(John 17:8-16)

The glue that binds us together (3/19/17 Standalone)

ATTN: A riddle for you: What do you call it when Chinese, Japanese and Korean are in one room and they haven’t killed each other yet? It’s called Mr. Hong’s ELL Bible class! Many of you know that I teach what’s called ELL bible class at Tacoma Baptist School along with Calculus. Now, in my ELL Bible class, 4 japanese exchange students joined us for the next 4 months. So, right now, we have the chinese, the japanese and a korean – me – sitting together in one room, learning the bible together. 70 years ago, we were killing each other. And frankly, even now, their relationships aren’t that great. If my grandmother were still alive, she would tell me to flunk these Japanese and Chinese!! But we are together and being civil to each other. But I thought about what brings them together. Well, American education is one thing. These students are here to experience as well as get education in America. Another thing would be money. You have to have money to send these kids abroad and so money brings these students together. Another factor would probably be Brad, our principal who arranged for these students to be here. But I’m not here to talk about racial reconciliation or international relationships. As important as they are, I want to talk about something even closer to the heart of God. And that is regarding His body, called the church.

And I want to pose the same question: What brings a faith community such as a church together? Especially a church like ours, small but diverse demographically? This concept of church was not a man’s idea – disciples didn’t gather after Jesus went back to heaven and said: “Hey, we feel kinda empty. I have an idea. Why don’t we still get together even though we don’t have Jesus with us for tradition sake!” No. Church was God’s idea from the beginning, and one of the reasons why Jesus went away is so that Jesus can be with every believer on earth through the Holy Spirit as the head of the church. . “I will be with you to the end of the age,” Jesus said. And you see it very clearly in today’s passage that Jesus wanted there to be a community of believers that lived, loved, and reflected God’s glory together until He comes back again. But what would mark this faith community called the church? What common things would they share? What would bring them together and keep them together? Another way to think about this is this: If you were to leave this area and look for a new church, what should you look for? Jesus alludes to at least three: The people who unite over the same: 1) message, 2) motivation, 3) mission.

Think of them like a glue with three separate chemicals when mixed together would become a powerful glue to keep them together. And if we are to stick together, then we need these three components as well.

 

1) The message.

Jesus tells them that they have a common message to gather around. I want to speak of A) the content of the message and B) the communicating of that message: A) Content of the message. Well, what is the message? Every group has a message. They all rally around a common slogan or common belief. Donald Trump’s campaign slogan was “Make America Great Again!” Then, what is the Christian message? What is unique about it? v. 8, 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.” The message is simply that Jesus Christ is of God and one needs to believe in Him to be saved.

Hear another one that conveys the same message: “If we confess with our mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart God raised him from the dead, he will be saved.” What is this message about? It is unlike every other message in that we are not to muster up our strength to do something, but that we are so wicked and weak and God was so gracious that He has done something for us. It’s not a “Do” message but a “done” message. Also, the message is about the person of Jesus Christ. It’s not a what, first, it’s a who. Every other message is about what We must DO. “Make America Great Again,” “Just Do it,” “Think Different.” But the gospel message is WHO has DONE what.  

So, the word must center around the person and the work of Jesus. If you have been a part of As One, you have heard that the whole Bible is about Jesus. The OT and NT both are about Jesus. Jesus explained to the disciples on the way to Emmaus that the law and the prophets, by which he’s referring to the OT, are about Himself. “But I don’t hear of Jesus in the OT, Pastor….” Let me answer:  If I can summarize the whole bible in one sentence – God redeeming the world to Himself through Jesus His Son. The Old Testament is simply telling us about the Christ who would come. The New Testament is about the Christ who did come, and will come again.

