John 14:19-24 (The Conditions Of Christ's Love)

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you all human relationships are conditional

Every single one of them. There's not a single human relationship that you can point to that is not built upon some agreed -upon or assumed upon conditions for instance your barber or Stylist or whatever that is

Say they cut your hair poorly you walk out You're never going back there again. The condition is they're gonna do their job, right?

Or you're not gonna be in that relationship You think about managers or sports?

Coaches if they don't help the team actually win and go to the playoffs and sell more stuff and you raise the

Raise the bottom line Then they're gonna be canned. There's playoff teams that are already hiring new coaches, which is incredible to me

What a standard we made the playoffs lose your job Marriage is not unconditional either if you think about it

You may say that your love for your spouse is unconditional but There are conditions

If your wife just as an example were to stop telling the truth about everything who she's with where she's going

What she's doing so that trust was completely eroded in your marriage. Your marriage would fall apart if your husband's loyalty eventually erodes away and he finds himself gawking at every passerby or lingering on websites or Watching things that he shouldn't be watching or engaging behavior.

They shouldn't be engaged and that's a condition That is essential to the integrity of marriage and if it's not there the marriage is not going to last

At least not healthily There's all kinds of conditions that we that we have maybe unspoken conditions that we believe before we enter into relationships conditions of unity or honesty

Fidelity and faithfulness intimacy affection multiplication How do we communicate with one another?

I've seen relationships fall apart by something as simple as we don't know how to talk to one another

There's all sorts of conditions that are integral to relationships and maybe you're saying okay

I can understand that but not with my children Every other relationship is conditional.

I agree, but not my baby It's conditional as well It's conditional upon a lot of things now.

I Will admit that a parent's relationship with their children is one of the closest relationships to an unconditional love

But it's still based upon conditions imagine if a child is stealing from you

Vandalizing your home bringing drugs. I'm being really over -the -top here, but I'm just trying to set the boundaries here

They're committing crimes in your house. They're abusing your other children. They're taking a swing at their mother

Those things are happening Eventually the relationships gonna break down Every human relationship that we have has limits the limits might be really large

There might be a lot of patience and long -suffering that comes with intimate relationships, but every human relationship has

Conditions and if those conditions are not met Then the relationship will fall apart and it won't end

That's how relationships crumble First they experience strain when conditions aren't being met for a little while you can bear with it depending on how intimate the relationship is

If it's your barber done one time over Not trying to look ugly Well, I'm already working against genetics,

I mean my barber needs to do his job But intimate relationships

You can be patient But over time that creates strain if those conditions don't come into alignment that strain eventually becomes division division becomes distance distance becomes severance

Where the relationship is broken? Now again this happens in all kinds of human relationships, maybe you're saying but it doesn't happen with God my relationship with God is unconditional but in fact

Our relationship with God is built upon conditions as well. We have relational assumptions with God from our standpoint

That God's gonna love me and I'm gonna be his special snowflake We all feel like that because you know how

I know that Because when things don't go our way, we're whining about it and crying about it and saying God. Where are you?

He never said you're gonna have it easy. But as soon as the temperature goes up We start crying with the best of them, don't we?

When assumptions don't pan out when our relationship with God feels distant. We feel like there's tension.

We feel like there's distant and If that condition persists, I've even heard Christians say

I think God has abandoned me. I don't think God's with me I don't feel God is near me Our conditions that we bring to the relationship is

I'm gonna feel close to God or I'm gonna do this and that and every single person if they go through those Seasons of deserts and wilderness is long enough those conditions will say oh

I feel this distance Now our hearts deceitful above all things. So when we feel distance with God, we're the problem

Our heart is wrong, but it's a condition that we have in the way that we approach

God Now you'll say but the way God approaches us is different He and his love is unconditional, right?

Human relationships have vulnerabilities God doesn't have that Human relationships are held together through repentance.

God doesn't need to repent of anything He's never done a single thing wrong. He's always loved us unconditionally and yet There is a condition if you're not in Christ, you don't belong to him now after that After you are elect after you've been redeemed after you've been brought into relationship with Jesus He loves you consistently forever.

