John Chapter 15:12-16

Notice it's a commandment.

It's not a suggestion. It's not, hey, if this is convenient, if you can work this into your schedule, if they don't look at you wrong or say something silly or do something that hurts your feelings, then love them. He's saying love is a commitment. Do you have that commitment to your brothers and sisters? If you don't, may I suggest, according to the words of Jesus, you need to do a heart check. I understand this is challenging and this is convicting, but these are the words of Jesus. See, that's why they're in red, if you've got a red letter Bible. That's what that means. If you've got a red letter Bible, the words of Jesus are in red, and he's saying, look, this is the deal. This is what love looks like.

Then they lay down one's life for his friends. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is a senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we're blessed to have Pastor D.A.

Brown with us, one of David McGee's associate pastors. What does it take to be a friend of God? Bob, in the Bible, it says that greater love has no one in this than to lay down one's life for his friends. Today, Pastor David explains that Jesus showed the greatest love in doing just that as he continues in the Gospel of John, chapter 15.

Let's listen as David McGee continues with part two of his teaching, Joy and Love. John, chapter 15, verse 12. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you.

Well, the bar is definitely getting listed in this verse, huh? Jesus before has told us to love one another, but here he adds this. Love one another even as I have loved you. Even as I have loved you. How did Jesus love us?

Halfheartedly? Did he love us when it was convenient, when he had time? Aren't you glad God doesn't have voicemail?

I mean, voicemail is a very cool thing. It's a very nice thing to have to stay in communication with people, but wouldn't that put you off a little bit if you were trying to pray you were on the spot and you said, God's not in right now. If you'll leave a message when you hear the tone, he'll be sure to get right back to you. His love is constant. He's always wanting to hear from us. He's wanting to listen to us.

What an amazing thing. Now, verse 13. Greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for his friends. We know in hindsight what Jesus is saying here, that he is getting ready to do just that, to lay down his life for his friends.

Now, the thing is, what is the present day application of this? How is this personal? Because chances are nobody's going to come to you after service and say, look, I got this cross, these nails and these hammers, and guess what? We're going to nail you to the cross and crucify you.

That's probably not going to happen. So what does it mean to lay down our lives for one another? Well, let me give you this clue. It happens all the time here. When you come in and there's somebody trying to help you park and greeting you, that's them laying down their life for you. Because chances are, nobody went to them and say, hey, what would you really like to do with your Sunday morning?

I'd like to stand out in the parking lot and wave a flashlight at people who are occasionally kind of irate with me. They didn't say that. Surely, they've probably got better things to do, but they wanted to lay down their life for you guys. So you know what? I want to help people get in here and have a good experience. The people in the children's ministries, spent Friday and Saturday doing what? Putting together the lessons.

Why? They were bored. They didn't have anything else to do. They're kind of looking for it.

No, that's not it. They're laying down their lives. Why? To love your kids. To love your kids so that they will know the truth.

They will know the love of the Lord. That is a real practical way of laying down your life for people. And so when we look at this, don't take it into some far off state and think, well, gee, what does that look like?

That's what it looks like. Doing things that you wouldn't normally do that possibly aren't convenient, that aren't on the top of your priority list. Why? To lay down your life for somebody else. To be a picture of Jesus to somebody else.

And again, I see that going on here. The life lesson here is we are living to tell what he died to say. We are living to tell what he died to say. And when we lay down our lives for people, that communicates what Jesus died to tell them.

Hey, you know what? I care. I love you. I love the saying that people won't care how much we know until they know how much we care. And so there's practical ways of walking this out and living it out and showing what this looks like. Now, it's interesting in the New Living Translation, these verses 12 and 13, it reads, I command you to love each other in the same way that I love you.

And here's how to measure it. The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. Again, notice it's a commandment. It's not a suggestion. It's not, hey, if this is convenient, if you can work this into your schedule, if they don't look at you wrong or say something silly or do something that hurts your feelings and love them.

It's not what he said. He's saying love is a commitment. Do you have that commitment to your brothers and sisters that are gathered around you right now? If you don't, may I suggest, according to the words of Jesus, you need to do a heart check. Say, you know what?

