[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a joy to be together this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all going to hang in there together as we are all shivering together and feel like our energy is being scept out of us by the cold.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I hope that the words of God warm your soul in a way that a heater never could.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you would look with me at John fifteen, John fifteen as we continue our study through this gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the night of Jesus' betrayal and arrest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Judas has already left the others behind and Jesus is now speaking to the eleven disciples who are about to be scattered like sheep without a shepherd.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are his parting words, words which are meant to comfort them, which will come to the remembrance after the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which will sustain them through persecution and death.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus is going to speak to them about his friends and what that means.
[SPEAKER_01]: What it means to be the friend of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's begin reading in John fifteen verse nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says to His disciples, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you, abide in my love.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments in abide in His love, these things I've spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Greater love has no one than this that someone laid down his life for his friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do what I command you, no longer do I call you servants.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have heard from my father.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have made known to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: These things I commend you so that you will love one another until there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pray together.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, we love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are here today to hear from your word and for your spirit to pierce us with the words of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your words do good to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do your words cause us pain sometimes?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, they do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet Lord, even when you strike us with pain, we know it is for our good.
[SPEAKER_01]: For we are your people, your children.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do not strike us out of wrath for there is no more wrath left for the people of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has all been poured out in full measure on Christ Jesus at the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is no more wrath.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet Lord, we have sin still clinging to us and we would doubt your word and we would love other things and be tempted to leave off following Jesus
[SPEAKER_01]: and knit our hearts to other things.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Lord, we ask that you would pierce us with your words so that we would believe the truth and follow your word in a bay and have joy to the full.
[SPEAKER_01]: We pray these things in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our passage this morning begins with a single statement, which is so far beyond our understanding that it threatens to do derail all other thoughts we might have this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says in verse nine, look with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you abide in my love.
[SPEAKER_01]: Friends, we cannot comprehend this statement.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot comprehend the love with which the Father loves the Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: And therefore we cannot comprehend the love with which Jesus has loved us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can see examples of this love.
[SPEAKER_01]: and repassages about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We sing about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We teach and preach what we do know about it, but we cannot wrap our arms around the love of Jesus for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot.
[SPEAKER_01]: In reality, all we can do is be embraced by it and then praise the Father and the Son for the fraction of their love, which we have come to know and experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: The love of the Father, for the Son, is like the Atlantic Ocean, which we attempt to paddle about in with the child's inflatable boat.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know the ones I'm talking about, those orange little boats with a yellow paddles.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's us trying to fully comprehend the love of God for his divine Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we even leave the harbor,
[SPEAKER_01]: Our comprehension is close to capsizing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, we are to humble ourselves before the mighty love of God for His saints.
[SPEAKER_01]: For Jesus has loved us as He has been eternally loved by the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been swept up into a divine love which is far too wonderful for us to comprehend.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the condition of the Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who's been swept up into something so glorious, you cannot fully grasp it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet we praise Him and thank Him for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, I say, we have been swept up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Christians have been swept up because Jesus is speaking specifically about His love for His disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: His followers, true believers, His saints, Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: The world has not entered into this kind of love.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have not.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, the Bible tells us in John three, sixteen that God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is incredible love, which God has for the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is broad and wide and cast out over all people.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is true about the love of God for all people he has made.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in John fifteen, Jesus is speaking of a personal narrow and familial love which will not fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the love of the divine Father for His divine Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the love Jesus has for His little brothers and sisters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another picture scripture uses of us for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have been adopted into the family of God and we will forever live forever with Jesus in the household of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a love the world has never experienced.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can only be known.
[SPEAKER_01]: This love can only be known and experienced as forgiven and accepted children of God, the Father, who were purchased by Jesus, our older brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we could spend the rest of the year on this one verse, and showing it all the ways that the Scriptures point to this truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But for now, let's admit that we can only taste the reality of Jesus' loving us as He has been loved by the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we should give thanks and praise to the Father and the Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in our passage, Jesus next calls us to disciples to abide in my love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he gives them directions for how to do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus says in verse ten, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the sign of a genuine child of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: They know Jesus, love Jesus, and abide in Jesus' love by keeping his commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the example he gives us is himself, the second part of verse ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: just as I have kept my father's commandments in a bite in his love.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jesus is our example.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only is Jesus the one who loved us first, the one who makes love possible by giving us a new heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is also the one who gives us the example of abiding in divine love because he obeyed his father every time.
