Prayer Like Jesus, He Prays for Us (John 17)

Posted on by

Prayer Like Jesus, He Prays for Us (John 17)

Prepared and preached by Pastor Steve Rhodes for and at Bethel Friends Church in Poland, OH on Sunday, April 6, 2025

Do we pray for others? Do we pray for others in front of others? These two Sundays, before Palm Sunday, we are focusing on praying like Jesus.

Today, notice that Jesus prayed for Himself, yes, but mostly for us.

Jesus’ prayer showed us His heart.

John 17:1–5 (ESV)

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.

  1. In verses 1-5 of this prayer, we can see that Jesus prays for Himself.
    1. Let’s put this in context.
    2. Jesus is sitting with the disciples at the Last Supper. He is about to go to the cross. Jesus had plenty to think about. He could have been nervous or anxious. We know from other accounts that He was in agony and burdened by what He was about to face. Yet, Jesus took time with the disciples and took time to pray.
    3. I don’t see Jesus beginning the prayer in a customary fashion. He doesn’t say, “Let’s pray.” He just starts His prayer with “Father…”
    4. The Scripture tells us that He looked towards Heaven. He may not have literally looked up. This could be the Gospel writer’s way of saying that Jesus was praying.
    5. Jesus prays like a high priest:
    6. A high priest would pray before the sacrifice, and he would pray in 3 concentric circles:
    7. Himself and ministry;
    8. Family and consecration;
    9. All the people of God would be blessed and pardoned through the sacrifice he brings.[1]
    10. Jesus says the hour has come. Jesus means that it is just about time for His arrest and crucifixion.
    11. The time of Jesus’ teaching with the disciples is just about complete. What last message does He have for them?
    12. Is it about building a church? Is it about sermon preparation??? No
    13. He prays for them. He lets them hear His prayer for Himself. He lets them hear His prayer for us today.
    14. In the first few verses we are able to overhear a conversation between the Son to the Father. Jesus, in humble submission, gives all credit to the Father. Jesus is focused on eternal life. In verse 5, Jesus is able to talk about a time in the long past when He had glory with the Father before the world was created.
    15. What can we apply from these first few verses? We can take many things from this, but something that I see is:
    16. Jesus cared about the disciples (and us) so much that He let them in on a personal conversation between Him and the Father.
    17. In John 15:15, Jesus said that He calls the disciples friends because He tells them what the Father tells Him. Jesus is showing the disciples that He meant this. Jesus shares His heart and passions with the disciples. They are not servants.

John 17:6–19 (ESV)

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.

  • Prayer for the disciples.
    1. In verses 6-19 the prayer is totally for the disciples.
    2. Jesus cared so much that He left them hearing His deepest desire for them. But more than that, Jesus gave these desires to God the Father, who can do something about them. Jesus knew and modeled a life of prayer, and now He allows the disciples to hear and experience His prayer life.
    3. Starting in verse 11, we can overhear some heartfelt request: I am not in the world but they are:
    4. Keep them in Your Name. Name means character.
    5. Let them be One as we (the Trinity) are One.
    6. Jesus compares the disciples oneness to the oneness in the Trinity.
    7. Verse 12 shares that Jesus guarded the disciples while He was with them.
    8. Jesus has just asked for God to keep the disciples united in the Father’s character, and now He talks about how He guarded them when He was with them. I think Jesus is asking the Father to guard them.
    9. The guard idea gives an idea of a watchman who stands on a city wall watching for invaders.
    10. Review, Jesus is about to leave them, He prays that God, the Father will keep them in His character, He prays that God, the Father will keep them One, He prays that God, the Father will guard them as a watchman.
    11. In verse 13, Jesus prays that the disciples have His joy.
    12. I don’t know of one verse where Jesus just starts complaining! Jesus had joy.
    13. In verse 15, Jesus asks that God keep the disciples from the evil one.
    14. 6:9-13 has the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray, and Jesus teaches us to pray, “deliver us from evil.”
    15. In verse 16, Jesus compares the disciples with Himself (twice now, Jesus compared the disciples with Himself). He says, “they are not of this world as I am not of this world.”
    16. That must be very encouraging to hear Him say. The disciples greatly respected Jesus, and they heard them compare them to Him. They must be like “Yes, we are on the same team.”
    17. Do you know someone who you have always looked up to and would count it an honor if you were compared with them?
    18. Growing up, I always respected my dad and was honored and excited anytime someone said that I was like my dad in any way.
    19. Here Jesus compares the disciples to Him.
    20. Jesus asks the Father to sanctify them in God’s Word, which is truth.
    21. In verse 19 Jesus will say that He has sanctified Himself for their sakes.
    22. Jesus cared that much. He set Himself apart, apart for the Father’s mission for us.

John 17:20–26 (ESV)

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.”

  • Starting in verse 20, Jesus prays for the future disciples. Jesus prays for us.
  1. Again in verse 21 Jesus prays that we all will be one.
  2. Eugene Peterson: “If we stay in the room with Jesus as He prays for us, we will acquire a readiness to embrace all the baptized as brothers and sisters. It may be slow in coming, but Jesus’ prayer will have its way with us. We will no longer define other Christians as competitors or rivals. Jesus doesn’t evaluate or grade His followers as He prays. He does not lay out plans to settle the controversies that he knows will arise. He is praying us into easy camaraderie. The longer we stay in Jesus’ praying presence the more we will understand that our impulses toward schism and sectarianism, our rivalries and denunciations, have no place in the room while Jesus is praying for “us to be one.” (page 225)
  3. Jesus compares us to the Trinity. That the church can have the oneness that the Trinity has.
  4. Jesus even adds to this by describing the oneness of the Trinity.
  5. Verses 22-23 expand the oneness idea. Jesus wanted the church to be one. Jesus, once again, compares this to the oneness of the Trinity.
  6. In verses 25-26, Jesus again invites us into the personal conversation between Him and the Father.

Close:

Robert Murray McCheyne writes:

If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a million enemies. Yet distance makes no difference. He is praying for me.[1]

[1] [Charles R. Swindoll, The Tale of the Tardy Oxcart and 1501 Other Stories (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2016), 455.]

Sometimes a prayer is also a message. This is true because a prayer includes a request, and you can hear the heart of the person saying the prayer. Jesus’ prayer gives us a message. Jesus tells us to be one. That is our challenge as a body of Christ, we must be united.  Jesus tells us that we are not of the world. But more than anything else, I think Jesus tells us that He cares so much for us that in His last moments before death, He prays for the disciple’s current and future. He says this prayer in front of them.

Do you pray in front of people? Do you pray for people in front of people? What about your children? Do you pray for them in front of them? It is humbling and meaningful to show that you care for someone so much to pray for them.

You may be thinking, “That is arrogant! I’ll pray for others in private.” Well, it would be arrogant if you simply wanted them to know that you are praying for them. But in this type of prayer, you can talk to God the Father and your loved one at the same time. Your motivation is not to say, “Look at me, I pray!” Your motivation is to reveal your concerns and requests for this person to God and to the person at the same time. That is what Jesus did. Jesus cared so much that He prayed.

Encouragement: Jesus prays for us— wow!!!

Conviction: we must pray for others.

Prayer

[1] Sinclair Ferguson; Renewing Your Mind; 07.23.2021

Leave a comment