Spiritually witnessing to a world that hates Jesus

Life in the Lord’s Vineyard – 4 Sermons

Part 4: “The Vineyard of the Lord in the World”

(John 15:18-27, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 22, 2009)

¹⁸ "If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. ¹⁹ If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember the word that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. ²¹ But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me hates my Father also. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.' ²⁶ "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. ²⁷ And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

What does Christ teach us about the source of true witnessing?

A: “The Spirit of truth… will bear witness about me.” (John 15:26)

In the world but not of the world (18-19)

The disciples of Jesus Christ, Peter, James, John and the rest, were men like other men of their time and place. They were men of their world. There is no indication that they were the best of men in any sense, that they were the smartest, holiest, most resourceful, or in any other way particularly different from the others they grew up with in Galilee. The key difference between them and their friends and relatives who were not with them hearing Jesus talk to them about how He was the vine and they were the branches was only this: They were chosen by Him to be the apostles of the New Testament church. They would be the men who, after three years of witnessing the words and actions of Jesus of Nazareth, would bear witness to the fact that Jesus was the Messiah.

Until the day that they died one by one, apparently at the hands of their enemies, they would live in the world. But there would be something different about them. They would have a heavenly Spirit in them, and that would make them people who, while they were still in the world, were not really of the world. Because the Lord chose them out of the world, and made them disciples, giving them this heavenly Spirit, they would be united to Him even after He was gone. There would be this mysterious union that they would have with Christ, and they would speak for Him, as normal people who were called out of the world in order to speak for God in the midst of the world. Through their witness, other people would hear, and some of them would be chosen out of the world, and they would believe and follow Jesus Christ, and they too would be given this same heavenly Spirit; they too would be united to Jesus Christ and have communion with Him.

This would not be an easy thing for the apostles, because of this one fact: Not everyone who hears the message of Christ from His apostles and from His church will embrace that message of grace as good news. Many will actually hate the messengers. This is what Jesus is preparing them for as He is about to face the vicious hatred of those who were against Him in His suffering and death. These others who would not receive and abide in the Word of God, would be those who were not only in the world, but also of the world. They would hate the disciples, and Jesus says here of the world, “It has hated me before it hated you.” The only way to make the world like you is to decide to act like you are of the world. This is what many people try to do, but if you are in Christ, this cannot really work, because of our union with the Lord. We have His team colors on, even when we try to cover them with the world’s sweatshirt.

Serving a Master who was hated without a cause (20-25)

This kind of talk about the world vs. Jesus sounds very extreme to us, and we are not sure that we like it. We also know that there are many people who proudly wore the colors of Yahweh as a bold spiritual fashion statement, claiming that they were more “of God” than God, and certainly more of God than the prostitutes and the tax-collectors, yet they were the ones that were actually ready to kill Jesus. To make this even more complicated, some of those who were Jesus-haters would very soon become Jesus-lovers after the preaching of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection by Peter and the others at Pentecost. All of this means that it is not always easy to see who is actually on what side. We have known many religious people in our own day who would not want to have anything to do even with a person who voted for a different presidential candidate than they did, let alone being willing to see the grace of God in the life of a prostitute or a thief. In fact, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:11, “And such were some of you.” The church is made up of former thieves, and of former Pharisees. While it feels extreme to talk about people hating the church because they hate Jesus, we are assured by the Lord that this is what the reality is, and it will be out of this world of openly immoral law-breakers and persecuting God-haters who think that they are God’s best friends that men like the Apostle Paul and Simon the Magician will come.

If we are clear about Christ, the cross, and the resurrection, we cannot expect that everyone will love us, Him, or His message. We also cannot imagine that those who seem to reject us, Him, and His message will be neutral. Jesus is telling His disciples that they will be hated and persecuted without any just cause, because He was hated without a cause. It is a fact that out of that mass of those who hate us, Him, and His message, some will have an amazing change of heart. The way that change of heart will generally come will be through personal contact with others. It is in that exposure to the genuine community of the church, that people caught up in the middle of hating Jesus without a cause will begin to find that they love the One that they were sure that they hated, and they will hardly know what to do about that. It is within the community of the church that they will learn how to live for Him, and how to live with each other. They once did not love the Father or the Son. Some in the day of the Apostles had seen the undeniable miracles of Jesus, and they had heard the words of life that He spoke to them. They were without excuse. They were guilty of sin in their rejection of Jesus and the persecution of the church. But some of these, like Paul, would be changed, and would experience spiritual life, and spiritual growth.

The world is different than the people of faith in Christ. Here are just two examples of this difference. 1) The world has no place for confession of sin and the receiving of true forgiveness based on the work of Christ. We have come to love these things in the church. It is wonderful to confess our sins to one another. We read in James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.” We love to hear this. We confess our sins to one another, and we pray for one another, because we are priests to one another. The healing we receive that way is wonderful to us. 2) The world has no real place for deeply receiving the Word of the Scriptures into our hearts as we read it over and over again. We have come to love hearing verses that we already have heard and messages that we already know. We love the fact that we start to recognize certain words and thoughts from the Bible. We are not tired of seeing Christ everywhere in the Bible, and adding new words of faith from the Bible into the storage chest of our souls.

Spiritual witnesses (26-27)

Naturally when we experience forgiveness and when we love a passage that has become familiar to us, we would like to think that others might be able to enjoy this same thing. When we hint of such things around others, we may find some receptivity to genuine spiritual life. Sometimes when I give an opening to someone who I expect to have no spiritual interest, I am surprised to find that they do have interest. They may be afraid that they don’t know the right words to say, but if they are able to sense that I am not there to judge them, they may admit that they believe something, though they may not know exactly what it is that they believe. This kind of spiritual interaction between family members, friends, and neighbors has been going on for a long time. It is part of the personal interaction of the church in a world that actually hates Christ and His church, as the Father begins the sometimes lengthy process of drawing people out of that world to Himself. This kind of new creation and the spiritual growth that can follow at an unpredictable pace can only truly happen by the Holy Spirit, but He who is in us, uses us.

The Spirit of God who is within us somehow comes alongside us in our willingness to have some measured spiritual interaction with another person. The work that must be done is an internal work of the soul, and must be done by the Holy Spirit. Yet the spirits of the apostles to be, in their day, would be made willing to bear witness. We remember what God has done in the past, and we bear witness. We are aware to some degree of some things that God appears to be doing now, and we bear witness. We believe the promises of what God will do in the future, and we bear witness. This is what the apostles did; this is what the first century church did; this is what we are doing in our lives; and this witness-bearing is what the Holy Spirit uses to do His own essential work of witness-bearing.

