Turn with me to the gospel of
John chapter 15. And let's begin reading in verse
eight. Verse eight. By this, my father
is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the father has loved me, so
have I 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've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy
may be full. This is my commandment, that
you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no
one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer
do I call you servants for the servant does not know what his
master is doing, but I have called you friends for all that I have
heard from my father. I've made known to you. You did
not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should
go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so that whatever
you ask and the father asked the father in my name, he may
give it to you. These things I command you so
that you will love one another. Let's pray. Father, your word
is true and faithful and effectual and sufficient. Father, it teaches
us all that there is to know about you. It helps us to understand
what the relationship that we have with you through Jesus Christ
is all about, what intimacy really looks like. And Father, it helps
us to see what intimacy should look like between each other. This text this morning, Father,
I could go a million places to show different parallels in so
many ways of how the marriage looks, of how the fellowship
in the assembly looks, of how relationships in in the body
look. But, Lord, it is for our purpose.
It is for your purpose that you would teach us what the joy of
Christ is. and that you've declared and
promised through his word this day that our joy is full when
we have his joy. And so that is my prayer for
us this morning that we would exalt not man. We would exalt
not faith. We would not exalt the culture.
We would not exalt the practices of our faith, but we would exalt
the faithful one, Jesus Christ, your son, the God who is, who
has come to earth. And it is in his name we pray.
Amen. As I say often, there are sometimes
difficulties in exposition because you just don't know how much
you want to deal with. For those of you who are not
here on midweek, I want to encourage you, of course you want to listen
to the Romans series. We did 73 sermons in Romans and
this past week I decided I would just open up the book of Colossians
and read through the first chapter and just go through how I personally
walk through scripture in my reading, in my personal study,
in preparation for sermons and so forth. And I think it would
be encouraging for you to get off the hook. You make yourself
off the hook of feeling like, I've got to become an expert
in the Bible. I've got to deal with things. I've got to have
tools and knowledge and secular wisdom. You don't. You just need
to read or listen to the Word of God. And we need to recognize,
too, that because this is true, the greatest thing that we can
do inside our home is just to read the Bible aloud to one another.
If you're like me, sometimes in the evening when my eyes are
weak and I'm not wearing another pair of glasses on the bottom
of my nose, which I did drive around town like that the other
day like an idiot. But it's hard to read. So listening
to the Word of God, hearing my wife read the Scripture, even
my children, their voices reading the Scripture, whether they're
paying attention or not, it is good for the soul. It is good
for us. It is how we ought to approach our day. and recognize
that our intimacy with Jesus is our intimacy in the hearing
of his word. And that in that God will do
great things. He has promised through the means of scripture
to establish us before him. He has promised through scripture
to keep us focused on him. And there are some promises here
in this text that Jesus has already made. And this morning, as we'll
see, promises that he's already made. He asserts and proclaims
things that are true. of His people. And that's important
because the world says, listen, the false gospel, the no gospel
of culture tells us that it is up to us to muster the discipline
in order to be the product of God's work. Some people go as
far to make it a damnable falsehood that the only way you can have
eternal life is you do something with the gospel. And then they follow suit in
the American way. If it's up, it's going to be,
it's up to me. I've got to do, what must I do? How am I going
to, why can't I just, you know, fill in the blank. These disciples
here in this upper room at this last supper, they were having
all of these fears and all of these frustrations and all of
these doubts. I mean, these are the 11 called of God to be the
messengers of Christ, through whom, plus Paul, we came to know
the truth. Though we did not live in this
day, it is the words of our apostles, of the apostles of God, that
brought salvation to our hearts and minds. So in verse 8 there, this is
review from last week and the week before and the week before.
This gives glory to my father. By this, my father is glorified
that you bear much fruit. And we looked and we know that
the fruit there is faith in Jesus Christ, faithful prayer, because
we believe in Jesus Christ and love for one another as Christ
has loved us. Yet none of those things except
faith is what we look at to know that we are in the faith. Because
loving Christ is something that we do until we don't. Now, some
people think, well, I've always loved Jesus. Have you? If loving
Jesus is loving one another, then what you're saying is that
I've always loved other people. But is loving Jesus a requirement
for you to have security and assurance of your eternal life?
