Legacy and Heritage - John 14:18-31, Rev. Eugene Kim

Hear now the word of the Lord, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Yet a little while in 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 the Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whereas my commandments and keeps them, He it is who loves me. And He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love Him and manifest myself to Him. Judas, not a scariot, said to him, "Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?" Jesus answered him, "If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him. And we will come to him 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 the Father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am 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 have 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 am going away, and I will come to you. If you love me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe. I will 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 us go from here. This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. I will continue on this morning with Jesus' discourse on the Holy Spirit. Jesus was all brought about by Jesus' teaching to his disciples that he was leaving. Jesus was going to leave them, and his disciples were disheartened. And so Jesus, if you remember, started out this chapter with the iconic words, "Let not your hearts be troubled." And it's in the end of this section that we just read this morning, that we see him use these words again to close this teaching on the Holy Spirit. Let not your hearts be troubled. And Jesus had spoken of the Holy Spirit, being given to them as another helper, so that the disciples could carry on doing his ministry. If you remember my sermon from two weeks ago, all of this should make sense and ring a bell. He was going to give them another helper, so that the disciples could carry on doing Jesus' ministry. And so here are three points that I have for us to help us along this passage this morning. And they are, in Christ, the word and his legacy. In Christ, the word, his legacy. Let's start with the first point in Christ from verses 18 to 20. Even after all this, the disciples still felt abandoned. And I would imagine that if I were to be there, and Jesus, who was my beloved master, was telling me that he was going to leave, and someone else was going to come, that wouldn't necessarily alleviate that sense of abandonment. So Jesus continues on in verse 18, "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you." Orphans are children bereft of parents. But in the Greek, this word was also used for disciples being stripped of their master as well. And so Jesus reassures them by saying, "I will come to you." What does that mean? What does that mean? Was he saying that he would come back to them after the resurrection, which he did? But then, he would leave them again. So how is this going to be any kind of consolation? Well then, was he talking about the parousia, when Jesus will come back full in his full glory? Yes, he will. He will come back, but Jesus didn't come back during the lifetime of the disciples. So Jesus coming back to his disciples, that has to be looked at in the context of his discourse now on the Holy Spirit. Jesus will come back to the disciples after his resurrection. What that's going to do is it's going to usher in a new eschatological age of how now through the Holy Spirit, he will never leave them nor forsake them. And this is supported by Jesus' statement in the very next verse. In verse 19, "You had a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I live, you also will live." The disciples will get to see him post-resurrection. The resurrection then is Jesus' ultimate sign of God showing who Jesus really is. In Romans chapter one, verse four, it says, "And was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ, our Lord." You know, Paul would go to the Areopagus in Athens. It's a gathering of maybe the most brilliant minds in all the world. And he would go to this gathering in Acts chapter 17, and he would say this, "The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." God uses the resurrection of Jesus as a sign to all the world that Jesus is who he says he is. And because he is resurrected and he lives, Jesus is saying you will live too to his disciples. His disciples too will also live. Now there's a sequence going on here in these first three verses that we are not to miss. This is not going to abandon them. In fact, he will go to them again. And when he goes to them, they will know that through his resurrection, he is the appointed judge and son of God. And because Jesus lives, his disciples will also live. And now here's the next part of that sequence in verse 20, "In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you." That's the sequence. He ends the sequence with this sentence. This means that when we believe in Jesus, we not only believe in him, but we believe into him. Jesus is introducing here our mystical union with him. A union that Paul will go on to say in Ephesians 5 is a profound mystery. This means that if you are a Christian, if you are a Christian, you are in Christ. All those that believe in Christ believe into him, and they are united with him. The profundity doesn't stop at the mystery of the union. It should extend then to its implications. If someone is in Christ, and you hate that person, you can't forgive that person, you want nothing to do with that person, you are not only sinning against that person, but also against Christ. Not only because you've disobeyed his