Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / John

John 17:13-19 08/27/06

Message: ‘Jesus prays for our holiness’ pt1   Text: John 17:13-19

Introduction: Bob, a new convert to Christianity worked summers as a bartender in NYC. He states that he had misgivings about the job. But, he needed the money to help pay his way through college. Besides, he thought, he just might find the opportunity to help turn some lives around. After all didn’t Jesus go out of his way to mix with sinners?

Of this experience, Bob writes, ‘Never in my wildest imagination did I dream I would have all the opportunities I had to witness for Christ. People came in who just needed someone to talk to. Some were on drugs, some were prostitutes and occasionally someone would come in who had simply given up on life.’

One young lady, despondent because her live-in boyfriend had left her, confessed to Bob that she was thinking of suicide. Bob listened and took the opportunity to talk with her about Jesus.

Later he received a note ‘Dear Bob, you may not remember me but I am the young girl you helped late one Friday night. I had almost given up hope. You listened and convinced me that you cared. And Oh how desperately I needed that from someone. Sunday morning I went to church for the first time in 5 years. God willing, I will be going again this Sunday. Thank you for your help. Karen’ (Tim Zingale)

Being holy in an unholy place. Christ calls us to be in the world but not of it. Bob’s story is a practical example of how that can happen, how it can become a reality…for anyone.

Transition: Open your Bibles to John 17:13 (pg. 826 in the Bible under the chair in front of you) Here we’ll see that we live in the world and not become part of it by living holy lives.

John 17:13   ‘Full measure of joy’

Read: John 17:13

Remember 2 weeks ago we saw that Jesus asked the Father to keep and protect his disciples by the power of his name? What greater joy could there be than knowing that Almighty God, Creator and Sustainer of all life, is watching over, protecting and preserving you until he calls you home?

If that’s not joy enough, Jesus asks that his disciples, then and now, receive the absolute greatest amount, that which is needed at the right time, the fullest measure…of joy.

And not just any kind of joy, not joy as the world gives…Jesus said ‘the full measure of my joy’.

Notice, Jesus isn’t asking that the disciples be kept safe so that they might find joy. The idea here is that they already have the Joy of the Lord. Jesus is asking that they might experience it to the fullest measure.

This means God desires to multiply joy in our lives, not take our joy away. The world tells us that God is the cosmic killjoy because of all the things we shouldn’t do now that we are a Christian. The truth is, God wants to multiply our joy…to the fullest measure…to overflowing.

Are you experiencing the joy of the Lord in your life?

·       If your answer is yes, then be assured it will grow deeper and even fuller as you continue to abide in Jesus.

·       If your answer is no, then you need to ask God to reveal to you what’s hindering the fullness of the joy God has already given to you. Do what you need to do to make it right and joy will come.

Transition: The experience of the joy of Jesus in your life is an indication that you are being made holy. But more on that at another time, because now Jesus will tell us why his joy is necessary to faithfully and successfully navigate the Christian life.

John 17:14   ‘Given the Word of God and hated for it’

Read: John 17:14

‘Hatred by the world’

I can just hear the disciples ‘Jesus, you said this before, we don’t like it but we get it…no, but you will. Don’t be surprised when you experience hatred from the world. because like me, you are not of this world.’

So what, are we aliens? Well, in a way, yes! Dictionary.com defines alien this way

·       Owing political allegiance to another country or government

·       Belonging to, having characteristics of, a very different place

Our citizenship, God’s Word tells us is in heaven, we are just sojourners here on earth, just waiting for our visa to be stamped and we go home. In other words, we are like tourists. When in a foreign country it’s usually easy to spot the tourists…they act differently, they dress differently, they talk differently… they are different.

In a similar way, Christians are to be different; to act differently, to think differently, to talk differently...to live differently than the world. Because our allegiance is to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, Almighty God Himself.

The word "world" is used many times in the Bible. It’s the Greek word "kosmos," which means "an orderly arrangement of things."

·       sometimes it’s used to speak of the human beings in the world

·       sometimes it is used of the created planets

It’s often used to describe a system of evil ruled by Satan. Satan is the ‘god of this world.’ He rules as the ‘Prince of the power of the air.’ His domain is not Hell, but earth…the world.

