In his sermon 'Set Apart To Be Sent,' Jason Dohm explores John 17:17-19, where Jesus prays for his disciples to be sanctified by truth and sent into the world. Dohm argues that the typical interpretation of these verses, which views sanctification as a process following justification, is incomplete. Instead, he emphasizes that Jesus is praying for his disciples to be set apart for sacred service, akin to the Old Testament priests or prophets like Jeremiah, and made ready for their mission through the Word of God. The sermon underscores the importance of the Great Commission, suggesting that Christians are set apart and sent into the world for redemptive purposes, much like Jesus was sent by the Father. Dohm highlights the Bible as the ultimate standard of truth, contrasting it with subjective, individual perceptions of truth. He concludes by encouraging believers to treasure their Bibles, recognize their role in God's ongoing mission, and thank Jesus for setting Himself apart for sacred service.

Our sermon text for today is John 17 verses 17 through 19. I'll begin reading in verse 9. Please follow along. I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom you have given me for they are yours and all mine are yours and yours are mine and I am glorified in them 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 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've 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." Let's pray.

Father we ask for glorious help from on high now. God's spiritual insight into these words. We pray that you would come by your Spirit and open our minds, open our eyes, open our ears, that we may hear and that we may understand the truth contained within these words. God, we thank you and praise you for your scripture, for your word that has power to save. We pray that you would work mindily among us today.

God, be with Jason as he comes and preaches. God, help us to clear our minds of distractions and to focus intently on Christ. It's in His powerful name that we pray. Amen. Please be seated.

The title of the sermon this morning is Set Apart to be sent. Let's ask the Lord for help. Holy Spirit, I pray to you that you would be present here with your people helping us. I pray to be helped. I'm going to be speaking words about a text of Scripture that is such a gracious gift to your people.

And I pray that you would help me to speak clearly and accurately and even powerfully. I pray for those who are listening today, my brothers and sisters, that their hearts would be encouraged and that we would be brought face to face with our sins also. You would use your word to move us forward and that you would stir up our affections towards our Lord Jesus. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

We're in John 17, which is from beginning to end, Jesus' prayer to his Father. It's the longest prayer that Jesus prays in any of the four gospels. And it's prayed in the hearing of his eleven born-again disciples. So his disciples were meant to hear it. He's not praying to them, but he is praying in their presence and they audibly hear what Jesus is praying.

And we get the benefit because here we have it. So we learn truth from what Jesus prayed. Jesus always prayed perfect truth. So it is for us to go and mime the truth out of what he prayed. But we also learn about prayer because it's a perfect prayer.

It informs us in how we should pray. So hopefully both of those things will happen today. We'll learn truth by listening to Jesus pray, so to speak, and we'll learn to pray ourselves. Let me reread the text. So hopefully you're in John 17 And follow along as I read verses 17 through 19.

Jesus prays. 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.

I hope to do three things during our time this morning. First, in my opinion, the normal interpretation of these verses is an incomplete interpretation. I've come to that conclusion during the course of the week. So I want to talk about that. Secondly, I want to give what I believe is the intended fuller interpretation.

And then thirdly, I'll conclude by talking about the implications of what Jesus says about the Word of God in our text. So let's do those three things. Number one, which if you're taking notes on the handout, wrong fills in the blank. A great sermon of Bible truth from the wrong text. Wrong fills in the blank.

A great sermon of Bible truth from the wrong text. That sermon, which I would be delighted to preach if I thought it was the right text, places the sanctification in verse 17, sanctify them by your truth, as the follow on to justification. Justification and then sanctification. These two great doctrines of the Christian faith in sequence. That is how we normally think of sanctification or being sanctified.

We are justified first. We are taken from death to life. We are taken from deserving a guilty verdict and pronounced not guilty, exonerated, not because we are able to somehow earn our way out of our sinful condition, but because of Jesus' work on the cross, the guilty can go free because the just has died for the unjust, the innocent has died for the guilty. Justification. And at that moment, we begin to be sanctified.

