The following sermon is by Boyd Johnson, pastor of Treasuring Christ Church in Athens, Georgia. More information about Treasuring Christ Church can be found at tccathens.org. Are you familiar with the story of Demas? Demas was one of Paul's closest ministry companions. When Paul was imprisoned in Rome the first time, there were people there with him, and one of the men that were with him was Demas. He was well-known among the faithful believers. His name appears in both Colossians and Philemon as one of those, along with Paul, sending greetings to the saints so the saints knew him. But a few years later, when Paul was again imprisoned in Rome for this time, a final time, and about to be put to death, Paul wrote a letter to his protege, Timothy. This time in prison, Paul was nearly alone. Demas wasn't with him. And at the end of 2 Timothy 4, Paul asks Timothy to come to him soon for Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me. Demas deserted Paul to run after the world. That's the last we hear of Demas. As Paul's love for Christ grew and grew, and he made sacrifices for Christ, and that brought him into hardships, Demas, on the other hand, grew in love with the world, and he deserted both Paul and the mission to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth, the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now that story of Demas could easily be written of many who profess the name of Christ today. There are many Demases in the church today. Those who start off zealous for Christ, but don't end up that way. Jesus warned of this in his parable of the soils. You remember that story he gave, that parable he gave, he said that there are some who are like seeds that are sown among thorns, representing the love for the world, chokes the Word, and these defect from Christ. Those who abandon Christ for the world prove that they were never saved to begin with. That's why John writes in 1 John 2.15, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, period. If you fall in love with the world, the love of the Father is not in you. Nevertheless, attraction to the world is a danger for all of us who have professed the name of Christ and who truly love our God. The world which opposes us seduces us with its enticements and our flesh which remains vulnerable, even though we're saved, our flesh which remains vulnerable to temptation is enticed by the world's delights. So we have dangers from without and dangers from within. The world opposes us and our flesh entices us. And so we must always be vigilant against the temptations and allure of the world. guarding ourselves against worldly desires, worldly behavior, worldly beliefs, worldly delights, worldly speech, worldly values, worldly priorities. We have to be on guard. Otherwise, we're going to be taken in by the world's message. I would say it this way, that worldliness is a threat to our walk with Christ. It's a threat to our walk with Christ. We cannot love the world and Christ at the same time. As our hearts are filled with the world, our affections for Christ grow cold. When we treasure what the world treasures, we treasure Christ less. But worldliness is not only a threat to our walk with Christ, It's also a threat to our witness for Christ. It's a threat to our walk and it's a threat to our witness for Christ. The only way someone can be saved is by hearing the gospel and believing in Christ. Now that Jesus is in heaven and not walking around on the earth delivering the message, the saving message, someone has to spread the news of who Jesus is and what he's done. Somebody has to do that. And God has placed that mission into our hands. Jesus says in John 20 verse 21, The Father sent Jesus on a mission to earth to spread this saving message and also die on the cross. We are sent into the world to make similar sacrifices, taking up our cross daily and following after Christ and spreading this gospel message. That's what we're to do. But worldliness is a threat to our witness. When our hearts grow enchanted with the world, our zeal to proclaim Christ's name is cooled. When our hearts are thrilled with the world's delights, our lives reflect the world more than Christ. When you're impassioned by the world, you won't be impassioned about Christ. In a recent book, one pastor has written, today, The greatest challenge facing American evangelicals is not persecution from the world, but seduction by the world. I think that's true. For us Western evangelical Christians, the persecution is pretty light. But the seduction from the world is immense. And that problem of worldliness soiling our witness, being a threat to our witness isn't new. Charles Spurgeon preached a message in London in 1860 that could just as well be spoken in our day. Reflecting on the church's history and the times in which the witness of the church was at its strongest, he writes this, put your finger on any prosperous page in the church's history and I will find a little marginal note reading like this. In this age, men could readily see where the church began and where the world ended. Never were there good times when the church and the world were joined in marriage with one another. The more the church is distinct from the world in her acts and in her maxims, the more true is her testimony for Christ. And the more potent is her witness against sin. We are sent into this world to testify against evils. But if we dabble in them ourselves, where is our testimony? I don't hesitate