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The Big Idea

Grace is given, not earned.

If you love and believe in Jesus and what He has done, you are an example of His grace.

What do we know?

We are people who love to get things. And when we do, the 2 best kinds of things are either nice or free (but preferably both). Think about something you really want for yourself. How would you feel if it was given to you? How about grateful?

Let's talk about grace. What is grace? A simple definition is something given that is not earned or merited. Do you know what this looks like in everyday life? If your teacher gives you 5 extra credit points on your test, that’s grace. When we talk about grace we usually talk about mercy also. A simple way to define mercy is not getting what you deserve. So, If you fail a test at school and your parents don’t ground you for 2 weeks, that’s mercy. A little advice - I’d study to get that grade up and not test the limits of a parent's grace and mercy.

We are always working and earning. Grades, allowances, and trust are just a few that are common to you. Life around us is cause and effect. We use words like fair or unfair depending on the outcome of what happens. Grace doesn't work this way. Being a gracious person means that circumstances shouldn't be a contributing factor to you giving grace.

We are saved by a gracious God

We have a God who loves us and scripture tells us this multiple times. God’s love is why we get grace. So, whenever we talk about grace, we have to talk about God’s character. Why would a holy God put up with the things we, His creation, has done. How can He still love us and give us grace? We are told in Exodus 34:6, “The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness,”. Wow! How does that compare to what we create in our minds of who we want God to be for us? We think eternal present giver. And we are right that the gift he gives us is eternal.

Our salvation is a “free gift of God” (Romans 6:23). We don’t have to have our good deeds outnumber our bad deeds. We don’t have to make ourselves better to get His love. At our worst, in our sin, knowing the sin that would take place, Jesus still loved us and went to the cross (Romans 5:8). And when we confessed to Him that He is our Lord and He saved us (Romans 10:9), we committed ourselves to also be a giver of His grace.

The grace and mercy He gives us is to accomplish what He has in store for us, as Romans 8:28 reminds us, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” God is continually working in our life, noticed or not.

What we do comes from what we are given

When we previously talked about obedience, we talked about how our obedience comes out of our love for Jesus. 1 John 4:19 tells us as much. If you want to know what that truly looks like, look at the apostle Paul. The apostle Paul was literally a changed man. Before he met Jesus, he was finding and killing Christians. If anyone, in our eyes, didn’t deserve Jesus’ love and grace it was Paul. God’s direct grace given to Paul was for his salvation.

Your trials might be grace for someone else. Do you see people struggling? You can be the grace God is giving them. We don’t set out to have bad things happen to us. Bad things just happen to us at times. But what if they aren’t bad things. What if the things we go through are lessons that become someone else’s grace?

Paul tells us in Philippians 1:12–14 how his being in prison has helped the gospel spread. “I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.”

Huh? It’s easy to give grace to people you like. How do you give grace to people who make trouble in your life? Are they the neighbors Jesus was talking about when He said we are to love them? Paul thought so. So much that the people keeping him in chains heard the gospel. The people who were charged with keeping Paul locked up and away from preaching the gospel continued the spread of the same gospel. That, my friends, is not luck but the grace that God affords the hearts of those whom He wants to hear it.

We can give grace

You are in a unique place in your life. You only have a few core responsibilities. Learn how to learn, experience what God has put in front of you, and create relationships. Your growth into young men and women is an exercise in graciousness.

This place where you are in life is intended for you to interact with people, living out what you have learned so far. So what have you learned, and I don’t mean just from a classroom? What has God’s primary lesson been for you? Has it been to love the people who God has surrounded you with? Has He helped you to recognize the grace you have received to go and give grace to others?

We don't have to know every single word of the Bible in order to share God's love and grace with others. Colossians 4:6 tells us to make sure how we talk to others is gracious. If we are mouthing off, being intentionally or unintentionally rude, our speech is not seasoned but burnt. If you love and believe in Jesus and what He has done, you are an example of His grace. So go and let others know Jesus is the giver of grace. And by doing this you will let them know you are too because of Jesus.

Now what?

Go and give grace. Are you currently giving grace or are you making people earn your grace? Our graciousness should resemble God’s graciousness - given and not earned.

What does scripture tell us?

1 John 4:19
We love because he first loved us.

Romans 6:23,5:8, 10:9
6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
5:8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Colossians 4:6
Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Resources

The Bible Project - Word Study: Ahavah - "Love"

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The Big Idea

We obey because Jesus loved us first.

When we believe and declare Jesus is our Lord (Romans 10:9-10), we commit to what He has called us to do. This includes following His commands and teachings. But don’t worry, He gives us Help.

