Sanctified and Sent

John 17:17-19 (NKJV) ¹⁷  Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. ¹⁸  As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. ¹⁹  And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth.

We have been looking at Jesus’ prayer of John 17 in light of something the Lord spoke to me for 2022.  Our focus is on becoming a supernatural people living in the natural world.  As I prayed about this thought, the Lord brought verses 14 through 16 to mind.  Jesus says we are not of this world just as he was not of this world.  He also prays that the Father would not take us out of the world but that he would keep us from the evil that is in it.  The rest of this prayer reveals things we need in order to live as supernatural people.

There are a number of things we have seen already.  We must be grounded in the reality that true life is to know the Father and Jesus.  That must supersede every other quality as we view what is important.  We must trust in Jesus’ prayer that the Father will keep or protect us as we live in the natural world.  Jesus kept his disciples and lost none but the one who had to be lost.  The Father is capable of keeping us. 

The agent of the Father’s keeping power is the comforter that Jesus said would come in his place, the Holy Spirit.  We must trust in and yield to the direction of the Holy Spirit to be supernatural people.  The result of the keeping work of the Holy Spirit will include our becoming just as one with him as Jesus was with the Father.  We will have the same access to the supernatural power of God that Jesus did.  We will have the joy of the Lord.  This joy is a power that enables us to maintain our balance in any circumstance we may face.

Today I want to look at some other things Jesus prayed for us.  In today’s scripture, Jesus asks something of the Father in light of what he said he was doing with his people.  He asks the Father to sanctify his disciples by the Word because he is sending them into the world just as the Father sent him. 

As we said last time, Jesus is no longer in the world, but we are.  However, in order to fulfill the purpose for which Jesus sends us, we must be sanctified.  Jesus connects being sent and being sanctified.  We cannot have one without the other.  What does it mean to be sanctified? 

According to Thayer’s Bible Definitions, sanctify means “to separate from things profane and dedicate to God, to consecrate.”  If we are sanctified, we are separate from the world.  However, if we stop there, we miss the power of the word.  It is not enough to be separated from something.  The real power is that we are separated to something.  We are separated to the Lord. 

Sanctification is a twofold process.  First, we are legally sanctified by what Jesus did in redemption.  When I receive his sacrifice as applied to my sin, I am legally sanctified.  I am separated from the world and unto God.  I belong to him.  However, the second part of sanctification involves my outward life.  It is not enough that I am legally sanctified.  If my lifestyle is not separated from the world and unto God, I cannot fulfill my calling as a supernatural person in the natural world.

Jesus was completely sanctified in his behavior.  He was tempted in every way we are tempted but did not sin.  (Hebrews 4:15)  There is nothing anyone could find in his life that was in any way compromised.  Because of this, when he was arrested the high priest had no choice but to bring false testimony against him.  He had never done anything for which he could be accused.  He had no skeletons in his closets.

None of us are as perfect as Jesus was but we must endeavor to be as close as we can to his standard of sanctification.  Jesus sends us into the world as examples of the supernatural life God wants to provide for all people.  We cannot do that if we are like everyone else.  A supernatural people is a sanctified people.

Jesus does not pray that we be sanctified through our own discipline or will power.  We must make the right choices.  We must deny the flesh and follow after God.  That is our part but that in itself would never be enough.  He says two things that we must remember if we are to live sanctified.

First, he prays that the Lord will sanctify us by the Word.  The Word of God comes up over and over again in Jesus’ prayer.  It is one of the main components in how we become supernatural people.  In this context, it is the Word of God that changes our outward behavior.  As we spend time in it, we will find that our desires change.  We will find an inward strength that will help us to choose the will and the ways of God instead of the ways of the world.  We need to believe in the power of what Jesus prayed.  Of course, that will not do much good if we do not read the Bible!

All of this goes back to something I mentioned in my last post.  The agent of God’s keeping power is the Holy Spirit.  The same is true of our sanctification.  When we open our heart to the Word of God, the Holy Spirit applies the truth of the Word and works the necessary changes within us.  It is the Word of God and the action of the Holy Spirit working together that will produce a sanctified lifestyle in God’s people.

