[0:00] Good, well we're now going to turn to our Bible reading for this evening. And Edward Lobb is going to be preaching to us this evening, beginning a series for the next seven weeks on what is known as the farewell discourse that begins in John 14.
[0:17] And Edward's part of our preaching team here as an honorary associate minister, and he helps to train preachers at Cornhill, Scotland. And this evening he's going to be preaching from John chapter 14. So do grab a Bible. If you don't have one, we have visitors' Bibles spread around. And if you're not sure where they are, if you wave your hand, someone with an orange lanyard would love to grab one for you.
[0:39] And we're going to read John chapter 14, verses 1 to 14. Jesus says,
[1:47] Jesus said to him,
[2:49] Anything in my name, I will do it. Well, amen. This is God's word. Good evening, friends. Very good to see you all.
[3:02] Let's turn up John's gospel, chapter 14, if we may. John 14, verses 1 to 14 is our passage for tonight. Now, as Josh said a moment ago, we're beginning a new series of sermons under the title, Jesus Instructs the Church.
[3:22] And my hope over these few weeks is to try to cover chapters 14, 15 and 16 of John's gospel. Now, these chapters record for us the last words that Jesus spoke to his apostles before his death and resurrection.
[3:40] And the passage is sometimes referred to as the upper room discourse. Because Jesus said these things in a room on the first floor of somebody's house where he was celebrating the Passover supper, his last supper with the apostles.
[3:55] It was Thursday evening. He would be dead and buried within 24 hours. So it's a dramatic setting. Dr. Johnson, the lexicographer, once said that if a man is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
[4:16] Jesus knew that he was to be crucified in less than 12 hours time. And we have here a wonderful concentration of his mind. Now, my title for this evening is Medicine for the Troubled Heart.
[4:32] And you'll see that I get that title from verse 1, where Jesus says, Let not your hearts be troubled. And if you look on to verse 27 in this same chapter, you'll see that he says exactly that again.
[4:45] Let not your hearts be troubled. And then he adds another phrase, neither let them be afraid. What he says to his friends in these chapters is going to prove immensely comforting to them.
[4:59] And these words have the power of bringing equal comfort to our hearts, although we live some 2,000 years later. Now, before we get into our passage in chapter 14, I want to point out one or two things from chapter 13.
[5:14] Because chapter 13 gives us the setting or the context of Jesus' teaching in chapters 14 to 16. So perhaps you turn with me back to the beginning of chapter 13.
[5:24] Where John, our author, John the Evangelist, John the Apostle, describes the Last Supper. And at the beginning of chapter 13, John tells us what Jesus knew.
[5:39] So verse 1, Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. So this moment that he'd been waiting for and preparing for was now upon him.
[5:52] The hour had come. But we learn more about what Jesus knew from verse 3. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God.
[6:10] Now, that is a very condensed verse. It tells us that Jesus knew that he was the Lord of history. Because the Father had given all things into his hands.
[6:22] And it tells us that Jesus knew both his origin and his destiny. That he had come from God, his origin, and that he was going back to God, his ultimate destiny.
[6:34] He was the master of events. Nothing could take him by surprise. He knew these things. But we also need to see what he does between verses 4 and 12 here in chapter 13.
[6:48] Because his actions here describe the shape of his whole mission to the human race. Just follow the actions with me, if you will. First of all, from verse 4, he rose from his place.
[7:02] Just as he had risen from his seat in glory. Second, he laid aside his outer garments. Just as he had laid aside his glory.
[7:15] Third, he took on the role of a servant. Verse 4 tells us that he took a towel, which was a badge of servitude. And he tied it around his waist, as though girding himself with our humanity.
[7:28] Fourth, he humbled himself by pouring water into a basin and washing his disciples' feet. And this reminds us of Paul's words in Philippians chapter 2, where he says that Christ humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross, so as to wash us clean from sin.
[7:50] And then finally, in verse 12, when he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments again, he resumed his place.
[8:02] So Jesus is pictured there as taking up his glory again and sitting down once again at the right hand of God the Father. So in these few verses, you have the whole movement of the gospel, the whole shape of Jesus' mission.
[8:19] He left the glory. He humbled himself. He dealt with our sin by washing it away. And he has returned to the glory. Now, he is about to say to the apostles, let not your hearts be troubled.
[8:35] But just look at chapter 13, verse 21. After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit. And if you glance back to chapter 12, verse 27, he says, Now is my soul troubled.