I'm not really doing this. And this is, I understand this is challenging and this is convicting, but these are the words of Jesus. See, that's why they're in red if you've got a red letter Bible.

That's what that means. If you've got a red letter Bible, the words of Jesus are in red. And he's saying, look, this is the deal.

This is what love looks like. Then to lay down one's life for his friends. Let's understand something. We look back on Jesus and we know what's about to happen. He's about to be crucified. And so we tie that verse in with the fact that Jesus is laying down his life. In other words, he's willing to die.

He's willing to put aside whatever self-centeredness that he might engage in. It's a sobering word, but the reality is that's what Jesus is challenging us to do as well. To die, to lay down our lives for one another. John Knox, a man who ministered in Scotland, he prayed a prayer for many years. He prayed like this, Lord, give me Scotland or I'll die. He prayed that repetitiously time and time again.

And then the Lord spoke to him and said, you die and I'll give you Scotland. In other words, lay down your life. All that you think should happen, all that you think would happen and watch what I will do through you. See, this is what we're supposed to be doing. This is the stuff.

This is the real deal. This is the goods that we lay down that we die to ourselves. And it's a challenging thing that Jesus is telling us to do here.

It's very challenging. Let's be honest. Let's be real about this.

It's not like, okay, Chuck did that. No. This is a constant way really to live in obedience to the Lord. And every now and again, I'll talk to somebody and go, well, I'm kind of hoping that it's a post-trib rapture. I hope that I'm left behind so I can serve God in the tribulation because during the tribulation, I'm really going to serve God then.

Wait a minute. If you can't serve God now when there's not the tribulation going on, how do you think you're going to serve God during the tribulation? See, we do that.

If this occurred, then I would really begin to serve the Lord. And I love this quote. It is what we do in the here and now that will make a difference in the then and there. That what we do in the here and now affects people's eternal destinies. That's the reality.

We all want to belong to something that's bigger than us. And that's the whole concept. That's the whole vehicle of the church in general. Man did not come up with the church. God is the one who instituted the church. And yes, it's been imperfect. The church is what it is. It's not a perfect vehicle. And as a young believer, I used to argue with people when they started discussing church history and, oh no, that wasn't really like that.

Or no, they didn't really do that. But you know what? The more I grow in the Lord, the more I go, yeah, isn't that awful? We need like a savior or something. Now verse 14, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you.

You know, it's amazing. We're all called a lot of different things in the world. Some of them you wouldn't want to repeat in the church. But look what God calls us. He calls us friends.

Isn't that amazing? He says if you do these things, if you understand these things and you do these things, you're my friends. He doesn't call us enemies. Now the fact is we were enemies of His at one time before we, you know, the relationship was built upon the forgiveness of our sins. We were not His friends. But we are now. What an amazing thing that we are friends of God.

See, when you ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins, it doesn't just stop with forgiveness. There's the adoption He calls us His children. There's this part where He calls us His friends. I mean, it would be one thing if we were like friends with the president or friends with the king of England or whatever, but to know that we're friends with the king of all kinds of things, of all kings, wow.

What an amazing thing. And it's not like this is a friend that you've kind of pulled the wool over their eyes. You know, they don't really know you. They don't really know about you.

And you could put on a nice little face there for five minutes every other week or something and you call them friends. No, this is somebody that knows you inside and out, somebody that knows you more than anybody else, somebody that knows things about you that nobody else knows. And He decides to call you friend. What an amazing thing. It's a privilege that we, that I don't deserve. And yet He's willing to extend that friendship to us.

What a, again, what an amazing thing. Verse 15, no longer do I call you servants for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends for all things that I've heard from my Father, I have made known to you. Now understand we're still to serve. When He says you're not just a servant, it's not that we no longer serve. He's saying you are a servant, but you are also my friends. Just like if we were under a king and we were called to serve him, but now the king says, hey, you're my friend.

You're my friend. And He'll tell us what He's doing. You understand that's part of prophecy? That's part of prophecy. You know how many men, brilliant men, have set out to disprove the Bible and begin to look through prophecy?

