The Spirit of Truth

[0:00] We are going to turn to our Bible reading for this evening and it's great to have David preaching to us. He's going to be teaching from John chapter 14. So if you'd like to turn there now, if you have one of the church red Bibles, it's page 901.

[0:17] Part of what we call the upper room discourse where Jesus is teaching his closest disciples just before his betrayal and his death on the cross.

[0:32] So we're going to read from John 14 verse 15 to the end. Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

[0:45] And I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.

[0:59] You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.

[1:10] A little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.

[1:29] Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I will love him and manifest myself to him.

[1:43] Judas, not Iscariot, Judas said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word.

[1:58] And my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. 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.

[2:14] These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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.

[2:29] 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. You heard me say to you, I'm going away and I will come to you.

[2:45] If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I'm going to the Father. For the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.

[3:00] I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.

[3:20] Rise. Let us go from here. Amen. And may God bless to us his word. Amen. Amen.

[3:33] Well, thank you very much indeed for your welcome. It's always a joy to come and share with you here at the Tron and to share in the worship especially. I always enjoy the singing and the music as well as the fellowship and the opportunity of opening God's word.

[3:47] So let's turn back to John chapter 14 and the second half of the chapter, which begins at the 15th verse. And if you'd like to turn to that in your Bibles, that would be a real help to me and I think to you as we look together at this wonderful teaching of the Lord Jesus.

[4:03] And as we open our Bibles, let's pray that God will help us to understand. Lord, we pray that your word, this wonderful word of the Lord Jesus, may be our rule.

[4:16] We pray that your Holy Spirit may be our teacher this evening. And we pray that your greater glory may be our supreme concern as we seek to live lives that honour and praise the Lord Jesus Christ and all for his name's sake.

[4:35] Amen. Now when Jesus spoke these words to his disciples, they were on the cusp of the greatest challenges that they'd ever yet had to face.

[4:48] The context, as we've been reminded, is that he is about to leave them. He's going to return to the Father who sent him into this world. And for Jesus, the way home to the Father will be the way firstly of the cross, then of the tomb, and gloriously of the resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God.

[5:13] But for the disciples, it's an unknown future. And one of the questions that must have been going through all their minds as Jesus unpacked some of the future to them was, how are we going to be able to live as disciples of the Lord Jesus, as followers of him, when he's no longer here with us?

[5:34] And in a sense, no question I think is more relevant in our confused and broken world in the year 2019 than that question. How are we going to live as disciples and followers of the Lord Jesus in an unknown future?

[5:53] Because on the one hand, we see the amazing technological developments that play into the evolutionary hypothesis that actually in our world, everything is getting better and better.

[6:06] And certainly we'd be foolish not to acknowledge that in the goodness of God, many things have got better in material and physical terms. But on the other hand, we're surrounded all the time by overwhelming evidence of political incapacity, social disintegration, people under personal stress and breakdown, broken families, and a culture that is characterized by lack of love and lack of peace and lack of hope.

[6:37] How are we going to live as followers of Jesus Christ in that sort of unknown future? So I want in these few minutes this evening for us to turn away from the deception of the media lies and the confusion of the fake truth so-called that is everywhere and the cynical deception of our culture.

[7:01] Turn away from that to the clarity of God's unchanging word and to our infallible interpreter, the spirit of truth.

[7:14] Now this passage is a little complex. It's deceptive, John's Gospel, isn't it? Because the vocabulary is very easy, but often the ideas are put together in quite challenging ways.

[7:25] I want us to take it in three steps this evening. What I think we'll find is that the first one will set the principles for us and then the second two will help us to apply those principles to our lives.

[7:38] So first of all, let's look at that section from verse 15 to 21, which I want to call the dynamics of discipleship. The dynamics of discipleship.

[7:49] I'm sure you will know that very often in the Bible, a unit of teaching is marked out by something at the beginning and something that is repeated at the end, which act as sort of marker posts, boundaries, if you like, to help us to see what the passage really is.

