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Sermon Notes: notes.cornerstonesj.org
Love
You're in the hallway ready to come on in good time to come in grab your seats We gather together in the
Lord's presence and again. I want to say good morning So if we could take our seats and settle down I think that would be awesome.
I'm going to open us up this morning in Proverbs chapter 7 verses 1 & 2
They're alive this morning Pastor Jeff is going to be talking a little bit in a while about the awesomeness of the love of fellowship here in this church
Which is really really amazing, but I'm going to ask you to take a seat right now
Proverbs 7 verses 1 & 2 my son Keep my words and treasure up my commands with you
Keep my commands and live Last week as Jeff was taking us into the beginning of John 15
Jesus has the vine with the branches. He got to the point where it talked about the couplet of prayer and Study of his word and and he was indicating to us.
I guess it was Spurgeon Jeff Spurgeon he was asked which is more important prayer or study of the word
Good question And he said it's like breathing out and breathing in You can't have one without the other you got to do both
And I want to encourage us this morning because we get to come together this morning in God's presence We get to hear the
Word of God spoken to us These are the words that are given to us and we're told to treasure them up To keep them with you and with those you learn what it is really like To live life as God would intend it.
See here's the thing God is the only source of truth There are things out there that are going to be trying to get your attention
You spend time on the internet you spend time listening to the news Whatever it is, there are things that are going to tell you we've got the message for you
But my encouraging words to you are first of all without God you are vulnerable Without his truth you are vulnerable to so many
Distractions and so many lies out there, but then here's the encouraging side of it with him
You get to encourage you get to experience God Think about that Next you get to experience
God and then you get to bear fruit. So this morning we hear the word Listen to the word let the
Holy Spirit speak to you believe here and every day of the week spend time in the word
Treasure up his commands with you make them part of who you are in daily life.
I got some Announcements we are shifting out of summer mode and we're heading into September lots of things going on The first one
I want to highlight is we are going to be offering a baptism in three weeks
September 17th, it will be down the shore Place same place. We went last year down at LBI If you are at all interested in baptism contact pastor
Jeff myself one of the elders anybody up here on the stage There are going to be classes actually one is being offered right now.
It will be the next two weeks We encourage you to go for two of them If you can't make the classes you still want to be baptized
Let us know we will work it out so that you're prepared for baptism But if you're at all interested in baptism, this one's coming up.
It's a public baptism, which makes it really cool It's in the open waters, which is really awesome
And for the rest of us church family We're going to go down and be with them and encourage them and enjoy the time of fellowship
And just encouraging times of baptism Right after that we're going to be doing another we call it a starting point class
It's to be it's a newcomers class If you are new to our church, you would like to learn more about our church.
You're interested in our church Maybe you're interested in in Membership the starting point class is offered a couple of times a year
It will be offered on the 24th of September and then for the following two weeks heading into October We will continue to let you know about that, but we encourage you to participate in that Want to encourage you back this evening at 6 o 'clock for our prayer meeting
It was amazing last week. We had so many people show up. We couldn't fit in the classroom
We had to come here into the sanctuary. It is so awesome to get together with brothers and sisters in prayer join with us
So there are some classes coming up that I want to make you aware of The marriage matters class will be taught again in a couple of weeks
Bill and Janice Biddle teach that if you're interested There are still a couple of spots open for this class contact them again
Jeff myself one of the elders and and join in that it's coming up in the middle of September all the small groups are resuming if they have they went through the summer
They're starting back up if you're not in a small group. That is a great place to grow
We have a Wednesday noon study that we've been teaching now for two and a half since Colvin We've been teaching it since Colvin.
We're in the middle of book of Daniel. We took the summer off We will be starting again on the 13th of September So if that's something you you've been part of you're looking when are we starting?
It's in a couple of weeks on the 13th There is a young adult study going to be starting out
This is for young adults post high school college and into the early years of Everybody's young to me, but for the young people
It's after the prayer meeting on Sunday evenings. It'll start tonight It'll basically be twice a month and there is still a midweek
Bible study for high schoolers taught by Eric and Carrie Meyer at their house
I was asked to give you a sentiment courage, but this is the farthest advance. I've ever talked about operation
Christmas child these are These are boxes of gifts that we give to an organization
I think it's a Samaritan's Purse it goes to needy children throughout the world Guess what we are in getting ready for school time get your school supplies now while they're on sale
And they'll be ready to fill them into your Christmas operation Christmas child. Let's turn to prayer
Father we come to you this morning seeking your very presence We come because not we deserve it.
But because of the blood of Christ Our forgiveness has been won. We are made adopted children.
