Line by Line with Albert Mohler

Third Avenue Baptist Church
Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
March 7, 2021
 
 
Now again, we look to the sermon on the Mount in what we call the Lord's prayer, but we call it the Lord's prayer primarily because the church has referred to it in those terms. it's not referred to as the Lord's prayer in the text, it simply is the Lord's prayer and familiar to us. And you see the fact that most modern translations that have some kind of paragraph identification will put the Lord's prayer on it.
But it is believed that the earliest Christians refer to it as the Lord's prayer, because this was how the Lord taught his disciples to pray. And you'll recall that in the Gospel of Luke, the Lord's prayer comes when Jesus’ disciples come to him and say, ‘John taught his disciples how to pray, teach us also how to pray.’ So you assume that the disciples of John had John's prayer and this is the Lord's prayer, but as you look at it, you recognize that in his earthly incarnation Christ could pray every word of the Lord's prayer, except one portion of it. And that is the forgiveness of sins. He was sinless. That is to say he had no need of that prayer, that one line or phrase in the Lord's prayer reminds us of that. That was his prayer for us, not his own prayer as unto the Father.
But as you look to John chapter 17, it's a very different reality. And we are taken into something like 300 words of prayer between Jesus and the Father, that reveals an intimacy that is unparalleled anywhere in Scripture. It reveals a depth that is greater than anything most Christians imagine when thinking about this text. And it actually presents to us an entire Biblical theology.
And that's a part of what we're going to see and have the joy of seeing together. That is, there is no such prayer as an ordinary prayer between Jesus and the Father. There is no ordinary access to that prayer. This is extraordinary in every way, but it's also in the relationship between the Father and the Son extraordinary in that it is, and could well be called the prayer of obedience of the son. As he is preparing for the ultimate act of obedience to the Father in the Cross.
There are several ways to look at a text like this, and we paused even last week before entering into the High Priestly Prayer, because I believe the best way to study it, first is sequentially. Just taking the texts as we would take another text verse by verse and word by word.
But after that, we'll consider the prayer thematically. And, one of the things we'll look at after we look at the prayer, sequentially, are the gifts that are referenced. Gifts from the Son to the Father, Gifts from the Father to the Son. It's an extraordinary passage. It is also just in terms of theology, proper, the doctrine of God. This text takes us further into the depths of the Trinitarian mystery than any other text of Scripture. And so even though this text, as it is said in the English translation, probably doesn't put over the depths of the Trinity, that's actually what we're looking at. This is the greatest access we have and will ever have in Scripture to the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son.
So it as the Lord will bless us, let's look to the text, to Scripture. John 17, verse one, “when Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come glorify your son, that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
Five verses, and I'm struck even just reading it now, how much is here and how impossible it is to plumb the depths of this passage. But let's do our best to follow through what we are overhearing Jesus, pray to the Father.
Now we're told that this was as the Farewell Discourse had come to an end. Jesus' teaching of his disciples has come to an end.
That magnificent didactic passage which was not only didactic in the classical sense, but it was relational. Jesus is speaking to them, they're speaking to him. We have a sense of the dynamism of the farewell discourse and the experience of the disciples with Jesus. But now this is a very different, context.
Jesus had spoken those words, but then he lifted his eyes to heaven and said, and here's where the prayer begins. “Father, the hour has come.” Now, of course, this is one of the most significant phrases in the Gospel of John going all the way back, very, very early in the gospel. As we saw even last week.
When Jesus says ‘my hour has come”, he actually himself likens it unto the delivery of a child. And he does so in two ways, number one, everything's kind of before and after. And, yet once labor has begun, this is a process that has a conclusion. It is a process of urgency. And the woman who's expecting is looking forward to those pains of delivery. Once they begin, then here it is.
And, everything's going to be a before and after for Jesus. Of course, it's more eschatological than that. It's more teleological, there's a good theological word for that. And that it's not just about the birth of a child. It is about the salvation, the atonement that he is to accomplish.
But as hours come, this is why he came. The culmination of pregnancy is the delivery of the baby. The culmination of Christ’s messianic work is the atonement that he will now accomplish. And this sequence is now unfolding. This is a public event. Jesus will be arrested and he will be publicly crucified in Romans chapter three, the apostle Paul will speak of it as God putting Christ forth publicly as a propitiation. So now all the world is going to know all the world is going to see.
But as the prayer begins, he references the father, just as he taught us too, by the way, in what we call the Lord's prayer, “our Father, who is in heaven.” And we tend to kind of rush over that, but we just remind ourselves of the incredible truth that it makes perfect Trinitarian sense for Jesus to pray to the Father as Father. But it is only because Christ gives us the privilege of praying to God, his Father, that we also pray that way.
And so, even as I just began this morning and we naturally begin our prayers, we have no natural right to pray to God as father, It's a gift. Jesus prays by natural right. “Father, the hour’s come,” What will follow then? What makes sense will immediately follow. And you'll notice it's the words “glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you.”
Well, this is the hour that's come. The hour of atonement, the hour of arrest, the hour of torture, the hour of crucifixion, the hour of burial, the hour of resurrection.
You know, what word would we use if we were trying theologically to cope with this? What word would we use to say, okay, here's the one word summary of what all that means. But in the radical nature of what is revealed to us here, the one word that describes all of this is probably the one word that we would not have conceived. And it's the word glory.
What is taking place and what will take place even in the immediate future as Jesus is praying this prayer to the father is an exchange of glory. And it turns out that this is in the economy of the Trinity. This is the greatest summation of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It is a mutuality of glory. It is the Son praying to the Father, glorify me that I may glorify you.
Now, here's something, again, we have to keep in mind, we use this language. And I've written a lot about this because it puzzled me as a young Christian to hear this language. And it didn't make sense. If God is infinite in his perfections and the Son shares in the perfections of the Father. And if God is all infinitely righteous, and just, and if he is also unchanging, and in other words, he's not more righteous and less righteous.
And then how can he be glorious and then more glorious? And actually, yeah, biblical theology helps to reveal that because God's intrinsic glory, doesn't change. His godness doesn't change, but the reflection of his glory, the knowledge, the consciousness of his glory amongst his creatures, does change.
And thus the glory of God is never more real and less real, but it is sometimes in creation, more visible and less visible. A part of the task of the church is to make the glory of God more visible. We're not adding glory to God that we can add anything to him, but we are making his glory more visible, more apparent, more known to the world.
But in the inner-Trinitarian relation between the Son and the Father, there's an exchange of glory of just this, I started to say cosmic significance, but that's an understatement. It's a trans cosmic reality. Where it’s said that each glorifies the other.
And it's the glory that will be explained to us later in the New Testament that also fits in the context of all that has come before. It is the glory of the obedience of the Son to the Father. It's not a good, healthy obedience, it's a perfect obedience.
You'll notice the sequence. Father, the hour has come, glorify your son, that the Son may glorify you. There's that exchange. And the son is praying to the father that he be glorified in order that he may glorify the Father. And again, it shows you that there is a, there's an order within the Godhead. And it is the Son who is praying to the Father here.
The words continue and the words get to, again, what in Biblical theology turns out to be pretty astounding. “Father, the hour has come to glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you since you have given him…” speaking of the Son of himself, “...authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.”
Alright. So now we have glory and then we have authority. And its authority of a particular nature. It's authority to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. Okay. We're two versus in.
Let's think about what we have here. Seeing the exchange of glory. You've seen the intimacy of the prayer. The hour has come.
But then in verse two, we are told that the father has given the son authority over all flesh. Now, before we see how that continues, we use that word so naturally. Authority. We use it to speak of parental authority, or the authority of the state or a Biblical authority. I mean, we speak of authority. We even call them plural. The authorities.
Well just, ‘did you notify the authorities?’ What is an authority? What does that mean? Well, it means one who rightly holds power, who rightly exercises power.
The more traditional use of a phrase like authority would be to someone referring to kings and princes. And, why do they hold power? What kind of power do they hold? It's rightful power. In other words, it's different than if somebody just stands up on the corner and says, I decree this, or I decree that. That's not authority, that's pathetic. Or a child, in the family saying, you know, I decree this, or I decree that, you know. A father looks at him and says, "Sit down." You know, that's a clarification of authority.
And, authority. It's not just power because power can come up here. Power can come up there. Power can be transient. Power can be permanent. Just in terms of earthly, even in the temporal sphere, there's lasting power. There's episodic power.
But authority is vested in power rightfully displayed. And then the question is: why rightful?, who rightful?
And of course in the political sphere, you do have prime ministers, and presidents, and princes, and kings, and queens.
In the church, we speak of the authority of the teaching office. And we understand that that's not an authority that’s ultimate. That's an authority, that’s delegated. It’s an authority in preaching the Word, but it's the word Itself that has the authority. And it's Christ who has the authority and the Church. Every human responsibility is a delegated responsibility. And it's like the Russian dolls, you know, the famous nesting dolls. And you know, eventually, there isn't any authority except the authority of the, author. In other words, the Biblical theology of authority is that the Creator actually owns everything.
BB Warfield, the Presbyterian theologian famous in the early 20th century. He said, "You know, the most basic thing you have to understand about the entire revelation of Scripture is that it begins and ends with God. He owns it in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end, it all belongs to him."
