WWUTT 414 The Last Supper?

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The disciples hung out with Jesus for three years, so you would think they would have figured out the stuff that he taught, right?

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No, actually, they didn't understand it until Jesus opened their minds to understand it when we understand the text.

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You're listening to When We Understand the Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. Find videos and more at our website, www .tt

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.com. Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. All this week, we have been studying the events leading up to Jesus' crucifixion and his resurrection from the grave.

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And here we are on Thursday, and the event most well known to Thursday, of course, is the

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Last Supper, in which Jesus instituted communion. The Lord's Supper gave his last words to his disciples before being arrested, tried, and put to death.

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Judas Iscariot betrays Jesus here by going out to carry out what had been foretold by the prophets.

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Jesus washes his disciples' feet. You have a very famous passage in John 14 where Jesus said,

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I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me. You have the high priestly prayer in John 17.

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In fact, though all four Gospels record the last supper

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Jesus had with his disciples, John gives the most time, he dedicates the most space to what happened, what

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Jesus taught in the upper room. Five chapters committed to the last supper.

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And after chapter 17, there's only four more chapters left in the book of John. So he uses those four chapters to talk about Jesus' time in the garden, his arrest, being put on trial, being put to death, the resurrection, reinstating

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Peter, the last things that he said to his disciples before ascending into heaven. All of that's in the last four chapters in John.

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We've got five chapters here that are committed to the things Jesus taught to his disciples at the last supper.

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So that's where I'm going to read from. And I'm not going to read all of it because I don't think I have the time. But we'll certainly catch the highlights and talk about some of the things that Jesus shared with his disciples.

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John 13 is where we start with Jesus washing his disciples feet. Now, before the feast of Passover, when

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Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.

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During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him,

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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, rose from supper.

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Now, that's an interesting statement for John to make their verse three. Jesus, knowing that he that the father had given all things into his hands and that he had come from God and was going back to God.

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Jesus comes back to that point in chapter 17 with the high priestly prayer.

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So it's like we begin and end the Lord's Supper with that point. Jesus laid aside his outer garments and taking a towel, tied it around his waist, and he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.

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He came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, do you wash my feet?

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And Jesus answered him, what I am doing, you do not understand now, but afterward you will understand.

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Now, that's a theme that comes up actually quite a bit in the Gospels. Jesus saying to his disciples, you don't understand this now, but a time is going to come when you will understand it.

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In fact, just the chapter right before John, chapter 12, when you read John's account of the triumphal entry, as Jesus is on the donkey and people are shouting his praises,

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Hosanna, Hosanna, laying down coats and palm branches. It said his disciples did not understand these things at first, but when

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Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him.

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So they weren't quite making the connection yet. But when Jesus ascended into heaven, their minds were open to understand the scriptures.

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It says that in Luke chapter 24, right before Jesus is about to ascend into heaven, he opens their minds to understand the scriptures.

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So here is he's washing his disciples feet. It's like he's doing something to them that they don't quite understand, but eventually they will.

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And when he says what I have done for you, you need to do to one another. This is something that's going to trigger with them later on, though they don't understand it this night while Jesus is doing this for them.

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Do you remember the movie Karate Kid? OK, Daniel goes to Mr. Miyagi and he wants to learn karate.

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And what does Mr. Miyagi tell Daniel to do? Tells him to wax his car. Then he tells him to paint his fence.

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Then he tells him to paint his house. And Daniel gets frustrated with all these chores that Mr.

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Miyagi is telling him to do and says, you know, I'm I'm asked. I've asked you to teach me karate and all

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I've done is all the stuff that that you should be doing, waxing your cars and painting your fence.

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And so then Mr. Miyagi shows him how these movements that he's been learning, doing these chores have actually been teaching him the moves that he needs to learn for karate, for self -defense.

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I've taken some martial arts. And so I know that well, learning the katas. But you don't understand the point of the kata.

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You just repeat it over and over and over again. And eventually you get to application. You understand, oh, OK, that's what this move is supposed to mean.

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So here Jesus is showing things to his disciples and he's doing things for them.

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And he has also been teaching the whole three years that they have been with Jesus, though have not fully grasped or understood the things that he taught.

