In 'My Peace I Leave With You,' Scott Brown explores Jesus' words from John 14, focusing on the comfort provided by the Holy Spirit and the unique peace Jesus offers. Brown emphasizes the role of the Holy Spirit as a helper and person, not a force, who brings to remembrance Jesus' teachings, thus aiding in the recording of scripture. This peace, rooted in Jesus' sufficiency and His finished work on the cross, is distinct from worldly peace, providing solace amidst trials. Brown discusses various aspects of peace, including saving, soothing, and ruling peace, underscoring that peace is grounded in the justification by faith and the believer's relationship with God. Through Jesus' obedience and love for the Father, believers are assured of their salvation and ongoing comfort. The sermon calls for reliance on Jesus and scripture for true peace, contrasting it with the temporary and unreliable sources of peace offered by the world.

Please find verse 25 in John 14 as we continue our expositional studies in the book of John, verse 25. These things I have spoken to you while being present 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 things that I 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 heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard me say to you, I am going away and coming back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice because I said, I'm going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe.

I will no longer talk much with you. For the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here. Oh, Lord, we need help from heaven.

We need understanding. We need the ability to lock on these beautiful words of life. Pray that you would come and minister to all of us your comfort today. Amen. Amen.

Please be seated. We're here in the last part of the upper room discourse. The Lord Jesus Christ is going to be betrayed very shortly, and the disciples are discouraged. We catch them in a moment of despondency and fear, and the Lord Jesus Christ comes to them as a comforter. He comforts them in, it seems to me, like every sentence from John 13 to John 17.

And if you try to diagram these verses by promises, you're banging up against a promise, you know, so regularly, it's just, it's wonderful. And the Lord Jesus Christ is really appealing to His disciples to trust in His sufficiency, to comfort them. You know, I was thinking about this today, this morning, considering, you know, coming here to church again. Deborah and I have gone to church together since our teens probably 2,500 times, only missing maybe on one hand for sickness. And every time we've come to church, there's been some word of comfort for my soul, in some song, in some word of Scripture.

Now I may not have taken it as seriously and deeply as I could have, but it's been there for sure. This is what Jesus is like. He's constantly coming to comfort you. He's coming to you in your fears and the troubles that you're in the midst of. He doesn't promise us freedom from trouble, He promises us freedom in the midst, or at least peace in the midst of our trouble.

And we have to somehow understand the context of what's happening here in this text because the disciples have just received the worst news that they could receive. They are like people who have lost something or are going to lose something, so significant. And so Jesus is comforting His disciples after He's announcing, I'm leaving. And He's going to die in the next morning, and yet he's comforting his disciples. He's thinking about them.

He's a good shepherd. He's coming to them to comfort them in the midst of their troubled hearts. They're very troubled. You know, the Word of God, as we move through it in this church, we believe is something that rests upon us, sovereignly. And I can't help but think that there are people here today that need to be comforted by Jesus Christ and to hear His words of comfort.

You know, last week the whole thrust of my message was that Jesus Christ is sufficient, the only sufficient one to come for you in your troubled heart, and that He's sufficient because He will not leave you as an orphan. He's sufficient because you'll see Him again. He's a sufficient Comforter because He lives, so will you also live. These are promises. He's a sufficient comforter because He lives, so will you also live.

These are promises. He's a sufficient comforter because He is in you and you are loved by your Father and because He has made a home in you. So these are all words of comfort. And now we continue on. The Lord Jesus Christ is pointing to the sources of consolation that disciples of Jesus have in their hands.

And He is the man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief. And being subjected to so much sorrow and so much grief, He has enough balm, enough healing ointment to cure all of your sorrows. And disappointments that you might be processing right now, troubles, Maybe you're in the right of the middle of it. Maybe the trouble was caused by you. Your uncertainty about the future.

The Lord Jesus Christ, I believe, speaks to all these things in this text. And so Jesus was in all things tried like his brethren. He knows our frame. And he's a compassionate high priest. When he finds us in our sorrows, he doesn't say, shut up.

He says, come to me. What a blessing that is. So I think this text is like a training session for troubled moments in your life. And He's instructing them on how to go through the coming crisis that's just around the corner, maybe minutes away, maybe a few hours away, but it's not very far away when a small army of authorities are going to come and arrest Jesus with clubs and spears, and it'll be a very difficult moment. So I have, as you can see on this outline, several ways that Jesus is comforting his disciples.

