What Would Jesus Pray For? (John 17:1-21) [John #56]

ATTN: Do you ever play mental games with yourself? Sometimes I will entertain myself with some imaginary scenarios. For example, if God told me that I can ask anything I want from Him and He will give it to me, what would I ask? God did that to Solomon, if you remember. I thought about asking for a 5 million dollar youth center to train and disciple troubled youth, or asking God to bring a sweeping revival that will put an end to so many corruptions and godlessness we see around us. But I thought about this question as I was preparing this message. What if God told me that I would die in 3 days, but I can ask for whatever I want other than extending my life, what would I ask for? Well, then it can’t be anything that would benefit me immediately. It will have to be about my children or the future state of our church. 

Well, what would Jesus ask for in similar circumstances? Some years ago, a slogan – WWJD – What would Jesus Do – became popular and I think it’s good to ask that question time to time. If Jesus had 3 days to live, and since He is the son of God, all His requests would be granted, what would He ask for? In today’s passage, John 17, the answer is given. He prays for 3 things. 1) For God to restore His glory. 2) For His disciples’ protection. And 3) He prays for us to be one. 

 

1. Restore my glory! (Because god is glorified when i am glorified) 

Jesus makes His purpose clear. V. 1“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” and in v. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. The ultimate purpose for which Jesus came to earth is to glorify His Father. You see, what drove Jesus to come to earth to save mankind was not primarily His love for us. It was His love for the Father and His desire to obey and please Him. First and foremost, Jesus’s allegiance was to the Father and not to us! Our salvation and our happiness is a by-product of the relationship Jesus has with his Father. In other words, the love that God has for us is the overflow of the love between the Father and the Son. We are the beneficiaries of the love that the Father and Jesus shared. Listen to verse 2, “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” The reason why Jesus saved us is because it gives glory to God. And what is this saving entail? What is eternal life? 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Eternal life not just existing forever. Seawater sponge can live for 10,000 years on the ocean floor in utter darkness. But who wants that kind of life? Eternal life is our sharing of the love between the Father and the Son – knowing them and loving them like they love each other, and enjoying all the activities that are associated with loving them, and being loved by them. 

ILL: This is illustrated through marriage relationship on earth. I’m convinced this is why God instituted marriage. When two people love each other and commit the rest of their lives to stay together through marriage, the fruit of that love is children. So, in the Christian sense, our children should never be more important than our spouse. I know in the Korean culture I come from, the children take precedence over the spouse so much so that some moms will say, “I live for my children!,” and their spouse is really only there to help her raise the children.  

But Jesus did not make that mistake. Although He loved us enough to die for us, His allegiance and love was first toward His Father. And what did He desire from His Father? To be glorified Himself. V. 1 “glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you!” To be glorified is to be “honored”, to be “valued”, to be “renowned,” to be “magnificent.” or to be “great.” 

Although Jesus left His glory for the time being while on earth, He desired to have it back now that His mission was over. But I need to stop here and ask, “What new glory did Jesus gain by being on the earth?” What I mean is that Jesus had glory with the Father before the world began. He says so in v. 5, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” So, my question is: if He had glory before the world began, and now He’s going to get that glory back when He goes back, why did He give it up in the first place? He should’ve just kept it and not give it up! But He did gain something in between – Us! He gained us! And now His glory is even greater than the one He had before because He obeyed His Father unto death and thus showed how much He valued and loved His Father! 

So, Jesus prays for himself to be glorified, and consequently His Father from this. This is a good thing for us. The more glory God gets, the greater the joy and honor to the children of God. 

2. Protect those who belong to me for their joy! 

Jesus moves on to praying now for His disciples. He prays that the Father will protect them in His absence. V. 11, “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.” Jesus is the good shepherd. He wants His sheep – His disciples to be safe. He said in John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away.” But what does the good shepherd do? He stands between the wolves and the sheep and fights those wolves and gets torn by them in order to protect His sheep. And now that He is going away, He is praying that the Father Himself will protect them. 12 While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by[c] that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.

