Welcome to Expound, our verse
by verse study of God's word. Our goal is to expand your
knowledge of the truth of God by explaining the word of God
in a way that is interactive, enjoyable, and congregational. I am indebted to
a guy by the name of Stephen Langton who was
the Archbishop of Canterbury back in the 1200s. Because in 1227, the
year before he died, he decided it would
be helpful if we had in our bibles
chapters and verses. Up to that point, there were
no chapter and verse markings, but he decided it would
be helpful to do that. So he went about,
it was his aim, to have a way to be
able to look up and find a verse of scripture instead
of saying it's on some scroll or on some page, that you
could go right to it easily. So he was the one that
introduced chapters and verses so I am indebted
to him for that. The very first edition of
Bibles with chapters and verses was the Wycliffe Bible
translated into English in the 1300s, 1382
if memory serves. And so from then on, we were
able to look up and turn to a certain book with a certain
chapter and a certain verse. As grateful as I
am for all of that, sometimes we, because
of the breaks, we just sort of
think it's the end and then enters a whole
new thing happening. And what we fail to
realize is that, especially in a scene like this, it is the
same scene without any break whatsoever in the upper
room when Jesus is sharing a last meal with His disciples. And so there is a break but
sometimes, I have to say, the breaks are in
the wrong places. They don't really follow
the subject matter. They just sort of
break off when they think, yeah, that's a good place
to stop that's enough verses, put a chapter in there. And sometimes they're natural,
but sometimes they're not. But I just want you to
know that all of this is taking place in one
continuous evening as Jesus shares the Passover with
His closest friends. This section is called
the Upper Room Discourse. I mentioned to you when
we were together last, and it's been a while, so
I'll refresh your memory that there are four major
discourses that Jesus gave that are recorded in the Bible. There may have been more,
but the four major speeches, discourses, teachings
that Jesus gave in the Bible are as follows. Number one, the Sermon on the
Mount, perhaps His most famous. That's Matthew 5, 6, and 7. That happened in one setting. The second is the Kingdom
Parable Discourse. That's Matthew, Chapter
13, the kingdom of heaven is like the kingdom
of heaven is like, the sower and the seed parables,
the weed and the tear parable. Those are the Kingdom
Parables of Matthew 13. So those are two discourses. The third discourse is
the All of That Discourse. And that is because Jesus
was on Mount All of That or the Mount of Olives
overlooking Jerusalem and gave a discourse on the end
of all things, the last days. So Matthew 24, also recorded in
Luke, Chapter 21, and Matthew 13, that's the third discourse. This, the Upper Room
Discourse, is His fourth. And I'm drawing attention
to it, because it is the longest of all
of them and the most intimate of all of them. It's especially good
for us because we are disciples of Jesus
Christ, most all of us. And so some of these things
are so precious to our faith. And this discourse, the
Upper Room Discourse, because it was given
in the upper room at the Passover with Jesus,
by Jesus, to His disciples. That's John 13, 14, 15 and 16. And if you want to even throw
in the prayer of John 17 to His Father, it is
the most intimate, and it is the longest
of all of them. What you need to know,
or at least remember, because you probably already
know from times before, is that this is not
a public meeting. This section here is
a private meeting. It's a private meal. The public is shut
out of this discourse. Jesus' public ministry
is over at this point. He has nothing more
to say to the nation. That's because the nation
has brought their gavel down on Jesus and has, as a
nation, rejected Him. He came unto His own, but
His own received him not. And so the doors are
shut, and behind the doors it's a small group of 13
men, Jesus and His 12. And what He has
to share with them is so precious and so uplifting. A little bit of
context will help, because as we get into Chapter
14, the disciples by now are agitated. They're restless. They're quite upset. They're troubled. Because though it's Passover,
it's a time of celebration, it's a time of
recollection, Jesus has shared some things with His
men that makes them anything but happy and satisfied. They're nervous. So far Jesus has predicted
He's going to die, not what they expected. Jesus has predicted He will
be betrayed by one of them. And then he broke off
a piece of the bread and gave it to Judas Iscariot. And third, Jesus has
just announced to Peter, even though Peter said, though
all may walk out on you, I will be the faithful one. He said, well, Peter,
actually, three times tonight you're going to deny Me. So Peter especially, but
all of the disciples, they were troubled,
they were agitated. They were nervous. They were upset. And so Jesus begins. "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God,