And I would just like to take them one by one. They fall almost one verse at a time. So if you have an outline in front of you, you'll kind of see where I'm headed here. You'll notice though that I'm going to hang on longer a few of these sections, like particularly my peace I give to you, not as the world. We might camp on that a little longer than the other sections.

But the first thing that I want us to recognize is that he sends the helper, that's in verse 25, but the helper, but the helper. Now, the Lord Jesus has been speaking about the helper so far already, and he is another, the Holy Spirit is another helper of the same kind of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is a divine person, eternal and uncreated. He possesses intellect and emotions and eternality. He is omnipresent.

He is omnipotent and he is truthful. He is the Spirit of truth. So the Lord Jesus opens His comforting words here with this term, the helper, the one called alongside to help, the parakletos. He is a person. He's not a force.

Don't think that the Holy Spirit is like an electrical outlet, he's not like the force that Steven Spielberg created in Star Wars. This is it's not an experience that you tap into some kind of power, you know, by doing something. If you see the Holy Spirit as a force, you'll always be confusing His work with your own emotions and your own inclinations. He's not a force, He's a person who is the Spirit of truth and when he speaks, when he ministers to you, he's speaking the truth of the Word of God to you. And he will convict the world of guilt and sin and righteousness.

He reveals Jesus, He gives gifts, He leads, He produces fruit, He helps us in our weaknesses, He sanctifies us, He can be resisted, He can be quenched, He can be grieved, He can be opposed, He can be lied to because the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force. And it's very important that we understand that. So he's a helper. He's the one called alongside to help. The greatest help you'll ever receive is the help of the Spirit of truth.

Go to the Spirit of truth for help. Don't go anywhere else. The Spirit of truth contained in the Word of God is your sufficient help. That is all the help you need. Run to Jesus Christ for your help.

We run to so many places when we are despondent for comfort. Comfort food, whatever, you might make a long, long list. But Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ alone and His help is what we need. Well the second thing that we notice here in this passage that not only is He the Helper but He brings things to remembrance. That's verse 25.

But the helper, the Holy Spirit, I remember verse 26, 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 things that I said to you. Now in this verse, I believe Jesus is not speaking mainly of what the Spirit will do in you, but what the apostles will do for you when they write the Word of God. He will bring things back to their memory. The greatest earthly gift anyone can have in this world is the testimony of the Word of God. It's a light unto your feet.

It's like a hammer. It's like fire. It's like water. It confronts. It comforts, and it saves.

So this is such a marvelous thing. And what Jesus is encouraging His disciples in, because that's what He's doing in almost every line, He's telling them that they will not be deprived of the truth that they need to record Scripture, and the people of God will not be left without what they need from the Word of God. In verse 25, it's very clear he's speaking directly to his disciples, These things I have spoken to you while being present with you." Now the Bible makes it very clear that the foundation of the church is the teaching of the apostles and he, I believe, is referring to the writers of Scripture. All that I said to you, this localizes the promise to the apostles. And he spoke these things while being present with them.

Now I think that there are two levels that we can rightly understand this work of the Holy Spirit. And first and foremost, Jesus is referring to the writing of the apostles and he'll bring to mind what Jesus said and this is I think explained by the Apostle Paul in his letter to Timothy in 2nd Timothy 316. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work." It's also spoken again by Jesus in John 16 verse 13 where He says, "'However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak. And he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you.

All things that the Father has are mine, therefore I said that He will take of mine and declare it to you." These sacred words that the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles are so important that they are unalterable, And the Bible makes it very clear, you shall not add and shall not subtract from His Word. The Bible ends with this admonition, not to add or subtract, lest curses fall upon you by having a God or having a truth of your own imagination cooked up in your emotions or cooked up by some person or cooked up somewhere else other than the Word of God. In 2nd Peter chapter 1 verses 19 through 21 We learn that this revelation came from men moved by the Holy Spirit. We read in verse 19 and 2 Peter 1, and so we have the prophetic word confirmed, which you do well to heed as a light that shines in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." Now there are some examples of this.

