John 17 - Part 3

Read John 17

Jesus prayed for you.  It’s in the Bible.  He prayed for you.

Jesus having prayed for the men who followed him for three years so that they would be sanctified for the work ahead of them, also prayed for us. 

John’s account was not originally broken into chapters, so these thoughts have been a continuing thread throughout these last hours.

Jesus had been telling his followers that he was in the Father and the Father in him.  The Father and I are one.  You want to know the Father, then know me.  I am the way to the Father.

You do know the Father because you know me.  You may not understand it yet, but because you have believed me and listened to my words and will soon put them into practice, you know my Father.

Jesus then prayed that we might have the same relationship.  Whether we received the good news in Jerusalem, Antioch, Philippi, Rome, or Burns Flat, America; we can enjoy this special relationship with God the Father through Christ the Son and have God’s own Spirit dwell within us.

Jesus prayed that this special relationship would go viral.  It was meant to reach the world. 

He wanted his followers to know him and to make him known.  That has been the mission and commission passed from generation to generation since those first apostles were sent into the world.

Jesus noted that the world did not know his Father, but those who followed him would make him known.  Those that have professed Jesus as Lord also know the Father.

We know the Father through Jesus and make him known through Jesus. We didn’t follow him all over Samaria and Galilee like the 12, but in a way we did.  The words that we know so well are living and active.  We follow Jesus when we engage the scriptures.

In many ways, we acquire the experience of the 12.  We were not there; yet we were.  This indirect experience becomes a part of us.  Our discipleship grows.  We mature as Christians.  And it is no slight thing that Jesus prayed for those who would come after the few men with whom he was spending his last hours.

We grow closer to our Father when we study his word.  We know liberty when we embrace his word.  Some can’t quite comprehend liberty in a list of 2 constraints and 8 restraints handed down from Mount Sinai, but it’s there. 

I’ll use my trusty example of the ladder.  Most ladders are narrow by design.  It’s hard to support much weight if they are wide.  The ladder requires you to restrict yourself to a very narrow set of rungs, but it enables you to reach new heights.  You are no longer restricted to ground level.

But we are not restricted to the 10 Commandments.  Jesus taught loving others as much as he loved us.  This is when we discover God’s heart.  We love those who will never repay us.  Some may dislike us or even hate us.  We have talked much about being hated because of Jesus.

But there is liberty in loving those who will not return our love.  There is liberty in being hated for following Jesus.  We know with certainty that we are on the right path.  Sometimes we think liberty is being able to do just what we want.  We can do that, but that is not our call.

Let’s go with another trusty example, the cup.  The cup restricts liquid to its confines.  Liquid stays in the cup until it is poured out or you drink it or your kids knock it over.  It seems restrictive.  But it is this same cup that enables you to take your cup of coffee from the coffee pot to your office or dining room table.  You have been liberated.

You think that 10 directives are tough?  What about 613 instructions, not all of which apply to everyone, but still, if it’s just half, that’s a bunch.  But the culmination of commands comes in loving one another with everything we have.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 

You might think that you are giving up everything, but you are gaining the fulness of life.  Jesus wants us to live to the full.  He wants us to have abundant life.  He wants us to really live.  We do this only when we let go of our worldly thoughts and desires and learn to love each other. 

We live a life of love for others.  Jesus prayed for us to live this life and make him known.  The love that we have for one another is how we are known and how we make him known.

We are unshackled from sin and death and our own sinful nature when we learn to love as Christ loved.  We know true liberty when our life is in Christ and he is in us.  We can finally live as we were designed to live.

When we love as Christ loved we are free from doubt.  There will be trouble in the world, but we have no doubt that Christ overcame the world and has put us on the correct path. 

Jesus did not just throw in a prayer before he went to the cross.  He asked his Father to protect those who followed after him seeking to have God first in their lives.  He asked those who came out of the unbelieving world to seek the Father, his kingdom, and his righteousness to have the protection from the Evil One that they needed.

He prayed for us, not that we would not have trouble and obstacles and mountains to climb but that we would have his Father’s protection from evil.  Jesus prayed for us.

And Jesus spoke aloud so his prayer would be an affirmation that God would be with those who became disciples of the Christ.

We have heard Jesus say I am in the Father and the Father is in me.  In turn, he told the disciples that he was in them and they in him.  The Father and I are one.  Jesus wants us in this relationship.  He wants this relationship for us.