That's the condition. You must be born again. You must be in Christ You must have his blood painted upon your heart if that condition is not met

You're not his So even the love of God Has conditions have you ever thought about that we hear all the time

God loves me unconditionally. No He did not love you. Just the way you are.

He loved you enough to die for you. That's different. I did a little

Little experiment on this to see if the word unconditional is even in the Bible. I used English version so I didn't use

Greek It's not in the NASV at all. Not once It's not in the

ESV Not once it's not in the KJV not once the word unconditional does not show up in the what

I think are the three great translations in English The only translation that shows up in is the message which is not a

Bible Now listen, I don't want to be

I don't want to be too harsh There is a purpose for the message that translation.

It makes a really good doorstop It fixes wobbly tables

If you're into pressing flowers when they've died some lovely hobby, by the way, beautiful you can do that It can start a campfire.

It's really good for kindling You can roast lamb chops over an open flame so that the aroma that that wafts up to the

Lord is a pleasant aroma to him You can have paper airplane competitions

But don't don't use it as a Bible because it's not a Bible It's it is a

Paraphrase at best I say that because it's ubiquitous. It's all over the place read an English Bible.

The message is not about anyway I'm off track The word unconditional does not show up in the

English translations Because God's relationship with this is not purely unconditional.

It's based upon the condition of Christ Christ died for you.

He was buried for you He rose again for you. His blood was painted on you if that condition is not met

Nothing you can do can can storm the gates of heaven. Nothing you can do can earn your salvation if that conditions not met

You're still lost So his love is conditional conditioned upon Jesus Christ Now today

We're gonna lean into that condition we're gonna look at one condition That Christ has done that opens up everything for us and from that one condition.

We're gonna see four beautiful things that happen to us for things that that start to grow in us, but we have to root it in the fact that it's based on a condition so if you will

Turn with me to the next verses in our John 14 study. We're in John 14 18 through 24

You were starting to think we were gonna go one verse at a time We're gonna pick it up a little bit today

John 14 18 through 24 Let us read this passage together

After a little while the world will no longer see me But you will see me

Because I live and you will live also and That day you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you he who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me and He who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him

Judas not Iscariot Said to him Lord What then has happened that you are going to disclose yourself to us and not the world?

Jesus answered and said to him if anyone loves me He will keep my word and my father will love him and will come to him and make our abode with him

He who does not love me Does not keep my words and the words which you've heard are not mine, but the father's who sent me let's pray

Lord today help us to see the great condition Upon which everything rests

Upon which our faith Our love our living our sight our will

Everything is rooted Lord help us today to To see rightly that all of the wonderful things that have happened to us in our faith or because of one condition

That was by the power of Christ in Christ alone Lord help us or if there's someone here today who is not under the canopy of that condition

Holy Spirit, would you awaken them today? Would you reveal to them their sinfulness would you cause them to turn and look to the the risen

Christ and Lord, would you graft them into your family of grace?

Lord we ask these things in Jesus name. Amen There's one condition by which all of us stand all of us live and it is

Christ It's the thing that we see right away in this text right as soon as we open it up in verse 18

Jesus says you will see me because I live Because Jesus lives because he rose from the dead you and I will have the things that this passage is talking about The only reason any of us will have anything in this life is because he lives.

Do you ever remember that old hymn? I think the Gaithers wrote it because he lives I can face tomorrow because he lives

I don't remember the rest of it But I remember that part that's the important part because he lives

That's the condition by which we are known to God because he rose from the grave without that we have nothing

I remember sitting in my seminary class on Puritanism in America, I believe is what it was and we were reading dusty old books and my professor

He read online or I think from from Thomas Boston or something or Cotton Mather, I don't remember

The important part was he put the book down and a tear formed in his eye He was in his 80s when he said this

I think he's like late 80s now He said the gospel is more beautiful today

Than it was when I first believed And that captivated my heart. I want to be like that That the simple gospel

We can learn a lot of things The simple gospel is the bedrock of everything

Because he lives Everything is now available to the believer because he lives

That's the condition and what I find so fascinating is that he took us in our pitiful condition

And because of that condition gave us a new condition Called new creation Everything is based on that.

