#56 - THE RULER OF THIS WORLD HAS NO CLAIM ON JESUS

#56 in the series AND WE BEHELD HIS GLORY - Studies in John’s Gospel
It’s been a little while, but we’re continuing our study of the sermon of Jesus to His disciples immediately on the heels of the troubling events of chapter 13. In that chapter Jesus again stressed the nearness of His departure from His disciples. And that departure would be by His death by execution on a Roman cross. He then told these followers that one of His own inner circle would betray Jesus. So His own community of believers wasn’t as loyal as it might first appear. Finally, He told Peter that he would deny His Lord three times that very night. It was an evening full of material for “troubled hearts.”
Then, after Judas leaves to activate the betrayal, the whole tone of Jesus’ remarks changes - “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me”(14:1). Jesus is teaching to build hope. We studied the “place” Jesus said He would be preparing for them. They could pin their hopes on Jesus as the “way, and the truth, and the life”(6). There were mighty promises - promises that seemed too good to be true - about how Jesus would respond to them in mighty answers to prayer that His name would be proclaimed to the world and the Father would receive great glory (12-14).
And the Spirit would be given. The Holy Spirit would be Jesus Himself coming inside them in a special way - 18 - “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” Jesus unfolds the mystery of the Trinity. In the Spirit’s coming Jesus was coming. In ways too great for their present comprehension their very beings would become the same kind of home for the triune God that the Son would be preparing for them eternally.
In today’s text Jesus summarizes the net effect of all these wonderful words. Yes, He was leaving them. And yes, they would soon scatter and dessert Jesus. In fact, Jesus tells them in advance not one of them will stay faithfully by His side.
And yet our Lord pronounced a deep, profound peace upon this hapless band in the opening words of our text.
Can this possibly work? How can this depth of inner peace - not just psychological peace of mind, but a profound spiritual peace produced by the Holy Spirit - how can this kind of resource be theirs in such trying times? That’s the topic of today’s teaching.