Sermons – Grace Evangelical Free Church // Wyoming, MN

John 17:6-10 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. 8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. 9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

Every so often someone confesses to me that they are so upset with someone, that they feel so painfully wronged by someone, that they cannot bring themselves to pray anything good for them. At best they pray prayers of justice and imprecatory Psalms.

Jesus says in this passage that He is not praying for the world (9). Is that that? Having explained all the ways “the world” had been hostile and hateful toward Him and would be toward His disciples, was Jesus simply acknowledging that enough was enough; that they’d run out of chances and were now on their own?

That is emphatically not what we have here. Instead, what we have here is a simple clarification that Jesus wasn’t praying for everyone. He has a different heart for different people. And in this passage, He was sharing His heart for a particular group, not “the world”.

Stepping back for a moment, as I mentioned last week, Jesus’ John 17 “High Priestly,” prayer consists of four sections. We considered the first one last week. It is found in vs.1-5. In it, Jesus prayed primarily for Himself. This week, we’ll begin looking at the second section, the biggest section, which covers vs.6-19. In our text for this morning, 6-10, once again, Jesus’ clarified precisely who He was and who He wasn’t praying for. Once I get back from vacation, starting in v.11, we’ll consider the content of His prayer for them. The third section is in vs.20-24. In it, Jesus prays for all of His future followers (including all of us). And finally, in vs.25-26, the fourth part of His prayer, Jesus simply shares His heart with the Father.

Well, if not for the world, who, then, was Jesus praying for in this passage? He was praying for those whom He manifested the name of the Father. But even more specifically, He was praying for a particular group among those whom He manifested the name of the Father. He was praying for those whom the Father had given Him, from out of this world, who responded to the Word of God in particular ways. In short, He was praying for His current disciples. He was praying for His true followers. He was praying for those whom He’d commissioned to carry on His mission and promised to preserve through persecution.

The big idea of this passage is that Jesus prayed for His disciples and in the processes gave a clear description of His disciples: Those to whom He manifested the Father’s name and who were given to Him by the Father, from out of the world, to receive the Word of God. The main takeaways are to pray for and call people to Jesus, out of the world, according to the Word of God.

Immediately after sharing with His eleven disciples what was to come for Him and them, Jesus turned to His Father in prayer; first for Himself to glorify God, and second for His disciples. We don’t find much of the content of His prayer for His disciples until the next section. Once again, in our passage for this morning, Jesus makes clear who His disciples are and that He is praying for them alone. Specifically, Jesus named four things that mark His true followers: that He manifested the Father’s name to them, that they were given to Him by the Father, that they were given from out of the world, and that they rightly receive the Word of God.

This section of Jesus’ prayer begins by identifying the objects of His prayer as those to whom He manifested God’s name.

6 “I have manifested your name to the people…

In the fullest sense, Jesus meant that He was praying for people to whom He had revealed the nature, character, and person of God. That’s all embedded in the words “your name.” The entire world hadn’t witnessed Jesus’ revelation; only a relatively few people had. But what does that mean exactly? Several passages get to the heart of what it means to manifest the name of God to people.

Likely, Jesus had Exodus 3:13-15 in mind,

Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.

This is what Paul had in mind when He wrote Colossians 1:15,

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

It is what Jesus mean when He responded to Philip (in John 14:8-10),

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

In other words, Jesus was praying for those who had heard His divine teaching, witnessed His divine miracles, and experienced His divine presence. He manifested the name of the Father in Himself. He is the manifestation of the name of the Father! That is why you cannot claim to love or follow or even know God if you do not know Jesus. To deny Jesus is to deny God. To experience Jesus is to experience the name of God manifested. And in that we have the first description of the people Jesus was praying for in this section…those who had experienced the manifested name of God in Him.

It’s important to highlight the fact that there were many people to whom Jesus presented Himself and, therein, the manifestation of the name of God, who completely missed it. As the next point will make clearer, Jesus was not praying for everyone who’d simply been in His presence or impacted by His ministry. He was praying for those people who had recognized Him as the manifestation of the name of the Father.

Again, to make that fact clearer, Jesus added a clarifying clause.

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me…

Those who received Jesus as the manifestation of the name of the Father are all who were given to Jesus by the Father. There is sovereign grace at work whenever anyone recognizes Jesus for who He really is; both in Jesus’ day and ours.

The idea of the Father giving a people to Jesus is one we’ve seen several times already in John’s Gospel. In this passage He is especially clear.

6 I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me…

and

6 Yours they were, and you gave them to me…

and

7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.

and

9 …I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

There is simply no question that Jesus was praying for His followers; that His followers were those to whom He’d manifested the name of God; that those to whom He’d manifested the name of God were those who experienced Jesus as the manifestation of the Father’s name; and that those who experienced Jesus as the manifestation of the Father’s name were those given to Jesus by the Father.

We belong to God before we believe in Jesus. That’s the sovereign grace I mentioned a minute ago. That reality is simultaneously humbling and precious beyond measure. To have any real sense of the Bible’s description of sin is to know that, left to our own desires, we’d never ever desire Jesus. But thanks be to God, we are not left to our own desires. God’s sovereign grace grants new eyes to those who belong to Him, that we might recognize Jesus as the manifestation of the name of God, that we might believe in Jesus.

Jesus stated explicitly that He was praying for those who believed in Him (as the manifestation of the name of God) because they were given to Him by the Father.

In that same verse (v.6), Jesus added still another clarifying clause. He was praying for the people whom He had manifested the Father’s name to, who had been given to Him by the Father, and who had been given to Him by the Father from out of the world.

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

All of His followers had been given to Him from out of the world. That’s a really significant statement. To appreciate its significance, it’s important to remember what John and Jesus had already said about “the world”.

John 1:10 [Jesus] was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.

John 3:19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people [of the world] loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.

John 7:7 The world … hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.

John 15:18 If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.

John 16:33 … In the world you will have tribulation.

In short, “the world” are the enemies of God and of the people of God. The world did not know Jesus. The world loved darkness and evil. The world hates Jesus. The world hates and persecutes Jesus’ followers.

As we read Jesus’ descriptions of the wickedness of the world and its treatment of Him and His followers, it is absolutely vital for us to remember that the disciples were all once “of the world,” even as all of us were once “of the world.”

No one is born a follower of Jesus. We are all born “of the world.” We are all born enemies of God in our sin. Who are Jesus’ followers? They are those to whom Jesus chose to manifest the name of the Father. Who are those whom Jesus chose to manifest the name of the Father? Those given to Him by the Father. Who are those who have been given to Jesus by the Father? Those who were formerly of this world. That’s the third element of a true follower of Jesus and that’s who Jesus was praying for.

If it is God who gives a people to Jesus and if He gives a people from among a people who by nature are hostile to Jesus, practically speaking, this prayer serves as an important charge to learn to love the sovereign grace of God, to pursue humility, to forgive quickly, and to share the gospel confidently. May it b so among us, Grace.

There’s one final (fourth) clarification of who Jesus was praying for in 17:6-19. We find it at the very end of v.6.

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

I find it absolutely fascinating that all of this is found in the opening line (v.6) of this prayer. I find it even more fascinating and truly formative that the final clause (“and they have kept your word”) is the final link in a chain concerning the disciples’ response to the Word.

There is so much for us to learn from these few verses concerning the process by which the Word of God comes to and works in the followers of Jesus. Indeed, there are five steps listed here. Let’s consider them together.

1. They were given the words of God (8).

Before the disciples could “keep” the word of God, it had to first be given to them. You can’t keep something that you don’t already have. Jesus spoke to this in v.8.

8 For I have given them the words that you gave me…

A large part of Jesus’ ministry on earth was speaking all and only that which had been given to Him by the Father. As the prophet from whom all other prophets got their name, Jesus spoke the very words of God. He revealed the will of God to the world. He came to earth in large measure to give God’s words to the world.

We have the word of God. In the Bible, we have every word that God requires us to have. It is our job, therefore, not to add to what God has told us, but to give it freely as we’ve received it freely. Functionally, we give it in our counseling, our preaching, our evangelism, and our entire worldview. Most simply, we cannot follow Jesus apart from being given the words of God. And Jesus was praying for those whom He’d given them.

2. They received the words of God (8).

And yet, clearly, it is not merely by being given the Word of God that someone becomes one of Jesus’ followers. It’s can’t be less than that, but it must always be more than that.

8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them…

In our context, I’d guess that 95%+ of the people that we share or attempt to share the gospel with are indifferent at best and frustrated/hostile at worst. We are, technically speaking, giving the words of God whenever we share the gospel. But there is, of course, a big difference between those who merely hear the words and those who receive them.

Jesus made it clear that not only had He given the Father’s words to His disciples, but one of the most distinguishing marks of His disciples was that they eagerly received them. They took them in. It is those people who are both given and receive Jesus as the manifest word of God that are Jesus’ true disciples and for which Jesus was praying.

Grace, learn from this. Kids, learn from this. Every time you come to church on a Sunday morning, you are given the words of God. That is a gift. At the same time, the gift is useless, unless you receive it. You need to lean into it, do your best to listen carefully, and accept it as God’s Word.

3. They came to know the words of God (8).

There’s more still. Jesus was praying for His followers and His followers were those who were given, received, and came to know the word of God.

8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you…

Just as it is not enough to merely get God’s word, it’s also not enough to merely receive it. Paying attention and listening carefully are good. Likewise, receiving the words of Scripture as the words of God is good. But from there, we must come to know it in truth. We must understand it. We must grasp it with our minds.

Jesus named one specific truth that He’d brought to the disciples that they’d come to know; namely, that He was from the Father. He gave it, they received it, and they understood it.

Once again, this is critical for us, Grace. This is why the Catholic Church tradition of saying mass in languages not understood by the people was so misguided. By God’s design, the Word of God works in connection with our minds. We must come to know God’s word about Jesus if we are to become Jesus’ followers. Jesus’ disciples did, and that is why He was praying for them.

4. They believed the words of God (8).

The fourth aspect of the word of God that characterized His true disciples was that they also believed it.

8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

You’ve heard me talk about Dr. Green at MSU. He was the atheist dean of the religion department. He knew certain aspects of God’s Word better than I do still. He understood it on an intellectual level better than 99% of the world. But He didn’t believe a word of it. He was given it, received it, and came to know it, but he believed that it was just one more religious myth.

Kids, if you’ve been at Grace Church for any length of time, or in any good church for any length of time, or a home with Christian parents for any length of time, you undoubtedly have had the word of God presented to you over and over. You received it and probably understand a good deal of it by this point. But there is a big gap, an eternal gap, between knowing the stories and believing them with all your heart; of trusting in them with your life; of treasuring them above all. Coming to see them for what they really are—the words of God—and believing them as a result is a gift from God. Ask Him for that gift now and don’t stop asking until you get it.

Jesus was praying for those who had been given to Him, out of the world, by the Father and therein believed that Jesus was the manifestation of the name of the Father and that His words were true. Before they could believe them, though, Jesus had to give the words to them, they had to receive them, and they had to understand them—all of which had taken place and all of which is what marked them as His true disciples, those for whom He was praying.

5. They kept the words of God (6).

And that brings us all the way back to the beginning.

6 “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

To keep the word in this sense means obeying it over time. The disciples for whom Jesus was praying, were marked by keeping the words given to them in that they lived in light of them and in that they held onto them. They didn’t merely understand them and they didn’t merely obey once and then forget about them. Of course, they did not do this perfectly (as will become clear quickly). But by the grace of God, they believed that the words Jesus gave them were God’s own words and so it was their God-given desire to be conformed to them.

Again, in our passage for this morning Jesus made clear who He was praying for and insodoing, He made clear the true nature of a disciple. And one of the chief characteristics of a genuine follower of Jesus is being keepers of the words of God.

Is it your growing desire and increasing experience to keep the word of God? Do you long to hear the words of God and be transformed by them? That is the mark of a true disciple according to this passage. Therefore, helping people move through this progression is the great privileged and responsibility of every Christian. It is what Mat and Miranda and the girls are moving to the other side of the world to do. It is what we are continually equipping you for and commissioning you to. Is that your understanding of the nature of the mission of the Church, of the nature of discipleship, and the heart of your sanctification? It ought to be and Jesus’ prayer helps us to see that clearly.

But there’s something even deeper still embedded in this. It reveals the way in which true followers of Jesus respond to the words of God and in that, it also reveals the way in which true followers of Jesus respond to the Word of God. John’s Gospel begins with these words, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Just as Jesus is the manifestation of the name of God, He is also the manifestation of the Word of God. This means that His disciples are defined not only as those who are given, receive, understand, believe and keep the words given to Jesus by the Father, but also as those who are given, receive, understand, believe and keep the Word of God who was given by the Father, in love, to the world.

Practically speaking, Grace, we’re not given mere ideas, concepts, rules, commands, and descriptions, we’re given a Person who embodies them all. We’re not merely to accept a set of doctrines. We’re to accept the Person who embodies them all.

One significant part of our worship service every week is to give you Jesus! Would you receive Him this morning? Would you know Him, believe in Him, and keep Him? He is eternal life, fullness of joy, the perfect order, and the greatest treasure. In revealing the words of God and their goodness, beauty and truth, Jesus was ultimately revealing Himself, the Word of God incarnate. Awesome!

In conclusion, remember, the big idea of this passage is that Jesus prayed for His disciples and in the processes gave a clear description of His disciples: Those to whom He manifested the Father’s name and who were given to Him by the Father, from out of the world, to receive the Word of God. The main takeaways are to pray for and call people to Jesus, out of the world, according to the Word of God.

9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. 10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

Jesus was praying for them because they glorified Him. And so may we according to the same grace and power of God that worked so powerfully in the disciples. If we will receive it in faith, we will be glad to echo Jesus’ prayers, to proclaim His glory from the rooftops, and to call people out of this world by sharing the same words of the Father that Jesus shared. May it be so.

John 17:1-5 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, 2 since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. 3 And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. 4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

The entire chapter of John 17 is one long prayer of Jesus. It has four main parts. In the first part, vs.1-5 (our passage for this morning), Jesus prayed for Himself. In the second part, 6-19, Jesus prayed for His disciples. In His third petition, Jesus prayed for all His future followers (including you and me!). That’s in vs. 20-24. And finally, in vs.25-26 He finished His prayer by simply talking to His Father.

More importantly than the structure, however, is the content of the prayer. This is a remarkable chapter, with remarkable insight into the relationship between the Father and the Son—a fitting theme for Father’s Day. There is a great deal for us to learn and marvel at in our passage for this morning, Jesus’ first petition.

The big idea of this text/sermon is that Jesus’ first impulse regarding the challenge ahead of Him was prayer and His first prayer was for the glory of God and the first prayers of glory were rooted in eternality, authority, salvation, and fulfillment of mission. The main takeaway is to prayerfully seek Jesus’ heart in prayer.

Immediately after sharing His final instructions with His disciples (concerning His imminent suffering, death, and resurrection and their imminent persecution for carrying on His ministry), Jesus ______. If you didn’t already know the answer, how do you imagine that sentence ending? Performed a miracle? Shook the heavens? Set His eyes to the cross? Hugged them all? Rebuked His persecutors?

How does a sentence like that typically end for you? Once you’ve helped your kids or friends understand what God would have them do (particularly in a time of hardship), what do you usually do immediately after?

The answer for Jesus was prayer. Having spoken plainly about what was to come and what needed to be done about it, Jesus turned to His Father in prayer.

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said…

We’ll come to the content of Jesus’ prayer—what He said—in a few minutes. For now, let me simply remind you that prayer is the primary means by which God has determined to accomplish His purposes in His people. In a kind of glorious mystery, God often works His ways through the prayers of those who love Him.

Even more significantly than that, though, through prayer, we acknowledge God as God. We acknowledge our recognition of our dependence on God. Through prayer, God grants us the wisdom necessary to obey His Word. Through prayer, God grants us the necessary strength to obey His Word. Through prayer God communes with us and helps us to know that we are His and that His commands are good. Our prayers are a humble admission of all those things.

Jesus understood all of this and so, before He did anything else, He prayed.

As we move our way through (one of?) the most significant prayers of all time, I invite you to briefly consider Jesus’ earlier, familiar teaching on prayer (from Matthew 6:5-13).

5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread, 12and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

From this short passage, I want to quickly point out a few (six) high-level prayer principles to shape how we listen and process Jesus’ prayer in John 17.

In light of these Mathew 6:5-13 prayer principles, I want to invite you to do two things. First, keep them in mind as we work our way through Jesus’ prayer in John 17. Pay attention to the fact that Jesus prays as He charged His followers to pray. And second, take these principles and Jesus’ application of them in John 17 and ask the Spirit to help you pray increasingly like that. Make whatever adjustments are necessary to bring your prayer-life more in line with these things.

Jesus’ first response after giving His final instructions to His disciples in their time of need was to pray. We would do well to cultivate that as our initial response to everything as well.

But what do you imagine Jesus prayed for? If His first impulse was to pray, what was His first prayer impulse? Again, before we look to the text, let me ask you: In times of trial, what do your first prayers tend to be for? Help? Deliverance? Relief? Victory? Vindication? Courage? Perseverance? Wisdom?

All of those things are fine prayers in a certain sense and properly placed. But none of them were Jesus’ starting point. Prayer was Jesus’ first response and the glory of God was His first prayer.

1 When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you…”

Jesus asked the Father to glorify Him so that He could glorify the Father. Jesus prayed with a godward orientation, for the will of God, and in perfect hope in the sovereignty of the Father. Glorify Me so that I can best glorify you! What a sweet desire that is!

Before pressing further into Jesus’ prayer, would you consider joining Jesus in making that the ultimate aim of all your prayers?

God, heal Mark and Jennifer and Rosemary’s bodies, not as an end in itself, but so that they may glorify you.

God, let the Nelsons and Schannos adoptions go all the way through, not ultimately because they want another kid or even because it’s best for the kid, but so that they and their kids may glorify you.

God, help me get this job or into that college, not merely for the ability to provide, or for a sense of greater direction and encouragement, but above all so that I may glorify you.

God, let us find the right man, in the right way, to be our next Pastor of Discipleship, not primarily to make life easier for the elders and not even primarily to better equip us all for the work of ministry, but primarily so that we may more fully glorify you.

God, heal my hurting marriage or friendship or relationship, not just because it’s really hard to continue on like this, but above all so that I may glorify you.

If the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, the chief end of our every prayer request must be the glory of God. Jesus models that for us in an awesome way in the opening line of His prayer. First and most, as His betrayal, trial, persecution, crucifixion, and death fast approached, and increased persecution for His followers with it, Jesus asked the Father to reveal His glory, so that Jesus might reveal the glory of the Father.

From there, Jesus’ prayer expanded on that initial request.

The thing Jesus desired most was the glory of the Father. The means by which He asked the Father to be glorified was through the Father glorifying Him. How and why did Jesus ask the Father to glorify Him?

Because He had all authority to give eternal life, because He was perfectly obedient, even to the point of a forsaken death on the cross, because He’d set aside a measure of glory to obey the Father on earth, and because He would die for the sins of the world and return to the Father’s side, Jesus asked the Father to glorify Him. And, again, He did so ultimately so that He could best glorify the Father. Jesus asked the Father to make His (Jesus’) glory known so that He (Jesus) could make the Father’s glory known. And what glory it was!

