I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine (v. 9).
We have seen that before our Lord makes specific requests for his people, he first gives his reasons for praying for them. So in this verse he starts off with a definition and description of the people for whom he is praying, and, therefore, of the Christian. This, then, is his first reason for praying for them and it is this which we must now consider together. The more I try to live this Christian life and the more I read the New Testament, the more convinced I am that the trouble with most of us is that we have never truly realized what it is to be a Christian. It is our whole conception of what a Christian is, and of what the Christian life is meant to be, that is so defective, and that is why we miss so many blessings. That is why, too, we are often so troubled and perplexed and bewildered and why we react as we do to so many of the things that happen to us in this life and in this world. If only we understood what the Christian really is and the position in which he is placed, if only we realized the privilege and the possibilities of that position, and, above everything, the glorious destiny of everyone who is truly a Christian, then our entire outlook would be completely changed. It would be revolutionized, or, as Paul puts it in writing to the Romans, our whole outlook would be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2).
The New Testament is literally full of this teaching; there is a sense in which it can be said quite truly that starting with Acts and going right through to the end of Revelation, there is only one theme, and that is the theme of what a Christian is. Why were these New Testament epistles written? It is clear that they were not written merely because the men who wrote them rather liked writing letters! No, there was a reason for every letter, there is a kind of urgency behind every one of them, because the men who wrote the letters were pastors who were concerned about the souls of the people to whom they were writing. The early Christians were in this difficult world, in which you and I still have to live, they were surrounded by very many problems, and all these letters were written in order to help them to live as Christians in such a world. You can sum up the argument of every letter by putting it like this: what all the writers are saying, in effect, is, If you only realized who and what you are, you would have gone eighty per cent of the way to being a complete victor over everything that assails you.’ Read the introductions, listen to these writers in their salutations; they remind the people of who they are and of what God has done in Christ, and therefore of all the possibilities which are theirs.
That is the whole case, and surely there is nothing that we need more at the present time than just this reminder. That is the way, and the only way, according to the New Testament, in which we can live in a world like this, and, furthermore, that is not only the case of the New Testament, it is substantiated and proved in the long history of the Christian church. Read the stories and accounts of every period of revival and reawakening, when the Holy Spirit has been present in power and in might. At such times men and women have known these things as they should be known, and they have been able to rise above all their circumstances. Indeed, you cannot understand the history of the church throughout the centuries apart from this. Think of every revival and period of reformation, all the great history, the stories of the martyrs and confessors, and all that stands out so gloriously in church history – how do you explain it? There is only one explanation: those people knew what it was to be a Christian. Their view of this was the New Testament view of the Christian and the result was that they could defy tyrants without any fear, they could look into the face of death and say, ‘It is well.’ They knew who they were, and where they were going. They were not afraid of men, of death, or even of hell, because they knew their position in the Lord Jesus Christ, and the result was that these people triumphed.
We are reminded of this when we read that great eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews – indeed it is the whole case of the New Testament, and once we accept this view, then like Abraham, and Moses and all the rest, we can go on ‘as seeing him who is invisible’ (Heb 11:27). We can go out not knowing where we are going, but quite happily, because we know that he is with us. And in his prayer here our Lord seems to me to start at that very point. He knows that the supreme thing for the disciples, in this world, is that they should be certain of these great centralities. Perhaps I should pause and ask a question at this point. How do you and I react to the things that happen to us in this life, and in this world with all its uncertainty? Now I argue that what determines that, finally, is our view of ourselves as Christians.
We must, therefore, consider what our Lord has to say about the Christian. Our method, you remember, of approaching this paragraph is first of all to extract the doctrine, then, having done that, to go back to the details in the light of that doctrine. Here, then, is the essential doctrine – the character of the Christian – and the first thing I notice is a negative. He says in the first phrase, ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world.’ Now that is the theme, that is the first thing he says about the Christian. Need I apologize again for starting with a negative? If I understand the times in which you and I are living, I think that the greatest need is for negatives. People do not like them, they so easily condemn us, but whether we like it or not, the first thing that is true of the Christian is that he is not of this world, and does not belong to it. Now you notice that in this one section he repeats that four times. Verse 6: ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world’; verse 9: ‘I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me’; again, verse 14: ‘I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world’; and then verse 16: ‘They are not of the world even as I am not of the world’. Our Lord goes on repeating that phrase because he wants to impress it upon us. The first thing that is true about the Christian is that he does not belong to this world.
