A few moments ago, we had a time of prayer together. And when we think about going to God in prayer, it is worth asking what usually makes up the content of those prayers.
Many times, we are praying for sickness that is being faced either by us or by someone we know. And I believe that is biblical and good. James tells us that if any are sick, weak, or afflicted, they are to call upon the elders and have them pray. So there is certainly a place to pray for sickness.
We also look at the conflict in the world around us. We see the conflict in politics, the conflict among nations, the conflict in society, the battles going on between different groups, parties, and races, and we pray that God would bring unity, restoration, and healing.
Then we face problems in life. We face financial burdens, and we do not always know how we are going to fix them. We face physical burdens. We face relationship issues. We all know what it is like to have a broken relationship and not know how to make it well. And we bring these things to God—or at least I hope we do—because we know that God is the only One who can truly change the situation as it stands.
But for a moment, I want us to think about what we are really looking for God to do when we bring these things to Him.
Now, that may sound like a foolish thing to ask. If someone is sick, we want God to make them better. And I say amen to that. If I am sick, I hope you will pray that God will make me better. When we face relationship issues, of course we want God to mend what is broken, restore joy, and restore unity. We want God to fix the trials in our nation and across the world so there can be peace, love, and safety.
We want to see God do these things.
But have you considered that if this is all we are praying for, then once that problem gets fixed, we will simply move on to the next problem?
I am sick, so I ask God to make me better. But three months from now, I will most likely get sick again. We can ask God to end wars, but when that war ends, another one will be brewing somewhere else in the world. We can ask God to send the money, and I thank God that sometimes He does send the money and pay the bills. But then give it another six months, and here comes another bill. Here comes another problem. Here comes another relationship struggle.
All I am saying is that if our prayers stop at getting external outcomes, then we are never going to be satisfied in our prayer life. We may be thankful for the answer to prayer, but another trial is going to come. Another burden is going to rise up. And when that becomes the focus, we quickly forget about the answered prayer from yesterday.
So the question we need to seriously consider is this: what are we praying for when we go to God in prayer?
I do not think the content of our prayer lists is the issue. But may I say that sometimes the desires of our prayer lists fall short of what they could be.
And I wonder what it would look like if we compared our prayer lists with the prayer list of Jesus Christ. What would it look like if we compared the desires of our hearts in prayer to the desire of Jesus’ heart in prayer?
Jesus’ Prayer for Glory
As we come to John 17, we get a very special glimpse into a private prayer that Jesus prayed to the Father. In John 17, we get to hear the very words of Jesus’ prayer as He goes to the Father, seeking the Father’s will and the Father’s work.
Jesus is asking the Father to do specific things, but I am going to be honest and say that what Jesus is praying for here does not always look like what I am praying for.
Jesus is going to pray for a lot of different things throughout this chapter, and we will look at those things in their place. But every single thing He prays comes back to one primary request:
God, let Your glory be seen.
This entire chapter is a prayer for glory. It is a prayer for God’s glory to be visible, for His glory to be experienced, and for His glory to be shared. As Jesus’ earthly life came to a close, He was looking for God to do one thing: glorify Him.
And I wonder how often we pray, “God, glorify Your name.”
In the circumstances of my life, God, I want You to take the sickness away. But what if You do not? What if instead my prayer became, “God, use this sickness to glorify Your name. I do not know how. I do not know what that looks like. But Lord, use this sickness to glorify You and to make You look big.”
Use this bill that I do not know how to pay to make You look big and wonderful and glorious. Use this broken relationship to make Your perfection and Your wholeness more clear.
That is the way Jesus is praying in John 17.
In order to appreciate this, we first have to answer an important question: what is the glory of God? What does it mean to glorify God?
Because if we are going to pray for God’s glory, we need to understand what God’s glory is.
What Is the Glory of God?
The glory of God is the manifestation—the making clear—of His character and His wonderful acts. To glorify God means that His person, His character, His power, and His being are clearly seen in all of their perfection, wonder, and splendor.
