Category: Bible studies

I love my children. I don’t think I am particularly unique in that. Many men could probably tell a tale like the one I am thinking about from our family’s past… I remember when my firstborn child was still snug inside her momma’s womb. I used to “talk” to her by putting my face up to my wife’s belly. I would even write my little baby girl notes in a journal that her mother and I kept for her. Each little journal entry ended with the hopeful and anxious words “Please come live with me soon!” I couldn’t wait to see that beautiful little baby. Her smile still steals my heart, years later. In fact, I have to confess that all of my children grab my heart and weaken my resolve – even when I am upset with them.

I think back, and we were so young, my wife and I. We were very naïve about what raising children would be like. We made so many inner and quiet promises to ourselves about what the lives of our children would be like. I wanted each of them to have every opportunity to grow and become their own people. I ached over how best to provide the things we could – and now I sometimes “second-guess” many of those decisions that were made in blind love and endless hope. At first I was not sure that raising children would be so challenging. I didn’t realize that if I brought no plan to a toddler – they already had one – and it included noise and destruction and mess – with only the most resistant efforts to clean up at the end. From the time they learned the word “NO!” it was a battle (some more than others). Maybe I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was, but I made many promises – to God, to myself, to my wife and to my children – to try to be a man of God, a leader and a provider. The jury is still out on how well I did.

I mention that because there came a time in the Gospel story, during the last night before the betrayal of Jesus in Gethsemane, when Jesus made some incredible promises to his beloved followers – His “spiritual children” if you will. He was walking to the place where He knew His arrest awaited. Lashes, thorns and nails were just hours ahead – and His hapless disciples were as naïve as children are to dangers. They had no clue. Yet, Jesus made promises. Maybe they couldn’t hear them well at the time – but we can hear them. We have the record. God kept it for us. Jesus promised to be THE VINE that all of us – each one of His followers of every age – could draw strength and endurance from. Here is the truth of His message that we want to look at today…

Key Principle: Mature believers both recognize and live in the promises of Jesus for us. If we forget them, we fumble around on our own. If we live counting on them – we are empowered and secure.

In our previous lesson, we talked about the “FIVE WORKS OF THE VINEDRESSER” stressing the work of the Father in Heaven in our lives. In this lesson, we move on to the work of the Vine – Jesus Himself. Let’s review exactly what He taught:

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every [branch] that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and [so] prove to be My disciples. 9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and [that] your joy may be made full.

Jesus told a story wrapped with three intertwined players: His Heavenly Father (the Vinedresser identified in verse 1), Jesus Himself (as the Vine identified in 15:1) and a disciple or follower (as the branches identified in 15:5).

Here we find encouragement in three essential truths:

1. Our Heavenly Father is ACTIVE in our lives, fulfilling a work He long planned to do.
2. Jesus is ACTIVE at work on our behalf, flowing into our lives life that does not originate with us – but with Him, through a connection to Him.
3. We are called to be ACTIVE with a DIRECT SET OF RESPONSIBILITIES as a follower in order to live a live woven into the braid.

Let’s un-braid the strands and look only at one part of the story. Let’s focus on the PROMISES Jesus made to each of us as branches of the Vine. What did Jesus really promise to do for you and I if we follow Him?

The world has been clear about dangling tempting morsels in the face of a “would be” follower of Jesus– but I am not sure that we have made our case NEARLY SO WELL – what an incredible and powerful life we can have when surrendered to Jesus.

Frankly, many believers look like they have been sucking green persimmons. They aren’t such a fun bunch. They grouse about the obvious moral collapse going on around us – because they are worried. They have a defensive spirit on front of the rapid defection from the Bible our country is going through – because they are being pushed into a corner. They believe in the sovereignty of God, but can’t seem to figure out what to do when our issues are being systematically overturned at the ballot box – because they are shocked at how wrong is so quickly becoming right in our land. They know God can supply, but they fear coming persecution – and they are starting to see it moving near. They worry about why God doesn’t seem to be showing up more in Washington – and forget that He was dismissed from the classrooms that trained a generation of Americans. In short, Christians just aren’t that fun to hang out with these days. We look AGAINST everything – and for a good reason. But sadly – Christianity’s attractiveness is muted by fearful and sour faces.

Let me say it clearly… we aren’t done yet! Believers in Jesus aren’t going to withdraw from the public square until they move us out. When they do – we will know what to do next… Read our history. We have done in before. Rome didn’t stop the message of Jesus. Stalin didn’t eliminate the message of salvation. Beijing couldn’t snuff out the message of redemption – and neither will this new “mouth muzzling” politically correct – “tolerate any perversion but harass and frame any believer’s thinking as thoroughly bigoted” group that is now assaulting not only our values, but even our common sense.

Brothers and sisters, we have resources in Jesus. We have power in Him. We need to access it, nurture it, and thrive in it. Let’s take a look…

Seven Works of the Vine (Jesus) to care for His followers:

1. Cleaning – or making the follower a part of the life flow!

Jesus was leaving the men soon, and he turned as they walked to Gethsemane and said: 15:3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.”

Though this line of all of 15:1-11 may seem out of place (not working within the vine analogy), it is important to recall that a primary work of Jesus in the life of a follower is the cleaning work. He stressed that in the teaching that He gave them at the washing of feet in John 13 earlier that same evening. Look at Jesus’ use of the word CLEAN earlier that night, to get the meaning in John 15:3. Go back a few pages in your Bible, and listen to His words as recorded by the same author – and see how “CLEAN” was used.

Jesus got up and began to wash the feet of His followers in the upper room. Then, John 13:6 records: “So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” 8 Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, [then wash] not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who has BATHED needs only to WASH his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all [of you].” 11 For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”

In the text, Peter objected to Jesus washing him – because he thought the exchange was about SERVANT-HOOD and VALUE – but it wasn’t. Jesus made it clear the boys wouldn’t really understand the whole symbolic value of the lesson that day – it would happen in the FUTURE. Here we sit in the future, and we can look at how Jesus made clear several things about the symbol that help us define His use of the word CLEAN:

• First, whatever He meant – the cleansing was required if Peter would be a part of the future ministry of Jesus. Clean meant IN the group and PART of the ministry of Jesus. One could not be a part of Jesus’ teaching and outreach ministry if they were not CLEAN – so CLEAN is JOINED, UNCLEAN is CUT OFF. John 13:8 makes that very clear.

• Second, Jesus made a distinction between two kinds of CLEAN – there is BIG CLEAN or the word BATH (Greek: lou-o) and there is LITTLE CLEAN – the word WASH (Greek: nipto). A BATH was a GRAND CLEANSING – while the FOOT WASH was a mere MAINTENANCE CLEANSING. The washing of feet symbolized cleansing on a smaller scale, but with some of the same effects.

Peter wanted to make sure if cleansing put him on the team – that he got the GRAND CLEANSING again. Jesus told him that was not necessary – for that had already occurred. The BIG CLEAN already happened and didn’t need to happen again. The GREAT CLEANSING of Jesus occurred when a FOLLOWER chose to make Jesus their MASTER. They became a part of His team, an extension of His family. In 13:11, the DISLOYALTY – THE REJECTION by Judas made him UNCLEAN. The cleanliness seems, then, to relate to LOYAL FOLLOWING, to true submission. Following that analogy, foot washing dealt with the “smaller disloyalties”, the “momentary rebellions” that needed to be washed away. Much later, the disciples would come to understand their need for Jesus’ ongoing cleaning work as their intercessor and advocate before the Father.

It is very important to recall that one could tell which were clean by the ACTIONS of the men, not their proximity to Jesus. Judas wasn’t clean, but he had spent a long time with Jesus. Judas wasn’t submitted to Jesus’ rule in Him, but He did lay right beside Him at the Last Supper. Being WHERE JESUS IS does not equal submitting to WHAT JESUS SAYS.

Go back to John 15:3. If they were CLEAN, how did they get that way? The text says clearly that it came “because of the Word Jesus spoke” to them.

There are two senses in which that statement is true. In that sense, He was saying, “Don’t be concerned about your loyalty – you are all loyal because I have said so.” This may be a response to the earlier shocking words: “One of you is going to betray Me.” He may have been simply saying: “Relax, it isn’t any of you who will betray Me.” If that is how we are to understand the words, Jesus was being particularly gracious, because in fleeing from Gethsemane, many of them would (in a sense) betray Jesus. Peter would do so verbally – but others would vote with their feet.

Another sense of CLEAN was this: they were SEPARATED from other men by the BINDING of His Word in John 15:3. Jesus commanded them, and they loyally followed. The action trusting and following the Words of Jesus made them CLEAN by Jesus’ definition.

Let me ask you: Did Jesus ever give to YOU a bath? Have you taken His claim to be the Savior, the Rescuer, and the Cleaner of the sin-sick man or woman – and asked Him to wash YOU? If Jesus entered this room today and looked for those who have given Him their lives, would YOU be one of the people He acknowledges because YOU have made that choice?

One more question: For those of you who can heartily say, “Yes! I have chosen Jesus, and He has cleansed me” my question is this: “How do your feet look? Are they dirty?” If your walk in the world this week has left stains, some time with Jesus and a basin is just the prescription you need. You may even need a friend to help you scrub. The Bible says we can confess our faults one to another, as we confess them to Jesus.

2. Instructing – He abides in those who choose to abide in Him through His Word!

15:4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. ….7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you…”.

The word ABIDE is not one that we use in everyday speech, unless you are a formal writer. We don’t ask someone to marry us and say, “Come now, my love, abide with me.” That is for very old movies. The term MENO simply means, “Stick with, or remain.” The better term for us is found in the old song title: “Stand by me!”

In Luke 6, Jesus asked a very important question that measures ABIDING:

Luke 6:46 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? 47 “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: 48 he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 “But the one who has heard and has not acted [accordingly], is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Let’s be clear: Christians aren’t the people who GO TO CHURCH. Christians are people who BECOME THE CHURCH wherever they go. They aren’t the ones who simply LISTEN to the WORDS of Jesus – they are the ones who LIVE the words of Jesus.

Both the wise man and the foolish man heard the words of the Master, and both were hit by the flood. Both faced peril and problems. One acted out the words of the Master, and that foundation withstood the testing of the flood waters and held him fast to the rock foundation. Hearers don’t honor Jesus – because hearing is passive. Doers honor Jesus – because they put His words into daily life. THEY truly believe that Jesus is Lord.

Are YOU standing by the Words of Jesus? If you are, He is standing by you! If you aren’t, you have a choice…either stop calling Him Master – and give up the notion of a salvation that lets you live any way you want, or start taking your stand by His Word! You will never be the believer you were meant to be while rebellious and self-absorbed, and self-directed. Calling Him LORD is not only a theological act, but a PRACTICAL ONE – He is in charge and I will stand by His Word.

3. Enabling – He enables the branch to bear fruit!

15:4b “….As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”

DO you feel like reaching people for Jesus is TOO HARD? What about STANDING FIRM by His Word in a world that is quickly framing believers as intolerant and unloving because we won’t simply endorse whatever perversion of the month people in our society want to endorse? If you feel following Jesus is TOO HARD – you are PERFECT for the job!

