Are you open to the Word?
“I am praying for them...”
Part 3: “Sanctify them in the truth.”
(John 17:16-23, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, March 28, 2010)
16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 20 I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Not of the world (16)
Josiah was the last great king of Judah before the exile to Babylon in the sixth century before Christ. During the generations before his reign, the people seem to have lost all sense of the written Word of God. It was during a temple renovation that a biblical scroll was rediscovered. It must have been hidden in a wall when it had become unsafe to publicly read the Scriptures. It is amazing to think about a Word from heaven, which is what that scroll was, inspired by the Holy Spirit for God's people, becoming so despised that someone felt that they had to hide it in the temple wall for safe keeping for a better day when it might be found.
Not everyone wants to hear a Word from God. None of us are perfectly receptive to the Bible. As Jesus prays this prayer in the hearing of His church, He is praying for those who should want to hear that Word, since heaven is their home. It is easy to think that this world is all the home we have since it is the only home we have ever seen, but Jesus says of His disciples that “they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” There is one major difference between Jesus and His disciples on this question of home. Though heaven is our home, and heaven is His home, He has seen it, and we have not. He came down from heaven.
Your Word (17)
As significant as that difference is, there is a big difference between what Jesus calls here “the world” and those He calls His disciples. This prayer is not for the world. Jesus could pray many wonderful things for the world; that God would continue to provide food, shelter, families, good government; that He would restrain sin, and that there would be peace on earth so that the message of heaven could be fairly considered. All of these things are good, and they are part of the will of God. But here Jesus prays for the church; that they would be kept in God's Name, that they would be kept from the evil one, and that God would sanctify them in the truth.
This word, “sanctify” is about being different from the world. Things that are sanctified are holy, separated from common use, set apart for some special purpose. Jesus is asking the Father that the church would be set apart from the world, not in ways that they would come up with, but according to the truth of the Word of God. If we have the Bible hidden away in some “wall” for safe keeping, that wall needs to come down, and we need to come to the King of kings and tell Him that we just found this book, and ask Him what He wants us to do with it. We know what He would say because we have His prayer here. He would say, “That's what I was talking to my Father about before I went to the cross. I asked Him to use that Word to set you apart from a world that does not know about the hope of heaven.”
Into the world (18)
Since heaven is our home, should we just hide from the world? I need to remind you again of something we saw on an earlier occasion as we looked at this prayer. You can see it very plainly in verse 18. The Father sent the Son into the world, and the Son is sending His disciples into the world. The world is the environment within which God's grace is known and lived out. God has sent you not just to the world in general, but especially to the particular time and place where you live. He does not want you to run away from that world, but to engage in it.
If you are at a later stage in your life as I am right now, you already should have a pretty good sense as to what that engagement in the world looks like. If you are younger and have options in front of you that will require further opportunities to arise and more decisions to be made, you can trust the Lord that He knows why He has made you for here and now. Engagement with the world for these eleven disciples was not an option, but a commandment. That is also true for you. When I first came to Exeter one of the senior ministers in town asked me, “Why are you here?” I was somewhat surprised but what I perceived to be the tone of the question, but I have come to see it as not only a fair question, but a very important one. You should seek God on this, and trust Him that He knows the answer, and that He will be happy to lead you into the calling that is your life.
When you consider the prayer of Jesus, “Sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth,” remember this: Whatever that calling and life may be that God has for you, and those answers will be different for each of you, God intends to use the truth of His Word to set you apart from the world, and to inform the delight of your specific engagement with the world. God's Word can do this for you, but will you allow that? Will you order your life for continuous solemn engagement with the Word of God in worship. (Example of my listening to a sermon that I did not think was exceptional on Romans 8.)
I consecrate Myself (19)
Jesus set himself apart from the world, He sanctified Himself, He consecrated Himself to do what only He could do. He came at just the right place and time for His life, and you have as well. He allowed Himself to be perfectly formed through experiences with the Word of God. He saw who He was, and what He had to do. For example: He knew from the Word, from Isaiah 53, that the title, “Man of Sorrrows,” was His title, and He consecrated Himself for the cross.
The Word touches us on this same point. We have been touched by sorrow, not as profound as His, but still real, and somehow according to God's inscrutable decree. You are a follower of a Man of Sorrows, and all of us who follow Him are told that we also have a cross. What a thing! What does it mean? We find out in the Word. Some of it is that we live by faith in God through times where we cannot see what is coming next. But it also means that we comfort others with the comfort that we ourselves have received, and more generally that we are willing to let our desire to always have our way be tempered by real empathy, sympathy, love, and good works.
That the world may believe (20-23)
This is the good life that God has for you. You don't have to know all of what that good life will be in order to live today's portion of it with a sense of confident expectation. It is in that life where you can know oneness with God. It is in that life where the world will come to know something about the Lord just by the way that you have been sanctified by the Word and touched by the Spirit. This is how we will be one. And this is the normal way that the world will come to believe that the Father has sent the Son, and that the Father loves us as He loves Jesus.
1. This is Jesus' prayer for the church. What would Jesus pray for the world?
2. How does God's Word set us apart from the world and send us into the world?
3. What does Jesus mean when He says, “I consecrate myself?”
4. What is this glorious oneness that we have in Jesus Christ?
Part 3: “Sanctify them in the truth.”
