John 14 No.4 Out of the Orphanage

Our reading this morning is taken from John's Gospel, chapter 14, beginning at verse 15. John chapter 14, beginning at verse 15. Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, If you love me, you will obey what I command.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.

Because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. Then Judas, not Judas Iscariot, said, But Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and he will come to me, to him, and make a home with him.

He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me.

All this I have spoken while still with you, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you.

I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. You heard me say, I am going away, and I am coming back to you.

If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe. I will not speak with you much longer, for the Prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father, and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

Come now, let us leave. Please be seated and turn to John's Gospel and chapter 14. We're looking from the 22nd verse in particular.

If we're fortunate, we may get to verse 31, but I'm not over optimistic. John 14 verse 22 and onwards, we've been considering this passage of Scripture, which has as an example or is an example of that great Passover address, which our Lord gave his disciples commencing when they were in the upper room and continuing as he left that place and went through towards the garden of Gethsemane. Most remarkable piece of teaching, which our Savior engaged in giving to his disciples.

And remember the state of the disciples at that time, will you? They were anticipating in a very foggy fashion. I mean by that, they didn't quite understand what it was that was round the corner that they should be expecting, but they knew that something unpleasant was coming, and it all focused in on the thought that the man that they loved more than any other man, the Lord Jesus, was being taken from them. Now, you may be troubled this morning, and if that's so, then perhaps the only thing that I need to say from God to you is in the opening verse of that 14th chapter, don't let your heart be troubled.

Why? Well, you see, because you're believing God in an academic sense, take it from me, not because I say it, but because Scripture dictates that it is true, that in a very real way, God is involved in your affairs by the power of the Holy Spirit, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have an infinite concern about your lives. That's what the Lord Jesus was teaching his disciples in effect. He was encouraging them not to be worried at the thought of his departure.

Verse 18, I will not leave you comfortless, authorized version, I will not leave you orphanous, Greek version, I will not leave you as orphans, the literal translation in the NIV, I will come to you. Do you remember when our Lord Jesus was on some high place, looking across at the rather high city of Jerusalem, for Jerusalem is at a high altitude. He started to weep at one stage and said, Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you under my wings as a hen gathers her chicks, but you wouldn't.

And then he goes on in Matthew's Gospel that bears that reference to say, because you've rejected me, then you will be forsaken, you will be forlorn, you will be as orphans without anyone to turn to in your hour of greatest need. And our Lord didn't say that without empathy and emotion, hurt and sorrow. Now he comes to the disciples and you see their condition, it would appear to them, is almost the same.

If he's going away, then they're forlorn. If he's away, then they're forsaken. If he's away, then they're in the same condition.

As Plato said, Socrates' disciples were in when they heard of his death, they didn't know what to do. Now Jesus doesn't want his disciples like that, nor does he want you or me. Christ says an old Puritan feature at this point in Scripture, Christ continueth his discourse to the disciples like a mother speaking to a little child crying after her when she prepares herself to go abroad.

So here is our Lord Jesus speaking to his little children, that's how he addresses them in the 33rd verse of the previous chapter. And he's already been telling them that in a sense they can't possibly comprehend at this moment, his departure will also mean his entrance, his exit will mean his return. And Judas, not Judas Iscariot, verse 22, Judas Iscariot was the apostate.

Judas here is an abiding apostle. Two men in our Lord's entourage have the name of Judas. Then Judas said, But Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? If it's going to be so significant, you coming back, then why don't you show yourself at a level? Why don't you paint on a broader canvas? And so our Lord Jesus starts to address his disciples and by extension ourselves.

And he says in effect, Well, you know, it's not really possible for me to show myself to the world because, well, the world does not consist of people who have the one qualification that's necessary for me to reside by my spirit in their life. Now, what is it that the world doesn't have that you and I have? Well, love for God. But, you know, love for God is not the slushy sentimental stuff that is often projected across your cinema screen, your TV screen, or in the novels that you read.

Love, as far as John is concerned, has as its fruit the abiding character of obedience. If anyone loves me, says our Lord Jesus, verse 23, he will obey my teaching. Now, you can't love the Lord Jesus without obedience.

