“I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21
that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22
The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23
I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24
Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25
O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”
These words will conclude Jesus’s time in the upper room with his disciples that began, you will remember in chapter 13. After this section we read that Jesus went
out with his disciples to the Garden of Gethsemane.
The Son of God has prayed that the Father glorify Himself through what is about to happen. He has also prayed for his disciples and now in verse 20 he prays for us
who were not his disciples at the time of this prayer but who will come to follow Him through their message. The church is in view, you and I are in view, we lay at the heart of the Savior’s prayer.
We can easily think that if we only knew everything…if…if we had certainty…that is what I need, certainty, clarity…then my faith would be strong…that is the key to
the Christian life. But, it’s not…And it is not what the Lord wants from us. The Lord wants us to trust Him…to trust Him when we don’t know…when we can’t see…when there isn’t clarity… we don’t need clarity, we need to rest in Jesus…in his wisdom, love and
mercy…and let the wind blow.
Our text says that Jesus prays for those who will believe through the ministry of the disciples. I think the word believe has been gutted in our day. Folks believe all
kinds of things but that doesn’t mean that believing those things has anything to do with how we live our lives. In the bible to believe includes being aware of your powerlessness and helplessness in the face of the sin of your own life as well as the
effects of sin in the world, that is why we must trust.
To believe as Jesus uses it, means that we give full authority to the One in whom we believe. Or, in other words, to truly and really believe, means not to
have clarity, but to trust Him.
This morning I want us to consider something that is a bit more subtle in the text. Specifically, I want to give you reason to trust the Lord…to trust what
He has done and said. My point is for us to see in our text that Jesus has already and is even now making the journey toward us…He is initiating this relationship with us…AGAIN.
Look at verse 20, Jesus has prayed for you…He prayed for you before you were even born. You have been in the heart of the Savior for a world of years.
That really is not so odd is it? We do that. We find out a couple desires to have a child and we begin praying. We pray for conception, we pray for that child even before conceived. We pray before the child is born. You parents…isn’t it true, you prayed
for your children, you loved them even before you saw them with your eye? And all your prayers and all your hopes and trust in the Lord is seen in that little face?
In the same way, you were loved, before you took your first breath. The Savior, loved you, prayed for you, and has a purpose as the Lord says, to conform you to the
image of your older brother, to make you like Him, to work in you to manifest His love, His desires, His heart. As a parent prays for his children, before they are even born, mom and dad are being prepared to do whatever is necessary to the raising of that
child, whatever it takes, to see to the care of that child…to willingly embrace the sacrifice needed, the discomfort, the giving of self for the child’s sake.
Do you see that no matter what it takes for Jesus to be realized in you, for you to come to the fullness of being a daughter or a son of God…the Savior has willingly
taken it up…endured whatever it cost and as you know, it cost the humility of God, his coming down, and it cost the suffering and humiliation of God, his crucifixion and here is the key, all of this He embraced for you, even before you were born.
But also notice that Jesus prayed for you before He died for you. We read just two chapters before this and still, in the upper room, the Lord saying, you did not
choose me, but I chose you…to go and bear fruit. The divine choosing of God is of course quite a heavy doctrine to consider and we could discuss the theological underpinnings of this biblical truth for hours, but I am going to go a different direction. I
don’t want to dive into theologizing the terms, but rather I want us to dive into the mystery of it and the joy and hope that is ours because our Savior knew us and prayed for us, even before He died.
If Jesus prayed for you before you were born, if, knowing the humiliation that was to be his, and yet He prayed for you before He died, and of course as you know,
even now He prays for you at the right hand of the Father, what does that say about the despair that so often accompanies life?
Would it not be the end of despair? Would the knowledge of your being in the heart of the Savior, not turn you away from discouragement, anxiety and fear…and turn
you toward hope?
*Perhaps, you have been rejected by friends or worse, by family. Yea, I get that.
*Perhaps you have been, as one said, “brutalized” by life in this broken world. Yea…I understand that.
*You have fears that no one knows, secrets that you are certain if anyone knew…anyone…you would be undone.
