20 “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.
INTRODUCTION
Jesus prayed for you; not theoretically or conceptually, but actually. As you can probably tell, Jesus mingled His prayers for His current disciples with that of His future disciples, but do not miss the fact that Jesus really did pray for you. He asked the Father for unity among us, for us to experience the indwelling presence of God, for our indwelling unity to lead to the world’s conversion, for our shared recognition of Jesus’ glory to be the source of our unity, and for us to experience Jesus’ glorious presence. How’s that for a prayer list?
The big idea of this passage is that Jesus cares deeply about His followers, knows certainly what we need most, and believes wholly in the sovereign grace of His Father, and so He prays. The main takeaways for us are to marvel at the fact that Jesus prayed for us and to prayerfully and zealously seek the things Jesus asked of the Father on our behalf.
JESUS PRAYED FOR YOU AND REVEALED THE ESSENCE OF DISCIPLESHIP (20)
In the opening line (v.20) of the third part of Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer,” we find two incredible things. We find that Jesus prayed for us and we find the essence of discipleship.
Jesus Prayed for You
In vs.6-19 Jesus prayed for the eleven disciples who were with Him at that time. In v.20, however, Jesus turned His prayer-attention to a broader group.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word…
He prayed not only for those who did believe in them, but for all who would believe in Him. He prayed for the disciples and for everyone who would hear of the gospel through the disciples. You and I heard the gospel through the disciples (who shared it with those who shared it with those who shared it with us). Therefore, Jesus prayed for us. That is awesome. Be amazed, Grace.
You simply don’t understand this if you don’t marvel at it: Jesus prayed for you on this night in which He was betrayed. Even with all that awaited Him, He prayed for you.
Be amazed and do the same. Be amazed that God truly is the author of the story of all time. And because He is the One True Author, He knows the beginning from the end. He knows when, where, how, and why everything began. He knows every twist and turn and every up and down. He knows where it is all going and how it will all get there. And because of these things, He knew you as much then as He does now. And He prayed for you. Be amazed.
Grace, be amazed that you are not far off from God. You are never out of His earshot or sightline. There are no secrets you have from Him. He knows you better than you know yourself. He knows your every thought, feeling, inclination, temptation, and need. At the same time, He knows the exact position of every atom in all creation at all times, inside of you and outside, and governs them all. And He prayed for you. Be amazed.
Jesus prayed for you 2000 years ago. Be amazed. But be even more amazed that He is continually praying for you even now. Hebrews 7:25 says, “He always lives to make intercession for [you]”. He is praying for you. Be amazed. You have the attention, love, understanding, benevolence, grace, and mercy of Jesus and so He prayed and prays for you. Be amazed.
And do the same. Set your prayers not only on those who are in your life now, but on those who will be. It is good, like Jesus did, to acknowledge God as the author of all time and, therefore, to take a multi-generational view of things. Pray for your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids, and beyond. Ask the Lord to help them know Him through your word. What a sobering, awesome thing it is to recognize that you heard the gospel because God saw fit to use the faithfulness of someone two millennia ago to bring it to you. In the same way, God very well may be pleased to use your faithfulness in proclaiming His Word to rescue your greatest grandkid and so you pray for them.
Jesus revealed the word of God and prayed for all who had and would receive it. Let us reveal the word of God and pray for all who have and will receive it…and be amazed.
The Essence of Discipleship
Before coming to the content of Jesus’ prayer for you, I want to point out something else; something that is particularly important as we look to hire a pastor of discipleship. In praying about who He was praying about, Jesus also helps us to see the essence of discipleship.
Contrary to what it might seem like in many ministry contexts, discipleship is not whatever we might make it out to be. Jesus’ prayer for us reveals something essential to discipleship. Again, look at the final clause of v.20.
20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word…
At its core, discipleship is calling people to believe in Jesus by sharing Jesus’ words with them. There are at least three key aspects of this claim.
First, discipleship is about calling people to believe in Jesus. The aim is not mere information impartation. No one becomes a disciple by knowing or even memorizing a sufficient number of facts about Jesus. No one becomes a disciple of Jesus by not disbelieving true things about Jesus. And no one becomes a disciple by merely believing that Jesus…anything.
The beginning and foundation of discipleship is calling people to believing in Jesus; to place their trust in Him, to set their eternal hope in Him. Again, the first thing to see concerning the nature of discipleship from Jesus’ prayer in v.20 is that discipleship starts with inviting someone to surrender everything to Jesus as the only one who can bear the weight of all their needs, hopes, and longings.
Second, discipleship is about calling people to believe in the actual Jesus. Far too often Jesus is presented more as a concept or an idea to be believed in than an actual, historical, factual person.
