To love him with your whole entire being. That's the product. That's what it produces. That's what eternal life produces in your life. When you experience eternal life in your life, which is knowing God, it produces things through your life. And so how do we get it? How do we get eternal life? Well, Jesus doesn't leave us hanging there either. Jesus tells us how we could come to get it. This is what he says. Look at verse six. Jesus says, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they kept your word. It's very important. When Jesus says, I have manifested your name, Jesus is saying, manifest that reveal. I have revealed the father to you, not just in word, but in deed. I just don't declare who God is. I have shown you who God is so that you can just not read about him and understand him in the mind, but that you can see and perceive who God is. I have manifested the father, Jesus says. And then he goes on to say, and they have kept your word. A way that we experience eternal life or knowing God is by living according to his word. You're like, oh, are we supposed to be legalistic? Are we supposed to have rules and regulations in our life? Well, when God says, hey, this is how you ought to live, and you begin doing it, you begin to understand God a little bit more. You know, growing up, my dad had a lot of rules, and I had to abide by it, or else I'd get that one little eyebrow lift and a little finger motion in this way. Next thing you know, I'm like, crying. Cause my rear end hurts. That's what my dad did, those rules. But as I grew up and as I practiced what he told me to do, I began to understand. My dad isn't a buffoon. He's actually really wise, and he wants good and right things for me. When Jesus says that they have kept your word, that means that's how you get eternal life. Keep his word. You may not understand it, but as you begin to practice it, you begin to understand how God wants you to live. And guess what? That's what's called getting to know God, the creator of you, the creator of this whole entire world, this whole entire life. We have taken our lives, and we're trying to figure it out on our own, and we're trying to execute some kind of wisdom we think is the best way to approach life. God says, no, I created life, and I have given you my word. So that you can practice the true life I've created you to live. And when you do that, guess what? You know me more. You understand the value of life that I uphold in all of the cosmos. When I tell you, don't murder, and you don't murder, like, oh, God loves life. I get it. When he tells you, hey, don't make any other images, because I created you to be my image. You are to image me. Don't make something else. I've already made something to image me, and it's you. Ah, so what? So my life matters. My image matters. I'm displaying something outside of myself. When we practice what God commands us in his word, we understand him more. Not only has Jesus manifested himself the father to us, where we can see and perceive the father, but he's also told us, this might cause a lot of controversy, but there's this thing out here. This has been since day one, since I met Melissa. We have this argument over the five love languages. Okay? The five love languages are there's these five ways that people feel love. Some service, some's words of affirmation, some's gifts, and I can't remember the other ones cause I don't really care. But here is the thing. Here's why I have a problem with it. I'm just leading you guys to think through everything is if you. Your love language is words of affirmation, right? Like you feel most loved when your partner is telling you how amazing you are. It's just words, right? And you don't really care if you get gifts. You just want the words. I guarantee you will not feel any love. If I never gave you a gift, it doesn't work. If I just filled your life with nothing but a bunch of words, you're still going to feel a little depleted of love. And so I argue against the premise of the book because I'm like, no, you need it all. You just don't need to be shown something. You also need to be told something. And that's what Jesus does. He says, not only have I manifested the father so that you can know him and see what he looks like, I've also given you and revealed to you everything I've taught you about him. It's okay to believe and to say with our mouths that God is loving and kind because we didn't create that. He told us he. He is. That it is okay to say God is gracious and merciful. Why? Because he's told us this is a diary that God himself says, I'm going to tell humanity my creation about me, because they really can't understand me, because I'm high, I'm infinite, I'm God. They're not. But I want to use their language. I want to stoop down so that they can know me. And I want to give them my diary. This is why we can say as christians that this word of God has everything we need for life and godliness. Jesus Christ himself has revealed to his disciples who God is, both by word. Indeed, he has declared to us who God is, and he's demonstrated who God is. That's very helpful to live our lives. And this is why you're going to hear me say, and if I could just speak very bluntly, this is my hope as your pastor, is to steer you in this direction the most, to orient you to know and have eternal life from this. That we, that I stir you up to live out your life in Jesus Christ by this, by preaching to you this, by teaching you this, by