Well, good morning, everyone.
I'm glad you are all well and with us. Let's turn to John chapter 13.
I might not have timed this latter
part of this text as accurately as I should have, but either
way, the Lord be praised. That's a nice way of saying we
may or may not finish this text today. When we look at one of the themes
of John's Gospel, we see many, but when we look at one of the
primary themes of John's Gospel, we cannot avoid the constant
use of the teaching or the doctrine of God's glory. Everywhere we
turn, either the narrator, John, the one who wrote the text, or
Jesus speaking, They are speaking about the glory of God. Now,
we've learned through our time in John's gospel that the glory
of God is to basically see God for who He is. That's what it
means. So, in other words, when the
Bible teaches, when John says in John 1, we have seen God's
glory, glory as of the only Son of the Father, full of grace
and truth, that means that we have seen, as we see in verse
18 of John 1, the fullness of God as He is able to be revealed. Now, I want you to think about
that for a moment, because moving into the latter couple of years
of this gospel, we're going to continually build up to that
day that we'll see today Jesus saying, it is time for the Son
of God to be glorified. But if you look there and you
understand that the Bible dictates this truth, that God has revealed
himself only through his word and that the living reality of
his word and self-revelation is the person of Jesus Christ
in the incarnation. So that as we see Jesus, we see
the fullness of God complete. I know that seems redundant but
it emphasizes the point. So that there is no other way
to know God, no other way to come to God, no other way to
experience God, no other way to illustrate God, no other way
to explain God, no other way to do any of these things except
see Jesus in the flesh doing that which he did, saying that
which he said, and teaching that which he taught. In every aspect,
the fullness of every 100% thing there is to know about who God
is, is only able to be seen in the person of Christ. Now, that doctrine is thick in
John's Gospel, like I said. It starts out there, we have
seen God's glory. We have seen the one who is the
creator walk as a man among us. We have seen him heal and teach. We've seen him do miracles. We've
seen him speak of the father. We've seen him do the work that
the father was doing. We see him speak the words that
the father was speaking. We see him claim and take authority
of all the Old Testament prophets for himself. And in doing so,
Jesus the Son is actually giving glory to God the Father because
He's saying that the prophets wrote of Me and I, in a sense,
write of the Father, so therefore they wrote of the Father. It
is all about Me. Yet there's another aspect of
glory that we even see in the humanity of Jesus in His ministry.
He never glorifies Himself. Because to glorify Himself apart
from the Father would not be glory. To glorify Himself not as God,
to give all glory to the Father, would not be appropriate because
it would not reveal God for who He was. It would not reveal the
divine. And so now look at our text today
with that in mind. John 13, starting in verse 31. When He had gone out Jesus said,
now who is he talking about there? We learned last week that Lazarus,
goodness gracious, I'm backing up a few months, that Judas Iscariot
had just been commanded by Jesus to go and start the process of
his arrest and crucifixion. And this is one of the main reasons
that Jesus is very troubled. He knows that what he was sent
to do is about to take place. It's about to take place. So
He sends the very one that He had ordained to be the one to
betray Him, to do the betraying. So when Judas had gone out, Jesus
said, so who's left in the room? The eleven. Twelve minus Judas
Iscariot. And Jesus says, now is the Son
of Man glorified. And God is glorified in Him.
If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself. and glorify him at once. Little
children, yet a little while I'm with you. You will seek me. And just as I said to the Jews,
so now I also say to you where I am going, you cannot come.
A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just
as I have loved you. You are also to love one another.
By this, all people will know that you are my disciples. If
you have love, for one another. And I want to stop there. I may
finish it, but I may not. So here is this picture. Jesus
is troubled. Jesus illustrates his humility
through his disrobing and washing the feet of his disciples. We
see Peter and his understanding of things and his zeal without
knowledge. We see his infantile faith. We
see his earthly mind overshadowing the divine work in that sense. Always trying to give a reason
and an excuse and an extra effort to go. I'm with you Jesus as
long as I'm here you I got your back. I mean this has been Peter's
mantra. It's sort of humorous when we
get through with the Gospels and we see what Peter has done,
and then we see what happens to Peter. Toward the end of this
text, we see what Jesus tells him he will do. And there's a
great need for the context there about loving one another. And
then Peter, of course, would have probably said, nobody loves
you like I do, Jesus. But if you think about what's
being done here, Jesus says something, and I'm going to skip around
in this text that I am this morning so that I can keep the emphasis
where it needs to be. I want you to look at the latter
part of verse 32. Glorify Him at once. Glorify Him immediately. So I
want you to keep in mind that the glorification of Jesus is
not the ascension. It's not the resurrection. What
is in view here is the cross, is His death. that Jesus is speaking to his
humility through the naked washing that even a Jewish slave would
not be permitted to do. He did this as the leader, as
the head, as the teacher, as the rabbi, as the master, as
the Lord, as God. And it insulted the disciples
and Peter spoke out and then Jesus says, if I do not wash
you, you have no place with me. You are not mine. You cannot
come to me. If I do not wash you, you are
not clean. You're not whole. You are not
sanctified. You have not been set apart by
the Father for life. You've not been set apart in
me. All these things. And of course, Peter says, then
wash me all over, Lord. Wash me all over. Wash everything
that I have. Wash my hands. Wash my feet.
