Jesus’s Pursuit: His Father’s Glory (and His) Through Joy

Last night, we saw from Isaiah 55 (and elsewhere in the Bible) that God made us for his glory, and God made us for real joy in him. And we saw that these two pursuits are actually one amazing pursuit — because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

I was a college freshman at Furman University in Greenville, SC, when I first read (and reread) John Piper’s Desiring God and learned that these two truths were one. It was almost too good to be true.

I knew from Scripture, and from reason, that it was right for God to be glorified. The God who made the world deserves glory for it. And I knew from my own heart how much I wanted real joy — not thin, empty, fake joy, but thick, full, real, everlasting joy. And in coming to see that God’s glory and my real joy come together in one pursuit, I began to consciously experience real joy in God for the first time. Not perfect yet. Not sinless yet. Not undiluted yet. But real joy.

But after a while, I realized I must be missing something: What about Jesus? What’s all this have to do with him? Where does Jesus fit in all this talk about God’s glory and my joy? Is there a place for Jesus in the system?

Glory and Joy for Christ

That’s the question we aim to tackle this morning: What about Jesus? And in answering that question related to the God-man (fully God and fully man, in one spectacular person), we go deeper with both God’s pursuit of glory in us and our pursuit of joy in him.

We saw last night, in that strange mention of King David in Isaiah 55:3, that Jesus is at least lurking in the shadows: “I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David.” Then we turned to Isaiah 53 and saw the purchase of the suffering servant. The water and milk and wine and feast of Isaiah 55 are without cost to us not because they are cheap, but because they have been purchased, at great cost, by the suffering servant. So, there’s some of how Jesus fits — but is there more?

This morning, we turn to the New Testament, to the earthly life of Jesus, and ask, “What does this vision of real joy to the glory of God look like in the life of Jesus? Did Jesus, as God, pursue his own glory? Did Jesus, as man, live like a joy-seeking Christian Hedonist? And how might that confirm and deepen what we celebrated last night?”

God-Centered God

Last night, we read that great summary quote from Jonathan Edwards: “All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God’s works, is included in that one phrase, the glory of God” (God’s Passion for His Glory, 242).

Some of us call this “the God-centeredness of God.” Biblically shaped minds often see the sense and rightness of the infinite value of the Creator compared to his creatures — yet the incarnation and human life of Jesus raise some fascinating questions.

• What happens when the Creator himself, in the eternal person of his Son, takes on our full humanity, and in this way becomes a creature with us in the created world?
• How does the earthly life of Jesus, the God-man, from birth to the cross, relate to God’s God-centeredness?
• And how does this God-centeredness relate to Christ’s own glorification, beginning with the cross and resurrection, and including his ascension and sitting down on heaven’s throne?

Key to answering questions like those will be seeing the progress and development of this theme across time as the incarnate Christ moves through his life — from Bethlehem to Galilee to Calvary to heaven. So, instead of pressing simply for a timeless answer to the question, “Did Jesus seek his own glory?” we need to see the answer unfold in the sequence of Jesus’s life. His pursuit of glory (and joy) is complex, layered, and dynamic as he moves from the manger to the cross and resurrection.

And let me make plain at the start that one of our interests in this: We are human. Jesus, in the incarnation, shows us what it’s like to be a holy human. And Jesus, as God incarnate, is not only human. We see in him, in his life and death and victory, not mere example but divine mercy.

So, let’s walk with Jesus through his earthly life, in sequence, as the great plan unfolds in history.

1. Jesus’s Lifework and Lead Prayer

Jesus lived his human life in utter dedication to his Father and his Father’s glory.

Rightly did the angels proclaim, “Glory to God!” at Jesus’s birth (Luke 2:14), as the glory of the Father came to the fore in the life and ministry of the Son. In his earthly life, from manger to cross, the man Christ Jesus did not glorify himself (John 8:54; Hebrews 5:5), but his words and deeds, and the effect and intent of his human life, were in full and glad submission to the will and glory of his Father. As Jesus summarized his earthly life and ministry, “I honor my Father” (John 8:49).

Jesus instructed his disciples so to live and bear fruit that his Father would be glorified (Matthew 5:16; John 15:8), and he taught them to pray for the hallowing of his Father’s name (Matthew 6:9; Luke 11:2).

