Jesus’ Prayer of the Ages
March 14, 2010
Series: Final Days at Planet Earth
If I were to ask you to pray the Lord’s Prayer… how would you start it? “Our Father which art in heaven….” Right? But guess what. That’s not the “Lord’s Prayer”… it’s actually “The Disciples Prayer”. It’s the prayer that Jesus told us to pray. The true “Lord’s Prayer” is found in John 17, because this is where Jesus prayed to the Father in front of his disciples. Vs. 1 says, “When Jesus had finished saying all these things”… All what things? All the things from John chapter 13 on. In chapter 13 we learn that Jesus said these things while having his last supper with the disciples. He talks to them about his betrayal and denial, He comforts them about heaven, promises them the Holy Spirit, tells them how to remain strong in Him by comparing Himself to the Vine with them as the branches, He warns them about persecution… basically He gives them everything they need to know for living in the world after He’s gone. It’s a “Christian Survival Kit”
And when He was done telling them “all these things”… He lifts up His head to heaven and begins to pray for them. And it’s the most amazing prayer you’ve ever heard! A 1000 sermons could be (and have been) written on this prayer alone, and they don’t even begin to scratch the surface. I had always assumed that this prayer was prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, (in fact I originally entitled this message “Agony in Gethsemane Garden” but had to change it when I realized that He was still sitting at the table when He prayed it!
It was prayed just a few moments before Jesus would leave the upper room with his disciples and go out into the dark night, where He would be taken captive and later tried and crucified. But amazingly, it’s not filled with fear (like it would be if I were praying it), it’s filled with faith. You could even say it’s filled with joy as Jesus speaks calmly and intimately with His heavenly Father about his mission accomplished. Now listen…Jesus wanted his disciples to hear what He said because He prayed it out loud in their presence. And He wants YOU to hear it too because in it He lays out His plan of the ages.
He starts out with the words… “Father, the time has come”. Believe it or not, this is the moment that Jesus had been looking forward to for all of eternity. The hour when His mission would be complete and God’s plan of the ages would be fulfilled. He says in vs. 2… “Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. 2 For you have given him authority over everyone in all the earth. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him.” Jesus is telling us what God’s purpose of the universe is… did you catch it? Give up? It’s to glorify God! Don’t be thrown off by the religious sounding word, ‘glory’. In the bible it talks about the “essential worth, beauty and value of a person”. So to “glorify” someone means that you recognize their intrinsic worth and beauty. In otherwords, God’s plan for the ages is that everyone will know and recognize who God is in all of His awesome beauty.
So Jesus is asking God to give Him “glory” (i.e. help people recognize who He is) so that He can use it to help people recognize who God the Father is! See what a lot of people don’t understand is that the purpose of the universe and the point of the whole bible is to bring glory to God! In otherwords… to KNOW HIM! I’m sorry… you can tell me about Disneyland, and about what you’ve experienced… but in my mind, there’s nothing greater in the universe than knowing God!
So Jesus is telling us that the Father has given Him authority over everyone on earth, so that He can bring eternal life to as many people as possible…because the more people there are who know who God is… the greater His fame and glory becomes! And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. 4 I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do. 5 And now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began. –John 17:3,4 When some people think of eternal life they think of living and existing forever and ever, or maybe strumming a harp on Cloud 9… but according to Jesus, eternal life isn’t just a quantity…it’s a quality. It’s knowing a person!
Those of you who are married, know that marriage involves living together, making babies, raising kids, working, going to work. All of that stuff and more, but if that’s ALL it is, after a while it becomes boring and doesn’t last very long. The essence of marriage isn’t DOING things… it’s knowing a person. Right? In the same way, eternal life is the knowledge of an eternal person. It’s having intimacy and relationship with the PERSON of God!
