April 15, 2004
A couple of weeks ago I was in Chicago on a business trip for 3 days. Being in a strange place I didn’t sleep well and woke up at 3:AM. Usually when that happens I pick up a book to read. I picked up my Bible and looked at the Sermon outline from the day before. On it there was a reference to John 17, I remembered Keith mentioning that chapter so I looked it up and read it.
Now I don’t know how God gets through to you but with me he tends to put thing in my path several times. After I read John 17 I, very impatiently I might add, waited till I knew that Patty, a friend of mine would be up and awake so I could call her and tell her about what I had read. She informed me that her minister had preached on John 17 the previous Sunday as well. On Wednesday night I went to Bob and Raye Combs and started to share what I had read with them. Before I had gotten very far they put a flier in my hand from a group call the John Chapter 17 Ministries. Now, I don’t know about you but it seems to me that God was really trying to get my attention.
Now, granted this is my own interpretation but this is what John 17 means to me. The first 5 versus are Jesus honoring God and asking him to Glorify his sacrifice. Versus 6-19 are Jesus asking God to bless, inspire and protect his disciples so that they can teach about God’s word. But the last part, versus 20-26, are the ones that really hit me. I have read this before but I guess that I had never understood it before.
Let me read it for you:
John 17:20-26
Jesus Prays for All Believers
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you 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 have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."
As I read I realized that this was the last prayer that Jesus prayed before being arrested and crucified. Did you hear it? Jesus wasn’t praying for just anything, he was praying for you, he was praying for me! His last thought was for us, that we may be part of the body of Christ and live in his glory. He prayed for you, your parents, grand parents, children, grand children, your friends and your enemy’s, for all of the people who lived then, have come since and will come in the future. But he not only prayed for our redemption but for Transformation. Listen again, “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me”. That is the Transformation we have been praying about.
His last act before he was betrayed was to pray for you and me and transformation! To me that adds a whole new dimension to Communion. As you take Communion today think of Jesus, in the Garden, praying for you, your name in his heart, your face in his mind, praying for your salvation and the unity of his church.
