Sinclair Ferguson: Set Apart

I've always wondered what it's like to have a six foot putt to win the Masters and for the crowd to fall silent I guess this is the nearest I'll ever get to it well let me ask you to turn in your Bibles and this our final session to the first letter of John chapter 2 and verses 15 through 17 and if you have two Bible markers in your Bible then stick another Bible marker or a finger in the 17th chapter of John's Gospel so 1st John chapter 2 verses 15 to 17 and John's Gospel chapter 17 and as you do let me congratulate you for lasting through 15 main sessions 7 optional sessions 3 spanish sessions and a multitude of other events that have taken round the church campus during the course of the last few days those of us who are teaching fellows for Ligonier ministries belong in a sense to one of the inner circles of Ligonier and it's always impressive to me what a remarkable staff Ligonier ministries has and we're so grateful to God for Chris Larson for his great team for those who have been volunteers and I want to express to them before they are exhausted our gratitude and also to our interpreters without whom there are folks at the conference we would not be able to communicate with since some of us do not have very good Spanish and we're grateful to the Spanish interpreters whom we don't see but also to Chuck and Nancy and Tony who are the American sign language interpreters that we do see we we who stand here have to give only a couple of messages but they have to give 15 messages it's exhausting enough preaching it in English but then interpreting it into another language altogether is to us a very very remarkable gift of God to us so I hope we're all going home happy and I hope we're all going home holy and what we are about to think about is what it means for us as Christian believers to have been set apart by God and that of course is another way of asking the question what does it mean for us to be holy my guess is that for those of us who preach and for many of us who listen we would instinctively turn to the Apostle Paul for instruction about holiness about a holy life about the character of the Christian and of course we often do that but I think there is some wisdom and insight in the way in which whoever mysteriously organizes the topics for the Ligonier conferences has assigned for us this morning that the teaching of the Apostle John we don't always associate the Apostle John with holiness but that is a very great mistake we do associate the Apostle John with love but if we don't understand that when the Apostle John speaks about love he is also speaking about holiness God's holiness and our holiness then I think we would misunderstand the basic drivers of the man's life when he says in John 3:16 but God so loved the world that He gave His only Son there is implicit in that statement the nature of God as the holy one who cannot look on sin who judges sin who gives his son in order that he might bear our sin and he says that because he himself felt so much of the love of God indeed as John describes the Ministry of Jesus the nearer the cross he comes in his narrative the more he brings to the surface the special way in which he identified himself I don't think it appears before the opening section of John chapter 13 it's from the farewell discourse on words as they are so near the cross that John begins to describe himself as the disciple Jesus loved and he does this of course in the exposition he gives us in John 1323 in the Upper Room and then as we come near to the cross in chapter 19 verse 26 again in chapter 20 verse 2 at the resurrection in chapter 21 verse 20 in the seaside breakfast that he has with the Lord Jesus Christ I am the disciple Jesus loved John felt that profoundly individually but I think it may be a mistake to imagine that he means it uniquely after all when he introduces himself in this way it's against the background of teaching us that in the upper room what he saw in the amazing humility of the Lord Jesus was the fact that having loved his own he loved them to the end so that when John describes himself as the disciple Jesus loved I don't think he actually means that Jesus loved me more than he loved any of the others but that love that had been displayed by the Lord Jesus to all of the Apostles actually that love that in John 13 had even been displayed to Judas Iscariot before whom the Lord Jesus had kneeled and washed his dirty feet that love was a love that Peter and Andrew and James and Matthew and all of the disciples had experienced each of them could say as Paul would later say in Galatians chapter 2 the Son of God loved me and gave himself for me and the way in which the Apostle John crafts the message that he gives in those closing chapters of the gospel is intended to convey also to us that we are the disciples Jesus loved and loves but I need to learn also to think of myself in this way that if Jesus died for me then as I trust in him I am also the disciple that Jesus loved John Donne is a beautiful way of picking up John 13:1 that Jesus loved his disciples to the end when he speaks about this love to the end which is not to our end but to his and and his end is that he might love us more and it's within that context that John gives us Jesus central teaching on what it means to be set apart it comes gradually in the farewell discourse hidden within the warp and woof of what Jesus is saying but it comes to special prominence in the 17th chapter when they're given this amazing privilege of listening to Jesus pray for them and for those who will immediately become believers through their testimony and also as you lead on to all who will come to believe through their word which is also us who are gathered here as