A Prayer for Unity and God's Glory - John 17:1-19

©September 12th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: John

When you have a deadline for a major project approaching, you probably tend to get hyper-focused. This is especially true if you have a tendency to procrastinate! As the deadline nears, you begin to see clearly what is most important in achieving your goal, and you can devote your energy to those specific things.

I think in some ways that’s what we see in this prayer of Jesus in John 17. Jesus knows that in just hours, he will begin the entire process of moving toward his crucifixion. He knows the deadline is nearly upon them. Jesus hasn’t been procrastinating, of course, but in His prayer, we get a glimpse of that which Jesus viewed as most important. As we look at the things Jesus prayed for in John 17, we see His overarching desires as He prepared to leave the earth.

Since this prayer gives us a glimpse of what Jesus desired most, we ought to listen intently to what He prays for. We should make His focus our own. And we should be aware of the dangers He sees for us on the horizon. We’re going to spend (at least) two weeks unpacking some of the truths contained in this prayer. Today we’ll start by looking at the first 19 verses of John 17.

Jesus’ Prayer for Himself

In the opening lines of the prayer, Jesus prays about himself,

After saying all these things, Jesus looked up to heaven and said, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so he can give glory back to you. 2 For you have given him authority over everyone. He gives eternal life to each one you have given him. 3 And this is the way to have eternal life—to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth. 4 I brought glory to you here on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5 Now, Father, bring me into the glory we shared before the world began.

6 “I have revealed you to the ones you gave me from this world. They were always yours. You gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything I have is a gift from you, 8 for I have passed on to them the message you gave me. They accepted it and know that I came from you, and they believe you sent me. (John 17:1-8, NLT)

As you look at the first 5 verses, you should notice a word that is repeated several times: glory. Jesus is praying for himself to be glorified. This is a word we use a lot, but we don’t always understand what it means. I think there are couple ways to think about the glory of God. The first is to think about God’s intrinsic glory. In other words, God is exalted and worshiped because of who He is. The other is to think of glory like praise or honor. When we speak of bringing glory to God, we honor Him, we praise Him as He deserves. It’s like shining a light on Him, so others see Him more clearly.

Is it appropriate for Jesus to pray for himself to be glorified? YES! Jesus was not asking to be elevated above the place he deserved (unlike James and John, when they dispatched their mother to ask for elevated positions in Jesus’ kingdom). We must remember that Jesus allowed himself to be humbled in coming to earth. He gave up his rights as God and instead chose to limit himself to the existence of a human being. What was the purpose of this? It was to make it possible for humanity to be saved and their relationship with God to be restored.

Jesus recognizes that He has nearly completed the mission which He came to carry out. He has revealed the Father to the world, and He has made a way to eternal life. Now, he looks forward to returning to the glory He and the Father shared before the world began. Jesus is once again clearly claiming to be God. He is not doing this for show, of course, since he certainly didn’t have a large audience (though someone clearly heard his prayer and wrote it down). Jesus was praying in this way because He knew who He was. He truly was God. And He was satisfied in the work He had done on earth, and now looked forward to the time when He would be restored to the place of glory He deserved.

This is instructive for us. Jesus’ chief goal when He was on the earth was to bring honor to the Father (and by extension, himself and the Holy Spirit). This ought to be our chief goal as well. Our goal is not to draw attention to ourselves, make ourselves comfortable, or squeeze as much joy out of life as we can. Our goal is to bring honor and glory to God. The best way for us to do this is to do what Jesus said in verse 8—accept His message and believe in Him. In other words, we should follow Him with our lives. We know the kinds of things that honor our Lord—so we bring glory to Him by doing what He told us to do! As we serve Him faithfully both in the big things and the small things of our everyday lives, we bring Him the glory He deserves. And that should be our primary goal in all we do.

Jesus’ Prayer for The Disciples

After praying that God would glorify Him even as He sought to glorify the Father, Jesus turns his attention to his disciples.

9 “My prayer is not for the world, but for those you have given me, because they belong to you. 10 All who are mine belong to you, and you have given them to me, so they bring me glory. 11 Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am coming to you. Holy Father, you have given me your name; now protect them by the power of your name so that they will be united just as we are. 12 During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold. (John 17:9-12, NLT)

Jesus reiterates the fact that the disciples (and by extension, us) bring Him glory when we follow Him. He prays for this group of people whom He has come to love deeply, knowing that He is about to leave them. Jesus prays for the disciples to be united and for God to protect them. Jesus prays that the disciples (and by extension, the Church) would be unified.

