And let's read together, starting
in verse 10. All mine are yours, and yours
are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in
the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.
Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me,
that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with
them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have
guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son
of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I
am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they
may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them
your word and the world has hated them because they are not of
the world just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that
you take them out of the world but that you keep them from the
evil one. that they are not of the world, just as I am not of
the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your
word is truth. As you sent me into the world,
so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate
myself that they also may be sanctified in truth." We're continuing
here in this prayer of Jesus. It's amazing. It's such a short
passage, but so rich. It's rich theologically. It teaches
us much about God. It teaches us much about the
person of God, the son, Jesus, the Christ. It teaches us about
the sovereign grace of God, the condition of man before God,
and that it is all of mercy and sovereignty and power that we
can stand in the presence of God declared as his son is. completely set apart, different,
full, holy, sanctified. And Jesus, of course, is praying
to God the Father. He did not just talk into the
air and then become the father to receive his own prayer, et
cetera. Like some would say, he is eternally the son. Now
the God man praying to the father. Jesus being God knows the will
of God and prays according to the will of God and that all
that Jesus asks for is done certainly and fully forever. So that as
we see these words, we not only learn about Christ and learn
about the father and learn about redemption, we also have a an
absolute certainty a deep understanding that who we are in Christ, and
more importantly, whose we are, is completely dependent upon
the person of Jesus. Where we find ourselves, what
eternity is for us, our hope and our assurance and our confidence
is all wrapped into Christ, in His name, by His authority, by
His power, By grace, you have been saved. He shows in the weeks past, as
we've taken our time to go through this text, that all that are
the fathers are his, this is not new, that things that belong
to God by divine prerogative also belong to him and that in
the giving of the son, God has given the son his people so that
they have been saved. Now keep in mind that Jesus came
into the world during time. He created before the foundations
of the world to fulfill his decree. He created Mary through the lineage
of David, through the promise of the seed of the woman that
was given to the garden, given to the first couple in the garden
on the very first day. And he created the womb from
which he was born. And he created the body that
he gave himself that he might live as a human being. And he
perfectly walked in every way that the righteousness of God
is seen perfectly in the human being and in the humanity of
Jesus. And that Jesus did not earn righteousness,
Jesus did not become righteous, Jesus even in his humanity did
not come to a place where he was credited to be righteous.
He is God, therefore he is perfect. And there is no other outcome
when God takes on humanity that that humanity is also perfectly
the essence and the exact imprint of the nature of God himself. So Jesus came into the world
because it was out of the world from which He would rescue His
people. Out of the world of the nations
of the peoples of the earth for all of time that God has declared
and created a people for Himself that He has given to His Son
that while the Son was in the world, He, the Word, the Truth,
the Life, is their way to life. And if we are not found in Christ
this morning, we are not in life. If we are not found by the power
and in the power of the name of Christ, we are not found in
righteousness. Jesus says He has kept them while
He was with them, verse 12. that they had been given, He
kept the ones given to Him. He has guarded them except for
the son of perdition or the son of destruction, Judas, that the
scripture may be fulfilled. And we talked about this last
week. And we closed our message last
week with this but on verse 13. But now I am coming to you. This is the reason and the occasion
for Jesus' prayer. He is leaving the disciples.
He is leaving these 11 regenerate souls saved by the mercy of God
through the power of God the Spirit. Who have no idea what
is yet to come because it had not been revealed to them. But
the fullness of the glory of God in Christ had been given
them by the gift of God. Even though their comprehension
was lacking. for the work had not quite been
completed. And Jesus is leaving. The leaving
of Jesus supposes a lot. The leaving of Jesus shows that
he is going back to the place where he came. He's not going
back into another dimension. He's not going into another created
place in the sense that he's leaving this world and going
to another, the created world in all of its infinite wonder,
Jesus created. And he's going back to the place
to be in unity with the Father, glorified to be seen and revealed
as God, the creator of all things, as he had before the foundations
of time. And as He prepared for that,
the way to glory is through the suffering of the cross for Jesus. The way to honor is through the
passion of the Christ where He laid His life down for His sheep. And Jesus is going to the place
where He was self-satisfied. Do you realize it is condescending
for God to have created anything? He didn't need creation. He didn't
need someone to see his glory and make much of him. He didn't
need for there to even be the festival, the spiritual realm
of angels. He didn't need for someone to
see the Grand Canyon or the stars or the universe and say, wow,
Because in God's wisdom and in the volition of man's humanity,
even the first couple, they were mutable. They were moldable. They were changeable. And it
just took a few hours for them to be transformed from life to
death. God did not need anything. But in His wisdom,
He created everything that He might be glorified in the redemption
of His people, that as the Son and the Father and the Spirit
are one God, we too, in like manner, would be intimate with
Him. With each other. For the sake
of His name. For everything that exists is
because God condescended, created something that was not necessary,
entered into creation, which was not necessary, made humanity,
which was not necessary, decreed and purposed and powerfully fulfilled
redemption, which was not necessary for his glory. But he said that
he is glorified in the redemption of his created church. So much so that Paul just emphatically
expresses that over and over again to the Ephesians. He said
that the metaphoric wisdom of God is displayed in the church. That the principalities and the
powers of the dark places, the non-elect angels, Know that God
is God because we exist. So there is some way that is
a mystery to us in which God is perfectly good and perfectly glorified in this revelation.
