The Most Valuable Prayer
John 17:1-5
Rev. Juvenal Cervantes, Pastor
St. John’s United Church of Christ, Greeley, Colorado
June 6, 2021
John 17:1-5
After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour 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 know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing 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.
INTRODUCTION
Prayer is an important part of the Christian life. Maybe you can relate to the Christian who prayed this prayer. “Lord, so far today, I’ve done all right. I haven’t lost my temper, been greedy, grumpy, nasty, selfish, or mean. I’m glad about that. But in a few minutes, Lord, I’m going to get out of bed, and from then on, I’m really going to need your help. Amen.”
You can learn a lot about a person by listening to them pray. If you could follow me around for a week, and listen to my prayers, you would learn a lot about me. You would see my heart.
We have that amazing opportunity in this chapter, because we are going to eavesdrop of one of the prayers of Jesus. Jesus prayed a lot.
In Luke 6 we read where Jesus prayed all night. In Mark 1:35 we learn that Jesus got up a great while before sunrise to pray, and He was still praying when the disciples found him later in the morning. But we don’t know the content of those prayers.
But here in John 17, we read the longest and most beautiful prayer recorded from the lips of Jesus. We can learn a lot about the character of Jesus in this prayer.
Some Bible teachers call this prayer the REAL Lord’s Prayer. In Luke 11 the disciples asked Jesus, “Lord, teach us to pray.”
He gave them a model prayer, “Our Father who is Heaven…” But it’s never called the “Lord’s Prayer” in the Bible, that’s just a name someone gave it. Actually, this model prayer wasn’t a prayer that Jesus could have prayed. He said, “Forgive us our sins and we forgive those who sin against us.” Jesus was sinless. It’s a great model prayer, so John 17 should be called the real Lord’s Prayer.
This prayer is easily divided into three sections. First, in the first five verses, Jesus prayed for himself to be glorified. In the next fourteen verses Jesus prayed for His disciples to be fortified and sanctified. In the final seven verses Jesus prayed for all believers to be unified.
Today, we’re reflecting on the first five verses.
I. JESUS PRAYED THAT HE WOULD BE GLORIFIED.
Jesus prayed for Himself. Some people think it is selfish to pray for yourself. This wasn’t a selfish prayer; it was a personal prayer. And I pray for myself all the time. Every Sunday before I walk into this room I get alone with God and pray that He will fill me with His Holy Spirit and that He would anoint my mind and my lips to share His Word. And when He was praying for Himself, He was praying for His Father to be glorified.
In John 17:1 He prayed, “Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you.” Jesus used the words glory or glorify five times in these first five verses. And in the prayer, He reveals two ways in which He will glorify the Father.
A. By giving us eternal life.
The concept of eternal life is one of the most important truths in the New Testament. It occurs 44 times. In Romans 6:23, the Bible says, “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
That’s the ultimate bad news/good news verse. We’re all sinners and the paycheck we earn is death, not physical death, but eternal separation from God. But the good news is that your loving Creator offers you a gift—and you can’t earn a gift. The gift is eternal life, and if is found in Jesus Christ. You can choose to take the paycheck of death or accept the gift of eternal life.
But there’s much confusion about WHAT eternal life really is. If I asked you to write down the definition of eternal life, we would get a lot of different answers. Many of them would say something like “Eternal life is living forever with God.” That’s close, but not the best definition.
We don’t have to wonder about it because Jesus gives us the perfect definition in John 17:3. He said, “This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and the one you have sent—Jesus Christ.” That’s one of the most important verses in the Bible. If you write in your Bible, underline, highlight and circle that verse. If you’re using the Bible app, you can tap that verse twice and a pop-up appears from the bottom of the screen and you can highlight it.
Religion is boring. Many sermons are boring. We’ve all listened to boring sermons that seem to go on forever. When I was a kid I was amazed how long a thirty-minute sermon seemed compared to thirty-minute episode of Gilligan’s Island.
