That They May Know Him — John 13-19

0:00 Let's pray. Evelyn, welcome, by the way. Father, we thank you for your purposes. You have eternal purposes, Lord, and how we are connected to them, how you've made known your son to each of us, how you've used your word to speak to each one of us, to draw us to your son, to open our eyes of our hearts so we can see the wonder of your son as we've been proclaiming in song. The lord Jesus Christ and gathered now simply in his name, copies of his word to open together so we could pay close attention to the details that you gave in your record of him.

0:47 We honor your word as it is, not the word of men, but the word of God, and pray that your spirit would be mightily at work to keep the word of men separate. Or then may your word and your word alone be brought to our attention. We're thankful that you know each one here. We're thankful that you can speak to each one here. To that end, we commit our time in Christ's name.

1:14 Amen. So, we'll be in John's gospel in fourteenth chapter when we get there. It'll take us a while to get there, but we've never let that out as a text for today. I won't tell you what verse. There's 31 verses, and I won't tell you which one.

1:38 There'll be only two verses that we'll think about. We'll get to them. Let me say first how much I appreciate your series on pride during pride month. I thought it was... I don't know who arranged it.

2:00 You know? I'll take it as from the Lord, I guess. You know? And I and I enjoyed listening to all the messages. My sister who was not a believer while she was on this planet, obviously, now that she's left, she's a strong believer.

2:18 Unfortunately, too late that I know of. She... The strongest conversation I had in... Her recently in Seattle during pride month was I just asked her, why do you think they picked the rainbow? That had anything to do with the fact that God gave the rainbow as proof that he would never judge the world again by water.

2:45 And, of course, she'd never known that because she's not a bible reader, and so I had a chance to tell her that. She didn't know. She thought it was interesting though. And of course, we know that it's only no more judgment by water. As the climate change will tell us, it's getting hotter and hotter.

3:06 So there's fire of judgment coming. And so we preach the gospel of the lord Jesus Christ with all our heart because as far as I know, that's the only way to avoid it. The elements, it will be so hot. The elements will melt, Peter tells us in his second letter. So it's gonna get a lot hotter.

3:27 I don't know how hot it got here, but it's gonna get a lot hotter. And if that's a picture of nuclear meltdown, so be it. I don't know. I I don't know. Nevertheless, we have a glorious gospel to proclaim.

3:45 The glorious gospel of the blessed god, the lord Jesus Christ. But your series series on pride brought to my attention a number of times in the New Testament that Paul himself talked about boasting. Boasting and pride might be linked together. Maybe not in your mind. We had some of it today.

4:15 Brother Denzel Retzus from second Corinthians and many of you probably and I don't know who would profess to have some type of thorn in the flesh yourself, something that God has arranged for you in particular that you would prefer not to have. And nevertheless, after after your three times praying that god will remove it, he said, no, my grace is sufficient for you but Paul's testimony about the thorn in the flesh is that it was given to him as a messenger. Because he could easily be overwhelmed with pride. He could be a proud person, and so he struggled very much with boasting. Boasting.

5:28 Obviously, you know parents who brag about their kids. Not that you would be one. And some parents have a lot that they're proud of of their kids. I used the word proud all the time with young people. I'm proud of you for that choice because I do rejoice that there are young people who make great decisions at a time in their life when everything is challenging, and they're past the age of reasoning and probably almost through the age of rebellion.

6:00 And so they're still making good decisions. For that, I rejoice. And then that rejoicing, the way I communicate to them, it's very simple. I'm very proud that that was your decision in that situation. I don't mean to be prideful about them, but I use that word all the time.

6:16 Every once in a while, I'll give somebody else's testimony because of something they said or something that in their life that they brought to attention to me that I think, wow, that is absolutely worth bragging about. I brag on every half. I do. I admit that. I admit that.

6:34 I bragged about some of these campers, mostly about all the lies they try to tell me but I did brag about them a lot positively should, you know, if you would and that brings us to that wonderful verse in Galatians where Paul says, god forbid that I should boast. I'm going to say brag just my preference. God forbid that I should brag except in the cross of Christ. My lord. By whom?

7:06 The world has been crucified to me and I to the world. A powerful statement. Not only was he wanted to only ever boast in the work of Christ at Calvary. But he understood also what that Calvary's tree meant to him. How not only for his eternal salvation.

