Chapter 15 Verse 9

• How exactly does the Father love the Son?  With a love from everlasting and to everlasting.  Immesurable affection…intimate and unchanging.  Unconditional and invariable…a constant love.  And amazing here…Jesus says with that same fervency, with that same strength and intensity, He loves us. 
• An unknown author once wrote, “love is not who you can see yourself with, it is who you cannot bear to see yourself without.”  Jesus could endure the full strength of sin.  He could endure the entire responsibility of all creation within the grip of His hand.  He could endure the shame of all humanity’s failings and trangressions.  He could endure scouraging.  He could endure the complete might of evil.  His endurance…immeasurable, vast and eternal.  Yet His absolute desperate love for you, unquestionably supreme.
• Jesus could not accept that you were lost to Him.  That you and I were taken from the Father.  Each year 258,000 children are stolen from their parents in America.  The pain and agony of losing your little one to criminals…monsters that mean harm and abuse…that kind of suffering is unimaginable.  And each of us, born into sin, were stolen by the evil one from Him.
• And that day, nailed to the criminal’s cross, He proved just how far He was willing to go to get us back.  To break the chains of sin upon us.  You know what else broke that day?  It wasn’t any of His bones.  It wasn’t just the power and the penalty of sin.  It wasn’t Satan’s grip upon this world…it was His heart.  Physiologically and Spiritually, Jesus Christ died of a broken heart.  He could not bear being without you…do you see that?  And He has done all that He can possibly do…He has given all that He ever had…so that you and I can get home, back with Dad. 
• And if you can glimpse that…if you can see and hear and realize just how much every page of God’s Word proclaims His unfailing love for you through what He has done, what He has given…then abiding in that love is no problem.  Because love like that does not seek its own.  Love like that does not slumber or slack…and even though you may not see…even though you may not understand…by faith you “look through the turn” as it were and you rest knowing that you are not left as an orphan but even now, right now…your Lord and Savior is caring for you, loving you, providing for you with a love so fervent that it even mirrors the bond between God the Father and God the Son.
• Well what does it mean to “abide in His love?”  Look at the next verse, the third time Jesus has said this…

Chapter 15 Verse 10

• Jesus said in John 14:15, “if you love Me, keep My commandments.”  And then in John 14:23, “if anyone loves Me, he will keep My word.”  And now once again, this idea of holding to His word is equated to enjoying a continual, powerful and personal loving relationship with God Himself.
• Jesus’ love for us is wholly unaffected by our variation.  Whether we are a mess or whether we are strong…but I want you to know, our enjoyment of His love, our experiencing His love depends upon our continuance in Him.  To abide in Jesus is to abide in His love and to abide in His love is to keep His Word. 
• John would later write in 1 John Chapter 2 beginning at verse 3, “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.  He who says, “I know Him, and does not keep His commandments, is a liar and the truth is not in him.  But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected (or continuing) in him.  By this we know that we are in Him.  He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.” 
• A.W. Tozer once taught, “Our Lord told His disciples that love and obedience were organically united.  The final test of love is obedience.”  And so you say you love God and they say they love God but by their lives and by their living for themselves they show that they do not love God.  They may love what God can do for them…they may love the God that is made in their image…that caters to their flesh and their materialistic or self-centered desires…but the God that is acquainted with much suffering, the God that desires mercy, the God that gives grace and expects His children to give grace…the God that does not seek His own but serves even those lesser, because all are…no they don’t have a love for Him…
• And so some will read the words of Jesus, teachings like you find in Matthew 16, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, take upon his own cross, and follow Me” and those words will have no power because they conflict with what our flesh naturally wants to do…self-serve…but the end of self-service is destruction…and the Lord knows that and that is why He continually makes this commandment of us…so that we might find life…

