Loving Obedience

Transcript

Gospel According to John, chapter 14. The gospel according to John, chapter 14. And when you found John 14, go ahead and stand for the reading of God's Word. In my personal devotion, I'm actually in Nehemiah. And in Nehemiah is one clear place where they stood for the public reading of.

Of God's Word. And this is not just, as, you know, here in a worship service like this. It's not just a private sort of thing here that we're doing. This is a public service of worship and a public, therefore, reading of God's Word. And so we honor that tradition by standing, actually.

And in fact, while we're on that point, we also. This is why we have symbols here, like a candle. Who has a candle for light anymore? We have LED lights. We.

Well, it's because candles have been actually very important in worship for 2000 years and beyond. You may remember in your Old Testament, right, the people of God used candles to light up the holy place. And so we have these old symbols even represented back here and so on and so forth, and kind of a different area here, because this is not a stage. This is an altar, an altar of worship. In fact, that's called the altar, properly speaking.

And so when you come into this place, it doesn't look like any contemporary thing alone, because we're mixing what is modern with what we have received, and we don't want to cut ourselves off from what we've received. And so that's one reason we have more of a what's called traditional or contemporary feel here. So, all right, let's look at John 14 and notice these words we're going to start reading in verse 23, Jesus said to Judas, not Iscariot, those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them. And we will come to them and make our home with them. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.

And the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. I've said these things to you while I am still with you. But the advocate or helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you.

I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, I am going away and I am coming to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father because the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe Jesus.

Thank you for your holy word. And we pray now that you would send your Holy Spirit to us to help us understand, and not only understand, but to do what you say. We pray in your name. Amen. Well, you may remember that during the season of Easter, or as sometimes it's called Eastertide, and by the way, I forgot to give them gifts, the teachers.

So please, they're right here. So just help me. Help me remember that. I guess one of them is mine too, technically. But during the season of Easter, we have readings, if you've noticed, not from the Old Testament, but rather from the Book of Acts and then also from the Book of Revelation.

In fact, Revelation 21, we read it last week and then we just continue reading it this week. And so these Revelation readings, these Acts readings, are on purpose during this time of Easter, and they are profound, quite honestly, especially when matched and complemented with the Gospel according to John. Now, remember, we're in year C, which is actually Luke, the Gospel of Luke, but we're not reading the Gospel of Luke. However, Luke speaks to us today, doesn't he, in our text, in Acts, actually, because he's the one who said, like, hey, we went to Macedonia and to Neapolis and so on and so forth. And so.

So the church has given us these readings, given us these very profound readings from the Gospel of John. And not just anywhere from John either. I'm zeroing in on something. Instead, this very intimate, personal one night, and that was the last night with his disciples. In fact, it was at the supper and then in the garden the.

That we get John 13 through John 17. All those chapters, if you have a red letter edition of the Bible, are filled with red. Because it's primarily Jesus speaking in these chapters. And he's speaking in such a way that takes us and moves us into the very life of God himself. In other words, the very inner life or nature and essence of who God is.

But before he gets into that, in this particular passage, notice what he says to Judas. Again, not Iscariot, but. But rather the other Judas. He says this. Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

You see, here's the good news of the Gospel. God has not only come to be with us, but in us. He not only comes to kind of visit us, but rather to dwell with us. And you May remember that John 15, that famous chapter about abiding in him. Yes.

That is the Christian life. If we want to boil down, distill down to its very essence, what it means to be a Christian, what it means to be saved, where we're all headed in all of this, like, what is our end or the purpose of man? It is actually to be in union and communion with God himself.

That's a high and lofty calling, by the way. It's not something we trip into or accidentally find ourselves in, but rather it must be personal and intentional. And this is why Jesus tells us exactly how to make our soul and body hospitable for the King. And it's this. It's right here.

