Open your Bibles, please, to John 17, where our focus this morning is going to be on verses 17-19. And this will be the last part of the High Priestly Prayer here, where Jesus is praying for his disciples. And then I'll be gone for a couple of weeks, and then we'll get back into John 17 at verse 20 where he begins to pray for all of us, those who would believe as a result of their ministry. Today we're going to see that Jesus' prayer focuses on sanctification, this idea that we're set apart or holy to God, that we need to be set apart, that we need to be holy. I'm going to begin reading in verse 13 through verse 19 and then we'll pray, as always, and ask for the Lord's enabling grace. Beginning in verse 13, Jesus says, "...but now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world..." He's speaking of departing to be with the Father, remember, through His death, resurrection, and ascension. "...but now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves." Jesus wants the disciples and us to look back on these words, and through learning their meaning, and applying them to our lives, find complete joy, the kind of joy that he has. So, we already can see when he's praying for the sanctification of the disciples, and then also of ours, that it's so that we can have joy. That's one of the reasons, right? 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. So apparently we can't have complete joy without the Word and we can have complete joy in spite of the fact the world hates us when we're like Christ. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, Jesus says, but you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by your truth. Your Word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. Let's pray. Holy Father, we come to you this morning having been living in the world, as you desire us to, and seeking not to be of it. And many of us come here weary. We've been through spiritual battles in the past week. We've had difficulties in relationships. We've had problems at work. Many are dealing with health problems that cause them pain and sleeplessness. Perhaps a few struggling with depression. Perhaps some here are dealing with financial problems. We come here with problems. But we come here because we love you. Because you first loved us and gave your Son Jesus Christ to be the Savior for our sins. We come here to worship you. We come here to cast our cares on you. We come here because you have the words of life that we need. We come here because you're more important to us than money or things or health or anything else. We come here this morning to hear you speak through your Word, that we might have joy, that we might be more like Christ, that your will might be accomplished in our lives. We come here this morning because you are God. You deserve our obedience, our praise, our worship, our faithfulness. And because in your grace you have saved us, even though we did not deserve it. Speak to us now, we pray. Help us to understand the words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we might be better servants to You in this world, that we might reflect Your holy character in our lives, that we might be conformed more completely to the image of Your Son. We ask all these things in His precious name. Amen. As I've already indicated and as you've already seen, As we've read the text, Jesus is focusing his attention now in his prayer for his disciples, a prayer that will also apply to us who believed as a result of their word, as a result of the word we have here from one of those disciples, the Apostle John. And not surprisingly, Jesus' reference to sanctification reflects an Old Testament understanding of the concept. He's not coming up with a new idea when he's talking about the need for the disciples to be sanctified. He's taking up a concept that should have been well known to them from the Old Testament scriptures that they already had. And there are two basic meanings of the terminology of sanctification in the Old Testament scriptures. So when they heard Jesus saying this, praying for them, Father sanctify them by your truth, here's the things they would have been thinking, here's the concepts that would have been in their minds if they knew their Old Testament, and we know that they did. There are two basic senses. First of all, sanctification can refer to being set apart or reserved for God and for service to Him. For example, there's a passage in Exodus 30 that illustrates this really well. In Exodus 30, beginning in verse 22 and going through verse 31, the text says, Moreover, the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Also take for yourself quality spices, 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much sweet-smelling cinnamon, 250 shekels, 250 shekels of sweet-smelling cane, 500 shekels of cassia, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and a hint of oil. Special ingredients to make something. What are they making here? and you shall make from these a holy anointing oil, or a sanctified anointing oil. It says, compounded according to the art of the perfumer, it shall be a holy anointing oil. With it you shall anoint the tabernacle of meeting and the ark of the testimony, the table and all its utensils, the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering with all its utensils, and the labor and its base. You shall consecrate or sanctify them, that they may be most holy or set apart, sanctified again. Whatever touches them must be holy. And you shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate or sanctify them, that they may minister to me as priests. And you shall speak to the children of Israel, saying, This shall be a holy anointing oil to me throughout your generations." What's God doing here? He's saying that the things that are used in service for me, to worship me. And