Speaker: I wonder what you would consider bare necessities for your existence.
Probably more than you would think off the top of your head.
For example, uh, a lawnmower.
Those of you that have a yard, imagine if you didn't have a lawnmower
and all you had was scissors to go out and cut your, your grass
with all of a sudden a lawnmower.
Sounds like it's pretty essential to your existence, doesn't it?
Or your car, uh, is not too distant in recent history that you would go back to
where people didn't necessarily have the, the cars that we have to be able to get
from point A to point B and that, that's certainly convenient that we would say,
man, that'd be really hard to go back to that life and, and not have a car.
Uh, or for me, my, my laptop because I do a lot of my, my sermon prep on my laptop.
If I lost that, I'd lose a lot of my library with it.
Um, deodorant is something that is one that we probably don't.
Consider, but right now, sitting next to everybody in this room, you're, you're
probably grateful that deodorant exists.
You would say, man, that, that's essential.
That's a, that's a necessity in life.
Uh, my wife and I, our refrigerator died a few months back, and even though we
have another one in the garage, man, that was the most inconvenient thing to,
to have to walk all the way out to the garage to, to get to the refrigerator.
Plus it was smaller and, and we couldn't fit all of our food in it.
Things that we, we don't think about on a regular basis, become
necessities for us when they're removed from our, our presence.
My wife, it's her sunglasses.
She walks outside and, and it can be overcast, and she's
like, I need my sunglasses.
So, uh, sunglasses for most of you in the room, it's a Stanley water bottle.
Um, and I know that because you have it with you and I hear them
when they get kicked over in the middle of the service and it's the
loud thunk that hits the ground.
Stanley, whatever, you have a walla, whatever your water bottle is, but
if we're really pressed on it, those aren't bare necessities in life.
We can do without all of them, right?
I mean, the bare necessities of life, if we're honest with
ourselves, food, water, and shelter.
Uh, that's historically been what people need to survive.
We might be able to press some other things, but, but that's pretty
much, that's what makes for, for life, food, water, and shelter.
Have you ever wondered what the bare necessities of following Jesus look like?
What are the bare necessities of discipleship?
What do I need to be a follower of Jesus?
There's more than three, but this morning in our text, which is John 17,
I wanna suggest to you that there's at least three crucial pursuits
for every follower of Jesus that we're gonna see in this passage.
Three bare necessities of discipleship that are gonna merge
from John 17, 11 through 19.
So take your Bibles if you've got 'em, and flip over there.
As we continue our study of the high priestly prayer, we continue
and pick up in this prayer where God, the Son is praying to God the
Father, and we get to listen in.
We get to eavesdrop on this prayer, and we've been walking our way through as
really Jesus is wrapping up his time with the disciples before the cross.
And so he's been praying.
He's praying on their behalf, he's praying to the father and he prays in
verse 11, and he says this, he says.
I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world and I'm coming to you.
Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me that
they may be one even as we are one.
Stop there for just a second.
Jesus says, I'm no longer in the world.
We've talked about the concept of the our in John's Gospel, and that's what's
in view here again, is, is the hour.
And so with, with the hour here, Jesus is talking about the cross.
He's talking about his death.
He's talking about his ascension.
He's talking about going back to be with the Father, and he says
here, I'm no longer in the world.
Well, I.
What is, how do we reconcile that?
Because he's, he's praying, the disciples are looking at him.
They're listening to him.
So how can Jesus say, I'm no longer in the world?
And what we need to understand is he's, he's already anticipating
his departure as as good as done.
In fact, when you read, I'm no longer in the world.
What you can understand is Jesus is saying, my earthly ministry is done.
I, I've done what the father charged me to do.
I have John one 18.
I've exegeted the father to you.
I've revealed the father to you.
I'm no longer in the world in the sense that my three years with
you, my earthly ministry with you followers, disciples, is done now.
He still had work to do.
The cross was the the greatest work that the son was gonna accomplish on
our behalf, the cross in the empty tomb.
But his teaching, his time with the disciples, his training
them, his revealing of the father that had come to an end.
So he says, I am no longer in the world.
But then he says they are in the world and I am coming.
To you.
Now we're gonna get back to the fact that they are in the world still.
But I want you to focus in on, I am coming to you.
So much of this prayer is, is Jesus teaching still?
As he's praying, he's teaching his disciples, he's saying things
in his prayer for the benefit of, of the disciples more than
for the benefit of of the Father.
But I think this is different.
I think this is one of those moments where we touch upon the
intimacy of the son and the father.
I think the son here is anticipating the joy of being back with the father,
and so he's praying, father, I'm coming to you, and we can almo almost sense
the eagerness and the anticipation of being back with the father.
In fact, back in John 1428, Jesus was talking to his disciples and he told
them, he said, you heard me say to you, I'm going away and I will come to you.
If you loved me, you would've rejoiced because I'm going to the Father.
For the Father is greater than I.
Jesus is telling his disciples there, you would've rejoiced that I'm leaving you.
I'm rejoicing that I'm going away.
Why?
Because I'm going back to the glory that I had with the Father.
That's what he means.
But there by the way, that the father is greater than I in the sense of
the glory that the father possessed that moment because the son had in
obedience, veiled his own glory.
