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Sermon

Jesus’ Farewell Prayer

Speaker
David Capoccia
Scripture
John 17:1-26

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Note: This transcript and summary was autogenerated. It has not yet been proofread or edited by a human.

Summary

This passage in John 17 reveals Jesus’ farewell prayer to the Father, offering an extraordinary glimpse into the heart of God toward believers. We are reminded that the cross was not a moment of shame but the supreme display of God’s glory. Jesus prays seven specific requests on behalf of all who believe in him—for glorification, protection, sanctification, unity, and eternal communion with God.

Key Lessons:

  1. Jesus’ desire for glorification through the cross was never self-serving but always aimed at revealing and glorifying the Father.
  2. Believers are eternally secure because Jesus himself has prayed for the Father to keep them from falling away and from the evil one.
  3. True Christian unity is not achieved by lowering truth standards but by growing together in the Father’s revealed word and truth.
  4. Eternal life is not merely everlasting existence but a personal, transformative knowing of the Father and the Son.

Application: We are called to cooperate with Christ’s prayers by learning and practicing the Father’s word, pursuing unity in truth within the church, using our gifts to build up one another, and boldly carrying out the mission of commissioned witness to the world.

Discussion Questions:

  1. How does knowing that Jesus specifically prayed for your protection and perseverance change the way you face spiritual opposition and trials?
  2. What does it look like practically to pursue the kind of supernatural unity Jesus prayed for within your local church community?
  3. In what ways can you more actively cooperate with Christ’s prayer for your sanctification and commissioned witness this week?

Scripture Focus: John 17:1-26 is the central passage, revealing Jesus’ farewell prayer. Supporting references include John 14:3 (Jesus’ promise to return), Philippians 2 (Christ’s self-emptying), Ephesians 4:13 (unity of the faith), Isaiah 42:8 (God’s glory), and Romans 8 (nothing separates us from God’s love).

Outline

Introduction

Just a quick word of apology if you’re following the bulletin and seeing the scripture reading keep on changing and even the sermon titles. I had to submit those kind of long ahead of time and then as I got closer to the day I’m like let’s do it a little bit differently.

Thanks for following me with those little audibles. You’re going to see another one with the sermon title today.

All right, let’s pray.

Heavenly Father, glorify yourself in the preached word and glorify your son. Enable me to speak it and then enable us all to obey it, to find the joy that you’ve meant for us to have and to live out your plans and purposes for us in Jesus’ name. Amen.

All right. Another question for you as we begin today.

What Does God Really Think About You?

Have you ever wondered what other people think about you?

That might seem like a silly question because unless you’re a toddler, I trust that you have. You have wondered what other people think about you because that’s just a basic concern of being human. We all know people may act lovingly towards us or say loving words to us, but what do they really think?

What do they really think about you?

Do people talk about you with others? And if so, what do they say?

Of much greater concern, though, is what God thinks about you.

“Of much greater concern, though, is what God thinks about you.”

We know the Bible is full of loving words from God and even loving actions from God toward believers.

But what does God really think about you if you are a believer?

Does God ever talk about you with God?

And if so, what does he say?

Well, in our next passage in the Gospel of John, we get to eavesdrop on such a conversation. God talking about believers to God.

Though perhaps eavesdrop is the wrong term because in this prayer from God the Son to God the Father, Jesus invites his disciples—invites us—to listen in for our own encouragement.

Overview of Jesus’ Farewell Prayer

Indeed, we will see after hearing this prayer that what people think about us matters so much less when we know what God thinks about us and what his plans are for us. We’re going to jump right in. Please take your Bibles and turn to John 17, where we’re going to see a special prayer. John 17:1-26 is our passage today. If you’re using the Pew Bibles, you can find it on page 1,081. It’s the scripture reading that we read earlier. This is a longer text, so I’m not going to be reading it before we go through it verse by verse, but I will say a few words of introduction about it.

“What people think about us matters so much less when we know what God thinks about us.”

This is a famous section of the Bible. It’s the longest recorded prayer from Jesus in the Bible. It has often been called since the 1500s Jesus’ high priestly prayer. If you’re using a few Bibles, you see that actually is the heading listed in the text: the high priestly prayer. Though perhaps that is not the best name for it.

While the prayer does feature intercession from Jesus for God’s people as a high priest would do, the language is not particularly priestly and it does not have a lot to do with sacrifice. There’s much more emphasis in this prayer on the simple relationship between Father and Son in the Godhead.

Some have suggested that we call John 17 the Lord’s Prayer and that we relabel that other prayer—that model prayer from Jesus given to his disciples in Matthew 6—the disciples’ prayer. That is a sensible suggestion, but tradition is probably too hard to overturn for that other prayer. I don’t know if we’ll ever manage it.

Probably the best name for this prayer in John 17 is the one that I’ve chosen to adopt as my sermon title: Jesus’ Farewell Prayer. For this prayer, meant to be overheard by Jesus’ disciples, represents in John’s gospel Jesus’ last word to his group of disciples before the cross.

Indeed, this prayer is the final part of Jesus’ farewell discourse that has run from John 13 to John 17. Remember, it’s that last teaching of comfort and instruction before Jesus leaves his disciples. We will see many themes of that previous discourse reappear in this prayer.

Now, this prayer is wondrously majestic. Reading through it or hearing it, you may feel like you need to take off your shoes, that you’ve now stepped onto holy ground.