[SPEAKER_01]: quickly and without excuse.
[SPEAKER_01]: We look at that last week.
[SPEAKER_01]: We cannot say that we are abiding in Jesus if we are not keeping His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unrepentant disobedience and those words are important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Unrepentant disobedience is the sign of a false profession of faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: This regard for the commands of Jesus is a sign of actually abiding in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And of having forsaken the love of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: James, the half-brother of Jesus, writes the churches, pleading with those who were abiding in the world to repent of their sins and return to the only one who has loved them with a divine love.
[SPEAKER_01]: He writes in James IV.
[SPEAKER_01]: verses one through ten.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says to Christians, to the church, those who had made professions of faith, but he's looking at the fruit of their life and he writes these words, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it not this that your passions are at war within you?
[SPEAKER_01]: You desire and do not have, so you murder.
[SPEAKER_01]: You covet and cannot obtain.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you fight and quarrel.
[SPEAKER_01]: You do not have because you do not ask.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ask and do not receive because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.
[SPEAKER_01]: You adulterous people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, He urns jealously over the Spirit He has made to dwell in us.
[SPEAKER_01]: But He gives more grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore it says, God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.
[SPEAKER_01]: submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and He will flee from you, draw near to God, and He will draw near to you, cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded, be wretched and mourn and weep, let your laughter be turned to morning and your joy to gloom, humble yourself before the Lord, and He will exalt you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are James's words to Christians who were living unfaithful lifestyles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the friends of the world, those who are abiding in the world, they hear James's words which I just read and they find these words hateful and judgmental.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a friend of the world or are abiding in the world,
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you hate those words.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are hateful words.
[SPEAKER_01]: Judge mental words.
[SPEAKER_01]: How dare anyone speak that way to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the born-again saints of God hear these words of rebuke and they say, thank you, Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they know that all of the scriptures come from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are words of rebuke from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: and they say thank you Lord, thank you Lord for rebuking me once again.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't let me wander from your commandments, cleanse me of my sin once again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like coming to Jesus and saying Jesus, please wash my feet again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know I am completely clean and I am in you, but wash my feet again.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have stepped in the muck of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we go diving into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We must plead with Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: to cleanse us of our sin, which we are living in right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Restore our relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the heart attitude of a Christian when they hear the word, rebuke of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We respond with thankfulness to God's commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, even to his rebuke, because we believe and have experience that knowing, loving, and following the commands of God produces divine joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Divine joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Jesus tells us in verse eleven, look at John fifteen again with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse eleven, these things I have spoken to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are the words of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.
[SPEAKER_01]: Think of that Christian.
[SPEAKER_01]: The divine joy of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: who is loved by the Father as his only Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the joy Jesus offers to us, that kind of joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I call it divine joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is offering divine joy to us as we know Him, love Him and abide in His love by keeping His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: The joy of the triune God is offered to us in ever increasing amount as we abide in His love by keeping His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the will of God for you, Christian, to fill you with His joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's God's will for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: So He calls you
[SPEAKER_01]: to abide in His in the love of His Son by keeping His commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are awesome things that Jesus is speaking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: A statement of divine love for Jesus' disciples and a promise of divine joy and ever increasing measure as we abide in that love.
[SPEAKER_01]: but we cannot separate these good things from keeping Jesus' commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can't separate those two things.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot say that I am loved with the divine love and I am going to be given divine joy but then take obedience to the commands of Christ's following Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot separate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot break off the keeping of the commandments of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: But this is one of the great dangers threatening the church today.
[SPEAKER_01]: The separation of all the good things from obedience and humble submission.
[SPEAKER_01]: Modern Christianity often promises all the love and joy without requiring any repentance, humility, obedience, pain,
[SPEAKER_01]: and self-sacrifice.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you follow Christ, you will experience pain.