If the Father granted Jesus’ requests to glorify Him in those ways and for those reasons, how would that help Jesus turn that glory back to the Father? Or, how would Jesus being glorified first, allow the Father to be glorified the most?

In simplest terms, it is the best golfer you know who is best able to help you appreciate the skill of the best golfer. If you have an uncle who regularly drives the ball 400 yards and breaks 70 from the tips on championship level courses, when he speaks of someone who is miles ahead of him, you are more impressed than if the esteem came from someone else. The more impressive of a golfer that your uncle is, the more impressive is the person he is impressed by.

It is the preacher that your favorite preacher points to, the scholar that your favorite scholar learns from, the woodworker that instructs master craftsman, that are most impressive.

If one of you came up to me and said that Betsy is the best piano player around, I’d be impressed. But if you told me that Betsy teaches Ginny and Emily, who are the best piano players I’ve ever heard, that’s far more impressive still.

In other words, it is by revealing the awesome glory of the Son that causes the Son’s testimony concerning the glory of the Father to be properly appreciated. With that in mind, imagine all the glory that we just saw in Jesus and then consider what that means about the glory of the Father.

How, then, did Jesus turn His Father-given/revealed glory to the Father’s glory? There are four ways revealed in this passage.

The Father glorified the Son so that the Son could glorify the Father by functioning only under the Father’s authority, among the people authorized by the Father, to accomplish the mission given by the Father, and all out of a glory eternally begotten from the Father. Awesome glory! and the heart of the beginning of Jesus’ prayer.

I want to close with a brief challenge from v.3. Remember, the ultimate purpose of this Gospel is “…that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” In the middle of all of this is a clear and concise statement on the nature of the life that is in Jesus’ name. It is, undoubtedly, one of the most significant statements in the entire Gospel.

If someone were to ask you to define eternal life, what would you say? For much of my life and for most of the people I talk to, eternal life is heaven and heaven is a place where everything you like and have lost on earth is present in the best possible way, and everything you don’t like is entirely absent. It’s that idea that led Piper to ask his famous question (in God is the Gospel, 15),

If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?

How does that question relate to your understanding of eternal life?

In a similar way, J.C. Ryle, in the book we’re giving you for Father’s Day (Holiness, p.268) wrote,

But alas, how little fit for heaven are many who talk of going to heaven, when they die, while they manifestly have no saving faith and no real acquaintance with Christ. You give Christ no honor here. You have no communion with Him. You do not love Him. Alas, what could you do in heaven? It would be no place for you. Its joys would be no joys for you. Its happiness would be a happiness into which you could not enter. Its employments would be a weariness and a burden to your heart. Oh, repent and change before it be too late!

This question (from Piper) and this observation (from Ryle) are rooted in Jesus’ definition of eternal life in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Eternal life is to know God, and Jesus Christ, His Son (along with the Spirit)—the godhead, the Holy Trinity. Knowing God apart from sin-distorted vision and sin-corrupted affections and sin-broken bodies is the very thing for which we were made and the only thing that can truly satisfy. The promise of that is greatest news of all time.

If you have a different picture of heaven, you can multiply your different picture by any number short of infinity and you will still be infinitely short of the true glories and goodness and gladness of the eternal life Jesus won for His people—knowing God, eternally, in all His glory, and with faculties perfectly sanctified to see and savor Him.

Does that sound like the heaven you are hoping for? If so, rejoice in this promise. If not, as Ryle says, “Repent and change before it be too late!”

And on this day, if there is one thing to celebrate in your earthly Father, it is that he has given himself to helping you, his kid, know that God is the gospel and eternal life is knowing Him and Jesus Christ whom He sent. Even if your earthly dad isn’t quite there, celebrate Father’s Day, knowing that you have a perfect Father in heaven who is.

Let us all give ourselves to praying fervently and consistently for this kind of glory in our own lives, in our families, in our church, and among all the people of God everywhere. That is the good news and eternal life Jesus came to accomplish for us.

John 16:25-33 “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. 26 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; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

29 His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.” 31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. 33 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.”

For the past several months we’ve been able to listen in on Jesus’ final words to His disciples. Since chapter 13, Jesus and His closest followers have been sequestered so that Jesus could tell them more plainly than ever before what was to come for Him (His betrayal, suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension) and them (carrying on Jesus’ ministry, persecution, and the coming of the Holy Spirit).

The events recorded in chapters 13-16 all take place on the Thursday evening of Jesus’ betrayal and before the day of His crucifixion. Chapter 17 takes place on Thursday evening as well, but in a different context. Instead of talking to His disciples, Jesus talks to His Father in one of the most moving prayers of all time.

The upshot of all of this is that we’ve come to the end of a significant section of John’s Gospel. Jesus will exchange a few more words with the disciples prior to His crucifixion, but nothing at all like we’ve been seeing. In these last few sentences (of chapter 16), we find three main ideas (the three main sections of the sermon): (1) The growing clarity of Jesus’ teaching, (2) Concerning His relationship with the Father, and (3) The results for those who believe Him.

Combined, the big idea of this passage is that Jesus was newly clear about the facts that He had come from, was going to, and was always with the Father and that all who believe Him concerning these things will know persecution, the love of the Father, and peace that surpasses understanding; and all of that because Jesus overcame the world! The main takeaways, therefore, are to seek out all of Jesus’ teaching, believe it, and live in light of it no matter the cost.

In the previous passage in John’s Gospel (16:16-24), we saw another example of the disciples being confused by Jesus’ teaching. In that sermon I mentioned that the two main reasons for their confusion then, and ours today, was our finitude and fallenness. In our passage for this morning, Jesus adds another reason for the disciples’ confusion, “I have said these things to you in figures of speech” (25).

That is an echo of John’s words back in chapter 10(:6), “This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.”

“These things” (in v.25) refers specifically to the whole of things Jesus said to the disciples on Thursday evening.

Acknowledging that He’d been speaking in figures of speech is not to say that Jesus had previously tried to mislead the disciples or keep good things from them. Rather, it is to say that for His good purposes, as a part of the gradual revelation of the will of God, He had been less plain than He would be.

Jesus did this as a means of bringing two essential things together. First, it allowed Jesus to put certain things in front of the disciples so that they would eventually know the extent of His power and wisdom. This would encourage and instruct them when things got hard after His departure. And second, it enabled Jesus to accomplish the first purpose, while also not giving the disciples more than they could handle at the time.

All of this is like moving a baby from milk, to soft food, to solid food. It is like gradually explaining to your kids the ways of the world. And it is like starting a new Christian off with the basics of Bible study before introducing them to matters of textual criticism and exegesis. For people to properly mature physically, intellectually, and spiritually, eventually you must move them to solid food, to fuller explanations of the world, and to the finer points of Bible study. But too much, too soon is harmful.

For the good of these men, Jesus spoke to them in simpler ways in the past. Now, however, that was about to change. They’d matured and could digest more significant truths of God. Therefore, He said to them…

25 “… 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 are three ways in which this promise of Jesus would be fulfilled. In the first and most immediate sense, as we’ll see in the disciples’ response just a few verses later, even in His present teaching Jesus was fulfilling this promise. In light of the things Jesus was saying to the disciples in that moment, they said to Jesus, “29 Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!”

The second way, which would take place in a matter of a few days, in the time between His resurrection and ascension, Jesus would speak more plainly still. That’s probably the specific meaning of “the hour is coming.”

And third, in the most significant sense, Jesus would fulfill this promise when the Counselor, the Helper, came at Pentecost. At that point, the fullness of the disciples understanding would come through the plainest teaching of Jesus. As 16:13 says, “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

Let us seek this growing clarity, Grace. Once again, let us do so in the manner given to us by God. Let us give ourselves to being people of the Word of God. Let us meditate on it day and night. Let us treasure it for what it is. Let us be prayerful and thoughtful in our reading. Let us read it and study it and obey it and celebrate it together. Let us memorize it and hide it in our hearts. And all so that we might grow in clarity concerning its true meaning and implications, in order that we might grow to be thoroughly transformed by it in the Spirit’s power.

Again, the first and simple point for us to see from this passage is that Jesus had been speaking in figures of speech, but would soon—even in that moment—speak much more plainly.

But what, specifically, would Jesus speak more plainly about? Look at the very end of v.25.

25 …[I] will tell you plainly about the Father.

In this case, Jesus began speaking more clearly about the nature of His relationship with the Father—the central and a deeply divisive question for the Jews of the day. Virtually everything hinged on whether or not they believed that Jesus was acting on the Father’s behalf (as He claimed) or not.

But what, specifically, did Jesus make clearer concerning His relationship to the Father?

The first thing that Jesus plainly taught concerning His relationship with the Father is that He had come from the Father. The Father had sent Him to accomplish His purposes on earth. Jesus did not merely come from a woman the way other men do and He did not come to accomplish His own mission. He came from the Father and for the Father’s purposes.

27 You [The disciples] have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and have come into the world…

We see the same thing even more clearly in vs.29-30.

29 His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! 30 Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.”

Even more foundationally to the meaning of Jesus coming from the Father (than having been sent and commissioned by the Father) is the fact that it is also a statement on Jesus’ very nature. As I’ve mentioned before, the heart of the meaning of Jesus’ claim here is that He is eternally begotten by the Father.

We see this in Paul’s speech in Acts 13:32-33.

And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers, 33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm,

        “ ‘You are my Son,
        today I have begotten you.’

We see the same thing twice in Hebrews (1:5 and again in 5:5).

And we see it in the Nicaean Creed. Indeed, articulating this clearly was one of the most significant reasons for the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.

From Ligonier

A controversy had arisen about the nature of Christ. … Arius…Understanding, quite rightly, that there is only one God, … reasoned, quite wrongly, that God the Father alone is eternal and uncreated. Everything other than the Father is created, including – said Arius – the Son, whom God made before anything else. Arius was keen to affirm that Christ was a perfect creature, but nevertheless he must be a creature – even though he was the creature through whom the Father created everything else.

In other words, Arius believed that Jesus was “from God” in the sense that God created Him. The Council of Nicaea, however, made sure to articulate the real meaning of Jesus’ words in crystal clear terms.

[We believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ,
        the only-begotten Son of God,
        begotten of his Father before all worlds,
        God of God, Light of Light,
        very God of very God,
        begotten, not made,
        being of one substance with the Father…

The idea of Jesus being eternally begotten of the Father was still not yet as plain as it would become to Jesus’ followers, but it would quickly become so. And this was the thing the Jews of Jesus’ day most denied. They claimed to believe in God and long for Him to send the Christ, but when the Christ came, they accused Him of being illegitimate and of the devil. They denied that He was from the Father. The fact that the disciples acknowledged this was no small thing. Indeed, it was the defining thing.

Not only had Jesus come from the Father, but He was also going back to the Father.

28 I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”

Just as important as Jesus’ origin was His destination. That He was going back to the Father was proof positive that He perfectly and entirely completed the work on earth the Father had given Him. This will be made even more explicit at the beginning of the next chapter (17:4-5).

4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

It is a well-known fact that according to Roman law, had the soldiers sent to guard Jesus on the cross failed to certify His death, they would have been crucified themselves. They were sent from Rome, but they could not return to Rome without having accomplished their mission.

In a similar way, even if the Father had sent Jesus, had Jesus not been fully pleasing to God, He would not have been able to go back to God. Perfect obedience even to the point of death was the very mission Jesus had been sent to accomplish—and He did, which is why He was returning to the Father. This too, the disciples were coming to understand and believe as Jesus explained it more and more clearly.

Jesus was from the Father, He was going back to the Father, and (the third and final aspect of Jesus’ relationship with the Father taught in these few verses is that) the Father was always with Jesus.

32 …I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

The Father’s loving, guiding presence never left Jesus. The incarnation and hypostatic union did nothing to sever the fellowship of the Father and Son. John 17, which we’ll begin next week, is one of the most vivid, powerful, and beautiful examples of this in the whole Bible. John 17 records what we call Jesus’ “high priestly prayer.” In it, Jesus spoke to the Father as one in the deepest fellowship and communion with the Father (because He was).

Keeping this in mind, Jesus’ words on the cross will take on fuller and proper significance.

Matthew 27:45-46 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. 46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It is because the Father was always (eternally) with Jesus that this forsaking, as the ransom price for the sins of the world, was so steep! The Father had never left Jesus alone. Consistent with that, even after all the disciples abandoned Him, the Father would not leave Him alone according to v.32. Jesus is now, and eternally will be, with the Father. But on account of His love for the world, for a moment in time, the Father would forsake the Son. Let the significance and seriousness of that rest upon you, Grace.

Jesus had spoken in figures of speech. Now He was speaking more plainly than ever before, and would increasingly do so. The central thrust of His plainer speech concerned His relationship with the Father (from Him, returning to Him, and was always with Him). As a result, the disciples had come to believe these things more fully than ever.

One of the practical keys for us to grasp, Grace, is that we too have been sent by the Father (into the world to make disciples of all nations), we too will go to the Father eternally through faith in Jesus, and we too have the presence of God with us at all times (in the Spirit’s indwelling). What an awesome thing it is to grasp that the very things Jesus was speaking about with increasing clarity concerning Himself, are also true of all His people, even you and I.

The final question addressed by Jesus concerned the result of the disciples’ growing belief. What should they expect as they grew to understand and obey more and more?

The third and final section of this sermon is meant to answer that question. That is, it is meant to highlight Jesus’ teaching on the result of the genuine belief of the disciples.

Throughout John’s Gospel we’ve seen that there are many “results” of genuine belief. The most significant result is tied to the very purpose of the Gospel, “That you may believe…and by believing you may have life in [Jesus’] name” (20:31). In our passage, with growing clarity concerning Jesus’ relationship to the Father, and growing belief in it, Jesus promised three specific results: persecution, the love of the Father, and peace.

The fact that the disciples would be persecuted has been the consistent theme for much of Jesus’ final words to His disciples. For that reason, I won’t spend too much time on the point, but we do need to see it clearly in the text. Having emphatically and corporately expressed their belief that Jesus was indeed from God…

31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone…

And again in v.33,

33 … In the world you will have tribulation.

The disciples would indeed soon be scattered (Mark 14:50), head to their own homes unsure of what to do (John 20:10), and they would all leave Jesus alone to go to where they couldn’t follow (John 13:36). What’s more, they would soon know tribulation beyond what most of us can even imagine (Acts 4, 5, 7:54-60; 2 Corinthians 11:24-26; Hebrews 11). And, as we’ve seen repeatedly, this is still true for all of Jesus’ followers today.

The disciples believed in Jesus and their belief was growing. One result of that would be scattered persecution.

The second result is the best news of all. It is why we joyfully sing, “Once Your enemy, now seated at Your table. Jesus, thank you!” By believing that Jesus is who He said He is, we are united to Jesus. And by being united to Jesus, the Father’s love is ours. The Father’s love is upon those who believe in Jesus; who believe that Jesus is from the Father, to the Father, and with the Father.

26 In that day [post resurrection] you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

The Father Himself loves you, Grace. The Father Himself loves you. The Father Himself loves you!

What do you think that means? Have you ever really slowed down to consider this?

It means that at all times, He is for you. It means that at all times, He is pleased with you in Jesus. It means that at all times, He is working for your greatest good. It means that at all times, you are acceptable to Him. It means that at all times, you belong to Him. It means that at all times, you are His child. And it means that, as this verse highlights, at all times, you have access to Him. You can approach Him with freedom and confidence, which is why we are here today in this worship service.

One of the great expressions of the Father’s love for us is granting to us the privilege of praying to Him in Jesus’ name. But it’s important to recognize Jesus’ point here. Praying to the Father in Jesus’ name does not mean that we must pray to Jesus and ask Him to take our requests before God (lacking access ourselves). Rather, because of Jesus’ work on our behalf and the Father’s love for us, we are invited to speak directly to the Father.

You must believe that, Grace Church, if you are to live in this world, in God’s world, as you ought. You simply cannot live as you were made to live if your living is not the product of a deep abiding in the love of God. You must actively experience God’s pleasure in you if you are to fend off the temptations of this world, forgive others as you have been forgiven, and be filled with Christian confidence, identity, and purpose.

But just as important as it is to know the nature of the love of God for His people, is the need to know what it means to be His people. Who does God love or what defines His people? Jesus tells us here (27) that God loves those who love Jesus and believe that He came from God. Love for Jesus is the source of God’s love for you.

That sounds fairly simple and straightforward, but it is exceedingly common for people in our culture to claim God’s love for themselves entirely apart from this idea. The primary dividing line between those who are telling the truth (in claiming God’s love for themselves) and those who are not, is love for Jesus.

Now one of the most important things I’ll say this morning is this: The second clause of v.27 (“and have believed that I came from God”) isn’t really a second thing. It’s a defining characteristic of the first. It’s a clarification of what Jesus meant when He spoke of their love for Him.

In other words, the love of the Father that comes to those who love Jesus, isn’t a self-defined, subjective love for Jesus. The modern-day notion of Jesus often has very little to do with the actual Jesus. He is (for the world) a Jesus who has been remade in the image of whoever happens to be claiming Him. He is (for the world) indifferent to sin. In fact, He is often (for the world) an advocate for sin.

To truly love Jesus, is to love the truth about Jesus. And again, one key truth about Jesus (which, as we’ve seen, was the single most important truth for the Jews at that time), is that He is from the Father.

The greatest zeal (), the most fervent passion, the greatest experience of something love-like for something other than Jesus as He really is, is useless. In fact, it is often worse than useless, because if you think you love Jesus (a fake version), you will never pursue genuine love for the genuine Jesus.

The second result of genuine belief in Jesus is the unwavering love of the Father for you!

Genuine belief in Jesus results in scattered persecution, the love of the Father, and, finally, peace.

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

This kind of peace is a calm, a rest, a tranquility rooted in the promises of God’s favor in Christ. And since God has promised to work ALL THINGS together for good, even the harshest trial for those who love Him, Jesus promised persevering peace at all times for His followers. Things were about to get all kinds of chaotic, so this promise at this time was sweet indeed.

In the immediate sense, the peace promised by Jesus was for His disciples who would soon desert and deny Him. By plainly explaining in advance that He knew this, when it happened the disciples would know that His love was still upon them. Remember that, Grace. In the fuller sense, this promised peace is for all who hope in Jesus.

What is the greatest obstacle to that kind of peace? Often, it is the hardships that come from the world. That’s why Jesus said, “33…In the world you will have tribulation.”

But Jesus doesn’t promise things that He doesn’t intend to accomplish for us. Do you believe that, Grace? Do you believe that in every case, for those who are in Jesus, God provides for you what He requires of you. That’s the heart of the gospel. That doesn’t mean that we are passive. But it does mean that even our activity—our obedience to the commands of God—is a gift from God (Ephesians 2:10, Philippians 2:12).

The world will persecute us and that will always threaten to rob us of the peace that ought to be ours.

33 But take heart [, Jesus said. For]; I have overcome the world.

The rest of the Gospel of John explains what Jesus meant by that. We’ll see it in great detail in the coming chapters. In simplest terms, though, it means what the Apostle Paul wrote in Colossians 2:13-15.

13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

It’s the height of irony that in the very thing that looked to all like the world had finally overcome Jesus, He had overcome the world. And from receiving and believing that comes a kind of peace that truly and thoroughly surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:6-7).

