Today’s message is entitled “Authentic Christianity.” This is a subject that I feel very strongly about, and I believe the Lord feels very strongly about it as well. The meaning of “authentic” is of undisputed origin, genuine, true, the real deal. And as we study John’s gospel I believe this theme is emphasized over and over again. I believe authentic Christianity is very important to God. And so it should be very important to us.

God doesn’t want superficial Christianity. He is not interested in lip service. He is not interested in rituals and ceremonies and observing holy days which are supposed to honor the Lord, but in reality act as a facade for carnal hearts. In fact, Jesus said to the church of Laodecia in Revelation 3:15, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth. Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and that the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent.”

Now that’s some pretty harsh talk for a bridegroom to say to His bride, is it not? And yet this is how the Lord feels about superficial, sanctimonious Christianity that is not truthful with Him. David said in Psalm 51:6, “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.” God cares about the integrity of His people. Truth is important to God. The word truth is used in the Bible 201 times. And in the book of John it is used 26 times.

Jesus said in John 3:33 that God is true. He said in John 14:6 that “I am the way, the truth and the life.” He calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth in John 14:17, John 15:26, and John 16:13. And He says the word is truth in John 17:17. I would suggest that God cares about truth. He cares about authenticity. And so He cares that we walk in the truth. (2John 1:4) So without question it is important to God.

And truth is important to me. It’s the reason that I preach the gospel. It is because of a desire to know the truth, and that the truth would be known. Many of you are familiar with my story. But for those that aren’t – I am a preacher’s kid. Preacher’s kids have it tough for a whole host of reasons that I won’t elaborate on today. But be that as it may, as a genre we are notorious for rebelling and going astray. And I was no exception. My dad had been an Army sergeant in the paratroopers before he got saved, and he brought us up by very strict standards. So by 21 or so I had decided to leave home and try to find out if the world was as fun as it looked. Long story short, I ended up getting as far away from my dad’s ministry as I could get. I ended up in Redondo Beach, California. After many years, I realized one day that I couldn’t remember the last time I had gone to bed sober. I had explored all of the deviant pleasures that the world had to offer and still ended up unsatisfied and miserable. And along the way, my love for God had become so cold I wasn’t even sure anymore what I believed.

To add to my problems, I had been dating a girl that was a Seventh Day Adventist. And in the process of discussing religion with her, I found that many of the things that I thought to be true about Christianity I really did not have any basis for believing, other than that was how I had been raised. Which caused me to have serious doubts about what was really the truth. And so one day all of this culminated in a bout of some serious soul searching. I became under conviction of the Holy Spirit. I knew I needed to get right with God, but I spent all day walking the beach, trying to shake it off. Eventually though, God got me alone in my garage that evening, and I began to pour out my heart to the Lord and ask for forgiveness and express my need to have Him take over my failed life.

Especially though because of the questions I had developed due to the exposure to Seventh Day Adventism, I wanted to know the truth. And so I prayed to God that if He would show me the truth, I would do it. Even if it meant that everything I had been raised to believe was wrong, I wanted to know the truth. And I asked God to show me.

I had always heard that when someone comes to the Lord he should read the book of John. And so after I threw away my drugs and alcohol and cigarettes, I found a Bible which somehow I still hadn’t lost, and began reading the book of John. And a couple of hours later or so, I came upon this verse we are looking at in our text today. Verse 13; “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.” I believe the Holy Spirit specifically illuminated that phrase, “He will guide you into all the truth…” And I have been pursuing that truth for 30 years now.

So I believe God wants authentic Christians. Jesus said in John 4:24, “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” To that end, God has given us the Spirit of truth, so that we might worship Him as He wants to be worshipped.

I saw a lady’s bumper sticker the other day in the parking lot of the post office, and it said, God is too big for one religion. But such a definition of God must require that this big God doesn’t care how He is represented. He must not care how we worship Him. That He has not declared who He is. But that belief offends the very concept of God. God has declared who Himself to the world in the person and words of Jesus Christ, who said they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.

The concept of truth has various dimensions, depending on how it is used. But as it relates to worshipping God, to being a disciple of Christ, Jesus indicates that truth is progressive. Jesus said in vs.12, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth.”

What Jesus is indicating there is that the disciples had a limited capacity to understand the truth. They were still struggling with the basic truths of the gospel as He had been teaching them. The commentator Ellicott said, “The revelation of Christ is not an imperfect revelation which the Holy Spirit is to supplement. It is a full revelation imperfectly received, and His office is to illumine the heart, and bring home to it the things of Christ.”

So for the disciples to understand fully the truth of God, God had to give them a Helper to illumine their hearts and lead them to the truth. And He did that through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of authenticity. His ministry in the life of a believer is like the seal that is placed on an item that guarantees it as being authentic, the real deal. Ephesians 1:13
speaks of that seal, saying, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”

So as the disciples come to believe truth of Christ, and trust that truth and act upon it, then they will be capable of receiving more truth which will be administered through the Spirit of truth.

That principle of progressive truth is taught throughout the scriptures. Psalm 119:105 says, “Your word is a lamp to my feet, And a light to my path.” What that teaches is the nature of truth. A lamp in those days was a oil burning lantern. It did not shine a beam of light like a flashlight. But it cast a glow a few feet in front of you. So that is the nature of truth. It is revealed as we walk in it. As we are obedient to the truth revealed at that step, God will reveal the next step. As so we walk in the truth, step by step.

But He is also indicating that they will receive another teacher of the truth. As He has been their teacher for 3 years, now has come the time when He is going to be handing off their discipleship to another teacher who will take them to another level of truth. At this point, Jesus has taken them as far as they can go. They are not able to bear the next level of truth at that point. And the reason is that they haven’t yet proved, or tested that truth.

For instance, all that Jesus has taught them concerning Himself, His divinity, His death and resurrection, has not reached the full level of comprehension. But as the next few days unfold, they will witness His death, they will witness His resurrection, and they will receive the Holy Spirit. Those events will exponentially increase their level of comprehension. It’s one thing to believe Christ is God in theory. But when they see His resurrected body those theories will be proven to be actionable truth that God will build upon through the guidance of the Spirit.

That is the idea that Jesus was expressing in the quote from Revelation to the church at Laodecia I mentioned earlier. Jesus said, “I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich.” There is truth that is refined by the fire of experience, or refined by the fire of persecution or trial that proves the truth of the scriptures in a way that enables us to take the Christian walk to the next level. It is possible to learn a biblical principle, but then God will cause events to transpire in such a way that it tests your faith in that principle, so that you will really come to comprehend it. And that testing then increases your faith.

But the main point Jesus is making is that He is ending His time with them as a teacher, and He is handing over that responsibility to the Holy Spirit who will continue to lead them and guide them as He had done for the last 3 years.

Notice how Jesus describes the Spirit. He calls Him the Spirit of truth. In fact, three times Jesus refers to the Spirit as the Spirit of truth. (John 14:7, John 15:26, and of course now in 16:13) Now that’s important because it stresses the principle that the Holy Spirit will always act in accordance to the truth. Nothing that claims to be of the Spirit should ever be relied upon if it is not in accordance with the truth of God’s word. That is how we can recognize it as of the Spirit. We may have some kind of experience which we think is spiritual, but if it doesn’t agree with the revealed truth of God in scripture, then it must be dismissed as a false spirit. John said in 1John 4:1, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” So you can test the spirits by the word of God. The Bible is the revealed truth of God.

He also is called the Spirit of truth because He is the means of God conveying the truth of scripture. Peter said in 2Peter 1:20, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” And Paul also in 2Timothy 3:16 says, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” Inspiration means “God breathed.” And it’s interesting that the word in Greek for spirit is pneuma, which means breath of air. So the scripture is breathed by God through the Holy Spirit to the agency of human writers. That is why He is called the Spirit of Truth.

And in this description of the Spirit’s ministry, once again Jesus refers to this principle we mentioned earlier of progressive revelation. He says “He will guide you in to all the truth.” To guide is to lead. Sort of like leading someone by the hand. It is not a once and done operation. But continually being filled with the Spirit’s leading, by being yielded to the Spirit’s teaching.

So then it is proper that there is a period of infancy in the Christian walk. After all, we are first born again by the Spirit. But then we are to walk in the Spirit, and grow in the Spirit. It is proper to have a time when you feed on the milk of the word, but there should come a time when you begin to eat meat. When you grow into maturity.

The disciples were at this point only able to receive milk. They couldn’t handle the meat because they were not mature. The same situation was seen in Corinth, and Paul reprimands the church there because they should have graduated by this time to solid food, but they had not. 1Cor. 3:2, “I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able.” Why? Because they were still carnal. They had not grown into maturity in Christ.

Listen, we are called to grow up in maturity and stature in the Lord. We are to be conformed to the image of Christ. That involves being trained in righteousness, learned in sound doctrine, and practiced in godly works. That is what the Spirit wishes to lead us into, and it is incumbent upon us to yield to His leading. We need to be obedient to the truth revealed thus far, and as we do that He will guide us into all the truth. Far too many Christians have accepted the basic truth of Christianity so that they are saved, but that is as far as they have gone. And as a result the church today is carnal, worldly, and ineffective. Being filled with the Spirit is being yielded to what the Spirit says through the word.

Now the other way we can authenticate the Spirit of truth, is because Jesus says “He shall not speak of His own initiative.” In other words, He doesn’t speak of Himself. He speaks the words of Christ and glorifies Christ in all He does. Jesus uses the same method to determine the Spirit’s truth just as He validated the truth of His own words. Jesus said in John 14:10 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” And in the 8th chapter, Jesus says that His words are the words of God, and that He does not glorify Himself but He glorifies God.

So by the same standard of truth He says the Spirit is true. Because He does not speak on HIs own initiative. In other words, there is one source for truth and that is God. And all the trinity is unified because as Jesus speaks the words of the Father, so the Spirit speaks the words of Christ. They are in harmony with one another.. And I would add that they are in harmony with scripture.

It’s important to note that Jesus teaches us that truth is not by man’s discovery, but by divine revelation. Jesus says in vs.14, “He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.” We don’t need to go seeking truth on a mountain, or through some guru, or by some vision. Truth is revealed to us through the revelation of God in the Bible, and the Holy Spirit illuminates our minds for us so that we might understand it as we believe it and are obedient to it.

I would like to make one more comment about vs.13 before we move too far from it. And that is the truth, or all the truth, as Christ speaks of. What is this truth? It is not all truth, as some translators have it. For the Holy Spirit does not reveal to us the truth of chemistry, or the truth of Algebra, or things of that nature. We do not become supreme experts on all truth by the power of the Holy Spirit. But we are guided into all the truth. All the truth of life, and what pertains to real life from God.

That is the truth of the gospel. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me. So to be guided in all the truth is to be guided to way of life from God. God is the source of life. He holds all life in His grasp. Nothing exists without Him or can exist outside of Him. And Jesus came to show us the way to God, the way to the source of life. That way is through coming to believe in the truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ.

That’s what I mean by saying authentic Christianity. Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” God’s way is through Jesus Christ. And His way leads to life. Abundant life. Eternal life. Authentic life. It doesn’t concern itself with putting on a religious front.

Authentic life is not a self righteous life. Authentic life is not religious superficiality. Authentic life is rooted in the truth. The truth that mankind is fallen and cannot have fellowship with God. The truth that Christ came to die for sinners, so that our sins might be forgiven and reconciled to God. Authentic life believes the truth and have been made free from the penalty of sin and the power of sin. And so we commit ourselves to the truth. We aren’t concerned about superficial, emotional based, feel good Christianity without regard for the truth. Authentic Christianity realizes that we are all fallen people and that we need to know the truth to be free from the snares and traps of Satan. We know we have to stay engaged in the truth to all of our ability. The devil wants to convince you that you can live life in neutral spiritually. That is a lie of Satan. Jesus said I wish you were either hot or cold. Authentic Christianity requires staying hot. Staying the course, regardless of the trials. Persevering. Even suffering. But all the while believing that this way is the truth and it requires our daily commitment to it if we are going to succeed as God would have us to.

I would like to end with a story from Genesis chapter 24 as a way of illustrating this ministry of the Holy Spirit and summing up His purpose for us. You may remember in Genesis 24 there is the story of Abraham obtaining a bride for Isaac his son, and there is an unnamed servant, who is sent far away to Abraham’s distant relatives in order to find a bride for Isaac. In this story, Abraham allegorically represents the Father, and Isaac of course represents Jesus, and the servant represents the Holy Spirit. So it says Abraham sends out this unnamed servant who is to find a wife for his son. It’s interesting the servant doesn’t have a name. He has a title, but not a name. So the unnamed Spirit or the unnamed servant goes on this journey and comes to a well where a girl comes and waters his camels. And there he is led by the Lord to Rebecca, who is the one whom the Lord has chosen to be the wife of Abraham’s son.

Later that day they gather around the table as they are getting ready to eat and the servant of Abraham says, “I will not eat anything until I have told you my business.” And with that he begins to tell of the glories of Abraham and the son. He says, “My master is a great man. He’s been made great, and furthermore he has given everything that he has into the hands of his son. And I’m here to obtain a bride for the son.”

Well that is exactly what the Holy Spirit does in his work of glorifying Jesus Christ. He glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, and through his ministry He teaches us the truth of Christ, so that we might be joined to Christ as His bride, the church. As Jesus says in vs.14-15, the Spirit takes the things of Christ and discloses them to us so that we might be a fit bride of Christ. So that we might be taught the complete knowledge of Christ. So that we might be conformed to Christ. So that we might be matured in Christ, so that we might do the works of Christ, that one day we might be glorified with Christ. And He does that through leading us and guiding us in all the truth that is necessary for life and godliness.

Ephesians 5:25 says, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” This is the ministry of the Spirit of truth, to present us to Christ, even as Abraham’s servant presented Rebecca to Isaac.

At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus said in vs.1, “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.” He has given us a guide to keep us from stumbling. To present us faultless, without spot or wrinkle, that we might be the glorious church of Christ. That is the ministry of the Spirit of truth. To lead us and guide us into all the truth, so that we might not stumble. So that we might be found a fit bride at Christ’s return. Let’s pray.

Jesus said in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.” So Jesus is the way to God, He is he truth of God, and He provides life from God to those who believe in Him. This is the gospel in a nutshell. You either believe the truth as presented in Christ, or you don’t believe the truth, and what you are believing is a lie. That’s the choice that we have; believe the truth, or believe the lie of the devil.

Now to those who have believed that Jesus is the truth, and have accepted that all that He said and taught is the truth, they have received life as a gift from God. God recognizes their faith in His Son, and bestows upon them His grace, whereby their sins are forgiven, and they receive the life of God; spiritual life, eternal life, abundant life.

The disciples represent the first of those who believed in Christ. They believed in Him, that His words were the truth of God, the very words of life. Peter said in John 6:68, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” So they became saved as a result of their belief. They received spiritual life. And so as we have studied the Upper Room Discourse over the last few weeks we have learned that Jesus has been talking to them in the last hours before His death about that life and what it will look like, and what will be the experience of it.

Jesus in these 4 chapters has talked about the fruit of the spiritual life, which we learned is to be like Him. He has talked about the works of spiritual life which He said is to love one another. He has talked about the persecution they could expect in this spiritual life. He has talked about the reward of the spiritual life. And interwoven throughout this entire discourse, Jesus has talked about the source of spiritual life, which is the Holy Spirit.

And what I would like to do to start our discussion of the Holy Spirit today is to read all the things that Jesus has to say about the Spirit of God. Because as John records it, it is interspersed over 3 chapters and sometimes we can lose sight of all that Jesus was saying because we don’t read this discourse in sequence. Some of these we have studied, some we haven’t. But I think as we look at these statements sequentially we can begin to tie all of this together this week and next week into one comprehensive doctrine concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. There is a sequence in Jesus’s statements that build one upon another, which is evident as you look at them together. So Jesus starts in chapter 14:16, saying: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

Then in John 14:26 Jesus says, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Then in John 15:26 He says, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

And now in John 16:7 we read, “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment;
concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”

And the last statement Jesus makes is in John 16:13 “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

I believe the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is one of the most important doctrines in the gospel, and yet it is often the most misunderstood doctrine in the church today. I wish I had time to go line by line of each of those references, but we don’t have that luxury this morning. However, you can go to our website and look back over my sermons on each of those texts and put them all together if you like. But one thing that I must point out and that is that Jesus says in vs.14 the Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus Christ. That in and of itself disqualifies a lot of stuff that is represented out there as the work of the Holy Spirit. If it does not glorify Christ, then it isn’t of the Spirit, and it is not of God. There are deceitful spirits working in the church as well, so we are told to test the spirits. We know the Spirit of Truth because the Holy Spirit does not glorify Himself, but He glorifies Christ.

