He Abides in Us and We in Him

Transcript

GRM 527
4/20/1997
He Abides in Us and We in Him
John 15:9-18
Gil Rugh


As I mentioned this morning I want to continue our consideration of John chapter 15 together tonight, John and the 15th chapter. John’s gospel. Remember this chapter takes place in the midst of Jesus’ last evening with His disciples. Judas has left to carry out the betrayal of Christ. Jesus is taking this opportunity, this last evening to impart great and serious spiritual truths for this small, committed band of eleven followers who will form the core of the ministry that will be carried to the world after His crucifixion. In chapter 15 Jesus has drawn the analogy of the vine, the vinedresser and the branches. He is the vine, His Father is the vinedresser and then they are the branches.

He deals with two kinds of branches. All of the branches seem to be related to the vine, but some are just superficially related to the vine, they have no life pulsating in them. They don’t dwell or abide in the Vine, they produce no fruit. They portray those who are professors of a relationship with Christ, but they have not experienced a transformation of heart in God’s salvation. The other group pictured in the other branches are those that have the life of the vine flowing through them. They are in a relationship of abiding in Christ and Christ abiding in them. They are producing fruit and our heavenly Father who is the Vinedresser prunes these branches. As each of us individually are chastened and disciplined, not just for sin that needs to be dealt with, but to mold and shape us and keep us on the track that we might become more fruitful in our relationship to Him and to His son, Jesus Christ. Verse 8 told us very clearly, “by this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. The unmistakable evidence that one is truly a child of God, truly a follower of Jesus Christ, and not just in the superficial way but in a genuinely saving way, is the fruit that is produced in the life. And we noted and I want to look at a few passages with you before we continue on in the chapter. But we noted this morning that fruit has primarily to do with the character of God being developed in life of His child. And then that becomes almost limitless in its impact. But it is also true that fruit is used in the gospel of John to refer to people who are saved. Back up to John chapter 4. John chapter 4, verse 35. Jesus just said in verse 34, “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” In other words, this is what was most vital and essential to Jesus Christ, more important than physical food. Then He goes on to say, and this is in the context where He has been sharing with the Samaritan woman and the disciples return from seeking to purchase physical food, and they are engaged in this conversation. In verse 35, “And do you not say, “there are yet four months and then comes the harvest?” Behold I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white for harvest.” He has made the transition from talking about a physical harvest of grain and so on, to a spiritual harvest of souls. “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that he who sows, and he who reaps may rejoice together.” There the gathering of fruit for eternal life seems to clearly refer to the salvation of souls. So even though this is an unusual use of fruit in the New Testament, we’ll see another possible use in John 15 in moment, nonetheless it is valid to talk about gathering fruit and the harvesting of soul and a passion for that and an alertness to it. How tragic that we should have our eyes closed to the harvest that is around us, and not realize that there are souls ripe for the harvest. So that is one kind of fruit that is talked about. More commonly we talk about the fruit in regard to the character of God developed in us. Look over in Galatians chapter 5, in fullest of explanation of this fruit and the one we are probably most familiar with. Galatians chapter 5, and he is going to be talking more about the ministry of the Holy Spirit which will be given in John chapter 16. And it is this Spirit Jesus said, in John chapter 7, that would be like a river flowing out of them. And so that Holy Spirit who would indwell believers, indwells us now to produce the character of God in us. And in Galatians chapter 5 verse 22, “But the fruit of the Spirit is”, when we talk about fruit this is clearly involved in when Jesus said that those who abide in Him produce fruit. “The fruit of the Spirit is love,” that is going to be talked about in John 15 as we will see. “Joy” that is going to be talked about, “peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law.” This comes as a result of having been crucified with Christ, dying with Him and having been raised to newness of life. We live by the Spirit’s power and we walk by the Spirit’s power.

