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Well, if you have a Bible, please open it to John chapter 15 as we continue to work our way through that. Really great chapter. I'm enjoying it. Sometimes there's a an emergency and someone will say along these lines.
Is there a doctor in the house? We have a medical emergency and we need a doctor. Well last night Janet and I were in a very large group of people, I don't know six seven thousand people. And for just a moment, I just thought what if the guy up front and he would never do this in a million years.
But what if he said is there a pastor in the house? I need somebody to come up here and preach the gospel. Could somebody do that? And I was sitting there thinking I go, you know what? I think I could.
I'm looking around. I'm going. Sure, there's a lot of people here, but I talked to a lot of people every Sunday morning. Well, okay. It's a slight difference of scale, but I thought I could do that. I could do that and there are people who need to know.
About the love of Jesus Christ many people probably many there and you know what I couldn't help but feel last night. Like there was a real Separation Between the people we were sitting next to and us.
Between the people behind us and us all these other people because they obviously had other priorities. There is a difference between being with people generally and being with people who are of like faith people who love the Lord Jesus Christ.
We hear today about Jesus loves people and I listened to the rationale behind why he loves people and here's the conclusion I've come to people have decided that what God says doesn't so much matter as What we feel and I mean we generically just people randomly in a crowd.
People like I was sitting next to last night. The world wants to believe that Jesus loves them and That they love Jesus and what the Bible really says about it doesn't much matter. They're not so interested in that.
I Hope you are interested in it and we're going to see that this morning in John chapter 15 Verses 12 to 17 and I'm going to read those verses to you. I think the Lord Jesus pretty much knows who he loves and who loves him.
He gets to set the the terms of the debate not our feelings. The Lord says This is my commandment. That you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that someone laid down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends. For all that I have 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 fruits and that your fruit should abide. So that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you.
These things I command you. So that you will love one another. Now having looked at how our triune God Father Son and Holy Spirit Produces fruit in the lives of believers two weeks ago and then last week seeing how the love of Jesus produces obedience in believers.
Which produces joy the joy of Jesus the unique joy of Jesus the joy that only he can impart. This is a joy that exceeds the pains the trials and frustrations of the moral life. And in fact, that's great, right because here the disciples really.
You know if we were to graph their lives, you know, there were probably a lot of high moments like imagine being on the Mount of Transfiguration you see the glory of the Lord. Now, that would be a peak, you know that literally a mountaintop moment.
But right now they are in the valley, I mean it's pretty much about as low as it can get. You know Judas has left. They don't all of them don't know what's going on with Judas, but they do know this. They know that Jesus is leaving and that he's told them that and then he's told them he's gonna die.
They don't fully get all of this. But they do know this that things are bad. But who but the God-man Jesus Christ the Messiah the one in whom eternal life is. Given to all who believe who could give joy and he promises them joy, even though they don't feel it at that moment.
At that very moment. They're not feeling much of anything except for despair and despondency and kind of angst. But his goal was to encourage them and when they look back at that moment in time, they would understand this.
And that's why John wrote this. But at that moment they were just confused but this morning we're going to see we're gonna look at four truths about the love of Jesus and His love makes his identity as the sinless Son of God the Messiah the Christ perfectly clear and you ought to be encouraged and challenged I think By these four truths about the love of Jesus if the sovereign creator and sustainer of the universe Has set his love upon you.
There is nothing greater and you should be encouraged by that and If these things don't really sound right to you, you ought to be challenged and concerned our first standard our first truth about the love of Jesus is that the love of Jesus Sets the standard in other words he determines What love is?
Listen Verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you and I want to emphasize that last part. Because that's really the standard right? How much do you need to love other people?
How much do you need to love your brothers and sisters in Christ? Well only as much as Jesus loves the disciples. That's it. Just perfectly all the time. No problem, right? Jesus has told the disciples back in verse 10 to keep his commandments as he kept the father's commandments.
