3. Kitting out the troops

[0:00] Let's bow our heads for a moment of further prayer. Lord Jesus, your words are deeply precious to us, and yet we don't know them deeply.

[0:16] And we pray, therefore, that you will open our hearts and minds this evening and help us to, by your grace, penetrate the mystery and joy and truth of these words that you give to us here in John 14.

[0:31] And we pray that our hearts and our lives may be redirected because of your kindness to us. We ask it for your name's sake. Amen.

[0:43] Well, friends, let's turn to John's Gospel, chapter 14, again, if we may, page 901 in our big Bibles. And I'd like to take verses 12 to 24 this evening.

[0:59] And I want to give it the title, Kitting Out the Troops. Kitting Out the Troops. Because what Jesus is doing here in these three chapters of John's Gospel, chapters 14, 15, and 16, is that he is preparing his apostles for their life's work.

[1:17] The scene is the upper room or an upper room in a house in Jerusalem. And Jesus and his apostles have just shared together the Passover meal, the one that we know as the Last Supper. And this is the Thursday evening, the very evening before Jesus was crucified.

[1:33] Let's notice a feature of these words that we might quite easily miss. And that is the degree of warmth and love with which Jesus speaks to his 11 apostles here.

[1:44] I say 11 because Judas Iscariot has gone out into the night. You'll see that at chapter 13, verse 30. So just the 11 are left. Now the apostles, to put it mildly, are bewildered.

[1:57] They're grasping enough of the situation to understand that Jesus is about to leave them. But they can't work out, they can't understand yet why he must. It seems simply like a disaster to them.

[2:10] And that's why the conversation here is peppered with their anxious questions. So Peter asks in chapter 13, verse 37, Why can't I follow you now?

[2:21] I know you're going somewhere, why can't I come too? Thomas asks in chapter 14, verse 5, We don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? Or look at Philip in chapter 14, verse 8, Lord, show us the Father, and that's enough for us.

[2:37] And then the other Judas, not Iscariot, but the other Judas, asked in verse 22, Lord, how is it that you're going to manifest yourself to us, but not to the world?

[2:48] And there are other moments of bewilderment and mental fog which emerge in chapter 16 as well. Now Jesus deals with his bewildered disciples very lovingly and gently and encouragingly.

[3:02] He is saying to them throughout these three chapters, it's okay that I'm going to leave you and to go back to my Father. In fact, it's necessary. It's all part of the plan.

[3:14] It's all part of the Father's great purposes which cannot be achieved unless I go. And it's to you that I'm now entrusting the responsibility of leading the work forward, the work of being my ambassadors, the work of telling the world the good news about me.

[3:32] And be assured, my beloved friends, that I won't leave you unkitted out. You'll have all the resources that you need to take the work forward. You don't need to be afraid or troubled, not least because I'm still going to be with you, albeit in a different form.

[3:50] Now just think for a moment. Try to compare in your mind's eye these words of Jesus with his great commission which is recorded at the very end of Matthew's Gospel. In the great commission, the Lord says to his apostles, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.

[4:15] And behold, I am with you always to the close of the age. Now what the great commission is saying very briefly, Jesus unpacks here in great detail in John 14, 15 and 16.

[4:30] Because in these three chapters, he's showing his apostles how he is going to be with them as they go out into all the world to the nations with the Gospel. And what he says to his apostles here, we can in large measure apply to ourselves as well.

[4:47] Now I say in large measure because we always need to bear in mind as we read these words the actual situation in which they were spoken. Jesus was speaking here to his 11 apostles on this particular and very important Thursday evening in the year, well probably 30 AD or very close to 30 AD.

[5:07] And the message of these words in the first instance is for them. Now to understand our Bibles well, we need to read every part of them, every passage, every verse in its historical context.

[5:22] Only if we do that will we be able to relish the real flavour and power of what's going on. Let me put it like this. You wouldn't read Charles Dickens, would you, as if he were writing in the 21st century.

[5:36] You'd misunderstand so much if you missed his historical context. Or you wouldn't read a Shakespeare play as if Shakespeare were a contemporary of Harold Pinter. So in John chapter 14, we need to see why Jesus spoke these words to these 11 men on this special and awesome occasion.

[5:55] And there are things here in these chapters which apply to the apostles and don't apply to us. So for example, look with me at verse 18 here in chapter 14.

[6:06] I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Now when Jesus says, I will come to you, he means, I will come and see you, my apostles, again on the day of my resurrection, which was only to be three days hence.