Wash my head. It doesn't matter. Just wash
me. If that's what it takes for me to be with you, then do whatever
it may take. I'm all in. Oh, the irony of
the fleshly zeal. Oh, the irony of the fleshly
zeal, for it won't be some short hours before Peter says in public,
he does not know and has never known Jesus. Jesus says that he knows whose
are his because he has chosen them and that they are clean,
but not all of them. And now the unclean one, the
one for whom Christ will not die, the one that will not be
redeemed, the one that did not belong to Christ. He was not
a sheep. Judas is out of the room and
now Jesus is speaking to the elect disciples. And Jesus is stating, now is
the Son of Man glorified at once. At once. Judas is going to do
what he's going to do that will lead to the glorification of
Jesus at once. The time, the hour has come. Now we've seen some practical
applications of all of this text, specifically in the faith of
the disciples and how weak it has been and how frustrating
it has been. And there's some confusion sometimes
that people talk about and get flustered about because they
don't understand certain words. And let me define a particular
word related to faith that we use and I have used often for
years, the essence of faith. So if we talk about the essence
of something, we're talking about its quality. We're talking about
its ability, we're talking about something that relates to how
it appears or how it works or how it how it functions. The essence of faith is the quality
of it. And we have learned that though
these disciples, those, these elect disciples that are left
with Jesus now in this room, believe that he was indeed the
son of God and had been granted life by the spirit, that their
faith was a shipwreck or for the brothers of our fellowship
was a dumpster fire. It was terrible. And there was
nothing they could do about it, for their flesh is weak, but
their spirit is willing. As we'll see in the Garden of
Gethsemane some six or seven years from now, we'll see that
there is a desire in us as rebirthed people to walk and believe and
to hope and to hold fast to Christ, but there is no provision in
the flesh that will allow us and permit us to do that. So
it is more in the what? Faithfulness. It is only in the
faithfulness of Jesus to preserve His people. not the essence of
our faith. Because, beloved, if you sit
here today and you tell me, Pastor, my faith never wavers. My faith
never fails. My faith has never been shaken.
I want to trade places with you because I need to hear how that
works. I want to know what that sounds
like. I want to know what that looks like. I want to see a contextual
example of where that is. And I want to be mentored a little
bit on how to keep my mind focused that my faith never fails. Now,
of course, we get the didactic, we get the teaching of scripture.
We understand where Paul tells us to keep our mind on that which
is eternal. So we have to make deliberate
decisions and focused opportunities to keep, to not look and think
about the calamities of life. But even then, it is all about
the faithfulness of Christ. So our assurance is not based
on how strong our faith is. Our assurance is based on the
faithfulness of the strong one from whom we cannot be snatched.
No one will tie him up and tear us out of his home. No one will
put us into the slavery of sin. No one will bring us back into
the bondage of judgment and the law. No one can take us away
from Christ. We will not be cast away. We
will not be snatched away. And beloved, that is the basics
of God given saving faith. That's the basic essence of it,
and it can grow from there and it can become strong and in an
instant it can be wrecked. whether these men understood,
and they did not understand Jesus, they did not understand what
He was trying to say. He even says, you don't understand
Me, but there will come a time when you will understand. He
even says, I'm sending Judas to do what needs to be done so
that when you recognize it, you'll remember this. We see in John,
we see a couple of chapters later, where Jesus tells the disciples,
as a matter of fact, in the next chapter, that the Spirit of God
will come to you and give you remembrance of all of me, all
of my teaching. So it wasn't even on the faithfulness
of the apostles to remember everything that they've been taught. It
was the Spirit, it was God the Spirit Himself who would give
them the words to write in the letters that we call the Holy
Writ of the New Testament. Because there are no mighty men
of God who have a mighty faith to do mighty things that we're
to emulate and in that same way prove ourselves worthy. The patriarchs
of old, of ancient Israel. It's funny because in our current
idealism, it's easy to teach even children, be David. Don't
be scared. Pick up those rocks and sling
them at the giant. You want to be David? Your legacy? You want
to be a murdering adulterer, liar, deceiver, whose kingdom
fell apart as a man after God's own heart? We don't want to trust
in the faith of David. We want to trust in the faithfulness
of Christ. And that's in anything. You want
to be Moses? You want to be Moses who can't
do something as simple as speak to a rock? Who in anger and frustration
just strikes a rock? Who disobeyed God on a simple
thing like, tie your shoes, children. Don't stand up in the chair,
children. I mean, I'm being funny. You want to be Moses when God
kills in the wilderness? But he obtains the true rest.
He obtains the true promised land in that moment when the
shadow of it all is where Joshua leads the people of Israel. I want to be Abraham. No. And why do I use these terms? Because these are the exact arguments
that people of this day use with Jesus and use with the people
of Israel and use with the Gentiles in their midst. They stood on
the legacies, on the shoulders of the patriarchs and they said,
look at who we are. Look at whose we are. Look what
we do. We operate as they did. Look
at us. I would say that Lot was a greater
Christian than most men. He at least walked away from
Sodom. You see how that sounds? Who
do you want to be? I want to be Lot. Nobody says
that. I want to be Lot. How about you
ladies? I want to be Ram. great legacy. See, we finish thinking in the
wrong way. Nobody wants to be the fallen
woman that becomes a hero. We want to be the strong guy
and ignore the end pages. Peter wants to be the strong
guy. The disciples want to be the strong, the powerful, the
willing, the amazing. Beloved, God hasn't called you
to be the powerful, the willing, the amazing. God has called us
to be the meek, the lowly, the broken, the humble. He's called
us to be quiet when we're persecuted. He's called
us to take in. what comes, pray for our enemies,
love them, give them our clothes as they persecute us, that we
might in turn heap the clothes of judgment upon their heads.