[8:07] And verse 15 begins very straightforwardly with Jesus saying, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. So this passage begins with love and obedience.

[8:20] And then when you get to the end of it in verse 31, Jesus is saying, I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father.

[8:33] Love and obedience. When you get that at the beginning and you get that at the end, you can be pretty sure that in this section that's going to be a major message. Love and obedience.

[8:44] But then if you look within that longer section, the first section that we're looking at, verses 15 to 21, is a unit in itself because the same thought is repeated in verse 21.

[8:57] Just look with me at that for a moment. Whoever has my commandments, Jesus says, and keeps them, obedience, he it is who loves me.

[9:08] And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. So clearly this is a key idea. Now if we're going to be faithful and fruitful, we need to get this principle firmly established in our minds and in our hearts.

[9:28] Love and obedience. Martin Lloyd-Jones, who was a famous preacher in London in the second half of the 20th century, wrote a great book called Preaching and Preachers.

[9:40] And in that book, he talks about how the truth of God impacts our lives. And his sort of way of understanding it is that the truth firstly addresses our minds so that we understand what God is saying.

[9:53] And then from the mind, it penetrates the heart, which is the control center of our personality, where we make our decisions, where we decide our values in life. And when the mind is illuminated by the word of God and the heart is softened by the spirit of God, then the life is changed to do the will of God.

[10:15] So Lloyd-Jones used to say, through the mind to the heart to activate the will. And if we're going to be effective Christians, we've got to have those three components of our response all in line.

[10:28] A mind that understands the Bible, that's why the Holy Spirit's the teacher. A heart that is softened by the Holy Spirit's ministry to receive the word of God. And then a life that is strengthened through the Holy Spirit's power to live the word of God.

[10:44] So I want to look at it a little bit more closely now, if you will, with me. Verse 15 again, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now, Jesus is not implying that they don't already love him.

[10:58] What he is doing is implying a condition on which everything that follows depends. It's like a mathematical statement. If A, then B.

[11:08] And at once, Jesus shows us what loving him, A, entails. B, you will keep my commandments. Please notice it doesn't say you should.

[11:21] It doesn't even say you must. It says you will. It's a straight future tense. And that means, in other words, that obedience is the proof of the reality of love.

[11:36] It is the fruit of love. The root of it all is love, and the fruit is obedience. And as we are rooted in God's love for us, first of all, and then our feeble but genuine love for him in response, the fruit that is produced in our lives is the fruit of keeping his commandments.

[12:00] Now, I think the 21st century church largely ignores that. Lots of churches want to celebrate the love of God, but they don't couple that with obedience to the teaching of Jesus.

[12:13] But you see, if you have love, so-called, without obedience, all you've really got is sentimental feeling. Ultimately, it can be an illusion. It doesn't change the church.

[12:25] It doesn't change the world. It becomes just a sort of indulgence of sentimental warm-heartedness. That's not what he means. If you love me, you will keep my commands.

[12:39] But if, on the other hand, you have obedience without love, well, then you have the slavery of law-keeping, a sort of legalistic righteousness, which turns us into Pharisees.

[12:51] Now, you need to have both, love and obedience. In my youth, there was a popular song. Some of you who are almost as old as me may remember it.

[13:03] It went, love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. This I tell you, brother, you can't have one without the other. How dated is that?

[13:15] But in terms of Christian discipleship, it's true. This I tell you, brother, sister, you can't have love without obedience. You can't have obedience, not real obedience, without love.

[13:30] They belong together. But obedience to what? Well, verse 15 says, my commandments. And again, in verse 21, whoever has my commandments and keeps them.

[13:42] But in verse 23, Jesus takes us a stage further. If anyone loves me, verse 23, he will keep my word. That is my logos, my teaching.

[13:56] So love is expressed in doing what Jesus says and living by his teaching. In other words, love is a sign of serious, self-giving commitment to Jesus Christ, to who he is, to what he teaches.

