(A) Introduction. (Read the reference)

(1) I am indebted to Bruce Milne for some of the insights in this exposition. His treatment of chapter 17 in his commentary on John is very powerful and challenging. It did me good to read it.

(2) Jesus' prayer does undoubtedly pose some problems:

(a) Where was Jesus when he made it? He and his disciples had left the upper room and they had not yet reached the Garden of Gethsemane. I think, as indicated in my exposition on the Vine , that Jesus paid one last visit in the dead of night to the temple. That, for the Jew, was the ultimate place of prayer.

(b) How did John remember in such detail both Christ's prayer and the teaching that preceded it? I do not consider it entirely improbable that John carried a scroll and made notes. He was a student after all! He may have realised that Jesus' time on earth was growing short and been anxious to record the Saviour's last words to his disciples. The lamps burning in the temple courts facilitated this. At a later date the Holy Spirit would help John work up his notes into the account we have in his gospel.

(c) Why did Jesus' mood change so quickly between leaving the temple and entering the garden? Glory and honour were anticipated in his high priestly prayer. In Gethsemane Jesus' desperate pleas revealed uncertainty and foreboding. Did the Kidron, a torrent of blood at Passover, unnerve him? This is a topic I will return to later.

(3) Jesus' prayer for his disciples complimented the teaching that preceded it. He repeated several of the themes introduced during his teaching on the Vine. The Master was preparing his disciples for his departure and the great work they would be left to do. This is a reminder that we should mix our teaching with our prayers. I usually pray that God will help me to prepare a message and deliver it. I rarely follow up a sermon with prayer.

(4) In Dr H. E. Fosdick's tremendous little book on prayer he has a chapter on, 'Prayer as Dominant Desire.' Our dominant desire is the thing we seek daily with unremitting craving. This is not necessarily what we pray for. The Pharisees in the day of Christ no doubt offered worthy prayers on street corners but what they wanted above all else was to have a good reputation amongst men - especially their peers. Christians pray that their children will become believers in Jesus but is this their dominant desire? Perhaps, what they really want is that their sons and daughter will enjoy worldly success and be a credit to them.

The prayer of Jesus for his followers does reflect his dominant desire for them. Part 1 and 2 of this exposition is going to deal with what Jesus craves for all those God has given him.

(B) Knowledge.

Jesus said: "I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known." v26. He went further and stated that this knowledge gave eternal life: "Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent." v2.

Jesus does two very important things for us:

(1) God becomes our Father through belief in him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believe in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. Jn1v12. This is confirmed by the Holy Spirit: The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Rom8v16.

(2) Jesus shows us what God is like by his teaching, example and own relationship with the Father.

Jesus said that this knowledge of the Father is eternal life. It will help to think of a small child. The most important knowledge that a small child has is knowledge of its father. There is much that a child does not know about its father but what it does know is crucial to its quality of life.

(a) The child knows that it has a father. This is the first and most essential piece of knowledge. One of the first words a child learns is 'dada'.

It is truly life-giving to know that we have a heavenly Father - to have the blessed assurance that he is there for us - to be certain that Jesus was sent to earth by God our Father.

(b) The child learns what its father disapproves of. This is very important for the moral development of the child; without it the child will be all at sea.

Jesus made known the conduct the Father disapproves of: wilfulness, selfishness and deceitfulness. He taught his disciples to say, "Our Father which art in heaven ...... thy kingdom come, thy will be done." In the passage under consideration his followers are urged to co-operate with their brothers - to be united - to be one as he and the Father are one. Jesus left the Pharisees in no doubt that God hated their pretence, falseness and hypocrisy. Our lives would improve remarkably if we abstained from what God disapproves of.

(c) The child discovers what its Father approves of. This is vital if the child is going to establish a good relationship with its father. Nothing is more conducive to the happiness of a child than a harmonious relationship with its father.

Jesus left a splendid account of the sort of person that pleases God. We call it the Beatitudes. Nothing cements our relationship with the Father more than a determined attempt to be Christ's much blessed man.

(d) The child discovers experimentally what its father will do for it. God is very much like a good earthly father in this respect. He, too, will discipline, protect, provide and forbear. How we rely on our Heavenly Father's forbearance! As a child matures he or she may be given the promise of a rich inheritance. Christians have that promise. I know that God has granted Jesus: "Authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him." v2. I have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade - kept in heaven for me. 1Pet1v4.

(e) As the years pass a child knows with growing clarity the full measure of its father's love. This contributes richly to the child's quality of life.

Could anything be more conducive to our well being than the Father's love? Jesus said: "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." v26. Jesus was telling his disciples that if they applied the knowledge he gave they would be so closely identified with him that God would love them as he loves his Son.

To know God's love is life eternal.

(C) Protection

Jesus said: "Holy Father protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me." v11. My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. v15.

(1) Believers are protected by the power of God's name - the name he shares with Jesus - SAVIOUR. The LORD our God is a Mighty Deliverer. We need often to say with the psalmist: "Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay."