Spurgeon said it this way; “To begin, then, the HOLY SPIRIT IS OUR LORD’S GLORIFIER. I want you to keep this truth in your mind, and never to forget it; that which does not glorify Christ is not of the Holy Spirit, and that which is of the Holy Spirit invariably glorifies our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now notice that Jesus identifies the Holy Spirit with two different titles which help us to understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He calls Him the Helper, which in the Greek is “parakletos”. “Parakletos” means to come alongside. That is what is meant by Helper. He comes alongside us to help us, to guide us and teach us. And the second title Jesus uses is the Spirit of Truth. I really like that title in particular. Because it teaches us the nature of ministry of the Holy Spirit. He helps us not by some feeling, or through some experience, but by revelation or explanation of the truth. He does that in two ways; first He authored the scriptures. 2Tim. 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” And in 2Peter 1:21, it says, “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” So the Spirit of Truth is the author of the scriptures. And in the New Testament, that was through the apostles, whom Jesus tells in John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” That revelation of Christ through the Spirit was written down for us in the New Testament. And I believe that revelation in that sense has been completed. I don’t think the Bible teaches that revelation is ongoing. However, the Spirit does reveal the truth of revelation. Which is the second work of the Spirit of Truth.

So secondly, the Spirit of Truth works by revealing to us the truth as contained in scriptures. He illuminates our minds and hearts so we can see the truth of God. He shows us and guides us through the scriptures. John 16:13 says, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth… and John 16:15 says, “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” Notice that the Spirit takes the words of Christ and discloses it to us. That is the premier work of the Spirit. To help us understand the scriptures.

Now as we continue in this week’s text Jesus gives us a further elaboration on the nature of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has just finished telling the disciples of the hostility of the world towards them. And yet their response to that hostility, even in the face of persecution is that they will show the love of God towards the enmity of the world, and thus reflect Christ to the world. He tells them that the way they will be able to do this in the face of hostility will be through the power of the Holy Spirit. In 15:26, Jesus says the Spirit will testify of Me, and you will testify also. That is how we love the world.

Now in vs.7, He says it is to their advantage that He goes away, because then He will send the Holy Spirit to them to come alongside of them, to help them. That is such an understatement it’s easy to just pass right by it. But Jesus did not come to earth for His advantage, but He came for our advantage. He suffered and died for our advantage. Such a great principle. So in like manner He is dying, He will leave earth for our advantage, so that He might send the Spirit of Truth to lead us and guide us, wherever we are, however many of us there are, no matter what age we live in. It’s to our advantage to receive the Spirit, because then He will be in us, and be with us forever.

Now as we come to vs.8, it is a common misinterpretation to look at those verses without the context of vs.7. The common mistake is to take those verses to mean the Holy Spirit’s ministry to the world. But that is not what the context tells us. Looking at vs.7 more carefully, we see that Jesus doesn’t say He is sending the Holy Spirit to the world, but that He is sending the Spirit of Truth to the disciples. And the disciples are sent to the world. Vs.7, “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”

Now that’s an important distinction. Because some have erroneously interpreted vs.8-11 as something that is only true about unbelievers. As if to say that conviction of sin is not something that pertains to Christians. But that is not actually what is being talked about here. What Jesus is talking about, is that the Spirit of Truth will come to the disciples, and through the disciples He will convince the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment.

I want to spend the rest of our time explaining this testimony of the church to the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment as enabled by the Holy Spirit. But first, let’s consider the word which is translated as convict, or concerning, depending on your translation. The Greek word is “elegchō”. And there are several different ways this word has been translated. In some other places in the Bible it is translated as rebuke, or reprimand, or expose, or reprove, and of course, convict. Some commentators seem to think that it would be better interpreted as convince. The distinction then being to convict is to bring a charge of guilt, whereas to convince is to persuade someone of the truth of a certain matter. I believe convince is more in keeping with what Jesus is teaching here. He isn’t charging the disciples to convict the world, though that may happen as a result of their preaching the gospel. But He is telling the disciples that through the Spirit of Truth they will convince the world of the truth, so as to enable them to fulfill their ministry, which is to go into the world and make disciples.

The Bible does say in 2Tim.2:25 that God grants repentance to the sinner. But that is not necessarily the primary thing Jesus is talking about here as we will see. He is talking about the disciples testimony to convince the world in regards to the truth of the gospel. The Holy Spirit will give conviction through the disciples words as to the truth of what they are preaching.

So the Spirit of Truth works through the disciples to produce three things in the world. First, He convinces the world of sin. Note that Jesus does not say, “of sins.” The point He is making is not enumerating individual, particular sins. He is talking about sin in general. And John records Jesus’s explanation of that sin in vs.9, “concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.”

The Lord is saying that the sin is that they do not believe in Him. In other words the essence of sin is not what we do. The essence of sin is what we believe. And when we do not believe in the Lord Jesus that is the root of all sin. For example; when Eve sinned it was not just that she ate of the forbidden fruit. It was that she chose to believe the serpent rather than God. That was the root sin, the eating of the fruit was just an extension of that. The sin took place in her heart as she turned from belief in God to believing in the word of the serpent.

For instance, immorality is sin, but sin is the root of immorality. The reason men do the various acts of evil, whether it be adultery, murder, thievery, burglary, et cetera is ultimately because they do not believe. They sin in the heart by rejecting the truth and believing the lie. And as Jesus is the truth personified, they consequently reject God. They do not believe what He has said concerning life, and have chosen to believe something else.

That’s why in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that if you lusted in your heart you were guilty of adultery. If you hated, you were guilty of murder. Sin finds it’s root in the heart. In belief or unbelief. In truth or the lie. All of the outward expressions of sin such as addiction or adultery or murder are simply symptoms of the heart’s condition. The person who is the sinner before God is the person who has not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is why our actions cannot be separated from our belief. It is not simply enough to say you believe but your life evidences your faith in the lie of the world. Our actions will reflect what we believe. Our faith is expressed by our actions. Thus James could say, “faith without works is dead.”

When the disciples, or by extension, when the church preaches the truth of Christ, then the world’s unbelief is exposed. Their sin of unbelief is exposed. But also that is the means of convincing them of the truth of Christ. 1Cor, 1:21, “For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.” So we preach the truth of God, either from a pulpit, or from a backyard fence, or from the water cooler at work. We preach the truth of God either by words or deeds and ultimately by both. And that is how we show the world the love of God as well by convincing the world of their sin. Love requires that we expose sin, not condone it. Because until the world is convinced of their sin, they have no recognition of their need for a Savior.

The second aspect of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is that He convinces the world concerning righteousness. And once again, we can run in all different directions on this unless we consider the explanation of Jesus in vs.10, “and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me.” So the Spirit is not convincing the world of their righteousness or the lack of it, but rather, He convinces the world of the righteousness of Christ.

Now what is it about our Lord’s going to the Father that convinces the world of righteousness? Why does it convince the world of righteousness if the Lord Jesus goes to the Father?

I suggest it is because we preach the risen Christ. The resurrection of Christ establishes Christ’s righteousness. The resurrection is unique among all world philosophies and religions. It is a major tenet of our faith. Because the fact that Christ is risen proves the righteousness of Christ. Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost quotes David and says, “You will not allow your Holy One to see decay.” God declared the holiness of Christ before the hordes of hell and the hosts of heaven, and He declares through us the holiness of Christ as we tell the world that Christ is risen from the grave and now sits at the right hand of the Father. We declare the gospel to be true because Jesus was declared righteous by God in that He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of the Father in heaven. And as we show the righteousness of Christ, then we show the standard of righteousness of God. And that standard of righteousness convinces the world of sin, because it shows what counts as righteousness in God’s eyes.

As we preach the gospel, implicit in it is the fact that our salvation is dependent not upon our righteousness, but upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. Titus 3:4-7, “But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

The third ministry of the Spirit of Truth is He will convince the world of judgment. Now the common application there is that He will convince the world of the judgment to come upon sinners. Though Jesus had much to say about hell and the judgment to come, He isn’t talking about the judgment of sinners in hell in this passage per se. But He says in vs.11, “concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.”

Jesus is speaking of the judgment of sin as He looks forward to the cross. The hold that Satan has upon the world will be broken, because Jesus will take the sin of the world upon Himself as our substitute, and He will break the power of sin, and thus judge Satan. In 2Timothy 2:24 Paul speaks of preaching to the world and says, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.” Notice the snare of the devil holds captive those who are lost. And that snare is ignorance of the truth, or a lie substituted for the truth.

John said in 1 John 3:8 that “the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.” He destroys the lie by showing us the truth. So how Christ defeats Satan is by setting free those who Satan has kept captive, and transferring them to the kingdom of God. Colossians 1:13, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” And in Colossians 2:15, Paul declares that the judgment of the ruler of this world(Satan) has been made public at Christ’s resurrection. “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.”

So the Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin, righteousness and judgment through Christ’s transformed people. The world cannot receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We receive the ministry of Holy Spirit, and we are the instruments by which the world is to be brought to the knowledge of sin, righteousness and judgment. And that is to be done through the walk of the Christian, through the witness of the Christian, through the prayers of the Christian, and through the worship of the Christian. We are the reflection of Jesus Christ to the world through our testimony, our preaching, and through our life.

This is an important principle that Jesus is teaching not only to the disciples but to us today as well. And that is this, that God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the wise. He has chosen the branches of the vine to be fruitful. He has chosen to use us to make His gospel known. He has chosen us to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, so that the works of Christ will be done through us.

I’ve said it many times before. When God does a work on the earth, He usually choses to do it through a man. Can God work without man’s participation? Of course. But we have been chosen to be co-laborors with Christ. He has given His Spirit to live in us that we might participate in the Kingdom expansion.

Examples in the scriptures abound. For instance, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship. He had acquired somehow a scroll of the book of Isaiah. He was providentially reading at chapter 53. But God plucked Philip up and dropped him in the middle of the desert at just the right time to bring the man to the knowledge of the truth, and the eunuch was saved.

Could he not have been brought to faith by the word of God alone? Of course. God didn’t need Phillip, but God has in this age generally speaking, determined that individuals come to faith in Christ through the true church of Christ, through the witness, through the walk, through the worship, through the words of believers, so Jesus said, “The Holy Spirit whom I will send to you will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.”

Another example is Cornelius. He was a good man in the eyes of the Jews. He was seeking to know the truth, to know God. And God appeared to Peter in a dream and told him to go to speak with Cornelius. Even on the road to Damascus, God used Ananias to teach and disciple Paul. So right at this very moment he is using me as I hope he uses you throughout this week to be an instrument in the communication of the message of God.

God wants to use you to be His representative here on earth. But He doesn’t give us a job to do without equipping us to do it. And so He has given us a Helper, the Spirit of Truth to be in us, and to be with us forever. We are the conduit, but He is the power of God working in us and through us, as we are being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. I pray that starting today you will testify to the world through the agency of the Holy Spirit, convincing them of sin, and righteousness, and judgment. Convincing them of the truth of God that leads to life.

Christians have been the object of persecution by many nations and many regimes for centuries. In the years following Christ’s death, Nero the Roman Emperor declared Christians to be the enemy of Rome and began an empire wide persecution that if not for the grace of God would have eradicated Christianity. In the nineteenth century the Ottomans massacred about two-and-a-half million Christians. In the twentieth century, it’s estimated that the Soviets killed half a million Christians; and the Germans under Hitler, another quarter of a million. In the last 66 years in China, it is possible that those numbers have been exceeded. One source said that in 2014 alone, 17,800 Christians were persecuted by the communist regime. Christians have been persecuted by the hundreds of thousands all over the planet, from Africa to Spain, from Mexico to Iran, from Japan to India, from Germany to Russia, from France to the Middle East. This is what I would call organized persecution, that is state supported persecution. That kind of persecution was certainly included in this warning from Christ.

There is another, more common means of persecution though that also would have been in His thoughts. This kind does not usually make headlines except in well publicised cases like that of the bakers in Colorado. But it is persecution on a personal level brought about by families, work places, and local people that react to you on some level of antagonism due to your religious beliefs. Jesus warns His disciples and by extension is warning us, that as we are reflections of Him, we can expect that kind of hatred and persecution because they persecuted and hated Him. The more we are like Christ, the more we will find ourselves hated. That’s really ironic, isn’t it? Because you would think that the more you are like Christ, the more the world would like you. But that is not what Jesus is teaching. He is saying that the more you act like Him, the more you teach what He taught, the more the world will hate you.

And the reason is because Christianity purports to be the truth. That’s why it’s hated. That is what Christianity is, by the way. It is believing in the truth as explained and proclaimed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is believing in absolute truth, and thus it brings hatred from every facet of society that feels threatened by the truth. That is why Satan is so opposed to Christianity. Because he is the father of lies, and there is no truth in him. He has organized the world system so that it keeps mankind captive to his lies. He hates the truth because as Jesus said the truth will make you free. Truth frees mankind from the snare and trap of the devil’s lies. So the devil hates the truth, thus he hates Christians who are a living testimony to the truth.

And likewise the world hates Christianity, because it exposes their belief system as a lie. And the world hates to be told that it’s way is a lie. That everything they are working for, everything they believe in and hold dear is a lie. No one wants to hear that.

When I was actively involved in the antiques business, before I became a pastor, I quite often gave appraisals to people. For a while I did it in conjunction with appearing on the Antiques Roadshow. And as a result, people would often contact me for an appraisal of something they had acquired or inherited. When my appraisal agreed with or exceeded their expectations, then things were good. The people were happy, gratified to learn how much their item was worth. But when I had to tell someone that their item was fake, and consequently it was worthless, then they could get very angry at me. They would become defensive, and that would sometimes escalate to anger and even hatred. The reason that had that reaction was usually because they had invested so much in the item. They had bought it at an auction or flea market believing they were getting a great deal and it was really worth a lot of money. So when I threw cold water on their dream, which by this point they are so invested in, their response is to be angry, which often resulted in acting hateful towards me.

The same situation occurs in the world concerning religion. Some people inherit their religion. It’s passed on from parent to child, from generation to generation. So they are quite invested in their religion, and to have it challenged, and have their ancestor’s faith challenged is quite upsetting to them. Others come to their religious beliefs by buying into a plausible sales job by a church that perhaps is a cult. They may have worked at it very hard, and sacrificed a lot for what they perceive to be true. Others have come to their religion or anti-religion because of research and study or science. Regardless of how they come by their religious views, when confronted with orthodox Christianity that purports to be the only truth by which you can be saved, the world not only hates the message, but also it hates the messenger.

So in these last hours before His death, Christ speaks to this fact of Christianity to prepare His disciples for what will occur after He has left them. He wants to prepare them for the reality of continuing His ministry and the animosity that will be towards them. He doesn’t want them to be dismayed at the persecution that is coming, resulting in falling away from the faith. In chapter 16 vs.1 Jesus says, “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.” That means to fall away, or be tripped up in your Christian walk.

Now just to remind you of the context, Jesus and the disciples have left the Upper Room and are walking in the darkness to the Mount of Olives. Jesus has told them He is leaving them soon. Judas has deserted them to betray Him to the authorities. And in these final moments Jesus is reminding them of certain essential things as His last instructions to them. He first reminded them of the importance of their relationship with God, which they should secure by abiding in Him, which really is another way of saying they were to love Him, to draw close to Him. Secondly He reminds them of the importance of their relationship to each other, which is buttressed by His command to love one another. That is the way in which they show their love for God. And now thirdly, He reminds them of their hostile relationship with the world. That relationship will be one in which they are hated by the world. But not so clearly stated is the underlying principle that though the world hates them, they are to love the world. Not to love the system of the world, or the lusts of the world, or the things of the world, but to love the people of the world who are antagonistic towards them. They are to love their enemies. And the way that they will do that is to be witnesses to the world.

Now let’s look specifically at why the world will hate us. Look at vs.18,”If the world hates you, know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.” (John 15:18-20 RSV)

Here Jesus helps us understand the hostility of the world. First, there is nothing personal about this type of reaction. He says, “It happened to me, too.” Jesus experienced hatred and rejection, and yet He was perfect. So one way to diffuse that type of hostility is not to take it personally. Yet I will concede that it can be hard to detach yourself from hatred or rejection or even persecution. I confess that I often find myself faced with rejection or even hatred based on things that I have preached as the pastor of the Beach Fellowship. I could avoid certain subjects that I know are controversial, but I can’t do that in good conscience and be true to the scriptures and what I believe is my responsibility. I do try my best not to offend people. But some people are eventually offended. And some of those people leave the church. And some of those, not all of them, thank God, end up becoming hostile and even hateful towards me. I can easily in those circumstances get a persecution complex. I can end up feeling like their rejection is of me personally. So I have to remind myself that they are not rejecting me, but they are rejecting Christ’s gospel. They are really rejecting Christ as presented in the gospel and redefining His doctrine to suit their agenda. So first, don’t take it personally. Realize that they hated Christ as well.

Secondly, Jesus says persecution comes because you are now a different person than you were. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.” You are different, and the world does not like anything different. The unrelenting pressure of society around us is to conform to the world’s system. And because we do not conform to the world but rather we conform to Christ, we stand in opposition to the world. And that attracts hostility.

There is a you tube video making the rounds about a waiting room situation in which a bell is rung every few minutes. The people waiting who are part of the experiment are told to rise when the bell rings. Then new people are added to the room, one by one. As they sit down, and the bell rings, everyone stands up and they stay seated, looking around quizzically at what is going on. But by the third time, the new person usually joins those standing. More and more people come in, and all follow the same example. Then the reverse happens, and everyone is called out one by one until there is one last person in the room. That person still stands when the bell rings.

