027 - Called Alongside Us

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there something here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. Hey, did you know that Jesus said that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are going to come in us and make their home in us? Wait, all three?

All three. How can that be? Yeah, I know. That's kind of crazy. Did he really say that?

He really did say that, and he said it today in John 14. On More Than Ink. Well, good morning.

Welcome. This is More Than Ink. I'm Dorothy. And I'm Jim. And so we want you to pull up a chair at the table with us, and as we dig into John 14 and begin to talk deeply about loving and keeping and abiding in the Word of God.

And it helps if you have a cup of coffee. Just a second. It does. Oh, well, okay. Ah, that's good. So, yeah, this is our informal take on John and John 14. We did John 14 at the beginning of it last week. And it doesn't break where we broke it. I mean, it actually moves very smoothly.

Even the verse numbers are kind of arbitrary. Yeah, exactly. So we're just going to dive in.

No preludes. Here we go. We know that we're in the upper room with the apostles and stuff like that. Okay, but if you remember, Jesus had said, now don't go on living in a state of being troubled. Your hearts are troubled.

Because believing in me is the antidote to that. Right. And remember what troubled their hearts was Jesus' announcement that he's leaving. I'm going away. And he very, very powerfully said, well, yes and no. So by the end of the first half he's saying, you know, the problem with the separation isn't really a problem because I'm going to be in you and you're going to be in me. And there we go. And I'm going away, but I'm coming back for you.

And in the meantime, you're going to live a particular way because you believe in me and I'm going to send you a helper. Right. That's what's coming. So something is switching that actually addresses what troubles their hearts about the separation with Jesus.

And it's more than they could ever imagine. And this is when quarks are here. You want me to start reading this time? Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. So we're in John chapter 14. Here's verse 15. We'll just do a little chunk and then we'll come back to it because this is thick stuff, man.

This is thick stuff. Jesus says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he'll give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. In you. In you.

Oh, we had a lot of in passages last time. Yeah. You want to stop there and just look at that for a second? Oh, we do. We have to stop there.

Yeah, yeah. And actually we kind of have to stop there because we need to back up because remember he had said at the end of last week's discussion, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do and greater works than these will he do because I'm going to the Father. And whatever you ask in my name, this I'll do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, you'll keep my commandments. So he's kind of pulled all of that together about loving and keeping just like he loves and keeps what the Father has said to him. And so the Father is glorified in the Son.

So he's saying to them, now if you love me, you'll keep my commandments and I will do what you ask me. Yeah. Well, let's talk about those two words for a second, loving and keeping because in our English shallow understandings of those two words, it doesn't start to capture what's going on. Especially keep. Especially keep. Well, even love.

I mean our cultural idea of love is kind of messed up and stuff like that. So they are just so central this passage. That's one of the Bible study skills. Once you go through a section, what words do you see repeated? I think he might be emphasizing this.

And do I fully understand what these words mean? There's always a compromise when you translate from one language to another. There's always a little bit of compromise. Sometimes the translation equivalence is great. Sometimes you don't know how great it is. So this is where, you know, if in the future you want to venture into looking into the actual words that are used in the original language, it's really kind of fun.

And there's a lot of tools. Maybe we'll get to them sometime later about how you can go about that. But let's just focus on the results of our doing that with the word love and the word keep. So let me start with the word keep.

Can I do keep? Please. Okay. Well, so this word keep doesn't mean obey. Really? Yeah.

And I think that's the common misconception here. Because when you go in and you look at it, it's the same word they use when, say, like a jailer is watching a jail. What?

This sounds bad. No, it just means being attentive to. Or it means guarding something. It's not just.

I would not even put that modified. Yeah, that's true. It means primarily it means to keep, to guard, to treasure something. It's something that you treasure so much you are watchful of it all the time. And so that's why guarding is used in the word of guarding. Because you don't have lapses in guarding.

You stay on it. So we're talking about something here that when you keep it, I always imagine in my own mind taking a treasure and hugging it to your chest and keeping it. And it's not a matter of protecting it. It's a matter of always being attentive to it because it's so valuable to you. So that's what Jesus is saying here. When you say keep my commandments, it's not obey my commandments and measure up obeying my commandments.

