MAY 13 2018 | Undying Love: Sacrificial Affection Turned Resurrection

Sea Change Church · "Undying Love: Sacrificial Affection Turned Resurrection" Pastor Harry Wilson · May 13, 2018
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Hi, I'm Angela King, and I'm in 6th grade, and I'll be reading John 15, 9-17. 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 have 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, than 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 have 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 the Father in my name, He may give it to you.

These things I command you, so that you will love one another. The word of the Lord. So awesome. Angela is, it's so appropriate she's reading scripture today, because any time in my Sunday school class, when we open to wherever we're at in the Bible, she's already got it open. She's like the first to flip and turn to that page, so it's super appropriate she's reading today. This has been just already just like a powerful, moving Sunday.

And my name is Harry, by the way. I'm the youth pastor on staff, and I'm just so, I feel blessed to get to preach on Mother's Day. Mother's, my mom has just played such an incredible role in my life. And not just my life, but the life of my siblings. My little brother Noah's here today. Noah, stand up. Love this guy. He's awesome. He's one of my best friends. And then my older sister, Addie, she lives in New York. And my mom has played this incredible role in our lives.

She raised us as a single mom, all of us just in tiny apartments. And we got so close. And I actually think growing up, there was somewhat of a unspoken, maybe silent competition for my mom's attention. And it makes sense. My oldest sister, Addie, she's the only daughter, the oldest girl, so she naturally needed my mom's attention. And then I'm the middle child, so I'm just needy by nature. And I definitely needed my mom's attention.

And then Noah, he's the baby of the family. And so he kind of got the attention. Like most of us were just competing with Noah for attention. And so the great thing about me getting to preach on Mother's Day is that today I win, right? Because how are you going to top this, Noah? Right? You're not. Right? I get to preach a sermon dedicated to mom. I like won forever on all the Mother's Days. So yeah. All right. So when we're talking about moms, this word that, like Joe even mentioned, that keeps coming up is this unconditional love.

It's something that we often think about when we think about moms. And so today what we're focusing on is the word love. We're going to focus really on that word, and we're zooming in on a passage of Jesus' teaching about love. But when we talk about love, we have to kind of understand the context of what kind of love are we talking about. In fact, in the Greek, there's several different types of love. They have about seven or eight different words all for love.

One of them is eros. And eros is a romantic love or a sexual love. And it's actually not used in the New Testament at all. You don't see that Greek word eros anywhere. You actually don't even see it in the Septuagint, which is the whole Bible translated into Greek. But eros, if you're wondering about that love, and maybe you don't want to turn to the 50 shades of whatever in the world, you can turn to Song of Solomon, and it'll clue you in pretty quick about what eros' love looks like.

I've got some Bible jokes up here today, so bear with me. And then another type of love is phylos. And phylos is a companionship love or a friendship love. And we do see this in the New Testament. We actually see this in John chapter 11 when Jesus goes to raise Lazarus from the dead, and he gets on the scene, and it says that Jesus wept. And the Jews respond by saying, See how he loved him. And they use this word phylos.

And when we get to our scripture today, our passage today in John chapter 15, Jesus is using, or it's translated, he's using this word agape. And agape is like an unconditional, sacrificial, overarching love that Jesus is talking about. Very similar to what we're talking about when we think of mothers on Mother's Day. And so let's dive in to this scripture that Angela read so beautifully. Let's look at verses 9 through 12.

As the Father has loved me, so I have 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 have spoken to you, that your joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Jesus keeps using this word, abide. And this is a much larger section of Jesus' teaching in John chapter 15, but we've zoomed in just where he's talking about love.

But throughout the whole teaching, he keeps using this word, abide. Abide in my love. Let me abide in you. And so I looked up the dictionary definition for abide. When something is repeated, that often it usually has some significance. And one of the main definitions is to continue without fading or being lost. To abide is to continue without fading or being lost. That means when Jesus says, abide in my love, it means that we are to continue without fading.

When we rest in his love, we find eternity. And not just that, then we are also found. We are no longer lost. So we find identity. We find purpose. We find meaning. We no longer have to run around with the cultural identity crisis of the day. Because we found that we're able to abide in his love. And so this sounds pretty good. We're thinking, we're like, okay, Jesus, this sounds good. Tell us how. Practically, how am I supposed to abide in your love?

And Jesus says, you will abide in my love if you keep my commandments. And we think, ah, that's a conditional statement. We don't do great with conditional statements. It's also a commandment. We're not always that great with commandments. But we'll hear you out. What's next? How? What's this commandment? And I think it's ironic that Jesus' commandment, in order to experience abiding love, is that we have to first practice loving one another.

We first have to practice loving one another. So first, who are you loving around you? Who's your group? Who's outside your group that maybe needs to be invited into your group? Who are you loving? How well are we loving one another? I put in your notes that the roadmap to eternity is etched in agape. This kind of love is made up of resurrection material, meaning it has the power to change lives, offer new vision, and new hope.

