In yesterday’s teaching we looked at the four requests of Jesus in His prayer as recorded in John 17. We saw that Jesus prayed that He would be glorified, that we would be kept from Satan, that we would be sanctified, and that we would be one.

We had some distractions to contend with yesterday, so I want to back up and mention something about John 17:17 “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth” that I believe is very important for us to know in order to help us not get sidetracked in our search for truth.

I think it is worth keeping in mind that followers of Jesus Christ are set apart only as they are in the word of God and not by getting sidetracked with extra-biblical sources in a search for truth.

We are sanctified by the word of God because it is all about the Lord Jesus Christ who is the truth (John 14:6). In fact, John 5:39 says “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

We are not set apart by any other means. Some seek to be sanctified by knowledge in the sciences or spiritual journeys of others, and while we believe in knowledge of the scientific and spiritual journey’s, they are not the truth that saves. No one comes to God by any other means except Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5).

Some seek to be sanctified by finding the “true” church or by attempting to retrace the purest historical route from God to man through ancient groups and genealogies, but that sanctifies no one for the Kingdom of God. Jesus is the only way of study not the past laws and genealogies (Titus 3:9).

Some seek to be sanctified by the practices of religious traditions as a means of gaining insights or instruction into living a sanctified life to the letter of laws or regulations, but that rejects the work of God in Christ. We are saved by grace trough faith, not by our religious practices (Ephesians 2:8-9).

We must simply remember that the sanctified life is one that walks by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7) and that is a life that seeks to grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18), it is a life sanctified by faith in the truth of the word of God.