King Jesus Prays for Us

Preached at Northwest Yearly Meeting (annual conference of NW Evangelical Quakers)

July 22, 2012

John 17

During this whole Yearly Meeting, we want to let Jesus speak to us.  And one of the ways we will invite Jesus to speak is to overhear and let into our hearts what Jesus prayed in the Gospel of John.  Jesus prayed for each and all of us, and this is the same prayer Jesus is praying for us right now.  As Hebrews 4:12-16 says:

The word of God—and this is the same “word” applied to Jesus in John 1 and the word spoken on God’s behalf by the prophets and apostles—lays our hearts bare, sorts out our motivations and history, and judges our intentions and thoughts.  We are naked before God, stripped completely bare.

This is so important.  How many times do we think we have hidden something from God?  How often do we act out of thoughts and intentions we don’t even understand.  But Jesus sorts them out and introduces them to us.

So, because the person who makes atonement for us is Jesus, God’s son, who sympathizes with our human weaknesses, who has in every respect been tempted or tested as we are yet who has made no mistakes, hurt no one, but instead has hit the mark, stayed in God’s will, let’s hold fast to what we have embraced as truth. Let us therefore come near the throne of grace confidently, boldly, openly, frankly, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

I remember the first time I read Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I found his brand of humor very entertaining and loved his imagination that turned things inside out.  Maybe some of you have read this, also. When I was thinking about what to say about prayer, for some reason Hitchhiker’s Guide came to mind.  Do any of you remember what the Guide has inscribed on its cover?  DON’T PANIC in large friendly letters. 

That’s a part of what Jesus came to tell us and said indirectly to his disciples in his prayer for them recorded in John 17.

Here’s what Jesus prayed for us:

Father, it’s time.  Let’s celebrate each other—you lift me up and I will lift you up.  You have given me the authority to do as I please with all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given to me.  And this is what eternal life is:  to be intimate with you, the only true God and with me, Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.  I lifted you up and celebrated you on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. So now, Father, lift me up in your own presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.

I have made your essential self visible to those whom you gave me from this world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept watch on and held onto your word. Now they are intimately aware that everything you have given me is from you; for the spoken words you gave to me I have given to them and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me.

I am asking on their behalf—not for the whole world, but for those you have given me because they are yours.  Everyone who is mine is yours, and everyone who is yours is mine.  I have been lifted up, celebrated, glorified in them.  And now I am no longer physically present in this world because I am coming to you, but they are still here.  Holy Father, protect them in your essential self, in your character, in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one—not divided by dissension but united in will and spirit.

While I was on earth physically, I guarded them and kept them from getting lost, except for Judas.  I am coming to you now, and I am asking you while I am here so that they may be filled up with my gladness and joy. I have given them your word. Make them clean and pure through the accurate understanding of you and themselves.  Your word provides both.  For their sakes, I also make myself clean and pure, so that they may also be clean and pure in truth.

As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. The world has detested them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  The world doesn’t own us and is not our home.  I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but I do ask you to protect them from evil and the evil one. 

I ask not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, 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.  The glory you have given me, the way you have lifted me up and celebrated me, I have given to them, so that we can all be one.  I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and these know you have sent me.  I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.

We read in the other gospels of his later prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, how he groaned and sweated drops of blood, how he asked for the cup to pass from him but submitted to the will of his Father.  That picture helps us understand that Jesus too loved life, loved this good earth, and was not eager to die. 

This picture is calmer and looks past death.  Notice how often he speaks as if he has already been through the resurrection.  “Now I am no longer physically present” and “while I was on earth physically.” I think this gives us a good picture of the eternal prayer of Jesus for us that he is praying right now.

The preoccupations in this prayer affected the apostle John in everything he remembered and wrote.  It burned into his heart and inhabits the gospel and the letters that he wrote.  It affected the vision he had of Jesus in the Revelation as well.

Let’s consider some of the things we learn about Jesus from his prayer.  First, he prayed with the understanding that God had given him authority, had made him king, and this authority is over all entities.

“You have given me the authority to do as I please with all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given to me.”

One of the Messianic Psalms—pointing to the coming and work of Jesus—is Psalm 2.  This Psalm talks of the nations conspiring to rebel against God and the one God has sent, and God’s response is this:

“On Zion, my sacred hill,” God says, “I have installed my king.”

“I will announce,” says the King, “what the Lord has declared. He said to me: ‘You are my son; today I have become your father. Ask and I will give you all the nations; the whole earth will be yours. You will shatter their power.’”  (Psalm 2:6-8)

Another vision of the Messiah came to Daniel in his captivity in Babylon.  Daniel 7 describes the political powers of Daniel’s world in their rapacity, violence, tyranny and arrogance.  Then Daniel saw God, the Ancient of Days, sovereignly defeating these powers. 

And then Daniel saw this:

During this vision in the night, I saw one like a son of man. He was approaching me, surrounded by clouds, and he went to the Ancient One and was presented to him. He was given authority, honor, and royal power, so that the people of all nations, races, and languages would serve him. His authority would last forever and his kingdom would never end. (Daniel 7:13-14)

This central statement of the authority Jesus has over nations is echoed in John’s revelation also:  There were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” (Rev. 11:15)

Then I saw heaven opened, and there was a white horse! Its rider is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed that no one knows but himself. He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies of heaven, wearing fine linen, white and pure, were following him on white horses.  From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, “King of kings and Lord of lords.” (Rev. 19:11-16)

And Paul concurs:

For in Christ deity fills up a body, and you have been filled up in him and with him, who is the head of every leader/ruler and authority. … God made you alive together with Jesus when he forgave us all our sins, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. Jesus set this aside, nailing it to the cross. Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and boldly exposed them, triumphing over them.  (Col. 2:9, 13-15)

Jesus prays from the position of authority that God has given him, that he held from before the foundation of the world.  We can be strengthened by our association with this King on the white horse. In fact, the word Comforter means in its roots to strengthen greatly.  Jesus doesn’t come to make us feel satisfied with or well adjusted to imprisonment or exile, but to help us to stand up and be strong and free.  He makes us partners in his authority, a fact witnessed to in numerous passages of the Bible.  That’s a part of this prayer.