And you know how many of them have been converted because as they look through here and so many prophecies have come to pass that they're like statistically this is impossible. Why? God's told us what He's going to do. He shared that with us. Why?

Because He says here that we're His friends. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be right back with more in just a moment, but I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for them. You need someone to present God's word to them. Every day we're presenting God's word to them here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the pray for the lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. What an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a minute to pray for seven cities in our listening audience. Walker, Michigan, Brainerd, Fergus Falls, and Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Biloxi, Friars Point, and Meridian, Mississippi. Lord, thank you that we're able to broadcast in these cities. Thank you for your good news which will not return void. Lord, I pray for everyone listening right now that they would be encouraged, that they would recognize that you love them greatly, and you have a good plan. Lord, I pray for anyone in their lives who they've been trying to reach out to or they've been trying to share the gospel with.

We lift those up to you now. We pray that you would convince and convict and even encourage them to put their trust in you. And Lord, we pray for protection and safety in these cities. Give the police officers wisdom, the fire department wisdom, the town councils, the mayors, everyone in leadership. Give them wisdom.

Help them to love one another. And Lord, we trust you that you're going to do a great work in these cities. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Thank you, brother. And now let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 16 is an amazing verse. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. That whatever you ask the father in my name, he may give you.

So we have answered prayer in there. And notice in his name, draw if you will on his account. See, if you went down to, I don't know, if you went down to Walmart and you spent $100,000, that's a big trip.

And then you gave him a check that had my name on it. Yeah, that's not going to go well. What's my point? It's whose account and whose name is on that account that makes all the difference.

See, Jesus is saying, you know what? If you ask in my name on my account and my name's on that, anything's possible. Anything's possible. Isn't that amazing? We often think in terms of our abilities or what we can do. No, no, no.

That's not the picture anymore. It's what God can do through us. There's a lot of stuff I can't do, but you know what? God does through me. There's a lot of stuff that maybe you can't do, but God will do through you. And it says you did not choose me.

Now, this term theologically is called the doctrine of election. God chose you. And again, he knew you. It wasn't like you fooled him. You know, with some of those prayers you prayed, many of us prayed those prayers.

Let's be honest. God, if you get me out of this, I'll never do this again. And it was like a week later maybe doing the exact same thing. And you thought, you know, I had him fooled for a week. He was really believing I wouldn't do that again. No, you didn't have him fooled for a week. You didn't have him fooled for a day or even for a minute. Even when you prayed that prayer, he thought, that's going to be like six days, dude.

And you're going to be doing the same thing. He knows us and he still chose us. He still chose us.

See, now many of you might be sitting here this morning and go, well, no, no, no, no, no, no. I actually chose him. Did you really?

Did you really? Oh yeah, I remember this meeting, you know, where I came forward and, you know, I chose God. You chose God.

Really? Let me ask you a question. How long did God chase you before you chose him? You see, we use this term, I found God.

It's an interesting term because, see, when you found God, God wasn't lost. See, you were the one who actually didn't know where you were or what you were doing. And he still chose you. He still chose me.

That's still, it's hard to get my mind wrapped around it. And certainly people I grew up with and went to school and occasionally I'll see somebody and go, so what are you doing now? I'm a pastor.

What? I thought you said you were a pastor. I am a pastor. God chose me. God chose me. The fact that your heart responded to a tugging was part of that choosing. Perhaps even some of you this morning are feeling a tug on your heart going, you know what, this love, I've never heard about this love and the possibility to be forgiven. That's him choosing you. And he doesn't look at you and go, oh no, boy, that's not gonna work out with that one.

I'm only gonna choose the people who really have it together. That's not the way the gospel works. Here's the interesting, to me, the intriguing part of this verse. Jesus is saying when he chose you, he appointed you that you would go and bear fruit. You know what that tells me? I mean, we talk about believing in God and we should talk about believing in God.

It's really important. Sometimes I think we get a little mixed up because if you ask somebody, hey, are you going to heaven? First of all, everybody in this aisle thinks they're going to heaven.

I was born and raised here, that's no offense. But you ask anybody, oh yeah, I'm going to heaven. Well, why do you think that? Well, because I believe in God. I'm sorry, according to this book, that's not good enough.