The big idea of this passage is that Jesus spoke more clearly about the facts that He had come from, was going to, and was always with the Father and that all who believe Him concerning these things will know persecution, the love of the Father, and peace that surpasses understanding; and all of that because Jesus overcame the world! Let us, therefore—in the power of the Spirit who dwells in us, in the Father’s love, and in the peace of Jesus—seek out all of Jesus’ teaching, believe it, and live in light of it no matter the cost.

John 16:16-24 “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.” 17 So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that 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 am going to the Father’?” 18 So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.” 19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are 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’? 20 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 into joy. 21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because 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. 22 So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. 23 In that day you will 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. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

In our passage, as Jesus’ neared the end of His final message to His disciples (Thursday night before His crucifixion), He continued to focus on their grief over His departure, the growing hardship that would surely follow, and how they were to live in light of those things.

They loved Him, they trusted Him, and they’d come to depend on Him. They’d followed Him away from nearly every known and comfortable aspect of their lives, into a life of uncertainty, difficulty, and persecution. All of that was a significant challenge while Jesus was with them. As they contemplated trying to continue on after Jesus left, though, it took on a whole new level of confusion and overwhelmedness.

Rather than seek to dispel them of this notion, Jesus promised it. His message to them wasn’t, “Don’t worry, it won’t be as bad as you imagine.” His message to them was, “It’s going to get far worse in some ways before it gets better. While I was with you, I took on most of the hardship for you. Now that I’m leaving, much more of it will fall on you.”

Grace, one of the things this sermon is meant to help us see is that we must settle on this if we are to continue to become the kind of church God made us to be. Parents, you must settle on this if you are going to raise the kind of kids God commands you to raise. Non-Christian, you must settle on this as you contemplate trusting in Jesus. To become a Christian is not a call to comfort and ease or merely a ticket to heaven. It is a call to lay our lives down and take up our cross. It is a call to make war against everything that sets itself up against God within us and proclaim the good news of Jesus to everything outside of us. It is a call to live by faith in the promises of God, while knowing full well that we will look foolish to the watching world.

Jesus was not subtle or unclear about these things. He didn’t try to hide or minimize them. There was absolutely no bait and switch in His approach.

The perpetual question that this put before everyone who first heard His message, as well as everyone who has heard it since, is, “Is it worth it? Does the benefit of following Jesus truly outweigh this steep cost”? And the thing for us to see is that as clearly and consistently as Jesus described the cost, He described the reward. You will weep and lament. You will be hated and you might be killed. But all of your suffering will be turned into joy; full, eternal, unparalleled joy. No one will ever pay any cost that isn’t repaid “a hundredfold now… and in the age to come eternal life” (Matthew 10:30; 19:29-30).

With all of that, the big idea of this passage is that while Jesus would soon leave His followers (be crucified and then ascent back to heaven), and while this would be really hard for His followers, fullness of joy would soon and forever follow. The main takeaways, therefore, are to share this good news faithfully with all who will hear and live faithfully, prayerfully, and without fear.

To help you see all that is in this text, this sermon has two parts. In the first part, we’ll consider Jesus’ departure and the disciples’ ongoing confusion over it. In the second part, we’ll see Jesus’ explanation and promises concerning those things.

The first part and our passage begin with a pretty interesting exchange between Jesus and His disciples.

It started with a familiar statement from Jesus, 16 “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.”

Jesus had revealed His plan to depart several times already (14:3, 4, 12, 18, 28; 16:5, 7). Similarly, He had revealed His plan to return more than once as well (14:3, 18-19, 28). And in familiar fashion, the disciples remained confused by this declaration of Jesus…

17 So some of his disciples said to one another, “What is this that 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 am going to the Father’?” 18 So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.”

The disciples wondered among themselves what Jesus meant by these words, just as they had in the previous times Jesus spoke them. Where was He going? What did He mean by “a little while”? In what sense was He “going to the Father”? How would He come back? How long would all this take?

It is important for us to recognize at the outset that, as is often the case, there are two tracks running through Jesus’ promises here. One track is the immediate experience of the disciples and the other is the eschatological experience. In other words, there are ways Jesus’ promises would come true for the disciples in the next few days and throughout their lives on earth and ways in which they wouldn’t come true until Jesus comes back in power at the end of the age.

In the most immediate sense, Jesus would die the next day and remain in the grave for three days (they would see Him no longer). But then, on the third day, He would rise from the dead and they would see Him again. Also in the immediate sense, after several weeks among them (as we’ll see in chapters 20 and 21), Jesus would leave them again by ascending back into heaven, to the Father’s right hand.

And, at the same time, there were ways that Jesus’ words would not be fully realized until Jesus comes back at the end of the age. The same is true for Christians today. Some of what Jesus’ promised in these passages is our experience now and some will not be until He returns.

It is largely because of the consistent layered meanings of Jesus’ teaching that the disciples found themselves confused. Grace, one lesson for us to take from this is the fact that it is normal to be confused about the things of God. God’s people always have been, and we will continue to be until we are in the new heavens and the new earth. This is not to say that we can’t know anything or that everything is confusion or that God’s Word is unclear. It is to say, however, that there will always be aspects of God’s work in this life that we do not understand.

This is because God’s ways are always higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). What’s more, we are not only finite, we are also fallen. We are often confused because God is God and we are not, and because we spend more time mindlessly scrolling the internet or TV than we do prayerfully meditating on God’s Word.

In this knowledge, in order to minimize our confusion, let us read God’s Word better and cultivate humility. To read God’s Word better means reading it more consistently, more thoughtfully, more prayerfully, and more corporately. And we cultivate humility primarily by considering the attributes of God carefully. It’s hard to be proud when comparing ourselves to a right understanding of God. May it be so according to the grace of God.

With that, we see that the disciples were locked in on the first track. They understood that Jesus was leaving and that left them sad and confused. Therefore, they wondered together what all of that meant and what they should do about it. Knowing their thoughts, as He always did, Jesus replied with an explanation in the form of several promises. And that leads us to the second part of the sermon.

Look again with me at v.19.

19 Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, “Is this what you are 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’?

The text doesn’t explicitly tell us how Jesus knew that they wanted to ask Him about these things. It’s possible He simply overheard them or had come to recognize their hushed whispers for what they were. On the other hand, the consistent picture of Jesus throughout John’s Gospel has been one of supernatural power and insight. More than likely, what we have here is another example of Jesus functioning as only the Only Son of God can do, miraculously knowing their thoughts and intentions (John 2:24-25; Luke 5:22; Matthew 9:4).

Praise God for this, Grace, and know that this is still the case. Stand in humble awe at the fact that you’ve never had a thought that God didn’t know. Tremble and rejoice in the knowledge that you’ve never had a truly secret inclination. The good news of Christianity is such that, simultaneously, your every sin is known to God and He offers to forgive you anyway in Jesus. Even better than you, God knows your every rebellious thought. He is aware of your every transgression. There is nothing you can hide from God. AND, knowing all of that, God moves toward you in mercy and grace. As we read at the beginning of John’s Gospel, God set His love upon the world such that He sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will never perish but instead have eternal life.

Having revealed to the disciples that He knew what they were wondering, Jesus began to answer them by earnestly promising them several things.

Jesus’ reply begins with a familiar phrase, “20 Truly, truly, I say to you…”.

Truly, truly is a familiar phrase used by Jesus to let us know that what He’s about to say is particularly important. It’s kind of like saying, “listen carefully,” or, “You really need to pay attention.” Of course, everything Jesus said was important, but the words “Truly, truly” are meant to make us perk up even more.

So what were the disciples supposed to listen especially carefully to? Six promises. The first of which was a promise that they would weep, lament, and be sorrowful. We see this in vs.20 and 22.

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament…

And again in v.20, “You will be sorrowful…”

And in v.22, “So also you have sorrow now…”

As I mentioned in the introduction, Jesus did not shy away from revealing to the disciples what was in front of them. If they would remain faithful to Him, both His absence itself and the hardships that would come upon them because of it would certainly lead to tears, lamentation, and great sorrow. There was no way around that for them. Since Jesus’ own path was marked by sorrow and suffering, so too would be the path of all who follow Him. This was certainly not the promise the disciples were hoping for, but it was a clear and repeated promise nonetheless.

In the same way, we need to be honest with people when we talk to them about what it means to be a Christian. This seems pretty counterintuitive, doesn’t it? You don’t tell people EVERYTHING that’s wrong with the used car you’re trying to sell them, do you? The reality, however, is that no one will ever believe the gospel, no matter how much we emphasize the positive (acceptance, forgiveness, freedom, heaven) or negative (persecution, mockery, martyrdom) apart from the regenerating work of the Spirit. A central truth of the Bible’s teaching is that we simply can’t make the gospel more palatable for people. The sin we’re all born into blinds us to the things of God, making them seem foolish to us.

On my first day of graduate school, we worked our way through some of the political philosophy teaching of a 17th century English philosopher. He was decidedly Christian in his writing. During a discussion afterwards, one of my classmates matter-of-factly commented, “I can’t believe anyone believes this stuff.” Sin makes the true things of God seem like folly.

Only the Holy Spirit can change that. The most we can do by leaving out certain, “less desirable” aspects of the gospel is create the kind of unbelieving believers we find throughout John’s Gospel. So, let’s share the gospel, all of it, with those around us, Grace. And as we do, let’s ask the Spirit to grant them the eyes and ears they need to see and hear the goodness and glory of the gospel of God.

That leads to the second promise of Jesus in response to the confusion and fear of His followers. Not only did Jesus promise great anguish for faithfulness, but in addition, He promised that the world would mock them for it. Not only would they suffer, but those around them will rejoice in their suffering.

20 Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

The world would soon celebrate Jesus’ death. Likewise, the world would soon be glad at the suffering of His followers. The tears of Jesus’ followers would be the world’s laughter. Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever had your great pain be the source of another’s great joy? If you have, you know it’s a challenge on a different level.

If the first promise was not what the disciples wanted to hear, this definitely wasn’t. With that, though, things begin to pick up with the third promise.

While Jesus followers would soon know deep sorrow, and while they would soon know the added pain of the world’s delight in their sorrow, every ounce of it would soon turn to fullness of joy! So as not to be unclear, Jesus repeated this three times.

20 … You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

22 So also you have sorrow now, but…your hearts will rejoice…

24 … your joy may be full.

It is a truly remarkable thing that the disciples’ experience would shift in such a significant way. Don’t miss the glory of the gap between weeping, lamentation, and sorrow and joy and rejoicing hearts. But even more significantly, don’t miss the gap between rejoicing hearts and full joy.

Jesus didn’t merely promise that the disciples’ sadness would end. He didn’t even merely promise that joy would replace the sadness. Instead, He promised that the sadness would be obliterated by a joy that would be full!

We’re right to ask what would be the source of the shift in the disciples? We’ll come back to that in just a bit; after we consider the fourth promise.

In exactly the opposite way from Jesus’ first two promises, which went from bad to worse, Jesus’ third and fourth promises went from good to better. Jesus’ followers would not only have their sadness turn to full joy, but it would be unending fullness of joy.

22 …your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

Jesus promised His followers a kind of joy out of sorrow that could not be taken away. We’ll see momentarily that in the immediate sense, this would happen because Jesus would rise from the dead. But in the larger sense, it’s hard not to picture Peter drawing these words of Jesus to mind when he wrote the opening of his letter (1 Peter 1:3-7).

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

It’s one kind of sweet promise that fullness of joy will come from deep sorrow. It’s another kind of sweetness altogether to be promised a fullness of joy that is unable to be lost or stolen.

Grace, have you ever accused someone of taking your joy—whether enemy or friend, whether persecuting non-Christian or Christian spouse or kid? If so, let the words of Jesus instruct you. People can tempt you to sorrow, sometimes maliciously and even violently so, but they cannot force you there. Who Jesus is, what He accomplished, and what He promises His people guarantees that when our hope is rightly placed in Him. That doesn’t mean that hard things aren’t hard, or that sorrow isn’t right sometimes, but it does mean that for everyone who believes the promises of Jesus, every difficulty is overwhelmed by the joyful reality of Christ in us, knowledge of God using every trial to a greater end, and the fact that one day we will be fully and finally free from every difficulty and brought into the unending joy of fellowship with God.

Because of the nature and promises of God for us, like the person set to inherit $50 billion can’t long lament the loss of $100, no sorrow caused by another can long shake the joy of one whose hope is in Jesus.

Rightly read, these promises mark quite a shift. The disciples, Jesus said, would move from the lowest of lows to the highest of highs. Once again, we’re right to wonder how that’s possible. What would happen to turn the one into the other? How would Jesus’ followers go from lamentation to unending, full joy?

Before answering with two more promises, Jesus offered a simple analogy that quickly gets to the heart of the matter. Look with me at v.21

21 When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because 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.

In simplest terms, as I’ve mentioned more than once, the question of how we get from wailing to rejoicing in this life is by doing a simple cost-benefit analysis—like a woman giving birth.

Carrying and delivering a child is a whole-person challenge (physically, emotionally, and spiritually) like few others on earth. And yet, many women have many babies because they easily consider the child to be far more of a reward than the cost of bearing and delivering it.

In a similar way, Jesus told His disciples that the cost of all their weeping, lamentation, and sorrow paled in comparison to what was to come. But what was to come? Two more things. Two more promises.

The fifth promise is found in v.22, “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

Jesus would leave and that would hurt and lead to even greater hurt. But He would return and bring with Him the great joy He promised. On the most basic level, this is easy to understand. When someone you love moves away or dies, that is really hard. But if they return home or come back from the dead (!), that’s exciting and joyful.

That’s the foundation of what Jesus meant, but there’s a bit more to it as well. As I mentioned earlier, this promise is running on two tracks. In the ultimate sense, that’ll be the case when Jesus returns in power to usher in the new heavens and earth. This promise will only be fully fulfilled then. But it should be clear that Jesus also had in mind a more imminent return and immediate joy.

In that way, in this context, we can see that Jesus was speaking of His resurrection from the dead in four days and the joy that would bring to His followers. It’s one thing to promise the things Jesus promised. It’s another thing to back it up by rising from the dead. The truthfulness of Jesus’ words was finally established by the empty tomb on Sunday morning and the time He spent with these same men in the several weeks that followed (before His ascension).

As we’ll see, at Jesus’ resurrection and appearance to His followers, Mary Magdline would turn from weeping to joy. The disciples collectively would go from fear to gladness. And Thomas would go from doubt to belief and worship. In other words, there was a sense in which the disciples would experience this joy in just four days.

And, again, at the same time, as we see in Revelation (21:3-4), at Jesus’ final return, He will finally wipe away every tear and turn it to unending joy.

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Jesus did and will still fulfill this promise to reveal Himself again to His followers. In that we find that whatever the cost of our faithfulness to Jesus, it pales in comparison to its reward. And as we come to believe that, our sorrow will truly turn to joy, and one day fullness of joy.

Finally, we come back to a very familiar promise: answered prayer as a means of turning sorrow to joy. And we find yet another example of Jesus drawing special attention to the importance of these words (“truly, truly”).

23 In that day you will 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. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

We’ve covered this several times already since John’s Gospel has covered this several times already. Nevertheless, we’ve learned that we need to learn from repetition. God doesn’t waste words. If it’s in here more than once, it means we need to hear it more than once.

Grace, here we have another promise that God will grant to us whatever we ask Him for in Jesus’ name—whatever we ask for Jesus’ purposes, glory, and sake. God works in us and in the world around us through prayer. God has chosen to accomplish much His mission on earth through us as we pray and obey.

You can find fuller explanations of that HERE and HERE, but settle once again on the simple fact that God delights to hear our requests of Him, made in Jesus’ name, to accomplish His kingdom purposes.

So evangelize and pray, Grace. Share your faith indiscriminately and pray unceasingly. Obey the Word of God and pray the Word of God back to God. God will glorify His name and accomplish His will as we obediently and faithfully engage in that mission. And He will glorify His name and accomplish His will as we recognize His sovereignty and our dependence on Him and turn those things back to God in prayer.

As you follow Jesus, the world will hate you as it hates Him. For that reason, you will weep and lament and be sorrowful. And the world will rejoice in your despair. But your sorrow will turn into joy, your hearts will rejoice, and your joy will be full. What’s more, no one will be able to take your joy from you. And the transition from sorrow to joy flows out of the fact that we will see Jesus again and our prayers in Jesus’ name will be answered.

These are awesome promises, Grace. May we believe them, with God’s help, and with all our hearts. And then, may we live fully in light of them in all we do, for the good of the world and the joy set before us. Amen.

John 16:4b-15 “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you. 5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

What comes to mind when you think of an advantage? What does it mean when something is to your advantage? Have you ever felt like you had a significant advantage in life?

I recently came across a family video of my brother-in-law and I playing basketball against our boys. It was from 2011 so Jeremiah, the oldest, would have been 10. TJ and I were blocking everything, dunking on the boys (the rim was lowered), and flexing on them repeatedly. We were older, stronger, taller, and had considerably more understanding of the game at the time. We had every possible advantage over them and it showed.

An advantage is a benefit. It is something that works in your favor. It is something that makes things easier for those who have it than for those who don’t.

Our passage for this morning describes two great advantages that God has given to His people as they seek to be faithful to Him in a hostile world. One is implicit and the other explicit. The implicit advantage of this text is the gradual revelation of Jesus’ nature, will, and plans. The explicit advantage is (a familiar one,) the sending of the Holy Spirit.

Again, remember, we’re now in the final ¼ of John’s Gospel. It recounts the final days/hours of Jesus life on earth. And in our passage, we find Jesus giving some of His final words of instruction to His closest followers, His disciples. His main message to them was that although He was leaving (dying, rising, and ascending to heaven), they needed to continue His ministry of telling people how to be reconciled to God and brought into His kingdom. More specifically still, Jesus spoke to them about the help He would give them to navigate the hardships that would certainly befall them as they obeyed.

The big idea of his passage is that truly following Jesus in a world that rejects Jesus will often be marked by significant hardships, but Jesus has left us with every advantage we need to persevere through them; namely, His Word and His Spirit. And the main takeaways for us are to glorify God, by reading Jesus’ Word and doing what it says, in the power of the Spirit, no matter the resistance. Let’s pray that it would be so among us in increasing measure (and with the child dedications fresh on our minds, let’s pray that God would be pleased to work these things out in our children as well).

Have you ever noticed or wondered about the fact that God only gradually revealed His nature and will to His people? He could have simply dropped a completed Bible in Adam’s hands from the beginning. Instead, He chose to write and deliver it over many centuries, a little at a time.

Likewise, Jesus could have chosen to sit a group of people down and tell them everything they needed to know at the outset of His ministry. Instead, He chose to reveal more and more about Himself, His purposes, and the mission of His followers, over the entire 3.5 years of His ministry.

In other words, God, in all His sovereign wisdom, chose to reveal the things we need to know gradually. With regard to Jesus’ gradual revelation, we find that explicitly in our passage for this morning. Likewise, Paul explicitly reveals that gradual revelation was God’s plan from the beginning. Let’s consider both and then a few ways they are to the advantage of all Christians.

In vs.4-5 we find gradual revelation as an important aspect of the ministry of Jesus. We’ve seen it before in John’s Gospel, but Jesus reveals it with greater clarity here. Again, the basic idea is that Jesus wisely chose to reveal Himself, His will, and His plans over a longer period time to His followers. We see this in v.4.

4 “I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you.

Jesus told His followers that He didn’t tell them everything (especially about His “departure” and their persecution) right from the beginning. He also gave them one of the reasons for this. He did so because they didn’t need to know it as long as He was with them to lead and guide them and to bear the brunt of the persecution.

