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John seventeen one through five. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you, for you gave him authority over all flesh, so he may give eternal life to all you have given him. This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and that the one you have sent, Jesus Christ, I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with that glory I had with you before the world existed.

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Okay, we are in John 17. We're going to just do the first five as Cindy read for us. One reason I did leave that, want that worship guide blank, is because I do refer to a lot of scriptures. Some I will have to skip over, some will give you parts of. I encourage you, just write them down. If you got questions, ask later. Go look them up. Be a good Berean. Bereans heard the word intently, said urgently. They earnestly wanted to hear the word. And then they went and searched the scripture to see if these things were so. You understand that principle? So write it down. So here we are in John. Where we are, it's been a few weeks before we were since we've been in the gospel. Just to remind you, where we're picking up right here. We are in the upper room. It's Thursday night. Jesus is a few hours from getting nailed up on the cross viciously and dying for our sins. So all of these things are in light of the shadow of the gospel. He has already done all of his teaching to the people. He's done all the teaching he's going to do to Israel. He's done all the teaching he's going to do to his disciples. Now he's just going to pray. And what is beautiful about this passage is you get to look under the tent. You get to look at the heart of Jesus Christ. And major emphasis item, you get to see the relationship that the Son has with the Father. And the Father has with the Son. And if you didn't hear Cindy, go ask her to give that testimony again. The personal, in-depth, intimate relationship with God. So Jesus, now we're finished the Passover meal. He's already instituted communion. He's done the washing of the feet. Judas is right now out, turning him in, even as Jesus is praying. Jesus has already told him he's going to die, and he told him he's going to rise again from the dead. He always included the resurrection when he talked about the death. He said, I'm going to go to the Father and prepare a place for you. That's really good news. He tells him how prayer is going to work, and that he's going to answer prayers in his name. He ends off with John 16 with tremendous words of encouragement. Just before he starts the prayer, this was spoken on before. He says, In the world, you're going to have a lot of trouble. But in me, you have peace. And then he says, Take courage. Mike getting emotional about this. I've overcome the world. So he's been speaking to them from God all this time. Now he's going to speak to God for them. Some people call this the Lord's Prayer. A little bit of a misnomer because the Lord's prayer given to the disciples actually says, forgive us our sins. Trust me, Jesus is never going to pray that prayer. That's the one he gave us to pray. We need that one. No, this is the Lord's Prayer. Some people call it the high priestly prayer. And there's a reason for that. And what you're seeing here in this intimate relationship with the Father, you are seeing a display and in action, Jesus' role, interceding before God on behalf of man. That's what a priest does. That's what an intercessor does. And you're seeing this prayer. As it turns out, this is the ministry of Jesus in eternity. So this is a sample. I point you to Hebrews 7, 25. There's a great description of this. Jesus, he is able to save forever those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. He's always there in the presence of the Father, interceding on our behalf. The priest is the one who does represent man to God. Who could represent mankind to God than Jesus, the perfect man? And who could represent God to man and relate to man better than God Himself, the God man, Jesus Christ? Incredible picture of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. He had to be a man, didn't he? Because we sinned. He had to be a man, because we sinned. We see this ongoing ministry of Jesus. And I had to think about this because he says just before he leaves and ascends into heaven, he said, I'll never leave you or forsake you. And then he leaves. Anybody ever do that to you? But he stands before the Father, always with us in mind. And he sends us the Holy Spirit. 