Do not think that the way to bear witness is through fitting perfectly into the worldliness the world, or through being judgmental along with the Pharisaic self-congratulating church. Neither of these false ways of bearing witness does any spiritual good. The first sounds like it might work because we think that people will relate to us on a natural level and that somehow through our being worldlier than they expected they will be able to develop a spiritual interest. The second sounds good because we think that people will see our own obedience and they will be impressed with our law-keeping, be ashamed of their own sins, and will want to be like us. Both methods ignore the depth of the world’s natural hatred for the Lord. That hate is so deep, though hidden, that only the work of the Holy Spirit can make the change necessary to bring life and growth to those we love. The best thing that we can do is to be open to the work of this same Spirit in making us true spiritual witnesses to others. Confess your sins to one another and speak words of forgiveness to each other. Receive the Word of God over and over again in your hearts. Be open to spiritual interactions that are beyond you, where the good that may be accomplished in your presence must come from the Holy Spirit working in the lives of others, who like us, were by nature, children of wrath.

1. What is the difference between being in the world and being of the world?

2. What encouragement comes to us from considering the life of our Lord in the midst of the world?

3. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in the witness-bearing of the apostles?

4. How are we to bear witness about Jesus Christ?

God Loves You... Deal with it.

Life in the Lord’s Vineyard – 4 Sermons

Part 3: “The Chosen in the Lord’s Vineyard”

(John 15:16-17, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 15, 2009)

¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. ¹⁷ These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

What did Jesus say about our purpose as the chosen of God?

A: “That you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.” (John 15:16)

I chose you (16a)

Sometimes we loose track of how blessed we are. It is easy for you to be weighed down by concerns or disappointments and to forget that you are loved by God. Think of what it means simply to be known by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. But you are more than known by God. You are loved by Him. I know that the cross is the greatest display of the love of God for you, and the verses immediately before this are about how the Son of God laid down His life for you. For just one moment I want you not to think about the death of Christ, but think about the best husband you know of and think about his great love for his wife. Now isn’t it amazing that God says His love for His church is the love of a husband? When Candy and I got married, one of my brothers gave the wedding message at our request. I remember that he talked about his love for his wife. He spoke of the moment when he knew that they would be together, and compared it to that scene in The Sound of Music, when Maria and Captain von Trapp have that kind of sudden realization, and they sing these words, “Somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.” Why? “For here you are standing there loving me.”

There is something so wonderful about the blessing of committed love, but to think that the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe loves you… not because you have done something good, but because He was entirely determined to do something good for you. It is very appropriate for us now to remember the cross, that “while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.” Yet even as we think about Christ’s death for us, there are times when we loose track of how blessed we are. I suspect that it is our surprise that throws us off course, our surprise about what life is like in God’s household, the Lord’s vineyard. We have been looking at some principles from John 15 about life in the Lord’s vineyard, where Christ is the vine, and we are the branches. So far we have noted two important ideas to remember: 1. Don’t be surprised if you suffer, and 2. Don’t be shocked that loving Christ means obeying Him. We need to add one more idea this morning: 3. Don’t fight so hard against the fact that God chose you.

Back to marriage for a moment- We are not at all surprised to hear that a husband has a particular love for his wife, and that he does not have that same affection for every woman as for the one woman he chose as his lifelong companion. If God says that you are His chosen bride as a part of His church, why should you question whether that is a good thing? When two people find each other, we have to hear their stories to see who chose whom, but when God, the Creator and the Sustainer of the universe loved you, it should not surprise you that He chose you.

Jesus says to His disciples, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.” The concept of a chosen people of God is not anything new. Throughout the Old Testament we were told that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were the chosen people of God. In Deuteronomy 7:6 we read this: “You are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” The Jews, the Israelites, were the chosen people of God. I have talked about the relationship of husband and wife, but God also speaks of the relationship of Father and Son referring to His particular love for His chosen people. When He was giving instructions to Moses concerning what was to be said before Pharaoh, He said in Exodus 4:22, “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, Israel is my firstborn son.’ ” This is something we can understand. It would be unnatural not to have a special affection for your son. God has His heart set on Israel. He chose Israel. And now in one special Son, Jesus Christ, He has chosen you.

The most obvious meaning of the Lord’s words in this passage has to do with the specific disciples who were with Him at that time. These eleven disciples were chosen by Christ to be apostles in the New Testament church. He finds it necessary to emphasize His sovereignty in that choice by first saying, “You did not choose me.” But is this being chosen only for the first disciples, or is there biblical evidence that those who believe in Christ were all chosen by God? Earlier in John 6:44, Jesus said these words: “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” In Matthew 22:14 Jesus speaks of the work of the church proclaiming His kingdom to many, but the divine inner call as something that comes to less than the many. He says, “Many are called, but few are chosen.” In Colossians 3:12, Paul calls the church of Jews and Gentiles there, “God’s chosen ones.” In 1 Thessalonians 1:4, he says to the believers facing persecution in that place, “We know, brothers loved by God, that He has chosen you.” Finally, Peter writes these words in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” The new chosen “race” is not one race or ethnic group at all. The church comprised of believing Jews and Gentiles are the new chosen people of God. If you believe in Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection, and call upon the name of the Lord, you have been chosen by God.

This primary act of God’s will in loving you and choosing you does not change your secondary act in responding to the love of God. Just as there is much biblical evidence that in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have “been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11), there is also much evidence that when we hear the loving call of God to us, we are supposed to say to God in Christ, “I do.” Yes, He chose us. Now show forth His work in your life by responding to Him. Choose God back by following Christ and abiding in Him and His word. Jesus says, “Follow Me.” He says, “Come to me all you who labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” We hear His love, and we say, “Yes. I do. Here I am.”

You should bear fruit that will last (16b)

There is a purpose to our being chosen. Do you see that in Jesus’ choosing of His disciples? Do you see that in His choice of you? He chose the twelve (minus Judas) that they should be set in place as apostolic messengers for him, that they should go and bear fruit, fruit that would abide, fruit that would last beyond this life. The Lord’s vineyard expanded greatly through the ministry of these eleven men. They were chosen to bear fruit, and they did. They testified to the truth of the life, death, and resurrection of the long-expected Messiah, and many people believed.

This was the beginning of the expansion of the New Testament Kingdom of God. It started as a small mustard seed in the life of Jesus of Nazareth as He shared His life with Peter, James, John, and the others. It moved forward to Jerusalem where thousands of Jewish households came to believe that Jesus was the One. It spread to other places throughout Judea, and to many Samaritans in the northern part of what had once been the kingdom of Israel. This mustard-seed of a beginning made its way through the provinces of the Roman Empire, places like Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, Macedonia, and Achaia. It soon had reached Rome, and through Rome it began to spread throughout the entire empire. Over the course of the centuries since that time that small beginning has now expanded the vineyard of the Lord to places that had never before heard of the Law of Moses or of the temple in Jerusalem. In the last 100 years there has been an overwhelming move of this fruitfulness in places like Korea, China, and the entire continent of Africa. And we must keep asking Him for fruit even here that will abide.

