BY GRACE YOU KNOW THE LORD’S PROMISES
John 14:15-21 - May 16, 2004 – EASTER 6
JOHN 14:15-21
15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17the 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. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21Whoever 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."
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Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:
Knowledge has become very important among us. Our society places a high value on knowledge and learning. Today, we are going to learn about the high value of knowledge that we possess, because we have been given God’s spiritual knowledge. Today is Graduation Day in our community and probably in many communities. During these graduations we will get to hear about the importance of learning and knowledge. Yet, you and I know that the learning and the book knowledge that people gain is not as important as God’s knowledge of salvation. That is what the Lord reminds us this morning when He tells us that by His grace you and I know and possess the knowledge of salvation; namely, God’s promises.
Paul, when he wrote to Timothy and encouraged him in his ministry, said to Timothy as he reminds us today: "But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus" (2 TIMOTHY 3:14,15). Today, we possess God’s promises. We possess the knowledge of salvation; and we have been made wise for salvation, not on our own, but simply, purely, and freely by God’s grace. Our theme for today is ---
BY GOD’S GRACE YOU KNOW GOD’S PROMISES--THE KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION. Because of that you and I as God’s children:
I. Love the Lord
II. Obey the Lord
I. God’s children love the Lord
The setting of the 14th chapter of John is very important as we heard in our Gospel, (JOHN 14:23-29) as we heard in our text, and as we heard last week. (JOHN 14:1-12) This is a chapter of encouragement for the disciples. Jesus is in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday hours before He was going to be betrayed. Jesus is with His disciples in a very private moment, because in a short time, Jesus is going to be very publicly put to death on the cross. We find in these words great comfort and encouragement. Jesus says to them: 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. Some translations call "Counselor" "Comforter" but both terms refer to the Holy Spirit. The disciples would need the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as they would face the hours ahead and days ahead when Jesus would be taken from them. They would wonder why. The disciples already had that Spirit in them, but the Lord says He is going to send that Spirit in even a greater measure for them.
Make no mistake when Jesus describes it: and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17the Spirit of truth. As you hear those words you may remember when Pilate takes Jesus before him and says, "What is truth?" As he represents the world, Pilate reminded Jesus that he put no stock in the truth. Just like the world says who could understand the truth? It is still the same with the world today. Jesus said that: 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. That Spirit of truth was alive and well and living in the disciples. By grace they knew the promises of God. By grace they had seen the Lord Jesus make promises time and again, and then fulfill them. By grace Jesus had made them fishers of men taking them away from their occupations of being fishermen. He had made Matthew, a tax collector, into a soul collector--by grace. Because they had seen all of these things and had experienced them, the disciples’ reaction was to love the Lord because of the Lord’s fulfilled promises to them.
Jesus says to them: 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. That statement probably did not mean much to them at that time when they were sitting there just after celebrating the Lord’s Supper. The disciples weren’t thinking of the time when Jesus said He was going to be put to death and laid to rest in the tomb. But on that Good Friday, the disciples probably thought about that statement when Jesus said, "I will not leave you as orphans." Jesus was reminding them they were God’s very own children. The disciples would not be forgotten. They would not be forsaken. Instead, the disciples would be forgiven. Again, their reaction as God’s children was to love the Lord. Jesus says: He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. Time and again the Lord Jesus had revealed Himself to His disciples. Time and again Jesus was trying to get the disciples to understand that He was God’s Son. So Jesus states here, "As you love me, you love the Father and the Father loves you." Now as the disciples knew God’s promises by grace they were moved to love the Lord.
That is why you and I are gathered here today. It is simply and purely by God’s free grace. For when we were born into this world, we were born as sinful human beings. We were not born with the desire to do what is good, but with a desire to do what is bad and wicked. We were actually born as the enemies of God. But the Lord changes all of that, because you and I cannot change our sinful nature by ourselves. The Lord does it for us and to us. Paul describes it in Corinthians when he talks about the fact that great Creator of the heavens and the earth is the same one who takes time out to change our lives. Paul writes to us: "For God, who said, ’Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ" (2 CORINTHIANS 4:6). This is same God who made the heavens and the earth as we remember in Genesis. The world was empty and had nothing in it, the Lord said, "Let there be light and there was." That same God has the power to change our hearts--hearts of stone into hearts of flesh. By grace we are made believers. By grace we come to know the promises of God and begin to love to live as His children.
That too, is the most amazing statement--God looks at us as His children. We started out our lives as children of Satan but by grace have been given faith. We grow in that knowledge of salvation, because we know God’s promises. We then look to live life as His children. Jesus tells us how and why we love Him: "Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." (EPHESIANS 5:1,2). The Lord says we are to live as His children, to live a life of love. Our Lord doesn’t just say “now love me”, but He also tells his children why. Paul reminds believers, as God’s children, to look to the Savior who offered up His life as a life of love and sacrifice. Jesus made this sacrifice not for Himself; but for you and I and every sinner. God’s holy word reminds us as Christ first loved us, we love Him. There is now a great difference in our life. We are ready, willing, and excited to love the Lord, our heavenly Father.
Jesus says the world around us doesn’t see that love of God, doesn’t understand it, doesn’t accept the Spirit of truth. There are many today who say, "What is truth?" There are even more who say there isn’t absolute truth. But time and again the Lord reminds us there is truth. There is sin and death. There is forgiveness and life. Our reaction to love the Lord is to love Him and strive to love Him perfectly. In the Old Testament Moses in Deuteronomy very simply stated: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength" (DEUTERONOMY 6:5). Sounds simple but we know how difficult that is; because we are still attached to our sinful nature or our sinful nature is still attached to us. There is a constant battle to love the things of this world or the people of this world or the knowledge and wisdom of this world more than God Himself. By God’s powerful grace we are given the strength to love God above all things. By God’s free grace we are caused to realize that our lives have been changed. They have been changed from going down the path of destruction into ascending on the path of life because of the Lord’s love for us. Our reaction is to love the Lord as His children.
