A Study of the Book of John

“That You May Believe”

Sermon #45 

“The Real Lord’s Prayer”

John 17:1-26 

        When said sincerely there perhaps is no more flattering statement in all the world than the statement, “I’m praying for you!” That you are in someone’s thoughts is always very flattering. But to be significant enough to be a part of their prayers is flattering indeed!

       That is why the seventeen chapter of John is so wonderful. For here we have the Lord of the Universe thinking of you and me. We are so much a part of his thoughts that He prays for us.

       If I asked you this morning to join me in saying “The Lord’s Prayer” most of you would begin with, “Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name.” But in reality that it is not the Lord’s Prayer but rather “The Model Prayer” given by Jesus in response to the disciples request, “Lord teach us how to pray.” 

       But the true “Lord’s prayer” is found in our text today, John 17. To understand what it is that He desires for us can give us keen insight into what He expects of us. These truths are all the more precious when we realize that they were uttered by the Lord just hours before His death on the cross.

       The Lord’s Prayer can easily be divided into three natural divisions. In verses 1-5 He prays for Himself, in verses 6-9 He prays for his Disciples and in verses 20-26 He prays for the Church in the world. 

First, He Prays for Himself (17:1-5)

“Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You.”

       In these last moments with His disciples He is praying. In verse one the prayer of Jesus begins with the recognition that “the hour has come.”  Jesus is saying, “the time has final come.” He is not saying this with an air of resignation and defeat. He knows what the next few hours hold and yet he knows what awaits beyond the cross.   

       In big and small ways we all come to the place where we must say as Jesus did, “Father the time has come – the hour when I must decide whether I will attempt to hang on my control of this life or whether I am willing to lay it all in the your hands – in the hope and realization that lies beyond it.”

The Lord prays primarily that he might be glorified. How is someone glorified? The word means to make known things and qualities previously hidden. The question then becomes “How was and is Jesus glorified?”              

·   His glorification in the Cross (vv. 1,4)

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You… (4) I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.”

       The Lord is praying that by means of the cross something that is hidden to the world will be manifested. He is praying that through the experience of the cross that things previously not known about Him he will be revealed.  

The writer of Hebrews writes in Hebrews 1:3, “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Cor. 4:6,

“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

What do we learn about Jesus from the cross? Although it can be hard for us to understand; the cross was his glory. Jesus did not speak of being crucified but rather of being “glorified.” Jesus knew that the cross loomed before Him but he did not see this as a tragedy, but rather as a triumph.

       The cross glorified Jesus in that through it He (Jesus) displayed God the Father; as John 1:18 explains, Jesus was and is the “exegesis” or explanation of God. What we know of God we know through Jesus. And it is through the cross that we see God’s Holiness, his hatred of sin and His refusal to compro-mise with it. The cross also displays the Love of God the Father for us in the vast cost He paid for our salvations. If Jesus had stopped short of the cross it would have proved that there is a limit of love to which God is not prepared to go to redeem mankind. The cross proves there is not limit to God’s love. 

·   His glorification in Heaven. (v. 5)

“And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”

       We can only dimly perceive what Christ glory was “before the world was.” In Phil 2:9-11 we read,   “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, (10) that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, (11) and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 

·   His glorification in the Church.

(vv. 2-3) “as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. (3) And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”

            Between the glorification of Christ in history and the glorification in Heaven, there is another glorification here on earth. In verse three Jesus states, “this is eternal life that they may know you” which begs the question, “What is involved in knowing Christ?”

1.    Knowing about Him – The deemphasis on the Bible in our modern world has left many people ignorant of basic Bible knowledge. There is no shame in being ignorant but there is shame in remaining ignorant.

2.    Intimacy of Knowledge – The word translated “know” in verse three implies intimacy. The word ginosko means knowledge by experience.  

