Feb 28 2021 John 14 - We will do Greater Things than Jesus?
5th March 2021
Last week we looked at the footwashing – and the one who would betray Him – and the one who would deny Him 3 times.
And they were distressed. That takes us to Chapter 14:
John 14:1 "Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 "In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. 3 "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.
They won’t understand this until after the death and resurrection – but He is giving them assurance and comfort. They don’t grasp all of this – but He will come again and bring them to be with Him.
Then Jesus makes this astonishing statement:
John 14:12 "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.
Greater works than THESE? I’m sure the disciples are sitting there – after all they’ve seen – asking what does THAT mean? We’ll do greater works than HIM?!
Questions –
First – what does it mean that we might do greater works? What is He talking about?
What will that look like in our lives?
First – what it does not mean: That we will do more spectacular works than Jesus did. Just a couple days later, He raised Lazarus from the dead! You cannot top that! There is nothing greater than that! You won’t feed 5000 – 5000 MEN it said.
You won’t walk on water! It is not happening!
So what is He talking about? In context, it is explained. Going all the way back to Chapter 13 – the purpose of the washing of the feet – the focus was on the death and resurrection – and He is saying – the greater works that you do – you will do because of My death and resurrection – they will be post-resurrection works. Before the resurrection – the works are veiled – they are limited. Until He dies and is raised, they don’t understand what He is talking about – and they don’t know what these miracles He is doing are for! They could simply be magic tricks in their minds.
You won’t understand this until later – after the death and resurrection – and THEN they have tremendous power and influence – and people can understand them and understand how they impact and transform our lives.
3 reasons it will be greater after the resurrection –
Sin is forgiven and removed. Hebrews – because of the blood of Christ being shed, we are free from doing dead works to serve the living God. It brings to life everything He did on earth.
The post-resurrection – through the Cross – Jesus has won the victory over the powers of darkness – put them to death, taken them captive. They no longer have the influence they once had. Binding the strong man – the enemy – Satan and his power have been dismantled.
Third – post resurrection – we have God dwelling in us through the Holy Spirit. It is for those reasons – THAT is what He is talking about with the greater works we will do.
HOW do we do these?
13 "Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 "If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.
Prayer plays a huge role in accomplishing greater works.. What does He mean? We’ll pray for stuff, and God will do the stuff, and that’s how the greater works are accomplished?
That’s part of it – but it is so much more.
Part of prayer is request and partition. We make our prayer list and pray petitions. But Prayer is so much more – thanksgiving and praise! But it much more than that.
Prayer is lament! And so much more than that.
The prayer is in Jesus’ name. What that doesn’t mean – is saying – In Jesus’ name! That is not what He is telling them to do – and it is wonderful to do that – if you know what you are saying – if you understand what it means – it is not magic words at the end of the prayer – to seal the deal! To make the close!
To do something in someone’s name – meant – you were representing that person. You were a representative. There are two aspects of this in our relationship with Jesus. When we are praying in Jesus’ name, we understand that Jesus is our representative before the Father – who is working on our behalf.
Like here – we vote for people and they go to Washington as our representatives – but Jesus is a much better representative than that!
And WE are Jesus’ representatives here – engaging in kingdom work, partnering with Jesus – having His power working through us. And His grace, working through us to accomplish the works He is doing and He has given us to do.
SO the next question – what kind of kingdom works is Jesus talking about – that we should do? And is He talking to us, or just to the disciples?
First – Miraculous works! It was true for the disciples – they healed people – they raised people from the dead. The disciples never turned water into wine or walked on water. And when they had to feed a crowd, they mobilized the people to share. So some things they did were similar – and others, they could not match what He was doing. The purpose of Jesus’ signs/miracles were to point to His mission and work. The water to wine was not about turning water into wine – but Jesus going to the cross and cleansing us of our sins – but it had the side benefit of helping out at this wedding.
So what about us? What should we expect when we think of miraculous works? What CAN we expect?
For me – I/we as a church have prayed for people and they have been healed! None of us rubbed mud into the eyes of the blind and they could see – but more often…
We have prayed for people – and they died. And that happens the overwhelming majority of the time. That is hard to get our heads around.
I have never personally experienced someone being raised from the dead. I have heard of that – and I can neither confirm nor deny it. In one sense, that is not that relevant to this.