You see, there are a number of people in our world today, perhaps the vast majority in this town, would say in one sense they love God. And you ask, well, is it a genuine love? And they don't know what you're talking about. So you say, well, do you obey the God who you claim to love? And if the answer is no, then the claim for love is not accepted because it doesn't come under the biblical definition.

Now, the world doesn't love me like you love me. The world doesn't have an interest in me. That's what the Lord is teaching His disciples.

And my dear friends, the Apostle makes this very clear, the Apostle Paul, when he's writing to the Corinthians. You see, he speaks about the man who has the spirit and the man who doesn't have the spirit. Corinthians 2, first, Corinthians 2 and verse 14, the man without the spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The spiritual man makes judgment about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. What does that mean? Well, you see, it's exactly the same as our Lord is here teaching His disciples. Why doesn't He manifest Himself to the world? Well, the world is utterly disinterested in Him.

It's only these people, you remember my illustration last week, only these people who have an aptitude for, a desire for God, that can in any sense know the revelation of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of His Spirit as the Holy Ghost comes upon them. A servant, our Lord Jesus is in effect saying, a servant receives my commands and obeys them, but he knows not my heart, but my friends walk with me in the intelligence of my deepest thought. And that's what He's promising, you see.

I'm going away, and yet I'm going to manifest Myself. I'm going to manifest Myself in the joint coming, in effect, of my Father and Myself into your lives. My Father will love the one who loves Me, and we, Father and Son, will come to Him and make our home with Him.

Now, isn't that interesting? You see, our Lord before has been talking about going to His Father's house and preparing a place for ordinary people like the disciples and ourselves, ultimately. Now, that's wonderful. I mean, there's nothing that keeps me going more than the anticipation that one day I'll leave this world and I'll go to the Father's house.

In that sense, I have no fear of death. I'm not so dishonest as to say that I have no apprehension about the mode of dying. I'd like it to be quick and sharp, quite frankly, here today and gone tomorrow.

It's the uncertainty there that gives a few bouts of hiccups for me. But the idea of going to the Father's house, that's marvellous. That holds no problem whatsoever.

But don't you see, in one very wonderful sense, you don't have to wait that long to know what Jesus is here promising. In my Father's house of many mansions, I'm going to prepare a place. Ah, yes, but if you love me and keep my commandments, then my Father will love you and the knock-on effect of that will be He and I, my Father and I, we will come and dwell with you now.

Do you remember sometimes I've quoted that little epitaph of one of the greatest preachers of all time in the city of London, Richard Sibbes, of this good man let this be written, heaven was in him before he was in heaven. You see, once you understand this sort of experimental teaching, that means teaching that doesn't only affect your mind but also your heart, then you're well prepared for heaven itself. We will come and make our home with him, we will come and abide with him, but he who does not love me does not obey my teaching.

These words you hear are not my own, they belong to the Father who sent me. You see, our Lord Jesus, when He talks about the revelation of Himself, is not only just speaking for Himself, He's speaking for the Father. And what does Father want to banish in His kingdom? What will Father not have in His family circle? Well, Father won't have orphans.

He just won't have orphans. You see, an orphan by very definition has no father, no mother. An orphan can be the example of someone who's utterly destitute, utterly forsaken.

But in the Christian concept, orphans are not acceptable within the circle because there is no such category as orphans that Father recognizes. You see, when the Spirit comes to you, when the Father and the Son are revealed to you in an experimental as well as in an academic sense, then the very spirit of sonship is granted you. You say, I don't understand.

All right, let's go to Romans, Romans chapter 8, and here the apostle makes it very, very plain and very wonderful in his grasp of what it really means to be a Christian. And the awful state that some people are in today in terms of an anemic grasp of religion is that they have never comprehended what the apostle Paul is teaching here, which ties in, I believe, with what our Savior is making clear to his disciples. Verse 15 of Romans 8, the apostle writing to the Roman Christians, for you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the spirit of sonship.

And by him we cry, Abba Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now, if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

If indeed we share in his sufferings, in order that we may also share in his glory. Now, whatever you make of this, one thing is certain. The apostle is dealing with an experience that is so precious to the ordinary Christian that it abolishes forever any doubts that he or she might have as to whether God is their heavenly Father.