It's that do you take my commandments and the very words that I say and do you treasure them and hug them to your chest and guard them and you're attentive to them and they occupy your full-time attention. And obedience is an outflow of that. Yeah, it's just a minor part of it. Yes, it is definitely a part of it. Yeah, because it would be silly for us to treasure something like that and then just disregard it.

Well, because the evidence of our treasuring is acting on what we treasure. Right, but interestingly enough, there's a connection back in the Old Testament. Psalms 119 talks about how much he loves God's law.

Well, what? You mean the thing that tells me how I'm supposed to behave is something I actually love and in that sense really treasure and hold close to myself? I mean, he says it's more valuable to me than gold and it tastes better in my mouth than honey, which is really an odd thing to say about God's law. But that's exactly what Jesus is doing here in a New Testament context. He's saying, is it like gold and honey, something that you treasure and you value and you hug to yourself and you're attentive to and you watch over? I mean, is it like that in your life, my commandments?

Well, okay. And if you love me, you will keep my commandments that way. So he is the word of God made flesh. So loving him is to love what he says or love what God has said. And if we love what God has said, then the evidence of that is we will act on it. So that's what Jesus is saying. If you love me, you're going to follow through on what I've told you because you've made the connection that what I say to you is what God is saying to you. And then he goes right on and says, and I'll ask the Father and he'll give you another Helper to be with you forever.

Yeah, another Helper. Even the Spirit of Truth. Now, this is where you can start making a list about what he says about specifically about the Spirit because they were not unfamiliar with the idea of the Spirit of God.

But even today, we have a lot of whacked out ideas about the Spirit. Well, and this is a very personal Helper. He'll send you another Helper. He'll be with you forever. Well, that doesn't mean just eternally. That means without limit. Without limit. In any direction. He's not limited by time.

He's not limited by circumstance. And he will never leave you. Wherever you go, whatever time it is. Because Jesus has just said how I, in the flesh, I've got to leave you.

Right. This body is done and I've got to leave you. But I'm going to send you a Helper who never will because he'll be in you. And here's the solution to your troubled heart about our separation.

Yes, he'll be in you. Yes, and I like the idea that the word is paraclete and it literally means to call someone alongside. So there's a fantastic nearness issue in this word. And where you call out. You call out for someone to come alongside. And later on, Jesus is going to tell him, now it's better for you if I go.

Yes. Because then he can come. How is it better? Well, he's not limited by needing to sleep. He's not limited by needing to eat.

He's not limited by people vying for his attention. So Jesus said it's going to be better for you. You know how it's been hard these three years because I've had all these other people to talk to and all these other things to do and I got tired.

I had to sleep. There's those Pharisees. Yeah. And he also solves the problem of the fact that he says if you love me, you'll be treasuring my commandments. Well, what happens when Jesus goes away?

We don't hear your commandments over the words you say. Yeah. And he says, well, the Holy Spirit, verse 17, spirit of truth. And he'll go on and tell you more about the fact that he's your connection to truth now that the verbal sounds of Jesus' voice are going away. So something you should be listening for in this, and I'll just clue you in ahead of time, is how from this point on Jesus begins to equate the Holy Spirit and himself and the Father. Yeah. In this mind-bending way.

Undeniable. Because he has said, you know, I'm going to the Father and the Father will send the Spirit, but later on in the next chapter he's going to say, well, I'll send you the Spirit. Well, who sends him? Who sends him? Where is he coming from? And then he says, well, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth.

And then he says, my Spirit. Oh, wait. What? What? So just listen for that.

Watch for that in this conversation. Yeah. And this blurring that you can't quite figure out is actually the fact that you're looking at the, you're looking at the quote unquote, the construction of God. The very character, the Trinity of God. Yeah.

That smearing is not a smearing. It's all true. I mean, he hints at it very strongly at the end of 17.

You know him for he dwells with you. What? Right.

Well, that's me guys. Right. So yeah. And he will be.

