Jn 17.6-19

Psg: Jn 17.6-19 (link)
Date: 6/4/12

Read

John 17:6-19 NET

“I have revealed your name to the men you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have obeyed your word. Now they understand that everything you have given me comes from you, because I have given them the words you have given me. They accepted them and really understand that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I am praying on behalf of them. I am not praying on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those you have given me, because they belong to you. Everything I have belongs to you, and everything you have belongs to me, and I have been glorified by them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them safe in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are one. When I was with them I kept them safe and watched over them in your name that you have given me. Not one of them was lost except the one destined for destruction, so that the scripture could be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I am saying these things in the world, so they may experience my joy completed in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but that you keep them safe from the evil one. They do not belong to the world just as I do not belong to the world. Set them apart in the truth; your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world. And I set myself apart on their behalf, so that they too may be truly set apart.

Record

Keep them safe (in your name, from the evil one). (NASB: Keep them)
Set them apart. (NASB: Sanctify them.)

Reflect

• Sifting through the long, amazing prayer, these are the things Jesus is asking for.
• The first "keep safe" is in the context of giving us truth and then leaving this world.
• The second "keep safe" is in context of opposition.
• The "set them apart" is in context of sending us out.
• We will need to be kept by God because:
• He will not be walking among us physically (although "I am with you always").
• We will have opposition.
• We are sent into that opposition without Jesus physically there doing most of the talking, as he had been.
• If we didn't have opposition and if we didn't go out, we wouldn't need to be "kept" much at all.
• Jesus prays this out loud for the benefit of his disciples (including us).
• He wants us to know (it seems) that this is the kind of communication he has with the Father on our behalf. Elsewhere, Scripture says he is our perpetual advocate.
• He perhaps also wanted them to know what their life was going to be like as his disciples, and where our help is going to come from.
• Also possible is that he wants us to know how to pray as we go forward.
• Jesus also takes on an active role for the same goals as this prayer.
• If we are not kept by God, we are not kept at all.
• We can go out (being sent) into the opposing world because we are kept in God's name.
• We will always be as safe as he needs us to be if we are "being sent."
• Even if they kill the body, we are totally, completely kept.
• Therefore, we can be completely bold.

Respond

• I lose too much of my life because I try to save it. You have sent me. You will keep me in your name. What can man do to me? He can do a lot of unpleasant things ... but that's it. That's all man can do to me. You are my protector, keeper, and strength. You are also the message I need to bear to them.
• Teach me more what it means that I am kept in your name. Not just that you keep me, but specifically in (or "by") your name. Your name in Scripture is described as a powerful force, a monicker of your very attributes. Make me to know how safe that name is for me to find my true safety in.
• Forgive me for all the ways that I seek to be kept by anything else: my knowledge, my skills, my community, things. May I truly live in a manner where my only real protection is your name, but with the trust knowing that your name is the safest space in the universe.
• Your name is like an impregnable tank - perfect protection allowing me to mobilize across enemy lines.