Jesus knew that NONE of His disciples could accomplish things in the spiritual realm without remaining in communion with Him and His constant cleansing. We are rebels to the core, and even after many years of following His Word, we can quickly retreat back to the default of rebel. We need a CONSTANT flow of His life, His Word, His stability in us. When we walk close to Him, and attach our hopes, dreams, ideas and desires to Him – our life produces fruit honoring to Him. We are able to grow into places only the Great Vine can support and supply. The words of Jesus in the end of verse 5 should echo in our minds” “…apart from Me you can do NOTHING.”

Why are these words so essential? It is because few believers, if any at all, truly grow to believe them. We won’t admit it – but we think we can DO a great many things that are important apart from Jesus. After all, we had talents before we ever came to Christ, didn’t we? We believe we are capable, and that is part of our problem. A life with Jesus is a DEPENDENT LIFE, not a “stand on my own two feet and pull this off” self-measured life. Jesus WANTS a dependent relationship – where the weight of the PLAN and PROVISION are placed on Him. If you can do it- you don’t NEED Him. That is why He makes the point – “You cannot do it!”

Are you trusting in Jesus today to chart your course in life? Are you scanning His Word to get a handle on what the path looks like this week?

4. Enlivening – His connection supplies an ever new flow of life!

15: 6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.”

Jesus didn’t come to fix your leaky plumbing in life – He came to tear out the whole system and replace it with HIM. He didn’t come to be added to our ways of coping – He came to replace all of them. Are we content with small and external forms of religious conformity, instead of staying VIBRANT with our daily connection to Him?

Andrew Murray wrote in The Believer’s School of Prayer, (p.130): “Is it not more and more clear to us that while we have been excusing our unanswered prayers and our impotence in prayer with an imagined submission to God’s wisdom and will, the real reason is that our own feeble life is the cause of our feeble prayers? The word of Christ – loved, lived in, abiding in us, becoming through obedience and action part of our being – makes us one with Christ and fits us spiritually for touching, for taking hold of God. Let us yield heart and life to the words of Christ, the words in which He ever gives himself, the personal living Savior.”

In his commentary on Zechariah 13.9, John Calvin observed the spiritual danger of success and comfort and ease: “It is therefore necessary that we should be subject, from first to last, to the scourges of God, in order that we may from the heart call on him; for our hearts are enfeebled by prosperity, so that we cannot make the effort to pray.”

Are you growing dry in your walk? New connection comes from a heartfelt surrender and renewed search to please Him in your life!

5. Providing – Connection to Him (through His Word) grants us access through powerful prayer!

15:7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

Jesus didn’t tell us: “Ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” to pose that we press Him to exalt US, exalt OUR FLESH or feed our WRONG VALUES. Jesus qualified “whatever you wish” – by making that claim of those abiding in His Word and drawing life from His Truth. Jesus IS able to overcome any issue that will hinder you from becoming able to tell His story with your life. Here’s the problem: Jesus didn’t promise to do WHAT WE WANT to make our lives more easy and comfortable. To some generations He sent trouble, persecution and pain – because that is what purified the people of that time and place to see Him.

Go to Heaven and ask them if they agree with what He did. You will find that Heaven lacks a complaint department. When we SEE Him, when we grasp His true vast knowledge and ability, when we reckon His holiness face to face – we will not question His wisdom, nor His goodness.

ASK….What a thought. Could it be that our hopes and vision for our churches are not too great, but that our prayers are too infrequent? Maybe God is willing for more conversions and more powerful and effective discipling in our town, but He has looked within us – and He KNOWS that we do not really wish it. We are not ready for what it will cost US in time and effort.

God will not grant the petty prayer to make me more important than He is in my life, because that request would both dishonor him and destroy me. The old hymn, “Beneath the cross of Jesus” makes the point: “I take, O cross, thy shadow for my abiding place; I ask no other sunshine than the sunshine of His face; Content to let the world go by to know no gain or loss, My sinful self my only shame, my glory all the cross.”

Do we really WANT life to be about HIM and HIS glory – or something else? In 1991, while sharing about his battle with cancer, Pastor Bob Thompson asked a group of Pastors, “If you got to heaven and the only thing there was God, would that be enough?” Would God actually be enough for eternity, or are we angling for something more? What do we think is MORE than Him?

6. Modeling – He is an example of obedience to the Father’s Word and loving connection to Him!

15:10b “…just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

A smart man once said: “I can either look like Jesus, or try to make Jesus look like me.” My call as a follower is to assembly my life to LOOK JUST LIKE THE PICTURE OF THE MODEL ON THE BOX.

Jesus was steady, not fickle. Jesus was happy, not overwhelmed. Jesus was in love, not in angst. He WALKED in obedience to His Father out of LOVE.

We are ROBBING ourselves if we miss this point. Jesus did not strive endlessly to figure out what would please His Father – He listened carefully to the words of His Father, did them – and all the while rested in the JOYFUL walk of delight – knowing that made His Father smile. He made it clear – He was the MODEL for us. Can it be clearer? We are to walk in His Word because of our love for His smile, not that we may earn a love that already envelops us. Delighting Him should become our strongest urge.

7. Securing – He offers us the truth that brings the assurance of full joy!

15:11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and [that] your joy may be made full.” Believers MUST grasp the purpose of God’s Words to us. They are not to bridle, break and burden – they are to fill with JOY.

• Sad believers IGNORE the dirty feet they are walking with, and keep going without Jesus’ gentle hands on them.

• Sad believers STOP THEIR EARS at the sound of the instruction of Jesus – struggling to figure out how to assemble life without pulling out the manual.

• Sad believers TOUGH IT OUT to work on their own without Jesus leading and guiding.

• Sad believers DRY OUT from long periods of disconnection from pleasing Jesus – and they look and sound dry in spirit.

• Sad believers TWIST PRAYER to try to manipulate God with words, rather than recognizing that God knows best, and my prayer should be to exalt Him.

• Sad believers don’t follow Jesus’ example – they do life their own way.

• Sad believers don’t have the ASSURANCE that they walk as God would want – so their JOY is muted, and uncertainty abounds.

When will we learn to listen? Jesus is ever faithful, and we can ABSOLUTELY RELY ON HIM: I read the story of two friends in World War I who were inseparable. They had enlisted together, trained together, were shipped overseas together, and fought side-by-side in the trenches. During an attack, one of the men was critically wounded in a field filled with barbed wire obstacles. He was unable to crawl back to his foxhole. The entire area was under enemy crossfire, and it was suicidal to try to reach him. Yet his friend decided to do just that. The sergeant told him, “It’s too late. You can’t do him any good, and you’ll only get yourself killed.” But the man went anyway. He returned a few minutes later, carrying his friend. But he himself had been mortally wounded. The sergeant was both angry and deeply moved. He blurted out, “What a waste! He’s dead and you’re dying. It just wasn’t worth it.” With almost his last breath, the dying man replied, “Oh, yes it was, Sarge. When I got to him, the only thing he said was, ’I knew you’d come, Jim.’” (A-Z Sermon Illustrations).

Mature believers both recognize and live in the promises of Jesus for us. If we forget them, we fumble around on our own. If we live counting on them – we are empowered and secure.

I hate heights. I don’t like to fly and I don’t think hanging off the side of a mountain by a string looks like fun – even when accompanied by impressive head and elbow gear. I have several friends and acquaintances that seem like otherwise perfectly normal individuals, but they insist that hanging on the side of some gargantuan cliff like a human yo-yo is a perfectly legitimate way to spend a vacation. I like them, but I think they are a few knots short of unraveling completely. I believe God made gravity, and gave us the sense not to challenge it any more than we absolutely must in order to live our lives. Flying in the modern age is necessary – hanging from cliffs for fun or sport just isn’t. I don’t think I am as much a chicken (though some would surely disagree) – I believe I just respect gravity more than some people I know. I mention this because I have one distinct memory of an experience with “sport cliff repelling” I attempted earlier in my life. We were on an adventure trip, and I remember the sick feeling of lowering myself off the side of a cliff that had a straight sixty story drop (about six hundred feet) to the bottom of a canyon. I remember terror, and attempting hopelessly to focus on the cliff in front of me in spite of the fact that there was no ground or floor immediately beneath me. I remember trying to figure out what to pray for – since I volunteered to do this and then thinking, “If I die doing this, I am really going to feel stupid entering Heaven looking like a pancake at about eight inches tall and explaining that I did this for FUN!”

When I was clinging to the cliff and thinking about how not to whimper like a baby or allow body fluids to mark my pants, I noticed something that gave me a small measure of comfort. The rope in front of me was a nylon-cotton cord that was braided together – an extremely strong bind of rope. I know it was extremely strong, not only because of my nearly superhero like perceptive abilities, and because the cord said in small letters stamped on it: “EXTREMELY STRONG”. That rope was a braided set of individual filaments. It was essentially a woven series of thin strands that has been braided together to produce extreme strength by distributing the tension over many strands equally. That thought somehow comforted me on the cliff and in a way – it still does. Braids are strong. Single strands fail, but woven into a cord – they become powerful.

That isn’t only true of ROPE, but also of PEOPLE. In a way, as a believer, I live in the strength of a braided life. What do I mean? I am not alone in facing the weight of life. I am a tiny strand, and I am weak. I fail, forget, get frustrated and can be unbelievably fickle. Alone, I am only one unremarkable and unreliable strand. Yet, the Bible says that I am not walking through life alone. I am connected, filled and woven together with the unstoppable power of my Heavenly Father Who tends carefully to my life to produce fruit. My life flows with the inner working of my Savior Who fills me inside and invites me to remain connected to that flow. He is feeding His life into me – and through me into others. Jesus flatly said so, but He used a different illustration than rope – He spoke of a VINE and BRANCHES in God’s carefully tended vineyard. He talked about how a weak little branch could experience the tending of a Loving Father, and the life-filling sap of a Gracious Lord. He had a point…

Key Principle: As a disciple of Jesus, I don’t live life on my own strength, or on my own terms. God tends, Jesus supplies, and I draw my strength from obediently following His directive word.

This passage is RICH. Because of that, I want to take each part of the braid and offer a message on it. Today, I want to talk about the FIVE WORKS OF VINEDRESSER in the life of the believer. In the next lessons, we will follow up with a look at the SEVEN WORKS OF THE VINE, and eventually we will share together the FIVE LAWS OF THE BRANCH. This is a three-part message.

Before we talk about the FIVE WORKS OF THE VINEDRESSER, let’s recall exactly what Jesus said:

John 15:1 “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. 2 “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every [branch] that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit. 3 “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. 6 “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned. 7 “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and [so] prove to be My disciples. 9 “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 10 “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. 11 “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and [that] your joy may be made full.

Jesus told a story with three players:

His Heavenly Father (the Vinedresser identified in verse 1), Jesus Himself (as the Vine identified in 15:1) and a disciple or follower (as the branches identified in 15:5).

The passage is very familiar to Bible students, but in familiar passages there is always a danger – that we won’t see the important meaning of what we recite. You see, the exciting part of the story for us, if we look carefully at the tale of the vineyard is this: Jesus explains succinctly three essential truths:

1. Our Heavenly Father is ACTIVE in our lives, fulfilling a work He long planned to do.
2. Jesus is ACTIVE at work on our behalf, flowing into our lives life that does not originate with us – but with Him, through a connection to Him.
3. We are to be ACTIVE as followers in order to live a life “woven into the braid”.