to say there are tens of thousands of professing Christians whose testimony before the world injures rather than benefits. Injures rather than benefits. Does your testimony, your profession of Christ, injure the cause of Christ because of your behavior and because of the words that come out of your mouth more than it benefits? Is there a marked distinction in your life that separates you from the world, that distinguishes you as a follower of Jesus? The distinction in every age that separates Christians from the world and that makes our witness so powerful in the world is this, holiness. Holiness is the thing that distinguishes us from the world and that makes our witness so powerful. No person of the world can be holy, not even an ounce, an iota of holiness, not at all. The world cannot be holy, but we Christians are to be holy. Holiness is the trait that characterizes godly Christians with an effective witness. Holiness is the key to witness, not how many verses you've memorized, not how many apologetic books you've read, not how practiced your gospel presentation is, not whether you have all the answers. The key to witness is holiness. Without holiness, whatever comes out of your mouth in terms of the gospel will be slandered in secret. How many verses you've memorized, how many apologetics books you've read, how practiced your gospel presentation, how relatable you are, all these will add to the world's testimony against Christ if you are not holy. Worldliness brings shame upon Christ's name. The world expects its own to be worldly. But we who worship the God who is holy must also be holy and the world expects that. So we live in this world on a mission to spread the name of Christ. And yet there stands against us these two threats. The world opposes us and our flesh entices us. The world opposes us, our flesh entices us. Of the two threats, the greatest of these threats is the flesh. No contest. The world can only kill us. It's the worst it can do to you, is kill you. Which isn't too bad if you're a saved person, because you go to heaven. To live is Christ, to die is what? Gang. But our sin, our sin that comes from us can so stain our witness that the world mocks and sneers at our message because of our hypocrisy. And it brings shame to Christ's name. Our challenge then is to reach the world, which is the mission we've been given, to reach the world without becoming worldly. You could say that we live between the tension of verses 16 and 18 in John 17. There's a tension between verses 16 and verse 18 in John 17. Look in John 17 at verse 16. For a moment, Jesus says that we are not of the world. He says this, they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Now he's speaking about his 11 disciples, but in verse 20 he makes this all relevant to us. Just as he is not of the world, we are not of the world. And then he says in verse 18, that we have been sent into the world. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. So we're not of the world. That's one part of the tension. Yet on the other hand, we are sent into the world. That's the other part of the tension. How do we remain separate from the world? even as we're called to engage the world with the gospel. How does that work? Being sent into the world, yet remaining not of the world, so that our holiness isn't compromised. Well, we certainly can't resolve this tension by becoming like the world in order to win the world. If by that you mean throw off holiness and embrace worldliness. We can't do that. That would abandon our identity as those called out of the world. But on the other hand, we also can't cloister ourselves into Christian communes and bubbles and withdraw from the world. Because if we did that, we would abandon our mission of taking the gospel into the world. So there's this tension. It's not so much a problem to be solved as a tension to live within, to not be of the world and become worldly, but also at the same time to engage the world, to get into the world, to make contact with sinners. Have friends who are sinners. Jesus was a friend of sinners, true or false? He's a friend of sinners. To make contact and friendship with those who oppose our values, who oppose this Bible, who oppose everything really that we stand for fundamentally. And yet we are to do that without ourselves becoming worldly. How then are we to carry out this God-given mission while we remain separate from the world? Jesus provides us the answer in His prayers for His disciples and by extension to us in His prayer for us in John 17 beginning in verse 11 down through verse 19. John 17, let's read beginning in verse 11. He says, 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've 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 themselves. 