[6:22] So we can't read these words, I will come to you, as if they applied to ourselves immediately. Now of course, we know Jesus is going to come back to all his people on the great day of his return to earth.

[6:34] But that's not what he's talking about here in verse 18. In verse 18, we have a promise which applied to them then, but doesn't apply to us now.

[6:46] Now having said that, do let's be encouraged because John the Evangelist, the author of the Gospel, wrote all this down as a very old man 50 years or more after it all happened and he wrote it down for the benefit of posterity.

[7:01] And that's us. So although we need to read it in its historical context and see in the first instance how encouraging and strengthening these words were to the eleven apostles, much of what Jesus said to them does apply to every generation of the Christian church.

[7:18] And these words, which kitted out the apostles for their work of mission, continue to kit us out for our work today. So the historical context is different, but the kit hasn't altered.

[7:33] If I can put it like that. So friends, let's put on our reading glasses and turn to the text itself. These are strengthening words delivered by the Lord Jesus to his apostles with tender love.

[7:45] He understands their bewilderment and their confusion and he opens their eyes to see something of the work and the life that lies before them and the resources that he's going to provide to help them.

[7:59] So I'd like to take this under three headings. First, there are works to be done. Second, there are commandments to be kept. And third, there is a home to be shared.

[8:14] So first, there are works to be done. Let me read verse 12 again. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.

[8:25] And greater works than these will he do because I'm going to the Father. Now the thread which runs through the teaching here is belief in Jesus.

[8:40] Look at verse 10. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Or look at verse 11. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

[8:52] And now verse 12. Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do. Now let's notice that Jesus is explicitly applying this to a wider group than just the 11 apostles.

[9:06] He's applying this to all Christians because he says there in verse 12, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do. So the promise given here is given to all Christians and it's backed by a phrase which Jesus frequently uses in the four Gospels to lend to his sayings the weight of ultimate authority.

[9:26] Truly, truly I say to you doubt me not. That's what he's saying. I'm telling you this with all the authority of the Son of God. Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do and greater works than these will he do because I'm going to the Father.

[9:45] Now what could Jesus the Lord possibly mean by that when he says greater works will the person who believes in him do because he goes to the Father?

[9:55] Well, what sort of works has Jesus been doing in John's Gospel? Let me mention just four. There are others that come before this point in the Gospel but let me mention four. First of all, in chapter 2 he turned water into wine.

[10:11] It was about 150 gallons of water which he turned into wine and it was very good wine. It was the best wine. Then in chapter 6 he took a boy's lunch a little lunch basket of five barley loaves and two small fish and with them he fed a huge crowd of several thousand people.

[10:32] In fact there was so much food left over broken fragments of the bread that twelve baskets of it were gathered up. Then still in chapter 6 Jesus came walking at three or four in the morning out on the surface of the sea in the dark and joined his disciples who were rowing against a difficult wind walking on the water.

[10:52] And then in chapter 11 he raised Lazarus from the dead and Lazarus' body had been buried already for four days. And yet here he's saying that whoever not just his apostles but whoever believes in him will do greater works than these.

[11:10] Do you remember what John McEnroe said on the tennis court? You cannot be serious. Is it possible that greater works than these could be done by somebody who believes in Jesus?

[11:20] What can he mean? Well surely he cannot mean works that are more spectacular or dramatic or works which display greater supernatural power.

[11:33] Have you ever raised someone from the dead? Have you ever taken somebody's lunch basket and turned it into food to feed 5,000? Have you ever walked upon the water? I've never done any of these things.

[11:45] If any of you have see me afterwards. I'd be very interested to know. So what does he mean by this? Well let's look at the main clue which comes in verse 12. Greater works than these will the believer do because I'm going to the Father.

[12:02] Now why should that be a reason for believers doing greater works than Jesus was able to do? Well the moment when Jesus goes to the Father refers of course to his ascension into heaven and that was going to take place some six weeks or so later.

[12:19] But between the Last Supper this night and the ascension were going to come the cross and the resurrection and the cross and resurrection of Jesus mark the beginning of a new order.

[12:33] At the death and resurrection of Jesus a door swings open in the history of the world. a new order is established because at the cross the sin of God's people is judged punished dealt with forgiven and at the resurrection of Jesus God not only vindicates his son he raises him up as the prototype of the new man immortal.