Jesus braids our weak strand with the power of God. He explained the CONNECTION in this story that we have to and with God – and what that connection provides. He explained the importance of our connection to the true source of life that produces the highest prize – the honor for our Heavenly Father. Let me set up our exploration with a mental image:

A missionary in Africa several decades ago lived in a small hut which was electrically supplied by a quiet, small generator. The little gas powered wonder supplied current for both his home and the primitive church building beside it. Late one afternoon two African men from another much more remote village visited the Pastor in his hut, and were amazed when night fell, and he simply switched the room lights on. They were wide-eyed at the electric light bulb hanging from the ceiling of his living space. One of the visitors asked the Pastor if he could have one of the bulbs. Thinking perhaps he wanted it for a sort of trinket, the Pastor obliged and gave it to him. Months passed. On his next visit to the remote village of that same man, the Pastor stopped at the hut of the man who had previously asked for the bulb. Imagine his surprise when he saw the bulb hanging from an ordinary string. The man understood the general idea of connection, but he didn’t understand empowering. Lots of believers today are like that.

Some have come today, and truly WANT to be connected to Jesus, but there are some obstacles. Some don’t understand the GOAL as Jesus taught it. Others haven’t carefully considered how disobedience may be hindering the flow of the power in their lives. They have lived mostly disconnected from God, and disappointed that the light doesn’t seem to work on their terms…

Because some may be new to the faith, and others may be interacting with the Bible today, but not yet have a committed walk with God through Jesus – we need to stop and state that true Christians have exchanged a few important values that have become common assumptions in the world around us. Let me explain: we live in a world that has taught us a song – an anthem – to live for ourselves and accumulate affirmation, comfort and satisfaction for ourselves. We hear echoes that we “only go around once” and “should go for the gusto.” We are told we should “be all that we can be” and we should “have it our way”. We are fully convinced that life is FOR us – and we should bite the apple deeply and get as much as we can for ourselves. The problem is – that isn’t the Christian Life. That is the world’s version of the SELF LIFE. There are even some wayward Christians that teach blended philosophies of that with the teachings of Jesus – in various self-focused benefit plans of prosperity theology. Yet, if you really focus on knowing Jesus from His Word, you will see a potent conflict with that kind of thinking. It is not slight – it is a deep conflict.

The Bible says the followers of Jesus acknowledge they are not their own. Their lives are not their own. Their bodies are not their own. Even their very purpose is not wrapped up in themselves. They are created for the delight of Another. Their best day is when the please HIM, and not themselves.

The Bible says that we are born disconnected from God, since the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden, and that we live, more or less, for our own pleasure, and our own good – until we come to Christ. We struggle to make it alone, disconnected from the power and purpose God made Adam, because of his rebellion. We lie, cheat and steal naturally – because we are fallen beings. Yet, encountering Jesus through His Word changes us. Following Jesus, and surrendering to Him hits a reset button on old assumed lifestyles. As believers, as disciples of Jesus, we come to new understandings about life. Our views change on our PURPOSE and the POWER to live daily life. We learn from the Word that our choice to walk in connective obedience to Jesus is the true source of both JOY and POWER in this life. That becomes obvious to any believer who strays from the Word of God – life dries up and joy fleets away. Since joy and power both have personal benefits – that part of the change in our thinking is not as difficult another alteration we make. Perhaps the harder part of the equation is this: our lives have changed their PURPOSE.

Before I came to Jesus, life was about ME. In the Words of Jesus, I learn that it is NOT my happiness, my pleasure, or my desires that are to be the object of my life – but the pleasing of my Heavenly Father. Jesus lived that way, and I am told to live that way. Christianity’s most fundamental purpose is bringing our Heavenly Father, our Creator and our God, the honor and glory due to Him. This is the true purpose of our lives – and that truth underlines the offense of the Gospel to the world. We cannot live for God fully and still maintain our old commitment to self-love, self-advancement and self-pleasure. Attempts to do so will frustrate us and end in a failed mission. Our purpose is a foundational truth, and the purpose is fundamentally at odds with the anthem of self we learned from the choir of voices on every side of us in the lost world.

In the few moments we have together, let’s carefully unpack the three elements of the story, and then apply the truths found in it.

FIVE WORKS OF THE VINE DRESSER

Jesus made clear there are five specific works of our Heavenly Father as the Vine dresser, because God has a JOB in our lives as disciples of Jesus:

Work #1: First, God repositions connected but under-producing branches to help them bear fruit (15:2a).

Verse two begins: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away…” The term “takes away” is a translation of a Greek verb “airo” (pronounced a-hee-ro). The word CAN mean to take away, but can equally be interpreted as LIFT UP. If you were to ask a vinedresser in Israel which was the meaning, it would be obvious. When a vine is wet on the bottom because it has grown downward to the earth, it requires a PROP to keep air flowing underneath. Since the rest of the verse is about productivity, it makes very good sense that the verse should be translated in that way – and NOT “takes away”. Taking away the branch ends it from productivity. Propping it up assists productivity. Let’s say it clearly, GOD HAS THE RIGHT TO ADJUST YOUR POSITION IN LIFE TO GET YOU TO PRODUCE WELL. In my experience, it may be moving you from a position of comfort and self-assurance, to one of uncertainty but greater trust in Him, and greater fruit than you planned! Let me explain in an illustration:

Mr. Holland’s Opus is a movie about a frustrated composer in Portland, Oregon, who takes a job as a high school band teacher in the 1960s. Although diverted from his lifelong goal of achieving critical fame as a classical musician, Glenn Holland (played by Richard Dreyfuss) believes his school job is only temporary. At first he maintains his determination to write an opus or a concerto by composing at his piano after putting in a full day with his students. But, as family demands increase (including discovery that his infant son is deaf) and the pressures of his job multiply, Mr. Holland recognizes that his dream of leaving a lasting musical legacy is merely a dream. At the end of the movie we find the now aged Mr. Holland fighting in vain to keep his job. The board has decided to reduce the operating budget by cutting the music and drama program. No longer a reluctant band teacher, Mr. Holland now believes deeply in what he does and passionately defends the role of the arts in public education. What began as a career detour became a 35-year mission, pouring his heart into the lives of young people. Mr. Holland returned to his classroom to retrieve his belongings a few days after school let out for summer vacation. He had taught his final class. With regret and sorrow, he filled a box with artifacts that represented the tools of his trade and memories of many meaningful classes. His wife and son arrived to give him a hand. As they left the room and walked down the hall, Mr. Holland heard some noise in the auditorium. Because school was out, he opened the door to see what the commotion was. To his amazement he found a capacity crowd of former students and teaching colleagues and a banner that read “Goodbye, Mr. Holland.” Those in attendance greeted Mr. Holland with a standing ovation while a band (consisting of past and present members) played songs they learned at his hand. His wife, who was in on the surprise reception, approached the podium and made small talk until the master of ceremonies, the governor of Oregon, arrived. The governor was none other than a student who Mr. Holland helped to believe in herself during his first year of teaching. As she addressed the room of well-wishers, she spoke for the hundreds who filled the auditorium: “Mr. Holland had a profound influence in my life (on a lot of lives, I know), and yet I get the feeling that he considers a great part of his life misspent. Rumor had it he was always working on this symphony of his, and this was going to make him famous and rich (probably both). But Mr. Holland isn’t rich and he isn’t famous, at least not outside our little town. So it might be easy for him to think himself a failure, but he’d be wrong. Because I think he’s achieved a success far beyond riches and fame.” Looking at her former teacher the governor gestured with a sweeping hand and continued, “Look around you. There is not a life in this room that you have not touched, and each one of us is a better person because of you. We are your symphony, Mr. Holland. We are the melodies and the notes of your opus. And we are the music of your life.” [“Mr. Holland’s Opus”: Leaving a Legacy, Citation: Mr. Holland’s Opus, (Hollywood Pictures, 1995), rated PG, written by Patrick Sheane Duncan, directed by Stephen Herek; submitted by Greg Asimakoupoulos, Naperville, Illinois] (*Taken from Sermon central illustrations, author unknown.)

Holland wanted to make a difference in the world – and he did. It just didn’t happen when and where he dreamed it would. As a believer, we have to be open to that reality – God may move us and reposition us for the best fruit bearing. Don’t run to the bigger venue too quickly – you might find that God has put you in the room you are in for His purposes.

Work #2: Second, God prunes fruit bearing branches (15:2b).

Verse two finished: “…and every [branch] that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” Beyond repositioning, God may need to take OUT OF OUR LIVES someone, something or some situation that is hindering our productivity from reaching the potential. This is different than just moving us or repositioning – this is painful pruning. Pruning is removal, and it isn’t DONE BY US. Grape vines, when left untended, will sprawl out and produce leafy canopies but will not yield much fruit. Pruning may seem counter-intuitive activity, but it will produce very healthy vine. The healthiest vine is not the one with the brightest green leaves for show, but the one that bears fruit. Many are the branches filled with leafy activity, growing that which will shade them and make them more comfortable. Few are those who are truly open to God’s cutting of their frenetic activity – that they would produce greater fruit. It may be the loss of a dearly loved friend that you cannot see is holding you back from truly giving all to the Lord. It may be the death of a spouse or the death of a business or even a dream. It is REMOVAL for the purpose of REPLACEMENT, and it isn’t done by US rejecting others or getting disillusioned. Here is the problem: Branches that are convinced that comfort is the objective, resent the pain of the Vinedresser’s pruning. Branches that know that fruit bearing is the POINT, see the pruning as an act of help and assistance. GOD HAS THE RIGHT TO TAKE PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS OUT OF MY LIFE TO SUIT HIS PLAN. If that isn’t true, someone will need to offer a better explanation to me of the Book of Ruth – because that is EXACTLY what God did to Naomi so long ago.

Because God loves us, He “prunes” us. It is not discipline – it is loving HELP. Pruning truly hurts; but God is not angry, He is at work in His vineyard. Remember it is God at work! You will never see a branch pruning another branch! Just remember, when your Father is doing this, He is very close to you, and you are in His eyes.

Work #3: Third, God removes detached and dried up branches (15:6).

John 15:6 can sound very stern if you do not look carefully at the third work of God. Jesus said: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” The work of the Father also includes organizing the removal of those branches that have dried up due to the disconnection of pruning. This image has many dimensions – and many of them are not as negative as you may at first conclude. The text offers no REASON why the branch did not abide in the Vine. In fact, there are two kinds of DISCONNECTED BRANCHES in the text – those who refuse to remain connected, and those that are pruned to allow others to bear more fruit. Let me suggest the words of Jesus can be read in either way – negative or positive.

The negative way to read the text can be illustrated by the events that happened to a teen that was a part of a church that I cared deeply for. That teen was raised in a Christian home and had parents that I knew well. They LOVED their children and worked to rear them well. Their oldest son made a profession of faith to Jesus in grade school, but by High School was not walking with God at all. He may well have known Jesus, but he wasn’t living Jesus. One Saturday night, in his Senior year, he got drunk, drove into a tree and was killed on impact, with several other teens. At the funeral held in the local school gymnasium, God used his life to touch thousands of teens with the Gospel. Sadly, the testimony that could have produced fruit was used up in one instance – and the fire that burned warmed the room, but only one time. How very sad! The branch removed itself from the flow of God’s empowering, and its life withered. In that decimated state, God used his life for a purpose – but not in a continual use of fruit bearing. The fire place was a distant cry from the fruit bowl.

