Abide in My Love: The Pyramid of Balance

How do we view the command from Jesus to abide in His love? What does that look like? How do we hold in tension the Love of God for us and the subsequent obedience that He calls us to live in? How does this connect with Joy and our connection with one another? 

Come alone and explore with us the answers to these questions.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Okay, this is called God the Father. A young woman brought her fiance home to meet her parents. After dinner, her father asked the young man into a study for a chat, and he said, Uh, what are your plans? The father said, uh I'm a theology scholar. The young man replied, Admirable, the father said. Uh, but what will you do to provide a nice home for my daughter? I will study and God will provide, the young man exclaimed. And how will you afford to raise children? The father asked. God will also provide them, the young man said. The man left the study, and the mother asked her husband, how did it go? Very well. I like him. He has no money or employment plans, the father said. But on the other hand, he thinks I'm God.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

God will provide.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Hopefully, none of you think you're God or experiencing that. We've been talking about joy. I'm just gonna go back a couple weeks. Daniel shared last week, and it was good. I started listening to some of it, and yeah, it sounded like he was going along the same track as what we have been going down. And so just refreshing, uh, talking about joy is the result of metabolizing or experiencing the love and nature of God. Neuroscience's definition of how the brain reacts or responds to joy is when we are aware that someone is happy to be with us. And so over the past few weeks we've kind of gone through scripture of like, does scripture back this idea up? That somehow us recognizing that God is happy to be with us is a source of joy. And so some of the scriptures that we went through was the creation of Adam. It says that God breathed into Adam the breath of life. So the first thing that that he saw when Adam became a living soul, it says, was the face of God. The face of joy and love and peace and goodness, looking back at him. And then we look at the fall of Adam when Adam and Eve sinned. They hid themselves from God. They understood that they now had shame, that they were naked. Now note that God did not stop walking amongst them, like going into the garden to fellowship with them. They hid themselves from him. Right? So, like the presence of God was still there. They were hiding themselves from the face of God. And this is the breakdown, this is the beginning of the downward spiral of man trying to find joy in other things because now he's he sees himself as separated from the face of God, that God is not happy to be with him any longer. But we see that in Numbers chapter 6, when the high priests were then uh commissioned, the first thing that they were to do is to speak a blessing over the people. Right? And this is the song that Tara was referencing earlier. It says, The Lord bless you and keep you, may his face shine upon you and be gracious towards you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and be gracious to you. Okay, the idea of lifting up your countenance, we have that same kind of reference in the English language of like, hey, his face is lighting up, his face is his uh his countenance is up towards me. It's this view that God is happy to be with them, that he recognizes them and is pleased with them, and this begins the nation of Israel, the blessing that's upon them is now that God is happy to be with them and amongst them. Now you could probably debate that in the different ways that the Israelites damage that relationship with God and turn from him, but ultimately his desire is for that communion, that relationship, that enjoyment, mutual enjoyment of God and man together. Going on, we talked about in Psalm 16, 11, it says, in your presence is fullness of joy, but the word for presence in the Hebrew is actually means face. In your face is fullness of joy. Luke chapter 2, we talked about the good news of great joy that the angel said is now to you and to all people. And so I bring you good news of great joy. Another, if we change those words around, good news is also gospel. That's what we use, the word gospel is also good news, of great joy. And then if we go back to the neuroscience view of what joy is, I bring you the gospel of the fact that God is happy to be with you. And so we get this kind of growing picture of what joy is, how God meant for us to live in joy, how we are wired to want it, like desire joy. And yet, so oftentimes we find like these, it's it's like, okay, would you want to eat a steak or a bag of Dorito chips? Now, maybe you have a hankering for Dorito chips, but after you eat Doritos for a week, you're gonna have some problems. After you eat those for a month, you're really gonna have some problems. But if you eat that steak, you're good. Right? And so joy would be like that steak. And like shame or condemnation would be like the Doritos. Maybe you can get somebody to do something you want by using shame or condemnation. But the ultimate like path, if that's if that's the cycle, you will not be healthy emotionally, mentally, physically. Like there is a toll that it takes upon you to live outside of joy. Now we can experience different levels of joy in life, like babies being born, getting a new job. Like there are other there are other things in our life that bring joy, right? But if you're to really talk about the center, the true source of all joy, is God Himself. They talked about in Job 33, 26, there's this young guy named Elihu, and he is kind of giving