[13:00] Death no longer has dominion over him. At the ascension of Jesus God exalts Jesus to his side installing him there as the co-regent of heaven and then at Pentecost just after the Lord Jesus pours out upon his disciples the Holy Spirit whom the Father had promised.

[13:20] So that six weeks period the cross the resurrection the ascension and Pentecost that is the hinge in time which alters the history of the world.

[13:31] That six weeks period ushers in the age of the Holy Spirit the Pentecostal age the age of the preaching of the gospel. Now none of this could happen unless Jesus were to go to the Father.

[13:45] He had to go to the Father via the cross and the resurrection in order for the new age of gospel preaching and gospel power to begin. So these greater works in verse 12 must refer to the powerful and effective preaching of the gospel and that can be done by any person who is a believer.

[14:09] In the fourth gospel in John's gospel the great consistent interest of the evangelist is in the power of the word of God to bring new life to the dead.

[14:20] The raising of Lazarus is a parallel in the material realm of what the word of Jesus has power to achieve in the spiritual realm. In one sense there is no greater miracle there is no greater work possible than the regeneration of a spiritually dead and buried human being such as you and I were before we heard the gospel and repented.

[14:45] Think of the worldwide growth of the Christian church which is the phenomenon that began on the day of Pentecost. That's the phenomenon of the power of God and that could only happen after Jesus had left the earth to go to the Father.

[15:00] it's been calculated that worldwide today something like 50,000 or even as many as 100,000 people become Christians every day.

[15:12] Did you know that? Between 50 and 100,000 people come to Christ every day. At the end of Jesus' ministry after three years of hard work there were about 120 disciples.

[15:25] That's all. Now look on to verses 13 and 14 because they tell us more about these greater works. We mustn't dislodge verses 13 and 14 from verse 12 because they hang together and verses 13 and 14 are there to explain the greater works that believers will do.

[15:46] What Jesus means is that believers will be committed to gospel work so they will organize their missions and their outreaches and their introductory courses and their conversations, all the things that we're engaged in.

[15:59] They'll devise all sorts of ways and means with which they can reach their friends with the good news about Jesus. And as they do this work of evangelizing of course they're going to be praying people.

[16:11] They will ask the Father and the Lord Jesus to bless the work and to use it to bring new people to Christ. And Jesus commits himself to answer their prayers in verses 13 and 14.

[16:25] Now just look at those two verses because the prayers that he promises to respond to are prayers asked in his name. In other words, requests which are in line with his will and purpose.

[16:41] So just to give one or two examples of that, think of praying in line with his will and purpose in his name. You wouldn't ask for a Porsche. Do you know what a Porsche is?

[16:52] I thought you did. You wouldn't ask for a Porsche, would you, in the name of somebody who didn't even own a donkey. In fact, when he once rode on one, he had to borrow it, didn't he?

[17:04] You wouldn't ask for a million pounds to spend on yourself in the name of somebody who didn't have two brown pennies to rub together. It would be absurd to do that. It wouldn't be to pray in his name, would it?

[17:17] To ask for things in the name of Jesus is to ask for things which further his great purpose of gathering an uncountable multitude of people for eternal life.

[17:29] Those verses 13 and 14 are not giving us carte blanche to ask for things which have nothing to do with his will and purpose. Now, fine to ask for money if it's going to help with the gospel, but not just for ourselves.

[17:43] And let's notice one other thing here, which is both humbling and comforting. Although verse 12 speaks of the believer, doing these great works, verses 13 and 14 show us that the great works are really and truly works of Jesus himself.

[18:01] The believer prays as he sets about the works, and as he prays and as he asks for blessing in Christ's name, Jesus says, look at verses 13 and 14, this I will do.

[18:13] And again in verse 14, if you ask me anything in my name, I'm the one who will do it. So as we work and pray, and as we see the blessing of God upon our gospel work, truly it is Christ who is at work.

[18:29] We have no power in ourselves. So verse 12 is not about turbocharged Christians. It's about ordinary believers through whose work the Lord Jesus is doing his work.

[18:42] To what end? Well there it is in verse 13, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. In other words, so that people will say, what a glorious God we have, to have revealed himself in such a wonderful Son, Jesus Christ, whose death and resurrection have opened the door for so many people to eternal life.

[19:04] So here's the first thing that Jesus teaches his apostles and us. There are works to be done. So friends, let's roll up our sleeves. There's something very business-like and hard-working about being a Christian.

