Sanctify Them in Truth
Download MP3I invite
Joel Brooks:you to open your bibles to John, chapter 17. John 17. Before heading off to, my sabbatical this summer, I was already reading a lot through John 17, and really feeling my heart stirred, especially over Jesus' words for unity, that we would be 1 just as He and the Father are 1. And so the week before I left, I actually reached out to a number of pastors, lead pastors all around here in Birmingham, and asked if they would be willing to to gather together, not not for lunch, not for a conference, but for us to just gather together and get on our knees and pray together. Really, I found that the the best way to get to know someone is not over lunch.
Joel Brooks:It's to pray with them, and there you really hear their heart. And and so I I invited these guys, and to somewhat my surprise almost all of them said yes, that they would love to do that. And so that happened this past Wednesday. We had pastors from a number of the churches around in the city from Christ Fellowship to Brook Hills to Oak Mountain Pres to Emmanuel, to New Rising Star. There's about 15 different churches.
Joel Brooks:The pastors of those churches gathered here together. We met in the back welcome room there and just got on our knees before the Lord and just prayed together for 2 hours. And it was such an encouraging, just beautiful time. A matter of fact, this morning I'm getting texts from all these different pastors saying, we really we let's make an agreement. We're all gonna share about this this coming Sunday.
Joel Brooks:So we made this agreement that we're gonna let our churches know that pastors from all over the city are gathering together united in prayer. And one of the things that we have been praying for that really was the heartbeat of this time together was revival. Revival for the city of Birmingham. I've been here in Birmingham 20 years, and revival's not happened. What I have seen is just a lot of movement among churches.
Joel Brooks:A lot of, you know, sheep shuffling, if you will. You know, just you know a lot of sheep go to this church for a bit and then they go to this church for a bit and then they go to this church and it's just all these sheep being moved around. And that's happened for 20 years, but there's not been many new sheep. It's just been moving people around. And and when we're in this this back room together, we're like, we I don't wanna spend the next 20 years of my life just moving sheep around.
Joel Brooks:We want to pastor new sheep. We want God to do a new work in this city. And so what we are praying for is revival or just mass conversions all across Birmingham. We want what happened to Lydia in Acts 16 where she's hearing the Word and it says that, The Lord opened her heart to respond and to really believe in Jesus. We want that to happen in a mass scale.
Joel Brooks:So when when people come up to me, you know, after a service, and this this always happens, you know, maybe once or twice a week, somebody will come up and they'll say, how come I've never heard this? Like, I grew up in church my whole life. How come I'm just now hearing the gospel for the first time? I said, well, it's not because it hasn't been preached, it's because it hasn't been until this moment that the Lord opened your heart and His spirit just opened up and you received. That is what I wanna see all across Birmingham.
Joel Brooks:And I want to invite you, just as pastors all over the city are inviting their congregations, to join in with us as we pray that God would do a new work in this city, that revival would happen. When I when I was looking around at all these guys, I was like, man, there are some very gifted men here. But giftedness doesn't bring revival. The key isn't to tell these guys to work harder, do better preaching. I kept thinking of Jonah.
Joel Brooks:Jonah goes to the pagan evil city of Nineveh and he preaches one of the worst sermons. It's a sentence long. Repent or you'll perish. The entire city repents. The entire city.
Joel Brooks:The animals repented And it's because the Spirit of God opened up their hearts to receive. And so I want us to commit to as a church that this is something we're going to pray for in the months, the weeks, the months, and the years ahead that God would revive this city. Alright, John 17. John 17. We're not going to read the whole thing.
Joel Brooks:I wanted it all there in front of you, but we're going to begin reading in verse 15 through verse 19. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth.
Joel Brooks:As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. This is the
Jeffrey Heine:word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:Pray with me. Father, I pray in this moment we would indeed be sanctified by your word. We would be sanctified in truth. Spirit, you're welcome in this place to do the work that none of us can do, and that's to open up our hearts to receive the things from our father. We wanna hear from you, lord, and we wanna receive those things and be transformed.
