In The World

0 Amens

Amen

Scripture Reading; John 17

John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

  • In our text this morning, Jesus is praying to the Father on behalf of all Believers.

  • Verse 20 tells us that this is the case, “Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;”

  • Let's bring this situation into view. Our context is this,

  • It is the evening of the crucifixion.

  • Jesus has spent the last several hours having a Passover meal with His disciples.

  • In it He has instituted the Lord's Supper.

  • He has washed the disciples feet

  • He has predicted His betrayal and death

  • He has told the disciples of the coming of the Holy Spirit and their duty to proclaim Him to the world

  • He has also spent considerable time telling them that in the process of this that they would be persecuted by the world as a result of their believing and preaching His message.

  • As we enter into the 17th chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus begins to pray to the Father that They would be glorified in Jesus' death for the sins of the world.

  • He also prays for the disciples who have believed the message, that they would have joy in their salvation

  • that they would be kept by the Father

  • That they would have unity in their faith

  • that they would show the world the Father's love for them as they lived in harmony with one another.

In the midst of this we have our text this morning.

  • Here I believe is the power of the prayer that Jesus prayed.

  • Here is the living out of all that He has said and prayed about,

  • Listen again....

  • Praying for the disciples Jesus says...

John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

17Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

  • Remember, Jesus has extended this prayer to us as He prayed to the Father...

  • But it was initially His prayer for the disciples,

  • He has put both their and our lives in a very particular context and spoken of

  • Were we must serve Him

  • The means to our service

  • The power for our service.

  • So lets take a look at these things in order and see what we can take away from this prayer this morning.

Where we must serve Him

  • In the World

The means to our service

  • The Word of God

    The Power for our service.

  • The God of the Word

John 17:14 I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

Where we must serve Him – In the World.

  • We are in the world but not of the world.

  • As we are in the world that world hates us because we have the word of God and we are not of the world.

  • We must take seriously Jesus prayer for us here Vs 15 “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world.”

     

  • If we were to go out of the world where would we preach the Gospel?

  • The Apostle Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 5:9 I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: 10Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. 11But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

  • After all this is why we have been left here.

  • Vs. 18 “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.”

  • Vs 21 “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. “

  • He has sent His disciples into the world to bring the Gospel to it! TO BE A WITNESS!

  • Jesus echoes this sentiment after the resurrection when He tells His disciples to Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to ever creature (Mark 16:15)

  • And so as Jesus leaves His disciples in the world,

  • He does not pray that we would be taken from the world.

  • He also does not pray that we would become like the world in order to win them.

  • He does not pray that we would lay low until He returns.

  • Jesus does pray that we would be kept from “the evil.”

  • He puts us in the world, He gives us His word to believe and tells us that they world will hate us for it.

  • He does this that we would be a witness to them.

  • Then He prays to the Father that He would keep us from the Evil.

  • There is a thing going on here in the Greek. The King James is very literal here, in the second half of Vs 15, that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

  • Wouldn't you just say, “from evil?”

  • The Greek has the definite article, the “The” in it.

  • Likewise when Jesus teaches the disciples to pray He says And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil:

  • This has the same Greek words behind it

  • του πονηρου

  • And so many newer translations recognize it as a title, as The Evil One

  • This is said in the prayer of John 17 in contrast to Judas;

  • John 17:12 While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the scripture might be fulfilled. 13And now come I to thee; and these things I speak in the world, that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves. 14I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.

  • Judas was overcome not just by evil, but the devil himself.

  • John 13:21-27 When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in spirit, and testified, and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. (22) Then the disciples looked one on another, doubting of whom he spake. (23) Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. (24) Simon Peter therefore beckoned to him, that he should ask who it should be of whom he spake. (25) He then lying on Jesus' breast saith unto him, Lord, who is it? (26) Jesus answered, He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it. And when he had dipped the sop, he gave it to Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon. (27) And after the sop Satan entered into him. Then said Jesus unto him, That thou doest, do quickly.

     

  • Jesus prays that as the other disciples are in the world and suffering persecution from the world that the evil one will not get the better of them and cause them to fall into apostasy as Judas had.

  • I need to say something here;

  • Jesus is not praying that they will have it easy!

  • 10 of the 11 remaining disciples as well as the Apostle Paul, Stephen, James the brother of Jesus and countless other faithful Believers died as martyrs for holding the faith of Jesus Christ!

  • Jesus foretold this, that men would kill the disciples and think that they were doing God a favor. (John 16:2)

  • This is the place that Jesus left His disciples and also those who would believe on Him through their word, US.

  • This sounds like a horrible dilemma, doesn't it?

  • What are we to do in such a hostile environment?

  • You say, “It's not that bad for me.”

  • I will agree, we are blessed above any other generation of Christians for the peace that we enjoy.

  • But I am not sure that it is going to last more than a couple more generations.

  • I am not being an alarmist!

  • I am just saying that our founding fathers came from the culture of persecution and set up political protections for us that are quickly eroding in our current immoral political climate.

  • The Huguenots;

  • Washington, John Jay, Paul Revere...