Justification is momentary. One nanosecond you stand rightly, justly condemned by God, and the next nanosecond you have been pardoned, declared just because of the blood of Jesus Christ. It is momentary and it is permanent. You don't go back and forth between justified and not justified when Jesus applies His blood to you. That is the end of the story because He who undertakes to do a good work in you and for you undertakes to see it through to the very end.

Justification momentary. And then that begins a lifelong process of growth. Christians are not born fully formed. God isn't done with his work with justification. He is beginning a lifelong process of conforming them into the image of his son.

Listen to Ephesians 5.26, because It is the perfect example, I think, of the use of sanctification as the follow-on to justification as a lifelong process of growth. In Ephesians 5, it's the very famous passage about marriage as a picture of Christ and the church. In Ephesians 5.26 it's talking about what Christ, as the husband of the church, does to bring his bride into conformity with his own perfect righteousness. Ephesians 5.26. That he, Jesus, might sanctify and cleanse her, his church, with the washing of water by the word.

Jesus sanctifies his bride with the washing of water by the Word. Jesus sanctifies His bride with the washing of water by the Word. This is speaking of the steady ongoing progressive work of God in your life through the Word of God if you are a Christian. That's a perfect fit for this sermon. He is sanctifying you, having justified you by the blood of His Son.

He begins this lifelong process of growth in conformity to the image of his son through the instrumentality of his word. It fits perfect with this sermon. That is a sermon about a living and active Word of God sharper than any two-edged sword. Instrumental, essential in the Holy Spirit's work in the life of the believer to conform us little by little into the image of perfection, the image of the Son. Now all of that content is true.

All of that content is thoroughly biblical. All of that content is invigorating and fun to preach. All of that content, we would together say, amen to that. That sermon, by the way, is actually the majority report of the commentators. Meaning, if you read the commentators, by and large, they say, that's the sermon you should be preaching on this text.

Even the commentators that I love, even GASP J.C. Ryle. But I believe that sermon falls very short of the fullness of what Jesus is actually praying. I don't deny for a moment that what I've just described is an element in our sermon. But I am denying that that's the thrust of what Jesus is praying here.

I believe that is a part of what Jesus is praying, but it isn't even the thrust of it. That that, what I just spoke of, justification as the follow on process to justification is subservient, is a servant to what the thrust of what Jesus is actually praying is. So that brings us to point number two. The glory of what Jesus is actually praying. Here is what I believe Jesus is actually praying, and I think it is very glorious.

Let me give you an overview or a summary of these three verses and then we'll hit them one by one. Verse 17, Jesus is using sanctify in the other sense there are two senses in which that Greek word rendered Sanctify or sanctification is used in the New Testament. I think he's Jesus is using the other sense in verse 18 he develops the thought introduced in verse 17, which makes it clear actually the sense in which he is using that word. And then in verse 19, He grounds it all in Himself. So let's look at those one by one.

Verse 17. Look at verse 17 again while I read it. Jesus prays, sanctify them, sanctify these 11 born-again disciples by your truth. Your word is truth. The Greek word rendered sanctify here and all through these three verses.

It appears again twice in verse 19. That Greek word literally means to separate from common things and to dedicate to God. Let me give that to you again. This Greek word literally means to separate, to set apart from common things or from common usage and to dedicate to God. To set something or someone apart for God and His purposes.

Let me give you two Old Testament examples. The First is Exodus 28 verse 41. Exodus 28 verse 41, Moses is speaking of the priests and the garments that they will wear. Exodus 28, 41. So you shall put them, these priestly garments, on Aaron, your brother, and on his sons with him.

You shall anoint them, consecrate them, and sanctify them that they may minister to me as priests." So this is the Old Testament usage of a Hebrew equivalent of what we're dealing with in the Greek and the New Testament that the priests in in their garments and in the anointing and consecration would be Sanctified To their priestly work They would be set apart from the common in order to take upon themselves or to have put upon them sacred service. Men pulled out of common usage for sacred service. A second example of this kind of sense of sanctification is Jeremiah 1 verse 5. Listen to Jeremiah 1 verse 5. This is actually the voice of God talking about his appointment of the prophet Jeremiah.