This is, obviously, a very big point. I chose to quote verse 9 as my particular text here because it seems to put it more pointedly than any of the others. Our Lord says that he prays for them only. He does not pray for the world; there is only one prayer that he offers for the world, and there is only one prayer that we should offer for the world, and that is that it may be saved. But here he is praying and interceding for all who belong to him. He is praying as the mediator, offering a particular prayer as the representative of his own people, and that is where the practical urgency comes in. In this frightening and uncertain world in which we find ourselves, surely, if we are Christian at all, we must feel that the biggest and the most important thing for us to know is whether or not the Lord Jesus Christ is praying and interceding for us.
In the light of this, it is vital that we should ask ourselves the question: am I of the world or am I not? That is the fundamental distinction which runs right through the Bible from beginning to end. Again I refer you to Hebrews 11, and you find the same thing, also, right through the Old Testament. There are only two groups of people in the world today – those who are of the world and those who belong to Christ. In the last analysis there is no other division or distinction that has the slightest importance or relevance. That is why most of us are defeated by life in this world – we recognize other distinctions that are quite unimportant. But when we all come to die, does it make the slightest difference as to which political party we belong to? Does it matter whether we are rich or poor, learned or otherwise? Does it matter what our social status is? It is all utterly irrelevant, it does not matter. As the old English proverb says, ‘Death is the grand leveller.’
How foolish we are, how superficial we are, to bother ourselves, as we do, with these other distinctions. I know that, in a sense, they have their place, but what I am saying here is that they are not fundamental things. There is only one fundamental distinction and that is whether we belong to the world or to Christ. That is the only thing that matters on our death-bed, the other things will not be of the slightest value to us, they will be utterly insignificant.
The Christian, then, is one who has been separated from the world. ‘Ah!’ says someone, ‘There you are, you Christians, putting yourselves into a separate compartment and category.’ That is quite right – I do not resent that charge at all. I deliberately assert that I am not of the world, I am not in the same category as those who belong to it and I thank God for that. It is not something to be ashamed of, but something to glory in. What a tragedy it is that Christian people seem to be ashamed of this and are ever trying to conform to the world. We should desire to be entirely different, to be not of the world as he was not of it. We are meant to be marked men and women, different in every respect. This, therefore, is what we must consider together in order to make quite certain that we can rest in the quiet confidence and assurance that the Lord Jesus Christ is concerned about us and that he is interceding on our behalf. He says, you remember, ‘Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word’ – and that is you and me.
Scripture is full of this doctrine. We have seen Paul’s appeal to the Romans: ‘Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (Rom 12:2). James says the same thing: ‘Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God’ (Jas 4:4). Could anything be plainer or clearer than that? Then let me remind you of those forcible words in 1 John 2:15–17: ‘Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’ This is a momentous statement. And we find John saying exactly the same thing in chapter 5 of that same epistle: ‘We know we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness’, or ‘in the evil one’ (v. 19).
Obviously, therefore, the practical question for us is to know for certain that we are ‘not of the world’, and there are many ways in which that question may be answered. Certain specific distinctions are given, and I want just to call your attention to these basic points. Take, for instance, how Paul puts it in Ephesians 2:1–3, ‘You hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.’ That is a most comprehensive definition of what it means to belong to the world, and so, too, is the statement quoted above from 1 John 2.
So let us face the question in the light of these definitions. To be of the world can be summed up like this – it is life, thought of and lived, apart from God. In other words, what decides definitely and specifically whether you and I are of the world or not is not so much what we may do in particular as our fundamental attitude. It is an attitude towards everything, towards God, towards ourselves, and towards life in this world; in the last analysis, to be of the world is to view all these things apart from God. So let us get rid of the idea that worldliness just means going to the theatre or the cinema; do not think that if you do this or that you are therefore a worldly person. It is not that, for there are many people who never do any of these things but who, according to the Scriptures, are thoroughly worldly-minded. Indeed – and this is a terrible thing – as I understand this definition, you can even subscribe to the Christian faith in an orthodox manner and still be of the world. If anybody disputes this, let me give you my authority at once. The word uttered by our Lord to those people who at the last day shall say, Lord, Lord, haven’t we done this, that and the other in your name? is, Depart from me, I never knew you – you do not belong, you never have belonged to me (Mt 25:31–46). To belong to the world is a fundamental attitude, and, as I am going to show you, we betray ourselves and our attitude by what we are in general, and by the way in which that is manifested in various respects.
