My message today is titled, “Fight or Flight.” And I hope that the reason for that title would be evident from the content of the verses we just read.  We know from this text and the other gospels that all the disciples fled as a result of this incident, and also we see Simon Peter trying to put up a fight by taking out his sword and cutting of the ear of the high priest’s servant. That’s the basis for calling it, Fight or Flight.  

The medical professionals tell us that fight or flight is associated with a physiological reaction which occurs in humans or animals in response to a perceived harmful attack, or a threat to survival. It is an automatic, instinctive response that activates our nervous and muscular systems in order to help us survive.  It is natural.  It is instinctive.  It is normal.  But in the realm of the spiritual that which is natural and physical is not necessarily the kind of reaction that is in alignment with God’s purposes.

And we find that natural vs spiritual response illustrated in this text.  The disciple’s reaction to the mob coming to arrest Jesus would have been pretty typical.  It was a natural reaction.  Some fled, and some attempted to fight.  That is the way the body is engineered.  We are told in Mark 14 that even as the disciples fled, one  young man, probably Mark himself, was caught and he slipped out of his clothes and ran away naked.  And of course, we know what Peter did.  He drew a sword to defend Christ.  He was going to fight the spiritual battle in his own strength, with his skill and bravado.

I think that the church is often guilty of similar responses as we try to find our way in a hostile world.  We tend to try to use human ingenuity to accomplish spiritual goals.  But when we do so we fail to understand Ephesians 6 which says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers in the heavenly places.  

Jesus made the same principle clear in this chapter, in vs 36. Jesus answered to Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”  So if, as Jesus indicates, the kingdom of God is spiritual, not physical, and our enemies are spiritual and not physical, then it stands to reason that the church’s strategies must be spiritual and not physical.

So Jesus and the disciples climb the Mount of Olives in the dark of night to engage in a spiritual battle, the battle between the will of God and the will of man. It was in the Garden of Eden that man first encountered  spiritual warfare with the enemy of his soul. There the battle with Satan was lost by man, there he forfeited his right to rule over the earth and gave it over to Satan by yielding his obedience to Satan’s will. Now Jesus as the second Adam enters another garden to do battle with Satan. The issue again is God’s will versus the will of Satan.

But the disciples react in the flesh instead of according to the Spirit.  So Christ rebukes Peter in vs.11 saying, “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”  The Lord Jesus had known ahead of time how all this was going to come about.  He knew that Judas had planned to betray Him there.  And yet He did not try to avoid arrest  by fleeing from the soldiers or by planning a defense.  Instead, we are told that Jesus went boldly out to meet the mob.  I’m sure it would have been possible for Jesus to have easily eluded them in the dark in the olive grove.  But that wasn’t the Father’s will.  And Jesus had prayed in the prayer recorded in Luke 22 that He was concerned that the Father’s will be done, and not His own.

John’s record of this event in the Garden of Gethsemane is selective.  He doesn’t make an attempt to mention a lot of what the other gospel writer’s have already written about. Out of all the events that transpired in the garden, John emphasizes the fact that Jesus initiates His own capture. John doesn’t mention the night spent in prayer, or the sweat drops of blood that Christ spilled as He prayed.  He doesn’t mention the disciples falling asleep.  He doesn’t mention Judas’s kiss of betrayal.  And what we can deduce from that is that what John does record is to illustrate certain facts that he felt served his greater purpose. John wasn’t writing a biography, he was writing a gospel.  As he said in chapter 20 vs.30, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”  So John emphasizes that Jesus went boldly forth to offer Himself as a sacrifice by doing the will of the Father.

That sacrificial love is illustrated in vs.8, in which Jesus says in effect, “Take Me, and let these go.”  That is the same sacrificial love that takes Jesus to the cross for us all. In bearing our judgment for sin, He said in a sense the same thing to the Father’s justice.  “Take Me, and let these people go.”

So what John has recorded for us is selected to teach us certain truths.  Now there are many applications that one could get from this passage.  But there is one particular application that I would like to make, which may seem like a stretch perhaps, but which I think is appropriate. Rather than doing my normal exegesis of each verse, I want to use this text to make an application that I feel God has laid on my heart this morning; and that is the purpose of the church.  I see in this situation an illustration of how the church is to respond in a hostile culture.  

Now I think this application is  justified because these 11 disciples represent the church. It took only 10 Jewish men to constitute a synagogue, or a local assembly. So these 11 men were Christ’s church.  We know from other scriptures, particularly Ephesians 2:20, that the apostles are the foundation of the church.  And at this point there is very little else but the foundation.  Christ has spent the last three years building the foundation, teaching the disciples the doctrines of the kingdom of God.  

You will remember that Jesus said to Peter in Matthew 16:18, “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”  So the disciples were the foundation stones upon which Christ would build His  church, and Christ is the cornerstone.  But the main point I want to emphasize is they are the church at that point.  Eleven guys, and they have all sorts of shortcomings, and they are facing all sorts of challenges, and their response is often completely wrong and yet Christ has chosen them to be the foundation of His church.  

So the Lord will use this situation and others like it to teach them so that when Jesus is no longer with them in person, they will know how to lead the church in order that the church will not only survive, but thrive.  The disciples will learn from even their failures how to continue Christ’s ministry.

But on this particular night, it must have seemed to the disciples that the gates of hell were prevailing against the church. And so while Peter attempts to fight, and the other disciples flee into the darkness, Jesus stands firm knowing that He is acting according to the Father’s will. 

However, notice that Jesus’s promise to the church that the gates of hell will not prevail against it, is conditional.  His promise is conditional upon the fact that it has to be His church, and He has to be the builder of it.  If He is, then there is the promise that hell will not prevail against it.  But if it is not His church, and He is not the builder of it, then there is no such promise.

As a pastor, I am routinely asked from time to time about our plans for this church.  What are our goals?  What is our long term plan?  Where are we going with this thing?  I guess those are valid concerns.  But I can’t help but feel that they are often prompted by unbiblical expectations.  And that is because the Christian community today has a picture in their mind of what they think church should be, what the church should look like.  That vision may have been influenced by many factors, such as what seems to be working elsewhere, what church was like when they grew up, or what they’ve been told the church has to do to reach our modern culture.  

And I can tell you that from a pastor’s perspective that answering this question isn’t easy for me either.  There are many, many books out there which purport to tell you how to build a church.  Or what a successful church should look like.  Rick Warren wrote a very popular book many years ago now which had a tremendous impact on the modern evangelical church, called “The Purpose Driven Church.”  There are some things in that book that sound good.  But there are also some things that I feel are misdirected. Namely, that there is a formula, a tried and true business style model for how to build a successful church.

Whether Rick Warren intended to imply it or not, the average church pastor who uses that book as a template does so hoping that it will result in building a large church.  Because Rick Warren has a huge church and he used that formula.  And because large numbers are what practically everyone thinks is emblematic of a successful church.  How many people you have, how many Sunday morning services you conduct, what kind of programs you have and how big your building is indicates how successful you are.  

But for the most part I have disregarded such handbooks for church growth. Instead, several years ago, I began a study in the book of Acts on Sunday mornings because I wanted to address some of these fundamental questions concerning the church.  And what better source is there to determine how God builds His church than to study the first church in Jerusalem from the book of Acts.  However, that was a long time ago, and some of you weren’t here at that time to benefit from that study.  

So I want to go back to Acts chapter 2 in order to refresh our memory.  If we are going to have a church which is Christ’s church, and which is built by God, which will stand against the gates of hell, then I can think of no better example than the church in chapter 2 of Acts which was birthed by the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.  And first of all we note that 3000 people were saved as a result of Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost. But don’t focus on the numbers and miss the important part. The key is  that if you’re going to have a church that is built by God, and protected by God, then it must start with a saved congregation.  The church is the congregation of the saints.  Saints aren’t dead people, they are saved people.

And church buildings that are filled with unsaved people aren’t actually Christ’s church. The people may be the social pillars of the community, they may have all the trappings of the church, they may look like what we think churches are supposed to look like, but if they are not made up of born again saints then they do not constitute the church according to God. That eliminates a whole lot of so called churches right there. Nice people practicing religion in pretty buildings does not constitute a church.  The first church in Jerusalem did not even have a building. But the church is made up of sinners who have received and believed the truth of Jesus Christ are granted righteousness, resulting in salvation. In Acts 2:47 it says, “And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” So a saved congregation is the first prerequisite.  

And then again in Acts chapter 2 we find in one verse the purpose of the church, as designed by God, and given to us.  Acts 2:42 gives the divine blueprint they followed: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Those are the four essential elements that make up the actual function and life of the church.  

To be saved is to become a disciple of Christ, to follow Christ.  That’s what Jesus’s mandate was to the apostles as recorded in Matthew 28:19. Go into all the world and make disciples. And a disciple is a learner, a student.  So then the first order of the church is to teach Christ’s doctrine. To teach Christians how to live as Christ would have us live according to what Christ had taught them. This was the primary responsibility of the apostles.  

And in Ephesians we read that as the church goes forward, Christ gave to the church first apostles and prophets, then evangelists, and then pastor’s/teachers.  So if we are going to pattern ourselves according to God’s blueprint for the church, then the church must continually devote themselves to the teaching of the word of God.  And we do that not just so that we might have an intellectual knowledge of the Bible, but so that we might know the truth of God, that we might know how to live as Christ taught, and that we might be obedient to that truth.  That is sanctification, being conformed to the truth of God.

