The Gospel of John - The Fruit of Our Salvation - Part 6 - Love Him and Others as the World may hate you!
The Gospel of John - The Fruit of our Salvation • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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GREET EVERYONE-
Good Morning Loved Ones
If I have not had a chance to meet you; My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship.
INVITES
ADVENT
LETS GRAB OUR BIBLES IF YOU HAVE ONE AND
Open it to the Gospel of John and Chapter 15 as we come to our current series called “The Fruit of our salvation” which is ONE part of our walking through the Gospel of John together verse by verse.
PRAYER OVER SERIES
My prayer over this series is that the Holy Spirit of God, through the scriptures, will being us all in to a deeper understanding of what the fruit of our salvation is.
AN understanding of what our salvation is to produce in our life -
OF what Salvation is to produce in the life of someone who is saved
and what fruit can be produced in the life of someone is needs to be saved
Fruit is what something is produced-
and a reality of this world that we live in - an objective truth that we all can observe is
Fruit is always after its own Kind - Apples equal apples - Avocados equal avocados
and so what is the clear implication of that when I aske the question “what do Jesus followers Produce?” Jesus followers
And for us to do that Jesus is producing in us HIS loving nature and HIs character of truth!
And my prayer is as we come to a deeper understanding in what the fruit of our salvation is supposed to be.
AND - We would ask ourselves if we can see and feel and experience the transforming fruit that Jesus is supposed to be producing in our life?
and Loved ones - what I pray will happen to all of us is that we will all find ourselves wanting more and more of of Jesus - more and more of what Jesus and his saving work is to be producing in our lives and in the lives of everyone around us.
So that we will be more and more like Him in every way.
RECAP
Through this series We have unfolded from the very words of Jesus that the fruit of our salvation - What Salvation produces in us in a super natural way
One of those is a super natural impulse that we are “sent to serve” that moves us into a purposeful intent of serving others with an eternal purpose and intent.
Our salvation gives us the supernatural ability and calling to “Love Anyway” in the midst of a world that is filled with hurt and betrayal.
That our salvation yields in us the fruit of proclamation - This impulse in our minds and hearts to proclaim to the world “He is the way” to a world that has certainly lost its way.
an impulse to set our lives for “Spirit filled obedience” becasue we love Him and we love Him becasue we have come to realize that He first loved us - It is Spirit filled obedience becasue He send to us the Spirit of Truth - The Holy Spirit to help and indwell us as we are intentionally obedient to his commands.
Salvation produces in us a desire to Remain in Him - and we now know that our obedience to Him, our proclamation of Him, our service for Him and our our love, devotion and affections towards Him are only possible as we Remain IN him, bearing fruit after our own kind FOR Him and in that there is proof we belong to Him and love Him.
I pray that we would ALL examine our lives, our attitudes, our responses and our behavior's - and ask ourselves in a very transparent honest way - “Do I see, feel, hear and experience my life bearing the fruit of salvation?” and I pray that what ever the answer may be that we would be honest enough to ask the Father to make us more and more like Jesus - and to produce more and more of the fruit of His Saving us in our lives.”
Loved ones know this - If we are honest and ask our selves that question - All of us - Everyone of us - can never say “I’m doing pretty well in all that!” For all of us need to be made more an more like Jesus in every way!
PRAYER OVER MESSAGE
So my prayer over this mornings message is that we would know that our salvation, produces in us, a super natural Love for Him, For Other people - For each other - and for the world around us - Even though the world may hate you and me becasue of our love, affection and obedience to Him.
ENGAGEMENT –
Love and Hate -
I’m not sure there are two words that are defined in more polar opposite terms yet so closely related and experienced in extreme similarities.
Lets thing about Love for Just a moment
Love can be so very passionate and what I mean by that is there can be a very urgent feeling to love -
It can be a thought filled meaning our thoughts are filled with memories and images and planning for the one we love and have affections for.
It can be consuming meaning it takes a over our life or becomes fully integrated in to our lives.
