IF/THEN-Week 2: If You Love Me

If You Love Me

Prayer: “Jesus thank you for loving us, saving us, and empowering us. Thank you for giving us the Holy Spirit to help when things get too difficult. Grant us the strength we need to follow your commands through this life and into the next.”

Introduction

Tonight we continue our teaching series, IF/THEN.

For those of you in the room who’re currently parents, or remember being young children, there will be obvious connections made between love and obedience.

And I think we can all admit that obedience is difficult. It’s difficult to learn, difficult to teach, and it’s a difficult process to watch play out in the lives of others around us.

It’s not something we’re good at, hard wired for, or frankly… enjoy.

To highlight this, I have a story for you that will sound very familiar;

Once upon a time, there was a young couple named John and Sarah who decided to adopt a cute little puppy named Max.

They were overjoyed to have a new furry addition to their family, and they were determined to raise him to be the perfect companion.

However, training Max turned out to be more difficult than they anticipated.

He was full of energy and always seemed to be getting into trouble.

He would chew on furniture, jump on guests, and bark incessantly. Despite their best efforts, John and Sarah were struggling to get him to behave.

They started researching different training techniques, and tried everything from positive reinforcement to obedience classes.

But no matter what they did, Max just wouldn't listen.

He would often ignore commands or do the opposite of what he was told.

John and Sarah became frustrated and overwhelmed.

They started to wonder if they had made a mistake in adopting a puppy at all.

But deep down, they knew they loved Max and were determined to keep trying.

They decided to hire a professional dog trainer, hoping that someone with more experience would be able to get through to Max.

The trainer worked with Max for weeks, and while there were some improvements, he still struggled with obedience.

Finally, after months of hard work, Max began to show signs of improvement.

He stopped chewing on furniture, and would sit and stay on command.

John and Sarah were overjoyed with his progress.

Training a puppy to be obedient was much harder than they ever imagined, but they never gave up on Max.

We resonate with this story on some level because we can identify with the people in the story.

We resonate with the difficulty of training.

We know how it feels to come to the end of our own resources, and have to reach out for help.

We also know how rewarding it is when our hard work and dedication pays off.

And as we’re about to see in our passage for the day, there are several parallel lessons to be learned as we follow Christ and learn more about the unfailing love of the Father for His kids.

Main Teaching

Love is a funny thing isn’t it?

It’s a complex and multifaceted concept that can mean different things to different people, and it can be challenging to define in a single sentence or statement.

However, at its core, love is an intense feeling of affection, attachment, and care towards someone or something.

John and Sarah loved their puppy, they wanted to give him the best life possible, which included some rules to follow.

We can assume that Max the puppy also loved his parents, and he didn’t like seeing them upset.

In a similar way, we know that God loves His kids and wants the best for all of us.

He’s given us commands to follow and principles to live by.

He even loved the world so much that He gave His only Son, and through Him, eternal life.

Our passage begins today with one of the more difficult verses in the New Testament;

John 14:15 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Loving Jesus means obeying his commandments

John 14:21 ESV

21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

In this one verse, Jesus reiterates that loving Him equates to listening to Him.

IF you love me, THEN you’ll listen and obey.

You’ll do what I’ve asked, you’ll follow the path, and you’ll continue on the road even when it gets difficult or you feel lost.

Loving Jesus is not just about having warm feelings towards him, but about obeying his teachings and living in accordance with his will.

We do this through the good times and the bad, and maybe that’s why loving Jesus can feel so difficult at times.

If we’re honest there are days, weeks, and years when we don’t WANT to obey.

We don’t WANT to stay on the path of Christ.

We want to entertain other desires and interests.

But Jesus reminds us today that IF we love Him, really love Him, then we will listen to Him.

But what about the difficulty?

What about the fact that my fleshly desires and inclinations don’t line up with the self-giving love of Christ?

The amazing part about this is that Jesus has an answer for our difficulty as well…

John 14:16–17 ESV

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even 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.

The Holy Spirit helps us love and obey Jesus (John 14:16-17)

Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to be with his disciples, to help and guide them… He calls this “The Spirit of Truth.”

The Holy Spirit empowers us to love and obey Jesus, giving us the strength and wisdom we need to follow his teachings.

The Spirit helps us to discern between right and wrong, truth and falsehood.

And, through the Holy Spirit, we can experience a deeper intimacy with Jesus and a greater ability to live out his commands.

The Spirit is an amazing gift to us. It’s something we often forget about as we hurry through our lives from one problem to another.

But think about this, the Spirit is with us, AND IN US.

​​There are several Bible verses that talk about the Holy Spirit living in us.

Here are a few to think about;

● Romans 8:9 - "You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ."

● 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 - "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies."

● Galatians 4:6 - "Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”

● Ephesians 2:22 - "And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

These verses emphasize the idea that the Holy Spirit dwells in believers, and that through the Holy Spirit, believers are connected to God and empowered to live a life that honors him.

These verses also remind us that we are not alone and that through the Spirit we can enter into the self-giving, sacrificial love shared by CHRIST.

John 14:18–21 ESV

18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 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. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

The Father loves those who love and obey the Son John 14:18-21

Jesus promises that he will not leave his disciples as orphans, but will come to them.

They are part of a larger family when they are part of Christ, loved by Christ and through Christ.

What an amazing thing to think about… We are not alone.

God will never leave nor forsake us.

He is with us always.

This truth is a foundational and fundamental reality that we live in as Christians.

IF you have Jesus, THEN you are never alone.

Jesus' love for us is the foundation of our love for him - we can love him because he first loved us (1 John 4:19).

It is because of this love that we can experience the redemptive and eternal love of the Father as well.

And as we experience and receive Jesus' love, we are empowered to love him in return and to share his love with others.

This is the ultimate commission - this is the call on our lives.

To love others as we have been loved and to invite everyone we can into this amazing gospel.

Conclusion

To sum this all up; Those who keep the commands of Jesus show their love for Jesus and are therefore loved by the Father as well.

The Father loves those who love and obey His Son.

Loving Jesus is not just an abstract concept - it is demonstrated through our obedience to his commandments, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and rooted in his love for us.

Remember this; We have been giving an advocate and helper to assist us when things get difficult.

Just like John and Sarah had to hire a professional dog trainer to help them with Max, it’s okay for us to admit that we need help too.

We need the Holy Spirit, we need each other, we need encouragement, we need gratitude and praise.

These things don’t make us weak or deficient, they make us human.

And God knew we’d need help.

He knew we’d need one another.

He knew we’d need Jesus.

This coming week, may we all seek to love Jesus more deeply and to live out his teachings in our daily lives.

As we do, we will experience the joy and peace that come from being in a loving relationship with him.

IF you love Jesus, THEN you will obey and listen to His commands.

Let’s pray together.