There is another way – a positive way – to see the story that is an equally valid observation, however. What if the vine is disconnected by the attentive pruning of God and not due to self-disconnection? God may pull them from the Vine because they are blocking other branches from flourishing. I have seen this many times. As time passes, the great preachers of yesteryear AGE OUT. If the Lord tarries, so will I someday. Our lives are brief. While these men, some of them great, remain in their ministries, those outreaches cannot flex and change. New, younger men cannot truly shine, because they are serving UNDER the older man. As we age, we get set in our ways, but God wants to reach each generation, and it may not be done the exact same way as our fathers have done it. Each generation needs to be approached with timeless truth but ever-flexing methodology to persuade them of God’s love and their need for surrender. Branches need to be PRUNED that are connected to the Vine without hindrance, because it is time for another branch to bear fruit, and it needs the direct light of the sun. Sometimes men cast a shadow, and God ages them out and removes them to allow for the next generation. At the same time, the warmth in the fire of the farmhouse is the memory of their value – the final use of the Vine dresser for the now used up branch. Some branches don’t fall away – God moves them off the vine to bring the light on others.

Work #4: Fourth, God delights in accepting honor from the abundance of fruit (15:8).

Jesus said in John 15:8 “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and [so] prove to be My disciples.”

God is glorified by our fruit bearing. The more fruit, the more glory to God. The Heavenly choir increases in strength with each new soul brought to Jesus. The richness of our voices is enhanced with each point of surrender in our lives. The sweetness of the aroma of the Spirit’s work wafts Heaven when we are acting in obedience with a right heart, and searching for ways to be used of God.

One of my favorite passages of the Bible is found in the pivotal passage of Romans 12:1-2. I particularly love the second part of verse 2. Think about the passage for a moment:

“1 Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, [which is] your spiritual service of worship. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.”

If you examine the end of verse two, Paul says this:

(My loose paraphrase) “Be transformed with you mind being made new, and begin the journey of searching out what you can do each day to bring delight to God, and fulfill His desires in you.” The text pushes us to thing in a new way – the way that brings delight and honor to God – and not necessarily upon us. Our focus is to be upon HIS DELIGHT.

Are you going about your week thinking NOT about how to STOP OFFENDING GOD, but how to START DELIGHTING GOD? More believers need to start the journey, and more mature believers need to get intentional about doing it! GO AHEAD, MAKE HIS DAY!

Work #5: Fifth, God loves His Vine (15:9, 10b).

I don’t want to leave the five works of the Vine dresser without noting the last one carefully, found in John 15:9. The work was announced in the teaching of Jesus on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus was walking from the Upper Room and He said to His disciples: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love….”

Jesus didn’t tell the men that they should seek to “tough out” a life for God out of duty. That won’t honor Him. In fact, what He truly is looking for is this: that we will move our deeply rooted love of SELF and replace it with an ever deeper love for HIM.

Look again at verse nine. God LOVED His vine, and God worked His vineyard out of LOVE. There is no love like His. He knows what is best. Stop striving, and start loving. You will find that you never out-give or out-love the endless God.

Pastor Chris Jordan used an illustration to help us understand this: “Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, ‘Yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liza.’ “As the transfusion progressed, he lay in a bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, ‘Will I start to die right away?’ “Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood. (Originally taken from Chicken Soup for the Soul).

Look what REAL LOVE WILL DO! It will give up it’s place for another. Will you give up the throne of YOUR HEART for another – He is waiting to take His rightful place.

As a disciple of Jesus, I don’t live life on my own strength, or on my own terms. God tends, Jesus supplies, and I draw my strength from obediently following His direction.

Every Resurrection Sunday the entire church of Jesus Christ around the world gets an opportunity to celebrate one of the greatest works the Father in Heaven has ever completed. The Resurrection comes only after a long list of thrilling stories of our Master, and it puts the icing on the cake of His powerful life story. Consider this… Today we get to come to celebrate Jesus. But…why? The answer is simple. He defeated death. He walked out of the tomb… and people are touched by His love and changed by His power when they believe His message:

• There is the story of the young woman by a well – rejected repeatedly by people in her life and losing hope in love. She wonders if anyone, anywhere will see her as more than an object and truly look past her body and care for HER. John’s Gospel said that she met Jesus – and He spoke words that pierced her guarded and wounded heart. He told her that God loved her, and that the men in her life didn’t. She wouldn’t find affirmation and love from them – but could find it in the God that made her, and awaited her to open her heart to Him…All over the world today, people who have been bounced between parents every other weekend, and people who have been seen only for some personal talent or physical trait, those who have been treated more as a trinket but less than a person –hear of the One who poured out Himself for them in a way that no one else ever did!

• There is the story of a crusty, old religious man – a leader among his people. He counted the number of days ahead and saw them as fewer than those behind – and he wondered about the TRUTH of all that he spent his life believing… teaching. He wanted to KNOW that God wanted him, and that at the end of all the sacrifices, God would be pleased. Jesus met him and told him about a new birth – a new start that would give him true assurance of God’s love, and security in God’s arms at death. Those words filled his ears, and soon after they enlivened his heart.

• There are stories of the broken and the blind – one after the other – who felt the gentle touch of Jesus on their broken bodies. Helpless and hopeless people the world over can imagine being in the room when the light and color first make their way into a long darkened eye. They get it… they can dance with joy and sing with delight as they imagine Jesus gripping their hands and jumping for JOY with them! Colors flooded in. Darkness was driven out by the flood of hope and beauty! How many a man or woman has heard of our Savior’s work and found Him ready to take their darkness from them as well.

I could go on and on with His story. He danced and lept with the healed lame man, and he laughed until tears with His silly and sometimes senseless disciples. He LIVED a real life… and He died a real death. That made Him like so many other great men of the past – compassionate, caring and consoling. He inspired hope, offered help and evoked holy celebration… but that is just the beginning. His life was not only a good example, it was a life marked with PURPOSE. The Bible says He was born a lamb, a substitute, a sacrifice for the sin of others. He died an innocent man – but He faced the turning away of His Heavenly Father on the Cross – a union that had never seen any breach in time or even before time was. God turned away from His Son as part of the judicial penalty of my sin… your sin… the rebellion and mutiny of all mankind. “The chastisement was placed on Him to make peace for us”, the Bible says. His blood washed the stench of our rebellion from the nostrils of the Living God. In this place and on this day many will believe His words – but not everyone. Here is the truth…

Key Principle: Jesus can change your life – if you will take Him at His word. If you don’t, you will leave the way you were when He tried to meet you.

Before you dismiss Jesus, you should know that the picture of Jesus from the Gospels is not an angry face of One Who is mad at you for your failures, protesting bitterly what you have done wrong. He wants to meet you where you are, and then He wants to make you NEW. You won’t be the same if you believe Him.

How does He change us? To explain, I want to open look at two simple and clear passages from the Bible. If you have a Bible with you, turn to Genesis 2 … This is a story about a garden, and a story about a woman. In fact – it is a story about a very old wound we all deal with every day. In Genesis 2, God created a beautiful garden.

Genesis 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. 15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. 16 The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” 18 Then the LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought [them] to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 The LORD God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.”

Picture the beauty of that place! The Bible tells us simply that:

• It was a garden whose designer was God the Creator (2:8).
• It was the home planned for the man made by God (2:8b).
• It had abundance, and yielded a vast array of luscious fruits (2:9).
• It had a special tree, a tree of boundary – a tree of trust in God’s provision and care – called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (2:9b).
• It was well-watered and secure from drought (2:10).
• It contained a vast supply of beautiful and precious minerals – gold and precious stones (2:11-14).
• God placed man there, and gave him two JOBS – work the land and guard the garden (2:15).
• The entire garden was HIS to meet every need – with one exception. One tree was not to be harvested – its fruit was not for the man (2:16-17).
• God recognized man’s need for companionship and help – to make his life meaningful in the garden work. Man needed woman to impress, accomplish for, and dwell with (2:18).
• Man needed to SEE the need for woman, so God had him name the animals, until he felt what God had already concluded – that he needed one compatible to him to love (2:19-20).
• God took a part of man and fashioned woman – of the same genetic material and chemical design – and formed his helper (2:21-22).
• Man saw the helper, and was overwhelmed with the gift of God, and stunned by her beauty. For the first time, he had someone to love, impress and guard (2:23). He felt important in a whole new way – and he felt, for the first time, the impulse to share his lunch with someone else! (2:23).

What a scene! Happiness, beauty and security abounded. The garden was a place of color, beauty, sweet smelling joy and excitement. Drop down to the words of Genesis 2:25 “…And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

Man was OK with himself. Woman was OK with herself. No advertisements made them feel inadequate. No self-image marred – no need for better makeup or another exercise machine. The issue wasn’t whether they were beautiful enough or felt important enough – they were happy with who God made them. They were happy with one another. They were content with life.

Enter the tempter (3:1). Behind the scenes, God’s enemy, a fallen and disgruntled angel and a band of his follower slithered into the garden. Temptation gave way to sin, and sin opened a series of “domino falling failures”:

Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make [one] wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

Do you see what happened to the man and woman?

1) The man was to guard the garden and failed – exposing his wife to the tempter and not governing the parameters of God (3:1b).

2) The woman entertained the question of God’s authority over her and focused on the one thing God told them to leave alone (3:2-3).

3) The serpent accused God of holding back on them and they succumbed to the idea that God wasn’t who He claimed to be (3:4-6).

What came from the fall was terrible: 

• LOSS of INNOCENCE – “eyes were opened” (3:7a),
• DEATH of intrinsic positive SELF IMAGE – “knew they were naked” (3:7b),
• SHAME – “covered themselves” (3:7b); DISTANCE from God (3:8) and
• GUILT – the FEAR to be seen of God (3:10).

The bottom line is that man’s pain came from his rebellion – and so does YOURS. When we decide we know better than God, we forgo the benefits of trusting Him to meet our every need. We lose out on blessing. We gain shame, discontent, guilt and a host of problems.

Look at the universal and lasting results from the fall experience:

Genesis 3:13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” 16 To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.” 17 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.” 20 Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all [the] living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

1) BLAME: Man tried to blame the woman for his lack of guardianship and leadership (3:12) – the leader blames the followers! Woman blamed the tempter (3:13) – the shopper blames the advertiser for MAKING HER BUY the product!

2) WAR: God promised to put a battle between the deceiver and man through the Messianic seed (3:15). Every believer that faces pains of the enemy and his warfare can trace the struggle of Ephesians 6 back to this moment – not to mention the PRICE of the Cross!

3) PHYSICAL PAIN replaced the joy of the reproductive system. A collective groan may now raise from the females of the assembly! The pain of childbirth is not ALL there is to this!

4) A REBELLION HELPER: Woman was made to AID man in his walk with God – and now she would COMPETE with him and help him by supplying her own rebellion (3:16b). She will want HIS JOB – and struggle with submission.

5) STRUGGLE: Because of the lack of guardianship and leadership, God ends His dealings with their rebellion in words to Adam – the work I gave you will now be a struggle. The ground won’t cooperate (3:17b-19).

6) DEATH: An innocent animal died to make a covering for the man and his wife (3:21). The skins of animals were wrapped around the guilty.

Your painful struggle today is directly related to the rebellion against God and its effects. For a resolution, God provided a covering – but it required the life of another.

