(upbeat music) We can be kept in the middle of a corrupt world by believing. He uses that keyword here in these first verses we're looking at today. We must believe, they have believed. As we continue to believe, then we receive the power of God in our life. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is present in our life. Welcome to Gospel Daily. My name is Josh Wyman, pastor of Grace Chapel and proud father of five kids. You're gonna hear a story today that I'm gonna tell the beginning of this message about a time I was invited to the White House, but it happened to be almost on the exact day that my child was due to be born. Yes, while we had several children before this child, there is no way that I was gonna miss the birth of my child. And there was no way my wife was gonna let me miss the birth of this child. So sure enough, I had to turn down the White House and do what was right, be loyal to my wife and my family. You know, there are so many things that Christ asks us to do in our life to be loyal to. And at times that means we have to say no to some things. The power of a no is a stronger yes. When we know what we're saying yes to, when we know what actions we should be taking, those things will trump even the hardest situations where we have to say no. So today, I wanna encourage you as you listen to this message entitled "Four Actions Every Christian Should Take." I wanna encourage you to evaluate your own heart. Maybe think, am I doing some of the things that Christ is asking me to do or mentioning specifically in John 17? He's praying for us, but I think there are four things we need to do in response. So let's listen to at least a few of those things in today's message and figure out how to apply the gospel to our daily life. - I got an invitation on Thursday. I think this is cool for all of us, not just for me, but it's cool for all of us. I got an invitation on Thursday to come to the White House to have a briefing for millennial faith leaders with the president and his staff next Tuesday. And I got this email and I was told that this email would probably come through and sure enough, can you please be here at 11 o'clock on the 31st for this briefing? And I'm thinking, well, that's cool. I wonder what Molly will say about that, right? (audience laughs) So I show her the email, hey, guess what? I was invited to the White House for this briefing and she just chuckles, right? She's like, well, that's a bummer, right? For you to have to say no to that, right? That's just a bummer. I mean, there was just no question, right, that I was gonna even consider going. And I knew, I knew it was, we're in the drop zone, right? So at any point, this baby's coming and it's not right for me. A family first, even if the president calls you say no to the president. So I thought that was interesting. I told my dad the story yesterday and my dad's like, I don't know what's more impressive that you were invited to the White House or that you said no to the invitation to come to the White House. But anyway, I will see. We'll see if that comes back around. But it's exciting because I really want for South Denver to know Grace Chapel is about making great impact for the kingdom. And if we together can continue to make great impact, not only in South Denver, but around the nation, together, I think that's what we're called to do. That's the mission of God before us. Now right now, I have a mission of my family to make sure that we're ready, that we're focused, that we're ready at the drop of a hat for whatever may come when this baby comes. There's a readiness that is there and there is also a bigger picture of a mission prioritizing my family, which ultimately glorifies God. But let me just contextualize this to the Christian faith for a moment. As I was sitting there in the dimly lit hospital room last night, I couldn't help but think about how the Christian faith calls for an immediate readiness for battle at any given moment. But a mindfulness of the greater mission that we've been called to. There is a readiness that we must have and a mindfulness that we must keep as it relates to the commands of God. Now we've looked at the Gospel of John and how in our study, we've been in this almost 16, 17 months study in the Gospel of John. In our study of this book, we've learned there is an importance in simply believing and having faith or to use John 15 language in abiding in the Father. There is importance for us to abide with the Father, to be with the Father. But there is also great importance for us to do, to act, to have action for the Father. There is a being faith component, very clear through the Gospel of John. And there is a doing action and obedience thing that is very clear in the Gospel of John. In fact, maybe John 15, which I just mentioned, the abiding chapter is the most clear about that, where Christ says, listen, I have been loved by the Father and I obey the Father's commands. So also you have been loved by me, therefore you must obey my commands. He makes it very clear that there is a love, be, have a relationship with me, a be thing, but there is also a do thing. We do, we obey, out of a response of the love that he has shown to us. All of this then compels us to be battle ready and mission ready at any given time. So I wanna say this, I've entitled my message today, four actions every Christian should take. And I'm gonna get you clearly through what I think are four very practical actions, maybe some mindset things, thoughts and doing, thoughts and actions. Well, I'm gonna get you through those four things today, but I wanna be very clear, as we study these four things, we are to be battle ready and mission ready. If you're taking notes on the back of the bulletin, I want you to write that down or fill in the blank. We are called to be battle ready. We must have a battle ready mindset and a mission ready heart, a battle ready mindset and a mission ready heart. I'm gonna give you