(2) Now it has to be said that we frequently pray to God when our physical well being is threatened. That is when our prayers are often their most urgent! I have just finished reading a book by Stephen Brookes called, 'Through The Jungle Of Death'. It is the gripping account of 5 members of the Brookes family's attempt to escape from Burma ahead of the advancing Japanese during the Second World War. It involved trekking across mountain ranges and through tropical rainforest during the summer monsoon. Stephen, at 12, was the youngest member of the party and his father, Major William Brookes, at 70, the oldest. Major Brookes died of blackwater fever in Shingbwiyang before the final, and as it happened, safest stage of the long journey to N.E. Indian. This is what Stephen wrote about his father's death: Without my father we were doomed. Where was his God, the one he walked with and talked with? The one who said, 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do.' If ever there was a time to reach down from heaven and help him, it was now. God cannot and does not intervene every time our physical well being is threatened by wicked men. To do so would absolve men from responsibility and the consequences of their behaviour. We must never forget that in spite of Jesus praying to be spared the ordeal of the cross it was not the will of God to rescue him from wicked men.

Nevertheless I do pray for physical protection. I always did so before the Christian camps I attended as sports organiser, the field trips I conducted and still do so at the start of a long car journey. A fortnight ago I fell asleep at the wheel of my car for a second or two. Another few seconds and I would not be writing this! Was God's hand upon me? I am not convinced that the prayers of Major Brookes, a devout Christian, went unheeded. I expect he prayed fervently that his family survive the 421 miles trek and arrive safely in India. They did! I hope Stephen thanked God from time to time that his father's prayer was answered.

However, it is clear that Jesus considered our chief danger was a spiritual one. He prayed to his father for our spiritual protection. We face a mighty foe. Paul wrote: For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but .... against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Eph6v12. Peter warns his readers: Your enemy the devil prowls like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. 1Pet5v8.

(3) We need to be protected from Satan our malign and spiteful adversary when:

(a) He attempts to keep us from doing what pleases God. Satan never ceases from doing this. I was talking to one of our old members recently and she said, "Satan doesn't leave you alone as you get older, John. He often tells me to skip my quiet time or that it's too much effort to get changed and go to the prayer meeting." My bitterest foe assails me in much the same way. He will reinforce my reluctance to pay a difficult visit and magnify my resentment at lack of recognition and appreciation for the work I am doing. We rely at times like these on God's protection - particularly the prompting and urging of the Holy Spirit to do the right.

(b) He retaliates if we please God. It is significant that Jesus, following his uplifting words to his disciples, was plunged into despair in the Garden of Gethsemane. This does not surprise me. Satan was bound to attack Jesus with savage ferocity after all that transpired at the last supper and immediately afterwards. That is how he operates as I have discovered on many occasions to my cost.

I agreed to take one of our elderly members to Stanstead airport for a flight to Cyprus to see one of her sons. It was a two hour round trip. As I drove I felt a bit disgruntled. Satan kept whispering in my ear, "Her youngest son should be doing this - not me." Well God came to my rescue because the Holy Spirit reminded me that Ivy and I both belonged to the same family and I was her brother.

We need to pray for all those who are very active and much used in the service of Jesus. They will be the ones who Satan will attack most fiercely. It is not a coincidence that some of the most effective servants of Christ have been subject to depression - C. H. Spurgeon, William Booth and Rev David Watson to name but three.

(c) He tries to rob us of our assurance. Satan attacks us when we are vulnerable - old, ill and frail or after failure, disappointments, setbacks and upsets. The Father of Lies will suggest that we are useless, we no longer count and God has stopped caring about us. At such times we need to be rescued by God's word: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? .... Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword.

I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom8v35to39.

Jesus prayed: "So that they may be one as we are one." v21.

William Barclay writes in his commentary on John: Jesus prayed that his disciples might be as fully one as he and the Father are one; and THERE IS NO PRAYER OF JESUS which has been so hindered from being answered by individual Christians and by all the churches than this prayer.

So what does it mean to be one as Jesus and his Father are one? It will help us to answer this question if we consider something else Jesus said about himself and his Father: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your son that your Son may glorify you." v1. This at the very least indicates that Jesus and his Father desired the very best for one another.

Christians should desire the very best for one another. This involves:

(a) Mutual commitment.
One Saturday as I settled down in my friend Dean's car to travel to an away hockey fixture he said, "I've got some news that will please you JR. Carolyn and I got married last weekend." I was pleased! Carolyn and Dean had been living together for 18 years before going to Edinburgh and getting married before two witnesses. Why did they do it? In the end Dean realised he would not be happy living apart from Carolyn and wanted to make the ultimate commitment and marry her.

Many Christians are like Dean and Carolyn before they married. They attend a church, serve the church and are loyal to the church but will not join it. They will not make the ultimate commitment and join. In my own church this involves being baptised by immersion and requesting membership. Too many of our dwindling congregation are not members. What a sadness that is to me.