believe also in Me." now you'll notice in Verse
1 Jesus gives a commandment. That's what it is,
it's a commandment. It's in the imperative
mode that's a command. Let not your heart be troubled. It's a commandment. It is a present tense. It is, as I mentioned,
an imperative in the mode, the mood. But it's a passive voice. So what it means
is Jesus is saying I want you to stop an action
that you're already doing. You are already troubled. You are already agitated. Now stop stressing out. That would be, probably, a
pretty accurate translation. Stop stressing out. I know you're stressing out. Stop it. Put an end to it. So he gives that command
to his disciples, let not your heart be troubled. Now let me throw
something out at you. Because He gives
them a command to let not your heart be
troubled, it shows us that we are in control
of our emotions. Some people say I can't help. I'm stressed out,
man, I can't help it. Stop it. Jesus would never give
you a command that was impossible for you to keep. So with the commandment
comes the capability to keep the commandment,
because Jesus gives it, and He knows "all
men" the Bible says. So He says to you and
I, stop being agitated. Stop being troubled. Stop stressing out. How could He do that? Are there any reasons
that He gives, why or how, what the basis is for that? Yes, there are three
reasons, and you can apply these to your life. Number one, because
of who you know. Number two, because
of where you'll go. And number three, because
of what He'll show. I put them in that order so
you could easily memorize them. First of all, because
of who you know. Notice what He says,
let not your hearts be troubled, you believe
or you trust in God, believe or trust also in Me. Do you think the disciples had
any reason not to trust Jesus? Has He been trustworthy
so far up to this point? Whenever there was any
need, couldn't they just lean on Jesus, and He was
there in amazing ways? When there was no food
for the multitude, Jesus fed the multitude. When the storm was going
to overwhelm the boat, Jesus calmed the storm. When Lazarus died, Jesus
raised him to life. That's amazing. Let not your heart be troubled. You trust God, trust also in Me. Because of who you know, you
know God by faith, you know Me. You've lived with Me
for 3 and 1/2 years. Trust also in Me. That's the first reason. Second reason is because
of where you'll go. Verse 2, "In my Father's
house are many mansions. If it were not so, I
would have told you. I go to prepare
a place for you." Did you know that the Bible
speaks a lot about heaven? I know you knew
that, but do you know how much the Bible mentions it? 532 times. It speaks about heaven,
speaks about it a lot. But please notice here how
Jesus refers to heaven, where you'll go, where I'll go,
because of your faith in Jesus. You trust God, you trust Jesus. You're going to heaven. He speaks of it relationally not
locationally, but relationally. He calls it My Father's house. And He says in my
Father's house, there are many-- listen
to this-- literally rooms. I know it says mansions, because
of an unfortunate translation from the Latin Vulgate from
Greek into the Latin Vulgate into English, so
it says mansions. So I know, you've always
thought that there's going to be like this Hollywood
Drive, long driveway, and maybe statues on the side of
you, perhaps, I don't know. And then this huge mansion. Does it disappoint you when
it says, in my Father's house there are rooms? In fact, a most accurate
translation-- apartments. I know, you go, oh, no,
I hate that thought. Man, I was banking
on that mansion. Hey, don't worry. It's going to be pretty awesome. I would take God's apartment
over the devil's mansion any day, just saying, right? OK. So in My Father's house
there are many apartments, many rooms. Now a little background,
again, I could go on and I could take
hours but I do want to get to the communion
so-- in the Middle East in ancient times-- think
of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the patriarchs, they
didn't live in houses. They lived in what? Tents. So when their kids grew up
and they married and had kids, you know what they did? They just added on
to the tent, a room. And then another room if they
had more kids and another room. They would take these tents, and
you'll see in the Middle East these sprawling tents
that are just divided by sheets of tent material. So in that one family
tent there are many rooms. It keeps going. So with that motif in mind
from the Middle Eastern way of thinking, in My Father's
house, there's room for you. There are many rooms. And he can make more,
and more, and more. But now I want you to think
of this verse in terms of what you know about the future. That's where you'll go. You're going to
heaven, but when you die, what will that be like? Well, you'll be in
the presence of God, and we could come up with
certain details about what heaven's going to be like. But if you think about way
into the future, after you die and go to heaven or you
get raptured and into heaven, eventually, after 1,000
years on this earth in a millennial
kingdom-- you know this earth is going to
