Keeping His Commands

All of us want lasting change in our lives. We all want to become people of love, joy, and peace in all circumstances. But this level of transformation often requires us to live it out with our hands before seeing or feeling the change in our hearts. To that end, following Jesus by abiding in his love means we train ourselves with habits and practices to be formed by him. To borrow the apostle Paul’s language from 1 Corinthians 9, we discipline our bodies, our schedules, our habits, and our lives in order to bring them under self-control. While this is a long and sometimes tedious process, the end result is transformation that comes from a deeper intimacy with God.

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 open your Bibles to John 15. I wanna start by saying I, I love you and I’m really proud of you.

I mean that Passion Creek Church, I love you and I’m proud of you. What’s crazy is we’ve only been in this space for 12 weeks and I think we have like literally changed the culture, the identity of Passion Creek within the last 12 weeks. I honestly, Can’t even remember what life was like before. Anybody relate to that?

Like how did we used to do it before we used to meet at night, what in the world? And, uh, it’s been an incredible journey. So February 12th, super Bowl Sunday, we moved into this space, and again, it feels like forever ago, but right away we started a series on the Sabbath. So for four weeks we were talking about what does it mean to set apart a day?

Uh, to worship the Lord, right? To keep it holy. And then for the next eight weeks, we’ve been kind of sharing stories here on stage of those people who are, who are single, married, retired, uh, in college, how, how are we doing practicing Sabbath together? And not only that, how many weeks ago was that? Four or five weeks ago.

Maybe even more. I’m so bad at math, but we had soccer camp. Anybody go to soccer camp? Raise your hand for those troopers. You even have the soccer camp shirt on today, Tim. That’s what I’m talking about. Uh, and that was incredible. We actually had way more kids than we expected so much. So we literally shut down the form on the website because we wanted the right coach to kid ratios.

We had over a hundred kids learn legitimate soccer skills, gained some friendships, and what I love these each and every time they heard that God loves them. That we’re creative for a purpose. And, and actually that same week, some of us, uh, organized the food pantry. If you don’t know what’s really unique about the Queen Creek Junior Highs, it’s also partnered with the Family Resource Center for the city.

And so they helped those families who are in need. And so their food pantry was not organized. And so we were able to put it all together by date and by kind and by color, I mean it looks incredible now. And we look to keep doing that. Also within the last 12 weeks, we catered Chipotle for the teachers and staff, uh, the Friday after they came back from spring break.

And it was a really great joy for me to represent you guys, to meet the teachers to say, they’re like, why would you do this? We’re, we’re just grateful for you. We want you to have some free food. And the hilarious thing is, I grew up, I went here in junior high and the same PE coach from, well, how many years ago was that?

I’m gonna age my, like 20 years ago was the same one today and so was so great seeing him and it has actually even developed really good relationships. Just, uh, two days ago I was at the Queen Creek Unified School District. They invited just a few key faith leaders to come and meet together and talk about how do we serve our communities and specifically our schools better.

And because of the way we have just loved our community, I was invited into that room, all that to say I love you and I’m really proud of you. Every week we’ve had a band of brothers and sisters come together and set up on Saturdays from from two to 5:00 PM and tear them down right after service. We’ve learned the trick called scuba drapes.

See these drapes right here? It’s all powered by magnets. We love magnets so much. We almost called ourself the Magnet Church. You know, like we are just all about it. It’s been great not to mention, and I’m almost done. Record attendance on Easter Sunday. We had our first baptism. We’ve had ladies discipling, ladies doing reading plans together.

We have men discipling, other men going out on adventures Together. We have mill trains for those in need. In fact, my family, we enjoyed that last night. We received a meal from the minor hands. We’re so grateful and I hear there’s another meal tonight if, if not, I’m speaking it prophetically. We got another meal tonight and we’ve had people prayed over at this altar.

I love you and I’m really proud of you, and you have made preaching really difficult. Because there are three ways to preach. All right? And by the way, these sermon notes are online@passioncreek.church. Just hit the next steps button and hit that sermon notes icon. There are three ways to preach. Number one is to preach for information.

