John 16 - Part 1

Read John 16

Trouble was coming and Jesus was speaking beyond his journey to the cross.  He was telling his disciples that they would have trouble come upon them because of him. 

In the previous chapter, Jesus told his disciples that the world would hate them because a of him.  Now he tells them that hate will be manifested in actions.  People will want to kill them and think such actions to be a good, a godly thing.

They will be thrown out, kicked out, barred from the synagogues.  What does this tell us?  Their troubles will not be so much from the Romans who regarded one building like another.  If you were not causing trouble for the empire and paid your taxes, Rome did not care if you worshiped Jehovah or Baal or made up a different God each week.  It would be the religious Jews who would wage war against those who followed the way that Jesus had given.

If you were to flip ahead in your Bibles to Acts, you would find one notable Pharisee named Saul who made it his mission in life to persecute the followers of the Way.  Jesus warned his disciples that this was where they would engage their first opposition.

Jesus told his disciples that they needed to know what was ahead of them so they did not fall away, so they did not give up.  Jesus told his disciples that he didn’t tell them this earlier because he was with them.  Remember how so many times it looked like the religious Jews would seize Jesus but they could not because his time had not yet come.

Now Jesus was leaving.  His time had come.  Now was the time for the disciples to call it quits or to Christian Up and live out their purpose.  Jesus had prepared them for 3 years.

Jesus told his friends that this was something of a phased operation.  Jesus would go home to his Father and the Advocate—the Holy Spirit would come. 

OBTW—Jesus and the Spirit would have the best turn-over brief ever.  Everything that Jesus had learned from his Father and observed in the world would be given to the Spirit.  There would be no need for introductions and orientation.  The Spirit would arrive and the Lord’s work would continue and grow without missing a step.  It would a hit the deck running turnover.

You have heard of a seamless transition before.  This was the mother of all seamless transitions.  We have never walked through Galilee or Samaria or Judea with Jesus, but because the Spirit has and knows everything that Jesus did, having the Spirit dwelling within us is like walking with Jesus, maybe with fewer parables.

The Spirit will also do seven things that I will specifically enumerate.  Make no mistake, the Spirit is not limited by my list.

1.    Guide you in the truth.  The Spirit—the Advocate or Comforter or Helper—will guide you.  The Spirit will not force you but guide you.  He will make your path straight.  You must choose to stay on that path.

2.    He will speak in one accord with Jesus and the Father. 

3.    He will give you insight as to what is to come.  Never discount good reconnaissance. Without reconnaissance, you are subject to ambush.  We know there is trouble ahead.

4.    He will bring glory to the name of Jesus.  Jesus did his part.  Now it’s time for the Spirit to go to work on us and the world.  We have a commission to deliver the gospel.  The Spirit does the work of conviction.  The Spirit moves upon the unbeliever.  We deliver.  The Spirit moves.  This brings glory to God.

5.    He will convict the world of sin because they do not believe in Jesus.  Why do we preach Jesus?  Jesus is the lifeline for the world.  The world will never be able to comply with the Law given at Sinai.  Only Jesus did that.  The Spirit will use the law to convict hearts and turn them to Jesus.

6.    The Spirit will reveal righteousness to us and help us live in righteousness that we gained from the death and resurrection of Jesus.  We did not earn righteousness, but the Spirit will help us remain in the righteousness that we have been given by the blood of Jesus.

7.    He will convince you that the devil—the prince of the world—has been condemned.  The world will still look like a mess.  There is trouble all around us, but the one who concocts evil in the world has already been condemned.

Jesus told his followers that everything that belongs to the Father has been given to him and he likewise has held nothing back from the Spirit of Truth.

When we say trust in the Lord with all your heart, we are saying trust in the Spirit that lives within you, knowing that the Spirit is in perfect accord with Jesus who is in perfect harmony with the Father.

When we say lean not on your own understanding, we acknowledge that the Spirit of Truth resides in our very being and we don’t’ have to decide which network to watch to get the truth.  We do have to be on guard that we are listening to God’s own Spirit and not our own ego and selfish desires.

When we acknowledge God and his Spirit in all our ways, we are divorcing the old self and committing to a monogamous relationship with God through his Spirit.

