“KEEP THY HEART MORE THAN ANYTHING THAT IS GUARDED”

1 Peter 1:3-5; Philippians 4:4-9; Jude 20-25

I wanted to say a word, dear brethren, in relation to being guarded, as it is spoken of in the first two scriptures read. We are living in a day outwardly where there is increasing darkness and apostasy and that raises real exercises for the believer as to how to walk rightly and how to be preserved.

I am sure we would all desire to be preserved in faithfulness to the Lord; preserved from the world; kept, you might say, for the Master’s use. Speaking very practically, we think of the young ones and what is coming into the schools nowadays. We feel for them very much and desire that they might be preserved. The young people need physical protection too. Many of the brethren live near big cities – I am just being simple and practical about it – and there is a need for preservation. However, my particular impression is that at the present time we need to be preserved in our affections.

To support that I was thinking of the verse in the Proverbs, “Keep thy heart more than anything that is guarded; for out of it are the issues of life” (chap.4:23). Again, if I can speak very simply, as believers we have given our hearts to the Lord Jesus, committed ourselves to Him, and entered on the Christian pathway. We are thankful to have been set together in fellowship, and to be able to enjoy precious things from the Lord Himself, by the service of the Spirit. Those are precious things and we enjoy them, do we not? They are not just a theory. They are real: I think it has been said that the love of God involves that Christianity becomes a reality to us, that we actually live in the enjoyment of it.

So our affections are important. Paul says in speaking to the Corinthians that he was concerned “lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craft, so your thoughts should be corrupted from simplicity as to the Christ”, 2 Cor.11:3. The idea of simplicity as to the Christ suggests that we have a singleness of eye for the Lord Jesus (Matt.6:22). That may be a simple word, but I feel the edge of it for myself. The way of preservation is to have the Lord Jesus and His things as the great object of our life and of our affections.

Before coming to these scriptures I just want to refer to the passage in John 17 where the Lord, in speaking to the Father, says “When I was with them I kept them in thy name; those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished, but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled” (v.12). The disciples were here with the Lord Jesus. As Peter says, they had left everything and followed Him (Matt.19:27) and the Lord Jesus says in that wonderful verse that when He was with them He kept them, He protected them and He guarded them. He says, “those thou hast given me I have guarded, and not one of them has perished”.

How great it is that believers have been given by the Father to Christ. That includes us. Think of the greatness of that. It is precious that we have been given to Christ. We belong to Him. He has a claim over us that no one else does. And having been given His own, the Lord Jesus protected them when He was here. They were with Him in the circumstances of His pathway in testimony. They would have seen the opposition that there was to Him, and yet He protected them. What they needed, He provided. When they were sent out in service for Him, they did not rely on material things, but on what He provided. He asked them that question, whether they had lacked anything, “And they said, Nothing”, Luke 22:35.

I was also thinking of what comes into chapter 18 of John’s gospel. The band comes with Judas and the officers, the chief priests and the Pharisees, to take Jesus (v.3). The greatness of His person comes out (v.6), then it says, “Jesus answered, I told you that I am he: if therefore ye seek me, let these go away” (v.8). I have been impressed by how the Lord Jesus protected His own. The love of the Lord Jesus for His own came out in those practical ways when He was here: He kept them and guarded them. He spoke to the Father about having done that. What a successful service it was, that He protected His own. I say that for our encouragement: there may be many exercises carried, as indeed there are, but we can rely on the love of the Lord Jesus and His desire that we should be preserved in the testimony and protected and kept for His interests. He says, “and not one of them has perished”.

