Vison Comes When We Love …
As Jesus Loves the Father
Text: John 17
Proposition: The vision for the church is discovered when we love the Father as Jesus loves the Father.
Introduction: Last week we talked about the way the Lord uses many to carry the task of vision, entrusting it like a great wealth into their hands that it would be weighed out with fine measure when we arrive at our New Jerusalem. We looked at the story of Ezra in chapter 8 and saw how he had fasted and prayed for the vision needed to get the task entrusted to he and the people of Israel accomplished. So after looking at that we concluded that the gaining and finishing of a facility has been a large part of our vision over the last years. That is now almost complete and the next aspect of His vision for this church now sits before us. I believe that vision will always relate to what Jesus loves so we considered seven things that Jesus loves and for the next seven weeks we want to pray and even fast over each one of these separately and let them guide us in the defining of His vision for Faith Community Church in the days ahead. Here’s a list of those seven things that Jesus loves:
Jesus Loves the Father
Jesus Loves Word of Scripture, truth
Jesus Loves the lost, sinners, rebels, His enemies
Jesus Loves the least, little children
Jesus Loves the lonely, widows and orphans
Jesus Loves the unlovely, beggars, lepers, the blind, the outcasts
Jesus Loves the church, the Body of Christ
So let’s begin this with the obvious yet profound truth that Jesus loves the Father. In John 14:31 Jesus says, “But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do.” Jesus loves the Father and demonstrates that love by doing what the Father commands. If we were to say that the cross of Christ is the very heart of the Gospel we would have to also say that the very heart of the Gospel is the Father Who commanded that cross. It is possible that the church has her heart set on Christ and on heaven more than she has heart set on the Father. If we are to love what Jesus loves it has to first begin with a great love for the Father. Let me first invite you to that truth and then ask what it might mean in shaping our vision as His church.
I. Love Begins with the Father.
Students in seminaries have often wrestled with this question, “Does God the Father love us because of Jesus?” Though it seems counter intuitive, the answer is ‘No’. The Father loves you before the work of the cross ever had its effect in you. It’s what Romans 5:8 emphasizes, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we were miles away from believing in Jesus, light years away from being redeemed and made alive in Christ, the Father loved us. It’s what’s at the core of John 3:16, it’s the good news that God the Father loves you and sees the ruin of sin destroying you, separating you from Him and from life. So He did what only He could do, He sent His Son, literally He sent Himself, to take our place that we could have part in His place. Love begins with the Father and then moves to the Son. In John 15:9 Jesus says, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you…”. 1 John 4:10 says the same thing, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Love has its origin in the Father, it’s where it begins. That God is love is the greatest reason why Jesus loves the Father.
II. Love Ends With the Father.
One of the most quoted Bible passages is John 14:2-6, “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” It’s a passage about heaven, which means it’s a reference to salvation, to what the cross will accomplish for any who seek Jesus as their Savior from Hell. To many it is the focus of what being a Christian means, to go to heaven, to be where Jesus is. But what if that stops just short of an even greater destination. Jesus said that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and all of that is meant to bring us to One place… ‘No one comes to the Father except through Me.’ The great end of the Fathers love is that we would come to Him! In Heaven yes, through the cross of course, by Jesus alone with great wonder and praise… but it’s to The Father that love seeks to bring us. It is this truth that impels Jesus to love the Father, to love the Father’s sinless perfection, His abundant grace and wisdom that are evident in all that the Father does to accomplish this. Jesus loves the Father and the radiance of His glory that existed before the earth was, it’s the place where the Father draws us to in Jesus.
All I am seeking to do is to remind you of what you already know, that the Father is the center of the Gospel, the Son is the perfect expression of the Father in all things and the cross is the measure of the Father’s great, great, love for you. So what might happen if you begin to pray and even fast this week knowing that vision is discovered when we love what Jesus loves and the first step in this is that Jesus loves the Father?
Do I agree that the Father has not been the central focus of my love? There are many people who love, worship and exalt Jesus yet to whom Jesus’s Father remains a stranger. Is that true of us? If so God invites us to this beautiful truth, “…and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” (2Cor.6:17,18) As Jesus loves the Father, won’t you too come to Him and love Him as your Father.
Do I believe that God has always gone before me, in front of me in all that I have ever considered to be fruitful or faithful efforts of my faith in Christ? Remember what Jesus said in John 5:19, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Is vision then seeing what the Father is already doing and joining in like manner?
When I speak to the Father about that, even in using the Lord’s prayer of Matt. 6:9, I again confess that He is sovereign over all heaven and all earth. Is vision built upon an assurance that He is sovereign, that the Father has a will for this earth which is meant to be a reflection of His present will in heaven? If that is the case, is there anything the Father cannot do? How does this affect the extent of vision?
Is it a right comparison to say that all that an earthly father is meant to be and do is but a picture of what my heavenly Father actually is and does? One day Jesus was talking to His disciples about this very thing, “You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”(Matt 11) To love the Father as Jesus loves the Father is to believe that not only does He hear our concerns, He responds not with punishment or harm but with that which meets our needs. In a fatherless generation can that direct our vision, is our Father good, do people need a good, good Father?
This week pray and fast that as you love the Father He would direct our way.