And all we can go with is what Scripture teaches us. We aren't
to meddle in that in our little old brains. It really is about simple grace
and a sovereign glory. That God Himself, as the ruler
of all things, in His own purposes, in His own wisdom, after the
counsel of His own will, said to Himself, I will show sovereignly
who I really am through the simplicity of my mercy through my Son. And the deeper we go, and the
more we think outside of that simple revelation, the worse
it gets for us. We come to a place where we become
smart in our own way. We become brainiacs theologically.
We become academics. And it feeds our flesh, beloved.
It feeds my flesh. to sit in a room of lecturers
who have been talking highbrow doctrine their entire lives,
who sit at the edge of the end of their earthly life, and I
go, wow. And it's easy to covet that ability, it's easy to covet
that eloquence, it's easy to covet that mind, when really
the simplicity of the gospel expressly gives glory to God,
and that you must be as dumb as a child in order to see it. Simple as a child. Ignorant as
a child. God does not save His people
through the pursuits of high-brow, enthusiastic, doctrinal runnings. He saves us by His Spirit, showing
us the perfection of His Son, Jesus Christ. Because if we believe
the former is the means of regeneration, then we ignore the very centerpiece
of the Gospel that equates saving faith as childlike. There are many brothers who love
to debate with me who would say, I don't believe that a child
can be born again. To which the scripture would just
scoff and move on. The thief on the cross was born
again. John the Baptist was born again. Peter was born again when
he said, I don't know him. Jesus, the God of heaven condescending,
is preparing to finish the work he came to do in this lowering
of himself, in this emptying of himself, and he is going back
to where he came from because he is finishing the work. Jesus has said that after this
is all finished, This is a paraphrase of John 16, verse 25. I won't speak to you in a way
that's figurative, but you'll plainly understand. When you see me and you perceive
me, you'll understand the Father. You'll know the Father. You will
understand the love of the Father, and you will recognize and perceive
and apprehend the work of the Father. Because you have heard
the word of truth. I'm going to the Father. I'm coming to you. Verse 13,
the latter part now. And these things, what things? These things that I speak, these
things that I teach, these things that I have already prayed, these
things concerning your people given to me whom I will save. These things I speak into the
world, or in the world, that they may
have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Beloved, we ended the time last
week in that point. And let me remind you that if
there is anything in your being, if there is anything in your
ability, If there is any way possible that you are responsible
for your salvation, you will not have joy. What greater zealot was there
than Peter? And that's why these things are
written, that we may know That Jesus Christ, the God of heaven,
the Son of God, and by knowing, we can have life in His name. By His power, by His authority,
by His Word, by His work, by His promises. That is what it
means to have the life in the name of Christ. And when we see that, our joy
is fulfilled in Him. And our joy is fulfilled together. And in verse 14, which is where
we are today, now Jesus continues in this prayer, and He reiterates
that which we already know, which we've heard already this morning
in commentary. I, Jesus speaking, have given
them Your Word. Now remember, when we see Word,
it's specifically dealing with the revelation of grace, the
gospel of grace, the gospel of sovereign grace and the gospel
of free grace. It's a shame we have to put all
those adjectives in front of it for it to make sense. And
I'm sure as the years go on, we'll have to add more. When we see that, that is the
gospel, that is the good news of redemption. When we see words,
It is the culmination of the exposition of Jesus concerning
the Old Testament scriptures as they point to him. The teaching
of scripture, of which I am, Jesus would say, now to them.