A. W. Tozer said that one of the great tragedies of so-called Christendom today is that some people's comprehension of God is no more than a deduction from a text. Now, I can deduce a lot about God. I believe logically to my own mental satisfaction, I can demonstrate the existence of God.

I believe that theism, the philosophy that God is, is much more tenable than atheism. I don't think atheism has got any foundations whatsoever. But my dear friend, simply to go through life with my only knowledge of God being as a result of my mental deduction would leave me in a state almost of desolation.

And now the Lord Jesus was saying that when he goes away in a very real sense, the Holy Spirit will come and take up residence within the experience, in this case, of the immediate disciples, but the knock-on consequences, the total body of Christ. I'm going away, and yet I have to go away so that I can then come again. My presence with you physically is temporary, but my presence with you spiritually shall be eternal.

You see, here is this great assurance that our Lord is speaking of. I do believe in assurance, the assurance of sins forgiven. I do believe in this overwhelming experience of God's grace that is so wonderful that if the whole of the world got up and denied the existence of God, then it would be sergeant contra the world, because I have that which testifies of God in my own soul.

Now, is this that I'm fleshing out from you, for you from Scripture? Is it also part of your experience? Don't be afraid, fellows, I'm going away. Why not? Well, Father doesn't want you as orphans. Father and I, in a very real sense, will come to you, will come to you in the person of the Holy Spirit, and don't let that be a problem to you.

Logically, you can't understand completely that the Father is in me and I am in the Father, but I accept it because of what you hear from me and what you see of me, and don't you understand that the essence that constitutes me is also the essence of the Spirit, and when physically I am away from you, he will come and minister to you and confirm that you belong to God. And that's what the disciples were to know on the day of Pentecost and in anticipation towards the end of this narrative of John's gospel where you read our Lord Jesus breathing on them the Holy Spirit having returned from the dead. So here is Judas putting up the question, and the question being answered by our Lord Jesus Christ, that he and the disciples shall know a unique manifestation of the Spirit of God within their lives.

Bishop Ryle, one of the great bishops of Liverpool last century, spilling over to this century, said, this again is a purely experimental truth and one that none can know but he that has felt it. Do you remember our Lord Jesus on one occasion, Luke 11, says to the disciples, speaking of the Holy Spirit, encouraging them to ask, if you're an earthly father, then would an earthly father give to his child something that would injure him? If he asked for fish, would he give him a scorpion? If he asked for bread, would he give him a stone? Of course not. How much more, says our Lord Jesus, how much more will father give Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And here is none other than the Holy Son of God asking that the Spirit shall come in power and glory amongst those company of his followers.

I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, the world cannot accept him, and so forth. So this is the promise of the unique manifestation of God's own Spirit within the lives of the disciples. And when the Spirit comes, what will he do? Well, I think verse 25 in some measure answers the question, though you cannot compartmentalize the teaching of our Lord in this area.

One verse runs onto another, that's why I found it very hard to be homiletical and give you three or four rhyming points this morning. You can't do it. You might show ingenuity, but it won't help you to understand what our Lord is emphasizing.

So what will the Spirit do when he comes in this rather remarkable fashion into the lives of the disciples? Well, the counselor, verse 26, the Holy Spirit, the first time that the Lord identifies the Holy Spirit as counselor, he's used the word counselor or comforter several times up to this point, but now he makes clear, we know because we've had a sneak look at the end of the passage, he makes clear who he's referring to. But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom Father will send in my name, he will do two things. He will teach you all things.

Not so that you become a walking Encyclopedia Britannica. There will still be further truth. This is a relative promise.

There will still be further truth for you to discover when you stand in the presence of God and understand with complete comprehension. But the Spirit will continue to teach things to you related to what I've already been saying and what is more, says our Savior, the Holy Spirit will remind you, the end part of verse 26, will remind you of everything I have said to you. Do you notice on just revamping, just going back over that prediction of our Lord, the way that the Savior refers to the Spirit? Now this is most important.

You see, we've had trouble already, haven't we? At least many of you have, as far as the Jehovah's Witnesses are concerned, when they knock on your door and they take you to passages of Scripture and they try and show you that the Son is less than the Father and the Spirit is what? Well, an influence. Not a bit. The Spirit is not an influence.

