John chapter 14 and verse 7. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
and he says, If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father
also. And from henceforth ye know him
and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord,
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have
I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me,
Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen
the Father. And how sayest thou then, Show
us the Father? Believest thou not that I am
in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak
unto you I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth
in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father,
and the Father in me, or else believe me for the very works'
sake. Verily, verily, I say unto you,
he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also,
and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto
my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in
my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in
the Son. If ye shall ask anything in my
name, I will do it. Amen. May the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. It is a gift to be able to see
the bigger picture in a given situation. When change occurs, most of us
become preoccupied with the immediate implications and the problems
that will arise. And that was true here of Jesus'
disciples. They were becoming anxious, they
were concerned, they were troubled in their heart because the Lord
had told them that he was going away, that he was going to be
betrayed and that he would be going to the cross and that he
would be returning to his father. And they had become anxious.
Hence the Lord says, let not your heart be troubled. So that
was true of the disciples on this occasion. They were preoccupied
with the immediate implications of the problems that were going
to arise in their lives because of the changes that were about
to happen. So the Lord set out to help them
and to encourage them. And one blessing of being a believer
in the Lord Jesus is that we obtain comfort from knowing that
our Savior knows the big picture. When we become anxious about
what is going on, when we become embroiled in the detail, at least
a part of us can see the Lord knows. He is in charge. He has promised to do me good. It's going to be all right. And
that's true for the little things in life. It's true for the big
things of life as well. And it is also true for the catastrophic
things. Even when we think that our world
is coming to an end, the Lord Jesus will be there to help us
in our trouble and he will lead us through. When the Lord comforted
his anxious disciples with his words, let not your heart be
troubled, he was reminding them in the moment of their deep distress
to trust the Lord. Everything is under control.
Keep trusting the Lord. Keep your faith in God and stay
close to the Lord Jesus Christ. What he says to his disciples,
he says to us all. Now having heard Thomas's question
and the Lord's reply, Lord shows the way, the Lord saying, I am
the way, the truth, and the life. Now we come to Philip. Philip
is the next disciple with something wise to say, something wise to
contribute. Christ had spoken of his father's
house. And Philip felt sure that if
the Lord wished to supply his followers with something real
and tangible to remove their sense of anxiety, if the Lord
wanted to give them something encouraging to help them through
this difficult period of Jesus' death, then giving them all a
glimpse of the Father would be a suitable thing to do. Such
a vision of God he reasoned, such a vision as had been granted
to Moses and others of the Old Testament prophets. This he reasoned
would be sufficient to dispel their fears and satisfy them
in their loss. One can almost imagine Philip
looking around the other disciples' faces to see if anyone would
agree with him. To see if they were all nodding,
yes, that's what we would like. A glimpse of God's glory would
validate all the words of Jesus concerning his return to heaven,
a glimpse of God in his glory would confirm Christ's words
about the mansions that were being prepared for their possession. Let us not forget these men were
believers and yet they continued to struggle to understand the
true identity of the Lord and the nature of his work. Now again, we're not going to
be too hard on Philip. Don't we all find ourselves wishing
for a special revelation of God's person or power or purpose to
get us through a particular trial? Perhaps we wish for a sign to
point us in the right direction when we have a difficult decision
to make, or to prove to us that something is true, or to justify
us in taking one course of action or another. But Paul tells the Corinthians,
that as believers, we walk by faith and not by sight. As believers, we walk by faith
and not by sight. If we were actually to get one
of these tangible visions or one of these reality checks,
We would have to be very suspicious that that was actually not a
lie, maybe even a lie from Satan, because believers, as believers,
we are not to walk by sight. And if we were given one of these
confirming signs that we all often wish for and desire, then
we would not be walking by faith. And that is how believers operate.
Trusting Christ is not a single one-time experience like we trust
Christ when we get converted and then everything is sort of
just going along after that as if nothing else really matters. Trusting Christ is a whole-of-life
experience. Philip seemed to think that if
the Lord show us the Father, then that will suffice. Just
give us one glimpse of the Father and that will do us for the rest
of our lives. We'll never have another need
again. It'll suffice us. It will serve
and satisfy our desires. But trusting Christ is for life.
