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[0:00] The text for today's sermon is from the book of John, chapter 14, verses 15 through 31.

[0:14] If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, you know him, for he dwells with you and will be with you.

[0:34] I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more. And you will see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

[0:45] In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he 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.

[1:02] 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 he will come to him and make our home with him.

[1:20] 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. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.

[1:30] 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. Peace I leave with you.

[1:41] My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled. Neither let them be afraid. I heard you say, You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you.

[1:54] If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.

[2:06] I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.

[2:18] Rise, let us go from here. This is the word of the Lord. Father, as we sang earlier, God, we ask that your spirit would fill this place, and God, that you would fill our hearts as well.

[2:39] Here we see the spirit of truth, the helper, is one who leads us, who guides us into truth, who helps us to understand the deep things of God.

[2:51] And so we need your help right now, to understand these words of Christ, that he spoke to his disciples. So Lord, fill this place, fill our hearts, transform our minds, raise the affections of our hearts for Christ, and make us into the people that you want us to be this morning.

[3:08] We pray this in Christ's name, and for your glory. Amen. Well, good morning. I guess I didn't introduce myself before, but my name is Mike. I'm one of the elders here at Shoreline, and I'm so glad that you all have joined us this morning.

[3:21] Today we're in John 14, 15 to 31, just to make sure. We had some different texts on the screen for a little bit. I want to ask you guys a question this morning. Have you ever resisted moving into a new life season or stage due to either fear of the unknown or you were just comfortable where you were at?

[3:43] I'm getting some head nods. Yeah, yeah. So when I graduated from college in 2010, I couldn't initially find a job in my degree. I moved back home, and I moved into my parents' home.

[3:55] I reconnected with my home church. I reconnected with friends. I got another job, not using my degree, but it was still a job, and I grew comfortable. It was like my life was good. I enjoyed it. And then I applied to Electric Boat, or rather reapplied, but semantics, and they offered me a job.

[4:14] And at the time, you know, it made a lot of sense on paper. It's using my degree. It's out here with friends that I had from college. It gets me out of my parents' house, and I'm a man, I guess, at 22.

[4:27] And it made sense that I should go and move into the next season of life. And yet I found myself comfortable and just not sure if I really wanted to take the leap. Well, I did.

[4:38] I did accept the job, and the rest is history, and you can ask me about it later if you really want. But in our text for today, we find the disciples struggling to grasp the implications of Jesus' imminent departure from them.

[4:51] Like, they've grown comfortable being around Jesus for the last three years. They can't imagine life without Christ. And yet Jesus is announcing his departure from them, right?

[5:03] And this is troubling. And he's trying to show them, in this text specifically, how much better it's going to be when he leaves. See, when Christ leaves them, a new age is going to dawn, and it is going to be far better than the old age.

[5:22] And why is that, you ask? Well, that's a great question. Stay tuned for the answer. But before we get to that answer, there's something else going on in this text.

[5:34] Now, Jesus has spoken all throughout John about his love for the Father, right? And the Father and Son's love for one another, and their love for the world, and for his disciples specifically.

[5:46] But now he moves to something else. He's talking about his disciples' love for him. And three different times in these verses, Jesus links the disciples' love for him with their obedience to his commandments and teaching.

[6:00] And I'll have those on the screen here. First one, right there in verse 15, Jesus says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And down in verse 21, Is this thing working?

[6:12] Or is that you? There we go. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. Jesus said in verse 23, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.

[6:28] Now, why this repetition about loving and obeying Christ? The disciples are troubled, as you remember, right? They're disoriented.

[6:38] They're confused about the ominous words that Jesus has been speaking, talking about his hour, and talking about his departure to a place they can't go, and his betrayal and denial.

[6:50] And then into their troubled hearts, as we've seen throughout chapter 14, Jesus has been speaking words of comfort, right? He's been laying out for them these amazing promises. He's going to go, but it's to prepare a place for them in the Father's house, right?

[7:04] He's going to come back and bring them to be with him, right? And they know the way. It's Christ himself. And not only that, but they're going to be able to do things greater even than he has done in his earthly ministry.