It's found right here. Those who love me will keep my commandments, will keep my word. Now, notice, and we discussed this at our group on Wednesday at Eggs Up Grill. Right there, while we're eating good food, we're diving into the very essence of God right there in that place. It's a beautiful thing.

I love to do that. And we discuss this. The inverse of that statement is not correct. In other words, if you do what I say, you will love me. That's not correct.

He says it the way he says it. And, and we're not to mix and match those, because remember, the Pharisees did exactly what God's word said, did they not? But did they love him? No. No.

In fact, Jesus says in the strongest words possible, you are like a grave. You look nice on the outside, you've been whitewashed, you've got flowers, you smell good. But on the inside, dead man's bones.

May that not be said of us brothers and sisters. You can follow the law, you can follow the word of God and still not love God. You can even be used by God with your gifts and not love God. It's true. And it's happened over and over again in the news.

We see it. How could this person, who's so gifted, moved so many people to follow Jesus, now fall away from the faith?

You see, we love God and we obey him because we love Him. It's his love that moves in us. Obedience.

But it is not obedience that always moves. Love, you see, at the core of who we are, do we love God? You know, this was my problem growing up. In fact, I was the older brother in the prodigal son story, and I didn't like that. People went out and lived however they wanted and then could come into the fold.

That didn't seem fair to me at all. I wanted fairness. Some of you are like, right on, man. Amen, brother. Well, let's wait.

Let's wait. Because that's the kind of Pharisaism that Christ condemns.

It's the kind of thinking that is antithetical to the very nature of God. Because what we find over and over again is that God is a dirty forgiver.

He forgives the worst of us. You know, this is what Jonah found out. In fact, this is why he was so. You know, it's the only book in the Bible that ends with somebody. I don't even know if I can say the word.

Miffed off at God, right? Like, he's just angry at God. And the book ends. You remember what he says? Like, can't believe this stupid plant.

You know, we've all kind of been there where some. One little thing just, you know, some of us. It was yesterday, you know, inside joke. But listen, he's mad about a plant. And God says, listen, look at all these people down there.

And you care about a plant. Your desires should be for those people. And you care nothing about them.

Because Jonah knew who those people were, and they were the worst of the worst. And he knew exactly if he did what God. This is why he ran. He ran because he knew God was going to forgive them if they heard the word of God. And he didn't want that.

He wanted them to rot. He wanted them to burn. In fact, he got out his popcorn near the end of his book. Remember, after he said his message, he went up there and. And looked over the city, just waiting for God to burn it up.

But you remember what the Bible says? Not only did the people repent, but the animals, too. Not only did the people fast and seek God, but so did the animals. And it made Jonah mad. And you know what?

That is not the heart of God. And if we're to be one with him, we must have his heart, not he ours.

We are joining ourself to the perfect one, to the one who has abundant love, who is love Himself, not the other way around. And so when we find these things, as I did as a young person, I was doing everything I was told to do, man. I had checked every single box. But you know What I found? February 28, 1999, when I was 17 years old, was I actually didn't love God.

I'd come to a place where I was doing what I was supposed to do, but I was just doing it to do it.

It's a good morning, perhaps a great morning, to check ourselves and say Do I love God, or am I just doing this to try to get to heaven? Or because it works. None of that is the right reason. Listen, the. You got all these influencers online, and they find these things and share these things, and it's like, this works, right?

It's like, yeah, most of them that work are principles in the Bible. Actually. They don't give credit to God, though. You see, my point is, we don't do things just because they work or it keeps us out of jail or whatever else. We do them out of love for God.

And if we're missing love for God, we're missing the whole boat. Like, that's the whole point. That's kind of the reality is heaven is a place that is dominated by God's nature, by who he is. So that if we don't love the things now that God loves, things like marriage, things like children, raising them up, things like not lying. Like, if we are against these things or these things somehow sit with us wrongly, then we still need to be sanctified, brothers and sisters and all of us.

Maybe I can speak for all of us. We all find these things from time to time, right? Like, why don't I like that kind of person right there? That's a jerk, right? And I just want him to burn.

