John 17:13 • I Am Coming

Listen to the audio version of this message with the player below.

Transcript

(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)

As Sarah sang, "Captivate us, Lord Jesus; set our hearts on You," a number of you here will know how poignant it is that she sings that song with her family experiencing the devastation of the tornadoes in Washington and her mom fighting cancer at this time.
To have one's heart set on Jesus, captivated by Him, not by the things of world but captivated by Christ is everything.
And the special mark of the Holy Spirit this day is this is exactly what I'm preaching about.
And Sarah and I didn't have a conversation.
But it's the message of John 17, and I'm going to ask that you'd look in your bible there, John chapter 17, as we continue to look at this prayer of Jesus that was at the end of the Last Supper but whose message is about God's unending care for us.
In the movie "Blind Side," an affluent southern family adopts a street kid who is big and strong and fast and easily fooled, which means though by appearances he should be a football natural, when you put him on the field he's a football nerd.
[Chuckles]
He just can't do what everybody's expecting him to do.
One practice, his coach is trying to get through to him.
So he just yells at him after every drill to try to get him to do perfectly what he's supposed to be doing.
And, of course, he just plays worse and worse and worse.
But on this particular day, his adopted mom is watching from the stands.
And so she gets up out of the stands and kind of marches past the coach.
She doesn't yell at him, but you know something's about to happen.
And so she goes up to her adopted son, and she grabs him by the jersey.
And she says, "Michael, I want you to look at this young man here.
He is your quarterback.
And when you see him, I want you to think of me, your mother, and I want you to protect me from the bad guys over there."
Then she goes and she grabs another player, and she says, "Michael, this is your tailback.
When you see him, I want you to think of your little brother who you have protected from everyone and everything in his life.
Michael, this team is your family.
Michael, are you going to protect your family?"
[Chuckles]
And of course he says, "Yes, ma'am."
[Laughter]
And he's transformed.
Because he begins to see what he is doing, not just as a drill of techniques to perform, but he actually perceives the real goal of what he was created to be.
He's there to protect his family.
And in protecting his family, he finds ability and power such as he never had.
He finds out who he was created to be.
In this prayer of Jesus, this high priestly prayer, prayed at the end of the Last Supper before He goes to the cross, Jesus is praying for His disciples.
And He is telling them who they were created to be and in some way reminding them the Christian walk, being a disciple of Jesus Christ, is not just about performing the drill, a matter of rules and regulations.
It's about a relationship that actually is going to be empowering as we perceive its true purpose.
And what Jesus says to His disciples in this prayer as they're listening in to Him praying to the Father as He says, "You must understand what your real purpose is.
It's not protecting the family.
It is protecting the name of Jesus."
That's your purpose too.
We can get dissuaded by a lot of other things:  that the Christian life is about success and happiness in the world and accomplishment I think.
But for Jesus our highest purpose and what actually empowers us for that purpose is knowing that what we are called to do more than any other thing is to protect the name of Jesus.
Now, in order to get her son, Michael, to protect his family, his mom had to remind him first they were the family.
And the first thing Jesus does to have us understand our priorities in the world is to tell us what family we are a part of.
I know you think you know.
But Jesus is actually saying, "Your most compelling identity for now and for eternity, your most compelling identity is that you are part of a holy family."
If you look at the words of verse 10, "'All mine are yours,'" says Jesus to God the Father, "'and yours are mine.'"
I mean, you almost recognize you're getting some reflection of a movie about the Brady Bunch, right?
Yours, mine and ours.
You know.
Some from yours, some from, and we're all together now in this family.
And there's actually some truth of what's being said there.
Jesus is saying, "Father, You have given Me these disciples.
And I have preserved them for You.
Now all Mine are Yours and all Yours are Mine.
Father, make them one, even as we are one."
Which means those that are claimed by Christ for the Father are all part of His holy family:  one with God, one with Jesus, one with one another.
That is who we really are.
Now, the importance of understanding that identity is to understand what the disciples' concerns may be and why Jesus is praying as He is.
I mean, there has to be a concern.
You begin to sense it in verse 11.
Jesus says, in praying to the Father, "'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.'"
Jesus has brought His disciples to this holy family.
But now Jesus is leaving.
And a natural question of anybody who's been brought into the family by one party needs to say, "If that party leaves, am I still part of the family?"
Kathy and I have friends whose first children were peer ages of our children, except all their children were boys.
So they had four boys early on.
And the mom always wanted a girl.
And so as their lives progressed and she was not having more children, they decided to adopt.