In verse 19, Jesus says that he sanctified himself for our sakes so that we could also be sanctified by the truth.  It is not just by reading the Bible that sanctification occurs.  Jesus made sanctification possible by what he did for us.  His death burial and resurrection opened the door for our life as separated, supernatural people living right in the natural world.

There are two other things I want to mention from this prayer as we close.  He tells us that we will have the same glory available to us that Jesus had.  Glory is the power and presence of God in manifestation.  I believe that when we live sanctified lives in the world it opens the door for God to pour out his power and presence through us.  That is the supernatural element we need to be the people Jesus calls us to be in the world.

Finally, Jesus reminds us that we are not going to live here forever.  He went to prepare a place for us.  We are here to fulfill a purpose.  While we are here, the Father wants us to be full of joy.  He promises to take care of our needs.  However, we are here because people need us.  We have a mission to accomplish.  Our real joy will begin when we go to that place Jesus has prepared for us.  We cannot be a supernatural people unless we remember where our real home is. 

It is not really in fashion to talk about living holy and sanctified lives.  This is certainly not a detailed dissertation on the topic.  If we are going to be supernatural people, we must not be concerned with what is fashionable.  We must be concerned with what Jesus tells us we need to be.  I cannot think of a better place to begin to understand what it takes to live supernatural lives than by reading and meditating on this powerful prayer. 

Remember, this is a prayer.  Jesus prayed it for you.  Study it for yourself.  Find out what he prayed and believe it.  Receive it for your own life.  Jesus never failed to have his prayers answered.  This one was answered as well.  All we need to do is get in agreement with it and begin to act in line with what he prayed.  When we do that, the power of this prayer will be released, and we will walk as supernatural people in the natural world.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Jesus is not in the World but We Are

John 17:11 (NKJV) ¹¹  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 those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are.

We have been looking at the prayer Jesus prayed for his disciples shortly before his death on the cross.  The focus of that prayer is that we are to be a supernatural people.  In our last post we majored on what Jesus said in verse 3 of this chapter.  He prays that his disciples will understand that real life is to know God and Jesus his son.  If we are to be supernatural, we must settle this in our hearts.  Our life does not consist of what we have in this world.  Our life flows from a supernatural world; the world of the spirit.  The most important thing in life is to know him who is the source of all that comes from that realm. 

Today I want to move on in this prayer.  In verses 6 through 13 Jesus speaks about a number of important things.  In the verse we have quoted today, he points out that he is leaving the world.  The influence that he has exerted for three and a half years is no longer going to be available to humanity.  No one will hear his teaching or experience his healing.  He will no longer be available to show the world who God really is.  Jesus will not be in the world, but we will be.

It is the will of God that we be everything to the world that Jesus was except its savior.  Only he could do that.  Everything else that he did in his three- and one-half years of life now falls to us.  Jesus said something similar earlier in John’s gospel.

John 14:12 (NKJV) ¹²  “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.

Jesus healed the sick, freed the captive and taught as one who had authority.  Jesus lived a life that was an example of holiness, righteousness and integrity before the world.  Jesus maintained his commitment to the mission given him by the Father even to the cross.  The work of the cross was his alone.  The rest has now fallen to his body, the church.  How can we possibly fulfill this calling?

One of the most important keys to being supernatural people is alluded to in this same verse.  Jesus prays that God will keep us through his name and that we will be one just as he and the Father were one.  We cannot be supernatural people unless God keepsus.  We cannot fulfill a supernatural destiny unless we are one just as he was one with the Father.

The Greek word translated “keep” has some interesting implications.  It means to guard from loss or injury by keeping an eye upon someone or something.  Jesus prays that the Father will guard us so that we will not be lost or lose anything along the way.  The implication is of fortress or full military lines of apparatus.  Jesus is praying that the Lord will build a fortress around us to keep us from the power of the enemy.  He has made available the full “military” apparatus of heaven to get the job done.

This same word is translated at times as preserve, reserve, observe and hold fast to.  Jesus prayed that God would preserve us by his power.  He prayed that God would reserve us unto himself.  He asks that God observe us so that we will never be out of his care or direction.  Finally, his prayer is that God would hold fast to us no matter what comes our way.

