Gooding, David: 16 - Highway to Holiness

One of the results of our Lord's resurrection from the dead was, so he said, that it would fill the disciples' hearts with joy that the world could not take away from them. And you will see by that remark, so constantly repeated in these chapters, that our Lord is still talking of himself as the true vine, the one whose task it is to produce spiritual grapes calculated in those that partake of them to to produce true joy. Another result, he said, would be, uh, observed and felt in their prayer life. They would then learn, when he was raised from the dead and ascended to heaven, to pray to the Father in his name. Now we should notice what that means. It is, of course, a different thing from praying for Christ's sake. To pray in the name of Christ is, in a sense, to pray in his authority. If I needed money, I might try to go down to the bank and ask my bank manager to give me a thousand pounds for the sake of Mr. Joseph Rank. But the bank manager would well reply, but what's that got to do with you, and what has Mr. Rank got to do with you? Why for Mr. Rank's sake, do I give you a thousand pounds? It would be altogether a different thing, wouldn't it, if I went down to the bank with an, a check signed by Mr. Rank, and in the name of Mr. Rank, whose signature was on the check, I ask for a thousand pounds. Now I should be asking not for Mr. Rank's sake, but in Mr. Rank's name. So the risen Christ, ascended to God's right hand, is my authority for praying in his name. It doesn't mean that if tonight I pray to God to give me a Rolls-Rice and I, a Rolls-Royce, and I pray in the name of Christ, he will do it. For praying in the name of Christ has, uh, along with it the implied condition that I pray consistently with that name. But it does mean... that now, instead of knowing Christ as a someone walking here on earth beside me, to whom I may go in my difficulties and get him to pray to God for me, or else pray myself of my own bat, I may approach God in the name of the Lord Jesus. How that can be, our Lord goes on to tell them in verses twenty five following. He says, you shall pray in my name. I don't mean that I shall pray the Father for you. Now, of course, we must read that statement in its context. Our Lord is not saying that he is not going to intercede for the apostles. He proceeded to do that out forthwith and at once, and chapter seventeen is the record of that prayer. What he is saying in that short phrase is to explain what he means when he says, you will pray in my name. Now, I don't mean by that that you will come to me and I in turn will pray. I mean that you can go direct to the Father and pray in my name. How can I go direct with to the Father and pray in the name of Jesus? What does that mean? Well, look, says Christ, haven't you got it yet? I came out from the Father. I am going back to the Father. When our Lord begins to speak in those terms, we must try, even though it go beyond our powers of understanding, we must try to observe that he is not merely talking spatially. It is not as though there were two persons up in heaven, one sitting on a seat over there called the Father, and another one sitting over there called the Son. There is only one God. And when Christ came out of heaven, we understand it not merely spatially, we understand it that he was a very part of the Trinity. Now he's gone back, and the Trinity amongst it na- its names bears the name of Jesus. I may come to God and see across, if I might put it, I see across the personality of God, the very name Jesus. I know what God is like. Did Jesus love the poor and oppressed? Did he seek to relieve the burdens that Satan has put on men? Then I may come direct to God and know God feels like that. For Jesus is God. He came from the Father. He has gone to the Father. He is the very heart of the Father, told out. Said our Lord, now I must talk to you plainly. Hitherto I have talked in parables. And the chief thing I want you to get hold of at this juncture is this, that I came forth from God, and I am going back to God. Yes, said the apostles, now, now, now, thank you very much. We understand that now. Now we've got it clear. You, we believe it, in fact. You did come forth from God, and now you're going back to God. Yes, we see it, and we believe it. And they meant what they said. Somewhat sadly, our looked at, Lord looked at them, but with infinite compassion, of course. Do you really believe? Why did he select this particular topic with which to challenge them? Why didn't he speak to them about their forgiveness of sins or the joy of their heart? Well, because all those things, glorious as they are, are in fact dependent on this one central issue. Who is Jesus Christ? Is he just another prophet sprung up in our world, in this closed system, doing his best to speculate about what may lie outside, but not being able any more than anybody else to get outside it? Who is he? Or is he God's own son come in from the outside and gone back to the outside? On that issue hangs everything. Worldliness is to hold the first view, and there are many folks who talk about Jesus who at heart are worldly. They don't believe in a God out there, they tell us so openly nowadays. They don't pray because there ain't no God out there to pray to. They meditate within their own selves. They decided that the whole of Christianity that talked of a Son of God coming down out of heaven and going back to heaven is a myth, if you please. They tell us it must be a myth because in those ancient days, the apostles believed in a three-decker