Every entity that is not God, exists only because of God, and is totally owned by God and a subservient to God. And not only that as Romans chapter 11 says, it's from him and to him and through him are all things. It's pointed to him. Its origins explained only in God, its ultimate destiny is explained only in God.
The Greek word ἐξουσία is the word for authority. And you have authority of the, as I say, the political nature, you have ultimately the authority of God and that's what's here. God has given Christ authority.
Well authority over whom or over what? Well, again, this goes back to the fact that John begins the gospel by telling us that he's the λογος of creation. So the Father created all that is, through the Son. In Colossians chapter one, the same creation theology will be made clear when we were told that he is over all things, all principalities and powers and everything that exists is under him.
But the Son has received that authority from the Father. Again, we have to be very careful in speaking of the inter-Trinitarian relationships, but we must be careful to come to know and to understand and affirm everything that Scripture tells us. And Scripture tells us that the authority of the Son’s, is a delegated authority from the Father, but it's that full delegated authority from the Father to whom does it extend to? All flesh. All flesh.
This is an astounding statement. And as you think about, again, just reading this text, this just reminds us that right now on planet earth, there is not a human being who is not now and will forever be and has forever been under the authority of Jesus Christ, the Son.
We speak of Christ’s authority in the church, and we say, well, Christ has authority over the Church. Now Christ actually has authority over all flesh period. Over, and of course by extension, the entire cosmos, every atom and molecule. And Paul makes that clear. For that matter, the Biblical theologies makes that clear because there is no atom or molecule that is a) finding its origin at anything other than God through the Son, and b) continuing to exist. Even as we are reminded that in him, all things hold together. He is before all things and in him, all things hold together. But coming down to human beings and that's the flesh that is referred to here, this is an explicit reference to humanity.
There is not a human being right now who is not under the authority of Christ. And that means that the distinction are those who know and acknowledge that they are under the authority of Christ and those who do not. Those who obey Christ and those who do not. Those who are gladly, submissively, faithfully, recognizing his lordship and those who deny it, don't know it and there's responsibility in not knowing it, according to Scripture.
But this authority has been given from the Father to the Son over all flesh. But there's a purpose to it “to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.” Again, just look at that one phrase. So here we have the Son praying about the exchange of glory that is to take place. He's praying for the Father, to glorify him, that he may glorify the Father, now that his hour has come. And then he explains this with since, so that's the tie in here. He's saying that this is what now makes sense. The hour’s come.
So now, since you have given him authority over all flesh, the next phrase is so important, to give eternal life to all you have given him to give eternal life. Eternal life. Again, we talk about this so often we need to step back and recognize what we're actually saying.
So let's think about biblical theology. Let’s go back to Genesis. God made Adam and he made Eve. And then he speaks to them in Genesis chapter three and his purpose for them and in creation and putting them in the garden. He explains to them, that they forever, under his lordship in the garden, that they forever enjoy everything in the garden. The fruit of every single tree save one.
But then he said, if you eat of this tree the very day you eat of it, you shall die. Now he didn't mean immediately be struck dead. He meant become mortal. You will now become death. As a way, you can almost translate that you will, the moment, the day you eat of that tree, you will become death.
Well, even beginning in John chapter one, we're told that the purpose of the Son is to come and give eternal life. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. He came into his own and his own received him not, but those who as many as received him to them gave the power the children, sons of God.
John chapter six, we have the very same thing, eternal life.
But before we get there, we have John chapter three, the most famous verse you remember from the New Testament. "For God So loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believed in him might not perish, but have eternal or everlasting life."
So here's the dichotomy, here's mortality. There's Adam and Eve, they did eat of that tree, and death did enter into them.
And then death becomes the human portion from that moment on. So we are now mortal, and doesn't it show that not only do we have mortality when we stand at the grave, as all of us will, again and again and again, we also have mortality, as the Apostle Paul says, in our bodies.
You know, you don't have to be a very good theologian, you don't have to know much theology to look at your own body and recognize, I'm dying. Now, of course, this is a dawning revelation. Because in the normal cycle of life, as the child grows and enters into adolescence, and then at a young adulthood, things are looking pretty good. Things are looking pretty good.
Generally, you know, you just have growth and growth and growth and growth and growth. I was talking to a father of several children, one of them, a son who's in the seventh grade. And, I saw a picture of him and I said, what happened?
And he said, seven inches just in COVID, boy's grown seven inches in COVID. It's been a very good pandemic for that boy.
You look at that, but then you think, you know, I, as a boy, I can remember growing like that, there's that enormous skeletal and other growth spurt. Things are looking really good. Good until things start looking the other way.
And then you realize I've got mortality everywhere I look. And not only that when my mother died and went to be with the Lord. Just a matter of almost exactly a month ago, people responded. And one of the ways people respond with love and care is to send flowers.
And by the way, there's something kind of natural about that. I mean, here's just a reminder. God loves you. Look what God made for you. Look at this, look at this. And so in the arranges we received, had flowers in it I didn't even know existed. It looked like Disney had created them. Dr. Seuss, oops, can't mention him now, but the amazing flowers, but we're at that stage in our house right now of deciding when we have to part with them because they are dead. They're dying. They're actually dead the moment they were cut off, but just wanted the appearance of life. They don't keep it. And I mentioned the seasons earlier because the seasons are a reminder of mortality as well and comes again and again.
Eternal life is such an astounding statement because those are two words that actually don't go together after Genesis 3, after the curse, after sin. Eternal life requires some kind of cosmic explanation. Then of course, that's what we have. How can we speak of eternal life? How can we even speak of the hope of eternal life? How can we speak to the reality of eternal life? It is because this is why the Son has come.
"For God so Loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. So that whosoever believes in him might not perish, but have everlasting life." And that everlasting life explained over and over again. Jesus has spoken about it. Now he's spoken, speaking about it to the Father, but it is to give eternal life to all whom you have given me. Now, this giftedness turns out to be the key to understanding their high priestly prayer of Jesus.
There are gifts the Son gives to the Father. There are gifts that the Father gives to the Son. And by the way, we are one of the gifts. This is amazing. You know, how is it that we are so honored that we are one of the gifts given by the Son to the Father? Only after the Father has given us to him. In the verses that we will read just shortly is going to be explained. Even in terms of separating all of humanity, basically into what turned out to be the two most fundamental groups. Those who are those, that the Father has given to the Son and the world.
That's going to be the language that Jesus uses in this prayer. That's the great division. That's the great separation. Those you have given me and the world. The language about God giving redeemed believers to the Son is so established by now in the gospel of John. Just consider
What we have read and looked at together in John chapter 6. "All the Father gives me will come to me. And the one who comes to me, I, by no means cast out. No one comes to me unless the Father draws him." And so, so it's this, it's this giftedness. And it just reminds us that this is prior to our hearing of the gospel. It's prior to us, it's actually prior to earth. It's just astounding.
Well, as a child, I learned to sing that little song. Jesus loves me, this I know for the Bible tells me so little ones to him belong. We are weak, but he is strong. How is it that we belong to Jesus? And you say, well, I can tell you, I came to faith in Christ then. No, no, no. Turns out that we belonged to Jesus before the cosmos was created. So much before that time is an impossible reference point here. But before the world was created, we belonged to Christ. It's astounding. It grounds us. Doesn't it?
I mean, this is where a Biblical theology, based upon what we see here; This breathtaking reality tells us that we can't be severed. We can't be severed from the Father. We can't be severed from Christ because after all we were given by the Father to the Son, before the creation of the entire cosmos.
Before the creation of the world, We were Christ’s. Well, before we knew it, we were Christ’s and this is it: Long after we can know it, We are Christ’s. At my mom's funeral, just a matter of couple weeks ago, I ended it by making reference to the song we sang, He will Hold Me Fast.
My mom had Alzheimer's disease. We lost her inch by inch. And then she died suddenly she'd been in good physical health. Mary and I had spent time with her in January. And, we're very thankful for that, given the virus context. So it was kind of a miracle in itself. We were able to spend that kind of time with her outside there at her facility in Florida. She did not know us. That is hard for son's heart, but she knew we were her people. And she definitely was very glad to be with us. She was at the point where I don't even think she recognized that she didn't really know how to put all the pieces together, but that was all right. The Lord gave us the time with her and then the word took her home.
But that, that song, and it's a contemporary version by Matt Merker that we sing. It's that amazing language, “He shall, or he will hold me fast.” And he holds us fast when we can't hold anything. And it really helps me to think about even Alzheimer's disease, because you know, if I'm holding myself to Christ, I'm in big trouble. I cannot hold myself to Christ in love. I can't, my heart just can't stay constant. I can't stay holding myself to Christ in obedience. I’m just too prone to disobedience and terms of sin conscious and unconscious. Sins of commission and sins of omission. The fact is we do have to pray that prayer, that the Lord taught us daily to pray for the forgiveness of sins. If I have to hold myself to Christ in energy or fervor, it just doesn't work because I don't have that much. Or it comes in spurts. If I have to hold myself to Christ in consciousness, then I'm in big trouble. I can't sleep and I can't get Alzheimer's disease. But if Christ is holding me, then not even Alzheimer's disease can sever me from him. But it's not just the crisis holding me.
It's that God has given me to Christ and nothing can separate me from him. And that's exactly the point that Jesus makes in John chapter 10. So, just look back just a few chapters to John chapter 10 and remember that's exactly what he said.