That passage in John 17 goes on to record the Lord’s words that the disciples were in the world but not of it, and the Lord desired that they should be kept in it (vv.11,15). Those words in His precious prayer – the words of the Lord Jesus to the Father – should encourage our hearts. He takes account of the full scope of the testimony, because He says, “I do not demand for these only, but also for those who believe on me through their word; that they may be all one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee” (vv.20,21). You think of the Lord’s desires that His own, including ourselves, might be kept, and I might say kept together, that there should be maintained here, until He comes, that which expresses Himself and is faithful to Him because we love Him. There is no doubting the love of the Lord Jesus: how great it is. I think these words in John are for our encouragement. We have in written form the express desires of the Lord Jesus that His own might be preserved in the current pathway of testimony.

In our scripture in 1 Peter, he speaks about the greatness of the living hope to which we have been begotten again. He says it is “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from among the dead”. How important that is, that all our blessings are on the basis of the work and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and indeed His ascension to glory. What a cost has been His, that we should have this hope, which Peter describes as an “incorruptible and undefiled and unfading inheritance”. The things that we have been brought into have this character: they are heavenly. They are “incorruptible and undefiled and unfading”, and are “reserved in the heavens for you”. Death cannot interfere with them because the Lord Jesus is out of death; and they are not touched by the defilement that is in the world, or by the changing and fading character of things here, but they are “reserved in the heavens for you”.

One important matter for our preservation here is for us to be occupied with these heavenly things. They are “reserved in the heavens for you”, but that does not mean that they are only to be enjoyed in the future: we are to enjoy them now. It has been said that the way to continue to the end is to be occupied with the heavenly calling, to go in for it and to know its satisfying character³. How precious and important that is for us, that Christianity is to be enjoyed and we are to appreciate and enter into its “incorruptible and undefiled and unfading” character, because everything is secured for us where the Lord Jesus is in glory.

Then Peter says, “who are kept guarded by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”. These things that really belong to us are so precious. We are down here, but Peter says that we are “kept guarded by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”. I was thinking about the power of God. Much could be said about it. From one point of view God can do anything; He could change the circumstances of any of us and He could make a different way. But the power of God, as operating in relation to the testimony, would encourage us to be dependent upon Him. There is a certain glory, is there not, in dependence? It is simple dependence upon God and upon what He is able to do.

Particularly in relation to this, I thought of the importance of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. If our affections are to be kept for the Lord Jesus, our eye is to be single (Matt.6:22), as already mentioned. This means that we are to have one object only, and the Holy Spirit would help us in relation to this. The Lord Jesus refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit when he says, “till ye be clothed with power from on high”, Luke 24:49. How important is the presence and power of the Holy Spirit: “greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world”, 1 John 4:4. Relying on the Holy Spirit, and maintaining communion with Him, will keep us in our affections for Christ. It will help us individually and also as together, in relation to these precious things that are ours. It has been said that the material things that we have here are not really ours. We are stewards of them, but the heavenly, unseen things are really ours. I would like to encourage my own heart and the hearts of all here that we might increasingly go in for these precious things that have been given to us in Christ. That would help to keep us in the waiting time as we rely upon the power of the Holy Spirit.

When we come to Philippians, Paul says, “the peace of God, which surpasses every understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts by Christ Jesus”. And then he says, “the God of peace shall be with you”. The knowledge of God Himself is a preservative for us. We are in a world where there is so much opposition to God. It might not be overt, although it is increasingly becoming so, but what a precious blessing it is to have the knowledge of God Himself. A brother said that if he were to be asked what the greatest blessing was that he possessed, he would answer, ‘It is the knowledge of God’⁴. You think of being brought to know the God of peace and to know God’s peace “which surpasses every understanding”.

This is something that is available, but my desire in relation to this scripture is that we might know it in a practical way. The apostle Paul says in this passage, “the Lord is near”. I wonder – I speak to my own heart – whether in any circumstance individually, or in our localities, or together in a wider way, do we know that the Lord is near? If we do, then we would be restful and we would have, as I am sure we do, the consciousness that He is able to undertake for us and is able to enter into any matter that concerns us; He is able to give direction to our hearts and to give assurance. If the Lord is near and we have the sense of that, then we would know more of Him. And we would experience, as I am sure we do, more of His precious things.

