John 17:1-26

 

¹ When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, ² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. ⁴ I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. ⁵ And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. ⁶  “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. ⁸ For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 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. ¹² While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. ²⁰ “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ²¹ that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. ²² The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, ²³ I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. ²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ²⁵ O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. ²⁶ I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

 

If you knew that you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do?  Would you spend your remaining moments with your family?  Would you call some old friends and reminisce?  Would you go out for a good meal and some good laughs?  Would you sit and cry?  What would you do?

Of course, all of that is merely theoretical for you and me.  We do not know when our last night will be. In truth, most of us in here probably will not know that our last night is our last night when it falls upon us.

Jesus knew when His last night was.  He knew it was coming and now, in this morning’s text, He knew it had arrived.  He knew, in point of fact, that He had come for just such events as the next morning would bring.  This was Jesus’ last night.  Later tonight, Judas will meet Him with the guards and He will be arrested.  Jesus stands now in the very shadow of the cross.  Everything has been leading up to this.

That is significant to know because, knowing it, the final events of this last night take on even more poignancy.  What we observe in John 17 constitutes Jesus’ answer to the question, “If you knew that you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do?”

Would you like to know what Jesus did?  He prayed.  He prayed a prayer that has become renowned throughout history for its beauty, its passion, its theological profundity and the depths of love we find therein.  Oh, it may not be Jesus’ most famous prayer.  In fact, I suspect that more people know the Lord’s Prayer than the High Priestly Prayer (as Jesus’ prayer in John 17 has come to be known).  But the High Priestly Prayer is a renowned and significant prayer indeed!

Philip Melancthon, the reformer and friend of Martin Luther, said that “no voice which has ever been heard, either in heaven or in earth, [is] more exalted, more holy, more fruitful [or] more sublime than the prayer offered up by the Son of God Himself.”  R. Kent Hughes has passed on the following evidence of the great esteem this prayer has enjoyed throughout the ages:

“This chapter was read to the Scottish reformer John Knox every day during his final illness and in his final moments…Oliver Cromwell’s chaplain, Thomas Manton, preached forty-five sermons on it.  More recently, Marcus Rainsford, an Irish preacher, wrote expositions that amount to more than 500 pages.”[1]

It is, indeed, a justly famous prayer.  Again, it is likely not so famous as the Lord’s Prayer.  You will never hear a football team, for instance, quote John 17 before a big game.  But here let me pause and offer an observation.  The Lord’s Prayer and the High Priestly Prayer:  is it possible that there is a connection? After all, Jesus taught His disciples the Lord’s Prayer when they asked Him to show them how to pray. Would we not expect, then, for the prayers of Jesus in general to have a connection to the model prayer He offered His disciples, to contain in themselves the same principles of prayer that He taught?  As a matter of fact, I want to suggest this morning that there is an amazing and profound connection between these two prayers.

In his wonderful and significant book, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg has demonstrated this connection.  “One of the most intriguing observations,” he writes about this prayer, “is how all the petitions in Matthew’s account of the Lord’s Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13) find linguistic or conceptual parallels in this chapter, and with only one exception occur in the identical sequence.”[2]

I believe Blomberg is correct.  In fact, I believe it is appropriate and right to approach the High Priestly Prayer with the Lord’s Prayer in our minds and hearts.  In doing this, we not only get the great privilege of seeing our Lord Jesus practice what He preached concerning prayer, we also get to see the further and deeper meanings of the model statements of the Lord’s Prayer as He fleshes them out in His High Priestly Prayer here on the eve of His crucifixion.

On His last night with His disciples, Jesus put His focus on His Father.  He prayed.  As He did so, He deepened the elements of that earlier prayer He had taught His disciples, and all of us, to pray.  As such, let us too set our minds on the Father and consider what this great prayer says about the Lord God.

I.  Our God, the Heavenly Father 

In the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, Jesus taught His disciples to prayer, “Our Father in Heaven” (9a).  The two elements there are crucial:  God is “Father” and God is “in Heaven.” As Jesus begins His High Priestly Prayer in John 17, we read:

¹ When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father…”

Here, too, we see the two crucial elements:  God is “Father” and God is “in Heaven.”  Jesus is demonstrating the principles of prayer that He taught His disciples.  Here on the very eve of the cross, these two elements are crucial:  God is “Father” and God is “in Heaven.”

That God is Father will strengthen and sustain Jesus through the horrible trial He is about to undergo. Throughout the ordeal of the cross, Jesus will cling tenaciously to this grand truth:  that that which He is undergoing is not the cruel or arbitrary happenstances of an indifferent deity or the vicious and wanton cruelties of a masochistic God.  No, that which He is undergoing is bound up in the love of His Father for both Him and His fallen creation.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son…” (John 3:16).  That God is Father means that Jesus does not go to the cross for “a god” or even for “God”abstractly understood.  No, He goes to the cross for God, His Father.

