John 14:18-24: Communion with God

Scripture Reading

Psalm 96:6–8 Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength! Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts!

Intro

How do you have a spiritual life that’s alive?

We’ve all been there.

Our spiritual life feels dry… dead… not as vibrant or as powerful as it used to.

I think that’s because in the grind of life… we turn Christianity into something that its not.

We become more concerned living out the Christian life… obeying God, going to church, keeping your nose clean trying to live like a Christian… that we forget none of that is the point of the Christian life.

Its all the outworking of it… they’re all good things.

But none of them are the point.

We forget that the chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

You want a vital Christian life?… the fullness of joy?

Glorify God and enjoy Him.

Make God the greatest treasure of your life and then make communion with your ultimate aim and end.

What is communion with God and how do you enjoy fellowship with Him?

Our big idea for the day is…

Knowing God and delighting in Him and His grace in Jesus Christ is the chief end of the Christian life.

God himself should be our aim…. the whole goal… Everything we live for.

And what I hope this sermon does is refocus the attention of our souls.

To recalibrate the compass to true north where we ask, “ Is God the greatest treasure of our soul and are we actually living like it?”

Let’s start with John 14:18 where Jesus says…

Set Up

John 14:18–20 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

I want to remind you where we are.

We are in the Upper Room Discourse.

Its the night of Jesus’ betrayal.

Judas has already gone out and in just a few short hours Jesus would be arrested and handed over to be crucified.

Setting an ominous tone over the evening, John simply says And it was night (John 13:30).

From there Jesus continued teaching His disciples to comfort them.

Jesus had just told them that one of you will betray me (John 13:21).

That He was going away and where He was going the disciples could not come (John 13:33).

And that, before the night was out, Peter… the Leader of the Disciples… the bold one who had confessed to Jesus You are the Christ! The Son of the Living God (Matthew 16:16, John 13:38).

That Peter!… would deny Christ three times calling down a curse on himself saying I do not know the man (Matthew 26:66-75).

If Peter was going to deny Him… what hope did any of the rest of them have?

And its in that context that said Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me (John 14:1).

And verse 18… I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

I will not abandon you… I will not leave you destitute and alone!

Jesus had just promised them the indwelling Holy Spirit to be with them forever and when He says I will come to you He is saying I will live again.

Jesus is here promising His own resurrection.

John 14:19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me.

After Jesus’ resurrection He did not manifest Himself to the world… He appeared to His disciples with the result that Because I live, you also will live.

Jesus was here promising His own resurrection and in His resurrection the salvation of His people.

The night is dark but in His death, Jesus would bring new spiritual life.

In John 11:25–26 He said I am the resurrection and the life.

I am salvation from the curse… resurrection from the dead… and Eternal Life.

Right before our passage John 14:6 I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

I will not leave you as orphans… I’m going to save you.

I’m going to offer my life as a sacrifice… I’m going to die as a substitute offering myself in your place for your sins.

But I will live again.

I will rise from the dead. And because I live, you also will live because of me.

I will save you from your sins and give you Eternal Life… and not only you but all who believe!

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

And that’s verse 20… In that day… in the day of Christ’s resurrection… you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

In the Father

You will know that I am in my Father.

By saying you will know that I am in my Father Jesus is saying you will know everything I am and everything I’ve said is true.

I am the Bread of Life (John 6:35).

The Light of the World (John 8:12).

The Door of the Sheep (John 10:7,9).

The Good Shepherd (John 10:11, 14).

The Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25).

The Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6).

The True Vine (John 15:1, 5).

If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water….Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (John 14:10, 13-14).

The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the ultimate proof of His claims and promises.

That He was the Son of God!… The Messiah!… The Savior of the World.

He was Romans 1:4 declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead (cf. Acts 17:30-31).

Union with Christ

And when Jesus says you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you…

He is promising our union with Him where we are made one with Him in His death.

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Because I live, you also will live.

