00:00 Intro music and voice over.
Welcome to jesus loves the world podcast. For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name!
00:20 Speaker
Last week, as we journeyed through God’s love story the Bible it was very clear that divine healing is for all to receive. God is the healer of individuals, people groups and nations. During Jesus’ earthly ministry He demonstrated and revealed much about God’s work of healing.
In the villages and cities, on the mountain tops and in the valleys, wherever Jesus was, people were healed and delivered. As Jesus visited homes, with His gentle touch, fevers left sick bodies, diseases fled and lives were transformed. Jesus healed people in places of worship. Inside and outside the temple in Jerusalem and the synagogues throughout the Galilee. While Jesus was teaching, the crowds heard His truth and were healed. Even when Jesus was physically in another location, at His word, individuals were set free - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
As Jesus walked throughout the region, He brought life to dead bodies, sight to the blind, ability to walk to the lame and healing to the broken hearted. He proclaimed liberty to the captives, freedom to the oppressed and upon each ones hearing, it was and is the acceptable time of the Lord. It was evident that the eternal kingdom of God had come on earth in Jesus. All to the glory of the Father in heaven.
Just before Jesus laid down His human life as a sacrifice for humanity, He declared to His disciples that greater works than these they will do. Let us go to that moment of human history that is recorded in God’s love story the Bible, in the gospel according to John.
John 14:10-14 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. “Most assuredly, 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 My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
Jesus reveals the intimacy and oneness of His relationship with Father God in heaven. This oneness was not disconnected by the change in the Son of God taking on human form. Nor the physical distance between heaven and earth. Remembering that right back before the beginning, the eternal one who created the heavens and the earth, was and always will be in perfect relationship and oneness with Himself. One Spirit, one God who created. He is the eternal Father, Son and Spirit.
Yet in a moment in human history, the Son of God, came down from His eternal heaven into our finite world. He was sent by the Father, born of the seed of the Holy Spirit, became the Son of Man. Even tho the physical distance was there, the love and intimacy of their relationship remained. For the perfect selfless love between the Father, Son and Spirit is constant. As God is love eternal.
Jesus told His disciples that His Father has always been working. Healing, forgiving, anointing, delivering, but most of all is relational, intimate and personal. For it is this eternal bond of divine love that can never be broken that is a gift of God, to us. Jesus testifies of the love of God the Father by sharing His relationship with Him with us.
Even to the Jews who sought to kill Him, Jesus said in John 5:20-21 For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does; and He will show Him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will.
Again in Jesus’ words He links the greater works with the love of the Father, the love of God. Jesus reveals the character of God in all that He is and does with the Father. For it is the heart of God that no one should perish and that all would choose everlasting life.
This passage of scripture is such a beautiful representation of their perfect divine love. For it is because of this love, that the Father shows and shares all things with the Son. A divine love where both the Father and Son give everything of themself to us. Including their relationship of love and intimacy with each other, they desire to give to us. This is truely life everlasting.
Even when the Son of God is in human finite form, He is still one with the Father. Jesus speaks with the authority of the Father who sent Him. One with the Father on behalf of Him, For the Father and Son are one. Jesus reveals that it is the Father who does the work in and through the His finite human body. However unlike us, Jesus is forever divine.
In today’s text, Jesus links the greater works with His ascension to the Father in heaven. Most assuredly, 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 My Father.
What could possibly be greater works than what the Father and Jesus did when Jesus walked the earth as a man. For the sick were healed, the dead raised, demons cast out, the outcast included, scriptures interpreted, captives set free as the kingdom of God on earth had come in Jesus.
However the greater works are not performing these miracles. For the miracles are the work of God Himself. They are there to testify that Jesus is the Son of God. He is the one who through whom all things were created and stood before them as the Son of Man.