But when we see word, it is the gospel. So when we see and have
seen, keep my word, they keep believing in the gospel. Gospel evangelism is not an imperative
for you to do, but it's an imperative declaration of what God has done,
and by the mercy of God, you believe in it. But our education system and
the way people teach children today, it's such the opposite,
isn't it? And almost every culture that
I'm familiar with, that I have friends who live in certain cultures,
everybody that I know pretty much uses that same idea. Here's
a bunch of information, you get a handle on it, don't forget
it, and regurgitate it. There you go. And we have done
the same thing with the gospel. Here's a bunch of information,
listen and pay attention, consider it yours, and there you go. What do you do with the Holy
Spirit? There's a reason that theological
writings over the last thousand years are devoid of in-depth
writing of God the Spirit and why inference is really the only
philosophy that we have above all things. The incarnation in itself is
not something that anybody has ever laid down. Saving faith
in itself is not something that someone has been able to successfully
write a book about that doesn't convolute the matter and make
it more humanism than theological. I've given them your word. Now Jesus didn't say, I told
them, Jesus didn't say, I taught them.
Jesus did not say, I've shared it. He says, I gave it. I gave it. I gave them the gospel. And now the world hates them. You see the difference? If you
and I are walking together in the journey of finding knowledge,
if we're seeking certain knowledge, and we walk together, and some
of us find it a little bit sooner than the others, it's okay, we're
still on the same journey. We can catch up with one another. And we can rub our own backs,
and pat our own backs, and stroke our own egos, and in some way,
we have camaraderie, even when the dumbest guy in the group
gets it way later. You finally got it. Thank God
we were here to help you. High five. The world doesn't
hate us when we come to a cognitive relationship with theological
things and then express them as the word. Because we're all on the same
boat. Some people come to the Russellite persuasion. The Jehovah's Witness Persuasion.
The Latter Day Saints Persuasion. The Roman Catholic Persuasion.
The Southern Baptist Persuasion. A, B, C, D, E. The Lutheran Persuasion. The Presbyterian Persuasion.
The Calvinistic A. The Calvinistic A1. The Calvinistic
A2, A3, and B and C1 Persuasion. The Armenian idea, the semi-Pelagian,
the Pelagian, the traditionalist, the historian, the North American
Baptist, the American Baptist, the particular Baptist, the redemptive
Baptist, the fundamental Baptist, the serious, serious, serious
fundamental Baptist, the King James best, the King James only,
the received text, the not received text, the found text, the followed
text, whatever it may be, we can all come to a persuasion. Baptism in the Spirit, baptism
in the water, sprinkled, dumped, drowned until they come back,
it doesn't matter. Standing in the rain, we're all
saved. I don't know, is it, what does it come to? That is the
pursuit of humanity. Oh no, there is no God. I'm my
God. The tree is God. Global warming. Don't burn up
my God. I mean, you know, it's just one thing after another.
We're all going to come to the same conclusion with different
labels. It's all atheism. It's all humanism. It's all self. Nirvana. Is that a band or a
state? Or a state of mind or a state of being? Can I find
it in East? Can I find it in the West? Can
I go to Savannah to that little coffee shop? There it is, I found
it. You get the point. And the minute
we think in our historical construction, we got it, God is in ours, see. I mean, we aren't God's, God
is ours. That's the thing. Here we go,
little box, we got God in there. Jesus says, I gave them your
word. And because God the Son gives
His people the Word, it is in them. It is planted in them. Jeremiah 33. It is in their heart
and it is on their minds. It is inside of them and He's
not talking about the Decalogue. Because the Ten Commandments
are Jesus Christ in a shadow. Read Romans. Read Galatians. Read it. Listen to when Jesus
deals with the law concerning it with the relationship that
He has with the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He is not kind
to them. He doesn't play nice. He's not politically correct.
As a matter of fact, that's the exact opposite. It's political
suicide. Literally, crucifixion awaits
him from the very first sermon he ever preached in Luke chapter
2. They wanted to kill him because
he preached the promise of God and the promise of life. And then he said, but it ain't
for you. And they tried to push him off the cliff and kill him. See, when we come to God in a
way of just expressing some ambiguous truths, anybody can do it. Bart Ehrman can do it. You don't
know who that is? He is a superior theologian gone
atheist. And still an amazing theologian.