1 John 2, 1 and 2 gives us a great picture of the work of Jesus currently in heaven. If anyone sins, talking about believers, do any of you sin? I wonder whether it's an if there. It should say, when you sin, we have an advocate, an intercessor, a defense lawyer with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He himself is the propitiation for our sins. That means the satisfaction. He is the righteous one. He is the perfect one. It was his perfectness in sacrifice to God that met the holy requirements of God. Absolute perfection. Absolute justice for the filth in our life. Perfectly paid for. And only he could pay for it. So he satisfied the character of God. Why did he need to do that? Because sin separates you from God. It separates you. You cannot have this right, you cannot be blessed. You don't have your answers for you. You don't have guidance. You don't have protection. You got nothing. I lived like that for a long time. Without that relationship with God. So he satisfied the very character of God. God's a desire. Why do he need to do that? Because he loves us, but he cannot dwell with us. He cannot pass on that love. He cannot relate with us in the presence of sin. So he had to deal with it. That which separated us from him. Well, you might wonder, there's another picture there. Job, interesting book, gives you another picture. There's somebody else in heaven. The devil. Revelation 12, 9 and 10 says, the devil, Satan, who deceives the whole world. The accuser of our brethren. Who does he accuse? The brethren, Christians. He accuses them before our God day and night. How do you like that one? You know what that means? Your sin is not the secret as you hope it is. In fact, it's social media, it's public in heaven. God knows it, and Satan knows it. And he points down with every, almost every right, and he says, look at that, Tim Brown. Look at his sin. Look what he did. But I have an advocate. I got a defense Lord, Jesus, who stands here on my behalf. We read in that same passage in the last days, but it refers to how you overcome the accuser, how we live in this life. And it says they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb. We sang about the blood of the Lamb that seeked this magnificent sacrifice of payment for sin. And because of the word of their testimony. So it wasn't just what Jesus did, it applies to those who trust him and believe in him, their testimony of a changed life, like Cindy referred to. Well, going on, you can see, and this phrase right here, lifting up his eyes to heaven, I can tell you several weeks ago when I started looking at this passage. This phrase leaped out the pages at me. Lifting up his eyes to heaven. That is really good instruction. Lift up your eyes to heaven. And I wonder myself, how much do I send my time looking this way, primarily this way, and not that way? Jesus lifts up his eyes to heaven. He did the same thing before he raised Lazarus from the dead. He said he raised up his eyes and he says, Look at this relationship. Look at this confidence. He said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. You always hear me. Look at this confidence. He's always set there. You always hear me. I'm so thankful. I have this relationship. You always listen. You're always there for me. But look at the direction he's living. And we know he did that regularly because the scripture says clearly he never said anything he didn't hear from the Father. The scripture says he didn't do anything the Father didn't tell him to do. There's a picture for us. How do you do that? You pray, you communicate, you live in an active, dynamic relationship with the God of creation. And he guides you, instructs you, and corrects you and loves you and comforts you if you're in communion. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. That's the instruction Jesus gave us. A great passage you might want to jot down, Colossians 3, 1 and 2, the same picture. We're told keep seeking the things above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Keep seeking. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Run a survey on how much time you spend thinking about something. Check that one out. It might shock you. Set your mind on the things above where Christ is. Well, in this passage, you can see right here that Jesus is praying for himself. It's a very short prayer. The rest of the passage, which will be taught on later, is going to pray for his immediate disciples. Then he's going to pray for the whole church and the church to come, all believers. So he communicated openly with heaven regularly. I have to mention about prayer here, because the word that's used for prayer in the Gospel of John, and just in the Gospel of John, and just referring to Jesus, it doesn't mean I request. He is not asking for a favor. He's stating his desire. You get that? It's not a request. We have requests, but I think when you walk with Jesus Christ closely, you can state your desire because he's going to conform you to his image. He's going to transform your heart to be like his, and you're going to start praying really what it means in the name of Jesus, as he tells us, the Father will answer anything that you ask. He will give you anything that you ask when your heart is like that. So Jesus has this confidence, and this confidence you see by the use of his word is based on this personal, deep, I have to use the word, intimate relationship with God the Father. I wrote myself a goofy note. I