Home in God

Transcript

And you ought to be able to guess this by now. To the Gospel of John, chapter 14. And when you found John 14, go ahead and stand with me for the reading of God's word this morning. Now, you may be thinking, I thought we were in John 14 last week. And you would be right to think so.

And here we go again. The church has given us this text to go a little bit further. So here we are in the verses that followed last week. Notice these words as found in John, chapter 14. And we'll start with verse 15.

Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to be with you forever. This is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him because he abides with you. And he will be in you.

I will not leave you orphaned. I am coming to you. In a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live. You also will live. On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me.

And I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me. And those who love me will be loved by my Father. And I will love them and reveal myself to them. Lord Jesus, thank you for your holy word.

And we pray now that you would bless your word to bear fruit in our lives. This morning. By the power of your Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen. And you can be seated.

Now, if you've been with us the past couple weeks, then you'll know this. But it's good to have a little reminder that when we drop into John 14, we are locating ourselves in one of the, I don't know what you would call it, most critical text in all of the Bible. Now, maybe you could say that on every page, I get that. But this one is an intimate night with Jesus around the table. In fact, this was the night in which he was betrayed.

This is the very night in which he goes to the garden to pray. This is the night where he breaks bread, washes their feet. All of these major critical aspects of the last night with his disciples. This is that night. And so we find ourselves speaking to Jesus and him speaking to us this morning around a table.

And that's exactly why, in a traditional sort of setting, we actually have a table in the very center of worship. So, you know, you come into some buildings and, you know, it could be a conference center. It could be, you know, a church. It's Really? I don't know, somebody could be giving a lecture or a sermon, either one.

When you come here, you know, this is again one of those liturgical worship teaching points. When you come here, it's like, well, why do they have a table there in the center? You know, and the reason we have a table in the center is because in some sense, all of us, every time we come to worship, are gathering around the Lord's table to listen to him, to respond to his word, just as he did on this very important night, just as he does on this very important morning. He wants to speak to us around his table. And what we're told is that this table is kind of like a microcosm of what is to come, which is a banquet table in heaven where all the saints of God are gathered.

Can you imagine that day? I mean, I think it's awesome to worship with you here on Sunday morning. I mean, I honestly love, look forward to it. I was in a cathedral like two weeks ago and was thinking about you. Isn't that interesting?

Because, you know, home is home, isn't it? And other places are cool, but like, I'm ready to get back home to my people. And here's the thing, every week gather here. But this table points to other tables all over the world that people have gathered to worship the living God at. And one day around the, one day around heavenly table, we'll hear his voice as you hear my voice now.

And what a day that will be.

Someone kind of asked like a question. It was a true question, you know, it wasn't. They weren't trying to be difficult. And they said, you know, why doesn't, we don't, why don't we hear the church addressing like modern issues, things like wars that are going on around the world, or gas prices or housing or xyz. And you know, I thought about that for a little bit and here's what I came to.

Maybe it's good enough for you or not, but I think this is super important for us to understand. If we sat up here and gave you the news cycle every single week and tried to address practical concerns of our modern world, couldn't you get that from the news? Couldn't you get that from a 24 hour news cycle? Absolutely. Now it's not that we don't address those things in certain areas and that we.

Whatever. But listen, what we're doing in this house of worship, in the sanctuary, that's why we call it the sanctuary. Like this room in particular, where the table is, is because things Here are pointed toward the eternal. This is not a normal room. This is not normal news.

You've already heard all that news. You can figure it out with wisdom, which is the whole point of being and practicing virtue and wisdom in the Spirit. He will help you navigate all of that. And he, Jesus tells us as much. That's exactly what he comes to do.

But in this room, in this moment, we focus on things that are higher than those things. The point is this desk, the word that comes from this desk and this sanctuary cannot stoop so low as to be transient but rather eternal. Now, I preface everything I'm about to say with that because I think it's appropriate. Jesus could have gotten real practical again with them around that table. I mean, it was his last night again.

