Sent and Kept

Grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen. Our text for this morning's message is the Gospel reading, which was read at the lectern.

I bet many of you, if not most of you, but many of you at some point have received in the mail, maybe it's a little card. And when you open the envelope, the front of the card said, "I'm thinking of you." And then maybe inside, maybe the sender wrote a little note. Maybe they signed it Your Secret Pal, because maybe you have a secret pal. Or maybe sometimes, instead of just thinking of you, maybe the card said, "I'm praying for you." I'm praying for you. And probably, the day when you got the card was maybe a day you were really hoping somebody was thinking about you because you were feeling like nobody thought about you at all.

Or maybe there was something going on in your world, in your life. Maybe it was medical, or family issue, or job-related issue, or who knows, just the plain old craziness of trying to live in this world. You were really needing someone pray for you. And just having that knowledge just kind of lifted your spirit, lifted the burden, knowing that somebody was remembering you in prayer.

The other day, Wednesday, when I was here for service, I was in the narthex greeting people. And a member came up and said "Pastor Ader, I was talking with someone today, another lady, and she said to me, 'how is it possible for Pastor Ader or to accomplish all these things he has to do? I'm praying for him.'" And the lady that was sharing this with me said "And I'm praying for you too." And I said "Well, the answer to the lady's question, how can Pastor Ader do all these things, accomplish all these things, is really because people are praying for me. Because apart from God's strength and God's guidance, oh, I'm sure it would be a terrible mess." Because that's the way Luther felt - that his service to the Lord, apart from God's blessing, would certainly be a complete mess. In our text this morning, we have a portion of Jesus' high priestly prayer. And in this prayer, in our immediate context, Jesus is praying for His disciples. He's praying that God would keep them in His name, that He would keep them safe from the danger of the devil. That he would keep them, set them apart in the truth. Because He, Himself, while He was with them, kept them in God's name, guarded them, protected them from the evil one, but now He was going to be leaving them. And, of course, Jesus is looking toward His crucifixion. His resurrection. And then ultimately His Ascension that He would no longer be with them in the personal present way that he had been for 3.33 years. He was going to be returning to the Father. And so He's praying that His father would keep these men safe. And He says, "I lost no one except the one destined for destruction to fulfill the scripture."

Even Jesus couldn't save Judas, because it was destined to fulfill the scripture.

And further on in this prayer, Jesus is praying for those who would believe because of these men's witness and testimony to His resurrection. Guess what? He includes you and I in this prayer in the seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel.

He knew that we would believe in Him because of the testimony of these men. Now, we didn't have any of those disciples speak to us directly, but we have their testimony recorded for us in the Holy scriptures.

If we'd been here, oh, let's say a hundred to a hundred and twenty years ago, and the service was being done in German, there would have been a response after the pastor read the readings, and the response would have gone something like this: the pastor would have said, "sanctify, your people in the truth." And the congregation's response would be, "Thy word is truth." Thy word is truth.

You see, Jesus has given them His word. He has given us His word. And because of that word, the world hates us. The world hates us because we have God's word and we acknowledge it to be the truth. The truth.

Not "some truth," not partial truth, not what I wanted to be truth - truth, but definite, objective outside-of-ourselves truth.

Nothing exists apart from God's word: the universe we live in, the planet we live on, the materials, the blessings, the resources, all come from God's spoken, word, "Let there be," and there was.

His powerful word, a moment ago forgave you all your sin. His powerful word raised Jesus from the dead. And His powerful word united you into the body of Christ, when it was united to the water in baptism. And later in the service, as you come and partake of the Supper, that powerful word has been connected to the bread and the wine to bring before us that very body and blood of Jesus Christ. We believe that. Or at least, we should believe that. And for that reason, the world hates us. Because the world doesn't acknowledge God's word as truth. They want nothing to do with God's word.