I'll give you just a couple of them in John chapter 2 verse 22 in the situation where Jesus cleared the temple. You remember that? He drives, one man drives out all these people and they leave and all he has is a whip in his hand, thousands of them probably. It was a miraculous moment. And he said that he would tear down that temple and raise it up in three days.

And listen to these words, Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them, and they believed the Scripture and the Word which Jesus had said, and they recorded it. They remembered it by the power of the Holy Spirit. Another example is Peter is talking to the disciples in Joppa, the Holy Spirit falls upon them and he remembers something. This is recorded in Acts 11 verse 15, and as I began to speak the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Then I remembered the word of the Lord." This Peter, he remembered how he said, how the Lord said, John indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit was confirming and clarifying what Jesus said, bringing it back to their remembrance so that they would record it so that we could have it and receive those comforts and admonitions and instructions for our own lives since the Lord Jesus Christ was resurrected.

Now, our Baptist confession holds this same position that there's no other revelation except the revelation that's contained in the Bible. In chapter one, in the tenth paragraph there, we read that the Word of God is the supreme judge by which all controversies are determined, you know, all decrees, all counsels are judged by the Word of God, all ancient writers are judged by the Word of God, all ancient writers are judged by the Word of God, all doctrines of men and private spirits, private revelations, all judged by one source of truth, and that is the truth of the Word of God. And we read these words, and there can be no other but the Holy Scripture delivered by the Spirit into which Scripture so delivered, our faith is finally resolved. So I believe the primary issue here that Jesus is addressing is that he is going to bless his eleven apostles with remembrance and they're going to write it down and we're going to have it. We're going to have it every day of our lives.

Praise God that He's done such a thing. We have the source, a sufficient source of peace in the Word of God. Now, this is different, I believe, compared to the work of illumination in our hearts. And God does work in our hearts to illuminate our understanding. And there is an Illumination that Christians will receive until the final judgment and this is how God will care with for his people And he helps you he helps you to remember truth does that ever happen to you?

You're in a moment and something comes to mind It was It was God that brought His Word to mind. Maybe you were talking to a friend, or maybe you were witnessing to someone, and the Word of God was brought to mind. It was the work of the Holy Spirit that did that. And John, the apostle, himself, talks about this in his epistle that there is an anointing. In 1 John 2.20 he says, But you have an anointing from the Holy One.

I have not written to you because you do not know the truth but because you know it and that no lie is of the truth." So there there is an anointing that a Christian has when he reads the truth the word of truth And in verse 27 of that same chapter he says, But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you. But as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie and just as it is has taught you you will abide in him." And I think this can be understood more clearly by reading What the writer of Hebrews stated in Hebrews 8 verse 10, for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And what God will do with his people is he will bless them. He will help them. He will give them an anointing to understand the words of truth.

And he will put his truth in their hearts. And there will be a sense where we'll have a sense of that truth. But it always has to be tested by scripture, because we're often confused. There is the revelation of truth as God reveals the deep things of God, as Paul told the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 2 10, but God has revealed them to us through His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of man except the Spirit of man which is in him.

Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. No one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God, that Spirit of truth. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. So there are there's this way that God works through the Holy Spirit in our hearts to confirm and to help us to understand the Word of God.

In Ephesians chapter 1 verses 17 and 18 we find this very same idea that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of Glory may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him." This is Paul's prayer for that church, that they would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. The eyes of your understanding being enlightened that you may know what is the hope of his calling, for to the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe according to the working of his mighty power." Now, this is God working in your heart to give you a sense of understanding of what He has already said. It's the knowledge of Him where your understanding is enlightened. And you're not a dead man like you used to be before you became a Christian. The Word of God lights you up and it gives you understanding about life.

And this is also the work of the Holy Spirit. So I think the primary meaning that Jesus is pointing to here is that the apostles will be given a special ability to remember and write, and then there's this other kind that is different, which is just the result of this eyes of understanding being enlightened by the Holy Spirit. We need that. We need it for lots of different situations. We need it from the moment we wake up to the time we go to bed.

And When we wake up in the middle of the night, we need it. And I think, you know, Jesus is using these things to comfort His disciples. He's telling them, I will be with you. I will speak to you. I will help you.

