John 14:25-31

[0:00] Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, we ask you to do this morning what you promised to do, which is to speak to us by your spirit.

[0:14] ! Good morning. It's lovely to see you all this morning.

[0:39] John chapter 14. We can know Jesus. You and I can truly know Jesus and God, his Father.

[0:52] That's the promise of John 14. Here Jesus prepares his disciples for his departure. The next day, Jesus will be crucified. The first leg of his journey, which returns him to his Father in heaven.

[1:05] He will physically leave the world. But he says, I'm not abandoning you. No, after Jesus goes, his disciples will love him better.

[1:18] They'll understand his word more clearly. They'll experience his presence more closely, which will bring them deeper peace. In short, they'll know him better than ever.

[1:30] And we can know him that way, too. We know Jesus and his Father now by love, by speech, by dwelling and in peace. Those are our points.

[1:42] So first, we know him by love. This idea of knowing Jesus more deeply now, now that he's left, it's not intuitive, is it? The disciples had some questions, too.

[1:54] Our reading begins with the final question of the chapter from the other Judas, the one who sticks with Jesus. In verse 22, he says, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?

[2:07] That's a good question. It reveals an assumption that if God's Messiah shows himself to anyone, it should be clear to everyone. That for Jesus to reveal his true self means he climbs the steps of power and he storms the halls of justice.

[2:24] And he seizes the means of production and he throws down all pretenders. Full revelation ought to mean universal recognition. Right? Otherwise, is he really the Lord?

[2:38] Well, that day will come. William Barclay defines world and John as human society organizing itself without God. Human society organizing itself without God.

[2:51] And one day, that rebel organization will crumble before its rightful king. But before Jesus overthrows the world, he offers to overthrow our hearts.

[3:06] We can become loyal subjects instead of defeated enemies. Jesus opens with love. Love is how we know and relate to him. Verse 22 says, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him.

[3:24] The invitation is open to anyone. Jesus' self-reveal is relational. It's personal before it's cosmic. He says, come follow me.

[3:35] Follow me. Keep my word. Know me. As you do, you'll be loved by the father. Conversely, in verse 23, Without loving Jesus, without keeping his word, the door to the father is shut.

[3:54] So asking, Jesus, what about what's happening with you in the world? That's irrelevant to the question of knowing Jesus because he invites us personally. The world is busy organizing itself without and against God.

[4:07] But to know God, we must relate directly to Jesus. Love me and keep my word. Those are relationship words. It's important, I think, to know they don't happen in order.

[4:20] Right? So it's not first you do one, then the other happens. They happen together. They're not check boxes on an application. These are relational realities. They all exist together or they don't exist at all.

[4:32] Keeping his word means much more than keeping his rules. His word is his teaching. It's also his claims. It's his promises about his identity. And it's also his commands.

[4:43] So it's just as important to drink his living water as it is to love one another. Those are all a part of keeping his word. I think it's fascinating in verse 28.

[4:56] Jesus says, If you loved me, you'd be glad that I'm going to the father. The implication is they don't love him. They don't love him yet. Very interesting.

[5:09] I think that they can't love him until the cross makes God's love clear. So if you look down at verse 31, it says, Jesus obeys his father going to the cross so that the world may know that I love the father.

[5:25] So Jesus dies to show the world God's love, the love of this eternal father and son that has always existed. He goes to the cross to show us love.

[5:39] And what we see is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. So this obedient, sacrificial death of Jesus has revealed something that the disciples in the upper room couldn't understand.

[5:55] But now anyone can understand it. As 1 John puts it, we love him because he first loved us. We love and entrust ourselves to Jesus, to his teaching and his way, just as he loved and entrusted himself to his father.

[6:15] So, love him and keep his word. That's the first way we know him. But how do we hear the word? This is second. It's by speech.

[6:26] This is verses 25 and 26. All this I have spoken while still with you, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things.

[6:39] He will remind you of everything I have said to you. So verse 22 spoke to anyone, anyone and everyone. These verses speak to the apostles. This is about the Spirit's role in helping us to hear Jesus' word.

[6:54] So Jesus spent his ministry teaching, speaking, and his disciples spent Jesus' ministry confused most of the time, didn't they? But it won't always be like that.

[7:08] When Jesus goes to the Father, he sends the paraclete, the advocate, the one who comes alongside to strengthen, the Holy Spirit, and he teaches them all things. Not everything in the world, but everything Jesus wants his disciples to know.

[7:23] And the Spirit doesn't do this out of nowhere, but by reminding them, the apostles of his teaching, remind them of what he said. So this is a particular and historical work of the Spirit.

