the offer of forgiveness.
So our first point is that God glorifies Himself by bringing the final judgement into history
so that his Son can bear the sentence of condemnation for all who believe in Christ.
This is what the angels were singing at his birth. “Glory to God and Peace to men”
men who come to Christ and pass from death to eternal life and never come into
judgment.
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God brings glory to himself by judging the world in the cross of Christ.
2-- God glorifies himself by casting out the ruler of this world, Satan
John 12:31- “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast
out.”
So in what sense was Satan cast out at the death of Jesus? We know that he is still
active in the world because Paul in Ephesians 6 tells how to protect ourselves because
He is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. So in what sense was Satan cast out
at the death of Jesus?
Here are some clues.
John 14:30-31- “The ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as
the Father has commanded me.” We know from John 13:27 that Satan actually entered
into Judas in that final hour.
So the picture is that Satan is making a final move against Jesus in hope that he could
make his final hours possibly so bad as to destroy his faith and obedience, and thus
undermine the whole work of salvation.
He failed. And in failing, he himself was judged and decisively defeated.
Jesus says in John 16:11 that the Holy Spirit is coming to convict the world concerning
judgement because the ruler of this world has been judged.”
The sense in which “ruler of this world was cast out” or “judged” is that he experienced
his decisive defeat at the cross--- not the final defeat, but the one that secures and
guarantees the final defeat. Jesus did not give in. He kept entrusting himself to God.
He did not sin.
And therefore he bore our sin. And he stripped Satan of the one weapon that he had
that could damn us: namely the valid accusation of our unforgiven sin. That
weapon was taken from His hand. He was disarmed. We have no unforgiven sin. The
blood of Jesus covers our sin--- all of it.
Therefore the cross was the decisive defeat of the condemning plans of Satan. He
cannot succeed. The victory is our through faith in Jesus Christ.
That is why John says later in the book of Revelation in 12:11, “They have conquered
[Satan] by the blood of the Lamb.” The blood of the Lamb strips Satan of his one
condemning weapon, our unforgiven sin.
The god of this world is cast out of the courtroom. Our case is settled. Our
judgement is passed. Our sins are forgiven. Our accuser has no records in his
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folder. He has no say in our future any more. we have passed from death to life.
God has glorified himself by defeating his ancient adversary at the very moment
when Satan thought he could win.
So God brings glory to Himself by judging the world on the cross of Jesus and He brings
glory to himself by casting out the ruler of this world, Satan.
3. God glorifies himself by drawing all of his sheep to Jesus.
John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
Now this is profound truth here. When Christ died, when he was lifted up on the cross,
he actually secured, obtained, guaranteed, the home-coming of his sheep, the gathering
of his children.
Another way to say this is that the death of Jesus not only makes it possible to offer
salvation freely and truly to everyone, so that as we read in John 3:16, “whoever
believes on him might have eternal life”. But his death also secures with certainty the
bringing in of all His sheep.
John 10:16
16And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they
will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
John 11:52 (ESV)
52and not for the nation only, but also to gather into one the children of God who
are scattered abroad.
So there are many ways that God gets glory in the death of His Son. He glorifies
himself in the death of Christ not only by making salvation available to all, so that
whoever believes may have eternal life, but also by securing with absolute certainty the
ingathering of all those whom he has appointed to eternal life. All His own, all His
sheep, all the children of God, all chosen in Him before the foundation of the world.
“When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all of them to myself.” And my father will
get great glory for this triumphant salvation.
4-- Finally God glorifies himself by shining as the light of the world in the lives of
those who believe in Jesus.
John 12:36, “While you have the light (namely, Jesus), believe in the light, that you may
become sons of light.”
This is where it all gets very personal for you. God reveals his glory to us so we can
cherish our highest treasure. And people will see the precious treasure that Jesus is in
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our lives. If he is not precious to you, why do you think you will be a light to anyone that
knows you?
God’s glory: It is revealed supremely in the death of Jesus, because all the world is
judged, Satan is cast out, and the homecoming of all believers is invincibly secured.
The question is, will you trust Jesus for all of this? Will you welcome it and treasure it
as His blood bought gift for you?
Will your heart say,
--I believe that my judgement is over and I have passed from death to life
--I believe that Satan has no claim on me, but is cast out of the courtroom of my
vindication
--And I believe that Christ purchased me and secured me invincibly by his blood, and I
am not my own. I belong to him, my Savior and my God.
If you believe, he tells us in verse 36, you don’t just see the light of Christ; you become
children of the light. Which means you share his bright and holy nature:
“While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.”
You don’t just see the glory of God, you shine forth the glory of God.
That is Jesus’ word and promise to you today.