5/17/20 John 15:9-17 “What the World Needs Now…”

15 May 5/17/20 John 15:9-17 “What the World Needs Now…”

5/17/20    John 15:9-17    “What the World Needs Now…”

I would like to begin by telling you about a week I had once.  It had been quite a week.  It began on Monday when I joined a group of pastors at a spiritual retreat in Fargo.  I wasn’t real fired up for going because it had been my experience that sometimes the leaders of these events have their own agenda.  So, I went there with a not so open mind and who do you think I found?  Jesus was there.  On Tuesday I went down to our camper to open it up.  The only time that it didn’t rain was when I hitched up the boat and when I unloaded the Jeep.  After I was unloaded, I sat down for a spell and who do you think I found?  I found Jesus.  On Wednesday, I found Jesus in several places.  On Thursday I went to a funeral of a friend at a funeral home in Fargo.  I wasn’t sure what I would find there but who do you think I found.  I found Jesus.  I am as guilty as anyone about going places and doing things when I don’t expect to find Jesus.  But I praise the Lord that every place that I do go, I find Him.  Jesus is everywhere and we find Him in the places where we least expect Him.  Today we are going to pick up from where we left off last week.  Last week we talked about how we are the branches attached to the vine who is Jesus.  We have no life unless we are connected.  Today we are going to further this thought to the point of loving each other.

I hope that you notice and enjoy the sayings that I have been telling you in our openings.  I get them from various places.  The current ones, ‘Isn’t it strange,’ came from Sharon’s sister.  I would like to add this phrase to some comments made by Pastor Jeff Strite.  He says, “Isn’t it strange that you can tell a woman that she looks like a breath of spring but you can’t tell her that she looks like the end of a hard winter.  Or isn’t it strange that you can tell a woman that time stands still when you gaze into her face but you can’t say that her face would stop a clock.  These are basically the same things aren’t they?  Or isn’t it strange that we punish a child for lying but then we send them to answer the phone telling them to say that we aren’t home.  Isn’t it strange that a speaker who needs no introduction always gets one?  Or isn’t it strange how a pastor will say, “In closing,” and then he keeps on talking.  And lastly, isn’t it strange that we are such sinful, vile human beings and Jesus still wants to call us his friends?

As we begin, we have kind of a two-part understanding to love.  Jesus says “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”  Just think about this for a minute.  God loved Jesus so much that He shared everything with Him.  He shared his power, his love and his eternity.  This in turn is how Jesus loves us.  He wants to share his power.  Look at all the healings that took place after the resurrection.  Look at all the healings that take place in our modern world today.  Even in your own community you can see the hand of God at work in the healing of many people.  Think of these miracles as you reflect on your God moments this week.

Furthermore, Jesus wants to share eternity with us.  This is part of the plan.  This is why Jesus had to die on the cross.  Jesus died so that death could be defeated.  We no longer have to worry about death.  Of course, we are saddened when a friend or loved one dies.  But we are not stricken.  We live in the knowledge that we will all get to heaven to rejoin these people someday.  We will all get there that is, if we attach ourselves to the vine.  Otherwise, you won’t get there.

Jesus wants to share his power, his eternity and lastly his love with us.  This is where we are now.  Jesus commands us by saying, “Remain in my love.”  Notice that he doesn’t say, “Try out my love.”  Or this is something you may want at some time.  He commands, “Remain in my love.”

We live in a world that tells us that we shouldn’t take orders or edicts like this from anyone.  From a world point of view, this is probably very good advice.  Look at some of our dictators around the world.  They demand obedience.  They demand this and they demand that.  And in return the only thing that the people get out of it is their lives if they are lucky.

Even in this country where we have a so-called democracy, we don’t take too kindly to demands.  We are upset that we are told to close business due to the coronavirus.  Fortunately, we usually don’t have to follow these demands.  But following Jesus is different.  He demands that we love like Him so that we can remain in Him with all his power, love and eternal blessings.  Jesus Christ is life.  As we talked about last week, we have to be attached to Jesus to have life.  All else is death.

The thing that we have to do is pretty simple.  All we have to do is obey Jesus.  Think what would happen in the world if everyone obeyed Jesus.  We would have no more wars.  We would have no more hate because of your color, or religion or where you live.  All the things that bring immoral dictators to power would be gone.

We had an interesting discussion on this in youth group one time.  We were talking about loving our enemies instead of hating them.  How is it possible for us to love someone who has just made fun of us or even if they have hit us?  How do we return the hate with love?  This is a question that we struggle with as adults also.  When we are assaulted, we are not to strike back.  We are to smile when people put us down.  These types of responses are not suggestions but they are a command from Jesus.  Behaviors like this have been proven to work yet we still retaliate.  I read this somewhere and I don’t remember where but this person said that Christianity is the greatest religion in the world that no one has ever tried.  Turning the other cheek is one of the things that we never try.

Jesus is telling us that we are to love our neighbors and everyone is our neighbor.  We are to love them as Jesus loves us.  Jesus knows that to do this is hard.  He knows that the world that we live in is corrupted.  Just about everything that is around us is broken.  But we are to reach out anyway.  The United Methodist Church is one of the fastest growing churches in Africa because they reach out.  They do this by first going in and helping the hungry.  They give water to the thirsty.  No one can hear the message of Jesus Christ if they are starving or dying of thirst.  These people are our neighbors.

