John 14:21-29 - Easter 6 - 2022

The first time I took my son, Peter, to daycare proved to be quite an emotional occasion. Long before that fateful day, Melanie and I had been doing our best to prepare him for daycare. We had talked him through it many, many times. We got him books all about going to school. Again and again we told him that when we roll up to the front door of daycare, he was going to go off and have fun with friends and teachers and toys and books - and Mama and Dada wouldn’t be there. But don’t worry! We’re not going to leave you there. We’re going to come back! After a day of fun in the sun, we promised that we were going to come back to him. We weren’t going to leave him there - we would come and take him home with us again. This is how we tried to comfort our son and set his little heart at peace. And hilariously, it’s how we tried to comfort ourselves! Because it was a LOT harder to leave my baby boy than I thought it would be. But I was concerned for my child, and I wanted to comfort him.

In our text this morning, we see Jesus preparing his disciples for troubled days ahead. John 14:1, Jesus begins by saying,

14 “Let not your hearts be troubled.

And again in verse 27:

27 ... Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

What is the trouble that lies ahead of this scrappy band of brothers? Well, this conversation is happening on the night before Jesus is crucified. Hours from now, Jesus will be arrested and tried. He will be mocked and tortured. He will be abandoned by those closest to him, and he will be killed - not for any crime that he has committed. No, but as a willing sacrifice for the sins of all who have rebelled against God and followed the path that leads to destruction.

Jesus is hours from this fate. And in his final moments, what is he doing? He is comforting his disciples. Consider for a moment the character of Jesus. This night could have easily and justifiably been all about him and his troubles. His disciples could have been expected to lifting Jesus up, encouraging Jesus, prepping Jesus, hyping him up like you would before a big fight in the boxing ring. But no. Jesus spends the final moments of his life, comforting his friends.

What is today’s message? Jesus comforts troubled disciples. It’s not just these eleven disciples here. Jesus comforts all of his troubled disciples. Whatever circumstances are weighing you down, when you feel like everything is stacked against you, these chapters in John are for you. They were written for you. Whatever you are facing in your life right now or in the days to come, Jesus wants you to know the comfort that he offers - the peace that he gives to his disciples.

So this morning I want to talk about two things. First, how exactly does Jesus comfort his disciples? What is the peace that he gives them? And second, how should we as Christ’s followers comfort those around us? What is the peace that we give?

So first, how exactly does Jesus comfort his disciples? He does so by explaining two beautiful realities. The first, is that God has no interest in being distant from you. Look with me at verse 18:

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.

Jesus says, do not let your hearts be troubled. Why? Because even though I am going to die, rise, and ascend - I am not leaving you as orphans. What is an orphan? An orphan is someone who has no one looking after them. They are vulnerable and defenseless because they lack the support that is naturally provided to them by their parents. An orphan lacks the guidance and direction that would normally come from her parents.

So here is Jesus, and remember he’s preparing his disciples for his impending death. It’s going to look like Jesus is leaving them all alone to fend for themselves, but his comfort is this promise that he is not leaving them without help, or guidance, or support, or provision, or protection. It will seem like he’s gone, and the unbelieving world will claim that he is gone, but his promise to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear is that he will be with them. He will come to them again. He’s not leaving them as orphans.

As comforting a thought as it is, this promise is actually just a precursor to a truly stunning statement by Jesus in verse 20. If you’ve read much of John’s gospel, you’ll be familiar with this pattern of speech, but it is a little strange.

20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

In that day - so Jesus is looking forward to a coming day in the near future. Jesus says, “There is coming a day when you will know that I am in my Father” - Jesus has spoken about this reality already in verse 10, when one of his disciples asked Jesus to show him the Father - to which Jesus responded:

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?

What Jesus is speaking about here is the concept that biblical scholars call “mutual indwelling.” The Father dwells in the Son, and the Son dwells in the Father. They are united in a mysterious way. The Father and Jesus are one. This is exactly what he told a group Jews in Jersualem in chapter 10, and they immediately picked up stones to kill him.

To be sure, the concept of mutual indwelling is challenging to grasp, and perhaps impossible to fully explain. It is truly a mystery - but what it gets at is a deep relational unity and close intimacy that exists between the Father and Jesus such that it can be said that where Jesus is present in the world, there too is the Father present. The works that Jesus does during his ministry, he says it is the Father’s work’s. They are connected together. The Father is in me, and I am in the Father.

This is how Jesus has talked about his relationship to the Father, but here in John 14, he makes an addition to the formula. As he is encouraging his disciples, seeking to comfort them on the eve of his death, he makes a stunning addition:

20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

There is a day coming, when you will know on an even deeper level the special and unique relationship that I have with the Father, but more than that - you will be dawn up into that relationship yourselves. The intimacy and connection that I have with the Father will be your experience as well. The life that I live, where the presence of God is with me everywhere I go, so that everywhere I walk on this earth, the presence of the Father is right there with me and in me and through me, that life will be your’s as well.

“Be comforted!,” Jesus says. God has no intention of staying away from you, being distant from you. I will not leave you as an orphan, but I will come to you, and when I do, your life will overflow with the intimate presence of God.