And he'll be in you. So the whole separation issue is not really an issue anymore. Well, and that's another way that it's better that the Spirit comes. Yeah.

Because Jesus in the flesh could not be in them. Right. Right. He was with them. Right. But in terms of that unbroken continual fellowship, that was a whole new idea.

Pretty darn portable because pretty soon they're going to be scattered all over the world. Right. And Jesus can't split his time between 12 guys going all over the world.

But he'll be in them. Wow. What a tremendous advance in terms of relationship and addressing the troubled hearts about being separated from him. Yeah. Well, let's push on. 18? You want to read 18? Sure.

Yeah. I will not leave you as orphans. I'll come to you yet a little while and the world will see me no more. But you will see me because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. Right.

And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Oh, we got to stop there. Wow.

No kidding. If you have a troubled heart about the separation from Jesus, this should have wrapped it all up right here. And I'll manifest myself to him. No matter where you go. It's not a matter of following a roadmap.

It's a matter of him coming to you rather than you going to him. Wow, that's a good deal. Oh.

That's a real good deal. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So what do you make of all those ends in like verse 20? Well, you know, he says in that day.

Well, in what day? Well, when the Holy Spirit comes. When the Holy Spirit comes.

When the helper comes, the one who's going to come alongside to continually speak truth to you. And the world's not going to know him or recognizing him. And by the way, friends, if you are in the habit of referring to the Holy Spirit as it, you need to stop that right now. Jesus never refers to him as an it. He is a person.

Relatable. He's the person of the Spirit of Christ who takes up residence in us. And if you're wondering, did this ever actually happen in an overt way, read into Acts because boy, it comes big time. What comes?

The Holy Spirit. It comes? Did I say it? You did.

Shame on me. He comes. He comes. He comes.

Yeah. It's not a hidden event. It's actually quite a public. It is an event. But he comes.

It's a public event when he comes. Yeah, exactly. And it is this indwelling of the Spirit through which Jesus will manifest himself to those who love him. Right.

Solving the problem of distance that they were fearing, that they were troubled about. You see in verse 21, he connects, keeping the commandments, loving him and keeping, loving and keeping. And I'll love you because you're treasuring me.

Right. Interestingly enough, when John starts his gospel, he says, in the beginning was the word. And how you relate to, quote, the word is how you relate to Jesus. And that's the actual central connection of the love part of it. I always look at this, too, when you think about someone who's, you know, you're engaged or you're dating someone, you know, and you're separated and you send letters back and forth like that. All the letters. And you take those letters and you put them in a special container and you never throw them away and you treasure them. It's that idea, but magnified a thousand times.

He's talking about here. Your relationship to him is really very much centered on how you deal and how you treasure what he says, which reflects who he is. So it's a really big deal. Love and that treasure can go hand in hand. And because Jesus himself, John says, the word, that intelligent communication, that logos, who was God and is God, became flesh and dwelt among us. So Jesus was the, I don't know if this is even a word, enfleshment of the intelligent communication of God. Yeah, exactly. Made known, the invisible God made known in the flesh.

Walked among us so we could see his glory. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm not going to worry about the fact that we're separated in 21, I'm going to manifest myself to you. My body's not going to be here anymore. It'll be different. But you'll know me. Yeah, it'll be different. You'll keep knowing me. But yeah, I will manifest myself to you.

So let me pick it up on 22. So then Judas, not Iscariot, because he was gone, he had left the body, which by the way, that's a wonderful piece of foresight on John's part or the Holy Spirit's part. So people, so critics in the future will say, aha, gotcha, Judas left the room and now Judas is speaking, can't be. So he includes in there, hey, you guys, this is Judas, not Iscariot.

That was a common name. Okay. So anyway, Judas, not Iscariot said to him, Lord, well, how is it that you'll manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answered him, well, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. There it is again.

There it is again. And my father will love him and we, and we will come to him, get ready for it, and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.

And the word that you hear is not mine, but it's the father's who sent me. Okay, stop. Wow. Wow. News, news bulletin. This is, this is crazy. This is cool.

This is big. Okay. So why would you just ask this question?

