Father's Love on Mother's Day

John chapter 15 and we're just going to read a few of the verses but beginning in verse 9 would you join with me there screen, words on the screen we're memorizing and we're quoting I preach out of the New King James verse 9 as the father loved me I also 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 while my joy may remain in you 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 that you love, lay down

His life for his friends you are my friends if you do whatever I command you no longer do I call you servants for a servant does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friends for all things 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 remain that whatever you ask in my in my name he may give you these things I command you that you love one another father God I thank you for your reading of your word father there's something holy about us all having it in our mind that even more importantly Lord to have it in our hearts it says that I have committed I have treasured your commands in my heart

He shares his family with you. We are joint heirs. We get his inheritance. Praise God. And we should love one another as part of the family of God. Would you pray with me? Father God, thank you for mothers. Thank you for this day. But God, thank you that you called me your child. Thank you, God, that each one of us here can simply say, You chose me.

I don't have to choose you first. I just have to receive that you chose me. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

That I may not sin against you Lord keep it in our minds but also in our hearts Lord may you bless the reading preaching implementation and father the practice of your word in the name of Jesus Christ we pray amen and you may be seated my message today is going to be a

Lot but here's what I I want you to do I want you to listen and say is this for me is this what I'll God you're trying to tell me something I left a lot of blanks in there for your message for you to write your notes if you don't have a pen one of our wonderful deacons we have a whole slew of pens and they're yours to keep if you need a pen raise your hand anytime during the service one of our deacons will hop up run to you give you a pen there we go got one already here comes the deacon right behind you that's what the deacons are is they are servants and they're going to come bring you a pen but we want you to take notes because God spoke to me in this message I wouldn't be up here preaching

I don't just make it up this is going to be from the word of God and the only way we can hear is through his holy word we have to listen to God's word now I'm not saying what I say is anything in fact my prayer is almost every Sunday Lord get me out of the way I want you to speak through your word and the first thing that we are going to see in the passage that we read today about seeing the father's love on Mother's Day is that there is an abiding love an abiding love that we have that word abide we say about it two weeks in a row what does that mean to abide

It means to dwell in it means to be present with it means to continue to remain in love Jesus encouraged his disciples to love by holding up the father's love for him as an example he said as the father loved me so I also have loved you look at it right there as the father has loved me so I have loved you second verse 10 if you keep my commandments

You and say well does God have to do I have to keep his commandments for him to love me no he says this is how you can show

Will abide in my love as I've kept my father's commandments and abide in his love verse 11 these things I've spoken to you that my joy may remain with you and that your joy will Now I want to tell you this specifically about Word remain or abide is a powerful word. It's used over 16 times in chapter 14 and 15. 16 times, 11 times in chapter 15 alone. It does mean to dwell. How many of you want God to abide in you? Say amen. be present with you? Now one day,

Continue with you? Say amen. Whenever, you know, I heard a preacher say this last week. He said, you know, if you don't get anything out of the sermon, part of that is on you. You need to kind of interact with me because whenever I hear those amens, that kind of says like, you know, sick them to a dog. Now if you've got a dog by the seat of your pants, you don't want to say sick them to you, you know, because he's already got you. So if you're not saying amen, it may be because God's got you by the seat of the pants or somewhere else and he wants to speak to you. But if he's speaking to you and you want God to keep speaking to you, interact with him.

But I want to say this. Why did John keep saying abide? Do you think he just ran out of words? You think he was just, couldn't have another better word to do it? Or do you think that God through the apostle John was abiding in him and encouraging him, one, number one, that it's a choice for us to abide on our part. He doesn't, he doesn't challenge, he doesn't challenge us to do things that we have to do anyway.

He challenged us to abide because it's a choice. You have to choose to be in God's word. prayer. You fellowship in church. go out and witness. You have to choose to obey God. And so he is saying, I know you're going to have to choose on his part. But secondly, not only is it a choice on your part, it's a command on his part. He is telling you, not suggesting you, it's not the 10 suggestions. And this right here, this abide is not a suggestion. It is a command because it's a choice on our part. And he wants us to do that. Secondly, not only is that because God's emphasizing that, but unbelievers abide in darkness.

