For a myriad of reasons, New Year’s Day compels people to think of making resolutions for the new year. I’m not alone, I think, in usually deciding to begin a new exercise program. Actually, mine started the day after Christmas. December 26th is my birthday, and that is usually reason enough to try to turn back the clock. So New Year’s Day is just further incentive to make good on my resolution for better health, or lose weight, or whatever.
And I think that such calendar prompts are helpful. It helps to measure time, to take note of your situation, and then make plans and take action steps. If we didn’t do that from time to time, then we end up like the man in Psalm 90:9, we end our days with a sigh. We realize too late that we failed to number our days and make good use of the stewardship of time and resources that God has given us.
But I also think that it is a mistake at such a time to focus merely on the physical. I would urge you to also think of a spiritual plan for the New Year. To make resolutions and a commitment to mature spiritually in the Lord. And there are a lot of things that you could do in that respect. You might resolve to be faithful in church attendance. You might commit financially to support the church. You might resolve to be more engaged in ministry in the church.
But if I had to make a recommendation for the best spiritual resolution that you could make which would have the greatest possible impact, not only for yourself, but also on your church, your family, friends and coworkers, I would suggest that you resolve to be a better man or woman of prayer. That doesn’t mean that I think reading your Bible is not essential to Christian health, or that other godly disciplines are not profitable. But it simply means that if you become a man or woman of prayer you cannot help but become more attuned to the things of God. A committed prayer life will immeasurably enrich all areas of your spiritual life. You cannot have a vibrant prayer life and be a lukewarm Christian. A diligent, effective prayer life will elevate your spiritual maturity in all areas. It will improve your devotional times, it will improve your ministry involvement, and it will affect your witness to others.
However, I emphasize that such a commitment must result in effective prayers. Not merely going through the motions. As Jesus said in Matt. 6:7, “…when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” So it’s not the quantity of our prayers that matters as much as the quality of our prayers. As James said, “the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.” On the other hand, praying the rosary over and over again is just meaningless repetition and is profitless.
So with that as our goal, then if we would achieve effective prayers we should look to the supreme example, and that is of course Jesus Himself. The Bible records many instances of Jesus praying. But while we see many instances in which we are told Jesus prayed all night or that He spent much time in prayer, we have only records of brief sentences of His prayers. We have what is called the Lord’s prayer, but it isn’t a prayer which Jesus prayed. It was a model prayer for the disciples to learn to pray. So as we come to this 17th chapter of John, we have a tremendous opportunity to study the prayer of Jesus in full measure. It is a comprehensive prayer, and as such it is one in which we can study and emulate in full confidence that we are praying according to the will of God, which Jesus told us is the key to effective prayer.
Let’s look then at the beginning of this prayer on the last night of Jesus’ public ministry. This is widely known as His High Priestly prayer. In that sense, it is a prelude to His heavenly ministry. Jesus ends His earthly ministry by interceding through prayer in His heavenly ministry. Hebrews 7:25 says, “He ever lives to make intercession for us.” And so this prayer is a foretaste of His ministry in heaven as the mediator between God and man.
I want to point out for you seven essential components of effective prayer as illustrated in this prayer of Jesus. Or at least what we see in the first five verses. First we must pray to the right person, then in the right timing, for the right purpose, according to the will of God, according to the knowledge of God, that we might do the work of God, that all would be done to the glory of God’s Son.
Now there is some overlap there, but I think that will serve as a sort of outline by which we can examine this prayer for our benefit. Let’s notice first, praying to the right person. Jesus addresses His prayer to the Father. Of all the ways God could have chosen to be called, and out of all the names of God, Jesus uses the title Father. And we know that in the disciple’s model prayer, known as the Lord’s prayer, Jesus told the disciples as well to address God as their Father.
The title Father illustrates that God is not some distant, aloof, or abstract god afar off in the universe, or far beyond our comprehension. But God is our heavenly Father, which reveals the person and the personality of God. It reveals the intimacy we can have with the Father through Jesus Christ. And it reveals the love of God towards His children. It reveals the relationship we have with God, by which we can say, “Abba, Father.”
Note that Jesus calls God “Father” and He instructs us to call God “Father” which means that we are the children of God and thus co-heirs with Christ. As Jesus was the Son of God, He has brought many sons to glory, bought by the redemption of His blood, so that we are called the children of God. That relationship of Father and child is the basis for effective prayer. Because as Jesus said in Matt.6:8, “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.” It means we can come to Him whenever we want, wherever we are and know that He hears us, and that He wants to help us, and that He will give us what we need, even with the same confidence that Jesus could appeal to His Father.
