Please turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John chapter 14. We will be reading verses 15 through the end of the chapter. 15 through 31. John 14, 15 through 31. Hear now the word of the Lord. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper that he may be with you forever. That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will disclose myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, what then has happened that you are going to disclose yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. You have heard that I said to you, I go away. and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe. I will not speak much more with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded me. Get up and let us go from here. Let us pray and ask the Lord to bless the preaching of His Word. Our Heavenly Father, we pray that You would indeed bless the preaching of Your Word, that You would instruct us, that You would teach us, Lord God, by Your Holy Spirit, knowing that it is by His illuminating work that we can understand Your Word, that we can receive it as Your truth, and by whom we can obey Your truth. So, please help us, Lord God. Bless your people. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So, a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the command for believers to love one another, and we have already seen the love that Jesus has for His own. that Jesus' love was demonstrated by washing their feet, by teaching them, by instructing them, being patient with them. And then ultimately we see his love in a few hours from this event, as he goes to the cross and lays down his life for his people. And it is that kind of sacrificial love that the Lord commands his disciples to have for one another. But Jesus continues in this chapter, this theme of love. But this time, the focus is on how we then are not just to love one another, but how disciples, how believers are to love Jesus. He gives them this as he continues to give them instructions on how they are to conduct themselves in his absence. They will have to keep all, everything that He commanded them to keep, all of His commands. They would have to teach others everything that He taught them. And this would be very important for them, but also for us, that during this time of His absence, Jesus commands us to love Him by obeying Him, but not only by, not only commanding us to obey Him, but giving us the ability to do so. There are many people who say they love Jesus. But what does that look like? What does it mean to love Jesus? And this is what this text deals with this morning. It is how we are to love Jesus. But we also see here in this text that there are also many benefits and blessings that Jesus comforts his disciples with in this section. But by what means would they be able to carry all of this out? By what means are we able to carry out all that Jesus has commanded us? and what will be the result of faithfully carrying out our duties, our tasks, our obedience to Christ. And this is what we will see this morning. We will see that our love for Jesus ought to be seen in our obedience to Him, aided by and blessed by the Holy Spirit. So how do we see this in our text this morning? First, we see this in how Jesus defines true love for him. So the first thing that we see is love for Jesus defined by obedience. Love for Jesus defined by obedience. And regarding this obedience, we see secondly, obedience to Jesus aided by the Holy Spirit. Obedience to Jesus aided by the Holy Spirit. And as believers, who love and obey Jesus, we see that there are blessings that are promised to them. And so the third and final thing that we see in our text is comforts to believers mediated by the Holy Spirit. Comforts to believers mediated by the Holy Spirit. So let us look at our first point this morning for love for Jesus defined by obedience. So this section here begins with Jesus' words, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. This is the main theme that runs throughout this section and onto one of the main themes that runs into the next chapter as well. Jesus is focusing again now on our relationship to Him. And there is also going to be an emphasis on the coming and role of the Holy Spirit. But what Jesus says regarding the Holy Spirit, and what Jesus says regarding His role, His coming and His role, is connected to this statement, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. We see this in that this section, Jesus is going back and forth explaining on the one hand, the coming and role of the Holy Spirit. And on the other hand, there is a version of this statement, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, being repeated and expounded upon. We see this in verse 15, the love and obedience. Verses 16 through 20, the coming of the Holy Spirit. Verses 21 through 24, again, the idea of love and obedience. And then 26 through 27, the coming of the Holy Spirit. But the main focus here is on our love for Jesus and how that looks like, or what that looks like. Jesus here is not so much commanding that we obey, although it is a command, but he is defining what true love looks like. Again, there are many people who say, I love Jesus. They claim to be disciples and followers of Jesus. And they may