We are part of your family So we can come to your presence Lord. We come anticipating your love
We come anticipating the blessings that only come from you Father we thank you
Lord for your word given to us in the scriptures We are told to take keep the words and to treasure them into our hearts and through them
We live in you and so Lord We thank you for these scriptures They proclaim power of truth and that through the power of the
Holy Spirit pastor Jeff even this morning Will give us your very words that we can take them into our hearts
That we can do this all week long opening your word and through the Holy Spirit We conform to your will we say thank you
Lord be with us We pray this morning as we gather together Give Jeff the words to speak and prepare our hearts.
We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen I Said be your name
Let's be your name Place Blessing you pour out turn back to pray
When the darkness Close Let's be your name with the sun shining down on me
The world is all as it should be Let's let be your name
With suffering Every blessing you pour out
When the darkness
Let's be the name
Oh To say
You give and take away My heart will choose to say
Blessed be your name Blessed be the name of the
Lord Blessed be your name Blessed be the name of the
Lord Blessed be your glorious name
We praise you,
Lord. 1 Peter 3 .18 says,
For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the
Spirit. And Romans 3, Christ Jesus, whom
God put forward as a propitiation by His blood to be received by faith. This was to show
God's righteousness because in His divine forbearance He had passed over former sins.
It was to show His righteousness at the present time so that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
And I hear the Savior say, Thy strength indeed is small.
Child of weakness, watch and pray. Let's sing that again from the beginning.
Child of weakness, watch and pray. I'm in need,
I know it all. Cause Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white and true.
Lord, now indeed I am.
And I can change the leper's curse
And heal the heart of sin. Cause Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
And when before the throne I stand and incompete,
Jesus died, my soul to save.
My name shall still be clean. Cause Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe.
He washed it white and true. He washed it white and true.
Sin had left a crimson stain, what gift of grace is
Jesus my Redeemer? There is no more for heaven now to bear.
He is my joy, my righteousness and free.
My steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace.
To this I hold, my hope is only
Jesus. For my life is wholly bound to Him.
Oh how strange and divine I can see.
All is mine yet not I, but through Christ.
The night is dark, but I am not forsaken.
For by my side, the Savior, He will stay.
I labor on in weakness and rejoice.
For in my need, His power is displayed.
To this I hold, my shepherd will defend me.
Through the deepest valley, He will lead.
Oh the night has been won, and I shall overcome.
Yet not I, but through Christ. No fate
I dread, I know I am forgiven. The future's sure, the price it has been paid.
For Jesus bled and suffered for my poor.
And He was raised to overthrow the grave.
To this I hold, my sin has been defeated.
Jesus now and ever is my plea.
Oh the chains are released, I can sing.
I am free yet not I, but through Christ. With every breath,
I long to follow Jesus. For He has said that He will bring me home.
And day by day, I know He will redeem me.
Until I stand with joy before the throne.
To this I hold, my hope is only Jesus. Oh the glory evermore to win.
When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat.
Yet not I, but through Christ. When the race is complete, still my lips shall repeat.
Yet not I, but through Christ in me.
Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you for your love, which you have shed abroad into our hearts.
We thank you for the forgiveness of sin and the gift of eternal life.
We thank you that you have given us your son, that we are in union with him. And we thank you for the spirit that you have poured into our hearts to teach us the deep things of God.
Father, our prayer this morning is that you would teach us to love the way you do. Increase our love.
Help us to be more like you in how we love one another. And Lord, we pray also that the world would take notice and see the difference between the fake, the counterfeit love that it offers and the true, genuine love of God in Christ.
Let them see how we love one another and know that we are Christians by our love.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Have you heard the expression, love is love?
Love is love, the banners will say. And by that, it is meant that whatever a person defines to be love or whatever attraction that a person has should be regarded as equally valid.
Sadly, this is the first generation of young people that have been raised not, in many cases, by parents, but rather by devices.
Very often children are given smartphones or iPads with access to the internet and they are learning this so -called love by what they stumble upon on the internet.
And the corrupting effect on the human brain, especially at that young age, is causing people to think very differently than how things were for the course of human history.
Do you realize that the decision in Obergefell in 2015 is just eight years ago?
That's how quickly the world has been changing. And much of that is because, according to Matthew 24, verse 12, as we near the end times, the love of most will grow cold.
And so people throwing up their hands say love is love because they have not seen the genuine. You know, I saw the genuine again the last time
I visited Florida. And I tell this story often because it is to me one of the clearest pictures of love that I've seen while in the flesh here in my short life.
And that is the love of my father, my earthly father, for my mother. She has
Parkinson's and at this point she cannot eat except for pureed food. And he feeds her those meals.