We need to understand something very fundamental. Everything you experience in this world, in all of its beauty, wonder, and pleasure, was created to show you how much more glorious God is.
When you behold the beauty of nature, you are getting a little taste of how wonderful God is. When you experience the pleasure of eating good food, lying in a comfortable bed, getting a good night’s sleep, enjoying fellowship with another person, enjoying the beauty of marriage, and all the gifts that God has placed in this world, these things are given by God to show us how great He is.
And if we could understand that in the light of God’s glory all these things pale in comparison, then we would desire more of God’s glory.
There is not a single thing in this world that you enjoy or experience that can measure up to how wonderful God is. So when we pray that God’s glory would be seen, or that God would be glorified, we are praying that His beauty, His perfection, His power, and everything wonderful about Him would be made plain and visible.
That is exactly what Jesus is praying in John 17. He has one prayer that comes through in several different ways:
God, glorify Your name in all things.
If you leave with one thing, I want it to be this: our number one desire should be the glory of God.
That is what we live for. The Westminster Shorter Catechism begins with the question, “What is the chief end of man?” And the answer is, “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”
The whole reason we exist is to see the glory of God, taste the glory of God, and share the glory of God. That is the whole reason we were created.
So if you leave with one thing, let it be this: we should share Jesus’ desire to see God’s glory clearly above all else.
Jesus Prays for Himself
In John 17, Jesus is praying for two primary groups. First, He prays for Himself.
John 17:1 says, “These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come.”
Those are chilling words.
All throughout the Gospels, Jesus says again and again, “My hour is not yet come.” He says it repeatedly, telling His disciples and others that something is coming—something big, something important—but it is not here yet.
Then in John 17, He speaks to the Father and says, “The hour is come.”
The hour for what?
It is the hour of His crucifixion.
This is going to be the most difficult moment of Jesus’ human existence. He is going to feel pain. He is going to feel betrayal. He is going to suffer emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally. In every way that a person can suffer, Jesus is going to suffer.
And He says, “Father, that time has come. The time of My suffering, the time of My sacrifice on the cross, is here.”
Now, most of us, if we knew that a moment of this kind of suffering was coming upon us, would pray, “God, stop it. If it be Your will, stop it. Make it stop. Make it go away. And if I have to go through it, make it painless. Help me not to feel it. Help me not to suffer.”
But what does Jesus pray?
He says, “Father, the hour of My suffering has come. Glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.”
Jesus is asking that in this moment of suffering and death, the glory of His divinity would be made known. He is asking the Father, “Let My glory be seen.”
But He does not ask this for His own sake alone. He says, “Let My glory be seen, so that I may glorify You.”
Jesus knew what the cross would cost Him. He knew it would be painful. He knew the hurt of betrayal. He knew the mocking, the spitting, the shame, the nails, and the wrath. He knew the weight of what was coming, and yes, He would sweat drops of blood because He felt that weight.
But in the face of His greatest suffering, He said, “Father, glorify Me so that I might glorify You.”
What an example this is to us of where our hearts should lie and how we should pray.
Jesus says, “Father, glorify Your name through Me.”
Eternal Life Is Knowing God
John 17:2–3 says, “As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
That is important. Jesus is telling us what eternal life is. He is telling us the substance of eternal life.
Eternal life is not merely endless pleasure. Eternal life is not simply existing forever. The substance and beauty of eternal life is that we spend eternity experiencing the very glory of God.
Jesus says, “In this moment, I have one request: that Your glory would be seen through Me, so that those You have given Me might inherit eternal life and see Your glory through My suffering.”
Can I ask what would happen if we prayed like that?
“God, let Your glory be seen in my suffering so that others might see Your glory and have eternal life.”
Jesus prayed that in His death, God’s glory would be seen. But He also makes clear that during the life He lived, He had already made God’s glory known.
