The Assurance of Our Salvation (Studies in John 17) (eBook)

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The Lord’s Own Prayer

John 17:1

It is customary for us to refer to the prayer which we find recorded in the Sermon on the Mount and in Luke 11 as the Lord’s Prayer; but in reality, of course, that was the prayer which he gave as a kind of model to his disciples and to others, whereas here we have what can truly be called our Lord’s own prayer, for here we find him praying his own personal prayer to the Father. The circumstances in which he came to do so are familiar to all of us. ‘These words spake Jesus’, are a reference to the great and mighty discourse which is recorded in chapters 14, 15 and 16 of this gospel. Then, having spoken those words about the Holy Spirit who is to be given to the believers, about what he could do in them, and all the results of his coming, our Lord lifted up his eyes to heaven and began to pray.

A quaint preacher in the seventeenth century said what is, I believe, the eternal truth about this prayer: ‘It is the greatest prayer that was ever offered on earth and it followed the greatest sermon that was ever preached on earth’. In a sense nothing can be added to that. Here you have this sermon in those three chapters, then, immediately at the close of the sermon, our Lord offers up this prayer. It is one of the richest and most sublime statements to be found anywhere, even in the Scriptures themselves. And there is a sense in which one preaches it with fear and trembling, lest one may in any way detract from its greatness and from its value. There have been those in the past who have felt that here we are dealing with something which is so sacred, because it is the very opening into our Lord’s own heart, that the only right thing to do with this prayer is to read it. There was a great man living in Germany in the seventeenth century called Stein (the leader in many ways of the great Pietist Movement which was practised by the Moravian Brethren and others) who said he dared not preach on John 17, and there have been many others who have agreed with him.

Yet it seems to me that that is a mistake, for I would argue that our Lord would never have uttered this prayer audibly unless he had intended that we should hear it and that we should be able to study it and, above all, that we should be able to grasp its teaching. He did not merely pray to God, he prayed audibly to God, and the disciples heard him. Thus the prayer was preserved, and it seems to me that in this we have a wonderful illustration of the kindness of our Lord in allowing his disciples to hear this prayer and in arranging that it should be recorded in this way.

And, of course, as you look through the history of the church you will find that this prayer has been used of the Spirit in a very exceptional way to sustain people and to support them as they face difficulties in life, and especially when their time has come to die. The most notable example, perhaps, is that of John Knox, that great leader in the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, and mighty man of God. It is said that during the last days of his life, realizing that he was about to die, he asked his wife to read John 17 to him, and it was actually as she was reading this wonderful chapter that he passed from time to eternity. This is in no way surprising when you come to realize the wealth that there is here for us.

I am calling attention to it now because I am more and more convinced that half our troubles are due to the fact that we fail to realize what exactly is offered in the Scriptures. All our anxieties and troubles, all our uncertainties and hesitations, and so much of our unhappiness in our spiritual lives, is to be traced simply to the fact that we do not realize what is provided for us. The apostle Peter, in his second epistle, does not hesitate to say that ‘all things that pertain to life and godliness’ are given to us (2 Pet 1:3). And the claim that is made constantly in these New Testament epistles is that there is no conceivable condition which we can ever know, there is no state of the soul which we can ever enter on, that has not already been prepared for. There is teaching concerning it, and God’s people are meant to be people who are always rejoicing in the Lord. We are meant to know the fullness and the triumph, we are meant to experience a glory even here on earth.

But the question that arises is this: why are we not all, therefore, glorying and rejoicing in this great salvation? Why is it that so often we are apologetic and give the impression of being defeated? Why are we often so fearful of the world and of the future, concerned about God’s cause and about the church? Why do we frequently, in this morbid concern, resort frantically to things that are often unworthy? Now I suggest that the explanation of all these things is our failure to realize what is provided for us, our failure, if you prefer it, to realize our position in Christ, and to enter into our heritage. We are, of course, entirely without excuse because, as I have been reminding you, it is all here for us. If we had nothing but John 17 we would surely have more than enough to sustain us, because here our Lord has given us an insight into our whole position, and into everything that is of importance and of value to us while we are in this world of time. We can do nothing better, therefore, than to look at this prayer, and to consider what he has to say.

Here is the position. He was about to leave the disciples, he knew how troubled they were, because they had already shown it, and he had started his sermon by saying, ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ They were troubled because he had just been telling them that he was about to go from them, and that had come as a shattering piece of information. Here they were, they had been following him for three years, they had listened to his teaching, they had observed his miracles, they had come to rely upon him, and he had given them certain powers. If there was a problem or difficulty they turned to him at once and put their questions; he was always ready to answer, and he was very patient. And now, after these wonderful three years and after all this intimacy and rich fellowship, he tells them that he is about to leave them. They are utterly crestfallen and dumbfounded, and he, looking at them, can see it. He reads their minds and understands their spirits, and so he begins by saying, ‘Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in me.’ Then he proceeds to unfold for them this wonderful doctrine, this, to them, amazing idea that it was expedient for them that he should go away, that they were going to be in a better, not a worse, position as a result of his going, because he was going to prepare a place for them. Not only that, he was going to send them another Comforter who would be in them and he would come and dwell in them by the Holy Spirit—that extraordinary doctrine of the indwelling Christ, of the abiding of the Father and the Son in the very life of the believer. And he goes on to work out and explain that blessed and wonderful doctrine.

But he does not stop at that. He now prays for them, in order that they may know that when he has left them here on earth, when he has gone to be with the Father, he is still going to go on praying for them. He says in verse 11, ‘And now, I am no more in the world, but these are in the world and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me . . .’ He not only tells them in doctrine and teaching, he wants them here to see that he is committing them to the Father, so that they may know that they are never left to themselves, but that in all circumstances and conditions he will still be looking after them. He will be their great Intercessor, indeed the Father himself is concerned about them. That is his object and purpose in praying this prayer audibly, that they may come to know, while he is still with them, the concern that he has about them, and will continue to have even though he is going to be out of their sight.

That is the essence of this prayer and what I want to do now is to take a general view of the prayer. Later I hope to consider it more in detail, and to expound and unfold its rich, its glorious and priceless teaching. Let me ask some questions before we go any further. How often have you read this chapter? What has been the value of this chapter to you hitherto? How often have you explored its riches? How often have you turned to it in distress? Do you understand John Knox’s feeling when he wanted it to be read to him? It does seem to me that many of us are guilty of putting this great prayer as it were on one side in a kind of mock humility. Our greatest danger—indeed I feel it is my greatest danger—is to read the Scriptures too generally instead of looking into them, listening to every phrase, taking hold of every utterance, asking questions concerning every statement. Every one of these statements has a profound and rich meaning if we but take the trouble to look for them.

Let us, then, begin to do that together. Let us take a general view of this prayer, and discover some of the obvious lessons which are here on the very surface. The first thing which I think we must learn is how to pray. It is, after all, a model prayer, not in the sense that the so called Lord’s Prayer is a model prayer, but in the sense that this is the way in which our Lord himself prayed, and it is an example, or an illustration in practice. We can always be quite certain that the right way to pray is the way in which he prayed. His whole life, in a sense, was a life of prayer. Though he was the Son of God, he spent so much of his time...