May 20, 2012 · John 17:13–14

Sanctify Them by the Truth

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world.

“I just want to remind you: there's this thing called the Holy Spirit. This person called the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness. But he's also the Spirit of joy. And the two are not antithetical. They come together. In fact, in holiness there's this true joy. "I have given them your word." This is the Word — the truth of God. And we have received it. We have the Word. It's what we stand on. And you know what? This is what we are hated for. Sometimes the church is hated for stupid things. Some little splinter group might do that — of us. Or just — you know how some Christians might get arrogant and just be jerks. There's this hatred that can come our way. But to be honest, even if those groups did not exist, or those people did not exist, the church would still be hated. How do I know this? Because Jesus was hated for his word. And we should be expecting to be hated. That's what he says here. But the Word is the anchor. The Word of God is this anchor that we have. In a world of madness, it's the one thing that we can cling to. It's the one thing that we can expect: "This will bring me joy." Even in the midst of being hated, you can have joy. The world hates the Word of God. The world hates those who come in the name of God. The world demands conformity to its culture, to its practices, to its attitudes, to its beliefs. And it's really interesting, because we're in this — we have this idea of tolerance in our society of relativism.”