universe, heaven aloft, earth in the middle, and hell underneath. What, uh, nonsense that is. The apostles, many of them, were well-traveled men, and centuries before this, the Greeks had proved that the world was round and had measured the distance from the wor- earth to the moon, amongst other things, and measured the distance of the circumference of the Earth. They certainly didn't believe that heaven was up there, Earth in the middle, and hell was underneath. But this is the vital issue. Is Christianity merely a myth? Or is it stating fact when it says that Jesus Christ was a s- the Son of God who came into our world from the outside and has gone back to that outside world. To deny it is the essence of worldliness. To believe it is the very foundation of all Christian doctrine. Do you now believe, says Christ? The moment will come when you shall be scattered, and you will go to your own things. For they were to see Christ on the cross and their faith in his deity to be rudely shaken. And if Jesus wasn't, after all, the Son of God, if this world is all there is, then you better go home and get all your little things together. Make them as many as you can and as big as you can. Make them as big as this world if you can, for if this world is all, it's still very small. And let us remember, it is only temporary. One day it'll go fut and we'll have nothing. Is he the Son of God? For a moment, the disciples' faith would be sha- shaken, but our Lord says, be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. In this matter of faith, the biggest battle was the battle he fought. Be of good cheer, he says, I have overcome it, for in his victory is the seed and possibility of our victory too. For now we have not to fight single-handed by ourselves the prince of this world, but in the battles of our temptations we may rest in the Savior with whom we have been joined, so that he once more, by his spirit living in us, must may fight again the battle that he once fought and be as victorious now as he was victorious then. And having said that, our Lord turned to something completely different. Hitherto, in these four chapters, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen, he had been teaching his disciples in the school of holiness, teaching them lessons carefully graded to lead them piece by piece as they could learn the lessons in the progressive steps of the development of Christian character. He had been teacher, they had been pupils. He had been teaching, they had been learning. And now the lessons for a moment are stopped, or partly stopped. As our Lord turns from talking to them and begins to talk to his Father. So chapter seventeen is different. And yet we should be mistaken to think that it has nothing to do with what has gone before. It too is part of the provision that Christ has made for our sanctification, and in some sense one of the biggest parts of that provision. For our holiness depends, yes, on our learning the lessons that Christ has taught us, but oh, how much of it depends on those intercessions which our Lord daily engages in on our behalf in heaven. And here on earth, just as he was to leave his disciples, he gave them an example of that glorious ministry to which now he permanently gives himself. His ministry of intercession, secret of our final and certain assurance of our final salvation. It is important, if we would have rest of heart, to grasp the significance of our Lord's intercession. There are two epistles in the New Testament that speak of it particularly. The one is Hebrews in its chapter seven, who says of our Lord thus: Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost them that draw near unto God through him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them, saved to the uttermost because of his intercession. And Saint Paul has those same words in his chapter eight of his letter to the Romans. He says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect when it is God that justifies? Who is he that shall condemn when it is Christ Jesus that died, yea, rather that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. That glorious peace of heart and confidence which a believer has, that not only he has been saved, but that he shall be saved from the wrath of God, rests here in our Lord's present ministry of intercession, whereby he maintains the faith of all who trust the Savior, ever living, to intercede, and therefore able to save to the uttermost them that come unto God by him. We should notice perhaps the level of his praying. As now he prays for his own, it must strike us surely, the level at which he prays. We do not hear him pleading with God to save extra people, as though God were somehow unwilling to save and had to be reminded that there were a lot of people around in this world that needed to be saved, and that the time was running short, and that please would God get on and save them. It is proper for us, perhaps, to pray in that fashion. First Timothy chapter two says that we are to pray for all men, for God would have all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, and we are to cooperate with God in praying that all men, uh, should hear the gospel and men might be saved. But as Christ prays, as is fitting to a son of the Father, he prays at the divine level. And you will find that his confidence in the Father is undisturbed. He looks at things from God's purpose. He sees believers as a gift that God has given to him. Indeed, the whole experiment of building a world and having men upon it was a design that God had, that he might give it