Returning to John chapter 15, some found it a bit humorous this morning when I realized that I had much more sermon than we had time, but had I continued on perhaps you would not have thought it quite so humorous as I was only at Roman numeral one when we closed our service. So what you got this morning was an exhaustive, not exhausting, and exhaustive introduction for this evening's sermon. Why such an introduction? Why would it be required that we have so much discussion before we actually even get into the topic that is to be studied because it is so alien to our ordinary living? It's not foreign to our theology, it's not even foreign to some of our religious conversation, but as far as our daily experience goes, unless we simply want to register one more sermon on a topic that is familiar but studied a little bit more in depth. If we really want a sermon to have some impact, our minds have to actually be prepared. Unfortunately, our American religious traditions do not really lend themselves to our preparation to receive God's Word in that way. And so typically we do have a word for that day and a thought for that day and over time we do hope that it has its effect as it works this way into our lives. But when we come across from time to time, a sermon that or a passage where the teaching is so concise and compacted and that it should have such a revolutionary effect in our lives, we ought to pause and we ought to consider it a little more in depth. A passage that complements it as we seek to return our thinking to that from Colossians 3.16, I'll just read this and you can stay in John 15, I'm going right there. Colossians 3.16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and in monishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And obviously the emphasis as we reflect on the reading from this morning is let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. Just by way of reminder, I showed you in John 15 that John was setting up for us what we anticipated to be a parallelism, that is where Jesus says, abide in me and we would expect him to say and I will abide in you. But instead he changes that subject to say and the Word will abide in you and we wondered this morning about what the significance was of that change up. Why not say I will dwell in you for certainly we know that he teaches that in his spirit he does come to dwell with his people, but why here would he say the Word, the Word dwell in you and abide in you. Let's look together at John 15 reading from 7 through 11. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me so have I 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 that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be whole. The Lord bless the reading of his Word and the hearing of his people. Just to sum up this morning we contrasted the way of the world and the fruits of the spirit or shall we say the fruits of the world and the fruits of the spirit. We didn't speculate we turned to Galatians chapter 5 and there they were outlying for us pointing out that the list of sin could have been much more comprehensive. However there is no limit to man's imagination and creativity when it comes to sin and there will never be an exhaustive list. For once you have captured all of man's sinful thoughts he will create yet a new way to express his depravity. But in the fruits of the spirit we also discovered that the Christian ought to be. And I come so far close or so close to saying must be but I only draw back from that because I know that there is a progressive growth in the expression of the fruits of the spirit. But if we are and well by the Holy Spirit the Christian shall we say will be in possession of the fruits of the spirit because they belong to the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit dwelling in the Christian does not lose those fruits, those expressions of his own divinity but they come to be a part of the believer. And so we have to reflect on our own lives to see first of all are there any fruits at all present these fruits of the spirit. And if they are not that gives us serious reason to pause and to reflect upon our understanding of the gospel itself and on our relation with Christ and our walk with Christ certainly at the very least. And to seek to develop those fruits more and more knowing that it is not through the strength of the flesh or the will that we will possess these fruits but only because of the power of the spirit will we come to have an expression of those fruits. And to what end this actually was a very beginning point the glory of God the glory of God I mentioned that we sing of it every Sunday in the glory of pottery glory B to the father. We sing of it each and every week we teach it to our children in the catechisms was the chief end of man to glorify God and enjoy him forever. How wise were those who wrote the catechisms to capture this because we have to glorify God as our chief end and the result of the glorification of God is that we will experience joy and that's the teaching of our passage tonight. That our end is to have joy and that joy is to be complete and that joy is the result of glorifying God and if we don't glorify God we will not know that joy that is complete in Christ. We might have passing pleasure we might have enjoyment but we will not have joy complete in Christ the peace of Christ as Jesus has put it before that peace of Christ which the past is understanding is that not also a part of joy. And so as we continue through this this morning and I am so tempted to revisit that but I know I would simply be left having to again preach this sermon next Sunday we will move to our first of these gifts and I only in summary want to bring out this point. We were saying this morning that the way it's listed is the way that it has to go and I hate to use the word formula but it actually presents itself as a formula love that results in obedience equals joy. Now why would I phrase it that way because if obedience is