When I'm about to go on a trip and I got a couple kids that are going to be watching the house, you know, I'm like, hey, remember to turn this security light on. Remember to turn up the air during the day and then down at night because, you know, we don't want to be wasteful, blah, blah, blah. That's not what Jesus does. He goes to the center of reality itself, to the very heart, if you will. Existence, who is God?

Reality is not something that's out there in the abstract. Existence is not just something you subjectively realize in yourself. Existence comes from God. Did you hear Paul's words from the Areopagus as he stood on that wisdom rock talking to the philosophers of the day? In him you live and move and have your being.

That means your existence right now is directly tied, not in some past sense, but in a moment by moment sense, to God Himself who sustains your life. Yes, he's the creator back then, but he's the sustainer right now. Now. And here's what he says you are. Those who are baptized in him are a new creation, which means he's still creating and recreating.

And so I just want to get us on the same page that when we come here, we are doing serious business with the eternal things. And I think that's fun. Personally, I think it's great because I need a break from all the other garbage. Anybody else? I need some good news.

I mean, some good news that never changes. Think about that. It never changes. Alright, good. You're not, you're obviously not as excited as I am, but that's all right.

That's alright. I get it. Maybe it's been a long week. Who knows? The week just started, by the way, it's Sunday.

We talk about, like, last week. Last week's gone. This is a new day. Let's go. All right, so here's the things.

You ready? Law and love, they're not opposites, at least not according to Jesus. Did you catch what he says? If you love me, feel a certain way about me? No, no.

Like, get that fuzzy feeling, you know, or get that. What do people say? The hair on the back of your neck stand up, kind of feeling like, ooh, tingly, like, ooh, man, this is. This is good. Like, I feel good about God today.

No, it's not what he says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Now, some of us say, well, yeah, but let's soften that a little bit here, right? Like, what are his commandments? After all, it's the law. Here's something we need to really wrestle with as modern Christian believers. And it's been a problem really since the.

In fact, the first. Most people locate the first heresy in the church with this heresy is Marcionism, which it says, this. This guy Marcion, he goes, look, when I read the Old Testament, that's a different God than the New Testament. So what we need to do is we need to cut and paste in the New Testament to make sure that, hey, we've got the God of the New Testament because we don't want that God of the Old Testament. And the church says it might be difficult to reconcile Yahweh in the Old Testament with Jesus in the New.

But here's the truth. Jesus is Yahweh, plain and simple. Everything Yahweh does in the Old Testament is the Son of God.

There is no difference in the I am that Jesus claims, claims for himself in the New Testament. And the I am from the burning bush, the one who gives the. Who gives us them and us the law. God's instructions. Now, thanks be to God, because of Jesus, many things have been fulfilled so that we're not in here today, in this sanctuary, slaughtering animals and spilling blood.

He's already done that, thanks be to God. So a lot of these things that we see in the Old Testament still are object lessons, no doubt, and we need to revisit them often.

The Old Testament is not old for our faith. In fact, we ought to call it the older and the Newer Testaments. If we have a problem because not done, the law of God will never pass away. It points only to his character. Now, it's not how we come to God.

Notice when the law is given, God has already come to them. Remember, they're Enslaved everybody. Remember in Egypt, right? Open up. Exodus.

They're in slavery. And what does God do? He comes and delivers them, then gives them the law. What does that teach us? It teaches us this, that the law is not the way to God, but rather the walk with God.

So that when he comes into our life, how do we walk with him? It's the law. It's his commandments. Now, remember, he says this around the table, you know, with his, hey, if you love me, then you'll obey my commandments. Now, moments before, he got down on his knees and washed their feet, and they were all uncomfortable about this.

And he gives them, we're told on this Maundy Thursday, he gives them a new commandment. What is it? To love as I have loved you. You love one another. So, point is, all of the commandments are subject, summed up in loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself.