A godly church then is made up of saved people who apply themselves to the teaching of the word, and then are obedient to the word, so that they might be witnesses to the world.  The purpose of teaching is that we might be conformed to the image of Christ.  That we might become in practice like Christ, that we might have the mind of Christ.  We have become righteous by justification through Christ, now we must be sanctified in practice like Christ.  We must be obedient to what we are taught. It is to no advantage whatsoever if we meet to have a worship service, but there is no evidence of the transforming power of God in our lives.  If the church is filled with people living in adultery, if it’s filled with people who are living in sin, who are still enslaved to sin, then what kind of witness is that to the world?  It’s a self aggrandizing exercise in hypocritical religion.  The purpose of the church is to make disciples that look like Christ and act like Christ as they live like Christ.

We conform to the image of Christ because He was conformed to the image of the Father.  He was obedient to the Father’s will.  Hebrews 5:8 says, “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”  That’s what Jesus was referring to in His rebuke of Peter.  He had prayed in the Garden in Matthew 26:39, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”  He was apprehensive in His flesh not at the prospects of death, but at the prospects of taking the sin of the world upon Himself.  But when the mob came, Jesus was obedient to the Father’s will saying to Peter; “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”

Listen, we can learn from this example that God’s purposes are not always apparent to men because they are counterintuitive to the common sense of the natural man.  God’s purposes do not always lead to our immediate exaltation.  His purposes sometimes takes us through thorny ways before we meet the joyful end. As the hymn writer says, 

“Be still, my soul; the Lord is on thy side;  Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain;

Leave to thy God to order and provide;  In every change He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul; thy best, thy heavenly, Friend  Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.”

So the first priority of the church is continually devoting yourselves to the apostles teaching.  That’s the word of God.  Because the word of God has power to transform lives.  Programs don’t have that power.  A lot of so called Christian music doesn’t have that power. Activities and outreaches don’t have that power.  But the word of God has transformative power as Heb 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.”

Now I don’t want to neglect the other three essentials of the church; fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer.  But the teaching of the word is a priority, and then fellowship comes from the unity we have in the truth.  Our church name is the Beach Fellowship.  Fellowship means communion, with God first and then with one another in the truth of God.  We talked about that last week; Christ prayed for unity.  And we discovered that unity is found in the truth.  Not in organizations, but in truth and never at the expense of truth.  When we have fellowship in the truth, then we are able to build up one another, love one another, help one another as we grow in our faith.

And then the breaking of bread could be referring to the Lord’s Supper.  But in all likelihood it was just simply the daily taking of meals together.  Vs.46 says they were breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.” Eating and sharing together is a basic form of fellowship.  That’s why we eat breakfast together when we meet at the men’s prayer breakfast or other events as a church.  We believe it promotes fellowship.  In sharing a meal together, we get to know one another, so that we might be able to meet one another’s spiritual needs. 

And of course prayer is the last vitally important component.  I spoke about prayer at the beginning of chapter 17.  And for three weeks we studied Christ’s prayer as a template for our own.  As I said then, if we are a praying church, then all the other disciplines of the church would be elevated.  But even in prayer, it must be in truth.  Prayer must be grounded in Biblical truth, or it is not effective prayer.  And as James 5:16 tells us, the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much. The key is that we are righteous, and then God hears our prayers.

When you have those four vital aspects of the church in effect, then you will see the result noted in Acts 2:43 which says, “everyone had a sense of awe and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.” Though we may no longer see the same kind of miracles and wonders of the apostolic age, God’s power still remains on display in the church. What could be more miraculous than giving life to people who are dead in sin? He heals people of their hurts, puts broken homes back together, and brings people out of the bondage of sin to Christ. In short, He transforms lives. When the church follows God’s design, He will do marvelous and powerful things in individual lives before a watching world.

But it has to start with a saved congregation who submit to the teaching of the word of God and then are obedient to the will of God in their daily lives.  Even though many times in the Jerusalem church to obey God meant that they would experience suffering.  We too suffer some times if we are going to be obedient to God.  We may suffer the loss of a job which does not honor God.  Or we suffer the loss of friendships that are of the world or that are ungodly associations.  There are lots of ways that we might suffer, but through thorny ways, God leads us to a joyful end.

The church that is willing to suffer with Christ is a church that experiences a sense of awe or reverence for the Lord.  That’s what is meant by they felt a sense of awe.  It doesn’t mean they were oohing and ahhing over the drama of the  miracles.  It means that they felt a holy reverence for the Lord.  They had a reverence for the holiness of God.  And if you read further in Acts, you will see the Lord’s response against Ananias and Sapphira who did not revere the Lord as holy.  So God struck them dead in the middle of the church service because God wanted to teach us that He demands reverence.

And then there is one more point that I would like to make from the example given to us in Acts.  It says in Acts 2:47  that “the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”  If you want a formula for success in the church there it is.  You start with God saving men and women, and then the church being transformed and sanctified by the teaching of the word of God, add fellowship and prayer and then you add to that the reverence for the holiness of the Lord, and you end up with God adding to the church day by day those that were being saved. That’s God’s church growth plan.  

It has nothing to do with building projects.  It has nothing to do with appointing committees or Sunday School directors.  It has everything to do with being saved according to the truth, then  taught the truth of the word and then being obedient to it and living it out in the community.

I don’t think I need to belabor this point any longer this morning.  I’m sure most of you are here today because you want to follow Christ’s teaching.  You want to be transformed, to be set free, and to be a witness to the world of the saving power of Christ.  But neither do I want you to be discouraged or distracted by what the world might tell you is important.  The disciples acted on their instincts, they acted in their own strength, and they acted out of an emotional, natural response.  And they found themselves at odds with the purposes of God.  After the resurrection, Jesus will spend the next 40 days to open their minds so that they would understand the scriptures so that they would be ready to take charge of His church when He left to go back to His Father.

But we have an advantage that they didn’t have. We have the advantage of learning from their mistakes.  We have the advantage of the complete scriptures right in our hands.  So the teaching of the word is the first priority of this church.  Because it is everything we need for life and happiness.   As 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: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.”  

Let’s not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the scriptures tell us, and let us continually devote ourselves to the teaching of the word of God through pastors/teachers “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  That is how the church is supposed to look.  That is the plan of God for the church.  That we all grow to mature men and women, being conformed  to the full measure of the image of Christ.  

For the last few weeks we have been studying the prayer of Jesus on the night before His crucifixion.  And as we have noted, there are three sections to His prayer; He prays first for Himself, then for His disciples, and then for those who will be saved in the future (that is the church at large).  But in addition to that purpose, there is an underlying application to His prayer, which is not only for our edification, but for our education.  We can learn from Christ how to pray effectively in a way that is acceptable to God, and we can learn doctrinal truth.  We have focused on both of those perspectives in past messages.

This week, in addition to studying what the Lord is praying concerning us, we are going to examine the underlying doctrine of Christ’s prayer.  And if I had to pick one word to encapsulate the doctrine of Christ’s prayer it would have to be the word “truth.”  Truth is the key doctrine emphasized in Christ’s prayer.  And as such, truth should be the foundation of our prayers.  Our prayers have to be grounded in the truth, or they will accomplish nothing.  As Jesus told us in chapter 4 vs 24, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”  

Even though the word “truth” is only mentioned specifically in vs 17,  it’s theme is found throughout all of the prayer.  In the first section Jesus is the manifestation of the truth.  That produces sanctification through the truth in the second section, which in turn produces unification in the truth in the final section which we are looking at today.  Now as we look specifically at Christ’s  prayer for the church, we see that unity is His predominate concern.

Jesus mentions unity three times, in verse 21, verse 22, verse 23, each time praying that we might be one. So unity is obviously the theme of the conclusion of Christ’s prayer.  And I would suggest that He makes four points in reference to the unity of the church that I would like to look at today; unity in  congregation, unity in glorification, unity in consummation, and unity in manifestation.  

First let’s look at Jesus’s prayer for unity in congregation.  I have used congregation as a substitute for the church.  The church is a congregation of the saints; whether local or universal.  That is who we are, and that is who Christ prays for at this point, saying, “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.”  So He is speaking of all those who will believe in the future as a result of the apostle’s doctrine.  The apostles would become the foundation of the church in the sense that what they taught and wrote concerning Christ’s teaching is the truth by which we are saved.  They established the doctrine of the church.

Notice that Jesus says unity in the church is established by belief in the word.  This is immensely important. Unity must never come at the expense of the truth of God’s word. Unity is not found in an ecclesiastical organization or denomination, but only in compliance with the word of God, as the church is true to the word.  The unity of the church then is a spiritual bond, not necessarily a physical one. Those that are in agreement with the truth of God are one with God and thus make up one body of Christ.  There may be different parts of the body, but all are one spiritual body. 

However, when a church strays from the truth, then we are under no compulsion to be unified with it, but rather we are actually commanded to break fellowship with them in order to protect the truth. Jude warns of this deception that had entered the church in Jude 1:3, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.”

So to counter that corruption from within the church Paul wrote in  1Cor. 5:11, “But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside, God judges. REMOVE THE WICKED MAN FROM AMONG YOURSELVES.”  

