“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father” John 17:1

“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,” Verse 14.

Let us consider the words of verse 14.

1. Please note the gift Heaven has for mankind. The Word of God, sent from the Father, inspired by the Holy Spirt, delivered unto us by the Lord Jesus. It is the Trinity’s gift of life for sinners! The Lord Jesus had given that ‘gift’ to His disciples. “ I have given them thy word.”

2. The true child of God has a special relationship with the Word of God. It has been given them by the Saviour. (1). We have hidden it in our hearts. “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee,” Psa 119:11. That shows how precious it is to the Christian. (2). It comes out through our mouth. “My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long,” Psa 71:24. “My tongue shall speak of thy word: for all thy commandments are righteousness,” Psa 119:172. (3). The Christian’s tongue is a great benefit to all around. “The Lord GOD hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned,” Isaiah 50:4. Final words of the Saviour to His disciples,“Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen,” Matt 28:20.

3. Possessing the Word of God draws the hatred of men! The word ‘hated’ is very strong. It means to ‘detest’. It is the same used of the world’s attitude to Christ. Having God’s Word links us to Christ. How wicked and blind is this world that it should hate such a wonderful message of mercy and love? What is there about John 3:16 that arouses the world to hate it and any who embrace it?

4. Having the Word of God wonderfully transforms us. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” (1). It is the source of life to our souls. “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever,” 1 Peter 1:23. (2). It is a sanctifying influence in our lives. “But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord,” 2 Corinthians 3:18. As the face of Moses was made to shine with God’s glory, even so the child of God is made to reflect that same glory as we gaze upon Christ in His Word. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth,” John 1:14. When we lie out under the rays of the sun, we are changed by it and become ‘sun burnt’!

That is a picture of what happens when we ‘expose ourselves’ to the transforming rays of God’s Word.