[8:51] And the words that he uses there are very powerful words. So why is Jesus himself so troubled? He tells us at chapter 13, verse 21.
[9:02] Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me. Now, he knew these 12 men, these apostles, like the back of his hand.
[9:13] They'd been in the closest company with him for three years. He knew them. And as they were observing him, he, of course, was observing them. And he knew them.
[9:24] He knew the heart of Judas Iscariot. He knew, as verse 27 puts it, that Satan was about to enter him. Now, it would trouble any of us, would it not, to know that a close friend was planning to turn against us so as to destroy us.
[9:39] But it wasn't only Judas' coming betrayal that filled Jesus with distress. He was imminently facing crucifixion. Not only the physical torture of those four-inch iron nails, but much worse, the absorbing of his father's anger against the rebel human race.
[10:01] Later on, on that Thursday evening, in the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, He said, As the old hymn puts it, We may not know, we cannot tell, what pains he had to bear.
[10:43] But now think of the troubled hearts of the apostles. Why were they troubled? Well, they were troubled because of what Jesus said to them in chapter 13, verse 33. Just look with me at that verse.
[10:55] Little children, he says, And then look at verse 36.
[11:12] Peter says to him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answers him, Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterwards. Peter then says, I will follow you even to death.
[11:25] But Jesus replies, Not so, Peter. I tell you truly, the cock will not crow till you have denied me three times. Now, isn't that a heart troubling thing for Jesus to say to Peter?
[11:37] And yet with his very next breath, he says to them, Let not your hearts be troubled. So that's the scenario. We have a very troubled savior speaking to very troubled and confused apostles.
[11:53] How could he say to them on the night before his crucifixion, Let not your hearts be troubled. Well, he goes straight on to explain to them what the medicine for the troubled heart is.
[12:06] And this is what I want us to spend the rest of our sermon time this evening looking at. Jesus begins with the fundamental ingredient of his medicine. And it is faith.
[12:19] Verse one, here is how your hearts can be healed of their deep anxieties. Believe in God. Believe also in me. J.C. Ryle, commenting on this verse, says this.
[12:34] We have in this passage a precious remedy against an old distress. That disease, the distress, is trouble of heart. The remedy is faith.
[12:48] But where are we to place our faith, our trust? It's very striking that Jesus does not simply say to them, Believe in God. He adds this crucially important second phrase, Believe also in me.
[13:04] And it's that second phrase that sharply focuses up the issue. Believing in God, that gives us a broad and general basis for our faith. But a Muslim could say, I believe in God.
[13:16] It's that second phrase that draws us into the heart of the gospel. The Christian believes not only in God, but in Jesus. And what Jesus says in the next few verses unpacks a number of wonderful and critically important truths about himself.
[13:32] And I want us now to look at two of these. First, he speaks of the reality of heaven. Now, he doesn't actually use the word heaven here.
[13:43] He speaks of my father's house in verse 2. But in verse 2, he makes it clear that his father's house is to be the eternal home of his apostles. He says, in my father's house are many rooms.
[13:57] He's not describing here the beauty or the brilliance of heaven. We need to look on to the final chapters of the book of Revelation for that information. He's speaking here of the capacity of heaven.
[14:10] It has many rooms, more than enough space for all of God's people. And he tells his friends that he's going on ahead of them to prepare a place for them. Now, the point is not that he's a bit like a butler or a chambermaid who's putting fresh sheets on the beds and cutting fresh flowers from the garden to put into each bedroom.
[14:32] The point is that he is going to prepare a place for them. And you see the repetition of this idea. Verse 2, I go to prepare a place for you.
[14:44] And then verse 3, and if I go and prepare a place for you. The preparation of this place depends upon his going. And he can only go via the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension.
[15:00] So he's teaching them that their entry into eternal life is entirely dependent on what he is about to do. Death on the cross, resurrection to new and immortal life, and exaltation to his father's house.
[15:14] So this is the beginning of Jesus' medicine for the troubled heart. He is assuring, both his apostles back then and us today, of the reality of heaven, the reality of eternal life in the father's house.
[15:32] Now, you might say, these apostles, did they really need to hear this when you bear in mind that they were very young men in their 20s and 30s? Well, of course they needed to hear this.
[15:44] As the old prayer book puts it, in the midst of life we are in death. That is to say, death is all around us. We're not all going to live to be old. When you become an old greyhead like me, you know very well that your future on planet Earth is much shorter than your past.
[16:03] But that can be true of much younger people as well. None of us knows the day of our death. In this building, we have young people, we have middle-aged people, and we have antiques.
