The Triad of Christian Virtues 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Triad of Christian Virtues 1. He will be in John 16:25-33.

You’re looking for affirmation and you’re not getting it from your spouse, you’re looking for encouragement, and you’re not receiving it from your parents. All that you might be lacking in your earthly relationships will be fulfilled in your relationship with the Father.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders with Hope Worth Having Ministries, and today we are broadcasting the message of God to you, and we’ve entitled it the Triad of Christian Virtues. We think about faith, hope, and love, and they are all central to the Christian life.

And as we come to the Gospel of John chapter 16 verses 25 through 33, we see the faith, the love, and the hope that is found in the life of our Savior Jesus Christ. We are reminded that there is a Heavenly Father that loves us as He has offered up His Son so that we might, by faith, have eternal life in Jesus Christ.

So I want you to come to John chapter 16. Let’s learn together the triad of Christian virtues. If you have your Bible this morning I want you to join me in the Gospel of John, John chapter 16, and we’re continuing our study in the Gospel of John chapter 16 verse 25 through 33 will be our text this morning.

As you’re turning there I want to remind you that faith, hope, and love are central to the Christian life. When we think about our Christian life we really can sum it up in those three words that God is calling us to faith, hope, and love.

And the Scriptures teach us in 1 Corinthians 13 verse 13 that now abides faith, hope, these three, but the greatest of these is love. The Apostle Paul was dealing with believers who had kind of become distracted and they had kind of gotten excited about all their spiritual gifts and practicing and exercising their gifts, but Paul was trying to bring them back to those central key Christian virtues of faith,

hope, and love. Why? Because faith, hope, and love are the spiritual foundational qualities of a true believer. The Apostle Paul, commending the Thessalonians, says to them in First Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 3, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and your labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

What is it that stood out to the Apostle Paul about this great church at Thessalonica? It was not their spiritual giftedness. It was not even their finances, nor was it their buildings or their property.

But what it was, was the Christian virtues that stood out, the triad of Christian virtues that were exemplified in the life of the believers that assembled and gathered in Thessalonica. They were a people of faith, a people of hope, and a people of love.

And so it is when we come to our text this morning in John chapter 16, verses 25 through 33. Jesus Christ is giving His final words to His disciples, this great discourse, as He is on the journey to the cross.

It will be very shortly that Jesus will be heading to the cross to be crucified for the sins of mankind, to resurrect and finally to ascend into heaven. And Jesus is giving instructions since chapter 14.

He has been teaching and He has been encouraging and comforting His disciples, helping them to understand, helping them to see perspective, helping them to try to grasp what is getting ready to happen, helping them to know that there is a pericalisis, there is a encourager who will dwell within them, that He must leave as the Savior, He must follow through on the plan, the redemptive plan of the Godhead for the Son to give His life,

and that eventually the Spirit would come and dwell within each believer. He would guide them, He would encourage them, He would convict sinners of their sins, He would draw people to Christ. Christ and he would glorify Jesus Christ.

So in these final moments, verses 25 through 33, Jesus is using symbolic language to help explain the work of God. Many times in his metaphors and hyperboles, Jesus spoke in ways that it was difficult for the disciples to grasp.

So we pick up in verse 25 and you notice what the scripture says, Jesus himself says, these things have I spoken unto you in Proverbs, but the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly of the Father.

Verse 26, at that day, you shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you. When I read that verse. I’ve really struggled with that verse because it just seems like a major contradiction.

Jesus says in that day you’re gonna ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray to the Father and I want you to know that the Bible teaches us that Jesus is our intercessor, right? The Bible teaches us that He intercedes at the right hand of the Father.

He is our advocate. He is the one that we can bring our needs and our burdens and our struggles to. What is Jesus talking about here in verse 26? He is carrying on the theme of what He has already been teaching us in the previous verses and I want you to back up just so you can understand the connection because that way you can see the uniqueness of what He’s saying in this verse and that it’s really not a contradiction but He is making an emphasis to us this morning.

