If You Love Jesus

Do you know all that you have in your relationship Jesus?  Do you know all the goodness and grace Jesus wants you to experience with Him?  Now my guess is that when you start to think of all the ways Jesus has blessed you, you will say, Jesus has given me so much: “I’ve got forgiveness of sins.  I’ve got a salvation I never earned. I’ve got a place to belong in God’s forever family. I’ve got my Father’s ear whenever I need Him. I’ve got a hope that can’t be shaken. I’ve got a peace I never dreamed possible.  And I’ve got a new life with Him that fills me with joy.”  And if you’re living in the reality of all those blessings in Christ, you’re probably feeling pretty good about your relationship with Jesus Christ right now.

But what if I were to tell you that most of us who say we follow Jesus often go through life like spiritual paupers, rarely experiencing the depths of the rich relationship with God that Jesus made possible. For example, are you regularly experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in your daily life?  Does He give you comfort and encouragement to keep going when life is hard?  Or what about your daily walk with Jesus?  Do you ever feel like he’s not there and you’ve been left alone to navigate life?  And what about your relationship with the Father?  Are there times when He seems distant? Are there moments when you wonder if He really does love for you?  You see, the reality is, that every Christ follower goes through times when life is hard, when God seems to be distant, and we are left wondering if He really does love us.

But the good news is that if you love Jesus, you don’t have to experience those things.  Instead, you can experience His power, His presence and His love every single day.  After all, God didn’t send Jesus to just give you salvation from sin.  No, God sent Jesus so you can experience the richness of a relationship with God.  To experience His help, His life and His love every single day, no matter what you’re facing.

So, if you’ve ever felt like something was lacking in your relationship with Jesus, if you’ve ever wanted to experience more of His strength in your life, more of His presence in your life and more of His love in your life – then let me encourage you to open your Bibles to John 14:15-21.  For it’s in this text, Jesus begins to share with us what we can expect from Him if we’ve entered into a loving relationship with Him. In fact, in the midst of His departing words to His disciples, Jesus describes what we can expect from Him, if we really do love Him.  So, let’s look at His first promise. If you love Jesus…

Jesus will give you His Help Here’s the promise: “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” John 14:15-17

Literally, what Jesus is saying is this: “If you keep on loving me, keep on obeying my commands, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. First, let’s address this command this command to us, to continue loving Jesus.  Because this command can tend to confuse us. It sounds like Jesus is putting a condition on their relationship, as if He will not give them what He’s promising, if they don’t uphold their end of the bargain.  And in one sense this is true.  Because what he is saying is this: Jesus’ disciples reveal their love  through their obedience to Him.

Think about this with me for a minute. If you love Jesus, the way you will communicate your love to Him is by your actions.  You can say you love Him.  But if you never do anything to show you love him, then you have to question if you really do love Him. That’s how any love relationship works.  You don’t tell someone you love them, and never do anything to prove your love.  You don’t say you love them, and never make sacrifices, never put your needs on the back burner to help them out.  No, you chose to love them unconditionally. You learn what they need from you.  You learn what’s important to them. You make sacrifices. You chose to do what’s best for them regardless of the cost of consequences to yourself.

That’s what love does. There is no obligation, no duty, no bargaining. Love doesn’t do what the other wants in order to get something from them. That’s not love, that’s selfishness.  So, what Jesus is saying here, is that if we truly love Him, we will do what’s important to Him.  We will find out what pleases Him, and we will gladly do it.  Those who love Jesus will live to do His will.  We will continue to obey His commands.  And by this, by our obedience to His commands then, is how we reveal our love.

Hopefully, that’s clear. Because now, Jesus tells us what we can expect, if we really do love Him.  We can expect Jesus to help us.  Listen again to His promise: “If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.  John 14:16

Jesus promises to give another advocate, or counselor, or helper to be with them forever. There’s a lot to unpack here.  First, Jesus uses this word “another.”  This is a very specific and meaningful word.  “Another” means “another of the same kind.”

This means the Father will send another person just like Jesus to be with them.  This person will share the same character and quality as Jesus.  So, when Jesus says the Father will send “another” helper, he’s telling them they currently have a helper – and it’s Him.  He’s been with them, helping them, encouraging them and teaching them.  But now that He is leaving, the Father will send another Helper who will fill the role Jesus had been filling. This Helper is the Spirit of Truth – the Holy Spirit.  When He comes, He will strengthen and encourage them, He will teach them and be with them – just as Jesus did when He was with them.