And so this is actually how I was classically trained in my higher education. And here’s what you do, and maybe you’ve been a part of this church not bagging it at all. In fact, we need information, so please don’t hear me wrong. But one way to preach is every week we go through a verse context in scripture.

My job is to tell you the context of. Jerusalem or who Isaiah was talking to or whatever book we’re in. And then I talk about the main verbs and the nouns. I don’t tell you that, but we point out, look at how this main verb is, is communicating this main idea. And so we try to do that. In fact, we’re gonna do that today in John chapter 15.

But you guys living out this lifestyle of Jesus, just hearing information’s not enough. See this type of preaching. Which again is, is good, all good and well, this type of preaching goes back thousands of years, but it stays there, right? You leave knowing a lot about Jerusalem, but you don’t leave with the burden for Queen Creek, right?

It’s just knowing what’s happening back there. The second way to preach, and I honestly wish I was better at this, is preaching for inspiration. You find a verse in the Bible, you tell three to five great stories. You make them laugh. You make them cry. Everything’s about getting an emotion. Beautiful communicators can do this.

They get you real high and then real low and then high again and low again. And I watch it on YouTube and go, I wish I was like that. It’s so good. But it’s preaching just for inspiration. What happens when you create a church environment like this? You get just enough inspiration to last another six days.

You gotta come back cuz you’re hopeless by Friday. And get another encouraging word just to get you to last yet another. Now I say you’ve made preaching more difficult because you’re not gonna settle for just information. You as a church you don’t even settle for just inspiration, which leads to the last way to preach.

Something we’re trying to do is to preach for transformation. What I’ve noticed within the culture of our church, specifically the last 12 weeks, you don’t just want moments of love, joy, and peace. I really feel it. After conversations with you, you wanna become persons of love, joy, and peace. Like Dallas Willard, where he talks about when you get cut off, what’s your natural instinct to curse them or to bless them.

That’s when you know things are starting to change. You think, man, that guy’s in a rush. Let’s pray. He gets there, right? What is your natural gut instinct? And we believe the way of Jesus can actually so seep from our head to our hearts, to our hands, that our knee jerk reaction is that of love, is that of joy and that of peace.

And that makes preaching really difficult. It requires us to do nuance and cultural. Diagnosis. It requires poking and prodding. And I was talking to a pastor just the other day. When you try to preach for transformation, what’s difficult? It’s so easy to rally together, especially in the state of America today, to talk about all of the terrible sins that are out there.

And we cheer. We’re not like them, they’re so terrible. But for transformation is no. We go, you know what? What we need to talk about more is the sins in this room. Repenting churning from where we have gone astray, where we have had a spirit of pride and arrogance. And that’s hard. And even more hard is that to preach for transformation, the biblical text is pretty obvious.

The preacher himself has to live it out. I can’t just give you information I need to be making sure I’m living it. And Pastor Caleb and I were talking about it cuz we’re looking at upcoming series like simplicity. I’m like, oh no. Now I gotta go buy a dumb phone. Like if I’m gonna tell you, let’s be simple and minimal in our life, I gotta get rid of this iPhone.

Maybe we’ll change the series. Um, but so information says, learn it. And that’s good inspiration says, love it. And that’s fine too. But transformation says, learn it, then. Love it. And then live it. So each and every week we’re trying to do that. Learn the text. Love the invitation God has for you there. All right.

What are we gonna do this week to live this thing out? It’s like learning golf. Like the way we have, and I’m almost done with this little shink, but the, but the way we view church typically is, like, think about it, it, I can watch golf videos all day long and learn about the perfect stroke and learn what it takes to put, it’s one thing to learn that on YouTube, but it’s another to actually go out there and try it.

And that’s what we’ve been trying to do. So what we’re talking about Sabbath, like we want you to learn about it, but like let’s like do it. And we believe that is the step to transformation. But I wanna look at today as we’re in John chapter 15, even this theory of change has its limits. Even this idea of learning it and then loving it and then living it only gets you to a certain point.