to Christ as a love gift to Christ. And when man fell, the redemption planned of the Father was that the people might be brought back and given to Christ. And Christ has utter confidence that all that the Father gives him will come to him. And all that the Father has is his. There is no question of, uh, trying to extort from an unwilling God something that God wasn't intending to give anyway. And indeed, in the end, our prayers will have to come there. For if it were possible for us, by our prayers, to extort something out of God that God hadn't intended to give, then heaven would start to be hell. For to have an almighty person around the place who wasn't quite as loving as we are, instead of being a heaven, would be the threat of an incipient hell. There is therefore no uncertainty in the prayer of Christ. God has given these men to him. They shall all be saved. Then notice, uh, that he begins to talk about his ministry here on earth. His ministry has been concerned with glorifying God. Now, glorify is a verb that is very difficult to explain in practical terms. What does it mean to glorify God? Perhaps in this context, it is easiest to grasp it if we paraphrase it. He has been concerned so to reveal God that men will come to think differently of God, and come to trust God and admire God as something wonderful, as someone exciting, as someone attractive. And how has he done that? He says he has done it by giving them the words God gave him. Not merely the general message, but the particular words. There are people that tell us that if we are to believe in inspiration of scripture at all, then we cannot bring ourselves to believe in verbal inspiration, but must be content with a kind of a general, vague inspiration. Why we should so be content, I fail to see. Yes, they say, but you see, it's the meaning that we want, not just the words. Well, of course so, but you try having the meaning without the words. It would be extraordinarily difficult. There are very few communications of any sense or detail that can be made without words. And our Lord is saying here that he gave us not merely the general message of God, but the very words of God, which were self-evidently divine and true. But moreover, he has glorified God by finishing the work that God gave him to do. I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished, or if you like, in finishing the work that God gave him to do. We must presume that prolifically he is talking about Calvary. That great finished work of Christ upon the cross is par excellence the means that changes men's idea of God. Let me just take one example, a prophecy our Lord gave of his death to the Jews in Jerusalem. When he went to Jerusalem, he found in the temple those that sold oxen and doves and getting angry, he cast them out. Because of the terrible travesty that they were guilty of in representing God to men as a someone who was out for all that men could give. A God always demanding people to give. A God who delighted in binding on men heavy burdens till their backs nearly broke. What a travesty of God that is. When Christ had come to preach the very opposite, a salvation that was a gift, not to be paid for or earned, saying that God was not out for all he could get, but out for all he could give. For God so loved the world. How should he prove it? Said to he to the Jews, destroy this temple, and I will raise it up again in three days. They thought he spoke of Herod's temple. He spoke, in fact, of the temple of his body. It is as we look upon that body upon the tree and discover in his death and sacrifice what the heart of God is, that God is a God out to give all he can give, for he so loved the world that he gave his only son. It is there that our worship of God begins, as we discover what God is really like. Then he described his ministry as a ministry of giving eternal life to as many as God had given him. It will be worth our reminding ourselves here that this is a typical phrase of the New Testament and of the Gospel of John in particular. We read rarely in Scripture a phrase like going to heaven, though such phrases do occur. And it is quite true to say that when a believer dies, he goes to heaven. But our Lord was far more concerned that men should receive eternal life, because eternal life is a something that you receive now in this life, not a something I wait for. He that hath the Son has the life, says the Apostle John. He that believeth on the Son of God has eternal life. It's a something I have now, long before I go off to heaven. For eternal life is not just existing forever after this life is done. It is a quality and dimension of life. It is giving this life its eternal dimension. It is knowing God personally and having a relationship with God now that is personal, that gives value and highest significance even to life's commonest acts. It is a relationship which, when the temporary basis of this life is finished, will of course survive and endure eternally. For the end of maturing that eternal life that he had given his disciples, our Lord now specifically asks in four directions. Will you notice that from verse nine to verse fourteen, he prays that these people shall be kept, shall be guarded. While I was with them, I kept them, he said. I guarded them, and none of them is lost. Now I'm coming to you, Father, he says, do you guard them? First, therefore, he prays for the eternal security of everyone that the Father has given to. What a shepherd Christ is. In the ancient world, a shepherd who took the responsibility of seeing after a flock of sheep was responsible