The Gospel of John -- Joy in Jesus John 17:6-19

Complete joy is only found in Jesus. Are you open to God? What does God want to reveal to you today?

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Now I'm going to read. This is from John 17, 6 through 19. And this is this whole time it's Jesus talking, it's continuing the prayer that we went over a couple weeks ago. It says, I have revealed your name to the men you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that all things you have given to me are from you, because the words that you gave me, I have given to them. They have received them and have known for certain that I came from you. They have believed that you sent me. I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, because they are yours. Everything I have is yours, and everything you have is mine, and I have been glorified in them. I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by your name, protect them by your name that you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I was protecting them by your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them is lost, except the Son of Destruction, so that the Scripture may be fulfilled. Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world, so that they may have my joy completed in them. I have given them your word. As I am not of the world. Sanctify them by the truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Meaningless, meaningless, utterly meaningless. This is a phrase from the book of Ecclesiastes. It goes on and says, Everything is meaningless. What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? I'm starting with a really happy scripture this morning. This is from Ecclesiastes chapter 1. It's from the Bible. And what we have there is a man wrestling with the meaning of life. I don't know if you've ever stopped to consider what is the meaning of life, but I think it's actually a pretty good question to consider. Why are you here? What on earth has God put you on planet Earth for? There's a problem in that we spend our lives chasing after meaning in all sorts of things, only to find that it all ends in vanity, as some translations put this same scripture, or f futility as other translations put it. It's empty, basically, is what it's saying. You see, when we start talking about the meaning of life and all of this, it makes people uncomfortable. When people get uncomfortable, they're typically like uh they want to back away from what's going on. Or they like to make light of it, right? You kind of make a joke about it. Oh, this is funny. This isn't uncomfortable. That's why we have things like Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Or the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which tells us that the meaning of life is the number 42. Ridiculous, right? We kind of laugh, but we kind of don't laugh because we realize that what they're scratching the surface of is something that's really near and dear to our hearts and our souls, which is really, what on earth am I here for? Just this year, within the last couple of months, there's been two times that I've had significant conversations with friends. We've been sitting down, having a chat, and part way through the conversation, the conversation's kind of got pretty serious, and they've said to me in separate instances, what on earth am I here for? What am I doing here? What's life all about? We want to ask these questions because this question really strikes a chord with us. You see, there is a severe lack of purpose and joy in the world. There is a severe lack of joy and purpose in the world, and I would say that purpose can give us joy. And it seems like the best things in life, the things that we chase after to find joy and purpose and meaning, end up being empty shadows. They're just vapors that vaporize in front of us. Let me kind of follow this to an end. I know that some of you are sitting here and you're like, whoa, we kind of dove into the deep end of the pool here, and that's okay. Stick with me. Think about this to an end. Some of you are probably sitting here and you're like, I don't know about that, Harley. Like, can't I have meaning and purpose and joy in life? Like, it can I, you know, a good marriage. So let's pick on relationships first. Think about relationships with me. If you look to a significant other to give you joy and meaning and purpose in life, can you find it there? Maybe you have this beautiful relationship where you give love and they give love, and it's this mutual relationship, and it's very fulfilling, it's very intimate, this beautiful marriage, or whatever it may look like, okay? What is the end of that? Well, I will tell you what the end is. One of two options. One of you is going to die. That's a reality. One of you is going to die, or one of you is going to say, I'm done, and walk out. Emotionally, physically, and I guess death really is walking away physically, if you think about it. But ultimately, that's going to come to an end. So if you're putting your search for meaning, joy, and fulfillment in a significant other, if it's all pinned on that one thing, it's going to let you down. Maybe we put our search for joy and fulfillment in our bodies, in being healthy, being fit, being beautiful. I don't know what it may be, but maybe that's where you would say, yeah, that's where I'm looking for my joy, meaning, and fulfillment. What about that? Well, in that case, you're only one injury away from not being able to do the things that you like to do or the activities that you make yourself proud of. You're