In this section of scripture, Jesus reminds the Father that while he was here, he did that job.  He did not lose any of those who were given to him except the one who was destined to be lost, Judas Iscariot.  I believe we can take great comfort from that.  If Jesus did not lose any certainly the Father will not lose any either.  There is nothing that can separate us from the keeping power of the Lord.  Paul understood this truth.

Romans 8:35-39 (NKJV) ³⁵  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶  As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” ³⁷  Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. ³⁸  For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, ³⁹  nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing can separate us from the keeping power of the Father but our own disobedience and sin.  When we choose to step outside of the Father’s protection, we make ourselves vulnerable to the enemy.  It is our responsibility to walk according to the principles the Father has revealed in his Word.  When we do that, nothing can harm us in any way that the Lord cannot deal with.

Who is the one who is assigned the task of keeping us now that Jesus is gone?  Jesus prayed to the Father, but the Father is not physically here either.  Jesus revealed to these same disciples earlier in John who would take his place when he left. 

John 16:5-7 (NKJV) ⁵  “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ ⁶  But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. ⁷  Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

In order to live as supernatural people, we need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.  He is the helper that Jesus promised would take his place.  The Holy Spirit is not just a part of Pentecostal or Charismatic doctrine.  The Holy Spirit is the person of the Godhead who is here right now.  He is the one who will “keep” us as we live in this world.  We must be sensitive to him and to his voice.  If we do not follow his leading and believe in his active participation in our lives and ministries, we will never live supernatural lives.  We need the Holy Ghost!

The last thing Jesus speaks about in this section of his prayer is the result of the keeping power of the Holy Spirit.  There are two things I want to point out.  First, he says that the result of the keeping power of the Father would be that we would be one as he and the Father are one.  Many times, we use this verse to speak of the need for unity in the Body of Christ.  That is certainly part of what he is saying but I believe there is a part that we must understand which is even more important than our unity with one another. 

He says we need to be one as he and the Father are one.  I believe that unity begins by understanding that just as Jesus and the Father are one, so we and the Holy Spirit are one.  We are one with Jesus and we are one with the Father.  The same access he had to God, we have.  We have the same power to live and minister that Jesus did.  We cannot go into the world and live as supernatural people without this revelation being settled in our hearts.  We have a job to do.  It is the same job Jesus did and we need the same unity with the Father that he had in order to do it. 

Finally, he said that all these things would cause his people to have the joy of Jesus himself completed in their hearts.  A supernatural people have the joy of the Lord.  They are not fearful or depressed.  They have an inner knowledge that the Lord is always with them.  They know that they have a destiny in God and that they have the power to do the work God has given them.  They may have to deal with hard things in life, but they know that in the midst of whatever comes their way the Lord will be there with them. 

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Life is to Know the Father and His son, Jesus

John 17:3 (NKJV) ³  And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

This week we are looking at the prayer Jesus prayed for his disciples in John 17.  Although he is praying for the men who were with him in the upper room, verse 20 tells us that the intent of his prayer was that it applies to all who would believe on him through that small band.  Every one of us who have received Jesus as Lord and savior has done so because of their lives and ministries.  They were the first. 

In verses 14-16 Jesus reveals that we are not of this world just as he was not of this world.  That means many things, but the word that the Lord has placed in my heart in relation to this is supernatural.  We are a supernatural people.  Then Jesus prayed that God would not take us out of the world but that he would protect us from the evil one.  That evil one is Satan.  The conclusion we reach is that we are to be a supernatural people living in the natural world protected from the devil by the God we serve.  The purpose is that we be an example of the supernatural God and his care for people in order that we draw those people into relationship with him.

Yesterday we looked at a definition of the word supernatural.  To be supernatural people means we live beyond what is possible in the natural.  We live with access to things that cannot be explained by natural laws.  It means that we live so that our lifestyle reflects the nature of God.  To me this means we live according to God’s character and principles.  Jesus said if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.  If we are truly supernatural people we will be able to say, “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen Jesus.”

Finally supernatural people live life to a superlative degree.  Jesus called this abundant life.  By definition, this is a life is greater in quantity and superior in quality to that of those who do not live as supernatural people.  That is what I believe we need to cultivate in 2022.

