We're in John chapter 17, reading
from verse 10. And this is the Lord who is speaking,
it is part of his prayer, and this is what he says. And all
mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world,
but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father,
keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that
they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the
world, I kept them in thy name. Those that thou gavest me, I
have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition,
that the scripture might be fulfilled. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word also. I do not think that we can be
sufficiently thankful to the Lord Jesus for praying this prayer
to his Father in the presence of his disciples. I've mentioned
that it's really the only full prayer that we have of the Lord
given to us in this way. But by praying as he does, by
praying so publicly as he does, he has committed to his church
this wonderful high priestly prayer of intercession. incorporating for us truths and
lessons that we might not otherwise have had revealed in the Word
of God. Here, for example, we discover
that Christ had glory imparted to him in the covenant of grace,
distinct from his divine glory as the eternal Son of God. Here
we learn that power is given to him over all flesh and it
resides peculiarly in the hands of the man Christ Jesus, our
Saviour. We learn from the Saviour's own
lips how singularly he was focused on the needs and affairs of the
elect of God who had been committed into his care, who had been given
to him under covenant obligation to redeem and deliver and reconcile
to his father. So single-minded indeed that
the Lord prayed only for them and not at all for the world. And we may also see that we are
grateful to the Holy Spirit for preserving this prayer for the
church, and even that John took special care to record it so
carefully as he did on this Passover night prior to Gethsemane, before
the Lord's trial and his crucifixion. I feel sure that John thought
back on this prayer as he reflected following the death and resurrection
and ascension of the Lord and the opening up of the gospel
age. I am sure that John looked back
on this prayer and the Lord's assertion, I have finished the
work which thou gavest me to do. and realized just how momentous
and meaningful this statement was in the grand scheme of redemption
and salvation. And let us just remember, it
is a prayer made by God the Son to God the Father. God speaking
to God. Declarations are stated. Promises
are claimed. Contractual agreements are settled. Representations are made. And
the Lord makes requests for the ongoing preservation of His people. I repeat, there is nothing quite
like this intercessory prayer anywhere else in scripture. And we do well to pause and appreciate
the privilege we have of eavesdropping on such a divine conversation
and considering its message. Here we learn that while the
atoning death of the Lord Jesus Christ is central, necessary,
and crucial for the redemption of the church and our individual
salvation and acceptance with God, Christ's death was not the only
obligation undertaken by the Saviour for us nor was it the
only duty laid on him by his father. And in today's verses,
we learn, for example, how the Lord Jesus protected his disciples
while he was with them in the world. Now the exception, I'm
not going to speak much about Judas Iscariot, I'm not going
to speak at all about him save to say this, the exception was
Judas Iscariot because he had a purposeful role, he's called
the son of perdition, he had a purposeful role in the betrayal
of the Lord and that was foreseen prophetically and it was manifested
so that we are not including him as we include the other disciples. The Lord never had that interest
in Judas Iscariot that he had in the elect of God, the other
11 disciples. But the Lord was careful to protect
his disciples while he was with them in the world. We know, for
example, that the Pharisees often targeted the disciples, trying
to belittle them, trying to shame them, trying to expose them. And the Lord often came to their
defence. We are not sure what other perils
they faced when Jesus was opposed. But when there were those who
tried to destroy Jesus by throwing him off a cliff, we can well
imagine that the Lord's disciples were also intimidated at that
time. The soldiers of the high priest
would take pleasure in roughing up the disciples, I'm sure, if
