Abiding in Love-Part 2

Have you ever met someone that tells you “I’m a Christian, I just don’t go to church?” This is usually followed up by another statement, like “I believe that I can worship God from anywhere,” or “I love Jesus, it’s all those hypocrites I can’t stand.” I have run into this way of thinking a lot over the years, and I’ve often made the analogy that saying your a Christian that doesn’t need the church is like saying your a college student but you don’t go to classes. You’ve got the sweater, and you were accepted to the school, but that’s as far as you took it. You aren’t there to get an education, right? All you wanted was to go to college.

This analogy is funny and often effective. After all, who does that? No one that tried it would last very long because the very purpose of a university is to teach you how to do something well so that you can go and do it, not so that you can sit around the student center looking like you’ve got it together, and the Christian life is more than merely just claiming the name of Jesus as your fire insurance, get-out-of-hell free card.

But, the real truth of it goes much deeper than this analogy can take us. The fact of the matter is, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be a Christian without active participation in the church. It isn’t that it shouldn’t be done. It isn’t that it is inadvisable, or more difficult, it is that it can’t be done. You cannot be a Christian without the church and this morning, Jesus is going to show us why:

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to John 15. We’re back in John 15 this morning, and we’re looking at the same set of verses that we looked at last week. If you’ll remember the last time we were together, we looked at John 15:9-17, and I was showing you how this passage deals with love as the foundation of the Christian faith, and that love in Christ falls under two-categories: loving God and loving each other. And last week, we dealt with what the passage has to say about loving God.

We talked about the fact that our love for God is born out of His love for us, that His love for us is complete and absolute. We talked about how our love for God is to be the place that we live, that is that all of our life, everything that we do should coalesce in the love of God. We discussed how God chose to love you and to put you in His Kingdom for His purposes, and how your obedience to Christ is the fruit of your love for Him, that is that if you really love Him, you will obey Him. Your obedience is the way that you show your love for God, and it will bring about the fullness of Christ’s joy in your life, as in His love you grow into the most intimate of friends.

And so as we continue this morning, now we’re going to look at the other side of the equation, the other category of love in Christ, that is, loving one another, and we’re going to look at this through the lens of the same passage. So, let’s read together this morning from John 15, beginning in verse 9, and as is our custom here, I invite those who are able to stand with me in honor of the reading of God’s Word:

John 15:9–17 NASB95

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. “You are My friends if you do what I command you. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. “This I command you, that you love one another.

Let’s Pray together: Lord, Jesus, we thank you for this glorious day, when many of us are finally able to gather here together again and worship you together. We have greatly missed being able to gather physically in the same place, and yet we praise You for Your steadfast and faithful hand of protection in the midst of this pandemic we are in. And we ask You, Father, that You would continue to be with us in the coming weeks as we begin the process of adjusting to new normals in the world around us. Help us to remain focused on Your Kingdom purposes, that the things we are witnessing would remind us that this world is not our home. Holy Spirit, would You be in and among Your children this morning? As we study Your word this morning, would You teach us the things that we need to hear and understand so that we can become better reflections of Jesus, even as You have called us to do. Would You show us the things You have called us to in obedience so that we might grow in our love for You through our obedience. We ask these things in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Thank you, you may be seated. It is so nice to say that to you this morning and to actually be able to see you doing it. To those of you who are home this morning, we look forward to that day when we can see you face to face as well. But as we continue together this morning, I invite you to get out your listening guide, in whatever form you like it. You can still find that in the facebook thread or on our website, as well as in your program this morning, but if you’ll get that out now, I’ll remind you of the driving principle and truth in we were talking about at the beginning last week, and that is this: that

Love is simple, but it isn’t easy

Remember Deuteronomy 6:4-5

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 NASB95

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

We are to love God with everything that we are. Loving God is supposed to be our driving purpose and reason for living in everything every moment that there is still air in our lungs. And Jesus begins our current passage by telling us that He loves us completely and absolutely, and that we need to abide in His love by obeying His commandments. He tells us that the application of our love for God in our lives looks like our obedience to the things that He has commanded us. In fact, Jesus says that His obedience to the Father is our model for what our obedience to Him is supposed to look like.

