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Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Behold what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. Not just the amount of God's love but what kind of love. It was a serving, it was a self-emptying and empathizing and incarnating, gap-ridging love. So now the question for us becomes does this describe our relationships to one another? Welcome to Summit Life with pastor and author J.D.

Greer. I'm your host Molly Vidovich. Are there any gardeners out there? Did you know that if you only have one tomatillo plant in a garden it'll never produce any fruit because it needs other plants to cross-pollinate? And Christians are kind of like tomatillo plants in that way. Healthy believers will produce the fruit of the Spirit but first you have to be rooted in Christ and second you need to cross-pollinate with community.

And where is that community usually found? The local church. That's our topic today on Summit Life as pastor J.D. Greer continues our series called Gospel. To hear previous messages in this study or to learn more about pastor J.D. 's Gospel Bible study go to jdgreer.com. But for now let's get started in the Gospel of John. I want you to get your Bible if you haven't. I want you to open it to John 15 if you haven't done so already.

Let's review real quick where we have been. The very first week we took an overview of the chapter and I tried to show you how the Gospel changes us in a way like nothing else can. Religion can tell us what to do but religion cannot give us either the desire or the power to do it. The Gospel changes us not by changing our behavior first but by changing our desires so that we begin to do what's right because we love what's right. And so then what we started to do from John 15 is look at the the several different components that Jesus gives of a heart that has been changed by the Gospel and we've compared them to a wheel. So you've got the Gospel in the middle. The first thing is you develop this this passion for the Word of God.

You want to know God more and expressing that back to him in prayer. You looked at the growth and godly character, love, joy, peace, faithfulness, all the the fruits of the Spirit. Then this week we're going to look at the development of of loving relationships inside the church and in community.

And then lastly we're going to look at generosity and how it creates a generous spirit that is within us. That's what sanctification is. All right, sanctification is a big fancy theological word I realize but that's all that it means. All right, John 15 12, this is my commandment Jesus says that you love one another as I have loved you. All right, mark number three of the Gospel changed heart, living in community. Now what you'll find is that this theme surfaces quite often in Jesus's talk that he's given in John 13 through 17. You remember the first week I explained to you that John 13 through 17 is kind of a unit.

It is Jesus's farewell speech that he's giving to his disciples. John 15, the 17 verses there in John 15, they kind of function somewhat like a summary of all that Jesus has talked about in the and the rest of the talk. So it's kind of where you go for the you know for the outline but you'll find at other places in John 13 through 17 he'll take these subjects he he mentions in John 15 he'll go deeper with them. So let me take you a couple other places in John 13 through 17 to show you where he developed the idea that he's talking about there in verse 12. Go first to John 17.

All right, jump two chapters forward. John 17, we're going to look at verse 23. John 17 23, this is Jesus praying for his disciples and their presence. All right, this is you know by the way you've heard the Lord's Prayer and we always think you know our father who art in heaven. That's not really the Lord's Prayer, that's the model prayer that he gave us.

This is the Lord's Prayer. John 17 23, I pray he says that they may be one even as we are one. I am them and you and me that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me. All right, now that's a reference first of all to the Trinity. The Trinity.

Now I realize that there's a lot of things about the Trinity that are difficult to understand that many of us have trouble, all of us have trouble with, namely me to begin with. God is one God but he exists eternally in three persons. You know and people hear that they're like what sounds like there's three God, three different persons. Father, Son, Holy Spirit sounds like there's a triad of God's. I know that's what it sounds like but the Scripture could not be clear there's only one God. You're like one plus one plus one equals three.

I've heard it said maybe you should think of it as one times one times one that it still equals one. I don't know how it all works but I know we're talking about God. All right, and if we're talking about God your little pea brain, no offense, should not be surprised that there's some things about God that you don't understand. It blows your mind.

It blows your mind. We're talking about the nature of God. God has eternally existed as three persons but there is only one God. Now even if we can't quite get our minds around that, what we realize from that though is that, watch this, God has always existed in community. God has never been a loner. There's never been a time when God was by himself. There's always been Father, Son and Holy Spirit existing eternally together and God has always existed in loving relationships. When we say that God is love, love has to have an object. So God's first love was there within the Trinity and that becomes a model to us of how we are to love each other. That's very important because everything we're going to talk about today is rooted in the nature of God himself. All right, you still with me? Is your head hurt?

If it doesn't you're not thinking about it. All right, go from John 17, go back four chapters now, go back to John 13. You'll fly right over the top of John 15, wave at John 15 12 as you go past, then land in John 13 34. John 13 34. Here's where Jesus takes us even a little deeper here. John 13 34, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you, so you also are to love one another. By this will all people know that you're my disciples if you have love one for another. Now I want us to dig down on this one and I want us to ask some questions of what Jesus just said because then I'll think it will get at the heart of what he's talking about here. First question that I would ask of this text is in verse 34.