be destroyed, right? Completely destroyed
and God's going to make a new heaven
and a new earth. So the new heaven
and the new earth have a very particular
oddity to them. There's a city, a capital
city of the new earth called New Jerusalem. See, I knew you
knew all this stuff. But what's odd about the New
Jerusalem is its own planet. Because in the
Book of Revelation, John sees a vision of the
new heaven and the new earth and he says I saw, Revelation
21, New Jerusalem coming out of heaven, made by
God, prepared by God, coming toward the new earth. And then, he wanted to know how
big it was because obviously it was pretty large. And the angel measured it
and told him the dimensions. It's 12,000 furlongs
in all directions. It's a perfect cube. So it's width, and its
breath, and its height are 12,000 furlongs or
about 1,500 miles cubed. Or 2,250,000 square miles, or
a city 15,000 times the size of London, England. Or about the size
of our present moon. So think of a moon, but
not a sphere, a cube, coming toward the Earth. Pretty wild, huh? A scientist named Henry
Morris put pen to paper, and he said a city that
size with those dimensions could safely take on
20 billion inhabitants. Listen to this, and
that's only designating 25% of the city for
dwelling places. If you took the square mileage
that I just gave to you, that would safely and easily
allow 20 billion people to live occupying only 25% of it
allowing 75% for public works, streets, parks, whatever. And that would give
each of the 20 billion inhabitants of that
city a cubicle block 75 acres on each side. That's how big it would be. Now I am also believing
that in our eternal state, in the resurrected
body we have, judging from how Jesus
was able to travel in His resurrected
body from one place to another
instantaneously, that we'll be able to move not only
horizontally but vertically. So just wanted to throw that. It's fun to think about it in
terms of in My Father's house there are many rooms. Can't wait to explore. And that's only
the capital city. Nothing is said of the new
earth and the new heaven. So we're going to have
a lot of fun finding out what that's all about. Verse 3. I know, I'm taking up time. "And if I go and
prepare a place for you, I will come again and
receive you to Myself that where I am there
you may be also." Now that's the third reason. The reason you
shouldn't be troubled is because of who you know,
because of where you'll go, and because of what
He'll show you. I'm going to go and
prepare a place for you. Heaven is a personalized place. Your room, your
apartment, your mansion is going to be personalized
making something for you. He's preparing a place for you. I always love to think of it. I did two funerals yesterday,
and I always love the thought that when I go out of town or
when my wife goes out of town and I'm home, if I
know she's coming back, I want to prepare
the place for her. I want to clean it
up and make it nice, so it's a nice surprise
when she comes home. It's like, wow, you were clean. How did that happen? So I try to prepare it. Now my preparation might be a
couple hours, maybe even a day if I have a day off to do that. Jesus made the promise
2,000 years ago. I'm leaving to prepare
a place for you. Can you imagine
what this place must look like if He's been working
on that mansion of yours for 2,000 years? Now I will theologically
concur that perhaps Jesus when He said, I'm going to
prepare a place for you, is simply speaking of the cross. I'm going to make a way for you. I'm going to prepare a way
for you or a place for you by allowing you to go there
by Me going to the cross and being the sacrifice. to allow you to get to heaven. He could simply mean that. Or He could mean
I'm personally going to make something for
you, or it could all be what He means by that. But that is what He'll show, I
go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, I will come again
and receive you to Myself that where I am there
you may be also. You probably should
write in your notes or in the margin of your Bible
I Thessalonians, Chapter 4, or 1 Corinthians 15. Both passages that speak of
what Jesus spoke of first or hinted at first, and that
is the Rapture of the Church. He is talking here not
about coming to the earth to judge the earth and set up
His kingdom, Revelation 19, but He's saying I'm going
to come back for you. I'm going to get you. And Paul tells us that will
happen at a different time than when he comes the second
time, the second coming, all the way to the earth
to set up His kingdom. It's called the
Rapture of the Church. This is the first hint. Ever since Jesus
spoke these words, the Church has had
what Paul called the blessed hope, the blessed
hope of Jesus' return for us. He could come at any moment. He could come before the
end of this Bible study. Jesus is coming soon. I'm excited about that. As I look around at
the world, I don't have hope in any politician
or political party. I'm not holding my breath. Thinking there's going to
be change in four years, I never thought a politician
could bring change enough to satisfy my heart. I'm looking for Jesus