A man in the oil and gas business whose preacher preached long, boring sermons, said one Sunday, “Son, if I’m drilling for oil and don’t find oil after thirty minutes, I stop boring.”
Religion is boring. But knowing Jesus Christ is the most exciting experience that you’ll ever have in this life.
Eternal life is knowing God and knowing Jesus. Do you know Jesus?
Some of you know Jesus the same way you know Abraham Lincoln. You know him as an historical character, someone who lived and died and did great things.
Let me bring it up to the present. I have a personal relationship with my wife. I know her. She knows me. We relate to one another on a daily basis. We talk together and share life. But on the other hand, I don’t know Tiger Woods. I’ve watched him play golf on television. I heard about his car accident a few weeks ago in Palos Verdes, California. I have never even seen him play in person. I don’t have a personal relationship with him.
So which one is it for you? Can you honestly say you have the kind of relationship with God that you have with someone on earth you relate to on a daily basis? Or do you feel Jesus Christ is some superstar somewhere that, “Oh it would be nice!” but you don’t really know him. Well my friend, you can know him—and that’s eternal life.
The second way Jesus glorified His Father was by
B. By completing His work.
Jesus was almost finished. He said, “Father, the hour is at hand.” He wasn’t referring to sixty minutes. He knew the time for Him to go to the cross was nearing. In verse 4, Jesus prayed, “I have glorified you on the earth by completing the work you gave me to do.”
The word “glory” is an important word in the Bible. It is found over 350 times. The root of the word has to do with brilliant light. When the glory of the Lord visibly filled the tabernacle, the rabbis called it the Shekinah. And you see this meaning when Jesus was born and the angels appeared to the shepherds. The Bible says, “The glory of the Lord SHONE round about them.”
Jesus said He had shared this glory with the Father from the beginning. But for the thirty years in which Jesus walked as a man, it was if that glory was hidden. You can think of it in these three thoughts.
First, His glory was covered when he lived in the flesh. There’s a great Christmas song that says, “Veiled in flesh the Godhead see.”
Second, His glory was uncovered in His miracles. It was as if a little flash of glory was released when Jesus performed a miracle. Do you remember the women crawling in a crowd to just touch the hem of his garment? There is an impressive painting by Daniel Cariola in the chapel at Magdal on the Sea of Galilee. There are no faces, just feet and one hand reaching out. At the point of the miracle the artist added a spark of power. Jesus stopped and asked, “Who touched me?” Peter said, “Lord, you’re in a crowd, everyone is touching you.” Jesus said, “No I felt power, virtue, go out of me.” And the best example of this was at the Transfiguration of Jesus.
HE took Peter, James, and John with him up to a mountain and suddenly the veil of his flesh was removed and HE began to glow and shine: His Divine glory was uncovered.
And finally, His glory was recovered when He returned to Heaven. So, when you see Jesus, what are you expecting? Do you imagine him as regular guy with long brown hair, a beard, and olive skin? That’s the wrong image. Jesus has been glorified.
For instance, the Apostle John was close to Jesus. They were literally bosom buddies at the Last Supper. They probably skipped stones across the Sea of Galilee. But in Revelation 1, John has a vision where he meets the glorified Christ. He didn’t recognize him because the hair and face of Jesus was glowing white, and His eyes were like burning fire. John fell down on the ground out of fright. But Jesus reached out for him and said, “Don’t be afraid, John, it’s me.”
If you could glimpse into Heaven now, you would see the brilliance of the glorified Christ.
The writer of Hebrews describes Jesus in these terms. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” (Hebrews 1:3) So, Jesus prayed that He would be glorified. And that prayer has been answered.
Does the glorified Christ live in your heart? Have you accessed your Lord to thank Him for your life here and the gift of eternal life forevermore? Have you call upon Him to give you peace, assurance, and hope today? Can you sing with the hymnwriter, “What a Friend we Have in Jesus?”