Fellowship Church Messages
8/11/24 - John 17:13-15 - "Not Of The World"
His prayer with me. Heavenly Father, as was prayed about a few minutes ago, we thank you for keeping us safe during this tropical storm that came up through this past week. We pray for those who were affected by it, those who lost power, those who lost homes, those who lost loved ones, we pray that your spirit would work in their lives. We thank you that you are who you are, that you are holy, that you are majestic, and that you don't just exist, just to have no connection with us whatsoever, but Lord, you reach down and you've saved us through an excruciating death. And not only that, but you revealed yourself to us in your Word, that we may have a relationship with you, that we may have that relationship grow and grow and grow as we get to know you better and better through your Word. And that someday, we will know you perfectly as you perfectly know us at this point. We look forward to that day. In the meantime, we thank you for your word, and we pray all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, who here remembers the PBS show Sesame Street way back before it went woke when they had that segment of one of these things is not like the other, all right? Everybody remember that? All right, very good. I know it was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I thought it might be fun for us to do a bit of one of these things is not like the other game to start things off this morning. Everybody ready? Okay, here's the first one. Spot the impostor. Here's my shameless plug that you may not see this too well in the back, but you may be able to see this a little bit better up front. Spot the impostor. You see it? Right here. There's the real one, okay. Here's the next one which you may or may not need to take your nerd card out for, let me know when you see it. Dana got it two seconds later, okay. All right, everybody see it? Okay. And I'll end with an easy one which I think somebody had a little too much fun coming up with and an ice cream shop here. Plain cone, sugar cone, waffle cone, pine cone, all right. I don't think that'll last would be too tasty. While these are perhaps silly and lighthearted, all of Jesus's disciples, both the original 11, Jesus is speaking to in this morning's passage along with us today, have been set apart from the world. Where to be literal, one of these things is not like the other and how we look and how we are set apart from everyone else in the world. And building off of, from last week's message, Jesus gets into the tough, nitty gritty of what all of this means. So if you brought your Bible with you today, please turn to John chapter 17. We're going to be picking back up in verse 13. If you didn't, that's okay. There should be a Bible located in the pew in front of you. Please also turn to John chapter 17 and verse 13, or look this up on your favorite Bible app on your smartphone, John chapter 17, verse 13, this is what we read. Jesus continuing on with this high priestly prayer. But now I come to you, this is Jesus saying, I Jesus come to you, the Father. And these things I speak in the world so that they, my disciples, may have my joy made full in themselves. I love how Jesus starts this right off the bat. He's praying to the Father, but he's doing so in purposeful knowing his disciples are well within the earshot and are listening to every single word he's praying. He points out that he's not making requests to the Father in a vacuum or completely disconnected from the real life in this world or in some form of esoteric philosophy. He is speaking these words in the world, in reality, in complete connection to real life living in a sinful, broken, cursed and evil world. In addition, Jesus says, I come to you, meaning his ascension and glorification upon that ascension like we talked about the past couple of weeks. But he also knows full well what lay in between him speaking these words and that ascension. There's a lot that is in between him saying these words and that ascension, right? He would be tortured and put to an excruciating, put through an excruciating, painful and humiliating death by sinful men, pagans at that who had no love for the one true God or his standards of morality in the dark, sinful, cursed, evil world. He knew what lay ahead of him in just mere hours from that point and he knew what was coming for his beloved followers. And so he's speaking these words to the Father on behalf of his followers to equip them and to prepare them. He hasn't been sugarcoding anything up to this point. So why would he start sugarcoding anything now? He's already told them that just as the world hates him, the world would hate them because of him. Again, as I've said often lately, here's a simple litmus test. If the Jesus you believe in is readily acceptable to the world in this culture, you don't believe in the true Jesus. If the world hates the Jesus you believe in, hates his actual teaching and standards of morality from his actual word, and therefore hates you because you believe in him and hold to his actual teaching and standards of morality from his word, then you've got it right and you're on the winning team. That's the spark of the striking match that directly leads to what Jesus says at the end of verse 13, that they may have my joy made full in themselves. As we've seen over and over again, true joy does not exist for the world. True joy does not exist for the world. True joy does not exist for the ones who are blinded by the lowercase g God of this world or say and no matter how much of a smiling face they plaster over themselves, why? Because the only source of their so-called joy is what? The world. Who here wants this world as your only source of joy? Exactly. We talked last week about the who, where, how, what, and why of Jesus setting his followers apart from this world. The major way, as Jesus talks about here in verse 13, that