What do you mean? Well, this book in the book of James says that the demons believe and tremble. So if you're using that believe in God is what it is to get into heaven and to be a Christian, guess what? Demons are Christians and they're going to heaven.

I don't think so. That's really bad theology. So we talk about believing in God and that's a good thing. But here's the incredible thing about this verse.

God, Jesus says when he chose us, he knew that we would go forth and bear fruit. Do you understand what this is really slipping into? Hold on with me. Jesus is saying he believes in you. He believes you can do the things he's talking about in here. You mean loving one another like that? Yeah, he thinks you can do it.

You mean laying down our lives for one another? Yeah, he thinks you can do that. You mean being his friend by being obedient? Yeah, he thinks you're able to do that.

And keep in mind this isn't just somebody that doesn't know you that's saying that you are capable of these things. This is Jesus Christ who knows everything about you. This is Jesus Christ who looked at a lame man and told him to get up and start walking. Jesus Christ who told a blind man to see, who told a man who was dead to come out of the tomb.

And now he looks at us and says I want you to bear fruit. So you may think it's impossible. I mean truly in our efforts and our strength these verses that we're looking at they probably are impossible. But Jesus is saying you know you can do these things. Not only can you do these things but if you follow me, if you hold close with me, you will do these things.

So even as we've read these things and probably everybody in this room thought man how do you do that? Is that possible? Oh yeah, it's more than possible. You're able to do it.

Why? Through him who strengthens you. See with you, with man, none of this is possible. But with God all things are possible. So as I read through these scriptures and again many of us have thought how do you do that?

How do you lay down your life? How do you love other people even as Jesus loved us? Jesus tells us in the midst of that you know when I chose you I knew you could do it.

Glad you're sitting down. I knew you could act like me. Jesus thinks we can act like him. What an amazing thing.

What an amazing thing. And while we should doubt our abilities and our strengths, you should never doubt his abilities or his strength. And when he says you can do it, that means you can do it. Now we need to understand that for some of us there's a thing that's in the way that's called sin. Everybody has sinned. Everybody has fallen short of the glory of God we're told in the book of Romans. And there's only one way to do this.

There's only one way to take care of it. It's not hoping that your good is going to outweigh your bad. It's knowing that your good will never outweigh your bad. And understanding that Jesus died for you. You're the reason he laid down his life.

Why? Because he knew no matter how hard you tried that you would never achieve perfection. See somehow we've gotten confused about Christianity and we think is you know we got to be good enough for long enough then God accepts us. That's simply not the good news.

The good news, the good news starts with the bad news. Even the best of us. Do you understand Billy Graham, Pastor Greg Lori, Pastor Chuck Smith, all the all these guys they are dependent upon the grace of God to be forgiven. And every one of us is dependent upon the grace of God.

Not because you've earned it, but because he loves you so much he wants to give it to you. See none of us in here are perfect. If you're in here this morning and you're perfect you know you're in the wrong church and there's probably some other places you could be. But if you're willing to say this morning you know what I'm not perfect. I need forgiveness.

I need help in this area like every one of us do. Then God will honor that and forgive you of your sins if you ask him for it. It's the way that every one of us started our relationship with him. Because until you deal with that, that's a gulf that can't be, you can't fix it. You cannot fix the gulf of sin. You do not have the cure, but Jesus Christ has the cure. And I'm not going to sit back and go well is there only one cure? Why can't there be many cures? No I'm just grateful that for the terminal disease of sin that I have that there is a cure.

And that cure is Jesus. And once that happens then God will begin to do these things through your life that are just so incredible. Things that you never imagined.

He wants to use you in ways that you just can't sit here and think about. Beyond what you're able to think is what the Bible tells us. But that first step has to be yours. Friend do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus name.

Amen. Friend if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible you've been forgiven you've been born again. Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him and he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness.

Those who were sick not the righteous. So congratulations friend you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our first steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina 27117 and share how God is working in your life. You know the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry please go to crossthebridge.com click on the donate button and ask God how much he would have you give either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge. Thank you so much.

Well D.A. before we go what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific and it's easy and it's free so folks sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.