We Believe... We don't do it alone.

Whatcha Doin’?

Have you ever thought about how blessed the disciples were?

They got to literally walk with Jesus! They learned from him, ate with him, lived with him, prayed with him!

Have you thought about that?

When they got a little bit off the track, Jesus was right there

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to guide and correct.

And he did that not just for them, but tried so hard to get others to understand the importance of his presence on earth.

From the people on the margins - like those who needed physical healing and freedom from demons,

all the way to the center of society - people who thought they were living their best lives, but still failing to follow God’s call to be a “priestly people” to the rest of the world.

That was God’s intention, right? Israel was to be the way God was revealed to the world. But they screwed up… a lot.

So, enter Jesus - God revealed in humanity.

God present with us, on our level, speaking our language, trying to make it plain what we are called to do to be a holy people.

And to bring it back to the disciples for a minute, in the passage we’re going to spend most of our time in today, they were maybe, possibly, perhaps… starting to get it.

We’re in John chapter 14, It’s been a week for this group…

they’ve retreated from ministry,

watched Jesus raise his friend Lazarus from the dead,

heard Jesus predict his own death,

returned to Jerusalem with shouts of hosanna from the crowd,

They’ve seen him literally anointed for burial by the woman with the alabaster jar of perfume,

and now,

they’re reclining at table, having just been loved on and served by their teacher, feeling troubled about what Jesus is telling them is about to happen…

Picture sitting there with Jesus and he’s telling you things like:

“My soul is troubled”

“A seed must die to bear fruit”

“I’m going to be betrayed.”

“Peter you’re going to deny me.”

Would you be troubled? Yeah, me too.

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John 14:15–23 CEB

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion, who will be with you forever. This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you. “I won’t leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them loves me. Whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) asked, “Lord, why are you about to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered, “Whoever loves me will keep my word. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.

(Slide) If you…

So, there’s a little bit of a back and forth going on here… There’s an expectation being set, and promise being made.

And as we consider this passage today, I want you to keep in mind that we’ve been building up to this journey and that each of the articles of faith we’ve considered so far show up in here as well…

Jesus starts with an “if”

(Slide - If you love me)

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If you love me, you will keep my commandments…

What were Jesus commandments?

Simply stated, Love God, and love each other.

And for John, Love is almost always equated with obedience.

This takes us back to the Shema -

Deut 6:4-5 the LORD your God is one. You must love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength… OR

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Deuteronomy 6:4–5 CEB

Israel, listen! Our God is the Lord! Only the Lord! Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your being, and all your strength.

I like the CEB version of this because it doesn’t compartmentalize our personhood...

All of our being… Since we are made in the image of God, our capacity to love, as God loves, is built into our very being. WE love because God IS LOVE.

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We can look right back to our first article of faith for that… Our triune God is an example of love and relationship. The three persons of the trinity live together in perfect oneness.

But, in our humanness, we know there’s also a shadow side - We’ve also inherited our propensity to sin from our first parents.

This creates a tension in us…

It isn’t easy to just live out a life of love and obedience.

After all - We are generally a stubborn and stiff-necked people.

God said this about the Israelites and he was present with them in the wilderness!

And the whole arc of the story of God and God’s people contains this tension between sin and holiness… From creation, to the wilderness, to judges, to kings, to prophets…

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Israel was to be a priestly people. They were responsible for showing God’s holiness to the world. But they failed in that mission. Scripture reveals that history to us. (Article 4)

Jesus came because things didn’t get any better!

Jesus, the Son of God (article 2) The Word of God, made flesh - lowered himself to become like us. The very breath of God - the ruach - the Holy Spirit descended into him at his baptism (article 3)

So that he who knew no sin, would take the place of all of our sin and bring atonement so that we could once again be reconciled to God. (Article 6)

So that by God’s prevenient grace (Article 7) we could be drawn toward a life in him,

repent from our sinful ways (Article 8)

and be made new through Jesus atoning sacrifice by faith and be adopted into the family of God (Article 9)

which brings us right back to where we are today…

How was that for whirlwind recap?

So what Jesus is talking about in this passage is growth in grace. And Pastor Des did a wonderful job of laying this out for us last week.

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For my part in this conversation, we’re going come down out of the theology for few minutes. To really make this resonate, I feel like we need to have some real skin in the game.

So I’m going to pick on myself - are you ok with that? A little confession time?