he sets his followers apart from the world through his sacrificial death and resurrection is by the indwelling Holy Spirit. The world cannot give us true joy and we already obviously know that. We cannot manufacture our own joy and joy cannot be based on our circumstances or what would happen if we based our joy on our circumstances, what would happen? We'd never be joyful, right? The only source of joy for the follower of Jesus is the Holy Spirit, giving, planting, developing, and nurturing God's joy within us. That's exactly what Jesus references in verse 13, that they may have my joy, made, full in themselves. Jesus's joy made by the Holy Spirit, not dependent whatsoever on outside circumstances. We'll come back to that towards the end of this message. For now, let's move on to verse 14, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Jesus reiterates that not sugar-coding anything truth that the world would hate his followers. I've already mentioned why a minute ago, but Jesus' point-blank states why in this verse because I have given them your word. That's why the world hates Jesus' disciples because Jesus has given them God the Father's word. Notice whose word that is, I just said it. Time and time again, Jesus has declared that anything and everything he said has been what God the Father has told him to say. That does something very important. What is that very important thing? It maintains Jesus as 100% thoroughly consistent with the entire rest of God's word, who gave Job and Moses and David and Solomon and all the prophets in between and the apostles and the writers of the New Testament, the words they wrote down. God the Father through the Holy Spirit. Second Peter 121 tells us for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God, God the Father. So lots of people like to cherry pick and separate Jesus out from the rest of Scripture and say, "Well, it doesn't matter what the rest of the Bible says." Jesus said this, "Well, Jesus never spoke about that, so he must be fine with it." Who here has heard that argument before, over and over again. Jesus himself, point-blank states right here along with several other times in the gospel that he was not separated from the one who wrote the whole rest of the Bible and that the word he spoke to his disciples was God the Father's word. This directly means the Father's word about salvation, by his grace through repentance of sin and faith in the sacrificial and substitutionary death and resurrection of Jesus, and this means all revelation of who God is, his relation to humanity, and all the standards of morality, holiness and righteousness from Genesis 1-1 through Revelation 22-21. Like we talked about last week, especially down to our salvation, everything about God has been founded upon his written word, "You cannot have Jesus without God's word." Say it again, "You cannot have Jesus without God's word." From Jesus himself, that's what he said. So it should be no wonder to us that the world hates the Bible and hates the God as he's revealed himself in the Bible. That word declares that everything begins and continues for eternity with God. He is the one who is sovereign over the entire universe. He is the Creator and we are merely the creation, and therefore he's the one, the only one who has the right to determine how people are saved, how people enter his heaven, what his plan for the world is, and what is right and wrong, and what is truth and lies. That's his gospel. What's the world's gospel, the complete opposite? The world's gospel is that everything starts and ends with what or who? Certainly us because we're inherently good and we can come up with our own system of morality and figure out how to make the world a better place. A lot of people in this world have this pie-in-the-sky mentality that if we work hard enough, we can, what, change the world. How many times have you heard that? How many secular songs have been written about that over the decades? If we only set aside our differences and work together or elect the right candidates or just love everyone or work towards world peace, we can save the planet and we can save the human race. No matter how much the influencers in this world say otherwise, the world with its humanistic system of morality is a dark and evil place. Babies created in the image of God are murdered every day for the sake of inconvenience, self-centeredness and personal dreams. Abortions are celebrated with parties like one would have for a coming birth. Children are being indoctrinated in the public school system and in New Jersey starting in second grade with kids who don't even fully understand what's going on in the world or who they can trust. To question if they're the same gender they believe themselves to be all the way up to that point. Today children are being taught about sex and the myriad of sexual orientations well before they're anywhere near going through puberty. An entire generation is being raised to be confused about who they are and live a lifetime of confusion and heartache. Many Christians, many pastors and many churches have rejected the biblical blueprint. God established at the time of creation reiterated by Jesus himself and the Apostle Paul of God creating two genders, male and female and of those one man and one woman would enter a marriage relationship in and only in which a sexual relationship would be enjoyed for intimacy and to raise a new generation and the faith and knowledge of the true God of the Bible. Anything outside of that, anything outside of that, no matter what it is and no matter how you see it is sin and needs to be repented of and sought to be redeemed from. God as the Creator is very clear in His Word that it's sin and we as the creation have absolutely no right to justify it or reinterpret it. In addition, we know the opioid crisis is at an all-time high forcing addictions to very powerful substances and prescriptions often