Let me show you what I mean. John, chapter 15, um, last week, pastor Caleb did a great job in John 15, except for this like, part about wearing a dress, but we can move on from that. Um, so I’m essentially, I have the photo come hang out with me after it’s on my phone. Uh, it’s actually better looking than you’d think.

Like when I hear the story I go, ah, and then I go, oh, that’s tasteful. And I can’t believe I would say that, but, uh, my dad’s a cowboy and everything. But it was a tasteful way to wear a dress. Now, um, I’m gonna essentially pick up where Pastor Caleb left off. He talked about how John 14 through 17 is the farewell discourse.

And so essentially Jesus is moments away, what am I doing here? Informational preaching. Okay. He is moments away from being handed over to be crucified. And so he’s had this final moments with his crew, his 12 people that have done life together for the last three years. This is very intimate. This is Jesus.

Not on some high horse giving commitment. No, he is like lovingly sharing a meal. Tears are flowing throughout these chapters. I mean this, he is imparting encouragement and hopefully these disciples, which they eventually do, take these words to endure what’s about to come, which is the horror of their Messiah being killed.

But then the beauty of him being raised on the third day. And so John 14 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible. It talks about Jesus saying how, what the spirit is and the power that he brings. But then John 15, he goes into this illustration of the vine. We’re gonna read it together. I encourage you to listen to last week’s message cuz Pastor Caleb literally used the word horticulture.

I had to Google that. That’s, uh, that’s about plants. All right? And so he already explained all this in a way better detail. I’m super grateful for Pastor Caleb. I said last time, I’m gonna give you a hard time. Today. All right, so verse one, it says I, this is Jesus speaking. If you have a red letter Bible, it’s in red letters.

It says, I am the true vine, and my father is the gardener. Every branch of me that does not produce fruit, he removes and he prunes every branch that produces fruit so that it will produce more fruit. You are already clean because of the word I’ve spoken. To you. Now, Jesus knows his crowd. He knows his disciples.

And this is a horticulture, an Arian culture. And I think if he were to be here today and he were to speak on this stage, I think to make it easier for us, excuse me, and even our kids, it would be like saying, Jesus is saying, look, I am the power strip and you are the lamp that plugs into it, right? So you.

Are incredible and have all sorts of power and can, can really change the world, but you’re useless if you don’t plug into the power strip. And Jesus is saying that kind of image you to say, when you plug into me, which I hate that Christians have overused, that the whole plug like join a group and it shows like a, a plug connecting tool.

We don’t do that. But anyways, plug into the Lord. That’s what he’s saying here. That’s, that’s the takeaway of verses one through three. Look at verse four and five, remain in me, or another word is abide, which I’m more of a fan of. Remain in me and I in you. Just as a branch is unable to produce fruit by itself unless it remains on the vine.

Neither can you unless you remain in me. Again, if you’re not plugged into the power, it doesn’t matter. Then to remind us, he says, I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in me and I in him produces much fruit because you can do nothing without me. This word is remain, it’s abide, it’s dwell.

A lot of people actually really point at abide also points to like. Like an abode, like, like a, like a, a, a home. And so actually Jesus uses the same language in Revelation, which we are gonna be looking at Revelation throughout the summer. So starting June 4th, we’re doing a eight to 12 week series on the book of Revelation.

So we’re excited about that. But back to what this means. Abide kind of has this sense, this of the theological term is synergism. You know what that means? Like, like the synergy, what Jesus is saying, it’s not 50 50, but he’s saying when you. Take steps towards me. I am certainly taking steps towards you and when you surrender to me, there’s this power that you get.

It’s this synergistic movement, and so God, I is so kind and so patient with us. If we don’t lean in and ask for his power, he’s not gonna force it on us. He doesn’t coerce it, he just says, okay. You don’t want that, that’s fine. I guess it’s, it’s less joy for you. And so he is saying remain, have this synergy happen.

But verse six, if anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown aside like a branch and he withers, they gather them, throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. That’s some, that’s a passage to wrestle with for a while.