[7:18] He's speaking these words of comfort. And then he says, If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Like, it kind of seems out of place, right? But if you're the disciples, having grown up under the reading of Torah, right, the first five books of the Bible, the law, when you hear those words, you immediately think, that's covenant language.

[7:41] If you love me, you will keep my command. That's covenant language. That's the covenant that God made with us, with his people Israel, when he established the law through Moses. See, all throughout the book of Deuteronomy, God says things like this, Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.

[8:06] Deuteronomy 7, 9. He says this, You shall therefore love the Lord your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always. Deuteronomy 11, 1. See, in a similar covenant-like fashion, Jesus is charging his disciples to love him and therefore to obey him.

[8:26] Now by doing this, Jesus is first proclaiming again his identity as God. It's as if to say, If you love me, a.k.a. the Lord your God, then you'll obey me.

[8:38] I am the God of Moses and the God of Israel. Jesus has been saying this all throughout John. I am the God who covenanted with my people, worthy of all of your love.

[8:49] Secondly, though, by doing this, Jesus is reaffirming that old covenant reality, that obedience is the outworking of love.

[9:01] And that's really our first point for today. Old covenant reality reaffirmed. Obedience is the outworking of love. You could say that love for God is proven by our obedience to him and to his commandments.

[9:18] And you might ask, But Jesus, what about grace? Right? What about justification by faith? Why are you talking about obedience and commandments? Like, isn't that all stuff we left behind in the Old Testament?

[9:32] Grace? I mean, absolutely. Justification by faith? Praise the Lord. Lord. Paul says in Romans 3, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.

[9:54] I mean, that's the gospel, is it not? And also, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. It's not excluded from the gospel.

[10:05] You see, genuine, saving faith in God, genuine love for God, always manifests itself in obedience to his word.

[10:17] Now, this is why James would go on to say that the body apart from this, as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.

[10:28] And Jesus employs an analogy in the gospels, the synoptic gospels, of a fruit tree, right? You'll know them by their fruits. If you walk up to a tree and you look at the fruit, you know, maybe there's an apple, you say, aha, this is an apple tree, right?

[10:46] You don't say, oh, maybe this is an orange tree or a pear tree. It's no, it has apples, therefore it's an apple tree, right? And in the same way, Christians, right, the children of God, are known by their obedience to the Lord.

[11:00] We see obedience lived out in the lives of the saints, and we say, okay, therefore, they're a child of God, they're a saint. That's a principle seen all throughout the Old Testament and then carried on into the New Testament.

[11:14] See, our obedience to the Lord, it's really, it's a litmus test of our love for God. Am I increasingly conforming to the commands of God, right? Am I increasingly looking like Jesus in my actual life?

[11:27] In other words, what kind of fruit am I producing? If I'm an apple tree, I'm going to produce apples. If I'm a disciple of Jesus, if I love Jesus, then I'm going to obey Jesus and do what he says and reflect what he actually is and who he is.

[11:43] We talked, as we did the baby dedication, we were talking about accountability in the church, right? Like, this is one of the reasons why we hold one another accountable, right? We want to ensure that the message of our lives matches with the message of our lips, right?

[11:57] Our practice and our profession matching. And so we hold one another accountable to that in the church. And if we see fruit that doesn't look consistent with the type of tree, then we say something in love.

[12:10] Like, we speak the truth in love to one another, right? You know, one specific application as well is parenting itself, right? The way that we parent our children. Are we showing our kids that obedience and love is linked together?

[12:24] They go together. We want our children to be able to recognize that if I love mom and dad, I will obey them. Therefore, if I love God, I will obey God. Because how they view that dynamic in the home is probably how they're going to view the dynamic, you know, with the Lord.

[12:42] Lord, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. But obedience is hard, right? It's hard. It's hard for me to obey.

[12:54] It's really hard to get my children to obey. I'm not saying this is easy, church. We need help, right? Each time Jesus speaks that phrase or related one in this passage, he doesn't stop there, does he?

[13:10] He follows it up with something else. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth.

[13:26] And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. And my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.

[13:41] See, Jesus' language all throughout these verses, it isn't just pointing to the old covenant. It's also pointing to the prophetic promise of a new covenant to come.

