City Life Starter

Written by Scott Fiddler

The Word

1 Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You,

 2 even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.

 3 “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

 4 “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.

 5 “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.

Exegesis

                Dictionary.com defines “glorify” as:

1. to cause to be or treat as being more splendid, excellent, etc., than would normally be considered.

2. to honor with praise, admiration, or worship; extol.

3. to make glorious; invest with glory.

4. to praise the glory of (God), especially as an act of worship.

                To glorify God then means to bring honor to God and cause others to praise to Him.

                Jesus glorified God by successfully performing the work He had been given to do on the earth. John 17:4 (“I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.”). Jesus discipled twelve men, healed the sick, taught others, ministered to the lost, and went to the cross to pay the price for our sins. All this was part of the work Jesus had been given to do, and He did this work in a way that gave glory to God. We are still praising God because of the way in which Jesus performed the work the Father gave Him.

                But what if Jesus had not done a good job of leading the disciples, and by the end of His ministry eleven of His disciples had backslidden and stopped following Him? And what if, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus decided He despised the shame too much to endure the pain of the cross? Instead, He did His own will and lived out the rest of His earthly life as a popular teacher of the Old Testament. We would all agree that in this scenario Jesus would not have glorified God in His work, and we would not be giving praise to God for the work Jesus did.

                We can conclude then that Jesus glorified God in His work by (1) completing the work God had given him; (2) doing that work excellently; and (3) doing it according to God’s will. We glorify God in our work when we do same.

                I am an employment lawyer. Right now I am helping employers return their employees to work safely in the midst of a pandemic. This is the work the Lord has given me to do. The Lord wants to see employees return safely to work and be able to perform their jobs without contracting a highly contagious, potentially fatal virus. If I do my job well, according to God’s will, and successfully complete this work the Lord has given me to do, people will be able to praise God. I will have glorified God in my work.

Application

                You too have been given work to do by God, and I’m not talking about ministry or evangelism. We have all been given that to do. I’m talking about your day job, the job you do 40, 50, 60 hours per week. Do it in such a way that people will give praise to God. Glorify God in your work.