[16:17] You know that you're an antique when you can't get up out of your chair without grunting. What Jesus is doing for all of us, young and old, in verses 1, 2, and 3, is calming our fears.
[16:32] Human beings have always suffered from a certain degree of anxiety. It goes with the territory of being a human being. And we become anxious about all sorts of things in the course of our lives.
[16:43] Anxieties about our health, about our work, about our families, our financial situation, many other things as well. But underlying all human anxiety is the question, what will become of us?
[16:59] What will become of me in the face of the difficulties that I'm having to endure? That's what we ask. The older person might say, how will I cope with the business of aging and dying and getting ill?
[17:13] The fear of death is the most profound of our natural anxieties. Here's another phrase from Dr. Johnson. No rational man can die without uneasy apprehension.
[17:25] Now this is why Jesus draws our attention to his Father's house. He's saying, don't be troubled, don't be anxious. Believe not only in the Father, but also in me, in me, because I'm going on ahead of you.
[17:41] My death, resurrection, and ascension are securing your place in my Father's house. So according to this passage, what does Jesus mean when he says, believe in me?
[17:54] Well, he doesn't mean rest your confidence in me as you would rest your confidence in an armchair. What he means is, to believe in me is to listen carefully to my teaching and to accept it, to take it into your system and to allow it to still your anxieties and to shape your understanding of the most important features of world history.
[18:19] What he's doing here is teaching history in its biggest picture. He's teaching us that the framework of our understanding of life is defined by his going to the Father's house through his death and resurrection and ascension, and as we'll see in a moment, also through his return.
[18:39] So this passage is a great history lesson. And once we get these historical facts into our brains, our anxieties will begin to calm down as the ocean descends into tranquility after the storm has passed by.
[18:55] Think of it. The death of Jesus has secured the forgiveness of our sins. The resurrection of Jesus has secured the certainty of our own final resurrection.
[19:06] The ascension of Jesus has secured for him the place of highest honor and invincible power. And the return of Jesus will establish the new creation where righteousness at last will be truly at home.
[19:22] But notice verse 3. The going and preparing a place for us is not the end of the story. Jesus says in verse 3, If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am you may be also.
[19:43] Now this is a solemn promise from the Savior who tells no lies. He is promising to return, to return from the glory of heaven to this world. Why?
[19:54] To take you to myself, he says. To myself. Not simply to my father's house, though that is true, but his main reason is to take each of his people to himself.
[20:06] And look at the last phrase of verse 3. That where I am you may be also. Where I am. Not where the sofas are comfortable or the food is incomparable or the architecture is breathtaking.
[20:20] Though no doubt all those things will also be true. But his great purpose is to take us to be with him. This is the bridegroom speaking to the bride. Yes, the bridegroom of course wants his bride to enjoy comfortable accommodation and good food and many other pleasant things.
[20:37] But what he wants most of all is simply to be with her so that whenever he looks up, there she is. This is how Jesus speaks of his return.
[20:47] He really does want our company. He doesn't actually use the language of marriage here in so many words. But this is what he's talking about. You see friends, he loves us.
[20:59] He loves us. He loves us. Behind his words in verse 3 is the fact that we're not with him at the moment. But he is not going to allow that separation to go on forever.
[21:11] He's coming for us so that in the end whenever he looks up, there we shall be. And whenever we look up, there shall he be. That is the goal of human existence.
[21:25] And if we get this great pattern of world history into our systems, the anxieties about our existence will begin to drain away from our hearts and minds.
[21:36] We know where we're going. So there's the first thing, the first ingredient in Jesus' medicine for the troubled heart. He speaks of the reality of heaven and of the sure fact that he plans to return so as to take all his people to be with him.
[21:53] Now secondly, he begins to speak of his own identity. And this also is medicine for the troubled soul. At verse 4, he suddenly introduces a new element into his teaching.
[22:08] He says there, and you know the way to where I'm going. Now it may be that he's teasing them there a little bit so as to provoke the reaction that we see in verse 5.
[22:19] But he says to them, you know the way, you know the destination. Thomas says, Lord, we don't. We don't know the destination. So how can we possibly know the way to it?
[22:32] If I get into my car in Glasgow and I don't know that my destination is Dumfries, I'll probably end up in Inverness or even John O'Groats.
[22:46] When you get into a car, it's wise to have worked out where you're going and what is the best route to take. Thank you. Now poor Thomas in verse 5 clearly hasn't been listening very carefully.