It’s a simple, but profound thing to recognize that Jesus purposefully chose to reveal the things His followers needed to know, only as they needed to know them. Even at this last hour, there were things He still hadn’t told them.

This is a good thing for us to recognize, Grace. How often do you find yourself frustrated because you wish God would reveal something to you that He hasn’t yet? How often does it seem to you like some hard situation would be far more bearable if only God would reveal some further aspect of it to you?

As we make our way through the rest of this part of the sermon, keep in mind the goodness of Jesus’ gradual revelation. He does so not simply because He can and certainly not as a means of taunting you. He does so, every time, only because it is what’s best for His people. He tells His people exactly what we need to know, exactly when we need to know it for our greatest advantage.

Again, in v.4 we see that Jesus chose not to reveal everything to His followers all at once. In vs.5-6, however, we find out that something is about to change.

5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Jesus knew it was time to fill in a few more gaps for His followers since He was about to leave them. They were sad about this news and they needed further understanding if they were going to faithfully continue on in the mission He’d given them.

In addition to that important point, there’s an undercurrent in vs.5-6 that we don’t want to miss. In that moment, consumed by their sadness, none of Jesus’ followers thought to ask Jesus about His departure. Jesus was about to endure the greatest suffering any man has ever endured (the forsaking of the Father on the cross, paying the consequences of countless sins of others) and His followers were, apparently, entirely unconcerned with that. Instead, they were consumed by its immediate implications for them—that their lives were about to get harder.

Of course, on the one hand, they couldn’t possibly have known exactly what Jesus was about to endure, but none of it even seemed to cross their minds. They were focused on themselves alone.

Let that be a lesson for us, Grace. May we be the kind of people who think of others more highly than we do of ourselves (Philippians 2:3), who love others as we love ourselves (Mark 12:31), and who look not to our own interests alone, but to those of others as well (Philippians 2:4). We’ll never be able to anticipate or understand everything anyone might be going through, but we can be the kind of people who know that it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts 20:35).

Jesus reiterated His gradual revelation in v.12, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.” And in these things we see again that Jesus only gave His disciples what they could handle at the time they could handle it. And, evidently, they still weren’t ready for some things.

As I mentioned earlier, what was true for Jesus’ ministry, is true of God’s ministry in general. Gradual revelation was not unique to Jesus. God has always worked that way. God chose to reveal increasingly more truth over several thousand years.

This is easy to see with even the most cursory glance through the Bible. But in case anyone missed it, Paul, in both Ephesians and Colossians said so explicitly.

Ephesians 3:8-10 To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things, 10 so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

Colossians 1:25-27 the stewardship from God that was given to me for you, to make the word of God fully known, 26 the mystery hidden for ages and generations but now revealed to his saints. 27 To them God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

That leaves us with the question of why God chose the gradual route rather than the immediate route. We’re given a few answers in the text, and in them the advantages of this approach are apparent.

First, on the big-picture level (the entirety of God’s revelation), implied in Paul’s words to the Ephesians and Colossians, is the idea that everything was building toward Jesus. God gradually revealed the things His people needed to know because it took centuries, millennia, of category-creating for them to really grasp the significance of the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Second, in v.4 of our passage for this morning, we see that Jesus did so “because I was with you”. It seems to me that this is perhaps best understood with a simple analogy (that I read somewhere else a while ago).

Imagine meeting a fellow fly fisherman who knew of a secret stream filled with hungry trout. The secret stream, as you can probably imagine, is located quite a ways off the beaten path, on private land without proper street names and Google Maps mapping. If you had to choose between the man giving you verbal instructions or even a hand drawn map (full revelation all at once) or the man agreeing to simply ride with you, telling you when to turn only as the need to turn approached (gradual revelation), which would you choose? In almost every conceivable way, it’d be best to have the man go along with you. Not only would that eliminate the risk of misremembering his words or misreading his map, but it would also give you the chance to talk about how he came across the stream and the best way to fish it.

Again, and in much the same way, because Jesus shared His whole life with His followers for over three years, He was able to use the time to gradually build the right categories into His followers, enabling them to more fully appreciate His teaching and instructions. In addition, He was able to model things for them and help correct them as they misunderstood or misapplied. More significantly still, by gradually revealing Himself to them, they were able to develop a relationship with Jesus rather than simply get a checklist from Him. In that they learned to depend on Him and not themselves. And throughout, Jesus bore the brunt of the persecution and showed His followers how to do so in a manner pleasing to God.

Finally, in v.12 we see yet another reason for God’s gradual revelation, because Jesus’ followers could not bear the full weight of His revelation right away. They needed to be given it overtime so as to be able to properly digest it. This is much like starting a baby off on milk, gradually moving them to spoon-fed purees of various sorts, to solid foods like Cheerios, and only much later to things like steak. To give steak to a newborn won’t end well and neither does giving full doctrine to immature followers.

In other words, in just about every possible way, God’s gradual revelation of His will was to the advantage of His people. It is good to praise God for this. It is also good to read our Bibles with this in mind. To read the OT well, for instance, we must continually think about where the passage is going. There is immediate significance for every event and prophecy, but there is also a greater significance for them as well. They all point to or move us along toward salvation in Jesus and the fullness thereof (our glorification in the new heavens and earth).

All of that leads to the second great advantage of God for His people: the coming of the Holy Spirit. And within that, as we’ll see, there are three specific advantages of the Helper: (1) The Helper helps in fuller ways when Jesus leaves, (2) The Helper helps with conviction, and (3) The Helper helps with truth.

We’ve noted this several times already, but the counterintuitive aspect of the truth of v.7 bears repeating. It is to the advantage of God’s people that Jesus went away, for it was only when Jesus went away that the Helper would come.

7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

It’s not entirely obvious why Jesus and the Spirit couldn’t minister on earth in fullness at the same time, but this text makes it clear that according to the plan of God it was the case.

I think the simple truth worth contemplating is that in spite of what you’ve probably thought many times, your faith would not be stronger if you could just see Jesus, or just walk with Jesus, or just talk with Jesus. John’s Gospel and Jesus’ ministry were filled with people who had that “advantage,” but persisted in sin and disbelief. Indeed, “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2).

In particular, it is to our advantage the Jesus leave and the Spirit come for two main reasons. First, Jesus left in order to atone for our sins. It is to our advantage that He “go away” in that if He didn’t, we would remain eternally dead in our trespasses and sins. And second, it is to our advantage in that the Spirit’s ministry is in every heart, all the time, while Jesus’ earthly ministry was (for the most part) only to those whom He was with, when He was with them. The Spirit takes up residence in every Christian from the moment of our conversion and never leaves. The presence of God is always with all of us in a way that is unique from the time of Jesus’ ministry on earth.

There’s another advantage of the going of Jesus and the coming of the Spirit. We see that in vs.8-11.

8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

This is a particularly interesting advantage in that it speaks of the Spirit’s conviction of the world. The Spirit does convict Christians of our sins too, of course, but that’s not what this passage is talking about. As we saw last week, this conviction is part of the Spirit bearing witness to the world concerning Jesus. He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment.

This is, of course, not a promise that everyone will respond to this conviction in repentance. Some will, but others will remain largely indifferent and the rest will only grow in hostility. The key for us to understand is that every response of the world is, in its own ways, to our advantage. As the world responds in outward hostility, it is to our advantage in that the Spirit uses that to sanctify us and make us complete (James 1:2-4). As the world responds more in common grace morality, it is to our advantage in that it leads to a more welcoming environment for ministry. And as the world responds in repentance and belief, it is to our advantage in that we gain brothers and sisters and fellow gospel workers.

That leads to the final aspect of the Spirit’s help named in this passage.

In v.7, the advantage of the Spirit’s coming was directly for Jesus’ followers (indwelling believers). In vs.8-11, the Spirit’s work was among unbelievers (convicting of sin, righteousness, and judgment) and indirectly an advantage for Christians. In this final section, 12-15, the Spirit’s work is, once again, primarily and advantageously directed toward those whose hope is in Jesus. Specifically, the Spirit helps us with truth. He helps us bear it, guides us in it, and helps reveal it to us.

You’ll notice that each person of the godhead, the Holy Trinity, is present and active in this passage. The Father is governing and awaiting the return of His Son, Jesus is speaking and teaching, and the Spirit is eagerly awaiting being sent that He might convict the world and help Jesus’ persecuted followers.

These are awesome advantages indeed. But they are not for anyone to use for any means they might have. They are for the faithful followers of Jesus who are being persecuted for faithfully following Jesus. They are for Christians who are experiencing the would-be crushing hatred of the world for telling the world about Jesus. These advantages are more than enough to cause every one of God’s people to thrive through every circumstance.

Let us, therefore, give ourselves in increasing measure today to glorifying God, by reading Jesus’ Word and doing what it says, in the power of the Spirit, no matter the resistance.

John 15:26 – 16:4 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

16:1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

We had a modified staycation last week. Thanks for sending us away and thanks for welcoming us back.

I was able to listen to John’s sermon on Tuesday morning. Well done, John. There is much we can all learn from John’s grasp of biblical theology. I especially appreciated John’s description of God’s nature and its implications for our lives.

To quickly bring you up to speed, we’ve made our way, passage by passage, through the fifteenth chapter of John’s Gospel. In his Gospel, John recounts much of the life and ministry of Jesus, and all for the primary purpose of convincing his readers (original and continually) that Jesus is the Christ/Messiah that God promised to send. And that, in order that his readers might believe in Jesus and be saved from our sins and reconciled to God and His creation. May that be the effect among us today and until Jesus returns!

To zoom in a bit, the words Jesus spoke in chapters thirteen through seventeen were all said on the night before His crucifixion. They were spoken to His disciples (minus Judas).

To zoom in one more time, in my last sermon (on 15:18-25) we read of Jesus’ promise that His followers would be hated by the world around them to the degree that the world around them hates Jesus and they lived as Jesus commanded and modeled.

That’s rough news and Jesus knew it. That’s why our passage begins with the word “but.” Jesus told His followers that while He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, living in light of that in this fallen world would be hard…BUT when the Helper comes, more help will come.

Two sermons ago in John, Jesus described one means of God’s grace to defend against and heal from the sting of the world’s hatred: The love and friendship of other Christians. In our passage for this morning, we find a second significant means of God’s grace to protect and heal His people from the world’s persecution: The Helper whom Jesus promised to send.

Do you live among a people who hate the idea of Jesus being the Son of God? If so, life will be hard for you if you truly follow Jesus. At the same time, however, it will be much more bearable if you are surrounded by other Christians who love you well and if you have the Spirit dwelling in you.

The big idea of this passage is that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity, will help us when honoring God is costly. And the main takeaway is to courageously live godly lives in complete confidence that the Spirit makes every righteous risk right.

Let’s pray.

Our passage records the third time (of four) that Jesus has mentioned “The Helper” in John’s Gospel. All four occur during His final, upper room discourse.

In the first, John 14:16, Jesus said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever…” in that context, Jesus promised the Spirit to help His followers keep His commandments.

In the second, just a few verses later in John 14:26, Jesus said, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” There Jesus promised the Spirit’s help to the disciples to remember the things He’d shown and taught them throughout His life and ministry.

The fourth and final time is, perhaps, the most important. We’ll see that next week in John 16:7, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.” There, Jesus’ point is that His leaving will certainly be hard, but the coming of the Helper is actually to the benefit of His followers. While He was on earth, Jesus’ ministry was limited in certain ways. When the Spirit came, however, He would be equally in the hearts of all believers at all times.

The main point of each of these passages is that the Helper will bring more help to God’s people as we seek to follow Jesus in this hostile world.

Our passage for this week is much the same. In it, Jesus describes four different and specific helps the Sprit will bring to His persecuted followers: (1) The Spirit will help by bearing witness about Jesus, (2) The Spirit will help by empowering Jesus’ followers to bear witness about Jesus, (3) The Spirit will help by keeping Jesus’ followers from falling, and (4) The Spirit will help by reminding Jesus’ followers of Jesus’ promises so that Jesus’ power will be clear. That’s a lot of help!

Let’s consider each of those now.

To see the first help of the Helper, look again with me at v.26.

26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

In this verse, there are three clauses that describe the nature of the Helper. Let’s briefly take a look at them before coming to the final clause that describes the help of the Helper.

The fist descriptive clause (“whom I will send to you from the Father”) lets us know that the Helper is obedient to the Son. He will come to God’s people when Jesus sends Him from the Father; not before and without delay. There is much to learn here (like the fact that being submissive does not necessarily mean being inferior), but that’s a different sermon for a different day.

The second descriptive clause (“the Spirit of truth”) lets us know that the Helper is the Spirit of truth. There is no falsehood in Him. All His witness is true. This too is rich in significance (like the fact that the Bible’s inerrancy is rooted in this aspect of the Spirit’s nature), but that too is another sermon for another day.

And the third descriptive clause is the one that’s gained the most ink. Many, especially historically, have taken this clause (“who proceeds from the Father”) to refer to the nature of the Spirit/Trinity. A great division arose many centuries ago between the Eastern and Western church over this (over whether the Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or the Father and Son). The final clause of the Nicene Creed was written to address this (“we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son”). The separate sermon on this clause would deal with the nature of the Trinity and the importance of rightly interpreting the Bible.

While we’re not going to probe the depths of these attributes of the Helper, it’s important to recognize that each of them (obedience, truth, and Triune) gives us greater clarity and confidence in the help He will bring.

With all of that, what is the help of the Helper according to this verse? It is to bear witness about Jesus. But what does that mean?

Is it simply another way of describing v.27, the witness of Jesus’ followers? It is true, as we will see in the next point, that the Spirit will bear witness about Jesus through the witness of Christians. But that’s not what this verse is talking about. In fact, it is meant to stand in contrast to the Spirit’s witness through Jesus’ followers. That’s why v.27 begins with “and you also will bear witness”. The Spirit helps by bearing witness by Himself and the Spirit also helps Jesus’ followers bear witness. Two separate witnesses.

What is the nature of the Spirit’s witness? Most likely, it’s what we find in the fourth and final mention of the Spirit (next week’s text), “8 He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…”

In other words, the Spirit bears witness to Jesus in the world by making true righteousness apparent, bringing conviction of sin, and showing the rightness of God’s judgment. This He continually does in the hearts of mankind as part of His ministry. And we can trust this because He always does so in obedience to the Father and Son, in perfect truth, and as the third person of the Holy Trinity.

This is helpful to persecuted saints in two key ways. First, the witness of the Helper is what drew us to Jesus and makes our witness to the world effective (next point). And second, it is helpful in that where the Spirit works like this, the persecution of the world will fade. This is why it is good and right to pray continually for the Spirit to bear witness in your home, neighborhood, nation, and in the lands in which our missionaries labor. Apart from this witness of the Spirit, consciences are seared, sin consumes, and none of our efforts will bear fruit.

O, what sweet help this is, Grace. Again, let us seek it earnestly. Every time you see any kindness or generosity or goodness in the world, it is the Spirit’s witness. Every time a person’s conscience holds back their evil desires or restrains a person’s evil actions, it is the Spirit’s witness. Let’s learn to recognize this continual help and continually thank Him for it as we follow Jesus in a world that often hates the things of God.

We find the second specific help of the Helper in v.27.

27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

The Spirit continually bears witness to Jesus apart from us, but we never bear witness to Jesus apart from the Spirit. This help of the Helper here concerns His empowering of the witness of the followers of Jesus. But again, we need to begin by considering two preliminary aspects of it. First, bearing witness concerning Jesus—telling the world the good news that Jesus is King and Savior—is exactly what elicits the hatred of the world. It is interesting, isn’t it, that in God’s design, the help is also the source of our need for help. Praise God for His simultaneously marvelous and mysterious grace.

And second, to get this help of the Spirit requires us to bear witness. We must tell people about Jesus if we want all the grace Jesus intends us to have in this hostile world. If the help is empowering our witness, we must witness to get the help.

Share your faith, Grace Church.

Think of someone in your life who does not yet treasure Jesus above all. Determine to share the good news with them that Jesus is the greatest treasure. And before you open your mouth to them, thank God that the Spirit will help by going go before you, convicting them of sin and making them eager to hear of God’s means of rescue.

As you contemplate potential rejection, embarrassment, or even physical persecution, remember this promised help of the Helper. As you consider the fact that they might ask questions you aren’t prepared to answer, remember this promised help of the Helper. As you are discouraged by the fact that you’ve shared the gospel with them repeatedly and to no apparent avail, remember this help of the Helper. As you consider taking the gospel to unreached people groups and the persecution and hardship it may entail, remember this help of the Helper. And as you now experience conviction of your evangelistic and missions apathy or fear, remember this help of the Helper.

With that, and once again, the second help the Spirit brings is empowering the witness of God’s people in the hostile world. The primary context is with the disciples (“because you have been with me from the beginning”), but this same commission would soon be given to all who follow Jesus as well (Matthew 28:18-20).

We just saw that the Spirit Himself bears witness concerning Jesus. He first bears witness to Jesus in us, helping us by convicting us of our need to share our faith, and empowering us to do so. He also bears witness to Jesus in the hearts of those who we bear witness to, helping us by making our witness effective. As we proclaim Christ, the Helper is the one who makes the world see the glory of Jesus, the sinfulness of their sin, and the rightness of trusting in Jesus. Awesome help indeed.

OK, remember, Jesus’ primary point in this section of John’s Gospel, His final words to His followers, is that while those who hate Him will also hate His followers, He promised to provide help to His followers in the midst of the hatred.

So far we’ve seen that the Spirit will help by going before Jesus’ disciples in bearing witness to Jesus in the hearts of men and by empowering the disciples’ witness as they proclaim Christ.

The third help of the Spirit is to keep Jesus’ followers from “falling away”.

16:1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. 2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.

Jesus said these things (the things concerning the hatred of the world) to keep His followers from falling away—He told them what to expect and how to respond to it. And it is the Holy Spirit who effects this persevering grace.

When it is really hard to be a faithful Christian, when the world hates you because you are following Jesus, the temptation will be to give up and walk away as so many did in Jesus’ day. How much are you willing to endure for the Name of Jesus? How much suffering is worth it? You need to think long and hard about whether remaining faithful is worth it. That’s the heart of Jesus message in Luke 14 (26-33).

26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. 33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Well, as you probably noticed in our passage, Jesus names two specific acts of persecution that will befall His disciples: excommunication (“they will put you out of the synagogues,” v.2) and execution (“whoever kills you,” v.2). It’s hard to picture two more severe consequences of following Jesus. To be killed is pretty self-explanatory. But to be excommunicated in that day meant something considerably different than it does today. To be put out of membership today usually just means heading up the road to another fairly similar church and starting fresh. It’s awkward and inconvenient, but fairly inconsequential. It shouldn’t be that way, but it often is.

For Jesus’ followers, however, it meant being cut off from virtually all family, religious, social, cultural, and economic opportunities (which is why the other help, the love of Christians, is so significant—again, more so than it often is today). For a first century Jew to be “put out of the synagogues” was the most disruptive thing that could be done…short of the first persecution (death), anyway.

When the greatest threats you can imagine are placed in front of you, what will you do? More importantly, what will the Spirit do for you?

The Spirit will remind you that every cost is infinitely and eternally worth it. The Spirit will persevere you in your trust in Jesus. The Spirit will help you by keeping you from falling entirely into sin or doubt. The Spirit keeps us from falling into unbelief.

