I imagine Jesus speaking the contents of John 15 and 16 as He and the disciples moved from the site of the Last Supper to near the Kidron Valley. I have pictured them stopping in different places along the way, huddling up while Jesus whispered His words, and then moving on to another place to stop and listen a bit more. Finally, after about a mile or so of walking, they would come to the Garden, where He would finish up His prayer time.

The other Gospel writers picked up on the later part of Jesus’ prayer where He yielded His heart and life to God's will with the words, “Not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). John witnessed the prayer Jesus prayed just before those legendary words.

This prayer is easily divided into three different emphases:

• Jesus prayed for Himself (1-5).

• Jesus prayed for His apostles (6-19).

• Jesus prayed for His future followers (20-26).

This was the real Lord's Prayer, and John revealed both the words of the prayer and Jesus’ prayer posture. Jesus prayed with His eyes lifted to Heaven. He opened His prayer as the Son of God, appealing to Yahweh as “Father.” He would call Yahweh His Father six times during this part of His prayer (1, 5, 11, 21, 24, 26) and another two times when wrestling with full surrender to His Father's will (Matthew 26:39, 42). He hallowed and made ultimate His Father’s name by appealing to Him as “Holy” and “Righteous Father.” 

Jesus Prays for Himself (1-5) 

Jesus relinquished Himself, for the hour—His hour—had come for Him to be about His ultimate purpose: dying for the world. Jesus would bring ultimate glory to His Father. This was what carried Jesus through the dark day: the Father being glorified, and this great act of death and Resurrection showing off the Father's real person, real love, real power. No other act ever revealed the praiseworthy nature of the Father's own person more than the death and Resurrection of His Son (1).

The entire act and revelation of Jesus’ love in His death and Resurrection were to give Jesus kingly authority over all flesh and then to give eternal life to every person who loved and believed in Him (2).

Jesus then defined what He meant by eternal life: a true genuine relationship with the Father and with the Son whom the Father sent. 

The Greek word used here for “know” was ginōskōsin, used to denote marital intimacy. No doubt Jesus was praying for followers to deeply and intimately know the Father and Son. Life is not merely an endless existence. Real, genuine eternal life is a deep, intimate relationship with the Father and His Son. This is what Jesus was interceding for all throughout this prayer. This is what He meant by, “That they may be one” (3). No doubt the disciples were all awake during this part of Jesus’ prayer.

Jesus announced that He had been absolutely obedient to the Father and had revealed and honored His Father’s true nature in all He had said and done. He had done all, up to that moment, that the Father had asked Him to do (4). Throughout the prayer, Jesus defined the works He had been given to do, the works He completed faithfully. In verses 6-9, we find the works Jesus had been given to do:

• Manifest the Father's name

• Give His Father's words to His disciples so they would know His words had come from the Father

• Not lose those whom the Father had given Him

Jesus then took a moment to intercede for Himself; He appealed to the Father to return Him to the place of honor He’d held before He divested Himself of honor and took on flesh. He was not asking to de-incarnate but to resume His eternally treasured place of love and honor in the Father's presence (5).

Jesus Prays for His Disciples (6-19)

We find out why He wished to be restored to His original place of love and honor: He was wanting to bring His disciples with Him. He announced who exactly His disciples were by nature:

• Those the Father gave to Jesus, who came out of the world and gave their allegiance to Him

• Those who, at some level, were devoted to the Father but were in need of an intercessor mediator to bring them into intimate relationship with the Father

• Those who had kept the word of the Father (6-8)

In giving them the words of God, the disciples learned that everything the Father had given the Son was given to them also. They listened to Jesus and gave Jesus and His words their allegiant faith. What He said they came to know and commit to as the truth. Who they were and what they meant to Jesus became their true reality, their truth. They also believed Jesus was sent to them from God, and God through Jesus was revealing His love to them (7-8).

Jesus then focused His prayer on the 11 disciples He had been given (9). 

Jesus stated in prayer that He claimed nothing for Himself—not one allegiant heart did He claim as belonging to Him alone—all belonged to the Father and Son, and His claim on them was not an ownership claim but a claim that His and the Father's presence (glory) was in them. 