the priests who are to lead you in worship and to offer the sacrifices must be set apart. They must be sanctified. They must be holy. You've got to show that they're different from everything else. That they have a special purpose, a special service to me. And they're set apart for that. That's the sense in which the terminology of sanctification has this idea of being set apart. Of course it doesn't mean they're made wholly in character because utensils don't have character. But that does carry that connotation for human beings. And that's the second aspect of the meaning of the terminology. The first is simply to be set apart to God for his service. And the second one is to be transformed in character so as to reflect God's character. That's the second sense in which this terminology can be used. This is found, for example, in a famous command in Leviticus 11.45, where God says, For I am the Lord who brings you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. There, there are connotations of God's holy character. What makes God different than all the false gods. He's a righteous God, a holy God. The true God is righteous and good and holy. He's distinct and set apart from the world as such. And we're to be like Him. D.A. Carson helpfully describes these two senses of the term holy or sanctified as terminology in his commentary on John when he writes, and its most basic level of meaning, holy, is almost an adjective for God. He is transcendent, other, distinct, separate from his creation, and so the angels cry unceasingly in his presence, holy, holy, holy. Derivatively then, people and things that are reserved for him are also called holy, whether a censer for an altar in the temple of the Old Covenant or a man set apart to be the high priest. The prophet Jeremiah and Aaron and his sons were all sanctified, that is, set apart for sacred duty and reserved for God. The moral overtones in our English words holy and sanctification emerge only at that point. That is, ideally if someone is set apart for God and God's purpose is alone, that person will do only what God wants and hate all that God hates. That is what it means to be holy as God is holy. That's a very good summary of the terminology that we've considered from the Old Testament of what it means, and therefore what would have been in the mind of Christ and his disciples as he prayed this and as they heard him pray it. I think our Lord Jesus has both of these senses in mind when he prays for the sanctification of the disciples. I think he's thinking primarily about their being set apart for God's service, as we'll see in one of the verses here, the second verse, verse 18, he talks about them being sent to the world. But there's this underlying assumption that this requires a holiness of life, a transformed life, in order to fulfill that mission. So let's look at his prayer now with these ideas in mind, and see if we can understand what he's talking about. In verse 17, for example, when he says, sanctify them by your truth, your word is truth. As I've already indicated, I think that when Jesus prays, sanctify them by your truth, He has in mind both, that they'll be set aside from the world for service to God and the idea that they'll possess a holy character. He's praying for both of these things. Because you really can't have one without the other. If you're a person who's set apart to serve God, you can't do that without reflecting God's character. And you'll never be able to reflect God's character unless you've first been set apart from the world and made His own. These things for the Christian, they go together. They go together in the mind of Christ. First of all, we see that Jesus clearly already sees His disciples as being set apart from the world to serve God. He's brought this up several times already in the same prayer. For example, in verse 6, He said, I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours. You gave them to Me. And they have kept your word. They've been taken out of the world by God and given to Jesus. They've already been set apart. They've already been sanctified in that sense, right? Verse 9, I pray for them. I do not pray for the world. But for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours." Again, in verses 14-16, leading up to our text here this morning. He says, 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. Why are they not of the world? Well, the Father's taken them out of the world and given them to Jesus. So they're still in the world, but they're not of the world. They're set apart from the world, and they have a character that's different from the world. As a result, it's already begun to happen in the lives of the disciples. Because they've already been keeping his word. They're already different. The world's already hating them because of that. So he says, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but you should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So Jesus already knows that they've been sanctified in the sense of being set apart. Right? But he wants that to continue in the future. He's praying that nothing will change that. He knows the evil one will try to destroy them. And because Jesus prays that will not happen, it won't. So he reveals his desire that his disciples will continue to be set apart from the world and the devil to serve God. Secondly, Jesus also clearly desires that his disciples possess a holy character. as those set apart for God's purposes. And this is presupposed in what he says here, if you understand the terminology, right? But it's also something that's been made very clear by Jesus both in his earlier teaching, what he'll go on to talk about later in this same prayer. For example, earlier in his teaching in the upper room, In chapter 13, he said in verses 34 and 35, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you. What is that but reflecting the love and character of Jesus? Being holy as He is holy. By having that kind of love. He says that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another. We're set apart to serve God. and take the truth to a lost and dying world. And Jesus is telling us the character of those set apart from God is required in order to be effective in doing that. He's presupposing what? Those set apart by God for His purposes are also changed by God to be more like Him in order to carry out those purposes. Again, He says in John 15, beginning in verse 8, By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love." This is all talking about character here. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Those who are set apart have to live like it. Later, in the same prayer, verse 26 of chapter 17, Jesus says to the Father, I declare to them your name, and will declare it, that the love with which you love me may be in them, and I in them. So we see very clearly, don't we, from the context and also from just the meaning of the terminology, that when Jesus prays to the Father, sanctify them, He desires that His disciples, and that means you and I who believe, also as a result of their witness, be in the world, but not of the world. He desires both that we be set apart to serve God and that we live in such a way that reflects His character. Remember what He said in the Sermon on the Mount, for example? Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Conceptually, it's the same thing. Be holy for I am holy. When people see a wholly transformed character in you, they'll know that's the work of God, and they'll glorify Him for it. The Apostle Peter learned this lesson very well, and later wrote in his first epistle in 1 Peter 1, 13-16, he said, Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind to be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts as in your ignorance." In other words, don't live like you're of the world anymore. Because you're not. "...but as He who called you is holy, You also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, Be holy for I am holy." And there he's quoting Leviticus 11.45 that I quoted to you earlier. He got what Jesus was saying here, didn't he? And he communicated it to the Christians who believed as a result of his witness, as a result of what the Spirit did through him. So Jesus wants his disciples to be set apart for service to God and to become more holy so that they may effectively serve God. But also notice here the means by which Jesus assumes that the Father will accomplish this sanctification in the lives of his disciples. He says, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. Of course now, John has already told us that Jesus who is the Word of God incarnate, the ultimate revelation of God, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." So Jesus can say, as we saw in chapter 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. So when Jesus teaches here that we cannot be sanctified apart from the Word of God, apart from the truth, He also means that we can't be sanctified apart from Himself. Right? Both of these ideas are in His teaching in John. He is the ultimate Word of God, the ultimate revelation of God, and He is the way, the truth, and the life. But the Word of God that's given to us in the Scriptures, that explain who Jesus is to us, that foretell His coming in the Old Testament and explain what His coming was all about in the New Testament. That Word is also required for our sanctification because you can't have one without the other. You can't have Christ and not have the Word that He's given in the Scriptures. You know, Christians who say that they love Jesus but don't care at all about His Word are deceived. You cannot love Jesus and not love the word that he's given to the church. You just can't do it. Show me a Christian with a dusty Bible and I'll show you someone who's self-deceived and doesn't understand Jesus at all. This also means that understanding and applying the Bible to our lives is crucial, right? If we're sanctified by the truth, if we're set apart because we believe the truth, and we're further conformed to God's holiness by the truth and continuing in the truth, that means we've got to learn it. That means we've got to understand it. That means we've got to apply it to our lives. This is presupposed in this very prayer. That means doctrine is important. Doesn't it? As R.C. Sproul has observed, Hardly a day goes by that I don't hear someone say, doctrine doesn't matter, what matters is relationships. There's plenty of that, I've heard these days myself. If doctrine doesn't matter, then truth doesn't matter, and if truth doesn't matter, our sanctification doesn't matter, because sanctification doesn't come through relationships. He's got more to say on that. Our sanctification comes from the Word of God and from the truth that is poured into our souls, truth that renews our minds, renews our thinking, and renews our lives. That truth in turn defines godly relationships. You can't have a godly relationship without being in the truth. You can't even know what a godly relationship looks like without understanding the context of the Gospel. Doctrine does matter. He's absolutely right. I heard a sermon not long ago that a man gave where he was talking about discipleship. And he said, you don't go deep, you go practical. That's how Jesus discipled. He just drew people close and had a relationship with them. And the whole sermon just minimized the idea that you want to have a deep understanding of Scripture. As we're trying to do today. Trying to really understand what Jesus is saying. Really dig in and understand what it means. You want to avoid that. You don't really like that. Just focus on relationships. Well, I think R.C. Sproul's