While the God-centeredness of God might lead us to expect a simple Christ-centeredness of Christ in his earthly ministry, this is largely not what we (yet) find.

In fact, what we find, especially in John 5–8, is Jesus renouncing the pursuit of his own glory during his earthly life, seeking instead the Father’s glory. John 8:50: “I do not seek my own glory.” And John 8:54: “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me.”

John 7:18 is characteristic of Christ’s humbled state as man: “The one who speaks on his own authority seeks his own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and in him there is no falsehood.” The incarnate Christ does not seek “his own glory” but the glory of his Father — “him who sent him.”

So, to be clear, the God-centered God becoming man in the person of Christ does not produce one who is, in essence, a self-centered human. Jesus lived his human life in utter dedication to his Father and his Father’s glory. “Hallowed be your name, Father,” was his lead prayer, and glorifying his Father was his life’s work.

2. Jesus’s Approach to the Cross

As Jesus draws near to the cross, we see his holy desire for his proper glory and exaltation — not in place of his Father’s, but with him, in his presence.

We find a significant development as we move from John 7–8 to the “now” of John 12–13, when Jesus’s crucifixion is “in a few days.” Christ is “in this near approach” (Edwards) to his death, and where does he turn? Again, he turns to his ultimate and supreme end, praying,

Now [note that 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. (John 12:27–28)

That’s nothing new, yet. But then in his next statement, Jesus refers, however obliquely, to his own lifting up and exaltation. As Jesus had said in John 12:23, with his imminent death in view, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” In this hour, not only will the Father lift him up, rather than Jesus lifting himself up, but this first lifting up will be a lifting, of all places, to the odium of the cross.

“In Jesus’s near approach to the cross, we see both glories, as it were — of Father and of Son — coming to the fore.”

At this key juncture, as he draws nearer to the cross, even though Jesus first rehearses his goal, to glorify his Father, he also now acknowledges (and reveals that he desires) his own coming exaltation. Seeing that his hour has come, and that he will soon move beyond his earthly life and enter into glory (Luke 24:26) with his great final act of self-humbling (Philippians 2:8), Jesus says,

Now [another now] is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. (John 13:31–32)

In Jesus’s near approach to the cross, we see both glories, as it were — of Father and of Son — coming to the fore, not in competition, and each accentuating the other. Not only will the incarnate Son continue to glorify his Father, as he has since Bethlehem, but now he will do so in new measure “and to a greater degree” (Edwards) at the cross — and the Father too will glorify his Son. D.A. Carson comments, “So intertwined are the operations of the Father and the Son that the entire mission can be looked at another way. . . . One may reverse the order” (The Gospel According to John, 482). Son glorifies Father, and Father glorifies Son.

So, as Jesus moves closer and closer to the cross, he looks to the glory he will receive from his Father — indeed, the glory he and his Father share.

3. Jesus’s Joy

Now, let’s put the final pieces in place by turning from Jesus’s pursuit of glory (his Father’s and his own) to his pursuit of joy. And the question of Jesus’s joy, and his near approach to the cross, brings us to Hebrews 12:1–2:

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

Jesus endured “for the joy . . . set before him.” But specifically, what joy could that have been? What reward could have been powerful enough to pull him forward, to finish this race (the cross), with the very emblem of suffering and shame standing in the way? What foretaste of joy, or joys, could endure the cross?

The Gospel of John gives us the best glimpse into Jesus’s mind and heart as he readied himself for the cross. Two particular chapters, which we’ve already drawn from, speak to the substance and shades of his joy as he owned and embraced the cross in the hours leading up to his sacrifice.

For This Purpose

The first section is John 12:27–33, shortly after Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Previously, Jesus had said “his hour” had not yet come (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20). Now, in John 12, he owns that it has, as we saw already.

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. (John 12:27–28)

So, whatever we uncover of Jesus’s joy, it will not be trouble-free. Three times in these climactic chapters, we read of his being troubled (John 11:33; 12:27; 13:21). But the presence of trouble does not mean the absence of joy. In fact, the reality of such trouble demonstrates the depth and power of his joy to move into and through the trouble, rather than to flee.

Here we find a first source of his joy, which has been the lead pursuit and prayer of his life: the glory of his Father. When Jesus owns the arrival of his hour, the first motivation he vocalizes is “Father, glorify your name.” He has lived to his Father’s glory, not his own — and now, as the cross fast approaches, he prays first for this.

