The Rule and Reward of Serving Christ
(No. 2449)
A SERMON INTENDED FOR READING ON LORD'S-DAY, JANUARY 26, 1896.
DELIVERED BY C. H. SPURGEON,
AT THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, NEWINGTON, ON THURSDAY EVENING, JUNE
27, 1889.
"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me, and where I am there My
servant will be also: if anyone serves Me, him will My Father honor."
John 12:26.
THIS verse is all about serving and service. Three times over you get
the word, "serve," or, "servant." Each clause of our text has in it a
part of the verb, "to serve." You cannot have Christ if you will not
serve Him! If you take Christ, you must take Him in all His Characters,
not only as Friend, but also as Master. And if you are to become His
disciple, you must also become His servant. I hope that no one here
kicks against that Truth of God! Surely it is one of our highest
delights on earth to serve our Lord and this is to be our blessed
employment even in Heaven, itself–"His servants shall serve Him: and
they shall see His face."
This thought also enters into our idea of salvation. To be saved means
that we are rescued from the slavery of sin and brought into the
delightful liberty of the servants of God. O Master, You are such a
glorious Lord that serving You is perfect freedom and sweetest rest!
You have told us that it would be so and we have found it so. "Take My
yoke upon you and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and
you shall find rest unto your souls." We do find it so and it is not as
though rest were a separate thing from service–the very service,
itself, becomes rest to our souls! I know not how some of us would have
any rest on earth if we could not employ our daily lives in the service
of Christ! And the rest of Heaven is never to be pictured as idleness,
but as constantly being permitted the high privilege of serving the
Lord.
Learn, then, all of you who would have Christ as your Savior, that you
must be willing to serve Him. We are not saved by service, but we are
saved to service. When we are once saved, from then on we live in the
service of our Lord. If we refuse to be His servants, we are not saved,
for we still remain evidently the servants of self and the servants of
Satan. Holiness is another name for salvation–to be delivered from the
power of self-will, the domination of evil lusts and the tyranny of
Satan–this is salvation. Those who would be saved must know that they
will have to serve Christ–and those who are saved rejoice that they
are serving Him and that thus they are giving evidence of a change of
heart and renewal of mind! Come, Beloved, and when the text says, "If
anyone serves Me," let each of us read his own name, there, and let us
say, "Yes, I would serve the Lord Jesus Christ."
If we cannot read our own name there as yet, let us pray God that we
may first believe in Jesus unto eternal life and then, receiving that
eternal life, may spend the full force and strength of it in His
service! I hope that I am addressing a large number of those who are
working together with God, who have said concerning their great King as
Ittai said to David, "Surely in what place my lord the king shall be,
whether in death or life, even there, also, will your servant be." You
have taken up Christ's Cross–it has become a delightful burden to
you–and you wish to bear it after Jesus as long as you live. May you
be helped in that desire by the consideration of the passage before us!
First, here is the rule of service–"If anyone serves Me, let him
follow Me." Secondly, here is the fellowship of service–"Where I am,
there My servant will be also." And thirdly, here is the reward of
service–"If anyone serves Me, him will my Father honor."
I. First, dear Friends, here is THE RULE OF SERVICE–"If anyone serves
Me, let him follow Me."
So you are proposing to yourself that you will serve Christ, are you?
You are a young man. As yet you have plenty of vigor and strength and
you say to yourself, "I will serve Christ in some remarkable way! I
will seek to make myself a scholar. I will try to learn the art of
oratory and I will, in some way or other, glorify my Lord's name by the
splendor of my language." Will you, dear Friend? Is it not better, if
you are going to serve Christ, to ask Him what He would like you to do?
If you wished to do a kindness for a friend, you certainly would desire
to know what would best please that friend, or else your kindness might
be mistaken and you might be doing that which would grieve rather than
gratify! Now listen. Your Lord and Master does not bid you become
either a scholar or an orator in order to serve Him. Both of those
things may happen to fall to your lot in that path of duty which He
would have you to take, but first of all He says, "If anyone serves Me,
let him follow Me."