Back up to Ephesians, or turn back to Ephesians, just after Galatians. Ephesians chapter 5, verse 8, “For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, walk as children of light. For the fruit of the light consist in all goodness, righteousness and truth, trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” “Goodness, righteousness and truth,” those things are produced in the life of the one who has been brought out of darkness into His marvelous light. Look over in Hebrews chapter 13, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 15. Hebrews 13:15, “Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name.” That is a sacrifice of praise to God when we with our lips give thanks to Him, exalt Him for what He has done. This is the fruit that God is talking about in John chapter 15. Come back to John 15, what enables us examine our lives and see if we are indeed in Christ. That fruit is being produced by His power working in us. You know you have to have His life in you before His power can manifest in producing His character. That is what Jesus is talking about. There are some who are attached only externally and hard as they try they are trying to conform themselves to something, rather than the work of the Spirit of God producing from within the beauty of His character.


Jesus moves on in His discussion with the disciples in verse 9 to say, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you, abide in my love.” So you see, we abide in Him, we dwell in Him, we remain in Him. And in that context we are in His love and that is where we are living and dwelling, abiding, and continuing. You know just this word “abiding” doesn’t just note a relationship that happens at a point in time now we are on to other things. It is a relationship that began at a point in time but continues on. We are those who are abiding in Him and He is abiding in us. When you come to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior from sins, the Spirit of God comes and takes up residence in your life and that is a permanent action. He now indwells us. He dwells in us and we dwell in Him and you note the standard of His love. “Just as the Father has loved me,” a love that goes beyond what we can encompass with our finite minds. The fullness of God’s love for His Son, Jesus Christ, is the same kind of love that Jesus Christ has for us as His people. Remarkable, awesome! We bask in the fullness of divine love and all that entails.

“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.” Now here we move to another step in the context of John 15, although He has talked about this earlier in John. And that is obedience is inseparably joined to love. And the point is not that you attempt to obey some commandments and thus enter into His love, but it is a concept that is well understood by us in the physical realm even. When you truly and deeply love someone you want too please them. You want to do what you know they want you do. That is part of love, isn’t it? Don’t you delight when you have that opportunity for the one you love so much, where you can do something for them you know they wanted you to, and they would love it when you did? And it is such a blessing for you to have that opportunity. So in our relationship with God, obeying Him, carrying out His commandments, is inseparable from our love for Him even as Jesus love for His Father was evidenced in His obedience to Him. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in My love.” You can’t divorce the two. You can’t sever the two. “Just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” He is not dividing between two kinds of Christians. But He is showing what the true evidence of abiding is, the necessary condition of abiding. Anyone who abides, obeys. And those who don’t obey aren’t abiding. They are not believers.

Now “if you keep my commandments,” if you keep my laws. Some people every time they see the word law or commandment in the New Testament assume that we are talking about the Mosaic Law, the ten commandments. John distinguishes between the two. We have them distinguished often in our translation using the word law and using the word commandments. I don’t know if that is consistent. I didn’t trace them out but there are two different Greek words used by John for Law or for commandments. When he refers to the Mosaic Law, he uses the Greek word “nomos”. We would have it transliterated into English, “nomos.” When he is using the word commandment as he is here referring to Christ’s commandments, not the Mosaic Law but Christ’s commandments as we have contained in our New Testament scriptures, he uses the word “entole”. So you can see they are two different words: nomos and entole. So when he talks about his commandments here, he is not talking about the Mosaic Law. He is talking about My commandments. He doesn’t say if you will keep Moses’ commandments. Now I understand that the commandments given to Moses were given by God through Moses, but they have an identity and served a purpose and are consistently related to Moses. But these are God’s commandments. When we say that we are not under the Mosaic law, we are not saying that we are without law or without commandments. You know we swing so far to grace, we think that this means you have no obligation to obey. That is not true.


