Jesus' Final Message

You may have experienced this before. Mum always had the final word on what had to happen before you left the house or when you left the house. Don't stay out too late. Drive carefully. If your friends start getting into trouble, come home right away.

If there are any problems, give us a call. Maybe back then we didn't like it when mum had the last word before we went out for our excursions. But the fact is that mum's words were probably appropriate, well meaning, and genuinely concerned. In the Gospel of John this morning, we hear of Jesus talking about his words, his teaching, his final message to us. In fact, this was literally his final message to his disciples before he would go to the cross.

And the last words before he would completely ascend to heaven. It was the night before he went to the cross to meet his death there. The words that Jesus spoke that night before his crucifixion projected into the future for the disciples a sense of hope before he would leave them. Let's have a look at these words exactly in John 14. And we're gonna read from verses 15 to the end of the chapter.

John 14, verse 15. Jesus said to his disciples, if you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, 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. I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will realise that I am in the father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.

He who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love him and show myself to him. Then Judas, not Judas Iscariot, said, but Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus replied, if anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the father who sent me. All this I have spoken while still with you, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you.

I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. You heard me say I'm going away and I'm coming back to you. If you loved me, you would be glad that I'm going to the father for the father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe.

I will not speak with you much longer for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the father and that I do exactly what my father has commanded me. Come, let us leave. We're going to look at three statements that Jesus made in these final words before he went to the cross. In the midst of these final words to his disciples, Jesus talks about the love that his people will have for him.

In his last discourse, his final teaching to that ragtag bunch of misfits, Jesus tells us that love, that love is not primarily an emotion. A love for God is not primarily an emotion. It is shown in action. Verse 23, Jesus said, anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.

My father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own. They belong to the father who sent me. Jesus tells us that the person who loves him will obey my teaching.

Another translation in the ESV Bible that you might also have, it says, will keep my word. Will keep my word. Now this is closer to the original Greek, but it comes down to the same thing. Jesus wants his followers to preserve everything that he has said and taught. He wants us, his disciples, to obey his commandments, and he wants us to preserve the good news of forgiveness and peace with God that he talks about, that he offers.

He also treats his teaching as a package deal. It's interesting that he talks about the singular will keep my word as an all encompassing message. And then he moves further on to talk about his words as something that you cannot keep piecemeal, but that you keep collectively. So in other words, there's no such thing as a best of or a classic hits compilation for Jesus and his teaching.

You can't choose, I like this. I love that Jesus is love, but I don't love that Jesus will come back and judge the living and the dead. There's no best of. There's no classic hits compilation of Jesus' word. If someone thinks that a general agreement with Jesus is good enough, Jesus points out that disagreement with any of his teachings is tantamount to a lack of love for the Lord.

When it comes to love for Jesus, obedience and faithfulness to his teaching is not negotiable. When it comes to love for the Lord, obedience and faithfulness to his teaching is not negotiable. Jesus said that we are to keep his word, his unit of teaching. And if we reject or deny even one of these words, we, in essence, reject the entirety of his teaching. If you ever listen to talkback radio, you'll sometimes hear people call in and say, you know, Alan Jones, I love 99% of what you say, but on this topic, I disagree.

And they will give their opinion. Now there's a Christian variation on this. I agree with the Bible most of the time, but on this point, I have a different opinion. I have a different view. I'm not sure about this part.

Can't we just agree that in some parts of Scripture, that is more important than other parts? I'm not so sure about the specific roles of genders that God has created, that men and women are different. Isn't that a little behind the times? Hasn't our society moved on? I'm not so sure that we should emphasise this old idea that Christ is the only way to connect to God.

Look at how sincere so many other people are in their faiths, in their philosophies about life. Can't we really just say that Jesus is one of many ways to heaven? I'm sure you've heard these arguments before. But ultimately, aren't these words just the old too vivid example of what Jesus has said in verse 24? He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

But someone might claim, but Jesus never taught on homosexuality or anything like that. So what is our stance on that? We get that from other parts of the Bible. Jesus' teaching is only summed up in the Gospels. What we find in John 1 is that Jesus is said to be the word of God.

Jesus is the message. The message became flesh and shared God's direct teaching, God's direct wisdom with us. But the entirety of God's counsel is included in the Bible. The word did become flesh, but the word existed with the Old Testament prophets as well through the Holy Spirit. The word came after Jesus left as well in the apostles like Paul and Peter and John and Barnabas.

Jesus is the consummation of all God's counsel, all of His wisdom and truth come into the Scriptures rolled into one. Jesus says that rejecting selected passages of God's word, of His teaching is tantamount to not loving Him. That's tough. That's hard, but that's the reality of what He said. He made it so clear.

And our sinful nature, our broken nature does not want to take God's word as a package deal. We'd rather pick and choose what we like and ignore. And we might not be sitting here and saying, that's what I do, but in our absent mindedness on this topic, we may realise that that's exactly what we do. We'd rather pick and choose what's in and what's out. And friends, that's the hallmark of every heresy that has come into the church since day one.