This is what theologically we call our union with Christ… this mutual indwelling of us in Christ and Christ in us by the power and working of the Holy Spirit.

This is what it means that you and I are “in Christ.”

Colossians 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

That in our union with Christ we share in all His blessings and benefits.

His righteousness is credited to us.

His death becomes our death… the full punishment of our sins.

We are so united to Christ that God only deals with us and regards us as “in Christ.”

We are beloved in the only beloved Son of God… we become partakers of Christ and all the blessings and benefits of Christ are made our own (Hebrews 3:14).

We are forgiven in Him. Cleansed in Him. Loved in Him.

We share in His life and death and all the blessings and benefits of His salvation.

Faith in Works

And that takes us to verse 21 where after Christ gives the promise of salvation He gives the call of salvation.

John 14:21–22 “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.”

Now notice Jesus doesn’t say Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who is saved.

No one is saved by works of the Law and all who rely on works of the Law are under a curse (Romans 3:20, Galatians 3:10).

Jesus says, Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.

Obedience to Jesus is the mark of our love for Him.

Jesus said Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say? (Luke 6:46).

Our obedience is the fruit of saving faith.

Faith without works is dead (James 2:26).

Obedience to Christ is the mark of a true Christian because obedience to Christ is how we say You are our God!… You are our Lord… You are our Savior…

You are the ultimate treasure and desire of our souls.

All of my life belongs to you!

Obedience is the natural outworking of our love for Christ.

If we truly love Christ we will want to obey because from the New Heart we are given in the New Birth we will want to love and honor Him.

That’s why John says His commands are not burdensome to us… why? Because we love Jesus! (1 John 5:2-4).

We want to obey!… We desire to obey!… Because of God’s grace at work in us in our hearts.

Its the same thing as Jesus said earlier… If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples (John 8:31).

And then Jesus says And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Now this is not saying that God will love us in response to our obedience to Him.

God does not love us or save us on the basis of our works.

The one who loves Jesus is the one who has believed in Him with the inevitable result that they obey Him as the mark of genuine saving faith.

We see this in a parallel passage in John 16.

For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God (John 16:27).

God loves us on the merits of Christ and we become partakers of this love in Christ through our union with Him, by grace through faith.

So what is Jesus promising?

That in loving Christ and walking in obedience to Him we will enjoy… Not have! but Enjoy!… the blessings we have in Christ in our salvation.

That in loving Christ and following Him we will enjoy the love and blessing of God the Father and Jesus Christ and Jesus will manifest Himself to them.

Well what does that mean?

Judas (Not Iscariot)… so another disciple with the same name as Judas… asked that same question.

Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?”

What Judas probably had in mind was a political manifestation of Christ to the world.

Remember… the Jews were hoping for this political Messiah who would come in, oust the Romans and rule over the whole world… which the disciples evidently still struggled with.

After the resurrection they asked in Acts 1:6 Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

And so in verse 23, Jesus defines what He means when He says I will love Him and manifest myself to Him.

Manifestation?

John 14:23–24 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. 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.”

The manifestation is not for the world… why?

Because His manifestation would be a manifestation… a revealing… of Himself as our Great God and Savior and a manifestation of the love, power, and grace of His salvation.

Something that is only given to enjoyed Believers.

And this manifestation is in sweet communion with God Himself.

As the Holy Spirit indwells believers… John 14:17 You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you… so also the Father and the Son dwell with believers by the Spirit’s presence (Romans 8:9-11).

Jesus says, we, as in He and the Father, will come and make our home with him.

Notice what Christ is saying!

I will not leave you as orphans.

I will give you the indwelling Holy Spirit and in the indwelling Holy Spirit, the Father and I will come and make our home with you.

What Jesus is promising is the fullness of salvation.

Intimate communion with the Triune God Himself.

In John 17:3 Jesus said And this is eternal life…

Not just living forever… but that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

Its communion with God… reconciliation to the Father… and the full forgiveness of sins.

And this is what I really want to focus on the rest of this sermon.

What is this blessing of communion with God?