But I see how he goes in day after day. And this most recent time she couldn't open her eyes, but he still feeds her and he never considers it a burden.
It is a joy to him. And he told me a couple days ago that from time to time she will open her eyes and smile at him.
And he catches that glimpse of who she is. And see, church, this is genuine love that the world knows nothing of, that endures every hardship, that never fails, that's patient, that's kind.
I see it in my earthly father. And I wonder, where did he learn it? Well, he learned it from his father.
There's a friend of ours who does a ministry similar to what we do. It's called Love Life, where we call out and we reach out to moms and dads who are about to make a dreadful decision at the murder mill.
My friend, Wani, Juan Riesco, is in Chicago at the largest abortion clinic there.
And he says that they've rescued 30 -some babies at this point. And praise
God for that. But when he talks to the moms and dads before they go in, many of them will say that they know that what they are about to do is murder.
And some claim to be Christians and plan to repent later. You see, love is very different from what the world understands.
This is not love that has brought this baby into existence because the mother does not value the child of who should be her husband.
And the life of this child is not loved. It is to be discarded because love grows cold in this world.
Matthew 24, 12 says, The love of many will grow cold. Where did my father learn to love as he does?
He learned it from his father. My grandfather, Paul Clewer, was in World War II.
And after being released from a Russian prison camp four years in the gulag, he returned to his family.
My dad was born at that time. And he wanted to bring his family to America, to a land of freedom and to a
Christian country. And so he would go and work on bridges, rebuilding the bridges of Germany.
But to get more hours to fund this trip to America, he would sleep under the bridge where he worked during the day,
Monday to Friday, and home with the family on the weekend. This is a kind of love, a father love, that shaped my dad.
And it's something that's disappearing as the times grow darker. But my grandfather learned this love from where we ultimately all do, and that is the love of the
Father God. God the Father. There is no replacement for the love of God.
As seen in the church, if you'll notice, government is trying to step into that role as the father and fails miserably to do so.
People look to government for the solutions of all of their provisions. But see, here's the thing.
Government doesn't love people. Government seeks power for itself, and the politicians cannot fill that need for love.
Where then can the world find love? If government, if that nanny state cannot provide the love that is needed, where is this love to be found?
I'll tell you where I've seen it. Right here in this church. Some people who have come have remarked that,
I've never been to a church where after it lets out, people remain and talk to each other for half an hour, an hour, or two.
Some people are used to going to church and all they do is wave at somebody and they don't know one another. But here, there is this kind of love.
Maybe six months ago, we gathered on a Monday night. And normally, the women have a precept study and the men have apologetics.
But Drew and Jill didn't show up that night. And in many places,
I think in the world, if someone doesn't show up, what do people assume? Ah, something must have come up.
I'm sure they're fine. Don't think anything of it. But see, this church knew Drew and Jill.
And they knew that they wouldn't just not show up and then stop, and then not answer their phones.
And so Matt and Ivan and others were concerned. And because of love, they went to their house and they found that their cars were there and their cell phones were there.
And where are Drew and Jill? Something terrible must have happened. And I saw love in this church because as soon as word of that got out, dozens and dozens of people rushed to their house.
And we were suiting up to go into the woods because Drew and Jill, they like to hike in the woods. They're back there somewhere.
Maybe there was a bear or something. And we were all prepared to go. My wife had a smarter idea. She actually called the hospitals.
And she found them at the Marlton Hospital. And so everything turned out okay.
But what we learned that day and what we remembered that day is how deeply we care for one another.
They will know that we are Christians by our love. The church has something here and every genuine church across America and across the world that the world knows nothing of.
It is the love for the brother. This world seems to be falling apart in many ways, but what it's really doing is crying out for love.
Just like that hippie generation. Remember Jesus Revolution? What they're really looking for is love.
And they're looking in all the wrong places. So it is with this generation. They need love.
There was another mass shooting yesterday. This is new to the world.
This hadn't happened in generations previous to this level.
Matthew 24 -12 As we near the end, the love of most will grow cold.
But what do we have to tell this world? And what hope do we have to bring? Is it not the one who brought his beloved disciples into an upper room?
And there he humbled himself and wrapped himself in a towel and knelt and washed the feet of his disciples.
His servants. The king served the servants. And then he led them out to the garden of Gethsemane where he allowed himself to be taken.
No one takes my life, I give it willingly. And he went to Golgotha and he laid down on the cross and he was pierced for our transgressions.
He took the death penalty that we owe into his body on the tree.
In love, he satisfied the demand of justice. God's holy and righteous wrath against the sin that you and I have committed.
Jesus took that upon himself because he loves you. The world knows nothing of this love, but this is perfect love.
