Sermon Tone Analysis

There is Only One Way

That’s the message from John 14:6: Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.”

That is a settled reality.

It comes from the mouth of the Son of God, Jesus, and it is pretty well an absolute: NO ONE comes to the Father except through Jesus.

OK, so if we can say that we have heard the good news of the Gospel and that we have confessed our sins against God the Father and accepted His forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ the Son, we have entered the One and Only Way to God the Father, that is, we are in Jesus, his son.

We are on the right path for our eternal security.

That is a matter of our position in Christ.

It says less about our behaviors because of our position in Christ.

And that is what we are going to look at today.

We’ll still be in the 14th chapter of John, mostly.

Remember from last week, we are reading John’s record of the conversation that took place after the Last Supper of Jesus and before their visit to the Garden of Gethsemane.

So I count these last words of Jesus as high importance.

Not like anything he said for us is unimportant, but instead that these are words that spill out with some of the most important things Jesus wants his disciples to know once he is gone.

>>>And, we see first that Jesus gives us, as His disciples, . . .

The Prescription of Love

It is recorded as Jesus’ unique and specific command to his disciples after he has shared his last meal with them, and he has already washed the feat of those who will run away in fear, the one who would betray him and the one who would deny he even knew Jesus.

>>>Of course you are familiar with it in my preaching, the command of Jesus found in . . .

This is a command that is important because it comes directly from the Son of God.

Love one another, with that totally unselfish and careful love that comes from the heart of God the Father, whom John later writes is Love Itself.

This is the love that offers salvation to a sinful world by the sacrifice of the Son of God.

It is the love that is keeping Jesus focused on the cross even as he is caring for his disciples whom he knows will have to work through their deep grief before they will become effective in sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with the world.

This is love that has a standard measure.

Since as humanity has such a problem with always trying to compare ourselves with other people, Jesus tells us the bar is set a lot higher than that.

In fact, in his command he gives us the positive standard of love that is equal to Jesus Christ’s own love.

That means love for his disciples needs to be a perfect love of self-sacrifice.

Pick anyone in the whole of the population of the earth to compare our measure of love with: the love we receive from our mothers and fathers, our partners, our brothers, sisters, children, aunts, uncles, cousins and even grandparents.

>>>It’s not a high enough standard if it is not Jesus himself.

How are we to love one another?

Jesus repeats the command and tells us to. . .

Love to the fulness of the self-sacrificing love of Jesus.

That’s never a “good enough” love.

It is instead, always, more than we have yet loved.

This is the thoughtful, careful, decision to love that must shape our whole approach to an unloving and unlovely world.

When Jesus tells us to love one another, he tells us to make a commitment to one another to love.

Not with a doting love that spoils its subject, but a caring love that does the best possible for its subject.

>>>So important is this command of Jesus that he repeats it without excuse two more times in this conversation on the way to the Garden, which is a prayer stop on the way to the Cross:

And so Jesus tells us not to stop or limit our love until we have nothing else to give.

Jesus says again to love as He has loved us.

And he reminds us that his kind of love lays down its life to fill the need of love for one another.

>>>There simply is no standard higher, and yet the standard is right in front of us, and Jesus repeats it a third time:

So there we have it.

The prescription of our Savior, Lord and Master is to love one another with the full measure of Jesus own love.

It is the third command of love, it comes directly from the Son of God, and it is recorded three times in this time of intimate teaching Jesus gives as they begin their way to the Garden of Gethsemane.

“A new command… ”This is my command… “This is what I command you: Love one another.”

>>>It’s not a 5000 word legal statute like we may see in our legal system.

It is a three word command.

And after getting in mind that Jesus commands us to love this way, Jesus tells us also that our. . .

Love Propels A Practice of Obedience

as we are commanded to love one another, we now have a reciprocal love for Jesus, who loves us enough to endure the Cross for our salvation.

Jesus loves us.

there is no question of that.

>>>But there is a response that he asks of us.

It is automatic for Jesus, but need a constant reminder for us.

Three times he told us to love one another.

Now Jesus tells us,

and this is just the first of not two, or three, or four times Jesus tells us this, He says it a total of FIVE TIMES.

“IF you love me” is not a command, it is a challenge; it is a test.

Do you love Jesus?

Are you sure of his love for you and want to claim that you love him too?

Again, Jesus is clear.

There is only one standard: IF YOU LOVE ME, YOU WILL KEEP MY COMMANDS.

Not complicated, not confusing, but evident in our practice of following Jesus.

And why is this repeated?

Because we will continually revert to our stubborn selfishness of making up our own rules for what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ.

Three years Jesus has been training his disciples.

Three years he has been telling them of the love of the Father.

Three years Jesus has explained his true mission, and for three years he has lived out the first two commands that Jesus identified as most important.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.

Love your neighbor as you love yourself.

Then he gave us the third command, love one another as I have loved you, and now, not a command but a standard of behavior: “If you love me, you will keep my commands.”

You Can Tell If Someone Loves Jesus By Their Obedience

Do you love Jesus?

Do you care?

Do you call yourself a Christian?

Then you will respond to the Love of Jesus with a willingness to follow what Jesus has commanded.

Yes, it is simplified to these three, but Jesus explained and instructed his disciples for three years.

>>>We have the most important records of Jesus’ words recorded in the four Gospels to learn from and to use to interpret the very laws of Moses that Jesus lived by.

So the second time Jesus repeats this, the standards of obedience is the badge of our love for Jesus.

So important that how we look to the unbelieving world depends on how well we act like Jesus.

That we behave like Jesus.

That we follow the basics of love and the standards of good behavior that God has already given and that Jesus has live out in front of us.

Jesus had even told us, John 13:35 “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you love one another.”

Follow Jesus’ commands, and the unbelieving people as well as the believing people will know if you are his.

Jesus tells us our show of love for Jesus means we live under the umbrella of the special love of the Father for his children, and the special presence of the the revealing love of Jesus Christ.

The better we are at following the commands of Jesus, the more we will know Jesus.

The more we know Jesus, the more we know the Father who sent him.

>>>And the rest will know if you love the One who died for you.

Jesus even tells us that . . .

The Father Favors Those Who Obey

He said it in the verse we just used, John 14:21, saying “the one who loves me will be loved by my Father.”

Jesus goes on to tell us that there are positive consequences for our love of Jesus and our loving obedience.

Every action has a consequence.

The really good news is that the actions of obedience are full of the Fathers’ love and …

>>>the consequences are signs of our adoption as the Children of God:

If you want to receive the royal treatment, if you want to be treated like God’s family, then love Jesus enough to fit into the family of the Father God who first loved you.

Act like a child of God, and you will have the favor of the Father as one of his children.

And Jesus says clearly, it will be obvious to everyone if you don’t care about Jesus.

It will be obvious because you can’t be bothered to love the father, you can’t be bothered to love your neighbor, and you can’t be bothered to love one another.

If you can’t be bothered to love, you can’t claim any allegiance to God.