ABIDE PART 2 DEVELOPMENT, ENDURANCE AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

INTRODUCTION

Last week we talked about how pruning made the branches produce more fruit. Also we mentioned that unproductive branches were cut off and thrown into the fire. Then we spent some time talking about the benefits of Abiding in Christ. Benefits such as God’s care, being clean, reproduction and love.

Today we further our understanding of abiding by looking at the development of obedience,love, relationships and responsibility. Then we move on to looking at the worlds response of hate and how the Holy Spirit’s coming would help remind us of Jesus life and teaching as well as how we must talk about Jesus because we know the beginning.

Today is also Communion Sunday so we want to be thinking about how all of this helps us to remember what Jesus has done for us through His death on the cross.

V.12 Command - My command is this:

Specific - Love each other

How - as I have loved you

V.13 Pronoun - Greater love has no one than this,

Specific - that he lay down his life for his

friends.

:14 (NIV84) Info. - You are my friends

Condition - if you do what I command.

:15 (NIV84) Fact - I no longer call you servants,

Reason - because a servant does not know his master’s

business.

Contrast - Instead, I have called you friends,

Reason - for everything that I learned from my Father I have

made known to you.

:16 (NIV84) Fact - You did not choose me,

Contrast - but I chose you

AND

appointed you

Act - to go and bear fruit—

Specific - fruit that will last.

Purpose - Then the Father

will give you whatever you ask

in my name.

17 (NIV84) Act - This is my command:

Purpose - Love each other.

:18 (NIV84) Condition - “If the world hates you,

Specific - keep in mind that it hated

me first.

:19 (NIV84) Condition - If you belonged to the world,

Specific - it would love you as its own.

Reason -As it is, you do not belong to the world,

Contrast - but

I have chosen you out of the world.

That is why the world hates you.

:20 (NIV84) Command - Remember the words

Specific -I spoke to you:

Quote - ‘No servant is greater than his master.’

Condition - If they persecuted me,

they will persecute you also.

If they obeyed my teaching,

they will obey yours also.

:21 (NIV84) Act - They will treat you this way

Reason - because of my name,

for they do not know the One who sent me.

:22 (NIV84) Condition - "If I had not come and spoken to them, Implication - they would not be guilty of sin.

Time -Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin.

:23 (NIV84) Act - "He who hates me

hates my Father as well."

:24 (NIV84) Condition - If I had not done among them

Specific - what no one else did, Implication - they would not be guilty of sin.

Time - But now

they have seen these

miracles,

AND

yet they have hated

both me and my Father.

:25 (NIV84) Contrast - But

Purpose -this is to fulfill what is written in their Law:

Quote ‘They hated me without reason.’

The Holy Spirit

:26 (NIV84) Event - “When the Counselor comes,

Specific - whom I will send to you from

the Father,

the Spirit of truth

who goes out from the Father,

Act - he will testify about me.

:27 (NIV84) Prediction - And you also must testify,

Reason - for you have been with me from the beginning.

D. Development

V.10 - In obedience - This complete devotion is sent from the Father and brings in return the Love of the Father. Obedience is the key to this LOVE. This obedience is how Jesus showed His love for the Father it is now our highest goal. To Love Jesus as He loved and obeyed the Father.

V.12 In Love - Given to us as a command but lived our as glad submission to the Son and His purpose. That you keep on loving each other. Jesus demonstrated this love by dieing in our place. We are to love each other unto death.

In relationship - V..13 adds to love the model of Jesus. laying down His life for His friends. (NIV84) "This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers."

V.14 Relationship built on obedience, do what I command you. Keep on doing. (NIV84) and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” This is not a sometime obedience but a constant obedience.

V.15 This relationship Christ wants with us is friend to friend. It is built on trust and follows Christ in obedience. The slave which is refered to here is seen as an instrument or tool. There is no need to instruct a tool why or what it is doing you just use it to accomplish a task. Jesus is changing our relationship to Him to one of a friend. This not just an acquaintance but an intimant friend that you talk over business situations with and keep them informed as to what is going on. Paul often refers to himself as a bond-servant of Christ.

Here the term is "friend" it was Paul's humility that kept him always in the service of the Lord. There is this dual role that we have as both Christ's friend and bond-servant.

In Responsibility

V.16 Jesus spent a night in prayer before choosing the disciples. (). Paul was a chosen vessel of Christ's ( so Christ take the responsibility for having made these choices. This choice was made out of love not because of anything within them or us. (NIV84) "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." Our strength as theirs comes from our union with Jesus Christ.

E. Endurance

V.17 This love from the Father to Jesus and now to us is the bases for the Christian life. It is this love that flows between and among Christians that brings out the hate of the world. They do not hate us or Jesus because of what we have done that is bad, that makes them glad. It is when we act as Christ told us to that the real anger and hatred comes out.

V.18 Generated hate - The world hates the Christian/disciple because they first hated Jesus and His teaching.

(NIV84) "This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God," "know" has hated and keeps on hating . It is imperative for us to remember that the world as seen here is not the material the world is made out of but rather the people in the world order. They that have chosen to hate rather than repent.

V.19 Not of this world-

The world loves its own so it hates those not considered one of them. We must ask does the world love us? if so is it because the world is more Christian or are we more worldly?

V.20 We are like our Lord - (NIV84) " In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,"

V.21 Don't know the Father - (NIV84) "The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name." They will persecute out of ignorance of the Father and because of that the Son as well.

V.22 No Excuse -

(NIV84) "If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. If Jesus had not come. If the scripture were not plain about His coming. If the people had believed what they saw, they could be right before the Lord But they chose to go their own way and not listen, not study and not change. Are we headed down the same path?

(NIV84) "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent."

V.23 Hate includes the Father and the Son -The very job of Jesus was to reveal the Father to the people. To hate and reject the Son is to reject the message of the Father and cast doubt on the very name of the Son.

V.24 Because of Christ's work - Jesus has publicly and in private taught, healed, raised the dead and many other works but instead of it turning people to Jesus as Lord and Savior they ran from Him and slandered Him. This leaves them and all the people in our world wihout excuse for they knew or could have known and chose not to. We are responsible for all true that is available. In this age of computers and the internet that is more true than ever. Sounds very much like in Revelation where the curses come on the people but instead of repenting they only get worse.

V.25 Fulfilled Scripture - Even though the Scriptures they read every week told them about the Christ and what He would do and be like still they decided to reject Him because it meant making changes and giving up power. They would rather sin and be condemned that have that. Are we that much different? Because it uses the term "world" do not think we are talking about outside the church. These people Jesus was referring to were the very leaders of the religious people. They were the priest, the elders and the rulers of the people. So today it is not the size of the church it is the commitment of the individual that makes the difference to obey or not.

The Holy Spirit - Contrast to the World

V.26 The Counselor- Whom I will send -from the side of, not source

the Spirit of truth - substance not what the Spirit deals with

from the Father - The mission -God to man

will talk about Me - interpretation of what Jesus said and did

V. 27 We must give witness - Because you know the beginning

This should be our practice, not as a duty but out of love and respect. If we talk of Jesus to the world they mau hate the message but they cannot hate Him who did no wrong.

(NIV84) We are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”