Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled, John 14:22-31 (April 17, 2016)

Transcription

1 Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled, John 14:22-31 (April 17, 2016) 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world? 23 Jesus answered him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father s who sent me. 25 These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here. PRAY We are working our way through John 14-16, studying the subject of the Holy Spirit, and in our verses for today (22-31), we see a lot of coming and going and sending. Jesus talks about him and the Father coming, the Father sending the Holy Spirit. Jesus talks about himself then about going away and later coming back. What s with all this coming and going? It has to do with the doctrine of the Trinity. And you can t really understand who the Holy Spirit is unless you under who he is inside the Trinity. Christians believe that God exists eternally in three persons: Father, Son (who is Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, yet there is only one God. Christians do not worship three gods, but one God. The persons in the Godhead exist in a tri-unity, and three-in-oneness. If you do not understand what the Bible teaches about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit then you can t really understand how it is you can have a relationship with this God, because the different persons in the Trinity do different things to make that relationship possible. Furthermore, Jesus gives this astounding promise in verse 27: Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. The argument I want to make through this sermon is that you cannot lay hold of that promise unless you understand the nature of the Trinity and how God works out his purposes in the world through his threeperson nature. Now, I know I almost always give three points in my sermons, but when you re preaching on the trinity I think it s required. It s in Leviticus, I think. You can t spend 2016 J.D. Shaw 1

2 four points on the Triune God. First, we ll look at the Father. Second, we ll look at the Son. Third, we ll look at the Spirit, and as we look at the Spirit we ll study the promise. First, the Father. There are a couple of verses in this passage that really strike you when you read them, because in them Jesus says things unlike anywhere else in the Bible. The first is in verse 28: You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Jesus here is rebuking the disciples because they are not excited that he is about to leave. This is the night before Jesus crucifixion, and he s telling his men plainly that he s about to die. Back in John 14:1-4, Jesus tells them he s about to his Father s house, and Thomas says in verse 5, 5 Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? You can almost hear the desperate, plaintive tone in Thomas voice. He s not rejoicing at all that Jesus is leaving them. Now, Jesus rebuking the disciples is not what makes verse 28 unusual. Jesus often rebuked the disciples. What s unusual is that Jesus rebukes the disciples for what look at first like selfish reasons. He s saying to the disciples, If you loved me, you would be happy for me. That s what makes this verse so unusual. It s hard for me to think of another place in the Scripture where Jesus says anything quite like this. And when I ve read it over the years it s made me think of how sometimes bickering spouses talk to one another. In the middle of a fight, the husband says to the wife, You know, if you loved me, you would have done this for me. I guess you don t really love me. Of course, that s not what s going on here. Jesus never bickered with anyone. Instead, he s saying this to his disciples: Guys, if you had any idea of what I m going back to when I go to the Father, no matter that it will cost you my bodily presence here on earth, if you really loved me and understood what I m saying you would be jumping for joy. Why does Jesus say that? First, Jesus, in saying the disciples should rejoice that he s going back to the Father, is saying that his time of humiliation is over. Jesus Christ, very God of very God, became a man. That means he suffered all the humiliation that is common to man in life on earth. Jesus was someone immune to suffering in heaven but he voluntarily made himself vulnerable to pain and weakness and disease and death. He was someone who knew nothing but power allowed himself to experience fatigue and drowsiness. He never knew any kind of need in heaven but on earth he became hungry and thirsty. To say nothing of the indignities of having to go to the bathroom, having bad breath, and, as a child, having to have someone change his diapers, nurse him, carry him around. Can you imagine? The Lord God of the universe teething? 2016 J.D. Shaw 2

