Transcript

The following poem is called the “Firefighter’s Prayer.” “Oh Lord, please help this firefighter, To be skillful and BRAVE. Please let me never falter, When there are lives to SAVE.

“Be with my fellow firefighters, And ride with us each RUN, From the moment we suit-up, Until the job is DONE. Be with me as I guide a child, through the dark and smokey HAZE, Give me strength and courage, As I fight the deadly BLAZE.

Lord, I put my safety in Your hands, But in the chaos and the STRIFE, Help me act with selfless courage; God, just let me save a LIFE.”

The Lord Jesus Christ prayed on the night before His crucifixion, the night before He faced the blazing fire of God’s wrath against sin and selflessly and courageously saved others by sacrificially giving His life.

In this prayer, the Lord prayed not only for Himself but also for His disciples and the people who would be saved through their ministry.

John 17:1-26 is the longest recorded prayer of Christ in Scripture. During His earthly ministry, Christ frequently prayed to the Father, but very little of the content of those prayers is recorded.

Thus, this prayer in John 17 reveals a deeper look at the precious content of the Son’s communion with His Father in heaven.

Although Matthew 6:9-13 has become known as “the Lord’s Prayer,” that prayer was taught to the disciples and Israel by Christ as a pattern for prayer during the Tribulation. However, the prayer recorded in John 17 can truly be called “The Lord’s Prayer.”

John 17:1-5: “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

“As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”

After the Lord gave the disciples extended teaching concerning His departure, the need to love one another, and the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Lord prayed this prayer in the presence of His disciples on the night before He was crucified in the upper room.

Thus, the background out of which Christ’s prayer arises is that of His impending death.

The Lord “lifted His eyes to heaven,” directing His prayer to the Father and to where the Father is located.

Christ addressed the Father as “Father” four times in the prayer (vv. 1,5,21,24), and He also addressed Him as “Holy Father” in verse 11 and “righteous Father” in verse 25. Christ prayed within the eternal relationship He had with God the Father.

In verse 1, the Lord prayed, “Father, the hour is come.” John wrote in chapter 13 that “Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart out of this world unto the Father” (v. 1). And Christ would depart this world through His death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. The Lord knew it was the time for this.

Christ lived on a divine timetable while on earth, and John shows that He had this hour at the forefront of His mind throughout His earthly ministry.

The Cross was the very purpose for which Christ came to the world. The Lord had said earlier in John, “Now is My soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour” (John 12:27 cf. 13:1).

In view of the cross, Christ prayed for the Father to “glorify Thy Son,” which means that He asked that the Father bring into full display the divine character, majesty, attributes, and identity of the Son via His passion.

Faith in the identity of the Son is what gave one salvation from their sins under the terms of the gospel of the kingdom. That is the purpose of John’s Gospel.

John 20:31 reads, “But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

And this prayer to “glorify Thy Son” was for all to plainly see who He is as God the Son.

When the Lord prayed, “glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee,” it shows that the ultimate end of the Son’s glorification is the glorification of the Father. And the Son glorified the Father by the cross and His resurrection.

The Son reveals the Father (1:18; 12:45). And by carrying out the plan of redemption, Christ brought glory to the Father by revealing all of His supremely divine attributes such as His love, mercy, justice, wisdom, power, and omniscience.

In verse 2, Christ prayed that the Father had “given Him power over all flesh.”

In Matthew 28:18, the Lord told His disciples that the Father gave the Son “power” or authority over all of heaven and earth, and here He prayed that the Father gave the Son “power over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hast given Him.”

Earlier in John, the Lord explained those that the Father gave Him more fully:

John 6:44-45 reads, “No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day.

“It is written in the prophets, And they shall be all taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto Me.”

God drew people to His Son through the Word, the written Word of the Old Testament, and/or through the living Word, Jesus Christ, as He walked the earth and ministered.

As people are taught of God by the Word, and they hear and learn, the Father draws them to come unto His Son to find life. Christ taught and spoke the words of God throughout His earthly ministry. The people the Father had given Him were those who heard and responded in faith to Christ, and by the authority of God, Christ gave them eternal life.

In John 10:28 the Lord said of the sheep that heard His voice and followed Him, “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish.”

How one received life eternal under the kingdom gospel was as Christ prayed in John 17:3: “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent.”

One knows God the Father by knowing and believing in the Son. And to those who knew the Son and believed in His identity as the Messiah, the Son of God granted eternal life under the gospel of the kingdom. In John 5:24, Christ said,

“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” To hear and believe in Christ was to believe on the Father who sent Him.

