HALL Wesleyan Church05 24 2020
Pastor Dan
John 17:6-19 New Living
Translation (NLT)
6 “I have revealed You to the ones You
gave Me from this world. They were always Yours. You gave them to Me, and they
have kept Your Word. 7 Now they know that everything I have is a
gift from You, 8 for I have passed on to them the message You gave Me.
They accepted it and know that I came from You, and they believe You sent Me.
9 “My prayer is not for the world, but
for those You have given Me, because they belong to You. 10 All who
are Mine belong to You, and You have given them to Me, so they bring Me glory. 11
Now I am departing from the world; they are staying in this world, but I am
coming to You. Holy Father, You have given Me your Name; now protect them by
the power of Your Name so that they will be united just as We are. 12
During My time here, I protected them by the Power of the Name You gave Me. I
guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction,
as the Scriptures foretold.
13 “Now I am coming to You. I told them
many things while I was with them in this world so they would be filled with My
Joy. 14 I have given them Your Word. And the world hates them
because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. 15
I’m not asking You to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from
the evil one. 16 They do not belong to this world any more than I
do. 17 Make them holy by Your Truth; teach them Your Word, which is Truth.
18 Just as You sent Me into the world, I am sending them into the world.
19 And I give Myself as a Holy Sacrifice for them so they can be
made Holy by Your Truth.”
Have
you ever come across a piece of Scripture?
·
Where you just didn’t know really
what to do with?
·
This
is when Everything that you read before it,
o
As
well as Everything that came after it
§ That all makes Perfect and Total Sense,
o
But
it is just Right There - in the middle of it.
§ That is where the one is which just
sits there
·
And
it stares right at you,
o
Almost
Daring you to figure it out.
Has
this Ever Happened to You?
See - We might have such
a problem within
our today’s Scripture from the Gospel of John.
John is describing to
us the things which happened
·
While Jesus and His disciples
o Were sitting or reclining around the
table
§ Celebrating the Passover seder meal
·
On
that famous night
o
Right
before Jesus was arrested.
This is After Judas has taken
off and he did his betrayal thing.
·
And
the rest of the disciples just stayed
o
And
they Listened as Jesus Plainly Talked to them.
This night was totally different
than all the rest before.
·
Jesus
knew this would be His Last opportunity
o
To
teach to them
§ And to help them understand a few
things.
·
Jesus
told them to not to let their hearts be troubled.
·
That
they should Just Believe!
o Believe in Him.
o Believe in God.
o And all things would work out.
·
He
told them about His Love for them,
o
And
how they should Love one another.
·
He
told stories like the one about Him being the True Vine.
·
He
warned them
o
That
He would soon No longer Be with Them as before.
o
And
that they should Not Be Afraid.
o
He
compared this time
§ As to a woman who is giving birth.
·
YES
- There will be some pain,
o
But
then SOON –
§
Everyone will be able to celebrate
§ When they saw the outcome of that birth.
Jesus was trying very
hard to help His
disciples Understand
·
What He was saying,
o
And
this is when they got excited because
o
BECAUSE – NOW - - He WAS Speaking Plainly to them,
§ And not in “riddles” of speech!
SEE - It was rough
& tough being a disciple of Jesus.
·
Because
it was so difficult
o
For
Jesus to Speak of things of Heaven to men of the earth.
o
And
it was so hard
§ For the men of the earth to
understand things of the Heaven.
Jesus explained things
from God’s Prospective
·
And
He used our human words and our understanding.
·
But
even still - the disciples had always struggled
o
With
understanding the meaning of Jesus’ parables.
§ “A seed must die before it can be
alive.”
This is one of the times when
I get a smile on my face,
·
When
I Imagine the Disciples Excitement
o
That Now, Finally
o We know of what You are talking about!
I remember a homiletics
class that I took.
·
One of the books which was assigned, was of a gifted writer.
o He was explaining that you should –
§ Never talk over your audience.
§ But rather, you should always talk to
your audience.
o And one of his points was to use
words which all could understand.
o But, in his writing, I kid you not,
every other word, even Cheryl,
§ Didn’t know of the meaning.
§ So here we are, she is reading, and I
am putting the words in the computer to get the definition of them just so we
could follow his writing.
§ It would have been a perfect example
if he would have written 5 or so pages this way and then say – “See what I mean?”
BUT Right Here – Jesus seems
to pull the rug out from underneath them.
·
Just
as the author who wrote the book which we were to read
o
Jesus
begins to talk – once again – in a different way.
·
It
is right here, Jesus was talking very plainly
o
And
the disciples were FINALLY
§ Able to understand Every Word from Him
·
And
then, It is as if Jesus looked upward
·
Up
Into the Heavens –
·
And
then He began to pray differently.