[23:01] You see, Jesus has just explained that he's going to his father's house. He has stated the destination very clearly in verse 2. But Thomas says, Lord, we don't know where you're going.
[23:12] So in verse 6, Jesus tells him plainly. He speaks again of his destination, which is the father. And he speaks of the way to that destination, which is, quite simply, himself.
[23:26] You say, Thomas, how can we know the way? Well, let me tell you. I am the way. And what he means by that is, trust me, rejoice in me, submit to me, follow me, love me, and you will certainly end up in my father's house.
[23:41] If you get onto the M8 eastbound in Glasgow, and if you drive about 40 miles, you will certainly end up in Edinburgh.
[23:55] If you launch out as a follower of Jesus, and if you keep following him, loving him, and obeying him, you will most certainly end up in the father's house.
[24:07] Now, verse 6 is a famous verse. I am the way, the truth, and the life. Three great self-descriptions of Jesus. But the emphasis here is on the way.
[24:20] The way is the dominant word of the three. You see, Thomas' question in verse 5 is about the way. And Jesus' reply in the second half of verse 6 is about the way to the father.
[24:33] Yes, indeed, Jesus is also the truth in the biggest sense of that word. He's the whole truth about God and man summed up in his very person. And he's also the life because all life originates with him and he gives eternal life to his people.
[24:50] But what he's emphasizing here is that he is the way and the only way to God the father. He says, no one comes to the father except through me.
[25:01] Now there have been people who have read verse 2 in this chapter without allowing their understanding of verse 2 to be controlled by verse 6.
[25:14] So they've said, well if there are many rooms in the father's house perhaps that means there's one room for Christians and one room for Muslims, one room for Hindus, one room for atheists.
[25:27] What foolishness to speak like that. If the Muslim, the Hindu or the atheist wants to reach the father's house there's only one way to it. They've got to become Christians.
[25:39] No one comes to the father except by me. Our modern world pushes the idea that all brands of religion are equally valid. But what Jesus says here in verse 6 drives a coach and horses through that kind of thinking.
[25:56] So this is the first thing about the identity of Jesus which calms our anxieties. There is a way to the father's house. And this assurance from Jesus counters another foolish notion that many people in the modern world believe.
[26:11] And that's the notion that it's impossible to know anything about what happens after we die. This comes out in films sometimes. Do you remember the beginning of the film called Sleepless in Seattle?
[26:26] Yeah, it's an old film. I know that. But you've seen it. Even you young ones, haven't you? It pictures, well there's a little boy who's lost his mother. And there he is in the cemetery with his father. He's only about this high, isn't he?
[26:37] And he says, Daddy, is mommy in heaven? And the father really has no answer. He says something like, well, maybe sweetheart, maybe, maybe.
[26:48] He's clueless in Seattle as well as sleepless, isn't he? But Jesus is so clear here. The destination is my father's house and the way there is me.
[27:00] That's what he's saying. Now at this point, as verse 7 begins, Jesus heads off in another new direction. And for the next few verses, he's teaching the apostles how he and God the father are connected.
[27:15] And this again will prove immensely comforting to us. He's just told us that he is the way to the father. And now he tells us that he and the father are so closely connected that they indwell each other.
[27:31] He's going to say in verse 10, I am in the father and the father is in me. Now really, there's no parallel to this in human life. We might say that a son is like his father or a daughter is like her mother.
[27:45] But we never describe them as being in one another. It's a human impossibility. But it's the way that Jesus speaks of the father and himself. So let's pick this up at verse 7.
[27:57] If you had known me, he says. When he says known me, he means if you had really recognized me for who I am, you would have known my father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.
[28:13] Now this time, it's the apostle Philip who is confused. So he says to Jesus, Lord, show us the father and it's enough for us. What he means is let us see God the father with our own eyes and we'll be satisfied.
[28:28] I don't know if you've consciously ever felt that desire to see God, but it's surely a desire that lies deep in the human heart, not simply to be in the father's house, but to see God with our own eyes.
[28:43] It's a desire that surfaces a number of times in the Bible. Think, for example, of Psalm 42. As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.
[28:56] My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? He wants to see him. Or there's King David in Psalm 17 where he says to God, As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness.
[29:15] When I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness, which means with you. I shall have my longings fulfilled if only I can see you. That's what he's saying.
[29:26] And remember what Jesus says in Matthew chapter 5. Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. So look at Jesus' reply to Philip in verse 9.
[29:39] Have I been with you so long and still you do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father?