To be of the world – and this is repeated by the apostles – means that we are governed by the mind and the outlook and the way of this world in which we live. Paul says in Ephesians 2:2 that we are governed by ‘the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience’. In 2 Corinthians 4:4 he talks about the ‘god of this world’ and it is the essence of biblical teaching that this world and its ways are under the dominion of Satan. According to this teaching, everybody who is of the world is governed and guided and dominated and controlled by that outlook which is opposed to God. Consequently, every man who is not a Christian and who talks so much about his free will is the greatest dupe of all. He is so much a slave of Satan that he does not know it; he is so blind that he cannot even begin to think about it. It is a domination, which holds us in its grip, and of course we all know about it from experience. The greatest tyranny which we have to meet in this life is that of the worldly outlook. It insinuates itself into our thinking everywhere, and we get it immediately we are born. We belong to a particular family and have certain ideas before we are very old; we turn to our newspapers and they are always suggesting things, as do the books we read. Indeed, everything seems to be suggesting a way of life to us, and we absorb it unconsciously – it is a domination, it is ‘the god of this world’. And the first thing that happens to a man when he is convicted of sin and begins to repent is that he realizes the thraldom of the world and its way.
But let me divide it up into detail in order that we may think it through at our leisure. The world tends to control our thought, our outlook, and our mentality. The fact of the matter is that the whole thinking of the world conforms to a pattern. Oh, I know all about the different schools of thought, but in the end they all conform to a pattern, and they all have something in common. But surely, says someone, there is nothing in common between the communist and the man who is extreme on the other side? I say that there is; they are both very much interested in material things and material welfare and they are both probably controlled by this. There is a fundamental, common platform and they only differ in detail. One man says, ‘I ought to have this’, and the other man says, ‘No, I ought to have it’ and they quarrel with each other, but there is really no quarrel in their thought and outlook – ‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.’
The fundamental philosophy common to all is that all this thinking is entirely confined to this world. It is on that level and never rises above it. It has no revelation, it does not believe in such a thing – and indeed that is another way of dividing everybody in the world today. The Christian’s fundamental thinking is controlled by the Bible, by revelation from above. Philosophy – what man thinks, what man has discovered – that is the characteristic of the world, and it is at that point that you see the utter folly of all the other divisions, because worldly thinking is all on the human level, and it never contains anything from above. It is an outlook which never thinks of anything beyond this world, and this is true in all the different realms and departments. There is a hatred of the thought of death in the world today. I do not care which group of society people may come from, or what kind of person they are. They all hate it because they are living entirely for this life and for this world, and they are not prepared to consider anything beyond it. That is characteristic of the worldly outlook.
But I can sum it all up by saying that the man who belongs to the world is completely dead to spiritual things. The classic statement of this is again made by the apostle Paul. These things, he says, are spiritual, and ‘the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discorned’ (1 Cor 2:14). ‘You hath he quickened,’ he says in another passage, ‘who were dead in trespasses and sins’ (Eph 2:1) – dead to everything that is of the Spirit and of the soul and of eternity. These things make no impact upon those who are in the world. They do not see anything in them and they cannot understand people wasting their time on these things, which they find so dull. These poor people are just confessing that they are spiritually dead in trespasses and in sins and their souls are in a state of death.
But obviously this also manifests itself in the desires and pleasures, and the ambitions of such people. The general description is ‘the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life’ (1 Jn 2:16), and that is a perfect analysis. In some people it seems to be a delight in the things that belong to the animal, to nature, to pure carnality. Life is full of it today, and men and women are only living to the flesh. They must always be reading about it, so the newspapers and the periodicals are full of it. That is life, they say – it is astounding, but how true it is – the lust of the flesh.
Then the lust of the eye. This is a little more refined, not quite so gross, but it is the same thing. It is a concern about personal appearance. Think of the space that is given to this, too, in the press; think of the appalling amount of time and thought and money which people give merely to how they look, or to the figure they cut. They even study and practise the very way they walk – a living soul and spirit, made in the image of God! – but that is the world.
And then the pride of life, which is even more subtle than the lust of the eye. The things we boast of, the things about which we are so proud: our birth, our family, our background, our forebears, the school we went to, the university in which we studied – are not these the things that are the pride of life? We preen and pride ourselves on something that we are, and that somebody else is not. But it is all entirely of the flesh and the animal. These things are utterly irrelevant before God but they are the things that the world likes – the pride of life, intellectual pride. These are the things that are characteristic of the world, this is where it derives its pleasure, this is its ambition. It is exalted by these things, it lives for them, it talks about them. These are the things which are supreme in people’s lives, this is their whole outlook, and, I ask a solemn question, can it be said that those of us who are in the realm of the church are free from such things? Let every man examine himself.