I guess that experiment is an example of the herd mentality that is indicative of the human race. Everyone wants to fit in. Those that don’t are pushed out by the herd. In the animal kingdom, we even see the herd sometimes attack and kill a member that doesn’t fit in. So because of our new birth, our new life in Christ, we are no longer of the world. And also implicit in that statement is the understanding that we don’t act like the world, we don’t think like the world, we don’t have the same desires as the world. John expands upon this principle in 1John 2:15 which says, “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.”

Peter also speaks of this principle. In the fourth chapter of his first letter he makes that distinction between the life of a Christian and the life of the world saying; “For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. In all this, they are surprised that you do not run with them into the same excesses of dissipation, and they malign you; but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” We don’t fit in with the world, and so the world hates us. If we’re genuine believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we differ with the world. Jesus said He chose us out of the world. We are plucked out of the world system and given new life, new motivations, new desires. We are put on a different course. We are interested in knowing God, we are interested in spiritual things. We are interested in spiritual life.

As a result, Jesus declares, persecution is to be expected as a part of the Christian life: “Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.” As we follow Christ, we can expect to follow in the sufferings of Christ. In fact, that is the hallmark of our relationship to Christ. Philippians 3:10, “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death.” Paul goes on to say elsewhere that our suffering with Him is a prerequisite for our glorification with Him. Romans 8:17, “and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

As an example to us the saints of old counted it a privilege to suffer with Christ. You will remember the apostles being beaten and jailed for preaching the gospel of Christ and it said in Acts 5:41, “So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for His name.”

And suffer they did. Are you familiar with the end of the apostle’s lives? Do you know that all but the Apostle John were martyred in death? And John had to spend his life in exile on the Isle of Patmos. Steven was stoned to death. James, the brother of John, was beheaded by Herod Agrippa. Phillip suffered martyrdom in Phrygia being scourged, imprisoned and crucified. Matthew was slain with a halberd in Nadabah. James the Less (Jesus’s half brother) was beaten and stoned at the age of ninety-four and finally had his brains dashed out with a fuller’s club. Matthias was stoned and beheaded at Jerusalem. Andrew was crucified at Edessa on a cross with the two ends fixed transversely in the ground. Mark was dragged to death in Alexandria. Peter, according to Jerome, was crucified at Rome under Nero with his head down thinking himself unworthy to be crucified as master. Jude was crucified at Edessa. Bartholomew was crucified in India. Thomas was thrust through with a spear in India. And Simon the Zealot was crucified in Britain. Paul was reported by Ignatius and others to have been martyred by decapitation near the end of Nero’s reign. This is what tradition tell us. But in any case, most of the apostles and those that followed them gave their lives for the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don’t know the extent to which we may be called upon to suffer for Christ. But I know that God has a special place for those that suffer for His name sake. And He has a special grace that He gives according to the measure of the suffering. I believe that. One need only to look at the martyrdom of Steven to know that. God gives a special grace in that time.

A further point Jesus makes concerning persecution is, it is marked by criticism. “If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.” My interpretation is at odds with most commentators at this point, but in keeping with the context of the passage, I believe the idea of the Greek word “tēreō” indicates to observe critically. In a negative context Jesus relates “keeping” in the next verse (21) as something that is included in the phrase “all these things” as because they do not know the Father. If they do not know God, then they will not keep His word as we would normally think of the word “keep”. So then we must interpret the word translated as “keep,” which literally means “to observe,” as better interpreted “to observe critically”, because it results in something Jesus says is characteristic of those that do not know God. So with that context, we can deduce that the persecution of the world will include a critical watching of every word that we utter, in order to find fault, to find something by which they can condemn us. And we know that they did the same thing to Jesus in His ministry. They were continually watching Him to see if they could find something for which to find fault. And finally, at His trial, having failed to find something, they twisted His words, or made up things which they attributed to Him so that they might find reason to kill Him.

So then Jesus explains, their criticism stems from a deeper antagonism towards God. It’s because they hate God. ”But all this they will do to you on my account, because they do not know him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and my Father. It is to fulfill the word that is written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.'” (John 15:21-25)

Jesus identifies the basic cause of this deep-rooted hatred as godlessness. It is because “they do not know Him who sent me.” Any attempt to subvert the truth of God for a lie results in a religion that at it’s root hates God. No matter how noble or plausible it may seem on the surface, if it does not agree with the revealed truth of God, then it is antagonistic towards God. In fact, Paul says in Romans that they hate God. Romans 1:21, “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever.” Paul follows by giving a list of characteristics of the ungodly, in which he lists in vs 30 that they are “haters of God.” That is the root of their antagonism towards Christians.

Now Jesus is speaking specifically of the Jews of His generation, and He says that they are inexcusable because they had heard his words and saw his works. What that means is that when someone is exposed to the truth and still rejects it his condemnation is double. They rejected his words and thus manifested their hatred of His Father. They ignored his works, the works predicted of the Messiah, and so compounded their condemnation. But, Jesus says it was all a fulfillment of prophecy. God knew it would happen. They fulfilled the prophetical word of David in Psalms 69 that said, “They hated me without a cause.”

Notice vs. 24, Jesus said, “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.” Now I want to explain that verse, because it can be misunderstood. It is not saying that some people don’t have sin because they have not seen the works of Christ. The word translated sin there literally means “guilt.” There is a special guilt for those that physically witnessed Christ’s works on Earth and still rejected Him. Guilt is specific to a specific sin, is it not? I am not guilty of murder because I haven’t murdered someone. I am guilty of sin in a generic sense. But I am not guilty of that specific sin. And that is what Jesus is referring to. He is speaking of the specific sin of rejecting Him as the Messiah by the leaders of the Jews. They have a greater condemnation. And I believe the Bible teaches that there are degrees of hell. For to whom much is given, much shall be required. (Luke 12:48)

Thus I believe that those of this generation that reject the truth of God’s word are subject to a greater judgment, because they have the full revealed truth of God in scripture. Our modern society has unequaled access to the scriptures which so many people in the past could never have imagined. We have had more exposure to the truth through preaching and teaching than ever possible in past history. And so Jesus is stressing the principle that there will be a special judgment which correlates to one’s exposure to the truth and yet still reject it.

In the last section, Jesus tells the disciples and by extension tells us what our response is to be to the hatred of the world. It is not an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus had this to say about how to respond to your enemies.

Matt. 5:38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘AN EYE FOR AN EYE, AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH.’ But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

So in light of that teaching, what Christ is saying to the disciples is that they are to return love for hate. The kindness of God leads to repentance. We are to return a blessing for cursing. And we do that by being a witness to the truth. “But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about Me; and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning. I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them.” (John 15:26 – 16:4)

There are four important things to consider here: First, by what means should we respond? “The Spirit is coming,” Jesus promises. For us, of course, He has already come. For these men when he comes, Jesus says, “He will testify about Me.” As you consider the words and the works of Christ, the Spirit of God will bear witness to you of it’s truth and that truth will give you boldness and power. And as you speak the truth of God, the Spirit of Truth will work through it to bring about conviction and repentance in their hearts.

And in his next point He says, “You also are witnesses because you have been with Me from the beginning.” Clearly he is referring to the apostles here, but it also applies to us. How do you witness? You tell someone about what has happened to you, that is all. You testify to what God has done for you, what He means to you, how He has given you a new life. The testimony of a transformed life is the most effective effective witness. And our testimony to a hostile world is evidence of our love for our enemies. That we care enough about them to warn them of their rejection of God, and the impending judgment to come.

We cannot say we love our families, or love our neighbors, or that we love our enemies, if we are silent on the most important issue of their lives. If I had discovered a cure for cancer, and kept it to myself, I would be the opposite of a loving person. My refusal to share the antidote with people who are dying from cancer would show me to be a heartless, hateful person. So it is with our salvation. We must share it with those who are dying without it. Love for our fellow man compels us to share the good news of the gospel.

But the consequence of that love means your witness will result in increased persecution. “They will cast you out of the synagogues. They will kill you and think they are offering service to God.” This was especially true of the first century Christians. Being cast out of the synagogue was specific to the Jews. But the world’s persecution can effect modern Christians in much the same way. Because the synagogue was the center of Jewish culture. It was the center of community. And today it is possible that persecution can sometimes mean being excommunicated or exiled from community. Being a Christian can make you a social outcast. It can separate you from family. It can cause divisions in a man’s own household.

And the final point Jesus makes is: “But these things I have spoken to you so that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.” You are forewarned. Do not be surprised when the world hates you. Again, Peter continues that idea in 1 Peter 4:12: “Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which is coming upon you.” Persecution is part of the process, it is what Jesus said would happen. Let us forget once and for all of this idea of living comfortably in this world, being liked by everybody and having no problems and no hardships. But rather understand as Paul told Timothy that “They that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution,” (2 Timothy 3:12). There is a war going on, but victory is certain.” The way we win this war is to change our enemies into friends. And we do that by telling the truth in love. We love the world enough to tell them the truth, and when they know the truth, the truth will make them free. That’s how we win. Not by retaliation. But through our witness, we testify to the truth of God. And through our witness, we prove our love for our enemies. Even as Christ suffered and died on the cross as evidence of His love for the world, even while they were hating Him, so as His disciples we must suffer the hatred of the world for the sake of winning them to Christ. That is love. And that is what we are commanded to do.

The most desired ambition of the popular culture is that of love. Love is the theme of more songs, more books, more poetry, more art and more movies than any other theme. And I believe this is so because it is the most essential need of the human condition. It is as fundamental to life as food and water, if not more so. God declared at creation that it was not good for man to be alone. It is an essential component of the human psyche. Everyone wants to know love.

However, human nature is not satisfied with unrequited love. Neither does this need find fulfillment in undesired love. In other words, one doesn’t find satisfaction in being loved by someone whom you don’t love in return. What satisfies this great human need is reciprocal love. Love of relationship, where each one loves the other, and they receive love in return.

This is the human condition because God created us for love. He created us for Himself. He loves us, and desires that we should love Him in return. The relationship that God wants to have with us is pictured in the scriptures by the love of a husband and wife. We just recently studied that principle in Ephesians chapter 5, in which Paul talks of marriage between a husband and wife, but says he is speaking of the relationship of Christ and the church. The church was designed to be the bride of Christ.

In the mystery of God, it pleased God to procure a people for Himself from the nations of the earth to be the bride of Christ. In that purpose He appeared unto Abraham, and called him out of the Ur of the Chaldees, and told him to go to the land that He would show him. Whereupon, after many generations, God raised up from Abraham’s offspring a nation, a chosen people, for whom He would be their God, and they would be His people. God established a theocracy, based on His law, given through the prophets.

But this was only Act One of God’s great plan. In the first Act, the nation of Israel was not much different than the kingdom’s of antiquity that ruled through a feudal system of serfdom. Serfdom was a system of bondage in which the people were given a plot of land to tend and produce crops and herds, of which a percentage went to the King, and in return the King provided services and protections for the people. Jesus often uses the analogy of stewardship which is a form of serfdom as an illustration of that relationship with God.

However, the birth of Christ ushered in Act Two. And in this act man’s relationship with God was changed from that of servanthood, or serfdom, to that of an intimate relationship. Believers in Christ were no longer servants, but bond slaves, set free by redemption, but cleaving to their master out of love. And as a result of that commitment, God actually makes us part of His family, sons and daughters of God. And because we are His family, we are elevated to a position of heirs, heirs of God and co heirs of Christ. So that Peter might proclaim in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”

Paul presents the same principle in Titus 2:14, saying, “Christ Jesus, who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every lawless deed, and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

Now this relationship is the subject of Christ’s teaching in this chapter. He illustrated this relationship in vs.1 by the analogy of He being the vine, and we being the branches. His lesson that He taught in that picture was that we should abide in Him, and He in us. That relationship is the key to the full Christian life. The principle of “abide in Me and I in you” is the fundamental relationship out of which everything else flows, even as the life of the branch and it’s fruitfulness flows from it’s abiding in the vine.

In this chapter John describes three things that will happen when this principle of Christ abiding in us and we in Him begins to work in our lives. The first result is described in the opening verses which we looked at last week, which is the fruitfulness that abiding produces. We begin to grow more Christlike. We display the “fruits of the Spirit” which are the characteristics of Christ.

We look now at a brief paragraph in which our Lord describes the change that will happen in our relationships with each other within the community of faith as a result of abiding in Him. Then, in the last section of Chapter 15, Jesus states the relationship that we will have with a hostile world.

There are three points which Jesus makes in speaking of our relationship with others. The first is the mandate to love, then the motive of love, and finally the manifestation of love. Let’s consider first the mandate to love. Jesus says in vs 12, ““This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”

It’s noteworthy that we are commanded to love. I believe that is because though the need for love is intrinsic, it’s not something that we do as we should. I’m sure we all think we are loving people, but I would suggest that the majority of the time we base our love for others on how much we like them. Our idea of love is based on a feeling of attraction towards someone, and that perspective limits love to only those we like. And we like certain people more than others, perhaps because we are like them, or we are attracted to them, or we think we can benefit from our relationship with them in some way.

But the command of Christ is quite different than the typical concept of love. The Lord puts it as a command because real love, according to God’s standard of love, is a decision to act for the benefit of someone else no matter how you feel about him or her. Love is based on a commitment, not a feeling or an attraction. Love is a decision, thus it can be commanded.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus extrapolated that principle of deciding to love out to it’s furthest possibility. He declared that we should even love our enemies. Matthew 5:43, “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” If we are to be like God, then we must love like God loves.

That’s the example that Jesus gave to us, even while we were enemies of God, He died for us on the cross. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” So then in like manner should we love those that are unlovable, that are unattractive, that are not like us, even those that are opposed to us.

Notice that Jesus has given only one commandment, that you love one another. In Matthew 22:36 Jesus was asked, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And Jesus said to him, “ ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” All 612 commandments found their root in those two commandments. And now in this statement, Jesus is saying those two have now become one for those that have believed in Christ.

John explains how that consolidation is possible in 1John 4:20, in which he said, “If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” So we understand that our love for God is evidenced by our love for one another.

So that is the mandate, the commandment, that we love one another. Next let’s look at the motive for love. Jesus doesn’t just give us a command which we must do grudgingly, but He gives us a motive, that we might be compelled to love, and do it cheerfully. That we might be enabled to obey this command. And that motive is found in the words, “as I have loved you.”

That raises the question, how did Jesus love His disciples? The answer is found in vs.9. “As the Father has loved Me, so I have loved you.” So we love one another as Christ loved us, and as the Father loved Christ. In other words, love flows out of a heart that is conscious of being loved. As John said in 1John 4:19, “We love, because He first loved us.”

Think about vs.9 for a moment. As the Father loved Jesus, so Jesus loves us. That’s amazing. Jesus was sinless. Jesus was perfect. Jesus was one with the Father and had been with the Father from eternity past. And yet that kind of love is the same kind of love that Christ had for us. That love Christ had for us compelled Him to suffer to a degree far beyond what we can imagine, as the holy, righteous God humbled himself to become our servant, to shed his blood on a cross, that we might be reconciled to God, that our dirty sins might be put upon His back, so that His righteousness might be transferred to us. That is how God can love us as He loves Jesus, because we are righteous and holy in His sight, even as Jesus is.

That love is our motivation. It constrains us, controls us, compels us to do what is pleasing to Him. 2 Cor. 5:14 says, “For the love of Christ constrains us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” When we really come to understand the love of God for us, then we should have no problem loving one another as He has loved us.

It’s like a young man that falls in love with a girl. He is madly in love her, and he knows that she loves him with all her heart as well. In that kind of relationship, there is nothing that he wouldn’t do for her. I knew a young man once who ran 30 miles one way to see his girlfriend. He didn’t think it was a big deal. Great distances sometimes separate young people who are in love. Yet it doesn’t affect their love for one another. But as the saying goes, absence makes the heart grow fonder. Love flows naturally out of a heart that knows love.

Not only does Jesus give us a mandate to love and a motive to love, but He also tells us how love will manifest itself. How does love, God’s kind of love, manifest itself when it is worked out in life? The kind of love Jesus is talking about is manifested in deeds.

He states three ways in which true love will be manifested: First, love is sacrificial. Vs.13, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Even though Jesus will die for His friends, He is not necessarily talking about dying for someone, like the kind of ultimate sacrifice one might make on a battlefield. You can only do that once and then you can’t do it again. Rather, He is describing a lifestyle, a process. There are varying degrees of “laying down your life.” It simply means to give of yourself, to take part of your life and to give it on behalf of someone else. It is not putting yourself first, or your needs first, but being willing to lay down your prerogatives, your rights, even your self preservation for the sake of someone else. That is the first way love appears. Love will be manifested by sacrificial, self-denying service.

The second manifestation of love is found in what Jesus says in vs14, “You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.”

This is the new relationship that I was speaking of in my introduction. Jesus is lifting these disciples up from the level of mere slaves, who must obey because it is to their best interests to do so, to another, more intimate, level. The level of friends who want to obey because they have been brought into an intimate relationship with God.

James said in James 2:23, that “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God.” Abraham believed God. And God called him his friend. That’s an amazing testimony. To be called the friend of God. The intimate of God. Enoch was another man that we can assume was a friend of God. The Bible says that he walked with God, and God took him to be with Him. We have that same tremendous opportunity; to be the friends of God.