ILL: a) For example, take Joseph in Genesis. He was sold by his own brothers, but was still faithful to God, however bad things kept happening to him. But he persevered and he eventually became the prime minister of Egypt. Normally, you would hear the Bible teacher say at this point, “So, keep your faith in God especially when things are hard and eventually God will do good to you like He did to Joseph.” That would make for a nice moral lesson no different than a Aeshop’s fairytale but where is Jesus in that? No, Joseph’s story is about Jesus. Joseph is a prefigure of Jesus, who also was abandoned by his closest disciples, sold as a slave, and Jesus redeemed the very ones who abandoned him… that’s why Joseph’s story is there – to give us a preview of The One to comes in Jesus who will save on only the middle-easterners like Joseph did, but the whole world. b) David and Goliath’s story is not about us being like David in facing a giant. How many messages have we heard that we ought to trust in God like David did in the midst of impossible obstacles? But where is Jesus in that? David is the imperfect version of our perfect Christ who defeated the giant called sin with one fell-swoop on the cross and gave us the victory like David did to the Israelites. The story of Ruth is not about being faithful to your mother-in-law and good things will come to you. It’s about the kinsman redeemer, Boaz, who redeemed Ruth, a helpless foreigner just like Jesus would redeem us – helpless sinners alienated from God… the message is about Jesus. What He has done. So, every message, every sermon should be about Jesus.

1. B) Communication of the message. And how is that message conveyed? It is through the word of God. V. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me,  That is why we emphasize preaching and teaching the word of God here at As One. Some people think it’s antiquated. Especially, in this age of Twitter and snapchat and youtube, sitting in one place and listening to a middle-aged guy talk for 35 minutes about something that happened 2000 years ago, just doesn’t sound very cool. Ted Talk, or even Dr. Phil sound more engaging and relevant. But there is a reason why bible-saturated churches will insist on not only not altering the message but also not altering also how it’s conveyed – which is through the written and preached word of God.

in John 1:1, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God… and the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” It doesn’t say, “in the beginning was the video,” or in the beginning was “snapchat.” but the word – written and proclaimed word of God. God thought that better than pictures, better than video, word could represent Jesus more accurately. You’ve heard, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but the other way is true also, “A word is worth a thousand pictures or videos.” Let me prove it to you. In recent years, many books have been turned into movies, such as the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter or Hunger Games. And let me ask those of you who both read the book and saw the movie. Which was better? Almost invariably the book! There is something about the written and preached word that is able to convey the message more fully and powerfully. And God Himself decided to convey the most important message regarding His Son through the word of God. And don’t think, “Well, back then they didn’t have the technology to do anything else like a video…” It would’ve been a very easy thing for God to choose any medium to convey the message.

ILL: in the name of attracting more people to God, some churches and organizations have substituted videos and stories of the people, in place of preaching and teaching the word of God. They can be used as supplements, but they are no substitute for the word of God. Watching a Christian movie or reading a Christian book even is no substitute for the written and preached word of God. My prayer is that you will develop such taste buds for the word of God that you will find Christian movies and novels boring in comparison… when i was younger, I loved it when the Christian speaker would go on and on about his personal stories and experiences. But now, when a speaker does that, I get agitated because I’m thinking to myself, “please tell me about Jesus which the word of God is really about and not you!”

2. Motivation: Joy (v. 13)

So, we gather around the message that is about Christ. Then, what is the motivation. What should keep us coming back to Him over and over in a community to reflect His glory? It is joy. V. 13 But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

Did you know that that is our goal every time we preach the word of God to you? “We work for your joy!” Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 cor 1:24. And so it is our goal in preaching – to increase your joy! But what is joy? Not the type of Joy Jimmy Fallon or Ellen Degeneres gives! I want you to stop and think about when Jesus said this to figure out what kind of joy He was talking about. He said this right before He was to be captured and crucified. All the disciples hearing this will flee and abandon Jesus. They will soon know the great pain of losing Jesus only to have Him back in resurrection. The Holy Spirit will come and many wonderful works will be done, but also persecution of the church will break out and most of these disciples will die after having suffered terribly. Knowing all of this, Jesus, unabashedly talks about joy! It is not the kind of joy or “fun” that so many of the younger pastors employ to get the crowd going. This is the kind of joy one can have in the midst of losing a child. This is the kind of joy we can have even if we lost everything including our house and health. This kind of joy does not come from external well-being, but internal transformation. This kind of joy is not based on temporary and temporal circumstances, but in the deep and abiding and never changing character of God. So that Paul can say such contradicting sounding words, “we are treated as… sorrowful, yet always rejoicing…” (2 cor 6:10). How are we sorrowful and rejoice at the same time? The world cannot make sense out of it. It’s either sorrow or joy, but for Christians, it’s often both. When Job found out that all ten of his children had been killed, he said, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord!” This kind of joy is only possible to those who believe in life eternal and Jesus is the provider of that life eternal.