say, where do I get screwed up on this? I used to have this desire for a 1966 force green Corvette. Four speed. Four speeds were new back then, you guys wouldn't get that. And I was trying to figure out how I can pray in the name of Jesus for 1966 Corvette. Well, it never quite, it never quite made the connection, but you get the idea. So how does Jesus pray? And how did he teach us to pray? What is the first thing he says? It's based on this relationship. Father. Father. Personal, family, relations, intimate, like a blood relationship. And only children have a privileged relationship with the father. Only children have open access, a special relationship to the father. Other people can come, but not in that privileged relationship. And fathers, do you not love your children to come like that? And you give them, even six of them. We didn't have that many. Even whatever, you love them to come. And you can't wait for them to come because they have a privileged place in your life. Gino, as a child of God, that's the place you have. Open access to the throne of heaven, the Father of eternity. Romans 8:16 is one you probably ought to jot down if you don't know it. The Spirit Himself, that's the Holy Spirit, testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. That means the Spirit, one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit, he testifies, he confirms with you, he makes you understand that you belong to him, that you are his child, you are loved by him. If that is not true in your life, we probably need to have a conversation. So very personal prayer here. It is based on a family relationship. And it's interesting. It's Father's Day. Today, awesome, Father's Day. So we see Jesus here honoring the Father with Father's Day. You honor the Father. That's for the commandment. Honor your father and mother. Guess what? Every day for Jesus was Father's Day. For the Father. He honored him every day. And never missed. Pretty awesome. So the next statement we see in this prayer, and this is astounding, you could probably spend a lot of time sorting this out or studying it or trying to comprehend. But Jesus says to the Father, the hour has come. The hour. Not, okay, it's time. It's the hour. The hour in all eternity. The hour for which I was born a man of the Holy Spirit. The hour of which I suffered and died. The hour for which you sent me. The hour in which Satan is rising up to prevent the redemption of the soul of man. The hour. He never took his eyes off the hour. That's why it came. A decisive battle. And that hour is forecast way back in the third chapter of the Bible. You can look it up in The Curse of Satan. God is talking to Satan and he says, I'm going to make an enemy between you and the seed of the woman. That's men, the seed of the woman. And Galatians defies that man as Jesus. There is going to be a hostile collision between you for a long time and mankind. And you think you are going to bruise him on the head, meaning you're going to get Jesus to die, which he tries real hard to do. But he is going to crush you on the head. He's going to bruise you on the heel. But Jesus will crush your fatal blow, the collision that occurs right in this hour right here. Jesus knew this hour was coming. He told his mom, the first miracle, he says, hey, don't get ahead of the time. It's not my hour yet, if you know the story. He told his brothers the hour hasn't come yet. Several times he passes through the crowd when they're uh want to kill him because he claimed to be God, which he was. And he just passed through the cloud because the hour had not come. It's very interesting how God has a timing. And it doesn't change. And you can't change it. And Satan doesn't change it. And as much as I try and militate things in my own life and time, we're out of our league. So this is the hour, the passion of Jesus Christ. The hour to accomplish the divine plan. And he describes this hour, glorify your son. This hour, he's talking about the cross here. He's talking about suffering and dying, being humiliated, being rejected. And he says, glorify your son. This is the hour to glorify your son. We probably think of different ways to glorify ourselves in our own life, besides that way. You understand the significance of this? But once again, he is talking to the Father. It's very personal. It's personal relationship. It's based on relationship. He doesn't say glorify me. This is what I say frequently. You ever struggle with that one? He says, glorify your son. Why? So the son can glorify you. Because his glory is the cross. His glory and his honor is doing what the Father sent him to do, save people like us and a whole bunch of other people that are just like us in Hurt City, lost and insecure and alone and needing the forgiveness of our sins, desperately, whether we know it or not. So the cross is his glory and his honor. You know, uh Satan tried to tempt him out right into his ministry initially, tried to tempt him to take the shortcut to take over the world without dying. Herod tried