[14:15] And the badge of discipleship is, you will keep my commandments. Now, there's a lovely balance here. Do you see in verse 15, he says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

[14:28] And then I will do something. Verse 16, I will ask the father. And then the father will do something. Verse 16, and he will give you another helper.

[14:40] You will keep, I will ask, and he will give. And what the father will give, verse 17 says, is the spirit of truth, whom Jesus describes in the preceding verse 16, as another helper, the spirit of truth.

[14:58] Now, this word is difficult, this helper word, difficult to translate exactly. Lots of different words occur in English translations, sometimes advocate, sometimes counselor, sometimes comforter, in the old version, in the comforting sense of strengthening.

[15:18] That's what comfort means, with strength. Or helper. But whatever the translation that's used, it comes from a verb that's actually used over a hundred times in the New Testament, that means exhorting and consoling and strengthening.

[15:36] Perhaps the best way of describing it is coming alongside in order to be a help. But more than that, coming alongside as the ability needed to get the job done.

[15:49] Now, this is the role of the Holy Spirit. He comes in order to be the ability to get the job done of keeping his commandments and so revealing his love.

[16:03] Now, the teacher, the Holy Spirit, wants to encourage us to see that that is the ministry that he will perform in our lives. I was trying to think of an illustration.

[16:15] It seems to me that one possible illustration is a little child learning to write for the first time. And if he is sitting there at his table in school with his pencil trying to shape the letters, the teacher might come along and put her hand over the child's hand and guide his pencil so that her ability is transferred to him as he produces the marks on the page.

[16:41] It's not a perfect illustration. It's not a perfect illustration, but it gets the idea. The teacher, she comes along as the ability to enable him to do the job. Of course, eventually, he will do that job without her help.

[16:55] And we'll never be able to do God's work without his help. So it's not a perfect illustration, but it gives us the idea of coming alongside, being the helper. And Jesus says, God will send, the father will send another helper.

[17:11] Now, that's an interesting word because it means exactly the same source has. There's several words that could be used in the original, but this word is the one that means identical with exactly the same as separate.

[17:26] Yes, but identical. So supposing you're going out for some special event and you have a lovely new white handkerchief, but something occurs at home before you go out and you have to mop up something in your handkerchief is the first thing at hand.

[17:41] And it gets stained and dirty through mopping up something in the kitchen. And you think, oh dear, I've got to go and get another handkerchief. Now, another handkerchief could be any color.

[17:52] I mean, I've got a particularly colored handkerchief tonight. That's another handkerchief. But if you go into your drawer and you bring out a handkerchief that is absolutely the same as the one that you've just spoiled.

[18:05] That is the what the word is here. Exactly the same as identical to it's separate. from the other handkerchief, just as the Holy Spirit is separate from the son and the father as three persons of the Godhead.

[18:18] But the another means he is exactly the same as Jesus because he is God. And Jesus promises that God will come in the form of his Holy Spirit, exactly the same as himself.

[18:33] And look at verse 16 to be with you forever. Never. Never to leave his people. Jesus is going away, but the Holy Spirit will never go away.

[18:46] He will never leave the disciples. Now, Jesus, of course, is our advocate. He is our helper. Later in the New Testament, when John writes his first letter, he says in chapter two, if anyone sins, we have an advocate, a helper, someone who pleads with the father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.

[19:07] And he's the propitiation for our sins and not for our sins only, but also for the sins of the whole world. Jesus is our advocate at the throne of the father.

[19:19] But the Holy Spirit is his advocate, his comforter, his counselor, his one, the one who comes alongside to get the job done in our experience.

[19:29] And whenever we sin, we know that the Lord Jesus in his mercy, as we repent and turn to him again and say, Lord, please forgive me again.

[19:40] His sacrifice will atone for that sin. But the spirit's work is to bring the life of God into the experience of men and women like us and to do it always.

[19:51] To be with you forever. And in fact, this whole chapter, which the spirit inspired John to write, is a model of how he helps us.

[20:03] As he teaches us Christ's truth, he is the spirit of truth. But it's even more than that. Look at the dynamic at the end of verse 17.

