Delighting in the Relationships (John 14-17) | Adult Sunday School

Good morning, everyone. You guys are quiet, restful, anticipatory. It's good. Let's open in a word of prayer before we open into the book of John this morning. Our Heavenly Father, as we come into your presence this morning, we are awestruck.

You are holy and we are not. You are righteous and we are utterly unrighteous. Father, you are perfect and your word is perfect. Every day we fall far short of the standards of your holy law, and yet you faithfully and lovingly beckon us to come to you.

How? Father, we know it's only through your Son, through Jesus. Father, it's in Jesus this morning that we come to your throne as we approach, we rest not in our own righteousness or our own obedience, but it's in his righteousness, his obedience.

Father, hear our prayer today. Be glorified in our worship. Work mightily in our midst. Open our eyes to see the truth of who your Son, Jesus, is and sanctify us through that knowledge that we may be one in him.

It's in his precious name that we pray. Amen. All right, welcome back. This is our final week out of 12 in our series, Walk by the Spirit. Quick reminder and commercial, next week, Jim will be doing a Q &A session, and so I would encourage you, as he would, to put some time into it this week, think through some questions that will stimulate that discussion.

So welcome to come back next week and enjoy that New Year Q &A session. Well, our first 11 weeks in this series have been wonderful, just absolutely a tremendous blessing to me, and rich, rich, deep theology, but the accompanying application that springs naturally out of that theology.

God's Word has shown us the fullness of the man, Christ Jesus. We have seen his authentic humanity on full display in the Word. It's thrilled us. It's delighted our hearts. It's stretched us into truths that we are still working hard to comprehend.

I love to read, and my wife knows that, so she gave me books for Christmas. I recommend this one to you. It's just a really short, easy one if you're looking for a good starter book to get your year off, so you can say I've read at least one book in the year of 2025.

This one's only 115 pages. It's by Michael Reeves. It's called Authentic Ministry, and when I read it this week, he had a statement in chapter 8 that was really profound to me. He says that all humans are theologians.

Now, we don't always think of ourselves as theologians, do we? Right, but he says something. I'll quote, Christian theology is about knowing the true and living God as he reveals himself through his logos, his Word, Jesus Christ.

So, the question really is not am I a theologian? It's am I a bad theologian, or am I a good theologian, and what is the difference? Well, I would suggest to you that the difference is not whether you know obscure vocabulary.

It's not whether you read large, dusty tomes that nobody has ever heard of or will ever find. It's not that you can parse obscure minutiae in scripture. That's not what makes you a good theologian. It's measured by your faithfulness to the Word.

It's measured by your walk. Do you know and do you live in obedience to the Word by the power of the Spirit? That's what makes you a good theologian, and your theology is often revealed most in times of trouble.

How many of you are somewhat troubled in any way this morning? I know I am. There are troubles in my life, in my mind, that were churning through my life as I contemplated this text this morning. Your troubles as a follower of Jesus are basically guaranteed, right?

When you're joined together with him, you join together in his suffering just as much as you do in all of the peace and love, joy, and fulfillment. And troubles can come from many places. I have just a couple of them this morning for you to think about, but troubles can come from the constant external threat around us of evil men, but even worse, the demonic activity that wages war against God and against his children.

It's always around us, and it's always a threat that causes us trouble. Further, we live in a world that is cursed. It has been cursed from the very beginning of Adam's sin. We experience the futility of that world every single day we get out of bed.

Further, we experience trouble that comes from inside. The sin nature that we still carry around and still wage war against, and the stains that has left on our lives through past and the present, and unfortunately the future sins that we will still commit.

And those sins have consequences in relationships. When we sin against others, when others sin against us, the relational damage can take decades to unwind, if it ever is unwound, and that can cause us a great deal of heartache and pain.

And finally, there are just the discouragements, personal suffering, that we all encounter no matter how old or how young we are in the faith. But whatever is troubling you this year, I want to encourage you that you have a Savior, Jesus, who can sympathize with you in all of your weaknesses.

You can draw near with confidence to the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace to help you in your time of need. How does Jesus help you? Well, He gives you His peace, His joy, and His delight. John 14 27 says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

John 15 verse 11 says, these things I have spoken to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. Jesus wants all of us to experience His peace, His joy, and His delight. And that's what we're going to be looking at this morning.

