John 17:20-26

Jesus Prays for All Believers


20 "My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21 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. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 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.


24 "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.


25 "Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 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."





Dig Deeper


What’s the true measure of success when it comes to creating a religious community or any sort of organization or community for that matter? It’s not really how big of a movement you can create, although there is something to be said for that. A lot of people can do that, though. There are a lot of charismatic or talented folks that can create a big following. That’s usually the easy part, believe it or not. The true measure of success, however, is the ability to pass it on to the next generation. Can what you have created be passed on after it’s founder is no longer around? If it can’t, it’s exposed as a flash-in-the-pan that was based on little more than the charisma or ability of the founder. If it can, though, then you’ve got something that was probably well built and formed. I’ve seen this a lot in ministry or community organizations over the years. One person will start a movement, church, or organization that is very small and build it up to an impressive force and following, but as soon as they retire or pass away the organization begins to fall apart and slowly disintegrates. This is a testament to something that was built on the abilities of one person rather than a lasting and transcending movement. Failure to keep something going well after you are gone is a sure sign that what you built wasn’t really that well built after all.


On a personal level, parents know this concept well. We want nothing more than to pass on our beliefs to our children, especially when it comes to our faith in Christ. If we cannot pass that on to them and build up a subsequent generation of believers (both our children and new converts), then the church of which we are a part will slowly gray, fade, and eventually blow away in the winds of time. Jesus knew this concept well. He prays for his disciples that are about to be set out into the world to share his mission without him physically with them any longer, but he knows that what he is building must go beyond that. He wants the Father to protect those disciples but now his thoughts and prayers turn beyond that. What about those who come after these disciples? These people will be the fruit of these disciple’s mission, people that will never physically meet Jesus. Can the faith be passed on to them? Will they understand Christ’s glory? Will they live it out and then pass it on themselves to the next generation?


Because Jesus knows all too well the need to create a multi-generational legacy of those in Christ, his prayer is not for his current disciples alone. He prays for those who will believe in him through their message. Jesus didn’t just come to gather a bunch of followers around himself for his own glory, creating a comfortable life for himself in which he is adored and revered throughout his lifetime. He is creating the new people of God, a people that will last forever. A community that is built on the disciples message. This is why it is so important that the Holy Spirit lead them into all truth and testify about the Son (Jn. 14:26; 15:26). The community built around the truth of Jesus will be built on the message that is guided and preserved by the Holy Spirit. And here’s the really amazing part. What, do you suppose, is the Greek word that is translated "message" in verse 20? You guessed it. It’s the logos. It is the word of God, the ordering principle of the universe that is not just some abstract force, but has become flesh. The Logos has given his logos, the logos of the Father, to his disciples and it will be up to them to pass this logos on to future generations. They will, in other words, build communities that are built on the word of God.


But simply knowing this word will not be good enough. We can’t just "know" the word of God, it has to be lived out. That’s the whole point with the true logos. It became flesh. It can only be fully revealed when it is lived. This logos that is passed on to us must be lived out. The way to truly live it out is walk the path of glory that Jesus has revealed and to be unified in the same sort of unity that he has demonstrated in his relationship with the Father.


"If we say we love God yet hate a brother or sister, we are liars. For if we do not love a fellow believer, whom we have seen, we cannot love God, whom we have not seen. And he has given us this command: Those who love God must also love one another" (1 Jn. 4:20-21). John’s words from his first letter show exactly why Jesus prayed that his future disciples will be one as he and the Father are one. We have to live out the word. We cannot just say we love God without the accompanying unity that it produces. Our unity is based on the unity within the Trinity. God does not show his wisdom throughout the heavenly realms in the reality of the church (Eph. 3:10-11) by taking a bunch of people that have things in common and would normally blend together anyway and crafting them into a community. The world is full of communities of people who share commonalities. What displays God’s wisdom and power is to take a bunch of disparate people with different interests, different backgrounds, from different cultures, races, and nations and to make them one despite their serious differences. The unity of the church is best displayed in its diversity. A monolithic church that is made up mostly of one type of person does not display God’s full glory.


But how is that kind of unity going to be achieved? By displaying the glory that Christ has given to his communities. John says in chapter 13 that Jesus displayed the full extent of his love by laying his life down in service for others and the Father confirmed that he would be glorified and glorify the Son by sending him to the Cross (Jn. 12:28). The full expression of God’s character, God’s glory is seen through the sacrificial act of Jesus laying down his life for his friends and that is exactly what he has called us to do (Jn. 15:12-13). The kind of unity through diversity, the community that Jesus was masterfully building, we must never forget, takes effort and hard work, and being led by the Spirit. These relationships must be built on the foundation of being one in Christ, rather than worldly ideas of what constitutes friendships and communities, things like sharing common interests and backgrounds. It takes the constant act of us choosing to lay down our lives for the benefit of others. It takes nothing short of self-sacrificial love. These will be, after all, communities built on the love we have for one another (Jn. 13:34-35).


It is through this genuine self-giving love that the world will know that the Father has truly sent the Son and that those communities are authentic disciples of the Son. We must realize, however, that this doesn’t mean that the world will admire and even hold us in esteem. It just means that they will know we are his disciples. Those who are truly seeking God will find themselves drawn to the love of God manifested in the genuine Christian community. But those who love the darkness may very well hate disciples and reject them all the more based on that very love. This is a love that does not pattern itself after the world’s parody of love which says that I love when I accept you just as you are, but after a true love that calls each one of us to lay down our lives, enter into the life of Christ and then continue to lay down our lives for others and love them the way that Christ loved all of us.


We must never be swayed by the world’s version of love or their opinion of how God’s people should behave because the world does not know the Father. In Christ alone do we stand on the rock, able to know the Father because he and he alone knows the Father, was sent by the Father and has made the Father known. And how will we know the Father and make him known to the world? By mirroring the self-giving love and complete unity that the Son and the Father share. We will not demonstrate the love of the Father and the Son by backbiting and breaking down into selfish consumption. Every time we run behind another Christian’s back and say something negative about them that is not said in love rather than lovingly talking to them and forging a genuine unity, we preach a powerful sermon to the world about who the Father is. We must constantly ask ourselves then if we are preaching an accurate sermon with our lives? Is "the manifold wisdom of God [being] made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord"? When it comes down to it, I can seek worldly friendships and communities that appeal to my flesh but all they will ever get me is satisfaction of the flesh, they will never demonstrate the wisdom and power of God through my life.





Devotional Thought


What have you been building your friendships on lately? Has it been the desires of the flesh or a genuine desire to be unified in Christ and bring glory to God? Spend some time thinking about that today and pray about your heart in this matter.