Yet, what exactly are we to do with this prayer if it’s not really spoken towards people, but spoken to God? Yes, people are overhearing—Jesus’ disciples are overhearing—but it’s addressed to God and not people. So how do we apply it?

A key statement within the prayer, if you’ll just glance there for a second, is John 17:13. Jesus says, “And these things I speak in the world so that they may have my joy made full in themselves.” So that’s a pretty clear application from Jesus.

Broadly speaking, what Jesus prays in this prayer should result in your joy if you believe in Jesus.

Seven Applications from the Prayer

I think we can break that down a little bit more specifically into seven applications from this prayer. I’m going to give them to you even before we read it so that you can be thinking about these as we go through our examination.

Seven specific applications from John 17:1-26. Number one, love God for his heart expressed in these prayers. It is a beautiful unveiling of his heart.

Number two, thank God for how these prayers were answered. Number three, thank God for how these prayers are being answered. Number four, thank God for how these prayers will be answered.

Number five, pray these prayers yourself as God’s revealed will. Number six, fulfill these prayers by your confident obedience. You can do it if Jesus prayed it. Number seven, believe in Jesus so that you don’t miss out on these prayers.

“Believe in Jesus so that you don’t miss out on these prayers.”

Now, in terms of organization, it is common to divide this prayer into three sections: Jesus’s prayer for himself, Jesus’s prayer for his original disciples, and Jesus’s prayer for all believers. But I’m going to take a slightly different approach since I don’t see a strong distinction between those latter two sections.

What Jesus prays for his original disciples, he also applies to those who will believe later. Therefore, I propose that we walk through this text by focusing on the prayer requests themselves.

That’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look at seven prayer requests from Jesus to his Father for all believers’ joy. Seven loving prayers from Jesus for your joy.

Prayer 1: Father, Glorify Me by the Cross

We see Jesus’s first loving prayer request in verses 1 to 3. Verses 1 to 3, which is number one: “Father, glorify me with yourself by the cross. Father, glorify me with yourself by the cross.” We’ll start with just reading verse one: “Jesus spoke these things and lifting up his eyes to heaven he said, ‘Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son that the son may glorify you.’”

Notice in verse one we have a transition from these things that Jesus just spoke—the farewell discourse on the way to the garden of Gethsemane. Now Jesus has something new to say, and this new word is a prayer.

For notice, we’re told Jesus adopts a traditional Jewish prayer posture by looking up to heaven, lifting up his eyes to heaven. And notice the first statement that Jesus announces in this prayer: “Father, the hour has come.”

What’s this hour of which Jesus speaks? We’ve seen this term by now. We’re not talking about a literal hour of 60 minutes, but the special time in which Jesus is to be glorified through suffering, even through the events of his betrayal, his crucifixion, his resurrection, and his ascension.

There have been plenty of mentions of Jesus’s hour throughout this gospel. In the beginning, saying his hour had not yet come. But starting in John 12:23, Jesus began to affirm that his promised hour had arrived. And in John 17:1, Jesus affirms the same before the Father in prayer.

Unsurprisingly, then, Jesus’s first prayer request is that the Father fulfill for Jesus the hour’s purpose: to glorify the son, to lift up the son before the world and exalt the son in splendor.

The Son’s Glorification Serves the Father’s Glory

So Jesus says, “Father, glorify your son as I go to the cross.” This request might strike us as selfish, but we must pay attention to the purpose of the son’s glorification as expressed in prayer. “Glorify your son,” Jesus says, “that the son may glorify you.”

“Glorify your son so that the son may glorify you.”

Why does the son now want glory? Is it because he’s been a secret glory hound all along? Some beautiful son he is. No, it is so that the son may give the glory back to the father. For as the triune God, their glory is intimately tied together.

In verse two, Jesus gives an analogy as proof that the son’s glorification has always been for the father’s glorification. Look at verse two.

Even as you gave him authority over all flesh, that to all whom you have given him, he may give eternal life.

What’s going on here? Well, Jesus says that the father previously glorified the son by giving the son authority over all flesh, authority over all humans. God told Jesus, “You have full authority over all people to judge or to grant life as you see fit.”

Jesus said this actually back in John 5:26-27.

Now this is a great privilege. This is the glorification of the son. But why did the father exalt the son this way?

Not so that Jesus could go rogue and just use his authority for himself by himself.

Rather so that Jesus would use the authority to glorify the father. Jesus was going to fulfill the father’s will and honor the father by receiving all persons sovereignly gifted by the father to the son and then granting those persons eternal life.

You see even in the son’s previous glorification he has only ever been thinking about the father’s glory.

It is no different in this prayer now to the father for glorification through the cross. Yes, glorify me, God, but it’s ultimately for your glory, Father.

Eternal Life: Knowing the Father and the Son

In verse three, Jesus provides another clarification as proof of his desire to glorify the Father above all, even in the cross. Verse three: “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Jesus just said that he uses his glorious authority from the Father to grant eternal life to all God’s sovereignly chosen people.

But what exactly is the eternal life that Jesus grants to those persons? Does Jesus just grant everlasting duration of existence?

No. Jesus grants them to know the Father, whom Jesus calls the only true God in contrast to the world’s false idols.

Now Jesus does add, “and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

Eternal life consists in its core of knowing the Father and the Son.

“Eternal life consists in its core of knowing the Father and the Son.”

Truly, you cannot know the Father without the Son.