This is what Christ prefers beyond anything else–that His servants
should follow Him. If we do that, we shall serve Him in the way which
is according to His own choice. I notice that many good friends desire
to serve Christ by standing on the top rung of the ladder. You cannot
get there at one step, young man! Your better way will be to serve
Christ by following Him, by, "doing the next thing," the thing you can
do–that little simple business which lies within your capacity which
will bring you no special honor, but which, nevertheless, is what your
Lord desires of you. In effect, you can hear Him say to you, "If anyone
serves Me, let him follow Me, not by aiming at great things, but by
doing just that piece of work that I put before Him at the time." "Do
you seek great things for yourself?" said the Prophet Jeremiah to
Ba-ruch, "seek them not." So say I to you.
One friend here, perhaps, blessed with great riches, is saying to
himself or herself, "I will lay by in store until I acquire a
considerable amount and then build a row of almshouses for the poor. I
will give very largely to some new foreign missionary effort, or I will
build a House of Prayer in which Christ's name shall be preached." God
forbid that I should stop you in any right design whatever! Still, if
you would do what is absolutely certain to please Christ, I would not
recommend the selection of any one particular objective, but I would
advise you to do just this–follow Him, remembering that He said, "If
anyone serves Me, let him follow Me." You will, by simply going behind
your Master, following His footsteps and being truly His disciple, do
that which would please Him more than if you could endow His cause with
a whole mint of riches. This is what He selects as the choicest proof
of your love, the highest testimony of your regard–"If anyone serves
Me, let him follow Me."
What, then, does the Savior mean by bidding us render to Him our best
service by following Him? I would say, first, I understand by these
words that we are to follow Christ by believing His doctrine. Our Lord
says, practically, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me as Teacher.
Let him sit at My feet. Let him learn of Me." Some seem to fancy that
they can serve Christ by striking out a new line of thought. My dear
Sir, if you do that, you will serve yourself, but you will not serve
Christ! He has come to be the Teacher of the glorious Gospel of the
blessed God and it is only by teaching the Truths which He has made
known, and by publishing the message which He has revealed, that you
can really be His servant. Suppose you have a man to be your servant at
home–say, your gardener. He is a very industrious man, indeed, and
works very hard. But when you walk round your garden, you do not see
him, and for a very good reason, for he is not there. Where is he? He
is at work in your neighbor's garden! Of course you love your neighbor
as yourself, so you are pleased to think that your servant is working
on behalf of your neighbor.
You smile, do you? I think you say to yourself, "That is a kind of
servant that I should not care to keep. If he worked for somebody else
all day long, in the time for which I paid him, I would not want him as
my servant." Well now, if I, as a Christian minister, become a teacher
of philosophy instead of a preacher of the Truths of the Gospel. If I
receive into my mind some of the novel views that abound in the present
day–which are not the views that are revealed in the Scriptures–then
Christ is not my Master and I am not His disciple! I am a follower of
somebody else. If you act thus, you are pretending to be Christ's
reformer–you are attempting to make His teaching better. Impious fool!
I dare not use a milder expression! You are acting as Christ's critic!
You are finding fault with the Faultless! You are trying to correct the
Infallible! You had better give up such a task as that, for it is not
consistent with being His disciple. He requires of you that you should
become as a little child, that you may be taught by Him. His own words
are, "Except you are converted, and become as little children, you
shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven."
If you would be a servant of Christ, come to Him as a little child! Sit
on the infants' form to be taught by Him the Gospel A B C. "If anyone
serves Me, let him follow Me–follow Me as My disciple, regarding Me as
his Teacher to whom he bows his understanding and his entire mind, that
I may fashion it according to My own will." This is the language of our
Lord and I would impress it very earnestly upon you all–and especially
upon any who are beginning the Christian life. If you are to serve
Christ, put your mind like a tablet of wax under His stylus, that He
may write on you whatever He pleases! Be you Christ's slate, that He
may make His mark on you. Be His sheet of paper on which He may write
His living letters of love. You can serve Him in this way in the best
possible manner.