Then Paul speaks about prayer: “Be careful about nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God”. How important that is, that as a practical matter of being preserved and being guarded, we must be dependent on God in prayer, having to do with God individually. Then how important the prayer meeting is, when we can come together in the presence of God in a particular way to find the resource and help and support for the testimony.

Paul then speaks about thanksgiving. We see that prayer is not only about our needs, or what is needed in the testimony, important as that is, but it involves the heart going out to God and entering into the greatness of His things. How important it is to have a thankful heart and a heart outflowing in praise in response to God. As these things are known, and I am sure they are, there will be more for God in the way of praise and response to Him. The result is – as the apostle says – that if we are on this line, then the “peace of God, which surpasses every understanding, shall guard your hearts and your thoughts by Christ Jesus”. Think of God’s peace! There is an area which has never been disturbed but we can be brought into the present enjoyment and assurance of it as we are on these lines.

The apostle speaks about our hearts and again we are reminded of the importance of our affections, and the need for them to be kept. But he also speaks about our thoughts. What an exercising thing that is: really our thoughts are the way into our hearts, into our affections. Then the apostle gives this simple exhortation as to what we should think about, these six things: what things are true, noble, just, pure, amiable and of good report. Much could be said about that, but my simple impression is that as we come to Christ, as we think about Him and think about His things, we would find that all these things are true in Him. The contemplation of them will be for the protection and guarding of our hearts and our thoughts.

How we need it! As I said, we are in a difficult day, but there is resource and blessing available to us as we take these things up and as we are dependent on God. I believe that is how we will prove the nearness and the love of the Lord Jesus. Paul sets himself out as an example. “What ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, these things do; and the God of peace shall be with you”. How much has entered into Paul’s teaching that we have received and appreciate – the heights of God’s calling and the heavenly blessings, the truth of sonship, the truth as to the assembly. All these are set out in Paul’s ministry, and they were demonstrated in the apostle. It is an important thing for us, that things are seen; they have been demonstrated in those who have gone before and who have been with God. We have that opportunity too to enter into the greatness of these things and to know in an increasing way the God of peace.

I was also encouraged to refer to this scripture in Jude. The background to this short epistle is one of increasing public turning away. As we know, Jude was obliged to exhort those to whom he wrote “to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints” (v.3). He could see what was coming in. If there was turning away in Jude’s day, how much more in our day, and how much we need practical preservation. I say that particularly to the young ones. The things you have received as coming to Christ are precious, and the things that you enjoy amongst the saints are precious. These are important things and they need to be kept and guarded.

Jude refers, in another very practical exhortation, to “building yourselves up on your most holy faith” (v.20). What Jude says in verses 20 and 21 involves each of the Persons of the Godhead. He speaks about “praying in the Holy Spirit”. He also speaks about “the love of God, awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”. What resources we have, and yet on our side there is exercise needed. I feel for myself that we need to be more on this line of prayer and keeping ourselves in the love of God. What blessing there is practically in that! It is not a passing matter, but we should set ourselves increasingly to keep ourselves in the love of God, to keep in the area where His things are regarded as precious, and to be dependent on the Holy Spirit in “awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life”.

God is able to keep us: there is no doubt about that. Jude says, “to him that is able to keep you without stumbling, and to set you with exultation blameless before his glory”. God is able to do that, and He will do it. My desire is that we should be helped on these lines increasingly to keep ourselves in this area of “the love of God”, to enjoy it, and thus to be preserved until the Lord comes. I say again that precious things are available to us, but they need to be preserved. We have our most holy faith: there is that which has come to us from God Himself which is precious and is holy and it is to be kept. God would desire this – “him that is able to keep you” – and He is able to do it. May we be encouraged, dear brethren, that we might be guarded and kept until the Lord comes.

May these impressions encourage us, and may the Lord bless the word.

Address at Sunbury

5 October 2024

Richard Gray