this uh explanation or revelation of who God is, and he says, Man, what if there's this guy and he's at death's doorstep and he's about to enter into like eternal judgment, but but there comes this person who's like perfect, like he's a mediator, he can go between God and man, and he and his payment's enough to like restore this person to like fully, right? And he's like giving this this distant picture of Jesus Christ, like this need for a mediator, this need for somebody to take the judgment that we all sense is coming, and to reverse that and and to restore. And in verse 26, um he says, the man will pray to God, and God will delight in this man. So the guy who is gonna have eternal judgment is now restored and redeemed through this mediator, which is Jesus Christ. And now this man is going, God is gonna delight in him, and the man will see God's face in joy. For God restores man to his to God's righteousness. And that's the that's the exact quote. That's not me putting words in there. That's what it's saying, the delight. God delights in this person, and he will see God's face in joy. Again, this is a picture of those who are redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ and accept him. But now God's face is delighting in you. And then we talked about John 17. Jesus prays that he would be returned to the glory that he had with the Father before the creation of the world, and that we would be partakers and experience that same glory and love which the Father and Son share. And so I have a scripture, um Proverbs 8.31. So, what is this eternal joy? What is this eternal glory, I guess I should say? And going back to Proverbs 8.30, it says, it's talking about Jesus. Um, I was beside the Father, him, as the master craftsman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him. Okay, and the next verse, rejoicing in his inhabited world, and my delight was with the sons of man. Again, this is just going back to reiterating this love and connection that the Father and Son had, even before they created the world, even before any of this was uh was a substance that God fully delighted within himself, and yet now he has chosen to bring us into that. Here it says, my, it's talking about Jesus, and my delight was with the sons of man. So now his desire, the same inferno of love, joy, delight, goodness, wholeness that the Trinity exists in, is now like swept us into it. He's now like calling us to be a part of that. Not just to get saved and just not go to hell, but like to actually experience this nature, this abundant goodness of God. Now I hope something of what we've kind of talked about over the past few weeks has really stuck in your heart. Something you can kind of maybe get your teeth into and begin to probably dialogue with the Lord on, look in scripture about. We went over some of it in Sunday school this morning, and it's just, it's like, yeah, what is this joy? Does that mean like I'm always happy? Not necessarily, but I think it's like a it's like a tank, it's like a reservoir. Where if we have a if we have this joy, this knowledge and understanding that God's happy to be with us, we can sustain harder trips. We can sustain like harder situations. When you don't have any joy in your life or you you become really depleted, that's when you when you fly off the handle, when you tend to get tripped up in the same habits, addictions, uh, negative processes. Like the joy tank, as you as you grow this, as you understand that Jesus is really pleased to be with us, it starts to give us a capacity for life, for hard things, and to be able to lead others when before I didn't have capacity. So, like for me, a few years ago, um, I was part of a ministry and we were going on the streets a lot seeing people saved and trying to disciple them and get them to come back. But within that group, horizontally, there was a lot of connection with the guys. Like we were kind of had each other's backs and we were there together and doing this together. But when it came to the leadership, there was no connection there, there was no joy, there was no uh relationship that was life-giving. And so the overall trajectory of everyone's like energy and ability and capacity was just slowly going down, down, down, down, down. Because the culture was that of you kind of had to, it's not about the numbers, but it was about the numbers, right? Or it's not about uh doing everything perfect, but you need but you're messing up this, this, this, this, this, and this. And so there was like this underlying like drain, joy drain. And so eventually each one of us left. But what I found after that season was the importance of joy, what I'm sharing with you. And because I was like, wow, I don't have capacity for anyone or anything, I just don't have any energy to put up with people or situations, and it it was revealing. So I'm talking, I'm speaking from experience, because I've been there, and it and it was very revealing to me. So um I want to kind of transition. It's still, we're still kind of carrying on with some of this joy idea, but um I just felt like God was directing me towards John chapter 15. And this is the the chapter that starts out with the vine and abiding in Christ, abiding in the vine. And I find it frustrating because it's it's seemingly like a simple concept, but it is, I believe, one of the most challenged aspects of our Christian walk. To be able to abide in Christ, to remain. Some versions say remain, to live, to exist in Christ. So it's it's kind of like this far out concept, but your heart kind of gets it, I think. That's what I feel like. I'm like, it's so hard to put words to this outside of what's just kind of stated in this parable or this picture that Jesus gives. But our I feel like our hearts understand it better than our brains. Because it's