And, finally, the world shows itself in conduct, the conduct which corresponds with the outlook and the desire. The result is that people who are in the world live only for such things and on such a level. Let me put it quite plainly, for I want to show how universal this is. It is in all of us until the grace of God comes into our life and shows what it is, and makes us heed it, and delivers us out of it. It is a terrible thing to think that there are many people around us who are living this sort of life. They are not guilty of the things I have just been mentioning but they are just living life for themselves and their families. Think of many quite ordinary people, quite respectable people. They are not concerned about these subtle forms of sin which I have been enumerating, but the tragedy about them is that they are just living for their own little family circle. They never think of God and they never praise him. There are many thousands of such families living within the confines of life and time on earth, never rising above it all.
All that, then, is the negative, it is ‘of the world’. That, says our Lord, is the kind of life which such people lead and they are not the ones I am praying for here.
But now let us look at the positive. The Christian is not like that, the Christian is like Christ himself: ‘I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy word.’ And again in verse 16: ‘They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.’ Do I want to know for certain whether I am a Christian? Well, am I like those who are of the world? If I am not, I can take comfort, but I must be positive also. I must be like the Lord Jesus Christ. He says his people are like him. Is he the centre of my life? Is my relationship to God the controlling thing in my life? I am not saying I am perfect, but, as I understand this teaching, I do say that I cannot be a Christian unless I can say quite honestly that the basis of my life is in God and that he is at the centre. However much I may fail from time to time in practice, I am centred on God. This means, therefore, that in terms of the revelation of the Bible, I, like those people in Hebrews 11, view all things in this life and world according to that outlook. My governing thought is that I am a pilgrim and a stranger in this world, going on to God, so that of necessity I spend my time in thinking of my soul and of my destiny. I do not get annoyed when somebody faces me with the fact of death, because I remind myself of it day by day; I realize that this is the one thing I have to start with and that I am a fool if I do not. The Christian always holds that before him, his whole life is lived under God and he realizes the nature of life in this world. He is controlling his life so that he does not foolishly spend most of his time and energy in trying to forget that it must come to an end. He deliberately keeps that before him.
And from that, of course, follows this desire to know God and his love in Christ; a desire to be more like Christ; a desire to be holy; a desire to spend more and more time in fellowship with God and with Christ, that we may conform more and more to his image; a desire to be well pleasing in God’s sight. Let me put it as strongly as I can. When a man is like Christ he hates the world – the outlook, not the people – the mentality, the type of life. He realizes it is subtle, in that it is trying to keep him from God, whatever form it may take. He realizes, too, that these things are damnable, and against God. They take a pride in something that belongs to a fallen world, and he hates it as Christ hated it. He turns his back upon it, so he prays a great deal to be delivered from it. He separates himself as much as he can to meditate upon heavenly things and he lives his life in the fear of God.
That is what the Bible tells us is meant by not being of the world even as Christ was not of the world (v. 16). Oh my beloved friends, let me plead with you to face this, to face it every day and never to forget it. The consequences are so vital. If you and I are of the world it means that Christ is not praying for us, but if we do belong to him we are not of the world. Remember that God is your Father and that he will not let anything happen to you that will harm you. That does not mean that no distressing event will befall you, but that when it does, in the amazing will and purpose of God, even that is going to be a good thing, and you will understand it in glory. What a wonderful thing it is to go through life knowing that your life is in the hands of God, knowing that your Father is thus concerned about you and that your blessed Mediator who prayed for you on earth is still interceding for you in heaven.
To be ‘not of the world’ means that we are children of God, though once we were ‘children of wrath’. Let us make no mistake about this. If you and I go out of this life belonging to the world, and of the world, we have nothing to look forward to but wrath. I do not know if you can tell me of a sadder statement in Scripture than John 17:9: ‘I pray not for the world.’ Those who are of the world are under the wrath of God until they come out of that position, until they believe in Christ and until they are saved and reconciled to God. He does not pray for them, they are just left, and it is an appalling thing to think that people who go out like that go to nothing but the wrath of God. Oh the folly of being of the world! For, as John tells us, the world passes away and the lust thereof. Is it not astounding that everybody does not realize that? Let us pay heed to the warning of things that happen. The world is passing away. Your pride in your appearance, in your life and position, all you have and what you are, my friend, is decaying and rotting even as you are boasting of it. And a day will come when it will be useless and your naked soul will be there alone. ‘The world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever’ (1 Jn 2:17).
I trust that as the result of this examination we are all able to say quietly and to the glory of God, ‘I am not of the world, I belong to God in Jesus Christ and I am safe in his holy, heavenly keeping. Come what may, I can say that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”.’