Yet the order of Jesus’s words is significant. Eternal life is first and foremost about knowing the Father.

Now what does Jesus mean by “know” here?

Is eternal life merely an academic knowledge of the Father? You can correctly list his attributes. You can describe his Trinity without going into heresy.

No, that’s not the sense. Rather, the sense of knowing here is one frequently seen in the Old Testament. It is a personal knowing, an experiential knowing, a transformative knowing.

It is the knowing of close relationship.

Jesus is telling the Father in verse three: “Even the eternal life that I have granted your people by your gifted authority consists of knowing you first and foremost, Father. Yes, to know me too. But even the knowing me is so that they may know and be transformed by you, for you are the fountain of life.”

Thus again we see that Jesus’s request for glorification through the cross is consistent with his eternal commitment to glorify, reveal, and connect God’s people to the Father, to his glorious Father.

The Unexpected Glory of the Cross

Now we might ask, but how could God answer this prayer from Jesus and glorify both the Father and the Son in the shameful cross? Isn’t the cross the opposite of glorification?

But this is the unexpected glory of the cross as the rest of this gospel and the New Testament will explain. In the Son’s obediently bearing and suffering for sin on the cross and in the Father’s justly punishing and vindicating his Son through that sacrifice, the triune God is able to display God’s perfections in ways we could otherwise have not known and certainly not to the same extent.

In the cross, we see God’s love, God’s holiness, God’s justice, God’s wrath, God’s humility, God’s sovereignty, God’s mercy, and more to an unfathomable extent.

“In the cross we see God’s love, holiness, justice, wrath, humility, sovereignty, and mercy to an unfathomable extent.”

Indeed, this is one of the apostle John’s main points in this gospel as he tries to persuade religious persons in his own day, Jews specifically, to believe in Jesus.

The cross does not make Jesus a shameful Messiah or the Father a shameful God for sending him there.

Rather, the cross was the great display of the glory of God to the universe.

The prayer that Jesus offers was fulfilled by God in glorifying the Son and glorifying the Father by the cross.

Prayer 2: Father, Glorify Me After the Cross

Jesus’ second loving prayer request in this passage is closely tied to the first and appears in verses 4-5. That request is number two: Father, glorify me with yourself after the cross. We heard “glorify me with yourself by the cross.” Now, glorify me with yourself after the cross. And look at these two verses together.

I glorified you on the earth, having accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Now, Father, glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.

Notice the timing shift in these verses compared to the previous three.

Before, Jesus spoke of his last special hour on the earth as having just arrived. But in these verses, Jesus speaks of his entire earthly mission, including the last hour, as already complete.

“So sure is the completion of the son’s final obedience that Jesus can speak of it as already done.”

Now, this is not a contradiction of the previous verses. Rather, a different viewpoint, a different angle.

Notice in verse 4 how Jesus again testifies that he has already sought the Father’s glory. Jesus says he finished glorifying the Father on earth by finishing the work that the Father gave the Son to do.

So now what?

Now that Jesus is leaving the earth and returning to the Father, Jesus’ prayer request is for the Father to glorify the Son with the Father. And not just with any glory, but with a particular glory—the glory which the Son had with the Father before the world was.

What are we talking about here?

The Pre-Incarnate Glory of the Son

Well, we are talking again about the truth of John 1 and Philippians 2.

Jesus, the son of God, is the eternal word. He was with God and was God in the beginning before anything was created.

Yet in entering into time as God the son—he has always enjoyed infinite glory with the father. The son’s glory, like the father’s, cannot be added to nor taken away from.

Yet in entering into time as a man to accomplish salvation in obedience to the father, Jesus laid aside the manifestation of his glory, the son’s splendor in heaven.

“Jesus laid aside the manifestation of his glory, the son’s splendor in heaven.”

Jesus did not lay aside his deity, for God can never stop being God. Nor did Jesus lay aside his glorious character.

The disciples testify, John testifies in this book that the disciples saw Jesus’ glory as the glory of the only begotten of God. They may not have seen his visible splendor except on the mount of transfiguration, but they saw his glory. They saw his glorious character.

Jesus did not lay aside these things, but he did empty himself. As Paul says in Philippians, he emptied himself in the sense that he laid aside temporarily his visible majesty to take on the form of a human and of a slave—even one who lowers himself all the way to the bottom, to death on a cross.

But when all that is accomplished, to what is the victorious son restored? Sure, he will return. It is to that glory that was his before creation, a reciprocal glory with the father.

This is what Jesus asks for in verse 5: that the father would glorify Jesus in heaven again with the son’s rightful glory. A glory that is shared with the father and itself glorifies the father.

The Son’s Humility Confirms His Deity

Now from these first two requests from Jesus in this farewell prayer, we see clearly the glorious humility of the Son who even in praying for his glorification by the Father, he still ultimately seeks the glory of the Father. What a Son. What a perfect Son of God.

Yet we must also note that these requests make plain again in this gospel that Jesus is God.

After all, the one true God makes clear in the Old Testament that he will not share his glory with another. Isaiah 42:8.

Yet Jesus not only prays for this shared glory, but he assumes that the Father will grant the Son’s request.

The only way this can be true is if God is as he reveals himself in the rest of Scripture. He is a mysterious, beautiful Trinity.

“The one true God will not share his glory with another—unless the Son is God himself.”

One God, only one God, yet existing in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Now up to this point in praying for himself, Jesus has mentioned the disciples.