The forward motion of the message of this Messiah must continue. The earthly expression of the kingdom in the church is only a part of the story. There is a place beyond this world where the reign of Christ is already supreme, that place where the fruit of those apostolic endeavors is stored in the lives of all of the redeemed who are cheering on the earthly progress of the church today. The society of heaven is happy to hear a word rising from millions of homes and churches in many languages: “The kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

One day it will be very apparent that whatever we ask the Father in the Name and will of Jesus shall be given to us. This is the kingdom of God. Its beginnings are very humble, but its conclusion is majestic and glorious. How fitting for a war that was won through the death of a husband! He must have done something good. He must have had more than a good childhood. He must have stood up to evil for us and died the death that we deserved. One day we will see it. We will say, “He must have done something good.” He loves us. He has won for us the Kingdom.

Chosen for love (17)

If you can take in the love of God for you without too much of an argument over His choice of you, then love one another. Love your parents and speak well of them. Love your children, and teach them a life of love. Love your brothers and sisters, and do not abandon them. Love your wives and husbands. Out of the strength of that grace that is common throughout the earth among all sorts of people in the bonds of family love, see something of what it means to be in the family of God, and begin to love one another in the church with a brother’s love and a husband’s love, and a father’s love. This is why you were chosen by the love of God, so that you would love one another.

It is a great blessing to be chosen by the love of God. This is a fundamental principle of life in the Lord’s vineyard. Do not hate His electing love for you just because you don’t understand it. Give in to His love, abide in His love, and bear true fruit of love that will last.

1. What did it mean for the apostles to be chosen by God? What does it mean for us to be chosen by God? Does this mean that we do not need to choose Him, or is there some way that we do choose God, but He first has chosen us?

2. What is the fruit of the apostles? Should we also bear fruit?

3. What role does asking the Father play in our bearing fruit that will abide?

4. Is there some connection between bearing fruit for the Lord and loving one another in the Lord’s vineyard?

Do you think that obedience does not matter?

Life in the Lord’s Vineyard – 4 Sermons

Part 2: “Love and Obedience in the Lord’s Vineyard”

(John 15:9-15, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 8, 2009)

⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ¹² "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command you. ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

What does the Lord teach concerning the way of love and obedience?

A: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (John 15:10)

Abide in My Love (9-10)

Some people look at the cross, and when they read something like Isaiah 53:10, “It was the will of the LORD to crush him,” they wonder whether the Father loved the Son at all. We who have come to know the Father and the Son know that there has always been the greatest love between them. Isaiah 53:10 goes on to say the reason why the Son would die, “He has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin.” This sad fact of the cross was because of our sin. The Father and the Son had determined that the Son would be the offering for our sin. The verse goes on to give the result of that death saying, “He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.” It is very clear that it was for some very wonderful result that the Son travelled the pathway of suffering and death. It is also clear that this death was a great grief to the Father, and we know that the Father and the Son are together at this moment, and will be forever. We know that the Father loves the Son.

That it is why the opening words of today’s passage are so outrageously wonderful to anyone who knows the Father and the Son, “As the Father loves Me, so have I loved you.” Take that in for a moment. Jesus loves you as the Father loved Him when His Son was going to the cross. This is important because we have been told that in the Lord’s vineyard we should expect some pruning in order that we might be more fruitful. When we feel the pain of the clippers, we might be tempted to think that Lord does not love us. This is not the case. The suffering that we face is not evidence that God does not love us. It is evidence that the Lord has plans for us that involve pain, and an opportunity to abide in the love of the Lord in the midst of pain. That is why Jesus says, “Abide in my love.”

What does it mean to abide in the love of Jesus? While it certainly begins with His love for us, the fullest relationship of love requires the response of the one who is loved. We are loved by Christ, but we are being told here how to love Him back. I would not want to discount the place for feelings or emotions in our response of love. Our emotional selves are a part of the whole package of who we are. However, the Lord does not mention feelings in His definition of what it means to abide in His love. He tells us that, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.”

To keep commandments the way that Jesus kept commandments is to keep them perfectly. What this all means is that there must be different experiences among people of this thing that the Lord calls abiding in His love. We know that our peace with God is based entirely on the works that the Lord has perfectly done for us. That is the same for all who are His. Yet among all those who have this peace with God, it seems undeniable that some abide in His love more than others, in terms of their response to His call to perfect obedience. In fact, for any one of us, though the fact of our security in God’s love is the same forever, our response of obedience is not the same at every moment of even our own lives. There is nothing that we can do to change God’s love for us, but there is much that we can change to abide more in His love by attending to His Word.

That your joy may be full (11)

There are important emotional implications connected to this matter of obedience that can have a very significant impact on our well-being. There is an odd thing about obeying God; it may appear to be the way of pain, while the way of disobedience and idolatry promises joy, or at least distraction from pain. This is all very short-sighted. The only way that our joy will be full will be to make a settled commitment to God’s way of doing things.

This is where faith enters into the specifics of your life. You need to have faith that the way that is right according to the Word of Jesus Christ is the way that will actually lead to joy. We can come up with 100 objections as to why Jesus is wrong, and why our way of drowning our lives in false substitutes and distractions is actually the only thing that could possibly work for us. All our arguments can never change some very basics facts: 1. God is God and we are not, 2. His Law is the way out of slavery and our idolatry is the way into bondage, and 3. The cross is the ultimate proof that God has our best interests at heart and can be fully trusted.

Think about these disciples again for a second. The disciples might just like to hide away for the rest of their brief lives and pretend that they never met Jesus Christ. That might seem like the best way to stay out of jail and to enjoy peace with family and friends. Nonetheless, that plan will not do, and to pursue some “Can’t-I-just-go-back-to-the-old-normal-life” story will never work, and we would lose out on such great opportunities that we have for fruitfulness in the Lord’s vineyard. They did not choose that way ultimately. They pressed forward in the kingdom of God, and they moved ahead to find the new normal of paying attention to God’s Word and following it.

If we will do this, we will move toward true joy, the joy of knowing that we have yielded our hearts and lives to God. Jesus has some joy for you. He lived as a Man of Sorrows here below, because that was what was necessary to obey the Father. Now He has the fullness of joy, and He says, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

Friends of God through the love of Jesus (12-15)

So what is this obedience that the Lord is asking of His disciples and of us? He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” That is a very big commandment. Jesus has loved us with the greatest love ever displayed among men. He laid down His life for us.

