Sent Into the World
13 “I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world,
so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.
14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them,
for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.
15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.
16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.
17 Sanctify them by[d] the truth; your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” John 17:13-18
Intro: 40 days after the resurrection is the ascension.
But as Jesus is ascending into heaven he is sending those left behind out into the world to make disciples
and to transform the world. To discover unexpected joy in serving and giving.
Jesus is sending His disciples out on their own…, to be in ministry in the world and spread the Good News.
And that is a difficult task.
So, before he goes away he says a prayer for them.
He asks God to unify them,
He asks God to protect them,
He asks God to sanctify them
so that they may be able…, in the name of Jesus Christ…, to save the world.
He wants them to stick together for the sake of the world.
In verse 20 and 21 he says
“I pray for those who will believe in me through their message…, that all of them may be one,
Father, just as You are in Me and I am in You.
May they also be in us that the world may believe.”
Robert Fulgham wrote a book titled “All I Really Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.”
He said, “When you go out into the world…, it is best to hold hands.”
Jesus said, “I pray that they may be one,”
The unity implied here is not that everyone will look alike, think alike and act alike.
The unity Jesus prays for more of a symphony,
where everyone plays well together, where everyone contributes to the greater whole.
So I ask you -- under what conductor are you blowing your horn?
To the beat of what drummer are you marching?
To whose tune are you singing your song?
This week we will be preparing for Memorial Day weekend.
For many, this coming weekend means a trip to the lake, a cookout with family and friends,
a dip in the pool, the beginning of those lazy, hazy, crazy days of early summer.
It was designed, however, as something entirely different.
Let us NOT forget, let us pause to remember that over the past 239 years,
over 1.2 million Americans have died in combat defending our freedom to worship, to play, to work, to speak.
Take time this week to say thank you to the Veterans who are still among us.
We are grateful to you for your gifts of service to this country.
In 1971 Coke a Cola started an ad campaign with a television commercial “Buy the World a Coke.”
It made popular the song “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing In Perfect Harmony.”
I'd like to build the world a home
And furnish it with love
I'd like to see the world for once
All standing hand in hand
I'd like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony, that's the song I hear
What would happen if the church would have such a lofty ambition?
What if we dreamed about peace in the world,
What if we tried to make harmony the goal and work the Kingdom of God?
The Prophet Isaiah chapter 2:4 declared “It’s time for the world to beat their swords into plowshares
and spears into gardening tools.
We are to exchange our individualism for the mission and ministry of the church.
Around the world and close to home, it’s time to stick together less the church perish apart.
A pastor I know told about a vacation he and his family went on.
They had rented a cabin in the mountains.
When they arrived they were greeted by the unmistakable smell of sewage
It had backed up into their bathtub.
What a wonderful welcome.
They called for a plumber…, who came and discovered that it was a problem with the main sewer.
He removed the tap and three feet of raw sewage shot out in the yard.
The plumber having diagnosed the problem offered a difficult and ethical decision.
He could stop the flood of sewer in their cabin and flood everybody else’s down the road.
What do you want me to do?
Now, what would YOU have done?
For the sake of the world it’s time to stick together.
For the sake of the world, we’ve got to watch out for one another.
For the sake of the world the church must dream big.
You have to look beyond yourself.
You have to see the needs outside of your family, outside of these walls, beyond this building.
You have to care about your neighbors,
You have to love people who may not be exactly like you.
You have to take to Good News out into the world.
You have to do that in a thoughtful and planned out way.
We plan worship.
There is a lot of thought and preparation that goes into our worship service.
I know the other day at Methodist men’s breakfast something was said about
how much work goes into a sermon and someone made the comment you actually work on those sermons.
We plan the music, we pick out hymns, we update the prayer list.
There is a team of people involved.
The layleader opens the service.
The musicians play the music.
The choir practices for songs.
The congregation responses with praises and prayer request.
Everything comes together to make Worship on Sunday morning possible.
How is the church organized for evangelism and discipleship?
I was at the District Conference this week and also a delegate at the Red Bird Mission Annual Conference
There were two things that stood out to me about the Red Bird Mission Conference:
1. Presented a plaque to a widow of a man who had served in ministry and mission for 52 years.
2. Sitting at a round table discussion with Bishop Lindsey Davis.
People are not standing in line to come to Christ.
The world is not seeking to find Jesus.
They are lost.
And without our help they will not find the way.
The church has to have what is called an “Intentional Invitation.”
And be organized around different “Pathways” that lead to pray, stewardship, and missions.