[13:53] And that is the second point of this sermon, the new covenant reality realized. New covenant reality realized. How well was the nation of Israel able to uphold their part of the old covenant?

[14:07] Hmm? Not well, right? A lot of you guys are doing like a chronological or Bible in a year plan. You're probably somewhere, maybe in Judges, where the nation of Israel was like this, right?

[14:21] Serving God, forgetting God, serving God, forgetting God. Their obedience over the centuries, it waxed and waned, right? And it seemed to wane a lot more than it waxed. See, time and again, Israel's leaders and people failed to love and obey the Lord their God, right?

[14:37] They failed to be a witness to the nations of God's goodness and his holiness like they were supposed to be. So eventually, what did God do? As he said he would do in the book of Deuteronomy, in his covenant, he gave them up to the other nations, right?

[14:54] Assyria, Babylon. He gave them up as an act of judgment and an act of grace because he is calling them back from their wicked ways and back to seek him. And from this state of exile, God promised, through the prophet Jeremiah, through the prophet Ezekiel, of a new covenant to come that would supersede the old.

[15:16] Jeremiah 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. I will put my law within them.

[15:27] I will write it on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother say, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord.

[15:41] Ezekiel 36. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

[15:53] And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers and you shall be my people and I will be your God.

[16:08] And now, here in the upper room, right, Jesus, with his 11 disciples, is saying, those days are now. My departure, he's saying, it's going to trigger the arrival of the new covenant and something amazing is going to happen, something incredible is going to happen.

[16:26] You are going to receive another helper, the spirit of truth, to be with you forever, he says, right? To be with you forever.

[16:38] See, with the departure of Jesus, the Holy Spirit is unleashed in powerful new ways. Now, certainly, the Holy Spirit was active under the old covenant.

[16:49] Sometimes we don't realize that. I mean, how could sinners believe in God, right? How could sinners ever walk in obedience or in love to the Father apart from the intervention of the Holy Spirit, right?

[17:01] But it wasn't, it was a mystery in the Old Testament. But under the new covenant, the spirit's power, the spirit's influence, the spirit's activity would be on display in far greater ways, right?

[17:13] With far greater scope than ever before was seen under the old covenant. See, for this reason, Jesus will actually say in chapter 16, verse 7, it is to your advantage that I go away.

[17:25] He says it explicitly there. It's actually better for you, disciples, if I leave. Because when I do, the Father and I are going to send you another helper.

[17:37] Notice there in verse 16, that word another. Another helper. It's implying that they already have one or have had one, right? And of course they do. Who is it?

[17:48] It's Jesus, right? Jesus has been their helper this entire time throughout his life and ministry. And after his departure, he's going to send them yet another helper in his stead.

[18:01] That word translated as helper, it's a curious word loaded with meaning. The Greek word is transliterated paraclete, paraclete.

[18:12] And depending on the translation you have in your hands, you may have a different word in front of you because it's translated as comforter, advocate, counselor, helper. And as I've studied this, each of those words falls short in some way.

[18:28] The word paraclete, it literally means someone called alongside to assist. And it has a particularly legal sense of the word.

[18:39] So you might think of a lawyer to be your defendant. But in the first century Judaism, the defendant would actually be a friend. That's something that I learned this past week.

[18:51] So the paraclete is like a friend called alongside to assist Jesus' disciples after his departure. But where lack of clarity exists and the actual meaning of that word, see, Jesus fills out our understanding by showing us all throughout this passage what it is that the paraclete, the helper, the advocate actually does.

[19:14] So rather than focus on the meaning of the word, we're just going to look at the text and we're going to see all the things that the Spirit is and does. And when I study the Bible in my own devotional time or when I'm prepping for a sermon, I like to use a lot of different colors and they each represent different things.

[19:32] I used light green this time to just, every time I saw a connection to the helper, underline it. And I noted ten different things the Spirit does. Ten different things. Now you might study the text and find even more than I did because it's all over the place.

[19:48] But rather than give you ten things, I've grouped them into three main ministries and that's where we're going to go right now. Three main ministries of the Holy Spirit of the helper. He prepares in us a place for the Father and Son.