First consider what this love has accomplished. Through the love of Jesus, we are now counted as friends of God. The debt that was against us because of our sin has been paid. Today the word “friend” can be used with a very low threshold of meaning. We get a little message that says that someone wants to be a friend with us. We can either click on a box that says “Confirm” or a box that says “Ignore.” If we confirm that the person is a friend, and later we don’t want to know about their daily life, we can hide them from our view with yet another click, but they are still officially counted as one of our friends. When I go walking in our neighborhood, I don’t see very many people, but often the people that drive by wave to me. I have never spoken to any of them, and they have never spoken to me, but they wave as if we are somehow friends because that is the custom of the neighborhood. If it is the Christmas season, you can stand outside the supermarket and sing songs about Jesus, people will smile, and some of them who still use cash may actually put a dollar in a red kettle, and no one thinks that anything strange has happened. It is a friendly time, but you can’t do the same thing on July 4^th, because we don’t have that custom.

When Jesus made you His friend, it was not some kind of custom; it cost Him His blood. Your sin was placed on Him. When the wrath of God came against Him for your thoughts, words, and actions that were against the commandments, all your sin was finally and fully dealt with. Now God calls you friend, and Jesus treats you like a friend. He has a written message for you, and He treats you like the kind of closest friend that is treated like family. This can never be taken away from you. In heaven, you will be happier, and you will feel more secure, but you will not actually be more secure. You are as secure in your friendship with God through the love of Jesus Christ as you can ever be, because the love with which He has loved you, will never be taken away from you.

But now, your Friend is calling you to consider something more. He wants you to love one another as He has loved you. You cannot reach the end of that deep well of obedience. The best that you can do in this life is to grow in love. As you permit yourself to love others more like Jesus loved you, then you will share your lives with each other in very good ways. God has done this to us in Christ. Jesus said to His disciples, “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus was giving them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

The truth was that one of the twelve was a betrayer, and that he had left to do what he would do. Very soon he would return with those who would arrest Jesus. Within just a little while Jesus would be accused, mocked, beaten, and crucified. He would die as a man who was brutally exposed as a law-breaker, though He had done nothing wrong. He would breathe His last, and He would be buried in a tomb. But within three days that tomb would be empty, because He would do what He had earlier told His friends He would do. He would rise again.

Somehow this needs to translate into a new way of life. A way of being friends that is deeper because of the cross and the resurrection. This is something of the obedience that the Lord is calling us to, this kind of life of loving service, this kind of gospel friendship that treats church like family, because our older brother Jesus did something for us that means everything to us. Our old way of our life is gone. Our lives can never be the same.

1. What is the connection between keeping Jesus’ commands and abiding in His love? Is it possible to be loved by God, and yet not really to be abiding in His love?

2. How can we experience the fullness of joy in our lives now?

3. What is the difference between being the Lord’s servant and being His friend?

4. What has Jesus made known to you?

Pruned, but abiding in the Vine

Life in the Lord’s Vineyard – 4 Sermons

Part 1: “Jesus – The Fruitful Vine”

(John 15:1-8, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 1, 2009)

John 15:1-8 "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

What does Jesus teach us concerning His place and our place in the Lord’s vineyard?

A: “I am the vine; you are the branches.” (John 15:5)

The Father’s Vineyard (1-2)

The Lord has a vineyard. It’s not all about grapes. We know that He is talking about people. Throughout the Old Testament God called His people Israel His vineyard. Especially in Isaiah 5 He reviews His great work in planting Israel and caring for her. Then He says in Isaiah 5:4, “What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it? When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?” It is obvious that the failure of Israel as a vineyard was not a new fact that just came forward in the days of Jesus. It was spoken of throughout the Old Testament. God was the owner of the vineyard, the vinedresser, and the problem was that Israel did not produce the kind of spiritual fruit that should have come from those who loved God and His Word.

God had plans for a new vineyard that He talks about throughout the Old Testament. That new vineyard would start with something of a new beginning that might seem very small, but eventually that vineyard would be much larger than Israel. Jesus, on His way to the cross says, “I am the true vine,” meaning He is the fruitful vine. When we are in Jesus, we are a part of a new vineyard, and we want to be fruitful there. The key to being fruitful is not staying out of trouble, but staying in the vine, Jesus Christ. It is only in Him, that we can bear the fruit that God desires.

The work of making the vineyard fruitful is divine work, and it involves cutting and pruning. Some branches do not bear fruit at all, and they are cut off of the vine. Even those branches that bear good fruit need to be pruned, because that is the way that more fruit will come forth. This pruning work is suffering work. The ultimate vine, Jesus Christ, was cut for our sake. If He refused that pruning work, there would have been no fruit at all. Without the cross, we could not have life in Him. Our sin stood against us, and we needed to be counted as right before God. This could not happen without Christ and without the horrifying cut of the cross that He willingly took for us.

This is not the end of the story of the Father’s pruning. In each life that is in Christ, the Father continues this work of pruning, and this is especially why Jesus is warning the disciples here. Yes, He is warning them about the cross, as He has done before, but He wants them to see that the suffering that they face has divine purpose. God is after fruitfulness, and fruitfulness usually requires some measure of suffering. How much do you want to be fruitful in the Lord’s service? Your continued connection to Jesus the vine through times of suffering granted to You by the Father’s love, this is a key to fruitfulness in a fallen world. If you are suffering as a Christian, you have been given a special trust and gift from God. Do not be shocked by pruning. Use it fruitfully in the Lord’s service.

Our Place in the Vineyard (3)

It may help you to understand that the word for being cleansed is the same word as the word for pruning. If you are talking about vines, then it means pruned. If you are talking about people, or about other things that could become ceremonially unclean, it means cleansed. There were many things that could make people unclean in the Old Testament world; leprosy, contact with a dead body, eating the wrong kind of food. All of that was symbolic for what really makes a person unclean; that is, sin.

Sin made Israel very unclean, and there was no amount of ritual purification that could change that. Something had to come from God in order to cleanse Israel. Even the best among the people of God had become unclean, not only through one’s own sin, but in association with others. In Isaiah 6:5, in the calling of the prophet, we read of Isaiah’s reaction to the sight of God in heaven. He says, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” He had a sense of His desperate need. We all need to have a sense of that. From the depths of our souls we have an unclean problem. But Jesus is able to cleanse people, and He can forgive sin. For Isaiah, this was displayed through something that took place in heaven. In His vision He saw an altar, a place of sacrifice, a place where sin is dealt with or atoned for. An angel flew to him with a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the heavenly altar, and the angel touched him on the mouth with that burning coal, and he said, “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” That is a pretty impressive coal that can atone for a man’s sin. Who do you suppose that coal was all about? There is only one sacrifice for sin that really works. The burning coal that takes away sin must be the same man who said to His disciples before His death, “I am the vine.”