No. No. Jesus loving you is required. God having an eternal love for
you is required. God giving His mercy to you is
required. And that has been set in eternity. God's love, as we saw today in
the Psalms, is everlasting. It doesn't begin. God's love
is not universal. God's love is picture perfect
in the giving of his son for the sake of the redemption of
his people that we see Paul and the apostles called the elect
in every letter that they write. Yet that gospel, that love, that
God, that Savior, that redemptive reality is something that the
world at large and all of the religious people of our world
hate. It's not a theological debate. It's not an interpretive division. It is the only free grace and
sovereign grace of God. It is only about the love of
God. You are saved by the love of God, His mercy, His grace,
His kindness, His love. If God does not love you, you
will not come to believe that He loves you. And these disciples, oh my goodness,
you think turmoil is what we experience in our life? Imagine
having walked away from every family member, from everything
that was solid in your life, from your livelihood and everything
else in the world and being mocked by the millennia of tradition
of your people. You became the pariah of Jerusalem
because you followed after Jesus and walked with Jesus. became
a nobody. You became a nothing following
a nobody going nowhere, according to the world. And that's the things that we
need to keep in mind when we see these people. It is very
difficult for us to come to terms with how we should relate to the text
here when we separate it harshly from its original audience. Because
I don't know about you, I've been persecuted in my life, but
not like this. I mean, at the end of the day,
I go home, I make my coffee, I turn on my television, I play
my saxophone, might play a game of chess, might rake a yard,
might tune up the car. I mean, whatever's left on the
maintenance list, wash the dishes, go to bed complaining that I
had to wash dishes. I mean, you know, when these people were
persecuted, and when some of our brothers and sisters across
the world presently are persecuted, their lives are over. Their lives
are over. It's over for them. They have
nothing. They are nothing. They've become
nothing. They've given up everything, and it wasn't their choice. Christ
commanded them to follow Him, and thus they did by divine work. And all of a sudden, the cost
is extremely measurable because it was everything. But it wasn't
up to them. It wasn't their resolve. It wasn't
their affection. As we've seen just in this dialogue
in the chapters 14 and 15, there are many things that the disciples
just could not grasp concerning the truth of Christ. Yet Jesus
says that the Father is glorified in them. The father is glorified
in his life being laid down for them. The father is glorified
in his eternal love toward them. And the father is glorified in
the fact that they then are commanded to love one another in the same
way. And so ultimately, the father
is glorified because of Christ in them. You see how different
that is? You see how different it is when
we hear many people bark and preach and holler and yell and
stomp in their finest suits? And they look out in front of
an array of people who are clean and smell good and are dressed
nicely and have the right kind of scripture and the right kind
of hat and the right kind of shoe and they're sitting in the
right spot. They're not in somebody else's
chair. They're singing the right songs, in the right language,
in the right meter. And they leave out of here smelling
just as good as they did when they came in. But in the context
of God's economy, if it is not for His love for them, they are
filthy, rags, stench to His nostrils. Christ washed His people. Christ
washed you. And in His washing, You are clean
and you are clean and that glorifies the Father. That is the only
gospel that's ever been taught in the Bible. And when we add
to it, we are liars. I can't tell you the number of
times, even amongst us, beloved, as Grace Truth, that I've been
confronted by people to say, you need to become harsher. You
need to just hurt our feelings and step on our toes so that
we can get our lives together. Beloved, if Jesus Christ, the
God of creation, laying His life down for you, doesn't compel
you to have a striving desire, whether you can do it or not,
to walk in a manner worthy of the gospel, then nothing that
I threaten you with will ever work. And even if it does, it's
still for nothing. Because all of that good Work
is worthless because we live by faith. We
trust in Christ as a righteousness. We trust in Christ's obedience
unto the cross, death as a slave, as a criminal, to pay the penalty
of our sins. Jesus says these things I've
spoken to you that my joy may be in you. Now I want you to
think about the joy of Jesus for a second. Verse 11. My joy,
this is review, my joy may be in you. My love, my peace, we
could even argue my spirit, now my joy. And I've said this to you all
before. that from a pastoral perspective, we are always, as
shepherds, we are always looking for you to have joy in the midst
of anything. And the world can take Jesus
and mold Him into an example to be illustrated so that you
can do what Jesus did and thus find some type of temporary happiness.