Unbelievers, write down John 12, 46. Here's what John 12, 46 says. I come as a light into the world that whoever believes in me should not be afraid. be afraid. Not abide in darkness. Not going to dwell live in darkness. If you believe in Jesus, you're going to live in the light. And here's what he says. He said, unbelievers abide in darkness.

Here's another one that he says in 1 John 3, 14. He says, we know that we have passed from death into life. If you do not have Christ abiding in you and the life in you, you're abiding in death. One, you're in darkness if you're not a believer. And two, you're abiding in death. And here's what 1 John says even more. He said, he who does not love his brother abides in death.

You have to love him, believe in him, and then love others. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Did you know? You can murder somebody just by having hatred without a cause in your heart. Let's look at this. Not only do we see that we have his command, it's a choice on our part that unbelievers abide in darkness and in death. But thirdly, when we abide in Christ, we have joy. And not just abiding joy, but the fullness of joy. Anybody want to have joy this morning? Abide in Christ. Can I tell you, here's kind of a cool thing. This is so wonderful about the fullness of joy.

The fullness of joy is as far ago as 3 ,000 years ago. A thousand years before Christ was born, King David prophesied this in Psalm 1611. It's not in your notes. You have to write it down, put it in there, look it up later. Psalm 1611 said that he prophesied that there would not just be joy, but fullness of joy. Amen. God wants you to be full up with joy, not happiness. There's a difference between happiness. Happiness is based on circumstances. Jesus was sorrowful, and yet he said, you can be full of joy even in sorrow. I heard Adrian Rogers say this. He said that the shortest verse is not in the Greek and the original version of the New Testament is not Jesus wept, but rejoice every more.

The number of words is the shortest verse in the Scripture from 1 Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians. And it's the shortest verse like Jesus wept. It is the shortest verse with the greatest impact. Not only does God have sorrow, yet he fills us up with joy, and he commands us to be full of joy. Remember, we studied this on Wednesday night. Psalm 51, after David was convicted of his sins with Bathsheba, he wrote this. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me by your generous spirit. Verse 11. Psalm 51. Then I will teach transgressors your ways. If you you uphold me with your Holy Spirit, then I'm going to teach transgressors your ways and sinners will be converted.

Do y'all want to see a revival We're going to have a revival in September. I mean, a series of meetings that we're having. Revival means to bring life again to those who have already been alive. So we are not abiding in death. We're abiding in life. We need to have a fresh wind and a fresh fire to come upon us. That's why we're preaching towards Pentecost. Pentecost is the birthday of the church. And whenever a thousand years before Christ even came, David was prophesying that you would have fullness of joy. Remember the Christmas song, Joy to the World? That's based on Luke 2 .10. Joy to the World. It's not just a Christmas song. The angels proclaimed when Jesus was born that there would be joy to all people of all the earth.

Joy came with Jesus. We're on that countdown to Pentecost. Can I tell you? The first sermon that Peter preached, Acts chapter 2, Peter was quoting David. If you want to look it up, Acts 2 .25. I'm going to read it. For David says concerning him, talking about Jesus, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand and I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope for you did not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption.

You have made known to me the ways of life and you will make me full of joy in your presence. You say, was he talking about Jesus? No, he's talking about David. Peter was preaching of what David said. And he said, whenever Jesus comes and he resurrects us, he's going to give us power and fullness of joy.

Fifth, if you're counting, joy is the first byproduct of the fruit of the spirit. Remember in Galatians 5 .22 starts off with love and it says, this is the fruit, not the fruits, the fruit of the spirit. That's what we're preaching about today is love. There's only one fruit. Now there's byproducts of that love, that byproduct of that fruit. The first fruit is love, but the first byproduct is joy. Joy. He says, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Amen. I I may have left off one, but the first one is joy. God wants you to be happy, but he also wants you to have joy. He doesn't mind if you have sorrow. In fact, he was a man of sorrow, full of grief, and yet he had joy, full joy.