first obedience does not produce love obedience produces a slavish moralism or legalism that actually serves to burden the believer but if there is a love of God then it's a natural outflowing that obedience would be the result. In love plus obedience God is glorified because it's by our obedience that we are known to be lovers of God and in that glory we find ourselves with joy but we can't seek joy first because joy will remain elusive. We have to first love God resulting in a life of obedience which then results in joy because the overarching theme to which everything in the Christian life is connected how can we say that it's our chief end to glorify God and in glorifying God we will enjoy him forever. So if the glory of God is our whole purpose then everything else that we do in study all of our all of our study of Christian obedience the gospel itself is connected to God's glory isn't the gospel to God's glory isn't the incarnation to God's glory isn't the atonement to God's glory aren't the people of God to his own glory isn't creation itself a testimony of God's glory. So if our Christian life is so ordered and our minds if you will are so ordered that we understand that God's glory is the focal point for everything we do then all of the rest will fall into its proper place otherwise we will struggle like someone with armed loads of groceries who never got the basket but thinking they can only grab one or two things and now they're overloaded trying to balance all of those in the Christian life and Christian walk. Because we walk around with all these disconnected parts of a Christian life but if they are united in the whole and that is to the glory of God what a perfect tapestry they will form. In John 15 Jesus is describing three qualities of fruitfulness because he says and we visited this morning that we are to be fruitful in our life and we're coming right out of that teaching of the vine and the branch and I pointed out this morning the flowing of sap from the vine to the branch. And the production of fruit and that flowing of the sap is the word which abides in us and that word must be in us we must dwell on that word and ponder that word and meditate upon that word and in doing that we will be in knowledge of and aware of God's will in our life so that we know how to be obedient and we do that out of a motivation of love and that being that sap being pushed through our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. But nevertheless the word being pushed into our soul by the Holy Spirit our lives then become fruitful and we also talked about every vine dresser or every farmer is glorified as pleased when his crop produces increasing amounts of fruit so the Christian life is not static. There should be growth in the Christian life as in Galatians 5 these qualities of fruitfulness that we are about to explore love obedience and joy which are listed also as fruits of the spirit these qualities do more than describe simply a character or quality of the Christian life. They are characters our qualities of the Christian person they are if you will our character who we are not simply what we do not just habits that we use to express ourselves they are who we are. It is correct to say the fruit of the spirit is to possess the character of Christ as our own and in the words of James Montgomery boys these are the indispensable heart of the Christian witness and in this we find the divine character. Listen now look where we left off this morning the first of these that is listed is love the first that we will talk about is love it's the first that Jesus names as the fruits that we are to bear love can be called the highest order of fruits or gifts and first Corinthians 13 Paul even names the gifts and he says these are the gifts that are granted by God to the church and he calls the greatest of all of them love in fact Paul said if he has all the others but he's not the greatest of all. He doesn't have love he actually has nothing at all so it's not a matter of how many qualities or how many gifts you have or how many talents you may possess the whole issue is if you have love none of them work to the glory of God. He calls himself as being nothing more than a noisy gong or a symbol if he doesn't possess love but love doesn't and it can't begin with us we can't conjure it up. We can't make ourselves love we can't say we love God until we acknowledge that he first loved us that's the teaching of scripture in first John 14 it says very simply we love because he first loved us. I like voices distinguishing of the three loves that are shown to us there he calls it first an electing love where God knows us in all eternity past and then he says that there is a love that is shown in the incarnation as Christ. Humble himself and became a servant for our benefit because of love and then there is love that is expressed at the atonement where he loves his bride so much that he would give his own life for her and so he sees these as three expressions of love and the scripture would teach us these as well. Concerning the electing love of God due to Ronomy 7, 6 and 8 of Israel God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession it was because the Lord loves you. Why did he choose people Israel because they were greater than all the other nations know because they had so much to bring to the table to accomplish God's will on the earth they had absolutely nothing to bring to the table. They had nothing to offer they had nothing to give they had no reputation they had no armies and yet God said I chose you because I love you and I elected you as my own because I love you I adopted you as mine because I love you and Ephesians 2 for speaking of the church. He chose us in him before the foundation of the world when did God love you before you were born did he love you because you have amounted to so much no he loved you because God is love. Did he love you because you have such high ambitions no he loved you because he's love