THE LORD’S PRAYER
JOHN 17
On the night Jesus was betrayed by Judas and arrested in the garden He observed the Jewish Passover with His disciples. We generally refer to it as “The Last Supper.” John recorded the events of that night in chapters 13 – 18 of his gospel. I want to focus on chapter 17 today and the prayer of Jesus, first for himself, then for His disciples and finally for you and me:
“Father, the time has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son may glorify You. For You granted Him authority over all people that He might give eternal life to all those You have given Him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. I have brought You glory on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do. And now Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. I have revealed You to those whom You gave Me out of the world. They were Yours; You gave them to Me and they have obeyed Your word. Now they know that everything You have given Me comes from You. For I gave them the words You gave Me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from You, and they believed that You sent Me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given Me, for they are Yours. All I have is Yours, and all You have is mine. And glory has come to Me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, protect them by the power of Your name-the name You gave Me-so that they may be one as we are one” (vs. 1-12). “My prayer is not that You take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth, Your word is truth. As You sent Me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify Myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that You have sent Me” (vs. 20-21). “Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, and to see My glory, the glory You have given Me because You loved Me before the creation of the world. Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know You, and they know that You have sent Me. I have made You known to them, and will continue to make You known in order that the love You have for Me may be in them and that I Myself may be in them” (vs. 24-26).
We are all familiar with “The Lord’s Prayer” found in both Mathew and Luke’s gospels. Jesus really intended this to be a model for us to follow not something to be memorized and prayed verbatim from memory. He was teaching His disciples how to pray and was giving them an outline to follow when they prayed. We would really be more accurate to refer to it as “The Model Prayer.” It seems to me that what we have just read from John’s gospel would be more appropriately referred to as “The Lord’s Prayer” as it truly reveals His heart toward His creation as He petitions the Father not only for Himself but for you and me.
This is not the prayer of an ordinary man. This is the prayer of the “Great High Priest” sent by God the Father to reconcile you and me, to introduce, to reveal to us God the Father. Look again at verse 3, “this is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent.” God sent His Son to be our Great High Priest, the mediator between God and man. Listen, Christianity is not just some empty religion. Christianity is not man reaching up to God; it is God reaching down to draw man up into a personal relationship with the God of creation.
Tuesday night we enjoyed the hospitality in the home of J.P. and Lynn Hales and shared another session of The Truth Project with Del Tackett. In that session Del talks about how God has called us up into the fellowship of the Trinity. It is awesome to think about God’s invitation to you and me to be part of that intimate fellowship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This is exactly why Peter says, “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy’” (1 Pet. 1:15; Lev. 11:44).
Look at verse 9. Who did Jesus pray for? He said, “I am not praying for the world, but for those You have given Me.” He prayed for those who belong to God, who would be left on earth when He had gone back to the Father. He prayed for their protection from the world that is hostile to God.
Isn’t it interesting that Jesus didn’t pray for a legion of angels with flaming swords to protect us? Look at verse 17, “Sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is truth.” This is where I want to focus, on this issue of “sanctification.” This is what protects us from the hostility of the world and to fulfill God’s mandate to “be holy.” This is the key that keeps us connected in a personal relationship with the God of creation. The Greek word used here is hagiazo.
Listen to what Vine’s Expository Dictionary has to say about this word: “Sanctification is that relationship with God into which men enter by faith in Christ and to which their sole title is the death of Christ. Sanctification is also used in the N.T. of the separation of the believer from evil things and ways. This sanctification is God’s will for the believer and His purpose in calling him by the gospel, it must be learned from God as He teaches it by His Word and it must be pursued by the believer, earnestly and undeviatingly for the holy character, hagiosune is not vicarious, i.e., it cannot be transferred or imputed, it is an individual possession. The Holy Spirit is the Agent in sanctification. Since every believer is sanctified in Christ Jesus a common N.T. designation of all believers is ‘saints,’ hgioi, i.e., ‘sanctified’ or ‘holy ones.’ This sainthood, or sanctification, is not an attainment, it is the state into which God, in grace, calls sinful men, and in which they begin their course as Christians.”
Clearly, sanctification is not some optional appendage or state of being for the Christian. It is God’s will. It is His purpose for every believer. When we repent of our self-centered, independent will and ask Jesus to take control of our life by the indwelling presence of His Holy Spirit we are set apart from the rest of the world and made holy so that we are fit for service to God. This is “initial sanctification.”
When Jesus prayed He knew that He was about to leave this world to go back to the Father. In verse 15 He makes it clear that His disciples were going to remain in this world and Jesus knew they needed to be protected from evil.
