John 17

• What are your thoughts/reflections from last Sunday's sermon on 'A Movement of Grief and Joy'?

  • Do you have any stories from the last week about grief and joy, or about praying in Jesus' name?

After teaching his disciples the final things he wanted to know, Jesus closes with a time of prayer. He prays for himself, his disciples, and future believers.

Read John 17:1-5

• What is the connection here between glory and Jesus' impending death?

• How do you think this viewpoint helped Jesus to face what was coming?

Read John 17:6-19

• Why do you think Jesus prays for the disciples...

  • protection?

  • joy?

  • sanctification?

• What do you think it meant to the disciples later, that Jesus had prayed these things for them on this night?

• What does it mean to you, to pray for these things for yourself and one another?

Read John 17:20-26

• What did Jesus pray for us, as 'those who believe in me'?

  • How exactly does our 'oneness' help the world to believe in Jesus?

• How does Jesus invite us into the relationship between the Son and the Father? What does He mean when he says that we can be 'in Him' and 'in the Father', that we ought to be One with God as Jesus is?

  • How does this intimacy with God help the world to believe in Jesus?

• Think back to all that you've read in John 12-17. How do the words of Jesus on this special evening teach us...

  • to pray?

  • to serve?

  • to reach?

• What will you take with you into the Easter week?

Spend some time praying for one another. You might like to pray into some of the words and themes we've discussed in John 17 - protection, joy, sanctification, unity with the Church, and intimacy with the trinity.