A thinker. Lost man. Never was saved. Doesn't believe there is a God
to save. Why? Because he was on that journey
with the rest of the world. And he's come to the place where
he has found the word that he has held to. He's never been
given the gospel. Because when we're given the
gospel, we're no longer in the world. Well, wait a minute, I misspoke.
We're no longer of the world. Because that's the point of Jesus
prayer. I'm leaving. You know how we like to use the term God
forsaken. The irony behind that is that
is the words of Jesus. My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me? It is the death of Christ. through
which his giving the word to his people is effectual. It is
the justification of the elect of God through the cross of Christ. I gave them, I have given them
your word and the world has hated them. Why? Because they are not
of the world. We are of Christ. We are in Christ
because he has snatched us out of the world. If we go and we
see certain areas of some of the epistles, we see Colossians
where the grace of God, the mercy of God, that He has transferred
us, His people, out of the domain of darkness. He has snatched
us out of death into life. He has ripped us out of sin and
death and given us to Christ. It's like pulling weeds in a
garden sometimes. Remember as a child is why I
don't grow my own food. You have to weed a garden. And
okra makes you itchy. And sweat makes your eyes burn.
And dirt is not my friend. So I swore two things. When I
became a man, I would never grow anything. And I would never cut
my own grass. And I've had to eat those words
to a degree. But I've held to it a long time. Why? Because
there have been times where you get out there, and I can stay
pretty clean, but there's always that one root, that little tiny
something or another that doesn't belong where it's supposed to
be, and you've got to pull it up. But underneath the ground, there's
this huge, huge, huge Gets in your face, you know, like you're
on your way to church. Oh, look at that little weed.
And now you gotta go change. Y'all have all done it. You've all done it. We're so
rooted in the ground, in this world, in our human condition,
in our depravity, that it'd be like trying to pull up a pine
tree. with our bare hands. Even if we wanted to climb out,
we could get one little tiny root out and lay it at the top.
Could you imagine going home and seeing your mighty oak with
one root out and saying, I'm free! And we take that root and we
dip it into what we think about the Word of God and to what we
understand concerning redemption and all the little sauce bowls
of learning. But our roots, our sustenance,
our life comes from the world just like those trees. It takes the hand of God to pull
us out. Now I've transplanted stuff before
and I'll get out of my gardening things in a minute. I've gotten
more into planting stuff, not to eat, but just to look at in
the last few years. And I've moved some things, and
moved some things, and I've moved some little plants, and some
little buds, and sat them there. And you know, a couple of days
go by and he goes, I forgot, you go back yet? They've taken
root. So not only if we can get it all out and move somewhere
else, we're still of the world until God snatches us from the
surface of it. In a spiritual sense, that means
he's got to wake us up. And here's the thing, we no longer
have roots. When Christ gives us the Word,
He severs us from the top, burns the stump, mows it over. Sound
familiar? Isaiah 6. So that He can take that fresh,
cut life and attach it to Himself, who is divine, who is the root,
who is the source of our life. You see this imagery? I'm not
just trying to bore you with pictures of plants. It's the
very picture that the word of God gives us. We're not of the world because
God has snatched us from the world. And we know that because
we've been given the word, the gospel. And because we're no
longer of the world and we're not walking in a religious way
with the world. We hear the word tolerant, intolerant,
all that. You know, it's moving out of
the way now. Now it's almost hateful to not be tolerant unless
you have a specific set of values that completely clash with another
set of values. Then you're just a hateful person. And that's another discussion
on a philosophy hour, I guess. But the world hates us because we're
not with them anymore. The religious of the world hate us. The lost
of the world hate us. The brilliant of the world hate
us. The dumb of the world hate us. The rich hate us. The poor
hate us. Everybody hates the believer. And then we see words like that,
and that's not the first time we've heard it. We've seen it
over here in chapter 14, 15, 16. We've seen it all the way back throughout
the Gospel of John and in every other place that Paul writes.
Paul writes. This is John. We've seen it. The world's going
to hate us because it hates Christ. The world loves the idea of God,
the philosophy of God, the manifestation of whatever you want to believe,
believe. And we in this country, by the Lord's mercy, have the
First Amendment that gives us the right to believe whatever
we want or not believe a thing, which is whatever we want. And I'm glad for that. It's hard
enough to be not of the world but in it than to have the government
telling me what I can and can't do concerning it. So as long
as that's available, praise the Lord, let's take advantage of
it. But it's not our fight, church. The world hates us because we're
not of it anymore. It's very easy to see it. I mean,
if you go home today after service and you walk into your house
and there's somebody sitting in your living room that you've
never seen and they're just watching this live stream, they're watching
television, they're watching a football game and they're eating
some popcorn or whatever it is you have in the refrigerator.