commandments to love one another as he has loved us, but because your hatred is not only toward the person of your animosity, but it's toward Christ himself. That means you cannot claim to love Christ and hate the church. You cannot claim to love Christ and hate the church. There was a quote that's attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. He's the famous Indian independence leader. This is the quote, and I've read this many times, especially in the 90s when I was reading Christian Works, but the quote is, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, your Christians are so unlike your Christ. I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, your Christians are so unlike your Christ." I remember growing up and reading many evangelical leaders at the time, they would use this quote to point out the hypocrisy of the Christian church at the time. However, while you might sympathize with the sentiment, the premise is entirely incorrect. You can sympathize with the sentiment, but the premise is wrong. You cannot claim to love Christ and not love Christians. You cannot claim to love Christ and not love the church. As imperfect as the church and maybe its members maybe, we are still called to love them, and Jesus adds this dimension to our understanding of the church. The church is in Christ, and I would like to go even further than this. If the believers of Christ are in Christ, then not only are we called not to hate them, we are called them to love them, but with an extraordinary love. It's not just any kind of love if the brother and sister is in Christ. It's an extraordinary kind of love that we are to love them with. The apostle Paul understood this when he was writing his epistles. Take for example the famous wedding passage from 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It's not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Look at this passage that's so famously read in weddings, even in TV shows. But look at the context. Paul's not marrying a couple when he's writing this. He is talking about how the church ought to have this kind of love for one another. So yes, you're forgiving your brother or sister next to you, encouraging them, exhorting them, loving them, has everything to do with now Christ's claim on his disciples. There is indeed a special love in the body of Christ that you are to keep and express if you are a Christian. What if they weren't nice to you? What if you bought them lunch five times and they only bought you lunch two times? What if? Well, then what you should do is demand equity and fairness, right? You should, in fact, go all the way. You should sue them. That's exactly what was happening in the church in Corinth. Paul writes them a letter and in chapter six, he addresses them suing each other in the secular courts. He tells them the church should have wise enough people to handle these matters. And secondly, he ends the section by saying, and I'm paraphrasing here, "Take the hit. Suffer the wrong. It's okay." In the end, when you do this for your brothers and sisters in Christ, even the least of these or especially the least of these, here's what Christ says in Matthew 25, "Then the king will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you or naked and clothed you? And when did we see you sick in prison and visit you?'" Here's how Jesus ends, "And the king will answer them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me. It's to each other, the people that are in Christ. If you do it to each other, you are doing it to Christ because those that are in Christ are into Christ. You are in the body of Christ." And that's the sequence of 18 to 20. And so let me go to the second point. The word, the word from verses 21 to 26, verses 21 says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him." Before in verse 15, we saw that Jesus has said that if you love him, you will obey him. If you love him, you will obey him. If you are a disciple of Christ, you will obey him. And I heard that some of you had a real hard time with that sentiment two weeks ago. I don't think you would have been alone. Maybe the disciples also had a hard time because Jesus says it a second time to this effect. "If you love me, you will obey me." So the other Judas, not Judas Iscariot, they're making sure because Judas Iscariot has left by now. The other Judas interjects with a question. Verse 22, "Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, 'Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?'" Jesus took Jesus' last point of that sequence that I talked about and asked him how Christ will manifest himself just to the disciples. And you have to listen very closely to Jesus' answer. It's astounding. Verse 23, "Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.'" Now there's a subtle shift in Christ's answer. He didn't say the exact same words, he says it a little differently, and it's explaining what he meant by the former. To love Jesus is to obey him how? And Jesus says that he will keep his word. And 508 years ago, on October 31st, 1517, a German monk by the name of Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, Germany, challenging the Catholic church's selling of indulgences, thereby protesting that the relationship between God and man could not be reduced to a financial transaction. How was the church to determine how to define the relationship between God and man then? And this is where we have now the term Sola Scriptura. Sola Scriptura meaning the scriptures alone. The scriptures alone are the word of God. Therefore the only infallible rule for life and doctrine. I don't find it a coincidence that 508 years ago we had our Protestant Reformation, but eight years ago, just eight years ago, we founded our church. So CGS started eight years ago on the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, and we started it with the theme back to the Bible. I don't think that's any coincidence. And for the last eight years, we have been the church reformed always reforming according to the word of God. Because here in Jesus' words, you can't be someone that claims to love Christ but not follow his words. He couldn't have been clearer. