|
|
The moment of Jesus arrest, trial and execution
is fast approaching. Jesus has finished his teaching of
the disciples. The hour has come. His work on earth is
complete. The final statement in his address to the
disciples is this: "Take heart, I have overcome the
world." And now he turns to prayer. |
| |
Notice
that John chooses to bring us a report of this
prayer, given in the upper room before they go to
Gethsemane, rather than the prayer of anguish in the
garden that we find in the other gospels. Why is that?
Well, it may be that this prayer acts in some way as a
summary of all that's gone before in this gospel. Here we
find Jesus' obedience to the Father; the glorification of
his father through his death and resurrection; the
revelation of God in Jesus Christ; the choosing of the
disciples out of the world; their unity modelled on the
unity of the Father and the Son; and the promise that
their final destiny is to share in the glory of the
Father and the Son in eternity. It's as though this is
the final crescendo, the final movement in a gospel that
shows us Christ being brought back to God, a crescendo
that climaxes in chs 18-20 with the passion and triumph
of Jesus the Messiah. |
| |
Jesus can
say with confidence that he has overcome the world, yet
he turns in the next breath to prayer to ask God to bring
him the victory. In fact the prayer he prays is divided
into three parts. First he prays for himself, then he
prays for the disciples, then he prays for all those who
will come to believe in him through their testimony. |
| |
Now, as
we go through this prayer, in the short time available to
us, I want you to notice two things. First of all, notice
how Jesus' priorities are reflected in the things he
prays for. You may have noticed how when you find
yourself under stress, what you concentrate on are the
things that really matter. So it is with Jesus as he
prays, knowing that the end is near. But also I want you
to notice how the way Jesus prays can be a model for us
in our prayer life. We'll see in a moment how he prays
for himself, then how he prays for those he's been
ministering to, and finally, how he has a long term view
in mind as well as he prays. |
| |
Jesus
Prays for Himself |
| |
Jesus has
just finished saying that he has overcome the world, and
now he stops to pray. And the first thing he prays is
that God would glorify him so he might glorify God. Now
at first sight this sounds like a fairly self-serving
prayer. But to understand what he's asking we need to
think about what's involved in Jesus being glorified. In
fact he's already talked about being glorified back in
John 12:27-28. You may remember how when some Greeks came
to see him, Jesus recognised it as a sign that the end
had come. So he says, "The hour has come for the Son
of Man to be glorified. 24Very truly, I tell
you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and
dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it
bears much fruit." (John 12:23-24 NRSV) Then he says
""Now my soul is troubled. And what should I
say -- 'Father, save me from this hour'? No, it is for
this reason that I have come to this hour. 28Father,
glorify your name." Then a voice came from heaven,
"I have glorified it, and I will glorify it
again."" (John 12:27-28 NRSV) |
| |
Jesus
glorification will first involve his death on the cross,
with all its agony and shame. Jesus is to be hung on a
cross, as a sign that he's cursed by God. As Phil 2 puts
it, "though he was in the form of God, he did not
regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7
but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being
born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8
he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of
death-- even death on a cross." Jesus asks God to
glorify him, first of all, because only God is able to do
it. Jesus has given up everything that might have enabled
him to do it himself, and now is turning to God, to
restore to him that which is rightly his. |
| |
But he's
also asking God to vindicate him, to show that his claims
are true. He says God has given him authority to give
eternal life to all whom God has given him, but before
that can happen, he needs to be shown to be righteous. He
needs to be restored to the glory he had before the world
began. Even as he's asking for God to glorify him,
notice, his mind is on God's plan to bring salvation to
those God has given him. His request for glory is simply
to fulfill God's eternal plan to bring all things in
heaven and earth together under one head, Jesus Christ
(Eph 1:10). |
| |
What's
more, as he asks, his greatest reason for asking is so
that he might glorify the Father. This is the thing that
characterises all of his ministry on earth. He has come
to glorify the Father. |
| |
I wonder
is this what our prayers are like when we pray for
ourselves or for our church. When you pray for yourself,
are you asking God to bring about his own glory through
the things you do? Are you placing yourself in God's plan
for the world, so that the things God does through you
will bring forward his plan of salvation for the whole
world? I'm afraid that too often I find myself praying
that sort of prayer with motives that are very mixed.
