John 17

Introduction

I am very grateful to see all of you here. I am seeing familiar faces, new faces, young faces, old faces. But you are all here and chose to take time out of your Wednesday to come and listen to me and I am incredibly grateful and thankful for each and every one of you here.

If we have not met, my name is Tristen Thomas and I am the NextGen intern here at Ridgecrest Baptist Church. I work directly under Robert Varner the NextGen pastor and he was in here last week boring you all with his hour long dissertation so a young whipper snapper like me could come in here and fire you guys up with a sermon.

As I was choosing my passage, I knew that I wanted to do a gospel because I have gotten a lot of preaching opportunities but have never gotten to preach from a gospel. So now I am trying to seek if I should preach from a parable, teaching, or other event in the gospels.

I came to John 15 1-11 which is the parable of the true vine, vinedresser, and fruit. I thought this was the one that I was going to do so I start the sermon writing process on Thursday last week, get one point into the sermon and decide that is not what I am going to do.

So, naturally, again I am searching, seeking, and praying for where I should go next. I was looking and I ended up two pages from John 15 to John 17. This is Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer that is at the climax of the farewell discourse. Jesus probably prayed this sometime in the upper room before going down to Gethsemane.

But, as I was reading this prayer by Jesus I was just blown away. The amount of love, humility, and desire for good for His people that Jesus wanted in this chapter amazed me. I knew that I needed to go deeper and to teach on this passage. Now I will not be able to teach on every verse in here and it deserves more time than I am going to give it so I encourage you all to read and study this passage for yourselves.

My sermon in a sentence is: Before the cross, Jesus prayed for our glory, our unity, and our perseverance—so the Christian life is not about holding on to Him, but trusting that He is holding on to us.

What I am going to do though is read the 26 verses in this chapter so buckle up and I will try not to mess anything up or lose my voice.

Read John 17

Praying for Himself (1-5)

Jesus begins the famous high priestly prayer by praying for Himself in verses 1-5. Now what is so amazing about the book of John is chapters 13-17, the farewell discourse are all about Jesus’ last days on earth.

In 13, Jesus washed the disciples feet, modeling love and humility, commanding them to love one another. In 14 Jesus comforts the disciples. He says that He is the way to the Father, the only way. He promises to prepare a place for them and that the Holy Spirit will come to comfort and help.

In chapter 15, Jesus teaches that He is the true vine. The disciples must abide in Him to bear fruit. He commands love and warns the disciples of the worlds hatred. In chapter 16 Jesus is preparing them for persecution, explaining to them how the Spirit works, and promises them that the joy that will come is way greater then the sorrow that is here now.

That is when we get to the high priestly prayer by Jesus. Jesus begins this 26 verse long prayer by praying for Himself. It is important to note that Jesus begins praying by lifting his head and eyes up to Heaven. The hour has come. Jesus knows that His time is near and it is time to do what He was ultimately here to do.

Jesus asks the Father to be glorified so that God can ultimately be glorified. The focus on asking to be glorified is not so that the Son and Father may receive honor but so that their true glory may be revealed. Jesus is asking that what He is about to do will be shown to everyone so that they may believe that He is divine, that He is God.

The cross will display Jesus’ ability to satisfy the wrath of the Father. The wrath that we have seen no one able to satisfy before. The wrath that left Israel wondering for 40 years. That wrath will be satisfied when Jesus is glorified on the cross. Jesus is glorified by this but in turn, God is also glorified. God is glorified because at the cross God keeps His word. God shows that if he says that sin will lead to death, it does.

Why does Jesus wish to be glorified? Well there is a beautiful connection in verse 2 that we see. He wishes to be glorified at the cross so that the flesh that He has been given authority over may be granted eternal life. The amount of humility and love Jesus has shown in His final days is one that I could only ever wish to achieve.

I like to picture this narrative as a lighthouse. Imagine a lighthouse standing on a rocky shore in the middle of a storm. The waves are crashing, the wind is howling, and ships are trying to make their way through the darkness. The sailors are not looking at the lighthouse and thinking “I hope that light isn’t too bright.”

In fact, the brighter the light, the safer those ships are. The glory of the lighthouse is the very thing that keeps them alive. The lighthouse doesn’t shine so people will admire the structure. It doesn’t shine to draw attention to itself for its own sake. It shines because without its light, ships will crash, lives will be lost, and people will die in the darkness.

And if the lighthouse were to dim its light—if it chose humility in the wrong sense—if it said, “I don’t want to stand out”—it would actually become dangerous instead of helpful.

In the same way, when Jesus prays, “Father, glorify your Son,” He is not asking for attention, applause, or honor in a human sense. He is asking for the light to shine at full strength—because eternal lives are at stake. Jesus knows that the cross is going to look like defeat. It is going to look dark, shameful, and weak. So He prays that what He is about to do would be clearly revealed for what it truly is—the saving work of God.

