Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig weekend edition. We're glad you've joined us for today's program. Connect with Skip Heitzig is all about connecting you to the never changing truth of God's Word through verse by verse teaching. That's why we make messages like this one today available to you and others. While you're at it, be sure to sign up for Skip's weekly devotional emails and receive teaching from God's Word right in your inbox each day. Sign up today at connectwithskip.com.
That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get started with today's message from Pastor Skip Heitzig. It can seem scary to us.
I want to read a news article to you. The world is too big for us. There's too much going on. Too many crimes.
Too much violence. Try as you will. You get behind in the race. It's an incessant strain to keep pace. You still lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast. You stagger beneath in hopeless bewilderment. The political world is news seen so rapidly, you're out of breath trying to keep pace with who's in and who's out.
Everything is high pressure. Human nature can't endure much longer. That's an article from June 16, 1833. It's a news article written 178 years ago that sounds like it could have been written this week. Political intrigue, wars going on, information explosion, etc. The deal is, is that in every generation with our own context, we see the world as filled with pressure. It's not a friendly place we discover. Here's another headline from the Boston Globe.
This is November 13, 1857. Listen to this. Front page. Energy crisis looms. Energy crisis looms.
Here's the subheading though. The world may go dark since whale blubber is so scarce. Now, what do you do with headlines like that? What did people do with headlines like that? Energy crisis looms. Oh no, no whale blubber. Well, they did a few things. Some people actually left Boston.
They thought, if there's no whale blubber, I'm toast. I'm going to go to the country. I'm going to get a wood burning stove.
I'm going to become very independent. Other people decided, let's stay in town. Let's be part of the solution. Let's work toward alternate forms of energy. Let's work this thing through. Maybe we're too dependent upon whale blubber.
You see, the pressures in our world tend to make us either isolationists or integrationists. On one hand, it will make some people flee. I'm leaving. I've got to get out. I've got to join a monastery. Other people will say, I want to be a missionary.
I want to do something about this. We're in John chapter 17. We begin in verse 11. Jesus is praying to his Father. It's the high priestly prayer. Jesus talking to God the Father about his disciples.
We get to eavesdrop on a little bit of that language. Here in the prayer, we're about to see that Jesus is speaking about the relationship his followers have with the world that is around them. Basically, Jesus says, Father, I know I'm leaving soon. I'm out of here. But these guys, my disciples, they've got to stay, and the world is pretty hostile.
They're going to find it a not-friendly environment. And so there's some things that he prays about. Look with me in verse 11 of John 17. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world. Keep through Your name those whom You have given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name.
Those whom You gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost except the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come 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 world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth.
That's the text. Now let's pray. Father in heaven, we do pray in the name of Jesus, just like Angel prayed a moment ago. She remarked on the fact that You pray for us, and we think that You were thinking of Your disciples, those that followed You then, and Your disciples now, those who follow You here and now, us. And You could see what we need, and You could pray for what was most important, in effect, what is Your will for us. So help us, Lord, as we now examine and unpack the truths of the prayer that we are eavesdropping on, to understand our relationship with the world that we live in. In Jesus' name, amen. Now in the paragraph that we just read, I want to give you four principles that come out of the text that speak about how we relate our relationship to the outside world. I'll give them to you one, two, three, four.
They're in your worship folder as well. Number one, we live in a dangerous place, or we're in a dangerous position. As I read through what you and I just read a moment ago, I counted 12 usages of a single word. The word world is repeated 12 times in nine verses. The world, the world, the world.
That's what He's praying about, the disciples and the relationship with the world. Five times a phrase appears in the same paragraph. It's the phrase in the world.
They are in the world. Another five times the phrase of the world appears. They are not of the world, Jesus says.
Five times. So here, to sum it up, Jesus says here's the relationship, here's the position, and this is why it's dangerous. They're in the world, but they're not of the world.
And to top it all off, if you look down in verse 14, something else. The world has hated them. You get the picture? You're in it, you're not of it, the world hates you.
It's hard to be in something that you're not a part of that hates you. Now here's the question. What does Jesus mean by the term the world? It's an important question because 209 times the New Testament uses the word world. It's used three different ways.
It's used one way here. But it's an important question to ask, what does the New Testament mean principally when it refers to the world? Because if we're in it and not of it, we've got to know what it is.
Here's a couple more usages. Paul will say this in the book of Romans, don't be conformed to this world, or don't let the world squeeze you into its mold, one translation puts it. John will write in 1 John, I think chapter 2, love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. Whoever or if anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So it behooves us to know exactly what the Bible means by the term the world if we're not to love it. And if we love it, it means that we're not loving God.
