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.

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.