3 To say nothing of his being born into poverty, into an oppressed minority group, with whispers all his life about how he was conceived out of wedlock, in a culture where that was extremely shameful. Jesus humiliation is almost over, and if the disciples really loved him, they would rejoice about that. But more than that, second, they should rejoice that he s going back to the Father. John 17:5 (a couple of hours after the events of John 14 the high priestly prayer of Jesus), Jesus prays this to the Father: 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. I have been wracking my brain all week trying to figure out a way to make you feel the weight of what Jesus is saying here, I ve opened every commentary I could get my hands on, and I found really nothing that was all that helpful. This is the best I could come up with. In going back to the Father, Jesus was going home. He was returning to a place where with the Father he had perfect relationship and love. Do you know what that s like? Going home to a place like that? Think about the home you grew up in, especially I think if your parents still live in the house you grew up (like mine do) and it s full of good memories for you (like mine is). Do you know what it s like to go home to a place of perfect acceptance and love? Let me go ahead and tell you: you don t have a clue, and neither do I. Not that you and I don t have great families and parents and memories. But, friends, our parents can t have a perfect relationship with us because we are sinners. How many times did you sin against your parents growing up? If you lived in the same house with them, probably at least a dozen times per day, double that during the weekend, triple it during the summer time when everyone is stuck in the house together you sinned against your parents. And no matter how wonderful they are it took a toll on the relationship. How could it not? I m not saying our parents don t love us not at all! I m not saying those sins haven t been forgiven if not forgotten, but it s foolish to think that all our sins had no negative impact whatsoever on the relationship. And, of course, our parents are sinners, too. They probably didn t sin against us as much as we did them, but there was sin. Jesus, though, is telling his disciples this: I'm going home to a relationship that is perfect, a love that is total and complete and infallible. Complete acceptance and communion. There has never been even the slightest breach in it. Rather, all we have ever done is poured loved into one another s being. What s the difference between the great relationship you may have had with your parents and the perfect relationship Jesus had with his Father? The answer is all the difference in the world. The relationship existed since before the world began. He says to the disciples, If you had any idea what that relationship is like, you d be rejoicing for my sake right now. You wouldn t be able to help it, because if you love me and you knew this was possible for me you wouldn t dream of being sad that I was going J.D. Shaw 3

4 The old theologians of the church called God the Father the divine fountainhead of love. And Jonathan Edwards, in one of his sermons, expounds on that thought and I think helpfully describes what Jesus home is like: There, even in heaven, dwells the God from whom every stream of holy love, yea, every drop that is, or ever was, proceeds There, in heaven, this infinite fountain of love this eternal Three in One is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it, as it flows forever. There this glorious God is manifested, and shines forth, in full glory, in beams of love. And there this glorious fountain forever flows forth in streams, yea, in rivers of love and delight, and these rivers swell, as it were, to an ocean of love, in which the souls of the ransomed may bathe with the sweetest enjoyment, and their hearts be deluged with love! Jesus, who is very God of very God, is ecstatic at the thought of going back to be with the Father. Now, if Jesus, the most influential man who has ever lived, more influential than all the kings who ever reigned and all the governments that ever sat, gets excited about going to the Father, and going to the Father is in turn offered to us (which it is, in the gospel), don t you think we should be excited about it, too? Shouldn t our thoughts regularly turn there? That s the Father. Second, the Son. What is this gospel that opens the way even for us to this relationship with the Father? The gospel is that in Jesus Christ God became a man, and lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserved to die as a substitute for us. The gospel is that Jesus died in our place, because through our sins we have angered a holy God. That s the gospel, but it s not all the gospel. It s a good thumbnail sketch, good for when you need to get down to brass tacks, but it s not the whole gospel. If that s all you ever say about the gospel, then eventually your understanding can give off the impression and lead you to the conclusion that inside the Trinity maybe it s only Jesus that really loves you and the Father very reluctantly, very grudgingly, gives you anything good at all. It s Jesus who really loves you in the Trinity, but the Father is this angry Dad stalking around in heaven and you never know when he might just go off on you. Nothing could be further from the truth. Friends, the whole reason why Jesus came was because of the Father s love. John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For all eternity, the Bible says, you ve been loved by all three persons in the Trinity. 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love 5 he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. Ephesians 1: J.D. Shaw 4