simple. Um, verse 5, John 15, 5, it says, I am the vine, this is Jesus, and you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit, for without me you can do nothing. And this is like highlighted by the fact that Jesus, throughout John, especially, says over and over, I don't do anything without the Father. I can do nothing without the Father. I don't even judge myself, I judge whatever the Father tells me. Always going back to this dependency, this need, this desire, not even a desire, a necessity to be attached to the Father in this communion relationship with Him. So we see that fruitfulness comes from this connection. And so the general idea of John 15, 1 through 8 is this concept of abiding. But he starts to get more specific in verse 9. So we'll go to verse 9. And Jesus says, As the Father loved me, I also loved you. Abide in my love. So he starts to set like this, um, what I would describe is like these little blocks. If you think, I didn't get my baskets and get my printed things on on this time, but if you if you think of as the father has loved me, okay, so the father loves the son, there's a block. So I have loved you. That's the second block. And then there's third block is like, abide in my love. Right? So the the foundation of abiding in his love is the fact that the father loves the son. And we saw that back in Proverbs 8. Their delight, the Father's delight was in the Son, and the Son was in the sons of man. Okay, so there's this progression. The Father loves the Son, the Son loves us, stay there, live there. Okay, and now in the next verse, verse 10, it says, 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. Okay, so if you think of like these blocks are almost like a pyramid. The father loves the son, the son loves man, abide there. But now it's like it's tipping, right? Like all these blocks can't just stay up in this triangular progression. So what holds them up on the other side? If you obey my commandments, you abide in my love. Now that's the block right underneath the by, right? Because I've obeyed my father's commandments. So the initial foundation of abiding in the love of God is that Jesus Christ is actually fulfilling that with the Father already. The Father's obeying, or the Son is obeying the Father, and the Father loves the Son. And then the next course of ricks is and Jesus loves us, and we obey Jesus. As he obeys him and as the Father loved him. And then in the center it's abide in that. Remain there. Does that kind of give you a mental picture a little bit of what Jesus is building with these words? To the centerpiece, the capstone of abiding there, to stay there. So every attack from the enemy can can be boiled down to attempting to distort and limit our ability to receive the love of God. It was interesting yesterday at Men's group. Some of the guys, I really don't know if they've been in church much or been exposed to Christianity much, but they have a real heart for God and wanting to know him. And so I said, guys, what was your perception of Christianity before you kind of started coming here or before you started to look meet Jesus yourself? Did you think that Christianity was just about trying not to sin and living a good life? And almost everybody said yes. Like the basis of the Christian faith is that we just don't want to sin. And that we are dealing with sin and we talk about sin and we make you feel bad for your sins that you stop sinning. Right? This idea of if I can create enough shame and condemnation in your heart, maybe that'll produce good works, right? Because that's what we're all fixated on. Somebody sinning again, and all of a sudden we lose our minds, right? But if we look at this, if we start to see this model that Jesus is building, it's like the foundation is we have to understand that Jesus fulfilled every desire, every command of the Father, and the Father absolutely loved the Son. If we don't believe in that, we can't build the next course, right? So Jesus is already, he goes before us, not just to model it, but to like fulfill it all. And so that's our connection. Now the next one, so we need to obey the commandments of Christ, but but it's it's in relation to the fact that he loves us like the Father loves us. Like it's this, it's both, right? It's a tension. You take out that you need to you have to follow the commands of Christ, that thing tips over. Some people just want to talk about the love of God, the love, the love, the love, the love. But the love has to like produce in us a lifestyle. If we let it, it will begin to produce the lifestyle of obeying the commandments. So he's saying, you don't actually love me if you don't follow my commandments. And there's a part of me that really like has a problem with that because I think that this like I can easily get this legalistic lens of like, well, I know ways I don't follow him completely, so I must not love him. The idea is your heart is to is to obey his commands. What is your what is your motive? It's really interesting. There's like you'll hear different Christians talk about how they really regret things that, oh, you know, I messed this up. They're very aware of where they've fallen short, right? Like, I messed up this way, or I got drunk, or I did something stupid, right? We can all, whatever that may be. And the funny thing is, is I've asked those people, hey, and they're really under it, and man, I don't just not follow Jesus, and I go, um, before you believed in Jesus, did you do those things? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, how did you feel when you did them then? Did they bother you? Oh, no. They didn't bother you at all. So what that what that shows is that the love of God is actually working in your heart to make you want to do, want to follow his commands. And so we start to get fixated then, not on the love of God, but on doing these works. Now we all of a sudden we we're toppling over the other direction because we think it's all about just doing it right to prove we love God. But the capstone, the key piece that holds both sides together is the staying in the love of Jesus Christ. Abiding in the love of Jesus Christ. So verse 11. These things that he just said, this abiding, this the Jesus loves, or the Father loves Jesus, Jesus loves. us, abide in that, and follow Jesus' commandments as he follows his father's commandments. All of this I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full. So again, my definition of joy is when we metabolize, process, and understand the love and the nature of Jesus Christ. So in this picture we're if we if we can process what he's saying here, we will have joy and it will be full. This is the basis I think I think all of okay the Bible revolves it all centers and pivots on the cross of Jesus Christ. But I believe that the walk the life of the Christian all pivots and is focused on this one on this one command abide in my love. I think everything else rotates around that. And just as if you you have a wheel and it gets off balance it's it starts to flop around if we start to deviate from this abiding in the love of Christ our lives start to wobble. Things start to get off stuff starts to shake that shouldn't be shaken and things are coming apart that shouldn't be coming apart. So verse 12 this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Okay, sorry I'm going to go back to verse 10 then if you keep my commandments you abide in my love and but the commandment right before that was abide in my love. And then in verse 12 it says and this is you know and this is my commandment this is another one love one another as I have loved you. A young man had come to Jesus some religious leader and says what are the greatest commandments he said too love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two all the law all the prophets are summed up in those we can boil everything down to love God and love men. And that's the right answer right and that's I tell you all the thing that one of the things that aggravates me the most is the right answer but no practical application or like explanation for it. Like I could just get up here and say love God go home and in essence that's the right answer right but it's annoying because sometimes it feels like a cop-out because we get so used to saying it we get so used to ah love love love love. And that's why sometimes I use these other terms like God's face is lighting up when he looks at you. Because it starts to use a different language and a different maybe pathway in our brains to understand where he's trying to get us the whole time. So this con this concept or this idea this belief that God loves us that Jesus has brought us back to God's smiling face where he's happy to be with us is the burning center of joy and the joy-filled Christian life. This is what we are to view our triumphs, our losses, our struggles, our blessings through this lens. So there's a thing in the religious world called a hermeneutic hermeneutic what's your hermeneutics? Hermeneutics is just simply the lens with which you view scripture if you think God is mad at you if you think God is ticked off and judging the world you'll read the Bible that way and you can come up with that over and over and over because it's the lens with which you view God if I put red colored glasses on you and you go outside the sky's going to look pink not blue certain things aren't you're not going to be able to distinguish the actual real color right so that lens dictates how you view God how you read scripture how you interact with people. And so I'm saying is our hermeneutic needs to change to the base premise is that through Jesus Christ, if we believe in Jesus Christ, he is happy to be with us. He loves us absolutely and so when we hit hardships when we hit places where we feel let down by God there is a there is an underlying understanding that never gets questioned a stake that we've driven in the ground that said God absolutely loves me and he is absolutely stoked to be with me. Whether I'm in a good mood or a bad mood whether I'm getting it all right or all wrong it doesn't change that fact. And then when you start to read scripture you start seeing it all over just like in John 14 chapter 1 or verse 1 says let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God believe also in me. In my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you. Well if he's just building us a mansion on the hereby and by over the hill somewhere okay that's how I always used to look at it. But what he's actually saying is if I believe he wants to be with me and loves me, he's actually saying I'm going to leave for a bit but I'm going to I'm going to bring you back to my heart. I'm going to bring you back as close as you can be and I'm never going to let you go. I want to be with you I want to be with you but I got to go do this. I got to die I gotta this is going to happen. And that's what you start reading through the next chapters. He just keeps saying in different ways like I'm going to be with you just hold on it's going to get tough but I'm coming back and his heart is being revealed. But if you don't have those lenses on you just think Jesus is like guys I'm going to build you a nice place in heaven peace see you then but he's actually saying over and over I'm going to be with you I want to be with you I want to be with you and that my friends will begin to change the way that you view scripture you view problems in your life or challenges if you don't believe that God wants to be with you it'll be hard for you to want to be around people sometimes it'll be hard for you to handle tough situations