So what is it? Well, I mentioned the Bible uses it three different ways. Number one, it speaks of the physical world, the world of God's creation.
In Acts chapter 17, Paul addresses the crowd, and he says, God who made the world and everything that is in it. It's the created world that God made. So when the Bible says don't love the world, it doesn't refer to the physical world. It doesn't mean that you're to hate rocks and trees and grass and you're supposed to stand in front of a tree and go, I hate you.
He says, what are you doing? Well, the Bible says don't love the world. Well, it doesn't mean it that way. Because Psalm 24 says the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. In fact, I believe that once you become a Christian, you actually appreciate the created world more than you did before, because now you have a relationship with the one who made it. Now you look at it through different eyes. Now the environment that you're in, you go, wow, this is a gift from God. I don't know how unbelieving scientists do it. They have to look around at the marvelous beauty order and design and say, what a beautiful accident.
We know who did it. We love God for it. So it means number one, the created world, the physical world, the universe. A second way the term is used is to speak of the world of mankind, humankind, people. John said, quoting Jesus, for God so loved the world.
What did he mean? It wasn't the created physical universe as much as the people who occupy the planet. God loves people. So when the Bible says you and I are not to love the world, it can't mean we're not to love the world of people, right? If God loved the world of people, then we would love the world of people. And Jesus said you are to love your neighbor as yourself. So we're called to love people. But here's the danger. The danger is that, yes, we appreciate the physical universe God has made.
Yes, we love people in the world, but any time we place the environment or other people above our love for God, we're in trouble. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Before we get back to Skip's teaching, some people think that Jesus was nothing more than a prophet or a good teacher. These misconceptions existed 2000 years ago, and Jesus is still misunderstood today. Discover who Jesus really is with Skip Heitzig's riveting nine-part series, Who Is This Jesus? Which examines Christ's humanity and deity to equip you to confidently answer questions about Jesus. This resource, along with Skip's Life Change booklet, designed to help new Christians embrace their transformed life in Christ, is our thanks for your gift of at least $50 today to help share biblical teaching with more people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig.
Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copies when you give at least $50 today to reach people around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. Let's continue with today's teaching with Pastor Skip. Some people talk all about the environment, the environment, the environment and people, people, people. Good, great, but don't let that eclipse your love, first of all, for God. Augustine wrote these words, To love the world and fail to love God would be like a bride, who being given a ring by her bridegroom, loves the ring more than the bridegroom who gave it.
Of course, she should love what the bridegroom gave her, but to love the ring and despise him who gave it is to reject the very meaning of the ring as a token of his love. So we've covered two usages of the term the world. The physical world, the world of people.
Here's the third usage. It's the most prominent usage in the New Testament. It is the way Jesus intends it primarily here. It's the world as an ethical system. The word cosmos, which is the Greek word for world, we get the word cosmic from it or cosmopolitan from it, comes from a verb that means to set things in order or to arrange. So the term, the idea of the world is the world system.
The way the values, the way the principles, the way the activities are all arranged in order with their own way of thinking standards and philosophies. So it's the world system. So here we are in a physical world, surrounded by a world of people, but dominated by a world system, get this, a world system whose values, standards, and ideas are controlled by the devil. Now with some people there's an immediate disconnect.
Whoa! That's exactly what the Bible says. The Bible calls Satan in 2 Corinthians, the God of this world, who has blinded the minds of those who believe not. So here we are in a physical universe, filled with a world of people, dominated by a system that is opposed to the values and standards of God. That's the world we're not to be conformed to. That's the world we're not to be led by. That's the world we're not to love. And when we do, it's dangerous.
So here we are, we're in it, we're not of it. And that poses, let's call it an occupational hazard. If you love Jesus, there's an occupational hazard to following Him. Look at verse 14. The world has hated them.
That's the occupational hazard. The world has hated them because they are not of the world. See, as long as you're in this world but you don't share their system of values, their ethics, then you are ignorant, arrogant, intolerant, and blind. That's how they view it. You are so intolerant because you don't agree with me, they will say.
Or they will mean. So you're in it, you're not of it, and because you're not of it, they don't like you. Now you can be an atheist, that's okay. You can be an agnostic, that's okay. You can be foul-mouthed, that's okay. You can drink a lot, that's okay. You can be sexually promiscuous, that's okay. You can even be mildly religious. But as the moment, as long as you say, I love Christ, there's a target on you.
The world hated them because they are not of the world. So you see, this principle is stated pretty strongly here and elsewhere. We are in a dangerous position.
Let me give you the second principle now. It's important at this point to get reassured a little bit. Because though we're in a dangerous position, we're given God's protection. There's a word that is also repeated a few times. It's the word keep or kept.
