Listening No.6 To love, honour and obey

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, 14, 15, 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 will come to him, and make our home, and we will make our home with him.

He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not mine, 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 heart 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. 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.

Well, the title of our address, which was selected as we preplanned this series, Love, Honor, and Obey, encapsulates what is the main lesson of those verses as you read them through. I have a problem with this scripture. The problem is what one great northern preacher would have called its profundities and its immensities.

What he meant by that is that there is so much to be shared in some passages of scripture that even if you had the time to give a whole series, there is no way in which you can exhaust what is contained therein. And I think that this is a classic passage which illustrates that point. Here is our beloved Lord engaged in what is known as proclaiming the Paschal discourse.

We have reminded you before that the longest sermon our Savior preached was not the Sermon on the Mount. It was this particular address when He has for His audience only a handful of men, His disciples. Paschal, of course, means Passover, and He's preparing them not just for the Jewish Passover but for all that the Passover predictably anticipates, that is to say His death on the cross and His marvelous resurrection.

And He has the concern to ensure that His disciples in the final hours in which He is with them shall receive from His lips the distilled wisdom of teaching that He has touched on but not expounded fully, and particularly in regard to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. You will discover in these opening verses that our Lord is actually referring to the relationship that exists between Himself and the Holy Spirit and Father God. Time and time again in this chapter, He makes reference to the first person of the Trinity and calls Him Father, and shows the intimacy that there is between Him and the Father.

And then referring to the third person of the Holy Spirit, He calls Him the Comforter or the Counselor, or if you like directly from the Greek language, the Paraclete. And our Lord is talking to His disciples in the name of not just Himself but also the Father and the Spirit, because He wants to do something for them which they desperately need. And if you stop and pause for a moment, you are utterly astonished at the sensitivity of the Lord Jesus.

You say why? Well, you see, what He is doing here is bringing comfort to His disciples. He who, well, it might be argued, requires comfort to be brought to Himself. For in just a few hours, He is going to be carted off like a common criminal and put on the cross.

And yet our Lord's concern is not for what's around the corner for Him, but for His disciples. The scriptures have said that if you smite the shepherd, the sheep will be scattered. He's about to be smitten.

And He does not want to befall His disciples what in just a few years' time will befall the citizens of Jerusalem. Remember how our Lord, prior to this incident on some high mount, looks over towards Jerusalem and He regrets the fact that the people there never accepted who He was. And He says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered you under My wings as a hen gathers her chicks but you would not.

And then He says, your house will be desolate. And the word desolate and the word orphan is very close to the extent that you could say that the word orphan which Jesus uses to describe His disciples and the word desolate all have the same connotation, the concept of being forsaken, the concept of being fatherless. Now look at verse thirty-three of the previous chapter, My children, I will be with you only a little longer.

You will look for Me and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going you cannot come. So, what does our Lord do during this discourse in which after relating it, He is going to be handled in such an awful fashion? He speaks words of consolation to the disciples and words of comfort not just to them but also by extension to you and to me. He is always concerned about others before He shows the slightest bit of concern and interest in His own well-being.

This is one of the reasons why our beloved Lord constantly mesmerizes me when I read of His doings and of His dealings. Look, says our Savior, when I was on earth, verse sixteen, by implication He is making this statement, I acted as a counselor. I came alongside you as a guide, as a teacher, as an advocate.

The psalmist Isaiah says of the Lord Jesus that amongst the names that will be given Him is the one wonderful counselor. And this is precisely what He has been at during the three years He has associated with the twelve. He has advised them, He has taught them, He has corrected them, but He says, I am going away and yet though I go away you will not be bereft of counsel, you will not be forsaken, you will not be like the citizens of Jerusalem.

Why? Well, because I will ask Father, and He who sent me into the world will send someone else into the world. God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son. The procession of the Son from the Father is something that theologians latch onto as a very important piece of doctrine for us to understand.

Our Lord was not created, He always was, and He proceeded from the Father to this world. But, says our Savior, there's someone else very similar to myself, and I will ask Father and Father will cause Him to proceed to earth as I have proceeded to earth. And the similarity between the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit is well brought out in these verses of Scripture.

I will give you another counselor, someone who performs exactly the same function as I perform. Now when you're a Jehovah's Witness, or you're a Mormon, or anyone else from the cults, and we should always be sympathetic and loving towards people who are in the cults, they're there because the evangelical church has defaulted on proclaiming the gospel as it truly is to everyone. When that misguided person is knocking on your doorstep and tries to dissuade you on the doctrine of the Trinity, and tells you that the Holy Spirit is none other than just the power of God, some force that emanates from the Father, then you can turn him, her, to a statement like this.

