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At a training session for Sunday School teachers a few years ago, an important teaching point was put across by the instructor to the teachers. The teachers were told that in addition to the actual Bible teaching for the students, the other crucial thing that every Sunday School teacher ought to be engaged in is prayer for their students.
As the Master Teacher who taught His disciples the word/words of the heavenly Father (John 17: 6, 8), the Lord Jesus Christ also prayed for His disciples. He prayed for the protection (17:11b-16) and sanctification (17:17-19) of His disciples, but before doing so, He advanced the grounds for His petitions to the heavenly Father.
Jesus had revealed God and God’s character to His disciples and the disciples had come to the deep conviction that Jesus was God’s messenger. They know that He had been sent by God and that all He taught was God’s truth. The disciples accepted Jesus’ words, knowing and believing that God sent Jesus. One reason Jesus prayed for the disciples was that they had been given to Jesus by God for a special purpose. A relationship of love, intimacy and disclosure would bind them together in an altogether unique fashion. Another reason was that Jesus was about to leave them soon.
Turning to the main focus of His prayer, Jesus then prayed for the protection of His disciples with the notable exception of Judas Iscariot whose eventual betrayal Jesus already foresaw. Jesus prayed that the disciples will be kept faithful to all that He had revealed and taught them. He also prayed for the work of gospel evangelism that the disciples would begin to undertake after His departure. This work would be undertaken in hostile circumstances of opposition to the work of God manifesting itself as hatred under the influence of the devil. The cosmic and spiritual nature of this conflict is laid bare for all to see.
The task of the disciples and every Christian believer is not to withdraw from the realities of this spiritual conflict, nor is it to be confused with the demands of the world. The great calling for the Lord’s followers is to remain in the world despite not belonging to it, maintaining ongoing witness to the truth by the help of the promised Holy Spirit. In the face of the severest opposition the world can muster, we are to derive confidence and assurance that we will be finally protected by the heavenly Father Himself, in response to the intercessory prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ.