though what he were seeking to communicate to us at the end of that lengthy section of Jesus teaching is that he himself was the disciple Jesus loved but Jesus had loved all of the disciples each of them could say I am the disciple Jesus loved but that's not true only of them it's true of all who come to believe in Jesus through his word and as I say it might seem to be straying from the point in a conference on the holiness of God and the holiness of the believer to begin this final study by focusing our attention on the love of God the love of the Lord Jesus Christ but it's important for us to do it as has been said several times now because the holiness of God the holiness of the Lord Jesus the love of God the love of the Lord Jesus our are not extra LEGO pieces that are built on to who he is he is holy in himself he is loved in himself he is indeed holy love in himself and since indeed the Scriptures teachers God is holy and God is love and it's so important for us as we think about the holiness of the believer to understand that that holiness is actually rooted in the holy love of God and I want us to think this morning about two very simple things but when this dawns on us and we are able to say I am the disciple Jesus loved first of all that gives us the new identity that we need and secondly it leads to the new holiness to which we are called and these two things always go together in Scripture and certainly they always go together in the teaching of the Apostle John if we fail to grasp the new identity that we have been given in Christ that will pervasively influence and affect the style of the holy life that we live if our sense of the holiness of God is not so fused by the sense of the holy love of God then we'll always be in danger of becoming holy people who are angular and difficult and harsh and hard and critical and not loving and yet when we turn to John's first letter this is the hallmark of those who are the Saints the holy people of God holiness is chiefly expressed in love because it's chiefly expressed in Christ's likeness and I want us to try and see how this sense that John is giving to us that we have a new identity in Christ as the disciple Jesus loved leads inevitably to a new style of holiness all together so first of all let's together about a few minutes about this new identity and here I want to draw especially on John 17 not to expound it but simply to drop down on some important punctuation marks what is this new identity I have as the disciple Jesus loud well first of all running through this passage is this note I am as the disciple Jesus loved I am the donation of the father to the son and it's interesting to me and a way that just in the very context in which John speaks about himself as the disciple Jesus loved he also brings to the forefront in a new way that I am therefore a donation a gift that the father has given to his son that was true of course from all eternity and he speaks about this in verse two it's true all the way through the passage he refers to it again and verse six they are the ones that you gave to me Father and again if you'll notice in verse nine I'm praying for those whom you have given to me and again in verse 11 he prays I'm coming to you Holy Father keep those you have given to me that they may be one as we are one and then in that glorious statement in 1724 I want those you have given me to be with me where I am and he's thinking of course of the donation that the father gave to him from eternity chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world but he's also thinking of the way how in his humanity in his incarnation the father gave these disciples to him for intimate personal fellowship with him and if you're a believer that's who you are if you're someone who is conscious that you're a disciple is loved you need to understand that behind that is the fact that the father has given you to his son you are a precious love gift from the father to his beloved son he cherishes you he prizes you he loves his son so much that it is as it were he ransacks the universe for the finest gifts he can give to his son and they're not found in the grandeur of creation they're found in those for whom the son will come and die I mean what a marvelous thing it is to think of yourself and the mind of God and to to put your name into the sentence in which God says my son I want you to have him I want you to have her and I'm giving them to you and of course it's because because of what is necessary for for that transaction to take place in a holy fashion for sinners to be given by a holy father to a holy son but in John 17 Jesus speaks about consecrating himself sanctifying himself for our sake that is to say offering himself as a holy sacrifice on the cross in order that the the gift of sinners from the father to the son might be a sanctified gift it is as though it is a slaw the father says to the son I I give you these gifts my son but they are dirty and unclean they are unholy they are not fit for you to have and the son says to the father then father for such a gift for these precious ones in order that they may know I am the disciple Jesus loved I will go and die for them I will sanctify myself for their sakes so that everything he does from the moment of his conception right through to his heavenly intercession in our humanity he does for us he had no need to extend his own glory he does this yes in a way that will extend his glory throughout the earth but for our sakes and then says John he's not only a donation of the Father and he is that in the sanctification of the son but then he says that Jesus whole ministry to his loved disciples was a revelation of this truth to them and so he prays for them in 17 verses 6 to 8 and