[29:49] Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? Now, we mustn't understand, misunderstand Jesus here. He is not saying, he is not saying, I am the Father.
[30:04] Father. Throughout John's gospel, both John, the evangelist, and Jesus regularly and categorically distinguish the Father from the Son. The Father is not the Son.
[30:15] The Son is not the Father. So when Jesus says in verse 9, whoever has seen me has seen the Father, what he means is, my life, my words, my works, my character, everything I am are a full expression of the nature of God, the Father.
[30:33] Like Father, like Son. There is no gap of any kind between my nature and the Father's nature. In fact, back in John chapter 10, Jesus says, I and the Father are one.
[30:47] Not one and the same person, but one and the same in nature. The classic way of speaking about the Holy Trinity is to say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are differentiated in person, but have the same essence.
[31:02] There is one God and he makes himself known in three persons. But Jesus hasn't finished with Philip when he gets to verse 10.
[31:13] He's got further things to say about himself and the Father so as to deepen Philip's conviction that he really is in the Father and the Father really is in him. So Jesus goes on to speak about his words and his works and we'll pick it up halfway through verse 10.
[31:31] The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. In other words, I'm not a solo operator. I'm not some kind of independent agent.
[31:43] I speak with the authority of my Father and as I speak with the authority of the one who dwells in me, he does his works through my words.
[31:53] I think, for example, of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead which he has just done in chapter 11. Jesus said, Lazarus, come out.
[32:06] And those words did the work of God the Father which is to raise the dead. The words of God have always been the means of his working. You can't put the width of a razor blade between God's words and his works.
[32:20] It's expressed beautifully like this in Psalm 33, verse 6. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made and all their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
[32:34] And Jesus' words carry the authority of God the Father because the Father dwells in Jesus and does his works through Jesus' words. And that's what verse 10 is saying.
[32:46] And verse 11 presses home the command to believe in Jesus. That command, you remember, appeared first of all in verse 1. Believe also in me. But now Jesus presses it further.
[32:58] Believe in me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Believe it, Philip. Believe it, Thomas. Believe it, all you 2,000 years worth of Christians. Believe it, all of you.
[33:10] Or else, halfway through verse 11, if it all seems too theological, too abstract and difficult to think of a mutually indwelling father and son, if that's all too hard, look at the works themselves.
[33:25] Let them speak for themselves. Can a mere man heal the sick and the paralyzed with a mere word? Can somebody who is only a frail mortal feed 5,000 people with a little boy's picnic?
[33:39] Can somebody who is a man and nothing but a man raise the dead with a few words? What Jesus is asserting in this whole section of teaching is his full deity.
[33:53] Well, we've seen so far that Jesus speaks of the reality of heaven and second, the truth of his own identity. He's the way, the truth, and the life. And he and his Father are so deeply connected that the one dwells in the other and the other dwells in the one.
[34:10] And he's saying to the apostles and to all of us, believe me. Believe these things about me. You believe in God. Well, believe also in me.
[34:23] Belief in Jesus, therefore, is not a mindless thing, a thoughtless thing. It's not like just falling back into a great feather bed and going to sleep.
[34:34] It isn't like that at all. It's full of thought and it's full of detail. And as we get these details firmly into our heads, our anxieties begin to be quelled.
[34:46] Our convictions are deepened that there truly is a glorious eternal home for us in heaven, the Father's house. That Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a place for us.
[34:58] That he will return to fetch us so that we can be with him forever. And our convictions will grow that Jesus is the way and the only way to God the Father.
[35:08] and we shall come to understand with a growing certainty that all the fullness of the nature of God the Father dwells in Jesus. And that is why once we've grasped that, that he truly is fully God, we shall want to stay with him throughout our lives because he's God, as much God as his Father is God.
[35:30] Who of us would want to stick with a mere human guru? The founder of Islam died in 632 AD and was buried.
[35:41] There have been no rumors of his resurrection. There have been all sorts of leaders, countless leaders of sects and cults and religions, almost since Adam was a lad.
[35:53] They've all gone, dead and buried. But Jesus has not gone. The apostles did come to believe in Jesus as the fully divine Son of God who was raised to life immortal.
[36:07] They believed his words were truth, that he was and is the truth and the only way to God. And as he fills our minds with the truth about him, it's all centered on him, as that happens, our hearts will become less troubled and anxious because we believe his account of world history, that he died, he was raised, he was taken to his father's house and that he will return to rescue finally and forever those that he has loved and died for.