Back up to John chapter 1 for example. I’ll just give you an example of it’s use of the Mosaic Law. And John uses the word nomos referring to the Mosaic law fifteen times in his gospel. Some examples, and we are not going to go through all fifteen. But verse 17 of John 1, “For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” So the contrast between the Mosaic Law, not that it had any faults except that it couldn’t empower us. But you see there clearly the Mosaic Law. Verse 5 of chapter 1. “Phillip found Nathaniel and said to him we have found him of whom Moses in the Law and also the prophets wrote” and on you go. John chapter 7 verse 19, verse 23, verse 49, verse 51 and on you go. You can get a concordance that gives you the numbers so you can trace down the Greek words if you want to see the use of that. John uses the word for the Mosaic Law 15 times in his gospel. He doesn’t use it at all in his epistles. Important because when you read about the commandments in like I John you are not talking about the commandments of the ten commandments. You are talking about the commandments given now in the context of Christ’s redemptive work and the obligations that are imposed upon us as God’s people in the church. And in that context there is the empowering work of the Holy Spirit for us to carry those commandments out.

Turn over to 1 John chapter 3, a passage we looked at in out study this morning for an example. Fourteen times in I John, John uses the word “entole” translated commandments. The end of 1 John chapter 3 verse 22. Let’s pick up a thought that we are going to come to in John 15 in a moment. “Whatever we ask, we receive from Him because we keep His commandments.” He is not talking about keeping the Mosaic Law. He is talking about obedience to the commandments of Christ. And we have those contained in our New Testament and particularly in the epistles written to the church. “This is His commandment that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another just as He commanded us.” That commandment would be contained back in John’s gospel. “A new commandment I give you, the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him and He in him” You see the keeping of His commandments, obedience, is an evidence of a mutual indwelling. I dwell in Christ, and He dwells in me. “We know by this that He abides in us by the Spirit whom He has given.” We have emphasized this morning that if you don’t have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you as Romans 8 says, you don’t belong to Him. So, it is a mutual abiding, a mutual indwelling in that sense.

It is connected to the keeping of His commandments. One of the reasons we don’t like this is because it puts in a concrete, tangible realm the issue of salvation. You are not saved by what you do. Salvation is a spiritual transaction brought about when by the grace of God through the power of the Spirit you hear the gospel, believe it and are saved. The impact on your life is dramatic. You change, you are changed from being a disobedient to obedient person. That is what he is talking about here. “The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him.” We like to do away with keeping His commandments and obedience as an evidence because then I can claim you can’t see my heart and sometimes we allow ourselves to get boxed in to that. There is clear evidence, but it is not keeping the Mosaic Law. It is not keeping the ten commandments.


Some carry it so far as they think we ought to keep the tenth also, the Sabbath. And then many try to make the transition to try to make Sunday the Sabbath. I have been doing some reading on that material and I can’t make sense out of it. It makes sense to those who are writing it but you just can’t make the first the seventh. The Sabbath is the seventh. For us Christians it has become Sunday. Well, the seventh is the first. Well, then you are not keeping the Mosaic Law because the Mosaic Law won’t allow you to make the adjustment. We get into all kinds of trouble when we confuse what God is saying. Part of this is because we read oh, He who keeps His commandments. Well, there we are, the ten commandments. Don’t we call them the ten commandments? Well, He says keep His commandments. That must be the ten commandments. No. It is talking about the commandments of Christ, what we have contained in His New Testament for us as believers.

Come back to John 15. “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” There is no love apart from obedience and the evidence that we have the love will be in our obedience. “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full.” Interesting, John uses the word for joy 9 times in his gospel, more times than any other New Testament writer. Seven of these uses are in the upper room discourses, John 13 to 17. And interesting we are in the context of the impending crucifixion of the son of God. In this section, more than any other place in all the Bible we have the use of the word “joy.” Because isn’t that what the result of the death of the Son of God is for us who have experienced His salvation? “And the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy,” so “I have spoken these things to you so that My joy may be in you.” You see this isn’t trying to make myself happy. You know I’ll be happy when, and if this happens I will be happy. And there is a sense when we all talk this way, but true deep, heartfelt joy is Christ’s joy placed in us by the ministering of the Holy Spirit. And that is why we can have that Paradox of tears and heartache and heartbreak and yet the joy of God in our hearts at the same time. And His intention is “that our joy may be made full,” complete, not just a touch of joy, but a fullness of joy in our hearts. And not just the trivializing of it that we see going on today. And then we have the laughing revivals, supposedly that is God’s joy. Oh, spare me. That is not the kind of joy, that is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about that true joy, placed in the heart by God Himself.