You remember the Sons of Thunder? That's what they. James and John? Same guy that wrote this loving book, right? He's like, jesus, can we burn these people up?

Remember, Remember what happened? They rejected Jesus. These. These Samaritans, you know, they had a wrong copy of Scripture, kind of like the Mormons. And they were also claiming to be the people of God when they really weren't.

And then they rejected the King of Kings. And Jim John said, where's the button? I want to push it. Like, I'll be first to push it. And Jesus, we came here to minister to these people, man.

Burning him up.

No, we're showing grace and we're showing love and we're showing acceptance, a welcoming heart. So when we find. I'm just saying across the board, whatever it may be, everybody in this room would be different. But something is a hot button topic. Just gets us, you know, we have these emotions and they can be sanctified is what I'm saying.

And he can then turn that around and we can begin to love those people. If we find unforgiveness, if we find bitterness, don't just keep pressing it down. Expose it to the light of Christ and allow him to sanctify you entirely. Well, the good News is Jesus gives us just this thing where he says, I will come. We will come.

Notice that. Notice the terminology here. The pronouns are very important in our text today because Jesus talking. But he's talking about him and the Father, and not only him and the Father, but Him, the Father and the Holy Spirit. Which of course is a uber trinitarian passage here.

And that's what we really actually find in 13 through 17 of John is all types of trinitarian language bursting on the scene that in the early church, the church didn't know what all to do with this language. Is the Spirit a power? Is the Spirit a presence? Is the Spirit an energy? Or is the Spirit equal and co.

Equal with the Father and the Son as a divine person? And of course, the latter is correct. The Spirit is not just some energy floating around that we somehow tap into in some Buddhistic mystical way, but rather we can pray to the Holy Spirit because He's a divine person, which is why we never say of the Spirit, it. No, no, no. He just.

As much as the Father and just as much as the Son, we will come to them and make our home in them. Just think about that for a second. Like God, you know, God wants to make his home in you, in me and somebody like me. Somebody like you. That's why.

That's why C.S. lewis famously said in his book Mere Christianity, you never meet a mere mortal, but instead, everybody in this room is moving to the worst nightmare possible or the most glorious thing that Lewis says we'd be tempted to worship if we saw it. Now, I know I look at my life, I'm like, well, not me, but maybe you, but not me. Okay? But here's the point.

A human being fully alive with the Holy Spirit and His power in us, his sanctifying work that glorifies God. In fact, one of the early church fathers said, that is the glory of God is a human being fully alive.

Have you woken up? Are you alive in Christ? Let that light, let that life, that inner life that he establishes in us by His Holy Spirit when we repent and believe. Allow that light to begin to illuminate everything in your life.

And you know, it may be a good point to pause and just say, this is where it's such a clear distinction between the work of the devil in our lives and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Because the devil comes, and when you do wrong and you know it, and you're like, you know what he comes to do, he says, that's just who you are. Like you lie. That's just what you do, man. You hold bitterness like that's.

That's just who you are. As soon as you accept that, you'll be better for it. Just accept who you are. It is what it is. Everybody's got their thing.

Don't worry about it. You ever heard that voice before? Because I have. And he condemns us. He accuses.

I knew you were going to do it again. You knew you were going to do it again. It's who you are. Just live into it. Don't worry about it.

Listen. That's the devil's voice. You know what? The Holy Spirit comes. Same situation, same failure.

Here's what the Spirit says. You're better than that. You know you're meant for more than that. You're not just some animal fulfilling some need, but rather your more than that, more than conquerors. That's the voice we listen to.

I don't care if you don't feel like more than a conqueror. Listen. When the Holy Spirit is in us, we can be more than conquerors. Don't lay down in that sin, in that addiction. Hear me?

There is freedom. There is freedom. Freedom in the spirit. And who the Son sets free is free indeed.