[SPEAKER_01]: It might not be all physical.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might experience the pain of having to let go of a pet sin that you love, like your left hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you tear off or cut off that sin, you're gonna feel like you just plucked out an iron, cut off a hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be pain involved in following Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: There will be.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the modern
[SPEAKER_01]: Church often separates all the good stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: It proclaim all the good joy, love, acceptance from God without calling Christians to follow Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is so often blasphemously relegated to becoming a part of modern man's program for self-care and mental health.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just an add-on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's this, here's that, here's this, then also add a little bit of, sprinkle a little bit of Jesus on it and you'll take good care of yourself and you'll have good mental health.
[SPEAKER_01]: Today, the fool says in his heart, Jesus is just another drug I can add to my prescriptions.
[SPEAKER_01]: But friends, he is not.
[SPEAKER_01]: a drug in our cabinet which at our will and whenever we want to we can just reach up and take from him at our pleasure to produce the euphoria of love and joy that is not who he is and that is not our relationship to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he is the Lord of Lords.
[SPEAKER_01]: and the king of kings, the first and the last, the judge of all the earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he will have your allegiance and obedience.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is our Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what is it that the Lord of the universe desires of us?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is he want of us?
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe knowing Him and loving Him is assumed by Jesus in this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't even spent the last few weeks looking at that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the first and greatest commandment to love God with all your being and Jesus repeats that over and over again.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first of His commandments to abide in Him, to come and drink and eat from Him, to love Him, and to lighten Him more.
[SPEAKER_01]: every day of your life.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that's assumed in this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what does He want us to do with our love for Him?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does He want us to live out our love for Him as He sits in heaven at the right hand of the Father?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does He want us to live this out?
[SPEAKER_01]: He tells us in verse twelve.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my commitment.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is right before he leaves.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's only has a couple more days on earth.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my commitment that you love one another as I have loved you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Greater love has no one than this that someone laid down his life for his friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is one of the overarching daily tasks that Jesus calls us to.
[SPEAKER_01]: to love one another as he loved us and how did he love us in the greatest human way possible by laying down his life for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: This passage is emphasizing the will of Jesus for us today.
[SPEAKER_01]: That Christians love other Christians as Jesus loved us.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is his other teachings.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are other things he calls us to, like the teaching of loving your neighbor as yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is still true.
[SPEAKER_01]: This does not remove that command as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: That command which focuses on how to love those outside the church, the people that we just happen to rub shoulders with throughout our week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, love your neighbor.
[SPEAKER_01]: as yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: How would you want to be treated in any given circumstance, especially if you found yourself in need?
[SPEAKER_01]: How would you like another stranger to treat you?
[SPEAKER_01]: But right now, in John fifteen, Jesus is elevating this new commandment.
[SPEAKER_01]: This commandment to love one another as he has loved us.
[SPEAKER_01]: to a place of immanence, only second to loving God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The first commandment, love God with all your being.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now he is elevating this new commandment to love one another as Jesus loved us and laid down his life for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: So here's Jesus's point.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to abide in divine love
[SPEAKER_01]: and experience divine joy to the full.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is you, then turn and love your fellow Christians even to the point of death as Jesus loved you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Friends, this begins in our homes, in our Christians of Christian homes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the very next place is your local church.
[SPEAKER_01]: where we are members one of another.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are part of one local body of believers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this command to love extends to all Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: It does.
[SPEAKER_01]: But how can you properly love Christians who live in Iran for Ethiopia?
[SPEAKER_01]: or any other place in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: How can you love them properly if you have not first learned how to love your Christian brother and sister who is sitting here right next to you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Love is first shown to those closest to you before it can overflow further.
[SPEAKER_01]: And mind I add that if you have a Christian home
[SPEAKER_01]: but husband and wife are at war with one another in that home.
[SPEAKER_01]: I find it hard to believe you will find much success outside of your home, fulfilling the command of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: It must begin in our homes and then our local church and then the greater George area and let it expand and overflow
[SPEAKER_01]: but it must first begin with those closest to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus promises that you will abide in His love and experience divine joy to the full, to the extent, think about this, to the extent that you turn and love fellow Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you struggling this morning?
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this past week,
[SPEAKER_01]: and thinking about all the difficulties of the week to come and wondering how you can have joy today.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how you doubt that it's even possible, maybe.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is you, I would encourage you to find ways to turn and love other Christians.