Joel Brooks:We wanna come to see Jesus as beautiful. Beholding him is becoming like him, and we wanna be transformed into his image. And so I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.
Joel Brooks:This is our last week in chapter 17 because we we have to move on. We're gonna finish John before Christmas. Next week, we are going to leave this prayer and we are going to see how the disciples abandon Jesus. They're just moments away from abandoning Jesus, running off in fear. We're going to see how even Peter gets so scared that he denies even knowing Jesus to a little girl.
Joel Brooks:So next week, we are gonna look at mass failure. Alright? Failure by the disciples. And really this is just keeping in line with what we've seen from the disciples so far as we've gone through John. They're constantly doubting who Jesus is.
Joel Brooks:They don't fully grasp His power. They're almost always confused at His teaching. They've just been arguing with one another over who is the greatest. And currently, as Jesus is praying this, we know from the other Gospels, they're getting really, really sleepy. They're having a hard time staying awake, having a hard time paying attention to this beautiful prayer.
Joel Brooks:And yet, in the midst of all of this, as as we are looking at this prayer for this last time, I want you to notice just how positive Jesus is when he prays about them. Look at this. In verse 6, He says, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. These disciples have kept your word.
Joel Brooks:I mean, real really? They are literally 1 hour away from abandoning him. And then he says, look at these gifts that you have given me, and they have kept your word. Then he prays in verse 10, all mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. Jesus says that he is glorified in the lives of these pathetic disciples who are falling asleep as he is praying.
Joel Brooks:Jesus doesn't bring up any of their present failures. He doesn't bring up any of their past failures or their future failures. He he speaks of their obedience and how they bring him glory and he uses absolute terms. They have kept your word. They have brought me glory.
Joel Brooks:He's just so affirming and positive of these people. There's not one negative word spoken on their behalf or of us. I want you to remember that Jesus is not just praying for the 12 there, but he says that he is praying for all those who come to believe through their word. He's praying for us. And when Jesus prays for us, he is he's praying things like, these people here, g your father, they have they have kept your word.
Joel Brooks:These people here, they've glorified you. There's nothing negative here. And what we are seeing here is is I believe Jesus is transitioning from his role as this earthly savior to this role of great high priest, in which His righteousness is being given to us. His obedience is becoming our obedience. Hebrews 7 says that Jesus currently lives to make intercession for us, And this is how he intercedes.
Joel Brooks:This is what his intercession looks like. And before we go any further in this prayer, I just wanted to take time to point this out because I know that there's likely some here in this room who come before God in prayer or maybe don't come to God in prayer because they feel like they have completely failed in every possible way. Maybe that's you. Maybe maybe you've lost your temper this week again. Maybe you've fallen into sexual temptation again.
Joel Brooks:Maybe you've been filled with such anxiety over even just little things again. Maybe you're you're doubting your faith. You're doubting who Jesus is again. And so you just feel like a total failure. It's just crushing in on you.
Joel Brooks:If this is you, you need to hear how Jesus talks about you. You really need to hear what he says about you. There is not a hint of negativity from Jesus, and yet he knows all of this. All of your past, all of your future failures. So when Jesus looks down at at me, he's not saying, oh, gosh.
Joel Brooks:Well, there he goes again. I mean, how many times do I have to tell Joel not to do this? How many times do I have to tell Joel to have faith? How many times do I have to tell Joel not to fall asleep when he prays? Like, how many times I have to tell Joel that he's not the greatest, and there he goes again.
Joel Brooks:That's that's not how Jesus is praying for me. Jesus is saying, father, thank you for this gift, this person you have given me, this gift of Joel. Look how he keeps my word. Look how he glorifies me because my righteousness has become his righteousness. A matter of fact, Jesus talks about us the exact same way His father talked about Him, and that's through faith because by faith, we are united with Jesus and so his righteousness has become ours.