So he is anticipating going back, and that's what he's saying here.
I'm going back to you, father.
And so I think we get the intimacy of the, the son and the father here with Jesus
saying, I'm, I'm, I'm coming back home.
And yet he knew what was in front of him.
He knew the cross was the path through which he would have to go to to reach
the father again, and that's why the writer of Hebrews says, who, for the
joy set before him, the joy of being back with the father despised the shame
and endured the cross on our behalf.
So he's saying, father, I'm coming back home.
I'm coming to you.
And his prayer for them, because remember he said they are in the
world, so his prayer for them was, holy Father, keep them in your
name, which you have given me.
See, Jesus understood that in him leaving the disciples, were gonna have a need to
this point as he's gonna go on to say in our text, the son had kept the disciples.
He had guarded them.
He had protected them.
He had preserved them.
He had even kept them in the father's name.
But now that he was leaving, he was asking the Father to keep them in his name.
Now, what does that mean to be kept in the name of the father?
Well, if you look back up the page at John 17, verse six, Jesus has talked
about the name of the Father already.
He said, I manifested your name to the people that you gave me outta the world.
We talked about that last Sunday.
The name being, the character, the reputation, the identity of God.
He's saying of the father that, that he had revealed the father to
the disciples, what he's like, who he is, his character, his holiness.
And so now he's praying that the Father, the Holy Father, would keep
the disciples who are gonna stay behind in the world in his name,
the name that he had given to Jesus.
What Jesus is praying for here is he's praying for the holiness of the disciples.
He's praying for their ongoing sanctification.
He's praying for their ongoing Christ likeness.
And that's why he says, holy Father Jesus doesn't waste words.
You may pray in all kinds of different ways to, to begin your prayer.
You may say, you know, dear God, you may say, father, you may say
Heavenly Father, maybe even say, holy Father at times, Lord God.
And, and sometimes my, my guess is that there's not a
lot of intentionality in that.
It's, it's what comes to mind when you go to pray.
And Jesus is purposeful with every word that he says.
So when he says, holy Father, keep them in your name.
He's again doing that for the benefit also of those listening and you and I
this morning, reminding us and reminding them that their source of holiness is
ultimately gonna be from the Father.
Now, how do we get that holiness?
How can we be kept in the name?
How can we be, uh, privy to the, the, the access of the, the holiness that Jesus
is praying that you and I would have?
And I think the answer comes in our.
Abiding in the sun or abiding in Christ.
Remember, this is part of the whole upper room discourse.
Jesus has been answering that question for us the entire time from John 13,
all the way through here in John 17.
John 15, as he talks about abiding in Christ, talks about the branch in the
vine and the branch can't bear fruit unless it's connected or the, to the, to
the vine, to the life of the vine there.
So the way that we will be kept in the name of the Fathers through abiding in
Christ and by the spirit's work within us.
We'll develop that more in just a second here.
But look at the results of what will happen if we are
kept by the father in his name.
He says in order that for the purpose, that with the result that
they may be one even as we are one.
Jesus said in John 10 30, I and the father are one.
And so Jesus is praying that we would grow in holiness, that we would grow in
Christ's likeness, that we would grow in sanctification, that we would be kept in
the Father's name, in order that we as his followers would be united, that we
would be one, that we would be together as indivisible as the body of Christ.
Y'all.
Christianity is a team sport, not an individual sport.
As believers, we have been saved and brought into a body of Christ.
That's part of what's gonna be, uh, symbolized through the, the baptism
that's taking place later, that we, when we are saved, we are baptized into
one body, the body of Christ that's realized through the local gathering of
saints that we have here this morning.
And what Jesus is doing here is he's praying for the collective
holiness of all of his followers.
That's gonna be realized through the individual holiness of us, throughout
our lives as, as disciples of Jesus.
And so here's what I want us to think about this morning from this opening
here, as Jesus is praying that his followers and by extension, that
we would be kept in the Father's name in order that we would be one.
I want you to realize that your godliness and your holiness, your pursuit of
Christ's likeness individually has a massive bearing on the overall
health of the body of Christ.
Here at our, in our church, point number one, you can put it this way, pursue
holiness like the church depends upon it.
Pursue holiness like the church depends upon it.
If you're a sports fan of any sport, you had a National Day of mourning
with all Dallas Mavericks fans.
When Fire and Nico Harrison traded Luca Doic to the Los Angeles
Lakers, it's one of the most mind-boggling trades in NBA history.
Nobody understands it.
Matt, stop it.
I see you gloating back there.
He's not a Mavericks fan.
He's cheering that on, but it's, Luca was a 25-year-old generational talent.
Nobody trades a 25-year-old generational talent for Anthony Davis, as good as
Anthony Davis has been in his career, and we don't know that yet because he
is been injured, but nobody does that.
But when asked about it, here's what the Maverick said.
I think this is, is revisionist history, but whatever.
This is what they said.
They said they were concerned about Lucas's conditioning.
In fact, recently this week I saw an article where one of their officials
came out and said, we think Lucas' Prime may already be behind him and
that his body's not gonna hold up and be able to last throughout NBA
seasons to come because he just doesn't take care of himself off the court.
