John 17
Well, our subject tonight is
the world. The world is an enemy of the
Christians. So let’s read from John 17. And we’ll begin there.
17 verses 1 to 26. When Jesus had spoken these words,
he lifted up his eyes to heaven and he said, Father, the hour
has come. Glorify your son, that the son
may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all
flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.
And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true
God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on
earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory
that I had with you before the world existed. I have manifested
your name to the people whom you gave to me out of the world.
Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept
your word. Now they know that everything
you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words
that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to
know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that
you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not
praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me,
for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours
are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in
the world, but they are in the world, and I am 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. While I was with
them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have
guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son
of destruction that the scripture might be fulfilled. But I am
coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they
may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them
your word and the word world has hated them because they are
not of the world just as I am not of the world. 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 the 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 the truth.
I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe
in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as
you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in
us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory
you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one,
even as we are one. I in them, and you in me, that
they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that
you sent me and love me, even as I even as you love me. Father, I desire that they also
whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my
glory, that you have given me because you loved me before the
foundation of the world. Oh, righteous Father, even though
the world does not know you, I know you and these know that
you have sent me. I made known to them your name
and I will continue to make it known that the love with which
you have loved me may be in them and I in them. When I was about
7 or 8 years old, it’s a terrible thing to give a bad example of
what you did, but when I was about 7 or 8 years old, in 7th
or 8th grade, so what, 12, 13, 14 years old, we used to, in
our town everybody had the same cable TV box. Remember the old
wooden console? Now we have the digital one,
and then for a while your TV did all the tuning. But back
in those days, everybody had the same console for cable TV. And so we figured out that the
same remote that everybody had would change other people’s channels.
And so it started out, we would play pranks on our friends. We
would go and stand at their window and change their channels. while
they were watching TV. And then we got the bright idea
we should go stand in other people’s windows, people we didn’t know,
and go change their channels. And so we did that for a while.
And the fun ended probably after about a month, I would say. That
was our Friday night affair for about a month. And one night
we got chased by a man with a baseball bat. So that ended that fun. But all that to say is living
in the world is often like that. We have so many demands for our
time and our attention, and we have people who are, you might
say, attempting to change our channel, to change our focus
from what is good and godly to something that we may not ordinarily
want to focus our eyes on, but that is the attempt of the world,
is to change our minds, to change our allegiance, to get us to
love and put our affections on something else, something we
may not want to see, something we may not desire. And so that’s
a bit of the challenge of the world. Last week we talked about
the flesh and how the flesh is remnant sin in us. It’s like
hot coals of a fire that if they’re stoked and fueled, that can become
a raging fire. So that’s an enemy that is within
us. It is remnant sin. But the world, in all its trappings,
are another enemy of the Christian. And it comes to us in all sorts
of ways. But it’s very difficult, we must
say, to live in the midst of this world for God. And you can
see from John 17 how Jesus recognized that. He said, I don’t want you
to take the Christians out of the world. I am sending them
in the world just as you Father have sent me into the world is
what Christ says and he wants us protected and he wants us
cared for. So a couple things we want to
cover tonight as we look at this idea of the world as the enemy.
The first question we wanna answer is, what in the world is the
world? If the world is one of our enemies,
how do we define world? You could take some guesses,
you could say it’s the globe, it’s the seven continents and
the seas, it’s the earth, the stuff on it, it’s society, it’s
something from this world and not from heaven. Well, it’s best
to answer it from the Bible. How does the Bible answer it?
And even a better way is to say, how does the Old Testament speak
of the world? Or how does it use the word world?
And then how does the New Testament use the word world? And often
the Old Testament will use a word one way and then the New Testament
will use it the very same way and then add a twist to it or
something more weighty. And that’s exactly what happens.
In the Old Testament, when you read the word world, it refers
to the earth or a natural order, the sun, the moon, the stars,
the heavens, and the earth, the world that God made. In the New
Testament, it uses the world the very same way as the earth
or the natural order, but it also refers to fallen humanity. So when you read a verse like
John 3.16, for God so loved the world. That’s not a passage of
universalism. It’s a passage that means God
so loved the world or mankind and all its systems that are
against God. He so loved the world that he
sent his own son. And what does his son do with
the world? He redeems it. He transforms it. He returns
it to the way that it once was when God created. So that’s how
the Bible uses the world. So think of it as fallen humanity
and all its systems. If you look at Galatians chapter
1 verse 4, when Paul writes to the Galatian church, he speaks
of them living in this present evil age. You see how that relates
to fallen humanity. This present evil age. These
are people who believe things that are against God. They have
systems of thought and economy and whatever they are against
God. It’s this present evil age. And then in Philippians 2.15,
he speaks of Christians living in the midst of a crooked and
perverse generation. And so the way we understand
the world is that it’s an order or a system of beliefs and values.
