15 ‘If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.’ (John 14:15-21)
I once caught my church’s curate cleaning my oven.
Carol and I were newlyweds, we moved to a new town, new church, and helped run the youth group, and that was when the problems began. The curate was in charge, but had never done any youth work, and I’d done lots. And we didn’t see eye to eye, and so I did the Christian sulk thing and started finding spiritual reasons not to be there.
Then came the Christmas party, which we hosted, and after we’d eaten the group settled down to watch a video, and I noticed the curate was missing. And I found him in the kitchen, on his knees, cleaning three months of grime and grease from our oven. Awkward!
But lovely too. You see this was his way of getting past the tension in our relationship. It was his way of showing love. In John 13, Jesus says,
by this will all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35)
and that’s what the curate was doing. Loving a brother Christian who was a pain in backside.
Now, cast your mind back to last Sunday’s bible passage. I know, I didn’t pay enough attention either, but it’s the bit just before today’s passage, where Jesus said something pretty astonishing:
Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12)
Well today were gonna’ think about how that works. How can we do greater things than Jesus? I mean, he fed 5000, are we gonna’ feed 5001? He walked on water, are we gonna’ run on it? Don’t be daft.
No, what Jesus means is that together, the disciples – the church – is gonna’ do way more than Jesus ever did. We’ll heal more and rescue more and serve more and bless more and preach more and so on. Many hands make light work.
But it’s still an exciting thought! Jesus has called us to a life of purpose and adventure, a life where together we can accomplish something astounding. This is what the life in all its fullness we talked about a fortnight ago looks like.
So here’s three steps to doing greater things than Jesus – three steps to a life of adventure and purpose. And we start in v20, with:
Step One: The Promise of Relationship with God.
Jesus said, v20,
On that day you will realise that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
That’s a picture of relationship with God. A picture of mutual unity, of one-ness. Or as the Bible puts it, being “in-Christ.” Being in Christ is a bit like being a football club season ticket holder. Because once you’ve got the ticket, once you’re in the club, you become part of something bigger than yourself and it becomes part of you. What the club experiences, you experience.
But as a former football club season ticket holder, let me say straight up – being in Christ is way better than being a season ticket holder! For starters, because we are in Christ, when Jesus died on the cross, our sins died with him, he dealt with them! He took them away. That’s good isn’t it? The only thing my football team ever took away from me was money and hope.
And because we’re in Christ, when he rose from the grave, it means that one day we’ll rise from the grave too. In fact, in a sense, spiritually, we already have. We are alive in Christ. We are born again into Christ. And that’s how we begin that life of purpose and adventure with him.
So let me ask the obvious question: Are you sure you are in Christ? Are you sure you are saved? If you’re not sure, then maybe God is challenging you today, to take that next step in your journey with God. If that’s you, get in touch with me afterwards, and let’s see what we can do to help.
Because if you aren’t in Christ, you can never begin that life of purpose and adventure Jesus calls us to. Being in Christ is the step that begins the whole journey. And when you take it, something extraordinary happens. God pours his Holy Spirit into you.
Step two: The Holy Spirit
That’s there in v16 of our passage. Now bear in mind when Jesus says this, it’s still a couple of months before Pentecost. If you aren’t familiar with Pentecost, it was a transforming moment in church history when God poured out his Holy Spirit on the church for the first time.
So here’s Jesus looking forward to Pentecost,
I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
If you are in Christ, then the Holy Spirit of God is in you. Or to put it another way, you are the dwelling place of God. You see, people think God lives in buildings. But the Bible says no! Here’s how St Paul put it,
The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands.” (Acts 17:24).
The place God is present, is in his people. We are his temple. Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. He dwells in you.
That’s why, although I miss our buildings, they’re not essential to faith. God has placed his Holy Spirit in us, not in bricks and mortar, and the next few chapters of John’s gospel try to explain why:
Maybe you’re struggling with sin and temptation, or someone is making your life hell. Well for those moments, the Spirit is your advocate, John 14:16 , a legal term for someone who will come alongside you and strengthen and defend you.
Maybe you’re struggling with a decision – you don’t know the right way to go, well the ask the Spirit of Truth (John 14:16) to show you the way. And remember – he’ll never contradict the Bible. He’ll never lead you to break God’s commandments, no matter how much you want to.
