This message was preached by Navaz D at Word of Grace Church on March 17 th, 2019. To listen/download the audio please click here. To listen to the Sunday's worship and prophetic contributions please click here
JOHN 15 PART3
INTRODUCTION
What do you consider the greatest thing for our lives ( apart from salvation)? What is the most important thing ever!!
The Beetles wrote a song titled "All you need is love". They got that bit right but went about it the wrong way. What is the right way?
Verse 9 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 0 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love”
We are going to look at LOVE today.
Isn’t it great that Jesus starts off by reassuring us of His love.?
He loves us as much as the Father loves HIM. That is the most perfect intense love ever!! HE said this to his disciples before they could even do anything for HIM.
Jesus says the same to us
Rom 5:8 God demonstrated His love toward us in this that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.
Eph 1:4-5 4 For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5 he[a] predestined us for adoption to sonship[b] through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will
1 John 3:1
Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God:
Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God:
1 John 4:19
We love him, because he first loved us.
We love him, because he first loved us.
God’s love for us is complete. We do not relate to Him from a place of fear of performance. We related to Him from a place of relationship and grace.
How do we remain in His love? Have your alone time with God each day, when you allow him to talk to you and you talk to God.
Jesus says obedience in an indication of love.
The Pharisees were obedient. Was that an indication of love? Jesus spells out what this command is in verse 12 and 13.
Verse 12-13 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
1. COMMAND TO LOVE
Why is there this switch as it were, a shift in focus from our relationship with Jesus to our relationship with one another?
He knew if He asked us to just love Him that would be easy. He asked us to love each other! He knew that was another story!! The test of our love for Him is in our obedience to this command; to love each other.
We can be very good at communion with God but have no connection with people. It is a commandment. It is not a suggestion.
Jesus says we can’t say we love God but hate our brothers. Well, you might say I don’t hate my brother. Do you love your brother as Christ?
2. COMPLETENESS OF LOVE
WHY IS LOVE SO IMPORTANT?
God is love. God is a relational God. God’s love is mentioned 310 times in the Bible and 179 times in the New Testament.
So if Jesus says that all I need is love then love is all I needWe rather hide behind rules, rituals, religious duty than invest in relationships which equals LOVE.
3. CAUSE OF LOVE
V12 -Love each other as I have loved you.
Love motivated the Father to send Jesus to the earth and die a horrible death to save us from eternal damnation by taking the judgment of all our sins upon His body on the cross. Love for us kept him there.
Jesus said the world will know that we are his disciples if we have love one for another. This is very important.
When we know and experience the love of God we are able to truly love one another.
1 Peter1:22 -Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.
4. COMPOSITION OF LOVE
V12b -as I have loved you.
This is a comparative statement. It is saying love to the degree I have loved or in the manner in which I love. How does God love us? How did Jesus demonstrate His love. ?
Jesus did two things – In John 13 it says to show the full extent of his love, he served the disciples by washing their feet. And then the final culmination of His love was His dying in our place.
Jesus defined love for us – it is laying down our lives for each other.
IN day to day terms what does it look like?
It means putting the other person interest above my own.
Love is an action word – feelings may accompany it. Love is a decision of the will.
The Bible defines very differently. One only needs to look at ! Cor 13. That is our standard.
Love is something we do for another person.
That is why meeting like this on a Sunday is important. Christianity is a personal and corporate faith.
Do you know how many bible verses are there that say “one another”? There are 59 verses in the New Testament on one another.
You do not have to agree on everything to love. Unity is not uniformity.
In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. If only we practiced this more!!
DO YOU WANT TO BE FRUITFUL?
v16. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit-fruit that will last.
Intrinsically linked to our fruitfulness is our loving one another. Jesus deliberately intertwines the vine and branches.
Most of us stumble on this thing called love. Very few people have left a church because of doctrinal differences but many have left because of hurt and unresolved issues.
This is where we stumble and Jesus knew this.
Look at God’s word and see how it asks you to respond in the face of conflict, disagreements, hurt and injustice.
Sometimes I feel we Christians put a very heavy yoke on each other – that of perfection.
5. CANCER TO LOVE
WHAT PREVENTS US FROM LOVING?
DISCONNECTION
We need to stay connected. We cannot be a branch that is disconnected. Jesus has deliberately intertwined the branches and the vine. You don’t know which branch is passing the sap from the vine onto you.
DISAPPOINTMENT/UNREAL EXPECTATIONS
We all carry around a “Spec to meter” We are very good at counting the spec in our neighbor’s eye. This clouds our judgment and vision of people. We need to shed a critical and judgmental spirit.
Why was Jesus so harsh with the Pharisees? They were very obedient – but it was loveless and graceless.
We need to remind ourselves of the Grace of God upon our livesWe need to have a sober judgment of shortcomings, our weaknesses and ourselves and extend grace to others.
UNFORGIVENESS /OFFENSES
This never affects us in isolation. Slow poison will soon affect everything we touch. We will get bitter, cynical, untrusting of everyone.
We have no choice when it comes to forgiveness. We have to let go in order to set ourselves free. Do yourself a favor and forgive today..
Luke 11:4 Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.
Matt 6:15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins
PRIDE AND SELF-SEEKING
The disciples were jostling for power, promotion, and prominence. Remember John 15 is happening a few hours before Jesus’ arrest. They could not be in competition with each other nor in constant comparison.
He wanted them to know the importance of first being connected to him they had to learn to get along with each other. It is the same with us.
CONCLUSION
What I get from this passage is that it all about my relationship with Jesus and the other branches – my fellow Christ followers.
Religion can snuff out and replace relationship so subtly that we can fail to recognize this shift in our hearts. We need the Holy Spirit, to help keep us in check and connected.
As I crossed the 50 mark, I have become more and more aware that I want the second half of my life to count even more.
All this is possible with lasting effect when I function from a place of knowing Jesus intimately and as in verse17 Jesus once again emphasizes “love each other”.
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As Paul eloquently puts it
1Cor 13 :1-7 (The Message)
The Way of Love
13 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.
2 If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.
3-7 If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Let us pray.
Word of Grace is an Evangelical (Born Again), Spirit-filled (Charismatic), Reformed, English speaking church in Pune that upholds the Bible as God's inspired Word for life. We are a church community that has people from every part of India and parts of the world. We are here to put the Great Command and the Great Commission into practice by equipping and releasing every member into works of service. Word of Grace is a part of a wider international family of Churches called RegionsBeyond.To know more about us please log onto www.wordofgracechurch.org.
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