Jesus Prays for You
Now, one thing we have in common today is all of us need to make decisions. And these decisions that we make in life impact the rest of our lives. And one of the challenges that we face is, “What if I make the wrong choice?” Sometimes the fear of making the wrong choice leads to making no choice, which is, itself, a choice.
Jesus knew that we would make thousands of decisions in our lifetime and so he prayed for us. He prayed for you. Shortly before his arrest and crucifixion, he goes a short distance from his disciples and he prays. When Jesus prays to his Father in heaven, he prays for his disciples (and us). His prayer is very specific. One of the prayer petitions was for his disciples (you) to, “not be of the world, even as I am not of it” (John 17:16). His prayer is almost loaded with riddles, “do not take them out of the world… they are not of the world” (verses 15-16). The timing of this prayer sits in the shadow of the cross and the details of the prayer are important for your life and the decisions that you have to make on a daily basis.
All of us encounter situations where we have to make a decision. You ask yourself, “Do I go left or do I go right? Should I stay or should I go? Is this the best thing for me to do? Is this the most honest thing that I could be doing right now? Is he/she the best thing for me?” Even today, you’ll make dozens of decisions...
Now we don’t have time to go through dozens, hundreds, or thousands of possible decisions that you will make in your lifetime, but there is one question that you can go back to over and over again to check and see which way to go… We will get to that in a minute.
In order to get there, we will take a look at what saying Jesus prayed for in John 17:16, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.”
Today we will look at four questions:
- What is Jesus talking about here?
- Why is it important?
- How does this happen?
- What difference does it make for you?
Let’s take a look. Open your Bible to John 17.
First, what is Jesus talking about?
John 17 gives us a glimpse of Jesus’ heart unlike any other chapter in the four Gospels. It is the longest recorded prayer of Jesus. Perhaps the Lord’s Prayer is comparable, but even that prayer does not have the breadth or range of ideas expressed in this prayer. We catch a glimpse of Jesus’ intimate relationship with his Father and learn of his origins and future, his mission and its accomplishments, his concerns, and his hopes.
During this prayer, Jesus prays about glorification and obedience to his Father’s will. He prays for his disciples’ survival and unity. He prays about holiness. Will his followers pattern their lives after the holiness he has shown them? Will their lives reflect the Son of God living in them that they may become living testimonies to the world?
When Jesus prays for his disciples to, “not be of the world, even as I am not of it” (John 17:16). What is he saying? Jesus is praying for his disciples to have a kind of life that glorifies God the Father.
In John 17:1 Jesus starts his praying, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” The pattern of glorification is complete: God the Father is glorified through God the Son. Verse 4. I have brought you glory. Verse 5. The glory I had with you before the world began. So the Son glorifies the Father.
And the Son is glorified through his disciples. Look at verse 10. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them [the disciples]. Now jump down to verse 22. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.
Those features of Jesus’ life that brought glory to his Father may also be characteristics that of discipleship that bring glory to Jesus. When a disciple’s life bears fruit (remember John 15 that we talked about two weeks ago) the Son (aka the Vine) is glorified and so is the Father in heaven glorified.
Second, why is it important?
Jesus has a spiritual concern for you. There is a spiritual dilemma that applies to the first century and twenty-first-century followers of Jesus. They live in the world, but Jesus says “they are not of the world” (John 17:14,16). This is not about geographical location, but your spiritual position.
Throughout the Gospels, when Jesus uses the term world, he’s not referring to a place on a map, but a spiritual domain that is often in darkness and unbelief (3:19). The spiritual identity of the disciples is in verse 16 is, “they do not belong of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Their spiritual position is one in the Kingdom of Light, not darkness.
This is important because it signifies which team are you on. Team Jesus or Team world. Team Jesus is for the Kingdom and domain of Light. Team world roots for darkness and evil. Throughout the Gospels, there are only two teams. Team Jesus has come to love and save a world. Meanwhile, “men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light” (John 3:19-20).
To glorify Jesus, therefore, glorifies the Father in heaven.
Matthew talks about this some more in Matthew 5:16, “Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and. glorify your Father who is in heaven.” The Light that Matthew the tax collector is talking about is NOT you, but the Light is Jesus. Jesus shines before others in ways that a dark world will see as different than the world.
Jesus prays for you, “You live in this world, but you are NOT of this world. You are as out of your world as Jesus is out of your world.” Jesus prays that Bob the believer would “not be of the world, even as I am not of it” (John 17:16).
My daughter’s banana bread is amazing, but it’s not her recipe, but mom’s recipe, but NOT really her mom’s recipe but her grandma’s recipe. It’s the best banana bread on the planet. I would pay $20 per loaf... It’s banana manna from heaven. We intentionally let bananas get old in our house, we have swarms of fruit flies just so we can special order 12 loaves of banana bread.
