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Lesson 6
Sacrifice:
TALKING POINTS
John 17: 10, “And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.” (NASV)
Contemporary English Version, “All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And my glory is seen in these men.”
There four elements to this verse: Sacrifice (by self; of self; to self); Confidence (in those to whom Jesus entrusted the work); Shared ownership (all believers belong to God); Acceptance and trust (Jesus trust in man’s ability is in spite of his faults and sins).
How would you like to place your life or your success in the hands of others? When Jesus left heaven He laid aside His right to use His divine powers and entrusted the Father to make up the difference. When He was born into human flesh He entrusted His life to a human family. When He worked in His ministry He presented Himself as servant of all. When He was tried as a criminal He gave Himself to a human court for prosecution and execution. When He ascended into the Heavens He gave the mission of reaching the world with the message of salvation into Human hands. When He sat down on the throne of Heaven He sat as king, but still serves man as mediator to human believers. Jesus denied self-identity in favor of the whole and places His glory, the glory of God, into the hands of humans. He gave to man the rules by which to operate and stepped aside. Often we have the idea, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” Jesus had the opposite idea. He always has the ability to do a better job, but aside from His personal sacrifice and the message content, He always gave the work to others.
Imagine saying to your wife (spouse), “All things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine and I am glorified in you.” We might get away with saying, “All mine are yours,” but we would instantly hit a wall when we said, “All yours are mine.” This concept works only when we add, “I am glorified in you.” Wouldn’t this be a relationship changer? It would build a mutual relationship of self-denial. Then, material things wouldn’t matter because the relationship would be built on greater things. If we always sought to lift up the other and make their life more important than our own, divorces and dysfunctional families would cease to exist.
Jesus had no need of physical things and He was not here including them in His ownership statement, but rather His thoughts were of more noble spiritual things. The physical was created only for the accommodation of physical human life, to be a proving ground for those on a journey to a better place. The only part of the physical in which God has an interest is the soul of man and Jesus was claiming mutual ownership only of saved souls.
One of the problems of human relationships is that we are constantly trying to outdo each other and are jealous of the others accomplishments. If self-denial would replace selfishness in the family and spiritual relationships, then we would love more and more work would get done with less desire for self-glory and self-praise. If it didn’t matter whose name was attached to a deed as long as good was done, would we do it?
(1) SHARED OWNERSHIP. “All mine are yours and yours are mine” emphasizes the unity of the whole. Our individual tasks may be different in the Kingdom, but the mission for everyone is the same and our glory will be identical. Our crowns will all look alike and our mansions will all be the same. No one is more precious in God’s eyes than another.
The Greek word used here and translated “are” is actually singular in the Greek. It is used to refer to the whole as a single unit whereas the English word “are” refers to the many pieces of the whole. The individual is as precious to Jesus as the group.
All believers are here placed into a collective. This collective is the original example of how to agree in that all within it exist for the one and the one exists for the all. We must put our all into the life of the other person. We are community property, shared between Jesus, His Father and the Spirit and are a community of one. Our individual strength is great, but our community strength is greater. We may think ourselves strong and try to go it alone, but we should remember Paul’s lesson that no one is an island unto himself. We ARE God’s possession. Working as a faithful apostle in God’s kingdom would win the crown, but it would not get a street address that is closer to the throne than the faithful widow. All are equally precious in the sight of God. (cf. 2 Peter 1: 1)
Ephesians 1: 15-23 says, “For this reason I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus which exists among you and your love for all the saints, do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” (NASV) Observe that Jesus is the Head of those who believe, extending the “greatness of power” and the “glory of His inheritance” only to them. He identifies the collective as His body and calls it “the church.” The church is the only group whom Jesus will save for they are the only ones over whom He is Head and the only ones over whom He reigns as King and the only ones who will receive “the glory of His inheritance.” Jesus owns this group and only this group.
One overriding point in the “ownership” aspect of this verse is that none of us can make it alone. Jesus did not work without the Father; the Father did not work without Jesus; Jesus did not work without the Spirit; the Spirit did not work without Jesus; the Father did not work without the Spirit and the Spirit did not work without the Father. In the save vein, Christians cannot work or worship without each other and no human can be saved without God.
These relationships can be illustrated with the following image:
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Interpretation of this diagram: (1) The members of Godhead are equal and equally connected with each other. (2) Christians are saved, protected and owned by the Godhead and all the glory they give to God is given to the Godhead. (3) All Christians are grouped together and have an equal relationship with each other and with God. (4) This image places the Father at the top and the Son and the Holy Spirit at the bottom. In reality, any one of them can be placed at the top without doing any damage to the concept of the Godhead. (5) However, this image should be viewed as flat and not pyramidal when thinking of Divine relationships to each other. (6) It can be imagined as presenting the Godhead at the base of the Christian life with the Christian being uplifted by the Godhead in anticipation of his/her salvation. (7) The circle of Christians is placed in the middle, but this is not to suggest that Christians become part of the Godhead, but to suggest equal access by Christians to all members of the Godhead. (8) God cannot leave His place, but Christians can. As long as Christians remain in the inner circle they will receive God’s care for their soul, but are not protected from all the physical traumas of life. (9) With the Christian living in such closeness to God, the wisdom and knowledge of God rubs off onto the Christian. This shared ownership results in the glory of God.
