Never Alone - [John 14:18-24]

The Gospel of John and the Comfort of the Christian Hope

I would invite you to open your Bibles to John chapter 14 as we continue week by week going through the Gospel of John. For those of you who aren't laughing, it's because you're not here very often. Sorry.

Pastor Mike is in Israel so I'm preaching this week and next week because he'll be in California so we'll be in John chapter 14 for the next couple of weeks. I don't know how many of you know this but Billy Graham died this week.

Probably most of you know that. For years, one of the most admired men in the country. Any survey of the top ten people, again and again, maybe the president, maybe some rock star, some philanthropist, but always Billy Graham was in the top ten.

Very well respected. A few days ago, I saw his son, Franklin Graham, being interviewed on TV. And the hosts were very supportive and very nice and, you know, oh, you must be hurting. Your father just passed away.

How do you feel? What's on your mind? You know, do you just want to cry on national TV? Come on, just spill your guts, Franklin. Franklin Graham says, you know, for years, my dad preached not only about the love of God but about the wrath of God.

And he says, we all stand condemned under the wrath of God because we're sinners. And he says, it's only by the perfect life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ that we can be forgiven for our sins.

And I just thought, here he is, you know, they're just like, oh, come on, cry for us, Franklin. And in the first 35, 40 seconds, he gave the whole gospel and I'm like, that's pretty amazing. And for those of you who have seen either Billy Graham or Franklin Graham for years, you know, whether it was old Billy Graham on the Larry King live show, well, what do you make of the president saying this week?

Well, I don't know about that, but I do know that everybody needs salvation full and free. They were like, Franklin, you need to be comforted. And he was like, I have words of comfort. How about the gospel?

How about the truth? How about how you can be forgiven of every sin you've ever committed? That's what everybody needs to hear. As we turn to John chapter 14, we're going to see comforting words, I think.

John chapter 14, I'm going to read beginning in verse 18, and then we'll set the stage for where we are. Set the stage. I like this. John 14 verses 18 to 24, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live.

You also will live in that day. You will know that I am in my father and you and me and I, and you, whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he, it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father.

And I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered him, 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.

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. Now, the Gospel of John, written about 90 AD by Jesus' best earthly friend, the apostle John, he calls himself the beloved apostle, would be bragging if it weren't true.

I think there was a real sense in which they were best friends. And when we were last in John, we looked at verses 15 to 17. If you recall, the disciples are dispirited, they're, you know, in the vernacular, they're bummed.

They're down. What began as a happy occasion, the celebration of the initial dinner for Passover, the whole festival had really turned into something else entirely, not a celebration. While having dinner, the famous last supper with his disciples, we read in John 13 verse 21, after saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit and testified, truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.

And of course, that was Judas Iscariot. He leaves the group, Jesus kind of shoves him all but shoves him out the door, you know, says, get on with it, go do what you need to do. And Judas goes to betray Jesus to the Jewish authorities who had been seeking an opportune time to arrest Jesus away from the crowd so that there wouldn't be any kind of rebellion.

Jesus then told the disciples he would soon be leaving, that he would be going to a place where they could not go. Veiled language, but he's always talking about his death, and he actually did talk about his death, they just didn't get it, they didn't want to get it.

And the idea of Jesus leaving was devastating. He was everything to them. He was their teacher, their master, and their friend. And as I've said, this, in John 14, this is intensely personal and intensely emotional.

And I don't think it's any less emotional for the Lord Jesus. He loves these men. Peter, when Jesus says he's going someplace they can't go, if you recall, Peter says, I'll go with you, you know, basically, I'll go anywhere with you, and I'll defend you and I'll do all these things.

Jesus says that Peter's going to deny him three times before the morning, and in fact, we know later on that Peter does that. But what had started really as a celebration, a party, has now become kind of a wake.

I mean, it is not a fun time. So Jesus is encouraging the disciples, and in verses 15 to 17, he spoke of sending the Holy Spirit. We saw that the Holy Spirit is sent by the Son and by the Father. We talked about how all the persons of the Trinity are equally God, they are of the same essence, but they have a different function.

So we would call that the economy of the Trinity. The Father sends the Son, we see that over and over again in the Gospel of John, and the Father and the Son send the Spirit. But we never read in the Scriptures of, we read of the Scriptures, in the Scriptures, the Spirit impelling Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted, but we don't see a real sending in the same sense that the Father sends the Son, and the Father and the Son send the Spirit.

But if you recall, Jesus promised a comforter, a helper, a counselor, depending on your translation. And I like, in this context, I really like the idea of comforter better, because he's really trying to, he's not promising them help, he's promising them comfort.

