A picture of Jesus in prayer for His disciples and for future disciples / believers, that they would be fruitful in the world and have eternal life.
Introduction – How the Lord Prayed
1. His Prayer Is A Pattern For Us
I turn your attention in John chapter seventeen to that beautiful and great prayer of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. In looking at this prayer of our Lord – His ministry prayer – we also find out for our own selves a pattern for prayer. We discover really how to pray. He simply begins the prayer with these words: “Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”
2. Jesus Spent Much Time in Prayer
I am really impressed as I read the Gospel of John and as I see how Jesus is portrayed there. As I see the tremendous teaching and ministry of Christ – His miracle signs, His great actions coming through the conflicts with the Jews and the opposition to His own life and ministry – I’m impressed with the scenes of action out in the public stage, public arena. But I am also impressed with those times when He draws away, when He is alone. There in communion with the Father He reaches up to draw strength and grace and power.
We have seen Him when the crowds came to take Him by force to make Him their king. He slipped away and went alone to the mountain to pray. We have seen Him at prayer at the graveside of Lazarus. We have seen Him at prayer in blessing and breaking bread. We have seen Him at prayer in other places. But here is a place where it seems as if the Lord just lays bare His entire heart and we’re able to look deep within to understand the burden of His life and the desires of His very innermost being.
3. We Can Learn to Pray Through His Prayer
It would be enough just to hear His words. But to be able to look further than just hearing words to being able to understand what’s going on in His heart – this is indeed a tremendous experience for us. If we can understand what motivates Jesus Christ when He prays, then we’ll get the idea of how to approach the throne of grace and touch God for ourselves.
4. The Lord Prayed Unselfishly
In this prayer He prays eight petitions. He makes eight requests. Only two of them are for Himself, two out of eight. Six of them are for others – three for His disciples who are with Him then and three for disciples who would later believe. That includes even you and me. You may be concerned about the prayers of some people, but to know that Jesus has prayed for you, that ought to be encouraging indeed.
It seems to me that first of all we ought to observe that this might be the real ratio that we set up in our own life as a pattern of prayer. Out of every eight times we go to our knees, only two times in behalf of ourselves and six times in intercession in behalf of others and the needs of others.
5. "The Hour Is Come"
He begins by saying, “Father, the hour is come.” We heard Him say three times, “The hour is not yet come,” and then we finally heard Him say, “the hour is come” (John 12:23). When He was getting ready to make that decision to yield Himself to the divine will of God and in a sense when He said that before in chapter twelve, that was Gethsemane as far as John is concerned. But now again He says it. “The hour is come.” He knows that the hour of His own life is really come to that climatic moment when He will offer Himself once and for all for the sins of the whole world.
A. The Lord’s Prayer for Himself
1. He Prays for the Father's Blessing
So He says, “Glorify thy Son.” His first request is tha t God the Father would bless Him and glorify Him. That’s sort of natural because you see, Jesus does not proceed one step further in prayer until He has established a tremendous relationship and all is clear between Him and the Father. So much of our praying is for what we can get from God. But Jesus prays to be glorified that the Son may glorify the Father. He’s praying to get something from God that He may give something back.
I want to tell you, that kind of praying will get you through to the throne of grace and cause you to touch God and receive His power and receive His grace upon your life. When you’re praying to be a blessing – when you say, “Lord, bless me that I can bless somebody else; Lord, teach me that I can teach somebody else; Lord, help me that I can help somebody else” – when you’re praying like that, God will hear you and He will answer your prayer and He will visit you with His grace and love and mercy.
So Jesus says, “Glorify thy Son that the Son also may glorify thee.” Oh, I want to tell you, this is the highest motivation of His entire life. This is the greatest desire of His entire being – that whatever glory comes from the Father will somehow be reflected to this world and that the Almighty will be reflected and the world will see the glory of God. Hallelujah!
If we could be so unselfish in our prayers – so that somehow we would pray, “Yes, let the glory come, let the power come, let the grace come, but at the same time let it reflect Jesus Christ; let it show God to this world and not ourselves” – I think we could get a lot further in our praying.
He is praying for that companionship. He longs to be reunited, to escape from the limitations of an earth bound body, and to be restored to that glorious wonderful fellowship that He knew befo re the foundations of the earth.
