John: Living in the World as One

So I don't know if you're keeping track, but six days, six days from today, about 93,000 people are going to gather not far from here, and most of them are going to be wearing red, a few of them are going to be wearing orange, and maybe where some of your people gather, they wear uh I don't know, gold or blue or maroon.

It's it's possible.

Where where I come from University of Georgia, we we wear red, and the the red is man, you get in there and it's so bright, and you look down on the field and the white is gleaming.

Some of you are not from my school and you just you just want to throw up or something, I understand.

And the green is so green, and then what happens, um, what happens where where I'm from, uh it gets really quiet, and then um this trumpet plays, like out of the corner of the stadium, and maybe where you're from, an eagle flies down, you get these little chill bumps, or that rambling wreck car drives out, and and what do we do, right?

We get we get all excited, we get so excited, and that and and and we actually sing this song.

I don't know what you guys sing.

We sing glory, glory to a judging, right?

Do you know this?

I don't know what y'all sing, but it's this this word glory, and I've always, every time sing this, and I've been singing this for years, every time sing this, there's this part of me that goes, like, really?

Like glory?

Right?

I mean, this word glory, uh, it means magnificence.

Splendid.

I mean, the Greeks, the Greeks used this word to ascribe it to the stars.

That's what they didn't even know what to do with this word.

It was that special and that huge.

And we're going, okay, let's assign this to like a guy who runs a 4.240 or a school that's a couple hundred years old.

Let's assign this word to this.

Um, but really, if if we're honest and we attend that game and we get the chills and we're singing glory and we're all excited, and if it's a night game, uh I just suggest you to look up.

Or maybe it's a 330 game, and you know, as you hit the CBS hotspot that day, and you're walking back to your car and and the sun's setting, and and you look up because you'll you'll see the stars.

And what you'll what you'll remember, because I'm about to tell you this, and we learned this a year ago, is um our our solar system, we are flying through space at 558,000 miles per hour.

Uh that guy ran a 4.240 yard sprint.

And we are, we are literally, right now, uh, you know, we are flying through space, 558,000 miles per hour.

Our galaxy is flying through space at over 600,000 miles per hour.

And that's why the Greeks looked up and they didn't know all of that information, but they're looking up and they're going, now that's glory.

This is why the scriptures say in Psalm 19:1, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Psalms 19:1

And creation gives us this gift.

And it resizes everything down here.

Right?

93,000 people in a stadium, really bright jerseys, running a football around.

It just resizes all, it resizes us, it kind of makes us wonderfully small.

Maybe you've had those moments on the edge of the Grand Canyon or looking up at a mountain or just looking up at the stars, and you get kind of wonderfully small.

And in all that magnificence that we see above, it clues us into this word glory.

Well, I mention all this is because that this prayer, this prayer in John 17 that Jesus praised, the first few verses of John 17, uh, he's praying this.

He's he's saying to God, he's saying, God, uh glorify me as I've been giving glory to you.

Would you do this so that people know me, that they might know you, and they might have eternal life.

They might have deep, lasting life.

So Jesus is praying for this to be known, and then he keeps praying.

And what we see is he keeps praying, is we actually see sort of, what are we, what are Christians supposed to be doing?

Like, what is it we're doing?

We become Christians, and okay, glory to God and not to this stuff down here.

But what are we doing?

What is it we're gonna do for the rest of our lives?

And as he prays for us, we see a little bit of this.

And what we see, I'll go ahead and give you kind of the outline here, is part one is we see him pray that we are to live in the world.

And part two is that we are to live in the world as one.

So let's let's break that down and jump in at verse 13.

So this is Jesus praying.

So he's praying to God, praying in front of his disciples around this dinner table.

I'm coming to you now, but I say these things while I'm still in the world, so that they may have these disciples, they may have the full measure of my joy within them.

Isn't that great?

That Jesus would pray that even for us.

I have given them your word, okay?

So I've given them your word one way, and the world has hated them another way, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.

So part one, we live in the world.

Now, maybe you've been around church and this this saying, uh, we're in the world, but not fill it in?