only a couple of years away from gray hair and from wrinkles, right? It's all futile. Ultimately, it's going to lead to an end. What about work? Work, maybe work. You know, work's a good thing. It's in the Bible. God blessed work and told us, you know, to work the land, like, isn't that a good thing? By the way, the other things aren't necessarily bad things. But what about work? Well, again, think about it to an end. You work for a company, you work for your own business only to have a financial crisis come along and your company is forced to shut down. Or if you work for a company, you can dedicate years, decades of your life to a company only to have somebody call you in who's younger than you and better than you at the work and slide you a piece of paper and say you've got a couple of hours to clear your things out of your office. Maybe it's in possessions. Maybe it's in the things that we accumulate, but I've found that the things that I accumulate rot and rust and fade away. The house, the car, the clothing, all of it is deconstructing slowly or sometimes quickly. I mean a fire, a thief, like all of this stuff can take away. And if that's where we're looking for joy and fulfillment and meaning, it's all going to ultimately leave us empty. The way I think that we should think about this is these things that we look to for joy and meaning and fulfillment are in some ways like fireflies. It's like we're looking for light, and all that they provide is like a little firefly. You guys know what I'm talking about? I love fireflies. Fireflies, if I say it right. Right? They're beautiful. They kind of like glow and then they're out again. And all of these things that I just listed, and by the way, that wasn't an exhaustive list, but all of those things ultimately are not going to provide the light to provide the joy that we desire and crave as human beings. Now, some of you are sitting there and you're like, Harley, what's this got to do with the prayer of Jesus in John chapter 17? That's a good question. And I would answer that question with everything. It's got everything to do with it, because Jesus in this prayer is speaking to his purpose and he's also articulating what ours should be. Jesus is highlighting for his disciples where meaning and completeness of joy are really found. Now, this prayer is interesting. There's a lot that we could say about John chapter 17. I'm going to start turning there because we're going to spend our time there. But John chapter 17 is an interesting prayer because it is so rich. I don't know if you guys have ever had the opportunity to sit down and to pray with somebody. And as the other person's praying, like what they're saying is like really good. Have you guys ever had that experience? I know probably not all of us have. But as they're praying, you're hearing one person talk to God, and you're like, wow, I really identify with that, or like what they just said is beautiful, or I love their heart in what they're saying. I don't know if you've ever experienced that, but what I'm proposing to you is that this is what's happening in this prayer to an ultimate sense. Because what we have here is one member of the Trinity, Jesus the Son, talking to another member of the Trinity, God the Father. And so the richness of this conversation is incredibly intense. Here we have a recorded insight between one member of the Trinity. See, as a Christian, we believe that God is three in one: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And what we have here is a recording of one interacting with another. And so it's going to be rich in a lot of ways. It's like this incredibly rich feast or banquet that is laid before us in these few verses. And there's no way as we sit down to it that we're going to be able to savor and enjoy all that is set before us. But it doesn't mean that we can't have a great meal. We can sit at this text today and be like, okay, Lord, what are you trying to say to us from this passage? So in any meal, you've got to begin somewhere, and for this particular time that we have today, I want to turn our attention to verse 13. Verse 13. As we're turning to verse 13, I want you to read this with me very slowly and try to soak in what you can as we read it again. It says this. Now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. Now I know that you read that and you're probably like, okay, um, what's kind of going on there? Because there's a lot of eyes and they's and you. Let's give it a little bit of context. Jesus is speaking here. This is a prayer from the Son to the Father, and as he's speaking, when he says I, obviously it's Jesus, and when he says you, he's talking about God the Father. And he goes on and says, um, here in the text, he says, Now I am coming to you, God the Father, and I, Jesus, speak these things. Now, when he says these things, what's he referring to? Well, we would say that he's referring specifically to this prayer, but more likely than that, not just this prayer, all that he said in this particular dialogue between John 13 and 17. You see, this whole section is rich. It's this rich last conversation that Jesus is having with his disciples right before he goes to the cross to die. And so what he's saying is, I speak these things, and then what does he go on and he says? I speak these things so that they may have my joy, and this is the key, my joy completed in them. To help us kind of get our heads around what is being said here. I want you to hear this from a couple of other translations. Let's look at the ESV first. It says, so