Let's look at verses 22 and following. Jesus is talking about being the, the good shepherd look in verse 27. "My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of my hand, my Father who has given them to me is greater than all. And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
So there again is that assurance: we've been given to the Son by the Father and those the Father gives to the Son can never be severed from him. No one can snatch us from his hand.
So the prayer is continuing.
Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And then Jesus says, and this is eternal life that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.
So now we are told that eternal life is a knowledge. Now, of course it is more than that. But Jesus says, this is eternal life. That this is what eternal life is. It is a knowledge. It is that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Now it's easy for us to say “No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let's try that and understand this. The entry into this is knowledge.” But no, that's not what the text says. The text says that eternal life is this knowledge. Now there's more to it than that. When you think about heaven and Christ kingdom and the consummation of all things, but the one word that defines that more than anything else is they unmitigated unmediated, immediate knowledge of God, the Father, and of Jesus Christ, whom he has sent.
And this is the biblical theology that follows all the way through the book of Revelation. And the book of Revelation describes the New Jerusalem, coming down from heaven. And you recall that there is no need for the sun and there is no need for the moon because the Father is as the sun is as the sun. And the Son is as the moon. So we have this direct light. We won't be in a cosmos in which we need a sun or a moon because we have the Father and the Son and the Father and the Son become to us the light. We no longer see through a glass darkly. We will see face-to-face in the sense that is defined by Biblical theology.
We will certainly see the Son face-to-face. The Son shows us the Father. It's an amazing passage. And this sneaks up on us.
This, he says, is eternal life. What do we expect to follow?
A kind of a definition of heaven or a definition of it like that is everlasting. No, it comes down to knowledge that they know you. The only true God and Jesus Christ to me, you have sent.
Then in the next verse, verse four, Christ says this. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
Just a few words, it's going to be a stretch, just to think about all of these words. I glorified you on earth. Again, John chapter one tells us of this theology of glory and how it is revealed to us. The Son came in order to glorify the father to bring his glory to earth. Now God's glory was already here, but this is the glory of the son in the midst of creation, the glory of the Logos, the, the very word of creation. This is the glory of the Father's Son. Now humbling himself to take on humanity.
"We have seen his glory; glory as of the only begotten of the Father. They're full of grace and truth." This glory, this visible expression and knowledge of the Father and of the Father's infinite greatness. This is brought to the earth by the Son. He has glorified God. To see Christ to see the Father is to see the glory of the Father.
This glory is all over Christmas. This is when we speak about the glory of Christmas, what is the glory of Christmas? This is the glory of the Son, coming into the world that he had made, in order to reveal what only he can reveal perfectly. And that is the glory of the Father.
And thus, you have angels singing about glory. You have shepherds speaking about glory. You have, you have the most, apparently inglorious people on the planet, talking about the most glorious event imaginable that unto us is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.
But in everything Jesus did in the entirety of his earthly ministry, it was all about glorifying the Father. It was constantly. Sometimes Jesus will say that, but even when Jesus is saying that, that's what it's all about. Everything he did, every miracle he performed, every word that he spoke at every that, that he prayed. It was all about glorifying the Father. And in this consummate mediatorial high priestly prayer, where Jesus speaks of glorifying the Father.
"I glorified you on earth having accomplished the work that you gave me to do."
So again, that's defined. So in what way, most importantly, in the relationship between the Son and the Father, did the Son glorify the Father honor on earth? It was by doing his well. By accomplishing his will. And we've also seen this where over and over again, Jesus says the Son has no will except to do the will of the Father in Jesus' earthly ministry.
It was all about the accomplishment, the demonstration of the will of the Father. And now the Son is mentioning this to his Father. And he's saying, I glorified you on earth by accomplishing your will. And now that Jesus’ hour has come, this is the ultimate moment of the accomplishment of the work that you gave me to do.
We speak to the person and the work of Christ. So does Christ. Notice that Christ speaks of the distinction between himself and his work. Now they are united in Christ or united in God's purpose. But, here, we have even Christ speaking about his work. Work that the father gave him to do. It was a work that would end in an hour and the hour has now come in the consummate events of the work that are now to be revealed. "And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed."
This is going to take a little thinking. We understand the first words here. He's saying, and now Father, this being the case, Father, glorify me. Now when Christ says glorify me, is he praying for what belongs to the Father and not to himself? He's praying here that the Father will, and language is lacking here, we're stretching ourselves for the language. He's praying that the Father will increase his own glory in the Son. In the events that are now to unfold, glorify me.
Well, if the Son’s existence is merely to glorify the Father, and in this reciprocity, he asked the Father to glorify him. It is, as we shall see in subsequent verses, in order that he may then give the Father even greater glory. But there's a sweetness here. And there's a cosmos shaking phrase here. I glorified you on earth. Having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now Father, glorify in your own presence.
Hmm. Glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I was in a conversation with another theologian this week, about some contemporary issues, theology, and we both independently came to the conversation saying that we believed the great derailing of the theology in the church today in so many ways is the failure to ground everything; Every doctrine, every understanding, in creation. That is to say, not that there's nothing before creation. No, that's actually a part of what creation testifies to, even as we have it here. It is to say that the biblical story begins in creation, and thus, everything that's revealed in scripture has to be brought back to creation.
Paul gives us constant examples of how that is to take place. John does in this gospel provides us constant teaching how that is to take place. Jesus again, and again, shows us how that is to take place. But the most important thing about the Doctrine of Creation is that there was something before creation and that creation only takes place because the self existent sovereign God decreed that it should be. But God's story, so to speak, doesn't begin in creation. Our story begins at creation. The story of redemption accomplished begins at creation. But before the world existed, there was the Father and the Son. There was the Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the existence and intimacy, which is theirs alone. But at least a part of what we are given a vision of here, a sight of here, is that there is glory, given and received in the Trinity. The old English would say, “In the Godhead.” There is glory, given and received before the world exists.
In the existence they knew only amongst themselves. In the privacy of the Trinity, there was a reciprocity of glory. A part of what Christ forfeited in his humiliation in the incarnation was some of the reciprocity of glory that he had with the father before the incarnation. The two giant ‘before’ and ‘afters’ in biblical theology: we have to think of before and after creation. And then before and after incarnation. Before incarnation, there was a reciprocity of glory in the presence of the Father, the Son knew and has not known in the same way on earth.
Part of what he gave up in his condescension in his incarnation was what he hear prays about. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. That's all we know. This is where we are taken right up to the knowledge of something that is so far surpassing our understanding that we don't know. And we can't know. and we'll never know we will never know all that. It means for Christ to have prayed for the glory that he had with the Father in his presence before the world was created.
All, all we do know is that the glory of the Son now is even greater than it was before. The glory of the Son is now greater due to his accomplishment of all that the Father had given him the obedience and that. In Philippians chapter two, Paul tells us why the Father has given him the name Lord. That every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father.
We're only in five verses, and the entire history of the world's been rewritten.
Our understanding of why Jesus came has actually been redefined because we want to say, okay, and this is where we have to end today. But just think about this because this is the way we will tell the story.
As Bible-believing Christians say by grace, if we get to tell the story the way we want to tell the story, it is this. God loved us so much that he sent us Jesus. Jesus died on the cross as a substitute for our sins. God raised him from the dead. Salvation comes to all who believe in him, who believe and repent of sins, salvation comes to them. And we're given the gift of eternal life and we can never re-sever from God. That's the Bible storyline, except it's not. No that’s a part of the Bible’s storyline.
But it's actually put in the Bible storyline as, as kind of a parenthetical statement. The Bible’s real Storyline is the Father and the Son glorifying one another with a greater glory yet to come/ When the Son forfeits some of that glory, the glory he knew with the Father, before the creation of the world, in order to come into the world. But there's an even greater glory in this inter-Trinitarian exchange and transaction of glory after Christ's perfect obedience. And when he ascends to the Father. This high priestly prayer reminds us that, it's all about the fact this greater glory that Christ now knows, is a glory of an enduring priesthood. Of a people who have been given to him by the Father before the world was created.
There's no risk that American Christians, or Christians of any age, when I think particularly of the church in the United States, are going to be shocked to find out that the gospel was a big story, is a big story. The problem is most American Christians have no clue how big a story this is.
But only the very threshold of his obedience to the Father, just five verses in, Jesus has given us an entire cosmology. And by the way, he has reminded us, and this is something that as you're walking on the sidewalks today, as you are seeing people today, regardless of what they're doing; How many of them have any understanding that the Great Before and After is, in this case, before the world was made? That the world is not a self-existing thing. The world constantly is telling us someone made this. There was someone before this. There will be something after this.
How many people recognize that the entire purpose of the cosmos is an exchange of glory between the Father and the Son? And let's admit something else: we wouldn't figure any of this out. We only know this because of the revelation of God in the Bible, but even more importantly, we only know it at this point because this prayer between the Son and the Father. Properly, this prayer of the Son to the Father is made known to us. Otherwise we would never know these things. And we're only five verses in.