There was an article in the news some time ago about a certain Baptist church in South Carolina.  Several years ago they made the decision to break away from the Southern Baptist Convention primarily because they wanted to accommodate the practice of ordaining women to the pastorate.  And so they broke away and for a few years had a woman pastor.  But a deliberate rebellion against the truth of God’s word always brings with it a continual hardening, which often results in further apostasy.  And in their case, that culminated recently with the church appointing a married lesbian couple to be the pastors of their congregation.  With such churches we cannot be unified.  We must in fact rebuke such who go against the clear teaching of the word in favor of the culture of the world.  The culture will change with the times, but the word of God endures forever. 

So the unity of church is made possible by salvation, and salvation comes through the word of God.  Paul said in Romans 10:17, “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”  We are saved by the apostle’s doctrine which has been written for us as the scriptures.  There is no other way to saving faith.  Nature may teach us enough about God according to Romans 1:20 to incriminate us, but not enough to save us.  There must be the preaching of the word of God. 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.”

And unity comes through the word, so that the world might know the truth of Jesus Christ.  Jesus continues praying in vs.21, “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”  Our unity then is not for purposes of organization, but for the preservation of the truth, that the world might know the truth of the gospel; that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that Jesus Christ the Son of God died in our place on the cross, and rose again, and sits at the right hand of God, and that salvation comes through faith in Christ alone.  There is salvation in none other.  Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.”

Secondly, Jesus prays that the church might have unity in glorification.  Vs.22, “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”   What is the glory that was given to Christ from God? I have read a lot of suggestions as to what glory represents, but I would suggest that it is the truth of God.  That is Christ’s glory; that He was God and was sent from God. And that is the glory of the truth that He gave to the apostles.  

John affirms this glory in John 1:14 saying, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  So Jesus goes on to say that when they receive that glory of the truth, they will be “perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”  Perfected means completed.  Our unity with God is completed when we know the truth of God in Jesus Christ.  And when we are complete in our knowledge of the truth, then we can fulfill the mission of the church, which is to go into all the world and make disciples.  When we know the truth about Christ, then we can make Him known to the world, that the world might come to a saving knowledge of God.

Notice that twice Jesus prays the same phrase; vs 21, “so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”  And then in vs 22, “so that the world may know that You sent Me.”  This is obviously important to Christ, that the world would come to know that He was sent from God to save the world from sin. That He was God come in human flesh to be our substitute as a sacrifice for sin. This is the core of the gospel.  “For God so loved the world, that He gave HIs only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This is God’s love for the world; that through faith in Christ they might be saved from sin and death. 

This truth is worth dying for.  Did you ever realize that Christ died for telling that truth? How then can we diminish what Christ died to prove?  The truth is obviously important to God.  And the truth is that God sent Jesus to die for our sins that we might be saved from sin and death.  Our job is to make that truth known.  That is job one of the church.  That is our unifying mission. And any so called church that diminishes the gospel of Jesus Christ or His deity cannot be unified with His church.

Thirdly, Jesus prays that the church might have unity in the consummation of His kingdom. The Kingdom of God is bookended by the inauguration and the consummation of Christ’s kingdom.  We live in  the time between the inauguration and the consummation.  Jesus here prays that we may see His consummation of the Kingdom. Vs.24, “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”  

After His crucifixion, Jesus was going back to the Father.  He has told the disciples this again and again.  In fact, at the beginning of the Upper Room Discourse He said to them, “Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1)

So what Jesus is praying for is that the church would be united with Him at His second coming, at the consummation of His kingdom, that they might see His glory, even the glory which He had before the world began.  The disciples had come to know a veiled glory, but He desires that we might know His full glory. He is speaking of His second coming when every eye will see Him coming in the clouds with glory.  And when we see Him in glory, it will result in our glorification.  The children of God will be given glorified bodies like Christ.  As John describes for us in 1John 3:2, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”

When we see Him come in the consummation of His Kingdom, we are going to be given glorified bodies like Him.  We are going to be seated on thrones with Him.  We will share in His glory.  And then the bride of Christ will be joined to Christ in a celestial union the likes of which our earthly marriages are but a pale shadow.  This union with Christ at His consummation is what we call heaven.  Heaven is an actual place, but more importantly it is a eternal state of being with the Lord. We will be with Him, and as such be like Him, and share in His glory.

When most people think of heaven, they think of the streets of gold, and the pearly gates.  Such themes are described for us in Revelation chapter 21.  But if you will turn there for a moment I want to show you something interesting.  Revelation 21:1-3, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them.” 

Then skip down to vs.9: “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and spoke with me, saying, ‘Come here, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.’ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.”  So I want you to notice that twice in this passage the New Jerusalem, that city which we think of as heaven, is said to be the bride of Christ, which we know from Ephesians 5 in particular and other places is a metaphor for the church.  Now I will save the full exegesis of those verses for another time, but suffice it to say that our union with Christ will be as His bride, and that constitutes heaven. Wherever Christ is, heaven is.  Thus Paul could say, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And that is ever more better.” 

But before we leave Revelation 21, let me show you one other thing.  Look at vs.14, “And the wall of the city had twelve foundation stones, and on them were the twelve names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.”  Note how synchronistic that is with Ephesians 2:20 which in speaking of the church says it is  “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone.”  That is what Jesus has been praying for in this prayer of John 17, that those who believe in the Lord as a result of the apostle’s doctrine would come to know the fullness of the truth of Christ, and being unified with Him in doctrine, we will one day be unified with Him in the consummation of the Kingdom.  And then we will share in His glory, for we shall be like Him, having seen Him as He is.

The fourth and final thing that Jesus prays for here for the church is that we might know unity in manifestation.  Look at vs.25,26; “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”  When we are unified with Him in truth, then we will be unified with Him in presence, in HIs manifestation to us both in revelation and incarnation.  

But first I want you to point out here that Jesus calls His Father righteous. It’s interesting that Jesus ascribes two characteristics to God the Father in His prayer.  The first is in vs 11, Jesus calls Him Holy Father.  And now in vs25, Jesus calls Him Righteous Father.  Holy and righteous, two great distinctives of God the Father.  These are the two characteristics that are important to Christ.  Not the only characteristics that are important.  He goes on to speak of the love that God has for Him and for the church.  But above all else, God is holy and righteous.  God is also just, He is merciful, He is compassionate, His is loving, He is wrathful, He is Mighty, He is awesome in power.  There are a multitude of characteristics of God.  

But I would warn that the danger in the church today is that we want to boil down God to just one characteristic.  Rob Bell says that God is love and that one characteristic eclipses all other considerations of God.  So that the love of God overshadows the righteousness of God. Therefore he says that God will not send anyone to hell because love overwhelms all of God’s other aspects of His character. In his view, God is not concerned about righteousness any more.  But notice Christ includes both righteousness and love.  God’s righteousness demands justice and consequently punishment for sin, but God’s love requires that He substitutes Christ to be punished on our behalf.  

So Jesus isn’t teaching some watered down version of the gospel.  Jesus goes on to say that the world does not know the Father.  And I would suggest that is because they aren’t concerned about knowing the truth of God, nor the word of God.  They have devised a version of God according to what they think is right or correct in light of the present culture.  But God is unchanging.  He is God from everlasting.  He must be worshipped in truth, or He will not be known at all. So then intimacy with God is predicated upon fidelity to the truth of God, of which the pillars are righteousness and holiness.

As the bride of Christ we must be concerned about righteousness and holiness.  Because God is concerned about righteousness and holiness. Jesus said if you love Me you will keep My commandments.  The commandments are God’s standard for righteousness.  If God did not care about righteousness and holiness then the death of Jesus Christ was a great tragedy and a waste.  It need not have happened at all.  But we know that it was not a tragedy, but a triumph.  Christ died to take away the penalty of sin, God’s punishment for an affront to His righteousness.  Now in return for Christ’s righteousness which was given to us, we are commanded in the scriptures such as 1Peter 1:16 to be holy, even as He is holy. 

But though the world doesn’t know God, Jesus says these disciples do know Him, and because they know the truth of God, and know that Jesus is the manifestation of the righteousness of God, then He will make God ever more known to them.  Listen, that is speaking of what I have said many times from this pulpit.  And that is that the revelation of truth is progressive.  As we are obedient to the truth given, then the Lord will give us more truth.  When we keep the truth of God as revealed through His word, then He will lead us into more truth.  He will lead us into intimacy with God, that we might know the love of God.  That is the intimacy of the bride of Christ with the bridegroom; that we might share the love of God.  

And that love of God towards us is manifested by the Spirit of God who indwells us. In that sense we share in the incarnation of Christ, in that the Spirit of God dwells in His people, and we are His temple. Vs.26, “so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”  You cannot know intimacy with God more than that, can you?  To know God,  to know the love of God and to know the presence of God.  I said a few weeks ago, that the greatest thing in the world is to know God and to be known of God.  And we can know God because we have the Spirit of God in us, to lead us and guide us into the truth of God.

The Spirit of God is given to us that we might know the truth of God, and that we might do the works of God.  He is given that He might write the law of God upon our hearts according to Hebrews 10:16.  That the truth of God is manifested within us by the Spirit of God who is in us. The Spirit conforms us to the image of God from the inside out.