leading to overdose deaths and suicides from the depression connected to these substances and prescriptions. This is not to mention all the heartache, darkness, depression and pain from physical, emotional and sexual abuse of adults and children of racial discrimination and murder based on race of mass shootings, bombings and killings of people and children just going about everyday life, of neglect, broken marriages, the evil of pornography, strip clubs, prostitution, sex trafficking and the entire sex industry, the rise of clinical and debilitating anxiety and depression, substance and alcohol abuse and the purposeful greed of various governmental and industrial entities. So how is that world's gospel working out for the world? All of these things, the enemy is using his agents in power to make just seem perfectly normal and as a part of life. The enemy doesn't work by being in your face, although even that has become the norm now. The rise of blatantly visible Satanism and satanic symbols thrown around that are just part of normal society now. His go-to tool is schemes, schemes, deceptions and disguises. That's why Paul writes, "Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil," you can find that in Ephesians 6, "put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil." He's had thousands of years of perfecting, disguising sin and evil as not that bad, temptations as overwhelmingly desirable, lying and gaslighting as truth, murder, manipulation and mutilation of babies and children as healthcare, hadophilia and the sexual abuse of children as a legitimate orientation and should be celebrated, not judged and condemned. The word of God relegated as legend, fairy tales, mere guidelines and nice philosophical teaching. The cardinal sin as thou shalt not judge or offend anyone or he who is without sin cast the first stone and nothing else is sin. In the height of all of it, masquerading evil as good. And all the while, we as human beings can be the ones to fix all of it by electing the right candidates, installing the right political agendas and just loving everyone. None of this or everything else in this dark world should surprise us. Paul told Pastor Timothy the state of the world during this time leading up to Jesus coming back for us when he said, "But mark this, mark this, write it down, put this down. There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form. It looks like Christianity. It sounds like Christianity, having a form of godliness but denying its power. It's not actual true biblical Christianity, have nothing to do with such people." Those are pretty powerful words, aren't they? In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Don't be surprised by it. Now, evildoers and imposters, wolves and sheeps clothing, so-called pastors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. If that isn't a clear description of today, I don't know what would be. After all, we know for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist on the evil day and having done everything to stand firm. Pain at a pretty bleak and depressing picture of the world, isn't it? That's the world's gospel and that's what the world's gospel has ever led to and will continue to lead to. Now, here is the overwhelming joy and hope for the follower of Jesus, as he says in verse 14, ready? We are not of this world because he is not of this world. We have been set apart from this world. We are not being conformed to this world, but being transformed through the renewing of our minds by the Holy Spirit. We are the weird ones who have the truth of God's Word, the stand-alone source of absolute truth. We are the ones whose hope has 100% nothing to do with this world. We are the ones who already know and have and live out the purpose and meaning of life. That is to glorify God with our lives and share the message of the hope of Jesus' salvation. We are the ones who know that humanity is not inherently good, but inherently evil and it doesn't take much to see that all around us. We are the ones who are not citizens of this world, but our citizenship is already in heaven and we are simply strangers to this world and foreigners to this culture who espouse Christ crucified, risen, and coming again as we're passing through to the next world. We are the ones who know this world will continue to get worse and they have no clue. They have no clue, the terror and the wrath that God will pour out on it for its thousands of years of evil. We are the ones who know that our Savior and King Himself will come out of heaven soon to rescue us from this evil world. We are the ones viewing all the threats and war and broiling Israel in the Middle East through the lens of end times theology and God's promises to His people of Israel. We are the ones who know nothing in this world will ever get better, no matter how much somebody preaches about it. Nothing in this world will ever get better and the only one who will redeem and transform this world is King Jesus when He returns, annihilates the armies of this world, attacking and destroying Israel and sets up His perfect millennial kingdom reign on earth. We are the ones who know that this world with all of creation under the curse of sin that we initiated will ultimately be destroyed by fire and be replaced with a new heavens and new earth. And we are the ones who know we've been saved from our sin and the hell that that justly deserves to live for eternity with our God. That is why Jesus says at the beginning of this morning's passage that His joy would be made full in His disciples throughout the millennia, through today and into the future. It's not based on the world at all. It's not based on any of the world's plans for the future. It's not even based on the world's belief that humanity is inherently good and can figure things out. It is entirely based on God, His sovereignty, His plan, His choosing, saving and preserving us through the