ILL: Before Rome became Christianized in the 4th century, Christians were sought out and tortured for their beliefs. Some had their limbs tied to two horses pulling in opposite directions until their limbs ripped apart. Some had a hole drilled on their skull and had molten lead poured into their head, some were used as human torches to light the night sky. Many were sawed in half, speared to death and also children were dashed to the rocks. And yet, one thing that characterized these early Christians was joy. As a matter of fact, it is recorded that as many of these Christians were being led to the lions to be ripped apart by them or led to the coliseum to be speared by the gladiators, they were often found singing and smiling on their way to death!

Impossible unless our hope was somewhere other than in this world.

APP: A church is where people who share such deep, abiding joy come together to remind them of what is to come. Because we are still in the flesh, we forget. We let our immediate circumstances cloud our joy and make us forget that we are made for eternity.

3. Mission: Sent out (v. 18)

Another element that ought to bring this faith community together is the common mission. V. 18, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Our God is a sending God. Have you noticed that? John Stott, addressing the Lausanne Congress on World Evangelization in 1974 said,

“‘Mission’ is an activity of God arising out of the very nature of God. The living God of the Bible is a sending God, which is what ‘mission’ means. He sent the prophets to Israel. He sent his Son into the world. His son sent out the apostles, and the seventy and the church. He also sent the Spirit to the church and sends him into our hearts today.”

All disciples of Jesus, all followers of Jesus are to be either sent out or support the ones who are sent out. Now, to be sure, not every church member is a missionary. I’d love it if that were true. But the missionary is specifically referring to the ones who are sent out of their home to bring christ to people who have not heard of him. Paul was a missionary in the bible, Timothy was not. However, all believers are to make disciples where they are and support the mission so that more disciples will be made elsewhere. This mission makes us focus on the kingdom of God rather than just ourselves. ILL:  Early on in our church’s history, we had the privilege of having mr. lee and mrs. Lee who were missionaries to china join our church and got us involved in mission endeavors. We’ve gone to Indonesia once and thailand 3 times. Also greece and vietnam. And the youth to native americans. The temptation back then was, “Well, we are just a fledgling church. We should focus on ourselves first before we can focus on others.. but we resisted that temptation and i am so glad. We must be about the kingdom of God rather than just our local body and we’ve been saying, if this local body disappeared because all of us decided to go out and become missionaries, then what an awesome thing that would be! We may not all become foreign missionaries, but wherever we are, we ought to be contributing to the kingdom by making disciples. In our community, in our school, in our workplace, in our social circles… we have a mission to bring the message of Jesus Christ to them in hopes of bringing unspeakable joy to their lives. Our mission is simply to demonstrate with our words and deeds that Jesus is not only our Savior and Lord, but also our greatest Treasure. He makes all of other treasures in our lives, such as family, friends, church better. And if God should ever take away our family, friends or any other lesser treasure from our lives, it would really be okay because we still have Jesus and cannot lose Him.  

CONC: Why I became a pastor? Because I thought there is nothing that’s more valuable and worthy than leading people to know and love Jesus. And i have not changed my mind about that. However, you don’t have to be a pastor to do that. You can be a stay-at-home mom or dad to do that. You can be a school teacher to do. You can be a high school student to do that. I was led to Christ in high school by a high school dropout!  Easter is coming. Would you take several of these cards and keep them in your wallet or purse, and invite them? 80% of unchurched would be willing to come to church if they were invited by their friends. And if every message we preach is about Jesus Christ, then they will hear a gospel message. Enough to get them saved… What better gift can you give another human being than a relationship with the God who not only created them, but is in charge of both life and death and loves them enough to have sent His Son!