Uncommon Christians

Preaching on Graduation Sunday is kind of weird.

Technically, I’m preaching to the whole congregation, but we all expect me to have something for the seniors especially. We are sending them out into the world, and our prayer for them is that they will be a reflection of Christ in their schoos and workplaces.

But, you guys are still here, right? It would be kind of weird if I were to just preach to a small group in church!

However, this passage shows us that it’s not just the seniors being sent out. We see in this passage that all of us are sent out by Christ to be His representation on earth.

And yet, that is so difficult to do well! To be a representative of Christ in your schools, your job, your home, to your friends, on the freeway?! It’s impossible!

How can we be a good representation of Jesus?

“But it is all the more important to insist constantly and almost monotonously that a person who pursues theological courses is spiritually sick unless he reads the Bible uncommonly often...” Helmut Thielicke

I think that God has been using this quote to work on my heart, and hopefully yours as well. It’s especially that word “uncommon.”

What we see in this passage as well is

Christ Followers are sent to be uncommon in their faith and their love.

Uncommon Faith.

Jesus, in this section, calls us to an incredibly uncommon faith.

John 17:14 “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.”

we are hated by the world, and yet we are supposed to be in it,

John 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

We are supposed to behold the glory of God in a world that is so anti God!

We’re told by Jesus to be His representatives on earth, but how can we do that?

Be in the Word.

John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

We must be sanctified, or made holy, by spending time in God’s Word, His Book

We must wash ourselves in the living water that is the Word of God.

And so, we must be in the Bible, but I can get a little legalistic when it comes to Bible reading

“How much is needed?”

“What is too little?”

And this is where Thielicke comes in.

He writes that we should be in the Word of God, “uncommonly often.”

That’s a relative term! It’s not “Be in the Bible 20 minutes a day” or anythiing like that.

What does it mean to you to read your Bible, “uncommonly often?”

To read your Bible uncommonly often, we have to ask ourselves, “What is a crazy amount of time to read the Bible?” “What is an amount that feels shocking?”

THEN DO THAT!

Maybe for some of us, it’s 10 minutes. You don’t read, so 10 minutes sitting down to read feels ludicrous.

Maybe for some of you, it looks more like 40 minutes. You have some time in your day, and while it feels crazy, you could make that work.

And, constantly be evaluating this! Maybe you can one day get from 10-15 minutes! You could even get all the way to an hour one day!

But, if we want to be a people of uncommon faith, we have to be in the Bible uncommonly often.

Be Unified.

Jesus mentions unity in this prayer at least 4 times, and yet unity isn’t a very common word to describe Christians, is it?

We’re more known for what we hate than what we love, we are a people known for splitting up churches over choosing a carpet!

And yet, Jesus tells us to be a unified people; that we should care for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

We are supposed to be unified in the same way the Father, Son, and Spirit are unified

VS 21!!!

We can only have this unity by being united with Christ.

When you believed in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, the old you died with Him on the cross, and the new you was born when He resurrected from the dead.

Romans 6:3-5 “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.”

So, get along with each other! We don’t all have to agree, but we must all be unified in our relationship with God.

And how do we do this? It’s by having

Uncommon Love.

The only way that we can have such an uncommon faith is by having an uncommon love.

We can only love because of the love of God.

We share in the love of the Godhead.

John 17:26 “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.””

When you become a Christian and are united with Christ in His death and His life, then you become the recipient of the love of God. You share the bond of love that is between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

So, we are a people defined by love! We are so immensely loved by God, and because of that, we cannot help but love others because of the inexhaustible well of love that we are filled with.

Uncommon Christians can’t help but love others.

Because of the love that we’ve received, because of our new life in Christ, because of the immense sacrifice He gave, we are to be a people of love!

John 17:26 “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.””

And so we must ask,

What does it look like to love people in the way God loves us?

Seniors, what would it look like to be defined by the love of Christ as you go off to your respective fields?

Parents, what does it look like to love your children in the way that God does?

What would it look like to treat your spouse in the way that Christ did?

How would your job be different if you loved people like Jesus?

If you want to be an uncommon Christian, then you will need to be different from the world, and we do that by reflecting the love that Christ gave to us.

And so, I want you to ask yourself,

How can I love people in the wya that Jesus does?

Gospel Presentation: The love of Jesus

You see, the only reason that we can advocate being uncommon is that we have an uncommon God. Jesus is God, but He came down and lived a perfect human life because you and I couldn’t, and died a death that you and I deserved. All of that was to make a sacrifice so that you can be forgiven of your sin and receive the new life that can only be given by being unified with Christ.

We see this in action with Tim Keller

“There is no downside for me leaving, not in the slightest.”