Text: John 17:11b-19
Facebook live: By his word of truth, God is yours!
11b [Jesus said:] Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.
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.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Charles Spurgeon once wrote:
"To remain divided is sinful! Did not our Lord pray that they may be one, even as we are one"? (John 17:22). A chorus of ecumenical voices keep harping the unity tune. What they are saying is, "Christians of all doctrinal shades and beliefs must come together in one visible organization, regardless... Unite, unite!" Such teaching is false, reckless and dangerous. Truth alone must determine our alignments. Truth comes before unity. Unity without truth is hazardous. Our Lord's prayer in John 17 must be read in its full context. Look at verse 17: "Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Only those sanctified through the Word can be one in Christ. To teach otherwise is to betray the Gospel.
Charles H. Spurgeon, The Essence of Separation, quoted in The Berean Call, July, 1992, p. 4.
Jesus too desired unity around the truth and his will was in accord with the will of his Father.
Jesus says: I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost.
His desire is to keep and protect those whom he leaves behind as he Ascends back to the Father.
His desire is that they (his disciples) may be one in unity with each other just as Jesus and the Father are one in unity … though distinct in person. Christ says that he has guarded them and that not one has been lost except for Judas - the one who went the way of destruction – so that the scriptures may be filled.
And as Christ prepares to leave his beloved disciples, he prays for them that the Father would keep them, in your name, in the name of the one true God, so that they would be guarded and not lost. As Christ leaves the world, he knows that his own will remain in the world just as you and I also remain, and though in the world - are not of the world.
We remain but also, we represent the work of God in us,
to abide in Jesus,
to remain in him,
to be his and to show forth his will against the power of the evil one, who looks only to steal, kill and destroy.
By his word of truth God is yours!
When I was in Germany some years ago, I couldn’t help thinking as we were driving to the airport in Berlin how much Germany has changed in the years since the Nazis and Hitler were defeated.
Initially, many Germans supported Hitler. Some saw that it was better for them to get along rather than to fight what was happening and some turned a blind eye to the truth of the atrocities around them.
Even when churches were told to unite by Hitler many did, finding that things went easier for them than those who stayed true to the word and came under harsher persecution.
We all have families in the world and this too can pull us apart as we wrestle with the changes in society and civic life.
With marriage redefinition and gender identity questions abounding, the truth we’re told is tolerance but in reality the breakdown of the family as it has been defined on Biblical principles and God’s word is the real goal.
Jesus says: 17 Sanctify them [or make them holy which also is to be set apart] in the truth; [he then tells us that] your word is truth.
Apart from God’s word we live in a world where God is re-made in man’s image and that is how the devil wants it.
He wants to turn what God has said upside down into that first deceptive question of his: “Did God really say?” It gives us all, like Adam and Eve, a high view of self and a low view of sin which is simply, missing the mark and coming up short, on what God expects.
So, what do we do? We lower the bar of truth or change it altogether.
Jesus’ desire for you and me … in the world … is that we stay true to the word and that by it – by the word - may also be sanctified or made holy by it.
God’s Spirit does that by pointing you and me to Jesus!
As Jesus returns to the Father he leaves his disciples with a promise.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
Acts 1:8-9
Our first reading follows this as the disciples return to Jerusalem and the upper room where they were staying … where Jesus had appeared to them.
14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Unity around truth, that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
How do we know this? How can we know this?
… your word is truth.
God’s word … Jesus … is truth.
At Baptism we are marked as God’s own child, as one redeemed by Christ, as one who was crucified for you and me.
This Jesus upon his ascension gave the promise that we would not be left alone and that the comforter, [the Holy Spirit] who would come at Pentecost, would be with us to point us to the unity found only in Jesus the word of God made flesh.
By his word of truth God is yours!
Dr. Scott Murray in his wonderful Memorial moment devotion reminds us of what happens when truth is compromised:
When the Word is lost everything is lost. Over the past twenty years, churches have begun to jettison the confession of faith in the Creeds of the church.