I'm going to be leaving, and I'm sending someone who's different but the same. In fact, the word there gives us the idea of another of the same kind. Different person but of the same kind. So just as Jesus is a person, the Holy Spirit whom Jesus is sending is a person and not a force.

The Spirit teaches, as we talked about, he bears witness to Jesus, he makes decisions, he speaks, he gets offended when we sin against him, and he is, in Scripture, equated in every way, put on equal footing, as it were, with the Father and the Son.

He is called God. But unlike the departing Jesus, the soon-to-be-crucified Jesus, the Spirit will be with the disciples permanently. In verse 16 it says, to be with you forever. That's encouraging.

And this morning we're going to see that kind of theme of encouragement continue. In fact, Jesus is going to give us, this morning, two comforts and then one challenge. Two comforts and then one challenge.

The Resurrection as Comfort and Assurance

The first comfort. The resurrection is comforting. The resurrection is assuring. It gives us confidence, and it would help them, the disciples. First, notice that Jesus will return to them, and this is in, in fact, going to be the resurrection.

It's not eminently clear, initially. But look at verse 18 again. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you, yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Now when you think about the ancient world, they're really, I mean, today, if we hear about orphans, we think that's sad, right?

But now there is the so-called safety net. There are social services for orphans. In those days, being an orphan was one of the most pathetic positions you could own, and it meant, you know, it could be losing either your mother or father, but it basically gave you the, the picture would be of not having someone to protect you, someone to guard you.

If you recall in the book of James, what does he say about, you know, visiting orphans and widows, and he says, you know, in the time of their distress, they're not having a good time if you're an orphan or a widow in the old system.

And he says that he's not going to leave them like orphans. That's how despondent they were. That's how bad they felt. That's how low they were. They're so low that Jesus has to tell them that they're not going to occupy the hopeless position of orphans.

Now, have you ever had the experience of losing, most of us have, losing somebody that we really love, that we were really close to? So for these disciples, I mentioned how close, how much they loved Jesus, how much they depended on him, how much he was their teacher, their master, their Lord, their friend, their constant companion for these three plus years.

Now he's going to be crucified. So Jesus is trying to prepare them for this. Listen, no matter how bad you feel, in about a day, when this is all done, actually, the truth is, you're going to feel worse.

But again, back to the text, notice how personal the language is. You want to comfort somebody, you have to be personal with them. Look what he says, I, me personally, I will come to you. Then at the end of verse 19, but you will see me, you, you people right here, you will see me.

It's a personal assurance to them that he will himself be with them again, but this is after the resurrection. And this is demonstrated by the fact that who's not going to see him. He says, the world will not see me.

They will see me no more. The world will see me no more. Who is the world in this instance? Well, he's talking about people who don't love him, who aren't followers of his. Who sees Jesus after the resurrection?

Well, in a sense, I mean, we don't know if anybody who was an unbeliever might have seen him walking the street or something like that. But we do know we have recorded for us in scripture that everyone who recognizes him and speaks with him is what a believer, whether it's on the road to Emmaus or whether it's at some other point.

In fact, first Corinthians 15, six says, then he appeared to more than 500 people, a crowd of 500 strangers, no 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive. Even though some have fallen asleep after his crucifixion, he came back and he visited believers.

He wanted to assure them he wanted to encourage them, even though it was not clear to the disciples when Jesus said this. As we look back now with our 2020 hindsight, hindsight, it makes perfect sense again.

In verse 19, because I live, you also will live because I'm going to be raised from the dead. You also will be raised from the dead. When he promised to go prepare a place for them, it was because they would one day join him that they would one day die, be raised from the dead, and then go join him in heaven.

What does Paul say? Something along the lines of, if he is not raised from the dead, then we are of all men to be most pitied, but he was raised. He is raised. So our faith is not something to be pitied.

It's something to be envied. It is the most important thing about us. Look at what, how Jesus phrases it in verse 20. In that day, on the day I come back, on the day after my resurrection, when I come and visit you, you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you again, the personal nature of it.

How was Jesus going to build his church even after he was crucified? How was he going to do that? By giving these men an intimate knowledge of who he is, who they were in him, intimate knowledge of God, and then use these men to build the church.

The relationship between the father and the son, the intimate union that Jesus describes, really resembles the relationship between Jesus and believers. In other words, the father and the son, the father is to the son as Jesus is to believers.

You know, it's one of those comparison tests. I don't know if we think about that enough, but that's what he's talking about here, and that's how he's trying to encourage these disciples. Now we think, well, how in the world can it possibly be the same?