[20:15] The spirit of truth in the world cannot receive, but you know him, Jesus says, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

[20:26] That's a really interesting comment, isn't it? He dwells with you, he says to the disciples. And I think the reason is because right back in the first chapter of John's gospel, when Jesus was baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon him, we're told that the spirit whom John witnessed at the baptism of Jesus remained on Jesus.

[20:48] So as Jesus fulfilled his ministry through the three years with the disciples alongside him, the spirit was upon him, with him. Of course, he is the divine second person of the Trinity, the son of God.

[21:03] But he is also in his condescension, laying aside his glory to be a real human being in the real world. And that same power of the spirit was witnessed by the disciples.

[21:16] They saw him with Jesus. They knew that he was with them, too, as he opened their eyes to see who Jesus really is. But the end of verse 17 is even more wonderful.

[21:28] He will be in you. Now, that is the great difference between the Old and the New Testaments. One of the great differences, anyway.

[21:40] Again, earlier in the gospel, Jesus in the temple at Jerusalem has been teaching at the Feast of Tabernacles. And he says, if any man is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

[21:51] And out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And then John explains, John 7, 39, this he spoke about the spirit. Because the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

[22:06] Now, glorified in John's gospel means lifted up. Where was Jesus lifted up? On the cross. Where do you see the glory of God? In the death of Jesus on the cross.

[22:18] And when Jesus was lifted up on that cross as the atoning sacrifice for our sins, when Calvary had happened, then Pentecost could follow. But the spirit was not yet given in John 7 because Jesus was not yet lifted up.

[22:33] But as Jesus now on the night of his betrayal is about to be lifted up on that cross the next day, then here is the promise that the gift of the spirit will be given not simply to be with you but to be in you because now the heart and life can be cleansed by the blood of Calvary and the Holy Spirit can come into that cleansed life and set up his residence there, his divine dynamic power to transform us.

[23:01] So that we're not left as orphans, that's what verse 18 says, we're not bereft in this world of Jesus' presence. No, he says, verse 18, I will come to you. How does he come?

[23:13] In the person of the Holy Spirit. So for those disciples who first heard these words, the death of Jesus is going to remove him from their sight just for a short time.

[23:26] But when he comes again in power and glory in the resurrection, that's the first, as it were, of his returns, there is of course going to be the second coming at the end of time.

[23:39] But first of all, they see him again as they witness the resurrected Lord Jesus as they meet him on that first Easter day. And they are the recipients of the new life of the risen Lord because as he says, I will come to you.

[23:56] And again in verse 19, because I live, you also will live. So verse 20, in that day, you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.

[24:10] And I think that day here is the resurrection day. The supreme vindication and proof of all that Jesus had claimed. I am in my Father, one with the Father, in the Godhead as the only begotten Son of the Father.

[24:25] But look, not just that. You'll know that you are in me and I am in you. It's expressing the closest of personal unions with the Lord Jesus through the gift of the Holy Spirit as the life of God is planted in the souls of men and women like us.

[24:45] The power is his alone. But as we exercise faith in him, as we believe in him, as we draw upon that life source that is the Holy Spirit within the believer, well, that means we'll follow his instructions because we love him.

[25:03] And then verse 21, if that is so, we will be loved by the Father and Jesus will love us and manifest himself to us.

[25:16] So we will come to know him better. We will come to love him more. It's a progressive, developing, cumulative thing. Leslie Newbigin puts it like this.

[25:26] He says, obedience is the test of love and love is the content of obedience. And the ability to do that is in Christ through his spirit.

[25:40] So how are we going to live as Christians in the world, a challenging world, a world of uncertain futures? Well, if we were to go to the airport tonight and watch people boarding an aeroplane here in Glasgow Airport, I guess you can go to many, many cities around the world from here, you would notice that some people got onto that plane very nonchalantly as though they were just sort of going from one room to another.

[26:04] But there might be some people who are a bit nervous about flying or perhaps somebody who'd never flown before. And they might almost be going sort of two steps forward and one step back as they edge their way onto the plane.