that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. Fulfilled in themselves. And then the NIV 84 says, may have the full measure of my joy within them. What's being proposed here is that Jesus is saying complete joy is only found in Jesus. Earlier I said you cannot have complete joy with all the temporal things in life. But what I'm saying now is that yes, according to God's word and according to the realities that He's revealed to us, we can have complete joy even in this broken life in Jesus. That's why we have scriptures like Colossians chapter 1. It says there, Christ in me is the hope of glory. Christ in you is the hope of glory. We have hope and joy and meaning and fulfillment in Jesus. The psalmist David says in Psalm 16, in your presence there is fullness of joy. Where is fullness of joy? In God's presence. With God is full joy. Without God, there isn't. Simple equation. That's why Psalms 42 and other scriptures like it start to make a lot more sense to us. This is one if you've been around church, you're familiar with. It's the scripture that says, as a deer longs or pants for water, so my soul longs for you. If you've been around church for a long time, there's a song that used to go with that. I grew up singing that song. I won't bless you with that right now. But I grew up singing that song and I was always like, that kind of sounds a bit weird and flowery. Like, like, what's up with that? Like, but as I'm thinking about the truth and the reality is, if God is the only source of complete and true joy, yeah, I long for him. Like, what else? I mean, I pant for him, like, what else is going to satisfy? When we realize that nothing else will satisfy, we only want the one thing that will satisfy. And what I'm proposing, what we see here in the text, is that we can only have meaning, fulfillment, and joy to the full with Christ. So if that's true, why do we struggle with joy? Why do we even struggle with this concept? There's a lot of answers that I could give you today. I could go on and say, okay, well, we struggle with joy because of the fall, because of sin, because of the you know, all the stuff that the depravity in the world around us. But I want to answer that question by going back to the text. This is a rich text and it has something to say about this. And there's a little two-word phrase that is littered all throughout this passage that gives us an indication as to why we struggle with joy and complete joy in Christ. And that phrase is the world. You see, the world pulls us from experiencing full joy in Christ. That word, that phrase, the world, is used 13 times just in this passage. In those few verses that Ian read for us, it's used 13 times. You see, we all start with a citizenship. We all start this life with a citizenship in the world. Every single one of us. We're all the same, we're all citizens of the world. How do I know that? Well, go with me to verse 6 here in the text. It says this. Now I, again, Jesus, have revealed your name, God the Father, to the men that you gave me from the world. Where are the men from? The world. These disciples are from the world. We are from the world. We all are born of the world. And so he goes on here, and if we look at verse 11, he talks a little bit more about this. I, Jesus, am no longer in the world, but they, speaking to the disciples, are in the world, and I am coming to you. Go on to verse 14 with me. It says, I have given them your word, the world hated them, because they are not of the world, as I am not of the world. So what we can read from this text and understand that something incredible has happened. These disciples were formerly of the world, just like all of us are formerly, if you're a Christian, of the world. But what happens when you do become a Christian is you are transferred from being of the world to being a part of God's kingdom. It's this incredible, miraculous thing that happens where our citizenship, our home, is transferred. So we too can be like these disciples who go from being from the world to being not of the world. Colossians chapter 1 is this beautiful little sentence, and it says this, verse 13. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness, that is the world, and transferred us to the kingdom of the Son He loves. Guys, this is the Christian faith, the Christian message. This is the core of the message, is the fact that we have been transferred from the world into God's kingdom. You and I have all, if you are a Christian, been transferred. If you're not a Christian, you're still in the world. That's how God set it up. And so my appeal to you today is first and foremost to say, are you a citizen of the world still, or have you been transferred into God's kingdom? Where do you sit today? Are you in a right place with God, or are you still stuck in your sins in the world? Because Jesus came to die. That is why Jesus came to die is because there was a separation between God and between you, called your sins, your depravity, your brokenness, that nothing was going to reconcile. No good works, no good deeds was ever going to bring that right again. The only thing that could bring that right was a holy God sending his Son to live a perfect life for you so that he could quench the wrath of God. Now we don't like to talk about that, but that is a reality. God is a holy and just God, and if he's going to be a holy, loving, and just God, he has to hate sin. And so he took out the punishment, his hatred for sin, not on us, those who have been transferred, but actually on his son. That's the beauty of this message that we