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Apr 30, 2023

John - The World (click for resources)

Passage: John 17:6-19

Speaker: Brian Land

Keywords: identity, sanctification, citizenship

Believers are IN the world but not OF the world. But what does this catchy churchy phrase mean? All who are in Christ have been made into a new creation, given a new glory-identity and granted citizenship in Heaven. At the same time we are "in the world", which means we live amidst this broken creation as ambassadors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, instrumental in building His name and His Kingdom

Believers are IN the world but not OF the world. But what does this catchy churchy phrase mean? All who are in Christ have been made into a new creation, given a new glory-identity and granted citizenship in Heaven. At the same time we are "in the world", which means we live amidst this broken creation as ambassadors of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, instrumental in building His name and His Kingdom

 

Central Passage:

John 17
6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 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. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. 11 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. 12 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. 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. 14 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. 15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate (“sanctify”) myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

 

Discussion Questions:

What’s your strangest “lunchroom” experience?
How do you think John is using the word “world” in this passage?
What ways is “the world” like a school lunchroom?
How do you try to “make your life count”?
Talk about what “In the world but not of the world” means.
(“in the lunchroom but not of the lunchroom”)
This passage talks about (at least) our 4 new identities - define them
1) Set Apart (sanctified)
2) Redeemed (adopted)
3) Protected
4) Empowered
(Read and talk through 2 Corinthians 5:17-21)
Talk about how “Who we are determines What we do”
(and how we usually live out the opposite)

 

Call to Worship from 1 Peter 2

LEADER 9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood,
a holy nation, a people for his own possession,

ALL: that you may proclaim the excellencies of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

LEADER: 10 Once you were not a people,
but now you are God’s people;

ALL: once you had not received mercy,
but now you have received mercy.

 

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father who art in heaven,Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom, and the power,
and the glory, for ever and ever.

Amen.


Benediction:

Philippians 3
20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.