That's a little bit about what we're talking about here.
I would never trade Luka Donk ever.
I would not trade Luka Dong ever for anything.
I don't, I don't agree with the assessment, but the point is they're, at
least what they're saying is they were so concerned about what he was doing off the
court and the impact that it was gonna have on the team, on the court, that
they were willing to cut ties with him before they couldn't get anything from
him, for him and, and let him walk in.
Free agency.
Your, if I can make the connection here for us, your
life off the court, so to speak.
Has a direct bearing on your life, on the court here as part of this church
body, the way that you are conditioned, not physically so much, but spiritually
has a direct bearing on the overall impact that we can have as a church.
And even if you're not saying, if you're saying, well, I'm, I don't feel like
I'm a key player, I, I, I feel like I'm, I'm here and I, I show up, but I'm
mostly here because, you know, I, I, I.
It's a, the preaching or the worship or whatever.
I'm, I'm not super involved.
They're not relying upon me, so it doesn't matter.
I, I would say yes, and here's why.
If we are a church that's marked by more fleshliness than we are holiness, I don't
think God's gonna bless this church.
Even if, you know, the, the, the quote unquote starters
are running hard after Jesus.
If we're not collectively a church running hard after Jesus, I don't
think that we're gonna be used by God to do great things here.
And to accomplish what I think he wants to accomplish through us.
And so Your Holiness has a direct bearing on the overall wellbeing
and unity of the church body.
Let me make the point a different way.
Uh, think about what the, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit who dwells within believers.
Think about what the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit does within us.
Galatians five, the fruit of the Spirit, right?
As you read through that list.
Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, and self-control.
Notice how many of those have to do with.
One another.
Notice how many of those are, are only able to be expressed
in the context of community.
And as you grow in your understanding of Christ, as you grow in Christ's
likeness and you see more of the fruit of the spirit, we are gonna
be a healthier body overall.
We are gonna be a more unified body overall.
Or Colossians chapter three, a similar list here.
You read through these, these are the byproducts of us being united
with Christ, of raised with Christ.
These things should be present in our life.
Notice again, how much of an impact these have on one another, on
the unity of the body of Christ.
And unfortunately, we can make the opposite argument.
Here's the the works of the flesh from Galatians five.
Notice if you are not walking by the spirit but walking according to the flesh.
Look at this list and look at how many of these things have a negative
impact on the overall health of the one another relationship.
How many of these sinful expressions have to do with relationships?
Colossians three, again, a similar list.
Negative impacts on the overall unity in in wholeness of the body of Christ.
Again, the more Christ like we are, the more effective we will
be as a lampstand, the more united we will be as a body of Christ.
So your holiness is important to the overall health of the church here.
It's not just about pastors who are holy.
It's not just about having ministry leaders that are holy.
It's about having a body that is holy, a body that is being kept
in the name of the Father, and we do that through abiding in Christ.
I want you to consider another passage if you will, take your Bibles over to one
Peter chapter one, one Peter chapter one.
If you're in John's gospel, turn to the right.
A few books.
First Peter, chapter one.
Peter is talking here and, and I want you to pick up in verse 17, and he's
gonna talk about the gospel first, but then he want, I want you to notice
that he has something to say about the impact that the gospel is gonna have
on our community, on the church here.
First Peter one, verse 17.
Peter writes this, if you call on him as father, who judges impartially
according to each one's deeds.
Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile.
Knowing that you were ransomed, here comes the gospel.
You were ransom from the feudal ways, inherited from your forefathers.
Not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the
precious blood of Christ like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
He, the lamb was foreknown before the foundation of the
world, but was made manifest.
Was revealed in the last times for the sake of you who threw him.
Our believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so
that your faith and hope are in God.
Okay?
That's the gospel he's talking about there.
He's establishing for those that are reading this, you have been saved.
He's reminding us of that you have been redeemed with
the precious blood of Christ.
Verse 22, now having then purified your soul's by obedience to the truth for
a sincere, brotherly love, love one another, earnestly from a pure heart.
Since you've been born, again, not a perishable seed, but of imperishable
through the living and abiding word of God for all fleshes like grass and its
glory, like the flower of grass, the grass withers, the flower falls, but
the word of the Lord remains forever.
And this is the, this word is the good news.
The gospel that was preached to you.
Look at verse 22 again.
Look at one of the results, one of the impacts, one of the purposes of your
salvation, having purified your souls.
How do you purify your soul through faith and repentance in Jesus
Christ as your Lord and Savior?
That's the gospel.
In other words, he could have written, having been saved by
your obedience to the truth.
Notice for a sincere, brotherly love.
Okay, that's the word, philto in the Greek, where we get the, the misnomer for
Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
It's, it's the love of one another.
It's the mutual expression of, of brotherly love for one another.
But then he says this love one another earnestly.
And, and so the gospel is meant to create a love for one another, a brotherly
love for one another that's going to manifest itself in loving one another.
Earnest earnestly.
Now, the, the word love there changes to agape.
Agape and the word agape is a fatherly love.
It's a love that has as its, its end the good of the other person.
Regardless of how the other person treats you.