We spread the word of Jesus by getting next to the people.  I was recently reading a book on the history of the early church.  We like to think that many ancient people came to know Jesus by the preaching of Peter and Paul.  And this did happen.  But what happened more often during the first three centuries was that people came to know Christ by having a Christian working next to them.  People like you and me spread the word just by loving like Jesus.  It was one person at a time.  This was evangelism.  What we call evangelism today wasn’t even a factor.  To love like Jesus loved is to put your arms around your neighbor and care.  Look at them eye to eye.

Even today if you ask Franklin Graham or Rick Warren what the most important part of their service is, they will say something like this.  Of course, Jesus is the most important person there but the new convert has to have someone who will come along side them after their so-called conversion.  If no one helps the new Christian on a personal first name basis, then all will be lost.  You know Jesus on a personal, first name basis and that is exactly how you are to reach out to others.

The next thing that Jesus tells us here is that you can have no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends.  We just talked about this a couple of weeks back but I am going to revisit this from a little different angle.  I don’t think that anyone here today has physically laid down their life for anyone yet.  Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here.  But we may be called to do this.  We don’t know.  I like the way the ancients handled this problem.  At the time Christians were being persecuted, they would be set free if they would only recant and say that the Roman gods were supreme.  And many people did this and they were welcomed back into the Christian community because in the view of the early Christians they were not supposed to be martyrs.  They felt that there were only a few who were called to be martyrs not everyone.  But I do digress a bit.

What I wanted to mention is that many of you have given up your lives for your friends and family.  I did this also about 28 years ago as I came to know Jesus.  I left the old John behind and I became a new man.  This is the sacrifice that we all make.  We die so that we may live.  This is the sacrifice we have to make to be attached to the vine.  We become new people in Christ.  So, if you are here today and you don’t know why or if your life just doesn’t make any sense.  There is a reason.  If you wake up in the morning with no energy or purpose, if you find yourself going along with every new fad that comes along, then I ask that you accept this age old advice.  Ask Jesus Christ into your heart and give up your old life.  Give it up because it is worthless anyway.  Let Jesus give you purpose.  Let Him shine out of you.  Let Him help you to make this sacrifice.  You will find that this isn’t just a sacrifice for yourselves.  It is for the betterment of your friends and family.  And after you are there you will find that it isn’t much of a sacrifice anyway.  Jesus wants you to be the best that you can be.

And if you need a better reason for all of this then as we read on, we find that Jesus wants to be our friend.  He no longer considers us servants.  He considers us as friends.  Think about this for a moment.  Here we find Jesus who is stronger than all the nuclear bombs in the world put together.  We have Jesus who knows more than if we hooked every computer in the world together.  We have Jesus who is more creative than all the finest artists who have ever lived.  We see this in His creation.  Here we have Jesus who can now be in every place in the universe at the same time.  We have Jesus who knows all the great people of the world.  He is on a first name basis with Moses, David, John Wesley and Billy Graham.  Here is someone who has everything and He wants to be your friend.  He not only wants to be your friend; He wants to be your best friend.

Our country is in a great crisis because of this concept.  I’m not talking about the concept of not knowing Jesus and that may be the most important problem we have.  Rather, I’m talking about the concept of having good friends.  I think that we try everything in our power to not have friends.  People have all of these hand held electronic devices that demand their attention.  A real person has to take second place to a little hand held box.  Satan loves cell phones!  We also like to build fences around everything.  There is nothing more detrimental to the development of a friendship than a huge fence that you cannot see through.  I find very few reasons for a fence that are good reasons.  We even try to build fences so that we don’t have to be friends with Jesus.

Also, some people work hard in missions.  Some people sing well in the choir.  Some people do great at keeping the building looking nice.  None of this has any meaning if you do not have a relationship with Jesus.  You need to be connected to the vine.  Then all of these wonderful acts take on a whole new meaning.  Then you can bear fruit.

We bear fruit because of this relationship where Jesus first chose us.  One of the biggest mistakes that we make as we go through this process is to say that we chose Jesus.  This will only be valid if you know that before you were ever born Jesus first chose you.  And to be right about this, you don’t choose Jesus, you accept Jesus.  You have been chosen already and you have good works to do that He has prepared in advance for you to do.  This is a God who has a tremendous amount of love for you and all you have to do is accept this hand of friendship.  And when you finally accept this, then all the fences will begin to tumble down.

And then, Jesus says once again that you may have whatever you ask in His name.  We talked about this at length last week so I will just say that when you are connected to Jesus in this friendship then you will ask for the right things.

Jesus finishes by saying “Love each other.”  This basically sums up everything.  When you love Jesus and are part of the vine, then we have to love each other.  Hopefully you have seen today how Jesus is a task master.  He is the task master of love.  He commands you to do the things that will give you a better life.  He commands you to do the things that you were made to do.  He commands you to love.

Think about that statement for a minute.  Jesus commands you to love.  What better feelings come than the feelings that come with love.  If you talk to children they will tell you of the different kinds of love.  They have the love of swimming, playing, eating and drinking their favorite drinks.  Jesus wants you to love like this and more and everywhere.  Just think of the revolution we could start if we would just love each other.  We would start a revival which this country so badly needs.  And it would all start with love.

In closing, and I am closing here, I would like to give you the words of a song that I grew up with from Jackie DeShannon.  It goes something like this: (I sing) “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.  That’s the very thing that there’s just too little of.”  Let’s change these words just a little to make them a little more clear and relevant. “What the world needs now is Jesus, sweet Jesus.”  Let’s pray.