My father is glorified by this, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples again. I think Caleb did a great job here, but what is fruit? I think the easiest way for me to remember this, it’s both internal and external. Okay. So Pastor Caleb really talked about the internal part last week. I’m just trying to prove that I listened to the sermon even though I wasn’t here.

Are we good or have we have Haven made that point. All right, so internal is fruit of the spirit. So this is what I, we had talked about, right? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

Grew up in church. I don’t know, I was make a homeschool joke, but I wasn’t homeschooled, so I got nothing. Now what this is, is just you are embodying just this presence about you. When you abide in him, there is this overwhelming sense. It’s your character that can withstand any storm. But another sense of this fruit is external.

And so Paul uses the phrase fruit of the spirit, but he also uses the phrase gifts of the spirit. And so when you are connected to Jesus, your gifting, holy Spirit gifts you something that contributes to a local church and to the kingdom of God. Things like wisdom. That’s something my wife has in abundance.

Things like counsel, right? Some of you, I am just so impressed. We have a lot of people and a lot of hurting situations. And I can only be on the phone so much, and there’s just some incredible people in this room. I’ve seen you at Biden Christ, and you just have the gift of listening and encouraging. We also have prophecy.

One of my favorite things that happened in our together group, just, uh, about a month ago, we had someone. Actually kind of speak a word over our group, over our church and it like, it literally caused me to weep and we just kind of stopped the whole together guide and just had a moment together and prayed for that prophecy that that picture that she had in her mind.

We really felt like that was a word and we, when we wrestled with that right miracles, we believe that God can still heal people today. Faith, right? So this fruit is internal and external and that’s really where we left off last week and for years. I never preached the next two verses because it, I’m not gonna lie, it didn’t make sense to me.

But these next two verses are where the money is at verse nine. As the father has loved me, I have also loved you remain in my love. First of all, don’t skip past that. He is saying the same intensity that the father has for the son. Can anyone disagree? Of course, the father. Loves Jesus Christ. Amen. Like totally.

He’s literally perfect. So we, we all can agree. Of course, the father loved the son. He’s saying that same energy, that same love is how much the son loves you when you abide in him. That’s crazy cuz I’m not as lovable as Jesus. I’ve done some things right. And yet Jesus says, no, I love you. That’s why this is called good news, not good advice.

It’s not advice for you to hurry up and do and then you’ll be lovable. No, you are already loved in Christ Jesus. Now the Lex next line though is more difficult if underline that word. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love just as I have kept my father’s commands and remain in his love. Do you get why I skipped this?

When I preach usually, what do you mean? If, if I do a good job, then you’ll, what does this mean? Right? This sounds a whole lot like religion. I thought Christianity wasn’t due. It’s done. Right? It’s not about anything you do, it’s what Jesus done on the cross. And let me be clear. Yes and amen. So what does he mean here By if, first of all, This isn’t about losing salvation as pastor Caleb mentioned last week, right?

It’s about being so intimately involved in loving the father and, and being abiding in his home. There’s a way to be in a home and not really enjoy it, and there’s a way to be in the home and to relish it. So let’s remember that. But again, it’s hard because this passage sounds like we need to earn our salvation if we keep.

But hear me, Jesus is teaching us a critical lesson on change, but we usually miss it. Here’s the key idea for today. Keeping his commands doesn’t earn me God’s love, but it turns me to God’s love. You let that sink in, that’ll change your life. It doesn’t earn me God’s love, but it does churn me to God’s love.

Now, let me be clear before we go any further. Here’s the gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel is that Jesus was born of a virgin Mary. This is important because it shows that he is fully God and fully man. He lived a perfect life. Sin listed everything perfect. To the T, right then he died. The death that you and I deserve to die, hanging on the cross, paying the penalty of our sin, God’s wrath poured out on Jesus so that you and I don’t receive the wrath that we rightfully deserve because of our sin and transgressions.

So on the cross, Jesus took that penalty. Then he was buried and he rose again on the third day showing he has defeated sin. He has defeated its power, its penalty, and its presence in our life. He has defeated Satan. Satan no longer has control, and he has defeated death itself. Death no longer has the final word because of the resurrection of Jesus.

