John 17:20-26 - Jesus’ Prayer For You

Main Idea: Jesus’ primary concern for you is your relationship with Him.

1. Jesus wants you to experience the lifelong love of His family through a local group of believers.

2. Jesus wants you to enjoy a transformed life that’s shaped by His own life.

3. Jesus wants you to eternally live with Him & His people.

4. Jesus wants you to know His love & guiding presence every day.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Today, we are in John 17, John 17. And we have been going through, over the last two weeks, a series entitled, The Lord's Prayer. Now, as you read through John 17, you will not find our Father who art in heaven, you know, holler, be thy name.

You won't find that. It's not Jesus teaching the disciples how to pray. Instead, this is the last prayer that John records before Jesus goes to his trial, his beatings, and the crucifixion itself.

If you will, this is the prayer of a dying man. This is hours before Jesus' death. This is what he prayed to God the Father.

And so, certainly, it has wonderful truths for us. And in fact, today, we're going to see that today's passage, John 17 verses 20 through 26, is Jesus' prayer for you. I don't mean that generically.

I mean, literally, this prayer is for those that would believe based on the word of the apostles. So what we would read in scripture, those that believe that, this is Jesus' prayer for you specifically.

If you would, take out your copy of God's word, or if you have the sermon handout that you received in your bulletin today, the passage is on the back of that.

That handout, but we're going to read through the verses for today and see what Jesus' prayer is for you.

The word of God says this, I pray not only for these, that is, the disciples, the apostles, but also for those who believe in me through their word. May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you.

May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.

I am in them, and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them as you loved me.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the world's foundation. Righteous Father, the world has not known you.

However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me. I made your name known to them, and will continue to make it known, so that the love you loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them. This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray together, and then we'll dive into the message for this morning. Dear Jesus, we are so thankful for every person that is here. Lord, we are thankful to have a truth to sing about.

Lord, thank you for the resurrection. Thank you for the fact that you did not leave us alone. You did not leave us to the just punishment that we deserved.

Instead, Father, you forgave us fully and freely forever, for anyone that calls on you as their Lord and Savior.

God, I pray that if there is anyone here today that does not know you as their Savior, that today would be the day that they make that choice.

And then, God, for every believer here, may we be comforted in knowing that you care about us, that you have specific desires for our lives, and that, Lord, we can see those accomplished. We love you, and we pray all of this in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Here in this passage, as we think about Jesus ending this prayer in John 17, I want you to think about how nice it is when someone is thinking about you or when they do something nice for you.

Maybe they're at the store, maybe they're at the now-defunct Herman's Bakery, and they go, man, Bryon has an upcoming birthday. I'm going to get him a cake. True story, that happened.

It was delicious. It had strawberries on it. I loved it, as did my daughter.

I promise, I didn't eat all of the cake myself. It's nice when someone thinks about you and they do something nice for you. You know, they go to the store, they see a card that reminds them of you.

They bring it for you. They see a cookie. They buy you a cookie.

It's wonderful. What Jesus does here is not just think about you generically, or maybe some superficial things about your life that he knows about you.

Instead, he thinks specifically about your human needs, about your spiritual needs, and he makes provision for them. Jesus, in the hours before his death, he could have just been praying, like, God, help my pain levels.

God, help the death that I suffer in crucifixion to be quick. Help it not to last for hours on end. But that's not what we read in scripture.

Instead, what we read is that his prayer is for the glory of God. He prays, as we learned last week, for the disciples. And today, he prays for you, for all those who would believe on him as Savior.

You see, today, what I want us to learn from this passage is that Jesus' primary concern is his personal relationship with you. That is his primary concern for you.

Jesus is not primarily concerned with what your vocabulary is, and whether or not you say 300 curse words a week or zero curse words a week. He cares about your vocabulary, but that is not his primary concern. Jesus is concerned about your provision.

We're even told in the Lord's Prayer to pray for our daily bread, the daily necessities that we have. But Jesus' primary concern is not your physical needs. His primary concern is his relationship with you.

Well, why in the world would you think that? Let's look at these four requests together that Jesus prayed for us.

These are four things that Jesus wants for your life to such an extent that in the final hours of his life, he is asking the Father that you would receive it.

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Community Through Church

First today, Jesus wants you to experience the lifelong love of his family through a local group of believers.

We can see this in verses 21 through 23 as Jesus asks, God, may all of these people that believe, may they be one just as the Father, Spirit, and Son are one. He wants there to be unity, love, community, and fellowship.

