John Zink was a student who came to study at Wittenberg with Martin Luther in October of 1530. He became ill in March of 1532 and died shortly thereafter in April. Luther, therefore, had the task of writing to his parents and attempting to minister to these who had lost their precious son whom they had sent to the university. Luther wrote, "By this time I trust that you will have learned that your dear son, John Zink, whom you sent here to study, was overtaken by a grave illness and, although nothing was spared in the way of care, attention, and medicine, the disease got the upper hand and carried him off to heaven, to our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . If it had been possible, we should have been glad to save and keep him. But God loved him even more and desired to have him. . . . And now he is in a place which he would not exchange for all the world, even for a moment. Grieve in such a way, therefore, as to console yourselves. For you have not lost him, but have only sent him on ahead of you to be kept in everlasting blessedness.¹

This letter is found among many others that have ministered to my soul in a book titled, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel. This book is one that I open alongside my Bible in dark and painful times, and has ministered to me more than any other book outside of Scripture itself. I feel as if in difficult times it is good to let Luther walk alongside me, for if anyone knew struggle it was Martin Luther. In fact, he could write this letter in an understanding way because he had lost two of his three girls at eight months and thirteen years. There is simply not much, I've found, that I struggle with that God hasn't allowed others (such as Luther), who have walked the road before me, to struggle with as well. But what's particularly helpful, I think, about Luther's letters is the way he reminds you of the bigger picture.

Again, when his enemies (and enemies of the cross) seemed to be gaining the upper hand, Luther wrote to one of his peers in the fight, "By His Spirit, God will bless and further this work which he has graciously given us to do, and he will find the fitting time, place, and method to help us. He will neither forget nor forsake us. Those men of blood have not yet accomplished what they are now undertaking, nor have they all achieved security or whatever else it is that they desire. Our rainbow is frail and their clouds are mighty, but it will appear in the end to whose tune we shall dance."²

Our text this morning is a one that allows us to see the bigger picture. Last week, we saw in chapters 15-16 how Jesus told the disciples that they would be sent out as Christ's witnesses into a world that would hate them and persecute them. Then, he told them how they would have the Holy Spirit, his Word, and the ability to pray to the Father in his name. In John 17, immediately following these circumstances, we see that Jesus now comes to pray concerning all of these things. There are a number of lessons that we could learn in this text, such as how we should pray. And I encourage you, maybe this afternoon, to spend some time meditating on this text, comparing your prayers to Christ's, seeing what he focused on, and possibly altering how you pray. But, instead of asking the question, "How should we pray in light of how Jesus prayed here?" I, rather, want us to see what Jesus teaches us in this prayer. For it is no accident that Jesus is praying out loud here that his disciples may hear him. It is to teach them, it is for their benefit, and it is to teach and benefit all of us who have believed through them as well.

It seems that the text is roughly divided into three sections as Jesus prays for himself in 17:1-5, his disciples in 17:6-19, and for those who will believe through their witness (i.e. us) in 17:20-26. Therefore, let us then turn to see what Jesus teaches his disciples and us through this prayer.

Jesus shows that the ultimate aim is the Father's glory

Jesus opens the prayer praying, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you" (v. 1). He prays to the end that the Father is glorified. That is the ultimate goal of all things. The Westminster Confession is indeed true in asserting, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever."

I remember when that was a revolutionary truth in my mind. My thinking altered from a me-centered worldview to a God-centered worldview. And if you had asked me why anything exists or works as it does I would have (rightly) said, "For the glory of God." However, it was simply an abstract phrase for me. All things abounded to God's glory; I knew that, but I didn't know practically how this works out in life. In these first five verses, however, Jesus displays for us how God is glorified.

First, taking the first two verses in which Jesus prays, "Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him" (vv. 1-2), we begin to see it. The Father is glorified as the Son is exalted as King. The Father's goal throughout eternity has been (and will continue to be) to exalt his Son. His goal is to sum up all things in Christ. Paul writes in Ephesians 1:9-10 that God has made "known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth." Again in Colossians 1:15-18, we read of Jesus, "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities-all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent." And earlier in the gospel which we are studying, Jesus says, "The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand" (John 3:35).

The Father's goal has been to sum up all things in Christ, to deliver all things into his hand, to exalt him above all things, to give him all authority in heaven and earth. He has even given him a people to which he will give eternal life. And in all of this, then is the Father glorified. First, the Father is glorified because of what eternal life is. Jesus says in John 17:3, "This is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Because eternal life is knowing God, as Jesus gives his people eternal life, he is revealing to them the glory of God the Father in his own face that we might know the Father and honor him. And as we see the glory of the Father in the face of Christ, we bow before him confessing him as Lord. In that is the Father glorified, as well. For it is the goal of his divine plan. This is why Paul writes in Philippians 2:9-11, "God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so 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."

So, what Jesus is praying in these first five verses is for the Father to complete his own eternal plan. He is praying for himself to be glorified, "since [the Father has] given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom [he has] given him" (v. 2). He is praying in essence, "Let your will be done on earth as it is done in heaven." He is praying for the Father to glorify the Son and via the Son's death, burial, and resurrection, to deliver into the Son's hands the authority as the risen king to gather all whom the Father has given him so that the Son might be exalted in all the earth to the glory of God the Father. That is what God's glory looks like. And this is God's eternal purpose, to be glorified in the exaltation of his Son.

