Abiding in God's Love

Introduction

Morning! My name is John McCormick, Renovation U Pastor

Merry almost Christmas!

I hope that you’ll be back tomorrow or Tuesday for one of our Christmas Services as well

Recap of Abide weeks

This morning though, we are continuing in our series on the Vine in John 15

And we are actually hitting an interesting transition in what Jesus is teaching us, so I want to make sure you’re caught up

In verses 1-3 we learned that Jesus is the true vine

Jesus tells us that we are branches and that we need to stay connected to him as the vine if we are to grow and bear fruit in our lives

And as a part of that growth, God will sometimes prune us to help us to produce even more fruit

Then we saw in verses 4-8 last week that we have to abide (or you could say actively remain) in Jesus to be able to grow

That means that being a Christian is not just a one-time decision to follow Jesus

We have an amazing moment of experiencing the grace of Jesus, that leads to continual, daily decisions to follow him

But Jesus is very clear that change only comes from remaining in him!

So don’t listen when culture says that you can change yourself

And that brings us to our passage today, so go ahead and grab a Bible

We’ll be on page 737 in the Bibles at your chairs if you want to use that

We’re going to pick up with Jesus in verse 9

Find the big number 15 and then the little number 9

Read John 15: 9-17

Understanding what Love means

I find this whole passage fascinating because at a quick glance, it might seem like Jesus is switching topics

He’s talked about the Vine, and now he is changing gears to talk about love

But actually, he is giving us the motivation for why we should abide in the vine

I know myself well enough to know that just wanting to grow more fruit or wanting to be a better person isn’t enough for me to consistently pursue something

As a totally random example, I might tell myself that I just need to be more patient at work

I might do it for a time, but give me 2 weeks and that will have already fizzled out

And I’d be willing to bet that is the case for most of us

So, what Jesus is doing now in this section is giving us the “why”

Why should we abide in him? Why should we care about bearing fruit in our lives?

Short answer: Love

Look at verse 9 again, what does it say?

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.”

Now I want you to stop for a second and think about that

We can so quickly read that sentence and not consider the implications

I made a chart for us to think through this and what it means

<Show the first slide with arrow showing God’s love towards Jesus>

Now it says that God the Father loves Jesus deeply

In fact, he has loved Jesus since before time began

And will forever into the future

And the depth of his love towards Jesus cannot be measured

And his love is stronger than the white-hot intensity of 1,000 suns

Now the second part of that sentence says that Jesus loves you and I the same way

<show second slide with arrow from Jesus to us>

That same depth, intensity, and infinite length

And you could draw this chart with an arrow from God to us as well that the Father loves us just as much!

But notice it doesn’t say, Jesus loves us the way a mother loves a child, or the way a brother loves a sister

If those would have been good analogies, Jesus would have used them

But in this case Jesus’ love for us is so beyond description that the only the only analogy that fits is how much God the Father loves him

There’s a hymn called “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us” that speaks to this

I want to read to you the first two lines from it, because they are just perfect

It starts with this:

How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure! That he should give his only Son, to make a wretch his treasure.

You and I, we are wretches

Broken, sinful, desperate people

You might not consider yourself that way on a day-to-day basis, but in our worst moments when we are at our lowest, we see ourselves as we truly are

It is in those moments when hopelessness tries to take over, because we realize just how bad things are

And yet, what do we see in our passage?

That God’s endless, immeasurable love wants to make us his treasure instead

And his love is so relentless about that, he decides to send his own Son to die in our place to make us into his sons and daughters

And if you’re anything like me, it’s very, very hard to hear that truth and accept it

If you want to talk about God’s wrath, his justice, his knowledge of the future, or any other attribute of God, then I’m all in

But when it comes to the love of God, and God loving us like this, I tend to shy away

At times, I can’t even begin to comprehend that kind of love

And as I look at myself, my default reaction is to think: there’s no way that God would love someone like me

I’m too broken

I’ve hurt too many people

I don’t deserve a love like that

Maybe you know what those feelings are like

You’re afraid that God might love others this way, but he couldn’t love me like that

Or maybe you know what it’s like to lie sleepless at night agonizing whether you’ve pleased God or not

But here’s the truth of Scripture this morning for all of us:

There is nothing you have done

No amount of people you have hurt

No depth of hurt that you carry

Nothing that can separate you from the love of God

Period. Full Stop.

And I’m not talking the wishy-washy romantic love culture talks about, or the love of a mother towards a child, or any other kind

I’m talking about the overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God

A love that makes no demands, has no barrier for entry, and can never run out

As much as God the Father loves Jesus, that’s how much he loves us

Do you believe that God loves you that much?

