Praying and Sending...

This week, we are looking at a prayer that Jesus engaged in during the final conversation with His closest followers before His death. Yesterday, we saw Jesus pray that so that God the Father would continue to receive the maximum amount of glory, Jesus is asking that He would receive the glory that He had always had for all eternity, but that He had willingly set aside in order to enter into humanity on a rescue mission for humanity. Today, we will see Jesus shift the focus of His prayer off of Himself and onto His closest followers, beginning in verse 6:

"I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. "Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me. "I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them. "I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.

Jesus engages God the Father in prayer for His closest followers, whom were given to Jesus by God the Father from humanity. His closest followers, Jesus explains, were given to Jesus by God and persisted in following God and the word of God as communicated through Jesus. And as they had followed Jesus for the past three years, they had arrived at the place where they recognized that Jesus was who He said that He was. His closest followers had come to the place where they recognized that Jesus was God in a bod who had entered into humanity.

Now when Jesus uses the word believe here, this word is the same word that is also translated trust in our English Bibles. This word literally means to entrust oneself with complete confidence in someone or something. And that is what His closest followers had done; they had placed their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel.

And because of how His closest followers recognized and responding to God’s activity in their lives through Jesus, Jesus intercedes in prayer for them. Jesus makes it clear here that His prayer is for their behalf and not on behalf of the world. When Jesus refers to the world here, He is not referring to the physical planet. The world here refers to everything in the world system that is hostile to God and that sets itself up in opposition to Him and His kingdom.

Jesus recognized that the world that is opposed to God and the Kingdom of God will be opposed to His closest followers. And because His closest followers are also intimately connected with God the Father, because all that is Jesus is God’s and God had given His closest followers to Him, Jesus prays that, as He leaves the world, that God the Father would keep them in His name. The word keep literally means to persist in something.

Jesus here is praying that God the Father would keep the disciples connected in relationship with Him and one another after He leaves the earth. Jesus is praying that the disciples would experience the unity and connection with Jesus and one another that Jesus has with God the Father and the Holy Spirit as members of the Trinity. And as Jesus continues, we see Him continue to focus His prayer on His closest followers, beginning in verse 12:

 "While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled. "But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. "I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. "As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

Now, imagine yourself as one of the disciples listening to Jesus as He prays to God the Father. Place yourself in their shoes. What would you be thinking? How would you be feeling? What questions would be running through your mind? You hear Jesus say that He had been keeping you unharmed and undisturbed from those who are hostile to God and His kingdom. You hear Jesus say that He had been carefully protecting you from those who are hostile to God His kingdom.

Your hear Jesus say that He is praying these words in your presence so that He could bring to completion a state of gladness that you have already begun to experience in your life. You hear Jesus say that He recognizes that His message and teachings that He received from God the Father has resulted in those who are opposed to God and His kingdom hating them. And the world will hate them because they are not opposed to God, just as Jesus was not opposed to God.

And after saying all of that, you hear Jesus pray and say that He is not asking God to take them out of the world, but to keep them from Satan and His servants.  Now imagine yourself as one of the disciples. Jesus has just told you that He is going out of the world and to God the Father. And then Jesus prays that He does not want you to leave the world but to stay? What would you be thinking? How would you be feeling?

Remember, the disciples, at this point in the story, do not know how this story is going to end. They are not reading the story thousands of years later. Instead, they are in the middle of the story. So, how would you respond?

If that is not enough, then you hear Jesus pray “sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth”. The word sanctify literally means to include something or someone in the inner circle of what is holy. The truth, Jesus explains, is the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel that He has been proclaiming. But how can you as a disciple be in the inner circle of the truth of the word of God if Jesus, who was the one proclaiming the word of God, is leaving?

How can you be on the insider if the insider, who got you on the inside, is leaving? And then hear Jesus say that as He went into the world that was opposed to His message and teachings, that He is sending you into that same world that was opposed to His message and teachings? Sure Jesus says that He is going to include Himself in the inner circle of what is holy, so that the disciples could experience that state as well, but how can that be if Jesus is leaving?

You see, Jesus wanted His closest followers to clearly understand that His prayer for them was that God the Father would protect them as He sent them on mission to proclaim the truth about the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel to the world.

Friday, we will see Jesus shift the focus of His prayer in a most unexpected way…