So, as we talked about last time, the way that we show our love to God is in our obedience to His commands. Jesus lays this out clearly for us in this passage and in other places that we looked at together. And As Jesus hones our attention to the point that our obedience is the necessary fruit of our love for Him, that if we love Him, we have to obey Him and our expression of our love to God comes in the form of obedience, look at what He says in verse 12:

John 15:12 NASB95

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

What is Christ’s commandment? Think about this, now. Jesus says this here for emphasis. He just got done saying that our obedience is how we show God we love Him, that we obey His commands, and then He says this is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

And I know we looked at it last week, but look at Matthew 22:37-40

Matthew 22:37–40 NASB95

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor as though they were you. Do that, and you will have obeyed God’s commands. And when you look at John 15 in light of these verses, all the sudden the lights start to come on for us, don’t they? How are we supposed to love God? By obeying His commands. And what does Jesus command? This is critical, beloved. I want to be sure that we don’t miss this, because this is crucial for us to understand. In fact, I’ll tell you that understanding these things this morning should draw our hearts to sober reflection and repentance. Do you know why? It’s because Jesus is telling us here that

The way we show love in obedience is by loving others as Christ loves us

Love one another. Our primary means of obedience to the Father is to love one another as Christ has loved us. Do you want to know why I said this morning that it is impossible to be a Christian without the church? Because the church isn’t a building, it is the people of God. It’s the others of Christ’s one another in this passage. That’s the church. And the reason you can’t be a Christian without the church is that it is impossible to show love to one another when the others aren’t there.

You can’t love other people if they aren’t in your life. You have to know them and be with them to love them. The Christian faith has never been nor will it ever be a faith to be lived out in isolation. It is a faith of community, demonstrated by our love for one another.

How is it that Jesus says that people will know that we are His followers? If we have love for one another. You remember, don’t you? It was in John 13:35

John 13:35 NASB95

“By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Do you want to obey christ? love one another. Do you want to show your love for Him? Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. Love one another. And I’m not talking about pats on the back, and high fives, and hugs and handshakes at the door. I’m not talking about sweet talk in the halls or during Sunday School. I’m talking about the nitty-gritty kind of love. I’m talking about the Jesus kind of love. That’s the love we are supposed to have for one another.

Look at verses 12-14 with me:

John 15:12–14 NASB95

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. “You are My friends if you do what I command you.

I told you: simple but hard! Simple but hard! This is what should draw us, beloved, into repentance because Jesus just called us to love each other like He loves you. You are to love one another like Jesus loves you! And if you and I are going to love one another the way that Jesus loves us, that means that there are three things that have to be true about our love for one another. Look at verse 9:

John 15:9 NASB95

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

Now, you might be thinking, pastor we talked about this last week and this verse is about God loving us completely and absolutely, and how you and I need to live and dwell in the love of Christ as the place that we call home. And you are absolutely right. So, what does this have to do with our love?

Well, we just got done reading in verse 12 that Jesus commands us to love one another the way that He loves us. You have to love one another as Christ loves you. And so the first thing we see that has to be true about our love for one another is this:

We must love each other completely and absolutely

We are called to love one another unconditionally. In other words, there is no one in the body of Christ that you get a pass on loving and you have to love them no matter what. Regardless of what they have done to you or to others, regardless of whether it is easy or not, regardless of whether they have offended you, or hurt you, or broken your trust, you are called to love them. Not just put up with them. Not tolerate their presence. Love them. Love them like they are you. Love them the way that Jesus loves you.

It’s simple, but it’s hard. It is hard to love people that are mean to you. It is hard to love people when they hurt you. It is hard to love people that you don’t feel deserve it anymore. Love them anyway. Love them completely and absolutely, because Jesus loved you when you hurt Him. Because Jesus loved you when you didn’t deserve it. Because Jesus called you to love one another like He loves us.

Look at verses 13 and 14 again with me:

John 15:13–14 NASB95

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. “You are My friends if you do what I command you.

If we are going to love one another in obedience the way that Jesus loves us, the second thing that has to be true about our love is this:

We must love one another sacrificially

Now, none of us can give our lives to pay for the sins of another, but our love can mimic the sacrifice of Christ, none-the-less. Sacrifice means giving up something of great value for the sake of something that is more important or worthy. In other words, loving sacrificially hurts. Loving sacrificially costs. And loving one another sacrificially is what you and I are called to do.

I remember a short story I read growing up in school, called the gift of the Magi. The story goes that a young married couple lacked the money to give each other gifts for Christmas. So, the wife cut her hair and sold it to buy her husband a chain for his watch. The husband, in turn, sold his watch to buy hair combs for his wife’s beautiful hair. It is comical because of the irony that neither can use their gifts because of their loving sacrifice for the other, but it is the perfect illustration of what sacrificial love looks like.

