1. "More sobering than these are events that reveal not what you've done or what you have, but more about who you are. Once in a long while, something might happen to you that strips away all facades, something that scours clean the surfaces of your life and it reveals what's beneath, what had been covered up by the daily pileup of life."

2. "If you're a Christian, you know that you need keeping. You know that you need God's power to preserve your grasp of the truth. You know that you need God's power to keep you from succumbing to Satan's temptations."

3. "To be a Christian is to trust a joyful Savior. To be a Christian is to receive joy as a gift of grace. Joy is a product of the Father's answer to Christ's prayer. Joy is the result of God fulfilling His saving, sanctifying purposes in us."

4. "If Satan only had one shot to take you out, how would he do it? In Satan's ongoing effort to get you to abandon your faith in Christ, what strategy is most likely to succeed? Where are you spiritually weakest and most vulnerable? Wherever that is, bring in reinforcements."

5. "To be a Christian is to be out of place in the whole world. If you're a Christian, there's a sense in which you should feel out of place everywhere. And non-Christians around you should easily be able to recognize that there's something different about you."

6. "All forms of devotion require both saying no and saying yes. An athlete who's devoted to their sport says no to sleeping in and lazy mornings and yes to grueling workouts. A husband who is devoted to his wife says no to temptation, no to self-serving ease and yes to caring, yes to serving, yes to loving his wife."

7. "Holiness is fundamentally positive. Holiness is not the mere absence of sin any more than light is the mere absence of darkness. Think about the light of the sun in summer. It's radiant. It's blazing hot. It's enlivening. Holiness is not bland, it's brilliant."

8. "The world is our goal, not our source, our place of work, not our measure of worth, our mission, not our Messiah. Our mission depends on our holiness. We will only be plausible messengers of a Messiah who comes from beyond the world and who condemns the world in order to save the world if our lives bear the aroma of another world."

9. "Comfort and security are good things in their right place and proportion, but they are goods that we should be willing to freely, gladly give up for the sake of Christ's mission. Risk and suffering are essential ingredients in fulfilling the Great Commission."

10. "The cross is the ultimate moment of truth. On the cross, God revealed the depth of your sin and the infinite height of his mercy. On the cross, God revealed that nothing in the universe can separate you from his love."

Observation Questions

1. In John 17:11, what specific name does Jesus reference when asking the Father to "keep them in your name"? What does the passage tell us about this name's significance?

2. Looking at John 17:12, what exception does Jesus note in His record of keeping the disciples? How does He explain this exception?

3. According to John 17:13, what is Jesus' stated purpose for speaking these things "in the world"? What does this reveal about His desires for His followers?

4. In John 17:14-16, what reason does Jesus give for the world's hatred of believers? How many times does He emphasize this point?

5. Examining John 17:17, what does Jesus identify as "truth"? What action does He ask the Father to take using this truth?

6. Reading John 17:18-19, what parallel does Jesus draw between His own mission and that of His disciples? How does He connect His consecration with their sanctification?

Interpretation Questions

1. What does Jesus' emphasis on being kept "in your name" suggest about the relationship between divine preservation and our understanding of God's character?

2. How does Jesus' prayer for His followers to have "my joy fulfilled in themselves" differ from common cultural understandings of happiness and fulfillment?

3. What does it mean to be "not of the world" while still being sent into it? How does Jesus' own example help us understand this paradox?

4. Why does Jesus connect truth and sanctification so closely? What does this suggest about the role of God's Word in Christian growth?

5. How does Jesus' consecration of Himself (v.19) relate to His earlier statement about sanctifying His followers in the truth? What connection is He making?

Application Questions

1. When was the last time you experienced the world's opposition because of your faith? How did you respond, and what did you learn about being "kept" by God?

2. Think about your entertainment choices and social media use this past week. Where might you be conforming to the world's patterns rather than living as one "not of the world"?

3. What specific Scripture passage have you been studying lately, and how is it actively transforming your thoughts and actions? If you can't point to one, what needs to change?