But the Bible is teaching us here that Jesus has joy that
He gives to us. And the joy of Jesus Christ was
there at the cross, there in the Garden of Gethsemane, there
in the womb that He created, as an embryo that He created
for Himself. He gave. To himself. Think about that. Jesus created
his own human person. He created. His humanity. And his joy was full. And his
joy is a joy that is like no other. He always stands for the
glory of the father. And all that he does is not for
himself or for his own sake or for his own name. But ultimately,
the father will glorify him because he glorifies the father. And
then Christ gives us His joy and when He does that, our joy
is full. Why? Because there is no amount
of joy that we have in our flesh that isn't overflowed and pushed
down to the gutter when Christ fills us with His. It's like taking an ocean and
filling up a teacup. It's done. The teacup becomes
the baptized object into the vastness of the depths. And in
the same way, so do we come to the place where we find ourselves
in the depths of the joy who is Jesus Christ, our Savior and
our Redeemer. And then in chapter 15 verse
12, this is my commandment. So if we are mistaken, if we're
thinking that Pastor Tippins has just decided in his own way
to twist the scripture to fit his own free and sovereign grace
style of evangelism and doctrine, woe be unto us to ignore what
Jesus actually says. This is my commandment that you
love one another as I have loved you. And then he explains that,
greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his
life for his friends. And that will pick us up to where
we are today in verse 14. So that verse 13 there shows
two things. First, it illustrates what Jesus
has done in his love for us. And secondly, it illustrates
what Jesus has done in his love for the father. But it also illustrates
what the father has done in his love for us and what the father
has done in his love for the son. Think about that for a second. And then the command is to love
in that same way. So what that could mean is that
we ought to die for one another. And if we think of Paul's teaching
to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, we see the dying, we see the
reciprocal dying to one another in exact language. We see that
the body of Christ ought to be subservient to one another, that
we ought to submit to one another as unto Christ. Everyone in this
fellowship should submit to one another as to Christ. And then
it moves out of the fellowship and into the home, Paul says.
And he says that wives should submit to their husbands and
husbands should submit to their wives. And we think, whoa, whoa, whoa,
now you're putting words in the mouth of God. No, I'm not. Did the
Son not submit to the Father when He died for His elect people? Yes. So in the same way when
Paul says, Husbands, love your wife as Christ loved the church
and gave Himself for her to present her blameless and spotless and
without blemish. That is to submit to your wives
by dying to yourself. But it doesn't mean to take a
bullet. It doesn't mean to sacrifice
our lives so that others may live and have eternal life. We can't do that. I can't die
for you and grant you eternal life. I can't wash you with my
blood and make you clean. If my blood is shed for you,
you may live temporarily for a little bit longer because I
died in your place saving your life, but it will not let you
stand before the Father. Only the blood of Christ will
let you stand before the Father. You see how we have to read the
Bible contextually? We have to read it holistically.
We have to learn to read prose and listen. But more important,
we have to recognize that God the Holy Spirit is going to show
us these things and they're just going to start making sense,
beloved. They're just going to start making sense. We don't
have to dig. Stop digging. in commentary. Stop digging in blog posts. Stop
digging in YouTube videos. Stop googling all this doctrinal
thing. Stop. Read God Himself. Read, hear His Word. Don't worry
about James Tipton's words. Read the Word of God so that
you may say, Amen, and you may agree when you hear the truth. So Jesus says, this is the commandment.
You love one another as I've loved you, as I lay down my life
for one another, so you lay down your life for each other. This
is what I want from you. How are we going to do that?
Well, we see it over in John 14. I will show you because I
love you and I've promised to not abandon you and leave you
as orphans. I'm going to send God the Holy Spirit and then
sending God the Holy Spirit. I will show you what love looks
like. I will reveal to you how you're
able to work. The call and the commands that
I've given you to live out this life and to live by faith and
to work in this life, the ministry that I've called you to, is going
to be given to you by the Holy Spirit. Yes? Your flesh is going to rise up,
Romans 7. Yes, you're going to have failings. Yes, you're going
to have sin. Yes, you're going to have moments
of fleeting rebellion. Yes, you're going to have doubt.