At the time of Jesus’ ministry as a man, few saw the fullness of this revelation. There were those who knew He was the Messiah, the anointed one of God. The one anointed to bring God’s kingdom on earth. There were those who knew He was the saviour and light of the world. But prior to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, the fullness of who He is was yet to be realised. He was not only the Messiah and saviour of the world but God Himself.
The eternal one from heaven wrapped Himself up in human finite form and became the sacrifice for us. The sacrifice that we humanity demanded had to be given. The cost had to be paid from our perspective. The cost of every offence ever said, thought or done by humanity throughout the ages. God did all this so we could believe and receive all that God has given us.
The works of the Father and Son are greater for us because the Son of God, who came in human form, died, was resurrected and ascended to the Father in heaven. Jesus is now in a resurrected, glorified, human eternal body. As the Father shares everything with the Son, the Son and Father share everything with us. That includes His life giving power over death and judgement. This is not only our future inheritance of our resurrected, glorified, human eternal body, but is a reality that we can access in this life. The same reality of relationship and intimacy with the Father when Jesus walked the earth as a man.
Only after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension could everything be fully realised. Jesus explained this further to His disciples. Let us as continue on in John 14 verses 15-18 “If you love Me, keep My commandments. 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.
The revelation of who Jesus is and our relationship with Him is also a work of God. For it is His Spirit of truth, the Spirit of God, who makes His home in us as we say yes to Him. God’s Spirit leads us into all truth, testifying of who Jesus is. Testifying that Jesus is alive, all to the glory of the Father!
With God’s abiding Spirit dwelling within every disciple of Jesus, we have the same intimate relationship that Jesus and the Father have. God’s love is such that He shares everything of Himself with us, including His eternity.
Jesus continues to explain to His disciples in John 14 verses 19-20 A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.
This relationship of divine love is ours for this life now. Each day living in the reality of abiding in His love, truth and power. For it is true. Upon saying yes to Jesus, yes to God, the Spirit of God dwells within every disciple. For He makes His home in us. He dwells in our finite mortal bodies.
He is in us and we are in Him. No circumstances of this life or emotions or thoughts within these mortal bodies can change this truth.
Jesus not only reveals that the greater works are in our relationship with the Father, but that this becomes a reality because Jesus has gone to the Father.
The works of Jesus reveal the love of God, the love of the Father. Through bringing knowledge of God in His love, truth and power, people can choose to receive Him and His kingdom. Or reject Him and His kingdom and in doing so reject their only pathway to salvation.
Even when the Son of God became human, the Father and Son continue to do everything together. After Jesus ascended into heaven, they share all of themselves with every disciple of Jesus. It is the Spirit of God that dwells within our imperfections, weaknesses and limitations of our mortal bodies. Uniting every disciple of Jesus with our Father in heaven.
As we journey through this life, we are one with the divine. In relationship with Him, abiding in His love, truth and power that dwells within. This is the greater works which the Father, Son and Spirit do.
As Jesus said, ‘Most assuredly, 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 My Father.
It is He who dwells within and it is He who does the works. The signs and wonders are there to reveal God - the Father, Son and Spirit. The Spirit testifies of the Son and the Son testifies of the Father. The Father testifies of the Son and the Son testifies of us.
In this oneness, Jesus states, And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
As we live each day in a heart and mind condition of surrender of our human selfish will, to that of the Father’s selfless divine will, we can live in the reality of His love, truth and power. As we pray in union with Jesus, union with the Father, His desires become our desires.
In Jesus’ power and authority, praying according to the Father’s will, just as Jesus did, we are in sweet communion with Him. Just as Jesus was and is with the Father.
The greater works of God than these are not the miracles themselves. It is in the oneness and intimacy with the Father, being transformed by Him, that the world will see Him. God continues to bring His healing and salvation to a lost and dying world, through His indwelling Spirit in us. The world will see Him in and through us.
For as Jesus said, Most assuredly, 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 My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
19:40 Outro music and voice over.
For more information and free resources visit our website jesuslovestheworld.info Be blessed empowered and transformed in Jesus’ name!