even attend church services faithfully, but in their personal lives, they do not know or follow the teachings of Jesus. And we may be tempted to, at this point, to separate love and obedience. To say it's one thing to love Jesus, it's another thing to obey Jesus. But the problem is that Jesus does not do that. He does not separate them. Yes, we can distinguish between love and obedience, but we do not separate them. True love for Jesus will always result in obedience to Jesus. This is the nature of true and godly love. And we see a couple of examples of this. First, the father is an example of active love. How do we know, for example, that the father loves us? He has sent his only begotten son to be crushed for our iniquities, to be the propitiation for our sins. God's love was not an emotion. It was the act of His will to give to us all things in Christ through His Son, all the blessings through His Son, salvation. Jesus is an example of active love. Again, how do we know that Jesus loves us? He demonstrated His love to His disciples by His actions. But most importantly and decisively, He demonstrated His love for us on the cross by being obedient even to the death or to His death, the death on the cross. In verse 31, Jesus demonstrates this principle and the relation between love and obedience when He says, so that the world may know that I love the Father I am overwhelmed by emotion during worship songs. Is that what he says? Because I know a lot of people are, you know, they go to certain churches and they're just all full of emotion. They're crying because of the music. But is that how the world's going to know that Jesus loves the Father? No. So that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded me. So His love for the Father is demonstrated in His obedience to the Father. Everything that the Father sent Him to do, He did perfectly. And this is how we know that Jesus loves the Father. It is His obedience. And this is how the world will know how we love one another. Remember how we said a couple of weeks ago, how will the world know that we love one another? We are His disciples. It is through our actions. So in the same way, our love for Jesus should evidence itself by our obedience to Him, to His commandments. He says in verse 15, again, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. In verse 21, he who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. Verse 23, Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. In verse 26, I'm sorry, that's not in 26. But in these three verses, we see that if anyone loves Christ, his love will be demonstrated, will flow out in obedience to his word, to his commandments. So this is how our love for him is defined. And it is similar to the relationship between faith and works. How do we know that a person has true, genuine faith? By their works. That is how we know that a person believes. Similarly, how do we know that a person loves Jesus by his obedience to him? You can't say that you love the Lord and not obey his commandments. Now, if this is true, if the one who loves the Lord also obeys the Lord, then what is also true is that the one who does not obey the Lord does not love him. And this is exactly what Jesus says. that the one who does not obey Him, the one who does not keep His commandments, that person does not love Jesus. So the true test of love to Christ is not the amount of emotion we think we have toward Jesus. It is not how emotional we get during worship service. The true test of love for Christ is, are we obeying Him? Are we loving one another as He commanded us to love one another? Are we gathering together on Sunday mornings to listen to Christ's Word being preached? Are we keeping His commandment to keep this day holy, not just come faithfully to worship God with His people, but in our homes, to worship the Lord with our family privately in our homes? It is amazing that A lot of people do reject this idea of the Lord's Day being a day set apart to worship the Lord. They're happy going to church on Sunday mornings, but they want the rest of the day for themselves. I don't understand, right? We have one day that the Lord has given us, right? We're people that claim that we are longing for the day when the Lord returns, when we're able to be with Him forever and worship Him forever. And He says, until then, I will give you one day to worship Me all day. So you can set aside your work, your worldly cares, and worship Me this day. And people say, oh, but do I have to give up this and that? Or what about this? And they make excuses not to worship the Lord. They'll go to church on Sunday mornings, and then the rest of the day, they do whatever they want. But the Lord has given us a day for worshiping Him, learning about Christ and what He's done for us, and keeping that day holy. And all His commandments that He has given us, are we obeying His commandments? This is the true test of love. And it is because of love then that we ought to obey. I remember having a conversation with my mom years ago, this was when my grandpa was still alive, and I was having a conversation about her about a similar subject, the relationship between works and salvation, that we don't work to earn our salvation, that our works flow out of the fact that we