It is a continuing pathway of faith. It is believing what Jesus
has said and done and taught us of himself. It is trusting
in the saving purpose of the eternal God. It is an ongoing
faith. It is an enduring hope and a
reliance upon the Savior even when that's difficult to
do. It's a dependence on the salvation that he has accomplished,
even when we are faced with evidence to the contrary, such as our
own sin and our own failures and our own natural unbelief,
or the world's opposition, or the fiery darts of the devil. We hold fast, we keep the faith. But once again, I think we must
be grateful to Philip for this interjection, since with him,
as with Thomas, it elicited from the Saviour a precious statement
of profound value to the church. I say we should be thankful to
Philip, but I need to change that. What we need to be is thankful
to the Lord for using Thomas's question and Philip's ask to
bestow on the church such a beautiful statement of his union with his
father and the oneness of the father and the son. the oneness, the unity, the union
with which Christ could tell his disciples, he that hath seen
me hath seen the Father. If you've seen Christ, then you've
seen the Father. And here the Lord Jesus is telling
them and he's telling us that he is one with the Father. and one also as well with the
Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost in the Godhead, but the reference
is not to the Holy Ghost at the moment. He's speaking about the
Father because this is what Philip had raised with respect to this
view, seeing the Father. The Lord goes on to say that
he had seen the Father in as much as he had seen the Son.
They are one in nature. They are one in purpose. They
are co-equal together in the design of the everlasting covenant
of grace. They are united together in all
the great ends and objects for which the Son of God took our
flesh, came into the world, and became the God-man mediator. And all the offices that the
Lord Jesus Christ appropriated and fulfilled are in accordance
with the will of the Father and the will of the Son, such as
redemption and deliverance and salvation of God's elect. Philip's desire was to see the
Father. But the Lord tells him that having
seen the Son, he and the other disciples and every believer
has had revealed to them all that can be and need be known
of the infinite God. in his character, in his perfections,
in his attributes of holiness and wisdom and love and mercy
and goodness and truth. Everything that may be known
of God's will and purpose for the salvation of his people is
discovered in knowing Christ. All that may be known of God's
holiness and mercy, according to his eternal plan of redemption,
that plan which was settled in the everlasting councils of his
grace, is found in knowing Christ. Christ is the revelation, Christ
is the personification and the fullness of God's wisdom and
glory and power and faithfulness. and all that may be known of
him." Throughout the Lord's ministry, the disciples had seen and heard
divine revelations, heavenly doctrine, and they had witnessed
miracles, and they had marveled at the power of God in Christ. Anyone who had seen the Lord
Jesus by faith. Anyone who had seen the glory
of the Father had seen it manifested in Christ. No one can know Christ
without knowing the Father. And no one can know the Father
except he is revealed to him in the person and work of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Knowing one is knowing the other. Now again, as in verse one, where
the Lord Jesus Christ, verse one of chapter 14, where the
Lord Jesus Christ said, let not your heart be troubled. You believe
in God, believe also in me. The Lord Jesus calls here, where
we are now, the Lord Jesus calls his disciples to exercise faith. And as in verse one, this emphasis
on faith was significant because the Lord was going away. They
too, these disciples must learn to walk by faith and not by sight. So he says to them, believe me,
believe me. They had benefited from his presence
for three years. And now Philip and the others
must learn to believe the Lord, to lean on the words of Jesus,
whom they would no longer see. Thomas struggled to believe the
Lord. He struggled to believe that
the Lord was risen from the dead. He demanded to place his fingers
in the nail holes in Jesus' hands. And the Lord's response was,
because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. But blessed are
they that have not seen and yet have believed. These men knew
Jesus to be the Messiah, the Son of God, though even yet their
understanding was limited and partial. If you cannot believe me for
who I am, says the Lord, that is one with the Father. If you cannot believe me that
I am one with the Father, equal in power and glory with
him. Then believe me for the work's
sake, because these miracles were the work of the Father in
him. Christ's miracles testified to his true divinity, his true
identity as God. Raising the dead, healing lepers,
feeding multitudes, stilling the wind and the waves, truly,
is sufficient evidence of Christ's divine identity. So now the Lord, having made
this beautiful statement about His union with the Father, now
He builds upon this lesson. this lesson of his union with
the Father, to further encourage and strengthen the disciples
in what lay ahead for each of them. And remember, this is the
context. The context of this passage is
the fact that the Lord is leaving his disciples and providing for
them encouragement and comfort for the days that lie ahead in
his absence. and specifically their own ministries
of preaching the gospel of the kingdom. Their own ministries
would require them to accept Jesus at his word and trust him. And he promises them that though
he must leave them, yet he will equip them to do the very works
that he himself had done. They will be endowed with the
same Holy Spirit from heaven as he had received of his father. Remember when John the Baptist
baptized the Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit descended on him
from heaven as a dove and the word of God came, this is my
beloved son, hear ye him. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. These disciples would be endowed