So they adopted another boy.
[Laughter]
Just the way the circumstances unfolded, just the people they were trying to help out, they ended up adopting another boy.
More years go by.
And they adopted again.
This time, Kim finally got her girl.
Delilah:  Multiple, multiple handicaps, desperately in need of somebody to care for her.
But this was truly the apple of her mother's eye.
This was her girl, precious to her.
Some years later as this family, who were an open hearted family, began to open their home to foster children, those needing care in various ways, they began to care for a young woman, a young girl that they discovered by caring for and with her had been deeply and horribly abused by her birth family.
They wanted to rescue her out of that situation, only to discover that she had a sister still in the situation.
They ended up adopting both sister, that they could stil be one in the family with this new family too, all large family.
But then after having their biological kids and adopting all of these other kids, the discovery that now Kim, the mom, has serious heart problems.
And when that was announced, particularly to these sisters who had been in such an abusive situation in their biological family:  When they were told that their now adopted mom had serious heart problems, what is their first question?
If Mom goes to heaven, do we still have a home?
Are we still welcome here?
What did the dad say?
You're part of the family.
We are one.
And what Jesus is doing here in ways that are not so mysterious is simply saying in the hearing of His disciples, "Father, when I come to You, keep them one; keep this family in Your name.
I kept them in Your name.
Now You keep them in the name.
You keep us one.
You're part of the family."
And so His prayer is explained, verse 11.
What does He say?
He says the middle of verse 11, "'Holy Father, keep them in your name.'"
Preserve them.
Make us a family and keep us a family.
But it's even more than that.
If you'll look in verse 12, "'While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me.
I have guarded them.'"
This is not just about preservation.
It's about protection.
And the reason for that is explained more in verse 15.
As Jesus is praying to the Father, He says, "'I do not ask that you take them,'" that is His disciples, "'out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.'"
They're part of the family, Father.
So I'm not only asking that You keep us together:  You keep us one, keep us in Your name, keep us covered by the holy promises that You have given to the people of old.
Keep us all in the covenant, one together.
But, Father, also protect them from the evil one when I come to You, because when I was with them, I guarded them.
But now as I come to You, You will have to guard them from the evil one.
Even the wording "evil one" becomes important, because it's taking in the minds of a Jewish disciple that promise all the way back to the beginning of creation when there was, you remember, a promise of the gospel even in the time of Adam and Eve:  when after Adam had fallen, had abandoned the promises and the covenant of his God, what did God say to Satan at the time?
"I'm going to put enmity between you and the seed of the woman."
What's going to happen?
You evil one, you are going to strike His heel, but what's He going to do?
Crush your head.
There is going to be a promise that Christ will be the one who will protect His people of all time from the evil one.
And now He says, "I'm coming to You, Father; You must protect them from the evil one.
The promises that You have made of covenant eternity must be preserved by You.
You have to do that."
And, of course, it's whatever the Father wants to do.
I can remember some years ago when Kathy and I had friends and there was kind of one of those traditional battles between some teens in the home and between the father.
And the teens were wanting to go to a particular party where everybody knew alcohol was going to be there; there was going to be dangerous stuff there.
And so the dad, you know, he was just, he just was holding his ground, saying, "You are not going.
You know, you are not going."
And the kids, "Well, Dad, you know, we'll come home early and we'll do this."
And finally, in just exasperation, he said, "Now, you listen to me:  If evil in this world is going to come to you, it's got to get through me.
And it is not coming through me."
The evil is not going to come through.
What is Jesus praying to the Father?
"Father, protect them from the evil one; do not let evil come into their lies that would be destructive to the covenant purposes that You have for them."
It's an amazing prayer, because what Jesus is ultimately doing is He is putting the weight to preserve and to protect His people upon the Father.
And what that is doing, just so that you hear it, is saying the weight of being a child of God, a disciple of Jesus, is not upon our perfect performance of the drill.
Right?
That we've done everything correctly, that we've got everything aligned.
It's not that we're not expected to play hard and work hard and do those things that we're called to do.
But ultimately we are preserved and protected by the Father.
And the reason I need to know that and you need to know that is we fail in the drill sometime.
We don't always do all that we're called to do.
And we struggle, and we wonder, "Am I still okay?"
And that's why Jesus is saying, "Father, You have to keep them in Your name.
You have to guard them, because they will struggle sometimes."
Our niece is named Marissa.
And some weeks ago, she was facing an exam with some of her classmates, and they all knew it was going to be tough.