[SPEAKER_01]: Looking out from just your own problems, not just looking inward to your own problems, but instead looking out
[SPEAKER_01]: to the needs of others in our church and in your own home.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus promises that as we abide in His love and keep this commandment, we will begin to more and more experience His divine joy.
[SPEAKER_01]: This makes sense that Jesus would care so much about His church.
[SPEAKER_01]: when we think about how much he has already loved his disciples and given his life for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what we're seeing here is that Jesus desires, as he sits at the right hand of the Father, looking down on us, he has commanded us and desires for us today to love his church, which he calls his body, which he calls his bride.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are words of love and a tender affection.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he calls us to share his purpose, to share his love by loving our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who follow this life of sacrificial love for their fellow Christians, they receive a royal title, a royal title.
[SPEAKER_01]: They are called the friends of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: In verse fourteen, Jesus says, you are my friends, if you do what I command you.
[SPEAKER_01]: No longer do I call you servants.
[SPEAKER_01]: For the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my father, I have made known to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is clear that Jesus, as king of kings and lord of lords is right,
[SPEAKER_01]: to call those who follow Him His servants.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is good and right.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is the master of the house.
[SPEAKER_01]: His people are His servants.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is true and this is good.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you haven't come to the point in your Christian life yet where you rejoice in being called a servant of Jesus,
[SPEAKER_01]: or the servant of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is not a delight to your soul, you're not ready for this next part.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus talks about, you're not ready for this title.
[SPEAKER_01]: First, rejoice in the true and good and right idea of being the servant of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is where we should first come in our delight.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus is indicating an elevation in relationship
[SPEAKER_01]: for those who know Him and follow Him from now on.
[SPEAKER_01]: He now calls them my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: His reason for the shift is that in the past, his people were more like servants, receiving instructions and then going out in obeying, but now Jesus is revealing the plans and purposes of God to His followers.
[SPEAKER_01]: The disciples will no longer simply follow instructions without understanding the bigger picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus is revealing to his followers the mysteries of salvation, which had been hidden since the creation of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what Jesus has been doing in these three years of ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And although the disciples can't see it now, it's like they still got a veil blocking them.
[SPEAKER_01]: After the crucifixion and the resurrection, the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost,
[SPEAKER_01]: The veil is going to be ripped off and they are going to understand and rejoice in the mysteries of God hidden for a sense of the creation of the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Imagine a king sitting on his throne giving out instructions and commands to his servants.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each servant receives their instructions and then heads out on their way.
[SPEAKER_01]: They don't need to know why.
[SPEAKER_01]: They really don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And often they can't comprehend what the outcome will be of their message or their mission.
[SPEAKER_01]: They can only see one tiny little part of what's going on in the King's heart and mind.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the Kingdom, that is often the relationship between kings and their servants.
[SPEAKER_01]: But to be known as the friend of the King, for a king to call you his friend,
[SPEAKER_01]: That is another matter altogether.
[SPEAKER_01]: A friend is trusted.
[SPEAKER_01]: A friend can speak freely of their thoughts and ask questions to help them understand the bigger picture.
[SPEAKER_01]: A friend walks with a king, discussing how to bring about the king's desires and will.
[SPEAKER_01]: And most importantly, and applicable for our passage today in John fifteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: We see that a friend hears and knows the heart of the king.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important to keep this picture in mind because we will also protect us from going too far in this friendship language or idea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus honors us by calling us his friends, but he is still the king and we are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is still the king.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has elevators into a new level of knowledge and intimacy, but he is still our Lord and our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, Jesus is not our buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: We shouldn't speak of him that way.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is not our buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is not your boyfriend.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of songs out there today that
[SPEAKER_01]: sound more like someone singing about their boyfriend rather than their Lord and their God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And ladies, you cannot be married to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: The universal church, all Christians of all time, that is his one bride.
[SPEAKER_01]: You cannot be married to Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: You are his as an individual, are his subject.
[SPEAKER_01]: which he has elevated and called his friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is who we are before the Lord and King of the universe.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has elevated us, we still fall on our knees and worship him.