to take every politician and say, move over. You're doing it wrong. Let me show you the ropes. Verse 4, "An where I go you
know, and the way you know." Thomas said to Him, Lord, we do
not know where you are going, so how can we know the way? Jesus said to Him, "I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me." I love Thomas. You know, he's probably the
only honest guy in the bunch. Maybe a few of them picked up on
it, because after all Jesus did say where I'm going you
know and the way you know. But at least one of them didn't. And that was Thomas, and
he wasn't the kid in class to go, I have no idea what the
teacher's saying but I'm just going to nod my head and look
like I'm writing notes down, like, ah, this is good. He's the kid who sticks
his hand up and goes I have no clue what you just said. Where are you going? And if we don't know
where you're going, how can we know
how to get there? And I'm glad he said
that because he opened the door for Jesus to
give the answer which is the gospel in a nutshell. I am the way, the
truth, and the life. So I know Thomas had flaws. Thomas had a question
mark for a brain. He was always
questioning things. Huh? Why? How? So he had a question
mark for a brain, but Jesus was in the process
of turning the question mark into an exclamation point. And at the end before the
ascension into heaven, Thomas will be at the
exclamation point. And after Jesus goes
to heaven, Thomas will carry the gospel to
India and share his faith to transform a nation. But he's questioning this. Jesus said, "I am the way,
the truth, and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through Me." Now hold it right there. That sounds very
narrow doesn't it? Doesn't that sound
awfully dogmatic? Have you ever been accused
of being narrow-minded? Raise your hand if you have? I get accused of that all
the time in my line of work. People say you
are narrow-minded. And I'm thinking
all the time, you have no idea how
narrow-minded I am. You're close-minded, uh-huh. Because when I received
Christ He closed my mind. I was open before that. And then He made sense and shut
the book, and it is dogmatic. It's dogmatic because
Jesus was dogmatic. He said this in the
Sermon on the Mount, he said, enter into the
narrow gate for broad is the way that
leads to destruction and many enter therein,
but narrow is the gate, and difficult is the
way that leads to life, and there are few who find it. Now He says, no one comes to
the Father but through Me. That eliminates every
other belief system but believing in Him. Every other belief system. Oh, but they're so sincere. Granted. I was so sincere at one time. I'm sincere still, but I mean it
was pure sincerity at one time. I was sincere, but I
was sincerely wrong. And Jesus said, I am the
way, and He is the way, because he takes you there. Let me give you an example. If you went to a city that
you had never been to before and you didn't know
how to get around, and you asked someone
for directions. And they said to
you, OK, I know where you want to go, so go down the
street to the first stoplight, turn right, go down three
blocks, take a left. When you see the Taco
Bell, right behind it, you'll find a little street. Go two blocks and you'll find
where you're looking for. So if you don't remember
those instructions you'll get lost, right? Think pre-cell phone. But imagine a person
saying, you know what, it's too complicated. I'll take you there. Now he's not just giving
you directions to the way. Now he's not just
telling you the way. He's showing you the way
or, in fact, he is the way. The way is just stay attached
to Him, just follow Him, and He'll take you there. So Jesus says, I'm the way. I'll take you where
you want to go. I'll take you to
My Father's house. I'll take you to heaven
you can't get there by following
instructions anyway, but I can get you there. I am the way because
I embody God's truth. I am his truth, in
fact, his only truth. "If you had known," Verse
7, "If you had known me, you would have known
My Father also. And from now on you know
Him and have seen Him. Philip said to Him,
Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us. I like Philip. I like Philip sort of
for the same reason I like Thomas, only
a little different. Philip was a pragmatic
person he was a pragmatist. He was the guy who had a
calculator for a brain. He tried to figure
it all out first. It's not like he automatically
questioned everything like Thomas. He was just trying to sincerely
figure out what was going on. So when Jesus had the
multitude at Galilee and Jesus posed the question
to His disciples, he goes, where are we going to buy
food to feed these people? Philip comes up with
an amount, which means you must have surveyed the
crowd and kind of figured out how many people
were there, and what the very lowest amount
of food necessary and the price to purchase it
locally to feed the crowd. Because he goes, 200
denari worth of bread won't even be
enough to give them just the basic necessities,
just to have a little bit. Now that's eight months worth
of a working man's wage. He figured that out
