Now let's remain standing as we hear the word of God. John chapter 17. This is known as the Lord's high priestly prayer. Just before he goes to the cross. Let's read all of chapter 70. What do we have here? Well, no, 11 versus 11 through 26. John, Chapter 17. Verse 11, hear the word of God. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I am coming to you, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in them. 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. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. that they may also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me, the glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you have loved me, even as you love me. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you and these Know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. Praise God for this reading of his word. Let's pray. Oh, Heavenly Father. Lord, we thank you for your word, your inspired word, your life-giving word. Father, may it be powerful in us. Make it powerful in us. Change us by it. Open our minds, fill our minds, and direct our hearts toward you. And Father, we pray that we would walk more wisely in the world for our sakes, for others' sakes, and for your great name's sake. And these things we ask in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. Well, it is October 31st is coming up this Thursday, and that is Reformation Day. I'm surprised so few lawn decorations as I drive through the community, but there you have it. So why October 31st? Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31st in 1517, and things started rolling. There was Reformation before that. There was the morning star of the Reformation, John Wycliffe and Jan Hus and so forth, but things started rolling and really changing. The Lord used that in Oh, my marvelous ways. And so Reformation Day or Reformation Sunday in this case, looks back with great thanksgiving to God's mighty works. Five hundred years ago, what he did and what he has done to refocus his church, to refocus his church on the Bible as her only rule of life. and to conform her to what God has said there. And so we replaced. In the Reformation, we replaced the sacrifice of the mass with biblical communion. We replaced priests with biblical ministers and elders, and we restored the gospel of Christ alone by grace alone through faith alone. but because even the redeemed are prone to wander and lose their focus. We say Semper Reformandus, Semper Reformanda, always reforming, always be reforming. But a modern democratic world in which we live is always chasing the new, always chasing the supposedly better. and churches in this world as we are fall into that same way of thinking because it's so easy to fall into this, the way of thinking that is the thinking of everyone around us and the culture that is ours. And when it's democratic and always innovating, always chasing the new and which because it is new is thought to be better, we fall into the same thing. but the excitement of the new and the promising can draw us away from the biblical and the faithful. One of the questions at the time of the Reformation was, what is a church? It's not enough just to identify as a church. You need to know what a church is and be the church, conform to what a church is. If you're a church, there's lots of innovation today as far as churches are concerned. People trying to reinvent the church as though it was invented in the first place, trying to re envision the church. As though it was envisioned in the first place, trying to do these things with the church to make the church re remake the church as, for example, a business taking in money to finance. Taking in more money. or the church as entertainment, Sunday morning rock concert and variety show. Plus a message, right? Saturday night fun in Sunday morning space or, or making the church into a mere preaching station, a big name preacher in a big auditorium, but no beloved community, no pastoral care. But the church of God can be defined only by the word of God. And in John chapter 17, our Lord prays for his church, that it would be his holy, beautiful church. Parents, do you not pray for your children at their birth? Do you not pray for what they need in order to be healthy, functioning people as people ought to be, as people God created people to be? And you pray for them that they would be that. And you know what people should be because you know the word of God. And the word of God tells us what a human being should be, how they should live, what they should love, what they should live for. And so too Christ and His church. He prays for His church here, that they would be the church and not just resemble a church. A church not just in name only, but in substance as the church is founded to be. And so we see here in John chapter 17, six what we call marks of the church. Signs that what you have is a church. It's not an exhaustive list. But if Jesus prayed for these things, they must be important. First of all, he prayed for holiness versus 16 and 17. Let's look there. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. The church is God's holy people. We confessed in the confession one holy Catholic, that is universal worldwide, church. And it's for this reason that Christians who are members of the church, who are parts of the church, are called saints. To all the saints in Ephesus, Paul says, saint is from the word meaning holy. Those who are sanctified, made holy. It doesn't always look that way, does it? The church. The churches don't always look holy, but the church is always holy and at the same time is called to be holy. Both are true at the same time. First, the first sense in which the church is holy is is her positional holy, if you're taking notes, her positional holiness. Verse 16, they are not of the world. He doesn't say they ought not to be part of the world. He says they are in the present. It's a fact. They are not part of the world. They are holy in the sense that they are set apart for God's holy use. Think of the items in the temple. Here is a pot, here is a candlestick, but they're in the temple, so they are holy. They were set apart for God's special use in the temple, so they are holy. They're not just any serving spoon, not just any pot, but holy to the Lord, set apart for His special use. The temple itself was on ground. The ground, if you took that earth and put it into a lab with other ground from another part of the world, you'd see the same kind of ground or, well, other part of the world. You take that ground that's under the temple and you take ground that's just like 10 feet from the temple. It's the same ground, that's better, right? But it's holy ground. because it is it is consecrated. It is sanctified. It is dedicated to the Lord's special use for his temple. We are united to Christ. We don't strive to be united to Christ. We don't hope one day to be united to Christ. We are, in fact, now united to Christ. We are sons of God. We are born of the Spirit. These are facts. You are holy. You are positionally holy. But we saints are also called to be holy. This is practical holiness. The fact that we are set apart for holy purposes should be observable. It should be easy to see or not too difficult to see. These holy purposes are a doing. After sanctifying Israel, God said, be holy because I am holy. That's the imperative. Voice, the imperative voice, be holy, go and do it. It is something to be done. 1 Corinthians 1, verse 2, right at the beginning of 1 Corinthians there. To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, that is, those already sanctified in Christ Jesus, that's your positional holiness. And called to be holy, that's practical holiness. And so Christ prays in verse 17, sanctify them by the truth. It says in the truth, by the truth. The preposition depends on the context. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. God's word sanctifies us. It is living and powerful. Holy, to be holy, to be sanctified is to be conformed to God's word. That is brothers and sisters, sanctification, growing in godliness, growing in Christ likeness, being more and more like Jesus and less and less as you were before. Verse 19, Christ sanctifies himself in order to sanctify the church. And for their sake, I sanctify myself. I consecrate myself. Same word. That they also may be sanctified or consecrated in or by the truth. Did Christ have sin? Was he in need of growing in sanctification to grow in practical holiness? Of course not. He is the son of God. He is. He is the lamb without spot or blemish. He is entirely without sin. But Hebrews seven. 26, it says, such a high priest meets our need as a high priest, one who is holy, blameless, pure. There's practical holiness. Set apart from sinners, there is positional holiness. The church of Christ, if it is of Christ, will resemble Christ in his holiness. will increasingly, if the spirit of God that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you, you will increasingly grow in holiness. Second of all, truth. Verses 14 and 17, 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. Verse 17, sanctify them in or by the truth. Your word is truth. Brothers and sisters, there is no holiness without truth. Holiness is in the truth. Pontius Pilate at Jesus' trial said, what is truth? And he did not stay for an answer. The Reformation asked the same question, what is truth? And looked to the Bible for the answer. truth, they looked for the truth regarding God, salvation, worship, how to live and what to live for. And so Jesus prays in verse 17, sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. In this world, if you live by the truth, you will be different. The point is not to be different, but to live in the truth. Being different is a consequence of the truth, not a means to it. Without the truth, there is no church. You might have buildings, beautiful buildings, old buildings, solid buildings. You might have hymns, even the old hymns. You might have very religious people devotedly Committedly religious people, but there's no church if there's no truth in any of that. The church is those who have believed God's gospel and have been saved from sin for God. Verse 20, I do not ask that as I do not pray for those for these only, but also for those who will believe me through their word, not just any word, the word of God, which is entrusted to the church to proclaim to the world the word and only the word, the word pure and undefiled, the word boldly proclaimed. Unashamedly. Bravely, at times, someone might say, I know Christians who don't believe in the Christ as God. I know Christians who don't believe in sin. I know Christians who don't believe in eternal life. Then they're not Christians, you say. These are not Christians. I know a man with eight legs and he's only this big. And no, that's not a man, that's a spider, right? No, you need to be correct on this. And these are not Christians. If they deny the truth of scripture, they are not Christians. Put them together and they're not a church. The church of God proclaims the truth of God from the scriptures of God. It is, as Ephesians 2 tells us, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And third, we see joy. He prays for joy in the church. I say these things, verse 13, I say these things in the world. That they may have joy, my joy fulfilled in them, the truth that brings salvation also brings joy. Psalm 19, verse 8, the statutes of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The word of God gives joy to the heart, the heart made new by the spirit of God. Jesus says, my joy in this world. Jesus praise these things, you'll notice out loud in their hearing