It's a selfless, it's a sacrificial love, and the gospel is meant to produce
a community that loves one another.
Philos one another, well through Agape loving one another earnestly.
Loving one another earnestly, you say, okay, well what does
that agape love look like?
That's a great question.
I'm glad you asked.
It looks like this.
This is the love of one Corinthians 13.
It's a love that's patient.
It's a love that's kind.
It's a love that does not envy or boast.
It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way.
It is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.
So your pursuit of Christ's likeness is gonna produce a brotherly love
for one another that's gonna show up in an agape love that works
itself out in this body of Christ.
Here, y'all, that's why your Christlikeness.
Is crucial.
It's a bare necessity of discipleship because your
church depends on your holiness.
Again, it's not just about the holiness of the pastors.
It's not just about the holiness of a few.
It's about the holiness of the body of Christ.
Church, the enemy would love nothing more than to divide us
here at Compass Bible Church.
The enemy would love nothing more than to see this church broken
up and factionalized by different competing self-centered agendas.
And here's the thing, y'all division grows in the manure of fleshliness.
Division grows in the manure of fleshliness.
We have to make sure that we are cultivating godliness, holiness
Christ-likeness in our life.
Throughout the entirety of our life, throughout the entirety of
our weeks, so that when we come together, we will be a more effective
lampstand than we would be otherwise.
We need your holiness.
Your holiness is crucial.
It's a bare necessity to discipleship because the church depends upon it.
The church depends upon it.
Verse 12.
Jesus continued.
He says, while I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you
have given me, and I've guarded them and not one of them has been lost
except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled again
while Jesus was with them during those three years that he had called them and
they had been following him as their rabbi, Jesus had been protecting them.
He'd been keeping them, he'd been teaching them.
He had been literally discipling them.
And now he was leaving and he was saying here, not one of them has been
lost except the son of destruction.
And he, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.
What scripture?
A good question.
And, and there's debate upon this, but I, I, most people point back
to, uh, scripture like Psalm 1 0 9 verse eight, Psalm 1 0 9, verse
eight says this, may his days be few and may another take his office.
So many think that that is a, a, a prophecy about Judas.
That Judases days would be few, that he would not live a long life,
and certainly that came to fruition and may another take his office.
And that also came to fruition.
That was Matthias, as we see in the book of backs.
And so here Jesus is saying, I've kept them all.
I've protected them.
Remember he's saying this in context of the fact that saying, I'm, I'm going away.
But while I was here, I kept them, I protected them, and not one of them
was lost except the son of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled.
This is in keeping with other passages that we've read about in John's
gospel before John 6 37 through 39.
Jesus said there, all the Father gives me, will come to me and whoever
comes to me, I will never cast out.
I will never cast out for, I have come down from heaven not to do my own will,
but the will of him who sent me, and this is the will of him who sent me that I
should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.
So Jesus is saying, at least for the disciples during his earthly
ministry, father, I've done that.
It.
I've kept them.
I've guarded them, I've protected them.
Or John 10, 28 and 29, John 10, 28 and 29.
Jesus says, I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no
one will snatch them outta my hand.
My father, who's given them to me is greater than all, and no one is able
to snatch them outta the father's hand.
Again, Jesus is saying, father, to this point, while I've been here on
Earth, I've done that, and yet if, if they're gonna make it all the
way, Jesus understands that they're gonna need to continue to be kept.
To continue to be protected.
And that's why he prayed at the beginning of our time together this
morning, father, keep them in your name and, and this is where he goes
next in verse 13, look at John 1713.
Now he says, but now I'm coming to you and these things I speak
in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
Okay?
Can you come with me for a second through some, some.
Strange.
Not strange, but just extra reasoning here with me.
We do something that they weren't doing at this time.
The disciples weren't going home for six days.
In between these sections of John's gospel, you and I are for them.
This was all Jesus just talking to them.
This was a matter of of hours.
Okay?
And so for us, it's been a handful of weeks, at least since we were in John 15.
For them it was a matter of half an hour.
Since they had heard Jesus talking in John 15.
So when Jesus says in John 17, 13, now I'm coming to you and these things
I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.
I think they would've been quick to go back to what he had just said
contextually in John 15 verse 11, notice what he says in John 15, verse 11.
He says these things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in
you and your joy may be full.
And so the parallel there is, is evident that they may have
my joy fulfilled in themselves.
John 1713.
John 1511, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be filled.
Okay, so what was he talking about in John 15?
Because I think that helps us understand.
John 17, he's talking about abiding in Christ.
In John 15.
He says, if you abide in me.
Then you will be, you will prove to be my disciples.
If you abide in me and bear much fruit, you'll prove to be my disciples.
If you abide in me, you will have this joy.
And so in John 1713, I think Jesus is calling back to that.
I think Jesus is referencing back to that in this prayer so that they will
remember, okay, Jesus is leaving.
How are we gonna be okay with him?
Gone abiding in Christ.
And what does it look like to abide in Christ, but to abide
in his word through his spirit.
Look at verse 14.
I have given them your word, and the world has hated them
because they're not of the world.
Just as I'm not of the world.
And and so here, the, the connection comes back.
I've given them your word.
