PASSING ON THE TORCH
Subject: Christians in the World
Theme: Our Purpose in the World
Time: Sunday Morning July 16, 2000
Question: What is passed on to us?
Introduction:
This summer we will witness one of the most reknowned traditions in the world - The Summer Olympics - dating back to the days before Christ when nations would use the physical prowess of their own to compete for world dominance in the field of sports.
This year in - thousands of athletes from nations around the globe will travel to Sydney, Australia to compete in their own individual sporting events in order to determine if they are the best in the world. This is possibly the best the world has to offer in terms of achievement - each nation vying for a place of prominence in the world yet all done with the hopes of a peacable outcome (although history has shown that sometimes messages of hate have been delivered in what is deemed to be the most peacable display of competition in the world.
From the sight of the ancient Greek olympics a torch will be lit representing the Spirit of the games carried by runners to Sydney - I’m aware of the fact that over the ocean the runners still run continually - until the final runner reaches the sight of the stadium in Sydney where the flame will be lit to begin the games. What a sight - what a display of human ability and national pride. A speech will be given by the official presiding over the games - cheers will ring out - music and pagentry will begin the games.
Unlike the pagentry that will accompany the games - a small group of men gathered in a modest room to celebrate the Passover and then having eaten assembled in a private garden where - without all the pomp and circumstance - in fact in the face of a looming tragedy - a torch was passed on that would mean the redemption of the world. The speech was in a form of a prayer outlining an intimate transfer from a leader to his disciples of a divine will from heaven to redeem the world from its opposition to God.
John 17:6-19
“I have made known your name to those you gave me out of the world. They were yours and you gave them to me and they have held on to your word. Now they know that everything you have given to me comes from you because I have given to them the words which you gave me and they grabbed hold of it knowing that I truly came from you, and they believe that you sent me. I ask You (Father) on their behalf, I’m not asking for the world but for those you have given to me, because they belong to you and all that is mine is yours and what is yours is mine, and my fame has been displayed through them. I’m no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I’m coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in the name you have given me, that they may be one as we are. When I was with them I watched out for them and I didn’t lose any of them except the one who chose to betray me, since your word did say that someone would betray me. Now I’m coming to you so I’m saying these things while I’m still here so that they may be happy about what will happen. I have given them your word and the world hates them, because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. I don’t ask you to take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They’re not of the world just as I’m not of the world. Set them apart by the truth: the word and you are truth. As you sent me into the world so I’m sending them into the world and I set myself apart form them that they may also be set apart in truth.”
Objective: As the people of God, a torch has been passed to us giving us the purpose to be to the world what Jesus was to Israel.
Transition: In the prayer of Jesus for his disciples we see that the disciples were:
1. CONVINCED OF ONE GOD vv.6-8
a. A world of many voices - many gods
Living in Palestine - there were many who vied for the worship of the people. The Jewish leaders vied for worship of their God so strictly defined in the temple in Jerusalem. The Roman emperor vied for the worship of the people promoting himself on the currency as a god, the local governors borrowed the emperor’s ego as they used it to further their own ends and so be gods over their territory as well.
It was a world where charlatans set up their traps to swindle people out of their money for their own personal gain - and it was happening among the religious in Israel as well as in the governing palaces.
b. The disciples were convinced of God’s calling
Jesus expresses to the Father that He showed them the name of God - in this sense showed them the very character of God who was in Him to these who believed and they were convinced by His words as well as by His deeds.
“For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.”
Jesus conveyed life-changing words to the crowds and the disciples became convinced of the God that He spoke of and His connection as the Son of the God.
When Jesus talked about the fact that He was the only way to the Father and that unless people would embrace Him - share Him like one would share in a meal - then it would be impossible to have eternal life.
John writes that many left Jesus that day because what he taught was to hard to swallow and Jesus turns to Peter and says “Are you going to leave me too?” “Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
c. There was no doubt in their mind
Even if they were at times unsure - they knew that Jesus had come from heaven (Nicodemus)
Application:
We live in a world of uncertainty - no one is sure of anything so everything is then tolerated at the expense of what is true. Traditions have been passed down that speak of greatness in the world yet the world wreaks of havoc and turmoil.
There was one torch passed one late evening in a secluded garden - that spoke of assurance and spoke of certainty - that God had revealed Himself in Jesus and that Jesus was truly the one all have been hoping for. And that torch has been passed on to us as well so that we can walk with assurance and certainty knowing who God is and what His redeeming words of wisdom are to us who believe.
Illustration: Clive Calver (Evangelical Alliance in the UK- mother-in-law - contemplating bringing her home (severe alzheimer’s) went one day to pray with her not knowing her if she would even be able to respond and that day she prayed: “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know who I am, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but Lord please help me!”
We can be so convinced of who God is that even in our worst moments the grace of God causes us to reach out to Him with certainty!
Transition: In the prayer of Jesus we see His concern that we be:
2. UNIFIED BY ONE FOCUS vv. 9-12
a. A Pray Jesus prays specifically for his disciples
These individuals will be those who continue the mission of Jesus in the world - and so Jesus’ main concern is that they would not be divided amongst each other - that nothing would destroy the unity that existed while He was with them.