And. After some time, Jesus ascended again to the right hand of the Father, his daily interceding for us today. And one day he will come back again. When will that happen? Come in June. We’re talking about revelation now. That’s the gospel. You need to believe that and you’re good. So hear me. You don’t become a child by behaving No, but by believing.

You don’t get into the house, you don’t get saved by achieving salvation. No. It’s by receiving salvation. So again, how does this make sense? This conversation, hear me in John 15, is not for those outside of the house on how to get in. His conversation in John 15 are for those who are already in the family.

You see that we missed this when we think everything’s just about getting saved. Now it’s the main thing. But there’s also other things once you’re in here, and so this is what we need to lean into, abiding. Keeping his commands, you’re already in his house. Your eternity is already secure, but there is a way to live where you are constantly opening up your heart, your mind, your body to the love of God to come on you, and also through you to others.

Keeping his commands does not earn me. God’s love. But it turns me to God’s love. So now for us to be faithful in this text, we have to ask the next question. What commands do we keep? The Old Testament’s pretty confusing, right? Am I supposed to shave my head? Am I not allowed to do this, that, or the other?

Can I not have ham right? And pork right? And so there’s a lot to do here. There’s a lot of commands in scripture. We believe some of it is not for us. The starting next week, we’re doing a whole four weeks on form by scripture. And so we’re gonna look at that. What, what parts do we apply and not apply? So stay with us.

Come next week we can answer some of those questions. But some of us is, for, some of these commands are for every generation. And so that’s why we as a church, if you go to form by jesus.com, this is like the the hub for where you and I are talking about how to practice the commands of Jesus. And so for Passion Creek, there’s a lot of commands.

We, we should have done 10, but I guess that’s more of what, that’s what God does. So we’re doing nine. So there’s nine commands that we see clearly in scripture that we think is good for our cultural moment here in Queen Creek to apply. So if you go to the website right now formed by jesus.com, Sabbath was number one.

We just did it. Bravo number two at scripture, and then in the fall will be simplicity and then generosity, fasting, hospitality, justice, praying, and story. So to probably three year journey, we’re gonna look at these nine commands and we are praying that it seeps into our dna. Four weeks teaching on it, eight weeks, having testimonies and making it our everyday life, and then stacking the next practice up.

Are you with me? Does that make sense? I’m feeling very encouraged. Y’all are so talkative. All right, so for three months we talked about what keeping the Sabbath, keeping the command. Sabbath. Let’s look again. Exodus 28 through 10, just a brief overview. Remember the Sabbath day to keep, that’s the same word.

Keep that we see in John 15. To keep it holy. You are to labor six days and do all your work. But the seventh days of Sabbath to the Lord your God. So what does this mean? We are keeping Sabbath not to earn God’s love, but to what? To churn to God’s love. That was already yours. Allow me a brief overview of what we’ve talked about the last three months.

Okay? There are four ways you and I keep the Sabbath holy and take his command to rest. Number one is to stop. So I love the stories that you guys have been sharing about stopping. What do we do? Essentially, we stop working. We stop wanting, and we stop worrying for 24 hours every week. So we’ve really found it’s crucial to pick a time and stick to it.

It’s not once X, Y, and Z are done. Then I will Sabbath. And so that’s why we’ve been saying pick a time. Uh uh, a lot of people pick sunset or sunrise, and now that starts the clock. For the next 24 hours, we’re stopping our normal work day of life, and we are going to introduce ourself to this concept of rest.

Now, this week it came in clutch, and so for me and my family, we’ve actually decided Friday morning is now the new rhythm for us for a lot of other reasons. I could talk to you after if you want, but we just really found that’s a good rhythm. Now, this was hard because Friday afternoon. Jordan’s surgery was scheduled this week and I kept thinking, do I move this Sabbath around or do we just deal with it?

