Reflections While Sitting Under the Preached Word

My pastor has been preaching through Jesus’ prayer recorded in John 17. I’m pleased to be sitting under these sermons, as this prayer is so revealing. This Sunday, as my pastor was preaching through verses 6-19 and teaching us more about Jesus praying for his agents of grace, for their possession, protection, and consecration, one word really caught my attention: keep. Jesus prays to the Father to keep his agents of grace, those the Father has given him, in the Father’s name. He says that while he was with them, he kept them in the Father’s name. He affirms again that he has guarded, or kept them. He also prays for the Father to keep his disciples from the evil one. This brought me back to creation, where we also see this word, keep. “The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Gen. 2:15). Adam was to guard, protect, to preserve; he was to be a priest in the temple that was the garden of Eden. We know how that went. But now we see in this high priestly prayer of Christ that Seed that God promised in Gen. 3:15. The second Adam, Jesus Christ, holds fast to all the Father has given him. This prayer is so beautiful! I was thinking about this as I heard my pastor saying, “An agent of grace is a possession of God in Jesus Christ….his precious possession.” Jesus has answered the call to protect and preserve and he prayed for his disciples to be sanctified in the truth. Was Jesus only praying for the 11 disciples? Do not all his disciples bear witness to Christ? This prayer encourages me even more in one of my favorite verses, “Hold fast to the confession of your hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Heb. 10:23). We can hold fast because Christ is the One who truly holds fast to us. He keeps us in his grace. He held fast on the cross without giving his life until “it is finished,” and now he is seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding on our behalf, and we have this hope as an “anchor to our soul.” God’s oath is our anchor:

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. (Heb. 6:17-18)

We are set apart for the purpose of God. And as my mind was filing through Genesis and Hebrews, I heard my pastor say that Jesus “consecrated himself to the point of death…our consecration is the result of Christ’s consecration. He set himself apart for his people, and that consecration is both effected and effective, working in and through us.” As God keeps us, we can hold fast to the confession of our hope, knowing that Christ consecrated himself, that we also may be sanctified in truth (John 17:19). Even now, Jesus is performing his duties as eternal high priest for his people. All this he will do. He who promised is faithful.