Secondly, note that Jesus prays not only to the right person, but in the right timing. Jesus says, “the hour has come, glorify your Son.” All through our Lord's ministry He has said, "My hour has not yet come. My hour has not yet come." But now as he approaches Calvary the hour has come. He is speaking of the hour in which He is offered up as a sacrifice for sin on the cross.
Jesus makes it clear that His hour was the hour of His crucifixion in John 12:27, Jesus said, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” He went on to clarify what that meant in vs.31, ‘Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.”
We too must pray according to the timing of God. Our timetables are not necessarily God’s timetables. I’ve seen that illustrated in my own life time and time again. For instance, we want a new car, so we get a loan for a car, and that becomes a monthly bill. Now every month when the bill is due I look to God to “supply my needs.” I think, surely, God knows that it’s the first of the month. What’s He waiting for? And when He doesn’t supply what I want just when I think He should I start to doubt the goodness or the love of God. But I need to remember that God didn’t sign that contract, I did. I let my glory, and my lusts and my desires set a timetable that God didn't have any say so over. We need to remember Isaiah 55:8, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.” Jesus knew that God had appointed Him to die at the right time, and thus He prayed in accordance with the timing of God, confident that God’s timing was perfect. We don’t always know the timing of God, but we can wait patiently for it, trusting that our heavenly Father knows what His perfect time is.
Thirdly, Jesus prays, and we should pray, according to the purpose of God. “Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify You.” It’s interesting that Jesus asked to be glorified, because the hour had come to be glorified, but that glorification resulted in His death. That’s ironic, isn’t it? But Jesus considered it glory to die on the cross for us, that we might be reconciled to God, so that He might bring many sons to glory. His glory came at the expense of His death. And His glory was to glorify the Father.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question; what is the chief end of man? And the answer is, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. When we aim to glorify Him, then we will find the joy of Christ that He promised we would have. Joy is not found in self glory, or self gratification, but it is found in serving the Lord, and doing all for His glory.
So when we pray, we need to remember that principle. We must ask ourselves when we pray for things, are we praying to achieve God’s purposes or for ours, for our glory or for God’s glory? God’s glory requires that we die to ourselves first and then He will glorify us. James said in James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” So selfish motives in prayer is a form of self glorification. Our desire should not be to glorify ourselves, but to glorify God. Jesus could ask God to glorify Him because everything He did glorified the Father. How can we pray for God to glorify us? To reveal us as His people, as His children, as made in HIs likeness and conformed to His image. When we are obedient to Him, and thus reflect Him, then He will glorify us.
Romans 8:17 tells us though that our glory comes the same way Jesus did; through suffering. “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
Fourthly, we need to pray as Jesus prayed, not only to the right person, in the right timing, for the right purpose, but also according to the will of God. Now that may seem a little redundant. There cannot be much daylight between the purpose of God and the will of God. But perhaps we might think of the purpose of God as referring to His eternal purpose. Ephesians 3:10 speaks of this eternal purpose; “that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.” So that speaks perhaps of the eternal purposes of God, whereas the will of God achieves that purpose as it is acted out in the daily events and exercises of our lives.
So in an example of praying according to the will of God, Jesus says in vs.2, “even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.” The will of God is rooted in the authority of God, which He has delegated to Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has all authority over life. He is the Creator of all. John 1 tells us “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ upholds all things by the word of His power.
So does not the Creator have authority over His creation? And since the Creator gives life to His creation, should not the creation recognize His authority to determine the ebb and flow of our lives? Should we not recognize that He gives us life, and thus His will should be our will? Then certainly when we pray, it is not to shape the will of God, but to seek and to submit to the will of God.
Jesus prayed according to the will of God. In the Garden of Gethsemane a few hours later, He prayed sweating drops of blood, “not my will, but yours be done.” When we are attuned to the Father’s will, then our prayers will be answered. We subordinate our will to the Father’s will.
It’s like a diet that you may want to adhere to in the New Year to achieve your fitness goals. The diet says, no sweets. But you want sweets. You love sweets. And so the diet is arduous for you. It’s difficult and you are constantly in a battle of wills. But if you could somehow become a different person - one that hated sweets. Why, then you would have no trouble in keeping the diet, would you? Because you hate sweets, and the diet restricts sweets. Now your will is in agreement with the diet plan. And so the diets is no longer difficult.
