The Helper Will Come!
Notes
Transcript
15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
How many people do we know that say they love God, yet don’t seem to live a life like they do?
Notice that Jesus sandwiches this between asking anything in His name and how He will send a helper to help us….
Maybe, it is possible that there is something important about the idea of loving Jesus among doing the things that He asks us to do…?
It is interesting to note the difference in translations on this verse…
In the NIV, it makes it sound more like Jesus is making a command…if you love me, keep my commands
However if you read it in the ESV or NASB, which are both more literal translations it reads differently…
Rather than being a command to love Him and to obey His commands
It reads as if we do love Him, we will keep His commands
It sounds like the result of loving Jesus is that we obey His commands, not that we earn His love by obeying His commands
Maybe there is a difference here is behavior and relationship
Behavior says to do what Jesus tells us to do and we will love Him
Relationship says that when we love Him, we will do what He tells us to do….
If you haven’t guessed by now, I lean towards the latter.
The context of everything that we have read in John 14 to this point is about relationship.
Jesus’ relationship with His Father, and subsequently, His relationship with us…
So, when we love Jesus, we will obey…
Similarly, in my marriage, I often do what my wife asks me to do.
I don’t have to do what she asks me to do, but because I love her I will…
I know that in my relationship with her, there are things that are important to her! And, in love, I want to honor those things…
I think it is similar in our relationship with Jesus…because we love Him, we obey Him.
Hal Perkins says that there are three reasons that we obey Jesus
Reasons we Obey:
Love - most important and the goal!
Faith - we don’t know the potential outcome, it’s not because of our knowledge, but because we trust in Him and that He knows best!
Authority - He is King
Often times, we obey progressively in our relationship with Him.
We start with authority - He is God, He is Lord, He is judge - many of us come to Jesus in this way. Also, many evangelize in this way as well - because God is authoritative, you better do what He says, which is repent and come to Him, or you will go to hell…
So, some of us start there, but then we see that He really is good. He knows all…so we can trust that when He asks us to do something, it is what is good and right! So, we obey in Faith
And then, we get to know Him! We grow in our love with Him…then we obey in love..
This is the goal! Where we want to be!
I think this is what Jesus is saying in this verse….
Earlier He had said that He was leaving His disciples, but if I go, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also! For all of eternity!
In relationship with Him!
His desire is for relationship with us!
And, how do we do this?
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—
The Greek word paraklete, can be translated as “advocate,” “helper,” or “comforter.” It is three in one!
Here we are! Finally! The Holy Spirit…the helper, the advocate, and the comforter!
The word “another” here actually means “of the same kind.”
So, Jesus is going to send another of the same kind as Him, to be their helper, advocate, and comforter!
To be with you forever!!!
Jesus is leaving them, but He is sending someone else of His kind, who will not leave them!
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
The Spirit of Truth, who will come will be a sign of the new covenant.
The coming of the HS was prophesied in the OT
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
So, the prophecy of Jeremiah is that there will be a new covenant…and it will be written on their hearts…
Ezekiel further says:
26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Jesus explained this a bit in:
37 On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
And Paul:
13 And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.
So, the HS was prophesied about in the old testament and here Jesus is saying that the Spirit…the Spirit of truth…
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
But the disciples, and us, can receive the HS because we receive Christ.
Jesus says He abides with the HS, but that the HS will be in them!
They can know the HS because the know Christ.
And they can know the Father, because they know Christ…
Jesus says He will give us another, of the same kind…the HS!
The relationship that Jesus has with the Father, and with the HS, is the same relationship that we can have!
Living inside of us!
And He will help, advocate, and comfort us!
The work that Jesus began on the earth with bringing the kingdom to the earth would be continued as Jesus said in
12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
And the way that this work is going to be continued is through the helper, another of the same kind as Jesus, He is also God
And, He is being seen around the disciples, as He lives with them, in Jesus,
And He will be inside of them!
So, the way for us to continue the work that Jesus begun is through the Helper inside of us doing the work….
When we love Jesus, we obey Him! And then we are doing the work that He has done, with the help from His Helper!
So, as we wrap up this morning…how much do we love Jesus?
Do we obey him out of His authority? Faith? or love?
Do we trust Him enough, to do the things that He is calling us to do?
Do we even want that? Do we desire to do the things that Jesus did?
We have him, another of the same kind as Him, in us! The Spirit of Truth!
Do we listen to the helper? Do we trust the Helper?