THE ALL-CARING COMPASSIONATE LORD – John 14 v 15 to 21
[A]. INTRODUCTION:
It is important today we place our passage in context. We can go right back to {{John 13 v 34 “A new commandment I give to you that you love one another, that you also love one another even as I have loved you.”}} This would have been spoken in the upper room on the eve of Calvary. Then the Lord continued with this – {{John 14 v 1 “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. John 14 v 2 In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you for I go to prepare a place for you.”}} That would have confused or unsettled the disciples, and the Lord continued – {{John 14 v 4 “and you know the way where I am going.” John 14 v 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going. How do we know the way?” John 14 v 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.”}}
[B]. THE CONSEQUENCE OF CONDITION:
{{John 14 v 15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”}} This verse should be considered as a consequential outcome. For example, if I put my hand in the fire I will suffer injury. If I water my vegetables in the garden, they will grow; if I treat them like the Sahara desert they will die. If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. It is a contradiction to say you love the Lord but you don’t do what He says. It is foreign to the bible. The Lord is stating here an absolute of faith. IF you love Me, you will keep my commandments. The statement was not posed as “If you love me, I hope you might try to keep My commandments.” It is a definite affirmation of consequence. “IF you love Me, you WILL keep My commandments.”
It is wrong to have a notion that you have to try to keep His commandments. It is as simple as turning on a tap and out comes water. If you love Me, then obedience is natural and pleasant. If you have to keep fighting to keep God’s commandments all the time, then please examine the line that connects you to Jesus Christ. Paul said to the Corinthians, {{2Corinthians 13 v 5 “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves, or do you not recognise this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you - unless indeed you fail the test?”}} If we are in the faith we love the Lord. When we love the Lord, we want to please Him. It is natural to do what He has said when we love Him. If you find a weakness in obedience, or in keeping what He has asked you to, then strengthen your love. There are many ways to do that but time allows me to mention only one – meditate in the bible, AND on the sacrifice of Christ.
[C]. THE GREATEST GIFT OF HELP AND TRUTH:
{{John 14 v 16 “and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper that He may be with you forever - John 14 v 17 that is, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”}} We see here beautiful care. Jesus will ask the Father (some versions – “pray”). The word is used of closeness as a shared agreement between two parties. The Holy Spirit will be given as He was on the Day of Pentecost, and the magnificent promise is that He will be with them forever. This is in marked contrast with the Old Testament, for there, the Spirit came upon a man of God for a specific purpose, then departed until next time. Now the Holy Spirit will be with us, remaining forever.
I don’t know what bible version you have, but the Greek word “paracletos” is translated as Helper, Counsellor, Comforter, Paraclete, or Advocate, but the best rendering is Advocate. The Greek word literally means a Person who is called alongside to help. Bengel says, [[“called in to render aid; one’s defender, patron (counsellor); one who speaks in a person’s behalf, and suggests to him what he ought to say,” and Cambridge Bible for Students and Colleges says, “It commonly signifies ‘one who is summoned to the side of another’ to aid him in a court of justice, especially the ‘counsel for the defence’.”]] The Lord in effect is telling us that when He goes, He will send another of the same kind who will do what He has been doing. We have a friend who sticks closer than anyone you could name. in verse 16, the word “another” means “another of the same kind”. It is a touch of deity – God, the Son; God the Holy Spirit”.
Where does truth abide, and where is it found? Not with Prime Ministers; not with politicians; not with law courts or judges; but with the true children of God as told to us in verse 17. Truth is not found in the world, and the world is becoming increasingly more untruthful. John Wesley summarises these two verses this way – [[“The Spirit of truth - Who has, who reveals, who testifies, and defends the truth as it is in Jesus. All in the world who do not love, or fear God, cannot receive, because they see Him not, having no spiritual senses, no internal eye to discern Him; nor consequently can they know Him. He shall be in you as a constant guest. Your bodies and souls shall be temples of the Holy Ghost dwelling in you.”]]
[D]. NO TRUE CHRISTIAN IS AN ORPHAN:
{{John 14 v 18 I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.”}} The tender hearted care of the Saviour for His own is manifested all through the gospel of John. He revealed Himself as the God of circumstances in John 6 to the disciples battling life’s storms on the sea. He revealed Himself as the Shepherd of the sheep in John 10, the One who tenderly cares for the sheep of His pasture, but more than that, He showed Himself to be the Good Shepherd who would stand in our place and die for us. He was the sacrificial Shepherd.
In John 11, He wept at the entrance of Lazarus’s tomb, and why did He do that? There are a few reasons, all correct. Firstly, He loved His special friends Mary, Martha and Lazarus and shared in their grief and sorrow. Let me tell you this. Hebrews describes the Lord as the Great High Priest, but He did not BECOME the Great High Priest. He always was, but after the ascension, there was a special aspect where the God-Man could sympathise exactly with His saints’ needs and sorrows. Secondly, He wept that day, because His eyes beheld the misery of sin in the human race. Sin brings about separation from God, and it brings about death. He saw the results of death everywhere He went. He took upon Himself the death of the cross, and in rising again, He brought life to repentant sinners. He died, that we might live. He who knew no sin was made sin for us that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.