[19:16] We live in the era of the Gospel, the era of the Holy Spirit. We have Jesus' promise to be at work through our work. So let's not put off being his workers.

[19:27] Is anybody here tempted to put off being a worker for him? Let's not say, for example, the spring's coming, so the garden comes first. That's something that older people might say, isn't it?

[19:40] You younger ones, you wouldn't say that. But if we're older, we could say that. Or let's not say, I'm getting old, so let's leave it to the younger ones. Or let's not say, here's one for the younger people, let's not say, I must sort out all the big questions of my life first.

[19:57] I've got to get the right job, I've got to marry the right person, I've got to find the right place to live in. No, all those things can be entrusted to the Lord. He'll work them out for you in his own best time.

[20:08] Let's get involved in the great work, work because whoever believes in the Lord Jesus will do greater works than the ones that he has done. So there's the first thing, works to be done.

[20:20] It's a great joy to be able to do them together as we pray to him. Now second, there are commandments to be kept. Let's look at verse 15 here.

[20:31] If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Or here's verse 21. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

[20:44] Or verse 23. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And then we have the negative of this in verse 24. Whoever does not love me, does not keep my words.

[20:59] So the commandments of Jesus are part of the kit, part of the equipment which he gives us to enable us to live a radically different life in this era of the gospel.

[21:12] And let's notice the unseverable link between loving him and keeping his commandments. Verse 15. If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

[21:23] Verse 21. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. 23. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.

[21:35] Now when Jesus speaks like this, he's not denying that love has an emotional component. You've only got to think of those other words of his when he says that the first and greatest commandment is that we love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.

[21:56] And if heart, soul, mind and strength don't include our feelings, I'm a Dutchman. Loving the Lord was never meant to be a cool intellectual exercise. Nobody is going to love the Lord if their heart is as cold as a fishmonger's slab.

[22:13] But here in John 14 we see that at the heart of loving the Lord Jesus, there is an irreducible moral commitment and content. If a person says, I love you Lord Jesus, but I shall behave exactly as I want, his reply would be, no, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

[22:34] Now the reason for this is that if we care deeply about him, we shall care deeply about the things that he values as well. Now his commandments are scattered everywhere, thickly, frequently, throughout the four gospels.

[22:49] In this part of John's gospel alone, you'll see his command in chapter 13, verse 34, that Christians love each other. He repeats it in chapter 15, verse 12 with a little bit of explanation.

[23:02] There's a commandment to go and bear fruit in chapter 15, verse 16. There's the command in chapter 14, verse 1, to let our hearts not be troubled. So his commandments come thick and fast, they're everywhere in the four gospels.

[23:17] But he continues to command us through the words of his apostles in the later parts of the New Testament. And then behind the New Testament commandments, all of them, lies the cumulative weight of all God's commandments in the Old Testament.

[23:33] And as you know, the heart of those are the Ten Commandments, in the center of the law of Moses. And the whole of the law of Moses interprets and applies the Ten Commandments. Then there are the writings of the Old Testament prophets, which at the most fundamental level are an exposition of the Ten Commandments.

[23:51] The prophets take the commandments and apply them to their own generation. The book of Proverbs as well is an unfolding and teasing out of the implications of the Ten Commandments in a thousand nooks and crannies of ordinary life in the way we behave.

[24:08] And the Christian life, as it grows and matures, is a process whereby we gradually learn to love and live by the commandments of the Bible.

[24:20] Now God's commandments are never contradictory to God's good news. They're part of it. God rescues the undeserving sinner, that's the good news, and then having rescued the sinner, God then teaches the newly converted Christian how to live.

[24:38] And that's where the commandments of the Bible come in. They show us how to live a joyful, purposeful, authentic human life. God's commandments are the high road to happiness and usefulness.

[24:53] Now that's quite the opposite of the way in which the world will think of them. The world will always think of God's commandments as negative and prohibitive. Rotten old commandments. Isn't God a killjoy?

[25:05] He's just out to spoil our fun. That's a disastrous misrepresentation of the truth. Each one of the Ten Commandments is designed to promote God's honour and human happiness.

[25:17] Think for example of the Tenth Commandment, the commandment against coveting. Coveting is greed, isn't it? Greed for more money, more possessions, more power. Covetousness is the root cause of the global financial crisis that we're suffering at present.

[25:35] It leads to untold misery. It's the breaking of the Tenth Commandment that has led to all this trouble. Or think of the commandment against adultery, the Seventh Commandment. It's not there to spoil people's fun.