First of all, why is this a new commandment? I mean, Leviticus 19 18. You know, Leviticus is the oldest book that the Jews have. It's like their original charting founding documents. It's their constitution. Here's what Leviticus 19 18 said, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord. Did Jesus just forget about that and say that this is a new commandment when in fact it was not?

Well, of course not. He wrote Leviticus 19 18. He didn't forget about it. But listen, what was not new was the commandment to love each other. What was new was the standard they would use to measure their love. As I have loved you, they were to love each other in the same manner and to the same extent that he had loved them.

That word new can carry the connotation of revolutionary. This is my revolutionary commandment to you that you love one another in the manner and to the extent that I have loved you. So that's the second question we would ask of Jesus' statement. How did Jesus love us? How did Jesus love us? Let me give you five ways that Jesus in John 13 has just demonstrated and expressed his love to them. If you take notes, I'd encourage you to write these down. Number one, he served them. He served them.

The whole context of John 13, if you go back a few verses, is you see that Jesus has just washed their feet, which pretty well blew their minds, right? Because the universal approach to power is that when you have power, you use it to elevate yourself, right? Do you have the power of smartness? Then you use that power to get into the best school so that you can get the best job to make the most money. Do you have the power of money? How do you leverage that power?

You leverage it to create a better standard of living for yourself, to live in a nicer house, to drive a nicer car, to go to nicer places. Do you have the power of power? Then how do you use that power?

You use that power to control situations so they always exist for your benefit. But here Jesus is in John 13 with all of those things, right? I mean, he was plenty smart. He created the universe.

He had intelligence. He had plenty of money. I mean, if not, he could just create a new universe with new money. He has all the money he needs. He's got all the power in the world.

He's omnipotent. But at the end of his life, he's not using any of those things for self-benefit. In fact, he's taking those things and pouring himself out for them.

He's not even using his power to control a situation so that he is protected. He's using his power to pour himself out in death so that they can be saved. And as he washed their feet in John 13, you'll see that he explains to them that this washing of the feet is just a symbol of the ultimate way he was going to serve them. He was going to spill his blood to wash the dirtiest parts of them, which was not their feet.

It was their sin-blocking souls. So his whole life, he spent leveraging his power for their benefit. That was how he loved them, which leads me to number two. He leveraged his abilities for their needs. He leveraged his abilities for their needs.

Let me go on to number three. Number three, he shared in their pain and their sorrow. He entered into it.

He felt it. Right before these chapters, in John chapter 11, there was a story where Jesus shows up at the tomb of Lazarus, where Lazarus is a friend of his who's died. And when he gets to the tomb, Mary and Martha, Lazarus' two sisters, are standing there outside the tomb.

And of course, they're weeping because their brother died. And it says that when Jesus got there, the shortest verse in all the Bible, you know what it is? Jesus wept.

Shortest verse in all the Bible, one of the most difficult, I think, to understand because here's the question. Why was Jesus weeping? Didn't he know that in just a few minutes Lazarus was going to be coming out of the grave and everybody was going to be having a party? If you knew that, if you knew how the story was going to end, don't you think that he would have been like, don't stop your crying.

I'm going to fix this. No, he weeps. Why? Because he entered into their pain. Because he had become one with them. Just like he's saying here in John 17, he had become one so that when they weep, he weeps. Which means that when you go through pain, he weeps. It means that when your heart is broken, it means when you're lonely, God's not standing in heaven shouting platitudes at you about how one day he's going to resurrect everything and fix it. He enters into that pain.

He enters into it because just like the Trinity is one, so that what one member of the Trinity, because they're all God, a little difficult here, but because they're all God, what one member of the Trinity is feeling, the other ones naturally feel because they mirror whatever the other one's feeling because they're all one. Jesus, even when he knows that in five minutes the situation is going to be different, even then he weeps because they weep. Do you have a broken heart?

Are you lonely? If Jesus Christ has entered into you, then whenever you weep, he weeps because he shares in your pain and his sorrow. He has made them his very own. We'll get right back to today's teaching in just a moment, but first let me tell you about our latest resource for our Summit Life listeners. Our gift to you this month follows right along with the program. You know, one thing I've learned is that our greatest joy comes not when we're working overtime to impress God, but when we're serving him from a platform of gratitude, and the difference maker is the gospel. This amazing gift that God has given us doesn't merely punch our ticket to heaven, but it does drive everything we do as believers. Make these lessons you're hearing on the program personal with an eight session video Bible study. This resource makes a great group Bible study, so submit these truths with those that you love.

Whatever the study looks like, we'd like to encourage you to reserve this curriculum set today by calling 866-335-5220 or visit us online at jdgrier.com. Number four, he lived among them. He lived among them. He came close to them. He didn't stand in heaven and shout his love toward them with a bullhorn.