Prayer 3: Father, Keep My Disciples in Your Self-Revelation

But now he’s going to pray for them more specifically. In verses 6 to 13, Jesus makes his first loving prayer request directly on the disciples’ behalf. And it is number three: Father, keep my disciples in your self-revelation.

Father, keep my disciples in your self-revelation. Now, we’re going to look at this next group of verses together. Verses 6 to 13.

I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me and they have kept your word. Now they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you.

For the words which you gave me I have given to them and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from you and they believed that you sent me. I ask on their behalf. I do not ask on behalf of the world but of those whom you have given me for they are yours.

And all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to you.

Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me. And I guarded them, and not one of them perished except the son of perdition so that the scripture would be fulfilled.

“Father, keep my disciples in your self-revelation.”

But now I come to you and these things I speak in the world so that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

In these verses, Jesus’s next request does not appear until verse 11. Before that, Jesus tells the Father why the Father ought to grant the Son’s request on behalf of his disciples.

Jesus’s requests and his reasoning have to do with a certain term: the Father’s name. You see in verse 6, “I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave me.” And in verse 11, “keep them in your name.”

The Meaning of the Father’s Name

What exactly does Jesus mean by the father’s name?

Well, some people say that Jesus is referring to the father’s authority or power.

But a better view is that Jesus is referring to the father’s self-revelation. That is the father’s own revealed being, character, and truth.

You may remember in Exodus 3:13-14 how concerned Moses was about finding out the name of the God who was so wonderfully promising to deliver the people of Israel from Egypt.

Yet Moses was not asking there for God’s mere identity, but for an explanation of who that God is, his character. Who exactly are you? What should I tell the people of Israel? That was the essence of Moses’ question.

And God obliged by famously answering, “I am who I am. Tell them, I am has sent you to them.”

So God’s revealed name there was more than a name. It was a revelation into his being. It was an explanation of him.

“God’s revealed name was more than a name. It was a revelation into his being.”

We have a similar idea in John 17. When Jesus refers to the father’s name, he’s talking about the father’s revelation of himself as mediated through the son.

Reasons the Father Should Grant This Request

Before Jesus gives his request about the Father’s name and his request for Jesus’s disciples, what reasons does Jesus provide for why the Father should grant this request?

For the sake of time, allow me to summarize the reasons from verses 6 to 11. We have seven of them here.

First, verse 6: the disciples were the ones to whom Jesus revealed the Father.

Second, also in verse 6: the disciples previously belonged to the Father but were given by the Father to the Son.

Third, in verses 6 to 8: the disciples received and have held fast to Jesus’s word from the Father.

Fourth, in verse 8: the disciples have come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah truly sent from the Father.

Fifth, in verse 9: the disciples are not the unbelieving world but they are the ones belonging to the Son and the Father.

Sixth, in verse 10: the disciples are the ones who have glorified the Son by believing in him.

Seventh, in verse 11: the disciples are the ones who must remain in the wicked world after Jesus departs.

“The disciples are the ones who must remain in the wicked world after Jesus departs.”

So Jesus thoroughly lays out why his request is needed and appropriate.

The Request: Keep Them in Your Name

But what is that request? Verse 11b.

“Holy father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are.”

Jesus’ request is that the father would keep the disciples in the father’s name. That is in the father’s revelation of himself that was given to the son to declare on the father’s behalf.

In short, Jesus’ prayer is, “Don’t let my disciples depart from you and your truth. Protect them. Guard them. Don’t let them apostasize to their ruin.”

Notice Jesus’ desired outcome for his disciples is mentioned at the end of the verse, and it’s oneness. Oneness that reflects the oneness of God himself in the relationship of father and son.

Jesus will say more about that purpose and desire later.

So this is Jesus’ request: keep them in you and in your truth. Don’t let them fall away.

Did the father grant this request from Jesus for Jesus’ original disciples?

Yes. As the scriptures and church history testify, none of the original 11 disciples departed from God’s name, but instead maintained profound unity in God’s truth, even when they were spread abroad in different evangelistic missions around the Mediterranean and Middle East.

The Case of Judas Iscariot

But what about Judas Iscariot?

Did Jesus or God the Father fail to keep Judas in the Father’s name?

Well, no. As Jesus clarifies in verse 12, Jesus made sure to guard all the disciples from falling away except Judas Iscariot because Judas was not one given by the Father to the Son for eternal life.

Judas was, as Jesus says, a son of perdition or a son of destruction.

That’s a title which could refer to character, to outcome, or both.

God let Judas go Judas’s own way to ruin just as the scriptures foretold in Psalm 41 and Psalm 109.

“God let Judas go Judas’s own way to ruin just as the scriptures foretold.”

Remember that not all those who claim to be disciples of Jesus actually are from the heart.

The Assurance of Perseverance for Believers

But what about the rest of Jesus’ disciples? Even us today, has God heard Jesus’ prayer to keep us in God’s name so that we don’t turn aside to destruction?

And again the answer is yes.

Wonderfully, blessedly, yes.

For have we not already heard from Jesus in John 10 that for Jesus’ sheep, he has given them eternal life? They will not perish and no one will be able to snatch them out of the Son’s hand and the Father’s hand.

So if you have truly believed in Jesus, God has and God will keep you from falling away to destruction.

Oh, you may stumble by sin and unbelief.

You may come under the chastening of God temporarily, but he will never let you fall. He will never let you fall away.