The largest thermonuclear bomb ever built and detonated on Earth was exploded on October 30, 1961 above Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Circle. The bomb was dropped by Russian Soviets in an attempt to intimidate Americans. Its name: “Tsar Bomba” or “King of the Bombs.” It had the explosive power of 53 megatons (53 million tons of TNT) – more than ten times the power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kilotons) and Nagasaki (22 kilotons). The explosion was so intense that the flash was visible over 600 miles away, and people felt the air move over 160 miles away. Everything in a radius of 15.25 miles was completely destroyed. Very severe damage extended to a distance of 21.5 miles & the heat was so intense that people over 60 miles away would have experienced third degree burns if anyone had been there. All this came from a bomb that was a little over 26 feet long and had a diameter of a little over 6 feet. It was large to be sure, but it was tiny when you look at the power it packed. Big things come in little packages. The same is true of sin.

Coming out of the scene – the world was forever changed!

I stop on this passage a second time to look carefully at it for good reason. The pain of every minute of every day from that time until now came from that Garden scene. You can draw a direct line between that rebellion long ago and the painful experiences we see all around us today.

According to one record, in America every 24 hours:

• 3,000 children see their parents divorced.
• 1,629 children are put in adult jail.
• 3,228 children run away from home.
• 1,512 children drop out of school.
• 7,742 teens become sexually active.

Pain. Stop and consider how devastating the Garden scene was for each of us. Every innocent child that has been abused can draw a line back to that moment of rebellion. Every cancer patient can draw that same line. Hum in the background the anthem of humanity before God. Can you hear it? “I Did It My Way” is more than Frank Sinatra’s theme. It is also the story of the fallen human nature. It is not just human nature in general – it is yours and mine as well. Our insistence on our way rather than God’s way explains a lot of human experience.

Don’t squirm, we all know it is true. One Pastor wrote in an article I clipped: “There are people in our church involved in stealing. You go to work and turn in a time card or reimbursement or mileage sheet that you know is false. There are folks in our church involved in sexual sin. We have some in our church addicted to internet pornography. We have some involved in promiscuity or an extramarital affair. We have some who are so consumed with lust that they undress people around them with their imaginations. We have people here who lie. We like to call them “white lies” so they don’t sound as bad. According to James Emory White, “91% of all Americans confessed that they regularly lied. 79% had given out false phone numbers or invented new identities when meeting strangers on airplanes. 20% said they couldn’t get through even one day without going along with a previously manufactured lie. We have people here whose tongue is the most active muscle in their bodies. These are the ones who “don’t want to gossip, but…” There are people here who can’t talk to people nicely or who curse in anger.”

Don’t pull away – you came to the right place. We aren’t here because we are good. We are here specifically because we ARE NOT GOOD and are desperate for God’s love and grace amid our sin sick world. We get it. We don’t trust ourselves. We know better. We are our parents – fresh from the garden and full of rebellion!

You see, the story of the Bible doesn’t end with the SIN, brokenness, darkness and its power. The Bible moves on to another Garden Story… This one powerfully unwinds, bit by bit, the destructive power of the GARDEN OF THE FALL. It is the garden we came to celebrate today, and it is found in John 20…

First, the time was given: It was a FIRST DAY – a NEW BEGINNING.

John 20:1 “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came… early to the tomb…”

John simply says Mary Magdalene came. Matthew 28:1 adds that she was accompanied to the grave by other women to see what they could do about finishing the work on the broken body of Jesus. Mark 16:1-3 identified two other women in the scene – Mary “the mother of James” and Salome, the mother of some of the disciples, and well known to the team.

Second, the place was specified: It was a TOMB – AN OLD REMINDER OF PAIN.

John 20:1 “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came… early to the tomb…”

Our story is in a backdrop of one picture – a tomb to remind us of the death that came from the sin garden. Standing there, the anthem in the background is this: “The wages of sin is death.” The ladies walked, but their hearts were broken to the point where the conversation was only about the next responsibility. You can almost feel their numbness. It is the pain of separation. It is the disappointment and sadness and emptiness of loss.

We have all lost someone. In our natural state, death separates us from them. We come to the grave with only aching loss and despair. We weep – it is all that one who does not know God can do. At death, God’s presence can seem far away – and we can feel abandoned to figure out life on our own. That garden of death – like our most meticulously manicured cemetery – held no beauty in their eyes. Breakfast had no taste. Death seemed like an END… a DEAD END.

Third, the hopelessness was expressed: It was DARK – A MOMENT OF CHILLY UNCERTAINTY.

John 20:1b …”while it was still dark…”.

Can you feel the weight of the words? “IT WAS STILL DARK….” The three women descended below the angle of the breaking sun into a rock cut quarry. It was a shadowy and dark place, with the sun not yet making things clear. They were in the dark – and had no idea that the greatest discovery in their lives was about to take place! The insurmountable wall between the Dead One and the living had been breached – but they were still walking in the dark.

Fourth, the breach was declared: The tomb was OPEN – GOD BROKE DOWN THE BARRIER OF DEATH.

John 20:1b …”and saw the stone already taken away from the tomb”

The story of Easter is not about how men in their efforts pried open a breach and finally reached God. It is a story about how God powerfully shook the earth and pushed aside a blocking stone – THE OBSTACLE THAT SEPARATED THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. He broke the power of death, long ago imposed in sin’s garden– bringing victory over death. With the stone gone, a narrow door was exposed, and the door opened between eternity and our physical world.

Do you see it? God broke in to man’s world. God moved a stone. God tore down the wall between man and eternity and shattered the power and mystery of death. God did it all in a dramatic and bold statement from the spiritual world. The narrow passage of the Christian faith is that one must accept that God did these things, or remain in the darkness outside the tomb – offering other explanations for the stone’s displacement and the body’s removal.

But that is not all there is to tell the story of the Gospel…

Fifth, the alarm was sounded: Jesus was GONE – DID GOD REALLY DO IT? (20:2).

John 20:2 “So she ran and came to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”

John seemed anxious to bring the disciples into the story. He left out what happened to the women between the discovery of the empty tomb and the sharing of that news in the room with the hiding disciples. He offers the truncated story that showed how the disciples first encountered the empty tomb, but didn’t understand its meaning:

John 20:3 “So Peter and the other disciple went forth, and they were going to the tomb. … 6 And so Simon Peter also came, following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, 7 and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself. 8 So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed. 9 For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. 10 So the disciples went away again to their own homes.”

Did you notice the words “They believed”. They believed the body was MOVED, not that Jesus was risen. They were like so many other people today… they thought that Jesus was a GOOD MAN. They knew His body was gone… but they didn’t really believe that GOD JUST BROKE THROUGH THE BARRIER OF DEATH.

What was the problem? It is found in verse nine – THEY DIDN’T BELIEVE THE WORDS OF THE SCRIPTURE.

• They believed that their Master could call forth Lazarus.
• They believed that He could do miracles.
• What they didn’t believe – what didn’t make sense to them – was the WORD OF GOD AS PROMISED.

Jesus already shared with His followers that His death was coming but it would NOT be His end… Matt 16:21 after the disciple’s final exam and before the Transfiguration made this clear: “From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.”

So it comes down to this: Is the Bible telling the truth? Do you believe that God rolled the stone away? Did Jesus conquer death? Is His Word true when He said: John 14:6 “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

Sixth, the choice was made: The Word was TRUE – JESUS HAD RISEN!

The disciples eventually DID truly believe, and we got the record of these event from them. They claimed they were “eyewitnesses”, and that Jesus was telling the truth:

They made a choice, and they offered YOU and I the same choice….John 20:30 “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name”.

We need to reckon with the choice: He is the way, or He is not. His words are true, or He is a fake. The Bible is God’s Word – or it is a book of lies for which people have lived a false hope and followed a false teaching. Answer the question carefully – for EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS YOUR LAST BREATH DEPENDS ON THE ANSWER. IT IS YOUR CHOICE. He is Risen, or He is NOT.

Under torture, they died proclaiming that He AROSE. It gave them confidence and assured them that God accepted the sin sacrifice. They DIED knowing He was who the One of whom Scriptures foretold. They left us a full record that we might believe as well…

I have heard that possums are smart animals. You wouldn’t think so because you hardly ever see one except when it’s dead on the road. But possums, it turns out, are smart. They won’t enter a hole if there’s just one set of tracks going into it. They know there’s something in there. But if there are two sets of tracks, the possum will enter and not be afraid. The message of Easter is that we can enter the grave – we don’t have to fear death because there are tracks leading out of the tomb.

How does He plan to change us?

He will do it from the INSIDE OUT, beginning with our acceptance of His Word.

Jesus can change your life – if you will take Him at His word. If you don’t, you will leave the way you were when He tried to meet you. The Word declares it so, and I believe it – and you can too.

When I have the time, I enjoy a good hike. One of my favorite hiking areas in Israel is Nahal Arugot near the Dead Sea. Recently, I had the opportunity to see the end of the old hiking path in the Judean Desert– an arduous trail that I used to love to climb and follow back along the dry river bed to a beautiful waterfall that carved a canyon out of the chalk wilderness. Looking longingly at the end of the trail (and recognizing I lacked the time to go there), I saw the familiar three stripes painted on a large brown boulder – the simple markers that pointed to the hiker’s path. That simple, but colorful blue and white marker is a very comforting symbol in the desert. You see, in the desert everything can look the same. It is a dead, brown chalk wilderness to the novice viewer. With more time and a closer inspection, the initiated find that the desert has a life of its own. The truth is that the path markers make the whole experience so much safer, and add a confidence a traveler would not have without their presence. A marked path is not a mystery – because one has been there before.

I mention this because we are studying together a slice of time from the last week of Jesus’ teaching before the Crucifixion – a time in the Upper Room that left significant path markers: teachings that show us both how to FIND and FOLLOW God. The words were from Jesus – and they clearly marked the path – not only to the disciples in the room – but to every follower of Jesus from the time the words were made known by the Gospel writers until today.

As Easter approaches, we need to remember that we cannot take the Savior’s real words for granted in our time. Jesus gets quoted out of context for all manner of purposes today. In fact, over time, many of the clear “path marking words” have been worn into more fuzzy views and politically correct terms – obscuring Jesus’ once clearly expounded teaching. Take, for instance, the movies of the Easter Season like “The Robe” that will again take their place from the archives of the silver screen to the streaming of the web. Movies of that genre offer a “slice of storyline evocative of the Bible” – but are not taken from the Bible – and don’t reflect the Biblical views of following Jesus all that well. They tell OF JESUS – but don’t really represent the crisp and clear echo of His voice. Sadly, the movies and their interpretations of the Savior have slowly displaced the Bible in popular society – especially for the many who do not take the time to examine the text of the Gospel itself. As a result, the longer I spend teaching Jesus’ life and words, the more I realize that many people have only a fuzzy grasp of Jesus and His ministry. They have a blurred focus of His purpose, a softened and muffled sound of His voice in their ears. But if you open the Word, these “last night” sayings of Jesus have a crystal clarity that can snap us into understanding of what Jesus wanted us to know of Him and His Father. A clear picture of Jesus can truly be found in His teaching about Himself and the Father.

Key Principle: Jesus came to offer and explain a walk with God – how God is “found” and how we can “follow” Him. He left a clearly marked trail to God.

