Good morning, IPC. Let us pray.
Lord, you are the living God. Speak to us today.
! Let us hear what only you have to say.
! In Jesus' name, Amen.
Jesus says,
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Love and obey.
These are a pair of words that we often associate with what we ought to do.
We ought to love one another.
We ought to love God.
And we ought to obey.
We ought to obey or keep God's commandments.
We ought to obey authorities and parents and so on.
But there is no commandment in this passage,
in the passage that we read in John 14.
There are no commandments.
Jesus is describing the disciples' action.
This is what he tells them.
He says,
The disciples are going to know the Spirit and live with him.
The disciples will see Christ even though the world does not.
They will live because Christ lives.
They will comprehend the unity of God and his people.
But there are no commandments.
And I think the focus of this passage is on love more than on commandments.
It's on our love for God and God's love for us.
If you love me, that's the possibility.
So what exactly then is required of a Christian when Christ says this?
If you love me.
Christian morality is really comprised of two parts.
Think of it as a floor and a ceiling.
On the floor of Christian morality, on the sort of foundational level,
we have things like a lot of the Ten Commandments,
which we read in here often.
Don't steal.
Don't murder.
Don't commit adultery.
And so on.
Yes, we will break these commandments sometimes in some ways.
But these are a foundational level of what we ought to do as Christians.
But these also have a ceiling.
What do I mean by a ceiling?
Well, don't commit adultery.
That's the floor.
Love your wife as Christ loved the church.
That's the ceiling.
Don't murder.
That's the floor.
But as we know, Jesus says,
I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be judged.
Do not steal.
Versus, blessed is he who is generous to the poor.
The rich young ruler comes to Jesus.
And what does he say?
What must I do?
To obtain eternal life.
Jesus says, well, you need to keep the commandments.
And he says, I've kept all the commandments from my youth.
There's one thing I require.
Give up all you have and follow me.
That is a ceiling.
And the same is true for loving God.
We must love God with all our heart, all our mind, and all of our strength.
As he who called you is holy, says Peter, you also be holy in all of your conduct.
Since it is written, you shall be holy for I am holy.
In short, be as holy as God.
Love him with everything you are.
That's not minimal Christian morality.
Do you remember what happens at the end of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory?
Gene Wilder is sitting there with that usual kind of crazed look in his eye.
And he's sitting across from the boy, Charlie Bucket.
And they're in a sort of rocket ship or elevator sort of capsule thing.
And then it starts to go up and up and up and up until it eventually breaks through the glass ceiling.
And they somehow fly around looking at the town.
That's a wonderful picture of what we don't do as Christians.
We don't blast through the ceiling of God's demands.
Does anyone for more than maybe ten minutes have an intense affection for the Lord?
Is anyone ready to give up everything and follow him?
Ready to put your life on the line for Christ?
Maybe you are ready.
But most of us, most of the time, need to increase our love for God.
We need more affection for Christ.
We need courage to give up our own interests for the sake of his name.
This takes us back to Willy Wonka one more time.
We're a little more like the fizzy lifting drink.
Right?
Charlie Bucket and his grandpa drink the fizzy lifting drink.
And they start to float up to the top of the tunnel.
And they start to burp the fizzy drink.
And they start to slowly float back down.
Until finally they come to rest on the floor.
Popping up once in a while, mainly floating down to the ground.
We're just kind of content on the floor.
But we do love Christ.
That's not what I'm saying.
We do love Christ.
And it's possible, maybe in some way, that the rich young ruler did keep the commandments from his youth.
And it is true.
Christians love Jesus.
You are not indifferent about Christ.
But Jesus wants more of our love.
He wants us to increase our love for him.
He wants us to love him with all of our heart and mind and strength.
We're in John 14.
If your Bibles aren't open, go ahead and find John 14.
This occurs in what's called the Upper Room Discourse.
It's John chapters 13 to 17.
The Upper Room Discourse or the Farewell Discourse.
Now before this, Jesus has been going along on his ministry.
And that portion concludes with him arriving into Jerusalem.
And then he meets with his disciples.
And they have this final lengthy meeting together.
And then after this section in chapter 18, it's basically Jesus' passion.
His death and then his resurrection and reappearance to his followers.
Our section, not chapter 14, but chapter 13, our section begins like this.
Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father,
having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.
What is about to occur is in itself an expression of Christ's love.