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. This is why our love for the word and our adherence to it can never fade. It would quite literally mean our death. So to answer the other Judas' question about how Christ will manifest in them, Jesus says that if you love him and keep his word, he and the Father will make their home with him. And this is in line with Jesus' exhortation to his disciples earlier. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have loved one another. This all connects. If you keep his commandments, if you keep his word, the world will know that God is with you because he will make his home in you and with you. This is why, as beautiful as we want to make our church buildings and our worship spaces, and if you know me, you know that I have a really deep affinity for beautiful church architecture, as beautiful as the buildings may be, and I think they should be beautiful. I think we should put effort into it, great effort, but as beautiful as the architecture may be, there is infinitely more grandeur, more beauty, more significant in us, not because of who we are by ourselves, but because of who resides within us. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, 16, it says, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's spirit dwells in you?" So why would you harm one another, or try to tear each other down, or even harm yourself? Don't you fear God? In the very next verse of that 1 Corinthians passage, it says, "If anyone destroys God's temple, God will destroy him, for God's temple is holy, and you are that temple." Let me go on to the next verse, verse 24, "Wherever it does not love me, does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine, but the fathers who sent me." Again, he reminds his disciples, through a negative reinforcement, those that do not love Jesus, they can't keep his words, they do not love him. If you don't keep Jesus' words, you don't love it, in fact, you hate him. There is no desire to please him, only to do what they want. You change Christ's words when you don't love him. You change it from, "Not my will, but yours be done," and you flip it to, "Not your will, but mine be done." You don't want to obey Christ, because you are not of Christ, and Christ is not in you. These are the words of the Father, and the Father's full authority is behind it. That's what he's saying. The Father's full authority is behind these words. So after hearing all this, some might be discouraged, "Who can do this? Who can do this? But Christ is gracious," and he says this in verses 25 and 26, "These things I have spoken to you while I am 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 have said to you." Jesus reminds his disciples again that he and the Father will send the Holy Spirit to his disciples, and the Holy Spirit will teach them. Not qualitatively new things, that's not what he's saying, but complete the revelation. That's what all things means. Complete the revelation that Jesus brought, as well as remind them of the things that Jesus had taught them while he was with them. There is no way, there is no way that we can do all the things Jesus commands us to do. Not on our own accord, at least, but we are not alone. God promises to send his Holy Spirit to bring to your remembrance all that is in his Word. Through Christ's death and resurrection, we have been justified, but it is through the work of the Holy Spirit that we are sanctified. The Holy Spirit will empower us to do those things which Christ commands us to do. Let me move on to my final point, his legacy. His legacy from verses 27 to 31, and verse 27 says, "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." With Jesus leaving, he was going to leave something for his disciples. Was it money? Was he going to give him his money bag? Jesus didn't have much in his money bag. And we know that whatever little was in there, Judas Iscariot was helping himself to that. Was it his house? What is this estate? He didn't have a house. He was an itinerant preacher. He went from synagogue to synagogue teaching. He was a peripathetic teacher, which means he didn't have a school building where he taught from like a professor. He taught while he was traveling, like the Stoics did in ancient Greece. He did own something. He actually did own something. Jesus owned a robe, literally the clothes on his back. But as we'll see, the Roman soldiers would divide that among themselves. While Jesus didn't have any of those things, Jesus wasn't even left with the clothes. He only had the clothes on his back. He leaves his disciples with something worth far more than the greatest riches of the world. In fact, it's not even of this world. It's his peace. You know, recently there's been a lot of peace deals that have been made by the current president and the administration. It's actually quite incredible. I don't think anyone was able to do the things that this admin has done. However, as great as some of these peace deals are, we must be reminded that the peace of this world is fleeting