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Christ’s Prayer For God’s City
James Montgomery Boice
 
In the seventeenth chapter of John’s Gospel there is a wonderful prayer of Jesus Christ for his people, the Church, that is a perfect note on which to endthis study. The disciples, those who were present with Jesus at this time aswell as those who would believe on Jesus through their witness (v. 20), wereto be God's new humanity, the very thing that has been the subject of thisbook. Christ's prayer for them is an illuminating glimpse into what Jesuswanted the City of God to be.What did he pray for?
 It is significant to notice what he did not pray for. He did not pray that his
 
disciples would become so numerous that they would dominate and thentransform the world and its culture, though he recognizes that they are to be amissionary church. In fact, Jesus makes a distinction between his own and theworld, declaring emphatically that his prayer is not for the world at all: "I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me" (v. 9). Hedid not pray for the conversion of the Roman emperor or, failing that conquest,that a different, Christian emperor might be brought to the pinnacle of world power. Earlier he had rejected the temptation to worldly power himself (Mt 4:8-10). He did not pray that there might be Christian laws or that the theocratic political system of the Old Testament might be extended worldwide.Jesus was not thinking of numbers, political structures or laws at all instead hewas thinking of two things: the glorification of God, the character and conduct of those by whom God would be glorified. It was a way of acknowledging that thecity of man will always be man's city, hostile to God and thus filled with everyvice wickedness, but that the people of God are to glorify God as a people apart,God's new society, whether or not they are "successful" in terms of numericalgrowth or influence. They are to glorify God by being God's people. 
To God Be The Glory
 The word that dominates Christ's prayer in John 17 more than any word is glory.In the opening section Jesus prays that he might be glorified by the Father just ashe has glorified God by completing his work on earth, thus revealing the Father tothose whom God had given him: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son,that your Son may glorify you.... I have brought you glory on earth by completingthe work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence withthe glory I had with you before the world began" (vv.1, 4-5). In the next sectionJesus claims that "glory has come to me through them" (v. 10), that is, by their having believed on him by their having begun to live for him. Toward the end hesays he has "given them the glory that you gave me" (v. 22). Even closer to theend he adds, "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am,and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me beforethe creation of the world" (v. 24).This is a very important emphasis, because it means that the goal the church is notto be numerical success (or any other kind of “success") but glorifying God bywhatever means God might choose it. To glorify God means to make him knownin all his glorious attributes. Jesus did this for the disciples as a goal of his earthlyministry and would do it even more completely by his death on the cross for sin.We see God's sovereignty at the cross in the way the death of Jesus was planned, promised and then achieved, without the slightest deviation from the OldTestament prophecies. We see God's justice in sin actually being punished.Without the cross God might have been able to forgive sin (theoretically), but Hecould not have done it and remained just at the same time. A just God must punishsin. We also see God's righteousness at the cross, for only Jesus, the utterlyrighteous one, could pay sin's penalty. We see God's wisdom in the planning and
 
ordering of such a great salvation. We see God's love, for it is only at the crossthat we can know beyond any question that God loves us even as he loves Jesus."For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever  believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" John 3:16).Carrying that theme over to ourselves, we ask how the people of God are toglorify him. We cannot die for sin, of course. Only Jesus could do that. But wecan glorify God by allowing his character to be developed and seen in us, and byobeying him in every area of our lives. In Ephesians the apostle Paul writes of oneaspect of God's character, his wisdom, being demonstrated by the church even before the angels. "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifoldwisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in theheavenly realms, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished inChrist Jesus our Lord" (Eph 3:10).With this in mind we can now turn to the latter half of Christ's prayer and studythe specific marks that Jesus asked the Father to develop in his people, marks thatwould glorify God. The church is founded on the Lord Jesus Christ and is calledinto being by the Spirit of Christ. It must therefore be like Christ, possessing atleast some of his characteristics. What should those characteristics be? Whatshould the church be like? One of the most comprehensive answers to thatquestion is in the latter half of Christ's prayer, for in it he prayed that the churchmight be characterized by six things: joy (v. 13), holiness (w. 14-16), truth (v. 17),mission (v. 18), unity (w. 21-23) and love (v. 26). Jesus' life was marked by eachof these qualities.
A Joyful People
 The first of these characteristics is joy. Many of us would not think of joy as animportant characteristic, let alone put it first. We would point to love or holinessor something else. But Jesus prayed that his people might “have the full measureof my joy within them”(v. 13). That most of us do not think of joy as a primarycharacteristic of the church probably indicates how far we have moved from thespirit of the early church, which was a joyous assembly. We see their joyimmediately when we begin to study the subject the New Testament. In the Greek language, the verb meaning "to rejoice" or "be joyful" is chairein; it is foundseventy-two times. The noun meaning “joy," chara, occurs sixty times. Joy is nota technical concept, found only in highly theological passages. Rather it mostoften occurs simply as a greeting, meaning “Joy be with you!" To be sure,chairein is not always restricted to the speech of Christians. It is used, for example, in the letter to Felix about Paul by the Roman officer Claudius Lysias,where it means "Greetings" (Acts 23:26). But in Christian hands it obviouslymeant much more than it did with pagans and is used more frequently. Notice, for example, that the angel who announced the birth of Jesus to theshepherds said, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will befor all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is
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uploaded a new revision for this document (#3)

11 / 13 / 2009

uploaded a new revision for this document (#2)

11 / 13 / 2009

uploaded a new revision for this document (#1)

11 / 13 / 2009
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