We just decided Friday morning when it started, Hey, today’s Sabbath cuz it comes, we’re not gonna be the one to change it, right? It, we’re supposed to stop and so we’re gonna stop. And so we got our kids we’re my, uh, my, my mom, we call her lolly. Uh, she got to go. She took the kids and so it’s me and her.

We’re trying to be restful, but we’re pretty anxious about the surgery. We get a phone call. That the surgery was moved to Saturday morning, and so we praised the Lord and then said, can we not tell my mom for a while so we can like, enjoy time together? And that’s what we did. All right. And so we went and uh, we were like, we’re Sabbath thing.

We were already planning on this, but Sabbath just got a whole lot better. And so we did all the things that. We have learned over the, for us the last few, like maybe three or four or five years of Sabbath thing, and we just pleasure stacked to all of it, right? We, we stopped worrying. We literally told ourselves, let’s not think about the surgery.

Let’s not worry about anything. Let’s just enjoy the day and keep it holy. And to be honest, we entered Saturday morning with so much more peace. Wouldn’t that, wouldn’t you agree? Just so much more just gratefulness about, Hey, God has us, we’re gonna do this. I say we, my poor wife had to do it. I was just sitting there, but God was really gracious in that.

And if you remember, I need to keep going. But if we don’t voluntarily stop, something else will make us stop. Remember Wayne Moler the quote he says, if we do not allow for a rhythm of rest and our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath, our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create sabbaths for us.

It’s in the rhythm of creation. God designed us to stop, hear me? Not so that we earn God’s love, but so that you and I churn to God’s love. This Hebrew word is Shabbat, meaning sabbath, and not only can be translated literally as stop, but also rest. And that’s number two. Rest. We rest for 24 hours to resist the tyranny of hurry.

If you remember in Exodus 20, we told, we were talking about, God told us to stop on the seventh day in Exodus 20, and then 10 Commandments because God stopped. And so we follow the rhythm of creation, but then we learn in Deuteronomy five that 10 Commandments are written again. But Moses will, God says, okay, here’s the reason to Sabbath, not just to stop, but it’s to rest.

It’s to remember, you’re not in Egypt anymore. You’re not a slave anymore. You don’t have to list, you don’t have to bear the yolk of oppression and slavery. And Pharaoh still lives today, as we talked about just a few weeks ago, right? Or months ago. At this point, Pharaoh wants you to work more, have more, do more, be more, use more at a way faster pace.

And so once a week we say enough’s enough for 24 hours, we slow down our pace of life. Why? Because we believe we block. The Holy Spirit when we walk in a hurried spirit, and so we rest. If you use your mind all week, rest with your body. Go outdoors. If you use your body all week, we have some framers in the house.

Don’t go outside and work. Chill inside, right? Read. Do something with your mind. Now, does this make you earn God’s love? No. But it makes space to turn to God’s love. A few more. The third word we said was, stop, rest, and then delight. Delight. Kind of the main phrase we were talking about is we are a people acquainted with grief and yet anointed with gratitude.

And so some of my favorite things we’ve been doing as a Sabbath community is having people over, and if you remember this phrase, Denu at dinner, which essentially means, let’s get together, let’s have dinner, and then let’s thank God for what he’s doing. And so Denu works this way, you say, Man, it would’ve been enough that we had food, but God outdid himself and now we also have dessert, right?

It would’ve been enough if this great thing, and so we thank God for that thing, but then we say, God even did even more than that, and give us this other thing as well. I remember one time I told our Sabbath community, it would’ve been enough that you guys are friends, but God outdid himself and you guys are now family.

We love you, right? We do this to delight in God, and that’s again, on Friday. This is what me and Jordan did. We had so much stress, but we said, you know what? We have grief. But today’s a day of gratitude and we pleasure stacked to the joy of the Lord, right? And we had sushi and it was wonderful. And praise God, my wife likes sushi.

Now. She did it for many years, but we all can be saved. Amen. So I’ll ask again, does delighting on the Sabbath earn God’s love? But it churns you to it, and that’s a pretty big deal. Last one is worship. We dedicate 24 hours to give God glory. In solitude and in community, in solitude, for me looks like reading my Bible and then taking a long walk with God all alone, cuz I love being introverted.