An influence cannot teach, but here is the Spirit referred to as the one who is the instructor. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things. The Holy Spirit is of the same essence as myself and my Father.

To the end, the Lord Jesus can talk about the Father and the Son abiding in the heart of the disciples and say, in effect, this amounts to the Holy Spirit abiding in the heart of the disciples. And the Spirit will continue and enlarge upon the ministry that the Son has commenced as educator, as tutor. But these disciples are not really in a mood to receive fresh information, at least without measure, in regard to the Spirit at this moment.

Why not? Well, they're troubled, aren't they? We've already said this. Our Lord is teaching agitated men. Now, what do agitated men and women require more than anything else? What do some of you require this morning? Well, the very thing that our Lord Jesus can give and, incidentally, the very thing that the Holy Spirit, in one sense, symbolizes.

What's one of the terms of our Lord Jesus? It is the term Prince of Peace, not so? Now, when the Jews met with one another, they would always say shalom. It was as perfunctory as you saying, how do you do? Or saying at the end of a conversation, goodbye, God be with you, in effect. But we are so lazy in our English, we say goodbye.

Not many really mean God be with you in any case. But when our Lord now speaks to His disciples, He says, peace I leave with you. You see, our Lord Jesus not only addresses the disciples in a subjective but also an objective fashion.

You say, what do you mean? Well, they need peace. They need the peace of God. But even more than that, they need peace with God.

And this is why the Lord Jesus has come into the world, don't you see? He has come to bring to the disciples what normally they can't receive, not of their own volition, peace. So the Lord Jesus will reconcile them to the Father. There is no peace in the family circle unless you're back with Father.

And the only one who can bring you back to Father is our Lord Jesus Christ. And so He speaks to the disciples of the peace. Not only the peace of God, which He can dispense uniquely, but peace with God that He brings about.

There is no one else who can give this peace. Here is Joseph in Egypt. He has the corn, right? He is the authority behind the harvest that has been stored.

And the Egyptians need corn. There is no other way to get corn but by Joseph. That is the decree of Pharaoh.

Don't you see, my friend? There is no way that you can know peace in this world, peace in your own heart, peace in your mind, outside of the Lord Jesus, the one who is the Prince of Peace. He alone dispenses it. Peace, I live with you.

I leave with you. My peace, the peace of the man who, when he's dragged in front of Caiaphas and Annas, is not ruffled in any way. The only one who loses their cool on the day when our Lord is arrested and tried is the high priest, not the Saviour.

He is utterly calm. In every circumstance, He has peace. Now, this is incredible.

Again, I bring you back to these disciples. You are not to lose them from your thinking. These are agitated men.

And what's around the corner for our Lord Jesus? Well, the hiss of the serpent. The devil, he's coming. He's there.

He's waiting. He's lurking. There is Gethsemane.

There is Calvary. There is the horror of the father forsaking the son. And yet, the son can control himself to the extent that he addresses these disciples who are so puzzled.

And he says, fellows, my peace, my peace, I give you. What is one of the abiding fruit of the Spirit? Peace. What is the symbol of the Spirit? One of the symbols, the dove.

Don't you see that Father, Son, and Spirit alone dispense the peace that the likes of you and me require. Peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give you.

Do not let your heart be troubled. You see, he's back again with a troubled heart. Don't let your heart be troubled because, fellows, if you really begin to understand even an inkling of what I am teaching you, you can face the future with great peace and equilibrium of mind and spirit.

Now, my friend, I must nail the point and not take you on to those final few verses. Is this peace to which our Lord refers part of your experience? Is this knowledge of the Spirit part of your experience? You see, you could listen to a cartload of sermons and they in and of themselves would do you very, very little good. You see, what I'm angling for is this.

Have you got a right balance between your comprehension of God, however inadequate that may be in your mind, and an experience of this God in your heart? This great assurance that can only come through the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit. You know it. You rejoice in it.

Thank God. But perhaps not everyone is in that condition. So if you need more awareness of the fact that you are a son or daughter of the living God, what need you do? Come to the Father and ask.