Now, I don't imagine that the worldly friend of yours is going to come right up to your face and say, "you know what, I really hate you because you're a Christian and you believe God's word." They're probably not going to do that. Which is probably a good thing because it enables you to continue to sow seeds from the word in their life. But as we look at the world outside, as we look at the culture, as we look at what we see in the media, the world we live in is pretty hostile to Christians, is it not?

Even though we're not facing the difficult, severe persecution of many Christians in the world, we are hated by the world. Because we have God's word. And Jesus says, "God's word is the truth, sanctify them in the truth." That is, set them apart from the world in your truth. That's what holy means. Not that we're perfect, but that were set apart. We're set apart from the rest of the world because of God's word. And Jesus says your word is truth.

Before Pilate sent Jesus to be crucified, he had a conversation with Jesus, and he ended it with the question: What is truth? Well, the truth is God's word. But Pilot didn't really care to hear it. And it's for that reason that Jesus prays for us. That we, too, would be kept in that word. Becuase the devil, the prince of this world, will try his might to twart us from being in the truth.

In the garden, God simply said to Adam and Eve, "you may eat of the entire Garden, but you may not eat of the tree in the midst of the garden." Now, that shouldn't have been so hard to follow, should it? I mean you've got this whole garden, full of fruits, berries, nuts, vegetation, lots of good stuff to eat. And God says you can eat from anything but that one tree.

Now imagine - Y'all know the Golden Corral, it's no longer in our area but you're familiar with it, most of you - when you come in to Golden Corral, they give you a basket of buns, don't they? With I think it's honey butter or cinnamon butter. I don't know what it is. It's really good. In fact, I've had people say, "You know, I go to Golden Corral just to eat the buns" cuz they keep bringing them as long as you ask. They'll bring them.

Now suppose we entered into the Golden Corral and I said "You can eat of anything you want on the buffet" - and you should be able to find something you like there, even if it's only dessert. And what if I then said "But you may not eat any of the buns and the butter."

That wouldn't be so hard, would it? I mean. But then somebody would say, "Did Pastor Ader really say we weren't supposed to eat the buns?"

So which someone else would reply, "Well, no, I don't think he said we shouldn't eat the buns. I think he said we should be careful in how many buns we eat." And so, you know, so pretty soon you're all eating the buns. And then you realize that hey, Pastor Ader meant what he meant when he said "Don't eat the buns." Why? Because y'all got sick off the buns.

Adam and Eve, the devil twisted God's word. He twisted the truth. Oh, God didn't really even say you would die. You won't die. He knows you'll become like Him, knowing good and evil. Which put Adam and Eve out of the truth, into falsehood. Lie.

Afterwards, they realized that God really meant what He said when He said "don't eat from that tree." Because He cast them out of the garden. Out into the thorns and thistles and the mosquitoes and the cicadas and whatever else freaks us out or makes our life horrible. Because of their sin.

And God's word still means what His word says. It doesn't mean something that somebody thinks it says, it says what it says.

But the devil would like us to not think of that word, not dwell in that word, not believe that word. He wants us to find truth elsewhere in the world, which likes to think it's the source of all truth. But it's really the source of all falsehood, all lies. In our world today, people are asking, just like Pilate "What is truth?" And the answer in our day is: whatever you want it to be.

Others will say, well, "let's see what somebody else says God's word says. And then, let's keep looking until we find somebody that says that God's word says what we want God's word to say." Did you get all that?

So, 50 years ago, you had a spiritual question, a question about the Bible, or needed, some guidance, direction for your life, as you were considering a decision. Chances are, you would have come and seen the pastor, wouldn't you have? Now, nobody comes to see the pastor. They go to the internet because, after all, if it's on the internet, it must be true, right?

But there's a lot of falsehood on the internet. And there's a lot of lies on the internet. Now, come on. Who are you going to really trust? Are you going to trust your pastor, who knows you better, or are you going to trust the internet, that doesn't know you at all?