When we think that he will direct our paths, we believe with all of our hearts that the Spirit of Truth will illuminate the path that God desires for us.

For those of you who bet that Tom couldn’t work Proverbs 3:5-6 into a message from John 16, you can pay up now.

Jesus did two things to prepare his disciples to continue his work once he was gone.  First, he told them that trouble awaited them.  He gave them a good reconnaissance of the years ahead. Second, he reminded them once again that they would not be left alone and that the Spirit who would come would propel them into the world fully equipped for what was ahead.

We know the same things.  We will be hated and opposed by those who do not know God and we don’t run our races alone.

You know there are significant challenges ahead because you follow Jesus.

The Spirit of God goes with you wherever you go.

Amen.

John 15 - Part 2

Read John 15

What do we do as the body of Christ?

We proclaim good news.  We are on a mission to connect the disconnected.  We strive to follow the teachings of our Lord.  Jesus said that he followed the teachings of his Father.  We are to follow his teachings. We love one another with everything we have.

That’s the foremost command by which we are called to live our lives.

God will bless you for staying connected to Jesus every day and in everything you do.  We are blessed to live as his servant and as his friend.  We are blessed.

OBTW—we will also be hated because Jesus is our Lord and Master and Friend.  The world will hate us.

The world won’t hate you if you are a friend of the world.  But you have chosen to remain faithful to Christ Jesus. He chose you to be his out of the world, but we choose to remain in him to abide in him and his teachings.

We are his and the world will hate you for it. 

Jesus said that no servant is greater than his master.  The world hated Jesus and it will hate you because of him.  Expect nothing less.

The world that hates you has no excuse because Jesus came and was rejected by the same world that persecutes you.  When the world rejected Jesus, they rejected his Father in heaven as well. 

Understand that people may hate you for no reason but that does not excuse them.  They are without excuse but they will hate you anyway.  There is no logic or reason to be applied.  Hate is not bound to abide by rational thought.

There is hate in this world and some of it will be sent your way.  There need be no logical reason.  Hate does not abide in logic but in the depravity of the human heart.

Perhaps, we are sheltered somewhat because of where we live, but you have a target on your head because you follow Jesus.  Living in these parts where many proclaim Jesus as Lord makes it a little easier, but we are not exempt from the world’s hatred.

Most of the time in our ministry, we deal with apathy and ambivalence when it comes to sharing the love of God.  So many are content in the world and its ways.

But some will hate you because you follow Christ Jesus.  You have done nothing but to offer abundant and eternal life in our Lord, but some will hate you for it.

Some will hate you for this.

What is our response?

We go into this hateful world with the message of God’s love that we know in Christ Jesus.  We go equipped with the Holy Spirit.  The hatred of the world does not change our mission.

The world’s hatred does not change our mission.

Sometimes, ok often, I am accused of having some screwball thinking.  I’m usually convicted of the accusations on all counts, but here is one more.

I don’t want to get out of this life without being hated by the world at least a few or a few dozen or a few hundred times.  I don’t want to go to my grave without receiving significant hate from the world.

I want to be known by my love and as a disciple of Christ Jesus.  I want to be known so well as one who follows him that the world hates me for it.

I don’t want the world to look at me and say, “well maybe he follows Jesus.”  I want them to know and the affirmation that the world knows that I don’t belong to it but do belong to Christ Jesus will be its hatred towards me.

If you haven’t noticed the battle of good and evil that has been fought in the spiritual realm for so long has manifested itself into our physical world. 

It seems like everyone has a cause with which they want you or the church to jump onboard.  They want to incorporate the church into their cause.

They want to subordinate Jesus to their cause.

My message today to the world is to bring on your hate, because Jesus will be subordinated to no person or no cause.  Jesus is Lord and we are to follow him as his disciples.

Now, are there problems in the world that we who follow Jesus should apply our gifts and talents?  Of course, there are.  As far as problems in the world that you use our help, it’s a target rich environment.  The Spirit that lives within you will tell you when and where you are called to help in such efforts.

