James O'Leary, a listener from Georgia writes in, Hello, Pastor John.

Today I came across John 8, verse 50, where Jesus says that he is not seeking his own glory.

I was surprised. Jesus goes on to say that there is one who does seek his glory.

I think this might be a reference to the Father.

So why did Jesus not seek his own glory when that is what the Father is seeking?

Was this refusal to seek his own glory temporary?

Does he now seek his own glory?

And what does this teach us about Jesus?

The heart of Christ's redemptive work in coming to earth as the incarnate God man

in order to save sinners by dying in our place, the heart of this redemptive work

is that Christ came to be inglorious.

For 30 years, inglorious, not glorious. Isaiah 53-2, his appearance was so

marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind.

He had no form or majesty that we should look at him.

No beauty. He could say, glory, that we should desire him.

He was despised, rejected by men. A man of sorrow is acquainted with grief,

as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised and we esteemed him not.

Or as Philippians 2 says, though he was in the form of God,

he did not count equality with God a thing to be grass, but emptied himself by taking the form

of a slave being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form.

He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

And then he adds, even the death, and he means the utterly despicable humiliating

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