Same thing. Perfect obedience and now he's saying you need to love perfectly. Do you probably not? But in his humanity. Not just as God but in his humanity. Jesus loved his disciples. John has told us already to the very end from the moment He called them to the very end and really we looked at it last week from before the foundation of the world.
He loved them. But in human terms, he loved them the entire time. He knew them and as God. Again he loved them since before the beginning of the world and he would love them ultimately enough to die for their sins.
This can't be said enough especially in these days, I mean you go to CVS we got it. We seem to have gone to CVS a lot the last couple months. But if you shop in the card section, you find a lot of dopey cards about love, right?
What love is we can see movies about love and read poems about love and see Plays about love and hear songs on the radio about love they're very emotive. And I'm gonna say this because it bears repeating love without action love without follow-through without meaningful.
Well Devotion without meaningful action is meaningless. In other words, if you just say something, but you're not willing to follow through on it. It doesn't really matter. If I say that I love Jesus, but I don't do what he says.
Do I love him? And if he said he loved me. But he wasn't willing to do anything. Would it matter? The answer is no. It's not about feeling. It's not about measuring the emotion of something. It's about looking at what people do.
In fact the most famous Bible verse God so loved the world. That he emoted. What kind of comfort would that give us? God so loved the world that he sent a Hallmark card. It's ridiculous, right? God so loved the world that he sent his son.
That's action. That's love that says I see a need and I'm going to meet that need. Now when Jesus says that they need to love one another. Was he you know? Erasing all of his other commands. No, he was not.
What he wanted them to understand was this one writer says it this way genuine love for God ensures genuine love for his son, right. You love the father you love the son who is the focal point of divine revelation and What does genuine love for Jesus produce.
Well, he told us back in John 13 verses 34 and 35, I'm gonna read them to you a New commandment I give to you that you love one another again. Listen, just as I have loved you. You are also to love one another.
By this all people that means outside these walls. Everywhere everyone's gonna know this that you are my disciples if you have love for one another now let's consider for a moment the way that Believers are commanded to love one another and I just came up with a few.
We basically we are to prefer one another right? We had to be giving and generous with one another. There are other things there are injunctions about things that we ought not to do. We're not to sue one another.
We're not to hold on to bitterness against one another. We ought to use only edifying language. I mean if you read Ephesians 4 and 5 and you read Colossians 3 and you just start picking up all these things.
How about to encourage one another. To teach and admonish one another with wisdom. It's Colossians 3 there to maintain unity in the local church. To bear one another's burdens. To pray for one another.
To not slander or gossip about one another. To be kind and forgiving toward one another. How about this one? I was talking to somebody about this this morning. It's loving to confront your brother or sister in Christ in sin.
Right, it's hard. It's difficult. It kind of takes up. Cinching your belt a little bit and just thinking okay, this isn't about Anger towards the other person. It's not towards making me feel good. I've already gone through Matthew 7.
I've already looked in my eye and removed the beam and now I need to go talk to that person about the speck in Their eye, but to fail to do that Is to not love them. The easy thing to do is to say, you know what?
I'm not gonna confront that person instead. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go complain about him to somebody else. That's the easiest thing to do in the world. Is it loving? No, is it right? No, is it what God commands?
No, there are plenty of these. How do we show our love? For one another. I Mean think I think it's great to give a hug. To like each other's posts on Facebook to retweet our tweets. Those are all good.
They're not really biblical. The biblical things are sometimes hard. Because these are sinful people just like the people I was sitting next to last night. We are not. I got news for you folks. We are not inherently lovable.
Well most of us aren't. Some of the little kids aren't inherently lovable but These things don't come naturally to us. Well if they came naturally to us if they were easy. They wouldn't be in the Word of God if they were just inherent in what we do.
They wouldn't be. They wouldn't be commanded of us. We need to examine our lives and to take corrective action when we fall short in loving our brothers and sisters in Christ and Those who do not love their brothers in Christ give evidence that they do not love the Lord.