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Third Avenue Baptist Church
Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
February 28, 2021
We're in John chapter 16. And after we pray, we'll begin in verse 16 of chapter 16, as we are seeing the groundwork laid for the high priestly prayer of Jesus coming in John 17, let's pray. 
Father, we're just so thankful that you give us what we need. And, that means sun and sometimes it means rain. And Father, you knew that now we need rain. Thank you for giving it to us. Thank you for watering the earth. How many people throughout history have had to pray in a time of drought for the gift of even a drop of water. Thank you for watering us abundantly. Thank you for giving us your Lord. May we feast on your Word this hour, and we pray your Holy Spirit will apply the Word to our hearts. Even as the Holy Spirit, he inspired John to write this gospel. Father, we pray that all of this will come full circle in increase through us for your glory. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ. Our Lord, amen. 
The Farewell Discourse of Jesus is ending. And as we have to remind ourselves, this is one conversation. It's one very long conversation and it's not just conversational, in the sense that every once in a while you do see the disciple ask a question, It is didactic. It's pastoral. It's didactic, in the sense that it's teaching. This is Jesus telling them things. It's like a final briefing. It's like a general before an army goes to war. It's a final briefing. Things are about to happen that he's been trying to tell the Disciples now for what we might say is three years. You look at the gospel of John and, and you look in the very beginning until now. How many times has Jesus spoken about his hour that's coming? Now sometimes he says it negatively. My hour is not yet come. 
And so if his hour is not yet come, then his hour is coming. And of course, then what is his hour? Well, it's the culmination of his earthly ministry, but it isn't come yet. His hour has not yet come, but it's coming, it's coming. It is not at all clear that the disciples had any sense of a timetable and of any quickening of that timetable. And of any immanence of this hour that is coming. Furthermore, Jesus has told them things that will make sense in retrospect. And they only make sense to us because we've read the gospel of John and we know these things and the disciples don't. We're going into a passage right now in which the disciples at one level seem to understand what Jesus means. And yet they still don't seem to understand his timetable. 
Now he has told them that one of them will betray him. This is back in chapter 13 and, and he has spoken to those issues happening. But here in John chapter 16, where we had just seen Jesus speak the gift to the Holy Spirit last week, we were in that amazing passage earlier in this chapter where Jesus says it is better for you, that I go for I am sending the helper. So we're looking at, in salvation history, one of these great hinge moments, it's like salvation history is a symphony and, and there's a climactic movement coming, but we're right in the central movement, that is the hinge in which everything turns the incarnation of the Lord, Jesus Christ, his accomplished mission. And, and then there's another age coming, the age of the church when Jesus will ascend to the Father, he will leave the disciples, but the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send and he will send will be with us. As you look to verse 16, Jesus says a little while, and you will see me no longer and again, a little while, and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, what is this? He says to us a little while, and you will not see me and again, a little while, and you will see me and because I'm going to the Father. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about. 
The joy of having children, little, little children, preschool children, children, just learning to talk and minds just soaking everything up. The joy of that is that they ask the questions they want to ask. And you say something and they don't understand it, they’ll say something like that. Grandchildren turn out to do the same. And Benjamin and Henry, Benjamin's five, Henry's two. We were FaceTiming with them while we were in Florida for my mother's funeral. They had been in Florida with us earlier in the month of January. And we're just FaceTiming. And it came up that we were in Florida and Benjamin just said, what'd you mean you were in Florida? Like, it can't be, you were just in Florida, you weren't in Florida anymore. How can you be back in Florida? This doesn't make any sense. What do you mean you're in Florida?
Well, this is like the disciple saying what'd you mean this little while? What does he mean? A little while I won't be with you and then a little while I'll be with you. What's he mean now? The amazing thing is that this has been said before in chapter 13. In chapter 13, verse 33, Jesus said to them a little while, and I will not be with you. And then in a little while you will see me and it's this little while see me, little while not see me. And the interesting again, is that the disciples asking the question is actually in the text. 
So they went on and spoke. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he's talking about. So again, very honest, the disciples don't know what he's talking about. And you want to look there at chapter 16 and say, how can you not know what he's talking about? But then again, just humbly realize we would be in the same position as they are, because we only know what Jesus is talking about because we know the rest of the story. In verse 19 we’re told Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, “Is this what you were asking yourselves? What I meant by saying ‘a little while, and you will not see me and again a little while, and you will see me’ truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. 
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow. Her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy, that a human being has been born into the world. So also you will, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again. And your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. And that day you'll ask nothing of me, truly, truly I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Until now, you've asked nothing in my name asking, you'll receive that your joy may be full.” So Jesus knows in himself what they're asking. You see the same thing in John chapter six, Jesus knows what they're thinking. 
And so he speaks right into their thinking. He knows what they're asking. And so he even repeats himself. I know this is what you're asking about, but then he doesn't exactly answer it. Not, immediately. It's kind of like going up to a child and saying, I know this is what you're asking about. Well, let me tell you about this and Jesus uses the example of a woman in childbirth. But even as he's speaking to them, beginning in verse 19, he says, this is it. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. But even as you weep and lament, the world will rejoice. 
So when Jesus is tried and when he is crucified, he says the world's gonna rejoice. And he means by that, of course, the powers that be. The powers of evil, he means those who will seek to take his life. He means those who believe that their political and social power will be protected, if Jesus is gone, those who hate him. And as Jesus has said, hating him will hate his disciples. They will rejoice in his death. And, and we see that. This is done. We put him out of the way, but he says, even as the world will rejoice and you're filled with sorrow, you will be filled with joy. And that's just made very clear. And he refers to what is going to happen and his hour. And he even uses that expression. He, when her hour has come. Now, all of a sudden doesn't that clarify everything. 
Doesn’t that clarify everything? A baby is coming. A woman knows the baby is coming. And yet the process of labor is the hour that’s it. Her hour will come. And when it comes, there's anguish. Anguish in that process goes back to Genesis three. But the mother doesn't remember the anguish when she's holding the baby. And Jesus speaks of his own atoning sacrifice. In those very terms, it's going to be like childbirth. When his hour comes will be anguish, but as the scripture says, joy is coming in the morning. Now, again, they can understand part of this, maybe. They don't appear to understand much of it. Jesus went on also to continue something of the theme of what it will mean that he is no longer with them. And this is what you really find in the agency in prayer, that Jesus mentions in verse 23 and following. 
“In that day you'll ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give to you. Until now you've asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you'll receive, that your joy may be full.” Now, those are just two little verses, and generally they're read the wrong way and prosperity theologians  or someone saying, well, there's Jesus. Just saying, if you ask him my name, the Father's gonna give it to you. No, there's something earth shatteringly swinging like on a hinge here. Have you, you noticed that no one has invoked the name of Jesus in prayer, until now. We pray in Jesus’ name. We think nothing of it, because we're taught to do that. But how is it that we pray in Jesus' name? On what authority do we pray in Jesus' name? If you look at all the prayers in the old Testament, the prayer’s to the Father.
If you look at the prayers Jesus has prayed, they are prayers to the Father. As you think about how the Jewish people have been trained to pray, they would've considered it idolatry and the breaking of two commandments to pray to anyone other than the Father. But we pray naturally, we're authorized to pray. We pray rightly. Orthodoxly. We pray properly by praying in Jesus’ name. How, why, and on what authority?  Well, first of all, on Jesus' authority. And as we shall see,  by Jesus's authority made manifest in the practice of the apostles in the early church. But the huge question is why and how? How does that happen? Why does it matter? Why do we not just pray to the Father? Why do we pray to the Father in Jesus' name? And, and why do we not pray to Jesus in the sense of just crying out to Jesus and relegating the Father to a secondary role. It is because this is a Trinitarian theology that's being revealed to us, and it is spectacular. 
The Son, in obedience to the Father, fulfilling all that the Father commands. Obedient as the apostle Paul will say in Philippians two “even unto death.” He who the Father will raise from the dead. He whom the Father will give the name, Lord, the name that is above all names, the name to which every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. The trinitarian shape of Christian theology comes down to the fact that our prayer is now prayer to the Father through Jesus. This is what theologians rightly have called the session of Christ. And it is precious. He has sat down at the right hand of God, the Father almighty, and, and there he is our mediator, the sole mediator between God and man, and he mediates our prayer. So he intercedes for us before the Father. 
He ever intercedes. We don't pray to Jesus as if the Father is absent. We pray to the Father through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. That's the Trinitarian shape of Christian prayer. We pray to the Father through the Son by the Holy Spirit and Jesus here, astoundingly says, you've never asked anything in my name, but now you're authorized to do so. Now when Jesus is speaking now, does it mean right then that second? Well in one sense, perhaps. But what he's really speaking about is now of the age in which he will be absent from the Church, but he will not be absent. He'll be seated. That's the session, the Latin session seated at the right hand of God, the Father almighty there, he is our priest and we need desperately a priest. It's not that we don't have a priest. 
It's that we have one priest, the all sufficient priest, the priest of priests who sits at the right hand of God, the Father. Now, is he a priest? Is he a priest to try to intercede against the merciful will of the Father? No, he is here to intercede for us to make pleadings for us to, to mediate fallen, and now redeemed humanity to the Father. And this is the thing, we need a mediator, not just on the cross. We need a mediator seated at the right hand of the Father. And we have that mediator. What Jesus is saying here is not prosperity theology. You ask anything in my name and the Father will do it for you as for a, what was it, controversy, early in COVID a 17 million private? No, it was more than that, like 70 million private jet, one prosperity preacher. That is not what Jesus is talking about. Instead, what he's talking about is much more spectacular. 
One of the big questions that was always on the Jewish mind, and this is something else we sometimes don't think about, but you'll see this in some popular piety. If you're talking to people about prayer, pastors, talking to people about prayer. Just common parlance about prayer, the assumption of many people, and this was, this was just in the warp and woof of Judaism. And you can understand why the assumption was that prayer would have its variability in two things. Number one, the relative status of the one praying to pray, and then the relative disposition of God to the prayer. So you can see in conventional wisdom, why that would, you know, will my prayer be answered? Well, it depends on how righteous I am when I pray, right? I mean that just, just fallen into gross sin. Maybe that's not the best time to pray, in conventional theology. 