4. What comfort or security are you currently unwilling to risk for the sake of Christ's mission? What's one step you could take this week to challenge that reluctance?

5. When you're tempted to compromise your faith, which aspect of your identity in Christ (kept, filled with joy, separated, sanctified, sent, or saved) do you most need to remember? Why?

Additional Bible Reading

1. Philippians 3:17-21 - This passage expands on what it means to live as citizens of heaven while residing on earth, reinforcing the sermon's teaching about our distinct identity as Christians.

2. 2 Corinthians 6:14-7:1 - These verses develop the theme of separation from the world while maintaining active engagement in it, providing practical principles for holy living.

3. John 15:1-17 - This section of Jesus' farewell discourse provides deeper context for understanding the joy and fruit-bearing life He desires for His followers, connecting to His prayer in John 17.

4. 1 Peter 1:13-25 - Peter's teaching on holiness and our identity as foreigners in the world elaborates on the themes of sanctification and separation found in Jesus' prayer.

Sermon Main Topics

I. The Moment of Truth in Jesus’ Prayer

II. Kept by God the Father (John 17:11-12, 15)

III. Filled with Christ’s Joy (John 17:13)

IV. Separated from the World (John 17:14, 16)

V. Sanctified by God’s Word (John 17:17)

VI. Sent into the World (John 17:18)

VII. Saved by Christ’s Sacrifice (John 17:19)

VIII. Living as Paradoxical Citizens of Heaven

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Detailed Sermon Outline

You open the oven door and pull the turkey out. You open the letter that you've been waiting months for. You open the account page to see how much money is left. It's the moment of truth. Will the turkey be cooked through and ready to serve your 15 hungry guests?

Will the first sentence of the letter start, Congratulations or we regret to inform you?

Will the account have enough in it to cover your month's bills?

More sobering than these are events that reveal not what you've done or what you have, but more about who you are. What if you were to fail your first year of grad school, have to do it all over again at considerable cost? What would you learn about yourself that you might not otherwise? Or what if you were to suddenly lose your job through no fault of your own? How would you respond?

Once in a long while, something might happen to you that strips away all facades, something that scours clean the surfaces of your life and it reveals what's beneath, what had been covered up by the daily pileup of life. When's the last time you experienced something like that? What did that moment of truth reveal?

The French philosopher Etienne Gilson once observed, it is not hard to find the truth. What is hard is not to run away from it once you have found it. This morning we are continuing our study of John 14:17. We will be in chapter 17, verses 11 to 19. It is on page 903 of the Pew Bibles.

You can go ahead and turn there.

In our passage, we find Jesus in the midst of a moment of truth. He has only a few hours left to live. He's just finished encouraging his disciples and preparing them for his coming departure. And now he's praying for them. And here what he prays for them on the verge of crucifixion shows us what's in his heart.

It shows us what matters most to him. This moment of truth shows us what Jesus wants most for us. Jesus prayer also shows us the truth about ourselves. That is the truth about us who trust in him and follow him. Jesus prayer shows us who we are, and it shows us who he wants us to be.

Please follow along as I read. We'll start where we left off in the last sermon, which is halfway through verse 11, and we'll continue through verse 19.

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. 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.

Just reading through this passage again reminds me of a comment one scholar made about the chapter as a whole. He said, out of all the chapters in Scripture, this one has the simplest words and the deepest thoughts.

This passage is built around two petitions, two requests. The first in verse 11 is keep them. And the second in verse 17, sanctify them. Everything else in the passage gives reasons for these petitions, reasons why we need these prayers answered, and reasons why God the Father should answer these prayers. This whole passage shows us the truth about what it means to follow Christ.

It shows us who we Christians are and who Christ wants us to be. In these verses, Jesus is praying specifically for his original disciples who were with him in the room. But his prayer is focused on what their life is going to be like when he's gone. And so all the details are precisely relevant for us. So what does it mean to be a Christian?

