Jesus Prays for Us, Part 1
John 17:20-23
We have found that in this chapter Jesus Christ prays to the Father the night before His crucifixion. And in this prayer which could very well have been very self-centered, and in which He could have spent the time praying for Himself, anticipating His own agony, instead prays for those who are His.
And in the first five verses when He does pray for Himself, it is only to the purpose of accomplishing what He needs to accomplish so He can bless all of us.
Then, in the sixth verse through the 19th verse, He prays for the living disciples, those that are His at that time.
This evening we come to verses 20 to 26 in which He prays for all believers who will be born in years to come. So in truth, He is praying for us.
Now keep in mind two things. First we get a wonderful picture of Jesus' love for His own and second, we see the pattern of His intercession. We find how it is that He intercedes for us.
The Bible could tell us how He continually cares for us and how He intercedes for us and how He prays for us. But before Jesus ascended into the heaven, He gave us a preview of it in front of the disciples so that John could record it and we could see just how it is that He intercedes for us.
And so, we see the pattern of His intercession and His love in this chapter.
And this part of Jesus' prayer, verses 20 to 26, is just for us. He's been praying for Himself so that His glory may be realized for the sake of us, then He prayed for the disciples, primarily the eleven Apostles, who were alive at that time.
Now He begins to pray specifically for all believers of the future and He kind of sweeps into the future and gathers up all the believers who will ever be saved in all the ages to come and He prays for them.
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There are three simple things here. First of all,
1. The Subjects of His Prayer.
Watch this opening statement: "I do not pray for these alone." That's interesting because that's a negative statement. In fact, that's the third negative in the 17th chapter.
There are three things in this chapter that Jesus doesn't pray for. Number one in verse 9: "I do not pray for the world." Number two in verse 15, "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world” and the third negative is in verse 20: "I do not pray for these alone."
Then notice how He continues, because in the next phrase we find the subjects of His prayer:
"... but for those who will believe on Me through their word."
In that statement, Jesus, with His sovereign, omnipotent and omniscient eye scans the centuries and presents to His Father these requests on their behalf.
Did you ever realize that you are there in Scripture? If you're a Christian, you're in there. You say -- Where's my name? See the phrase, “those who will believe”? That's you.
Now, I realize it's not as personal as you'd like it, but it's you, it's me. Jesus isn't praying generally and nonspecifically, He is praying for those who will believe and He knows exactly who they are by name.
And He qualifies it as those will believe in Me. So here are the saved of all ages who come to faith in Christ Jesus. And notice how they come:
“through their word”. Whose word? The eleven Apostles that are standing around Him with maybe a few other believers. And you can imagine their reaction when Jesus says that? Us?
But notice the confidence of Jesus. By the gospel preached by the Apostles and disciples, will all the generations believe ... those who will believe.
What confidence! That is the confidence of omniscience. Jesus knew everything and He knew that faithless, though they were and weak though they were and about to scatter when He was crucified, nevertheless through them, all who ever believed would believe.
You say, well that doesn't apply to me because I wasn't led to the Lord by an Apostle. Yes you were.
Let me show you how. Before the Apostles died, not only did they preach and teach and found the church but under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they wrote the New Testament. And I don't care whether it's directly from reading the New Testament or indirectly from somebody sharing you the principles of the New Testament, your salvation goes right back to an apostolic origin or to at least a disciple of Jesus Christ in the early years.
All of us find our basic concepts in terms of Jesus Christ and God and the gospel, right here in the pages of this book ... whether you know it or not, you're directly or indirectly related to apostolic messages and proclamations.
And bless their hearts, these blessed Apostles didn't have any idea what was going to happen. They didn't have the faintest idea that two thousand years later, we'd be telling you what John said, hoping that you'd believe what he said and come to Jesus Christ. Can you imagine the thrill and the joy that's in their heart through the ages to know that their continuing ministry goes on and on and shall go on until the end of the age?
So Jesus says -- I thank You that through them they will believe.
That is the omniscience of Jesus praying. He knew their frailties and yet He knew they would be the agents for the reaching of all the millions of believers who would come to Christ throughout all the ages to come.
So Jesus is praying for those who will be saved by believing in the gospel. They are, we are the subjects of His prayer.
So, Jesus is praying for us. I'll tell you, I can get excited about reading this because I can get excited about Jesus praying for me two thousand years ago.
What, specifically is he praying for? Notice
2. The Requests of His Prayer
For what does He pray? There are two requests. One is for us on the earth and the other is for us in heaven. I’m only going to focus on the earthly request tonight and study the other one next time.