(2) “I am glorified in them.” Using frail, faulty and rebellious humans was Jesus’ plan for glorifying God. He could have forced man to accept and follow Him, but there is no love in that. He wanted faulty man to willingly make the choice. Let us remember this the next time we think we are not good enough for God to use or that we must get things in order before we follow Jesus. Sure, we must watch what we do and say, but it is impossible to get our life right without God’s help. We cannot use this faulty plan as an excuse for not growing into greater perfection. Our sacrifices will never be perfect, so forget about trying. We must, however, work at it every day. Jesus is glorified by His imperfect disciples. The glory Jesus gave to the Father was done throughout life and death. The imperfect Christian must seek to emulate Jesus pattern of daily and final sacrifices, without which neither He nor His Father would be glorified (John 17: 13, 23, 26). God takes what we offer and makes it work.
We must realize that we will get nothing from the Lord until we invest in Him. We must seek His knowledge and wisdom, walk in a manner worthy (Ephesians 4: 1; Philippians 1: 27) of the Lord bearing fruit in every good work before we will be strengthened by Him with all power while not forgetting that we are rewarded for this NOT because doing it makes us good enough to be blessed by Him, but because He paid the price before we ever began the journey and continues to qualify us to share in the inheritance as we continue to walk (Colossians 1: 9-12). Imperfect man can do nothing to save himself, thus we must make an investment in Jesus before we get anything from Him, then the investment becomes mutual. The total impact Jesus has in our lives determines the level of our commitment and the level of our commitment determines the extent of our obedience.
We err when we reason that our obedience doesn’t have to be as persistent and active because we are not as perfect as Him and even depend upon God’s grace to make up the difference between our ability and our desire. We must strive to live as if God’s grace does not exist and not use it as a crutch for doing less. His grace is not intended for the lazy, but for the actively obedient who will make mistakes along the way (Romans 6: 1,2). We may find His grace to be absent when we need it if we abuse it now. God is glorified best by the actively obedient.
The Greek definition of the word that is here translated “glorify” (dox.ad’.zo)” is:
1.to think, suppose, be of opinion
2.to praise, extol, magnify, celebrate
3.to honour, do honour to, hold in honour
4.to make glorious, adorn with luster, clothe with splendour
a.to impart glory to something, render it excellent
b.to make renowned, render illustrious
i.to cause the dignity and worth of some person or thing to become manifest and acknowledged
This definition could be phrased like this to describe the power of the word “glorify.” Glorifying another begins in our thought, evolves into meditation, is converted into exalted opinion, then elevated more into praise that extols the virtues of another so as to magnify that person before others resulting in an exuberant celebration of their existence, honoring and holding in honor all that the person is so that the glory given becomes more glorious, as if adorned with luster and splendor, imparting glory to those who extended the glory, giving without expecting to receive again, thus continuing to exalt the glorified one as a person of dignity and worth, making their glory manifest to all so that all may acknowledge the same. This glory cannot be lifted up without showering drops back down upon the one doing the lifting so that all are benefited.
Can you imagine what kind of work the church could do if we approached everything like this? Glorifying the work of the church; glorifying fellow believers; glorifying the world, but not worldliness; glorifying our family; glorifying sinners to uplift them to God without honoring their sin? and the Christian life is not sequestered away from the world.
Furthermore, what if we approached worship in this manner? Worship is designed to glorify God and this definition certainly puts it into a whole new perspective. It is the epitome of the manner in which worship is to be approached and the Christian life is to be lived. Worshipping God takes the act of glorifying God to a whole new level through being a group or congregational activity. It will always carry the worshipper and those surrounding him/her along to the throne of God when done right and the worshipper will know he/she has been before the throne. If we are not uplifted when we worship, it is because we did not uplift the King and our worship becomes one that was done in vain. Worship is a higher level of glorifying God because it incorporates congregational singing, praying and Bible study in a corporate assembly, but the spirit of that worship is defined by the degree to which we glorify God. Worship is a personal responsibility and we err when leave our edification unto others.
(4)This unity and group identification is another summary of how men are saved. Divine ownership of the human soul is a result of one’s salvation. We do not and cannot belong to Him to whom we have not sold ourselves. We are bought with a price and should glorify God in this (1 Corinthians 6: 20; 7: 23). That purchase price is the precious and unblemished blood of Jesus (1 Peter 1: 18-19). When this ownership becomes paramount in our lives, and we realize that our opinion and life means nothing, then we yield ourselves to the only one in the universe who can give value to our lives. Self-importance results in condemnation and Jesus is not glorified (1 Peter 1: 13-17).
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