Before we talk about what that means, we should notice that Jesus prays for protection, so that we can be unified. There are forces that are fighting to divide believers rather than to bring them together. How are we to be protected from these forces? Jesus says protection is found in the power of His name.

So, the way we are unified is by focusing on who Jesus is and being obedient to Him. Unity is found when people share the same primary goal. When everyone is focused on the same goal, you can allow secondary things to fall by the wayside, because they are not nearly as important as the primary goal.

If you’ve ever played on a team, you know this to be true. Good teams work together toward a common goal, even if they don’t share everything else in common. They may have different skills and abilities, different political views, different backgrounds, and they may not even be close friends. But a successful team is united in their goal of winning. Because of that common goal, all those other things get set aside, because they are less important. By contrast, a team that allows those secondary things to distract them will never be successful, because they won’t be working together as one.

This was the challenge the original disciples faced when Jesus left, and it is the same challenge we face as the Church today. As Christians, we are to be focused on carrying Jesus into the world, on bringing Him glory and living in obedience to Him. But too often we allow other things to distract us from our primary goal. Most issues that arise in churches and between churches have nothing to do with the gospel message,

· The color of the carpet or the paint on the walls

· The way the rooms of the church building are organized

· The kind or amount of music we choose to sing

· The translation of the Bible we use

· The amount of water we use in baptism

· The frequency of our communion celebrations

· Our political opinions

· Our views on vaccines, masks, etc.

· Our feelings of others receiving preferential treatment

There are lots of things that we can allow to divide us if we are not careful. Satan is constantly looking for things we value more than the Lord so he can use them to drive a wedge in the church. In our society today, he has many opportunities to drive wedges because we elevate lots of secondary things above our commitment to the Lord. We try to justify these things and explain why they are so important, but if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re really elevating our opinions to a place of primary importance. When we are tempted to divide with other believers, we need to take a hard look at our reasons for doing so. Much of the time, we are dividing over secondary issues.

True unity in the church comes when we set aside our personal agendas in favor of seeking the Lord together. When we make our primary goal serving the Lord faithfully and representing Him to the world around us, we can allow these other things to fall by the wayside. It doesn’t mean those things aren’t important, but it means they are not nearly as important as our service to the Lord.

Jesus makes a troubling statement at the end of this section. He says that while on the earth, he protected the disciples so that no one was lost except for the one headed for destruction as the scriptures foretold. This refers to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. But the troubling part is to think that Judas was destined for this all along. Does that mean God made Judas betray Jesus?

In short, no. Judas was acting in accordance with his own sinful nature. God chose not restrain Judas and lead him on a different path (as He had done with the other disciples). Instead, He allowed Judas to follow his sinful desires in betraying Jesus. God allowed this to happen and used it to accomplish His greater purpose. We see several examples of this in scripture: Joseph’s brothers, Pharaoh, the kings of Israel and Judah, and many of the evil kingdoms surrounding Israel. Sometimes God does not restrain human sinfulness, using it to further His greater plan. God does not entice people to sin, but He also does not always stop it. The important point to see is that no one can thwart God’s perfect plan—not even Judas betraying Jesus.

Holiness and Sending Out

In the last section of the prayer we’ll look at today, Jesus prays for holiness as He sends his disciples out into the world.

13 “Now I am coming to you. I told them many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with my joy. 14 I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15 I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one. 16 They do not belong to this world any more than I do. 17 Make them holy by your truth; teach them your word, which is truth. 18 Just as you sent me into the world, I am sending them into the world. 19 And I give myself as a holy sacrifice for them so they can be made holy by your truth. (John 17:13-19, NLT)

Jesus says that the world will hate Christians because Christians are not really part of the world any longer. Our residency has changed, and the world will view us as outsiders. Jesus’ prayer is not that we would be taken out of the world, but that we would be protected from the attacks of Satan on us. Jesus’ prescription for being spared from these attacks is holiness. He prays that God would make us holy by His truth, and then further explains that His word is truth.

Truth is a slippery concept in our day and age. It is in vogue to tell people today that they need to “speak their truth” or “live their truth”. The implication is that truth can be different from person to person. But that isn’t the case. Truth, by its very definition, is the same for everyone. Anything else is an opinion or preference.

