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Text: John 17:11b-19 (1 John Love of the Truth In the name of him who redeems, sanctifies, and
unifies us by the truth, dear friends in Christ: Today’s Gospel reading should be fairly
familiar to most of you. It’s a portion
of the prayer of Jesus to his Heavenly Father spoken while he was with his
disciples in the upper room on the night of his arrest. Jesus knew everything that was about to
happen: the betrayal, the arrest, the
scattering of the disciples; then the sham trials, and, of course, the cruel
beatings and the horrors of the cross.
Knowing that these events would throw his followers into severe shock
and confusion, he prayed for their protection against the Evil One whose hour
of apparent triumph had come. Jesus knew
that with their Shepherd struck down, the sheep would be lost and frightened
and easy prey for the enemy. So he
prayed that during this particularly vulnerable time they would be safeguarded
in his Father’s name, that they would be unified, and that they would be kept
faithful in the words he gave them – the words that indeed made them his and
set them apart from the rest of the world.
And so this prayer gives us a window on our Savior’s heart that reveals
that his primary thoughts even here in the hour of his deepest personal
distress are of his love and concern for his disciples. At the same time, we recognize
that in broader sense, Jesus is here praying for his whole church – both his
immediate disciples and those who would for countless generations believe in
him through their teaching. Jesus was
also looking ahead to that time after his resurrection when he would go to the
Father, removing from his disciples his visible human presence. Not that he would be leaving them altogether,
but rather that he would be changing his way of being with
them. From the time of his ascension to
his coming again in glory, he would be present with his followers in the Words
he gave them, in the Sacraments he instituted, and in their fellowship and love
for one another. Though not as severe as
at his first “departure”, this too would be a vulnerable time for his followers
– a time when their faith would be tested and challenged – a time when they
would be required to carry their own crosses.
And so we see that Jesus prayed also for us in these latter days of
turmoil. His prayer was that we too, by
remaining in the words he’s given us we may be one, and that we may have the
fullness of his joy even while struggling here below against the world that
hates us and Satan who would like to see us fall. And we can take comfort knowing that this
prayer of Jesus continues today, and that by his intercession we are, even now,
being preserved from spiritual harm. That’s necessary, as you know,
because the enemy never rests. He’s
constantly coming up with new ways to deceive us. He wants to shake our trust and confidence,
and lead us away from the salvation we have in Christ Jesus. And his brazen guile knows no limits; even to
the point of taking this very prayer of Jesus that brings us comfort and
assurance when properly understood, and twisting and distorting its intended
meaning so that many people are tricked into believing it says almost exactly
the opposite of what Jesus meant when he prayed. Specifically, the deception
happens when the single sentence where Jesus prays that his disciples may be one
is isolated and lifted out of its context.
Then the attempt to deceive usually comes in the form of an
accusation: “See, Jesus wanted all of
his followers to be united. But just
look at the sad state of the Christian church today! Why there are so many divisions and factions,
all constantly warring against each other and refusing to get along. And what is it that divides them? Silly disputes over doctrine! Can you imagine? The earnest prayer and desire of the Lord
Jesus is being trampled down and spat upon by unloving, pharisaical,
dogmaticians who insist that being “right” about some insignificant biblical
jots or tittles is more important than being united as the Savior wanted us to
be. Oh, why can’t we do what the Lord
wants and just set aside all the arguments that keep us apart? Why don’t we just love each other and try to
get along?” And you’ve
got to admit that an appeal like that makes certain amount of sense. It really is an offense to the Gospel that
visible Christendom is fractured into so many conflicting segments and that new
cracks and schisms are developing all the time.
It’s precisely because the argument makes sense that so many
well-meaning people are sucked into the swirling vortex of the deception and
washed down the drain with it. They come
to the conclusion that for the sake of outward harmony, we have to be willing
to compromise our confession of faith.
