CONTINUING THE WORK

Introduction

-Throughout history there have been people who have died who left behind some work or task that was never completed. This had often happened with artists and authors who began a project, but then they were taken from this earth before they could finish that project. Then someone (either friend or family) would come after them to finish what it was that they started.

~For example, I think of J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. When he died he actually had material for several other books based in the land of Middle Earth. His son Christopher Tolkien took up the material, completed the books, and had them published: books like the Simarillion, the Fall of Gondolin, among others.

-Now, Jesus completed the work for which He was specifically sent. He discipled some followers during His earthly ministry, He finished God’s plan of redemption on the cross, and He rose again and ascended into heaven. But that doesn’t mean that the work was complete. In fact, the work was to continue until Jesus’ return.

-The believers who would come after Jesus are directed to continue what it was that Jesus began. Obviously, that does not mean that they provide for people’s salvation, because only Jesus could do that. Jesus is our only Savior and Mediator. Nevertheless, we continue the work when we share that good news with others.

-In the small passage we are studying today, Jesus told His apostles that after His departure they were given the responsibility to continue the work that He began.

~And now we, as disciples of Christ, are also called to continue that work as His representatives on earth.

-I want to give you this charge that, even in the midst of chaos and plagues and whatever else we experience, we are still to step in the water of the world, our mission field, and go to continue the work

John 14:12–14 ESV

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.

-Four quick lessons about the work:

1) The context of the work

-In this final discourse before His suffering and death, Jesus had just taught His apostles about His identity again—that He is the ultimate revelation of the Father, that He and the Father are one, and Jesus says He is the minister of the Father, proclaiming the Father’s Words and doing the Father’s works.

-Jesus then follows that teaching by saying that all who believe in Him will do the works that He does. There is an expectation here. It’s not that believers might do the works or could do the works, but absolutely positively they WILL do the works that He does. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, you are expected to do works.

-But I want to emphasize something here because it is something that Jesus emphasizes. Jesus says that believers will do the works that HE does. Believers will do JESUS’ works.

~That means that believers in Jesus Christ are not to go off and do their own thing. That means believers are not to pursue their own agendas.

~That also means that the church does not seek to do its own thing or its own work. We so often think that the church is the end of all things, but the church is the means to the end. The church is the conduit through which believers do the work of Christ. And so, the church is doing what it’s supposed to do when it’s doing the work of Jesus.

~The context of the works is to do the work that Jesus does.

-I think that this is so important to hear for the age we live in now because the church is being refined. The church is being forced to look at what it does and why it does what it does. And I am here to tell you that church will never be the same again—and I mean that in a positive sense.

~God is using this time to prepare us for a paradigm shift—which is a phrase you may have never heard of before, so let me explain.

-A paradigm is the framework through which you act and perform.

~The term paradigm shift came from physicist Thomas Kuhn who used it in the context of science. It speaks of having to completely change and shift the way you approach things. In Kuhn’s context, science needs a paradigm shift when new discoveries make the old ways obsolete. Science for centuries had followed the paradigm set by Isaac Newton. But after Einstein and others demonstrated the truthfulness of relativity and such, the field of science had to go through a paradigm shift.

-Now, the centuries where the church was the central institution to all things and it had to be filled with every possible program, and because something worked decades ago we have to continue to do it, that paradigm now has to go.

~The church isn’t central, Jesus is central. And Jesus said He would be the one to grow His church. So, if we would do HIS work, He will grow the church—not us and our programs and our fancy buildings or the way we do our videos or our online / social-media presence.

-And His work is the gospel work. His work is the Great Commission work. His work is discipleship work.

~The paradigm of programs and entertainment have to go, the paradigm of relational evangelism and deep discipleship has to come.

-So church, the context of any work that we do is HIS work—we do the work of Christ.

2) The extent of the work

-Toward the end of v. 12 Jesus says that greater works than these believers will do. There has been so much confusion and controversy over this part of the verse—because what does it mean to do greater works?

-Many in the more charismatic line think it means that we believers can do bigger and more spectacular miracles than Jesus. So, we can go around and heal people and raise people from the dead and give sight to the blind and stop bullets in midair and fly off mountains or whatever

-Now, I am not discounting miracles. The apostles when establishing the church did miracles. But to think you can do bigger and more showy miracles than Jesus is pure arrogance.

-And again, the miracles themselves were not the end but the means to the end. Jesus did miracles to prove His message. Jesus did miracles to lead people to Him so they could be saved.

~Today’s supposed miracle people do it to make money or promote heresy.

-But when Jesus is saying that greater works will be done, He was not speaking of showier, more entertaining miracles. We know this because Jesus gives us context. He says that believers will do greater works because He is going to the Father.

-That means something because later in this gospel Jesus says:

John 16:7 (ESV)

7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

-So, let’s piece this all together. Jesus’ ultimate work was His death on the cross as the substitutionary atonement for all who believe.

~Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended. On Pentecost, believers were indwelt by the Holy Spirit, after which they boldly proclaimed the message of the gospel with a supernatural power that was used to change the hearts of men.

-The greater work has to do with the extent of the work—the Holy Spirit indwelling and in-filling millions of believers over the centuries, all across the world, continuing what Christ began, sharing the greatest news that will change lives for eternity.

-The greater work has nothing to do with doing something greater than Jesus—ain’t no one ever going to do anything greater than Jesus. And it doesn’t necessarily mean that they will do more things than Jesus did (although, in a sense that is true, because Jesus in human body was limited in what He did in time and space).

~But the greater work is sending the Holy Spirit to empower believers to expand the kingdom of God through the evangelism and discipleship of people throughout the world.

