If You Obey My Commandments You Will Abide in My Love

So much of the walk with Christ is comprised of a narrow road with 2 ditches on either side. To abide in Christ, we have to have a revelation of the love of God. Without this, we will struggle to try and earn the love of God which is impossible. God's grace and love is a gift. However, if we constantly live from a place of receiving God's love and grace, but we do not obey Him, we are not abiding in the love of God. How do balance this? What is needed to abide in the love of God? Lets look in John 15.

Transcript

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So, if two vegetarians have a disagreement, can you still call it a beef? This is called the drunk and the baptismal. A drunk stumbles upon a baptismal service on Sunday afternoon down by the river. He proceeds to walk down into the water and stand next to the preacher. The minister turns and notices the old drunk and says, Mister, are you ready to find Jesus? The drunk looks back and says, Yes, sir, preacher, I sure am. The minister then dunks the fellow under the water and pulls him right back up. Have you found Jesus? The preacher asks. No, I didn't, said the drunk. The preacher then dunks him under for quite a long longer. Brings him up, says, Now, brother, have you found Jesus? No, I did not, Reverend. The preacher is disgusted. Holds the man under for at least 30 seconds. This time brings him up out of the water and says in a harsh tone, My good man, have you found Jesus yet? The old drunk wipes his eyes and says to the preacher, Are you sure this is where he fell in? Don't lose Jesus, that's the point. We have been talking about this abiding life in Christ. And John 17, 3, as we have spoken on multiple times, this is eternal life, Jesus says, to know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. So at the burning center of Christianity, the Christian life, is the invitation to know God in a very real and personal way. If we look in Acts, we, you know, several chapters before this, we find the disciples hiding in an upper room, essentially like afraid for their lives. And here we are in chapter 4. And Peter and John have been arrested for preaching. And they're brought before the same Sanhedrin that essentially had Jesus executed. And they said, You can't speak about this Jesus anymore. You're blaming his death on us, you're riling the people up, you're doing these things, you are not allowed to speak in this name anymore. And they says, There's no other name. This is Peter telling them. And then they saw the boldness of Peter and John, they perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men. They marveled and they realized that they had been with Jesus. Note that it does not talk about their giftings, their talents, their knowledge, their perfect conduct, maybe their lineage, leadership skills, theological prowess. Yet something or a lot of things was starkly different about them, to the point where even those who hated them had to take note. So we've been talking about this idea, the picture in John 15, of this vine, that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. That we are grafted in through believing in Jesus Christ. And then we we started talking about in Ephesians chapter 1 the different promises that are afforded, that are given freely to those who are in Christ Jesus. Can we remember any of those? Blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. We talked about the blessings of the Lord. The blessings of the Lord maketh one rich and he adds no toil, striving to it. The blessings of God are freely given to us in Christ. He says, in him we've been chosen. We talked about how we have a free will to choose Christ or to choose our own way. And that God seeing before time those who would choose him, he was already choosing, he was then responding by choosing them to be adopted, to be sons of God, daughters of God. Talks about in Ephesians 1 that we've now received the reconciliation. We're brought back to original purpose and intent. The same place that Adam and Eve existed before sin, before the fall. That they were fully satisfied, fully complete, and yet there was no sin, there was no war, cosmic war going on around them. They were just in fellowship and union with God. And then we talked about the inheritance that God has given to us. And this kind of goes back to that idea of the predestination. And I packed that backpack, you know, the suitcase that represented all the things that God has in store for our lives if we continue to just be obedient and say yes to Him. Ephesians 2.10 talks about where his workmanship created in Christ Jesus and for good works, which he has preordained, which he has prepared for us before time, that we should walk in them. Not that we have to, but that we get to, right? We get to live into this divine life of God. And so we've been talking about essentially what I would say is the revelation of the love of God. What his love for us does is causes him to give and to bless us with all these things that we've been talking about up until this week. So love, you don't really know love exists until it has a response, right? How do I know that a grandmother or a mother loves a child? How would you prove that? You prove it by what they do, right? Now they may speak in a certain tone that your mother never spoke to you anymore. They may get gifts, they may get all these things. They're all representations of love. And I don't think anyone is telling, like a grandparent, hey, you need to love these grandkids, right? And how you do that is you need to give gifts and speak kindly to them and send pictures of them and take awkward pictures of them that you're gonna resurface in their graduation ceremony. You know, these are all things that we naturally do in response to love. And these are what we've been talking about. God's responsive love towards us causes himself to give himself, his nature and his goodness, over and over to us in these different ways. And I think one thing that was really interesting to me in Ephesians, one when I was really looking at these scriptures, is sometimes when I think of salvation, I just think