Intro: John Gives us Promises

This morning we enter one of the most important sections of Scripture. We're in John 14-16, the Bible's "Promise Mine." There is no other passage of the Bible, verse for verse, that has as many of God's promises for us as these three chapters. These are Jesus' words to his disciples in the Upper Room, just hours before he would be killed on the cross.

Our passage this morning, just fourteen verses, has, depending on how you cut them up, at least 20 separate promises! What's a promise? It's where Jesus gives us a covenant truth that we can count on for all time. These are what God has given us as his part of the covenant. They're each a little blank check of Good News about how God promises to relate to us. Look at verses 12-14, four promises:

1) 12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do;

2) and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.

3) 13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son;

4) 14 if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.

Those are four promises of the twenty in just 14 verses! That's part of the Bible's "Promise Mine."

This promise on prayer is extremely important for Jesus to get across. He repeats it twice here; in these three chapters he repeats it a total of seven times!* Each time the promise qualified a bit- we are to ask whatever we will- just so long as it glorifies the Father; It happens when Jesus' Words abide in us; It happens because Jesus is going away, and his name is the "password," the key we use to bring these requests to the Father.

Jesus is about to be killed, but in that last night together, his mind is entirely on his disciples - and us- and equipping us to live without him. Each of these explain how our relationship with God is to work.

I) Promises Show us the Father's Nature

Why does Jesus give us all these promises? Because each of these give us a way of learning to know our Heavenly Father better. Each of these promises is an open channel to the love and grace of God. Each of these promises are the terms of the covenant God is binding himself to us in Jesus. We'll look at that in a minute.

A promise teaches us something about the nature of the maker. There was once a very evil father. He took his little son to the park to play. He put the little fellow up on a piece of playground equipment and told the little guy to jump off and he'd catch him. It was pretty high, and the little guy was scared. The dad reassured him, go ahead, jump, I'll catch you. The little guy jumped, and the father stepped back and let him fall. The little fellow looked up with tears in his eyes. His dad said, "I just taught you the most important lesson of your life. Never trust anybody."

That little guy learned about the nature of his father, by how his father kept his word. So do we.

In a lifetime of following Jesus, abiding in his Word, seeking his will and asking God for what we understand is best, we learn the nature of our Father in Heaven. The whole nature of our Father is to live in a relationship of covenant love with us, with him interacting with us by keeping his promises. He has bound us to himself by his Word.

II) Promise/Gospel is About Covenant

This is not just a phenomenon in John 14-16. The archetype of God's action is that strange story from Genesis 15. See if you can make the connection with this strange story:

7 And he said to him, "I am the LORD who brought you from Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess." 8 But he said, "O Lord GOD, how am I to know that I shall possess it?" 9 He said to him, "Bring me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon."

10 And he brought him all these, cut them in two, and laid each half over against the other; but he did not cut the birds in two. 11 And when birds of prey came down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away. 12 As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram; and lo, a dread and great darkness fell upon him.... 17 When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between these pieces. 18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram.

What's the connection, Pastor? What Abraham was doing here, as he was well aware, was setting up a covenant ceremony. Four thousand years ago in the middle east, if a strong king defeated a weaker king, the stronger king imposed a covenant on the weaker. The weaker had nothing to say about it. He made promises to the stronger king, promised give money yearly, send troops when needed, etc. The stronger king promised to protect the weaker king as well. They were bound to each other in the covenant ceremony. The defeated king then killed a bunch of animals, cut them in half, and he and his leaders and troops marched between the halves of the cut-up animals. It symbolized that if they broke this covenant- they were, like the animals, "dead meat."

In the Abraham text, Abraham sets up the sacrificial animals, like the losing king, but amazingly, overwhelmingly, GOD takes the loser's hike! God makes the promise, and binds himself to Abraham! God, through a covenant, binds himself to Abraham and his family forever, completely as an act of grace. The God who created the universe binds himself as a gift to Abraham, and to us, his descendants by faith. This is the greatest and most perfect anticipation of the cross, which wouldn't come for another 2,000 years! This story is as far before Jesus as we are after him! God keeps his promises for all time!

So, covenant promises are the key to God's covenant love, his "chesed" love we've talked about so many times. God binds himself to us, with promises. Here's the last point.

III The Gospel is Promise; Promises are the Gospel

God's promises are all Gospel. As we talk about how God's word works, we think of Law and Gospel. Law is God's moral demand. The Gospel is all promise. In fact, all the promises of the Bible are the Gospel being fleshed out. Every time you see a promise, even in the OT, you're looking at the Gospel, because all the promises are fulfilled in and through Jesus. Even those promises made to Abraham about descendants, in Genesis 15 are ultimately fulfilled in and by Jesus. We are Abrahams' descendants, through faith in Jesus. That and every other promise in the Bible is fulfilled ultimately because of who Jesus is, because in Jesus, God most fully and perfectly binds himself, gives himself to us; and all the other promises all come down to Jesus. The Gospel is all promise; the promises are all Gospel. To be Gospel means to be God's promise coming to us, breaking in on us in the work of Jesus.

Let's hear a promise: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16) That's the whole Gospel. That's all promise. Every time we hear what Jesus has done for us, it's a promise. "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom 5:1) That's the Gospel. That's a promise. How about Romans 10:9:

"Because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Every time you hear the Gospel, it will take the form of a promise. It's the same promise as God binding himself to Abraham. It's grace. It's a gift. It's free. It's God binding himself, by his word, to you. These are personal promises, to you.

So, let's look for promises in the rest of our John text: 15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. 18 "I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me; because I live, you will live also. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

And so, with these words of promise, we come to the close of our year-long adventure in John's Gospel. John sums up his Gospel with these words: John 20:31

But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John's Gospel, and all of God's Word, is written so that you may believe. Notice that that, too, is a promise?

All of this is written, so that the living God may bind himself to you. So that he can give you the gift of eternal life as a free gift; because he loves you. And that's a promise. Amen. Invitation.

*John 14:13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

John 14:14 If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.

John 15:7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

John 15:16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.

John 16:23 On that day you will ask nothing of me. Very truly, I tell you, if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.

John 16:24 [24] Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

John 16:26-27 On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; [27] for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.