And I believe this is one
of those times
·
For
most of us
o
When
things get a little puzzling.
After Jesus was trying so
hard to speak
·
In
the way the disciples could understand, and follow,
·
Jesus
just sat back with them
·
And
He offered-up a prayer that included:
9
‘“My prayer is not for the world,
but for those You have given Me,
because they belong to You.
10 All who are Mine belong to You,
and You have given them to Me,
so, they bring Me glory.
11 Now I am departing from the world;
they are staying in this world,
but I am coming to You.
Holy Father, You have given Me your Name;
now protect them by the power of Your Name
so that they will be united just as We are.”
And then Jesus ends His
prayer with,
26 “I have revealed you to them,
and I will continue to do so.
Then your love for me will be in them,
and I will be in them.”’
Why
is there Such a HUGE Change in Jesus’ way of talking?
Right Before this - He was speaking to them so Very Casually.
·
He
was then Helping the disciples to Truly Understand EVERYTHING!
·
And
then – all of a sudden - He Switched Back!
o
Why did Jesus go from such a Casual
way of Talking
§ To
becoming so ‘FORMAL’ within His Prayer?
We know that within just an
hour or so from this prayer,
·
Jesus
will be kneeling in the garden of Gethsemane
o
And
once again – praying to the Father
§ But – Praying plainly again:
“Oh-Dad, if You can get Me out of this, please do!”
So - It Just Can Not Be Because
·
Jesus believed that He had to speak
o
In
this “Highly Formal” way
§ When He prayed to the Father.
So
then - Why?
What was the reason for this
switch?
And
are you like me?
Within
Your Own imagination,
·
Do
You Also see those same smiles of the Disciples just begin to slip away?
o
Is
their Joy of Understanding being replaced with only questions?
o
Is their Confidence of FINALLY being within the ‘KNOW’
§ Being now - Changed once again
·
Which
one of us is going to:
o
Dare
ask Him the questions?
(Reading the Bible
in a Year)
Either in this year or in
the years before,
·
I
am not sure how many of you
o
Have
made the decision of reading the Bible within a year.
And if you have,
·
Have you ever fallen short of
that goal?
o
Have you ever Stopped reading
it?
§ And
If you have – Why did you stop?
One of the most common
reasons of stopping is because
·
The
reader comes upon a puzzling scripture.
o
Either
they do not understand what it is truly saying
o
Or
they do not understand why it is written as it is written.
o
So,
with confusion upon them, they lose interest.
BUT – The This Is – All Scripture
·
Does
Make Sense
o
And
there is a specific Reason WHY it is written as it is written.
What we should remember is
that each of the writers
·
Is
writing at a specific time,
o
And
to a specific audience.
John wrote his Book later
than all of the other writers,
·
And
it was during such a time in which
o
The
early church was facing some really horrendous challenges.
This is when the church
had become JUST Large Enough
·
That
it became – Visible – or – Noticeable
o
And
it gained a lot of attention from the Roman Leaders.
o
They
Began to see the church as
§ A Huge and Great Threat to their Power
and Leadership.
·
So
consequently, they responded with some
o
Very
Terrifying Acts of persecution.
The Roman rulers also set
out
·
To
make it Extremely Difficult for the church
o
To
gain any ‘New’ Converts
§ As well as it attacked,
·
Those
who had already professed in being
o
A
follower of this Jesus of Nazareth.
So, we must
understand –
·
Much of what John wrote was aimed
o
For
those who were being persecuted
o
OR to those who needed extra encouragement
§ In their decision of taking this huge
risk
·
And
becoming a part of the New Church.
But the evil one
was not only in the front,
·
Attacking
the members
o
But
he was also,
§ Just as he is doing in our own world today,
·
He
was very busy in the attempts to
o
Destroy
the church from within.
We can begin to see the
picture of what was going on.
·
The
battles of the front line
o
But
also, the battles from the middle,
§ Within the very heart of the church,
§ Bringing this new church
·
Ever
so close to dividing
o
And
splitting Jesus Church into pieces,
§ Constantly - weakening it
·
to
the point of actually threatening its very survival.
John wrote many of his Words
·
To
ease this internal fighting
o
And
that is what we find him doing
§ Within this passage which we are
talking about today.
Yes – it is True.
·
The
things that the early church fought about
o
May
sound very strange for us today.
o
BUT
- Just as Today - Current religious arguments
§ Would almost for sure be strange to
them back then.
They argued about
numbers.
·
The
Bible talked about God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.
o
Did
that mean there were three different beings?
o
Or
were they all actually one being
§ Who just appeared - at different times?
This all may not sound
all that important to us today,
·
But
back then –
o
These
were fighting words.
o
It
was enough to divide the small early church
§ Into different groups and ultimately –
destroy it.