It’s a way of living. It’s a moral atmosphere, and
it stands against God. There is godliness. There is
living according to the word. There’s living according to the
Christian faith. And then over here, there is the world and
its order and system and beliefs and values and morals, which
are against God. One is under the rule and influence
of God and Christ. The other is under the influence
of Satan and his rule and influence. So what does it mean that this
is a crooked or perverse generation? What does it mean this is a present
evil age? God made the world and everything
in it. It has fallen to sin. It’s broken. It’s under the curse that is
spoken of in Genesis. But it’s crooked. It’s not straight. Maybe you have a finger that’s
not as straight as it used to be. It’s crooked. What does crooked
mean? It means it’s deviated from its
original design. If you have a nice new car and
somebody hits it, it’s wrecked. It’s not what it was originally
designed and built to be. It’s now crooked, it’s not straight.
What does perverse mean? It means something has strayed
so far from the norm. It means it’s severely twisted
or distorted. And we can very easily look at
the world around us and see that that is the case. There is God
and his rule, and then there’s Satan and his rule. And we see
where the world has followed. So it’s humanity that is broken
by sin. It’s morally and spiritually
empty in every single way. It opposes God. And it opposes
those who are his. Did you notice Jesus in the high
priestly prayer says, they hated me, so therefore what? They will
hate them also. And so the world hates us. The world is our enemy. And so you think maybe of things
that sort of bug you as a Christian. What are things that bug you
as a Christian? Well, you don’t like anything that stands against
your values. You don’t like things that stand against your morals.
We’re in outrage when there’s a movie or a film that is against
Christ. We’re outraged when there is
music that glorifies wickedness and not righteousness. We’re
outraged when Maybe politically, we have someone who rules over
us who doesn’t stand for the values that our nation, we’re
built upon. And so those are things that
are examples of how the world is against us. But think, too,
of TV commercials. What’s the goal of a TV commercial?
It’s to change your perspective to say, you never even thought
of purchasing this. But after that commercial, they
have created a need in you. And so the world and all its
desires and trappings become our enemy. So that’s an overview
of what in the world is the world. The second thing for us to look
at is the world is the enemy to the Christian. Maybe you’re
thinking, well, God made the world. He made everything in
it. Why is it my enemy? Well, it’s our enemy because
because of sin and because of brokenness and the curses that
sin brought forth into the world. And it is, we have to admit,
a very high-pressure influence. Maybe you sit and watch TV for
an hour, and the commercials are rather I don’t know, maybe
they just bombard you. And watching TV just makes you
tired because those commercials just wear you out. And so you
turn the TV off after a time, and the silence is such a stark
difference from the television and from the world. Well, the
world is an enemy to the Christian. It’s a high-pressure influence.
Now, the Bible speaks of this influence as the cares of the
world, the delights of riches, earthly glory, self-rule, the
pursuit of pleasure, materialism, pride, and status. And it’s all
hatred of godliness. That’s how the Bible in various
places speaks of the influence of the world. There is a constant
tugging on the Christian for our allegiance. Now, I’m guessing
all of y’all probably grew up in this area, and so this has
kind of been your home for a while. Do you remember Sunday Blue Laws?
Do you remember a day when if you were out of gas on a Sunday,
guess what? You’re going to have to wait
until Monday or steal it out of your gas can in the tool shed
for your lawnmower. You couldn’t eat out on Sundays.
You couldn’t go to the mall on Sundays. All you could do was
get up, go to church, come home. Take a nap, get back up and go
to church again. That was the world slowing down. You remember when Thanksgiving
was actually a sacred holiday, when people didn’t go shopping
on Thanksgiving. They actually had family gatherings
and they ate turkey and those sorts of things. You rarely see
a day in our time where life just stops. and it’s quiet. Maybe the only time it happens
is when there’s a blizzard or something. And then what are
people trying to do? They’re still trying to get out and get
out and get out. But the world is a very high pressure influence. It’s a constant tugging on us
for our allegiance and our attention. And what does the world do for
the Christian that is so such an enemy well it’s it’s
this it’s it pulls our affections toward ungodliness there’s a
there’s there’s two words I bet you know one is the word ethics
And the other is the word morality. Ethics is a standard. If maybe
you’re in a certain field of work, say you’re a lawyer, there’s
a code of ethics for lawyers. If you’re a doctor, there’s a
code of ethics for doctors. If you’re a schoolteacher, there’s
a code of ethics for schoolteachers. Or if you’re in the banking industry,
there’s a code of ethics for lawyers. how you live. These
are standards. They are rules. They’re laws.