“This is My commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you.” Now you see the work that the Spirit of God is going to do in the heart and the life. We have a responsibility, and our responsibility is to be submissive to the Spirit so the fullness of the Spirit’s work is accomplished in our lives. So the fruit is as abundant as it ought to be. The fullness of Christ joy is produced by the Spirit and yet we have sourpuss, grumbling people professing to be Christians. And nothing is ever right in their life, and nothing ever pleases them. And they find something wrong in everything. And you are depressed when you are around them. But they are sure they are Christians; I hate to think that is Christ’s joy made full in a life. And then He gives a commandment, “This is My commandment, that you love one another.” And not just love one another, but you love one another “just as I have loved you.” Well, that is a new dimension on any commandments related to love. You put it on that level, how do you command love? You know you have people say, I just don’t love them anymore, I am not in love anymore. You know we just fall in and out of love like it was something blowing through the air and we caught it and we lost it. I don’t know what happened, you know the love is gone. Well here love is commanded. “This is my commandment, that you love one another.” That means I have to love you, you have to love me. Now we could probably get into a debate on who has the easiest and hardest job, but we both live under the same commandment. We have to love one another. And we have to love one another with Christ love. And the solution to this, obviously is the love He is talking about is not a feeling. Our feelings are a result of our actions. And true biblical love is what? Obedience. Obeying Him. It is not like I get up this morning and I feel like I am in love with Christ. I feel like I really want a relationship of intimacy with Him. Some mornings I get up and I feel that way, some mornings I get up and I feel like I don’t. But my love is carried out by my obedience. It is the same in our relationships on human level, isn’t it? The standard of love is His love for us, and that leads to verse 13 very clearly. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” So it is in this context and that is why we call it a self-sacrificing love. A love that gives for the other person and a love that gives without limits. I mean ultimately the most I can give, you know you can give all you all your possessions, you can give everything, but the ultimate sacrifice is to give your life for someone. Well this is what Jesus Christ is on the verge of doing, and He gives it for all, He gives it for sinners. He gives it for the world, but here His focus is on those who are His friends. Those who are in a relationship with Him or will come into that relationship through faith in Him. “That you love one another,” and the love I am talking about is that you are willing to sacrifice yourself. You are thinking of what can I do for them.


That means a large number of people who get up and go to church are not going out of a love for God, or a love for other people, they are going to have their needs met. In other words, what is in it for me? We have become so blatant with this that we now talk about the consumer driven church which turns it from a love centered church, love for God and love for fellow believers, to a man centered church, what is in it for me, what do I get out of it. Naturally when we come and worship our God we are blessed. And we come to fellowship and worship, we ought to be nurtured and nourished on the word of God. You know my focus is not what is in it for me. I want a biblical church that is focused on God and His Word and His truth. Then I come, I want to commit myself to serving God and serving these other believers. And many of you in this body are an evidence of that and you come and you give of yourself and you drag yourself home. And that was anything but relaxing, I mean you have been cooped up in a small room with too many kids, and I mean well, you didn’t do it because that was the most enjoyable thing you could do today. You did it because you love the Lord, you love the people of the body that you serve with. You did it because you want to make a sacrifice for them so that they can concentrate on the Word and their worship without the distraction. And on we go, came in and cleaned the building. Why? Because I want people to have the right kind of environment to sit down and focus on their God and worshiping Him. Not because you didn’t have anything better to do on Thursday but come over and clean the church. So we do make those sacrifices and they multiply. And the less I think about myself the more I will enjoy my service of my God. And you say, well you don’t know how much I have given? No, but I know you haven’t given the ultimate because you are sitting here breathing. So quit complaining, cause the greatest testimony of love is “I died for them,” so when you drop dead over that vacuum, we’ll say, wow, they really did go all the way. So, when I say that to myself, you know I think I have given so much, I have done so much, and then I read this and say well, you know, the kind of love of love I am talking about is you die for them. Well, I haven’t gone that far. Then quit thinking you have done so much. You know like the Hebrews that had to be addresses, oh yes we have made such sacrifices. What does the writer of Hebrews say in chapter 10, “you haven’t endured to the shedding of blood.” I mean quit saying and acting like you have done so much, you are still breathing.