We'll see six truths that define Christ's followers as we walk through these verses. Six truths that define Christ's followers. Being a Christian means that you are number one, kept kept by whom? By God the Father. We see this in verses 11, 12 and 15.

Looking at Jesus request in verse 11. Holy Father, keep them in your name which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Verse 11 tells us Jesus petition and its purpose. He his petition is that God the Father keep the disciples. That is, preserve them, guard them, protect them, maintain them in the faith.

And he specifies, keep them in what Jesus says, keep them in your name, which you have given me.

So this name belongs to the Father. It is his name. But he has also given this name to the Son. The name belongs to both the Father and the Son, and it belongs to the Son as a gift from the Father. What is this name?

It is God's unique, personal, proper name. It is the Name that identifies God as God. Throughout John's Gospel, Jesus echoes God's revelation of his name in Exodus 3 with the phrase I am. The name is Yahweh, four letters in Hebrew that God revealed to Moses. But then God says, I am who I am as a kind of commentary on the Name.

And Jesus picks up that phrase I am and uses it in a very significant way about himself all throughout John. So, for instance, one of the clearest of these passages, John 8:58, Truly, truly, I say to you. Before Abraham was I am. Jesus has possessed God's own name. From before the foundation of the world.

He has always been the I am. That's the only way. To be the I am is to be the I Am forever. This means that God the Father's gift of his own name to the Son is an eternal act. There is no before this giving of the Name.

The Father eternally shares his name with the Son, which means he eternally shares his own essence, his own divine nature with the Son, thereby constituting him as God the Son. So what does it mean for the Father to keep Jesus disciples in this name, this Name that the Father has given the Son? It means Jesus is asking the Father to keep Christians confessing Christ's divine identity. It means that Jesus is praying that his followers will continue to hold fast to the full paradoxical truth of who he is, that he is both God and man. And the purpose of this petition is also there in verse 11.

Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one. Jesus and the Father are one by nature. Our unity as Christians is like that of the Father and the Son, but is not identical or equal to it. So Jesus prays for us to persevere in the truth in order to preserve unity. Our unity as Christians is always based on confession of the truth of who Christ Christ is.

If we do not confess the same truth about Christ, we can have no unity. In verse 12, Jesus continues, 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 here at the close of his earthly mission, Jesus is, as it were, settling accounts with the Father. He has fulfilled the task the Father entrusted to him.

And now he commits his disciples to the Father's infinitely capable care. While he was physically present with them, Jesus perfectly preserved his disciples. The only exception to this is no true exception. Jesus refers here to Judas, who betrayed him and the fact that Judas defected was not due to any failure on Christ's part. It was due to Judas own sin and in God's mysterious sovereignty.

It was due to God's own saving purposes. God told us about this beforehand in Scripture. Judas betrayal fulfilled Psalm 41, verse 9. Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me. And Jesus is telling his disciples this now before it all fully unfolds so that they won't be taken aback by Judas betrayal.

In verse 15, Jesus repeats his basic request from verse 11, but with an added detail. He says, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil One. To be a Christian is to be kept by the Father. If you're a Christian, you know that you need keeping. You know that you need God's power to preserve your grasp of the truth.

You know that you need God's power to keep you from succumbing to Satan's temptations. Brothers and sisters, God the Father will answer Jesus prayer. Jesus perfectly kept all those whom the Father had given to him. Will God the Father now fall down on the job? Of course not.

If you're a Christian, then Jesus has prayed and is praying for your perseverance. Your perseverance in the faith finally depends not on your strength, but on God's. So regularly examine your life for evidences of self reliance. When you're anxious about a responsibility you've been given, turn to God in prayer. Give him your anxiety and ask him for his strength.

When you feel spiritually weak and unable to resist temptation, ask for God's help right then and there. Ask him to keep you from the evil one. Ask him to grant you victory in your war against Satan.

If Satan only had one shot to take you out, how would he do it?