What are you going to do? Hey, how are you? Let me introduce
myself. No, you're going to back up, call 9-1-1, get a bat, you're
going to pull up a root and hit them with it. I mean, you know,
you can do whatever you can do to not be attacked. You're going to feel threatened.
Because somebody who's not of your world is in your world.
Somebody who's not in your house is in your house. Somebody, like
the three little bears or Goldilocks, you know? Somebody's sleeping
in your bed and eating your food. And that's an invasion of your
space. They've done nothing to you except show up uninvited
and broken in to just hang out. Doesn't matter, does it? So if
that's the case for our houses or our cars or our proximity
if we're in public, what is the case of the world who hates God? They're going to hate God's body.
They're going to hate the ones who God has cut off at the root
and established a true and living root, who's growing into a temple
to the praise of the glory of Christ. That far exceeds all
the beauty of this world, that far exceeds all the mysteries
of the cosmos. I've given them the word and
they are hated by the world because they're not of the world just
as I am not of the world. You see, and he says that again
in a minute. The parallel here is that Christ is not of the
world. The Word makes us His And if we are His, our root is
Him, not the world. We are aliens. We don't belong
here. So our very existence, our very
intelligence, our very architecture of the way we think and look
at things is going to be so offensive that the world is going to hate
us. And here's the thing, they're going to hate us even when we
sit in silence. I don't want to get all Spooky with you, but I'm gonna
tell you there is a sense in which people absolutely hate
me Because I've been standing there and don't know me never
heard of me never seen me before Maybe I'll let off this anger
vibe like I just ready to fight and And maybe some of you have
the same thing. You know, when you're in certain
circumstances, there's either one or two things that happen
with me. People engage me way too much, tell me way too much,
want me to be involved in their lives. And what's your name again
after an hour of conversation? Way too much, or they treat me
with disdain. I want to be a neutral, invisible
guy. I just want to go to the grocery store in Texas, get the
batteries I'm looking for, and come out. I want to pump gas
at the Sheetz in Washington, D.C. or Richmond, Virginia, and
not stand there when it's 22 degrees and snowing after my
gas is pumped talking to somebody. It's not like I, anybody need
to talk? You want to talk? Excuse me, sir? Are you serious? I think if I were to use a public
restroom and I were sitting in the middle of a five-stall thing,
somebody, excuse me, sir, got a minute? I mean, just, no, I
don't, leave me alone. So this is true for us as believers.
And maybe some of you have experienced this type of stuff. There's a
spiritual sense in where there's a testimony. And whether people can understand
it or see it or not, there's gonna be a time where the true
Church, the Spirit-filled Church of God, will be hated all the
more by those who are devoid of the Spirit, because the Spirit
that is at work in the sons of disobedience is forever at odds
with the Spirit of Christ. Ephesians 6. Ephesians 2 and
6. So Christ is not of the world.
We are His body. So we are not of the world. But
in verse 15, the obvious thing that most of us would pray, and
we do this often, don't we? The world hates us. Father, take
us out. Now, you ever prayed for a hit
man? I mean, you know, take us out, Lord. Let's get this over
with. That's what it sounds like. Get
me out of this circumstance. Get me away from this problem.
Get me out of this suffering. Get me away from this pain. Change
my mind. Why don't we do this for a second?