So even in my best way of loving my enemies, I have this smirk
of haughtiness knowing they're going to get it. I'm not kidding. Okay, I'm going
to give them my shirt, I'm going to give them my food, but they're
going to burn for it. I mean, that's not love, is it? So in my best of days, whether
I can hide that from myself or pretend it doesn't happen or
what, in my best of days it still does not turn to my favor. What is in my favor? The faithfulness
of Christ and God has glorified Him in the finished work that He's
done. So the God the Father, God in
the obedience of Jesus Christ is glorified because we see the
perfection of God's righteousness in the walking of Jesus. In the
death of Jesus, we see God glorified because we see the justice and
the righteousness of God through the wrath of God being poured
out on Jesus instead of the elect. We see the glory of God in the
exaltation and the resurrection of Jesus. Because the vindication
of God's righteousness that this is his son, the very essence
of his person, the exact imprint of his nature. This is not a
sinner born of man, but this is the son of the living God
born of a virgin. And he is raised to life because
he does not deserve death and it has no power over him. For
the law cannot keep Jesus because he is the fulfillment thereof.
He is the righteousness of God. God is glorified in the presence
of Christ. in the exaltation of Christ,
as Paul would say in the Philippians and the Colossians, that God
exalted Him. He sits at the right hand of
majesty. We see the glory of God in perfection when we see
the person of Christ. And as you'll pray in chapter
17, return to me to the glory that I had before the world was
created. God, in His sovereignty, has
saved His people through the absolute glorious work of Jesus
Christ, who is God the Son. And in doing so, God's kingdom
has come. It's not coming. It's not going
to get here one day. It is. Jesus' glorification is
not something we look to. It's finished. So now is the son of man glorified. Now is the son of man glorified.
It's interesting that he uses that phrase, isn't it? Not the
son of God there, but the son of man to emphasize first, as
we see in the Old Testament, a divine reference to God, the
incarnate God, the son. but also to establish the reality
of Jesus' humanity. We see perfectly in John's Gospel,
Jesus is God and Jesus is man. One person, two natures, distinct. How is it that Jesus is the creator
of the universe when he lay in his mother's arms as an infant?
How is it that Jesus is the God of the cosmos when he's in his
surrogate father's workshop building furniture with wood? Yet he's learning how to hold
a hammer. He's learning how to hold a chisel. He's learning
how to speak words. But yet he's God and he knows
all things and he's the author of all things. He's creator of
all things. He created all languages, all knowledge, all wisdom. Because
he subjected himself to being human without ever erasing his
divine nature. But the two were not one superman. How do we reconcile that? We
don't. So the glory of God is glorified
in this man who is the Son of Man, who is the Son of God. And
God is glorified in him. Now remember in chapter 11 where
Jesus says to the disciples and to the courier who goes back
to Mary and Martha, this illness will not end in death. It is
for, it happened, it is destined, it is purposed so that the Son
of Man would be glorified in it. The Son of God would be glorified
in it. So we get to see who Jesus really
is. This is where I first introduced
this idea. Jesus is saying at that point when he stands outside
the tomb of Lazarus and commands this man to walk out and transform
his lowly body back to life, he proves he is God, thus revealing
his divine person. So we get to see the fullness
of God in the work of Christ. Christ is the life giver. Christ
is the Creator. Christ is the Redeemer. And so in all of these things
now, we see that Christ is glorified. What is in view here? The cross.
So the Son of Man is glorified now, and God is glorified in
Him. How? When He kills Him. We get
to see God for who He is when God the Father kills God the
Son. How is that? Because we get to see God's righteousness.
Romans 3, just pop into your head. Starting in verse 21 through
the end. The righteousness of God manifested
apart from the law, though the law and the prophets bear witness,
the law and the prophets, the law and the prophets are a shadow
of the righteousness of God. But the true righteousness of
God is Jesus Christ and is seen in the fullness of its absolute
perfection. When God the father put Jesus
Christ on the son to be propitiation. Paul explains it very clearly.
