Sermon for 5-5-24

John 17: 18-26

Rogate

Easter 6

 

Opening Prayer: Jesus, my Savior, thank You for keeping Your Word and promise by living a perfect life in my place and dying to pay for all my sins. Help me, out of love and thanks for all You have done for me, to follow Your Word and to live according to Your will.  Amen.

 

+In the Name of Jesus+

 

Beloved in Christ:  There is a phenomenon happening in our nation even as we speak which is affecting the Christian Church and its people.   It goes by the title “The Great Dechurching.”   At its core, this life and this world are more important in the daily lives of people so as to take them away from hearing the Word of God.

 

It has been suggested under this heading that one of the main causes for this phenomenon is the secularization of the culture in which we live.    Many Christian families are feeling this phenomenon and its influence as their grown children leave the safety of God’s word and abandon the faith to follow the world.    This phenomenon is not new.   But it is still disturbing.   As we live in this society and face this phenomenon, and the attractions of the world, we need encouragement.   Our Savior provides just that in His prayer for the Church.   This morning, we consider:

 

THE GLORIOUS PURPOSE OF YOUR CALLING AS A CHRISTIAN.

Jesus sends you into the world.

You are called to be one with Christ and the Church.

You are sent so that the world may believe.

Jesus wills that we will be in heaven.

 

JESUS SENDS YOU INTO THE WORLD

 

                Once again, you are to take this prayer of our Savior very personally, and why I use the pronoun “you.”     Jesus says: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

 

As such, Jesus is sending you into this world.   You are not of this world any longer.   Yes, you are still here, but you have been separated out from this world’s culture and its sin for a glorious life.   St. Peter explains this glorious life: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (I Peter 2: 9).”    The Holy Spirit brought you to faith in Christ through the Word which set in motion the miracle of conversion.    You are now, “A people for His own possession,” for the purpose of speaking to others about your faith in Christ.

 

For this great honor and glorious calling, Jesus does not leave you on your own or at the mercy of the devil and your accusing conscience.   Rather, Jesus consecrates or sanctifies Himself on your behalf by voluntarily entering His sacrificial and atoning death on the cross.     This means that your glorious life is immersed in the perfect life, death and resurrection of Christ, not by what you did but rather by the working of God the Holy Spirit.    As the Apostle Paul reminds us, “He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit.”

 

God did not require you to go through an apprenticeship; the Lord did not say “I have done my part, now it is up to you.”   He took you while you were still a wretched sinner, separated you out of the world and washed you clean in the holy water of Baptism.    This is what your Savior means when He says that “They also may be sanctified in truth.”    Your Savior has separated you out and embraced you in all truth, the truth of God’s holy word.

 

YOU ARE CALLED TO BE ONE WITH CHRIST AND THE CHURCH.

 

                This truth is attached to the next part of the prayer.   Much of this glorious prayer of our blessed Savior is for unity or as Jesus says:  “That they may all be one.”     Your Savior prays that as you are sent into the world that you are one with Christ and His Church, not one with this world.   This “oneness” is in distinction from the world, indeed, it stands in opposition to this world’s culture and world view.    This oneness will not be a human oneness based on national, racial, political or social oneness.   This oneness is founded on the truth of God’s Word.

 

This oneness of which Jesus speaks is always oneness in His Word.   Apart from the Word of God there is no Church, no faith and no oneness because there is no faith apart from the Word.  “That they may be one” means a oneness and agreement in God’s Word.

 

As Paul says, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; ⁵ one Lord, one faith, one baptism; ⁶ one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”   Every deviation in doctrine, life and practice from the Word mars and disrupts our oneness and hinders the fulfillment of our Lord’s prayer.   Jesus does not leave us to fend for ourselves but offers up His prayer to the Father for this oneness.   This is why we have Creeds, statements of faith, and Confessional writings.

 

YOU ARE SENT SO THAT THE WORLD MAY BELIEVE.

 

                Now, just as the Truth is attached to the second part of our Savior’s glorious prayer, so also is the third part directly attached to the oneness of our Confession and faith.   This oneness of faith voicing the inerrant and inspired Word, adhering to it in every part, obeying its every precept is meant by your Savior to act powerfully upon the world into which you have been placed by the grace of God.   Jesus comforts you in this oneness of faith: “So that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

 

Think about this: Jesus does not intercede for the world as he does for you.    You are a special people cleansed by the Triune God in the sacred water of Baptism of all your sin.   Yet, the world is still the object of the love of Christ.    His saving efforts extend to this world of sinners: “God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 

 

The Lord chose you by His grace and separated you out, grabbed you, if you will, by the scruff of your neck and pulled you out of the mire and muck of your sin washed you clean.   God purposely put you into the world so that others would come to faith and believe in Christ for their forgiveness.    Your Savior wants you to know and believe that has commissioned you to tell the world, for which Jesus died and rose again, about the entire mission of Christ.

 

JESUS WILLS THAT YOU BE IN HEAVEN.

 

As a Chosen people who are called to bring the Gospel of Christ crucified and risen to this world of sinners, He concludes His prayer for your eternal salvation.    “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.”     The will of the Father and the will of Christ are one and the same.   Jesus wants you to be with Him in all eternity.    Jesus wants you to see the wonders of the glory of Jesus shining out from His exalted human nature.

 

Did you hear those words of Jesus: “before the foundation of the world.”    This prayer of your Savior reaches back into all eternity, to the eternal love of God, and at the same time reaches forward to all eternity and to the blessedness which shall be yours forever guaranteed to you in your Holy Baptism.

 

Now you may be thinking, “How could the Lord call such a wretched individual like me into His holy kingdom and then send me out to speak to others.    I have done so many things in violation to the Word of God.   I have lied.   I have allowed lust to invade my heart.   I have spoken ill of others.   I have often set my heart on the things of this world rather than the riches of Christ.    I have neglected the Word of God and His gift of prayer.   I hold grudges and often don’t forgive as Christ has forgiven me.    How can I, filled as I am with sin, presume to speak to others about their sin and faith in Christ.”

 

First of all, yes, you are guilty of this and more.    But Let’s think about the apostles for just a moment.      As a disciple Peter betrayed His Savior to the horror of the cross.     But Jesus called Peter to repentance and told Peter, “Feed my sheep.”     Think about the Apostle Paul and what he wrote about himself: “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.   For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.”    Was Paul without sin even as he preached the Gospel to others?  No!   Paul took refuge and comfort in the cross of Christ.

 

Remember, this prayer is very personal; it is meant for you.   As one who is sent out Jesus again calls you this day to repentance, yes, eyes you have used to sin.   That repentant call means that He invites you to look and fix your tired and sinful eyes upon the cross once again.   Jesus means for you to see and believe that His suffering and death is the foundation of your call into His Kingdom.     It means that You are part of the great cloud of witnesses who faith and hope is in Christ to the dechurched, to the unchurched and to this world.

 

For this calling your Savior beckons you to gather once again at the Table He has set for sinners, for you, where He gives to you the absolute promise of forgiveness in the elements of Bread and Wine in which is encased His very Body and blood for your forgiveness.   He does not call you to His table to charge you with sin, but to comfort you with His tender voice of forgiveness: “Whoever comes unto Me, I will in no wise cast  out.”      Then with a clear conscience go and live the glorious life to which your Savior has so graciously called you.   Your sins are all forgiven.   Go in peace.  Amen.

 

Soli Deo Gloria