Today we continue to study the longest and most complete prayer recorded in the Bible from the lips of Jesus. The prayer takes up all of chapter 17 and is divided into three sections. In the first section Jesus prays for himself – his mission on earth given to him by the Father. We looked at that last Sunday. Then in our section today Jesus prays for his disciples. Jesus prays this prayer on the night before he dies. He knows that that his disciples will no longer have him physically with them after this night. Things are going to change. He is not going to abandon them. He says he is going to send the Comforter, the Holy Spirit to them. He says that in the Spirit, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the age.” But he is not going to be with them in the flesh. Jesus knows that it is going to be difficult for his apostles once he ascends to heaven, and so he prays for them here. What he prays for them is a good indication of what we should be concerned about in the spiritual life. 

First let’s just ponder for a moment the fact that Jesus prays for his disciples. This prayer is generally called by Bible scholars the High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. The term comes from the Book of Hebrews, which goes to great length to show us that Jesus is our High Priest. Hebrews 4:14 says, “We have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God…” Our Epistle Lesson for today from Hebrew 7:24-25 says, “But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” Jesus Christ not only prayed for his followers when he was a man on earth, he continues that ministry today. He offered his own blood in the Holy of Holies as an eternal sacrifice and on the basis of that sacrifice “always lives to make intercession for us.” Paul says in Romans 8:38 “It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” 

When we are speaking about Jesus praying, we are speaking about something he does today. Jesus always lives to make intercession for us. That is his ministry as our great High Priest today. In other words: Jesus is praying for you! You know how good it feels when you know someone is praying for you. I value people’s prayers. I value your prayers. I hope you will pray for me. The Bible tells us to pray for our spiritual and worldly leaders and I covet your prayers; God knows I need them. To be honest I think some people’s prayers are better than others. James says, “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” The NIV translates it: “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” I especially want someone praying for me whose prayers are powerful and effective. I greatly value my parents-in-law’s prayers. They are godly people who have been through the school of hard knocks as a pastor and wife. They are faithful prayer warriors, so we always call them first when we need prayer.  

God does not promise to answer everyone’s prayers equally! He never promises to answer the prayers of people who do not believe in him. He might choose to answer them, but he doesn’t promise to. God never says he will answer all the prayers of all people all the time. Can you imagine what a mess the world would be if he did? All the contradictory requests going up to God, all the selfish prayers, all the prayers against God’s will. We have seen repeatedly in this series on prayer that God only promises to answer the prayers of those who are in right relationship with him and seeking to do his will and praying according to his will. Those are the type of people who prayers are powerful and effective. Those are the people I want praying for me when I am in need of prayer. 

What better person to pray for us than Jesus Christ. This passage in Hebrews says that Jesus does exactly that. “He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.” What a wonderful thought - that Jesus is at the right hand of the father in heaven speaking our name into God’s ear, interceding for us according to the will of God. Romans 8:27 says that the Holy Spirit has a part in this ministry of intercession as well “Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” This is wonderful! We have Jesus and the Spirit praying for us! 

Notice in the passage in John that Jesus says he is not praying for everyone. He makes that clear. That might not be politically and spiritually correct in some religious circles today, but that is what Jesus says,  “I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them.” (John 17:9-10)  If you are his, he is praying for you. Let’s look now at exactly what Jesus prays for his followers. As I said earlier, this will give us guidance in what we ought to be praying for. There are a lot of things that we pray for. Which are most important? Which did Jesus pray for us?

1. First, Jesus prayed for perseverance for us. Verse 11-12 “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,[a] that they may be one as We are. 12 While I was with them in the world,[b] I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept;[c] and none of them is lost except the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.” In these two verses Jesus prays that his followers may persevere in faith. He prays, “Holy Father, keep through Your name those whom You have given Me.” He says that while he was on earth “I kept them in Your name.” He only lost one, but that one was not really one of them. He was the “son of perdition.” He is talking about Judas Iscariot. He says elsewhere that Judas really wasn’t one of them – a believer – to start with, even though he was counted as one of the twelve. Jesus called him a devil back in chapter 6:70. Jesus said he would not lose any who are truly his. John 6:39 40 “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Jesus will keep us. Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12 “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” But we need to persevere; that is the sign of God’s election. That is the evidence that we have truly given our souls to him, that we have been born of his spirit. Only those who persevere to the end will be saved. Jesus said it over and over “he who endures to the end will be saved.” Hebrews 3:6 “Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end.” Hebrews 3:14 “For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end.” Jesus is praying that we might persevere to the end of our lives. We all know people who do not preserve. They started the race but did not finish. They made a profession of faith in Jesus but are not now living in faith. They are in danger. That is why the Bible has warnings to these people, especially in the Book of Hebrews. If you are not living the Christian life you are in danger. That is why Jesus is praying for us that we may persevere. We should pray that we and our brothers and sisters we know may persevere. 