to take him out when he was a baby, killed all the under two-year-olds. He doesn't give up, and he doesn't give up in your life either. He is not as wise, cunning, but he's not as wise as he presents himself. He thinks killing Jesus is gonna do it. He doesn't know that's exactly God's plan, and it's gonna happen, and he's a pawn. Listen, Satan is a pawn on the chessboard of God. He doesn't direct him, he doesn't have to direct him because he's rooted in evil. All he can do is kill Son. So Satan allows him and allows him to go. He will do only what he can do, but he controls him and directs when he needs to to accomplish what he wants. Do not be faked out by Satan that is here. Created being. Well, so it's interesting here that the prayer that Jesus is praying, he's not looking for the glory that he left behind in heaven. The glory of God, the form of God is what it's called in Philippians. He is talking about the glory and the honor of doing for God the Father's glory what he was sent here to do, and that was to give himself as a ransom for sinners. In John 12, neat passage, Jesus says early on in the teaching in the upper Rome, he says, the hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. My soul is troubled. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour, meaning don't let me die. For this purpose I came to this hour. You see, his commitment and direction, and that never changes in our lives. He says, For this purpose I came. Father, glorify your name through the cross. Hebrews 2, 9, I like to state this better than I could. We see Jesus, because of the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. You see what is honorable to him, do you see what is glorious to him in this place? The will of the Father for our salvation to the glory of God, eternal. Well, pressing along, so we see here coming up, then Jesus goes on to say, you gave him authority, you gave authority to Jesus over all mankind, and I have to say, all authority is from God. All authority is from God. Jesus got his authority from the Father, but Satan did not, in the sense that he becomes what is known as the God of this world. How did that happen? How do we read in the scriptures the whole world lies in the power of the evil one? Because back in the Garden of Eden, man, the first man, our dad, by the way, the first father, by the way, earthly father, he is your dad. We all came from him, right? Good news. He fumbled the ball in a big time when he decided that he was going to go independent from God, when he was going to decide right and wrong for himself, he could choose the difference between the knowledge of good and evil. God told him what? So he was separate. He died. He was separated like all mankind, now spiritually separated from God. Now without the power of God in his life, he was given authority over this heaven, over the earth, right? He and his wife. So how did Satan get in there? You remember when we pulled out of Iraq? Don't want to get political here. Just a couple years back, previous administration, we pulled our troops out. You remember what happened? This group came in. We now call them ISIS. Where did they come? Evil. How did they get here? Power vacuum. There's a power vacuum, and I'll tell you what, if you leave a power vacuum in your life, you know what? Satan will fill it. He wants to be God. He's trying to be God and he wants to be God of your life. And he does a really good job out of fooling you and thinking you he can offer the world and dominate you if there's a power vacuum in your life. And that power is the presence of God in your life, which is only available to those who have this family relationship with Almighty God, the indwelling of God, the Spirit. So if you're struggling. Maybe you're not empowered by God Himself. Well, going on, there's so much in here. We could probably spend a lot more time than these guys are going to let me spend. So, why does Jesus get this authority going on in here? He says, You've given me all authority for man that he, the Son, may give eternal life to all whom you have given him. That's sort of tricky, the ones you've given. There's a picture of being chosen and selected there. And I'll let Nick or somebody preach on that so you can ask him the questions. Because they're really hard questions. I know what the Bible says, but I don't want to say it. But look, that blaffling or what. But listen, this picture, the father has given to the son the authority. He's given people to the son for what? To give, it's like a marriage picture. The father takes the woman, the bride, who loves the groom, who loves this man, who's devoted to this man, and presents him. Hope he does this real well, presents him to this man, the groom. The bride, according to scriptures, is the church. Believers, the bride of Christ. You can read about Revelation, the bride of Christ. So the Father gives to the Son, he presents the bride to the groom who loves her, who gives himself up for her, like Ephesians 5 says. And you know what happens in that