So it is with God’s plan for us. When we were of the world then we loved the things of the world. But when we are saved we become a new person. Now we hate what God hates, and love what God loves. So His will becomes our will. And our prayers are not a battle with God to get what we want, but they are in accordance with His will. And His will is clearly laid out for us in His word. Knowing the will of God is found in the knowledge of God revealed in His word.
That leads to the next point, we need to pray as Jesus did, according to the knowledge of God. Jesus prayed in vs.3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” We can know God, and know the will of God, because we have known Jesus Christ and believed in Him. Hebrews 1:3, speaking of Christ says, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”
So if we want to know what God is like, we need only to look at Christ. He was God manifested to man. And when we believe that, then we exhibit saving faith, by which we are saved from our sins and given eternal life. Jesus came to teach us the truth of God, the knowledge of God, and give us the word of God. So when we pray, we can pray according to the revealed knowledge of God. That’s how we can know the will of God, because we have the word of God, which reveals the mind of God.
Sixthly, we need to pray that we might do the work of God. If we really want to do the will of God, then we must do the work of God. Jesus prayed in vs 4, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” So many times when we pray, we pray that God will do something for us. And God does many things for us. The Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from above. It says that God gives us the ability to make money, to be prosperous and successful. Jesus said God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust.
But how often do we pray that we might do the works of God? That God would strengthen us to be a witness at work? Or that God would give me the opportunity to talk to my neighbor about the Lord? How often do we pray that God would give us a gift that we might serve His church? Prayer is an essential part of service. And service to God is worship of God. Far too often we think that all God requires of us is to attend a meeting once a week or so and sing some songs and that constitutes worship. That may be the beginning of worship, but it certainly is not the end of it. Romans 12:1 says you are “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”
Present your body to God as a living sacrifice, which is your spiritual service of worship, to do what? Well, the rest of the passage says it is to exercise your spiritual gifts within the body, that is within the church. Paul goes on to say these spiritual gifts are not for self edification, or to glorify yourself, but to build up the church through means of prophecy (that is preaching), or in serving, or in teaching, or in exhortation, or through giving, or in leading, or in showing mercy, and all is to be done in love for one another. “Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.” Those are just some of the good works we have been saved to do. And we need to pray that God will give us His grace that we might do them.
Finally, we need to pray that all would be done to the glory of Christ. Our godly works are to glorify Christ. Jesus prayed in vs 5, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” We traditionally tack on the end of our prayers the phrase; “in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.” And we do that because Jesus Himself said whatever we ask for in His name the Father will do.
But to ask in Jesus’s name is not just some ritualistic appendage to our prayers, but it is an understanding and desire that all would be done to glorify Jesus Christ. He is worthy of all glory. Philippians 2:6 says about Christ that “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, (or held onto) but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Jesus was asking in this prayer that He might once again take His rightful place in glory with God, the same glory that He had with God before He laid it aside to be humiliated in flesh. And God answered that prayer, according to Philippians 2. God gave Him the name above every name, that every knee would bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.
This really goes back to the authority of Christ. He is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords. And so when we come before Him to pray in His name, we pray to the Father in the name of His beloved Son, whom He has exalted at His right hand, and with whom He shares all glory. This same Jesus is our Redeemer, our Advocate, our Mediator, our Great High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for us.
All of our works then should be for His glory. All of our lives should be lived for His glory. Everything we do should reflect Jesus Christ. That is the purpose of the Spirit of Christ who now lives in us, that He might do the works of Christ in us. That is the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit, that we might be enabled to do the works of Christ.
When we understand these principles of prayer as illustrated by Jesus’s prayer, then we will find our prayers effectual. We will pray without ceasing. We will pray fervently. We will pray for leading, for strength to do His will. We will pray for all the saints. We will pray for our enemies. We will pray for our government. We will pray for the expansion of Christ’s kingdom. And when we pray that way, it will elevate all areas of our spiritual lives to a higher plane, so that we may even more reflect Jesus Christ.
We are going to continue to look at Christ’s prayer for at least a couple of more weeks. But for now there is a lot here that we can begin to emulate. Peter said He is our pattern, that we might trace our lives over. Considering how important our prayer life is, there can be no more noble resolution this New Year than to become a greater man or woman of prayer. And the way to do that is to pattern our prayers after Christ’s example. That we might pray to the right person, in the right timing, for the right purpose, according to the will of God, according to the knowledge of God, that we might do the works of God, and that all would be done to the glory of God’s Son. May God give us the grace that we might commit to pray in this New Year with the same confidence and effectiveness as Jesus, as we pray in His name, to His Father and to our Father.
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