Gospel
o John 15:9-17
• John 15:9-17New International Version (NIV)
• 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
In the old days people would finish their letters –
I remain – yours sincerely
John Gullick
In some sense it doesn’t matter too much where you started if you don’t finish it off.
You need to remain in Christ – remaining staying constant is really important.
I have known many Christians who were sky rockets they were lit some gunpowder went off in their Spirit and they hit the sky for a moment and sent sparks in all direction but in the end they fizzed out and they were just burnt out rockets amounting to nothing.
Others started small like a glowing ember and yet burnt brighter and brighter through decades and sometimes for ten twenty thirty forty fifty sixty or more years.
I love visiting my friend Betty Sukigawa in Ross home in Dunedin because the fire still burns strongly in her heart.
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if anyone remained in Christ then it seems e, Bev Shea at 104 years certainly could carry that badge. He died in April 2013.
Many referred to that twinkle, a sincere way of making you feel at ease, as if you were the most important person he had encountered.
Billy Graham once said, “I don’t believe I’ve ever heard him utter an unkind or critical word about anyone.”
Forget that Mr. Shea was a two-time Grammy award winner, nominated 10 times. Or that he released more than 70 albums. Or that he holds the Guinness Book of World Records for singing to the largest live audience at more than 220 million. Mr. Shea’s humility was what set the talented gospel singer apart, always deflecting any praise to his heavenly Father. The call is all about consistency remaining in Christ – We are called to remain in Jesus – You are not called to be like a rocket going up but a warm glowing light.
Matthew chapter 5 verse 6 saya "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.
You and I are called to shine the light of Christ not just for a moment but continuously through all seasons of our lives. That is not always easy God wants you to shine. The word that Jesus uses this morning is to remain in him. How do we maintain that shining presence of Christ continuously – There are key teachings in the scriptures this morning I would like to draw them out for you!!
There are some parallels with long distance running and I want to use the metaphor of marathon running to draw out these points this morning.
To remain in the Christian race is really important the scriptures call us to stay faithful to the very end.
To remain in Christ you need to begin with the right vision or motivation – In Hebrews 12 we are told to Run with Perseverance
1Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.
At the beginning of our reading this morning the relationship with Jesus is held out as critically important John chapter 15 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.
Jesus here gives us every motivation to run the Christian race in God – I think he is saying this – In just the same way as the Father has loved me, So have I loved you.
• Think for a moment will you how much the Father loved Jesus- In John chapter one we learn that Jesus and the Father have been together – since the beginning – All of creation and all of history have been built through and around this deep relationship between the Father and the Son with the work of the Holy Spirit all around. Forget human relationships for a moment!! This is divine love in action through the centuries it is pure and holy complete love that endures everything – John in describing this in chapter one – In the beginning was the word (Jesus) Through him God made all things not one thing in all creation was made without him – Do you understand this – The Father through Jesus made everything – The old hymn talks of the hands that flung stars into space this is a relationship in a playground of cosmic proportions then as the bible says consider the ant – Ants are social insects which form colonies that range in size from a few dozen predatory individuals living in small natural cavities to highly organised colonies which may occupy large territories and consist of millions of individualsAnts communicate and cooperate by using chemicals (pheromones) that can alert others to danger or lead them to a promising food source.
• Ant communities are headed by a queen or queens, whose function in life is to lay thousands of eggs that will ensure the survival of the colony. Workers (the ants typically seen by humans) are wingless females that never reproduce, but instead forage for food, care for the queen's offspring, work on the nest, protect the community, and perform many other duties. Through Jesus God made all things and the ant is just one of them but what fascinating creatures.
In this amazing relationship of love God builds this amazing world and creates these incredible creatures all to compliment an incredible structure built around his crowning glory of creation me and you made in the image of God.
And Jesus says
John chapter 15 9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. When we get the intensity and the sheer enormity of God’s relationship with Jesus spanning every sense – every deep emotion – every created thing and then when we hear Jesus say
So Have I loved you then I want to shout with delight – You love us that much Jesus!!!!!