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. Now, we began studying this passage last week. And we noted that in this section of the prayer, Jesus has two requests. The first request is found in verse 11, where he says, And the second request comes in verse 17, where he says, Those are the two requests that he has. Last week, as we focused on the first request found in verse 11, we learned that His request was that we would be guarded against the threat posed by the world, that first threat that we talked about. Keep them in your name, he prays, because the world opposes us. And as we studied this prayer request, we found that God secures our faith when it's weak and protects our faith when it's attacked. That's how God keeps us, securing our faith when it's weak and protecting our faith when it's attacked. Because our faith is secured and because it is protected, we don't have to fear the world. We can engage the world without fear of ultimate harm since our faith is secure. And that's the most important thing about our lives, our faith. The body they may kill, the truth about it is still. They can take the body. They can harm the body. What they can't harm is our faith because God keeps it. And so we can engage hard people with this hard message. We can go to people who don't like this message, who might threaten you because of this message. We can do that and not have fear because our faith is secure. The trials that we face in taking the gospel to the world won't cause us to abandon our faith. God keeps that from happening. Therefore, we feel safe in our mission to proclaim Christ in the world even as it opposes us. That's free, it frees us, takes all the risk out of it, takes all the risk out of sharing the gospel. That's why missionaries can go to the 1040 window, latitude 10 degrees, 40 degrees, that Muslim dominated area where you go there to preach the gospel to cut your head off. So? Cut your head off. but your faith will be kept. That's the worst they can do to you. Why do these crazy people, these crazy missionaries go to that 1040 window? Because they understand that it's not crazy to trust Christ and take gospel to a hard place because their faith is secure. They understand that. Now in this second prayer request, Jesus is concerned with the threat that our flesh poses to our mission to spread the gospel. He says sanctify them in the truth, verse 17, because our flesh entices us to worldliness. That's why he prays this prayer. Because our flesh entices us to worldliness, he prays for the Father, sanctify them in the truth. Now what does it mean to be sanctified. What does Jesus mean by the word sanctified or sanctify? The Greek word is hagiazo. Hagiazo can have two separate but related meanings. On the one hand, it can mean to set apart for God and his purposes. To be set apart for God and his purposes. We think back to those certain vessels in the Old Testament temple that were reserved for their particular function and no other function. They weren't used outside the temple, they were only used inside the temple. We think about to the sacrifices that were given at the temple, the firstborn, the firstborn of the lambs, they were set apart for God and given to the Lord for his sacrifices. And He has set us apart from the world to fulfill His mission. In other words, to be sanctified means to be consecrated. Consecrated to God for Him and for His mission. Now on the other hand, the word can mean to make holy. Just as God is utterly unique in His pureness, just as God is undefiled, so we are to be holy we are to be pure, we are to be undefiled. In other words, to be sanctified is to be holy-ified. To sanctify is to holy-ify. Now both of those meanings are meant here. Jesus prays that we would be holy as we are separate from the world for the purpose of sharing Christ with the world. His prayer request is that we would grow in holiness. That's what Jesus is praying for his disciples, including you and I, here in verse 17. That we would grow in holiness so that our witness isn't compromised. Grow in holiness. What is holiness? Holiness is not a set of rules, but a reflection of God's character. It's really important that you understand that. That holiness is not conforming yourselves to a set of rules, but conforming yourselves to God, who is holy. To grow in holiness is not to better align ourselves to a set of regulations. To grow in holiness is to grow more like Jesus. more like God. God is holy. The adjective itself in the scriptures is virtually synonymous with God's name. In verse 11, Jesus calls God the Father, Holy Father. In chapter 14, verse 26, Jesus calls the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. In chapter 6, verse 69, the disciples confess Jesus through Peter that Jesus is the Holy One. So all three persons of the Godhead are called holy. Holy Father, Holy Son, Holy Spirit. And as Jesus' disciples, we are conformed into His holy image. Therefore, we must be holy as well. Because we're made into His image, we are to be holy just as He is holy. So holiness is not conforming yourselves to a list of rules. Holiness is conforming yourself to Jesus, to God, so that we would reflect him. We are made in his image. We're made like a mirror. And as a mirror, we are to reflect his image into the world, especially holiness. So holiness is not a list of rules, but it's to love what God loves, hate what God hates, and to do what God desires, very simply, to reflect his character. Now the very fact that Jesus prays for our sanctification, that we would be holy-ified, that we would grow in holiness, the very fact that he prays for that is proof that we need it. is proof that we need to be sanctified, is proof that we need to grow in holiness. And so how do we grow in holiness? In our passage we find two ways we grow in holiness. First, we grow in holiness through devotion to the word of God. We grow in holiness through devotion to the word of God. Again in verse 17, Jesus prays, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. In other words, sanctification happens by means of the truth. We grow in holiness by the truth. What is the truth? He says it's the word of God. Your