SERIES: Gospel of John
The Real Lord’s Prayer, Part 1: Jesus Prays for Himself
SPEAKER: Michael P. Andrus
Introduction: In the third chapter of Exodus, Moses is winding up a 40-year stint as a shepherd in Midian when he comes across a burning bush on Mount Horeb. He decides to check it out to ascertain why it isn’t being consumed. Much to his surprise a voice comes out of the bush, calling him by name and saying, “Moses, do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” I’ve often wondered what might have gone through his mind as he heard these words. “Holy ground? You gotta be kidding! I just grazed my sheep here yesterday. What makes it so holy today?” The answer comes in the next verse: “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” That’s what made the ground holy—God was present in a unique way!
God still manifests His holiness in unique ways today, and sometimes He does so through special passages of Scripture. It is true, of course, that the entire Word of God is the breath of His mouth, and therefore it is holy as He is holy. But I believe there are certain passages which we must approach by taking our shoes off. They are so profound and so unfathomable that we must fear, not so much the failure to understand them completely, as the tendency to handle them lightly and without reverence for their content.
One such passage is John 17, where we are given the incredible privilege of eavesdropping upon a prayer of the Lord Jesus to His Father. Friends, this is the real Lord’s Prayer. The prayer in the Sermon on the Mount which normally goes by that name is more accurately deemed, “The Disciples’ Prayer,” for it is a model Jesus gave to His disciples for them to pray. This prayer in John 17 is where He pours out His own heart to the Father. Melanchthon, Luther’s friend and colleague, was not far off when he wrote, “There is no voice which has ever been heard, either in Heaven or on earth, more exalted, more holy, more fruitful, more sublime, than the prayer offered up by the Son to God Himself.” [i]
What makes this prayer so special? Well, it is the supreme example of how Jesus prayed. By studying its content and methodology we can learn a great deal about the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous person. But perhaps even more importantly, this prayer should provide us with a great incentive to pray. If Jesus, the perfect Son of God, considered prayer an essential activity, then we, human and fallible sons, certainly have greater reason to give ourselves to communion and petition with the Father. So let us learn from this chapter at least this—to pray.
There are three parts to our Lord’s Prayer. In the first five verses He prays for Himself. In 6-19 He prays for His disciples. And then in the last seven verses He prays for the whole family of faith. Today we will look only at the first section in which Jesus prays for Himself, or perhaps better, prays concerning Himself.
We do not know where this prayer was spoken, but it was probably either in the Upper Room or the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before the crucifixion. Jesus begins with the simple, yet profound, “Father.” It is the language of a child to its father. Such intimacy was absent from Judaism, and it undoubtedly startled the disciples. Their frequent use of the term later suggests they never forgot the thrill of it.
There is but one petition in Jesus’ prayer for Himself: “Glorify your Son,” repeated again in verse 5. Our attention is drawn to three important aspects of this request. First, the timing.
Jesus requests that the Father glorify Him.
The timing of the request (1). “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son.” You will perhaps recall that five times in the early chapters of John’s Gospel Jesus said, “My time has not yet come.” Then just before the Last Supper He announced that His time has come. And now, later that same evening He states again that “the time has come.” What time? The time to which His entire focus has been set, the time of His death.
All of us have had important moments in our lives which were the culmination of years of effort and attention. Perhaps it was a college degree or a job promotion or a wedding day or the birth of a child. We remember that day as a red-letter day. But certainly none of us has devoted our entire life from childhood through adulthood to one single purpose in the way Jesus did.
The motive behind the request (1). It is not a selfish motive, as it may at first appear. On the contrary, He prays, “Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” Jesus’ goal was to bring glory to the name of God, whether in life or death. He knew that the Father would receive great glory, honor, and praise through His death because through that sacrifice a great company of men, women, and children would receive forgiveness of their sins, would be reconciled to the Father, and would be given eternal life.