Jesus has died the death that we deserve. That's called propitiation. But the death of Jesus on the cross is also an example according to 1
Peter. That we should love the way he has loved us.
Let's turn to John 15 verses 9 to 17. And look at the depths of his love.
Before we read John 15, 9 to 17, I want to remind you of a theme that's been developed in the book of John and through all of the gospels.
And that is this. God loved us first.
The salvation we have in Christ is not God reciprocating once we learn to obey him and earn something from him.
Rather, he has loved us first. And it's pictured in the calling of the disciples. Picture Matthew at his tax collector booth.
And Jesus comes and says, follow me. And Matthew leaves everything.
The fishermen, James and John, following Zebedee's trade all their life.
Can you imagine that they would leave that all behind when some Messiah figure comes and says, follow me.
And that is exactly what they did. Or Nathanael, who's just sitting under a fig tree. And then
Philip eventually finds him and says, come, we have found the Messiah. Can anything good come out of Nazareth?
Nazareth, come and see. And when he meets Jesus, he tells him, I saw you under the fig tree.
And just like that, with nothing more, Nathanael is able to say, you are the son of God, the king of Israel.
And Jesus says, do you believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.
Like Jacob's ladder, angels ascending and descending upon the son of man. Point being, the call of God to belong to the son, to follow
Christ, to be a disciple comes from God. It is a powerful, effectual call.
This is God's love. And you wonder, why are you here this morning?
Titus 3, 5 would tell you, it's not any works done of you. It is
God's love that has called you unto the son of God and granted you to believe.
So let us read then, John 15, with that in mind, verses 9 to 17.
As the father has loved me, so have
I loved you. Abide in my love. 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.
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay 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 fruit 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.
First thing to observe in our text today is the perfect love of the father.
In verse nine, as the father has loved me, the love of God for Christ, the son, goes back to eternity past.
Have you heard it said that God is love? God is love. We've heard this, right?
It cannot be that God is love unless he exists as a trinity.
If he required a creation or something to love, there has to be a referent of his love.
Then he couldn't be love until he made the world. Except that God has always been father, son, and Holy Spirit.
Follow this. The reason we can say that God is love comes down to the fact that the father has always loved the son.
The son has always loved the spirit. The spirit has always loved the father and vice versa in every way in the perfect love of the trinity is the essence of God.
God is love. He has always been loving. Think about this. He didn't need a creation. He didn't need to make anything in order to become loving.
He's always loved within himself. It says, By this my father is glorified, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples.
Verse 8. In verse 9, As the father has loved me. Listen. This is amazing.
So have I loved you. The starting point to understand this sermon today is to realize that the love that God has for us, church, the love that he has for you is the same love as the father's love for the son.
That's a mind -blowing statement. As the father has loved the son, the son loves you.
You are perfectly loved. The love of God for you cannot be improved upon.
It is already perfect. So have I loved you. And here is the great command of the text.
Just like last week, there was only one command. Here it is. The imperative of the text this week, beginning here in this week, is, verse 9, abide in my love.
That's what we need to do as Christians. Now we talked about last week, what does it look like? We saw the word, his word abiding in you, and prayer, talking to God.
And as Spurgeon compared it to breathing, which is more important, reading the word or praying?
Spurgeon says, what's more important, breathing in or breathing out? You need to have both.
To abide in his love means to relate to him, to be in relationship with him, to be in union with him, and as we're about to see, not departing.
The word actually means remain, meno in the Greek it is, to stay put, to be right here in the word, where he found you, when you were first saved, your first love.
Before that might have begun to cool, return to that first love, right where you began.
And it's no great work of yours, it is to remain in his love, in the word, in prayer, relating to him.
And so we get to the next section of the passage, verses 10 through 12.
Jesus commands to make our flawed love like his perfect love.
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.
Now what are the commandments as you read this? Certainly it refers to the 10 commandments, right?
You must obey the 10 commandments. More than that, it refers to the 613 laws written in the
Old Testament. Because when the father gives the law, it is also
Jesus giving that law. I think that's why Jesus bent down to write with his finger in the sand when the woman was caught in adultery.
I think he was reminding those and speaking to us in the text that he's the giver of the law.
Just like his finger is writing in the sand, it was his finger that carved out the 10 commandments in the first place.
And everything written in God's law is holy and true and comes from him. But what we're gonna see now is that the summary of that is love.
The greatest commandment, according to Jesus in Matthew 22, I think it's 37, is to love
God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself. When you picture the 10 commandments, there are two tables that Moses had, two tablets.
The first table of the law is vertical, how you love
God. The second table of the law is horizontal, how you love your neighbor.
You don't lie to him or murder him or commit adultery with his wife or covet what he has. The second table of the law is how we love one another.