But when we do, we are playing right into the deceiver’s trap. Yes, it’s sad that the Christian church is
divided; but it isn’t because faithful Christians are trying to take a firm
stand on the truth of God’s Word. What
disrupts the unity of the church are all of Satan’s attempts to get Christians
to surrender the truth of God’s Word – be it by his lies, distortions,
misrepresentations, and this most insidious idea that somehow we will fulfill
Christ’s prayer by throwing out his truths that we can’t agree on so that we can
all sit in a circle holding hands singing theologically vacuous songs about how
much we love each other. And part of what’s driving this
deception is the absurd idea that it’s our job to answer Christ’s prayer. Listen:
Jesus prayed to his divine Father. He’s the one who answers prayer. We’d be awfully foolish to try to take that
responsibility on ourselves. We’d be
foolish too to think that the Father is not answering this prayer of his
beloved Son. The fact is that he is
unifying the Christian church. There is
only one holy Christian church on earth – that’s what we say we believe in the
creed. It consists of everyone who by
the power of God’s Holy Spirit trusts in the merits of Christ for their
salvation. And this church is
united in the Savior Jesus Christ – but its unity is an article of faith. We don’t see it any more than we see the
physical body of Jesus in the bread at Holy Communion – but we believe that
it’s there even though we cannot see it.
In the same way, outwardly, the Christian church is fragmented and at
odds with itself. That does not change
the fact that all true believers in Jesus Christ are one with him; and as a
result, they are also one with the entire communion of saints on earth and in
glory. God our Father does unify his
church. And in this prayer of our Lord, we
hear exactly how he does it.
Jesus prayed to his Father, “Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth.” … That word “sanctify” is the key; but I
wonder how many of us really know what it means. It’s one of those religious sounding words
that gets thrown around a lot at church, very often without anyone truly
understanding it. At its most basic
meaning, the word sanctify means “set apart”, or “separate out”, or “set
aside for a particular purpose or for a certain person’s exclusive use”. So when Jesus prays, “Sanctify them by the
truth. Your word is truth”, he’s asking
his Father to continue separating his disciples from the world by the true Word
of God. You see, the world has its way
of thinking. It’s a wrong way of
thinking. It’s totally deceived by
Satan. Those who believe in the
Christian Gospel have a different way of thinking. They are born of God, and by his Spirit they
think like he does. And because they are
born of God they are not of the world anymore, so they don’t think like the
world does. Instead, they believe the
truth – that’s what separates or sanctifies them. So then in a practical sense, what
sanctifies or separates the followers of Jesus is their belief in the words Jesus
has given them. This belief is expressed
in the true confession of faith in God’s Word that stands against the false
ideas of the world. And from the very
beginning, the church has always expressed its confession of faith in the form
of creedal statements – a creed being the content of what is believed. For example, the earliest confession of the
Christian church was “Jesus Christ is Lord.”
That confession separated the first Christians from the Jews at the
local synagogues. Understand that these first
Christians shared a good deal with the rest of the folks at their
synagogues. They had the same
Scriptures, they all expected the coming Messiah, they all looked forward to
the redemption of Israel … but the Christians said, “Jesus of Nazareth is
the long expected Messiah. He is the
fulfillment of what we’ve been hoping for.”
Those who believed that were sanctified by the truth. They were set apart. They were made one in Christ. Those who rejected that truth remained in the
world’s dark deception. And like said earlier, Satan
doesn’t stop challenging and distorting the truth. He’s always looking for an angle of attack
against the church. So in later
centuries, the argument changed. “Okay,
the church says Jesus is Lord – but who is Jesus? What is Jesus? Is he a lesser God? A super man?