word is truth. That is the full counsel of God's revelation as revealed in the scriptures that you hold in your hands. That's what makes us more holy. Our conformity to the truth. Now, not all truth is equal when it comes to making us holy. There are many things in this world that are true. 2 plus 2 equals 4 is true. It just doesn't make you any holier. The earth rotates around the sun. That's true, but that doesn't make you any holier. Not all truth sanctifies. The truth that sanctifies is God's Word. In Acts 20, verse 32, Paul gave a farewell to the leaders of the church in Ephesus and he said this, I commend you to God and to the Word of His grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified. God, through his word, builds you up. That's how he does it. You're going to be built up and grow in faith, grow more like Jesus, that is, grow more holy. There's only one path to take. You must take the path of devotion to God's word because it builds you up. And it's for that reason that Peter says in 1 Peter 2.2, like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk that by it you may grow up into salvation. And he defines that, the pure spiritual milk, as God's word. Scripture is like spiritual milk. It nourishes your faith so that you grow spiritually. So God's word is the principal instrument of our growth in holiness. If you neglect the word, you neglect your calling to be holy. That's what you give up when you neglect time in the Word. I've never talked to someone who's fallen in a dramatic way in their faith, sinned in a dramatic way, who is at the same time devoted to the Word of God. In all the years of counseling I've done, I've never seen that. Every single time, the testimony is this. Somewhere, somehow, though I once was reading my Bible and devoting myself to the Word of God, somehow I wasn't any longer. That's the testimony I hear every single time. If you starve yourself of the Word, you starve yourself of holiness. You starve yourself of the Word of God, you starve yourself of holiness. And sooner or later, your lack of devotion to God's Word will catch up with you. Your unholiness will be exposed. You'll bring shame upon you, perhaps even your family, and on the name of Christ. How do you grow in holiness? By devoting yourself to God's Word. Now what does that mean, to devote yourself to God's Word? Well, surely it means at least this, that it's a priority in our lives and we give up other things in order to devote ourselves to it. We say no to lesser things in order to say yes to this greater thing, devoting ourselves to God's word. We make it a priority in our lives. My guess is that you haven't gone too many days in your life without food. Everybody looks like they're doing fine in here and didn't come in emaciated and come in here begging for food. You haven't gone too many days in your life without food. You've made eating a priority because you know that you get weak when you don't eat. And you know that in order to be healthy and have vitality, indeed to have life, you must eat. Well, in the same way, if your faith is to be healthy and you're to be holy, you must take in God's Word as a priority. in your life. It has to happen. In order for you to have a robust, healthy faith, you cannot have that, you cannot grow in holiness without devotion to God's Word. Food is frequently used as a metaphor, in fact, for God's Word in the Bible. In various places it's called milk, it's called bread, it's called honey, it's called meat. All these are just images of the necessity of the Word of God to feed and sanctify your soul. You have to have it in order to grow in holiness. Well, how can you grow in your devotion to God's Word? How can you grow in your devotion to God's Word? You look at your life and say, I could grow in my devotion to God's Word. What are some practical ways to do that? Make a plan, make a place, make a space. Three steps. Make a plan, make a place, make a space. Number one, make a plan. Find a plan that will regularly take you through the whole Bible. You need the whole counsel of God's Word on a regular basis. Regular basis, I'll leave that undefined. Whether that's every year, every two years, but on a regular basis, you need the whole counsel of God's Word because all of it is for your building up. So on a regular basis, you need a plan that will take you through the whole Bible. Don't wake up wondering what you should read. You should know ahead of time what tomorrow's reading is. You need a plan, some sort of plan. For the past two years, I've used discipleship journals, book at a time reading plan. 25 readings a month. Gives you Sundays to read something else. or however you want to do it, that's what I do. Sundays I read something else. 25 readings a month, two different places to read in each day. One reading is Old Testament or New Testament, rotates back and forth, but you read an entire book before you go on to the next one. So I'm reading Exodus right now, and when I'm done with Exodus, it'll switch over to the New Testament, and I'll read a book there, and then it'll switch back to the Old Testament, and I'll read another book all the way through. The second reading of each day is usually from the wisdom literature. Psalms, Proverbs, usually just one chapter, sometimes two, but usually just one chapter, Psalms, Proverbs, sometimes Isaiah. Around Christmas time it becomes Isaiah. And so that's the reading plan. Two or three chapters in the Old or New