Jesus is praying for each of us the same as He was for His Father. First, that we'd be one in faith as He and His Father are one. But then also that He would keep us, keep us from the evil one. Now notice, He didn't say "Take them out of the world." He didn't say "Keep them from the devil's temptation or trying or testing. Or even persecution. He said "Keep them from the danger of the devil."

So, the devil may test us, the devil may try us. The devil may seek how he will to pull us away from God's word. But he will not harm us.

And also, He prays for us, that we might remain in His word. He says, "The world hates them because they're not of the world, not any way like I was out of the world, because I've given them Your word."

We kind of pride ourselves about being about the word. You know, even have one of those Solas: Word alone. Scripture alone. But then we forget that that really means we oughta be in the scripture. We ought to be upholding what scripture says in the world. But that opens us up to being ripped apart by the wolves of the world, doesn't it? Maybe you've had your faith ripped to shreds by some worldly wolf. And maybe it caused you to question your faith. And prayerfully, God confirmed your faith and strengthened you in that faith.

All because, now it's you and I who are being sent out. Originally the eleven, plus Matthias went out. It was so important for those first disciples that there'd be somebody to take Judas' place to share in the testimony, the witness of Jesus' resurrection and His death. To spread the word, to spread the testimony. It's still important in our day. It still needs to go out. The testimony still needs to be given, especially in light of the world in which we live. Where we see scandals of prominent religious leaders, which shakes the church. Causes the week in faith to question their faith, because they've perhaps put more trust in the man rather than the God he speaks for. Or, just have a bad taste for religion altogether. But you see, God takes His word, and keeps His word. He assures us through the Apostle John in our epistle reading, that we have life in us. Why? Because we have His son. We believe in His Son. And His Son is praying that we be kept in that faith, and that we be strengthened in that faith. And the devil's out there, fighting it all along.

And yet, God's word is going out. The testimony is going out, and people are believing the testimony and turning from sin and death and darkness and being controlled by the devil, to walking in the light, living in the truth, allowing Jesus Christ to rule in their lives in the Holy Spirit to guide and direct them.

And Jesus says "For this sake, for this very sake, I consecrate myself. This is why I go to the cross. This is why I suffer this death. Not only for the forgiveness of their sins, but that they would be kept safe, and they'd be kept in Your word. And that they may be assured they have eternal life. Because they have me."

And so, be assured. Our Lord and Savior, He prays for you. Your pastor prays for you, but Jesus really prays for you, because Jesus knows every little bitty thing about you. Even the things you don't want the pastor to know about you, Jesus knows about you. He knows your hurts, your joys, or griefs, your sorrows, your indecision, your doubt. And He's praying for you. First and foremost that you'd be kept safe in God's name from the evil one. That you'd be set apart from the world by the truth of God's word. And that you would utilize that word to strengthen you in your faith in Him as your Savior. But then, also, all these other things He will take care of. Now, notice that John in his epistle says we can be assured that He hears these requests. We know we have these requests that we have asked of Him. Yes, we have the requests, but guess what? John isn't saying because we believe, that means He's going to give us what we want.

How many times did our parents give us something that we wanted, even if they know it was against their better judgment, and we learned our lesson: "Gee, Mom, I wish you would have said no." Or "Dad, I wish you'd have not given me that money to get that thing I wanted so bad that fell apart after the first week."

But when we ask God, through our Lord, Jesus Christ, to strengthen us in our faith and to keep us in His word, we can be assured that we have that request answered in the affirmative, because that itself is God's will for us - that we grow strong and mature in His word, to be kept safe from the world and the devil, our sin. To be able to recognize the world, the devil and our sin. And to be assured that on the last day, we find ourselves as He has promised, sharing in the blessedness of eternity in heaven, rather than the curse of eternity in damnation.

Yes, whether we like it or not, that's what God's word says. And Jesus reminds us that He alone is the way, the truth, and the life and no one else comes to the Father, except through Him. May He then, who is the truth, keep us in the truth and grant us that life eternal on the day of his return. Amen. And now may the peace of God, which surpasses our human understanding, keep our hearts and our minds in faith in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.