2. He Prays For His Work
Then He prays for the success of His work. He talks about it – just opens His heart to talk about what He has done, what He has finished. Oh, I tell you I wish that somehow we could get the spirit of this prayer operating in our lives daily so that we could come as a son or daughter to the Father and just open up our hearts and talk to Him about the work that He has given us and talk to Him about finishing that work and talk to Him about doing what He wants us to do and talk to Him about keeping what He wants us to keep.
There’s the secret of real prayer that touches the throne of grace – when we commune with God our Father, we’re concerned about His perfect will and the work that He has given us to do.
B. The Lord’s Prayer for His Disciples
He quickly moves from Himself. To me this strikes me deeply in my heart that in the hour facing His greatest moment of grief, in the hour when His heart is breaking, in the hour when He is carrying His greatest load, in the hour when the disciples are sleepy and insensitive to His sorrow and His pain and His trouble, yet He is more concerned about others than He is Himself. He has a pain that He would like to vanish away and we understand it even more when we look at the synoptics, Matthew, Mark and Luke and we hear Him praying in Gethsemane, “Let this cup pass from me.”
Somehow I think that in these days we are prone to turn our hearts and our minds away from the central core of what it’s all about – to follow God and to love Jesus Christ. I think we need to visit again the prayers and the very heart of Jesus and see Him there struggling with that load and bowing to the will of the Heavenly Father. In that moment when He should be most concerned about Himself and His own burden and His own load, He turns His attention to others and he makes three petitions on behalf of His disciples.
1. He Prayed That the Disciples Would Be One
What would He pray first? If Jesus were to step out here tonight and stand on this platform and pray audibly, what would He pray for first about this church? You know when Jesus looked at Simon Peter and said, “Simon, Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat just shake you to pieces. But I prayed for you that your faith fail not. When you get through this ordeal, strengthen others.”
If Jesus were going to pray for you tonight audibly, what would He pray for you about first of all? Well I confess that I wouldn’t want to confess what He might pray for me about first of all. But when He thinks about His disciples He says, “I pray that they may be one.” The first burden on His heart for His immediate disciples is that they may be in unity, in love – and in unity as there is harmony and love and unity between Himself and the Father. He wants the church to be that way.
Somehow I think this is yet even in this hour the greatest cry of His heart – the unity of the body of believers, the unity of the people of God that they may be in the bonds of love and in such a oneness that there be no division among them. Because you see, when the church is in unity the world gets a message. When a church becomes unified, the world gets a message.
2. He Prayed for the Disciples' Protection
The next thing He prays for is their protection. “Not that the Lord would take them out of the world but that the Lord would keep them from the evils of the world.” Here we have some tension sometime between our own Christian experience and how far we will draw away from the world to try to shield ourselves? Will we just cry for separation or will we pray for God’s grace and God’s power to operate in our lives so that we are in the world but not of the world?
I think sometimes that we overdo the idea of separation. If there’s anything in this world that’s really needed in this hour, it’s where those places are the darkest. Somebody with a bright light should go there, stand there and magnify Jesus Christ. Amen? “Not that you keep them from the world,” he says, “but just from the evils of this world.”
3. He Prays for the Disciples Sanctification
Then He prays for their sanctification. He wants to see His disciples learn what it means to become fully and completely and wholly dedicated-set apart unto God and set apart from this world and from sin. He says, “Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth.”
Here is the command that comes to us. If we’re going to maintain the Holy life and maintain the sanctified experience, we must constantly be exposed to the living, purging, cleansing word of God. It must cons tantly be poured out upon our hearts and minds because the word has the power to pierce the very thoughts and intents of the heart.
The word of God has the power to cleanse your mind of all kinds of unclean thoughts or all kinds of fears and doubts and worries and frettings that would come to your mind. The word of God has the power to cleanse your heart from unclean desires or unholy or unworthy tendencies.
Anybody who tries to live the holy life without the word of God is just going to deceive himself. Some people say, “Well, I can live for God at home as easy as I can by going to church and hearing a preacher.” I don’t believe that myself. There is something about coming to the house of God together and worshiping and singing and magnifying God together and going through that total experience of honoring God and then having the word of God to fall upon our hearts. The preached word has power to cleanse and liberate and set men free. Jesus said, “Sanctify them through the truth; thy word is truth.”