making sure that everything we do in this church is centered on this. That's if you want to know my motives, that's it. I have really nothing else creative or special for you but this, because this is the thing I found when I've been at my worst, when I've been riddled with sin, when I've struggled in my life. This is the thing that got me out. I don't want to give you a bunch of Bruce isms. I don't want to give you a bunch of worldly knowledge. I don't want to give you a bunch of worldly wisdom that they think they're so high and mighty and smart about, that we often play into their role. I want to give you this and say, are we living according to that? Is everything we're doing directed and guided by God himself as he's revealed it through his son Christ Jesus, because that's eternal life. That's eternal life. If Jesus has prayed for me and for you to have eternal life, this is the way to get it. We have to be a people of the word. So the question becomes, are we a people of the word? How often are you getting the word in you? How often are you sitting and listening and meditating and hiding it in your heart? We're promised in the Old Testament, in the psalms, that if we hide the word of God in our hearts, we will not sin against him. Are we people of the word? Because if we are, then we're going to know more about God, and that gives us eternal life. That's good news. That is good news. And the last one of the other things, not the last thing, unfortunately, I got to keep on going on. So sorry if you're expecting a short sermon, but the other thing that we get is not only has he given us his words, but we learned that when we have eternal life, we're also invited into this family business. Look at verses seven and eight. Now, they have come to know that everything you have given me is from you. For the words which you gave me, I have given to them, and they received them. And truly understand that I came forth from you, and they believe that you sent me. Jesus, right here in verses seven and eight, says, I've given my disciples these ones that I'm praying for right now. They're in the room with them. He just defined what eternal life is. And then he tells the father, they have it. I've told them about you. They've come to know you. They've come to understand it. They've come to believe it. Which answers the question, okay, if eternal life is what Jesus wants me to have, then what is eternal life? And if I. If I can, I have eternal life, how do I get eternal life? And now he transitions, and he says, now they get to have it. If you just hold the understanding that eternal life is living forever, that's something that we get when we get to heaven. Jesus just reframes that for you and says, no, I just told you in seven and eight that my disciples, by definition, have eternal life right now. And so Jesus begins in his prayer to unpack. Well, if we are capable of having eternal life right now, that we can begin having right now, that we can begin knowing God and living according to that knowledge and having eternal life, then how do we experience eternal life? How does it manifest? How does eternal life manifest itself through our lives? When do we get to experience this eternal life? Well, we get to experience it now and later. It's a growing thing because we can never exhaust the knowledge of God. God, when he invites you to come to know him, it is a long, long, eternal process. That's why it's called eternal life. For the rest of your life, eternally, you're gonna get to know me, which means your joy is gonna grow. Your knowledge is gonna grow. Your understanding of why you were created and who you are is going to grow. Your love is gonna grow. You're gonna grow in grace and mercy and love and loving kindness and gentleness and peace. It's gonna continue to grow, and it begins right now. We don't live our lives for something that's just future. We live our lives now. That's the great news. You get to experience eternal life now. And in what ways, what ways, Jesus, do we get to experience eternal life now? In what ways are you praying for your disciples to come to know eternal life now, presently in their lives? Look at verse twelve. While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you have given me, and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so the scriptures would be fulfilled. Having internal life means you get to experience the guidance and the guard of God. Listen to the words of Jesus. He says, I have kept them in your name. I have guarded them. When you come to know God, you come to realize that he is the one. He is the author and perfecter of the faith. He is the one that gives you the faith to believe. He doesn't leave you out there to navigate on your own eternal life knowing God, you come to know that he's very involved in your life and he guards you, he guides you through it. And one of the ways he does that is through this and through his people. That's how you begin to experience eternal life presently, now as you experience the guidance and the guard of the Father, because Jesus was upfront and personal with his disciples, he was right there and he kept them because the father gave his son charge over them. Well now Jesus says, Father, I'm coming to you. So who's going to guard them and keep them? The son knows. Well, the father will do it. The father will do anything I ask. And he's praying that you be kept and you be guarded and that the father would oversee it now that