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JESUS PRAYS FOR HIS OWN (Part 2)

January 20, 2008

John 17:6-19 (TNIV)

Pastor Bob Sanders

John 17:6-19 (TNIV)

  6 “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8 For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

    13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19 For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.”

Jesus’ Vision for the Church

Hearing someone speak is one thing.  Overhearing them in a personal conversation is something else.  That’s when we hear the real stuff.  That’s when we find out what’s really on their heart. 

And that’s what we get when we turn to this amazing chapter, John 17.  Jesus is talking, but not to us.  He’s talking to his heavenly Father.  We get to overhear this conversation within the Godhead, this intimate sharing between the Son and the Father.

And notice the timing.  Jesus is facing his death.  In a few hours he’ll go to the cross.  As we pointed out last week, if you’ve ever been with someone in their final hours, if you’ve talked with someone shortly before their death, you know that in those moments you get the real essence of the person, what’s the top priority on that person’s heart. 

And again that’s what we get in John 17.  Here in his final hours before his death, Jesus is pouring out to the Father his deepest concerns, praying the things most important on his heart.  And what does he pray for?  For us.  For his church.  For the disciples who were with him that night, and then (as we’ll see next week) for the men and women who will believe in him as a result of their teaching, and that includes you and me.  What we have here is Jesus’ vision for the church.  This is the essence of what Jesus longs to see in the lives of his followers.  And that’s why we’re looking at it – to try to catch that vision and apply it to our life together here at Lake Grove Presbyterian. 

There are three parts to this great prayer and so we’re taking three Sundays to study it.  Last week we looked at the first part, verses 1-5, and heard Jesus praying for the Father to be glorified.  The focus in this first part is vertical – God-ward.  It’s all about glorifying God, and we saw how that has profound implications for us today, especially in how we worship together and in our deepening knowledge of God.

Today we come to the second part and the focus is horizontal.  In these verses we overhear Jesus praying for his closest friends.  Look at verse 9 again: “I am not praying for the world,” says Jesus, “but for those you have given me.”  He’s praying for the disciples gathered there around him, these friends who for the past three years have walked and talked with him, listened and learned from him.  And what I want us to do this morning is look first at why Jesus prays for them.  Second, I want us to look at what he prays for them.  And then third I want us to look at what it means for us at Lake Grove Presbyterian.

Why Jesus Prays for Them

First, why does Jesus pray for them?  Because he loves them.  Back in John 13:1 it says, “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave the world and go to the Father.  Having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end.”  Let me show you three specific ways that love comes through in his prayer. 

First, notice how Jesus describes them as gifts of God.  In verse 6 he says they are “those whom you gave me out of the world.”  These friends are precious gifts from the Father.  That’s how Jesus saw them.  Last week we saw how Jesus has this unique authority to give us eternal life – this wonderful gift of knowing God, knowing him in his grace and mercy, knowing him in his beauty and holiness, knowing him now and forever.  Jesus does this.  But notice this: God is the one who gives us to Jesus.  We never come to Christ on our own.  It is God the Father who draws us to him.  In one of the most beautiful verses of the Bible, John 6:37, Jesus says, “All whom the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”  Jesus is acutely aware that God has given these friends to him – and that makes them precious, invaluable.  And so he prays for them here in his final hours. 

Got any people in your life like that?  Special friends, family members, brothers or sisters in Christ?  Who are God’s great gifts to you?

Second, look at how Jesus affirms them in his prayer.  In verse 8 he says, “I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.  They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me.”  Did you get that?  Jesus says, “They accepted my words.  They understood my teachings.  They believed that You sent me.”  Now, does that sound like the disciples you read about in the Gospels?  And the answer is, “No, not at all.”  In the Gospels they’re always missing the point of what Jesus says.  They don’t get it at all.  And now in a matter of hours they’re going to desert him and deny him.  And yet look at what Jesus says: “They got it.  They accepted my words.  They believed in me.”  Behold what a real friend is all about.  A real friend takes the good that’s there and affirms it without a word of criticism.  Most of us have been in friendships or families where if you did something well that was OK, but if you did something bad you were clobbered for it.  But here’s what happens in a good friendship, a good family: when you do something good it’s lifted up and endorsed.  It’s celebrated.  When you do something bad, it’s dealt with in love.  It’s forgiven, covered, put aside.  And that’s what’s happening here.  Jesus loves them for the fumbling faith they do have, for the baby steps of obedience they have taken.  And he brags on them before his Father.