they got the opportunity to do so. Who knows what perils they
faced. But it is clear that as well
as the physical troubles that they had, they were targeted
at a spiritual level as well. The Lord tells the disciples,
he's speaking to Simon and names him, but he speaks to all of
his disciples in this. He says, behold, Satan hath desired
to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. Satan had requested
that he would be able to, let me put it like this, rough up
the disciples. He wanted to rough them up a
bit because his claim was that you will see there is no substance
in them. You will see, just as a farmer
or a planter would grow his wheat and then he would rough that
wheat up and he would allow the wind to blow through it and all
the chaff would blow away, Satan was saying, these men are just
chaff. You let me rough these men up and I'll show you just
how insignificant they really are or how little there is of
any true depth in them. There's no heart to these men. And our Saviour, He protected
and He kept and He preserved His disciples throughout all
this time that He was with them. so that he is showing us in these
verses today that by his substitutionary death, the Lord Jesus not only
saved sinners from death and hell, but preserves them throughout
their life's journey as well. He ensures their everlasting
life and glory in heaven, but he also preserves and protects
them in their daily life. And I think that this ought to
be a great source of peace for God's people. There are practical
applications for this in our life, for you and for me. It
allows us to trace a line from the Saviour's death right to
our present daily problems. It enables us to apply eternal
promises to everyday troubles. In securing the full and free
salvation for all his chosen people, the Lord bestows even
more good hope of heaven Wonderful as that is, he also
reassures us of daily help. He says, lo, I am with you always,
even unto the end of the world. That little phrase, lo I am with
you always, even unto the end of the world, is the final phrase,
the final verse in Matthew's gospel. And I think that we should
take that as being very good news indeed. Can we apply that
blessing? Let me remind you, our eternal
security is our present experience. The sacrifice of Christ gives
us eternal life. But it gives us that eternal
life as a present experience day by day. We can be sure we'll
be safe today because today we know that we are saved eternally. Christ's death accomplished in
time what God purposed from eternity. Our Saviour did not save us on
the cross only to abandon us now in life's complexities. If he promises to keep us to
the end of the world, he will surely keep us to the end of
the week. And I've got three points that
I want to leave with you that we might use, that we might employ
to draw this daily comfort in our own lives to the Lord's help,
to the Lord's blessing, to the Lord's engagement and involvement
with us in our daily lives. And the first one is this. that
we belong to Jesus. These verses tell us that we
are his. Over the last few weeks, we've
spoken frequently about the covenant of grace because this covenant
is at the heart of the Lord's high priestly prayer, the Lord's
intercessory prayer on our behalf. Let me say it like this. The
covenant is at the heart of the Saviour's bold, assertive prayer
on our behalf. There's an emphaticness in the
Lord's prayer. There's a confidence in the Lord's
words that are founded not on the divine equality that he had
with the father, as they might well be, but are founded rather
on the contractual entitlement that the Lord had, having fulfilled
his covenant obligations. founded on the terms of a bargain
fulfilled. Now, this isn't complicated. The youngest among us can understand
this. That covenant, that contract
said, if you do this, I'll do this. If you do this, I'll do
this. What that covenant promised was
that if the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world and laid
down his life for his people, then God the Father would give
him that people as his own. And we belong to Jesus because
the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled the terms of that contract. There's a boldness in the prayer
based upon justice and right. The Lord Jesus says, glorify
thou me because I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do. He says, this is my will. This is what I want you to do.
