Chuck
May 3rd, 2005, 01:34 PM
John 14:15-21
14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.
14:17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
14:18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
14:19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
14:20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
14:21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."
We are still celebrating Easter. Two weeks from today will be Pentecost Sunday. That is when the Church celebrates the Giving of the Spirit. In Luke and Acts the Spirit comes 50 days after Easter on Pentecost Sunday, and that is the calendar that the church adopted. In the Gospel of John the Spirit comes on Easter Sunday. Here in our text Jesus is talking to his disciples about his departure. They are wondering, “How do you follow Jesus when Jesus is absent?” The answer that John gives is that even though Jesus will be absent from them in ordinary terms, he and God will be with them through the Spirit of Truth. This is the advocate or the one who comes along side to comfort and council. The Spirit of Truth that they will have that the world does not have is the spirit that says, “Jesus is the Son of God.” This is the truth that overcomes the world. To the outsider the disciples appear no different than others, but they are different because they know that Jesus is the Son of God. They know this through the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever been to a wedding? Some people feel they have been to too many weddings. Even though I have been using the same service for almost forty years, I still get nervous just before the ceremony and I have it memorized. Do you know what I ask in that service? I say, “Will you, Wade, take Lauren?” And last Saturday night Wade said, “I will.” And then I said, “Will you, Lauren, take Wade?” And she said, “I will.” Then I asked them to repeat after me. You would think that I would say, “Do you, Wade, love Lauren?” But that is not what the ceremony says. In the wedding ceremony I, as the minister, am asking each one if they will be obedient to the other. Will you as husband or as wife take the other and be faithful to the other no matter how you may feel at a particular moment?
When we think of love we think of a feeling, but that is not what John is thinking of when he says, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” He is not thinking of a feeling. When you love your child you may be thinking of a feeling, but that feeling may be positive or negative. I remember coming home one evening at 4 am. I walked into the basement in the quiet and in the dark. I was about to go up the steps when this voice said, “Where have you been?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. I started to answer, “Well, I was.” Mom said, “Don’t go any further. You couldn’t have been up to any good at this hour of the night.” Now that was love. It was love that said when you are not home at a decent hour I worry about you and I expect you to be home so I will not worry about you. I expect you to be considerate of me and my feelings. Love of parents when you are a teenager is acting in accordance with your parents’ wishes even when you don’t want to.
When Jesus is talking about love in the Gospel of John, he is not talking about a feeling, he is talking about obedience. “God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God’s love is not a feeling, but a way of treating the world and the people in the world. When Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” he is almost stating a tautology. A tautology is bald headed men have no hair. If you keep Jesus’ commandments you love him. What are his commandments? Don’t go looking in the other gospels. Don’t go looking for the Ten Commandments. Jesus’ commandment in the Gospel of John is to love each other as Christ has loved us. How has Christ loved us? He has laid down his life for us. How are we to love each other? We are to lay down our lives for each other.
Now the question is, is that laying down of our lives just for ourselves or is it to include the whole world? I remember as a child singing O How I Love Jesus. O How I love Jesus. I didn’t realize until later that loving Jesus meant loving all the children of the world - red, and yellow, black and white all are precious in God’s sight. We were singing O How I Love Jesus, but the blacks were not welcome in our church, and if truth be known, the poor were not welcome either. I found that out when we had a very effective minister and he invited all the children of the poor and many of them came. They didn’t behave very well, so our older ladies didn’t want them in our church building.
You and I are to love Jesus as Jesus loves us by being willing to lay down our lives for each other. We don’t have to like each other. We don’t have to agree with each other. What we have to do is love each other. Treat each other as Jesus would treat us. When we do this, we are promised that we will see Jesus and we will have the faith that overcomes the world. What is that faith? It is the assurance that Jesus is the Son of God. The world cannot know that. We can know it through faith, and when we know it, we have overcome the world. This spirit of truth that is available, not to individuals but to the church, grounds us in the memory of Jesus. That memory of Jesus, along with the spirit of Jesus, enables us to see Jesus. What that means is those who have the spirit of truth know that in this very room there is one who is unseen, but who we see with the eyes of faith. The one unseen is the Risen Christ given to us through the Holy Spirit.
