Untitled Sermon (2)

no greater love

Greater love - rememberence

On this memorial it is important to remember those that have given their lives for us for our country!

Who chose a life of servitude and sacrifice over one that was convenient!

12% of the population served during world war II

<1%of the current population are active duty or reserves.

People are serving less and less as time goes on!

There is a disconnect in our society about what’s going on

The people that have served and what they experienced.

Its memorial day weekend!

Most people use this time to go camping and go out of town do this and that!

I know some guys who work in bread and memorial day and fourth of July is when they sell the most buns! For hot dogs and burgers!

This is all its about.

I say memorial day.

and we just think I get an extra day off what can I do with it!

the danger in forgetting

a man’s grandfather was a brilliant aerospace engineer, but for the last 3 years of his life he was debilitated by Alzheimer’s. It was devastating to see a man once so capable get to the point where he was unable to care for himself. Eventually, we had to get him professional assistance because he was a danger to himself. Having no memory is a dangerous state of being.

And What’s true for us in our physical body is also true for us spiritually.

It’s dangerous to forget.

That may be the reason scriptures continually call people of faith to be people of memory.

The author of Deuteronomy recorded, Remember, how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years. (Deut. 8:2) While it is hard to imagine forgetting the Lord faithfully led an entire nation through the desert for 40 years, God knew that it could happen and that it would be destructive if it did.

Unfortunately, the nation of Israel didn’t heed this warning and they forgot it. Judges 2:10-11 records this dramatic turn for the worse, After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.

Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals.

The same downward spiral is seen in Romans 1:21 where Paul wrote, For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

Lack of intentional remembering is directly tied to a refusal to worship. And as we see, refusal to worship God leads us down a path that promises pleasure, but always delivers pain.

John 15:11-17

The Relationship of Believers to Each Other

New King James Version

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

I. – remembering his commandments

11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

In our text Jesus is talking to people and this is in the context of being in the vine with Jesus!

And he is saying to the disciples and those who followed him those closest to him

And he is saying these things I have spoken to you

And this might seem like a throw away part of the verse, but I believe this to be the most important part of verse 11 he says these things I have spoken!

Its important to remember what Jesus has spoken the things that he says!

He is saying if you remember, that my joy may remain in you and your joy may be full!

(Because you forgotten God. )

We have Christians today and they walk around and they live these defeated lives! Brother hasn’t smiled in 5 years!

Where is the joy of the lord in your life?

Have you forgotten Jesus, the things that he has said.

There is a natural progression to this!

We remember the things the lord have spoken we are full of joy!

12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you

You cannot be full of joy if you do not remember what Jesus has told us! And if your not full of joy how can you be full of love!

You cannot be both sides of the same coin at one time!

You cannot be full of bitterness and say you’re the most forgiving person

Full of anger and say your happy

Full of hatred and say your loving!

This is his commandment to love as he loved.

but without first being connected to the vine and hearing all he has said and obeying we are nothing and have nothing to give!

If we are going to hear from God and know what he commands and listen like our text is referring to!

The men Jesus were talking to, they were attentive to all Jesus was doing!

They had a hunger for the things of God and their lives showed it!

Or else he would not have been able to say! If you do ALL these things I have commanded you they had to be around to hear them!

And this is the danger in the church world today! They are never around long enough for God to speak to them they just pop in for a weekly session of religion!

Well what about what God is saying!

Are you attentive! Can you hear his voice?

II. – laying down your life

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”— President Ronald Reagan

The Christian life is no different.

we can not pass down our spirituality to our kids!

This is something that must be fought for! Its not automatic!

13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.

Jesus is laying out the greatest love the greatest thing you could do for someone!

To lay your life down for another! For your friends!

Who are your friends?

We as a church are not laying our lives down for people by compromising our faith our Christian values and the gospel!

No! Jesus says if you love them you’ll lay down your life for them and there is not greater love than this!

Who are your friends?

Are you Jesus’ friend ?

14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15

Jesus says you are my friends…. IF you do whatever I command you!

Here is the clincher isn’t it!

We call ourselves friends of God yet we do not know what he says! Or what he commands us!

Let me be blunt with you this morning if your disobeying God and what he has commanded you are not his friend!

Plain and simple this is not pastor Henion doctrine no! this is bible! Plain English bible!

There are legends from history that tell of men in war

Who would jump on the barbed wire to let the men cross over them!

A Navy SEAL sacrificed his life to save his comrades by throwing himself on top of a grenade Iraqi insurgents tossed into their sniper hideout, fellow members of the elite force said.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor had been near the only door to the rooftop structure Sept. 29 when the grenade hit him in the chest and bounced to the floor, said four SEALs who spoke to The Associated Press this week on condition of anonymity because their work requires their identities to remain secret.

“He never took his eye off the grenade, his only movement was down toward it,” said a 28-year-old lieutenant who sustained shrapnel wounds to both legs that day. “He undoubtedly saved mine and the other SEALs’ lives, and we owe him.”

No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Jesus called them friends! And says because you know what I am doing and he told them all the things the father had made known to him!

Jesus is not withholding anything from us! We are not the fish in the water and he’s just dangling the worm on a line teasing us no.

He says I have made all known to you!

When you’re a friend of God

You will lay your life down for him!

III. – chosen

16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain,

God chose us to bear fruit!

And that our fruit should remain

that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.

Asking the father in Jesus name!

Being a friend of Jesus has his benefits! But he has to be your friend for this to work!

People will try to pull the buddy Jesus line in heaven.

“Lord lord didn’t we cast out demons in your name”

Matthew 7:21-23

New King James Version

I Never Knew You

21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22 Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

I never knew you, your not my friend he will say.

17 These things I command you, that you love one another.

You laying your life down for one another is how you can show the greatest love!

John 13:35

New King James Version

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

Hes saying that you will know they are followers of mine because of they're actions their love!

Not because they say that they love but because they show it!

People don’t deserve it….

Romans 5:8

New King James Version

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Love must be demonstrated!

Love is an action word not a feeling.

We do not deserve it but God showed it to us any way

John 3:16

Memorial day!

Do we see what people have done where they have gone before us and layed their life down for our freedom!

And not just in this country but for Christianity!

Right now religious freedom is being taken away its being stripped from right out from under us!

Article - We estimate that more than 70 million Christians have been martyred over the last two millennia, more than half of which died in the 20thcentury under fascist and communist regimes. We also estimate that 1 million Christians were killed between 2001 and 2010 and about 900,000 were killed from 2011 to 2020.

We must never forget that we are in a war!

And Christians are dying all around the world for their faith! A tale as old as time!