Now you say Pastor, but you don't know, because I have literally failed at this a thousand million times. And I want to say this to you. I understand. I really do. I really do.

More than you know. But also know this. Never give up.

The enemy wants you to get. Don't.

The moment you even begin to get up from that failure and that sin, you're moving closer to Christ.

Don't give up. Keep running the race. With what? Endurance.

That means even when you fall down, even when you get injured, and we all will get back up, you know what you'll find is somebody there. We've all seen those videos. We almost are moved to tears. Somebody helping somebody else across the finish line. That's what the church is for.

Like, that's what we're called to do in this room. It's like, hey, man, I see you're struggling. Like, let's go, come on. Let's help each other again, as I said last week, and I'll say it again because I just really think it's important. If you say you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere.

You say, my family is the whole world. You have no family then? No. This right here is a community. People say, I'm a part of the church.

And they're not in a church. They're not helping one another. They're not loving. They don't have anybody to love because they're sitting at home today saying, I'm in a church. What church?

It has to be an actual local church. You see what I mean? Just like an actual local citizen. It's very simple to understand. There's no universality that can happen with me because I'm local.

Point is this. This community exists to help everybody across that finish line.

And listen, we're all really like, if we could see each other, you know, because everybody looks nice and, you know, you look like you have it all together to me, just looking out here. But we're all, like, convalescing across, you know what I mean? You know what they call it? Convalescent, like, getting better. You know, like, we're all doing our thing to just.

We all got hurts. And this is her. Oh, my. Spiritually, like, we're all beat up. That's why the early church considered the church to be a hospital.

We're not statues of perfection, but rather we're being made into the image of Christ as the Bible says, we're being saved. Let's get out of our mind. Oh, yeah, I was saved back in 1997. Great. What about today?

I met Jesus back in 48. Wonderful. Did you meet him this morning?

Today is the day of salvation. Today he can make his abode his home in us.

Man, that's good news. Listen, you're never alone when that happens. You're never alone. You're never alone. And here's the way he does it.

He sends the advocate, right? The advocate, which is, you know, we don't necessarily use that term in a. In a personal way, per se, always. But helper is another translation. Or the Greek parakletos, which is the one who we call over to help.

My father tells a lot of stories, and a lot of them have me as the butt of the joke because as a child, you know, I was different. As many of you. As many of you were. Okay, let's just be honest. Some of you are still different, you know, but anyway, and my dad, like, he tells this.

My kids all of a sudden came home one day after they'd been with him, and they're all like, daddy. And I'm like, what are y' all doing? You know, because they were making fun of me. And they were making fun of me because my dad told about how many times I called out for him because I was scared at night or because I just needed something. And many of you actually, in this community right here make fun of me because I call for Jessica so much.

You know, in fact, Justin, his family always make Jessica, because anytime something happens, that's who I call, you know, because. Well, there's a lot of reasons, but she's literally like the Holy Spirit to me. And being a helper, truly, I don't know. Yeah. My life would just literally be a disaster if I did not have her in my life, which is why God has graciously gifted me with her.

Anyway, all that to say is this. Yeah, I ain't afraid to call for help if I don't know how to do something. I'm not going to fool around with that thing for 30. Some of you will do that. You know, let me research this thing.

Now. I'll do research, but not on some mechanical thing. You show me, like a dishwasher that's broken. You're like, yeah, you can just watch a couple videos. I'm like, I'm not doing that.

You can do that. I'm not doing that. Okay, now we can talk about the paracoretic fellowship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but. And I'll research that all day long. But not a dishwasher like that is.

I'm not doing that mechanical stuff. Just not my thing, which is why I'm trying to raise up one of my kids to do that kind of stuff. So hopefully he will. But nevertheless, listen, I have called out for help all of my life. Like, if you could actually just see where I am today is a direct result of.

Because I have called out for help. Can't do it myself. I can't do it on my own, nor do I want to do it on my own.