he gets to go back to his father. That's what eternal life knows and experiences. Having experienced eternal life will put you at enmity with the world. Big word, big word. Enmity means attention, opposition with the world. It's what Jesus says in verse 14. I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I'm going to get on a diatribe right now, but it's from this verse that I get on it on my soapbox and that is this is the church. We are the people of eternal life. We are the one who hold and keep the word of God. And by doing so, Jesus himself from his very words says, I have given him my word and the world hates them because it hated me. And I see a pattern in modern day churches like ah, one of those pastors that speak out against other churches, not really, but just in this one manner, is that we try to comfort and cower to whatever the world's pleasures are, whatever their opinion of us might be. Well, we don't want them to think bad of us. Jesus says, they're going to. If you have my word, they're going to hate you. They hated Jesus so much they killed him. I cannot stand before you as an ordained pastor and tell you that every decision I'm going to make is going to be whether or not I cater to that world out there. The decisions that I would have you to be led in, how I would want you to be stirred up by is this. And Jesus says, hey, you're going to be hated. You're going to be sought out. They're going to try to get you to change your mind, and they're going to try to make you redefine what eternal life is. They're going to make you change your mind about how to get to know God. They're going to change your mind on how you should change your service so that somebody that doesn't know God's word can feel more accepted. I'm of the mind, and as I understand it, that Jesus says, no, I've given you my word and you will be hated for it. So stop acting like, hey, get this. I am a person that absolutely does not like it when people hate me. And I have been, oftentimes the person that would cower and succumb to whatever they want me to do just so I can have a likeness from them. But that's cowardly. It's not courageous. We have to be people of the word, and we have to act for the audience of one. That though the world may hate us, do you know who loves us? God. And do you know what company we're keeping if the world is hating us, Jesus, he says, they will hate you, but they also hated me. I would rather be bonded and tied to Christ Jesus than to the world and their opinions of me. We experience eternal life when we experience that enmity, that opposition, that's what happens. That's what we get to experience. We also get to experience eternal life when we overcome the world. See, every time I study the scriptures, Jesus always takes the next step with me, right? He doesn't give me the definition. He breaks that definition down. He tells me some really bad news and uncomfortable news that makes me want to cower in the corner and curl up in the fetal position because the world's going to hate me if I just abide by this. He says, but I've given you eternal life. And if you experience eternal life, I've also given you the power to overcome the world like I have. That's powerful. Jesus says, you're going to be hated. The world's going to hate you, but it also hates me. But guess who overcame the world and overcame death? Me. Listen to what he says in verse 15. I do not ask you, that's father. I do not ask you, father, to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. So you would think like, well, the kind and nice thing to do is if they're going to hate me, take me out of here, put me somewhere else, guard me and guide me like you said you're going to. Don't leave me out here to be tossed to the wolves. See, that's a defeated mentality of the gospel. That's thinking that the world actually has power. That's thinking that actually their hate is actually true and we should fear it. That's not true. Jesus prayer for you is that, no, you're going to stay in the world, dad. Keep them in the world. Jesus says, keep them in the world because I came to the world. Keep them from the evil one, but keep them in the world. And you're like, wow, that's intense, Jesus. I don't know that I can make that I'm not strong enough. And that's where we diminish the gospel's role in our life. That's where we diminish the life of the believer, because not only has he given you eternal life through his word, but by equipping you with God's word, he's also empowered you with the Holy Spirit to execute God's word. And what does the Holy Spirit do? You'll learn more about this if you come back next week on Pentecost. The Holy Spirit empowers your life, emboldened your life to begin living according to God. And that's the life that produces more life. Let me just run through the whole, if you want to get in a nutshell, the Old Testament and the New Testament, and what the major differences is in the Old Testament, you're given a lot of rules to tell you, don't touch this, don't do that, because that's all like death. Don't eat animals that are so close to the ground because the ground is dust and that reminds you of death, don't do that. If you touch something diseased, that disease is going to get on you. And now you're not clean. Death carries around this power of death, and if you go around it, it's going to get on you and it's going to consume you. So God says, don't do this. Don't do that. I'm keeping you from this power