And He is the Father “in Heaven.”  This must not be understood as – and, indeed, Jesus did not intend this to be – an allusion to a localized and bound deity.  God is not stuck in Heaven, nor does He sit enthroned to keep Him from His creation.  Jesus, of course, knew well and stood in agreement with the psalmist’s great sentiments from Psalm 139:

⁷ Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?

⁸ If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!

⁹ If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

¹⁰ even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me.

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and the light about me be night,”

¹² even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is bright as the day,
for darkness is as light with you.

Yes, Jesus, more than anybody, knew and treasured the grand reality of the omnipresence, the “every-where-ness,” of God.  Even so, God is the Father “in Heaven.”  This means two things: (1) that God is enthroned in sovereign power above the cosmos and (2) that while God is omnipresent there is a chasm between the holiness of God and the fallenness of lost creation.  It is a beautiful image:  God is “in Heaven,” but God has now come to earth.  God the Son stands on the crust of the earth acknowledging the transcendent power, might and holiness of God the Father.

In Christ, God has now drawn near.  Jesus is Immanuel, “God with us.”  Even so, we still recognize in our prayers that God is “Father” and God is “in Heaven.”  God loves us and is not indifferent to us, yet God is perfectly holy and sovereign and transcendent.

Have these two great realities gripped your life:  that God is “Father” and that God is “in Heaven?”  If you do not know the Lord God personally, if you have not accepted Jesus, you will not know God as Father. And if you do not know God as Father, you will not appreciate His sovereign power and rule over all of creation.

II.  Our God, the Sacred Name

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus prays, “hallowed be Your name” (Matthew 6:9b).  We find this echoed in the latter half of John 17:1, when Jesus prays, “glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You” (1b).

To “hallow” is to “glorify.”  Last year at the Southern Baptist Convention, John Piper preached an entire message on the first phrase of the Lord’s prayer:  “hallowed be Your name.”  He made the very interesting observation that this phrase is, in fact, a command.  It does not mean, “let your name be hallowed.”  Rather, it has the same grammatical and linguistic form as Peter’s response to the crowd in Acts 2 when they asked, “What must we do to be saved.”  He responded, “Repent and be baptized…” (Acts 2:38).

That is the manner in which Jesus says, “hallowed be Your name.”  There, He means, “Father, hallow, glorify, magnify, make great Your name!  Do it Father!  Make it so!”  It is a beautiful expression of the divine will through God the Son that the Father’s name be hallowed in and through all creation.  We find the same heartbeat in John 17:1:  “glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.”

Here is one of the ways in which the High Priestly Prayer further fleshes out the Lord’s Prayer.  We know now, through Luke 17:1 that what Jesus meant in Matthew 6:9b was this:  “Our Father in Heaven, hallow Your name.  Hallow it through Me.  Hallow it through what I am about to do on the cross.  Make Your name great as My name becomes cursed on the cross.  Make Your name pure and glorious as My name is laden with the sins of the world.  Make Your name beautiful through my become marred and stained with sin, death and hell on the cross.  Oh God, glorify Your Son that the Son may glorify You.  My path to glory is a cross, but then, beyond, the empty tomb.  You will glorify Me in the resurrection, and I will glorify You through what I am about to accomplish to redeem a people.”

III.  Our God, the King of the Kingdom

The glory that the Son will bring the Father will be through His radical obedience on the cross and, through it, the winning of inhabitants to the Kingdom of God.  The glory that the Father will give the Son will be the giving of the Kingdom to Him.

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus prays next, “Your Kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10a).  After the hallowing of the Father’s name, Jesus speaks of the Kingdom.  The parallel passage in the High Priestly Prayer is found in verses 2 and 3:

² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. ³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

This is very interesting.  Jesus does not use the word “Kingdom” in the High Priestly Prayer, but He alludes to it strongly in two ways.  First He uses the word “authority.”  Specifically, Jesus acknowledges before the Father that He has granted the Son “authority over all flesh.”  Furthermore, the Father has given the Son the authority “to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”

Authority alludes to the Kingdom because only the King has the authority to offer entry into the Kingdom.

