If You Love Me...
Gospel of John: The Glory of Christ • Sermon • Submitted
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English Standard Version Chapter 14
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. 28 You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here
IF you love me, you will keep my commandments.
There’s so much wrapped up in this first sentence
IF you love me, you will keep my commandments.
I just want to dwell on this for a little bit.
I wonder what kind of reaction or response you have when you read this.
The KJV says, “If you love me, keep my commandments.”
How many here would have memorized this passage in the KJV?
I wonder what picture this brings to mind when you hear this statement by Jesus
I want to talk to you honestly for a bit this morning
Most of us grew up
at Fairview or in the Amish church or where ever, that had a list of “commandments”, “rules”, or “church standards” that we had to keep and obey if we wanted to be part of our church.
Is that true?
I would say that for most of us, at some point in our lives, these rules or church standards became burdensome for us
Would that also be true?
We had standards about
How to dress
About TV
About music
About movies
About drinking
About language
About the prayer veiling
About jewelry
And if we were found to be in violation of these standards, we could expect a visit from a church leader
And maybe we couldn’t join in communion until we were back in order.
I think it’s highly likely that many of us at one time or another read that list and said, “I really want to be part of Fairview, but I don’t know if I can live up to this level of perfection”
The commandments of Fairview became burdensome for us.
The commandments said, “If you love Fairview, keep the commandments of Fairview.”
Now, this discussion about church standards is a big one and I do plan to come back to it. But this morning, I want you to hear something else.
My point is, that when you hear Jesus say, “If you love me, keep my commandments”,
Chances are that You hear, “If you say that you love me, you better prove it by obeying me and doing what I say.”
chances are that you think
“Oh no. Not more commandments”. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep more commandments.
I’ve already got a list as long as my arm and I’m not doing a very good job at that.
I want to love Jesus but I just don’t know if I can keep track of another list of things to do.
But wearily you get out your pencil and paper and say, “Ok, what do I need to do to prove that I love you, Jesus?”
and all the while feeling like this is a hopeless exercise because if I can’t follow Fairview’s commands, how am I going to follow the commands of Jesus?
Is that you this morning? If it is, I want to say to you
I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the pressure that may have been put on you, intentionally or unintentionally, to perform.
To show that you are committed to the standards of Fairview
I’m sorry for the pain that was caused when you were not able to live up to expectations
I’m sorry, if you have found the commands of Fairview to be burdensome and, by extension, have considered the commands of Jesus to be burdensome as well
If His words, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
if these words have never made sense to you and you have never found that rest that He promises because you have found his yoke to be actually burdensome and heavy
And if the institutional church has had anything to do with that, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for any role that the church and church leaders have done to turn us into performers
I’m sorry for all of this. I don’t believe that this is what Jesus had in mind.
I realize that I am skirting around some potentially very dangerous ground here.
Again, there is way more to this who subject than can be addressed this morning.
I promise that I will come back to it in the near future.
But there is some crucial groundwork that has to be laid and that is what I have been trying to do by studying the Gospel of John with you.
But this is something that must be addressed again and again if we are going to
Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Peter 3:18)
If we are to grow as a church
My primary concern is that we grow into people who live in confidence of who Jesus is and who we are in HIM.
And out of that growth that, Lord willing, we even see our pews full again. Full of people who are searching for what God has done in our lives and are hungry
I would like for us to go back and read verse 15 again
And this time, I want to read it from the ESV.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Let me read that again.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Biryani story
Living in Nampula, Mozambique, not a lot to do for a family activity.
But we could go out to eat occasionally
There were a few good restaurants in town
Located in hotels built with the money of foreign investors
One of these was the Hotel Millenio (Millennium Hotel)
I like chicken so ususally I would get o meio frango com batata fritas (half a chicken with fries). Delicious
But they also had a section of the menu with Indian food. There were a few plates that we like
Butter chicken
Chicken Tiki Masala
I already knew that i liked Indian flavors
One evening I thought I’d try something different
I ordered the Biryani
This plate was brought out to me. I dug my fork into this dish of rice and chicken
And I thought I had died and gone to heaven
The richness and depth of the flavors in this dish were impossible to put into words
The saffron, the curry, the spices
I never found another restaurant that made it like this chef made it.
And when we thought about going out eat, this is what I thought about.
I just had to have more. This dish was my new favorite by far!
I LOVE biryani!
And do you know what?
I didn’t have to prove to anybody that I loved this dish
I didn’t have to make a list of reasons why I loved this dish
I didn’t have to put together a list of things to do to show that I really loved this dish
Do you know how you could know that I really, really, loved this dish above anything else that I had eaten there?
I kept going back for more.
and I could go the restaurant thinking, “Well maybe I should try something else this time.”
But when the waiter would show up, I found myself saying, “Queria o biryani com camarao faz favor!”
Going back to the Hotel Milenio and ordering the biryani was a natural response for me because I loved it so much
Someone could have said to me, “If you love biryani, you will go back to that restaurant and order it again”
And how would have I responded to that?
“Hey stop ordering me around”? “Good grief, another thing to do”?
No, I would have said, “You are absolutely right! I certainly will!”
Jesus says here, “If you love me, YOU WILL keep my commandments!”
And again in verse 21, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”
What this statment is not:
It is not a statement of guilt--”Hey buddy, if you say you love me, then you better do what I say. Otherwise you ain’t no friend of mine”
This is not even a command--”I order you to love me
I am suggesting to you this morning that Jesus is making declaration of the obvious.