and temporary. As great as peace deals are, the Christian must be reminded that the peace of this world is fleeting and temporary. Why is that? It's because it's like what it says in Psalm 2. The nations will rage. Ultimately who are these nations raging against? You always think it's against each other. Aren't these nations raging against each other? There's something more ultimate than that. The nations are raging against God. There will never be lasting peace because the nations will always rage against God externally, meaning to other nations and internally. The peace that Jesus leaves, however, is not of this world. What does that mean? It is a supernatural peace, yes, but what does that mean? It means peace with God. This is what Jesus leaves as disciples. In Romans chapter 5 verse 1, it says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." This my friends, this is everything. From the beginning, from Adam's first rebellion, all the generations rebelled against God and suffered its consequences. Every consequence of sin, dismantling, the degradation, the destruction of the world that we are witnessing, even now to this day, it's because we are at war with God. Not your will, but mine be done. That's the mantra of the world. It may not be the mantra we cite, but we live it daily with our actions. Obedience is too difficult. That's what we'll say. But the author of Hebrews will rebuke us. Have you struggled to the point of shedding your blood? We give up far too easily. But even if you died fighting, even if you died fighting your sin, the fact of the matter is you still be dead in your sins, because the sin would conquer you. So what does Jesus leave behind? What does Jesus leave behind for us? You know, earlier when I recorded a podcast with a friend, he had a moment of sobriety where he was sharing something personal and he was saying that now that he's 50, it's not Pastor Paul. But it's the friend that I had on the podcast, but now that he's 50, his best days are behind him. And you know what you have to do as a friend, you have to say, "Oh no, no, you got all this stuff going for you," right? But inside, you know, maybe, probably, you know, that kind of thing. But he would say, "His best days are behind me." And now he's thinking about what he can leave behind. What can I leave behind? You know, we've lost a lot of good preachers recently, a lot of very strong Christians. But these amazing, the best preachers that we've lost recently weren't remembered. They weren't remembered because they could smash a golf ball 400 yards, or they could make game-winning basketball shots, or they can run a mile at this time or finish a marathon. That's not why they were remembered. Why do you remember all the people that have passed with just fondness, and why are you so sad when they pass, and why are you so thankful for them? Isn't it because of what they left behind? Not the accomplishments that they had. I get it. You could say, "The best days are behind me," but what does that really mean? Because no one cares if you made that game-winning touchdown for your church intramural league. I care a little bit. I'll be honest, I care a little bit because I like it when our church wins. But 50 years from now, 60 years from now, who's going to care? But you know what they'll remember? They'll remember your legacy. They'll remember you for your legacy, what you leave behind truly. What has Christ left for us? The peace that Christ has won for us is peace with God. And this is why Jesus says again, "Let not your hearts be troubled." There is no greater legacy or inheritance that Christ could have left behind for us. No longer do we live in fear of wrath in our walk, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, we live knowing that we will be sanctified, that every day we will become more and more like our Savior. So Jesus continues on in verse 28, "You heard me say to you, I am going away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I." This doesn't mean that the Father is greater in substance than Jesus. Again, we've seen many times already to hear that He's equated Himself with God. But this is about how Jesus had His glory veiled during His incarnation on the earth. And now Jesus is going to go back. He's going to go back to the right hand of the Father, back to His place with the fullness of glory revealed. In verse 29 to 31, I'll finish us off. And now I have told you before it takes place so that when it does take place, you may believe. I will 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 us go from here. Satan thought he had a claim on Jesus, but he would be wrong. He was born of the Holy Spirit, not Adam. And Satan would not defeat Jesus in this very hour. This would be the hour of Christ's triumph. Strengthened by this truth, he tells his disciples then to rise and go from here. Likewise, we also as disciples of Christ should be strengthened by this truth. We are in Christ. We are in Christ empowered by the Holy Spirit so that we can love Him and obey His word. That we have been blessed by this inheritance that the world cannot give peace with God. This heritage that we have as Christians is an everlasting one and no one could ever take it away because all those that belong to Christ, this heritage belongs to them. And as the Holy Spirit reminds us this morning, remember that in Christ, you have peace with God. You have peace from God. And now we get to live in that peace and we get to pass this peace to one another in communion with Christ. That's what church is, my friends. And this is what we are called to do. Let's pray.