Introduction: Grace be to you and peace, from God our Father, and from our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Our text is the Gospel Lesson just read, from John 17. We begin with prayer.
Dear fellow disciples of our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ:
- Jesus prays that we might be “sanctified in the truth.” This seems to be a strange way of speaking – and we might want to know just He means by our being “sanctified.” This word means to be made “holy” – in the same way that God is “holy.” The Greek word is “hagios” – meaning to consecrate, or set apart, or to make holy. The concept behind this is to make us commensurate with God’s character of being good – sinless, aligned with good, with what is healthy, wholesome, and right for human being.
- Of course this is the will of God. God is love – He only wants what is best for us, what is most blessed for us. It is His original creative will for mankind, and also His will for us in spite of the fall into sin, and the infection of sin that continues to plague all human beings.
- The Catechism explains the Biblical concept of “sanctification,” or the process by which God provides for our being “sanctified.” There are two aspects – the first has to do with our status, our legal status in the sight of God’s court, “guilty” or “not-guilty.” The second has to do with our “condition” – our thoughts, words, deeds, and spiritual being.
- The first is “punctiliear,” that is, immediate, from a single point in time, and according to the Bible, lasting forever. We sometimes refer to this as our “justification” – our being declared “righteous” in the sight of God. This is our status – and it occurred on the cross, when Jesus took all human sin and guilt upon Himself and suffered and died for that sin as “guilty” for it. This takes the sin and guilt off of us – so that we are not accounted to be guilty, but rather we are accounted to be “not guilty,” that is, innocent, and therefore holy and righteous. This is our “status” in the sight of God, in His court, and therefore our “cosmic” status – we are fully and completely “sanctified in truth,” God’s truth.
- The second way in which we are “sanctified” or made holy is through the process of the restoration of our soul and being – so that we actually begin to think “rightly,” not sinfully, in accord with all that is truly good, right, wholesome, and healthy, and then to also speak and act in “righteous” and “holy” ways.
- God’s will is for all to saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, so He loved the whole world, and sent Jesus as “the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.” He also wills for all who know and believe His love to continue in the process of the restoration of our being – mind, body, and soul – to a sanctified condition, that of health and well-being in true and genuine goodness.
- Jesus’ prayer includes both aspects of “being sanctified” – our status, as well as our very being. It is God’s will “THAT WE BE SANCTIFIED IN TRUTH.” We consider this most blessed will of God for us this morning. First, that
I. We Are Sanctified By Fellowship In God’s Name – His Self-Revelation, His Word
Text: “Holy Father, keep them in Your Name, which You have given Me. . . . I have given them Your Word. Sanctify them in the truth; Your Word is truth.”
A. Being Kept In His Name Brings Us Into Oneness Or Unity With God
Text: “that they may be one, even as we are one.”
Jesus expands our understanding of this blessedness and sanctification in the verses that immediately follow our text:
John 17:20-23 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one, just as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You have sent Me. The glory that You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one even as We are one, I in them and You in Me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that You sent Me and loved them even as You loved Me.”
B. In This Sanctification From God We Are Guarded And Kept From The Evil One – Who Is Still Seeking To Destroy Us In Sin And Unbelief
Text: “I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction . . . I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one.”
C. In This Sanctification Is Fullness Of Joy – This Is God’s Will For Us
Text: “these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.”
Statement: These thoughts – what Jesus prays for us and reveals to us of God’s will – are so wonderful and beautiful that we can scarcely fathom them!
There are all kinds of protocols for becoming better people – self-help books and regimens; but this is God’s plan, His work, His production. It is “whole” sanctification, not just behavior modification, but renewal of the entirety of human beings. It is not a turning in to oneself, to affirm and trust in oneself; it is rather a turning to God, His revelation of Himself, His Word, engendering faith and trust in God, knowing His goodness and love for us!
Application: It centers in what He has done for us in Christ Jesus – this is truth, this is His Word – that whoever believes in Jesus has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation but has passed from death to life. This is what “sanctifies” and renews a person. This is what brings us into oneness and fellowship with God, consecrates and sets us apart from sinful and worldly pursuits. This is what protects and preserves us from “the evil one,” and also from sin, death, and hell. This is the source and center of real joy – not superficial worldly mirth and humor, but the joy of participating in what God created us for, and being “sanctified,” brought into fellowship with what is truly healthy, wholesome, and eternal life.
Transition: But this “sanctification” and spiritual healthiness brings conflict, and Jesus makes this clear, that:
II. Being One With God Means Being At Enmity With The Unbelieving World
A. All Who Hold To God’s Word Are Hated By The World
Text: “I have given them Your Word, and the world has hated them.”
B. This Is Because All Who Hold God’s Word Are No Longer Of The World
Text: “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.”
Statement: This is clear – the distinction between those who are being “sanctified” and those who reject God’s sanctification; those being sanctified are one with God, those who are not being sanctified hate those who are. They hate us with the same hatred that they have for God, and with the same devotion that they have for all other sin. We must understand this, as painful as it is for us. We do not hate them but they do hate us – just as they hate Jesus and our Holy Father; because they are committed to sin.
Application: It is quite difficult and painful for us to fully resolve this in our minds. We do not want it to be so. We do not enjoy it. We would do most anything to change it – but we would certainly not join them just to have peace with them, for this would mean enmity against God. That cost is far too stiff!
But this is what moves and motivates us – that they might become as we are, and come to peace not only with us but also with our Heavenly Father, and so we know and we rejoice that:
III. We Have Been Sent On God’s Mission
A. Sent Into The World By Jesus Our Savior
B. Powered Always By Christ’s Own Consecration
C. Sanctified In Truth
1. Justified by faith
2. Being renewed in holiness by God’s Word
a. through the assurance of His eternal redeeming love for us
b. instructed in our love for others
Text: “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.”
Statement: Again, if we understand the blessedness we have been incorporated into – God’s sanctification, then we understand the nature of our conflicts with the world and also our mission to the world. It is God’s mission, the mission that has salvaged and is now renewing us; and if we understand the blessing and value of God’s mission, then we will be compelled to be on it, to participate in it, to call the world to repentance and faith, to invite them into God’s Name and His fellowship.
Application: God continues to “sanctify” us so that we have strength and purpose in our mission. It is also a rather marvelous thing that He would use us – in all of our weaknesses and vulnerability – to move and influence others to His kingdom. And just as He has brought us into Himself – by His Word and truth – so we continue in His Word and truth, and bring the same to others around us. In this way Jesus’ prayer is answered even in us, we who have believed through His Word given to us by His prophets and apostles.
Conclusion: But there is conflict – for those who are sanctified and who are being sanctified – and this is clear and plain evidence of the horrific disease and death of sin’s existence in the world. We, however, will be protected from this disease, and we bring the cure of God “into the world,” as Jesus sends and commissions us to do.
It is a marvelous and joyful experience to be kept in the Holy Father’s Name, and also a joy to understand the excellent purpose of God that we serve by being “in the world.” May God grant us fullness of joy in both aspects of this blessedness and sanctification! It is His will “THAT WE BE SANCTIFIED IN TRUTH.” Amen.
Votum: And the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds in the true faith, which is in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting, Amen.