Jesus Prays

Welcome

Good morning everyone. Today we are going back to the Gospel of John. We are going to be going to be going through John 17 over the next three weeks. This chapter is entirely made up of one of Jesus’ prayers on his last night and it divides up into three sections. So today we are starting with the first section, where Jesus will pray for Glory, next week Jesus will pray for his disciples, and the following week we will see how Jesus prayed for all believers. So let’s pray together, ask God to speak to us through scripture and the Holy Spirit.

Prayer

Engage / Tension

John 17 is a fairly important section of scripture. Some refer to this chapter as the “Holy of Holies of Sacred Scripture” because it reveals what was on Jesus’ heart as he prayed publicly before he was arrested and went to the cross. Just a few interesting bits of information on this chapter and other well known pastors… This is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus in all of the Gospels. There was a Scottish reformer named John Knox who had a severe illness and this chapter was read to him every single day during his final days. Marcus Rainsfor, a pastor from the 1800s, wrote different expositions on this chapter that amount to more than 500 pages. Another pastor, from the 1600s, Thomas Manton, preached 45 sermons just on these 26 verses within chapter 17.

So immediately, I think it is important to note that we really can’t cover everything in just sermons. This is one of the reasons why personal study is so important. I believe Pastor Dan mentioned this when he was here, that all of us can go to scripture and study it ourselves.

Before we read, remember that this takes place right after Jesus had spoken words of comfort to the disciples. He has promised them that the Holy Spirit, the advocate, parakletos, would come and be with them and how even though they will have trouble in the world, they can take comfort in knowing that Jesus has overcome the world. I mentioned a few weeks ago as well, the setting for this prayer could be one of two places. They could still be in the Upper Room at this point or they could be on their way to Gethsemane.

Jesus Prays

John 17:1–5 NIV

1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Verse 1

Throughout this prayer I want us to take notice of a few things. First, I want us to look at how Jesus prays and how that can influence our prayer life. John 11:42 reminds us that Jesus prays out loud for the disciples benefit as well as ours.

John 11:42 NIV

42 I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Second, we want to look at what exactly Jesus is praying for and how it influences our life.

Jesus begins his prayer by looking towards heaven and addressing God as Father, just as he had taught his disciples to do. I know that often times when we pray we tend to bow our heads and we do that just as you would bow before a king, it shows respect, demonstrates a fear of the Lord, but like Jesus we can also pray with our eyes towards heaven. When we pray we also can address God as father because that is what he is to us, but he also desires to be the caring father that we all need in our lives. Our earthly fathers aren’t perfect, but God is the ultimate father and so we can acknowledge him as our father. And here, Jesus tells us that the hour has come. Throughout the gospel of John there have been times when Jesus has had to tell people that his hour had not yet come, but here Jesus points out that it is now time. He then says, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” I’m going to be honest, this part can be confusing so let’s talk about it more in depth. Jesus has every right to ask God to glorify him because Jesus is God, Jesus is Emmanuel which means God with us, right? So he can ask to be glorified and it not be considered heresy. The way that God will glorify Jesus is seen in verse 5. Jesus will be cursed on the cross for the sin of the world, but the Father will glorify Jesus by restoring him to the glory that he had with the father before the world even existed. This doesn’t mean that Jesus lost glory, but that it is displayed in his resurrection and placement at the right hand of the father. Jesus on the other hand will glorify the father by displaying God’s goodness by securing eternal life for those who believe in him. Because Jesus is willing to endure the pain of the cross, he is revealing the character of God which causes praise. So the son and father are working to bring about mutual glorifying. (If that phrasing makes any sense)

Application

So what does it mean for us that Jesus prayed to glorify the father and for the father to glorify him? I think we see how this plays out in our day to day life by thinking about the two different ways glory can be discussed. Glory is both a noun and a verb. When we think of God’s glory as a noun, it means his majesty or splendor, it is his display of goodness. When we talk about glory as a verb (we pray this often in church, that we would give God the glory he rightly deserves) it means that we are celebrating his goodness.