And even though Marissa is a good student, she's one of those, being good, she wants to even do better all the time.
And, you know, where a B might satisfy some students, this particular student a B is going to be devastating, you know.
And so she was just totally stressed about this particular exam that was coming until a friend of hers wrote her this note.
Some of you will recognize the lines borrowed from a movie.
"Marissa," said the friend, "you is kind."
[Chuckles]
"You is smart.
You is important.
And whether you get an A+ or an F, the Lord is still crazy about you."
[Laughter]
Now, I don't know how reverent it is to say that the Lord is crazy, but I get the point.
You're part of the family.
And God has made you part of the family.
And whether you perform the drill well enough, whether your performance is up to a level you:  But, listen, the weight of the preservation and the protection of you in the eternal family is God's.
And He has provided for that by the work of Jesus Christ, not by your work.
So Jesus is praying to the Father and saying, "If these disciples are going to do what I call them to do, Father, first remind them:  you're in the family."
And that's supposed to be strength and motivation for what we are now called to do.
For if our most enduring identity is that we are part of our whole, part of a holy family, you must recognize our most compelling purpose is to recognize that we are called to protect the glory of Jesus.
Did you know that?
More than to be successful, more than to be happy, more than to be satisfied:  Our most compelling purpose as disciples of Jesus Christ is to protect the glory of Jesus.
Do you want to see that?
This same chapter, I said, begins the High Priestly Prayer.
And you have to go back to verses 1 and 2 to recognize what the highest purpose is, the glory of the Savior.
When Jesus had spoken the words, remember, of the Last Supper, "He lifted up his eyes to heaven," I'm in verse 1 of chapter 17.
"He lifted up his eyes to heaven and 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 you have given him.'"
The glory of Jesus is going to be scarified on earth for the sake of eternity.
That's the glory of Jesus.
To what are you and I called?
Look again at verse 10.
Jesus says, "'All mine are yours, Father, all yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.'"
You and I have a purpose of glorifying Christ.
But His glory, did you get it?
Is to sacrifice for eternity, to suffer in this life for the good of others eternally.
That means if you and I are to glorify Him, that He would be glorified in our lives, then our greatest calling is to be willing to sacrifice in this life for the sake of others' eternal life.
Have you ever thought of things this way when you think of eternity?
Have you ever been on a beach and just as you've kind of had your hands down in the sand, kind of picked out and just maybe on a fingertip you see among the other sand there's just kind of one little grain of sand that sticks out by itself.
If time were sand, your lifespan and mine would be just that one little grain of sand, and eternity would be the sand of a thousand beaches.
And Jesus is saying, "It is My glory that there would be earthly sacrifice, that my life and the lives of my people in this one grain of sand would willingly be sacrificed for the sake of the eternity of others."
But what would that require?
What would it be to actually live for the glory of Jesus?
He actually tells us.
It's verse 17.
Do you remember?
He's praying to the Father for these who would be glorified or would glorify Him.
And He says, verse 17, "' Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.'"
Those who will glorify Jesus are those who are sanctified for His sake.
Do you know what sanctified means?
It's a temple term.
It's about people or even animal sacrifices being made pure so that they would be appropriate for the honor and the worship of God.
To be sanctified is to be made pure, to live holy and just life.
And, for what it's worth, that actually is our highest goal above all other things.
You know, you can, in lots of places in the world today in our country, lots of broadcast stations and lots of places in the world, you can go to churches and people who proclaim that they are saying the gospel, and the gospel gets portrayed as something like this:  that God intends for you to have a good life and good life is described as rich and relaxing.
But Jesus didn't say that was the highest priority.
The highest priority is your sanctification.
Did you know that?
We struggle at times, you know:  What is the will of God for my life?
Should I marry this person?
Should I take that job?
Should I move to that place?
Listen, a lot of that is going to be governed by circumstance and prudence and righteous decisions, I know.
But if the fundamental question is what is God's will for my life, I will tell you the place that I think best says it in scripture is 1 Corinthians, excuse me, 1 Thessalonians 4:3, which is just this simple:  "This is God's will, even your sanctification."
Above all other things, God means for you to be holy, to live for Him, to live a life that reflects Christ so that others would see eternity in your earthly existence.
Now, what might that mean for you?
Maybe not things that we always expect, because being sanctified in the world does not mean satisfied by the world.
Look again at verse 13.
Jesus says this, "'Now, Father, I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they,'" My disciples, "'may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.'"
What is Jesus speaking?