Joel Brooks:And so I just think this is a beautiful thing that we see in this prayer. It is amazing As we see Jesus transitioning in His role from this earthly savior to our great high priest in heaven interceding on our behalf, We just see how he loves us and he adores us, and he speaks such encouraging words over us. One of the things that we we see throughout all of this encouragement that he is he's praying over us, one of the things that's most dear to his heart is that we would be sanctified. So we just read that that we'd be sanctified, verse 19. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
Joel Brooks:Jesus says he consecrated himself, or that's it's the exact same word as sanctified there. It's just usually when you're talking about yourself, you don't say you sanctified yourself, you would say you consecrated yourself, but it's the exact same word. So Jesus sanctified himself in order that we might be sanctified. Now sanctification, sanctify, is a is a somewhat difficult word to translate because there's some nuances to it. It's closely related to the word holy or to make holy, but that's not all it means because otherwise Jesus would not need to sanctify himself.
Joel Brooks:Because Jesus is not saying, I'm gonna make myself even more holy. I'm gonna make myself even more perfect. He can't do those things. So to be sanctified cannot mean to become a more perfect person. So what does it mean?
Joel Brooks:And we really need to understand what it means because Jesus is saying, this is why he came here. This is why he came here. This is why he was sanctified so that we might enjoy this, that we might be sanctified. The word sanctify and the word holy, once again, they're they're very similar because they have the same root. They have the same root word there, which means other.
Joel Brooks:That's what holy means, other. Sanctify, in a sense, means other as well or altogether different. So when we say that God is holy, we are saying that He is altogether different. He is not like us. He's in His own category.
Joel Brooks:He is separate from us. And to be sanctified means something very similar to that, but there's a little difference. There's this whole idea of holiness, that we are set apart, that we are altogether different. We are holy, but we're not just holy, I would add this, we're wholly committed. We're wholly committed.
Joel Brooks:So we're both holy and we are wholly committed. Maybe to help out, let let me give you a couple of word pictures about what it means to be sanctified. The first comes from Luke chapter 9. Jesus, he has just fed 5,000 people. It's it's a good ministry day.
Joel Brooks:I mean, he's he's at he's at the height of his ministry here, feeding 5000 men, really probably 15, 20000 people. Right after this, he has his mountaintop experience. He goes up to the mountain, and, He is transfigured. He's glorified in front of 3 of His disciples, and so this is really kind of the peak of Jesus's ministry experience here on earth. And then he comes down and you read this in Luke 9.
Joel Brooks:It says, immediately upon coming down, he set his face to go to Jerusalem, which is where he would die. He set his face to go to Jerusalem. So it's at this point that he became resolute, completely resolute. And he said, he he I'm no longer gonna look to the left. I'm no longer gonna look to the right.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna look straight ahead. There's gonna be no more distractions. I'm going to the cross. He set his face towards Jerusalem. He wholly commits himself to this one purpose.
Joel Brooks:We would say he sanctifies himself. He sanctifies himself. And for us to sanctify ourselves means that we set our face towards something, And we're not distracted by it, we're not looking to the left or right, we hold this before us and nothing can stop us. We become singular in purpose going towards this. I think you get another good picture of what the word sanctify means when you look in the Old Testament at the person of Caleb.
Joel Brooks:Remember Caleb? You've got to go back to the time of Exodus after the Lord had delivered the Israelites from Egypt, and he he takes them through the wilderness to the brink of the promised land. So they're in the the border of Canaan, and he sends out they send out 12 spies. And the spies come back to report what they found, and they're like, it's it's an amazing land. It is indeed flowing with milk and honey.
Joel Brooks:You cannot get a better land than this. So they they were all in agreement about what the land looked like, But then, the vast majority of the spies said, but we cannot go there. We absolutely cannot go there. The cities are huge. They're fortified.
Joel Brooks:The armies are enormous. The people are huge. It would be suicide for us to go forward. But then Caleb had a different response. Caleb's like, I don't see the problem.