[26:16] But whether you go on nonchalantly, confidently, or with a bit of trembling, once you get into that plane, you are within the sphere of the aeroplane.

[26:27] I always think that as you go in. Once you go in, you're committed to that bit of metal that's going to fly through the sky. Now, you don't actually fly. You just sit in the plane and the plane has the power and the energy to transport you.

[26:44] And it's a little bit like that, isn't it? That we have to put our faith in Jesus. If you don't get on the plane, you'll never travel anywhere. But when you're on the plane, whether your faith seems strong or whether it seems very hesitant, the power is not in your faith.

[26:59] The power is in the Christ who is the equivalent of those jet engines that enable you to do the impossible and go from A to B across the sky. Again, you see, it's an illustration that shows us that we don't have to do this living of the Christian life at one level.

[27:16] We've got to have the faith and the faith will issue in love and the love will issue in obedience but the dynamic to do it is the implantation of the life of the Holy Spirit within us to enable us to do what we could never do ourselves.

[27:32] That's the heart of the Christian life. Not I, but Christ who lives in me. Well now, in our last few minutes let's look at the implications more briefly in the rest of the section.

[27:46] Here's the dynamic of the Christian life. This tremendous gift of God based on the cross and the resurrection. The Holy Spirit indwelling, living within every Christian believer.

[27:57] That's what makes you a Christian. But at this point there's an interruption from Judas not Iscariot. He's probably the disciple who's known as Thaddeus in Matthew and Mark.

[28:09] And here in verse 22 he asks a question. Lord, how is it that you'll manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Now you may say, well why does he ask that? I think it's quite understandable because in verse 20 Jesus has used a common Old Testament phrase in that day.

[28:27] It's a phrase that the prophets used to refer to the day of the Lord, the final day of God's great victory over all the hostile powers of evil. And that would be the greatest public event ever when the whole of humanity would be brought before God's judgment throne and he would finally manifest himself as God.

[28:49] So Judas is saying, Lord, if you're going to manifest yourself and we believe that you are God, how is it that the world won't see this? But I think Jesus is not talking about the day of judgment here though.

[29:04] The day of judgment is a reality, a future reality of course. But the day of manifestation was the day of his resurrection. And here is God's ultimate triumph over all the hostile powers.

[29:18] How do we know? Through the empty tomb and through the risen Lord. And that's the victory that brought in the new era of the kingdom of heaven.

[29:28] Now, the world did not witness that. The risen Lord appeared only to his disciples. The world knew the tomb was empty and they tried to hush it up and pretend that the body had been stolen but they didn't see the risen Christ.

[29:43] Now, more than 500 people did as Paul reminded the Corinthians but they were all disciples of the Lord Jesus. The world, however, will witness the risen Christ when he comes as the judge at the end of time in his glory and majesty.

[30:01] But what is happening in the meantime is that Jesus is gathering his people out of the world. People of every tribe and kindred and nation into his eternal kingdom which is why in verse 23 he says, Judas, you need to know that it's not just about you as a disciple, one of the 12 and me, it's about anyone.

[30:23] You see that little word in verse 23? If anyone loves me he will keep my word. It's not just for those disciples then that Jesus is giving these promises.

[30:34] We are in verse 23 potentially. If we love him, if we keep his word, then the Father will love us and come to us and make his home with us through that ministry of the Holy Spirit.

[30:51] What a tremendous promise that is. And every time someone repents and believes the gospel, every time someone turns to Christ and multitudes of people across the world have done that in all past generations and now in our own generation, multitudes of Christians across the world have found that God has come to them and made his home with them because the Holy Spirit in keeping the promise of Jesus indwells the believer with the life of God.

[31:23] Now I want you to see that that very act of commitment is what separates the church from the world, the body of believers from those who don't believe.

[31:34] So the implication you see is that if the dynamics of discipleship are followed through there will be a distinctiveness from the world because the world of unbelief and disobedience and ultimately rebellion against God is summed up in verse 24, whoever does not love me does not keep my words.