What do we know?

We are rebels. No, not the ones fighting the galactic empire to destroy the imperialistic hold they have over all of the star systems. (Yes, this is a Star Wars reference.)

This means we are people who rebel. Let’s address the elephant in the room, the thing we don’t want to say about ourselves: we do not always want to obey God. We tend to resist things we do not want to do. We want to do what WE want to do.

The primary thing that stands in the way for us to fully obey God is us - you and me, individually. And who we end up resisting when we rebel are those in our lives that represent authority, and Jesus is at the top of that list.

If we know we rebel, how then do we work to obey? Is Jesus the main authority in your life? If you say He is, how are you doing with obeying His commandments.

The passage here in John 14:15 follows what we studied previously. Remember that Jesus was preparing the disciples, and us, for the long haul. Here, Jesus is telling us that if we truly are a follower of His we will obey His instructions.

This requires us to recognize three things.

We obey when we know His love

God is love I bet is something you have heard before. There are a number of passages in scripture on love. One of the clearest verses that speak to God’s love for us is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” There can be no objection by a believer in Jesus that this is the greatest gift ever given. What then does this tell us about the God who gave it? Psalm 51:14 tells us He is a God who saves.

Think about the adults in your life, the ones who are helping you to grow and learn and avoid pitfalls. When we talk about obeying, and disobeying, it’s usually associated with the person asking you to do something than it is the task you are being asked to do. Is it mom or dad? Is it a teacher? What about a coach? What if we place Jesus in front of us. How would you act, or react, if you were told to do something by Jesus? When we see Jesus commanding us to do something in scripture, do we immediately think He is doing it on a power trip, or as God in the flesh loving us and giving us instructions that benefit us in His kingdom?

What about forgiveness? We see the love of God from Jesus’ teaching in The Parable of the Prodigal Son starting at Luke 15:11. The son wanted all he could have now so he asked his father for his inheritance. He then ran off spending it all on reckless living as scripture tells us. The son didn’t take the money to invest and grow what was given to him. He ran off and spent it on who knows what. When the son had spent all of the inheritance, not having anything left and nowhere to turn, he returned home. He didn’t come home to a father that said “too bad”, but to a father that said, “I’m glad”.

Jesus uses this to teach how incredible and loving our Heavenly Father is. He knows our hearts, and he wants our hearts. He wants our heartfelt obedience so He knows that His word is on our hearts.

We obey when we know our sin

When we think about love, what comes to mind is either getting or receiving something. Have you ever considered love is also being denied something, being told “No”? I bet you don’t think about laws and instructions as love. When we think of laws, we think of “don’ts” and “don’ts” aren’t things you relate with love. But our God has given us don’ts, along with the dos, so He can be glorified in all of His instruction. If our God wasn’t loving, he could have told us “you guess if it is lawful or not”. But, He didn’t do that. He laid out the parameters upfront so we wouldn’t have to guess. (Soccer illustration, handball)

Sin is the opposite of obedience. It is the definition of disobedience. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden when they disobeyed God and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, messing it up for all of us. “Don’t eat the fruit” seemed like such a small, trivial request, right? No request or command from God is small and trivial. He gives it for a reason.

Sin is also a contradiction. Sin makes us think it can give us something greater than God can. Something that appears wonderful as sin is truly small because it can never be fulfilled by God. Think about the results of a lie. You are either busted in the lie or your lie is not discovered then more lies are needed to cover up the progressing lies. God is able to use our disobedience to shape us but how necessary was our sin?

We make mistakes. We mess up. What sets apart the person who loves God and the person who doesn’t is knowing that they sinned and seeking forgiveness through repentance.

We obey when we know what to put our hearts to

The “don’ts” always seem to dominate discussions, but what then are the “do’s”?

We as believers seek out what He says we should put our hearts to. What do you think we do when we put our hearts to something? We love. Then what are we supposed to love? Jesus’ commands. Let’s read John 14:15 again. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Such a simple, easy to understand direction given by Jesus.

Jesus was asked in Matthew 22 what the greatest commandment was and in verses 37–38 He tells us, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.” Then in verse 39 He tells us, “And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself”.

Consider this example. In a family, you typically have parents and siblings, brothers or sisters. Now not all families look the same but the family unit is similar in most situations. Think about these two commands as it relates to your family. Love your parents all you can, and love your brother/sister as you do yourself. If you aren’t doing those things, your relationship at home will be hard. Anything asked of you at home, then, would seem petty and even wasteful.