Furthermore, in the gospel of John, “eternal life” is used almost synonymously with “Kingdom.”  It is very interesting.  The synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) speak of the Kingdom a great deal but of eternal life much less.  For instance, Matthew’s gospel has 7 references to eternal life but 55 references to the Kingdom.  Mark has 4 references to eternal life but 20 references to the Kingdom.  Luke has 5 references to eternal life but 46 references to the Kingdom.  On the other hand, John’s gospel has 36 references to eternal life but only 5 references to the Kingdom.[3]

It appears, when you compare the gospel of John to the other gospels, that what Matthew, Mark and Luke mean by “Kingdom” is roughly equivalent to what John’s gospel means by “eternal life.”  In other words, the two phrases are essentially describing the same reality in two different ways.  Eternal life is life in the Kingdom of God.  We are looking at two different ways of saying the same thing.

It is not surprising, then, that the phrase, “Your Kingdom come,” from the Lord’s Prayer, would parallel these words in the High Priestly Prayer:

² since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

The Kingdom of God is founded on the authority of the King whose Kingdom it is.  That authority extends to the issue of admittance into the Kingdom.  The King has the right to grant entry into His Kingdom.  And how is entry granted into the Kingdom?  It is granted through Christ to all of those who come to Him and receive eternal life.

³ And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Thy Kingdom come, oh God!  Let your Kingdom come.  Let it come through the cross and resurrection of the King who lays down His life to grant entry into the Kingdom.  Let the Kingdom come through born again hearts, hearts that have been granted eternal life through cleansing in the blood of the Lamb!

IV.  Our God, He Who Wills on Earth and Heaven

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus next prays, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven (Matthew 6:10b). He speaks there of two “locales” or realities:  earth and Heaven.  And what Jesus prays for is the culmination of the Father’s will on earth just as the Father’s will is perfectly realized in Heaven.

In verses 4 and 5 of John 17, we find the exact same framework of dual realities (earth and Heaven) with further explanation of how God’s will is realized in both:

^“I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”

Do you see?

The Lord’s Prayer:                 “Your will be done, on earth…”

The High Priestly Prayer:       “I glorified you on earth…”

 

The Lord’s Prayer:                 “as it is in Heaven”

The High Priestly Prayer:       “And now, Father, glorify me in your                                                      own presence”

How, then, is God’s will fulfilled on the earth as it is in Heaven?  In two ways.  First, Jesus says, “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.”  God’s will is accomplished on earth, then, definitively through the presence of the Son and the Son’s obedience, even to death on a cross.  Jesus lived out God’s perfect will on earth.

“And now, Father,” Jesus continues, “glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”  So the will of God is “synced up,” as it were, between Heaven and earth both in Jesus’ perfect fulfillment of the Father’s will on earth and in Jesus’ coming glorification in Heaven.

Jesus lived God’s will on earth through His obedience.

Jesus lives the Father’s will in Heaven as He is enthroned in glory.

“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

“On earth,” Jesus seems to say, “because I came to the earth and lived Your will on the earth.  In Heaven, because I will ascend to Your right hand after I accomplish Your perfect will here on the earth. Through me, Your will will be the same on earth as in Heaven.  The earth was fallen, corrupt, lost and decaying.  But I came to it and lived Your will in the midst of the decay.  In Heaven, Your will is perfect and sublime and untainted, but it will be completed when the Son takes His place at Your right hand.”

V.  Our God, the Provider

“Give us this day our daily bread,” Jesus prays next (Matthew 6:11).  In the Lord’s Prayer, then, He moves to a prayer of provision.  By praying for “daily bread” He is praying that the Lord God might give His disciples all that they need, that He might sustain and nourish them.

It is not surprising, then, that in the next long section of the High Priestly Prayer, Jesus moves to prayers of provisions and sustenance for His disciples.  Listen to verses 6-16:

⁶  “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. ⁷ Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. ⁸ For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. ⁹ I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. ¹⁰ All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 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. ¹² While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ¹³ But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. ¹⁴ I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. ¹⁶ They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

See the care and concern of Jesus for His followers!  Consider how these requests offer further commentary on “daily bread.”  In other words, when you listen to this part of the prayer, it is important to consider the “daily bread” for which Jesus prays.  Specifically, He says that He has already provided, or asks that God will provide, the following:

• God’s name:  “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world” (6a,25-26)

• Everything that the Father has given the Son:  “Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.” (7)

• The words:  “I have given them the words that you gave me” (8,14a)

• Unity:  “that they may be one, even as we are one” (11b, 20-23)

• Security:  “I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost…” (12b)

• Joy:  “that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves (13b)

• Protection:  “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.” (15)

Observe the “daily bread” we need and the “daily bread” God provides for us in Christ.  He gives us His name.  He gives us all that the Father has given Him.  He gives us “the words” and “the Word.”  He gives us unity, security, joy and protection from the devil.

May we learn to feed upon, be nourished by and grow in the bread that Christ gives us and the sustenance He provides for us!