The way that we can be judged to be clean is through the Word that Jesus has spoken to us. This is the only way for anyone to be cleansed. A Word comes from our King, normally through His ambassadors who are charged to bring a message about Him to those who will believe. It is message calling us to be reconciled to our Maker through Jesus Christ. He is the only vine. He is the only burning coal. He is the one who died for our sins. In Him we are already clean. The pruning that God does is not to make us clean, but to make us more fruitful. The cut that Christ received is the source of every good gift for us. We hear of His dying love, received His word, and our sins are forgiven. If you are not in Jesus, the way before you is clear. You need to be in that one vine. You need to see Him as your provision for eternal life. He is the promised One who stands in the way of God’s judgment on behalf of the many. Believe in Him. Believe in His cross. Believe in His resurrection. Believe in His Word.

Our Fruitfulness in the Vineyard (4-8)

And then what? Stay in Jesus, and let Him stay in you, especially when the Father is pruning you through suffering. That is the only way to have fruit for heaven. Jesus is the fruitful vine; and His works remain forever. Our charge from the Lord here is to remain in Jesus.

If we will not remain in Him, we will not be able to have a fruitful Christian life. This is not to say that people won’t like us and even love us; it is not to say that our gifts will not be useful in many ways. (Example of the delicious dinner that I enjoyed in Manchester the other night and some simple act that is done by someone in the vine of Christ) It is to say that our fruit that we have if we are not in the fruitful vine of Christ will only be fruit for this life, can we say that we will have the wrong kind of grapes. It will not be the kind of fruit that remains for heaven. Only that which is done in Christ will be heavenly fruit. The rest is simply a part of this present age.

How to have good grapes: Let His Word have the highest seat of authority in you, and then ask whatever you wish, and consider it done for you as a part of your service of Christ. When God’s Word abides in you by the Holy Spirit, you begin to think about things God’s way. The person who stays with God for a few years, and who stays with others who stay with God, naturally begins to think more like God. This is only normal. Bad company corrupts good morals, but it is also the case that good company has an impact on a person. God’s company is good company.

If you are going to spend a lot of time with God, you are going to have to recognize that there are certain things that interest Him. He is very interested in His own glory. He is very interested in everything having to do with Jesus Christ. He is interested in His own plans of what He is accomplishing in Christ. He is interested in the cross and what Christ accomplished for us there. He is always talking about that. He is very interested in what His Son did after being in the tomb, that He rose again from the dead. He is interested in what that means for you. Here’s something else: He is interested in you. If you are abiding in the vine, He considers you in your heavenly state to be a rich present for His Son. He is interested in all the twists and turns in your life that will make you more like His Son, and will prepare you for the life that He has for you beyond this life. He is interested in pruning you for Jesus sake, and He is sorry that His pruning may hurt you for a time. He needs you to trust Him on this.

What you can do now is to remain in Jesus, trusting that He is the true vine. What you can do in the world of Jesus is what God told the first man to do in Adam’s world. “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it.” You know what that would mean for Adam. Do that now for Jesus. Stay around Him so much through His Word and His people that doing things for Jesus’ world becomes more and more of a normal way for you to live. There are certain things that make no particular sense in Adam’s world, but they make plenty of sense in Jesus’ world. To pay attention to what someone is saying to you who can do absolutely nothing for you makes little sense in Adam’s world, but it makes good sense in Jesus’ world. To give an anonymous gift makes little sense in Adam’s world, but it makes perfect sense in Jesus’ world. To quietly give yourself in love for the powerless and the poor makes little sense in Adam’s world, but it is just what Jesus does. To die on a cross for the unworthy makes no sense in Adam’s world, but there is nothing that makes more sense than that in Jesus’ world. Enjoy the Lord. Let Him talk about the things He likes to talk about, and allow yourself to be changed by His Word, and when you see an opportunity to be fruitful, go for it. Let your light shine. Stay in the vine. That is part of the way to live in the Lord’s vineyard.

1. What is the Old Testament concept of the Lord’s vineyard?

2. How can the unclean come into the Israel of God?

3. What is the difference between the vine and the branches?

4. What does it mean to abide in Jesus?

The Spirit of Peace

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled – 3 Sermons

Part 3: “The Gift of a New Peace”

(John 14:22-31, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 25, 2009)

²² Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?" ²³ Jesus answered 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. ²⁴ Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. ²⁵ "These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. ²⁶ 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 that I have said to you. ²⁷ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. ²⁸ You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I will come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. ²⁹ And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. ³⁰ I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, ³¹ but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

What does Jesus promise the church in her anxiety and fear?

A: “My peace I give to you.” (John 14:27)

The Display of God through the Church (22-24)

One of the songs of ascent, Psalm 122, talks about how the thrones of the house of David were in Jerusalem. The pilgrim on his way to Jerusalem could keep such a thought in the eye of his soul in order to help him to persevere. We are not travelling to the Jerusalem below, but to the one which is above. We are told to set our minds on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father (Colossians 3:1-2). It would be delightful if we could see into that heavenly Jerusalem now and look upon the throne of the great Son of David who lives and reigns forever at the right hand of the Father on high. That would help us to keep on going. That would give us peace.

The challenges of anxiety and fear in the Christian community have always been formidable. We are reminded that we need help in this area by the words of Jesus both at the beginning and at the end of this chapter, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” But our hearts are troubled, and we need to find some way to a new gift of peace that Christ promises His disciples. We need that peace that Isaiah spoke of so long ago, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3). The disciples are facing the loss of their best friend. He promises them a new home, a new love of their lives, and the gift of a new peace, and all of that was somehow personal. Jesus says He will be seen by His disciples, but that somehow the world will not see Him. This prompts a question by one of them. How will the world not see Him if the disciples are able to see Him?

Jesus says that He will be seen and known in the people who love Him and thus keep His Word. (Think of the end of the 2nd commandment.) These are the ones who are loved by the Father, and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will come to these ones, and they will make their home with them (lit. make a room with them). The world will not have this experience. That is how the Triune God will be known to people of faith, but not generally to the world. This gift of God making a room in you as you yield yourself to Him and to His Word surely has something to do with the well-being, the peace, that we come to experience as we focus on the Lord, and not on our circumstances.

In terms of the things you want from God right now, where on that list does this experience of having the triune God living with you and in you fit? Are your hearts captivated by the circumstances around you, or by the Lord who lives within you? Will you have peace if and only if certain things you want are given to you, or if and only if you have the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? The display of God through the church will not be by our outstanding success rate in gaining the best of all circumstances instantly, but in having God in and among us permanently.

