As you already know, I try to make sure that the focus of our mid-week study is almost always on prayer.  I was reading in John 17 where Jesus is wrapping up His time with the disciples in the upper room the night before He was to be crucified.  Think about this:  It was in John 13 that Jesus sits down with His disciples and the first thing that He does is wash their feet.  Every one of them.  Even Judas!  He then enjoys a meal with them and He begins to teach.  I don’t know how much time He spent talking to them but I am sure that it went late into the evening and I am sure that the disciples were tired.  Chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16 are all filled with Jesus’ teaching.  It is in John 17 that Jesus begins to pray.  At the beginning of the chapter Jesus is praying for Himself.  Imagine that!  Why not?  We have told you over and over again that prayer is simply someone talking to God and Jesus is doing exactly that; He is talking to His Father.  He then turns to praying for His disciples.  He tells the Father that He has given the disciples all that He was to give them and then He asks the Father to protect them in the same way that Jesus protected them.  Jesus was going to be leaving them very shortly and all of them would scatter, and yet Jesus asks the Father to protect them.  Jesus says that He is not asking the Father to take them out of the world even though they are not of this world, but He is asking the Father to protect them and then to sanctify them by the Truth.  He goes on to say “Your Word is Truth.” (v.17)  So how is it that we are sanctified or set apart?  By the Word of God.  That is why we teach the Word of God.  That is why you need to read the Word of God.  It is important!  

Jesus then turns from praying for His disciples and then prays for you and for me.  Look at v.20 with me:  “My prayer is not for them (the disciples) alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”   “Those who believe…” is you and me.  Jesus’ prayer for us is “…that all of them might be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You…”  Why pray that way?  “…so that the world may believe that You have sent Me.” (v.21)  Jesus is implying that the unity of His followers, you and me, will be proof that the Father sent Jesus to the world.  Think about that.  Does the unity you have with other believers point people to Jesus?  Does the way that you talk about other believers show people that the Father sent Jesus to this world?  Believers’ unity is the result of being united with God.  So that would also imply that if there is not unity amongst believers that there is a mess up somewhere in the unity with God chain, right?  Are you the cause of that?  Am I the cause of that?  Jesus says it again in v.23:  “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that You sent Me and have loved them even as You have loved Me.”  Our love for one another is to be an expression and imitation of the Father’s love for the Son, and the Son’s love for the Father.  

Verse 24 is really interesting.  Remember that Jesus is still praying and He continues to pray for us and about us in verse 24.  The whole purpose of salvation is communicated in this verse.  “Father, I want those You have given Me to be with Me where I am, and to see my glory…”  Jesus’ desire is for us to be with Him and there is only one of two ways that that is going to happen.  Jesus is going to come back to get us or we are going to die.  To be with Jesus where He is at right now and to see Him in His glory would require us to die.  It is almost as though Jesus is saying to the Father, I want them with Me so either send Me to get them or bring them to me by their physical death.  The Bible tells us that “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”  (Psalm 116:15)   That is the way that God looks at your death if you are a believer.  That is an interesting prayer of Jesus, isn’t it?  

Jesus wants us to be with Him.  That is the ultimate!  Until then, His desire is that we would be like Him, and that it would be pressed in our love for other Christians.  All kinds.  The way you love other Christians is an expression of your relationship with God.  This is pretty important to Jesus, because this is how He closes his time on earth with His disciples.  It ought to be important to us too.