“HIS OWN”
J. N. Grace
What a fine thing it is to know that you are amongst those whom the Lord calls His own. That would embrace every believer who has put his faith and trust in the blood of Jesus. How secure it is to be found amongst those who are of the faith of Jesus, because if you are in the hands of Jesus no one will ever seize you. He Himself said that no one can seize you out of His hand, and no one can seize you out of the hand of the Father. These are the Lord’s own words; so what a secure place it is to be in the hands of Jesus. How simple it is to put our trust in the blood of Jesus, but not only does it mean that we are safe, but we belong to Him. If we have put our trust in the blood of Jesus then we are told that we are not our own, we have been bought with a price. How fine it is to think that while, on our side, we have a sense of security through the blood of Jesus, on the divine side He has secured us for Himself—“his own”; what it must mean to the Lord! John’s gospel speaks peculiarly of that word, “his own”. “He came to his own”, it says, “and his own received him not” (John 1: 11).
That would be His own nation, the Jews. They would not receive Him, but there were those who did receive Him. He gathered His disciples around Him and now had come the point where He could speak of them as His own—“Having loved his own who were in the world, (He) loved them to the end”.
I would think that most in this room would be amongst His own. It says He loved them to the end. That is not just to the end of time, but through every circumstance, every exigency that could arise in the course of the history of the believer here. Nothing can affect the love of Jesus. His love never wanes. He does not change. Our sister has departed, the Lord has taken her.
At this point the Lord was on His way out. It says, “knowing that his hour had come that he should depart out of this world, to the Father”. The Lord always had the Father before Him.
What wonderful grace it was that the Lord should come here to express the Father, and He has done it. And now He was departing out of this world to the Father and it says He loved His own who were in the world, and He loved them to the end.
Well, our sister has been loved to the end of her life, through all the ups and downs that any of us would have to face in the course of our history here. We can count on the love of Jesus.
It never changes. His love would take a peculiar form at a time like this when one who has been loved has departed, but it is one of “his own”. So the Lord enters into this; His own feelings enter into this. We might say we knew her and we loved her, but the point is that the Lord loved her and He loved her to the end. So is it not worthwhile to be amongst those who have put their faith in the blood of Jesus, and in the Person of Jesus, so that His words have become everything to our hearts? That is John’s way of putting it. So it speaks in another passage of His own sheep, “He calls his own sheep by name” (John 10: 3). Would you not like to be amongst His own sheep? Well, everyone who belongs to the Lord is among “his own” sheep; no one else has a claim on them, but the Lord has, and He leads His own sheep out. It is wonderful to be conscious of the Lord’s love and His protection.
In the next passage that I read the Lord says, “Let not your heart be troubled”. They had been troubled by the defection of Judas. Judas had gone out; the betrayer had gone out into the world, and the hearts of the disciples had been troubled. But the Lord says, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me”. It is a wonderful thing to understand that the Lord has everything in control. Things may seem sometimes to be out of control; they are certainly out of our control, but they are not out of the control of Jesus.
Everything has been put into His hands. The Father, we are told in John 3: 35, has given everything into the hands of the Son; “the Father loves the Son, and has given all things to be in his hand”. What a fine thing it is to commit ourselves into His hand!
How trustworthy Jesus is! Nothing will get out of His control.
But there is more than that in this section, He says, “In my Father’s house there are many abodes; were it not so, I had told you—for I go to prepare you a place”. Just think of that—
this is the Lord Jesus, our Saviour. The course of things here, finishing in death, is not the end; the best is yet to come. And the best is not only that we shall be going to heaven, but that we shall be with Christ. The very best is reserved for His own, for those who have come under the love of Christ. The Lord Himself has taken the whole thing in hand. He has not left it to anybody else, not to an angel, not to an apostle. He says, “I go to prepare you a place”.
And He is coming again. He is coming. He is not sending a messenger; He is not sending an angel. He says, “If I go and shall prepare you a place, I am coming again and shall receive you to myself”. Let me say again, The best is yet ahead. Think of a reception like that! The best reception that any mortal being could ever have will be when we are received by Jesus in the coming day. The Lord will come and take us out of this scene of mortality and death to be with Himself. Of course, others will be there; thank God for them!—the myriads of those that love Christ; think of the millions in the world today. How many there are that have come under the shelter of the blood of Jesus. Thank God for them! May they be added to!
Then the final thing is what is for Christ Himself, and for every lover of Christ, every believer in the Lord Jesus; He says, ‘I am going to receive you to Myself’. Could there be anything better? That will be our sister’s portion. She is going to be received to Himself; but then we shall all be there. “The dead in Christ”, it
says, “shall rise first; then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds”. There will be no advantage of one believer over another. The fact that some believers have been a thousand years in the grave does not alter a thing. The dead in Christ are going to rise first, then we, the living who remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. That is the triumph of God; the victory of God is that the church for one instant will be all together in resurrection on this earth, the world that has rejected Christ. That is God’s victory and it is a wonderful thing that we can be counted among “his own”, and that we are going to have part in it.
So it is a time now, as a believer falls asleep, to make much of Christ. It is a time for fresh committals in the light of what the Lord is doing, and will do, knowing that His love goes right through to the end. There are plenty of troubles about, and sorrowing hearts. We cannot read each other’s hearts, but the Lord can. He looks right into our hearts and He knows what is needed, and if you belong to Him you are of the faith of Jesus, and He will love you to the end. He says, “Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe on God, believe also on me”. He will see you through. He is going to see the church through, right to the end in victory. The devil may think he has got the victory through the public breakdown of things, but not so, because, Jesus having gone up there, another divine Person has come down here. The presence of the Spirit of God here in the believer ensures that God will have the victory and presently we shall all be together in resurrection through Him who says of Himself, “I am the resurrection and the life”, John 11: 25.
So let there be a fresh committal in every one of our hearts to follow in the faith of our sister.
She has gone her way. How wonderful it is that the
love of Christ was seen in the end of our sister. He loved her to the end. She did not die from violence; she died peacefully, fulfilling the word as to “those who have fallen asleep through Jesus”, 1 Thessalonians 4: 14. No one else had anything to do with her death. The Lord’s own hand was in that. She slept through the instrumentality of Jesus. Is that not worthwhile? Is it not worthwhile to be attached to the Person of Jesus in the sense that His love will see us right through to the end, and see us right through to resurrection when He comes to receive us to Himself?
Word at the burial of Mrs. I. L. Stoney, Melbourne
17 July 1986