[20:02] That's the first thing. He assures us of our adoption as God's children. That's the second thing. And he teaches us the truth of Christ. So the first thing, he prepares in us a place for the Father and Son.

[20:17] Now where am I getting this from? I'm not going to have these verses on the screen so you've got to look there in your Bibles with me if you've got them open. Verse 16, Jesus says that he's going to ask the Father, he'll give you another helper, to be with you, to be with you forever.

[20:31] Right? Verse 17, he says, you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. See, the Holy Spirit is going to take up residence in the disciples' hearts.

[20:43] Right? Jesus had said in verse 10 a couple weeks ago now that the Father dwells in him. Right? In the Son. And now he's saying that the Holy Spirit will dwell in disciples of Christ.

[20:58] I'm getting this from verse 20. It says, Jesus says, in that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. That phrase, in that day, it's prophetic language.

[21:13] Like, that's what the prophets of old would say. Behold, the days are coming. Behold, in that day, in that day, on that day. Right? And so Jesus is saying that future fulfillment, it's here. It's imminent. And again, Jesus had said just a little bit ago in verse 10 of chapter 14, I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

[21:32] Right? He said it again in verse 11. And now he's saying disciples of Jesus are drawn into that mutual indwelling. Right? The mutual indwelling of Father and Son because the indwelling presence of God by his Spirit in the hearts of his saints.

[21:51] I'm getting it from verse 21 when Jesus says that, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. The Father and Son are going to manifest themselves.

[22:06] They're going to reveal, disclose themselves to disciples of Christ. How are they going to do that? It's in connection with the indwelling Holy Spirit. Now in verse 22, Judas, not Iscariot, there's another Judas, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?

[22:29] 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. See, like they've been in this discourse, the disciples are confused by Jesus' language.

[22:46] You know, they're still thinking that the Messiah is going to have this physical, literal reign, right? So if Jesus manifests his reign, it's going to be visible in public.

[22:56] How is it that he's going to show himself to just the disciples but not the world? Jesus' answer gets at the heart of the matter. See, his kingdom, it's not external, it's not earthly, right?

[23:09] It's internal, it's spiritual, and his kingdom is going to be manifested in and through the hearts of believers. Now this is the beauty and the wonder of the new covenant.

[23:22] The triune God, Father, Son, Spirit, he comes to make his home with believers through the indwelling presence of the Spirit. Now that word home, we will come to him and make our home with him.

[23:36] It's the same word that we saw in verse 2. Look at verse 2. Jesus said, in my Father's house are many rooms. That's that word, rooms, actually. In my Father's house are many abodes, are many dwelling places.

[23:48] And now, Jesus is saying, your heart will be a dwelling place. Your heart. So whereas Jesus goes to heaven to prepare a dwelling place for us, the Holy Spirit comes from heaven to prepare a dwelling place in us for the Father and Son.

[24:08] How amazing is that? So Jesus is going to heaven to prepare a place for us. The Spirit's coming from heaven to prepare a place in us. Heaven breaking forward into the here and now.

[24:23] Now how does he do that? How does he do that? Well, Jesus says in verse 19, this is key, because I live, you also will live.

[24:33] The Spirit makes our hearts a suitable place for God by breathing his life into our dead hearts, right?

[24:44] Breathing life where there was sin and darkness and death. He breathes life in the same way that he breathed life into Christ when he raised him from the dead.

[24:55] That's what Paul says in Romans 8, verse 11, Guys, how glorious and wonderful is the new covenant.

[25:16] The triune God comes to dwell with us, in us, by his Holy Spirit. See, the temple under the old covenant, it's fulfilled its purpose, right?

[25:27] That was the place where Israel would go to access God's presence and now God's presence, it's not mediated by a priest any longer, it's in us by his Spirit right here in our hearts.

[25:41] So are you experiencing fellowship with God by his Spirit? Are you experiencing that? It's available to you, believers.

[25:52] The Spirit is there. He's there with you, in you, enabling you to fellowship with the triune God. Are we experiencing fellowship with God by his Spirit corporately?