have. You and I are either a citizen of the world or a former citizen of the world, now in God's kingdom. And what I'd propose to you is this our citizenship and our former citizenship means that the world still has an impact on us. So what I'm saying now is this if you're a Christian or if you're a non-Christian, the world still has an impact on you. Let me try and explain a little bit what I mean by that. I'm an Australian, or at least I started out as an Australian. I lived the first 20-something years of my life in Australia. That was my home. My home now is in the United States of America and has been my home for the last 12 years. I now have three kids, a wife, and a mortgage to prove that, okay? So this is my home. The problem is that at times my former home still has an influence on my current home. What I mean by that is at times I want to say words that I realize later on, or sometimes in the moment as I'm saying them, make absolutely no sense to you. I could say something, we could walk you along and I'd say, oh, look, there's a busker over there. And most of you are like, what does that mean? You don't understand. What it means is that there's somebody over there who's playing an instrument or doing something for money and has a case asking for money. You guys don't use that term. Another example of this, I when I'm writing a check, I have to really concentrate because what I want to do is put the date the right way. I want to put the day and then the month and then the year. But that's not how we do it. The check isn't gonna work right, you know, if I don't do it right. And so my former home influences my current home. Sometimes I pull out onto a street, especially if there's no markings on the street, and I have to think, right hand thoughts, let's go to the right hand side of the road. That one's a bit scary, right? But it's true. My former home influences my current home. And what I'm saying to you guys is this is that even if you have been transferred from the world, it still has a pull and an influence on you. We struggle with joy because of our ties to the world. So I get up here and I say, fullness of joy can only be found in Jesus. And I've said that this morning, and I know that some of you are sitting here and you're like, I knew he was gonna say that. I knew he was gonna say that. He gets sets us up, he says all these things can't give you joy, and then he says, Joy is found in Jesus. And to some of you, that is offensive. It riles you up, and you're like, I think that's a lie. I think I can find joy, and you have already kind of built a case or an argument in your mind. And if that's where you sit today, I'm just in a room like this, I'm gonna assume there's some people who don't believe what I'm saying right now. And if that's where you sit today, I want I wanna be gracious. The way that I say this, but I do want to say that that line of thinking isn't a new line of thinking. If you went to the very first pages of history, what would you find is Adam and Eve struggling with that same thought. There they are in the garden, and God says, complete joy is found in this, and they say, Nah, I think that's a lie. I think I can find joy in this fruit. I think I can find joy in myself. And so if that's the place you find yourself in today, I just want to acknowledge that the world, probably, if that's the place you find yourself, has a grip on your heart. And in a lot of ways, you're like a fish that has never experienced the ocean of joy. Rather, what you have really experienced is a small tank, a cloudy tank, that cannot fulfill you and give you the joy that God has in mind for you. For others of you, those of you who do believe in Jesus, you sit here and you nod and you agree with me this morning. You're like, yeah, that's true, that's good, and yet you're not experiencing joy in the full sense that we're talking about, this complete sense. And I'm preaching to myself at this point, too. You may be a citizen of God's kingdom, but you act like a citizen of the world. You look for joy and meaning in the things created rather than the creator of things. To go to the fish illustration again, if that's the case of us, we are like fish that are in the ocean of joy in Christ but are still caught on some sort of line. The world has us by a line that's tugging us back, continually calling us back. So, what's the answer to all of this? How do we experience joy? This is a question that I hope that you're asking. Whether you're a Christian or not today, how do we experience this complete joy that we're talking about? Well, I want to ask you to go back to the text with me. And we're gonna go actually back to the very same verse. I told you this was a rich test text. It's really rich. Let's go back to verse 13. And let's read it again. It says, Now I am speaking to you, we've talked about that, and hear this. And I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in them. The couple of phrases that I really want for us to hear right now is that idea that He speaks, and the speaking is so that it would produce this complete joy. And the thought and the truth that I think that we have to wrestle with and come to terms with this morning is this is that we can only experience complete joy by the revelation of God. We can only experience complete joy by the revelation of God. What does the revelation of God look like? Well, let's look back at this passage. In this passage, what he says is he speaks, and the speaking is so that it would produce complete joy. You don't, you've got to see and understand that God's word