But next, I think that the text means, "If anyone serves Me, let him
follow Me by obeying My commands." A fortnight ago, we considered that
most instructive text, [Sermon #2317, Volume 39–Obeying Christ's
Orders] "Whatever He says unto you, do it." I would bring that text to
your notice, again, and ring it like a bell–"Whatever HE says unto
you, do it." If you want to truly serve Christ, do not do what you
suggest to yourself, but do what He commands you! Remember what Samuel
said to Saul, "To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than
the fat of rams." I believe that the profession of consecration to God,
when it is accompanied by action that I suggest to myself, may be
nothing but will-worship–an abomination in the sight of God! But when
anyone says to the Lord, "What will You have me do? Show me, my Master,
what You would have me do"–when there is a real desire to obey every
command of Christ, then is there the true spirit of service and the
true spirit of sonship. "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me,
running at My call, following at My heels, waiting at My feet to do
whatever I desire him to do."
Dear Friends, this makes life a very much simpler thing than some dream
it to be. You are not to go and carve a statue out of marble by the
exercise of your own genius–if that were the task set before us, the
most of us would never accomplish it! But you have just to go and write
according to Christ's own example, to copy His letters, the up-strokes
and the down-strokes and to write exactly as He has written. The other
day, I was asked to sign my name to a deed and when it was handed to
me, I said, "Why, I have signed my name!" "Yes," said the one who
brought it, "you have the very easy task of marking it all over again."
Just so, in that case I followed my own writing and you have the easy
task of writing after Christ, blacking over, again, the letters that
He, Himself, has made, and you cannot do Him better service than this.
"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; that is, let him do just what
I bid Him to do."
Now, thirdly, I think that by these words our Lord means–and this is
the same thing in another shape, "If anyone serves Me, let him follow
Me by imitating My example." It is always safe, dear Friends, to do
what Christ would have done under the same circumstances in which you
are placed. Of course you cannot imitate Christ in His miraculous work
and you are not asked to imitate Him in some of those sorrowful
respects in which He suffered that we might not suffer. But the
ordinary life of Christ is, in every respect, an example to us. Never
do what you could not suppose Christ would have done. If it strikes you
that the course of action that is suggested to you would be
un-Christly, then it is un-Christian, for the Christian is to be like
Christ! The Christian is to be the flower growing out of the Seed,
Christ, and there is always a congruity between the flower and the seed
out of which it grows. Keep your eyes fixed on your heavenly Model and
Pattern, and seek in all things to imitate Christ. If you want to serve
Christ, repeat His life as nearly as possible in your own life. "If
anyone serves Me, let him follow Me by copying My example."
Once more, I think the Savior means this–"If anyone serves Me, let him
follow Me by clinging to My cause." Cling to the cause of Christ, dear
Friend. Give yourself to that Kingdom for which you are taught to pray
and be ready to make any sacrifice, whatever, that you may advance and
extend it. Yes, throw your whole self into the holy service of your
Lord. Make the name of Christ to be more widely known and the cause of
Christ to be further extended among the sons of men. Cling to the cause
of Christ and so carry out His own Words, "If anyone serves Me, let him
follow Me."
Beloved, I believe that every Christian person should follow Christ in
the waters of Baptism and, having done that, should join the Church of
Christ, not so much to follow the Church, as to follow Christ. We are
not to follow men, even the best of men, any farther than they follow
Christ. But we must take care that we do boldly stand up as adherents
of His cause, so that, if it is asked, "Who is on the Lord's side?" we
may put in an appearance, directly, and avow ourselves as His
followers. Are you living in a village where there is no congregation
of the faithful? Then let it be known that you are on the Lord's
side–and do your best to open a place where Christ can be preached. Do
you live down some dark part of this city where nobody goes to a place
of worship? Such places are, alas, very common in this dreadful London.