I believe we also can legitimately ask God for great things for ourselves so long as our motivation is to glorify Him. It’s O.K. to pray, “Father, make me a success in business so that I may glorify You.” Or, “Father, help me to become a great musician, or a renowned teacher, or a star athlete, or the best mother and housewife in my community.” These are all prayers that God is pleased with, I believe, provided our goal and purpose is to glorify Him with our success.
The kicker is that sometimes we seek great things for ourselves in order to glorify God, but then when we receive them, we forget our original motive and selfishly keep the glory for ourselves. For example, a family might purchase a bigger and nicer house to glorify God through hospitality, but nothing changes when they get the new house, except that their cost of living goes up and their lifestyle becomes more self-centered. The glory of God was merely a rationalization.
Friends, there’s an almost foolproof way to tell whether increased glory for oneself will indeed result in increased glory for God. Ask the question, “Am I glorifying God now, before I reach the success I am praying for?” If so, you may very well glorify God even more through greater success. If not, then your request is probably illegitimate. James speaks of this kind of situation when he says, “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures alone.” Our highest goal in life should be to glorify God in all we do, especially through whatever glory and success He gives to us. That is what Jesus prayed.
The meaning of the request (1, 5). There are several difficult issues here. Jesus claims that He possessed a certain glory with the Father before His incarnation, even before Creation. Look at verse 5: “And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.” He did not possess this glory during the years He lived here on earth (or He wouldn’t have to ask that it be restored). Yet, there is a sense in which He did possess glory while on earth, for back in John 2 at the Wedding Feast of Cana we are told that by changing the water into wine Jesus “revealed His glory” and as a result His disciples “believed on Him.” And there are other similar statements about His glory being revealed throughout His life and ministry.
Now how does all this fit together? How could Jesus possess God’s glory, lose it, then regain it, and yet possess it even during the time when He didn’t have it? And what does the term “glory” mean anyhow?
Let’s try to answer the last question first. In the Scriptures there are really two different meanings of the word “glory” when used of God. The most frequent usage is a reference to God’s character or attributes—His intrinsic worth and character. This is the sense that is meant when the Scriptures tell us that Jesus “revealed His glory” or when John tells us in 1:14, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The glory revealed through the incarnation was the divine nature and character of God in Jesus.
But there is a second kind of glory of God mentioned in the Bible, and that is called the “Shekinah glory.” It refers to an outward display of light, radiance, and glory so brilliant that no man could approach it. We have a graphic example in Exodus 34 where Moses’ face glowed with a transferred light after he had been with God on Mount Sinai, so much so that the people asked him to put on a veil so they wouldn’t go blind looking at him.
Now we should have enough knowledge to understand the meaning of Jesus’ request that His glory be restored. You see, before the incarnation the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all possessed glory in both these senses: i.e., they shared the divine attributes and character and also shared the outward Shekinah glory. But when Jesus became a man, He laid aside the Shekinah glory, for if He had not done so, no man would have been able to approach Him. However, He retained the divine glory in respect to His attributes and character, and on occasion He disclosed that glory to His disciples.
Now at the end of His earthly ministry, on the verge of His crucifixion and subsequent resurrection, He prays that He might again enter into the Shekinah glory in the presence of the Father, having finished the work He has been given to do. For a NT commentary on this profound truth, turn with me to Phil. 2:5-8. Let’s read it with these two meanings of “glory” in mind.
“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a Cross!”
Jesus was in very nature God, i.e., He possessed God’s glory in the first sense. However, He emptied Himself of the second kind of glory, the Shekinah glory, and in the process, He greatly humbled Himself. At the moment of His resurrection that outward glory was partially restored, accounting perhaps for the fact that His disciples did not immediately recognize Him, and at His ascension fifty days later it was fully restored. The request of Jesus that the Father glorify the Son was fully answered.
Now while there is only one request in the Lord’s Prayer for Himself, there is another theme, and that is the acknowledgement of the Father’s gifts. We should learn from Jesus’ example that prayer is not just supplication. It is also involves praise and thanksgiving. (Next week we will find that prayer also includes intercession for others).
