6th Sunday of Easter

A sermon by Rev. Andrew Colman on Acts 10:44-48 and John 15:9-17

Come Holy Spirit. Come like a fire and burn. Come like the wind and cleanse, convict, convert and consecrate our hearts for our great good and for your great glory. Amen. So this week. We step into the Gospels right in the middle.

What is commonly known as the farewell discourses. Where the last discourse where Jesus as rabbi, as teacher, sort of wrapping up his final teachings by way of conversation, at least on this side of the resurrection.

Of course he will have much more to teach us through his life and his actions and his words until he sends. But these are kind of like the final lecture. Those that he's giving to the core of his disciples, those are the.

Ones that were there. And we heard tonight one of the most beautiful lines in all of the scriptures. As the father has loved me. So I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide. In my love.

This word, if is a difficult word. In seminary, we were told to avoid the word if in preaching at all costs. Thanks, Jesus. Because we do not have an if, then God. Because it doesn't take more than two sentences for the for the preacher to get themselves into real trouble while using these words.

Listen, if you just do fill in the blank, then God will. It's over. Like, no the evidence. To the contrary. To whatever that if then proposition is could very well be sitting right beside the person hearing it. Or the person hearing it might be in fact living out the just do part of it and praying and hoping for the then God will. Part of it.

And it may never come. Instead, because therefore that's the way to go, the idea goes like this because God, who created the heavens and the earth. Who sent God's only sundown to live a perfect life and offer that life on the cross to make us all right with God? We have been made right with God. Sermon could be over, right?

There. But it's not. Things fit within that framework really kind of nicely, primarily because it is God who is doing all that restoration work. What we do fits inside of the therefore. Because Jesus gave his life up on the cross and defeated sin.

Therefore we have the power through the Holy Spirit to become more like God in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin that need to be rescued. That's done. Now we can move forward and do the work of the Kingdom which Jesus has called us to do with the confidence of the cross and the resurrection, or we can move forward in prayer, looking for the comfort that Jesus has promised us. With the confidence of the cross and the resurrection because.

So clearly Jesus matched my missed my preaching class because he says if you keep if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. But what's the promise that Jesus is making? It's not the promise. Of a new. Car. It's not the promise of the latest limited edition Nike sneakers.

The promise is of abiding in Jesus love. That's the promise. You see, abiding is an active thing. It's something that we do. So if we're not keeping his commandments, it's not like we haven't been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, or that the victory over the grave has no, no longer applies to us, or that Jesus does not love us eternally with the power that created the cosmos.

All of that. It is still true. That cannot change. What it means when we're not choosing to abide or follow those commandments? It means that when we choose to not follow them, the commandments of God, we are in fact simply abiding somewhere else. We are always abiding somewhere.

And that somewhere might not be in God's love. It is somewhere other than this eternal place of peace. So again, here we find Jesus making one of those descriptive rather than prescriptive statements. Again, a statement of reality, a statement of the reality which he sees. Being lived out before him, some are abiding, some are not, or some are abiding with him and some are not.

The way we. Relate to these commandments of God is going to lead us into the place that we abide. Where we remain. But then even that is risky, right? Because we might be living a life following the commandments of God and then be pushed out by forces outside of our control that send us running like so many of the refugees from Ukraine and and countless more examples.

That have happened throughout history. But even while on the road as a refugee and there was a beautiful movie about this, if someone can remind me of what it is, please tell me. After there's an incredible movie where there's a group of refugees on a boat and they're taking this boat that's meant for five. Loaded with 50 across the water and there's someone who's a great swimmer.

She was a great swimmer in her country and she realized that if there was just a little more force that these people could be saved and so she jumps out of the boat in the middle of the ocean, straps herself on and pulls. Them. So even in the road or in the boat as a refugee, or in whatever dark and terrible place we find ourselves, we still have the capacity to live out Jesus commandments, to love our neighbors and our friends, and even our oppressors. In appropriate and careful ways, we have the capacity to live out Jesus commandment in those ways in those places.