They claim to love. Listen to what John writes in 1st John 4. He says beloved. If God so loved us and he does right these are believers that he's writing to we also ought to love one another. Same idea here.
No one has ever seen God. If we love one another God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. Now if we don't love one another if you don't love your brother or sister in Christ, then what does it say?
The reverse is true, right? Maybe God doesn't abide in you. Maybe his love isn't being perfected in you. John also urged his readers to live out the example that Jesus said in 1st John 3 16. By this we know love.
That he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. It's pretty easy to see what the message of John is whether it's in the gospel of John or in 1st John. And it's not a message.
He made up. It's a message from Jesus as he sat in that upper room and listened to him. Here's the message if you love Jesus. You love those he loves. You love Christians. You love those who are born again.
You love those who are called again according or born again according to his purpose. Those who have been called to him. Our second. Truth about the love of Jesus. The love of Jesus led to his death. His love for us led to his death.
Look at verse 13. Greater love has no one than this that someone lay down his life for his friends. Now this verse is often used. I mean I listen. I was a police officer for 21 years. People still use this to talk about police officers who die in the line of duty.
They use it to speak of firefighters who die in the line of duty. They use it to speak of soldiers sailors airmen and Marines who die in the line of duty and with all apologies. To Coast Guard people probably those two.
I've nothing against the Coast Guard. I just don't go in the ocean so you know. That's not what this verse is saying. I'm not to minimize anyone's sacrifice, but that's not what this verse is about. In fact there's an ancient saying that basically says the same thing.
Jesus isn't somehow you know you've heard it said this and I'm telling you this he's being very specific about his own impending death. His sacrifice. Really can't be compared to anyone else's sacrifice and so that's why I always kind of cringe when I hear this verse applied to somebody else as Great as they you know however many medals the president might have given them posthumously.
Etc etc etc. However heroic it might have been it doesn't match Jesus death. It is the greatest act of love in history. It cannot be surpassed it cannot be equaled. Why is the crucifixion of Christ the greatest act of love in all of history?
Well? I have a few reasons. First it was voluntary. And not just voluntary and that he went to the cross, but voluntary in this way. He did not have to die. Did not have to die and you say well, how can that be?
What causes death? Sin the wages of sin, and what's rightfully due. Death we inherit what a sin nature. Adam fell and as a result all die. Jesus did not inherit a sin nature because he has no roots that can be traced back to Adam.
He is of the seed of Eve. He did not have to die. In fact Jesus told the disciples he was going to die for the sheep right he said that in John 10. Laid down his life for the sheep in John 10 17. He says this he makes it explicit for this reason the father loves me because I lay down my life that I may take it up again.
In other words that he'd be he'd raise himself from the dead. No one takes it from me. But I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my father it's my responsibility to him.
I Told him I would do this. I agreed to come to earth to die for Believers and he knew his death was coming. It wasn't a matter of you know him having just a few minutes of information or a few days. But at least for a few years from the very moment he entered ministry at the very least.
The Holy Spirit told the man Christ Jesus that his role would be to lay down his life for all who would ever believe the death of Jesus. In addition to be Vaughn and being voluntary was not Merely physical why was it the greatest sacrifice of all time.
It wasn't merely physical. We we value our human Existence our physical lives and rightly so because it is a gift from God. And if Jesus only laid down his physical life. Which is what soldier sailors airmen Marines and even Coast Guard and other people do.
That would be a great thing. But he didn't just lay down his physical life his human life. Lorraine Bettner says this he says we should remember that Christ's suffering in his human nature as he hung on the cross those six hours Was not merely physical but mental and Spiritual when he cried out my God my God.
Why has thou forsaken me? He was literally suffering the pangs of hell. For that is essentially what hell is separation from God separation from everything that is good and desirable. Such suffering is beyond our comprehension.
