All right, all right, you can open up your Bibles to John 15, John 15, the last couple of weeks we've been going after abiding in the Lord. Two weeks ago, I give a message on Jesus being famous for not giving us the exact answers that we're looking for, but usually giving us Himself and then sharing His love with us and giving us His heart. And then last week, Katie talked about how there's this continually finding our home in Jesus. And if you remember how we responded at the end of her message, there was this moment where we could actually process all of the hindrances that we're experiencing in everyday life that are keeping us from abiding in Him.
Do you remember that? And then as we're aware of those and noticing those, we actually, with Holy Spirit, brainstorm, what would it look like for me to take those things that seem like hindrances to abiding in God and they became on ramps into connection. And so that was where we landed last week. And this week, what I wanna do is lead us into a journey where we're actually just looking at the design of God.
How did God design us to live and operate, according to John 15 and 1 John 4? And I want us to dive into that because I think that what God has for us is something that maybe we've never lived in before. He's inviting us into the delight of obedience. Everybody say the delight of obedience.
That usually isn't two words that go with each other, is it delightful obedience, right? We have an emergence most of the time to obedience. And there's a stigma that sometimes we have when we think about obedience because we have bad experiences with control or manipulation or coercion that hinders us from actually going, obedience is good, I like obeying. And what God is wanting to get kind of like kick us in the pants with joy today in, is obedience is good for you.
And my goal is that we would actually have our minds change to go, actually, obedience is the best way. And there's a design, like an original design for life that God has for us that is going to feel just right for you and for me. And so I want to read again John 15, and then we're gonna jump into first John 4, okay? But John 15, it says this, we're gonna look at, and next week we're probably gonna talk about some of those difficult phrases in the start of John 15, like pruning.
How many of you love getting pruned, no? Okay? When it says he takes away the branches that aren't bearing fruit, and then we kind of feel like, okay, is he gonna take me away and throw me in the fire? You know, as you read this, starting John 15, so we're gonna talk about that.
But this week I really want to focus on verse eight, and moving into verse 12, okay? Say amen if you're there. Verse eight says this, "'By this my father is glorified, "'that you bear how much fruit, much fruit, "'and so prove to be my disciples.'" Okay, verse nine, as the father has loved me, so just to pause and give a little bit of context what's happening. Jesus just celebrated the Passover Seder with his disciples.
He just broke the body, you know, the bread, and gave them the cup of redemption, and he said, this is my body, take eat, this is my blood, take it and drink. They just left that room where they celebrated Passover, and now they're on their way up to the Mount of Olives, and they're probably walking past a great vineyard, and Jesus on the night of his betrayal. Are you catching this? This is like the morning, the evening before the crucifixion, and he's going, they need to know this.
They need to get this, and look at what he's thinking about before he goes to the cross. As he's in his last stretch, he says, "'As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. "'Abide in my love, make a dwelling place, "'make a home, set up a lazy boy, "'get a temper-pedic mattress, and abide in my love.'" So if you keep my commandments, who know? You will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love.
See, Jesus doesn't tell us to do things that he won't do. How many of you know you want a leader that is willing to do what he's asking you to do? And that's what Jesus has done. He's going, hey, I've set the example.
I'm showing you the way. Abide in his love, verse 11, these things I've spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy would be full. Jesus doesn't want you to have just some partial filling of joy. He wants you to have full joy.
He wants you to be stuffed with joy. How many have you ever eaten too much? And you're like, oh my goodness, I don't have capacity. There's no more capacity because I'm so full.
He wants you to be that full with joy. He wants you to be a glutton of joy. Do you know that God is full of joy? And he wants you to be filled with joy.
And we think that there's this strategy to get to joy that is usually shortcuts that leave us empty rather than full. So slide, Steve, I'm gonna change it up to service and I'm just gonna go jump right to the full picture of the image and we're gonna start with the image of the organic life, okay? Before you put it up though, I did an art project today, like drawing on a piece of paper and it's really bad, okay? It's like really, really bad and it's not profound.
