SCRIPTURE READING
You can find the Scripture reading in your Bibles in the 17th chapter of the Gospel of John, or on the Scripture Reading insert in your bulletin.
These are the words of Jesus. He is praying for His disciples of every age. He is praying for us.
John 17:14 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.
THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD
I want to make the connection between Jesus requesting that His disciples be
15. KEPT FROM THE EVIL ONE and His giving us
the WORD OF THE LORD, and His request that we
be… 17. SANCTIFIED IN THE TRUTH.
Jesus tells us that for our sakes He has consecrated Himself so that we too might be sanctified in truth.
In verse 17 you see the word SANCTIFY, then in verse 19 you see the word CONSECRATE as well as the word SANCTIFY..
In all three cases they are translating from the same Greek word that sounds like hag-ee-ad’-zo, which means to take what is common and set it aside for high and holy purposes.
Example: The stone material we call Marble is so common that whole mountains of the stuff are scattered all over the face of the earth. It is usually quarried by breaking away large blocks weighing multiple tons, which can be sawn into smaller blocks, which can be chiseled into shapes and then polished to where it is no longer common at all, but comes to hold a sanctified, dedicated place such as the sculpture we now call Michelangelo’s “Pieta.”
So when Jesus is praying for us to be sanctified in the truth He is talking about common sinners like you and me, being cut away from the mountains of shapeless confusion and chaos, sawn, hammered, chiseled, shaped and polished by the sharp and living instrument called the truth (the word Jesus gave us)—shaped to where we are something so different that Jesus declares WE ARE NO LONGER OF THIS WORLD. WE ARE NEWLY CREATED BEINGS. We are now the work of His hands.
When Jesus prays that we be sanctified in the TRUTH He is speaking of God’s ETERNAL TRUTH, HIS WORD.
This word of truth is described in as Hebrews 4:12 … living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. ESV
You may not at first understand the reality of what I am about to say but you will. This reshaping puts us 180 ° out of phase with the world. That is what happens if we actually let His active and living word go to work in the matter of discerning the thoughts and intentions of our hearts and allow eternal truth to shape what we think as well as what we do. That is Jesus’ meaning in saying; John 17:14 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.
So in a sense of the word even as Michelangelo was able to see the Pieta in that block of marble and begin to chisel away everything that wasn’t the Pieta, so God is able to see the possibility of His glory buried somewhere in the lives we have been living. God’s confidence is not in our ability to change. God confidence is in the only tool with enough endurance, enough breaking, cutting and shaping power to chip us free from the lies we are trapped in and set us free to live the lives God made us for. John 8:31 "…the truth will set you free." ESV.
HOWEVER…
Without EMBRACING the sharp and power truth of God (though you may have said the sinner’s prayer, though you may say from time to time that Jesus is your Savior), you will still be living just like the world. The Gospel transforms as it is loved and embraced and its sharp edges are held close to your being. If you do not do that then the image of Christ remains trapped in the stone of your false life, and the “Pieta” that God sees in you remains unseen.
SO HERE ARE TWO VERY IMPORTANT QUESTIONS.
1. From where did you get your truth? Did it come from the world around you, or is it true eternal truth—the kind that can set you free?
2. If you have heard about God’s life-giving, life-sustaining and transforming “true” truth have you surrendered to it?
Have you embraced it? Does it guide and shape your decisions about sex, money, eating, sleeping, vacationing, working, resting, playing? Is the truth guiding you in being a wife or husband, a parent of child? You might say, “I don’t want anything ruling over my life that way to where it rules over everything I do. I want to make my own decision.” If you are thinking that let me simply tell you that something already is shaping your decisions. Someone or something is already guiding and influencing every decision you make. The question is who or what? The question is what is that guiding principle of your life? Happiness? Wealth? Lust? Relationships? Whatever the answer to that question is, that is what you have placed before God. It is an idol and you are an idolater.
Jesus says let me dig you out of that collapsing mess of false worship and make of you the YOU you always wanted to be.
Save yourself from what is coming. Make the rest of your eternity about knowing the truth, bathing your brain in the truth, and letting the truth shape and sculpt your life and sharing that truth with others.
So what is it that is coming that I should save myself from?
WOE TO THOSE WHO IGNORE TRUTH
Isaiah describes a people living through a time when a blanket of tar-like darkness covers the earth and the minds of its people. He calls it thick darkness. Isaiah 60:2 For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples.
The prophet is talking about a time so morally dark, so emotionally confused, so intellectually dishonest that people will stumble around in a thick tar-like darkness.