Jeremiah 1 verse 5. Before I formed you in the womb, says God, I knew you. Before you were born, I sanctified you. I ordained you a prophet to the nations. It's clear from reading 1 verse 5, he's not saying, I brought you through the process of conformity to the image of Christ, a lifelong process of growing in the faith in the womb.

He can't be meaning that. What he means is, I set you apart for sacred service in the womb. I determined before you were even born that you were going to be a channel for my prophetic word to the nation of Israel and to the world. Before you were born I sanctified you, I ordained you a prophet to the nations. I set you apart in the womb to be a prophet to the nations.

Let me give you a New Testament example, it's probably the best of all actually, which is John 10 36. In John 10 36, Jesus is facing Jews who want to stone him. Here's what he says to them, John 10, 36. Do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you are blaspheming because I said I am the Son of God? So they want to stone him because he is claiming to be the Son of God.

And he's saying, do you say of me who the Father sanctified and sent into the world that you're blaspheming because I claim to be the Son of God? God the Father sanctified God the Son and sent Him into the world. Now it doesn't mean that God the Father took Jesus through a life long process of conforming Him into the image of Jesus. He is the image of Jesus. So it can't mean that other sense.

It must mean that God the Father set apart Jesus for sacred service, that the incarnation is sacred service, and that He sent him into the world. The sending of Jesus into the world is the setting apart of Jesus for sacred work. So I believe this is the meaning of what Jesus is praying. Father, set these eleven born-again disciples apart for your use, and make them ready for the sacred service to which you are setting them apart." Let me just say that again because it's a long sentence and sort of convoluted. Father, set these men apart for your use and make them ready for the sacred service to which you are setting them apart.

When Jesus prays, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. I believe that is actually what is being communicated. Two parts. Set them apart, sanctify them, and make them ready for the sacred service you're setting them apart to.

And it is the Word of God that does both. It is the Word of God that sets apart and that makes ready for the sacred service. More on that in a moment. Verse 18. Jesus prays, as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world." I believe this is Jesus continuing to develop that thought and making it clear what these disciples are being set apart to, sending into the world and made ready for being sent into the world.

The Father sent His Son into the world, and now the Son is sending these disciples into the world. Look back at verse 6. Same chapter, John 17, verse 6. Jesus prays, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word." The Father gave these men who were hearing Jesus pray to Jesus out of the world.

Jesus kept them while he was in the world. That's verse 12. Jesus entrusted them to the keeping of the Father now that he is physically leaving them. That's verse 11. And now they are being sent out of the world.

God gave them to the Son, He kept them, He entrusted them to His Father, and now they are being sent back into the world out of which they were called. For what purpose? As you sent me into the world I also have sent them For the fundamental reason that the Father sent the Son into the world becomes the fundamental reason that the Son sends his disciples into the world. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them." John 3, 17. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him, through the sent Son might be saved.

Why did the Son of Man come to seek and to save that which is lost? John 3, 17, Luke 19, 10. The Son was sent for redemptive purposes, saving purposes, rescuing purposes. Jesus' disciples are sent for redemptive purposes, for saving purposes, for rescuing purposes. This is the Great Commission in miniature.

It's not as detailed as the Great Commission as we know it from Matthew 28, but at its core it is exactly the same thing. This is what the disciples are set apart to. A great saving, redemptive, rescuing mission. It is what they are made ready for by the word of God. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Amen." Matthew 28, 19, and 20. This is no informal hobby. What are you doing this afternoon? I'm making disciples of all the nations. You might answer that with your informal hobby.

What are you doing this afternoon? I'm reading. I'm playing golf. You're not discipling the nations this afternoon. This is a formal, lifelong calling, not an informal hobby.

