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Sixth Sunday of Easter
Light of Christ Anglican Church
The Rev. Michael Moffitt, May 6, 2018


Sermon


Text: John 15:9–17

Recently I was speaking with an old friend on the phone and as we were saying our goodbyes, he said, “I really love you man”, which surprised me a little, but I responded, “I love you too, I look forward to seeing you soon.”

When I hung up I thought about what we were saying to one another when we admitted to our love for each other. I don’t think men are as comfortable with the “L” word as are women and that’s probably unfortunate. Often, we think of love as being romantic and I knew neither of us were saying that. In the Greek language one of the words for love is “Phileo” which means a fondness or affection for, as between brothers. It’s where Philadelphia, referred to as the “City of Brotherly Love” got its name. That’s what my friend and I were conveying to each other. We are brothers who have a deep love and respect for each other.

In the English language we only have one word for love whereas Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek has four. In the English language using the word for love usually depends on the context of its usage and the nuance inferred by the situation itself. As we all know this can lead to grave mis-understandings between people, but it also cheapens the use of the word in our culture. In other languages the various words are used to convey a specific feeling or emotion but in English it is open to the interpretation of the listener. The Beatles sang, “All we need is love” and there are a great many renditions of Perry Como’s 1958 hit song, “Love Makes the World Go Round.” What kind of love do we need and what kind of love makes the world go round?

We tend to throw around the word “Love” with abandon with phrases like, “I love your hair” or I would love a milk shake” or as I once heard a friend who was stoned say, “Man, I’m in love with these French fries.” Is it any wonder that people often mis-understand what it means to say that God loves us or that we should love God? It is vitally important that we understand what the Bible is teaching us when it uses the word love.

Today, we are beginning week six of the Easter season and in two weeks we will celebrate Pentecost. On Easter we saw the greatest example of love ever demonstrated as Jesus, in his love for the Father, submitted to the horror and suffering of the cross. This was also a demonstration of the Fathers love for us in that he gave his only Son as a sacrifice for our sin. In the resurrection of Jesus from the dead we saw the power of love overcoming sin and death and the Savior reaching out to the disciples who had abandoned him and offering them peace and forgiveness.

Last week we saw in Deuteronomy 4 a demonstration of love as Moses, from his love of God and his people, prepares the Israelites to cross over the Jordon River into the Promised Land. He would not be allowed to go himself but as he prepares them to follow Joshua he reminds them of all that God had done for them in their wilderness wanderings. He asks them the question in Deuteronomy 4:32–34,  

Indeed, ask now concerning the former days which were before you, since the day that God created man on the earth, and inquire from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything been done like this great thing, or has anything been heard like it? 33 Has any people heard the voice of God speaking from the midst of the fire, as you have heard it, and survived?

He then reminds them that God had commanded that their response to his favor was that they obey his law, because he was their God and had loved them so much. Then we saw in John 14:15–17 that Jesus had told his disciples the same thing as Moses had said to Israel,

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Today we will continue with this theme of love but will further define it’s meaning and how it is to be lived out by those who profess to love God.

We will be considering our gospel reading from John 15:9–17 but first I want us to consider what God was telling Israel about his love for them in our passage from Isaiah 45:11–13. God is speaking through the prophet that he was raising up the pagan King Cyrus of Persia to free God’s people from exile in Babylon. Not only was Cyrus freeing God’s people to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple but he would pay for the rebuilding and provide them protection. This would have been very hard for Israel to believe and so God speaks to them in Isaiah 45:11–13,

Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: “Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? 12 I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. 13 I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,” says the Lord of hosts.”

And then verse 18,

For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (he is God), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited): I am the Lord, there is no other.

Even though Israel had continually rejected God and had turned to worship the gods of pagan nations and had been sent into exile in Babylon for it, God still would not reject them. He was making a way for them to return to the holy city, Jerusalem to rebuild the temple that had been completely destroyed. Why would God act in such a way towards those who had been so unfaithful? I have read these stories so many times and I still marvel at God’s patience and love. I consider how I would have responded to such rejection and am in awe of the nature of God’s heart for his people.

The Psalmist sings the same acknowledgement about God in Psalm 33:6–8,

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth all their host.7 He gathers the waters of the sea as a heap; he puts the deeps in storehouses.8 Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him!

In Isaiah and the Psalms, we find the reasons that we should love God and stand in awe of him. He is our creator and there is no one like Him. As we said last week, “Who has ever heard of such a thing as this?”

In our gospel reading Jesus defines what he means by using the word love between him and the Father and between us and the Father. Let’s turn back to our gospel reading from John 15 and read verses 9–11,

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 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.

