Jesus Kept Me!

Introduction

Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire is to share the word of God with you. For, there are so many that have not opened their heart to the message of God’s Word. Accordingly, there are many who are being carried away by the ideas of men, which provides no guarantee of God’s blessings and providence.

I think about what Paul must have been experiencing when writing 2 Timothy 4:3 “3 For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to hear what they want to hear.” What does it feel like to preach to those who don’t listen? What must Jeremiah have experienced? No one listened. In fact, he preached 40 years and Judah never turned back to God. Do you know how miserable it must have been to spend your life crying out to the world with no one who will listen?

Perhaps, we should assess and reconsider what it is our preaching is supposed to do.

Our preaching is simply an invitation to Jesus Christ and His kingdom.

We should understand we cannot produce faith in those who hear (Romans 1:16) “16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek.”

God calls us to share a message—the testimony about Jesus Christ. It is for the person who hears to make a conscience decision to accept the message. This we have no control over.

Oh how I wish we did! I would, as Paul said, guarantee the salvation of all. Yet, this is not the will of God, and this is not what God desires. God wants us all to hear Him and make a choice to follow Him.

However, after making the choice, we should all know that we are still with Christ, because He kept us! This is essentially what the Spirit is saying to us in John 18:1-11. You see, in this passage two things could have happened:

The disciples could have ran.

The disciples could have been taken.

Neither happened. Rather, Jesus interceded and prevented whatever might have happened from happening. God is known for doing this. God will literally step in the way of trouble and prevent those with a right heart from enduring any harm. Abimelech was a man of integrity, and when he would have done wrong—incurring the wrath of God—God stopped prevented him (Genesis 20).

God is a keeper!

Tension: John 18:9

The tension in this text for me is in verse 9. Jesus says, “I did not lose one...” It is obvious Jesus does not count Judas Iscariot in this. However, one significant point remains: Jesus does not measure success by how many He wins, but how many He kept. And Jesus’s standard is to lose known.

Here we have to give much attention to the meaning of these words. What does Jesus mean when He says “lose?” This word does not refer to the eternal status of the ones’ He gained. Rather, Jesus is referring to those who have come into the community He has started. He is saying, He has maintained or kept everyone. How does all of this happen?

Some suggest that the Father has predestined everyone that will be saved. According to the Lexham Survey of Theology, predestination is God’s predetermination of all things. This definition means nothing in the world simply happens on its own accord. Rather, God...sends whatever happens. God is the motivator and determiner of all that happens in the world. Everything from a woman’s inability to have a child to the coming of a rain storm is all the manifestation of God’s predetermined will. The idea is that if God created all things, He must, therefore, rule all things.

Due to this premise of God’s sovereignty and His right to control His created order, ideas of election and salvation are often connected to the biblical doctrine of predestination. And there are several proof texts used to substantiate the idea that every single event in world history is a ramification of God’s predetermined will. However, this method of interpreting the Bible is a result of a tremendous flaw in biblical interpretation.

The only way to substantiate the doctrine of predestination in the way we understand it through theological systems such as Calvinism, is by a terrible mis-contextualized reading of Scripture. You see, those who suggest that God predetermines everything down to the bag of potato chips you select from a vending machine has broke nearly every rule of biblical interpretation that is widely accepted by any serious seminary, Bible student, scholar and theologian. The lack of attention to the biblical context permits for this very popular idea. Furthermore, the only way to correct this unfaithful reading of Scripture is to take each passage that is used to justify the doctrine of predestination to determine if it contextually suggests a doctrine of predestination as proposed in today’s scholarship. By asking questions like who, what when, where and how? we will discover that there’s no passage that presents the idea that God is predestined every single thing that would happen in the world. Rather, God predestined specific things that which would happen as a means of manifested His mysterious plan.

There is an entire process by which one gets to the status of being kept by God.

The Process of Becoming Kept

The drawing of the believers does not start with God. Rather, it starts with those seekers hearing the voice of God. God takes those whose hearts and ears are given to Him, and He gives those to the Son for the purpose of doing the work of God (John 6:28). Then, Jesus keeps those whom God has given.

The Father reveals the truth to those who resist the teachings of man.

Matthew 16:17 “17 Jesus responded, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven.”

John 6:45 “45 It is written in the Prophets: And they will all be taught by God. Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me—”

The Father gives those who receive His truth and believe to the Son

John 6:35-40 “35 “I am the bread of life,” Jesus told them. “No one who comes to me will ever be hungry, and no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty again. 36 But as I told you, you’ve seen me, and yet you do not believe. 37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. 39 This is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me but should raise them up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father: that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him will have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.””

John 6:44 “44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Kept by God.

John 17:12 “12 While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them is lost, except the son of destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled.”

John 18:9 “9 This was to fulfill the words he had said: “I have not lost one of those you have given me.””

Believers are kept by God, because their heart and ear was given to God. They received the message about Christ by faith, because they were not overly committed to the words of men. They are given to Christ and Christ makes it His business to keep those whom God has given to Him. We are kept, because we are serving in the kingdom of God. Our success is guaranteed. Our award is definite. Resurrection!