[AI translation] The second part of Jesus' High Priestly prayer was said among us. In any case, if we were to divide this holy prayer, we can distinguish about three parts. In the first part - which we discussed last Sunday - the Lord prays more for himself; in the second - which we will discuss today - for the disciples; and in the third - which we will discuss next Sunday - for the church. Let us now stay with the second part, and here we will consider: Who are those for whom the Lord prays - Why only for them?1) So who are they? Jesus says: "I have declared your name to the men whom you gave me out of this world: they were yours, and you gave them to me, and they kept your word." (John 17:6) That is, those whom God gave to Jesus out of the world. The disciples were chosen not just by chance, but by agreement between the persons of God of the Trinity. We read in the Gospel that before Jesus chooses and calls his disciples, he spends a whole night in prayer to God. A great and serious discussion preceded the selection of the disciples, the Father personally appointing whom the Son would call. Here we get a glimpse of the mysteries that have preceded a man's becoming a disciple of Christ in eternity past. It is not, then, that a man's salvation begins with his conversion and coming to a living faith - it is only there that he is revealed to be one of those whom the Father has given to the Son. Have you already realised this in yourself? That is, that the Father, God the Creator, has not given you to the passing world, not to Satan, not to the world that is passing away, but from this world, from this passing away world under Satan's dominion, to Christ. In other words: given for salvation, given for eternal life, given for life under the reign of Christ! The Father who sovereignly possesses us by right of creation, has given us to the Son who claims us for Himself by right of redemption. Do you feel the power in this realization? Hence the salvation of the believer is certain in all circumstances.
But it is precisely because you have given yourself to the Son, the Saviour: it is for this very reason that you should strive with all your strength to be Jesus', to know Him as fully as possible, to place yourself under His lordship! You owe Him because you belong to Him! The Father gave you to Jesus, so give yourself to Him! So it is not that this realization relieves you of responsibility, but that it increases the responsibility in you. Not that this realisation makes you light-hearted in the face of sin, thinking that you can do anything now, because the Father has given you to Christ anyway, - oh no! On the contrary, it is precisely because I must give all my efforts to His service that I am now neither my own, nor that of my old master, Satan, but His! Judas was one of the twelve, so he too was given to Jesus by the Father, and yet Jesus calls him "the son of perdition". So, it is not only a privilege to be given by the Father to the Son, but a way to be walked, a goal to be achieved, a sure victory, a promise to be kept! For those of you who understand photographic jargon, I could say: exposed film, with the picture already on it, but it has to be developed, it has to be worked out! For you too! Believe me, for you too!
2) Thus says the Lord: "I pray for these things: I pray not for the world, but for those whom you have given me, because they are yours." (verse 9) Isn't that strange? He says He does not pray for the world! Does the world matter nothing to Him? Did He not say another time, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son" for it? And now he says, I pray not for the world! Well, there is great truth in this. And that is that the salvation of the world is through believers! The disciples of Jesus have a great responsibility to this world: to be in this world the acid of the earth and the light of the world! So not here in the church, but out in the world! This is how human souls find their way from this world to that other world. And this is actually the responsibility and ministry of believers! But if God's children do not live up to this responsibility to the world, they can do immeasurable damage to God's cause in the world!
We know the case of Abraham with Sodom, don't we? When God makes known to him the plan to destroy Sodom, Abraham pleads with God that if there are at least fifty righteous people in Sodom, God will not destroy the whole city for the sake of those fifty righteous people. God promises that if he finds fifty such people there, he will not destroy the city for them; he will have mercy on the whole city for the sake of the fifty. Abraham then begins to bargain: are there only 45? Then he goes down to ten, and gets a promise from God that if the Lord finds only ten righteous people in the city, the city will not be destroyed. Then Abraham is certain that Sodom will be saved. For there is Lot, his nephew, who is a believer, and his wife, his two daughters, all believers, there are four of them. If there have been four believers in a city for years, now there must be more! Surely there must be ten, because through Lot and his family some more people must have become believers! Lot won no one to the Lord! Instead of Lot and his family becoming a blessing to the city, the opposite happened: the city became a detriment to them. Lot and his family were no salt and light to Sodom, and Sodom was destroyed! How different the fate of an entire city might have been if Lot and his family had dared to serve as salt and light to the surrounding pagan world! God could have had mercy on the whole city. What a responsibility God's children have to the world! How much depends on them! Do you know that we believers are either a blessing to this world or nothing! Unseasoned salt is "good for nothing afterwards, but to be thrown away and trampled under foot"! Every believer in his place, in his environment, if not a blessing, is an obstacle on the path to God! The responsibility for the salvation or loss of the souls of those in the world rests upon us! It depends on whether we accept and fulfil our vocation to the world: the ministry of salt and light!
