Not of this World
Readings:NIV
John 8:23
23 But he continued, You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
John 14:1-11
1 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Fathers house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going. 5 Thomas said to him, Lord, we dont know where you are going, so how can we know the way? 6 Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.
John 15:1-5
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
John 15:12-19
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
John 15:18
18 If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
John 16:1-4
1 All this I have told you so that you will not go astray. 2 They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God. 3 They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me. 4 I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you. I did not tell you this at first because I was with you.
John 16:12-33
12 I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you. 16 In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me.
20 I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.
25 Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26 In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27 No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28 I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. 29 Then Jesus disciples said, Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30 Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God. 31 You believe at last! Jesus answered. 32 But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me. 33 I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.
Message:
Today I have a very difficult job as a Pastor. I have to prepare you for Easter Sunday but Good Friday is coming. I have to cover a lot of scripture that is very important for all of us. But I do not have a lot of time to get the job done.
In my heart I want to read to you four chapters from the Gospel of John in their entirety, chapters 14, 15, 16, & 17 but if I did it would cause our service to run well past its normal time.
In fact it might take me all of one hour just to cover the material contained in these precious chapters. So you see I have a real problem.
For this reason I have had to cut and paste the main points from these chapters in the hope that the collage that I attempt to give you will allow you to see the bigger picture.
Every Pastor wants to communicate Gods message effectively and thoroughly and I’m no different.
Fortunately Gods Holy Spirit is the real teacher here today and so I will rely on Gods Holy Spirit to communicate to your hearts those things that are most important for you from these texts.
Have you ever been faced with a similar situation where the amount of work you needed to complete seemed far greater than the time that you had to finish it?
For those of you who have been or are parents you know exactly what I mean.
Our children are with us for about twenty years or so - if were lucky - and in that time we have too impart to them all that we think is best and good so as to equip them to face the world on their own.
The unfortunate thing is that our influence over our children is limited. They will only look up to us and fully trust us for a few short years of that twenty year span until such time as they form their own ideas and have their own experiences in the world around them. The goal is to give them such a strong foundation that they will be able to overcome whatever the world throws at them.
In a manner of speaking this is the situation that Jesus is faced with in these four chapters of scripture. Jesus knows that His time with His disciples is running out. He will soon be applauded by the crowds, betrayed by a friend, arrested by the religious courts, put on trial by the civil authorities, tortured and executed right in front of the eyes of those who have come to follow him and believe in him.
His great concern is not for His fate but for those who love Him including you and me.
Will their hearts be overcome by all this trouble?
Will their faith in God be shattered?
Will their faith in Him (Jesus) be destroyed?
For these reasons Jesus takes the time in these four chapters to remind us who He is, why He came, where He is going, how He feels about us, and what He has to do in order for us to truly be with Him for all eternity.
Jesus being God can see the things that each one of us must face in our individual spiritual journeys.
Jesus knows the trials of faith that we will face and the attacks against our faith that the world will shower upon us during our life time.
Jesus our creator knows every one of us in intimate detail. He knows the things that touch our hearts with tenderness and the things that cause our hearts to be hardened by doubt.
Jesus our Savior knows that what He is about to undertake for our benefit must be done even though we will not fully understand it or fully appreciate it. It is the only way to bring us back into a right relationship with God.
This is the mission that Jesus was called to carry out for our Heavenly Father. To personally bring you and me back to God no matter the cost, no matter the effort, no matter the expense, no matter the suffering that He would have to endure.
In Jesus eyes we are all worth it all. In these four chapters Jesus pours out His heart to us in such an intimate way that He calls us His friends.
Jesus is preparing us for the worst. Jesus is preparing us to look at our sin the sin of the world and to begin to comprehend just how ugly, destructive and brutal sin is and why it should have no place in our lives or in Gods Kingdom.
Jesus is preparing us to comprehend the kind of sacrifice that is necessary to eradicate sin.
Jesus is preparing us to comprehend His love for us, the Fathers love for us and that God will never leave us nor forsake us but will always be with us and that the Holy Spirit of God will reside within us as a deposit of God’s love until such time as Jesus physically returns for us.
Today I have to ask you – are you prepared for Easter Sunday?
You can only be prepared for Easter Sunday if you have prepared for Good Friday.
Yes Palm Sunday is next week and we will all shout with joy to receive Jesus as our King.
But have you received Him as your Savior?
Have you confessed your sins and repented of your sinful heart in such a way as to know that you have laid all your sin upon the cross so that Jesus can pay the price to redeem your soul?
I pray that you have for if you have then yes you are prepared for Easter Sunday and you have cause to rejoice with eternal joy.
But if you have not yet trusted Jesus as your Savior there is still time. Time enough to confess, time enough to repent and time enough to trust that what Jesus does on Good Friday will ready you for Easter Sunday and for all eternity.
This world is not our home and yet we all get very comfortable here and even try to make ourselves as comfortable here as possible. But Jesus reminds us that our home is meant to be with God our Father.
Let us prepare dear Saints for that home which is yet to come as we prepare for Easter Sunday. – Amen.