And Jesus again here summarizes it in verses 11 and 12. These things
I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, very simply put, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Now before you say, check, I got that one, I'm a very loving person, notice the quality of love that he's calling you to.
The degree to which you ought to love your brother and sister. Husbands, how you ought to love your wife.
What does it say? As I have loved you.
The perfect love as we saw earlier, as the father loves the son, that's how Jesus loves us. Now he's saying,
I want you to love as I do. Your flawed love needs to be conformed into my perfect love.
You need to love more deeply, more sacrificially, more truly.
And what does that look like? Well don't so quickly discard the 10 commandments or all the 613 laws.
The law as written in the Old Testament still guides the believer.
There are three functions of the law. Three functions of the law. Do you know what they are? It's a mirror, it's a restraint, and it's a guide.
The three functions of God's law, which is referred to here, the commandments, are first of all, a mirror.
You look into God's perfect law, the commandments, as Paul did in Romans 7, and he read,
Thou shalt not covet. And it's a mirror that showed Paul that he covets.
It's a mirror that shows you what you're really like. It shows you your sinfulness to prepare you for the gospel.
The law is a mirror that exposes us. We fall short of the law and it shows us our need for a savior.
That's the first purpose. The second purpose of the law is a restraint. There are punishments associated with the commandments and the punishment is a restraint upon the evil of man.
It keeps society civilized. And the degree to which a society is built upon biblical principles and moral categories that come from the
Bible is the degree to which that society will flourish. So the law restrains wickedness.
It says, Thou shalt not murder. And the law teaches us that there are penalties for committing murder.
That by man, blood would also be shed. The third use of the law is the one often neglected by Christians because we tend to be
New Testament folks. We are in the New Covenant and under the New Covenant we assume, therefore, we need not worry ourselves with all those laws.
Some will even say, you know, Leviticus chapter 19 and Deuteronomy 22, they tell us that you cannot mix fibers in your clothes.
You can't have wool and linen mixed together. And so they'll say, well, there's no use to that law.
That's just Old Testament stuff. It has no relevance to us. But understand this.
Every law has general equity that teaches us about God.
And it still abides today. So in the Old Testament, under the Old Covenant, the
Israelites were set apart as distinct and holy because they even dressed a certain way to mark them as pure and unspotted before God.
They didn't even mix fibers. But listen, there's a bridge to the New Covenant in that.
As we make application of that, we say we need to be set apart. We need to be holy. We need to look different.
We need to be obedient, even in how we dress. So the law teaches us how to love our neighbor, even in these things which seem a bit far removed.
The point being, when the law teaches us moral things of what is right sexually and in all areas of our lives, it still applies today.
God has not changed His category of right and wrong. Everything that He said is good is good.
Certain things are fulfilled in the New Covenant. The ceremonial aspects of the law, the dietary codes, the sacrificial system, all of these things are fulfilled in Christ.
But the moral function of the law is still your guide. Church, how do you know how to behave?
And what is right and what is true? We do not discard the Old Testament. Rather, we see it fulfilled in Christ and we look to it to guide us in how to love.
What's happened in our world today is that the law of God has been utterly discarded, even by Christians.
Our friend, Wani, from Love Life, he says that 50 % of the people he sees going into the abortion clinic say that they know what they're about to do is murder.
And they do it anyway, saying, God will forgive me. And this, church, is an utter disregard for the value and sanctity of life.
Psalm 139, that it's God who's knitting this baby together in the womb. This applies to all areas of our life.
We cannot discard the Old Testament in favor of the new because love summarizes what the
Old Testament was saying to us. Verse 11 gives us a wonderful promise.
You see, if you look out at the culture around us, by the admission of the world itself, people are depressed and anxious and overcome.
People are lacking joy. I even watched a program where this famous Hollywood actor is on a quest for joy and bliss and he goes all around Hollywood and he admits he can't find it, searching for joy.
But joy is found in Christ when we love other people.
Look what it says in verse 11. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
Listen to this very well. Alistair Begg gives this quote. The half -hearted
Christian gets the worst of both worlds. Why are so few people enjoying
God and one another? The answer is half -heartedness.
Straddling a fence, one foot in the kingdom, the other hanging out as if they still belong to the world.
Straddling the fence is a very uncomfortable position. But when you go all in with Christ and you begin to serve him and loving him and others becomes your priority, you will have joy.
This is a wonderful promise we have in verse 11. His joy will be in you and your joy will be full.
I have a friend who I used to know in Florida and he moved to Texas and I moved up north and did inner city
Philly ministry and now end up here in Mount Laurel. You never know how God is going to direct your path.