Earlier in his prophecies Isaiah speaks of God saying;
Isaiah 5:13 Therefore my people go into exile for lack of knowledge.
And seven verse later (20-21) comes this;
Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!
This word “WOE”, means great sorrow and grievous distress.
Woe is coming upon people who are convinced that they are so wise and shrewd as to be able to change the righteous and enduring laws of God. “Evil is good and those who want good are evil,” they say.
God says great sorrow and grievous distress is coming upon those people. I ask you, aren’t we doing that right here in the good ole USA? And don’t we in our own wisdom think we can elect leaders shrewd enough to lead us out of the thick darkness and woe we have brought upon ourselves. New political leaders with new economic policies cannot deliver an arrogant people from woe. We must repent of our sins and humble ourselves before the word of the Lord and embrace His Word if we hope to be healed. Vote as wisely a you can, but do not believe that political leadership can save us from sin.
THE DANGER THAT SURROUNDS US.
Luke 4:1 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." 4 And Jesus answered him, "It is written, ’Man shall not live by bread alone.’" 5 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, 6 and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. 7 If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours." 8 And Jesus answered him, "It is written, "’You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’"
9 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, 10 for it is written, "’He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ 11 and "’On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’"
12 And Jesus answered him, "It is said, ’You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’" 13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. ESV
I want to draw your attention to last part of verse 13 where it says....
13 AND WHEN THE DEVIL HAD ENDED EVERY TEMPTATION,
HE DEPARTED FROM HIM UNTIL AN OPPORTUNE TIME.
• The Message Bible has it reading; The Devil retreated temporarily, lying in wait for another opportunity.
• The Amplified has it as follows; The devil [temporarily] left Him [that is, stood off from Him] until another more opportune and favorable time.
LYING IN WAIT FOR ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY.
Can you picture what that means in practical terms? It means that even Jesus the Son of God was under constant surveillance in the days of His flesh, constantly watched for any hint of any opportunity that might present itself to lure Him away from Who He was, from what He was supposed to do—away from the truth and then off into sin. That’s what the wilderness temptation was all about wasn’t it?
IF YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD??? OH PLEASE!
Satan knew perfectly well who Jesus was, but could he possibly cause Jesus to think differently of Himself—even for a moment? The wilderness temptation was an all out assault on the identity of Jesus as well as the true identity of the only true God who alone is worthy of worship. Thanks be unto God that Jesus stayed on guard all of His life.
Lying in wait for another opportunity means that Genesis 4:7 was as true for Jesus’ in His human experience as it was for Cane and is for us now.
Genesis 4:7 “…if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master." NLT
How did Jesus subdue and master sin? By abiding in the truth He was able to fight off the lies and thus, remain as God’s spotless sacrificial lamb who alone is able to destroy the record of our sins and undo the power that death holds over us, sharing with us His own eternal life and divine nature.
George MacDonald was a mentor of sorts to C.S. Lewis. Actually Lewis was 7 when MacDonald died, but later in his life Lewis read MacDonald’s works with great appreciation. MacDonald wrote saying; “THE REASON THAT YOU CAN’T TELL PEOPLE WHAT THEY NEED TO KNOW IS BECAUSE THEY WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING ELSE.”
In practical terms MacDonald is saying the reason you can’t tell people how to have victory over temptation is because they want to know how to be happy, or powerful, or important, or whatever.
SO LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW.
We are not greater than our Master Jesus. We too are under constant surveillance. We are being watched moment by moment for any sign that we have seen something, heard something, read something, been treated in certain way, touched in some inappropriate way, or that we are exhausted or stressed or angry or bitter or full of hatred and unforgiveness; we are being watched for any situation that might open us up to believe some aggressive satanic lie about ourselves and others and God, or about the redemptive process and eternal life. These lies pave the way for us to become participants in sin because we have believed the lie that sin will help, will heal, or will in someway benefit us. It never does. So God warns us that “Sin is crouching at the door…”
The Apostle Peter gave the same sort of warning to post-resurrection and post-Pentecost believers, only he didn’t say “Watch out because SIN is crouching at the door. He said the devil is waiting and prowling for a chance to devour you, not physically but devour your joy, devour your strength, devour your desire to make disciples.
1 Peter 5:6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. 8 Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion , seeking someone to devour. 9 Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. 10 And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. 11 To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. ESV
BE SOBER-MINDED; BE WATCHFUL..
“DON’T GET CAUGHT NAPPING.” is how Peterson puts it.
We are being warned about spiritual passivity.