We are always called to share the truth of how much God loves us.  We are called to proclaim, “Repent and believe the good news.”  We are called to be known by our love.

We are not called to blend in with the world so the world doesn’t hate us. 

In the first part of this chapter, Jesus talked about the vine and the branches.  We must stay connected to the true vine which is Jesus.  We can only produce fruit through our connections with our Lord.  We will only bring glory to God by letting his light shine through us.

And the world will hate us and I am just fine with that. 

It wasn’t too long ago as we made our way through James that we noted to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God.

Expect the challenges ahead of us to be subtle at first.  Going along with the world won’t seem too bad in some cases.  Jesus will understand.  A little compromise never hurt anyone. What’s the big deal?

It’s the frog in boiling water example that I have used for 40 years and that others used long before that.  I think as long as there have been frogs and boiling water, someone must have used this analogy.

 If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out.  It does not pause to do a cost-benefit analysis.  It does not consider various courses of action.  That sucker is out of there.

If you put another frog—you are not catching that first frog again—into a pot of room temperature water and turn up the temperature one degree every couple of minutes, it doesn’t take long before the frog is relaxed, then too weak to jump out.  A short time later, you have boiled frog.

The water has been room temperature for most of our lives, but over the past couple of decades, it’s been turned up a few degrees. 

Did you notice?

There was a time when you could say praise the Lord and you wouldn’t get a look from the pit of hell that came from someone offended that you were allowed to say that out loud.  Back in the day, someone might respond with amen or pass the ammunition, but you knew you were in good company.

Back in the day, you could teach that all life is precious without it starting an argument and you being declared ignorant and a hater. 

Back in the day, a prayer was always appropriate for a group, a gathering, or just you alone on a park bench.  That was back in the day.

The temperature has gone up a few degrees since then.  Some of you may be too young to know anything but the present disdain for God and his people.

The typical response is to say that the world is going to hell in a handbasket—a metaphor that I never fully understood but get the general gist.

My charge to you is this.  Expect the world to hate you.  Do the work that the Lord gave you anyway.

There is a movie—a documentary—that I am sure no one here has watched.  It’s called To the Shores of Guadalcanal.  There’s some combat footage but mostly it’s interviews with crusty old Marines.

In this one interview, this very old Marine recounted a certain hill in the jungle that the Marines fought for and took.  It was a costly battle.  Then the Japanese took it back.  Seven times the Marines took the hill.  Seven times the Japanese took it back.

Seven times we took it.  Seven times they ran us off.

This old Leatherneck had only one more comment.  We came back eight.

Expect the world to hate you.  Expect to be opposed.  Expect considerable resistance as believers in an unbelieving world.  Do the work that the Lord gave you anyway.

Take the hill.  Do his work in spite of whomever and whatever is against you.

The world will hate you.  Love anyway.

The world will hate you.  Proclaim freedom from sin and death anyway.

The world will hate you.  Never deny your Lord.  Be faithful to him and abide in his commands.

The world will hate you.  You are in good company.  It hated the prophets.  It hated Jesus.  It hates you.  You are in good company.

I have seen much of the world and am blessed because of it.  Some were unique.  Some were picturesque.   Some were surely the armpit of the earth, but it didn’t matter because when I was in those places, I was in good company.

I was in good company.  When the world hates you, you are in good company.

Does God love you?  Yes, you know he does.

Is God faithful?  To all generations!

Is God forgiving of us?  You know that he is faithful and just to forgive.

Doesn’t he know that we have trouble in this world?  Yes, he told us that we would and to take courage that he had overcome the world.

Does he know that the world hates us?  Indeed, he does.  He warned us that the world would hate us because of him. 

So, here’s one of those closings where some of you might be trying to discern a basic dichotomy.  Should we send Tom to a psychiatrist or to a team of them?

What?  Why?

Because, I am telling to be glad when the world hates you.  Rejoice when the world thinks you a stranger.  Put a smile on your face when someone hates you because they can tell you follow Jesus.

When the world hates you because it can tell you follow Jesus, know that you are in good company.

You are in good company.

Amen.

John 15 - Part 1

Read John 15

Warning!  Chapter 15 is 100% red letters.  Jesus does all the talking.