Now I want to tell you, 1 John, John wrote 15, but also John wrote three letters, three epistles called 1 John, 2 John, and 3 John. He also wrote the book of Revelation. But whenever he was writing, the first letter that he wrote to the churches, he said, here's what I am writing. Verse four, 1 John 1. He says this, and these things we write to you that your joy may be full.

Your joy is full. When you abide with God, he's going to give you fullness of joy. And in fact, it's not just any old joy. He says that my joy will be, in you, my joy, Jesus's joy will be with you. You can be at this most sorrowful part of your life. And yet, if you have Christ, you have joy. If you have no Jesus, you have no joy. But if you know Jesus, K-N -O-W, you know joy. Without the abiding love, everything else is meaningless. I want to read to you 1 Corinthians 13, also known as the love chapter. But I'm going to read it to you out of a version that you don't hear very often.

And especially not from me. It is not really a translation. It's a paraphrase. And it's even what they would call a liberal paraphrase. In fact, it's so liberal that some parts of it is so off of Scripture. You may say, is this really in the Bible? Now you say, why are you reading this?

It's not heretical, but it's a different way of reading 1 Corinthians that's so wayward. known to many of us that it talks about how we should have love. So listen, just sit back and listen to it from the message. If I speak with human eloquence, don't worry, I'm not. But if I were an angelic ecstasy, but I don't have love, I'm nothing more than a creaking of a rusty gate. If I speak God's word with power, revealing all of his mysteries and making everything plain, as day, and if I have the faith that says to a mountain, jump, and it jumps,

I am nothing. If I give everything that I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't have love, I've gotten nowhere. So no matter what I say, what I believe, or what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than it does for itself. Love doesn't want what it doesn't have. Love doesn't strut, doesn't have a swelled head. I love that. Doesn't force itself on others. Isn't always me first. Doesn't fly off the handle, amen, or blow. Doesn't keep score of the sins of others, amen, or blow. Amen. Doesn't revel when others grovel. Doesn't take pleasure from the suffering, but it takes pleasure in the flowering of truth.

Puts up with anything. Trust God always. Always looks for the best. Never looks back, but keeps going to the very end. Love never dies. Inspired speech one day will be over. Praying in tongues will someday end. Understand. Understanding will reach its limit. And we only know a portion of the truth, but what we say about God will always be incomplete. But when the complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled. Amen. When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left my infant ways for good. We don't see things clearly. We're squinting at the fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright.

We'll see that as it is then. See that it's as clearly as God sees us. Knowing Him directly, just as He knows us. But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things that lead us toward consummation. Trust steadily in God. Hope unswervingly. And love, I like this, extravagantly.

And the best of these is love. Now that's the end of the reading from 1 Corinthians. I'm going to see if I have it here. Yeah, I do. If you're a first-time visitor, I want to tell you, we give away these books. I wrote this a few years ago. That passage is written in there. And it says this,

Love is not a warm feeling. Love is not just the icing on the cake. Love is the flour, the sugar, the egg, the mixing bowl, the spoon, and the oven that it's made in. Without love, God would not have sent Jesus. John 3 .16 Without abiding love, Jesus would not have laid down His life. Romans 5 .8 Without

Chosen us before the foundation of the world. Ephesians 1 .4 Without love, we would be separated from God in Christ. Romans 8 .29 How dare we say we love God if we don't love others? Now that's point number one. The rest of them are going to be shorter. Point number two, no greater love. Look at there. No greater love. Chapter 15, verse 12 and 13. Now this is my commandment, that you love one another. I love you. Greater love has no one than for him to lay down his life for his friends. Greater love. I want to point out what our purpose statement is. And it's in the bulletin. If you have your bulletin, turn around on the front part.

And wasn't that a cute picture? Looked like that little mom that came here today with these two little girls. So pretty. So cute little girls. I just love seeing them here. But at the very bottom, it gives our purpose statement.

I'm afraid I don't emphasize our purpose statement enough. Let's read it together as to glorify the triune God. That's the God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit through the great commandment and the great commission. That's our purpose statement. You want to know what a purpose statement of a business? That's it. Now you may say, Pastor Tim, what's the great commandment? In fact, I want to ask you, would you ask Pastor Tim, say, Pastor Tim, what is the great commandment?