Because they were expecting that he was going to manifest himself as king. Right. Right. And how can you do that only to us and not the world?

Right. I mean, isn't that part of the point, to manifest yourself to the world and put all down those bad guys? How are you going to manifest to us and not the world?

What? But interestingly enough, the manifestation comes in terms of how we treasure his word and the result of us treasuring his word, which is actually treasuring who God is himself, is the fact that the father and the son take the initiative to come to you and to make their home with you. And how do they do that in the person of their Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is how this happens. Wow.

This solves the problem of the separation. And Jesus is trying to wrap their mind around the fact that even when he was asked, we don't know how to follow you. We don't know where you're going.

Can you show us the way? In a sense, he's saying, that's not your responsibility, really, because the father and I will come to you. We'll come. Yeah, we'll come. We take that initiative. So your responsibility is to love me and treasure my word.

Treasure my word. And we'll come. And we'll figure it out after that. And we'll send you a helper. Oh, and the helper will be us.

Right. And I love the fact that he doesn't just say, I'll be near you. He says, I'll make my home. And when you make a home, that's really a conscious decision to abide, to put down roots and to settle down right there. God wants to settle down in you. This is where I live. Yeah, this is where I live. This is the dwelling place of God in man.

What? Which is why Paul so easily made the connection when he says that we're the temple of God. That sounds presumptuous, but all he's saying is what Jesus is saying right here, because during their time, in a figurative sense, God's dwelling place on earth was in that temple. And now Paul says, well, his dwelling place is in us now. And so we're that temple. That actually is an incredible line of thought, to trace this idea of God dwelling in a movable tabernacle in the wilderness and then a temple anchored to the ground in the time of David and Solomon.

And then that temple goes away and is rebuilt. And when Jesus comes, he says, hey, I am the dwelling place of God among you. And then when the Holy Spirit comes, he says, you are the dwelling place of God. And that is all fulfilled then in Revelation 20, 21, 22.

So that is an incredible picture. That is a huge overarching story of God wanting to dwell in our midst and how he develops that idea for us. This is the theme of the Bible. God wants to dwell in us. It's not incidental.

It's not incidental. The dwelling place of God is with man. That's always been the intent. That's what he always wanted. He made us for fellowship with him and he's not going far and you don't have to bridge the problem of separation. He's got that down.

He's going to do it. Well, you need to move on. We're short on time. 25?

We're always short on time. You want to take 25? These things I've spoken to you while I'm still with you. 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've said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, I'm going away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I'm going to the Father, for the Father's greater than I. And now I've told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe. I'll no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming.

He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise. Let's go from here. I always chuckle when he says, I'll no longer talk much, except for chapters 15, 16, and 17. Well, you know what it means is the time is getting short. Time's getting short, yeah. Right, because here they are about, they're leaving the upper room and walking across the valley and over to Gethsemane. So the clock is ticking and Jesus is acutely aware of that and he is in control of the time.

Yep, yep. And he makes good use of it because we see in chapter 18, and that's when they arrive, that's when they cross the Kidron, they go into the Garden of Gethsemane. So in that transit from the upper room to the garden, he teaches us chapters 15 and 16 and we hear his big prayer in 17.

So there's a lot to come for him to finish this discussion about the separation. And you all know what's in chapter 15, about I'm the vine and you're the branches, that is this continual amplification of what it means for the Spirit to be in you. Right, right. He gives them a very visual lesson, a visual picture that they'll never forget.

Yeah. And isn't it just a wonderfully pragmatic result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit that he says he'll teach you all things, he'll allow you to remember everything that I've said and the big result is shalom. It's peace. Peace. It's peace.

It's a wholeness because of that. Profound well-being. Right, the opposite of troubled hearts, by the way. That's what he's talking about and that's what the Holy Spirit's going to go.

So yeah, he says, I am going away and I'll come to you, but check out the relationship will be more intimate than ever before, but it'll be different, it'll be different, but it'll be better. So if you find yourself troubled, continually plagued by un-peace, then you've got to ask the question, well, what is my relationship to the living word of God? Because Jesus says, I'm leaving you peace, I'm giving you my very own peace, don't go on being troubled. Remember he had started this conversation by saying, don't go on being troubled, believe me. Believe in me. Yeah.