death and resurrection of Jesus in the indwelling Holy Spirit and His protection, His provision and His sustaining of us as we live out, however many days He still has for us in this world. God's sovereignty is the foundation for true joy, and I say it again, God's sovereignty is the foundation for true joy. It's hard to be scared about current or future events, wars and rumors of wars, economic downturn, who's in power, what will be categorized as hate speech in the near future, attack and execution over our faith or personal loss or financial instability or health or what will happen to us, our kids or our grandkids in the coming days when the Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His sovereignty rules over all. It's hard to be discontent or hold grudges or remain held down by anger or even be held in the chains of debilitating discouragement because of close family members or friends or people in power doing evil things to us or fellow human beings when many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand. And it's hard to have a lack of faith towards God's sovereignty, trumping anything Satan or any human being is doing or has planned to do when I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. In fact, the very truth that we as Jesus' followers have been set apart from the world is based completely on God's sovereignty, in choosing us, saving us, sustaining us, preserving us for His coming kingdom. The Holy Spirit uses this truth as the foundation for creating, developing and nurturing more and more joy in us, completely separate from the world. Jesus had already pointed out earlier on in this gospel, everyone who drinks of this water of the world will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give Him, the Holy Spirit, shall never be thirsty and the water that I will give Him will become in Him a fountain of water, springing up to eternal life. That is a constant, everlasting springing up. The salvation that Jesus paid for with His blood and death, ensuring the sealing of the indwelling Holy Spirit is the source of the never-ending spring of water, bubbling and springing up, wave after wave of joy in this life, leading all the way up to our last breath on this earth and entering eternal life. Ultimately, that's what our joy is founded upon because of God's sovereignty, His 100 percent assurance that we will be rescued from this evil world and we will spend an eternity in His joy-filled presence. Think about it. The eternal state spent with God Himself is the fulfillment of everything we yearn and long for in this world. The world tries to come up with counterfeit versions of love, peace, hope and joy, but they're all based on lies and deceptions because that's all the world has, ruled by the Father of lies. The eternal life that is knowing God, both in this life and knowing Him in the eternal state, is the fulfillment of everything we were created to need, desire, yearn and long for, often with tears and heartache in this life. That's what we have to look forward to. That's true joy and the epitome of never-ending joy. But we're not there yet and that's okay. If we still have breath, our souls are not yet with Jesus. In the meantime, we're still in this world with a mission and a purpose of fulfilling the gospel-driven great commission Jesus left with us. And we're still having to contend with the enemy of our souls, the one who hates Jesus and therefore the one who hates us, verse 15, "I do not ask you, the Father, to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one." The word used here for keep means to guard, protect, watch over and preserve. We're still in this world, but our souls are being guarded, protected, watched over and preserved for our eternal life. We're still in this world and while we still live in this world, we still have to fight and stand against the ruler of this world who has been allowed to have a certain amount of power in this world by the sovereign king. We've been given a cheat code. Now this is lost on some of you. Anyone else here besides me raised in the era of Super Nintendo, the original green-screened brick known as the Game Boy, you can knock somebody out with it, Sega Genesis N64 and the original PlayStation, all right, a few of you, I'm not the only one. Stay with me. This may still be the case today, I have no clue. But back then, what was one really fun aspect of those consoles, the cheat codes, right? You could put in a cheat code or press buttons in a certain order and it would give you infinite life or infinite strength or infinite weapons. Anybody see where I'm going here? Therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist on the evil day and having done everything to stand firm. Stand firm therefore having belted your waste with truth and having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having strapped on your feet the preparation of the gospel of peace in addition to all taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all of the flaming arrows of the evil one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God. Jesus' prayer here that Jesus prayed in verse 15 has already been answered. We have not been left to face supernatural, demonic forces or temptation or evil people on our own. God has already given us the cheat codes. I know it's a little cheesy, but the fact is God has already given us the cheat codes to infinite strength, infinite weapons and when it comes down to it, infinite life. He's already given us the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit armors us with the belt of truth, girding up our loins to be ready to fight in prayer and stand for God's truth. He armors us with the breastplate of what God has already determined to be His definition of what is righteous, loving, truthful and good. What does the breastplate protect? Mostly it protects this part of you. It protects your heart from the lies and deceptions of