And then there was the arguments
about Jesus.
·
Was
Jesus truly fully human?
·
Or
was He Only Partly God and the other part – human?
·
Or
was He Fully God and Only appearing to be human?
Now Again,
·
These
topics probably sound kind of primitive
o
Or
even a great topic for a debate within a seminary class,
§ But Back Then,
·
They
were what sparked the creation
o
Of
several other branches of the Christian church.
And I believe we can
understand that
·
These
types of disagreements would have to come up
o
As
the church moved into new ground
§ And as it began to touch new
·
And
different cultures and traditions.
Our passage for today
·
Is
actually Based on an argument
o
That
arose as the early church
§ Began to grow into the highly
intellectual cultures
·
Of
Greece and Rome.
These were also the same areas
which were
·
Highly Disputed or Highly Debated topics which are of Logic and the Law.
o
So,
it is easy to see how this new Christian faith
§ Not Only Became
·
A
favorite debate
§ But we must also understand
·
That
their view point or understanding of things
·
Comes
directly from how they saw things
·
Or
possibly, we could say
o
Through
their Lenses of Logic and Law.
Let me give you an example
of this type of debate
·
From
this point of Time and from this particular Location.
o
Remember
– These people are intelligent
§ But they also Viewed Everything
through
§ Their understanding of what is Logical
and of the Law.
And for a Topic –
·
We are going
to discuss:
o
What is the Very Back Bone
of our Faith?
·
In other words:
o
What makes it possible
§ For
us to Even Claim
·
The Faith which we have?
Let me help you out, It is the
Forgiveness of our Sins.
RIGHT?
Without Forgiveness – we would never
be able to be with God in Heaven.
So, let’s take a look at ‘their type’
of argument/discussion/debate on this topic.
1. Even if we do accept the story that
Jesus lived on earth,
a. That He died on the cross,
b. And that He was fully resurrected as
the stories say,
2. How does that give Him the Authority
a. To be the one who can forgive sins?
3. According to the Law of the day,
a. FORGIVENESS Of Any Crime
i.
Can
only be granted by
1. A Supreme Judge
a. One who has the Ultimate Authority
i.
To
grant such forgiveness.
4. It is clear that even Jesus admits
that God is that Ultimate Judge,
a. And that He is ONLY the Son
i.
Or
should we say – ‘servant’ of the Judge.
5. SO, HOW could anyone possibly have
a. His or her sins forgiven
i.
By
being a ‘follower’ of the ‘servant’ of the Judge?
For John’s reading
audience,
·
The
Biggest Problem for the new church
o
Which
made it so difficult for the people of Logic and Law
§ And they had great difficulty in
accepting their Faith
·
Was
that It Was Not Logical.
The church argued that
sins could be forgiven by the Servant,
·
Rather
than having to be done by the supreme judge.
See the thing was:
·
No
matter how wonderful of a story John told,
o
It
was Totally Meaningless UNLESS
§ He could somehow RESOLVE this issue
·
Of
the forgiveness of sins.
With that in mind,
·
We
now can close our eyes
·
And
imagine Jesus no longer sitting at the table with the disciples
·
But
standing in the courtroom,
·
Making
His closing statement before the jury.
YES - While the Words
before and after the prayer
·
Were
to help the disciples understand,
o
John
wrote the prayer
§ To make perfect sense
·
To
those logical Greeks and Romans.
In a Formal and Structured
manner,
·
Jesus
stated his case in His prayer.
Jesus recognized that God
is Supreme
·
And
that Everything and Everyone belongs to God.
Then Jesus made the affirmation
that He,
·
Actually,
came from God
·
And
that He was acting on God’s behalf.
Jesus is not a servant
·
But
rather, He is the Earthly Representative
o
Of
the Supreme Judge
o
With
full, legal authority
o
To
care for those God has given to Him.
While we read through
these Words,
·
Scratching
our heads
o
And
trying to make sense of the language.
§ John’s audience would have read it in
amazement!
§ At Last – Here they found,
§ For the first time,
§ The logical argument
§ That made sense to them
§ And which clarified just who this
Jesus actually is.
John was not writing to
us here
·
But
rather, it was an opportunity to talk
o
Directly
to those first-century Truth-seekers.
You know – Just Sometimes
–
·
Things
just may not make sense to us,
·
Simply
because - They weren’t written for us.
And rather than getting
frustrated and close the Book,
·
We
must simply turn the page,
o
And
wait for the writer
§ To once again,
§ Look back in our direction
·
And
speak to us.
It’s always worth the
wait.
And YES – Even these Words
which we do not understand
·
God
Willing: Someday, Even they will make perfect sense to us.
