Turn with me in your copy of God's Word to John 17. John chapter 17. This will be Pew Bible page 1149. We continue our study of Jesus' high priestly prayer, His prayer before His passion. Tonight we turn our attention especially to verses 14 through 17. Jesus having given His disciples God's Word, prays His Holy Father would sanctify them in the truth. Listen now to God's holy and true and life-giving word. John chapter 17 verses 14 through 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. 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. Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, your word is truth. And I pray this evening you would open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to receive it by faith. Would you convince and convert sinners? Would you build up your people in holiness? I pray this in Christ's name. Amen. What is a Christian? How does a person become one? Some would say a Christian is simply someone who goes to church. It's a simple enough definition. A Jewish person goes to synagogue. A Muslim goes to mosque. A Buddhist, a Hindu goes to temple. A Christian goes to church. Others might add a Christian is someone who tries to live like Jesus. Now there's some truth to these. A Christian should obviously go to church. He should try to live according to the principles and teachings of Christ, but is doing so what makes him a Christian? Let me suggest to you that what makes a Christian a Christian is first and foremost an act of God's Here, especially tonight, we see that a Christian is a person who has been given God's Word and will be sanctified in it. We say that again, a Christian is someone who has been given God's Word and will be sanctified in it. In verses 14 and 15, we see first, a Christian is one who has been given God's Word I, Jesus says, I have given them your word. Whatever else the disciples may be or may become, they are what they are because of what Christ has come and done for them. Here especially we see that Christ has given them his word. Jesus, he's claiming to have fulfilled a particular part of his redemptive office, specifically his prophetic work. He has perfectly communicated his divine message. The word he has given is not a word. It's not a generic word. It's not even my word. It's not Jesus' word so much as he says here, your word. That is the word of the Father. It's God's word. This is why Jesus came. We read elsewhere in the Gospel of John, He who comes from heaven is above all. He bears witness to what he has seen and heard. He utters the words of God. You see, Jesus, he did not come to share his own thoughts or theories on society, on culture, on politics, or philosophy. He did not come to peddle his own ideas. As the Son of God, he came to speak the very words of God. He came to give his disciples what he had seen and heard firsthand from his Father in heaven, namely, God's will for our salvation. Over and over again, this is how Jesus sees himself. That's how he would describe his own prophetic work. He says, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. I speak just as the Father has taught me. The word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me. Many people today think Jesus was merely a good moral teacher. Sure, he said some good things, he had some interesting ideas, but he was, at the end of the day, just a man. No different from Gandhi, or Mother Teresa, or Martin Luther King Jr. He's in that same category, according to them. Others, more rightly, may admit that he was at least an inspired man, a prophet like Moses or Elijah, but certainly no more than that. But here's the thing. Jesus claimed to be more than a good teacher. He was a prophet, but he claimed to be more than a prophet. He claimed to be God's son. And this, more than anything else, is why he would urge you to pay attention to what he has said. He's not merely your life coach, your mentor, your spiritual guru. He is the Son of God. And he has the very Word of God. And this Word leads to eternal life. When Jesus says He has given this Word to His disciples, He doesn't just mean that He preached it and they happened to be there in the room and so they kind of heard it. No, He has given it to them effectively. He has imparted this Word to His disciples so that they understand it and receive it and believe it. To the Pharisees, he mostly spoke in parables so that they wouldn't understand it. But to his disciples, he says, I have given them to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. John will later write, we know the Son of God has come and has given us understanding that we may know him who is true. That is what Christ has done for his disciples. And if you're a Christian, you are what you are because of what Christ has done for you. He has given you God's word. He has enlightened your mind. He has taken away your heart of stone. He has given you a heart of flesh. He has made you able to understand the things of God. And all of this precedes you having done a single thing. Earlier we sang, we come, O Christ, to you, true Son of God and man. And it's true, we come to Christ. But it's important for us to realize that we only come because He first came to us and He has given us His word. the very Word of Life. The fact is that until God gives you the Word, His Word, you can do nothing. Dead in your