put his finger on the problem with that. What determines what a good relationship is? A right relationship is! How do you know when you have a relationship with God? The Word! It's foolishness to think otherwise. Notice also that Jesus does not say to the Father, Your Word is true. It is. But He doesn't say your Word is true as though He has some standard outside the Word by which He judges whether or not the Father's Word is true. No, He says rather, your Word is truth. That is, your Word is the standard of truth by which things are judged to be true or not. There's not some other standard outside the Word of God by which we determine whether or not His Word is true. It is the standard by which we determine whether or not anything else is true, because it is the Word of God Himself. That's what's implied in the way Jesus speaks here. And this goes directly against the pervasive notion in our culture that there really is no absolute truth at all, and that all truth is relative. You know, what's true for you is true for you, what's true for me is true for me. That's the kind of thing you hear rather flippantly said often in our culture. It's no coincidence, then, that in such a relativistic culture, the lack of holiness in the lives of so many professing Christians is also accompanied by a lack of knowledge and understanding of God's Word. Consider, for example, some of these statistics that I've gleaned from the Barna Group and their website. They do all these polls of supposed Christians and things. I'll start with some statistics from 2000, moving into 2004, but I think what you'll discover is nothing's gotten better. If anything, things are worse than what are described here. Here's a statistic from 2000. 15% of born-again Christians claim that, quote, after he was crucified and died, Jesus Christ did not return to life physically, end quote. People claiming to be born-again Christians, 15% of them thought that, that were polled. They don't understand what being born again means, obviously. About one out of four in 2000, 26% of born-again Christians believe that it doesn't matter what faith you follow because they all teach the same lessons. That's a belief that's held by 56% of non-Christians. So about a quarter of those who profess to be born-again Christians thought, yeah, there are plenty of ways to get to God. In 2002, they had a statistic, born-again Christians are more likely than non-born-again individuals to accept moral absolutes. Specifically, 32% of born-agains say that they believe in moral absolutes. Hooray! Compared to just half as many, 15% among non-born-agains, well that's something to write home about, isn't it? In 2004, they report that half of born-again Christians, 50%, agree that Satan is not a living being, but just a symbol of evil. Also in 2004, about one-third of born-agains, 38%, a little more than one-third, believe that if a person is good enough, they can earn a place in heaven. These are people who claim to be born-again Christians saying this. Almost 40% of them. Again in 2004, 31% of born-agains agree that while he lived on earth, Jesus committed sins like other people, compared to 44% of all adults that they told. Here's the last statistic I'll share with you. Compared to 60% of all adults, 84% of born-again Christians believe, quote, the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings. Okay. If 84% really believe that the Bible is totally accurate in all of its teachings, then why don't 84% believe that Jesus returned to life physically? See a problem here? Perhaps you, like me, are also wondering just how the Barna Group defines a born-again Christian. Apparently they don't do so based upon a biblical standard. But that, I think, only further reinforces my point Namely, that there are many professing Christians who think that they may serve God without really knowing, understanding, or accepting His Word as absolute truth. Even those 84% who said they believed it's absolute truth, clearly did not believe a lot of what it teaches. And therefore, don't even understand what they're saying when they say that they agree the Bible's absolute truth. Because on the one hand, they can say that, and then on the other hand, they can deny really significant and clear teachings that it has. Which just leads you to see that they don't understand the concept even of absolute truth when they answer questions like that. They just don't get it. They don't really know, understand, or accept his word. Yet our Lord Jesus makes it very clear that we cannot be set apart for his service without being sanctified by the truth of God's word. It's clearly indicated here in his prayer for his disciples. And this provides the background of what he says in verse 18. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. Jesus had been sent into the world by God the Father in order to bring the truth to fallen mankind. He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me. So what's their purpose then? If not to take that same truth to a lost and dying world. If that's why He was sent from the Father, then that's why they are sent by Him into the world, His disciples. To bear witness to the truth as it is in Jesus. That's why they need to be sanctified by the truth. You can't bear witness to something you know nothing about and that hasn't first transformed you. And by the way, I think that that leads to one of the reasons so many Christians don't share the Gospel. It really hasn't changed them. And so deep down, they really don't believe it can change anyone else either. They really haven't been sanctified by the truth. So they don't really believe it can sanctify anybody else either. Jesus is presupposing you must have experienced this yourself before you share it with someone else. Why are so many Christians ashamed of the Gospel? Maybe, professing