[Machine transcription]
Christ is risen. He has risen indeed. Hallelujah. In the name of Jesus. Amen.
Dear saints, I do not know if you have found yourself before listening or overhearing a
conversation that you knew that you were not supposed to. Now, not in a bad way, like not
hearing people plot something nefarious or something like this, but just a conversation
that was â this is the cliché â it’s above your pay grade. Like, can you imagine
just like walking into a room, and there you find President Biden talking with his cabinet
about some sort of invasion. You’re like, oh, I’m not supposed to be here. Or if you’ve
heard a husband and a wife talking about their children, and you think to yourself, this
is not⦠this conversation is not for me, or something like this. This is how I feel
with this gospel text. In fact, the whole section that we’re in here, John 14 and
15 and 16, and especially John chapter 17, it just⦠I have to⦠So I often feel, often
unworthy to preach a text, and that’s, you know, a regular thing, but I feel unworthy
just to hear these words that we’re talking about this morning, that the Lord would grant
to me the privilege of listening to the words that Jesus is speaking now to His disciples.
angels, and the same for you too. This is a marvelous⦠the Lord is just⦠He’s
inviting us into His heart to hear what’s going on there. There’s eleven verses in
our text, or twelve maybe, even⦠every one of them could be a sermon. Every one of them
could be a book. We’re just going to think about three things, I think, this morning,
morning, but we’re just barely scratching the surface of the⦠of the richness of these
words of Jesus. Jesus will⦠we’ll consider this, that Jesus is especially talking about
joy and love and friendship. He’s also talking about election, His command, the gift of prayer.
There’s so much there, but these three things, joy and love and friendship, we’ll consider
this morning. Jesus says this, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in
you and that your joy might be full. Joy.
So we have to face right away this problem, this temptation that all of us have, and that
is to think that if we are serious about something, then we are joyless about that thing. And
And if someone is joyful, then they are not serious.
If someone is happy, then they are a lighthearted person means that they are a light person.
This is just not biblical.
It’s not how Jesus sees the world, and we have to fight against this.
One of the temptations that we have, I think as human beings, but maybe especially as Lutherans,
and if you’re German, you have a double temptation, and that is to think that if you want people
to know that you’re serious about something, then you have to be angry about it. You have
to furrow your brow. This is serious stuff here. But Jesus comes that we might have joy.
But listen to what He says. Oh, and here we have to also face the old temptation, and
I’ve preached this, and you’ve heard this preached before, that there’s a difference
between joy and happiness. You’ve heard that before? I think it’s true. There’s a difference
between joy and happiness. Happiness seems to be on the surface. Happiness is circumstantial.
Joy goes deeper. It’s a matter and a state of the heart. But normally when I hear people
talking about how there’s a difference between joy and happiness, they’re saying that so
that they don’t have to be happy. They say, I can be joyful and really angry at the same
time. Joyful and frustrated. Joy⦠I want to be joyful and grumpy. That’s how I’m
going to show that the Holy Spirit is working in me.
Now, this joy that Jesus is talking about is a joy of the heart, but it shows itself.
In fact, Jesus says, I’m saying this so that your joy can be complete, but this is
the main thing, Jesus says, that my joy might be in you.
There are things that naturally will make you happy or naturally will make you joyful.
people. Some of you love to cross-stitch butterflies. That’s your joy. Some of you like to fix cars.
Some of you like it when the Astros win the baseball game. In other words, you have a
joy that comes along from any various different things, but Jesus is not talking about that.
He says, my joy will be in you. In other words, Jesus is saying that as a Christian, the things
that make Him happy will make you happy. The things that He delights in, you also will
delight in. The things that make Jesus smile will make you smile. Like we read in the Psalms,
delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Well, that’s
because the desires of our heart are to receive the gifts of the Lord, and He generously
gives them. So Jesus says, the things that make me happy will also make you happy. Now
what makes Jesus happy? What gives Him joy? I mean, just for one example, we can remember
what He, the parable that He tells about the lost sheep that He finds and rejoicing puts
it on His shoulder and carries it home. In other words, the thing that gives Jesus joy
joy is your salvation, His deep and profound love for you, the forgiveness of all of your
sins. This gives Him joy, and it gives us joy as well, and not just a partial joy. Look
at what it says in the text, verse 11, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may
be in you and that your joy may be full, complete, lacking nothing.
So, we’re fighting against sadness in this life. We’re fighting against depression.
We’re fighting against trouble. We’re fighting against all these things that are happening
in our hearts, fear and so forth. How do we do it? It’s by remembering this, that Jesus
Jesus really does love you.
As the Father loved me, says Jesus, so have I loved you.
And that’s our joy, our complete joy.
And this joy is connected to love.