But it also means in community we bring friends over. We praise God together. We literally have music playing in the background. We just mention the ways that God has been good to us. Now, does worshiping God on the Sabbath make you a legalist? It could. Don’t do that. That’s lame, right? More than that, it can make you a lover.

You can make it all about rules and go over the top and forget the whole purpose, but, or you just don’t have to do that. But I still feel the fear in the room, and I want to acknowledge that. The last thing we wanna do, I, I really want us to practice Sabbath and we’re closing a chapter. We’re gonna talk about scripture next week.

I’m praying we keep Sabbath together, but here’s what I noticed. And then this passage helps us fight it. But for many of us, some of us, we did Sabbath for a little while and we’ve stopped and here’s why. Cuz we wanted to, one, learn about Sabbath, which we’ve done. The second thing we all did was we wanted to really love the Sabbath.

So that was like my primary job during the Sabbath series. This is great. It’s wonderful. You’re gonna love it. I love it. This is amazing. You’re gonna love it. Did you know it helps you live 12 years longer, did you? Why would I doing that? I wanted you to love it, right? Of sharing all the data about how good it is, cuz it’s true.

And then once you loved it, what’d you do? You lived it. Okay, I learned about it. Now I know what to do. Okay, you convinced me. This sounds pretty amazing. All right, I’m gonna do it. But we missed the point here sometimes. What is, let’s read first 10 again. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love.

Here’s what this is saying. If you live it, You will love it. You see that? So for, for so long, and baby Christians, this is how it’s supposed to be. You’re supposed to first learn it, and then you need to be convinced and you need to love it, and then you need to live it. But there is some time in our process of maturity where there will come a time for you to grow and lean even more into the love of God.

You learn it, then you live it, and then you love it. That’s on the next slide. Learn it, then live it, then love it. For so long, we have this paradigm of discipleship, of learning, loving, and then living. But there will come a time and maybe the invitation to you today is to learn it, live it, and then you will love it.

Think about the context here. In John 15, he’s speaking to a group of disciples who have been maturing for three years. He’s done trying to make them love it. First he’s saying, no, now you just need to live it. As you keep living it, you’re gonna, you’re gonna love it, but it comes before, not after. You see what I’m saying here?

Look, here’s what this means. If we don’t ever live it before, we love it. We’re serving pleasure more than we’re serving God. If we’ll only do it if it feels good to us, we’re actually worshiping what feels good to us, not worshiping what God has told us to do. My Spirit director quickly, he spotted this tendency in me a few years ago.

I, uh, I love to do something. I go all out if I love it. If I don’t love it anymore, I’m done. Anybody else like that? Right? The problem is everything has dry seasons, everything. There’s gonna be a time where it’s not as fun. And so I actually noticed a trend. Um, I sabbath hard in 20 18, 19, I sabbath like crazy for about 18 months.

I like to blame Covid, but also just, I just stopped, right? Also for me, fasting, I was looking at pictures of myself just a few years ago. I was like, how was I so skinny? I was like, what did I do ro What’s happened? And I was talking to Jordan last week and I was like, oh, I fasted twice a week. I just stopped.

I, I fasting, changed my life and then I haven’t done it since. Why? The list can go on of things. I’ve started and then stopped and I fear as I lead that way, our people are gonna do that as well. He told me two things. Number one, he’s like 85 year old man. He says, first of all, Trey Boys do what they wanna do.

Men do what they need to do. I was like, man up. I get it all right. Like he called me out. So that was great. Felt great about myself. But the second thing he said, he sat there and paused for a long time. So long I thought, did he forget what we’re talking about? You know, like one of those like long pauses, do I just bring up a next conversation?

And he said, Trey, it sounds like to me there’s an area in your life that you won’t let God love you in. So you Sabbath for 18 months. God brings up that thing he wants to love you in, but you have to bring it to him. And instead of you taking that next step and bringing it to him, you just stop Sabbath thing all together and go to the next practice until that thing gets brought up again, and you just move on to the next one.