The blessings that Jesus wants to pour out into our lives are found in relationships. And to look at those relationships, we're going to go to John 14 through 17. That's a huge chunk of scripture. So we will not be exegeting every single verse.

That would be a fool's errand to even try. We will be taking the approach of flying over the mountaintops and looking at some of the tips of those mountains and appreciating the depths of the valleys that we know come with those mountains.

So the title of this morning's lesson is delighting in the relationships, delighting in the relationships. And we are going to meditate on four different relationships that are made possible for us by the humanity of Jesus Christ, so that we will delight in Him and find peace for our souls.

We're going to look at four relationships as described for us in John 14 through 17 that are made possible by the man Christ Jesus so that we will delight in Him and find peace, rest for our souls. So open your Bibles up to John chapter 14, verse 1.

This is like the perfect passage to preach from my Bible because John 14, 1 is in the upper left-hand corner of the page. There's nothing above it. It's just for my English Western mind, it makes perfect sense to start at John 14, 1.

So I'm going to read for us the first 11 verses of John 14, and we'll get started here. The first relationship that we will study is the Son shows us the love of the Father. The Son shows us the love of the Father.

Let's read together. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.

If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way where I am going. Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.

How do we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, but through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you know Him and have seen Him.

Philip said to Him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father abiding in me does His works.

Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves. So Jesus begins this farewell discourse, what we refer to as the upper room discourse, with a statement of counsel and encouragement.

William Hendrickson likes to translate this first statement, let not your hearts any longer be troubled. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Let not your hearts any longer be troubled. And Jesus knows that His disciples are experiencing difficulty in their minds and in their hearts.

The word troubled suggests that an agitation, they are stirred up. It's like stirring up the mud from the base of a water body. It's stirring up the waters, but it's not clear anymore. There's a commotion.

It's taken away any calmness that existed there. They're anxious. They're distressed. And here's the good news. In His humanity, Jesus experienced the same type of troubling thoughts and emotions as His did His disciples.

He was able to identify with them in their trouble. He didn't live His life on a separate plane where He was kind of sitting there going, gosh, you look troubled, but I don't understand that trouble. I haven't experienced that.

He knew what it felt like to be troubled in His mind and emotion. For that, we can just look back. I'll encourage you just turn back with me to John 12, verse 27. John 12, 27, Jesus says, now my soul has become, what?

Trouble. What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour. But for this purpose, I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name. Look at John 13, verse 1. Now before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come, that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.

And then look down at 13, 21. When Jesus had said this, He became troubled in spirit. There you see it again. Testified and said, truly, truly, I say to you that one of you will betray me. Turn back to John 14.

But we saw there that Jesus is about to encounter the hour, the hour of His final testing on earth. And we see His authentic, real, full, rich humanity on full display for us here. He is experiencing the real distresses of human frailty, knowing that He is about to encounter this great hour of trouble and testing.

That is the Father's will for Him. So what is Jesus' solution for not only His disciples' distress and trouble, but for His own? What does He say to Himself? Well, look back at verse 1. Believe in God.

Believe also in me. Many translations render that, believe, trust in God. Trust also in me. Both are valid translations. Trust. So Jesus had to trust in God the Father. Don't turn there, but just listen as I read to you, John 8, 28 and 29, where Jesus says, when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He.

And I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me. And He who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him. Jesus trusted in God the Father's plans, even when He maybe fully, didn't fully understand exactly how things were going to go.

Listen to Luke 22, 41 to 42. And He withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Yet not my will, but yours be done.

In the moment of His greatest human trouble, apart from on the cross itself, Jesus trusted in the Father. And so therefore, in our passage, He points His disciples to the future blessings that await them from what?

The ultimate relationship, the relationship of the love, the trustworthy love of the Father for the Son. Jesus, as the God-Man, provides His disciples not a path to follow, not do what I do, but He is the way Himself.

Look at your texts. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Then look at verse 7. He says, if you had known me, you would have known my Father also.

From now on, you know Him and have seen Him. Now there's three words for known here, right? We have known, known, and know, right? Known me, known my Father, and know Him. But they're actually two separate Greek words.

