When Jesus Prays for Us
March 26, 2023
What’s your best asset? What’s the most useful or valuable quality about you? Now that may be hard question for to answer about yourself. But I bet you’d be quick to answer this if you were to share the best asset of your spouse, or your children or your friends. When I think of my daughters, one of Kayla’s best assets is her compassion and mercy. If you are hurting, you can count on her to enter into your pain and do something to comfort you. One of Courtney’s best assets is her loyalty. If you are her friend, she will stick with you through thick and thin.
You see, when you think of the best assets of people you know, they are usually good things that attract you to them. And when I start to think of assets that I admire in people, a number of good qualities come to mind. I’m drawn to people who are kind, humble, and encouraging. I like people who have a sense of humor, who are loyal and hard working. And I like people who keep their word, hang in there when things are tough, and aren’t afraid to admit when they are wrong. Now, my guess is that many of the qualities that I admire, you may also admire.
But have you ever thought what God admires? Have you ever wondered what asset He would like to see in His people… in us? Now, you may be quick to think of a few qualities. For example, you may think that He likes it when we include people who are not like us. That would be true because that’s what Jesus did. Or you may think God is thrilled when we are quick to forgive someone who has wronged us. And of course, you probably thought of how much God likes it when we love one another. After all, when we love one another like Jesus loves us, we show the world we are His disciples. So, loving one another must be the most valuable quality He wants to see in us. But what if I were to tell you that as great as these are, there’s one quality He wants to see in us that’s even more important to Him. Would you like to know what that is?
Well, in our passage today, Jesus makes it pretty clear what that is. And so, to help us discover just what asset He wants to see in us, let me encourage you to open your Bibles John 17:20-26, for here in Jesus’ prayer for us – He prays for the unity of His Church, so that the world will be draw to the beauty of Christ through the love of His people for one another. But there’s so much more than even that in these verses. For this may be the greatest prayer ever prayed for us. So, if you want to know what Jesus really wants for us as His people, lets dive into the first request that Jesus brings to the Father for us, and that is this:
When Jesus Prays for Us, He prays for Our Unity “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. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:20-23
Now, I want us to remember the context of this prayer. Jesus is about to go to the cross. He’s going to suffer through abandonment, false accusations, mocking, beating and eventually the brutality of being nailed to the cross – where he’s going to feel searing pain with every breath He takes as He dies for the sin of the world.
With this in mind, after praying that His Father be glorified in His death, after praying for His disciple’s protection in the world – Jesus shifts the focus of His prayer to all who will believe through the work of the disciples. Jesus prays for us: for the church- for every person who will ever come to faith in Him through the message of the disciples. Jesus prays for all who will trust in Him through the proclamation of the gospel.
And here we see the one characteristic Jesus wants us to experience together… and for the world to see: our shared relationship with Jesus. And what’s so amazing about this prayer for His Church, is that if you’ve put your trust in Jesus after hearing the gospel, you’ve experienced the answer to this prayer. For the moment you believed in Jesus, you were united to His body, the Church. The moment you believed, you received the indwelling Holy Spirit – and now you not only have a relationship with the Father, but you also have a spiritual bond with every other believer in Christ.
You now share the same forgiveness, the same adoption, the same peace, the same Spirit, the same family, and the same answer to this prayer. The Father answered this prayer and included you in His family when you believed. Now, we are all now bound together by the same message of the good news that eternal life is ours through faith in Jesus. That’s why you can go anywhere in the world and meet any other believer and have an immediate kinship with them as your brother or sister in Christ.
This is a oneness that cannot be found in the world. This is a unity that’s not based on human common ground. We didn’t all go to the same universities, we don’t all like the same sports teams, we don’t all have the same hobbies, the same skin color or the same nationality. No, our unity is based on the life God gave us when we trusted in Jesus. It is based on the unity of relationship shared by the Father, the Son and the Spirit. Each one of them is a distinct person, but they are eternally one in essence. We are distinct individuals, but we all have different personalities, abilities, backgrounds and experiences – but our common ground is that we are all sinners saved by grace, united by our common faith in Jesus. As Paul writes: There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28
This is the quality that sets the church apart from the world – our unity as God’s beloved family. This is why our faith is a communal faith, not just an individual faith. This is why God put you together in His Church – to show the world a new kind of community, where we live in mutual interdependence – where we belong to one another, serve one another, pray for one another and bear one another’s burdens. Our supernatural unity is unlike anything in the world. For when we live in unity together, we reveal a supernatural reality, and that is this: Jesus lives in us.
