John 14, brethren, we'll be in
John 14. Let's go to our Lord before we
begin. Our great God and our Father, how
we thank you for this day. Thank You, Lord, that You've
been gracious to Your people. Thank You for Your Son, for all
blessings in Him. Lord, we thank You for drawing
us here and giving us hearts to be here. We ask Your mercy
today, Lord, and Your grace to be able to behold You in the
Word. and strengthen our faith and
cause us to believe the words you've spoken. Lord, we pray
for our brethren everywhere and here. We pray for Brother Cyril.
You'd help relieve his pain and heal him and our brethren who
are suffering, who are brokenhearted and suffering bodily. In other ways, we pray, Lord,
You be with them. Wherever You've planted Your
Word, Lord, we pray You bless it this day and cause Your holy
name to be exalted and Your Son to be glorified and Your people
edified. We ask the same now here, Lord,
by Your grace, by Your Spirit. Forgive us our sins. We thank
You, Lord, in Christ's name. Amen. Now this is right before our
Lord is going to the cross, and our Lord had told His apostles.
He said this, this is from Matthew 20, let me just give you this,
but He said, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and the Son of
Man shall be betrayed unto the chief priests and unto the scribes,
and they shall condemn Him to death, and shall deliver Him
to the Gentiles to mock and to scourge and to crucify Him. And the third day, he shall rise
again. He told his apostles, he was
going away, but he said, I will rise again. He said, I will return
unto you, and I will receive you to myself, that where I am,
there you may be also. Our Lord was facing all that
betrayal, that mocking, that scourging, that crucifixion. He was facing death. But He knew,
according to the Word of the Father, according to the covenant
He entered into, according to the promise he had from God his
Father. He knew he would rise again the
third day. But when he said this to the
apostles, and I tried to say this last time, but you just
know how we would have felt if we had been there. It's just
like hearing a loved one is about to die. And all they heard was
that he was going to die. And so they were very troubled
and they were very sorrowful. And they just couldn't hear these
other things that He was promising and be rejoiced by them. They
were sorrowful. They were cast down. But I want
you to get this Word. I want you to get this Word that
our Lord spoke to them. And just think on this one verse
right here. Verse 28. He said, You have heard
how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If you
loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the
Father, for my Father is greater than I. If you loved me, you
would rejoice, because I go unto the Father. When he says here,
because my Father is greater than I, we know the Son of God
is God. He's equal with the Father. Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, we worship one God in three persons. He
is God. But what he's saying here is,
he came down and took the form of a servant. and to serve for
his people, to serve God his Father for his people, to make
his people righteous. And when he says here, because
my Father is greater than I, he's speaking of himself in the
office of the Mediator as the servant of the Father. And he's
saying here, you know how he said, I always do those things
that please the Father. And he did. He served God perfectly
for his people. And he's saying here the reason
he will go unto the Father is because the Father is greater
than him. He's in the place of the servant.
And he served God faithfully. And he knew the Father would
receive him. The Father would make good on
that covenant promise and raise him again. And that's what he's
saying. This is great cause to rejoice,
because I go to the Father, because I've been well-pleasing in His
sight, and therefore all His people in Him are well-pleasing
in the Father's sight. So this was great, great reason
to rejoice. He said, so if you love me, rejoice,
because I go unto my Father. He didn't say He was going away
and not coming again. He said He would return. That's
His promise, I will return. He said, I will come again and
receive you to Myself that where I am, there you may be also.
He's where He is because He's equal with the Father. Because
the work He accomplishes is eternal. Eternal righteousness, eternal
salvation for His people. And He's where He is because
the Father is well pleased with Him for His righteousness sake. And brethren, that's great joy
for us because you that believe Him, you who find all your hope
in Christ only, as He is, so are we in this world. He is perfectly
righteous and as He is, so are we in this world. Let me give
you this from Colossians 3. Listen to Colossians 3. If ye
then be risen with Christ, This is what faith lays hold of, that
we are risen with Him. When He arose, we arose in Him. If you then be risen with Christ,
seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right
hand of God. Set your affection on things
above, not on things of this earth, for you are dead. You died in Christ. Those that
God the Father chose and gave to him died in Christ under the
law as every sinner must bear the curse. We must bear the wrath
of God because we've all sinned and come short of the glory of
God. Everybody Christ represented died under the justice of God
when he died. So he says, you are dead. Before
God, your old man of sin is dead. You are dead. And your life is
hid with Christ in God, your life. Your life is hid with Christ
in God. And when Christ, who is our life,
shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory. So our Lord is telling us this
here in His saying, Because I go to the Father, He's
looking beyond the cross, He's looking beyond the suffering,
He's looking beyond the mocking and the scourging and the tomb,
He's looking to the joy set before Him. If you love me, rejoice, because
I go unto my Father. Brethren, each of us have all
received the news, we've all received the diagnosis already,
the prognosis, that we're dying and it'll just be a little while
and we will go to the grave. This sinful flesh is dust and
it will return to the dust and that's so of the believer. Any
man that denies he is sinful in his sin nature When he takes
his last breath, he's going to testify louder than any words
could testify that in his flesh dwelt nothing good. Because that's
why we're going to die. Because our flesh is sin and
we'll go back to the dust. We'll go back to the dust. All
flesh is grass. We've all received this sentence. We know it's so. But this is
what our Lord said, look back in verse 19. You that have been
born again of the Spirit, you that He has given life and brought
you to believe on Him and trust Him, this is what He says. Now
listen, verse 19. Yet a little while, and the world
seeth me no more. But ye see me, because I live,
ye shall live also. They saw Him in the flesh. They
saw Him bodily when He walked this earth. But it's even better
to see Him by faith. It's even better to see Him in
the Spirit. There's a lot of people who saw
Him bodily who didn't see Him spiritually. They saw Him in
body. They saw Him work the miracles.
