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The Lord's Prayer - John 17:1 - 26

 Friday, November 13 –

We come to the end of the workweek as we continue our reading in the New Testament in a year.  Our reading continues in John’s Gospel as we read John 17:1 – 26.  Please read the passage first, and then come back so that we might look at it again.


The conversation with the disciples that began in the Upper Room is finished.  It was either late Thursday evening, or early Friday morning in the night, and they probably were still near the Temple, ready to walk towards the Garden when Jesus wanted to do one more thing with them – pray!  What follows is often referred to as Jesus’ High Priestly prayer.  It is not the prayer of sorrow that he will soon pray in the Garden of Gethsemane (cf. 18:1-2).  This is a prayer of full identity where we see the intimacy of the Union of Jesus, the Son of God, with the Father.  It is really “the Lord’s Prayer” because it is the longest prayer we have been given by Jesus.  It is a prayer for God’s glory to be revealed, for the disciples to be equipped and for believers to follow – including us today.

“When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (17:1).

The “hour has come”.  The hour that was predestined for the Son before he ever arrived on the earth.  He had spoken to them about his leaving, washed their feet as an example of the love and humility he wanted them to emulate, and promised the gift of the Spirit – “another helper” – who would come to lead them in the work they would do after he left.  He asks the Father to “glorify” – make his glory known – that in this hour, the Son might glorify the Father.  John has used hour and glory over and over again to make the point that God was directing the affairs of Jesus’ life and ministry.  The Son had been obedient in listening to Father and every miracle, every sign, every “I am” statement was so that we might see the Father at work in the Son.

“since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.  And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.  I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.  And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (17:2-5)

Jesus came to accomplish the work the Father had given him to do.  He came to bring eternal life to those who would come to know God through Jesus.  His work is soon to be finished.  Within an hour or so he will be arrested, put on trial, and by the early morning condemned to die on a cross.  His death was the reason he came, and his resurrection would triumphantly declare the Father’s Amen!  If we ever wondered of Jesus’ relationship with the Father, we can hear him declare “glorify me in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed” (17:5).  As Christians, we know the promise of Eternal life, but we have yet to see it.  Jesus lived eternity with the Father, left it to enter into space and time with us, and longed to go back to that eternity with the Father.

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.  For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.  I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours” (17:6-9).

Now Jesus shifts the focus from his own longing to the eleven disciples he will leave behind.  He had made known (manifested) the Father’s name to them and to the world. The Father had given him the twelve, and one was a betrayer, but the rest had received His word as from the Father.  They believed that the Father was speaking in and through Jesus and believed “in” Him.  They put their trust in Him and now Jesus focuses His prayer for those “whom you have given me, for they are yours” (17:9). 

“All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.  And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one” (17:10-11). 

Jesus prays for them because they have received God’s word and since He is leaving, he prays for their protection “in the world”.  “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (17:12). We have this promise that God knows those who are His and we are in the Father’s hands.  This is cause for security, confidence, and joy – “But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (17:13).  Still, we are not so foolish to think that the same world that hated and killed Jesus will now love the believers who remain. 

“I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.  And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth” (17:14-19). 

The key to our life in the world is in the word “sanctify”.  That which is “sanctified” is holy.  It is not holy because of its own innate nature, but it is holy because of what God does.  He chose us out of the world and set us apart as believers – sanctified ones – and we “sent into the world” even as Jesus was sent by the Father.  The evil one, Satan, is our enemy, even as he has always been God’s enemy.  The means of our sanctification is “truth, your word is truth”.  Jesus gave the Father’s word to them and he is going to send them the Spirit who will “guide you into all truth” (16:13).  This is the tension that every Christian experiences.  The world we live in rejects the principle of God’s word as truth.  It rejects Jesus as “the way, the truth, the life”.  How then do we live in a world with divided loyalties?  It is the word of God that directs us in the truth, and the key is to believe it, embrace it, and live it out.  We are not “truth” in our own natural reasoning.  We are “sent into the world” as God’s ambassadors of His truth, and Jesus stands with us – “for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth” (17:19). He is on our side, protecting, keeping us, and working in and through us as we live out His truth.

 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word” (17:20).  In these words we read, Jesus is prayed for us too.  The disciples were the Apostles who were anointed to lead the early church.  After their deaths, a generation of leaders carried their work on.  Church History is my favorite subject because we see a long line of leaders who faithfully received the baton of the Gospel from each generation that preceded it.  Here we are…the Church twenty-one centuries later, and Christ’s prayer is still being answered.  He prayed for those who would believe later – for us – and he focused his prayer on three primary things:

First, that we might be united in the work of the Father and the Son.  “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (17:21-23).  Unity is not uniformity, nor is it everyone thinking alike.  A marriage is a bonding of a man and woman in unity, but neither loses their individuality.  Instead, they are enriched by the other spouse.  So also, the Church is Christ’s body with many different parts.  There is only one church, and Jesus is its Head, but there are many parts to His body.  When Martin Luther sought to reform the Church, he did so with a great desire that the Church could be sanctified in the truth, but when he was rejected and the truth trampled on, he stood with the truth of the Gospel over the institution. Truth has to be anchored in Jesus Christ, there is no church without that.  That is why he prayed (17:23), that the world would see in the church, Jesus. 

Secondly, he prayed for our eternal presence with Him as our “hour” comes to an end – “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world” (17:24).  It is a great comfort to know that it is Jesus who is praying for eternal life for us.  We are not “earning” this promise in His prayer.  We are inheriting the promise of His prayer.  What we will see is the Father, the glory of God, and the Savior who made that possible for us.

Finally, he prays for our lives to be filled with the knowledge of the Father’s divine love – “O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.  I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (17:25-26).  It is a circle that is unbroken.  The Father sent his Son because he “loved the world” (John 3:16), and the Son loved those who put their trust in Him, and now he is about to leave, but he prays that the flow of God’s love will not stop, but continue to be the reason why we love and serve God in and through the Church.

I have long thought this prayer to be a great summary of the purpose of living out our lives as followers of Jesus.  He prayed for us and still does. Hebrews reminded us that Jesus is our great High Priest.  He saw in us something that He chose to love – and die for.  He said at the beginning of his prayer –
“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do” (17:4).  My prayer is that I, all of us, could say the same thing at the end of our life.  He prayed this in front of them, and then they began to walk to the Garden – his hour has come and it’s all soon to be over.  As they walked along, did they understand it?  I doubt it, but we see backward while they had to see forward. 

Peace

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