[SPEAKER_01]: In all of the Old Testament, there was only one person who was ever directly called the friend of God, only one person, and that was Abraham.
[SPEAKER_01]: One record of this title is found in Isaiah, of forty-one verses eight through ten, which aligns with our passage today.
[SPEAKER_01]: God says, but you Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend,
[SPEAKER_01]: You whom I took from the ends of the earth and called from its farthest corners saying to you, you are my servant.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have chosen you and not cast you off.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fear not for I am with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be not to smay.
[SPEAKER_01]: For I am your gun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will strengthen you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will help you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe passages like this one are in Jesus's mind as He speaks to His disciples.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice some of the key phrases in Isaiah forty one, my servant whom I have chosen my friend.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus echoes the same concepts, calling his servants, his friends, and then in verse sixteen, he calls them chosen and appointed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look with me in verse sixteen of John fifteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did not choose me, Jesus says.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says to his eleven disciples, you did not choose me, but I chose you
[SPEAKER_01]: and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does this language only apply to the eleven disciples?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or does this language also apply to us?
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe over the last several weeks.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have come to see that these words do apply to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: The New Testament gives all Christians the title of the chosen and called of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have a list of like seven or eight passages here where we are given the title, the loving title that points to the grace and mercy of God that we are given titles of the chosen and called of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Several weeks ago, we already studied in John six, verse forty four, where Jesus says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, in John six sixty five, no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when it comes down to it, did you choose Jesus?
[SPEAKER_01]: Or did Jesus choose you and call you which resulted in your coming to Him in saving faith?
[SPEAKER_01]: Which one is it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe Jesus' words are clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you.
[SPEAKER_01]: In case we've missed the context, we need to look elsewhere.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul says it though, again, clearly in Ephesians one, verses three through six, he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him.
[SPEAKER_01]: in love.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's going to say it again.
[SPEAKER_01]: In love, He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the beloved.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you are here this morning,
[SPEAKER_01]: filled with love for Jesus and you are finding out in your life that you love to follow Him even though it is a warfare.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's battle with the flesh, but you still you love to follow Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: You to lighten Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: If that is you this morning, it is because Jesus chose you, called you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is that merciful and gracious act of God which brought you to the point of repentance and saving faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: As Paul says again in Ephesians two verses three through ten, Paul says, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's excluded.
[SPEAKER_01]: We all once lived in the passions of our flesh.
[SPEAKER_01]: carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and we're by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind by nature.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's who we were.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in verse four Paul says, but God, being rich in mercy,
[SPEAKER_01]: Because if the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: Grace is unmerited, unarmed, undeserved, unsought for favor from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: By grace you have been saved.
[SPEAKER_01]: And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in the coming ages, He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse eight, four by grace you have been saved through faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is not your own doing.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is the gift of God, not a result of works so that no one may boast.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one will boast of their own righteousness in the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Four, Paul says, we are His workmanship.
[SPEAKER_01]: Created in Christ Jesus, four good works.
[SPEAKER_01]: which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're chosen, called an appointed to produce good works.
[SPEAKER_01]: But all praise goes to God for our salvation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for every righteous work that is ever produced for us, it all goes back to God in praise.
[SPEAKER_01]: for this is His work in us and through us.
[SPEAKER_01]: John tells us in the revelation of Jesus Christ that in the end times the kings of the earth and the beast will make war on the lamb.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the lamb will conquer them for he is Lord of lords and king of kings and those with him, those with him
[SPEAKER_01]: are called and chosen and faithful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Revelation, seventeen, fourteen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Called, chosen, faithful.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is the definition of someone who is abiding in the love of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: Someone who is experiencing divine joy, someone Jesus calls my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: My friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do not deserve this title.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: This title rightly understood crushes our pride and is the catalyst for genuine works of righteousness which will abide forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: Pride crushing and the catalyst for righteousness.
[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of verse sixteen, Jesus gives us great confidence in courage to go out and bear fruit that will abide forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: He tells us that his father hears his friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: His father hears his friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus chose us, called us, and appointed us to bear fruit much fruit.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the power to produce works that abide still comes from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: The power to produce righteous deeds still comes from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore Jesus commands His friends to call on His Father in His name
[SPEAKER_01]: So that the Father may give you the ability to accomplish the works of Jesus, which will abide forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've been spending probably four weeks looking at the right way to interpret Jesus' promise to answer prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not so I can have that red Ferrari.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not so that I can never have illness again.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is not so that I can live two hundred years.
