Sermon Tone Analysis

John 17

Introduction

Have you ever seen a nest full of baby birds with their mouths opened, waiting anxiously to receive food from the mother bird?

Their only desire is for what the mother bird will bring them and their open mouths and noisy cries are a whole hearted request for what they desire.

That is a good picture of what our prayers ought to be like.

Rather than the faintly mumbled few words we utter in passing, God invites us into a relationship in which He, as Father, is seen as our whole source of all that we need and our conversations with Him acknowledge His sovereignty, glory and provision.

Arthur Pink writes, “Prayer is the expression of desire for benefit by one who needs it, to one who, in his estimation, is able and disposed to confer it.”

If we see that prayer is that important, then we will desire, as the disciples did, to learn how to pray.

To know, “How do we pray?” “Whom do we pray for?” “What do we pray about?”

Jesus answered the request of the disciples to teach them to pray when he taught them the “Lord’s prayer.”

He further taught them to pray when they saw Him pray.

One of the prayers which Jesus prayed in their presence is that which we find in John 17. Knowing that He was about to leave, he had given words of comfort and instruction and then he prayed this wonderful prayer.

In it we have a model from which we can learn much about prayer.

It particularly demonstrates a model from which we can learn about whom to pray for and how to pray.

There is, of course, much more in this passage, but this morning I would like to draw from it lessons on prayer.

Some of what I am sharing with you comes from two books.

One by Andrew Murray with the title “With Christ in the School of Prayer” and the other called “When God Prays” by Skip Heitzig.

The outline which you will see in the NIV Bible is the outline we will be following.

Jesus prays for Himself, for His disciples and for all believers.

Jesus Prays For Himself John 17:1-5

 

Prayer For Self.

In the first five verses, Jesus begins by praying for Himself.

As the Son of God who knew God intimately, we wonder why He would need to pray for Himself.

As we will see when we examine the content of His prayer, there is no self centeredness in this prayer.

He is praying not so much for himself as that God’s will be done in Him.

Yet He does think about Himself and His relationship to God.

If Jesus needed to pray for Himself, how much more do we need to pray for ourselves.

How intensely do we pray for ourselves and our relationship with God?

 

Content Of His Prayer

 

There are, of course, elements of His prayer that are unique to Jesus alone because of who He was.

However, we see also in His prayer a good model of some of what we ought to pray about for ourselves.

We recognize here the intimate relationship which Jesus had with His Father.

In this prayer, He clarified his relationship to the Father.

He spoke of his work.

Notice that he talked about the work of giving eternal life to people.

We also see how he spoke of His obedience.

In verse 4 he speaks about “completing the work you gave me to do.”

In his teaching and in a very short time in his death, Jesus did all that he had been sent to do.

The primary concern of this prayer, however, and the actual request which He made to the Father is that God be glorified in His life and work.

In the first verse Jesus asked “that your Son may glorify you.”

The heart of Jesus, expressed in prayer is for the glory of God.

The word glory is used often in the Bible.

Glory refers to that which is the best.

When Jesus prays that God be glorified, He is expressing a desire that everyone, everywhere recognize that God and His way are the best.

That there is nothing and no one more amazing, more wonderful than God.

When God is glorified, people put their trust in Him.

When God is glorified, He is recognized as the source of all that is right and good and perfect.

Through the work of bringing people to eternal life, Jesus desires that people come to understand and acknowledge this.

As Jesus prayed that God would be glorified in Him, he modeled what we also need to pray for ourselves - that our lives bring glory to God.

Our lives bring glory to God when we are taken from being lost sinners to being children of God.

Our lives bring glory to God when the work of God is evident in us.

Our lives bring glory to God when our life is focussed in a God-ward direction.

Arthur Pink writes, “Christ prayed for this glory in order that He might glorify the Father.

Here too, He has left us an example.

Whatsoever we do is to be done to the glory of God, and nothing should be asked from Him save for His glory.”

It isn’t necessarily easy to pray like this.

As we pray about our work, do we pray that God will be glorified in our work?

As we pray about our obedience, can we say, “God, I have done what you asked me to do?” What will it mean if our ultimate concern is for the glory of God?

For Jesus it meant death.

For us it may mean suffering.

Are we willing to bring glory to the Father through our lives, no matter what happens to us?

I think that as we pray about ourselves to the Father, we ought to be deeply honesty.

We need to admit to God that we are often quite selfish and also fearful.

We ought to pray honestly, but also trustingly, acknowledging before the Father that our deepest hearts desire is for His glory.

Jesus Prays For His Disciples John 17:6-19

 

Prayer For Those Nearby

 

In John 17:6-8, Jesus continues to speak to the Father about the work He has done, but now a new element comes into the prayer.

He is speaking about those with whom He has spent most of the last three years.

He acknowledges that these disciples of His have accepted His message and have become followers of God.

In verse 9, Jesus says, “I pray for them.”

After prayer for self, Jesus moves on to prayer for His disciples.

In praying for His disciples, He is praying for those who are closest to them.

He indicates, further, in verse 9 that he does not pray for the world.

That is not to say that He does not care about the world.

We know from John 3:16 that the world is very much the object of His love.

However, at this point the object of His prayer is those who have been closest to Him.

This is the longest section and the prayer is specific and definite.

In a similar way, although we should care for and even pray for the world, often our most intimate prayers will be for those in the circle that is closest to us.

This is the circle that includes our spouse, our children, our parents and our church family.

This is the circle where we know what the struggles are and what is needed and so we are able to pray most personally and most definitely.

Content Of His Prayer

 

The content of Jesus prayer for those closest to him is also very instructive.

What is the usual content of our prayer for each other?

How does that list compare with how Jesus prays for His intimate circle?

In His prayer for His disciples, Jesus asks two things

 

Prayer For Protection

 

The context of this prayer is found in verse 11.

Jesus recognizes, “I will remain in the world no longer.”

Up to this point, Jesus had protected His disciples.

When they had been hungry, He had provided bread and fish.

When they needed a coin to pay taxes, He knew which fish had the coin in its mouth.

When they fielded attacks from the Pharisees, Jesus answered the questions.

But now He would no longer be physically present with them to protect them.

Therefore, He prays for their protection.

In praying this prayer for them, He introduces them to a new relationship.

No longer will they have the presence of Jesus to help them.

Jesus prays that they will be protected “by the power of God’s name.”

It was God Himself, by His Spirit who would now be their protection.

Being protected by the name of God means that when God’s name is named in the presence of God’s enemies, they cringe.

When we belong to God, we live under the protection of God Himself.