four practical things, straight from this passage that you need to go do. But that doing comes out of the love or the experiencing or the being in a relationship with Christ. I'm battle ready. I'm ready to move whatever God has for me or whatever comes my way. I'm ready to fight it in the name of Jesus Christ. But I'm also mission ready. I know that there's a greater picture for all the things that I go through or the suffering that I face. There's a greater story being told that God's writing, that he has been writing since the beginning of time, that he has continued to write through his son and that he now continues to write through the church, through Christians living out their faith in our modern culture. But it means my friends that we must be battle ready. And John 17, John 16, maybe even all the way back to John 13, he's been coming at the disciples and us with this message of you gotta be ready. The world's gonna hate you. You have purposes to fulfill for me. You be ready. But he also has been so mindful to present to us that there is a mission, a greater purpose, a connection to God that we can't lose sight of when life gets hard. So if you have your Bibles, open up with me to John 17. We're gonna look at verses six through 19 and it starts on page 903 in your Bibles. You can follow along in the Grace Chapel app. And at any time, if you have any questions, please feel free to text those in. I got several questions last week and I'm planning on, if the baby holds out. I'm planning on addressing a lot of almost eight questions next weekend. And if we don't get it next weekend, we'll get it in the future. But please send your questions. We are going to address these. And I wanna make sure that I give you practical answers to how to apply God's Word to your life. Remember, the pages of the scripture that we look at are words from a holy God. It's how we encounter God, okay? So we're encountering God as we look at these words. And specifically in John chapter 17, we're listening into Jesus Christ praying to God the Father. That's pretty awesome. We're listening into a conversation that is a part of the Trinity captured for us in an entire chapter in John chapter 17. So let me just read the first four verses at least. And then we'll start unpacking these with the four actions every Christian should take. Here's the first verse we're gonna look at. I'll read through verse 10, starting in verse six. It says this. I have manifested your name to the people who you gave me out of the world. Yours, they were, and now you gave them to me. And they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you. And they have believed that you sent me. I'm praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. I wanna point something out that I think is profound about John chapter 17. John chapter 17 really comes at the end of Jesus's earthly ministry. And he says here, I'm praying for them. I'm praying for those you have called me to. And I believe there's even a greater context, especially beyond verse 19, where he's praying for all of us, those of us who will believe and put our faith in Jesus Christ. But he's basically come to the end of his earthly ministry. And at the beginning of his earthly ministry, at least according to the gospel of John, we're told that he came to live amongst us, to show us the way to God. So let's rewind the tapes for a moment and get our minds back to John chapter one. I don't care if you even wanna flip over there and look at it. But John chapter one versus one through about 18 is what is called the introduction or the prologue to what is about to come forth in the gospel of John. No, it's been 16 or 17 months since we looked at that. So I don't expect you to fully remember that. But there are 18 verses or so that introduce the idea that Jesus is coming to earth to be the word of God amongst us. Literally it means to pitch a tent in our presence and to show us the Lord. Or you think about the Old Testament picture of the tabernacle that was built among the camp that showed us the Lord. So Christ was coming to pitch his tent amongst us to show us the Lord, to show us God the Father. That's John chapter one. So there's parallel bookends, okay? And you can write this down. Parallel bookends in the gospel of John or at least to Jesus' earthly ministry. The first is the beginning of John, John chapter one. The second bookend is what we see here in John chapter 17 verses one through 19. And this was just a profound moment in my study this week as all of a sudden I was like, wow, look at this. In John chapter one, he talks so much about the word, the word being given to us, the word of God being given to us. He's calling Jesus log us is the Greek term, this word that is dwelling amongst us. The word spoken from God, the truth spoken from God, the light of the world, the light of life. All of this is in John chapter one, verses one through 18. Then we look at John chapter 17 as he's hours away from the cross and he comes back and he says, listen, I have manifest myself to your people. John chapter one, the word will come and manifest the presence of the Lord to us. John chapter 17, I have come and I have manifest your presence to the people. John chapter one, I will give the word to the people. I will be God saying in a loving way through the writer of John, he's saying, the word of God, my word, my truth is coming to you. John chapter 17, Jesus is saying, I've given them your word. I've given them your word. I have done what you set out for me to do all the way before time. I have done it. Do you see the parallel here? A book in John chapter one saying God gives us the word and then John chapter 17 saying, I have given them the word. And then he turns to pray for his disciples, basically saying I have fulfilled the mission of God. We saw that especially in verses one through five of John chapter 17. Glorify me 'cause I have kept your word. I've given it to them. Glorify me, return me