Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2331
“I pray for them: Ipray 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.” John 17:9,10.
To begin with, I remark that our Lord Jesus pleads for His own people. When He puts on His priestly breastplate, it is for the tribes whose names are there. When He presents the atoning Sacrifice, it is for Israel whom God has chosen, and He utters this great Truth of God, which some regard as narrow, but which we adore, “I pray for them: I pray not for the world.” The point to which I want to call attention is this—the reason why Christ prays not for the world, but for His people. He puts it, “For they are Yours,” as if they were all the dearer to Him because they were the Father’s—“I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which You have given Me, for they are Yours.” We might have half thought that Jesus would have said, “They are Mine and, therefore, I pray for them.” It would have been true, but there would not have been the beauty of Truth about it which we have here. He loves us all the better and He prays for us all the more fervently because we are the Father’s. Such is His love to His Father, that our being the Father’s sheds upon us an extra halo of beauty! Because we belong to the Father, therefore does the Savior plead for us with all the greater earnestness at the Throne of the heavenly Grace.
But this leads us on to remember that our Lord had undertaken suretyship engagements on account of His people— He undertook to preserve the Father’s gift—“Those that You gave Me, I have kept, and none of them is lost.” He looked upon the sheep of His pasture as belonging to His Father and the Father had put them into His charge, saying to Him, “Of Your hand will I require them.” As Jacob kept his uncle’s flocks—by day the heat devoured him and at night the frost—but he was more careful over them because they were Laban’s than if they had been his own. He was to give an account of all the sheep committed to him and he did so—and he lost none of Laban’s sheep. His care over them was partly accounted for by the fact that they did not belong to himself, but belonged to his uncle, Laban.
Understand this twofold reason, then, for Christ’s pastoral prayer for His people. He first prays for them because they belong to the Father and, therefore, have a peculiar value in His eyes. And next, because they belong to the Father, He is under suretyship engagements to deliver them all to the Father in that Last Great Day when the sheep shall pass under the rod of Him that counts them. Now you see where I am bringing you, tonight. I am not going to preach, at this time, to the world any more than Christ, upon this occasion, prayed for the world, but I am going to preach to His own people as He, in this intercessory prayer, pleaded for them. I trust that they will all follow me, step by step, through this great theme, and I pray the Lord that, in these deep central Truths of the Gospel, we may find real refreshment for our souls tonight.
I. In calling your attention to my text, I want you to notice, first, THE INTENSITY OF THE SENSE OF PROPERTY WHICH CHRIST HAS IN HIS PEOPLE.
Here are six words setting forth Christ’s property in those who are saved—“Them which You have given Me”—(that is one), “for they are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I am glorified in them.” There are certain persons so precious to Christ that they are marked all over with special tokens that they belong to Him, as I have known a man write his name in a book which he has greatly valued and then he has turned over some pages and written his name again, and, as we have sometimes known persons, when they have highly valued a thing, to put their mark, their seal, their stamp here, there and almost everywhere upon it! So, notice in my text how the Lord seems to have the seal in His
hand and He stamps it all over His peculiar possession! “They are Yours. And all Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine.” It is all possessive pronouns, to show that God looks upon His people as His portion, His possession, His property. “They shall be Mine, says the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels.” Every man has something or other which he values above the rest of his estate and here the Lord, by so often reiterating the words which signify possession, proves that He values His people above everything! Let us show that we appreciate this privilege of being set apart unto God and let us each one say to Him—
“Take my poor heart, and let it be
Forever closed to all but Thee!
Seal You my breast and let me wear
That pledge of love forever there.” I call your attention, next, to the fact that, while there are these six expressions here, they are all applied to the Lord’s own people. “My,” (that is, the saints), are Yours, (that is, the saints), “and Yours,” (that is, the saints), are Mine, (that is, the saints). These broad arrows of the King of Kings are all stamped upon His people! While the marks of possession are numerous, they are all set upon one object. What? Does not God care for anything else? I answer, No. As compared with His own people, He cares for nothing else. “The Lord’s portion is His people: Jacob is the lot of His inheritance.” Has not God other things? Ah, what is there that He has not? The silver and the gold are His and the cattle on a thousand hills. All things are of God—of Him, and by Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things—yet He reckons them not in comparison with His people! You know how you, dearly Beloved, value your children much more than you do anything else. If there were a fire in your house, tonight, and you could only carry one thing out of it, Mother, would you hesitate a moment as to what that one thing would be? You would carry your baby and let everything else be consumed in the flames! And it is so with God. He cares for His people beyond everything else. He is the Lord God of Israel, and in Israel He has set His name, and there He takes His delight. There does He rest in His love and over her does He rejoice with singing!