I'm coming to You; I'm dying.
But then will be resurrected and will be with You, Father, that they may be one; that whatever separates them from You, their sin, their wrong, their emptiness, that that will be taken away.
And they may be one.
And I'm saying these things in the world.
And I'm saying it so that their joy may be full?
No, that My joy might be fulfilled in them:  that what brings Me joy, the salvation and eternal security of many, would be fulfilled in them.
It's not their satisfaction ultimately; it is Christ's satisfaction that is being sought.
What will be necessary for Christ to be known to many?
Now I don't just want to keep saying it abstractly.
I want you to think of what it would actually mean to believe that your highest purpose was the glory of Jesus and that that would bring you more satisfaction, more joy than earthly reward.
Because what we tend to do in Christian circles is we say, "Well, if the highest reward is not riches and relaxation, it must be being religiously successful," that lots of people will recognize and honor you for the way in which you are living for God.
But even that is not Christ's purpose.
What would it mean to believe deeply and fully that my witness of Christ through pain or suffering or difficulty, which nonetheless pointed glory to Him rather than goodness to me, that that were my highest goal?
Some of you will know the writings of Andrea Sue Peterson, wonderful Christian writer, who's had a really tough life.
After her first husband died, some decade later she married again and recently wrote these words:  "It just so happens that my second husband has been beset by affliction ever since shortly after our wedding.
This pushes all my buttons in a way that only God and I can fully appreciate.
Rather than saying, 'Lord, I see Your hand in all this,' I tend just to get freaked out.
Why is this happening?
One Sunday after my husband was not able to attend Sunday School because of his pain, my frustrated desire came out sideways.
I said to him, 'I thought we were going to serve the kingdom of God together.'
Subtext:  Now we can't do any amazing cutting edge things for the kingdom because you're sick in bed and I have to take care of you.
I realized I was frustrated," she wrote, "because I had a mental blueprint of the future.
I thought that my 20-year plan of ministry was to be a duo that was indispensable to God.
I was annoyed because I believed that I knew best what the kingdom needed.
And it needed a healthy husband and it needed a wife who was engaged of lots of good Christian activity.
I could conceive of the matter no other way.
So what do I do now?
I can chose to rage against the dying of my dream, or I can suspret--, or I can suppress outward complaining and adopt a stoic resignation.
Or I can forsake both of those wretched alternatives and I can really say, 'Father, I praise You for giving me exactly the right husband at exactly the right time, for had it not been for this affliction, how could I have seen the extent of joy in my husband's faith in nothing but Jesus?
If it had not been for this affliction, how could I have worked past the fear of man's expectations and worldly desires that have so often gripped me?
Lord, Your plan is better than anything I had cooked up.'
Beside, who wants to be 80 and pacing the floor muttering, 'It's all my husband's fault?'
Or 'It's all God's fault.'
Or 'It's all my parents' fault.'
Or who else?
As for me and my partner, we have determined to take whatever adventure Jesus plans for us and to glorify Him in it."
It's tough.
But the world is tough.
And if our only perception is, wait, Jesus promised me Easy Street, then when we face real difficulties in the world, we are going to feel absolutely betrayed.
Wait, I'm a believer.
I'm a Christian.
I trust in You.
Why am I going through this?
Because He said our highest goal is not our satisfaction with the world.
Our highest goal is satisfaction in the world through Jesus Christ, to believe that God is calling us to be witnesses of a purpose that maybe earthly sacrifice for the sake of others' eternal beach party.
Maybe that's not said strongly enough, so Jesus even says it more strongly.
In verse 14, He reminds us that sanctification is not only not being satisfied by the world:  It's not even being accepted by the world.
Do you remember verse 14?
Jesus again praying to the Father speaks of His disciples this way:  "'I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.'"
Do you recognize if our purpose, our highest calling, is to live for the glory of Jesus, we are going to face pushback, first from the evil one and then the world that he controls?
And we should actually kind of heads up baseball:  Be prepared for that.
That's going to be the reality of those who are living for Christ.
You could be a baker in Colorado who decides that it is not honoring to God to prepare wedding cakes for same gender married couples and be told by an American judge that you will now be penalized in fines so much it will destroy your business.
And we go, "Well, what a surprise."
Why is that a surprise?
I'm not justifying it at all.
But I'm saying Jesus said, "The world will hate you if you stand for the purposes of Christ."
And that's not some ancient problem; that is the reality in which we live and the world around us experiences.