[31:55] Well that's typical of the world, isn't it? That's where we all were by nature until God rescued us. The world rejects Christ and it rejects his logos, his teaching and in so doing it rejects the Father who sent him.

[32:09] Verse 24, the word that you hear is not mine but the fathers who sent me. So Jesus is saying you can't have the Father without the Son. He is the only true and living way to the Father and so what he is really saying to us who are the anyone's of verse 23 is which side of the divide are you?

[32:34] Are you someone who is hearing his words and putting them into practice and revealing your love for him or are you someone who like the world is resisting that word and failing to live by it?

[32:49] Now if you have any hesitation as to why you should be a disciple of the Lord Jesus let me just point you to two enormous benefits which the world knows nothing about and can never provide which Jesus now reminds his disciples they have.

[33:07] the first is the assurance of truth. The word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. The Father sent Jesus into the world and now the Father and Jesus will send the Spirit to live within every believer and just as Jesus came into the world as the Father's emissary so the Spirit will come as Jesus' agent or emissary to bring the life of God to his people.

[33:37] Now to these disciples he says he will teach you all things verse 26 and bring to your remembrance all that I've said to you. That's not a promise of course to us because we didn't hear him teach these things but we have these things written down because John who was one of those who heard these words inspired by the Spirit wrote his gospel and the other disciples wrote their parts of the New Testament supremely of course Paul who was not even a disciple at that point.

[34:05] But they had brought to their remembrance and being taught all things by the Holy Spirit the truth of God he's the Spirit of truth which we now have enshrined as the New Testament Scriptures.

[34:17] So the Holy Spirit comes not to bring some new revelation beyond Jesus how could anything be beyond Jesus? But he comes to teach you all things and bring to your remembrance that is the apostles all that I've said to you and then the apostles write it down so that the church in every generation can have this authoritative word of God that guides and leads us this bedrock of truth on which our faith is grounded.

[34:44] So it's faith in Christ generated by the witness of the Holy Spirit to the word of God that produces Christian life. The Spirit of God takes the word of God to create the people of God.

[35:00] Now if you don't have that assurance of truth that the gospel is the greatest good news the world could ever hear that Jesus is the son of God and that what we've been singing about tonight of him dying on the cross for our sins if you do not have that personal assurance what do you do about it?

[35:18] You read the New Testament you get into the scriptures you take the gospel of John and you ask yourself who is this Jesus? he said that if you want to know the truth then if you're willing to do his will that truth will be revealed that's the first great thing that the world can never give you the world can't explain the world let alone God but God has revealed the truth and only the word can lead us into that truth but the other thing is peace you see in verse 27 peace I leave with you my peace I give you it's that word the Hebrew word shalom which means well-being salvation being in a broad place of fulfillment and of course our world is always looking for peace and rarely able to discover it and if it does it's only temporary it's soon snatched away Jesus says my peace is not like that not as the world gives do I give you my peace is personal my peace is eternal my peace is something that overcomes your troubles and your fears verse 27 let not your hearts be troubled neither let them be afraid because my peace

[36:35] Jesus is saying comes through the reconciling work I'm about to accomplish on the cross and as later New Testament writers put it since we've been justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ so Christ's peace is peace with God peace among the people of God and the peace of God which passes all understanding guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus so do you see how distinctively different it is to be a Christian don't minimize it don't pretend it isn't there don't as it were want to walk away from this difference look at how God wants to enrich you and fulfill you in a way that the world can never do it you won't find the answers in the world's blindness and deception but the Holy Spirit can bring you this assurance of truth and the deep deep peace of God and the last mark of being the disciple that Jesus is encouraging us to be is verses 28 to 31 that we will have delight in God's plan he's going away he says you've heard me say