Once again, I can’t help but think of a young couple in love. They have no problem spending hours talking to one another. It’s amazing to see a young couple in love and how much they speak to one another, and then on the other hand see a couple who have been married for 20 years, and how little they speak to one another. That reminds me of another adage, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” That’s not in the Bible however. And that isn’t something we should aspire to. That’s a love that has grown cold.

But we should be so in love with Christ that we talk to Him without having to be coerced. We should desire to spend time alone with God. Jesus said He has made known to us all that He heard from His Father. And Jesus had perfect communion with His Father. So from Christ’s perspective, He has communicated perfectly to us. We need to reciprocate. We need simply to start spending time alone with God, and when we do that, our lives will manifest love for one another. We will love what God loves, and hate what God hates. Because we are intimate friends of God. And because we are intimate friends of God we will do what He commands us to do. If I ask a stranger to take me somewhere, or go out of his way for me, or give me something that I need, I can’t expect much of a response. But when I ask a friend, I can expect that my friend will do what I ask, because of our relationship. So God expects us to do what He commands, because of our intimate relationship with Him.

Then the third manifestation of love follows in vs.16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” First note that the love of God towards us is deliberate. He chose to love us, even though we were sinners. He deliberately sought us when we were in rebellion to Him. God’s love, and by extension our love, is not based on attraction, but on a decision.

Secondly, Jesus is saying to these men, “Wherever you are, remember that I put you there.” That is what He meant by appointed you. It means strategically placed you. And He is saying this to us, too. “I strategically placed you right in the midst of those difficult people you have to work with, so that amidst the difficulty, the pressure and the pain you might become an example of Christ; gracious, loving, patient, merciful. So that you might bear fruit, that you might bear the image of Christ.

Furthermore, when you are bearing fruit, bearing the image of Christ, then whatever you ask in my name the Father will give it to you. Personally, I think that this promise is related to the promise of loving your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. When you pray in Jesus’ name then you are praying according to His will, according to His purpose, His ministry. Jesus prayed for those that nailed Him to the cross. When we pray for people according to the will of God, God will provide it.

There’s an old story in mythology about a knight who encountered a hideous dragon in the forest. And disregarding the ugliness of the monster, this bold young knight walked up to it and kissed it three times whereupon it became a beautiful maiden. And, of course, they lived happily ever after. MacLaren who told the story comments, “Christ kisses his enemies making them his friends. And if he had never died for his enemies, he would never have possessed his friends.” Or as John puts it, “We love Him, because He first loved us.”

In vs.17, Jesus restates the commandment again. ““This I command you, that you love one another.” The fact that He said it twice emphasizes the absolute necessity that we take it to heart. The longer I am in the ministry, the more I am convinced that this is the way to victory in the Christian life. This is the way to effective evangelism. This is the way to overcome addictions of every sort. We must show the world the love of God by loving one another. We must love sacrificially, deliberately, without concern for what we can get out of it, without consideration of how much we like someone. We must love even those who hate us, or hateful to us, forgiving them as God has forgiven us. Giving love sacrificially even though it means that we give up things that are important to us in order to love them.

And we do this by starting with knowing the love of God for us. The more we know the love of God for us, the more we will want to love one another. The more we know the love of God, the more we will want to obey God. And to love one another is the way to obey Him. And to obey Him is to love Him.

God said in Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.” When a couple become one flesh, then they have one mind, one heart, one purpose. They are united. They abide in one another. Love then comes naturally. As the body of Christ we are all united in Christ as the church. Love should come naturally. And as we love our neighbor, Jesus said we should love them as we love ourselves. So that our love for our neighbor comes naturally because we naturally love ourselves. We are commanded to love one another. But to do so, we must come to know the love of God for us. And God has chosen to exhibit that through His people loving people. That knowledge of God’s love is almost too much to comprehend. But when we consider how much He loves us we find joy and fulfillment and it over flows in love to those around us.

So as we leave here today, I would remind each of you to love one another as Christ loved the church. And I would like to read from Romans 8:28, which is a great summary of the love of God towards us, that you might be motivated to go forward from here and love one another.
Romans 8:28, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, “FOR YOUR SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED.” But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

The other day I was listening to a Christian radio broadcast as I was driving back from seeing someone who is in prison in Princess Anne, Maryland. I won’t say the name of the pastor, but doctrinally he is considered sound and he seems to be relatively popular. And at the end of the sermon, the announcer came on and gave a commercial for the opportunity to go on a luxury cruise with the pastor to some exotic destination which I think was in the Caribbean. I found myself feeling a little jealous, I guess. I had just spent four hours visiting some guy in prison who is facing a life sentence, who lost his career, his wife divorced him, and now he just lost a custody hearing for his children and he has no way of seeing them or contacting them anymore. And I had to try to comfort him as he sat there and wept openly behind the glass partition. I had to try to convince him that God still loved him. That God would use this for good in some way. And I felt that I had failed to comfort him as I would have liked to. I found myself wanting to question God’s goodness and justice just as he was doing. Both of us struggling to keep the faith in the face of terrible circumstances. And against that background, the incongruity of the commercial juxtaposed with the reality of the prisoner’s ordeal seemed almost ludicrous.

There is nothing wrong with going on a luxury cruise with a Bible teacher I guess. But somehow I have a hard time reconciling drinks by the pool, and dancing on the Lido Deck after the evening Bible teaching seminar as being the epitome of the Christian life. That sort of thing sounds great and is certainly appealing on some level, but I find it at odds with the reality of my own and very many other’s experience as a Christian. And I find it at odds with the teachings of Christ and the apostles as well. We are told in Romans 8:17 that our glorification with Christ is directly tied with whether or not we partake in the sufferings of Christ. It says we are “heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

So at the risk of sounding “gloom and doom” and offending someone, I urge you to consider the context of the passage of scripture today, because Jesus is preparing His disciples for the rigors and trials and tribulations that are a real and present companion to the Christian experience which was true not only for the disciples, but for the modern church as well. So as we begin this chapter, let’s remember the context; it is dark, and the disciples are walking from the Upper Room where they had just observed the Passover, and where Judas had deserted them after being prophesied by Jesus that he would betray Him. Jesus has just told them that He is going to die, that He is going back to the Father, and that He is leaving them. He’s told them that He is going to send the Holy Spirit from heaven to comfort them, but they aren’t sure exactly what that means. Now it’s dark, and they leave the room and wind their way through the city of Jerusalem and around the temple walls, down into the ravine where the Kidron brook is flowing dark red with the blood of thousands of lamb sacrifices offered in the temple, as they make their way up towards the Mount of Olives.

The disciples are undoubtedly disillusioned, saddened, and probably more than a little depressed as they climb the hillside expecting to spend yet another cold night out under the stars as was their custom. And as they walk, Jesus is still talking to them. He is still teaching them, right up to the last moment. In spite of all the stress and concern that Jesus must have been feeling as He anticipated the torture that was in front of Him, yet His primary concern is for His followers. He has just said to them, “Let not your hearts be troubled, you believe in God, believe also in Me.” “Peace I leave unto you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world gives. Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid.” Then He said, “Let’s go, Let’s get out of here.” And they began their journey to the Mount of Olives, not knowing what distress was ahead of them, yet Jesus knew it full well.

As they are walking in the dark up the hillside, perhaps they passed a vineyard that someone had planted. And as was His custom, Jesus picked up on the metaphor at hand to teach them an important final lesson. He speaks of a vine, and it’s branches, and the fruit that one would expect from a vineyard. It was a metaphor that they were very much familiar with. Vineyards were everywhere in Israel. And Jesus had spoken of vineyards many times in His preaching, using them often as settings for parables. But they certainly also knew of them first hand. They were quite common in Israel.

In fact, they were a common metaphor for Israel in the Old Testament scriptures as well. For instance, Psalm 80 says in vs.8, “You have brought a vine out of Egypt and planted it in this land.” And Isaiah expounds upon that picture in the 5th chapter, vs.7, “For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel and the men of Judah His delightful plant. Thus He looked for justice, but behold, bloodshed; for righteousness, but behold, a cry of distress.” Isaiah goes on to paint a picture of a nation that had abandoned righteousness, and justice, and had spent it’s affection on drinking and carousing and taking advantage of others so that they might live luxuriously. And he prophesied that God would take vengeance upon them, vs.24, “Therefore, as a tongue of fire consumes stubble and dry grass collapses into the flame, so their root will become like rot and their blossom blow away as dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.”

As the disciples walked past the temple, they may have noticed on the gates of the temple was carved a large gold covered vine, symbolic of Israel. Israel had been the chosen vine of God, illustrated by the temple, the religious system which God had planted in Israel to give life to the Jews. But everything that the sacrifices and temple and ceremonies had portrayed, was actually a picture of Jesus. All the religious life that had been centered in Judaism, actually found it’s source in Him. The true vine was Jesus. The religious system centered in the temple was just a picture of Christ.

So Jesus says, “I am the true vine and My Father is the vinedresser.” Jesus is the life, He was the source of life for creation, nothing was made without Him it says in chapter 1 of John. He was the source of life for Israel, of which the temple and sacrifices merely pointed to. He was the Lamb that was sacrificed for the sins of the world. He was the rock in the wilderness from which came the living water. He was the manna from heaven. He was the light that was over the Tabernacle. And in the same way He is the source of life for the church. He is the Word of God. He is the Way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. The disciples make up the first church who will represent Christ even as the temple and Israel was to have represented the Lord.

“My Father,” Jesus declares, “is the vinedresser.” This is the Father’s work – he is the “vinedresser,” the gardener who takes care of the vineyard. In Verse 5, Jesus clearly identifies that believers, the church, are the branches of the vine: “I am the vine, you are the branches.” Furthermore, he indicates there are two kinds of branches – fruitless branches and fruitful branches. Thus right at the beginning of this teaching there is a clear indication that there are two kinds of believers. The difference between them is whether they produce fruit or not.

The first work of the Father in this great vineyard is: “Every branch in Me that bears no fruit” (every fruitless believer) “he takes away.” I believe that this statement is actually made about believers, not unbelievers. In vs.6, Jesus speaks of branches that do not abide and are thrown away and burned. They are the unbelievers. But notice Jesus says in vs.2, “In Me.” He is talking about branches that are His, they are in Him. He is talking about a believer. But He is not saying that if they do not bear fruit God will condemn them to be burned with the unbelieving branches in vs.6. The Greek word translated “takes away” is airo, which actually means to raise up, or lift up from the ground. It’s not producing fruit because it isn’t getting enough sunlight, it’s lying on the ground. So there is a work of the vinedresser to lift up unfruitful believers by exposing them to the light. Fruitfulness is the result of maturity and training and discipline. So there is a need for that with unfruitful believers and God knows those who are His, those who are in Christ, and He will lift them up to make them productive. He will raise them up to get them up out of the earth, out of the world, so that they might be exposed to the light of truth, which will train them in righteousness, producing productivity. So lifting up is speaking of training, discipline which leads to greater fruit. As Heb. 12:11says, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

The second work of God towards believers is to cleanse the fruit bearing branches. Jesus said in vs.2, “every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” The word here, “prunes,” really should be “cleanses.” Because vs.3 uses the same word translated as prunes and has it as cleans. “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” Now they are both referring to the same thing, so it’s just a matter of semantics. But for consistency they should be the same.

But perhaps the reason why the word “prunes” is chosen is because it’s speaking not as being “cut off” but “cut back.” This is also what vinedressers do. They not only go through a vineyard and cut off shoots, but they cut back others so that they will bear more fruit. They are cleaning up the branches by cutting them back.

I have these knock out rose bushes by my house that I transferred years ago from a development that I was working at. And in the development, every so often the landscapers would prune those rose bushes back so much that I thought it was ridiculous. I thought it looked terrible when all these thriving rose bushes were cut so far back. I didn’t understand why it was necessary. So I left our bushes alone. I let them grow bigger and bigger. Today I have the biggest knockout rose bushes that I’ve ever seen. But the thing is, they don’t produce many roses nowadays. They have bare areas where nothing grows and sometimes hardly any roses bloom at all.

So it is with vines and fruit. God sometimes cuts back fruitful vine to the point of one thinking that they are cut too far back. They look like He might have killed them. But God knows that the trials and tribulations that we experience which we think are killing us are only designed to make us more productive. As the hymn “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” we just sang says, “The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design, thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”

Pruning, or cleansing is a drastic process. Jesus is clearly teaching here that this is what the Father will do in our lives to make us bear more fruit. He will drastically cut back our lives in a cleansing process. In a vineyard, pruning also removes dirt, cobwebs, dried leaves, and fungus that chokes out growth. And according to the Lord in vs.3, in the life of the believer, this is done by the “word which I have spoken unto you.”

God will use circumstances and trials in a Christian’s life to bring us to the point where the word of God can cleanse us. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

So the word of God is the knife that does the pruning. Affliction exposes those areas that need pruning. Charles Spurgeon spoke of affliction as the dresser, someone that dresses out game. He said, “Affliction is the dresser that removes our soft garments and lays bare the diseased flesh, so that the knife may get at it.”  Affliction makes us ready for the knife, to prepare us for the Word of God. So Spurgeon continues, “It is the Word that prunes the Christian.  It is the truth that purges him.  The Scripture made living and powerful by the Holy Spirit eventually and effectively cleanses the Christian.”

Has the word of God ever corrected you in some painful way? I know in my life I went through a time of severe trial, of severe affliction, and I turned to the scriptures to try to understand what was happening. To know what God was doing, or if in fact it was Him that was doing it. And why was He doing it. And ultimately, the word worked in me to prune away deadness, to cleanse me from corruption, chipping away to change me and make me look more like Christ. To conform me to the image of Jesus by taking away things that were hindering me in my Christian life. It was painful, but it was necessary if I was going to be fruitful.

Many of you have had some experience of this. Sorrow, disappointment, los, or some experience of life left you shocked and hurt, feeling cast off and rejected. Yet here we are encouraged to remind ourselves that this is the work of a loving Father who does it so that we may “bear more fruit.”

But that raises a very important question. “What exactly is this fruit that God is expecting from us?” The reason our Lord does not identify it directly is because it was already clearly identified in the Old Testament. There, in the passages on the “vine,” especially in Isaiah 5, the prophet says that God came to the nation Israel, the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, “looking for fruit,” which he identifies as “justice and righteousness.” But what he found was oppression and misery – mistreatment of others without, and hurt and misery within. He calls these “sour grapes” – not fruit of justice and righteousness that he had every right to expect, but twisted, self centered, sour fruit.

Paul speaks of the fruit of self centeredness and fleshly living and contrasts that with the fruit that God desires in Galatians 5:19. “Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

it is clear that the fruit which Jesus is referring to here is Christlikeness – his character reproduced in us. He is refining us, changing us, transforming us through trials and through the Word into representatives of Christ. 2 Cor.3:18 says, ”We all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.” It”s a process. Sometimes it’s a painful process. It does not happen by magic, all at once. We are being changed from one degree of glory to another, “for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” The image of Christ is the “fruit” that God is looking for.

I used to think that fruit was people that I had led to Christ. That was the emphasis that my church gave to fruit when I was growing up. Another misconception is that fruit is how much a church grows or how many people attend. But that’s not accurate. Bearing fruit is bearing the image of Christ in all that I do and say. Fruit is not more people, but people more like Christ. And doing that is made possible as you abide in Christ. Look at vs.4 and 5. “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

That makes sense doesn’t it? If we are going to look like Christ, then we must have Christ in us, and we have to be in Christ. Now how does that work? Well, first of all, we must have the Spirit of Christ abiding in us. This is a supernatural transaction that comes as a result of our salvation. We repent of our sins, we are made holy by faith in Christ, and we are given new life by being born again in the Spirit. The Spirit of God takes up residence in us.

But we can have the Spirit of God in us and yet not be filled with the Spirit, nor do the works of the Spirit. It takes more than just a spark to make a car’s engine run. It also takes gas. So though we have the Spirit in us, we must also be attuned to the Spirit through the word. It’s not enough to say we have the Spirit in us, we can just lay back and cruise through the Christian life and if God wants something done He will do it all by Himself. We need to depend upon God, but we also need discipline. That’s the spark and the gasoline.

Some Christians emphasize dependence on God. But they don’t like the idea of discipline. They never read the Bible. They don’t go to church unless it’s a holiday or some special occasion. They don’t want to worry about training in holiness. They expect God to speak directly to them, and put them into automatic pilot. They float around expecting God to do all the directing, open all the doors, and they seldom bother to deny themselves. That kind of dependence without discipline results in empty spirituality, a fake piety that sounds good, but is in fact worthless. It’s what James referred to as “faith without works.” It’s dead. It’s like dead branches that produce no fruit. Abiding in Christ is a very practical thing. It’s abiding in the word. It’s abiding in His body, that is the church. It’s abiding in His commands, which produces holiness and Christlikeness. That’s the peaceable fruit of righteousness according to Hebrews 12:11.

But not everyone who says that they are in Christ actually are. Jesus said twice in Matthew 7, “By their fruits you shall know them.” So He says in Vs.6, ”If a man does not abide in me, he is cast forth as a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.” If you are not Christ’s, then God will remove the fruitless branch and cast it into the fire. He is speaking obviously of the judgment against the ungodly.