Testament, one or two chapters in the wisdom literature, and I love it. I love it. It takes me through the whole Bible every single year, no parts left out, and something very doable that you can read. You can always read more. but this takes you through the whole Bible in about four chapters a day. Make a plan. Number two, make a place. Decide in advance where your Bible reading is going to happen. Many times our devotion to God's Word fails for this. We don't have a place for it. Go out to the kitchen table and it's a mess. You go into your study and there's stuff all over the place and you get distracted. I have a desk. in my study that is cleared off, usually cleared off, every single night. One of the last things I do, I make sure the desk is cleared off. It has, right now it's got my Bible on there and a cup for my favorite pens and pencils. That's all it's got in it, on it. And every night I try to clear that off. because the next day that's where I'm going to go to study God's Word. I do little else at that desk but study God's Word. It's where I do the initial prep for these sermons. I do it at that desk. This is my study desk. I like that desk because I like to underline. I like it better than a chair because I like to have it a place for my coffee and I like to have a place for my pens and sometimes a journal. I like all that spread out. I don't do anything else there but that. Now, you may not have a special desk, but you need to find your place. At one point in our marriage, we had an extra spare bathroom, and so I made that bathroom, that tub, I put some pillows in there, and that became the place where I would read and pray. Other times in my life I've taken a closet and I've converted it and that's where I'd go and read. I just needed a place that wasn't going to be so distracting. Now that's really challenging if you're a young mother. It's really challenging. If you have young ones, you've got to be creative. The mother of Charles and John Wesley, her name was Susanna, she was a pill. You read her biography, she was interesting. But, I will say this about her, is that she was devoted to God's Word. She had ten little ones running around her house. Now, she didn't live in the mansions that you and I live in. She lived in these little one-room things. Ten little ones running around. And so she got creative. She doesn't have a closet. She doesn't have a nice little desk like I have. She didn't have any of that. So what she would do, she'd take her apron and she would pull it up and over her head. And she trained her little ones that when mama has her apron up and over her head, it's time to be quiet. And, you know, they disciplined their kids back in those days. And so the kids learned really quick when mama has the apron over the top of her head, that it's time to be quiet and mama is with God. All right, so if you've got little ones running around the house, you have to be creative. You talk with your husband and you create some sort of place that you can have to be with the Lord and read God's word. Number three, make a space. Make a plan, make a place, make a space. Find space in your day. Give it the best time that you're able to give it. I don't know if for you that's morning time. I don't know if waking up first thing in the morning, that the best thing you ought to do is your best time is going to be reading God's word. I don't know if that's the case. It might be take a shower and get woken up. That would be for me. Take a shower and get woken up. But give it the best time in your day that you're able to give it, that you're able to give it in your schedule. And better a little than none at all. A constant drip fills a bucket. Drip, drip, drip fills a bucket. And the same thing will be true in your life. God can take five loaves and two fish and make a banquet. True or false? Yeah. And he can do the same thing with your little bitty time in God's word and make it into a feast for your soul. He can do that. I learned to be consistent in my devotional times, not by saying, I'm going to take 30 minutes and read God's Word. That's not how I started. I started with just five minutes. Five minutes, seven days a week. The 5-7 plan. Five minutes a day, seven days a week. Anybody can find five minutes. And I started with five minutes. And over time, five minutes became more and it became more. But I always just aim for five. It's the art of the start. You get started and you're off to the races. You've just got to get started. So carve out five minutes and see what the Lord does with that time. Five minutes is better than zero, right? Better than zero. If you have kids, you got to work with your spouse to get the time. It doesn't have to be alone. When the kids were little, Ingrid would sometimes read the Bible to them as her devotional time. Just read what she's going to read out loud and they'd hear it. Everybody wins in that scenario. So God knows your needs. He knows your limitations. He knows your seasons of life. Yet he has commanded you to grow in holiness and he has given you this means of doing it. Devoting yourself to the word despite your limitations, despite your weaknesses, despite your needs, despite your seasons of life. Now one other little thing about being devoted to the Word, because you could read God's Word and not really be devoted to it. You could be consistent in reading God's Word, but not really be devoted to it. If you're going to be devoted to God's Word, not only should you