Upper Room Ministry: John 13:14

Could we look please in John chapter 50, start of verse 18. These are the words of the Lord Jesus. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Now you know these chapters in John 13, 14, 15, 16, the last words, the last teaching by the Lord Jesus to the disciples before he went to the cross, spoke in the night before he would be crucified.

The Lord knew what it was going to be like for these men after he left them, about the persecution, the opposition. When he was with them, they didn't have a thing to worry about, no matter what the challenge was, whether it was a storm, whether it was a maniac, whether it was the Pharisees, the Lord handled it, they didn't need to worry at all. But he was going to leave them and he knew that, and so what I see here in these chapters, often called the upper room ministry of the Lord Jesus, is him giving them the teaching they need that would fortify them, that would help them to live for God in the days that lay ahead.

Now here in these verses that we read, he talks about the hatred of the world. The world hasn't changed. It may have its veneer of respectability, but the world is in opposition to God.

None of us know what's going to happen in this country. God has been so good to America, and so many in America don't seem to appreciate it. I would suggest that what these disciples needed to hear, what they needed to be taught, is what you and I need too.

How to live for God in a world that rejects Christ, that doesn't want God. Now I touched on this at the Ankeny conference, but I want to just look briefly at chapter 13. Chapter 13 in John, verse 1. Now just look at a little of what the Lord wanted to teach them, what they needed to know, and I believe what we need to know.

Verse 1, John 13. Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come, that he should depart from this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. Verse 3. Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, rose from supper and laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself.

After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with a which he was girded. Down to verse 12. So when he had washed their feet, taken his garments, and sat down again, he said to them, Do you know what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you say, Well, for so I am.

If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I've given you an example that you should do as I have done to you. Verse 17.

If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Verse 33. Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer.

You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, Where I am going, you cannot come. So now I say to you, A new commandment I give you, I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have loved one for another.

So what is this that the Lord is saying, love one another? Is this just some warm fuzzies that we try to give one another? It goes beyond warm fuzzies. You know, it's amazing to me, the Lord, knowing what was going to happen to him in just a few hours, he would be arrested there in the garden, put on trial, nailed to a cross, and die for us. He's concerned about these men.

He shows his care by his humility and washing their feet, that picture, the metaphor that he wants us, that he wanted them to care for one another, for us to help one another with the defilement of the world, which is what I believe the feet-washing pictures. This was important enough to the Lord that he would tell these men, this is how we started his Upper Room ministry, to care for one another. You know, it's so easy to see faults in one another, because we all have them.

But if that's all we see, we're not going to do too well together. And I was thinking, just imagine now, as the book of Acts starts, if the disciples had have just been critical of one another, and the division started, what would that have done to the work of God? You know, it's possible for any of us to pride ourselves that we have everything taken care of as far as doctrine. All the I's dotted, all the T's crossed, and I'm not against doctrine.

We need to know the Word of God. We need to practice it. But here's a commandment that I could forget so easily.

Love one another. As he says, I have loved you. Now, there's a new standard here.

He says it's a new commandment. The Old Testament, it was love your neighbor as yourself. So the standard was loving as we love ourselves.

But here now he says, love as I have loved you. Has the Lord Jesus loved you? Do we love others to that degree? Are we willing to help our fellow brothers and sisters with the inconsistencies maybe we see in their life? Or are we just going to stand back and be critical and treat them with an icy stare? I'm so thankful the Lord is so gracious and he deals so graciously with us with all our failures and shortcomings, and yet we can be so hard-hearted and not deal like that with one another. This is no little thing when he says, love one another as I have loved you.

And he says in verse 35, by this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. Our testimony to the world. And maybe I mentioned this in Ankeny, how much damage has been done to Christianity by the world seeing believers at one another's throats.

Chapter 14, verse 1. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. Now, not surprising that these disciples' hearts would be troubled.

The Lord told him he's going away. He tells him in chapter 13, one of them was going to deny him. Peter, one of them was going to betray him.

Peter was going to deny him three times. These men had left everything to follow the Lord, and now he's telling him he's leaving. So he tells him, let not your heart be troubled.

Any troubled hearts here today? Maybe the better question would be, anybody that doesn't have a troubled heart today? Things that worry you and you're wondering how you're going to deal with whatever. Life is like that. One of the things that impressed me about this Upper Room ministry of the Lord Jesus is teaching these men and teaching us the tremendous relationship that we've been brought into.

We're going to see that as we go along here. And actually, to me, chapter 15 is the heart of it. Not only the relationship, but the ability he gives to practice the tremendous position we've been brought into.