It means guarded. In verse 11, Jesus said, Father, keep them, keep them, guard them. And then later on, he says, I don't pray that you take them out of this world, but that you keep them, protect them, guard them.
Please notice that. When Jesus prays for his men who are in this world, hated by the world, he doesn't pray a prayer of escapism. He doesn't say, Father, help them all to find a nice little cave somewhere where they can store food and ammunition and whale blubber for the future. It's not a prayer of escape. It's a prayer of integration.
It's a prayer of being a missionary. They're here. They're in it. They're hated by it.
Keep them. Years ago in church history, there was the idea that if you leave the world, leave the world of people, and isolate yourself in the desert or in the forest or in a monastery, that's the only way you're going to be able to manage and cope. There was a whole movement during church history called the monastic movement, a movement toward monasteries or isolationism. People withdrew to stay pure.
There's all sorts of interesting stories of how people sought to escape. Some lived in the fields and grazed like cattle because they thought that's holiness. I'm eating like a cow. I'm holy. Really?
I think it's weird. One person had the reputation for being so utterly holy because he never changed his clothes and he never bathed. I don't want to be that holy. Probably the most famous story in antiquity comes from the 5th century, a monk by the name of Simeon Stylites, who lived for 30 years on top of a 60-foot-high pillar. He became a tourist attraction, that he would be up there day and night, day and night, manage to get food and then go back up day and night for 30 years to live to the top of a pillar, and it just so impressed people.
Wow, that guy must be really holy. And so others sought to emulate him, and there's a story of one who was a wannabe, kind of a recluse, and he saw what Simeon Stylites had done, except he didn't have a pillar and he lived in the city. So what he did is he took a chair and put it on his kitchen table, that was his pillar, put a sheet around him like a contemplation cloth, and he just thought, this is so, this is it.
And everything was good till his family came home and said, what are you doing up there sitting on a chair on the kitchen table? And he got down and he writes later on these words, I soon perceived it's a very difficult thing to be a saint while living with your own family. Now I see why Simeon Stylites and Jerome went out to the desert. Listen, we don't need saints on pillars. We need saints behind desks and in hospitals and in the workforce, integrating with our culture.
Besides that, you can do all of those things to sequester yourself away and still be a very worldly person. If you read the stories of those recluses and those monks, they battled so often with lust and bad thoughts and to counteract the bad thoughts they had while they were alone in their room, they would sometimes go out and throw themselves into a thorn bush so as not to have bad, lustful thoughts, now they have to think about the wounds they've incurred, which I never thought was a good idea because it would always be a dead giveaway, right? As to what you've been thinking lately, you come back to the monastery, it's like, dude, your mind has been in the gutter, huh?
No, really, I just fell. Verse 11, look at it with me. Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you, holy Father, keep through your name. I love that. It means protect.
That's how the NIV renders it. Verse 12, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. Those whom you gave me I have kept, and none of them is lost, except the son of perdition that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Verse 15, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world but that you should keep them from the evil one. Now Jesus said, I did it, I kept them. While I was with them, I made sure they were protected, I kept them.
But now that I am leaving them, it's really important, Father, that you take and maintain that and that you keep them. Now we mentioned before the first time that if Jesus is praying this and He's praying the perfect will of God, you can be assured it's going to be answered. So please let this be an assurance to you. Some timid Christians will sometimes say, how do I know I'm even going to make it through? And I often will smile and say, because I know Him.
I know Him. And He can keep you, and He will keep you. The Bible promises that.
You'll make it through. Paul wrote to Timothy and he said, I know whom I have believed. I love that, not I know what I believe. I know whom I have believed. And I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed to Him until that day.
And if you have committed you to Him, He will keep you till the very end. Whatever God starts, He finishes, right? He who has begun a good work will complete it. He's the author and the finisher of our faith. God is not like me. I have so many unfinished projects here and there and everywhere. And it's not like God goes, oh, yeah, you forgot about you. But I can't get to you for a while.
I'm so busy over here. Whatever God starts, He finishes. Thanks for listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig. We hope you've been strengthened in your walk with Jesus by today's program. Before we let you go, we want to remind you about this month's resources that will help you confidently answer questions about who Jesus is and understand the new life you have as a believer in Him. Pastor Skip's nine-message series, Who Is This Jesus? and his Life Change booklet are our thanks for your support of Connect with Skip Heitzig today. Request your copies when you give $50 or more. Call 800-922-1888.
That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash offer. And did you know that you can get a weekly devotional and other resources from Pastor Skip sent right to your email inbox? Simply visit connectwithskip.com and sign up for emails from Skip.
We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever-changing times.
