Sent in Truth (John 17:6-19, ESV)

INTRO: 2014.09.14 Sent in Truth (John 17:6-19, ESV) Several parts of the New Testament tell us that Jesus prayed. We re told it was Jesus habit to rise early in the morning and find a solitary place. We re told Jesus prayed before important decisions and also in times of stress. But in John 17 we actually get to listen in to one of his prayers. And since what someone prays about tells us, to a large degree, what s important to that person we learn a lot about Jesus from this chapter. So if you have a Bible, please turn with me to John 17. TRANSITION: Last week, in the first five verses, we overhead Jesus pray for himself, specifically for his ministry. He prayed that he would finish strong all the way through the cross and that by doing so he would bring God glory. But now in v. 6, he shifts his prayer focus to the disciples. He prays for them and their ministry as they carry his work forward. And although he initially offered this prayer for that original group of disciples it has application for every follower of Christ since, including us. TEXT: 1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 6 I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 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. 12 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. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14 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. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 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 (John 17:1-19, ESV). There s a lot happening in this prayer let s try to boil it down into a summary of Jesus key points. 1

Number one, Jesus is leaving the world, but we, his followers, are staying in it. That s what vv. 1-5 are all about. The Son is preparing to return to the Father in heaven. This happened after Christ s resurrection when he ascended back to the Father. But his followers, including you and me, are staying here on earth. Number two, since Jesus protected his disciples while he was in the world he prays that the Father would continue protecting them even after his departure. Jesus may not be here to watch over us the way he did for that original group, but he prays that even now God the Father would protect us. And how does Jesus pray the Father will protect us? v. 11 Holy Father, keep them in your name. v. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. v. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. TRANSITION: I ve told you before, when something is repeated, it s important. Jesus offers the same prayer three times. To be sanctified means to be set apart. Jesus is praying that our identity as his followers would set us apart. He prays, specifically, that we would be rooted in truth or that we would remain in God s name (which is just another way to say being rooted in God s will). He wants truth to be the primary characteristic distinguishing the church from the world. But that begs a question what is truth? WHAT IS TRUTH? That s not a purely academic question for white bearded men wearing tweed jackets and smoking pipes. It s an intensely practical question asked by the Gospel of John itself. Turn with me to John 18, just one chapter to the right, and look at v. 37. Here Jesus is standing on trial before Pilate. He s about to go to the cross 37 Then Pilate said to him, So you are a king? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. 38 Pilate said to him, What is truth? (John 18:37-38, ESV). Truth is an important theme throughout the Gospel of John. And you might say, well isn t truth important in all the Gospels. Yes, but not like you would suppose. The Gospel of Matthew uses the word truth only once. Mark and Luke each mention truth three times. That means in the first three Gospels we read about truth a total of seven times. But in John s Gospel, we read about it 25x. John begins with a statement about truth in 1:14. Speaking of Jesus, 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14, ESV). And then he ends with a question about truth eighteen chapters later, John 18:38 Pilate, standing before the Son of God, asks with egg on his face, What is truth? 2

This Gospel is written in such a way that it forces you to decide where have you have landed with Jesus. As C.S. Lewis once asked, Is Jesus Lord, lunatic, or liar? Those are your only three choices and you may only choose one. John wants to know, What have you done with the truth? And for John, truth is not a set of ideas. And it s not a proposition. For John, truth is a person. That s why we have John 14:6 Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So truth, and this is very important, starts with belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. If we were to construct a truth pyramid, based upon John s Gospel, here s what it would look like. At the base or foundation you d find belief in Jesus. John 20:31 tells us why this Gospel was written that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God and that by believing we might have life in his name. All truth starts with this realization there is a God; He is our Creator; and we see Him most clearly in Jesus. On the next level, you d find the mission of Jesus. If Jesus is truly the Son of God that means what he believed to be important we too should believe to be important. And Jesus told the church that our primary job, the most important thing we can do, is making disciples of all nations or all people groups. Matthew 28 All authority in heaven and on earth has been giving to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit So we started with belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Belief in Jesus supports the mission of Jesus. And then the mission of Jesus is supported next by the teachings we have received from Jesus. Even in the Great Commission, after giving us the charge to make disciples, Jesus says, and teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you to the end of the age. If we believe Jesus is God in the flesh and that he has a mission for the world than we also have to take seriously what he told us to do. He can t be right about being God and wrong about how to treat your neighbor or how to live a healthy and holy life. If we re going to live in truth we must strive, by grace, to practice the lessons Jesus taught. And then finally, if we re going to live in truth, we don t only practice what he said, we also follow the example that he left. We practice both what Jesus taught and what he modeled. And when we base our lives on the foundation that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; that His mission matters; that what he taught us we should practice; and that what he practiced we should emulate, then, and only then, have we discovered what Jesus means when he prays that God the Father would sanctify us or keep us in truth. 3