This is no dumbed down, one size fits all evangelistic pitch. This is discipling nations far from you, teaching them to observe all things that Christ has commanded. They had better be made ready by the Word of God. They are set apart to and set apart for, And made ready four. Set apart two and made ready four.

The Great Commission. It is the Word of God that they are delivering to the nations with the centerpiece of that being Christ as Savior. Right? The center of the whole Bible. Jesus Christ lifted up as the one hope for sinners.

It is the centerpiece, but It's not all that Christ commanded. The Great Commission is evangelism as we typically think about it, but the discipling of the nation surely cannot end with that if we are to teach them all things that Christ commanded. We are set apart to the Great Commission and made ready for the Great Commission through the Word of God. That fits like a hand in a glove, I think, with the verses that come before our text. Look back at verses 14 and 15.

So verses 14 and 15 lead into today's text. Jesus prays, I have given them, these disciples, 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." Jesus is not praying, he makes it so clear, explicitly clear, that he is not praying for his disciples to be disengaged from the world out of which they have been called. And in our text he is actually saying that they are set apart too and made ready for being sent back into the world for redemptive purposes. It fits with what comes before.

And I believe that it fits like a hand in a glove with the verses that come after our text. Look at, we'll preview next week, verses 20 and 21. Read along. Jesus prays in verses 20 and 21. I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us, that the world may believe that you sent me, saving, redemptive, rescuing purposes that then Jesus praised for their entering into that work.

Set a part two. Made ready for Sent. That's what's in our text today. Does that include growing in grace over time? Which is the other sense of sanctify or sanctification.

You bet it does. But that is not the thrust, I don't believe, of what we have here. It is Jesus praying for the separating to sacred service of his disciples to be then sent back into the world. Now, verse 19. Jesus praise.

And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. So you see much of the language from verse 17 repeated again in verse 19, which strengthens my belief that this sanctification being said here is set apart to sacred service and not the progressive growing in grace. Because Jesus says here, I sanctify myself. There is no room for him to grow in grace. He was full of grace and truth from the start.

He is God from all eternity. Jesus here in verse 19 grounds the sanctification of the disciples in his own sanctification. Jesus is saying that he sets himself apart sacred service, the Incarnation, the Cross, in order that his disciples can also be set apart for sacred service. What is the one hope that humans have to be set apart for sacred service? It's that Jesus has set himself apart for his sacred assigned duties to take on human flesh and to go to the cross for sinners.

It is not enough to have the truth. Something must be done about this chasm between a holy God and sinful people before anyone can be set apart for sacred service. You cannot skip over that. How would you be set apart for sacred service if you're not sacred? If your sins cling to you, how could you be useful to this holy God?

He, the Lord Jesus, must perform His sacred service before we can be set apart for sacred service. Listen to Titus 2.14. Titus 2.14 is Paul writing to Titus about what Jesus has done. Titus 2.14, who gave himself for us, Jesus gave himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Let me reread that.

This is about the work of Jesus. Who gave Himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself his own special people, zealous for good words. Jesus sanctified Himself. He set Himself apart for the sacred service of laying down His life. Why?

To redeem us from every lawless deed and to purify for himself a special people zealous for good works. To purify us, to send us. It really is saying the same thing. The Jews perceived themselves to be zealous for good works, right? The Jews felt like they were being zealous for God, working for God.

But were they redeemed from every lawless deed and purified? You might reckon yourself zealous for good works. It is nothing if you have not been purified by the blood of Jesus Christ. The Jews thought that. The Jews thought they were doing something for God.

That could never be acceptable service to God. They could never be set apart for sacred service outside of the atoning blood of Jesus. This only comes through Jesus Christ. The only footing for sacred service is Jesus' work on the cross. I just want to say to anyone who hasn't already done it, run to Him.

Run to Him. Run to Him. You might think, I'm doing things for God. Forget that! There is no doing things for God outside of running to Him.