to the owner for those sheep. And if he came home at night with less sheep than had been t- committed to his care, he was held responsible for those whom he had lost. Our Lord is the Good Shepherd. Hear him now render his account. While I was with them in the world, I guarded them, and not one of them is lost. Except the son of perdition, and as our Lord had often observed, he was never a true believer. But one whom scripture had foretold that being a hypocrite and an unbeliever, he would go to his own place. But what a glorious thing it is to hear Christ talking to the Father about our salvation and our security. We are a gift if we trust the Savior, we are a gift that the Father has given to Christ. What an insult to his Father if he lost any of us. I have lost none, he said. And he shall bring us home to glory by his death, by his resurrection, by his ascension, by his constant intercession, and by his coming again. Then he asks for our be- for us to be kept in another sense, to be kept from the evil in the world, verses fourteen onwards. For this purpose, he says, I sanctify myself. That is, he sets himself apart to his ministry and office of intercession, that he might sanctify us through the truth, through God's word. Therefore, the Holy Spirit has come. If we would be truly sanctified, as well as being secure, then we must allow the Holy Spirit to minister God's word to us and expine, uh, expound the same. It is that word that shall sanctify us. Not because it is full of, of commandments and prohibitions, though it does contain them, but because it is that word that will livingly bring the person of Christ before us. It will bring God before us in all the wonder of God's character, and it is in getting ourselves lost in admiration for God and his Christ that is the secret of being kept from the temptation to become worldly. And then he prayed not only for the apostles standing around him, but for all those that should believe in the subsequent centuries. I pray not for these only, but for all them that believe on me through their word, verse twenty onwards. And he prayed for them one. These words have become famous in these last ten to fifteen years, and it is right and proper that all of us should be concerned about the scandals that advertise to the world at large the divisions between Christians. But if we would read this prayer aright, we ought to notice that the oneness our Lord is talking for and praying for is not an organizational oneness to be achieved via committees, well-intentioned though they might be. The means to this oneness is this: the glory thou hast given me, I have given them. What glory? For the glory of Christ was that he was one with the Father. The Father was i- was in him, and he was in the Father, sharing a oneness of life. Now I have given to them that same oneness, that they might be in us and we in them, a oneness of spiritual life, so that everyone that trusts the Savior in the apostolic age, in the centuries that follow, find that they are one, whatever labels they might thereafter attach to themselves. Without permission from the Lord very often, but whatever labels they might use and attach to themselves other than Christian, it has nothing to this, that every believer in Christ has been given the very life of God, is one with Christ, and therefore one with all other believers. Then he prayed that, uh, finally his believing church might one day be taken to the Father's house to be with him. What a delightful picture. Standing on earth as he was, praying his disciples through, not merely teaching them how to become holy, but praying them holy, praying them through this world with all its moral and spiritual dangers, praying them through this world against all the wrath and spite of the enemy, and praying them right through, right through into the Father's home at last, until he has every child of God safe home in the Father's presence. Why should he want them to be at home with him? Well, he says that they might behold my glory. And why should he want them to behold his glory? Well, look, Father, he says you love me from before the foundation of the world. And I would like my disciples to see my glory, because then, you see, they would begin to get a notion of how much you love me when they see all my glory. And when they see how much you love me, then it will begin to dawn on them how much you love them, because you love them, in fact, like you have loved me. Oh, what a thing it will be to get home at last and to see the glory of Christ and to have our eyes opened to what the love of God for us really means. But until we get home, our Lord has a continuing ministry. I have made known thy name to them, he says. The world knew thee not, but these have known thee. I have declared unto them thy name. I will make it known. And until we get home to glory, we shall find our Lord constantly at this gracious task by his spirit, making known God's name to us, taking us further and further into the heart of God, that not only may our heads become full of intelligent knowledge of the facts about God, but, as he puts it, that the love wherewith thou lovest them may be in them, and I in them. And with that, the school for holiness went into recess, or did it? For I'm not quite sure. Yes, I think I am sure, that while they played truant from school and ran home at the sight of the cross and blood, our Lord stayed at his post and prayed for them, even when the nails went through his hand, and had them on his heart and mind, both when he died and when he rose again and went back to heaven.