You see, God doesn’t visit his people. He doesn’t do drive-bys. The comfort that Jesus gives us isn’t that we’ll have these brief moments of visitation when God draws near to us. No, the comfort that is our’s in Christ Jesus is that God has put down roots with us and in us. Verse 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.

God isn’t visiting, he is here to stay. Melanie and I had the joy last year to walk with a young couple through pre-marital counseling. And there’s this sense of frustration that follows every engaged couple. I remember feeling it myself. The frustration is that at some point, you know that you will have to go home. You’ll have to leave this person that you love and adore and you’ll have to get in your car and drive home. And the closer you got to your wedding day, the more frustrating that separation becomes. All you want to do is stay. All you want is to be together. To be united. To never have to call another place home except the place where they are. And then, you get to that wedding day, and you make promises to one another that you will love and serve on another - and what you are witnessing is two people becoming one. Becoming united. Never again will they have to leave one another to go home, because they are at home together. Always. And there are few greater joys in life than that moment of coming together.

Think about what Jesus is saying here. The glorious good news of the gospel is that we are joined to God forever. We are united to God forever. He will never go somewhere else. God has made his home with us! What a comfort that is. What peace that provides!

And how does God make his home in us? Well that brings us to the second promise that Jesus makes, and it fits right into this that we are talking about. Jesus promises that the Father will send the Holy Spirit in Christ’s name to guide us into truth throughout our lives. Look with me at verse 15:

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.

And again in verse 25:

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.

The comfort that Jesus give us isn’t just impersonal propositional knowledge. We are not just given facts. We’re not just given a nice story. We are given a person, a living person, who guides us into truth. We are given a living person who walks with us, and teaches us, and counsels us, and directs us throughout our lives. We are given the Holy Spirit.

We don’t just live with the idea of God, we live with God himself - and not because we have attained upward to him through our great morality or spirituality, but because he has come down to us in his mercy, and made his home with us, through his Spirit.

How precious it is to know that when we face troubles and hardship, our God is not in the other room. He’s right there with us, because we are his home. Think about how this transforms the everyday mundane moments of your life - when you go to work, when you go to school, when you’re driving in the car, when you’re doing yard work, when you’re walking the dog - you didn’t leave Jesus in this room. He made his home with you by his Spirit.

This is how Jesus comforts his troubled disciples: you have not been abandoned, but rather, God has made his home with you by his Spirit.

Now, briefly, how might this inform how we can bring comfort and peace to our community? Let me give just a few applications.

First, you were made this - to live with God forever, which means whether you realize or acknowledge it, you crave God’s presence in your life. You have an inbuilt hunger for it. But we often have such hurried lives that we end up cutting out the very rhythms and practices that open our lives to his presence. Habits and activities that help us interact with God’s abiding presence are often the first to be squeezed out when our lives get busy. And let’s be honest for a moment. Our lives are never not busy. If you’re here thinking, “I hear you Collin, and you’re right, and as soon as things calm down, I’m going to reengage those rhythms.” Well, that’s simply never going to happen on it’s own. You’re going to have to be intentional with this. We’ve got to make room for rhythms of prayer, scripture reading, sabbath-taking, generosity, and investing in relationships. Not to cause God to draw near to us. He’s already here! But rather, to press into and take full advantage of his already abiding presence with us! You were made to live with God forever, which means you are hungry for his presence to actively permeate every corner of your life - so how can you reorient your life and schedule to satisfy that hunger?

Second, just as we see the peace that Jesus leaves his disciples centers primarily on his presence with them rather than propositions, so too should our efforts to bring comfort to our neighbors center on our presence with them. The peace that Jesus gives his disciples who are facing troubling circumstances isn’t propositional knowledge. He doesn’t comfort them with a lecture on justification by faith or eschatology. He comforts them with the promise of his presence in their lives forever. So how should that translate into the way we bring peace to our neighbors who are facing troubling circumstances? It means we should put the priority on being present in their lives. It is highly likely that the most effective method of evangelism for your neighborhood is not knocking on doors and explaining the Romans Road, but rather grabbing drinks with your neighbor who’s going through a messy divorce, or inviting that couple who just moved in for dinner, or bringing by a celebration gift for the neighbor who’s expecting a child. The primary way that you and I bring the peace of heaven to earth is by being present in the lives of our neighbors, and allowing the God of heaven, who has made his home with us, to be present with them through us.

What would it look like to stop visiting the lives of your neighbors, but rather put down roots with them? What would it look like to make your home with them? I tell you, it starts small. It starts by learning their names. It starts by committing to an intentional rhythm of prayer for them. It starts by making time to be with them.

This is what you were made for - to live with God forever. From the Garden of Eden to the New Jerusalem, from Genesis to Revelation this has been the plan. God intends to dwell with us, and the comfort that Jesus gives his disciples is the promise that upon his death and resurrection, the Father will send the Spirit in Christ’s name to live within all who put our trust in him - so that it can be said later by the apostle Paul, that we are walking, talking, temples of the Almighty God. This is what you were made for - to live with God forever. So be comforted! Receive the peace that Jesus offers.