They saw what He accomplished when He walked this earth, but
they didn't see Him by faith. Paul said, we've known Him after
the flesh. We knew Him bodily. But we don't
know him that way now. How do we know him now? Our Lord
says, you'll see me, and you'll see me by faith. And here's why. Here's the promise. He said,
because I live, ye shall live also. He is our life. He is the life of everybody he's
brought to believe on him. He is our life. That means he's
our righteousness. They're equal, righteousness
and life. He's our life. Is Christ your
life? Is He your life? If He's not
our life, our only hope, the only one we trust in, the only
one we're trusting to make us accepted with the Father, if
He's not all our righteousness, we're dead. That's how we came
into the world, and if He's not our life, if He's not quickened
us and given us faith to trust, He is our only hope of acceptance
with God, then we're spiritually dead. But if He's given you this
faith to trust Him and He's your life, your only life, because
He lives, you shall live also. Our confidence, Our confidence,
our hope of salvation, our hope that we will one day be received
into glory. Our confidence cannot be in Christ,
in his righteousness, and in any righteousness of our own.
It's an impossibility. It can't be. Our confidence has
to be Christ only. Christ only. We are all, this
is Isaiah 64, 6, we are all as an unclean thing. And all our righteousnesses are
as filthy rags. And we all do fade as a leaf
and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. Here is some
fruit that God creates in a sinner that's born again from God. He
confesses, as a believer, we are all as an unclean thing. He confesses of himself, in my
flesh dwells no good thing. I am a sinner by nature. and
my flesh is sin." It's only the Lord that can make us truly confess
this to God from the heart and mean it. We don't have any confidence
in ourselves. Spurgeon said, the true believer
fears himself. He fears himself. And if the
Lord's brought us to this place so that we can say this, we have
to give all the glory to God because it's only by the Spirit
of God that we can confess this. A man will not confess his sin
and his nothingness unless the Spirit of God gives him life
to see this is the truth, this is the fact. Joseph Hart wrote,
What comfort can a Savior bring to those who never felt their
woe? A sinner is a sacred thing. The Holy Ghost has made him so. You know what he meant by that.
It takes the Holy Spirit to reveal to us we are the sinner, so that
we don't have any confidence in our flesh anymore. But here's
the thing. It's not only that we are sinners. It's not only that our flesh
is sin. It's not only that we are all
as an unclean thing. Here's the other thing that God
brings us to confess. All my righteousnesses are filthy
rags. This is the fruit of the Spirit
by which the regenerate sinner does the will of the Father. He believes Christ, and He loves
Christ, and so He confesses. He will say, do not attribute
righteousness to me. My righteousnesses are filthy
rags. Give the glory of all righteousness
to my Savior, to my Lord. He's the Lord, my righteousness,
my only righteousness, and He alone. Our faith, God-given faith,
The gift of God that He gives us is mixed with sin. It's mixed with sin. Our love, love for Christ and
love for our brethren, because we have a sin nature, our love
needs God's mercy and God's forgiveness. Our love does. And all the works that God works
in His people, our very best deeds that He works in His people,
the only way they're accepted of God is because they're washed
in the blood of Christ because He's our righteousness and everything
that He brings His people to do that's well-pleasing in His
sight is through our Lord and His righteousness. But our very
best deeds, everything we do that men would say would be a
good thing, they have enough sin in them, enough sin in all
that we do that they are filthy rags. If we try to come to God
by anything we do, He won't receive it. He won't receive it. But
in Christ, all His people are righteous. In Christ, His people
are the righteousness of God. In Christ, we have no sin, we
have no record of sin, because our Lord Jesus Christ entirely
put it away, and that's why He came. That's what He's declaring.