I'm glad you asked. I'll just tell you what it is. The great commandment is found in Matthew chapter 22. It says, A lawyer came and asked Jesus a question, and he said, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment of the law? Jesus replied, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second one is like to it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments, hang the law and the prophets. But Jesus, Jesus gave us a new commandment, even greater, at least it's more difficult than the great commandment. Here's what he says in chapter 13, a new commandment I give to you.

Verse 34, write it down. You can look back, just flip back a couple of pages in your John 14,

That you love one another. As I have loved you, that you also love one another. You say, well, how's that a new commandment? First he said, love others as you love yourself. Well, some of you may not love yourself too much, and that may be part of your problem. Because you don't know that God loves you. If you know that, then you have to look at yourself and say, wow, if God loves me, there has to be something worthy of my love.

And then I can love somebody else. We cannot love unless we understand that God loves us.

Love yourself, and then love others in the same way as what he said there in Matthew. The night before he was betrayed, he said this, a new commandment I give you. Love as I have loved you, so love one another. By this all people will know you're my disciples, and by your love for one another. Can I tell you something? That's the great commission. Great commandment is love God and love others. Great commission is to know that God has given power on earth to do To Jesus Christ. And as a result of that, we can go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the

Age. Amen. We can know that. That's our purpose. To triune God through the great commandment and the great commission. Point number three. Jesus goes on and he says, about a friend's love. Let's look at a friend's love. Verse 14 says this. You are my friends. Oh man, isn't that cool?

I love that song. And I am a friend of God. I'm a friend of God. You know, it's one thing to be his child. But you know, you're kind of stuck with your family. But you can choose your friends. Jesus chose us. Here's what he said. You are my friends if you do what I command. No longer do I call you servants. For a servant doesn't know what the master is doing. But I've called you friends. For all things that I've heard from my father, I've made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. And that your fruit should remain.

That whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give you. These things I command you, that you love one another. See, that's his commandment. It's not keeping the rules. It's just loving people and loving him and accepting his love for us. Number one, I want to tell you about a friend's love. Number one says this. We're no longer servants. We're his friends.

Jesus elevates us from servants to friendship. I used to be at a church called Friendly Baptist Church. And you know what's bad about Friendly? Is if you're not very friendly. You know what? know what? When you go there. Or to look around in the congregation and say, you know what? I don't have a single friend in this church.

This church is a friendly church. It may not be in our name, but we've got something even greater. We're called Grace Point. We are the point of grace. If you are bringing your addictions, bringing your failures, you're accepted here. We are all gloriously imperfect at this church. But Jesus is gloriously perfect. He no longer calls us servants. We're his friends. Secondly, in that passage, we see in verse 15 that the Father reveals there. The Father reveals.

Friends share their hearts. Someone said, so and so is a good keeper of secrets. And I said, you know what? I'm not that way. I don't keep secrets very well. In fact, if I lie, my face turn red, my ears turn red. I'm just a transparent kind of guy. Sometimes I find it hard to even keep my wife's Mother's Day present a secret from her. So I figured it out. I just don't buy her anything.

Not true. I asked her, I said, what do you want to do for Mother's Day? And she said, I want to see my grandkids. So I drove her off to Abilene Friday night, came back last night, and I'm dead tired. But she's happy. She's back in the nursery right now. She loves children, but she especially loves her grandchildren. But I don't keep secrets.

But I do keep sharing my heart. I get in trouble as a preacher because I share my heart too much. I'm kind of transparent. Not kind of, I am transparent. I love you people, and I want to tell you I love you. And if that gets me in trouble, it does. Somebody even said, you're so hungry for love. I said, no. I really do love this church. You just don't know what I've been through in my life to see at the very, kind of towards the end, hopefully not the very end, Brother Leroy, I want to go as long as you are, 92, 91, 92. But at the end of my life, to be a pastor of a loving church like this blesses my heart.