in the conversation. So he's very pragmatic. The problem with
him figuring it out is he did the math
without adding Jesus. When you do the math,
it's OK to do the math, but you have to add
Jesus because it changes what the
calculations are going to be. He calculated apart from God. And when you bring God into
the equation-- without God, nothing is impossible--
changes everything. So Philip says, oh, you
bring up the Father. You keep talking
about the Father. Would you just show
us your Father? And that's all we need. Yeah. It would be enough for anybody. But I got to say
I understand that. I understand it. Because what he is
saying is you want us to believe in God
by faith and we do. And we believe what
You just said by faith, but it would be awfully good
to actually see God the Father. Now I say why that is good is
because the basis of worship is that we always want more. No matter how well-informed you
are theologically, no matter how mature you are spiritually,
you still want more than what you've experienced now. Moses, though he had seen
the Red Sea open, manna come from heaven, water
come from Iraq, pretty sizable, notable
miracles, he said, Lord, just show me your glory. Well, let's see. You've seen some pretty
cool things already. You've seen more than
any of us have ever seen. Yeah, but I want more. I just want to see God. So this is the
basis for worship. And we are made for eternity. That's why you're never going
to be totally satisfied till you get to heaven and see him
face to face, which you will one day, but this
is the basis for it. So I understand his longing. Jesus said to him, "Have I been
with you so long and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me
has seen the Father. So how can you say,
show us the Father?" Now I'm not going to go much
in-depth on this because Jesus has been saying things like
this through the whole gospel of John. Anybody who says
you know the Bible never says that Jesus is God. Or Jesus never
claimed to be God. I immediately ask, what
Bible are you reading? Read the Gospel of John,
you'll stumble over it in every chapter. Chapter 10, they took
up stones to kill Him because he said
God was His Father making himself equal with God. Jesus said, I've
done many works. Which work do you stone Me for? And he said not
for any good work you've done but for
blasphemy, because you being a man continually
make yourself out to be God. Even Jesus' own enemies knew
that he claimed to be God. And with his own disciples
in that upper room, if you've seen me,
you've seen the Father, because Jesus is the perfect
representative in visible form of the Father in heaven. "Do you not believe Verse 10
that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me. The words that I
speak to you I do not speak on my own authority but
the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe me that I am in the
Father and the Father is in Me or else believe me for the
sake of the works themselves. Now the author of
this book is who? John, and the author
of 1 John is who? John, very good. OK, so you know how
John opens this book. In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, the Word was God. When we get to 1 John,
it's as though John is now writing the same thing,
but after looking back on the personal experience of
this night and all those years he was with Jesus,
those three years, and it like dawns on him. It's just like it
just settles on him who he's been hanging out with. And he begins 1 John,
Chapter 1, Verse 1 saying that which was from the
beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have actually
handled, the Word of life. We hung out with
the Word of life. God in human flesh. We were there. We saw, we heard, we touched. God in flesh. Wow. "They heard His word, they saw
His works, most assuredly--" Verse 12, "I say to you,
he who believes in Me, the works that I
do, he will do also, and greater works
than these he will do because I go to the Father." Has that promise ever thrown
you for a loop, ever put a question in your mind? What does that mean? Jesus did some
pretty amazing works. Now he says you're going
to do greater works. For those who believe in
Him will do greater works. How is that possible? Do you know there are 40
miracles recorded in the Bible that Jesus performed? Raising the dead, giving
sight to the blind, unstopping deaf ears, walking
on the water, multiplying food, 40 miracles recorded
that Jesus did. And those are only recorded. He did many more. John says at the end of
his book in Chapter 20 and many other signs did
Jesus in the presence of His disciples, which are
not recorded in this book. But these are
written so that you may believe that Jesus is
the Christ, and believing you might have life in his name. 40 miracles and
amazing miracles. Now I've never done
any of those things. Somebody asked me, Pastor,
have you ever raised the dead? No. Probably never will. I'm not planning on it. If you died, I wouldn't want
to raise you from the dead. You'd be in heaven. You don't want to
come back here. I would not do you a service. And if you happen to have