It can be attractive - where we have this sense that we want to love and love well.
It can be experienced at the deepest levels of our emotions.
It can bring us to the point of self sacrifice.
It can bring us pretty easily to the point of costing us in generosity.
BUT HATE can so easily do the same things -
Hate can be passionate meaning urgency
It can fill out thoughts as well with anger and bitterness towards the one we hate.
It can take over and become totally integrated where we have hated so long we forget why.
It can be attractive because it gives us a sense of Justice for things we perceive as wrongs.
It can be experienced at the very deepest levels of our life.
It can bring us to the point of self sacrifice AKA self destruction
and Yes it can also be pretty costly.
Here is what is interesting -
In our own experience we can so easily see that we love well those who are easy to love - If we love someone and they love us back - The it is easy to love them - If we love someone becasue their temperament or their personalities are easy to be around than we love easily - and at any level if Love is easy than we love well.
Hate is pretty much the same way - Let me add
We also hate easy - They hate us its easy to hate them - Especially if they act on that hate towards us.
TENSION
The Problem that we have when we take this Philosophy into our relationship with Jesus is this way of loving and hating is directly contrary to the way Jesus loves.
Loving the Lovable and Hating the Haters - That is how the world loves - and that is how the world hates -
and That loved ones is a head on collision with How Jesus loves and deals with Hate!
BACKGROUND
And what Jesus will do in this Passage of Text - as He is sharing with them the differentiating kind of relationship they are to have with the Him each other and the world.
He is giving them some of the last preparation instructions for the rest of their lives.
And the Events that will begin the rest of their lives are Hours away from beginning as we find our selves in the timeline of Jesus here in John 15 and 16
We are at the end of the Last Supper - The Last Passover meal with Jesus and His disciples - The meal is over - the after dinner , still at the table conversations have come to an end -
Jesus has said: “Let us go from here”
Here in a few minutes they will head to the Garden -
Imagine with me that the Meal is over - The disciples have gotten up - The Table is being cleared - as they are all preparing to leave this upper room where dinner was had -
The Business of the moment - Jesus is speaking and all are listening with attentive ears as they clear the table - Jesu has got their attention - Because - During Dinner he told them point blank “I am leaving”
Jesus has tole them - I am sending you into the world to serve -
I am giving you the ability to love anyway -
I am telling you to do greater works than me by proclaiming that I am the way the truth and the life and I am the only way to the father -
I am giving you the Helper so that you will be empowered to keep my commandments because you loved by me, My father and you love us.
I am unveiling to you that you will need to remain in me and i in you so that your life will have eternal purpose by bearing much fruit - becasue without me you can do nothing.
and Now Jesus will turn to them once again and unpacks for them the central nature - the Central fruit that will be produced in them and that is Love for each other and the world even if the world hates them.
UNPACKING
Loved ones watch - What Jesus will say in these verses is very straight forward - It might go by pretty fast.
Jesus begins with a repeated and now clarified command - from what He said Back in chapter 13 - Right as supper began
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
But this time he said - Love as I have love you
The question that we are now Left with is “How did Jesus love?”
Well Jesus answers this in verse 13
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
You see loved ones Jesus’s “self described love” was a love that was self sacrificing - Laying down ones life for his friends-
Jesus then defines for them and for us who are those whom Jesus considers friends -
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I want you to notice - Jesus once again brings in the idea of Obedience - that He Began to introduce all the way back in chapter 13 when the scene of the last Supper began.
Notice what Jesus did not say - He did not say - You are my friend if you agree with the facts of History - He didn't even say “you are my friend's if you believe me - He did not say “you are my friend if you call me friend -
NONE of that loved ones -
You are my friend IF you do what I command -
VSS15
Jesus then clarifies why they can qualify to be called His friends -
No longer do I call you servants, 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.
In other words - You can now qualify as my friends becasue I didn't keep anything from you - ALL that I have heard form the Father I have told you
VSS16 Jesus then answers the question that has to be on their mind from time to time - And it is I am sure on all of our minds from time to time.