That again is the work of the Father – removing the fruitless branches. Those like Judas who gather with the people of God for awhile and appear to be believers – they show a certain degree of life. Leaves may be present, they hang around with all the fruit bearers, but there is no fruit in themselves. Ultimately these people eventually leave the vine. They do not stay with the body. As the Lord makes clear, it is a process: There is first the “withering” of the life they apparently had for awhile. Then the branches are “gathered,” then “thrown into the fire,” and ultimately “burned.” This is a reference to Matthew 25:41, when Jesus speaks of the end of the age, when the angels will come and gather out of the Kingdom of God all that are not His, and throw them into eternal fire, and they are burned. These are those that are not truly saved.

Like Judas, they may have looked the part. They were part of the church. They even performed works like healing and casting out devils. But they are not saved. Jesus speaks of these folks in Matthew 7:21, saying, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

Listen, this is a fact about church growth that doesn’t get any traction today in the relevant, seeker friendly church. God is not interested in numbers. He isn’t interested in large crowds of people that give lip service, but who are not truly being transformed into the image of Christ. He cuts away those that are not abiding in Him. He doesn’t want pew fillers. He wants disciples who are being made in the image of Christ. Don’t be discouraged when people leave the church. God adds, and God takes away. The church is the Lord’s and He will build the church. And God in HIs wisdom knows which branches to cut away so that the church will bear fruit.

Finally, let’s look really quickly at four evidences of fruit in the last five verses. Vs.7, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”
The first evidence of a fruitful life is the impact of answered prayer. You become effective at praying. I’ve said it before, when James says the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much, the emphasis should be on righteous. God hears the prayer of the righteous. So when you are abiding in Him, and His words are abiding in you, then you will receive what you ask for.

We must never forget that prayer and promise are linked together. Prayer is not a way of getting God to do what you want him to do, rather it is asking him to do what he has promised to do. We pray according to the promises. So if you want to make your prayers effective begin to read and study the promises of God. When you do, you will pray according to the mind and will of God. And, as Jesus says, whatever you ask will be done. That’s the first fruit. Abiding in Christ produces effective prayer.

The second fruit is in vs.8, ”By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.” Your righteous life will be a testimony to the transformative power of God. There is no greater witness for God than that of a transformed, sold out life. And that is how you glorify God. Again, not by lip service, but by proving to be a disciple. Abiding in Christ produces righteous living, which proves you are His disciple to a watching world.

Thirdly, vs.9-10, ”As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” The third fruit of abiding in Christ is that you will keep HIs commandments, and thus you will love Him. The fruit of love is that you keep His commandments, even as Christ kept the Father’s commandments. We are like Christ, because we are to Christ as Christ was to the Father. So abiding produces love, and love produces obedience.

Then the last evidence of fruit is in vs. 11, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” Notice, that My joy may be in you…What was his joy? In the 12th chapter of the book of Hebrews vs.2 it says of Jesus, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame.” What was it that filled his heart with joy as he faced the cross, and enabled him to go through that terrible ordeal? It was the expectation that he would be the instrument of redemption for the entire world – that a host, a great harvest of people, would be changed and redeemed and restored, real life given to them – by his work on the cross. In other words, his joy was the joy of being used of God.

That is the greatest joy anyone can know. There is the inheritance of the believer; the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, and peace. Those are the three themes of chapter 14 an 15. Not as the world gives, but as God gives, as Christ illustrates, and we imitate. And as we abide in Christ and He abides in us, we can experience true love, joy and peace because He is the source, the Vine, and we are the branches which abide in Him.

The two biggest themes of the 60’s generation, aka, the hippie movement, were peace and love. When you look at images from that era, whether they be concerts or sit ins, or protests, or whatever, you often see them holding signs professing their desire for both. In fact, it was trendy in those days to espouse both of those as ideals. I remember very well as a young person holding up two fingers in a peace sign and saying “Peace, man,” in place of the usual hello and goodbyes. It was the thing to do. Young people drew peace signs everywhere. It was a popular concept, but unfortunately, they had a much different type of peace in mind than that which was traditionally thought of up until that point in society.

I have spoken many times in my messages concerning love, and the biblical view as opposed to the world’s view, particularly as expressed by that generation, but I have not said as much about peace. However, today we find ourselves at a passage of scripture when Jesus Himself speaks of peace. The peace which He offers though, He said is not as the world gives. So once again, we see biblical principles co-opted by the world, and a need to define our terms according to sound doctrine in contrast to that of popular conceptions.

In the 60’s, peace came to mean a lot of things. Peace came to mean a state of mind, like “a peaceful, easy feeling,” according to the Eagles, perhaps induced by drugs or dropping out of society and forming a commune. But I would suggest that it’s origin as a mantra of the hippie movement stemmed from their desire to see the war in Vietnam come to an end. And that ideal seems to still be most associated with the concept of peace in the world today. For many in the world, peace is an ideal that is worth any cost, even the loss of many freedoms. Many people just feel that peace, or the absence of war or hostilities or violence is an end that justifies any means necessary.

My goal here today is not to debate that kind of idealism, or the politics of appeasement in the name of peace. But my goal is to explain what kind of peace Jesus was referring to. Because it is important to note that Jesus is making a promise of peace. He is leaving them a promise of their inheritance. He has said repeatedly that He was leaving the disciples. He was speaking here in this passage on the night before His crucifixion. This whole passage of several chapters is called the Upper Room Discourse. And as the disciples begin to understand that He has been betrayed by one of their own, and that He is leaving them to go back to heaven, they are troubled. They are understandably upset. So He begins this chapter by saying, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He offers them assurance and comfort that He will be with them in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. And that one day He will physically return for the church and they would be with them for ever.

Last week we looked specifically at the promise and purpose of the Holy Spirit, and that Jesus refers to Him as the Helper, or the Comforter. So today’s passage must be considered in that same context. Jesus’s promise of peace is given in the context of “don’t let your hearts be troubled.” It’s the context of “I will send you a Helper, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.”

So in that same train of thought, Jesus says, ““Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” It’s an echo of verse one, to some extent. I would say that it is an extrapolation of verse one. You should not be troubled in heart because Jesus leaves you peace, He gives you His peace.

So within that context we can be pretty certain that Jesus is not talking about the cessation or absence of war. He is speaking of a peace of soul, of the heart, of the mind. It is the peace spoken of in Philippians 4:7, which says, “And the peace  of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Now that is the peace that we all need, is it not? That is the peace which Christ promises. And yet I would suggest that is not the daily experience of most of us.

I believe that most doctors would agree that stress and anxiety are at the root of many of our health problems today as a society. And I can assure you that Christians are not exempt from it either. I read an article the other day that claimed antidepressants showed up in significant, measurable amounts in most cities tap water in the United States. That gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, “drinking the koolaid,” doesn’t it? I don’t know what that means for the safety of our drinking water, but I will say that it indicates that our society is still trying to find some sort of peace through drugs. So I believe that this promise of Christ is one that is especially pertinent today. And it’s especially pertinent for Christians whose hearts are troubled by the trials and tribulations that we endure in this world. That we might find the peace that Christ spoke of at the end of this Upper Room Discourse, in chapter 16:33, saying, “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

So as we consider this vital text, I would like to break it down into four points, which hopefully will help us to see it in the light it was intended. First let’s look at the principle of peace, then the promise of peace, then the possession of peace, and finally the practice of peace.

First the principle of peace. And I deliberately use that phrase because it is sort of a play on words. See, the principle of peace belongs to the Prince of Peace. Jesus says, it is “My peace.” It belongs to Him. It is His to leave to us, and it is His to give. It is His peace. We just inherit it, if we are His disciples.

This title for Christ is found in the prophecy made familiar by Handle’s Messiah. It finds it’s origin in Isaiah 9:6, “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness, From then on and forevermore.The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.” Now that is obviously referring to the Kingdom of God, of which Christ rules. In this present age we experience the Kingdom of God spiritually, but upon Christ’s return we shall see it in glory. But for now, Christ rules over His people, through whom He rules the world.

But there is a rebellion against the Kingdom of God. That rebellion began in ages past when Lucifer desired to be like God and took with him in his rebellion one third of the hosts of heaven. And then Satan seduced God’s creation, the crown of His creation – man who was made in the image of God, to be like God, who was to rule the world with God – Satan seduced mankind to join him in that rebellion, and so mankind fell and has become a slave of the kingdom of darkness, even willfully participating in that rebellion against God. So that James 4:4 says, the world is an enemy of God.

Christ then is the Prince of Peace because He came to earth to reconcile mankind to God. To make peace with God through His atonement for their sin. Hebrews 2:14 says, “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.” Christ defeated the power of death, and Satan, so that whosoever believes in Him, would be saved from their sin and be transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of LIght, being born again as sons and daughter’s of God.

That transaction, where God places the punishment for our rebellion against Christ, and transfers Christ’s righteousness unto those who by faith believe in Him, is what Ephesians 6:15 calls the “gospel of peace.”

And that is how Christ can refer to it as His peace. It is His gospel, it is His good news, it is His victory which produces that peace, it is His to give to those who by faith believe in Him, because He won it, He purchased it with His blood. So because He purchased peace with God, we can have peace of mind. I have made a statement for the last couple of weeks, and I will say it again this morning: The greatest comfort in life is to know God, and to be known by God. Perhaps you have seen the bumper sticker which says, “Know God, know Peace. No God, no peace.” Because we are His, and He is mine, I can have a peace that passes all understanding. Because I know Him who knows the future. I know Him who triumphed over Satan. I know Him who stilled the storm, who raised the dead, who healed the sick. I know Him who was from the beginning, and who always will be, even through eternity.

Now there is so much more that I could say, but let’s move on to the next point. But that first point, the principle of peace is foundational. All the rest build upon that rock. So we had to establish our foundation for peace, which is the principle of peace, made possible by the Prince of Peace.

Secondly, there is the promise of peace. Really, it is our inheritance. This is in effect the last will and testament of Jesus Christ. He who had no earthly goods, left us the most priceless treasure that no amount of money can buy. He leaves us peace. You know, a will is only a promise while the person is living, but when they die, the executor acts in accordance with the will and makes it so. However, I’m sure you have all heard of cases where the people who were supposed to receive an inheritance ended up getting cheated out of the will of the deceased. And in such cases, it is possible to hear someone say, “Oh if so and so were alive, he would have wanted this person to get the inheritance, and he would make sure that they did.” But of course, the person is dead, and that sometimes doesn’t happen. But we have an inheritance made sure, because Jesus Christ rose from the dead and lives and rules from heaven. We can be sure of our inheritance because He lives to make intercession for us.

We are entitled to this promise because we are the children of God by faith in Christ. We are not of this world, as Jesus says His peace is not as the world gives. But a peace from God. Rom 8:16, “The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”

Our promise then is not founded upon wishful thinking. The world cries for “peace, peace, but there is no peace.” But peace is promised in God’s word. And His word cannot fail. His word is forever settled in heaven. HIs word is doubly guaranteed by the Father and by Jesus Christ, and He has given us the Spirit of God as a pledge of that promise, the same Spirit who is called the Comforter. The very presence of God is our peace. The Comforter is who Jesus was promising would come, who would testify of Him, who would indwell His disciples and be with them forever. That is why He could say in vs.28, “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.”

We know that the promise is sure because we know that Jesus died and rose again and is now seated at the Father’s right hand. Because God raised Him from the dead, we know that we have the things that He has promised us. Because Christ was counted righteous, and His sacrifice was sufficient, and the penalty was paid in full, therefore God did not allow Him to stay dead, but raised Him to show that He had triumphed over the devil and sin and the grave. That is why Jesus says in vs.30, “the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” His resurrection proved His words were true, and thus we can have the assurance that His promise to us of peace will be true. Thus, I am His and He is Mine, and nothing can touch us without His approval.

Thirdly, not just the promise but we have the possession of peace. How do we go from the promise to the possession? I would submit to you it is by the same principle found in all of our salvation. The just shall live by faith. It is by faith that we possess the promise of peace. That is how we receive peace with God. And that is how we will achieve peace of heart and mind.

The best example of having that kind of peace is found in the life of Jesus. What kind of peace did Jesus have? Did he have the peace of a placid, stress free existence? Did he have the peace of an emotionless, stoic kind of life? Well, no, he had peace born out of the confidence that He was God’s Son. But if you look at our Lord’s experiences, his experiences were anything but emotionless or stressless. He was a man of griefs, of sorrows, of emotions like anger and heartache and feelings of rejection and unbelief. Often we have seen that Christ was troubled in spirit. Yet in HIs troubles He had peace.

It’s interesting to note that at the very time that our Lord talks about peace and presents this peace as His own peace that He’s granting to His followers, He is at the most dramatic, disturbing, distressing moment in His life.  He is leaving the world in hours through the means of execution on a cross, and He knows that, and He knows the details of it full well. And yet He is at peace.

Why? Because He knows that He is in the will of God. He knows that He is working in conjunction with the Spirit of God. He believes in the sovereignty of God. He believes in the Word of God which prophesied all that happened and would happen to Him. He had peace because He knew that He was the Son of God and all that happened was working according to the plan of God.

But, you might protest, “that was Christ. Christ was sinless. I am not. How can I have that same peace?” Well, we can have that same peace when we abide in Christ. That is what Jesus goes on to teach in the next chapter. As we abide in Christ, specifically, as we walk in the Spirit of Christ, as we follow His leading, as we live by His teaching, we have peace knowing that we are in accordance with God’s will, and He hears us in whatsoever we ask of Him. Jesus was confident, at peace, in spite of the circumstances, because He knew that the devil had nothing on Him. He had not given the devil a foothold in His life. He had not lowered the armor of God to allow the devil an opportunity in any way. He knew that He had been faithful to the word of God, that He was living in the will of God. And that confidence is available to us as we abide in Christ.

Listen, you may not be able to say that today. I think all of us will find ourselves from time to time compromised in our spiritual situation. That is why we need our feet washed on a regular basis. We need the daily cleansing and confession and restoration every day to maintain that peace with God. Our possession of peace is tied to our perseverance in our faith. That is why we are commanded to be sanctified, to be holy even as God is holy. That is why James says we are to cleanse our hands and purify our hearts, so that we might have a clean conscience before God. That the devil will have no hold on us, no part in us. That is how we possess the promise of peace.

If God is the source of peace, then we need to draw near to God and He will draw near to us. When you know that you are right with God, then you will know the peace of God. You will know that peace which transcends our circumstances, without the fear that we are experiencing sin’s consequences. There is a great difference between the two. Those who are out of step with God and running after the lusts and passions of the world suffer the consequences of doing wrong. And there is no peace for the wicked, says the Lord. But those who walk in the Spirit, know the peace of God which transcends whatever circumstances that may come.

And that brings us to the final point, the practice of peace. About 20 years ago, I found myself at a point where I had no peace. I almost lost my mind. I went through about 4 years of daily anxiety attacks which were absolutely crippling. In the process, I lost my home which I had built with my own hands, I lost my career as a nationally recognized antique dealer and authority, and I lost all my money, furniture, and cars eventually. During that time, God used those circumstances to prune away all those things which were keeping me from communion with Him.

I wanted nothing more in those days than peace. I wanted mental peace. And so I turned to the source of peace, the word of God. But it wasn’t just as easy as name it and claim it. It was a long process of proving scripture to be true and trustworthy. There was one passage of scripture in particular though that came to mean a lot to me, and through it I found the formula for peace. We like formula’s, don’t we? “Three ways to prosperity.” “Five ways to peace.” “Ten steps to marital reconciliation.” Pastor’s obviously love them too. But this passage really does seem to be a formula from God specifically to help us find this peace that Jesus promises.

It’s found in Philippians chapter 4, and I will read from vs.6, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Well, that sounds an awful lot like the first verse of John 14, doesn’t it? “Let not your heart be troubled.” And also vs. 13 and 14, when Jesus says, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” Maybe there is a pattern here. Peace starts with prayer.

Then Paul says in vs.7 of Phil.4, “And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Well, that’s what Jesus promised in vs27, isn’t it? That’s what we want, our hearts and minds at peace. Notice that Paul says that peace is found in Christ Jesus. But then Paul goes from the theological, to the practical, as he so often does in his epistles. First he gives us the doctrine, and then he gives us the application. And so he does in vs8: “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” So the formula so far is pray, praise, and ponder. Ponder means to think on these things. Meditate on them.

So peace comes as we think on those things, whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, good repute, worthy of praise, let your mind think on these things. Listen, there is so much there that I could preach on that list for a week. But let me just highlight one, briefly. Our trouble is in our minds. The mind is the battlefield, more often than not. And where we get off track usually is in the first one on the list; truth. Whatever is true. We need to start practicing peace by telling ourselves the truth. The devil is the father of lies. And he has engineered the world system to be a system of lies. So that the average person doesn’t or can’t tell the truth from a lie. They want to believe the lie because it sounds so appealing to the flesh. A person becomes a drug addict because they have bought into the lie that drugs are fun, that they won’t hurt you. A person becomes an adulturer because they believe the lie that a little flirtation is harmless, or a little pornography isn’t such a big deal. You get the picture.

I believed the lies of “what if’s” that constantly bombarded my mind during my anxiety attacks. If I believed the lies, I was crippled and couldn’t work or travel. But when I believed the promises of God, then I found deliverance. So let your mind dwell on the truth. And I can assure you that the truth is found in God’s word. And all of Paul’s list can be found in God’s word.