In Satan's ongoing effort to get you to abandon your faith in Christ, what strategy is most likely to succeed? Where are you spiritually weakest and most vulnerable? Wherever that is. Bring in reinforcements. Study Scripture that addresses that sin, that weakness.

Pray hard, seek counsel. Build up solid spiritual defenses wherever you're the most exposed. Members of CHPC and visitors too, I would especially encourage you to come back again tonight. As Mark mentioned a minute ago in his last Sunday with us, Blake Boylston will be giving an elder address tonight on Persevering as Christians. What does it mean to be a Christian?

It means being kept, kept by the Father in truth, unity and holiness and by God's grace. In answer to Jesus prayer, you will Be point two filled. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means being filled. Filled with what?

Christ's own joy. Look at verse 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. Here Jesus tells us why he's praying, what he's praying.

He tells the Father and thereby tells us that the goal of all he's praying is our joy, which is actually his joy. But it's fulfilled in us, so it's ours too. To be a Christian is to trust a joyful Savior. To be a Christian is to receive joy as a gift of grace. Joy is a product of the Father's answer to Christ's prayer.

Joy is the result of God fulfilling His saving, sanctifying purposes in us. How can this be? Because God is infinitely eternally blessed and happy and joyful in himself. And as God the Son, Christ has that divine joy, Christ possesses this fullness of invincible joy in himself. And if you trust in Christ, he has purposed and promised to share his joy with you.

Brothers and sisters, learn to spot and refute sin's false promises of joy. Every sin promises you some happiness. If it didn't you, you wouldn't do it.

Augustine understood this better than maybe anybody since the apostle Paul. I'm going to read a quote from his Confessions. It's a little bit long, but it's worth it. Addressing God in prayer, Augustine wrote, for in vice there lurks a counterfeit beauty, pride, for instance, which is a pretense of superiority imitating yours. For you alone are God supreme over all.

Or ambition, which is only a craving for honor and glory. When you alone are to be honored before all, and you alone are glorious forever. The lustful use caresses to win the love they crave for yet no caress is sweeter than your charity, and no love is more rewarding than the love of your truth, which shines in beauty above all else. Extravagance masquerades as fullness and abundance, but you are the full unfailing store of never dying sweetness. The spendthrift makes a pretense of liberality.

But you are the most generous dispenser of all good. The covetous want many possessions for themselves. You possess all. Fear shrinks from any sudden danger which threatens the things that it loves for its only care is safety. But to you nothing is strange, nothing unforeseen.

No one can part you from the things that you love and and safety is assured nowhere but in you. Grief eats away its heart for the loss of things which it took pleasure in desiring. Because it wants to be like you, from whom nothing can be taken away.

Brothers and sisters, know where your happiness lies. Know who can give it and who can't. Know what can give it and what can't. You have to be able to say to sin, no thanks, I've got something better. I've got the promise of a joy that is fuller, more complete, more perfect, and it will last forever.

You have to be able to say to sin, I've got Christ's promise of joy in him. Now, does all this mean that any fluctuation in your level of joy should make you doubt whether you're a Christian? Not at all. If you're low on joy, then what you need more of is Christ. If you're low on joy, draw near to Christ.

Come to him in his word and prayer. Train your heart on Him. Fill your mind with him. Draw near to Christ and let his love kindle your joy. But if you have no joy in Christ, if your happiness comes entirely from what is in this world, then you need to seriously question whether your faith is real.

We who trust in Christ rejoice in Christ. Point 3. Separated being a Christian means that you are separated. Separated from what? The world.

We see this in verses 14 and 16. Look first at verse 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. And then down in 16, verse 16, Jesus says again, they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Now Jesus repeats this point in verse 16. Because, as we've just seen in verse 15, he asks the Father to protect us from Satan's attacks. So in verse 16, Jesus saying that we are not of the world, just as he is not of the world, explains why we are Satan's targets.

We have been snatched out of Satan's possession and now belong to a rival kingdom. And Satan is not happy about that. Back to verse 14. I have given them your Word and the world has hated them. And the rest of the verse explains why.