The rest of Jesus’ prayer can be broken down into 3 parts… 1. What He did
2. What He does
3. What we do
1. What He did (while He was in the world)
The 1st thing Jesus did is… He glorified God. Jesus says, “I brought glory to you here on earth by doing everything you told me to do. 5 And now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.” – John 17:4-5
How did He bring glory to God? By doing everything God told Him to do! See everyone of us has a choice…we can bring glory to ourselves by doing everything WE want to do. Or… we can bring glory to God by doing everything HE wants us to do. Let me ask you something. Which one of those things is going to end you up in heaven? See, you can live life for yourself and LOSE your life in the end… or you can live your life for God and gain it forever. It’s your choice!
Jesus is saying, “God, while I was here on earth, everything I did… I did for You! So now… bring me back into the glory we SHARED before the world began”. If you’re looking for a verse in the bible where Jesus claims to be God, you just found it! In Isa.42:8 God states very clearly that “I am the Lord; that is my name! I will not give my glory to anyone else”. Listen, God won’t give His glory to anyone else…not you, not me. But here’s Jesus, homesick to be with God and share His glory again… the glory He shared before the earth was made. Philippians 2:6,7 tells us that as man, He put that glory aside to come here and die for us… but now that He’s at the end of His mission, He’s ready to resume the glory that’s rightly His!
For 33 years Jesus had voluntarily surrendered His right to be worshipped in heaven… and THAT brought glory to God. In otherwords, Jesus is telling us that the life that brings the most glory to God is the surrendered, self-emptied life. Living a life that isn’t all about YOU. So many people are living their lives as if they are god! They are the center of their own universe! It’s all about them! But a life that doesn’t center around YOUR hurts, YOUR wants, YOUR needs, YOUR pleasure, YOUR career, is the life that brings God the most glory!
But Jesus did something else…that brought glory to God while on earth…He told us who God is. READ vs.6,7… 6 “I have told these men about you. They were in the world, but then you gave them to me. Actually, they were always yours, and you gave them to me; and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, 8 for I have passed on to them the words you gave me; and they accepted them and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me.” It’s amazing to me how many different ideas people have about who God is. But Jesus gave us the only true description about who God is. In fact, Jesus did such a incredible job revealing to us who He really is, we were convinced that it really was God who sent Him! I am at least. Are you?
Next I want you to see not only what Jesus did, but what He’s doing right now!
2. What He does
The older I get, and the closer I get to heaven, the more I realize what a bum deal it is to live in this world. Jesus knows that living in this world is a tough thing to do. Especially if we are trying to follow Him… so he wants us to know what He’s going to do for us… 1st he says… He’s praying for me. Vs. 9… “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you.” How many of you know that Jesus is praying for you right now? WOW! That’s an awesome thought! And look what He prays for you!
a. He prays for my PROTECTION!
10 And all of them, since they are mine, belong to you; and you have given them back to me, so they are my glory! 11 Now I am departing the world; I am leaving them behind and coming to you. Holy Father, keep them and care for them—all those you have given me—so that they will be united just as we are. 12 During my time here, I have kept them safe. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold.13 “And now I am coming to you. I have told them many things while I was with them so they would be filled with my joy. -John 17:10-16
I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but this world is a hostile place to live! Jesus knows what it’s like to live in this world, because He lived here! He knows better than anyone how to pray for you and me! He says, “I know I’m leaving them behind… so God watch over them and care for them!” You know, He could have prayed, “God use them”, or “God teach them”… but instead He’s praying… God watch over them! You know, that’s the same thing I pray for my family when I have to be away from them. “God, protect them!” Jesus is saying, “When I was there, I could protect them… but now I need you to look over them and keep them safe.” Keep us safe from what? 2 things…the world and the devil! READ vs. 14,15… 14 I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not. 15 I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. 16 They are not part of this world any more than I am.