he remembers what he has done I have manifested your name to the people you gave me out of the world yours they were and you gave them to me and they have kept your word and then as he's been teaching them especially in John 14 he speaks about the way in which they will be united to him and to the Father through the spirit and so later on in chapter 17 verses 21 to 23 I don't ask for these only although I do ask for them but also for those who will believe in me through their word that they all may be one just as you Father are in me and I in you that they also may be in us so that the world may believe you know when you love someone yet there is a sense in which you want to be in them that is to say United with them one mind with them one spirit with them and here now Jesus is picking up teaching that has run through John's Gospel how is it that believers are going to be in the father and the Son and the father and the son are going to be in believers as he said in chapter 14 we will come and we'll make our home and of course he's referring to the ministry of the holy spirit this is what the Holy Spirit does the Holy Spirit comes to make the love disciples places persons where the father and the son can feel a home and they they cannot feel a home without doing cleansing so this amazing picture Jesus draws in the farewell discourse of what it means to be a believer and to be so loved by the father and the son carries within it the notion it would be utterly inconsistent for that to be true to be loved thus by the Savior without the Savior insisting that there be housecleaning that there be transformation and that that transformation should go down deeply to the end of our lives until we're brought to glory and this is why this prayer in a sense encompasses everything that is true of the Christian life our new identity is rooted in the donation of the father to the son in the sanctification of the son for sinners in the revelation of God's love to us in Scripture in the Union that we enjoy with the Lord through the spirit and then as though that were not all were not only told how this identity has come into being but the privileges that this new identity brings to us look at chapter 17 and verse 11 I am no longer in the world but they are in the world and I am coming to you Father keep them in your name which you have given me that they may be one even as we are one he's praying for our security because he knows we have no security in ourselves I hope you understand that being born again is not an adequate security for you that changes you but it doesn't secure you you are still weak you are still fragile and so the Lord Jesus is praying that the loving father will secure the disciples and not only so but in verse 13 he rehearses what he had said in chapter 15 verse 11 he's praying that we may also be joyful now I'm coming to you and these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves not that they may just be joyful but that they may have my joy fulfilled in myself in themselves that is to say that they may be brought more and more to experience the very kind of joy that I have experienced in my relationship with you that they may experience that in themselves that they may not only be secured but they may be joyful and then of course because it is impossible that these two things would be true in verses 17 and 19 that we may also be holy and like him oh he says father sanctify them in the truth Your Word is truth and again in verse 19 he prays for their sake i consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth no friends we need to grasp the fact that Jesus died to make you holy and every element of resistance in our hearts to hole in us has a tendency to trample underfoot the blood of the Covenant by which we were sanctified and so you begin to see that this amazing hole in us by which we become the disciples whom Jesus has loved has the dynamic and energy and motivation we need to more and more become holy and of course ultimately in verse 24 because we have this final destiny for which he has prayed I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me you loved me I loved them bring them father to see the fullness of that love that you have for me in the full glory that I had with you before the world was made remember how he Bruce puts it in Hebrews chapter 12 verse 14 without holiness no one will see the Lord it's the same thing Jesus is saying here he's praying that we may be sanctified because only the sanctified will see his glory or to put it the other way around because he is so passionate that we whom he has loved should see his glory that he as it were focuses all his energy is upon us to make us holy in order that we may see that glory because it's this for which we have been regenerated this is our glorious destiny so there is a new identity and it comes with new privileges and it produces a radical difference in our lives look at what he says in 17 verse 11 I'm no longer in the world but they are in the world an earlier on in verse 6 I've manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world but they are still in the world and again in verse 16 he alludes to the same thing they are not of the world they are in the world but they are not of the world because the father gave us to the son out of the world we live in the world but any of you have ever noticed one of these ads and the papers for a new sofa or couch that's only 250 dollars and you've scurried along to the sale and run to the furniture department and they are to your sadness and sorrow there has been a sticker on the one couch they're selling at that prices as a reserved for mrs. Smith and that means you can't touch it that's what this is all about you gave them to me out of