Jesus Prays for His Own, John 17:6-26

So John 17, John 17 is in a context of what is known as the upper room discourse. And what was going on was the Lord Jesus at the end of chapter 12 of John had stopped his public ministry and had begun to teach just his disciples. And that's why it's called the upper room ministry, because most of them or that's where all of the teaching. was done. Chapter 17 is the last bit of information that comes to us from the Upper Room Discourse.

And it's interesting because it is the time in which the Lord Jesus is going to pray to the Father. And He's got some requests of His Father. And He knows His Father is going to answer Him because in doing so it would glorify the Father. So in the first six verses, he asked for a couple of things.

He says, glorify your son. He had given the son authority over all flesh. He'd given life, eternal life, to those who the son had wanted to give eternal life to. And then he said, this is eternal life, that they might know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. And then he says the work that he'd been sent to do was accomplished. He was finished. And then the most important part of it for us is that the ones given to him by the Father might know the Father, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he sent.

And that the Father, he says, Father, glorify me now with the same glory that we had before the world began. So I'm going to start down the verses in six, and I probably, like I normally do, have way more information than you're willing to listen to, so I will try to keep track of the time and end it so when you start getting nervous, somebody back there can raise their hand. So verse six is, 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." So he's focusing on these persons, these men that were given to him out of the world. And he looks to heaven and starts to talk to his father about this issue. And the thing that he says is that, I have manifested your name.

And we don't, I think we jump over that sometimes and don't realize how important the name is. And in that name, he says, they belong to you. they were yours and these are those human beings that were God's elect out of the world and they were given to him and viewed by God even then as in a position that was foreordained and chosen and called specific persons and the disciples are designated as those whom the father had given the son And we're going to find out a little later when we get down to verse 20 that it just doesn't include them, it includes all of us. Because he's going to tell us that those that are part of this group that belong to the Father were going to be those that these men would give his word to. So, if I mention the name of God to someone, I'm talking about the entire person.

He says, I have manifested your name. To reveal the name of the father was to reveal the essence of who the father was. The name of God signifies and teaches us about who God is himself. His perfections, his attributes, his character. God reveals himself. The name of God is that which constitutes the glory of God. Because in his name, he by himself is made known. A couple of Old Testament verses that would fit in this context, I think, is Psalm 19, 1. The heavens are telling of the glory of God, and their expanse is declaring the work of his hands.

And we're pretty familiar with Exodus 3, 13 through 15, where Moses is going to go talk to Pharaoh, or he's going to go talk to the Jews. And he's kind of uncertain about what he's going to do. And so he says to God, I'm going to the sons of Israel, and what am I going to say to them?

The God of your fathers has sent me to you. Now they may say to me, what's his name? What shall I say to them? He said, tell them I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, I am has sent me to you. So God further said to Moses, thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, the Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has sent me to you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial name to all generations. I am who am. Exodus 6, 2 and 3, God spoke further to Moses and said, I am the Lord. And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob as a God Almighty, and my name is Lord, and I do not make myself known to them if I choose.

In numbers the Lord said to Moses, Speak to Aaron and the sons, saying, Thus shall be the blessed the sons of Israel, and shall say to them, The Lord bless you, the Lord make his face shine on you, and gracious to you. It's interesting. The manifestation of his name is one thing. The other part of that is Christ is the manifestor of God's name. In other words, he's the power that God put forth for our salvation. Christ himself is the power of God unto wisdom. He's that hidden wisdom.

He is, in Revelation 19.13, He is the Word. He is the manifestation of the holiness of God. A holiness that is so pure that He can't look on evil.

He is the manifestation of the faithfulness of God. A faithfulness so great that even the promise which cost the father his only begotten son's life, was nevertheless fulfilled. Christ is the manifestation of the fullness of God, a fullness so vast that it can supply every need, everyone. And the most important verse that we know from God is the one where it manifests the love of God, that he so loved the world that he gave himself, he gave his only son, that who would ever believe on him, not perish, but have eternal life. He is the manifestation of God's inner power into the heart of man.

In 2 Corinthians he said, For God who said, Light shines out of darkness, is the one who has shone in the hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God, the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Christ. One of the greatest things, if not the greatest thing, of the works of the Lord Jesus was the fact that he was empowered to reveal the Father and the Father's name to those disciples. And he does it now through Jesus Christ.

Let's take a look now at some of this prayer. I'm going to go down the verses and then back up and work on some of the ones that are farther up and not concentrate on the ones in the end because I think they fill in as we go. Let's look at the arguments by which Jesus presses his petitions and then later we're going to look at the petitions himself. I think there's seven of them in here. The first one we've just talked about. He says, I have manifested your name. This fact is also repeated in the very last verse. I have made your name known. Thus he preserves them in the name of the father, placing them into all that the name involves.