So from now, that's the bedrock. That's the gospel now the four things We're going to talk about moving from that are all based on that So as we as we go through these four things do not be confused.

They're all There because he lives none of it is because you're great. None of it is because you're smart

None of it is because you're more spiritual than someone else. It is because he lives the first one

You will see He says after a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me why

Because Jesus in this passage and this phrase is admitting something to us

He's admitting we don't have sight in and of ourself. The only reason we have sight is because he lives We don't have sight in and of ourself.

We're born into iniquity and sin We're born into into all kinds of things that blind our eyes that leave us an impenetrable

Darkness so that of our own strength of our own volition of our own will we cannot see

We're like a blind man walking over Tombs that have been covered over with shallow dirt ready to fall through in a moment.

We were blind dead Spiritually, I was looking up I was asking chat

GBT something this week I was asking it about black holes And I said explain black holes to me like I'm a child that's most of my questions to chat

GBT Apparently black holes Have such incredibly dense and thick and powerful gravity.

It's so strong That light can't even get it That's the same way that you and I were in our sin our sin nature was so strong so palpable

That the light of the gospel would not come in without Christ forcing it in We couldn't see it

We were blind to it Could wave our proverbial hand in front of our face and we couldn't see it at all

It was not there until Christ gave us new eyes And gave us a new condition

The gospel is the fact That the darkness you and I were living in Christ took upon himself

He marched up the hill of Calvary Skies turned dark darkness came over him

He was crucified there in that moment thrown into a tomb Sealed with the tombstone there so that no light could get in descended down into the depths of Sheol in The land of shadows,

I think Job calls it Three days Jesus lived in the darkness that you and I deserved

And on the third day the light burst forth from the tomb That's the hope

Because in and of yourself you deserve that the darkness You deserve no light.

No sight nothing and yet in Jesus Christ the light of the world

You've been awakened that is the very gospel his resurrection gives us a new condition.

He gives us both sight and light And he does more than that even for those who are in him

He doesn't just give us sight to see the light He makes us into little lights and puts us up on lampstands so that a dark world

Will be able to see the goodness and grace of God He says because I live you will see me because I live the world will see

The glory of God. I'd love to be able to see the world as Christ sees it Every Christian lit up with the

Holy Spirit I'd love to go back like Jeff Bezos and his little rocket ship and be able to see like all the little nights all over the world for Christians and how

That's illuminating the planet Because he lives You will see and you will become lights in a dark and crooked and perverse generation.

Amen It's so good Because he lives The next thing is because he lives you're gonna live too

He says but you will see me because I live and because I live you will live Also, his life is what brings us into life.

His resurrection is what resurrects us his new creation is what makes us new creations He brings us into new

Life now, there's so much to unpack in that passage

But I would expect that if he gives us new life Then we'll actually start living

Before Christ we were dead We're zombies. We were walking around we were doing our thing spiritual zombies

But because he's given us life there should be some Evidence of living about us for the first time maybe in our life there should be some evidence of the fact that that God's life has become our life and our behavior now is becoming conformed to his

Behavior his life is is is bearing down upon us and making us truly

Live Christians are the only people on earth who can actually truly live Do we showcase that do we showcase that we have the life of Christ Coursing through our veins

Or do we bellyache with the best of them? I do There should be something different about us if Christ's life

Has been given to us. Let me give you an example. I Don't want to go morbid here, but I'm gonna go morbid here

Imagine I went to your funeral I Would not expect if I look down at your body, especially if you were cremated

But I would not expect for you to move while you were lying in the casket That would freak me out.

I wouldn't expect any twitching I wouldn't expect even the flutter of an eyelash

I Would expect you to lie there dead But If something happened and you came back to life when

I finally got my composure My expectation would change Previously, I would have said you're not gonna move.