The real question is how do we know what is true? Jesus answers that for us. He says God’s word is truth. In other words, we must base our lives on what the Bible teaches rather than our own opinions. This is admittedly not easy, because often the Bible says things we don’t really want to hear. The Bible will show us where we are wrong, and we don’t like that. Often what the Bible teaches is inconvenient and hard. But it is also true. The only way we can be protected from the attacks of Satan is to cling to and live out the truth.

This also brings unity. As we all submit our lives to the same truth, we will work together more easily. When you tune a group of instruments, it is important that they are all tuned to the same standard. If all the instruments go back to a single standard and make sure they are in tune with it, then they will all be in tune with each other and be able to make beautiful music. But if each instrument chooses to tune to its own standard, when they play together, the sound will be cacophonous instead. Similarly, we must tune our lives and our attitudes to the standard of God’s Word. If we do, we will be unified and Satan will not be able to lead us astray.

Jesus also prays for the disciples as He sends them out into the world. He is sending them out to represent the Lord to the world around them. The same task is put before Christians today.

But we often struggle with carrying the gospel into the world. We can easily fall into one of two mistakes when it comes to dealing with the world.

First is isolation. Rather than interacting with the world and trying to point them to Jesus, we only interact with other Christians. We claim we are trying to keep from being tainted by the world, but we are also failing at one of our primary purposes—which is to be a witness to the world! If we are to reach people who are lost, we have to spend time with such people! My evangelism professor in seminary said quite pointedly that if you do not have any friends who are not believers, then you are failing at one of your primary jobs as a Christian. We cannot point the world to Jesus if we have no relationships with the world. So we need to cultivate relationships with non-Christian people, serving as a light to them, so that we can bring them to Jesus.

Second is assimilation. The opposite end of the spectrum is when instead of avoiding the world entirely, we become like the world so we fit in. Our speech patterns, our choices, the way we treat others, all of these things become more and more like the worldly pattern of living, to the point that we become indistinguishable from the world around us. To unbelievers, the only difference between us and them is that we go to church on Sunday. We may have lots of friends who are not believers, but we are not able to reach them with the gospel, because they don’t see any difference in our lives! We can’t point them to their need for a savior if they don’t see anything different in us.

Our responsibility is to reach out to the world around us. This means being involved in our communities, serving alongside those who don’t believe, building friendships with those around us, being a good neighbor, and looking for ways to meet the needs of others. We should be in the world around us, but as the world looks at us, they should see something different. We must remember that our purpose is to represent our Lord wherever we go. If we take that kind of mentality into our lives, then our lives will be an answer to Jesus’ prayer.

Conclusion

The prayer we see recorded from Jesus just before he was betrayed gives us a good picture of what He thought was most important for the disciples. It shows us His primary concern for His followers. And Jesus’ desire for His followers hasn’t changed. He still desires us to do the same things. So let’s draw some lessons.

First, our chief goal is bring glory to God.Honestly, if we get this lesson in our heads, everything else will take care of itself. The reason Jesus came into the world was to glorify God. Our purpose is the same. We need to evaluate our lives very differently than we often do. Instead of making decisions based on what we want, we should make them based on what will most honor the Lord. This is a drastic shift in focus, but one that is in line with Jesus’ prayer. Let me challenge you to start your day with a simple question, “How can I honor God today?” Just starting your day that way will likely change your outlook. And at the end of each day, we would be well served in asking how well we did at honoring the Lord in our actions, our speech, our thoughts, and our attitudes. If we learn to make God’s glory our chief goal, it will solve many of our other struggles as well.

Second, we must cling to the truth tenaciously.The world in which we live will try to drive us apart and pull us away from the Lord. The way we prevent that from happening is to cling tightly to the truth, even when it is hard or inconvenient. If we submit our perspectives and opinions to the light of God’s Word, we will tune our hearts to the proper standard. And this will protect us from Satan’s schemes and draw us closer to each other.

Finally, we should reach out to the world around us. Jesus left us with a job to do—to continue carrying the message of the gospel to the world around us. It’s a lot easier to avoid the world or to just try to blend in. There’s less risk of having to do hard things that way. But we also will never make a difference in anybody’s life. Jesus calls us to hold forth the truth, even if the world hates us. We are to love, even when it’s hard. We are to shine the light of Jesus in a place that is dark. The world may hate us, but they need Jesus—and God has given us the task of continuing the work Jesus began.

I hope you are both encouraged and challenged by these words. Jesus prayed for you and me. You matter to Him. And He has a job for you to do. So let’s honor Him by serving Him, by honoring Him with our lives, by working together, and by reaching out to the world around us. If we do, we will be an answer to prayer.

©September 12th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: John