Listen, the defining characteristic that Christ desires for HIs bride is not that we all have some sort of charismatic experience which may unify us.  But the vital characteristic of the church is that we be in union with the truth of the word of God.  The Spirit of God is given to us that we might know the truth, and that we might have the truth written in our hearts, so that we might have the power within us to work the works of God. The Spirit is in us, so that we might do the work of Christ, which is to manifest the truth of God to the world.  That is why Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Truth.  

And that is why Jesus prays that the church will know the truth, and that truth will produce unity in  congregation, unity in glorification, unity in consummation, and unity in manifestation.  I pray that you know God in truth.  I pray that you have come to believe in the truth of God manifested in Jesus Christ, and having believed in Him for salvation, you have been born again, and are the dwelling place of the Spirit of the Lord.  I pray that you will come to know God more fully, and that you will become complete in Christ, as you are conformed to His image.  So that one day, when Jesus Christ returns for His bride, He might find you ready and waiting, dressed in the spotless robes which were provided by Christ’s righteousness, and that you might enter into the marriage supper of the Lamb in the presence of the Lord and there be forever with the Lord.  

Last week we began to look at what is the longest prayer of Christ that is recorded, and perhaps the most instructive of His prayers.  It is exemplary from many different perspectives.  The prayer can be broken down into three main sections; vs1-5 Jesus prays concerning Himself, vs 6-19 Jesus prays concerning the disciples, and vs20 -26 Jesus prays concerning the church. 

Now as we saw last time, one of those perspectives is that Christ’s prayer teaches us to pray. His prayer as recorded in the first five verses is an example of effective prayer, prayer that is acceptable to God.  In vs 1-5, we noted that Christ’s prayer was to the right person,  then in the right timing, for the right purpose, according to the will of God, according to the knowledge of God, that He might do the work of God, that all would be done to the glory of God’s Son.  If we emulate Christ’s example of prayer, then we can be confident that God accepts our prayers.

This week, we are looking at the middle section, or His prayer for HIs disciples.  And in this section we see that Christ is obviously praying for our benefit.  He prays for the benefit of His disciples and also for us, as evidenced by vs.6 and 20. But in praying for us, He is also praying as an example for us. He is praying not only to edify us, but to educate us.  And so contained in this prayer is a healthy measure of doctrine that is being taught.  

Doctrine is simply a term used to designate truth or principles of truth.  So as Jesus prays for the disciples, He is also concerned that He prays for them according to the truth.  That is the key to effective prayer, or prayer that will be accepted by God.  Prayer, to be acceptable to God, must be in accordance with God’s nature and character.  I frequently find an attitude among naive Christians that uses prayer as a form of existentialism.  Whereby acting in what they think is faith, they speak things that they want to be true, but which often are not founded on the truth.

Such prayers are not effective, because God is concerned about truth.  There is no truth outside of God.  God is truth.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by Me.”  So we cannot access God without truth.  Jesus said again, “God is Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.”

So as Jesus prays for the disciples, He prays according to the truth, and He is teaching that truth as He prays.  There are three points He makes in this middle section of the prayer, which is particularly directed towards the disciples, but exponentially to us as well. The three principles build on one another.  The first principle is the manifestation of the truth, which produces separation by the truth, which produces sanctification through the truth.

I want to focus our attention first upon the manifestation of the truth.  Jesus praying in vs.6 said, “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”  

The first way that the truth of God was manifested to the disciples was by Jesus Himself.  “I have manifested Your name.”  That means that He manifested, or revealed, brought to life, the nature and character of God.  He was the invisible God made visible.  To make manifest is to take what is obscure or mysterious, and make it clear. Jesus Christ made God visible.  Hebrews 1:3 says, “And He [that is Christ} is the radiance of [God’s] glory and the exact representation of [God’s] nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power.”  

Also, Colossians 1:15 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.”

And John 1:14 speaking of Christ says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  The point being, that Jesus Christ was the exact representation of the nature and character and word of God. He is the visible image of the invisible God. He is the truth of God, made manifest to the world.  

There used to be a popular song on the radio that had the lyric, “tell me all your thoughts on God.”  And that is a popular sentiment in society today.  I saw an interview with a well known rock musician the other day in which she was expounding on what she believed God was like.  But in reality, they are telling you what they want God to be like.  However,  to design a god according to your sense of what he should be like is actually a form of idolatry.  That is creating a god according to your image.  God has already declared Himself as to who He is, through Jesus Christ. And we must worship Him in accordance with His truth.

And then Jesus says there is a second way that God is manifested.  Starting in vs.6b, “they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.”  

It’s no coincidence that in John chapter 1 Jesus is called the Word who was with God and who was God.  And now that person called the Word, who is the manifestation of God, gives them the word of God and that word manifests the truth of God; that Jesus is from God, and is sent by God. 

The difference between us and the disciples is that we don’t have the physical person of Jesus Christ here with us today.  We cannot see Jesus.  But we do have His word.  And His word manifests Christ and manifests the Father.  God has manifested Himself to us through His word, and the Holy Spirit works through the word in us to make known to us the truth of God.  Thus Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit again and again as the Spirit of Truth.  

I said last week that it was important to pray.  Perhaps one of the most important disciplines we can exercise as a Christian is to pray.  It should stir up our faith in all areas of our lives.  But I do not say that to diminish the importance of the word of God.  It is the foundation for all that we do.  So when we pray, we must pray according to the truth of God’s word.  If our prayers are to be acceptable to God, then they must be in accordance with the character and nature of God, which is revealed to us in the word of God.

Note also vs 8 shows that the manifestation of God through the word produces salvation. “for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.”  That is salvation in a nutshell.  To receive Christ, to believe in Him and all that He has said concerning Himself constitutes saving faith.  We are saved by grace through faith. Simply seeing the light of the truth of Jesus Christ and receiving Him as your Savior and Lord and believing in Him constitutes saving faith.  And Romans 10:17 tells us that faith comes through the hearing of the word.  Romans 10:17, “So faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”

That leads us to the second doctrine that Christ is teaching in His prayer, which is separation by the truth. Once we are saved, the truth of God separates us from the deception of the world.  Jesus prays in vs 9, “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them.”  

Look at how this works; we are chosen by God, given to Christ, separated unto God and Christ, and as a result we glorify Christ.  That’s amazing, isn’t it?  God glorifies Christ, Christ manifests the Father to us, we are saved, and then we glorify God by manifesting Christ.  It comes full circle.  And don’t miss the security that is given there.  We are not only separated unto Christ, but kept by God and by Christ.  Jesus spoke of that security in  John 10:28, saying, “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.”  He will not lose those who are His.  He keeps us, forever.

Then back in our text in vs 11 Jesus says our salvation results in us being unified with Him, and in turn unified with the Father. “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.” We are unified with God by the indwelling Spirit of God. Paul said in 1Cor. 6:19, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?”  And in  1Cor. 3:16, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”  

Listen, we are not of the world, but separated unto God, because we are the temple of God and He dwells in us.  We aren’t separate from the world because we think we are better than they are, but because we belong to God.  

1John 2:15 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.”  So we separate from the world because we are not of the world.  We belong to Christ.  We have been bought with a price. And we have been separated unto Christ, we are unified with God,  because the Spirit of God indwells us.

When we are unified with Christ through separation from the world, then we know the joy of the Lord. Vs.13, ““But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.”  I said last week and I will say it again; a life lived for God’s purposes produces joy.  Whereas a life lived for yourself produces dissatisfaction.  Living for God will bring you true joy.  Living for yourself will maybe garner a few moments of happiness, but in the long run it is a joyless experience. But when you live to glorify God, then you can know the joy of Christ, which is everlasting joy, even in the midst of tribulation.  Hebrews 12:2, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”

And let me just add this thought; if you are truly a Christian, living in the world will make you miserable.  The devil will try to seduce you with promise that you can find happiness in the lusts of the world, but it will only end up making you miserable.  Because if you love the world, then you are in rebellion with God, and that goes against your new nature.  So don’t fall for the temptations of the world.  They will not bring joy.  Joy comes from separation from the world and unity with God.  But I’m not suggesting that you need to become a monk and go live in a monastery on some remote mountain to find joy in the Lord.  We are in the world, but not of the world.  That simply means we don’t fulfill the sinful lusts of the world. We don’t live according to the dictates of the world’s philosophy.

While separation from the world unto Christ produces joy, it conversely produces hatred from the world.  Vs.14, “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”  Because they hated Christ, they will hate us as well. They hate us because we are different.  We have a different perspective about life that separates us from them. That hatred of the world is why we endure tribulation.  But that is also why He promises us joy first.  So because of the joy set before us, like Christ we can endure the suffering and despise the shame. Knowing that if we suffer with HIm, we shall also be exalted with Him. That one day we too will sit on thrones with Christ.

Vs.15, Jesus prays, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”  Now how is that accomplished?  How do we keep ourselves from the sin which so easily besets us, from the snare and trap of Satan?  I suggest that the answer is found in Christ’s prayer.  Note that He has bracketed vs15 on the front end and the back end with the same phrase: “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”  Twice Jesus says it, to show it’s imperative for keeping ourselves unstained by sin, and unfettered by vice.  To be not of the world is to keep oneself from the captivity of the evil one.  