7:31 That he could walk in the world without being connected to the world because the world had been crucified to him and he to the world. He could see himself as severed from the world and I don't mean the planet. I mean the culture. The culture. That this is what's happening now.

7:51 Culture that we all live in. In any given week, it changes but the church of what's happening now that I often refer to. Doesn't seem like it's doing well being able to say that verse by whom the world has been crucified to me and I to that world. Nevertheless, with much of a struggle that is, in the Garden Of Eden, I will remind you that they could eat of any tree except one except one, and that was the one they ate of. In our generation, we're invited to eat of only one tree, and that's the tree of Calvary.

8:33 If your soul will be nourished, if it will be fed, if it will be satisfied, it will be from your partaking of that which happened at Calvary. The lord Jesus Christ. Knowing that also the more you partake, the easier it is to be severed from the culture of our world. Hard to do, I know. I know.

8:53 Hard to do. And we live in a multi cultured country, a melting pot as that were of cultures, harder to do in foreign countries when there's still one main culture that controls most routines, most habits, most thinking, most religion. God forbid that I should brag about anything except the cross of Jesus Christ, and I will ask you. When's the last time you bragged about Jesus Christ like that? I know you wanna say, why?

9:48 I get that. Don't worry about it. You're good. Don't worry about it. We won't get more Bibles out.

9:56 But you have roughly how many chapters? You have the thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and most of the nineteenth. In those seven chapters which is roughly what? One third of John's gospel is what? Is a twenty four hour period.

10:16 That's what it is. We know from Luke that the hour that Jesus said, let's go into the upper room because the Passover is prepared is roughly in between 03:00 and 06:00 in the afternoon. We know that. That's when the Jews had to have Passover killed by. So on that day of Passover, this is when the Passover has to be killed by.

10:41 So in between three and six, Jesus Christ took his disciples to the upper room that he sent them to tell the man, get it ready because we're coming. So, they get there. It's in between three and six. We don't know exactly what hour but it had to be in that hour. Those three hours and we know that from John 13 to John 19 is the account of twenty four hours because in John 19, he's buried and we know what time he was buried.

11:11 We know what time he gone on the cross. In the morning. We know that it was dark from noon till three. We know at three he was taken down. We know also at three Joseph Armand three are are error.

11:24 Armathea came with Nicodemus and said, Pilate, we want the body. Pilate couldn't believe he was dead already. Had to send somebody to confirm his death. Then finally, give it to Joseph and Nicodemus. They wrapped the body and take it because there happened to be a an open sepulchre in that garden.

11:48 It had to be past three then. I'm going to guess maybe four. It is rough estimate but they're really not that details, not that minute to me other than the fact that I'm telling you brothers and sisters, this is one day in the life of Jesus Christ. And then at one day, all the details that you can think of that we usually use at the Lord's supper because we're proclaiming his death and it would be in those twenty four hours that were most captured because you'll also know that in those twenty four hours, and you would agree with me, I would think, that in those twenty four hours, he endured more contradiction against himself than any other time in his life. And we look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith through for the joy that was sent, set before him, he endured the cross.

12:33 Despising the shame and sat down at the right hand of god. We've heard that already once today too. Hebrews chapter 12 verse one and two. I have found in my life when the circumstances in my life are most contrary to me is when the contrariness that Christ endured is most precious. That's just my experience.

13:02 Now, currently in your life, you might find most of your circumstance favorable to you. We wouldn't know. And I would doubt that you would all share that with each other. That your burdens of how unfavorable a particular circumstance is or the circumstances collective accumulated in your life or now seem overwhelming, you would not go to a prayer meeting and say, I'm overwhelmed with this situation in my life and so we can't readily detect in each other what is favorable in our lives and what is not favorable. But I know this, when things are not favorable, when they're contrary to my wishes, when they're contrary to what I would prefer, that is when the Christ endurance, the things contrary to him seem most precious to me.

13:57 Because that's what I'm told. Think about him when you're struggling to endure. Hebrews 12. And I would suggest to you bible students and all you searchers of scripture, if you're gonna know anything about the lord Jesus Christ, know that he walked on water, know that he went to Egypt when he was a child. Know all those.

14:37 But his normal life in that body that Christ prepared for him and put into merit. Alright? That, His normal life. He has one twenty four hour period that was excruciating. Contrary to him.