An expression of Christ's love for his disciples.
And you know this story.
He cleanses them physically.
This is when he washes their feet.
But he also cleanses them symbolically.
After he washes their feet, they're sitting around the table.
And for some light dinner table conversation, he says, one of you will betray me.
And Judas is exposed and Judas departs.
The disciples are cleansed in this symbolic way.
And then comes the news from Jesus himself.
I too must depart.
I am leaving and where I am going, you cannot come, he says.
What do these men need now?
Reassurance?
Comfort?
Instruction about how this is all going to work without Jesus?
Jesus goes on to tell them,
Believe in me.
Remember that my words are authoritative.
Ask anything in my name and it will be given.
This is chapter 14.
And then, in verse 15,
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
This is us.
It sounds like obedience will just happen.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
Obedience will just happen so long as we love God.
And I think we actually understand this connection pretty well.
And the connection is this.
Love has great implications for how we behave.
Take a mundane example.
If you love a sports team,
West Ham United, for example,
what do you do?
I know very little about football,
so I love just picking a random team.
I know for some of you,
we'll make or break this.
But West Ham United, for example,
if you love them,
what will you do?
Well, you might say,
I love West Ham,
but I never watch a match.
I never talk about them.
I'm not getting a jersey,
nothing with a logo.
I don't read up on the latest news about the players.
No.
No, you don't do that.
If you love West Ham,
you make sure that match night is free.
You talk about the team the next morning at work.
You might wear something with the logo,
and you surely read the news about them.
If you love West Ham,
you will do these things.
Now, I often hear people say
that we use the word love casually.
Right?
I love pizza.
I love my children.
I love God.
How can we use the same word
for all of those things?
There's a difference here,
which I'll talk about,
but there's also an important commonality.
Love has great implications
for how we behave.
Love has great implications
for how we behave.
It's a natural connection, actually,
to love and to obey.
What is supernatural
is to love God.
The question is,
how do we love him?
How do we love him?
And that's what our passage is about.
It's about love,
and it tells us three things about it.
How we love God,
when we love God,
and the implications of this love.
How we love God,
when we love God,
and the implications of this love.
First, how do we love God?
We love God
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
given by the Father,
thanks to the Son.
Look at verse 15.
If you love me,
you will keep my commandments,
and I will ask the Father,
and he will give you another helper
to be with you forever.
The word here for helper
probably means something
just like that,
someone who helps,
a comforter,
someone who comes alongside
and supports.
In general,
it's an associate.
Now,
it can mean something
very particular.
It can mean a sort of
judicial advocate,
in that kind of sense,
and maybe there's an interesting
illusion there,
that the Spirit would advocate
on our behalf,
as in a court setting.
But more immediately,
the Spirit helps
with something else.
What does the Spirit
help with?
We're on verse 17 now.
Jesus calls this helper
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.
All of this talk about
believing in Jesus,
about being reassured
when he departs,
about having an incredible
connection with God.
Jesus says,
I will be in my Father,
you will be in me.
We will be one.
All this talk about
asking for things
in Jesus' name
and receiving them,
all of this is thanks
to the Spirit of Truth.
That is how we love God,
by the power of the Spirit
given by the Father,
thanks to the Son.
The New Testament says
that everything about you
as a Christian
is new.
You have a new heart
to feel.
You have new eyes
to see.
New minds
to think.
In 1 Corinthians,
Paul says,
we have the mind
of Christ.
This is new life.
And this makes
the church the church.
The world does not
call God Father
or pray in Christ's name
or read the Bible
expecting to see
God himself
or know that this book
is the way that God
has spoken to me
and to us.
That's the Spirit's gift
of what we call
illumination.
That's how we know
the Bible is God's word.
It's a supernatural word
and a supernatural act
to recognize it.
for the same reason
the world does not
love God
because they have not
received His Spirit.
However,
if anyone is going
to love God
and anyone can
say that again,
if anyone is going
to love God
and anyone
can
love God,
then it's going
to be for the same
reason.
if you love God,
you have been given
the help
of the Holy Spirit.
God has regenerated
your heart
and given you
new life.
How's that
for help?
How do we love God?
By the power
of the Spirit
given by the Father
thanks to the Son.
When will we love God?
This is the second question.
When will we love God?
It's a bit of a strange
question.
It may sound strange,
but Jesus does make
a point of it.