I love how Matt Carter explains this. He says: “The church is a visible display of God’s goodness to the world.Each local church is the visible display of God’s kindness to its community. We don’t have any photographs of Jesus. The church is the photograph. The church is the picture of His love and mercy. There’s a picture frame around each church and a sign above us that says, “Come, see what God is like.”
This is why Jesus prays that we may be brought to complete unity. And that’s why Paul writes in Ephesians: Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:3 We can’t take our unity in Christ for granted. So, let me take a little side bar here and remind us of a few ways we can keep the unity of the Spirit:
We need to hold fast to the Word of God: Jesus uses the word glory in his prayer in referring to what He had done in revealing the Father through His Word and Works. When we are committed to holding to the Word of God as the authority for our lives, we will do our part in protecting our unity. But if we neglect His Word, it doesn’t take long for His church to be filled with weeds of opinion, gossip, lies, and capitulation to our culture’s values. And when that happens it doesn’t take long for the evil one to divide us and even destroy our unity with conflict.
We need to hold firm to our identity in Christ: As believers, each one of us is united in Christ. He is our life. We are new Creations in Christ. This is our core identity. We are God’s children. That’s why God puts us together to live out our faith as family. So, the more we embrace our identity in Christ, the more we will see one another as family to serve with, rather than strangers to fight with. Our identity in Christ is one of the strengths of the Church. And as we stick together, He cannot divide us.
We need to love one another as Jesus has loved us: The more we learn to love one another as Jesus has loved us, the more we will learn to forgive one another, encourage one another, bear with one another and submit to one another. And the more we value one another above ourselves, the more we will create an environment where imperfect people can feel safe to belong. And the more we will perfect the unity Jesus prayed for in this prayer.
And the more we perfect the unity of the Spirit among us as His people, the more evidence we will give the world to believe that Jesus lives among us. And that leads us to the next thing Jesus prays for us, and that is this: When Jesus Prays for Us, He prays for Our Mission: Let me read the portion of this prayer that focuses on how our unity plays a part in convincing the world to believe in Jesus. He prays: “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” John 17:20-23
There is something about our unity in Jesus Christ that attracts the world. This tells me is that God has designed every person with a desire to belong in a community where they are accepted just as they are. In other words, people want to be part of something where they can find acceptance and love without having to jump through a bunch of hoops; where they don’t have to measure up to some kind of standard, whether it be a standard of behavior, or intelligence, or beauty, or prestige, or power. They just want to fit in without having to fight to work their way up the pecking order or worry about being condemned when they don’t measure up.
So now, when they see God’s people loving one another with God’s love: forgiving when we’re wronged; including those who aren’t like us, encouraging the weak, and submitting to one another out of love… they’re seeing something they can’t find in the world… they’re seeing a new kind of community filled with the Father’s love. And when they see the Father’s love at work among us – our love does something to them: it ignites in them a hope that the Father might love them too… As Jesus said, Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.
The world wants to know if God loves them. And the world is watching us for the evidence of God’s love. Is God’s love real? If it is, then the one place they should be able to see it is in the relationships between those who make up His Church. But the world has a bunch of preconceived ideas of what the Church is all about. For many in the world, they’ve had a bad experience with the Church. They’ve not experienced love, but condemnation. They’ve not experienced acceptance, but rejection. So, for many in the world, they believe the church is made up of a bunch of moral police and fun squelchers. Or they think the church is full of hypocrites, who believe one thing but do another. They don’t see the church as a community of grace. They don’t see the church as a place of mercy. And they don’t think of the church as a place of hope but of hurt and rejection.
That’s why we need to listen closely to what’s on Jesus’ heart in this prayer. He’s about to die for the very people He’s praying for. And He’s praying for you. He’s praying for me. He’s praying for people who don’t hold your values. He’s praying for your neighbor who wants nothing to do with the church. He’s praying for skeptics and cynics who think the Church is irrelevant. And He’s praying for broken sinners who are without God and without hope in the world.