Verse 23 of chapter 16 and in that day you shall ask me nothing, verily verily I say unto you whatsoever as you shall ask the Father in my name He will give to you. So He reminds us that we have this unique prayer relationship with the Father and that we come in the will, the authority and power of the name of Christ.

We learned that last week and He is reminding us in verse 24 that hitherto up to this point you have asked nothing in my name ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full. I told you last week that part of our joy being filled in the life of the believer is through the prayer life that we have.

The prayer life to the Father that we have immediate access. In that day Jesus says in that day verse 26 at that day not referring to the moment but the day in which Jesus Christ ascends into heaven.

The day after his resurrection, meaning a time period, we know for 40 days he walked on the earth teaching his disciples and apostles about the beginning and the implementation of the New Covenant and the church.

For 40 days he was seen of over 500 people the Apostle Paul teaches us. For 40 days he discipled his church leaders, if you will, but in that day, the day that he ascends into heaven and the Spirit of God comes upon his people, in that day we will have a privileged intercession as disciples and we will experience that special relationship with God after the resurrection and the ascension.

Christ and this is what Jesus is trying to explain in verse 26 that day you shall ask in my name and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for you meaning that you are going to have a new prayer relationship with the Father not that Jesus will never intercede for us not that he would never be our advocate for us not that he would never pray for us but that Jesus would intercede and that we now have a special prayer relationship because Jesus has accomplished the redemptive plan of the Godhead.

He has accomplished the final step of bringing about salvation and paying for the punishment of our sins in that Christ was crucified he was resurrected he is ascended into heaven he is at the right hand of the Father and now when you and I pray in the name when we pray in the power of Jesus when we pray in the authority of Jesus when we pray in the will of the Father then my friends we will be heard we will know that the Father will answer our prayer and up to this point there has not been this special prayer relationship with the Father but through the crucifixion resurrection and the ascension of Jesus there is the uniqueness of this relationship that we have with the Father which leads us to be able to exemplify the the three or triad of Christian virtues that Jesus emphasizes in this text.

And I want us to look at them. Number one is love. For after teaching them about this new prayer relationship, that they must pray in the name. They haven’t prayed in the name of Christ up to this point.

They have just prayed as they were taught in the Old Testament, as they were taught in the synagogues, as they were taught in the Jewish schools, they were taught how they prayed to the Father. But Jesus is now teaching them that there is a new dynamic to your prayer relationship.

And the reason there is a new dynamic to this relationship is because of love. Look at verse 27. For the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came out, God bless you, God bless you, God bless you.

from God, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me, Jesus says. So what is Jesus saying here? He is reassuring his disciples of the Father’s love for them. And he brings that same reassurance to you and me today.

My friends, it is based upon a love relationship that the Father has with us, that you and I can come to him any moment, any time with our sorrows, with our sins, with our struggles, with what we are wrestling with, even to the point the scriptures teach us in Romans 8, verse 26, that if we cannot even utter the words, we cannot articulate what to say because we are so overwhelmed with sorrow and grief in our heart that it is the Spirit of God that takes the words of our hearts,

if you will, the feelings of our emotions, and brings them to the throne of grace, and there we will find help in the time of need. What is this based on? Because my friends, before this, we could not enter into the holy of holies.

We could never come into the presence of God. We could never come to the throne of God, but now, because of this great love, a love that God has for us, a love that we have for God, we love him because he first loved us.

He took the initiative. He was intentional in his love towards us. His love was not reckless, but it was relentless towards us. And now we know that we have the ability to come to the Father, and we’re not gonna be told, I told you so.

When you come to the Father, we’re not gonna be beaten over the head. We’re not going to find someone who- who is pushing us away, someone who is rejecting us, or someone who is judging us because our judgment was taken care of on the cross, my friends.

Your sins have been judged on the cross. Why does the cross mean so much to you and me, my friends? Because on that cross, Jesus bore the brunt and the wrath and the judgment of God for my sins. Oh, I know we want to make it universal, but I am fearful that in our universal effort that we are losing the practical understanding of the application that Jesus died for your sin.