Now if Jesus is going to pray for every Christian in every age for all the centuries to come and He's only going to ask one thing, don't you think that one thing is fairly important? I tell you it is. Jesus only prays for one thing while we're here on earth.
Verse 21
That's all He prayed for. Now think about everything else Jesus taught in his earthly ministry, and yet when He sums it all up into one request, it’s this one thing: Oneness.
We talked about that last time; a holy separation from a defiled world. Every time a Christian falls into worldliness and worldly patterns, He destroys that oneness. We are to be different. We're to be set apart, separate and one in holiness. And if we're one in holiness, there will be love between us.
There will be caring between us. There will be humility and all these things resolve themselves in oneness.
Now, He's talking about a spiritual oneness. What He's basically addressing here I think is the oneness of a holy life set against the defilement of an unholy world. Christians collectively need to be one in holiness so that we have a total testimony.
How many time have you heard someone say,” I knew a Christian one time and he did this or that. . .? He's no different than anybody else”
Jesus says -- If you were only one, in a separated, unified holiness where the world could look at you and say they're different and they're all different, it must be real. But the world looks and says -- one of those and one of those and one of these and everything and they don't know if we go together or if we don't go together. And we all claim the same thing and it all comes out different.
Apart from Jesus Christ, the world is a shattered, broken, ruined disunity. Only in Christ do we become one. The only problem is we don't always manifest that oneness in our practice.
Positional unity is already ours; you are one in Christ because of salvation. I'm one with you; we're one in the body. But that positional oneness is not always demonstrated oneness. What Christ wants is that experiential oneness where our position becomes our practice.
We're one in Christ but we don't act like it.
So, Jesus prays that we be one.
Now I would suggest if He only asks for one thing, what a shame, what a tragic dire tragedy in our lives that He wouldn't see it happen. That means we can try a lot of things and we talk about a lot of things and we could say we're spiritual and we could say we're Christians and we could talk about the blessings of this and that, but Jesus only asks one thing. Therefore it seems we can only express the reality of our faith when we exemplify that oneness that He prays for here.
And He's not talking about an outward oneness, not talking about ecumenical getting-together. He's not talking about organizational oneness or administrative oneness or ecclesiastical unity. He's talking about an inner oneness.
How do you know?
Verse 21
The same kind of oneness that the Father and the Son experience. Now that's a heavy thought. And as I began to ponder that, I thought, Ireally don’t know how to explain that or even understand it.
How can we be one in the same sense that the Father and the Son are one? Well certainly not in divine essence. We can't be one like the trinity.
And yet, here is this prayer that Jesus prayed out loud for our benefit, so I realized there has to be something there.
So the more I thought about it, the more I realized that in a way, we can.
The first thing that it says to me is He's not talking about a superficial organizational, denominational, administrative oneness. He's talking about something that is inner and something that is spiritual.
And then He emphasized that by saying His request is for us to experience a unity that in some sense is an like His unity with the Father.
That means it would transcend the physical and earthly and be something divine or supernatural.
Then it dawned on me, what He’s talking about is a oneness of love made possible only by holiness.
Remember, the only way we can be one is when we're all holy. As long as any part of the body is cuddled up with the world, we can’t experience the oneness that is talked about here.
So this is a oneness that is hallmarked by holiness; a oneness where we're all separate from the world. That's true with the Father and the Son, isn’t it? Are the Father and the Son separate from sin? That's the basis of their oneness.
Now, two things are key to the oneness of the Father and the Son: separate from sin and love.
Does the Father love the Son? Does the Son love the Father? In an infinite capacity? Yes. Are both of them separate from sin? Yes. And thus, the kind of oneness that Jesus desires for the church is the kind of oneness that the Father and Son enjoy which is a oneness of holiness and love ... separate from sin and in love with each other.
That's what Jesus prayed for. And as long as you or I are violating either, we will never know what Jesus desired for us to have.
And I'm telling you, friends, if Jesus only prayed for one thing, only one thing while we're here on earth, what a shame that we should hinder the one thing that's all He prayed for. And thus His prayer by our will goes unanswered.
So there is this dual oneness of holiness and love. That's the key to any kind of oneness. And whenever oneness doesn't exist, whenever there's discord and disharmony within the body, it's due to that, the absence of holiness and consequently the absence of love.
But I had another thought about verse 21, as I began to try to grasp this idea of being one like God and the Son are one.
Think about this. They are one. Jesus said it Himself, “I and My Father are One.” No doubt about it. They’re one, but are they still two distinct personalities.
The Father still the Father and the Son is still the Son. They're one and yet two.