of death. But then Jesus shows up, and we're given all these amazing stories of Jesus being touched by lepers, of a hemorrhaging woman, of all these diseased people coming to him. And he doesn't say, don't touch me. You'll make me unclean. He reverses all of what's been happening, and he says, no, I'm the giver of life. Death can't overcome me. I overcome death. So when the death people, the people that are riddled with death in their sickness and leprosy and hemorrhaging, they touch Jesus, the cloak, the hem of his, of his cloak, and they receive life. Jesus flips it all around. You thought death was spreading. Now life is spreading. That's the power you have. That's what the Bible demonstrates and shows. That's the big good news of Jesus Christ, and it's manifested in this in acts. Maybe one day we'll get there. But even the shadows of the disciples start healing people, and that is the imagery of what God wants to communicate to you. When you have eternal life, you have this ability to overcome those who hate you with how love and goodness and loving kindness, because it is stronger than hate. Life overcomes death, and I prove that to you because Jesus is literally right now walking around the heavens looking at all those who are worshiping him today. The power of life spreads, and it spreads faster and stronger than the power of death. You don't have to fear. This is why he says, I sanctify you. He says, in 1718 and 19, I'll just read those three verses. He says, sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. Well, we don't have to get confused there. We know how we become sinful sanctified. It's in the truth, and it's his word. His word is truth, and it sanctifies us. And sanctify is just this big word that means set apart. It's like cleaning and set apart. Like I sanctify a pencil when I write with it, because it was created to be written with. And when I write messages, it's being sanctified. When that message is recorded on paper, that paper is being sanctified. It's being sanctified. It's being used as its original intent. That's what sanctification means, and it also means it's separated. It doesn't blend in with anything else. Being sanctified means you're also separated from everything else in your specific way. You were created to live. And how is it that you are sanctified? It is by the truth, by the word. And he goes on to say, he goes, as, you have sent me into the world, father, you sent me into the world. I also am sending them into the world for their sakes. I sanctify myself that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. So if you just follow the thought pattern here of Jesus, he's saying, like, look, the world hated me because I've given you the word that I proclaim. They're going to hate you, too. But you have the power of eternal life in you, of knowing God. And you knowing God is going to empower you to overcome the world. And how is that you're gonna overcome the world? It's not by looking like them. It's not like acting like them. It's by being sanctified, which comes from the word. And just like I came to the world, just like my father sent me to the world, I am now sending you into the world. Why? What is Jesus, what's the big to do? And what is Jesus trying to accomplish? His prayer? His prayer is, I want you to have eternal life, and I want them to have eternal life. We're sanctified by his word, so we're set apart, and so that we can go and make this world and fashion it back to its true intent. The reason it was created in the first place, to start operating the way that God truly intends, so that your life will now be modeled and displayed in such a way that you are living sanctified. You are finally living, living life as it was truly intended to be lived. And you only get there from here. This is a great example. Again, I'm going to use something that I grew up with in the church. Oftentimes when we're talking about evangelism, we're talking about sharing eternal life, or when we're talking about sharing God's word with others, or when we're talking about being a Christian in the midst of this world, there's this defeated analogy, and I don't have a chair to express this, so you just have to use your imagination. Is that a lot of times the youth pastor would get up on a chair and represent Christianity, and then he would say, like, you see, oftentimes we're trying to pull people up to us, but it's so easier to pull us down. And that's why christians fall down back into the world. It doesn't work. And as I got to know God a little bit more in his word, I'm like, that is the dumbest illustration I've ever heard in my life. It minimizes the power of the gospel and the holy spirit. Christians do stand up and rise above like Christ does. They do. If you want to use the chair analogy, they stand on that chair and they are called to pull people up, but not in their own strength. The reason why you're falling back down is because you're using your own strength. You're not using the power of the spirit. What does the power of the spirit does people. So if you're reaching down and offering eternal life to others in your own strength, you're not going to be able to pull them up out of the pit that they find themselves in. You have to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. And there's nothing that can hold someone empowered by the Holy Spirit down. The grave did not hold Christ down. He rose and broke out of that grave and lives forever. How? Power