Text: John 17:11b-19
Title: Guard and Keep
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
We go to great lengths to guard our treasures. We have locks and alarms for our cars. We put our money in banks. We have security systems for our homes. We have safe-deposit boxes for important papers and other valuables.
Nowadays electronic and cyber security is more important than ever. We have systems of passwords and anti-virus programs and multipoint verification protocols that are meant to keep our data and our identity secure.
We invest in all these security systems because we want to guard and to protect what is valuable and important to us. We don’t want someone to steal our car, break into our home, or take our credit card or social security information.
And yet, as hard as we work to keep everything secure, it doesn’t always work. You’ve probably had the experience of having someone hack your credit card or swipe something that belongs to you. Carjackings still happen. And gangs of thieves use ransomware to extort money from corporations and other entities.
It seems like as hard as we try to keep our treasures safe and secure, there’s someone working hard to get them.
The same is true for your very soul.
Satan is constantly searching for ways to steal you away from your Heavenly Father. He is more insidious, more cruel, and more driven than any hacker, thug, or common thief. He will use whatever means possible to steal you away from God.
Satan’s main burglary tools are lies. Satan has been a liar from the beginning, and He still tells lies today.
“You won’t really die,” Satan told Adam and Eve. There won’t be any consequences for your actions.
Satan repeats these same lies over and over again today. “It doesn’t really matter what you do. Do what you think is right. There’s not really a God up there, or if there is, He doesn’t care what you do. He’s a bit of a softy, a pushover. Everyone goes to heaven. So, live your life here and now however you want.”
Satan uses lies to get you to sin against God and other people, to put yourself first and to love yourself more than anyone else.
And once you’ve sinned, Satan keeps on lying. “You’ve done it now. There’s no way anyone could love someone like you. You’re beyond help.”
Satan tries to drive you to despair, to doubt in the love and mercy of God.
That’s how Satan works to steal you away. His lies get inside your head like a computer virus, and it’s so subtle that you don’t even know that he’s there. He’s not a flaming red demon with a pitchfork, who shows up one day and starts talking to you. But he uses the voices of people you trust and admire to tempt you away from God.
It sounds pretty daunting. How can we avoid being caught up in these lies?
Thankfully, we don’t have to face Satan alone. We have Jesus Christ on our side, and He’s the security expert, the best guard you could ever imagine.
In this prayer that Jesus gives in today’s gospel lesson, He says, “While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”
Jesus speaks these words in the Upper Room on Muandy Thursday evening. He’s washed the disciples’ feet and shared His Last Supper with them.
For the past three years, Jesus has kept and guarded His disciples, these 11 men. Over and over again Satan tried to steal them away. He used the attacks of the Pharisees. He used their own internal doubts and questions. He used their rivalries and jealousies. And he used their own preconceived notions of who Jesus was supposed to be. “You really think someone like that could be the Promised One?”
But three years later, there they were, sitting around the table. Jesus has kept them and not lost any of them, unless you count Judas. But Judas’s betrayal was actually part of God’s plan, so Satan can’t even get credit for that one.
That is your promise as well, that Jesus will guard and keep you. He will protect you against all the attempts of Satan to steal you away.
How will He do that?
One way he could protect you would be to just take you out of this world, to remove you from Satan’s grasp.
That’s often what we do with treasures, we lock them up in vaults and keep them as far as possible from danger.
But there is a downside to this. If your treasures are locked away, you never get to enjoy them.
Imagine owning a beautiful diamond necklace, but you’ve locked it away in a bank vault to keep it safe. You never wear it, you never even go look at it, because you don’t want to risk any danger to it.
Imagine owning a gorgeous classic car. Mint condition, runs perfectly, worth a fortune. And so, you lock it up in a garage. You never drive it, never take it out of that garage because you don’t want anything to happen to it.
What good does that necklace do for you? What good does that car do for you? What’s the point in owning it if you can’t enjoy it? You should be able to wear that necklace out to a party, to take that car out for a drive from time to time. That’s their purpose.
And so it is with you.
Jesus could simply take you out of this world, bring you right up to heaven and out of Satan’s reach.
But Jesus says in this prayer, “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”
Jesus doesn’t ask that we be taken away up into heaven, or even locked up in some monastery or commune separate from the world. That’s always the temptation when the world gets more and more evil, isn’t it, just to run away and hide. But that’s not your purpose. That’s not what you were made for.
Jesus says, “As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.”
Jesus doesn’t take the disciples out of the world; He sends them into it.
Jesus doesn’t take you out of the world, He sends you into it.
He sends you to bring light and beauty and joy into this world. Jesus uses you to bear fruit and bring His good news of salvation to the lost and dying.
That’s our call as a congregation, too, not to just retreat here among ourselves, but to be out there in the world bearing fruit. Next Sunday is Pentecost, and we’ll see and hear once more of how the Holy Spirit filled the apostles and used them as witnesses, and we’ll see how that same Spirit continues to work in and through us.
But it’s dangerous to be out there in world, just like it’s dangerous to go out wearing your diamond necklace or driving your classic car.
Just look what happened to Jesus. He was sent into the world, and it cost Him His life.
How can Jesus continue to keep you safe, especially when He’s ascended to God’s right hand?
The answer is simple—through His word.
That’s how we combat every lie of Satan, by the truth of God’s Word. We use God’s Word to judge every message, every idea we hear, every thought that comes into our head, every feeling in our hearts.
Something may sound right to our ears, and seem right to our hearts and emotions, but the only way to know if it is a truth or a lie is to check it against God’s Word.
That is how Jesus guards you and keeps you safe, by giving you His Word.
And as you read and study and listen to that Word, it will change you, it will sanctify you, it will make you holy, because the Holy Spirit will work in you to create and strengthen your faith, to help you to trust your heavenly Father more and more and make it easier to recognize and avoid Satan’s lies.
We confess in the Small Catechism that the Holy Spirit, “has called me by the gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.” The Holy Spirit keeps you, guards you, protects you, and He does all this through the Word of Truth.
We go to great lengths to guard our treasures. You are God’s dearest treasure. He gave His only Son to purchase you. And He continues to guard you and keep you safe as Jesus works in you through His Holy Spirit in His Word.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!