And that question is “How and Why me?”
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.
Jesus then ends this train of thought by giving clarity as to why He has given all of these instructions - “SO that you will love One another -
These things I command you, so that you will love one another.
this then leaves the question: Why was it so important to Jesus to have His disciples love one another? He began this part on verse 12 with it and He bookends Verse 17 with it.
Why is it so important that he would make mention twice?
He tells them why in verses 18-21
It is becasue the world will hate them -
watch and listen where Jesus goes with this:
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.
VVS19
Seems to be an “If” proposition - but it is not really - What Jesus is basically telling them is that they are in the same boat -
Because what He does in VSS19 is come right behind this “IF” and concludes with certainty.
“I chose you out of the world - Therefore” (which is another term for “becasue”)
in other words “Because I chose you out of the world - the world hate you”
VVS20
Jesus then reminds them of something he has said before back when the dinner started - “That a servant is not greater than His master”
and Then Jesus will define for them how Jesus and the Disciples share in this servant master similarities -
“If they persecuted me they will persecute you”
But then in the back part of VSS20 Jesus gives them an interesting reality - Right after saying “if they persecuted me they will persecute you” he follows that up with an interesting contrasting statement -
It is almost as if there is a “but” that is implied in the text -
“if they kept my word they will also keep yours”
and What Jesus is laying down for them is the contrasting responses that people will give to these disciples as they are being sent into the world to advance the kingdom of God, proclaim the Gospel and make Disciples -
You gonna get persecuted - People will hate you - BUT there are some - who if they had heard my word they would have kept it - BUT since you are now going to be my messengers - There is this group of people who will hear your words and Keep them.
VSS21
Jesus then gives them the “why they will be hated and the why they will be persecuted”
But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.
In these verses Jesus is using the word “the world” and He is also using the word “they” a lot-
We are then Left with the question: Who is the they Jesus is speaking of? Who is the they that in Jesus minds is the world?
And yes for us it is certainly people who are not believing in Jesus - If we are living separate lives from them - IF we live as if we are sent to serve them - Proclaim Him - Be obedient to Him - WE will appear as ODD to them and this will casue them to hate us and persecute us.
HOWEVER - Jesus is not referring to us at this point - Jesus is talking to His disciples in that time and in that context -
So who is the they?
Its the Pharisees - The Religious leaders of the Day - Those who have Added to the scriptures - Who are legalists and who are making up the rules of the game as they go along - Those who do not believe that Jesus came from the Father and therefore do not know the Father -
Watch what HE says:
But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.
Who did Jesus accuse of denying that the father had sent Him?
Who did Jesus accuse of hating Him and then Hating the Father?
Who did Jesus do all his miraculous works and when they saw them they accursed Jesus of being a demon?
Yea the Pharmacies -
Look beyond this - Look beyond Jesus being raised from the dead -
Who was the biggest resistance to the Church in the early days of the Church - in the book of acts -
The Jewish leaders AKA the Pharisees.
VSS25
Jesus then says: this is happening because it fulfills one of the prophecies made about Jesus -
In the psalms - 35 and 69 to be exact - The psalmist David - In the midst of opposition from all around refers to those who “hate him without cause”
and Jesus says - This was a predicted foreshadowing of His realities - that He, Jesus will be hated without cause -
VSS26
Jesus adds a “BUT”
and Here is what Jesus means when he uses BUT right here.
Jesus is saying to HIs disciples - In the midst of all this hatred - In the midst of all this persecution - While all of this is going on in your life - and all if is happening in your life becasue of me -
WHEN Notice Jesus didn't say “if” Jesus said “WHEN”
Jesus NOW says: WHEN the spirit of Truth comes - HE Will Bear Witness about ME -
and Watch loved ones- and YOU WILL BEAR WITNESS ABOUT ME
Then Jesus closes this with a becasue -
“Because you have been with me from the beginning”
Remember What Jesus is doing at this point in time line of this text - He is and has been preparing them for the rest of their lives which at the time of Jesus saying all of these things - Is just hours away from beginning -
CH16VVS1-4
Jesus then gives the reason why Jesus has told them all of this information about the world hating Him and hating them and Persecuting Him and Persecuting them.