Published in two volumes, in 1606 and 1615, Don Quixote is one of the most influential works of Spanish literature. It was made popular in a 1965 Broadway Musical:
To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear with unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure
and chaste from afar,
to try when your arms are too weary, to reach the unreachable star.
This is my quest, to follow that star, no matter how hopeless,
no matter how far, to fight for the right, without question or pause,
to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause.
Do you catch it?
For the sake of the world…, for the sake of the lost…, dream BIG dreams.
A few years ago the bestselling book on the market was the Prayer of Jabez..
Jabez was a person mentioned in I Chronicles, Chapter 4.
I’m sure you all read the genealogy in Chronicles on your way to church this morning.
All we know about Jabez is two little verses in I Chronicles 4:9-10.
His mother called him Jabez which means pain.
Can’t you imagine going through life being called a pain?
We know that he prayed: “Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my territory.
Let your hand be with me, and keep me from doing harm so that I will be free from pain.”
How long has it been since you asked God to give you more work to do?
How long has it been since you prayed to the Lord and said, “Could you make it a little harder please?
I would really appreciate it.
I need more responsibility, more work;
I need more decisions to make.”
That was the prayer of Jabez.
To dream impossible dreams, the church needs people who dream KINGDOM size dreams.
Sadako Sasuki was just two years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima.
She fled with her mother and her brother running to the Oto River.
They didn’t know that the radioactive black rain falling on them throughout the day
would destroy their lives.
For the first twelve years, Sadako did pretty well and then came leukemia.
She spent her days making paper cranes.
You see a paper crane is an ancient Japanese symbol of long life, hope, good will, and happiness.
According to legend if you make 1,000 paper cranes, you will be well.
So Sadako started making little paper cranes.
She said, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.”
She made 964 of them before she died.
Her friends made the rest of them and they buried her in a casket with 1,000 paper cranes.
When they built a monument in that community honoring all the children who died from that bomb,
this is what they wrote on that stone: “This is our cry. This is our prayer. Peace for the world.”
Dream impossible dreams.
Don’t be so focused on your own little corner that you forget.
John Wesley our founding father said, “The world is my parish.”
and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.
You know you cannot do it by yourself.
You need to take on some dream…,
some vision that is absolutely doomed to failure unless God intervenes
and does it for you.
Set out to do no harm.
Determine that you’ll leave the world a better place than you found it;
that you’ll put in more than you take out.
For the sake of the world, stick together.
For the sake of the world, dream big dreams.
For the sake of the world, serve well.
Verse 26: I have made You known to them in order that the love You have for Me may be in them.
The sacrificial love of which Christ is speaking is none other than the unconditional,
overwhelming love of God.
It is so great,
so powerful
and so amazing that He gave His only Son for you and for me.
Yes, sometimes love means sacrifice.
Some of you know that.
The movie Pearl Harbor tells the story about two Tennessee boys who become hot shot fighter pilots
and find themselves, 74 years ago, defending Pearl Harbor in the bombing
that took more than twenty-four hundred American lives.
Over the years I have had the privilege of being the pastor of families
who had loved ones at Pearl Harbor.
One particular family stands out in my mind.
They had a 16 year old man, he had lied about his age and enlisted
who was on the U.S.S. Arizona when the bombing raid took his life.
For the sake of the world, serve well.
Sometimes service demands my life, my all,
but most often it just asks for my daily devotion.
Preacher Fred Craddock used to say, “I’m ready to go out in a blaze of glory.
I’m willing to become a martyr for a great cause.
If life were a matter of $1,000 I’m willing to lay it all on the line in a moment.
My experience is that the Lord tells me to go down to the bank with my $1,000 and cash it in for quarters.
Then He tells me to spend the rest of my life giving a quarter here and fifty cents there,
help a little here and a little there as life goes along.
To listen to the neighbor kids’ troubles instead of saying “Get lost.”
To go to a committee meeting for the good of the community when it feels better to stay home.
To give a cup of cold water to a shaky old man in a nursing home.
“Living our lives for Christ is generally not glorious,” said Craddock,
“it’s just little acts of love, one quarter at a time.”
Closing: I know the battle gets tough. Don’t be discouraged, one day soon that trumpet is going to blow,
And this same Lord who ascended up into heaven will return (1 Th 4:17) "Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."
That’s an unfailing promise. I believe it. I am holding on to it.
I am looking forward to that day to come.
But in the mean time. Until He comes, you are part of what He left behind to do His work!
You are Sent Into the World for the sake of the world.