I will give you a word of truth by the hands of the apostles, and I will also give you a spirit of illumination." And he's assuring his disciples of his presence and how his presence is exercised in their lives. And his presence is exercised in their lives through the Spirit of truth, through the Holy Spirit, which confirms and displays the Word of God in the heart of the believer. So he gives truth. And then thirdly, you'll see in verse 27, he gives the gift of peace. He gives the gift of peace.

He gives the gift of peace. I said that as distinctly as I could. It's a gift. It's something that God gives. Peace I leave with you.

My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Jesus is saying that He's leaving something behind. He's going, but He's leaving something behind. It's His peace.

He's leaving His peace behind. Peace means well-being. The peace that he's talking about, of course, does not come from houses and lands and insurance policies and bank accounts, and it doesn't come from friends, it doesn't come from earthly things, it comes from him. It's his peace that He leaves with you. It's not measured in money, it's not measured in opportunities, it's measured in something that He alone leaves to you.

He says, it is My peace, it's the only, it's the peace that comes from me. The world defines peace as the absence of difficulty. That isn't how Jesus defines peace. Don't look for peace in the absence of difficulty because remember Jesus is saying to them, my peace I leave with you. In a very short time they're going to be interrupted by troops.

So it's not that kind of peace. This is not a guarantee that you won't be interrupted by troops or troubles. It's his peace. It's very different. And now, There are different kinds of peace.

I'll talk about a few of them. There is saving peace, there is a soothing peace, there's a trusting peace, a filling peace, a ruling peace, a kingdom peace, a peace of truth, there's a peace among brethren and there's the world's peace. I'm just gonna try to bounce through some of those since we're on the subject of peace. There is saving peace. I think this is the primary issue that Jesus is raising.

This peace is an objective reality. It isn't something that you attain to, it's something that has happened, it's something that God has done it, it's the result of justification by faith alone. The Apostle Paul spoke about this in Romans chapter 5 verse 1 when he said, Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God and not only that but we also glory in tribulations knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character and character hope Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. This is an objective peace that is given to you as a result of your justification. It is peace with God, the end of the war with God.

And Jesus is saying He is depositing, He is depositing a peace. It is saving peace. It's the peace of regeneration. It's the peace of knowing that all your sins have been forgiven. It's the peace of knowing that all your long-term liabilities before God have been paid.

It's the peace of knowing that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ. There's the peace of knowing that your sins have been separated from you as far as the east is from the west and it's been thrown, they have been thrown into the bottom of the sea and thrown behind the back and stomped on the ground because that's what the Bible says God does with the sins of the repentance center. It's that kind of peace. And it's the peace of being declared righteous such that the war that God had, the anger that God had toward you in your sin is over, and his anger has been quelled, propitiated, softened, eliminated. In James chapter 4 verse 4 we read of what this was like, adulterers and adulteresses do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God.

Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. It's the kind of peace that comes that you're no longer a friend of the world, you're a friend of God. When you're a friend of the world, you're not a friend of God, and there's enmity as a result. In St. Corinthians 5 18, We learn that this peace is connected with reconciliation.

Saint Corinthians 5 18, now, all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." In 1 Corinthians 1, 19, the apostle explains it this way, he said, "'For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross. And you who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now he has reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and blameless and above reproach in His sight, if indeed you continue in the faith grounded steadfast and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard which was preached to every creature under heaven of which I, Paul, became a minister." So this is an objective deposit of peace as a result of the work of Jesus Christ on the cross where He took the punishment for all of our sins and He set us free.

It's an objective peace. It's not primarily rooted in your feelings of peace. It's rooted in something of what He has done. You know, we are so messed up as people. Our feelings are so messed up.

We damage our emotions, we cultivate thoughts and emotions and feelings that we should not, and we mess ourselves up. And as a result, we feel bad. But the peace of God supersedes our own feelings. God is so kind that He rises above your feelings and He objectively releases you from the wrath of God and He makes peace with you and you might not feel it but if you've been justified you have peace with God praise God for that you know we're gonna we're gonna celebrate the Lord's Supper soon it should be the happiest moment yeah we should we should we should examine ourselves but once you do that you should be so happy that God set you free. You know, when I'm passing out the Lord's Supper, I frankly want to see people smiling.