5 This is how you can think of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son as it concerns your salvation: in eternity past, the Father purposed your redemption. Two thousand years ago, in human history, the Son accomplished it by his life and death on the cross. The other verse that always got my attention in this passage is John 14:31: I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Why does Jesus say this? I think it s this: Jesus is showing us as Christians how we can be assured of our salvation. Put another away, Jesus is showing us how we can know that the redemption he accomplished on the cross has been applied to us. It s a matter of obedience. Think about it like this: Jesus says, The way the world knows I love the Father is through my obedience. If that s true for Jesus, then what better way for us to know we love the Father, what better way for us to know we are saved and our hearts have been change, than through our obedience? People who are not Christians may obey God s commands, but they don t love doing it. They do it because they feel like the have to. To make themselves feel acceptable to God, to make themselves feel better about themselves, to make themselves feel better than all those people who don t obey as much as they do. But for the Christian, obedience is a matter of love. In a real sense, we don t have to obey God s commands, because then salvation would not be by grace. Rather, we obey because, like Jesus, we love the Father. It pleases us to please him. One of my favorite John Newton hymns (Amazing Grace) puts it like this: Our pleasure and our duty, though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty, are joined to part no more; it is our highest pleasure, no less than duty s call; to love him beyond measure and serve him with our all. When that s true of you, not that you do perfectly keep his commandments but you want to keep them and dislike how you don't, then you can be assured that the Son s redemption has been applied to you. But, how is the Son s redemption purposed by the Father finally applied to us? Third, the Spirit. The Holy Spirit s work is to open our eyes, make us born again, so that we can see the truth and beauty of what God has done for us in Jesus, believe it, and be reconciled to God. The Father purposes our salvation, the Son accomplishes it, but the Spirit applies it to our hearts by giving us eyes of faith so we can trust in Jesus. 23 Jesus answered him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. John 14:23. Now, that verse alone would be worthy of a sermon. Jesus makes the promise that through the work of the Spirit, the fullness of the Triune God will live in the souls of the redeemed. God the Father, God the Son, through God the Holy Spirit, living, working, acting in us right now. That s a promise of a foretaste of heaven on earth J.D. Shaw 5

6 It s such an astounding claim I think because our actual experience so rarely lives up to it. Does it often feel like to you, Christians, that the almighty God resides in you? Makes his home in you? I mean, if that s true, how can I not know it? Why isn t my life different, and why don t I live out of that power? How am I not changed by it? Verse 26 is the key: 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. The Holy Spirit will come and teach you, and when that happens, friends, then you will feel the presence of the Triune God in your life! But how? Some Christians read that verse and think what it must be saying is that the Holy Spirit will come and directly do this reminding himself personally, mystically. The Holy Spirit, they ll say, is like a liquid. And when your life is filled to the brim with him, then the powerful experience of the Triune God will happen in your life. If this hasn t happened to you yet, then you haven t experienced the fullness of the blessing the Holy Spirit. You need more of him in your life. That s not what this verse is saying. There are no one-third or one-half Holy Spirit-filled Christians running around. Friends, who is Jesus talking to in verse 26? He s talking to the eleven disciples (Judas has already left). This is a promise to them, the first generation of Christians, that when Jesus returns to heaven the Holy Spirit will come and remind them of all Jesus has said (and this is the key) so they can write them down and pass them on to all future Christians. Verse 26 is not a promise that the Holy Spirit will give an individual revelation, an individual word, to all Christians who will ever live, but that the Holy Spirit will guarantee that the first Christians will get the gospel right and write it down correctly in the Bible so as to pass it faithfully on to all Christians who will ever live. Friends, the Holy Spirit is not a liquid, so we never need more of him. We never run low on him. He s always there in all his power. He s not a liquid! What does, though, the Bible compare him to? The wind! John 3:8: The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. Acts 2:1-4: When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 2 Peter 1:21: For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit Once you become a Christian, you have the fullness of the Spirit. He is a gale force wind blowing through your life. But you do have a responsibility. The Bible is clear that you can quench, grieve, hinder the work of the Spirit in your life. What do you have to do if 2016 J.D. Shaw 6