He had said this, uh, uh, earlier in John's gospel.
I'm still in one Peter.
By the way, if you're not back in John, just follow me back to John,
John 17, he said in verse eight for I have given them the words you gave me.
So here he says, again, I've given them your word, y'all.
If we're gonna be kept in the father's name, we have to be kept in the word.
We have to be abiding in Christ through the word and again
through the spirit of God.
The word is the, the means of our abiding.
It's the medium of our abiding.
The the agent of the abiding is the spirit of God.
And both of these things have been given to us by Jesus, but Jesus says
the world has hated them as a result of this, because they're not of the
world, just as I am not of the world, I.
Verse 15.
I don't ask that you take them out of the world, but that you
keep them from the evil one.
And so here Jesus is saying the word that I've given them is gonna
create a problem for them and that the world is gonna hate them.
But I'm not gonna ask that you take them outta the world.
We're gonna find out why in just a minute here.
But instead, what is he gonna pray?
He's gonna pray in keeping with his whole prayer, for their
protection, their preservation, that they be kept from the evil one.
The evil one being the prince of the power of the heir, from Ephesians chapter two.
The God of this world from Second Corinthians chapter four.
That is Satan.
He had just said, I lost none of them.
Except for who?
Judas.
Right?
The son of destruction.
I think he was mentioning that for the sake of the disciples,
because of where he goes.
Here again, the father is not up there going, wait a minute, you lost someone.
Come on Jesus.
The father knew all things.
In fact, it was all part of his ordained plan for all of
these things to take place.
So as Jesus is, is praying and say, I kept them all and I didn't lose any
of them except the son of destruction.
I think he's praying for the benefit of those listening to be reminded
of the danger falling away from him.
And now he comes and he says, and I've given them their word.
And you know what?
The world's gonna hate them, which means the heat's gonna get turned up.
And as the heat gets turned up, what's our temptation gonna be to drift
away from Jesus, just like Judas did.
It, but he's praying.
Father, I'm praying that you keep them from the evil one.
I'm praying that you protect them.
I'm praying that you preserve them because verse 16, they are not of the world.
Just as I'm not of the world.
Y'all.
That's our reality as followers and disciples of Jesus today.
And so as we're considering the bare necessities, the essentials
of what it looks like to follow Jesus, we need to understand that
that tension exists for us as well.
We have to stay in the Father's name.
We have to be kept in the father's name, and that's gonna
come as we abide in Christ.
But abiding in Christ is gonna mean this world is gonna be hostile towards
us as believers, as followers of his Don Carson put puts it this way,
he says this, the cosmic spiritual nature of the conflict is laid bare.
The followers of Jesus are permitted neither the luxury of compromise
with a world that is intrinsically evil under the devil's power,
nor the safety of disengagement.
That's where we find ourselves.
That's what's what Jesus is praying here in this intersection of this, this text.
He's praying, saying they're gonna be in the world, not of the world.
And, and I've given them your word to keep them in your name.
And when they're kept in your name by the word, you know what that's gonna do.
That's gonna mean the world is gonna hate them.
And so I'm not allowing them to escape the world, but I'm also not allowing
them to compromise with the world.
And so I, they have to walk the narrow.
They have to stay between those two ditches on either side of the
path and the question that should be begged in all of our minds.
I.
Is how?
How do we do that?
How do you live in a world that hates the savior that you love and not
compromise, but also not retreat?
What does that look like?
Well, it looks like point number two this morning, a abide in Christ
like your life depends upon it.
Abide in Christ like your life depends on it.
Jesus is gonna say in verse 17, he says this, sanctify them in your truth.
In the truth.
Your word is truth.
Sanctify them.
It, it's the word that means to be set apart.
We talked about this a couple weeks ago, to be made more like Jesus.
That's our goal.
While we're here in this world to be more and more and more Christlike, and so how
can we become more and more and more?
Christlike?
Jesus answers the question, your word is truth.
It's the scriptures.
It's the Bible.
I've made this analogy before, but it's, it's one of the ones that just
impacts me the most, and so it gets to impact you the most by extension.
Uh, David's, Michelangelo started out as a, a large chunk of marble
that two master artisans looked at and said, I don't want this.
It's, it's imperfect.
No one can use this.
There's too many imperfections in it.
And so two master artisans rejected this hunk of marble, and it was
left outside exposed to the elements in the courtyard of one of the,
the cathedrals there in Florence.
And it was just abandoned until Michelangelo came along.
And looked at it and saw David inside.
But to get David out, what did Michelangelo have to do?
He had to take the hammer and he had to take the chisel and he had to go to work.
As he did, David began to emerge, and the more and more he took off, the more and
more you saw the form of David Church.
That's sanctification.
The word of God is the hammer in the chisel.
The spirit of God is the artisan making you look more like Jesus.
If you wanna know what it is to walk the, the narrow path and avoid the
ditch of compromise and avoid the ditch of retreat, then, then that
means you've got to be abiding in Christ like your life depends upon it.
Because church, it does.
It's like the warning passages in Hebrews that warn you from drifting
away or falling away from Christ.
And you say, but pastor once saved, always saved.
And I say, yeah, if you're actually saved, that's true, but it's
because you will abide in Christ.