The Helper, The Teacher, The Holy Spirit (25-26)

Where is God? Where is the Father now? Where is the Son of God now? Where is the Holy Spirit? When we think of God in terms of place, we are reminded that God is somehow everywhere. Yet we often see God in the Bible as being in some place in a special, powerful, or comforting way. God inhabited the tabernacle, and later the temple. God also occasionally appeared as the One who wrestled with a man, spoke a needed word, or received the worship of one of His servants. But God also seemed to actually live within a few people, especially His prophets, in the person of His Spirit. It is most frequently the case that we think of the Father as inhabiting the highest heaven. The Son of God, Jesus Christ, after making atonement for our sins on the cross, eventually sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high as one who is forever fully God and fully man. But where is the Holy Spirit?

When Jesus prepares to leave, and speaks to His disciples of the peace that He will send them, He talks specifically about this Spirit, the third person of the Godhead. Where is the Spirit of God? This is a matter of great concern to the Lord when He speaks the words of comfort contained in this chapter. It is the intention of Jesus together with the Father, upon the ascension of the Son on high, to send forth the promised gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. This pouring out of the Holy Spirit is the beginning of the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise through the prophet Joel (Joel 2:28), “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.” The grand finale of this promise will only be experienced in the heavenly Jerusalem, but we have a true taste of this now according to Peter who cites Joel at Pentecost and says in Acts 2:16-17, “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.’ ”

Before He goes to the Father, Jesus wants His disciples to know that when He ascends on high, His Father will send the Holy Spirit to them. How does the Holy Spirit come to people? He is given by the sovereign will of God. Beyond that, we are told to ask for the gift of the Holy Spirit, and for the graces that are associated with His work among His people. In Luke 11:13 we read these words of Jesus, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” To have one of the three persons of the one Triune God is to have the true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with you and in you. If them Spirit makes a room in you, somehow the Father and the Son are in that room, and you are a temple.

Jesus says here that the Holy Spirit is a great Helper to us. We need help in many ways. We need a comforter and an advocate for us. We need help in the spiritual battle before us in life. We also need an internal teacher from God, and the Holy Spirit is this teacher, assuring our souls of the truth of God’s Word, and fighting the power of lies that would confuse and destroy us. The Holy Spirit had a special role of teaching the apostles, teaching them again of the things of Christ, and helping them to remember the words of their Master. This teaching role of the Holy Spirit is at work now in us, as the Scriptures come to life in our hearts when we hear the truth of Christ presented to us.

The Peace of God and the Love of Jesus (27-31)

What we must especially see here for our help in faith and life is that the Holy Spirit is a great gift of peace for the church. Do you want peace in the midst of a world that does much to make you anxious and afraid? Your very best ally in the fight of fear is the positive presence of the Holy Spirit, the Bearer and guarantee of the peace of God within you. It is as if the blessing of the Holy Spirit is the gift of Peace Himself to you from heaven. When Jesus leaves the Holy Spirit with you, He leaves Peace with you. When Jesus gives the Holy Spirit to you, He gives Peace to you.

What does it mean to have the peace of God in you? To have the Spirit is to have a permanent, powerful, and effectual gift of peace, regardless of how we feel. By the Spirit we are assured that the obedience of Jesus was for us, and that the death that He died, He died for us. We have the fact of peace with God as a certified reality, since the certificate of the Lord’s ownership of us as His own has been planted within our awakened hearts. This fact of peace is our most profitable reflection in time of anxiety and fear, especially when it seems that we are not able to have what we would like. There may be much missing in your life, but is there something missing in the goodness of Jesus in His life? Is there anything lacking in the power of His blood? If there is nothing wrong with His righteousness and death, then we are assured that we really do have peace with God as a most important fact of spiritual reflection and life. Flowing from this great fact of peace will come some good measure of the comforting gift of a peaceful heart, driving away from us the wrenching oppression of our disappointments as our mind is resting on the Lord, and not on our circumstances.

Through the Holy Spirit you have a fear-removing gift of peace, a gift that you need to live the Christian life now, a gift that you need to believe in God, and a gift that you need to believe God’s Word. Through the Peace of God given to you in the person of the Holy Spirit, you have what you need to live a life of love in this world, the gift that you need to experience healing of your own troubled heart in a world that has been deeply troubled for many people a very long time. Through the gift of Peace in Person, you are made a pilgrim who is now content with the end of the journey, and thus is ready to rise up and walk to the Jerusalem above.

Will you travel on this road that leads to perfect peace? Will you experience the love that Jesus has for the Father, an outward-faced love, somehow abiding personally in you? Will you allow God to evict the hostile tenants of anxiety and fear living in your heart, as His Peace more and takes up residence in the room that God owns?

Jesus is going to the Father. He is telling His disciples what will happen. His circumstances that He will face are not peaceful at all, but He has the fullness of peace somehow in Him. An adversary will come against Him, yet no adversary can have any hold on Him. This Jesus is righteousness, and He is your peace. This peace he gives to you.

1. How does God show Himself today to the church and to those who are becoming disciples of Jesus Christ?

2. What is the role of the Holy Spirit in this process?

3. What is the peace of God and why do we need this gift?

4. What does peace have to do with believing in God and believing God’s Word?

Need a New Love of Your Life?

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled – 3 Sermons

Part 2: “The Gift of a New Love”

(John 14:11-21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 18, 2009)

¹¹ Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. ¹² Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. ¹⁵ If you love me, you will keep my commandments. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, ¹⁷ even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him."

In My Name (11-14)
It is very difficult for a person to feel as if he has been left alone in life. We know that when God created Adam, He said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” That is also true of women. That is not to say that there are not some good things about being alone, but we were made to be with other people who are not strangers, people who know us, and who we know.

It was not good for Adam to be alone, but it is a different kind of “not good” to love deeply and then to lose someone. One of the reasons this can be such a debilitating challenge is that our minds were created to make connections with people. We rightly connect major portions of our current experiences and our past memories with the reality of people who were with us in earlier days. When those people are gone in some way, it feels as if damage has been done to our souls. We lose people, but in the process we seem to lose something of ourselves, as if a new jagged brokenness has entered into so many experiences and so many memories, so that too large a percentage of our hearts has been pained by the new loss.

There is a sense in which this is the way it is supposed to be, and it confirms that we were created for relationships. Mortality and broken ties of civility and love have brought us much pain. When you feel this, it is actually a sign that you have a heart that can still hurt. This is better than deciding to not feel in order to avoid the feeling of pain.