He says, I will that they also whom thou has given me be with
me where I am. That's what I mean by the boldness
of the prayer, the affirmative, the assertions that the Lord
is making. The Lord's prayer to his Father
is not a request for a favour or a kindness that isn't merited. It's not a request for an act
of grace. Setting up the covenant was an
act of grace. Having fulfilled the covenant,
this is a request that the father now fulfill the promises made
to the Lord Jesus Christ and the undertakings agreed upon
in the covenant once set up. Outcomes to which Christ is entitled
and from which his people in him will benefit. outcomes to which Christ is entitled
because they are the wages of his labour, they are the prize
of his suffering, they are the fulfilment of those things for
which his soul travailed. The firm foundation upon which
our eternal security is fixed is the promises made between
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And we look to those
promises as the grounds of our confidence. We do not have an
active role in the covenant of grace, but we have an active
interest in its outcome. an active interest in the role
of each of the persons of the Godhead as they fulfilled their
common cause and contributed towards our grace and glory. We who believe belong to the
Father by election. He chose us to eternal life before
the world began. We belong to the Son by assignation. We were given to Him by the Father. The Father chose us and He gave
us to the Son into His hands, given into the hands of the Saviour
to be redeemed with His precious blood. and we belong to the Spirit
by placement. He set us apart in the Lamb's
book of life and calls us forth by conversion from amongst the
fallen in Adam and comforts us with the gospel. So that what the Lord Jesus Christ
says concerning the loss of none of those given to him by the
Father has particular reference to all of us, his disciples then
and us as well. The redeemed of the Lord shall
all be kept. Not one of us will be lost. The
Lord says, I haven't lost any. While I was in the world, I haven't
lost any that you gave to me. Not one can be lost. There will
be the removal of none of us. Had a single person, had a single
sinner been lost, then that would have invalidated Christ's atoning
work. It would have compromised the
efficacy of his blood. It would have contradicted the
elective will and the power of the Father. It would have exposed
the power of the Holy Spirit as ineffectual. We are kept safe
because we belong to Christ and God cannot deny his justice and
his faithfulness to those whom Christ has redeemed. The power to save and the power
to keep. Those who are saved belongs to
Christ. We are his possession, we are
his property. We are his property because he
has redeemed us by his blood. And everyone for whom Christ
died will be with him in heaven. It would undermine every revealed
attribute of God and it would render Christ's efforts a failure
if one were lost. The Saviour says in John chapter
6, All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him
that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. He continues in
John 10, And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall
never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me
is greater than all. and no man is able to pluck them
out of my Father's hand." We have this assurance, we have
this confidence, we have this boldness because of what Christ
has accomplished in this covenant of grace. He has fulfilled every
requirement and by right and by settlement, he has given to
his people everlasting life. He preserved his disciples during
his own life. And then he asks his father to
preserve that people, to keep that people, now that the Lord
Jesus is returning to his father. And this is the second point
that I want to draw to your attention. Not only do we belong to the
Lord Jesus Christ by the redemption of blood, but he has placed us
at his request into his father's hands for safekeeping. So that
another thing that we learn from this short passage is that when
the Lord Jesus returned to heaven, he enlisted his father's care,
as well as that of the Holy Spirit, for the ongoing preservation
of his bride and her future protection. The Lord's people truly are a
kept people. At Christ's behest, we are kept
safe by God's power and authority and preserved through God's own
name. What does that mean through his
name? It means this, that the very honour and reputation of
God has been enlisted for our comfort and for our safety in
this world. The Lord Jesus Christ asks his
Father upon the grounds of his own name, his own authority and
power to keep them which the Lord is recommitting back into
the care of his Father. So that we as the Lord's people
are kept completely in life and in death according to God's preordained
purpose. Do you have a fear in life? Perhaps you're concerned about
unknown terrors, what's going to happen in the future. Perhaps
there's an anxiety that builds in your mind, in your heart,
in your soul, concerning the things that you don't know what's
going to happen. Maybe for health or for finance
or for employment or for family members, Let us look to the Lord. Is he
not the great physician? Does he not own the cattle of
a thousand hills? Is he not worthy of our trust? Do we fear death? then Christ
is the resurrection and the life. In Him we shall never die. Christ's
quickened people don't die. We just lay down these bodies
for a little while and go and live with our best friend. Why? Because we are a kept people. No one and nothing can touch
us except it is for our good. That's what it means to be kept
by the Father's name, kept under the Father's control, kept by
His authority. We are kept faithful. We are
kept trusting. Even our faith, even that which
opens up to us the blessings of the Lord Jesus Christ, our
Saviour, is kept for us according to the gift given to us. Even our faith is kept. It remains
with us because actually it's Christ's own faith implanted
in our soul. There's a reason that God's covenant
of peace is called the everlasting covenant. In Isaiah 54 verse
10 we read this, For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be
removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that
hath mercy on thee. kindness, peace and mercy. These are the gifts of God towards
his people because of the covenant accomplishments of our Saviour. We belong to Christ and Christ,
having returned to his Father, there to intercede for us in
heaven, has committed our care, our daily care, into his Father's
hands. And we are granted every temporal
and spiritual need according to the wisdom and kindness of
our loving God, because all things work together for our good. What
about our enemies? What about the world? What about
the flesh? What about the devil? Brothers and sisters, we have
the Father, we have the Son, and we have the Holy Spirit.