It's an amazing truth. It has bogged me down for years
and I understand it, but I don't. I can just reiterate it over
and over in my mind and I'm in awe of it every day. But the
glory of God in the highest is the lifting up of Jesus Christ
on the cross. Now see, I'd much rather take
the glorification of His coming when the heavenly host declared
to the shepherds in the fields, these lowly, unclean people,
unto you a child is born to stay in Bethlehem. A son is given
and the government shall rest. And I'm thinking, oh, yes, look,
this is glorious. But Jesus says that the glory
of God is on the cross. The glory of God is best understood
at the cross. The glory of God is best experienced
at the cross. That is why Jesus taught toward
the cross. That is why Moses taught toward
the cross, lifting up the serpent in the desert. Jesus says that
was Him in John 3. That is why all the prophets
looked toward the cross. How is it that God would justify
a wicked people? It is not for your sake that
I'm about to act, says God through Ezekiel, but for my name's sake,
which you have defiled amongst the nations. Does that sound
like a group of people that can rightly be forgiven? No. It is only at the cross that
makes God righteous in His forgiving of a defiled people. of a defiled
person, of a guilty person. God is glorified in Him, and
if, verse 32, if God is glorified in Him, this is just a reciprocation,
this is just an obvious, logical turn. So the Son of Man is glorified,
and then God is glorified in Him, and if God is glorified
in the Son of Man, then God will also glorify Him in Himself,
so that as you look to the Father, you see, What? If you look to the work of the
Father, you see the Son. And God has glorified Him at
once. And I take this in the context
of the cross because that's what's in view here. The whole washing
of the feet is to point to the cross. The sending out of Judas
is to point to the cross. It's the death of Jesus. And
the cross is motivated by the divine prerogative After the
counsel of the will of God alone has God acted and it is not a
circumstantial response. It is a divine decree before
the foundations of the world. It is why God created all that
there is and put life into men so that he would be glorified
in the killing of his son, that his people would be set free
from the bondage of sin. And so now we see Jesus expressing
the undercurrent of this work. What is it that we've seen thus
far? What is it? Remember, I'll go back to John
11. It says, Jesus loved Lazarus
and Martha and Mary. Not quite that order, it's a
paraphrase. So, He stayed. Why? That Lazarus would die. So the love of Jesus for Lazarus
caused him to stay longer so that Lazarus' body would truly
be dead. What so? You remember that? Because
God's, Jesus' love for God the Father is absolute. And the love of God the Father
for the Son is immeasurable. So that in God's love for His
Son, in the Son's love for the Father, even in the glory of
it all, there is a love for the elect that we cannot grasp. So
that in Jesus' love for His sheep, it is a reflection of His love
for the Father. So now, there is an intimate
response here that Jesus has concerning the cross. He's already
tried to show them humility and given them an example, a rule
to follow. And now he's about to explain
this humility as the ultimate end of the cosmos and everything
in it so that he can be seen for who he truly is. And the
very next thing out of his mouth is little children. It's the
only place in this entire gospel that you see this phrase. And
you see it seven times in John's first epistle. John adopts this
phrase to speak to the sheep when he writes. My little children. It's possessive. It's intimate. It's not like, you child. It's
endearing. For yes, it is for the glory
of God that Christ goes to the cross, but what is the ultimate
outcome of that? That He has purchased a people
for Himself. He has saved those that the Father
has given to Him. He has satisfied God's justice
and fulfilled God's righteousness in His death. So He says, My little children,
yet a little while I'm with you. I'm going to be here for a little
bit longer. And you'll look for me, but just as I said to the
Jews, remember Jesus differentiated his disciples, even though they
were all Jewish from the Jews. When Jesus talks about the Jews,
he's talking about the spiritual leaders, the elite, the Sanhedrin,
the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the teachers of the law. Just as I say to the Jews, so
now also say to you where I am going, you cannot come there.
Do you remember that? Do you remember what He said there? John 8 and
some other places. So where are you going to go?
So first they give two examples to Jesus. So where is He going?
They mock. Are you going to go be the prophet
to the Gentiles? Are you going to go back to Sychar
and that's going to be your people? And they sort of snicker and
laugh and poke. Or then they say, oh, He's going to kill Himself.
That's how we can't find Him. How dare he say we can't go where
he is, we have absolute authority. We can find you Jesus, we'll
arrest you Jesus. Not until the hour has come.
He was right there in the temple. And the guards went and stood
around him and wouldn't arrest him, remember? We just can't
touch him. I'm putting my hands on that
man. This endearing and intimate expression
of Jesus now is real and true and perfect. And Judas is not
in the room. He's not saying this to Judas.
Remember last week I tried to make a disconnection between
the human reality of how we're to be loving, even to our enemies,
to have an affection in some sense, versus the divine love
of Christ for His elect alone. There's a difference just because
we're supposed to be loving and we see the expression in the
person of Jesus. It doesn't mean that God loves
all people because the scripture teaches that God loves his people
and his love is expressed in this way that he gave Jesus Christ
the son to save them from their sins. So here's the divine love of
God for the elect. He loves them with a love that
is divine and it is a love of certainty. What does that mean
for you, beloved? That means that when Jesus was
heading to the cross, and I hate to use an old, probably backwood
hymn that's not theologically correct, but I remember maybe,
you know, when He was on the cross, I was on His mind. You
know, I love that as a kid. And then I hated it in my doctrinal
heart stages. And now I come back to understand
in the right context, it's true. When Christ went to the cross,
Peter was on his mind and the father was on his mind. God's
glory was on His mind and God's glorified in the cross. God's
glory in the cross is to reveal who He really is in His justice
and His righteousness and in His mercy. It's all of grace.