But since he does he suffered as a divine human person the God-man. His suffering was a just equivalent for all that his people would have suffered in an eternity. In hell in other words he suffered Spiritual death on behalf of all who would ever believe he suffered The punishment that Believers deserved all of them.
Jesus eternally God forever. The second person of the Trinity took all the punishment do every believer for their every sin and During those hours on the cross Jesus withstood any Eternity's worth of hell for every sin you have ever committed are committing right now or will ever commit if You are in Christ and the sheer anguish is unimaginable.
What do you suppose the unrestrained full-bore wrath of God is like. The truth is it's far worse than your worst imaginings. Whatever you can think up. It's worse. R .c. Sproul says this the sufferings of hell is beyond any experience of misery found in this world.
Those sent to receive a Those who are sent to hell receive a resurrected body able to withstand the wrath of God for eternity. R .c. Also said hell is the presence of God in his wrath and judgment. Yet there is no cruelty in hell.
It is a place of perfect justice which again reminds us of how odious how Awful our sin is. But Jesus having no sin and no sin nature being empowered by the Holy Spirit he was able to suffer as it were the laser focused wrath of God and He knew that it was coming and yet he went to the cross willingly for all who would ever believe.
That is love. That's not emotion. That's action. The love of Jesus sets the standard our first truth our second truth the love of Jesus led to his death our third truth the love of Jesus is Transforming that is to say it changes you.
Verses 14 and 15. You are my friends if you do what I command you no longer. Do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. For all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you.
Now verse 14 could be a bit misleading if we don't understand the context. You are my friends if you do what I would I command you right. So it almost seems like he's making his relationship with the disciples.
Contingent upon their obedience. I mean talk about let's see. I'm gonna comfort you guys by telling you if you obey me perfectly. Then You know then you are my friends otherwise not so much. That wouldn't be much comfort.
He's trying to kind of buck them up to give them some steel in their spine to Prepare them to face what they're going to. Inevitably face when he is put to the cross. And he knows that they're going to fail him right.
I've said this before he knows that they're going to. Peter's going to deny him. They're gonna disperse. They're gonna be confused. They're not gonna know what to do. So if he's sitting there saying you know what if you guys can just hold it together for a couple of days.
You can be my friends. They're done, and he knows they're done and for us if our if Jesus love for us Was dependent on our perfect obedience we're done for. But there is here again an emphasis on human responsibility.
Believers are to obey our lives ought to be marked by obedience. And nobody who names the name of Jesus should have any assurance of salvation if there is no fruits in their lives. I mean, that's what this whole context has been about.
Jesus in verse 6 said if anyone does not abide me. Right if he's not in me. He is thrown away like a branch and withers and the branches are burned are gathered thrown in the fire and burned. Well why?
Excuse me because they're not producing fruits because they're not in Christ. You can't produce Christ. He told us and or you can't produce fruits in. In verse 5 you can't produce fruit if you're not in Christ.
You can do nothing. He means nothing of a spiritual nature nothing with spiritual value unless you are in Christ. T a Carson said this he says obedience is not what makes them friends. Listen it is what?
Characterizes his friends. Now what's the difference there the difference is? It's not the fact that they perfectly obey. It's that it's their desire. It's part of their Their makeup to want to obey and so they do obey not perfectly.
But they obey they follow Jesus. The love of Jesus led to his death his death made enemies of his or his enemies his friends right? Change them. Because they were objects of his sacrificial love. He changes his enemies into his brothers and sisters.
Ultimately why. Because they're adopted by the father in him and. Every believer in Christ starts as his enemy. Romans 5 10 tells us this for if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son.
Right it's his death that reconciles us to God and we started out as his enemies he died for us. But for these disciples because he had given them in truth and because they had believed Jesus told them that they had been washed they had been justified they had been cleansed.