Because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Receiving God's Word from Christ's mouth is what distinguishes believers from the world. Holding fast to God and His Word is what incites the world's hatred. So don't assume that the more faithful you are, the more popular you will be.

The world hates the Word that exposes and condemns it. So the world blames the messengers. When Jesus says in verse 14, they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. He is drawing a parallel, but he's not saying that we are not of the world in precisely the same sense that he isn't. Jesus is not from the world, but from the Father.

He eternally exists from the Father and was sent into the world by the Father. We, on the other hand, initially did belong to the world. But then, as Jesus says back in chapter 15, verse 19, I have chosen you out of the world. We used to belong to the world, we don't anymore. Now we trust in Christ and we have a new loyalty, a new allegiance, a new family, new loves, new desires, new goals.

We live in the world, but we don't belong to the world. We're strangers here. We're foreigners.

What's the farthest from home you've ever been? Was it a different neighborhood, different city, different state, different country? Even if it wasn't geographically the farthest? What's the most out of place that you've ever felt?

While my family and I were living in England, sometimes even the smallest things would make me feel acutely out of place. People in England hold their forks and knives differently than we tend to. They eat peas with this intricate ritual of sliding and stabbing and scraping. I just tend to shovel them.

To be a Christian is to be out of place in the whole world. If you're a Christian, there's a sense in which you should feel out of place everywhere. And non Christians around you should easily be able to recognize that there's something different about you. So don't look for your ultimate home anywhere in the world or in anything that is in the world. You don't belong here, you belong somewhere else.

If you're here and you're not a Christian, I wonder if Jesus comments about the world sound too pessimistic.

What sense do you make of the world as a whole? Maybe you think of the world as a place that's fundamentally fair and promising, full of opportunity, if only you'll go out there and make the most of it.

Jesus ascribes to the world a senseless hostility. He ascribes to the world an irrational opposition and oppression. Now he's talking about hostility aimed at God and the senseless opposition and oppression of God's people. But have you ever suffered senseless opposition or hostility or injustice? If so, do you see those patterns played out in the world at large?

Plenty of people who aren't Christians see this world as fundamentally flawed, that there is something wrong with the whole thing at its core. The question is, if you say that the world as a whole is somehow wrong, what's the standard by which you say that? The only way it makes sense to say that the world is wrong is if you have something outside the world to compare the world to.

Brothers and sisters, members of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, prove that you are not of the world by living differently from the world. Expect the world to both oppose you and entice you. And sometimes the one follows the other. What? You're not going to get drunk with us?

Oh, right, you're a Christian, so it means you think you're better than everybody. You're self righteous, you're too good for us. Well, you know what? You can forget about our friendship right now. What's the bigger trial for you?

That the world is opposing you or enticing you? Frequently, the world entices you not into committing obvious sins, but into a subtle conformity that slowly erodes your commitment to Christ and slowly erases your conformity. Christ.

One well disguised, spring loaded trap that can snare you into worldliness is prosperity. That prosperity could be in your education, your career, your finances, your relationships. It could be anything that both you and the world regard as success.

Why is prosperity a trap for worldliness? Because prosperity tempts you to ease, to spiritual sloth and to conformity with the world. The more the world seems to promise you, the more tempted you'll be to compromise with it. The more you can get from the world, the more tempted you'll be to give in to the world. Brothers and sisters, this is one reason why we need to be open with each other about some of the harder, the more uncomfortable things in our lives.

This is one reason why we need counsel from each other. As church members, we should be busy helping each other escape from worldliness traps. He who walks with the godly will become godly, but a companion of the worldly will suffer harm. So share with other church members about your affections and priorities, your plans, your desires, your ambitions. Invite wise godly believers to weigh in on your entertainment, what you consume with your eyes and ears that Netflix streams.

It does not mean that God approves it. So much of what we do as a church us to be distinct from the world as a church. Both in our corporate gatherings and in our life together throughout the week, we should be constantly reminding each other who we belong to. We should be constantly pointing out the line between God's people in the world, between godliness and worldliness, between joy in Christ and the self inflicted misery of sin. Being a Christian means that you're separated.