My friend recently wrote something that I thought was very profound. Tell me if you think this is true.
In the last 10 years or so, I have come to realize there are very few friends in this world.
Very few who will walk with you through the fire. Very few who sit in the ashes with you.
Very few who even check on you or text you to see how you're doing. Very few who ask you to coffee or to their house for dinner.
Very few who actually care. To those who do these things, thank you.
The simplest of gestures goes a long way. Farther than you can even imagine. To those few, thank you for real friendship.
I wonder how many people are sitting at home lacking joy because they are not the one to be friendly first.
If you will make it your ambition to love others as Christ loves you and you take that initiative to be a friend, your joy will follow in tone.
If you will begin to pour yourself out as Christ has loved us, to be poured out, as Paul says, like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith.
If your whole life to live as Christ, to die as gain, is for the progress and joy of others in the faith, the more you do that, joy will find you.
This is what Jesus is saying. Your joy will begin to well up inside of you until it's overflowing,
Psalm 23. You'll be a joyful person. When you stop chasing joy and desires and fulfillment in this life, when you take up your cross and you make your life about serving other people, joy finds you.
I love this promise. If you simply do the simplest thing, love one another. And as my friend in Texas said, invite somebody to your house for dinner.
Call them, text them. Check on your friends. This will bring joy, but there's a deeper thing still.
And we'll essentially end here. Verses 13 to 16. You need to think more deeply about God's love for you in Christ.
What God has done. We're gonna see three quick aspects of that love. It says, greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. And by the way here, if you do what
I command you is not prescriptive, it's descriptive. It's not saying that if you can earn it, if you can be a loving enough person, then you're my friends.
Earlier we saw this in verses one to eight. The branch that's connected to the vine will bear fruit, will do as commanded.
This proves that you are a disciple of Christ. Do you see the difference? If you are obeying the commandments, this proves that you're connected to the vine, that you have that source of life in you, you're born again.
Then it says, in verse 15, listen. 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 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.
Church, do you realize that this prophecy of Jesus is fulfilled in your hearing as we sit here today?
When it was just a small group of disciples, he tells them that their fruit would abide.
It would remain. And 2 ,000 years later, thousands of miles across the globe, here we are, the fruit of the ministry of the apostles.
We're like bananas that haven't even gotten a brown spot yet after 2 ,000 years.
You guys like being compared to fruits? Bunch of fruits. We are the fruit, right?
And the faith that was handed down, passed down from generation to generation, it abides, it continues.
If this, first of all, proves that the Bible is true, because Jesus said this when it was just a small group, and now this is worldwide fruit.
But I want you to think about these three things. We're gonna end with this, but I want you to think deeply, because when you contemplate the love of God, you start to love more like he does.
The first one is that you did not choose
God. God chose you. We love because he first loved us.
You all see this in the text? I think he says it exactly this way, verse 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you.
When you picture the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in eternity past, in perfect love, in the counsel of God's will, he has already known you.
Your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life, before the foundation of the world. This means that before Jacob and Esau had done anything good or bad in order to show that God's purpose of election might stand, they were told that the older would serve the younger.
Isn't that a mind -blowing thought? We need to think more deeply about the love of God. You didn't do anything to earn his love.
You didn't do anything good, you didn't love well enough, you weren't humble enough when hearing the gospel.
It was just that he loves you. It all came from his loving heart, in his purpose, in his will.
John 6, 37, those given by the Father to the Son will come.
John 6, 65, no one can come unless drawn by the
Father. Ephesians 1, verses 3 to 14, parse this out and connect this thought, not just with the disciples, because some people will say, wait a minute, the apostles here are chosen to be apostles, but that doesn't mean they're chosen for salvation.
Look more carefully at the text. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit.
Who else goes and bears fruit? Those chosen and appointed.
Unless it be revealed to Nathaniel that this is the Son of God, the King of Israel, he'll bear no fruit.
Judas bore no fruit, he never believed. Remember how we talked about the threads of the Old Testament and making application to the new?
It's a long bridge, right? Remember that? This bridge from what
Jesus is saying to the apostles to you is a popsicle stick. It's a tiny little bridge.
In other words, what the Father meant to communicate through Christ was recorded by John according to the inspiration of the
Holy Spirit to new covenant believers so that you would know what he's saying to the apostles.
He's saying to you. As you've read John 15 all along, you haven't been thinking, oh, this is only for the apostles.
No, the point of inspiring it, the Spirit wants you to know this, not just about them, but about you.
It's an easy application of what Jesus is saying right here to you. He's telling you that he chose you.
Why does that matter? Well, it's a very deep thing of God. It matters because it's not of works,
Titus 3, 5. And if it's nothing that you could do to earn his love, then you are kept secure.