sins, you're unable to discern spiritual things. But then God, you see, has given you His Word and He makes you alive by it. Jesus says, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. And so this is the right order of things. You were dead, then God gave you his word, and then you were made alive. And then what? Well, and then the world hates you. That's what. This is what Jesus says next. I have given them your word, Jesus says, and the world has hated them. Why shouldn't the dead hate the living? That's appropriate, I guess. During his earthly ministry, Jesus, he preached to all sorts of people. He preached the rich, he preached the poor, he preached the powerful, he preached to the most pitiable of sinners. He preached to Pharisees and Sadducees and Gentiles. He preached them all. Yet only to those who have been given the word of life. Only they are hated. Let's not have any rosy assumptions of what it means to be a Christian. When you become one, your friends perhaps, they rejoice with you, and rightly they should. God has worked a miracle in your life, and even the angels rejoice. But everything is not there for sunshine and roses. You see, you live in a world that hates Jesus. And so now it hates you. Why does the world hate the disciples? Well, it's because they are not of the world. You see, to be born from above is to have a new nature, one not of this world, one that has been changed to be more like Jesus. Just as Jesus is not of the world, so also are his people not of the world. And just like Jesus, they are subjected to all the same hate with which Jesus was hated. Well, how has the world hated Jesus? Well, they rejected him. They scorned him. They mocked him. They betrayed him. They beat him and bound him and put him on a cross. We should expect no different, really. Even after he rose from the dead, they denied him. Even to this day, they despise him and they reject his word. and they try to destroy his people. Now it's in light of such hostility that Jesus prays for protection in verse 15. One might expect Jesus to pray for the Father simply to take his people out of this world, to take his disciples out of the world, but he explicitly does not pray for that. The full explanation of this obviously relates to the missionary advance of the gospel. And that we'll deal with in a future sermon, a different text. But here he has given his disciples his word. And very briefly, they are to continue preaching that word in the world. And by their preaching, Christ is going to continue to communicate new and eternal life. He will lead sinners out of the darkness and into the light. He will continue to save. And obviously the evil one, he hates all of this. Well, who is this evil one? Well, some say just a generic evil. Certainly that's not the case given the context of John and how many times Satan is mentioned elsewhere. This is clearly the old serpent, the ancient adversary, the father of lies, the sower of weeds, the one who snatches away the seed of God's word. This is Satan, the devil. And he would do anything to sabotage God's work from going forward. And so Jesus prays that his disciples would be kept from him. Now, at very least, knowing that Jesus has given us his word, and has also prayed for our protection and ought to encourage us to pursue evangelistic endeavors all the more boldly. He has given us his word. Let us proclaim it to the world. That's the obvious application to every nation and tribe and tongue, but also to our neighbors, our co-workers, our families and friends. Why? So that they too may hear and believe and have life in his name. But the question before us now is this. How can a Christian be kept from evil? How can a Christian be kept from evil? We know that we are kept. Jesus has prayed as much. We can have great assurance the Father will answer this prayer. But how are we kept? Let's look at the second half of tonight's passage in verses 16 through 17. Here we see that a Christian is one who, having been given God's word, is then sanctified in it. Earlier, Jesus said he has given the disciples God's word such that they have been born again, and as a consequence of that new birth, they have been hated by the world. And now Jesus, he reiterates that fact of the new birth before making his third petition. He says, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. And so here we find the answer to that question. How can a Christian be kept from the evil one? It is by the sanctifying work of the Father. Jesus prays to his Holy Father that he would make his disciples holy. That's what it means to sanctify. It means to make holy. It's just the verb form of the noun. It's to make holy. In John's Gospel, the holiness always has to do with God. in John's Gospel. The Father is Holy Father. The Spirit is Holy Spirit. Even Jesus, He's called the Holy One of God. And so when Jesus is praying for His disciples to be sanctified, effectively He's praying for them to be made holy and to be made holy like God. That's what it means to be holy. It's to be made like God. Already the disciples have been definitively set apart as holy. They have been born from above and are no longer of the world. But now Jesus, he's praying that God would make them more holy to be born from above. It's only the beginning. The reigning power of sin has been broken. It's