[26:05] That's a prayer of ours that we are. God promises to be here, but that changes the way that we come to church, why we come to church, what we expect to happen here.

[26:16] This is the dwelling place for God by his Spirit. This is not just a club, right? This isn't just some community club. We're gathering to see and savor the presence of God.

[26:28] That's why we're here. Radically changes our perspective. So he prepares in us a place for the Father and Son. Now secondly, he assures us of our adoption as God's children.

[26:41] Now where am I getting this from? Verse 18, he says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Now the immediate fulfillment of that verse is that Christ raises from the dead and he appears to his disciples.

[26:56] He comes back to them physically, right? But then he departs again and he ascends back to the Father. And then still, he will not leave them as orphans because he will come to them, right, by his Holy Spirit.

[27:09] And that is confirmation that they are in fact children of God. In verse 20, he says, in that day, you will know. You will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you.

[27:22] You will know because the Spirit of God is in you, bearing witness, right? And similarly, in verse 21, he says, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

[27:37] Verse 23, my Father will love him. See, through the indwelling Spirit, we are assured of our adoption as God's children because we come to know by experience the love of the Father, the love of the Son.

[27:56] We come to know it by experience in our hearts. Again, Paul, he says in Romans 5, 5, that God's love has been poured into our hearts. I actually love the KJV. It says he's been shed abroad, shed abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

[28:11] God's love. We come to know, to experience the love of God. And in Romans 8, 14 through 16, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

[28:35] The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. Now, not only do we experience the love of the Father, but we also experience, as Jesus shows us in this text, the peace and the joy of being in the family of God.

[28:53] And this, too, confirms our adoption as God's children. Look at verse 27. Jesus says, Now, how does the world give peace?

[29:15] The world gives us circumstantial, surface-level peace, right? It has no depth. It's wispy. It's like clouds. It's like grabbing the clouds. That's the kind of peace that we get from the world.

[29:26] But the peace that Christ offers us, it is ocean deep. It is everlasting. It persists in and through every circumstance of your life. It's rigid.

[29:37] It's solid. It's real. Tangible. And that peace was secured by the blood of Christ and then it's made available to the believer by the indwelling Spirit who is with us, who is with you.

[29:51] That's true peace. So Jesus, he bookends this section of the discourse with the repeat of that command he had given that tender command from verse 1, let not your hearts be troubled, right?

[30:02] And he adds this time, neither let them be afraid because he has given ample reason for the disciples to be filled with peace rather than with fear in the midst of their trouble.

[30:17] So love, peace. Now look at verse 28. You heard me say to you, I am going away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the Father for the Father is greater than I.

[30:34] If they loved Jesus, they would have rejoiced for Jesus' sake, first of all, because Jesus is going back to glory with the Father, right? If you love someone, you want what's best for them and Jesus is going back to the Father.

[30:48] Now also, they would have rejoiced for their own sake because of the result of Christ's return to the Father, right? Christ's return to the Father, it means two things at least.

[30:58] It means many things. It means that now they have an advocate in heaven, Christ himself. Like Jesus is our advocate. He's a helper, advocate, paraclete, in heaven.

[31:10] And also, the disciples would have an advocate from the Father in their hearts, the Holy Spirit. Like what cause for joy? Advocate in heaven before the Father, an advocate in us from heaven.

[31:23] Oh, this is amazing. So love, joy, peace, right? These are the benefits of our adoption as God's children and they're made constantly available to the believer by the indwelling Holy Spirit and it's no wonder that Paul lists these first, right?

[31:39] Galatians 5.22, but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. The first three that he lists. So are we, church, are we, disciples of Jesus that are here, are you, are we accessing the love and the joy and the peace of God by the Holy Spirit in our daily lives?

[32:00] Do you believe that those can be yours, first of all? Do you believe this? In any and every circumstance, the love of the Father, the joy of your salvation, the peace of Christ, those can be yours because you have God's presence dwelling in you, with you.

[32:19] Are we living in the reality of our adoption? Are we living in that reality? Like you are a son, you are a daughter of God and that means all these things, love, joy, peace, it means so much more, living in the reality of our adoption.