Got any friends like that?  Who affirm you, who believe the best about you, and are willing to let God’s grace cover the rest?

And the third way his love comes through is in his concern for them.  Jesus knows they’re in danger.  Look at verse 14, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.”  The world hates them because of their commitment to Jesus.  And that hatred is going to come after them once Jesus has departed.  A crisis is coming for these friends, and Jesus knows it.  Good friends, the ones who really love you, are the ones who show up when you’re going through a crisis, the ones who reach out when you’re left alone, the ones who faithfully pray for you when you don’t know how to pray for yourself.  Jesus is that kind of friend. 

Do you have people who care enough to show up when there’s a crisis?  Who faithfully pray for you and support you in your tough times?  Got some friends like that?

What Jesus Prays for Them

Those are some reasons why Jesus prays for them.  Now let’s look quickly at what he prays for his friends.  The first thing he prays for is protection.  Verse 11: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me.”  And verse 15: “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” 

As we just said, because they belong to Jesus these disciples are going to experience the fiercest possible attack.  Not only from the secular world that hates them, but especially from the real enemy, the evil one.  Jesus takes spiritual warfare seriously and teaches us to do the same.  In the prayer he gave us, what we call the Lord’s Prayer, he has us pray, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from [literally] the evil one.”  Jesus knows how vulnerable we are, and how dangerous our enemy is, and so he prays God’s protection on these his closest friends. 

And do you know what is the enemy’s favorite point of attack, the place where the evil goes after Christians most frequently?  No, it’s not sex or money or power.  The enemy’s favorite point of attack is to create mistrust, hurt feelings, divisions and splits.  The enemy loves to divide Christians, break them into opposing camps, drive a wedge through us over some secondary issue – like politics or worship styles or what color the carpet in the sanctuary.  And so in verse 11 Jesus specifically prays, “that they may be one as we are one.”  We’ll say more about this prayer for unity next week.  But for now, notice how central it is in Jesus’ prayer.  “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name . . . so that they may be one.”

Protection: that’s the first thing Jesus prays for.  The second is joy – verse 13, “that they may have the full measure of my joy in them.”  Jesus talked about this before in chapters 15 and 16 – a joy that comes from him, a joy that’s much more than happiness.  Happiness comes and goes.  The joy Jesus has in mind is like an underground spring – a constant and abundant source of life, at times bubbling to the surface, at other times flowing just under the surface.  It’s a joy that’s not based on circumstances.  The joy of Jesus comes from obedience to the will of his Father even if it means suffering and death.  Hebrews 12:2 says, “For the joy set before him, Jesus endured the cross, scorning its shame.”  That’s what he prays for his friends – for the full measure of his joy in us, joy even in the toughest times, because we belong to the One who has conquered sin and death, the One who’s been to hell and back, the One who calls us and claims us and keeps us as his very own. 

He prays for their protection from evil.  He prays for their joy in the midst of tough times.  Third and finally, he prays for their sanctification.  Verse 17, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”  This word “sanctify” is a very rich word.  It can be translated as “to be made holy.”  But at its basic root, to sanctify means to set something apart for a special purpose.  When you selected the shoes you’re wearing today, you sanctified them.  When you picked the chair or pew where you’re sitting, you sanctified it.  To be sanctified means to be set apart and to function for the purpose God intended.  And that sanctification, that setting apart, comes from an ongoing encounter with God’s Word of truth.  “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” 

Jesus prays that these disciples will be people of the Book, people immersed in Scripture, people sanctified by the truth of God’s Word.  It happens when two things come together in us – the Word of God and the Spirit of God.  When both are present – the Word and the Spirit – there’s this combustion, this release of power.  It’s like the Word is the fuel and the Spirit is the oxygen.  One without the other won’t accomplish much.  But put the Word together with the Spirit and you get combustion.  You read the Bible without the Spirit and it’s confusing and flat and dull.  You read or hear the Word in conjunction with the Spirit and it speaks to you.  It nails you.  It convicts you and cleanses you.  It creates in you a desire for change and then gives you the power to experience that change.  It sanctifies you – the truth of the Word of God in the power of the Spirit of God. 