This is a powerful source of love. In fact, I think it's the most powerful resource as humans that we have available to us. And not only is it the most powerful, it's the most readily available. This love is the most readily available resource we have today. It's available here in this building. It's available through worship. It's available through prayer. It's available through music, through art, through nature, through exercise.

It's made available. So how available are you? How available have you made yourself to receive this love? Are our hearts hardening along with the surrounding culture? Are we potentially holding on to past hurt and we're building up walls? Or are we just too busy to stop and actually learn what it means to love those around us, to even notice those around us, and to rest in God's love, to get to know God, to know what it means to abide in Him?

Is our calendar just too busy? How available have you made yourself to receive this love? Let's read verses 13 through 15. 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've called you friends. For all that I've heard, my Father, I've made known to you.

I love that verse that there's no greater love than this, than to lay down your life for your friends. It's such a powerful teaching of Jesus, and what's amazing is it's exactly what He does for us. In the most powerful act of love that we've ever seen in our history, Jesus goes to the cross. The most powerful gift, most extravagant gift we can give is ourselves, is all we have. I think that's why weddings are so beautiful, when you see two people come together, and they give their lives to one another.

And it's such a beautiful thing, because that's all you can give. And Jesus takes that even further when He commits His body to the cross. And it's the greatest act of love possible, which makes the gospel the greatest message. The greatest message available to us today. And there's a lot of other messages out there. There's a lot of different messages in this world. And honestly, I find so many other messages in the world really interesting.

I find new ideas interesting, new science interesting, new books interesting, new music, movies. There's so much out there that I find interesting, but nothing is as compelling as the sacrificial love of Christ. Nothing is as compelling. And I don't just say this because it sounds good, like it sounds like the good Christian thing to say. I say it because it's been the most compelling thing in my life. And the difference between interesting and compelling is interesting has to remain interesting simply to hold your attention.

But compelling commands action. Compelling actually gets us to move. And that's what the gospel does. It compels us to move forward. And I've been inspired by so many people in this church who are compelling others in their ministry. I was thinking of Dr. Rutgard who spoke last week. And I was so moved by his ministry about how he stepped into his gifts. And that's his story to tell if you're interested. Not to, you can run and hide if now everyone's going to bombard him.

But he's got an amazing story to tell if you haven't heard it. It's compelling. So are we focusing on often we want to build these extrinsic resumes of interesting. We want to be as interesting as we can because we believe if we're more interesting we're going to be more loved. We're going to get more attention. And because we focus on that and we're searching for identity and being interesting we might lose opportunity to be compelling.

To compel others with the gospel. And that gospel has been the most powerful thing. that sacrificial love of Jesus has been the most powerful thing in my life. And often it was modeled through my mom. So often growing up that sacrificial love that Jesus has was modeled through my mom. Just a easy example from the sense as far as I can go back in my memory when I was in sixth grade I remember sixth grade camp was coming up and I went to just a public school and sixth grade camp was coming and I really wanted to go.

And just my mom was raising us single mom so we didn't have a ton of funds but I asked her I was like can I go? Can I go? And my mom wanted to take me but we couldn't totally afford it. And so she started calling she called a relative and asked for some help see if they'd pitch in. And I remember this is a small apartment so I'm listening in on this conversation trying to see if I'm going to get to go to camp. And I remember the relative saying you know I'm not going to be able to help and maybe Harry needs to learn sometimes that just sacrifices need to be made.

And I remember being disappointed but I think what stood out to me now is that I think my mom agreed with that logic that sacrifices need to be made. I think the difference was is she just believed they needed to be made on her part. And that's that that's Jesus' love for us is he makes this ultimate sacrifice on his part. And I ended up getting to go to sixth grade camp. So the story ends happy, right? My mom worked extra hours did what she could I went to sixth grade camp and it was actually such a powerful experience.

I ended up having it was just a public school but I had a Christian counselor who was a young man and I'm in sixth grade and he told us about miracles that Jesus had done in his life. He played music for us and that as a young sixth grader to see what a young 20 something year old was doing was a powerful thing for me as a young man when I grew up you know with my mom raising us not a real like big male figure in my life.

That kind of sacrificial love has the ability to change lives. So how well are we loving one another? How well are we modeling Jesus' example? Are we just too focused on building our own resumes of interesting or trying to find our identity? Let's go to verses 16 through 17. You did not choose me but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit that your fruit should abide so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give it to you.

These things I command you so that you will love one another. Jesus now gives us the ability to produce abiding fruit fruit of eternal qualities fruit that has the sealed patent of eternity on it. That means the product of our lives our daily wrestlings our daily whatever we're moving through in our life we have the ability to produce things of eternal qualities things like the fruits of the Spirit things like love joy gentleness peacefulness kindness all these things that we have the ability to produce because Jesus has given that ability when we abide in him so what kind of fruit are you producing?