because sometimes you just wonder if maybe even God's against you right like I've I've had those temptations like gee whiz it seems like even God's against me on this or he's left me high and dry. But he hasn't and we have to remember we have to begin to set this abiding in his love like this lens with which we just we we stay there that God loves us. We stay there that Jesus has paid the price so that we can be with him forever. We have to stay there in our minds and in our hearts and that's why the world is always tearing at trying to get our attention trying to get our emotions involved and carry us to all these other places because what we give our attention to determines what we're going to believe and how we're going to live. Right? So I would tell you that if you abide if you keep looking at how much Jesus loves you and how much he cares for you and what the extent to which he went to be with you will start to live a better life than you ever did when you were trying because it's going to be motivated from this heart of wow I am so blessed. Well why your your horse just died your cow just uh you know had a prolapse and you I mean that gets really tough. But anyway but no you you can say no I know that Jesus has done so much and he's with me. And when I know he's with me like really on my side with me oh man I can storm a castle. And this is the life that we are called to live. And this is the only type of life that will begin to change your family and your community for Christ. And it starts in your own brain it starts in your own heart to believe and to set your course I'm going to forever believe that Jesus wants to be with me and loves me. And I'm not deviating. I'm not going to question that I'm not going to keep getting kicked off the edge by some little wind that comes some little hardship I'm just setting my face and I'm just going to keep going. That's my challenge to you because I believe that we are called not only to lead our families but this community into a greater love, appreciation and view of Jesus Christ. And we all have that opportunity to begin doing that in our own hearts and minds. Because if we don't have this joy capacity that God loves to be with us we won't actually it'll be harder to believe other people want to be with us and if we do that then we just kind of show up here on Sundays and then like never really talk or hang out through the week. And then it just kind of becomes a Sunday club. And then if people come in here they sense that it's just a Sunday club. And that's like never what church was meant to be. You were never meant to come here because you feel like you got to it should be a place where you come because you experience Jesus Christ and other people here. And you know that at least if my dog hates me and my spouse is mad at me I can at least go to church and I know people like me there. Maybe that hasn't been your experience but it's it needs to change with each one of us in our own heart. We're to be a light joy is an evidence that people truly believe they are loved. So anyway I better stop for our tea preaching. But I see it from afar off from a that people can can even just come here and know wow these people really believe this because I can tell because every time I go there I feel accepted and loved and seen for who I am. I'm sorry if I haven't done that well because I I'm still growing and learning too but I think if we all together come to this belief we we will see things change in our hearts in our lives in our communities. Okay with that we're just gonna I'm gonna I feel to do communion a little different today just as our prayer time if parents or like if if there's just spouse two spouses if one spouse or parent will come and get the communion for you for yourselves or for your family I guess just representatives of your family come forward and take communion back to your family. Now if you need two spouses to get all the kids their stuff go ahead do that. But just I'm just gonna have you come forward if there's somebody Daniel if you could help me with this so what we're gonna do is uh maybe kids find your find your parents and we're gonna take communion together as families and if you're here alone get with a family like no one's allowed like everybody's got to have two or three folks together and just bring up have the leaders of your home come forward and get the elements and the idea of this is that it's just to me it's just always a picture of Jesus right so as you as the leaders of your home come and what you take from Christ you bring back to your family you deposit what you are being poured into by God. And so I just wanted this to be just another picture of now each one of you as a as a group as a family as a couple needs to now take communion with one another. And you as the leaders maybe both the mother and the father or the mother whatever whoever lead your family in communion. Explain to them this is Jesus this is example of who he is just what I do every other Sunday right but now you doing together with one another declaring the goodness the faithfulness of God and like who he is and that we do this to remember him not just this concept of oh Jesus but like he actually was a real man. He was physical he came here he was he was with us. Right and so I want each family to just do that together. So I would encourage you if you ever if you ever feel the urge to communion at home it's not it doesn't have to be a religious function it's it's just reminding yourself of Christ but also declaring that the effects of sin don't have to be evident in your life anymore whether that's brokenness or pain or suffering all of that this is this is Christ. He he in he enjoys being recognized and seen by us. And so we're just gonna close this song and then yeah we'll close up after that.