are saved, that we love God, we're thankful and grateful that He has saved us. And so what I told her was my mom would often visit my grandfather who lived like a few minutes away. She would often go to his house and visit him, spend time with him, talk with him, help him out financially even. She would give him money and just spend time with him. So I asked her, why do you do that? Why do you go to your dad's house and spend time with him, you help him, even financially, why do you do that? And she would say, well, because he's my father. I'm like, oh, OK, but but why do you do that, though? There's people that have fathers and they don't they don't do that. You know, they even treat them horribly. But why? Why do you do that? And finally, she said, well, because I love him. So it was because she loved her father that she wanted to spend time with him, that she wanted to help him. She wanted to do things for him. And I'm sure that if he would have told her to go to the store, do this or do that for him, she would have done it because she loved him. And in the same way, if we love God and He commands us to do certain things, He gives us His word that we ought to obey, then out of love, we should obey. If we love Him, we will obey. So love is the true motive for obedience. And obedience is the true outworking of love. Have you ever done something that you absolutely hate doing? Now compare that to something that you love to do, right? If you try to do something that you hate doing, and it's gonna be a burden, you're not gonna want to do it, you're gonna feel like a slave, like forcing yourself to do something that you absolutely hate doing. That's what it is, that's what it's like if you do not love the Lord. Keeping his commandments will be burdensome. children let's say that you were playing video games or you're playing with your best friend so you have that on the one hand and then your chores on the other right if if you're if you're playing with your best friend or your best your video games You're having fun and your parents say, okay, stop what you're doing and do your chores. You're going to be disappointed. Oh, I have to do chores, right? But if you were doing chores and your parents said, hey, stop what you're doing. Your best friends here go and play or you know what? Stop what you're doing and go play your video games. You would stop in a second to go do those things because you love to do. You love to play, hang out with your friends, video games. So the things you love to do. Well, again, the same way that love, love for God, true love for God will always result in obedience and true obedience will always come from love. Because when there is no love there, then His commandments are burdensome to us. And sadly, many people do external obedience out of guilt, fear, a sense of duty, And there is no true love for God there. But again, this is not the proper motive for obedience to just do it out of fear, guilt, or, well, you know, Bible says it, I'm going to do it. Yes, the Bible says it, but is there love there? Love, again, should be the motive for our obedience. And this has always been the case. True motivation for obedience to God's commandments, what moves us and enables us to obey, has always been love. And the true expression of love for God has always been obedience. We saw that in the scripture readings this morning of the law, Deuteronomy 6, 5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. He says this in the context of his law, right? He gives them the law and then he says, you need to love me. If you're going to keep my commandments, you need to love me. And the sad reality that we see in the history of Israel is because they did not love God, and they loved other gods, or Solomon loved women, because of their love for other things and not their love for God, they disobeyed God's commandments. That's the story of Israel. It's one of disobedience because they did not love God. They were commanded to love him, they were commanded to obey him, but they did not love him and therefore there was no obedience. So love then is defined by obedience. True love must result in obedience and true obedience must flow out of love. But as we mentioned, this command was to love God and obey His commandments is not new. It's found in the Old Testament as well. Yet again, we see the sad history of Israel of their disobedience. So how can we, in the New Covenant, be assured that we will do any better? What guarantees that we will not be like Israel in the Old Testament? It is because of the gift of God to His people in the New Covenant, and that is the helper that He gives us. And this brings us to our second point, obedience to Jesus aided by the Holy Spirit. So in the New Covenant, we have a benefit that not all members in the Old Covenant had. And I say members because I want to distinguish between the members of the Old Covenant and the believers in the Old Covenant. Not all members in the Old Covenant had this benefit. Jesus tells us, His disciples, that He would not leave them orphans, but that He would ask the Father, and the Father would send them the Holy Spirit. So there is a sense in which the Holy Spirit is coming. That He wasn't here, but He is coming. Furthermore, He says that the Holy