while he is in the world. and they will remember his loving, sovereign, kingly prayer for them, and they will rejoice. In your joy, Christ himself finds joy. In your joy, your holy joy, Christ himself finds joy. Because only in truth-believing, holy hearts is this joy to be found. What is joy? What is joy? We shouldn't neglect to ask what this thing is. We might have different ideas. Joy is not just pleasure. You can have pleasure in lots of things, but we don't call it joy. And it's not happiness simply. Pleasure is good. Happiness is good. But joy is related, but different. Joy is a hope fulfilled. when there's a birth, right? You rejoice in a birth, a hope fulfilled. A young person graduates with a hard-won degree and there's joy, there's hats flying in the air, there's dinner afterwards, there's joy because it's a hope fulfilled. A wedding, we had a wedding, the Riveros had a wedding yesterday. There was joy all over the place, a hope fulfilled. Joy can show itself in dancing and singing. And as it were, we say walking on air and that can be physically draining in a good way. Right. But beware of judging people or a church because you don't see bursts of emotion. You can't sustain those bursts of emotion, that constant peak of emotion forever. And it's tempting to engineer that sort of thing by music, a certain kind of music, and a certain kind of lighting, and putting everyone together, and they're all doing it so it's easy to get carried away, to engineer a worship experience The initial flood of excitement, however, evens out into the glow of restful, good feeling. Consider the difference drawn from natural experience between a wedding and marriage. Yes. a good friend of mine who got married in the 80s. It's not important that he got married in the 80s. The fact is he got married. Oh, he loved her so much and she him. And the minister said, I now pronounce you man and wife and announced Mr. Mrs. So-and-so to the to the gathered guests. And they turned around and walked down the aisle. And my friend had tears streaming down his face. He was now married to his dear and beautiful Rosalie. But I visited him later on, and strangely, the tears had stopped. He's still with Rosalie, but he wasn't bawling anymore. Like, does he not love her anymore? Where's the joy? Where's the excitement? Well, of course, it had evened out into this mature glow of enjoyment. He's still joyful, but in a different way, in a more stable way. Some people make the tragic mistake, I'm told, I have never known anyone like this, of divorcing because, quote, the flame is gone. Yeah, there's a mistake in there. If that's, I mean, there's gotta be something else going on, but if that's all it is, you misunderstand mature joy. Though you're past the flood of excitement, you can still rejoice in the wife of your youth, Proverbs 5. And it's same with joy in the church. We rejoice in Christ. We rejoice in our salvation. But that is always there when you think of what he has given us. And fourth, unity, the unity of the church. Verse 11, Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. Christ redeemed his church, not his churches, his church. And so we confess again in the Apostles' Creed, one holy Catholic universal worldwide church. We have one savior, one gospel, and one church. If the church is to represent Christ on earth and proclaim the gospel, it must be unified. Unity, however, is not the same as union. Some strive to have this, the church as a kind of umbrella over disunity, but that's all it is. You think of the Church of England, we're here on Reformation Sunday, and we think of the Church of England, which the Lord reformed, but the Church of England has always been a broad tent. Broad tent meaning it holds a number of different factions, views, you've got the evangelical wing, and you've got the Anglo-Catholic wing, and after the 19th century, you've got the liberal wing. They're all one church, but it's not, there's not a unity there. You know, you can take two cats, tie them by their tails together, and you've got union, but you don't have unity. if you can picture that. Unity has to be agreement in the truth. And you can have this between denominations, between Baptists and Presbyterians and Anglicans and Congregationalists. I would go to, when I was a pastor in Iowa, I would go to the Banner of Truth Conference and It was a sweet time, and there was congregationalists and Presbyterians and Baptists, but we were united in the good news of the gospel, Reformed theology, and the heritage that has come down to us through the Reformation and those Reforming, and it was a dear time together. The unity of the church is not simply conformity. The Roman Catholic Church told Luther to follow church teaching, whether it was right or wrong, because the unity of the church. We may be tempted to just follow the majority, what what what Christians believe these days for the sake of unity, whatever it is at the time. but that does not honor the Lord. Notice Jesus prays that they may be one, even as we are one. Jesus is the perfect revelation of the Father. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father, he says. He is the way, the truth, and the life. And so Christ's church testifies to the risen Christ by our unity in the truth. and thus the importance, brothers and sisters, of creeds and confessions, as we confessed this morning. And that is how we testify to the unity of the church. And fifth, we see he prays for mission and evangelism. Unity is for the sake of evangelism, verses 21 to 23, and there must be mission and evangelism from the church. I ask, he says, also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, the Father, are in me and I in you, that they may also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them that they may be one even as we are one. I in them and you and me and they that they may be perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved me even as I love them, even as you love me. The church must sound a clear note if the world is going to believe. Well, the Lord in his mercy brings people to believe through all sorts of nonsense, despite all sorts of nonsense. But he wants a clear note from his church, a clear proclamation of the gospel and unity in that for the sake of our forward face, mission's face, evangelistic face to the world. There are different denominations, but evangelicals agree on the gospel, Christ, the cross, faith, life. Jesus Christ died to save sinners. Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, the great reformation cry united in this. Verse 18 says, as you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. Jesus came to save sinners. And so he sends his church into the world for the same work. Not to atone for sins as he did, but to carry the message of the atonement for sin. Evangelism is the primary purpose of the church on earth. It's at the heart of what it is to be the church. Bingo is not the heart of what it is to be the church. Do any churches play bingo anymore? Christmas pageants are not at the heart of what it means to be the church. Golf outings are not the heart of what it means to be the church. Although I did know one of those. An evangelistic church may be still a church, unless it doesn't believe in evangelism at all, in which case it has a truth problem. But if it doesn't have evangelism, it's not a healthy church. And then six, love. Verse 26, I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. Christ made Christ makes the father known so that he says so that the father's love will be in them. The truth of the gospel is a truth that transforms. It's not just information, it's transformation. And it puts love in your heart that was not there before and could not be there before because you were dead in your trespasses and sins. But he makes you alive in Christ. And that life is inseparable from the love of Christ. If you know Christ, you will resemble Christ more and more. And that's sanctification. He says, in them, and I in them, he says. If Christ indwells the church, the church will love because Christ is love. 1 John 4, 16, God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God in him. And love ties all these marks of the church together. Holiness. Love is not found in the world. If you love, you will be different from the world. Truth. If you love God, you will love in truth. You will love his truth. Joy. Christian love is a response to God's love, receiving the news that brings you joy. Evangelism. If you love your neighbor, you will want your neighbor to be saved from sin and you will tell your neighbor about the way of salvation from sin. Unity, love, unites love among Christians, brings them together and puts secondary differences and there will be secondary differences in their place. Brothers and sisters, The church should continually look back. On itself, are we a church? What is a church called to be? Are we being that? This is what it means to be always reforming. The Reformation was not just 500 years ago. Reformation continues, must always continue. Churches drift. They become attached without at first seeing it, of course, to unbiblical traditions which are taught as though they were the Word of God. People can even see the opposite of these marks of the church as points of orthodoxy. Maybe instead of unity, splintering and smallness. Well, we must be right because we're completely splintered and small. I got a pride in that. Or worldliness. How could they be proud of worldliness? Oh, but they won't call it worldliness. They will call it relevance. You know, we're relevant to the world. Look, we're not weird. We're like you and we'll offer you Jesus worldliness, not holiness, proud of it, recommending it to others as a strategy. Strange. That these things happen, we must always be reforming, therefore searching our tents for idols and illness. And is Christ's prayer, is our Jesus' prayer being answered in us, is the question. Churches fall into another trap, the trap of emphasizing one to the exclusion of others. Emphasizing one while ignoring all the others. But they can't be separated. Holiness, we're not fed by the others, becomes separatism and self-righteousness in our separatism. Truth becomes dry orthodoxy. Sermons become lectures and theological flattery. We all believe this. Yes, we believe this. And then you go home satisfied. Teaching becomes a means of control and not a source of life and grace or growth. Joy becomes self-centered emotionalism when separated from the rest. Unity becomes agreement in error. Mission becomes making other people like you. And love becomes moralism. Christ prayed that the church would be all of these things. What Christ has joined, let no man put asunder. When my kids were born, I asked for a healthy, whole child. It didn't seem like too much to ask. It is not asking too much from God that we be a healthy, whole church. So brothers and sisters, we pray for all these things and we work for all these things. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your church, your beautiful bride. which amazingly is still here, your church, after 2,000 years and all that has happened, but not amazing because of your amazing grace, which has sustained your church, sanctified your church, and continues your church throughout the generations until your blessed return. Father, we pray that we would be faithful in this prayer, joining our Lord Jesus in this prayer, and self-examination, introspection, searching the Scriptures that we may conform to them. And Father, we pray that we would exhort one another in being more holy as Christians and more holy as a church. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.