Because God is not just running around giving out free hugs to people as a sign of his love

He sent his own Son to die the most brutal death that humanity has ever imagined so that you could know his love

And his Son Jesus took on himself the punishment for every wrong thing you have ever done and ever will do

And Jesus did all of that just to give the opportunity for you to know and be known by him

I know those kinds of fears intimately well, and I still wrestle with them from time to time

Whether it’s a fear of failing God as a teacher, as a leader, as a father and husband, and on and on

HOWEVER, I also know the immense power of God’s love

So powerful in fact that John tells us in 1 John 4:18 that love like this, the perfect unfailing love of God, drives out fear

He says that fear has to do with punishment, but as believers, we don’t have to fear that

So, if you’ve been afraid, or maybe just doubting if God loves you, hear the word of the Lord this morning through the apostle Paul:

Romans 8:38-39

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I can speak first hand to the fears I just mentioned, but I can also speak first hand to the love of God driving out that fear

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing.

Not us, not the devil, nothing.

Do you know God’s love that way?

Are you ready to let go of your fear this morning?

Because God’s perfect love can and will drive out your fears

We are to abide in love

And that kind of mind-boggling, insanely powerful love is what Jesus calls us to abide in

The motivation for us to remain in the Vine, for us to produce fruit in our lives, is not to better ourselves and it’s not even just to make us not afraid

It’s to draw closer to the one who loves us more intensely than imaginable

And by doing so, we naturally change to become more like him and that is the fruit

We naturally let go of the fear because we don’t need to feel afraid anymore

But it’s his irresistible love that draws us further up and further in

And these fruits of the spirit that we’ve been talking about in this series are things we already crave in our lives

Let’s talk about what some of those are briefly

Jesus specifically promises one of those fruits that we all long for: Joy

He says it in verse 11:

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete”

True, lasting joy comes from actively remaining in the love of God

As we remain in his love and see ourselves and everyone around us through the lens of God’s love, we will find joy

Think about it this way: what brings greater joy to a young child than pleasing their parents?

Knowing that their parent is proud of them lights them up like a Christmas tree

My daughter Molly loves to draw and when she was 5, she did a drawing of a tree

Up until that point it was the best thing she had ever drawn

And our whole family told her what an amazing job she did, because she captured the tree in a way she had never thought to before

And I remember that she absolutely glowed for that whole day!

And that simple example is only the tiniest sliver of the kind of joy that can be found in abiding in the love of God

The true joy like that which we all crave comes from actively remaining in God’s love for us

Pastor John Piper put it this way and I think it’s so good:

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Let me read that one more time

Have you ever thought of God as satisfying before?

It was definitely a new thought for me the first time I ever heard it explained this way

Because when we see how much God loves us, what he has done for us, how he is always with us and providing for us

That is when we will find joy and satisfaction in him

Psalm 37:4 puts it this way:

Take delight in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

If we make God our delight, he will happily give us more of him

Which the Bible tells us is the true desire of our hearts in the first place!

That hole in our hearts that we can never seem to fill, it’s strangely God-shaped ☺

And when we delight in him, we are remaining in his love!

And that is where true joy about comes from

It’s being satisfied in knowing God and deepening our relationship with him

The more we see of his goodness, his love, the more we want to remain in it and experience it even more!

That’s what it means to abide in his love

As we dwell on it and seek after God, the outcome will be fruit in our lives

And what’s one of the fruits of the spirit? Joy.

Want to know another? Peace.

Hoo boy, doesn’t peace sound nice in the midst of our busy lives?

The fruit of the spirit are the things that we long for in our lives, even if we don’t know them by that specific phrase

And all along, they have been waiting to be found in the love of God

We can easily miss that though if we don’t understand God and what he has done

Because when you think of all other religions relationship there is this master/servant relationship between us and God

In other religions, you are just supposed to serve the deity and hope that you do enough

But that’s not at all how Jesus describes his relationship to his followers, instead he calls them his friends

Likewise, when we believe in Jesus and choose to follow him, we become God’s friends

But what does that even mean?

Look at verse 15

“I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you”

As believers we are not task rabbits for God

We are not servants just blindly obeying God because he’s in charge

God treats us as friends by showing us his plan, his purpose, and the outcome

Like Jesus walked and talked with and knew his disciples as his friends, he also invites us into that same kind of relationship

To walk with him and know him more deeply

Love leads to action

Now there is something very, very important in this passage that we have not talked about yet

And that is the fact that Jesus keeps bringing up obeying commands

Let’s look at our chart again

<show slide with love arrows from before>

So far, we’ve seen that God loves Jesus and Jesus loves us with the same kind of love

Now let’s see what Jesus says in verse 10

He says that he has kept his Father’s commands

<Show slide with arrow on top from Jesus to God following commands>

In fact, he connects remaining in God’s love to keeping God’s commands

And this is the model that we are to follow as well

<Show slide with arrow on top from us to Jesus following commands>

And yes, I know that the grammar here is terrible ☺

It’s very easy for us to read verse 9 and go: neat! I can remain in his love and I’m done!

But the model that Jesus displays for us is that he abides in God AND obeys God’s commands

And by following his example, we are to do the same

Far too many Christians want the forgiveness, the freedom, the eternal life, but they want those things without having to obey

It’s our natural state to want a get-out-of-jail free card that still lets us live our lives however we want

But Jesus is VERY clear in this passage that if we keep Jesus’ commands, then we can remain in his love

But we cannot remain in his love without obedience as well

Which kind of makes sense right?