To add to the craziness of all of this, Jesus mentions that the world’s hatred for Jesus makes people so crazy that in defying the living God and refusing the Rescuer He offers, in committing the most treacherous kind of persecution and murder, the world believes itself to be “offering service to God” (v.2). Like the Apostle Paul did before he came to trust in Jesus, they believe that their rejection of Jesus and persecution of His followers is the will of God.

And once again, Jesus reveals that all of this craziness is the result of their ignorance of the true nature of God (Father and Son). This is still true today for billions of people. Many believe they know God, but prove themselves mistaken, because they understand Him to exist apart from the Son. Those who claim to believe in God but deny that Jesus is God know neither Jesus nor God.

The world (by definition) always mistakenly believes it knows God. And often the world mistakenly believes it is God. And it is this ignorant ignorance that keeps the world stuck in sin and hatred for Jesus and His followers.

When we encounter this hostile craziness, in all its various forms, Jesus told His followers that the weight that would otherwise crush them will be carried by the Helper. He will keep them from falling away because of it. The Spirit will keep us united to Jesus. As you find yourself straining to obey through trial and difficulty, battling doubt and disbelief, ask the Spirit to help and He will. That’s why He was sent by the Father and the Son.

The fourth and final help of the Helper mentioned in this passage is found in 16:4. It is a familiar one.

4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.

Jesus has promised this kind of help more than once before (13:19; 14:29). The Spirit will help the followers of Jesus to persevere in faith in spite of the hatred of the world by reminding us of Jesus’ perfect keeping of all His promises.

It is right to give yourself to seeking out the promises of God for His people in His Word. And it is right to order your entire life around those promises. They are certain. And as you do, the Spirit will help you remain strong in your faith by reminding you of, and amazing you with, the promises as they come to pass.

An interesting aspect of all of this is in coming to recognize that what we often think of as “normal” is actually the supernatural work of the Helper. The common grace that we walk in 24/7/365 is the help of the Helper. It seems normal to us that our neighbor doesn’t rob or murder us, but that’s the help of the Helper. The fact that anyone has ever understood and believed the gospel usually feels “normal” but it is the work of the Spirit. That you keep believing in Jesus in spite of the fact that you can’t see Him is not “normal.” It is the work of the Spirit. And simply remembering the promises of God as they are fulfilled in your life is the Helper’s help. With this in mind, we ought to be able to see that the help of the Helper is both far more “common” in and truly essential to our daily lives than we might otherwise recognize. As we come to see experience this, we find sufficient help to endure ever hardship.

If the world around you hates Jesus, the world around you will hate you if you live like Jesus. To help us in our persecution, Jesus calls His followers to love each other. He also promised more help in the Helper. And as we just saw, the Helper’s help takes the form of His own witness, empowering our witness, keeping us from falling, and helping us to recognize the times in our lives that are the result of God’s promise keeping.

As a result of all these things, we ought to live lives that appear risky to the world; that are risky in the way of physical comfort and health; but are anything but risky in the way of everything that lasts and the help that is ours in the Helper. That is, we ought to live in ways that only make sense if God is real and His promises are always true. The Spirit will help us with this as we turn to Him for it in faith.

Exodus 3 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

8 Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. 9 And he said to his people, “Behold, the people of Israel are too many and too mighty for us. 10 Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and, if war breaks out, they join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.” 11 Therefore they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with heavy burdens. They built for Pharaoh store cities, Pithom and Raamses. 12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves.

15 Then the king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, one of whom was named Shiphrah and the other Puah, 16 “When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him, but if it is a daughter, she shall live.” 17 But the midwives feared God and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but let the male children live. 18 So the king of Egypt called the midwives and said to them, “Why have you done this, and let the male children live?” 19 The midwives said to Pharaoh, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women, for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” 20 So God dealt well with the midwives. And the people multiplied and grew very strong. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

We return to the book of Exodus this morning and find that Moses is still in the wilderness, shepherding the flock of his father-in-law. Moses had been born at a time of crisis in the history of Israel. Pharaoh enslaved the Hebrews and cruelly oppressed them. Upon reaching the age of forty years, Moses, who had been miraculously saved and adopted by the daughter of Pharaoh, went out to visit his people and struck and killed an Egyptian who had been beating a fellow Hebrew. Moses had “supposed that his brothers would understand that God was giving them salvation by his hand, but they did not understand.” They rejected their God-appointed savior, and as his forefather Jacob had done, he fled to distant relatives in the east, met a woman at a well, married her, became a shepherd of his father-in-law’s flock, and had children in exile.

Chapter three has five sections. In verses 1-3 is the Shepherd and the Burning Bush. In verses 4-6 Moses is introduced to Yahweh. In the center of the passage from verses 7-12 we learn that God is ready to save his people. In verses 13-15 Moses is told the Name of God. Finally, in 16-22, God tells of his plan of salvation for the Israelites.

At the heart of this chapter is God’s self-revelation by sight and sound as the Savior of Israel. God is preparing Moses to act as his Mediator between God, the Hebrews, and the Egyptians. God will do this not because He needs Moses but because He relates to His people covenantally, in human terms. In Exodus, God is using Moses, but in the greater Exodus, God will Himself appear as a man—Jesus Christ—as the Savior of the world.

In the beginning section, we find Moses shepherding the flock “of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian.” Moses had fled Egypt and found refuge with the Midianites. The Midianites lived in the region around Mount Horeb, and they also had their descent from Abraham through his second wife, Keturah.

Here is a former adopted son of the most powerful man in the region’s most powerful nation, living as a common shepherd. In Genesis 46:32, Joseph tells his brothers, “every shepherd is an abomination to the Egyptians.” Concerning this, one commentator writes of Moses, “Moses’ identification with his own ethnic people was now so strong that he was willing to serve in the occupation of shepherd, an assignment that no one who still thought of himself as an Egyptian would ever have taken on, so loathsome was shepherding to Egyptians.”1

Whatever aspirations he had at one time seem to have been dashed. In chapter seven, we learn that Moses was eighty years old when he went to speak to Pharaoh. So, roughly forty years have passed since Moses fled Egypt. According to our reckoning, at least, he is an old man. By this time, he would be accustomed to his life as a shepherd and familiar with life’s daily and seasonal routines as a shepherd in the wilderness.

In verse one, the text notes where Moses is—namely, “the west side of the wilderness… and Horeb, the mountain of God.” This is the region and mountain that Israel will come to in Exodus 19. Horeb is another name for Sinai. This will become significant later in the book and biblical history.

Mountains play an important role in the Bible. They are meeting places with God. The Garden of Eden was on a mountain (Ezekiel 28:13-14). 2 The Tower of Babel was a man-made mountain meant to ascend into the heavens. Abraham offered Isaac to God on Mount Moriah, where the temple would later be built. Israel will return to Sinai in Exodus 19, where God will meet Moses and the people. God humiliated the Baal worshippers during Elijah’s ministry at Mount Carmel, and Elijah then went to Mount Sinai, where God revealed himself to Eljiah (1 Kings 19). Jesus gave his most famous sermon on a mountain. Jesus was transfigured on a mountain. And Jesus ascended into heaven from a mountain.

Mountains, being nearer to heaven, were naturally a place where one would go to approach God. This is the meaning of the so-called “high places” in the Old Testament, where Israelites often went to worship God, though he commanded them only to worship at his designated high place, his temple in Jerusalem. Watch for this theme in the Scriptures—find a mountain, and you will likely find a place where God will meet with man, or man will vainly attempt to meet God.

Verse three says, “And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.” We were first introduced to the term “angel of the LORD” in Genesis 16, when Hagar, the servant of Sarai, is fleeing her mistress. The context there is clear that this “angel of the LORD” is God himself.

This passage, too, makes it very clear that this “angel” is “the LORD, Yahweh—we see this in verse 4, 6, 7, 13-16, 18, etc. “Angel” means messenger, and in this case, we should understand that this “angel” is a representation of God. In this case, this messenger took the form of a “flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.”

God often appears in a fire in the Bible. We see this first in Genesis 15, where “a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between pieces [of animals Abraham had offered in sacrifice to God.] (Gen. 15:17) Later in Exodus, the LORD will go “before them by day in a pillar of cloud… and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light.” (Ex. 13:21) At Sinai, in Exodus 24:17, “the appearance of the glory of the LORD was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.” This image of God appearing in fire continues throughout the Old Testament.

God appearing in fire is a way of showing forth the light of God. David writes in Psalm 27:1, “The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?” Light is connected with truth in places like Psalm 43:3, “Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me…” Isaiah connects light with the promise of the Messiah, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” We have seen that light has a big place in the gospel of John. In the first chapter, John writes of Jesus, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

The fire and the symbolism of light are important here, but the true marvel is that the fire did not consume the bush. It is this that captured Moses’ attention. At first, Moses knew nothing of the fire—only that it was something altogether new to him, that the fire did not consume the bush. The scene is now set: the forsaken savior of Israel, the once prince, now shepherd, is about to hear of the exodus he is about to accomplish in Egypt.

Moses will now be introduced to Yahweh. This is the second main section of the chapter. “Yahweh” is the Hebrew word translated into all capitals “LORD” in most English Bibles. We see this name of God used seven times in this chapter. We’ll soon learn more about the significance of this name.

Once Moses turns aside, God speaks. He calls, “Moses, Moses!” Why does God use the burning bush to capture Moses’ attention rather than his voice? There was something particularly significant about the order here. God seems to want Moses to connect his voice to the burning bush. I found Scott Oliphint particularly helpful in considering the burning bush. He writes, “There is something uniquely revelatory about the name of God as presented to Moses in the unburning bush. God not only says who he is; he also shows who he is.” 3 As we consider the details of the burning bush—let’s watch closely at what God says while considering what he does.

The fire is burning, but the bush is not being used as fuel—it continues to exist without being destroyed by the fire dwelling in it. The fire is self-existent, otherworldly. Yet it is there, in “the midst of [the] bush,” which is as earthly as Moses. Later in Exodus, God’s fire will lead the people of Israel without consuming them. God will dwell with his people as he dwelt in the midst of the bush.

Immediately, God cautions Moses not to approach any closer. He says, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” In encountering God, Moses is immediately confronted between the holy and the common. Having revealed himself in the burning bush near Moses, God had turned the common wilderness into “holy ground.” This holy ground could only be trod in bare feet—why? This would surely have been a question Moses would ponder. Later, priests in the Tabernacle will be in bare feet as well. Additionally, the mosaic law would regulate the clean/unclean distinction in relationship to whether the animal had hooves—sandals, so to speak. (Lev. 11:3)

God then identifies himself, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” He had made covenant promises He had not forgotten them. In the words of Numbers 23:19: “God is not man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?”

Moses then hid his face from God, “for he was afraid to look at God.” You can hardly blame him. Men have been hiding from God since Genesis 3 after Adam and Eve disobeyed the LORD and ate the forbidden fruit. The sight and sound of God would frighten the strongest and boldest of men—the being that made the ground around him holy, is holy, and apart from the Holy Spirit, we are unholy. Isaiah, when confronted by the LORD said, “Woe is me!” (Isaiah 6:5) and Job said, “I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:6)

Yet all men everywhere are tempted to treat the holy as common, to blaspheme God. We do this when we misuse the name of God or the name of Jesus Christ, His Son. We do this when we lightly disregard the law of God. We do this when we treat the Lord’s Supper as common fare. We do this when we neglect corporate worship or think of it no differently than going to a friend’s house or the movies. Grace, we must be a reverent people, regard Him as holy, and teach others to do the same.

Now that Moses has met Yahweh, he is about to learn that God is ready to save his people. This is the third and central section of the chapter—God’s covenant faithfulness. God relates to Moses his awareness of his people’s suffering. Verses 7 and 9 parallel each other, expressing solidarity with Israel, with a specific promise of their deliverance in between, in verse 8.

Notice how “I have surely seen the affliction of My people” in verse 7 is repeated in verse 9 as “I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.” “I have heard their cry” in verse 7 is repeated in verse 9 as “the cry of the people of Israel has come to Me.” God is being very clear with Moses. He knows their suffering and oppression, and he will act. When God remembers, He always acts.

In the middle of that expression of sympathy and understanding is the great promise: “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.” Notice how this is sandwiched between God’s declaration to Moses of who He is and His name. Central to God’s identity is his faithfulness, his trustworthiness, his covenant-keeping love.

We had heard God’s expression of love for Israel at the end of the previous chapter, but now Moses is hearing it himself, and it is he that God intends to use to accomplish salvation for Israel. God has shown Moses his holiness and transcendence—that is, his distinctness from creation. Now Moses is being shown the steadfast love of the LORD for his covenant people. God has not forgotten them, nor has God forgotten Moses. God has seen and heard their suffering and has “come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians.”

Not only does he intend to deliver them, but he has prepared the land to which he will take them. He calls it “a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” It is the same land in which Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all sojourned—a land that each of them had to flee due to famine. The land had not been spoken of this way, as “a land flowing with milk and honey” yet. This is a land that God has prepared for his covenant people. Notice, too, that God lists the names of six nations: “the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.” These six nations have been working all these years to prepare the land so that the seventh nation, Israel, would find Sabbath rest upon it. Even this subtle detail points to God’s love for his people.

In verse 10, God gets to the point with Moses. He says, “I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” Remember that Moses already tried to save Israel by killing a man who had been beating a Hebrew slave. But the people rejected him, and he had to flee Egypt. God’s plan is to use Moses to go up the chain of command all the way to Pharaoh! At this point, Moses understandably expresses some doubts about the plan. Moses had to flee Egypt for his life. Now, God wants him to go back? Who of us doesn’t regularly doubt the wisdom of God in one way or another? And are not our doubts magnified when our lives or livelihoods are put at risk?

Moses asks God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Ex. 3:11) What do you think of Moses’ question? Is this a proper humility?

Moses considers God’s plan of salvation in human terms—he is focused on his authority and influence. He is an outcast of both Hebrew and Egyptian society. The Israelites rejected him when he sought to save them, and he forever alienated himself from the Egyptians when he killed one. Why would either side listen to him, let alone give him an audience? It is here that we see the main point of this whole chapter. God says, “But I will be with you…” God’s plan of salvation hinges not upon Moses, the Israelites, or the Egyptians—but on God alone. As Paul writes in Romans 8:31, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” God doesn’t need Moses to accomplish salvation, but God is going to use him as a mediator. Moses is to represent God to both the Israelites and the Egyptians. Moses will be the voice of God—declaring God’s plans and judgments to both Israel and Egypt.

We will consider this office of Mediator later. For now, let’s continue in verse 12. God tells Moses of the sign meant to accompany this pledge of God’s authority. God tells Moses, “When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” God is stating as a fact, not merely as a promise, but as though it has already been accomplished. Both Moses and the people will return to the very place they are currently speaking—and there they will serve God. “Serve” in this verse should be understood as “worship.” The two words are largely synonymous in the Bible.

Moses next wants to know how he will be able to persuade his fellow Israelites that his commissioning is truly derived from the God of their fathers. As one commentator writes, they won’t ask Moses “what God’s name is…because they do not know it…They ask the name because they do know it and will not be constrained to listen to a spokesman from God who cannot establish that their named God has indeed sent him.” 4

God’s name is not the kind of name we’re accustomed to. God’s Name is holy and expressive of His very identity. God tells Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.'” (Ex. 3:14) Throughout the Old Testament, this name, in Hebrew, is Yahweh. This is translated in most English translations as the all-capital, “LORD.” What kind of name is “I AM?” What does it mean? Why is this the name God has chosen to share with his covenant people?

Scott Oliphint says it well when he writes that God gave “an analogy in the bush” that helps us understand His name. “First,” he writes, “the fire, which itself represents God… is in and with the bush. It could have easily hovered above the bush or beside it. It could have had no obvious relation to the bush at all. The significance of its presence in the bush is that it is meant to signify Yahweh’s presence with his people. It shows that God is a covenant God—dwelling with His people. Second, the fire in the bush does not derive its burning from the context in which it burns. It is self-generated, contradicting all rules of creation. The bush is on fire, but the fire is not dependent on the bush; it possesses its own energy. There is, it seems, a deliberate miracle given by God to unveil the significance of the divine name, “I AM WHO I AM.” It stresses the absolute independence of God’s being, that he possesses being in and of himself in a manner that is uncaused… It is the ultimate fact about God that makes the human mind stagger and reel because we have no categories to describe or understand this element of the existence of God—that he simply is… Here we have in miniature an extraordinary illustration of that undying biblical principle that God’s ultimate purpose in creation, though remaining all the while God, is to dwell with his people. This is the Emmanuel principle that runs from the garden of Eden to the closing chapters of Revelation.” 5

This is important—let me rephrase and restate it for you. There is meant to be a connection between God revealing himself in the burning bush—which is not burned up, and the divine name “I AM.” God revealed himself to Moses in the form of fire—in a bush that was not consumed by the fire. The fire did not need the bush for fuel; it is untroubled by the fire that appears within it. God does not need anything in creation, he is wholly independent of it. God is independent and self-existent. He is the Creator distinct from His creation but does not remain outside it. God is fully present, engaged, and with His creation. As Douglas Stuart writes, God’s “name should… be understood as referring to Yahweh’s being the creator and sustainer of all that exists and thus the Lord of both creation and history, all that is and all that is happening—a God active and present in historical affairs.” 6

That is the first thing we must understand about the name, but we should also recognize that even though God is distinct, independent, and self-existing from His creation, he can and will dwell with his people. This, in fact, is the main storyline of the Bible—God uniting heaven and earth to dwell with His people.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen. 1:1) The two were separate and distinct realms. On the second day, God separated heaven and earth and “called the expanse heaven.” On the third day, God gathered the waters under the heaven together “and let the dry land appear.” He called this place “Earth.” After he finished creation, he came to Adam and Eve in the garden, a garden sanctuary—the meeting place between God and man. But as we know, Adam fell, was cast out of this garden, and estranged from his Creator.

The Old Testament is the story of God’s plan to restore a place where God can meet with man. To this point in the Bible, God has only dealt with a few men—Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In Exodus 3, God initiates the reconciliation between God and all men—to fulfill what he promised Abraham. This reconciliation reaches its climax in the incarnation of Jesus—the God-man. Recall the words of Matthew 1:23, “‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel’ (which means, God with us.)” Or remember the prologue to John’s Gospel, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…” (John 1:14) The Lord’s prayer directs us to pray for this unification of heaven and earth—”Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…” (Matt. 6:9-10) The Bible ends with this same theme in Revelation 21—where the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven to earth. And then, “a loud voice from the throne” says, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.”

God uses this metaphor throughout the rest of Scripture to show how all men everywhere have been enslaved by sin and need redemption from their bondage to sin. In the gospels, we find Jesus preparing a great exodus himself, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves.

“I AM” is to be the name that Moses tells to “the people of Israel. He is also to remind them that He is “the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” As we saw earlier, central to God’s identity is his faithfulness, his trustworthiness, his covenant-keeping love.

This brings us to the final section of the chapter—God’s plan of salvation for Israel. God has shown Moses who He is, He has said who He is, and He will now tell Moses what he will do. The plan is fairly straightforward. First, Moses is to “gather the elders of Israel” and tell them what God has told Moses. God assured Moses they would listen to him.

