Aug 30, 2021
“My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” (John 17:15-19)
Last Friday, Pastor Michael reminded us that we are already God’s holy people. And that by no work of our own, even though we often think of holiness as a thing to be sought after and achieved by our own law-abiding efforts.
These words of prayer from Jesus on the night he was betrayed declare the moment and intention of our sanctification, that is: of our chosen-ness as God’s holy people.
The intent is not that we separate ourselves from the world around us, but that we live within the world as those “set apart,” that is, “made holy” by God in Christ. Jesus knows that’s a tall order. So he asks the Father to protect us from the evil one, that ruler of this world who seeks to work us woe.
We become this “set apart” people by the truth of the Word. Particularly, by the Word of God made flesh in Jesus. For us he sanctified (that is, set apart) Himself for the work of death and resurrection. And because of that completed work of Jesus, our lives are now defined and set apart (that is: “truly sanctified”) from the rest of the world. We now bear a different citizenship, a different name (Christian), a different identity.
Even so, the world is where we are sent. We man outposts within this world that we call our homes, workplaces, schoolplaces, and digital places. We are sent into those worldly places as ambassadors of Christ, set apart to bear the truth of a different story, a different kingdom, a different way of life and living within those places: a way defined not by what we do, but by what God has done.
Do you think of your home, or office, or social media presence as an embassy or consular presence of the Kingdom of God? As a place set-apart. And you, as a set-apart person within it who has the protection of the Father to enter into diplomatic conversations with the surrounding world into which you have been sent?
Perhaps you should start. You are a chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood. Ambassadors of Christ. People whose citizenship is of a heavenly country. Resident aliens in a land not your own. And yet, you have been sent into the world, even though you are not of it. How might this fact of your God-given set-apartness change the way you interact with the people you meet online and in person today?