If You Love Me

If You Love Me - John 14:15-21

Intro: I have a story to share with you this morning. The phone rang. Jill picked it up to hear a feeble voice say, “Is this St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church?” Jill thought, “I don’t have time for this.” The lady conditioned, “I live alone and am confined to a wheelchair. My children live in another state and I just get so lonely I can’t stand it. I’m not able to get to church. Could you just talk to me for a few minutes?” Jill felt embarrassed because she had planned to meet a friend for lunch. Returning to the conversation Jill said, “I am glad you got the wrong number. I would very much like to get to know you. Please give me your name and address and I will be there within the hour with lunch and we can get to know each other.”

I VS. 15 – “If you love me . . .” Today it seems that “love” had become just a word. It is a word often spoken and rarely demonstrated. Our society has become careless with the way we use the word “love”.

A Think for a moment about who you love. Why do you love them? Do you love Christ? Why do you love Him? How do you love Him? What evidence exists to prove your love for Christ?

B I once heard that if you were brought before a court being accused of loving Jesus, would there be enough evidence to commit you?

C Love Christ Jesus involved more that Sunday Christianity, singing in the choir, serving on a committee, being an Elder. Loving Jesus means that His will not mine must be done. The rest of VS 15 says “You will keep my commandments. How do we even begin to do that daily?

II Every parent has heard at one time or another, “If you love me, you will . . .” A song from My Fair Lady has in its lyrics these words: “Don’t speak of love lasting through time. If you’re in love, show me.”

A Christ Jesus by His obedience to God showed the love of God. Jesus knew that obedient love would be difficult for humanity and therefore made us a promise.

B VS. 16 – “I will ask my Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.” The GK word is parakletos / pa?a???t?? having several meanings in English: intercessor / counselor / advocate / comforter.

C This means Jesus has asked God to have the Holy Spirit come on earth to be the substitute for Christ Jesus while Christ is away from the world. The Holy Spirit is therefore the one who comes forward on behalf of Jesus to help us in our living out our lives as Jesus would have us live.

III Sometimes we are like Jill, impatient, busy, and not willing to take time to love. Often showing love in inconvenient because loving with the love of Christ takes time and compassion.

A Love costs us something: patience, time, and perhaps even sharing a part of ourselves. Love is difficult for some people to give in love in a genuine way. Loving obedient to the teachings of Christ Jesus and doing as He would do can be difficult, unpredictable, and inconvenient.

B What we must remember is summarized in VSS 20 & 21 “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

C Two important words and IN and YOU. The word “IN” is e? which establishes a relationship. It can be “among” especially when we combine it with the word humin / ?µ??. That word is one every southerner understands. It is the plural YOU which in southern is Y’ALL. You all. These two words assure us that the reason we can love with the love is Christ is that Christ Jesus is among all of us so that we can support and love each other.

Concl: I have a song I want to share that explains how and why we can love. It is “LOVE IN ANY LANGUAGE”

(word and music by John Mays and Jon Mohr)