See, grace. Grace upon grace. Upon grace. And I'm not saying that I believe
that whoever wrote that song or whatever. I'm just saying
it came to mind. Beloved, Christ went to the cross
knowing for whom He would die, knowing the sins that He would
pay for, knowing who He would set free before the foundations
of the world, He knew. And in His humanity here, He
is truly revealing an endearing, divine, permanent, eternal affection
for His people. And because the affection of
Christ, listen to this, is a love of certainty, they will not perish. You will not perish. You hear
that? You see what? Saving faith, no matter how strong or large
or small or weak it may be, rests in that truth. You will not perish
for Christ has satisfied the debt of your sin. And that is something that God
gives His people. It's not something that years
of study gives you. It's something that an instantaneous
work of God in His work. Jesus says to Nicodemus in John
3, the spirit blows where it wishes and immediately and supernaturally
you have a clear resolve that Christ alone is your only hope. And many people claim to have
that. They claim to say, well, the divine love of Christ is
mine. But then they go to explain Christ and it's not the Christ
of the Bible. They go to explain the gospel and it's not the gospel
given to the saints. They go to explain the work of
Christ and the cross work of Christ, and it doesn't make any
sense. They start to add to and take away. They start to say,
well, Jesus love and his death. It paid for the sins of all people. That's not true. And so we begin
to start, take and make tests and see by the profession of
what people learn as the people of God as to whether or not they
truly belong to Christ. And God will teach His people
all things. The Spirit of God will teach
us through the Word as we disciple one another, as we sit under
the teaching, as we read the Bible every single day, and as
we continue to walk in this life, hoping in Christ, He will teach
us through His Word the truths of Him. And sometimes we will grow deeper
and deeper in our understanding. We may begin to learn English
terms that have no importance outside of their exact contextual
meaning. like propitiation, like justification,
like glorification. If you say these things are not
important for you to study and to know, you're saying that God
and what he says is irrelevant. God's people will grow in their
understanding of these. How can we understand the fullness
of what Christ has done without the spirit, without the scriptures,
without each other? In that order. This is the love of certainty.
They will not perish. And though what we're about to
see in the next few chapters that it may seem wrong, but they
will not lose faith. That's why I explained about
the essence of faith is not where we find our assurance. We find
our assurance in the faithfulness of Christ because our faith is
like this. It's up and it's down and it's
up and it's down. It's strong and it's weak and it's strong
and it's weak. And I find that sometimes when it's really hard
and things are really tough and our faith is really weak, it
gets the strongest on the outside of that, doesn't it? And then we're really running
strong and then when we think, nothing can shake my faith, we
fall on hold. And then we wallow and we worry
and we labor and we lament. And then our faith is almost
invisible. It's almost inexpressible. Our
joy is nowhere to be found. And then in the midst of that
holding, the Spirit of God rises up, snatches us out, pulls us
back in. And we go, oh, what a wonderful...
God gets the glory in it all. So when our faith is strong,
God gets the glory. When our faith is weak, God gets the glory
because He is the one who holds us all together. He will keep
His own in faith. They will not be cast away, though
their faith right now is very weak. They didn't understand
one thing that Jesus was trying to tell them. And on every turn, Peter is contrary. He is constantly contrary. It should have been Mary, Mary,
quite contrary. It should have been Peter, Peter, quite contrary. It just
doesn't rhyme, so they didn't use it. Every time Jesus spoke, He had some response to the contrary. Beloved, even when that's true
for you, Christ is faithful. And I'm talking to you, saints.
I'm talking to you, beloved of God. I'm talking to you, the
elect. I'm talking to you, church. I'm not talking to people who
refuse the gospel. I'm not talking to people who have a false...
I'm talking about weak faith. God does not call it. Call it
against us. Because it's not about us anyway.
It's about His faithfulness. He grants it. He cultivates it. He grows us. We will not perish. We will not be cast away. Jesus
will lay down His life for these eleven and for the multitudes
of the elect throughout all of eternity. He will lay down His
life in just a few hours in real time in this narrative. In just
a few hours, He will lay down His life for Moses. He will lay
down His life for David. He will lay down His life for
Noah. He will lay down His life for Adam. He will lay down His life for these patriarchs, who everybody
esteems, who fail miserably, because He will not fail. Jesus will lay down His life
for Lazarus, and He will lay down His life for Mary, and He
will lay down His life for Martha. Not because they were faithful,
they lost all hope. If you'd just been here, Jesus,
why didn't you come? I am the resurrection, the life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll see him in the end, but right
now I miss him. Mary, Martha, you're not understanding,
but I'm going to die for you anyway. And God will grant you the clarity
of who I really am and what I've really done and how I hold you. Christ will lay down His life
for His sheep and they will have eternal life. He repeats the reality that He
will be departing. At the end of chapter 12 we see
He departs from public for the last time. And then He washes the feet of
the disciples and then He's preparing for the cross. He puts in motion
the end of His mortal incarnate state. And he will be departing by death.
He will be departing by the ascension. He will be leaving his own. Now put yourself in that place.
I mean, you know, we hate to see people we love leave town,
right? I remember as a kid, my grandparents
decided to go on mission and leave, leave the country, leave
the state. And it was devastating. I remember that day that U-Haul
left for the first time. I can feel it right here. And I remember the hateful, selfish
letter that I wrote to God. About six pages of sin. Still
got it. Not understanding didn't matter.