Believe in Him because He is so loving; when “loving” means whatever you want—usually that He wants for me whatever I want for me and is sad with me that I don’t already have it. Believe in Him because He is forgiving; when “forgiving” is untethered from any objective understanding of sin and often no understanding of repentance. Believe in Jesus because He will make your life better; when “better life” is whatever you want it to be—often involving Jesus’ help to engage more freely in sin. You get the idea.
But Grace, as you know, if discipleship is calling people to believe in Jesus, it must be the actual Jesus we call people to believe in. That’s the heart of what Jesus’ meant when He prayed for the who “believe in me through their word…”. The main point here is that discipleship is calling others to believe in Jesus with the understanding that it is from God’s Word alone that we can know who Jesus is in order to believe in Him (and not some self-concocted notion of Him).
Finally, third, discipleship is about calling people to believe in the actual Jesus according to His word, who call people to believe in the actual Jesus according to His word, who call people to believe in the actual Jesus according to His word. In other words, disciples are people who make disciples who make disciples who make disciples. Embedded in v.20 is the idea that there is a perpetualness built into discipleship; for if there were not, we would not have received the word of the disciples and Jesus would not have been praying for us.
We need to live and minister in light of these things, Grace. Doing so begins with recognizing that a disciple is a Christian and a Christian is a disciple. In other words, if you are a Christian, you are a disciple. And if you are a disciple, you are committed to prayerfully making disciples by calling people to believe in Jesus according to the word of Jesus. There simply is no category for Christians who are not disciples or disciples who are not actively making disciples. We don’t all play the same role in discipling all nations, but we all have a role to play. If you are not intentionally engaged in calling specific people to believe in Jesus, according to His word, ask the Holy Spirit to grant conviction and repentance. If you aren’t sure how, ask someone at Grace to help you get started.
WHAT JESUS PRAYED FOR YOU (21-24)
Jesus prayed for you. Be amazed. In His prayer for you, Jesus revealed part of the essence of discipleship. Make disciples.
And with that, let’s turn our attention to the specific things Jesus prayed for us.
As I mentioned earlier, in this portion of Jesus’ prayer, He revealed that there wasn’t as clean of a line between His prayers for His present and future disciples as it might have seemed at first. Indeed, rather than a hard shift from praying specific things exclusively for the eleven to praying specific things exclusively for all who would come, Jesus prayer revealed that in all of it He was praying for all of us—His past, present, and future followers.
It is for that reason that several of His prayers in this section are similar or the same as those in the previous section. The needs of His followers, engaged in His mission, in this broken world, remain largely unchanged throughout place and time. And among the first needs of His persecuted followers (now as then) is unity.
Unity (21, 22, 23)
Clearly, unity was near the top of Jesus’ priorities for His followers. I say clearly because it was a central focus of His prayer for the eleven (in vs.6-19) and it is the thing He prayed most for us. We see it in vs.21, 22, and 23.
21 …that they [we] may all be one…
22 …that they [we] may be one even as we are one…
23 … that they [we] may become perfectly one…
The main thing for us to see here is that His prayer is not for a loose, generic, intermittent unity. It was for perfect oneness, of the same nature as that which exists among the persons of the Trinity. Once again, be amazed at the magnitude of this prayer.
Having already considered the content of this kind of unity, I want to draw your attention to another aspect of it. Be amazed that Jesus would ask the Father for something so spectacular as this—trinitarian-like unity, perfect oneness with each other. The question I have for you is this: Are you so bold as to pray for such things? Or do you doubt God’s power or good intentions such that you temper your prayers in order to make them more feasible, plausible, tenable? Don’t do that, Grace. Pray the will of God in all it’s miraculous, divine, splendor.
Ask for the salvation of the hardest sinner and for the healing of the worst disease and for restoration for the most broken marriage and for the return of the most prodigal child and for unity in the most dysfunctional church. And in that, ask for the hardened sinner to become someone who leads millions to Jesus, the sick person to become a Dr. who will cure cancer, the hopeless spouses to together counsel thousands marital health, the prodigal child to become the next Jim Elliot, and the dysfunctional church to become a training and sending ground for men and women whom God will use to begin the next great revival. Those things are no more difficult for God than any lesser prayer. And our willingness to pray like that demonstrates that we believe it. We trust God to respond for His highest glory and our greatest good, whatever form that may take, but we pray God’s will boldly.
Jesus’ prayed for us to have the same kind of oneness that the Father, Son, and Spirit have with one another. Again, as we saw earlier in the Gospel, that was a oneness of holiness and mission. There are other, lesser forms of unity, but they are not what Jesus asked of the Father for us. With God’s help, seek these things, Grace. Fight for holiness in your life and in the lives of the people around you. And do so in the forge of calling people to believe in Jesus according to the word of Jesus. As you do, and others join you according to the sovereign grace of God, we will continually grow in the same unity that the Father, Son, and Spirit have known eternally. Jesus prayed that for you; for us. Be amazed, seek this unity, and pray like that.
