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1. After his last words to his disciples, what did Jesus do (1)? What does “glorify” mean? Why did Jesus want to be glorified (2,3)? How did Jesus glorify God on earth (4,5)? 2. What did Jesus do for his disciples and what was their response (6-8)? What was Jesus first prayer for his disciples (9-12)? 3. What did Jesus want to give to his anxious disciples (13)? Why does the world hate Jesus disciples (14)? What was Jesus second prayer for the disciples (15,16)? 4. What was Jesus third prayer for his disciples (17)? What does it mean to be sanctified by the truth? What did Jesus do for them (18,19)? 5. What was Jesus prayer for those who would believe through his disciples (20,21)? What did Jesus emphasize and why (21a,22b,23a)? What did Jesus want the world to know and how would they know (23)? 6. What else did Jesus pray for all believers (24)? What would Jesus continue to do and for what purpose (25,26)?

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Message

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Thank God again for granting us this new year 2019. As we prepare for 2019 more and more, may we really receive God’s word into our hearts. There are two prayers of Jesus in the gospel story. One is the prayer he taught to his disciples known as the Lord’s prayer, and another is his actual prayer to God written in here John 17 called Jesus’ high priestly prayer. How can we fathom the depth and width of Jesus’ high priestly prayer? As we study this passage with the title, “that all of them may be one”, may we go closer into the heart of Jesus and accept the words of God in Jesus’ prayer. First, Glorify your Son (1-5). Look at verse 1. “After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed, ‘Father, the time has come. Glorify you Son, that you Son may glorify you.” It was the night just before his crucifixion on the very following day. The thought of his death on the cross must have been in his mind. In this situation, his prayer, first of all, was “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” What then does it mean “glorify your Son”? At that time, crucifixion was a symbol of suffering and shame. All those who were crucified left this world in great pain and shame and misery. Jesus was a criminal in the eyes of the world and was condemned to death, but he was innocent in God’s sight. His death, then, should be evidently different. How could God glorify the Son who would die on the cross? He should not die as a victim of the world, being ridiculed and scorned. Also, when he was hanging on the cross, there was the temptation for him to come down from the cross and raze all his enemies with his power in retaliation against them, since he had the ability to do so as the Son of God. That would also not be glorifying to God. Rather, his death in absolute obedience with full trust in and submission to God would be a glorious death. That death would be an atoning death for man’s sins revealing God’s redemptive love for all mankind. Surely Jesus wanted to have such a death as the Son of God. This is the reason Jesus prayed, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you”, which was like, “Let me die a glorious death so that your great love may be revealed to the world.” Look at verse 2. “For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” Jesus said in John 5:21-22, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it. Moreover, the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son.” Each one’s eternal destiny is in the hand of the Son. In this, what an authority has been granted to him! It is so that he might give eternal life to all those God has given him. Here we can think of how he would give eternal life to God’s given people. His authority to give eternal life to them would be obtained through his death and resurrection. It is related to his authority to forgive man’s sins (Lk 5:24). His death was the necessary process for such authority. Then Jesus says in verse 3, “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Those who believe in Christ Jesus who died for our sins for the forgiveness of sin and was raised from the dead come to know God who sent his Son into the world for this purpose. They have a personal relationship with the only true God in Christ Jesus. This is eternal life. Jesus continues in verse 4, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” After helping a Samaritan woman until she was revived to eternal life, Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” God’s will for him was to lose none of all that God had given him (Jn 6:39). Especially he protected and raised his disciples for the future gospel work and thus brought glory to God. Jesus gave this glorious mission report to God as he was going to finish his life on earth so that he might glorify God to the end through his death. Jesus then says in verse 5, “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” Before his death Jesus had this hope of the restoration of his original glory and prayed for it. We see that this prayer was heard. According to Hebrews 12:2, “He for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” And in accordance with Philippians 2:8-11, when Jesus obeyed God unto death, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” In this part we learn how to pray for ourselves in hard and unbearable situations. Sometimes our life situations are really difficult and we are tempted to express defeatism, self-pity, bitterness or a spirit of retaliation and vengeance in anger. Or we want to prove ourselves to be right and others wrong. In doing so, we shame ourselves and cannot bring glory to God. We also need this prayer, “Father, glorify me, that I may glorify you.” We remember how Jesus helped his beloved ones, Mary and Martha, when he heard of the news of their brother’s deadly sickness. He said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified” (Jn 11:4), and then he said later on, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” (Jn 11:25) In the end, the Son Jesus was glorified and they could see the glory of God when their brother Lazarus was raised from the tomb and came out. People can say many things about my life, my family and God’s ministry here. From time to time I hear negative and painful words. They may be true. Sometimes I try to make excuses or retaliate and become ugly. However, at each time I should look toward heaven and pray, “Father, glorify me (simply put, help me) so that I may truly glorify you through my life and God’s ministry here.” Definitely, repentance is a beautiful thing that glorifies God. May we see the glory of God this year in our particular life situations, in each family and in God’s ministry. Second, sanctify them by the truth (6-19). Now Jesus prays for his disciples. Look at verse 6, “I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world.” The point of Jesus’ helping those God gave him was to reveal God the Father so that they might know him which is eternal life. How did he reveal the Father God? It is by giving them the word God gave him. Jesus says continually in verses 7-8, “They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you and they believed that you sent me.” The preciousness of the disciples was that they accepted the word of God and obeyed it. Then they came know that Jesus came from God, who sent him. This was their personal faith. Here is Jesus’ prayer for them in verses 9-12, “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have I is mine. And glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” The disciples were so precious. They were God’s and are God’s. God entrusted them to Jesus. Jesus took care of them and protected them and kept them safe in the vulnerable and hostile world. It required a great effort to protect them from the influence of this world and disciple them and raise them as men of God. Jesus did this while on earth. When they were disciplined and discipled, glory has come to Jesus. This is as Apostle Paul said in Philippians 4:1, “my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown…” Now after Jesus’ departure his disciples would remain in the world by themselves with no one to protect them. At this point Jesus prayed that God might protect them so that they might be one. We see that being one is a spiritual battle. It is possible only through shepherding and discipleship and God’s protection. Jesus prayed, “Holy, Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me— ” What does Jesus mean by “protect them by the power of your name”? God is holy. He said in Leviticus, “Be holy, because I am holy” (11:45; 19:2; 1 Pe 1:15,16). Holy is his name (Lk. 1:49). If the disciples do not have holiness in them, they cannot be Jesus’ disciples anymore. Jesus did not want them to be like the people of this world. The way to become one is by keeping the holiness of God in them as God’s people who are called out of this world. It is notable that the word “world” is written 17 times in John 17. Subsequently, Jesus prayed, “Holy, Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one” and he added, “as we are one.” The disciples being one is through their pure and intimate relationship like the relationship between God the Father and the Son. Here we see clearly the nature of their being one, which is “as we are one.” This kind of expression is repeated in the next part. We will think more of it later. Jesus continues in prayer, “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them” (13). In this world the full measure of Jesus’ joy is possible through deep fellowship with him (Jn 15:11), the joy of growing in Jesus and knowing him better through receiving God’s words and through the life of faith to follow his way of self-denial and personal cross taking being assured of doing the will of God. Without this joy we try to find joy in other things. But only with the joy of Jesus, we can be one. Jesus then says in verses 14-16, “I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.” Here Jesus prayed that God might protect them from the evil one. The evil one is the devil, Satan, who is the prince of this world. The evil one does not want God’s people to be one. He works diligently to divide the people of God so that they may lose strength, be destroyed, and disappear. It is an endless spiritual battle to keep the spirit of oneness among God’s people, that is, the church. As Jesus prayed, we should pray unceasingly to keep oneness among us. The evil one works rampantly seeking an opportunity by any means to attack the spirit of oneness, between parents and children, between shepherds and God’s flock of sheep or among coworkers. That is the reason why we should be vigilant and pray. Then Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” (17-18). Until now Jesus prayed for God’s protection for his disciples. Now Jesus’ prayer is more positive. He prays for God’s sanctifying them. Definitely, when we are sanctified, we can be protected from the evil one more and more. Even Jesus sanctified himself through his obedience to God so that his disciples might be truly sanctified by following his example. Apostle Paul said in Romans 12:2, “Do not confirm to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” An active way to keep holiness, and so oneness, is to be sanctified by the word of God. While on earth Jesus gave them the word God gave him. Jesus said in John 15:3, “You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you.” Now Jesus prays that God may sanctify them by the truth of his word. The word of God sanctifies and transforms us into Christ’s image. Without receiving the word of God newly each time, sanctification cannot continue. Without my own sanctification, it is nonsense to talk about being one. Each of his disciples needs to struggle with God’s words absolutely for each one’s own sanctification and so for oneness of Jesus’ community. Apostle Peter exhorts us in 2 Peter 1:19, “…you do well to pay