Moses and the elders are then to “go to the king of Egypt and tell him, “The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.'” Now, this may surprise all of you who know the rest of the story. Moses is not to ask for full release from slavery but only to travel three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to God. Perhaps we can spend more time on this question later in the book, for Moses will repeat this request to Pharaoh. For now, let’s acknowledge that if Pharaoh will not concede to this more modest request, there is no chance he will be willing to let all of them go forever out of his dominion.

Again, the plan is simple—go with the elders of Israel and ask Pharaoh to let them serve God in the wilderness. In verse 19, there is an important “But.” God knows “that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand.” God knows this and is ready to use that mighty hand. He declares to Moses, “I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go.” God goes on to say that the Israelites will “plunder the Egyptians” when they leave after God gives the people “favor in the sight of the Egyptians.”

This simple plan will be accomplished only by the “mighty hand” of God. God is going to accomplish his redemptive purposes. Moses must only do as he is commanded, and God will do the rest. Israel is to leave Egypt with its riches and enter a land “flowing with milk and honey.”

God has much more to tell Moses; in fact, Moses, too, has a lot more questions for God. But we’ll save that for next time. Let’s wrap up chapter three.

What are we to take away from Moses’s encounter with God at the burning bush? First, God is the all-powerful, all-wise, independent, self-existent God. He doesn’t need anything—especially you or me. But God does use people like you and me to accomplish his purposes. God has been preparing his people for hundreds of years and Moses for eighty years by this point. God is going to use Moses to accomplish the salvation of Israel. Moses is privileged to participate in and witness the events of the exodus. We, too, have the privilege to participate in and witness the events of the greater exodus.

Greater exodus, you may wonder? Yes. Earlier, I hinted that “In the gospels, we find Jesus preparing a great exodus himself.” Let’s take a look at Luke 9:28-36. Turn there with me.

“Now about eight days after these sayings he took with him Peter and John and James and went up on the mountain to pray. And as he was praying, the appearance of his face was altered, and his clothing became dazzling white. 30 And behold, two men were talking with him, Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory and spoke of his EXODUS, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and those who were with him were heavy with sleep, but when they became fully awake they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. And as the men were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good that we are here. Let us make three tents, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah”—not knowing what he said. As he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” And when the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in those days anything of what they had seen.”

I said earlier that we would discuss the office of “Mediator.” Here, at the Transfiguration, we clearly see Jesus acting as the mediator between God and man. We see Jesus as the meeting place between God and man in his body.

Jesus, like Moses, took some of his flock up a mountain. There is no burning bush here, but something bright captures the attention of the three disciples. The face of Jesus “was altered” and “his clothing became dazzling white.” Two men, Moses and Elijah, appear and begin talking to Jesus about his “exodus”—don’t let the word “departure” mislead you—the word in Greek is “exodus.” They are discussing “the exodus, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.” Why Moses and Elijah? These are the two men God revealed himself to at Mount Sinai. (Ex. 3, 1 Kings 19) Here, “Peter and John and James” are witnesses to a new revealing—the God-Man, Jesus Christ as the Son of God, God’s “Chosen One.” The transfiguration of Jesus serves us today as the self-revelation of the Incarnate God in the flesh of man. Jesus Christ is about to plunder the kingdom of Satan—”proclaiming liberty to the captives” (Luke 4:18), releasing captives from the law “which held us captive” (Rom. 7:6), delivering “all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:15), and setting men free from slavery to sin (Rom. 6:17).

The voice of God declared the authority and identity of Jesus Christ: “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to him!” And so just as the elders of Israel and the king of Egypt were to listen to the voice of Moses, the three apostles with Jesus on the mountain were to listen to the Son. And so are we. Jesus is the very Son of God, invested with “All authority in heaven and on earth.” (Mat. 28:18) Jesus “gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim 2:6)—that we who had been slaves of sin have been set free in Christ.

Just as the Israelites in Egypt were born into slavery, every child born into the world is born into the slavery of sin. But unlike Hebrew slaves, we do not need to await our redemption—Jesus has already accomplished it at the cross. Remember, all of you who have already been set free were bought with a price. (1 Cor. 6:20, 7:23) Those of you still enslaved to sin, plead with God for salvation. Do not harden your heart as Pharaoh, but submit. Listen to God’s Chosen One!

I said earlier that the main point of this whole chapter is that God’s plan of salvation hinges not upon Moses, the Israelites, or the Egyptians—but God alone. This holds true for the salvation that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us upon the cross. We contribute nothing to our salvation—it is entirely a work of Jesus alone. Some of you may be wondering then, if God doesn’t need Moses, why does he involve him? What can Moses do that God cannot? What does it matter what we do or don’t do if God is so powerful? The answer is actually at the beginning of the Bible.

From the beginning, God intended that men should be the creatures exercising God’s will and purposes in His creation. God charged men to “have dominion” (Gen. 1:28) over all that He had created and told us specifically to “work it and keep it.” (Gen 2:15). This is what it means to bear His image on the earth. By doing God’s works on the earth, we proclaim to all of creation that we are His creatures and accomplishing His will.

God does intervene on our behalf because we are fallen, and our ability to fulfill the dominion mandate was hampered because of the fall and God’s curse upon the earth. In Exodus 3, God intervened to prepare a Savior, a mediator who would accomplish His salvation. God promised Moses, “I will be with you.” (Ex. 3:12) God equipped Moses for the task which he was given. Yes, it would be hard. We will see that in subsequent chapters. But what greater cause could Moses give his life to but the God-appointed salvation of His people?

It mattered what Moses would do, and it matters what we do. Yes, God can accomplish His purposes apart from us. But He has, from the beginning, used men to exercise His dominion. Adam and Eve fell, but God promised he would give them a savior that would be born a man. God used Noah to save a remnant of men and all animals during the global flood. God had promised to bless “all the families of the earth” through Abraham. (Gen 12:3) Moses was the next man that God would use as His means of redemption.

God has equipped all believers with His Holy Spirit so that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven. God has entrusted this world to us and given us His Spirit to fulfill both the dominion mandate—being fruitful and multiplying upon the earth—and the Great Commission—making disciples of all nations, teaching them to obey all Christ commanded. These two tasks are intertwined.

Moses was commanded to save Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, bring them into covenant with God, and bring them to the promised land. We are commanded to do likewise. We have been commanded to make disciples of all nations—plundering the kingdom of darkness, liberating those enslaved to sin, bringing them into covenant with God, and delivering them into a heavenly and eternal kingdom. All have a role to fill in this mission. But on Mother’s Day, I want to give some specific application and encouragement to you.

Mothers, you are life-givers—filling the world with people who are loved and have been discipled in the faith. All women can do this—and what greater calling could there be?

Mothers, God has uniquely equipped you for this task: to birth, nurse, nurture, and care for children. These are hard tasks. You mothers know better than I the physical, mental, and emotional demands that children place upon you from conception and every day after. But it is worth it all, is it not? In John 16:21, Jesus says, “When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because 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.” Being a mother is an awe-inspiring vocation. Embrace the role gladly and submit to God in it.

Do as Paul writes in Titus 2: love your husbands and children, be self-controlled and pure, prioritize the work of your home, be kind, and submit to your husbands—that the Word of God may not be reviled. You will find God’s blessing in obeying Him. There is a spiritual mothering that all women may offer, even after your children have grown up and left your home, or even if you’ve never had children of your own. As Jesus says in Matthew 12:48-49, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers? … Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” So gladly pursue God’s call upon your life to fill the world with people who know and obey the LORD—start with your children and extend outward from there.

Fathers, support your wives in their mothering. Give them what they need to mother well. Honor your wife in front of your children. Do not argue with her in front of them. Require your children to respect and obey their mother. Ensure your wives have the money necessary to clothe and feed your family. Honor your wife in the ways that God has uniquely equipped her to be a life-giver. Men, you too are called to fill the world with disciples of Jesus. Teach and model obedience, starting with your family and extend outward to your workplace and your community. If you aren’t reading the Bible with your family—start today.

Children, honor and obey your mother. Along with your father, she is your God-appointed authority. She has love and wisdom to offer you. Gratefully accept both. You need her love, wisdom, and experience. Tell her you love her. And you grown-up children, honor her still. Ensure she has no unmet needs. Help her in her weakness. Encourage her in faith. As Paul writes in 1 Timothy 5:4, “show godliness to [your] own household and make…some return to [your] parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God.” Children, you too, can help fill the world with disciples of Jesus. Start by obeying your Mom and Dad. Love your siblings, your neighbors, and classmates. Pursue obedience and holiness. Read and study your Bible.

As I said at the beginning, “At the heart of this chapter is God’s self-revelation by sight and sound as the Savior of Israel.” God prepared Moses to act as His mediator as a shadow of what He would do through the greater Mediator, Jesus Christ. While Christ rules on his heavenly throne, Christians fulfill the role of mediator to the world.

As we learned in John 13:35, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is one of the main ways we witness to unbelievers—the unique, Spirit-filled love one Christian has for another. So may our love be genuine (Rom 12:9), and may we always trust in God’s redemptive plan and participate with joy in fulfilling his kingdom work, knowing that He is at work in and through us by the power of His Holy Spirit. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:58)

1. Douglas K. Stuart The New American Commentary: Exodus, B&H Publish Group, 2006, p. 108

2. James B. Jordan Through New Eyes, Wolgemuth & Hyatt, Publishers, Inc. Brentwood, Tennessee, p. 155

3. K. Scott Oliphint God With Us: Divine Condescension and the Attributes of God, Crossway 2014

4. C.R. Seitz as quoted in T. Desmond Alexander Exodus: Apollos Old Testament Commentary InterVarsity Press Downers Grove, Illinois p. 88

5. K. Scott Oliphint God With Us, Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois (Kindle edition)

6. Douglas K. Stuart The New American Commentary: Exodus, B&H Publish Group, 2006, p. 121

17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. 21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

I recently got the following text from a pastor friend.

My day yesterday: 8:45: Baptized [my son]. A great joy. 10:15: Here a testimony of someone who came to faith through my preaching when I told the story of Spurgeon’s conversion. A great encouragement. 12:00 – A couple pulls me [aside] and asks to meet immediately. Wife is in [an] unrepentant affair. Her second. A member. I’m at a loss for words. I can’t convince her to stop. Though today she broke it off (we’ll see…) and agreed to meet. 2:00 – I’m flabbergasted by the dear influential family in our church that I love. 3:45 – With [baptized son] eating Buffalo Wilds Wings to celebrate. A great joy. 5:00 – With a young family. Dad most likely has pancreatic cancer. 7:30 – [Baby of a family friend] has a heart attack and has to [be] resuscitated.

I responded by coining the term (probably not), “Pastoral whiplash.”

That’s somewhat akin to what we have in our passage for this morning. It is clear that v.18-25 are meant to be seen in contrast to the previous section (vs.1-17, and especially 12-17). That’s why I included v.17 in the Scripture reading. Jesus moved abruptly from talking about the love and friendship between Him and His followers to the hatred of the world for Him and His followers. In other words, in a sense, Jesus was preparing His followers for the kind of perpetual whiplash inherent to the Christian life in a hostile world.

The big idea of the passage is that wherever Jesus is hated in the world, all who truly follow Him will be hated as well. And the big takeaways from the passage are to (1) follow Jesus in such a way that those who hate Him will also hate us and (2) to love one another in such a way that will protect and heal us from the world’s attacks. Let’s all decide once-and-for-all that suffering for obeying Jesus in the love of the saints is a far better life (not to mention eternal life) than every temporary comfort in disobedience.

The logic of this passage is easy to see (I love it when that happens). To make it as clear as possible, I’m going to preach it somewhat out of order. What I mean is, the four main arguments of Jesus are plain, but spread out throughout the passage. I’m going to bring them together so we don’t miss what’s there.

The first main argument is found in vs.18-19 (I’ll come back to v.17 at the end). It is a warning from Jesus to His followers that where He is hated by the world, we will be too. The second is Jesus’ explanation for why that is—because the world first hated Him because it is confused by the nature of God. We see that in vs. 18, 20, 21, 23, and 25. Third, in vs. 22 and 24, we find a couple of interesting statements regarding the world’s responsibility for its hatred of Jesus and His followers. And finally, the fourth main argument of the passage (within its broader context) is that Christian love is both God’s protection against and means of healing from the world’s persecution.

With that, let’s look at vs.18-19 and consider the first claim of John: That the world hates those who follow Jesus.

18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

It’s always good to begin with definitions. There are two of particular importance: “World” and “Hate”.

To understand what Jesus/John means by “The world,” we need to understand two things. First, it is one of the most important words in John’s Gospel. This is easily seen in the fact that John/Jesus use it seventy-eight times; more than almost every other word. And second, it’s used in a few different ways. 1:10 helps us to see this. It reads, “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.” In the first two clauses “the world” refers to God’s physical creation. In the third clause it refers more specifically to rebellious people within the world; to those whose trust is not in God (even if they believe it to be).

It is that second sense that Jesus has in mind throughout this passage. When He speaks of the world’s hatred for Him and His followers, therefore, He is referring to all who are in rebellion against God.

The second key term, “Hate,” as Jesus uses it means just what you think it means. The man who authored my Greek grammar text highlights the various facets of the word, “to regard with ill-will, Mt. 5:43, 44; 10:22; to detest, to abhor, Jn. 3:20; Rom. 7:15”. In its strongest form, this is no mere indifference. It is more than preferring otherwise. It is animosity, hostility, disdain.

Jesus’ promise to His followers is that those in rebellion against God, those who hate God (the world), will detest and abhor (hate) them. Let’s follow along as Jesus unpacks that by considering His several clarifying clauses.

All of that sounds pretty harsh, doesn’t it? I’m pretty sure I’m following Jesus, but I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced something I’d call “hate” from others because of it. So what does all of this mean?

The “if” at the beginning of v.18 helps answer that question. There is a sense in which Jesus statements are both possible and certain. As we’ll see in a bit, it is certain in that to the degree that the world hates Jesus, it will to the same degree hate those who think, feel, speak, and act like Jesus.

At the same time, Jesus’ words are a possibility for Christians in that if “the world” is in smaller concentration or through God’s common grace knows a significant measure of the fear of the Lord, the hatred will be muted. Additionally, Jesus’ prediction is a possibility in that, the less we act think, feel, speak, and act like Jesus, the less the world will hate us (more on that in just a second).

Again, the promise, as we will see, is that wherever and however Jesus is hated, so too will be those who truly follow Him. In Jesus’ day, there was a strong concentration of hatred for Him and, therefore, there would be a strong concentration of hatred for those who imitated and obeyed Him.

In the next clause (“if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own”) we see more clearly that the hatred promised by Jesus is only a promise to those who are truly following Jesus. It is not a promise to those who merely claim to follow Jesus or for those who go along with the world’s ways.

Grace, we noted that “the world” refers to those who are not truly trusting in God. As you know, that consists of quite a spectrum from unbelieving believers on one end, to angry atheists on the other. Being “of the world,” therefore, has a number of different looks. All of them have one thing in common, however. They are all willing to compromise on certain aspects of God’s design and commands.

Jesus’ point is that wherever there’s willing compromise with the world, the world “loves” it. The world will tolerate you just fine as long as you’re willing to go along with them in their thinking.

It’s hard to picture a context in which that’s more obviously true than our own. Both within and without of the church there’s a continual temptation to compromise to maintain the “love,” the “favor,” of the world.

Within and without of the church we’re continually challenged to compromise and capitulate on areas of sexuality, race, gender, feminism, life, the role of government, love, spirituality/religion, marriage, truth, the kingship of Jesus, etc. And as long as we’re willing to float along in whatever current the culture around us (the world) has determined to create in those areas, we’ll be fine. They’ll be glad to have us. But the moment we get out of the cultural water or begin swimming against the cultural current, however, the veneer of “love” is peeled back and the truth is revealed. The temptation is ever before us to seek the world’s love by believing, teaching, and practicing things that are culturally acceptable, but biblically untenable.

If you were in the world, you’d be OK. But Jesus declared in the next clause that all of His true followers “are not of the world.” That means that Christians have given ourselves to living in light of God’s love and not to gain the world’s “love.” It means that our hope is in not ultimately in anything this world can provide. It means that by God’s grace we have determined to live according to God’s promises, plans, and priorities, and not the world’s.

Putting all of that into practice means that we need to know our Bibles well because we need to know who Jesus really is and what He really requires. Grace, please hear this clearly, there is no virtue in taking stands where Jesus hasn’t called us to take a stand. And there is no honor in experiencing persecution for a misunderstanding or misapplication of God’s will. And there is nothing glorifying to God about placing our trust in something Jesus hasn’t really promised. And it does not please the Lord for us to simply believe we are not of this world.

We have to be thoughtful, prayerful, humble, charitable, loving, kind, and brave. And with all of that, we have to determine to be willing to endure any hardship and hatred for living as Jesus modeled and commanded. We need to live such that anyone who loves that which is good, beautiful, and true will think well of us, while knowing full well that the world is largely defined by those who do not; and those who do not will hate us, Jesus said.

That leads us to wonder why we are not of the world. How did we get out? That’s next point.

Remember Jesus’ words from 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you…”. He returned to that idea in v.19. His followers are not of the world because He chose them out of it. He removed them from bondage and allegiance to it. We remain in it, but are no longer of it.

Like the world, we too were once hostile to God (Romans 8:7). We too once thought of the cross as foolish (1 Corinthians 1:18). We too were once blinded to the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus (2 Corinthians 4:4). We too once had no appetite for goodness, beauty, and truth.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

But God called us out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

But God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 1:4).

God’s people, Jesus’ disciples, are such because of the sovereign grace of God. It is not ultimately the result of our works (Ephesians 2:8-9sal) or will (John 1:13), but God’s mercy. He opened the eyes of our hearts (Ephesians 1:18) that we might behold the Son of God in glory, forsake the world, and follow Jesus wherever He leads and whatever it costs.

Therefore, once again, the world hates you. What’s more, in v.20, Jesus adds that they will persecute you as well. While hatred denotes a disposition, persecution denotes an action based on the disposition. Hatred is a feeling toward Jesus’ followers. Persecution is the mistreatment that results from it.

It will not take long to function in authentically Christian ways in the public sphere before you will know some measure of hatred and persecution.

In all of this we find the first of two significant helps from Jesus to navigate this hatred and persecution. We’ll get to the second one at the very end of the sermon. The first is a clear warning and an explanation. The warning, which we just saw, is, simply enough, the clearest possible statement that this will happen—that where the world hates Jesus, it will hate all who love Him. It doesn’t take away the difficulties associated with the world’s hatred, but it ensures that we need not be surprised by it and it gives us a chance to prepare for it.

And within that, He gave a clear explanation as well. That’s where we’ll turn now.

Why is it inevitable that the world will hate you for following Jesus, for abiding in Him? Jesus gives three direct answers to that question.

The first answer we’ve seen several times already. We saw it first in the second half of v.18, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”

We see the same thing again in v.20, “Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

With those two verses in mind, let’s think back to Jesus’ words in 15:1-11. There He explained to His followers that they were united to Jesus, and He to them. Therefore, Jesus said, they ought to abide in Him—to gladly acknowledge in every aspect of their lives—every thought, feeling, action, interaction, inclination, observation, and evaluation—that they are entirely dependent on Jesus.