Jesus prayed that we might truly know the Father by knowing him.  We can not read this prayer in the third person.  He was not praying for them or for some constructive third party.  Jesus prayed for us.

How do we come to know God through Jesus?  Jesus said it would be by the message carried by the disciples. 

We have received this message.  We have access to this message all the time.  We understand this message with the illumination of the Holy Spirit.  We are to carry this message to the unbelieving world.

Jesus prayed that we would know him and make him know. Let’s live up to his expectations.

Know him and make him known.  

Amen.

John 17 - Part 2

Read John 17

Sometimes things make better sense when they are being explained to someone else.  Jesus prayed to his Father in heaven but even in his petitioning his Father, the disciples gained understanding of what was to come and their part in it.

Jesus said that he was present with those whom the Father had granted to him to follow him for his ministry on the earth.  They had received everything that the Father gave them through Christ Jesus.

The disciples believed in Jesus.  He is the Son of God.  He is Messiah.  He is Christ.  He is holy and anointed and these men followed him wherever he led, even when it looked like certain death was in store.

All of these disciples had made it to this point, except the one who was needed to betray Jesus and set his trip to the cross in motion.  God the Father and Jesus the Son would be glorified shortly, but Jesus wanted these few men to be a part of his glory and know the joy of doing the Father’s will.

Jesus would return to the Father.  The baton would be passed to these few men.  The Spirit would be with them but they would build the church that we know today.  They would take the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus to the world.

Jesus had called these men friends.  He loved them dearly for about 3 years.  He wanted them to know what it was like to do the things that the Father desired for them in his heart.

There would be challenges and persecution, they would be expelled from synagogues, they would be hated, but they would be doing the will of the Father in heaven.

Jesus did not ask his Father to take their missions away from them and extract them from the world.  He asked for protection as Jesus sent them into the world.

In the sending, they would know joy.  It’s a feeling and a comfort that few know.  To be sent in harm’s way doing exactly what you know to do produces a satisfaction that you can’t get in your 9 to 5 gig.  It’s about living with purpose.  It’s about seeing obstacles in your path and knowing God will give you a way through, over, around, or something yet to be revealed to you.

Jesus wants these men to charge into battle and do what he commissioned them to do, but he wants his Father to protect them from the Evil One.  The good news was headed to the world.  These few men were being prepared to go boldly.

They will face danger but they will have the protection of the Father.  They will be accompanied by the Spirit, and they will know the joy of doing exactly what Jesus commissioned them to do.

They will be sanctified for their most unique purpose.  They truly will be on a mission from God.  Everything that they had observed, been taught, had explained over and over again, or already knew from holy scripture would shape them for their purpose.

They were being sanctified as apostles, men who would be sent into the world once Jesus had ascended to the Father and the Spirit had come.

As we look at this prayer and what Jesus has asked his Father to do, let’s considered that this very prayer was answered.  We are evidence of that answer.

These men carried the good news of life in Jesus Christ to the world and sent forth others on the same mission.

Each of you is fruit of this prayer being answered.

Amen.

John 17 - Part 1

Read John 17

What do dictionaries, glossaries, the back of the textbook, and chapter 17 have in common?

That’s where you can often find the definition of words and terms.

Oh, you mean Google.  That’s where we get our answers these days.  

Sometimes we use Siri but Siri will give you attitude if she can’t understand the question.  So let’s stick with Google.

So, I go to Google and ask for the definition of eternal life and it says it is life after death.  Webster’s says it is life without beginning or end.  But what does the Bible say?

In this 17^th chapter, we get one of the few definitions in the Bible.

Are there other definitions?

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.

That’s cool but how long is that?  How many days.  How many years?  How many millennia?

Jesus gave us this definition in the context of a prayer offered for his disciples and then for us.  He didn’t say break out your calendars.  He didn’t say, you’re going to need a new calendar app for your phone.

He said that eternal life is in the relationship with the eternal God.  We have listened to Jesus say that he is in the Father and the Father in him for several chapters.  He has counseled his followers to remain in him as a branch remains in the main vine.  We cannot produce fruit otherwise.

Now we are told that eternal life also comes from continuing in relationship with God through Christ Jesus.

We like dates and times, places and events, and things that fit into our perception of reality.  Jesus said, here’s reality.  It comes in relationship with your heavenly Father and me.