marriage between the church, the bride of Christ, Jesus, the groom, and in human marriage? They become one. Whom God has joined together. Not you, whom God has joined together. Mary, you guys are married, you ought to understand this. And so you start out in a sacred union, like getting born again. You start out in a sacred union, but the knowledge and the growing and the intimacy grows. It's progressive. It's called sanctification in religious terms. You grow in your knowledge and understanding of God. And that relation, that oneness that is already true, becomes true in your life as you lay aside sin, as you confess and repent, as you allow Him to move you by the Spirit, draw you closer and closer in this fellowship with God. And he's simply doing what he designed you to be in the first place. Created in his image. Living in perfect relationship with him. That was the plan. This is not a new plan. That's the original plan. We mucked it up real bad. And we keep mucking it up when we dilly dally around with sin. So he's given some to be given to the bridegroom. And then he goes on in verse 3, and it's real significant. It's not exactly a definition, but he says, so my job here, you've given me authority to give eternal life. Then he says, this is eternal life. So you think, well, here comes a definition. I don't think it's a definition, but you have to include some other scriptures there, which I won't do at this point. But what it is is this is where eternal life comes from, the source of life. What life really is, is intimate relationship with God. Intimate relationship with God. And I'll guarantee you, most of you struggle with this. Intimate relationships, because your dad wasn't perfect. Don't you? And when you start talking intimate, especially men, we all get nervous. And I grew up in a pastor's home, and this was a problem for me. My dad's a great guy. But he was distant. And I didn't understand being him personally involved in how I felt. I never heard that. How do you feel, son? Can I help you understand? Can I show you how to throw a baseball? I didn't get that. Great guy. So I grew up, and this I'll just share this. I grew up. My dad's an awesome guy, moral guy. But I thought when I came to know God, that God did not care that much about me. I didn't, whenever you said intimacy, I thought sex. Honestly, intimacy. It's a whole lot more than that. I didn't understand. So I thought God just didn't care about me. And I'll just share with you very briefly. A few hours before he died, I went to see him, and we'd gotten close over the years, but he didn't know that much about intimacy still. And I remember I was just gonna go say goodbye to him. He died a few hours later. And he took my face in his hands. And he pulled me in. And he kissed me right on the mouth. And he said, I love you, son. Thanks for coming. Intimacy. About three days later, I was at a camp threshing around, and God said to me, gave me that picture, he said, That's how I love you. Just like that. Personal, intimate relationship. So, eternal life. It comes from knowing the only true God. It comes from knowing Jesus Christ because you can't know the Father without knowing the Son. Because the Son dealt with the sin. There is a separation, there's a veil, it's darkness. Sin must be dealt with. So you have to know the Son. And Jesus makes it real clear: nobody comes with the Father but by me. There's no way. And there's a lot of people that think they worship the Father, all kinds of things. Worship the Father, worship God, they got different names for them. But if Jesus is not an equation, if he's not the bridge or whatever term you want to use, you can't get there because there's no way to deal with your corruptness, your unrighteousness, your sin. There's no way. You're talking about approaching a God who is absolutely pure, absolutely holy, intolerable of sin. Intolerable, never mixes, never tolerates, and will punish every sin. Every sin. Either in his son Christ or individually for those who refuse him. You get it? Sin. Holy God. We have to know him. Hebrews 1.3 tells you Jesus is the radiance of his glory, the exact representation of his nature. Well, I'll just share with you. I probably should look at time. I don't even know what time is it supposed to be here. In Christ. You hear this word? It's one of the New Testament words you see it quite a bit. In my opinion, the two most important words in the whole Bible are those two words. In Christ. It means spiritual relationship. It means united with Christ. It means identified with Christ. It means that's what happened when you repent and confess your sins and you trust Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and surrender Him as Lord. You are like in marriage, joined together by God. And you know what? God looks at you the exactly the same way he looks at his son. Not divine. I tried that one. We're not that godly. Not divine. I'm talking about character, relationship. You have the same relationship of a father, he does. That's why he