Day 1174: Kept by God - John 17 vs 6 - 17

6-8 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9-10 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

11 And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. 12 While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.

13-16 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. John 17:6-17 English Standard Version

The section we're in is often referred to as the 'High Priestly Prayer' of Jesus. What does He say about the people He was praying for? (vs 6)

They were those whom the Father had given to the Him! The disciples had not been randomly selected. Nor was it because of any good things they had done. Each one was a gift from the Father. And to them Jesus entrusted the words the Father had given Him, and they'd come to believe that He had been sent by God. And so vs 9-10 tell us that this part of His prayer was especially for them! And what was the specific request Jesus prayed on their behalf? (vs 11)

He prays that, because He was soon going to return to heaven, God would guard and keep them from falling away and being lost. And He prays too that they would be united in their cause. We see this from what Jesus said about how He had kept them, and the only one who was lost was the one who had betrayed Him, according to the Scriptures.

Why did they need God's safekeeping? (vs 13-16)

Because they were going to face the hostility of a world under the sway of Satan which hates the truth about God, and the beloved Son He sent as redeemer. From where we stand, it seems as if Christianity spread magnificently. But it was not without the tremendous cost of many martyrs along the way! But Jesus didn't pray that they would escape all harm. Rather that they would be protected from the evil one. And so He asks that they might be set apart, and kept holy for God. And what was the means by which God would do that? (vs 17)

It would be by the eternal truth of God's unfailing word. The same gospel which called them to faith, would be their safeguard till God called them home. God's word (as we have it in the Bible) is the everlasting truth by which saints are kept safe until they reach glory.

No wonder the apostle Paul wrote: “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Thessalonians 5:23) No wonder Peter spoke of an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:4.) And no wonder that Jude gave us the well loved doxology “Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and for ever. Amen.” (Jude 1:24-25)