been removed, but there's still a remnant of sin that remains in his people. And so Jesus, he prays, sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. They were born again by the giving of God's word. And so it should be no surprise to us to read that they will also be sanctified in God's Word. This is the environment in which God's people thrive and are sanctified. It's in His Word. The Christian life, it began as an act of God's free grace and it progresses by a work of God's free grace. If you're a Christian, it's because you've been given God's Word and now the Father will continue and is continuing to sanctify you in it. Perhaps the question here, though, is why does the Word of God have this effect? Why does it work? That's because it's true. God's Word is true and therefore it is able to change man's nature and his whole manner of living. The problem with people today in the world and even going back to the very beginning is that there is no truth in them. They don't know the truth. They don't stand in truth. There's no truth in them. Why? Well, because their father is the devil. That's why. And he's a liar. From the very beginning, Satan has been calling into question the truth of God's Word. Has God really said Is God really said? And the world has followed him after that. But Jesus says those who believe in him, of those who believe in him, he says, if you abide in my word, you will know the truth. And how does it go? The truth will set you free. The word of God is effective because it's true. Well, here's the question. Are you tired of sinning? Do you want to be free? Do you want to be free from anger, free from envy, free from bitter jealousy, selfishness, strife, free from sin, free from slavery, free from the devil, free from his lies, free from death? What must you do? You must receive God's Word and be born again. You must abide in it and he will make you holy. He will set you free from your sin. You may say, how can I know that God's word will really do this? How can I know that God's word really is true? How can I be sure that it will really do what Jesus says it will do? I'll tell you a story. The great evangelist, Dr. Harry Ironside, he was Once walking through a city, he encountered a group of Christians. And when he was recognized, he was asked to give his testimony. And as he finished giving his testimony of the life and death and the resurrection of Christ, a man came forward, an agnostic man, a man famous for debating Christianity. And he challenged Mr. Ironside to a debate, agnosticism versus Christianity. And Mr. Ironside agreed, but he had a few conditions. First, you must bring, he said, a man who for years was under the power of an evil habit, one who was whether a drunkard or a criminal or some notorious sinner. someone who has heard your glorification of agnosticism in your denunciation of Christianity and has had his heart and his mind so deeply stirred that he too has become an agnostic and as a result has found new power to overcome the old habits of sin. Second, you must bring a woman who has similarly lived as a slave to evil passions and who has heard you ridiculing the word of God, extolling agnosticism. And likewise, she has discovered what she has needed to be delivered from slavery to sin. And as a result, she now lives a happy and virtuous and clean life because she is agnostic. If you promise to bring these two, he said, As examples of what agnosticism can do, I promise to meet you for this debate, and I'll bring with me 100 men and women who for years have lived in sinful degradation, as I have tried to depict, but who have been gloriously saved by God's word, which you now ridicule. Dr. Ironside then turned to the group of Christians he was with, and he asked, do you have any? Do you have any who could go with me to such a meeting? And they said, we can give you 40 at least. And then he turned to the agnostic again and said, I will easily find another 60 from the various missions, gospel halls, evangelical churches of the city. And if you will promise faithfully to just bring two as I have described, I will come and I will be ready for the debate. Well, needless to say, that man did not take Mr. Ironside up on his offer. He declined. But here's the point. God's word is true. And we can know it's true in part by the transformed lives of those who have received it. Men may refuse all sorts of other arguments, but they cannot refute this, that the clearest proof in the world today that God's word is true is the triumph of the gospel over sin in the life of everyday Christians. And this is why Jesus, he's given us God's Word. This is why you are sanctified in it. That as living testimonies, we would tell others in the world, God's Word is true. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that your word is indeed true, that you've changed us, that though we once walked in wickedness and with sin, Lord, that you have given us new hearts. hearts of flesh, and you've made us to know you, and you've changed our lives. Lord, knowing these things, would you sanctify us, help us to know your word, Lord, and change us still yet by it, that we would be monuments of your grace, and that by our lives and by our testimony, others would still yet come to know you are indeed the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.