I don't expect you to move I wouldn't have even thought about that. But now that you're alive, I don't expect you to stay seated. I Don't expect you to stay laying.

You imagine a dead person being resurrected laying there. So I think I'm quite comfortable No The first thing that they would be doing is get me out of this thing.

They'd be leaping out of it Their legs don't even maybe work yet. They're awkward falling around. They're trying to get outside to to see the sunshine

You imagine that the Sun they they're weeping tears of joy because the Sun it's like they're not gonna take it for granted ever again

They've got life in their lungs. They're breathing. They're screaming. They're like, I'm alive Sometimes I wonder why my life doesn't look that stark.

I Was dead. I've been made alive Why is it that I and why is it that we?

Sometimes and go and lay in the caskets of old Go take snoozes and sin

We don't have the joy of the life of Jesus Christ coursing in our veins that changes everything about us

Changes our behavior changes our affections. It changes our priorities it changes the way we love and the way that we see and the way that we live and the way that we talk and The way that we do everything

Jesus says because I live you will live too Let that be our prayer that we would live

That we would truly live that's the second thing the second consequence of his condition is that you will live you will see and You will live

The third is that you will know him He says in that day the day that he rises from the dead

You will know that I am in my father and you and me and I in you we will not only have living

Spiritual eyes and we will not only have a living soul and a living Testimony where we live, but we will also obtain the greatest knowledge that can ever be obtained

John Calvin in his Institutes of the Christian religion One of the great phrases in book one is the knowledge of God is the greatest knowledge of all

It's the greatest knowledge. There's nothing that you can know That's better than knowledge of God and that doesn't just mean facts about God.

It doesn't just mean memorization Those are good doesn't just mean theology. That's good. I I'm not downing that I'm saying it's it's a holistic kind of knowledge where you know,

God not just no facts about God There's potential here for somebody if there was a sheet of facts on My wife that you could memorize and you might know more about her than I do if you studied

But you don't know her. I know her the knowledge of God is

Both academic but it's also intimate It's in your head, but it's also in your heart

It's experiential knowledge and it really covers two types of things the knowledge of God does

Because Jesus lived two kinds of knowledge will culminate together in the knowledge of God.

The first is You will know that Christ is equal to God that he is

God in the flesh. That's what Jesus says in this passage You will know that Jesus is in the father the father is in him

You will know that Christ is co -eternal with the father just like the Athanasian Creed says now, this is the

Catholic faith If you're new to reformed churches, that doesn't mean Roman Catholic. That means big

C Catholic the whole church Now this is the Catholic faith That we worship one

God and Trinity and Trinity in unity Neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence for the person of the father is a distinct person

The person of the Son is another and that of the Holy Spirit is still another but the divinity of the Father Son and the

Holy Spirit is one their glory equal their majesty co -eternal a lot of words there, but Christ is

God That's simple When you come to know the knowledge of God if you don't know that Christ is

God, you don't know God If you don't know that Christ is in the father then you don't know the father

So intimate is that relationship that there are three and yet one His resurrection will awaken you to that knowledge the second knowledge that you will come to not only that Lordship of Jesus Christ the

Divinity of Jesus Christ the second bit of knowledge that you will come to is that you're in him Not only is

Christ in the father and the father in Christ and the Holy Spirit in this three -in -one beautiful Unexplainable even try you in Godhead that we see in Scripture, but you're in him.

You're in Christ One word is oh my goodness in You're in him

Have you ever just pondered that one word? This is one of the smallest words the English language.

Maybe other than a or I in him You're in Jesus You're not on the outside anymore looking in you're not someone who has some facts and you're like,

I knew a little bit about Jesus You're in him

He says you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you

I Think that's the most incredible statement in the Bible. I don't want to gloss over that I think being in Christ is the central reality of what it means to be a

Christian if you are in him You are you're his You're no longer dead man, you're no longer spiritually blind woman he takes you into him

He doesn't grab the pom -poms and come to where you're at He doesn't scream.