Go back to the Upper Room with me. Huddle in the low lamp light and recline against the disciples as they listen to the words of the Master. The place smells of olive oil and lamb sop. As the Master speaks, the disciples lean in from their repose to hear every word. He seems “off” emotionally, and they don’t know why. Yet, if we listen closely, we will hear John 13 and 14 unfolding seven essential teachings of Jesus in the face of the closing hours of His training program for His men. In our previous lesson we looked at three of these lessons, After a brief review of these, we will unfold the rest of that last night address and together marvel at how CLEAR Jesus was about God’s plan and purpose in and through Him:

Consider from John 13 the first three lessons:

Lesson One: Jesus explained cleansing to His men as the basis of our relationship to God (13:4-20).

In the first lesson of the chapter, we were drawn to a basin and a pitcher of water. Jesus got up from supper, and girded Himself with a towel, and began to offer a living picture that flowed into a dialogue with a resistant disciple. Jesus explained the lesson would become clearer with time – and the men should not be frustrated with their lack of immediate understanding. He outlined the basis of our ongoing and growing relationship to God – showing that relationship rests entirely upon the cleansing work He would do for all of us. He called on the men to understand that our acceptance of His cleansing would be the beginning of our personal relationship to God. He wasn’t done with just a beginning, though. He went on to make clear that our continued growth IN God would depend on other cleansing that He was prepared to do as we needed it. The whole living parable of foot washing offered Jesus a way to point to necessary cleansing.

Here’s the point: You and I cannot find God on our terms. We cannot work through any series of religious or benevolent acts to earn favor with God. There is only one payment that God will accept – the work of Jesus as our substitute. He came as the Lamb to be slain for my sin, and anyone’s sin that will believe and trust what He has done. When we find God, the basis of our initial relationship with God is the continual cleansing work of Jesus. As we follow God, our growth and intimacy is dependent upon our willingness to confess our sin to Him and to one another. He cleanses – that is His primary work. He sweeps away the dirt that hinders us from falling into the Father’s arms – and makes it simply disappear. Not only that – but He alone has the ability to do it! There is no other way! That is why He clearly and undiplomatically said – “No man comes to the Father but by Me.” Cleansing from sin is the essential precursor to a relationship with God, and the necessary maintaining act to enable us to follow the marked path for life God provided.

Lesson Two: Jesus removed the cloak over the battle with His enemy (13:22-30).

During the meal, Jesus told the men that Satan was going to draw away one of their fellows, pulling him to betray Jesus and the disciples. Not all of the men were truly with Him, He warned. Darkness would have its moment soon. Betrayal was at hand, and it would come from one that shared their bowl, their boat and their business together. No one else detected the presence of the WICKED ONE as he slithered into the heart of Judas Iscariot, but Jesus felt his evil presence. Jesus knew the deceiver was at work, and the powers of darkness were weaving a web to ensnare Him.

Herein is the lesson. The men were eating and drinking, but they were NOT able to peer beyond the veil into the spiritual world. They could understand comfort and wine, food and fellowship – but not the true spiritual battle that was firing darts into the heart of one of their closest companions. They saw the physical, but ignored the spiritual. They grasped the human, but snubbed the eternal. Jesus pulled the cloak from the enemy and announced his ugly presence. The Master knew that men would need cleansing, but they would also need to recognize the incredible truth: LIFE IS NOT AS IT APPEARS. We are not simply a string of DNA passing through the strands of a randomly interactive universe. We are, as we have ever been, created and temporal physical beings with an eternal soul. Our body is our TENT, not our PERMANENT HOME.

Jesus knew that for His people to follow God, they would need to be shown the markers of the spiritual struggle. They would fight constantly, but not against mere flesh and blood. They would stand against the powers of darkness – and they would need to learn to see what they were really fighting.

Lesson Three: Jesus explained His course – it began with a departure (13:31-38).

Jesus knew His men would have a fight on their hands, but He also knew it was about to get harder for them. They could not count on His physical and embodied presence to guide them, or keep them together. In fact, they needed to recognize that He needed to depart the scene for the rest of the drama of human history to play out as it was designed by the Father. He warned them of His departure to assure them that it was not a surprise to Him. He also pressed two essential truths. First, He told them the marker that defined them before men was to become their LOVE for one another. His desire was NOT for them to scatter – but to draw more close to one another in His absence. Second, they needed to be careful about one other terrible enemy, potentially as harmful as their spiritual FOE- their own EGO. Jesus wanted them to know that NO WILL POWER was sufficient to carry them through the days and hours ahead. They would NEED each other. They would need to care for one another in their wounds. They would need to be HUMBLE and not BOASTFUL, other person centered and not self-centered.

Let’s progress past the first three lessons, for there are yet FOUR MORE that we have invested no time in yet. Not surprisingly, they build on the last chapter – because it was the same speech, the same room, the same night – just a bit later…

Lesson Four: Jesus proclaimed His coming – leaving had its purpose (14:1-6).

John 14:1 “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, [there] you may be also. 4 “And you know the way where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.

Every disciple in the “Upper Room” understood what Jesus was talking about when He said those famous words – but the meaning is less obvious to many of us today – especially if you are unfamiliar with ancient wedding customs of the Jewish people. If you opened the Encyclopedia Judaica and looked under “ancient wedding customs” – you would see a scenario that was just like what Jesus said in John 14.

He referred to the common custom of marriage as it was practiced at that time. If a man found a woman that he desired to marry, the proper form of the day required that he approach, not the woman, but her father. When the father found his request tolerable, they would begin to bargain for the “shidduchim contract” value of the woman – a compensation for the family’s loss of their daughter and her contribution to the family income. The family was about to lose one of their valuable field hands and helpers, and the family would need to be compensated. A ceremony followed to “cement” the engagement – including a presentation of bread and wine. Following that engagement, the man left to add to his father’s house. In a period within the specifications of the shiducchim contract, the man returns to take his bride. He has been away, but he has been preparing a home for his bride – the point of Jesus’ saying. In fact, the bread and cup engagement symbol is employed in the same setting by Jesus.

Here is the point: Jesus didn’t leave the men because He was tired of teaching them. He wasn’t abandoning them – He was working on their behalf in another place – preparing for their coming. He promised to rejoin them and bring them home to a wedding feast. Paul clearly caught the picture, because his instruction for the bread and cup recalls:

1 Corinthians 11:23 “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25 In the same way [He took] the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink [it], in remembrance of Me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

The return of Jesus, as well as His reason for departure was explained in advance of His arrest, just as the promise of His return was given PRIOR to the event of it. In the same way that the early promises were literally fulfilled – a literal death, burial, resurrection and ascension – so the return will be physical and literal. It will not be fulfilled in some indiscernible “spiritual return” to the world. Jesus is coming back. He promised it, and He will deliver on His promises – just as He did in the past.

Lesson Five: Jesus described His connection between Him and the Father in Heaven (14:7-15).

How can we make the bold claim that Jesus will return? How can we elevate this builder from ancient Nazareth to the level of one that can surpass time and space, and even conquer death? Jesus shared that His power came from His position – and that was ONE WITH THE FATHER. He said:

John 14:7 “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” 8 Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and [yet] you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who 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? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. 11 “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater [works] than these he will do; because I go to the Father. 13 “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it]. 15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

Take apart what Jesus said:

• To know Him was to know the Father (14:7).
• To see Him was to see the Father (14:8-10a).
• To hear and observe Me is to see the Father’s hand and power at work (14:10b-11).
• To believe in Jesus and His place is to be set to access great power (14:12).
• To speak to the Father in Jesus’ name offers us Divine access (14:13-14).
• To follow Jesus is to place Him above our will, and follow His commands (14:15).

No religious Jew could make a claim to have such a relationship. No rabbi ever did. It was unthinkable to place their binding rules at the level of the Father in Heaven. Jesus unflinchingly claimed a relationship with God that was a direct reflection of the Father’s will, the Father’s power, the Father’s access. The point is simple: Because Jesus was an “expressed image of God’s person” as the writer to Hebrews wrote – He can and will fulfill His word on our behalf. A human Jesus, a humble teacher, an honorable actor on humanity’s stage – leaves man LOST and UNFORGIVEN. Only one who is fully a MAN but yet God in HUMAN SKIN could fulfill the work of the Savior. He needed to be BOTH!

Romans 5:6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. …8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath [of God] through Him. 10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only this, but we also exult in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

The disciples were not UNSURE of His two natures. Go back and visit them after the Resurrection, and watch as Thomas kneels. The scene is from John 20:

John 20:26 “After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace [be] with you.” 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.” 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” 29 Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed [are] they who did not see, and [yet] believed.” 30 Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

Just in case some cult comes knocking on your door and claims that what Thomas was doing was exclaiming “My God!” out of shock and not exaltation, take them to Jude 1:25 and remind them that early believers weren’t sheepish on the point:

Jude 1:25 (KJV): “To the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen.

Let me press the point to be absolutely clear. Jesus wasn’t just a good guy that loved God. He was the very One who walked long before in the Garden of Eden. He was the very One who spoke the world into being (according to Colossians 1:16 and 17). He isn’t just some martyr and example – He is the expressed image of God Himself. To see Him is to see God. To hear Him is to hear God. To know Him is to know God. To reject Him is to reject God. He couldn’t have been clearer:

Mathew 28:16 “But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. 17 When they saw Him, they worshiped [Him]; but some were doubtful. 18 And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.“

• If Jesus isn’t the Living Image of the Father – He is a liar.
• If Jesus isn’t the embodiment of God Himself – He is unable to save us, and He won’t return for us.

Resurrection Day was a hoax, and our faith is a crime against an unsuspecting humanity. We are promising a bogus Heaven based on a fake Savior. You are all still in your sins, and Christianity should be outlawed and banned. Every martyr that ever died for the message was delusional and misguided.

But wait… what if the New Testament account is TRUE.

What if Jesus possesses the power to speak all things into being? What if He can make the promise of a return and then COME BACK? Are you prepared for that? Will you celebrate at the prospect or shrink back in guilt?

Lesson Six: Jesus explained the Comforter to come (14:16-25).

Jesus also claimed that His departure would not leave the disciples alone. He said:

14:16 “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 [that is] the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, [but] you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. … 25 “These things I have spoken to you while abiding 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 said to you.

No believer can afford to ignore the teaching of Jesus concerning the empowering work of the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of truth – and He is unavailable to those who will not follow Jesus (14:16-17). He is our constant companion until our Prince returns. Snow white was RIGHT all the way back in 1937: “Some day my Prince will come!” Until He does, I have a helper.

• He convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8).
• He guides us into all truth (John 16:13).
• He glorifies and testifies of Christ (John 15:26; 16:14).
• He leads us (Rom. 8:14; Gal. 5:18; Matt. 4:1; Luke 4:1).
• He sanctifies us (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2; Rom. 5:16).
• He empowers us (Luke 4:14; 24:49; Rom. 15:19; Acts 1:8).
• He fills us (Eph. 5:18; Acts 2:4; 4:8, 31; 9:17).
• He teaches us to pray (Rom. 8:26-27; Jude 1:20).
• He bears witness in us that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16).
• He produces in us the fruit or evidence of His work and presence (Gal. 5:22-23).
• He distributes spiritual gifts and manifestations of His presence to the body (1 Cor. 12:4, 8-10; Heb. 2:4).
• He washes and renews us (Titus 3:5).
• He seals us unto the day of redemption (Eph. 1:13; 4:30).
• He is our guarantee and deposit of the future resurrection (2 Cor. 1:22; 2 Cor. 5:5).
• He reveals the deep things of God to us (1 Cor. 2:10).
• He dwells in us (Rom. 8:9; 1 Cor. 3:16; 2 Tim. 1:14; John 14:17).
• He speaks to, in, and through us (1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Tim. 4:1; Rev. 2:11; Heb 3:7; Matt. 10:20; Acts 2:4; 8:29; 10:19; 11:12, 28; 13:2; 16:6,7; 21:4,11).
• He brings us liberty (2 Cor. 3:17).
• He transforms us into the image of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).
• He enables us to wait on God (Gal. 5:5).
• He strengthens our spirits (Eph. 3:16).
• He enables us to obey the truth (1 Pet. 1:22).