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But eventually these things are going to are going to click when their minds are open to understand the scriptures and everything that had been taught to them in the three years that they had been with Christ.

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And so it's it's like learning the katas and eventually everything is going to fall into place and you will understand its meaning and its purpose.

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And so Jesus is saying that here with his disciples. You know, the same thing was true for me when it came to learning the scriptures.

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When I was when I was a kid through my teenage years, my dad taught me to read the scriptures, made me read the scriptures.

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OK, you got to read through all of Exodus all this week. You know, he would give me just a few days to read through Exodus and then he would teach me how to use scripture to interpret scripture and all these kinds of things.

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But none of this stuff really clicked for me until I got into my about my early to mid 20s. And then suddenly

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I'm realizing what all this means and I'm tying in theology with it and all this other kind of deal. So I was a little dimwitted.

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Some people come to this a little bit faster than others. But that was the way the spirit was working in my life from the time that I was a kid to a teenager and into my young 20s.

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And so Jesus saying to his disciples, even here, you don't understand this now, but you will later on.

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And verse eight, Peter said to him, you shall never wash my feet. And Jesus answered him, if I do not wash you, you have no share with me.

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And Simon Peter said to him, Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands in my head. Yep. Good old

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Peter. And Jesus said to him, the one who is bathed does not need to wash except for his feet, but is completely, completely clean.

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And you are clean, but not every one of you. For he knew who was to betray him. And that is why he said, not all of you are clean.

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And when he had washed their feet, he put on his outer garments and resumed his place. And he said to them, do you do you understand what

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I have done to you? You call me teacher and Lord, and you are right. For so I am. If I then your

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Lord and teacher have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

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For I have given you an example that you should do just as I have done for you.

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Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

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If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. I am not speaking to all of you. I know whom

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I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate my bread has lifted his heel against me, which comes from David.

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I am telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he.

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Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send, receives me. And whoever receives me, receives the one who sent me.

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I'm going to skip down to verse 31. After Judas had gone out, Jesus said,

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Now the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him,

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God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once. Little children, yet a little while I am with you.

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You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, where I am going, you cannot come.

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A new commandment I give you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.

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By this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

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And this is what we've been reading and studying in 1 John, John saying the same thing there, that we need to have love for one another.

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If we hate each other, if we, if someone hates his brother, he is a murderer and the love of God is not in him.

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But if we have love for one another, the love that God has for us is perfected in us.

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And we show that we have the love of God when we love each other. And so we have this command given to us also in 1

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John as we've been reading about and we'll continue to read about as we still have chapters 3, 4 and 5 to go. So let's come into John chapter 14 now.

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Jesus said to his disciples, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God.

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Believe also in me. In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would

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I have told you that I go prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you,

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I will come again and take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.

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And you know the way to where I am going. Now this is, this is marriage language that Jesus is using here.

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I am going to go prepare a place for you. This is the, the groom going and preparing a place for he and his bride saying,

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I am coming back to you to take you to myself is, is the promise that we have of the wedding feast of the lamb of the picture that we've got in the book of revelation of the bride coming down adorned in splendor to meet the bridegroom.

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And then we all gather together at the wedding feast of the lamb in glory. This is what this reference is to that.

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We who are in Christ are the bride of Christ, his church. Now the disciples even here didn't understand this because remember

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Jesus is teaching them things, but it's not really clicking. And Thomas said to him,

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Lord, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? And Jesus said to him,

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I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.

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If you had known me, you would have known my father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

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And Philip said to him, Lord, show us the father and it is enough for us. And Jesus said to him, have

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I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the father.

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How can you say, show us the father? Do you not believe that I am in the father and the father is in me?

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The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the father who dwells in me does his works.

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Believe me that I am in the father and the father is in me or else believe on account of the works themselves.

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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 am going to the father.

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Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that the father may be glorified in the son.

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If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. And this is a passage we read just a couple of days ago when we were talking about the fig tree where Jesus said, whatever you ask will be done for you.

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If you believe that it has been done, it will be done. But this is not talking about, uh, it's not talking about getting the things that we want that will make our life better.