So important is this matter that the Lord will return once more to the salvation of his faithful in this world: "I do not ask that you take them out of this world, but that you keep them from the evil one." (Jn 17,15) Jesus does not want to take His own out of this world, but He wants His own to live a redeemed life in this very world. For this world has an eternal need of redeemed people. If the children of God were absent from this world by their verbal witness and the illustrative teaching of their lives, how would the world come to faith, to the knowledge of God the Saviour? There are so many in the world who never read the Bible! How can they come to the Word of God? By seeing the lives of people who read the Bible! This world needs the children of God as much as flesh needs salt, as darkness needs light! That is why Jesus does not ask the Father to take believers out of the world, because this world needs them! In fact, he even says in his prayer, "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." (verse 18) So it's not that Jesus takes His own out of the world, He sends them right into it! Into everything! He practically splatters the believers so that there are believers in every place. And if they won't go of their own free will, he makes the circumstances rather so that they are forced to go where they are needed! 'If only I were not so alone where I am,' believers used to say. So know that where you are, one Christian is enough! But you need one - so don't run away! Accept that the Lord has sent you there: "As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world." (Jn 17,18)
3) Let us also see what the Lord asks of us? In the passage we read, three things.
a) The first we understand from the following: "And I am no more in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, whom you have given me, that they may be one like us! When I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name; those whom thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled." (John 17:11-12) So he asks for our preservation. Jesus knows from his own experience how difficult life on earth is, how not easy it is to persevere here in faith, in faithfulness, in obedience. It is easy to worship God in heaven and easy to blaspheme Him on earth! But to do God's will obediently, to strive to live for His glory in this world: that is hard indeed!
It is not even in our own strength! Even those whom the Lord has called to faith cannot stand in faith in their own strength, for so great is the driving force of this world! And it is not at all self-evident that one should persevere and remain steadfast to the end. Do you know what it means to fall back? There is nothing sadder than when you start out for the kingdom of God, and then change your mind and come back to the world, and realise that it is better to be in the world. And just as there is rejoicing in heaven over the conversion of a sinner, so there is rejoicing in hell! And there is this great rejoicing when Satan has succeeded in luring back and bringing down a redeemed man. And when God has done this with a servant of God, who is looked up to by many, who lives in the sight of many: then there is great rejoicing, rejoicing in hell! There are many such examples in the Bible. Judas was a disciple, a traitor and a suicide. He was a fellow worker with Paul the demoniac and loved the world more. Ananias and Sapphira were members of the early church in Jerusalem and yet what a terrible end they met! So there is such a backslide! That is why our Lord prayed for us, "Holy Father, keep them in your name whom you have given me," and keep them from evil! When you feel the drift of the world, remember that the Lord has prayed for your salvation too!
b) The second thing Jesus pleaded for His own is this: "And now I come to you; and these things I will speak to the world, that they may fully experience my joy in them." (verse 13) Jesus wants us to have His joy fully in ourselves. That we may be completely filled with His joy. What was Jesus' joy? Behold, He speaks of His joy even at the moment of His death. Reconciled communion with the Father: that is His joy! This is the joy that is totally independent of any external situation. And His disciples were truly rejoicing after Pentecost. Even under the stones that fell on him, Stephen the martyr's face shone like the face of an angel. Paul and Silas, in the Philippian prison, sang songs of praise in their joy. Wounds covered their bodies, they did not know what would become of them, yet their hearts were full of joy! Paul writes one of his most joyful letters from his imprisonment in Rome, to the Philippians. And yet his situation must have been grave. He was chained to a Roman soldier. A very difficult situation for a praying man. But he was not embarrassed, but saw this as an opportunity to witness to Jesus! And behold, it is recorded that there was a revival in the whole barracks! Only a believer knows what a great joy this must have been! Was it worth wearing the chains? Yes, it was! And such joy Jesus asks for His own! Have you received it? Do you know that it is by this joy that the world sees most clearly that to be a redeemed child of God is a good and desirable thing indeed! We also owe it to the world to show what a happy and joyful life it is to be a child of God! What a blessed, great service it is: to rejoice among sad, desperate people! In the Lord! In the Lord! For the Lord! - Are you now free to do this service?
(c) And the third thing the Lord prays for is this: "Sanctify them with thy righteousness: thy promised righteousness." (Jn 17,17) He wants His own to be people who are fully consecrated to Him! People whom God uses for His glory! People who have given themselves to the Lord, life and death, so that He may work through them as living instruments in this world! And to make this possible at all, that is why he prays like this: "For their sakes I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in righteousness." (Jn 17,19) He sanctifies Himself that we may draw strength from Him for our sanctification. He offered Himself on the altar of the cross to God, and in the power of His sacrifice, His death, we receive that power for our own full sanctification. What we could never do in our own strength, we are given the opportunity to do in the power of His death and resurrection! Would that we could draw on that power! We need it in the world to which we are sent. Oh that God would awaken in the heart of every believer this responsibility to this world for which Jesus prayed here!
Oh that we could pray according to our hearts in the words of the song:
Send forth thy band of messengers
And give them strength from above,
That they may not let the heathen perish,
And they shall scatter the host of Satan.
Let your kingdom come as soon as possible,
Proclaiming the praise of your holy name!
Canto 396, verse 3
Amen
Date: 17 June 1951.
Lesson
Jn 17,6-19