And then will God answer the prayer? Well, maybe it depends on whether he's inclined towards mercy or wrath or indifference or who knows. By the way, you can see why that conventional wisdom theology develops. And in every popular piety, there's this kind of conventional theology, because as you look at the Old Testament in prayer, it appears God sometimes answers prayer. Sometimes he takes a long time to answer prayer. Sometimes he says no, and yes, some of the people who are praying, the very agency of their prayer is tainted by something in their lives. That is not our primary concern in the Christian Church, we pray and the power of our prayer is guaranteed by the power of Christ. 
And  I can remember as a little boy as a very little boy, I don't know, maybe 8, 9, 10 years old, you know, just when a child on the, you know, the cusp of adolescence is beginning to think about thinking and that critical thinking begins to enter. And I began to wonder how might prayers could possibly measure up and how I could even remember to pray for all the things I need to pray for. I mean, then, and now I find that I can't keep everything that I even wanna pray about in my mind. You'll pray, and then you think, oh, I should have prayed for this person. Or I should have thought about that. I had this test coming up or dealing with this situation or that person's sick. Now, this is not an argument for laziness in prayer, or isn’t certainly indifference. It's just to say that our prayer is not our achievement. 
It's all Jesus. And it's not about God's relative disposition because God's disposition to his Son is always favored, that's it. So we don't really have to worry about his disposition to us. Like in the Old Testament, people may have worried. Because the issue now is God's disposition towards his Son in whom we are, whose mediator is that Son. So the big thing here is that you're really looking at the Lordship of Christ before that language is being used. As Jesus is speaking as the mediator, he will be seated at the right hand of the Father, but he's speaking here about what's going to happen. He's trying to tell the disciples so that they're ready. And those two verses about prayer, which are far more astounding than maybe they appear at first, are interjected here. But then Jesus goes back to the little while in verse 25, he says, I have said these things to you in figures of speech. Now that's a good translation of the Greek. And maybe it's a good time for us just to think about figures of speech. Figures of speech is not trick language it's any kind of parable, any kind of metaphor, any kind of language that is just to use the word figurative. 
You can't help using figurative language in a certain sense. And, and by the way, in every language you're learning a new language, figurative speech is the hardest speech. It just is. I can still remember reading the book, The Curious Case of the Dog at Midnight. I think it's the title. How many of you read that? It's actually a stupendously well written little novel. And the boy at the center of the story is autistic in a classic sense, but he's high, a very intelligent high operational, on the spectrum, we now call it. and, the father loves him. He has a single father who takes care of him. The father loves him. The father understands him. The father can get quite exasperated with him, but one of the points being made, and the author of the book is autistic, so he is writing from inside the experience. And he writes about the fact that figures of speech are generally lost on someone on the spectrum like that. So he says something like, you know, ‘that man's as big as a barn.’ And he would say to his father, ‘That is a lie. 
He is not as big as a barn.’ It's just that those things you go, ‘he's smart as a tack.’ What does that mean? Figures of speech require abstract thinking. It requires the ability to leave where you are and think about that and make the connection from that back to where you are. And that's a part of what is a challenge for some people, but actually is a challenge for all of us. If you don't know the inside code. So if you're among the French speaking French, if you're among the German speaking Germans, and they use a figure of speech, you're doomed, hopefully you're not ordering dinner or getting directions. Figures of speech are very difficult. So have some sympathy for the Disciples. Jesus has a strategy, and that's what he talks about. He says,I have said these things to you in figures of speech, the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father. 
There was teaching that came after the resurrection. We have some of it in the New Testament. We have some of it. We have of course the entire apostolic testimony. The point is that after the accomplishment of Christ's earthly ministry, there will be things we can know that we can't know before. It simply can't be. And Jesus acknowledges that he's spoken to them in figures of speech. The time is coming when he will no longer do so. In that day, you will ask in my name. And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. And now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. Now this goes back to those two verses in the earlier paragraph about prayer. And Jesus himself says, not that the Father is reluctant. It's just that, now you ask in my name and the Father's disposition to you is his disposition to me because you believed in me and you are now in me as the New Testament will teach us. The Father himself loves you because you've loved me and have believed that I have come from God. 
But then he says, I'm leaving the world and going to the Father. Now that is not a figure speech. That is plain language. The Disciples are being told that he is going to leave them and go to the Father. His Disciples said, this is verse 29. “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all things or do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus, answer them, Do you now believe?” now on the one hand, there's just a human drama we're witnesses of here. And a part of the human drama is the disciple saying, we don't understand. And Jesus saying, you will understand. 
And then the human drama, the disciples saying, oh, now we understand. And Jesus saying, not, really, you understand more, but it's clear they don't really yet understand. And again, they can't yet understand because these events have not yet happened. But it is so sweet that the Holy Spirit knew we needed this kind of testimony. Even the give and take between Jesus and the disciples. Now we know that you know all things. Well, when we say now we know that you know all things. One of the questions that was being asked continually, evidently on their minds, and again, Jesus answered this. You go back to John chapter seven where Jesus says my hour’s not yet come. I mean, so early in the earthly ministry of Jesus, when you're talking about a messianic fulfillment, you're talking about the atonement that Christ will accomplish. 
You're talking about God's great purpose and the entire flow of biblical history. The when becomes a really huge question, when? And Jesus tells them, well, you will know more, many of these things you'll understand in retrospect, more or less Jesus in verse 31 addresses them. “Do you now believe?” It's a strange question. As a matter of fact, we need to think about this for a minute. They just said to him, we believe, we now know, you know, all things, ‘do you now believe?,” this is a scary question. If we're honest, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Very honest plea in Scripture. What does it mean that Jesus, at this point, turns to his Disciples and says, but do you believe? They just affirmed to believing him. John chapter six, you'll recall. Jesus asked them that very question. When he says, “Do you also want to go away?” 
And that's when Peter answered so beautifully “Lord to whom will we go?” You have the words of eternal life and beyond that we have come to know that you are the holy one from God. But Jesus here just as he is about to be betrayed, asks them, do you believe? And then he gives them this word of warning. And it's like, we're back in chapter 15, “behold, the hour is coming, Indeed, it has come when you'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone, yet I'm not alone for the Father is with me.
Back in the prophet, Zechariah. The prophet Zechariah chapter 13, verse seven, “Awake oh, sword against my shepherd against the man who stands next to me, declare the Lord of host. Strike the shepherd and the sheep will be scattered.” It certainly appears that Jesus has that text in mind. As you strike the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered and Jesus picking up on that language with himself as the good shepherd, as he's already said, the good Shepherd's telling you sheep, I will be stricken and you will be scattered. He says each to his own home. And of course there's an immediate proximity to this. And that's after the betrayal of Jesus, as the disciples are scattered. They're no longer with him. Of course, Peter will deny him. They are scattered. And though just think about this, think of the incredible unity that is being expressed right now in this text. 
And with Jesus, with them in this farewell discourse, he is sharing with them the most intimate, urgent, revelatory truths that they will need for when he is no longer with them. And even they're going to need more urgency urgently as the days are unfolding and the hours are unfolding with his arrest, and prosecution and trial, crucifixion and burial, even the resurrection, all these things, they're gonna need everything they can get from Jesus and their unity with him is so sweet. Now we see what you're talking about. Now we believe. We know, you know, all things and Jesus says, good enough, but you're about to be scattered. You know, there's something else here, just a little footnote. That's kind of interesting. We're talking about Judean and Galilean fisherman, tax collectors, well, not now, but, common people. They were expected to know the Bible. They had been going to the synagogue where the word of God had been read and had been read and had been read and had been read. It's just really, really interesting for us to, at the fact that Jesus could mention a text like this, which we know echoes the prophet Zecharia chapter 13, verse seven. And it anticipated that they, and we would, would, would catch that reference. This is what it means. If you strike the shepherd and the sheep are scattered. But Jesus doesn't conclude there. 
“You'll be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet, I am not alone for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you that in me, you may have peace in the world. You will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.”
So Jesus here is concluding this farewell discourse and he does so by saying that I have given you these words, that in me, you may have peace. And this is where Christians are left. Christians are left with knowing that we are safe in Christ. Christ has given us all that we need to know. And what we don't know is safe in Christ. We can be scattered like sheep because the shepherd has been, but the shepherd will be resurrected. We can, we, we, we can be chased off. We can be persecuted by the world, which will hate us because the world hated him first. But it's all right, because we are his. The final words here are take heart, I have overcome the world. This is what's called a prolepsis. This is the future being declared. And the reason why Jesus can do this is because he is indeed the Son of the Father. 
He is the one who will be given the title of Lord. He can say, because he is the Father's Son, that this has happened as if it has happened. It's just the same thing that you see in, in Romans chapter eight, where in the order of salutis, the order of salvation, it says we have been, and then it says, glorified. Well, we haven't been glorified yet, but the point is in Christ, it's already accomplished so that we will be glorified. There's not a question as to whether we would be glorified. We don't experience that glorification in this life, but we can already say that even as we have been predestined and we've been sanctified and justified, we can also say we have been glorified because it will happen because Christ has already accomplished all that is necessary for it. Similarly, he can say here to the Disciples, I have overcome the world. Now the world is about to arrest him. The world is about to try him. The world is about flog him and humiliate him. The world is about to kill him in the most excruciatingly, public humiliating, agonizing tortuous, form of death in crucifixion. But the world is about to discover that he has overcome the world. 
We're now at that break between the end of the farewell discourse and the beginning of the high priestly prayer. I don't want to rush into the high priestly prayer of Jesus at this point, because I just want us to rest in where we are with this farewell discourse coming to an end. We also, I think, just in terms of our opportunity to learn, need to take the break here, because we need to keep in mind that the Disciples were very much a part of the conversation in the farewell discourse. They were listening to Jesus speak to them. They did not hear Jesus pray the prayer we know as the high priestly prayer beginning in verse, one of chapter 17, the Holy Spirit gives that through John to us, but they were not a part of this. The farewell discourse marks the last word of the last teaching of Christ before his arrest and crucifixion. There will be some teaching in the time that he was with them after the resurrection, before the ascension, but this ends, most of the teaching that Christ will give the disciples and the intimacy of that remarkable period of time for about three years in his earthly ministry, when he chose them, he called them, he taught them, corrected them. And through the testimony of Scripture teaches us as well.