Now imagine being cast away from all of your family, being cast
away from your social center, being cast away from the market,
being cast away from being able to be reputable, being cast away
from your income, being cast away in the wilderness, being
cast away with a man who's hated, and you've got eleven other people
with you plus Jesus. And for three and a half years
you've lived from town to town, city to city, tent to tent. And the only thing you know is
that this man and the twelve of you have turned the world
upside down. The entire Palestinian world
is on fire because of Jesus. Politically, emotionally, socially,
financially. But the only thing you have to
hang on to is this one guy who started it all and he says, I'm
leaving. I'm leaving. I know when I left the church
in Virginia, even though it took me many, many years after telling
them, they never thought I would probably, but when I finally
left, it destroyed people. It destroyed them. They never got over it to this
day. And that was one of those seasons
where I realized that I put too much emphasis on who I was for
people rather than who I preached for people. And it was there that my exposition
began to transform, to point to Christ holistically rather
than thinking that I had something to do with them being held together. Because if we're the glue for
one another, when we leave, we fall apart. Jesus was the glue
for these disciples in every aspect of life. And then all
of a sudden, out of nowhere, He's been telling them for years,
But they've gotten together and they formulated plans and options
and opportunities to make sure this doesn't happen. And they're
thinking, we're going to go into our old age. We're going to see the
upside down of Rome. We're going to see Israel become
a strong worshiping nation again. And all of a sudden, Jesus is
like, I'm going like I told the Pharisees. And I'm telling you,
I'm going away. I'm departing from you and you
cannot come where I'm going. What did they think? I don't know. I mean, I imagine
it feels a lot like what we've all felt. You cannot come. But there's
a contrast here. He told the Jews, I'm leaving
and you cannot find me. Yet in verses 1 through 3 of
chapter 14, it says, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe
in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's
house are many rooms. I'm not lying. If it were not
so, I've not told you so. So I'd go to prepare a place
for you. Would I have told you if it wasn't
so, is what he's asking the question. And if I go, I'll come again
and take you to myself. And where I am, you may be also.
So see, I'm leaving you, but I'm not forsaking you. I'm going
to prepare to be with you again. Now we understand the imagery
there and I won't get into a preview of a couple of weeks from now
sermon, but we know that it's the cross work of Christ that
prepares us to be with the father. It makes us righteous. It sets
us apart. It sanctifies us fully and completely
forever, having no more work on our part to be done at all
in any way. We are set before God, perfect
and complete in Christ. But He told the Jews, you will
never find Me. He told the disciples, you will
come to where I am. I'm leaving. They won't find Me. You will.
What is He saying there? They're not Mine. Jesus will
never say to His own, you can never find Me. He says to His own, I've prepared
a place for you. And the door of that place is
My flesh. He told the Jews, you will die
on your sins. And the verse 19 of verse. Yes. Verse 19. I think it is a verse 18 of chapter
14. I will not leave you as orphans.
I will come to you yet a little while and the world will see
me no more. But you will see me because I
live. You also will live. You can't
come. You will never find me. You will
die in your sins. You can't come. You will see me again. You will
live. You see the difference. I'm laying
my life down for you and the fullness of God's glory is manifest
for you that you may live and you will see me though you cannot
see me. Peter expresses that. I know I quote this a lot, but
first Peter one. Where it talks over and over
and over and over again about suffering. I mean, imagine. these Jews in dispersion, just
like these 11 and what had cost to them all these thousands and
thousands and thousands of Jewish people that Peter writes to.
And what it's they're living in the desert. Starving. because of their faith in Christ.
Blessed be the God and Father, Peter 1 verse 3, of our Lord
Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy,
He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance
that is imperishable. undefiled, unfading, kept in
heaven for you, who, you, who by God's power are being guarded
through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last
day. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary,
you have been grieved by various trials, in order that the testing
of your genuine faith, which is more precious than gold that
perishes in fire, may be found to result, what's the faith found
to result in? Praise and glory and honor at
the revelation of Christ. Though you have not seen Him,
you love Him. And though you do not now see
Him, You believe in Him and you rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible
and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the
salvation of your souls. Joy in Christ in hardship is
inexpressible. The fakeness of this ridiculous
mindset that you've got to have a smile and no tears in this
life is absurd. Weep. kick the floor, cry out
in hopelessness, your Father will not forsake you. In your
weakness, He is all the strength you have. These disciples are about to
experience what true weakness really is. They're about to be
left for just a little while to be revealed to them exactly
what their flesh will do without the divine work of God. some of them. So then as Jesus is saying He's
leaving, but He will come again, they will live. Of course, they
don't hear that until just a few seconds later. He goes on to
say, a new commandment I give you, that you love one another. Now stop there. Jesus is leaving them in the
earth, but they have each other. See, their despair is, oh no,
our Savior is leaving, our Lord is leaving, our Master is leaving.
What shall we do? And Jesus goes, you got each
other. It's the point of my coming.
I come, I lay my life down for you, I give you life, and then
you live together. You're my body. You're my people. You're my sheep. You are my beloved,
prized children. Love one another. How? Just as I have loved you, you
are also to love one another. They have each other and Jesus
enforces the point of gospel unity here as a reflection of
his own love as the example. Unity comes unto intimacy. That's why it is probably one
of the key stumbling blocks of North American Christianity when
we think we come to church. You come here, you hear me up
here, jawing, jawing, hauling, hauling, talk for an hour, you
go home and that's the end of it. That's not Christian living.
The point of me and the other elders of the church standing
here is to equip you to be together. Not to go home and live an individual
Christian life, but to be together. One of you is in despair, we
are there. One of you rejoices, we celebrate
with you. But what do we do? We hide those
things. How is it that Jesus loved them?