The father and the son have this perfect relationship. They're of one essence. There is no division between them. Our relationship is to be like that. Think of some comparisons. How Jesus describes the relationship between himself and believers.

He says he is the good shepherd, and we are his sheep. We are his flock. There's an intimacy there. Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches. Jesus is the head of the church, and we are his body. Again and again and again, we see this closeness, this intimacy that exists between Jesus and us.

And again, it's reflective of the relationship between the father and the son. Let's for a moment, let's turn over to Revelation chapter 3. Revelation chapter 3. And here the apostle John is talking to the church at Laodicea.

Well, he's not. The Lord Jesus is. And there are some problems. You know, if you recall in verse 15, it says this. I'll just read this. And this will kind of set the tone for the church at Laodicea. I know your works.

You are neither hot or neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. Like I said, the church at Laodicea has some problems.

But skip ahead to verse 19. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent. There's always hope even for the worst of us. Even for the people of the church at Laodicea. And the verse that's often taken out of context, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him and he with me. This isn't about evangelism. This is about repenting. Look, the one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne as I also conquered and sat down with my father on his throne.

Again, here's the picture. The son sits on the father's throne with the father. Believers sit with the son on the son's throne. It's the same relationship. That's the picture. Let's go back to John. I just want to illustrate that again.

This is the picture. And again, our relationship with Jesus isn't perfect because we're not perfect. But that's the picture, the illustration that Jesus gives to the disciples so that they would be encouraged.

Now you ask yourself, you know, in Revelation 3, well, how do we conquer? How are we more than conquerors? Is it, you know, I don't know what would be the Latin for, you know, conquering by ourselves.

That's not the idea. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, not on our own strength. But again, we see the parallel between our relationship with Jesus and his relationship with the father. That is meant to comfort them.

The resurrection is assuring, that relationship is assuring. And notice also that obedience is assuring. Obedience is assuring. Why is obedience assuring to believers? Why does our obedience give us assurance of our salvation?

Why does it comfort us? Well, because the word says it should. Look at verse 21. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. Now it's important to note here that having the commandments of Christ is not enough, right?

I mean, if we just know them, if we just have head knowledge of them, that doesn't do us any benefit. You can know the truth about Jesus and never act on it. You must believe him. I was reading, I thought this was really good.

In fact, somebody even wrote me this week and said, well, so-and-so, I won't mention their name, but so-and-so believes in God. And I said, that's great. But do they believe God? Do they believe God?

Because James writes that the demons know truths about God and it makes them shudder. It's not enough to believe in God, to know that he exists. We have to believe God, take him at his word. Many unbelievers know doctrine.

They know truths of scripture. They write books about scripture, but they are still unbelievers. Also notice that just a crassly literal reading of this might lead us to believe that Jesus is looking for our works to see if we believe.

He said it earlier. He said in verse 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Did that mean salvation by works? No, he knows our hearts and he's mindful of our weaknesses. He knows that we're never going to be perfect.

And it's never about, do we do enough? Are we obedient enough? Are we faithful enough? We talk a lot about faithfulness. Are we faithful enough? No. But why do we do what we do? What motivates us? A heart that loves Jesus.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. A heart that loves Jesus, that wants to follow Jesus, that heart will obey Jesus imperfectly.

It will stumble. It will stagger, but it will ultimately get right. Why? Because for believers, sin grieves them. It causes them pain. They have no comfort in sin. They get no ultimate joy out of it. They might have a momentary fleeting sense of joy, but it causes them pain to know that they have essentially denied their master.

And again, we know this just even by virtue of this context, how do we keep the commandments of Christ? He sent us the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we can't do it on our own power. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit who works mightily within us.

So we think about the grief that sin causes. We would see that. We even mentioned it in Sunday school today, shameless plug. David grieved by his sin. Peter grieved by his sin. Can you imagine denying Jesus three times and having Jesus come out and see you just right after you do it?

And Jesus not even say anything. Think about repentance and how the Jews on Pentecost, the people listening to Peter, how do they respond? They're cut to the heart. Why? Because they recognize what they thought about Jesus was wrong all along.

They've been in sin all along and they want to be right. That's what happens when believers sin. It's that same sense of I'm undone. I need to repent. I need to get right with the Lord. But when we obey, if we're thinking rightly, we think of our shortcomings, our sins, and then we give full obedience or full credit to the spirit of God for our obedience.

We don't take credit for it. And we also have confidence that our disobedience, our sins have been covered, have been paid for by Jesus. To underscore the importance of obedience, Jesus uses a word of emphasis here.

If you look back at your text in verse 21, it says, whoever has my commandments and keeps them. And there's a word there in the Greek that just kind of like it should be underlined because it says he, it is.