did he love you because you have amounted to anything and he looks for the weak he does indeed use the weak for his own glory but that's not why he loved you he loves you because he loves you. He calls himself is love. Psalm 33 18 behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him on those who hope in his steadfast love this electing love of God is steadfast it's everlasting. God's sovereign decree of election is not based on anything arbitrary it's not based on anything random it's not based on good works is based on nothing but the love of God. God's eternal and perfect love shown in the election of his people to salvation and it's also shown in the incarnation first John 4-9. In this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his son that we might live through him is it this echoed and one of those favorite verses of Scripture John 3-16 for God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son. So this is the measure of the love that Christ had for us as the father has loved so have I loved you how much did Christ loved us love us as much as the father has loved him and as much as he has loved the father so he has loved us. It's an infinite love and Jesus we have a picture of a bridegroom coming for his bride and expressing love and beautiful often picked oral language that we might be made to understand such as and song of Solomon chapter 1-15 behold your beautiful my love behold your beautiful your eyes or doves or in chapter 2 verse 2. As a lily among brambles so is my love among the young women as the Lord looks at his people he sees us as beautiful not because of physical attributes but because of the contrast with that world which is falling. What is the extent of his love and revelations 21-9 come I will show you the bride the wife of the Lamb and in Ephesians 5 we understand the depth and the quality of Christ love for his bride husbands he says by way of analogy love your wives as Christ loved the church and what was the extent of his love for the church and gave himself up for her he died in obedience to God yes but because of love. God loved and sent his son Christ showing forth that same love died for those who could not die to save themselves our only hope was in the Lord and so he died that we might live the incarnation of Christ Christ becoming flesh was the unmerited voluntary condescension and humiliation of Christ to rescue his bride. Because of his love he heard the cries of his people and he came to save I wish we had learned to sing there's so many great hymns of the faith I wish we had learned to sing at some point in the past O love of God how strong and true sometimes it's number 81 sometimes you should turn to that read all the way through just this one verse O love of God how strong and true eternal and yet ever knew uncomprehended and unbought beyond all knowledge and all thought O love of God how deep and great far deeper than man's deepest hate self-fed self-kindled like the light changeless eternal infinite if we had him such as this treasured up in our heart stored up in our heart wouldn't we have some way of expressing an understanding of God's love but even hymns or no replacement for the word itself God's love is expressed in the atonement which is why Jesus said no greater love as man then he would lay down his life for his brother. Man may give diamonds to those he loves he may give rings and necklaces as tokens as symbols of love but there is no greater symbol that is stood before men as a testimony of true love than the cross saying Augustine said love is the fullness of the law we know from Romans 8 10 that love is the fulfillment of the law and so where there is love what can be wanting because the quality of the measure of this love is the same as God has for his own son it's a precious love it's a precious love to us in one to be cherished and we should give all of our energy to abide that is remain in it and Jesus tells us how we are to abide in his love in verse 7 he says to abide in his love we are to have his word abiding in us and again we find ourselves returning to that theme of that constant consideration and meditation upon the word and so the second fruit that we are to bear is obedience that second character of a disciple or characteristic that a disciple possesses is obedience and God is glorified in that obedience that springs forth from love again Jesus emphasizes that this is the very pattern he himself set for them in his own obedience to the Father it's important that obedience is second it's not superior to love and obedience cannot produce love but love cannot be true love without obedience to follow in chapter 15 verse 14 you are my friends if you do what I command you are in chapter 14 verse 15 just taking those numbers and and reversing them if you love me you will keep my commandments and then tracing your finger down to 21 whoever has my commandments and keeps them it is he who loves me so we see that there is a vital connection between an expression of love and obedience Jesus brings obedience back around to teach them that the only that only in this loving response can they truly abide in his love we say we want to know the love of God Jesus says you'll know the love of God if my word is in you and you have a life that is typified by obedience with the word within informing our actions we know we rest securely in his love it's so simple a concept and yet it's so often misunderstood people get wrapped up in the obedience but lacking love they then become legalist and so they begin to decry the law because they feel the weight of the law upon them and they decide that the law itself is bad and is against the very grace of God and so they run away from the law as an expression of glorifying God for his grace but in running away from obedience they are actually demonstrating a lack of love not an appreciation for grace Martin Luther was adamant that these two doctrines of Christian life should be taught and I have it all capital letters