7 you want wind to carry you along? You must put up the sail. And what s a Christian s sail? The Scriptures. Friends, God has given us his perfect word to remind us that all his promises are yea and amen in Jesus Christ. But if you don t put up the sail of the Scriptures (if you don t read the Bible yourself, sing the Bible in worship, listen to the Bible in sermons, tell the Bible to one another in your conversations), then the Spirit will not do his work in your life. He can t carry you along if you hunker down in a cave of sin and ignorance. You do have a role to play. Jonathan Edwards: Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in a retired place, as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine contemplation [on what? The Scriptures!] and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet appeared also great above the heavens. The person of Christ appeared ineffably excellent with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception which continued as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust, and to be full of Christ alone; to love him with a holy and pure love; to trust in him; to live upon him; to serve and follow him; and to be perfectly sanctified and made pure, with a divine and heavenly purity. I have, several other times, had views very much of the same nature, and which have had the same effects. Have you ever had that happen to you? You re reading the Bible or singing a song with Scripture in it, or listening to sermon and all of the sudden the glory of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ explodes in your heart? And you re reduced to tears of joy because of it? Do you know why that happens? It s the Spirit reminding you through the word of God s love for you. The Spirit filling the sail of your life. How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word. What more can he say than to you he hath said? To you who for refuge to Jesus hath fled? And, of course, if we put up the sail, the promise is peace. John 14:27: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. The world does offer a form of peace to us, but it s a dishonest peace. It s an unthinking peace. I m reading Dispatches from Pluto. It s a great book. A British journalist named Richard Grant a few years ago bought a house in Pluto, down in Holmes County, MS, not far from where I grew up, and it s fascinating reading his take as an Englishman on life in the Mississippi Delta J.D. Shaw 7

8 And at one point he befriends T-Model Ford, the late, great, blues player tremendously talented. Now, if you know anything about T-Model Ford, you know he had a certain zest for living. He literally broke all the Ten Commandments. He literally murdered, went to prison for it. He literally committed adultery. He had twenty-six children, by many different women. But by the time Grant moved to the Delta, T-Model was confined to a wheelchair, and a shell of his former self. Grant went to see him in Greenville one day, and T-Model said, I won t play no blues [anymore]. The preacher been coming around [leave it to us preachers to take all the fun away]. He says it s the devil s music. I don t drink no more. I don t smoke. I don t cuss, try not to. No more chasin women [mind you, he s 91 when he says this]. I m with the Lord now, and believe He ll take me home. He smiled bravely, then his smile seemed to crumble apart, and he started crying. I m scared, he said, and it was clear that he was scared of going to hell. I wanted to tell him that hell didn t exist, but that called heaven into question, too. [So] I said, Don t worry, T- Model, you re a good man, people love you, you don t have anything to worry about. Do you know what that is? That s an example of the peace the world gives. It s dishonest, because Grant won t tell T-Model what he really thinks about hell. It s dishonest because Grant refuses to wrestle with some of the really bad things T-Model did (which T-Model clearly feels guilty about). But worst of all, it s unthinking. He says, T-Model, you don t have anything to worry about. How could he say that? He doesn t know what s on the other side of death! He does not know T-Model has nothing to worry about. But that s the only kind of peace the world can offer a guilt-ridden, dying man: a dishonest, unthinking peace. The world says, Oh, your heart is troubled. Here, take this pill. Take a vacation. Take this trip. Take this card and go shopping. Take your mind off your problems. But for goodness sake don t think about your troubles! That could drive you crazy! But the gospel says, Think! Think about the promises you have in Christ. If in the gospel God is for you, who can be against you? Who can accuse you? Yes, for a little while you must suffer. But that is only so it can produce in you perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope. Hope that one day these sufferings will vanish forever. Hope, certainly, that earth has no sorrows that heaven cannot heal! Think! What could someone have said to T-Model to comfort him? Someone could have said, T-Model, you aren t a good person. You know you ve done some wicked things. They are tormenting your conscience right now. But it doesn t matter because Jesus died for all those sins. It doesn t matter what you did, it only matters that you believe in what Jesus did. Let not your heart be troubled, T-Model, neither let it be afraid. Do you know Jesus? Do you know that peace? Christians, are you hoisting the sail of the Scripture to be carried along in life by the Spirit? Amen J.D. Shaw 8