A few years ago, my wife had the opportunity to attend a master class in singing, led by the international classical star Renee Fleming. A master class is where people who are already involved in that area receive special instruction from someone highly advanced or successful in that area. A world famous violinist will give a masterclass to violin teachers or performers. An expert painter, public speaker, author, chef will speak or demonstrate how it is done and their decades of elite skill just spill over to you as you learn.
What if there were a Master Class on the Christian life? What if a real expert could tell you what it is, what to focus on, how to approach it, and demonstrate it? I think any Christian would want to attend. After all, the Christian life has a lot of parts, and a lot of concepts: God’s glory, reading the Bible, the church, prayer, obedience, the Holy Spirit, holiness, loving one another, evangelism, service, giving, and hundreds of others. Also, many of us come to the Christian life out of a secular culture and secular worldview. We didn’t grow up with the routines and habits and disciplines of a religious home. It was godless, worldly, and materialistic, so a life that is now spiritual, Godward, Heaven-oriented is new, strange. It can feel awkward, clumsy, difficult to adapt to.
The good news is that there is just such a master class on the Christian life, given by the only one truly qualified to give it, our Lord Jesus Christ. It is found in the Gospel of John beginning in chapter 13:31 going all the way through chapter 16, concluded by the prayer of Jesus in chapter 17. A little over four chapters of the Bible, recorded by an eyewitness, the apostle John, gives us one of the most concentrated explanations of Christian living in all of the Bible.
We know that this is a teaching for Christians, and not for non-Christians because the Upper Room Discourse really only begins when Judas leaves the room.
So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.” (John 13:31–32)
That tells us that this entire message is meant for believers. It is meant for the eleven, who are clean, who are saved. Now that the one unbeliever is out the room, Jesus can teach the meaning of the Christian life. This is a Master-Class in what the Christian life is, how it works, what it is about. Christians have studied and pored over these chapters because they are Jesus teaching us what the Christian life is once He is no longer physically present.
That’s the context for this master class. They are in that Upper Room to celebrate the Passover Meal, where Jesus institutes the Lord’s Supper. So some have called this master-class, the Upper Room Discourse. This is also the very night that Jesus will be betrayed, tried and sentenced the next day to death by crucifixion. These are His last extended hours with the disciples. So these chapters have been called by some, the Farewell Discourse. There are a few chapters in the Bible where a character knows his death is imminent, and so gives departing words of instruction, and encouragement. Jacob has a farewell discourse in Genesis 49. Joseph has one in chapter 50. Moses gives a farewell speech in Deuteronomy 32 and 33. David gives a farewell discourse to Solomon and others. This is something like that, with the exception that Jesus will rise from the dead.
Jesus’ departing is a very big theme in this discourse. Remember, these eleven men only know how to live the Christian life with Jesus right in front of them. Their Christian life has been to be in the physical, tangible presence of Messiah Jesus. If they want to know something, they ask. If they should do something, He tells them. They can’t imagine a Christian life with Jesus not actually with them. But that’s what’s about to happen in a few hours. Jesus is going to die and be taken from them. And even when He rises, He will appear to them, and speak with them, but not remain with them. They have to learn to live the Christian life when Jesus is not on the earth with them, physically and visibly present. “How to be a Christian when Christ is no longer on Earth”. That’s good news for us, and for every Christian who has ever lived outside of the apostles. They were the select few who lived three years with Jesus, but then they had to learn the Christian life that the rest of us now all have: living in His presence even when He is physically absent.
Now, we’ll study this upper room discourse in close detail in future Sundays. But what I want to do today is zoom out and give a bird’s eye view of the whole teaching. When we can get our mind’s around the whole, it will make more sense when we study the parts in future sermons.
Now it’s not that easy to summarise into one sermon. It’s 3,087 words in the NKJV, just reading the whole thing would take around 25 minutes. So what I did in my study was to find the repeated themes and ideas, and tabulated them, until I’d found about 17 major ideas. I think we can boil those down into five main ideas. I cannot quote every verse related to these ideas, or we’ll be here for a long time. So instead, I’m going to give you these five parts of the Christian life, quote samples from the Discourse and just briefly explain and comment on them. These five are like the blueprint for the Christian life: how it works, how to put it together.
I. The Priority of the Christian Life
So, when he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.
If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and glorify Him immediately.” (John 13:31–32)
The first, great, overarching truth of Jesus’ teaching about Christian life is that life is centred in the glory of God. Throughout the passage, Jesus teaches that God will be glorified in the Son. The Father glorifies the Son, as does the Spirit. When His people behold His glory. Mutual glory through people knowing God.
The great purpose and priority of life is God’s glory. When Jesus prays His High Priestly prayer in John 17, look how it begins:
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You,
as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him.
And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.
I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do.