that gift and ability, please don't do it to me. I'll haunt you forever. I'll make your life miserable. So what does it mean? What on earth could
it possibly mean? Well, there's three options. Number one, he's saying
to His disciples, you disciples in this upper room
are going to perform miracles like I have done and more. Now you could look
in the Book of Acts, and you could see
that miracles are recorded in the Book of Acts. Those apostles did
some of them, but there were others not
in the upper room, like Paul and others,
who also did miracles in the Book of Acts. And besides that, notice
what it says in the verse. It didn't say, just you guys. It says he who believes. Now the door is open
to anybody, right? Not just them but
anybody who believes. So it probably doesn't just mean
the disciples doing miracles in the Book of Acts. Second possible interpretation,
he is referring to everyone, but the emphasis now
is on your faith, your ability to believe
enough to pull off a miracle. Now this is how those who are
involved in the word of faith movement interpret the verse. So they will say, you can have
a miracle today, hallelujah. And if you don't
have a miracle, it's because you didn't
have enough faith. And so the onus is
on you to manufacture the right level of faith. And if you can't do it, well,
you're a bad little Christian, you didn't have enough faith. Jesus didn't say he who believes
might, but he who believes will. So I'm going to dismiss those
first two interpretations and think there's got to be
a third and correct meaning. And I believe it can be seen by
a phrase that you cannot take out of the verse, but I think
it unfolds the verse for you. You notice what he says
in Verse 12, "Because I go to My Father." In other words, I'm
leaving this earth. I'm going to My Father, and
when I go to the Father, that's going to be the
signal that something else is going to happen for you,
through you, with you. And what would that be? Holy Spirit, Verse 16,
even though we haven't read between them, but look at it. "And I will pray the
Father and He will give you another helper that
He may abide with you forever the spirit of truth." Then if you turn over to
Chapter 16 for just a moment, it's the same evening, same
message, same time frame, Verse 7, "Nevertheless
I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage
that I go away for if I do not go away, the
helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I
will send Him to you. Why is this important? Because the disciples
were troubled. They were agitated. Jesus is leaving. Oh, no, it's over. That's what they're thinking. This whole cool miracle thing,
this whole cool Messiah thing, it's over. And what Jesus is saying, it's
not over, it's just beginning. And what you're going
to see in the next phase when I leave and I send
the Holy Spirit is greater works than these. Not greater in
magnitude, not greater in power, not greater in those
things, but greater in extent and greater in number. Not greater qualitatively
but greater quantitatively. So go back and
notice what he says. "He who believes in me"-- that
would be you or I or anybody the last 2,000 years
who believed in Him-- "the works that I do He will
do also and greater works than these He will do, because
I go to the Father. I believe he is speaking
of the spreading of the gospel and the
miraculous transformation to salvation that the
gospel message brings. He came to install
that, first of all, by His death on the cross, to
call people into the kingdom, to call people to follow
Him, but just think of what happened when He left. As soon as He left,
the day of Pentecost happened and 3,000 people
came to faith in Christ. And in the first few months,
thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands came to
believe in Jesus Christ. Their lives were transformed. More came to follow Christ in
the few months when Jesus left and the Holy Spirit came
then all of Jesus' years in ministry put together. In the first 30 years
of Christianity, millions of people in the
world, millions came to believe. Jesus never left Israel. Paul the Apostle is going to
go through Asia Minor, parts of Europe, all the way to the
heart of the Roman Empire, Rome itself. The spread of the gospel. Every single day. I can't get my mind around
this number, but I checked it. Every single day in
sub-Sahara Africa it is estimated every
day-- how often? Every day. 20,000 people come to
faith in Christ right now. That's greater works. He said, what
about the healings? Healings are cool. But not as great as heaven. The greatest miracle is getting
a sinner from earth to heaven. Not just curing your
cold or clubfoot, or whatever it might be. Can God do that? Yes. But this is greater. OK, I think I squeezed
that verse to death. "And you know whatever
you ask in My name,"-- that means according to His
nature and His character, His will, "that I will
do that My Father may be glorified in the son. If you ask anything in
My name, I will do it. If you love me, keep
my commandments. And I will pray the Father and
He will give you another helper that He may abide with you
forever the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive,
