Committed Love

John 14:28-31 “You heard me say, ‘I am going away, and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30 I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, 31 but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Come now; let us leave.”
 
HEAR Jesus’ sure commitment to his disciples.
   Jesus commits to their grief. He knows how troubled and sad they are as he speaks of leaving them. He then points to their love for him as a reason they can be glad he is going. After all, the Son of God is going home to his Father! Jesus has graciously come to befriend these men and commit to them a way to Heaven. It’s now time in the Kingdom timetable for Jesus to go home. Our grief, too, becomes joy when we truly know our loved ones have joined the Savior in the place he has prepared for them.
   Jesus commits to their faith. Telling them what will happen, Jesus demonstrates the sovereign God is at work. God prophesies. Events happen as he foretells. When God speaks of past, present or future, he tells us the truth. These 11 disciples will learn one more time the Lord does as he says: Jeremiah 40:3 And now the Lord has brought it about; he has done just as he said he would. All this happened because you people sinned against the Lord and did not obey him. He promises judgment. It has and will happen. He promised resurrection. It has and will happen: Matthew 28:6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. And from 1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself will come down from Heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Faithfully know the Lord is devoted to your eternal life.
    Jesus then commits to victory. “The prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me.” Our Savior is about to suffer because of evil’s savage attack on God and his creation. Yet, Jesus will rise from the suffering to win the war. Satan cannot hold the Savior. The Lord Jesus triumphs. Revelation 20:10 And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. The Lord is committed to a perfect new Heaven and earth.
   Jesus also commits to the Father. Once more, John writes of Jesus’ complete, unrelenting obedience to live into the Father’s purpose. The Son does not go to the right or left of the Father’s commands. He is precisely true to the Father. The Lord Jesus has spoken his commitment to you. How will you speak to him – hesitant or committed?