How do you get the Spirit? I don’t know and I don’t trust anyone who thinks they do know. God gives the Spirit. It is not what we do that allows us to manufacture the Spirit. It is what God does. When the Spirit gets a hold of us, there is no telling what we might do. Three weeks ago I sat in a church in New Bern, North Carolina. There were about 30 people in the room. All were from this church except for about four of us. The rest were members of Christ Episcopal Church. This church was founded before the American Revolution. Its second and current sanctuary building was built before the civil war. Some one in this church had invited and paid for the Ministry of Money to come give a workshop. The Ministry of Money is an offshoot of the Church of the Savior in Washington DC. The Church of the Savior requires its members to tithe, to take classes on what it means to be a Christian, to give two hours of service each week to some project that helps the poor, and it requires you to attend worship once a week. The Ministry of Money offers reverse missions the poor areas of the world and it encourages people to look at their money as money that belongs to God. There is faith that overcomes the world and there is the world that overcomes faith. Most of us believe our money belongs to us and not to God. We have not allowed our faith to overcome the world. You see, love is obedience, not so much a feeling. I heard the people in that room talk. I would venture to guess that almost all of them were tithers. Some were 20% and some were more than that. They asked this question, “What can I do without so that I can do more for those who have less?” This one man explained that until he and his wife came to an agreement about money, they did not have a marriage, let alone a spiritual life. Now he says their discussion of money brings them together. He said that they give away 25% of their income and they still have more than most people in his town. He told of the numerous projects that he and his wife had been involved in and how much satisfaction they received as they watched their projects come to fruition. He told of how on occasions he had been burned, but he would not let those few failures stop him from using his money to serve his Lord.
How do you and I get the Holy Spirit? I don’t know, but I do know if the Spirit gets a hold of you there is no telling what might happen.
I will tell you this, you sit in a room with people who tithe and who are seeking an answer to the question, “What can we do without so that we can serve the lord more fully,” I believe you will find that you are in a room where the spirit dwells.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. There is a spirit of truth that overcomes the world. That Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.
14:15 "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.
14:17 This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.
14:18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.
14:19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.
14:20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.
14:21 They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them."
We are still celebrating Easter. Two weeks from today will be Pentecost Sunday. That is when the Church celebrates the Giving of the Spirit. In Luke and Acts the Spirit comes 50 days after Easter on Pentecost Sunday, and that is the calendar that the church adopted. In the Gospel of John the Spirit comes on Easter Sunday. Here in our text Jesus is talking to his disciples about his departure. They are wondering, “How do you follow Jesus when Jesus is absent?” The answer that John gives is that even though Jesus will be absent from them in ordinary terms, he and God will be with them through the Spirit of Truth. This is the advocate or the one who comes along side to comfort and council. The Spirit of Truth that they will have that the world does not have is the spirit that says, “Jesus is the Son of God.” This is the truth that overcomes the world. To the outsider the disciples appear no different than others, but they are different because they know that Jesus is the Son of God. They know this through the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever been to a wedding? Some people feel they have been to too many weddings. Even though I have been using the same service for almost forty years, I still get nervous just before the ceremony and I have it memorized. Do you know what I ask in that service? I say, “Will you, Wade, take Lauren?” And last Saturday night Wade said, “I will.” And then I said, “Will you, Lauren, take Wade?” And she said, “I will.” Then I asked them to repeat after me. You would think that I would say, “Do you, Wade, love Lauren?” But that is not what the ceremony says. In the wedding ceremony I, as the minister, am asking each one if they will be obedient to the other. Will you as husband or as wife take the other and be faithful to the other no matter how you may feel at a particular moment?
When we think of love we think of a feeling, but that is not what John is thinking of when he says, “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” He is not thinking of a feeling. When you love your child you may be thinking of a feeling, but that feeling may be positive or negative. I remember coming home one evening at 4 am. I walked into the basement in the quiet and in the dark. I was about to go up the steps when this voice said, “Where have you been?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. I started to answer, “Well, I was.” Mom said, “Don’t go any further. You couldn’t have been up to any good at this hour of the night.” Now that was love. It was love that said when you are not home at a decent hour I worry about you and I expect you to be home so I will not worry about you. I expect you to be considerate of me and my feelings. Love of parents when you are a teenager is acting in accordance with your parents’ wishes even when you don’t want to.