Yes, you're going to have anger. Yes, yes. When? When the elephants
of our lives smash us under the toenails of their weight. And we come out like poop in
a dog kennel, right between the toes. We think, could it get
any worse? Yes, the wrath of God could be
worse. We've been saved from that. And
when we feel and when we look in the mirror and we say, you
know what? There is no way that I can love anybody. What is the
resolve? But Christ has loved me. And
because Christ has loved me, God has glorified in me. Beloved,
we are in our flesh depraved people. In our flesh we are sinful. In our flesh we can never stand
righteous before the Lord until the day of glory when we are
made new and we will stand the righteous before the Lord. But
we are not counted as sinners. We are not counted as sinners. We are not called adulterers
and thieves and murderers and liars. We are not in God's face,
seen that way. So when we hear that language, don't
you know that no murderer will inherit the kingdom of God? No
liar will inherit the kingdom of God. No gossip will inherit
the kingdom of God. No murderer will inherit, no
adulterer, no thief, nor those who are malice, or selfish, or
greedy, or disobedient to parents. or haughty, or roll their eyes,
or click their tongues, or snap their fingers, or speed, or don't
wear a seatbelt, or don't pay their taxes, or keep the change
they got too much, or lie on their timesheet. None of those people inherit
the Kingdom of God. But you, beloved, you, beloved, are found
in Christ. You are not named that way. You
are the righteousness of God because Christ has purchased
you with His blood. Well, I'm a murderer because
I talked about somebody. Do you know that the sin of murder
is primarily gossip according to the scripture? That according to God's court,
taking your life with a knife and talking about you behind
your back are equal. And you will never, ever, ever
be good enough. to stand in the court of Christ
without His blood on your behalf. But we're not seen as sinners. We know what we really are in
the flesh, but we fight against the new man inside of us, Christ. It is not I who live, Paul says,
but Christ who lives within me. The Spirit of God who lives within
me. Now this isn't proximity. This is sovereignty. omnipresence,
the presence of God. We are in Him. So where He is,
we are. We are found in Him. We are found
in His righteousness. This is the gospel, beloved.
So that when Jesus says, this is my commandment, this is what
He wants from us. This is what He requires from
us. Because of this new and living way through which we come to
God, the new covenant, His blood, which is perfect in all time,
which all the blood of all of history, even Abel's, was to
point to, Jesus is saying, now that I have washed you, I want
you to continue in the love in which I've loved you. And just as I lay down my life for
my friends, I want you to put your life aside for your friends.
Now, isn't that every apostolic letter to the church in the New
Testament? Isn't that what they're talking about? I mean, you name
one letter that's not talking about something, even if it's
false doctrine, what does the false doctrine do? It causes divisions
amongst the church. Well, I don't believe that. Well,
you don't believe that, brother. You know, Jesus already come
back. No, he didn't. That's Thessalonica. Well, you need circumcision.
You better obey the law. You better do this. You better do that.
That's Galatia. Well, I think we can eat, drink and be merry,
have orgies and all sorts of things. There's all sorts of
stuff we can do. That's Corinth. Paul's like, no, no, no. No,
you can't. Don't do that. It's not in line
with who you are. That's not walking in a manner
worthy of the call of Christ who brought you to life and paid
for you by His blood. Why do you want to smear His name? Man,
act straight, boy. Because it causes division. Even
private sins cause division. We can't pray correctly. We can't
invest in each other's lives with the Word of God. I mean,
I don't know about you, but if I'm rebellious and aggravated
and just discouraged in my heart, the last thing I want to do is
sit down and read the Bible with you. You want to just read through
John? No. Does this look like I want
to read through John? I mean, you know, if we were
honest about how we really felt, we'd say that, wouldn't we? I
don't want to hear the Bible, see the Bible, whatever. And
people go, oh my goodness, oh my gosh, y'all are apostate.
No, we're not. We're honest. Liars do not inherit
the kingdom of heaven. Glad you saw the joke. Nobody's
head went, oh, I'm going. Verse 14, there's a condition
there. This sticks. But we already have
everything I just said as a river of truth flowing to this verse.
In this verse, you are my friends if you do what I command you. What is that saying? Let's keep
reading and come back to it. No longer do I call you slaves.
Oh. Do the disciples, were the disciples
doing what He commanded them? Not perfectly. Do we do what
we're commanded? Not perfectly. We want to. But
why do we do what we don't want to do? Sound familiar? Romans
7. Go read Romans 6 through 8. It'll give you a blessing. No one makes a license for sin.
No one makes an excuse for it. We know it is because of God's
holiness that we stand condemned, except that we're not condemned
because God in His holiness condemned Jesus in our place. So we're
not condemned. No longer do I call you slaves,
for the slave doesn't know what his master's doing. Now, I find
this really interesting. He just says, this is my commandment.