of the Holy Spirit. How do you get the power of the Holy Spirit? By believing and knowing God. And he just gives it to you. He says, we're going to be together. I want you to have eternal life. I often refer to this, this going because Jesus said, I'm sending them into the world with this power that I've given them that comes with having eternal life, which is knowing my dad and knowing that I'm sent as the family business. This is what the family business is. The family business of the father and the son that they started is by redeeming fallen man who cannot save themselves. The family business says, hey, son, I need you to go. There's some things I need you to do, things I need you to speak about, things I need you to accomplish. And I want you to go and I want you to pick twelve guys. I want you to pour your life into them, tell them everything that you've heard from me. Give them eternal life. And this prayer that Jesus is praying is like, I've done it, dad. I've told them about you. I've given them your word, I've shown them who you really are. I act like you, I've given them your word that you've told me they have eternal life. And now I'm sending them into the world because I'm coming back home. But the family business has to keep going and I've asked them to carry it on, to take the eternal life that I've given to them and take it and give it to the rest of the world. And you were a product of the family business. Whoever shared the gospel with you comes off the back of all the disciples did. In the book of acts, the church is built on the apostles teaching. This is why at the day of Pentecost, when the church was initiated and birthed, they began meeting in homes frequently. To do what? To pray and commit themselves to the apostles teaching. What's the apostles teaching but that which they have learned from Christ that he says, I've given to them right here. And so we too commit ourselves to the apostles teaching or Christ's word. And then we go out and we carry on the family business. The family business is dispensing eternal life. Come and know me. God is inviting us to know him and to experience eternal life and all its benefits. And we are the ones who keep it, and we are the ones who go and share it. There's a couple other things that I want to say in closing about this family business and eternal life. There's two characteristics that I want to point out, actually. One, I've already talked about the family business. But the last one, I guess I would say, comes in verse 21, that they may all be one, even as you, father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. Eternal life brings people together. It presents unity. It's not divisive if you need a measuring stick on whether you're living more into eternal life or more like the world, the world divides because its master is the prince of the power of the air, Satan himself. He causes division because he hates unity. Eternal life breeds in us unity. And Jesus points this out in his prayer when he says, dad, you and I are tight. Let them be tight with us. So all of us, this family business that we're about is fruitful and multiplies. So Jesus has prayed for you that you might have eternal life. I find it interesting that he's standing in the room and he's praying for them but in front of them. And there's this point in his prayer where you get mentioned because he prays for all those that his disciples will influence, which traces all the way down to us. So Jesus prays for you, but do you hear it? The father heard it, but do you hear it this morning does the prayer that Jesus offers on your behalf for you will you have eternal life? This morning. Will you come to know and begin orienting your whole life to knowing God the father and the one whom he has sent? Maybe you already claim to have eternal life just like the disciples. No, I know that. I understand it, and I believe it, and I trust in it. How are you growing in eternal life? How are you growing in sanctification? How is the world hating you right now? Hated. Jesus should be at some level hating you. If you're really about eternal life, how are you working in the family business? These are things that eternal life produces in us. This is how we experience more eternal life. So those are questions that you should be wrestling with in your life. We're meant to be growing in eternal life. Are you growing in eternal life? Let's pray. Jesus, I just thank you for this prayer of yours. I thank you that it was recorded down for us to read, to remind us of how much you care for us and what it is that you find of most importance for our lives. That we know the Father and know you. May we take these words of yours, this prayer of yours, and may we listen to it, hear it and do it and seek it out for you. Promise us if we seek and ask for eternal life, to know the Father and to know you, you will grant it to us. I pray if somebody does not know you this morning, that they would come to know you, begin their journey of knowing you. And to those who do know you, I pray that you embolden them, that you encourage them and employ them to the family business. I pray that you would fill this church with your holy spirit, that we can spread life like a blanket over this community and over the world so that life spreads to life and it cancels out and conquers and overcomes death. And I pray this all in your precious name, Jesus. Amen. Respond to this word as the Holy Spirit is prompting you to respond.