Then Paul says in vs.9, “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” Practice what things? The things which are taught in God’s word, the truth, the right things, the honorable things, the principles of sanctified Christianity. Those things. Practice the application of sound doctrine. Practice those things. Oh my! Sounds like legalism doesn’t it? You mean peace doesn’t come by just giving lip service to God but living like the devil? No, I’m afraid not. If you are truly a child of God, then He says He chastises those He loves when they disobey. So instead practice righteousness. Practice holiness. You say, well I’m not very good at it. I sin a lot. I can’t help it. Well, Paul says practice some more. It’s like learning to play the piano. It takes practice. And the more you practice, the better at it you will get. Practice makes perfect. And Isaiah 26:3 says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.” So practice what we learn by pondering God’s word and we will have perfect peace.
Heb.5:14 tells us, “that because of practice we have our senses trained to discern good and evil.” Peter tells us in 2Peter 1:10, “Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble.” So we practice the things which Paul and Peter and John give us as applications of righteousness in their epistles. and when we do them, Paul says, the peace of God will be with you.” “The peace that passes all comprehension.”

Listen, in this world you will have trouble. If we get caught up in the lies of this world, we will not have peace. But I can assure you that Jesus has left us His peace, it is a gift of God. By faith in Christ we have peace with God. And then practically we let our minds ponder on the truth of God, and we practice the doctrines of God, so that we might have our hearts and minds fixed by the peace which only God can give, in spite of whatever circumstances we might find ourselves in. We know we are His, and He knows us. That is the comfort which we can all appropriate through faith in Christ.

John 16:33, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

In today’s passage we are continuing our study of what is called the Upper Room Discourse. It spans several chapters, and yet it all occurs in just one evening; Christ’s last evening with His disciples before He is crucified. In this talk that Jesus gives, He tells His disciples that He will be leaving them very soon, and that where He is going they cannot now come. Of course, they are very troubled by this revelation. And Jesus knows that they are upset over this. So He says to them not to be troubled, but that He will return for them one day, that they may be with Him forever.

But in the meantime, He says that He will send the Comforter, the Helper, who will take His place and come alongside of them. That is found in vs.16. He says He will send “allos Parakletos” another Helper to come alongside them who is just like Him. That is the translation of the Greek.

Then in vs.17, Jesus reveals the name of the Helper; the Spirit of Truth. He is sending the Holy Spirit to help them. Now this is very important for the disciples, because they are not going to make it if they don’t have some divine help. That much has been proven in the last 3 years of Jesus’s ministry. And even before this night is over, they are all going to fall away when Jesus is taken from them by force. They are going to be scattered. So they need to realize that they are not being forsaken.

But it is also important for the church today as well. Because we live in a time that we cannot touch and see and experience Jesus as they did. We live by faith in what He taught, but we cannot experience what the disciples experienced. And so it is even more important for us, because in some respects, the Christian life is harder for us than it was for them.

You may remember after His resurrection, Thomas did not believe the other disciples who said that they had seen the risen Lord. He said I’m not going to believe unless I put my finger in His nail prints and His wounded side. And Jesus shows up a few days later and says “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus *said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.”

So it is important for us as it was for the disciples, to understand what Jesus is telling them here. Because Jesus is describing for them the ministry of the Holy Spirit. They needed to know what that was going to look like. And in the same way we need to know what the ministry of the Holy Spirit is supposed to look like, and what He is supposed to accomplish. Because we are living in the in betweens, the time between Jesus’s first appearing and His second appearing. And for those of us who are saved, we have this same promise of the Holy Spirit, the Helper, and without His help we cannot really know Christ and we are powerless to live the Christian life.

Furthermore, I think this is important for the modern church because no other doctrine is so misunderstood and twisted today than that of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The devil is a deceiver, and he spreads confusion and chaos in order to try to derail naive Christians, and to keep the Church from the victory which is possible and promised in Christ. So let’s try to unpack these verses and see if we can’t demystify some of the misunderstandings and mischaracterizations that surround this important doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

First note in vs.16 that Jesus identifies the primary work of the Holy Spirit in the very title that He uses for Him. As I mentioned earlier Jesus says He is the “Allos Paracletos.” Paraclete means one who is called alongside to help. And then “allos” means another of the same kind. So that Jesus is saying, I am going to send you another Helper to come alongside of you of the same kind as I am.

Now that is important. Because many people think that the Holy Spirit is something completely different than Jesus. But as He recorded in vs.10, Jesus said He didn’t do anything on His own initiative, but He spoke the words of God and He did the works of God. And He said that is how you could know that He was of God. He told Philip in vs.9, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.” So if you wanted to know what God was like, you simply had to watch and listen to Jesus. The same principle is true of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not glorify Himself, but glorifies Jesus. Jesus said in chapter 15:26, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.” And in chapter 16:13 He says, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

In Romans 8:9, Paul identifies the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God and then again as the Spirit of Christ. So there you see the unity of the trinity. The Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus, and Jesus glorifies the Father. The Holy Spirit doesn’t speak on His initiative, but He speaks the words of Christ. And Christ doesn’t speak on His initiative, but He speaks the words of the Father. So they are in agreement. They are three in One. The ministry of the Holy Spirit then is to glorify Jesus, and Jesus glorifies the Father.

So Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit is going to take over where He leaves off, and He is going to continue the ministry that Jesus was doing. He is going to be with the disciples every minute of every day, just like Jesus was. Vs.17, “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

Let’s break that down a little bit. There are two elements in this verse that I want to focus on. First, Jesus calls Him the Spirit of Truth. The second element is that He abides with you and will be in you. Two vital components of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

First, the Spirit of Truth. Jesus has just announced in vs.6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” So Jesus is the Truth. In John 1, it says Jesus is the Word. So the Word and the Truth are one and the same. As Jesus concludes this Upper Room Discourse, He prays for His disciples, and in that prayer in chapter 17, Jesus says in vs.17 “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”

So the Word and the Truth are two sides to the same coin. God’s word is the truth. Jesus’s whole ministry had been about teaching God’s word, teaching the truth about God. Teaching the truth about the Kingdom of God and what it is like and how we must enter into it. Jesus said in chapter 8vs31, ““If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

So the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to teach the disciples the truth of God’s word. To help them to discern the truth of Christ’s gospel. He is the minister of the Word. This is how we can know the truth. And this is how we can know the Spirit of Truth. He will speak the word of God, He will minister the word of God. He will not speak new revelation, but He will disclose the revelation of Christ. We can verify the ministry of the Spirit by whether or not He ministers through the word. He doesn’t come to give us an emotional experience, but He comes to give us the word of God.

Secondly, the Spirit is given to help them do God’s word. Vs. 12, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.” Jesus adds in chapter 16:7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” So the power of the Holy Spirit is given to help us do the works of God.

In Acts 1:8 Jesus told His disciples, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” That was the “greater works than these” which Jesus promised them in chapter 14. They would take the gospel to the whole world through the power of the Holy Spirit. And that is the same power that is available to us as we witness to the world. And that power of the Holy Spirit finds it’s root in the word of God, the gospel. Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

So they have the same power through the Holy Spirit as they had with Christ, that they might do the works of God as Christ did. Then as indicated in chapter 14 vs 12, what are the works of God? First, it’s the will of God. Vs.14“If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” Jesus is going to help us to do what He wants us to do. He is not going to ask us to do anything contrary to God’s will, and He will provide all our needs to do His will. In 1John 5:14 it says, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” The disciples could continue Christ’s ministry because the power of the Holy Spirit would provide what was necessary to do the works of God.

Secondly, the works of God are found in the word of God. It’s the commandments of God. vs.15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Notice how many times Jesus speaks of this principle, equating love and obedience, keeping His word with His communion with us. Vs.21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Vs.23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” And vs.24, “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.”

So how does the Holy Spirit help us to do God’s word, to keep His commandments? Jesus says that He does that by reminding us of His words. vs. 25, “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” Now that was fulfilled in two ways. One was when the disciples preached the gospel or had to give a defense of the gospel, the Holy Spirit brought to their mind the word of God. These were unlearned men. They weren’t Rabbis trained in the scriptures. And yet when you hear Peter preach on the day of Pentecost, he preaches from the word of God, quoting from Old Testament prophesies like that of Joel. And he does so with discernment, with the discernment which is given to him by the Spirit of Truth.

And in the life of a modern day believer, we have the same promise. We are told to hide the word of God in our hearts that we might not sin against Him. The Spirit of God brings to our mind the words of God in order to teach us how we are to act. He uses the preaching of God’s word to admonish us and correct us when we get out of line. Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” So Paul tells young pastor Timothy in 2Timothy 4:2 to “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” The Holy Spirit uses the word of God to train us so that we might keep His word. He works through the spoken word of God.

But the other purpose of the Spirit bringing the words of Christ to their remembrance was to author through them the scriptures. They would go on to write the gospels and the epistles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 2Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” And Peter adds in 2Peter 1:20, “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

The scriptures are the great legacy left to us by the apostles under the direction of the Holy Spirit. That today we might know God and know the way to God because we have the word of God made more sure. It is written down for us by eyewitnesses, who had every word brought to their mind by the Spirit of Truth who brought it to their remembrance.

This is how we might know God and to be known by God. We cannot come to know God and be known by God apart from the word of God. I said a couple of weeks ago that there is no greater comfort than to know God, and to be known by God. There is no greater treasure. There is no greater blessing. Jesus said in vs 21 of our text, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” As we keep His word, He discloses more of Himself to us, that we might know Him more and more.

The second element of the ministry of the Holy Spirit as stated in vs.17 is that He abides with you and will be in you. And again, this is a principle that Jesus makes over and over again. He wants to drive this home because He knows that in a few hours He will be crucified and laid in a tomb. And so He wants to offer to His disciples the comfort of the Paracletos, the One like Him who will come alongside of them to help them and teach them and lead them in His absence.

So because the Spirit reveals truth through the word, because He is able to help us to know the word and obey the word, we come to know the love of God, which produces intimacy through the indwelling of His Spirit. That we might be one with Him, and live with Him, and be with Him forever.

Note in vs.18 Jesus anticipates that sense of abandonment and bewilderment that they will surely feel in just a few hours. He says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” I think that is key to having the comfort of the Holy Spirit. That this is not something we work for, or have to apply for, or even ask for. It is the initiative of Jesus Christ that sends the Holy Spirit to us, because He will not leave us comfortless. He will not expect us to go on without Him. He doesn’t expect us to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and get our life straightened out first. No, but He sends His Spirit to us in our hour of need to help us. When we were helpless, He came to us and offered Himself as our substitute. And when He went away, He came again in the Spirit of Christ and took up residence in each of us so that He might be with us always. Matt.28:20, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

The word in the Greek there is “orphanos,” it means fatherless. Or one bereft of a teacher, guide or guardian. Christ will never leave us fatherless, helpless. He will come to us in the Spirit of God, to be with us forever. Look how often He reiterates this promise. Vs.16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.” Vs.17, “you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” vs. 20, “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” And vs.23, If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

So four times the Lord tells the disciples that the Holy Spirit will be in them and abide in them forever. And that promise stands for us today as well. Romans 8:9 says, “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”

But how do we know this to be true? How do we know that we have the Spirit of Truth dwelling in us? Is it through some experience? Is it by some emotional response on our part? Is it by some supernatural occurrence that we have this confidence and comfort? I don’t believe so. There may be feelings or emotions one way or another, or no emotions at all. No supernatural occurrence whatsoever. Jesus doesn’t say anything about how you would feel. He says you will know it. Look at vs.17 again: “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

Notice He says that the world cannot know Him. Why? Because the world is not saved. The world has not received salvation through faith in Christ. They try to judge spiritual things by what they can touch or feel or sense with their senses. But the Bible says that the just shall live by faith. And that which is seen is not faith. Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the]assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.” So Jesus says you cannot try to know what is unseen by the senses.

Instead He uses the Greek word “ginosko” which means to know intimately. It was often used to imply the intimacy between a man and his wife. It is the knowledge which comes of an intimate relationship. He says that you will know that the Holy Spirit is in you, because you will have the intimacy of relationship with Me. That is the evidence that the Holy Spirit is in you and will abide in you forever. Because you know Him with an intimate relationship based on love.

And how do we have that intimacy? We have intimacy with Christ when we keep His word. Vs.23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” Love is the basis for intimacy. And intimacy is the basis for the knowledge and assurance that He will never leave us or forsake us. He proves Himself to us as we study His word and obey His word. That is how we show our love for Him. And when we love Him, He will love us in return in a special way that supersedes our senses. So that whether we live or die, we know we are the Lord’s. Whether we are in comfort or in danger, we know we are the Lord’s. Whether we are in poverty or in plenty, we know we are the Lord’s.

Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. He has sent His Spirit to dwell in our hearts by faith. He has given us His word which will abide forever. That we might be comforted with the word. So that we might know God, and know that God knows us, that we are His, and He is mine, and He will be with us, forever. Amen.

In many of my past sermons, I have established the principle that the Christian’s relationship with Christ is like that of a husband and wife in marriage. In our Wednesday evening Bible study, we are looking at that principle right now. Paul says in Ephesians 5:31, “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” So then marriage, as defined by God, is an illustration of our relationship with Christ.

In any marriage relationship, the foundation is love. But everyone here surely realizes that for a marriage to work, both members must love one another. It doesn’t work to have just one person loving their mate, but the mate not to respond in love. So it is with our relationship with Christ. There must be love from both parties if it is to be a healthy marriage.

There are two problems in the church today though that threaten the sanctity of this marriage with Christ. The first problem is that for the most part, the emphasis on the responsibility to love is one sided. The church is continually talking about and singing about Christ’s love for us, but hardly anything is said about our love for the Lord. In the church’s relationship with Christ, love is disproportionate. He does all the loving, and we do all the taking. And that kind of one sided love produces a lopsided marriage relationship. In that kind of relationship, the one being loved too often ends up abusing that love, and taking advantage of that person, becoming something of a narcissist, selfishly using the other for their own ends. They end up with a distorted view of their own importance. They end up seeking their own selfish priorities, often at the expense of the one doing the loving.

That isn’t the Biblical view of love, however. 1 Cor.13:5, which is part of the famous text on love, says that love “does not seek it’s own.” In other words, true love seeks to benefit the other partner, not itself. It doesn’t seek it’s own benefit at the expense of others. But unfortunately, this is far too often the church’s perspective on love. It’s one sided. It’s focused on God’s love for us, but hardly ever focused on our love for God.

And yet Jesus said in Mark 12:30 that the foremost commandment was “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.” I would suggest to you that for the most part, most of us fail in that commandment. We love ourselves first and then we probably love a whole list of earthly things, and maybe somewhere down on the bottom of the totem pole we love God. That hierarchy is made evident by our day planners. It’s evident by our checkbook register. It’s evident by our to do lists. Our lips may say we love God, perhaps even our Facebook page says we love God, but our daily priorities and activities say otherwise.

There is a second problem that hinders the church’s marriage with Christ. And that is that we have misunderstood the definition of love. We’ve misunderstood both Christ’s love for us, and our love for Christ. We have misinterpreted what constitutes love. The modern church in particular has adapted the world’s definition of love to the word, and as a result we have essentially “dumbed down” the Bible’s definition of love.

I have talked about this misinterpretation of love so often that I feel redundant speaking of it again. But it is germane to this passage, and it is essential to our relationship with Christ. Let me reiterate briefly; love is not simply a feeling, love is not just an emotion, love is not an experience. Love, in the best sense, is a commitment. It’s an act of the will. There were four words in the Greek that were used for love. Christ and the apostles consistently used the highest form of it; agape love. So in the Bible love is presented as a sacrificial commitment, even to the point of laying down your life for another. Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” That’s agape love. Being willing to lay down, or better yet, lay aside your life, for the sake of another.

That is true love, by the way. It’s being willing to lay down your life for the sake of the one you love. Love is not what you say, but what you do. That love was modeled by Christ when He laid down His life on the cross for us. That sacrificial love is modeled by Christian marriage in Ephesians 5. That is the love of a Christian, who puts the other’s needs above his own. That is the mark of a sanctified believer, one who truly loves God, who has perfected love, because they were willing to lay down their prerogatives for the sake of honoring Christ.

Now it’s interesting to note that Jesus speaks quite often of love in this Upper Room discourse. But notice that the emphasis is on our love for Him. He certainly speaks of His love for the church, but He is emphasizing our responsibility to love the Lord. Four times in this chapter alone Christ talks about our responsibility to love Him. In chapter 14, our Lord reminds us that it is those who love Him who obey His commandments; once in verse 15, a second time in verse 21, and again in verse 23, and then reverses it in verse 24.  Really four times makes reference to this idea of our love for God being that we obey His commands or word.

And I would also point out the placement of these statements about our love for God bracket certain promises of God. For instance, look at how these three verses are laid out. Vs.14, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” Vs. 15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Vs. 16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”

Now at first glance, you might think that these are unrelated bullet points. Almost as if John is just giving us highlights of the conversation here rather than a word for word rendition. And that may be true to a certain degree. But I would suggest that there is a purpose in the way that he has arranged it. Because I believe that love for God is the condition upon which these various promises are made.

For instance, look again at vs.14, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” We talked about last time what it meant to ask in Jesus’s name. That His will being a condition for Christ doing what we ask of Him. We ask according to His will. His purpose. His ministry. But I believe after studying this passage that there is another condition, and that is that you love Him, and to love Him He said is to keep His commandments.