be consistent in it, must you be consistent in it, but you also must be a doer of the Word, not just a hearer only. It's one thing to read it, but you prove your devotion by practicing what you read. obeying the commands of God, following the principles of wisdom His Word contains. And so make it a habit in your reading to pick at least one verse and pray it into your life. Better for you to pray as you read and roll it into your mind and roll it into your life, what God's saying, pray as you read. But if not, take one verse and just pray that into your life. What I used to do, and sometimes still do, is take an index card. Right next to my Bible reading place is always a stack of index cards. I take one of those index cards, I used to take one of these index cards, and I'd write the best verse, what's the best verse that I read today, the one that sort of spoke to me the most, and I'd write that down. I'd stick that in my pocket, I'd carry it wherever I went. I could take that card out and I could just eat a little bit. I could have a little more Bible snack from that verse. And that's how I did it. I prayed that verse, prayed it in my life, meditated on it throughout the day. But that's how you become a doer of the Word. I just look for maybe a promise to trust, a command to obey, a principle to apply, something in God's Word that I just wanted to carry with me throughout the day. We almost always start our rise gathering, our men's discipleship gathering, by me asking, Guys, let's have a little devotional time. Give me a devotional thought, something that came from your devotion time this week. Don't give me stale bread. I want the fresh bread. Don't give me the rotten meat. I want the fresh meat. Something fresh, not something you thought about two years ago, but something that happened this week. All I'm trying to do with that with these guys is just prime their pump because you always have something, something that you're holding on to, a word of God that you're devoting yourself to and ready to share. And where do you get those things from? By being intentional in your devotional time with God's word. So devotion is demonstrated both by your dedication to pick up and read the word but also the practice of doing what it says, its impact in your life. Now there's a second way that we grow in holiness and that's through meditation on the cross. Look at verse 19. There Jesus says, The word consecrate is actually the same Greek word for sanctify in verse 17. Hagiadzo. But a difference in translation is called for in verse 19 because it doesn't mean exactly the same thing as in verse 17. One caution, a little aside here, in doing word studies is that a word used in a different context doesn't always mean the same thing spread about all the contexts. You interpret in its own context. And we know that it means something a little different in verse 19 than it does in verse 17 because Jesus is already holy. He doesn't need to be made holy. So when he says, I consecrate him myself, he doesn't mean I need to be made more holy like it does for us. So that second definition of hagiadzo that we talked about to holy-ify doesn't apply here. He means to consecrate himself. Just as firstborn animals were set apart as sacrifices to God, Jesus set himself apart as our sacrifice. He consecrated himself. Now here in verse 19, Jesus is looking ahead to the consummation of his mission, which was dying for our sake on our behalf to pay our sin penalty that we might be sanctified. That's what he means by consecrate. The foundation of our sanctification is Jesus's consecration. That is, the reason we can grow in holiness is that Jesus made a way for us to become holy by dying on the cross. If he doesn't die on the cross, you can't become holy. But when we put our faith in Jesus, we're united with him in his death. And that's really critical. We're united with him in his death. Paul says in Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. I've been crucified with Christ. He meant that when he trusted, because he trusted in Christ, he shares in Jesus's victory over sin and over death. Through the cross, through the resurrection. and because we're united with him in his death, that the power that this world has over us is also killed. He says later on in Galatians, Galatians chapter 6 verse 14, He says in verse, chapter 2 he says, I've been crucified with Christ, and now he says in chapter 6, the world has been crucified to me. That can only happen because he's been crucified with Christ, because his life has been united with Jesus in his death and in his resurrection. Therefore, he has the victory over the world, and the cross has killed our attraction to the world. We become dead to the world and the world dead to us. Therefore, because that happened on the cross and the world has become dead to us through the cross, we should meditate on the significance of the cross because not only was it there that the power of the world was broken, but it was there that we continue to defeat temptation to sin and worldliness. The great theologian John Owen wrote, fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you will find no room for sin. Fill your affections with the cross of Christ and you'll find no room for sin. We grow in holiness through meditation on the cross. The cross reminds us of who we were before Christ and our great sin. The cross reminds us of the great cost Christ paid to redeem us for himself. The cross reminds us