It's because you will remain on the straight and narrow.
And so it's, it's you, but it's, it's the spirit in you working to pursue Jesus.
This is one of those mysteries of what it is to be a follower
of Jesus, to be a disciple.
It's the Apostle Paul writing Work out your salvation with fear and
trembling, but it's the spirit that's at work within you both to willing
to work for his good pleasure.
It is the Apostle Paul saying, by the grace of God, I am what I am.
Yet I worked harder than all of them, but it wasn't I who was
working, but God working in me.
See, church, we have a role to play.
We have something that we have to do, and that is we have to pursue christlikeness.
We have to abide in Christ through the spirit in the word, like our life
depends upon it because it does your spiritual wellbeing depends upon it.
I don't have time, but if I did, we would walk through Psalm 1, 1 19.
So much of Psalm one 19 walks through what the word of God does in keeping
us, protecting us, preserving us.
Just one example for, for instance, uh, Psalm 1 19 9, how can a
young man keep his way pure by guarding it according to your word?
Psalm 1 19, 1 0 5, Lord, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
The word of God helps us see how we are to walk church.
If you desire security as a believer in Christ, it will not come apart
from abiding in Christ, and yet ironically, abiding in Christ is gonna
produce more opposition in your life than you've ever experienced before.
Because why?
Because the word is what the world hates
Since the overthrow, if you've been following the news of the Assad
regime in Syria, Christians have been massacred by the thousands.
Uh, numbers vary.
One number I saw, I don't, I don't know if this is since the overthrow
of asah, but, but just in general, one number of, of late, the number of
Christians in Syria has dropped from 1.5
million to 300,000.
If I was to preach this point in Syria right now, it would hit a lot different
than it hits this morning in North Texas.
See, they don't have the luxury to say things like, well, I'll get around to my
Bible reading later, or I'm just too busy to to worry about my Bible reading today.
They don't have the luxury to say, you know what?
Next year will be the year that I get serious about prayer.
They don't have the luxury to say, well, I'll take my faith
seriously when I grow up.
Reason being is they may not grow up.
They may not see next year, they may not have later.
So for them to say, Hey, abide in Christ, like your life depends upon, it hits way
different than it hits for us sitting here this morning, and I, I don't say that to
make you feel guilty, but to encourage you to utilize the freedoms that God has
given you to, to lean into the blessings.
Of the time that you have to pursue Christ.
Can you imagine they, they would love to be able to sit down in the morning
with their Bible on their lap and a cup of coffee in their hands and not
worry about being killed for that
church.
One of my greatest fears personally is to stand before Jesus at the
Bema seat and have him just point out how much time I wasted to
with the freedoms that I have
to abide in Christ like your life depends upon it.
I remember in eighth grade we went on this wilderness trip to
Arkansas and we went repelling.
When you're backing over the edge of, of a cliff, your life depends upon that
rope and you know it does, and you feel it and you're not tempted to think,
well, maybe I could disconnect from that rope for a little bit and still be okay.
Nope.
You disconnect from that rope and they're scooping you up off the
bottom of the, the, the cliff.
We have to de to depend upon Christ and abide in Christ to that degree,
to have that level of desperation and need for Jesus, the way that somebody
repelling off the side of a cliff has for that rope as they're going over.
Because if we're gonna be kept in the name of the Father, that's how we do that.
So the bare necessities of being a follower of Jesus is pursuing
Christ's likeness, like your church depends upon it and abiding in Christ
like your life depends upon it.
Verse 18.
Jesus says, as you sent me into the world.
So I've sent them into the world, and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they
may also be sanctified In truth, y'all, this is why Jesus said I, I'm not praying
that you take them outta the world.
This is it right here, and this is why he hasn't taken us outta the world
because there's still work to be done.
Acts one, eight.
I read it during scripture reading that we've gotta reach the ends of the earth.
And we haven't reached the ends of the earth yet.
And you say, how do you know we haven't reached the ends of the earth yet?
Because Christ hasn't come back yet?
Because there's still work to be done.
There's still laws to be saved.
There's still people that need to hear the good news of the gospel.
And so Jesus is telling his disciples, as you sent me into the world,
so I've sent them into the world.
And you're saying, well, pastor, that he's talking about the disciples, not me.
Okay.
Matthew 28 19 through 20, great commission.
Jesus says, go and make disciples.
And you're like, again, only to them, not to me.
I don't have to.
Go and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We're gonna do that later.
And then what does he say after that?
Teaching them to obey, what's the next word?
All that I have commanded you.
Including what?
Go and make disciples.
Teaching them the disciples that you're gonna make to go and make disciples.
So you see, we're, we're in this no matter what.
This is applying to every single believer in this room.
There's no, nobody that gets to tap out of the the mission.
Of Jesus, of being sent in the world to make disciples.
It's the job of every single Christian to do this, and Jesus says, and for
their sake, I consecrate myself that they may also be sanctified in the truth.
He's talking about the cross right there.
He's saying I'm setting myself apart ultimately to the point of obedience
to the cross in order that they might be sanctified, they might be set
apart for the mission that I'm sending them to go and accomplish church.
We have the same mission that they had.