Jesus’ goal for this life was to bring eternal life for all who would believe in Him. Two chapters ago in John 15 when Jesus was talking about abiding, He said that if we keep the commandments like He did, the father will be glorified and that we will receive joy. Jesus desires for His glory to be made known and for our joy to overflow.

Moving on to verse 3, Jesus defines the eternal life that He wishes for us to have. He wishes that we would all know then only true God and the only true vine. Jesus yearns for us to know about Him and His Father. I am so grateful for Jesus Christ. If it was up to me, I would not want to know Jesus or God.

If it was up to me, I would not want eternal life. I would love to dwell in the things of this earth like making money or trying to build myself up. But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How amazing is that. What Jesus wants for His people is better than what they want for themselves.

Who knows where all of us would be if we didn’t know Jesus. I know that I would not be the person that I am today without Him, without God. I am supplied with strength every single day by my divine creator to get through and live an amazing life for Him. I love to remember that I have done nothing in this life on my own. I just simply chose one thing that changed my life forever. One simple thing. That was to abide in Him and watch how He turned my shame into glory and brought me from darkness into new light.

In verses 4 and 5, Jesus explains how He brought glory to the Father and how He wishes to be glorified during this hour. For three years that we see, Jesus glorified the Father, traveling all over the countries and hillsides to make His name known. Performing miracles in His name and teaching the people about who He is.

Now, He simply wishes to be glorified so that the people will see the prophecies fulfilled and see the divine work. As if they haven’t seen enough through the signs and miracles that He has done, He wishes to give them this one last sign to prove once and for all who He is.

Jesus has repeated this request for glory not only for Himself but for the Father. There is nothing Jesus wants more than for people to see and know that they are real.

So, if Jesus’s number one priority is to bring glory to the Father, what does that mean for us, His followers? Well, it can mean nothing less than that The glory of God must be the top priority in our lives. Everything that we do should have as its purpose to glorify God. Every single detail of our lives is intended to reveal and celebrate the goodness of God.

All of our ministries should be focused on the goodness of God and the cross. We preach Christ and Him crucified so that God and Christ are glorified. We share the gospel so the blind will see the goodness of God and Christ. There is no evangelism in heaven. We live on a mission to help people see what we see. To help the blind gain sight and eternal life.

Let us make that our prayer from this first point. That we will remember what God has done for us and that we will live on mission to make sure other people will see that. Every time I pray for the forgiveness of my sins, I am reminded of what Christ did for me on that cross. Let us bring all of the glory to God and Jesus in our lives and others.

Praying for His disciples (6-19)

Jesus moves on from praying for Himself in the first five verses to now praying for His disciples. These next 14 verses are filled with Jesus praying for the ones that He poured into for the last three years. I will not be able to cover all of these verses in depth like I did for the first prayer but I will grab a couple of verses from here and do my best!

Jesus begins the prayer by saying “I have manifested Your name.” Jesus has made God known to the ones who God has given them out of this world. Jesus lived in such a way that those who saw Him saw the Father. Jesus wished for the Father to be glorified so much that wherever He went He showed the amazing love and kindness of the Father.

Jesus manifested God’s name to the disciples who are are “out of the world.” The disciples might’ve been in the world with Jesus but they were not of the world. They were citizens of Heaven. Jesus ends the first verse by saying that the disciples have kept God’s word. Verses 7-8 elaborate on this when Jesus says that they know everything that was given to them was from God.

And how did they know this? Besides seeing Jesus do miracles and show His divine self to them, they believed. Verse 8 says that they received these words from Jesus and have come to know in truth that Jesus came from God. They believed! They believed that Jesus is who He says He is. They don’t deny Him like the world.

They were regular people like you and me. They were sinners, tax collectors, fishermen. But they were different than the rest of the people who had these normal day jobs. They believed. They were not of the world because they chose to put their faith fully in God and follow Jesus at the snap of His fingers.

That is what we are called to do. We are called to believe. That is faith. Like I said, these disciples were not better than us. We are disciples of Jesus. They were normal people but they chose to believe that God did send His one and only Son to die for the sins of all. That is simply what we are called to do. Just believe in Jesus and be set free. The examples are a great example of this.

After Jesus begins His prayer for the disciples by explaining that He has manifested God’s name to them and they have believed, He moves on to why He is praying for His disciples. I am going to start in verse 11 but I want to note something in verse 10. Jesus says, “All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.”

Jesus says that He is glorified in the disciples. At the beginning of this prayer Jesus was wishing to be glorified so that all would know the amazing person of Jesus and God. He wanted to be glorified in the work of the cross and resurrection so that people would know and believe Him.

But here Jesus explains that He is glorified in His disciples. So He was praying not only to be glorified in His work on the cross and resurrection but to be glorified through His disciples. And, as His disciples we are the vehicle through which glory has come to Jesus. We are to glorify Jesus and to reveal just how great He is!