Then, be sure that you go to the House of God and your very going there
will be a form of serving Christ, for others will see that you, at
least, take a decided step and join in public worship with the avowed
followers of Christ.
If you would really serve Christ, come right out from the world and
say, "Let others do as they will. As for me and my house we belong to
Christ and we will never hide our colors. We will bind the scarlet
thread in the window and we will let all who come by this way
understand that here live those who have been redeemed with precious
blood and who,
therefore, cannot–dare not and will not conceal the gracious fact!"
"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me by taking up My cause and
working for it with all his heart."
I hope that I do not need to dwell any longer on this point. You all
see that the way in which to serve Christ is not a visionary one. You
do not need to run away from your father and mother and leave your home
and friends. You do not need to go away to the natives in Africa in
order to serve Christ. It is not the getting of some idle speculation
in your own brain–and working that out according to your own whims and
fancies that constitutes service of Christ! It is simply this–if any
man will serve Christ, let him follow Christ. Let him put his foot down
as nearly as he can where Christ put His foot down. Let Him tread in
Christ's steps, be moved by His Spirit, actuated by His motives, live
with His aim and copy His actions. This is the noblest way in which to
serve the Lord.
II. Now secondly, and briefly, let us notice THE FELLOWSHIP OF
SERVICE–"If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there
My servant will be also." I do not know any other master but Christ who
ever said that. There are some places where an earthly master does not
want his servant to be–he must have some room to himself and some
engagements which he cannot explain to his servant–and into which his
servant must not pry. But the Lord Jesus Christ makes this the glorious
privilege of everyone who enters His service that, where He is, there
shall His servant be!
And where is He, I pray? He is in Heaven and we cannot go to Him,
there, until He calls us Home. But where is He? Where was He when He
spoke these words? He was, first, in the place of consecration. The
Lord Jesus Christ stood before the Father a consecrated Man. All that
there was in Him was dedicated to the Glory of God. Now, go and serve
Him by following Him, and He will put you into the place of dedication,
consecration, sanctification! You desire to be holy? Well, you will
never attain to holiness simply by lying in bed–get up and work for
Jesus if you are able to do so! And you cannot get holiness merely by
studying books–serve your Lord and serve Him especially by following
Him! It is in the sacred process of active obedience, or of passive
obedience, that we get the consecration which is not to be found, as
some think, by merely willing it and talking of it, but which grows out
of holy service.
As rivers, when they take up sewage, are said to drop it as they flow
and purify themselves as they run, so, assuredly, it is with a Believer
as he flows on in his Christian course. God blessing him, he drops much
of the earthiness which he has taken up in his progress through life
and, by the very motion, he seems to purify himself, refining as he
runs. I notice that people who have nothing to do but to sit and stare
into the black hole of their own nature are generally very sad and not
often very virtuous. But they who, knowing how dark and sinful their
nature is, trust Jesus for salvation, and then spend their lives in
doing the will of the Lord–these are they who are both holy and happy!
But where is Christ?–for He says, "Where I am, there My servant will
be also." He is and always was in the place of communion with God. He
was always near to His Father. He often spoke with God. He always had
the joy of God filling His spirit. And you, perhaps are saying to
yourself, "I wish that I had communion with God." Well, through Jesus
Christ it is to be had by serving Him in that particular kind of
service which consists in following Him! If you want to walk with God,
why, of course, you must walk! If you sit down in idleness, you cannot
walk with Him–and if you do not keep up a good brisk pace, He will
walk on in front of you and leave you behind, for the Lord is no
laggard in His walking. Therefore, you see, there must be diligent
progress and activity in service in order that we may keep pace with
Him and have communion with Him. And if we act thus, here, He has
promised that we shall be in the place of communion with our blessed
Master.