In other words, there's a, there's a word there that doesn't have to be there and it's just there to just underline it. That's the one who loves me. The one who obeys me is the one. Only those who obey love me.

What does that mean? That means anyone who professes to love Christ, but has no desire for obedience, is indifferent to his sin. I'm just going to say, say it as bluntly as I can, because John says it elsewhere in the gospel of John or in the epistle of John, first epistle.

If you sin and it doesn't cause you grief, the apostle would probably say this, you call yourself a Christian. I'm going to tell you something, you're lying. You don't love Jesus. So there's something going on and it's been posted the last couple of days on Facebook and you don't really think about what you're posting on Facebook.

I mean, do I post stupid things? Yes, I do. I confess. But I don't want to cause people to just run off and stumble and so I'm going to put this as gently as I can. There's a reality show that people have been posting about and Christians have been posting about that's about the supposed, in fact, the description of the show.

How do you know the people that are in this reality show are devout Christians? Because the description of the show says they're devout Christians. And by the way, there's a Bible on their table. Well, that settles it right there.

And they're evangelists. The description of the show says, well, okay, done. The show is about couples, you know, exchanging spouses. And you know, in each case, I didn't have the time to like send a note, but in each case I'm just like, I just deleted that because I don't even want it in my feed.

But here's what we know. Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my word. You'll obey me. You say that you love me, but you're going to engage in heinous sin. And not just that, but you're going to parade it in front of the whole world.

You're going to put it on TV. And then you're going to say that you're some kind of holy evangelist. Obedience says that we love Jesus, disobedience, flagrant disobedience, promoting disobedience and says, I hate Jesus.

Now love for Jesus also means being loved by the father. Look at verse 21. And he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Now does our love for Christ demonstrated by obedience cause, listen to that word, cause the father to love us?

Well, if we think about it for a second, we realized that God loved us. What? When we were his enemies, Romans tells us that God set his affection on us when before the foundation of the world. So what's Jesus trying to say here?

If we love him by obeying, then the father will love us. What does this mean? D .A. Carson says this. He says, believers love and obey Jesus and he loves them in exactly the same way that he loves and obeys his father and the father loves him.

So again, this parallel is drawn. The father shows the son all things because he loves him. So the son says he will manifest himself to the manifest himself to those who love him. What would be more comforting than knowing we are beloved by the father and the son and indwelt by the holy spirits.

We obey the son and because we are in the son, the father loves us. Well, he loved us before. He loves us again. He loves us before our conversion. He loves us after our conversion. This makes sense. What could be even better than that?

We're loved by the father and the son and we're indwelt by the holy spirit. That's pretty good and it's about to get better and it comes in the form of a question and answer. And there are lots of, uh, during this discourse here and the, the upper room discourse, there are lots of questions coming at Jesus from the disciples and that should tell us something.

I mean, it should tell us a couple of things. One is the disciples were kind of dopey, but it should also tell us this, that they were comfortable enough to ask him questions. He was really their friend, just like, well, Jesus, I don't understand.

Can you just explain? He doesn't get angry. These are friends discussing. They have respect for him. They call him master. They do all these things, but they understand that they can, they can ask him these things.

That's the relationship they have. But look at verse 22, Judas, not as scary. And, and again, you know, I think John is going out of his way here. He doesn't want to confuse the reader. I think this is good writing, right?

If you think about it, I should say good writing, correct? If you think about it, he doesn't want his readers to be confused, right? Judas is gone. So what's Judas doing here? So he says, wait a minute.

This is not that Iscariot guy. I want to be clear about that. Judas not Iscariot said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Here's the heart of his question.

Why not how, how are you going to show yourself to? He's not concerned about how he just wants to know how only the believers are going to see, right? He really wants to know, why aren't you going to show yourself to everyone?

And it seems that he's still caught up in this idea that maybe Jesus is the Jewish concept of a Messiah, the one who is going to not just be a spiritual Messiah, but he's going to be a political Messiah.

He's going to set the people free. And if you're willing to show yourself to us, why not show yourself to everybody? Why not set the record straight? Why not get the kingdom inaugurated right now? Why don't we just start this thing right now?

And that's essentially, if you think back to it, this is what Jesus' brother said to him way back when, why not just show yourself to everybody? Why are you going to, you know, kind of run around and play this cloak and dagger thing?

And as so often happens, when somebody who listens to Jesus, I mean, the classic case is the woman and the whale, but where he says something and they misunderstand what he says or the intent of what he says, when he answers their question, he doesn't give them the answer that they're looking for.