I want them thinking, look at what God did for me. He's so kind. How could he rescue a wretch like me? How could he save me? How could he save me?

I don't even feel right today. But this is a peace. It's a saving peace. It's an objective peace. It's my peace.

I leave with you. I give this peace to you. It's objective, it's not based on your subjective feelings. It's based on His work on the cross. Well there are other kinds of peace.

There's the soothing peace, the divine consolation of His Word. We've all known this. All the smiles of the world, says Matthew Henry, cannot give it, the frowns of the world cannot take it away. It's that soothing peace that Paul talked about in Philippians 4 where he said, "'Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." This is how God gets to our subjective understanding of peace where He says, how do you get out of your pity party? Well by prayer and supplication and giving thanks, He gives us a way into soothing peace, experiential peace.

That's why the direct ministry of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace. It's the Spirit of God working through the Word of God to bring peace to your troubled soul. Your soul is going to be troubled, you're going to have trouble, what do you do? In everything give thanks and bring your mind and your heart and your emotions under the authority of the Word of God. That's the soothing peace that God gives.

There's that trusting peace, you will keep Him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because He trusts in you. We often don't experience the peace that we could experience because our minds are not stayed upon Him. Our minds are not filled with His Word, the most comforting thing we can ever have. You might just ask yourself, is my lack of peace related to the fact that my mind has not been stayed on him. God gives us a way to understand what's happening in our lives emotionally.

There's what I'm gonna call ruling peace in Colossians 3.15 and let the peace of God rule in your hearts and then he says and be thankful let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. We're often deprived of peace because we've deprived ourselves of the food of the Word of God. That's true of me. Anybody here? Pity parties are so much easier to happen when your mind is not filled up with the knowledge of God.

Well, there's much that we could say about peace. By the way, Paul wrote 13 letters. Maybe he wrote. Maybe he wrote Hebrews. I'm not sure.

But he at least wrote 13 letters. And you remember how he starts out every one of those letters? You remember? Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That grace, that peace comes from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ through the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit of Truth that is contained in the 66 books of the Bible.

Make that the center of your life. Well the world's pieces is nothing like that. It's all based on beautiful clothes and the accumulation of money and pleasure, things that all don't work and they pass away. So don't rest your peace on something that will rust or the moths will destroy or the thieves break in and steal. We look for peace in our food and from our cars, from the euphoria of shopping, from surfing the internet, from having financial security, from being loved, from having friends, all these are the weakest forms of peace.

Most of the time our lack of peace is related to those things. We're discouraged because of those things. That's where we all are. But God wants to take us beyond that. He wants to take us into His peace by His Word.

The Bible says there is no peace for the wicked. Now there are many things that we can understand about peace. Peace comes from believing in His Word in Romans 15-13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing That you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit here. The peace is dependent upon believing and being filled with the Word of God There's the peace that comes from the Holy Spirit because the fruit of the Spirit is peace.

Peace comes from communicating with God in prayer. Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication. Let your requests be made known to God in the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts." You know, hearts really do need to be guarded. So Let me just say a few things more about peace. Jesus gives us the doctrine so that we can win the peace.

And He gives us the doctrine of Scripture, and he gives us the doctrine of Scripture, and he gives us the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to rescue us from our lack of peace. Now, you know, God works through processes of time. Peace is something that can grow. It can go away really quickly. But the longer you walk with the Lord, It ought to be that there's more peace, but your peace will always be challenged by something.

Here's a theory. God ordered the world that way so that He would always drive us to Him. He would drive us to His Word. We would be at our wits' end, and so we go to the Word. He drives us there.

Our troubles are often the sweetest times in our lives because we really are on the ropes and we have no other help but God and that really is the best place to be. He gives peace and then he loves his father That's number four in your outline in verses 28 and then 31 I'll also connect that with. He loves his father. Jesus is comforting his disciples by telling them of his love for his father. Jesus' love for his father is so significant.

It's significant on so many levels. I wish we had time to really unpack it. But Jesus is encouraging his disciples by declaring his love for his father such that he is obeying his father in verse 28 and verse 31. He says in verse 28, You have heard me say to you, I am going away and coming back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I'm going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I." Now, they're fearful when they should be celebrating and rejoicing.

