The Promise Of Jesus Series

The promise of Jesus John 14:18-31

A few weeks ago we began with this upper room discourse that goes all the way from chapter 13 to 17 and you’ll remember that I said it was called this simply because this was where it was held. As I was thinking about how this all began the other day it occurred to me. There were twelve disciples in the room when they began and they were all upset because Jesus did what none of them would do and started washing their feet. After He said, “If I don’t wash your feet, you will have no part of Me” they all pulled up their robes, had their feet washed and then they all sat and listened to what He had to say. Now, the interesting thing, that I didn’t notice before was that everyone had their feet washed but Jesus. He washed their feet and sat down but no one washed His. If He was teaching them a lesson on humility I think we can assume that no one heard or understood a word He was saying.

And then in chapter fourteen we looked at Jesus promising a home in heaven and then He followed this with His claim to be the way, the truth and the life. So, these promises tell us that not only is there a heaven to go to but there’s a Savior to make sure we get there.

And then He tells us that while we’re still here we have the promise that He will answer all the prayers that are prayed in His name and you will remember that I said they had to be prayed the way He would pray and with the same intent. And that means that there’s no room for the gimmes, you know, the gimme this and gimme that.

And then He explained the relationship that all believer’s have with the Father as well as the Holy Spirit. And I explained that this introduced not just us but the whole church to the concept of the trinity. And this is the fact that the Godhead consists of three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who are one in nature and yet have three distinct persons.

Now, last week we looked at the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and I want to go back and point out six facts about who He is and what He does. And in a sense I’m repeating what I said but at the same time I’m taking it all up a notch.

I In verse 15 Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” and if we do this then He meaning the Holy Spirit will be given as a gift from the Father but He will only be given to true believers and the Lord identifies those who are true as those who are obedient to His will and to His word. These are not people who go to church because they’re lonely, to make friends, to make business connections, or because they have nothing else to do. They don’t go because they always gone or mum and dad have or because they’re just covering all the bases in case there is a God in heaven. They go because they love the Lord and are obedient to His will. As the hymn writer describes them, they are the people who will, “Trust and obey, for there’s no other way. To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.”

When I was first saved I lived in a commune and we used to try to reach anybody and everybody. One of the men who had come to the Lord and then came to live in the commune was an alcoholic named Steve and he and I became pretty good friends. One day I asked Steve if he had any kind of religious background and he said his mother was a very religious person. He told me all they had to do to get her crying was mention the fact that Jesus had died on the cross. And later on, when I thought about that I wondered if she had ever come to know the Lord or if she just had some kind of emotional religion because there are many people like that.

When I was on dialysis at George Dumont we had an older woman who was a very strong Roman Catholic. She would read her Catholic devotional book as she sat in the chair having dialysis and when she’d finish she’d sing part of her devotions right out loud in spite of the fact that there was another twenty or thirty people there. I always wondered about her until one day someone knocked something off her chair or something like that and she really blew up. My first thought was, so much for all the help she got from the Virgin Mary.