Wednesday in the Word...John 17:6-19...ZOOM!!!!

The above picture is our first ZOOM prayer meeting.  It is a learning curve for many of us but I am thankful for my online masters class that makes me participate through this medium.  Technology can send us down a wrong path if not monitored well but it can also be used to keep us accountable to God as we involve others in our Christian life even when we can't be physically with one another.  May this pass soon because I have a lot of hugs pent up for my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Today's Wednesday in the Word covers John chapter 17 and verses 6 through 19.  This chapter I call the "real" Lord's prayer.  In Matthew and Luke, Jesus teaches His disciples how to pray with the "Our Father, who art in heaven..." but this time Jesus is actually personally praying to His Father.  It has three sections.  The first we covered last Wednesday as Jesus prays for Himself.  Today we will look at Jesus praying for His disciples and next Wednesday we will finish with Jesus praying for all believers.  

v.6-8 - "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."

This section takes us back to Jesus standing in Peter's fishing boat.  Peter falls down in humility and Jesus raises him back up with a commitment from Himself to His disciples to make them fishers of men.  Jesus would put in the time and disciple them.  He would include them in His everyday life and teach them again and properly the words of God.  

Jesus, being God, can pray this prayer in light of His disciples' future actions.  They will keep the word.  They will die for the faith and not recant that Jesus rose from the dead.  The disciples will not take credit for anything but always point people to Jesus, the One who came from God to show us God.  They would be filled with the Holy Spirit to start the fulfillment of the Great Commission.  Jesus is praying "mission accomplished."  After 3 years from "I will make you fishers of men," Jesus says to His disciples, "Go and make disciples."

v.9, 10 - "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."

Jesus is getting ready to ask but first He makes mention again that these disciples have been given to Him by the Father.  They are different than those who are of the world.  These actually were taken from the world and given to Jesus to be His disciples.  The disciples of Jesus come out of the world by the Father's sovereign action of giving them to His Son.  These disciples carry within themselves the glory of Jesus.  Their words and actions will point to Him.  

Think of the incident of Peter and John after the resurrection and ascension of Christ and the filling of the Holy Spirit in the temple area.  They are in the temple complex and a lame man begs for some help and Peter says, "I don't have silver or gold, but what I have, I give you:  In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!"  It is no longer important who is at the head of the line or on Jesus' right of left but all focus of these disciples is on continuing to glorify their risen Lord!

v.11, 12 - "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.  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."

Jesus is praying as if the event of the cross, the resurrection, the empty grave, and the ascension have already happened.  God doesn't have time like we do.  He has spoken so what He has said will happen as if it has happened.  The Scripture, the word of God, will be fulfilled because it has come from God.

Jesus prays for the unity of the disciples.  They would work as a unit like the Father and the Son.  They would be protected by the Father as He had protected them.  What is being protected?  I think the key is in the admission that one is not protected, namely Judas Iscariot, the son of perdition, who would perish while the others are protected.  Perdition means, "a state of eternal punishment and damnation into which a sinful and unpenitent person passes after death."  The protection is upon our salvation.  The name of Jesus upon us is protected as children of God to be restored to Him in our own resurrection mirroring His.

Did Jesus fail with Judas Iscariot?  We see by this verse that the answer is "no."  God's plan laid out ahead of time in our eyes included a betrayal of the Messiah by one of His own.  Jesus was obedient to the plan to bring into the mix of the disciples the one who would betray Him.  He would provide for Judas.  Judas would benefit greatly from being in the midst of Jesus but not be one of the ones who was protected.  He would be one who called Jesus "Lord" but would receive back the response because God knows the heart, "I never knew you!"

This is a hard concept to grasp but this is where we need to realize that Jesus is God and we are not.  There are things He knows that we do not know.  He is the creator of the plan and He decides how it unfolds.  We are His creations and our part is to be obedient and submissive to what He says.  There are those who are protected and there are those who will perish.  Not all will be saved.  Jesus said, "Enter through the narrow gate.  For the gate is wide and the road is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who go through it.  How narrow is the gate and difficult the road that leads to life, and few find it." (Matthew 7:13-14 CSB) My command to follow is to respond to His call and then to report His words to others.  He has done and does all the rest.  I can't do what He can do and I have to leave it at that.

v.13-16 - "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."

The message of Jesus is going out to the world so that they may have the joy of the Lord.  The disciples have been given the words of God but the response back will be hate.  Those of the world will not accept the words of God or those who bring those words.  The solution is not to stop giving out God's words but rather to keep doing it as the evil one attacks.  The evil one will pull everything out of his arsenal to see God's children not step out with His word.  

I can hear the "other" prayer here.  "And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."  As Jesus was blasted by Satan and His devices but kept true to God's will, so should we who are not of this world.  In the midst of rejection, may we know that Jesus is praying for our protection and encouragement to keep going on with the Great Commission.  The answer is not to leave or join the other team.  The answer is to keep proclaiming His words.

v.17-19 - "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." 

May we so identify with Christ that just like God sent Jesus into this world with the gospel message, so He is sending us to do the same.  Jesus was sanctified to do this.  He was set apart for a specific purpose.  Where do we learn of this of Jesus and of those who follow after Him?  We learn it from God's words.  The words of God are to be essential to being set apart for His glory.  Truth is God's words.  Through His words given to us, we grow in our obedience to His will and why we are here.

Jesus set Himself aside for a specific purpose, namely the cross and the empty tomb, so that we would be justified, sanctified, and eventually glorified.  "For their sakes..." really shows us how much He loves us.  And one last note today would be to think about Jesus praying for His disciples and not only knowing what was ahead of Him but ahead of them too.  He would know that they would suffer horrific deaths but not give up His name.  He must have been feeling it as He would for any of His children who take one for the team.

Pastor Adam