You might have thought this was service to God, but the Bible contradicts you. And the Bible is right and the Bible is wrong. It is good to strive to obey the Lord, but this all starts with throwing yourself upon the Lord Jesus Christ as your only hope to be redeemed from every lawless act and purified to be part of his own special people. Then you can be zealous for good works. Then you have footing for sacred service.

Third, our last major point, a foundation stone. The Bible is truth. So if you're taking notes on the handout, Bible fills in the blank. A foundation stone. Something, a ground floor truth to be built on.

The Bible is truth. The second part of verse 17, Jesus says, Your word is truth. Brothers and sisters, we are people of the book. Not the people of images. Not the people of our own thoughts and reason, though the book is full of reason.

The book is eminently reasonable. I'm not saying we are called as Christians to throw out reason, but we are called to calibrate our thoughts and our reason by a fixed standard. We are people of the book. We are nothing without the book. You have no Christ.

You have no Savior without the Book. It tells you who to trust. We sang a good portion of Psalm 19. The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul. It's actually very word for word.

It's sort of hard to sing because the meter is a little strange because they are trying to keep it right what Psalm 19 says. It's about Scripture's claims about itself. Scripture claims to be the perfect, infallible, inerrant Word of God. There in Psalm 119, or listen to Psalm 119, Psalm 119 is I think 176 verses or something, And it's all about the Word of God. But let me just give one verse about the Word of God.

Psalm 119 verse 160. The entirety of your Word is truth. And every one of your righteous judgments endures forever." The entirety of your Word is truth. From the first Word of Genesis 1, 1 to the last word of Revelation 22, whatever the last verse is. The entirety of it is truth.

Every one of God's righteous judgments given to us in black and white endures forever. The spirit of the age, the world's wisdom on this matter, is that truth is whatever is perceived to be truth by the individual So I have a different personal history, a different background that gives me different perceptions about what reality is. And so I have my truth based on my background, my personal experiences, and my perceptions about what has happened and what is happening. So I can have my truth, what I perceive to be true, based on Jason Doe's life from 1970 up until now, my experiences and how I perceive things through that grid of experiences and you can have your truth through that different grid growing up in a different house in a different neighborhood in a different city in different Circumstances going to different schools you based on that grid have a different perception and That is your truth and they can be different. They are different and we don't even need to reconcile them Even though I look at this and say it's this and you look at it through a different grid and say it's that, there's no need to reconcile those things.

Friends, Jesus totally contradicts that notion here. He totally contradicts that notion here. I thought this note was very helpful. It was out of the ESV study Bible. Let's listen to this note out of the ESV Study Bible.

The Greek word is surprisingly not an adjective, meaning your word is true, but a noun. Your word is truth. This implies that God's Word does not simply conform to some other external standard of truth, but that it is truth itself. That is, it embodies truth, and it therefore is the standard of truth against which everything else must be tested and compared. Just think about that for a minute.

What that note from the ESV Study Bible is saying. It's saying, it's not an adjective, your word is true. You could say that, that would be a true statement. God's word is true, but that's not what Jesus is praying here. He prays, Your word is the noun, truth.

Meaning that the Word of God isn't simply consistent with something else that it conforms to. It is the something else. It is the standard of truth that the other things must conform to. It isn't true. It is truth.

The eternal standard of what is good and what is not good. Does it matter? Well Isaiah says, woe to those who call good evil and who call evil good. That's happening today. Well how do you know If you don't have an eternal, unchangeable standard revealed by one who knows, how do you know?

There is solid ground for me. It is outside of me. It is external to me. And so it is free from the self-deception that the scriptures so frequently warn me of. How many times do the scriptures name this as the human frailty that we are prone to deceive ourselves based on our own interests and our interests are warped since sin came into the world.

So Disney princesses sing that you should trust your heart. The Bible sings a different tune. That You should trust the Word of God and you should train your heart by the Word of God because it is external to you and it is a standard that never changes from a source that knows what's true, that knows what's good and evil. So you don't find yourself through self-deception calling evil good. We're face to face with this at the abortion clinic anytime you go out there.