Now we get to How Jesus is praying for us His disciples. In verse 11 Jesus prays for protection for the disciples since Jesus is leaving and going to the Father. Jesus is going to depart and leave His disciples and now Jesus prays and asks the Father that His disciples would be kept in the name that the Father gave to Jesus.

And this is protection under God’s name. The name that is Jehovah Jireh the provider. The name that is Jehovah Rapha the healer. The name that is Jehovah Nissi the banner, the protector. The name that is Jehovah Shalom that brings us peace. The name that is Jehovah Rohi the great shepherd. These are the names plus many more that Jesus prays will be with His disciples as they are in the world.

And finally, if you look at the end, this is prayed so that we would all become one and be together just as Jesus and God are one. Jesus prays for Himself and God to be unified with us the disciples through the Holy Spirit. What a beautiful picture of the trinity!

Moving on, Jesus talks about how He, the good shepherd has guarded His disciples and prays that His joy would be fulfilled in His disciples. In verse 12 He says that He has kept them in the name that was given to them and guarded them and none were lost but one. That one (Judas) was lost but it all fulfilled the scripture prophecies.

In verse 13, Jesus prays for His joy to be fulfilled in the disciples. Jesus desires His followers to enjoy this life that can be had only by those who become imitators of God. Imitate the God who sacrifices Himself for others, humbles Himself to lift others up, who takes on pains of others to free them from penalty. This brought immense joy to Jesus and he prays that the disciples will follow in His ways and gain that same joy.

Now I am going to jump to verse 17 and in the verses prior, Jesus reiterates the truth that He has given the disciples God’s word, He has taught the disciples. He says multiple times that they are not of this world just like Jesus and He prays that not that God will take them out of the world but that they would be protected from the enemy. The word that Jesus gave the disciples still needs to be spread, work still needs to be done, but Jesus prays that they will be protected.

Now onto verse 17. Jesus says, “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.” Jesus is praying that the truth which is the Father’s word that He has given to the disciples will sanctify the disciples. That it would set them apart, make them holy, sanctify them as they continue into the world. This is how the disciples would be kept from the evil one. They would be kept by being literally set apart by the beautiful word and truth of the Father.

How amazing it is to be sanctified by the word of God. To be set apart from this world by the amazing truth that is God’s word. Letting that truth be a guide and guardrail for how we live our lives. It brings me so much joy knowing that I am not of this world and that my citizenship is in Heaven.

One important thing I would like to note here is the difference between justification and sanctification. The disciples needed no prayer for justification because they were already justified by the complete and perfect work of Christ. They however, did need prayer for sanctification for they were not completely sanctified.

Finally I want to finish in verse 19. Jesus finishes his prayer for His disciples by saying that for their sake I consecrate myself so that they may be sanctified. Jesus had set himself apart, consecrating Himself to a holy life and sin-bearing death for the sake of the disciples. In doing this on their behalf, Jesus makes it possible for the disciples to be sanctified in truth. The humility of our Lord an Savior is just so amazing!

Christ set Himself apart for the cross so that his people could be cleansed from sin and set apart for good works, set apart to go into the world as he came into the world: communicating the love of God and the goodness that sinful rebels can be reconciled to the holy God through repentance and faith. Remember, we did nothing to deserve this. May we bring all the glory to Christ alone.

Praying for All who will Believe (20-26)

Finally, After Jesus has prayed for Himself and for His disciples, He prays for all of those who will believe. He makes this very clear in the first verse of this prayer verse 20. Jesus says that He not only is praying for the disciples but for all of those who will believe through the word.

This prayer is for all who will choose to believe in their heart. Through the word of the disciples which He just got done praying for. All Christians have come to Christ directly or indirectly through the apostles witness. That is why they needed so much prayer. Because they were the ones who were going to be bringing the good news first hand right after Christ would leave this earth.

Jesus again prays for unity. He prayed in verse 11 for the disciples to be one with Jesus and God as they would be left in the world without Him but now Jesus also prays for a unity for all those who would believe and be a part of the body of Christ. Jesus wants all of His people to be unified as one. Just as the Father is in Jesus and Jesus in the Father.

Jesus wants us to abide in Him! “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” All we need to do is abide in the true vine and watch how the vinedresser gardens us into bearing good fruits!

I love our orchestra and choir in first service and I will often go to first service to worship Jesus because I just love to do so. Both the orchestra and choir do a stellar job at making everything sound amazing, (hence why I keep coming back.)

But, when they are getting ready to perform, think of how many different people are on the stage getting ready, with different instruments, reading different lines of music, singing in different melodies. Each person and instrument different than the next. If everyone played the same instrument or sang at the same time at the same volume it would just be noise. It wouldn’t be the beauty that we hear.