with the same Holy Spirit from heaven as he had received of
his father, so that the works Christ did they shall do also,
and greater works than these. so that this promise was given
to these disciples. In fact, it had originally been
given to them when the disciples were sent forth preaching. Remember,
two by two, spoken about in Mark's gospel, chapter six, I think,
that they were sent forth preaching two by two. And here it is renewed
and enlarged by the Savior. Now it's best, I think, to interpret
these promises of power as being personal to the apostles. And we see that many wonderful
miracles did indeed attend their ministry. And we find that in
the book of the Acts of the Apostles. So we've got the Gospels, Matthew,
Mark, Luke, and John, which tell us the account of the Lord's
ministry from his birth up until his death. And then the Acts
of the Apostles, the next book in our New Testament, tells us
about what happened with these men these very individuals when
the Lord had ascended back into heaven. And we discover that
what the Lord promised them here in John chapter 14 was the reality
of their experience. So that we read, by the hands
of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought amongst the
people. They worked wonders, they worked
these signs and wonders amongst the people. And we can consider
these miracles greater, at least in so far as there were more
of them, because all the apostles performed these miracles. Now
we've got the written record in the Acts of the Apostles,
an extensive record only of a few of the apostles, especially the
apostles Peter and Paul. But it's clear that the miraculous
power of God was evident in the ministry of them all. And the evidence of this is the
worldwide spread of the gospel. And it testifies to the success
of these men who went into all the world preaching Jesus Christ
crucified. And yet it may be, actually,
that the greater work is not the miracles at all, but the
salvation of the vast numbers of sinners who were won to the
faith by the ministry of these men. Even greater numbers than
had been saved and converted during Christ's own ministry. And the signs and the wonders
which these men did perform, they validated the apostles'
ministries. They demonstrated the divine
authority that they had to preach God's gospel and proved their
message to be dependable when they lifted up the Lord Jesus
Christ as the only way of life. but the new creation is a greater
wonder than them all. To all these blessings, the Lord
adds that he will do for the apostles whatever they ask. Having returned to his father,
the Lord Jesus bestowed gifts and graces to enable the effectual
preaching of the gospel and to ensure the gathering in of the
elect of God. And let us realize this. Christ
is here anticipating his imminent death on the cross. That death
is the culmination, that death is the fulfilment, the satisfaction
of all the covenant obligations that the Lord Jesus Christ had
been given to fulfil. Christ's victory on the cross
fulfilled his covenant obligations. His obedience satisfied the law
and proved him to be a worthy sacrifice, but his suffering
satisfied justice as he bore the sins of his people in his
own body on the tree and carried their sorrows in his own soul. he bore the stripes of God's
anger on his own back. His blood, which is precious,
paid the ransom price to deliver those captives for whom it was
paid. His righteousness covers their
nakedness, and his love sustains and upholds their hearts. Everything needful had been accomplished
in the death of Christ, and now Christ's prize would be delivered
to him. His possession for which he died,
that promise that had been made to him in the everlasting covenant,
that people, that bride that he went to the cross to deliver
and perfect, his possession would be brought in. So let us not
imagine, let us never imagine that the work of the apostles,
the commission, the great commission as it is called, of the apostles
was in any way uncertain or ineffective. They carried the gospel of God's
power unto salvation. They were sent to where the Lord's
elect were hidden amongst the nations and the tribes and the
families of the earth. And Satan couldn't resist the
might of the strong man armed who pillaged his castle, his
home. And the Lord's servants, these
apostles, like holy angels, gathered into the church such as should
be saved from the four corners of the earth. Matthew 24 verse
31 says, and he shall send his angels with a great sound of
a trumpet and they shall gather together his elect from the four
winds and from one end of heaven to the other. So let it be known to do and accomplish the Lord's
will. The apostles will have all they
require from the hand of Christ himself. The church will be built. Christ's bride will be perfected
according to the covenant promise of God the Father. The Father's
will be done on earth as it is in heaven and His glory guarantees
it. What the Savior is saying here
to his disciples is that whatever is necessary, whatever is required,
whatever you need, whatever you ask for, in order to accomplish
this great covenant promise that I have received of gathering
my bride to myself, it will be given you. I will give it to
you. I will do it for you. In our
verses, the Saviour affirms His promise by repeating it. If ye
shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. Anything asked
in the name of Jesus Christ will be granted. Now employing the
name of Jesus Christ in our requests includes pleading the merits
of His blood, his righteousness and his sacrifice. And when we
go before God in prayer, that is what we should be thinking
of and that's what we should be considering in our requests. It's not for our good, it's for
his glory. The apostles were troubled in
heart. But the Lord Jesus saw what they
did not see because he saw the bigger picture. He assured them
that whatever was according to the will of God, whatever contributed
to his glory and secured their success in bringing many sons
to glory would be done for them. Christ's absence would be no
hurdle to Christ's church being built. and he was leaving the
work in good hands. The Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.