The beloved Lord says, I will send you another counselor, and the word another is not neutral. It's masculine. It speaks of male gender.

Like I am, says our beloved Lord, so is the Holy Spirit. And the word another not only identifies the Spirit in terms of the masculine gender, but gives the impression that the Spirit is of the same substance as I am. It's not easy, in fact it's impossible to understand the doctrine of the Trinity.

And for the Jehovah's Witness to have you in a state of embarrassment, because you don't do, you haven't such an understanding, is actually to cause you artificial tension. I mean by that you can concede immediately, of course you don't understand the doctrine of God. Great is the mystery of godliness.

If we understood the person of God, we would be as God ourselves. But this we do know, that it is possible, even at the physical level, for things to be of the same substance, yet different in the way that we might relate to them in a certain situation. You say, what do you mean? Well, let's take the property of water, this liquid that flows from your tap.

Take some of it and place it in your fridge, and it will turn into ice. Take some more of it, put it into a kettle, bring it to the boil, and it will turn to steam. You've got the steam, you've got the liquid, you've got the ice.

Different in the way that you examine them at the time of my illustration, but you know that in essence they are the same. I will ask Father, and Father will send another counselor of the same substance, so to speak, as I am, and He will come and continue to do what I have been doing during these three years that I have known you. In fact, our beloved Lord says in the twenty-sixth verse, the counsel of the Holy Spirit, whom Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

Backtrack to the seventeenth verse, the counselor, the Holy Spirit, is referred to as the Spirit of Truth. Now, when it was last my opportunity to preach from this series, we were just a little earlier on in this gospel, and we had that majestic statement to look at that fell from the lips of our Savior, I am the way, the truth, and the life. What does this wonderful counselor, the Lord Jesus, do to His disciples, for His disciples? He does this.

He teaches them. He is the Son of Truth. He brings truth to the disciples.

Now, says our beloved Lord, when I am away from you, I will see that another counselor comes of the same substance of myself, so to speak, and what I have been doing, He will continue to reaffirm. He will lead you into all truth. Now, my children, don't be as orphans.

Don't have the despair of Bosnian refugees, or those pitiful people in Somalia, or any of those who have stateless problems. I won't leave you like that. I'll come to you, the Spirit of Truth.

The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you do, because He's been alongside you, and He will come into you. Verse 18, I'll not leave you as orphans. Now, see, our beloved Lord deliberately identifies Himself with the ministry, the coming of the Spirit.

I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. So when the Holy Spirit comes, the Son of God comes, because they are of the same substance.

The Spirit of our Lord Jesus is exactly the same as the Holy Spirit in the ministries that are exercised in our lives. Here is the Apostle Paul to nail the point. We're in Acts, in chapter 16.

He has a vision, a vision of a man from Macedonia calling for aid. And this is what we read. I have no time to go any further into the historical context, but you'll see the interplay, the juxtaposition between the Spirit of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Paul and his companions, I remind you again, Acts 16, 6 and 7, Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the Word in the province of Asia. When they came to the borders of Mycenae, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. Do you see the point? The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus.

When the Holy Spirit comes, Jesus comes. When the Lord Jesus is present, the Holy Spirit is present. He's been alongside you, says our Lord to the disciples.

Now, when I go away, He will come into your own spirit, and He will affirm and confirm all that you have heard of me, and what's more, He will give you the assurance that you belong to my Father. Verse 19, you see, our Lord knows that what He is teaching now will be utterly obscure to those who are unbelievers. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.

When our Lord was present physically on earth, unbelievers and believers saw Him, didn't they? The believers, well, obviously, by very definition of the word belief, they committed themselves to Him. But Caiaphas and Annas and Herod and all that lot, they didn't. Now, look, when our beloved Lord is butchered on that cross, after He has spent three days in the tomb, He's raised again in the power of an endless life.

To whom does He reveal Himself? Not Caiaphas, not Annas, not Pilate. He reveals Himself to His own. The world will not see me again, and the world does not see our beloved Lord again until that time when He comes in power and in great glory, and then every eye shall see and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

But in between, from the resurrection to the second coming, the world doesn't see Him. Who sees Him? Well, those whose eyes have been enlightened by the Holy Spirit, those for whom the Spirit of truth has brought the fullness of the gospel, and with great assurance, people have been born into the kingdom of God. Because I live, you will also live.

Now, here is one of the great experimental verses of the Scripture. On that day, verse 20, on that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. Now, don't water that down.

It refers ultimately to the second coming of our Lord, but it also refers immediately to the day of Pentecost. What happened on the day of Pentecost? Well, the disciples were baptized in the blessed Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Father, sent to the disciples to do what? To ensure them that they are part of the family circle. So you go to Romans chapter 8 and verse 16, where our Lord makes reference continually to this experimental side of Christianity.