Indwelling (21, 23)
Jesus second prayer for us is familiar and staggering as well. He prayed first for our unity with one another and second for our unity with God. That is, Jesus’ second prayer for you is that you would understand and experience the indwelling presence of God in you and you in Him. That too will take your breath away if you truly grasp it.
21 … just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us
23 I in them and you in me…
Again, the heart of Jesus’ first petition is that we’d experience godly unity with each other. The heart of this second petition is that we’d experience godly unity with God!!! Jesus asked the Father not just that we’d experience trinitarian unity among ourselves. He also asked the Father to allow us to experience that same unity with the persons of the Trinity! Be amazed! What mind can even fathom such a thing?
We considered nature of this abiding unity with God back in chapter 15 when we read Jesus’ constant refrain,
4 Abide in me, and I in you. … 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing… 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
Of that, I wrote,
The heart of what it means to abide in Jesus [and Him in us] is to gladly acknowledge in every aspect of our lives—every thought, feeling, action, interaction, inclination, observation, and evaluation—that we are entirely dependent on Jesus. Abiding in Jesus begins with knowing and feeling deep in our bones that Jesus is King, Jesus is the life, Jesus is the way, Jesus is the truth, [Jesus is love,] Jesus is supreme. To abide in Him means understanding, believing, loving, and whole-heartedly orienting ourselves around the simple and glorious fact that it is in Jesus that we live and move and have our being.
And it is those recognitions and realities and conditions and experiences and gifts that Jesus asked the Father to grant us—as we come to abide in Him and Him in us. Be amazed.
This type of unity with God and one another is what we were made for. It is what the Garden was briefly and will one day be forever. Grace, you need to understand that your every longing only finds its true fulfillment in unity with God and man. We all seek to find it elsewhere (that’s the essence of sin), but as you’ve repeatedly experienced, nothing else can truly deliver. You were made for unity with God and man and it is only in that, that your heart can find true rest and satisfaction. Jesus knew that and prayed for you to receive it from the gracious hand of God. Be amazed and seek this abiding with all you have. And do so in the knowledge that on account of Jesus’ prayer, the Father’s gracious promises, and the Spirit’s empowering you will receive it.
Unified Indwelling Leading to Effective Evangelism (21, 23)
Jesus’ third prayer request on your behalf was that the effect of His first two (unity with God and one another) would not end with us, but would spill out of us into the world around us, causing knowledge and belief to take root where there had only been ignorance and rejection.
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.
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.
According to these prayers of Jesus, the great obstacle in the world’s way of unity with God and man is a kind of knowledge. They do not know and so they cannot believe and so they cannot be forgiven and reconciled. What don’t they know and believe? In v.21 and 23 we see that they don’t know that Jesus had been sent by the Father (a continual refrain in John’s Gospel). And in v.23 we see that in addition they don’t know that the Father’s love is upon Jesus and His followers.
To know that Jesus was from the Father is to believe His words about the Father and His will for their lives. To know that Jesus was from the Father is to believe that they needed to be reconciled to the Father and that Jesus had come to make a way for that reconciliation. And to know that the love of the Father was upon Jesus and His followers is to believe that they were living as God requires; that they were living in the pleasure of God.
But none of us know these things from birth. That’s the effect of being born into sin. And to not know these things is to believe that there’s another path to God, that there’s another route to experiencing the Father’s love, that Jesus was lying about God, or that there is no God or need to be reconciled to Him. Any and all of that ignorance is a tragic and deadly obstacle.
All of that is the obstacle, but what’s the solution? How does the world overcome or get around or dismantle that obstacle? One way, we learn from Jesus’ prayer, is through Jesus’ followers living in the abiding unity that Jesus prayed for. Grace, don’t miss this.
The simple logic behind this is that when we joyfully live in ways that make no sense apart from of our gospel claims being True, God is often pleased to use that overcome the obstacle of ignorance and disbelief. It’s one thing to claim that the gospel is true. It’s another thing entirely to live in a kind of unity with one another and with God that simply isn’t possible if God is not real, He is not in us, and we are not in Him. Jesus’ prayer lets us know that the lack of alternative explanations is one means of grace that God uses to allow the world to know that Jesus is from the Father and He and His followers have the love of the Father.
Practically, we must share the gospel with the world. We must bring the good news to those who do not yet believe. We must tell of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and reign. And we must do so in the knowledge that apart from the grace of God, no one will understand or believe us. They will reject our message…unless we are living in unity with God and one another, for God has declared that to be one of the primary means of God’s grace to overcome the disbelief of those we evangelize.