Joel Brooks:God told us to go there. We go there. We go there. The land is ours. We need to go and take it.
Joel Brooks:So the Lord, he hears the spies report and and their response, and so what he does is he sentences all of Israel back into the desert for 40 years of wandering until they die. He says, none of you are going to see the promised land except for Caleb. Caleb's going to get to go in there. And the Lord says this about Caleb in Numbers 14, but my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land which he went and his descendants shall possess. That is a beautiful picture of what it means to be sanctified.
Joel Brooks:You have a different spirit, that's the holiness. And at the same time, you follow fully. That's to be wholly committed to something. Wholly devoted. Caleb's both holy and he's wholly devoted.
Joel Brooks:The Lord tells Caleb to go and conquer the land in Canaan, and so Caleb sets his face to Canaan and he says, nothing's going to stop me from going there. I sanctify myself, and this is my purpose. So to be sanctified means that we are given what seems to be an impossible task, and we're to move forward. We're to set our face towards this. And let me just say, as Christians, we're given what seems to be an impossible task, like be extraordinarily generous with your money to the poor.
Joel Brooks:I'd like you to just give away a lot of your money to the poor. I would like like you to keep yourself sexually pure in an age and a culture that is saturated with sex sex and is sexually immoral. I want you to be forgiving and loving to people who have hurt you and people who hate you. These are impossible tasks that we have been given, and our response should be, yes. Let us move forward and take this land.
Joel Brooks:Absolutely. You will make us holy, and we are wholly devoted to this, lord, no matter how hard. We have a different spirit. And so we we see this so clearly, I think, in Jesus and and Caleb here, and this is what Jesus is praying for for us. What he's praying for for us.
Joel Brooks:And this is what Jesus says that he has actually done. He says for their sake, I sanctify myself that they might may be sanctified in truth. So the question is, what was Jesus wholly committed to? What how did he sanctify himself? Once again, it wasn't that He became more perfect or He became more holy.
Joel Brooks:That's that's not what it's talking about here. The answer is He sanctified himself by what we saw in Luke 9. He set his face to go to the cross. He was singular in his purpose to be our sacrifice, to be the lamb that was slain. He did all of this for us.
Joel Brooks:He's willing to sweat drops of blood, be tortured, go to hell in order that we might be sanctified. So our sanctification is of huge importance to Jesus. Alright. I've got to rewind because last week, remember how I told you that last week was going to be part 1 of a part 2 in the middle of our part 3 of John 17. Do you remember that?
Joel Brooks:It was a really confusing statement still is. But basically, this week here, this sermon here is supposed to be part 2 of last week's message that was on us having a mission and being sent. And so you might be wondering, those of you who took good notes, like, what in the world does this have to do with mission or us being sent? It has everything to do with it. I want us to read again verses 17 through 19 slowly.
Joel Brooks:Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. Alright.
Joel Brooks:So notice here that Jesus, he prays that we would be sanctified, then he prays, and I'm gonna send them into the world just as I was sent into the world. And then he prays that we would be sanctified. Alright? So he prays for our sanctification, then He prays and says that He is sending us into the world, and then once again He prays for our sanctification. So immediately before and immediately after He talks about our mission, He first prays for our sanctification.
Joel Brooks:Our sanctification is tied to our mission, and our mission is tied to our sanctification. How? So how how are these 2 related? I think the best place we see this related is in a familiar story in the Old Testament about Isaiah. Do you remember in Isaiah 6 how he goes into the temple to worship and then something completely unexpected happens to him when he goes to the temple?
Joel Brooks:He actually meets God. I mean, you're not supposed to meet God when you go to church. You're not supposed to experience God when you go to church. I mean, worship's supposed to be mechanical and routine, but he actually experiences the Lord. So the unexpected happens, and the Lord shows up in glory.