Unity in an orchestra and choir doesn’t from everyone being the same. It comes from everyone following the same conductor.

The conductor stands at the front, not to draw attention to himself, but to bring the music to life. Every musician watches him. They don’t look at each other for direction—they look to him. When the orchestra and choir are unified under the conductor, something amazing happens. Individual sounds blend into something far greater than any one instrument could produce on its own.

This is exactly what Jesus is praying for in John 17. He prays that we would be one as He and the Father are one. Not because we are identical, but because we are united under the same authority, the same mission, and the same love. Jesus is not asking the Father to make us all the same instrument. He is asking that we would all stay in step with Him.

We do all of this so that the world may see and believe the life and person of Jesus. Jesus continues praying for unity as He says that the glory that He has received from the Father He has given to once again all believers so that we may all be one. Jesus wants all of His followers to receive that glory which is Him dying on the cross and the revelation of the Father’s justice and mercy that comes from that.

In seeing that and receiving that, Jesus prays for that oneness which He again wishes for in verse 23. He wishes for all of His followers to be perfectly one and in being one to know that Jesus has been sent by the Father and in being one and believing that Jesus was sent by the Father, they are loved by God just as God has loved Jesus. Isn’t it so amazing, very unexpected but amazing, that God loves you and me just as He loves Jesus? What did we ever do to deserve that?!

Jesus moves on from praying for unity to praying for His people to see His glory in these last three verses. Jesus desires for us to be unified with Him and God the Father but also wishes for us to see His glory and be with Him in glory for all eternity. It is so easy to think of this world and believe that it is so hard in this life and how many difficulties there are in this earthly life.

But, that is the Christian walk. There will be challenges and road blocks in our lives. John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress beautifully pictured this for us. But at the end of it all, there is glory! Whenever I am faced with challenges in my lives it is always important that I remember that there is a glory that I will get to see and be in with my Heavenly Father at the end that will be way better than any of the challenges that I am facing right now.

It makes me think of the song that we sang this past Sunday in modern service: When we all get to Heaven what a day of rejoicing that will be! Jesus comforts us that in the next world with Him, there will be no troubles, no hard times, no bills to pay. We just get to live with Him forever.

Jesus says as He’s getting close to the end of the prayer that the world has no such glory to look forward to because it does not know the Father. They have certainly had the opportunity but they refused to know Him and they rejected the opportunity to. This is the human condition outside of Christ and it is a good reminder when reading this that there are people who dismiss the possibility of knowing God.

How amazing it is to know God and know the gospel truth for a fact. When you take all of the evidence into consideration you will always come back with the same answer. That God is real, Jesus is who He says He is, and that you can freely follow Him and that comes with a 100% success rate that your life will be better with Him in it.

Finally, in the last verse, Jesus explains that He has made God’s name known to all who will believe and this is important; He continues to make it known to them. This is Christ’s grand purpose. To reveal the Father God to us. If you want to know God, then get to know Jesus. You not only know God the Father through Jesus but you can’t gain access to the Father by anyone else than Jesus. Jesus said in John 14 that He is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him. Remember, this is all free by the way.

Jesus has manifested the name of the Father so that His people will experience love. The love which the Father has loved Jesus with, giving Himself to Jesus so that He could in turn give Himself to us, is the love we experience when we know God sent Jesus. When we know that Jesus died for us, that by the indwelling Spirit Jesus is with us even now, and that because the Son has petitioned the Father to keep us, He will preserve us to the end. There is no better love than that love.

Jesus prayed for unity, sanctity, and glory. This is what Jesus seeks for us. The Father uses the word to make us unified, to sanctify us, and to show us His glory. God is sovereign. The word will set us apart to the Father and make us holy for Him. There truly no other love like the love of God in Christ. None so unselfish, and pur and cleansing and transforming and renewing and saving and preserving and completing.

What can we do but serve one another, love one another, and strive to agree with one another, that we may be as the Father and Christ are one, that that the world may believe in Jesus as He says in verse 21?

Conclusion

Before we leave tonight, I want us to sit with one thought that we cannot rush past. Everything that we have read tonight, every word of prayer, Jesus prayed before the cross. Before the nails, before the crown of thorns, before the shame.

And when Jesus prayed this prayer, He wasn’t just praying for the twelve disciples in the room, He was praying for you. His disciple. Jesus prayed that you would be kept. That you would be sanctified by the truth. That you would be unified in Him. And that one day, you would see His glory and be with Him forever.

That means that your faith is not fragile. It is supported by the prayer of the Son Himself.

So when you struggle, remember; Jesus prayed for You. When unity is hard, remember; Jesus prayed for you. When obedience feels costly, remember; Jesus prayed for you.

The Christian life is not about holding on tightly enough to Jesus—it is about trusting that Jesus is holding on to you.