Christians that is, maybe because they haven't really believed it and been transformed by it. Maybe to them, it really isn't the power of God into salvation. Because they haven't experienced salvation through it. Maybe that's the real reason they don't share the gospel. You can't share the truth unless you've first been sanctified by it. Jesus sends people who are sanctified. Those are the kind of people he sends. Earlier that same evening, in fact, he said, when the Helper comes, the Holy Spirit, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me and you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. Then later in chapter 16, verse 13, he talked about how the Holy Spirit will guide them into all the truth that they would need to share in the lost and dying world. The disciples had received this truth. from Jesus. They had believed it. They had been keeping his word. As we've seen in our previous study, when everyone else was abandoning Jesus, and Judas had even betrayed him to the authorities, these eleven men were still there. Why? Because they'd already been sanctified. But Jesus wanted them to continue to be sanctified as his servants. As William Hendrickson, I think, accurately writes of this verse, Jesus is still thinking of the Word, the message of redemption in Christ to the glory of God. It is in this connection that he makes a double comparison, that is, between the Father as sender and himself as sender, and between himself as sent and the disciples as having been sent. The two comparisons blend into one idea, which is this. Just as the Father sent Jesus into the world with a message, so also Jesus has sent the disciples into the world with a message. The message, moreover, is the same, that of redemption in Christ. That's a pretty good summary of what Jesus is getting at in this verse. I couldn't agree more with it. But, of course, the point that we need to consider is that we, too, have been called to take the message of redemption in Christ to a lost and dying world. Jesus didn't intend that the Christian faith die out with the disciples. He's still building his church. He's given us the great commission in which he said, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I've commanded you. Lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the age. Here's the thing, we must be sanctified by the truth in order to fulfill that commission. Which is why Jesus goes on to stress the idea again in verse 19. He sandwiches this sending verse between these two verses on being sanctified by the truth. But he changes it up a little bit. He says something a little bit different in verse 19. He says, and for their sakes I sanctify myself. that they also may be sanctified by the truth." In other words, we can't be sanctified by the truth as Jesus prayed that we will be, unless Jesus sanctifies Himself. But what does He mean when He says that? How is it that Jesus sanctified Himself. And we know He was sanctified by the Father because He said when He was speaking to people opposing Him in chapter 10, verse 36, Do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world you are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God? He referred to Himself before as being sanctified by the Father and sent into the world. Set apart. We know He wasn't made holy by the Father because He was already holy. Right? He was with God and He was God in the beginning. That's how this gospel began, with that statement. So he was set apart by God and sent for this special messianic redemptive purpose that he has in mind. So in what sense does he say, I sanctify myself? Well, I think here he's speaking in a way that probably only the Son of God by nature could speak. We pray to God for sanctification, but I've never been able to sanctify myself. Neither have you. I couldn't set myself apart from the world. God had to do that. I can't make myself more holy. God has to do that. What does Jesus mean? How is he sanctified? Well, he says, for their sakes I sanctify myself. And we're seeing, remember in the context of this prayer, in the upper room, Jesus is speaking about his impending death and resurrection in the coming days. That's what's been in his mind throughout. So I would suggest to you that his coming death on the cross is connected somehow. When he says, I sanctify myself. That he's speaking with a view to his impending death on the cross and his resurrection. When he says it. So that will help us to understand how to apply some biblical teaching to what Jesus has said. I think there are a couple of senses in which Jesus is sanctifying himself here, or speaks of it. First, as we saw earlier, the high priests under the old covenant had to be sanctified as such. They had to be set apart to be our high priests. And I think Jesus, when he says, I sanctify myself, has that concept in mind as well. I'm about to fulfill my responsibility as their great high priest through offering a sacrifice for their sins. I must set myself apart for this task. And he can speak that way because he's also God. For instance, in Hebrews 7, this is what the author of Hebrews says about Jesus as our great High Priest, in Hebrews 7, 26 and 27, For such a high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens, who does not need daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once for all when he offered up himself. I think Jesus is taking this language that was used for the setting aside and the sanctifying of the high priests under the old covenant and applying it to himself as the one who's about to offer a sacrifice for the sins of his people. And of course that sacrifice is himself. So, secondly, Jesus had to be sanctified not just as our high priest, but also as a sacrifice for our sins. Because he wasn't just a priest who offered the sacrifice, he himself was the sacrifice. Listen