Let’s be clear on the wording of this sentence:
Jesus does not say, “If you SAY you love me, you will keep my commandments”
He does not say, “If you want people to think that you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
He simply says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”
It’s a statement of the obvious
If I love my wife, truly love my wife, not just say I love my wife, I will honor her in the way that I treat her
If I step out of an airplane, I will fall to the ground
If I love biryani, I will order it again and again
Jesus’ statement is this obvious! If I love Jesus, I will keep His commandments. It’s just that simple
Do you love Jesus?
I’m not talking about saying that I love Jesus
I’m asking, “Have you tasted His goodness? Have you experienced his love? Have you basked in the richness and depth of his mercy?
Do your spiritual taste buds long for more of it?
Do you keep coming back for more
I wonder if many times we have put the cart before the horse.
When I was 12, my pastor (my great uncle Mark, whom I loved very much) came to me and said he thought that it was about time that I thought about being baptized
I had asked Jesus into my heart when I was 9. I had never thought about being baptized.
But he said it was time, so I said, “OK”. I didn’t want to disappoint my great-uncle whom I loved very much
So, after instruction class, I went through with it
And with baptism came church membership
And with church membership came a list of “commands” (church standards)
I don’t recall anyone asking me about my love for Jesus
Do you love Jesus?
Do you know what it means to abide in Him (talk about this next time)
Do you know his voice? Do you find yourself following after Him
Now, I did love Jesus as much as I knew how to, I believe, and I’m so glad that I was baptized
But what was the basis for my great-uncle coming to me and saying “I believe it’s time that you were baptized”?
Was it because i was “Old enough now”?
Why did you decide to become a disciple of Jesus?
Get baptized, etc?
Did you taste the love of Jesus and you couldn’t wait to get some more?
Remember, what we talked about last Sunday:
The deepest question of our hearts is not “how can I save my soul from hell?”
The deepest question of our hearts is “How can I be reconciled with my Father?”
Have you, like the prodigal son, run into the open, loving arms of your Father?
Do you think that the prodigal son didn’t know that His Father loved him?
Do you think that this experience didn’t change him?
We know it did because of his response to his father.
If you have tasted the love of Jesus, how can you not help but love him desperately in return?
We love Him because He first loved us
What if our obedience to him was simply a natural result of our love for him
What does it mean to love Jesus?
Maybe you are still feeling like, yes, but I still don’t know if I am pleasing to him. I don’t know if I’m doing a good enough job
Obeying Jesus is not love for Jesus
We obey him because we love Him.
When we talk about love, what comes to your mind
Some dutiful, pious thought
‘I must love Him because the Bible tells me to’
Do you remember when Jesus was baptized. God the Father spoke over His Son, saying “This is my Beloved Son with whom I am WELL PLEASED.
This is God, the Father rejoicing over His Son
Loving Him is
Enjoying Him because He is infinitely enjoyable
Desiring Him
Gazing at Him
Getting a taste of His love and desiring more
Crowding in to Him to get more of Him.
Either He is satisfying to our soul, or we don’t love Him (Piper)
Loving Him is finding Him infinitely satisfying!
And then comes obedience to His commands
What are the commands of Jesus?
There are some specific things:
Wash each other’s feet
Do as I have done for you
Feed my sheep
But more often in the Gospel of John, Jesus gives these kinds of commands:
Receive me
Follow me
Get up crippled man
Rise from the dead
Believe in the light
Believe in God
Abide in me
Ask whatever you ish
Abide in my love
Receive the holy spirit
Are these commands burdensome to you?
These commands are simply invitations to responding to the love of Jesus
Receive, rise, follow, abide, believe, ask!
If you love Jesus, would you not do this? Wouldn’t I just do this naturally?
Wouldn’t I do this more naturally than going back to the restaurant for more biryani?
This is something that cannot be laid out in rules of the church
This is something that cannot be taught in manuals
This is a natural response to having tasted Jesus
This is why Jesus can say, “My yoke is easy and my burdens are light.”
It’s beause He simply invites us to love Him, knowing that His all that He desires from us comes out of a heart that is already desiring Him.
What are the results of Loving Jesus?
We see in this passage the results of loving Jesus
You will be given the Holy Spirit
a gift that the world can’t receive because it doesn’t know Him.
This is a gift reserved for those who love Him!
The Holy Spirit will
Be a counselor, a helper, a teacher
Remind us of what Jesus taught
Do greater works than Jesus Himself, (vs. 12)
You will be loved by the Father
You say, “Yeah, I know that. John 3:16, God loved the world”
True.
But this is a kind of love that is different than the love that He has for the world.
But this is a special kind of love and affection that The Father has for those who love His Son
vs. 21 “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me . And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. And I will love him and manifest myself to him.
vs. 23 If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love Him
The results of loving Jesus and keeping His commandments is that you will receive a kind of love from the Father that the world cannot understand or experience
this is the kind of love that only those who have been reconciled with Him can experience
This is the father leaping to his feet and running down the road and embracing his prodigal son who had returned.
This is the kind of love that can only be experienced as we are reconciled to our Father
This is the kind of love that some of us struggle to understand because we only dreamed about our father loving us like that.
The Father will come and dwell with those who love Him (vs. 23)
Our father will dwell with those who love Him
Here again is relationship restored
Jesus in The Father
The Father in Jesus
Us, those who love Him, in Jesus
The Spirit in us
Can you grasp just a little bit what we are talking about here?
Can you grasp that God the Father actually desires to come and make His Home with you?
And again, in the future this will be made perfection
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