The kingdom gospel will again be in force after the Rapture. Those during the Tribulation and those who are born during the kingdom will need to believe in Christ’s identity.

There will be a false Christ, an Anti-Christ, in the world during the Tribulation, and at that time, people will be required to believe in Jesus Christ as the true Messiah to have eternal life within the kingdom Christ will establish after the Tribulation.

And during the millennial kingdom, “the gospel of the KINGDOM” requires those who are born and live during the 1000 years to believe that the King reigning over the world from Jerusalem is the Messiah, the Son of God.

Today, under grace, it is the gospel of the grace of God that one must believe to have eternal life. And that gospel is to simply believe that Christ died for our sins and rose again. And by faith alone in Christ’s finished work, we have eternal life.

The Lord prayed in John 17:4, “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do.”

Christ glorified the Father by doing His will and completing the work He gave Him. Finishing the Father’s work was imperative to the Lord during His earthly ministry.

In John 4:34, Christ said, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work.”

Having finished His work, and knowing He came from God and was returning to God (13:3), Christ asked the Father to glorify Him with the glory which He had with Him before the world was (17:5).

Christ prayed this because He is God, Who preexisted time and creation, and is eternal. The Son had eternal fellowship with the Father in the Godhead before He took on flesh.

In John 1:1, we read of the Word, Who is Jesus Christ, that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Later in this prayer, the Lord stated that the Father loved Him “before the foundation of the world” (v. 24). From all eternity, the Father and the Son have enjoyed shared fellowship (1:1), glory (17:5), and perfect love (17:24).

John 17:6-10: “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word.

“Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee.

“For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine.

“And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”

In verses 6-19, Christ prayed for “the men which Thou gavest Me out of the world,” referring to the disciples. Christ told His disciples in John 15:19, “I have chosen you out of the world.” The disciples were chosen out of the world to be separate from it, for Christ to use in reaching it with the gospel of the kingdom.

In verse 7 of John 17, we see how the disciples were capable representatives of Christ because “they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee,” or they knew that His mission (3:16-17) and His message were of the Father.

The Lord said in His ministry, “For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak” (12:49).

And the disciples received and accepted Christ’s words from the Father as truth and life. In John 6:68, Peter said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.”

And the Lord stated in verse 8 that they knew and believed two truths: first, that Christ had come from God, and second, that God sent Him.

In the previous chapter, the Lord told the disciples, “For the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God” (16:27).

Then the Lord stated in verse 9 that “I pray for them,” or the disciples, and He added, “I pray not for the world.”

This does not mean that Christ was unconcerned about the world, for we know that God loves the world and sent His Son “that the world through Him might be saved” (3:17).

Rather, the Lord stated that He was not praying for the world because His prayer for protection, unity, joy, and sanctification did not apply to them; it only applied to those who belong to God.

In love, the Lord did not pray for the world of unbelievers to be kept, united, and sanctified in their rebellion and unbelief. The world needs to be saved from this condition through Christ.

The Lord’s prayer here concerned His disciples, but we are taught elsewhere by the Lord that it is good and proper that we pray for the world and the unbelieving to be saved.

The Son prayed for the disciples, telling the Father in verses 9-10 of chapter 17 that “they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine.” The Father and Son are equal in the Godhead, and what belongs to One belongs to the Other (16:15).

And it is a comforting trans-dispensational truth that whether it is believers under God’s program with Israel or believers under God’s program with the Body of Christ, we all belong to BOTH the Father and the Son.

And Christ prayed in verse 10, that He was “glorified in them,” or in the disciples, because they believed in Him and Who He is, that He is the Son of God.

John 17:11-19: “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

“While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

“I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

“They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

“As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”

In verse 11, when Christ said to the Father that “now I am no more in the world,” He anticipated His return to heaven, praying as if He had already left.

“But these are in the world” in verse 11 reflected the Lord’s concern for His disciples whom He would leave behind. Thus, the Lord prayed, “Holy Father, keep through Thine own name.” “Keep” means to guard, take care of, preserve.

In John 15:18, the Lord warned the disciples, “because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you” and told them in John 16:33 that “In the world ye shall have tribulation.”

The Lord prayed for the keeping and protection of the disciples by the Father because they would have to face the world’s hatred and trouble without Christ’s immediate presence.

In His absence from the world, Christ desired that they be kept and “that they may be one, as we are,” united after the pattern of the eternal, perfect unity of the Trinity so that they might endure the difficulties of ministry together.

In verse 12 of John 17, Christ prayed that He had kept, guarded, and protected the disciples when He was in the world and none of them was lost, except for Judas Iscariot, so “that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (v. 12).