Further than this, our Lord Jesus Christ was in the place of
confidence. Whenever Christ went to work, He worked with assurance. He
never had a doubt as to His ultimate success. No haphazard work ever
came from Christ's hands. He spoke with certainty and He worked with
the full assurance that His labor would not be in vain. If you want to
have confidence in your work for Christ, so as to perform it without
any doubts and fears, you will have to obtain it by serving Him–and
serve Him by following Him. And then, into that hallowed place of
confidence where your Master always stood, there shall you also come.
Our Lord stood, too, in the place of holy calm. How unruffled He was at
all times! His was a life of storms, yet a life of peace. All around
Him moved, but He was the Rock of Ages and never moved. Would you not
like to be calm as Christ was, to dwell with Him on the serene heights
while the tempests roll and thunder far below your feet? Well, then,
serve Him by following Him and, as you do so, the promise of the text
shall be fulfilled to you, "Where I am, there My servant will be also."
And oh, blessed be His name! He has actually gone into the place of
conquest and victory in the eternal world! And you and I shall be there
with Him in His own good time. "Where I am, there My servant will be
also." Count it no dishonor to be servants when this high favor is
promised you, that where your Master is, there you shall be also! I
have sometimes thought that if I could get into Heaven somewhere behind
the door, and just sit there, I would be perfectly satisfied. But far
more than that is promised to us! Wherever Christ is, there shall we
be! If He is on a Throne, we shall be enthroned, too, and, if He is at
the Father's right hand, we shall be at the Father's right hand, for He
has promised, "Where I am, there My servant will be also." You need not
to know much about Heaven–it is where Christ is, and that is Heaven
enough for us! If we could once go into the courts above and ask, "Is
my Lord Jesus here?" and they should answer, "No, He is not here," it
would be no Heaven to us, would it? We would want to go outside the
city walls and cry, "Show me where He is."
But suppose it possible for us to be in the very lowest room of Heaven,
where the glories were veiled, as it were–if such a place could
be–and if we could hear one truly say, "There He is," its glories
would not be any longer veiled and we should need no higher Heaven than
that! As soon as ever we saw Him, we would say, as our Friend did in
prayer, "He is all the Heaven we want to know." Remember that blessed
verse we had in our reading, "Father, I will that they, also, whom You
have given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold My Glory"?
This, then, is the great fellowship of holy service–who would not be a
servant of Christ?
III. Now, as our time is nearly spent, I must speak but briefly upon
THE REWARD OF SERVICE, upon which I have already entrenched –"If
anyone serves Me, him will My Father honor."
It is very sweet to notice how the Lord Jesus brings His Father into
His speech. It is as if He said, "When a man joins himself to Me, then
he joins himself to My Father, also. It is not only I who will love him
and do My best to honor him, but My Father, the great and ever-blessed
Lord over all, keeps an eye on that man." On whom does He look with
this gaze of approval? Not on those who have some grand project of
serving themselves, but on those who serve Christ and who do it by
following Him! Come, dear people of God, you are, many of you, very
poor, yet I know that many of you are seeking to serve Christ by
following Him. Some of God's dear servants here are not great
speakers–they are very quiet, humble Christians–but they are trying
to do what Christ would do if He were in their position. If this is
your case, dear Friends, you are honoring your Lord and the Father,
Himself, looks approvingly upon you!
"If anyone serves Me," says our Lord, "him will My Father honor." How
will He do it? Well, He will honor him by letting him know his sonship.
Because Jesus always pleased the Father, the Father bares witness to
Him, saying, "This is My beloved Son." And if you serve Christ by
following Him, the Father will often bear witness in your heart and
say, "This, also, is My beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." He
will often cause the Spirit of adoption to renew the witness in your
heart so that you will cry, "Abba, Father," and He will acknowledge the
kindred. Surely, there is no greater honor than for God to acknowledge
you as His son!