When you look at it, you're gonna be like, okay, why did you even put that on the screen, okay? So I'm aware of that. So just I want you to know just managing the expectation. I know it's not that profound and I know the drawing is it good, I know it's not impressive, okay?
And I don't have an iPad so I can like draw it in real time because that would have been way more interesting. But I just took a picture of it and I just did that, okay? Are we all good? So it's not some profound technology.
I took a picture with my phone and emailed it, all right? All right, put this up. This is good. Wow.
Isn't that nice? Okay. Okay. So what I titled this organic life and the reason why I titled it organic life is because I wanted us to get connected with how this is the original design of God.
This is like, this is the most natural, how many of you know that all of the all natural products aren't really natural? So I had to go organic, okay? So this is the most natural design of what it means to actually be human, the way that God wanted us to live. This is the most natural to art design to live this way, okay?
So the first thing that we do, abide and dwell on his love. What does it say as the father's love me, verse nine? So if I loved you, abide in my love, then it moves into obey. And I want us to see the synergy of abiding and obeying or interconnected.
They're very closely connected. I'm gonna just read to you a couple verses that I think are interesting. You can, if you're taking notes and you're copying this masterpiece, you can write these other passages down next to abide, all right? John 14, verse 15, if you love me, keep my commands.
If you love me, keep my commands. Verse 14, 21, whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. John 14, 23 through 24, Jesus replied, any one who loves me will obey my teaching. John 15, nine through 10, as the father has loved me, so if I loved you now remain in my love, if you keep my commands, then you will remain in my love.
John 15, 14, if you do it, I command, then you are my friends. So there's all of these, like, if you love me, you're going to obey me. And then there's some awesome promises, like the one who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. How many of you guys want to see God and have him show himself to you?
Well, it starts with obeying my commands. Then there's another promise my father will love them and will come to them and we're gonna make our home with them. The people that obey Jesus teaching, or he'll be a friend of God if you obey him. And I think a lot of times we go, well, I want you to make, I want you to make home with me, I want to experience you, I want to be a friend of God, but I don't really want to obey you and I kind of want to do my own thing.
That's a problem, because when you signed up for Jesus and gave your life to Jesus, you actually gave your rights to do whatever you want to do over to Jesus, and you died to be in the God of your own life. And you died to even having the right or the choice to just kind of be the God to your own life. And so it feels like, oh my gosh, you mean I have to obey God? And it's like, well, that's, wait a second.
When you signed up to follow Jesus, maybe you didn't sign up for the same thing that Jesus was asking you to sign up for. Maybe you signed up for just a good prayer to get you to heaven, but you didn't actually sign up to follow God. This is what it means, you abide in the love of God, and then what is the overflow is, of course I'm gonna obey him, look at how he loves me. How many of you know that when it's very easy to obey someone when you go, well, maybe another way to say it is this, do things his way.
Some of us have this stigma around the obedience thing. So let me like do a backdoor obedience idea. Do it God's way rather than your way. And if you do things his way, knowing that his ways are way smarter than your ways, way more wise, way more loving, way more strategic, and then we get caught in this like, well, I've got a really great ideas.
Got good ideas, lots of good ideas. The Lord's like, I appreciate your ideas, beautiful ideas. Let's do it my way. And then you go, well, I kinda like my way.
And the Lord's like, well, do you want the better way? And it's like, no, I like the worst way. That's most of the time what we're doing. Actually, I wanna do my own way, even though it's worse.
And the Lord's like, okay, we'll see what the con, so in and repeat, you'll learn. All right. So we try to split up love and obedience, but Jesus, the night of his betrayal, and the day before washing our slate clean with his blood, he seems to not see them separate. He seems to think that they are combined.
This is the way to love God. This is the way to the Lord's heart. You mean it's not a worship song? That's not like the big key to get to God's heart and demonstrate our love towards him?
Well, like he loves that, but he seems to be communicating that obedience is his love language. So if you're like, oh, Father, what's your love like? He's like, I love so many things, but obedience, you wanna move my heart? And then you're going, well, what's the command then?
What are the commands that you, and he's like, just two, just two commands. And all of the other commands just fall under those two. And we're like, well, that seems really simple. And he's like, it is, it is simple.