The Lord Jesus came to reveal the father and the spirit's job is to reveal the Lord Jesus to us so that he can reveal the father. That's how we get to know God. The second appeal is that Jesus appeals to the father about the father's own interest in these people. He seems to exalt this consideration even above his own work for them.

He says they were yours. So let's learn, this is a prized fact that we should learn, that we belong to God beyond all other persons, whoever they are. For it is because we belong to God that we have been given to Christ. And if you just for a second think about that, that everybody in this room belongs to God. You are His possession and His property and you're extremely valuable to Him.

Now, the Lord Jesus pleads the gift of them to Himself. He says, you gave them to me. So now the Son has this incredible possession, which is you and me, The Father's interest in them first, and then as a result, we are the gift from the Father to the Son. We're the gift. So, he pleads then in the fourth issue here, he pleads their reception of himself in his message. They have kept your word. The word of God proclaiming to them the gospel of his grace. What the Word says, Christ, is they have kept.

Now, we have studied these disciples, which includes all of us, and we know how feebly they and us keep the Word. Even while he uttered these words, how hazy their notions were, and how weak their faith was, and how little, after all, they practically really understood. And even when he was arrested, it says in John, for as yet they did not understand the scriptures that he must rise again from the dead. His crucifixion seemed to have extinguished their last hope. In Luke 24, 21, Luke says, but we were, the apostles say, we were hoping that it was he who was going to redeem Israel.

Instead, Besides all this it is the third day since these things happened so he's dead and he's in the grave three days and Their faith their faith is about this much But listen to this in the strong majesty of God's own grace To them in the fullness and security of his own purpose towards them.

He pleads they have kept your word That's the son talking to the father about them. I that they have kept your word. It is a great thing for us that we have such an advocate. I'm going to talk a little bit about advocacy in a minute. Well, I can talk about it now.

The Lord Jesus Christ is known as the advocate for those who sin. We have an advocate, Jesus Christ, the righteous. When you and I sin, Jesus doesn't go to the Father and say, well, they kind of messed up, but I took their sins. No, He pleads to the Father just like He's pleading for these people here.

It's like we don't ever do any of those things. He's constantly on the positive side of the ledger. They have kept your word. They are your sons. They are the gift to me. They are not what they're being accused of. From his perspective, from God's perspective, the weakness of us and the weakness of the disciples was not an issue. Why? Because they belong to them. They belong to the Father and they belong to the Son.

So the fifth pleading is then in verse 10. There's another wonderful plea in the power of which he presents them to the Father for blessing. He said, I am the Lord Jesus, glorified in them. He had prayed to the Father, glorify your son, and now he says, if you will glorify me, remember I'm glorified in them. And for faith to hear him say this, even for our own very selves, truthfully, if faith ears are sharp, we would hear this wonderful petition, even now ascending on our behalf, but to the Father.

I am glorified in them. So the Lord Jesus is saying to the Father, you know, all of those people that are in October are going to be in Holly Hills Bible Church. I'm glorified in them. Think you're important? Then in verse 14, he says, and this kind of falls like comfort to our souls, Father, the world has hated them. He would not only engage the Father's love for his people, But his sympathy also.

The world has hated them, he's saying. They cast them out. They're far from home. They're in an unfriendly wilderness. Father, they are in the world where temptation and difficulty and trials, distresses, anguish will follow them. Where they are hated because of my namesake.

So fix this fact in our mind, the Father's heart upon you. Your care, he says, Father, secure them, your care for them, and cause yourself to put your everlasting arms around them. That's what he says to the Father about them and about us. In verse 14, he also says, they are not of this world, even as I am not of this world. Redeemed? delivered, I have even greater association with them and with myself. And now, Father, hear me while I ask you what I desire that you should do for them."

So I think the greatest possible possession, I'm sorry, greatest possible blessing, which even Christ can bestow upon us, his people, is to manifest the Father's name to them and to us. He puts it first. It's the first thing he asked the father about and talks to him about in this list of things. I have manifested your name to the man that you have given me.

The disciples had kept the father's word. How they have kept your word, they entered into the secret of which the world knew nothing. The father was the source of all that was given to the son. The disciples had learned that they were all of the Father, and the Son had desired that they should be.