If you take away any part of the pyramid you have settled for a counterfeit version of truth. Take away belief in Jesus and you are left with relativism. Relativism is the idea that all ideas and versions of reality are equally valid and appropriate. Relativism sounds good until you follow it to the logical conclusion. If all ideas are equally valid, it becomes impossible to declare anything wrong or immoral. Even beheadings by the IS become just one more way to go about your business. Relativism disguises itself as path to acceptance (which is why it s so popular on college campuses), but it s really a path to anarchy. Take away belief in Jesus and that s what your left with. If you pursue the mission of Jesus without belief in Jesus you re left with socialism. Socialism is the idea that a society based on equality and mutual forbearance has the potential to usher in world peace. God isn t necessary, just cooperation among societies. If you try to live out the teachings of Jesus without remembering his mission, which by the way is founded upon grace, then you re left with legalism. Legalism is the foolish idea that we earn brownie points with God by following a prescribed set of rules. This is what Jesus got so upset about with the Pharisees. It s true that God desires your obedience but He loves you no more or no less for it. And finally, if you attempt to follow the example of Jesus without rooting that example in his teaching you re left with humanism. Humanism is the idea that by our own sheer intelligence and hard work we can solve the problems of the world. Each of these counterfeit truths, no matter how well intended, is a weapon in the hand of the enemy. Christian truth is based upon Christ s divinity, mission, teaching, and example in that order. Otherwise, it s not truth. And we can know this truth only because it s communicated to us through the pages of Scripture a collection of sixty- six books written by various authors over hundreds of years all guided by the Spirit of God and all in complete agreement. And the beauty of what we have in Scripture is what led William Willimon, a pastor and teacher of pastors, to write the following about the local church, Your congregation is unusual and utterly necessary, not because it does good things in the neighborhood, after all, many other worthy agencies do good things for the community. Your church is important not because the people who gather are particularly friendly and inclusive, after all, the carefully selected crowd at the local country club are often very friendly. Your congregation is unique because it alone listens to, and attempts to order its life on the basis of the Bible." 1 1 William Willimon, Shaped by the Bible (1990) 67. 4

CULTURAL EXAMPLE THE GIVER: A few weeks ago, Sarah and I went to the movies and saw The Giver. The Giver is based upon a Lois Lowry novel by the same name. What I m about to offer is not so much a review of the movie; it s an illustration about the various disguises counterfeit truth may take. I had not read the book; Sarah had. I had only seen trailers at the theatre, a few previews on TV, even heard it advertised on Christian radio. Here are the positives of the movie. The Giver masterfully affirms the beauty of creation; it also acknowledges the pain and destructiveness of sin; it even condemns the false hope of legalism. But it is not a movie of Christian truth because it offers no redemption. The Giver tells us the world is beautiful. It tells us life matters. It shows how sin wrecks creation to pieces. And perhaps most poignantly it tells us that behavior modification only masks a more deeply rooted problem. What I mean by that is trying harder to do the right thing is not the solution. The problem is the movie offers no solution. It offers no Savior. In the end what The Giver gives us is counterfeit truth. It leaves out the part about how Creator of this beautiful life and exquisite world rescued you from the greatest problem of all yourself. APPLICATION: You see, if you miss redemption, you miss it all. Christianity is the only worldview that identifies our core problem as something entirely within us and the solution as something entirely outside of us. And in John 17, when Jesus prays for us, knowing that he is about to leave this earth, He asks God to root us in truth. Drive home to the church every day who they are and what they re founded upon. Give them, give us, reminders about what unites us not musical style or even geography or age, but truth. Remind us that truth is what distinguishes the church from the surrounding world. Jesus explicitly says, in v. 15, I m not praying that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one and sanctify them in truth. Look at his prayer one more time, starting in v. 15 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 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 (John 17:1-19, ESV). CONCLUSION: Now, in case you re wondering, I do agree with the notion that all truth is God s truth. That simply means we can find truth in the world, even if it doesn t come from a Christian source. If something is true it tells us useful information about God and His world no matter who said it. A good example would be The Giver movie I mentioned earlier. There are a lot of truths in that movie. You can find a great deal of truth in movies, novels, music, even in conversations with a friend. But if you take Jesus seriously, here s what you should do whenever you find truth out in the world you drive it back to Jesus. 5

Here s what I mean look at the pyramid once more. When you see someone outside of the church following Jesus example in the way they love, serve, or treat others there is something you can learn from that person. There have been many people throughout history who didn t know Jesus personally and yet followed his example in certain ways. But when you find such a person, make sure you take their example and drive it back down the pyramid so that your life isn t just about living like Jesus, it s about obeying Jesus, recognizing him as Savior and Lord. When you read a book or attend a class that talks about the teachings of Jesus. Or your with a group of people who love to study the Bible and think about the things of God, first praise God for that person or that group and the things you are learning. But then drive those teachings back down the pyramid so that what you re studying has roots in Jesus mission for the world. If not, that teaching is missing the bigger point. It turns out obeying Jesus moral teachings without obeying Jesus missional teachings isn t really obeying Jesus. And as church who wants to live on mission we would do well to remember this. And finally, when you come across a church or a parachurch organization that s doing good work in the world drive that work back down the pyramid and make sure that the core belief guiding all they do is that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God and that through him we may have life. Because that is the central truth not only of our faith but the universe 15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:15-20, ESV). We have been sent into to the world to proclaim this message that Jesus is the glue that holds the universe together. As a church we believe that Jesus is the only way for us to be right with God. That means unless you have placed your faith in Jesus Christ you are alienated from God because of your sin. But we also believe that through the cross Jesus has made a way for you to be whole again. A way for you to be new. He has restored your relationship with Your Creator and offered you life. And at the end of the service, we will give you an opportunity to respond to that message of the Gospel. Here in these next few moments of quiet we celebrate God s grace through a meal of communion. And if you haven t yet surrendered your life to Jesus Christ; if you ve not yet been sent as His representative; use this time to pray about how you might respond today. Prayer à Communion 6

Resources Corduan, Winfried, A Tapestry of Faiths: The Common Threads Between Christianity and World Religions (Downers Grove: Intervarsity Press, 2002) chap 3. Keller, Timothy, The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism (New York: Riverhead Books, 2008) chaps 1, 3. Kenworthy, Scott, #00235 2012.02.05 TRUTH (Apologetics). Vines, Jeff, Christ s Church of the Valley, Doubt Series, The Exclusitivity of Christianity (Fall 2011). Accessed at http://www.ccvsocal.com/media/doubt/ as recently as January 2012. 7