These are my commands. Love me with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. In other words, love me with your spirit, soul, and body. And then love people with your spirit, soul, and body.
And how are you to love people? Well, you love them in the same way that you love yourself. So now you're loving, you're receiving his love, abiding, remember? You receive his love, then you respond to his love.
Look, over here, how do you, so you're abiding in his love, how do you abide in it and respond to it? You abide in God's love and respond to the way that he loves you through obeying him. So it's kind of like you could draw an arrow from obey back to abide, where they go back and forth, they bounce back and forth with each other. Do you see that?
Are you guys following me? And so that is summed up, that's the first commandment. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. It's a receiving and it's a responding.
That's what a husband does, where he loves his bride, and then the bride responds with loving in return. And how do you do that through obeying? Then what happens is it moves into fruitfulness. So, spirit, soul, body, loving and responding to love, receiving love, and then that obedience, it shifts right into fruitfulness, like Katie talked about last week, right?
Let's look at Galatians 5. If you wanna say it with me, many of you know this list, Galatians 5, 22. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. I always do it out of order, I'm sorry.
So last week, Katie talked about how the fruit that's being talked about is the fruit of the Holy Spirit, right? And there's also fruit, so that's spiritual fruit. Because remember, you're abiding in God in the spirit, but also in your mind, in your soul. And also you're receiving the love and affection over your body because you're three parts.
So you believe God loves my body, God loves my original design and how I think he loves my soul, and he loves my spirit, right? Then you respond in obedience in the spirit, but you also respond in obedience in your thought life and in your will and your wants and emotions and desires. So you're obeying God and you're obeying Him physically. So you're using your eyes and your ears and your mouth and your nose and your hands and your feet in obedience to God because they're instruments of worship, okay?
So that all up there abide in obey is a full body, full person thing. And so the fruitfulness that you get from abiding and fulfilling the first commandment, the outflow of that is fruitfulness, spirit, soul and body. So what we're talking about is the fruitfulness of the spirit, these are things that just happen. Galatians 5, you don't even have to try.
If you're abiding in obeying God, it's just like the fruit just starts happening in the spirit. Now, when we're talking about the fruit of the spirit and it's talking about love, well, who do you love people? Who do you express joy with people? How do you be gentle towards people?
How are you faithful towards people, right? Who are you kind towards, people? It's starting to sound like the second commandment is wrapped into the fruitfulness topic. Do you see that?
So then Jesus is saying, lay down your life for your friends. Let's look at 1st John 4. Let's look at 1st John 4 because what's happening is the Lord is trying to make it very clear all of this is interconnected. And I try to make a silly graph for you to see, to try to divide it up a little bit, but all is just so synergistic and it gets confusing because it feels like it's all mashed up.
And the Lord's going, yeah, in the moments of your life, it's all going to be mashed up. It's all just going to be like this cohesive thing that's happening. OK, all right. Just went like this really fast.
1st John 4, let's look at 1st 19. We love because he first loved us, right? So he first loved us, we're abiding. If anyone says, I love God, 1st commandment, but then hates his brother, he's a liar.
For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he's not seen. In this commandment, we have from him, whoever loves God, 1st commandment, must also love his brother, 2nd commandment. Keep on reading. Remember that in the Greek, there is no chapter breaks.
We added those, OK? So this is just one continuous letter. That chapter number five doesn't exist in the original manuscripts. So this is a continuous thought.
And this commandment, we have from him, whoever loves God, must love his brother, verse one. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the coming anointed king, Messiah, has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father, loves whoever's been born of him. By this, we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commands. For this is the love of God that we keep his commands, and his commands are not burdensome.
And what are his commands? The 1st and 2nd commandment. Love God and love people. This is your design.
This is God's design for your life. And we try to make it very complicated, and it's very simple. I'm going to love him, receive his love. Love him back.
I'm going to obey him, and that's how I'm going to show him. I love for him. Then out of that is just going to flow all of this fruitfulness and this fruitfulness is to actually bring sweetness. How many of you know fruit is sweet and colorful?