They're fearful because He said He's going to leave and go back to His Father, but they're reacting in the wrong way. And He's telling them that He is going back to His Father, He's going back because he loves his father and it's in his obedience, it's in his love to his father that is going to accomplish their salvation. So because they don't understand what he's doing, they're discouraged. That's true of us. We don't understand what God's doing.

We don't know where our lives are going. God does. And because we don't know where it's going, we often get fearful. But God has a plan. And because Jesus Christ was obedient to his Father, he accomplished salvation and he accomplished all these other blessings.

So he loves his Father and He's encouraging them by His love for His Father. Now they didn't think it was best for Him to go. They didn't like the change that he had announced. You know, some people really, really don't like change. There's certain kinds of changes all of us don't like, but this was a hard change.

And that's why, that's why in, in John 20 we find Mary, she's clinging, she's outside the tomb, she thought it was better that Jesus stayed, and she's clinging to Him, she's holding on to Him, and Jesus says, don't cling to me for I have not ascended to my Father, but go to my brother and say to them, I'm ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God. In other words, it was better that he went to the Father. It was better that this trouble entered their life. That's also a principle that you can bank on. God sovereignly brings the trouble into your life.

It's going to be better for you. You don't know how it all works out. But the disciples are in this exact same boat. This change did not look good. Why was it better that He went to heaven?

Why is the presence of the Spirit better than the presence of Jesus' body with them. Why? Because that's what He's saying, that His presence by the Holy Spirit being gone is better than His presence being bodily present. That's what He's saying. And they don't understand how that could be.

I'll just give you three reasons why it was better. Because by leaving he accomplishes redemption, 1 Peter 3, 18, for Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive by the Spirit." The second reason it was better for him to go is that he will be restored to his former glory. Therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him because he not only broke the Sabbath but he also said that God was his father, making himself equal with God. And then in chapter 10 verse 30 he said, I and my Father are one. In other words, he's going to ascend to his former glory and he's going to rule with his Father from heaven and then He is going to rule with His people from heaven.

It's better for Him to go because of His authority. And then thirdly, He will intercede for us incessantly. He'll sit at His Father's right hand and Hebrews 7 25 says that He always lives to make intercession for them. It's better that He go because He's going to accomplish redemption, because He's going to exercise His authority from His Father's throne, and He's going to intercede for them. In other words, he's going to hold the rope for them their whole life long.

He's holding the rope from heaven. And nothing can stay his hand. And he'll never leave you or forsake you no matter where you go no matter what you go through It was better that he left because of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit of truth who will reveal truth and comfort their hearts when they need it. Now there's a verse in here that the Arians use to prove their point, for my father is greater than I. Do you see that?

For my father is greater than I. I won't belabor this point, but this is the favorite apologetic against orthodox Christianity that the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons and the Muslims all use to deny the deity of Christ. They make him inferior to the Father. This is their proof text to make Jesus inferior to the Father. The way I understand this verse is that the the the Sun laid down as he took what he took on flesh it does not refer to the essential nature of Jesus Christ as God John over and over and over and over again in his gospel has said Jesus is God.

So let's let's let's say that the clear verses interpret the unclear if you think this is unclear. He is not talking about greatness in terms of his ontological being. It's speaking of his role in the incarnation to submit to his father for the salvation of sinners. When he says, my father is greater than I, he's talking about what some people call the economic trinity, what Jesus is doing in redemption. He submits to His Father and He comes to earth and He takes on human flesh.

And in that, in His incarnation, in a sense, not in His being, but in a sense He is submitting to His Father. It's a temporary during the time of Christ's incarnation, not His ontological greatness. And then fifthly, he will encourage them in the future. Now he's promising here that he's going to encourage them in the future. That's in verse 29, and now I have told you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe.

In other words, he's saying, I'm going to leave, and you know what? Stuff is going to happen to you, and you're going to believe, you're going to say, wow, it came true. He really did it. He kept his promises. That's what he's saying.

He was just saying, look, I'm going to encourage you later. You're going to believe when it comes to pass. He's just making a prophecy. He's going to astonish them. You know, it's very disheartening when someone makes a promise and they don't deliver on those promises.

You know, some of the hardest things that children grapple with is when their parents don't keep their promises. They say, we're going to do this, but then they don't. And if it happens a lot, it actually can be pretty harmful. But Jesus is promising this, and it happens. What a blessing that is.