When we try to see how close to the world we can get and still be ok, we put ourselves at risk from the trap of the evil one, who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he can devour.  But when we stay far away from the lusts of the world and the paths of sin, then we free ourselves from many temptations.  Paul illustrates this through the lust for money in 1Timothy 6:9, “But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” Jesus said you cannot serve God and mammon, or money.

The third major principle Jesus illustrates in His prayer builds upon the principle of separation we just looked at, and that is sanctification through the truth. Jesus prays in vs.17, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”  This is one of the greatest principles in the New Testament.  First, a definition of terms; sanctification means to be set apart.  To be consecrated, set apart from profane use to holy usage.  It means to be made righteous. That is the purpose of separation.  We are no longer of the world, but we are set apart for fellowship with God.

Now note that Jesus says, sanctification comes through the truth. What does that mean?  It means when we look at Christ, we see the standard for righteousness.  We see God’s standard for holiness.  And when we emulate Christ and obey His word we become conformed to His image, we become conformed to His righteousness. 2Cor. 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”

So the Spirit of God, working in us through the truth of God’s word produces obedience to the word, produces in us the image of Jesus Christ, by which we manifest Him to the world. That is sanctification, when we become holy vessels used for service to God.

Secondly, Jesus affirms, “Your word is truth.”  That’s extremely important.  Because the inerrancy, inspiration and sufficiency of scripture is under attack today.  But Jesus says unequivocally  that His word is truth.  Absolute, irrevocable, eternal truth is found in the word of God. 

Every year, Oxford Dictionaries chooses a word or expression to “reflect the passing year in language.” For the Word of the Year in 2016, they chose “post-truth.”  They define  “post-truth” as “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.”

So basically, what they are saying is that our society doesn’t believe in absolute truth anymore.  They believe in relative truth, as defined by their emotions and personal inclinations.  

And that’s why the world hates us. Because the Christian’s worldview is completely opposed to this post-truth mindset. Christianity is grounded in objective truth. Jesus said in John 8:32, “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  Objective truth only exists because we have God’s Word.  Jesus says in vs17, “Sanctify them in Your truth. Your word is truth.”  Both Paul and James describe the Bible as “the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15; James 1:18). Psalms 119:160 says, “The entirety of your word is truth.” When Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by me” (John 14:6), He wasn’t expressing His personal belief or opinion. He was speaking the truth of God, a fundamental reality that doesn’t change from person to person or age to age. It doesn’t matter if our culture thinks truth is subjective or dependent upon their preferences. The truth of the matter is “no one comes to the Father but by Jesus Christ.” There is God’s truth as revealed in the scriptures, and there is no other truth.

The final principle we see in this section of Christ’s prayer is that sanctification not only comes through separation and the word, but through service.  Vs.18, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.”  

So sanctification means to be set apart for good works. Eph. 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”

The temple of God was for service to God, for worship of God. They are really one and the same; service and worship.  You cannot have one without the other.  Romans 12:1 illustrates that perfectly.  It says, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  And notice how that service and worship is accomplished by the way; by separation from the world, vs.2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

What is our purpose in sanctification? That in being conformed to the image of Christ we may be the manifestation of Christ to the world. Jesus models this Himself. “As You sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.” Just as Christ was God’s instrument, sent to be the Light to  a blind and dying world, so He sends us to do the same. We are sent to the same work, sent with the same resources, and thus we are continuing the work of Jesus in the world. That is the process of sanctification.  We serve the Lord, as the temple of God.

Further, he prays, this will be made possible by his death on the cross: “For their sake I sanctify myself.” He dedicated Himself to be used as an instrument of righteousness by going to the cross. In order that we might be sanctified in the truth. And as the outcome of that death of Jesus on our behalf we are granted righteousness, and holiness, and the indwelling  power of the Spirit by which we too may become ambassadors for the Kingdom of God.

Once we are born again, we are converted, become a new creation in Christ Jesus, it is necessary that we grow in our new life, mature to the full stature of Christ Jesus.  And to that end, if I had to make a recommendation for a spiritual goal that you could make which would have the greatest possible impact in your life, not only for yourself, but also on your church, your family, friends and coworkers, I would suggest that you resolve to be a better man or woman of prayer.  That doesn’t mean that I think reading your Bible is not essential to Christian health, or that other godly disciplines are not profitable.  But it simply means that if you become a man or woman of prayer you cannot help but become more attuned to the things of God.  A committed prayer life will immeasurably enrich all areas of your spiritual life.  You cannot have a vibrant prayer life and be a lukewarm Christian.  A diligent, effective prayer life will elevate your spiritual maturity in all areas.  It will improve your devotional times, it will improve your ministry involvement,  it will empower your witness to others, and it is a means of loving one another. 

However, I should emphasize that for such results, there must be effective prayers.  Not merely going through the motions.  As Jesus said in  Matt. 6:7, “…when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words.” Obviously, praying the rosary over and over again is just meaningless repetition. So it’s not the quantity of our prayers that matters as much as the quality of our prayers. As James said, “the effective prayer of a righteous man accomplishes much.” I think that James is saying that for a prayer to be effective with God, you must be righteous.  As David said in the Psalms, “If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me.”

So with effective prayers as our goal, then we should look to the supreme example, and that is of course Jesus Himself.  The Bible records many instances of Jesus praying.  But while we see many instances in which we are told Jesus prayed all night or that He spent much time in prayer, the Bible records only brief sentences of His prayers.  We have what is called the Lord’s prayer, but it isn’t a prayer which Jesus prayed.  It was a model prayer for the disciples so they could learn to pray.  But as we come to this 17th chapter of John, we have a tremendous opportunity to study the prayer of Jesus in full.  It is a comprehensive prayer, and as such it is one in which we can study and emulate in full confidence that we are praying according to the will of God, which Jesus told us is the key to effective prayer.

We’re going to look then at the beginning of this prayer which Jesus prayed on the night before His crucifixion.  This is widely known as His High Priestly prayer.  In that sense, it is a prelude to His heavenly ministry.  Jesus ends His earthly ministry by interceding through prayer in His heavenly ministry.  Hebrews 7:25 says, “He ever lives to make intercession for us.”  And so this prayer is a foretaste of His ministry in heaven as our Great High Priest, the mediator between God and man.

I want to point out for you seven essential components of effective prayer as illustrated in the first five verses of this prayer of Jesus.  First we must pray to the right person, then in the right timing, 3rd, for the right purpose,  4th, according to the will of God, 5th, according to the knowledge of God, 6th, that we might do the work of God, and last, that all would be done to the glory of God’s Son.

Now there is some overlap there, but I think that will serve as a sort of outline by which we can examine this prayer for our benefit.  Let’s notice first, praying to the right person. Jesus addresses His prayer to the Father.  Of all the ways God could have chosen to be called, and out of all the names of God, Jesus uses the title Father.  And we know that in the disciple’s model prayer, known as the Lord’s prayer, Jesus told the disciples as well to address God as our Father.  

The title Father illustrates that God is not some distant, aloof, or abstract god far off in the universe, or far beyond our comprehension.  But God is our heavenly Father, which speaks of the person and the personality of God.  It reveals the relationship we can have with the Father through Jesus Christ.  And it reveals the love of God towards His children.  It reveals the privilege we have with God, by which we can say, “Abba, Father.” 

Now of course, you must have been born again by the Spirit in order to call God your Father. If you have been born again, then you are a child of God, and as such, you have a special privilege to come to God as your Father.  There is no one else we are instructed to pray to.  We are never told to pray to Mary, or to the Saints.  We pray to God our Father.  To pray to anyone else is really a form of idolatry. 

So Jesus calls God “Father” and He instructs us to call God “Father” which means that we are the children of God and thus co-heirs with Christ.  As Jesus is the Son of God, He has brought many sons to glory, bought by the redemption of His blood, so that we may be called the children of God.  That relationship of Father and child is the basis for effective prayer.  Because as Jesus said in Matt.6:8, “your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”  It means we can come to Him whenever we want, wherever we are and know that He hears us, and that He loves us and  wants to help us, and that He will give us what is best for us, even with the same confidence that Jesus could appeal to His Father.

Secondly, note that Jesus prays not only to the right person, but in the right timing.  Jesus says, “the hour has come, glorify your Son.”  All throughout the Lord’s ministry He has said, “My hour has not yet come. My hour has not yet come.” But now as he approaches Calvary the hour has come. He is speaking of the hour in which He is offered up as a sacrifice for sin on the cross.  

Jesus makes it clear that His hour was the hour of His crucifixion in John 12:27, Jesus said, “Now my soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.”  He went on to clarify what that meant in vs.31, ‘Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show the kind of death he was going to die.”

We too must pray according to the timing of God.  Our timetables are not necessarily God’s timetables.  I’ve seen that illustrated in my own life time and time again.  For instance, we want a new car, so we get a loan for a car, and that becomes a monthly bill.  Now every month when the bill is due I look to God to “supply my needs.”  I think, surely, God knows that it’s the first of the month.  What’s He waiting for?  And when He doesn’t supply what I want just when I think He should I start to doubt the goodness or the love of God.  But I need to remember that God didn’t sign that contract, I did.  I let my glory, and my lusts and my desires set a timetable that God didn’t have any say so over.  We need to remember Isaiah 55:8, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.  