And someday, one day soon… He will shout out the great words that all Creation awaits:

• He exclaims: “Come, Lord Jesus” along with the bride (Rev. 22:17).

Lesson Seven: Jesus outlined the call to follow Him (14:27-31).

Don’t skip the final lesson before Jesus said: “Let’s get up and walk out of here”. The rest of the sayings are apparently from the walk to Gethsemane, as He journeyed out into the night. Linger in the room. Listen to the CALL to follow Jesus. It was the last place He shared this before the Cross that loomed only hours ahead:

14:27 “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. 28 “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 “Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. 30 “I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me; 31 but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me. Get up, let us go from here.

Jesus gave a deliberate call:

• The call included walking in peace (14:27). His followers aren’t supposed to live a life that is shaken by the news and stirred by politics. They are to walk in certainty that His control cannot be outvoted or overpowered.

• The call included rejoicing in Jesus’ work (14:28). His followers are supposed to celebrate the joys of His work, His return to the Father, His preparation of our place in Heaven!

• The call included recognizing the greatness of the Father (14:28b). Real believers ADORE the Father in Heaven! They hunger to PLEASE HIM with their lives, and ache at the lostness of men and women. He is worthy of praise, and they LOVE to bring it to Him!

• The call included trust in His Word (14:29). True followers of Jesus believe His Word about the past reality of sin, the present of opportunity for intimacy with God, and the future return of the Prince of Truth!

• The call included moving out from the protection of the huddle (14:31). Our job IS NOT to become so comfortable that we forget to GET OUT! Walking through LIFE with Jesus is what should bring us joy. Ours is not to build a higher wall and more secluded monastery – the ministry is OUT THERE!

Jesus came to offer and explain a walk with God – how He is found and how we can follow Him. He left a marked trail to God.

In the Upper Room, Jesus offered seven clear statements about His work and its impact on our lives:

• Jesus came to build a bridge back to God by offering Himself for cleansing, then becoming our constant Intercessor.

• Jesus came to make sure His followers look PAST the physical battles and struggles into the SPIRITUAL ones that were fought in Heavenly places.

• Jesus came to offer Himself and then to implant His message in the church – His body is to be found in US – a thriving manifestation of His way of living.

• Jesus left a promise to COME AGAIN for His people – a real and physical sweeping of His people away as a bride to the wedding feast.

• Jesus came to explain and expose the Father in all His tenderness and power.

• Jesus left behind not only His people and His promises – but His indwelling companion of the Holy Spirit.

• Jesus left us with a CALL to follow Him in our everyday life.

Don’t get fuzzy on Jesus – listen to the clarion call of His words. You can have life and peace and truth. It is within your grasp, because His hand is out stretched…. And it was the same hand that was pierced in your place.

When I get tired, I can’t seem to communicate as clearly as I want to. I was recently on tour with two groups, and taught all day, every day – an activity that I have come to love over the years. In spite of my passion, there are times when I understand anew the saying of Jesus about His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane when He exclaimed: “…the spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak.” When my body gets worn out, I cannot seem to put a “sharp point” on my words. People ask questions, and the answer is in my mind, but won’t move easily to my tongue. Does that happen to you? I have found that one of the things that can snap me back into focused speech is recognizing the clock is ticking and the site closure is coming up fast. Let me illustrate what I am saying…

On a site in Jerusalem last week, I was teaching about “Jesus before Annas and the High Priest Caiaphas” at a home thought by its excavators to have been the house of Joseph Caiaphas. I was tired, and the second program was nearly completed – but I confess that I was running out of steam. I knew what I wanted to say, but I just couldn’t get it there. As we began, I breathed a prayer and sipped the last of my espresso – there is an excellent espresso machine at the shop beside the excavation – and I jumped into the site and the story. As I unfolded the story, I immediately became sharper. Some will credit the espresso “kicking in” – but I don’t believe that was all there was to it. I recognized that our time was slipping and this was my only chance to get through the story and make it clear. The impending closing time clarified my thinking and my speech.

I mention that story because that situation seems to be a noticeable element of Jesus’ speaking in the passage we will examine in this lesson, found in the Gospel of John, chapters 13. The Lord was in the last night of teaching His disciples in the Upper Room as He was facing His impending arrest by Temple authorities – in short, time was running out to convey essential truths. There really seemed much left to say by the Servant King – since the disciples were arguing about their own importance on the way into the room! Yet, the words of Jesus seemed even sharper – more penetrating – than usual. John recorded that Jesus knew the time was almost gone. I have to believe it helped Him to choose His words and clarify His presentation even more than usual. His sharp and crisp communication will help us see Jesus and His message with even more acute clarity today – and that is a real need.

You see, the longer I spend teaching Jesus’ life and words, the more I realize that many people have only a fuzzy grasp of Jesus and His ministry. They have a blurred focus of His purpose, a softened and muffled sound of His voice in their ears. These “last night” sayings have a clarity that can snap us into understanding of what Jesus wanted us to know of Him and His Father.

Key Principle: The closer you examine the record of Jesus in the Gospels, the clearer the purposes of God become.

To set up our story, let me mention from the first three verses of chapter 13, four important truths about the setting of Jesus’ sayings that we should keep in mind (13:1-3):

1) First, it was a time of high Messianic Expectation. John 13:1 “Now before the Feast of the Passover…” Passover always brought out the redemption hopes of the Jewish people. John 6 reflected that when Jesus fed thousands in Galilee “they wanted to make Him king”. Why? It was not just the food – it was the fact that Passover was near and national redemption hopes were high.

2) It was time for His departure – and He knew it. 13:1b: “…Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father…” As I mentioned a moment ago, Jesus knew time was short. Look carefully at each teaching, because Jesus isn’t adding any extras to the message. This is meat with no sauce, salad with no dressing.

3) It was a time of deep emotional sensitivity for Jesus. 13:1b: “…having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end…and later in verse ”3 [Jesus], knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God…” Jesus was leaving the boys, but He was also heading HOME to His Father. These times bring a tear to us, even when the Cross isn’t in view. Departures are hard, and Jesus LOVED the men – John makes that clear.

4) It was a time when the spiritual conflict was about to become apparent. 13:2: “… During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, [the son] of Simon, to betray Him…” (compare the event in John 13:21). The setting of Jesus’ last interchange with Judas as a disciple take place on that night. The next kiss from Judas won’t be a friendly one. There is a battle for the redemption of men to be fought, and Jesus looked into Judas’ eyes and saw what He saw long before in the serpent in the Garden – the face of His creation empowered by His enemy.

The rest of the passage unfolds three essential teachings of Jesus in the face of the closing moments of His teaching time. Look at each of the three and I think you will marvel at how CLEAR Jesus was about God’s plan and purpose in and through Him:

Lesson One: Jesus explained cleansing to His men as the basis of our relationship to God (13:4-20).

The gulf fixed between God and man – the guilt of sin – needed to be cared for in a Divinely prepared cleansing. Jesus knew His death would provide that. His disciples didn’t see it. Here’s the truth: You cannot understand the basis of entering and remaining in the family of God without knowing how we get in, and why God allows us to stay. Recognizing what washed us clean and what keeps us in God’s grace is essential. Jesus started with a living parable – a “show” to His disciples to teach the truth of how our guilt and sin is washed away by His atoning blood.

The Example – a Living Parable:

John 13:4 …got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself. 5 Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.

Washing feet wasn’t an uncommon practice – but Jesus wasn’t doing it for the normal reason at the normal time. Jesus didn’t wash them to PREPARE them for a supper together, but rather to prepare them for what awaited them AFTER supper. The simple act of washing became the platform for the powerful truth Jesus wanted them to understand – their relationship to God was dependent upon cleansing – and it wasn’t something they could provide themselves or do on their own.

The Exchange – a Learning Partner:

6 So He came to Simon Peter. He said to Him, “Lord, do You wash my feet?” 7 Jesus answered and said to him, “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” 8 Peter said to Him, “Never shall You wash my feet!” Jesus answered him, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me.” 9 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, [then wash] not only my feet, but also my hands and my head.” 10 Jesus said to him, “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all [of you].” 11 For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, “Not all of you are clean.”

Peter objected to Jesus serving him – but that wasn’t what Jesus was trying to get him to understand. Pete thought the exchange was about SERVANTHOOD and VALUE – but it wasn’t. Jesus made it clear that Pete and the boys wouldn’t really understand the whole symbolic value of the lesson that day – it would happen in the FUTURE. Jesus made clear several things about the symbol:

• First, cleansing was required if Peter would be a part of the future ministry of Jesus.

• Second, there were two kinds of cleansing – a BATH (Greek: lou-o) and a WASH (Greek: nipto). This simple FOOT WASHING was not the same as the full cleansing BATH that made them initially clean, but was a smaller venue with some of the same effects.

The English translation signals the two were different words in the original language as well. I believe on close inspection that we can discern that the GREAT CLEANSING of Jesus occurs when we fall before His Cross and ask Him for salvation from our sins. In the case of the disciples, their choice was initially made to follow Jesus.

At the same time, there is ANOTHER CLEANSING that all who follow Jesus know they need. This is part of understanding the need for Jesus’ cleaning work as our intercessor and advocate before the Father. 1 John 1 says it this way:

1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.

• Third, you could tell which were cleansed by the ACTIONS of the men, not their proximity to Jesus. Judas wasn’t clean, but he had spent a long time with Jesus.

The Explanation – A Lesson Presented:

He began with a query: Jesus wanted to be sure they recognized that what He was doing was more than just a common custom, so John recorded His words:

13:12 So when He had washed their feet, and taken His garments and reclined [at the table] again, He said to them, “Do you know what I have done to you?

He moved to a concern: The Master wanted to be sure the disciples would not think what He was teaching was an unimportant optional gesture – but something He intended them to mark, follow and remember.

13:13 “You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for [so] I am. 14 “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. 15 “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you. 16 “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor [is] one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. 17 “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.

Here is where the symbol can become confusing. Jesus’ symbol of cleansing was something they would do for ONE ANOTHER. How can that be? We cannot cleanse sin from each other, can we? If the teaching was about the SPIRITUAL TRUTH OF TWO KINDS OF CLEANSING, how could believers do this for each other?

To grasp the truth, you have to slow down and take the whole thing apart.

First, symbolic teachings have two levels – the physical and the spiritual. The physical level is what a believer can practice with another believer. The spiritual level is the truth the physical picture displays. For example, one of us can baptize you as a symbol of your coming into a new identity in Christ by acknowledging the Father, Son and Spirit’s work in making you a new creation. We can get in the pool or tank and do that with you, but we cannot do anything to aid the SPIRITUAL REALITY of the symbol. Believers can do the physical part, but the SYMBOL depicts a ‘GOD THING”. In the passage, followers of Jesus were told to do this FOR EACH OTHER in the physical sense (washing each other’s feet), but the cleansing depicted happens in HEAVENLY PLACES by the work of our Savior.