of our great commission that Christ sent us into the world to accomplish. These reminders focus our minds, they set our priorities, they change our desires, they move us to godly action. When you remember your sin and the great cost that Christ paid for your sin, and you remember the great commission that Christ sent us out in the world to do. When you remember all those things and meditate on those things, your allure, the allure of the world, will be dimmer. You won't be so attracted to sin. One pastor has written, a cross-centered life is made up of cross-centered days. You could say it this way, a life of holiness is made up of holy filled days. If you're going to have cross-centered days, if you do have cross-centered days, you're going to have growth in holiness. Well, how can you have cross-centered days? Very simple. Linger long at the foot of the cross. Linger long at the foot of the cross. Or as Spurgeon said, dwell where the cries of Calvary can be heard. That's where we want to be, where we can hear the cries of Calvary. So memorize the gospel, pray the gospel, sing the gospel, study the gospel, rehearse the gospel, never let go the gospel, always keep the gospel in the forefront. And as you do, that's a meditation on the cross, as you do, the world's desires will grow faint. Meditate on the cross to grow in holiness. Those are two ways the Lord has given you to grow in holiness. Devote yourself to the word and meditate on the cross. Devote yourself to the word, meditate on the cross. There's a popular phrase that comes from the passage we've studied. It comes from this passage, but the exact phrase is not found in this passage. But a very popular phrase, it's the phrase, in the world, but not of the world. How many have heard that phrase? We are to be in the world, but not of the world. Yeah, it's very popular. The idea is that we should be in the world, but not of the world. And as far as that goes, it's a true statement. We should be in the world, but not of the world. But I wonder if that phrase actually misleads us. I wonder if it misleads us. Many times, I think we take that phrase to mean something of a concession. We're in the world, but alas, it'd be much better if we were out of the world. But so long as we're in the world, let's not be of the world. That phrase, in the world but not of the world, sometimes leads Christians to only relate in their bubble. Because they don't want to be of the world, they say, well, I'm in the world, but I don't want to be of the world, so I won't relate to the world. But that's not Jesus' spirit at all. He prays, remember, we saw this earlier, He prays that His disciples would not be taken out of the world. but left in the world. To do what? To be sent into the world, even as we are not of the world. So we should transform that popular phrase and begin to say instead, we're not of the world, but we're sent into the world. We're not to form Christian communes and only relate to people in our bubble. We are not of the world, that's a given. But we have a mission to be sent into the world. Brothers and sisters, our Lord has put this mission of spreading the gospel around the world into our hands. It's part of your mission, my mission, we all own it. It's our responsibility. He has sent us into the world. And how will we be found faithful in this mission? We'll be found faithful in this mission only if we're holy. only if we're holy, not of the world, but sent into the world. And so we need to pursue holiness through God's word and through the meditation on the cross so that we can fulfill the great commission. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for. Thank you for sending us into the world. Thank you for the privilege of being able to take your message to people who don't have it, to people who don't believe it. As we reflect on our lives, we all feel a sense of unworthiness to have this great message be placed into our hands, this great mission be put into our hands. We feel unworthy. And we look at our lives and we see times in our lives where we have soiled Your name, that our testimony wasn't what it should have been because of our sin. And we're thankful for forgiveness for that as we confess our sin. But we pray that through Your Word and through meditation on the cross, And through the other means that you've given us, fellowship and worship and prayer, that we would grow in holiness so that we wouldn't cause shame to come on your name. And that through our holiness, not a self-righteousness, but a true holiness that reflects your character, we would be distinct from the world and the world would take notice. And so, Father, we pray that our light, the light that You've given to us, the light that You shine through us, which shine before others so they may see our good works, this world may see our good works and live glory to you in heaven. May that be true. Open our mouths to share this wonderful message with those who don't believe it. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to this message from Treasuring Christ Church in Athens, Georgia. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not alter the content in any way without permission. Treasuring Christ Church exists to spread a passion for the fame of Christ's name in Athens and around the world. We invite you to visit Treasuring Christ Church online at tccathens.org. There you'll find other resources available to you and information about our upcoming gatherings.