Separated from the world. You are separated from loyalty to the world and from love of the world. Point 4. Sanctified. Being a Christian means that you are sanctified.

Sanctified by what? By God's word.

We see this in verse 17. This is the second main petition, the second main request of the section. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Sanctify means to make holy, consecrate, devote, set apart.

Under the Old Covenant, priests were sanctified, the tabernacle was sanctified. Everything used in corporate worship in the tabernacle was sanctified, set apart, made holy. To be sanctified means to be set apart from common use and devoted to God and his purposes. So when Jesus prays for his disciples to be sanctified, he's praying that we would become completely devoted to God, set apart for him, committed to his purposes. In this sense, sanctification describes our entire growth as Christians.

To be a Christian is to devote yourself. Now, all forms of devotion require both saying no and saying yes. An athlete who's devoted to their sport says no to sleeping in and lazy mornings and yes to grueling workouts. An artist who's devoted to their craft says no to self doubt and despair, says no to quitting and says yes to long hours of toil. A husband who is devoted to his wife says no to temptation, no to self serving ease and yes to caring.

Yes to serving, yes to loving his wife. Devotion to God changes you. It prunes and purifies you. It strips away sinful desires and habits. Devotion to God demands that you put off your old self.

And devotion to God involves cultivating, zooming in on what's good, putting on the new self. Denial is never more than half the story. As a Christian, you're always saying no in order to say yes to something better. Holiness is fundamentally positive. Holiness is not the mere absence of sin any more than light is the mere absence of darkness.

Think about the light of the sun in summer. It's radiant. It's blazing hot. It's enlivening. Holiness is not bland, it's brilliant.

In verse 17, Jesus prays, Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is so. What is this word? It's the Gospel. Back in verse 14, Jesus says, I have given them your word.

He means the Gospel, the gospel that he entrusted to the apostles and that the apostles in turn are going to pass on. The Gospel sanctifies us. The good news of Jesus makes us Holy. Now, Christians often appeal to this verse to say that studying Scripture sanctifies us. And that's a fine application of this verse.

In fact, it's even a necessary application of this verse because the Gospel is the headline of Scripture, like the headline of a news story tells you the main point of the whole thing. So absolutely study Scripture in pursuit of holiness. As Spurgeon said on this verse, the truth, when fully used, will daily destroy sin, nourish grace, suggest noble desires and urge to holy acts. This means that if you want holiness, you need to get the truth. If you want to be more holy, you need to know the truth better and get it deeper into you.

And it means that the point of knowing the truth is not mere information, it's transformation. As Christians, we should always be striving to take what we know and turn it into chains, turn it into new desires, new loves, new priorities. So if you want to be more conformed to Christ, be more devoted to the truth. And if you want to put the truth to its proper use, drill it deeper and deeper into your heart. What does Jesus want for you?

He wants your holiness.

Do you want for yourself what Jesus wants for you? Do you pray for yourself and others what Jesus prays for you?

What brings more benefit? Health or holiness? What's better for you in the long run? Wealth or holiness? What will make you more happy?

Success or holiness?

A fifth truth about what it means to be a Christian. Sent. Being a Christian means that you are sent. Sent into what? The world.

We see this in verse 18. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. The Father sent His Son into the world to save the world. And the Son sent His disciples into the world to proclaim the salvation that he accomplished. This is a missionary commissioning.

It's an evangelistic mandate. Jesus says this in the past tense because he's looking forward to their whole ministry. He's not referring to any specific mission that they might have already gone out on, but that he has commissioned them, he has entrusted them to bear his message to the nations. But does Jesus just Commission his original 11 disciples, or has he sent all of us into the world too? This is worth drilling into for a minute.