Did you realize the same is true for us? We're one in the body. Christ is in us, we are in Christ. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one hope, one Spirit, one body, we're all one. And yet, do we lose our distinct personalities? No. Do each of us have separate gifts of the Spirit? Sure. Do each of us have separate ministries and abilities? Sure. We are still different and yet we are one.
So, in that way we're also like the Father and the Son and the relationship they enjoy. They're one and yet distinct persons ... we are one and yet distinct persons. So, in that sense, we're one and that is Christ’s desire for us.
Why? What is to be accomplished by us being one like Father and Son are one?
verse 21
To whom did Jesus come when He came to this earth? To the world. Why did He come? That men might believe 6n Him.
Do you think Jesus wants men to believe on Him? Do you think He meant what He said when He wept over Jerusalem and said -- You will not come? Do you think He meant it when He said -- You will not come unto Me that you might have life?
Do you think He meant it when He said -- Believe? And receive Me? Do you think He meant that? Do you think He really loved the world? I do. Do you think He really wants the world to believe? I do. Do you care that He wants the world to believe?
If you do, you'll be one. Because it is oneness that makes the world believe. In order that the world may believe.
Believe what? That You, God. Men must believe that God is to be saved. That You sent ... or must believe in a God who acts in history, redemptively. That You sent ... what? ... Me. They must believe in the person and work of Jesus Christ. And right there in a nutshell you have the salvation gospel.
Men in order to believe must believe in God, His redemptive acts in history and His Son Jesus Christ. And you can't separate any of those.
That’s what Jesus wants people to believe. And if we believe that, then we must be one.
Jesus only asked one thing and He said on the basis of that one thing, the world will believe ... the world will believe. And if you're truly a Christian, your prayer should be Christ's prayer, that the world may believe and the way they'll believe is when we have an honest, observable, holy, loving, selfless oneness.
verse 22
In effect, He is saying, Father, I gave them the ingredients so that they may be one. Now I pray that they will be.
What were the ingredients? What is it that we have that makes us one positionally?
Notice the third word of verse 22.
Glory. What is the glory of God? It's all of His attributes, all of His essence and all of His life put into us.
Listen: We have the very life of God, the essence of God, the attributes of God in us. That means we have the glory of God residing in us.
And Jesus says, the glory You gave to me, I have given to them.
Why? That they may be one. There we find the basis of our positional oneness as Christians. We all have the same glory.
We all possess the same Spirit, the same indwelling Christ, the same divine life, the same divine nature, the same divine essence has been planted in us and that's the basis of our unity.
And positionally we are one because we have common glory. No one has any braggin rights or reason to be uppity or feel lowly. We are One in Christ and He has chosen to share His glory with us.
Some of you look like you don’t believe that. Listen to John 1:12: "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name." All right, we believe, we receive the right to be children of God. Verse 16, hold on to this, "And of His fullness have all we received." Did you hear that? Of His fullness have all we received.
You say -- You mean to tell me that God in His own life, in His own essence, in His own glory abides in me? That's exactly what I mean to tell you.
God dwells within us, the glory of God, the presence of God. And why did He give us glory?
Look at it, verse 22, He gave us glory, in order that we may be one." He gave us that which gives us positional oneness and then prays that we'll manifest it in experience, in practice, in living.
And so, the gift of divine glory unites us into one body, all tied together by the common divine life, all tied together by a common salvation, a common indwelling Spirit. And you know something? If there's not oneness in the body, it goes against God's very design as well as the prayer of Jesus.
I’ll just read verse 23 and close because it's almost a repeat of verse 21.
Verse 23
Did you get that? I in them. That’s Christ in me. And You in Me. That means God's in Christ who's in me. That's the dwelling of the glory of God within me.
He says I gave them that. I'm in them and You're in Me, we're there that they may be made perfect in one. We've given them the ingredients.
There's no excuse for any discord, disunity, disharmony.
And we did it, verse 23, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me. Now the world isn't even going to know where Jesus came from and the world isn't even going to understand the love of God unless they see oneness.
That's the testimony that we have to this world.
Just a footnote, verse 23, at the bottom.
Isn't it wonderful to be loved by God in the same way that He loves His Son?
You say -- Well, how could God possibly love me like He loves Christ?
It's easy. "If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation." You know why He loves you so much? Where are you? You're in Christ. And if He loves Christ, He loves you equally because you're in Christ.
But the world isn't going to know the love of God, the world isn't going to know that God is, that God acts redemptively in history and that Christ is His Son and they're not going to understand any of this unless we are one.
As I said before, the world will be won when we are one.
And so, Christ's first request is practical. He wants a loving oneness in holy living, made possible because He gave us common partaking of divine nature and He wants us to act like it that the world may know Christ's deity, His redemptive mission and the love of God.
Let's pray.