Seal with the engagement ring of your spirit the fact that I belong to you, Heavenly Father, through your Son. Give me that awareness that accords with what the preacher was saying on Sunday morning, that if the whole of Worthing denied the validity of my belief in you, I would continue to believe because I have this abiding awareness that you exist. And Heavenly Father, in that awareness, prove its validity, not only with the power with which I live my life, but the tranquility in which I face the most distressing situation.

You see, this bunch of disciples, they've got horrendous things in front of them at the human level. Not so, you know, the history of the early church or some of you do. And yet they're able to go forward.

Why? Well, because they have this presence of the Holy Spirit with them, this power of the Spirit. The Father and the Son take up residence within their hearts, within their lives. And as it was in the days of yesterday, so it is today.

I don't know how you theologize your experience. I'm not really bothered about the theology of Christian experience. I'm more concerned about its reality, the reality that men and women are able to cope with life today in the 20th century and live for God.

For that's what Jesus was wanting the disciples to do, to be able to cope, not to have a wistful thinking. Ah, those years when we walked the streets of Palestine with Jesus, weren't they wonderful? As I've heard older Christians sometimes do in the tub, wasn't it marvelous in the 1930s and the 1940s? My friend, it may have been, but today is the day of the Lord, this year, this month, this day. This is the time when God is to be special to you, more special than He has ever been.

And Jesus said that we are not just in a remorseful fashion to go down memory lane to say it was super then when He was with us. Why? Because He is with us now. This is what He said.

I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Have you got that in your mind, my dear friend? He won't leave you.

He can't. Heaven and earth would have to pass away before that promise could be in any sense annulled. You have it on the authority of Father, Son, and Spirit.

I, we will never leave you. Not just because it says so in the text, though that would be authentication sufficient enough for the majority of us, but because there is this overwhelming realization that I belong to God and there is no force in the universe that can separate me from that power, because Jesus has bled and died for the likes of you and me. Now, I don't know why you aren't all standing on your chairs shouting hallelujah at the moment.

I mean, I know I'm getting a little worked up, but that's my Yorkshire blood coming through. But don't you see, this, this really is one of the things that we need to hone in on more and more. Father has decreed that His children should never know the desolation of being orphans.

And I go so far in my last comment as to say this, if you're a child of God and desolation is your experience, it's your fault, it's not Father's, let's stand. Let's just spend a moment before our Father and just ask that we might know more and more of His reality and His grace in our lives. Let's just reach out and say, Father, we want to experience you, to all your power, so that we too might be able to go out into Gethsemane's garden or even have to confront with the Calvary and be able to cope because Father has taken up residence.

The Son is with us, because in all His fullness, the Spirit is overwhelming our experience. Let's quietly sing that little refrain, Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Sing it as though you meant it, sing it as though you mean that God can cause a greater depth of experience in your life, greater awareness, greater power.

Spirit of the Living God, sing that again in a moment, but just be examining in your own life which areas are still to be touched by God's Spirit and ask that He might just come in afresh. Maybe some of you here are knowing tremendous doubt as to whether you really belong to the Lord. I want to come against that doubt and the power of the Spirit.

Some folks have great problems with addictions, though they're Christian people, and I believe that the Spirit wants to set us free from those addictions. Some of you dear older friends, so much worry is in your life as you contemplate the future, but Jesus said, my peace I give you, not as the world gives, give I you. Let's receive of this peace, receive of this freedom, receive of this fullness, and don't be afraid.

Father wouldn't give you a scorpion, He wouldn't give you a stone, He wouldn't give you anything that was harmful to you. Father loves you too much to do that. Spirit of the living God, holy are you.

Father for brothers and sisters here who sung that from the depth of their being and want some areas treated in their lives that have yet to know your freeing power, grant Lord that you will respond to the earnest request of all our hearts. We thank you for such a tender Saviour who addressed the troubles of His disciples when He Himself had every reason to be troubled and aggravated and beyond measure, and yet we thank you for His poise and His tranquility. We thank you that what He was, He wanted to pass on to His disciples.

Lord what He was, I want to receive more and more. Come and take up residence, come and abide in every facet of our personalities, and prepare us in a moment or two to come around this table and take bread and wine, and be with these dear friends who have to leave at this time, but keep your presence with us as we spend these next few moments preparing for the final part of our worship. This we ask for Jesus' sake.

Amen.