One of the great skeptical outcries of the world against God is, “How can God allow suffering in the world?” People will sit back and criticise God, but are not prepared to acknowledge, that God gave Himself for our sins. The word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory as the only Begotten Son of God, but He who became flesh, came to give His life as a ransom for the world. Jesus said, “and I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men to Myself.” That is true - men and women are drawn - but the stubbornness of the human heart anchors their feet solidly to the spot and they refuse to go any closer. Many are called but few are chosen (give a challenge).
The third reason Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb was that men’s hearts were as stone. Often in John we read they did not believe on him. Even though a miracle be performed, they will not believe. Even if a man rise from the dead, they will not believe, but signs were given to the Jews in order they might be convinced, yet on the very eve of the cross they cried, {{“Away with Him. We will not have this man reign over us. Caesar is our king.”}} They chose Barabbas whose name means “son of the father” while they rejected the true “Son of the Father’.
[E]. THE SWEETEST OF PROMISES:
Verse 18, “I will come to you.” My dear Christian friends, in the dead of night in your loneliness, He will come to you. In the tossing boat on the seas of your troubles, He will come to you. In the turmoil of family problems and heated up emotions, He will come to you. In the aspects of failing health and dwindling mental abilities, He will come to you and hold your hand. There is no one else who is closer than a brother. He loves His sheep. He will never leave one of his sheep as orphans. He will never leave a sheep by the wayside, but if necessary, He will draw near to it and carry it on His shoulder. So many times we need the Lord to carry us. The journey is too great for us. The obstacles are too many. The enemies are too powerful. Do you feel alone? No, never feel alone, because you are not alone. “I will come to you,” is our verse. Reach out your hand and place it in the hand of the Saviour because He is close, right near to you. Your eyes of faith see Him there beside you. I am His, and he is mine, in a love that can not cease.
When you read the writings of the Apostles in the New Testament, especially in what is known as the Pastoral Epistles, you will see special attention being commanded for the care of widows and orphans. That is because God understands those who have had loss, and those who are rejected, and alone in the world.
[F]. LOVE THE LORD YOUR SAVIOUR:
{{John 14 v 19 “After a little while the world will behold Me no more, but you will behold Me. Because I live, you shall live also. John 14 v 20 In that day you shall know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. John 14 v 21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me, and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.”}}
Verse 20 says, “In that day”. What day is that? May I suggest to you it is the day of resurrection. The Lord is explaining that in a short time (and it was a short time because John 14 was spoken earlier on the betrayal night) – that shortly the world won’t see Him again. They thought they had gotten rid of Him. People in sin hate the testimony of the Lord. Religious Education has almost been done away with in Australian schools; Parliament is opened with Aboriginal spiritism, not prayers; Christian witness such as Christmas (the Christian aspect) and the like has been eliminated and Santa Claus substituted. The world wants a veiled or hidden Jesus, but when He appeared after the resurrection, he appeared only to his own. He told the disciples they would behold Him. Later on 500 beheld Him. Paul beheld Him on the Damascus Road.
Then in verse 19 the Lord spoke a beautiful promise – “Because I live, you shall live also”. I am alive today in Jesus Christ, because He lives. If Christ did not rise from the dead then we of all people, are most miserable, and all you before me are wasting your time being here. But now is Christ risen, and has become the firstfruits of all those who believe. Because He rose, so shall we also. If we die before the Rapture, we go to be with the Lord, for absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We are never separated from Him; as we saw earlier, He will never leave us as orphans. If you be in Christ, you have a glorious future, but some Christians think more on the future than they do on the present. You have a glorious present also, so I urge you to live in the present. Surrender yourselves to the Lord, and be His servants, and His spokespeople, and His lifeline in this world.
I think Romans 12 v 1-2 is a continual, necessary journey all Christians must appropriate for themselves – {{Romans 12 v 1 “I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God which is your spiritual service of worship, Rom 12 v 2 and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”}}
[G]. CONCLUSION:
In verse 20, which must have seemed a great mystery that night when the Lord spoke the words, He is saying that the resplendent light that came with understanding after the resurrection, and later on at Pentecost, would cause the disciples to know with absolute certainty that there are unbreakable bonds between Father and Son, and between the Lord and His own. That bond is what Christians possess. No one can remove us from the Lord’s hand. No one can remove us from the Father’s hand.
That is so important, the greatest assurance we have. Those who truly are saved are eternally kept by the Lord. We do NOT drift in and out of salvation as some teach. Those truly saved are truly kept.
Maybe we are speaking to some who are uncertain about their salvation. If you are one of them, examine yourself to see if you are in the faith. If you genuinely repented and turned to the Saviour and placed yourself in His hands, then be assured He will keep you against all the doubts the world and Satan may throw at you.
If any are not saved, then the time is short. We are never promised the next day. You need to repent of your sin for which Jesus died when He took your place. Surrender your life unconditionally to the Lord, receiving Him into your life as your personal Saviour. Do that and do not delay.
God bless you all.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