You live this way. But morality, on the other hand,
is a measurement. You might look at morality, say,
in the 1950s, and you might say, wow, in the 1950s, everybody,
for the most part, lived in a two-parent home. People had a couple kids.
They had a house. They paid their mortgage. People
lived decently. And you look at life now, and
morality is not where it was in the 1950s. Things that were
taboo or considered wrong then are considered normal now. Life
has deviated a pretty good bit. It’s happened in y’all’s generation.
and continue to decay in the midst of my generation’s eyes. But think of ethics as a standard
and morality as a measurement. Do you know the phrase statistical
morality? If 50% of Americans are stealing
from their boss, then because 50% are doing it makes it okay. Now, years ago it might have
been only 1% were stealing from their boss and they actually
got thrown in jail. But you see what happens is, well, the world’s
doing it, so it’s okay. And you can think of all kinds
of examples of how over time, just because the world is doing
it, Christians are doing it. And I want to tell you, this
is the problem that we have as the church. When the church ceases
to be the church and the people of God cease to be the people
of God, when we no longer live like new creations in Christ
Jesus, we don’t live out of the realities that the Bible tells
us are true of Christians, we look just like the world. There
is a United Methodist Church Bishop, who probably would not
be as conservative as we would be with our views toward the
Bible and all that sort of stuff, but he’s a very loud voice in
evangelical circles. And he has recently written a
book, and he says that the church, in order to reach the world,
leaned way too far over and fell in. And what he’s saying is we
quit talking about our standards, and we started talking about
the world’s standards. And you see that change in the modern
American church. You look at the famous preachers,
and they have moved away from, thus says the Lord, here’s what
God says, and they read it and explain it. to literally, they
have become self-help, self-talk gurus. They’re on the same level
as Oprah and other worldly-type voices. And so what this man
is trying to say is, if we’re gonna be the church, let’s be
the church. And the church is nothing like the world. The church
is contra-world, it’s against the world. It’s totally radically,
completely different from the world. And so if the church would
be the church, it would stand out against the world and we
would be able to have a witness. We’re called to be salt and light.
We’re called to be a bright light in the midst of darkness. And
so the world is an enemy to the Christian. If you read in Hebrews
chapter 11, If you read Hebrews 11, verse 23 through 26, when
it’s going through all the heroes of the faith, it gets to Moses,
and it says of Moses, he gave up the riches of Egypt for the
calling God gave to him to deliver Israel out of Egypt. In fact,
if you read that in Hebrews 11, it’s very powerful in what it
says. Hebrews 11, verse 23 says, By faith, Moses, when he was
born, was hidden for three months by his parents because they saw
the child was beautiful and they were not afraid of the king’s
edict. By faith, Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be
called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated
with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures
of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than
the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. And so there’s a great contrast.
to what living for Christ is like and what living for the
world is like. So the world will feed desires
in us that won’t be pleasing to God. And so that’s why the
world is an enemy to the Christian. Okay, there’s a third thing for
us to consider. The first was, what in the world
is the world? We understand it as as fallen
humanity in the present evil age, the crooked and perverse
generation, the order and system of thinking and life that is
against God. The second is the world as an
enemy to the Christian. It’s a hard, high-pressure influence.