Of the world, right?

Okay, so some of you have been around, we're not we're in the world, but we're not of the world.

Maybe you're here, Christian faith is new to you, and you're going, I don't even understand this distinction that's constantly be going on between the word and the world.

And so back in John 15, we talked a little bit about this, and we defined world, and so let's kind of redefine it again as we remember this.

The world is the system that's in the temporary, that's in just now, that is asking us for allegiance, like play by these rules, and it considers you the beginning of truth, and it considers you your own means of salvation.

You don't need something outside of you.

You do it.

So you be your own savior, justify yourself by your, I don't know, maybe you go the religious route by your own moral religious ways, or maybe you go an irreligious route by your success or achievement or the amount of pleasure you can gather, but you you are your savior.

And that's why Jesus prays in verse 14, I have given them your word, and the world has hated them.

So why is the world, this is the second time he's mentioned this around this dinner table.

The world hates us because we belong to a different way.

We have a different source for fulfillment, for forgiveness.

A little bit of this is a review from a sermon a little bit ago.

But see, the world says this you are loved when you become something.

That's how the world works.

That's when you're loved.

That's when you're justified, that's when you're fulfilled, when you become, so you're your savior.

So when you become something is when this will all of a sudden come to you, and what we know it doesn't work because you never get there.

And the word is a different way.

So it's not the way of become good enough or more self-evolved, and then all of a sudden everything's gonna come in a line.

I'm not, I'm gonna be done with my guilt and done with my shame and done with my inadequacy.

The word says, you are loved before.

You are loved before you become something because Christ was everything for you.

And the love comes from outside of you and is given to you.

And the world is hostile to this because it threatens all the systems.

Because what it does is it creates uh loyalty you have to a higher being for truth and for salvation, and so so getting your loyalty to that club or that friend group or that company or that brand of clothing or that uh that whatever, there's an ultimate loyalty beyond it.

So all this all the systems are sort of threatened because you're going outside of the systems, and it's a disruption.

You are a disruption if you believe this.

You're a disruption to you are God, you are adequate, you can work your own way.

Verse 15.

My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one.

They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.

Sanctify them by the truth.

Your word is truth.

As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world, for them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

So here there's a big church word, right?

Sanctified.

And this means to be right with God, to be cleansed.

So all the falling under that law we talked about at the beginning of the service, all the shortcomings that you have, and maybe your behaviors or your motives or your thoughts, all the shortcomings that you are cleansed of that and pure, you are sanctified, and you're becoming more like him.

Okay, great.

There's a challenge for life that I'm not going to do very well at, become more like God.

Well, how does that happen?

Well, verse 17, jump back to verse 17.

By the word.

Now, what's the word?

Well, the word is the way of God.

And actually, specifically, Christ Himself.

He is the Word.

That's how you will be sanctified as Christ.

You look to Christ Himself and what He did for you.

If you're constantly looking to what you're going to do, even as a Christian, I'm going to be sanctified by what I do.

You know, you're constantly not going to quite get there.

You look for sanctification.

You look to what Christ has done for you.

That's where your sanctification comes from.

Out of that flows some change.

Christ is the revealed relief of God for us, from the law, from ourselves.

So, okay, so you and I, uh, there will be continuous competing forces, if you're a Christian, that we will feel between the word and the world.

One being the word is the lasting relief that God provides for us in Christ.

And the other is this temporary system that's asking your allegiance and saying, You're your truth, you're your savior.

Off you go, go make it happen.

So years ago, we we lived in Grant Park, and on the other side of the park, kind of headed toward Turner Stadium.

We had some friends who lived over there, our friends Chris and Kate, they lived over there, and next door to them was a really rundown house.

Now, for me to say really rundown house in that area, it means really, really, really, really rundown house.

And uh the elderly gentleman that lived there, he was um he was he was sick.

Um he had been a preacher decades ago, so he had this compassionate heart, and uh the house was like a boarding house almost.

I mean, he rented rooms out by the week, and so he just constantly had people in and out of his house, um prostitutes and thugs, and these people took advantage of him.