When we combine those ideas, Jesus’ rationale ought to be clear. Consider my paraphrase…

“As you know, I lived in such a way that stirred hatred among many of the Jews and their leaders (“the world”). Even the miracles I worked, rescuing people from a lifetime of suffering in some cases, filled them with vitriol. While I was on earth all the anger was directed at me. Now that I’m going away, however, insofar as you abide in me, insofar as you think what I thought, feel what I felt, say what I said, and do what I did, insofar as you faithfully represent me among the nations, that hatred will be redirected at you. They will hate you as they hated Me, because I am in you and you are in me. It is, therefore, Me in you that they hate.”

What’s Jesus’ explanation for the world’s hatred of His people? The first part is the world’s hatred of Jesus.

The second part of Jesus’ explanation is a misunderstanding of His nature. In other words, Jesus answers the question of why the world hates Him as it does. We see that in vs.21 and 23.

21 But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.

23 Whoever hates me hates my Father also.

The world hates us because it hates Jesus (who is in us). And it hates Jesus because it does not understand Jesus’ relationship to the Father. Without knowing it, in Jesus’ day, the world hated the Father as well, for you cannot hate the Son without hating the Father—for they are one in essence, purpose, will, and glory.

Again, Grace, remember that whenever you experience the ire of the world around you for following Jesus, it is not really you that the world hates, it is the God you represent.

In that way, third and finally, Jesus explained that the world’s hatred of His followers was the fulfillment of prophecy and ultimately without cause.

25 But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: ‘They hated me without a cause.’

In this passage Jesus was quoting Psalm 35:19 and 69:5. In that we see that the world’s hatred of Christians shows God’s knowledge and power as it is the fulfillment of His promise. At the same time, it is entirely without legitimacy. It is a foolish hatred. It is ignorant hatred. It is deadly hatred.

Remember, whatever challenges, persecutions, and hatred you encounter, isn’t ultimately directed at you. It’s directed at Christ in you. Grieve the rejection of Jesus, but be encouraged in your faith, as it means that you really are following Jesus.

In the midst of all of this, Jesus made two interesting claims.

22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.

24 If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.

This, of course, does not mean that mankind in general or “the world” in particular was sinless before Jesus came. Neither was He suggesting that anyone had a legitimate excuse for sin prior to His coming. His teaching and works did not introduce sin or make mankind responsible for sin.

His point, rather, is that His words and deeds were the final and greatest proof of the sin of the world and the only rescue from it. Their rejection of Him removed every possible objection to God’s judgment. Let me explain.

The OT is largely the story of every man trying every possible way to escape from sin. God revealed Himself and mankind’s sin in creation, leaders, laws, judges, prophets, and kings. At the same time, God provided help in covenants, sacrifices, and priests to administer them. In each of these things God revealed to mankind his sin and his inability to rescue himself from it.

And yet, it might be argued that there was still a greater revelation God could provide, one in which mankind would finally understand and turn from sin to God. Indeed, there was, the very Word of God Himself had not yet come. The light in the darkness. The perfect image (Colossians 1:15), the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature (Hebrews 1:3). Were He to come, everyone would finally see and turn to God, right?!

Indeed, He did come and stood before them and taught them and performed miracles for them to see. And they still rejected them. They rejected the highest and greatest display of God’s glory and holiness and power to save just as they had every lesser one. Therefore, they were finally and truly without excuse. There was nothing left for them to appeal to. Therein they revealed their true hatred for God, themselves as God’s enemies, their guilt, and the justice of their condemnation.

So where does all of that leave us?

I mentioned earlier that in the context of this passage, Jesus offered two helps to His followers who would be hated by the world. The first one we already considered—fair warning and a clear explanation.

The second is found in the previous section and is well summarized in v.17, “These things I command you, so that you will love one another.”

In addition to being good in its own right, Christian love and friendship is the second help Jesus provides for His hated, persecuted followers.

Grace, Christian love and friendship is a tool for war. It’s a shield against the enemy’s attacks and a balm for when their wounds land. In that way, insofar as we are a people who are determined to follow Jesus in such a way that will stir the hatred of the world, we must also be a people who are determined to love one another well. Bu not just any old kind of love will help. We need to be a people who care about one another in ways that require the Spirit in us. We do so primarily by living out the one-another commands of God’s Word together.

In other words, the kind of Christian love and friendship that protects and heals from the world’s hatred isn’t up to us to define or decide on. It is obedience to God’s Word. God tells us what Christian love looks like, even as He empowers us for it (the good fruit of abiding in Jesus).

Consider with me, therefore, in closing, many of the God-prescribed ways to love one another and therein protect and heal. I’ll read a handful of them, but you would do well to pull up the manuscript later and consider all 33. (Most of this list was compiled by Tim Chalise. It’s the best one I’ve found.)

Again, these are the ways we love one another well. And as we do, by the Spirit’s power, we will protect one another from the sting of world’s hatred and heal the wounds that come.

Grace, remember the teaching of our Lord, wherever Jesus is hated in the world, all who truly follow Him will be hated too. And remember that the big takeaways from the passage are to (1) follow Jesus in such a way that those who hate Him will also hate us and (2) to love one another in such a way that will protect and heal us from the world’s attacks. May it be so, by the Spirit’s power, for the glory of God, and unto the good of the world. The world hates you, so love one another in Jesus’ love.

John 15:12-17 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 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. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

One thing common to all people is the need to make sense of the big questions in life.

Who am I? Why am I here? Is there any ultimate meaning? Why is life hard? What is good and evil? What happens after I die?

We’re not always conscious that we’re trying to find consistent answers to these kinds of questions, but it is a phenomenon universal to all mankind. It is a track that is perpetually running inside of us. That’s part of what it means to be made in the image of God. Not having answers is part of the restlessness that is common to all apart from Christ, even as having answers is a part of the peace of the Spirit for all who are in Christ.

Another of the big questions in life relates to our wills. Am I free? Why do I desire the things I desire? Is there anything outside of me that has influence on me or authority over me?

The heart of this passage is part of the answer to this last set of questions. To be clear, this passage does not give the final word on free will or answer every question we might have on the relationship between God’s sovereignty and our freedom. What it does do, however, is give us a clear statement on the lordship of Jesus and the fact that it shapes our choices in significant ways. Jesus has and uses authority to choose a people to follow Him as well as to determine the purpose of our following. Let’s make sure we don’t read more into this passage than what’s in it, but let’s be equally sure not to miss what’s there.

In other words, the big idea of this passage is that Jesus chose His followers (they didn’t choose Him) and He did so in order that they might bear lasting fruit among all mankind. Throughout the six verses, Jesus named five specific kinds of abiding fruit: love, obedience, friendship, teaching, and prayer. Consequently, the main takeaways are to abide in Jesus and out of that, give ourselves to love, obey, befriend, teach, and pray.

Before I pray, I’d like to quickly remind you that we are in the last quarter of John’s Gospel. His overall purpose for recording the things he did concerning Jesus’ life and ministry is to convince his readers that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior of the world, so that his readers would believe in Jesus and be saved (20:31).

To that end, John spent eleven chapters recalling the first three+ years of Jesus earthly ministry and then the final nine chapters recalling the events of the final week of Jesus life on earth. We’re in chapter fifteen, the events of which (along with all of chapters 13-17) took place on Thursday evening, the night of the Passover meal, the night of His betrayal and arrest, and the night before His crucifixion. Our passage consists of Jesus’ words to His eleven disciples (Judas had already left to betray Him), His closest followers.

The main thing for us to get our heads around in the way of background is that our passage records some of Jesus’ final words on earth. They are Jesus’ final instructions for His disciples. He explained to them the things they needed to know in order to carry on His ministry after He was gone. They are critically important.

Let’s pray.

As I mentioned in the introduction, the driving force of this passage is found in v.16. In essence, everything around it is an expansion of it. Look again, therefore, at the first part of v.16 with me.

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…

For some time, Jesus had been explaining many things to His disciples. He washed their feet and explained that their charge was to be servants. He explained that He would die for the world and that they were to tell the world about it. Jesus told His disciples that they were to love one another differently than the world loves. He explained that there was no way to be reconciled to the Father, but through Him. Jesus charged His followers to do the works they saw Him do (and greater still). He told them that the Holy Spirit would come to minister to and through them. He promised them peace, beyond anything found in this world. He explained that life, full life, and good fruit are found in Him alone. And Jesus explained that if they would remain in Him, His followers would receive blessing upon blessing.

All of that presented the disciples with a set of questions. “Why me?” “Why us?” “How did we come to be charged with such things and to receive such blessings?” Whether they realized it at the time or not, they were being confronted with some of life’s biggest questions.

And Jesus’ answer—Jesus’ clear, humbling, and critical answer—was that the disciples had lived with Jesus for years, heard Him teach, watched His miracles, and were with Him right then in the upper room, hearing all of these things, receiving all of these commands and promises, not because they chose Jesus, but because He chose and appointed them. The disciples were not looking for Jesus, He found them. Clearly, they needed to choose Jesus as well, but they were only able to do so because He first chose, approached, and called them.

What’s more, Jesus reiterated what He’d chosen them for: “that you should go and bear fruit and that our fruit should abide…”. Jesus chose His followers in order that they might be united to and abide in Him, in order that they would bear good and lasting fruit. And again, the rest of the passage describes five familiar abiding fruits they would bear: love, obedience, friendship, teaching, and prayer.

Before we consider Jesus’ words on each of those fruits, would you take a minute to consider two things with me? First, Jesus is God and you are not. His ways, His will, His commands, His promises, His priorities ought to rule, not yours. While many struggle with the idea that God might infringe upon their choices/free will in any way, let me suggest that if you’re ever given the choice between Jesus’ choice and yours, determine to go with Jesus’ choice 100% of the time. If you’re ever given the choice between God’s will and yours determining the outcome of your life, determine now to go with God’s will 100% of the time. Learn the absolute goodness of Jesus’ own words, “Not my will but yours be done” (Luke 22:42) and echo them continually. That He chose you is good news indeed, for if it were left entirely up to you, you would not choose Him (Romans 8:7).

Second, as we now consider love, obedience, friendship, teaching, and prayer—the abiding fruit Jesus chose us for—ask the Spirit to give you an increasing appetite for those things and pick one to really go after this week. As we contemplate this passage, remember, the aim is a renewed mind leading to genuine transformation. Truer thinking, leading to more godly living. Orthodoxy driving orthopraxy. At the same time, however, as Jesus made clear in vs.1-11, the kind of much, good fruit that Jesus promises and prescribes is ultimately the result of being connected to Him. Just as His followers only chose Him because He chose them first, we will only work to bear good fruit because we are first connected to Jesus.

With that, let’s consider the five fruits of vs.12-17. The first fruit Jesus chose His followers to bear in a lasting way through being connected to Him is a familiar one. We see it in the first and last verses.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

You may remember that Jesus first said these words during the Passover meal (recorded back in 13:34), earlier on Thursday evening. It’s where we get Maundy Thursday from, “A new commandment (maundy) I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”

The key, as we saw in the earlier sermon, is not that the new command is to love fellow believers—that had been God’s command from the beginning. Instead, the new part of the command is loving as Jesus loved; both what had already been revealed to them and what was soon to be. Again, the important part of Jesus’ command wasn’t “love one another;” it was the kind of love they were to have for one another—”as I have loved you” love.

To make that clearer than it had ever been, Jesus said, “13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends;” which He was mere hours away from doing. Jesus would soon lay His life down for His friends in a way no one had ever done before.

One time when I was young, a group of friends and I got caught causing some trouble. It would have led to a significantly disproportionate consequence for one of our friends, so when the rest of us went to fall on our sword, we dropped him off and took the blame without him. I felt pretty noble about that. It felt like a kind of laying down my life for my friend (I had no idea about this passage at the time. I certainly wasn’t trying to obey it).

But Jesus had something quite different in mind…

God is glorious beyond measure. He created us to glorify Him in all we do. That’s our purpose in life. That is the standard by which God has determined to measure all mankind against, always. The clear problem is that we do not do that. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Worse yet, from the beginning (Genesis 3), God has made it clear that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). All who sin deserve to die for our rebellion against God. We have all sinned and, therefore, we all deserve death.

What Jesus meant by His words in v.13, which was only beginning to take shape in the disciples’ minds, was that He was going to go before the God the Father and offer Himself as the just payment for the sins of mankind. That’s the significance and glory of the cross. Because He was a sinless man, His sacrifice would be acceptable. Because He is the Son of God, He was sufficient to pay for all the sins of all who would trust His payment.

In other words, while Jesus was leaving an example for His followers to follow, more importantly, He was describing for them the unique way in which He was about to express His love for them.

And so, Grace Church, consider again this morning, the staggering, life-laying-down love of Jesus for you and turn that love back onto the people around you, your brothers and sisters in Christ, your friends. Love them by serving them. Love them in costly ways. Love them by being generous, sacrificial, and kind even when they are not.

But there’s one more aspect of this that is most glorious of all. Jesus loved in such a way that makes His enemies His friends. Love one another and love that others might become one of the anothers. Love not based on how the non-believers in your life treat you, but based on how Jesus treats you in your sin. Love “so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior [your love] in Christ may be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:16). That’s how Jesus’ loved. And He chose a people to abide in Him and bear the fruit of that kind of love in the world.

The second lasting fruit that Jesus chose the disciples to bear is another familiar one. We find the idea first in 14:15 , “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” And again in 14:21, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me…”.

The basic idea is that love for Jesus is always tied to obedience. Jesus worked hard to ensure that His disciples knew that love and obedience can never be separated. (That’s obviously a fairly counter-cultural understanding of love. You can read more about it here.)

This same idea is embedded in v.12 (“this is my commandment…”) and made explicit and expanded on in v.14, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” Not only is love for Jesus inseparable from obedience to Jesus, so too is obedience and friendship with Jesus.

We’ll come back to the friendship part of this next, but for now, I want you to see clearly that when Jesus said, “16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide…,” He had obedience in mind as one of the abiding fruits. He chose us to obey.

This is what the Apostle Paul had in mind when He wrote to the church in Ephesus, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (2:10).

From this charge of Jesus, let’s keep two things in mind. First, there is no legitimate understanding of Christianity in which obeying God is unnecessary or insignificant. The good news of the gospel is both that we need not obey as a means of being forgiven of our sins and that the same grace of God that forgives our sins in Jesus, changes our appetite (away from disobedience and toward obedience) and empowers us to obey.

And so, Grace, once again, to trust in Jesus is to have your sins entirely paid for by the righteous life and sacrificial death of Jesus entirely apart from your obedience (indeed, that’s the heart of what we’re trusting in). And, at the same time, it is a declaration that we long to obey every command of God with God’s help. That’s the lasting fruit Jesus chose us for and will certainly bear in all who truly believe.

Find the commands of God, therefore, and test your appetite. Are God’s commands increasingly the desire of your heart? Do you increasingly long to obey them? Are you growing to understand them as the straightest path to the greatest joy? Where that’s the case, you can rest assured that you are abiding in Jesus and that He chose you to bear abiding fruit.

Love fellow Christians as Jesus loves us, obey Jesus’ commands, and be friends with Jesus—that’s the third abiding fruit Jesus chose us to bear.

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 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.

There are a few aspects of friendship with Jesus that we need to consider from these two verses: (1) Friendship and obedience are connected, (2) Friendship and servanthood are disconnected, and (3) Friendship and knowledge are connected. Let’s look a bit more closely at each.

First, friendship and obedience are connected.

14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.

Like love, this is an unusual understanding of friendship. On the surface, it sounds kind of funny. Can you imagine saying that to any of your friends? If you did, can you imagine any of your friends replying with gladness? Just think of the conversation…

“Hey Suzy, we’re friends, right?”

        “Yes. Certainly”

“Good. I thought so. That means you need to do whatever I tell you.”

        “Sounds great. That’s just what I was hoping for. What’s first?”

It sounds pretty funny when you hear it like that. Is that what Jesus had in mind? Well, just like the relationship between love and obedience, the relationship between friendship and obedience is tricky on the surface, but sweet beyond belief in reality.

All relationships (every single one) find their true fulfillment only when they are properly ordered. Every marriage trouble you’ve experienced is due to some kind of disordering in one or both of you. The same is true for every challenging parenting situation, government interaction, and work drama. These are all relationships instituted and designed by God. They all exist for a particular purpose and that purpose is only accomplished when everyone involved functions (thinks, feels, says, expects, and acts) as God intends.

Here’s the key and the key distinction between friendship with Jesus and everyone else: For Jesus’ alone, His commands are always, always about how to properly order the relationship for full fulfillment and joy. He alone has all authority to command and He only commands His friends to do things that maximize the health of the friendship. Believe that, Grace.

Second, friendship and servanthood are disconnected.

15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends…

Jesus is always King and, therefore, there is a sense in which we will always be His subjects. Jesus was not denying that. What He was highlighting, however, is that when we are in Him, there’s something else that more fundamentally defines our relationship with Him. More than servants, we are His friends.

Think on that for a moment. We are called friends of Jesus. The eternal Word of God, the One through and for whom all things were made, the One who holds all things together, the Son of God, the Christ, calls His followers His friends. Servants makes sense. Subjects makes sense. Even enemies makes sense. But Jesus calls us friends.

I wonder how differently we’d live if we really believed that. If your hope is in Jesus, if you really are in Him, then He is bearing the lasting fruit of friendship with you. He is for you. He is pleased with you. He delights to be with you. You have His pleasure. He’s glad when you come to Him. Servanthood and friendship are disconnected.

And third, friendship and knowledge are connected.

15 … the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

This is largely the focus of the next point so I’ll only mention it here. Friendship with Jesus means knowing Jesus—His heart, mind, plans, and desires. Indeed, one of the most significant aspects of any friendship is mutual knowledge of one another. The greater the friendship, the greater the mutual understanding. The less mutual understanding, the shallower the friendship. That is a universal truth. Servants merely do what they’re told, but friends explain their heart and motives behind their actions, requests, and even demands.

Jesus emphasized that in a new way. He allowed Himself to be known by His followers. He revealed more and more to them. Indeed, throughout their time together and especially in these final days of Jesus, Jesus revealed all that He heard from the Father to His followers and that was a key aspect of their change from being primarily His servants to His friends. Jesus chose His followers to bear the abiding fruit of friendship with Him.

Fourth, Jesus bears the fruit of teaching God’s will to His people.

15 … all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

The purpose of Jesus making known the will of the Father was to help His followers know how to live as God intends. This includes making known to them the true nature of God (Father, Son, and Spirit), the truth about themselves, and the truth about the world around them. It is only once we have a right understanding of these things that we can begin to live as we ought and live in the fullness of life Jesus came to bring (John 10:10).

Grace, would you consider once again what a gift it is to know the will of God? Would you take a minute and thank God for not keeping us in the dark? He has revealed to us, through Jesus, the Word of God, all that He requires of us. We have what we need to make every decision in wisdom and for God’s glory, that we might bear abiding fruit.

Even more, as Jesus said later, He revealed the will of the Father to His followers so that they would teach the whole world “to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). It is our job not only to bear the fruit of learning and living God’s will ourselves, but also of teaching it to others. That’s the main fruit Jesus has in mind here—sharing the good news that the disciples were hearing with the world.

Share the gospel, Grace Church. Share all of it. Don’t change it or water it down in order to make it more appealing. It will always be folly to those who are perishing (1 Corinthians 1:18). It will never be desirable to those who remain dead in trespasses and sins. No one will ever choose to believe any true form of the gospel until Jesus has first chosen them.