14:54 Learn, meditate, feed on those details. You will find it, as I do, most profitable. Especially in preparation for having any situation in your life that you will have to endure because it will be contrary to you. And if there is a day that the Lord hath made, as the Psalmist says, which is part of the great halal that they would have said in the upper room by the way, according to the Passover tradition. This is the day that the Lord has made.

15:22 What day is that? Today? Well, you can think of it that way if you want to pep yourself up to enjoy and be rejoicing. But that day is referred to another day, and that day was what? The stone which the builders rejected.

15:35 The stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This is the Lord's doing. It's marvelous in our eyes. This is the day the Lord has made. One twenty four hour period of Jesus Christ.

15:51 Those details. Learn those details. John 14. Verse thirty and thirty one. The last two verses.

16:12 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 my father and I do exactly what my father has commanded me. Come now, let us leave. I've mentioned to you previously that I've had the hardest time sorting out the sequence of events from when they went in the upper room to when they left the Garden Of Gethsemane.

16:57 Why? Well, because John's the only one who includes so many details that we find in John 13, the conversation and discourse of 14, 15, and 16, the prayer of 17. 18 starts with crossing over from the bottom of the city over the Brook Hedron and climbing up the Mount Of Olives to go to the Garden Of Gethsemane. In this verse, 31, this fourteenth chapter of John's gospel ends with this instruction. Let's go.

17:33 Let's leave. So, it seems like this is the end of the lord's supper. And I have also mentioned to you, it is hard for me to imagine in the narrow streets from where they would project that the upper room was where the last supper took place to walk down to the bottom of the city with 11 other disciples. Judas already being dismissed to go. And hence even the reference, the prince of this world is coming because of course, Lucifer thought he was in a favorable position because he convinced Judas to betray Christ for 30 pieces of silver.

18:13 And he's off now being dismissed by Christ from the last supper and he's off collecting his little band of merry men. His minions, Satan's minions to Joel and capture Christ. Did they try the upper room first? Probably. And then Judas dawned on him.

18:31 I know where he prays. Let's go there and they end up in the garden. That's probably how it happened. I can't I can't substantiate that with a verse but I think that's what happened. But to have 15, 16, and a prayer of 17 in the streets does not seem likely to me and so how do I explain that last phrase of 14?

18:55 I don't. I can't explain it. It seems obvious from text. He said that this supper is over. Let's go.

19:06 It probably wasn't. It it probably has a different meaning but I can't tell you what it is. If you would read historical scholars, they would agree with me. Nobody can tell you for sure what it is. So we'll just leave it.

19:18 Let's just leave that portion. Let's not leave like they left. Let's just leave that phrase. For now, you study it on your own. But this is what you want to think about.

19:59 He did it because he loves me. Not wrong at all. Not wrong. But the bottom side of a coin that's laying on the side. The top side saying, this is the lord Jesus saying, we're going.

20:17 The prince of this world is coming. He has no control over me. He's gonna come through Judas. We know that he entered into Judas, John 13. And so Judas now is gonna be all the forefront of what the enemy's trying to do thinking that I got Christ right where I want him.

20:39 No. We know that in the garden, Christ prayed. Father, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thy will be done. It's submission.

20:51 Submission to the father's will. We know that in John 10, the great passage at the end of the teaching on the the great shepherd. John ten seventeen, Jesus said, the reason my father loves me is that I lay down my life only to take it again. And then on verse 18 and no one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord and I have the authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.

21:23 This is the command. This is the command I received from my father. So, Christ is in a position now where there's something he wants the world to learn. Despite the fact that the enemy is coming through Judas and the band of merry men, the centurion, all that were coming with the priest to capture Christ and accuse him of being seditious. About to start an insurrection No.

21:57 I'm gonna go out there and bring about that which is written of me because I'm gonna show the world, the world. I love my father. I love my father. And I want to be in obedience to my father. I've received certain commands from my father.

22:19 I'm going to keep him because I love him. Because I love him. It's a hard thing to do is think about Calvary without you involved. It's a hard thing to do to think about Christ being in the garden and even telling Peter, put your sword away. He imagine Peter when he drew that little sword and he's going to cut off Malchus' ear and Christ said, put that sword away because Peter, do you don't know?

22:48 I already told my father, awake, oh sword. As we read in Zechariah. And PNT also the peer, listen, let me roll back the scroll of heavens for you. Look up there. You see legions of angels.

