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May 4, 2008
A-Easter 7
John 17:1-11
Pastor Robert Raasch

Jesus Prays for You

1. He asks that he be glorified.
2. He asks that we be protected.

(John 17:1-11)  After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. {2} For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. {3} Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. {4} I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. {5} And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. {6} "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. {7} Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. {8} 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. {9} I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. {10} All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. {11} 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.

I have a question for all the parents here today.  Tell me, have you ever wondered what your children really think about you?  What they say to their friends about you?  How they feel about you in their heart of hearts?  It seems that as children grow older, it becomes harder and harder to know what’s really going on in their heads.  Now, I realize that you teens could say the same thing about your parents.  “What are they thinking?  What’s going through their heads?  Tell me, am I the only parent what has ever thought to himself, “I wish I could read a week’s worth of text messages or emails.  Boy, then I would be in the know!  Or if they have a diary, or better yet, a prayer journal, I could read that.  You know they have to be telling the truth in there.  Especially, a prayer journal.  I mean, they’re talking to God.  If I want to know what someone is really thinking, I ought to read what they are saying to God.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying that you ought to read your daughter’s prayer journal—without her permission.  What I’m saying is that a person’s prayers often give us some insight into what’s really on a person’s heart.  What they care about.  How they really feel.  Well, if its true that parents sometimes wonder how their children feel about them (and vice versa), it’s even more true that people sometimes find themselves wondering how God feels about them.  We all by nature are a little paranoid.  “Where do I stand with God?  Is he okay with me?  Is he for me or again’ me?  I mean, I look at my life and it seems like I’m getting mixed messages.  One day, things are going great.  The next day, it’s like God is suddenly frowning on me.  Nothing is going right.  “Honestly, God, how do you feel about me?”

Today, we’re going to find the answer to those questions.  And we’re going to do it by, in effect, reading God’s prayer journal.  That’s right, today we’re going to read a portion of the prayer that the Son of God offered to his Heavenly Father on your behalf, as we consider the theme:

Jesus Prays for You
In this prayer, Jesus asks his Father for two things:
I. He asks that he be glorified.
II. He asks that we be protected.

First, a little background information.  This whole section of John’s gospel, chapters 13-17, all take place in the Upper Room on that first Maundy Thursday evening.  Jesus is with his disciples.  He’s already washed their feet, and celebrated the Lord’s Supper with them.  He’s told Peter that he would soon deny his Lord and that all the other disciples would desert him.  At the time when his disciples were feeling their lowest, when they were very apprehensive about what the future held for them, Jesus offers what is often called his “High Priestly Prayer,” that is, a prayer in which he intercedes on behalf of his disciples.  And what really makes this prayer unique is that it’s offered within their earshot.  The disciples, and by divine inspiration you and me as well, get to hear exactly what the Son of God prayed for on the night before he died.

The first thing he prayed for?  I. That he would be glorified.  Jesus prays, “Father, the time has come.  Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”  Now, what does that mean?  Is Jesus saying, “I’m ready for the big time?  I’m ready for the glory?  I want to be the next American Idol?” No, he’s not.  Remember the context here.  When Jesus says, “Father, the time has come,” what is he referring to?  The time has come for him to what?  For him to die.  To be beaten, scourged, abandoned by God and nailed to a Roman cross.  All for what?  All for the glory of it all?

Yes, all for the glory of Jesus’ heavenly Father.  Think about it.  What is the one thing that, more than anything else, prompts you to glorify God?  I mean, more than the beauty of creation, more than the wonder of a new born child, more than the answer to a thousand prayers?  The greatest thing that God has ever done for you was to have his perfect Son die for you.  That’s the greatest reason to glorify God.  Jesus’ death would bring the ultimate glory to God.

And yet, in this prayer, Jesus even looks beyond the glory that his death would bring to his Father.  And he sees the glory that the Father would give back to his Son.  Or to put it in the words that last week’s confirmands know so well, Jesus looks beyond the state of his humiliation and sees the state of his exaltation.  Jesus says, “And now Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”  In other words, “Put your stamp of approval on all I have done.”  By raising Jesus from the dead, by giving him a glorified body, by bringing him up to heaven and sitting him at his right hand, God the Father would be underscoring the fact that his gracious plan to rescue fallen man from hell forever was in fact…Mission Accomplished!  That’s what Jesus is praying for when he asks to be glorified.  “Father, tell the world that I’ve done exactly what you sent me to do!”  But it’s not the only thing he prays for.  He not only prays that he be glorified.  II. He also Prays that We be Protected.