Jesus is about to leave His disciples. If there were ever a man that we thought might have been able to fix this problem of brokenness and loss, here He is. Now He is leaving, and this looks like nothing other than the biggest loss of all. To lose Jesus is to lose every lesser hope. How will He encourage His disciples? The One who is in the Father, the One who has the Father in Him, the One who has done these great works of the Father fixing all kinds of brokenness, this One and only Son of God is going back to heaven, back to the Father. What are His disciples to do? What can they do without Jesus?

This is not just a first century problem. In our lives we expect God to fix our brokenness. Many of the things that we have wanted the most in the past are not even possible right now. We want our hearts to be whole again, and they are torn by this loss of relationship that we have been describing. But now Jesus is speaking here of Himself as still being Himself, still being alive, even after He has gone away. Not only that, He tells His disciples that they will do greater works that what He has done, and the reason is that He will still be Jesus when He has returned to the Father. From the Father’s throne in heaven He will do more, and not less. He encourages us to ask the Father, and He says that He, Jesus, will do what we ask. He claims that this answering of our prayers will be one of the ways that His Father will be shown to be the great God that He is, because of way that His Son will work through His church. He tells us that when we ask for anything in His Name, He will do it.

We have at least three problems with this: 1) We are pretty sure that we have asked God for things that He has not done. Back to the brokenness of loss: My sister died about fifty years ago when I was under two years old. My grandparents died, one before I was born. All of my aunts and uncles are gone. My parents are both deceased. More recently I have experienced other losses that you know very well. There are many disappointments that you and I have faced, things about which we earnestly prayed, and we have not yet seen how these things have been given to us. 2) We are quite sure that the works that Jesus did were spectacular, including raising people from the dead, and we do not seem to be able to do these things, certainly not on command. He says that His disciples will do greater works than Him, and we cannot imagine how that could ever be, even if He is just speaking of the apostles. 3) We hear that we are supposed to ask for things “in Jesus’ Name,” and we are certain that our Lord is not introducing a new magical incantation. We do not know what these words could possibly mean.”

In short, these three problems can be summarized in this way: We have a hard time believing these words, because we have not yet seen them remove from us all our misery. Still we are told to believe, and here is perhaps the biggest surprise: Somehow we do believe, but we are puzzled and pained.

I Will Come to You (15-18)
Somehow, the more we stay with Jesus, despite our questions, we find Him to be the answer to our deepest longings. The more we stay with Jesus we find that we have Him, and that He will never leave us. The more we stay with Jesus and read His Word we find that there is much more to life than what we can see with our eyes. He is definitely here with us. We are not keeping Him here with us; He is keeping us here with Him. If we love Him, it is because He first loved us. If we are desirous within our hearts for His worship and for a new obedience to Him, it is something that He has given to us as a down payment on the life to come, where we will see His promises made to be promises kept. We do not see it entirely right now, but we believe in the One who was made a little lower than the angels for us, so that He might suffer a death we deserved. He has gone to the Father, but somehow we have not lost Him.

In addition, He tells us that He has come to us in the person of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. This great Helper is with us, and assures our doubting souls that the Lord’s promises are true and reliable, that God will be with us forever, that we know God, that He lives with us, even that He lives in us. Though our mothers and fathers may be beyond the Jordan on the other side of the river, though people who should be near us have gone far away, Jesus Himself, the most important Lover we could ever have says, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

In Romania, the word for orphanage is “house of children.” When I first visited a “house of children” I was perfectly composed and having a very enjoyable time. Until it was time to leave. To leave new young friends behind as orphans was wrenching. It must be difficult for a parent to face a terminal illness knowing that he will soon have to leave. It must be a very sad day for a parent when a breach in marriage means that he will not be able to see his children again. It must be extremely difficult when a child does not want to talk to a parent, or to come home again to see a parent. These things are not supposed to be easy, and it can be so deadening to the soul for someone when he prays that these sum of all parental fears would never happen, and then they do happen. I know you want answered prayers. I assure you, so do I. But I have learned that the only place to start on a journey that will lead to answered prayers is with the best answer to every prayer. You have a new gift from God. There is a new Love of your life, and this is what He says to you, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”

Jesus comes to us and stays with us through everything. To have Him is more than anything else that can be taken away from us. Any of our requests truly in Jesus’ Name, truly in the eternal purpose and plan of God, has surely been granted. If you cannot see it now, it is answered for you many times over in Christ, and is reserved for you in the life to come. Christ has come to you. In your sadness, do not turn Him away. It is very probably the case that the things that you have asked Him for in the past are best found in Him, and He has them now in safe-keeping with Him above, where no one can take them away from you ever again.

I in You (19-21)
This is not just wishful thinking. He showed this to His disciples when He rose from the dead. He told them, “Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.” This living that He was talking about was heavenly living, resurrection living. How do you know that you will see the answers to your prayers that are in accord with the Name of Jesus, the will of the eternal Father? You know because He lived again after He died, and He showed His disciples clearly that He was alive. Yet some still doubted.

Do not doubt that Jesus died for you. Do not doubt that He rose from the dead so that you would know what was ahead of you. Do not doubt that He will hear your prayers, and that He will work all things together for your good. But do not be deceived into thinking that your name is better than His, that your will is better than His eternal plan. Take His Name, and wait patiently. He has your answered prayers at His house. Do not doubt His love for you.

He is not ashamed to speak of His love for you. “You in me, and I in you,” He says at the end of verse 20. He is perfecting your new desires, the desire to worship and to obey the new love of your life. He is perfecting your love for Him. His love for you needs nothing new. It is already perfect. The one that His Father loves, Jesus says He also will love. Let your soul be remade first with this new special relationship that will never be taken away from you by death or by any other loss. He has made Himself known to you in His Word, and He will manifest Himself to you more and more, until you see Him where He is now, with all your broken-hearted and answered prayers.

1. How could the works of the disciples be greater than the works of Jesus?
2. What is the relationship between the love of God and our obedience to God?
3. In what sense does God lovingly live in us?
4. How does God lovingly show Himself to us?

A New House

Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled – 3 Sermons

Part 1: “The Gift of a New Home”

(John 14:1-10, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 11, 2009)

John 14:1-11 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. ² In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? ³ And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. ⁴ And you know the way to where I am going." ⁵ Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?" ⁶ Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. ⁷ If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him." ⁸ Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." ⁹ Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? ¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

What did Jesus teach His disciples about the way to our new home?

A: “I am the way.” (John 14:6)

My Father’s House (1-3)

This morning we begin three messages from John 14 under the general title, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” Perhaps I should begin by saying that I recognize that the advice that is inseparably included in the words of the Lord Jesus in this title are not always easy to hear. When you face a very deep trial in your life, you may first have to let your heart feel some trouble for a little while if you want to be able to feel the full comfort of what Christ is saying to His disciples here as He goes to the cross. Maybe you are in such a position now where your heart needs to feel the trouble of the moment for a while, maybe even for a few years. That is not unusual. If you need someone just to listen to you through that period, I will do that, and I know that there are others here who will be willing to do that too.