“If you have truly believed in Jesus, God will keep you from falling away to destruction.”

He upholds you by his own hand.

And one of the reasons he does this is because Jesus prayed this for you—God’s desire.

What I want to say is considering that verse 13 makes total sense in this text. Hearing this promise from Jesus on behalf of his disciples, this promise by assured prayer, shouldn’t it give us joy?

That’s what Jesus says in verse 13.

Jesus wants his original disciples and us to hear these prayers, this one and the others like them, to know the Son’s and the Father’s love for each other, the Son’s and the Father’s love for us, and the sure prayers the Son has prayed to the Father on our behalf. This should give us joy.

And not just any old joy, but just like Jesus has said already in his discourse, this should give us Jesus’ own joy, continually being filled up to the full.

Prayer 4: Father, Protect My Disciples from Evil

Well, Jesus makes a fourth loving prayer request in verses 14 to 15. You’re going to see these prayers for the disciples. They’re all related. This is number four: Father, protect my disciples from evil spiritual forces.

Father, protect my disciples from evil spiritual forces. Look at those two verses with me.

“I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world but to keep them from the evil one.”

Notice in verse 14 that Jesus says what he said before in a slightly different way. Rather than saying that he manifested the Father’s name to the disciples, Jesus says that he gave them the Father’s word. Those are functionally equivalent terms.

But what has been the result? As Jesus explains in verse 14, that’s what Jesus said in John 15 and 16. The result has been new automatic hatred from the world for the disciples.

By world here, Jesus is not referring to the physical world, but to the dwelling place of wicked mankind, ruled over by the devil and fundamentally opposed to God.

Though the disciples were born into and were once a part of this rebellious world, receiving the Father’s word made the disciples aliens and traitors to the world. The disciples were made to be spiritually like Jesus—no longer of the world, but instead hated by the world.

So what do the disciples need now? For what should Jesus pray for? For escape from the world? No. Jesus says, “I do not ask you, Father, to take them out of the world, away from sinful mankind.” We cannot take those believers home to us yet, nor should those believers cloister themselves away.

Instead, Jesus prays, “Keep them from the evil one.” The disciples will need to remain in the world as sojourners and strangers.

Meanwhile, the devil and his demonic allies will hunt for Jesus’ disciples and seek to devour them. Not merely destroying their physical lives, but destroying their faith. The evil one, his minions, and his blinded human followers are intent on shipwrecking as many true Christians as possible.

Even in seeing these believers damned to hell, Jesus prays to the Father on believers’ behalf that the Father will keep them from the devil’s desire.

“Jesus prays to the Father on believers’ behalf that the Father will keep them from the devil’s desire.”

Is this a prayer that the Father has granted Jesus for Jesus’ original disciples? Oh yes, none of the 11 were overcome by Satan to fall away, and not even the additional apostles.

God let Satan sift Peter like wheat and he allowed a messenger of Satan to torment the Apostle Paul like a thorn in his flesh. But God would not let any demon destroy his disciples’ faith.

Satan’s Leash and God’s Sovereignty

This is because though Satan and all his demons hate God and hate God’s people, evil spiritual forces are all leashed by God.

As God proved with Job, Satan and his minions can never do anything unless God permits it.

And what Satan means for evil, whether temptation or persecution or declared false teaching, God ultimately means for good.

And brethren, the Father is still answering Jesus’s prayer affirmatively on our behalf today.

For we who are in Christ by faith, Satan and his minions may buffet us, but they cannot break us.

Because Jesus has prayed for us. And God won’t let Satan triumph.

“We who are in Christ by faith, Satan and his minions may buffet us, but they cannot break us.”

Now, Satan may lead away his Judases, those who only apparently were believers but weren’t really, but he cannot touch God’s true saints.

And in the end, God will reveal that all Satan’s raging did was advance God’s own purposes to aid Jesus’s disciples in becoming more like Christ and displaying the glory of the Father to the world.

Prayer 5: Father, Sanctify My Disciples for Their Mission

A fifth loving prayer request from Jesus to the Father appears in verses 16 to 19. Number five, we see from Jesus: “Father, sanctify my disciples for their commissioned witness.” Sanctify my disciples for their commissioned witness. Let’s look at verses 16 and 19.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify myself that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

Notice in verse 16 that Jesus repeats pretty much exactly what he said at the end of verse 14. But now he applies the disciples no longer being of the world toward a different prayer request.

Jesus prays that the Father will sanctify Jesus’ disciples in the truth, adding that the Father’s word is truth.

The Greek word translated “sanctify” here is notable. Its meaning is to consecrate, to sanctify, or to make holy. But interestingly, the biblical writers generally use this term with a sense of to sanctify for holy service or for holy use—to set apart for holy service or for holy use. That sense is what’s implied here.

Jesus’ prayer is not merely that the trustworthy revelation of the Father might make his disciples holy, but that it might make them holy for a mission.

“Jesus’ prayer is not merely that the Father’s revelation might make his disciples holy, but holy for a mission.”

The Mission: Sent as the Father Sent the Son

What’s the mission?

Well, Jesus describes it in verse 18. Just as the Father sent Jesus into the world to reveal the Father and bring about salvation, so Jesus has sent his disciples into the world to reveal the Son and bring about salvation.

Not by the disciples’ own meritorious work, but by the Spirit-empowered testimony of Christ and of his meritorious work.

