15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”
22 Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?”
23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
28 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, 31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
“Come now; let us leave.
John MacArthur has a great summary of the promises that Jesus makes to His disciples (emphasis mine)....
keep in mind that in this whole chapter Jesus is comforting the disciples with a marvelous legacy as He anticipates His crucifixion in the coming dawn. He's about to die and He leaves them with this legacy. They're broken hearted because He's going away. It seems to them that everything has gone wrong. And so in deepest love Jesus gives to them a legacy, a divine, unique and permanentone involving five supernatural promises and they are to change their sorrow into joy.
The first one, you'll remember, was in verse 16 and 17 He promised them a supernatural helper or comforter. (the word for another means one exactly the same, in this case, exactly like Jesus) The second one in verses 18 and 19, He promised them a supernatural life that would make them sensitive to God's dimension. Thirdly, in verses 20 through 24 He promised them a supernatural union, that they would become one with Christ and with the Father. And He emphasizes the fact that a man can only be one with the Father and one with Christ when he loves Jesus Christ genuinely. Then we saw that He promised a supernatural teacher in verses 25 and 26, a resident truth teacher. First of all He would instruct the disciples in the recording of Scripture so that they would be unerring in their transcripts. And so when the Word of God was originally written the promise of verse 26 is that they would write it without error. That they would remember exactly verbatim every word that Jesus spoke, they would have total recall by divine inspiration. But it also moved past that and the idea here is secondarily is that we shall be taught of the Spirit. Not in the sense of revelation, you'll remember, but in the sense of what? Illumination. No longer does the Spirit give us revelation, He illuminates the revelation He already gave. The revelation is the Word of God, He is now illuminating us.....And you'll remember also that the teacher uses the Word of God and illuminates it to our mind. So Jesus promises them a supernatural helper, a supernatural life, a supernatural union, a supernatural teacher. Then the last of His supernatural promises is in verse 27...
Coming to verse 27 He promises them a supernatural peace. Verse 27; "Peace I leave with you, My peace," must be supernatural if it's His, "I give unto you. Not as the world giveth give I unto you, let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid." Now in that simple verse which is so self explanatory we have what really amounts to a divine gift to kind of superintend life attitudes so that all of the other gifts can really function. This is the gift that enables them to hold the wildest fear and pause. That enables them to still a riot. That enables them to hush a cry. That enables them to rejoice in pain and trial. That enables them to sing in the middle of suffering. This is the overruling attitude gift that when this is right effects all the others, and how we are affected by them. This is a promise of a positive peace. A peace that is never affected by circumstances but a peace which in turn affects circumstances....
we have a supernatural helper but we have to yield to Him. We have a supernatural life, we need to live that life and mortify the old life and put on the new man and walk in newness of life. We have a supernatural union and we have to up hold that union to glorify Christ. We have to remember Galatians 2:20, "I'm crucified with Christ nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me." And let Him live through us. We have a supernatural teacher but we must get in and dig and learn and study the word.
And then, lastly, what we saw this morning, we have a supernatural peace. But you know something, friends? To have that supernatural peace puts the obligation on you to, watch it, exercise that peace. Colossians 3, I'm going to read you this verse ‑ 15, listen to this, are you ready? "And let the peace of God rule in your hearts." Do you see what he says? You have this peace now let it rule. You say ‑ Well, I'd like to let it rule. So, what do I say Okay peace ‑ go, rule! I'll tell you how to let it rule. Watch this. Old Testament truth, Isaiah ‑ "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace," watch this one, "whose mind is," what? "Staid on thee because he trusts in Thee." Do you see that? Perfect peace comes when our focus is off the problem, off the trouble and constantly on Christ, how do you do that? By studying the Word of God and being taught by the Holy Spirit. The peace of God is yours, let it rule. How do you let it rule? By concentrating on God's truth and the person of Jesus Christ in the, Word of God. And peace will rule your hearts when you focus on Christ.
That is comfort indeed!
Another thing that stands out about this passage is the repetition of the fact that if we really love Jesus, we will be obedient.
John Piper gave a personal example of this fact when he told a story about how he had been offered the chance to lie about his son's age in order to skirt some fine print on a legal transaction therefore saving just over $300....
what if I had taken the suggestion of that secretary and rationalized: the school doesn't care; the agent doesn't care; there would be $326 more to use to pay for this building; and so I filled it out and sent it in, saying Benjamin is in the 11th grade? And then I had walked into this new sanctuary this morning and lifted my voice in worship and said, "I love you, Jesus; I stand in awe of you; I trust in you; you mean more to me than anything; I love your ways; I love your words; I love your promises and provisions; I love everything about you; I worship you"?
I think Jesus would shake his head in heaven and say: no, John Piper, that is not real. That is not acceptable. It's a sham. It's inauthentic. If I were your everything, you would not rationalize a lie to save $326. You are making your new sanctuary into a place of empty religious noise....
If worship is the release of love to Jesus in song and prayer and music and meditation, then the authenticity of worship is whether the worshipers keep the commandments of Jesus....The test of authenticity in this new sanctuary of whether we really worship Jesus, love Jesus, savor Jesus, abide in the love of Jesus, exalt Jesus as our everything—the test of the authenticity of our worship on Sunday is whether we are a radically Christ-like people on Monday.
Love is like the "circle of life". He loved us first. We didn't do anything to earn or deserve His love, He just loves us. And His love enables our love. But when we love Him, He pours out even more love on us. What a beautiful circle of love!
Tomorrow's scripture focus: John 15:1-17
1 comment:
I love this passage and this was a great post. Especially like the part about the five supernatural promises.
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