is incredibly powerful. Powerful enough to create. Think about the creation account. God speaks and the world comes into being. And as he speaks, as he reveals his word, as he reveals truth, it impacts and changes everything. And it is what has the power to produce joy, meaning, satisfaction, completeness in our lives. Verse 13 obviously here speaks, uses that word speak. If you go back to verse 6, it talks about this: I have revealed your name. So God is talking about this revelationary power. If you go on to look throughout the passage, I don't know if you notice, but all throughout this passage it talks about God's word. It says, I've given them your word, and it's this word that is transforming these disciples. Think through a broader sense of the scripture, through the book of John or all of the Bible, what it tells us is that the Holy Spirit is revealing God to us. We see all these incredible acts, and we don't just see the Holy Spirit revealing, we also see demonstrations and miraculous experiences that reveals God. Think about the people of Israel. Think about Moses. He's in the desert, and there's this burning bush that isn't like actually being destroyed. It's this revelation of God. This pillar of cloud follows over the people of Israel. I could give you story after story of God revealing himself to humanity and that being the thing that produces change and produces completeness of joy in humanity. John 15, 11, just a couple of chapters earlier, all a part of this same conversation between John 13 and 17, says this. Listen to how familiar this sounds. I have spoken these things to you so that my joy, this is Jesus speaking to the disciples, by the way, I, Jesus, have spoken these things to you, the disciples, so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. It sounds almost exactly the same as the prayer. Jesus again is reminding us that completeness of joy comes from the revelation. I have spoken these things, the revelation of God. Earlier I quoted Psalm 16, 11 to you, and that was the one that says, In your presence there is fullness of joy. Do you know what comes right before that? It says this, you make known to me the path of life, in your presence is the fullness of God. And what that text should remind us of is that as God reveals Himself, that's what produces joy and peace and grace and meaning in our lives. So am I suggesting that we do nothing and that Jesus does the revealing and the saving in our lives? And I would say, yes. All that you and I bring to the table is just a cooperation with God, an openness to Him, an openness and a willingness to say yes, God. I think a beautiful example of this is the disciples, right? Think about the disciples. There they are going about their business, and Jesus walks by and reveals just a little bit of himself to them. He says, Hey, come follow me. Matthew's tax collector, and says, Hey, come follow me. And what does he do? He reveals this little bit, he speaks, and Matthew's like, sure. Packs up and leaves. There's this willingness, this openness, and his life is radically changed by that. Jesus goes by the sea and he says, Hey, put your nets in the other side. He does this little revelation of who he is, little, not little to us, little to him, okay? Making fish appear isn't a big deal to him. But uh anyway, they fill up their boat, and as they see that, he says, Come follow me, and they leave it all and they follow him. As you go on through their lives, what you see is that Jesus continues to reveal more and more truth to them, and as he does that, it changes them more and more into his image. Listen to what happens after Jesus dies and is raised to life again. He sees his disciples in John 20, 20, and it says this: Having said this, so Jesus speaks to his disciples, he showed them his hands and his side. So his disciples, what did they do? They rejoiced when they saw the Lord. You see, this revelation of God showing himself to them and speaking to them produced joy as they were like, wow, this is God, he's saved, he's alive again. Now, all of that kind of builds in the disciples' life, and it's really cool to read about how they're being changed. But something that is even more incredible is this. What happens after Jesus is raised to life again? He goes and he is uh he ascends into heaven and he says, Hey, wait here in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit comes on you, and then I want you to go out into all the world and make disciples, right? And so they wait there, they're praying there in Jerusalem, then all of a sudden the Holy Spirit descends on them. And as the Holy Spirit descends on them, what happens, this is in Acts 1, by the way, as the Holy Spirit descends on them, they are radically changed because what happens is now they have the Holy Spirit, God in spirit, living inside of them, revealing the Father and the Son to them all the time. And what we see is radically changed men. These men who scattered previously are now emboldened by the Holy Spirit living in them. They're completely calm, they're completely joyful, they're completely bold as they go and share the good news about Jesus. And what's really cool about that is that from that moment onwards, throughout history, whenever somebody is transferred from the world into God's kingdom, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us. And so what I'm saying to you today is we have a witness. If you're a Christian, you have a witness inside of you who is helping reveal God to us all the time. Because Jesus has been revealed to us by the Holy Spirit in