The Lord's going to the cross in just a little while, and he says, don't let your heart be troubled. He says, believe in God, believe also in me. You know, believe is one of the characteristic words of the Gospel of John around a hundred times.

And to me, one of the main thrusts of John is that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. It's one thing to believe in God generally, but it's a little more difficult to understand that the God of the universe was manifest in a human body in Jesus Christ when he was here on earth. There's many religions, many groups.

They would acknowledge the Lord Jesus was a tremendous teacher, but the fact that he was God, mm-mm. Now, we might believe that he really is the Son of God, just like these disciples did. But what what's going to happen in a few hours when they see him arrested, when they see him on trial, when they see him, well, you know what happened.

They forsook him and fled. And I think of when they were on the Sea of Galilee, that storm came up, and the Lord stills the storm. Now, these men, they believe that he was the Messiah, but in that boat, they said, who then is this that even the winds and the waves obey him? They need to know him a little better, and I would suggest so do we.

And that's what the Lord is trying to do here, trying to reveal to them who he is. Brother, sister, his greatness is unsearchable. And yet, if you're like me, when there are difficulties, when there are challenges, I can forget about that, and the challenges are bigger than my estimation of who he is.

I forget. It was good job we have the Word of God to remind us. So then, in verse 2, the Lord says, in my father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. Now, he told them that he's going away, and maybe they're wondering, what's the future going to hold for us? Well, he gives them a little glimpse of the future, that it's okay.

In my father's house are many, not literally, many dwelling places, many dwellings. And then he says, I go to prepare a place for you. He was going to the Father, but first he went to the cross.

And if he hadn't gone to the cross before he went to the Father, there'd be no place for you and me in the Father's house. So notice now how the Lord reveals to him, little by little, just who he is and why they should believe in him, and why you and I should believe in him. Look at verse 7. If you had known me, he says, you would have known my father also.

And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known me, Philip? Now let's just stop there for a minute.

Is that the case with us? I mean, I've known the Lord now for over 50 years, and yet there are times when it's hard for me to trust him. Then he goes on to say in verse 9, he says, he who has seen me has seen the Father. So how can you say, show us the Father? Verse 10, do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? Do we believe that? That the Father, God, was in Christ when he was here on earth? How can that be? God is spirit.

This one who is our Savior and shepherd and friend is God. And then he goes on to say in verse 10, the words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works. Now we're going to see this word that's very important in this section of John.

The Father who dwells in me does the works. Then he says in verse 11, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me, or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. So in this section, verses 7 to 11, it's the Father and the Son are together.

You know, there was a brother from Venezuela asked me back home a week or so ago, he said, can you explain to me how God is one and yet in three persons? I said, I can't. I'm not God. I said, I can't explain, I don't understand it.

I believe it because the Bible teaches it. But I need to know it, not just in my head, but in my life. That when I face challenges, and for you, whether it's going to school on Monday or work or issues in the family or in the assembly, we're linked with the Father and the Son.

And down in verse 15 now, the Lord says, if you love me, keep my commandments. Many years ago, my brother-in-law Dan Shutt and I were helping the assembly in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. They were having gospel meetings at the University of Windsor.

And in those meetings, there were a number of men stayed behind to talk with us after. They were Muslims. And at first, I thought, well, they're interested in coming to know Christ as their Savior.

But as you know, they kept coming night after night, and we found out that wasn't the case. They were trying to convert us. But one thing stood out to me as we talked with these men, because I didn't know much about Islam then, and I don't know a lot now, but to me, love was conspicuous by its absence in everything they were saying.

In their religion, it was all about do this, pray five times a day, and it just made me appreciate so much the Christianity of the Bible that's based on love. God's love for us and our love for him. It's often been pointed out, he doesn't say in verse 15, if you want to go to heaven, keep my commandments, if you love me.

He loved us. And when a person understands the price that God paid, that Christ paid to put away their sin, it's only the natural or supernatural response to love them in return. Do you love the Lord? He says if.

The Lord is so gracious. If you love me. Christianity is also very practical.

Keep my commandments. Now, this relationship that we have with the Lord, any good relationship has privileges and responsibilities. And really, it's a two-way street.

We have the privilege of a relationship with a living God, but there are responsibilities too. And if you have a relationship with another person, a good relationship, aren't you going to want to do things that they appreciate? You're not going to poke them in the eye or things they don't like. It's not going to be conducive to a good relationship.

Well, it's the same with the Lord. He says, if you love me, here it is, keep my commandments. Not a lot of smoke and mirrors here.