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, “There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven.”  Jesus knew that God had appointed Him to die at the right time, and so He prayed in accordance with the timing of God, confident that God’s timing was perfect. We don’t always know the timing of God, but we can wait patiently for it, trusting that our heavenly Father knows what His perfect time is.

Thirdly, Jesus prays, and we should pray, according to the purpose of God.  “Father, the hour has come, glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify You.” It’s interesting that Jesus asked to be glorified, because the hour had come to be glorified, but that glorification resulted in His death.  That’s ironic, isn’t it? You know, the word glory can have different meanings, but the one I think is appropriate for this use of glory is; “high renown or honor won by notable achievements.”  Jesus considered it glory to die on the cross for us, that we might be reconciled to God, so that He might bring many sons to glory.  His glory came at the expense of His suffering.  And His glory was to glorify the Father.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks the question; what is the chief end of man?  And the answer is, to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  When we aim to glorify Him, then we will find the joy of Christ that He promised we would have.  Joy is not found in self glory, or self gratification, but it is found in serving the Lord, and doing all for His glory.

So when we pray, we need to remember that principle.  We must ask ourselves when we pray for things, are we praying to achieve God’s purposes or for ours, for our glory or for God’s glory?  God’s glory requires that we die to ourselves first and then He will glorify us.  James said in  James 4:3, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”  Selfish motives in prayer is a form of self glorification.  Our desire should not be to glorify ourselves, but to glorify God.  Jesus could ask God to glorify Him because everything He did glorified the Father.  How can we pray for God to glorify us?  To reveal us as His people, as His children, as made in HIs likeness and conformed to His image.  When we are obedient to Him, and thus reflect Him, then we glorify God, and in return He will glorify us.

Romans 8:17 tells us though that our glory comes the same way Jesus did; through suffering.  “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.”  

Fourthly, we need to pray as Jesus prayed, not only to the right person, in the right timing, and for the right purpose, but also according to the will of God.  Now that may seem a little redundant. There cannot be much daylight between the purpose of God and the will of God. But perhaps we might think of the purpose of God as referring to His eternal purpose.  Ephesians 3:10 speaks of this eternal purpose; “that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  So that speaks perhaps of the eternal plan of God, whereas the will of God achieves that purpose as it is acted out in the daily events and exercises of our lives.  

So in an example of praying according to the will of God, Jesus says in vs.2, “even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.”  The will of God is rooted in the authority of God, which He has delegated to Christ.  The Lord Jesus Christ has all authority over life.  He is the Creator of all. John 1 tells us “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”  Hebrews 1:3 tells us that Christ upholds all things by the word of His power.

So doesn’t the Creator have authority over His creation?  And since the Creator gives life to His creation, should not  creation recognize His authority to determine the ebb and flow of our lives?  Should we not recognize that He gives us life, and thus His will should be our will?  Then certainly when we pray, it shouldn’t be to try to shape the will of God, but to seek and to submit to the will of God.  

Jesus prayed according to the will of God.  In the Garden of Gethsemane a few hours later, He prayed while sweating drops of blood, “not my will, but yours be done.”  When we are attuned to the Father’s will, then our prayers will be answered.  We subordinate our will to the Father’s will because He knows what is best for us.

Doing the will of God is kind of like going on a diet. The diet says, no ice cream.  But you want ice cream.  You love ice cream.  And so the diet is hard for you. It’s difficult to stay on track and you are constantly in a battle of will power.  But if you could somehow become a different person – one that hated ice cream, well, then you would have no trouble in keeping the diet, would you?  Because you hate ice cream, and the diet restricts ice cream.  Now your will is in agreement with the diet plan.  And so the diet is no longer difficult.  

So it is with God’s plan for us. When we were of the world then we loved the things of the world. But when we are saved we become a new creation. We are converted, changed.  God gives us a new nature.  Now we hate what God hates, and love what God loves.  So His will becomes our will.  And our prayers are not a battle with God to get what we want, but they are in accordance with His will. And His will is clearly laid out for us in His word.  Knowing the will of God is found in the knowledge of God revealed in His word.

That leads to the next point, we need to pray as Jesus did, according to the knowledge of God.  Jesus prayed in vs.3,  “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”  We can know God, and know the will of God, because we have known Jesus Christ and believed in Him.  Hebrews 1:3, speaking of Christ says, “And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature.”  

So if we want to know what God is like, we need only to look at Christ.  He was God in the flesh.  God made manifest to man.  And when we believe that, then we exhibit saving faith, by which we are saved from our sins and given eternal life. Jesus came to teach us the truth of God, the knowledge of God, and to give us the word of God.  So when we pray, we can pray according to the revealed knowledge of God. And we can know the will of God, because we have the word of God, which reveals the mind of God.

Sixthly, we need to pray that we might do the work of God. If we really want to pray according to the will of God, then we must do the work of God.  Jesus prayed in vs 4, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.”  So many times when we pray, we pray that God will do something for us.  And God does many things for us.  The Bible says that every good and perfect gift comes from above.  The Bible says that God gives us the ability to make money, to be prosperous and successful.  Jesus said God causes it to rain on the just and the unjust.  

But how often do we pray that we might do the works of God?  That God would strengthen us to be a witness at work?  Or that God would give me the opportunity to talk to my neighbor about the Lord?  How often do we pray that God would give us a gift that we might serve His church?  Prayer is an essential part of service.  And service to God is worship of God.  Far too often we think that all God requires of us is to attend a meeting once a week or so and sing some songs and that constitutes worship.  That may be the beginning of worship, but it certainly is not the end of it.  Romans 12:1 says you are “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”  

Present your body to God as a living sacrifice, which is your spiritual service of worship, to do what?  Well, the rest of the passage says it is to exercise your spiritual gifts within the body of Christ, that is within the church.  Paul goes on to say these spiritual gifts are not for self edification, or to glorify yourself, but to build up the church through means of prophecy (that is preaching), or in serving, or in teaching, or in exhortation, or through giving, or in leading, or in showing mercy, and all is to be done in love for one another.  “Not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.”  Those are just some of the good works we have been saved to do. And we need to pray that God will give us His grace that we might do them.

Finally, we need to pray that all would be done to the glory of Christ. Our godly works are to bring honor to Christ. Jesus prayed in vs 5, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”  We traditionally tack on the end of our prayers the phrase; “in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.”  And we do that because Jesus Himself said whatever we ask for in His name the Father will do.  

But to ask in Jesus’s name is not just some ritualistic appendage to our prayers, but it is an understanding and desire that all would be done to glorify Jesus Christ.  He is worthy of all glory.   Philippians 2:6 says about Christ that “although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, (or held onto) but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”  

Jesus was asking in this prayer that He might once again take His rightful place in glory with God, with the same glory that He had with God before He laid it aside to be humiliated in the flesh.  And God answered that prayer, according to Philippians 2.  God gave Him the name above every name, that every knee would bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.  

This really goes back to the authority of Christ.  He is King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.  And so when we come before Him to pray in His name, we pray to the Father in the name of His beloved Son, whom He has exalted at His right hand, and with whom He shares all glory.  This same Jesus is our Redeemer, our Advocate, our Mediator, our Great High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for us.

All of our works then should be for His glory.  Our lives should be lived for His glory.  Everything we do should reflect Jesus Christ.  That is the purpose of the Spirit of Christ who now lives in us, that He might do the works of Christ in us.  That is the purpose of the gifts of the Spirit, that we might be enabled to do the works of Christ.  

When we understand these principles of prayer as illustrated by Jesus’s prayer, then we will find our prayers effectual.  We will pray without ceasing.  We will pray fervently.  We will pray for leading, for strength to do His will. We will pray for our fellow believers. We will pray for our enemies. We will pray for our government. We will pray for the expansion of Christ’s kingdom.  And when we pray that way, it will elevate all areas of our spiritual lives to a higher plane, so that we may even more reflect Jesus Christ.

We are going to continue to look at Christ’s prayer for at least a couple of more weeks.  But for now there is a lot here that we can begin to emulate.  Peter said that Christ is our pattern, that we might trace our lives over His example.  Considering how important our prayer life is, there can be no more noble goal than to become a greater man or woman of prayer.  And the way to do that is to pattern our prayers after Christ’s example. That we might pray to the right person, in the right timing, for the right purpose, according to the will of God, according to the knowledge of God, that we might do the works of God, and that all would be done to the glory of God’s Son.

I want to focus our attention this morning on the last few hours before Christ’s death.  And in that timeframe, Jesus was detailing His plan and purpose not only for His life, but also the life ahead for His disciples.  We have been looking for weeks now at this last evening of Jesus’s life, in the passage known as the Upper Room  Discourse.  We are now down to the last few sentences.  And Jesus makes five statements in these last 9 verses of chapter 16 that I want to look at today.  Each one of them is so pregnant with truth that we might easily spend a sermon on them individually. But in the interest of time, we are only going to look briefly at these statements.  

At first glance, they seem disconnected. There is little to tie all of them together other than the impending departure of Christ.  So from that perspective, we might suppose that Christ gives them these final principles in order to strengthen them and prepare them for what is to come. 

The first statement Christ makes is found in vs.25, which we could summarize by saying, “the veil is lifted.”  The actual words of Jesus are as follows: “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.”