-And we believers who have become so accustomed to being entertained and seeing the spectacular and being wowed even within the church context, we dare say IS THAT IT? IS THAT ALL THE GREATER WORK ENTAILS?

-What greater work is there? If you want to sit in your couch and be wowed by some flashy TV service, you go ahead, but that is not the greater work of Jesus.

~As for me, I want to be Holy Spirit empowered to grow the Kingdom—that is Jesus’ work being done Jesus’ way, and if that isn’t enough for you, find you a movie theater or a sports complex and get entertained. But then don’t pretend you have anything to do with Jesus’ work.

3) The motivation of the work

-In v. 13 Jesus says you will ask Jesus in His name to do what it is He wants you to do, and He will give you what you need to do it SO THAT THE FATHER MAY BE GLORIFIED IN THE SON!!!

-So, here is the formula. We do the works of Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit so that Jesus is made known and His kingdom expands; then as Jesus is glorified in this way, the Father is glorified through the Son through the work that we accomplished by His power.

~We glorify Jesus through the works, the Father is glorified through Jesus by what we do in His name.

-You will notice that it does not say that WE will be glorified through what we do. When we do the works of Jesus, we are not doing it so that we feel better about ourselves. We are not doing it so that others look at us and think how holy we are. We are not doing it so that we become the center of attention or to be in control.

~Neither are we doing it so that our church has this or that reputation, or that our church receives this glory or this honor. We do it so that Christ is glorified by our work, and thereby the Father is glorified in Him.

-Each of us need to stop being the center of everything that we do, thinking that somehow it has anything to do with us.

- There was a man who came to a pastor named Chuck at a church in California. The man said to the pastor that he wanted to make a large donation - about one-million-dollar donation, if the church would name such and such a building after him. The pastor said to that, "Wow -- that is a lot of money. Let me go first & pray about it!"

~Normally you don't say to the person who wants to give you a million dollar, let me pray about it. But Pastor Chuck prayed about it and the Lord led him to the portion in Genesis where the king of Sodom wanted to give Abraham great wealth, but Abraham refused it, because he said, "then you will say that you made Abraham rich!" Abraham wanted God to get the glory for His provision.

~So, the pastor went to the man and said that he cannot receive the gift because as he prayed he was not at peace and that he did not want the man to say that he made this church rich.

~After this incident the church grew beyond anything humanly comprehensible, with a membership in the thousands (where it was previously a couple hundred). And through the offerings they collected by their membership, the church bought a radio station and they broadcast bible studies and worship music. They also opened a conference center where people can go for retreats. And then they opened a Bible College to train people in ministry.

~Here’s the thing, the pastor decided to honor God and He gave preference to Jesus and not to someone who was going to give a million dollar donation -- and God is faithful! Because that is the motivation for what we do.

-You don’t work so you get the glory…

4) The resources for the work

-In vv. 13-14 Jesus says to ask in His name and He will do it. These are some of the most misquoted verses in the Bible. People will yank this out of context to mean that if you just ask God for anything using the name of Jesus like some sort of magic word, that God is going to give you what you want.

-I pray for a million dollars in Jesus’ name—the Bible now says God has to give it to me.

~I pray for perfect health in Jesus’ name—this verse says God has to give it to me

-That is obviously not what this verse is talking about. Within the context, when you pray to Jesus that He would lead you to do His work and empower you to do His work, He will do so. This is about asking for direction, wisdom, and strength for the work.

-But we ask on the basis of what Jesus accomplished. When Jesus says to ask in His name, He isn’t saying just to throw His name around like a magician would say abracadabra and poof there it is.

~To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray on the basis of His merit before God. We have no merit on our own, but all our merit is found in Jesus.

~To pray in Jesus’ name also means to pray based on His nature—He is the eternal God-man, whose divine power is available to grant our requests.

~To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray according to His purpose—His purpose was to glorify the Father, our purpose is for the glory of the Triune Godhead.

~To pray in Jesus’ name is to pray in accordance to His perfect, holy character, not based on selfish, egotistical personal advancement.

-But here’s the thing, without asking in prayer in Jesus’ name we will not be able to do the work in our own strength. We may think that we got this, but we don’t got this. We need Him in order to continue the work.

Conclusion

Let me close with this story:

-There was a young guy named Mark who was an American businessman who did a lot of business in China. Each time he went to China, he asked God to reveal to him someone he could talk to about Christ. Mark was there in China for 3 weeks and kept praying this prayer. And finally on the last day, there was a Chinese engineer and Mark was able to share how Jesus had changed his life. And as a result they developed a relationship.

~On his next trip to China, Mark went to church in China even though he didn’t understand anything because it was in Mandarin. When it came time to make his offering, he went forward with everyone else, put his offering in and then they handed him two tickets. The tickets were for a seat on Christmas Eve and they do this because so many Chinese flood to the churches that you can’t get a seat. Mark gave his tickets to the Chinese engineer which covered two families. The engineer took his family and his mother-in-law’s family.

~The engineer later emailed Mark to let him know that on that night they all made a commitment of their life to Jesus Christ.

-Mark did the work of Jesus of continuing His redemptive work by sharing the gospel message for the glory of God. He asked God for opportunity, strength, and guidance, and God gave it to him.

-Christian, may this also be the desire of our hearts. Even in the midst of pandemics and quarantines and weird political times, to out there and do the work of Jesus.

-But maybe some of you need the work of Jesus done to you. You have not been saved. You have not been born again. You are not headed to heaven. Turn from the direction your life is going, and believe that Jesus died for you, and commit you life to Him only. Jesus will save you. Talk to a pastor…