Why would we think we wouldn't experience it so that we have Christian brothers and sisters in Raqqah, Assyria, right now who are in a town controlled by Al Qaeda, and as a consequence of being in that town, the Christians alone are required to pay a fee in order to be protected by Al Qaeda.
Nobody else has to pay the fee, just Christians in order to be protected, quote, unquote, by Al Qaeda.
Or you could be the whole nation of Uganda, a nation that, believe it or not, has a higher percentage of Christians than this country does.
And as a consequence, you know, in recent months has passed laws formally outlawing the practice of homosexuality.
And for that reason, the Secretary of State in this country, this country, this last week has said, "We will deny humanitarian aid to Uganda if they don't change their laws and allow the practice of homosexuality."
That's our nation that is saying that's what Uganda must do.
And you think for the Christians of Uganda what would they think?
Well, they would think Jesus was not of this world and we are not of this world, and to live for Him is to expect that the world will hate you.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the one year death of Jeremiah Small:  Christian, English teacher, 30 years, 33 years old, serving in northern Iraq in a Christian school.
And a year ago yesterday while he was teaching his English class, one of his students walked to the front of the class and shot him in the head and chest.
Now, you must know that the student who shot him was the grand-nephew of the President of Iraq.
Jeremiah Jones knew it was likely to occur.
A week before that happened, he actually said to friends, "I have a student in my class who wants to kill me, but I am wiling to have earthly sacrifice for the sake of the eternity of others."
It wasn't just Jeremiah.
His whole family was of the same perspective.
And so when it came time to have his funeral a year ago, they did not bring his body back here to the United States.
But in order that the Muslim students could hear of Jesus Christ, they decided to have his funeral in Iraq and invited not only the Muslim students but the family of the one who had murdered him, so that they would all hear the name of Jesus.
Because, they said, "Our purpose is the glory of Jesus."
That is my life's highest goal.
It is not easy.
It is not even another day of life, that that is my calling.
My calling is to glorify the name of Jesus.
That is my highest and greatest purpose.
Let me tell you just one little more piece of this.
Here we are a year from that time.
There are now roughly two thousand students in the Christian school that Jeremiah Small was a part of:  95 percent of them are Muslim who are hearing day after day after day because of that witness and testimony and 27 other, by the way, Christian teachers the testimony of Jesus Christ.
Because they are not expecting the world to accept them.
They are expecting to give their lives for the glory of Jesus.
And I look at this church and I marvel at you all:  how year after year young people from this church have gone to the mission field, how generation after generation there are people who have said, "Our highest calling is not this world's gain but Christ's glory."
And you have lived that way and God calls us to live that way.
But we will not understand that our calling and our purpose, we won't even live with a sense of joy, if we don't know this is our highest joy:  the glory of Jesus.
That's why I'm here.
Because we will face disease and hostility and financial setbacks and we'll wonder, tell me, "Why?
I'm a Christian."
Because, don't you understand?
We are to expect the hostility of the world and at the same moment to expect to be sent into it.
Did you catch what Jesus was saying?
As He said not only was His goal to be sanctifying His people but to be sending them, verse 18.
"'Father, as you have sent me into the world, I have sent my disciples into the world.'"
He recognized full well that there would be hostility in the world, but the answer is not evacuation.
Right?
Or isolation.
Jesus said, "If My disciples' highest goal is My glory and they will face pushback and the evil one and the hostility of the world, what should they do?"
Go dead into it.
That our calling is this radical Christianity saying, "My purpose is not my gain, not my reward, not my relaxation:  My purpose is the glory of Christ."
I am here to protect His name.
And as I protect His name, sometimes that means that God will call me into affliction, and He will call me into sacrifice for the sake of others:  to financially help others, to steward the witness of a church that's been here for generations.
It may be hard and tough and difficult.
But that's what I'm called to do:  not to evade the difficulty but to go into it.
I am sent to be a witness of the glory of God.
That is my calling.
Jeremiah, just weeks before his death, wrote these words:  "Even the things that don't feel good are good, because God has purposed them all to accomplish His good for His glory."
Jeremiah didn't know in that moment he was talking about his own death, but it's exactly what happened.
It was being arranged for Christ's glory and ultimately for the good of many, for the eternity of others.
That's what he was living for.
Why would he do that?
Why would he say, "My chief goal is to protect the purposes of Jesus"?
Because he's part of that family.
Fundamentally deep down he knew:  That's my family; I am protecting the name of Jesus and all who call upon His name.
That is my purpose.
It's higher than any other.
It's not about being goody two shoes.