[SPEAKER_01]: The promise of answered prayer is so that we will go out in Jesus' name to accomplish His will for God's glory.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the good of His people, He says, ask for whatever you will to accomplish those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: My Father hears and He will do it according to His will.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that.
[SPEAKER_01]: is the purpose of the promise of answered prayers from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we call in the Father to give us those things, Jesus says the Father hears you for you are my friends and you are calling on my Father in my name and the works which you produce in my name for my glory, they will abide
[SPEAKER_01]: forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: For seventeen, Jesus says, these things I commend you so that you will love one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is clear that good works begin with and are sustained by knowing Jesus and loving Him more and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: That has been very clear in the build up to this passage.
[SPEAKER_01]: Knowing Jesus, loving Him more
[SPEAKER_01]: That is where works of righteousness, or good fruit.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's where that begins.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what sustains it for a lifetime, loving Jesus more and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is very clear.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in our passage this morning, we are given a clear commandment from Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: That Jesus' friends will love one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please, do not leave here today without hearing this as a commandment from your king.
[SPEAKER_01]: That if you would be his friend and his court and live in the household of God forever, this is his commandment to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Love one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: Husband, love your wife.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wife, love your husband.
[SPEAKER_01]: Parents love your children, brothers and sisters love each other in this community as Christ has loved us which is to even to death.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please hear that as the command of your Lord and your God.
[SPEAKER_01]: By this will all people know that you are my disciples or now we might be able to say
[SPEAKER_01]: by this will all people know that you are my friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have love for one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: In closing and in application, think with me of how John, in his letter to the churches, applies these words of Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So John's recording this in his gospel.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are Jesus' words.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are red letter words in your Bibles.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now John turns around in the letter of first John and he applies these words in another letter.
[SPEAKER_01]: In first John three verse eleven, the apostle John says to the churches.
[SPEAKER_01]: For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should love one another.
[SPEAKER_01]: We should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: And why did he murder him?
[SPEAKER_01]: because his own deeds were evil and his brothers righteous.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord willing will find out about that next week.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the next part.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do not be surprised, brothers, that the world hates you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoever does not love abides in death.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.
[SPEAKER_01]: By this we know that he lay down his life for us, sorry, by this we know love, that he lay down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.
[SPEAKER_01]: But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need,
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?
[SPEAKER_01]: Little children, let us not love in word and talk, but indeed, and in truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him.
[SPEAKER_01]: For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart and he knows everything,
[SPEAKER_01]: Beloved if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we keep His commandments and do what pleases Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as He has commanded us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whoever keeps his commandments, abides in God, in God, in Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's go to the Lord and pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: Heavenly Father, I thank you for your word.
[SPEAKER_01]: May the Spirit of God wield it as only He can.
[SPEAKER_01]: To cut away our unbelief and doubt, to cut away our anger at one another, a Lord
[SPEAKER_01]: When the flesh still clings to us, our anger is so quick to jump to life.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Father, we're told by John that those who hate another have committed the sin of murdering someone in their heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Father forgive us for how we have failed to keep your commandments.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I pray that no one here would continue on living simply for themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, if we would abide in your love, if we would know and experience the love of God and begin to experience and ever increasing measure the joy of God, the Father may return.
[SPEAKER_01]: and look to the needs of others, especially the needs of fellow Christians, and we live for one another, maybe die for one another, not just on the gallows, but daily, die to self, let our pride die so that we can love the body of Christ, and we can hear the words of God well done
[SPEAKER_01]: when we see you.
[SPEAKER_01]: For though we did not see Jesus face the face, though we did not get to sit under his teaching ministry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And though we did not sit around the Lord's table, and we did not get to break bread with Him or drink the wine with Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though we have not seen Him, we loved Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we lived out our love by loving His body.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we know that we will be rewarded upon his return as if we had loved Jesus himself sitting here and walking with us in person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Please Lord do this in our church for your glory and for your fame in our community and for our joy in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.