[25:48] It's there to protect people's happiness. We know, don't we, that adultery leads to great wretchedness. It leads to despair, divorce, breakdown of health, loss of homes, damage to children, breakdown of families.

[26:03] We all know this. I don't need to labour the point. The commandment against adultery is a commandment which safeguards and promotes marriage. Marriage is part of the glue that holds society together.

[26:17] Where marriage disintegrates, sooner or later, civilizations crumble. That's just two examples from the Ten Commandments. But Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

[26:30] You'll want to. Your mind will be changed increasingly over time. The Bible's commandments, which once upon a time you saw as prohibitive and nasty and oppressive, you'll begin to see as liberating and purposeful because they map out the only road which is worth following.

[26:49] They adorn the highway to heaven. So if we love the Lord Jesus, we will learn to keep his commandments. Now do be encouraged, friends. We don't learn everything about this overnight and we never learn fully this side of the grave because we're sinners and sin lingers.

[27:05] But over time, the Lord will graciously, deeply change our minds so that we learn to love and value the things that he loves and values and commands.

[27:17] And also so that we learn to hate the behavior that he hates. Christians must learn to be haters of the things that the Lord hates.

[27:28] Murder, greed, adultery, idolatry, lying, stealing and so on. We'll never learn to love our Lord Jesus unless we develop an aversion to behavior which defies him.

[27:43] So works to do, commandments to keep and now third, a home to be shared. Now I'm not forgetting verses 16 and 17 about the Holy Spirit.

[27:55] I want to save those actually for next Sunday evening and take them along with verse 26 which is also about the Holy Spirit. So we'll consider him in some depth next week. The gift of the Spirit to the apostles and to all Christians is of course fundamental to the church's mission and fundamental to the very meaning of what the church is.

[28:14] But as I say, we'll keep those for next time. So third, a home to be shared. Look with me at verse 23. Jesus answered him, this is Judas, not Iscariot, 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.

[28:39] Now that thought of the Lord making his home with the believer, that's something which has been developing for several verses. Look back at the end of verse 17.

[28:51] You know him, that is the Holy Spirit, for he dwells with you and will be in you. So the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, will be in and dwell with the believers.

[29:03] Then look on to verse 20. In that day you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you. So the Spirit will dwell with you and be in you, verse 17.

[29:19] Now I, Jesus, verse 20, am in you as you are in me and I am in my father. And now verse 21, I will manifest myself to the one who loves me and keeps my commandments.

[29:32] Now this development of thought here causes poor Judas, not Iscariot, the other Judas, to rub his eyes in verse 22 and to say, Lord, what do you mean by manifesting yourself to us and not to the world?

[29:46] And it's here that Jesus repeats in slightly different words what he's just been saying. So he answers Judas, verse 23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.

[30:03] Now Judas might still have been thinking that Jesus was going to appear as a triumphant warrior king. Judas and the others didn't have a clear understanding of what Jesus' resurrection would be like.

[30:17] But Jesus says in verse 23 something very wonderful which Judas could hardly have made sense of at the time. How will you manifest yourself to us?

[30:28] That's his question. To us, your people, not to the world. When he says to us and not to the world, he's picking up on what Jesus has said back in verse 19. The world will see me no more, but you will see me.

[30:42] So Judas is asking him to draw out the meaning of that. And indeed this is exactly what happened. Jesus did present himself alive after his resurrection but only to his own disciples.

[30:55] He didn't show himself to others, to those who had not put their trust in him. He manifested himself then only to those who belonged to him. But verse 23 is saying something much more wonderful than merely that Jesus would appear to his people after his resurrection.

[31:12] In verse 23 he's saying that he and the father will come to the believer, that's the one who loves him and keeps his word, and we, he says, will make our home with him.

[31:25] Him. Now friends, just allow your jaw to drop open for a moment at that thought. This is not a command. This is a promise.

[31:37] Jesus is promising that every believer, every person who loves him and keeps his word will become the permanent residence of God the Father, of the Lord Jesus, and from verse 17, of the Holy Spirit.

[31:52] So the Holy Trinity, in some wonderful way that we can never fully understand, is at home, in residence, in the body and mind and heart of every person who loves Jesus and is learning to keep his word.