If you're my friend, you obey my commandment, but you're not
my slave, but I'm going to command you anyway. Jesus is the Lord of his people.
Jesus is the Lord of the reprobate. And as the master of the reprobate,
who will not obey through the obedience of faith, they will
not be given eyes to see, they will not believe in Jesus Christ.
They will be condemned by their Lord. Now I know I might be playing
with words here, but Jesus is not the Lord of some. He's the Lord of all. Where do
I see that? In Philippians. That by every
name, every knee will bow, every tongue confess that Jesus is
Lord. Every. In heaven, In the earth
and under the earth, in the sea, in the sky, in the trees, in
your ears, between your eyes, or up your nose, wherever there
might be somebody, they're going to be saying Jesus is Lord forever.
That is going to be the confession of their knowledge and the truth. And those who aren't believers,
have not been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ, they will not be
upset. They hate Him now and they'll
hate Him forever. But we, beloved, have been able
to see His love for what it is. And the Spirit of God within
us does drive us. We are compelled by the love
of God, but it is not a perfect compulsion. Well, it may be,
but our flesh is at war with it. Jesus says you're not a slave
because the slave doesn't know what the master is doing. The
slave just hears the master say, go there, do this, do that, don't
do that, do this. What did I tell you? But why do I need to set the
table? We just got through eating. Did I ask you a question? Do your
job. That's not a relationship with
the Lord Jesus, is it? He's still our master. And he
still purchased us. And we are, in a sense, slaves
to him and his righteousness. But beloved, we're friends because
we know what's going on. We know what's going on. So Jesus,
through His ministry and the teaching, which is carried along
by the Holy Spirit in every aspect, we know what God is doing. We
know what God is doing when Jesus, God the Son, says, love one another
as I've loved you. It's not a strict condition through
which if we don't meet, we're going to die. Being a friend
of Jesus, is not saying, if you're not a friend, you're
not mine. Loving Jesus is not saying, if you don't love me,
you're not mine. It's going to be difficult, but
God the Holy Spirit is going to help us. But I don't call
you slaves, I call you friends. So the condition is more of a
quality. It's more of a quality of our
relationship with Jesus. We're friends. We are His friends. He is our Lord. He laid His life down for us
while we were sinners. As Paul would illustrate, when
we were enemies, God has made us friends. You are my friends. This is the
quality of our relationship with Christ. This is the quality of
what it means to have intimacy. This is not a condition. If you
are my friend, then you are my child. No, we are His children.
Do we not have children sometimes that aren't really friendly?
Do we not have relatives that we sometimes don't love us or
we don't love them the way we should? Beloved, this is not
about our adoption through the blood of Christ. This is about
our relationship and our intimacy with Christ as we traverse this
life with the call of Christ on our hearts and in our lives
to live together for his namesake. And I know that because everyone
here is clean. They are already His friends.
They have already been purchased. They have already been promised
life. All of this is true. So Jesus is not schizophrenic.
He's not changing His mind. He's not flipping back in two.
See the slave, verse 15, no longer, the servant does not know what
the master is doing, but I have called you friends for explanation. All that I have heard from my
Father, I have made known to you. See we know to what end this
commandment rests. To the glory of God the Father
as a constant reminder, listen to this, a constant reminder
of the love of God for us. A constant reminder of the redemption
that's found in the body and the blood of Jesus. A constant
reminder that He gave His life for us. How does that work again? What's
inevitable in our lives right now? Suffering and strife. Inevitable. Whether it's internal in our
own hearts and minds, or whether it's physical in our bodies,
whether it's emotional, whether it's relational, suffering and
strife is inevitable. And every person in the world,
believers and unbelievers alike, the elect and the reprobate alike,
they're all going to experience suffering. But we've been taught
by the Spirit, the truth of God the Father, who came and sent
His Son to show us these things. And we know now, we know now,
that every time we see strife, we can remember the suffering
of Christ. Every time we see relational difficulties, we remember
the love of God for us in Christ. Just like every week when we
take the Lord's table, we remember the body and the blood of Jesus.
To what end? To our love for one another.