At the end of the last chapter, Jesus said, “Let’s go.”  John doesn’t tell us where they went but it was likely Gethsemane.  Perhaps along the way, there was a vineyard.  In any case, Jesus made his next analogy.

I am the vine.  You are the branches.

Before that, Jesus said he was the true vine.  His Father in heaven was the Gardener and pruned away anything that would not bear fruit.  The Father and Son had the relationship that Jesus wanted for his disciples.

Get rid of anything that hinders.  Prune away that which will not bear good fruit.  Where do we go for pruning?  It’s mostly from God’s word.  

Sometimes the Spirit will speak to you but it will be in accord with God’s word.

Then Jesus told his disciples that apart from him, they were nothing.  They must remain in him as the branches must remain in the vine.  Whoever was not in him would wither and die.

Jesus was once again teaching connection and relationship.  If you ever wondered why I am such a stick in the mud about not being transactional in our ministries but insisting on transformational, think to the words of Jesus in this chapter.

If you ever get tired of me saying connect the disconnected, understand that Jesus taught his disciples how important it was to remain connected to him.

Apart from him, we will wither.  We will produce no fruit.  We will be a worthless branch at best good for a little kindling for the fire.

No branch can produce fruit by itself, but understand that this teaching is not about the fruit.  Fruit is evidence of the connection, the relationship, the fellowship with Christ.  It’s not about the fruit.  It’s about our discipleship.

Are we in fellowship with Christ and each other?

Jesus had just told these men that he was the way, the truth, and the life.  Now he reinforces the necessity of remaining in him—connected to him as a branch is to the main vine.

Jesus told his followers that he had to go away.  Now he tells them to remain in him.  His followers were yet to understand that their connection to their Teacher and Lord would go far beyond following him through Samaria and Galilee. 

This was really not new ground.  I am in the Father.  The Father is in me.  Let’s have the same relationship.

Next, we have the drinking from the firehose section.  Each statement of Jesus is packed to the brim.  Here are ten statements that came in rapid succession.

1.    As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

2.    Now remain in my love.

3.     If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.

4.    I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

5.    My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

6.    Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

7.    You are my friends if you do what I command.

8.    I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.

9.    You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.

And finally, number 10.  This is my command:  Love each other. 

Much of this should sound familiar.  Love one another. Produce good fruit.  Obey my commands.

Some of it took the disciples to another level.  You are more than servants.  You are my friends.

One of these statements was about Jesus going to the cross; yet was a model for all of us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Do you remember the new command?  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  Jesus laid down is life for us.  That’s how much he loved us.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

It was a good thing that the Holy Spirit would come and dwell in these men at Pentecost for what they had just heard from their Teacher who was soon to go to the cross was more than most people could handle in a single dose.

What should you take away?  Remain in Christ as the branch remains in the vine.  Remain in him by remaining in his love and obeying his command to love others with everything we have.

Be know by your love if you want to remain in Christ.

Amen.

John 14 - Part 2

Read John 14

If you love me, do what I told you to do.  Jesus had just given them a huge command.  As much as I have loved you so you must love one another.  Love so much that love becomes your identity.

Put yourselves in the shoes of the disciples.  I’ll paraphrase what Jesus put forth to them and maybe their thoughts.

Here’s foot washing as my example of service.  OK, that one got me out of my comfort zone.

One of you is going to betray me.  I’m ready for another miracle or parable or even getting my feet washed again, but not that.  That had to be gut wrenching.

OBTW—Peter, you are going to wimp out here shortly and deny me.  Not Peter.  Peter may not have been the sharpest tool in the shed but he was always gung ho.  If he wimps out, what about the rest of us.

I know that you never really got the hang of loving your neighbor as much as you love yourselves, but now I want you to love each other as much as I have loved you. That’s going from playing Legion Baseball to the Majors.

Just to make things interesting, I’m not going to be with you for a while.  We have followed you for three years.  What will we do?  For the past three years we woke up and wondered where Jesus was leading us today.  None of us even own a day planner.

Jesus told his followers and friends that he was not orphaning them.  They were not to be left without divine care. The challenges might seem insurmountable, but the disciples would overcome the insurmountable and more.