In addition to the God-given authority and strength of Jesus the Messiah, Jesus also is the truth we need. Jesus shows us God.

“I have made your essential self visible to those whom you gave me from this world.”

Psalm 22 is another Messianic psalm. It is best known for the first verse, which Jesus said from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This sense of abandonment helps us believe that we have a high priest who has tasted all the same emotions we have—one of which is that great desperation that we have been abandoned by God.  Yet that is only one part of the psalm, and Jesus knew the whole psalm.  Jesus in this prayer reminds us of a different part of the psalm.

I will tell of Your name to my kindred; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you children of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of God. For God did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; God did not look away from me, but heard me when I cried. (Psalm 22:22-24)

Jesus came to tell us the truth, to be the truth about God.  In John 11:41-42, we read another of his prayers:

“Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.”

Then he called Lazarus from the tomb, just as he continues to call all of us from death into life.  Which is what God is like.

The Revelation to John has this picture of Jesus in it:

I saw one like the Son of Man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash across his chest. His head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of many waters.

Compare this to Daniel’s vision of the Ancient of Days:

An Ancient One took his throne, his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool, his throne was fiery flames, and its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and flowed out from his presence.

See how much Jesus resembles God?  The portraits share so much, assuring us that Jesus accurately and fully represents the character and purposes of God—he makes known to us God’s name.

“I am not asking you to remove them from the world, but I do ask you to protect them from evil and the evil one.”

 Jesus protected his disciples, losing only one, despite the fact that all ran away, and one denied him outright.  He is praying right now for God to protect us from evil and the Evil One while we are in this world—this system of politics and pride and domination that infects us at times. Keep us, Lord, from participating in evil.

Psalm 23:  the Lord is our shepherd—his authority and his support make us strong through the valley of death; we will fear no evil.

Jesus is not surprised by betrayal.  He warned Peter that he would be a coward and deny knowing Jesus.  He warned Judas by referencing this scripture when Judas was leaving their last meal together.  Jesus also knows that God will not let his enemies triumph over him and that he will be in God’s presence forever.

The betrayals made a big impression on John, who writes in 1 John 2:22, “Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ?”  This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son.” And later in 1 John 4:2-5: “By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.  And this is the spirit of antichrist, which is already in the world.  Little children, You are from God, and have conquered them; for the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

1 John 5:5 Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

This helps us see that what Jesus taught John is the basis for the unity of believers.  1 John 1:1-5: We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—this life was revealed and we have seen it and testified to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us—we declare to you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ.  We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

This Jesus we can know for ourselves and in ourselves.

Jesus prayed: For the words you gave to me I have given to them and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me…. I ask not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, 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. … I in them and you in me, that they may be completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus prays for us to be united with him and the Father, thus united together.  Our unity comes from our shared love for Jesus and our confidence in Jesus as the only begotten son of God, the personification of grace and truth. Jesus is the judge of all.  Jesus is the Word of God.  Jesus is the love of God: God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.  In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.  Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.

So we have overheard what Jesus prayed for his disciples right before the worst hours of their lives and what Jesus is praying for us right now:

Jesus has all authority and power.  Jesus is King over nations, governments, cultures. Jesus is the Truth we need, the Word of God, the Love we need. Jesus shows us the character of God. Jesus protects us from evil and from the evil one.  God’s will and what Jesus prays for are identical: that we will be one in our confidence that God sent Jesus into the world to save the world, and that like Jesus, we live every day in intimacy with God, doing his daily will.

DON’T PANIC, in large friendly letters.  Jesus is praying for you, for me, for us together right now. 

If any of you want to pray down here in the front for Jesus’s prayer to be answered in your life to a greater extent, there is time and space to do so.  We will close the service with the great opera singer Jessye Norman singing Ride On, King Jesus.  Feel free to leave at the end.

Ride on, King Jesus. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUC-0g6C7rA

Ride on, King Jesus
No man can a-hinder me
Ride on, King Jesus, ride on
No man, can a-hinder me

Ride on, King Jesus
No man can a-hinder me
Ride on, King Jesus, ride on
No man, can a-hinder me

For He is King of kings
He is Lord of lords
Jesus Christ, the first and last
No man works like Him

For He is King of kings
He is Lord of lords
Jesus Christ, the first and last
No man works like Him

King Jesus rides on a milky-white horse
No man works like Him
The river of Jordan He did cross
No man works like Him

For He is King of kings
He is Lord and lords
Jesus Christ, the first and last, oh
King Jesus rides in the middle of the air, oh
He calls His saints from everywhere, oh

Ride on, King Jesus
No man can a-hinder me
Ride on, King Jesus, ride on
No man, can a-hinder me

He is the King
He is the Lord, oh yes
He is the King
He is the Lord, oh
Jesus Christ, the first and last
No man works like Him

Ride on, ride on, ride on, ride on Jesus