But maybe you’ve already been breaking commandments. For that situation, the Spirit comes to convict us of sin – that’s there in John 16. He’s like a volume control for our conscience – We’re always turning the volume of our conscience down and the Spirit comes and turns it up again.
Maybe you struggle to remember what Jesus said – well in John 15 – the Spirit will come and help you remember and understand.
Maybe you struggle to live a life of love. Well Galatians 5 says that when the Spirit is in you, Love will flow out of you. As will joy, and peace, and patience, and kindness And goodness, and gentleness, and faithfulness and self-control. Oh do I need more of the Spirit in me!
And then all through the New Testament we see the Spirit enabling works of great power. Healings. Prophecy. Miracles. And conversion. The Spirit is central to mission and to our salvation. He comes to give us power to live for Jesus, to live more like Jesus, and to lead more people to Jesus. That life of purpose and adventure with Jesus I keep mentioning – it’s life in the Holy Spirit.
So ask God to keep filling you with his Spirit. Step out in faith trusting God will provide. He won’t ever let you down.
What’s our final step? It’s the one that was so important, Jesus mentioned it twice– as if to say – get this wrong and even being filled with the Holy Spirit can’t help you. So here’s Step 3 of a life of purpose and adventure:
STEP 3: Obedience
V15, If you love me, obey my commandments.
And it’s there again in v21.
And when I hear that, my inner failure, groans. Does yours? And after I’ve stopped groaning, my inner-lawyer gets on the case to argue about which commandments? Now the rabbis of Jesus’ day reckoned there were 613 Old Testament commandments, and I’m pretty sure Jesus meant all of them, though some of those commandments get transformed by Jesus’ death on the cross. If you want to get into that a bit more, there’s an article about it in the Big Questions page on our website.
So how do we obey so many commandments? Well helpfully Jesus summed up the Old Testament law by saying “love God and love your neighbour as yourself” and that’s probably a more of a practical thing for us to focus on today. Because the way we treat one another really matters.
Remember how we started – by this will all people know that you are my disciples – if you have love for one another?
Well what I believe Jesus wants to use this passage to challenge us about today is that we can go on and on about a life of purpose and adventure with Jesus, we can have the best church music, and the prettiest buildings, we can claim to do all sorts of astonishing things by the power of the Holy Spirit – but if we aren’t loving one another – if we aren’t being obedient to Jesus –then we’re hypocritical humbugs.
Here’s how St Paul’s puts it in 1Corinthians 13, the love is patient, love is kind chapter we read at weddings. Well Paul wrote that not for a wedding, but for a lively church where amazing miracles were going on, where people were speaking in tongues and doing all sorts of prophetic and healing ministry things in church and he basically says to them – you people are a bunch of hypocrites. You’re all noise and no action.
Here’s what he says,
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing…
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1Cor.13:1-8)
Jesus’ greatest commandment wasn’t go and do miracles, or to put on events or concerts or online pub quizzes using Zoom, good though those things are. Jesus calls us to love one another. Because if we aren’t doing that, nothing else we do matters a jot. We’re just noise and no action. Resounding gongs.
So who has Jesus commanded you to love? Well if you’re married – its your spouse. And you’re called to love them like that 1Cor.13 passage says – without limit. Without giving up. Always trusting and hoping and persevering.
If you’re a parent, it’s your kids. Same deal. Don’t ever give up on them. Always seek the best for them.
If you’re a child – its your brothers and sisters, And your parents. And there’s a spiritual bonus for us here. God says – if you obey your parents you get extra blessing. It will go well with you, the Bible says.
If you’re a neighbour – well it’s your neighbour. Anyone.
The point is – even in lockdown – perhaps especially in lockdown – we all have people to love. People Jesus points us to and says,
Go and love them.Even though they’ve let you down countless times.”
In Matthew’s gospel,
Peter came to Jesus and asked, ‘Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?’
Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (Matthew 18:21-22)
That’s a lot. But that’s what obeying Jesus really looks like. Forgiving people who’ve let us down time after time after time and never giving up on them. And when we love people who have wronged us – we’re truly showing that God is at work in us. Because he’s forgiven us, time after time after time. Which is how we came to be in Christ, in the first place.
And when we all start loving one another, that’s when we’ll do these even greater things than Jesus.
By this will all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.