And I wouldn't say it if I was just making it up. I love you. I may not always show it, but that's my problem, not yours. Friends share their hearts, and Jesus shares more than his heart. He shares his spirit. He gives you his spirit. He says the same spirit's in me and the same spirit's in the Father. I'm going to put in you and the Holy Spirit. That's what he does. Number three, he chose and appointed us. Look at verse 16. He chose us first, but what was his purpose? We just read it. As we saw it in the purpose statement, his purpose was us to love God, love others, love ourselves, and then love others as he loved us.

Number four, the reason whenever he, a friend's love, he reveals it is that we're to love one another. Look at verse 17. This is a key. This commandment flows from friendship. It's not like a demand. You know, I'm not going to be your friend if you don't act this way. That's not what he does. He's not saying that. He's saying, if you really are my friend, you're going to want me. You're to do this love.

We love and obey because that's what he did with his father. It wasn't conditional love. It's the same type of love that he loves us with is that we're to love others and love him back that way. Number four, the last point here, and we're going to go quickly through that. We didn't read this portion, but I'm going to read it right now. You don't have to stand. But 18 through 25 says this. If the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

We are rapidly approaching the end times. Somebody came today in church and said, hey, you preached, we had a, you had a seminar on end times and we did. Gary Frazee came and preached about the end times. You know what? We're closer now than ever. He's coming. We know that because not only does it hate us, but it calls us the haters because we love people to tell them the truth. We speak the truth in love. Look at verse 18, 19. Now, if you were of the world, the world will love its own. That's a good sign. If you're getting hatred from the world, it means that you're going in the opposite direction. The devil hates you.

I want to tell you, there are things coming out in the news. I'm not going to get into that, but there's going to be deception. There's going to be lies. Jesus promised us this. Don't be surprised if you're tricked by AI, for instance. Or you're tricked by UFO. All these acronyms, you know.

UAPs. They will trick you. If you can, what do we need to do? We need to go to the spirit of truth. The truth and word of God. Here's what it says. Verse 19. Yet because you're not of the world, because I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they're going to persecute you. If they kept my word, they're going to keep yours also. Verse 21. But all these things they will do to you

Because of this. Read the rest of it later. Let me summarize this, everything. The world has a hatred for us. But the spirit of truth is going to testify that we're not alone, and he's going to bear witness of that.

It's a love that costs. Verse 27. The truest love. And every mother knows that. We're going to bear his witness. Love is going to cost us. I think it's down on the bottom of that phrase, slide, I saw this phrase. It says a mother's love mirrors that costly grace.

Love is given freely and is sustained sacrificially. So what's our take home? Here's some take home points from up here. If you'll go to the next slide. Number one, we said, is abide. Stay connected to the vine. Number two, the greatest love, love that costs nothing is not the father's love. It's going to cost you everything. Number three, chosen. He chose you in friendship. And the gift is not to be received as a work, but it's just something to be done. Friendship with Christ is a gift to be received. It's not a work to be earned. And witness. Even in this hostile world that hates us and hates Jesus and hates God, then it accuses us to believe.

We the haters. What do we do in response? We love them. We witness. And the best witness is to love one another. He said, if you love one another, the world will know you're my disciples. Look. Look around. Look around at these people. Love them. Love each other. Look around. Look around. Say, you know what? I got to love these people. I may not like them, but I'm going to love them. Okay? Doesn't say you have to like them, but he does say you have to love them.

And Leroy, sometimes you just got to say that to somebody. Well, you just got to love them. That's all you got to do. But God loves you. And he doesn't always like what you do, but he loves you. That's why we need to treat one another. The Lord has appeared. Here's Jeremiah 31 .3. Look at this verse. Jeremiah 31 .3, great verse to memorize. The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness I have drawn you. God loves you.

John 15 says, Abide in it, love. Live from love. Down at the bottom, you have a Grace Point summary. It says, God most greatly revealed his love for us in the context of a family. That's your blank. Only blank you have. Write it down. He revealed his love. His love is a family. He calls us brothers. He calls us Heavenly Father, our Father which art in heaven.