Page 100 - The Gospel of John - Student textbook

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12 This is My command: love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, that
someone would lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. I do
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not call you slaves anymore, because a slave doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends,
because I have made known to you everything I have heard from My Father. You did not choose Me, but I
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chose you. I appointed you that you should go out and produce fruit and that your fruit should remain, so that
whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. This is what I command you: love one another.
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18 “If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the
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world would love [you as] its own. However, because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of it,
the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you: ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they
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persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But they will do
all these things to you on account of My name, because they don’t know the One who sent Me. If I had not
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come and spoken to them, they would not have sin. Now they have no excuse for their sin. The one who
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hates Me also hates My Father. If I had not done the works among them that no one else has done, they
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would not have sin. Now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But [this happened] so that the
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statement written in their law might be fulfilled: They hated Me for no reason. “When the Counselor comes,
the One I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—He will testify
about Me. You also will testify, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
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John 16:1-33 (HCSB)
1 “I have told you these things to keep you from stumbling. They will ban you from the synagogues. In fact, a
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time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering service to God. They will do these things
because they haven’t known the Father or Me. But I have told you these things so that when their time
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comes you may remember I told them to you. I didn’t tell you these things from the beginning, because I was
with you.

In his book God tells a man who cares, A. W. Tozer observes a dangerous perspective among Christians. “Men
think of the world, not as a battleground but as a playground. We are not here to fight; we are here to frolic. We
are not in a foreign land; we are at home. We are not getting ready to live; we are already living.” We cannot
afford to think this way. The longer we live here, the more homesick we should become. Let our prayer be the
“Amen” to John’s: “come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

Men think of the world, not as a battleground but as a playground

In the next few verses Jesus lamented that the disciples were so preoccupied with their own security that they
were not the least bit curious about Jesus’ immediate future. The next few days would see the most momentous
events in human history, which would inaugurate the age of grace, the beginning of the universal church on
earth, and the worldwide spread of the gospel. After His unspeakable suffering, Jesus would receive
inexpressible glory. He wanted to share all of this with His companions, but more than that, He wanted them to
be interested.

The Master began to explain about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. His ministry would be twofold: His ministry to
the world (16:8 – 11) and His ministry to believers (16:13 – 15).

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit to the World (16:8 – 11)
The Holy Spirit confronts the world concerning 3 primary topics: “sin” (people’s guilt), “righteousness” (people’s
helplessness), and “judgment” (people’s destiny). Of sin we are all guilty. As to righteousness, we are powerless
to help ourselves. Consequently, our eternal destiny is dreadful without divine help. Therefore, the child of God
living on this earth, empowered by the Spirit of God, is a living letter observed by the world. As the world

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