I think the answer is that he has sent all of us with this same mandate. Here's one way to see that, just through John's gospel. In chapter 20, verse 21, after his resurrection, Jesus repeats these words nearly verbatim, only he's not praying, but addressing the disciples directly. He says, as the Father has sent me Even so, I am sending you. And then in the next verse, we read that he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.

This is a kind of preview of Pentecost, a kind of mini Pentecost. So Jesus promise of the Spirit, as we know from John's Gospel and all of Scripture, is for every new covenant believer. And as we saw back in our sermons on John 16, the Holy Spirit enables our witness and convicts the world. That's one of the main purposes for which Jesus sends the Spirit. So the Spirit is God Himself evangelizing in and through us.

Given that all believers receive the Spirit and the Spirit works to convict and convert the world, I think it's safe to conclude that this sending applies to all believers, not only the first apostles. We receive the same Spirit, and this is what the Spirit was sent to convict and convert the world. To be a Christian is to be sent into the world to bring the good news of what Jesus has done to save us. The Father has given us to the Son out of the world, so we no longer belong to the world, but are separated from the world. And yet, as Jesus says in verse 11, we remain in the world.

And he says in verse 15 that he does not ask that we would be taken out of the world. Instead, he sends us into the world as his ambassadors. In order to put the Christian life into order, you need all those prepositions out of, not, of, still, in, sent into. They're all crucial. Every single one of those matters.

And especially that tension between out of and not of, not belonging to and yet sent in. It's always a temptation to kind of fold on one or the other of those, or to see them as being in tension with each other, whereas Jesus just prays them all in like four sentences. All of those matter, all of those are crucial to what it means to be a Christian. As one commentator put it, the world is our goal, not our source, our place of work, not our measure of worth, our mission, not our Messiah. Now glance back at verses 17 and 18, kind of in order sanctify them in the truth.

As you sent me in the world, so I have sent them into the world.

Why does Jesus pray for our holiness and then announce that he has sent us into the world? It's because our mission depends on our holiness.

We will only be plausible messengers of a Messiah who comes from beyond the world and who condemns the world in order to save the world. If our lives bear the aroma of another world, we proclaim a Savior from sin. If our lives are dominated by sin, we undermine the very message we've been sent to deliver. The mission Jesus has given us also puts our holiness to the test. Evangelism and missions will test your devotion to the Lord.

If you're a Christian, how is your life contributing to the advance of the gospel? How are you advancing the gospel locally, globally? Two of the most pervasive and subtle enemies of Christian mission are the idols of comfort and security. Every step you take in conscious obedience to Christ's mission incurs the risk of suffering. You share the gospel with a colleague, it's off site, after hours, it's not on official company.

Time still might cost you. Comfort and security are good things in their right place and proportion, but they are goods that we should be willing to freely, gladly give up for the sake of Christ's mission. Risk and suffering are essential ingredients in fulfilling the Great Commission. You can't go without leaving something. You can't make disciples without risking opposition and hostility.

You can't give yourself to Christ's mission without giving up something of your own mission. In our culture today, comfort and security are absolute values, unquestioned priorities. No worldly person would ever question any decision you made if it was on the basis of your own comfort and security. So if you're a Christian, what evangelistic opportunities are you saying no to for the sake of comfort and security?

When is the last time you sacrificed comfort or security for the sake of spreading the gospel?

Every church should be both distinct from the world and evidently invading the world with the gospel. A church that's alive is a church that's on the move. A living church is a church that's pushing the gospel out into more and more territory, more people, more neighborhoods, more cities, more countries. This should be true of you whether you go or you stay. The point is not simply going, but that wherever we are, the gospel should radiate out from us.

This is one reason it is such a privilege and a joy for us as a church to send people out with the gospel, however much we lose by sending. It's a joy to send Blake to Arkansas. It's a joy to send the Johnsons to plant a church in Ankara. It's a joy to send James Choi in a few months to plant a church in Montgomery County.

To be a Christian means that you're sent. Every Christian should send out the gospel. So every church should be ascending church.

Point six Saved. Being a Christian means that you're saved. Look at verse 19. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified Truth.

