John 14:23-29 [Easter 6 CWS C]
Pastor Ron Koehler
Grace—Tucson, AZ
May 26, 2019
GOING HOME: Home School Learning that Leads to Eternal Life In the name our Risen Savior Jesus Christ, dear friends, For these Sundays of the Easter season, our worship theme has been Going Home. Our thoughts have been directed toward heaven in different ways each week and we have found encouragement to live in a way that prepares us to go home to heaven. This week our key words are Home School. When I hear the term Home School, I think of what you probably think of—children who don’t attend a public school or a private school, but instead receive educational instruction from parents at home. This morning, as we use the term Home School, I’d like you to think of something a bit different. Think of Home School as the training and instruction that prepares you to one day live in your eternal home. This is the schooling you receive during your days on this earth that lead you to God’s home in heaven, where you will live eternally. Since this is LEARNING THAT LEADS TO ETERNAL LIFE, each of us needs to take this kind of schooling seriously! LOVE AND LEARNING Just like last week, the context of Jesus’ words is the Upper Room with his disciples the night of his betrayal by Judas, which would be followed by his trials, suffering and death on the cross. Last week, Pastor Kassulke shared the command of Jesus that his followers are to love one another. That love is a love patterned after Jesus’ selfsacrificing love for us. After that—in these words before us today—Jesus speaks of the disciples’ love for him. You know that to survive in life, you need to learn some things—you’re not just born knowing everything. You need to learn how to eat and drink, how to protect yourself from harm, and how to work so that you can make those things happen. There are a lot of things a person needs to learn to survive in life. The same is true when it comes to surviving eternally. We are not born knowing everything about God, knowing what Jesus did for us, how we are forgiven, and what the path to heaven is like. It is necessary that God comes to us with his Word in order to teach us these things. When this happens, we are like students sitting in front of a teacher to learn. As Jesus instructs people with his word, some will believe what is taught. They will love Jesus because of his great love for them that took him to the cross, and they will hold onto Jesus’ word—all of it. They will love it and learn it and live by it. That’s what Jesus says: “If anyone loves me, he will hold on to my teaching.” And when Jesus uses the word love, he’s not using the word that expresses a friendship kind of love. He uses the same word he uses to describe his love for sinners—a self-sacrificing love, the kind that gives up for another person.
So anyone who loves Jesus with an “I’ll give up anything for him” kind of love will obey what Jesus teaches. They will prioritize him and his word and offers themselves, their time, their treasures—they are willing to be selfless for Jesus. That is what it means to be a Christian. THAT person has this promise from Jesus: God the Father will love that person right back, and Jesus and the Father will come to that person and live with them! They will make their home with them right NOW, right here in this world! Elsewhere in Scripture, we are told that Holy Spirit lives inside the Christian. God actually makes his home with us. This is God’s immediate answer to a person’s love for him and learning from him— God joins himself to that person. This is love and learning that also leads to eternal life with God. It also happens that when the truth of God’s word reaches people, some will reject what they are taught. They won’t love Jesus. They won’t learn his word and they won’t live by it. Sadly, because of their rejection, Jesus and the Father will not dwell with that person as they make their way through life. And their lack of love for Jesus and rejection of his word will lead, not to a home in heaven, but to an eternal home in hell. There are only two kinds of people—those who love Jesus and hold to his teaching and those who do not love Jesus and therefore do not follow his teaching. God looks directly into the hearts of all people and he knows with certainty whether there is love for God there. We can often observe this too as we see people who purposely live a lifestyle that God in his word calls sinful—couples disrespecting his will for marriage by living together outside of that bond, those living in homosexual relationships, those who will not hear God’s word—not in church on Sundays and not at home privately either, promoters of abortion where helpless children are murdered, really anyone who lives in open defiance of God’s will that can be seen by anyone around. And if those are not things that define us, we know—deep down—that we have other issues—perhaps the kind that go unseen by others: offerings to God that in no way are joyful or generous or regular or proportionate to the blessings he has lavished on us, or hearts that are lustful, greedy, hateful, selfish, or prideful. Jesus has the attention of the imperfect part of us as we think of ways we do not always hold to Jesus word! Our guilty consciences recognize our own failures to listen and follow our Savior in love. And we realize the damning nature of our sin. But as people who DO listen to Jesus’ words and do follow him in faith, we also look to him for forgiveness as we truly repent—meaning that we are sorry for our sin AND intend to stop those sins. Jesus teaches us that we can be certain that when we are repentant, we are forgiven. But you see, that is the difference between those who do not listen and follow and those who do: while neither group is perfect, those who listen and follow Jesus do so by wanting to live a God-pleasing life and by repenting and looking to Jesus for forgiveness at those times when they fail.