And then he defeats the devil, verse 30. He's encouraged, remember what's happening here? Well he starts out chapter 14 with these words, let not your heart be troubled, Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many dwelling places." Well, he's just continuing to encourage them. This is a chapter that's full of consolation, dozens of reasons to be comforted.

So here's another one. He defeats the devil. That's in verse 30. Verse 30, I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. In other words, he has no hold, he has no authority on me.

Now this small army is going to show up and the disciples might think that Jesus is weak and he doesn't have authority. And he's saying, No, the devil doesn't have any hold on me. In a few minutes you'll see. The devil doesn't have any...these guys are not coming because they're in authority. These guys are coming because I'm in authority.

And when they come, he speaks and they all fall to the ground. And they're pretty sure legions of angels could come down and wipe them out because they've seen Him work in the past. So the devil will appear to defeat Him, but he's not defeating Him. What's happening is that Jesus is proving His love for His Father and His faithfulness to the task of redemption. And Jesus will be captured and crucified because of his love for his father and his desire to save sinners.

John has already said that the ruler of this world will be cast out. And he said, If I'm lifted up from the earth, I'll draw all peoples to myself. In John 16-11 he says that the ruler of this world is judged. So you can have peace about that. The devil is not more powerful than God.

Never. Never. And then finally, Jesus encourages his disciples again through his obedience to his Father. But that the, verse 31, but that The world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do." He does this because he loves his Father who sent Him to save sinners. That's what His obedience is all about.

That's why He submits to His Father in His incarnation so that he would come and be sacrificed for their sin, to take all the weight of their guilt upon his shoulders. Exactly the way that Isaiah described it, He gives this picture that He will take your sins from your shoulders and lay it upon Him. And everything you've ever done sinfully, everything you've ever thought in the past, everything that you will in the future, all the worst moments of your life and all of your original sin is laid on Him. And His robes of righteousness are laid on you. And that's why Jesus Christ obeyed his Father.

So Jesus is hastening the end of the meal here and the very last words of this chapter are arise, let us go from here. And that brings us into the next chapter. But there's a battle ahead. He started the chapter saying, let not your heart be troubled, but then trouble comes. Garen, just understand, that's the normal Christian life.

You know, I have concern particularly for young people who grow up thinking that the peace that they're really looking for is an absence of trouble. That's not the real world. It's not the real world. The real world is the peace of God in the midst of the trouble. This is a fallen world and the devil is doing what God's allowing him to do and that's going to cause a lot of trouble.

So expect it. Don't let it surprise you, don't let it discourage you, but have His peace. Make sure as you go through your life that you understand That Jesus Christ is sufficient for your peace. He's the only one who can bring you consolation. He gives peace not as the world gives.

He gives peace that lasts. He makes a deposit of everlasting peace, and then he spends the rest of your life after you turn to him comforting you and soothing you in the midst of your troubles. And he gives you lots of commands to make it happen so that you find out that your thinking is being transformed by the renewing of your mind and your heart is cleansed and your emotions are being restored to sweetness that you've never had before but it only happens when you believe with all your heart that He is a sufficient Comforter. So I commend you to Jesus. He's the only sufficient Comforter.

All else are frauds, but Jesus Christ is the Comforter. He is such a good shepherd. He is such a kind Savior. He said, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever with my sufficient comforter, the Lord Jesus Christ and his Spirit and his ever kind Father living within me." This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. What a blessing.

You know if you don't know Him, let me just say it's been many many years since I turned to the Lord. I never turned back for a single day and the reason is he is so good. He is so good and he will never leave you or forsake you And he will keep caring for you, even though you act like an idiot from time to time. He loves you, and he has secured your salvation if you believe in him. So run to him.

I guarantee you, He's the best peace there is out there. Would you pray with me? Lord, you've given us your word of truth to comfort us, to teach us. Lord, we pray that you would wean us from all the fake peace sources that we're engaging in now. I pray as a congregation that we would set them all aside and pursue Jesus Christ and His Word as our peace.

That these internet sites, that these fake comforts of food and clothing and cars and all these things, they would drop off our radar screens and we would be found at people who have one peace. Amen.