Jesus acknowledges the Father’s gifts.
Three times in verses 2-4 we read that the Father has “given” something to Jesus. As we look at each of these gifts, we will gain insight into the unique relationship between the Father and the Son and the salvation they have planned.
The Father has given to Jesus authority over all people. (2) Notice the scope of this authority. It is over all mankind—including everyone who has ever lived or ever will live. It includes the rich and the poor, the sophisticate and the savage, the Christian, the Jew, the Muslim, the Hindu, and even the atheist.
Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. Would that all men would acknowledge His authority voluntarily! But if they do not, He will exercise it anyway—to their eternal regret. Back in Phil. 2 we stopped reading in verse 8. But let’s pick it up again in verse 9:
“Therefore 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.”
All creatures in heaven, in hell, and on earth are under Christ’s authority and will someday bow the knee to Him, either voluntarily or involuntarily. In view of that stunning truth, is it not ironic and even tragic that so many millions spend their entire lives running away from the authority of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ. You can examine humanism, communism, fascism, the world’s great religions, materialism, the New Age Movement, and the essence of it all is an assertion of man’s autonomy and a rejection of Jesus Christ’s authority. But it will not last—such rebellion is destined to fail.
Could it be that someone here this morning has been fighting Jesus’ authority over your life? If so, you are making two monumental errors. First, you are ruining your life now, by excluding the only One who can make life worth living. And secondly, you are ruining your life for all eternity, by rejecting the only means of salvation—the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His Lordship over your life. God has given to His Son authority over all mankind.
The second gift Jesus acknowledges from His Father is the gift of a special people.
The Father has given Him a special people. (2-3). Verse 2: “For you granted him authorityover all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” The gift in the first part of this verse is a gift of authority. The gift at the end of the verse is the gift of a people. The gift at the beginning includes every human being; the gift at the end includes only the people of God. Out of all mankind God has given to Jesus a special people to whom He, in turn, has given eternal life.
And once again we see here in John’s Gospel that God is sovereign in salvation. People are not saved by lottery or by accident. They do not become Christians by having Christian parents. They do not believe because they suddenly get smart, figure it all out, and recognize that Christianity is the best religion. They are not granted eternal life by trying harder.
Rather salvation has its source in the fact that God the Father chooses a person, gives him to the Son, sends His Holy Spirit to convict him, and grants to him eternal life when he believes in Jesus.
God initiates this process, and if it weren’t for His initiating, no man would ever believe. As Jesus said earlier in this Gospel in 6:44, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” Theologically this is known as the doctrine of election, and it sticks in the throat of a lot of people who don’t understand it. In fact, people are known to argue, “But what if God doesn’t draw me or hasn’t chosen me?” Frankly, I think that’s the wrong question. The question should be, “What have I done with the Gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ died for me and offers me forgiveness from my sin? Have I believed in Him?”
If you have believed, then you are a child of God, and that is ex post facto proof that God drew you and you are one of His chosen people. If you have not believed, then you have only yourself to blame, because you have heard the Gospel and you have had the opportunity to believe. If you have never heard before today, at least you have heard this morning. The reason you will be judged by God is not that you were not chosen but rather the fact that you refused God’s gracious offer of salvation and His command for you to believe in His Son.
Now this gift of a special people from the Father to the Son is intimately tied into a gift from the Son to those people. Look at the last part of verse 2 again: “that the Son might give eternal life to all those you have given him.” Note first of all that eternal life is a gift. It cannot be earned, it cannot be purchased, it cannot be inherited.
Note secondly of what it consists. Verse 3: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true god, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” It is very interesting but sometimes confusing that salvation can be spoken of in so many different terms. One can use terms like born-again, saved, trusting Jesus, committing one’s life to Christ, inviting Christ into one’s heart, surrendering one’s will to God, becoming a part of the family of God.
