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Friends.

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Thanks for being with us.

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Appreciate you coming back
and working your way through the Gospel

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of John with us.

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We are about halfway
through the 14th chapter.

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We won't be able
probably to keep this all together

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today, but, there is a significant section
here, one of,

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an extremely
one of the extremely important parts

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of John, from a theological standpoint
and its impact on the church.

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So let's jump in here.

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Chapter 14, verse 15.

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Read a few verses.

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If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.

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And I will ask the father,
and he will give you

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another advocate to be with you forever.

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This is the spirit of truth,
whom the world cannot receive,

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because it neither sees him
nor nor knows him.

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You know him because he abides with you,
and he will be in you.

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I will not leave you orphaned.

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I'm coming to you in a little while.

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The world will no longer see me.

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But you will see me because I live,
and because I live, you also will live.

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On that day you will know that I am
in my father, and you in me, and I in you.

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They who have my commandments
and keep them are those who love me,

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and those who love me will be loved by
my father, and I will love them

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and reveal them to reveal myself to them.

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May we just stop there
for a second, Michael. So,

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this is a continuation.

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If you've not been with us

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the last couple days, it would maybe be
helpful to go back and catch those,

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or at least to read back over the
this chapter so far.

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In this

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language, if you then

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this is important in John
and it's important in this section.

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If you love me, you keep my commandments.

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We just had this idea
about leaving a new commandment,

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the idea of loving one another, etc.

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the father will give you.

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And this is
this is significant in the Gospel of John.

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It's really only John that,

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helps us with this kind of language.

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I will give you another advocate
to be with you.

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This is the spirit of truth.

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And so, we're going to get
to other opportunities to look at that.

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But as we get to this introductory part,
this is what the church is understood

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to be the third person of the Trinity,
the Holy Spirit.

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And Jesus here
leaving a promise with the disciples

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that they're going to have a guide,

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they're going to have a partner,
they're going to have a presence,

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the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ
with them as they seek to do these things.

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Jesus, just in the prior passage, said,
you'll do greater things than I've done.

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You'll continue to do what I've done.

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Whatever you've seen me doing,
keep doing in my name.

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And now Jesus says, I'm going to leave you
or send you something.

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As someone who is going to help you.

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And there are lots of places
we could take that, Michael.

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And again, we'll have more opportunities.

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But theologically,
I think this has been a crucial

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thing for Jesus to say.

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And again, I, John, tends to give us maybe

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some of the best material

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when it comes to interpreting
an inferred doctrine like the Trinity.

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John probably gives us the most footing
as we try to do that.

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I think that we should just get
a little bit

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of context here
as we jump into a text like this.

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I do think we should remember
that we just followed

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with this very not meandering,
but but I feel like wave over

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wave of Jesus talking about,

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you know, the fact that he reveals
God the Father then ended, as you

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probably remember yesterday, in my name,
you asked me for anything.

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I'll do it.

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Look how it is.

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Followed up immediately here in verse 15.

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If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.

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So in the event that you missed yesterday
and you think of 14 as permission

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or permissive to ask for the world
and to get all of the things

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that's immediately
countered by Jesus is pointing out

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that ultimately, one's love is defined
by one's actions, that one's commitment

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to the way will be seen and one's
life actually lived.

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Right it.

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Faith is not just an intellect, a reality.

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We return to Scripture
like we do in these studies,

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in the hopes and intention
and desire and prayer

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that our imaginations
will be shaped and formed, but ultimately

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that always exists to the ends
and the purpose of how we actually live.

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And so this amazing command here,
if you love me, you will keep

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my commandments.

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A description of the life that loves
Jesus will look like.

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And then, yeah, there's
this promise that follows Jesus intuiting,

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knowing that no human can keep
the commandments perfectly.

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There's this hope that we, when we ask
or when Jesus asks rather

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well, we will be given this advocate,
someone who will always

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be with us, the spirit of truth.

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This is a great gift,
the promise that there is no moment

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in the Christian life
in which we are doing faith by ourselves,

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and this has within it
some really deep theological implications.

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Certainly, about what it means to be
the kind of people

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discovering this day again
that God will provide for our daily bread.

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So often faith
becomes very moralistic about,

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you know, did you do the right thing?
Did you say the right thing?

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What mistakes did you make today?

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And it becomes very much a sort of
scorecard shopping checklist.

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The way that Jesus presents
the gospel claim is always relational.

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This idea of being with you, being in you,
being that it's just around, it's

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all of these prepositions
and it's a reminder to Christians.

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I think that once again, it's
not exactly where you find yourself today.

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It's the one who's with you today, right?

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No matter what the challenges
or the joys of this day are,

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it's not so much that we seek
to always be getting to the place.

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I think rather, it's the fact that

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Jesus promises that there's an advocate
with us in that place.

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Yeah, and I think the great example
of that here is verse 18.

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I mean, it's perhaps a little troubling.

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I will not leave you orphaned.

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That's a
maybe a tough word in our day in time.

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But that idea of being abandoned and

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notice it's not just being alone, orphaned

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implies
that there are needs that that it's

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a child, that someone who isn't able
or ready to take care of themselves.