because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him for He dwells
with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you." A couple quick things to notice. Notice the pronouns when Jesus
speaks of the Holy Spirit. Does not refer to the
spirit as an it, but as He, Him Whom, all of those are
pronouns that speak of a person or personhood. So the Holy Spirit
is not a force. The Holy Spirit
is not a feeling. Holy Spirit is not a mode. I bring that up, because you
school of ministry students know about modalism, right? So Bailey-ism, the belief that
there is a single person of God who shows three
different phases or comes in three different modes. But the New Testament teaching
of the Trinity is not modalism. The New Testament
teaching of the Trinity is there are three
separate persons that are co-existent and co-equal
in one God or godhead. You go, I don't understand. Welcome to the crowd. But that is what
the Bible teaches and that's what we believe. The Spirit of Truth, third
person of the Trinity so notice that. Then notice He's
called the helper, the Holy Spirit is your helper. Do you like that? Are you like me? Do you ever think, man,
I need all the help I can get, like every day. Because have you discovered the
Christian life is pretty hard? It's not easy. And you cannot do it alone, and
you were never intended to do it alone, and Jesus said you
don't have to do it alone. I'm going to give the Holy
Spirit who will be your helper, Paracletas, the Greek
word, Paraclete, helper, one who's called alongside
of you to help you out, to get you through,
to carry you long. Rely on Him, trust in Him. Not only that. Not only is He a person,
not only is He a helper, but notice he's
called another helper. Now I want you to see
how significant this is. There are two different
words in Greek for another. There's only one in English,
another and another, same word. In Greek there's
two different words. One is the word, Heteros,
the other is the word Allos. So example, you'll get it. If I buy a CD of
like a little album, somebody goes you
got to buy this CD. It's really good. So I buy it, and I listen,
and I go, I hate this. I don't want to even finish it. I don't even like this music. And so somebody said,
how'd you like the CD? I hated it. I'm going to get another CD. The word I would use is Heteros. It means I'm going to get
another of a different kind. I'm not going to buy the
same CD, because it stunk. I'd have to listen to
it a bunch of times. So I'm going to get another
CD of a different kind, a different group,
different music. But if I really liked it,
and I told you about it, you'd go, oh, I'd
love to listen to it. I say here you can have
mine, I'll buy another. I'm going to use the
word, Allos, which means another of the same kind. Get it? So when Jesus says I'm going
to give you another helper, I'm going to give you an Allos. I'm going to give you
another helper who has been just like Me. You've been able to turn to Me
and rely on Me for everything. I'm going to give
you a helper like Me. You'll be able to turn to the
Holy Spirit and trust in Him through anything. He's coming your way,
and He is in our midst, and He lives within us. "A little while longer and
the world will see Me no more. But you will see Me, because
I live, you will live also. At that day, you will know
that I am in the Father, and you in Me, and I in you." I know that sort of
sounds like a Beatles song but it is the beautiful
truth of the mystery that as believers, you are
in Christ Jesus, Ephesians 1, because Jesus lives in
you long with the Father and the Holy Spirit
resides in you. You are His dwelling place. And at the same time,
you, we, as the Church are placed in Christ. We're identified with that,
so it's that beautiful union of the Father, Son, Spirit
and the body of Christ That are inseparable. Verse 21, "He who has my
commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves
Me and he who loves Me will be loved by My
Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him." Judas, notice what it
says, not Iscariot, so you go, well, who's that? Judas, not Iscariot, is the
guy identified in Luke 6 as one of the Apostles of Jesus
called Judas, the son of James. So Judas, not Iscariot,
is Judas the son of James also known as Thaddeus
in other places. It's that guy. So that Judas, one of the
disciples, said to Him, Lord, how is it that You will
manifest Yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to
him, "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and
My Father will love him, and we will come to him
and make our home with him. He who does not love Me
does not keep my words. The word which you
hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me. These things I
have spoken to you while being present with
you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." Notice a couple of
times, and we're going to close in just a
moment, have these elements. Trust me. He uses the word, manifest. I'm going to manifest
Myself to him. We're going to manifest
ourselves, Father and Son, to that person. And then Judas, not