We will love God
and particularly
increase our love
for God
when we see
the resurrected
Christ.
Verse 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.
In that day,
you will know
that I am in my Father
and you in me
and I in you.
In these lines,
I think Jesus is referring
about his resurrection
appearance.
I think he's referring
to his resurrection
appearance.
In that day,
I think that's
the particular day
for the disciples
that they're expecting
when they will know
that he is in my Father.
The general point
is that we love God
when we see Christ,
especially the Christ
of glory.
That's the general point.
When we see the Christ
of glory,
we will love God
and love him more.
It had a more
immediate meaning
for the disciples,
of course.
Jesus was physically
going to go away.
You will not see me.
You'll open your eyes.
I will not be around.
You'll come into my room.
I will not be there.
But then you will see me.
But for them
and for us,
a single principle holds.
And that single principle
is it is Christ first.
It is Christ first.
In the same way
that we love God
when we have the Holy Spirit,
so looking upon Christ
increases that love
for him.
I hope you're starting
to see that
everything about
if you love me,
you will keep my commandments
begins with God.
It begins with his love
for himself
within the persons
of the Trinity
and it begins
with his love
for us.
We love God
by the power
of the Holy Spirit.
We will love God
when we see
the glorified Christ.
We will love him more
when we look upon him.
Third,
what happens
with this love?
What are the implications
of this love?
Now,
we've got to look
around the chapter
a little bit
for this.
Verse 13.
When we love God,
God is glorified.
Whatever you ask
in my name,
this I will do
in order that
the Father may be glorified
in the Son.
When we ask for things
in Christ's name
for his sake,
because we love him
by the power
of the Holy Spirit,
then God gets glory.
hallowed be thy name
is what we pray.
That is what we pray for
and that is what we love for,
that God will be glorified.
Second,
verse 31.
When we love God,
the world will know more
about God's love.
Jesus says,
I do as the Father
has commanded me
so that the world
might know
that I love the Father.
Jesus' self-sacrifice
displays
in the greatest way
possible
that he loves the Father.
And that fact
cannot leave people
unaffected.
The presentation
of Christ's self-sacrifice
moves with power
into the world.
And our love for God
in the same way
adds fuel
to this fire.
Our response
to the crucified
and resurrected Christ
as fuel
to the fire
of God's love
so that the world
might know
about God's love.
Lastly,
verse 21.
He who loves me
will be loved
by my Father
and I will love him
and manifest myself
to him.
More love for God
means more love
from God.
And more love
from God
means more love
for God.
Now you may be
getting a little nervous,
right?
More love from God
as if we love God
more and he loves us,
he loves us more.
I don't think that's
exactly what's going on.
Perhaps it's something
about the manifestation
of God's love
appears more clearly
to us
when we love God.
But in either case,
the relationship
is reciprocal.
it's very clear
that God loves us
first.
But we increase
our love for God
and we know more
of God's love
through that same
process.
God is glorified
when we love him.
The world
will know more
about God's love
as we love him.
And our understanding
of God's love itself
will be increased
as we love him.
The greatest type
of love
is the love
that will die
for the beloved.
It says,
I will give up
my life
so that you
might have life.
This is where
the different types
of love
become important,
right?
Love for pizza,
for a football team,
for children,
and for God.
I was at a dinner
on Thursday night
with some teenage boys
and the boy
sitting across from me
was 17 years old.
We were talking
about how we get
teenage boys
to, you know,
attend little events,
get-togethers.
Let's have a movie night.
Why is no one
coming to the movie night?
Well, you need
some food there,
right?
And this is exactly
what this guy said.
I kid you not,
these are his exact words.
I'd do anything
for three hours
if there was pizza there.
I'd do anything
for three hours
if there was pizza there.
But we don't
die for pizza.
He might do anything
for three hours,
but we don't die
for pizza.
We don't die for dominoes
because we love pizza.
We don't give up
our own life
for the sake
of a football team.
But we would die
for the people
that we love.
And Jesus
dies for us
because the Father
loves us.
and told Jesus
this is what
we're going to do
for the world.
For God so loved
the world
that he gave
his only begotten son
that whosoever
believes in him
might have
everlasting life.
you might think
I can't love God.
Of course you can't.
But you tell God
you want to love him
and you ask him
for the help
of the Holy Spirit
since that's the only way
you can love him.
Let's pray.