the world and I have placed a reserved sticker on them they belong to ours and you see when you begin to understand that it makes such a radical difference to your sense of what it means to be a Christian you don't belong to this world and when you don't belong to this world you see this world with entirely new eyes you become as Paul teaches the Corinthians you become detached from all the pools of this world that have held you back from Jesus Christ you don't think it's unusual that non-christians give you a hard time because as Jesus says if you belonged to the world the world would treat you as though it belonged to the world how much we need to understand this new identity that's been given to us in our Lord Jesus Christ and to and to see as the whole of the New Testament emphasizes not only Jesus here but the Apostle Paul our citizenship is in heaven not here on earth or the Apostle Peter we are we are strangers we are pilgrims here we are alien residents here beloved Christian you do not actually belong here any longer and so it shouldn't surprise you that sometimes you feel as though you don't belong here any longer and are treated as though you don't belong here any longer and once you understand that because you've been given by the father to the son and although you are in the world you are therefore of another world altogether not of this world but of that world where your citizenship is then it simplifies and clarifies so much about the style of your life when I came over to the United States and this visit my first port was Los Angeles and I was welcomed by the immigration officer there the friendly mr. Wong mr. Wong seemed to have some difficulty examining my passports I need to carry two for reasons I need not explain and it was particularly my visa that seemed to puzzle him because I have a visa that is actually two visas since most of you do not have a visa to enter the United States you need to know you can only have one American visa stamped in your passport you may not have to but I actually have two visas and so they are two visas in one visa and I think mr. Wong had never seen one visa with two visas or two visas that were one visa and so we engaged in a dialogue about my visa history which is long and complicated and patiently listening to me and trying to puzzle out this foreigners identity and his Fiza history mr. wang eventually said to me with a smile as he stunts my passport and allowed me into this great country you should have become American citizen [Applause] now all illustrations breakdown some of my very best friends have become American citizens okay clear on that some of my very best friends one of whom is in this room at the moment have become American citizens but I said to mr. Wong and this is just me this is not my friends I said to mr. Wong you know it would have made life so much easier I've always had taxation without representation but I could have had taxation with representation I could have gone in and out of the country without all this fuss but honestly mr. Wong I felt that the only reason I would become an American citizen was for my own convenience and I didn't think that was a very good reason and mr. Wong agreed and off I went but it left me what I'd said left me thinking this this is how it is in the world isn't it that we only live as citizens of the world because it is actually more convenient but at the end of the day is lethal because we don't actually belong here our citizenship is in heaven often people have said to me what's the difference between living in Scotland and living in the United States and one of the obvious differences is that the the parking spaces are big enough to get your car into but the truth of the matter is I always answer in the same way everything is just a little different absolutely everything is just a little different and that's how it is for believers in the world we are in the world but because we're not off the world everything about us is just a little different and if I may go on in this anecdote each phase of my life therefore one of the things I've always delighted in in living in the United States has been elevator rights and engaging in conversation with people and shy Americans as most Americans obviously are with people from another planet it's usually just as I'm exiting that they say could you come from and for the latter part of my life I was just a ton round and smiled just as the doors were closing and say Columbia South Carolina and and see the the mystified looks but you see when these things dawn on us that is what is true of holy lives family lives that are holy business lives that are holy student lives that are holy mum and dad lives that are holy neighbourhood lives that are holy church lives that are holy but those who actually are in this world and belong to this world are bound to ask the question where do you come from you must have noticed how in first Peter Peter doesn't say you Christians need to ask unbelievers questions you know just how much evangelism has had that element in it go out there and ask unbelievers questions why did that not happen in the first century because Christian lives were so transformed the unbelievers were asking believers questions and this is the transformation it's not so much a matter of how do you do it it's a matter of who you are what your identity is where you are where your citizenship is whether you know that you are the disciple Jesus loved and therefore you live the whole of your Christian life in responsive love to the Lord Jesus and it touches absolutely everything you do that's what it means to be set apart now all this is preliminary to first John to 12 to 15 but it is my intention to speak on that passage only very briefly