Spirit will be in them. But again, the question in context of Old Testament believers and the disciples here, aren't these disciples true believers who have the Holy Spirit in them? And weren't there Old Testament believers as well who had the Holy Spirit? Well, the answer is yes, that is the case. The disciples were indeed born from above, regenerated by the Holy Spirit, and did have the Spirit of God. And we must also affirm that any person, that the Old Testament saints also had, were saved in the same way, and also had the Holy Spirit dwelling in them. They were saved and justified in the same way that we are in the New Covenant. What Jesus here is speaking of as the Holy Spirit coming, is that there is a transition that is about to take place from the old covenant to the new. There is a new, we can say the era of the new covenant, the era of grace, when God is establishing a new covenant, which he prophesied in the Old Testament, a new covenant. where He will write His law in the hearts of His people, and He will cause them to obey. Now, how does He ensure that? Again, by the Holy Spirit. In the history of salvation, the Holy Spirit has had various distinct operations. There has been the regenerating and indwelling operation of the Holy Spirit. And it is by this operation that anyone who has ever been saved or who will ever be saved in the Old Testament and even now, this is the operation that has been common. The Holy Spirit has saved people by applying the work of Christ to them. and indwelling in them, or indwelling them. But there was also the Spirit's special anointing and equipping operation, in which He would set aside certain individuals and equip them to fulfill specific tasks. We see this in the building of the tabernacle in the Old Testament, and even in the Holy Spirit anointing and equipping Jesus for His ministry. So when the Spirit comes upon Jesus, That's the equipping operation of the Holy Spirit to equip Jesus for His ministry. But thirdly, throughout salvation history, at the beginning of major epochs in salvation history, When God is about to do something new and something big in the movement of salvation history, there is an outpouring or outworking of the Holy Spirit upon God's people. And this is done to equip them for their ordinary tasks that will be involved, but also to perform extraordinary tasks. And this is what is about to take place here and the significance of the Spirit's coming. The coming of Jesus and now his departure through his death, burial and resurrection is the climax of all salvation history. The old covenant is coming to an end and there is a transition taking place from the types and the shadows of the Old Testament to their fulfillment in Christ, in the new covenant. The old covenant is being done away with and the new covenant has come and will be ratified through the blood of Jesus. So the era of the new covenant church is about to begin. And Jesus is promising not only to give the disciples the Holy Spirit, but his church, his people, the members of the new covenant. And they will need this, the disciples will need this to do all the things that God will command them to do as the apostles, right? As those who lay down the foundation of the church, which is Jesus Christ. They will need a helper. And so the spirit here is mentioned as a helper. He is another helper and the spirit of truth. Twice Jesus calls the Holy Spirit a helper. And the first time he does so, he says another helper. another besides himself. The word helper in the Greek means comforter, helper, advocate, or mediator. It speaks of his office in the new covenant, a covenant which Jesus just established during the Lord's Supper and will be ratified with his blood on the cross. So Jesus has been helping the disciples, he has been bringing them along his side and teaching them, and he has been teaching them the truth. about God, about who He is, and about their salvation, about that He is the Christ, Son of God, and that salvation is through Him and Him alone. He has been teaching them the truth about Him being the only way to the Father, as we saw last week. He is the light that has come into the darkness, and to encounter this darkness, requires a response. He is not neutral. The truth of who Jesus is and what he is and what he has done requires a response. And there's only two ways to respond. You either respond positively by receiving Christ, believing who he is, or you reject it. And in this way, the Holy Spirit is another helper and the Spirit of truth. It is this truth about Jesus Christ that He will help the disciples with. He will bring to their remembrance all that He taught them. It is the truth that requires a response. It requires obedience to it. So the Spirit would be the help that they would need in order to obey all that He had commanded them to do. But this promise of the Holy Spirit is not just for the disciples. Yes, some of the tasks and duties that they were equipped to do are only for them. There's no more apostles that exist. But because this coming of the Holy Spirit is connected to the new covenant, it is a promise to new covenant members. The great benefit that we have in this covenant is that the promise of the Holy Spirit is for every member of the New Covenant. And