back to your right hand. But as I return to your right hand, I'm gonna make some requests for my disciples and he begins to pray for his disciples. Now I think in the immediate context, verses six through 19, he's mostly praying for his disciples, the 11 disciples that remained true and are probably present with him at the moment he prays this prayer. But it is not wrong for us to assume that the same way that he prayed for them is also true for us. He prays these types of things or these specific things for us and we are going to see that again more clearly in the final six verses of this chapter which we probably won't get to today. But he prays for us. Now what's he pray? He prays that the word or the power or the revelation or the character of God, however you wanna explain the word. He prays that the characterizations of God, the attributes that are true of God, the salvation that is true that God gives us through Christ. He prays that this will be made real to his disciples. He's praying for power for them so that they may believe and have faith when he returns back to the Father. He's interceding on their behalf saying, please keep them in faith. You've given them to me, I'm not gonna lose them, but keep them from the evil one and keep them in faith. They have believed in me and don't let them stop believing in me. So the first action, I think we can derive from this that every Christian should take is this. Get ready, get ready, get ready for what? Well, prepare for battle by believing in God's power. You see, listen, every single one of us has to prepare for a battle. That's clear through scripture. Clear in the Gospel of John. Paul uses a lot of battle language, but then we are entering the spiritual battle. Put on the armor of God because you're about to fight against powers and demons and presence, a dark presence in your life that you could not contend with if it was not for the power of God in your life. Not to mention that we're also gonna fight temptation. We're also gonna fight persecution. We're also gonna fight suffering. You're gonna fight and you're gonna fight and you're gonna fight. And so therefore, believers, get ready. How do we get ready? We embrace the power of God. Here he's saying, they have believed in me, basically saying, they have embraced me and my power, but he's saying to the father again on their behalf, keep them firm, keep them as they remain in the world. He's being clear that the battle that they're gonna fight is a world that hates them. There is a world that will hate them because of their faith in Christ. That's the battle. The mission is that they were going to go into this world and be the light for God in dark places. Battle and mission, battle and mission, all revolving around this idea of the world. Now, the word world is used 17 times in John chapter 17. The first time we see it is in verse five. And then he continues to talk about how after he says in verse five, they will remain in this world. He continues to pray for them that as they remain in this world, I summarize it as, he's praying that they will keep the power that comes by having faith in the name of Jesus Christ. They will be in the world. And I think what this does is it highlights for us the importance of our relationship with the world. Jesus recognizes that we as his disciples will not be taken out of the world. We will remain in the world. It was true for his first century disciples and it's true for us. The second somebody gets saved and gives their faith to Jesus, they aren't just stuck right up in the heaven, okay? We remain in the world. We have faith in Christ and are given new life now, eternal life now, but we remain in the world. So Jesus knows that and he knows that our life is gonna be full of trials, full of terrifying times. And so he prays saying for his disciples, Father, keep them in your name. Keep them in the center of all that is true about your characteristics. Keep them, as we looked at last week, in the center of your glory, which was manifest through me, Jesus prays. Keep them fixed on me. Now the application for the person of Christ in this truth is that we can be kept in the middle of a corrupt world in the name of the Father or in the character of the Father by believing. He uses that keyword here in these first verses we're looking at today. We must believe, they have believed. As we continue to believe, then we receive the power of God in our life. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is present in our life. And we as Christians make a whole big deal over Jesus being raised from the dead to conquer our sins. It's true, he conquered our sins. Really he conquered the wrath that we were due for our sins. But I think we can look at that and go, if I can trust him with my salvation and I can trust him with the fact that I have been forgiven, then I can trust him with anything in my life. Well, what's your proof? My proof is that he came back from the dead. He didn't just say he was gonna come back from the dead. He didn't just make a promise, don't worry, I'll forgive you. Sometimes it's all gonna make sense to you and come as a savior and die and stay dead. He's not like any other dead God. He is alive and he seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He came back and there were eyewitnesses that he came back and the very same power that brought him back from the dead is the same power that I can tap into every single day in my life. It brought him back from the dead. It healed the blind. It healed people that were paralyzed for 30 some odd years. It healed all sorts of sicknesses. This power that was true for Christ can be manifest in my life today. Now I know some of you are sitting there going, "I don't know if I believe that." I mean, you may not even be thinking that, but now that I called it out, now you know, yeah, actually I was thinking that. I was thinking like, how, he's not here. Like when he's here, it's one thing, but