Joel Brooks:Fills his glory, fills this entire room, And then Isaiah, he hears these angelic voices saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And so when this happens, Isaiah is confronted with the holiness and the glory of God. In other words, he is confronted with with the two things that Jesus has been praying for in John 17. Holiness and glory are are all in this prayer, and Isaiah is now being confronted with this.
Joel Brooks:And the result is he falls apart. I mean, he immediately just falls apart. His his words are, woe is me. I am lost or I'm falling apart for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips. So I want you to keep in mind here, Isaiah is experiencing the exact thing that Jesus has been praying for, yet the result is, woe is me.
Joel Brooks:But then there's a sacrifice, There's a sacrifice. An angel goes up and takes a burning coal from the sacrifice that had been made and goes up to Isaiah and touches his lips. Touches his lips and he and he says this, he says, behold, this has touched your lips and your guilt has been taken away and your sins have been atoned for. Because because of this sacrifice, Isaiah, because of this, you no longer have to live in shame. You no longer have to live in guilt.
Joel Brooks:You no longer have to fear the holiness and the glory of God. You've been atoned for. And then what we see immediately after this happens, I mean the next verse after this happens, the lord asks a question. Says, so who who will go out for us? Whom shall I send?
Joel Brooks:And then Isaiah says, here am I, send me. Here am I, send me. Because of the sacrifice, Isaiah goes from a woe is me to a here I am, send me. Woe is me to a no. Me.
Joel Brooks:Send me. And he's sent on an impossible mission. His mission is to go to a people who will never believe. That's actually his commissioning there. And Isaiah, I'm gonna send you to these people and just so you know, they will never believe a word you say.
Joel Brooks:Go. That's an impossible mission. And Isaiah's like, I'm going. He set his face towards it. So hear me, Jesus sanctifies himself as an offering, sanctifies himself as an offering in order to move us from a woe is me to a here I am, send me.
Joel Brooks:He sanctifies himself in order that we might experience the holiness and the glory of God. So the question is this, are you living that sent life? Are you? All of John 17 is about that. Are are you striving to live in the world but not be of it?
Joel Brooks:Are you being sent like Jesus in which you're leaving your comfort zone and being used in a place where you feel very ungifted, it's unnatural to you, but you'll make these sacrifices in order to reach people for the gospel. Are you striving to be the salt of the earth? In other words, you're working yourself into people that will rot without you because salt's a preservative. Are you working your life into the people and the the systems that will rot without your presence? Are you striving to be one with your fellow Christians just as the Father and the Son are 1?
Joel Brooks:All of these things are what's meant to to live a sent life. It's what it means to be sanctified. And if this isn't you, can I just say it's not because you're not trying hard enough? That's not it. I'll never tell you to leave this place and be like, hey, just bow up and do better.
Joel Brooks:That'll last about a minute. The reason if this isn't happening to you is because the coal hasn't touched your lips. The sacrifice of Jesus hasn't touched you. You can never be sanctified until you realize that Jesus was sanctified for you. You can never say, send me, until you come to understand that Jesus is the one who takes away your woe as me.
Joel Brooks:And I don't care if you have heard the gospel a 1000 times, this needs to hit home with you. The gospel needs to become real to you, and the more and more you hold on to the love and the grace of Jesus and you see Him sanctifying Himself for you by going to the cross, the more that becomes real to you, the more you see His glory, the more you savor his holiness, and the more you begin to say, here am I, send me. I am sanctified because of your sanctification. Pray with me. Our father, I pray that now you would send your spirit, to lift up high the name of Jesus in this place.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, thank you for sanctifying yourself for us. You sanctified yourself not just so we can sit on a couch, not so we could be self consumed of our own lives. You sanctified ourselves so that we might be sanctified, so that we might be both holy and wholly committed to you. And I feel that in this place, Lord, you want to call people to a life of holiness and to be wholly committed to you, and I pray that through Your Spirit You would push that into them now. Jesus, may we see You as glorious.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in your name. Amen.