I go to my Father because I came and served for my people. I came
and served my Father. I came and served and did what
my people could not do. That's why He came. That's why
the scriptures tell us by one man sin entered the world and
death by sin. It was by one man as a substitute,
as a representative that we died and we fell and that man is Adam. And he set him up and made him
the head to picture Christ the last Adam. He is the only representative
of his people and it's by one man's obedience that we're made
righteous. That's Christ, and this is what
faith lays hold of. This is what faith rests in.
He always pleased the Father, and His people always pleased
the Father, because we were in Him. We were in Him. The Lord will never take His
grace from His people. Grace is free. It's unmerited.
Grace is in Christ. His love is in Christ. And everything
He has for us is in Christ. Because Christ has satisfied
the law. He's honored God perfectly. God won't take, He won't take
just It's not just the old college try. It's got to be perfect to
be accepted of God. And that's what our Lord Jesus
did. And that's what He's encouraging us with right here. The good
works that He did is where we stand. And He went to that cross
and bore the sin and all our rebellion and all our iniquity. You know what iniquity is? Iniquity
is our righteousnesses. They don't equal true righteousness.
We have all sin and come short of the glory of God. But He even
put away the sin of His people and justified us. That's what
righteousness is. That's what justification is,
is to be made perfect in Christ. You and I, in ourselves, are truly helpless. Anything we do, believing, loving,
persevering, any good work, anything we do that is truly good is of
God. Here's what Isaiah said, the
Lord said through Isaiah, we all do fate as a leaf. We don't
even stir up ourselves to call upon Him and take hold of Him.
Look at the apostles that night. They heard the promises, they
heard the word, they heard everything our Lord said, but they could
not stir themselves up to rejoice. They were sorrowful. Let that news come to one you
love, somebody that you love in your family. Tell me, you
can stir yourself up to rejoice. It can't be done. Only by the
Spirit of God. And everything we do, brethren,
everything we do, God gets the glory because it's only by Him. It's only by His power. It's
only by His Spirit. But those that He brings to faith
in Christ, brethren, He's going to continue giving the Spirit. The Spirit abides in us and He's
going to continue stirring you up in your heart to lay hold
on Him. Our Lord Jesus said, there's
going to be many in that last day that are going to say, Lord,
Lord, didn't we preach in your name? Didn't we cast out devils? We'd have nothing to do with
sinners. Didn't we do many wonderful works? Didn't we give everything
we had to the poor? Didn't we do all these humanitarian
efforts? Didn't we just pour ourselves
out to serve people? These are all things we normally
equate with fruit, don't we? And our Lord said, it's not the
man that does those things that's going to be accepted. It's he
who does the will of my Father. What's the will of the Father?
Christ has been repeating it over and over in John 14. Believe me. Believe on me. Love me. Love one another. Whatever is not created in the
heart by God and done in faith as unto the Lord with love in
the heart to the Lord, It's not doing the will of the Father.
No matter how perfect the outward may be, it's faith and love in
the heart. And here's what our Lord said
the test will be. Here's the test. Those that are
on Christ the one foundation, those that have believed on Him
and built on Him alone and put no confidence in themselves,
here's the test. When the storm comes, they're
going to still be planted on that one foundation. That's the
test when the storm comes. And if your house is built on
sand, if you're built on sand, if you're trusting in you in
any regard, you're going to fall. Not just fall and stumble, go
to hell. That's what he's talking about.
You're going to miss it. You're going to miss Christ.
But I tell you what, storm after storm after storm, and there's
going to be a lot of storms we're going to go through. There's
going to be storms of our own personal sin, there's going to
be storms of our brethren's sin, there's going to be storms of
heresy, there's going to be storms of persecution, and the last
storm you're going to face is going to be the ultimate storm,
and it's going to be the grave. Who brings you through every
one of them? Same one that brings you through the last one. It's
the same one that brings you through the last one. And what
do God's people do that have faith in Christ and love for
one another? You do just what you do when
you see a storm come through a town. When it's over with,
the people come out from wherever they were sheltered and they
start helping each other recover after the storm. And storm after
storm after storm, this is where the true test is. This is what
God's people are going to be doing. They're going to be looking
to Christ, that one foundation, trusting Him, and they're going
to start helping one another recover from the storm. We're
either going in a storm, we're in a storm, or we're coming out
of a storm. You must, through much tribulation,
enter the kingdom of heaven. That's what this whole thing
is about. God doesn't give us faith and plant us in a green
field with sunshine and blue clouds on a bluebird day and
just leave us there. He sends us through some fire
and He sends us through some storms to prove that the faith
He's given is His gift and His sustaining and His keeping and
that salvation is entirely of Him. That's what He's proving.
So that when it's all said and done, those that weather the
storm and remain on the foundation have to say, there is no possible
way I could still be trusting Him and still be found in Him
but by Him. but by Him. But here's the good news, brethren. Here's the good news. We only
have one righteousness. That's the Lord our righteousness.