He gave His life for them. We are to give our lives for
one another. That's the ultimate reality. of Christian living. And that's why we gather. You
know the word Ecclesia, which is translated in the English
extremely horribly as church, is actually gathering. It's something we do, not a place
we go. It's been a wig shop, it's been
a bra shop, it's been a shoe store. Lord knows what it'll
be in the next hundred years. It's a place The body is us. We are a family. As I've loved you, I am leaving
you to love each other. You have each other. Love each
other in the way that I love you. And I will reiterate in
that sense because we know that it is here. John establishes
this in his first epistle, the very first chapter. I'm going to read it. What does he say? First John
one that which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes and looked
upon and have touched with our hands concerning the word of
life. The life was made manifest and
we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim it to you, the
eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest
to us. That which we have seen and heard,
we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with
us. To the point of evangelism is to bring the body together. We've got to see the elect come
to faith. They will. And that's great. But no elect
person should come to faith without a family to be a part of when
they do. But you may have fellowship with
us in Christ. You ever seen people do evangelism
in the streets and they go into a town and they spend five days
and then they leave? And then sometimes many elect
sheep are left holding the bag of not knowing what to do. And then it's about what business
church has the best Jesus programs or something that might appeal
to them, or the tastiest hot dogs on midweek. You have fellowship with us because
we had fellowship with Christ. And if you have fellowship with
Christ, you have fellowship with us. Friends, it's like saying that if we are
in Christ, we're with Christ when we're together and he's
with us when we're together. It's interesting. I'm not that
smart. Where there are two or more gathered, I am with you. We proclaim to you so that you
too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship
is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. And we are
writing these things so that our joy together in fellowship
may be complete. So Jesus can say then, we can
apply this truth here in the context of John, it is there,
but not necessarily here in this very sentence. But it is implied. I am leaving, but you have each
other, love each other in the way that I have loved you and
you will be in my joy. You will be with me. Now, I know what some people
think when they hear this. What is this commandment? It's
a new commandment. John explains that. It's a new
commandment. It's not a new one, but one you've had from the beginning.
And we go on to see there, but let me explain to you several
different ways in which this word is used. Commandment. And why does Jesus say a new
one? Doesn't the law already say, doesn't the Decalogue of
the Ten Commandments already say to love your neighbor? To
love the Lord? Doesn't it already have those
rules in there? Well, there's three ways in which we understand.
the word commandment in John's Gospel. There is the commandment
given to Jesus by the Father. A new commandment to the disciples. Jesus has said already, the Father
has commanded me to say these things, commanded me to do these
things. So there is the commandment of
God the Father issuing these decrees And better word, charges
and instructions to the son. So sometimes we see it and it's
related to the father talking to the son. It's an instruction.
This is what you are to do and to say, my son. The other way
that we see it used is a legal order by the Sanhedrin. Here's
a new order. Do this. It's a law. It's a law,
law, law, law. Neither of those two ways is
what is being used here in context. This is a precept. In the way that I love, you also
should love. Haven't we already seen that?
As I've washed your feet. And that humility, you should
have that kind of humility to wash each other's feet. You should
have that kind of heart. And Jesus gives these commandments
this way. These rules of life. So that
we are no longer to look at the Ten Commandments and go, this
is how we live. No, we live by the law of Christ. Out of what? Out of love for Him because of
what He's done in His love for us. I explained this to a couple of
my kids yesterday, having the conversation in the car on the
way back from Lowe's. What motivates us in a way of
understanding our life in Christ is as if I had been given power
to cure cancer by touching someone. But I could only use it once,
and I was the only one in the world that could use it. And
I chose you. What would that do for you? It
would give you an amazing love for me. This man, he didn't heal
his own grandmother. He didn't heal his own children.
He healed me. Why would he heal me? Use that one touch to heal
me. Oh, you would feel indebted to
me, right? You would feel affection for me. You would tell a lot
of people. And then when I said to you,
what do I do for you? How can I be your servant? I
said, just eat right and go to bed on time. That's all I want
you to do. Take care of the rest of the
life that you have. Take care of your body. I just want you
to go to bed early, get up early, and eat healthfully. Simple instruction. There's a commandment. And you
would want to do that, and you would strive to do that, and
you would do that for a season, and every day for the first year
or two, you'd be like, man, I'm afraid of cancer, I'm going to
bed on time. But after a while, Netflix might release a new program,
you're staying up a little late. Krispy Kreme has another weird
donut they only give out once a year, and you sit there for
all night, and you get it, and you eat a dozen of them, and
next thing you know, you're in a habitual, what? Routine of
not taking care of your body. Did I take my gift back? Did
I take my finished work back? Have I failed to be your Savior?
Not at all. This is not something that Jesus
is requiring of us. Because if we don't do it, we're
going to not be His. This is not something that we
are to shudder under, thinking that if we aren't loving the
way we ought to be, we're in big, big trouble. No, this is
to show us that the power and the work of God in redeeming
His people comes with the authority to say, see how I've loved you,
now love each other. Because it is the point of joy
in Christ. I don't have time to unpack that
fully. Keep on loving, not the way you've
been commanded to love your neighbor in the past. But this is a new
rule. This is a new way of love. This
is a new understanding. The Decalogue couldn't touch
it. I fulfilled all that. You couldn't. Now, why don't
you walk in this way? Love as I love. The point of
this is that Christ wants his disciples to keep this perspective
as they see the crosswork unfold over the next few days. And what it does for us as we
look back upon it is it puts it in perspective for us to keep
Christ at the center of our being, at the center of our affections,
the center of our will, the center of our mind, by his grace, not
by our power. Especially concerning others.