And so Chris and Katie are living next door, watching this, sort of starting to care for this man, watching these people take advantage of him, steal from him.

He's he's already poor, he's already sick, and eventually uh the water is shut off, and then the power shut off.

And so my friend Chris, he takes an extension cord and he plugs it into his house, he runs it out of his window, he runs it across the yard, and he runs it into, they just call him preacher.

That's what they called this elderly gentleman, and they ran it into preacher's room so he could have power.

I mean, this this is the Christian life, right?

I mean, plugged into one place, running out a window, across the yard, into another window, into another house, so you're plugged into one place, but but you're living somewhere else.

So you're in that house, but you're not of that house.

You're of this house, but you're in this house.

This is this is Christian life.

Plugged in here, living over here.

Right?

This is why there's this is why there's tension.

But this is the idea of this prayer that Jesus is praying.

That we'd be in the world, but we're not of the world.

We're actually of Chris's house, but we're in preacher's house.

So we're rooted into one place while existing in another place.

So we all we all know the world is tension on us, right?

And if we're honest, and let's try to be honest, most of us, myself, we get infatuated with the world.

Right?

I mean, we get absolutely infatuated with the world.

That's why in verse 15, Jesus prays, hey, uh, like if I'm gonna be praying about them being uh in the world but not of the world, I've got to pray for the evil one, the devil.

I mean, the source of evil in the world, the liar, I just like to call him liar, the one who gets into lies and starts twisting lies and truths and gets us confused and we head down paths we shouldn't.

He prays against the evil one messing with us.

Because this is how much tension there will be with us as we live in the world, but not of the world.

And what happens is, and we know this feeling, is our fear, our fear swings us too far out or too far in.

So here's what I'm talking about.

Maybe you years ago, let's just make up a scenario here, maybe you attended a super conservative church, really conservative, like Max Lakeda and Beth Moore were the only legitimate authors that existed in the world.

That was it.

You're allowed to listen to Amy Grant until she married Vince Gill, and then she was out.

You know, no longer could you listen to her.

Um, even her Christmas album, it was out, everything.

Uh right, there was a right political party, there was a wrong political party, and it was very clear which one dancing was evil, Disney was evil, Procter and Gamble became evil, but you got that email that got passed around.

And so what happened, and maybe as you aged, is you just sort of you walked, maybe you walked away.

You just like, I don't know if I won any of this.

And you just you just walked away.

And and you started just to believe, well, then everything is relative.

And you you started to believe everything's okay to each his own.

And you know what?

You just swung too far out.

Okay, well let's reverse the scenario.

Uh maybe you saw Johnny, and Johnny started listening uh to Dave Matthews' band.

And then he m he moved to little five points, and then he got tattoos, and he got earrings, but the earrings he got were the loop ones that make your earlobes get bigger and bigger, and you saw that happen, and then the Dave Matthews and little five points, and then he started going to bars.

He started living with his girlfriend before long.

He's he's living in the cult compound of Edgewood.

Don't you know if there is one there, and he's living there, and you heard about that, and you go, well, see what happens when you listen to Dave Matthews.

And so what happens to you is then you swing in.

Let's build the subculture.

Here's my point, right?

I made fun of a lot of stuff and probably offended most of you at some point during all that.

Um, a lot of exaggeration going on there.

Uh we can swing too far out and we can swing too far in.

If we swing so far out of culture that there's no relevant connection between a Christian and non-Christian, the world can't even see any of our light.

But if we swing too far into our culture, there's no difference between a Christian and a non-Christian, and the world can't see any of our light.

And Jesus says no to both of that, to both extremes that fear sends us on.

He says, I'm going to give you the most difficult way of life in the world, but not of the world.

And so Jesus is praying against avoidance of the world, but he's praying for engagement to the world.

And so what that means is we we love people, but we don't love the world.

We we live intelligently and wisely, but we don't just like accept everything.

It means we're involved in business and politics and entertainment, education, and media and technology and the arts.

We are in the world, but not of the world.

That's part one.

Part two.

Uh we see as Jesus keeps praying, we live in the world as one.