Next comes a second joy: what the cross will achieve over the ancient foe. John 12:31 says, “Now is the judgment of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out.” Satan, whom Paul would call “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4) and “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), will be decisively unseated as “ruler of this world,” and Jesus will experience the joy of unseating him. He is his Father’s chosen instrument to “[disarm] the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15). The tree of shame will become God’s instrument to shame the foe. This gave Jesus great joy.

Jesus then mentions a third joy: the saving of his people. John 12:32: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He would be lifted up from the earth — first in being lifted up to the cross, as John immediately adds (John 12:33).

So, make no mistake, part of the joy set before him was the joy of love — which is where we’ll turn this afternoon. Jesus had come to save (John 12:47), and he would wash his disciples’ feet in John 13 to show them the love that, in part, sent him to the cross. John 13:1 says, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” As the cross approached, he delighted to save his church from every tribe and tongue.

Prayer of a High Priest

The second passage — Jesus’s high-priestly prayer in John 17, on the very night when he gave himself into custody — echoes two of the joys already introduced and adds one further joy set before him.

First, Jesus prays explicitly about sharing his own joy, and that (again) as an expression of his love for disciples. “These things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). Jesus’s joy — deep enough, thick enough, rich enough to carry him to and through the cross — will not only be his, but he will put it in his people, through both his words and his sacrificial work. “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11). He speaks of love in terms of his joy. And love ever attempts to share joy with words.

Second, Jesus also prays in John 17 in anticipation of his Father’s glory. He recalls that his life has been devoted to his Father’s glory, to making known his name (John 17:4, 6, 26).

• “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (verse 4).
• “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world” (verse 6).
• “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known” (verse 26).

Jesus not only did it; he delighted in it — in his Father and his glory.

But now, in the consecration of prayer, and on his final evening before suffering and shame, he prays, third, for his own exaltation:

• “Father, the hour [of the cross] has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (verse 1).
• “Now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (verse 5).
• “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory” (verse 24).

Misunderstand the utter holiness of Christ, and of this moment, and we will misunderstand this culminating joy: returning to his Father, and taking his seat, with his work accomplished, on the throne of the universe. The joy of being enthroned in heaven — glorified at the right hand of his Father — will not come any other way than through, and because of, the cross.

And his exaltation and enthronement will mean not only personal honor but personal nearness. “At the right hand” is the seat of both honor and proximity to his Father. He wanted not only to have the throne but to have his Father.

And this coming exaltation and proximity is the particular joy, among others, that Hebrews 12:2 points to: “For the joy that was set before him [Jesus] endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

Learn and Worship

In Christ, we come to the unique and spectacular man who is also God — and the one person of the Godhead who also became man. We both learn from his imitable example of holy creatureliness, and we worship him as the one who inimitably died and was raised for us.

In doing so, we see that as Jesus came closer to the cross, his pursuit of the Father’s glory (and his joy) became increasingly distinct from ours. We, the redeemed in Christ, have a great glory to come as adopted sons, but not as the unique divine Son.

Yet even here, in his unfolding pursuit of divine glory in his “near approach” to the cross, Jesus shows us how we too acknowledge and righteously seek our portion of creaturely glory. In asking for glory in John 12 and 17, Jesus is marvelously human. On his human knees, in human words, with his fully human mouth and soul, he asks of his Father. He prays. Rather than grasping or putting himself forward, he makes his holy request and walks in faith.

For Christians, as it was for Christ himself in human flesh, our being glorified, exalted, lifted up by God is no sin or evil. The trouble is our self-glorifying, our self-exalting, our grasping for honor and praise. Jesus’s humble acknowledgment of his coming glory in John 12, and his prayer for his Father to decisively exalt him in John 17, are not instances of man seeking to take or seize glory, but rather man “by patience in well-doing seek[ing] for glory and honor and immortality” (Romans 2:7).

Yet Christ as our imitable example is not the final or most important word. We worship one whose glory is distinct and inimitable. As Jesus draws near to the cross, the glory of the Father and his Son is revealed to be one essential whole. And so, like Jesus, we seek our Father’s glory (in Christ’s), and like Jesus, we do so in pursuit of real joy in God — joy deep enough and thick enough to endure suffering.

And our seeking Christ’s glory, and seeking real joy in him, are one — because Christ is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.