Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Jesus could have waited to pray unto He ascended to heaven but He chose to speak His prayer in the hearing of the disciples so that they might be encouraged by it.

Exhort — To build up; strongly encourage someone to action

Jesus intended His pray to encourage them so they might fully experience His joy.

Joy of the Lord — Jesus wants them to know He is praying for them the necessary steps to a life fully engaged in His purpose for their life…this is the joy of the Lord

Jesus wants them to know He is praying for them the things necessary so they might live a life fully engaged in accomplishing God’s purposes for their life.

It is as they cooperate with Christ’s mission to save the world that they will experience true joy

It is as we experience relationship with God and cooperate with His mission to love and save the world that we experience true joy.

More probably Jesus means that he had the joy of living the completely fruitful life and he wants the joy that he already has to be in them too as they live fruitfully

That is what this prayer of Jesus is about and subsequently what this sermon is about…that we might experience the fullness of God’s joy by living His mission or purpose for our life.

Morris, L. (1995).

The Gospel according to John (p.

598).

Grand Rapids, MI: Wm.

B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

Christian Joy — Gladness, happiness at the possession of something God has given or the assurance of what He has promised to give.

We see two things in this passage that God has given His disciples which brings real, genuine, unshakeable joy: relationship with Him (through the revelation Jesus brings to them) and the opportunity to be a part of what He is doing in the world.

We can have real joy in the experience of knowing God and following His plan for our life.

That plan…is to be a part fo what He is doing around us…be a part of things which bring glory to Him…a part of things which lead others to saving faith.

Jesus wanted this for His disciples in the first century and He wants it for us now as well.

His prayers are meant to be an encouragement to that end.

Jesus wanted this for His disciples in the first century and He wants it for us now as well.

His prayers are meant to be an encouragement to that end.

This begs the question — Are you experiencing the joy of the Lord?

Is your life defined by your relationship with God and cooperation with His mission in the world?

Is this what gives you contentment, happiness and joy?

If not there is more to life than what you are experiencing.

Verse 14-15

God’s first step on the path to the joy of Jesus: God’s reveals Himself

First things first!

We have to be saved!

The only people in this world who can experience supernatural joy that only Jesus gives are those who have placed faith in Him for their salvation from sin and new life.

The Word — Jesus had given these disciples the word...The revelation of the Father.

They received this revelation and placed faith in Jesus.

They had come to believe in Jesus’ message, origin and mission.

They were no longer the same…they were born again.

The first step to a life of joy is God’s revelation of Himself in Jesus

"You are angry," said a Negro fellow-traveler to Dan Crawford, at the end of a fifteen-mile trek in the tall grass of Central Africa.

"Why do you say so?" "Because you are silent," was the reply.

"Tell me more about it."

"In our language," answered the black man, "we say that if a man is silent, he is angry.

This is why we know God is angry—because He is silent.

God is silent" The intrepid missionary was cut to the heart.

He opened his pocket Testament and read to the man the first verse of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Much more, he went to work at translating the New Testament into the language of his Central African brother, and in building schoolhouses in which the people might be taught to read the Word which God had spoken in Jesus Christ nearly two thousand years before.

God was not silent.

But the messengers to whom He had committed His Good News had been slow to tell it as He had bidden them, unto the ends of the earth.

God has given us His Word…we should be careful stewards of it

Thank God for this new life…we have moved …from lies to the truth…from darkness to the light…from death to life.

This new life marked them as different.

They were no longer the same as those living apart from Christ.

Their faith made them a new person.

Once we become born again we are no longer of the world anymore than Jesus Himself is of the world.

Our new life in Him removes us from theological, philosophical and moral alignment with the natural man.

A lot of believers struggle at this point.

They struggle when disliked, hated or ridiculed for their differentness.

Being different on the basis of our belief and trust in Christ is an absolute for the genuine Christian.

If you are not different because of your relationship with Christ you have to ask yourself the question, “Do I genuinely have a relationship with Christ.”

Being different on the basis of our belief and trust in Christ is an absolute

If you look, sound, think and act like the world you are of the world.

If it looks, sounds and quacks like a duck…its a duck.

“The followers of Jesus are permitted neither the luxury of compromise with a ‘world’ (cf.

notes on 1:9) that is intrinsically evil and under the devil’s power, nor the safety of disengagement.

But if the Christian pilgrimage is inherently perilous, the safety that only God himself can provide is assured, as certainly as the prayers of God’s own dear Son will be answered.”