Are you producing fruit of eternal qualities or are we producing fruit that seems to fade away with the rest of the world? What kind of fruit are you producing? And is that fruit if it's of eternal qualities it's going to be of invitation it's going to be inspiring it's going to be compelling and it's going to compel others to join in the family join in the gospel movement and follow Jesus and it becomes contagious Are we producing contagiously compelling fruit?

Sometimes I think I remember recently I was driving and I was listening to worship music and I was praying and I felt so close to God as driving on my way to school and it was a beautiful drive and I remember feeling like God if I could just keep you in this little sanctuary in my car if I could keep you in this little bubble I didn't have to share you and I didn't have to bump shoulders with other Christians and disagree on theology maybe I'd just get along a little easier maybe but the truth is is that I would be missing an essential part of Jesus' teaching of what it means to abide in his love we need each other it needs to be contagious it needs to compel other people that's God's vision that's the vision for his family is one major family that's why he dies on the cross we see a beautiful picture of what God does for us because God is torn between his great justice and justice has to without a doubt destroy all evil that is the just thing to do and he is a just God but then he's torn between his love his great love his unconditional love his agape and he's torn in the middle and so instead of punishing us he punishes himself that's the message and it compels us and it should compel others so we need each other in this place you're needed in this place if coming to Sunday is just checking off a check mark on your spiritual to-do list then you're missing the point we need to come here we need to get filled up so that we can fill that we can be compelled by others working in the body and go out in the world and continue to compel others we need one another it's more than just a spiritual check in the box and if it is for you then I just want to challenge you get to know more people watch their stories compel you and there's so many in this church doing amazing things I wanted to bring in a quote kind of to circle the tower as Adam would say and quotes by Pope Francis and he says this to be a mother is a great treasure mothers in their unconditional and sacrificial love for their children are the antidote to individualism they are the greatest enemies against war I think that's so powerful that sacrificial love that he talks about being the antidote to individualism because we live in such an individualistic culture and what that means is we have narrow vision we're so focused on moving forward and we're focused on ourselves and we don't see those around us in this individualistic culture but the antidote to that says Pope Francis is this agape is this sacrificial unconditional love that's the antidote to this culture and you know what it's an amazing thing that's happening I think there's a great physiological example of literally what's happening where I've learned about this in school where you're starting we're actually starting to lose some of our peripheral vision because we're so focused on tiny screens like our phones like our laptops and our TVs and we go outside less and so we're actually we don't need the same peripheral vision that we once needed and we're actually starting to lose it and that is a great physiological metaphor for what's happening in our spiritual life what's happening in this culture when we move forward we move straight forward and maybe if it's convenient we might love a few people in front of us but we're not great at loving those in our peripherals who are you loving who are you missing that's in your peripherals Jesus was an expert at loving people in his peripherals literally like absolutely literally remember the story of Zacchaeus where Jesus is walking by and Zacchaeus is a tiny man probably my size and climbed up he climbs up a tree right he climbs up a tree just to get a glimpse at Jesus and Jesus walks by catches Zacchaeus in his peripherals and says I'm dining at your house tonight that is powerful that is Jesus loving people in his peripherals for a man who was desperate and there are those in our peripherals who are desperate but because of our culture we move forward and fail to love them how well are we loving those in our peripherals when I was a little kid I actually did climb trees this is a total side note I would climb trees there's a picture of moms they see everything right moms have the best peripherals they do not lose that's why this love is so good is because moms see everything you are always in their peripheral vision right but their love is so good and maybe some of us in here because I don't want to generalize maybe some of us grew up and that's not what they felt that's been a lot of people's experience that's been my experience is this unconditional love of a mother but if you're in here and you didn't experience that first off I'm sorry I've I've struggled with so many family things and it's and it can be so challenging what's amazing that comes back to this gospel family is that we have Jesus as Joe recently said has such amazing fatherly qualities and motherly qualities because he created it all !

Amen? How well are we loving those in our peripherals? I wanted to let us out a little early today for Mother's Day so those are our questions I left some practical application on your notes that you can just go through these are just things that have helped me that I've noticed as I learned to abide in Jesus love and love others so with that we're going to invite the worship band up and we're going ! pray God thank you for your goodness thank you that you love us so unconditionally that we are always in your peripherals God that you have such a focus on us that you adore us that you have a motherly and fatherly love and that your gospel your good news of your son going to the cross dying and resurrecting for our sins is the most powerful thing we could experience so I pray today that's what we would experience we would experience the new resurrection life that we step into when we believe in your name when you invite us to abide in your love so I pray for abiding today God lead us to abide in your love so that it may be contagious as we invite others to rest in the goodness of your arms abide in your love we love you Jesus teach us to love you more and to be more like your son and to be more like so many of the amazing moms in this congregation amen we we we we we we we we we we we drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives customers drives drives drives drives drives drive drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives drives RA