It should not be rare among us to see great sacrifice. The sacrifice of pride, of time, of money, of resources, of desires, of our feelings, of any and all that we have in the name of loving one another. We are called to love one another sacrificially because Jesus gave everything on our behalf. There is nothing that you could give in the name of love that Jesus has not already given, and yet we are called to love as sacrificially as He did.

It is simple! but it is hard! Beloved, how does this not draw us to our knees? I cannot speak for you, but I know that in the blackness of my own heart I am selfish. I see loving others unconditionally as hard work under the best of conditions, let alone when others hurt me and revile me, and speak ill of me behind my back as though it would never hurt me. It is hard to sacrifice, even for those you care deeply about, let alone a neighbor that doesn’t like you.

Sacrifice is simple. You simply let go of what is valued and precious to you. You simply break your body in physical exertion for something you will never gain anything from over spending that time doing what gives you pleasure. Sacrifice is simple, but it is impossibly hard. And we haven’t even reached the last thing that must be true about our love for one another.

Not only are we called to love one another completely and absolutely, even as God has loved us, even as The Father has loved the Son, not only are we called to love one another sacrificially, letting go of all that we are and have for the sake of loving each other, but if we gaze a little deeper into Christ’s words, we find a deeper, even harder truth.

John 15:13–15 NASB95

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. “You are My friends if you do what I command you. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

You were God’s enemy, and yet Jesus called you friend. You hated Him with your life and your actions, and yet Jesus loved you so much He laid down His life for you, so that you could find forgiveness for every wrong thing that you have ever done. The Psalmist wrote in prophesy of Christ,

Psalm 103:12 NASB95

As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

And in these things, we find the simplest and most challenging call of Christ towards loving another:

We must love one another with absolute forgiveness

There is nothing that you get to hold against or above one another. Let me say that again: There is NOTHING that you get to hold against or above one another as unforgivable. I hear it all the time. If I’m candid, I’ve heard it in these walls. We’ll see someone come in I am meeting for the first time, and someone will say to me “you know who that is, don’t you? They did this!” Or this one is even better: “you know what his daddy did? You know what his grandpa did? What his uncle did?”

And we let this one fester. I mean, “how can I go to church with people like that?” “they hurt me.” “They broke my trust.” “They are a hypocrite.” “They should be behind bars!” “That person is a criminal.”

And don’t mishear me. I’m not saying that there aren’t consequences in this world for things we do wrong. There are laws that come with punishment when you break them. There are things that even being accused of them makes it hard or even impossible for you to serve in certain areas and aspects of church life and ministry. A pastor even accused of infidelity is likely done in ministry. Someone accused of a crime against minors can’t work with minors in ministry any longer.

But guess what. Even these sins are forgivable. There are lasting consequences, but forgiveness still has to happen. Your relationships have to be mended, maintained, and restored. People say, “well, pastor, I can forgive him, but I’ll never forget it. I forgive Him, but I’m just going to steer clear of him from now on.

And do you know what I have to say to that? THAT. IS NOT. FORGIVENESS.

It’s an old preacher’s analogy, I’m sure you’ve heard it, but I cannot help but apply this here. Do you know how far the east is from the west? An eternity separates them. You can get in your car and you can drive all day and night west, west, west. And you’ll get on a boat and go west, and you can keep going west, and you’ll never run out of west. You’ll never get to the point that you are going east, because East and West never touch! And so it is with your sin!

Let me tell you something about yourself. You were a sinner, just like me. Your heart as black as a lake bottom. You had no chance of life, a hated criminal before a mighty God. We fear the laws of men. We hate and revile those that have broken the laws of men. In this church fellowship, there is great brokenness because of a lack of forgiveness over the broken laws of men. You fear breaking men’s laws.

But you broke God’s law. You were on death row, awaiting an eternity of suffering, with no remorse, a hater of God. You couldn’t have been farther from redemption than where you were. Some of you in here today are still in that place. But Jesus died in your place. Jesus took your sentence of death on Himself. Jesus paid the price you had to pay, so that if you choose to believe in Him, you can have forgiveness of those sins.