That’s so true. His, his call to me was, here’s two things you need to do, Trey. Number one, you need to pray every morning, every night. Lord, open my heart to trust your love. Number two. He said, do that while you’re fasting. Do that while you’re Sabbath thing. While X, Y, and Z. Those things fill in the blank.

And a few months of doing this helped my stubborn brain and heart realize I didn’t stop Sabbath because I was tired of earning God’s love. I stopped Sabbath because I didn’t feel worthy to turn to God’s love. And that’s where God wanted to meet me. And I just wonder how many of us in this room we kind of stopped already.

Thinking all these excuses, it was too hard. I didn’t get it. I don’t love it. But what if actually, you unconsciously know it’s an invitation to be loved by God and that terrifies you, and so you’ve stopped. So now every week for me, I discipline myself and my family. We stop, we rest, we delight, we worship.

It’s fun. It’s incredible. But I make myself do it because I’m declaring God’s love over my life, even when I feel like I don’t deserve it. Even when I feel like I haven’t earned it. I am declaring that over me. Why this verse? I love how Emily said it. We have to say it over at our hearts over and over again.

As the father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. Love. Let’s read a similar statement from Romans, but God proves his own love for us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Let’s look at John 15, Eugene Peterson paraphrase. It says, make yourselves at home in my love.

If you keep my commands, you’ll remain intimately at home in my love. That’s what I’ve done. Kept my father’s commands and made myself at home in his love. And I’ve told you these things for a purpose, that my joy might be your joy and your joy. Holy mature. I just want us to end to imagine together as a community, what if we as Passion Creek Church, and I love you and I’m proud of you, and we’ve gone incredible steps so far.

But what if we became a community whose joy was wholly mature? We believe the way to do that is to do these practices and to do them together, right? By the grace of God and by the patience of our community, we stumble together doing these practices, not because we’re trying to earn God’s love. No, no, no.

We are declaring it is ours in Christ Jesus. We are his beloved. We’re getting together doing these things to keep reminding our stubborn hearts that God loves you. He loves you so much. He died for you. He is so kind and compassionate. Not only has he forgiven you, but he’s given you power to be transformed to to live the life that God always designed you to live.

God loves you. And I can say this over and over from the pulpit and I try to, God loves you. There’s a plan for you. God has done all this for you. Don’t worry about your sin. It’s as far as the east is from the West. For those who believe in Jesus Christ. We hear this every single week, and I think we have to, but if you’re thinking, I know that he loves me, but I don’t know that he loves me.

I’m not living in that love. Pick up Sabbath. Because for 24 hours, once a week, you’re telling your heart God loves me and so I don’t have to work. God loves me, so I don’t have to worry. God loves me, so I don’t have to want another person’s life. God has me where I’m at, and every week I am declaring to my soul, God, you are good and I am love.

I just wanted to end this way cuz I wanna make it clear. The last thing we want you to do is to try to earn God’s love, but the main thing we want you to do is to keep churning to it. So let’s sab it together.

I want us to leave room right now for the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit come and I want us to reflect two ways. One, ask yourself this question right now. Not. Don’t ask yourself. Ask the Holy Spirit, this Holy Spirit, what is something I’ve learned but haven’t yet lived?

Ask him right now.

Maybe it’s Sabbath.

It’s kind of been obnoxious to be at Paia Creek cuz we just talk about it all the time. Maybe the invitation is the Sabbath this week. What’s the invitation?

I feel the Lord stirring. Maybe for some of you, God is saying it’s salvation. You’ve learned he’s died for you. You’ve learned heroes again, that he has a plan for you. You’ve learned all this, but you haven’t lived it, meaning you haven’t received it, you haven’t gone forward and said, yes, that’s mine.

Maybe today, just take it. Take the gift. Maybe it’s confession. I don’t know. We probably all have all different answers, but Holy Spirit. What is something we have learned but have not yet lived?

And lastly, I want us to say this to Jesus. Lord Jesus, open my heart to trust your love.