The third thing to think of is the fact that the Christian is
in the world. Jesus prayed, I pray that you
won’t take them out of the world. I’m not asking you to take them
out. I’m just saying help them while they are living in the
world. Here’s something to think of. Christians live in fellowship
with Christ. but we live in a world that is
out of fellowship with Christ. So we live in fellowship with
Christ in a world that is out of step with Christ. We live
in a world that hates Christ, that hates its rules. It hates
its authority, it hates its way. And think just of very basic
examples of Christians in the world. When the Apostle Paul
writes a letter, he always addresses it to the saints of God who are
at Ephesus or the saints who are at Corinth or the saints
who are at Colossae. These are Christians he is writing
to and they live in cities of the world. That’s just a fact,
we are Christians. We are called to live faithful
Christian lives as brothers and sisters in the world where we
live. You think of all the places where
Paul wrote letters to Christians. Those were wicked, dark, difficult
places. The places where he went on his
missionary journeys. Those weren’t rosy little Christian
communities. They were cities in the world
where they were God haters. John 17, verse 11, Jesus states
of Christians, they are in the world. John 17, 14, and 16 says
that we are not of the world. John 17, verse 15 says, I do
not ask you to take them out of the world. And then in John
17, verse 17 and 18, Jesus says, I have sent them into the world.
So the fact is we are in the world. We’re in the midst of people
and systems of thought and beliefs that hate God, that hate Christianity,
and they hate the faith. And it’s a wonder we’re so surprised
about it. We wonder at persecution, we wonder at the intellectual
elite or why a public university is so hostile to Christianity.
Well, that’s the way God said it would be. And so there we
have it. The fourth thing for us to consider
is the danger of the world. So what in the world is the world?
The world is an enemy of Christians. The third thing is that we are
in the world, it’s just a fact. So the fourth is the danger of
the world. What is the danger of the world? And think of how people have
responded to the world. People have said, I’m just going
to live like the world and go to church on Sundays. Others
have said, on the other extreme, I’m going to escape from the
world. Remember, maybe some years ago,
a lot of people decided they were going to live in little
communes. Then when they all killed each other or got at each
other’s throat, that didn’t work out so well. But God has called
us to live where he puts us, to serve where he sends us, to
go to church on Sundays and to get nurtured in the faith. But
then we go back out into the world again. That’s why the benediction
is so important. God gathers us for worship, but
he sends us back into the world. He equips us in the house of
God and sends us back out. He calls us into worship, but
then he gives his benediction and sends us back out with his
blessing. He knows where we are and what
he’s up to. But what’s so dangerous about
the world? If you read 2 Timothy 4, verse
10, the Apostle Paul speaks of the danger of losing our focus
on the kingdom. He’s giving at the end of 2 Timothy
some personal greetings and instructions. And he says, to Timothy, do your
best to come to me soon. And then he says, for Demas,
he is in love with this present world. He has deserted me and
gone to Thessalonica. So there’s an example of one
who had been faithful in service with the apostle Paul, who’s
become in love with the present world, and he’s gone, he’s lost
focus, he’s no longer helpful to Paul. Matthew chapter 13,
the Lord Jesus speaks of Christians being overrun by the cares of
the world. Matthew 13, starting at verse
one, it’s the parable of the sower. The same day Jesus went
out of the house. He sat beside the sea and a great
crowd gathered around him so that he got into a boat and sat
down and the whole crowd stood on the beach and he told them
many things in parables saying a sower went out to sow and as
he sowed some seeds fell along the path. And the birds came
and devoured them. Other seeds fell on the rocky
ground where they did not have much soil. And immediately they
sprang up, since they had no depth of soil. But when the sun
rose, they were scorched, and since they had no other roots,
they withered away. Other seeds fell among the thorns, and the
thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil
and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who
has ears let him hear. And then he gives sort of the
understanding if you look down in verse 18. Hear the parable
of the sower. When anyone hears the word of
the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches
away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was
sown along the path. As for what was sown along the
rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately
receives it with joy. Yet he has no root in himself,
but endures for a while. And when tribulation or persecution
arises on account of the word, immediately he falls away. As
for what was sown among the thorns, this is the one who hears the
word, but the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches
choke the word, and it proves unfruitful. As for what was sown
on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands
it. He indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case, a hundredfold,
in another, 60, and in another, 30. So like Demas, we can lose
focus on God’s kingdom, like the seed. which is sown among
the thorns. The cares of the world can overrun
us. And look back at Matthew chapter 6 verse 19. This speaks of falling victim
to the world Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth
where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal,
but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth
nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For
where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And then in Luke’s gospel, chapter
nine, it speaks of gaining the whole world but losing for forfeiting
oneself, Luke chapter nine, verse 25. Jesus is saying earlier,
if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up
his cross daily and follow me for whoever would save his life
will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save
it. And verse 25 says, for what does
it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits
himself? And then finally, Romans chapter
12, Verse two speaks of one of the
blessings and benefits of redemption. It particularly speaks about
how we’re to see our minds in relationship to our redemption
in Christ. In Romans 12, one, he says, I
appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God to present
your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which
is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world.
do not be, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that
by testing you may discern what is the will of God and what is
good and acceptable and perfect. And so the danger of the world
is that it would lead us away from God. It would leave us away
from the kingdom. It would lead us from things which can be destroyed. It’ll lead us to those things
and away from what is permanent or lasting. Now, here’s the rub. Here’s the big question for us.