If someone is not living according to Christ’s commands, then I don’t believe that God is under any compulsion whatsoever to grant our requests. In fact disobedience is a hindrance to your prayers. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” You are either living in disobedience as a child of God and as such will receive the discipline of God the Father, or your disobedience is evidence that you are not a child of God at all. But either way, your disobedience nullifies the promise of God to answer your prayers. Because that disobedience illustrates that you do not love God. And if you do not love God, then that is evidence that you are not God’s marriage partner or you are in rebellion to Him.

I’ve said before that I have studied the latter part of James 5 for years, trying to find the secret to answered prayer as illustrated by James’s example of Elijah. The key verse being vs.16, “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” I looked at it from the perspective of perseverance, from the perspective of faith, and just about every which way possible. And then finally one day it hit me. The key to effective prayer, the key to answered prayer, is the word righteous.

In fact, when you look at the complete verse, that becomes clearer. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” The emphasis is on confession of sins so that your prayers are not hindered.

So back in our text, I believe that Jesus deliberately juxtaposes vs.15 about love and obedience between the promise of answered prayer, and that of the promise of the Holy Spirit. Because I believe that love of God demonstrated by obedience is the key to the fulfillment of both of those promises.

Jesus makes the connection between obedience and love over and over again. He obviously is not teaching that Christianity is composed of an easy believism, of lip service without obedience. He is not teaching that God’s love for us is some sort of sentimentalism that winks at sin. He is speaking of love as a commitment, even as a sacrifice of our priorities for the Lord’s. There is a sense in which our God loves everyone in his benevolence and in the fact that He does them good. But His special love for His children is reserved, our Lord says, for those who believe in Him, love Him, and manifest their love in the keeping of His commandments. Vs.23, “If anyone loves Me he will keep My words and My Father will love him and We will come unto him and make our abode with him.” There is a special intimacy that God gives to those who love Him.

Our love for God is the key to the Christian life. And obedience and love are inseparably intertwined in this chapter. You cannot have one without the other. Let’s look at these statements. Vs.15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Vs.21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Vs.23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” And then in vs.24 He says it negatively, “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” Again and again, love and obedience are correlated by Christ, resulting in communion with God.

I often have people tell me that they are having problems in their Christian walk. And the problem they say they feel like God is far away. They pray and they don’t feel like God hears them. They don’t feel like God cares about their problems. Notice how many times the word “feel” was used there. But God’s presence or God’s response to our prayers is not dependent upon feelings. It’s dependent upon obedience. So when someone tells me that he doesn’t feel like God is close to them, I tell them that feelings follow obedience. They rarely precede it. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” As we get into conformity with God, then He will be near to us, and reveal Himself to us. Feelings follow obedience.

Obedience is kind of like trying to get in shape. We hear all the time of the great benefits of exercise. We hear that you will feel so much better if you get into shape. So we join a gym. And we start to work out on an exercise program. But let me ask you, does feeling good precede getting in shape or follow after you have gotten into shape? I would suggest that getting into shape is often painful. It’s arduous. That’s why they call it working out. And that’s why Paul said in Philippians that we are to work out our salvation through obeying. Phil. 2:12
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

When you are obedient, then you will begin to experience the joy and peace of intimate fellowship with God. John Calvin, the great Reformer said, “True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.” As we obey Him, we come to know Him. And out of that obedience comes a closer walk with God, out of obedience comes our sanctification, out of obedience comes our comfort, our fellowship, our assurance of His love for us. As we love Him and keep His commandments, He comes to us and abides with us and makes His home with us as promised in vs.21 and 23.

So the key to Christ granting our requests is our love manifested by our obedience. And that obedience is tied to the next promise as well, that of the Holy Spirit. He is our Helper so that we might do those things which God has commanded us to do. Vs.16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”

This highlights the major difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. A lot of people think that the difference is that in the old covenant they were under the law, but in the new covenant we are under grace. That’s not completely true. It is true that we that are saved by faith are not under the penalty of the law, but under grace, that is the gift of righteousness procured by Jesus’s death on the cross. But the commandments of God still stand. Jesus said I did not come to annul the law but to fulfill it. The difference is that in the old covenant we did not have the power to keep the law, but in the new covenant we have the power of the Spirit dwelling within us to help us keep His commandments. That is why I think Jesus juxtaposes these three otherwise unrelated statements together. He is showing the link which is obedience.

This new covenant promise is prophesied in Ezekiel 11:19, “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” He repeats that promise word for word again in Ez.36.

The same promise is made again in Jeremiah 31:33, “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”

That’s the purpose of sending the Holy Spirit folks. He is not some sort of experience. He is not a feeling. He is not an emotion. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Truth. And He is given to us that we might know the truth, and that we might be obedient to the truth. He is given to lead us in the truth. He is given to write the law of God upon our hearts, so that our desire is to be obedient, because we love the Lord with all our hearts and want to please Him. He gives us a new heart that is able to love Him, and is able to obey Him because our desires are changed.

Vs. 26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” So He is our teacher, our helper, that we might know the truth of Christ. He will bring it to our remembrance so that we might keep His word. That is why in vs.17 Jesus calls Him the Spirit of truth.

In chapter 15, you are going to see in the next couple of weeks that Jesus goes to great lengths to reiterate His commandments. It’s important to realize that in the New Testament, every one of the 10 commandments is reiterated except one. And that one that isn’t is the law of the Sabbath, because it is a ceremonial law. And when the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ, they were no longer necessary. They were a picture of something to come, but once He had come, the ceremonial laws were no longer in effect. But the point that Jesus makes is that the law of God is fulfilled in two positive commandments, as opposed to negative ones. The negative commands say don’t do this, don’t do that. But the positive commandments of Christ are to do something, first, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. And He said all the commandments are fulfilled in those two.

It’s also interesting to draw a correlation to the passage on love I referenced earlier, that of 1 Corinthians 13. In that chapter and the one preceding it, we see that love is a gift of the Spirit. Of all the gifts of the Spirit, love is the one that remains when the others cease. Love is the greatest gift. 1Cor. 13:8, “Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.” But the gift of love is going to endure, it will not cease, it will not fade away. As it says in vs.13, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Well, Jesus is showing that the way to accomplish His command to love Him and obey Him is through the Holy Spirit. The Helper is given that we might do the works of God. And He does that by leading us us in the truth. John 16:13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”

So then the Holy Spirit helps us love God, because we come to know Him through the word of God, of which the Holy Spirit is the author. And He brings the word to our minds, that He might lead us in the truth. So that we might know what to do, what His will is, what His commands are. And then when we don’t do what we should, He convicts us so that we might repent and be conformed to Christ’s will. John 16:8, “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”

When we sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit. And we limit the Holy Spirit. That is why it is necessary to have a daily filling of the Spirit. To confess your sins, and commit to love the Lord and be obedient to His will, so that the Holy Spirit may fill us with His power to do God’s will.

Next time we are going to continue in this chapter and really focus more on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But for now let me just say that the Helper (or Comforter in some versions) comes from the Greek word Paraclete.  That’s the transliteration in English.  Greek it’s Paraklētos.  Klētos is a verb form of a verb kaleō which means to call, pará  means alongside like parallel – so to call somebody alongside.  That’s what the word means, somebody called alongside.

And then there is another word, Állos which is used here.  It means another of the exact same kind; and Jesus uses that:  “I will give you állos Paraklētos.  “I will give you another exactly like I am, which is to say that I’m going to send you a Helper exactly like the Helper that I have been,” and that defines for you the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We have the power of Christ in us, the words of Christ written down for us, and the mind of Christ ministering to us through the Spirit of Truth. That we might be able to be obedient to the truth. That we might know the truth, and the truth make us free. Free from the penalty of sin, and free from the power of sin.

Listen, we know that the devil is a deciever. He loves to confuse. He loves to twist doctrines. And so there is an effort on his part to confuse two vital doctrines of scripture, that of love and the Holy Spirit. We see both of those doctrines perverted and confused in the church today to the church’s detriment. We need to know that love is evidenced by obedience to God’s will. And we need to know that God has sent His Spirit that we might know His will and have the indwelling power of God to help us to do His will. And in both of those doctrines, the flow is outward, not inward. It’s not just about God’s love for me, but my love for God, manifested by my obedience. And it’s not about how the Spirit of God makes me feel, or what manifestation of God I experience, but He helps me to manifest Christ to the world. That is what discipleship is all about. Loving God and loving one another. We love because He first loved us. And then we love one another because that is His command to us, and how we show that we love God. And in both of them, the Spirit is the originator, and the supplier of our needs in all that we do. As we yield to Him on a daily basis, then we will love God by obedience to God’s commands. And then we will experience the blessings of God upon our lives.

Jesus said God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. I quote that verse here almost every week. But I can’t help but believe that we need to elaborate on this doctrine that God is Spirit. The Greek word for spirit is pneuma. Pneuma is the root word from which we get our word pneumatic. It means air, or a breath of air. So a spirit is like the air. A spirit is unseen. It isn’t composed of matter that you can touch or see or feel. The best way we can describe it is a spirit is like the air or the wind. We can see the effects of the wind, but we can’t see the wind. Jesus said, no man has seen the Father at any time. He is invisible to human eyes because He is Spirit. But like when we see the effects of the wind, Romans 1 says in creation we see the invisible attributes of God and His eternal nature. We do not see God in nature. But we see the effect of God in nature and it testifies to us that God is.

John’s gospel tells us that Jesus is God who took on human form. John 1:14, “And the Word (that is Jesus) became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” For 33 years, God appeared on the earth in a physical body of a man. Luke tells us that He was born of the Spirit of God through a young woman named Mary. But the John 1 tells us that Jesus existed from the beginning. He was with God in the beginning. So in some incredible way that is impossible for us to comprehend, God was in three persons in eternity past, and the second person of the trinity, who John calls the Word, in His Spirit subjects Himself to be born as a baby even while in Mary’s womb, and is born in flesh as the Son of God. He lives fully as a baby, then a toddler, then a teenager, then a young man, before declaring Himself to be the Son of God at 30 years old. At this point He begins His public ministry to the world as Jew, living in Israel, subjecting Himself to all that mankind was subjected to. He did so sinlessly, and after preaching His gospel to all of Israel, He offered Himself as not only a human sacrifice, but a divine sacrifice for the sins of the world, to provide salvation for those that will believe in Him.

After His crucifixion, God raised Jesus bodily from the grave, and 40 days later He ascended into heaven in the sight of 500 witnesses. Then on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came to the disciples and indwelled the church. Today we worship God in Spirit. The body of Christ is no longer with us, we don’t have a physical God that we can see or touch. But we worship Him in Spirit and in the truth of God’s word. His Word is the physical effect or evidence of the Spirit of God given to the world.

Now this passage before us today happens about 12 hours before He is offered as a sacrifice for sin on the cross. Jesus knows full well what is to come, and why He is doing what He is doing. But He also knows that the disciples do not understand. And so in these last hours before His death, He is speaking to them in the Upper Room, giving them His last will and testament, so to speak, revealing certain truths to them and making promises to them which are designed to sustain them when He is no longer with them.

Though His upcoming ordeal on the cross should have been uppermost in His mind, He wants to comfort His disciples, because He knows that they don’t really understand what must happen. They are going to be disillusioned and discouraged when Jesus is crucified. And so in spite of the ordeal ahead of Him, He is concerned about His disciples. He offers them principles and truths that are designed to sustain them and strengthen their faith for the days ahead, especially those days when He will be taken back up into heaven.

To comfort them then, He said in the first few verses of the chapter that He was going away, but He was going to prepare a place for them, and He would return one day to take them to be with Him. But Thomas speaking perhaps for all of them, said, “Lord we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus’s answer is one of the greatest theological statements in the Bible. Jesus says in vs. 6, “I am the Way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.” Now I spent some time expounding that text last time so we don’t need to go review all that again. But suffice it to say that Jesus is declaring that He is the only way to the Father. He is the entrance into the Kingdom of God.

Now we come today to vs.7, which is a continuation of that thought. Jesus said, ““If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” The greatest comfort in life we can possibly have is that we know God and are known by God. There is nothing on earth that can compare with that knowledge. Because I can assure you that in this life you are eventually going to come to a point when you realize that no one can help you through your particular trial.

I’ve been through many desperate times when I wanted so badly to pick up the phone and call someone. And yet there was really no one to call that could help me. Our friends might commiserate with us, or sympathize with us in our trials, but there are many trials where there is no one that can help us. The doctor says that there is nothing that they can do. Or the good will of family and friends has been tapped once too many times. Or the problem is just to big, too complex for anyone to be able to help. I’ve been there a few times, and I suspect that you have too. And if you haven’t yet, then it’s going to happen eventually. And in those darkest hours, there is no hope except to hope in God. And there is no comfort, but to know God, and to know that God knows you and loves you.

So Jesus focuses their attention on that principle. Because they think that they know Jesus. But what Jesus says, is that if you know Me, you would know God. But the disciples knew that Jesus was the Son of God. They knew Jesus was the Messiah. They knew He was the Son of David. But their knowledge was incomplete. They though had some of the right doctrine, they did not have full comprehension, and therefore they were missing the full comfort that comes from knowing who He is. They did not know that Jesus was the manifestation of the Godhead in bodily form.

Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Jesus “is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.” And that is what Jesus is saying in vs.7, you now know the Father, and you have seen Him. They had seen the invisible, unseen Father through the physical manifestation of Jesus Christ.

But Philip still didn’t understand. And most likely, neither did the other apostles. He said in vs.8, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” We can look with 20/20 hindsight and kind of look down on those poor ignorant disciples, can’t we? It’s so evident to us, and they were so blind to what was right in front of them. But I would suggest that Philips comment is not so far off from our own thoughts about God today. Philip’s request is the same request the world makes today. Show us the Father and it will be enough. Hey, why doesn’t God show Himself to the world? Prove your existence to us. Manifest yourself to us.

In the words of modern day skeptics, we don’t accept you as you as invisible, as unseen. We don’t accept you as a Spirit. We don’t accept you as you have manifested yourself in the flesh as the historical Jesus 2000 years ago. We want you to do something that we think is fitting, according to how we think God should be. We want you to prove yourself to us today. Jesus had come with all kinds of signs, proving that He was deity, and yet they still asked for greater signs. Raising the dead did not satisfy them. And I suppose that what people really want to see today is something on the scale of the movie Independence Day. They want to see some sort of immense presence in the sky in flaming fire, or blinding light, overwhelming the senses. They want to see some sort of incredible power in a physical, tangible way. But that is putting our demands upon God to meet our standards. God has chosen to reveal Himself in a more humble way, so that we might know Him in a more personal, intimate way.

So Jesus said, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

The fact of the historicity of Jesus is widely accepted even by most non Christian scholars of antiquity. Extra biblical evidence can be found in 1st century writings like that from the Jewish historian Josephus, or Pliny the Younger, who was a Roman governor, or Tacitus, a Roman historian, or from the Talmud, which was a Jewish Rabbinical text, or from a Greek satirist by the name of Lucian. Archeology backs up the claims of the gospels as well, such as the important find a few years ago, an ossuary, which was a type of wooden coffin, engraved with the name of James, the son of Joseph, the brother of Jesus. So there is ample contemporary evidence outside of Biblical sources which show conclusively that Jesus was a real historical figure.

But the greatest evidence is simply the word of God. The internal evidence of the reliability of the word of God is overwhelming. It is truth. It is true historically and it’s truth experientially and it’s truth practically. And Jesus uses that evidence to support His own claims of divinity. His claim to divinity is that He speaks the words of God, and His words are validated by His works, which are the works of God.

Verse 10:  “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?  The words that I say to you, I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.  Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”

And the truth of God’s word is it’s own witness to those who believe it and obey. It is self validating. In John 7:17 Jesus said, “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself. He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”

So because HIs word is true, and does not glorify Himself but glorifies the Father, we know that Jesus is one with God. We believe in Him. We don’t have Jesus in person here on earth that we might know Him and examine Him. But we do have Him in scripture. And the word of Christ, the truth of Christ validates our belief.

Romans 1:17 says that the just shall live by faith. Not by sight. We receive life by faith in Christ, righteousness by faith in Christ, forgiveness by faith in Christ. We live by faith in God as given to us in the scriptures. We don’t have faith in just anything, but in what the scriptures tell us. We believe in the promises of the Bible, God’s word. That is what it means to believe in God, to have faith in Christ.

Our faith does not rest on personal experiences. Our faith doesn’t rest on supernatural occurrences, or on personal revelation through special messages we think we have received from God. Our faith rests in His written word. Our faith increases proportionately to our understanding of Scripture.  Scripture reveals God; and the more you see God revealed in Scripture, the greater your faith becomes, the stronger it becomes. As we saw in a moment ago in John 7:17, when we act in faith to what the scriptures teach, then the truth becomes clear and we learn that we can depend upon His word. And so our faith grows in response to our obedience.

Listen, we dare not believe in God because we feel something. We cannot trust our feelings as a basis for our faith. Our feelings fluctuate. And oftentimes, our feelings lie. Our feelings may tell us that God doesn’t care, that God must not even exist. So we cannot trust our feelings. We trust in the word of God, in spite of our feelings. We believe His word no matter what is going on around us.