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Third Avenue Baptist Church...

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John 16:1–15

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Third Avenue Baptist Church
Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
February 21, 2021

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For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
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Third Avenue Baptist Church Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series January 31, 2021 You can find Dr. Mohler's other live sermons here. Follow Dr. Mohler: Twitter | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.

Third Avenue Baptist Church
Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
January 31, 2021

You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

Follow Dr. Mohler:
X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.

Third Avenue Baptist Church...

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John 15:12-17

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Third Avenue Baptist Church
Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
November 15, 2020
 
 
It was wonderful to see you this morning and wonderful to be able to turn to God's Word together, and we're continuing through our study in the Gospel of John. We're in John 15, and we are in the farewell discourse of Jesus and thus issues are intensifying, and we are also in, as we shall see, a passage of scripture in which Jesus is giving what amounts to a final briefing to his disciples. And we have the honor by the Holy Spirit of observing this. Over hearing it. Let's pray.
Father, we're just so thankful that you give us the opportunity to hear these words even as the disciples heard these words from Jesus. And Father, this means that you intended these words for us, even as Jesus intended these words for his disciples, and may they have the same effect on us as they had upon the disciples. May we receive these words with great joy because we receive your word with great joy. And may we live it faithfully. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.
So when we were together last, we worked our way to John chapter 15, verse 11, and you'll recall that in verse 11, Jesus said, “these things I spoke to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Now, one of the challenges we face in John chapter 15 in this farewell discourse is that it is the Farewell Discourse. It is Jesus knowing that in a very short amount of time, he is going to be arrested and taken away from his disciples. Before his crucifixion these will be the final words. Now what we have are three chapters here, John chapter 15, which we will conclude shortly. John chapter 16 coming, and then of course the high priestly prayer in John chapter 17. But that last part is the prayer between Jesus and the Father and the disciples were not a part of that.
So the time with the disciples is getting very short. The intensity is very high. We're at a fever pitch. This is the greatest tension in the drama of what's taking place in the life and ministry of Jesus as he has headed for the cross. And thus, the words that he's speaking take on a particular poignancy. Now there's something else that takes place in this farewell discourse, and that is that all of this belongs together, but it is not just a matter of Jesus going through an outline. It's not like if you've ever been on a cruise ship and you have a briefing of what to do, if you have to go to the lifeboats and on every cruise, you've got to do this. You've got to go through the drill. It's an international maritime rule. And so when you're on the cruise ship, eventually like the second morning, you've got to meet out at your life boat posts and you have to put on the vest and you have to listen to what's being told.
And, and yet, you know, it's a beautiful sunny day. You're in the Caribbean, you're in the Mediterranean. No, one's thinking about the boat sinking. The Titanic's long in the past. And you know, you really do need to know this, but you really want it to be over. And it doesn't go too long, and besides that, the people doing it are reading off of a clipboard so that they can check off everything that they've done. I think of that when I see airline pilots doing this, when I get on an airplane. I look back in the cockpit, looking for a little reassurance that somebody in there looks like he's not 14, and that has some competence to fly this plane. And generally they're going through a checklist. And I'm just thinking,” you know, if I did that two or three times a day, I might get a little careless. I'm hoping you don't.”
This is not a checklist in the sense that it's just going through a sequential order. Jesus here, the authenticity of the conversation, this discourse Jesus is having with his disciples, a part of the authenticity is how Jesus goes back to an issue and circles back and will say, “this is why I told you.” Now in looking at that, I have to say that I look at this passage differently as both a father and a grandfather than I probably would have looked at this passage at an earlier point of life, or as a teacher, I look at this differently. And it's because when you are communicating the most massively important matters to people, you're also reading them. And you're looking at their faces. That's one of the reasons why, and you have all these teachers saying that even in person, education is much more difficult because with these children wearing masks, it's much harder to see, “do I have their attention? Do I not? What's going through their minds? Is anything going through their minds?” You know, just the act of watching as one as communicating. And so what happens here is as we come to the passage that begins in John chapter 15, verse 12 is that Jesus is actually repeating much of what he said, but he adds something.
So as we saw the last verse was “these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” And remember, Jesus has told them, he's getting ready to leave them in a little while. “You will not see me.” But now he says in verse 12, “this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: Then someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I commanded 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. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another.”
That's a very tight passage. And there are about four huge issues here each of which you could say would be deserving of a book unto itself, but because of the context and the fact that this is a temporal tension, the time is running out. Jesus gives the disciples these truths. And he does so in such a way that he obviously is not saying everything that he might say about them, but some of these things he's spoken of before. So for example, in verse 12, when he begins by saying, “this is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you,” this is the same Jesus who said, “if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.” If you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we saw the fact that this is not only the fact that Jesus has commandments, this is Old Testament biblical theology coming alive in the New Testament. Only God may give commandments. And so this is a clear assertion of the deity of Christ, as he is here speaking to his disciples, and he doesn't give them maxims and principles and rules and regulations, he gives them commandments. And that is as God the Father gave the commandments to Moses. And we know most famously is the 10 Commandments,
But what commandments has Jesus given? When we looked earlier, John 14 and 15, that Jesus has commandment, we saw that he'd given many. We think of the Great Commission, just to give an obvious one. But there are actually something like 400 commandments that Jesus gives, and they're not given in the same spirit of the law, they are instead indeed principles that he has commanded. They are attitudinal. They’re action. But he gets right to the heart. “This is my commandment.” So this is the summary. If you say,” this is the law.” If you have an attorney making a case before a jury or a lawyer making a case for the oral arguments before the United States Supreme court. And, there are two senses in which that lawyer may make reference to the law. He may make specific reference, as he may say, “as in US criminal code, you know, section two, paragraph three,” you know, he may make specific reference as to whether or not that law is actually in play in this. But even more often before the Supreme Court, you will hear attorneys make reference to “the law” as one body. As making basically one argument: it is the rule of law. And so you say, “as the law teaches us. As the law constrains us.” And the same thing is true in the Bible. You need to say, “well, this is the law of God.” Well, God gave laws and God gave commandments, but you can speak of the law and say, there's a distinction between the law and the gospel. Which law do you mean? You mean all of it. The body of the law. And that's exactly what Jesus is doing here.
He says, “I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what, everything I've taught you comes down to. It's not that I haven't given you other commandments. I've given you other commandments, but I mean,” and by the way, some of Jesus' commandments are attitudinal, “such as ``fear not,” but you'll notice here he says, “this is THE commandment.” In other words, you're going to summarize everything here. Now in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus summarizes all of the Old Testament law, the law and the prophets, when he was asked, “what is the most important of the commandments?” And he says that “you should love the Lord, your God with all your heart and soul and mind” going back to Deuteronomy. But then he goes to Leviticus and he says, the second is likened to it, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands, hang all of the law and the profits.” So everything comes down to this, but now Jesus speaks of his own commandments. And he says, “it all comes down to this. My commandments, come down to this, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” Now, that's one of the sentences that rings in our ears with such familiarity. “You shall love one another as I have loved you,” because we know It's familiar to us and John will come back to this in his epistles, but what are we to do with this right now?
Well, we're to read it as an entire sentence. And that's where it gets dangerous, because he doesn't just say “you shall love one another.” The Bible has already told us that. His commandment is that we love one another as he has loved us. Now, things get dangerous.
This is a command that's far more revolutionary than we dare teach our children in Sunday School When they first learned it. If we say that Christ's commandment is that we love one another. Well, and that seems almost axiomatic, but Jesus taught us that we are to love one another. I think that is just about the second or third Bible verse I learned as a child. And God is love was the first. And then you just, you just think about the outworking of this. God loved us first now we're to love one another. What are the limitations upon loving one another? That's the key question. And the disciples were always concerned with what is the limitation upon this command? And look sometimes I can remember as a teenager, seeing the, you know, the disciples asked how many times must I forgive and you know, the answer to that's coming, and it's just embarrassing that the disciples would ask it. You know, you're going to look bad asking this question. Don't ask. And it's like, you know, you're 14, you're reading the Bible. And you think maybe if I opened the Bible next time they won't ask that stupid question. Oh, yes, they do.
But actually, it's a question that is necessary for us to ask. What is the extent of how we're to love one another? This could be very costly. It could be very inconvenient. So Jesus puts the restriction on it here. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Well, it turns out there's no restriction on it. Jesus has loved us infinitely. And as the New Testament tells us, he loved us until the end. And, of course, he died for us.
So what Jesus is saying here is “I've got good news and bad news.” I've got good news: “The most important summary of all that I've taught you is this: You are to love one, one another.”
