Last week, we received an awesome message on the secret to living a fruitful life by staying connected to Jesus, the vine. Little did either one of us know what God was up to. Where Tammy left off in John 15, I’ll be picking up today. Isn’t being filled with the Holy Spirit so much fun?
As we, the branches, remain connected to Jesus, the vine, we receive all of the provision that we need to live a full and fruitful and abundant life. As it was shared last week, “Remaining Connected to Christ Creates within us Christian Character which produces Christian Conduct bearing the fruit of Christian Converts.” Essentially, we multiply into the lives of others what we, ourselves, have received from Jesus.
If we want the good fruits of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we must remain connected to Jesus, the vine, through which the Holy Spirit flows and fills us. Without that connection, no good thing can grow or be produced in our lives; only the fruits of our flesh.
Today, we’re being reminded of an awesome revelation. When we are saved, we are not only adopted into the family of God with the Heavenly Father being our adoptive father, but we also transition from being enemies of God to being friends of God.
Let’s begin where we left off last week and continue through this same teaching of Jesus:
John 15:9-17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
Now I have to be honest and share that I always struggled with these few verses because Paul later writes that:
Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
If nothing in all creation is able to separate us from God’s love, then why is obedience required to remain in God’s love?
Well, we could spend a whole lot of time on this, but the truth is that love that is forced, love that is not chosen, is not love at all.
Nothing external from ourselves can stop God’s love from reaching us. Nothing in all creation including demons and death can stop God’s love from reaching us. Nothing can change God to stop loving us, either. His love is perfect and unconditional and eternal.
However, we can choose to reject His love by rejecting Him by disobeying how He teaches us to live the lives that He gave us.
Remaining in God’s love is a choice that we must make. This Greek word (meno) means to remain, to abide, to dwell, to continue in, to tarry, to be held by. All perfect words to describe what we choose to do with God’s love by obeying Him.
It’s not obeying God to earn God’s love or to deserve God’s love. Nope. It’s obeying to choose God’s love, to trust God’s love, and to remain in it.
God’s love toward us is constant and unchanging, but how are we at returning this love? God is an amazing friend to us, but what kind of a friend are we toward God?
Proverbs 17:17
A friend loves at all times
Why does Jesus teach us to abide in His love?
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
We are the ones who benefit from obeying Jesus and dwelling in His love and we are the ones who suffer when we sin and choose to disobey Jesus. Obedience brings not only blessing, but complete joy, Jesus’ joy!
Other translations state that we will receive joy to the fullest or a complete joy or overflowing joy or that our hearts would overflow with gladness.
When we choose to obey and to dwell in God’s love and to receive His overflowing joy, what could possibly be next?
To let it overflow into the lives of others!
12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
The greatest expression of God’s love is complete selflessness. It is the willingness for one to choose to lay down their lives completely all to benefit someone else. That is true, agape, Godly, love. Selflessness.
When we choose to live this way, following the example of Jesus who first lay down His life for us, far more happens than just abiding or dwelling in God’s love!
14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Friends of God. What an honor! What a privilege!
God doesn’t just boss us around as servants telling us what to do. He shares the purpose behind why He calls us to do things. He shares with us what is on His heart and mind. He reveals to us His plans. He calls us friends.
It brings joy to Jesus when He is able to give us revelation and share the Kingdom secrets with us! One time after sending out His disciples to minister and having them return excited that even demons submitted to the name of Jesus, it’s recorded that:
Luke 10:21
At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
Full of the Holy Spirit’s joy! Pleased to give revelation to simple people like you and I! Friends of God! Jesus said:
John 16:12-15
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
The Spirit of truth has come and dwells within the life of all who have received Jesus’ salvation. The Holy Spirit guides us into all the truth! He shares revelation with us; secret things that the Father gave to Jesus that Jesus gives to Holy Spirit that Holy Spirit shares with us.
This has always been God’s desire; that we would seek after Him and that He would share His revelation with us and guide us through life. However, we don’t often seek Him.
Acts 17:24-28
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
God wants to be found. He wants us to seek after Him. He wants to be our friend. He does not keep secrets from us, He keeps secrets for us! He wants us to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit boldly; with audacity!