To glorify Jesus, therefore, glorifies the Father in heaven. As you abide in Jesus by faith, the fruit of faith comes forward which glorifies the Son, and in turn, glorifies the Father in heaven.
How does this happen?
Jesus’ prayer gives us the answer, “Sanctify (hagiazo) them by the truth; your word is truth (John 17:17). Sanctify is a fancy church word to set apart or to separate. Sometimes people say sanctify means to make holy, but in this case, it’s probably best to understand it as separate. John 17:17 is the separation verse.
Example: Fluides separate. Corn syrup, dish soap, water, vegetable oil, rubbing alcohol.
Now, this bottle represents the world that we live in, and these liquids are different from each other. When Jesus prays for his disciples (us), he’s praying for us to be in but not of the world. He’s praying for us to be separated by the truth, the word of truth that came from the Father. And this word does have separate people. Some will love the truths of Jesus, while others will despise the truth.
In Verse 14 Jesus prayed to his Father saying, “I have given them [the disciples] your word and the world has hated them [past tense], for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.”
Dear friends in Christ. As you abide in Christ and remain in his word there is a separation that takes place and not everyone is going to like it, agree with it, or roll with it. In fact, short-term somethings in life could be uncomfortable. So Jesus gives us a heads up here. Jesus said the world hated his disciples because of the word of truth. Really, what the world hated was the decisions being made by the disciples because of the word of truth. The decisions the disciples were making were informed by, led by, caused by the word of truth.
Over and over again the disciples’ decision-making in life was based on a BIG question which STILL applies to your life today.
THE #1 QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF IN MAKING SOME KIND OF DECISION. Here’s how you discern which way to go. Ask yourself, “What does the word of truth say about this matter?”
The Word of truth separates things. John 17:17. “Separate them by the truth; your word is truth.” The word will separate you from the decisions the rest of the world makes. The word of truth is like soap dropped into greasy oil. It separates things. It cleans things up so you can make an easier decision.
Columbia researcher Sheena Iyengar has found that the average person makes about 70 decisions every day. That's 25,500 decisions a year. Over 70 years, that's 1,788,500 decisions.
What does the word of truth say? It will separate things out so that you make out-of-this-world decisions. This question is the key question that will separate you from the crowd in a way that glorifies the Son, therefore, glorifying the Father in heaven.
Now, to be clear this will not be easy. In fact, sometimes the decisions that you make that are aligned with the word of truth, may not make things immediately better in the short-term. Sometimes it might make things a little worse in the near term.
No, I’m not going to lie about this matter, and it cost you your job.
No, I’m not going to hang out with you to do that, and it cost you some friends.
No, I’m not going to be with that person, because their way is leading me astray.
Yes, I’m going to __________, because this is aligned to the word of truth.
What happens is the word of truth and the Spirit of (16:13) is making you not be of the world, even as Jesus is not of the world. In fact, the kind of decisions that Jesus often made were counter-cultural. Jesus swam upstream, when everyone else floated downstream. Jesus offered grace, when most would condemn.
Why does Jesus do that? Because Jesus would set aside his life so that you too could be set apart. In John 17:19 Jesus prays, “For them, I sanctify (set apart) myself, that they too may be truly sanctified (set apart).” Jesus set you apart by laying down his life on the cross for you. In a few short hours after Jesus prayed this intimate prayer over you, he died on the cross over you, so that you would be set apart in God’s love.
What difference does this make for you?
A young, ambitious guy who worked at Toyota received a triple promotion that required a transfer to Johannesburg, South Africa. He went home to his new wife and young baby and said, “Great news, we're moving to South Africa.” Appalled, his wife said, "You're moving alone. I'm going home to my mother." That was the first test of serious decision-making for that family. There was no viable compromise: If he relinquished his promotion, he would resent his wife for ruining his career; if she just went along with the move, she would hate him for squashing her ideals for her baby and herself. What to do?
They might have been tempted to call it quits. Instead, they went back to the fundamentals, “What does the word of truth say about this matter?” After some time reflecting on the word of truth, prayer and some time of discussion, they discovered God’s truth calls them to be a FAMILY. God’s truth invites each of them to use their vocational skills to provide for their family and glorify God.
That marriage had to grow up by the equivalent of six years in about three weeks. They ended up going to Johannesburg, and their relationship had been transformed: She understood that God blessed her husband with great skills and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. He recommitted to make God and family his top priorities, and Toyota would be #3 on the list.
What matters is not what they ended up choosing, but how got there. They took the John 17:17 step to ask themselves, “What does God’s truth have to say about this?” The final decision is not the major point, how they arrived at a godly decision was paramount.
May God bless you as you, as Jesus leads you out of your world and into decisions that look like Jesus’ world.