I probably should have mentioned this before, but can you imagine if we just take like a dozen of us, and we're in the upper room with the Lord Jesus, and He's been teaching us for quite some time, and then He decides to pray, and we get to hear Him. And we're listening to what He's saying. And this is what He's saying, not only about himself, but in particularly about us and about all those that would have faith because of us.

It was not only that the Lord came out from the father, nor that he had finished the work the father had given him to do. It was the title to blessing with the son before him. So the means for bringing them into the blessing were also the father's, because the words which you gave me, I gave them. and they received them, and knew truly that I came out from you and believed that you sent me."

Contrast that with the feebleness and the weakness of their faith. The Lord Jesus pleads for the disciples from the standpoint of they received your word, they knew truly that I came from you, and they believed you. So their feebleness is not an issue. But the Lord Jesus' viewpoint is the issue. I have manifested your name to the men you gave me out of the world, and they were yours, you gave them to me, and they kept your word.

In spite of the many failings of the disciples, they had learned the one essential lesson that everything they saw in Jesus was from God. It took them three years to teach one lesson, that Jesus is God. The disciples understood the heavenly origin of the Lord Jesus. Faith in what Jesus had revealed to them of the Father.

It's kind of like the Lord Jesus has given them a report card. He's saying in response to those three years saying, they have kept your word. So there's benefits to this. The Lord handed over to his disciples those intimate communications of grace which the Father had given to him. So he's sharing what he is and his relationship with the Father with them.

It's no longer the question of the Old Testament, the Ten Commandments or the Ten Words, and the measure of man's responsibility to prove his own sin and his own ruin, which he neither would own up to or even admit that he even felt it. But the disciples believed in the further truth that the Father sent the Lord Jesus. The proof of his own love to them, how rich it is, how needful it is, is every word of his grace. Now verse 7, he says, Now, Father, I come to you. Now they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you.

They learned back in John 6, 63, that it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh doesn't profit anything. The words that I have spoken to you, they are spirit and they are life. So Jesus has imparted to them the words of life. The words which the Father gave him were the expression of divine grace and of the divine love according to the blessed relationships in which the Son stood, though man and the disciples were just mere men, but now born of God, they have eternal life.

They don't really understand it, but look at the position they're in. The result is that they came to know truly that Christ the Son came out from the Father. Now verse 8, for the words which you gave me I've given them and they received them and they truly understood that I came forth from you and they believe that you sent me. So the disciples response, what was the disciples response to when they got these words? Their slow of heart like most of us are in believing. For if he had given to them the words of the father that the father had given to him The disciples received truth, and they really got truth.

Though no doubt, imperfectly, and they believed the words. The essential matter here was not so much the example of Jesus as the messenger. They understood the significance of his words. They spoke of divine origin. They really did have genuine faith.

Because the Lord Jesus said to them in the upper room, if you had known me, which they did, you would have known the Father, which they did. My Father also from now, from now on you know Him and you have seen Him." I'm hoping that this, what the Lord Jesus is praying about here is penetrating into our understanding because The wonderful thing that we have in terms of our association and intimacy with Christ is that He reveals the Father to us. He reveals God to us. And when we find out that the intensity with God is interested in us, it will change our relationship and our trust in Him.

I talked about this a minute ago, and they forsook Him and they fled. It shows you how weak they were. But He speaks of them only as if they were in the Father's purpose. If you look at these words and the failure of the disciples, It's a really beautiful illustration of what the Lord's intercession at the right hand of God really is.

There's not a word against this people. There's no reference to their failings or their shortcomings. There's no allusion to what they had done or may have done or what they're going to do. None of to what they were about to do as a body. They ran away when he was crucified. All of that happened, but the Lord Jesus advocates for them and never even mentions any of that. He doesn't talk about their weaknesses. Why wouldn't He?

Because He knows that they're in the Son. And He knows that they belong to the Father. And He knows that they have been given to Him. And so that's the basis on which He advocates for them. That's the same basis that He advocates for you and me today. The same, exact same basis. Verse 9, he says, I ask on their behalf, I don't ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom you have given me, for they're yours.

So why doesn't Jesus pray for the world? I mean, I think it's at least once a week in one of the Bible studies I'm in, someone will say, well, we got to pray for the world. And I always think, well, why do I? The Lord Jesus said, I didn't pray for the world. He said, I'm praying because the disciples were going to be the instruments through which the world was to be reached.

The same principle is true today. What's our job as teachers and pastors? We are to equip saints for the ministry. We are to perform the work of the ministry of Ephesians 4, 11 and 12, which is to do what? that we would be the vehicles through which God would pass on his message of reconciliation. We're the ambassadors of the reconciliation.

