CW-C Easter 5 - Gospel Lesson –- Kieth Bernard Kuschel
John 13:31-35
(31) When he was gone, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. {32} If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once. {33} "My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. {34} "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. {35} By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
Soon people are leaving college and coming home.
People leave for the weekend each summer.
People leave for several weeks for vacation.
People come back from summer and then some leave for college. Today
Let’s Talk about Leaving
1. Everybody is doing it
2. People still need to be loved
3. God still needs to be Glorified
Leaving
Let’s Talk about Leaving
I. Everybody is doing it
A. Jesus’ Situation
1. Upper Room
2. Physical separations near
3. Disciples can’t come
4. Concern for them
B. Our spiritual family
1. Headed for death
2. Concerned about left behind
C. Our earthly family
1. Parents are leaving
2. Children left behind
II. People will need to be Loved
A. Jesus’ loving actions
1. Taught truth
2. Taken care of needs
3. Willing to give up life
4. Wants us to love as He loves us
B. Our families
1. We train by loving others
2. Parents train children
3. Lovers direct people to Jesus
III. God needs to be Glorified
A. Jesus glorification of God
1. Successful result of work
2. Father declared praise of Son
3. God is praised because of Jesus
4. Disciples knew Jesus glorified God
B. Our glorification of God
1. Use of Word glorifies God
2. Lifestyle glorifies God
3. Leads others to glorify God
Recap
I.A.1. It was Thursday evening. Jesus and His disciples were in the upper room. Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. He told His disciples that they ought to humbly serve others as He had just done. Judas left.
2. “My children,” Jesus then said, “I will be with you only a little longer.”{33} In a few hours He was taken captive. Several hours after that He died. For a few days He wasn’t physically with them at all. Then He rose. Forty days later He physically left this earth. He was right. He would truly only be with them for a little while.
3. “You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.” He had said these same things to the religious leaders of society. Now he told the disciples they couldn’t come. At least not until they would die. In one sense then He was saying “You can’t come to where I am going yet.” But in another sense He was saying, “You will never be able to come where I am going.” They could never go through suffering, death, and resurrection as Substitute and Savior.”
4. Why was Jesus reminding them that He was only going to be with them a little longer and that they wouldn’t be able to come where He was going? Because He was leaving. They had to be ready for it. He wanted their relationship with Him to be as strong as it needed to be so it would last through the time when they would be apart.
B.1. It is Sunday morning and we are here with our spiritual family. We feed on the Word of the Lord. We encourage each other to remain believers in Jesus the Savior. We encourage each other to live our lives to the Lord. We know of the constant threat that people will fall away from the Lord. We know that we won’t be here forever. Even if we don’t know the day of our death as Jesus did, we will die unless the Lord returns first. That will separate us from what we are experiencing now. It is all certain.
2. We know we are going to leave some people behind as Jesus did. Although we will be perfectly arrayed in the white robes of Jesus’ holiness, although we will have perfect fellowship with God, and although there will be no more death, mourning, crying or pain, we know the people left behind us will have to still struggle with all the things with which we have had to struggle in a sinful world. We are rightfully concerned about their well-being. Rightfully concerned about their ongoing relationship with the Lord. Rightfully concerned enough that we talk to each other about the time when we will no longer be here, as Jesus did with His disciples.
C.1. Everything which I just said is true of our earthly families. Children, whether we are 12 years old or 71 years old, can’t fathom life without our parents because we have never known life without our parents. They have always been there. As we are getting older, they are getting older. In the ordinary course of events, they will be leaving this earth first. We ought to be open about their leaving. That’s the way for them to be ready for it.
2. Parents, no matter how young or old you are, you most likely will be leaving first. We need to admit that inside ourselves. But we ought to be open about it to our children. And we ought to be concerned. Concerned that our children will be able to handle life without us. Concerned that they will continue their relationship with the Lord until the time that the Lord allows them to join us. We ought to be open about our leaving. That’s the way for them to be ready for it.
IIA1 Jesus was talking about leaving. To those who would be left behind He said: {34}“A new command I give you: love one another.” How are we to do that? Jesus’ answer is: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” How had Jesus loved His disciples up to this point? By speaking to them God’s truth. He taught them (and by the way He teaches us through them) God’s Law so they and we know that we are sinful human beings. He taught them (and us through them) that God provides salvation through His love so that we might escape the punishment we deserve. Love is the attitude which drives someone to act for the benefit of someone else. Jesus loved His disciples & us. That was obvious from his teaching activity.
2. How had Jesus loved His disciples? He had taken care of all their needs. He provided them with forgiveness of sins to rescue them from the punishment they deserved because of their sins. He provided them with righteousness to cover them so they might be acceptable to God. He provided them with eternal life so they could continue to live even after they physically died. He provided them with what they needed to live on while they were on earth. He provided them with protection. He provided for them through miracles when necessary. Those are all actions that benefit. Jesus loved His disciples.