You can't lose it. He has loved you from eternity past, and he will love you to eternity future.
He will keep. Nothing can snatch in the language of John 10. You belong to him. You are secure in his love.
And if you're secure in his love, you can stand. You need to know the depth of his love.
The second thing of three is the work of the Son of God in time. Look at verse 13.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
The Son of God laid down on the cross and allowed himself to be pierced through his hands and his feet because he loves you that much.
The wrath of God was directed against you on account of your sin, but Jesus took it into his body.
He took the death penalty into himself because of love.
This is the greatest love, greater than anything the world has seen. You guys have watched war movies,
I'm sure. And certainly you've read about World War I and World War II where somebody will lob a grenade into the trenches.
And just then, the soldier sees it land and he looks across and there he sees Rick. And next to him,
Bob. And the soldier, you know how they say right before you die, your life flashes before your eyes?
I think that's true. I think it's a gift of God's grace to a
Christian to see that, but I also think it's a heightened awareness, it's adrenaline, it's the full strength of your brain, all the synapses of your brain firing at once.
And when that grenade lands there in a split second, it is not just the training of the soldier at boot camp that tells him what to do.
He's not just a robot that jumps onto the grenade. What happens is, in a split second, he sees his friend and he remembers what they've been through and he thinks about their family and I'm sure he sees pictures of them in the past and he thinks about their parents and their little children at home and he loves
Rick and Bob and the soldier dives on a grenade and allows himself to take the full brunt of it to spare the one he loves.
If you've ever doubted that you were loved, think about this. When Christ laid down on that cross, he smothered that grenade for you.
He took that for you. Everything you have from that point on is just grace. It's just you walking in a victory that you didn't earn.
Think about that. But you know what's even greater than that? You weren't the soldier in the trenches with Jesus.
Romans 5 .8 says, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
We were the enemy lobbing grenades to the kingdom of God.
When Jesus died for us, he came and took the death penalty of enemies.
Romans 5 .8, this is the greatest love in the history of the world. He died not for those who were friends, but for enemies to reconcile us as friends.
And lastly, now he regards you as a friend and he treats you as a friend and he talks to you as a friend and he's given a friend, a comforter, a paraclete, to come be with you forever and to teach you all things and lead you in all things.
The Father predestined and chose you. The Son accomplished your redemption on the cross and now the
Spirit in this Trinitarian salvation, the Spirit is a friend inside of you who leads you in all truth.
Look at verse 15. No longer do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his master is doing.
You know, one of the great depths of his love is that he will share his heart with you.
In Ephesians 1 .9, it says he made known to you the mystery of his will. And what is his plan?
It is the uniting of all things in the universe in Christ. When you begin to plumb the depths of God's word and listen to the voice of the
Holy Spirit in his word, when you open the text and breathe in, his love will fill you.
You'll know things that humans cannot know. As Paul ascended to the third heaven and he came back unable to tell others what he had seen.
According to 1 Corinthians 2, you plumb the depths of the deep things of God, the spirit of teacher with you in the new covenant.
No one must say, know the Lord and teach his neighbor because all of you will know
God. He will make known to you the deep things of God. So I'm telling you, we need to think more deeply on the depths of God's love.
His love in choosing us. It helps us to know his love. His love in dying for us and his love in making known the deep things of God by the spirit.
There is a great hymn that was written in 1917. And before you go to bed tonight, I want you to play it and listen to it.
It's called The Love of God. It was written by a poet, pastor, when he was 11 years old, he was just walking along the street and the
Lord met him on that road and he felt the love of God. And for the rest of his life, he would write poems about God's love.
You'll recognize the lyrics. His name was Frederick Lehman. Could we with ink the oceans fill?
And were the skies of parchment made? So he paints this picture. If the whole ocean was made of ink and all of the skies were of parchment, were paper, were every stalk on earth a quill and everyone a scribe by trade, to write the love of God above would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole, though stretched from sky to sky.
Every man and woman on the planet was a scribe and the ocean was filled with ink and the sky was parchment.
If we were to begin to write how deep his love was, the sky could not contain the things that would be written and the ocean would be dry.
You need to think more deeply about the love of God. In John 15, 17, he says,
These things I command you so that you will love one another. You want to know how you're going to do that? By thinking deeply of how much you are loved.
You love because you were first loved. An application of this.
In your notes, you have the application, by the way. A simple statement from 1
Corinthians 14, 1. Pursue love. Today, I would like you to make it your ambition to love more as Christ loves us.
That means before you go to bed or maybe this week, to send some text messages to people you haven't heard from.
