May 31-June 2, 2025 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: John 17:20-26 “JESUS PRAYS FOR YOU!”

 

EASTER 7           May 31-June 2, 2025                Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: John 17:20-26

 

“JESUS PRAYS FOR YOU!”

 

          This past Thursday we once again celebrated the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. In one sense it seems to be an odd thing to celebrate…Jesus visibly leaving. But when you understand that Jesus ascended because His saving mission was completed and to continue to serve us as Savior King you understand why it’s something to celebrate. It would be like if one or Jacobi’s own went to Washington to be President only greater. One of the ways the Bible says Jesus serves us is as our intercessor. He prays for us. As one verse of the great Easter hymn “I know that my Redeemer lives” puts it, “He lives to plead for me above.” That leads to a question. What does Jesus pray for? There’s a better question. Who does Jesus pray for? He prays for you!

The portion of God’s Word we are looking at comes from what is known as Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer. It’s part of the extended prayer He prayed in the Upper Room with His disciples the night He was betrayed. We get to listen in as Jesus prays to our Heavenly Father for us and the first thing He prays that we have is the blessing of unity. “I am praying not only for them, but also for those who believe in me through their message. ²¹ May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be one in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. ²² I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one: ²³ I in them, and you in me. May they become completely one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

 Unity! What a blessing. We all know the peace we feel when there is unity in the family, unity in the congregation. We all know and dislike the angst that comes with disunity. Our country is experiencing discord and disunity at a high level. There is a reason for this. Satan. The Devil knows the strategy of divide and conquer. He knows that the sinful nature of man can easily be led down the road to hatred when there are disagreements. Sadly, because we are Americans, we can fall into the Devil’s traps and this division and discord can lead to disunity in our families and our churches. I remember as a kid watching the “Battle of the Sexes” pitting teams of male and female celebrities against each other in obstacle courses and other activities. It was mildly amusing. Now our country pits men and women against each other in a power struggle that rejects the beauty of the team God set up where men and women are to work together with divinely designed roles for the good of all and to the glory of God. Despite many well-intentioned efforts to break down divisions and discord caused by focusing on skin tone those divisions seem to be magnified, not minimized. Economic or social status divisions aren’t any better either. And division by political leaning? Oi! All efforts made to improve these issues fail because they do not take into account the inherent evil of mankind and that evolution is a lie. People are not evolving into higher life forms. Something is missing. Jesus is. And without Christ the trend goes down. Good news for you the people of God! Jesus prays for you. That you have unity. Christ brings us together. In Christ we know that who God made me, male or female, or what place God has put me in, well off or poor, or the lightness or darkness of my skin tone aren’t what’s important. Serving the Lord is. And so because of Christ we get to notice we are all different, agree that those differences don’t matter so that together we serve him better. In Christ, when the hurts come, as they will when sinners interact with sinners, we have the power to forgive as we have been forgiven. What Jesus prays for you to have we can do because of Him. “May they be one as we are one.” Jesus prays for the blessing of unity.

          Jesus also prays that you have the blessing of glory. “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am so that they may see my glory—the glory you gave me because you loved me before the world’s foundation.”

 There are different types of glory, some that fades and some that does not. There is glory in standing with your team as it holds up the trophy after winning the state championship. There is glory in performing a difficult musical piece well and hearing the ovation of the crowd. One of my favorite Civil War movies has the title, Glory. If you haven’t seen it and military history intrigues you, watch it. You will see a different kind of glory, the glory of struggle and sacrifice for the good of others. Jesus has both kinds of glory. He did not appear very glorious while He was visibly on earth. But His struggle and sacrifice for us and all people was. If we could see Him now….oh the obvious glory. Jesus prays for you. He said He has given us His glory and we have it and will have it. So sometimes our faithful following of Christ will not look or feel glorious. When you stay faithful to Christ’s teaching and get ridiculed or shunned or marginalized it will not feel very glorious. When your efforts to win over for Christ a family member, coworker or neighbor fails (as far as you can tell) it will not look or feel glorious. If the visible and faithful church in our country continues its numerical decline despite all our efforts it won’t feel like we are holding up the championship trophy. But the glory that Christ has given us is there and just wait! My dad had many sayings. One oft repeated one that has stuck with me is “Work first, then play.” He was teaching us priorities and responsibility. Do the work, the hard part first. Then have fun. Jesus’ prayer reminds us of the same. Have the glory of struggle and battle, then the glory that is obvious and unending. Live in the sin messed world for a short time and then have glory forever. Jesus prays for you to have it and so you do and will.

          And Jesus also prays for you to have love. “Righteous Father, the world did not know you, but I knew you, and these men knew that you sent me. ²⁶ I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have for me may be in them and that I may be in them.”

  Jesus prays for the love of the Father to be in us. This is not what passes for love for so many people which is “I will like you as long as you are pleasing me or giving me what I want.” That is thinly disguised selfishness. Nor is it the kind of love that says, “If I am doing or thinking something God says is wrong, tell me it’s OK, I’m right. Tell God He is wrong.” That is arrogance and rejection. It’s the Father’s love. A commitment love. A caring for the needs of others love and doing something about if we can. Like the Father did when we needed saving and so He gave us His Son. It’s important that we have it and show it. Not only did Jesus say that if we hold to his teachings we are really his disciples. He also said, “By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Listen to what He had the Apostle John write in his first epistle. “ 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love has not known God, because God is love. 9 This is how God’s love for us was revealed: God has sent his only-begotten Son into the world so that we may live through him. 10 This is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, if God loved us so much, we also should love one another.” Look for those ways to care for another’s needs, to forgive, to sacrifice. That’s the love of the Father. And it is what Jesus prays for you to have.

          Good thing He ascended! Unity, Glory, Love. Because our Lord Jesus prays for us we can have these wonderful blessings right now. Because we are sinners living with sinners, we won’t have perfectly, here. But we will have them perfectly some day, on that great day when Jesus says, “Behold, I am making everything new!” Until then let’s do what we can to be an answer to what Jesus prays for. Amen.