So that is the kind of love we are talking about, it doesn’t hold back. I am tired, I am weary, but of course I will do it I love you. That is the attitude. It is totally out of step with our world today. I was listening to a preacher this week, Evangelical preacher, what was he saying? Some of you, you know, just can’t appreciate how valuable you are. You just can’t understand how much worth you have. And you know he is going on with it and I said, you know this just doesn’t sound like love to me. And I really don’t have any trouble thinking of how much worth I have, I have trouble being willing to humble myself and serve you to the extent that I should. That is what Jesus Christ is talking about here. That is an evidence of that abiding relationship. And evidence of the work of Christ Himself in us through the power of His Spirit. It is not natural, it is super natural. “You are my friends if you do what I command you,” verse 14. Same kind of thing, love evidenced in obedience. A true relationship of friendship, the intimacy and fellowship of that relationship, expressed in obedience. I keep saying the same thing, it is obedience. Our salvation relationship is not caused by our obedience, but it is the ultimate evidence of that relationship. “You are my friends if you do what I command you. You abide in my love if you obey me.” These things are the fruit is what we are talking. “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing. But I have called you friends for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

Back up to John 13, verse 34. “A new commandment do I give to you that you love one another even as I have loved you.” He just repeated that in John 15. You’ll note that we are to love one another, but we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. “By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.” Turn over to I Corinthians 13. You know where we get tripped up in the scripture is not in those passages in Hosea 2, or Zechariah 9 or wherever, you know the obscure ones. Where I get tripped up is in the familiar ones that I could refer to again and again, but they go by me. In 1 Corinthians chapter 13 He gives a description of love in verse 4. “Love is patient, love is kind,” you see a connection with this with the fruit of the Spirit that we read about earlier in Galatians 5:22? “Love is patient,” because the fruit of the Spirit is love and in that context it also produces patience and kindness and so on. “Love is patient, love is kind, is not jealous, does not brag, is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered. Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” That is remarkable. That is what God does in our life.


Now, back to John 15. And in this context he has been talking about us loving one another like He loves us, and that sacrifice of that love. And in this context you are my friends. So you see the connecting thing here is obedience to the command with His love, with a friendship. Now he rolls over to say something about this friendship that takes place in the context of this relationship of love. We are not slaves. He is not calling us slaves although we are His slaves and servants. But by His grace and love we are more than that, we are His friends. Because if we were just slaves, we wouldn’t know what He was doing but we would still be responsible to obey. I mean we are friends in that he has shared with us what His Father is doing. All I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. That intimacy of relationship, in the friendship, the love. And you see this is what we are to have for one another. We have a relationship with Him. We have a relationship with one another. First John, in John’s first epistle, he picks up on this. Our fellowship is with God and we want to have fellowship with you, mutual. We are back to the beginning then.

People who don’t really have a desire and a longing for involvement in a relationship and fellowship with believers are evidencing something about their true spiritual condition. It is not something you put up with. It is something you love, you enjoy This past week I was going through Genesis and it impacted me. We won’t turn back there but in Genesis chapter 29 verse 20 you could write down. Jacob was serving for seven years for Rachael to become his wife and it says they were as nothing to him because of his love for her. That’s what we talk about with our obedience for our God, our love for Him. Oh, our service for Him, I mean that is not grievous. That is not burdensome. To be obedient to my Lord and His commandments. That world looks at it and says, oh boy I couldn’t do that. We say it is the delight of our heart. I mean it is like nothing in the sense of being a burden because of our love for Him. We are in a relationship with Him and He has called us His friends and He has made known God’s purposes.