And why should it be the aim… the ultimate goal… the ultimate focus of every Christian believer?

What is Communion with God?

The Soul was made to know and enjoy God.

He is our Ultimate Good.

Our Highest Purpose.

The Baptist Catechism starts with Question 1: Who is the First and Chiefest Being?

Answer: God is the First and Chiefest Being.

Isaiah 44:6 Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god.

Psalm 97:9 For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods.

All things including ourselves exist for the praise and glory of God.

In him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28).

And that’s why the Westminster says with their Question 1: What is the chief end of man?

Answer: Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.

That means your chief end… your ultimate purpose… your highest calling is to glorify God and enjoy Him… delight in Him… love Him… treasure Him.

Dry

That is the purpose and goal of the Christian Life.

So many Christians live a life that is spiritually dry.

That feels more like wandering through a wilderness than life and intimacy with God in green pastures and beside still waters (Psalm 23:2).

And I think one of the main reasons for that is we forget what the Christian life is all about.

We turn it in to keeping your nose clean… obeying God’s commands… making sure we are solid and firm on our doctrine.

And those are all important, but they are not the ultimate goal of the Christian life.

That’s knowing God and enjoying Him and all His blessings given to us in Jesus Christ.

Its about knowing God and His salvation in Jesus Christ and delighting in Him.

You want a vibrant… robust… fullness of joy Christian life?

Delight in God.

Make Him the ultimate treasure and desire of your soul!

This is the core of the Christian life and what the Christian life looks like in the day to day.

Communion with God.

Well what is Communion with God?

What are we talking about?

Biblically we can sum it up as I will be their God and they will be my people.

It is knowing, dwelling with, and enjoying God as Adam did in the Garden.

John Owen says Communion is the mutual sharing of those good things which delight all those in that fellowship.

Owen, Communion with God, Banner of Truth, 3.

So in communion with God… God gives Himself to us and we give ourselves and all of ourselves to Him in return.

Its a mutual sharing of love… God’s love for us and our love for Him.

In Communion, God makes Himself and His love known to us and we love Him in return.

And in loving Him… we delight in Him and have the hunger and thirst of our souls satisfied in Him alone.

Because the Soul was made to know and love our Creator.

You were made to know and worship God! To magnify Him for all He’s worth by finding all of your life… hope… joy in Him.

Compass

This is what it means to love God.

We rest in Him.

Psalm 116:7 Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

When the Soul finds its rest in God it stops all its wanderings and searchings and is content in God alone.

Like the needle of a compass, the soul only rests when pointed to the true north of God Himself.

Everything else will leave the soul wandering and lost.

This is why God must be your ultimate treasure.

If I had to summarize the joy of the Christian life and Communion with God it would be knowing God and delighting Him for all He’s worth.

Enjoying Him and who He is and what He’s done in Jesus Christ.

Finding our rest in Him.

All of our joy, satisfaction, and contentment in Him.

The Soul’s True North.

It is the Joy and delight of Knowing God as Father through Jesus Christ by the inner working of the Holy Spirit.

Or as Jesus so poignantly put it… having a home with God, the Lord of our salvation.

Is this your soul’s aim and delight?

Do you delight in God.

Is He and sharing communion with Him enjoying Him for all He’s worth your greatest treasure and the ultimate aim of your life?

Not just in general but day to day in all of your life?

Is your whole life every day geared towards worshiping Him and enjoying Him for all He’s worth?

Is the hunger of your soul to know God?

The Soul’s Hunger for Communion with God

Look at how the Psalms describe the soul’s hunger for communion with God.

And as I read through these I want you to ask, “Does that describe my heart?… My life?”

Is God truly the highest and ultimate treasure in my life or am I living for something else?

The famous one Psalm 42.

Psalm 42:1–2 As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

Its this picture of dying of thirst and the only thing that will satisfy is God Himself.

Psalm 73:25–26 Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

My portion… my share in this life… the only thing I want.