Judas was never a believer; he was “the son of perdition,” the Lord said. Because of his unbelief and treachery, Judas Iscariot is identified with His destiny: perdition.

When the Lord said to the Father, “these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy” (John 17:13), the word “speak,” means to utter a voice, to speak aloud. The Lord meant by this that He had prayed this prayer aloud for the benefit of His disciples so they might have the full measure of His joy by hearing His words and comforting prayer.

The disciples needed Christ’s joy and comfort. Since the disciples did not now conform to the world’s beliefs and values, they were hated, the Lord said.

Christ, though, prayed not for the isolation of the disciples from the hostile world but for the Father to preserve them in the midst of it (17:15). As He told the Father, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world.”

However, in the hostile world, He prayed “that thou shouldest keep them from the evil,” or that the disciples would be kept specifically from “the evil” one, Satan, who “as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

With both Christ and the disciples being “not of the world” (John 17:16), the Lord prayed for God’s truth to sanctify the disciples to do the Father’s will like the Lord did.

“Sanctify” (v. 17) means to set apart, and in the context of Scripture, it means to be set apart unto God. God does not delegate the sanctifying process. He does not command us to do it on our own. God does it Himself as we live by faith in Him. As Paul told the Thessalonians, “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly…” (1 Thes. 5:23).

As God sanctifies us and sets us apart unto Himself, He does so by the truth of His Word (John 17:17). The closer we are to the Lord, the further we find ourselves from ungodliness and worldliness.

What God reveals to us changes our thinking, values, and our priorities, and it leads us to be set apart unto God and His purposes. That was Christ’s prayer for His disciples.

The Lord said in verse 15 that He did not want the disciples “out of the world,” and they were not “of the world,” He said in verse 16. As His representatives, however, He sent them into the world, He said in verse 18. They were to be in the world but not of it.

When the Lord prayed, “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself” (v. 19), He referred to His being wholly separated to do God’s will and that He was going to the cross, and His prayer was that His example might stir the disciples to the same type of surrender and sacrifice.

John 17:20-26: “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;

“That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.

“I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

“Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.

“O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

In verses 20-26, Christ prayed “for them also which shall believe on Me through their word,” or for those who would believe through the witness of the disciples.

In verse 18, Christ said that He sent His disciples into the world. They were sent to share the gospel of the kingdom and many would believe as a result.

Like He prayed for the disciples in verse 11, Christ prayed that kingdom believers might be one and exhibit the character and unity of the Godhead (v. 21).

When Christ prayed “that the world may believe that Thou hast sent Me” (v. 21), this meant for the world to believe that Christ is the Son of God, a belief which was required for salvation under the gospel of the kingdom (6:40).

Earlier in John, Christ said, “And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life…”

In verse 22 of John 17, the Lord prayed, “And the glory which thou gavest Me I have given them.” “The glory” that the Father gave the Son is the glory of His words.

As the Lord said previous in His prayer, “For I have given unto them the words which Thou gavest Me…” (v. 8).

These words were given “that they may be one,” as the unity that Christ desired for kingdom believers was to be based on truth, the truth of God’s words.

Christ then prayed in verse 23 that the unity in the kingdom church would be so great and so complete that the world would know, take note, and realize that its faith was real, that Christ is God the Son, and that these believers were supremely, deeply, and eternally loved by God. This was with the desire that they might believe in Christ as well.

Christ prayed for these kingdom believers to “be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory” (v. 24). This was a prayer for them to be with Him when He reigns in glory in His kingdom on the earth. They will behold His glory at that day.

We see in verse 24 that the Son has known and been loved by the Father since before the foundation of the world. As Christ said in John 7:29, “But I know Him: for I am from Him, and He hath sent Me.”

The Son knows the Father, but in contrast, the Lord prayed, “the world hath not known Thee” (17:25). The world does not know the Father because it rejects the Son Who reveals Him. To know the Father, one must know the Son.

Then in contrast to the world, the Lord pointed out in verse 25 that the disciples and the kingdom believers knew and believed that the Father sent the Son.

Christ had declared the name of the Father during His earthly ministry, and He stated that He “will declare it” (v. 26), which anticipated His resurrection.

After Christ rose again, He would continue to give glory to the Father. Christ was hours from the cross, yet He declared “that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (v. 26).

Knowing the unjust treatment, suffering, and death that was ahead of Him, Christ affirmed and knew that the Father loved Him as He always had. And the Lord prayed that this divine, eternal love might be in the kingdom believers.

As we reflect on Christ’s prayer in John 17, may it inspire us to deepen our own prayer lives, praying within our personal relationship with God, focusing on His glory, His will, and His love, as we pray for others.