The word translated consecrate is the same word that's translated sanctified. Later in verse 19 and back in verse 17, Jesus is saying that he is setting Himself apart. He is devoting Himself to God. And what is he devoting Himself to specifically? He is devoting Himself to.

To fulfilling the Father's saving purpose. He's devoting Himself to accomplishing our salvation, which we'll consummate on the cross. God is our Creator and He deserves our total devotion. But none of us have devoted ourselves to him as we ought. We've all given our ultimate devotion to ourselves and to sin.

We've all set apart false gods in our heart. Instead of honoring the Lord as holy, we've treated God as worth less rather than as worthy of our total devotion. And the penalty for this perverse devotion is death. Not just physical death, but eternal death. And not a death of non existence, but of eternal conscious torment in hell.

That is what we all deserve for abandoning God and devoting ourselves to idols. And that is what Jesus came to save us from. Jesus gave Himself for us on the cross. He devoted Himself completely to our salvation at the greatest possible cost. He bore our sin.

He endured God's wrath. He stood in our place. And on the third day he rose from the dead, triumphing over death. Now he calls all people everywhere to turn from sin and trust in him to be saved. Have you turned from sin and trusted in Christ?

Have you given yourself to him, relying on him to save you? If you haven't, then I would plead with you. Trust in him. Rely on Him. Give yourself to Him.

Devote yourself to Christ. In verse 19, Jesus says, For their sake I consecrate, that is, sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified. In truth, Jesus devoted Himself to God so that we would become devoted to God. Now here in verse 19, the word sanctify probably doesn't refer to the whole process of our growth in Christ like we saw in verse 17. It probably refers to the way that everyone who trusts in Christ is instantly set apart, instantly made God's special possession, instantly devoted to God and His purposes.

Every believer already is holy, set apart for God. And every believer must strive to become holy, working out what God has worked in. If you're a Christian, all that is most true about you is true not because of what you've done, but because of what Christ has done. Christ's holiness took him to the cross and was consummated on the cross. Your holiness flows from the cross.

Rest in and receive the Salvation Christ has accomplished for you. What's the truth about you if you're a Christian? The truth about you is that you're saved. You've been saved by Christ's sacrifice. You've been given everything because Christ gave everything for you.

The cross is the ultimate moment of truth. On the cross, God revealed the depth of your sin and the infinite height of his mercy. On the cross, God revealed that nothing in the universe can separate you from his love.

To be a Christian is to live all sorts of opposites at once. The Christian life is full of seeming contradictions. You are in the world, but not of the world. You are separated from the world and also sent into the world. You are painfully aware of your weaknesses and failures and yet resting in God's power to keep you.

Here's how 1/2 century defender of Christianity summed up some of these paradoxes in the Epistle to Diognetus.

For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity by country, language or custom. For nowhere do they live in cities of their own, nor do they speak some unusual dialect, nor do they practice an eccentric way of life. But while they live in both Greek and barbarian cities, as each one's lot was cast and follow the local customs in dress and food and other aspects of life, at the same time they demonstrate the remarkable and admittedly unusual character of their own citizenship. They live in their own countries, but only as non residents. They participate in everything as citizens and endure everything.

Foreigners. Every foreign country is their fatherland and every fatherland is foreign.

They marry like everyone else and have children, but they do not expose their offspring. They share their food, but not their wives. They live on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They they obey the established laws. Indeed, in their private lives they transcend the laws.

They love everyone and by everyone they are persecuted. By the Jews, they are assaulted as foreigners, and by the Greeks they are persecuted. Yet those who hate them are unable to give a reason for their hostility.

Do you recognize yourself in that description? More importantly, do you recognize yourself in Jesus prayer? If you do, then however you stumble, be encouraged that your salvation is secure because you are in God's hands. When you fear your faith will fail, remember what Jesus prayed for you. Holy Father.

Keep them in your name. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we pray that you would keep us in your name and that you would sanctify us by the truth. In Jesus name. Amen.