Chapter 15 Verse 11

• All of these things, these commandments, Jesus’ words as they walk…all to protect and provide for us.  Child, the enemy of your soul is going to lie to you.  He is going to appeal to your flesh and to your emotions and to your senses and he is going to do his best to keep you joyless…but My words, I have written so that you would stay close to Me and in doing so, your joy may be full.
• An excellent word in the Greek there for “full.”  Plaroo…meaning filled up, complete to the point that nothing shall be wanting…

Chapter 15 Verse 12

• And here we have really the key commandment.  That we love.  Love is higher than any law.  Love is stronger than any rule.  And love is not so much an emotion…a feeling…it is a decision, an action.  You cannot command someone to feel.  You cannot command someone to love you.  And by Jesus here commanding this of His disciples it is evident that He’s not commanding them to “feel” something, but rather to do something. 
• Love often has nothing to do with how you feel…But what you find is that if you do decide to love…if you do take the action of love, often the emotions, the feelings the desires…they follow.
• It’s actually a biblical truth that where your treasure is, so too your heart will be.  But as a people, we have gotten so caught up on this idea of feelings, this idea of emotions as love…but truly love is based on a singular decision of commitment.  And Jesus says here, this is My commandment…that you make that decision to love…and the emotions, hey they’ll follow in due season.  You love someone as an act of your will and the emotions will follow.  Blessed are you who hear, read and KEEP the Bible says…

Chapter 15 Verse 13

• You see the proof of love…action!  Lay down your life, give it up!  For God so LOVED the world that HE GAVE!  You see we are so lost in selfishness and ripped off fullness of joy and blessed families and blessed marriages and blessed ministries as we maneuver and conclude and we follow after our feelings and emotions when real love is action.   Real love is resolve.
• “God fix my marriage of I’m gonna die!”  “God change my neighbors heart or I’m just gonna die!”  “God change my wife, my husband, my sister, my brother, my mom…change them God or I just can’t take it…I’ll just die.”  And God would answer, “die first.  Then I’ll fix it.”  Lay down your life, lay down your thing for them and what you’ll find is that is not only the proof of love, the laying it down, but its also the pathway TO love! 
• You decide to love by laying down your life for your friend, your neighbor, your wife, your husband and what you’ll find…love. 

Chapter 15 Verse 14 – 15

• In doing what we’ve talked about…you will know Jesus…you will learn Him and fellowship with Him, why?  Because that is exactly what He has done for you. 
• And now, because we are friends, because we are walking together in agreement…I reveal to you, I show you My ways and subsequently, what I’m doing…its so cool!  His purposes and plans and priorities are not hidden from you but you will see, you will know and you will ah-ha!  You gotta get into this cycle man.
• This cycle of trusting, resolving, loving, communing and then seeing…but look it all starts with YOUR decision.  If you are continually pressing against God and living outside of His word and will…then look you’re in for confusion.  You’re headed for frustration.  Don’t build your house on shifting sand…the storms they just come and they come and they come…build of the foundation of the solid rock and storms become soothing…joy completes, eyes to see are opened, ears to hear are popped!  And you come alive!  Alive in love and alive in peace and alive in joy! 

