Sermon Central
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If We Love Jesus... Series
Contributed by Rick Crandall on Feb 28, 2020 (message contributor)
Summary: If we love Jesus... 1. We will let Him provide us with His peace (vs. 27). 2. We will rejoice in His return (vs. 28). 3. We will keep counting on Christ (vs. 29-31). 4. We will follow His footsteps (vs. 31).
If We Love Jesus...
The Gospel of John
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - August 23, 2017
(Revised February 28, 2020)
BACKGROUND:
*Please open your Bibles to John 14 as we continue to focus on the night before the cross. Here in the last few hours before Jesus died for our sins, He spoke to His disciples about the most important things. And one of the most important things of all is our love for the Lord. Loving God is so important that Jesus mentioned it 6 times in this chapter.
*In vs. 15, Jesus said, "If you LOVE Me, keep My commandments." In vs. 21, Jesus said, "He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who LOVES Me. And he who LOVES Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.'' In vs. 23, "Jesus answered and said to him, 'If anyone LOVES Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.'" Then in vs. 24, Jesus put it in the negative form: "He who DOES NOT LOVE Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me." Finally, in vs. 28 Jesus said, "If you LOVED Me, you would rejoice because I said, 'I am going to the Father,' for My Father is greater than I."
*Nothing matters more than loving the Lord Jesus Christ. It changes our lives in drastic, miraculous, everlasting ways. And tonight's Scripture helps us see how. Please think about that as we read John 14:27-31.
MESSAGE:
*You've probably heard God's greatest commandment. The Lord first gave it to us in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. God's Word also speaks of loving the Lord eight more times in Deuteronomy. The Book of Joshua speaks about loving the Lord twice. And Jesus confirmed this greatest of all commandments in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. For example, in Mark 12:29-30 Jesus said, "The first of all the commandments is: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one Lord. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.' This is the first commandment."
*God greatest commandment is for us to love the Lord our God with every fiber of our being. But what does that mean for our lives? Tonight's Scripture helps us see.
1. FIRST: IF WE LOVE JESUS, WE WILL LET HIM PROVIDE US WITH HIS PEACE.
*Jesus is able, and willing to give us His peace. As the Lord told His followers in vs. 27, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
[1] GOD WANTS TO GIVE US HIS PEACE! AND WE SHOULD RECEIVE HIS PEACE BECAUSE IT'S DIVINE.
*God's eternal Son, Jesus Christ came into the world to give us peace with God. That's why in Romans 5:1-2, Paul tells Christians that "having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God."
*Christians: We certainly "have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." But more than that, Jesus IS our peace. Paul explained this truth to us in Ephesians 2:12-18. There, Paul was talking about the Old Testament division between Jews and Gentiles. And he compared life without Jesus to the life we receive when we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior.
*Paul said:
12. . . at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
13. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been made near by the blood of Christ.
14. FOR HE HIMSELF IS OUR PEACE, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of division between us,
15. having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace,
16. and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.
17. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near.
18. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.