By grace we know God’s promises of eternal life and forgiveness, and we love Him for that. The next step of loving the Lord is obeying the Lord.
II. God’s children obey the Lord
That is what Jesus tells His disciples. We know the disciples are soon going to face very, very difficult times. Jesus and his disciples are gathered together in the upper room. This is one of their closest, most personal times together. They are celebrating the Lord’s Supper where Jesus said, "This is my body. This is my blood given and shed for you." Then Jesus and his disciples go to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Judas comes and betrays the Savior with a kiss, and the soldiers take their Lord away. Then Jesus faces the trial and is put to death on the cross. All the while the disciples were filled with sorrow. For on that first Easter Sunday they are still locked away in the upper room. What does the Lord tell them? He says, "If I go, I will come back." In our text He says, 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. So it was when Jesus was put to death, the soldiers thought that was the end. The government thought that was the end. The scribes and Pharisees thought that was the end. They would never open their eyes to see Jesus again, but the disciples could and did.
First of all, Jesus appeared to them. Also the truth of the Spirit was still alive and well in them. It took them a while to overcome those tears of grief and mourning of the loss of their Savior. That first Sunday, Jesus comes and says, "Peace be with you. The second Sunday He has to come and say the same thing. But what else does He promise? He says, "I promise to give you another Counselor." 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Jesus is talking about the unity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is talking about the day of Pentecost. True, the disciples would gradually begin to see. Their eyes would be opened. Yes, it would just as Jesus had promised. Jesus would go to Jerusalem; He would suffer and die; He would be raised again on the third day. But it was on Pentecost (50 days after Easter) that the disciples finally truly and fully understood. They realized that this Jesus was indeed was the very Son of God. They realized that this Jesus had indeed ascended into heaven. They realized that now they as children of God and followers of Jesus had to go out to the ends of the earth with the message of salvation. Jesus says, "On that day you will know these things." On that day, they understood completely all of God’s promises.
They had loved the Lord and now they obeyed Him. Jesus stated, if you love, you will obey what I command. Jesus’ command to his disciples was to go to the ends of the earth with the Gospel of salvation. Jesus reminded them: 21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. There is not one of us here who would doubt the love of the disciples for Jesus. There is not one of us here that would question the loyalty and obedience of the disciples. They followed Jesus to the very end of their life. Why did they do it? They knew the promises of God! Jesus said to them in the middle of our text: 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you...Because I live, you also will live. They had come to realize that in their short life and short acquaintance with the Savior (only three years), that the promise of the Lord’s divine love was eternal. Their earthly life made no difference anymore. The disciples truly loved God as God’s children, and they obeyed the Savior as God’s children.
Today, obedience and following what God says is often considered to be old-fashioned, isn’t it? This obedience attitude is often considered to be out of date and not fitting in with the modern knowledge and wisdom of this world. We realize that today the world would try to bury the Ten Commandments. At different times we hear the accounts of how the Ten Commandments are removed from public places so that no one can see them. Yet honestly, when we look at our laws today or the laws of the world, where do they come from? These laws that say "Do not kill;" "do not steal?" Those laws are simply copied from the Ten Commandments. Yet, the world says those Ten Commandments are just too hard to keep. They are too burdensome. They are out of date and old-fashioned. But what does God remind us today as His children? By His grace we know His promises and to obey His Word is not difficult. It is not a burden He places upon us. Instead our loving Lord writes, "This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith" (1 JOHN 5:3,4). By grace we are given faith, and our faith is able to overcome the world with it sinful desires and temptations.
By grace our faith follows God’s commands. We are given the motivation to love and obey, not because we feel we have to or we must; but because the Lord has loved us first. In Romans, Paul writes these words: "For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous" (ROMANS 5:19). Paul reminds us that Adam sinned and passed that sinfulness onto his children to this very day. But Christ came and obeyed and kept the Law so that through His obedience you and I are forgiven. Through Christ’s obedience God has kept the Law through His Son for us. The result in following God’s footsteps, the result in obeying what God says, is not a burden. Obeying our loving Lord is not to be something that ought to seem hard and difficult even the world around us would tell us, "Give up on the church and its teachings. Live your life the way you want. Take care of yourself. Indulge your sinful nature."
What does the Lord remind us? The Lord reminds us that by His grace we know His promises. His promises are many. God promises to never leave us nor forsake us. God promises to always be with us as the Rock of our very life. Jesus told a parable in Matthew about two people who built a house, one on sand and the other on the foundation of the rock. What happens? Jesus concluded: "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock" (MATTHEW 7:24). The parable continues to say that the wind and the waves came up and beat against that house, and it did not fall. So the winds and waves of this life beat upon us, and we do not fall. For by God’s grace we know His promise. Christ is the Rock. Christ is the Cornerstone of our faith. Then Christ becomes the Rock and the Cornerstone of our life.
In Chapter 14 of John, we realize that Jesus tells His disciples in the upper room, "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Peace I leave with you" two different times. God reminds his children, "I am your Heavenly Father who takes care of you." By grace we know God’s promises. We know the wisdom of salvation. Because we know the wisdom of salvation, as His children we love the Lord. Then, as God’s children our love moves us to obey the Lord. For as we know the promises of God, we know that they are sure. In the book of Joshua, it is written when the children were being delivered into the Promise Land: "You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed" (JOSHUA 23:14). By God’s grace, you and I know God’s promises. There are many, and they are always true. Therefore, as God’s very own, dear children, we love the Lord and obey the Lord because He has promised us life--eternal. Amen.
Pastor Timm O. Meyer