And what great results that brings. So we're just saying that if you have the symptoms of a troubled heart, it may be because you're a little deficient in staying in God's word. And Lord, what am I not believing about you? Yeah, because when we're troubled in our heart, we're actually believing wrong things about God, whether we understand it or not. We talk about the fact that fear is a repudiation of God's sovereignty.

I mean, if I fear, that means that, oh gee, maybe God's not in control of things, so I'm going to fear. We are living in a time of great trouble and many, many believers, spirit-indwelt believers are struggling with trouble in their hearts. And so that's why we are doing what we're doing, bringing you, helping you come into the word of God as an antidote to living with a troubled heart. Yeah. So the presence of the Holy Spirit, attending to his word, treasuring it, treasuring it, you know, treating it like honey on the lips like the psalmist wrote.

I mean, these are all key issues. It's partially why we're driven to do even this broadcast is because we know that when we get in the word, we're changed and the troubled hearts start to fade away and the reality of who God is takes on prominence and the four part of our brains and we go, wait, that's right. God still is in control.

This is what he has in store for me. This is how I go down the path of life. And it really starts for us with the word and how we treasure and which is why also, you know, we started out last time talking about doing it in a very relaxed kind of way.

This is not an academic endeavor. This is a matter of taking the word and letting it slowly wash over and through your mind and into your heart and it changes your perspective on the larger reality of life. And hearts aren't troubled anymore.

Yeah. And so that's all Jesus is doing with the apostles right here. He's trying to combat this troubled hearts about the separation. And it's good news is, look guys, the separation is not what you think and I am going to take the initiative to come to you and abide in you.

So chill. Well, and you know, he's been saying, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments. And then look at how this chapter ends. He says, you know, the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I'm doing as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father. Well, he had already said to them, the world is going to know that you love me if you love one another.

Exactly. And that's a direct comparison, he's saying, I am doing exactly what I am commanding you to do. I am loving the Father and doing what he has sent me to do. And so I'm telling you, if you love me, you will do, you will treasure my word and do as I have told you. And this is the continued incarnation.

Yeah. Through the Holy Spirit through us, which is why Paul takes a leap to categorize the church of believers, the collection of believers, as the body of Christ. It's kind of like collectively, it's the second incarnation of God's Spirit.

The same way it was in Jesus' body, now he does through his body of distributed believers spread out all over the world. And it is glorious, it is what makes God recognized in the world, is this unity of all these disparate varied peoples from every tribe, tongue, nation, color. You know, Paul says that the glory, the hope of glory is Christ in you, that's Colossians 1 and 27. That's right. Paul comes back to this over and over and over again, Christ in you, in you, in you, in you.

What does that mean? So if you were wondering in the previous part of chapter 14, what it meant by greater works, now you see what the greater works are. Now we're talking about the body of Christ distributed throughout the entire world with the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and accomplishing in a distributed way what Jesus could only do as a single man, now he does through his body, the church, and that's us. And we glorify who God is as we love. And they'll know that you're from God because you love. Oh my gosh, our time is gone.

Oh man. Well look, come back with us next week, we're going to start into 15, these are what I call the transition teachings as he's on the way to the Garden of Gethsemane, and he's making comments on things he sees and touches, and this is some of the most choice teaching of Jesus anywhere in the scriptures. I mean he is getting in his last thoughts with these guys as they're going to the Garden of Gethsemane and certainly thereafter he's going to be rested, so wow. So join with us next week, we'd love to have you with us.

Read chapter 15, 16, 17, but next time 15, yeah. And keep asking yourself the question, what does this mean that he is in me? And that he's going to make his home in you. And he has.

He already has if you believe him. So join us. Oh my friends.

Yeah, we'll look more into that next week. So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we're so glad you're with us. Join us next week on More Than Ink.

More Than Ink is a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City and is solely responsible for its content. To contact us with your questions or comments, just go to our website, morethanink.org. I think we're on the right track. We need to do that again. We're on the right track, yeah.