And it's our third bare necessity of being a disciple of Christ this morning.
It's this, pursue the loss like their souls depend upon it, pursue the
loss like their souls depend upon it.
How many lost people do you genuinely know right now?
Not by assumption, but you know, this person doesn't believe in Christ.
How many of them have heard the gospel from you?
When's the last time that they heard the gospel from you?
Paul writes in Colossians one, something that's, that's pretty astounding.
We've, we've covered it before, but just to remind us, chapter one, verse 24,
Paul says, in my flesh, I'm filling up what's lacking in Christ's afflictions,
what was lacking in Christ's afflictions.
Certainly nothing atoning, nothing that would result in our being saved.
To tell us.
That's finished.
He said on the cross.
So what was lacking is the work of the church to go out and see more
people made followers of Jesus.
That's what Paul means here.
I'm feeling what?
What's lacking by going out and doing the work of an evangelist, doing the work of
ministry, planting more churches, seeing more people come to faith in Christ.
And in that sense, you and I still today are filling up what's
lacking in Christ afflictions.
Why is it lacking?
Because Jesus isn't physically here doing the work.
He's the one doing the work through us.
But in our flesh, we are filling up, bringing to completion.
What's lacking?
What's lacking is the proclamations of the gospel to the ends of the earth.
That's our mission church.
That's what we're here to do.
We're here to pursue the loss like our soul, like their souls depend upon it.
Evangelism isn't just for pastors and preachers, and a subset of
Christians who have the gift.
Evangelism is for every single follower of Jesus.
All of us have a mission field.
If nothing else, you have a mission field wherever you live.
In the community, the neighborhood, the apartment complex.
Wherever you happen to live right now, there's your mission field.
You have a mission field at your workplace.
Some of you have the mission field of your home.
You have children that you're raising and that they need to know Christ.
You have unbelieving family members sitting at your dinner table.
That's your mission field.
We all have a mission field.
You evangelism is for every follower of Jesus and we have to take it seriously.
Baseball season is here because God is gracious to us.
And spring training is wrapping up because God is gracious to us.
But spring training is funny, isn't it?
Because there's all kinds of different people at spring training.
You've got your veterans and your veterans are there.
They've got a roster spot.
They're not worried about it.
So you've got guys like Corey Seger and Marcus Simmon who play for the
Texas Rangers, the greatest baseball team in the state of Texas, bar none.
And they're there and, and they know they've got a roster
spot and so they're not.
Yeah, they need to get in shape.
They need to get their, their timing down.
They need to get some reps, but they're not really gonna try to
beat out the ground ball that's hit the shortstop, not now.
They're gonna save that for the regular season.
Then you've got other guys, you've got the, the first year players that
have the, the minor leaguers with the invites of spring training just to say,
Hey, this is what's in your future.
And they're there just trying to soak it all in.
They're there going, man, this is amazing.
I can't believe I'm here.
And then you've got the other guys.
These are the guys called the non roster invitees and the non roster invitees.
They're there by invitation, but they don't have a guaranteed spot.
Usually these are veterans.
These are guys that have played, some of 'em are past their prime or
trying to prove that they're not yet past their prime and they're there.
And for them, every at bat matters a hundred percent.
They're gonna try to beat out the ground ball to shortstop.
Every ball hit to the outfield gap.
They're gonna try to chase that thing down and make the top 10 play.
Every opportunity they have to step on the field.
They're doing so with gratitude and they're doing so to give
everything that they have because they know what's at stake.
They know that if they don't, they may not have a spot in the end.
It's an imperfect analogy because you've already got your spot if you're
in Christ, but I want you to have the methodology of the non roster invitee
when it comes to reaching the lost.
I want you to take every conversation, every interaction, every opportunity to
pray for the lost, every conversation that you have to teach your kids about Jesus,
I want you to take it seriously knowing that their souls are at stake, because you
might be the only person they ever have, tell them about Jesus, or you might be the
last person to ever tell them about Jesus.
And so I want you to take it seriously.
I don't want you to mail it in.
I don't want you to think they'll have another shot down
the road because you never know.
If you're the last person that will have the chance to tell them about
Jesus, pursue the loss like their souls depend upon it because it might
be that their souls depend upon it.
Y'all, we have a great opportunity in this regard right now because this is,
we're coming up on Easter season and, and people expect the church to talk about
Jesus around Easter, and so you have an opportunity to talk to your neighbors
and your coworkers and your family members about Christ this Easter season.
We have yard signs that are over here for you to grab that.
It's got our extravaganza graphic on one side and our Easter
service times on the other side.
Please grab one of those.
They're over on the other side.
Please grab one and stick it in your yard.
That's, that's a, that's level one that's super low as far as what it looks
like to tell other people about Jesus.
Let your grass do the hard work for you.
Stick it in there.
People will drive by and see it.
They'll walk by and see it and think, okay, maybe I wanna go be a part of that.
Please grab one.
They're over there.
Like I said, we have these invites on our tables.
They've got, again, same thing as the yard side, extravaganza on one side,
Easter services on the other side.
Take some of these with you and pass 'em out.
Have your kids take 'em because they're cuter than you are and
have them give them to people.