He incarnated himself, which is a theological word, incarnation, which just means he took on flesh and blood, incarna, in the flesh. He was born into our pain and our poverty. In fact, he was born just about as poor as you could be born. I mean, I understand some of you grew up poor, but not one of you was born in a stable, or maybe I had actually had a girl come up last night for one of the services and say, I was born in a barn.

I was like, I don't want to know the story. You might have, but none of you were probably born as poor as he was. He was born as poor as you could possibly get because he was taking on himself the poorest of the poor and coming close to them. He got so close that he could be touched. He could be interrupted. He could be betrayed with a kiss. And as he came into our world and he got close and he shared our pain and our sorrow, there's a different kind of love that we experience than if he is at a distance.

When I served as a missionary in Southeast Asia, I noticed that the first year that I was there, it was very difficult to have relationships for two reasons, real relationships with the Southeast Asian people. Number one is I couldn't really speak the language, right? I mean, when I got there, they dropped me off.

I could say, hi, my name is JD. Where's your bathroom? My house is on fire. That was the extent of my vocabulary. All right, so that put a gap there.

Then the other thing was because I was part of a team of Americans who did share my culture, I noticed that what I would do is I would kind of every once in a while, you go out and do these things out there with these Southeast Asian people, but then I would come back and my real circle of friendship and fellowship was taking place with my American team. Well, about nine, 10 months into my time there, something tragic happened, and that is that my roommates came down with something. I don't really know how to describe it except that, I kid you not, they discovered 103 kidney stones in his left kidney, right, which just doesn't work out well.

And so they medivaced him out. They had to take out part of his kidney, but bottom line was I was left by myself for about four months. At that point, there was no more, I didn't have a roommate. I didn't have a team to go back to, and that forced me to actually get out of that house and I began to do life with these Southeast Asian people. I became a part of some of their families.

You know, if I wanted to eat dinner with somebody that wasn't an American to eat dinner with, I'd eat dinner with them. They had to figure out how to talk, and suddenly my compassion for these people took on a whole different level, and their knowledge of me and their compassion of me, because I wasn't from a distance anymore talking to them about the love of God. I was up close to them, talking to them about their lives, and that's what Jesus does is he lived among them. Number five, that's what part of, number five part of number four, he bridged the gap to get to them.

He bridged the gap to get to them. You know, I think there's something in all of us, isn't there, that wants to be with people like us. You want to be with people of your same education level, have the same, you know, sense of humor, a lot of times from the same race, of the same socioeconomic status. That's just who we enjoy being around the most.

That's who we have the most in common with. There was never a greater gap than that which Jesus overcame in coming to us, right. I mean, first of all, he was the creator. He designed the nucleus of the atom.

Like I've told you, some of you can't figure out how to get your DVR to quit flashing 12 o'clock midnight. There's a gap between your abilities and his. He was rich. He was rich, but he was born into a family that couldn't afford medical insurance. He was perfectly holy, and we were so sinful that if we had appeared in the presence of the Father God, we would have been incinerated. These are the things that he overcame to come to us.

He didn't come to us because he was lonely. God existed as a Trinity. The Trinity was his circle. God hung out with other people who were also God. That was God's circle. He left that circle and came into ours for the purpose of including us in his. These five things are probably what's on the Apostle John who wrote obviously the Gospel of John when he wrote 1 John 3.1 when he says, Behold, what manner of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. Not just the amount of God's love, not the fact of God's love, but what kind of love the Father gave to us.

It was a serving. It was a self-emptying and empathizing and incarnating gap bridging love. Now let's go back to verse 34 there in chapter 13. A new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. So now the question for us becomes, does this describe our relationships to one another and to the world?

Let's go back through that list. Number one, he served us. Are you serving others? He served us as your life characterized by the service of others. We are constantly at this church always talking about the need that we have for people to serve on ministry dates, right?

And you just hear people. You would not believe the comments I hear over the years. I hear people say things like, I hear many people say, oh well, I don't want to volunteer in a kid's ministry. Well, we got, you know, three, four, five kids of our own.

We got two kids of our own. I deal with them all week. I heard somebody say one time, it's like I deal with kids all week.

That's the last thing I want to do when I come to church. I'm going to let some of the single people take care of them. They don't have any time with kids.

That's their role, right? Then I've heard single people say, well, I don't know what kids are like. I don't have kids. There's a reason I don't have kids yet. I don't really like kids. I didn't have these kids. I shouldn't have to deal with them. The married people ought to have to deal with them.

I mean, tongue in cheek, we're all kind of joking here. Can you think of a more unChristlike attitude on either side than that? I come to church because this is my time. I come to worship a guy who said that he came not to be served, but to serve. And this is how I worship him, by talking about the things that I want and the things that I don't really want to do. When you follow Jesus, it means that you pick up that towel and you begin to wash feet, you begin to serve others. So let's just ask another question. Is that your general attitude toward life?