Jesus knows he is on his way to the cross - they will remain - in the turmoil and confusion that would follow - yet they would be the instruments the Spirit of God would use to continue the work of Christ in the world - so Jesus prays:
“Holy Father, keep them close to you (keep them by your name) so as they focus on you they will be powerfully united.”
b. A Divine unity that cannot be broken
Nothing can break the unity that exists between Jesus and the Father - it is a divine connection that has been eternal and of infinite quality. Jesus displays this as He remains so very close to the Father throughout His entire time on earth and now He gives the disciples over to the Father knowing that they are His and that He has the power to protect them as well.
Illustration: Loni Allison (BGEA)
I heard the grass growing - I saw every leaf on every tree - every ant on every sidewalk - because it was my boy that was missing!
Application:
We will always be united to each other when we keep God as our one Focus - He is watching out for us - He is hearing the grass growing, seeing every leaf and every bird in every tree - He is passionately watching out for us because we belong to Him! The moment there is disunity is the moment that we take our eyes away from God as our Focus and let us, others and things get in the way so that we end up doubting Him and His protection!!! Don’t be fooled by what you think is keeping our church, our families, our communities together - its not us, Its God and Jesus lives and breathes this while with his disciples and knows that they must live and breathe God in order for them to stay united in a world of turmoil!
Transition: Jesus’ takes the steps to insure that the disciples would be:
3. COMMITTED TO ONE MISSION vv. 13-19
a. He has not called them so that they can close themselves in
The point of Jesus praying out loud so that his disciples could hear was so that they would be encouraged that what was going to happen to Him and to them was going to be a great moment - not a tragic moment.
b. They don’t belong to the world - just like I don’t belong
Jesus makes them realize that they have now been “born into” a new life - that does not have its beginnings in the world but in God. They are no more part of a world that is opposed to Christ - a world that is hostile toward them and toward everything Jesus stands for. They are one with Him.
c. Don’t take them out - but protect them.
Here we have the defining purpose of why Jesus passes on the torch to the disciples - so that the world may know God and be rescued from sin and destruction.
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one.”
d. Set them apart by the truth
Here is an indication to us of what Jesus sees as the most pivotal foundation for the disciples - their connection to the truth.
“The Word, You Lord, are truth” - synonymous with truth. One of the things that Satan is deceiving the world with is “untruth” - what is false - what is opposite to God’s truth.
We are seeing that all around us - and God desires that we live in this world as those who bring light to His Truth.
Illustration: The author of the diet book NeanderThin - believes that we should be eating foods that cannot be altered by technology - conforming ourselves to the beginning of time when man had only fire and water. He has accepted that he is a product of a world gone wild!!!!
Quotation: This truth is to convey to everyone that they do not belong to this world of turmoil but to God.
G.K. Chesterton - in his book Orthodoxy speaks of how before coming to Christ - he was optimistic that the world was better than it actually was - and after Christ - he realized the world was what it was and his optimism was that he did not fit into this world of despair.
“But the important matter was this, that it (Christianity) entirely reversed the reason for my optimism. And the instant the reversal was made it felt like the abrupt ease when a bone is put back in the socket. I had often called myself an optimist, to avoid the too evident blasphemy of pessimism. But all the optimism of the age had been false and disheartening for this reason, that it had always been trying to prove the we fit in to the world. The Christian optimism is based on the fact that we do not fit in to the world. I had tried to be happy by telling myself that man is an animal, like any other whcih sought its meat from God. But now I really was happy, for I had learnt that man is a monstrosity. I had been right in feeling all things as odd, for I myself was at once worse and better than all things. The optimist’s pleasure was prosaic, for it dwelt on the naturalness of everything; the Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the unnaturalness of everything in the light of the supernatural. The modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed even in acquiescence. But I had heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring. The knowledge found out and illuminated forgotten chambers in the dark house of infancy. I knew now why grass had always seemed to be as queer as the green beard of a giant, and why I could feel homesick at home.” p. 284.
Archemides - the Greek philosopher said, “give me a reference point outside the world and with a lever I can move the world.” How true were his words in light of redemption - unless we find the true reference point of life outside the world - there is no hope that the world will ever change.
e. Jesus sets himself apart so that we might be able to remain apart and yet reaching in.
Jesus knew that we would be incapable - as Chesterton explained - without the revelation of Christ he was unable to see the world as it was -
Application:
The mission of Jesus was to show Israel that it had embraced the world it had created and not the world that God desired to redeem. And the mission passed on to us is one mission - to show the world that it has lifted up inhumanity -and that only true humanity rests in Jesus who is at the right hand of God the Father and that the truth only comes from God who stands outside the world - reaching in through Jesus, the Spirit and the people of God calling it to redemption.
Conclusion:
As the people of God, a torch has been passed to us giving us the purpose to be to the world what Jesus was to Israel.
And that means as Jesus spoke to the world about the Kingdom of God - so we should speak - at times in parables if an enemy is near - so that the world may know that its foundation lies outside itself.
Ours is not an easy task - yet Jesus sets himself apart for our sake that we would be enabled by Him to be salt and light and to lead the world from its navel gazing - to see the world in light of God’s divine presence and will in the person of Jesus.
We have passed on to us a Torch that is handed to us with the certainty that we can run faithfully because Jesus is with us and the Father is over us and the Spirit is in us - enabling our every step - speaking through us - reaching through our unity to a world that so desparately needs to return to God if it will continue to live!