It's not about living separately in such a way that people say, "What a nice, friendly, nice," whatever you are.
It's about saying, "I am living for Jesus, and that glory is my highest purpose."
That's what I'm sent to do, and that's my calling.
How do I do that?
How do I fulfill that calling?
By recognizing our greatest power is knowing what we're called to do.
Isn't it interesting that Jesus who said we're called to be this sanctified witness in the world tells us how it's going to happen?
Verse 17.
He prays to the Father, "'Sanctify them,'" these disciples, "'sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.'"
If we are going to be living for the glory of Jesus, how do we do that?
Well, part of the answer is just knowing what to do.
And that's what the Word of God is about.
It's telling us, as we're facing the challenges of the evil one, as we're chase, as we're facing the pushback of the world, what are we supposed to do?
And the standards of living and the standards of loving and the standards of caring for others and resisting evil:  They are in God's Word.
I'd love, I love it that this church is willing to post on the video wall and parents encourage their kids to be Well-Versed Kids, because what we've said deep in our hearts is we know this Word of God is protection for all that life is going to throw at our young people.
And they are well prepared if they simply know what to do.
"Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee."
"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path."
But in that same Psalm, the psalmist writes, "If I had not meditated upon your law, I would have perished."
There's too many things to devastate us, to worry us, to be inexplicable in this world if we don't have the Word of God that says ultimately we live according to what God says, because we know there is a greater purpose than we can explain.
God is calling us to protect the name of Jesus for the eternity of many.
And that's what we're living for.
Not only we do know, do we know what to do:  Ultimately what this Word is telling us is to love what Christ has done, not just what we should do but what Christ has done.
As we finish today, I want you to just let your eyes fix on verse 19 for a moment.
Jesus is at the end of this portion of His prayer, saying for His disciples' sake, "'Father, I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.'"
What does He mean "consecrate Himself"?
To consecrate means to put aside for a holy purpose.
What is Jesus consecrating Himself to do?
To love us, sinful, weak and frail:  to love us enough to die for us; to put His life and holiness aside for the sake of our eternity.
And when I know that, that He has consecrated Himself to sanctify in His truth, that what He's saying is, "I'm showing them how great is my love for them so they will love being a part of the family and they will love being one with others who are part of the family, and they will actually love living and if necessary dying for the family.
Because they know how great is My love.
They love me back."
Listen, you know the Word of God.
How many of you, perhaps much of your lives, I mean, you know what's right and wrong, all those things.
But what we struggle with is actually living what we know.
And so Christ ends this great portion of His Word on sanctification by saying, "Ultimately, Father, what they have to focus upon is that I love them and gave Myself for them."
Because what motivates us to walk after Him and to live for Him is ultimately hearts filled up with love for Him.
"Father, I consecrate myself, that they may be sanctified in your truth."
I'm giving Myself for them, that they would live for Me regardless of what comes.
You all remember that my family, our kids, are kind of raised in two shifts.
We had our three big kids, and then we had our Katie, our caboose, some years later.
And as Katie was in her teen years, sometimes we just said to each other, "We're just tired."
[Chuckles]
We got old.
We got tired, you know.
[Chuckles]
But we said, you know, we can't give up living for Katie.
We have to keep pouring our lives into her.
We can't just kind of, you know, she's ours; she's our responsibility.
We have to.
And so one of the things I would do as Katie was in her teen years in high school is I would get up and just to kind of keep connecting with this daughter, I would get up and I would fix her breakfast.
It's just cereal; don't worry.
So it.
[Laughter]
But just a way of talking, just a way of connecting in the mornings.
And what I would do, I would think of, just as I was filling up her cereal bowl with milk, I would think to myself, "What is my job today as her dad?"
And what I would think is this:  Just as I am filling up her cereal bowl with milk, my job is to fill up her heart with love for Christ.
Why?
Well, because she's 18, and you and I know that there are trials and there are temptations ahead.
But if her heart is full of love for Jesus, she cannot be more safe or more strong.
If she is filled up with love for Christ, she will long to live for Him, and if necessary, she will long to sacrifice for Him.
What is our calling?
It is to protect the name of Jesus.
By whatever place we are called to be that witness of His glory, to live for Him in a life that reflects His holiness.
But more than that, in a life that says to others:  You know why I really live for Him?
Because He consecrated Himself for me.
And I want you to know Him too, that you can be part of that holy family who by His Word knows how to live and by the Son desires to live for the one who loved us and gave Himself for us that we might protect His name in every place we go.

---