This is the mission for Jesus’ disciples, and it is one for which Jesus has provided everything. He provides the word to speak. He provides the commission to go. He provides the prayer to make the work effective.

We’ve already heard in the farewell discourse that he provides the Spirit to empower the witness.

“Just as the Father sent Jesus to reveal the Father, so Jesus has sent his disciples to reveal the Son.”

Jesus Sanctifies Himself for Our Sake

But beyond these, we also have verse 19.

Jesus first sanctifies himself so that the disciples may also be sanctified.

But for what holy work must Jesus set himself apart or consecrate himself?

Well, for the work of redemption, for the work of the cross.

As both perfect high priest and blameless sacrifice, Jesus must stand in the breach for sinners. Yes, even for his disciples who believe in him. Jesus must once and for all pay for those sins, deliver his disciples from that sin’s penalty, and then set them apart as holy to regenerate them, to empower them by his spirit, to separate or to set them apart as holy to walk in God’s revealed truth. Jesus had to sanctify himself so that they could be sanctified.

“Jesus had to sanctify himself so that they could be sanctified.”

Now, did the father grant this prayer for Jesus’ sake for his disciples?

Again, yes. The original disciples were all faithful messengers of Christ’s gospel, and they were used mightily by God. They were not perfect.

They sometimes grew weary. They sometimes needed correction. They sometimes needed encouragement. But the father sanctified them in his truth and he made them his holy instruments.

And this is a prayer that God is still granting to his son today even in us.

We should be eager to cooperate with this prayer from Christ. We should be eager to fulfill this prayer and cooperate with the father in answer to the prayer. We should be learning and practicing the father’s word as given to us by his son.

So that we are sanctified for our mission of bringing Christ’s gospel to the world. As the father sent Jesus, so Jesus has sent us and he’s prayed for us so that we can do it.

Prayer 6: Father, Make All My Disciples One in Us

Jesus prays a sixth loving prayer to his father in John 17:20-23. Number six: Father, make all my disciples one in us.

Father, make all my disciples one in us.

Look at those verses now, John 17:20-23.

I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even 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 sent me. The glory which you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one just as we are one. I in them and you in me that they may be perfected in unity. So that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you have loved me.

“Father, make all my disciples one in us.”

Notice in verse 20 that Jesus clarifies that his prayers up to this point have not only been for his original disciples, but they also encompass those who later will believe based on their apostolic witness. And that includes us.

It says Jesus has not been asking these things on behalf of these alone—these original 11—but for all who believe through their word.

Also, just as Jesus said before in verse 11, Jesus relates an additional purpose in making the request that he does for his disciples: that all present and future disciples may be one, united together.

The Basis and Extent of Christian Unity

However, here in verses 20 to 21, Jesus clarifies the basis and extent of this requested unity.

Jesus’ disciples are not merely meant to be one with one another in a manner reflecting the Trinity, but they are meant to be one in the Trinity.

Jesus says that they also may be in us.

Verse 21.

At the end of verse 21, Jesus reveals that this oneness of believers in the Trinity itself has a purpose: it is a testimony to the world.

Jesus says that Christian unity in the Father and Son will be part of what draws some of God’s chosen still in the world out of the world and into the flock of Christ.

“Christian unity in the Father and Son will be part of what draws some of God’s chosen out of the world.”

These will finally believe that the Father sent Jesus. That is, they will believe that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Messiah.

To this you may say, “Wow, such unity sounds great. But how do we get there?” Well, we get further explanation from Jesus in verses 22 to 23. He repeats the same idea from verses 20 to 21, but with some new descriptions. Jesus says, “The glory the Father gave the Son, the Son gave his disciples so that they may be one.” What’s this gifted glory Jesus speaks about in verse 22?

There’s some debate among interpreters, but the answer that makes the most sense to me is that glory is just another term for the glorious revelation the Father gave to the Son and the Son received and passed on to his people. Basically, we have three terms that all mean the same thing: the Father’s name, the Father’s word, and the Father’s glory.

They’re all referring to the Father’s revelation.

This accords with what we heard in verse 11, where that’s the other expression of Jesus’ desire for unity. Jesus said there that it was a result of being kept in the Father’s name, the Father’s self-disclosure, the Father’s revelation.

So glory in verse 22 seems to function the same way. As believers receive the revelation of the Father from the Son, those believers become one with one another and one with the Father and the Son.

Unity Perfected as a Testimony to the World

Notice in verse 23 that Jesus intensifies his description of the prayer requested unity. He says that they may be perfected in unity. That’s a little bit more than what he said before. We’re not just talking about a profound oneness, but perfect unity, or even better, a unity in perfection together made completely like their perfect God.

Again, note in verse 23 the intended testimony to the world because of this supernatural unity of believers.

It is so that the world will know that the Father sent the Son. That is, the people of the world will see the truth of the gospel and some of them will be saved. Also, the world will know that the Father loved his Son’s disciples just like he loved his Son.

“The world will recognize believers not just as a supernaturally loving people but as a supernaturally beloved people.”

Say it another way: the people of the world will not just recognize believers as a supernaturally loving people but also as a supernaturally beloved people.

Now, this is quite a prayer request with quite a lofty goal as its intended result.

Has the Father granted this prayer?

This might be one we’re a little bit more hesitant to answer: yes.

The early apostles were profoundly united. That’s true. They demonstrated themselves to be beloved by God. But the apostolic church, I don’t know. Don’t we read about some tragic divisions even in the Bible?