Oh, you're doing so wonderful. I'm gonna applaud you where you are He grabs you and yanks you and brings you into him

He animates your dead carcass of a soul he enlivens your hollow spirit

He brings you life and brings you into him so that there's no more boundaries. No more walls.

No more distance No more no more division. If you're in Christ in Christ, you cannot be separated from him ever

How often do we say I just feel like God is distance God is not distant from you you're in Christ There's not a nanometer of distance between you and Christ There's not a whatever smaller than an anemometer there's not a quark between you and Jesus a human example of this there's

I Feel like I've gotten wisdom over the years a little I'm slow to learn

But I've learned that there's two kinds of women in this world There's my wife and there's not my wife

That's the two kinds of women that there are in the world, there's my wife and there's not my wife Those who are not my wife.

I May care about them in some way upon a spectrum. My mom, you know, it's pretty high on the spectrum

You know some stranger in Bangladesh. I Generally in beauty pageant language care for the world.

I pray for world hunger I Care for people, but they're all at a distant.

There's some division. There's some separation No woman on earth knows me like Shannon. I don't want to know any other woman on earth like I know her if You're not

Shannon You're not getting to know me like that If you want to get to know me like that repent of that Because I'm gonna keep you in arms.

I'm gonna Heisman you It's Different with my wife

Than it is with any other woman marriage has brought her and I Together it's brought her and I into this one flesh.

I've now been brought into her She's been brought into me one flesh union in a way that cannot be replicated by any other person on earth

There's nothing better. Nothing sweeter. There's no communion. That's more. That's more intense and more intimate and more

Every emotion all over the place like she is mine and I am hers That is a human illustration.

That is so small compared to what Christ has done for you and I in Raising from the dead

He has brought us in to him in a way that is not true for unbelievers

Who are kept at a distance from Christ? He's brought us in and such deep intimate fellowship that marriage is something you would yawn at if you knew the intimacy that Christ has with his bride the church and I think the most profound part of that is

That we're not only in him But he is in them Therefore he's brought you into them.

Does that make sense? You are in Christ, but Christ is in the Trinity perfectly in the

Trinity so when he brought you in He brought you peace with God He brought you intimacy with the

Spirit. He brought you not as an outsider Who's like I'm friends with Jesus, but I don't get to go. I don't get to go there.

No, no, no, no, no He brought you in He brought you in intimacy with the

Trinity Something that you and I can never possibly fathom how excellent that is

You and I as we think about it we're like that sounds kind of neat Multiply your affections by 10 ,000 millions and you're still not even close to how good that is and How wonderful that news is and I think all of eternity because you and I are not omniscient.

I Used to think when you get to heaven, you're gonna know everything. No only God knows everything

Heaven will be every day learning something new about God and singing your guts out because of it for eternity.

I Can't imagine what it's gonna be like I'm gonna be you're gonna see me in heaven. I'm gonna be like we're in him.

Did you know that? And in some ways we'll be like not yet not totally there's so many implications of this

Dear one, I want you to hear this very clearly if you're in Christ, you cannot be separated from God It would be more likely that Christ would be severed from the

Trinity Than for you to lose your salvation because you're in him wherever he goes you go

If he can't be severed from the father. You can't be severed from the father. Do you get that? You're his

Because he lives you're in him First three things we see is that we will because he lives we will see the things of God We will live out the things of God and we will know the living

God the fourth thing that we see Is that we will love him verse 21

Jesus says he who has my commandments and keeps them as the one who loves me and He who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and will disclose myself to him

Don't miss the the beauty and the nuance here and John 14 15 Jesus says if you love me you will obey my commandments here

He's flipping it and saying if you obey my commandments, then you will love me. Do you see that? If you love me, you'll obey me if you baby you will love me.

This is on purpose This is sort of a relational helix as it were

It's a a sort of way that we can look at how do we live our Christian life there's a paradigm here actually

If you're struggling with obedience The last thing in the world you can do is add more effort

Add more performance Try to obey harder. I'm struggling with patience.