So we need to get over this whole thing that law or commandments and love are opposites. They are not. Love is not a feeling that we're supposed to have all the time.

People say, you know, yeah, just, you know, fell out of love because I wasn't feeling it then. You've misunderstood love.

We often don't feel love or loved, do we? I can at least get an amen on that, right? Like, sometimes you just don't feel very loved, right? So what if I were to say, like, if love was a feeling, then how could God command us to love Him? That's ridiculous, right?

That's absurd. You can't command feelings. It's like, I have a kid who comes to me and says, hey, look, you know, I'm just not really nervous about, like, this upcoming day. Well, just stop it. Right?

Does that do it? Can we just commend our feelings? If we could command our feelings, wouldn't we command happiness all the time? How has that ever worked out for, you know, I mean, when you really need it the most? You know, you're at Disney paying thousands upon thousands of dollars, and it's like, this is the morning.

It's gonna be a great morning. It's gonna be a great morning. It is going to be a great morning. Everybody's gonna be in a good mood. I'm looking in the rear view.

Everybody's gonna be in. I'm commanding feelings. How'd that work out? It worked out to be a memorable family story. Perhaps, but it didn't accomplish the mission, did it?

We can't command feelings. Feelings come to us. That's why they're passive in this way, we don't desire them necessarily. And they come and go, don't they? You ever notice that?

Like, they come and go. They come and go. No love. Hear me, brothers and sisters. This can save marriages, this can save families, this can save friendships.

Love is willing.

Not a feeling that comes with feelings, but it is willing the good of another.

Even when I don't feel like it. I mean, look, we're talking about moms today, right? I've watched Jessica give of herself even when she felt bad. I mean, she had like the flu and. And she still does more than me to get things done somehow.

Of course, I'm kind of. She says I'm kind of a big baby when I get sick, which is probably true. But also read something medically that, like, men feel pain more or something like that. I don't know. Who knows?

Who knows? Thanks be to God for moms, right? And here's the thing. I'm thankful that even when I was a jerk, even when nobody believed in me, my mom willed my good with tears in her eyes because I had hurt her. She still willed my good because she didn't say to herself, you know what?

This is all based on feelings. He's being a jerk to me. I'm done with you. Thanks be to God. And you know what?

In our lives to love. So if you say I love you, then you're saying, I will your good no matter what.

That's what love looks like. That's what love looks like, isn't it? Jesus sitting there on this very night. He's going to sit there and pray and ask his disciples to stay awake and pray drops of blood. Lord, take this cup from me.

Not my will, though.

I'm going to will your will. That's what love is.

And our culture feeds us. You should be feeling this certain way. You should what? Listen, we need eternal truths. And he commands us to love him and says to us, if conditional, love me, you'll do what I say.

That's another way of putting it. You'll do what I say.

Point two, it is better that I go, is what Jesus says. Now that's a tough one. In chapter 16, he's going to say that. Now there's a scene change here. Like when we get into chapter 13, we're around the table.

14 around the table at the end of this chapter.

Rise, Let us be going. They move saints to a garden, which is pretty symbolic, isn't it? Garden. We kind of start in a garden. Now he's back at a garden and he's about to change the whole world because of what he prays in this garden.

But in chapter 16, Jesus is going to say this. It is better that I go so that the Spirit can come. And you remember from last week, right? The whole point of last week is like, hey, I got. You can't go, which is to the cross.

But here's the thing. I'm doing that to prepare a place for you.

I got to go away so that another will come and notice another advocate. We have two. Two of the persons of the Holy Trinity are called advocates. Jesus, who is God with us, and the Holy Spirit, who is God in us.

CS Lewis has this point where he's, like, riding along. He says, just imagine, like, when you say your prayers at night, if we could see what's really going on. The Spirit is helping us to pray to the Father sometimes when we don't even know what to pray. Have you ever been there before? In the midst of tragedy, in the midst of crisis, in the midst of frustration?

I don't even know what to pray right now.