You see, in the Godhead, in Father, Son, and Spirit, there is not animosity, there is not standoffishness, there is not a disinterest in one another, but there is care and love within the person of God, from the Father, for the Son, for the Holy

Spirit. And so, God wants that same community and love to be in us. But, I don't know if you know this, humans are not really great at getting along.

I know we have many people that have family, boyfriends, grandkids, all sorts of family relatives today.

And if I know anything about you guys, and if I know anything about my life, sometimes we butt heads even as family members, let alone as random people. So, how in the world could those that believe in Jesus experience unity and love and community?

We read in verse 22, Jesus says, I have given them the glory you have given me so that they may be one as we are one. It is the glory of Jesus. Now, just so you know, that glory is not like a fun, shining halo thing.

As we looked at even two weeks ago, at the beginning of John 17, Jesus' glory is his goodness, his kindness, the character of God that flows out of him, and he has given it to those who by faith have placed their trust in Jesus Christ.

That is, we get the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit living out of us, brings us to be loving to those that we would want to simply cut off.

The Holy Spirit allows us to be patient with people, to understand where they are coming from and to be kind towards them. The Holy Spirit draws us into joy and peace in a world of sorrow and anxiety.

Jesus has given us his glory so that his people could be united. You see, Jesus gave us a way to be known and loved each week of our life through the local church. Now, you are here.

I am aware that it's Easter Sunday. Some of you guys are here because mom or dad or boyfriend or grandpa like begged you, please be there just Sunday if nothing else.

And I want to encourage you, church as a regular rhythm of the life of a Christian is made for your benefit and for your good.

The 2023 Surgeon General Report on the Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation said, over four decades of research has produced robust evidence that lacking social connection, and in particular, scoring high on measures of social isolation is associated

with a significantly increased risk for early death from all causes. In fact, within that report, experiencing total social isolation had the same effect on your health as smoking like 16 cigarettes a day.

So God, in His kindness to us, Jesus' prayer for you is, I want you to experience family.

God's desire for you is not, I don't, when I talk about church, I don't want you to think just, all right, come for an hour, hear someone talk about the Bible, sing some songs. That's not the church. This is the gathered worship that we do together.

But the church is my friends, Mary Gunther and Dina Wasmer and Ms. Anna. And I don't want to go too early on you, Larry, but I love being able to worship with you and Jim and all the rest of you.

It is the people that are the church. And frankly, I just got to brag on Tabernacle for a little bit. This year, in 2026, our church has gone through a bunch of different hardships.

We've had people that have experienced heart attacks, several people that have broken things in their back, people with punctured lungs. We've had several people with their, like, soul vehicles putzing out, even mine, on Good Friday.

And over and over and over again, as people have experienced needs within our little body of believers, I have seen God's love and His care, His provision and prayer be poured out from person to person, that whenever someone expresses a prayer need,

I know emphatically that I've got 50 to 60 other people, at least, that are then praying for those needs for those individuals. It means that where we were alone, God has given us a venue that we can regularly know we are not alone. We are loved.

We are able to exercise gifts. I mentioned some cooking things earlier. You do not want me to cook anything other than mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Anything that my kids need to survive, I can make that.

But if you want anything better than that, I'm so thankful for the many, many people and all of our church family knows, like, there are so many people in our church that love to cook, people that love to do the washing of dishes and buying supplies,

and they have been able to provide meals for those that have been recovering from surgery. They have taken meals to those that are homebound, no longer able to get out, and I love that God is using some of those people.

I'm thankful for people that are able to play instruments, like my buddy Rod, and my buddy Charlie, and Randy, and any of you all that are hiding your talents under a bushel. You gotta let me know sometime.

But we have these people that are able to play instruments, and I can't play the drums, and I can barely play the piano, I can't play like Randy can play, but I'm thankful that God uses people with different gifts to be able to accomplish wonderful

things. I've got several of my friends in the church that they're able to do lawn work, and they don't have my stupid allergies that I get all like puffy and swollen and itchy whenever I'm mowing a lawn, and they are able to do things.

We had even over the past four or five weeks, several people that worked on installing electrical things and repairing roofs and things at the church, that they're able to utilize their gifts that God has given them, purpose and community, love,

prayer and acceptance. And that happens through what Jesus has given in the local church.

Can I challenge you begin exploring a connection to a local group of believers, especially with regular rhythms of worship, learning, enjoyment and transparency with one another? This is the first thing that Jesus prays for for you.

He says, I don't want you to be alone in the world. I want you to experience love, purpose and community. And I've given you a vehicle for that.