And what was true for those disciples then is true for us today. For the moment you put your trust in Jesus, Jesus comes to live in you by His Spirit.  And when the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you, He does whatever Jesus would do. He does a number of things.  First, He comes alongside us to comfort us. Now when we think of a comforter, we think of someone who sooths us, or consuls us when life is hard, and to some extent this is true. But here the Comforter comes alongside to strengthen and encourages us when life is hard – so we won’t give up.  This is one of the reasons Jesus baptizes you into His body when you believe.  He puts you together with other believers so the Holy Spirit (through the fellowship of your brothers and sisters) can encourage you, support you, and help carry your burdens. That’s why there’s no such thing as a lone ranger Christian. Jesus puts you in His body, so you that Holy Spirit can work in and through you to encourage and support others, and so the Holy Spirit can  work in and through them to do the same for you. He is the Helper who Helps us!

He comes alongside to teach us.  Here, Jesus identifies Him as the Spirit of Truth.  Another role of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the truth – about Jesus.  He opens our eyes to see the truth about Jesus, to understand the truth Jesus, and helps us to live like Jesus.  In a world that is full of lies, the Holy Spirit comes alongside and guides us through the darkness with truth of God’s Word.  We’ll hear more on this in the coming chapters.  But for now, let me encourage you on how the Holy Spirit is working in your life:  If you confess Jesus as Lord, the Bible says, no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:3  He comes alongside to teach us.

And yes, He comes alongside to be with us forever.  How great is that? Jesus was only with His disciples for three and a half years.  Now, if you truly love Jesus, then you can experience Jesus’ presence with you forever.  The Holy Spirit has come alongside you, so you can always experience God’s presence in your relationship with Him.

Now to all this, Jesus adds one more promise, saying: “The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.” John 14:17   What is Jesus saying here?  Jesus was speaking of the fulfillment of prophecy.  For God gave this prophecy to Ezekiel and could not come true until Jesus returned to the Father: I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. Ezekiel 36:26-27

And now today, whenever anyone trusts in Jesus, the Holy Spirit takes up residence within them: Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 So, the good news Jesus is teaching us today is this: If you love Jesus the Holy Spirit is your Helper.

Don’t you love that? Are you like me? Do you ever think, man, I need all the help I can get?  It’s not easy following Jesus.  It’s hard to do it alone. Jesus knew that. So, He gave you another helper just like Him to come alongside you, to comfort you, encourage you, teach you… and be with you forever.

Well, that’s the first thing Jesus gives to those who love Him: He gives you, His help.  Now the second thing. If you love Jesus, Jesus will give you His Life Let’s read his promise: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” John 14:18-20 Now, let me say just a few things about this term “orphan.”  The term “orphan” is used commonly of orphaned children. But here it is used in a more general sense of “one left without anyone to care for him.” It’s pretty obvious by now that the disciples were feeling like orphans.  So, Jesus promises that He would not leave them like helpless orphans. He promises them, “I will come to you.”

What Jesus was telling them, He is telling us: There are no orphans in the family of God.  Jesus will never leave you nor forsake you.   In our individualized and consumer Christian culture, we need to hear this truth over and over again.  Satan wants you to feel like God has abandoned you.  He wants you to think that God does not care about you. But that’s just not true. There are no orphans in the family God.  If you love Jesus; there may be times when you feel alone, discouraged and even orphaned.  But Jesus will never let you go. He died for you. He purchased you with His blood.  You are not your own. You belong to Him.  And He promises, “I will come to you.”

When He made that promise to those disciples, he was talking about His resurrection.  He said to them, “Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me.” And they would see him again. He will appear to them in the Upper Room. They will look upon His nail-scarred hands. He will appear to them by the sea of Tiberias as He shares His breakfast with them on the shore.  And He will appear to them at the Mount where He gives them the Great Commission, and they witness as He ascends to the Father. He did come to them.  But this promise is also for us. For Jesus will come again. And the Bible says that when He comes again, we will see Him face to face.  This is our blessed hope.