[32:37] So he prepares in us a place for the Father and Son. He assures us of our adoption as God's children. The third thing that we see, he teaches us the truth of Christ.

[32:49] Now where am I getting this? Verse 16, he said, he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth. The spirit of truth.

[33:01] Now Jesus had said in verse 6, right, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is the truth. Jesus is the truth because he is the self-revelation, right, the self-disclosure of truth, of God who is true, who is truth, right, the truth of Christ that originates and flows from and is revealed by God.

[33:24] Jesus manifested that in his being, right, and now the Holy Spirit comes into the hearts of believers not to bring new revelation, but to enable us to understand that revelation which has already come in the person of Christ.

[33:39] The spirit bears witness, as D.A. Carson writes, to the truth that Jesus is. He bears witness to Christ. He bears witness to the truth of Christ. Now in light of that, when Jesus speaks in this text, he talks about his commandments, his word, his teachings.

[33:57] He's not only talking about his ethics, but also his essence. Okay, he's not only talking about his commands, like his moral commands, but his character.

[34:08] That's what's encompassed in the teachings of Christ, both of those things. And then we see down in verse 26, 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.

[34:26] Now these words, first of all, are Christ's explanation for how the apostles would come to fully understand the teachings of Christ. Right, we've seen over and over again how confused they are, how perplexed they are.

[34:37] But, fast forward a couple books of the Bible, one book of the Bible, Acts, and we see the disciples grasping the beauty and the richness and the depths of the gospel and what Christ has done and preaching incredible sermons, expounding on all of the Old Testament and how Christ has fulfilled them, and then they pen for us the very words of Scripture.

[34:57] Right? That's fulfillment of Christ's words right here. We have the New Testament because of Christ's fulfillment of this promise to his disciples. There is a broader application here, though, that all of Jesus' disciples for all time would be taught and guided by the Holy Spirit.

[35:17] This is the teaching ministry of the Spirit. I think of Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 2. He says, No one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

[35:28] Now we have received the Spirit who is from God that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And he says further down that we have the mind of Christ.

[35:41] That's by the Spirit. We have the mind of Christ. This teaching ministry of the Spirit, it's doing two things. It's enabling us to fathom, to understand, to comprehend, and it's also empowering us to follow.

[35:57] It's not just head knowledge, it's heart and life application. So he renews our minds, the Bible says, to grasp, to fathom the teachings of Christ, and then he actually empowers us.

[36:10] He changes our wills and he enables our bodies to actually live out, to follow those commands. Wasn't this the promise of Ezekiel?

[36:21] The prophetic promise of Jeremiah, that God would write the law on the hearts of his people, right? And enable them to actually know God and to love God and to keep his commandments.

[36:34] And that day has come. That day has come. That's what Christ is showing us because he is sending the Spirit into the hearts of his disciples.

[36:44] Do you need spiritual understanding? Do you need spiritual insight? Then ask the Spirit who is in you.

[36:55] If you're a believer, the Spirit is in you. He helps you to understand the deep things of God. He helps you to follow God.

[37:07] Do you need spiritual strength to live out your love for Christ? Christ. It's a rhetorical question because you do. Like, we are powerless apart from the Spirit, right?

[37:18] To actually apply these truths, actually live them out in when the rubber meets the road in daily life. We need spiritual strength. The Spirit is, gives us spiritual strength from within.

[37:30] Now, so often, I don't know about you, but we deny that help. It's like he's saying, hey, you know, it looks like you could use some help with that and I'm right here, I'm the helper, and we're like, nah, yeah, that's alright.

[37:48] Like, I'm good. I'm good. I don't need your help. Like, it's like, just yesterday, this is a silly, this is silly, but we've got salt shakers and pepper shakers and they have caps on them and they're really hard to pull off and one of my children was, you know, they like to do things by themselves, right?

[38:05] My four-year-old loves to try to do things by himself and he just like couldn't pop off the top and I'm just like, I'm right there watching, I was like, hey, buddy, do you want any help? And no, like, trying, trying, trying.