Let me just try to be more patient. See how that works Try one day to be patient and you will be exploding like Mount Vesuvius by the end of it

I Hear a mama back there the way

To obey Christ is not to focus on obedience. It's to focus on love

He says if you love me You will obey me If you're struggling with a particular sin

If you're struggling with doubt if you're struggling with something that I'm the person next to me

God is so aggravating and infuriating to me right now I Can't even open my mouth.

I guess it'd be real We all have those moments If you're struggling with some duty that Christ has told you to do don't try harder

Love him Spend a second and just stop break the cycle of whatever thing that's bothering you just stop

Close your eyes and dream about the beauty of Jesus Christ Go to the Psalms and celebrate the majesty of Christ Look at his resurrection and how glorious he is in his in his perfected flesh that he rose for us

Look at his mount of transfiguration and see this glorious Christ look to him. Look at his character

Look at who he is and just for a moment. Just allow yourself to be overwhelmed by the love of Christ and I guarantee you

Your obedience will follow that you can try really hard to be religious

Or you can spend your effort energy trying to love Jesus and I promise you your obedience will follow Because if you love me, you will obey my commands.

It's a promise but What if you're struggling with love? What if your heart is dead

What if you'd like you're in a wilderness and your your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling and smacking you right in the face

Then what do you do? Repent and obey There's something in your life.

There's some sin there that needs repenting of There's some duty that you've neglected

Open up your Bible and read it pray what I found is

When I'm trying to obey and I'm being unsuccessful I need to love Jesus but when my heart is dull and I can't love

Jesus in that moment and I'm struggling in that there's some matter of Obedience that I need to deal with there's a helix involved if I'm struggling with love.

I need to work on repentance Work on the means of grace If I'm struggling with obedience,

I need to love him There's this there's this ebb and flow this interchange between love and obedience where they actually work together

So that you can't love Jesus if you don't obey him and you can't obey Jesus if you don't love him they're both true and they both

I Commend them to you as as a part of your sanctification to employ them both

As Christians we get nervous Because we don't want to be legalist We don't want to say, you know, you have to obey

I've been in so many conversations where don't tell me I have to obey Jesus did everything

That's not what the Bible says that's that's called antinomianism it means you're against the law you're against obedience.

That's not what the Bible says The Bible doesn't give us a kind of grace that does everything for you

It's a grace that enables you to now do for God what you never could have done on your own Hold those two intention with one another love him.

Obey him. Obey him and love him and the reason that those two realities are possible for you is

Because he lives Because he lives you can love him because he lives you can now obey him

Because he lives you can see him Because he lives you can know him today all

I want you to think about is That Jesus did not love you without conditions he changed your condition so that you could love him and in so doing

Respond to him today by giving him your eyes So that all you want to look at is him and whatever you're looking at is sanctified

Respond today by giving him your life So that all you want to do is for him whether you eat or whether you drink do it all to the glory of Christ Respond today by giving him your mind because he gave it to you fill it full of the knowledge of God And Respond to him today

By loving him and obeying him The Christian faith is not complicated, but it's also not easy

Respond by repenting remembering and Rejoicing and who Christ is

You will grow And you will have great joy. Let's pray Lord we thank you that the condition by which we were brought in was you

And we thank you for that reality so that we could never thank ourselves Lord everything about this is is us heaping praise and gratitude and joy upon you

Lord today, I pray that our dull eyes would see Lord, I pray that our our

Lifes would be enlivened by the sweetness of the resurrected Christ Lord I pray that our friends and our family and our co -workers and our children and our spouses

Lord I pray for everyone in this room that there would be something noticeably Different peculiar and sweet about the life that is lived in submission to Christ Lord I pray that as we do that that it would not be a dour religious sort of Performative obedience

Lord, I pray that it would be a dutiful or it would be a joyful delight that our hearts would be inflamed with the love of God that our bodies would be captivated by doing your will and Lord, I pray as we began that you would make this church and make us your people little lampstands that shine for your glory

Because you live These things are true, it's in Christ's name we pray.