John 14: Jesus Has Not Left You an Orphan

Introduction

Have you ever asked yourself why Jesus isn't here with us right now? Why doesn't he walk beside us and speak to us directly, the way he did with his disciples in the Gospels? He rose from the dead, but he went up to the Father instead of staying on earth. Has he abandoned us?

Finn, a pastor in training at Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh, opens his sermon on John 14:15-31 with exactly this question. If you've ever wondered the same thing, you're not alone: the disciples wondered it too. "Lord, where are you going? Why can't we follow you? What will we do without you?" After three years with him, just when they thought the kingdom was about to be established in Jerusalem, Jesus talks to them about leaving, and even about dying.

So on the eve of his death, Jesus gathers them for a meal. He wants to comfort them, reassure them and give them courage. And his message is more than "hold on, I'm coming back." He tells them: I am not abandoning you, I am giving you another Counselor.

Outline of the Message

1. Another Counselor, Called Alongside You

In verse 16, Jesus promises that the Father will give "another Counselor, that he may be with you forever." He is leaving, but he is sending someone just like him in his place: the Spirit of truth.
The word can be translated in several ways: helper, comforter, counselor, advocate. It literally means "one called alongside." Someone who comes to stand beside you to help you, comfort you, advise you and plead for you.
This other Counselor is the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, God himself.
Perhaps you have heard a lot about the Father and the Son, and less about the Spirit. In this passage, Jesus is precisely directing our attention to the work of the Spirit in those who believe. Finn points out three things the Spirit makes possible.

2. With the Spirit, You Can Obey His Word

"If you love me, keep my commandments" (verse 15). When the teacher leaves the classroom and the children are left alone, Finn says, "it's carnage": the rules go out the window. Jesus wants his disciples to remember that even after he is gone, loving Jesus means obeying him.
He repeats it throughout the passage: verse 21, verse 23, and the opposite in verse 24: "He who doesn't love me doesn't keep my words."
Simple? Not really. "I haven't always done everything Jesus told me to do," the preacher admits. What makes obedience hard is our own sinful, rebellious heart.
These verses seem to set conditions: obey, then receive the Spirit, be loved by the Father, see God come to us. Is Jesus saying that God loves us only if we love him first? Of course not. The whole Bible says it: we love him because he loved us first (1 John 4:19).
The Greek literally says: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." It is less a command than a description of reality. "It's not the condition for becoming a Christian, it's the definition of a Christian."
If we obey, it is only because the Spirit is in us. Obedience does not depend on our efforts or our natural moral strength. God had promised it in Ezekiel 36:26-27: "I will also give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit within you [...] I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes."
And it is the Spirit again who teaches us what Jesus asks: he "will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you" (verse 26). He teaches, then he gives the strength to obey.
"God is not a harsh examiner who sets the hardest possible test to make us fail. He wants us to succeed." He gives the answers and the strength to put them into practice. Our obedience won't be perfect, but it will be possible. It is neither a burden nor a way to earn God's love: it overflows from his love for us and our love for him.

3. With the Spirit, You Can Taste His Presence

This is the heart of the passage. The disciples' great fear is being cut off from Jesus. Yet the Spirit will remain with them "forever" (verse 16).
Even better, in verse 17: "he lives with you, and will be in you." The Spirit was already with the disciples, since Jesus, filled with the Spirit, lived among them. But he was not yet in them. "It's better for God's Spirit to be in you, and not only with you."
Stronger still: it is the triune God, Father, Son and Spirit, who is present in you. "In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you" (verse 20). "In a way I don't fully understand," Finn confesses.
In verse 22, Judas (not Judas Iscariot, John is careful to specify) asks his question. It is more about the "how": how will Jesus show himself to the disciples and not to the world? The disciples were expecting a conquering Messiah, visible to all, before whom the whole world would bow the knee.
Jesus' answer in verse 23: "we will come to him, and make our home with him." The moment you believe in Jesus and receive the Spirit, the triune God makes his home in you.
At the beginning of the chapter, Jesus said he was going to prepare a place in the Father's house. While the disciples wait to go and live with God, God comes to live with them. "We are already living with God."
It is easy to reduce the Christian life to waiting: Jesus has gone, he will return, we have to hold on. The future home with God in the new creation will be the best of all. But you can taste his presence right now, and it is strange not to.

4. Don't Walk Past the Kitchen Without Stopping

Finn offers an image. You are a student and your best friend, who is very wealthy, shares your apartment. He invites you to spend the whole summer after exams at his family's vacation home on a Greek island. Instead of studying, all you can think about is the moment you step off the plane into 30-degree heat and dive into the blue sea.
Now imagine that during all the months before, you completely ignore this friend who lives with you. You walk through the kitchen to grab your meal and go back to your room. You never sit down to talk. You end up forgetting he lives there.
"It would be tragic to spend all that time thinking about the vacation, and no time getting to know the one who knows you and loves you best." How much more tragic if it is your relationship with God, who has moved into your home.
Jesus doesn't say this so that the disciples will be well informed in theology, but to comfort them. It's not about saying a quick "thank you, God, for being with us" and moving on: he wants you to rejoice in his presence.
Finn warns against putting too much emphasis on emotions, but he quotes John Calvin on verse 23: God's love is not put in second place, as if our devotion were its cause, but believers can be assured that obedience to the Gospel pleases God, and can expect new gifts from him continually, feeling his grace dwell in them and grow from day to day.
God doesn't love you more or less depending on how much you love him. But the more you seek to love him and obey him, the more you experience his love. "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you" (James 4:8).
The song Abide, sung during the service, draws on John 15: remaining in his love, depending on him. It is not passive. This is why Christians love the means of grace: the Word, prayer, the Lord's Supper. They don't change the fact that God lives in you, but they probably change how much you enjoy that fellowship.
It is true for the Church too: we are not singing to a distant God, hoping he hears. "Don't you know that you are a temple of God, and that God's Spirit lives in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16).