[36:39] But he adds a further word of encouragement for us in verses 12 to 14. He's just been speaking about his own works, but in verses 12 to 14 he speaks about our works, which will continue his works.
[36:55] Here's verse 12. Truly, truly, I say to you, 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.
[37:09] Now that's a verse that takes us by surprise. How can the followers of Jesus possibly do the works that he did and even greater works than his? Some Christians, blessed more with enthusiasm than with good sense, have taken this in a literal and physical way and have said we are to perform miracles more spectacular now than Jesus' miracles.
[37:33] So what would that mean? It would mean, for example, that if he fed 5,000 with bread and fish, you and I could feed 20,000 with roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. If he could walk on the Lake of Galilee, you and I could walk from Stranraa to Belfast without getting our socks wet.
[37:50] He can't mean that kind of thing, surely. He must mean that our works will be greater than his in a spiritual sense, not in a physical and material sense.
[38:02] And as we look back over 2,000 years of church history, the picture becomes clear. In Jesus' own day, only a very small number of people became true disciples of his.
[38:14] We read in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 1, that just after Jesus ascended, the number of disciples was about 120. In the last 2,000 years, billions of people have become true disciples through the preaching and teaching the work of countless ordinary Christians.
[38:35] Calvin writes of the wonderful conversion of the world in which the divinity of Christ was displayed more powerfully than when he lived among men. J.C. Ryle puts it bluntly, greater works mean more conversions.
[38:51] There is no greater work possible than the conversion of a soul. Now, if you're a converted soul, you know that, don't you? Your whole life is being reconstructed.
[39:03] You're a changed human being. A great work is in progress within your soul and it grows day after day. And at the end of verse 12, Jesus explains how these greater works are possible.
[39:18] Greater works will be done by the believer, he says, because I am going to the Father, which means when I have gone to the Father, I will send the Holy Spirit who is of the same nature as I am myself and he will be poured out on all my followers and they will go everywhere preaching the gospel.
[39:40] He unpacks it further in chapter 16, verse 7, where he says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper, the Holy Spirit, will not come to you.
[39:54] But if I go, I will send him to you and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, which means he will bring the truth of the gospel home to countless hearts with the effect of convicting them and convincing them.
[40:13] These greater works are the worldwide powerful works of the gospel, at work in our own hearts as our lives are brought into line increasingly with the will of God.
[40:25] And these greater works are promised not only to those who work, who are, I think we could say, the evangelists, the Bible teachers, that sort of work, but also to those who pray.
[40:37] Look at verse 13. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me for anything in my name, I will do it.
[40:50] And when he says that, he's not offering us carte blanche to ask for things to please ourselves. Lord, give me a Rolls Royce. Lord, make Motherwell win the league next year.
[41:04] It's not that sort of thing. Look at verse 13. We're to ask for things that bring glory to the Father and the Son. And if, look at verse 14, if we ask in the name of Jesus, our requests will be limited.
[41:20] We can't ask for a Rolls Royce in the name of somebody who rode a borrowed donkey. We can't ask for a fat sum of money in the name of somebody who hardly carried a brass farthing.
[41:31] But we can ask for things which will bring glory to the Father and to the Son. For example, that the churches of Scotland might be wonderfully revitalized by bold leadership and unashamed teaching of the Bible.
[41:47] Well, friends, time is nearly up. You'll be looking at the tree, the tea troll is with yearning at this point. Let me sum up. Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled.
[41:59] The medicine for the troubled heart is to believe not only in God, but in Jesus. And believing in Jesus means believing the teaching that he gives us in this passage.
[42:10] And what rich and heart-consoling teaching it is. The Father's house has many rooms. Jesus has gone on ahead to prepare these rooms for us, and he will return not only to establish his worldwide rule of justice and peace, but to take us to be with him.
[42:32] The goal of human existence is to be reunited with him, our Savior. He is the way to the Father's house. He is the revelation of the Father's character and nature.
[42:45] And our chief role in serving him on earth is to pray for and to work for his glory, being involved in works greater than the works that he performed.
[42:56] As we spend our brief lives announcing to the world that life has meaning, and that meaning is found in Jesus Christ.
[43:07] blessed. Well, let's bow our heads and we'll pray together now. Our dear Lord Jesus, you are the way and the truth and the life.
[43:29] Please fill our hearts with fresh love for you and great thankfulness for all that you are and for all that you have done.
[43:40] And train our hearts to leave anxiety behind as we accept and digest and believe the wonderful gospel. And we ask it in your own great name.
[43:53] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.