[7:38] And it has, obviously, ongoing implications. But the Spirit highlighted Jesus' words in the memories of the apostles. He sharpened it in their minds. He caused true understanding.

[7:50] Perhaps for the first time, with the Spirit, they understand what Jesus was talking about. The Spirit placed it on their tongues, placed it on their pens, so they can accurately learn and then share Jesus' word.

[8:04] And it's now fixed on the pages of the Bible. And it's the gospel we're reading today. And that means that Scripture is a spiritually empowered document.

[8:16] It's not John's best guess. It's God's word written. It's a living word. It's expired. Right? It's breathed out. The image being that the Spirit of God, like breath, passes over the vocal cords.

[8:32] Words come out. That's what it means. And even today, it resonates, doesn't it? We know that when we read it. Very simply, we know Jesus today because he spoke.

[8:44] That's how we know him. He still speaks by his written word. And we can listen and truly hear him because the Spirit is speaking through his words today.

[8:56] The world says that we can hear God's voice anywhere and everywhere, as long as we're quiet enough. That we can hear God in our hearts or in meditation or in nature.

[9:09] But Jesus says his word will come through this Spirit-empowered remembrance and transmission that he's giving to his apostles. So if you want to hear God, if you want to know Jesus, listen to his word.

[9:23] Paul says, let the word of God dwell in you richly. Richly means it's flowing over the top. It's too much. Hear, read, mark, learn, inwardly digest.

[9:34] It's our love letter from Jesus, and it's meant to be well-creased and treasured and read over and over again. It's his speech to us. We know Jesus by his word. But we also know him by his presence.

[9:48] This is the third point, is that he dwells. So back to verse 23. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

[9:59] We know Jesus because he and the Father make their home with us. Back in verse 2, Jesus said, In my Father's house are many rooms, and I go to prepare a place for you there.

[10:17] What's amazing about John 14 is that word home is the same as the word room in verse 2. So the word home is the same as the word room.

[10:28] So Jesus is going to make a place for us in heaven, and in the meantime, heaven makes a place in us, which is wonderful, isn't it? Jesus is physically absent, but he's fully present.

[10:43] That's a very deep promise, and I think we can only understand it by analogy, which is when we love people, we want to be with them. It's a reality. And if you've ever had a roommate, well, you know that person differently than you know other people.

[11:00] You could ask, Do I know my wife? Yes, we live together. Dwelling speaks to the most intimate, personal sharing of life. It's knowing on the deepest level, is dwelling.

[11:12] And the testimony of Scripture from beginning to end is that God wants to dwell with his people. He wants to be with us. We were made for it. In Eden, we lost it in sin.

[11:25] Jesus restores it now, and it's the fullness that's promised in eternity, is the full knowledge and dwelling together with God. Now the dwelling place of God is with people. He will dwell with them.

[11:36] That's what Revelation says. Jesus unpacks this image over the next couple of chapters, so you'll get to learn more about it as you look through this series in John. That by his Spirit, we share in that real presence, that dwelling.

[11:52] It's non-physical, but real. And chiefly, this means that not only can we know God, but God knows us. We are precious and interesting to him.

[12:05] We're never alone. He shares our grief. He catches our tears. And as attentive as you or I might be to family or friends or other people that we love, the Lord is always more attentive to us.

[12:17] He's chosen to dwell with us, after all. And all of this is crowned with the fact that we have his peace. In verse 27, Peace is the language of reconciliation.

[12:30] All is well. Goodness, rightness, fullness, rest. We have peace with God. And not only that, not only do we have peace, Jesus says he gives us his peace.

[12:44] Imagine having the peace of Jesus. That's quite a gift. Sleeping through a storm. Staying silent through a trial. The peace Christ gives has a different horizon, doesn't it?

[13:00] It puts the lens of eternity on every moment. It shows us that even the worst is light and momentary affliction. Because knowing the Father, dwelling with him, is everything we could want.

[13:15] Christ's peace also has a different origin. It's not from the world. World peace is a contradiction in terms. The world has a sword.

[13:26] The world has false promises. The world doesn't have peace. We know this. We have wealth, but we fear losing it. We have functional, beautiful bodies, and then eventually they betray us.

[13:39] We have careers, but they can't fulfill us. All of these ways that we want peace, we want fullness, we want richness. It's always a little bit out of reach. Because we need Christ's peace.

[13:50] Jesus's peace, which he freely gives, is now and forever. And his peace is the way that we keep his most wonderful command. Let not your hearts be troubled.

[14:03] We can know Jesus. We can know Jesus. You and I can truly know Jesus and God his Father.

[14:14] That's the promise of John chapter 14. Amen.