In this second section of Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer, Jesus is praying specifically for the eleven disciples who are gathered around him in the Upper Room.  And yet, everything he says about them also applies to you and me as Christians.  For example, he says to his Father, “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world…For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.”  Isn’t the same thing true of you and me as well?  Through the pages of Holy Scripture, Jesus has given us God’s Word.  And purely by the power of the Holy Spirit working faith in our hearts, we have believed that Word of God.  Just like those first disciples, we too believe that God sent Jesus.  And that means that you and I as 21st century Christians have one more thing in common with those 1st century disciples, namely, that we belong to God.  Twice, Jesus says about these disciples, “(Father), they are yours.”  In fact, Jesus says that’s why he is praying for them.  Jesus says in v. 9, “I’m not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.”

Think about that a moment.  Jesus is saying that you and I belong to God.  When we find ourselves wondering how God feels about us, when we feel like God is somehow distancing himself from us, or that we’re just not good enough for God, here’s the passage to go back to.  Jesus says that God has made us his own.  We’re his prized possessions. 

Last week the Green Bay Packers drafted a number of college football players.  I’ll bet every one of those young men came away from the draft thinking, “Yes!  They want me.  They chose me.  I belong in the NFL.”  Well, you and I can feel the very same way about being a member of God’s team.  “Yes!  I belong!  God has made me his own!”  The only difference is—and this is a huge difference—what did those football players do to be picked by the Packers?  They worked their tails off.  They are extraordinary athletes.  They deserve to be chosen.  Their earned their spot on the draft board.

You and I, on the other hand, have done absolutely nothing to make us worthy of God’s selection.  Every rule God has ever laid down, we’ve broken.  We’ve rebelled against the authorities God has placed over us.  Time and time again, we’ve refused to listen; refused to believe.  I mean, if anybody deserves to be cut from the team, it’s you and me.  In fact, we couldn’t qualify to be the water boy!  And yet, in spite of all our sins, what has God done?  He’s dressed us in Jesus’ holiness.  He’s made us right in his eyes.  And now, at the price of Jesus’ blood, God says to you and me, “Now, you belong to me.  Once you were a loser.  Now you are my treasure!”  That, my friends, is how God feels about you.  And just to further underscore how dear you are to God, what does God’s Son do for you?  He prays for you.

But now, I want you to notice what Jesus prays for on your behalf.  Jesus says, “Holy Father, protect them.”  And again a little later, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, (Father), but that you protect them from the evil one.”

My friends, do you hear what Jesus is concerned about?  He’s not concerned about what kind of car we drive or the size of our house.  He’s not concerned about the brand of jeans we wear or the color of our hair.  He’s not concerned about which way the Dow went this week or what’s the price of gas today.  No, Jesus is concerned about something more important than that.  He’s concerned about the spiritual battle going on for your soul.  He’s praying that you don’t start to believe Satan’s lies.  He’s praying that your conscience doesn’t become dulled by all the sin going on around you.  He’s praying that you don’t start to think that just one time won’t hurt you. 

In fact, isn’t that exactly what he teaches us to pray for, for ourselves in the words of the Lord’s Prayer?  “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?”  What did Martin Luther say that means?  “We pray in this petition that God would guard and keep us (that is, would protect us) so that the devil, the world and our flesh (that is, our spiritual enemies in life) may not deceive us, (would not trick us) or lead us into false belief, despair and other great and shameful sins.”  Or lead us into other great and shameful sins.             

My friends, if that’s what Jesus is concerned about, if Jesus, in his final hours, is pleading with his Father to protect us from the Evil One, shouldn’t that command a great deal of concern on our part as well.  If you’re on the front line of battle and the commander of your platoon yells, “Incoming!  Hit the dirt!” do you say, “Are you sure?  Where?  Aw, whatever.” I don’t think so.  If Jesus is praying for our protection, then we’d better be focused on the battle that is raging all around us.

The real question is, what is God going to protect us with?  Jesus answers that question with the words, “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name.”  What does that mean?  Well, again as our confirmands learned this year, God’s name is everything he has revealed about himself in his Word.  So Jesus is praying that God would use his Word to protect us.  Or maybe even better, that we would use God’s Word so that God can protect us from the Evil One.  Remember what St. Paul tells us in Ephesians, chapter 6?  “Put on the full armor of God.  Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.”  How do we use the Word of God to protect us from the Evil One?  First, by allowing God’s word to convict us of our sins.  Through the Law, God uncovers those areas of our heart where Satan is beginning to get a foothold.  Through the Law, God calls us to repent of those sins, repent of our misplaced allegiance. 

And then when we’ve been beaten down by the law, when we’ve been exposed as lost and condemnable sinners, then we turn back to the Word and this time hear the sweet promises of the gospel:  “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.”  “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”