Practically speaking, if you have a non-Christian friend, neighbor, or family member that you long to see saved, your first and primary means of grace for them is your quiet time, for that is where you receive unity with God. Unity with God is a means by which God helps the world to see the truthfulness of the gospel and your daily fellowship with God is the first source of that unity. That puts your mornings in a significantly different light, doesn’t it?!
Likewise, if you want your kids or your neighbor to know Jesus, fight every tendency to talk trash, to complain, to grumble about one another, resist the urge to make things about your preferences, and reject the desire to see church primarily as the place where you are served instead of the place you serve. On the flip side, make your primary words, words of encouragement and building up. Make your primary actions, actions of service. Make your primary disposition toward others, a disposition of gratitude and gladness. When the world looks and sees our love for one another, our care for one another, our shared purpose and mission, our divine unity, God has put eye-opening, saving grace in that.
Glory Leading to Unity (22)
One of the things I love most about Jesus’ prayer here is how far upstream it takes us. He prays for us to experience unity with God and one another. He gets us further upstream by revealing in His prayer that those things are one significant means of God helping non-Christians know and believe in Jesus. But where does that unity come from? He takes us further upstream still by revealing in His prayers that it comes from a common beholding of the glory of God.
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one
At its most foundational level, our unity isn’t around shared facts or even belief. Our unity is primarily around a shared experience. What do I mean by that? More importantly, what did Jesus mean by that? All true, God-given unity begins with truly experiencing the glory of God. The source of our unity with God and man is having our eyes opened to the magnificence of God, by His Spirit, through His Word, in His Son.
His disciples had seen that glory in Jesus’ teaching, miracles, and perfect faithfulness.
And it is only once we behold the glory of God, by His Word, Spirit, and people, according to the grace of God, that anything and everything else truly makes sense. When, and only when, we see the glory of God, can reality be put in its proper perspective. And once that happens, it’s able to cut through a million lesser differences, overcome a million would-be conflicts, and outshine a million personal preferences.
It’s hard to care all that much about how many ways you have to be served by others when you’re actively experiencing the unmatched glory of Jesus. It’s hard to
Therefore, Grace, if you want to see Grace Church built up in the kind of unity that the Holy Trinity continually experiences, seek not to conform everyone to your preferences. Instead, seek first a fuller and truer experience with the glory of Jesus. Turn your attention away from what you’re not getting and toward the surpassing worth of Jesus who suffered, died, and rose from the dead, ascended to heaven, reigns now from the right hand of the Father, and will return one day to undo every effect of sin. Look no longer to petty differences and fix your eyes on Jesus, the image of the invisible God. As you do, we will experience a kind of unity that will fill us with gladness and the world with the knowledge of God’s saving grace.
That’s what Jesus prayed for you and me. Be amazed.
In Jesus’ Glorious Presence (24)
Finally, we might wonder where all of this is going? Unity with God and man, flowing from experiencing the glory of God, and leading to effective evangelism all sound great, but where does all of that lead? It leads into Jesus’ glorious presence. And that’s the last and greatest thing Jesus prayed for you in this passage.
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.
In other words, Jesus was about to be crucified, raise from the dead, and then ascend to the Father’s right hand in glory. He asked the Father to grant that they would be able to join Him in the place He was going to prepare for them (14:3) and see Him in the glory that He possessed eternally (v.5) and would soon have restored. That is eternal life, the greatest blessing, and the goal of our salvation.
Both in Jesus’ day and ours, God’s grace enables God’s people to see Jesus’ glory in a remarkable, but veiled sense. One day, however, we will behold the unveiled glory of Jesus, the glory that was His from eternity past and is not for eternity future. In his first letter (3:2) John spoke even more clearly of this.
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
If you’ve been at Grace for a while, you’ve heard us say this many times: If your idea of heaven is anything other than to be with Jesus and see the full measure of His glory eternally, you do not know either Jesus or true joy.
If, on the other hand, by God’s grace, you have truly tasted even now the glory of Jesus, you already know that this prayer of Jesus rises above them all in preciousness. Oh, what amazing grace it is that we, cosmic treasonists, enemies of God, dead in our trespasses and sins, might not know the fires of hell that we deserve, but instead, through Jesus’ sacrifice, the everlasting pleasures of Jesus’ glorious presence in heaven. Be amazed. Jesus prayed for this for you and it will certainly be yours.
CONCLUSION
Jesus prayed for you and me. He asked His Father for unity among us, for us to experience the indwelling presence of God, for our indwelling unity to lead to the world’s conversion, for our shared recognition of Jesus’ glory to be the source of our unity, and for us to experience Jesus’ glorious presence. Be amazed.
That He prayed for these things which means at least two things. First, it means that we need to go after them with zeal. Second, it means that we need help to do so. And both are ours as the Father sees fit to answer the prayers of His Son, which He always does! Thanks be to God.