Here's the bad news: “As I have loved you.” So this is a manifesto for the Christian Church. The kind of love that should be present in the Christian Church is the kind of love in which believers love one another, as Christ has loved us. Now, we are incapable of loving, as faithfully, as Christ loved us. We are incapable of loving, as infinitely, as Christ loved us. But we are to love as intentionally. And as genuinely as Christ has loved us.
The disciples are about to be absent from Christ. They are going to face the hatred of the world. That has been made clear. Jesus is now going to make it far more clear in the passage that follows, the paragraph of our concern this morning. Jesus is going to tell them the world hates you. The world doesn't dislike you. The world's not irritated by you. The world hates you because the world hates it's me. But we are not there yet. But preparing them to hear of this message of the world's hatred, he reminds them it is to be contrasted with the picture of their love for one another.
And so just think of two different spheres. And we don't know about that second one yet, except we do. We know it's coming, the world's going to hate us, but in the church we find love. And as Christians, we've got to settle for that. As Christians, we have to understand that the repudiation of the gospel is to get those two spheres reversed: To live so that the world will love us, but the church may hate us.
And Jesus will be very clear. You're not going to be able to earn the love of both the church and the world. And that's a devastating realization. I think one of the greatest temptations to Christians is to want to be loved by both the church and the world. But in the end, that will turn out to be impossible.
So the first big thing for us to see here is the command of Christ and the lack of any limitation upon this: The example of his own love for the disciples as how the Christian is to love other fellow believers. The passage continues: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So again, Jesus is calling us as friends. It's very sweet. He's about to make that clear what he's saying, but you'll notice that even as Jesus said “this is my command to that you love one another as I have loved you” and “greater love has no man would that he lay down his life for his friends.”
So it's not like we have to imagine where Jesus is going with this, because Jesus tells us explicitly the very next sentence. Jesus says, “oh, and by the way, I've told you that you're to love one another as I have loved you. And the love that I love you is taking me to the cross for you.” And there is no greater love.
So that's bracing. We are to love one another even unto death. Jesus says “you are my friends. If you do what I command you.” And he said that already. In at least two different sessions when we've been together, we've been looking at paragraphs from either the farewell discourse or the passage just before the farewell discourse. And we've seen Jesus say over and over again, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. He comes back to it this time. He says, “you are my friends if you do what I command you. Now that's the same thing. No, it's not. No, it's not the same thing at all.
If you look at the Old Testament and imagine Moses at Sinai. And imagine all the children of Israel gathered there--Sinai is often referred to as Mount Horeb--and you'll recall the theatrical of the occasion. The children of Israel and even their animals were told not to approach the mountain less they touch it and die. And the mountain itself is trembling with an earthquake. And it is surrounded by clouds and out of the clouds comes fire, and out of the clouds and the fire comes the very audible voice of God. And God spoke to the children of Israel and Moses will remind them they heard his voice. And then Moses is uniquely called upon the mountain where he goes to be with the Lord. And he comes down with the tablets. To actually follow through the passage closely, he comes down with the law, and another time he comes down with the tablets, it's kind of in our imagination, we put it together.
But nonetheless, the point is, God does not refer to Israel as his friend. He's commanding them because they are his subjects. They're his chosen people. They're his elect people, his elect nation. Yes, but he does not refer to them as his friends. You know, as a matter of fact in the Deuteronomic formula, it comes down to “I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse. So choose life and live, obey the law and you live, disobey the law and you die.” Jesus says, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. You're my friends. This is the second big thing in this little paragraph. “You're my friends.”
Once again, I think of being a child, you know, who, who are your friends? Well, you know, they're the people who are your little buddies and friends and acquaintances. And you're never sure exactly what a friend means when you're a little child, because you're told to be friendly to everybody and you're introduced to someone here's a new friend. Well, maybe, maybe not. We'll see. But that's the way you're kind of presenting it: Friendship is an obligation.
And then it is very interesting and kind of a developmental understanding of friendship, as one reaches the older elementary school ages, and personality develops, and social skills develop. Children begin to develop friendships that become genuine friendships. You're a friend with the little people when you're a little because you're put with them, and you're told these are your friends. And little children tend to be extremely friendly. But it is not as if they're deeply concerned with one another and it's not necessarily because they have any particularly important shared interests. I mean, if they put blocks in front of them, the interest is blocks. If you put something else in front of them, that interest is that.But older children can develop friendships based upon common interests. By the time early adolescence arrives, not to mention adolescence itself, it comes with an intense need for friendships. And those friendships become very, very, very intentional, and extremely important. And in some cases unhealthy.
But then as you go through life, you realize that friends are a matter of choice, really. We have lots of acquaintances, but being friends involves risk. Friend means investment and priority. If someone really is a friend, then that means that not only you think friendly thoughts about them, but that you would act on their behalf. You would take care of them. You are concerned for them. Shared interests? Yes, of course. But shared responsibility. Jesus here refers to the disciples as friends. Now, just to be honest, that's reassuring to hear, but that's not the first thing we would have thought of, is it, when thinking of Jesus and the disciples? I mean, after all, there's a very clear distinction. There's Jesus and his disciples. The disciples are the ones to whom the commandments were being given. Very interesting. Again, go back to Sinai, back to Horeb, go back to thunder on the mountain. Jesus has given these commands and this one commandment that he's just summarized here just as authoritatively as the Father gave the commandments to Israel through Moses.
So what does it mean that he calls us his friends - if we do what he says, if we do what he commands us? Well, it's a transformation of our understanding of God's love for us. It's a transformation of the relationship that we have with the Father by Christ. So here's something that we need to keep very much in mind: we are not the friend of God the Father by any right, except that we are the friends of the Son. And so this is an intensely Christological truth, Christological relationship here. We are at peace with God entirely because of the atoning work of the Son. Even right now, we are the privileged, elect, secure, blessed sons and daughters of God because Jesus Christ right now sits at the right hand of God the Father almighty as our mediator and intercessor. But we are the friends of the Father and considered as friends of the Father only because we are the friends of the Son. The Father receives the friends of the Son as his own. And that is incredibly powerful. It's just incredible that Jesus would refer to his disciples as friends, especially at this point, as he is speaking in commandments. You would think when you are given a commandment, that's when you are least likely to be defined as a friend. I mean friends don't give friends commandments, right? That's a strange friendship, you know. Instead there's equality there. Not equality here, but there is an intimacy here. We're invited to demonstrate ourselves to be the friends of Jesus, because the text actually says that you are my friends if you do this. So we show ourselves to be the friends of Jesus by the fact that we obey his command. In fact, involved in verse 14 is all that He’s commanded us.
In verse 15, Jesus says “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.” I will tell you, honestly, this is one of the most revolutionary sentences in the New Testament. It also gets to a doctrinal, polemical and apologetic obsession of John, the apostle. The first and most pernicious heresy that threatened Christianity is known as the Gnostic heresy, G-n-o-s-t-i-c. And a Gnostic heresy has always hung around Christianity and in every generation it's there. It may be disguised as one thing or another, but it's there. It came very, very early in biblical Christianity, so early it shows up in the New Testament itself. The heresy of Gnosticism was based upon the idea that salvation comes through a knowledge, a gnosis, the Greek word for knowledge. It's an enlightenment. And we are surrounded by people who also believe that salvation comes by an enlightenment.
Without going into politics, it is at least interesting, just because this could be on the right or the left, right now the language is on the left. But you’ll notice that we're living in the midst of the “Great Awokening”. I mean the whole idea of woke means enlightenment. And now, in certain circles, you've got to give testimony of when you became woke. The Gnostic heresy was rooted in thought that came before the incarnation of Christ, but became extremely powerful in the time of Jesus in the first century, and then of course, powerfully attractive in a deadly sense to the Christian Church thereafter. The idea is that one became, basically, one of the enlightened and you're separated from all the rest because the rest are in ignorance, darkness, you are in the knowledge or the light. You have been now introduced into the secret mysteries. So Gnosticism had its own mystery cults. And one of the problems with the Romans trying to understand Christianity is that Christianity at times might appear like a form of Gnosticism or a mystery cult. Because it has an inside and an outside, you're either in or you're out. And not only that, but knowledge has a great deal to do with it. As Paul will say, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ. But here’s another point, and this has relevance in a day of conspiracy theories and all the rest. The point of New Testament Christianity is that it is a knowledge that is necessary for salvation, but it is no secret knowledge, it is a public knowledge. And, so over and over and over again, and every opportunity in the New Testament, it is declared that this is public truth. This is not some mystery we are keeping unto ourselves. Christianity is not a mystery cult in which when you get in, you are told the truth that people outside don't know. That's completely alien to Christianity. Instead, the apostle Paul, for example, will over and over again in different contexts say this is the mystery that has in this age been revealed.
This is not a mystery that we keep unto ourselves. This is public truth. What we say here, we declare publicly to all men. Jesus didn't say, “Go into the world and form little batteries of little groupings of the mystery cult. No, He said “Go into the world and make disciples.” And over and over again, you had the apostle Paul who makes very clear - the opposite of a mystery cult is what Paul does in Acts chapter 17. He goes to Athens and said, “You are wondering what these mysterious teachers are teaching, here it is, and I'm saying it right here on the mountain of the philosophers in Athens, in public, here it is.” To Felix or to Festus, “You want to know what it is we believe? Here's what we believe, here it is.” It is a knowledge that was - and here's Paul in 2 Corinthians, sophisticated, sophisticated passage in 2 Corinthians, look at three and four, where Paul says - it was a hidden mystery, but it is not hidden now. It was veiled, but the veil has been removed. And that's pointing to the incarnation of Christ, and particularly to his death, burial, resurrection. The mystery is now publicly declared. Christianity is not a mystery cult.