23:03 They'll come at a moment's notice to save me if I ask. I'll just ask. My father will send them to give me but this is the cup my father's given me to drink. Shall I not drink of it? This is the plan.

23:16 This is the commandment. I'm doing this because I love my father. It's not about how much I love you. As much as it is about how much I love my father. For god so loved the world, he gave his son.

23:30 Yes, that's the glorious John three sixteen. That's the wonder of a savior that beloved brother and sisters, I want to brag about. I want to brag about how much Jesus Christ loved his father. Yes, I want to I want to preach how much he loves you and every other person on the planet but I'm going to brag about how much he loves his father because at the point of absolute Whatever he felt that made him cry, my god, my god, why why hast thou forsaken me? That was an obedience to his father and his love for his father that he went forth.

24:33 And and and what's precious about the fourteenth chapter is for the very first time it seems like, I say it seems like the disciples are spiritually paying attention. They're spiritually paying attention. All those times you think they would ask questions, up until this point the only questions asked is, is it me? Because Jesus said one of you is going to betray me. Me?

24:54 That's the only thing they asked them for. They were asking each other questions. Who's going to be the greatest? Who's going to sit the highest? Where's everybody going to sit?

25:03 They had questions about their own position. But now finally, when Jesus gets them to this point in the fourteenth chapter, now they finally ask a legitimate question. Alright? Let not your heart be troubled, verse one says. You believed in God, believe also me.

25:23 My father's house has many rooms. For if not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I'll 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'm going. Suddenly a question, we don't know the way.

25:40 We don't know the way. Where's the map? We don't know the way. Thomas, great. Somebody asked an intelligent question.

25:47 We don't know the way. To which the response is, one of the greatest gospel verses there is. In fact, the gospel verse that I responded to 1972, I am the way. Not I'll show you the way. I am the way.

26:03 I, the way is me, Jesus said. The truth and the life and nobody can go to where you say you wanna go unless you go through me. Pretty narrow. Extremely narrow. Are Christians narrow minded?

26:17 Hallelujah. Hallelujah. There's only one way. There's only one way, right? Yeah.

26:26 But the question, alright? That question gives way eventually to the fact that Jesus is talking about coming back and then this... But eventually it lends to itself to the whole discussion about what? The spirit's gonna come in my place. Right?

26:45 The spirit of God is coming. You see in sixteen and seventeen of this fourteenth chapter. I will ask the father, 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 currently, but he will be in you.

27:11 He will be in you. Right? So, I'm going but he's coming. So, we have the going and coming and that's a major issue and the promise of that, I'm going to go and make a room for you, right? I'm going to make a room for you.

27:32 But you look at verse 23 and you realize this. In physics it's the same word. Jesus said, anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My father will love them and we will come and make our room with you. You're worried about me and what I'm going to do and go make a room for you, but until that happens, because that's future, I want you to know that if you love me and obey me, we're going to come and make our room with you.

27:59 And those are the exact same words. And why they're translated different? You gotta ask the translators. Who promise there will be no contextual translation? It's going to be literal.

28:08 Yeah, here's one of them. In my father's house are many rooms. If you love and obey me, you'll be one of the rooms that me and my father will come and live in. Imagine that? That's and that's a transaction that took place when you love when you learned of the Lord Jesus Christ, received him as your savior, the Holy Spirit came into you.

28:29 But the more you love and obey him, the more you have a sense of his presence in your life. Because he's taken up more and more part of you. He's taken up more and more residence in you. It's not like He's pouring more into you, you got them all. But we quench Him, we grieve Him, we shut Him out, we ignore Him.

28:45 We do everything to displease Him without any alarm whatsoever, because guess what? Jesus loves you. Yeah, He does. There's no doubt. He does.

28:56 But he wants total ownership because he already totally owns you. You're not your own. You've been bought with a price. You belong to the lord Jesus Christ. And you have to allow him to come in and you have to show your love for him through obedience.

29:10 Obedience. Alright, the things that you obey. Alright? You can't just ignore him. You can't just say, well, yeah, I got him and I'm eternally saved so I can rest in my eternal salvation.

29:36 Good question. Except if you see me, you've seen the father. You want to know about god the father? Study the lord Jesus Christ. Study the lord Jesus Christ.