this means that every member of the New Covenant has experienced the love of Jesus expressed in His laying down His life for them. It is the love of God the Father in sending His Son, and the love of Jesus in laying down His life for His people, that then produces the love in us that is necessary to be obedient and obey the commandments of Jesus. This is something that Old Covenant believers were not guaranteed, or I'm sorry, Old Covenant members, I should say, believers were, but not all Old Covenant members were guaranteed. Again, this does not mean that the Old Testament saints did not have the Holy Spirit, but in the Old Covenant, The Mosaic Covenant, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the giving of the Holy Spirit was not part of the covenant agreement. God commanded his people to love him, to obey all his statutes, but what was the indictment over and over again? They were a stiff-necked people, uncircumcised of the heart, meaning that they were not born again. They were not converted. The people stood or fell before God by their own performance, their keeping of the law. Later, it was by their king that the people as a whole were judged before God. But as part of the covenant, there was no gift or giving of the Holy Spirit. But again, what about the Old Testament saints? If it's not part of the Old Covenant, what about the Old Testament saints? Well, they were saved by virtue of another covenant. They were born from above and had the Holy Spirit by virtue of the benefits of a covenant that would come later. A covenant that has Jesus Christ as its mediator. This covenant is the new covenant which Jeremiah and other prophets foretold. It is the covenant in view in the book of Hebrews. The reason why it is a better covenant, the new covenant is a better covenant, is because Jesus is the mediator of this new covenant. And we need to know that the author does not say that Jesus is the mediator of part of the covenant, of the new covenant. He is not just a mediator of some in the new covenant. He is the mediator assigned in this covenant, the new covenant. So it's not just in part, but in whole. He is the mediator of this covenant. And what this means is that all the members of this new covenant have Jesus Christ as their mediator and guarantor. All the benefits of the new covenant are theirs. And that includes the New Covenant ministry and role of the Holy Spirit. This is the great benefit that we have in the New Covenant. So if you're a believer, a member of the New Covenant, you have this other helper. God has given you this gift to help you to ensure that you will not fall away into perdition. to ensure that you will persevere, even though your obedience may not be perfect. But He will cause you, because the Holy Spirit dwells in you, He will cause you to obey, to be obedient to His commandments. Because again, what is the motivation for obedience? It's love. And the only way we can have love is to experience the love of Christ for Him dying for us on the cross. And again, the believers in the old covenant, in the old Mosaic covenant, were saved, but again, not because of that covenant, but because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. This is what the author of Hebrews clearly states. He says that the law, the things contained in the Old Covenant, were only shadows of good things to come and not the very form of the things. And therefore they could never, by those same sacrifices which are offered continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near. It is by the sacrifice and precious blood of the Lamb of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, the blood of the new covenant, the offering of his body once for all that we have forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. So again, this is the blessing that we have in the new covenant. So aside from this blessing though, we're given this command or this defining love that if we love God or we love Jesus, we will obey. And God has given us this gift of the Holy Spirit to comfort us, to guide us, to enable us to obey. But there are also comforts that we can receive from not only the Holy Spirit, but mediated by the Holy Spirit as we love and obey Jesus. And this brings us to our third and final point, comforts to believers mediated by the Holy Spirit. So there are benefits and comforts to those who truly love Jesus Christ. This is partly why Jesus says in verse 28, if you loved me you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father. Going to Him is of great benefit and comfort to the disciples because in this way the Holy Spirit is given to them. But the primary reason Jesus says this is given at the end of verse 28, where he says, for the Father is greater than I. Now, this is not to be understood, as some do, that Jesus is not God or a lesser God. Jesus is speaking here in his humanity as the Messiah, the Son of David. We must remember that the Son has both a full and true divine nature and a full and true human nature. According to His human nature as the Christ who submits Himself to the Father, the Father is greater. But according to His divine nature as the Eternal Son, He is equal to the Father. The same in essence and equal in power and glory. But again, there are benefits