So for us, we should be glorifying God. In the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism it asks, What is the chief end of man? The answer? To glorify God and enjoy him forever. Jesus prayed that God would be glorified and that should be our same prayer and goal as well, that is what we should pursue in our life. There are all kinds of things that we pursue in life. We pursue success, our careers, family, money, possessions, pleasure (this week you might have pursued a snow blower). But what happens because we are sinful people, is that these things end up becoming our primary focus. Are you more concerned with how much money you have or giving glory to God? This is hard, I don’t mean to try to make life seem simpler than it is, I want to also be realistic with you all. We can all decide this morning that we are going to live for God’s glory and next week realize that we have fallen short of that goal in just a weeks time. We need to always have periods of time for self evaluation, what are you pursuing the most in your life right now and how can you better glorify God in your life? I think one of the best ways that we can better glorify God is just acknowledge more and more that what we have comes from him. You may have worked hard to have the things you have, to have relationships that you have, but all of it comes from God. The opposite of giving glory to God is saying, “Hey, look at what I have accomplished, look at how good I am.” It’s taking credit and focusing on yourself. That is the opposite of giving glory to God. Give glory to God for everything that you have in life. You’re breathing right now? Give God the glory. You’re heart is beating? Give God the glory. Your job is going well? Give God the glory. (Isn’t there a song about this?)

So, rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory

Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory

Rise and shine, and give God the glory, glory

Children of the Lord

Verses 2-3

John 17:2–3 NIV

2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

As we mentioned, Jesus glorifies God by what he does on the cross and through the resurrection, by how he secures eternal life to those who have been given to him. Jesus then tells us, he defines for us what eternal life is and how the father and son are glorified. Eternal life is that we know God and Jesus. That is the definition that Jesus gives us of eternal life. It is relationally knowing God and Jesus. Notice what I said there. Relationally know God and Jesus. This is more that intellectually knowing about God, this is a personal relationship. One way to illustrate this is by looking at social media, okay? Bare with me here. On facebook I have somewhere over 800 “friends.” (Is that a humble brag? It seems like in high school we used to brag about how many friends we had on myspace and facebook) But out of those 800 people, how many of them do I actually know? How many of them do I have a personal relationship with? Who I could call right now and it wouldn’t be totally weird that I was calling them? We aren’t supposed to have a “facebook friend” kind of relationship with Jesus. We are meant to have a deep personal relationship. JoAnn often refers to God as her friend, don’t you JoAnn? How praying and talking to him is like talking to an old friend. There’s a difference between knowing about someone and knowing someone.

There are two different words for “know” in the Greek, one has to do with observation and the other has to do with an active relationship. It’s the second one that’s in mind here. Too many people have made observations about God but they’ve never encountered Him in a personal relationship through Jesus.

Verses 4-5

John 17:4–5 NIV

4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

Here, Jesus points out that he has completed the work that the Father had given him to do. Already, before it is actually completed, Jesus speaks as if it is finished because there is no doubt that it will be done. We see this also when Jesus is on the cross and he says “It is finished.” In verse 1 Jesus prayed, ‘Glorify your Son,’ and He concludes this opening section by asking His Father to glorify Him with His pre-incarnate glory. Jesus’ passion for the Father’s glory is both refreshing and challenging. Even on the brink of the crucifixion His mindset is on accomplishing the task for which the Father sent Him. The crucifixion appears to be the humiliation and defeat of God’s Son, but in reality it will be the glorification of the Son and the Father.

Action

Our role then is to respond with appreciation, adoration, affection, and subjection. In particular, when people look at us, they should see the weightiness and beauty of God on full display in our lives because Colossians 1:16 says that we have been created by God and for God. One clue that we care about God’s glory is when we can say along with Isaiah 26:8: “…Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.” I pray that I can live out the truth of Psalm 115:1: “Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory.”

Prayer