He died for you, friends, and He loves you. And now you come to a Father who lovingly cares about you. 1 John 4, 16 says, so we have come to know. and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him.

It can’t be any more clearer friends that God loves us. And I know sometimes we’re fearful of the love of God being overemphasized but I think sometimes it’s under -emphasized. And that we need to know that when we come to God in prayer with our sorrows and struggles that you have a loving Father that is hearing you, that is receiving you, that is accepting you, that understands what you are encountering.

Jesus says because you have loved me, loving Jesus is like loving the Father because they are one. Now to you and I, we’re Christians and we just understand this, we accept it, we adopt it, we can’t fully explain it, but we understand that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are one.

But in the mindset of the apostles who were Jewish, in the mindset of the Pharisees and the Sadducees who were taught that the Father is one God and that to believe in one plus three would be heresy in their mind.

But Jesus has been over and over emphasizing in the Gospel of John that he and the Father are one. Let me give you an example of that in John chapter 14, just back up a little bit. John chapter 14 verse 11, he says, believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me or else believe me for the very works sake.

And so Jesus’s point is simply this, I and the Father are one and you see that through the works that I perform. because when Jesus performed works, he always gave glory to the Father. He gave glory to God the Father.

Jump down to verse 23 of chapter 14. Jesus answered and said unto him, if a man loved me, he will keep my words, that’s the manifestation that your love is real, that you desire and strive to obey God, and my Father will love him, and we will come, meaning the Father, Son, and Spirit will come unto him and make our abode with him.

So again, Jesus and the Father are one, and their fellowship and their walk and their dwelling is within the believer. And so when Jesus says in verse 27, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me, he is again making the point because you loved me, the Father sent me, loved me, you watched, you witnessed my works, you saw and understood my life.

And you recognize that I was sent from the Father and because you loved me, you loved the Father because they are one. And this is what we are called to do, is that we are called to receive the love of God and we are called to display the love of God in our lives.

And that this is a part of the Christian spiritual foundation of our virtues that we express daily in our life. Again, we see the love of the Father in Romans 5 .8. The Bible says God shows us His love for us in that when we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

You see, God didn’t say, Mike, straighten up. Mike, get it together. Mike, get rid of some things in your life and I’ll start loving you. But what He did is that He loved me and He loved me where I was at.

He loved me with all my weaknesses, all my sins, all my struggles, all the things that were wrong with Mike. His love was unending, unconditional, and it was my friends relentless. And this is how God has loved us.

And He demonstrated that in that Christ died for us. If you doubt the love of God, look to the cross. For there is no greater demonstration, presentation of His love than when Christ gave His life. And it’s not just that Christ loved you, but that the Father loved you.

And that because of what Christ did for you, you now have a new prayer relationship that is based on a loving relationship with the Father. This is why when Terry and I were raising our children, our only goal was that they would love us.

of God and love people. I know a lot of you got a bigger list and your list is longer. And I understand that we have great aspirations for our children, but I’m just convinced if we as parents would just strive that they would love God and love people that the rest would fall in place according to the will of God.

That this ought to be our ambition because it is this love that he has for us and our love that we have for him that leads us into a prayer relationship with God. Now Jesus says, I do not say, I say not unto you.

He’s not saying that he’s gonna cease to pray for us. That’s not his point. He is simply saying the forgiveness of our sin and the removal of the guilt of our sin is the foundation which this relationship with God is.

established. I love Him because He first loved me because of what He did on the cross for me. I am able to experience the forgiveness of God’s grace, the forgiveness of my sins, the God’s grace is poured on me, that guilt is gone.

Now I have a loving relationship with the Father and I can come to Him any moment, any time, and I don’t have to worry, I don’t have to be scared, oh I live in the fear, the healthy fear and reverence of God, but my status before God, it simply rests exclusively upon the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

Now I want you to get this, if you get nothing else, please walk away with this, that your relationship with God has nothing to do with how busy you are in the church. Can I get an amen? I’m afraid that Christians think the busier they are, the more God loves them.