If you love someone but are constantly at odds with them, your love will wane

And this leads to the next question which is: what is Jesus’ command?

Let’s look at verse 12, because thankfully he made it impossible to miss:

“Love each other as I have loved you”

And then to make sure we can’t miss it, look at verse 17

Love. Each. Other.

If we truly loved one another, and this means loving believers and non-believers here, if we loved one another like Jesus loved us, then we would look very different

Jesus says in verse 13 that the greatest love is to lay down your life for someone else

Which is precisely what Jesus will do in just a few chapters

In fact, we see this same command from Jesus in John 14, to love one another

And when that kind of love is our motivation, our driving force, then everything else begins to change

Because if you truly love someone the way God loves us, then serving them, telling them about Jesus, caring for their needs, becomes second nature

Those are the things that Jesus came and did for us motivated by the very same love

Jesus really wants us to understand how this works, in fact, he’s said this to his disciples multiple times now

Look back at John 13:34

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

John continues with this idea in 1 John 4: 11-12

“Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also out to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”

Please, please don’t miss this

Christians are not called to a life of passively receiving blessing after blessing from God

The way we understand the love of God has been so polluted and twisted over the last 100 years

Jesus didn’t come and die so you could be loved and do whatever you want

He didn’t come to give you a get out of jail free card

He came so that you could be loved and in turn love others around you

He came so that you could find ultimate satisfaction in him

And by increasing proximity to him that you might produce fruit and in turn help others to do the same

And now it’s time for the uncomfortable questions:

Are you living like someone trying to imitate Jesus? Are you loving others in the same way that God loves you?

Let’s get more specific with a couple of examples, do you see yourself:

Being honest with others

Serving others, instead of being served

Talking about what Jesus has done in your life with people around you

Or are you living like Jesus is a get out of jail free card?

Even as believers, we all fall into this trap at different points

But once we realize it, we need to get out!

As Pastor David said last week, you can’t change yourself, you can’t bring change into your life by sheer force of will

But you better believe that if you aren’t trying to abide in the love of God, that your life will show steadily diminishing amounts of fruit

And in reality, you are cutting yourself off from the true source of love and joy

And in turn, you are denying those around you from the chance to experience the love of God through you

Maybe it’s been fear holding you back

Then today is the day to discover the depth of the love of God and find freedom from fear in the truth we have read this morning

Maybe you’ve not been abiding in God’s love and just going your own way

You believe in Jesus, but you’re not living in obedience to his command here

Then today is the day to rediscover the love of God and start to share it with others

If either of those places are where you are at, don’t let shame get in the way

God’s love doesn’t waver, he’s not ashamed of you for being afraid or getting distracted by the world

He just wants you to come and experience his love again, and show you more and more of it

We all have fear, we all make mistakes, and it has no effect on how much God loves you

His love is just going to keep chasing after you to bring you back

Romans 8:1 says that there is “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus”

So tell shame to take a hike and lean into God’s love and show his love to others today

And let his love keep pushing you to share his love with others

Ask him how he wants you to do that and he’ll happily help you do so

You can show that love in so many ways:

Through how and what you speak to others

By living with integrity and gracious honesty

By prioritizing other’s needs before your own

And by sharing the good news of Jesus

We just have to get started!

Not through our own willpower and not to better ourselves, but because God first loved us

And maybe you haven’t experienced the love of God this way, or not in a long time

I want you to listen closely to the words of these next two songs

And hear through them just how much God loves you

Let me pray

The Gospel

The overwhelming, never-ending, reckless love of God

God runs after us recklessly

He doesn’t care that we might not accept his love

There is no mountain he won’t climb up, shadow he won’t light up, wall he won’t kick down, lie he won’t tear down as he comes after us

He wants you to know him and there is nothing that can deter him

The God of the universe who made you, who knows you inside and out, who has watched over you since before you were born

He is the one who loves you beyond your wildest dreams

And maybe this morning is the first time you’ve ever heard that before, or maybe it’s clicking for the very first time

I want you to know that this morning, Jesus is waiting for you with open arms

He wants to show you his infinite love and fill you with peace and joy like you’ve never known

And the Bible says in Romans 10 that all we have to do to know that love is declare with our mouths that Jesus is lord, and believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead

We are to believe that Jesus came and died for us, to save us from our sins

It’s just accepting his free gift for us, and then we start to abide in him and his love

And then He will change us, and send us out to love others in the same way

If you’ve never believed in him before, then right now is the moment

In fact, let’s do this, let’s have everyone close your eyes for a second

If you’re standing here and you can feel God pulling on your heart

You know that you need to know the true love of God in your life

Then in a second, I’m going to ask you to raise your hand nice and high

Raising your hand is just a way to draw a line in the sand and say that today you’re going to start believing in and following Jesus

That you’re ready to accept his love for you and let him change you

If you need to do that, then go ahead and raise your hand

Let me pray