Next, He will honor you by giving you a sense of approval. You know
what that means. I will tell you when it is very sweet. You have been
doing something for Christ. You have done it with all your heart and
some friend picks holes in it–and someone not quite so much a friend
and who, therefore, cannot so sorely wound you–begins to impute wrong
motives and to judge you for having come down to the battle because of
the pride and the naughtiness of your heart. Well, you lose a friend
and you get a double number of enemies round about you. Yet in your
heart you feel that you did it only for Christ. Well, then, at such a
time it is delightful to have a sense of the approbation of God such as
you never had when you had the approbation of men!
Sometimes when even Christian people cry, "Well done, well done," the
Lord says, "That is quite enough praise for him. I shall not give him
My, 'Well done.'" But when you get no, "Well done," from men and, on
the contrary, are misunderstood and misrepresented, then the Lord comes
and puts His hand upon you and says, "Be strong, fear not, I have
accepted your service. I know your motive and I approve your action. Be
not afraid of them, but go your way." Ah, Beloved! Such approval as
that is the highest honor we can have here! "If anyone serves Me," says
Christ, "him will My Father honor" with a sense of sonship and with a
sense of approbation.
If any man serves Christ there is another kind of honor that often
comes to him, and it is not to be despised. If a man will serve Christ
by following Him, the Father will give him honor in the eyes of the
blood-bought family. There are certain of the Lord's people who do not
carry yardsticks with them, but they carry scales and weights. And if
they do not measure by quantity, they measure by quality–their
approval is worth having. They are often the poorest and most afflicted
members of the Church, but, being the most instructed and living the
nearest to God, to be had in honor of them is a thing worth having! I
believe that if any man will live the life of a Christian, however few
his talents, and if his service lies in close obedience and imitation
of Christ, the real saints, not the mere professors, especially not the
shining worldly ones among them, but real saints will say, "That is the
man for us! That is the woman with whom we like to converse." Thus it
comes to pass that those who really serve the Lord by following Him
have honor in the estimation of those who sit at meat with them at
their Lord's Table.
And then, at last, when we come to die, or when we stand at the
Judgment Seat of Christ, or when we enter upon the eternal state, what
a glorious thing it will be to find the Father ready to honor us
forever because we served the Son! Our reward will not be of debt, but
of Divine Grace–it is Grace that gave us the service and Grace that
will reward us for our service! No man and no woman shall serve the
Lord Jesus Christ here on earth by following Him without finding that
the Father has some special honor, some rich and rare reward, to give
to such soldiers in due time! This is the fighting day– expect nothing
now but bullets, bruises, wounds, scars! But the battle will soon be
over and when the war is ended, the King will come and ride up and down
the ranks–and in that day you who have been most battered and most
wounded in the battle shall find Him pause when He reaches you–and He
will fasten on your breast a star that shall be more honor to you than
all the Victoria Crosses that have decorated brave men here below!
Stars and garters they may have who want them, but blessed are they who
shall shine as the stars in the Kingdom of our Father! And this honor
is to be had by that Believer who will faithfully serve His Lord–not
by any who merely talk about it, or dream of it, or propose to do
it–but to those who serve Him by following Him, this honor shall be
given.
I have preached all this to God's people, but I have not said anything
to you who are not His people. I cannot invite you to His service as
you are–how can you serve Him while you are His enemies? I do not
invite you unconverted people to work for God. Oh, no! He wants no such
servants as you are! He will not have rebels in His host. First bow
your knee in submission, lay down the weapons of your rebellion–then
fly to Christ for mercy! Trust in Him for forgiveness and then, but not
till then, you may come and serve Him, and follow Him, and expect that
His Father will honor you as He has promised. God bless you, for Jesus'
sake! Amen.
HYMNS FROM "OUR OWN HYMN BOOK"–625, 262, 785.
EXPOSITION BY C. H. SPURGEON: JOHN17.
This chapter contains the marvelous prayer of our Great High Priest.