That's the reason we do it together and not sitting at the house. By the way, next Sunday, fellowship
meal after our service. Please bring some food. So I've made it known to you
everything that I've heard from my father. That means all the revelation
of God in his redemptive work, in his covenant of grace, the
eternal and perfect and promise promised covenant that he's made
with himself, with me, with the spirit. We are together in this
and I've made it known to you because you are my friends. I
am your Lord. So the intimacy that we have
with Christ, remember the things that we talked about. We have
intimacy with Christ in his body, in his blood, he died for us.
We have intimacy with Christ in the spirit that's given to
us. We have intimacy with Christ
through prayer. We have intimacy with Christ in his love, in his
peace, and now in his joy. We have intimacy with Christ
in our love for one another. We have intimacy with Christ
here, I've been saying it forever, in the word of God. We want to
be with Jesus and in Jesus and walking with Christ and all of
these things. This is what? This is what God has done for
us. And even if you're sitting there
today and you think, well, Have I come to the right place? Have
I made the right choices? Have I done the right thing?
Am I following what you're saying, Tippins, in a way that I can
stay on track and on course? Well, verse 16 just wipes all
that away, doesn't it? You did not choose me. Relax. You didn't choose to love me.
You're not choosing to love each other the way you ought to. You're
not making a good effort, and even when you do, That doesn't
appease me. The Father is appeased because
of me. This is Jesus speaking. That is why when unforgiveness
rests in the midst of a fellowship, when the offender has repented,
has asked to be forgiven, and the offended party doesn't forgive,
that's why all of a sudden the offended party becomes the one
under discipline. so that we work these things.
Why? It's not easy. I mean, I wish
it was easy. Get the process right. We just
spin a wheel and it lands on forgiveness. Ah, look at there.
It's all done. Lands on unforgiveness. Well, you're out of here. No, because there's a war inside.
People hurt me and bash me and destroy me and hurt my feelings. And I forgive them pretty quickly. When they step on people I love,
I forgive them pretty quickly, and then I realize I haven't.
You know, oh yeah, they're forgiving. Lord, I'll just pray for them.
You know, I'm driven by the Spirit of God to pray, and I'm thinking I'm
uber-spiritual, and all of a sudden, you know, oh, this is so good.
I'm walking in joy. The joy of Christ is mine, and then I see
them. I'm going, oh, I haven't forgiven anything. I haven't forgotten anything. Oh,
no, you just haven't forgotten it. That's the point. Because
the memory of that is not, look at how the Lord has given me
forgiveness and loved me, and I've sinned against Him and He's
forgiven me. That's not what's going through my mind. That would
be if I hadn't forgotten it, because that's what forgiveness
brings, is the resolve to know that the Lord has done that work
for me. And it's illustrated all through Scripture. You know,
when I'm going, I could choke a man. I could kick some rocks. I could throw some dirt. I could
hurl some insults. I could be passive-aggressive,
a little heady, and make him feel bad, and he doesn't even
know it. I mean, you know. Or I could just... It's in there, that flesh. So
when we see these relationships, when we see this strife, we're
reminded of the sacrifice of Christ. We're reminded of the
love of God, and that's the point. That's where we're seeing here
that friendship with Christ It's the constant reality of
the teaching of the Father to redeem His people because of
His love for them and they, beloved, we didn't deserve it. Why did we deserve for Jesus
to die in our place? What goodness has come out of
my life that Jesus should deserve to die in my place? And I've
asked that question of fellow pastor friends of mine, and,
you know, well, look at the work I'm doing in the teaching ministry.
I go, whoa, let me stand outside before you get struck by lightning.
So because I can read and copy what God has already said out
of my mouth, I'm worthy to be saved. And God might speak for
himself. There's no level, there's no
amount of benevolence, there's no amount of teaching, there's
no amount of preaching that makes a man worthy to be saved. If you know the story of Balaam,
you know God used his mule. And the only thing that animal
ever said was the truth of God. Buddy, I've said a lot of things
that aren't the truth of God. I've wasted hours talking about
things that don't matter. So I pray that I could become
half as effectual as Balaam's animal. And in certain circles I use
the King James language in that. But I won't do it today because
you're children here. You did not choose me. It's not
because you've made the course. It's not because you've made
the decision. It's not because of this. And have we not heard
this already? We've already heard it. In John
1, in John 2, John 3, John 4, John 5, John 6, John 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, now 15. Chapter of John's Gospel. It's there. Spoiler alert. Thomas. I will not, cannot, will
not absolutely believe even if I stick my hands in the side,
in the hands of Jesus. And Jesus shows up to Thomas
in a locked room and says, Behold, Thomas, my hands and my side. Put your fingers in there. Who
chose Thomas that day? Jesus. the God of me, the Lord of me,
the God of me, Thomas exclaims, because Christ loved him with
an everlasting love and showed him the truth, taught him what
the Father had sent him to say in an instant. I chose you And I appointed you that you
should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.