Jesus stepped out of heaven to live in this world as a human.  We get that.  Emanuel, God with us, we get that.

Realize that he also stepped out of eternity into our temporal world where no one understands eternity.  Solomon noted that God placed eternity in the hearts of men, but could not define what eternity was. 

People just think that eternal life is more days or years or centuries.  It that eternity of time happens to be in heaven, they expect calorie-free chocolate as well.

You want a human perspective on eternity, ask an eighth-grader who hates English or Math class how long those 50 minutes in the classroom lasted.  They lasted an eternity.

Ask the person who barely makes it paycheck to paycheck how long it is before she gets paid again.  That’s an eternity.

Ask the Christian singing Amazing Grace, how long eternity is, and they will tell you when we’ve been there 10,000 years, we’re just barely getting started.

Jesus said that eternal life is in the relationship with our Father in Heaven and in him.  It’s not about time.  It’s about relationship. 

We understand this in song.

When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more

And the morning breaks eternal bright and fair

People are count and measure creatures.  Jesus tells us that metrics don’t apply in eternity.  Relationship is what counts.

We are to know Christ and make him known.  In that relationship, we know God the Father and we know eternal life.

Our commission is to take that relationship to the lost.

Our command to love one another charges us to bring that relationship with us as we feed the hungry or clothe the poor, or help someone who is in need.

We are told to seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness and all the things that we need that have become gods to the godless will be given to us as well.

In similar thought, we are to seek God and his kingdom and his righteousness, abide in this fruit-bearing relationship, and we will be given the days and years and millennia that the godless desire as well.

But our hearts seek the relationship not the time.  Time is the reward that accompanies the relationship.

Have you noticed that when you are doing something purposeful that you enjoy, times flies?

When it is something that you begrudge, time drags on.

It could be the same amount of time.  We get a little taste of what eternal relationship might be like. 

Let’s put it this way.  If you had no purpose in life, why would you want eternal life?  If your life just seems to drag on and on, why would you want more?

If you live for God’s purpose, time has much less relevance to you.  The purpose, the relationship, the fellowship governs your life.

The blood of Jesus made it possible to live in right relationship with God.  In that relationship lies our eternity.  You won’t need a clock or a calendar. 

Eternal life is knowing your Heavenly Father and his Son whom he sent into the world to claim us forever.

Amen.

Sanctify them by the Truth

Read John 17:13-19

For those who are wondering where we have been over the last decade or so, I have preached 6 years from the lectionary (12 years could include the entire Bible), 1 year topically exhorting the Confession of Faith, 1 year with Paul’s letters, 1 year in the Parables of Jesus, and the most recent 2 years applied a topical approach. 

Topics have been:  Love, Love & Action, Peace, Rest, Faith, and currently Hope.  We will finish this church year (through November) with Truth and Mercy.  As we continue into Church Year 2020, we will address the topics of Repentance, the Kingdom of God, Grace, and Life.   I will maintain my streak of preaching the Parable of the Talents at least twice each year, and will have a message or series on Living in Response to God’s Grace. 

Don’t forget that in March 2020 we will study the Book of James on Sundays and Wednesdays and hopefully be talking about it on the days in between.

We will of course, make adjustments for VBS and campers.  By that I mean that the message for those Sundays will be tied to something our youth learned during the preceding week.

All of this said, remember the message is not your meal for the week.  It should spur you on to love one another, give you a hunger to search God’s word more, and prompt you to put the words of God that you know into practice.

That’s where we’ve been and where we are going.  This morning, we begin the topic of truth and we begin with a prayer that Jesus gave in his last days with his disciples before he was crucified.

This prayer follows an explanation of what is to come.  Scattering, grief, joy and so much more.  Then Jesus gives his disciples these words.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

He prayed for his disciples, not that they be taken out of the world, but that by the name of Jesus, they be protected as they accomplish their mission.

He prayed that even though the world hates them, they will know the full measure of joy that Christ did as he did the will of his Father.

Jesus notes that his disciples are not part of this world.  Think to the church.  The church is made up of people called out of the world, set apart from the world to be made holy, and sent back into the world with the gospel.

He prayed that his Father will sanctify them by the truth.  Sanctify is to set apart and make holy.  We are made holy not by some ritual but by the truth.

The word in the original text for truth is alétheia (al-ay'-thi-a).  It means truth but not just truth as the opposite of a lie.  Consider the full meaning of the original word.