I don’t know about you, but I NEED protection from both. The world is constantly pulling at me, trying to get me to believe and act like it does. It’s constantly trying to get me to take on it’s attitudes, it’s perspective, it’s way of thinking and acting. The sad thing is… sometimes I don’t even know it’s happening! That’s because it’s a slow, gradual pull… and before I know it, I’m back to the worlds way of thinking and acting. According to Jesus, the “Puppet Master” behind everything I see going on in the world is non-other than the devil himself! Make no mistake, He hates you and wants you to spend eternity with him in hell! He’s out to destroy you any way he can, and he’ll do anything to do it! It reminds me of that passage in Mt. 10:16 where Jesus said that he’s sending us like sheep among wolves. I always thought, “What’s the life expectancy of a sheep in the midst of a pack of wolves?” I don’t imagine it’s very long! It’s at that point you realize how desperately we need protection from Satan. The devil is an invisible enemy. Can you imagine how hard it is to fight an invisible, spiritual enemy with physical weapons? No matter how many rounds you fire at the Devil, it doesn’t faze him. Thankfully in Ephesians 6 God has given us invisible weapons for our invisible enemy! One of them is “the shield of faith”. Our faith in God’s faithfulness, protects us from what the bible calls the “flaming arrows of the evil one”. Flaming arrows like discouragement, false guilt, depression, condemnation, shame, fear… and the list goes on and on.
“If the history of humanity were a clinical case history of a single human being, the diagnosis would have to be: chronic paranoid delusions, a pathological propensity to commit murder, and acts of extreme violence and cruelty.’– Eckhart Tolle, “A New Earth”
But not only does Jesus pray for my protection…
b. He prays for my PURITY in vs.17-19…
17 Make them pure and holy by teaching them your words of truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. 19 And I give myself entirely to you so they also might be entirely yours.
When pigs live in a mudhole, they can’t help but get a little bit on them! The same is true with us! We’re called to live “G” rated lives in an X-rated world! The NIV version uses the word, ‘Sanctify” instead of “pure”. To ‘sanctify” something means “to put to it’s proper use”. I’m sanctifying this microphone when I’m using it to amplify my voice. You are sanctifying the chairs you’re sitting on… by sitting on them. Instead of using them like Frisbees and throwing them around the room, you’re putting them to their proper use. So when Jesus prays, “Father, sanctify them”… He means, “Father, make these people fulfill the purpose you have for them! Put them to proper use. Let them discover the reason they’re born.” How? By learning Your words of truth! Isn’t that amazing? Jesus is praying that you won’t waste your life by giving yourself to the world and being used for Satan’s purposes… but for God’s purposes!
Now, in the last 6 verses of Jesus’ prayer, it’s like we’re sitting in on a battle strategy session of the “Joint Chiefs of Staff”, only this one is between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I want you to listen in, as Jesus lays out His military campaign to recapture not just a country, or a continent… but this entire rebellious planet for God! The exciting thing is that you and I are called to be a vital part of this battle! So the 3rd part of Jesus’ prayer is…
3. What we do (for the world).
Now as any good officer knows, there are always 3 essentials in a good military plan. 1st you have to have an objective, then you need a good strategy and 3rd… you need some tactics. Let’s look at them.
Not once but 2x’s, Jesus tells us what the great objective that was constantly on His mind day and night is. Now that He’s about to leave, He wants to impress it on not just the disciples that are sitting around him… but for every disciple past, present and future…that includes YOU! That includes ME! Here it is….vs.20,21… “I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me because of their testimony. 21 My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me”. Did you catch it? The great objective of Jesus is…. “…that the world will believe”! Did you ever wonder why we’re left here on earth after we become a Christian? I mean, why doesn’t Jesus just ZAP us into heaven the minute we give our hearts to Him? HUH? Well, it’s this way…. There are only 2 things you can’t do in heaven. You can’t sin, and you can’t tell others about Jesus! Now, God doesn’t leave you here to sin… so it must be that He leaves you here to tell others about Jesus. See, our job… the reason we’re left here on this earth is so that every man, woman and child will at least have an opportunity to make a choice of whether to receive or reject Jesus Christ. That’s it! That’s the objective! That being the case… it’s actually sin to try and live out our Christian lives in air-tight compartments where we only hang out and talk to our Christian friends. Our mission is NOT to have nice bumper stickers, nice church buildings and nice fellowship dinners! It’s to confront people with the reality of who Jesus is, using our lives and our lips… and give them a chance to follow Him.