3. How had Jesus loved His disciples? He was willing to give Himself up for them. He was willing to give up the exercise of His power and glory as God, so He might live as our Substitute, be subject to the demands of the Law, keep it for us so he might give us His holiness. He was willing to give up His life as a payment to God for our sins, so that He might take away our guilt and provide us with forgiveness of sins and rescue from punishment. He was willing to give up His life so that He might conquer death and give us eternal life. All actions which benefit. Jesus loved His disciples.
4 To those who would be left behind He said, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” He wants us to love each other as He has loved us. He wants us to love each other by teaching each other God’s truth for the benefit of our souls. He wants us to take care of each other’s needs while we are on this earth. Why? Because He is leaving and He won’t be here to do those things for us so, we have to do them for each other. That’s not what He says. He says {35}“By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
B1. When we talk about leaving, what to do we talk about? How about the fact that there will be others to love. Are we training the people whom we are leaving behind to love others? How do we do that? By loving them as Jesus loved us. Will those whom we leave behind know the truth about themselves and the truth about Jesus Christ because we loved them enough to teach them those things? Will those whom we leave behind be able to recall that we were willing to do whatever was necessary to provide for their physical and spiritual needs while we were on this earth?
2. Will they then in turn love each other by doing the same things for each other that we did for them before we left? Children learn from their parents. Little girls & boys learn how to take care of babies by watching Mom. Little children learn how to love others by observing Mom and Dad love each other. Little children learn how to love others by observing how Mom and Dad love them.
3. Why do we want our children to love each other. Because we want them to mutually benefit each other. But there is another reason. We want people to know that they are Jesus’ disciples. We want people in the next generation to know Jesus so they can be with us in heaven with the Lord. We want those left behind when we leave to love others so we through them might love others by leading them to Jesus.
IIIA1 How could Jesus say in the first paragraph, {31}“Now is the Son of man glorified, “ when He knew that He was about to be crucified, die and be buried. That was very humbling and lowly. The problem is our perception. Jesus looked at the entire process of His work and always focused on the result. Jesus could say, “Now is the Son of Man glorified,” because now the process was about to start that would result in the successful completion of His work.
2 The result of His sufferings-death-resurrection-ascension activity was the Son of Man was glorified by the Father. Because of Jesus’ success up to this point in his life, and because of Jesus’ willingness to go ahead with the difficult work ahead of Him, the Father glorified Jesus. He was willing to say because of Jesus’ intentions to be crucified and rise, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Jesus says here, “That is about to happen again.”
3. But Jesus also says, “The Father is glorified in me.” Because Jesus carried out the Father’s plan, it is correct to say, “God is great and good for having this plan and sending Jesus to carry it out.” That is glorification of the Father. It is done because Jesus successfully completed His work. That is why Jesus said, “Now is the Father gloried in the Son.” The greatest work on account of which we praise God is - the work of Jesus, the work He was about to start and the work that would reach its climax in the resurrection.
4. What did Jesus talk about with those whom He would leave behind? Glorification of God. The disciples always knew that Jesus was doing what He was doing because He was doing the Father’s will. That meant the Father and His will were important to Jesus. That is what glorification is, isn’t it. Saying with your mouth and with your life - God is great and God is good. He is worth everything to me.
B1 What do we communicate to those whom we are leaving behind? Glorification of God. When people watch us, what do they see? Praising the Father and the Son? When our children observe us in our homes, do they see us talk to the Lord and listen to Him talk to us in His word. Does that say to them, “God is important to us?” When our children watch us take time out every week to worship with our brothers and sisters in the faith, does that say to them: “God is great and God is good. He is worth everything to me.” When our children watch us study the Word with brothers and sisters in the faith, does that say to them: “God is valuable. I need to know as much about Him as possible.” If we are not listening to God talk to us on a regular basis, won’t they conclude that God isn’t really very important? Are we then glorifying God?
2 When our children and others watch us, do they see us saying “God is great and God is good" by the way we live our lives? When they hear us talk, and when they watch us live, do they learn that we are doing what we are doing in the way that we are doing it because God wants us to speak and live that way? That is giving glory to God, isn’t it. That’s saying, “God is so important to me that I want to do everything his way because He has given me forgiveness, righteousness and eternal life.” If that is not what our actions are saying, then we aren’t glorifying God.
3. Children in the neighborhood seldom know the adults in the neighborhood. They judge the parents by the children. If my child is a good friend and a decent human being in the eyes of the other children, I am judged to be OK. If my child is a jerk in the eyes of the other children, I also am a jerk. How can we expect the people who are learning from us to think the heavenly Father is great and good? How can we expect those whom we are going to leave behind to live their lives to the glory of God, if they learned from me that God isn’t important or worthy of my praise? Let’s remember that love for somebody means we lead them to live their lives to glory of God.
Let’s talk about leaving. Everybody is doing it. But there will always be people here to love. And God will always need to be glorified.