Here's a little practical pastoral application. Next time you feel
like you just want God to remove you from something or a circumstance
from you, why don't you thank him for it? Why don't you thank him for it
on two counts? One is that we who are in Christ suffer well
because we understand that when we suffer, we have a small glimpse,
a very small glimpse at the immeasurable suffering of our Lord. And when
we're hated and we're being persecuted, we have a really small glimpse
at the persecution and suffering of our Lord in that context of
hatred. And because we are in Him, we should expect these things. That's what makes prosperity
preaching and free will preaching and everything else so bad. It's
why so many, quote, congregations in that flavor, you're either
faithless or you're sinful. That's why you got problems. I remember being told in a season
that God had rescued me from deep depression. I remember being
told by well-meaning brothers, maybe you're just not saved. You haven't given to God your
thoughts, so you're depressed. And if you haven't given God
your thoughts, have you given Him your life? What does that
even mean? God doesn't want my life. He
doesn't want the source of my life. He doesn't want the roots
that are in the world. He cuts them off. He puts me
in Himself. That's my life. I was already
dead. The irony behind us getting roots
in the world is we're dead. The world and everything in it
is passing away. It's already gone. It's already
over. So the Word of Christ is life. He is the Word. He is the
way, the truth, the life. He is the resurrection. He is
the hope. He is the Savior. He's the Savior
of His people, but He's the Lord of all people. Always, eternally,
and forever, the Lord of all people. He's the Lord of the
devil, and He's the Lord of the elect. And that's one of the other reasons
the world hates Him. But He says in this verse 15, I'm not asking
you to take Him out of the world. Sometimes we want that rescue,
but it's a blessing to be found in Christ and to know that what
we experience. Now, it doesn't mean that we
can't pray for the Lord to help us through these things, but God
has never promised to take away the pain. He's never promised to take away
the suffering until we are like Him and we stand in glory. And
then all things make sense. Why did I go through that? Wow,
to the praise of your glorious grace. Why did I experience this?
Wow, to exult in your awesomeness. To see your hand of sustenance.
To see that you carry me. I hate these anecdotal little
poems and stories and things that Christians have been so
good to use through the years and now we've got market share
in the stuff. But the old footprints in the
sand idea, you know? It was then that I was carrying
you. First time you read that, you're like, I got chills. You
know, I'm thinking, I don't like that picture. Because I've never
walked with Christ on my own. If you don't know the story,
there's two sets of footprints in the sand, and I look back
and there was only one, and I thought you'd left me, but you were carrying
me. Okay. You know what it looks like when I'm walking, when my
legs are working, when I'm doing the religious stuff that Christian
culture dictates, is Jesus' footprints are going this way, and I'm in
the ocean drowning. And he's like, I'm over here. And I'm like, yep, I'm with you. I mean, you know, it's bad. And
I'm so stupid to think that I'm okay. That's the religious world
of our culture. I see Jesus. I see him. I mean, I see him. Further and
further away, Jesus gets smaller and smaller. We don't walk with
him. He is the feet. The gospel of peace. He's the
gospel of peace. He is what carries us into the
presence of God. He is the one and the only one
ever. That's what this prayer reminds
us of. We're not of the world. Christ
isn't of the world. Don't take them out of the world, but that
you keep them from the evil one because they are mine. You never have to pray that prayer,
beloved. I want you to think about that for a second. You
never have to worry, oh, Lord, keep me from the evil one. Christ
prayed that 2,000 years ago, and it's finished. Keep me from temptation, help
me to walk in a man worthy of your call, help me in my unbelief,
pray for my brother, for my sister who's struggling, And what's
the means of grace for the answer to that prayer? It's to read
the Word of God, to see by the Spirit this beautiful picture
of Christ's sufficient hope and the power of the Father. And
now you are kept. So that supposes the reality
that we are going to be at odds with the world, the evil one
who has full authority by the command of the Father over the
world. The enemy is not fighting against
God. He's doing the will of God. Now that's a hard one, isn't it? Can't have it both ways,
beloved. Either God the Father put Christ on the cross, or the
devil did. Who did it? God the Father. How
did he do it? He raised Judas up to be the
son of perdition. He sent Lucifer into him. Judas' depraved flesh that had
deep roots into the world did exactly what it wanted to do
when presented the opportunities, and it was perfectly purposed
and decreed by God the Father. How many times did the enemy,
through men, want to take and destroy Christ? His very first
public sermon. His birth, the king wanted him
dead. Because wise men and kings from
the east, when this child was three years old, four years old,
playing at his mother's feet as a toddler, these wise kings
showed up to find him and to give him gifts and praise. And
then when they go to find him, they go by the king. We're looking for this great
child to bring him gold and expensive spices that could feed a kingdom
for 25 years. Now if I'm the king and people
show up with a gift, I'm excited, but they say it ain't for me,
I'm upset. Fallen humanity would rather
let a murderer live than Jesus. That's what the world does. And
all the disciples, but this one was martyred. I've never had my head chopped
off. I can't imagine that it's pleasant. Keep them from the evil one.