And so, let people know that the wages of their sin is death. Teach people the good news about how they can be reconciled to God and His world through faith in Jesus. Call them to repent of their sins. Tell them that Jesus is both savior and king. Teach them to obey all Jesus has commanded. Don’t shy away from any aspect of the truth of God’s Word. Say it in a way that’s not unnecessarily offensive (1 Corinthians 10:32), while knowing full well that it is an offense all by itself (Romans 9:33; 1 Peter 2:8).

Teach your kids, your grandkids, your neighbors, and even go unto all the world (Acts 1:8; Mark 16:15) to proclaim the gospel and be witnesses to the truthfulness of the good news you’ve received. That is the kind of fruit Jesus was speaking of in v.16; lasting, abiding, God-glorifying fruit.

The final abiding fruit born by those chosen by Jesus is answered prayer.

16 … whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.

This is the third time Jesus made such a promise. You can certainly read more about it HERE and HERE. The main point remains that God hears our prayers and is pleased to answer them when we offer them as He commands. We’ve seen that God will bear the fruit of answered prayer through us when we choose Jesus after He chooses us, make our requests in Jesus’ name, and ask while abiding in Jesus.

Abiding in Jesus is the ultimate source of the fruit Jesus calls for and promised. But asking for the will of God in Jesus’ name is the conduit through which that fruit comes. Prayer is the means primary by which the will of God is done one earth. Do you believe that, Grace?

Let me make a few, quick practical suggestions. First, spend some time this week considering passages (like John 15:5) that describe your dependence on God. Prayerfulness comes from truly believing that apart from Jesus you can do nothing, even as prayerlessness comes from a sinful sense of autonomy. Second, pray the Bible. Read a passage and turn it back to God in prayer. We try to model that almost every week in our pastoral prayers (“This morning, I’ll be praying through…”). If you’re not sure what that means or how to go about it, talk to your elder at DG this week. Third, get in the habit of praying as you go. Learn to make prayer ordinary. When someone shares something hard, don’t tell them you’ll pray for them, stop and pray for them right there. When you notice a marvelous work of God, immediately thank God for it. And finally, fourth, make a list of people to pray for each day this week. Start with your family on Monday. Maybe the unbelievers in your life on Tuesday. Your pastors on Wednesday. Your DG on Thursday. Those who are suffering on Friday. Our missionaries on Saturday. And Grace Church as a whole on Sunday. Let people know you are praying for them.

Answered prayer is a sweet, sweet, abiding fruit of those who are in Jesus.

The big idea of this passage is that Jesus chose His followers (they didn’t choose Him) and He did so in order that they might bear lasting fruit among all mankind. Throughout the six verses, Jesus named five specific kinds of abiding fruit: love, obedience, friendship, teaching, and prayer. Let us, therefore, in faith, cling to Jesus and give ourselves to bearing this kind of fruit. What an awesome gift and privilege that is ours through Jesus.

John 15:1-11 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. 3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

What started out as a single sermon (in my mind) is now on part four, spread out over six weeks. While it was not exactly the route I imagined, it has been good for my soul to have more time to marinate in the awesome truths and blessings of this passage. I hope the Lord has encouraged you in a similar way.

With that, welcome to the final sermon on John 15:1-11. We’ll do a brief review and then look at the last five blessings that belong to those who are united to Jesus.

The big idea of this passage is that the Christian life is about being united to and abiding in Jesus in such a way that His mind, heart, and actions flow freely out of us, and all according to the superintending grace of God. The main takeaways are to pray in faith, actively abide in God’s Word and love, and to seek fullness of joy in Jesus.

Let’s pray.

If you’re just joining us, or if you’ve forgotten where we are in light of the two weeks we’ve been away from the passage because of mission week, you should know that we’ve already considered the first six verses of this passage. In them we saw that Jesus is using the metaphor of a vineyard to describe the relationship between God the Father, Him, and His followers. The Father is vinedresser, Jesus is the true vine, and we, Jesus’ followers, are the branches. In addition, we considered eight of thirteen blessings that Jesus come to branches connected to the vine.

In simplest terms, regarding the Father as vinedresser, the key idea is that God graciously superintends our spiritual lives from beginning to end in perfect wisdom, power, and goodness. Regarding Jesus as the true vine, it is through Him, through abiding in Him, that all spiritual life and fruit comes. And regarding God’s people as branches, we saw that our primary responsibility, perfect hope, and great blessing is to come to and remain in Jesus.

With all of that, I’m going to name the first eight blessings of remaining in Jesus that we’ve already considered and then turn to v.7 for the remaining five. Again, for those of you who are trusting in Jesus, as you hear me read these blessings, remember that they are yours. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you live more fully in light of them—to help you abide in them. And for those of you who are not hoping in Jesus, know that the very fact you are hearing them right now means that God is offering these things to you (and much more) if you will turn to Jesus in faith.

And now, again, let’s turn our attention to v.7 where we’ll see the ninth blessing for those who are in Jesus.

“7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”

I hope this verse draws your mind back to 14:13-14, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” In that passage, the precondition for answered prayer is asking in Jesus’ name. In this passage, it is abiding in Jesus and having His words abide in us. I encourage you to look back to that sermon for a fuller explanation of the manner in which Jesus does “whatever we ask in His name” and “whatever [we] wish.

For our purposes here, the main points are that (1) asking for something in Jesus’ name and abiding in Jesus are inseparably connected and (2) likewise, abiding in Jesus and abiding in His word are inseparable. It’s when both of these points are combined that we receive the blessing of having our prayers answered. In order that we might get the most out of this blessing, let’s consider each of these two points.

First, in my sermon on 14:13-14 I noted that “To ask for something in Jesus’ name is not to think of ‘Jesus’ as the magic word or secret password to unlock the power of prayer. It is not the proverbial rubbing of the lamp to get the genie to come out of the bottle…Instead, to ask for something in Jesus’ name is to ask for His sake. It is to ask as if He were asking for it. It is to ask for the things He wants. It is to ask for His purposes. It is to surrender our own will and desires to His. It is to ask in complete confidence that He alone is mighty to answer.”

Similarly, in my sermon on 15:5 I said, “The heart of what it means to abide in Jesus is to gladly acknowledge in every aspect of our lives—every thought, feeling, action, interaction, inclination, observation, and evaluation—that we are entirely dependent on Jesus. Abiding in Jesus begins with knowing and feeling deep in our bones that Jesus is King, Jesus is the life, Jesus is the way, Jesus is the truth, Jesus is supreme. To abide in Him means understanding, believing, loving, and whole-heartedly orienting ourselves around the simple and glorious fact that it is in Jesus that we live and move and have our being.” In other words, abiding in Jesus is the result of truly believing that we are united to Jesus through faith.

When we combine these two ideas (what it means to ask for something in Jesus’ name and what it means to abide in Him) we can see that we will never ask for something in Jesus’ name if we do not first abide in Him. If we aren’t actively seeking to orient every aspect of our lives around that fact that Jesus is life (abiding in Him), then we will not want Jesus’ will to be done in every aspect of our lives (praying in Jesus’ name). In that way asking for something in Jesus’ name and abiding in Him are inseparably linked.

Receive the blessing of abiding in Jesus and fight to live in it, therefore, Grace Church, in order that you might truly ask for things in His name, in order that you might ask whatever you wish and have it done for you.

And second, abiding in Jesus’ Word, means gladly acknowledging the entirely unique authority, inerrancy, clarity, necessity, and sufficiency of Jesus’ Word. It means acknowledging that it is only through Jesus’ Word that we can have a right understanding of God, His will, His creation, His story, and ourselves. It means understanding and accepting its teaching, believing its promises, and obeying its commands. It means making sense of all things by looking at them through the lens of Jesus Word. Abiding in Jesus’ Word means longing and loving to read our Bibles and being nourished by them in ways that nothing else can. It means learning to taste the unparalleled sweetness of the Word of Jesus, sweeter even than honey (Psalm 119:103).

Again, in this we can see that abiding in Jesus and abiding in His Word are inseparable. We cannot abide in Jesus apart from abiding in His Word, for we do not know what it means to abide in Jesus apart from His Word. And if we do not abide in His Word, we will not, indeed cannot, abide in Him.

Abide in His Word, therefore, Grace Church, in order that you might abide in Him, in order that you might ask for things in His name, in order that your you might ask for whatever you wish and have it done for you.

Abiding in Jesus Word in this way requires help. God has designed it that way. The three groups of people most responsible to teach you what it means to abide in Jesus’ Word are parents, elders, and the church.

God commands parents to train up their children in the way they should go (Proverbs 22:6), to teach them God’s Word at all times (Deuteronomy 6), and to bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Ephesians 6:4).

In similar fashion, God commands elders to teach His Word to His people (1 Timothy 3:2), to preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:2-3), and to feed His people with the Word (John 21).

And God commands the Church—fellow Christians—to spur one another on in the Word of Christ (Ephesians. 4:15; Colossians 3:16).

Parents, dads especially, help your kids develop the discipline of reading their Bibles and teach them to understand it so they might abide in it. Kids, make it easy for your parents to teach you the Word of Jesus. Listen carefully, sit still, ask questions, remind them gently if they forget.

Adults, come to Berea and bring your kids to Sunday school. Listen carefully to the sermon each week, and teach your kids to do the same. Take notes. Focus on application. Be ready to discuss it in DG. Don’t make decisions apart from understanding the biblical principles God has given to guide you in it. Admonish and encourage one another with the Word of Jesus. Talk regularly about what you are learning and how it is turning you to God in worship and obedience and to the world in love.

And then, out of all of that, out of abiding and teaching others to abide in Jesus’ Word, and have them abide in you, turn together to God in prayer if complete confidence that as we do, He will hear and answer.

One more time (follow this chain of events), as you grow to accept the blessing of abiding in Jesus’ Word, you will inevitably grow to accept the blessing of abiding in Jesus. And as you are drawn to abide in Jesus, you will inevitably turn to God in prayer, asking for Him to glorify His name and for His will to be done. And as you do that, you will receive the blessing of receiving “whatever you wish” (which is, more importantly, what Jesus wishes for). And that is the ninth blessing of being united to Jesus.

8 By this my Father is glorified…

The tenth blessing that belongs to all who are united to Jesus is nothing short of the fulfillment of the very purpose for which we have been made: glorifying God. We’ll see in just a minute that there’s a specific way that being united to Jesus leads to the blessing of glorifying God, but it’s right to slow down for a moment and acknowledge the awesome reality that’s here.

Have you ever really, really wanted something that seemed to be perpetually out of your reach—maybe a spouse or a promotion or a golf score or entrance into a certain college or some larger purchase or the healing or salvation of someone you love? If so, you know how frustrating that can be. How sweet would it be, therefore, if someone told you how to get that thing? That’s the heart of this blessing.

We are born dead in our trespasses and sins. We are born sinful by nature and, therefore, we quickly turn to sin by choice. We reject God as God. We are enemies of God. Therefore, even though God is infinitely and eternally glorious, our sin keeps us from seeing and believing that. Instead, we despise His glory. Instead of delighting in it as supremely valuable, God’s glory seems foolish and ugly to us. And because of that we cannot do the very thing we were created to do—glorify God and enjoy Him forever. It is out of our reach.

Therefore, the promise of Jesus that we can glorify God, that we can fulfill the purpose for which we were made, is a blessing indeed!

Would you take some time to thank God for this greatest of blessings? Would you consider the magnitude of the blessing it is that by being united to Jesus, God is glorified in us?

8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

One of the most significant ways (there are others, like loving one another and dwelling together in unity) that we can prove to ourselves that our faith is genuine (that we are not unbelieving believers), and prove to the watching world that Jesus is who He said He is, is by bearing much fruit. And as we do, we glorify God.

Let me say that in a slightly different way. I had a friend in middle school who claimed to be related to Miss Michigan. She wasn’t known for lying or exaggerating, but I was initially skeptical. What could she do to prove it? She brought me in a picture signed and personalized for me. In that she proved that she really was the sister-in-law of Michigan pageant royalty.

But how do we prove that we are true disciples of Jesus (to ourselves and others)? The answer is the blessing: we hold fast to Jesus, to His word, and in that think as Jesus thought, feel as He felt, talk as He talked, live as He lived, seek the things He sought, and take on the character He possessed (that’s the heart of what it means to bear much fruit).

As we see these things coming out of us in increasing measure, we glorify God by manifesting His character and we grow in our confidence that we really are in Jesus. Another name for this blessing is assurance of salvation. It is only the Holy Spirit that can bear the fruit of the character of Jesus in us. The Spirit only bears that fruit in those who are in Jesus. Therefore, where we find the character of Jesus growing in, we prove that we really are Jesus disciples. No fruit over time, no assurance/no proof of salvation, and not glory to God. Increasing fruit over time, assurance/proof of salvation, and glory to God.

In a similar way, the watching world can hear our gospel claims, but what is the proof that it really is the power of God to save? Again, the answer is our transformed lives. Would anyone who knew you before claiming to be a Christian be shocked by how much differently you think, talk, and live now? If so, it’s because you are bearing the kind of fruit Jesus was talking about in v.8, you are glorifying God, and in those things you are proving to them that the gospel is true and powerful.

And so, once again, like every aspect of abiding in Jesus, this is first an indicative and then an imperative. It is first who we are and then it is what we do. It is a statement of fact and then it is a call to act. It is passively received and then it is actively achieved.

Jesus bears much fruit in us, which glorifies God and proves that we really are in Him. And we fight and strive and strain to walk in righteousness, to put off sin, to share the gospel with unbelievers in truth and love, and determine to praise God for His greatness and majesty…and all of that is a blessing from Jesus for all who abide in Him.

Becoming more like Jesus, sharing that with the world, and glorifying God through those things is the blessing.

There are two more blessings from this passage that we’ll consider this morning. The first (which is the twelfth overall) is that those united to Jesus have His love and ought to abide in it. There are two keys to this blessing. First, we need to grasp the nature of Jesus love (v.9) and second, we need to learn what it means to abide in it (10).

The love of Jesus is an inherent aspect of being united to Jesus. If we are united to Jesus, He loves us. That’s the heart of v.9.

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you…

So what’s the nature of Jesus love for those who are in Him? It is the same (in many ways) as the Father’s love for Him. Rightly understood, that ought to take our breath away. Just imagine the love that God the Father has had for His Son—infinite, eternal, perfect love. And now, imagine that Jesus loves us in much the same way.

Jesus loves (ongoing) and has loved (perfectly completed) all of His people. His full love for us was completed on the cross and the implications of that carry on into eternity.

Grace, please listen carefully to this. If you are trusting in Jesus, He loves you. His love for you never waivers, as the Father’s love for Him never waivers. In your sin, in your sorrow, in your sickness, in your doubt, in your loneliness, in your best efforts, and in your most righteous acts alike, Jesus’ love for you remains perfect and complete. There’s nothing you can do to alter, change, or lose Jesus’ love for you any more than Jesus could alter, change, or lose the love of God. Your experience of that love might vary, but the fact of it never does. What a blessing indeed.

But what does it mean to abide in His love? The end of v.9 and v.10 give us a significant part of the answer. V.9 ends with a command to abide in the love of Jesus. V.10 tells us what that means.

Before we consider that, however, let me say one quick thing. As I hope you’ve seen, the heart of what it means to abide in anything (whether in Jesus, His Word, His love, or something else entirely) is to understand, believe, and be drawn to it such that it shapes who you are and how you live in every way. We can abide in our hobbies or our relationships or our struggles or in anything else—in that we can be shaped and molded by them; in that we can live out of them. To be a Christian, however, is to abide in the things of God. And that, again, is to believe God’s Word, to love Him with all we have, and, as we’re about to see to live according to His commands. With that, consider vs.9-10 with me.

9…Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.

The essence of abiding in Jesus’ love according to this passage is keeping His commandments. This too we saw earlier (14:15-21). The heart and proof of Jesus abiding in the Father’s love was His perfect obedience to the Father. Again, in the same way, the heart and proof of our abiding in Jesus’ love is our obedience to Him.

We don’t tend to link obedience and love, but that is ordinarily because we’ve bought into the lie that love is mere emotion, sentimentality, passion. As I hope you’ve heard many times at Grace, a more biblical definition of love is certainly not emotionless, but it is also truthful. Biblical love is the affectionate pursuit of that which is best for someone. And the familiar key is that Jesus only commands that which is best—best for Him, for us, and for the world around us.

With that definition, I hope it’s easy for you to understand how abiding in Jesus’ love is obeying His commands. And so we seek His commands together, we are careful to understand what they mean, and then we prayerfully and eagerly help one another obey in the knowledge that as we do, we are abiding in Jesus’ love.

What would your life look like if you really believed that? Kids, you too; what would change in your life if you were able to better connect love and obedience? It’s not fully loving if it isn’t filled with affection, but it isn’t loving at all if it’s entirely disconnected from obeying Jesus’ commands.

What a blessing it is, therefore, that Jesus has given us commands! And what a blessing it is that one of His commands is to teach the world to obey all His commands, which is just another way of calling the world to abide in Jesus’ love! How’s that for a perspective on missions?!

The twelfth blessing of remaining in Jesus is that we get to abide in Jesus’ love, which is, in large measure, to obey His commands as He obeyed the Father’s commands. And glory to God that the Father loved us such that He commanded Jesus to die for our failure to obey His commands so we could obey His commands and abide in His love.

Finally, those who remain (abide) in Jesus will have the awesome blessing of Jesus’ joy.

“11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you…”

One thing that’s common to all mankind is our ultimate motivation. There are a number of ways to say it, but all people everywhere do what we do to maximize our joy. More often than not, we are confused about what that means and how to get it, but the motivation is the same.

Perhaps the most famous version of this comes from Blaise Pascal who wrote (Pensees, 425), “”All men seek happiness (or joy). This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.”

Again, the only question is where we will seek it.

Of all the joys we might long for, Jesus’ joy, rightly understood, will always be at the top. Jesus’ joy, of course, is far, far above all the forms of counterfeit, sinful, match-like (quick to flame and flame out) joy that we so often pursue. But Jesus’ joy is also far above food joy, sports joy, relationship joy, friendship joy, sexual joy, success joy, book joy, shopping joy, religious joy or any other righteous joy.

The thing that we often miss to our great detriment is that the joy of Jesus is the only true and satisfying joy. And He has promised to bless us with it as we abide in Him, His word, and His love. The end of our v.11 makes that clear and it explains why: because Jesus’ joy alone is full joy!

“11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

All of the other blessings lead, ultimately, to this blessing—fullness of joy in Jesus. This is the great end and highest blessing of God—eternal, everlasting, complete joy in unbroken, unending, fellowship with God and all the saints.

Grace, receive this blessing! Receive it by repenting of chasing your joy in places it cannot be found and receive it by looking to Jesus as He has commanded. When you do His promise is sure. You will know true joy, beginning now and building unto eternity.

If we are united to Jesus by grace, through faith, God protects us (2, 6), God prunes us for greater fruitfulness (2), we have received the Word of Jesus (3), we have been made clean by the Word of Jesus (3), we abide in Jesus, and Jesus abides in us (4), we bear good fruit (4), we bear much good fruit (5), we can do things (5), Jesus will answer our prayers (7), we glorify God (8), we glorify God and prove ourselves true disciples of Jesus (8), we get to abide in Jesus’ love (9-10), and we get Jesus’ full joy (11).

All of this is through Jesus and sovereignly and graciously superintended by God the Father. Receive these blessings, Grace Church. They are yours now and forever if you will trust in Jesus.