John 17:4 says, “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”
While Jesus lived, not for one moment did He live for His own pleasure. Now, did He enjoy pleasant things along the way? Yes. He went to parties and weddings. He ate good food. He experienced some of the pleasures of this life.
But He never once lived for Himself.
He says, “Father, throughout My entire life, I have been living for Your glory. I have been living for Your name to be known. I have been living so that others might see You. And now My prayer is that in this moment, Your glory would be seen in My death just as it was in My life.”
Then He prays that He would join the Father once again in glory.
John 17:5 says, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”
Jesus is praying that God would glorify His name through His death, as He had glorified it in His life. But Jesus’ ultimate desire is that He would return to partake once again in the glory that was His before the foundation of the world.
Jesus had tasted eternal glory. He had lived eternally in the presence of the Father. And He is saying, “Father, let Me come back to that place of glory. I have lived in this world. I have seen what there is here. I have tasted of it. And the glory that is in eternity with You cannot compare to the glory down here. It is not the same. I am ready to come back to You and see Your glory face to face once again.”
In this prayer, Jesus is setting an example for us.
He is saying, “Let the glory of God be your heart’s greatest desire. Live your life so that God’s glory might be seen in you. Even in the suffering that you go through, even as you breathe your last breath, let that breath bring about the glory of God.”
Ultimately, the desire of our hearts should be to taste and see the glory of God.
Jesus could not wait to get back to His Father and enjoy eternal glory. And if Jesus had been in both places and said, “I would rather be there,” how much more should we desire to let the things of this world go so that we might experience the glories of God in eternity?
How much more should we long to taste the glories of God and to see His glory in its eternal splendor?
We should stop being satisfied with the secondary things of this world. We should stop being satisfied with shadows of glory and start longing for the eternal glory to which nothing in this world can begin to measure.
God’s glory should be the greatest desire of our hearts because that was the desire of Jesus’ heart.
Jesus Prays for His People
After Jesus prays for Himself, He begins to pray for His people.
John 17:6–10 says, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me. I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”
Jesus, after praying that God’s glory would be seen and experienced in Him, turns His attention to those whom the Father has given Him out of the world.
And by the way, if you are in Jesus Christ, you have been given to the Son by the Father. You are a gift to the Son from the heavenly Father.
That is what Jesus is saying. “Father, You have given Me some out of the world.”
Now, in the immediate context, He is speaking of the disciples, but later in the chapter this expands to include all believers. Jesus begins to pray for those the Father has given Him, and He says, “I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world. I am praying for those You have given Me.”
And His prayer, once again, is that they would glorify Him.
Jesus was not concerned about you having your best life now. Jesus was not praying that you would simply stay healthy, wealthy, and well. Jesus’ prayer for you, as He got ready to return to the Father, was that you would be an instrument of His glory.
That is what He says in verse 10: “I am glorified in them.”
He is saying, “I have been made glorious through them, and My prayer is that they will continue to glorify Me in the world.”
And He wants this glory to be seen in three specific ways.
Jesus Prays That We Would Be Sanctified
First, Jesus prays that His people would be sanctified so they might show God’s glory.
John 17:11–19 says, “And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.”
Jesus is praying for His disciples, but notice what He prays.
He says, “Father, We are sending them into the world that hates them. We are sending them out as sheep among wolves. We are sending them into conflict and adversity. We are sending them into a sin-cursed world full of suffering.”
And then He says, “Do not take them out of it.”
That should make us stop.
Do not take them out of the suffering. Do not take them out of the adversity. Do not remove them from the hatred. Leave them in it.
But then He prays, “Keep them through it.”
Guard them. Protect them. Guide them through this world of woe. Give them direction and clarity. Help them know what to do and where to go. Give them the strength to stand.
And then He says, “Sanctify them.” Give them Your Word, Your wisdom, and Your understanding so they might live like Me.