But he knows, because here's what Paul says. He knows the mind of the Father and he knows our heart, and he prays on our behalf. It's one thing for me to say, hey, I'm praying for you. It's another to realize the reality that the Spirit of the living God, the one who is hovering over the face of the waters in the beginning, is the same one who prays for you and for me. And not only that, Jesus, right hand in session, if you will, as judge of the whole world, continually makes intercession for us.

Like when you don't think anybody else cares, when you don't think it's big enough to even bring up to anyone else's attention. Guess what? We have an advocate in heaven, seated from a position that is not spatially high, so to speak, but instead, at the highest point of reality, if you will, perhaps the deepest point of reality. However you want to see it, that's where he's seated. He sees it all.

Just as Pastor Emily said this morning in her introduction, here to you all. He knew you were going to be here. That's right, because he's got the whole thing. He sees it all. You've been on a mountain before and been able to see that.

It's like, oh, I didn't realize that. Look at that road. It goes all the way over there. When you're down in the valley, you can't see that he can see it all. And he prays for you two advocates, two advocates.

It is better that I go now. Remember, from Easter Resurrection morning to when he ascends, that's 40 days. It's as long as Lent. And then you have 10 more days after he ascends into heaven and the Spirit comes, okay? That's Pentecost in two weeks, alright?

And we'd love to have you here for Pentecost. It's gonna be a great celebration where we worship the fact that God has sent His Holy Spirit. All right? Now, on day 40, which actually happens to be this Thursday, that's when we celebrate the Ascension. Now, I'm saying all that to say when he says, I gotta go because it's better that I go because I'm going to send the Spirit, it doesn't mean he's moving away from us in some spatial reality, all right?

He goes up into the clouds and then he disappears, alright? It's not like he just keeps moving at that slow pace. In fact, there's another preacher that I listened to and then I looked up the information myself here, and this is, I think, an interesting point. If Jesus were moving at the speed of light, which is like the fastest way we can measure any physical thing in the universe, and he's been doing the speed of light, which is very fast actually. What is it?

186,000 miles per hour per second. Sorry, which is nuts. That's insane. Okay, get this. 2000 light years is what he'd done by now.

In 2000 years. That's 2% of the Milky Way galaxy. That's how big this place is. Hadn't made much progress. Right.

The point is. That's not the point. Is it some spatial distance? Oh, yeah, we, we just, you know, he just went on a long trip. No, no, he's moving to a higher point in reality.

Because here's the thing. Jesus revealed himself even after that time, such as to Paul, remember? And he still reveals himself to even us, but through His Holy Spirit primarily. Remember what he tells them, he will be in you.

And isn't that pretty original? What? I mean, that's exactly the way he created us, remember? He creates us from the ground. And what does he do?

All right, go along and play. You're done. No, he breathes into us, His Holy Spirit. We were made to run off of, if you will, His Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the fuel of life.

He's the flame of love. And when he comes in, he brings life and light.

We are born again.

And so this is the third point, then I am in my Father, you in me and I in you. Now, that whole language and complication, I'm going to try to diagram that out and certainly study 13 through 17 chapters. John, it's everywhere. And it only intensifies as you get to chapter 17, which actually isn't even necessarily about Jesus around the table talking to his disciples or Jesus in the garden talking to his disciples. But now he looks up to his Father and it's God talking to God and we get to listen in.

It's a prayer worth praying.

But I'll go ahead and spill the beans. It's all about in ness. Now, there's no good way to say this. Some have called this in ness. Charles Williams, in particular, friend of C.S.

lewis, which I think I like this one. Co Inherence. So like co inhering, just like in the Holy Trinity, right? There's a unity, but it assumes individuality of persons. Everybody with me, right?

Three persons. Like how can there be unity if there is a monolithic being? There's not. That's the point. Holy Trinity of being.

Three persons, one God. One God in three persons. So there's only one God. That's it. There's not three.