And that fruitfulness of gentleness, self-control, patience, kindness, love, that is going to get expressed towards people. Do you see that? And then everybody's going to just around you in your life is going to feel like, wow, this is amazing. Listen, this all the sweetness that I get, because I'm in relationship with you, right?
This fruit is sweet. Are you catching? OK. I'm trying to paint the pen.
So you get to be a blessing and become love everywhere you go. So as you're beholding love, now all of a sudden you are becoming love, and the second commandment is a natural outflow of the beholding and receiving of love, and then loving God in secret. And now when you're in public and when you're with people and when in your home, the second commandment is the outflow. And guess what happens?
It's not just fruitfulness in your relationships emotionally and physically. It's like this fruitfulness that you get from the spirit in Galatians 5, and then the soul, you feel emotionally healthy. You feel like you're more regulated with your emotions when you're following the design that's the organic, original design for God for your life. All of a sudden alignment happens.
And now, emotionally, you feel like you're not as manic. And you feel like you're more regulated emotionally because you're following his design because you've been obeying him, and it feels like things are clear. And so when you're obeying him, it's really good for your body, too. It's really good for your physical body to obey God.
Because what happens is as you make God be the one that's on the throne and your body, see, your body wasn't created to make all the decisions. Let's put up that other ground, that other drawing. I'm sorry. We're going to put the other drawing up.
All right, here we go. You remember the organic life, like the original design of God life? This is the life of the American dream. This is the life that's manufactured, that's synthetic, that we are in constant, produce, achieve mode.
And it's this sought after thing. We are working for love. That's where it starts. In the first picture, how we are abiding and resting in love.
This is you work for love. This is you achieve it, and you earn it, and you earn approval, and you earn success. That's where this starts. And then you follow your heart because you're the God of your own life.
You follow whatever you feel. You do whatever your body wants you to do. The difference between God's design and this is that God says, no, your spirit is going to be king. Because it's become one with my spirit.
But in this, your body calls the shots. And then because your body is calling the shots, it actually hurts your body because your body was never designed to be in charge. Your body is like a little three-year-old, four-year-old child that needs to be parented and told that you can't have candy all the time. Your body is a child, and it needs parented by the spirit.
And when your body is in charge, it gets wounded. It starts being unhealthy. Are you hearing me? So then your body says, OK, we're going to consume rather than give.
Right? Fruitfulness is for others. It gives. But the way of the world is others exist so I can consume them.
Everything in the world is to be consumed. But when you are following your original design, you exist to give because you're generous, right? And so then we go into consumer momentary happiness, and then we go right into rather than fullness of joy. We go into emptiness.
We feel empty. And then what, these are the two things that happen. When we feel empty, we either go right into consumer momentary happiness again, and we just start bouncing back and forth. Fill the emptiness.
Fill the emptiness. Fill the emptiness. Fill the emptiness, right? And it's this manic state of trying to be OK.
And then God's design is none of these. But then we know that there's something more. Humans know there's something more than just the momentary happiness. So then in the emptiness, people will climb the ladder into working for love again because they go, then I know that there's something more than just this momentary thing.
I need something deeper. I need love. Do you see that? So now I'm going to climb back into achieving for love and trying to get approval and start the process all over again because this is the rat race.
This is the hamster wheel of you are the God of your own life. And Jesus is going, let's abide. Let's put that other picture on the organic life one. This is your original design, abide in his love.
And I want to break off the lie off of you that says, that says, go in your own way is better. I want you to know that the truth is obedience. It's so good for you. Loving and responding to God's love is what you are designed to do.
You are designed to love him. And then you are designed to love people. I want us to reach on 15 again and go back to that passage. By this, my father is glorified when you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.
As the father has loved me, I have loved you. Rest and dwell in and make a home in my love. If you keep my commandments and love the father and love people and love yourself, you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my father's commandments and I abide in his love.
It says, all synergistic. It all works together. These things I've spoken to you that my joy may be inside of you and that your joy would be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.
This is how you were created. This is what the way that you were born to live. And what I want to call us into tonight is loving God again. I want to call us to love him.