Now, why on earth would Christ pray this? Why would He not pray, “Father, get them out of here and bring them to heaven so that we can live in perfect joy for eternity”?
Why would He pray that God would leave them in the world and help them endure it?
So that the glory of God might be seen through us.
There are depths of God’s glory that cannot be known when everything is going right in your life. There is glory that cannot be seen and experienced when we never have to walk through difficulty. There is grace that will never be known if we do not have to walk through the experiences of this life.
It may not feel like that right now. It may feel useless. It may feel wasted. It may feel lonely and painful.
But understand this: it is not wasted.
It is not wasted time. It is not wasted pain. God is using it to glorify His name.
In His wisdom, He has brought us to where we are, not because He wants to hurt us and not because He does not care about us, but because He wants us to experience His glory in deeper ways than we can when life is perfect.
Be sure of this: God is using your suffering for His glory, and He is sanctifying you through the process of living in this world.
Jesus Prays That We Would Be Unified
Jesus also wants His glory to be seen through our unity.
John 17:20–23 says, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.”
One of the greatest vehicles God uses to make His glory known is the unity of His church.
When we come together in a spirit of love, care, and willingness to set our differences aside so that the glory of God might be seen, we begin to experience God’s glory in new and unique ways.
I do not have to tell you this: God is not glorified when the church is arguing with itself.
God is not glorified when we have seventy-five different denominations splitting hairs over old man-made traditions. God is not glorified when we cannot sit together in church on Sunday morning because someone thinks something, says something, does something, or wears something that we do not like.
If we want God’s glory to be seen, not only by the church but by the world, then we need to hear what Jesus prayed. He prayed for our unity so that the world might know that the Father sent Him and that the Father has loved His people.
The unity of the body is a tool God uses to show His glory both to the church and to the world.
Jesus prayed, “Father, as You send them into the world, do not only sanctify them as individuals. Unify them as a body. Let them experience the camaraderie, friendship, fellowship, and love that flows from You.”
And all of this is based on the fact that the Father, Son, and Spirit have been unified with one another throughout all eternity.
When we come together in unity, we experience the Trinitarian love of God in a way that nothing else accomplishes.
Jesus prays that we would be sanctified. He prays that we would be unified.
But lastly, He prays that we would be glorified.
Jesus Prays That We Would Be Glorified
John 17:24–26 says, “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
As Jesus brings this prayer to a close, He says, “Father, keep them in the world. Guard them. Sanctify them. Give them a spirit of unity. But at the end of it all, let them come and be where I am.”
And where is that?
In heaven.
Jesus says, “Let them come and experience My eternal glory.”
Just three of the disciples got to see a glimpse of it for a moment on the Mount of Transfiguration, and it changed their lives. But here, Jesus is praying that all His people would come and behold His glory.
And because Jesus has prayed it, the Father will give it.
That means Jesus has reserved a place in eternity for His people through His sacrifice, so that one day all the shadows of glory are going to pass away, and we are going to step into the eternal glory of God.
When that day comes, you will see Jesus as He is. You will see the Father in all His glory. The Bible says we will not even need the sun, because the light of Christ’s glory will fill the new creation.
That is what we are living for. That is what we are moving toward.
This world is not our home. We are just passing through, as the old song says. And one of these days, we are going to see His glory unhindered, in all its splendor.
And when we do, it will make every moment of this life worth it.
What Would Your Life Look Like?
I close with a few questions.
What would your life look like if God’s glory became your highest priority?
Because you are a sinner like me, I feel pretty certain that God’s glory is probably not always your highest priority right now. Your situation may be. Your projects may be. Your hobbies may be. Your family may be. Something else may be sitting in that highest place.
But what would your life look like today if God’s glory was your highest priority?
Would you worship differently?
Would you pray differently?
Would you talk differently?
Would you live differently?
My challenge to you is this: let your life be Jesus’ answered prayer.
This week, live your life for the glory of God in everything you face, in everything you do, and in everything you say.
Leave a comment