And some of those purposes are revealed in verse 16. “You did not choose Me but I chose you.” Foundational here. To “choose” we relate to our word for elect. You did not elect Me, I elected you. You did not choose Me, I chose you. God’s sovereign work of choosing centers in himself. The disciples didn’t decide to choose Christ; Christ chose the disciples. So, we are getting insight into here what God is revealing, what is truth that we could not know unless God had told us. “You did not choose Me but I chose you.” He is talking particularly about the 11. But then we are in the apostolic line. And what is true of them is revealed to be true of us in other places as well. “You did not choose Me but I chose you and appointed you.” So you note here, He chose them so that they would come into His salvation but He appointed them then for certain tasks. And you see again this is part of the choosing. God’s sovereign work of election also includes the predestination of those that were elect and the appointment. So, I appointed you.


Four things are said here really. He won’t elaborate them, just mention them. Number one that you would go, appointed you that you would go. Secondly, that you would bear fruit. So they are to go, they are to bear fruit. And in light of the going some would connect it to chapter 4 verse 36 and say the fruit here is primarily the souls and connect it to the great commission, go into all the world and preach the gospel. So, in the going, and that would be included. It would also mean that anywhere we go, we are bearing the character of Christ. That most difficult work situation I am there by the appointment of God. Part of what I am to do there is to “bear fruit.” So that fruit can be souls that are saved. That is the character of God in all that I do. Third, “that your fruit would remain.” There is a permanency about it. His love doesn’t fail. His work in us, His character produced in us grows and increases until in the glory of His presence it reaches it’s fullness. There is a permanence about the fruit. The souls that are saved by His grace as He uses us as his instruments, they are permanent as well. The fruit that God is producing in a life has a permanency about it.

“And that whatever you ask of the Father in My name, He may give to you.” An encouraging promise that has been repeated. Verse 7, “if you abide in Me, My words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.” Back in chapter 14 verse 13, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” You see in this relationship now there is evidence, a desire to bestow upon us whatever we ask. People you know get frustrated with this because they think of all the things that they have asked for that they haven’t gotten. But you notice the context we are talking about. In chapter 14, you “ask in My name,” chapter 15, you “ask of the Father,” chapter 16, you “ask in My name.” “You abide in Me, My words abide in you” [verse 7] “ask whatever you wish, it will be done for you.” Here is a person, what? Controlled by the life and word of God asking in His name, in the context of His person and work and who He is.

So often our prayer life degenerates to activities that are focused more on selfishness, what I want for myself. Do I want more than anything else, His glory, manifest in my life if it is in my sickness or in my health, in my poverty or in my wealth, whatever? If that is the desire of my heart, my prayer focuses on that. Certainly there are things that I bring before Him. That I might say Lord, if your grace would see fit, this is something that I would desire, but you know the more I walk with Him, the deeper my relationship, isn’t it the less selfish. Don’t you expect your children to outgrow always asking for the petty, selfish things? Don’t you hope with their maturing, they are not constantly running asking for this, asking for that? When they are little all they want is what is for their gratification. But you delight in seeing the evidence of the maturing in them when they come and ask but you see in what they are asking is not just those self-centered, selfish focused things. So, it is us with God. We are asking whatever we desire. My heart is filled with him and my love for Him. What do I desire? I desire Him. I desire that He would be exalted. I desire that more of the beauty of His character would be produced in me and Lord this is a difficult situation going without or experiencing this pain is hard. O, Lord I know, and I would desire in Your grace that you would remove me from the situation or remove the pain or whatever. But O God the desire of my heart is what? That You might be exalted, that I might draw upon your grace in this situation because of the fruit in my life you would be glorified. Whatever I ask is mine.


