Sermon Tone Analysis

You Will Be Changed If You Meet Jesus

“If you Love me You Will Obey My Command” — This is a very simple statement.

However, what John is testifying to is more than adherence to the ethical teachings of Jesus.

He means that if you love Jesus you will follow all of His teachings.

Your life will mimic Jesus

That may seem like a tall order and it is.

In fact it is completely impossible apart from the power of the Holy Spirit operating within and through us.

We will get to that in a minute!

The operative thing we must begin with is this…You cannot say you love Jesus if you ignore His teaching and live your life as though He does not exist…living as though you had no relationship with Him.

To put it another way…if you know Jesus your life will look like it because you will be different.

A little boy went over to a pastor's house, where the pastor was doing some carpentry in his garage.

The boy simply stood there and watched him for quite a long time.

The preacher wondered why this boy was watching him and was finally so curious that he stopped and said, "Son, are you trying to pick up some pointers on how to build something?"

The little boy replied, "No.

I am just waiting to hear what a preacher says when he hits his thumb with a hammer."

The little boy replied, "No.

I am just waiting to hear what a preacher says when he hits his thumb with a hammer."

This is not to say that Christians are perfect this side of heaven but we are very, very different.

We are the opposite of what we once were.

We are concerned with holiness, what God thinks, His way of doing things.

Our desire is to obey Him…and we express our love for Him by doing so!

John makes it clear in His epistle

The Holy Spirit abides in believers and changes us.

We cannot be who we were before we were saved because we have been born again.

We are a new creation and it changes us.

A great picture of this is found in

There is a great problem among this generation of believers in the United States of America, “Easy Believism” and an “Unregenerate Church.”

There are thousands and perhaps millions of people who say they are Christians and that they love God but their life does not mimic Christ.

They are not genuine followers of His teachings.

What is the fruit of your life?

And it does nothing for the cause of Christ to be this kind of person or to encourage them in their hypocrisy....

Joseph

Joseph quoted Brennan Manning this week in our prayer team email Friday, Brennan Manning once said, "The single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, walk out the door, and deny Him by their lifestyle.

That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable."

We do no favors to any of the lost among us if we give overt or tacit encouragement when they charade as believers.

We should instead do as Jesus did and seek to save those who are lost!

This is not about being a judge of whether someone is lost or saved.

We are simply talking about being an encouragement for people to have a genuine relationship with Christ.

It is about accountability and our responsibility as believers to ask the question, “Do you know Christ?” when someone among us shows no indication that they do.

Do they have the mark of the Spirit?

Is the fruit of the Spirit evident in them?

If the answer is no then we MUST ask the question, “Do you know Jesus?”

Jesus makes it clear…If you love Him, genuinely have a relationship with Him, you will obey what He commands…your life will mimic Him.

You will want it to do so!

An irony in this is that I have found the genuine believer is much more concerned with this question than the man or woman who is lost.

The believer is concerned that their life reflects that of the Savior.

The lost doesn’t care.

The Ministry of the Holy Spirit

You cannot obey Jesus apart from supernatural help.

No human being is capable of obedience to God apart from the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit working in and through them.

You do not become a follower of Christ by works.

It does not happen by your attempts to mimic His life.

You have to come to Christ through faith so you might be filled with the Spirit and then your life will mimic HIm.

Then you have the desire to be like Jesus.

Then you have power to obey and follow His teachings.

It is when you come to faith in Jesus that the Holy Spirit infills and indwells you…changing you forever.

Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, led the first expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1906 and the first expedition to the South Pole in 1911.

On one of his trips, Amundsen took a homing pigeon with him.

When he had finally reached the top of the world, he opened the bird's cage and set it free.

Imagine the delight of Amundsen's wife, back in Norway, when she looked up from the doorway of her home and saw the pigeon circling in the sky above.

No doubt she exclaimed, "He's alive!

My husband is still alive!"

So it was when Jesus ascended.

He was gone, but the disciples clung to his promise to send them the Holy Spirit.

What joy, then, when the dovelike Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost.

The disciples had with them the continual reminder that Jesus was alive and victorious at the right of the Father.

This continues to be the Spirit's message.

So it was when Jesus ascended.

He was gone, but the disciples clung to his promise to send them the Holy Spirit.

What joy, then, when the dovelike Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost.

The disciples had with them the continual reminder that Jesus was alive and victorious at the right of the Father.

This continues to be the Spirit's message.

Jesus was about to go away.

Up to this point He had been the “Paraclete” or “Counselor” for His disciples.

He had been there to instruct them in all truth, be their encouragement to follow the truth and the power in whom they found it possible to do so.

After He was gone they would need another to do these things for them.

This would be the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit arrived on the day of Pentecost it was just another evidence that Jesus, although not with them in physical body, was still alive and working through the power of His Holy Spirit to be for His followers all He was when He walked with them on earth…and even more...

Let’s take a moment to look at the term used here for the ministry of the Holy Spirit so we might understand more fully His help to us...

“Counselor” — (NIV and CSB)A counselor in our vernacular is someone who comes alongside and advises us.

This is not what Jesus meant.

When you look at the original language the ministry of the Holy Spirit is much more than this.

Comforter — (KJV) Some translations will use the word comforter to describe the one Jesus would send.

‘Comforter’ was not bad in Elizabethan English, when the verb ‘to comfort’ meant ‘to strengthen, give succour to, to encourage, to aid’ But honestly in our day and age the word brings to mind a blanket, bedspread or someone who consoles those in grief.

Jesus meant much more than this.

‘Comforter’ was not bad in Elizabethan English, when the verb ‘to comfort’ meant ‘to strengthen, give succour to, to encourage, to aid’ (from Latin confortare, ‘to strengthen’

(from Latin confortare, ‘to strengthen’ Carson, D. A. (1991).

The Gospel according to John (p.

499).

Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.

Carson, D. A. (1991).

The Gospel according to John (p.

499).

Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans.

Neither of these terms really sums up what John meant here in the Greek.

The common meaning of paraklētos in the ancient world was “one who gives legal assistance.”

This is what the original reader of John would have thought of.

Therefore, “Advocate” (NRSV) is an acceptable translation if understood in a legal sense.

“Counselor” (NIV) is also a good translation if understood in a legal sense, as one attorney might address another.

He is “counselor” in the sense of “the judge appointed legal counsel for the accused.”

Bryant, B. H., & Krause, M. S. (1998).

John ().