I have not always been the biggest fan of the word holiness. I know that may be shocking to some of you, but it’s true.

I grew up in an environment where a lot of comparison and judgement happened. It wasn’t malicious, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea.

But, you know the phrase keeping up with the Joneses? For us growing up, it more like just staying ahead of the O’Flannigans (or insert some other Irish, or polish, or Italian name here…)

We judged our own behavior not on God’s standard, but on the lowest common denominator around us.

You know, the whole “God has bigger fish to fry” mentality.

Unfortunately, I carried that into adulthood. And holiness to me, as a concept, seemed impossible.

Not only did it seem impossible, I felt like anyone who was claiming to live a holy life must’ve just been really good at hiding their secrets.

This idea of sanctification, when you come at it from this perspective feels like a never ending journey.

It is a terrible mindset to have. It sets you up for failure before you even start. It set me up for failure.

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But you see, Proverbs 16:9 says…

Proverbs 16:9 CEB

People plan their path, but the Lord secures their steps.

This is prevenient grace in action. We absolutely have free will - and our actions have consequences.

But even in all of that God will work to bring us back into relationship.

I had the privilege this week of being invited to a zoom session where a group of pastors gathered to listen and learn.

The topic was the Lord’s Prayer and the main theme of the way Jesus teaches us to pray… that’s a whole other message. Powerful! But not for today.

But in this session, Missionary John Haines took us down a little rabbit trail…

and I’ve gone back and forth over the last couple of days about whether or not I would share this with you…

it raises some questions for me, and it might for you and we won’t address all of them today, but please, do come to me, or any one of the pastors with any questions about things we say, or illustrations we use…

we can’t encourage you enough to dialogue with us...

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There’s an old Rabbinic Myth, I guess you’d call it a myth, about how shepherds will break the leg of a sheep that is prone to wandering off… sheep can be stubborn. We might know something about that.

So the shepherd breaks the leg of the sheep, then resets it, anoints the wound with oil, and carries the sheep through the healing process.

All the while, this strengthens the bond between the sheep and the shepherd.

I don’t know about you, but this idea flooded me with emotion, and reminded me of the grace of God, active and alive in my own life.

Sometimes the only way to be brought back to God, is to be brought to our knees first.

Sometimes, our reliance on God can only be realized when we’re at a point where there is literally no where else to turn.

And that’s where I found myself. And if you want to talk to me about that story, let’s get coffee.

As we steer ourselves back into the text - let me say this… there’s a big gap between being on your knees trying to just survive and being able to think rationally about this.

My hope, is that you don’t need to be completely broken before you realize your dependence on God.

My hope is that you can take the word of someone who has been there and make the connection for yourself.

The best way to learn from mistakes is to let someone make them…

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Ok - IF you love me, obey my commandments…

Love God, Love each other.

It’s obedience.

For me - again, maybe not helpful for everyone…

Obedience takes the form of me asking myself a pretty simple question.

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Will this decision I’m about to make bring me closer to God?

Is this thought, word, or deed something that will bring glory to the God who saved me from my sin?

It started in that very transactional way for me.

I had to be very intentional about my habits, my behaviors, and how I processed my thoughts.

And you might be thinking now, ok Walt, but you have to think that way because you’re becoming a pastor.

Believe me when I say to you that I don’t think that way because I’m becoming a pastor.

I’m becoming a pastor because God worked in my life first to set my feet back on a solid path.

I’m becoming a pastor because once I moved from that very transactional approach, I could hear God’s voice in new ways.

I’m becoming a pastor because God made it very clear to me that obedience is important.

I didn’t set out to become a pastor. I set out to honor the God who pulled me from the pit of shame and sin.

All have sinned and fall short of God’s glorious standard.

There is none righteous, no not one.

Grace is a gift, we don’t earn it. It is not something we deserve. But still the call is there…

If you love me, obey my commandments...

What do those commands look like?

Love God. Love each other.

How do we show our love for God?

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Here’s a short list:

- Pray

- Study Scripture

- Give generously to build the kingdom

It’s not exhaustive, but you see where it’s going. Get to know God better.

Talk to God, maybe more importantly, listen. Honor God with your trust, your time, your talents and your resources.

If you catch yourself thinking, I have too much on my plate today to read my Bible, or to stop and pray. Stop.