There's not one place in the New Testament, one letter in
the New Testament. Well, that's a lie. There are,
but there's no letter in the New Testament that has to do
with an individual getting their individual lives in order. It has two things that are always
true of the New Testament letters. It's always written for the sake
of relationships with someone else. Philemon and Onesimus. for the sake of the body in that
area to see the gospel truth of what freedom is. That you
treat a slave who you once owned and the law said you could kill
as if he's the apostle Paul himself. You set him up better than you'd
set me up. That's what Paul says. But the
law says, I don't care what the law says. He's your brother now.
He's no longer your property. There's a social justice issue
there. You don't want to smoke that in your pipe. And all the rest, What do we
see? Was he Timothy? What's he being written to? That
he is equipped to what? Relate to the church, to the
church, to the body, to the assembly, to the saints. That they may
be equipped to do the work. There is never a time in any
of the pastoral or pauline epistles where there is individuals in
view. It is always the group of people in that area living
life together for the sake of the joy and the glory of Christ.
So that when we snatch ourselves out of that fellowship, we are
actually robbing ourselves of the actual means through which
God promises to grant us joy. To keep us centered on the gospel. It's not about just hearing me
teach. As your pastor, I'm supposed
to press you into this. That's why it's, listen to what I'm
about to say, overwhelmingly disturbing. to a point sometimes
where I fight anger when people forsake the assembly for no reason.
But yet they're never not at work Monday morning. Now there
are reasons. Yeah, you got schedules, you
got things, you got trips, you got sick, no problem. But friends,
look at the body of Christ. People are in habit of that.
And according to Paul's teaching, it's a disciplinary offense. Why? Because it just leads to
destruction. It leads to disaster for you, for me, in
our lives. I've said this before, I'm under
no more obligation than any of you to be in this building today.
The scripture does not call pastors to be in the fellowship any more
than it calls you to be in the fellowship. Think about it. Teach your children
that. Not in a staunch way. In a joyful way. Because this
is the answer, right? Seeing Christ's love is like
seeing Christ. Seeing Christ's love in the people
of Christ is like seeing Christ. Paul uses this, and I know I've
gone a little long, but just bear with me. Paul uses this
illustration of the church of Colossae. He says, I pray that
I may fill up in my suffering what is lacking in the suffering
of Christ. Now what he means by that is that not that Christ's
suffering was insufficient, it's just not visible. So that in
my suffering now, for the sake of the body, for the gathered
saints, I also suffer. And in suffering, I suffer as
Christ has suffered. And they see the power of God
in my suffering. Glory revealed in the love of
Christ at the cross. And glory revealed and the love
of the church for itself. And that love, that love is something
amazing. He gave His life for His sheep. And Peter and the rest of these
guys here, there's no telling what they're thinking, but Peter
never leaves it to wonder He says, Lord, where are you going?
Verse 36. And Jesus answered him where I'm going. You cannot
follow me, but after you will follow. Peter said, why can't
I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you. And Jesus asks, you will, you
will lay down your life for me. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. I say to you, Peter, before you
hear the rooster crow, that's an expression of saying before
the sun comes up, you're going to deny me three times. You're going to deny me three
times. Many believed in his name that
day. because of the signs He was doing.
But in Jesus' part, He did not entrust Himself to them because
He knew what was in all people and needed no one to bear witness
about man, for He Himself knew what was in man. When you were under the tree,
I saw you. Jesus is God. He knows the heart
of His people. He knows the heart of the reprobate.
He knew Peter. And He knew that Peter had the
zeal of legions, but the faith of an ant. I love you and I will lay down
my life for you and all I ask of you is for you to love one
another. And Peter's like, I'll love you. I'll lay down my life
for you. And listen to what happened.
He would not. He would reject Christ. So next
week we will pick up there and look in the synoptics and show
how that looks. But for today, I want you to
be encouraged by the gospel. I want you to be encouraged by
Christ. I want you to be encouraged and equipped about the intimacy
of the church. that Jesus Christ died for you,
beloved, gave His life for you, and His love will prevail. He
has saved you. He will not forsake you. He will
not cast you away. You have eternal life, and though
you cannot see Him, and though your joy sometimes is inexpressible,
you're alive. And you will not die. And you
will not fail. And you will not be lost. So
as we approach the Lord's table, keep that in mind. Let's pray. Father, we are glad to be able
to worship together. Lord, I pray for so many today
who have called in sick. Seems to be something going around.
Lord, I pray you'd heal their bodies, give them strength and
make them have a productive week. Lord, that we would be mindful
of one another, that we would pray for each other, for our
physical and mental, emotional needs, but Father, also and most
importantly for our spiritual health. that we would just be
encouraging, not upset or frustrated like it's so easy for our flesh
to be, but be encouraging, knowing that as we pray for one another
and encourage one another in the scripture, that you will
do that which you've purposed for us, each of us and each other.
So Lord, we are glad to be able to hear your word this day. And
as we take this table, Father, help us to just be celebrating
the purpose of life that is only found in Jesus Christ. It's in
His name we pray, Amen.