Each of these terms describes the same basic event, and each has at least a measure of biblical support. But there is one description of the process of salvation that stands out above all others—and it is the one found here in John 17:3: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true god, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Friend, do you know God today? Do you knowHis Son, Jesus Christ? I’m not asking if you’re aware that they exist. I’m not asking if you’re able to say the Apostles’ Creed. I’m not even asking whether you’ve had some crisis experience in your life when you felt all warm toward God, or walked an aisle, or said a prayer.
Rather I’m asking, “Do you really know God and is Jesus your friend?” If so, then you have eternal life. If not, then you need to repent of your sin and receive Jesus today. As Paul told the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
The third gift Jesus acknowledges from the Father is a work which He will soon complete.
The Father has given Him a work which He will soon complete. (4). Verse 4 continues, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” The Father not only gave to Jesus authority over all mankind and a people of His own; He also gave Him a job to do. If Jesus is to see the entire world bow at His feet and if He is to grant eternal life to those whom the Father has given Him, then He must do the Father’s will. And the Father’s will is that His only Son leave His place of glory in Heaven, become a man, and then sacrifice His own life for the sin of mankind. Jesus accepted this work even before the incarnation, and He always viewed it as a gift from His Father.
There are few things in life more truly satisfying to a human being than a job well done and brought to completion. In fact, that is what keeps most of us going and keeps us psychologically healthy. I read of an experiment some years back in which lumbermen were offered a job at triple normal wages, say $50 per hour. They were offered two 30-minute breaks, an hour for lunch, excellent benefits, and free transportation. As you can imagine, there were a number of applicants. But the job they were given was to chop wood with a sledgehammer. Since there were no quotas, even if they accomplished nothing they would still be paid. But no one, not a single worker, stayed on the job more than a day and a half before quitting. Some went back to their former jobs at 1/4 the pay or less because they “needed to see the chips fly.” The failure to accomplish anything was unbearable.
When we see our work accomplishing something it satisfies us. But there is never the satisfaction that we would have if we could say the job was done perfectly and completely. There is only one human being who ever lived who could say that honestly, and that was the Lord Jesus Christ. As we have already seen, the work Jesus was given includes the entire incarnation but focuses particularly on the Cross. While it is true that He has not yet died as He speaks these words, His death is just 12 hours away and it is so certain that He speaks of it in the past tense.
When we examine this work which Jesus was given, we find that He did not merely attempt it and then drop it. He did not carry it forward a little way and then stop. It is true that the work was so grievous that He asked the Father to take the cup from Him (i.e., to spare Him), but then He quickly added, “Nevertheless, not My will but thine be done.” Then He spoke those memorable words from the cross, “It is finished.” Jesus finished His work.
Do you find that satisfying? I know One who is satisfied. God is satisfied. And He demonstrated His satisfaction with Jesus’ work by raising Him from the dead and seating Him at His own right hand. Listen to the words of I John 2:2: “He is the propitiation for our sins (the meaning of propitiation is “satisfaction”); he is the satisfaction for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” That is, Jesus satisfied God’s wrath toward sin. But God is not the only one satisfied with Jesus’ finished work. Jesus Himself was satisfied, too. We are told prophetically in that great messianic chapter, Isaiah 53, “He saw the result of the suffering of his soul and was satisfied.”
Friends, if God is satisfied with Jesus’ finished work and if Jesus is also satisfied, should not we, who benefit from it most directly, also be satisfied? Shouldn’t we quit trying to appease God with our money, with our promises, with our religious rites and rituals, and instead say to God, “I am satisfied with what Jesus did for me.”
We have had the incredible privilege this morning of hearing the Son of God speak personally to His Father, the great God of the universe, the Creator and Sustainer of all there is. But in another sense He has been speaking to us, to you and me, and telling us what it means to have eternal life and how we can spend eternity with Him. All it takes if for us in simple faith to surrender our will to Jesus Christ, accepting His finished work on Calvary’s cross as the full payment for our sins.
DATE: January 30, 1994
Tags:
Prayer
Glory
Shekinah glory
[i] Quoted by James Montgomery Boice, The Gospel of John, Vol. 4, 336.