May the Holy Spirit apply its teaching to our hearts as we read it!
Verse 1. These words spoke Jesus, and lifted up His eyes to Heaven, and
said, Father, the hour is come; glorify Your Son, that Your Son also
may glorify You. The great design of Christ, all through His life on
earth, was to glorify the Father. He came to save His people, but that
was not His first or His chief aim. It was His objective, through the
salvation of myriads of the sons of men, to glorify the Father.
2. As You have given Him power over all flesh, that He should give
eternal life to as many as You have given Him. Here we have both the
universality and the specialty of the work of Divine Mercy. Christ has
power over all flesh–men are in the power of the one Mediator, but
there is this special objective ever before Him–"that He should give
eternal life to as many as You have given Him."
3. And this is life eternal, that they might know You the only true
God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent. This does not mean mere
head-knowledge, but to know in the heart and soul the one only true God
and Jesus Christ who was sent of Him to the sons of men, "this is life
eternal." God without Christ brings not eternal life, and Christ, if He
were not sent of God, would not bring eternal life to us, but knowing
God in Christ Jesus is eternal life.
4. I have glorified You on the earth: I have finished the work which
You gave Me to do. Here our Savior speaks by anticipation. He foresaw
that He would pass through His passion, that all the work of His
people's redemption would be fully accomplished. And in this, His final
prayer on earth to the Father, He could truly say, "I have finished the
work which You gave Me to do." May you and I be able to say the same
when we depart out of this world! Not boastingly–
there was no boasting in our Lord–but truthfully,
conscientiously–from the bottom of our heart may each one of us be
able to say, "I have finished the work which You gave me to do"!
5. And now, O Father, glorify You Me with Your own Self with the Glory
which I had with You before the world was. After the finished work,
Christ was to have the Glory. O worker for God, seek not glory before
your work is done! Expect not honor among men because you have begun
the work so earnestly. Plod on until it is finished, then shall the
glory come. "Verily I say unto you, they have their reward," said our
Lord concerning the scribes and Pharisees who sought the praise of men.
But you have not your reward at present–it is yet to come. Wait for
it, for it is sure to come.
6. I have manifested Your name unto the men which You gave Me out of
the world: Yours they were, and You gave them to Me; and they have kept
Your Word. How tenderly He speaks about them! He says the best He can
of them. They were faulty, feeble folk, but He says, "They have kept
Your Word." So they did. Oh, that you and I may do the same, and not be
swept away by the drift of the current of unbelief! If we are not
perfect. If we fail in some respects, yet may the Muster be able to say
of us to God, "They have kept Your Word"!
7. Now they have known that all things whatever You have given Me are
of You. How the blessed Christ loves to lay aside all honor to Himself
even in His own Gospel! He said that the things which He had taught to
His disciples were not His own–they were the Father's. The Father
always honors the Son and the Son takes care to always honor the
Father.
8-10. For I have given unto them the Words which You gave Me; and they
have received them, and have known surely that I came from You, and
they have believed that You did send Me. I pray for them: I pray not
for the world, but for them which You have given Me; for they are
Yours. And all Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in
them. Every true child of God glorifies Christ! And if you cannot say
that you are glorifying Christ, you should question whether you really
belong to Him. If you are His, it is true of you, "I am glorified in
them"–not only by them, but in them–"their suffering with patience,
in their laboring with diligence, in their faith, in their trustfulness
in Me, 'I am glorified in them.'"
11. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world–We
also know that we, too, are in the world. We have good reason to feel
it and sometimes to mourn it.
11. And I come to You. Holy Father, keep through Your own name those
whom You have given Me, that they may be one, as We are. When God keeps
us, He keeps us in unity–our divisions are not the result of His work.
When we get away from His keeping and get away from His Word, then we
are sundered in heart from Him and from one another. But by His keeping
He keeps His children one.
12. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name: those
that You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of
perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled. The Scripture was
fulfilled in the preservation of His own–and also fulfilled in the
destruction of the traitor. God's Word will always be fulfilled. Oh,
that it may be to us a savor of life unto life, that we may be kept by
it and not a savor of death unto death, as it was to Judas, who was
blinded by the very Light of God that shone upon him! That fierce Light
that beat about the King of Kings fell on him and it blinded him
eternally. God save us from such an awful doom as that!
13. And now come I to You. I can only read you this wonderful chapter,
but what must it have been to have heard it! I think I see the look on
the Savior's face as He says to His Father, "And now come I to You."
May something like that look be on your faces, my Beloved, when your
last moments come! Looking away from your dear ones whom you must leave
as Jesus left His disciples, may you, each one, be able to say, "And
now come I to You"!
13. And these things I speak in the world, that they might have My joy
fulfilled in themselves. While He drained the cup of sorrow to the
dregs and went forward to all the agonies of the cruel Cross, He wanted
His disciples to have His joy fulfilled in them, that they might be
filled full with His joy.
14. I have given them Your Word; and the world has hated them, because
they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. This does not
look like trying to please the world, to adapt our method to the spirit
of the age, to come as near to the world as ever we can, to dabble in
its politics and join in its schemes! This has, to me, a very different
tone in it from all that!
15. I pray not that You should take them out of the world–Christ and
His people did not go together out of the world all at once. That would
have been to leave the world in an utterly forlorn condition without
any help whatever! So He says to His Father, "I pray not that You
should take them out of the world."
15-16. But that You should keep them from the Evil One. They are not of
the world, even as I am not of the world. You cannot make Christ a
worldling. Do what You will with His Character–twist it as you
like–you must see that there is something unworldly, otherworldly
about Him. So let it always be with His people.
17. Sanctify them through Your Truth: Your Word is Truth. Thank God for
that–"Your Word is Truth." Not, "Your Word contains the Truth with a
mixture of error." Or, "Your Word has some Truth in it." No, but, "Your
Word is Truth." Not only is it true, but it is Truth, the very
essential Truth of God!
18, 19. As You have sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent
them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself–"I separate
Myself to this work, I dedicate, devote, consecrate Myself wholly for
their sakes."
19-20. That they, also, might be sanctified through the Truth. Neither
pray I for these alone–This little handful of disciples who had been
gathered to His name–
20. But for them, also, which shall believe on Me through their word.
Thank God that He will bless our word as well as His own Word! When our
word is based upon His Word–when we do but expound what Christ has
given us to say– then men shall believe on Him through our word!
21-23. That they all may be one; as You, Father, are in Me, and I in
You, that they, also, may be one in Us: that the world may believe that
You have sent Me. And the Glory which You gave Me, I have given them;
that they may be one, even as We are one: I in them, and You in Me,
that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that
You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me. This is a
wonderful expression. Does the Father love His people as He loves
Christ? Then His love to them must be without beginning, without
change, without measure, without end! Oh, it would ravish your heart,
it would carry you away to the very Heaven of heavens if you could get
the full meaning of this expression, "and have loved them as You have
loved Me"!
24. Father, I will that they, also, whom You have given Me, be with Me
where I am; that they may behold My Glory, which You have given Me: for
You loved Me before the foundation of the world. This is Christ's last
will and testament– "Father, I will." It is not merely His prayer, but
He makes this as one clause in His will, that all whom the Father gave
Him should be with Him to behold His Glory. And it will be so, Beloved.
He will not lose one of His own. He will never drop from those dear
pierced hands any portion of the eternal gift of His Father!
25, 26. O righteous Father, the world has not known You: but I have
known You, and these have known that You have sent Me. And I have
declared unto them Your name, and will declare it: that the love
wherewith You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them. Here the
doctrine becomes a matter of experience! May we never rest till we get
the full experience of it, that the very love which God gives to Christ
may be found in our hearts shed abroad by the Holy Spirit! Amen.