to what Deuteronomy says about the sanctification of animals, the setting apart of animals for sacrifice. In Deuteronomy 15 verses 19 through 21, God says, all the firstborn males that come from your herd and your flock, you shall sanctify to the Lord your God. You shall do no work with the firstborn of your herd, nor shear the firstborn of your flock. You and your household shall eat it before the Lord your God year by year in the place which the Lord chooses. But if there is a defect in it, if it is lame or blind or has any serious defect, you shall not sacrifice it to the Lord your God. So when Jesus says, I sanctify myself, what's he talking about? I sanctify myself as the great high priest, who isn't just the high priest, but is also the sacrifice itself. These are the concepts Jesus has in his head. The author of Hebrews makes that abundantly clear, doesn't he? He's fulfilling this dual role as both priest and sacrifice. This idea of him being sanctified as our sacrifice is also brought up again by Peter. Later in 1 Peter, Continuing on from the passage I read earlier, 1 Peter 1, verses 17-19, he says, if you call on the Father, who without partiality judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your stay here in fear, knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. What did the passage in Deuteronomy say? If you're going to set aside this lamb as a sacrifice to me, it must be perfect, without blemish. When Jesus sanctified himself, what was he saying? I am the perfect sacrifice. So, neither the disciples nor we can be sanctified by the truth unless Jesus is first sanctified for us as our High Priest and as the sacrifice for our sins. He made all of this possible for us. So we see again, in this context, in the mind of Jesus, we must be sanctified both through faith in Christ and through the Word that He has given us. They go together. And you cannot have one without the other. You cannot separate faith from Christ. faith in Christ, and from Christ, with faith in His Word. Can't do it. So, in conclusion, I'd simply like to point out, as we leave here today, that we need to think very seriously about the Word of God in each of our lives, don't we? If we want to be better servants of God, if we want to be more like Christ, We need more of the Word in our lives. This is why we do the expository teaching in Emanuel that we do in our Sunday school classes and from the pulpit. Because we get this here, or at least we try to. We need to ask ourselves, do we profess faith in Christ yet fail to trust in the Word of God? Are we those kinds of hypocrites? Do we think we can be sanctified apart from the Word of God? Do we think we can effectively serve God apart from a knowledge of and understanding of His Word? Plenty who think that. Do we think that? Do we think that we can become more like Christ in holiness and obedience apart from a knowledge and understanding of His Word? Are we so foolish that we could possibly think that? Well, let me put this to you. Our true thoughts about these things will be revealed as we each ask ourselves yet another question. How much time do I spend in His Word? Because if I really believe all the things I ought to believe about the importance of His Word, I'll be spending plenty of time in it, won't I? So that's the real question for us before we leave. How much time do I spend in God's Word seeking His voice? Seeking His truth? Seeking to understand it and apply it to my life? Because the answer to that question, that will tell you the real priority of the Word in your life, won't it? Same for me. And I have to tell you, as I ask myself these questions, As a result of reading and studying this passage, I wasn't all that happy with the answers. And I get to study God's Word every day to teach. And I still wasn't happy with the answers. Because here's what can happen to you if you're a pastor. God's Word can slowly become an object of study that's your job. And that's a whole different thing than studying the Word to hear God speak to you. I'm saying this to say, I get where you're at. We're all in the same boat, folks. Thank God Jesus prayed we'd be sanctified by the Word. It will happen by His grace. Let's pray. Holy Father, we thank You that ultimately our salvation depends upon You and not what we do. But we recognize that You have ordained means by which we will grow. And that primary means that we must grow in faith is through the Word. Lord, perhaps others like myself have felt convicted as we think about this passage, that we are not where we should be. I thank you, God, I'm a lot further along than I once was. But I don't yet love your Word as much as I should. I don't yet love you as much as I should. And perhaps others here feel the same way. Oh, forgive us, we pray, Lord. Forgive us. Help us to love you more through a realization of just how much you first have loved us. And help us to love hearing you speak in your word, to hang on your every word, seeking to understand it for our good and for your glory. For those of us who know you, Lord, we just pray you keep your word to us, as we know you will, that you will complete the work that you've begun in us. You can give us a deeper love for you and for your word, and we ask that you do it. For those who do not yet know you, we pray that you do for them what you have already done for us. Open their eyes to the truth of your word, as it is in Jesus, to the truth of the gospel, that Jesus Christ died on the cross for sinners such as everyone in this room. He rose from the dead that we might have everlasting life. He offers us forgiveness for our sins as a free gift. Salvation and everlasting life is a free gift if we'll but receive it in faith. Help them to do so, we pray. We ask all these things in the name of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.