29:49 But it's the final question that occupies our thoughts about the love of god and that's a question that Judas, not Iscariot, in verse 22 says, Lord, how do you intend to show yourself to us and not the rest of the world. How you gonna do that? Why would you do that? How would you do that? How would you reveal yourself just to the people who will love and obey you?

30:23 Where everybody else? You know, you have half the church running around crying out. We wanna see Jesus. He got a simple method. Out of love, obey him.

30:37 He'll manifest himself to you. Well, I don't feel close to the lord. That's because he said, follow me and you went in that direction. No wonder you don't feel close. You're not close.

30:51 You're not close. You might be saved but you're not close. If you would. You don't love him enough to obey him. You just don't love him enough to say what's next.

31:02 You're in charge. I'm bragging about a young Christian who said, when I got saved, I knew then he was my authority. He's, how strong a word? He's my authority? Very few...

31:13 When I got saved, I knew he was my friend, my best friend. He's my altogether... He's this, every possible word. Nobody uses authority. This young man said, he's my authority.

31:25 And no question. He's my authority. Doesn't mean we don't struggle to be submissive. Submissive is learned behavior, by the way. In case you forgot.

31:35 Most of you don't forget. You just want to deny it. Being submissive is learned behavior. Doesn't come natural to submit. Alright?

31:47 Because that's Jesus promise in verse 21. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. So, you want to sing 188 in the black book? Lord Jesus, I love you. I know you are mine.

32:04 You can? But you can't sing it if you don't mean it. I mean, you're allowed to sing it. People invite you to sing it but you shouldn't sing it. If you can't say it, right?

32:20 The one who loves me is the one who keeps my commandments. The one who loves me will be loved to my father and I will show. I will love them and I will show myself to them. Alright? And so, I mean, at some point, we have to deal with the fact that this manifestation of the spirit of god to people is based on obedience that comes from love.

32:50 Love, not fear, not obligation, love. The fruit of obedience for those who love and obey is being having Christ manifested. Alright? Having Christ. Keeping in mind what I already read to you.

33:07 Therefore, does my father love me? I lay my life down that I might take it again. Nobody takes it from me. I lay it down in my own accord. I have authority to lay it down.

33:18 I have authority to pick it up, but this is the commandment I receive. This wasn't something that he decided on his own. This is the commandment that he received from his father. Now, let's think about Hebrews twelve one more time. Let us run with perseverance, the race marked out before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him.

33:44 What joy? Oh, look at us. He's joyful over us. Yeah, you could say that. He's joyful to meet with his church.

33:53 Yeah, I agree. Yeah, he loves being with his people. No doubt. I agree. 100%.

33:58 Not trying to minimize that. Does he not know a greater joy? Absolutely, he does. The joy of pleasing his father because he obeyed to the point of death. He obeyed, he obeyed his father's command to the point of crying out, my god, my god, why has thou forsaken me?

34:23 Something we will never say. We might have wanted to say. We felt like we could have said. When we feel god so distant from us, so absent from us but we have no righteous standing to ever say that to god because he will never forsake us. He will never forsake us.

34:39 Not like he did his son. Pleased to bruise him as he was. When he made his soul an offering for sin. We have a Jesus Christ who went to Calvary. He walked out of that upper room at some point even if it wasn't this point.

34:52 He eventually walked out of that point, out of that upper room, went down the street level, walked up down to the bottom of that city, walked up that hill, and prayed. Let this cup pass for me. Nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done. We're talking about Jesus Christ. You got somebody better that you want to brag about?

35:11 You got some hero who's got a number on his jersey that is good at something, somebody who can kick a goal, somebody who can hit a home run, somebody who can pitch, who can run a touchdown. You got heroes in your life, I'm telling you, Jesus Christ. He's worth bragging about. He is worth bragging about. Worthy is the lamb that was slain.

35:32 Brothers and sisters, worthy is the lamb that was slain. Do you know? Do you know him that way? The way I describe? You think he's just, that's just my version of Christ?

35:43 Maybe it is. Maybe it is. You got a Bible? I'm happy to study it with you any day of the week. Jesus Christ, close in prayer.

36:10 Astonished at his wounds. Lord, really never not astonished. It's a mystery that the immortal should die. Who can explain such a vast design? We thank you for him.

36:37 Drive these wonderful pictures of your son home to us. We pray. And may our lives be affected because of them. And commit ourselves to you in Christ's name. Amen.