The Spirit comes into our hearts and convinces us that we are born of God, so that we cry almost involuntarily, Abba, Father. Don't water that down. Don't neutralize it.

That's not just cerebral. It's not just something in your mind. It's something that affects your total personality.

This is a great assurance to which our Lord here makes reference. On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. The great Bishop Ryle, whose memory got me into great trouble in Liverpool Cathedral last year, much to the embarrassment of my family who were with me.

I went to the cathedral I'd never been before, visited the bookshop, and I asked to see Bishop Ryle's books. And they hadn't even heard of Bishop Ryle, not alone his books. Well, if a pastor can explode, I exploded.

I mean, Ryle was one of the greatest preachers in Liverpool that that city has ever known. He didn't need a cathedral. There wasn't one in his day.

He was bishop and they came and they listened to him. And they came in their hundreds and Liverpool was impacted by the gospel of Christ through the preaching of Bishop Ryle. Ryle and his sermons have been collected and issued in the form of four books, more than four books, several books, his commentary on the gospels, marvellous stuff.

Ryle was for the Anglicans what Spurgeon was for the Baptists. They both ministered at the same time and a great love and respect for one another. And Bishop Ryle, he has to say on this verse that you've got to experience it.

You've got to know this for yourself. So, I told them a thing or two, Liverpool Cathedral, about Bishop Ryle and ensured that OM would send them any copies of books whatsoever by Ryle if they would sell them. I don't know whether they have, but at least they were told, on that day you'll realize that I'm in my father and you are in me and I am in you.

Now, how do you demonstrate at the practical level that you are disciples of Jesus? Well, it comes back to what he said in the 15th verse, which he repeats again in the 21st verse. If you really are my disciple, you will love me, you will obey me, you will want to do what Father wants you to do because that has been my mandate throughout life. Look at verse 31 at the end of the chapter, the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.

Isn't it interesting that our Lord, when He makes reference to the assurance that we have that we are sons of God, not only speaks of the Holy Spirit coming into the heart of the believer in an overwhelming fashion, but verse 23, Father also comes and takes up residence. My Father will love him, love the one who has obeyed my teaching, love the one who is showing his love for me. My Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him.

How marvelous that before we go to Father's house, Father comes to our house. You see, your conversion experience, you say very simply and in one sense very correctly that you opened your heart to the Lord Jesus. I let Jesus in, that changed everything.

Life is wonderful now. Into my heart, into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus. Come into day, take sin away, come into my heart, Lord Jesus.

Now, I don't want to criticize that song at all, it's wonderful, but it's not enough. It's not just the beloved Lord, Jesus, Father, Spirit, they're involved. They take up residence within the heart of a person who otherwise would be an orphan.

Now says our Lord to the disciples and to you and me, let not your heart be troubled. Don't be afraid. Don't be put off by the fact that my corporeal, my bodily presence is no longer with you.

You see, some of us, we fault what A.W. Tozer reckoned was almost a sin. You say, what do you mean you fault? Well, you default in this fashion that you tend to think if only I'd lived in the days of Abraham or the patriarchs, the prophets, the disciples, if only I'd actually heard the voice of God speaking. If only I'd been with Jesus and I could have touched him and watched him.

As though living yesteryear was better than living today. And our Lord's teaching here is that such a notion, I don't think it's sinful, I think it's just immature. It's faulty because Father, Son, and Holy Spirit want themselves to be known in your experience and to be more real to you than any other relationship that you have, be it a relationship with your husband or wife or your closest friend.

You see, this is why Ryle says that this verse, the twentieth one is an experimental one. On that day you will realize that I am in Father and you are in me and I am in you. So if you go out to China and suffer with the Chinese church, you can understand why sometimes when they're brought before the guards and they've been brutally treated, as in one instance in a testimony I was reading not so long ago, the young sixteen, seventeen year old girl's face just lit up and she was smiling.

The guards were infuriated because she was smiling and when she got back to the cell she started to talk to her friends and she said, why were they so annoyed? I didn't realize I was smiling. And they said, well, you always smile. You always give a sense of being a Christian, you see the reality of God.

I don't pluck that from China so that it means that you here in England who don't have that same situation come to the conclusion, well, that couldn't be me. You know, I have buried so many people during my span as pastor of the tab for whom I would say this, that there was a sense of God about them. You see, you can't be with the Lord, you can't read scripture, you can't constantly be in prayer at the communion table, in corporate prayer together without something, forgive me, of God rubbing off, partakers of the divine nature.