Second, don’t overlook that Jesus ended by making an overt statement about our nature to be too uppity to serve one another by completing the symbol He gave us. You and I are not to think of ourselves too highly to follow through on the physical symbol – since Jesus Himself did it for them.

Remember that believers were not only told to confess their sins to God, but were commanded to “confess your sins one to another” in James 5:16. Though we don’t forgive sins on God’s behalf, but we do help each other come to Him – and we mustn’t think we are too good to do it! Confessing faults to one another in a Biblical way requires both “confessor” and “listener” to humble themselves beneath the Cross. No one is perfect except the Lord Himself.

He added exclusion: Jesus didn’t desire all to follow the command – but those who intended to follow Him. Those who did not follow Jesus were not to be included, for the betrayer’s work was about to become clear.

18 “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but [it is] that the Scripture may be fulfilled, HE WHO EATS MY BREAD HAS LIFTED UP HIS HEEL AGAINST ME.’ 19 “From now on I am telling you before [it] comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am [He]. 20 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”

Following Jesus requires a choice. We cannot live in rejection to His Mastery over our lives and yet act like His cleansing ignores our rebellion. We have to understand the His cleansing is for those who CHOOSE to follow Him. Salvation is for the SAVED, and intercession is for the WILLING. No one gets to Heaven by passivity – it is ALWAYS a choice to repent, and a choice to follow Jesus.

Let’s be clear: Jesus is the reason I am in the family of God. His blood cleansed me from my sin, and my belief in His work at Calvary was the energizing faith that God accepted. Yet, He is more than that. He is the reason I am allowed to REMAIN in the family. Though SIN is my constant problem, He is my constant advocate.

Lesson Two: Jesus removed the cloak over the battle with His enemy (13:22-30).

We live in the physical world, often unaware of the place of the real battle. We get disgusted with our government, or argue with our neighbor and forget that much of what we see is only the surface – the real battle is fought in Heavenly realms. The men who knew Jesus certainly saw Him as One with great power, but they had little understanding of the enormity of the battle field Jesus was operating on. At His birth, the Heavenly Army stood guard over Bethlehem – but we make them into Christmas card decorations. We don’t really focus as much on the spiritual warfare that is at the heart of the redemption story. Neither did the men in the upper room.

It occurs to me that you and I can follow Jesus through confusion of troubles and pains of the battle with sure confidence – if we recognize His knowledge of and power over events surrounding us. Confidence grows as we see His power and control over circumstances. Look back into the room with His disciples, and we can see an example of that:

John 13:21 When Jesus had said this; He became troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.” 22 The disciples [began] looking at one another, at a loss [to know] of which one He was speaking. 23 There was reclining on Jesus’ bosom one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved. 24 So Simon Peter gestured to him, and said to him, “Tell [us] who it is of whom He is speaking.” 25 He, leaning back thus on Jesus’ bosom, said to Him, “Lord, who is it?” 26 Jesus then answered, “That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him.” So when He had dipped the morsel, He took and gave it to Judas, [the son] of Simon Iscariot. 27 After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. Therefore Jesus said to him, “What you do, do quickly.” 28 Now no one of those reclining [at the table] knew for what purpose He had said this to him. 29 For some were supposing, because Judas had the money box, that Jesus was saying to him, “Buy the things we have need of for the feast”; or else, that he should give something to the poor. 30 So after receiving the morsel he went out immediately; and it was night.

When Hollywood tries to depict the scene of the Upper Room, there is a great HUMAN DRAMA, as the embittered and conniving Judas whispers with the distraught and wounded Savior. What a great point of conflict to pull the hearts of any audience in a drama. Sadly, that falls far short of the true understanding of what was going on in the room. Jesus wasn’t caught off guard. The betrayal wasn’t even something that started with Judas, or the Pharisees, or the Sanhedrin. The scene was physical, but the mammoth battle had been building since the Garden of the Fall. This wasn’t just a struggle between a teacher and a disaffected student. That doesn’t scratch the surface. This was the BATTLE FOR THE SOUL OF MANKIND. Take another look:

• The troubled spirit of Jesus was about the MEANS of the betrayal – through a man He loved and cared for – just like Adam and Even in the Garden Long before.

• The confusion of the disciples over WHO exposed the small thinking of these men – that the issue was faithfulness to Jesus in their walking and talking with men. What was about to happen was far greater than a simple denial of Jesus (as in the case of Peter) or even the testimony of Judas against Jesus.

• Jesus made it clear to John who would be the vehicle of his arrest – and yet John didn’t really catch it at the time. There is no scene of John grabbing Judas by the tunic and forcing him to remain in the room – it simply didn’t happen. John got an idea that something bad was going to happen – but he simply didn’t grasp the size of the physical issue, let alone the spiritual one.

Before you write off John and Pete and the boys – some of us are still stuck in that mode. This very day there is a battle for the souls of men, women and children in our town, and perhaps even in the room where you are now sitting. It is easy to talk in THEORY about spiritual stakes and wars – but it is harder to visualize in OUR DAILY LIVES. Yet, the Bible is clear – that is where we live. The battle is joined. The enemy is warring to grab our nation, our education system, our public airwaves, our children’s hearts and our leader’s minds. For far too many believers, even now, we will only focus on the symptoms, the physical struggles, the human societal ills. We won’t see the battle for the soul of the man next door – but call him obstinate. We cannot see the teeth marks and paw scrapes of the enemy’s vicious attacks on our marriage partner – we just think they are in a bad mood. We are tuned to the physical when the far greater portion of the universe is the spiritual world.

Humanizing Jesus doesn’t tell the whole story. The Savior wasn’t a historical VICTIM of some mysterious plot that caught Him unawares. He knew exactly what was happening, and why. It wasn’t political intrigue that drove the story, but a battle for man’s redemption.

Lesson Three: Jesus explained His departure (13:31-14:6).

Jesus didn’t get kicked off the planet in the fight over man. He wasn’t defeated and dismissed. His exit was predicted, planned and even promised. He shared it beforehand to steady His followers, and help them learn to see His power and plan. We must recognize that we will not learn to anticipate His return if you don’t clearly identify all of the events as part of Jesus’ promised plan. Jesus opened an explanation with four truths:

First, He signaled the approaching time:

13:31 Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; 32 if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. 33 “Little children, I am with you a little while longer…

Jesus wanted to prepare the men for the crushing blow that was coming to them as He was taken away, so He told them that He was aware the time was short. Perhaps they would listen more intensely if they thought they wouldn’t have more time together. What is DID was get them stirred up…

Second, He explained the coming confusion:

13:33b “…. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’

What did He mean? They had followed Him for part of the last four years, journeying around the mountains of Galilee, back and forth from Jerusalem, and even to the reaches of the mountains of southern Lebanon. Where was He going? Why wouldn’t they be allowed to follow Him? He didn’t say. He just made it clear that what He told the others He was now telling THEM. I am leaving, and YOU cannot follow.

Stunned, they sat there. He kept going on – and this time He told them two things they would need to understand. The FIRST was what they would need for their journey without Him. The second was what they needed to recognize before they could take the journey…

He highlighted a need that would become essential for the days ahead – an identity marker:

13:34 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. 35 “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.“

Jesus told the men that they needed to actively care for and watch over one another in the way that He had been doing. They were not to scatter. They were not to so embrace the priesthood of the individual believer that they didn’t see the need for the body in all things. They COULD NOT and WOULD NOT make it in the coming days if they didn’t stick together. Then Jesus said something that should rock our twenty-first century Christian world. He told them the BADGE of His followers would become their care for one another. He didn’t say the SIZE of their churches, the POPULARITY of their music, the DEPTH of their bankbook, the GAUDINESS of their Cathedrals, the SUCCESSFUL MARKETING of their publishing houses, the SLICKNESS of their literature would be their badge. He said the way they simply LOVED and CARED for each other would be their calling card. They would need each other, and they would recognize their need of each other.

Oh that we would see this as real in our time! That we who have been showered with prosperity would see with compassion those who have not had such abundance and we would share our love, our time, our resources – simply because we see them as valuable and precious! There is a special sweetness when God’s people see others through God’s eyes!

He exposed the disciple’s weakness – self confidence:

Here is the kicker. We are pretty self-sufficient. When you get right down to it, we can think our faith is about will power. We can quickly come to believe that if we just TRY HARDER we can walk with God. We make such proclamations and declarations. Listen to this:

13:36 Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.” 37 Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.” 38 Jesus answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.

Can you hear it?

• Peter thought Jesus needed to explain where He was going.

• Peter thought Jesus needed to share WHY Pete couldn’t join.

• Peter thought he could trust his WILL POWER to get him through the pummeling ahead.

Peter was wrong. We don’t have what it takes – so we need each other. We don’t have what is required – so we need humility. We don’t know what Jesus knows – so we need to trust Him and not expect answers NOW. What we have, is a TRUCK LOAD of distraction designed to get us to trust the PHYSICAL WORLD, and OUR OWN ABILITY.

Consider this story: Many years ago a preacher named John Greenlee wrote an article entitled, “Better Than Burning At the Stake.” The story is a satirical discussion between the powers of the wicked world.

A senior demon wrote, “I am truly amazed at you. Your methods are so antiquated that I can scarcely believe it. You and your ridiculous talk of torturing Christians. Can’t you see that those things don’t work anymore? It just makes them mad and then you can’t do a thing with them…“Catch up, you bungler. There’s a whole new approach to getting Christians to denounce the faith. And it does work! “It’s called TRIAL BY AFFLUENCE, for lack of a better name. The point is, it gets results. We’ve never seen anything like it down here around the ol’ Fire Lake. The Boss came up with the original idea and we’ve each adjusted it a little to suit our needs. It’s so simple you wouldn’t believe it! Here’s what you do. You take a good, solid Christian family so you can make the best example of them. Now start pouring on the ‘the good life.’ “Give him a boat, a camper, a good car, a decent house, several color TV’s, and an income that provides for more than what is needed in life. Add to this a couple of days a week he doesn’t have to work. Better yet, give him a three-day weekend. Pour on the goodies. Now watch him crack! And if you really want to get your laughs, listen to what he says. “Sooner or later you’ll hear him mention how God gave him all these good things. But while he is saying this, he’s hooking up the camper to be gone from worship again. Or turning on the TV to sit paralyzed instead of thinking or doing anything. We find that each week we give him a shot of play time, we’ve got him one step farther away from the tremendous power of our Enemy above. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of this before. Just goes to show you that our Boss down here can adjust to the times and the situation. He claims that the newest arrival on the scene, America, is almost completely in his grasp. And it’s almost solely through this new method of his. You’ve got to him credit, Lucie, old buddy. He’s never lost a country yet. So get going. This weekend should be perfect for us. Signed, Your Sinister Superior.” (Shared by Steve Shepherd, Sermon Central illustrations.)

I love looking back into the Upper Room. I have walked the streets of Jerusalem many times, and I never tire of picturing the events of the Passion Week. I love that God told us so much of the story.

The closer you examine the record of Jesus in the Gospels, the clearer the purposes of God become.