Psalm 27:4, 8 One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple…You have said, “Seek my face.” My heart says to you, “Your face [your presence… your glory… your grace], Lord, do I seek.

Psalm 63… a Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah… a man after God’s own heart.

Psalm 63:1–4, 7-8 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

He was in the desert right then!

So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, [better than anything I can have in this world!] my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; in your name I will lift up my hands.

Do we thirst for God more than we thirst for water in the desert?

That should be a picture of the heart and aim of our life!

Verse 7 and 8.

…In the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

My soul clings to God… that’s a picture of a man after God’s own heart.

We could go on!

Psalm 16: You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you… You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:2, 11).

But you get the point.

God is the ultimate treasure and God is the only thing that satisfies.

Do our hearts and lives reflect that truth?

If it were, our life would be Psalm 100:

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

This sweet joy… fellowship… and delight in God our Savior.

How to Enjoy Sweet Communion with God

Now you might ask… I want that!

I want that more than anything… I just don’t know how.

Well the good news is if you are in Christ you already have it.

Our Communion with God rests in Christ.

The question is how do you enjoy it?… experience the sweetness of it?… Fan it into flame?

Jesus gives us an answer in our passage in…

John 14:23 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.

The simple answer for how to enjoy sweet communion with God is love Him and obey Him.

Love Him

Do you delight in God?

Do you have a heart that’s oriented to and has an active practice of worship?

I don’t just mean going to church, I mean praising God and thanking Him for who He is and all He’s done?

The Holy Spirit works in us new affections that love God and love His Law.

Do we live out those new affections or do we still live out the old ones?

Are you seeking to find your delight in God… longing to praise Him?

Set your mind on things above… there must be a conscious effort to find in God the joy in our life.

In other words you need to actually live out a Godward life.

Wake up in the mornings and consecrate your day to Him.

Praise Him throughout the day.

Read and meditate on the Word to see the glory of God and His great love for you!

If you are not making a practice of spiritual disciplines and the ordinary means of grace… reading your Bible, prayer, singing Hymns, coming to worship and the Lord’s Supper… can you really say you are earnestly seeking Him?

God you’re my greatest treasure and my highest joy… but I don’t know if I can find 15 or 20 minutes… my schedule’s pretty full…

You will invest and seek out what’s important to you.

Does your life… your last week… the last two days say God is the greatest treasure of your soul?

How much has been lived for Him as opposed to just around Him.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Luke 12:34).

Draw near to God, with the purpose of loving, enjoying, and delighting in Him and he will draw near to you (James 4:8).

Obey Him

Second we obey Him.

Now I want to be careful here…

God’s love for us does not based on our obedience to Him.

God loves us in Christ out of the good pleasure of His will (Ephesians 1:4-5).

Unchanging

Also God is perfect and unchanging and in the same way His love is perfect and unchanging (James 1:17).

His love is constant and not capable of increasing or being diminished (Owen, Communion with God, 28).

Its our love that’s fickle.

Unlike God we are constantly changing with our love ever increasing or decreasing and not ever staying the same.

Why do I say this?

Because God does not love you based on your obedience.

Again John Owen: On whom God sets His love, it is set forever. God’s love does not grow to eternity r lessen in time. God’s love is an eternal love that had no beginning and that shall have no end. It is a love that cannot be increased by anything we do and cannot be lessened by anything in us (Communion with God, 28).

If God’s love for us was in any way based on us, then He would have surely stopped loving us long ago.

But because His love is constant… because the steadfast love of the Lord endures forever… His patience endures and we are saved (Psalm 136).

Fountain

But our obedience can sometimes tamper or dampen our experience of God’s love.

Our enjoyment of His love and blessing.

Think of it like this… …in Jeremiah 2 God describes Himself as the fountain of living waters.

Jeremiah 2:12–13 Be appalled, O heavens, at this; be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Keeping with the idea that God is the only thing that can satisfy our thirsty souls… God describes idolatry and sin as broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Sin says I will quench your thirst… I will give you life!