So concerning disciples, he makes his request, and he doesn't make it for Israel, he doesn't make it for the nations, not for the land or the earth at large, but concerning only those that the Father had given him. Only those. It's not a question of taking up world governments, or blessing now, he's occupied with the joint heirs. Who are they? Us. Not with the inheritance as yet. He prays for them, distinguishing them and us completely from the world. Those being out of the world whom the Father had given him, for they were the fathers, for all that is the father's is essential and opposite to what the world is.

In 1 John 2.16, John says, for all that is in the world, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. Okay, verse 10. And all things are mine, all things that are mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them. So how is Jesus glorified in them? How is that put together?

He presents to the father two motives for his request. The first one is that they belong to the father so that the father for his own glory and because of his affection for those belong to him that he should keep them. And the second request is that Jesus says I'm glorified in them so that if Jesus was the object of the father's affection, which he is, For that reason also, the father should keep them.

The interest in the father and the son can't be separated. Their interests are the same. They were the fathers. They were, in fact, the sons. It was by the example that this is a universal truth, that all was the sons was the fathers and all the fathers is the sons. What a place for you and me. to be the objects of this kind of mutual affection, of those common and inseparable interests of the Father and the Son, you and me. Christ's glory is manifested in a man. It is not merely Christ in them, but the expression of Him in His glory through them that is given. Notice another thing here, that all of Christ's language here is as though it was past.

Why would he say it that way? You know, I completed the work you gave me to do. He hadn't been on the cross yet, he's about to go that very next day. It's because the hour had come and it had already been decided in eternity past what God was going to do on the cross with Christ. So when God determines something in his mind, It's already done. And so he prays that way. So he can pray that way for you and me. It's already done. I go through the seven positions that he asks the Father. It's really interesting what he does. The first one is in verse 11.

He says, keep them. Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me. that they may be one even as we are one. He's saying, Father, let your name, which I have made known to them, be their hiding place, their refuge, their rest. You see their need, Father. You know your interest in them and your gift to me. The Father, keep them. So the Lord Jesus deposits those in him into his father's heart and commits them to his care. That's you.

Then he says in verse 17, sanctify them. How the Lord Jesus longed to see his people separated from evil and united, bound to one another by the cords of his own divine love. The third thing he says in verse 23 or 21 is unite them that they may all be one even as you father are in me and I in you that they may be one in us. In that verse alone is the entire discussion of the identification truths. Has he done that? Yeah, it's already done. The fifth one is glorify them by granting them to be able to behold my glory which you gave me.

In 2 Corinthians 3.18 Paul says that with unveiled face beholding as in the mirror the glory of the Lord. That we are changed or transformed from one state of glory to another even as by the Spirit of God. That verse is in future. It's now. It's right now. And that glory is the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's the same glory that he talked about at the beginning of John 17, that Father glorify me with the glory we had before the world began. Verse 26, this is the sixth one, so that the love with which you love me may be in them and I in them. My response to that verse is, how do you measure that? When the Lord Jesus says to the Father, the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them.

I don't think you can measure that. And the last one, the last request is, I myself in them. So taken together, the words give a picture of complete deliverance from all the perils that we would have or they would have from within or from without. So I think I better sum up and run out of time. So I want to go through this last part here that I thought was kind of cool.

In verse 21, he says that they may be one as we are, Father, as you and me and I and you, that they also may be one in us, that the world might believe that you sent me. When you and I as believers are conformed to the very image of Christ, we begin to manifest the life of Christ, which is the life of the Father. And because it is the life of God himself, It could not have been demonstrated to the world if Jesus had not come from the Father. Because Jesus, who is with His life, sends us, it proves that He was here and sent by the Father. You and I have this life of Christ in us, and as He conforms us to the image of Christ and it begins to manifest out of us, what does the world know? It proves to them that Christ came. Because He's still here. His life is still here. What more do you think God could give? What more could Christ ask? What more could His blood purchase? What more could His Spirit reveal or enable us to enjoy?

And these are amongst the very last words that the Lord Jesus speaks to the Father's heart, whose work he had finished, whose name he had glorified, and whose name he had manifested to the redeemed ones. I'm going to close with one John 1, 3, and 4. What we have seen and heard, we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us. And I intend our fellowship, and indeed our fellowship, is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. These things we write so that your joy might be made complete. Let's pray. Father, how we thank You. Boy, sometimes the words of Your Son, to be able to see how He spoke about us and how important we are to You and to Him. that we may you may open up our understanding we may enter in fully to who the value you place in each one of us and that we may in turn place all of our value all of our trust in your son the Lord Jesus we pray in his precious name amen