It’s interesting to think about the disciples. They had the spoken word of Jesus. They heard him teach the crowds and instruct individuals and chastise wayward religious leaders. They had the benefit of an everyday classroom of sorts as they walked and talked with Jesus, their teacher. But still, remembering all that Jesus taught, tying together all the promises and prophecies of the Scriptures to him as the Messiah, keeping that all in their heads, would have not only been difficult, it would have been impossible. You know how hard it can be to learn and remember and you have it all written down for you in the Bible…and you have pastors to remind you…and Bible study opportunities…and devotion books…and email devotions…and more! How wonderful for those men to receive another promise from Jesus! The Holy Spirit, the Counselor, would be sent by the Father to teach them everything and remind them of everything! Jesus had been teaching them; now the Holy Spirit would teach them. If you ever wondered how those men remembered it all as they became travelling missionaries…if you were ever curious how men who often struggled to understand Jesus could remember all that Jesus did and said over the course of his three-year ministry could reproduce exactly the history of Jesus’ life and words and actions as they penned the words of Scripture…now you know! What was humanly impossible was an absolute certainty because of the Holy Spirit. We are just a couple weeks away from Pentecost, a day of celebrating the Holy Spirit and all that he does, but we do hear this much about him today and we are encouraged because he still does this work of teaching and reminding Christians today as he lives in us and works through that word we hold on to! PEACE AND ETERNAL LIFE Jesus said, “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 and do not let it be afraid.” When you think about the kind of peace offered by the world, you have to say that it is imperfect and temporary, don’t you? It’s also subjective; what is peaceful for one person isn’t what the next person appreciates. It is often nothing more than a feeling that we have or we don’t have. The peace that Jesus brings is nothing like worldly peace. What Jesus meant was something far more than a feeling; he was talking about an actual peace between people and God. Jesus was about to bring to completion his work of securing that peace with God. The disciples would soon see the instrument by which Jesus brought that peace—the cross. Our trust in what Jesus did as our Savior, with his cross and his empty tomb, gives us the peace of a loving relationship with God and the confidence of salvation. Nothing can disrupt that peace as long as we have love for Jesus. Learning these truths leads to peace now and an eternal life of peace with God in heaven.
This is why Jesus told his disciples, “Do not let your heart be troubled and do not let it be afraid.” There was no reason for them to be distressed and anxious by what would happen to Jesus after they left that upper room classroom with their Teacher and Savior. What he was going to do would bring peace with God…and it was why he came into the world. Instead of cowardly fear, Jesus wanted their hearts to be filled with joy—a joy which could only come from understanding his mission as the world’s Savior. As the Teacher lingered there in that Jerusalem Passover classroom, his words had the sound of someone who was going away, yet still teaching, still preparing his students so that they would be okay after he left. And he was going away. He would certainly die on that cross and his body would go to the grave. What words of comfort he intended these to be: “I am going away and I am coming to you.” Certainly he would return after his resurrection and would be with them for a little while. Certainly he had promised them that he would return on the Last Day to bring all who trusted in him to his home in heaven. And as he promised already, if they did love him and obey his word, he would live with them during the rest of their days in this world…and later in heaven. The Teacher was teaching so that the disciples would understand and believe when everything happened that Jesus told them would happen. He was preparing them to see him go and to find comfort as he continued to come to them. Though our situation is not identical to that of the disciples—we do not see Jesus faceto-face and we do not receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit to write Scripture, for instance—we ARE his followers today. We also love Jesus for winning our forgiveness and salvation. We also hold to his word. We have the same peace from Jesus. We are not to have the anxiety or fear about our relationship with God and our eternal life. And we hold the same promises: that Jesus and the Father live with us right now and the Holy Spirit teaches and reminds us right now, and that this world is merely our temporary home where we are schooled in spiritual things. What we have learned about God has brought about a love for our Savior that leads to our permanent home with God. I pray that you take comfort in the love and promises of your Savior this day and that you continue to love Jesus and hold onto his word, because through it comes LEARNING THAT LEADS TO ETERNAL LIFE. Amen. Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.