Now I summarize this statement by saying “the veil is lifted,”  because it refers back to the Old Testament period which the disciples were a part of, but are now transitioning out of.  In Hebrews 9, the author tells us that in the old covenant, there was a tabernacle, and within the tabernacle was the Holy of Holies where the presence of God dwelled. Though God’s presence was there, He was veiled to the people.  And only once a year the high priest offered sacrifices for himself and the people and went in before the presence of God to intercede on their behalf.  

Hebrews tells us that  the sacrifices and the altar and the high priest and the Holy of Holies  separated by the veil were earthly pictures of heavenly realities.   Hebrews 9:11 says, “But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation; and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”  And then in vs.24, “For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.”

That means according to chapter 10 that we too have full access to God through Jesus Christ.  Hebrews 10:19, “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” By faith in Christ, the author is saying, we have entrance through the veil to God, having been made righteous by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

So to go back to vs.25 then, Jesus is saying, the time has come when I will perform the ultimate sacrifice and make it possible for you to enter into the Holy of Holies.  And as you will remember, on the next day as Christ was crucified on the cross, the veil of the temple was literally torn from top to bottom, signifying that access to God had now been made possible through Christ’s death. That which was up to this point figurative and ceremonial, will now be done away with because the One who completes the picture has come.  So that no more will there be need for pictures and symbols and parables and figurative language, but Jesus will now tell you plainly of the Father, because He has offered the supreme sacrifice so that we are not separated from God by this veil, through which the disciples could now see through only dimly, but the veil will be torn in two so that they may draw near to God and be taught of God fully.

Jesus is stating that it was a new age in man’s relationship with God. Where there was once enmity, there is now peace. Where there was once separation, there is now full access. Where there was once pictures and symbols and parables, there is now the truth of the gospel made manifest in Christ, revealed through His word, and written in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. Thus Christ can say as He did earlier, that it was to our advantage that He went away.  So that’s the first principle; that through Christ as our high priest offering Himself as the sacrifice we now have full access to God.

Secondly, because of this veil being lifted, Jesus says you will know the familial love of the Father.  That’s the second point; to know the familial love of the Father.  Jesus says this in vs.26 and 27, “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.”

I think the key to understanding this statement is to understand the word love that  Jesus says the Father has towards us.  Contrary to most references in the New Testament, this love is not agape love as we are used to seeing.  But this word for love that Jesus uses here is  the Greek word “phileo” which means the love of family.  This love speaks of a new relationship we can have with God that is made possible through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  

This love is the result of a familial relationship with God which had not been possible before the veil was lifted in Christ.  Having been cleansed by the blood of Christ, we are not only able to go directly before the throne of God, but He has also come to us.  He has given us His Spirit to dwell in us.  So that our bodies have now become the Holy of Holies where the Spirit of God dwells. As 1 Cor.3:16 says, “your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.”

God no longer dwells in temples made with human hands, but in the hearts of His people.  Our faith in the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf makes us part of His family.  And God has a special love towards His family.   Romans 8:14, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,  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.”

There’s a classic Christmas hymn written in 1739 by John Wesley and Charles Whitfield, both famous for their preaching during the Great Awakening which proclaims, “Pleased, as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel.”  Emmanuel means “God with us.”  Not just as a baby born to men, but “Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.”  And as we are born of God, then we enjoy the love of the Father as His children.  We have access to God as His sons and daughters.

That’s a privilege that is beyond our comprehension.  I can’t help but think of a famous photograph taken in the 60’s of President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office of the White House.  And in the photograph of the President sitting at his desk, you can clearly see his son, little John F. Kennedy, Jr. playing under the desk.  That’s a good illustration of the privilege that we have with our heavenly Father, if we are born again into the family of God.

Thirdly, the basis of that relationship that both the disciples and we enjoy with the Father is founded in the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This gospel Jesus condenses into four statements, which constitute a creed, or confession of faith.  We simply believe this creed, and the blood of Jesus Christ is applied to us, and we receive all these benefits of being sons and daughters of God. 

Romans 10:9-10 says, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;  for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.” 

 So Jesus extrapolates this confession in one sentence containing four major points in vs.28; “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” This statement is tremendous in its simplicity and conciseness. One sentence with four points, and yet it contains the major doctrines of the gospel upon which we base our faith.  Notice, “I have come forth from the Father (that is speaking of His deity). I am come into the world (that is speaking of His incarnation.) I am leaving the world (that speaks of His death by crucifixion). I go to the Father (that speaks of is His resurrection and ascension).”

This illustrates that simply recognizing Jesus as a baby in a manger, or as a good teacher, or simply that He existed in history does not really constitute saving faith in Him.  We must believe in His deity; that He existed in the beginning with God and He was God. Secondly, we must believe in His incarnation; that He is God who became flesh and dwelt among us yet without sin.  Thirdly, we must believe that His death on the cross was the supreme sacrifice for the sins of mankind, and it was the substitutionary atonement by the grace of God on our behalf.  And fourthly, we must believe that God, having found no fault in Christ, and having paid our debt in full,  raised Him from the dead and He ascended to the right hand of the Father after all authority and power had been given to Him.  That is what it means to believe in Him.  And upon confession and faith in this gospel, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ is made effective for us, cleansing us from sin, and His righteousness is imputed to our account, making us righteous as we are born again into the family of God, so that  as sons and daughters of God we share in the inheritance of Christ.

Fourthly, we see in this passage the faltering faith of the faithful.  Vs.29, His disciples said, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”

I think this statement by the disciples is sincere but it is incomplete in the sense that they have an immature faith at this point. What this principle teaches is the progression of our faith.  God gives us trials in order to refine our faith, but also to strengthen our faith and mature it.  Our faith grows in the fires of adversity.  Up to this point, the faith of the disciples was mostly academic.  I mean, they had certainly left all to follow Him, and thus suffered some as a result of that decision.  But the real tests of their faith was yet to come.  Consequently, their faith was still immature.  

Consider Peter’s boast that though all fall away, he would never fall away.  He was sincere, but he had no idea of what it would require of him to stay by the Lord’s side.  They believed up to a point, but it was  untested, and as a result, it was immature faith. And yet all the disciples were in the same boat as Peter.  They all would fall away that night.  They all would desert the Lord. And there is little difference between those first disciples and us.  We come to Christ through faith, but initially our faith is not fully developed. As we encounter trials and tribulations, as as we are fed by the word of God, God works in us to strengthen our faith, and to conform us in the image of Christ as we participate in the fellowship of His sufferings.

So to prepare the disciples for this testing what Jesus wants to emphasize was His relationship to the Father.  He says “I am not alone because the Father is with Me.”  This is what their faltering faith needs to rest upon in this time of testing; that Jesus and the Father were One. The plan of God did not fail due to the death of Christ.  Actually, the plan of God was in full effect. Their conviction of the deity of Christ was essential to their faith, so that though they may stumble, they would not fall headlong.  Because their relationship with God depends upon Christ’s relationship with God.  And Christ and the Father are One.  They need to know that Jesus is Lord, even when circumstances may seem to be declaring it untrue.

The great 19th century English preacher Charles Spurgeon gave a sermon on this passage.  He said, “There he stands. They have left him alone; but there he is, still standing to his purpose. He has come to save, and he will save. He has come to redeem, and he will redeem. He has come to overcome the world, and he will overcome it.”  

He also said, “I remember that passage about Abraham going with Isaac to mount Moriah, where Isaac was to be offered up. It is written, ‘So they went both of them together.’ So did the Eternal Father and his Well- beloved Son when God was about to give up his own Son to death. There was no divided purpose; they went both of them together.”

Fifthly, Jesus wants to remind the disciples of the peace of God and the good will of God in the face of tribulations.  Vs.33, “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.”  

When Jesus says in verse 33, “These things I have spoken unto you that in Me you might have peace,” He’s not saying that you’re not going to have tribulation, or difficulties, or trials and troubles. He’s simply saying that in the midst of the difficulties, and trials, and troubles, amidst the hostility of the world, the persecution, perhaps even the loss of life, He will give us peace – a peace not as the world gives.  A sense of calmness that comes from the assurance of the expiation of our sins and of a heavenly Father whose presence  through the Spirit is with us in all the experiences of life.  That no matter what comes my way, no matter how dire the circumstances may seem, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, yet God is with me.

The peace of God is two fold.  On the one hand, we who were at enmity with God now have peace with God. When we were in our sins, we were in rebellion against God as Lord.  But due to our faith in what Christ accomplished on our behalf, our sins have been expunged.  We have been adopted into the family of God by the Father and given new life and indwelled by the Spirit of God, so that we have permanent communion with God.  That relationship we have is the foundation of our peace as we go through the trials and tribulations of this world.  How much more can we ask for than to know that the Creator of all things is with us, and that He loves us and will never leave us?  That He hears us whenever we call upon Him.  That we can come to Him whenever we need Him and He welcomes us and promises to help us.  That is a peace not as the world gives, but as only God can give to those that love Him and whom He loves. 

And notice that He doesn’t say as you might would expect, “you have overcome the world.” But that He has overcome the world. Christ is our champion.  He is our substitute.  He is our strength.  All our resources and blessings come through Him to us.  So our victory is settled because He was victorious over sin and death, and over all principalities and powers.  He is the object of our faith, and He is the source of our victory.  And so in Him, we can know the good will of God towards men, and the peace of God that passes all understanding.  