The weakness exists, that weakness in our heart exists as a default setting in our hearts. Because instead of God's word changing us and us aligning ourselves to it, we change God's word to align with us. And that error puts our soul in peril. It means that we don't live up to that love. We don't take God seriously.

Anyone who loves me, Jesus says, will obey my teaching, will obey my word. But that's not all. There's a second part to what Jesus was teaching here. Jesus goes on to introduce a fresh concept, and this is amazing. He says that whoever loves him by keeping to his word will in turn be loved by God the father, and both the father and the son will make their home in them.

The father and the son will make their home in them. Now this was extraordinary. For hundreds of years, the Jews worshipped a God who was out there, who existed in the temple, who lived on Mount Zion, who had His holy of holies where His presence was, and only one person, one priest every year could go in and meet with God like that. Now here was Jesus saying, the father and the son will make their home in them. God, imagine it.

God, the creator of the world, the King of the universe, will reside in their hearts. Jesus says, the counselor, the Holy Spirit, who the father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. The Lord's last words for his disciples included a command to wait. To wait for the Holy Spirit or the counselor, as He puts it here. Now the Greek calls it the paraclete, and this word is notoriously hard to translate.

We don't have an adequate English translation for the word paraclete. It literally means someone who stands beside someone else. Para, meaning next to. Someone that stands next to someone else. But the idea is like an adviser, a counselor that used to stand next to the king, that used to whisper in their ears, that used to guide them.

The Holy Spirit is like this adviser, this counselor. Now Jesus says that the spirit of God would be sent to be a paraclete to them. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would teach them all things, would remind them of all His teaching. Later, when the Gospel was preached, the word and the will of Jesus that the disciples preached was empowered by this special gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, I spend a lot of time defending the facts of the Bible.

I talk about to various people about the point that the Bible is a historical document that we can trust. But I realised that knowing the facts is only half the battle. Knowing the facts is only half the battle. The Bible records much more than facts. It records life giving truth.

Now you might ask, what's the difference? A fact is generally a truth, but a fact can be useless. It can be pointless. For example, we can believe or accept the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross. We can accept the fact that Jesus was a historical man that lived two thousand years ago, but it's only when the life giving truth of Jesus' substitutionary atonement is added to that fact that lives actually become changed.

Can you understand? That's a fact, but this is a truth. The fact points to the truth behind it and becomes a cornerstone, the cornerstone to a life giving truth. The Bible is not just a story, but it is the story of God restoring life back to us. And how it's made real is by the Holy Spirit.

That is what Jesus is saying here. The Bible is not just a biography of Jesus. It is a Spirit inspired record of God's unconditional, relentless love in action for you and for me. The Bible could just have been another biographical source, and many people treat it that way. Many scholars, in fact, that I read at Bible college are not believers, but believe the Bible gives us a nice moral story.

The Bible could potentially just have been another biography, but the spirit of God breathes life into that account. That is what changes people's hearts. The Bible contains something no other written document in human history contains, and that is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. God meant it when He looked ahead to Jesus' work and said through the prophet Jeremiah in 600 BC, I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. 600 BC, God said that.

Jesus meant it when He said in thirty AD, God so loved the world that He has sent His son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. The Holy Spirit meant it when He said through the apostle Paul in 50 AD, as for us, we were dead in our transgressions and sins in which we used to live. But because of His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy has made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved. Throughout the whole story of humanity, the Holy Spirit has guided people to declare and pronounce the same message, the same truth that has saved and regenerated and rejuvenated lives.

But notice the dynamic relationship between the Holy Spirit living within us and our relationship with Jesus. It is only when we live in faith in Jesus, obedience to His word, that the Holy Spirit, the counselor comes to us. The Spirit doesn't dwell in people who reject Jesus. No one who hates Christ can have the Spirit, but whoever has life, whoever has the light of Christ in their hearts, they will receive the comforter. They will receive the adviser.

When you drive on a highway, in those dark stretches, and Australia has a few of them, those dark stretches without any street lights, we've got those signs, don't we? Those official government signs that have the reflectors on them. If you don't have your headlights on, you're gonna miss those signs. It's only when you have that light shining against the sign that it reflects the light back to us, and we can see it. It's the same with the Holy Spirit.

The signs, the facts, the truth are out there. But we live in a world, we live in an existence that's darkened by our own brokenness and our own sin. Whether we see those signs will depend on the light of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit works to illuminate that back to us, and many Christians, especially the new ones, will tell you of that moment when the penny dropped and that light reflected off the sign, and they could see, and they could realise the truth. That's the moment when the Holy Spirit entered their heart.

The third thing that Jesus says, receive my peace. What's the result of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us? Peace. Simply. In verse 27, Jesus says, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you.