5. With the Spirit, You Can Know His Peace

In verse 27, Jesus describes the gift of the Spirit as a gift of peace: "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you; not as the world gives, give I to you." It is the Counselor who brings Jesus' peace into our hearts.
The world can talk about peace, but it cannot give it. It spends a great deal of time trying to end wars, and they don't end. Our country tries to fix politics and the economy, and to make people happy: it hasn't happened yet.
And you, where are you looking for peace? In the to-do list finally checked off and the Friday night in front of the television? In the position you're aiming for in your career? In retirement, when you can finally be done with it all? "How is that working out for you?"
"Don't let your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful." Said by just anyone to an anxious disciple, that would not be much help. But it is Jesus speaking to those he loves and to whom he has given the Spirit. If he could calm the storm and the waves with his word, he can do the same for us.
In Isaiah 44, read during the service, God says to his people: "Don't be afraid," and the reason given is: "I will pour my Spirit on your seed, and my blessing on your offspring" (Isaiah 44:2-3). God's peace is given to us by the Spirit.

6. A Peace Won at the Cross

In verse 28, Jesus says that if his disciples truly loved him and understood what he was about to do, they would not be terrified: they would rejoice, "for the Father is greater than I."
He is not saying he is not equal to the Father: he has already said "I and the Father are one" (John 10:30). He is speaking of God's eternal plan: through the incarnation, the humiliation, death on the cross for sinners, the resurrection and the ascension, God receives greater glory.
"The prince of the world comes" (verse 30): Satan, the accuser, looks at the cross hoping to win a great victory there. But it is the perfectly obedient Son, a better Adam, who gives himself in our place. "He has nothing in me": the accuser has no charge to bring against him. Through his death, Jesus wins the victory.
The result: "but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father commanded me, even so I do" (verse 31). The glory of God and the love of the Father, the Son and the Spirit are shown to the world.
For us, this means life. "I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you" (verse 18). Finn sees here the resurrection, when Jesus shows himself alive to the disciples: "Because I live, you will live also" (verse 19).
It also means peace: within ourselves, with one another, but first of all peace with God, when you come to Jesus by faith.

7. If This Is Not Yet True for You

The preacher puts it frankly: if you haven't come to Jesus by faith, nothing in this passage is true for you. You cannot obey his word, taste his presence or know his peace, because God's Spirit is not yet in you.
But all of this can become true, and will become true, the moment you put your trust in Jesus. All you need to do is come to him and ask for his forgiveness, his life and his Spirit. "He will come to you. He will make his home in you."
For brothers and sisters in Christ, Finn concludes: Jesus has not abandoned us, he is with us by the Spirit. This truth is here for your comfort and your joy, as you wait for his return and the future home with him.

Key Takeaways

Jesus did not abandon his disciples: he gave them another Counselor, the Spirit, "the one called alongside."
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments" is not the condition for becoming a Christian, it is the definition of a Christian. The Spirit teaches the word of Jesus and gives the strength to live it out.
The Father, the Son and the Spirit make their home in the one who believes. You can taste God's presence right now, not just wait for it.
Jesus' peace is nothing like the world's: it is given by the Spirit and won at the cross, where the accuser had no hold on him.
Because Jesus lives, those who belong to him will live too.

Personal Application

Do you sometimes feel alone or abandoned by God? What changes for you in knowing that the Spirit is "called alongside" you, and even in you?
Do you live obedience as an exam to pass in order to be loved, or as the fruit of God's love and the work of the Spirit in you?
Are you like the student who walks past the kitchen without stopping? What concrete moment can you set aside this week to draw near to God through the Word, prayer or the Lord's Supper?
Where are you looking for peace right now: in your to-do list, your career, retirement? What is keeping you from receiving the peace that Jesus gives?
Have you ever put your trust in Jesus and asked for his forgiveness, his life and his Spirit?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is Jesus no longer physically with us?

In John 14, Jesus explains to his disciples that he is leaving, but that he is not abandoning them. He asks the Father to give them another Counselor, the Spirit of truth, who remains with them forever and will be in them. For Finn, this is even better: God doesn't merely stay with us, he lives in us.

"If you love me, keep my commandments": is that a condition for being loved by God?

No. We can never earn God's love: we love him because he loved us first. The preacher stresses that the Greek literally says "you will keep my commandments." It is not the condition for becoming a Christian, it is the definition of a Christian, and it is the Spirit who makes this obedience possible.

What is the peace Jesus gives in John 14:27?

It is a peace the world cannot give: the world can talk about it, but not give it. This peace is brought by the Spirit and made possible by the death and resurrection of Jesus. It is first of all peace with God, then peace within ourselves and with one another.