And He has promised, because I live, you shall live also. He will keep you. Everybody that
he laid down his life for, he's going to birth them again. He's going to regenerate them
and give them spiritual life. And not only that, he's going
to sustain that life he's given. And he is that life he's given.
And when you die, when this body perishes and you die, you face
that last ultimate storm. Our Lord Jesus said, he that
believes on me shall never die. Because He lives, you shall live
also. When it comes time that we ourselves,
our brethren, are to depart, because our Lord has made this
promise, we'll still be planted on the rock and have every reason
to rejoice. I know that we sorrow when loved
ones depart. I know that. We can't help that. I've experienced that with loved
ones. You have, too, and we'll experience that again. It may
be I go to the physician and get the news that I only have
a short time. You may get that news. But this
is the truth of it. We all have that news already.
This life's a vapor. We're going to perish. This body's
going to die. We have to have Christ our life.
You could go through this world and accumulate everything and
just do so many wonderful works and be so admired and extolled
and honored by men and put it all up in barns and say, look
what all I have. I can just eat, drink, and be
merry. Everything's good. When that day comes, it's going to get real. It's
going to get real. And who's going to be our rejoicing? You've seen this. You've seen
brethren who, when you need dying grace, just like the Lord gives
more grace to bring you through every storm, when you need dying
grace, the Lord gives you more grace. And I've talked to brethren
who he's done that for, who are so encouraging and so... And
what do they say to you? In essence, this is what they're
saying, if you loved me, rejoice, because I'm going to my father.
And no matter who you are, no matter what storms the Lord's
brought you through in this world, when you face that storm, if
you have Christ, and He's your only righteousness, He's your
only hope, you can say the same thing. Rejoice. I'm going to my Father. I'm going to my Father. And here's
the good news too. Just like He went to the Father,
and sent the Spirit, and by His sovereign hand provided for His
apostles for a lot longer through the rest of their days, and then
eventually brought them to the Father, He'll do the same for
those you leave behind. And if you're the one that's
left behind and somebody, a believer, a loved one is departing, He'll
provide for you. But He's going to keep His people
believing Him and trusting Him. Brethren, try to look beyond
the storm. In every storm you go through,
try to look beyond the storm. And look to the joy set before
you. It all has a purpose. It's not just whatever will be,
will be, and it's not just whatever this thing is the world said.
It's God working all things together for good to them that love God,
to them who are the called according to His purpose. And that purpose
is who He foreknew, who He elected, who He loved from eternity. Then
He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His
Son. What's He doing through these storms? It's like the story
I told you about the illustration they used to say about the old
man that was whittling, you know, and he's carving out these dogs.
Somebody said, well, how do you do that? He said, I just take
away everything that don't look like a dog. And that's what the
Lord, he's conforming us to his image. He already has in spirit.
And He's bringing us to trust none but Him. To trust none but
Him. That's the purpose. Because whom
He did foreknow, them He predestinated to be conformed to the image
of His Son. And them He predestinated, He called. And them He called,
He justified. And them He justified, He glorified.
If God's for you, nobody can be against you. If God justified
you, if Christ laid down His life for you, and He's your life
at God's right hand interceding for you and keeping you and bringing
you through this world, I mean, that's the ultimate enemy
is that grave. Death, where's your sting? He
took away the sting of death when He put away our sin. It
has no claim on you. It had no claim on Him. He's
at God's right hand because He pleased the Father. And He's your life there because
in Him you fulfilled all righteousness. That's our only hope, brother.
But if that's our hope, we can have this confidence. If you love me, rejoice, because
I go to my Father. What a word. What a word of comfort. What a word of comfort. Let's
go to Him. Father, thank You for this day.
Thank You for Your Word. Thank You, Lord, for giving more
grace making your people witnesses to your grace and your keeping,
preserving power. Lord, we thank you for faithful
brethren who encourage us and point us to Christ and remind
us that he truly is our life. Thank you, Lord, for this gospel.
Thank you for continuing to plant it in our hearts and keep us
looking to you only. Lord, be with our brethren who
have lost loved ones and those who will lose loved ones. Help
us to remind each other these words. You've reminded us, Lord,
we don't sorrow as those that have no hope. We have this sure promise. Christ
our life. Lord, help us. And Lord, we ask
you, We ask you, Lord, to give this
life to those that are lost, that you've loved, that you've
redeemed. We ask you, Lord, to make them see, make them know
and rejoice with us in this good news. Lord, we thank you. We have none
to glory in but you, and sorry that we're so full of unbelief
and that we don't We get cast down and over much sorrow. Help us to believe. Help us to
remember. Help us to rejoice. How we do thank You, Lord. In
Christ's name we ask it. Amen.