(b) Mutual support.
To whom do we turn when we are really up against it? Is it to the natural family? Are the ties of blood stronger than the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love? In the end the church may be our last resort! There is a blessing when a Christian turns to the fellowship of believers for help - both to the needy Christian and the fellowship. I asked my church for assistance during the time I cared from my sick father and it was a blessing to both me and my church.

(c) Mutual sympathy.
When I gave a school assembly I sometimes enjoyed a wonderful rapport with my pupils which was probably the product of a mutual affection. I can recall speaking at a camp for youngsters that my brother Paul organised for the black teenagers who attended his church. That was a very different experience. I faced a group of suspicious, sullen-faced individuals whose only reaction to my anecdotes was a fixed scowl. When a pastor or elder addresses his flock there should be rapport, a mutual sympathy, a shared affection.

(d) Mutual love.
John wrote in his first epistle: This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 1John3v11. Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1John3v18.

In the battle hymn, 'Onward Christian soldiers', one verse is often omitted from hymnbooks. It contains the words:

Like a mighty army moves the church of God,
Brothers we are treading where the saints have trod
We are not divided, all one body we
One in hope and doctrine, one in charity.

I suppose the compilers of hymnbooks realise that those sentiments are just not true! The church is not one in doctrine. But that is not really where the church is lacking. It isn't one in charity!

(a) Dispel fear.
John wrote in his first epistle: But perfect love drives out fear. 1John4v18. If genuine love exists in a church between its members then there would be no fear of offending or upsetting someone, being badly thought of or being made to pay for a mistake or misdemeanour. There would be no misjudgements because of ignorance, bias or prejudice.

(b) Prevent a lot of silly problems and ugly disputes.
I read of an American church where there was an argument over the colour of the new hymnbook. It must have been in Hilly Billy country! The church split over the issue. The side that lost left but came back under cover of darkness, sawed the wooden chapel in half and took their half away. Can you believe it? Yes, I can because my own church was wrecked many years ago over where to locate new toilets. I learned earlier this year of a fellowship in my own Association where women fell out over hoovering up crumbs after a Sunday midday meal in the chapel. The lady doing the hoovering was castigated for working on the 'Sabbath'. It resulted in folk leaving the church!

The trouble is, of course, that differences of opinion over trivialities lead to power struggles between individuals and people take sides. Fault lines are revealed in the love that should bind all Christians in a church together. The fault lines were there before the dispute began!

(c) Put a stop to the multiplication of Protestant denominations or groups.
There is thought to be over 22000 of them in existence and the number grows from year to year. Increasing numbers of young people in Britain seem unable to settle in an existing church in an old denomination but feel the need to set up their 'own' fellowship. I know of one set up recently where 250 Christians, all under the age of 30, worship. I don't think they show much love for the ageing fellowships that they could have joined and, perhaps, revitalised through their efforts. The huge number of separate Protestant denominations is a scandal. It is a product of the pride in being right. It has nothing to do with love. I am no hypocrite in this matter. I have stopped in an Association whose doctrinal statement I disagree with for love of the people in the small church I attend.

(d) Be the death knell of exclusiveness.
William Barclay wrote in his commentary on John: The cause of Christian unity at the present time, and indeed all though history, has been injured and violated and hindered, because men loved their own ecclesiastical organizations, men loved their own creeds, men loved their own ritual more than they loved each other. If we really loved each other and really loved Christ no man would ever be excluded from any Church and no Church would exclude any man who was Christ's disciple.

I say AMEN to that - AMEN, AMEN and AMEN.

My own Association of churches has a pastor's and elder's forum. Any pastor or elder who cannot make a commitment to the doctrinal statement of the Association in its entirety, and that includes me, is excluded from attending the forum. Jesus never left instructions for the members of the forum to love the Doctrines of Grace but he did command them to love me! You cannot love a Christian brother and exclude him from fellowship at the same time.

(e) Be a powerful witness.
Bruce Milne writes: Evangelism is a community act. It is the proclamation of the church's relationship as well as its conviction. This is what Jesus said: "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." v21.

Disunity is a curse. It is a shocking witness. As Milne says: We are fighting with one hand. Fancy going into a fight with a mighty foe with one hand tied behind your back. The gospel is proclaimed not only by preaching but by the love Christians have for one another.

The causes of disunity do not make pretty reading: pride, malice, spite, thoughtlessness, imprudence, jealousy, cowardice, bias (taking sides), prejudice, selfishness, boredom .... . There is no good cause for division! Love of doctrine is nearly always pride in being right.

The clearest evidence that relationships have ruptured in a church is when Christians leave to attend somewhere else in the neighbourhood. Those that walk out have no more love for those that are left than a man has who abandons his wife and children.

I went recently to see my friend, Ken, about the funeral of his mother. We got to talking about the chapel. Ken said, "What I can't understand JR is why people keep on leaving you. If they're Christians what do they want to leave for? Surely one church is as good as another." Well, we haven't had that many people leave - but some have. I don't understand why they have left either. Of one thing I am certain - it is an appalling witness. It is hardly a testimony to the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love!

See also exposition on Phi2v1to4.

ANY COMMENTS FOR JOHN REED: E-mail jfmreed@talktalk.net

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