But none of the disciples at this point really understand the resurrection. They're not like, okay, Lord, you're going to be put to death tomorrow. And then on, you know, Sunday, you're going to be raised from the dead and we'll see you next week.

Nobody's thinking like that. I mean, this, this is, this is a very serious situation, but look how he encourages the disciples the way he answers. Verse 23, Jesus answered him. 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.

Now he's already said some of this. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. But what about the last half? The father and son will make their home with believers. Well, what does that mean? Well, first it underscores the equality of the father and the son.

There's no way that Jesus would say as he does here, we will come to him if they weren't the same. My father will love him and we, the father and I will come to him and make our home with him. They have to be equal.

Otherwise he would never say that. But what does it mean that the father and the son will make their home with believers? Well, ultimately it has this idea of them setting up resonance with believers dwelling in the hearts of believers.

In fact, Paul wrote of Christ dwelling in the hearts of believers, but this is the only place in scripture where we see the idea of the father and the son in dwelling believers appearing in scripture.

Leon Morris says home here that they will make their home will have its full force. Jesus is not speaking of a temporary place of lodging, but of a permanent dwelling. The father, son, and Holy Spirit abide with believers always.

I entitled this message never alone. Why? Because you're never alone. You have the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit with you. The resurrection is assuring. Obedience is assuring. Why? Because when you obey, the father and son take up residence in you.

A Warning to Pretenders and the Call to Self-Examination

And lastly, a warning to those who are pretenders. Look at verse 24, whoever does not love me does not keep my words. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. Well, if obedience indicates or means that we love Jesus, what does it mean if we do not keep his word?

It's interesting, just to back up for a minute. In most evangelical churches, we hear about God's love for us. God loves us so much. There's a lot of emotionalism. In fact, I think you could easily say that it's just overdone, that it's all emotion.

When we see love, whether it's God's love for us or our love for Christ, it's never about emotions. It's never this kind of brooding. We're not commanded to just think about our emotional love for Jesus, right?

He doesn't say that. He says, if you love me, you keep my commandments. Love for Christ is demonstrated not in words or emotional displays, but by obeying his word. Matthew 7 .21, don't turn there, says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven.

Obedience, it matters. So again, what about those who do not love his word? Those who do not keep his word? Those who do not treasure the commandments? The ones who do not obey? And you say, well, wait a minute, none of us obey perfectly, true.

And the standard is perfection, true. We can't perfectly obey. So do we love Jesus? Well, and isn't it true that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone?

Yes. We have the Spirit. We have the Son. We have the Father. He works mightily within believers. He who began a good work in us is faithful to complete it. But this is a warning to those who are indifferent to the things of Christ and yet believe themselves to be saved.

Salvation is not by emotion. It's not by walking the aisle. It's not by signing a card. It's not by praying a prayer. It's not by going to church and singing songs and raising your hands and waving them around and slapping your neighbor.

I saw somebody get elbowed in the head this morning while we were doing the elbow thing. There are far too many Christians, I'll use the air quote so my grandkids can, far too many Christians who are depending upon their emotional commitment to Jesus and not examining themselves and saying, do I really love Jesus?

Does my life really reflect someone who loves him and wants to follow him and who obeys him? If we don't love Jesus or if we don't obey him, then we don't love him. Look at verse 24, and the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.

Now it seems almost like a, you know, a throwaway line, but I, a few things to consider because there are no throwaway lines in scripture. First of all, it demonstrates the son's devotion and obedience to the father, the same devotion and obedience we are to exhibit to Jesus himself, right?

Like he's just told us, if you love me, you'll keep my word. You'll keep my commandments. Now Jesus says, let me show you how I love the father. He tells me what to say and what do I do? I say it, he sent me, I do what he tells me.

That's the relationship I have with the father and that's the relationship you are to have with me. It also demonstrates his submission to the father, right? Again, an example for us, we are to submit to the son, we are to honor the son, we are, as the psalmist writes, to kiss the son.

And it also again demonstrates for us the economy of the trinity, that is to say that even though they're equal, they have different functions. Shows the nature of their relationship. And finally, it demonstrates the seriousness of the warning.

How can we not examine ourselves in light of the caution from the Lord? Look, this is ultimately from the father. He says, I'm not just saying this on my own authority, although that would be enough. I want you to understand this is from God.

How can we not examine ourselves? Everybody, it's good to examine ourselves and see if we're in the faith. You know, does the life that we're living reflect a love for Jesus Christ? And I'm not suggesting in any way, shape, or form that we're saved by our good works.

But an absence of good works is an absence of love. How long can a believer go on with that absence of love for the Lord? I love him totally emotionally, but I'm not going to do anything to follow him.