We have all the holy angels who minister to us according to God's
will. And they that be with us are
more than they that be with them. to remember the fear of Elisha's
young servant when he saw the prophet's enemies come to slay
his master. In 2 Kings 6, verse 17, Elisha
prayed and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes that he may
see And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw.
And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of
fire round about Elisha. You can substitute your name
for Elisha's name in that place. Chariots of fire surround the
homes of the Lord's people, surround the lives of the Lord's people
who have eyes to see. My people, says the Lord, shall
dwell in a peaceable habitation. May the Lord increase our faith
daily that when these trials come and when these doubts arise
and when these anxieties and uncertainties beset us, no matter
what it may be, and this is a troubling time in the world for many people,
that we have this confidence that Our eyes might be open to
know that they that are for us are more than they that are with
them. And here's the third point that
I want to leave with you. We are eternally safe. We are presently kept and we
are eternally safe. Far from there being any possibility
of Christ being shamed by losing one for whom he died, he is honoured
in successfully accomplishing his work and bringing his people
to glory. Here we are told that Jesus is
glorified in us. Now that's something, is it not?
Is it not something for the Lord Jesus Christ to say that He is
glorified in you and He is glorified in me? Not because we are good,
not because of what we've done or accomplished, but because
we are saved. Because He has saved us, He is
glorified in us. He declares, all mine are thine
and thine are mine and I am glorified in them. Christ is glorified
by the success of his work for us and in us. And the church
is Christ's trophy. Our final salvation is his victory. Our righteousness is to his everlasting
praise. He has made us what we are, and
he shall receive all the glory for that. I mentioned yesterday
that once saved, always saved is a central pillar of the gospel
of God. All those elected by God to salvation
were given to the Lord Jesus Christ in this covenant of peace
to be redeemed from their sin and freed from all their guilt
and condemnation. That is our portion. That is
our lot if we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. Our ever-blessed
Saviour tells us in this high priestly prayer that he has finished
the work he was given to do and that includes saving us for all
eternity and keeping us safe every day. Every chosen sinner
will be saved and every saved sinner will be safely kept until
we are delivered home to glory and there is nothing can harm
us in the way. While in the world Christ kept
his people in God's name and we are kept in God's name still. Yes, we are in this troubled
world. though we are not of the world.
Yes, we dwell amongst people who are unsympathetic to our
beliefs and opposed to our saviour. Yes, we are prone to attacks
from the world and the flesh and the devil, just like the
Lord's disciples were. Yes, Satan tries to sieve us
also, like wheat, to show that we're only chaff and there's
no real wheat in us. It is necessary that we be protected
and kept by God's might and power, safeguarded under His divine
care, preserved against all the opposition that we face. And
knowing this, the Lord asked His Father to keep us safe in
this world, not as a favour, but as a right to Him according
to the Father's promise, Christ having accomplished His covenant
obligations and earning our security by His covenant entitlement. Our Saviour lost none of those
committed into His charge, nor will the Father lose any who
have been recommitted into His charge. Brothers and sisters,
be assured, your eternal destiny in heaven as a believer in Jesus
Christ is fixed and certain and sure, and your present well-being
in this world is just as fixed and certain and sure, because
you are His. He who has gone to prepare your
mansion and is laying up treasure for you in heaven has assured
our safekeeping in his absence by committing us into his Father's
hand. May the Lord bless these thoughts
and make them an encouragement to us day by day as we face the
trials of our life. Amen.