mar 18-24-07 love

The Root Command:Love One Another

John 15:9-17 MSG “I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my

love. 10 If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in

my love. That's what I've done--kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love.

Love One Another

11 “I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy

might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. 12 This is

my command: Love one another the way I loved you.

Love One Another

13 This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. 14 You are my friends when you do

the things I command you. 15 I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard

from the Father.

Love One Another

16 “You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put

you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in

relation to me, he gives you.17 “But remember the root command: Love one another.

Persecution Predicted

John 16:1-33 MSG “I've told you these things to prepare you for rough times ahead.

Excommunicate you. The first persecutions were Jewish.

(PNT)


2 They are going to throw you out of the meeting places. There will even come a time when anyone who kills

you will think he's doing God a favor.Even so Saul of Tarsus thought while persecuting the saints. Fanaticism has

always held the slaughter of those who are deemed heretics to be

praiseworthy. (PNT)


3 They will do these things because they never really understood the

Father.Ignorance of the benevolence of God, and of the philanthropy of

Christ, is the grand fountain whence all religious persecution and intolerance proceed. (Clark)


4 I’ve told you these things so that when the time comes and they start in on you, you'll be well-warned and ready for

them.

The Friend Will Come

"I didn't tell you this earlier because I was with you every

day.He had made his instructions as

they were prepared to receive them, lesson by lesson. (PNT)


5 But now I am on my way to the One who sent me. Not one of you has asked, 'Where are

you going?' 6 Instead, the longer I've talked, the sadder

you've become.


To the Father, by way of the Cross, the Sepulcher, the Resurrection

and the Ascension. Not one of you has asked, 'Where

are you going? They had asked this question, but in the

stupefaction of their sorrow they had ceased to ask. (PNT)

The Promise of The Holy Spirit and His Office

7 So let me say it again, this truth: It's better for you that I leave. If I

don't leave, the Friend won't come. But if I go, I'll send him to you.What seemed then a crushing sorrow was a real blessing. His

mission could never be accomplished unless he went

away.

The Holy Spirit and His Office

If I don't leave, the Friend won't come. While Christ was present in person, in bodily form, the Holy Spirit, the representative of the

Godhead, could not come. Christ, as King, must send him, and on the

day of Pentecost Peter declared, "He hath shed forth the things ye

do see and hear."


8 “When he comes, he'll expose the error of the godless world's view of sin, righteousness, and

judgment:9 He’ll show them that their

refusal to believe in me is their basic sin


10 that righteousness comes from above, where I am with the Father, out of their sight

and control; 11 that judgment takes place as the ruler of this

godless world is brought to trial and convicted.


This is one of the passages most pregnant with thought in the profound discourses of Christ; with a few great strokes depicting all and every part of the ministry of the Holy Ghost in the world - His operation with reference to individuals as well as the mass, on

believers and unbelievers alike [Olshausen].


As all sin has its root in unbelief, so the most aggravated form of

unbelief is the rejection of Christ. The Spirit, however, in fastening this truth upon the conscience, does not extinguish, but, on the contrary, does consummate and intensify, the sense of all other

sins. (JFB)


12 “I still have many things to tell you, but you can't handle them

now.In illustration of these three points, Christ had many things to say; but he found that his disciples could

only bear general truths;


yet, in saying what he did, he sowed the seeds of the whole system of

theological knowledge, and heavenly wisdom, which the Holy

Spirit of this truth afterwards watered and ripened into a glorious

harvest of light and salvation, by the ministry of the apostles.

The Holy Spirit and His OfficeDr. Lightfoot supposes that the things which the

apostles could not bear now were such as these:

1. The institution of the Christian Sabbath, and the abolition of the Jewish.

2. The rejection of the whole Jewish nation, at the very time in which they expected to be

set up and established for ever.3. The entire change of the whole Mosaic

dispensation, and the bringing the Gentiles into the Church of God. (Clark)


13 But when the Friend comes, the Spirit of the Truth, he will take you by the hand and guide you into all

the truth there is. - He will consider your feeble infant state; and, as a father leads his child by the hand, so will the Holy Spirit

lead and guide you.


He won't draw attention to himself, - He shall teach nothing contrary to

what I have taught you:but will make sense out of what is about to happen and, indeed, out of all that I have done and said.


He will fully explain every thing that may now appear dark or difficult to

you; will give you such a knowledge of futurity as shall, in all necessary cases, enable you to foretell future

events; and shall supply every requisite truth, in order to make the

new covenant revelation complete and perfect. (Clark)


14 He will honor me; he will take from me and deliver it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is also mine. That is why I've said, 'He takes from me

and delivers to you.'