3.    Growing in knowledge

“In ‘The Great Stone Face’ Nathanael

Hawthorne tells the story of a boy who lived in a village below a mountain. On the mountain was an image of a great stone face, looking down solemnly upon the people. A legend claimed that someday someone would come to the village who looked just like the great stone face, and he would come to the village and would be the means of great blessing. The story so gripped the young boy that he would spend hour after hour looking at the great stone face and thinking about the one who was coming. Years passed, and the promised one did not come. The boy became a young man, and he kept contemplating the majestic beauty of that great stone face. By and by his youth passed, and middle age came on. The man still could not get the legend out of his mind. Finally, he reached old age and one day as he walked through the village, someone looked at him and exclaimed, ‘He has come – the one who is like the great stone face!’ The old man had become like the object he had contemplated. And so it was with us.” [As quoted by Kent Hughes. p. 396]

In 2 Cor. 3:18 the Apostle Paul explains,  “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being trans-formed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” Notice the little word “all” this means it is an experience not for some – not a chosen few but all. There is to be a metamorphosis taking place in the lives of believers. The more we look to Christ the more we look like Christ. 

       He prays not only for Himself but… 

Secondly, He Prays For The Disciples (17:6-19)

 “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. (10) And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.” 

·   He prays for their Protection (vv. 11-13)

“Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are. (12) While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept; and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” 

While His disciples are in the world, He prays that the Father will be “keep” or protected his disciples. The word translated “keep” (thereo) means “to preserve.” Jesus’ first request on the part of his disciples is that they be kept or preserved from the evil one.

       In verse fifteen He prays that they will be preserved from the two extremes that they will be face in dealing with the world. “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.”

       * They are to remain “in” the world,       thus avoiding Escapism.

       It is possible to abandon our culture to the Devil. Rebecca Pippert wrote in her book, “Out of the Salt Shaker,” “We must not become as John Stott puts it, ‘a rabbit-hole Christian’ – the kind who pops his head out of a hole, leaves his Christian roommate in the morning and scurries to class, only to frantically search for a Christian to sit by (an odd way to approach a mission field). Thus he proceeds from class to class. When dinner comes, he sits with the Christians in his dorm at one big table and thinks, ‘What a Witness!’ From there he goes to his all-Christian Bible study, and he might even catch a prayer meeting where the Christians pray for the non-believers on his floor. (But what luck that he was able to live on the only floor with seventeen Christians!) Then at night he scurries back to his Christian roommate. Safe! He made it through another day and his only contacts with the world were those mad, brave dashes to and from Christian activities,

       What an insidious reversal of the biblical command to be salt and light to the world.”

       We need to ask ourselves honestly if we have functionally removed ourselves from the world. Christ pays that we will not! 

       * They are to remain in but not “of” the world, thus avoiding the danger of conformity to the world.

       The result of conformity to the world is assimilation to the point that in time there is no distinguishable difference between the church and the world.

       In Romans 12:1-2 Paul says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. (2) And do not be conformed to this world, but be trans-formed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” 

·   He Prays For their Sanctification.

(vv. 17-19) “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. (18) As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. (19) And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.”

       Sanctify is one of those four dollar theological words. The meaning of the word is often misunderstood! Ray Stedman states that “Some think of sanctifying as some kind of religious fumigation where all evil is somehow washed away.”  Some believe that by a process of sanctification a believer can reach a level that makes them incapable of sinning. Yet 1 John 1:8-10 states, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (9) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (10) If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”        But the word “sanctify” in our text simply means to set apart for a specific purpose. Some you ladies bought a pot roast and you set it aside for the purpose of today’s Sunday lunch. That pot roast was sanctified; it was set aside for a specific purpose. A sanctified believer is not who has achieved a certain level of goodness but rather one what has been set apart by God

       He prays not only for His Disciples but… 

Third, He Prays For The Church (17:20-26)

“I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (21) that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.(22) And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one:(23) I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. (24) “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. (25) O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. (26) And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

       The primary thing that Jesus prays for the church is unity. The reason unity is so crucial to the witness and mission of the Church is that it is so seldom seen in the World. Because our world is defined by conflict, broken relationships, dysfunctional families and fractured communities, unity in the church would indeed be seen as a sign that God is at work because no human effort has been able to sustain it.

       But Christian unity does not mean that we all have to be the same. Some mistaken hold that to be united means that we must all carry the same Bible version, dress the same, wear our hair the same, educate our children in the same way and have the same likes and dislikes. But that is not it at all. Real unity among believers is a supernatural work and it points to a supernatural explanation, Jesus Christ in us!  

A. W. Tozer made this observation, “Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred piano’s all tuned to the same fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers met together, each one looking away to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be were they to become ‘unity’ conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship.” [Hughes p. 400]