C. The Lord’s Prayer for Future Believers
1. He Prays That Future Believers May Be One
Then He shifted in His prayer to future believers. That includes you and me. Again, I ask you, what is the Lord most concerned about? Again the answer is the same. He prays for future believers, “That they all may be one-that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”
Because He says, “If I can get the church to be in unity then the world will believe that the Father has sent me. The authority of my coming, the purpose and power of my coming will be magnified and it will be illustrated. It will be just simply magnified to the whole world in such a way that the world will get the message that my life, my ministry, my word is authentic and it has power. It has the power to take people of all different kinds and nationalities and backgrounds and cultures and likes and dislikes in this world and yet put them together in bonds of unity.”
Ah, we could raise fusses today over the outcome of the election. We could raise fusses in this house today about politics and the kind of clothes you like to wear and the styles you like and don’t like. We could probably raise fusses tonight about automobiles and which is the best and all that sort of thing.
But with all the differences of opinions about a thousand different things that may be represented in this house, yet in Jesus Christ there is a holy unity and a love that overshadows us like a blanket of divinity, hallelujah, making us one. We are one in the spirit and we are one in Christ Jesus. The world can’t understand that. Satan is jealous of it and he would constantly like to drive wedges and hinder that unity because when he can get people fussing and feuding, then he gets to go on vacation and go some other place and stir up some devilment there.
2. He Prayed for Our Perfection
Then He prayed for our perfection. He prayed that we may be perfect. That word perfect means, “complete, developed, mature.” He’s talking about growth. He’s talking about progress. He’s talking about development. Oh, listen to me saints. For God sake, the Lord will perfect your life. He will develop it. He will cause you to mature and develop and to do His perfect will if you will let Him work in your life. He’ll put you through some tests that when you come through it, you can stand trials and your shoulders will be stronger and you will be able to reach out with a hand of strength to convert and help others just as He promised Simon Peter. When you’re converted, that is when you go through this and you’re transformed by this awful trial, then you’ll help others.
3. He Prayed That We May Share In His Glory
Then finally – and here’s why I stand in awe and worship and amazement – He prayed for our future glory and that we may share in the glory with Him. He said, “…I pray that they will be with me where I am and that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me.”
I can’t comprehend it and I can’t describe it tonight. But oh what a day that will be in answer to the prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of the living God – when all the redeemed of the Lord come with Him and share His glory and when holy created angelic beings are singing His praise as in Revelation chapter five, and when the redeemed of all the earth join in that song ascribing praise and hono r and glory and power and saying, “Worthy is the Lamb!” You and I – with all the troubles of this world far behind us and all the limitations and imperfections of a human body behind us and all the inglorious path through which we have come, all of this is behind us – we will walk with Him and stand with Him in the glory of the Son of God. Hallelujah!
Jesus Christ has prayed for your glory – not for any shame, not for any failure, not for any reproach of yours. But today you have a lease and a guarantee and you have a handle on the glory that’s to come and it’s the prayer of the Son of God for you.
Summary
How do we pray? We pray first of all until we’re in perfect harmony with the will of God Almighty and that we can be blessed to bless others. Then we pray in intercession on behalf of the work of God and of others, for its success. We pray for the maturity and growth of our brothers and sisters. We pray for the full development of the church. We pray that the church will be ready to go and share in the glory of God.
How long has it been since you prayed for anybody in those terms? How long has it been since you took somebody on your heart who was struggling and staggering and you prayed for their maturity and their spiritual development and growth? How long has it been since you prayed for somebody who looked as if they were going to turn aside and miss out on going to heaven – but you prayed that they too would share in the glory of God?
Here’s how to pray. One fourth of the time for ourselves and the rest of the time in behalf of God’s work and others. That’s the kind of praying God wants to hear and that’s the kind He answers.
Don’t ask for blessing without giving.
Don’t ask for grace without a trial.
Don’t ask for peace without a conflict.
Don’t ask for faith without a fight.
Don’t ask for strength without a struggle.
Don’t ask for hope without a goal.
Don’t ask for joy without a burden.
Don’t ask for power without love.
Don’t ask for guidance without obedience.
Don’t ask for success without trying.
Don’t ask for glory without humility.
And don’t ask for life without dying.
A picture of Jesus in prayer for His disciples and for future disciples / believers, that they would be fruitful in the world and have eternal life.