Truth, but not merely truth as spoken; truth of idea, reality, sincerity, truth in the moral sphere, divine truth revealed to man, straightforwardness.

The truth that Jesus speaks of is reality.  For some, that may be a paradigm shift.  What Jesus says is not some lofty goal.  It is reality as defined by the one who created reality.

What does that say about what the world presents as truth?  So much of it is deception.

We are set apart from the world by the truth.  The truth comes through the word. It’s interesting that the Greek word here is Logos.  This is the word that we find in the beginning of John’s gospel that we understand to be Jesus, as nothing that was made was made except through him.

It also means the words themselves but unlike common words these are of divine utterance—every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So how are we sanctified?  By Jesus and by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.  We are different than the world.

We not only believe God’s word, we are shaped, transformed, and configured into the likeness of Christ Jesus by God’s word.

We are transformed by the truth.

We cannot be transformed while we remain in the world’s deception.  Paul wrote that the god of this age has blinded unbelievers.  They do not have the truth.

We do and if we will put the words of our Master into practice, we will be transformed and sanctified.  We will not be a part of this world but dwell in our Master and he in us.

Isn’t that what we say we want?  Don’t we say we want to be like Jesus?  But if sin is still governing our lives, if the world’s model is our model, if we believe the lies, then the truth is not in us.

As we begin this topic of truth, let us ask ourselves, do we want the truth?  Are we comfortable the way that we are?

I think of the movie A Few Good Men and Jack Nicholson belting out, “You can’t handle the truth!”

We can’t dabble in the truth.  It’s an all or nothing deal.  And if we are all in on the truth, it will change us.  It will sanctify us.  It will make us more like Jesus.

We are not part of this world any longer.  It owned us once but not anymore and so we must embrace the truth that can come only from God.

He has good plans for us.

His word and his law are good for us.

His grace exceeds any sin we have committed.

His Spirit dwells within us.

But somehow, we miss the truth time and again.  Which brings us to the Moody Blues, well at least to Nights in White Satin. 

Nights in white satin

Never reaching the end

Letters I've written

Never meaning to send

Beauty I'd always missed

With these eyes before

Just what the truth is

I can't say any more

'Cause I love you

Yes I love you

Oh how I love you

Just what the truth is, I can’t say any more.  Love—romantic love—sometimes blinds us to the truth.

Ambition sometimes blinds us to the truth.

The desire for uniqueness or the other extreme—the desire to fit in—sometimes blind us to the truth.

The god of this age has blinded unbelievers to the truth, but sometimes we blind ourselves to the truth.

Once upon a time, we saw the world in black and white.  We may have been right or we may have been wrong, but we were sure about so many things.  Then life happened.  There was love and ambition and desires for so many things of this world, many of them good things but they became first in our lives and in the process,  we found so many gray areas.

“Yeah, I know what God says about this but…”

The truth gave way to our truth.  God’s truth gave way to our version of God’s truth.  Just what the truth is, I can’t say any more.

Except, that I can say what the truth is.  It may disturb our comfort zones.  It may affirm us in our difficulties.  It may sound like a foreign language if we have been away from it for too long.

The truth is that God is love and God loves us.

He has good plans for us.

His word and his law are good for us.

His grace exceeds any sin we have committed.

His Spirit dwells within us.

We have spent some time on faith, hope, and love and many think, “Man, I wish I lived that way, but I have to live in the real world.”

Today, I tell you that what God has to say is the real world.  This upside-down mess that claims to be reality is as real as a reality TV show.

You want to see reality TV, video you kid’s baseball game then pan the stands.  That latter part is reality TV.

Jesus prayed that his Father would sanctify his disciples by the truth.  What is it to be sanctified?  It is to be set apart and made holy before God. 

We do not belong to this world.

This world does not define our reality.

We are to bring the world to Jesus.  Jesus prayed that through his disciples, the world would come to know the Father.

Remember where we started.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

So what is our reality?

Is it the trouble of the world and the world’s coping mechanisms?

Or is it the peace that we have in Jesus?  Will we receive the truth that comes from God which is reality?

What do we choose, trouble or truth?

I pray we choose truth.  I pray that we receive peace in Jesus.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

The truth is in Jesus.  The truth is Jesus.  The truth not only sets us free but gives us peace.

Amen.