because it's against the background of what we've just been seeing but that the Apostle John is now able to issue these strong imperative statements do I do want you to understand that that when we speak the Christian life properly we use a particular grammar and that grammar is always first of all the great indicative of God's saving grace leading to the powerful imperatives of our sanctified response and obedience and we need to soak ourselves in these indicative in the fact that we are the disciples Jesus loved and the fact that we are those who have been given to him by the father in the fact that we don't belong to this world but that other world in the fact that he has sanctified himself for us in order to consecrate us to God that he has died for us that we might live for him and when we see that then the imperatives the commands that the apostle john gives in 1st john 2 verses 12 to 15 are the outcrop of that understanding that we have been given by the father to the son in his holy love for his son and his son in his holy love for us is absolutely determined to transform us into his likeness and in 1st john ii 12 to 15 that means two very simple things the first is this that we understand that since we don't belong to this world we don't love this world do not love the world or the things in the world and you see now the significance of the explanation that he gives because if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him now you know that genitals are difficult is this the Father's love for us or is this our love for the father and probably I think the answer is yes and yes it's the first that produces the second if I am if I am demas like in love with this present world it is an indication that the love of the Father for me is not in me and that my responsive love for the father is not coming to expression other worldliness is the fruit of his holy love and when that love dawns on me I am loved I am the disciple Jesus loved then of course it follows if I love Jesus whom the world rejected I will not love the world or the things that are in the world because my primary love is the love of the Lord Jesus becoming a Christian as the father saying to us forsaking all other will you cleave only to him and everything else fitting into place around him if you don't belong here because the love of the father is in you then don't live as though you belong here so since you don't belong here you don't love here you live here but you don't love here because you belong there and then of course there is this second encouragement the world is passing away so don't be captivated by it you know one of the blindnesses that Satan produces and people's lives is that they are going to live forever and the world is going to live forever even in the face of the virtually unbroken statistic that every human being has come into the world has died in the world and yet we still don't see it this fundamental deception but John says this world is passing away so those who are by the father and given to the son for eternity therefore do not live for a world that is actually passing away and this is why he emphasizes what he does all that is in the world the desires of the flesh the desires of the eyes and the pride of possessions is not from the father but is from the world and this world is passing away but you just need to open the very best of the glossy magazines and you see that Madison Avenue of wherever the people now work understands these truths that John speaks about the desires of the flesh the desires of the eyes and the pride in possessions your advert probably will not cut the mustard unless it has one two or three of these elements in it and they know we are suckers they hear the Christian is so different he he has seen through the right end of the telescope she sees that eternity as long and life as sharp but this world has fallen but that world to come that transformed glorified world to come will last forever and that we who belong to Jesus Christ and are the disciples Jesus loved will live for all eternity enjoying that identity so why are you here what's your story oh I am the disciple Jesus loved you meet the dying thief in glory and you say to him what is your story and he says I am the disciple but Jesus loved fading as the worldlings pleasure all he's boasted pomp and show solid joys and lasting treasure none but Zions children no he is holy he is loved therefore be holy in his love let us pray our Heavenly Father we thank you for the Scriptures that we have studied in these days of conference together there's so much that we are unable to take everything in but we thank you for the faithfulness of your Holy Spirit in applying your word in so many different ways to each of our lives we thank you for the holiness that has been the canopy of this gathering not only in the preaching of your word but in the nature of our fellowship together and we pray as we leave one another and leave this place and go to our own places of family life and daily service and church fellowship that we by your grace may continue to grow in holiness without which none of us will see the Lord and we pray with all our hearts that every single one of us who has been here for these days will indeed see the Lord and therefore we pray Lord Jesus as the disciples you have loved we pray together that you would make us more and more holy and more and more like yourself we pray this in your name amen [Applause]

Channel: Ligonier Ministries

Views: 26,563

Rating: 4.939394 out of 5

Keywords: Ligonier, Ligonier Conference, orlando conference, ligcon, 1 John 2:15-17, gospel proclamation, sinclair ferguson

Id: XPetSBLm3ck

Length: 45min 6sec (2706 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 21 2019