he's not actually here. Listen, he is, he's as alive as you are, if not more, and his power is extremely real in your life. So the things that he did in his earthly ministry and the power that he displayed in his earthly ministry is made possible to you by the Holy Spirit. At the beginning of John chapter 16, he made it very clear. And even at the end of 15, he makes it very clear. There is a power by which I'm giving you, namely the Holy Spirit, that is even greater than if I remained on earth. I have to go so a greater can come. And that greater isn't greater in personhood. They're all equal in all part of the Godhead, but he's greater in the means of, he's able to go with you to work this week and meet with me to work this week, into our homes later this afternoon. He goes with us all, he's greater in reach, but he has still, the Holy Spirit still has access to the power of God, the same power that Christ displayed to help us no matter what we face. So here in this passage, he's praying for his disciples to live in a continued connection with God even though Christ is absent on earth. And the connection that we have with God helps us then be able to be obedient disciples, but also fearless disciples as we live in the world. The significance here is profound because he's highlighting the importance of the Father's words here in John chapter 17, which the Father's word is the powerful manifestation of all that he is in the personhood of Christ. He's saying, I have all authority, I have everything that is true of the Father, I have given it to them, they have believed in me, and so now Father, help them continue in their connection with me so that they can carry out the commands that the Father has, the mission that the Father has, and be ready for the battle that they face. Do you see that? Help them stay connected to be battle ready and mission ready. The same power that was given to Christ is given true to us, as I've said, and it's given to us not only to be able to have salvation, but also for the sake of suffering and the hard things we face. And I wanna highlight that again in Philippians chapter one verse 29, it says this, it says, for it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ, you should not only believe, and I circled not only in my Bible, not only believe in him, but also suffer for his sake. There are two things this passage is pointing out. You have been given the power of God for salvation to believe. My convictions, theologically, are that I can't believe in God if it wasn't first for him, reaching into my heart and making it possible for me to believe. He gives me his power to believe, but he also gives me the privilege to be able to suffer for his namesake. To believe is to be focused on the mission, to be part of the mission, to no longer be counted as slaves, but as friend. I believe and I'm now part of the mission. To suffer means that I'm gonna face a battle and I'm gonna desperately need the power of God when I face that battle, but he gives me the ability to engage in suffering even for his namesake. You see that? This week somebody texted in this question, it says, "Can you please give us some examples "of life examples and how Christ's power looks "when we apply." I was thinking about this, how do I make clear the power of God in my life? How do I make this as extremely applicable as possible? And I wrote this statement down, "The power of Christ comes in my life "when I remember the promises of Christ." As I told you, the Holy Spirit continually reminds us of all that he taught. That's what John chapter 16 says. He constantly reminds us of the truth of Christ and all that he has taught us. So to answer this specific question to whomever texts this in, I would say we rely on the power of Christ by remembering the promises of Christ. So that when I'm in the middle of a marriage that's gone sour, when I'm in the middle of temptation that doesn't stop knocking on my door, when anger overwhelms me and I can't even see straight, when I'm persecuted or my faith is faltering, I come back to the promises of Christ, the things that he has taught me and realize that in them I find life and fulfillment and ultimately power. Think about Hebrews chapter 12 verses one through four. It talks about keeping your eyes fixed on the prize that is ever before us. We have a prize. What's the prize of knowing God, of being with Christ for all of eternity? But we keep our eyes fixed on the author and perfect of our faith, which is Jesus Christ. And it goes on to say because he kept his eyes fixed on the prize. - Well, that's been a good reminder for me that we need to keep our eyes fixed on Christ no matter what we're going through. You know, Romans chapter five verses three through four talks about having perseverance, perseverance that produces character and character that produces hope. Ultimately, as I said in the message, Christ kept his eyes fixed on the prize. But how sweet is it that Christ is our prize? And as we keep our eyes fixed on him, we can make it through even the hardest of situations. My friend, I don't know what you're facing today. There's probably something in your life that's got you down or some situation you wish would just go away. Whatever it is, I encourage you, press on, persevere and trust that Christ has everything in the palm of his hand. As you persevere, character will be produced in your life. And ultimately, the hope of Jesus Christ will reign. If you'd like more information on how to stay faithful to the Lord, maybe some encouragement for you to walk with Christ, or even what it means to follow Christ as your Lord and Savior. Will you stop by my website? gospeldaily.org. That's G-O-S-P-E-L-D-A-I-L-Y. And my name's Josh Wyben. I'm pastor of Grace Chapel and I wanna personally invite you to come join us on any weekend for one of our services. We can learn more about our church at gracechapel.org. Hey, let's go live out the gospel daily. (upbeat music)