If you catch yourself saying, well… eggs are really expensive and my kids have to eat, so I’d better hold off on paying my tithe… Stop.

God is faithful. When you place your trust in God, God keeps promises.

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If you… I will…

So… If you love me, keep my commandments

Then what?

Remember, it’s not in our own strength. Our discussion today is linear, because.. well, that’s sort of how language works, but get this…

With every faithful step we take, the Holy Spirit is right there, equipping us for the next one.

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John 14:16–17 CEB

I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion, who will be with you forever. This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you.

(Slide) Mission

The more we obey, the more clearly we “see” the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

We are not on this journey alone.

See, we tend to miss the call in verse 15 when we read all this…

somewhere deep down, we all have a little bit of a universalist in us.

We want to believe that if God loves us, then there’s no way God would condemn us to hell.

That’s not what scripture says.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

If you keep my commandments, in the spirit of love and obedience,

I will bless you, and guide you, and help you on the way.

God is faithful!

Transformation is possible. It’s not in our power, but God will not override our free will. God doesn’t want robots who follow orders.

God wants faithful, loving disciples, who make faithful, loving disciples, who make faithful loving disciples.

Paul talks about this transformation in the letter to the Romans.

A very wise person once told me, if you want to understand holiness better, read Romans 6, 7, and 8. They were absolutely right. Don’t take my word for it - go check it out.

But in Romans 6:17-18 Paul writes: (slide)

Romans 6:17–18 CEB

But thank God that although you used to be slaves of sin, you gave wholehearted obedience to the teaching that was handed down to you, which provides a pattern. Now that you have been set free from sin, you have become slaves of righteousness.

(Slide) Mission

Paul says our obedience provides a pattern…

Have you ever heard of neroplasticity?

We love to hang onto old adages like “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” or “old habits die hard”

but the reality is, and researchers have evidence to back this up...

By changing behaviors, over time we can actually re-wire our brains!

This is our amazing God at work! Pastor Jonathan (and Pastor Kerry, our district servant) talked recently about how the name of God is repeated just in our breathing… Yah - Weh

Now, I’m telling you that same God designed our brains, our minds, the processing center of our being, to allow transformation from slaves to sin (and dopamine) to servants of righteousness.

The One who calls us to holiness is faithful and gives us all we need to love and serve in obedience!

I know my own approach to holiness started as very transactional…

There was a moment, in the deepest, darkest pit of my own spiritual poverty, where I had a choice.

Walk away, or give my life to God.

My will be done, or Thy will be done.

We might call that a moment of consecration.

To go back to our shepherd myth, that was the moment of the breaking and the start of the healing all at once.

God carried me through the pain, provided time for healing, and surrounded me with a community that encouraged me and held me accountable.

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It’s relational

God wants a relationship with you.

God is ready for you, even if you think you’re not ready to be received by God.

FIRST SERVICE

The song we’re about to sing says

“Your goodness is running after me”

Do you feel that?

SECOND SERVICE

The song we’re about to sing describes transformation as

“crushing and pressing”

Do you feel that? Do you want to be made into some new?

As we close, I want to do a little visual exercise with you...

When we accept Jesus, we follow him into a cross-shaped life. (Slide)

Jesus tells us that we have to take up our cross and follow him.

That’s the start of our journey of growth in grace. (slide)

In community with others, out of love and obedience, we journey toward the cross.

Jesus says, “If you love me, you will obey my commandments… and I ask the Father, and He will send another companion, who will be with you forever...” (Slide)

The Holy Spirit, the very breath of God, the Ruach present and hovering over the waters at creation is here with us today and always, enabling our continued obedience.

And to complete the picture, (slide)God has surrounded us with his church, the bride of Christ, to hold us up, keep us accountable, and protect us on the journey.

The One who calls us to obedience is faithful and he will see us through...

We are Christians, becoming like Christ, inviting others to join the journey.

(Worship Team, Come)

So as we close today, I want to extend an invitation.

You may be feeling like the sheep with the broken leg right now.

God maybe calling you to a moment of consecration.

Just as the shepherd anoints the sheep in our Rabbinic myth, I invite you to come forward during this song to be anointed.

There’s noting magical about it, but it is a means of grace, both in your public testimony of obedience to God’s prompting, and in allowing us as a church to pray with you and for you on your journey.

You do not journey alone. Let that image of God presence surround you and fill you as we worship.