Now don’t grovel in the dust and say I am a worthless sinner!!!! You could because you have sinned but Jesus says no you are not worthless it would be quite pointless to grovel in the dust - because jesus the son also died in your place that you might be in relationship with Him and the Father.
Dwight Moody tells this story:-
PROTECTED BY THE FLAG
How men with an open Bible can say that God don’t love them is more than I can understand. But the devil is deceitful and puts that into their heads. Let me beg you, beg you, go to Calvary and there you may just for a moment catch a glimpse of God’s love. There was a man came from Europe to this country a year or two ago, and he became dissatisfied and went to Cuba in 1867 when they had a great civil war there. Finally he was arrested for a spy, court-martialed, and condemned to be shot. He sent for the American Consul and the English Consul, and went on to prove to them that he was no spy. These two men were thoroughly convinced that the man was no spy, and they went to one of the Spanish officers and said, This man you have condemned to be shot is an innocent man." "Well," the Spanish officer says, "the man has been legally tried by our laws and condemned, and the law must take its course and the man must die."
And the next morning the man was led out; the grave was already dug for him, and the black cap was put on him, and the soldiers were there ready to receive the order, "Fire," and in a few moments the man would be shot and be put in that grave and covered up, when who should rise up but the American Consul, who took the American flag and wrapped it around him, and the English Consul took the English flag and wrapped it around him, and they said to those soldiers, "Fire on those flags if you dare!" Not a man dared; there were two great governments behind those flags. And so God says, "Come under my banner, come under, the banner of love, come under the banner of heaven." God will take good care of all that come under His banner.
If you are running a Marathon you might ask yourself on the starting line Why am I here – the glorious answer is in the race of life I have a saviour who loves me!!!!
To remain in Christ is to understand the love of Jesus.
Paul says in the book of Ephesians And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. You are loved by God and wrapped in his flag – nothing can touch you – unless God allows it.
To remain in God’s love is to grasp something of the greatness of his love for you.The TV news program 20/20 once had a segment on baby chicks that were packaged and marketed. These tiny chicks traveled on conveyer belts past workers who selected them to fit into a box to be shipped out and sold. The chicks were chosen by sex, size, general appearance. But some were not chosen. The cameras followed these baby chicks as they slipped by the workers and fell off the end of the conveyer belt… to die. That’s the way of this world. If you don’t fit into the box, you’re rejected and left to die.
The cross declares that this is not the way God deals with us. God doesn’t choose us because we fit into a box. He chooses us because He loves us.
The second point is keep Christ’s commands 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
The place of blessing seems to be living in the will of God. Doing God’s will is a blessed place. But it is not doing God’s will as a means of earning our salvation – that would take us on a path of failure.
But it is rather a response of love to Christ our saviour
Titus 3:3–7
3 For cwe ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. 4 But when dthe kindness and the love of eGod our Savior toward man appeared, 5 fnot by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through gthe washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, 6 hwhom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7 that having been justified by His grace iwe should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
God said in Jeremiah 31:3
, “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” so shouldn’t he receive the same in return and that returned love is reflected in us obeying his commands.
Jesus said in Matthew 22:37
37
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that the first and greatest commandment is that you “love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Why is this the first and greatest commandment because if you love God, you’ll treat your neighbor as you would treat yourself. If you love God, you’ll want to do what he asked you.
So Jesus shows us that love extends beyond feelings, that love is not merely emotions, but love is motivated by action. I read were a woman said it was not a custom among married people in her culture to always say, "I love you." To which it was asked, "How do you know someone loves you?" She laughed and said, "You know by how they treat you."
So often we agree that we need to be righteous except in the areas where we have deeply ingrained habits of sin!!!
In the area of deeply ingrained habits we make excuses for ourselves and others – dodging taxes is such an issue.