These again are not cerebral terms. This is something that affects the total personality of the individual Christian. So our Lord Jesus says that the words I've been speaking, verse 24, these words which you hear, they're not mine, they're Father's words.

You see, Father is engaged in the educational process as well. The Son, He's the teacher, the Spirit, He's the teacher, Father's teacher. When the Son is present, the Spirit is present.

When the Son is present, Father is present. When the Father is present, the Spirit is present. You see, I know this does not make logical sense, but spiritually it's wonderful.

It really is. You can't describe this unless you've had it. It's like trying to describe sight to a man who was born blind.

But our Lord Jesus does say to the disciples, don't in any way feel like orphans, I have made the most wonderful provision for you. Verse 25, all this I've spoken while still with you. And then verse 27, He speaks about what He's going to achieve on the cross.

This is magnificent. You could fuse Bishop Ryle, you could give him a touch of Spurgeon and a touch of Lloyd Johns and you still couldn't expound this one. Peace I leave with you.

I mean, can you believe this? Look, look, get this. For goodness sake, just concentrate for this moment. Even if you've not been with me, although I think most of you have in the preceding part of my discourse.

Here is our beloved Lord and He knows what's around the corner, right? He knows Gethsemane is there, the beads of perspiration, all indicative of the emotional state that He will be in because, well, not the horrific, barbaric nature of crucifixion, but He's going to be forsaken by Father. And what does He speak of? He speaks of that which His death will purchase, my peace. And He speaks about these children of His for whom He has great concern and He says, My peace I give to you.

I will it to you right now. You see, He's always thinking of you. You still have a Comforter and a Counselor in heaven as we have a Comforter and a Counselor on earth.

Our Lord Jesus ever lives to make intercession for you. He thinks of you more than He thinks of Himself and His personal needs. Peace I leave with you.

My peace I give you. Not like the world gives and therefore you're not to let your heart be troubled or for you to be afraid. Look, says our Lord, if you've really understood what I'm teaching, then you will appreciate for me to go to Father, far from being detrimental to your spiritual well-being, it enhances it.

I am going away and I am coming back to you. If you loved me, you would be glad I am going to the Father. However, when He goes to the Father and there's no longer His corporeal presence, then spiritually He can diffuse His presence around the world.

When He's with the disciples corporeally, He can't be at two places at once. But when raised in the power of an endless life, when returning to the position that is His by right at the Father's hand, then He can manifest Himself through the gift of His Spirit around the globe. Ah yes, I know, you've got a problem, or you think you have, actually it's not a problem at all with that next statement.

When He says that He's going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. How many evangelicals have been tripped on that clause when the Jehovah's Witness has been at the doorstep? My friend, the Jehovah's Witness theology does not have a leg to stand on, it really doesn't. What is another title for our beloved Savior? The Son of Man. What did Jesus do when He was incarnated as a little babe? He put aside certain aspects of deity.

You read Philippians 2, it will tell you all about that. Our Lord Jesus emptied Himself of certain things. So during His earthly ministry, as Son of Man, of course Father is greater than He is.

He submits Himself voluntarily. And as Son of Man, as He refers to the Father, He's referring to one who is greater than I. This was the remarkable humility of Christ. But what does Father do which the Watchtower forgets? When the Son returns to heaven itself, He gives Him the name that is, repeat it, that is above every name.

What name is above every name? Ask any Jewish theologian of the centuries prior to the birth of our Lord Jesus and he will say there is only one name. It is the name of God. It is the name of Jehovah.

Our Lord has been given that name again. It's His by sovereign right. The highest place that heaven affords is His by sovereign right.

And so He returns to exaltation and to glory. And our beloved Lord says, look, verse 29, I've told you now before it happens. So that when it does happen and you're like scattered sheep and you're afraid, when you've pressed the panic button, which evangelicals are good at pressing, then remember what I have said and you'll come back to a sense of peace and quietness.

I'm not with you much longer. The evil forces and the plan and power of Satan, they're going to be let loose all hell in this world. But one day, and you understand now, the world must learn that I love the Father, that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me to do.

What did Jesus do? He loved. He honored. He obeyed.

Father, how do I know I'm a Christian? By the measure that I love and I honor and I obey Father, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit want me to know that I'm a Christian. Not just because the Bible tells me so, though that is sufficient at the first level of assurance, but because there is that overwhelming of the Spirit of God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost in my life telling me I am born of God. I am not an orphan.

I am not a refugee. I'm a child of my Father. Father, we thank you for your goodness and for your grace to us.

We thank you for this day, a day spent in your house better than a thousand amongst the ungodly. Dismiss us now, Lord, with your blessing. The blessing of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit now and always.

Amen. Good morning. God bless you.