Iscariot, goes I just have a kind of a question. Why is it that you're going
to manifest Yourself to us, but not to the world? If You're the
Savior of the world, if You are the Messiah,
the King of the Universe, You're going to
take over the world, when are you, like, going
to show yourself to them? Right, fair question. The word manifest means
to expose, reveal, show, demonstrate. Judas, not Iscariot,
is thinking that-- he's thinking in earthly terms. The Messiah is going to set up
an earthly kingdom, which He will, Second Coming, not first. He doesn't know that,
so he's expecting the First Coming or the Second
Coming and the First Coming. So he's expecting Jesus
to set up the kingdom. So he goes, I don't get it. Why don't you manifest
Yourself to them? So here's what I
want you to see. The answer is profound. Because those ones that
I manifest, or reveal, or show Myself to are
those ones who love Me enough to do what I say. Here's the principle. Obedience opens the door to
intimacy and satisfaction. Obedience to Christ opens the
door to intimacy with Christ and satisfaction of Christ. When you find a person who
is hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
Jesus will show a little more, and a little
more, and a little more. And you're not only
saved, you're satisfied. I know people who are
saved but not satisfied. This dry and dreary, I can't
understand, man, things are dry. If you're the person
who loves Jesus enough to put into practice
what He has said-- and the only reason,
only way, you'll know what He said is
to find out by reading His word what He said. And when you read
His word to find out what He said, and you
apply it to your life, and that's the
habit of your life, He's going to show you more. Why would He show
you anything if He showed you stuff, and you
don't care to dig or apply it to your life? He's got nothing more to say. But if you're the obedient
one, then that obedience opens the door to
intimacy and satisfaction. You'll grow, and grow, and grow
until the final step of growth. You can't grow any closer
except to see His face and you graduate to heaven. And that's how you
want to get to heaven. You don't want to get to
heaven and go, where am I? What's that? Uh, that's the throne that
Revelation 4 and 5 talks about. Oh, yeah, I should read that. I didn't read that. Got the cliff notes. So be the kind who
loves Jesus enough to find out what
He says, do what He says, and He'll reveal
Himself more and more to you and I. Now would you please
take the elements. I wanted to finish the chapter. If you peel the very
top, the clear little fold-back and get to the bread. Father, we're
holding the elements of communion that remind us
of the very night Jesus ate Passover with His disciples,
the very setting we are reading in the gospel of John, when
He broke bread with them, these words spoken
during that meal. And He made a
unique significance of the meal itself. He said, this bread
that has symbolized the bread of affliction in the
past symbolizes my broken body. And I want you to eat this
from now on and remember me, not the lamb whose blood was
put on the lentils and doorposts in Exodus, but the Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world. Remember Me. So we remember You and
what you've done for us, and we take this
believing that what Jesus did for us
was enough to get a sinner from earth to heaven. And we believe in
taking it, we're making the statement that we
believe in Jesus as the Son of God and Savior of the world. Let's take the bread. Then if you peel the opaque foil
back carefully-- Lord, we're holding now the juice,
the fruit of the vine, this which represents Your
blood, the blood of Jesus Christ, the lamb slain from
the foundations of the world as Revelation 13 tells us. We know that Jesus
and His disciples drank four glasses of wine
during pascha, Passover. And they always thought
it was a reference to deliverance from Egypt. But Jesus made new
significance that night saying, no, it's your deliverance from
sin and captivity to your sin. Do this from now on and
the message to us as well in remembrance of
Jesus for the shedding of his perfect
blood, which cleanses a man or woman from all sin. Before you take this,
before you swallow this, know that Paul the Apostle said
that the elements of communion that speak of Jesus' death,
burial, and Resurrection should not be taken lightly. So if you are a
nonbeliever tonight, you don't want to
just take these, because these elements preach
to you a word of condemnation not a word of salvation. Because they speak of the
body and blood of Jesus, which you have personally not
trusted in for your salvation. So before you drink,
if you have not received Christ, why not,
right now, right where you are, ask Jesus to be your Savior. Just say, Lord, I'm a sinner. I'm sorry. I failed. But I believe that
Jesus died for me, that He shed his perfect blood
for me, that He rose again from the dead for me. And I turn from my sin and
I turn to my Savior, Jesus. Help me to live for You. Forgive me, heal me, and
use me in Jesus' name. Amen. Now let's take the
elements in faith together.