What about the rest of church history and today? Can we say that the church has consistently demonstrated a supernatural unity that has caused the people of the world to take notice and believe?

True Unity Comes Through Truth, Not Compromise

Many people would say, “I think we see the opposite.” Well, in reply, I’d say we need to be careful about our specific expectations as to how this prayer of Jesus is supposed to work out and the Father’s assured answer. There’s no way Jesus is going to pray something outside of the will of God.

Jesus is not necessarily promising that his true church will never have divisions of any kind or that globally there will never be different denominations.

Instead, Jesus is promising that there will exist a fundamental supernatural unity in his true church wherever and whenever those believers are.

It’s kind of like when you meet somebody on the other side of the country, maybe they even go to a slightly different church, but you just feel this oneness with them as you talk with them. You see their love for Christ and their love for you and their love for other people. Doesn’t take long and you’re like, I know you’re a brother. I know that you’re a sister. I think that’s what Jesus is getting at here.

Also, by this prayer, Jesus is promising that local expressions of his true church, generally speaking, will enjoy and display a supernatural unity that marks the disciples there as beloved by God.

Indeed, is that not what we experience here to some large measure at Calvary?

We have a unity. We have a love. We have a demonstrated belovedness that does make even visitors take notice.

Our church can and should grow in unity as all churches should.

But how is that going to happen?

Is it as one commentator sarcastically suggested? Is it by lowering truth standards to the lowest common denominator as many in the ecumenical movement advocate today? We may disagree on a lot of different things, but let’s just focus on those few things that we agree on and we’ll be united in that.

No, the passage indicates quite the opposite. True unity in the Father and the Son can only come in the Father’s name according to the Father’s word, in the glory that was passed down by the Father to the Son to the church.

“True unity in the Father and the Son can only come in the Father’s name according to the Father’s word.”

That is to say, oneness in God. True oneness in God only comes in oneness in his truth, which is what we work towards. Isn’t that what we work towards? Everyone in the church using their gifts to edify one another by the equipping of the pastors until Ephesians 4:13. Pastor Mark talked about this not too long ago.

Ephesians 4:13 says, “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

Ephesians 4:13: “Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man.”

Notice how the description in Ephesians 4:13 sounds just like John 17:23.

Do you want to be made complete alongside your brothers? Mature, perfected is another way to translate it. It comes by everybody in the church using their gifts, equipped by the pastors, but everybody in the church using their gifts and building that unity, building that unity in the truth.

So brethren, let us rejoice that the unity we work toward is fundamentally assured by Christ by his prayer to the Father for us.

But on that same basis, let us strive to work out that unity according to what God has commanded us to do. This is another case where God’s sovereignty should encourage our obedience, not excuse our disobedience.

Prayer 7: Father, Bring My Disciples to See My Glory

All right. Jesus makes one more loving prayer request in verses 24 to 26. And this request connects back to the first two. Number seven, Father, bring my disciples to see my glory. Father, bring my disciples to see my glory. Look first just at verse 24.

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

Notice here that Jesus doesn’t actually use the word ask like he did previously, only I desire. Or we could also translate that I wish.

An expressed desire from the son to the father in prayer is basically the same as asking, basically the same as request.

So what is Jesus’ final expressed desire or request to his father? It is that his people, all the disciples sovereignly gifted to him by the father throughout every age, might always be with him.

Now do you hear that? If you believe, Jesus wants you to always be with him.

And why is it because of the love, the worship, the service that you will offer to him when you’re with him? No. It’s because of what Jesus can offer you.

Jesus wants you and he wants all his disciples to see his glory.

“If you believe, Jesus wants you to always be with him so you may see his glory.”

The glory given to him by his father who loved him before the foundation of the world.

You see, with this request, Jesus clarifies that even his first two requests for glorification by the father, they partly had us in mind.

The awesome splendor that Jesus desires in love to share with the father to the glory of the father. He also desires to share with us.

Jesus wants us to behold him in his glory for our joy forever to the glory of the father.

Do you see what a loving God and savior we have?

Now, has this prayer been answered yet? Partly for those who have died and gone to be with Christ.

But Jesus doesn’t just desire some of his disciples to be with him and see his glory, but all of them. And one day, Jesus will make that happen. When will that be? When Jesus comes back. When Jesus comes to get his church at his second coming. Yes, even in the rapture.

Did Jesus not already say in John 14:3, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, receive you all to myself, that where I am, there you may be also”?

Oh come, Lord Jesus. Father, fulfill at last this prayer for your son and for your people.

Jesus’ Commitment to Reveal the Father’s Love

Amen. Verses 25 and 26 close out Jesus’ final request and the whole prayer.

Oh righteous father, although the world has not known you, yet I have known you. And these have known that you sent me and I have made your name known to them and will make it known so that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.

In these final words of Jesus’ prayer, Jesus contrasts the father, the son, and the son’s people with the world that does not know God.

Jesus then expresses his holy commitment to continuing to make the name of the father known to his disciples so that they will know the father’s love and enjoy complete unity with the son.

So brothers and sisters, if you are in Christ, this is Jesus’ commitment to you right now and for all eternity.

“If you are in Christ, this is Jesus’ commitment to you right now and for all eternity.”

As Jesus expressed in verse 24, he dearly loves you and desires for you to be with him, but he is particularly intent that you know the father and the father’s love for you.