Do you remember when Jesus told Peter that what he was doing would not make sense to him then, but later it would?

What came later?  The Holy Spirit, that’s what.  God’s own Spirit would walk with and beside the disciples and in a short while would dwell within them.

Jesus noted that this was a win-win.  He would finish the work that his Father sent him to do and then be with his Father once more.

Jesus would leave and the Spirit would come.  It would be a great trade.  The Spirit of God himself, who was present at the creation of the world would dwell within those who sought God and worked to fulfill the words that Jesus gave them.

This Spirit that was to come doesn’t fit into one word.  The Greek is pneuma.  That is the breath of God himself.  This is God’s Holy Spirit.

It is the same Spirit that was at the creation of the world or ruach as the Hebrew people would come to call it. 

Jesus used another name, paraklétos.  We might say Advocate, Comforter, or Helper, but in all these names we have God’s Spirit and we are not orphans. 

God is with us.

God is within us.

This is to paraphrase Jesus into the modern vernacular.

OBTW—all that life experience that you have been soaking up but made very little sense to you is about to come into focus.  The Spirit will bring into remembrance what you have been taught, observed, and heard but did not understand.

The Spirit will help you have a right-side up perspective on what lies ahead of you.  It won’t necessarily be easy, but it will be evident that you are doing my will.

OBTW—receive my peace.  Mine is way better than what the world is selling.  And I will say this again, do not let your hearts be troubled.  Do not be afraid.

If you were in the previous service, much of this will sound familiar.

Jesus coupled two statements that we should receive together.

Do not let your hearts be troubled and trust in God and also in me.

So then…

Our hearts are not troubled because the right people are going to win the elections.  No.

Our hearts are not troubled because we have a three-year supply of toilet paper.  That's not it.

Our hearts are not troubled because the stock market never really got that bad and the oil and gas industry is slowly making a comeback.  Nope.

Our hearts are not troubled because we might get another stimulus check.  Money for nothing and your chicks for free…  Not at all.

Our hearts are not troubled because we might have a football season this fall.  Close but no cigar.

Instead:

Our hearts are not troubled because we trust in God.

Our hearts are not troubled because we are anxious for nothing.  Everything gets turned over to God in prayer accompanied with thanksgiving.

Our hearts are not troubled because our Father in heaven knows exactly what we need.  He doesn’t give us a rock when we need bread.  He gives good gifts and my heart will not be troubled.

I’m jumping ahead a couple chapters.  Jesus said that we would have trouble in the world.  He didn’t say it was a possibility.  He said that we would have trouble in the world.

That was not the end of the thought.  He said, take heart that he had overcome the world.  Take courage!  The world is not in charge.

The psalmist counsels us to simply be still.  That’s not just, stop talking.  That’s be still in everything that we are so we can realize that God is real and he is with us and he loves us and he will not forsake us. In our stillness we hear his I Am.

So, do not let your hearts be troubled.  Know that God is for real and he is for us.  Believe in him.  We believe in God through our Master and Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus.

Now we can get into those times when it seems like we are left alone.  Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a place for them.  He wouldn’t tell them this if it wasn’t so.

He told his disciples that they should be happy for him.  Jesus was about to complete his mission and return to his Father. 

But the disciples were not going to be left on their own.  They would not be orphaned.  The Spirit would come.

We are not left on our own.  We are not orphaned.  We may be waiting with excitement and anticipation for Jesus to come again, but he has not left us alone.

The Spirit is with us and within us.  We know the Spirit as Helper, Counselor, and Advocate.

Jesus told his disciples that darkness was coming.  We know that darkness has already come in our time, but we are neither helpless nor hopeless for the Spirit of the living God is with us and within us.

Yes, it’s dark out there, but we have not been orphaned.  We have not been left in the darkness alone.  Yes, I said it.  We are not alone in the dark.  God is with us.

Cast aside self-pity.

Cast aside doubt.

Cast aside everything that gets in the way of our race of faith.

Live as one who is fully owned, fully obedient, and fully ready to respond to the Spirit which lives within us.

We have not been orphaned. Thanks be to God!

Amen.