I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. This is the end result. Peace. Why was it necessary that his disciples received peace?

Why was it necessary? Let's have a quick flick back to the beginning of chapter 14, the beginning of this sermon, I guess. Jesus says in verse 1, do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. And then here at the end of the chapter again, in verse 27, Jesus says, do not let your hearts be troubled.

Do not be afraid. And so what we have here is a bookend. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God. And then in verse 27, do not let your hearts be troubled.

Do not be afraid. It's safe to say that the disciples were troubled, or they would be very soon. Jesus was talking here about leaving them, and they were confused. They didn't know what was gonna happen. They were just having a nice meal and Jesus was talking about leaving them for ever.

And they didn't understand what was going on. His words sounded so formal. It sounded like his last will and testament. I'm gonna be leaving you, the adviser. And they were troubled.

Something was about to change, and we don't like change. Jesus says, don't be anxious. Don't be troubled. You will have peace. I will send you the comforter who will remind you of me and put your mind at rest.

Jesus says that this isn't some sort of worldly peace. It's a peace that comes actually from outside. Jesus says, my peace I give to you. Jesus promised his disciples peace, but it was so much more than that. In John 20:21-22, after Jesus has come back, risen from the dead, visits his disciples behind locked doors, Jesus says to them, peace be with you.

And then He breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. Do you know what that means? The Holy Spirit is the peace that Jesus is talking about. The Holy Spirit is the peace. The peace of God is the Holy Spirit, in other words.

So much so that Jesus says, this peace I breathe on you. Now receive the Holy Spirit. Friends, there are many things in our life that can rob us of peace. Many, many things. Job stability isn't so stable anymore.

Our kids walk in the faith isn't so faithful anymore. Our health may not be so healthy. Planes that disappear without a trace, wars and genocides, floods and fires, man, it shows that our world is so unstable, that it is so unpeaceful, it is so scary. But then look at what Jesus offers us. Here, have my peace.

Peace was proclaimed, interestingly enough, at the beginning of Jesus, at His birth. Peace be to all men. Peace was accomplished at the end on the cross when Jesus paid the penalty for sin. Peace was secured when Jesus rose from the dead to proclaim His victory and our forgiveness. Peace is read to you in Christ's words today.

Peace has been sung about in our worship this morning. Peace was given to you when you were baptised into the family of God, and peace is assured time and time again when we celebrate the Lord's Supper. Through faith in Jesus Christ, you have the peace that comes with the forgiveness of sins and the promise of a daily walk with God that is free from the terror, free from the horror, free from the turmoil that this world can throw at us. Because this peace, friends, is not dependent on us. This peace is given.

This peace is received. This peace comes from the spirit and not from us. There's a story of a young man who was studying at university and was on crutches. He was physically disabled. And although he was not a handsome fellow, he had a talent for friendliness and optimism.

And he earned a lot of academic awards and honours. Now one day, a new student asked him what had caused him to become so badly crippled. And he replied to the man, he said infantile paralysis is the cause. What a misfortune that is, exclaimed the other man. How can he face the world so confidently and so happily?

Oh, the polio victim replied, the disease never touched my heart. Friends, if you love the Lord Jesus Christ with your heart, with your mind, with your obedience and your actions, the Holy Spirit, the peace of God, will dwell in your hearts. It's a peace that will never go away. It cannot be mastered. It cannot be overcome by whatever comes into your life.

The diseases of life cannot touch our hearts. Keep remembering that. Keep reminding yourself of that. Keep resting in that truth. Remind your worried souls.

Remind your mind that wants to keep going back to that old path. As Jesus physically departed from us, He left us with the greatest gift and reminder until that time where He comes back to us again. Peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give to you. Let's pray.

Lord, for a world that has so much on offer, for a country like ours that makes life so comfortable and easy, we should be more peaceful than ever. We should know peace. Peace should be a part of our daily lives, and yet, Lord, everyone wrestles with it. Lord, we come again this morning to lay these things before you. There's stuff in our lives that that you know about.

There's old habits that take this peace from us. There's old worries and old insecurities, Lord, that keep us worried. This morning, Lord, we want to ask that you will make this peace alive and well in our hearts. Lord, let your spirit dwell in us richly. May we, again this morning, take up that peace.

May we forsake those old habits of doubting, of being troubled, Lord. We thank you, Lord, for the ultimate truth more than a fact that in Jesus Christ, you have overcome everything, that you are greater than this world, that you are more powerful, that if you can feed the fields of the birds of the fields and the lilies that grow, Lord, you can look after us. We pray, Lord, that we may seek your righteousness first, that we may seek your kingdom to grow in us first, and then to rest in the fact, Lord, that you will add everything else unto us. Thank you, Lord, for your love. Thank you, Lord, for the spirit, the gift that you have given us.

We pray, Lord, that our lives may reflect lives of peace, goodness, mercy, and love. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.