Jesus says, this is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
We heard in the epistle that this is His command that we love each other, and then John goes
on to say His commandment is not burdensome.
Now we might want to argue with St. John, who says that the command of love is not burdensome
because we find this command always a burden. It’s always convicting us. It’s always troubling
us. It’s always showing us our sin. It’s always proving that we do not⦠I mean, we
would like to just change one word in there. Jesus says, you love one another as I have
loved you. And we want to say, it’s not a just as, it’s a nothing like. I mean, our
love for one another is just barely beginning, just barely starting, faltering, always stained
with sin and so forth and so on. But then Jesus goes on to explain it. Greater love
is no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friend. And now we realize
what Jesus is getting after. His love for us is His crucifixion, is His suffering and
dying on the cross. It is His sacrificial death. And by that death, all of our sins
are forgiven, all of them. There’s not a single sin that Jesus didn’t die for.
Now, you know the devil will come along and tempt you to think that you have managed to
out-sin Jesus’ death, that you, unlike all the thousands and millions of sinners that
have come before you, you’ve finally managed to do something bad enough that Jesus can’t
save.
Congratulations.
Congratulations. You cannot. You cannot outsin His love. You cannot manage something wicked
enough that it is such a bad sin that His blood cannot wash it away. You just cannot.
You are not that good of a sinner. He is a better Savior. His love means that He is bleeding
and dying for you to take away all your sins, to forgive all of your sins, to give you
the Holy Spirit and to begin to work in you a love that is confounding even to yourâ¦
to your own mind and heart and your own sinful flesh, so that the love of Jesus begins toâ¦
begins to have its effect in your own heart.
Jesus says, I give you a new commandment that you should love as I’ve loved you.
And we say, now Jesus, that doesn’t sound like a new commandment.
That sounds just like the old commandment.
The old commandment from Leviticus was, you should love your neighbor as yourself.
And Jesus says, you should love your neighbor as I have loved you.
It sounds an awful lot like the same thing until we realize that there’s a different
just as.
The new commandment is not that we love our neighbor as ourselves, it’s that we love our
neighbor as Jesus has loved us.
He laid down His life for us, and we find that love only in Him.
We find that love only in His Word, only in His Spirit, only in His gifts for us.
We find that love only when Jesus comes along with the forgiveness of sins such that we
have nothing to be afraid of.
And you know when you come to the judgment seat of God that He will welcome you with
open arms.
And that gives us the freedom and the confidence to begin to love and serve one another.
And that’s what Jesus says next.
He introduces the idea of friendship in this verse, greater love has no one than this and
someone lays down his life for his friends, and then He launches right into this idea
of friendship.
Now, this verse 15 should be written in gold.
Jesus says to you,
no longer do I call you servants,
for the servant doesn’t know
what the master is doing.
But I have called you friends,
because everything that I have heard
from My Father,
Father, I have made known to you.” Jesus calls you a friend. You, He says, are not
My servant. You are not My slave. You are My friend, a friend of God. There’s a couple
of verses in the Old Testament that talk about how Moses was a friend of God, how Abraham
was a friend of God, and we’re astonished to see that that word could be spoken. But
But if it was going to be spoken, it should certainly be spoken of those holy men, Noah
and Daniel and Abraham.
They stood with God.
They walked with God.
They spoke with God.
God set them apart and they served God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Surely that’s right.
If anybody is to be a friend of God, they would be.
But Jesus comes along and He says this to you, that you are also His friend.
What a friend we have in Jesus, we sing.
but Jesus says, what a friend I have in you. Can you imagine? This is just⦠you wouldn’t
believe it unless Jesus Himself said it, that He’s calling you His friend. And friend
is more than just a pal, although it is a pal, someone that you have affection for,
but friend is also an official title. It’s an office. It’s probably what we would have
called a member of the cabinet. You know, the president has these men or women that
that He appoints to be His counselors,
to be His sounding board,
to help Him to govern.
This is what it means to be a friend of the King.
And Jesus says this is who you are to Me.
You’re not His servants,
but you’re His friends.
And what is the indication of friendship?
The servant doesn’t know what the Master is doing,
but the friend does.
The friend knows what is in the heart of the other one.
And Jesus is saying here,
you know what is in my heart.
You know what my plans are.
You know what my thoughts are.
You know what I do and you know why I do it.
You know, says Jesus,
my great love for the Father
and you know my great love for you.
And so this morning we rejoice
that God the Son,
the creator of the world,
the one who holds the universe together,
the one who was crucified,
raised from the dead,
and seated at the right hand of the Father,
Father, the One who is the Creator of all and will judge the world on the last day,
the One who rules and reigns all things, that this One is pleased to call you friend and
invite you to dinner. God be praised. Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding,
guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.