Satan. The armors us with the combat boots of the gospel of peace, directing our footsteps to where He wants us to live out and share the gospel and keeping our feet from tripping over the snares of temptation and sin. He armors us with the defensively protecting shield of faith, reminding us of the promises of God as our Father and we as His children and therefore extinguishing all the fire-tipped arrows of lies and evil being shot at us directly by Satan and his demons and those who truly think they are being the good ones and even doing God's work. As Jesus says in John 16, 2, Holy Spirit armors us with the helmet of salvation, paid for by the death and resurrection of Jesus, redeeming our minds and transforming them to see the world for what it really is, what its lies really are, know what God's truth is and live according to that truth. The Holy Spirit armors us with the only offensive weapon that's listed here in this description, the offensive weapon of the sort of the spirit which is everything God has said in His word about Himself, about us, our sin and the hell that awaits anyone who doesn't surrender their lives to Jesus, what His standard of righteousness, morality and goodness actually is and His truth in love. God has already given you His Holy Spirit and every piece of armor, protection and spiritual weaponry we need to live the life He has called us to live while we still live in this world. When we are drawn away by worry, fear and anxiety, we are given the promise and plan of being watched over and guarded and protected too. We're not on our own, we're also being watched over and guarded and protected by God Himself. Do not be anxious about anything. Now what's excluded from that? What can we take back and hold in our minds and go over constantly at three o'clock in the morning while we're supposed to be sleeping and trying to figure out something and nothing's coming to our minds so we just lose a ton of sleep and we're worrying ourselves to death over it? What's excluded from that? The correct answer is nothing. There is nothing excluded from that. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and pleading with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension, those in the world who do not have Jesus simply cannot understand it, they can't comprehend it. The peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. You've heard me mention this in the past but the word used here for guard in verse seven is a military term, it's meant to describe well experienced, well trained soldiers keeping watch over and guarding an incredibly valuable asset or position because that's exactly what your mind is, an incredibly valuable asset and position. Why do you think your enemy works over time trying to find any weakness he can to exploit and take you out of the race languishing on the sideline and debilitating worry, fear and anxiety? When we take those things we're worried about and surrender like one would surrender a sword in military fashion those things to God's military guard and his sovereignty with thankfulness for all he's done in our lives already in the past. His peace which the world simply cannot have, the world simply cannot comprehend beyond all fallen and limited human understanding will guard with the sword your mind and your heart. When we do that what is the immediate outpouring that comes as a result? Exactly what Paul writes directly before that, rejoice in the Lord always, again I will say rejoice. With that come back full circle around to Jesus's words at the beginning of this morning's passage. And now I am coming to you in these things I speak in the world so that they may have my joy made full in themselves. World will continue on in its evil getting more and more depraved and going more and more off the rails until it meets the wrath of God poured out over it during the great tribulation and then is obliterated entirely by fire at the end of everything. That's entirely all the hope and joy, the world, the lowercase g God of this world and those who are main blinded by him to the truth of God's word and his salvation found in Christ and Christ alone and the truth of his word ever have. And so we have been given the joy made full through that and the indwelling Holy Spirit who armors us with the armor of God and guards our hearts and minds and while we are still in this world now we are set apart from it with the hope and peace that only God can give, doing the work He's given us to do all the while knowing with full confidence what awaits us in spending eternity with Him as the fulfillment of everlasting joy we were always created to have. Please pray with me. Heavenly Father we thank you for just these few verses but combined with everything else in your word, so many riches, so many treasures we can dig out from these verses and dig out from the rest of your word. You have truly set us apart from the world by what you have chose to save us from and unto what you have given to us to live our lives by and the joy that you have set us apart to in knowing you personally in this life and having an eternity to spend in that knowing of you and that joy of you. Lord I pray that as we look around us and we see how evil the world is that we will not be surprised by it just getting more and more evil. Nothing's going to stop that and the only solution, the only redemption is when you return and you set up your kingdom on this earth. Lord we thank you for the promise that you give to us that you will rescue us from this evil world and rescue us from the wrath that is to come and we look forward to that but in the meantime we know we are in this world, we still have work to do, we still have breath to pray with and to speak your words of truth in love with and to do your work in. Lord let us do so with the joy of knowing what we have been given now and what we have to look forward to and I pray all these things in Jesus name, amen.