So the question is, do we love him enough to find out what his commandments are? What pleases him? What doesn't please him? Very simple. Am I willing to submit to the word of God? What God says? Out of love for the Lord Jesus? It's not about keeping a bunch of rules here. It's about pleasing the one who pleased the Father, who didn't please himself, who went to the cross to bring us into infinite blessing.

But the question some people might say, well, it's not that I don't want to keep his commandments. I'm just so weak. Well, I understand.

We're all weak. But notice what he says in verse 16, and I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper. That's the paraclete word, but it's a comfort in the King James.

I'm reading from the New King James here. But the thought is one called alongside to help. That's the Holy Spirit.

I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide or be with you forever. The spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you.

There's that dwell again. Now we read about the father dwelling in the son back in verse 10. But here now it's the spirit of God dwelling in us.

God in us. We all had to find out that there wasn't a thing we could do to save ourselves to take our sins away. We had to come to a point where we were totally helpless.

Often Romans 5 and 6 comes to mind in the gospel. When we were without strength in due time, Christ died for the ungodly. That's what he did on the cross that secures our salvation.

However, in the Christian life, why is it that we think now that it's up to us to some degree? At least we might say with our lips. Well, you know, we couldn't save ourselves. We can't live for the Lord ourselves and he doesn't expect us to do it ourselves.

And he's going to develop that as we go along here. But here's the first part of it. It's the spirit of God himself.

God lives in us, dwelling in us. And then in verse 20, he says that that day you will know that I am in my father and you and me and I in you. This is tremendous.

He's saying, I am in my father. Christ is in the father. We are in Christ and Christ is in us.

Positional truth. But the Lord wants us to live in the good of it, in conscious dependence on him. Verse 21.

He who has my commandments and keeps them. Now again and again, the Lord's going to emphasize this, the importance of the word of God and submitting to it out of love. He who has my commandments and keeps them.

It is he who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest or reveal myself to him. What do we sing at the beginning? More about Jesus, what I know. The Lord's saying here how we can know more of him.

In fact, he wants to reveal himself to us when the Lord Jesus was here on earth. Wasn't he doing this all the time with his disciples, whether in his teaching or in the things that he did? I mentioned about the Lord stilling the storm and the disciples are amazed. Who then is this? And then when he walked on the water, when he raised Lazarus from the dead, he was continually showing them who he is and what he's able to do.

Brother, sister, this is what he wants to do with us. He wants to reveal himself to his people. Isn't it? I mean, am I reading too much into this? He who has my commandments and keeps them is he who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father.

I will love him and reveal myself to him. You know, there are many interesting things you can see in this world. Beauty of God's creation.

But I don't know anything that can equal God revealing himself to me. Have there been times in your life when the Lord has made himself real to you? To me, there's nothing greater. The God that we're going to spend forever with.

The God who has paid the ultimate price so we can belong to him. It's a relationship that he's brought us into that he wants us to enjoy and live in the good of. That we can be honored to the one who was despised and rejected when he was here on earth and still is in me.

Verse 22, Judas, not as scary, it said to him, Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. There you have it again. And my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Now, the word for dwelling, to dwell, the verb is found around 41 times in the Gospel of John. But the noun, like dwelling place or dwelling, the noun is only found twice in the whole New Testament. One is here.

We will come and make our home, our dwelling with him. The other time is in verse two. In my father's house are many dwellings, mansions.

Now, in verse two, speaking about us dwelling with the father. Verse 23. It's the father and the son dwelling with us.

Does that interest you? It thrills me. On the one hand, I realize I'm so undeserving. And I also have some idea how helpless I am in myself and how sinful, as our brother Joel was mentioning this morning.

That the father and son would want to dwell with me and with you. This makes all the difference living in a world that is opposed to God. The disciples, we're going to face the opposition of the world big time.

And so do we. But let me finish with just verse 27. Peace, I leave with you.

My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Don't let your heart be troubled. Why? We have the father and the son and the spirit. We've been reading about that dwelling in us.

We're not our own. We're going to see in chapter 15, the Lord says, without me, you can do nothing. Let not your heart be troubled.

He says, neither let it be afraid. But before that, he says, peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you.

You know, sometimes people that are fairly well off, they leave an inheritance to their family when they die. Material inheritance. The Lord didn't have any material things to leave.

I mean, his executioners were gambling over his clothing even. But what he does give is something lasting. Peace.

Peace. A peace that the world can't give. It's not only peace with God, but the peace of God.

The disciples would need this. Brother, sister, you and I need it. The Lord wants us to have it.

He wants us to live in the good of this relationship that he's brought us into with the living God. The spirit of God living in us. The father, the son dwelling.

May the Lord help us to enjoy this. To believe it. So that our hearts won't be troubled.

Nor be afraid.