You know there are people that are hurting. There are people in your life that look like they're doing really well that need you to reach out and love toward them.
Will you love more like Christ? It comes from thinking about how loved you are.
Three crucial questions from this passage. What does Jesus command?
The Ten Commandments, all 613 are summarized by this.
Love God and love others. Who chose who? Question number two.
Remember, remember, you did not choose me. No, I have chosen you. There is a theological rope -a -dope that theologians like to do.
And that is this, to look, to say that, okay, the Bible says you did not choose me, but I have chosen you.
Listen, they'll say this, that it's really you who chose
God. But God, because he's omniscient, looks down the corridor of history and figures out who would choose him and will choose him, and so he chooses the ones that will choose him.
See why I call that a rope -a -dope? That's kind of flipping on its head the meaning of this text, which is very clear.
Remember, you did not choose me. No, I have chosen you. And that is in order that grace would be grace.
In order that grace would be grace. Question number three. How does a Christian grow in love?
It is to abide in his love, to contemplate the love of God in Christ.
And then focus your effort on reaching out in love. Don't go chasing joy, but go chase love.
Pursue love. Care about one another. Be a true friend, like Nehemiah was to the king of Persia.
In the military times, J .D. Simpkins, this is the closing story here, said that war is hideous.
Mud, rats, decaying horses. My grandfather in World War II would tell us about the decaying horses and the smell of that.
Corpses mired in interminable mazes of barbed wire. In the
First World War, there was a point in time where both sides were deeply entrenched for years.
One line was the German line and the Allied side was also in a stalemate.
And between the two trenches was an area called No Man's Land. But at one point in the war, the
Germans fell back from their trenches and re -fortified 25 miles behind the line.
The movie 1917 embellishes this story, but it is telling the same story. And when the
German troops fell back, their plan was to re -entrench, retrench themselves, and as the approaching forces came, to just mow them down.
So 1 ,600 British and American soldiers were about to walk into machine gun fire.
They were going to be mowed down like grass. Word came to the commanders, but the telephone line, at that time it was telegrams, they did have wires for communication, but many of those would get taken out by the bombs.
There was no way to get word from this line to those 1 ,600 soldiers.
And so they called on a runner. By the way, my grandfather was a runner in World War II. This was
World War I. In World War I, the runner, in the movie his name is
Blake, is told that the 1 ,600 troops are going to get mowed down if they can't get word to fall back, that it's a ruse.
Now here's the thing. What Blake knew is that one of those 1 ,600 was his brother.
And in the movie 1917, if you're an adult that's old enough to watch something like that, because it's a war movie, it's gruesome.
It's not for children to see. But what you can see in that actor's face playing
Blake is the resolve, is the fire in his eye that's motivated by true love.
He would be the first to cross no man's land. And all it would take would be one sniper or one machine gun to mow down anybody who crosses that land, but he was the one to step up and run across it and pass every trial and every obstacle to get that message to the other line.
And he made it. And listen, church, you have brothers in that situation.
You have sisters in that situation. And my question to you this morning is are you willing to cross no man's land?
Are you willing to do whatever it takes to rescue and to help a brother or a sister who's stumbling and falling?
Our love needs to be just like Jesus's love, and none of us are there yet. We do not love like and as him.
We're getting there, but we're so far short. And this morning, let's pray for help. Father God, thank you so much for your word to us this morning, the depth of this passage.
And we've only touched the surface of it. It goes deeper than the deepest ocean. We'll never get to the bottom of it.
And I pray, Lord God, that as we read this passage again and again, and as we think about your love for us, that you would make us more like you.
Teach us to love. And Lord, we pray for those in our congregation and beyond who are hurting, anxious, depressed, without joy in the world.
And Lord, I even think of this generation of children being raised with godless parents who do not love them.
Lord, we pray that as a church, we would go to them and that they would know genuine love.
God, we pray that our hearts would be enlarged this morning, that we would grow to love more as you do.
Pour out your love into our hearts, that we would have that reservoir, that overflowing love for others.
Teach us to love as you do. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's rise up and sing.
♪ What a friend we have in Jesus All our sins and griefs to bear
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer Oh, what peace we often forfeit
Oh, what needless pain we bear
All because we do not care
Everything to God in prayer Have we trials and temptations
Is there trouble anywhere We should never be discouraged
Take it to the Lord in prayer
Can we find a friend so faithful Who will all our sorrows share
Jesus knows our every weakness
Are we weak and heavy laden
Calmer and with a load of care
Precious Savior still our friend
Do thy friends despise forsake thee
In His arms He'll take and shield thee
Find a solace there In His arms In His arms
He'll take and shield thee There we'll find a solace there
Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast.
It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.