our hearts, we too can experience completeness of joy. As I was reading this week, uh, just doing some personal reading, actually, not looking at stuff for this message, this sentence leapt out of the page to me in light of what we're talking about. And so I want to read it to you. It's from a guy named A.W. Toza, and he says this if we cooperate with him, with God, in loving obedience, God will manifest, that is, reveal himself to us. And that manifestation will be the difference between a nominal Christian life and a life radiant with the light of his face. I don't know about you, but I don't want a nominal Christian life. I'm speaking to Christians now. I want you to hear this. We too can have lives that are radiant with the light of his face. God is ready and willing to reveal himself, to manifest himself in our lives. All we have to do and bring to the table is a willingness to cooperate. All that I can bring to him, all that you can bring to him is an open heart. The key to life is to be open to God, to his revelation and to his working. And so, if that's what produces joy and fulfillment and meaning, my question to you guys is this Are you open? Am I open to God? That may sound like a bit of an interesting question. Maybe a little broad and hard to answer, and so I want to ask you this. What does openness look like? Well, in a general sense, there's a lot that we could say about what openness looks like, and there's just a couple of things I'd point you to. Firstly, I'd point you to this. If you want to be open to the revelation of God, there is one source that we can continually come to and find the revelation of God. Now, this book, the Bible, is just words unless the Holy Spirit does a miracle and makes it alive in our hearts. But if your heart is one where you're like, yes, I don't want to live a nominal Christian life. I want to live where God is manifesting his power in my life, get yourself daily in the word of God. God's written his word, he's revealed truth to us. Get in it daily. Pray before you open it and say, God, would you speak to me, please? I'm dead without you. God, please, would you speak to me out of your word? Would you give me joy? Would you give me meaning today and reveal truth to me? This is a great way to access God. Obviously, prayer is hugely important. Just personally, in the last couple of years, one thing that I've found really helpful is to read certain books that talk about God and knowing God and who he is and what he's like. There's one in particular that has been very helpful for me that I've read a couple of times in the last year, that's called Knowing God by J.I. Packer. I would highly recommend it. Don't let it trump what you read here, okay? Like, I mean, this is most important. This is the most important. So, in a general sense, yes, be in your Bible. But in a specific sense, what do we see in the scripture that we've read today that we need to be open to? Three things that I want to leave you with. First one is this we need to be open to God's saving. We need to be open to God's saving. We've already spent a little bit of time on this because we've talked about how these disciples have moved from the world into God's kingdom. And so I want to encourage you that you too can move from being a citizen of the world to being a citizen of God's kingdom today. Like you don't have to wait any longer. If you're sitting there today and you're like, yeah, I don't know where I sit with God, or I don't know what I believe about Jesus, today can be the day that you make a decision to change. That's exciting and good news. And it's the first step towards finding true and complete joy in Jesus is to reach out to him as he reveals himself as the one who is mighty to save in your life. And so maybe even my words or maybe the scripture today is revealing God trying and working to reveal himself to you today, and my request of you is would you be open to his working in that way? Would you take a look at what God's saying to you? And if he's calling you to make that step to believe in him, to make you right, to be in relationship, take it. Don't wait any longer. Today can be that day, and it's the best decision you will make, the most important decision you will make, because it doesn't just affect the here and now, it affects eternity. The second thing that we see from this text is not just that God wants us to be open to his saving, revealing work, he also is calling us to be open to his sanctifying. Are you open to God's sanctifying? Now I know that that word has a little bit of an interesting reception from you guys because it sounds like a really churchy word, which it kind of is. But it actually is a really beautiful word. So when we say sanctification, what we're talking about is the process of becoming more and more like Jesus. We're talking about the things that we believe lining up with the way that we act. Sanctification is a beautiful thing. And God's calling us to be open to the sanctifying that He wants to bring in our lives. Listen to this prayer again. Verse 17 is where I'm turning of chapter 17. It says this Sanctify them, my disciples, by the truth. Your word is truth. There again, the revelation of God is at work. But he's saying, Sanctify, help them by the truth to become more and more like me. Verse 19, he says this. This is interesting. I sanctify myself for them, so that they also may be sanctified by the truth. Now don't get hung up on this when he's saying I sanctify myself. He's talking about the consecration or the act of going to the cross so that we too can