Glorifying the Father

In the bit of Scripture that we are going to look at today, Jesus says something that reminds us of His humanity. And then He says something that will remind us of His devotion to the Father. There are lessons here. Listen to what Jesus said.

“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. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.”

Jesus is troubled. How human. And the reason that He is troubled is not hard to find. His hour has come. The Cross looms. And the prospect of having to deal with all of that affects Him. His soul is troubled. Once again we see that Jesus is not some super saint, untouched by the realities of life in this broken place. He is not some stoic, always putting the right spin on things. He is a regular guy like the rest of us. The prospect of the Cross troubles Him. It should. It would trouble you.

But then, notice how He responds to that horrible future. He is quite clear in telling His disciples that He is not going to pray something like, 'Father, get me out of here!' He doesn't pray that He would be protected from this terrible thing. He doesn't pray that He would be able to avoid all the pain. He's not praying anything like that, and He gives the reason why.

But for this purpose I have come to this hour.

Jesus remembers that He has a calling from the Father. That calling is all about establishing the Kingdom of God so that it would spread throughout the earth. Jesus knows that He has been sent to push against the evil that infests the world so that it will, one day, be destroyed. But He also knows that the evil will push back. There are people who hate Him. He knows that the calling from the Father includes pain. It includes suffering. The call of the Father will result in His being murdered by His enemies. Jesus knows all of this. But He doesn't pray that He avoid the evil, that He be spared the pain. He understands His calling. And that defines His expectations. It affects His prayers. Jesus understands His calling and accepts it, pain and all.

It's here that you need to remember that just as the Father called Jesus, Jesus calls you. And His call boils down to this: 'Follow Me.' He didn't mean that as some church code language for 'be religious'. He meant it in the way that it sounds. 'Follow Me.' He takes the lead, and you follow after Him. And so, just as He was called for the sake of the Kingdom, so are you. The particulars are different. Jesus' role and your role are different in many respects. But they have the same goal: pushing against the evil for the spread of the Kingdom throughout the earth. And they have the same danger. Evil will push back. There will be pain. You will suffer. This suffering is not just for special people in special cases. It is part of what every disciple has to deal with. Pushing against evil will always result in evil pushing back. In fact, suffering the pushback of evil is a sign of being a disciple. And though the particular source of the evil will be very different for different disciples as they deal with different situations - Satan has many tools and many methods - the pushback will always show up. So, whether Satan reacts to your efforts against evil through other people or institutions or even by using your own desires and longings against you, there will be pushback. There will be suffering. Expect it.

With this in mind, you will need to be careful how you pray. The response of many to the threat of pain is all too often a prayer that boils down to, 'Father, get me out of here!' But that's not what Jesus prayed. He understood His calling and prayed accordingly. You need to follow His lead. You need to understand your calling and pray accordingly.

Do you see what's going on here? Jesus is providing a model for us. He is teaching us by the way that He lived. And from that there are some things that we can see. Following Jesus includes pushing against evil. That will result in evil pushing back, and that will hurt in one way or another. So, following Jesus will necessarily include pain. It's part of being a disciple. Pray accordingly.

Now, why would someone live like this? Why would someone be willing to suffer the pain that comes from pushing against evil? What Jesus prayed reveals His motivation.

Father, glorify your name.

Jesus' goal was to make the Father look as good as He really is. And that fits His calling. The beauty of the Father lies at the heart of the Kingdom. And the spread of that Kingdom is tied up with the spread of the knowledge of His beauty. That's why Jesus prayed for the Father to glorify His name.

Now, consider how the Father responded to this prayer. He didn't say, 'Oh no, that's not necessary', trying to be 'humble', like many of us would. No, rather, He approves.

I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.

Understand what this means. The Father is telling Jesus that He has already glorified Himself through Jesus' life and He will do the same through Jesus' death. The Father has and will make much of Himself through Jesus. It's as if He had said, 'I'm really glad that You are trying hard to make Me look good. I realize that doing that sort of thing is painful. But the spread of My fame is worth Your suffering. Keep at it.'

Now, doesn't that sound a bit off? 'The spread of My fame is worth Your suffering'?!? Doesn't that sound a little self-centered? What kind of God is this? Why should people sacrifice themselves just to make Him look good? Why should He be the center of attention? Who does He think He is?