The world is saying that's good, the Bible is saying that's evil. And God says woe to you for doing that. Friends, there is solid ground for you to build your life on. We're all betting our life on our worldview. You got that, right?

You understand the implications. We all have a framework that we're using to navigate by and you're betting your life on the framework. So you let the Disney princesses and princes go their way and trust their heart. You trust the Bible if you want to build on solid ground. This is why Paul told Timothy to preach the word in 2 Timothy 4.

Because the last thing you need is my latest thinking on a subject. You need something that comes up out of eternal, objective, unchanging truth. The Bible says you have that. The Bible isn't true, it is truth. It is the standard that everything else must conform to if God is God and has revealed Himself in this book.

That's the claim. There is a God in heaven and He has not left Himself without a witness, but He's actually given us black and white truth. Words on paper. We are people of the book. That's such a comfort.

That's such a comfort. That means you're not at the mercy of me and I'm not at the mercy of my thoughts, other people, external. We can always go back to the book. I'm expendable. Every preacher in the history of the world is expendable except Jesus, because he was preaching Jesus.

You can replace me tomorrow. I praise God for that. Applications, I have three. Number one, treasure your Bible. Use your Bible.

Don't take for granted your Bible. It is truth. We need to be training our minds with the Bible. You're born with a bent away from God. And when you're justified, sanctification begins.

The moment of justification happens and then you begin the life long process. Part of that process is renewing your mind by the word of God. If You don't treasure your Bible, you don't use your Bible, you do take your Bible for granted. You're not being transformed in the renewing of your mind. And you leave yourself open to massive risks of self-deception.

You're left with trusting your heart, an uncalibrated heart. Number two, Christians are not the termination point for Jesus' saving work. I'll say that again. Christians, people who trust in Christ, real life Christians, people who trust in Christ, are not the termination point for Jesus' saving work. What am I saying?

Let me ask a question. How did the gospel get to you? Well, Jesus gave it to eleven born-again men. But they weren't the termination point for His saving work. He sent them into the world.

He called them out of the world. He kept them and entrusted them to His Father. And then He sent them back into the world to save more sinners. Who were sent back into the world to save more sinners. Who were sent back into the world to save more sinners.

Who were sent back into the world to save more sinners. Who were sent back into the world to save more sinners and somehow the gospel ended up at your house 2000 years later. We're not the termination point. We're never intended to be the termination point. I praise God for my salvation.

But we shouldn't be so full of arrogance that we think God's grand purpose in this is only to save me. And it ends there. It is not. It never has been. He separates out and sends those who he uses to separate out others to also be sent and the beat goes on.

And we should praise God that the beat goes on. Number three. Thank God every day that Jesus set Himself apart for the Father's sacred service. Any ability that we have to engage in work that actually is pleasing to God has its footing only on Jesus setting Himself apart to come into the world to die for sinners. We should thank God every day for that.

He has given us that ground. We can be engaged in the most exciting work in the world. Regardless of your occupation, we're actually not the termination point for God saving work. God wants to use us as a channel for His saving work, and that is the most exhilarating work in life, is to be used of God for the saving of other sinners out of the world from which we were saved out of. Let's pray.

We can start our prayers this way every time. Thank you for Jesus. Thank you for Jesus. He set Himself apart to your good purposes to reach into a sin sick world. To give life to sinners.

Thank you for that. God, I pray that you would Burn it on my conscience that I am not the termination point of your saving work in my life. That you would bring me into the exhilarating work of being a channel of your grace towards sinners. Grace towards sinners, longing to see you reach back into the world that you pulled me out of to save more. I pray that you would allow our eyes to see something that we've never seen, an outpouring of your spirit for the salvation of sinners in our own community.

Thank you for your word. I pray that you would bless it to our understanding. You would move us forward in Jesus' name, Amen.