prays with confidence. That's why he says, Father, this is what I want. And it's a done deal. Their heart is united. Married couples get like that if you work on it. Not perfect. You understand? The beauty of being in Christ. We're told there's so much we could say about this, but Ephesians 1, the third verse says that the Father has blessed his children with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And it runs a list: forgiveness of sins, redemption, the payment for your sin, justification, sanctification, glorification, a whole list of stuff. Perfectly done. Past tense. Has blessed. Past tense. In Christ. United with Christ. Identified with Him. It's what it means to be baptized into His death and into His resurrection. Pretty awesome. Probably never get through this. Staying on in verse 3. So how important is that relationship? From Jesus' viewpoint, I hope you're getting the idea. Most of you probably already have the idea. So Jesus says, on the last time, in that day, he says, in that day, interesting day, many people are going to come to me and they're going to say, Lord, Lord. Didn't I do all this stuff in your name? Didn't I cast out demons? Didn't I heal people? Didn't I do miracles? And Jesus says, Depart from me. I never knew you. He didn't say he didn't do enough stuff. He didn't go to church enough. He didn't go to life group. He didn't pay your tithe. You didn't read the Bible. He didn't say anything about that. He said, I never knew you. We don't have a relationship. And if you don't have one with him, you never had one with him. Because he establishes you can't lose it. It's based on him, not you. You get it? Never knew you. So be careful about doing a whole bunch of good stuff and slapping Jesus' name on it. In Jesus' name. Okay, you have to be born again. That's what happened in the garden is devastating. The separation of man and God. When Jesus said you must be born, he said, You must be born of the Spirit. You are spiritually dead. You're separated from God. By the Spirit of God, you can be regenerated. You can be brought into relationship with God. You must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. God is spirit. If you want to relate with him, you have to have a spiritual component, let's call it. That's the only way you can pray in the spirit. That's why he tells us to worship in spirit, innit? You can't worship him any other way. That's why he says, walk by the spirit will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Because you can't live the life except by the Spirit of God. Spiritual life. That means he's coming back. And he's not going to be a baby in the manger, and we're not going to sing Christmas carols. And he says, He's going to be dealing out retribution. Listen to this. Dealing out retribution to those who do not know God. And to those who do not obey the gospel of Jesus Christ. They hear the news, but they refuse to respond and yield to the truth. Dealing out retribution. What does that retribution look like? These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power. That should put a sense of urgency. That should put a sense of urgency in the ministry of reconciliation. Nick's been preaching on this. I got a brother and a sister. They're going there. They fall in this category. I fear for them. Do you have that sense of urgency, the reality, the spiritual reality of what is coming for those who do not know God? And the only way they're going to know him, by the way, is if you tell them. God has passed the time of the angels and the prophets. He now has you with the Spirit of God to go to Indonesia or to go out on your uh serve the city. What's that thing? Something. To do this stuff because you have the truth. You have the power of God. You have the gospel. And nobody's going to hear it unless you tell them that. Okay. So we'll move on here. Verse 4. Jesus says, I have glorified thee on earth. And listen to this. So there's a definition here. He says, I have glorified you, Father, on earth, having accomplished everything you asked me to do. How did he glorify the Father? He did what the Father asked him to do. I would submit to us, brethren. You want to glorify God? Do what he asks you to do. When you hear the teachings in the days ahead, and most of you already know it anyway, about spiritual gifts and the enablement of God to serve in the body of Christ to his glory, listen carefully, because that's how he's enabled you to do this, to glorify God. It's the only way he's enabled you. So Jesus honored the Father. He obeyed him, he submitted to his will. He pleased him and praised him. And then hanging up on that cross, you know, we read, these are great words. So Jesus hanging up there in deep agony and suffering, and he said, It's finished. It's finished. You know, that's written in a verb tense, and I'm not that smart. I had to look it up. Perfect tense. It's finished. It means it has been and will forever be finished. The cross, the death on the cross. You can say praise God anytime you want to in