experience God's saving and his working in our lives. You see, Jesus didn't go to the cross just to get you into his kingdom, into citizenship with him. He also went to the cross to help you become more and more and more like him. That's why we say the good news about Jesus isn't just about our justification, that's your saving, it's also about our sanctification. We need it in both ways, in both things. And so my question to you, if you are a Christian, is how is your sanctification going? We're told in the scriptures that we should work out our salvation with what? Fear and trembling. Like this is a question we should ask ourselves. This is a good question to ask ourselves. How is our sanctification going? Are you looking more and more like Jesus, or are you consumed looking for joy elsewhere? Are you more like Jesus this year than you were six months ago? Today I want to challenge you and myself to pray and to say to God, please, God, reveal yourself more to me so that I look more like you. God, would you point out things in me that offend you? Would you help me to look more like Jesus? Lord, what is it that I have in front of me that I'm looking to for joy that isn't from you? Help me to experience completeness of joy in you today. I'm praying that he's going to show you guys some specific things in specific areas. The third way that we need to be open to God's revelation is God's sending. God's sending. You know, this is a really interesting thought. God wants us to be his agents of revelation. God doesn't just reveal himself to us and then kind of like tag us and be like, okay, you're on my side, just wait there, and then we'll get together in heaven, and you know, it'll be all good. It's more like he tags us with this incredible gift of being transferred into his kingdom, and then he says, Come on, let's go and get everybody else with this same thing. We used to call that gang up tag. I don't know what you guys call that here in America, but like that's the, you know, where you tag someone and they're on your team and you work together to tag everybody else. And I'm not saying that we're equal with God, but what I am saying is that God has commissioned us to be his representatives of reconciliation in the places that he puts us. Look at verse 18 with me. Verse 18, he says this as you, God the Father, sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world. This is really pretty incredible. Thought. You and I, if we're disciples of Jesus, have the same calling as Jesus. We have a mission, we have a purpose, and so my question to yourself and to myself is this are you open to God's sending revelation? Are you open to what He's revealing to you? Are your prayers prayers of surrender to him? Are you praying prayers where you're like, God, my life is yours. Whatever will bring you the most glory, God, would you do that in my life? Would you reveal to me how I can live most for your glory? Or even your day, God, my day is yours. May I not live for myself today, but may I be used by you to work for your kingdom today. And as we begin to experience God's revelation in this way, I really do believe we will begin to experience more and more and more of his complete joy. Again, this joy is only found in Jesus. J.R. Packerin, Knowing God, says this. What were we made for? Coming back to our original question. What were we made for? To know God. What aim should we set ourselves in life? To know God. What is the best thing in life bringing more joy, delight, and contentment than anything else? Knowledge of God. Earlier I told you that the things that we pursue for joy in life are like these little fireflies. We're looking for light in them, and all that gives us is this little glow that then is gone. And what I'd like to contrast that with in your minds, just as a mental picture, is that the joy that we have in Jesus is like the light of the sun in comparison to that. They're not even on the same scale. A firefly is this little dim light that kind of glows and goes. And yet the light of Christ, the joy, the contentment, the meaning, the purpose that we can have in Christ is like the light of the sun. My prayer is that we would be open to God's revealing, to his working, and that today that we'd be able to experience complete joy in him. I'm praying for this for myself. I'm praying that for you guys in this too. That we would, even in these next few moments, as we have time to reflect, ask ourselves, am I open to God? Am I finding completeness of joy in him? And what does God want to reveal to me today? If God is present, if he is wanting to reveal, what does he want to reveal to me today? Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you that your word is so rich. Lord, thank you that your word is so transformational. Thank you that it has the power to transfer us out of the world into your kingdom. Thank you that your word has the ability to cut right to our hearts and expose to us what it is that we're looking to for joy that is other than you. God, we thank you for the things that you do place in our life, and we thank you that we can find joy and fulfillment in a variety of other ways. But God, may we look ultimately for our source of joy and contentment and fulfillment in you. God, we pray that even today, that as your word has been spoken, that you would continue to work and to reveal in our hearts, we thank you that your Holy Spirit is real and your Holy Spirit is present and able to speak. And so even as we respond now, as we reflect on some questions, I pray that you would speak to us. Thank you, Lord. Amen.