The first and the third imply the notion of experience or relationship. The disciples had known Jesus in an experiential, relational way. They had lived with Him for the minimum of three years. They had walked with Him.

They had seen Him respond to the realities of human physical life. They knew Him. The second Greek word that Jesus used here, He says, if you had known my Father, is more of a mental perception. It's a knowledge or an understanding.

So what He's saying here is, if you knew me through the relational experience, you should be able to not only understand the truth about the Father, but you should know Him relationally as well. If you know me, then you know the Father.

The disciples, and specifically Philip here, don't immediately grasp the full truth here. Look at 14 .8. Philip says to Him, Lord, show us the Father. Give me something I can see. Manifest something that I can see.

That's enough for me. It's enough for us. How foolish this sounds to us. And yet, how often it is true of us that we neglect the vital reality that Jesus Himself is this glorious picture to us of the Father.

He is the access that we have to the relationship with God the Father. Look at Jesus' gentle response in verses 9 to 11 to Philip's foolish question. Jesus said, have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me, Philip?

He who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? We can't hear Him, but it almost seems like there's a tinge of sadness, human sadness, in Jesus at the failure of these disciples to fully grasp the reality of what He's presented to them.

He says in verse 10, do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father abiding in me does His works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves. Jesus points His disciples to the reality that those who have seen Him and the works that He has been performing in the power of the Holy Spirit, they have seen the Father and they can be in relationship with the Father.

Jesus is saying, I and the Father have always existed in perfect relationship with each other. Look at the phrase that He uses in verse 10. I am in the Father and the Father is in me. This is oneness.

This is oneness in essence, mutual indwelling. Even in His humanity, Jesus has never abandoned this perfect relationship with the Father. Look at John 15 verse 9. Jesus says again, just as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you.

Abide in my love. And then turn your Bibles over to John 17 verse 24. At the end of this discourse, at the end of this prayer in John 17, Jesus says, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am so that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.

The love of the Father for God, the Son, and the love of the Son for the Father is the explanation for why this world exists, why we exist, why all of what we experience exists. We were created as an expression of the overflow of the eternal love of God the Father for God the Son and God the Son back to God the Father.

There's no greater reason for existence. There's no more perfect relationship. There's no more fulfilling truth. Our humanity on this created earth is the arena wherein God the Father and God the Son can express their perfect love for each other by loving us.

The written record that we have of Jesus' humanity is the evidence. It's what we need to know, to know that the love of God for God his Son is evident all the way. And it's the love of God, the Father, that we can experience through God the Son.

We participate in the first relationship. Relationship. Jesus, the Son, shows us the love of God the Father. That's the first perfect relationship that we will see. Secondly, go back to John 14. We're going to see that the Father and the Son send us the Spirit to abide with us.

The first relationship is the Son shows us the love of the Father. The second is that the Father and the Son send us the Spirit to abide with us. Read with me from verse 16 through 18. I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may be with you forever.

That is, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.

We'll keep going here. After a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

Now, Jesus begins this verse. He says, I'm going to ask the Father, and he's going to give you another helper. Now, you may have that translated comforter, advocate. It's the Greek word paraklete. Helper is a really good translation, one who comes alongside of to assist.

You have the helper. Now, Jesus himself is a helper. He has been a helper for his disciples for his human ministry with them, but he knows that the time of his departure and temporary separation from his disciples is at hand.

Thus, what does he say? I will ask. I will request of the Father, and he will give you another helper, God the Spirit. So, think about this. The disciples have one helper, but they're going to be even more well They're going to get two helpers.

They're going to have a helper in heaven, interceding for them before God the Father, and a helper who abides in them. How long? Forever. Look at verse 16, that he may be with you forever. I was thinking about this this morning.

It's kind of like the phrase, deny one, get two free, right? They are going to abandon their helper in just a couple of hours here, but he will never abandon them, and not only will he never abandon them, he will go and be their advocate before God the Father to this day, and send them another helper who will abide in them forever.

Look at John 14 18 again. It says, I will, or excuse me, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. So, while we wait for the return of Jesus, we recognize that we're not orphans. The Spirit is sent to us, not to the world, but he's sent to us to know us, to know God, and to know us, and to abide with us.