Jesus says here, “You are my friends, if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants”. Why? It comes down to knowledge. It's stunning what Jesus says. Well, why does he call us friends? Why? Why does he not just say, “Hey, you're my disciples. You're my servants.” Why not go and use the New Testament word doulos, “You're my slaves. You are mine. You belong to me. Therefore, you're going to do what I command you. And if you don't do what I command you, then you're going to reveal yourself to be a false disciple, and we will kick you out.” By the way, the Bible does say that. But that's not what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying, “I call you friends because I'm telling you what these things mean. If you were merely my servants, I would just tell you what to do. I'm not just telling you what to do, I'm telling you why.”
It is one of the kindest sentences in the entire Bible. It is contrary to what we see in the Old Testament where God often conceals his will to Israel. There's not often an explanation of the why, but Jesus here in the greatest intensity of the teaching with his disciples says, “I’m calling you friends. Do you want to know why I'm calling you friends? It's because I am telling you why all these things happen and what they mean. I am telling you what the master is doing. I'm telling you exactly what's going to happen. I'm telling you why. I told you from the beginning that these things would happen. I told you that my hour is coming. I do not leave you in the dark. I want you to understand, not only what I'm doing, but what I know these things mean.”
It's such an incredible privilege. We're not just the recipients of the saving work of Christ. We are his friends, in which he explains these things to us. He tells us what the master is doing, speaking of himself. But of course, ultimately of the Father. “Here's what the Father is doing.” And then we will have, of course, even a greater explanation in detail, theologically, by the time we get to a passage like Romans 3:21 and following where the mystery of the cross is explained to us. And we're taken into the inner logic of the gospel and of the atonement. The inner logic, we're even given a glimpse of the inner Trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son in a passage such as Philippians chapter two. You realize, when you look at the New Testament, it is a ‘friend book’. The New Testament, just as Jesus here is teaching his disciples, is what God gives his friends. If we were merely his servants, then all we would have is a to-do list. And, you know, sometimes you give friends a to do list, but you explain why. You say, “This is what this means. We're doing this great thing. We're about this great work - You are my friends and you understand what I am doing. You understand why I am going to the cross. You understand why it is that now that my hour has come, you now see me, but in a little while, you will not see me. You understand why all these things are happening.” It is such a beautiful, stunning passage because it comes in the very same context of this very clear assertion of Christ’s deity in which he, as the Father commands, but he doesn't merely command subjects or servants, he commands his friends.
Now again, the passage is so beautiful because then you think, well come to think of it, that redefines what we read in the very first verse. “This is my commandment that you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.” So the word friend is all of a sudden elevated in this massive way, almost infinite way, right before our eyes. It's elevated because it's demonstrated in the fact that Christ dies for us. God's own Son dies for us. And he dies for us, not merely as the passive subjects of his saving love, but as his friends. And this is another issue of biblical theology that we missed. When did we become the friends of Christ? When? Well, temporally, we become the friends of Christ when we hear him and believe him and obey him and follow him, that’s temporally when we become Christ’s friends. But beyond that, when did we become Christ’s friends? It has to be in eternity past. And that will also become very clear in this passage because we were Jesus's friends when we didn’t know it. When he died for us without our knowledge. When he came in order to save his friends, He knew who his friends were when He came.
How do we know this? Because He tells us. “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 my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” Okay, just less there be any misunderstanding, Jesus here is speaking to his disciples, at this point to the eleven. Judas is gone. Speaking to the eleven, he says, “you didn't choose me. I chose you.” But this is not just to the eleven. It is to the untold many who will come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, and be his disciples down through all the ages. In the same sense that they did not choose him, but he chose them, that has to be true of us because this is God's word for us. And furthermore, how could it be that he chose them, but we chose him. It's an illogic that is embarrassing. And of course, this is an underlining in the sovereignty of God. It's a very clear reference to the doctrine of election. It's very reassuring. If we're Christians simply because we chose him, then we can un-choose, but we didn't choose him. He chose us. And we will be told he chose us before the foundation of the world. So, Jesus here says, “I call you friends and not merely servants because I tell you these things.” A king just says to a servant, do this, do that. “But even as you're my disciples and you are my douloi, you're my friends, I tell you why. But even as I've told you that, just remember, you didn't choose me. I chose you.”
The passage concludes with Jesus saying, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide”. Again, we just had the passage about abiding in Christ. About Christ the vine and we the branches, and the purpose of the branches is to bear fruit. So again, as I said in the beginning of our time this morning, there's a circularity. Jesus comes back to that. “These things I command you, that you love one another." That's another one of those Bible verses I learned so early. We love one another, love one another. But “Love one another” is often an empty, vacuous term. If you just think of it in human, horizontal terms, it's pretty good thing for children to be taught, but it doesn't hold Christ’s church together because horizontal love, as important as it is, just is fairly fragile. But we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. And, “These things”, Jesus says, “I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Now again, what's the logic of this? I mean, how do we make sense of that last sentence actually, because we read the phrase as if it makes sense. But let me ask you, does it? “These things”. What would these things be? Everything that he said. “These things I command you.” Well, now he's back to commanding. So even as He is, as God the Father commanding, it's a clear statement of his deity. He's commanding, but He's not commanding mere servants and slaves. He's actually commanding us as His friends, but nonetheless, as the sovereign Lord of the universe, He is commanding His friends so that we will love one another. So explain this “so that”. Well, I think at least a part of this has to be that we love one another because He first loved us. And we will often have to tell ourselves that. It's a part of ecclesiology. We have to keep reminding ourselves we love each other because Christ first loved us, because I mean, frankly, sometimes our fellow church members are lovable and sometimes they're not. And it's also true that the longer you get to know people, even the people closest to you, the more irritating certain things become. The longer you know people, the more you think you're going to get over that first impression, and then 20 years later, you figure out, nope, that was pretty accurate.
We are going to let each other down. We're going to disappoint each other. But, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. The mark of the church is love. Francis Schaffer, probably far better known for his apologetic writings, wrote a book entitled “The Mark of the Christian”, making very clear, it is love. And the absence of love means the absence of gospel. So as we think about these things, “These things I have commanded you, so that you'll love one another”, why is it that we love one another? It's not just because Christ has first loved us. We were told that, yes, but it's because Christ has also commanded us this multiplicity of commands and the doing of those commands means that we actually will love one another. It comes down to the minutiae of faithfulness. It comes down to the thinking of none of ourselves greater than the other. It comes down to seeing one another's needs as more important than our own. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a community for Christ. It comes down to common obedience in order to reach a world for Christ. It comes down to the care of widows and orphans. It comes down to working in a nursery. You know what? You work in a nursery and you're taking care of someone's kids, you like the parents better. You understand them in a whole new way. You love their kids and love them. And you are on a committee with someone or you share a task with someone, or you share a pew with someone. And over time you realize “I'll be very disappointed if they're not in that pew this morning. If they're not there, I'm going to want to know why they're not there. If there's something wrong, I want to know how I can help.”
This is why we have the flurry of emails, knowing how we can help one another. And this is when Christians turn Jewish. I grew up with a friend in high school whose father was a rabbi and mother was the wife of the rabbi. And I got to be around them. It was an eye opening experience. They were very gracious to allow this little Gentile in their home. But, there was one response that was always axiomatic. Whenever there was tsurus, Yiddish for trouble, whenever there was trouble, the rabbi would be filled with consternation and his wife would say, “I'll make soup.” That’s what she did, you know, because whatever the trouble, somebody is going to need soup. This is what we do. We take care of one another. We take one another food, somebody needs soup. In fact, we just, we might as well be armed with soup, just keep the soup ready, somebody's going to need it. And you just look at this and you recognize this is this the way that we know how to love. If we had to come up with what it meant to love one another, it'd be a real awkward, geeky kind of thing, but we're actually shown how to love one another, because of all the commands Christ has given us. And if we obey those commands, guess what, we're going to love one another. It makes love tangible.
“These things I have commanded you, so that you will love one another.” Oh, and we're going to have to love one another because the world hates us. And that's the very next word Jesus is going to speak. It's not a word of warning. “Hey, you know what? You're going to face some opposition out there in the world because there are some people who aren't going to understand the message and they're going to be somewhat resistant.” No, it's Jesus saying, “If the world hated me, here's a clue boys and girls, the world's going to hate you.” The servant is not greater than his master. Oh, now we're back to servant and master. We're his friends, but this is not egalitarian discipleship. No servant is greater than his master. If the master is hated, the servant will be hated also. So how is it that we can withstand the hatred of the world? It is because first of all, the Lordship of Christ. It is because first of all, he is the vine and we are the branches. The branches, Jesus says, “No branch that bears fruit will be cut.” We're safe. But it's also because we need each other. And these things, Christ has commanded in order that we would love one another.

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John 14:28-15:11

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Third Avenue Baptist Church
Sunday School — The Gospel of John Series
November 1, 2020

You can find Dr. Mohler's other Line by Line sermons here.

Follow Dr. Mohler:
X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube

For more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.
For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.