[32:11] You see, we were never made to live isolated and independent lives. God's purpose is to share our lives with us, to take up residence as our loving ruler and teacher and saviour, to be there with us, in us, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

[32:33] Now how does this work out in a typical day? For me, let me describe you a typical day shared with the Lord when the Lord is in residence.

[32:43] It runs something like this. I get up, a little bit earlier than I wish I had to, but I do get up. I stagger to the bathroom. I wash my face. I look in the mirror and ask, who is that old man?

[32:57] And then I remember who it is. I then go downstairs to the kitchen. I eat a challenging bowl of porridge, which reminds me of nuclear deterrent. I read the Bible.

[33:07] I pray. I hop on the train. I come in here to Glasgow. I teach the students at the Cornhill course. I listen to their practice sermons. I go to the office. I read my emails. I send a few emails as well, with a little help from my friends.

[33:20] And then at the end of the day, I hop on the homeward train. I fall deeply asleep, but usually wake up at the right moment, just before the station where I've got to get off. I get home. I'm greeted by my dogs with a kiss and by my wife with a slobber.

[33:34] Sorry, I think I got that the wrong way around. I then eat my tea. I wash the dishes. I sit down by the fire, do some reading, some preparation, whatever it is. Finally, fall into bed with a thud, wondering as I descend into the arms of Morpheus whether I've locked the back door.

[33:52] Is that like your day? I'm sure it is. The details will differ, but the general substance of it, I'm sure, is just like that. Now, isn't it wonderful to know that in the midst of all the challenges and demands of work and activity, if we are Christians, the Lord, that is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, is there at home with us, within us, teaching us to love him, to do his works and to live by his commandments.

[34:21] Isn't it remarkable and delightful that the Lord of heaven and earth should be pleased to live in the hearts and lives of Christian people? Now, let me point out just two more things about this and then we'll finish.

[34:38] The first is that in John chapter 14, there are actually two homes which the believer is able to share with the Lord. One, as we've just seen, is the home of our own hearts, there in verse 23.

[34:53] But the other home is the one mentioned in verses 2 and 3. In the Father's house, that is in heaven, in the new world, there is plenty of space and the Lord Jesus has gone on ahead of us to prepare a place there for us, where we will be with him and he with us.

[35:12] So to be a Christian is to live with him now, here, and to live with him then in the great future as well. This means that our death, when it comes, will not separate us from him.

[35:27] On the contrary, it will be the gateway into his even closer presence. Two homes, one to be enjoyed now, but one for the future. Now the second thing.

[35:39] This teaching of Jesus is nothing less than the fulfilment of God's great covenant. This is the final performing of what God has always promised throughout the Bible.

[35:51] John the evangelist puts it like this in the book of Revelation in chapter 21. Now, he says, the dwelling of God is with men and he will live with them.

[36:01] They will be his people and God himself will be with them and be their God. Now friends, this is what the whole gospel is all about. The gospel is the promise that God and his people will be forever reunited.

[36:15] The sin of Adam brought about estrangement, separation, alienation. God and man separated with no apparent way back. We were under God's curse and deservedly so.

[36:30] But God has worked out this great loving purpose whereby his son came, came to bear the curse and condemnation that we deserve so that at the end we should be reunited with him.

[36:43] Now think of the eleven apostles on that Thursday evening. They so much needed to know all these things. Because to know this would sustain them through all the long years of struggle and persecution that they were about to face.

[37:00] But here is their master preparing them, kitting them out. You have a great work to do. You have my commandments to keep. And you have my promise that I will not leave you as orphans.

[37:14] Indeed, my Father and I and the Holy Spirit will take up residence with you. And these great truths, friends, equip us also today.

[37:25] They kit us out for life and battle as Christians. Tomorrow is Monday. Tomorrow morning will be Monday morning.

[37:38] But if we know these things, we will be better prepared for what lies ahead of us. Let's bow our heads and pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. How kind you have been to us, Lord Jesus, to say that we shall not be left as orphans.

[38:03] You came to your eleven and you showed yourself to them. And now wonderfully you come to all who believe in you and belong to you. And in a different way, you reveal yourself wonderfully to us and take up residence in our very hearts and lives.

[38:21] Help us, Lord Jesus, to treasure this ever more deeply, to love you more truly, to rejoice in you, to adore you and delight in you, and to keep your commandments, to learn your ways so that we can please you and to learn to hate the things that you hate and for which you died.

[38:39] Our Lord Jesus, help us to know you better so that in our lives and our words, everything we do, your name, might be covered with glory.

[38:51] Amen.