  • Louie the XIV

  • Edict of Nantes in 1585

  • We should be reading our history and remembering what it used to be like to be a Bible believing Christian.

  • We need to look to the Middle East, Sudan, North Korea and China in our own time and realize that more Christians are dying for their faith today than have in all of Church History.

  • Then we need to count our blessings and see what we can do to help them!

John 17:17 Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. 18As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. 19And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.

The Means to our service - The Word of God

    The Power for our service - The God of the Word

  • Because we are living and working for God in such an environment, we need to be sanctified.

  • We must be different!

  • We are not “of” the world, not like the world.

  • But we are still in the world, John 17:15a I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world,

  • Sanctification vs Separation.

  • Sanctification is being sat apart to God and His service.

  • Separation is setting ourselves apart from sinful people.

  • Remember that Paul told the Corinthians not to keep company with sinners, but not the sinners in the world but the ones who call themselves Christians.

  • At the same time Jesus prayed for the unity of the Church and said that the world would know of His love for us by our unity.

  • Sin must separate us from so-called Believers, but we need to be looking for reasons to be in unity with other Believers and not reasons to separate from then or we are in sin!

  • Sanctification does not come through separation, it comes from God through the Word!

  • We have to be in the world, but we have to be different!

  • John 17:15 I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

  • Jesus prays that we would continue to be in the world and that the devil would not get the better of us.

  • Again...

  • He does not pray that we would become like the world in order to win them.

  • He does not pray that we would lay low until He returns.

  • Historically, the American Church has tended in one of these two directions and we know life is hard and being Christians in a hostile culture is tough.

  • From the time that modernism crept over the church around the end of the 1800's it has been a major problem and the Church has been polarized to extremes.

  • The denominational church has largely gone with a watered down Gospel and an acceptance of worldly morality.

  • The fundamental church has held the essential doctrines as of ultimate importance but too often has added their own commandments to those of Scripture and tended toward isolationism.

  • Both of these positions are wrong.

  • Now we have things like the emerging church taking worldliness to a whole new level.

  • Sanctification, by God and through His Word is what is needed to live out what Jesus has prayed for.

  • How does the Word of God make us different?

  • Jesus says that He sanctified Himself, that is He set Himself to the task that the Father gave Him,

  • He was used in a very special way in the plan of God and His sanctification results in the sanctification of every true believer.

  • Sanctification always follows justification.

  • Jesus death has justified everyone who believes or trusts in Him as the payment for sin.

  • In this we are also sanctified positionally that is we have a new standing before God and a new purpose in life.

  • Believing the Gospel, God's Word, makes us different than the rest of the world.

  • It also conforms us to the image of His Son over time.

  • That is, it sanctifies us practically.

The Apostle Paul tells his readers this again and again,

  • Ephesians 4:14-20 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; (15) But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: (16) From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (17) This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, (18) Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: (19) Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. (20) But ye have not so learned Christ;

  • Romans 12:1-2 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. (2) And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

  • Philippians 3:12-16 Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. (13) Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, (14) I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (15) Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you. (16) Nevertheless, whereto we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us mind the same thing.

  • This is what becomes the evidence of our positional sanctification.

  • This is what Jesus was talking about when He prayed, “John 17:21 That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.”

  • This is what gives power to our witness! 1 Peter 3:15-17 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: (16) Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ. (17) For it is better, if the will of God be so, that ye suffer for well doing, than for evil doing.

  • This means that if we are to fulfill God's purpose we had better have His word at the center of our lives!

  • James 1:22-25 But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. (23) For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: (24) For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. (25) But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.

And so Jesus has not set us in a hostile world and left us without any help.

  • Though we are in a world that hates God and those who follow Him we are not left to fend for ourselves.

  • But we are not promised an easy life.

  • 2 Timothy 3:12 Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.

     

  • Yet it is this living in the midst of persecution and trusting in God in spite of it that really confronts the culture with God and His redemptive love and power.

  • The Church Father Clement of Alexandria relates this account of James the Great, (one of the sons of Zebedee) the man who brought him to trial, on seeing him bear his testimony, was moved, and confessed that he was a Christian himself. Accordingly, he says, they were both led away together, and on the way the other asked James to forgive him. And he, considering a little, said, "Peace be to thee" and kissed him. And so both were beheaded together.

  • His testimony was used by God to convert his accuser and I am pretty sure that it was real because he went straight to the chopping block with him.

  • This is one of many testimonies of the power of the witness of the early church in times of persecution.

 

So, how are you doing with living in the world and being a witness to the Love of God as you withstand persecution?

  • You say, “I really don't see any persecution.”

  • Then you need to get out more.

  • You can't be a witness if you only live among Christians.

  • Or maybe you just aren't really living as Christ would have you to live in this world.

  • If you are not hiding out maybe you are just blending in???

  • Or possibly you really don't know Him.

  • If Jesus was praying for you in that prayer I want you to commit yourself to what He prayed.

  • You say, “How do I know if He was praying for me?”

  • Do you believe in the word of the Apostles? Then He was praying for you.

Read More