and comforts to Him going back to the Father and Him sending the Holy Spirit and then us loving or obeying Christ out of love. We see this in verse 16, the Holy Spirit will be with believers forever. He says, I will ask of the Father and He will give you another helper that He may be with you forever. He will not only be with him for a short period of time. He will not just come and do something among them and then leave. No, because Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. He is giving us His Holy Spirit and He will remain with us and in us forever. But another blessing that we see here is that the Father and the Son will love them and make their dwelling in them. He says this in verse 21 and verse 23, that the Father and the Son will love Him, those that love Jesus, the Father and the Son will love Him and make their abode, their dwelling in them. There is a reciprocal nature to the love of a believer toward God and the love of God toward believers. And this is a true comfort for believers. To know that the Father and the Son will not only love us, but make their dwelling in us is such a great comfort. But it is through the Holy Spirit that they are with us. So in reality, we have the triune God making His dwelling in us. How comforting is that to a believer? That the Father and the Son dwell in us by the Holy Spirit, so we have the fullness of God dwelling in us by faith. So that whatever trial we experience, wherever we go, God is always with us. Right, and I said this last week that people had to travel during the time of Jesus' ministry. They had to travel sometimes long distances to go see Jesus, to hear from Jesus, to be in His presence. But because of His departure and ascending of the Holy Spirit, He is with us forever through the Holy Spirit. The Father is with us. So we can take comfort in that. However, as we consider this, that the father and the son will love us, there seems to be, or it kind of presents somewhat of a problem. The text seems to indicate that the father and the son loving the individual is a response to the love of the individual. that they are responding to our love. So in other words, we have to love them and then and only then will the Father and the Son love us and make their dwelling in us. So how do we resolve this issue? In John, in his epistle, he says that we love because he first loved us. So the reason why we love our brethren, the reason why we love God is because he first loved us. And he also says, in this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. So it is impossible then for Jesus to be saying here that we are the ones who first love Jesus and then, by loving him, only then will the Father and the Son love us. This would contradict what John explicitly teaches in his first epistle. So the manner of speaking is not unique to Jesus here in John. Paul speaks this in the same way, at least in two places in his letters. First, in Ephesians 3, beginning at verse 14, he says, that He would grant you, right, He's praying for them, that He would grant them, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through the Spirit in the inner man, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Jesus or of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to the fullness of God." So here Paul is praying for the Ephesians that Christ would dwell in them and that they would know the love of Christ. But wait a minute, aren't these believers who already know the love of Christ? Aren't these believers who already have Christ dwelling in them? Similarly, in Philippians 3, verses 9 and 10, Paul says that he desires to be found in Christ, and that he may be known by Him, or I'm sorry, that he may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings. But again, the question is, didn't Paul already know Christ? Hadn't he already experienced the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings? So again, these verses are not referring to the first time knowing and experiencing these truths. These are prayers and desires for a deeper knowledge, a deeper experiential knowledge of these truths. The love that the disciples would experience is, as one writer puts it, a clearer discovery of His love. a clearer discovery of His love. And it is in knowing more fully the love of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that they will love even more, leading to more loving obedience. So, He loved us, and it is because He loved us that we love Him. And as we love Him and obey Him, we will know more and more of His love for us. We will experience more and more of His love for us. We will have a deeper understanding, a deeper experiential understanding of that love that He has for us. And that is what Christ here is saying. And this is the great benefit that we have as believers. We shouldn't be satisfied with just, well, I'm going to go to heaven and that's it. No, because in heaven, when we're with the Lord, it's going to be an eternal dwelling with Him. As we saw last week, it's the Father's house that has many rooms, many units. One big family of God together with Him, dwelling with Him, enjoying Him forever. So we should not just be satisfied with, well, one day we'll get there. No, God gives us that experience here and now, that we can