It has always been the intention of God the Father and God the Son to send the third member of the Godhead to permanently indwell, and to love their adopted children, not leave them as orphans. The Spirit builds on the relational knowledge that we have of God the Father, that we obtained through the life of Jesus, the physical man.

We further our knowing of God through the abiding presence of the Spirit within us. Jesus brings us to God the Father by immersing us into himself through salvation, right? We are baptized into him, and then he sends us the Spirit as a permanent seal, a permanent expression of that relationship.

Let's continue on in John 14. Look at verses 23 through 26. Jesus answered and said to Judas, who asked him the question, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.

He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding 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 said to you.

Jesus' humanity is the perfect expression of what it looks like to live a life that is full of the Spirit. It's a full human existence lived in complete dependence upon the Spirit to provide wisdom, knowledge, power, obedience to God the Father.

We read in John 3 .34 that Jesus was filled with the Spirit beyond measure, and he desires that we experience that same Spirit abiding in us as his children as he returns home to the Father. The abiding presence of the Spirit is the ultimate solution that Jesus provides for his disciples as they prepare to face even greater troubles than what they are currently undergoing.

Look at John 14. We'll continue on verses 27 through 34. He says, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.

You heard that I said to you, I go away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe.

See if I'm going to stop there. Note, now I've told you before it happens that when it happens you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming and he has nothing in me.

But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded me. Get up, let us go from here. So Jesus speaks to his disciples' trouble by saying, Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you.

He was troubled, he experienced peace by virtue of his relationship with God the Father through the Spirit. He wants them to experience that same peace. And so he reminds them again, do not let your hearts be troubled.

And then he adds, nor let it be fearful. Now we pointed out that Jesus could be troubled just like his disciples could be troubled. But this word for fearful here, this is not a good fear. This is a cowardly, timid, non-pious fear.

He's saying don't be cowardly or timid here. You have something that the world can never give you. You have me leaving you so that I can go away to the Father. And if you understood how much better this will be, you would actually be more at peace than you currently are.

For if I go away to the Father, this is what's going to happen. The Father is going to send the Spirit to abide with you. And if we go back, this was really key here and I didn't want you to miss it. In verse 23, when Jesus says to Judas, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him.

Notice the, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. In a sense when the Spirit abides in your heart, it's not just the Spirit bringing the Son's Spirit to you, it's the Father and the Son.

The triune Godhead dwelling in believers. That is the source and the benefit or the expression of the ultimate peace that we can experience no matter what troubles we are going through or will go through in this life.

So the first relationship that we can meditate on this morning is that the Son shows us the love of the Father. The second is that the Father and the Son send the Spirit to abide with us forever. Third, the Spirit relates to us through the word.

The third relationship is that the Spirit relates to us, how? Through the word of truth. So the reality that the Spirit abides in us in a manner similar to how he has abided in Christ to this point, to Jesus at this point, has been one of the truths that we have seen repeatedly everywhere we have looked at our study of the humanity of Jesus.

We've seen the Spirit equipping and abiding in Jesus and that has pointed us to the reality that we too can abide in Jesus. Now, the work of the Spirit in the life of the Messiah was prophesied in the Old Testament prophets as they spoke of how he would come to bring justice and righteousness that stems from the relationship between the Messiah and the word of God.

Listen to Isaiah 11 verse 1 through 3. It says, Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. The Spirit of Yahweh will rest on him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of Yahweh.

And he will delight in the fear of Yahweh, and he will not judge by what his eyes see nor render a decision by what his ears hear. When the Spirit comes in the person of Messiah, he will bring the expression of that comes from the word, the word of God.

And it is this indwelling Spirit who produces the ability for Jews and Gentiles to walk in a new covenant relationship with God. Listen to Ezekiel 36 27. It says, I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will be careful to observe my ordinances.

When the Spirit is within you, you have the law, you have the word of God written on your heart. That's what Jeremiah 31 33 says. He's going to write it on our hearts. But here's the beautiful part about the Spirit's work.

He not only brings the law, all of the Old Testament righteousness forward, but he brings Jesus as the most perfect revelation of God and takes his truth and adds it to the Old Testament law. It's all accessible for us.

How? Through the indwelling abiding Holy Spirit. The Spirit works by relating to us through the word, the word of truth. Bruce Ware in his book, The Man Christ Jesus, says the long awaited internalization of the Spirit is granted only as that Spirit first dwelt in Jesus, empowering his life and obedience only then to be granted to Jesus' followers.