[38:16] Are you sure? Like, because it looks like you're kind of struggling there. He's just like, no, I got this, I got this. And I mean, this happens all the time with our children, they like, denying help because they want to do I'm right here, I'm ready for you and like, how often do we do that to the spirit?

[38:35] Like, I need his help. Two parents, I need his help to understand the words of God. I need his help because I'm troubled, right? And I'm fearful. I need his help because I'm scared to evangelize to my neighbors.

[38:50] I have this fear of man and I need his help and he's saying like, hey, I'm right here, I'm right here, I can help you, right? I just, I read this morning in Psalm 46, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

[39:05] Now that has been made more clear to us in the gospel with the indwelling spirit that the spirit, the presence of God with us is a very present help in times of trouble.

[39:19] And he says, the psalmist says, and therefore, we will not fear because we have the helper, the advocate, right? A very present help with us and so often I'm just like, no, no, no, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, I'm good, don't worry about it.

[39:32] It's like, I'm right here. And man, that is just true, that happens in so many areas of life, in so many areas of life.

[39:43] Like he would fill you with love if you would let him. He would give you joy in the midst of your trouble and despair if you would let him. He would fill you with peace even though there's things that make us anxious and troubled.

[39:57] So the Spirit prepares in us a place for the Father and Son. He assures us of our adoption as God's children. He teaches us the truth of Christ.

[40:10] Now church, these are the new covenant realities in which we live, right? The new and powerful ways in which the Spirit has been unleashed to manifest the presence of God, to advance his kingdom in this world.

[40:25] in all of these ways that we're talking about. He is bringing heaven forward into the here and now, right? He's continuing the mission and ministry of Christ to us and within us and then through us by his power to the world, right?

[40:42] There's a connection to the last text. Jesus had said, greater works than these you will do. How? Because of the Spirit. That's how. We talked about that. Greater works than these.

[40:55] And that manifests God to the world, right? See, this text, Jesus says multiple times, the world doesn't know the helper because the world doesn't know Christ. The world doesn't love Christ.

[41:06] But we do. We know Christ. We love Christ. Therefore, we have the Holy Spirit in us and then through us then the world can see and we're drawing the world in.

[41:17] That's what Israel was meant to be. Drawing the nations into the family of God and now we can do that by the Spirit. And we've seen for 2,000 years that that has been happening, right?

[41:29] Under the old covenant, Israel's faith was contained mostly to that little area of the Middle East. And where has the gospel gone since then? To the world. That's the power of God at work.

[41:41] It is unstoppable, right? It's unstoppable. It's the Spirit's work. He's unleashed in powerful new ways. Now there's one more point today that's vital for us to see and it comes at the very end of this text.

[41:57] In verse 30, Jesus says, I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me but I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father.

[42:14] It's the last thing. The model and the means is Jesus Christ. Now what is Jesus talking about?

[42:30] What is Jesus talking about in these verses? He's pointing forward to the thing that he's been pointing forward to for a while now. His imminent death on the cross, right?

[42:41] His death for the sins of the world. And as we've seen now multiple times throughout the Gospel of John, even though the cross of Christ would appear as his defeat, right?

[42:54] And the victory of the ruler of this world, that's what it would look like. He's saying, no, no, no, it's actually the opposite. It's actually the opposite because Satan has no claim on me.

[43:05] Right? Satan's got nothing on me. Why? Well, first because Jesus is sinless, right? Satan only has a claim on those who are in sin, which is everybody except for Christ because he lived a perfect life, perfect obedience to the Father.

[43:21] Satan's got nothing on him. And also because Jesus is sovereign and we've talked about that at length throughout the book of John. Satan has no claim on Christ because Jesus stands in authority over all, over Satan, over Judas Iscariot who's about to betray him, over the Jewish rulers.

[43:39] Jesus is telling his disciples here, like, look, it might seem like what's about to happen is proof that Satan wins. But that's not, that's not it, right?

[43:49] It's proof of something else. Here's what it's proof of, that I love the Father. That's what it's proof of. Right? Because Jesus is willingly going to the cross because the Father has sent him to that great mission.