Well, if that’s the objective… what’s the strategy? I mean, how is God going to accomplish this objective? (I’m glad you asked!) Because again… Jesus gives it to us twice so we won’t miss it. It’s given in vs.21, 22 and 23.
• Vs. 21… My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you.
• Vs. 23… “I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are—23 I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one. Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me.’
There it is! “…that they may become perfectly ONE” Our strategy is unity. If you have ever tried to accomplish unity in any group, you know it’s not an easy task. In fact, even in that original group of 12 Jesus was dealing with tremendous factions and tensions. Earlier on this same evening, the disciples were fuming with rage because there had been an argument among them as to who was the greatest. If you know anything about the church you probably realize that that the goal of unity seems like it’s still a long way off from being achieved. At one count there are over 1200 different denominations in the U.S. alone!
It reminds me of the guy who was walking across the Golden Gate Bridge and he sees a man standing on the edge about to jump. He cries out "Don't do it!”, and the man said “Why not?” He said “Because… God loves you!" The jumper says, “I believe in God,”
"Oh yea? Are you a Christian or a Jew?" … "I’m a Christian." "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" … He said, "Protestant."
"Me, too! Which denomination?" … "Baptist." “Oh really? Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"He said, "Northern Baptist."
"Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" "Northern Conservative Baptist of course!."
"Oh! Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" He said,"Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."
"Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" Jumper: "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."
The guy cried out, "Die, heretic!" and pushed him over the edge!
The divisions between Christians today are so deep, you wonder if Jesus’ prayer will ever be answered! But look at vs. 21 again… “My prayer for all of them is that they will be one, just as you and I are one, Father—that just as you are in me and I am in you, so they will be in us, and the world will believe you sent me.” What we may not realize is that Jesus isn’t asking for an alliance or a merger. He’s not saying we need to be a part of a union. See a union is an outward agreement where you hide your differences for the sake of getting along. ‘Unity’ on the otherhand has to do with relationship. See, Jesus is praying that we have the same relationship with each other that He has with the Father and Holy Spirit. In otherwords, Jesus’ strategy is to bring us all into a family life. People all over the world enter into that life by the same spiritual birth, but then they share a family experience together that is so unmistakable and so filled with joy and closeness that people outside of the church will actually envy it. That’s why Jesus says that the result of unity will be that “the world will believe you sent me”.
They’ll be standing outside the church like orphans with their noses pressed up against the window longing to join the warmth and the fellowship of the Christian family. That’s the divine strategy… to make the world that is starving for authentic, accepting, non-judgmental , meaningful, unconditional relationships… look at our relationships and salivate with desire! But how are they going to know that it’s available for them? That’s the last step in God’s battle plan to win the world. 22 “I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are—23 I in them and you in me, all being perfected into one. Then the world will know that you sent me and will understand that you love them as much as you love me. 24 Father, I want these whom you’ve given me to be with me, so they can see my glory. You gave me the glory because you loved me even before the world began! 25 “O righteous Father, the world doesn’t know you, but I do; and these disciples know you sent me. 26 And I have revealed you to them and will keep on revealing you. I will do this so that your love for me may be in them and I in them.”
According to Jesus, the tactic… the way He’s going to implement His strategy is …LOVE! Jesus said that the world will understand that God love them as much as He love Jesus’ and that the love God has for Jesus will be seen in us. In otherwords, the unity of the church will be visible when Christians love each other. Jesus’ grand objective of reaching the world starts when we love each other!