And when you find forgiveness in Jesus Christ, He separates you from your sin as far as the east is from the west. He separates you from it FOREVER. He washes it away, and it is forgiven. And this passage this morning says that in that forgiveness, Jesus loves you as much as God the Father loves God the Son. And now, think about your brothers and sisters in Christ, and realize that you are called to forgive them like Jesus forgave you.

Matthew 18:21–22 NASB95

Then Peter came and said to Him, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven.

In Jewish writing, seventy times 7 is infinity. So, what Jesus says to Peter is that you must forgive your brother forever, no matter what they have done or how many times they have done it, you must love them enough to forgive them, and then you have to put it behind you, and love them anyway. I’m not saying you forget it, I don’t think as humans we can. I’m saying that you remember, but you have forgiven, and even though you remember, you never bring it up and you refuse to allow it to affect your relationship.

That is forgiveness. That in your relationship, it’s like it never happened. It is simple, but it is hard. Impossibly so. How could I even suggest that kind of forgiveness is possible? Because Jesus forgave you. Jesus forgave you. Jesus forgave YOU! And He no longer allows your sin past to come between you.

But you don’t understand, they did that to ME! Yes, and every sin you have ever committed you did to HIM! And yet Jesus forgave you. Let me tell you something, forgiveness always costs. But it doesn’t cost the forgiven; it costs the forgiver. It costs the one who feels injured, because you have to choose to sacrifice your right to pain and bitterness so that you can offer forgiveness in love. I’m not saying it stops hurting, I’m saying that you can love more than you hurt.

And Christ is the perfect model. He gives us the perfect example of what our love is to look like as we love one another. His love is the perfect sacrificial love and calls us to love as He does. We are to pursue Him, boldly seeking to love as completely, as absolutely, as sacrificially as He did, all the while knowing that we can never live up to the standard. We are called to lovingly forgive one another, loving unconditionally even the most heinous of wrongs committed against us.

It is brutally simple, and impossibly hard. Yet, this is precisely how Christ calls us to love. Is it unfair? It is incredibly unfair! But friends, you don’t want fair. Fair leaves us unloved by God, enemies of His Kingdom, eternally condemned to suffer in the torment we earned through our sin. No, fair isn’t something that we should desire. Fair doesn’t end well for us. And Jesus said that if you can’t love like this, you haven’t truly found His forgiveness.

See, in Matthew 18, where I quoted earlier, Jesus tells a story of a man that owed the king a great debt and was going to be throne in prison. The man begged mercy from the king, and so the king forgave the debt. Then, that same man had another man thrown into jail for not paying him back a small debt that he owed. And when the king heard of this he burned with anger. And it says in Matthew 18:34-35

Matthew 18:34–35 NASB95

“And his lord, moved with anger, handed him over to the torturers until he should repay all that was owed him. “My heavenly Father will also do the same to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.”

And so, this morning, you have a choice. You can stay where you are. You can sit in your sin and transgressions, refusing to forgive, refusing to sacrifice, refusing to love completely and absolutely as you have been loved. You can choose not to obey, not to abide in the love of Christ, you can choose not to allow the vinedresser to prune you to where you begin producing the fruit of God’s love in your life. You can choose this path, where you will be cut off and thrown into the fire.

Or, you can surrender. You can fall to your knees and cry out to the King for mercy. You can choose to start, right now today loving like you are called to love others around you completely, and absolutely, and sacrificially, and forgiving over and over and over. And you will abide in His love. And you will be called friends of God. And you will ask anything in Christ’s Name, and God will do it. And you will have loved God with all that you are, because loving God means loving one another. This morning, the altar is open. And with every eye closed, and every head bowed, which one will you choose? Let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Lord, Jesus, Forgive me. Forgive me, I pray, Lord, God. For I am undeserving of your love. I am a wretched sinner, whose heart was far from you, and yet you died to free me of my debt. Forgive me, Lord. Wash me clean, through the cross of Jesus. Make me new, and put me on your vine. Teach me to love like you love. God, I’ve been holding onto these sins of my brothers and sisters for so long. Would you help me to forgive them. I have loved my self and not the others around me. Lord would you grow me in my love for your children. Help me to love others as you love them. Give me the strength to sacrifice. My Spirit is willing, Lord, but my flesh is weak, and if I’m going to move forward, Lord I will need Your strength. I feel You drawing my heart this morning, Lord, would You help me surrender to You. In Jesus’ Name I pray, Amen.

If this morning you have been drawn to a place of surrender, would you come to the altar, and find that our Father is waiting. Would you come now, even as we sing.