Do we take the danger of the world seriously? Or do we say,
well, it’s not that bad. It’s neutral. What is the big thing Americans
are against right now, particularly related to their children? Maybe
some of you see this with your grandchildren. But what in our
educational system are everybody screaming out against now? It’s
the common core. Everybody’s just screaming bloody
murder about it and probably should. But why are we against
something like that? It’s because it forces indoctrination. That’s the big word. It forces
indoctrination. I read some statistics just yesterday. I think it was that in a state
near Tennessee, homeschooling was at 60,000 students
in the 2013-14 school year, so last school year. This year it’s
95,000. And so you can see, just in that
one state, what people are doing about the influence of the world.
This is a reaction that Christians, and not all people homeschool
for different reasons, but they’re saying, I don’t want to be indoctrinated. I don’t want the world influencing. a wake up for a danger. That’s
just an example of it. What what would we do if we were
in a church? And maybe some of y’all have
been in churches in your lifetime where the Bible was closed. The authority of God’s word was
was put aside. And what do you do in that sort
of situation where they say we’re gonna put away the Bible and
they don’t say it this way, but we’re gonna put away the Bible
and we’re gonna we’re gonna preach man’s own wisdom. What do we
do? We start a new denomination,
we leave, we do something drastic. And so the danger of the world
is a real danger that we must take very seriously. So anything
that moves away from God’s word, anything that moves away from
worshiping God to worshiping self, depending on self, we must
take very seriously. And so there’s a question for
us. Do we take spiritual danger seriously? I mean, we all take
physical danger seriously. We don’t want to drive off the
edge of the road, so we stay away from the edge of the road. We
don’t want to have a wreck, so we may drive slowly. We avoid physical danger. But
do we avoid spiritual danger? That’s the big question. That’s
the $10,000 question. The world is a dangerous place.
Now, a physical danger has effects in this life. hurt your arm, or you get in
a car crash, you do something that physically hurts you, that
hurts you in this life. But spiritual dangers can hurt
you both in this life and the life which is to come. The Lord
Jesus speaks of running away from that which will kill and
destroy and running toward what will give life. Okay, so the
world is an enemy of the Christian. The world is a threat. It’s something
we should take very seriously. It’s dangerous. It’s a reality
that is hard on us. But here is some encouragement
that we find in God’s Word. We should take heart. Jesus knows
the world we live in. He is a high priest who can sympathize
with us. He has come to this world. He was born. He lived under the law. He suffered
all the difficulties of this life. He knows all of the pressures
of the world. And he told us there will be
tribulation, there will be difficulty, there will be hardships. We are
at a war. There is a war still going on
between the seed of the woman, Jesus, and the seed of the serpent,
Satan himself. But Jesus tells us, if you back
up into the 16th chapter of John, he says, take heart, for I have
overcome the world. And what does he tell us over
and over, particularly in the book of Revelation, we are given
encouragement that we can overcome as well. Blessed is he who overcomes,
the book of Revelation tells us. So because of the victory
of Christ on the cross, his death, his resurrection, the power of
the world has nothing on us. Though it is a strong influence,
it has nothing on us because of the power of Christ Jesus. And here is one other great encouragement. What is Jesus doing in heaven?
One of the many things he’s doing is he’s interceding for us. He’s
praying for us on our behalf. And so in the spirit of John
17, his prayer the night before he gave his own life for us,
he’s praying for us that we would overcome the world and that we
would endure and make it to the last day. So those are good words
of encouragement for us. We have victory in Christ. So
let’s ask for his blessing. Lord, we thank you for the victory
of Jesus Christ over sin and death, but also over the powers
of darkness, the power of this world in the present evil age.
We thank you that what we see is not what will always be, but
that there will be victory, that you will overcome these things,
and that we can overcome it and live faithful lives with your
help. Help us as we live in the midst of darkness to shine brightly
as stars in the universe so that others will see the love of Christ
and the power of the gospel in us as it has transformed us.
This we pray in the name of King Jesus our Savior. Amen.