Now we're back to the basics of ministry. Remember about six
weeks ago, five weeks ago, we're talking about this. This fruitfulness
is fruitful prayer undergirded by saving faith. And the aspects of what they're
praying for is to fulfill that which Christ has called them
specifically to do, to which none of us have been called to
be apostles. but all of us have been called to proclaim the gospel.
But the gospel is not these nuances, that Roman road butcher of scripture,
all these other evangelical strategies that I've spent time and money,
wasted my young adult life dealing with. I can just have those hours
and dollars back. It's just about being faithful.
to remember the cross of Christ and to be together in that remembrance
and to walk from that truth together. And as we have opportunity to
share that truth, it's as simple as just saying, Hey, can I read
a passage of scripture to you or memorizing and just share
it. Christ alone is our righteousness. He died. Do you know when you
start saying Christ died in our place, it starts ruffling the feathers
of professing Christians in our culture. Christ substitute for
That alone starts to fluster people because they've never
grown to understand substitution, some of them. And some of them
aren't converted anyway because when you actually apply the idea
of righteousness, how are you going to be made righteous before
the Father? See, that's the point of the gospel. Not how do you
get to heaven. How do you get to heaven? Everybody's
getting to heaven. Heaven is where God is. And the
reprobated are going to be judged and cast into the lake of fire
in heaven. Think about it. Just think about
terms. Oh, I want to go to heaven, do
you? Really? Read the imagery of John's apocalypse.
Which means revealed things. Doesn't mean end of times. Apocalypse
means revealed things. We see that It's not about having
eternal life, having a great life, having a great blessing,
living forever, escaping wrath. It's all about how you're made
righteous. Because the only way to escape the wrath of God is
to be as God is Himself. To be perfect and holy in every
aspect of everything that you ever have been, ever will be,
ever desire to be. And the only way that's possible
is if Jesus substitutes for you His perfection. He is God and
He is man and His holiness is your hope. His death satisfied
God's wrath. That's the point. See, and people
never heard it. Well, I've never heard of that.
I just know I accepted Jesus. Accepted what Jesus? What did
you accept about Him? See, how many Jesus's are there? Billions. You have hope in the one that
is speaking to us this day from John 15. I chose you for life. for appointment unto everlasting
life, for my righteousness to be your righteousness. I chose
you. This is all, you know, 117 sermons combined. It's all been
there. And I appointed you that you
should go and bear fruit. You believe in me. You walk in
me. You trust in me, you pray for me to continue to do the
work that I've called you to do, and then in doing so you
abide, you stay here. I have chosen you that you will
stay in me. Does John 6 start ringing through
your ears? I pray that it does. Beloved, don't let John's gospel
get so far out of your ears that you can't hear John 6 when you
hear these words. Because if you can't hear John
6 here, then John 10 needs to be in your ears too. My sheep
hear my voice. How is it that we continue to hear his voice?
We've just got to hear it. If we're a sheep, we will hear the
voice when we hear the Word of God. It's not like it's going to echo.
It doesn't echo in my heart. I can't not read this for two
years and it just popped back in there. Certain times it does. Sometimes
I wonder, how do I even preach? I don't know, where'd that come
from? But God is faithful. And God is faithful to drive
us into the Word of God. Even in the small amount of intimacy
with Christ through the Scripture, God can preach and teach and
share and proclaim through us. You go bear fruit and your fruit
should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name,
He may give it to you. Now see, we've already dealt
with that, haven't we? Over in chapter 14, verse 12, Whoever
believes in me will do the works that I do. Greater works than
these will he do, because I'm going to the Father. Whatever
you ask in my name, verse 13, this I will do that the Father
may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my
name, I will do it. And I've called you to this ministry,
and I want you to do what I've asked you to do, and I'm going
to equip you to do it. 21 years ago, A dear brother said
to me, and I don't think this is original words, but it was
the first time I ever heard it, God does not call the equipped,
He equips the called. And that's not a license for
laziness in the gospel ministry, but it is an absolute truth,
a hundred percent truth. God equips the called when we
are in the Word. God equips the called when we
share and teach to one another. Do you know, ladies and gentlemen,
that you are to be about the business of helping one another
in life? And I'm not talking about therapeutic years and counseling.