Luke 11:5-13
5 Jesus said to them, “Suppose you have a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; 6 a friend of mine on a journey has come to me, and I have no food to offer him.’ 7 And suppose the one inside answers, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is already locked, and my children and I are in bed. I can’t get up and give you anything.’ 8 I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your shameless audacity he will surely get up and give you as much as you need.
9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Seeking after God and faithfully obeying Him are ways to express our love and friendship with God. It’s one thing to say that we are someone’s friend and to say that we love them, but those words should accompany our action. Otherwise, we’re only deceiving ourselves!
James 2:14-24
14 What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? 15 Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”
Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder.
20 You foolish person, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless? 21 Was not our father Abraham considered righteous for what he did when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? 22 You see that his faith and his actions were working together, and his faith was made complete by what he did. 23 And the scripture was fulfilled that says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness,” and he was called God’s friend. 24 You see that a person is considered righteous by what they do and not by faith alone.
Abraham was called a friend of God and righteous because he backed His words up with action; radical obedience!
Friendship is running across the field, jumping the fence, climbing the mountain, pressing on through the smoke and flames, not being swayed by the thick clouds and lightning and thunder all because your friend called out to you from that place and you just wanted to be together with them. That’s exactly what Moses did when God called out to Him!
What keeps us from meeting with God? Far less than any of these things, right? We skip church because we just don’t feel like it or something more fun is an option at the same time. We’re just like the rest of the crowd if not worse!
Everyone else said:
Deuteronomy 5:24-27
24 “The Lord our God has shown us his glory and his majesty, and we have heard his voice from the fire. Today we have seen that a person can live even if God speaks with them. 25 But now, why should we die? This great fire will consume us, and we will die if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer. 26 For what mortal has ever heard the voice of the living God speaking out of fire, as we have, and survived? 27 Go near and listen to all that the Lord our God says. Then tell us whatever the Lord our God tells you. We will listen and obey.”
A friend doesn’t trust third-person hearsay about their friend. No, a friend speaks with their friend face-to-face. A friend creates a place to meet with their friend. A friend prioritizes time with their friend above other things. A friend would value that time together and long to abide in that place. A friend would beg to be consumed by the great fire that their friend is!
Exodus 33:7-11
1 Now Moses used to take a tent and pitch it outside the camp some distance away, calling it the “tent of meeting.” Anyone inquiring of the Lord would go to the tent of meeting outside the camp. 8 And whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose and stood at the entrances to their tents, watching Moses until he entered the tent. 9 As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the Lord spoke with Moses. 10 Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. 11 The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
Exodus 34:29-35
29 When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord. 30 When Aaron and all the Israelites saw Moses, his face was radiant, and they were afraid to come near him. 31 But Moses called to them; so Aaron and all the leaders of the community came back to him, and he spoke to them. 32 Afterward all the Israelites came near him, and he gave them all the commands the Lord had given him on Mount Sinai.
33 When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face. 34 But whenever he entered the Lord’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded, 35 they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the Lord.
Where are we at in our relationship with God? Are we just another person out there in the world having no idea what God is up to? Are we ones who are content just hear what God said and read what He wrote? Are we content hearing the stories of old and the miraculous things that He did?
Are we ones who value God’s Presence and respond when He is near, but choose to stand at a distance observing and worshipping? Notice that none of these people groups have their names recorded as they are all just another face in the crowd; not friends of God.
Are we ones like Moses who boldly enter into God’s Presence and meet with Him face-to-face, but just to receive what we need and then leave that place? Are we ones like Moses whose face beams with God’s glory, but then allow it to fade away as we spend less and less time in His Presence?
Are we ones like Joshua who long to abide with our friend; just to be in their Presence?
2 Corinthians 3:7-18
7 Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was, 8 will not the ministry of the Spirit be even more glorious? 9 If the ministry that brought condemnation was glorious, how much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness! 10 For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. 11 And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!
12 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. 13 We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away. 14 But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. 15 Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16 But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Let’s be a friend of God!
Let’s go from glory to glory!
Let’s abide in God’s love through radical obedience to Him!
Let’s tear whatever veils exist in our lives off so that we can soak in God’s Presence and allow it to more perfectly reflect to others through our lives!