The high-priestly prayer of Christ was distinctively for the disciples.  Indeed, He says:  “I pray not for the world.”  That is to say, the disciples need a peculiar and special work of grace, one which must follow, not precede, conversion, and therefore not to be received by the world.  In this prayer the loving Master revealed to His immediate disciples, and to those of all ages and climes, the burning desire of His heart concerning His followers.  The petition ascends from His immaculate heart like incense from a golden censer, and it has for its tone and soul, “Sanctify them through thy truth.”  His soul longed for this work to be completed quickly.  During the last days of His ministry He talked frequently of the coming Comforter.  He admonished them to “tarry” until an enduement came to them.  He knew that unless they were energized with a power, to which they were as yet strangers, their work would be worse than futile.

He prayed for sanctification.

It is for the sanctification of the disciples that Christ prayed.  He did not ask that they might fill positions of honor and trust; He knew that there is no nobility but that of goodness.  It was more important that the early preachers should be holy men than that they should be respected and honored.  He did not pray for riches for them; He knew too well the worthlessness of money in itself.  He did not desire for them thrones, nor culture, nor refinement, nor name.

    “’Tis only noble to be good. 
     True hearts are more than coronets,
     And simple faith than Norman blood.”

So Jesus prayed that these men who had for three years been His daily and constant companions should receive an experience which should make them intensely good; not “goody-goody,” which is very different, but heartily and wholly spiritual and godly.

The men we love.

The men whose names are brightening as the ages fly, were not men who were always free from prejudices and blunders.  They were not men, as a rule, from university quadrangles nor college cloisters.  They were not the wise, nor the erudite, nor the cultivated, nor the rich.  They were the good men.  Brilliant men tire us; wits soon bore us with their gilt-edged nothings, but men with clean, holy hearts, fixed convictions, bold antipathies to sin, sympathetic natures and tender consciences never weary us, and they bear the intimate and familiar acquaintance which so often causes the downfall of the so-called “great” in one’s estimation.

The personal touch.

We may forget an eloquent sermon pilfered from Massillon, but we will never forget a warm handclasp and a sympathetic word from an humble servant in God’s house.  Jesus never went for the crowds—­he hunted the individual.  He sat up a whole night with a questioning Rabbi; talked an afternoon with a harlot who wanted salvation; sought out and found the man whom they cast out of the synagogue, and saved a dying robber on an adjacent cross.  We do not reach men in great audiences generally.  We reach them by interesting ourselves in them individually; by lending our interest to their needs; by giving them a lift when they need it.