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And Jesus says, I won't do that to you.

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I won't leave you on your own.

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I won't leave you without enough.

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I won't leave you in danger.

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I'm coming to you.

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In a little while,
the world will no longer see me.

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But you will see me because I live.

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You also will live.

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And I think

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we've.

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We've talked tonight.

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And I will admit,
I have a bias that John can be difficult

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to read because of the way he phrases
things and the sort of repetitiveness

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of some of his wording,
but I think this shouldn't get missed.

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I will not leave you orphaned.

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I suspect most of us have had moments
in our life where we felt orphaned,

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where we felt abandoned, where we wondered
if God was with us.

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And certainly the disciples
are on the precipice of going through

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that very experience
as Jesus is drawing near to the cross.

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And yet, in this

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we're in these words, in this discourse
that is preparing them for that.

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Jesus says, I will not do that to you.

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I will not leave you orphaned,
because I live.

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You also will live.

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Our lives are found most fully
and most completely

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in Christ, lives in Christ's life,

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and Christ leaves us.

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The spirit sends us
the spirit that we will know

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we have not been abandoned,
nor have we been orphaned.

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When a life is difficult and b
it is difficult to see him and I.

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Just so you could read by that,
and I think maybe not

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get the full impact of it,
but it's a pretty powerful statement.

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I don't think you get any more Johannine
than some of these phrases here.

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Verse 19, in a little while,
the world will no longer see me.

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This is an astonishing statement.

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Jesus is obviously saying more here

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than just a sort of cryptic
theological speech.

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Jesus is talking about his own death,
right?

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The fact that he's going to ascend,
he will be gone.

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This this book received
by the early church, no longer had

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Jesus walking in their midst.

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So as they remember his teaching,
this promise that though the world

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might not see him, that those who believe
will see him because Jesus lives.

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And so the same.

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If that's true, if Jesus lives,
then those who put their hope

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and their trust in their lives in Jesus,
that they will be with him

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in that eternal life that he has.

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And ultimately, that's the point,
is that we will know the truth of who

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Jesus is, when on that last day
we see the father because we are

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brought up inside his grace
to be part of that beautiful relationship.

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And in case
this sounds very theological and heady,

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I just point out,
it's those who have the commandments.

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Verse 21 and those that keep them.

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And I think those who love me
will be loved by my father,

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and I will love them
and reveal myself to them.

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There's this beautiful intrinsic
circular nature here between loving Jesus.

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So we do what he says
and then being reminded that it's

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not what we do, but it's our relationship
and connection to who he is.

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I think that's
the kind of circular nature of John.

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The argument itself is very circular,
I think,

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but the the way that John presents
this as a teaching of Jesus

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is that we both learn something about who
Jesus is,

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which then leads us to an understanding
of what our calling is in the world

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in which we live,

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which then becomes a witness
that comes back around to who Jesus is.

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And it just lives
in this circular progression.

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Which is why Clint, it's
not just philosophical or theological.

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This is why one practices faith
over the course of an entire lifetime.

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Because it's it's like in a marriage
continuing to deepen your love

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and your encounter
with the person of who God is

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and what God is doing in the world.

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I just think that it's an incredible
kind of both earthly reality.

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Know that where the rubber meets the road,
this is what we do.

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And then on the other side of it,
it's a very relational

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and spiritual reality that it's the one
who's with us in the midst of living.

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And both of those are in this text in
a way that you can't divide between them.

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Yeah.

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John,
I think has a way of seamlessly sometimes.

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Some slight

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sometimes Michael difficultly
weaving things together

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and for John,
I do think we're in that kind of moment.

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It is incumbent upon us

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to love one another.

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That's the new commandment.

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That's how they'll know we follow him.

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That's the thing
that we're supposed to do.

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To do the work of Christ.

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And we are called to do that
with all our strength.

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And yet our strength isn't enough.

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So we need this helper.

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We need this advocate who is going to be
with us to lead us in those things.

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And and we're not on our own. And,

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you know, this is a that's
a compelling word to the early church.

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I think it remains a compelling word,

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particularly in the moments

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that Jesus says, you won't
you won't see me.

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You won't.

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You'll you'll be aware of me,
but I won't be here.

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I'm returning home to the father,
and I reveal myself.

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And again, this. We've said it consistent.

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This word
reveal is so important in John. So,

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certainly a

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lot happening in a very few texts.

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Next time we're together,
which be next Monday,

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we'll have another opportunity to talk
maybe a little bit

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more in depth about this
idea of the advocate, the Holy Spirit.

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What it seems to mean to John
and what Jesus seems to mean by it.

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And, hope
he could be with us when we do that.

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Yeah, I think it gets really practical
in a way, and I think that it's wonderful

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to find these small little islands
in the midst of deep theological text.

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So I certainly hope you'll join us.

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Thanks for being with us for a short
stay today. Like this.

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If it's been helpful
or interesting to you,

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certainly subscribe
so you don't miss the next study.

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As we continue

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to make our way through John and discover
what, we might find together.

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00:13:29,966 --> 00:13:31,300
So until then, be blessed.