Many of you know who William Wilberforce was.  We’ve mentioned him before, how as a member of Parliament he worked for decades to get slavery abolished throughout the British Empire back in the 1800s.  He was a deeply committed Christian and he worked with closely with his friend William Pitt who became Prime Minister but who was not a Christian.  Wilberforce wanted his friend to come to know Christ, and so he would often invite him to come to church with him.  Pitt always refused, but one Sunday he agreed, and Wilberforce took him to hear one of the most powerful preachers in London.  They sat through the sermon and to Wilberforce it was awesome.  As he listened he sensed the Word of God powerfully convicting him and calling him to deeper faith, and he was so glad Pitt was there to hear it.  After they left, Wilberforce asked Pitt what he thought of the sermon, and Pitt replied, “Frankly, I couldn’t make sense of a single thing he said.”  See, you have to have the Word and the Spirit to have combustion, to produce deep conviction of the heart and genuine conversion of the soul and lasting change of character.  That’s what Jesus prays for his friends (and for us): “Sanctify them by the truth,” he says, “Your word is truth.”

All About Community

Taken as a whole then, what does this second part of Jesus’ great prayer say to us today?  It’s all about community.  If his first priority was glorifying God, then his second priority is building up the people God has given him.  His community.  And so we hear Jesus praying for them, asking God to protect them from the evil one, to fill them with joy even in the tough times, to sanctify them by the truth of God’s word.

At Lake Grove Presbyterian we believe each of us is called into that kind of community.  God gives us to Jesus one by one.  And then God gives us to one another as priceless gifts.  Jesus calls us into a special kind of friendship, something very different from what you find in the world. 

We’re talking about God-given friendships.  Friendships with Jesus Christ at the center.  Friends that share a passion to see him glorified.  We’re talking about friends that pray for one another – faithfully and regularly.  Friends that ask God to protect us from the attacks of the evil one, especially from anything that would turn us from Jesus or divide our oneness in him.  Friends that believe the best about us, that cover us when we fail.  Friends that hang onto one another in all times but especially when we’re in crisis, when our family is in trouble, when we’re out of a job, when we’re facing serious illness or death.  Friends that show up when we’re alone, when we’re grieving, when we’re discouraged.  Friends that care deeply about our sanctification, our growing in Christ, our maturity as believers.  Friends that challenge us to go deeper in the Word and put courage in us to follow our Lord more closely. 

We’re not talking about an optional extra here.  We’re talking about what’s on our Lord’s heart in the final hours of his life on earth.  We’re talking about his vision for the church.  Not a collection of isolated individuals who show up for an hour on Sundays to worship and then fade away.  But a community of men and women bound together by the love of Jesus Christ, meeting together, sharing joys and sorrows together, studying Scripture together, growing and serving the Lord together.  And here at Lake Grove Pres, that’s our vision as well.  And that’s why we talk so much about getting connected in a small group or a Bible study or a ministry team.  Because important as corporate worship is, you can’t develop this kind of community in a gathering this large.  You and I need a few people right here – not across the country, not in some town we used to live in – a few people right here to meet with, to pray with, to confide with, to confess with, to study with, to grow old with.

Who are the people who are God’s gift to you?  Who are the ones who know you well enough to pray effectively for you?  Who are the friends you can call in the middle of the night if it’s a crisis, who will show up at your door when the need is great?  Can you name them this morning?  If so, you are blessed beyond the telling.  If you can’t, and if you’re longing for community, let me urge you to begin praying about it, just as Jesus did.  Ask him to guide you to a few people – it only takes two or three – where you can begin to develop significant friendships.  Let me urge you to come to one of these small group launchings Brent James is leading.  Or, if you prefer, contact Brent or Libby or Graig or myself, and we’ll do our best to help get you connected.

Dear ones, Jesus calls us to community.  That’s his vision for the church, and that’s his prayer for each of us.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – the eternal community that is the Triune God.  Amen.