Bible Passage: John 17:11b-19
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: May 12, 2024

Bulletin May 12, 2024

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

One of the early lessons Christian parents teach their children is how to pray.  We may take their little hands as they sit in their high chair and hold them together and teach them to say, “Thank you, Jesus, for this food.  Amen.”  Another time we teach them to pray is at bedtime.  We teach them a “nighttime” prayer.  One of the early nighttime prayers I learned as a little boy was a hymn.  I was taught to pray, “Now the light has gone away.  Father, listen while I pray.  Asking thee to watch and keep, and to send me quiet sleep.”

I thought about that little prayer this week as I worked with our text.  You see, in our text Jesus is saying his “nighttime” prayer.  It literally is nighttime when he prays.  It is Maundy Thursday night when Jesus says this prayer.  But it is also nighttime in his ministry.  The sun is setting on his earthly ministry.  The next day Jesus will die on the cross for the sins of all.  On Sunday he will rise.  It will be the dawn of a new day in the Kingdom of God!

And so Jesus says a nighttime prayer.  And his prayer contains this petition, “Asking Thee to Watch and Keep.”  Except Jesus isn’t praying that the Father would watch and keep him.  In our text Jesus is asking the Father to watch and keep his disciples, his friends.

We join Jesus in his prayer.  Holy Father, protect them by your name, which you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. (v. 11b)  Jesus prays, “Protect the disciples!  Do it by your name!”  Remember, a name is a reputation.  God has the reputation as being the strong Protector of his people.  The Old Testament is filled with stories of God protecting his own.  Jesus prays that the Father would protect the disciples so that they remain “one.”  Jesus doesn’t want the disciples to fracture and fragment.

For three years Jesus had been the disciples’ Guardian and Protector.  He says, While I was with them, I kept those you gave me safe in your name.  I protected them and not one of them was destroyed except the son of destruction [Judas]…But now I am coming to you. (v. 12-13)  Jesus was soon to complete the work for which he came into the world.  In just a few hours, Jesus will cry out in a loud voice from the cross, “It is finished!”  He will have paid the dreadful debt of sin.  He will rise to life again.  And he will ascend to the right hand of the Father.  He will still be with the disciples.  He will promise them, I am with you always (Matthew 28:20).  But it would be different.  They weren’t going to see him present and protecting the way they had for three years.

And so Jesus prays out loud in front of them on purpose.  He wants them to hear his nighttime prayer.  I am saying these things in the world so that they may be filled with my joy (v. 13)  Jesus wants the disciples to hear him asking the Father to watch and keep so that Peter and the boys smile and think, “He’s talking to the Father about us!  He’s praying for us!”

This protection was going to be needed for the disciples.  Jesus says, I have given them your word.  The world hated them, because they are not of the world. (v. 14)  The disciples believe the Word of God and now the world hates them.  The Word of God has made the disciples different.  The Word has called, enlightened, and sanctified them.  They are no longer “of this world.”  They are only “in” it.  The world hates defectors!  Just the same as people trying to escape communist countries are shot as they run for the border, so the world hates those who cross the border into the Kingdom of God!

Friends, this is still the world in which we live.  It is a world that hates us because of Jesus and the Word of God.  The world hates that we have different morals and different priorities.  The world hates that we testify that what it does is evil.  The world hates that we have been called out of it, that we have been enlightened and have stepped out of the darkness in the world, that our lives are sanctified and set apart to glorify God.  The world wants conformity!  The world wants us not to judge, but to join and jump in the mud and manure along with it!  This hatred from the world is the very thing God said would exist in the world because of sin.  In the Garden of Eden on the day Adam and Eve rebelled, God said to the Evil One, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers. (Genesis 3:15)  The “seed” of the devil are unbelievers.  The “seed” of the woman are believers in Jesus.

But listen to something Jesus says in his prayer.  I sanctify myself for them, so they also may be sanctified by the truth. (v. 19)  Jesus sanctified himself.  That is, he set himself apart for his holy work.  He came into this sinful world and didn’t join in the sin.  The world wanted him to sin.   The Evil One tempted and taunted him to sin.  But he didn’t.  He was holy, set apart.  And the world hated him for it.  And he sanctified, set himself apart to go to the cross.  And the world  hated him and shouted, “Crucify him!”  I sanctify myself for them.  So that we might be sanctified, set apart.  So that we might be sanctified through the forgiveness of our sin.  That we might be sanctified through the working of the Holy Spirit.  That we might be set apart as God’s trophies of salvation in this world.  How the world hates that!  That we might be set apart for citizenship in heaven.  That we might be set apart as a people who possess and love and use God’s Word.

And so, as our Jesus lived a sanctified life in a world that hated him, so do we.   As you sent me into the world, I also sent them into the world.  Off we go!  With the prayer of Jesus in our ears,  Sanctify them by the truth.  Your Word is truth. (v. 17)  Let the Word be our constant companion in this world!  And rest easy.  Jesus has prayed for you!  And we have both Savior and Guardian in heaven.  So our nighttime prayer can be:  “Now the light has gone away.  Father, listen while I pray, asking thee to watch and keep, and to send me quiet sleep.”

Amen.