And the amazing thing is that his disciples are commanded and privileged to go with the authority of the exalted Christ and be the instrument through which this divine plan is fulfilled. That's the message of the Great Commission as the text says, "And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age." With the Father delivering all authority over all flesh (i.e. that about which he prayed in John 17:2), he sends out his disciples to gather those whom God has given him to himself. They get to be a part of the divine mission. That was what Jesus told them in chapters 15-16. And now in chapter 17 we see Jesus continuing to prepare them and praying for them.

Jesus prayed for his disciples and prepared them for their mission

In verses 6-10, Jesus identifies his followers as those whom the Father has given him, who have kept his word, who know that Jesus has been sent from God, who believe, who have been taken out of the world, who are Christ's, and in whom Christ is glorified. This is crucial, for it prepares his disciples (who are hearing this description) for the divine mission they are going to be sent out to do. They need to know who is glorified in them; for otherwise, their part in the divine mission will make no sense.

But Jesus does not simply pray about them; he prays for them. He prays that they will be protected from disunity and from the evil one. He prays, "And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. ... I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world."

They are about to go into a world that hates them and will persecute them, and where their unity and love for one another would be so crucial, so he prays that they might be one as the Father and the Son are one. That is to say, that they might be one in their love for one another, their mission, what they believe, and how they want to live. This is a major threat and danger to them, but Jesus prays for them.

Also, there is an enemy who is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may destroy, a strongman, who holds those in sin under his power and in his kingdom. Yet Jesus prays for them here as well, that they might be protected from the evil one. Later John writes in 1 John 5:18, "We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him." Jesus prays for his disciples' protection.

Yet, Jesus also prepares them. In verse 13 he prays, "But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in them." Jesus, it seems, wants not only to pray these things for his disciples but also to remember them later so that their joy might be full in the midst of carrying out the divine mission.

And all of this because he prays in verses 17-19 for them to be set aside for the mission. That is the idea of "sanctify" in these verses as he prays, "Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth." His prayer here seems to be, "Father, set them apart in truth because I am sending them into the world."

Jesus sends out his disciples, but he prays for them and prepares them for the divine mission.

Finally, Jesus guaranteed their success

I say this simply because in verse 20 he goes ahead and prays "for those who will believe in [him] through their word." That is to say, Jesus is assuring his disciples that there indeed would be some who would believe through their witness. And we, those who believe this morning, are some of that group, who if we traced back each individual who believed, who shared the gospel with those who eventually shared with us, would trace it back to these very first disciples.

So, Jesus reveals to his disciples the Father's divine plan and purpose, sends them out as a means to fulfill that purpose, prepares them, prays for them, and guarantees their success. "That's great!" we might say, "But what does all of that have to do with us now?"

And the answer is first that ...

We too are part of the divine mission

The Great Commission extends to us. Jesus makes this clear in verse 20 as he begins focusing on all those who will believe through the disciples' witness. As we have already seen, that includes us. And in praying for us, he prays to the end that the world might believe. He says in verse 21, " ... so that the world may believe that you have sent me" and in verse 23, " ... so that he world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me."

We too are sent out. We too have been sanctified, set apart, for this divine mission that men may see our love for one another and hear the gospel of Christ. And I wonder if Jesus statement in verse 22, "The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one" is not a reminder to us that just as Christ's path to exaltation went through the cross, so will ours as we too are called to take up our cross in this mission.

And, though we have already mentioned it ...

Jesus also prayed for us and prepared us for the task

In verse 20, he prays for us. Isn't that amazing! He is for us. He was praying for us then, was for us before the foundation of the world, and is for us now. He wants our success; he wants to see his kingdom expanded through our witness.

And when you take into account verse 9, in which Jesus says, "I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours", I think it makes clear that Jesus wants his followers to know that he is for them in a very particular, focused way.

For example, I might say, "I love that little dog" or "I love Kentucky" or "I love our president." But when I say, "I love you" to my wife, I want to make clear that I love no one else precisely as I love her. My love for her is different, and I am for her in a way than I am for no other. This seems to be what Jesus is communicating in his prayer and why he brings up the contrast in verse 9. Christ prays for our unity and that many would believe through our witness. And as we read in our call to worship, if God is for us, who can be against us?

Finally, he guarantees the success of this mission of which we are a part

In these final verses, Jesus prays, "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. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 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."

In this, he makes it clear that he will continue to make the Father's name known. He, indeed, will do that through our witness, which is why I think Luke begins Acts by writing, "In the first book [Luke], O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach ..." He was showing that Jesus continues to work through his disciples.

So, too, we may know that this mission, though difficult, though calling us to take up our cross, is a victorious mission in which Christ will work through us so that he might be exalted and magnified before his people to the glory of God the Father. In short, our mission will be successful because it is God's divine plan which no one can thwart.

May he then give us great grace in order that we might be obedient to the task. Amen.

¹ Martin Luther, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 64-65.
² Ibid., 157.

PRAYER AND PREPARATION FOR THE MISSION