And in His prayer, He’s asking the Father to awaken us to all the benefits of His amazing grace to us – so our lives will become so radically changed by His love and acceptance, that we will create a culture of grace and love that will become so attractive, that the world would want what we have. This is what Jesus is praying for.
This is why Jesus loves the Church and why He prayed for us then, and still prays for us today. For God has designed His church to replicate His love for us in our relationships with one another. And when this truth seizes us, we will never see the Church in the same way again. Because God designed His church to display the love of Christ as we love one another. And when the world sees this love at work among us Then the world will know that the Father sent Jesus and have loved them even as He has loved Jesus.
This is why we want every person who say they love Jesus to be connected in His Church with others in a Journey Group. And this is why our Journey Groups are not just Bible studies. They’re the environment where love is applied, where grace is given, where mercy flows, and where the supernatural unity Jesus prayed for can be witnessed! This is what Jesus was praying for as He’s approaching the cross. He was praying for us, that the world would see the Father’s love for them, in how we love one another. In other words, every time you love someone the same way Jesus loved you; you are telling the world that God is real and that He may just love them too.
That’s why Jesus asked the Father: “May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” This is why Jesus prays for us, so the world might see the Father’s love in how we love one another, so they will know the Father loves them too. That’s quite a prayer.
But Jesus isn’t quite yet finished praying for us. He has one more thing to ask the Father and that is this: When Jesus Prays for Us, He prays for Our Reunion “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.” John 17:24-26
I want to make two observations from the conclusion of Jesus’ prayer. And they both have to do with hope. The first is this: Jesus wants us to be with Him forever. Jesus wants us to experience Him in a far greater way than we do right now. Today, we experience a unique union and relationship with Him, but what we experience now is just a shadow of what we will experience in the future.
One day, you will get to see all the glory of Jesus. One day you will see Jesus in the fullness of His divine goodness. You will look upon the face of eternal love. You will know the fullness of His life, His peace, His joy. One day you will know Him completely. This is a day Jesus has been waiting for. It will be a day of celebration at the wedding supper of the Lamb. We will be with Him forever in a relationship of unbreakable and intimate love. One day this prayer will be answered. There is so much more to come. And it will be so far beyond what we can even imagine now. This is our blessed hope.
But there is second aspect of hope Jesus wants us to catch in this prayer and that is this: Jesus wants to make us into people who love like Him. Jesus is not done working for us and in us. He will continue to help us know God so that God’s love for His Son might become a reality for us in our love for one another. And I don’t know about you, but that’s the kind of hope we need today. Because that kind of promise gives us hope that God will make us into the kind of people who will not just love like Jesus but will create the kind of unity among us that will show the world God loves them.
In other words, this last part of Jesus’ prayer means that Jesus Himself promises to live in us and produce in us the kind of love and harmony that exists in the Godhead. Jesus promises to live in us and produce God’s love in us, so that we will produce the very unity He’s asking the Father to create in us. Here’s the good news: He doesn’t leave this unity up to us but asks the Father to let Him live in us so He can love one another through us. And when He loves through us, He will create the very unity that will help the world believe the Father loves them.
Do you understand what that means for us today? It means Jesus Himself will transform us into His beautiful bride by living in us and loving through us. Then as we, this kaleidoscope of mismatched people with different preferences, hobbies, jobs, genders, backgrounds, skin colors, and tastes love one another with His love, we will open a window to heaven, and will awaken a long-dormant hope in the world. For when people see Jesus’ love displayed in a million little ways among His people, they will know that the hope of heaven is real, and they will understand the story of Jesus is true. For they will know that Jesus lives, and that Jesus loves them, for they will see His love in us, and they will want to know our Jesus.
This is why Jesus prays for us on the eve of His crucifixion. So that when He goes to the cross, His sacrifice will not just make a way to heaven but will make a people who will give the world a taste of heaven, as we love one another as He has loved us. So, may Jesus continue to work in us, to make us the answer to His prayer for us. Let’s pray.
Audie and Dave says
I am really glad that you save and publish a copy of the Sunday messages. I had to work last weekend and I still got you hear your messae.
Thank you.