experience Him, His presence, His love here and now, as we love Him and show that love and gratitude in our obedience. He manifests Himself in a deeper way, He manifests His love in a deeper way, and we can experience Him. So this is just some of the benefits that we have that are explained here in our text. And because of this, you know, Jesus, as he departs, he says, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Having been justified, then we have this peace, not just a legal peace, but we have a experiential peace. We can experience peace. And when we, When we turn obedience into just a duty, or something we're trying to earn, or our salvation, or like the Galatians, they were trying to now be perfected or justified by the law, we miss out on this. And this is why so many people then don't have a strong assurance of their salvation because they're thinking, well, yeah, He loves me, but in order for Him to love me more, I need to obey more, and I need to do this, I need to do that. No, that's not the case. His love for us came even before we loved Him. When we were still sinners, when we were enemies of God, He set His love upon us. So nothing can change that. So when we understand that, that we are secured in Christ, our salvation is secured by what He did for us in His love, then we can delight, go about and do His commandments out of gratitude, out of love for what He has done for us. And when we fail, we can know, hey, it's not up to me. My salvation is not grounded in my obedience. It's grounded in the obedience of Christ. And so this brings us great assurance and great peace as we live in this fallen world as pilgrims where we will experience struggles with our sin, with our flesh, with the world. So this is a great benefit and comfort that we have as new covenant believers. Now, how are we then to conclude, to respond? If there is no obedience then, then the answer is not simply to start obeying. If there is no obedience, we don't just say, well, okay, let me just start. What are the Ten Commandments? What does God want me to do? And I'll do it. That's not the answer. This obedience will not be true obedience. It must flow out of love. So if there is no obedience, that means that there is no love. You do not love God. You do not love Jesus. So what we must do is go to the place where the love for Jesus is born. The cross. We go to the cross. And for believers, our obedience may often also wane. And I'm sure many of us have experienced that. The cause of this is because our love for Him is also diminishing. And the answer is the same for us. It is not just to get busy and start doing more works, more obedience. The answer is to go back to the cross and fan the flame of love with His love demonstrated for us on the cross. Yes, obey in the meantime, but until it flows out of love, it is not true obedience. So we need to go to the source of love that we may then obey out of love. And regarding the benefits and comforts of the Holy Spirit, we are not going to have the Holy Spirit as the apostles did during this time. But we do still need the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We need the Spirit to teach us, to guide us, to give us understanding of the words and teachings of Christ, whether in the Gospels or His later teachings in the Epistles, But we also need the Holy Spirit to love Him, to love Christ, and to keep His commandments. But let us keep this in mind, though Jesus tells us to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect, and we should strive for perfection, we are going to fail. But even when we do, there is a way to obey even when we fail, when we disobey. And that way that He has given us to obey is to repent. to repent and to confess our sins, and He promises to forgive us and to cleanse us. So even in our disobedience, God provides us a command so that we may obey. Confess your sin, go to Him in broken and contrite heart, confess your sins, and He will forgive you. You do not need to fear if you do not obey perfectly. None of us do. Fear would be understandable if our salvation depended on our obedience, but it doesn't. The only obedience that counts is Jesus' obedience on our behalf. So, you don't have to fear if you do not obey perfectly. The only thing you must ask is, is there obedience? If there is, if there is a desire to do His will and there is obedience, imperfect as it is, but there is obedience, then these promises and comforts are yours. Jesus' exhortation, having explained to them their duty to obey His commands out of love, as well as the benefits and comforts that are theirs because they love Jesus and obey His commands. Benefits and comforts that will come through the ministry of the Holy Spirit is meant also to comfort them and alleviate their fears right then. He tells them that these things are for them. that all the things that they're gonna experience, He is equipping them and comforting them and preparing them for that. And the Lord does the same thing for us. He prepares us, He equips us, He comforts us for the tasks that He has given us to obey and He gives us the power by which we can obey. So I'll just close with this. Again, it is not true love unless it flows out in obedience. and it is not true obedience unless it flows out from love.