Something in between?” Drawing
from God’s revealed Word, the church answered, “The Scriptures declare that
Jesus is true God begotten of the Father from eternity, and he is also true man
born of the Virgin Mary.” Those who
denied part or all of that confession (and there were a lot of them) stayed in
the world; those who believed God’s Word were sanctified and set apart by the
truth. At the time of the Reformation,
the question was, “How is a person saved by Jesus Christ?” Those who were deceived by worldly ideas
said, “by obedience to the law” or “by faith and good
works”. The faithful church looked at
God’s truth and answered, “By grace through faith alone, without any works done
by man.” This truth set them apart. Also at the time of the Reformation, there
were those who wanted to impose worldly ideas on the Sacraments. They declared, contrary to Scripture, that
Baptism is merely a symbolic ceremony; not at all a washing of regeneration
that saves. They also declared that the
Lord Jesus could not possibly give us his body and blood in Holy
Communion. And again, against those who
wanted to delete or change the clear Words of Jesus, the faithful said, “No. We believe what Jesus said.” And the truth sets them apart. It continues to sanctify them today. My whole point is that our Father
in heaven answers the prayer of Jesus his Son not by having his followers throw
out the truth for the sake of outward unity, by rather by using theological
controversy to drive the faithful more deeply into the Word of truth that sets
them apart from the world. And the
deeper they are into the truth that sanctifies them, the more united they will
be. Now, I won’t deny that sometimes,
due to our sinful pride or stubbornness, theological discussions are taken to
ridiculous extremes. Some bitterly
fought arguments I’ve observed remind me of the two nations in the story of
Gulliver’s travels who were at war over the issue of which end of soft-boiled
egg should be opened. Who cares? It’s wrong to let silly differences of
opinion divide us. But where God has
spoken, where we have his true Word to guide us, we are not at liberty to set
it aside for the sake of “unity”. God’s
Truth is what sanctifies us and makes us one. Any unity based on pooled ignorance, apathy,
or lack of concern for the truth is the false unity of the world. It might look good on the outside; but
inside, it’s hollow. There’s no
spiritual substance to it. And again, I want to emphasize
that Satan is very clever in exploiting the appearance of disunity in the
church to accuse those who want to stand on the truth of being unloving and
therefore unchristian. Just for example,
this last week I received the packet of materials for the upcoming District Convention
at Okoboji. It includes a memorial
submitted by one of the congregations for discussion and approval by the
delegates. On the surface, the memorial
claims to be about encouraging missions.
Hey, who’s going to say that we shouldn’t encourage missions,
right? But if you read the body of it,
it is in fact an angry diatribe against the sin of “contending for the truth”,
and how those who think the truth is worth fighting for are interfering with
the church’s mission efforts. “Forget
truth and doctrine! Let’s just tell
people about Jeezus!”
My question is, “Without truth, without doctrine, what Jesus will
you be telling people about?” No, the way the Father separates people from this world doomed to destruction and gives them salvation and eternal life in Jesus Christ is through his truth. By the truth he gives us his Spirit. By the truth he gives us the faith to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, that we’re saved by trusting in what he did on the cross to save us, and how that Jesus comes into our lives to unite us to himself in his holy Word and the Sacraments. So, if we’re truly interested in promoting Christian unity and love, we should be all the more diligent in pursuing the knowledge of God’s truth revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. That is to say, our love of the truth will produce in our lives the Christian love that comes from being in the truth. And let me close by making that as
clear as I can. Love, real Christian
love, is something we should strive for; but it’s not something that we have in
ourselves naturally. You can’t be loving
by trying to be loving any more than you can stop sinning by trying to stop
sinning. Love is something that comes to
us from God. It’s something we can
display only by having the Spirit of Christ in ourselves. Now, it’s possible for us to put forth the
pretense or appearance of what the world thinks of as love. That we can do. And many people in the church do just that by
setting aside God’s truth in order to appear to be cooperative and loving. It impresses the world. “My, look how those Christians are getting
along! They’re united now.” Hogwash.
They’ve sold out God’s truth; and so, despite appearances, they are
spiritually farther apart than before. On the other hand, taking a stand
on God’s Word will subject us to the criticism and condemnation of the
world. But that’s exactly what we should
expect, because if you’re standing on the truth, you are not of the world – and
Jesus said that the world would hate those who keep his words. But keeping his words … cherishing them, and
diligently seeking to inwardly digest them, will fill us with his Spirit that
unites us in Christ. Our love of the truth
will create in us love born of the truth, and we will truly be
his disciples. May our heavenly Father,
who has redeemed us by the blood of his Son, so sanctify and unify us. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Soli Deo
Gloria! |