When the angel announced Christ’s birth to the shepherds in Luke 2:10 he said, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.”  The fact that Jesus came from God to be our Savior is the source of great joy to all those who believe in Him.  God has become our Savior.  And because we confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, we can say with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”  Christ has secured our peace, He is the source of our joy, He is the strength of our life,  and His death and resurrection has made it possible for us to become the sons and daughters of God and receive an eternal inheritance. 

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  the word “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 moved by 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 churches that are not acting according to the truth.  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 235 times.  And in the book of John it is used 27 times.  

John 3:33 says that God is true.  Jesus 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 Jesus says that the word is truth in John 17:17.  I would suggest that God defines Himself as truth.  He cares about truth.  God has declared absolute truth.  And so He cares that we walk in the truth. (2John 1:4)  So without question truth 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 God and my dad’s ministry as I could get.  I ended up in Redondo Beach, California. After a few 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 empty and miserable.  And along the way, my love for God had become so cold I wasn’t even sure what I believed anymore.

To add to my problems, I had come to know someone that was a Seventh Day Adventist.  And in the process of discussing religion with them, 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 my 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 little New Testament, 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 about 40 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 sign at a local church the other day which had a quote from Bishop Desmund Tutu. The sign said “Different faiths help us to realize the immensity of God.” But such a definition of God means that this big God doesn’t care how He is represented.  He must not care how we worship Him.  It must mean that He has not declared who He is. But that belief offends the very concept of an Almighty God.  God has manifested 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 the knowledge of the 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 an 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.  And 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 Jesus is also indicating that they will receive another teacher of the truth.  As He has been their teacher for 3 years, now the time has come when He is going to be handing off their discipleship to another teacher who will take them to the next 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, for all that Jesus has taught them concerning Himself, His divinity, His death and resurrection, the disciples have not fully understood what He was saying.  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 causes 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 Holy 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 whether or not something is 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 life.  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.  And then as you grow into maturity, you begin to feed others. 

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 grow into the image of Christ.  That involves being trained in righteousness, taught 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 born again, 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 crucifying the flesh and 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 He says the Spirit is true. Because the Spirit 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 translations 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 experts on all truth by the power of the Holy Spirit.  But we are guided into all the truth.  All the truth of the gospel, and what pertains to spiritual life from God. 

That is the truth of God.  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 a new 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.  That’s what Christianity was called before they were called Christians.  It was called “The Way.”  And Christ’s way is by following the truth that leads to life.  Abundant life.  Eternal life.  Authentic life.  It doesn’t concern itself with just putting on a religious front. 

Authentic Christianity is not a self righteous life.  Authentic Christianity is not religious superficiality.  Authentic Christianity is rooted in the truth of God’s word.  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 Christianity believes the truth and is 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, emotionally 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 snare and captivity of Satan.  

We know we have to walk in the truth to the best 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 through 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.  

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, abundant life, eternal 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 the words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”   The disciples were 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 new 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 as we study the ministry 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 in this book, it is interspersed over 3 chapters and sometimes we can lose track of all that Jesus was saying because we don’t read this discourse in sequence.  Some of these statements 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 upon one 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 one of the most misunderstood doctrines in the church today.  I wish I had time to go line by line through 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 emphasize 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 attributed 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 in the book of James to test the spirits.  We know the Spirit of Truth because the Holy Spirit does not glorify Himself, but He glorifies Christ.

Charles 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 speaks of the nature of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  The Spirit of Truth helps us not by some experience, but by revelation or explanation of the truth.  

The Spirit of Truth 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 1:20, it says, “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.”  So the Spirit of Truth is the author of the scriptures.  And in the New Testament, that was given 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 opens our minds and hearts so we can understand the truth of God.  He leads 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.  The Spirit empowers the scriptures to us. Heb 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.”

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 manifest love to 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 as 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.  And please understand that we receive the Spirit at salvation.  The disciples didn’t receive Him until Pentecost, but since Pentecost, all believers receive Him at salvation.  As Romans 8:9 says, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”

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.  But some commentators seem to think that it would be better interpreted as convince.  The distinction 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.  

Jesus 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 expression of that unbelief  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 the sin of unbelief 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 the lie of the world.

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 that actually you are believing 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 by raising Jesus from the dead, 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.

And as we preach the gospel, implicit in it is the fact that our salvation is not dependent upon our righteousness, but upon the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ.  2 Cor. 5:21 says, “God made Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.”  We are saved by faith, by which we believe God, and God grants us the righteousness of Jesus Christ to our account.

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 the witness of 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.  

There are many examples of this in scripture.  For instance, Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. The eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship.  He had acquired 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 so that he might be saved. 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 gospel 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 the 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 power of the Holy Spirit, convincing them of sin, and righteousness, and judgment.  Convincing them of the truth of God that leads to life.  

Rom 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.”

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 70 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 Jesus’ thoughts.  This kind does not usually make headlines except in well publicized cases like that of the owners of a bakery 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 said. He is saying that the more you act like Him, the more you teach as He taught, the more the world will hate you. 

And the reason is because Christianity claims 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 held captive to his lies, and consequently destined for death.  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, and therefore 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.  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 a full time antique dealer, before I became a pastor, I often did appraisals for people’s antiques.  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 sometimes I had to tell someone that their item was fake, and consequently it was worthless, and then they could get very angry at me.  They would become defensive, and that could sometimes escalate to anger.  The reason they 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 was to be angry, which sometimes even escalated in acting hateful towards me.  

That 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 discouraged by 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 underscored by His command to love one another.  That is the way in which they show their love for God and how the church will flourish after He is gone.  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 sins 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 first Jesus explains 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, He says there is nothing personal about their 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 sometimes find myself faced with rejection or even hatred based on things that I have preached as the pastor of this church.  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.  Believe it or not, 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  trying to redefine 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.” If you are truly born again, 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. 

I guess that the social structure of the world has a 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, because we are a new creation, we are no longer of the world. 2Cor. 5:17 says, “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, [he is] a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”  And also implicit in that statement is the understanding that we no longer act like the world, we no longer think like the world, we no longer 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 1Peter 4 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.  He said, ”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 (we are) 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 says 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 died the death of martyrs? And John had to spend the last of 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 in Rome under Nero with his head down thinking himself unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as His 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. I believe He has a special grace that He gives according to the measure of the suffering.  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 of this verse is at odds with a superficial rendering, but in keeping with the context of the passage, I believe the idea of the Greek word “tēreō” indicates to observe critically.  So in a negative context Jesus relates “keeping” in the next verse (21) as something that is included in the phrase “all these things”  because they do not know the Father. 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.  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 rejecting 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.  Jesus said “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, the Spirit 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 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 from your family or exiled from community, or even fired from your job.   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 innate need for love 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 illustrated in the scriptures by the love of a husband and wife.  In Ephesians chapter 5, 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 all the nations of the earth to be the bride of Christ.  In that purpose He appeared unto Abraham, and called him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and told him to go to the land that He would show him.  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 theocratic government over His people, based on His law, given through the prophets.  

But this was only Act One of God’s great plan.  In Act One, 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 servitude 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, having been 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, adopting us as 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 to the New Testament church, which was made up from people of all nations on the earth, 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 passage which is a continuation of the Upper Room Discourse, as they are walking to the Mount of Olives.  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, that 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 transferred to Jesus, 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.  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 servants, 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.  Moses was another man that had a relationship with God as His friend.  The Bible says that he talked with God, as a man would talk with his friend.  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 a 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 is 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, a 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 even 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.”  

Not long ago I was listening to a Christian radio broadcast as I was driving.  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 a few hours talking with my wife about her twin sister that was dying of cancer, and making arrangements for us to fly down there on the spur of the moment to try to comfort her before she passed away.  In talking to someone who has that prognosis, it’s difficult to try to convince them that God still loved them.  That God would use this for good in some way.  And I felt that I had fallen short of offering comfort as I would have liked to.  I found myself wanting to question God’s goodness and justice, and wondering how God could love someone and let them die prematurely of some disease and not heal them.  And against that background, the incongruity of the commercial juxtaposed with the reality of  her sister’s ordeal seemed almost ludicrous.

There is nothing wrong with going on a luxury cruise with a renowned 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 living 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 all “gloom and doom” or 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 evening, and the disciples are walking from the Upper Room where they had just observed the Passover, and where Judas had deserted them after Jesus had prophesied that someone  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 darkness has fallen, and they leave the room and wind their way through the streets of Jerusalem and around the temple walls, down into the ravine where the Kidron brook is flowing dark red from the blood of thousands of lamb sacrifices offered in the temple, and 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, blissfully unaware of what trials were ahead of them, yet Jesus knew it full well.  

As they are walking in the dark up the hillside, perhaps they passed through 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 painted 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 in 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 to speak, 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 fruitfulness.  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 of 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 used to work 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 a fruitful vine to the point that you might think that they are cut too far back.  They look like He might practically 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 “How Firm A Foundation”  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. And it isn’t done once, but often in the life of a Christian. Just as the branches of the vine must be pruned year after year, again and again.

Many of you have had some experience of this. Sorrow, disappointment, loss, 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 either.   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 aren’t concerned 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 with denying 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 may have even performed miracles 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 already promised to do. We pray according to God’s 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 show your love for 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.