Verse 16, he continues, they are not of the world just as
I am not of the world. Lord, help us to see. I think the largest angst that
believers have in life is that we are always trying to find
that next joy. We're always looking for that
next slice of bread that can make us happy until the oven's
finished with the next one. We're always looking to try to
find and spiritualize some aspect of life that will prepare us
to get along until the next problem. So Jesus prays again, I'm not
of the world. Why do we fight so hard to be
in it? Something to think about. Christ
is our life. Christ is our life. He is our world. Thief on the cross after mocking
Jesus. Don't you find that odd that
two men are condemned to death and the only thing they want
to do is mock a man? Death by asphyxiation. And they
join in the reviling of Jesus, instigated by the Roman guards. I find that odd, but that is
the human condition. I'm not of the world. Then verse
17, and I might have to reteach these next two verses, three
verses next week. We'll see. Sanctify them in the
truth. There are some statements and
some prayers. Keep them out from the evil one. Preserve them.
Hold them. They're mine. They're yours.
They're ours. We're one. Let them be one. Let
them have joy. Now, sanctify them in the truth. Your word, singular, is truth. That is one of the most powerful
statements in John's gospel. The word sanctify, we have misapplied
for a couple of hundred years, not before, but a couple of hundred
years. We have misunderstood that word to mean maturity. It doesn't. We've misunderstood
sanctified to mean getting better concerning sin. It doesn't. We've misunderstood that word
to be ascribed to our thoughts and feelings and desires and
all the other aspects of our lives that we would become more
Christ-like, but it doesn't. What is the word? What does it
mean to be set apart? It means you're not of the world. Context, context, context, context.
The Word means you're not of the world. Sanctify them in your
truth. The crazy thing is it's not a
situation of practical application. It's a spiritual reality. And there are several times,
very rarely, but several times, a couple of places, where we
see that term used in the context of how we are to live our lives
together as Christians. But almost every single time
you see it in scripture, you can actually put the word holy
in there. Because that's what the word
holy means. See, the word holy does not relate
to a standard of morality. God is holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty. One of my favorite hymns. It's not about the goodness of
God. It's not about the perfection of God. It's not about that word
is not given to God because of certain aspects of his attributes. He is. And it literally means sanctified,
which literally means set apart for. God is set apart from all
things. He's not part of creation, though
he condescended and took on a body. He didn't cease to be God. He's
not part of creation. He's not part of a set of rules.
He's not part of a set of laws. He doesn't illustrate himself
through a system of logic. The trolls are going to go crazy
over that statement. He's not bound by politics. He's
not holy because of how good he is. His essence is beyond
all things. That's what it means. That's what it means. In order
to stand before Him, we must have, in the same way, the holiness
of God as ours. That's it. Has the question popped
into your head yet? How do I have that type of holiness?
See, we're already trying to discern what we're going to do
to get our lives to mold more into a holy picture. It's not
possible unless we're eternally God. So therefore, Jesus, 1 Corinthians
1, is our sanctification. He is our holiness. We are called the righteousness
of God because Jesus is the righteousness of God. Jesus is the holiness
of God. Jesus is the sanctification.
He is God. So when we're in Him, we're not
of the world. We are set apart as God is set
apart perfectly for Himself. Why was the temple a, quote,
holy place? Why was the showbread a holy
article? Why was the Holy of Holies called
the Holy of Holies? Because it was set apart to be
a scribe for the use of God, but none of those things ever
got anywhere, anyone ever close to God. Ever. It's all a shadow of Jesus. Jesus
is the only one, the only God who sits at the Father's side,
who makes God known, who can set us apart and say they are
sanctified, they are holy, they are perfect, they are as God
is. They are. See, that sounds utterly
blasphemous. But that's why the scripture
teaches us that what Paul would say, I do not have a righteousness
of my own, but the righteousness that comes
from Christ." What's that mean? That means that God the Son takes
the mantle of His divine nature and its perfection and He credits
it to us. So we are not divine, we are
not gods, we are not little gods, we are not little Christs. We
are granted the wonderful mercy of the Lord to get credit for
His perfection, for His set-apartness. Set them apart in the truth. The gospel is the truth. Your word is truth. You see that? So how are we to rest in this
prayer and that our assurance and our hope, as we've talked
about already now, this is, you know, two months we've been going
on this little prayer here. We hope in Christ. We hope in
Him. And He is our word. He is our
truth. How do we know that? Where is
the power of God in our confidence? The written word, the gathering,
the assembly, the teaching of scripture, the ministry together
that you're being equipped for this very moment. Sanctify them, holy them, set
them apart in me, in your word. And in a literal sense, if we
are to know Christ, it is a work of God and it comes through what? Through the hearing of the words
of Christ. Of which this is. Of which Galatians
2 is. Of which Deuteronomy 6 is. Everything but maps and appendix. There's an appendix
in your Bible. And as you've sent me, verse
18, look at this. As you've sent me into the world, so I've sent
them into the world. So now we start to see something
here. You keep them, Father. They're yours and they're mine.