Everything we do in bringing glory to God is wrapped up in the two commandments. Many other “dos” could be listed here but our priority should be to take to heart the two core things Jesus said we should do. Obeying Jesus then looks like loving and worshipping Him, because that is what our heart tells us to do.

Now what?

We know God’s love for us. We know we are disobedient in sin. We now know what we are to love. What do we do with all of that? Once we know, we are to obey. Knowing God’s word is so important for two reasons. First, it’s what He has given us to know Him, love him, and why we should worship Him. Second, it’s the basis for us to discern how we navigate the world that we are in. But also, for those that have accepted Jesus, He has given us His Spirit. The “rules” of the world today are ever-changing, but God’s word is ever faithful. When the two conflict, it takes us remembering Jesus’ instruction and trusting in the Holy Spirit to keep His commandments.

What does scripture tell us?

John 14:15–17 ESV
[15] “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. [16] And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, [17] even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

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The Big Idea

We endure because Jesus has made the way for us and prepares us.

One of the values we work to grow in is endurance. We will have both ups and downs in our lives. We are not promised comfort and happiness as followers of Christ, but we are guaranteed that Jesus is truth and He is life. He prepares us with this truth so we can endure.

What should we know?

We prepare for things in life we enjoy or want to be better at. Let’s use sports as an example. No matter what sport you play, to be the best you can be you have to practice and prepare. An MLB baseball pitcher can throw around 100 pitches in a baseball game. To be conditioned to throw that many pitches, they have to both practice pitching and train their bodies. What if you play a musical instrument? The same principle applies.

Jesus is preparing the disciples to be His witness. You know what else Jesus is doing here? He is preparing us to endure!

Jesus has spent the last 3 years teaching the disciples, declaring Himself and the Kingdom of God. This is the last night they will have together before Jesus goes to the cross. At this point, Jesus and the remaining disciples are in the upper room. The disciples have had their feet washed by Jesus. They celebrated the Passover together. Judas has already left to betray Jesus to the Pharisees. The disciples have argued about which of them was the greatest (Luke 22). Can you imagine that? Jesus has washed your feet, celebrated a new covenant that He has given (Lord’s Supper), and you argue about who sits shotgun! I chuckle at this cause it is a reminder how gracious of a Lord we have and how silly we can be.

But let’s move on.

Jesus is bringing together core things the disciples must hear before he is taken away. Who all has been part of either a team or group where the coach or leader has given a pep talk before go time? What’s usually given in those talks is a message with final instructions, how hard you or the team has worked, what you are going to face, how you devote yourself to the moment, how the effort you give is bigger than the sum of your preparation, how much the coach believes in you.

So what is Jesus saying to the disciples here in the verses in John 14? How is Jesus preparing the disciples to endure what is to come?

Jesus is telling them to not be afraid. In all of the Bible, we are told to not be afraid around 365 times. We could read 1 passage every day and be reminded not to be afraid for the whole year. Jesus is giving the disciples comfort right now. Judas has left to go to betray Jesus and Jesus is about to literally go through excruciating agony. How about that! He’s not telling them to go run and hide. He’s not saying protect yourself. He is reminding them they don’t need to worry because all things have been taken care of. He’s got this! Trust Him!

Jesus is also telling them to believe in who He is. Does this seem a little hard to believe, that He would have to tell them this? Jesus has been with these guys for 3 years. Not messaging back and forth for 3 years, or checking out each others Instagram feeds, but actually walking around, sharing meals and such. They have witnessed literal miracles He did while standing by His side.

So why tell them this? We have to be reminded of the obvious, even the clearest things we have seen and heard. This isn’t because we are stupid but because the message is that important. He is telling them this so that they can be confident in what He is doing.

Whose parents have told you something like “I know you can do it! It’s not going to be easy but you can do it!”? Mine did. Why do they do this? They tell us this because they have confidence in us and want us to have confidence. We have a Savior that is so incredible that not only does He take on the death that we deserve but he prepares us to endure by giving us confidence in Him and what He promises to do.

Now what?

We can trust in Jesus because He said we can!

We can have confidence in Him because of who He is!

We can endure because His promise was delivered!

Our endurance is tied directly to our trust in Jesus. What has he told us? Do we know all that he has instructed? Do we believe Him? Paul reassures us in Philippians 1:6 saying “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” For those of us that believe Him, He has given us the gift of eternal life. The gospel is not a message of “you stand no chance” but Jesus already did it for you. We endure for all He has promised.

What does scripture tell us?

John 14:1–7
[1] “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. [2] In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. [4] And you know the way to where I am going.” [5] Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” [6] Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. [7] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” (ESV)

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