And so, you hide, even in the midst of other people, there is shame, loneliness and at times you feel helpless. And those burdens, those secrets, grow heavy…they push
down…and the pain, the isolation, the fear grows. What are you to do? Who are you to tell? Where can you run? Are you to continue polishing up everything on the outside, so that no one sees?
You know that Jesus does not ask for you to have all those questions answered before He will come to you? You know, I trust, that He is not asking you to get all fixed,
before He will welcome you? He comes to you, runs to you in the midst of it all. In the face of all His pain and suffering; He prayed for you, He knew you before He died for you…and He comes to you.
Too many times we act as though our pain and our difficulty, the result of our sin and suffering has to be born alone, we have to bear the consequence. Don’t misunderstand,
there are consequences for sin to be born…absolutely. We suffer consequences for the sin of others, the sin of the world. And…and, we suffer the consequences for our own sin and we suffer them at the perfect measure our Father determines.
But the love of Jesus that would love you and pray for you, willingly, key word, willingly allowed himself to be handed over to evil men: to be ridiculed, humiliated
and abandoned by His Father, so that He might save you and walk with you through everything that is broken, even everything that YOU have broken. Maybe, you feel like Mary Magdalene in the garden crying out, “Where has my beloved gone…” Well my brother,
my sister, He is here, He has always been here, He has been praying for you, before you were ever born, He has been praying for you even when facing His own unjust and cruel death, and he continues to pray for you this day!
The key from the simple fact that Jesus has prayed and is praying for you is this: Your lack of trust…your faltering about, and I mean as a Christian, your failures
as a Xn, do not intimidate God, nor will the Father ignore the prayer of the Son nor will He turn his back on the objects of the Son’s love.
But, I am struggling with sin and cannot seem to get the upper hand! Pastor, I am so confused, that I can barely pray! I am so weighed down, everything is going
wrong, how can God really be for me, when it seems everything is against me?
None of this overwhelms your Father. Jesus chose you. He loves you. He prayed for you. He died for you. And all of those things in your life that seek to resist or
oppose that love…can’t…let me ask you: “Do you really think about your circumstances, your difficulties and yes even your sin…do you really think they can resist or oppose the Love of God? The kind of love that raises people from the dead?
Here is what we must remember: Jesus’ power to transform your soul is greater than your power to destroy it.
Jesus has prayed for you and I don’t care if you have gone too far in the eyes of others. You have not gone too far for Jesus if He has prayed for you.
The sin of alcohol may have destroyed relationships…but Jesus has prayed for you.
Your infidelity may have destroyed your marriage, but Jesus has prayed for you.
Your selfishness and using people for your own ends, may have chased away folks who simply don’t trust you, but Jesus has prayed for you.
Your confusion, your same sex attraction, your unnatural desires may have isolated you and even angered you…but Jesus has prayed for you.
Disease, sickness may have taken away your best years and the experiences common to man’s enjoyment…but Jesus has prayed for you.
And you might find yourself in thick darkness and feel trapped by your own poor decisions, surrounded by cruel circumstances, addiction, obscenities and sin or just
tired and complacent…but I would ask you to be quiet for a moment and in the silence…
“…whisper a doxology in the darkness…” Find words and whisper a song of trust. Jesus has prayed for you.
What comfort, what peace, what confidence you must have, Jesus prayed for you, and has not stopped praying for you all these years! What joy this brings. You and I
can look at whatever this life brings, stand in the face of gale force winds and then we look to Jesus…and He is telling you, “I got this…You will conquer, for I have and I am…praying…for you.”
Prayer: Father, it is quite a thought for me that Your power to transform my life is greater than my power to destroy it. I have so long wrestled with my sin and
those things that keep me from you that they often seem to have power that knows no equal. But in Christ Jesus they are rendered impotent! Father, help me to know this in my living, to find the power of the resurrection in my “today” that I might live in the
joy of your mercy, grace and the power of the Spirit’s work to transform my lowly life into that which is glorious, through Jesus Christ my Savior, Amen.
Song: Benediction—Josh Garrels