They're mine and they're yours and you gave them to me and I
saved them. And I gave them your word, and
they are mine, and they are sealed, and they are secure. So keep
them from the enemy. Hold them in the gospel. Keep
their faith strong, even when it's weak. They will suffer. And specifically
in mind here, the 11, they will suffer and they will have persecution
and they will be hated because they don't belong to this place
anymore. They don't belong to the fallenness
of humanity. They are mine and I am holy and
they are in me. And by the authority of my name
and my name, they are holy as we are holy. That's why that declaration of
God be holy for I'm holy is an absolute prophetic truth of Christ. And He wants them to stay because
it is the means through which God has ordained for His sheep
to come, to see, to taste, and to exult, and to live. Through the message of the cross,
through the message of the simple grace, To see the glory of Christ in
a sovereign way by the Spirit of God, He leaves us in the world
that we might proclaim this awesome truth. And then for their sake, verse
19, for their sake I consecrate myself. Consecration, in a nutshell,
is to set something apart for the use of something else. Jesus set himself apart, listen
to this, he set himself apart for the use of God the Father
in order to be killed as the Lamb, in order to satisfy the
judgment of sin against the elect so that we would be free from
the world. And Jesus set Himself apart in
His life, ministry, death, burial, resurrection. He set Himself
apart so that they can be holy. And they're set apart as Christ
is set apart. In a real and divine sense, the
righteousness of God is imputed to us through Jesus Christ as
a gift, as an attribute of His mercy, That's an application
of His kindness and His eternal love for us so that He's the
just and the justifier of all who have faith in Christ. And then He keeps us in the world
that we also may be, in a temporal sense, set apart for the sake
of the ministry. Set apart for the worship of
God. Set apart for the assembly of
the saints. Set apart for the preparation of the gospel. Set
apart for all of these things because as He and the Father
are one, we are one with one another in Christ. But it's still only the gospel
that makes us righteous. What Christ did. that they also
may be sanctified in truth, because had Christ not died and been
raised alive, we would not live." It's the point of history. It's
the point of humanity. It's the point of existence.
It's the point of the cosmos. And we believe these things,
according to Hebrews 12, by faith. We believe these things by faith
because God in his power and his mercy causes us to believe
even when the world that we're not a part of begins to edge
away at the absurdity of this simple faith. But we are in Christ through
the means that He has promised to hold us and to keep us by
His sovereign and divine power, the same power that raised Him
from the dead, the same power that upholds the universe by
His will, He keeps us. And the same power that He will
never let us fall away from faith. It's a beautiful promise. I'm not going to teach it today,
but I want you to look He's praying this prayer specifically in the
context for these 11, and then he says, and I do not ask for
these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through
their word, through their gospel, through their gospel. And then
he goes back to verse 21, and I'm gonna beat this up in the
next few weeks. 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 my people of the world
may believe that you have sent me." That's why. So, beloved, we are sanctified
in Christ. We are holy in Christ. We are
righteous in Christ. And we will not be lost, and
we will not be judged by the Lord. We have no condemnation. We are not going to escape the
persecution, the trials of life, but one day, we will be with
our Savior. One day, we will be together
in a way that will never be separated. But until then, we get this little,
teeny, tiny glimpse, little, tiny taste, just like the Lord's
table. of a great ineffable and glorious
love of our Father. Let's pray. Lord, it is with great humility that we can understand
these things. It is with great passion that
you have shown us the truth. Lord, we are overjoyed that your
word teaches so simply that without your power we would
never perceive. And I pray for all of us that our joy would truly be fulfilled
in Christ. That we would hold fast to the
confession of our hope and be reminded the prayers of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ that are not just effectual but eternal. For his word never fails. It's
never wrong. It never dies. It never fades
away, but it rests forever. So this word and us this day
is all part of your purpose. That we have been made righteous
in it. In Christ, in the gospel of free race. By your sovereign
power. And through the sovereign rule
of your son Jesus, we pray. Amen.