As we started this church last year, and at the beginning of last year started raising money, just sharing with people, like, hey, here's what we want to do, Marietta.

Um, the question that kept coming up was, hey, how are how are y'all different than blah, blah, blah church?

And at first I I would answer that question, I would I would just go after it.

And and you know what would happen?

You I could not answer that question without starting to talk negatively about whatever blah blah church they listed.

And I would just leave that conversation and just want to go take a shower.

I just feel so sort of dirty.

Here's why I felt that way, because in verse 20, here's what Jesus prays.

My prayer is not for them alone.

I pray also 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, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one, as we are one, I and them and you and me, so that they may be brought to complete unity.

Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Over and over again, these verses, idea of unity.

This this is the idea of being locked together.

And Jesus is saying, Hey, what what locks us?

What locks us is a family of God, not just Redeemer, not just particular denomination, like all of Christians and all of the world, and a Christian being, if we believe Christ is from God, perfect, died for our sins, rose again.

Faith in him is the way to salvation.

That's it.

That's a Christian.

We rest in him.

And what locks us together is not worship style or baptism view or political stance or view on war or even view on feminism or even view on education, but but the lock.

The lock, the grace of God known in Jesus Christ.

That's the lock.

And Jesus is saying, Father, I'm I'm locked into you.

They're locked into us.

God, God, this is a big prayer.

Would you help them lock together?

I mean, maybe you're here.

This is maybe one of the things that this has been so difficult for you even to come around church or Christianity because you go, you saw like a church run somebody over, you saw a church bash somebody, you you saw a pat one pastor blast another pastor.

And you have like all this hesitation coming out of that.

I can't blame you for that, but that's not what Jesus teaches.

Yet this is so easy for all of us to do.

And you know why it's easy for us to do this?

Fear.

Again.

Because here's why.

And the reason I know this is because I do this.

Um, unity threatens our sense of self-importance.

So, see, the same reason you polarized people on the playground when you were seven to make yourself feel more important, it's the same reason we do it now.

And so we polarize groups or we polarize churches or or another pastor, a friend, or a neighbor, we polarize them or their opinion.

And we polarize them because when we polarize it, it makes us feel more important.

See, if if if we're honest, to live, to live in the world and to live in the world as one, as Christians, is incredibly difficult.

Because we've all given in to fear, we've all overreacted, we've all lived divisively, and we will all do it again.

And so the good news here is prayers prayer's not over.

Great news is the prayer's not over at this point.

Verse 24.

Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you love me before the creation of the world.

Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me.

I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them, and that I myself may be in them.

Now, there's a lot in those verses.

Here's the only thing I want to pull out right now is this.

Um, I'm in my office, I'm working through these last few verses.

It's Thursday afternoon, and uh out comes, so my office overlooks our backyard from above the garage, and out comes my six-year-old, my three-year-old, and they have on their little gymnastics outfits, they're going to gymnastics, and they come running out that side door, and they come running down the driveway, and I'm just thinking of this last verse.

I'm thinking, you know what?

I I man, I love those little girls.

And I I love you, like, well, most of most of you.

No, I do.

I love you, but guess what?

I I don't love you like I love them.

I'll just you're never gonna have a shot at that.

It's not gonna happen.

And but what Jesus is praying here, what he's telling us is he he is saying, God actually loves you like he loves his son.

So if you want to understand how God loves you, understand how a perfect father loves his son, and then you know how God loves you.

See, believing this, that kind of love, that's the and resting in it, that it's enough for your righteousness, it's enough for your self-importance, it's enough for you.

This is the only way we can go into the world and go into the world, not be of the world, and we can go into the world as one.

And when by grace we place faith in Jesus being our Savior rather than ourselves, we are his adopted children, and we live by his word, not by the world.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you that we are your sons and daughters, we feel the tension of the world, and at the same time, we know the word is true, your way of life is true, and Christ is true for us.

God, would you help us?

Help us to navigate this difficult, difficult challenge of living in the world and living in the world as one, and as we fail and give into fear, would we rest back and what you have done for us?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.