all of it happens at once. And in the spirit it does, but the idea that he's adopted us, that he makes us blameless, that he brings us back to original intent and purpose and position with him, that he blesses us with spiritual blessings in the heavenly places, and that we have an inheritance. I thought, okay, all those happen at salvation. Kind of. It's God's intent to do all those things. But each one of those is a is a gift, is an individual representation and manifestation of God's love. Yes, it kind of all happens at salvation, it's all wrapped up in that experience. But it's an ongoing like unpacking of like, oh, here's yet another thing that God's done for us. He didn't have to make us his sons and daughters. He could have just said, I wipe away your sin, you can live with me forever. Just, you know, kind of stay out of my way. No, he makes you now sons and daughters of God. And then he's like, well, Jesus says, I'm building you a place, I'm gonna prepare a place for you. So not only are you gonna live in heaven, you're gonna like get to live with Jesus. And so we sometimes we make these things kind of shallow and we don't realize how deep they are, because they're just an unfolding of the love and the nature of God being revealed towards man. And that's what really stood out to me in those verses in Ephesians chapter 1 that hadn't before, is that these are not just all kind of just happening. They're like very specific and very thought out and planned by God. I know what it's gonna take to do this, and I'm counting the cost. I know what it requires, and I'm gonna continue that work in your life, in the lives of all the believers. And that's amazing. It's so intentional that it's really as mind-blowing. And we understand the love of God not only by all these things that He continues to do for us, but really the cross at the cross. It is the standing stone of what we will always point to as the ultimate indicator of how much God loves us. And that's why we can't get caught up in the situations of life and again question the love and the nature of God. I would strongly warn you to do that. Because if we lose track of the cross and what Jesus did, not only on the cross, but leading up to it, and living a perfect life, a sinless life, and then being rejected and scorned by men and beaten and harassed in every way, and yet was without sin, we have to understand that that is really the picture of what Christ is trying to get across to us of what we're valued at, what we are worth to him. And that's where we set our foundation. And so we talked about how we begin to abide in Christ through the revelation of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, and receiving it. But it's actually then becomes kind of the end goal of abiding in Christ is that we still have that view of the gospel, it's still central to everything we do and believe. It comes full circle and it again is look at this Jesus Christ, what he has done for us and given for us. And so I believe there is this tension that we've talked about a bit before, and we'll go to John 15 in just a minute here. Um, but it is, I love to talk about the love of God and the grace of God. And the grace of God, without it, there's no way for us to come to the Lord. And for these, this work of blessing and reconciling and adoption and being seen as blameless and loved before the Father. None of that can happen without grace. Right? Grace is kind of the power of God that comes out of his love for all these things to happen. And yet there's this uh, well I'll say again, is a tension between living in grace but also in obedience. There's the love of God and the heart of God, and yet there's the response and that fruit that comes out of that that's needed in order for us to walk healthily in the kingdom of God. Yeah, let's go to John 15. This comes right after Jesus talking about uh he is the vine and we are the branches, and that that picture of us living in him, depending upon him. And he says, as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in my love. And this week, I actually have the visual. I've kind of talked about this, but now I actually make boxes high, high dollar visual. So he says, as the Father has loved me, that's the foundation stone. And I have loved you. And then he says on top of that, abide in my love. But see, nothing, it doesn't, it doesn't hold up because it's off kilter. Some people want to live here in this way. The grace and the love of God is there. I receive it. Now I live my own life. There's no response from the heart. The ongoing revealing of the love of God flowing through our life is that there's fruit. If we have a branch and there's no green leaves on it and no fruit on it, and it's the middle of the summer, we conclude that that branch, isn't it alive? And so it's very easy to say, yeah, I believe in Jesus, but then where's the fruit? We would go onto the streets and share the gospel in Orlando, and we come, we we come up to some of the roughest people. You know, obviously them doing drugs. Not saying if you do drugs, you're not saved, but they're you know, they're custom, they're saying all this stuff like, hey, do you believe in Jesus? Oh, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Jesus, Jesus is my Lord, Jesus, yeah, yeah, Jesus, me and him, yeah. And you're just you're you're so thrown off because it's almost like the person can't see themselves, you know, and you're just like, okay, you know, Jesus am I supposed to try to convince him that maybe they're not saved, and I just feel like the Holy Spirit's like, that's my job, don't take my job. But it was it was kind of like such a stark contrast to be like, okay, you're you're really broken, you're really depressed, you're obviously on different non-prescribed medications, and yet, oh yeah, Jesus and me were just so good. And you're kind of like, I'm not gonna. It just looks like a tree that, a branch that doesn't have any fruit. Just looks like a branch that's like dried and withered, right? Something in this is off. Yeah, I received the love of God. Check the box, move on. But here in verse 10, the next one, Jesus like says this, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. So now all of a sudden it can stand. It's balanced. It becomes this tension in the life of a Christian. So, as the Father has loved me, I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you obey my commandments, you abide in my love, just as I've obeyed my father's commandments and abide on his love. See, the foundation stones are set by Jesus Christ. He is the one who has loved, he's been loved by the Father, and he passes it on to us. He's also been completely obedient to the Father. And now he's calling us into that. So now it's stable, it's balanced. And this is why I will say that in the Christian life, every principle, every truth of the word has a ditch on either side. And the enemy, if he can't get you to stop at one ditch, he'll give you a push into the other. But there's a place, there's a place, and it's called the narrow way. Because it's not like a super highway. It's not, it's not always clear and easy, right? It's this tension between, I'm ah, and so here's how we also get off. I've got to do the things of God. We have the Ten Commandments. We should probably put them at every courthouse in the United States to remind people how they've fallen short. And guess what? The whole point of the law, the Old Testament law, was to bring you to the end of yourself to realize, I need grace. I need this side, I need God's love to shower upon me, to erase my sin and death, so that I can abide with him. Okay? So on this side, if you get over into this bitch, it's like legalism, religion without relationship. If you get over on this side, it's all about the love and grace of God, but it doesn't ever convict me to change the way I live or to submit to God in any way. I can still live my own life the way I want to do it, because God loves me, but if you only live on one side or the other, you're not abiding. And this is a challenging message for me because I've at times been in both ditches in ways. And I find it hard sometimes to clearly articulate what this narrow road looks like because so easily we can start to drift into one side or the other, making it all about what I'm doing for God. Or on the other side, saying, I don't need to do anything for God. He loves me, he's blessed me, it's all about me. So, what is this tension? So let's keep reading in John 15. These things, talking about the vine and the branches, and abiding in him, these things I've spoken to you that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. This is a marking part of the abiding life. Joy. Joy. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. So it's talking here about, if you obey my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have obeyed my father's commandments and abide in his love. And then he says, and this is the commandment, love one another as I have loved you. What did Jesus say when the religious leader came and asked him, What is the greatest commandment? Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and all your mind. And then he's stuck in there right behind it, and love your neighbor as yourself. Upon these two commandments, all the law hangs. If you follow these two commandments, all the other commandments, you'll follow. So now he actually gets to the heart, to the spirit of the law. Love. The spirit of the law is love. So what the Old Testament says, there's like a veil over their eyes. They were trying to do all these commandments. Did God give them those commandments? Yes. But it was to bring them to the end of themselves to realize they needed grace. If you read in Psalms, I don't know if it's 50 or 51, I believe that David actually asked for salvation. He says, renew a right spirit in me. Cast me not away from your presence. Renew a right spirit unto me. And he's actually asking God in faith to save him because he knew he was unable to save himself. He was beyond being saved by his own works. This one commandment that he's now saying, love your neighbor as I have loved you. Verse 13, greater love has no one than this, than to lay one's life, lay down one's life for his friends. He's talking about himself, right? But then he's also saying, and now you do likewise. So it's the same progression as I have obeyed my father, obey my commandments. What are the commandments? Love God, love man. Love your neighbor. Who's my neighbor? See, they will that's what the human nature always wants to do. How do I get out of this? Because that seems real uncomfortable. You know, the guy, you know, the guy, one door down, two doors down, and he's like, oh no, let me tell you a story. The Samaritans, you know, the good Samaritan. Whoa, no, that's offensive. We don't even like Samaritans. We have nothing to do with Samaritans, and to even think that they're our neighbor is not good. Why? Because now you're saying I have to love my enemy as myself? Yes, welcome to the Christian life. It's uncomfortable. But it's full of joy. Greater love has no one in this than to lay down his life for his friend. I'll also say this. When we lose perspective of Jesus, we start to create arguments to get us out of having to actually be obedient to this commandment to love. And here's the other interesting part. When we start talking about the commandments of God and following them and we're thinking of somebody else, that already shows that we're kind of off. When we can start pointing our finger at that other person that I would love if they weren't like this or that, we already are showing that we're stepping out of loving our neighbor. Because you can't actually change who they are or how they act. You can try. So your only choice is left are you going to love them or not? Where they're at. And so when we look at Jesus, we find that he did that over and over and over. And if you ever doubt it, he lived with Judas Iscariot, who he knew from the beginning was a devil. And it never it never articulated that Jesus treated him any different than anyone else. He didn't say that. Now that's challenging. If we look around at the world or at life, no one else really does that except Jesus Christ. That's why he becomes the center of our picture of who we are to be. Because anyone else, we can maybe match up to their attitude and their way of living. But Jesus Christ is so convicting because He fully loved. Alright, keep going here. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I've called you friends. For all things that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain. That whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. So again, I will say love does not exist, but there is no action behind it. Just like when James says faith without works is dead, it's not saying that I'm going to prove my love by doing things, or prove my faith by doing things. It's saying that you can't have faith that doesn't produce a result, that doesn't produce an action. In the same way, you can't, love can't exist in a vacuum. It is always seeking to express itself. It's always seeking to pour out. The fact it's not pouring out is just showing you that maybe you haven't received that love from God yet. Maybe there's a deficiency, and you're trying to find it even in other people or relationships, that was actually supposed to flow from understanding how much Jesus loves us. So I think a lot of Christianity in different places really gets fixated on sin. Like we understand you shouldn't sin. Like we all know that. I think I have heard certain people that are very fixated on letting you know how you've probably sinned this week and you're probably sinning now. And the kind of the end of the sermon is kind of like, so knock it off and try harder. And next week when you come, I'll tell you to knock it off and try harder again. Because there's probably other ways that you're still not doing it right. That is living in this ditch. Trying to follow the commands of God and failing, not getting there. But what does it really come from? He's saying that if you love me, you will do my commandments. So the prerequisite to form his commandments is love. Now, where does that love come from? You receive it by faith from Jesus. We need to have faith to believe in God's love for us in an ongoing way. Every aspect of the Christian walk requires faith. Some of my greatest moments in realizing experiencing God's love is when it's after or during a point at which I'm doing something for someone else. When I share the love of God and also I also experience it at the same time. So this is a real question a few years ago. God, how can I show you I love you more? How can I receive more of your love? How can I, and even that, like so I'm saying this is such a narrow road, can become this legalistic transaction of trying to experience the love of God or know God loves me. But what I have found is I just choose to believe He loves me. Period. And from that place I say to him, Lord, I receive your love. I don't feel it, I don't sense it all the time. I'm just saying, Lord, I receive it by faith. I need your love to be the engine and the motor in me to help me to love others. And sometimes, even then, I don't feel it. But when you start to bless others, when you start to live outside of your own cocoon, you start experiencing the love of God because he's found every time you share love with someone else. Ultimately, that love you're sharing with someone else is coming from him. And that's when you're abiding in Christ. Because you're resting fully in the fact that he loves you. And from that stable place, you follow his commandments because this life isn't about you, and you fully trust him. And now the life of God begins to flow. It's not so much that God can't use people who sin, it's the idea that they're drawing upon a well that's already empty. You can't water plants with a well that's dry. So we have to get back to meditating on the love and the goodness of God. And what does it say then in Romans 2, 4? Or do you despise the riches of his goodness, forbearance and long suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads you to repentance? Is there conviction? Yes. Do we have to understand that without Christ we are not righteous and we are sinful and dirty and gross and all those things compared to him? Yes. But it's only when we compare ourselves with the goodness and love of God is when we see our own depravity. That's the point. When the goodness of God, when his love is on display and our hearts receive it, we go, whoa, I'm so not like that. Lord, do something with this. Help me. Help. It's like one of the most powerful prayers you can ever pray. Help. And he does. Right? And so in this, I think we'll unpack this a little more, but John, John is such an interesting guy, right? When all the other disciples fled when Jesus got arrested, John did. He followed Jesus. He was at the cross. Why? Because I think John understood in a way that the other disciples didn't how much Jesus loved him. I don't think John was like some sort of superhuman guy. He just had a revelation of how much God loved him. And that's why he called himself the disciple whom Jesus loved. I don't think he was Jesus' favorite. He just understood he was loved. And so what flowed out of his life, boldness and holy living, and fearlessness, and a dependency upon him, like this branch. And that's why I really enjoy John because it brings us to Christ in a way that's like we're going into a back room with Jesus just to be with him. And so I really enjoy about John. And so we will we will get into this a little bit more. I want to just transition to communion so we can start panning that out. Ephesians 5 2 says, and walking in love as Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet, smelling aroma. 1 Corinthians 11, 23 through 26 says, For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night which he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, Take, eat. This is my body which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same manner he also took the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new covenant in my blood, this do. As often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. Jesus gave himself once, but at the same time, he can continually give us grace, love, mercy, and peace out of the storehouse of his love for us. May we not hold back this love from flowing through our lives and to those God loves as well.