It's hard to say no to a kid, right?
So have them use them for the kingdom and get them out there
passing out invitations to our event.
Whatever it looks like.
Baked some cookies.
We had somebody back in in California that would bake a bunch of cookies around
this time and they would, they would time in in little baggies and leave them
with these invites on their neighbors.
Just make sure they're good cookies if you don't bake well, I think
I said this last year, buy the cookies and put them in there.
We want to adorn the gospel, not, um, yeah.
If you've got snack duty for your kids, it literally slip an invite into the
snack bag when you hand it out to them.
If you've got a bulletin board at your local Starbucks, put
one of these up on the bullet bulletin board and leave it there.
Leave it in the lobby of your auto mechanic post about it on
your neighborhood Facebook page.
These are all ways for us to be passively kind of pursuing the
loss like their souls depend upon.
But we're also gonna be going out as the church a few times leading up
to extravaganza to pass out invites on the neighborhoods around us.
We've got a team, an evangelism team that's working on mapping these out,
and we're gonna go out together and we're gonna hand out these invites
and we're gonna leave these with people to invite them to be here.
Why?
Because we believe that this is important
for Easter.
This year we have three things going on.
We've got extravaganza and that's out of order.
Uh, we've got on Friday night, we've got our Good Friday service
here at the church, six 30.
We want you to be here.
We're gonna be focused on the cross.
In fact, it just so happens by God's providence that the, the Gospel of John
in our study, we're gonna be landing on the cross on Good Friday together.
So if you want to stay with the Gospel of John series with us, you gotta
be there on Good Friday with us.
We're gonna cover the section on the cross.
And then Sunday morning, Lord willing, we're gonna gather together, we're
gonna cover the resurrection together.
But in between there, we've got Extravaganza, extravaganza
is our outreach event.
And so here's what my challenge is.
You guys know what this is, right?
What is that?
What, what is that emoji?
It is.
Somebody said it.
It's the high five emoji.
You guys think it's the praying hands, but you'll never be able to
look at that the same way again.
It's the high five emoji.
All right?
Right.
We're giving each other a high five.
Here's my challenge.
Church high five for five.
Okay, high five for five.
What in the world is that?
It's super dorky, but you'll remember it, and so I don't care that it's dorky.
Here's what I want you to do.
I want you to challenge yourself to invite five different units,
so don't find a family with five people and be like, check, I did it.
I'm good.
Five different units, so five different families, five different coworkers,
five different neighbors, whatever.
I want you to invite at least five different people to at least one of
the three events that I just mentioned.
Good Friday, extravaganza Easter Sunday Resurrection Sunday.
For those of you that are offended by Easter Sunday, I'll, I'll
check your box for you too.
Pick one, invite them.
You say, well, how do I think about that?
Well, maybe you've got somebody that's a neighbor of yours.
Ardent, avowed, atheist.
Hates everything about God and Christianity, but they've got young kids.
Maybe invite them to extravaganza.
That might be a great on-ramp for them to get around people of the church and to see
that we love them and we care about them.
To have conversations with other people that might point them to Christ or, or
maybe let's say you've got a, a, a mom that is in your, your school group, your,
your co-op, or you've got somebody in, in your neighborhood who's a mom and,
and she comes from a Mormon family.
Invite her to the Good Friday service where she's gonna hear about the all
sufficient atoning death of Jesus Christ on the cross for her sins.
That it's not by grace alone, after all she's done, but it's by grace.
Grace alone, period.
Maybe that'd be a great thing to invite her to, or resurrection Sunday.
Inviting somebody who needs to come and hear the good news of the
fact that we worship a resurrected savior and there's hope that we
too will one day overcome death.
Maybe you got somebody in your neighborhood who's struggling
with a disease that's terminal.
They need to come and they need to hear about life after
death that Sunday morning.
So high five for five.
If you show up next week or you show up in the coming weeks, you come up
to me, say, Hey, pastor PJ High five, I'll know what you're talking about.
Let's normalize the high five here, because we're gonna be just
inviting a ton of people for Jesus.
I wanna go home with a hand that hurts in the next couple weeks here.
That would make me so happy, uh, not just because we want numbers.
But because why?
Because we want to pursue their souls, like their lives, their pursue the
loss, like their lives depend upon it.
Their souls depend upon it because they do.
They do.
That's why we're a church committed to reaching people for Christ,
teaching people to be like Christ and training people to serve Christ.
We wanna be that church.
There's more than three bare necessities for discipleship, but
this morning we've at least uncovered these three and to pursue holiness.
Because your church depends upon it to abide in Christ because
your life depends upon it.
And to pursue the lost 'cause, their souls depend upon it.
We live in a, a world with so many luxuries.
It's easy for us to forget how important the bare necessities of life really are.
And I think that's true of discipleship as well.
And so I appreciate the reminder that we get from Jesus this morning.
These three things about discipleship, man pursuing godliness because of the body.
Abiding in Christ because of our own being kept in the Father's
name and pursuing the loss.
Those are three things that we need to make sure are there 'cause those
are part of the bare necessities of what it looks like to follow Jesus.
Lemme pray together if you'll stand with me and then we'll be dismissed.