Are you using your power to go up, to elevate yourself, or are you leveraging that power to go down? Saint Augustine said that the church most different from the world in its attitude toward three things. Saint Augustine, 1,500 years ago, said the church is most distinguished from the world by its attitude toward three things, money, sex, and power.

Money, sex, and power. He said the world, the world is promiscuous with its sex, stingy with its money, and uses its power to self-elevate and give self-promotion. He said the church, however, is not promiscuous with its sex, it's promiscuous with its money. That's what promiscuous means. It means you just give it out everywhere because it doesn't matter that much to you.

That's what the world does with sex. Saint Augustine said that's what believers do with money because money is not that important to them, so they give it out everywhere. So they're promiscuous with their money, but they're stingy with their sex because they know that God has created that for marriage and the marriage bed is holy. He said, and then they use their power not to elevate themselves and to serve themselves and to leverage it for self-promotion, but they use their power to serve just like Jesus did. What that means is that the most powerful among you, the most wealthy among you, the most significant in status among you, ought to be those who serve the most. To be a follower of Jesus means that your life is characterized by service.

So that's a good question for you just to think about. Is your life more characterized by the world's attitude toward power or Jesus's? And you ought to just kind of wake up and say, I might have been somebody who prayed to receive Jesus like a fire escape to get out of hell, but I have not become his disciple because to become his disciple means that you live as he lived. And until you're using your power and what God has given you, the way that he used his, you haven't really become his disciple. Number two, he leverages his abilities for our needs. Again, I would just ask, are you leveraging your life for others?

Here's a question. What if Jesus had leveraged his power for you the same way that you're leveraging yours for others? Would you still be in your sins? If Jesus had leveraged his power and ability the way that you were leveraging yours, where would you be? You see, again, a lot of Christians have received Jesus, but they continue to leverage life for themselves because Jesus is like a fire escape.

And I'm telling you, listen, you're going to have to answer to God for it because you might be a fan of Jesus Christ. You might have prayed some prayer, but you haven't become his disciple because the disciple is one who lives like he lives. Because the disciple is one who lives like he lives.

Our love for our world and each other has to be more than words, it's deeds. That's what 1 John 3 says. 1 John, again, the writer, the Apostle John, by this we know love. How do we know love? Because God articulated it to us with the finest nuances of systematic theology and taught us Calvinism. Is that how we know the love of God?

No, we know the love of God, not because he explained it to us, but because he laid down his life for us. We ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how could God's love possibly abide in that person? Little children, let us not love in word or in talk, but in deed and in truth.

Not in talk, but in deed. Here's a question, what's your giving like? You ought to realize that God did not give you all that so that you could just leverage it for self-promotion. God gave it to you so you could pour it out for the kingdom of God. You leverage it for one another.

When you see somebody in need in our church, do you respond without being told? There was a guy who was living with his girlfriend. He gets convicted about that, confesses that to a small group, but they said, my girlfriend and I, we don't have the finances to be able to live apart.

We know that we need to get married now. God's taught us that at the summit church, but we don't know what to do because we can't afford it. So one of our members says, well, you just come live with me. This guy went to live with them for the four months until he got married while he was there living in this guy's house.

This guy who opened his house to him broke both of his ankles, couldn't do anything around the house. And so this guy who's living there now is able to serve and minister to that household. That's the church loving and taking care of one another. Galatians 6, 10, I love how Paul says that. He says, do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith. Do good to all men, especially those of the household of faith.

This is where our love starts right here, just with one another. The church is one of the greatest blessings that God gives his children. Are you enjoying that gift and becoming a blessing to others? You're listening to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of J.D.

Greer. We want to make sure that you know about Pastor JD's new resource available right now. It's the gospel video curriculum that goes along with our teaching series here on the program. Over eight weeks or sessions, each time begins with a video from Pastor JD. And then based on that teaching, you'll open your study guide and Bible and work through the questions and prayers. For a gift of $50 this month, we'll send you the DVDs and five study guides to get you started. And for a gift of $75, we'll include 10 study guides.

Call a few friends and join together in this study. Contact us today and we'll send you your copies when you generously give to support this ministry. Call 866-335-5220.

That's 866-335-5220. Or give online and request your curriculum kit at jdgreer.com. While you're on the website, don't forget to sign up for our weekly newsletter. Get ministry updates, information about new resources, and Pastor JD's latest blog post delivered straight to your inbox. It's a great way to stay connected with Summit Life, and it's completely free to subscribe. Sign up when you go to jdgreer.com. I'm Molly Vitevich, encouraging you to join us again next time as we continue this study about God's design for the church. See you Monday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program is produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.