But its path only leads to death.

Oh… if we just took the truth to heart… sin never satisfies… it will always leave you thirsty.

How would that change we deal with sin and temptation?

There’s no water there… living water only comes from the Lord!

But for our purposes this morning you can not drink the living water of the Lord when you’re choking on sand… when your living in unrepentant sin.

Sin is a rottenness in our bones (Psalm 38:3).

But God promises if we turn from our sin He would heal us (Jeremiah 3:22, Psalm 103:3).

How can you enjoy the blessings of freedom and salvation from sin, if you’re still walking in it?

As Owen said you cannot hold communion with God while you still hold communion with the world and your lusts (Communion with God, 41).

What are you drinking? The living water of God or toxic sludge of your own sin?

God’s love for you doesn’t change but in your sin you stop drinking.

And your soul grows empty and unsatisfied.

Holiness is vital to the life and vitality of the Christian life.

Without it we cannot drink deeply of and enjoy God for all He’s worth.

Every sin is saying to God “I want that broken cistern… I think that can satisfy me… I think that can answer the longing of my soul more than you.”

Summary

Love God and Obey.

That’s how you grow in and enjoy communion with God in your Christian life.

That’s how you have the fullness of joy… the life abundant full of the glory and grace of God (Psalm 16:11, John 10:10).

That’s how you will have joy and vitality in your Christian life!

Is your spiritual life dry… dead… hanging my a thread?

Then hear the words of Jesus to the church of Ephesus: Remember the love you had at first, repent and do the works you did at first (Revelation 2:5).

Make God your ultimate treasure and strive for Him.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Its to find all of our life… all of our joy… all of our happiness and pleasure in the first and chiefest being… and live all of our lives for Him.

To know Him and enjoy Him for all He’s worth in sweet communion with Him where He is our God and we are His people.

Conclusion

Is God the ultimate aim and treasure of your soul?

Are you living all of your life for Him or something else?

If delighting in an enjoying God was the aim of our soul what would that change about your life and priorities?

What would your life look like?

How would it be different if it was all driven by this conscious thought God is my highest good and ultimate end?

How would that change your free time?

Marriage?

Parenting? Kids?

Money?

Troubles?

Hardships?

Words and thought life?

How would that change your war with sin and temptation?

If God was the ultimate treasure of your life and your chief aim was to glorify and delight in Him… the whole orientation and direction of our lives would be changed to say, “God I’m yours!”

I live for you!

In anything and everything all my days are for you!

Does your life look like that?

Do you draw near to God in prayer?

Do you grow to know Him and hear from Him in His Word?

Is God’s Word precious in your life given that’s how you know and worship God?

Do you live like its precious?

Do you strive to honor Him with your lips and worship Him with the inner thoughts of your heart?

Do you live for the things of this world or have you put the world behind you?

Do you just exist or is there a Godward bent and intention… this Godward aim… in every area of your life?

If we truly loved God and worshiped Him as the Great Treasure and Delight of our souls then we would:

Exalt Him.

Set Him highest in our thoughts and make knowing and enjoying Him our chief aim and end of our life.

Thomas Watson says “We glorify God, when we are God-admirers…To glorify God is to have God-admiring thoughts; to esteem Him most excellent, and for diamonds in this rock only” (A Body of Divinity, 7).

If God were the greatest treasure of our souls all of our lives would be geared towards Worshiping Him.

Not just thinking highly of Him but actually praising Him.

We would glorify the Lord with adoration and praise.

We would Love Him.

Set all of our affections on Him.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength (Mark 12:30).

He and His glory would be the only longing and desire of our soul.

And finally we would Obey Him prizing communion and fellowship with Him above all else.

We would consecrate ourselves to the Lord and devote ourselves… heart, mind, body, soul, words, and deeds… to His service.

Psalm 145:1–3 I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever.

Every day I will bless you and [I will] praise your name forever and ever.

Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.

Is that true of our soul?

Let’s Pray