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John 17:20-26

Let’s do a bit of review from last week. So we started this Passage of Scripture In John 17 – where we have Christ’s Prayer of Consecration. And He begins to pray for the Father to glorify Him – so that the Father would receive glory. Then Jesus turns His focus to His Disciples praying for their unity, their faith, and that they would be able to stay committed to the work that Jesus was to give them. Which was the mission of continuing what Jesus started.

And now Jesus turns to the future. He begins this next section, and we end the chapter here, with Jesus praying for you and me. Let’s here what He had to say.

John 17:20-26 (NIV) “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—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will 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 Jesus begins to turn His focus from His direct Disciples – the Apostles – we see His focus turning to what will come – the future of His ministry. Which tells me something about His prayer for His Disciples from the previous passage. The fact that He prays for all of us who will come as a result of the ministry of the Apostles and their disciples tells me that Jesus has confidence that His Disciples will continue the ministry after He returns to heaven.

Also this tells me that Jesus doesn’t believe that the world is beyond saving. Jesus is placing His faith in people who can and will hear His voice through those He has called to be his disciples, To make a choice to follow Him.

You know that brings me to another thought about how we as a body all work together to do the will of God. And that is this – we are all called to be disciple-maker makers. Try saying that 10 times fast. We aren’t just to be discipling others, Just so that we can teach others. But so that the others we disciple can also one day be discipling others. It’s a multiplication thing.

And again Jesus ends by praying to the Father That He would be living in us. And that is such a large thought that God with us – would become God in us. I’m not certain that through the filters of western American thought, we grasp how big a deal this really is.

You see it’s by this power of the Holy Spirit living in us and through us, that we become set apart for His work. Remember once we accept Christ as Messiah or as our savior – once we believe unto salvation – we become citizens of the Kingdom of God. And in turn, become ambassadors for Christ in this world – in the world not of this world. We live in expectation of Christ’s return – it’s the tension of the now and the yet to come – when Jesus returns to take us home.

A wise person recently reminded me that some tensions are not to be resolved. And I know that some day this particular tension will be resolved. But for now this is the tension we live in. We are foreigners in this land, pointing people to Jesus.