 

It’s this use that we see here in our text. That’s why the Bible tells us

·       Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. (1st John 2:15-16 )

·       Who (Christ) gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil world. (Gal. 1:4)

·       Whoever is a friend of the world is the enemy of God (James 4:4)

Notice that this present world, with all of its hate, jealousy, pride, greed, and selfishness is classified as evil, ruled over and dominated by Satan. And he wants the Christian to be like everyone else…sinful. But we have a different mandate.

J.B. Phillips translates Rom. 12:2 this way ‘Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its mold, but let God re-make you so that your whole attitude is changed.’

To make this more Jersey Shore…act like a Bennie not a local.

‘I have given them your Word’

Lets go even deeper. Why does the world hate you? Why is Christianity opposed to the things of the world? According to the text, its because we have heard, accepted and obeyed God’s Word.

Here is the bottom line, the main difference between the Christian and the world and the reason why the world hates us. Christians have God’s Word and live by it.

Have you thought why persecution of Christians is not so great as in other countries? I bet one of the reasons is because while the Christian in America has the Word of God, too many don’t always live by it.

And we have seen this displayed in how many individual Christians and churches have twisted Scripture to say just about anything they want or discarded it as irrelevant today so that they can accommodate their sin...

·       Adultery

·       Homosexuality

·       Abortion

All are ways some Christians have accommodated Scripture to relieve the guilt of their sin.

Pastor and scholar Erwin Lutzer, in his book ‘Pastor to Pastor’ wrote

·       ...if we accommodate Scripture to whatever wind is blowing, we will become so absorbed by our culture, that we will have nothing to say to it.

·       And I would add…we won’t want to say anything.

We must never accommodate Scripture to fit into the world, to be liked or accepted by the world because as we will see later in vs 18, we have a mission, a purpose and it requires holiness and obedience to God’s Word.

Read: Ps 119:9-11 ‘How can a young man keep his way pure? By living according to your word. I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands. I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Transition: We are hated by the world because we have embraced God and His Word. So, how do we maintain the balance between living in the world and not being part of it? Let’s see what Jesus asks the Father for on our behalf.

John 17:15-16     ‘In the world and protected’

Read: John 17:15a, 16

‘In the world but not part of it’

Let me revisit something I am certain you all know. This building is not ‘the church’, Christians don’t ever ‘go to church’. Christians are the church, we gather in buildings similar to this to worship, learn, serve and edify but we never ‘go to church’ we, together, are the Church.

·       The word church in the Greek is ekklesia. It means ‘called out ones. That means its God’s will that we, the church, be in the world…but called out from it and we will find we are called out for a purpose.

To be in the world but not part of it means we experience day to day life in the world ruled by Satan but

·       we don’t lower our standards, God’s standards in any way

·       we don’t change our values just because the world does

·       we don’t give in to the pressure the world places on us even when it begins to make us uncomfortable.

The world is where God means for His people to be. But we are to live here uncompromised by the world. That’s hard…but that’s why Jesus prays to the Father on our behalf. Because he knows there is someone behind the world’s hatred of us and all the evil in the world.

‘In the world and protected from it’

Read: John 17:15

Protected from the world…yes? But what Jesus is asking the Father to do is protect his disciples, then and now, from the evil one…Satan, the Devil. Because it’s Satan who is behind the evil in the world and it’s hatred of us. Satan is the one who wants to rob Christians of the joy they have in Jesus, of the assurance they have in God’s Word.

Satans desire, his passion is to destroy the human race…physically and spiritually. His weapon is death. Jesus calls Satan a ‘murderer’. His favorite ploy is to deceive us.

·       Drugs, alcohol abuse, sex outside of marriage are dangled before us as pleasurable and fun…but drug overdoses, alcohol toxicity, and std’s kill.

I want you to know that Satan is alive and well and working hard not just to see you fall as a Christian, he wants to see you dead.

By asking the Father to protect his disciples, then and now, from the Evil one, Jesus is giving us the assurance that the devil has no claim on us…no power over us. We belong to the One True and Ever Living God and we are kept, protected and preserved by the power of his Name.

Conclusion

·       May God help us to stay in the world, and be an influence for Him in it, never selling out to Satan for worldly praise and pleasure.

·       May God help us to truly believe that Satan and his world has no power over us because we are kept, protected and preserved by the power of the Name of God.

·       And may God help us to walk in holiness and in obedience to his word.