That's not the call of Christians to be counselors. It's a very
rare person to be a counselor. Very rare person. But we are all called to teach
one another the truth of the gospel, the truth of the word,
to be in the word so that we might have the word to give to
one another. Even if it's not even the answer in a practical
sense of what we're looking for. How do we deal with this? I don't
know, but the Bible says to not worry about anything. And to
carry, not to carry our own burdens, but to lay them upon Christ,
to pray, And to pray for one another that through all of this
that God may take these burdens away and that we would know that
God is sovereign in all these things. Now that's a combination
of about six passages of scripture that I didn't even quote on purpose
because it doesn't matter that I quoted it on purpose. The truth
is that truth. And if we can't remember where
it is but we know the truth thereof, we can just proclaim it to one
another. We're teaching each other. So whatever you ask in my father's
name, it's already been dealt with. We know what that is, that's
not the new truck. That's how do I love, how do
I live, and how do I continue to learn the truth of the gospel
so that I may do what I am called to do for the sake of Christ
in my life. Wives, husbands, children, employers,
employees, students, retirees, whoever you may be, whatever
you're doing, we're all in that article. We're all there. And Jesus is
saying, trust in me, believe in me. I've saved you. I've watched
you. I've purchased you. You are mine.
This is not evangelism here. This is strengthening. This is
strengthening for the church. This is strengthening for the
apostles. This is strengthening for the disciples. This is strengthening
for the elect. This is to undergird us and to give us strength. It's
like holding the hands of Moses up when he could not stand This is what it is. And Jesus
is holding our hands up in His Word. And then He says, these
things I commanded you. These things I command you. So that you will love one another.
So already we know that loving one another is going to be the
biggest battle, isn't it? It's why it's emphasized. It's
why Jesus makes it the point. Because when we know that we
should, and we know that we want to, and when we know that loving one another is on top
of our mind, why is that the case? Because we are focusing
on Christ's love for us. The gospel of Jesus Christ does
something to our hearts when we meditate their own. And it is an amazing thing. I wish it were permanent. I wish
the moment I was regenerated, God sealed a permanent affection
for everything holy in my heart and life. But it's not the case,
beloved. So we fight. Not for life, but
for glory. We fight for the glory of the
Father and loving one another. And I have to read verse 18 because
this is the reason Jesus is emphasizing this love for one another so
much. If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before
it hated you. So you see, I've loved you, now
you love me by loving one another. And it's completely opposite
of the world. The world Because it hates me, it'll hate
you. And you know how you know the world hates you? It hates
the Jesus that you proclaim. It hates the gospel that you
preach. It hates the faith that you have. It hates your love
for one another. It hates it. And it's not pagans and atheists
and agnostics and cults that hate us, is it? Have you ever
been accosted by a Russell Light? harassed by a Jehovah's Witness. You're harassed by a Southern
Baptist. You're harassed by a Methodist. You're harassed by an Evangelical
Protestant. You're harassed by someone who
says they might be your brother sitting on the front row of your
congregation. But Christ loves us and that's
where it rests. That's where it rests. You know,
we could finish this out easy But I want you to rest there,
beloved. I want you to have the fullness of the joy of Christ
resting that He truly is your hope. Let's pray. We thank You,
Father, for this opportunity to hear Your Word. Lord, it's
more than that. It's a privilege. It seems every
time I desire to pray, Lord, that's the only thing that comes
to my mind above all things, that it is an amazing privilege
to be able to read and understand the truth of your scriptures
and to be together as a people who love one another because
you have loved us. And even when we fail in it and
we will, we strive to know the cross of Christ and him crucified. Because in that moment, we are
able to sympathize and to love. We are empowered by the Spirit.
And so I pray that you would continue to work in us that way.
That you would grow us mighty. That you would deepen our affections
for the truth. Father, I pray all these things
in Christ. Amen.