Declared righteous they had been reconciled to God. Jesus describes the change that has taken place. The disciples are no longer merely informed of what he is doing. Right. He used to just tell them things I I was thinking about even with Lazarus how he just kind of says, you know What we're going back and nobody really understands what's going on.
He would just say things and they were mystified by some of the things he said. But now he's taking them into his confidence they are his friends he's revealing what the father has told him. And the emphasis again is on the closeness of the relationship.
He's encouraging them he's building them up and as they look back on it after he's raised from the dead and after the Holy Spirit comes and tells them. Reminds them of all these things. They're going to be encouraged.
Now in the ancient world the life of a servant or a slave was hard. They would just get told what to do and they would do it. No explanation was necessary. But by using this language, he wanted them to understand how that burden had been lifted from them.
How the relationship had changed? They were now his friends our fourth truth so the love of Jesus transforms it changes it changes the relationship between Between us and between him. The fourth truth is the love of Jesus is Sovereign the love of Jesus is sovereign.
Verse 16 You did not choose me. But I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide. So that whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give it to you.
When Jesus first started his ministry. His disciples were not seeking him out. There's no reason that they would have been right he found them. I mean eventually a few of them inquire because of John the Baptist and other things but listen to Matthew 4.
In fact, let's just turn there Matthew 4 verses 18 to 22 and it's really striking because. You know, here's a here's a really clever insight. Matthew 4 comes immediately after Matthew 3 the temptation of Jesus right this Great spiritual Kind of pressure cooker and Then right after that he's out finding these disciples.
When Jesus first began so here we are in Matthew 4 Verse 18 while walking by the Sea of Galilee He saw two brothers Simon who was called Peter and Andrew his brother casting a net into the sea for they were fishermen.
And he said to them follow me and I will make you fishers of men. Immediately they left their nets and followed him and going on from there He saw two other brothers James the son of Zebedee and John his brother in the boat was Zebedee their father.
Mending their nets and he called them. Immediately they left their boat and their father and followed him. Think about that. Think about the cost in that culture to just leave your father leave the family business just boom gone.
Before the foundation of the world, they're chosen and in time Jesus chose whom the father had chosen before the world began. He did not choose the wise remember what? On in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost, you know the big crowds there and they say these people are Galileans these people are simple.
They didn't choose the wise. They were fishermen. You know choose the holy one was a tax gatherer, which was considered the lowest you could be did not choose Lawkeepers, right the kind of the Pharisees and the the people who?
Just kept the law Out of habit. In fact one was a revolutionary. James Montgomery Boyce says this he says we become friends because of his act. Because of his electing grace toward us in manifesting itself In the Atonement and in the ministry of his spirit by which our natural rebellion against God is overcome.
These were not men looking for full-time ministry. He called them to it and God always goes first. We would learn that even from John the Gospel of John. John 6 37 you can go back to John 15. John 6 37 all that the father gives me will come to me and Whoever comes to me.
I will never cast out. All of the father gives me. From the father to the son. All right, I think as I read through the Gospel of John, we're all we're frequently referred to as if we are a gift from one member of the Trinity to another and It's all for the mutual glory of the Father the Son and the Spirit.
God has to go first. Because we are powerless to do so. John 6 44. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him. The language here is consistent with the sovereign choice of God and of course the disciples had to respond.
But they would not have responded without the work of the triune God. Now he chose these men specifically that they should go and bear fruits and that their fruit would abide. The fruit that we don't often talk about.
I mean we go to Galatians 5 we talked about the fruit of the Spirit and what The fruit or what the Spirit produces in our lives. What we don't often talk about is The idea of fruit being disciples real spiritual physical fruit that we can see.
And if we think about the language here listen that they should go. Kind of sounds like Matthew 28 to me go and do what make disciples. Fruit that abides fruit that remains disciples believers. Believers preach the gospel the disciples soon-to-be.
Apostles preached and they saw spectacular results. Then what happens on the day of Pentecost. Thousands are saved and These people were gathered into Pentecost for the big holiday. They hear the Word of God.