No my friends, no matter how busy, now I’m not asking you all to quit tomorrow, but I don’t want you to define your significance and meaningful relationship with Jesus and the Father based upon activity.

I wanted to be centrally focused on what Christ did for you, not what you do for Christ. I am not working so that Jesus would smile more, I am not serving so that Jesus would like me more, I am serving and working for the Lord so that people can know more about this loving relationship.

It is not rooted in effort, it is not rooted in activity, and I know this is going to probably mess everything up, but it’s not rooted. rooted in your church attendance. I’m not telling you to stay home.

I need you to be here, okay? But Jesus loves you, whether you can come to church today, but you can’t be here next Sunday, it’s okay. We have a direct open access to the Father through Christ, and it’s already completed, it’s already finished, and that love is something that we share with the Father, and we love our Father.

Now some of you are struggling, because some of you have not had a good exemplary Father. And so sometimes we wrestle with loving the Father. We wrestle with having a healthy love relationship with the Father because of our earthly relationship struggle.

And I simply say to you, that all that you might be lacking in your earthly relationships can and should and will be fulfilled in your relationship with the Father. So whatever you are lacking, you’re looking for affirmation and you’re not getting it from your spouse, you’re looking for encouragement and you’re not receiving it from your parents, you’re looking for respect and you’re not getting it from your adult children,

all that you lack on this earth in your relationships is fulfilled in your relationship with the Father. And so you must meditate on this. You must contemplate this. You must search the scriptures to understand this.

Why? So that you do not walk down the path of anger, that you don’t walk down the path of disappointment and defeat because your earthly relationships fail you. I tell you this morning that your relationship, your heavenly relationships will never fail you.

And I do not say this simply as doctrinal rhetoric to you, but as someone who understands this because I grew up without a father. But my pastor taught me from the outset that all that I’m missing in my earthly father is fulfilled in my heavenly father.

When I open the Bible, it is not an academic book. When I open the Bible, it is not liturgical sayings or religious thoughts. It is the heavenly father telling his child how to go. grow in his relationship.

It is the Father affirming and encouraging and challenging me and, yes, even correcting me. But it’s all that I desire in a relationship. It is found in my relationship with the Father. If I want to talk to my Father, I get on my knees and He is there.

When I want to hear from my Father, I don’t have to travel to other states. I open the Bible and I hear from my heavenly Father. All that you lack in your earthly relationships is found and fulfilled in your spiritual relationships.

For Jesus not only taught us about the virtue of love, but the virtue of faith. and we come to verse 27 again at the end of the verse. And He says to His disciples, you have believed that I came out from God.

Verse 28, I came forth from the Father and Him come into the world again. I leave the world and go to the Father. His disciples said unto Him, lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no proverbs.

Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee by this. We believe that thou cameest from God. And Jesus answers them, do you now believe? Now, Jesus was taking time to bolster the disciples sagging faith.

Because their faith often would waver, and it would struggle because they could not understand what Jesus was always saying. And that’s okay because you and I understand that as we have learned before, that as we are maturing in the faith, as we are growing in the faith, that at the outset we don’t understand all that is involved in this relationship with the Father.

And we don’t grasp it, but as we mature, as we develop, as we walk with Him, we learn, we grow, we experience things in our life. The disciples were no different than you and I, in the sense that they didn’t always understand what Jesus was saying.

They couldn’t connect the dots, but the one thing that really amazed them was His ability, Jesus Christ’s ability, to know their thoughts and their are questions before they ever ask them. Forgiveness of sin and the removal of guilt is the foundation with which the relationship that we have with God is established.

Our status before God rests upon the work of Christ that he accomplished on the cross. And so as we are continuing to learn about these Christian virtues, we understand that when we place our faith in Christ and what he has done for us, that it is at that moment that God is granting to us eternal life and he is blessing us with a new heart and a new creation, a new song, and we find that we are truly believers in Christ.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.