Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Intro

Please open with me, in your Bibles, to chapter 17 of John's Gospel.

Either by show of hands or a head nod, I wonder, how many have ever heard the phrase, "Crisis builds character?"

While that's true, crises do more than that.

A better statement is, "Crisis reveals character," because more than building character over time, crises have a way of revealing what's already there.

But even that isn't the whole truth, as turbulent times tend to show much more than just character.

Among the many things we can observe being revealed in us by a troublesome situation are the state and concerns of our hearts.

Amid a deeply personal struggle, what do you do?

How will you respond?

To whom do you go for help or guidance?

What concerns are dominating your thoughts?

Throughout John's Gospel, we are told repeatedly that Christ's hour had not arrived, as He was engaged in various activities or during the many attempts by the Jews to seize or kill Him.

When we come to Chapter 17, the hour had finally come.

He had been spending His final evening with His disciples, teaching them and giving final instructions as they would face tribulation in this world.

They rose to leave, and at some point along their walk to the garden where He was to be betrayed, Jesus took a moment to pray.

John doesn't tell us where chapter 17 took place, but many scholars believe it might have been on the bank of the Kidron book, just before crossing over to the garden of Gethsemane, where He would begin the moment of His greatest tribulation.

In other words, the hour of crisis had finally arrived for Jesus, and he began to pray in that moment.

As He prayed, He revealed the concerns of His heart.

Today, we will examine a particular prayer from our Lord Jesus himself.

We will cover the entire chapter today, but we will break it down into three parts as we see that Jesus prayed for Himself, His disciples, and Future believers.

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Look with me to the first five verses of John 17, as we see Jesus praying for Himself.

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Jesus Prayed for Himself.

Notice that in just the first few verses of this prayer, Jesus makes three significant statements as He prayed for Himself.

In fact, two of them are found in verse 1.

After lifting His eyes to Heaven, a sign of reverence for the Father, Jesus said, "Father, the hour has come."

I said earlier that John frequently pointed out that the hour had not yet come for Jesus, but in verse 1, Jesus proclaims that the moment has finally arrived.

The entirety of Jesus' earthly ministry is building through this moment before He enters the garden and culminates with His arrest, beating, and crucifixion.

Jesus is announcing that the cup He must drink is ready for Him now.

So that's the first significant statement, that His hour had come.

The second statement is made immediately after that in verse 1. Jesus says, "glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you."

Now, Jesus was a well-known, highly sought after, itinerate Jewish Rabbi.

He understood the Jewish Scriptures and clearly taught them unlike anyone else.

For Him to claim to be the Son of God and then to ask God to glorify Him is, ultimately, a statement of divinity.

This is because Jesus knew that God the Father was righteously concerned with His glory and that He would not share His glory with anyone outside of Himself, as we see in places like Isaiah 42:8: where God states, "I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images" (NASB); and Isaiah 48:11, where God says, "For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this.

How can I let myself be defamed?

I will not yield my glory to another."

So, for Jesus to request that the Father share His glory with Him is to admit or proclaim being co-equal with God.

Either He was blaspheming God, or Jesus was telling the truth about who He claimed to be.

The third statement is in verse five, where Jesus said, "And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed."

On the one hand, He is reiterating His petition for God to give Him glory, while on the other hand, He's claiming to have existed with the Father before the world came into existence.

Only God in the flesh could have stood there, surrounded by the 11 remaining disciples, and made such statements.

When taken together, we see that, as one commentator suggests:

1. Jesus prays that the Father would give Him glory.

2. Jesus lays claim to a previous glory that was His before the time of creation.

3. Jesus asserts that His glory was that of the Father.

In other words, Jesus asks that the Father would give His glory to another, namely Himself; more than that, Jesus proclaims that He has already shared in that divine glory as the pre-existent Son of God.

In the moment of his crisis, Jesus spoke the truth about himself.

He knew what God said about him and declared it in His prayer.

Amid your crisis, do you remember what God has said about you in the thick of your deepest predicament?

Do you repeat it back to Him in prayer?

Do you believe it to be true?

You see, if you trust in Jesus as your Savior, you can rest assured that God has declared you to be his child, given you a seat at his table, and promised to cleanse you from unrighteousness.

Jesus declared the truth accurately and without embellishment as he prayed for himself.

Do you do the same as you pray for yourself?

Jesus did not stop at praying only for himself, however.

He also prayed for his disciples, as we see in verses 6-19.

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Jesus Prayed for His Disciples.

Verses 6-19 show us that those who remained with Him, the eleven disciples, had accepted Jesus' words, knowing He is God and believing that the Father sent Him, yet Jesus knew they would need protection and guidance.

Jesus declared the powerful truth that the disciples belonged to the Father, though the Father had given them to Him.

Jesus affirmed that He and the Father share all things and that glory has come to Him through those the Father had given Him.

Jesus also prayed for the Father's protection of the disciples since He would no longer be present in the world.

Notice that He didn't request that they be removed from the world; instead, that they would be protected from the enemy by the power of His own name.

Also, Jesus was clear that His disciples would be hated by the world simply because they were not of the world, just as He is not of the world.

Jesus reinforces the truth that He has given His followers the Word and sent them into the world, just as the Father sent Him.

Jesus prayed that His disciples would be set apart by the truth, which they knew and trusted to be God's Word.

Jesus knew that his disciples would be continuing the work he had left for them, so he prayed for their protection and effectiveness.

Amid your personal struggles, are you praying for those that God has brought around you?

In addition to praying for yourself, are you praying that God's will would be done through your co-laborers?

In our prayers, we cannot only be focused on ourselves.

The mission of getting the Gospel out to the whole world must continue, and we are to be praying for those whom God has brought into our lives, even if we may not be around to see the work continuing.

Unlike Christ, at any given moment, we do not know what the future holds, but at the risk of sounding like a cliche, we do know who holds the future.

In this life, we are not to withdraw from the world; instead, we are to remain in the world and influence it continually for good, as difficult as that may be.

We should be praying for strength for ourselves and those we have been called to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with as the work of the Gospel goes on.

Jesus prayed for Himself and His disciples.

Let's look at the third section of His prayer, in verses 20-26, as He prayed for future believers.

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Jesus Prayed for Future Believers.

Jesus' prayer did not end with petitions for only himself and his disciples but included those who would come to trust Him in the future.

In other words, Jesus' heart was concerned for His present and future followers as His hour had arrived.

This section of the prayer includes Jesus' concerns for His followers' unity and love.

Jesus knew that true biblical unity among His followers would only result from being united in God.

Jesus wasn't interested in unity for unity's sake.

There are a lot of folks who aren't arguing with one another, yet they aren't unified.

The phrase "live and let live" is nice when you don't want friction, but it doesn't necessarily call for people to move in the same direction.

Jesus wanted His followers to be centered in God's will, going out and making disciples.

A lack of disagreement might show unity in some ways, but it can also mask apathy and complacency as well.

If folks are merely interested in the status quo, they won't argue much as long as no one gets too far out of line.

In those cases, the church looks the same every week.

The same people keep doing the same things, and as long as no one comes along and disrupts the pleasant little ecosystem they've built, the people stay satisfied.

But God isn't interested in lip service or simple routines.

He desires a unified church that's focused on fulfilling the Great Commission.

Jesus knew this, and He prayed for unity among the believers, even well after His closest disciples had passed on.

Whenever truly unified, the fellowship of saints will be able to faithfully share the true identity of Jesus as the Sent One of God.

In closing His High Priestly Prayer, Jesus affirms that, though the world does not know the Father, He certainly does and has made the Father known to His followers.