They believe they go back to where they came from. And what do they do? They start preaching Christ, and then guess what happens? People believe it's amazing to me even as we read Titus here on the island of Crete.
We're talking about within a few decades. The gospel is fanning all over the Roman Empire. It's amazing to think about how God gave abiding fruit through the efforts of these men and we need to remember that because sometimes we think well, you know what I Can't do that.
I can't evangelize. I can't really preach the gospel. I'm not a preacher. I'd venture to say that these men were not preachers either. Now did they have three and a half years of discipleship and seeing how it was done?
Yes, but you know There was never a day. It wasn't like with pastor Mike where he says Steve I want you to go to the rest home this week and preach and I'm gonna be in the back with my little recorder.
It wasn't like that. Jesus never said hey Peter. Why don't you preach today? I just want to see how you're gonna do. You know be ready to preach prayer or die in a moment's notice. Peter get up there.
Never happened, but God Told them to go and they did and their fruit Abided. Now when he says, you know pray for Whatever you like. Pray for the desires of your heart these things will. How does he put it?
So that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you again. I think a lot of that has to do with. I mean, it could be a number of things, but I think as we pray for salvation God is faithful.
He will often we don't think you know, I'm gonna. I'm going to give a tract to somebody. I'm going to share the gospel of somebody. It always produces some kind of fruit and sometimes there'll be fruit that abides.
We need to be praying for that and God will. God is faithful. God is sovereign and man is responsible. We are responsible to do these things now. Also notice that he commands believers again in verse 17.
He commands the disciples to love other believers these things. I command you so that you will love one another. Now he just said that in verse 12 and he's saying it, you know a little bit differently here.
It's kind of a perfect bookend for verse 12. He's told them how he loves believers and then he commands them in light of his love to love other believers. It might not have meant so much to the disciples until later.
But they would get it. How close do you think those guys were? I Think they were the best of friends because they'd spent three and a half years together anyway, and then they have this big trial. This big trial where Jesus leaves and all these things happen.
They see him arrested and crucified and then they have the joy of Jesus coming back. How close do you think they're brought by that? I think they're very close closer than brothers. The love that they would have this is something that we ought to have for one another.
So the love of Jesus sets the standard. The love of Jesus led to his death. The love of Jesus is transforming. The love of Jesus is sovereign. Listen. God defines what love is. He defines it in action.
He shows his love by what he does. Yes. He says loving things encouraging things, but ultimately it's what he does that matters and he lays down his life. Willingly for all who would ever believe this is our God.
This is love. Let's pray Father in heaven. Lord what awesome love you have displayed for us. Unfailing love. We are weak. We say we love and we fail. We say that we'll do something and we don't. Again and again and again.
Even when we have the best of intentions. We fall short. But father your your love Is not only inexhaustible. It's immovable. It is determined it is set. You will not change and Your love shows forth in action.
What wondrous love is this indeed? That Jesus Christ eternally. God would come and voluntarily Lay down his life for us. Paying the price for our sins. It is a love that we cannot imagine it is a love.
Almost beyond the telling but we have a responsibility to tell it. We are surrounded by people who believe that they know that God loves them. If these things are not the marks of their lives if they don't love Jesus and therefore Love the biblical Jesus.
Which they show then by loving other believers then they don't love you at all. Encourage our hearts Lord to share the gospel of Jesus Christ the good news that we may see abiding fruits. Remind us to pray often for these things.
Knowing that the things we so often pray for our ephemeral. They they pass their temporal. They're going to burn up. But there is a fruit that always abides. And those are the regenerated people our brothers and sisters in Christ.
Father cause us to pray that. You would save many of our friends family neighbors. Even strangers that we just meet. That we cannot restrain our lips from speaking the glories of Christ Jesus and his incredible love.
For all who believe we pray for these things in Jesus name. Amen.