[44:02] He's submitting himself under the authority of the Father. That's what he's doing. So Jesus, by his death on the cross, he's modeling that old covenant reality that obedience is the outworking of love.

[44:15] He's modeling that for us. I love the Father, therefore, I obey the Father. But Jesus, he's not going to stay dead. That was a great spot for an amen.

[44:28] I gotta try that again. Jesus, he's not going to stay dead, amen? Because the Father is going to send. Jesus, a helper. Right? The Holy Spirit, he's going to come and breathe life into the dead body of Christ and raise him up in victory and in glory.

[44:50] And so Jesus becomes for us not just the old covenant model, but the new covenant model, right? The new covenant reality that God's Spirit is being unleashed in new and powerful ways.

[45:00] Jesus is the firstborn of the new creation. Right? That new creation the new birth by the Spirit. Jesus is modeling that for us. And then finally, he's not just our model, but he's the means, right?

[45:15] Jesus is the way. I am the way. That new covenant reality of God's Spirit being poured out could never have been realized, could never have been possible if Jesus had not first dealt with the reality of our sin.

[45:35] Like, he went to the cross, right, on our behalf for our sin for which we deserve to be punished by the just and holy God. And so his blood, it was the payment, right?

[45:50] It was the payment for sin unlocking the down payment of the Holy Spirit. So Paul says the Spirit is a down payment guaranteeing our future inheritance. Now, if you're here this morning, I've been talking to, I've been talking to followers of Christ this whole time.

[46:07] If you're here and you're not one of them, you're not a follower of Christ, you don't believe in him this morning, I just want you to know that heaven brought forward can be your reality today.

[46:20] And this isn't just some like theoretical knowledge, this isn't just some ethereal, mystical thing. Like the Spirit is actually in the hearts of believers and actually makes real life changes in action.

[46:33] And when we talk about the gospel going forward for 2,000 years, it's because of the Spirit's power to move the kingdom and gospel forward in the face of huge opposition. The gospel would never have gone forward if it wasn't backed by the power of Almighty God.

[46:49] There's no way. And you can receive Christ and the Spirit and all the benefits of adoption as God's children this morning, this morning.

[47:05] If you recall in John chapter 7, Jesus stands up in the middle of a Jewish feast in Jerusalem and he shouts over the noise of the feast.

[47:17] He says, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

[47:31] And what does John record that he's talking about? John says, This he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were yet to receive. For as yet the Spirit had not been given because Jesus was not yet glorified.

[47:45] Rivers of living water. That's what the Holy Spirit, the Helper, that's what he is for the saints, right? For disciples of Jesus.

[47:56] That's what he is through the saints to others, to the world. Friends, how much better is it that Jesus left, right? It's weird to say, but it's true.

[48:08] He said it would be true. It has been true. It is better that Jesus ascended back to the Father so that his life-giving Spirit would be poured out in the hearts of his disciples. So church, let us not live in the old covenant scarcity, right?

[48:24] Like precious few drops of water making their way to us and through us. The dam has been demolished. It's been demolished by the death and resurrection of Christ.

[48:34] The floodgates have been burst wide open. So let us live in the new covenant abundance in which rivers of living water, the Spirit, they flow mightily to us and in us and then through us to the world.

[48:50] Please join me in prayer. God, like all of your truth and especially the words of Christ and the Gospel of John, this is lofty.

[49:04] This is difficult for us to understand. This is difficult even more so for us to believe and then to put into practice. And you have given us a helper.

[49:17] You have given us the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the one who teaches us, the one who guides us, the one who makes in us a home.

[49:28] He's a homemaker making us a home for God. The one who assures us that we are in fact children of God and therefore we have access to the realities of sonship in Christ, love, joy, peace that's real, that's tangible, that doesn't wisp away like the clouds.

[49:53] God, we long to live in the abundance and the abundance that is available to us through the death of Christ and in the power of the Spirit. So would you help us, Father?

[50:04] Would you help us to live in these realities? So the world would know that we love Christ, that Christ loves the Father. The world would know that this gospel is real, that you are real and God, that you would be glorified.

[50:18] We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Okay, now we're going to transition to a time of communion.

[50:30]  Amen. Amen. Amen.