Now, I know people are difficult. I've been where you've been. And I felt even. Even recently, like, man, I don't know that I love people the right way. And it was because I didn't love God the right way.

Actually, he straight up told me, I told you this a couple weeks ago if you been around with us. And he corrected me, really did, and I was in the wrong. And he has. What's been neat, though, is I've slowly found this love at work in me since I repented of that. And like, Lord, I didn't mean for hardness of heart to slip in.

Sometimes it just does, you know, if we don't watch it, sometimes it just. With our spouse, sometimes we just drift apart. It's like, I don't know that I really feel connected. Our kids. It's like, I don't Know, if I've really been discipling them, raising them right, we need to repent, get back on track, not beat ourselves.

Oh yeah, well, I just don't think I can ever do it. What does that help? Let's just get it made right and get back to work.

And here's how we can do that is because we have the Holy Spirit. He's our helper. We can call to Him. Now, how many of you, just to be for real, like, have actually said in those moments where you feel irascible, that's the big word for anger, you know, you feel it rising up in you. It's like you're like, holy Spirit, help me.

When that person pulls out in front of you, Holy Spirit, help me.

That's a tough one for me personally.

But if we really need help, we need to really call on the helper who's the Holy Spirit. And he comes to advocate for. And here's the cool thing in this John 13:17 Again, he says Jesus is the one saying it. He says God is the Father is sending another helper or paracletus. Which means we actually have two.

You know who they are, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Because what we know is Jesus right? Now if we could just see through the ceiling and through the heavens. He is seated at the Father's right hand making intercession for me. For you.

Like he says it by name. Why? Because just like the revelation pastor said, our names are written there. He speaks the God of the universe, the God who created that beautiful morning this morning. He speaks your name and actually prays for you.

You know, it's very humbling thing when somebody comes up to me and is like, hey, I've actually really been praying for you. It's like, wow, you would take time out of your life to just like mention my name. That's pretty honorable. Like, I really am humbled by that, truly. But what Jesus is saying, I'm praying for you.

Like he is praying for you. Not only that he's sending his Holy Spirit because the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and the and the Son is begotten of the Father eternally. So it's eternal begottenness from the Father and eternal pretend procession of the Spirit. And this is why Jesus is able to say, while still retaining co equality, that the Father is greater than I, he's unoriginated eternally. Not that any of the persons ever had a moment where they didn't exist, but it's the language God gives us about Himself.

And that Eternally. And here's the crazy thing. All of that glory and goodness and depth and profundity, he invites us in. Why? Because he's actually come down and taken upon himself human nature and then returned to the Father to be in the very heart of the Holy Trinity.

As Father, Son, who gets the preeminence and Holy Spirit, he draws in human nature. Not canine nature, not tomato nature, not mountain nature, but human nature. He becomes one of us.

And that's why we have an advocate with Jesus who sends us his spirit to bring peace. Peace that passes understanding.

So today, are you a proper temple for God to make his home in? You say, pastor, I want to be. What's the requirement? Love God and do what he says is actually love God and do what he says. It's what Jesus gives to us.

Then I will come and make my home with you. Do you love God? Straight up. Because sometimes we just forget that that's the main thing. Do you love?

Not. Do you feel something for God? Do you love him? Do you want what he wants? Your will to be one with his?

Do you love him? And if you don't, the good news today is there's a helper in the room. It's not me. It's not me. He speaks to your heart, and he reminds us of Jesus words.

He brings peace and joy and all the fruit of the Spirit and all the gifts that he wants to give to you. You're not meant to look like somebody else. You're meant to be you on fire. For God lit up with his light. If that's something, well, it's not just something you want.

Everyone wants that, really. And we try to fill it with so many other things. But that's what we really all want, is to be like him. Because he's so good.

I'll end with this. And now I've told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you might believe. He's talking to us. He's talking to us. So do you believe?

Do you believe this?

I pray it so. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen.

Total Duration 00:34:40