Look back at John 14 verse 17. I love this. The Spirit is everywhere through this section. We see him in little concentrated sections, but I listened to a couple of Jim's sermons from this way back in, was it 2014, Jim?

And the Spirit is everywhere in this entire farewell discourse. He's not just in little concentrated parts, but we see him at points. Look at 14 17. The Spirit is described as the Spirit of truth. Look at 14 26.

We read the helper of 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 said to you. Look at 15 verse 26. When the helper comes whom I will send you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.

He will testify about me and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning. So when the Spirit testifies, he testifies about me. The work of the Spirit is to bring the truth of God to our minds repeatedly by reminding us and pointing us back to the revelation of Jesus through the written word of God as recorded by these apostles right here.

Is that sufficient for the Spirit? Is that enough for you? Well, look at John 16 verse 7. We'll see further what else the Spirit does. We'll read from verse 7 through 15 of John 16. Jesus says, but I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin because they do not believe in me and concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you no longer see me.

And concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all of the truth.

For he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me for he will take of mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine, therefore I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you.

So when the Spirit comes, he's going to work powerfully in multiple ways. He's going to convict this world of its sin, its righteousness, and its judgment. He will bring more truth that Jesus did not have the ability to speak to these disciples now, either because they weren't ready for it or there wasn't enough time left or some combination, but the disciples could not bear that truth.

So Jesus says the Spirit is going to bring you the rest of the truth because he's going to bring everything that the Father has disclosed to me that I am giving him to give to you. He will guide you into all truth.

Think back to Jesus' statement, I am the way, the truth, and the life. If you want truth, how do you get it? Through the Spirit, through the Word, from Jesus, ultimately from God the Father. And he's going to disclose to believers what is yet to come.

There's more information yet to come here that these believers need to record for us. So the power of the Spirit is through the revelation. And when we struggle to understand what God is doing, when it doesn't make sense to us why he is doing what he is doing, or how we are to walk in light of what he is doing, when we, when our minds get tangled up and disturbed and troubled and there's a, there's a lack of peace, there's a lack of joy, there's a lack of fulfillment, we don't get it.

Why is it happening this way? What do we do? We go back to the Word and we allow the Spirit to guide us into all the truth. This is the source of our obedience. When we can delight in knowing the Father, by knowing Jesus the Son, by abiding in the Spirit who has been sent from the Father and by the Son, then he can cause us to walk in his statutes and to be careful to observe his commandments.

Look back at John 15 verse 10. Jesus says to us and to his disciples, if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. Jesus experienced peace in times of trial and testing by depending on the Spirit and the Word to obey the Father.

We saw all the way back in Luke how he learned obedience for his life, right? He demonstrated his ability to obey the Father's will for him. How? By going back to the Word through the Spirit. It's the same way for us.

That's the beautiful part about this. Look at 16. We're going to keep on going in chapter 16 verse 20 through 22. Jesus says to his disciples, truly, truly, I say to you that you will weep and lament but the world will rejoice.

You will grieve but your grief will be turned into joy. Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain because her hour has come but when she gives birth to the child she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy the child has been brought into the world.

Therefore you too have grief now but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice and no one will take your joy away from you. I love those words of Jesus. I will see you again and when I see you again you will rejoice and no one will ever take that joy away from you again.

Look at 17. John 17 verses 14 through 17. Jesus says, I have given them your word and the world has hated them because they are not of the world even as I am not of the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world but to keep them from the evil one.

They are not of the world even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. How are we sanctified in the truth? Through the spirit ministering to us through the word. So the first three relationships on which we must meditate today are that the spirit shows us the love of God the father.

God the father and God the son send the spirit to abide with us forever and the spirit relates to us through the word of truth. And fourth and finally we are perfected in unity through the unity of the father son and spirit.

The fourth relationship is our relationship as believers as a church we are perfected in unity through the unity of the father son and spirit. This will come from John 17. So let's start in John 17 verse 4.

Jesus prayer here he says, I glorified you on the earth having accomplished the work which you have given me to do. Now father glorify me together with yourself with the glory which I had with you before the world was.