I’m not going to give a message
tonight. Instead, I’ve got a guest
speaker, or at least a guest writer. What
I’m going to do is let Jesus himself give the message.
What I mean by that is that in John chapters fourteen
through seventeen, Jesus gives what could be called his farewell address to his
disciples. So what I’m going to do
tonight is read you Jesus’ farewell address, and then just make a couple of comments
afterward. I’m not going to use the
screen—after all, Jesus did not have a screen.
What I want you to do is what I’ve asked you to do at other times. I ask you to again imagine you are in the
story. Imagine you are one of the
disciples, listening to Jesus.
This comes after the last supper. It comes after Judas has left to go and tell
the Jewish authorities where Jesus is going to be. It comes after Jesus has told Simon Peter
that, before morning, Simon Peter will three times deny knowing Jesus.
The disciples don’t know what’s coming next. But they know they’re in a dangerous
situation. They know something’s about
to happen, even if they don’t know what it is.
So, Jesus starts talking to them.
Here’s what he says:
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You
believe in God; believe also in me. My
Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that
I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare
a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also
may be where I am. You know the way to the place
where I am going.”
Thomas said
to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
Jesus
answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No
one comes to the Father except through me. If you
really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do
know him and have seen him.”
Philip said,
“Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
Jesus
answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you
such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you
say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that
I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I
do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me,
who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and
the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works
themselves. Very truly I tell you, whoever
believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do
even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I
will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
“If you love
me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you
another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of
truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor
knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I
will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the
world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you
also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my
Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands
and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by
my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
Then
Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show
yourself to us and not to the world?”
Jesus
replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will
love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone
who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my
own; they belong to the Father who sent me.
“All this I
have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,
whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and
will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you;
my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let
your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
“You heard me
say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you
would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater
than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen
you will believe. I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this
world is coming. He has no hold over me, but he comes so that the world
may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded
me.
“Come now; let
us leave.
“I am the
true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in
me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he
prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean
because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain
in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.
Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine;
you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much
fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me,
you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked
up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words
remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is
to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be
my disciples.
“As the Father
has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 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. I have told you this so that my
joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this:
Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to
lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do
what I command. 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. 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. This is my command: Love each other.
“If the world
hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to
the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates
you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than
his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If
they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They
will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who
sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be
guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me
hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one
else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen,
and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what
is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
“When the
Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of
truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you
also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
“All
this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put
you out of the synagogue; in fact, the time is coming when anyone who
kills you will think they are offering a service to God. They will do such
things because they have not known the Father or me. I have told you this,
so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about
them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with
you, but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me,
‘Where are you going?’ Rather, you are filled with grief because I
have said these things. But very truly I tell you, it is for your good
that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but
if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world to
be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about
sin, because people do not believe in me; about
righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me
no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now
stands condemned.
“I have much
more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of
truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak
on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet
to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive
what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is
mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make
known to you.”
Jesus went on
to say, “In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a
little while you will see me.”
At this, some
of his disciples said to one another, “What does he mean by saying, ‘In a
little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will
see me,’ and ‘Because I am going to the Father’?” They kept
asking, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We don’t understand what
he is saying.”
Jesus saw that
they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one
another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more,
and then after a little while you will see me’? Very truly I tell you, you
will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your
grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has
pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the
anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with
you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will
rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. In that day you will no
longer ask me anything. Very truly I tell you, my Father will give you whatever
you ask in my name. Until now you have not asked for anything in my name.
Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.
“Though I have
been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer
use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. In
that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the
Father on your behalf. No, the Father himself loves you because you have
loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father
and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the
Father.”
Then Jesus’
disciples said, “Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of
speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even
need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came
from God.”
“Do you now
believe?” Jesus replied. “A time is coming and in fact has come
when you will be scattered, each to your own home. You will leave me all
alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.
“I have told
you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will
have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
After Jesus
said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has
come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For
you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to
all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they know
you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have
brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to
do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had
with you before the world began.
“I have
revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were
yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. Now they know
that everything you have given me comes from you. For I gave them the
words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I
came from you, and they believed that you sent me. I pray for
them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for
they are yours. All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And
glory has come to me through them. I will remain in the world no longer,
but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father,
protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they
may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and
kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except
the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
“I am coming to you
now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they
may have the full measure of my joy within them. I have given them
your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any
more than I am of the world. My prayer is not that you take them out of
the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the
world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word
is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the
world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.
“My prayer is
not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their
message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me
and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that
you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that
they may be one as we are one— I in them and you in me—so that they may be
brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me.
“Father, I
want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my
glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the
creation of the world.
“Righteous
Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that
you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will
continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in
them and that I myself may be in them.”
That was the
end of Jesus’ farewell address. After
that, he went out to the Garden of Gethsemane, where he would be arrested.
Did you put
yourself into the story? Did you imagine
yourself as one of Jesus’ disciples, listening to all this? What did you think? How did you feel?
I doubt if the
disciples really understood everything that Jesus was telling them. After all, as we’ve seen before, the
disciples hardly ever really understood what Jesus was telling them. But they knew Jesus was leaving. They did not know exactly what that meant,
really. They did not know how it was
going to happen. They still, even at
this point, did not really understand that Jesus was going to be killed and was
going to rise again. But they knew he
was leaving them, at least for a while.
And they knew the one thing they were supposed to do: love each other.
That was it,
really. Obey Jesus’ teaching and love
each other. And don’t worry about the
consequences. Jesus said, people may
hate you, but that’s okay. People hate
me, too. Don’t worry about it. The Holy Spirit will be here to protect you. You don’t know what that means, either. You don’t understand what the Holy Spirit is,
and I really cannot explain it to you. But
just know that the Holy Spirit is from God.
So you don’t have to be afraid.
And that’s
really the lesson for tonight. So let’s
do it. Let’s obey Jesus teaching, love
each other, and not worry about the consequences. The Holy Spirit is here, and the Holy Spirit
is from God. We don’t have to be afraid.
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