attention to it (the word of God) until the day dawns and the morning star rises in our hearts.” May God help us to struggle with God’s word until that point so that we may sanctify ourselves and thus strive to build up oneness in God’s community. In this part we learn how to be one as Jesus’ disciples. It is through shepherding and discipleship, pure and intimate relationship, God’s protection from the evil one, having the joy of Jesus and sanctification through his word. Third, that all of them may be one (20-26). Now Jesus says in verses 20 and 21, “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.” In the previous part, we learned how to be one. Now Jesus prays that all of them may be one. Here, “them” are those who will believe in Jesus through the message his disciples would preach. Therefore, they would be the disciples of Jesus’ disciples, and so on. The message would be same throughout generations – the message of the gospel, or the message of the cross. The believers would come to know God the Father who sent his Son into this world to die on the cross for their sins. In this knowledge of and faith in God they would be one. In verse 11 Jesus said, “They may be one as we are one.” Here Jesus said, “all of them may be one just as you are in me and I am in you.” These two expressions are basically the same. The oneness of believers is learning the intimate relationship between God the Father and the Son Jesus who are one in two persons. And Jesus said, “May they also be in us…” There is to be a close relationship among the believers to the point of becoming one. In this world people can be one in various ways, for a certain cause or idea, for mutual benefit, or for the sake of a nation, etc. But the oneness of believers is to be in God the Father and the Son. This is as John said in 1 John 1:3, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with the Son, Jesus Christ.” Then Jesus said in verses 22 and 23, “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.” Jesus has given us the glory of becoming children of God. He wants us to be one as God’s children, saying again, “they may be one as we are one.” The expression “as we are one” is emphasized again after in verse 11. Jesus had said, “just as you are in me and I am in you” and “may they also be in us” in verse 21. This kind of expression is written 5 times in this part. Now Jesus says, “I in them and you in me.” We know that this is related to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It is true that our God is the only true God, one God in three persons. God gave all authority to the Son, the Son obeyed God unto death, and the Spirit reveals the glory of the Son Jesus. This is the relationship of the three persons who are one God. This is the perfect example of oneness. The relationship is intimate and very close until they are one. Now because of the dwelling of the Holy Spirit, that is the Spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God, believers can be one as one unity. The Spirit’s role is to unite God’s people and make them one. So Paul said in Ephesians 4:3, “Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit among you…” The more we have the Spirit, the more we can be brought to oneness. It can be one reason that Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.” We can think more of being one. It is notable that the first appearance of the word “one is in Genesis 2:24, “they become one flesh.” As a husband and a wife get along together, particularly a believing husband and a believing wife, they grow in oneness, even growing in similarity in their appearance. Their oneness is the result of a close relationship. This relationship between a husband and a wife in a family is the model of the church. So, Paul wrote in Ephesians 5:31-32, “‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” When a husband and a wife live together in one heart and mind and spirit, they resemble each other. In the same way a person will resemble Christ as he lives with Christ more and more, and closer and closer. This oneness with results in oneness with others. In other words, being one with others stems from being one with Christ. And oneness with other believers should begin with the nearest one, the one God put near me, and one after another. Some people are friendly, and some are not. It could be a matter of character. However, more fundamentally, friendliness is a function of each one’s relationship with Christ. When I am transformed and grow in Christ’s image, I can be more friendly to others to be one. Superficial relationships can be broken at any time. Shallow Christians can be ready to be enemies. God wants us to have a close and intimate fellowship among his people to the point of being one through each believer being one with Christ. This is Jesus’ amazing prayer for us, which is to be fulfilled among the community of God. Jesus says in verse 23b, “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” This oneness is complete unity as the army of God that moves with one doctrine, one heart and one spirit under one direction. In this way they would be the salt of the earth and the light of the world, and so the world would come to know the love of God through them that he sacrificed his One and Only Son because of his love for sinners in this world. Then Jesus says in verses 24, “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.” What a hope of glory! Finally, Jesus prays in verses 25 and 26, “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.” Jesus’ ultimate prayer was that the whole world would come to know God the Father and all be in the love of God through Christ Jesus and share the glory of God in his eternal kingdom May God help us to sanctify ourselves with the truth of God’s word so that each may be one with Christ and so be one with one another so that each one’s life may glorify God and this community of God may reveal his glory to this world.

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