here, by the way. The fact that he finished the work, the payment of sin. You're never going to have to pick up that ball again. Quit trying. He finished the work he was sent to do. He didn't get the word out there, everybody, because he was one man, just like you guys, so he can only talk to a few people. But we have the Spirit of God and we're everywhere, and we can do the passing out of the word. But we can't deal with the sin. We weren't designed to deal with sin. God has had to deal with sin in the first place. Sin is not from him. So he deals with it, and he deals with your life, unless you're trying to carry that ball too. Doesn't work, does it? So Jesus is not praying here about thank, praise me, God, for all the poverty and the discomfort and the humility and all the good works I did. He says, He's saying, You gave me a work. And I did that. The work of redeeming mankind. I'll just say we could spend a whole lot of time on this. 2 Corinthians 5.21. I probably don't have that on PowerPoint, but says he made him, God made Jesus who knew no sin to become sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. You talk about a weenie for a ham swap. So Jesus, who does have no sin, he becomes, don't get this wrong, he did not become a sinner. His nature was not impacted. He became sin. He got all the consequences of sin, the responsibility for our sin, dumped on him. And that had the same impact on him as does anybody. It's separated from God. It brought judgment and the wrath of God. He suffered. He died separated from his father. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he got buried in a hole in the ground. Just like anybody else that dies in their sin. And what does a believer get? Now God is able for those who believe to take the righteousness of God and clothe you with his righteousness. That's why you stand before him. That's why you can talk to him. You don't have a relationship with God because your sins are forgiven. You have a relationship because you're righteous. And you learn, you start just like your marriage relationship progresses, you learn to grow to be more and more like himself. You actually become, in your character, if you are obedient, you become more and more like what he has already established you to be in his sight. It's not a play on words, it's a done deal. Sin, Jesus, you right, and you grow in that, and your relationship grows in that. You begin to experience what he actually has declared to be true. That makes sense. And then when you go to heaven, he takes this body, does some work on it, removes the old sin stuff. This body needs quite a bit of work, but a little hair would help, by the way. But he takes this body and he removes the old flesh. So you get the same body transfigured now with no sin, no tendency. It's called glorification. And you stand in the presence of God just like Jesus. Perfect. No surprise, you were made that way. Duh. He made you that way in his head, beginning of time. That's the way we were made to be. How are we doing, Nick? I'm not looking at the schedule. You got some kind of time here. So this is how you glorify God. You do the work he's given you to do. And then the last statement, I can be brief on this in verse five. Still father, a little bit different kind of prayer, but Jesus says, Father, glorify me. Now he goes from father, the family relationship, to me, now personal. Glorify me together with yourself, together with yourself. He is referring now not to the glory that he was seeking on earth in suffering and death. Now he is just saying, I want to return where I came from. I want to return to that place which is mine, which is just like yours, the fullness of the glory of God. No surprise, the very first verse in John, this gospel of John says, In the beginning was the Word, Word was with God, and the Word was God. Was God this word? Was God in God in all of his beauty and splendor? But he became flesh and dwelt among us. All he's saying is, Father, work is finished. I want to go back to that place. I wish he so brightly deserved. With the well, how are you doing with the father? If you're married, a way to test your relationship is say, how's my relationship with my wife? Or somebody wrote, how's my relationship? You can measure that. You can measure that, can't you? We're close, we're sharing, we're arm wrestling. She hit me in the face. I mean, there's different ways to measure. She is giving herself. I am loving her. You can measure the quality of the relationship you have with your wife or your children, or people are close. Why can't you do that with God? You should. How's your relationship with God? How's your relationship with God? How's it going? You know when you sin, we've already talked about it, you know that that communion, that fellowship can be reestablished in an instant. If you're a believer, if you confess your sins, you are quickly, immediately reestablishing fellowship and you can live in communion. So as we go into reflection time, I just say, Do you know the Father?