2. Second, Jesus prays that we might have joy. Verse 13 “But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” C.S. Lewis entitled his autobiography “Surprised by Joy.” He saw joy as one of the hallmarks of the Christian life. He saw the promise of joy as one of the things that God uses to draw us to himself. Lewis says that when he was a child he first caught a glimpse of joy and the rest of his life was characterized by a desire for joy. Sometimes it is called the beatific vision. Lewis is wonderful in his analysis of what joy is. He says it is not pleasure. Pleasure has to do with the body. A lot of people mistake physical pleasure for joy, but it is a carnal substitute. He says that neither is joy the same as happiness, although many people mistake the two. A lot of people have happiness as the goal of their lives. Our American Declaration of Independence enshrined the pursuit of happiness as one of our inalienable rights, and we pursue it. But C. S. Lewis says that happiness is not what we really want. We really want joy. Happiness is dependent on people and circumstances – on what happens to us in life. Therefore happiness will always be temporary and fleeting. Joy is permanent and eternal. It has to do with the spirit – not with the body or heart. Joy is the spiritual gift of God. This is why Jesus calls it in verse 13 “my joy.” “that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” Joy belongs to Jesus, and we have it in us only when we belong to Jesus and we abide in Jesus. 

Joy is what Jesus prays for us. He wants us to have joy, which surpasses any type of pleasure we have ever had or any type of happiness that we can imagine. Everyone yearns for happiness, especially those who find themselves in a situation in life in which they are unhappy. Are you happy now? Does God want you to be happy? This is the answer: He wants much more than happiness for you! To make you happy God would have the change the circumstances of your life – change your job situation or your family situation or your financial situation or your health situation to make you happy. But even if he did that, we would only be happy for a while until things changed again and there was something else in our lives to be unhappy about. The problem is not solved by a change in our outward circumstances; the problem is inside of us – internal. What we really need is not outward happiness, what we really need is inner joy. That is what Jesus prays for us – that his joy, the joy that Jesus had – may be fulfilled in us. 

That is what we should be praying for. Pray for the joy of Christ to be fulfilled in your life. There is a scene in the Book of Acts chapter 16. Paul and Silas are in a dungeon in Philippi. They had just been beaten with rods by the magistrates of the city. “And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.” (16:23-24) Then it says in the next verse 25 “But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.” That’s joy! It wasn’t physical pleasure; they were in pain. It wasn’t because they were happy about their circumstances. They weren’t glad to be in a cold dark dungeon for who know how long. But they had the joy of the Spirit that overflowed in songs of praise to God. This is what Jesus wants you to have; this is what Jesus prayed that you might have.

3. Third, Jesus prayed that we might be protected. Verses 14-15 “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. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” During our lives we are going to have hard times. Jesus never promised us a rose garden. In fact he promised just the opposite. He said in John 16:33 “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” While we are in the body we are going to have troubles. Jesus did not call us to escape trouble by separating from the world to form little communes of holiness apart from the world like the Amish or utopian communities tried to do. He called us to be in the world but not of the world. When we do that the world will hate us because we are not of the world, just as Jesus was not of the world and it hated him and crucified him. A lot of Christians try to compromise with the world in order to lessen that danger from the world. They figure if they can blend in with the world - act like the world, talk like the world, adopt the rhetoric and values of the world - then maybe the world will like them. That is what a lot of the mainline denominations are trying to do; they want the respect and approval of the world. To have that they need to compromise the gospel and they are unfaithful to his Word. If we are faithful to the Word, then the World will not like us. Jesus said, “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.”

In the midst of this rejection from the world, Jesus prays that God may protect us from the Evil One. “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.” The Evil one is in control of the world. When the devil tempted Jesus for 40 days in the wilderness, it says he “showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. "All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me." The devil could offer to give it to Jesus because they were his! I John 5:19 says, “We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.” Jesus called the devil the ruler of this world. Being a follower of Jesus means to be opposed by his enemy, the devil. It means to be tempted like Jesus was tempted by the devil. But Jesus prays for us that we might be protected from the evil one, and we know God hears his prayer.

4. Fourth, Jesus prays that we might be sanctified. Verses 16-17 “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” The word “sanctify” means to make holy. It means to set apart for a purpose. How are we to be in the world but not be of the world? The only way is by being transformed by God’s Word. “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.” Human beings are like sponges. We absorb what we come in contact with. If we are in the world we will naturally absorb the behaviors and values, the language and ideas, of the world. The solution is not to separate from the world. That would be to abandon those who are in the world who need the gospel. The solution is to stay in close contact with the Word of God. The only way to clean a dirty sponge is not by drying it out, but by washing it in clean water. We are washed from the influence of the world through the “washing of water by the word.” ( Eph. 5:26) That is why we need to meditate upon the Word of God. Read the Word every day. Soak in the Word. When you marinate a piece of meat it takes on the flavor of the marinade. Christians need to marinate in the Word of God. Then we will take on the flavor of God’s Word. We soak in the words of Jesus and we will take on the characteristics of Jesus. It will cleanse us from the world. The truth of God’s word sanctifies us. Verse 19 says, “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.” Jesus prays that we might be sanctified by the truth of his Word. 

5. In conclusion, Jesus prays that we might be sent. Verse 18 “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” Jesus prayer is that once he has physically left this world, and ascended to his Father in heaven, that his followers might carry on his mission on earth. He prays that his mission might not end with his death, but be carried on by his disciples and the disciples of the disciples all the way down to us. In John 20 on Easter Day Jesus says to his disciples, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” That is Jesus’ prayer. Will you be the answer to Jesus’ prayer?