If when we do that by the power of the Holy Spirit we are taking, we are taking the way to the place where God's love is. We are taking that way to that abiding in God's love and we are remaining there. We are in that place, we're abiding there and that place can be anywhere because God is everywhere. So Jesus, when he makes the command to love. He's in fact exhorting us, telling us what to do and the benefit that comes from it. He is teaching us the if then of love.

There's one the origin that puts it this way. But the intention of this exhortation is not to make the disciples anxious about themselves. But is it is about bringing them joy. And as Jesus puts it, that their joy may be complete. Jesus is confident enough in this way of love that what he says next actually flips over what abiding and remaining actually means. He's he goes on to say no one has greater love than this to lay down one's life for one's friends. This abiding this remaining with God. It transcends life on this earth, living a life in God's ways in God's love ends up being more precious than life itself. Jesus is the ultimate example of that.

Of course, his way of love leads him to the cross that we might be brought back into full communion with God. But it it doesn't always have to be that extreme. Thanks, Peter. God, that joy, that love that laying down of one's life can take form and. Smaller ways and yet still incredibly impactful ways. I recently heard a beautiful example of this as to how it played out in a research project, working towards helping youth in in northern communities build internal strength and resilience.

It's a three-year project for the first of the three years this research group did nothing but be present and listen. No notebooks, no publishing, no advice, giving just coffee, Donuts, presents and conversation. Getting to know these people. Becoming their friends. And after that first year, then they started having conversations about how things might be made better in this community, but it was not the findings presented to the community as a result of this research group's findings and their results. No, it wasn't that, but rather it was the community telling the researchers. But they thought might work, and then the researchers responding to them within the space of their expertise. And and offering some feedback, something that they might just not have access to that could go along with what they were thinking knowing.

Full well that. Their their suggestions might outright be turned down, and that is good. However, the chances of. Is that happening? Are these things being turned down outright were significantly lower because they had actually come to know the people who they were trying to serve? They become their friends. They ended up listening through story after story after story finding patterns that were already present in the community that already helped with strength and resilience. So the recommendations that came, they sounded a little bit more like.

This this thing that you're already doing is good. Do more of that. It is good. So the knowledge and their expertise it took on the shape of the cross, the most important part of what happened on the cross was the work that God was doing, the work that was happening on it, not the stuff that built. It. With the wood and the nails. But the work that was happening. These these researchers, they let their posture of expertise and their egos all die to the service of the people who they were serving. And there was no greater love that they could have shown their new friends.

By dying. We'll buy letting go. So by dying, we're letting go of the part of us that defines us. That is the ego that is the posture by dying and letting go of those parts of us that define us that are not. The way of God that are not the commandments of God by letting those go by letting those die that moves us deeper into the. Way of love. By letting those things go, it moves us into deeper into the joy that God has intended for us. The whole time. So when we love one another. When we let these parts of ourselves go. That are not of God, always by the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is not something we can do on our own. We will find our style. We will find ourselves abiding ever more deeply in the. Love of God. We see it in this story, the dying for a friend can be scaled down. It doesn't actually have to mean giving up our life though it might. In very extreme circumstances, it can also mean much smaller things that are different for each one of us.

Giving up parts of our egos, parts of our expectations of ourselves, parts of our expectations of others. Giving up those. Things that keep us from seeing what is real. And therefore keeping us from acting in. A way that is of real love. For those researchers, at least for now, because they acknowledged reality, they knew their limits. They adjusted their expectations.

And they loved their friends. The love of God was worked through them and through the community, and after all of that, when it was just the reality which can be extremely complicated and hard to discern. After all of that, when it was just reality. And the acts of love those actions were given space to work and healing began. And the joy for the researchers and the people in that community were brought more to completion. And for those walking in the way of Jesus. A deeper abiding in God's love was found. I mean.