And this hope is connected to the third promise Jesus gives concerning His resurrection. He promises: “Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” John 14:19b-20

What does Jesus promise you here?  He promises you eternal life. Because Jesus lives, you also will live.  This is the Easter message.  When Jesus rose from the grave, He defeated sin and death.  Now, when anyone trusts in Jesus, He gives you His resurrection life.  That means, not only does He live in you today, but that you’ll never die. Because Jesus is eternal, and Jesus lives in you, you possess eternal life now.

Let that truth settle in for a moment.  Look around.  Every person who loves Jesus has eternal life, because Jesus gives you, His life.  The resurrected Savior lives in you.

And this truth has an amazing implication, and that is this: Since you are spiritually united with the life of Christ, you can now enjoy the same relationship with Father that He enjoys. That’s what Jesus means when He says, On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.” Do you understand what that means for your relationship with the Father.  If Jesus is living in you, then you can call on His name, you can understand His will, and you can experience His delight – in you.  You can know Jesus’ Father as your Father, for He has made you, His child. This is mind blowing truth.  If you love Jesus, you are an eternal being intimately related to the Father of all Creation! This is what Jesus gives to those who love Him – we are no longer orphans, but the adopted and beloved children of the Father.

Are you starting to comprehend what Jesus has done for you?  It’s pretty incredible.  He gives us help, He gives us His presence, He gives us Life and He gives us the very same relationship He has with the Father.  So, if you love Jesus, you can know God not just personally, but intimately.  You can rest in His presence.  You can know His will.  And you can experience His love – not just His love for you on the cross – but His love for you right now.  For that’s what Jesus teaches us in the final promise of this passage today.  If you love Jesus…

Jesus will give you His Love “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” John 14:21 Here Jesus comes full circle to the original command we started with, repeating that whoever has His commands and keeps them they are the ones who loves Him.  So, let me ask you?  Do you have Jesus’ commands?  Yes, if you have a copy of God’s Word, you have all the commands of God.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you are keeping His commands.  So again, Jesus is making a point about our role in a loving relationship with God.  Keeping His commands is the evidence of your love for Jesus.  We show we love Jesus by living the life Jesus gives us to live.

And when we do that, Jesus promises that we will experience the Father’s love, and that He will also love us.  But then He adds something that we might be quick to miss.  He says that to those who love Him, He will show himself to them.  In other words, Jesus promises to reveal Himself to you as you obey His commands.  Jesus promises to disclose Himself to you -to make Himself known to you.

This is pretty amazing.  This is a term of intimate knowledge.  And if I understand this correctly – it simply means the more you obey His commands, the more He opens up His heart and soul to you.  So, let me ask you: Does Jesus sometimes seem like an enigma to you?  Does Jesus sometimes just seem like a character in a book, not a person you can relate to?  Well, the good news, is that if you start obeying the commands of Jesus, Jesus says that your relationship with Him will change. He will become more real to you.  Because He will open up His life to you.

That’s why Jesus gave us this passage of Scripture. Jesus wants you to know Him fully. Jesus wants you to know His heart and His mind.  Jesus wants you to know him intimately.  Jesus doesn’t want you to go through the motions in your Christian life.  He doesn’t want you to feel like He’s not there for you, or like he’s some character from a story. Jesus wants you to know He is real in every way.  He wants to reveal heart, His compassion, His mercy, His wisdom and His love for you.  So, Jesus tells you how you can experience him fully: By continually obeying His commands.  By continually putting into practice this new life He’s revealed to us.

And it all starts with obeying the command: “Follow Me” Stop following yourself, stop following the ways of the world, stop following your cravings, stop following the philosophies of man – and follow Jesus.  Following Him with others.  Follow Him in your relationship with your spouse.  Follow Him on the pickleball court, on the golf course, in your neighborhood, with your friends. Then as you follow Him, He will teach you how to live and love like Him, by teaching you, His commands.  Commands like…

Let your light shine before others Matthew 5:16

Be reconciled to your brother before coming to worship Matthew 5:23

Keep your word Matthew 5:33-37

Love your enemies Matthew 5:44

Do not worry Matthew 6:25

Do not judge Matthew 7:1

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness Matthew 6:33

Love one another just as I have loved you. John 13:34

And when you love Jesus by living out His commands, you will begin to experience the help of Jesus, the life of Jesus and the love of Jesus in your relationship with Jesus.  And He will become more real to you, than life itself… if you love Jesus.

Let’s pray.