[37:53] I'm coming I will come to you that's what the spirit is going to do but if you love me you would have rejoiced because I'm going to the father for the father is greater than I at the moment they are troubled and fearful the chapter begins with that but this gentle rebuke is not to question their love for him but to show how concern for themselves and their futures is eclipsing their love for him look at verse 28 if you loved me you would have rejoiced because I'm going home to father and why is he going home because his works about to be completed the mission for which he came is about to be accomplished and if you love Jesus wouldn't that be a cause for rejoicing that he's done this great work of salvation you know when the task is accomplished there is great rejoicing isn't there I don't know if you watched the football last night but the celebrations of Liverpool supporters were pretty impressive especially as it was a rather boring game but they won and the Liverpool supporters knew what it was to rejoice because the mission was accomplished they'd achieved it well in a very small way that's a little picture of the rejoicing of the people of God that Jesus has gone home to heaven he's finished the work at the end of the verse when it says that the father is greater than I doesn't mean of course that he's somehow less than God because the whole gospel's written to prove that he is God incarnate but what he means is that the father is reigning in his own undiminished glory the glory which Jesus laid aside in order to become man and now he's going home in that glorified human body to his rightful place at the right hand of the father so the cross is the end of his earthly self-emptying and humiliation rejoice in what's about to happen he says to the disciples and I'm going to tell you ahead of the time so that when it does happen you'll know the proof that what I spoke to you was the word of God last two verses verse 30

[40:00] I'll no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world is coming he has no claim on me so the world that doesn't heed God's word or love Christ God's son is ruled there is a ruler of this world and the ruler is the devil the whole world lies in the grip of the evil one and therefore its law and its politics and its government and its economics and its social and ethical norms yes and its religion are all under the blindness that does not see the light of God in the face of Jesus Christ because as Paul told the Corinthians the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God but rejoice because as the devil and his agents are about to arrive to seize the son of God and to crucify him they are actually precipitating their own destruction

[41:03] Jesus says Satan has no power over me he has no claim on me that is to say he can bring no charge against my perfect life he can only do what the father gives him permission to do and what is that it's the commandment that the father gave me that I should go to the cross to become the savior of the world I do as the father has commanded me and why do I do that so that the world may know that I love the father the Lord Jesus is going voluntarily to the cross with all its agony and suffering because he loves us yes indeed but because he loves the father supremely and is following the father's commands in obedience and that is the gospel dynamic the rebellion and sinful self-centeredness that's characteristic of all our lives and of a fallen world is about to be overthrown by the obedience and self-sacrificing love of God's son and you see friends that's not just an example it is also the means by which we are enabled to live lives that can transform our little bit of the world in our generation how are we going to live as followers of the Lord Jesus we're going to follow in his footsteps we love him because he's first loved us and given himself for us therefore we want to keep his commands and as we seek to live in love and obedience the Holy Spirit will enable us to live like that and he is the one who will bring the very life of God into the very heart of our experience he dwells with us and is in us and brings to us that sure and certain knowledge that we are in Christ and Christ is in us and that sometimes is very sacrificial that means that we may have to walk a pathway in which the world opposes us and objects to what we're doing and resists what God is doing but the power of Jesus has overcome the world and the devil has no claim on him and if we are in Christ we are kept secure by God's almighty power so that's the dynamics of the Christian life isn't it a privilege to be a Christian let's pray our heavenly father we want to thank you for such a great gospel that transforms our experience of everything lord we acknowledge that we're not standing in judgment over a world because our hearts are just like everybody else's and apart from your grace and mercy we would be lost and we wouldn't see the light and we wouldn't know anything about the truth but we praise you lord that in your grace for many of us you've opened our eyes to understand who Jesus is and to bring us to acknowledge him as the lord and we thank you that as we seek to love you and to follow your ways and to walk in your will you send your holy spirit to equip us with everything we need to serve you well so please help us to believe that to plug our lives into that great supply source to draw on your love and your joy and peace and your power and grace and strength and your courage and ability day by day and please lord help us to glorify the lord Jesus as we seek to

[45:05] live lives that are pleasing to him in our world in our generation we ask all these things for the glory of your holy name amen