Chapter 15 Verses 16-17

• You know its interesting to me that mostly all Christians are just fine with agreeing that Jesus chose them.  You know, it’s a truth.  God has chosen you.  He has selected you and you have selected Him.  But did you know, or are you able to accept that He has ordained you to go and to bear fruit.  To minister!  As we looked at last week what it means to bear fruit.
• Well not me, Matt.  I’m not ordained you know.  I don’t have the certificate.  Look man you don’t need a certificate!  Here it is!  Jesus chose you man and now He’s sent you filled with His Spirit, abiding in His love, and empowered by the truth of the Word to go out and minister.  Serve, love, seek and save…but just talking about this, especially one-on-one sparks some sort of fear in us…that we’re not good enough.
• Well look, Jesus says you are!  There is a story that is told about a private in Napoleon’s army.  And the story goes that one day Napoleon’s horse got loose and took off and this private went after it and was able to catch it and bring it back.  Upon his return, Napoleon said to this private, “well done, captain!”  Well the private with eyes as big as saucers saluted smartly and went immediately to the supply tent, got himself a captain’s uniform, and moved into officer’s quarters.  He didn’t argue with his commander in chief, he didn’t think on his own inadequacies…no, he just said, “Yes sir.”
• Likewise, Jesus calls us friends, He has chosen us, He has ordained us, He has enabled us and He has sent us as ordained ministers into this church, into our homes, into our places of work…and all that’s left for us to say is, “yes sir!”
• And look at what’s next here, Jesus says that in doing so, in trusting in Him, in believing Him and abiding in His love then “whatever you ask the Father in My name He will give you.” 
• If you walked into a store and made a hundred thousand dollars worth of selections and then pulled out a check with Matt Korniotes at the top of it…well you’d be in a heap of trouble…either that or poised for embarrassment.  But if you pulled out an authorized check with the name Bill Gates at the top of it then hey, no problem!  Because the issue isn’t how rich you are its how rich is the person from whose account your drawing from!
• And that’s the beautiful thing about prayer.  My request in prayer and your request in prayer isn’t based on how many devotions I’ve had this week, how many folks I’ve witnessed to this month, how many hours I’ve spent in prayer today.  All of that is irrelevant because in prayer, man when my heart is right and my perspective is correct then man I’m praying in total accordance to God’s will and therefore I’m drawing from the bank of heaven based solely upon the riches and righteousness of Jesus Christ who look has placed His name upon you child and has given you His name to wield against the powers of evil! 
• How free and effective and frankly more frequent your prayer life will be when you understand what it means to use Jesus’ name with the Father!

Chapter 15 Verse 17

• Once again, Jesus makes His command of us.  Love eachother.  Lay down our lives for eachother…make that decision based not upon emotions or feelings or circumstances but as an individual act of our own will simply because You Lord have commanded it of us…and in doing so, we’ll be popular and embraced right?  Hold up…Jesus continues…

Chapter 15 Verse 18

• Man its incredible isn’t it?  Seemingly backwards…if we love then why are we not loved back?  Because understand this type of love, the love that we have received from the Father…is foreign to the world.  Its offensive to the world.  It speaks of humility and service and truth!  Just as Jesus loved man…all He did was love and what did the world do to Him?  Crucified Him!  Why?  Because His love and His truth and His power exposed them!  Busted them!  They said they were power.  They said they were truth.  They said they were it!  And then here comes One on the scene, eating with sinners, loving the rejects, having nothing to prove and boom!  Their complete artificial fasade was wrecked!
• And the same will happen to you.  But watch out if the world loves you…Jesus continues…

Chapter 15 Verse 19 – 25

• Verse 23 is key here.  It has direct relation to the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus said, “blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”
• Look, persecution experienced because you are obnoxious yields no reward…but persecution will certainly come if you are living for Jesus but man stand firm!  You are bringing eternal honor upon the name of the King of Kings.  And take pity on those that are lashing out against you…pray for them because in reviling you, in hating you, they are hating the One who sent you, who chose you, who ordained you and Jesus says here…not Him only but also the Father.

Chapter 15 Verses 26-27

• So cool here because after laying out this seemingly not so comforting news, Jesus reinforces that they will have a Helper.  The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father.  And notice the Holy Spirit’s ministry…to help, to prepare and empower us to witness…and probably most importantly, to testify to us and through us of Jesus Christ. 
• So awesome, that as Jesus walks with His close friends through the night to the Garden of Gethsemane He is not overcome with hostility or hatred but rather He is making provision for those that are about to crucify Him!  His kindness just busts me.  His power impresses me and His calling humbles me. 
• I pray that this week we find ourselves abiding in His love…filled with His joy and energized with His purpose…to bear fruit and lead many to freedom!