VI.  Our God, Mighty to Save us From Sin

In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus next prays, “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12).  The parallel passage in the High Priestly Prayer can be found in John 17:17-19

¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. ¹⁸ As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

We see two crucial elements in v.17-19 that parallel the idea of forgiveness of sin:  sanctification and consecration.  Both of these elements, at heart, deal with the idea of separating the people of God from sin.  Sanctification refers to our growth in Christ and our growth in holiness.  It refers to our increased and increasing conformity to the image of Christ.  Consecration refers to setting something (or, in this case, someone) apart as a holy thing designed for a holy purpose.

The Lord’s Prayer:                 “forgive”

The High Priestly Prayer:       “sanctify…consecrate”

When we view the High Priestly Prayer as a further commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, it helps us understand just what is entailed in the word “forgiveness.”  We learn that forgiveness is not simply a prayer or even simply a declaration.  Rather, it is a declaration that compels us into a new life, one of sanctification and consecration.  Our holiness is utterly dependent on Christ’s own holiness:  “And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in the truth” (19).

Is this how you view forgiveness, or have you been prone to view it as essentially a “Get Out of Jail Free” card when you mess up?  Do you see forgiveness as an invitation to a life of sanctified consecration, or do you view forgiveness as simply a new opportunity to do as you will knowing that you can avoid punishment later?

I can assure you that the latter idea has no grounding in the New Testament.  But the former idea (forgiveness as an invitation to a life of sanctified consecration) can radically alter how we understand God, understand the person and work of Christ and understand what we have been called to do and be as believers.

VII.  Our God, the Sustainer and Protector

Next, Jesus teaches His disciples to pray this in the Lord’s Prayer:  “lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:13a).  Here we have one of the most explicit parallels between the two prayers.  For Jesus prays in the High Priestly Prayer, “but that you keep them from the evil one” (15).

The Lord’s Prayer:                 “lead us not into temptation but deliver                                                      us from evil”

The High Priestly Prayer:       “keep them from the evil one”

How beautiful!  How comforting!  How wonderfully caring of our Savior!  He prays that we will be protected from the devil and his evil designs.  Jesus asks the Father to “deliver us from evil,” to “keep us from the evil one.”

I love that wonderful stanza in Luther’s great hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” that speaks of the victory Jesus has given us over the devil:

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,

We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:

The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;

His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,

One little word shall fell him.

Do you not thrill to hear that last line:  “One little word shall fell him”?  I do!  What is that “one little word” that defeats the devil?  It is “Jesus.”  We claim victory over the devil in the name of Jesus, for King Jesus has prayed that we would have such a victory!

VIII.  Our God, Wielder of Power and Glory

Finally, the Lord’s Prayer concludes with, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.” (Matthew 6:13b, KJV).  Watch this:

²⁴ Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Ah!  Did you see that

The Lord’s Prayer:                 “For thine is the kingdom, and the

power, and the

glory, forever.  Amen.””

The High Priestly Prayer:       “to see my glory that you have given me                                                 because you loved me before the                                                             foundation of the world”

What is the Kingdom that is the Father’s?  It is the Kingdom populated by all “whom you have given me” (24a).

What is the glory that is the Father’s?  It is the glory we see in Christ!

The glory of God is not some nebulous, vague idea.  It is the amplification of the attributes of the Father before the eyes of men in the obedience of Christ on the cross and the power of God in the empty tomb.

The Lord Jesus prays, “Let them see my glory!”  Then He goes to a cross and dies.  How bewildering! But on the third day He rises again!  The disciples did indeed see the glory of the Son, as do all who call on His name for salvation.

Behold the praying Son of God!

Oh, church!  I have benefited greatly from the prayers of friends.  You have too.  I covet the prayers of you all, just as you covet the prayers of others.  I am encouraged and strengthened when a brother or sister in Christ says to me, “I want you to know that I am praying for you.”  That means more to me than I can express in words.

But to hear Jesus…my Jesus…our Jesus…our Savior…our Lord and God…praying for me…for me!  There is nothing that can compare.

Here in the very shadow of the cruel cross that looms before Him, Jesus prays for you.

Here on the eve of His betrayal, His wrongful conviction, His scourging and His pain, Jesus prays for you.

Here, mere moments before He will be seized by cruel and ungodly hands, Jesus prays for you.

I ask you:  has the world ever seen anything like this Jesus?

He prays for us!

He prays forgiveness for us.

He prays a Kingdom for us.

He prays the name of God over us.

He prays the Word over us.

He prays daily bread over us.

He prays protection over us.

He prays the love of God over us.

He prays holiness over us.

He prays distance from sin over us.

He prays salvation over us.

Behold this Jesus…and marvel, and wonder, and be amazed, and believe!

Come to the Jesus who prays for you, and trust in Him.