Seeking my own glory for my own sake, rather than for the
sake of God and his glory. |
| |
Jesus
Prays for his Disciples |
| |
But
Jesus' prayer doesn't end with his own glorification. His
thoughts then move on naturally to those that the Father
has given him. There's a close bond between the disciples
and Jesus that comes out very clearly, I think, in v 6
and that forms the grounds for his prayer: "I have
made your name known to those whom you gave me from the
world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they
have kept your word." It's as though he sees the
disciples as his special charges. As though God has
entrusted them to him, like a foster parent might be
given the responsibility of raising someone else's
children. And he says, "I've fulfilled your charge
to me. I've made you known to them. They've believed my
word. They now know that what I have comes from
you." Notice how he repeats those words: 'Now they
know' (v7); 'they know in truth' (v8); 'They have
received them' (v8); 'they have believed' (v8). There's a
special relationship between them, based on the way
they've received God's words. |
| |
So he
prays for them, for those that the Father has given him,
because they also belong to the Father. And what does he
pray? V11: "Holy Father, protect them in your name
that you have given me." He first prays for the
Father's protection. Do you remember back to ch 14 when
he promised that he wouldn't leave them as orphans. One
of the dangers for orphans in that sort of society was
that they were defenceless. They had no-one to protect
them from people who would seek to do them harm. So now
he prays that God the Father would take over the role of
protecting them from the dangers of living in this world
that he's fulfilled up until now. |
| |
And
notice what it is that they need to be protected from. He
says "protect them in your name that you have given
me, so that they may be one, as we are one." Jesus
has already given them his new commandment, to love one
another. In fact he's repeated it a couple of times in
the last few chapters. And one reason he gave that
command was that only by loving one another could we
maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace
(Eph 4:3). The great danger for the disciples, and for
the church of the future, is that they'll be broken apart
by division. And that isn't just a danger for the Church.
It's actually a threat to the glory of God. Look at v10.
He says "I have been glorified in them." And
down in vs22,23: "The glory that you have given me I
have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23I
in them and you in me, that they may become completely
one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me." Their
unity with each other and with Jesus is a sign to the
world that Jesus was indeed sent by the Father and that
they are loved by the Father. So our unity as a Church in
itself brings glory to God. |
| |
What's
more, their unity is necessary if none of them are to
fall away. Up to this time Jesus has kept them together,
but now that he's about to leave them, they need the
Father's help to stay together, so they can support one
another. |
| |
They also
need the Father's protection against the attacks of the
evil one (v15). Jesus is in no doubt that any opposition
they face will come from Satan. While he talks about the
world being opposed to them, it's quite clear that behind
that world is the Prince of this world. As Eph 6 tells
us, "our struggle is not against enemies of blood
and flesh, but against the rulers, against the
authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present
darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the
heavenly places." (Eph 6:12 NRSV) And while we live
in this world we'll continue to fight against the forces
of evil in the world that are opposed to the gospel. |
| |
This is
the reality of our situation isn't it? We live in a
culture, in a world, that's opposed to God and therefore
will be opposed to us whenever we stand up for the
principles that God has given us. And we can't escape it.
This is the only world we have to live in. So what are we
going to do? The next part of his prayer tells us. He
prays that God will protect them from the evil one, v15,
then he prays that God will sanctify them by the truth.
What does that mean? To sanctify means to set apart, to
separate. How are we going to keep ourselves safe from
the world? Not by being taken out of it physically, but
by being separated from it spiritually. By being
sanctified. And how will that happen? He says
"sanctify them by the truth; your word is
truth." This fits with what he said back in v6. It's
by God's word that we're sanctified. It's as we believe
God's word and let it take control of our lives, that we
find ourselves set apart from the attitudes and values of
the world around us. Let me ask you, how often do you
study God's word? Are you regularly allowing God's word
into your mind and heart so it can sanctify you, make you
different, protect you from the attacks of the world.
Christians who fail to read God's word regularly are in
great danger from the world, from the evil one, because
the truth of God's word isn't being allowed to do its
work in their lives. |
| |
So again
we see a pattern of prayer, this time for the disciples.
And what he prays for is for their protection and
preservation, for their unity and for their
sanctification by the truth of God's word. |
| |
Jesus
Prays for Those who will Believe |
| |
Finally,
Jesus prays with a longer term focus. He prays for all
those who will come to believe in him through the
preaching of the gospel. And again notice that the focus
of his prayer is on the unity of the Church and the glory
that that brings to Jesus and to the Father. Look at v23:
"I in them and you in me, that they may become
completely one, so that the world may know that you have
sent me and have loved them even as you have loved
me." How important it is that we're seen to be
completely one! It's as the world sees our unity, as
unbelievers observe the way we interact, the way we care
for each other, the way we support one another, that they
begin to realise that there must be some truth to the
claims of the gospel. That's why it's so important when
we have some problem with another Christian that we seek
to resolve it, rather than letting it simmer and fester
until it becomes a source of division in the church. |
| |
And what
is the secret to this sort of unity? It's in v26: "I
made your name known to them, and I will make it known,
so that the love with which you have loved me may be in
them, and I in them." If we're going to pray for our
church or for other churches this would be a good thing
to include in every one of those prayers: that the love
with which the Father has loved Jesus Christ, his only
Son, may be in them, and that Jesus himself might be in
them. |
| |
We have a
prayer diary which has most of the congregation on it.
Perhaps we could make this our aim in the coming weeks:
to go through that diary each day, praying that God would
protect each person by the power of his name, that he
would sanctify them in the truth of his word and that he
would fill them with the love that the Father has for the
Son so we would be completely one just as the Father and
the Son are one. And then pray that God would bring glory
to our work as we bring glory to him by the way we live,
the way we proclaim his name, the way we seek to live
together in unity and godly love. And finally pray that
others would see how we live and want to become followers
with us of Jesus Christ. |
| |
That way
Jesus prayer becomes a living thing, a prayer that
continues to be prayed and to do its work as the church
grows. |