There's one God. But that one God exists as Father, Son and Holy Spirit eternally. And we already get it in Genesis, don't we? Let us make man in our image and after our likeness. And then now we hear Jesus once again on this final night, he's going to say this.

When the Spirit comes in, who I'm going to send the Father and I will come and make our abode our home in you. So now go back to that mansion language from last week. Let's grab that real quick. I'm going to prepare a place for you. Where is that place we said in the Father Himself, who is the fountainhead of all things.

The Son eternally begotten of the Father, the Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father, or the Father and the Son, and we now are invited into that home and he makes his home in us. What is that? A bunch of in ness, A bunch of co. Inherence. A bunch of mutual indwelling. Or another word that the church came up with is parakoresis, which just simply means like this holy dance.

Because, you know, like if you see two. I don't watch dancing a lot, but I mean in general you'll get the point even if you don't watch dancing like me. But it's two people in step, you understand? It's two people that are embraced and in step, not tripping over and doing this. And there is a learning curve for all of us.

But. But the whole point is the Holy Spirit keeps us in step. We are invited into a holy dance or a holy conversation that has been going on from eternity.

Like the whole point of the past few sermons really is this. We put salvation and what it means to be a Christian way down here. We're invited to the very life of God in himself. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father. And the love between the Father and the Son is his holy love, His Holy Spirit.

That's why when we're born again, Paul says, the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. Why? Because love has come home.

And you've seen this in this before in marriage. Oneness, one flesh, not two. The two shall become one flesh. Why do you think the enemy wants to destroy and divide marriage? Because marriage is an icon of this kind of unity.

That's why family, same thing flowing from the marriage, naturally, can be a unity. But divided family hurts to the depths of our soul. Why? Because anything that hurts that deep means that the possibility is that high.

Little things don't hurt.

But when something is high and eternal and is broken, when that image or icon is shattered, that is death to the soul. Unless the spirit comes in, recreates and brings life.

We're talking about the deepest things we could ever talk about. Who is God? If you thought physics was hard, he created it. You thought mathematics was tough, he made it. You think writing's difficult?

Well, he devised it. He's the word. Think about it.

And so when we get to him, it's not about reading a manual to love him more. It's about a personal encounter and willing to do what he says even when we can't see it. Lord, in the face of death. You know, we've all stood at coffins at the very brink of death itself, looking into the abyss and the void, and. And we still sit there feeling all kinds of things.

But proclaim good news over that situation. Does anybody hear me in here? I'm talking about even when you are depressed and don't feel like it, you still do and you still will. What he says, Lord? You said I could ask.

I'm asking. I need help. That's what it looks like. Say, Pastor, you're kind of yelling and saying, I'm excited. Listen, a lot of us have been, like, just rocked to sleep, like, you know.

Yeah, it's just about kind of coming to church, and we just gotta drag ourselves in here. It's good to drag yourselves some places isn't is it's good for me to sometimes say don't eat that whole bag.

It's good for you not to. There's a lot of no's in the Bible. Therefore are good. If you love me, you will do what I say.

Okay, so here we are. We're at the table. We've heard his word, we've heard his voice. I hope not just information, but the fact that he wants to incorporate us into into his divine family. Here's the point.

You're not orphaned. You have a home. You might not feel like you have a home, but you have a home. You may feel isolated, but you're part of a family with a loving father, with a loving brother and a spirit that can come into us to make us new.

The place Jesus has prepared for all of us is not just some room off in the cosmos that he's going to in the space speed of light. No, no. The home is here. Remember what Paul says. He's not far from each one of us.

If you would but speak his name this morning. Who knows what could happen?

Let's stop with all the garbage. Let's stop with all the transient stuff. We scrolled and doom scrolled enough. Hear his word. You have a home.

You have a father. Let's start acting like it. Because when you will to be his son and daughter, you realize he's already met you there. He makes the willing possible by his grace. And you realize that when you found him, really he had found you.

Receive that. Come to his table. You belong here. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.