John 17 - The Long Prayer
- Chad Werkhoven
- Dec 26, 2022
- 3 min read
As you begin to pray about the new year, it's good to know what Jesus prayed for you.
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John 17 (ESV)
1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said,
“Father, the hour has come;
glorify your Son
that the Son may glorify you,
2 since you have given him authority
over all flesh,
to give eternal life
to all whom you have given him.
3 And this is eternal life,
that they know you,
the only true God,
and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
4 I glorified you
on earth,
having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
5 And now, Father, glorify me
in your own presence
with the glory
that I had with you
before the world existed.
6 “I have manifested your name
to the people
whom you gave me
out of the world.
Yours they were,
and you gave them to me,
and they have kept your word.
7 Now they know that
everything that you have given me
is from you.
8 For I have given them
the words that you gave me,
and they
have received them
and have come to know in truth
that I came from you;
and they have believed that you sent me.
9 I am praying for them.
I am not praying
for the world
but for those whom you have given me,
for they are yours.
10 All mine are yours,
and yours are mine,
and I am glorified in them.
11 And I am no longer in the world,
but they are in the world,
and I am coming to you.
Holy Father,
keep them in your name,
which you have given me,
that they may be one,
even as we are one.
12 While I was with them,
I kept them in your name,
which you have given me.
I have guarded them,
and not one of them has been lost
except the son of destruction,
that the Scripture might be fulfilled.
13 But now I am coming to you,
and these things I speak in the world,
that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
14 I have given them your word,
and the world has hated them
because they are not of the world,
just as I am not of the world.
15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world,
but that you keep them from the evil one.
16 They
are not of the world,
just as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them
in the truth;
your word is truth.
18 As you sent me
into the world,
so I have sent them into the world.
19 And for their sake
I consecrate myself,
that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 “I do not ask
for these only,
but also for those who
will believe in me
through their word,
21 that they may all be one,
just 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 have sent me.
22 The glory
that you have given me
I have given to them,
that they may be one
even as we are one,
23 I in them
and you in me,
that they may become perfectly one,
so that the world may know
that you sent me
and
loved them
even as you loved me.
24 Father, I desire that they also,
whom you have given me,
may be
with me
where I am,
to
see my glory
that you have given me
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father,
even though the world does not know you,
I know you,
and these know that you have sent me.
26 I made known to them your name,
and I will continue to make it known,
that the love
with which you have loved me
may be
in them,
and I in them.”
Previous DIG DEEPER posts on John
John 17 Summary
Remember that John's gospel is different than the other three gospels. We call Matthew, Mark, and Luke the synoptic gospels because they provide a synopsis - a snapshot - of some of the major events in Jesus' life. The other gospels tells us that Jesus spent the night before His trial praying while the disciples kept falling asleep, but don't mention what Jesus prayed about. John sets the surrounding details aside, and focuses on deeper insights, like exactly what Jesus prayed.
Jesus' prayer doesn't follow a rigid, linear pattern, but that's not surprising since it's expressed in the deepest moment of anguish and passion in human history as Jesus stood only hours away from being nailed to the cross. Jesus was crying out to His Father, not writing a term paper.
Yet there are some recurring themes:
The unity between God the Father and God the Son, which Jesus longs to share with those He came to save;
The reciprocal giving: God gave His chosen people to Christ along with the words of truth (v8). Christ in turn gave those words to us, and also gave us the name which His Father had given Him (v12). In this prayer, Jesus in a sense gives us back to Father having sanctified us (made us holy) and glorified us with the glory the Father had given Him.
The desire that God would keep us free from the entrapments of the world - to which we do not belong - and that we might be brought into deeper and deeper unity and knowledge of God
Dig Deeper
We often wonder and speculate what eternal life will be like. We tend to picture it in terms of our current life, just better. We'll do our work, but never have problems. We'll play our sports without ever missing a shot. We'll have friendships and families without the drama.
I have no idea what the details of eternity will be like, since the Bible doesn't give us many details.
But Jesus' prayer gives us probably the biggest clue:
This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (v3).
Begin living this eternal life here and now, as you continually deepen your knowledge of our Triune God.
AAA Prayer :
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father in heaven, who gave us to Christ to sanctify us for eternal life
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that you will have the desire, discipline and devotion to begin eternal life right now by endeavoring to know God.
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
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