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Life Transformation

But next, I want us to see that Jesus wants you to enjoy a transformed life that is shaped by his own life.

We can see this in verse number 21, where Jesus prays, may they, that's the disciples, the believers, may they also be in us, the Father, Son and Spirit, so that the world may believe you sent me.

You see, Christianity is so much more than nearly following a particular set of rules or only believing a particular set of facts about God and his reality.

You see, Christianity is the world shaking claim that those that have placed their faith in Jesus have not just changed their minds about the afterlife or started adjusting their behavior.

Christianity claims that those that put their faith in Jesus have been supernaturally identified with him, so that the eternal life that he has, we have. The Father that he has is our Father. The death that he died on the cross is our death.

So we are not humans awaiting judgment day. We are going home to that our Savior is in right now. As Jesus prays to the Father that we would be in them, in God himself, he prays it, so that the world would believe that the Father truly sent the Son.

Well, why would the world believe that Jesus is truly God? Because we get transformed as we look at Jesus again and again, and become like him, speaking, thinking, and caring as he does.

You see, what makes the difference in your life and in mine is not just a workout regimen. It is not just trying to be a better person or giving more to charity. What makes the difference is we see God.

We see who he is, how he cares, how he loves, and that transforms us into being more like him. Now, many of you are like, yeah, but I know some Christians, and y'all are not God, like you are not the perfect ones that you proclaim your God to be.

Absolutely. It is step by step. We are slowly over the course of our entire lives, hoping to become more and more like Jesus.

But this is what Jesus prays for, that someone looking at your life or my life would be able to see that there is a difference in who we used to be and who we are now. And the only answer is the difference that Jesus makes.

As kind of an illustration of this topic, does anyone know who this particular comedian is? Shout it out if you know. It's Frank Caliendo.

And many of you might not recognize him unless he's doing a face. Frank Caliendo is an impressionist, and he does some of the, like, best impressions that I've ever seen in my life. It doesn't matter yet because John Madden is great.

Ton of different ones that he has. But what he does is he studies the person that he's doing the impression of. When he does, like, a George W.

Bush impression, his face, like, contorts to look like George W. Bush. It's incredible.

I don't know how in the world he does it other than what he has said of, I study it, I look at it, I listen over and over again, and I emulate. What he does with his face is what I do with my face.

What he does with his voice inflection is what I do with mine. And this is what Jesus calls us to, that as we live in God, we see him over and over again.

What we would read in 2 Corinthians 3, that by beholding our Savior day by day, we are transformed into what we see in Jesus. Can I encourage you, if you are a Christian here today, the challenge is imitate Jesus.

Imitate the way that he talks, the way that he loves, the way, the values that he has, implement that within your own life. You go, well, how in the world do I know what Jesus looks like? You look at the word of God.

And the wonderful thing about having a body of believers is that I'm able to see people that are further along the path than I am.

We have every single week a row of our gals that are like in their 80s and 90s, and they love worshiping the Lord together.

But I love spending time with them because I want to, in 70 years, I want to be following the Lord like they're following the Lord.

I love being able to interact with people that have gone through the loss of a loved one, or a child, or a parent, and they have experienced God's grace in their life.

And so when I need an example of what it looks like to look like Jesus, I can look at my brothers and sisters in the Lord who are already further down that path.

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Eternal Dwelling

Third today, Jesus wants you to eternally live with him and his people.

In verse 24, Jesus prayed, Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, so that they will see my glory, which you've given me because you loved me before the world's foundation.

You see, the Bible tells us what we can expect at the moment of our death. In fact, it's one of the only guaranteed outcomes in Scripture. I can't tell you from Scripture what your tomorrow might hold.

I can't say you are definitely going to make a bunch of money, or you're going to have a lot of kids, or you're just going to have the best day ever. I can't tell you any of that from Scripture.

But what Scripture does make really clear is on the day of our death, we will face our Creator. And on that day, what will matter most is not our income, our hobbies, our family, or our schedule.

What will matter the moment we exit this life is what did we do with Jesus? Did we acknowledge him as our Savior and our Lord and choose to become a citizen of his kingdom? Or did we reject his call to repent and believe?

In that moment, the moment you come face to face with your Creator, each person that chose to be a part of Jesus' kingdom, acknowledging him as their only rescue, will find the answer to this prayer that Jesus prayed.

Jesus' desire is to live with you forever, and that you would see the glory of God as shown in his love for his Son.