(John 17:16-23, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, March 28, 2010)
16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. 20 I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
Not of the world (16)
Josiah was the last great king of Judah before the exile to Babylon in the sixth century before Christ. During the generations before his reign, the people seem to have lost all sense of the written Word of God. It was during a temple renovation that a biblical scroll was rediscovered. It must have been hidden in a wall when it had become unsafe to publicly read the Scriptures. It is amazing to think about a Word from heaven, which is what that scroll was, inspired by the Holy Spirit for God's people, becoming so despised that someone felt that they had to hide it in the temple wall for safe keeping for a better day when it might be found.
Not everyone wants to hear a Word from God. None of us are perfectly receptive to the Bible. As Jesus prays this prayer in the hearing of His church, He is praying for those who should want to hear that Word, since heaven is their home. It is easy to think that this world is all the home we have since it is the only home we have ever seen, but Jesus says of His disciples that “they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” There is one major difference between Jesus and His disciples on this question of home. Though heaven is our home, and heaven is His home, He has seen it, and we have not. He came down from heaven.
Your Word (17)
As significant as that difference is, there is a big difference between what Jesus calls here “the world” and those He calls His disciples. This prayer is not for the world. Jesus could pray many wonderful things for the world; that God would continue to provide food, shelter, families, good government; that He would restrain sin, and that there would be peace on earth so that the message of heaven could be fairly considered. All of these things are good, and they are part of the will of God. But here Jesus prays for the church; that they would be kept in God's Name, that they would be kept from the evil one, and that God would sanctify them in the truth.
This word, “sanctify” is about being different from the world. Things that are sanctified are holy, separated from common use, set apart for some special purpose. Jesus is asking the Father that the church would be set apart from the world, not in ways that they would come up with, but according to the truth of the Word of God. If we have the Bible hidden away in some “wall” for safe keeping, that wall needs to come down, and we need to come to the King of kings and tell Him that we just found this book, and ask Him what He wants us to do with it. We know what He would say because we have His prayer here. He would say, “That's what I was talking to my Father about before I went to the cross. I asked Him to use that Word to set you apart from a world that does not know about the hope of heaven.”
Into the world (18)
Since heaven is our home, should we just hide from the world? I need to remind you again of something we saw on an earlier occasion as we looked at this prayer. You can see it very plainly in verse 18. The Father sent the Son into the world, and the Son is sending His disciples into the world. The world is the environment within which God's grace is known and lived out. God has sent you not just to the world in general, but especially to the particular time and place where you live. He does not want you to run away from that world, but to engage in it.
If you are at a later stage in your life as I am right now, you already should have a pretty good sense as to what that engagement in the world looks like. If you are younger and have options in front of you that will require further opportunities to arise and more decisions to be made, you can trust the Lord that He knows why He has made you for here and now. Engagement with the world for these eleven disciples was not an option, but a commandment. That is also true for you. When I first came to Exeter one of the senior ministers in town asked me, “Why are you here?” I was somewhat surprised but what I perceived to be the tone of the question, but I have come to see it as not only a fair question, but a very important one. You should seek God on this, and trust Him that He knows the answer, and that He will be happy to lead you into the calling that is your life.
When you consider the prayer of Jesus, “Sanctify them in the truth, Your word is truth,” remember this: Whatever that calling and life may be that God has for you, and those answers will be different for each of you, God intends to use the truth of His Word to set you apart from the world, and to inform the delight of your specific engagement with the world. God's Word can do this for you, but will you allow that? Will you order your life for continuous solemn engagement with the Word of God in worship. (Example of my listening to a sermon that I did not think was exceptional on Romans 8.)
I consecrate Myself (19)
Jesus set himself apart from the world, He sanctified Himself, He consecrated Himself to do what only He could do. He came at just the right place and time for His life, and you have as well. He allowed Himself to be perfectly formed through experiences with the Word of God. He saw who He was, and what He had to do. For example: He knew from the Word, from Isaiah 53, that the title, “Man of Sorrrows,” was His title, and He consecrated Himself for the cross.
The Word touches us on this same point. We have been touched by sorrow, not as profound as His, but still real, and somehow according to God's inscrutable decree. You are a follower of a Man of Sorrows, and all of us who follow Him are told that we also have a cross. What a thing! What does it mean? We find out in the Word. Some of it is that we live by faith in God through times where we cannot see what is coming next. But it also means that we comfort others with the comfort that we ourselves have received, and more generally that we are willing to let our desire to always have our way be tempered by real empathy, sympathy, love, and good works.
That the world may believe (20-23)
This is the good life that God has for you. You don't have to know all of what that good life will be in order to live today's portion of it with a sense of confident expectation. It is in that life where you can know oneness with God. It is in that life where the world will come to know something about the Lord just by the way that you have been sanctified by the Word and touched by the Spirit. This is how we will be one. And this is the normal way that the world will come to believe that the Father has sent the Son, and that the Father loves us as He loves Jesus.
1. This is Jesus' prayer for the church. What would Jesus pray for the world?
2. How does God's Word set us apart from the world and send us into the world?
3. What does Jesus mean when He says, “I consecrate myself?”
4. What is this glorious oneness that we have in Jesus Christ?
posted by Pastor Magee at 8:03 PM
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