This meant Jesus’ disciples would bring glory to the Father the same way His Son did. The followers of Jesus would join in the dance of love and bring honor to Jesus and His Father by revealing their true nature, just like Jesus (10). Jesus would no longer be in the world or physically present to care for them, so Jesus asked the Father to keep them in His name—His name, “Yahweh,” His name, “I AM WHO I AM.” Jesus was asking His Father to be so present with His followers that He’d make them One with Him, in the same way Jesus was One with the Father. Jesus was calling on the Father to give His disciples the same status the Father had given Jesus (11). 

Jesus announced what He had done with those the Father had given Him: He had kept them in His name, kept them in His “I AM WHO I AM” presence. Jesus’ entire earthly ministry was devoted to revealing the “I AM WHO I AM” presence of the Father. He had guarded them and kept every one of them, except for Judas, who had, from the beginning, a destiny set on destruction. Even the scripture predicted and spoke to Judas’ corrupt nature (12). 

Jesus then announced and confirmed that He was fully aware He was going to the Father. He also was firmly aware that He had told His disciples many things while in the world so they would be filled with joy once He physically left (13). He gave them God's word, and He told them who they really were, who God really was, and what God was up to. The world hated Jesus and His disciples because they were not a part of the lust-driven, get-ahead, take-advantage-of-another world system. They did not belong to lust but to grace (14).

Jesus did not want His disciples out of the world, but He wanted them to be kept safe from the evil of lust and the dominating power of the evil one's selfish nature. His disciples did not belong to selfish, addictive lust any more than Jesus did (15-16). Disciples were made holy by truth—the truth of knowing who God was, the truth of knowing who they could be and all they had inherited, and the truth of knowing what God was going to make of the world (17).

Jesus’ disciples, just like Jesus, were being sent into the world for a saving mission, not for a lust-dabbling existence (18).  

Jesus knew He was giving Himself in sacrifice so His disciples could be sanctified, totally set apart, made completely holy by the truth of who they were in the resurrected Christ. What would set His disciples apart for a sacred life of wonder was the truth of who and what God had made them in the Resurrection of Christ. This truth set them apart for their salvation mission of the world (19). 

Jesus Prays for Future Believers (20-26)

Jesus then expanded His intercession. He declared in His prayer that He meant to include future believers, all who would give their allegiant faith to Christ when they heard His message in the future (20).

Jesus prayed they be included in the unity He had been praying for His own personal disciples to have with His Father and Himself. Jesus longed for everyone who gave him or herself in allegiant faith to the Father and Son to be in Them just like the Son was in the Father. He prayed this union, this intimate relationship between God and humanity, would spark a worldwide spirit of faith (21). 

The “I AM WHO I AM” glory or presence the Father gave the Son was given to make Jesus’ disciples one and the same, immersed in the “I AM WHO I AM” glorious presence (22). The “I AM WHO I AM” present in Jesus was also present in the disciples of all time. This was the source of their unity and oneness. Their unity and oneness were proof of Christ's presence on the earth and proof of the Father's absolute love (23). 

Jesus then asked for those the Father had given Him to be with Him. He asked God to make His future disciples present with Him on His throne in heavenly places while at the same time living on Earth. Paul declared the followers of Jesus to be both on the earth but ever and always “in Christ.” “In Christ,” all believers see the honor bestowed on Christ and the love Christ had before the world began. Those “in Christ” would come to know Christ as God in this way (24). 

Jesus then ended His prayer by appealing to the Father, the true and ultimate righteous One. The world was oblivious to the Father's righteousness, but Jesus was not. He knew the Father's depth of righteousness, the kind that would send His own Son to a hell-destined world to save it from that certain hell. The disciples would know Jesus had been sent to the world. They would be so deeply “in Christ” that they would have the Father and His world-saving nature revealed to them. Jesus would ever be revealing the Father to His disciples, ever revealing the true nature of His love and commitment to the world. As Jesus continued to reveal the Father's love for the world to His disciples, a miracle would take place. The Father's love for Jesus would be formed in His disciples, the same love living in Jesus. 

Jesus’ prayer captured this timeless insight: as Jesus revealed the Father's love for the world, His love became second nature to His children, and Jesus’ presence came to abide and remain in His disciples (25-26).