in my notes daily so simple are they conceptually and yet so easily lost to us no sooner do we have them in our hands than they are lost and maybe even right now you're wondering what are the two things I'm even talking about in the middle of the sermon on them so easily are they lost that even now you're wondering what too is he just love and obedience love and obedience Luther says these two items of Christian instruction must be inculcated daily in Christendom neither one dare be neglected he exhorts us after we have become his branches and now abide in him to hold together in love as his true branches and parts of his vine lest we be misled by alien doctrine and thus be cut off from him wherever love and unity are destroyed and schism and discord take root their agreement and doctrine disappears and defection from Christ ensues what a consequence there is of neglecting these two simple cardinal doctrines fostering the love for God not out of our own strength do we love God but by abiding in the word an neglect of the word will cause us to not love the Lord for his word is where we commune with God and the means of grace the word in the sacrament that's where by the power of the Holy Spirit we find our communion with the Lord and then as the Holy Spirit causes this truth to transform our lives we naturally live out the very character of Christ the third of the fruits that Jesus taught the first two love and obedience the third is joy Christians should manifest joy ask any young person whether their joy will come from following their own passions and their own dreams or obeying their parents and you're almost sure to hear that their joy comes from doing their own heart's desire they may obey parents out of respect but if you were to ask them which would you rather do most of them not all most of them would say I'm truly happy when I'm doing what I want to do it's human nature spontaneity rather than habits that have been trained and a commitment to a discipline life seems to bring them happiness and so we would answer those of us who have learned by our own folly in that regard if only ignorance truly was bliss but Jesus is here teaching that a lover of God is filled with the word of Christ and lives to manifest the same obedience that Christ had for the Father and that obedience in love leads to real joy joy is the flag that flies over the Christian heart announcing that the king is in residence joy is that mark of true Christian fellowship with the Lord a joyless Christian now I don't mean a Christian that is under duress or a Christian that is being persecuted or a Christian that is sick or Christian that is at hard times I mean a Christian without joy is a Christian I would contend that is not walking with the Lord for those who have known the Lord even in the deepest darkest persecutions when they're being starved or thrown to the lions we read in history that they still expressed joy even in their death as the martyrs are burned at the stake they sang hymns of love for God were they mad? No they had joy and peace because they had the word of Christ stored up in them abiding in them and they had such an assurance and they had lived the life of obedience that their joy was complete a Christian's joy discovered and made complete by following the pattern an example of joy given by Christ is a complete joy one that complements the peace of Christ the supposed joy of the world's carl it's temporary shallow and complete and eventually and this is key eventually it consumes that joy of the world will eventually consume the one that is seeking it or it will consume the one that is used by the one seeking it to try to attain it to try to attain some sense of human euphoria or human peace in the very most virtuous sense will consume it will not add to and build up such worldly pleasure is an antithesis for what we were created to find for there is nothing in that that glorifies God is the deception of the serpent in the garden at the very beginning do you really need to abide in God's word and obey God surely not take and eat this and find true joy wasn't it the initial deception of man to seek joy in some other way than to abide in God's word to be nourished by God's word and to live in obedience to him the promise of the obedience born from love is true joy and that joy is only found and complete fulfillment we were created to glorify God when we misuse our lives when we are not being sanctified in life when we spend our days and disobedience we may be in perpetual motion but we are never to find joy so hear me if you like joy it's not a lacking in Christ provision joy is available it's a lack of love for God that is expressed in obedience we can sum it up with terms we've used historically such as Christian piety but piety must result from love that gives birth to obedience otherwise it becomes pietism which is nothing but obedience absent love which will never render joy as a result but Jesus is saying if you abide in me and make my word the very words of your own heart in mind if you make it your life to glorify me by here by bearing the fruit of a converted and consecrated life by being obedient to my command and then I will give you my joy and that joy that will fill your life makes you complete because of your peace with God and so we ask then if we are to obey the commandment and the commandment brings us joy then what commandment is it that we are to obey that brings us such great returns and we conclude with this and pick up the study again next week Jesus says that you love one another as I have loved you that simple commandment lived truly as a fulfillment of all that is necessary to truly have joy for we are not able to love one another unless it is also true that we love God and are living in obedience to Him we do that we find love for one another to be a simple thing to follow and in doing that in Christian community and unity a communion of the saints then we come to know the love of Christ and the joy that is ours