And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” (John 17:1–5)
“Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24)
The great theme of the whole Bible is the glory of God, and so the great purpose of life is the glory of God. What is glory? It is God’s beauty, God’s excellence flowing out to be loved and treasured by His creatures.
Perhaps you say, I don’t know what is meant by glory and glorify. I think you probably do. In all of life, people are pursuing the things they think are most excellent, most valuable, most pleasurable. Some pursue it in houses and cars. Some in holidays and travel. Some in their looks. Some in sporting achievement. Some in business or academic success. Some in power. Some in legacy. But everyone is seeking out the thing, or experience, or person that is most valuable, and is to be treasured above all things. You could say that human life is about glory, about the pursuit of the most valuable, finding what is fullness of joy.
Now the Bible says, and the Christian life says, that God Himself is most valuable, most excellent, most pleasurable, and more to be treasured than anything He has made. God seeks to glorify Himself not because He is needy, but because His overflowing glory is the joy and health and flourishing of His creatures. Our ultimate satisfaction will be in God. That’s why in this discourse, several times Jesus points out that fullness of joy is what we can have in the Christian life:
“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” (John 15:11) (also 16:24 and 17:11)
The great priority of the Christian life is to treasure the value of God supremely. To put it in biblical terms: to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Of course, you can only treasure what you know and have seen. That leads to the next part of the Christian life, which is how you get to know and see this glory of God.
II. The Plan of the Christian Life
How do you know God’s glory? The Bible’s answer is the word Trinity. You know the Father through the Son. You know the Son through the Spirit. Let me show you places where Jesus teaches this.
“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.
Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves.” (John 14:7–11)
Throughout the discourse, Jesus makes it clear that the Father is fully revealed in the Son. The Son is one with the Father, from the Father, loves the Father, speaks the Word of the Father, acts by the authority of the Father, is sent by the Father, returns to the Father. The Father and Son mutually indwell each other.
But the problem is, Son is departing the world to return to the Father. He is going where they cannot follow and where the world will not see Him. So how can we know the glory of the Father in the Son, if the Son is no longer on the earth?
“But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’
But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.” (John 16:5–7)
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.
All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”
The Spirit will be sent by the Father, and the Son, in lieu of the Son’s presence, to not leave them as orphans but come to them. The Helper, Spirit of truth, the Holy Spirit will indwell believers permanently. He will teach and bring to remembrance, guide into all truth, tell of things to come, testify of Christ, glorify Christ. He will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgement.
The plan of the Christian life is that we come to know God through this Trinitarian revealing. A non-trinitarian Christianity is not the true one. We know the Father through the Son. We know the Son through the Spirit.
The Christian life is a life of receiving truth and responding. We don’t know God through our own initiative. We don’t take a blank sheet of paper and say, “Now, what do I want God to be? How should God be to me?” That’s made-up religion. The Christian life is one of responding. You see with your ears and your heart, and then loving.
To glorify God, you have to cooperate with this plan: cooperating with whatever means the Holy Spirit uses to show you Jesus the Son, which enables you to know the Father, who represents the Triune Godhead.
If you go looking for the Christian life in obscure places – in fasting, in visualisation techniques, in so-called prophecy, in speaking in tongues, in power encounters with demons, in fasting, in pilgrimages to places, in mere social justice, you are skipping the plan of the Christian life. The plan is the Triune God reveals Himself through each of the three persons.
But that raises the question, how does the Spirit show me Christ? How can it be that I get to know Christ through the Spirit?
III. The Position of the Christian Life
In John 14:16, Jesus tells us how the Spirit is going to relate to us.
“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—
the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:16–18)
The Spirit of God comes to dwell within. He does not deal with us from afar, but comes to actually reside within us. God’s Spirit interpenetrates our Spirit.
The Spirit of God coming to indwell us means that in some ways, the Father and Son also indwell us.
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 home with him.” (John 14:23)
What does this mean? Now in Scripture, the places that God would come and indwell were places He was pleased with, places that had been cleansed and consecrated to Him, like the Tabernacle, or the Temple. So if God is in us, it is because He first has placed us in Him. It means our position with respect to God has changed fundamentally. We are in Christ, positionally, all His merits are ours, and He is in us, practically.
“At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.” (John 14:20)
If God dwells in you as a believer, then He loves you in a secure covenant relationship that will never end. God loves you and has a special relationship with you that He does not have with the world.
“I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours.” (John 17:9)
“I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.” (John 17:23)
What changes when your Christian life is lived out of a sense of secure, covenant love, knowing you are loved, accepted, completed and secure in Christ? Your Christian life is not one of guilt, not one of fear. What motivates you and draws you on?