They are no longer recited as part of church services. When this trend began the clergy, who were so eager to get rid of the public confession of the faith by the faithful, were quick to reassure the skeptical that even though they no longer said the words that they certainly still affirmed the content of the Creeds. More recently the clergy who jettisoned the recitation of the Creed are now quite aggressively rejecting the content of the Creed, including its Christological [focus on Christ] content. Once we stop saying the words, it isn't very long until we stop believing the content of them.
Dr. Scott Murray: Unloving Love Wednesday of Easter 6 13 May 2015
The truth comes to us in the word of God and is made know through the work of the Spirit who points us to the truth of Christ’s word and work.
Luther reminds us:
"In the issue of salvation, on the other hand, when fanatics teach lies and errors under the guise of truth and make an impression on many, there love must not be exercised and error must not be approved. For what is lost here is not merely a good deed done for someone who is ungrateful, but the Word, faith, Christ, and eternal life, etc. are lost. Therefore, if you deny God in one article of faith, you have denied Him in all; for God is not divided into many articles, but He is everything in each article and He is one in all the articles of the faith."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, 5.9
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Christ has made you his own and will keep you by his Spirit connected to him and his truth. This is his promise.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit
Amen
With marriage redefinition and gender identity questions abounding, the truth we’re told is tolerance but in reality the breakdown of the family as it has been defined on Biblical principles and God’s word is the real goal.
Jesus says: 17 Sanctify them [or make them holy which also is to be set apart] in the truth; [he then tells us that] your word is truth.
Apart from God’s word we live in a world where God is re-made in man’s image and that is how the devil wants it.
He wants to turn what God has said upside down into that first deceptive question of his: “Did God really say?” It gives us all, like Adam and Eve, a high view of self and a low view of sin which is simply, missing the mark and coming up short, on what God expects.
So, what do we do? We lower the bar of truth or change it altogether.
Jesus’ desire for you and me … in the world … is that we stay true to the word and that by it – by the word - may also be sanctified or made holy by it.
God’s Spirit does that by pointing you and me to Jesus!
As Jesus returns to the Father he leaves his disciples with a promise.
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” 9 And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
Acts 1:8-9
Our first reading follows this as the disciples return to Jerusalem and the upper room where they were staying … where Jesus had appeared to them.
14 All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Unity around truth, that Jesus Christ is the son of God.
How do we know this? How can we know this?
… your word is truth.
God’s word … Jesus … is truth.
At Baptism we are marked as God’s own child, as one redeemed by Christ, as one who was crucified for you and me.
This Jesus upon his ascension gave the promise that we would not be left alone and that the comforter, [the Holy Spirit] who would come at Pentecost, would be with us to point us to the unity found only in Jesus the word of God made flesh.
By his word of truth God is yours!
Dr. Scott Murray in his wonderful Memorial moment devotion reminds us of what happens when truth is compromised:
When the Word is lost everything is lost. Over the past twenty years, churches have begun to jettison the confession of faith in the Creeds of the church.
They are no longer recited as part of church services. When this trend began the clergy, who were so eager to get rid of the public confession of the faith by the faithful, were quick to reassure the skeptical that even though they no longer said the words that they certainly still affirmed the content of the Creeds. More recently the clergy who jettisoned the recitation of the Creed are now quite aggressively rejecting the content of the Creed, including its Christological [focus on Christ] content. Once we stop saying the words, it isn't very long until we stop believing the content of them.
Dr. Scott Murray: Unloving Love Wednesday of Easter 6 13 May 2015
The truth comes to us in the word of God and is made know through the work of the Spirit who points us to the truth of Christ’s word and work.
Luther reminds us:
"In the issue of salvation, on the other hand, when fanatics teach lies and errors under the guise of truth and make an impression on many, there love must not be exercised and error must not be approved. For what is lost here is not merely a good deed done for someone who is ungrateful, but the Word, faith, Christ, and eternal life, etc. are lost. Therefore, if you deny God in one article of faith, you have denied Him in all; for God is not divided into many articles, but He is everything in each article and He is one in all the articles of the faith."
Martin Luther, Commentary on Galatians, 5.9
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
Christ has made you his own and will keep you by his Spirit connected to him and his truth. This is his promise.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit
Amen
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