Watch what He says:
“I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.
Jesus said these things to them as a preventative measure - To keep you from Falling Away:
What is falling away?
Well in a larger sense it is certainly Denying Him -
Did any of them deny Him?
Yes - In just a few short hours Peter under the microscope of someone who hated Jesus would deny Him three times -
Jesus knows this is coming and so Jesus wants to Keep them from Falling away -
VVS2
Jesus then shares with them a small window of what is going to look like -
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.
and the fate of all of them was that the hour came when whoever killed them - what thinking there were doing the right thing.
Jesus then concludes this part of His conversation with the 11 disciples in the room by explaining why people will choose to do this to them -
And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me.
and He ends with the Hope that they do not forget what He said to them when it happens -
But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
THE GOSPEL CONNECTION
Loved ones - Jesus was telling HIs disciples that He was going away - To a place that they could not go and then after they could go to where He is
He then comes to this passage and says to love one another - AS Jesus has loved them
He that they will be hated and persecuted becasue of Him and in the midst of the Hatred and in the Midst of the persecution - The Holy Spirit will be sent from the father to bear witness and they will bear witness -
And there is an hour coming where people will kill you thinking they are doing what God wants them to.
And it certainly happened - Every single one of them were killed - Martyred -
Now normally we thing that means they were killed for what they Believed -
But that is not the case when it comes to these 11 disciples -
When it comes to the disciples - They were killed for what they claimed to Have seen - They were killed as they bore witness - Witnesses testify as to what they have seen -
What did they claim they saw that got them hated and persecuted and killed - They claimed they saw Jesus alive after He had been killed by crucifixion -
They Claimed he rose from the dead -
They went proclaiming Salvation by grace through faith to Anyone Anywhere Anytime.
They loved one another in such a peculiar way, becasue of the Love of God that was in them - that they represented Christ and made Him known
In the midst of Difficulty - In the midst of Persecution - In the midst of people thinking they were doing God a favor by killing them
They went proclaiming Salvation is only available in One person -
The one who died on that Old Rugged Cross for them and for you and for me -
The one who poured out His blood on that cross to take on our guilt and our shame and Gods wrath that we deserved - He as God took our place - He as God turned the other cheek and absorbed his own Wrath -
This one who died and Bleed - ushering in forgiveness that is now available for all mankind-
This one was raised from the dead - Concurring death for all who believe. For all who trust.
These disciples, these first followers of Jesus - went willingly to their death - as Jesus said it would happen - Proclaiming to the world “It is True”
He has died and He is risen -
Loved ones -
Jesus - The one who died and was raised - The One who was sent by the father - Is calling you - as He choose the disciples out of this world - He is calling you out of this world.
What must we do to be save by the one who died and was raised - Repent Surrender your life to Him as Lord - Be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit - And Live for Him because He is the one who loves you - He is the one who died and was raised.
CRONFRONTATION FROM THE TEXT?
Loved ones - we must be confronted by this text -
The Fruit of our salvation is that we love one another as Jesus has loved us - That we love them as Jesus loved them -
Even if they hate and Persecute us - We are to Love as Jesus loved - Love enough to proclaim Him - Living for Him and Make Him known to anyone any where anytime.
Loves ones - Examine your Love - DO you have the love of the world - Love that says “its reciprocal its give and take” You love me and then I can love you becasue you are easy to love?
Loved ones may it never be -
Let us stive to love well by the Overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit - Who is promised By Jesus to be sent from the father to empower us to supernaturally love each other and to love them .
Let us receive the Love of God that was so generously given to US by Jesus - Let us love Him becasue He first loved us and Gave Himself for us. and in receiving the love of God let us allow that well spring of Life to pour out on them as we take the love of God in Christ Jesus to them in both word and in Deed.
PRAYER TEAM
OCC BOXES PRAY