This is where thinking a bit about God can be really helpful. For too many, God is something like a great person, supersized. He has all kinds of power, all kinds of knowledge, all kinds of wisdom - sort of like some of the famous people of history, except a bit more so. But that won't cut it.

Who is God, and what is He like? He isn't like us. All the great people of history had their moment, and made their mark. But then, they disappeared. And life went on. God isn't like that. He isn't just another player in the drama of history, even though a very important player. Plenty of people did just fine having never even heard of - and here pick your favorite historical hero. That can't happen with God. Life does not work without Him. And there's a reason why. It's because He created us in a particular way. When God created people He made us in such a way that life does not work unless we live with Him as the heartbeat of our lives. He made us that way because that's reality. That's reality as He has created it. Life does not work unless we live according to what we might call the self-centeredness of God.

And so, He has created us with a built-in purpose. Our lives are to reveal Him as He really is, the self-centered God who is the heartbeat of life. As we know Him and enjoy Him as the kind of God that He is, as we live according to reality, we will glorify Him. We will make Him look as good as He really is. We will show others that God is the heartbeat of life. Jesus understood that. He understood that revealing God in this way is the purpose of living. And that's why He prayed in the way that He did as He faced the pushback of evil. That's why He prayed that the Father would be glorified by the pain that He would suffer.

Again, Jesus leads the way, and He calls us to follow. We are to live as He lived. We are to face evil and the pain that it brings in the same way that Jesus did. And that means that our goal is the same as His: 'Father, glorify your name.' And we pursue this goal not as if it were some odd thing to do. Pursuing this goal fits with the way that we were created. Making the Father look good is the only way that life will work.

That stands in contrast with the popular lie that we've all heard. We've all been told that life works only if we make ourselves the key to it all. Life works only if it's all about me. That is the theme of our culture. Me. And being religious is no protection. For so many, being religious is still all about me. Doing religious things - church on Sundays, prayer, and more - is still all about making life better for me. And that's why, when faced with the prospect of pain, the prayer of many is, 'Get me out of here!' After all, pain is no good for me. But that's not following Jesus. Life is not all about me.  Life is all about someone else. It's all about making the Father look as good as He really is - even if that means dealing with pain.

So, what do you do? Satan persists in whispering that lie in your ear. And no one likes the prospect of pain. So, the temptation is great to live like the rest in our culture instead of following Jesus. What do you do?

Part of the solution is knowing the truth. Jesus has called us to push against the evil. That's a key part of being a disciple. He has also told us that evil won't just sit there and take it. It will push back. And when it does, it will hurt. It may hurt physically, but bear in mind that there are other ways for life to hurt. In one way or another, it will hurt. But that's part of following Him. It helps that He has told us that He will use the pain that we feel to make more progress toward the goal: making the Father look good. These are things that we know and need to know. We need to understand what life is about.

Knowing things like these will help us when it comes to our prayers. It will give us pause the next time we want to pray that we would be spared whatever bad thing that threatens. To be sure, there will be times when that will be the right prayer. But it can't be right all the time. Jesus didn't pray it in our text when He knew that evil was going to push back in a big way. Sometimes the right prayer isn't that we should be spared but that we might be given the ability to deal with the pain in a way that makes the Father look good. This is another time when we need to be wise, something that comes from a knowledge of the Bible along with the prayers to understand it.

Knowing these truths about life as a disciple will also help us when it comes to the plans we make for ourselves and our children. The plans of our neighbors boil down to, 'What will make my life and my family's life more enjoyable?' Some religious types will tack on something like, 'as long it's okay with God.' But in either case the main point is still about me. Knowing what we know from this morning's Scripture we can make plans that have as their focus glorifying the Father. Understanding what that will look like will take time, but it will never happen if the basic theme of life is all about me.

And that gets us back to your prayers. Thinking in terms of 'me' has been driven into us. It's one of the things that we learned as we grew up, at school and lots of other places. It lies at the heart of our culture. We need to be weaned from that way of thinking. So, along with thinking about what I've taught you this morning about following Jesus and the purpose of your life, you're going to need to pray that the Spirit point out the different and usually subtle ways that you live with yourself and your desires as the focus. Pray that you would live according to reality, that you would live as a disciple of Jesus who is intent on making the Father look good in everything that you do - even though it will hurt.