But I have to ask, “What is Jesus asking His Father to protect His disciples from?” Is He asking Him to keep them from harm’s way or from disease, or from death itself? What kind of protection are we talking about here? Now, if you remember what happened to all of Jesus’ disciples – Peter was crucified upside down, andrew his brother was also crucified, James and John were beheaded, Thomas and Matthew were speared to death, and all the rest of the disciples died unnaturally as martyrs. The only one who died of old age is John. But he also was imprisoned and faced death many times. So, in what sense were the disciples protected? Did the Father just not listen to Jesus’ prayer or simply failed to protect them? Or was Jesus asking the Father to protect them from something else? V. 15 gives a fuller picture, “5 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.” What was the evil one trying to do – referring to Satan no doubt? The devil was trying to overthrow their faith – to deny Jesus and abandon the gospel. Jesus was asking the Father to protect them from the devil so that they will not lose their faith. 31“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you,d that he might sift you like wheat, 32but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” Luke 22:31

So, “protect their faith,” is what He was praying. In this sense, the only one who was not protected was Judas Iscariot. But there was nothing to protect in his case because he never had faith to begin with… 

APP: My evangelism professor said, “the safest place to be is in God’s will because you are invincible until His will is done.” I absolutely believe that. When you are on mission field or domestically doing God’s will, you don’t have to worry about untimely death. As long as you are in the will of God, God Himself will protect you. Now, that doesn’t mean that you won’t be speared to death or beheaded, but that’s because God is relieving you of your duty and not because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time. 

– Side comment. If you want to feel truly alive, please don’t go sky-diving or para-gliding off a sky-scraper. Why risk your life on stupid things? Go to the jungles of South America and risk being diseased and shot in order to give them the gospel of Jesus Christ, having full confidence that you are fully protected by the Almighty God Himself until He wants you home. 

 

3. Let all who follow me become As One

Jesus moves on now to praying for us! “Us” as in the Christians who would live in 21st century as well as all Christians who lived before us. 20 “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 

This is our church’s theme verse. His desire is for them to be one. In what sense? In “love” sense. John 15:9  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” and then later in v. 12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” 

Jesus is praying that the same love that the Father and the Son shared will be shared with Him and among us as well. One of the strongest evidences that we are in God is that we love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Why would it be so? Because this love – not the worldly, fleeting, selfish love – but the blood-earnest, self-sacrificing, self-denying love is only possible to get from God. That’s the love that existed between the Father and the Son. The Son, knowing the desire of the Father to save mankind and the only way to do that was for Him to be killed, left His Father’s throne above, abandoned His glory, and died the most horrific death on the cross to please His Father. So, when Christians who claim to follow Christ, will abandon their own circle of friends they naturally feel comfortable with, graft themselves in with those who are culturally, generationally, linguistically different from them with the only common bond being Christ, the world has to look at that and think, “There is something extraordinary going on here. Maybe it’s God. Maybe He’s real. Why else would these people be together?” 

So, our desire to be the church of the misfits is not borne by a desire to be cool, or be different from other churches, to be a cultural avant garde. It stems from the desire to display the supremacy of Christ above all things including our culture, comforts, or even common sense. And when we strive to love one another across the cultural, generational, social, linguistic barriers, we are in fact being an answer to the prayer that Jesus prayed 2,000 years ago – to be one. 

CONC: What a person prays shows what truly matters to Him. Jesus, on the very last night with His disciples, prays for three things – 1. For Him to share God’s glory with Him. 2. For the disciples to keep their faith. And 3. For us to be one with all other Christians. Two of those prayers are already answered. God was glorified through Jesus Christ and Jesus is the most recognizable name, worshiped by the billions in the world. But that is only the beginning. I believe the true recognition will come at the end of the world where every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. And the disciples kept their faith and died gloriously as martyrs. His third prayer – for us to be one – is still being fulfilled. Would you be an answer to Jesus’ prayer? This is what our Master and Savior most desired.