The very best way to love him is to obey him. And that looks like obeying his commands, of doing it his way, loving him and loving others. It's all synergistic. But I want us to leave tonight with this decision in our hearts of, I'm going to obey you.
And I have this posture in my heart of anything you want. It's a yes. Any way that I can love people, it's a yes. Nothing is off limits.
It's all yours. Type of obedience, a heart that says yes. And so I want us to stand in. I just want us to make a conscious decision to sign up again, to go Lord.
I want to abide in you. I want to meditate on your love for me. Maybe some of you are in this place where you're going, I just feel like I'm in constant militant sin focus. And I'm not calling you into sin focus.
I'm calling you into abiding and love mode. I'm calling you into love mode, not you should, and how dare you and shaming, because that's not going to get you anywhere. I'm calling us into delightfully obeying. Going, man, you love me so much, Lauren.
My answer is always yes, because I know that you love me. You delight in me. Look at your so wise, your way is so much better. Your way is the best way.
And I just want to follow you, because I know that you know the best way for my life. And you have the best design. You're going to help me love people. You're going to help me obey you.
And I want you. Lord, I thank you that I don't have to try to muster up fruit. I thank you that I can just like receive your love and then make conscious decisions to obey you and do it your way. Just if you're willing, would you put out your hands to the Lord?
I felt like the Lord invited us to actually ask him a question that would be a vulnerable act of like, Lord, and here's the question. I'll just ask the question. Lord, what does it look like? Or is there anything that you want, any way that you want me to obey you?
How can I obey you? I want to joyfully obey you. Is there anything that you're highlighting to me where I can obey you? Or whatever that looks like, you can just, with your hands open, you can just picture in your hands this openness to say, yes.
If you want to even picture like, remember when you were in middle school and you used to write on your hands, you just have a yes written on your hand. It's yes, Lord. My posture is yes. I love you.
I love walking and obedience. Maybe it's how you're to love someone that you've been struggling to love. Maybe it's something where you're going, man, this is actually, I haven't been loving the Lord with my soul. Maybe I haven't been loving the Lord with my body.
Maybe there's certain things where the Lord's putting this out and going, man, would you love me? Spirits will embody in that way. And Lord, we just say, it's a yes. It's always yes for you.
It's always yes. Lord, I thank you that it's not by my might or by my power, but it's by your spirit, that your spirit is strengthening my yes. Lord, I thank you that all of the fruits actually happen because there's a yes in my heart and it's affection and love for you. And so Lord, I declare strength over all my brothers and sisters.
Lord, I thank you for just a baptism of hunger, a baptism of desire over them. Lord, would you give them an ache on the inside, an ache of love? Lord, I thank you that you have put inside of us a divine design to abide and to obey and to be fruitful and to be full of joy. And Lord, I thank you that there's this beautiful cycle that you're calling us into.
And so Lord, I ask for fullness of joy in Jesus name. Thank you, Lord. One of the things that I want to encourage you with is that when we talk about abiding and obeying and fruitfulness, and then that fullness of joy, I think on the side, you don't just have to go through that whole process to get to fullness of joy. What's so beautiful about our relationship with Jesus is you can have fullness of joy and you can shortcut to, or you can be abiding and shortcut to fullness of joy.
And you can be obeying God and actually shortcut to fullness of joy in those moments. And you can experience fruitfulness and like, whoa, I was so patient there, that was great. And it was like fullness of joy right there in the moment. There can be these shortcuts right to that.
And that's why I'm saying it's synergistic. It's all working together, but God has joy for you. God has so much joy. And do you know where joy comes from?
Love. What love sounds like is joy. When love is fully expressed, most of the time, it looks like joy, right? It looks like laughing and joking.
I don't know. Okay, I'm done. But I love you guys. Hey, Wednesday, we've got prayer.
There's people out front that would love to pray with you. Why don't you guys, if you're on Ultra Ministry, come up front. And we'll see you at a prayer room, Divo sets at 6 PM. Men's Prayer is at 7 AM tomorrow morning.
And then we've got Intercession at 8 PM. So you're at least be blessed. Ready, set, go. If you want to receive prayer, come up to the altar and receive prayer after the service.