Sermon Tone Analysis

Teaching on prayer:

Lord teach us to pray - Luke 11:1 -

Jesus instructed with what we often call the “Lord’s prayer” - Our Father...

It might be better termed - “The Apostle’s Prayer” or “The Model Prayer”

Today, as we continue looking at the book of John, we come to a prayer that Jesus prayed on the night before he was crucified.

This is a little different than the prayer he prayed on the Mount of Olives - where he sweated drops of blood (Luke 22:39-46).

Here in John 17 we have what some have called the “High Priestly Prayer” or the “Prayer of Consecration.”

In this prayer, Jesus prays for himself as he prepares to go to the cross.

He also prays for his disciples and then concludes by praying for all believers - in other words, he even prayed for us.

We begin by looking at what...

Jesus prays for Himself (1-8)

Time and again Jesus has said that his time had not yet come, and yet now the time is here.

Now is the time for the culmination of his mission.

At Jesus’ heart - he wants to glorify God and knows that God is best glorified when the Son is glorified.

How would all of this happen?

It would happen through the cross, through the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

It would happen as the wrath of God is poured out at the same time that the mercy of God is granted.

All of this hinges on the cross.

Jesus bore our wrath.

You see our sin deserves death (Rom.

3:23).

Jesus paid that death perfectly.

In his mercy, God exchanged Jesus life for ours.

Notice, that in his prayer, Jesus notes that God gave him authority over all “flesh, to give eternal life.”

He then goes on to define eternal life as knowledge of the one true God and Jesus Christ.

We get to know the one true God through the sacrifice of Jesus.

He is the propitiation or replacement for our sin.

As we come to faith in Jesus Christ - ultimately he would be glorified - because he is “the way, the truth, and the life” no one comes to God except through him (John 14:6).

But Jesus doesn’t just make this request out of thin air.

The basis for Jesus’ request here and in the requests to follow is that he has fulfilled the mission that God had placed before him.

When we look at Jesus, when we understand what he is teaching, we get to see the true picture of God.

He is the embodiment of God.

He is the word made flesh.

As Tim Mackie and Jordan Zoerner might say - He is the “eden” come to earth - where God and humanity get to fellowship in perfect communion.

In fact, John communicated as much in the first chapter...

Friend, do you want eternal life?

Do you want to be free from the judgment of your sin? Do you want to live the life that God designed for you?

Then come to Jesus.

Repent of your sin, turn and trust in his finished work.

Walk in his ways.

He embodied the life that God intended for all of us - the life that we corrupted with our fallen ways.

Come to Jesus!

In addition to praying for himself,...

Jesus prays for the disciples (9-19)

He knows that the next period of time will be very challenging.

His crucifixion will be disheartening for them.

His resurrection will be exhilarating.

His ascension and return to the Father will be a new experience fraught with all sorts of struggles.

Anticipating all of that, he prays for two significant things for the disciples.

First of all...

Jesus prays for their security resulting in unity (9-16)

The disciples will carry on the mission that Jesus started.

They will act as heralds proclaiming the good news to the world.

Even though their message will be good news, the world will not receive it and so Jesus prays that God will “keep” them in His name (11).

But what does that mean?

Let’s consider it from an earthly perspective.

When Americans travel abroad (really, when anyone travels) - they travel in the “name” of the country.

They may not be travelling as ambassadors, but they will be travelling under all that the nation represents.

When troubles come - whether natural disaster or terrorism or even war - the nation often acts to aid.

I think this is a bit why news reports are always willing to communicate how many Americans were impacted by such an event.

In a much bigger scale, Jesus’ request here is that as the disciples encounter persecution and trials, that they will be kept secure - that the enemy will not snatch them away - that God will encompass them.

It’s as though they are foreigners in a foreign land proclaiming the goodness of a foreign King inviting others into a relationship with Him.

While Jesus’ prayer is specifically for the disciples, Don Carson suggests an extension of this to all believers...

The Gospel according to John (b.

Jesus Prays that His Disciples May Be Protected (17:11b–16))

The Christians’ task, then, is not to be withdrawn from the world, nor to be confused with the world ..., but to remain in the world, maintaining witness to the truth by the help of the Paraclete (15:26–27), and absorbing all the malice that the world can muster, finally protected by the Father himself, in response to the prayer of Jesus.

Consider that, as you witness, as you herald the goodness of God, as you share the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you do so as a foreigner - but with the protection of God himself.

He has more authority and power than any President or Prime Minister or Monarch.

He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

But notice, that Jesus’ request is not simply for the disciples security.

He prays asking that their security result in their unity.

John 17:11 “And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.”

When troubles come, our natural tendency is to withdraw to protect ourselves and then to point fingers - to lash out.

And yet Jesus request contrasts that as he prays that they would be one - that they would be unified - that they would have each others backs.

The disciples did not always agree on things - but they did seem to press through and remain unified - at least as far as we can tell.

In addition to praying for their security resulting in unity, secondly, ...

Jesus prays for their sanctification (17-19)

Outside of church circles - we don’t use words like sanctify or consecrate very often.

In these verses, the words that are translated “sanctify” and “consecrate” come from the same greek word which means “to make holy.”

But what does that mean?

One resource I checked out noted that...

“Sanctification is the ongoing supernatural work of God to rescue justified sinners from the disease of sin and to conform them to the image of his Son: holy, Christlike, and empowered to do good works.”

Don Carson explains:

In practical terms, no-one can be ‘sanctified’ or set apart for the Lord’s use without learning to think God’s thoughts after him, without learning to live in conformity with the ‘word’ he has graciously given

ILLUSTRATION: military training - growing in knowledge and experience - set apart or sanctified for a specific task/mission.

So this sanctification that Jesus prays for stems from the knowledge that they gained through him, which then gets lived out in their lives.

But Jesus doesn’t stop with his disciples.

He expects that their mission to go into all that world and make disciples will be successful.

Which means that there will be a whole group of people who will believe in Jesus - but their only encounter with Jesus is through the testimony of the disciples - whether verbally or in the written form that we have before us today.

As a result, finally...

Jesus prays for us (20-26)

In reality, Jesus prays for all believers.

As he did with the disciples, Jesus has two specific and significant requests for us.

Firsts of all,

Jesus prays for our unity with one another (20-23)

Let that sink in for a moment - Jesus prayed for you and me!

That is significant.

But notice, that the same challenge that the disciples faced is the very same challenge that we face.

The enemy wants to divide us, to separate us.

So often we want to be right and then willingly and even voraciously argue our side of things, even to the point of belittling and name calling and cancelling.