I think – for us – and I think this is not understood – we might not see these things literally – spiritually – maybe metaphorically – and more importantly – the healing of a soul should probably take precedence over the healing of a body. The priority is on SOUL work.
When Jesus healed someone – those miracles had a more important spiritual aspect.
The second thing we do – proclaim the gospel of the kingdom – and these works MUST build the kingdom of God – to proclaim the gospel – as that is the purpose.
Third – to meet works of mercy – so another way we do greater things is to meet acts of mercy.
Fourth – to meet psychological needs - inclusion, acceptance, and forgiveness. Jesus does the work of mercy by including the excluded. The woman at the well – the woman caught in adultery – they are pushing her away and He welcomes and embraces her. This is a great work of God we have the opportunity to do.
Embodied – A book that just came out dealing with the transgender issue in our world. What he does – I have not received it yet – but he did a podcast on it – to listen to him talk about it – in humility – he tries to lay out the biblical perspective on this. And to be clear – there is not a lot that the word says. He looks at the science – and with a sensitive, biblical approach – he tries…
At the end of the podcast – he didn’t just write a book – but he personally engaged fully, relationally – with transgender people – and became friends and remains friends with them. And yet – He presents a biblical, theological understanding of what the issue is.
That is what Jesus does so often – woman caught in adultery – woman at the well – and you go through the gospels and time and time again. Our small group is talking about how to minister to people. We will look at the tax collectors and sinners that Jesus ate with.
In the context of John 13-14 – works of love. In John 13, He demonstrates a work of love – and then – a new commandment I give – that you love one another. The greatest work of the kingdom of God is for us to love. By this, all will know – the kingdom grows the most – not by programs or the stuff we do – but if we don’t love – we are not engaged in kingdom work AT ALL! Kingdom work cannot happen if we are not loving our brothers and sisters – if we are judging our brothers and sisters. If we are divided, we shut it down. It is easy to work hard for the kingdom. It is hard to love people sitting next to us or behind us! Jesus makes it clear – that is the work you must do first – to love people.
I have a couple examples – but I want to go to John 9: - Is he blind because of his sin or the parents’ sin?
John 9:3 Jesus answered, "It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him. 4 "We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work. 5 "While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world."
And there is an urgency to doing these works! For them, there was an urgency because Jesus was going to die. The disciples needed to work together on this. Paul talked about making sure we take every opportunity for kingdom work.
John 4:34 34 Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. 35 "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest '? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.
There are opportunities – our lives are filled with opportunities for kingdom work. The problem – if we don’t see that – we put a very narrow sense into what Kingdom work might mean – but maybe God is trying to get you engaged in something on THIS side of His kingdom work.
In campus ministry – we would go door to door and would see unbelievable things happen – you used to be able to go door to door in a neighborhood – and invite people to church.
There was a men’s time – there were a bunch of police cars in the parking lot – is it okay to be here?
The guy was still here – a young guy – let me explain – I didn’t do anything wrong! I work for a security company – and a guy answered the door with a shotgun.
1943 – a 16 year old boy started a company – IKEA –
Ingvar
Kamprad
Elmtaryd
Agunnard
He started selling matchboxes to the community – then he added household goods – then mail order – then catalogs – and started imitating – then started selling furniture. The other furniture people weren’t happy about it – so they shut him out! So he rented some space down from the trade show – and opened a store! People want to see furniture before they buy it! Then to have a warehouse…
So the trade union people got smart – and told the furniture makers that they wouldn’t buy from them if they sold to him.
So he went to Poland – and it was hard to ship furniture – so he started making collapsible furniture – to ship and rebuild it!
We need to learn to look for opportunities for kingdom work – 3 quick ways –
First – through adversity and difficulty – many of our best kingdom work opportunities will come through struggle.
Second – need to look for opportunities in our weaknesses, inadequacies, and our lack of resources. That is where God’s power is seen.
Third – instead of looking way out there – I think many of our best opportunities will happen in our immediate circles of relationship – friends, neighbors, work, church.
Jesus was on his way home, got thirsty – stopped at a rest area – and a city came to believe in Him. There are rest areas along our journey every day.
Let’s pray.
Lord, help us to do the works You did and greater works – Your spirit is in us – and working throughout the world – not bound to a body – and You have chosen to partner with us in this work – You could do it all on Your own, but You wanted us to partner with You.