Christ's Departure and Return

16 “In a day or so you're not going to see me, but then in another day

or so you will see me."17 That stirred up a hornet's nest of

questions among the disciples: "What's he talking about: 'In a day or so you're not going to see me, but then in another day or so you

will see me‘?


And, 'Because I'm on my way to the Father'? 18 What is this 'day or so'? We

don't know what he's talking about."On the morrow he would die, be buried, and for "a little while" they would not see him; then he would rise, and for another

"little while," a space of forty days before "he went to his Father," they would see

him while he remained on the earth.


When he ascended to his Father, they, in a spiritual sense,

would "see him coming in the kingdom of God." (PNT) they

knew his words, but not his meaning. (Gill)


19 Jesus knew they were dying to ask him what he meant,

This is a proof of Christ's deity, that he is the omniscient God who knows all things,

what is in man, even the secrets of the heart; for he not only knew the

whisperings of the disciples, and their inquiries among themselves about the

sense of his words, but also their secret desires to ask him concerning it:


so he said, "Are you trying to figure out among yourselves what I

meant when I said, 'In a day or so you're not going to see me, but

then in another day or so you will see me'? which he said before they could put the question to him, they

being bashful, and backward, through fear or shame;


and which not only confirms what is before observed of his

omniscience, but also shows his readiness to open his mind and meaning, and explain himself to his disciples, as he does in the

following words. (Gill)


20 Then fix this firmly in your minds: You're going to be in

deep mourning while the godless world throws a party.

You'll be sad, very sad, but your sadness will develop into

gladness.


How sad were the broken-hearted disciples, as they wept at the tomb!

At the same time their enemies were gloating over their triumph. Soon all was changed, for your sorrow but your sadness will

develop into gladness.


The glad news came, "The Lord is risen!" Then they heard that "all power was his," saw him

ascend into heaven, and "returned to Jerusalem with

great joy." (PNT)


21 “When a woman gives birth, she has a hard time, there's no getting around it. But when the baby is born, there is joy in the

birth. This new life in the world wipes out memory of the

pain.


22 The sadness you have right now is similar to that pain, but the

coming joy is also similar. When I see you again, you'll be full of joy, and it will be a joy no one can rob from you. 23 You’ll no longer be

so full of questions.


Now our Lord, by this instance, illustrates the sorrow his disciples should have by his departure, and

the joy that they should be possessed of upon his return to

them; that as the pains of a woman in travail are very sharp and

severe, and the distress of her mind,


about the issue of things respecting herself and offspring, is very great, so would be the grief and trouble of the disciples on account of the

death of their Lord and master: but as when a woman is safely

delivered of a man child, she is so filled with joy,


that her sorrow is remembered no more so should it be with them, when Christ should appear to

them; all their trouble, concern, anxiety of mind, and fears, that attended them, would all vanish

away, and they be distressed with them no more. (Gill)

Encouragement to Prayer

"This is what I want you to do: Ask the Father for whatever is in keeping with the things I've

revealed to you. 24 Ask in my name, according to my will, and he'll most certainly give it to you.

Your joy will be a river overflowing its banks!


Ye shall then be led, by that Spirit which guides into all truth, to consider me in

the character of Mediator in the kingdom of God, and to address your prayers to the Father in my name - in

the name of Jesus the Savior, because I have died to redeem you - in the name of Christ the Anointer, because I have ascended to send down the gift of the

Holy Ghost. (Clarke)


25 “I've used figures of speech in telling you these things. Soon I'll

drop the figures and tell you about the Father in plain language. 26 Then you can make your requests directly to him in relation to this life I've revealed to you. I won't continue making requests of the

Father on your behalf.


27 I won't need to. Because you've gone out on a limb,

committed yourselves to love and trust in me, believing I

came directly from the Father, the Father loves you directly.

Overcoming the World

28 First, I left the Father and arrived in the world; now I leave

the world and travel to the Father."

29 His disciples said, "Finally! You're giving it to us straight, in

plain talk--no more figures of speech


30 Now we know that you know everything--it all comes together in you. You won't have to put up with

our questions anymore. We're convinced you came from God."

31 Jesus answered them, "Do you finally believe?


32 In fact, you're about to make a run for it--saving your own skins and abandoning me. But I'm not abandoned. The Father

is with me.


33 I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be

unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you

will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I've

conquered the world."

mar 18-24-07 love

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