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God, I want a better house. I want a better car. I want more money in my checking account. You know, those kinds of things are things that we ask for to spend on our own passions.

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And James said, you do not receive because you ask with wrong motives.

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But Jesus is specifically saying that we need to ask for God's will to be done and whatever we ask for in the name of Christ.

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If we have Christ dwelling within us and we're doing the works that he did, then the

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Lord will answer our prayer. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.

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Notice that comes first before he says, whatever you ask in my name, this

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I will do that the father may be glorified in the son. We are asking with the according to the will of God, with the heart of Christ, not with the heart of a man desiring the things that we want for us to make our lives more pleasurable, but asking for God's will to be done where Jesus says greater works than these will he do.

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Because I am going to the father. He's not saying that we're all going to be able to go take a stroll on the

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Sea of Galilee or divide up a few loaves and fishes and feed 5000 people or raise the dead or give sight to the blind.

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We're not going to be able to do those kinds of things. No one's doing those things. OK, the charismatics who claim that they're doing the things that Jesus said that we would be able to do and greater works than what he did.

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We will be able to do. They're not doing that. They're doing little parlor tricks and street magic there and about, you know, the healings that you hear about are things like I had high blood pressure and then somebody prayed over me and I don't have high blood pressure anymore.

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It's very subjective stuff. We don't have any documented evidence of the dead being brought back to life or those who were blind now able to see and those who were deaf can now hear those kinds of miraculous healings are not happening.

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So what Jesus was specifically talking about here was that we will go out with the gospel even farther than he did.

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He only went as far as Galilee there in the Holy Land, and yet his disciples and his apostles would go out to the whole world, the whole

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Roman Empire. And so surely they fulfilled exactly what Jesus said, greater works than these will he do because I am going to the father.

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So it's works of of evangelism, love and service and compassion toward one another with those things are continuing to go on among the disciples of Jesus Christ, even to this day.

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And Jesus gives the promise of the Holy Spirit in the next portion of chapter 14.

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I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you yet a little while in the world will see me no more.

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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 and you, whoever has my commandments and keeps them.

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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.

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And one of the disciples named Judas, not Ascariot. It's sure to clarify that said to him,

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Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answered him.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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So Jesus is not leaving it in the hands of these disciples to be able to use their minds and understand what it is that Jesus has done.

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Remember, Jesus said, these things you do not yet understand, but a day is coming when you will understand. How is it that they will understand it?

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Because they will be given the Holy Spirit. John chapter 15, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.

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Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he takes away and every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes that it may bear more fruit.

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Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine.

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Neither can you unless you abide in me. And here's that famous passage in John 15, five,

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I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit for apart from me.

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You can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire and burned.

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And we saw this exemplified when Jesus cursed the fig tree, which we looked at a couple of days ago.

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I'm going to be skipping to chapter 16 where Jesus once again talks about the work of the

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Holy Spirit. And then I'm coming to verse 16, chapter 16, verse 16, where he talks about your sorrow will be turned to joy a little while and you will see me no longer.

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And again, a little while and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, what is this that he says to us a little while and you'll not see me?

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And then a little while you'll see me. And because I'm going to the father. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while?

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We don't know what he's talking about. And Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, is this what you're asking yourselves?

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What I meant by saying a little while and you'll not see me truly, truly. I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

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You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come.

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But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

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So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.

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In that day, you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly. I say to you, whatever you ask of the father in my name, he will give it to you until now you have asked nothing in my name, ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.

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And Jesus said in John 16, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart.

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I have overcome the world. And then in chapter 17, we have the high priestly prayer that Jesus prays to the father.

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And I will read this chapter in full. And this is how we will close. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, father, the hour has come.

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Glorify your son that the son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

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And this is eternal life that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

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I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

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I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

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Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know the truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.

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I am praying for them. I'm not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

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All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

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And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you.

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Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one.

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While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me. I have guarded them, and not one of them has been lost except the

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Son of Destruction, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and these things

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I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

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I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

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I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.

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They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth.

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Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake

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I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

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I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you,

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Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

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The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.

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I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

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Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

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O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.

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I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.

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Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website at www .wutt

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.com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page. Join us again tomorrow as we continue our