There is a story about lumberjacks which makes this point
A pastor took up a new position in a small country town, dependent for its income of timber milling. Walking by the river one day he noticed some of the men from his congregation standing atop logs floating down the river. This was the way the logs were transported from the forest to the mill. He admired the skill of the men in standing upon the moving logs and sawing a meter or two off the end of each as they floated downstream. But his admiration turned to horror when he saw the branding on the logs. They came from an opposition sawmill. The men were stealing the ends of the logs and rebranding them as their own.
The following Sunday the newly arrived pastor stood up to preach. He chose as the title for his sermon, “Thou shalt not steal”. Afterward he was congratulated by the loggers on a fine sermon. Pleased that they had got the point he took another walk by the river the following day. But to his utter astonishment there were the men cutting off the end of the opposition’s logs once more. Clearly they had not appreciated the point.
The following Sunday the pastor stood up to preach once more. This week’s sermon title: “Thou shalt not cut off the end of thy neighbour’s logs.” The next week the minister was sacked.
Keeping Christ’s commands is obeying him even though it is highly costly we are currently seeing Christians giving their lives in the Middle east in obedience to Christ.
“Man has forgotten God, that is why this has happened” was Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn‘s response when questioned about the decline of modern culture.”Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’
(Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval.)
But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.'”
Remembering God – obeying Christ – are critical to remaining in God. Sometimes I meet people who once were on fire for God but are now apparently lost and I can’t help but notice that they have forgotten the first two points of this sermon. Understanding God’s love and reflecting that love in how they live their lives.
• Thirdly 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
To remain in Christ - Love others – As I have loved you love each other. This calls for an incredible love. We are called not only to love our friends but those who are our enemies as well. Don’t let bitterness remain in your life.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 13 we read love must be sincere.
DL Moody says.
I was talking with a man one day and an acquaintance of his came in, and he jumped up at once and shook him by the hand-why I thought he was going to shake his hand out of joint, he shook so hard-and he seemed to be so glad to see him and wanted him to stay, but the man was in a great hurry and could not stay, and he coaxed him and urged him to stay, but the man said no, he would come another time; and after that man went out my companion turned to me and said, "Well, he is an awful bore, and I am glad he’s gone." Well, I began to feel that I was a bore, too, and I got out as quickly as I could. That is not real love. That is love with the tongue while the heart is not true. Now, let us not love in word and in tongue, but in deed and in truth. That is the kind of love God gives us, and He wants the same in return.
In the end we are called to love others in the same way that Jesus loved us. Complete forgiveness is required.
Jesus calls us to produce fruit in our love for others and I am challenged by that. An Armenian nurse had been held captive along with her brother by the Turks. Her brother was slain by a Turkish soldier before her eyes. Somehow she escaped and later became a nurse in a military hospital. One day she was stunned to find that the same man who had killed her brother had been captured and brought wounded to the hospital where she worked. Something within her cried out "Vengeance." But a stronger voice called for her to love. She nursed the man back to health. Finally, the recuperating soldier asked her, "Why didn’t you let me die?" Her answer was, "I am a follower of Him who said, ’Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you’" (Luk_6:27). Impressed with her answer, the young soldier replied, "I never heard such words before. Tell me more. I want this kind of religion." There is always someone who seems to get at you and you have to work harder to love them
Loving people helps you to remain in Christ. I think there is something about sacrificial love that produces something in us that grows Christlike Character and blessing.
Remaining in Christ means that you begin to produce the character of Christ in your life.
People will start to recognise you as a Christian byu the way you live.
As the Scripture says – They will know you are Christians by your love.
This raises questions for us how can we love like Christ well only by remaining in Christ.
Don’t forget that this passage is found in John chapter 15 that says I am the vine you are the branches.
The context of our life in Christ is remaining as a branch in the vine who is Christ.
If you are running a marathon you sometimes hit the wall – the wall can easily be in the Christian life the call to love others.
I no longer live but Christ lives in me colossians chapter 2 verse 2
To remain in Christ.
Grasp something of the greatness of God’s love for you
Keep Christ’s commands
Love others