I challenge you today, if you have never placed your faith in Jesus, accept the Lord as your Savior, turning from self-determination, from I get to choose how I live my life, I live for my ends, instead choose, I am going to walk the Jesus way.

Can I tell you, as we make that choice, what the Bible calls that new birth, that we go from one way of living, one way of believing to say, no, now I believe in Jesus, and what he tells me is how I'm going to live my life.

The Bible says this new birth that takes place, it is not then on you to be perfect. You will fall and you will fail. How do I know?

Because I have fallen and I have failed, and every single Christian in the room would echo that sentiment, that we have all fallen short of God's glory. The difference is not the people that do the best and the people that do the worst.

Instead, Scripture says it's those that have placed their faith in Jesus, following Him, or those following their own direction and rejecting Jesus.

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Godʼs Guiding Presence

Lastly, today, Jesus wants you to know His love and His guiding presence every day. We can see this in verses 25 and 26, where He prays, Righteous Father, the world has not known you. However, I have known you, and they have known that you sent me.

I made your name known to them, and will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.

There, that last part of the prayer, He says, God, I want that love that you gave me, that love to be in them, and I want to be in them, that His presence would be within us.

If all God gave us was other people, you know, the church, and He gave us a model for how to live, and He gave an eternal home for those that would put their faith and trust in Him, we would still manage to make a mess of our life.

How can I say that? Many of us are making a mess of our life anyway. But Jesus did not just give us His family, His example, and His home.

He gave us His own presence, His Holy Spirit, to live in us so that we could experience His love personally, and that we could genuinely change from the inside out. How do we experience God's love and His active presence in our life?

Do you have to give a certain amount? Do you have to stay good and holy for like three weeks before you get the active, you know, love of God in your life? No, my friend.

What Jesus says is we get to know the name. He says, I made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that the love you have loved me with may be in them and I may be in them.

As we get to know the name, the authority and expressed purposes of God, we experience His love and His guiding presence.

As we see Him for who He is, as we believe what He has said, we see in Scripture that we are loved, accepted, forgiven, transformed from who we were into who He is making us to be.

You see, in that moment when we call on Jesus as Savior, His presence, His Holy Spirit sets up shop inside of our life.

What we're told in Scripture over and over again is that even though the Holy Spirit lives in us, we can oftentimes forget that we are forgiven. We can forget that we have been cleansed from our past sins as Peter tells us in 2 Peter chapter 1.

But the answer to when you feel unloved, when you don't know if God is there, the answer is go back to the Word, go back to objective truth that you can know based on what the Word of God says, that God loves you.

So when you feel unloved, you can know that it is a lie based on the Word.

When you wonder where you are going to spend eternity, you can know for sure based on the Word of God, not your own feelings, not the estimation of others, but based on God's truth, we can know His love and His guiding presence.

Can I ask you to there? Is that a choice that you have ever made? Is it a choice that you are living in?

That you do want to be a Christ follower? That you want to be a citizen of Jesus' kingdom? Because can I tell you, any other boat that you would get into to stake your life on, any other boat is sinking.

You cannot look at any part of our society, our world today, and go, yes, this group of people, this political party, this or that is making people have happy, fulfilled, joyous lives with confidence for the future and their eventual death.

Instead, you can see heartbreak, sorrow, anger, rage in every single group of humanity. Now, as Christians, sometimes we put our hope in the wrong place too, and sometimes we fall into that trap.

But that is not because God has not given us direction and purpose, hope and new life. Today, Jesus' prayer for you is that he wants you to have his family, his new way of living, his home and his love and guiding presence in the Holy Spirit.

Do you want what he wants for your life? That's his wish list for you, knowing your ultimate needs. God has given these things to you if you choose to accept.

These things are a gift from him, given instantaneously and freely. They are not earned, purchased, or only given in installments.

You don't have a payment plan of your sins, and if you stick with the payment plan for 30 months, then you get all your sins forgiven. No, it is instantaneous and free. You cannot earn salvation.

You cannot earn right standing with God. All you can do is say, I want this new life that you are giving, with the understanding that you will no longer have final say in your life.

What we would read in Romans 10 is that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God has raised him from the dead, we will be saved.

With the heart, man believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made that we have been saved. And the Bible says this, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

There is no one that has walked down a road too far away from God, that he will not rescue you if you call out to him. We have people all across this room, people that have struggled with addiction.

We have people that have struggled in every single area of our life. People that have experienced the greatest heartbreaks of losing spouses, parents, children.

I want to encourage you, wherever you have walked, whatever your background has been, God will receive you if you call out to him.