Feelings follow obedience. You choose faith and obedience irregardless of feelings, and eventually feelings will follow. That’s why in vs.15 which we will look at next week, Jesus says “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Obedience brings intimacy with God, which brings assurance of our relationship with Him, which in turn produces feelings of joy and peace and comfort.

The second comfort that Christ gives is the promise of His power. Now that the disciples know who He is, that He is the eternal God who is going back into heaven to prepare a place for us, then the promise is that they will continue to have His power. Vs. 12, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

A lot of people love to go off the tracks with this verse. They read it and it’s off to the races. Everyone wants to walk on water, or raise the dead, or heal people. And to some extent the apostles were granted that power at the beginning of the church, in what we call the apostolic age. They had similar power to what Christ had to authenticate their message. But I would suggest to you that this was limited to the apostles and a few of their proteges. And that was only for a short time, until the New Testament scriptures were written. By the end of the apostolic age, the miraculous works of the apostles had begun to die out with them. By the end of Paul’s ministry, his miracles had ceased. He told Timothy for instance to drink a little wine for his stomach’s sake. He talked about leaving one of his entourage sick. The miracles had a limited purpose, to corroborate the words of God which the apostles were preaching.

In Acts 2, you read how it flows through the Apostolic Age.  This is the power given to the apostles.  It’s defined for us clearly in 2 Corinthians 12:12, the signs and wonders, and miracles of an apostle.  And it’s in Hebrews 2:4 where it says that the message the apostles preached was confirmed by signs and wonders and mighty deeds done by the apostles. It was to confirm the word of God, that the words they spoke were the words of Christ. The same principle that was true in Him (he spoke the words, he did the works) was true in His apostles.

How then does Jesus say that you will do greater works than these? It’s because He would send the Holy Spirit to indwell each believer. When Jesus was on earth He was limited to being in one place at one time. But the Holy Spirit is not limited by place or time. He is able to be in individuals everywhere at once, doing the works of God through many sons of God at once.

So when the Apostolic Era ended there’s still a sense in which greater works are being done. Jesus works were limited to Israel. And though Jesus did more miracles than anyone had ever done or will do, there were not that many people that believed in Him and were saved. Five hundred people witnessed His ascension into heaven. But the disciples ministry was much more far reaching. It spread throughout the Roman Empire. It took over the civilized world. The greatest miracle of all is that a sinner is saved and transformed to be a saint. And in one message on the day of Pentecost, 3000 souls were saved. And in our day, greater works than these have been done, in that the gospel has encircled the entire globe, and it’s doing so more and more all the time.  The gospel is being sent all over the world right now in the air, on the Internet, and through radio and media constantly.

The third way the Lord gives the disciples comfort is that He reveals to them His provision.
There’s a third point  Our Lord reveals to them His provision.  Vs. 13 and 14: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

Two times Jesus gives the condition, “ask in My name.” That phrase is the key. What does in My name mean? How are we to correctly understand that? To ask in His name, means to ask according to His identity, consistent with who He is, and what His purpose is. If someone came to you in the name of the King of a particular country, then you would expect that person to represent the purpose or mission of the King. They would be acting on behalf of the King’s will.

Notice that Jesus Himself is subjecting Himself to glorifying the Father in this verse. “So that the Father may be gloried in the Son.” The Son is working to bring about the provision that you need, in order to glorify the Father. So the Son is not working in that prayer to glorify Himself. But so that the Father may be glorified. He is not seeking HIs own glory.

So in like manner, when we pray in Jesus’s name, we are not seeking our own glory, but seeking to glorify Christ, and then Christ will answer it, so that the Father may be glorified through Him. But the request must be consistent with the Father’s will, with the Son’s purpose, so that they are glorified.

So to simplify it, ‘If you ask anything in My name, means asking consistent with Christ’s will.” And that is borne out by 1 John 5:14, “This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

This is the comfort that Jesus offered the apostles. He gave them the assurance and knowledge that they needed concerning the person of His deity, that He was God, and was returning back to the Father, to make intercession for them, to prepare a place for them, to send them His Spirit to be His presence in each of them. So that they might know Him, and know that He is God, and that He knows those who are His.

Secondly, that they might be comforted by His power. Though He was going away, He would give them power to continue His ministry, and even to a greater extent than He had done. They would know the power of God to transform men’s and women’s lives all over the known world. And we see the power of the gospel continuing to work today in even greater ways, as the word of God has reached every corner of the globe.

And the third comfort is that He will provide all the resources that we need to be able to fulfill His ministry. Everything we ask for according to His will He will do it. Some of us may think that limits us in our prayers. But I think that it gives us great confidence in our prayers, and great hope in our ministry. We can pray confidently about things that we know God cares about, because God has stated it in His word. That is a great comfort to me, and I hope it is to you as well. If God said it, and God promised it, then He will do it. And if we are doing His will, then there is nothing that will be impossible for us. God will provide all of our needs according to His riches in glory.

When I was a boy, I remember my Dad, who was the pastor of our church, saying that his favorite song was “Mansion over the Hilltop.” He wasn’t a very good singer, but when the church would sing that song, he really seemed to enjoy it. The lyrics were not the most doctrinally correct perhaps, but the sentiment was sound. It went something like this:
“I’m satisfied with just a cottage below, 
A little silver and a little gold
. But in that city where the ransomed will shine,
 I want a gold one that’s silver lined.”
(Chorus
)“I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop, 
In that bright land where we’ll never grow old
. And some day yonder we will never more wander, 
But walk on streets that are purest gold”

Today we are looking at a passage in which that promise of a mansion in heaven found it’s origin. And there is a great controversy among theologians and commentators as to how the word translated mansions in the KJV should actually be rendered. Most of them say it should be rooms or dwelling places. And that may be more accurate. But I would suggest that a room in heaven is more than equal to a mansion on earth.

However, rather than quibbling over semantics, today I want expound this text in light of the greater context of this passage, which is difficult because we don’t have time to teach the entire Upper Room Discourse in one sitting. But one of the problems with studying passages like the one in front of us today is that we tend to look at it in isolation and as a result we can end up with a distorted doctrine.

So as an attempt to bring the proper context to these verses, I want to remind you that Jesus says these words in response to his earlier declaration in ch.13 that He was going away, and the dismay on the part of the disciples upon hearing that. Peter in particular said he wanted to go with the Lord, and Jesus said ““Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.”

Now the question is, where was Jesus going? Many people seeing the earlier statement He made that the time had come for Him to be glorified assume that it meant that He was going to heaven. And indeed Jesus does go to heaven eventually in His ascension. But the path He would take to heaven would be circuitous. First He would go to the cross. He would suffer and die there and be buried. And then while His body was in the tomb, Peter says in 1 Peter 3:18,19 that “having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit; in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison,” speaking of Hades. Then on the third day He rose from the dead, appeared to the apostles for 40 days, and then in the presence of 500 witnesses, ascended into heaven. So as Jesus says in vs.12, “I go to the Father.” But it was not immediately.

Nevertheless, the disciples hear Him say that He is going away and they cannot come with Him. They heard Him speak about His betrayal and death. And so they are troubled by those statements. If they understood Him properly, Jesus, who they believed was the Son of God, the Messiah, who had walked on water, who had fed multitudes, who had healed the sick and raised the dead, was Himself going to die. And so they were confused. They were troubled. They didn’t understand. They began to realize that they were going to be bereft of their Master and Lord and they did not know how to handle that.

So Jesus statement in 14:1 is meant to assuage their fears, to offer them comfort. Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” I have heard sanctimonious Christians say that it is sinful to worry or to fret about the future. And there may be a sense in which it can indeed lead to sin. But I would suggest that to worry about the future is human nature. It is a weakness of the finite human condition, but it is not necessarily sinful.

Furthermore, I would point out to you that three times in the preceding three chapters, John says that Jesus Himself was troubled. In John 11:33, when Jesus saw the grief of the mourners for Lazarus, it says He “was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled.” In chapter 12, vs.27, Jesus Himself said that “Now My soul has become troubled,” when He considered His impending death. And in chapter 13 vs 21, knowing that the time had come when Judas would betray Him, it says, “He became troubled in spirit.” So because we know that Jesus was sinless, then I can say confidently that to become troubled, or upset, or even to worry about an impending event, is not sinful. And that Jesus has compassion, not condemnation, for those who are troubled.

So He says, “Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in Me.” So first off, our hearts may not be troubled because Jesus has gone before us. We can face the uncertainty of our future because according to 1John 2:1 we have an advocate with the Father which is Jesus Christ the righteous. We may not be troubled about the future because we have an Advocate with the Father, eternal in the heavens, who has gone before us and taken the sting of death upon Himself, taken our punishment upon Himself, who was the first fruits of the resurrection and who lives evermore to make intercession for us. Because He overcame sin, we can overcome sin. Because He overcame the grave, we will overcome the grave. Because He lives, we will not die, but live forever with Him. So to believe in Him is to be comforted, because though He says in this world we will have trouble, He has overcome the world.

Secondly, we can be untroubled about our trials because Jesus is God. “You believe in God, believe also in Me.” This statement teaches us the doctrine of Christ’s divinity. We can be untroubled about our trials because as John 1:1 says He was with God, and He is God. We can be untroubled about our trials because Jesus and God are united in person and in power, as Jesus said in John 10:28, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” We are doubly secure in the love of God.

Thirdly, we can be untroubled by our trials or future because Jesus is preparing a place for us. Vs.2, “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you.” Hebrews 11:8 says, “By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance; and he went out, not knowing where he was going.” But God had prepared a place for him and for his descendants. It was about 500 years before Abraham’s seed inherited the promised land. But when they entered into it, each family was given property, an inheritance as the Lord had promised. Vineyards they had not planted, cities they had not built. A land flowing with milk and honey.

In like manner, Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us, a dwelling place for His church, and inheritance, said Peter in 1Peter 1:4, “an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you.” So we are not troubled by the trials of this world because as Hebrews says of Abraham in chapter 11, we are “looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.” We “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He has prepared a city for them.”
Hebrews 11 goes on to say that those Old Testament saints persevered in this life, recognizing that they were strangers and aliens in this world. That is I think the secret to not being troubled by the trials and pressures of this world. It is not to simply think that God will somehow work all of it out so that we can get on with our prosperity and success and enjoy life. But it is not having your hope set on earthly things but your focus on heavenly things.

Paul said he was torn between staying here on earth or going to be with the Lord. He said to be absent from the body was to be present with the Lord, and that was very much better. But if he was to stay on in this world, then it would mean fruitful labor for him. And that is a good illustration of what it means to be heavenly minded. It means kingdom minded. Keeping your focus on what you can do to build the kingdom of God, and to manifest the kingdom of God to the world until Christ takes you home.

Last week was the anniversary of William Tyndale’s martyrdom. Tyndall was an Anglican priest in the Church of England in the 1500’s. And he became convinced that the Bible should be translated into English from Greek and Hebrew. He wanted to do that himself, but he knew that it wasn’t possible in England due to the feelings of the church about keeping the Bible in Latin. So he traveled to Germany where he translated the Bible, and eventually the first five books of the Old Testament. But to do that, he had to move constantly for fear of retaliation and arrest by the church. Eventually however, they arrested him, having been betrayed by a friend for the reward offered. and he spent about a year in prison awaiting trial. Finally, in 1536 he was convicted of heresy and executed by strangulation, after which his body was burnt at the stake. His dying prayer was that the King of England’s eyes would be opened and this prayer seemed to be answered just two years later with King Henry’s authorization of the Great Bible for the Church of England, which was largely from Tyndale’s own work. Hence, the Tyndale Bible, as it was known, played a key role in spreading Reformation ideas across the English-speaking world and, eventually, to the British Empire. In 1611, the KJV Bible was produced and printed, which borrowed significantly from Tyndale’s work. Tyndale was a man who lived his life in expectation of the reward, he was looking for a city and a country which has foundations, whose architect and builder was God. And I think we can be confident the such a man received a great inheritance in the kingdom of heaven.

Fourthly, our hearts are not troubled by this world because we know that Jesus is coming back to take us to be with Him. Notice that Jesus doesn’t really talk about heaven. He simply says that He will take us to be with Him. Heaven is where God is. And though I believe that heaven is a real place, I don’t think it aligns with our common understanding of it. I believe a lot of people misapply the visions of John regarding streets of gold and gates of pearls to a literal place that matches that description. But if you read that account in Revelation 21, you will discover that it is describing the bride of Christ, called the New Jerusalem, which will come down out of heaven to replace the earth after it is burned up.

Peter had this to say about this end of the age, in 2Peter 3:10, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up. Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.”

I don’t want to use this time today to give you a discourse on heaven. The Bible actually has very little specifics on the subject. But suffice it to say that where Christ is, that is where heaven is. Jesus said to the thief on the cross, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.” And Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” It doesn’t matter where it is, as long as Christ is there it is heaven.

But I do believe that the Bible teaches that there will be a second coming of Christ and a resurrection. 1Thess. 4:13 says, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

That is our comfort. That belief that Christ is coming back for us is how we can keep our hearts from being troubled in a world of chaos and confusion. Paul said in 1 Thess. 1: 9, that we that are saved are to turn from idols and serve God and “wait for God’s Son from heaven whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.”

Then in vs.4, Jesus says, “And you know the way where I am going.” As I was studying this verse I could not help but think that the sentence construction was odd. It just didn’t seem to sound like the best way of expressing what I thought Jesus meant. At first glance, you would suppose He is saying the disciples know where He is going, and they know how to get there. That is obviously how Thomas interpreted it. He said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?”

But Jesus isn’t talking about a destination. Jesus was referring to the way of salvation. He is saying, you know the way of salvation. You know the way into the kingdom of God. And an illustration of that is that in Acts we have six times I believe when Christianity was called The Way. Paul said he persecuted unto death those of The Way. That meant Christians. It wasn’t until Acts 11 in Antioch that they were first called Christians. Prior to that, it was called the Way. And perhaps that name finds it’s origin in Jesus’s statement right here. “You know the Way where I am going.” The Way then is not just a destination but a means to get there. A path. Jesus had been preaching for three and a half years concerning how to enter the Kingdom of God. And so the disciples knew the way into the kingdom. It was by Jesus and through Jesus only.

And Jesus confirms that in vs.6, saying, ““I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus is the Way, with a capital W. He is not necessarily making three parallel statements in this declaration. But I think He is making a declarative statement in I am The Way. He is saying, I am the means of salvation, the way to God, the entrance into the Kingdom of God. The Way to God is only through Me.

But then Jesus adds two explanatory clauses to clarify The Way; 1)the truth, and 2)the life. The Way is the truth, and the Way is the life. I think that is how He means it. He is saying this; that the Way is the truth in a world full of deception. Proverbs 14:12 says “There is a way that seems right to a man, but it’s end is the way of death.” This is the lie of Satan since the beginning of time. He told Eve that if she disobeyed God, then it would mean she would be wise like God. He told her that she would not die. But Satan lied, as he is the father of lies and the truth is not in him. And what promised life for Eve resulted in death.

Satan has propagated his lies throughout the earth. He promises life, happiness, wisdom, but it produces only death, despair and foolishness. Jesus, on the other hand, it says in John 1:14, was full of grace and truth. He spoke the truth of God. Jesus is The Way and the Way is the truth of God.

And so logically, The Way produces life. Because God is life. John says in chapter 1 that Jesus is the source of life. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” And there cannot be life without truth. That is why we put such an emphasis here on preaching the full truth of God’s word. Without the truth, there can be no life. A partial truth is just a concealed lie, and that cannot bring about life.

So the Way results in life, not just earthly life, but eternal life, abundant life. When you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, you receive life. Eternal life. Abundant life. Real life. What this world offers is only temporal life. It’s like life in black and white, like a dumb animal kind of life, without reason, without wisdom, being subject to the passions and lusts of the flesh and being held captive under the bondage of sin. There may be a sense in which one doesn’t realize that his life is futile and finite. I don’t think my dog realizes that he is a dog. But that doesn’t change the fact that he is an animal. He is not of higher intelligence. And I think the unsaved are like animals in a sense. They are ignorant of the life of God. They live in darkness. But there will be a day when the light of Christ will make their ignorance apparent. And at that point, the Bible says that the world will mourn Him who they pierced.

That certainty of Christ’s coming is a comfort for those of us who have trusted in Jesus as our Savior. But the certainty of Christ’s coming should be a cause for concern as well, because it means judgment for those who have rejected Jesus as Lord and Savior. I think while many Christians agree in doctrine with the exclusivity of the statement that Jesus made, yet in practice they seem to imagine that there will be an escape clause somehow for their loved ones who are not saved.

But Jesus makes it clear, no one comes to the Father except through Him. Those who are not found dressed in His righteousness alone by faith, will be cast out into outer darkness. They will have no inheritance in the Kingdom of God. They have no part in the family of God. They will not dwell there, but will dwell in eternal darkness, separated from God for eternity.

So while we are to be comforted by Christ’s words, we should also be warned. Jesus told us to expect Him to come at an hour we did not suspect. He is coming soon. Let us be about the Kingdom of God. Let us keep our focus on the city without foundations, whose architect and builder is God, and let us bring as many as we can to faith in Jesus Christ while it is still day, for the night comes when no man can work.