When Jesus is talking about love in the Gospel of John, he is not talking about a feeling, he is talking about obedience. “God so loved the world that he gave his only son so that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” God’s love is not a feeling, but a way of treating the world and the people in the world. When Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” he is almost stating a tautology. A tautology is bald headed men have no hair. If you keep Jesus’ commandments you love him. What are his commandments? Don’t go looking in the other gospels. Don’t go looking for the Ten Commandments. Jesus’ commandment in the Gospel of John is to love each other as Christ has loved us. How has Christ loved us? He has laid down his life for us. How are we to love each other? We are to lay down our lives for each other.
Now the question is, is that laying down of our lives just for ourselves or is it to include the whole world? I remember as a child singing O How I Love Jesus. O How I love Jesus. I didn’t realize until later that loving Jesus meant loving all the children of the world - red, and yellow, black and white all are precious in God’s sight. We were singing O How I Love Jesus, but the blacks were not welcome in our church, and if truth be known, the poor were not welcome either. I found that out when we had a very effective minister and he invited all the children of the poor and many of them came. They didn’t behave very well, so our older ladies didn’t want them in our church building.
You and I are to love Jesus as Jesus loves us by being willing to lay down our lives for each other. We don’t have to like each other. We don’t have to agree with each other. What we have to do is love each other. Treat each other as Jesus would treat us. When we do this, we are promised that we will see Jesus and we will have the faith that overcomes the world. What is that faith? It is the assurance that Jesus is the Son of God. The world cannot know that. We can know it through faith, and when we know it, we have overcome the world. This spirit of truth that is available, not to individuals but to the church, grounds us in the memory of Jesus. That memory of Jesus, along with the spirit of Jesus, enables us to see Jesus. What that means is those who have the spirit of truth know that in this very room there is one who is unseen, but who we see with the eyes of faith. The one unseen is the Risen Christ given to us through the Holy Spirit.
How do you get the Spirit? I don’t know and I don’t trust anyone who thinks they do know. God gives the Spirit. It is not what we do that allows us to manufacture the Spirit. It is what God does. When the Spirit gets a hold of us, there is no telling what we might do. Three weeks ago I sat in a church in New Bern, North Carolina. There were about 30 people in the room. All were from this church except for about four of us. The rest were members of Christ Episcopal Church. This church was founded before the American Revolution. Its second and current sanctuary building was built before the civil war. Some one in this church had invited and paid for the Ministry of Money to come give a workshop. The Ministry of Money is an offshoot of the Church of the Savior in Washington DC. The Church of the Savior requires its members to tithe, to take classes on what it means to be a Christian, to give two hours of service each week to some project that helps the poor, and it requires you to attend worship once a week. The Ministry of Money offers reverse missions the poor areas of the world and it encourages people to look at their money as money that belongs to God. There is faith that overcomes the world and there is the world that overcomes faith. Most of us believe our money belongs to us and not to God. We have not allowed our faith to overcome the world. You see, love is obedience, not so much a feeling. I heard the people in that room talk. I would venture to guess that almost all of them were tithers. Some were 20% and some were more than that. They asked this question, “What can I do without so that I can do more for those who have less?” This one man explained that until he and his wife came to an agreement about money, they did not have a marriage, let alone a spiritual life. Now he says their discussion of money brings them together. He said that they give away 25% of their income and they still have more than most people in his town. He told of the numerous projects that he and his wife had been involved in and how much satisfaction they received as they watched their projects come to fruition. He told of how on occasions he had been burned, but he would not let those few failures stop him from using his money to serve his Lord.
How do you and I get the Holy Spirit? I don’t know, but I do know if the Spirit gets a hold of you there is no telling what might happen.
I will tell you this, you sit in a room with people who tithe and who are seeking an answer to the question, “What can we do without so that we can serve the lord more fully,” I believe you will find that you are in a room where the spirit dwells.
If you love me, you will keep my commandments. There is a spirit of truth that overcomes the world. That Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. Amen.