If we back up to chapter 12 where Jesus predicted His death John tells us that God the Father spoke to affirm Jesus. Then Jesus said to those present, “This voice was for your benefit, not mine. Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself” (vs. 30-32).
The late Martin Lloyd Jones was a great Bible expositor who saw sin as an infection or infectious disease in society and he offered this analogy, “The gospel is not primarily concerned to remove the sores of infection of sin, or to put us out of danger of infection. What the gospel does is build up our resistance to infection to such a point that it renders us immune to it. The church is not primarily concerned with trying to destroy the infection. Until our Lord returns again, the infection will be there. Until Satan is cast into the lake burning with fire, the infection will continue. You cannot stop it. It will be there in spite of our councils and committees.”
A primary responsibility of the church is to provide the pure milk and strong meat of the Word and the primary responsibility of the Christian is to receive it so that our resistance is built up against the disease of sin. This is what Paul was talking about when he wrote to the church at Rome, “I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God-this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is-His good pleasing and perfect will” (12:1-2). This is why Sunday School and Bible study is so important. It is the work of the Holy Spirit in us but the Holy Spirit cannot work without our cooperation.
I’m so glad Jesus didn’t stop at verse 19. I’m so glad Jesus went on to pray for those who would believe in Him through their message. He was praying for you and me. He was praying for our sanctification.
As I read this prayer I get a sense of the great intensity behind it. Jesus prayed with a powerful expectation that something so significant would take place in the lives of His disciples that the world could not deny or ignore them. The world can chose not to believe, but the world cannot dismiss the testimony of the life of one who is sanctified holy and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God.
When Jesus uses the word “sanctify” it is in the tense that indicates He is praying for a specific event to take place in the lives of His disciples. In Wesleyan Armenian theology we recognize two specific works of grace in the life of a Christian. The first is predicated on “prevenient grace.” “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-not by works, so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
God gives us initially just enough grace, the desire and ability to do His will, to recognize and act upon our need for His presence in our lives. It is like someone who visits our home for the first time. We graciously invite them into our home and enjoy a nice meal around the dinning room table and then friendly conversation in the living room. As a friendship develops we might invite them to help themselves to whatever is in the refrigerator and into other parts of the house but there will always be private places, closets or rooms that are personal and off limits.
In the same manner we tend to compartmentalize our lives. We allow God into some areas of our lives but we tend to hold onto some things that we just are not willing to give up or share with God. That is until we mature to the point that we realize we are holding out on God. Most new Christians go through a process of sanctification until one day they realize God wants to get into that private closet and then there is a choice to make. Either they quench the Spirit of God or they experience the “second work of grace” and entire sanctification. It is the point when they make a complete commitment of everything they have and are. It is a commitment of all their hopes and dreams, every aspiration of their heart and they are able to say with Paul, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Eph. 2:8-9).
Sanctification doesn’t mean that we are turned into religious fanatics. However God does call us all to full time Christian service. Some to be engineers, some doctors some homemakers, some computer programmers, some to marina mangers, and some to be teachers or maybe students.
The fact is Jesus Christ has called us all to fully dedicate ourselves to His will in everything we do to the glory of God. As our Great High Priest Jesus prayed for His disciples that God the Father would bring us all to a critical moment of grace in which we surrender and yield ourselves completely to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, who draws us to salvation by faith and then stirs in us the hunger, the yearning for the cleansing of His presence. The Holy Spirit enables us to yield to the sanctifying work of Christ in our heart.
Jesus sanctified Himself not only to save us from our sin but to keep us out of it. The fact that Jesus died on the cross and was raised from the dead is sufficient evidence for us to believe that we too may be raised to newness of life. His power is sufficient to break the power of sin and make us immune from the disease of sin for all our tomorrows.
Your sanctification and mine is what was on the heart and mind of Jesus when He went to the cross. His prayer was that all who believe on Him, that is who trust Him and have chosen to be obedient to His plan and purpose should be sanctified holy for God’s purpose.
We must understand that God’s universal ideal for mankind is to build the character of Christ in us. The sanctified life is one completely dedicated, surrendered, and yielded to the will and purpose of God. It is a life made pure, completely cleansed from all sin. A vessel fit for God, for His indwelling presence that others might see Christ in us.
I close with a question. Have you, since you have come to faith in Christ, fully consciously, and willfully surrendered yourself to Him that He might declare that you have been set apart for His purpose?
If you have not I’m going to give you an opportunity to do that as God the Holy Spirit draws you. Jesus prayed for Himself, then His disciples and then He prayed, “I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word” (vs. 20 NAS). If you are a disciple of Jesus Christ but you have never experienced this second blessing of entire sanctification I invite you to come forward and allow Him to sanctify every nook and cranny of your being to the glory of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
