24 “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 before the creation of the world.

25 “Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

This is the end of a long prayer. Jesus has been praying out loud, in front of His disciples, on the night before He dies. The meal is over. The betrayal has already been named. In a few minutes He will get up and walk to the garden where the soldiers will come for Him.

So these are not random words. This is the last thing Jesus says to His Father before the arrest. And it tells you what was on His heart at the very end.

He does not pray for Himself to be spared. He prays for us.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am.

Notice how He says it. “I want.” It is almost the language of a request a son makes plainly to a father. Jesus has spent the whole prayer asking the Father for things on our behalf — that we would be kept, that we would be one, that we would be protected from the evil one. And now, at the end, He asks for the deepest thing of all. He wants us with Him.

Twice in these verses Jesus describes us the same way. We are “those you have given me.” We belong to the Father, and the Father has given us to the Son.

That is worth sitting with. Your place in this is not something you arranged. You did not find your way to Jesus on your own cleverness. The Father gave you to Him. You are a gift handed from the Father to the Son.

And here is the Son, on the last night, holding that gift and asking that it never be lost. He wants the people the Father gave Him to end up where He is.

If you have ever wondered whether you are wanted by God, this is your answer. The night before He died, Jesus told His Father what He wanted most. He wanted you with Him.

…to be with me where I am, and to see my glory.

Where is He? In a few hours, on a cross. But that is not the “where” He means. He means home. He means back with the Father, in the glory He had before the world began.

This is the hope the whole New Testament keeps returning to. Heaven is not first a place with golden streets. Heaven is being where Jesus is. The point of the destination is the Person.

And He wants us to see His glory. Right now we do not see it. We see Jesus poor, hungry, about to be arrested. We see Him by faith, dimly. But there is coming a day when we will see Him as He truly is — the glory the Father gave Him “because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

Stop on that last line. The love between the Father and the Son did not start at Bethlehem. It did not start at creation. It was already there “before the creation of the world.” The universe is younger than this love. And Jesus is praying that we would be brought inside it.

Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.

Jesus draws a line here, and it is an honest one. There is the world that does not know God. And there is the small group who do. He is not pretending everyone is fine. He names it plainly: the world does not know the Father.

But then He points at His disciples — these ordinary, frightened men about to scatter — and He says, “they know that you have sent me.”

That is all He claims for them. Not that they understand everything. Not that they are brave. Just that they know who He is and where He came from. They know the Father sent Him.

That is the dividing line, and it is the same one today. The thing that sets a believer apart is not that they are better. It is that they have come to know who Jesus is. The world does not know. We have been allowed to.

I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known.

His work is not finished when the prayer ends. He says He “will continue” to make the Father known. After the cross, after the resurrection, by His Spirit — He keeps revealing the Father to His people. The knowing grows. It is not a one-time event.

And He tells us why He does it. This is the most beautiful line in the whole prayer:

…in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.

Read that slowly. The reason Jesus keeps making the Father known is so that the very love the Father has for the Son would be in us. Not a smaller love made for beginners. The same love. The love that existed before the world.

He is not praying that we would be loved from a distance. He is praying that the love between the Father and the Son would come and live inside us — and that He Himself would live inside us too.

That is the goal of everything. Not just forgiveness. Not just a ticket out of judgment. The goal is that we would be filled with the same love that holds the Trinity together, and that Christ Himself would dwell in us.

It helps to remember that this prayer was prayed for you. Jesus said it Himself a few verses earlier — He was praying not only for those men in the room, but for everyone who would believe through their message. That is us. You were on His mind the night before the cross.

So today, carry two things.

First, you are wanted. Whatever you feel about yourself this morning, the last request Jesus made before He was arrested was that you would be with Him where He is. You are a gift the Father gave the Son, and the Son does not want to lose you.

Second, the love is meant to be in you, not just over you. Jesus did not pray that you would admire the love between the Father and Son from outside. He prayed that it would live in you. So when you feel far from God, you are not asking to earn a love you do not have. You are asking to wake up to a love that has already been put inside you.

Where in your life are you still living as if God only tolerates you — when He has actually prayed to have you home? And what would change today if you believed the love that holds the Father and the Son together is the same love now living in you?

All glory to God — forever and ever. Amen.

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