As I studied the rest of this prayer, I realized that part of what Jesus is doing is praying specific things that we will need in order to live as supernatural people in the natural world.  I want to look at some of those things this week.  Keep in mind that this is the last prayer Jesus prays for his people on the earth.  It is very important.

In the first five verses of John 17, Jesus tells the Father, and we are privileged to listen in, that his part is all but done.  Jesus has humbled himself and become a man.  (Phil. 2:5-7)  He has fulfilled all that the Father has asked him to do and he is about to take the final steps on his journey to death on the cross.  In his prayer, he calls his impending death, burial and resurrection being glorified. 

John 17:1 (NKJV) ¹  Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,

I wonder if we, knowing we were going to face the fate Jesus was facing, would have been able to think of it as being glorified.  However, Jesus understood his purpose and accepted that if it took his death to bring glory to the Father, then that death was also glorious to him.  He knew that he had come to make eternal life available to man and he was willing to do anything necessary to accomplish that.  Supernatural people think that way.

He also understood that what he did on the earth was not the end of the story.  He knew that after he had done the will of God, he would return to the glory that he had laid down when he left heaven.  His death was simply a vehicle that God would use to bring life to many, many more children.  Supernatural people think that was as well. 

In verse 3, he prays something for us that I believe is one of the keys to becoming supernatural people.  He reminds us what life really is.  Real life is to know the Father and Jesus Christ.  If we are going to live as supernatural people, we must be grounded in this truth.  There can be no confusion.  Life is to know God.  Anything else is a counterfeit of life.

In the west, we live in a very material world.  We are greatly blessed with many nice things.  We have nice houses, cars and possessions.  I do not apologize for that.  I believe we have these things because Western civilization was founded on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  We are often taught that the renaissance was when western society awakened from barbarism and began to become what it is today.  However, we sometimes forget that the renaissance was preceded by the reformation. 

The reformation was the beginning of God’s process of restoring the church to what Jesus intended it to be.  It began with Martin Luther’s revelation that the Word of God was the foundation upon which all Christian religion must be built.  He rejected the idea that elite clergy could make religious rules that superseded the bible.  His convictions were born of a deep personal experience with God.  He came to know God on a personal level.  This is exactly what Jesus was talking about in his prayer. 

There is a saying we use when we are experiencing something good in the natural.  Maybe we are on vacation on a beach or doing something else that we really enjoy.  We are relaxed.  We are in luxury accommodations.  We say, “Boy this is the life!”  We equate life with comfort or pleasure.  We may equate life with security or prosperity.  We have all seen the bumper sticker that says, “He who dies with the most toys wins!”

That is not the kind of attitude that will allow us to be supernatural people.  Life is to know God.  If we have nothing but we know God, we have life.  If we have everything the world can give but do not walk in intimate knowledge of our creator, we do not really have life.  We must accept this as one of the foundation truths of our existence.  It must be prerequisite to every decision we make.  The final determiner must be will this help me know God and Jesus or will it hinder that process.  If something will help us grow in the knowledge of God and his will, we do it.  If it will hinder that process, we do not.  This leaves a great deal of what life in the natural has to offer to enjoy since as long as they do not hinder our relationship with the Lord. 

When I settle in my heart that true life is to know God, I am free to walk in the supernatural.  I will not pull back because a decision will cause something negative in the natural.  I understand that I am a supernatural person living a supernatural life knowing God.  I have access to something that cannot be explained by natural things.  Knowing God gives me access to that.  The result will be a lifestyle that reflects the nature and character of the God I serve. 

It will also result in abundant life for me and my family.  I believe this means a life that is greater in quantity and superior in quality to any other life I could live.  I believe God will take care me where natural things are concerned, but I also believe this is talking about the intangible things that make life truly worth living. 

This is what Jesus is saying about himself in these verses.  He lays everything at the feet of the God he knows as his Father.  He trusts that yielding to that knowledge will cause him to fulfill his destiny and thereby provide life for many.  In the end he will return to the glory that he had with the Father before he came to earth.  As we accept that same truth, we are free to begin walking as supernatural people in the natural world.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer. You can also search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.