No one can afford spiritual passivity—short trips off into spiritual la-la land often turn into long and miserable ones with a long and laborious road back.
PASSIVITY ASSUMES ALL KINDS OF FORMS.
In our day it is, for example, when you have time for face book half the night and day, or time for competitive on-line video games until the wee hours of the morning, hours for news and sports and hobbies and sitcoms and every other sort distraction the devil can think up (Only you know the kinds of things can lull you into passivity.), but you have no time for filling your mind and heart with the life-giving and life-sculpting truth of God.
If someone should ask you to come to join their “small group” you just can’t imagine giving your time or energy for such a thing.
The idea of exposing yourself to the truth of God any longer than one Sunday morning per week exhausts you just thinking about. And yet you are trapped in anxiety and fear. You are a chronic controller. Your nerves, emotions, your health, your life and maybe your family is falling apart—of these things while you are believing a lie or many lies—lies that say there is nothing you can do, so you believe it and you nap while, as they say, “Your hair is on fire.”
I remember reading Jesse Penn-Lewis expressing something along the line that spiritual passivity is similar to a person saying of his own physical being, “If God wants me to eat He is going to have to move my arms and hands back and forth between my mouth and my food. He is going to have to move them for me. I won’t use my own common sense to move them as needed because that would be self-effort, and I am done with trying.
Spiritually you have the appearance of one of Gary Larson’s Far Side cartoon boneless chickens, all raised as boneless chickens on a boneless chicken ranch. You look at the cartoon and what do you see? Chickens draped over fences, hanging over wires, and laying limp on the ground—boneless. Get it? (That’s Gary Larson and his Farside cartoons for you.)
When Jesus comes along healing folks and He looks at you and says “Pick up your sleeping bag and walk!” you better not sit there and say I can’t. You better stir yourself in some fashion and somehow and move toward getting up. Why? Because Jesus just told you were healed.
It is like that with the truth. When the King speaks truth to you, you don’t yawn and roll over to the left side of the bed. No matter how sharp and breaking the truth is you love it. You embrace it. You hold it as high and exalted and useful in for your heart and mind. You hold it close while it chisels and sculpts your life.
Passivity leaves you awake physically but spiritually it is as if you way have overdosed on muscles relaxers—as if you have been gassed into a deep sleep.
Passive believers are easy to lie to and become easy prey.
When Peter tells us to be aware that the devil is prowling about, SEEKING SOMEONE TO DEVOUR (1 Peter 5:8), it literally means seeking someone whom he may gulp down, some boneless, motionless person he can just slurp down like someone might slurp down a raw oyster.
LAST THING: THE DANGER OF ACTING ON FALSE ASSUMPTIONS.
Another danger is action, even hyper action, based upon lies and false assumptions. Even though I hinted at this earlier let me say it plainly, one major false assumption is this: Even though the devil was able to talk directly to Jesus, even though he was able to insert thoughts directly into Peter’s stream of consciousness, even though the disciples had no idea of the spirit that had influenced them to think that they should call down consuming fire from heaven on a Samaritan village, yet you are under the false and erroneous assumption that you are somehow invulnerable to such trickery. You cannot be deceived. Whatever comes into your head comes directly from God? Believe this lie and you become very useful in the enemies hands; useful in many kinds of situations.
REMEDY?
Humble yourself before God. None of us is greater than our Master.
CONCLUSION
Giving our attention to the truth is how we protect ourselves from the liar and His lies. We don’t give our attention to the devil to know the truth. We turn our faces god-ward. In worship we look full into the face of Truth Himself who came, we are clearly told; 1 John 3:8
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil .ESV .
Giving ourselves to the truth, the Truth Himself, the word, the Word Himself, that is how we remain vigilant. That is how we remain alert in the Spirit to discover lies if and when they are planted in our thoughts and opinions.
It is the truth in Jesus, the truth of Jesus and the truth about ourselves and the world we live in that causes us to triumph over all the works of darkness. It makes us fit and ready to take the message of God’s love and forgiveness into a very dark world.
2 Corinthians 2:14 But thank God! He has made us his captives and continues to lead us along in Christ’s triumphal procession. Now he uses us to spread the knowledge of Christ everywhere, like a sweet perfume. 15 Our lives are a Christ-like fragrance rising up to God. But this fragrance is perceived differently by those who are being saved and by those who are perishing. 16 To those who are perishing, we are a dreadful smell of death and doom. But to those who are being saved, we are a life-giving perfume. And who is adequate for such a task as this? (NLT)