Oh, how blessed we are to already begin to understand these things by the revelation that Jesus has given us, by our building up one another in the church. Yet there is so much more for us to know and enjoy.

Jesus says that he will continue to show us that when he brings us into his kingdom.

An Invitation to Believe

But again, this is for believers.

If you are with us today and you have not yet entrusted yourself to Jesus in salvation, you need to do so. These wonderful things that we’ve talked about—these answered prayers and these prayers that are being answered—they are on behalf of Jesus’s own and not the world, not those who continue to resist Jesus or reject Jesus. Wouldn’t you like to be part of the first group and not the second group?

Wouldn’t you like to behold the glory of Jesus in and after the cross? Wouldn’t you like to be kept in the Father’s truth, protected from the evil one, sanctified for commissioned witness, made one with God and his people, and brought to see God’s glory forever?

Well, you can, but not if you keep trusting in your own personal religion. Not if you keep looking to your own good works or religious rituals that you’ve gone through. Not if, like John’s original audience, you remain in man-made religion—what Judaism had become at that time—instead of the truth, the truth of the relationship with God.

To enter into true religion, to enter into a true relationship with God, you’ve got to do what Jesus said. You’ve got to repent and believe. You’ve got to turn from your sin, from your self-rule, from your self-righteous efforts to make yourself right with God. You can never do it. You can never meet God’s standard.

You must instead turn to Jesus Christ. He did what you cannot ever do. He lived a perfectly righteous life. He died the hellish death that you deserved and he paid off the debt once and for all. So that if you will believe in him, if you will entrust yourself to him alone to bring you to God, he will.

He promises you presently to give you eternal life, to give you his spirit, and to make all these prayers apply to you. So don’t you want that? Why would you wait for that? Come believe in Jesus so that you don’t miss out on all the blessings of this farewell prayer.

And again, if you do believe in Jesus, rejoice. Jesus wanted you to listen in for your joy—so how much the Father loves you and all that he has promised and planned for you in his son.

“Come believe in Jesus so that you don’t miss out on all the blessings of this farewell prayer.”

Closing Prayer and the Lord’s Table

Let’s close in a word of prayer.

Oh Lord, I’m reminded of the end of Romans 8 again where it says, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but freely delivered him up for us, how will he not also freely give us all things?” Lord, you have promised us that we will go through trials. You’ve promised us that we will go through tribulation.

Satan will buffet us. The world does hate us. In this world, we will have tribulation.

But we can be of good courage. You have overcome the world. Jesus, you have overcome the world, and nothing will separate us from your love, nor indeed from the Father’s love. Oh God, thank you for such love. Thank you for such salvation.

And I pray if there’s any who are missing out on it today that they would turn and believe because, oh Lord, what we were talking about in Sunday school, the alternative is so dreadful. Oh Lord, I pray that not a person here would go into the eternal conscious torment of hell.

Oh but Lord, they might instead know everything that Jesus has prayed about and talked about here. The love of the Father forever. Eternal life knowing you, God.

Oh God, be pleased to do it. Be pleased to be merciful in this place and in this people, for your glory, God. It’s all for your glory and our good. We thank you. Amen.

Well, today is a day for celebrating the Lord’s table. If you haven’t got the elements yet and you are qualified and would like those, please raise your hand and our greeters will make sure that you get that.

Just to remind you, as I always do, the Lord’s table is an occasion of joyful obedience. It’s a commanded ordinance that we obey in remembrance of Jesus and his salvation work.

It is a joyful occasion of affirming our belief in Jesus, our following after him, our love for his people, and our assured place in his kingdom.

This is not something you want to exempt yourself from. If at all possible, you want to obey. You want to celebrate the Lord in this special commanded way. But remember, it is always to be celebrated soberly.

The Bible warns that those who affirm those truths about believing in Jesus, loving his people, and being in his kingdom, if people affirm those carelessly or deceitfully, they will be judged. This right is not an occasion for hypocrisy.

So, if you are not a born again believer by repentance and faith, please do not partake. If you are living in unrepentant sin or you’re living without attempt to reconcile yourself with those where you are in conflict, then please do not partake. If you’ve not yet been baptized as a believer, which is meant to be one of your first acts of obedience as a Christian and a symbol of your joining Christ and his people, then please do not partake.

I say these things to you not so that you will avoid the Lord’s table, but that you will make the things right that need to be made right. Then come celebrate as God commands.

Well, to help prepare our hearts for this time, please take a few moments silently to examine yourself before the Lord and to speak with him. And then we will go through this right together.

Well, let us now celebrate this memorial meal together. The Apostle Paul once again gives us instruction on how to do this. In 1 Corinthians 11:23-24, the Apostle Paul says, “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

So, let’s pray to the Lord as we remember Jesus’ body by this symbol of the bread.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for Jesus. We thank you for his body. We thank you that he took on human flesh. Yes, he temporarily laid aside his deserved glory, the glory which he had with you before the foundation of the world to take on the form of a slave. And yes, to be humbled to the point of death.

Oh Lord, thank you. Thank you that you were more than willing. In love, you sent Jesus to save those who are made of dust and who had rebelled against you. Thank you that as Jesus said, his body, his life, his righteous life is like food for the world. It’s the food that grants eternal life.

This memorial of it doesn’t do that. But Lord, we know that we have eternal life by faith in your son. Thank you for the sacrifice of his body. Thank you that he took on human flesh and became one of us in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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