In Exodus 19, a Hebrew servant would serve for six years, and in the seventh he would be set free. But in the seventh, he had an option. If he had come to love his master, he could voluntarily enter the permanent service of his master with a public statement. His ear would be pieced by his master and he would proclaim, “I love my master, I will not go out free!” That’s the heart-cry of a Christian who understands his position in Christ. God loves me, He has accepted me, completed me, secured me. I serve Him out of love and joy. Even if I could, I would not go from Him. This is the position of the Christian life according to the Upper Room Discourse.
So, according to this masterclass, the priority of the Christian life is God’s glory, treasuring Him as supreme. The plan for how to do that is the Triune God revealing Himself, Father in the Son, the Son through the Spirit. The Spirit indwells us, and this is the position of the Christian life: Christ in us, we in Christ. What then do we do? What is the practice of the Christian life?
IV. The Practice of the Christian Life
Most of us know the famous passage about abiding in the vine. Look at a few verses:
“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.”
Jesus has given us an image to help picture the Christian life. Branches are attached to the grapevine. The life of the vine flows up and into the branches. The branches are in the vine, and the vine’s life is in the branches. For the branches to bear fruit, they have to remain attached to the vine. They must stay, remain, abide.
Jesus explains what this means for a Christian.
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.
If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” (John 15:10)
Obeying His commandments is synonymous with abiding in Him and having His Words abide in us, and being sanctified by truth. For a Christian, remaining in abiding fellowship is living a life of loyal, loving obedience. Abide means maintaining practical union with Christ through loving obedience and the internalised Word.
Now if you live in loving, practical union with Christ, He promises you will bear fruit. Now throughout the discourse, He tells you what that fruit is:
- Experiencing His love and His manifest presence
- Demonstrating love for Him
- Fullness of joy
- Answered prayer in the name of Jesus
- Love for one another and being one with each other
- Witness to others
So what is a Christian’s default posture before God? Loving loyalty. Dependent cooperation. You practice your position of being in Christ, by living a life of submissive, loving, trusting obedience.
Become what you are. You are in Christ, and Christ is in you, so act that out. He is your life, so flesh it out. Abide in Him, as He is in you.
It is not complicated, though that does not make it easy. Die to self, live to Him. Let His life be yours.
Now, perhaps some might get a very wrong idea, that the Christian life is going to be an unopposed walk in the park. So the fifth and final part that Jesus explains is how the world will respond to Christianity.
V. The Persecution Promise of the Christian Life
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” (John 15:18–22)
Jesus explains that the two spiritual families in the world are in opposition. The world does not like the gospel, and just as it attacked Jesus for preaching it, it will attack His followers. He says in chapter 16 that “the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.”
Jesus explains that if you are a Christian, opposition is coming because of the radical difference between the world and you. Some kind of suffering, some kind of rejection, opposition is coming. This is painful. We might not have wanted to hear that, though forewarned is forearmed.
But it is not just a promise of persecution. Jesus also gives us an encouraging promise for persecution, within persecution in 16:32-33:
“Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
In other words, the opposition is coming, but they will not ultimately succeed. By His work on the cross and resurrection, the world system has already lost, they are on the losing side, it is simply a matter of time until that becomes evident. Whatever they go through, Christians can know that all authority is given to Jesus Christ, He is the supreme sovereign, so those who oppose His message and His messengers are defeated rebels who do not yet realise it. Our Saviour is King, our inheritance is eternal and secure, we dwell within God’s love, so we can have peace in the middle of turmoil. Jesus promises that we, by His grace, will endure, and be the overcomers of the book of Revelation.
This is the persecution promise of the Christian life.
Before His betrayal and arrest, Jesus gave His eleven apostles a once-in-a-lifetime class on the Christian life. Fortunately for us, John was there to hear, and the Spirit of God, as promised in this discourse, brought it back to his remembrance and inspired the writing of it.
So when you wonder, what is the priority of the Christian life? Come back to these chapters and see that it is ultimately about God’s glory: treasuring the value of God as supreme.
And when you forget how it is that you will love and treasure God’s glory, John 13-17 will give you the plan of the Christian life: the Father reveals Himself in the Son by the indwelling Holy Spirit.
And when you question, why will this take place? According to the Upper Room Discourse of your standing in God, your position: God loves you, and has a unique relationship with you through union with His Son by the indwelling Spirit.
But what do I do with this position? Jesus teaches in this masterclass You flesh it out into the practice of the Christian life: live in practical union with the indwelling Christ, by obeying the Word from a loving, dependent heart, so that you bear the fruit of love, prayer, and witness to others. Abiding in Him.
Will it be plain sailing? No, this sermon promised persecution as well as the peace within it to overcome and endure.
Glory. Trinity. Indwelling. Abiding. Enduring. We’ve played this masterclass at something like 4x speed and it has thrilled our hearts. What joys await us as we allow it to unfold as He gave it, and learn the Christian life from Christ Himself.