We can listen with the confidence that you will eventually have an ear that is willing to hear better news than what you seem to be able to take in at the moment. Eventually we all do want to know something more than our own troubles. We want to hear the reasons why it is that in a world full of trouble (Job 14:1) Jesus is able to say, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” If you cannot receive all that at the moment, tuck this message away in your heart for a sunnier day. What we have in John 14 is at least three reasons for you to be full of joy. Each of these reasons is tied into a gift of something new for you from God. Next week we will look at the gift of the new love of your life. The following week we will listen to what the Lord has to say about a new peace that He has for us. But this morning, I won’t seem spiritual. This morning is like the end of the ultimate game show, where you are called forward to find out that you are the winner of a brand new beautiful home, with no taxes, no utility bills, no problem of having too much to clean, and no embarrassment from your friends hearing that you live in the most amazing place. Jesus has a new home for you in His Father’s house.

Jesus says that His death can be viewed in this extraordinary light; that He is going to prepare a place for you. I remember when the church helped our family during a time when we foolishly found ourselves to be the owners of two houses, one of which needed some work. Mike mostly wanted me to stay out of the way as the church worked together to do beautiful things in our house so that it could sell (which it did). It was such an amazing feeling to go there when everything was done, and to feel like we had just received a home through the sacrifice of others who loved us. God has a new home for you on the grounds of His heavenly estate.

This kind of declaration, that we have a new home, will not cast the trouble out of our hearts unless we believe it. The only way we will trust this announcement to us if we believe in the trustworthiness of the Father and the Son. This is why Jesus says, “Believe in God. Believe also in Me.” If you do not believe in Him then you are missing out on something that could help your heart to feel better. Let not your hearts be troubled. Jesus has a new home for you on the grounds of His Father’s estate. There is something that He is doing there now. I suppose that He would be using all the means of men and angels in heaven to do this thing that He talks about here: “I go to prepare a place for you.” Then He adds this warm-hearted encouragement: “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” He wants to be with you, and He insists that He will be the One who will come to take you Himself. When you die, Jesus will take you to heaven.

The Way There (4-6)

The idea of going to heaven, going to the Father’s house, finding our place there on His land, it is such a wonderful thought, but we get worried. We sing, “Swing low, sweet chariot, coming for to carry me home!” That’s a plea for help for the lowly. We worry with Thomas, when he hears Jesus say, “You know the way to where I am going.” We raise our hand however sheepishly and say, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Isn’t that right? We don’t know heaven. We’ve read a few verses. We’ve sung some songs. But we cannot organize a VBS and take everyone on an exposition there.

But Jesus answers in such a way that we suddenly remember that we know more about this than we realize. We just get frightened a little bit, like a person taking a test that they studied so hard for, and then they blank out for a moment and forget the obvious things. Jesus is not beyond giving us a hint here to help us out. He is whispering to You now, “Pssst. You know this one. I am the way.” At first we think, “Huh?” But then it clicks in our hearts. “That’s right! I do know this one! Jesus is the way to heaven. The answer is not spatial, but relational. Knowing Jesus is the way to the Father’s house.

This is a test that He will make sure we pass. He loves us. He has been preparing a place for us, a place that will eventually descend from heaven with angels and all the redeemed brothers and sisters. It’s not just that God’s chariot is going to swing low. The whole of the Father’s house is coming down and renewing the earth. It’s like the beginning of the Wizard of Oz in reverse. Instead of Dorothy’s house landing on Oz, the whole world of Oz is going to land on Dorothy’s house in Kansas. And she is going to say to her dog, “Toto, Kansas isn’t Kansas anymore in a way, but then again it is Kansas, just a better Kansas than I could have asked for or imagined, an earth without sin or decay. My Father’s house has arrived from heaven.”

Jesus is the way. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the life. He is the fullness of all these things as if the whole of heaven resided in His heart, and from the fullness of truth and life and light in the heart of Jesus come blazing forth a whole new creation in the perfection of the holiness of God. The world that springs forth from the bosom of Jesus is solid, full of all that is true. Thank of the most delicious, wholesome, colorful, and fresh gifts of earth, and recognize that the heaven that pours fourth from the throne of God is far more wonderful, and eternally solid and praiseworthy. Let not your heart be troubled, brothers and sisters! You have a piece of land in that place with a new name on, and it is your name. There is home there for you.

Do you know why you have been granted such a happy future? Jesus is the reason. His obedient suffering in this world and his death has made Him so perfectly fit to be the way for you to heaven. You will want to thank Him forever when you see what He has done for you there. The sufferings that you face now are not worthy to be compared to the glory that you will see in the Father’s house one day. Even those sufferings have been purposeful, as trophies of something that was meant for your good, and for His glory. You will know that in the fullest way in the day that is coming. Now there is one more thing thought that you must consider when you think about Jesus being the way. Apart from Jesus there is no such world for you. If you want to get to heaven without Him, if you want to take some other bus of whatever sort of false god you may think would take you where you want to go now or forever, just remember that whatever high such idols promise, or even deliver, they have this way of crashing you down to the ground so that you have nothing left at all. That is what is before you this morning: Jesus as the way to heaven, and every other imposter as No Way. Do the only sane thing. Turn away from No Way, and come back to the only Way, the true Way, the Living Way; the only Way to that land of truth and life that springs forth from the throne of God in heaven and from the loving heart of a Savior who died for you.

Seeing our Home through the Words and Works of the Son (7-10)

Do you see Jesus today? Do you hear His words? He says, “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I give them eternal life.” Do you see His works? He raises the dead. He makes the blind see, and the lame man leaps for joy. If you see Jesus in His words and works in the Bible, if you see that as being for you, then have seen the Father.

This is what Philip wanted, to see the Father. He said, “Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” That is all he wanted. “Open up heaven so that I can see my Father’s house there. Let me see the Father.” Jesus said, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.” If you see Jesus in His words and works in the Bible, and if the God of heaven and earth has given you faith to believe these things, then you see God with the eyes of faith. You see Him, and He surely sees you. He sees your tears here this morning, and He loves you, and He can be trusted. He will take you through a moment that you think is more than you can take, and He will turn it into your finest hour. This you will know experientially when you enter your new home. Let not your hearts be troubled.

1. What does it mean that Jesus is preparing a place for us in His Father’s house?

2. Why is Jesus the only way to the Father?

3. How do the words of Jesus show us the Father and the Father’s house?

4. How do the works of Jesus show us the Father and the Father’s house?