This is truly a relationship of friendship, of intimacy, of fellowship. I can come and speak to him and ask him and share with him the burdens of my heart. Now part of the evidence of my heart condition comes when I am open to whatever His answer is. Paul besought the Lord three times, remove my thorn in the flesh, 2 Corinthians 12 which we looked at this morning. God said no. Paul accepted it. What do we find him, rejoicing, boasting and glad now in his weakness and in the trial God wouldn’t remove because I will see it through God’s will and plan for me. It didn’t mean he couldn’t ask for it to be removed but it meant he had to be willing to accept God’s answer even if God’s answer is no. Every one of my prayers has been answered, many of them with the yes’s I wanted. But I got the answer. If I had gotten every answer yes, I would own a car lot and fifty houses and all kind of foolish things, and I probably wouldn’t be serving the Lord in the ministry of His word. I would be too caught up with the foolishness of my immaturity. Praise God He doesn’t give us everything we ask for.

Verse 17, “This I command you that you love one another.” And we have to stop there. This command to love here is important because you know what? The world hates us. And that is where he goes on in verse 18, “If the world hates you.” You see how he flows in his discussion. He gives an order to it. We have just talked about love. Let’s talk about hate. And it is an absolute necessity that you love one another. I command you to love one another. And you understand you are going to be a people in a world that hates you. And he says why they hate you. And the church has lost total sight of this today. We are on a course to try to fit in the world, have the world like us, don’t say nasty things about us, always have good things to say about us. Churches want to be respected and well-thought of in the community. Jesus says the world hates you because it hates Me. So, I have to realize I experience His love, I experience the love of His people and I better not long for the love of the world. James said it clearly, ?Friendship with the world is enmity with God. I can’t have both. The church is making a disastrous agreement with the world today thinking they have gained something. Look how popular we are. People like us. They speak well of us. Woe to you when all men speak well of you for so did they of the false prophets.

So, all the more important that we be focused on His love and our love for Him and our love for one another and by His grace will even enable us to even be more faithful in our walk in the world. Isn’t God great and gracious for what he has done in our life. He is almighty God and His Son talking about us that He would bring us into a relationship with himself, a relationship of love, of friendship, a relationship of life and power that by his grace he produces the beauty of his character in us unworthy, undeserving, is it not humbling to consider the work that God has done in us. Here is Jesus Christ on the verge of his crucifixion, the agony of that awful death that he is sharing the graciousness of God in this chapter. What a God we have. What a privilege to serve Him. How tragic that anything should dim my perspective, should cloud my vision. Does anything matter as long as I have Him, that I am His and He is mine? I mean is there not anything that we can endure or can’t endure? I have everything in Him. And in His grace, He gives me friends, others of like mind who are joined in a relationship of oneness with God, a relationship of oneness with other believers and there we experience the fullness of God’s love, the fullness of the love that He produces in us for one another. May this church be a place for He is honored, a place hated by the world but a place where the love of God abounds in great measure. Let’s pray together.


Thank You Lord for who You are. Thank You for the majesty of Your person. Lord we are in awe to think that You are the vinedresser as this chapter began. You are the One who is working Your purposes to provide a salvation so wondrous and so great. Your Son was here that He might die, give His life. Lord how privileged we are to be called the friends of God, to be in a relationship of love to you, an abiding relationship where God abides in us and we abide in God, to have Your life and power flowing through us so that the beauty of Your person is being developed and produced. Lord may the longing of our heart be that more of the genuine fruit be produced in us. May we rejoice in the pruning process, the hardships and the trials and the pain and the suffering as well as the blessings, the joys because in it all we see your loving hand molding and shaping, developing us all in preparation for an eternal glory. We give you great praise for your great love. We desire that Your love will flow through us to others that many might come to know the savior that we love and serve. In His name we pray, amen.