This passage comes right after Jesus has been teaching about the union of Christ and his people being compared to the relationship between a vine and the branches. Jesus calls himself the true vine and those who are attached to him will bear the same fruit that he does. In verse 8 Jesus says,

By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

The evidence of being in union with Jesus is to be seen through the bearing of fruit (a life marked by victory over temptation and manifesting the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22). These works are not the grounds for our acceptance by God, rather they are the inevitable result of our union with Christ. They are not the cause of salvation but rather the effect of it, an effect that is so much a part of this union that where fruit is not present there is good reason to wonder if salvation has taken place. That is the context that brings us to this mornings passage.

The glory of the Father is Jesus’ main purpose and was the focus of all that he had taught and done, and this would be the trademark of his disciples as well. The result would be that they would remain in his love just like the love that the Father and the Son shared. In verse 9 Jesus said,

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

The word that Jesus uses for “loved” is “agapao” which is the verb form of “agape”, a feminine noun. In this case the words mean to feel great affection, to have feelings of good will or benevolence.

In essence Jesus is telling the disciples that the Father has acted with love towards the Son through his actions and Jesus has done the same thing towards them. Why, because of the deep feeling of affection (agape) that the Father has for the Son and the Son has for his disciples. The feeling causes the action (agapao) and Jesus explains that this feeling of love for the Father should prompt the disciples to act in such a way that their affection would be shown. We see that in verse 10,

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.

One of my mother’s favorite sayings was, “Actions speak louder than words”. She was a no-nonsense type of person who would not allow my actions to not be dealt with no matter what type of explanation I came up with. Jesus is saying much the same thing in this passage, although I am very glad that God has been much more forgiving of my actions than my mother was inclined to be.

Jesus wanted his disciples to see that their actions of obedience to God’s commands would allow them to live into the expression of love from God instead of dealing with his fatherly discipline. He tells them, “these things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

As Jesus’ word remains in them through their faithfulness to God’s commands, they are actually sharing in his life with the Father, which is characterized not only by obedience, but a fullness of joy not found elsewhere. Usually joy is not something that comes to mind when people think of being obedient to God’s law. They often see obedience as conforming to rules, which stifles their creativity and individualism. Rules often produce guilt when they are not followed or in our culture delight and pride in standing up to oppression and bigotry. But the obedience that Jesus is talking about is not to societal rules and regulations but to the God who is characterized by love and mercy. To obey the Father is to conform our lives to the pattern of God’s own life. God is calling his people to share with him in a life of harmony, grace, goodness and beauty. We should never see the commands of God as burdensome but as a gift of his love. It is God who has given us life and laid out how it is best lived. This is God moving in love for his children. This is why Jesus said that our loving response to God is to obey his commands. In doing so we are accepting his love and responding appropriately.

When we turn to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith, we are in intimate union with him like a branch feeding off of the nourishment of the vine. In this we are swept up into the dance that we were created and designed for and which brings the deepest fulfillment and deepest joy to our lives. Jesus joy and fulfillment came from the intimacy that he shared with the Father and the delight he had in pleasing him. If we have no joy in obeying the Father, then we should consider whether we know him as Jesus knows him and whether we understand his will as the description of his true freedom and joy.

Accepting sin in our lives is not walking in love because it grieves God. Accepting sin as normal in our culture for the sake of unity is to guarantee separation from God, not his love and joy. If we learn anything else from the example of Israel it is that when we walk away from the loving commands of God, we pay a grave price of death. Many in our society would say to us, “If you love me, you will let me do what I want.” The word of God is telling us this morning that God says, “If you reject my commands, you are rejecting my love and that will bring about my judgment.”

Jesus came to pay the penalty for our sins and because of that he expected his disciples to respond to his love by following his example. Let’s read John 15:12–15,

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you.”15No 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 have made known to you.

Jesus loves just as the Father loves and he commands his disciples to love one another just like he had loved them. If they did that then the community would be characterized by divine love. This was not to just be a love defined by a feeling but by action that revealed the depth of love within the heart. Jesus defines the terms of this love when he says that it includes the laying down of our lives for our friends. The word that Jesus uses for friend is “Philos” which is an adjective related to the verb form of “Phileo” meaning brotherly love. Jesus is not just saying that we should only lay our lives down for our friends because he had taught that he had come to lay his life down for even his enemies. He is telling them that they were no longer servants, but they were now his friends. The intimacy that Jesus invites them into is quite extraordinary.

The love that he is calling them into with him and the Father is that they would be more than anyone had ever thought possible. Mankind was being invited into friendship with God. Who had ever heard of such a thing? The characteristic of this friendship would be unity of purpose and a common desire that God be glorified, worshipped and obeyed. The result would be friendship and intimacy like Adam initially experienced in the Garden of Eden where God walked with them in fellowship.

To reject this is madness, which is why we must be those who share the story that God has begun in us. It is not loving when we don’t speak words of life to those who are perishing and heading towards an eternity in Hell. We have begun a class on practical evangelism on Thursday nights at 5:30 in the parish hall. I invite you to come as we learn the importance of sharing our story of faith and how to do it.

 

©2018 Rev. Mike Moffitt

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