So we're in this "Words to Hang On To" series. We're hearing about some of the last words that Jesus says to his disciples, and there's something in here that speaks to this deep-rooted faith that we've been talking about. So if you have your Bibles, we're going to be in John, chapter 15. John's the fourth book of the New Testament, and I'm going to start reading in verse eight. Here we go. "This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourself to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love." If you've been with us, you'll remember that scholars call this section of John the "book of glory." All throughout these chapters, Jesus, he keeps talking about the Father's glory, and also his glory, and every single word brings us closer to the cross. Now, we can't get into all of it, but for John, the cross and God's glory, they're deeply connected. It's a mystery, it's a paradox, but somehow, somehow, God's glory shines most brightly on the cross. And maybe that's because the cross is why we can talk about victory to begin with. It's because of the cross that we can have that relationship that Jesus is talking about, one where we bear much fruit and remain in God's love. This is also the chapter where we find that brilliant metaphor that Jesus uses, "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. Remain in me and you will bear fruit." Now, we unpacked that passage in great detail earlier in the year. We're not going to get into it now. But if you missed it, hop on the app, go to the website, check it out. But the whole point of all of this is to stay close to Jesus. And what we said was that this isn't passive. It takes intentionality. You orient yourself in such a way where you're continually experiencing his presence. You're being reminded of his love. And for Jesus, this isn't just some theory or helpful tip. It's the answer to the weight that we feel moving around in our world, and that's why Jesus moves from this metaphor about vines and branches to the real world with his very next words. "If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete." So we're moving away from metaphor with vines and branches. Jesus, he's telling us straight up how we remain in him. We do what he says. We keep his commandments. Here's a word, we obey him. But have you ever noticed that obedience is hard? I'm telling you people, as a dad of an almost four-year-old, I feel that truth deep in my bones. And to some extent, we don't really ever grow out of it. It can be hard to follow the rules. Like, how many of you are rule followers? Raise your hands high. Be proud. All right, me too, I'm a rule follower. How many of you guys don't even want to raise your hand because I'm asking you to? Yeah. And even as rule followers, it can be hard to obey all the time. And at least for me, so much of that goes back to the situation and who is leading us. So let's talk about those times when obedience is hard. Maybe you've had a bad boss. Now, don't share names, because for the record, that would be gossip, which is disobeying Jesus. But talk to each other about those times where it's hard to obey. Like, what are some qualities of a bad boss that make it hard to obey or listen to them? We do this all the time, if you're new. If someone's by themselves, please pull them in. But talk to each other, what are some qualities of a bad boss? What are some qualities of a bad boss that make it hard? Remember, we are not sharing names, not specifics, but give me something. Who's got something? Hey, also for the record, I want to say, my boss and the leadership team here are great. I just want to get the record straight for everybody here. But who's got something? No recognition. No recognition. So you are working your tail off, and in the end, they're not willing to let everyone else know or kind of give you the accolades you deserve. Yeah? They talk it, but they don't walk it. They talk it, but they don't walk it. Hypocrites, how about that? Yeah. And we got some claps in the room for that one, so that's... Anyone else got something? Micromanager. Micromanager. Do not get me started on micromanaging. I just want to make sure. Yeah, I think Grant Trail said micromanaging, someone there. Also, always finds something wrong, and not acknowledging the small wins, so you can never win. Fenton, showing favoritism, being dishonest. Mid Rivers, they always think they're right even when they're wrong. Ever been there? Anyone else got something over here? They won't listen to you. Huh? They won't listen to you. They don't listen to you. Or how about this? They won't even give you the time of day. They don't even give you the chance to listen to you. Yeah, I think all of those are in play. And I think a mistake that we can make, especially when we've had a bad or unhealthy authority figure in our lives, is we can take those qualities, and we can project them onto Jesus. Like he's some cosmic abusive boss that's just barking orders at us, and all the while, he has his clipboard, and he's just checking on everything we do. And the moment we get out of line, he's going to drag us into his office so fast, and he's going to chew us out. "Because you didn't do this, and you didn't do this, and that's wrong, and that's not what I asked for, and how can you even show your face in here?" What does obedience look like in that kind of relationship? It's often fear-based. It isn't genuine. You obey because you want to, not because you have to. You're sort of like a cog in a machine. You wake up, you go to work, you do your thing, you go home, and then you wake up and do it all over again. There's no relationship, there's no trust, no joy. My question is, is that the type of obedience Jesus is asking for? Like, is he ready to drop the hammer down the moment we get it wrong? Look at what he says, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I've learned from my Father, I have made known to you." So Jesus calls them his friends. That word in the Greek, it's the word philoi. And all throughout the ancient world, going back to Alexander the Great, kings and emperors, they would have an inner circle. Sure, they had generals and politicians and servants that they interacted with, but an elite group of people, they were invited in even deeper. They were known as the philoi tou basileos, the friends of the king. And this was a place of honor. It meant that they had access to the king when no one else did. They would often meet the king in his bedroom first thing in the morning, and they had a front-row seat to his plans and his hopes and his goals for the future. Okay, lean over to the person next to you one more time. This is one of those quick, 10-second shoulder conversations. But who's that one friend that you have, where you think to yourself, "I can't believe I am in their circle"? Quick conversation, turn to the person next to you, say their name. Y'all got someone? Yeah, I am pretty sure that that's how the disciples felt about Jesus. And I don't think it's by accident that Jesus, he's looking at his disciples and he calls them his philoi, his friends, his inner circle. If the disciples obey his commands, they are the philoi tou Jesus Christou, the friends of Jesus, the King. And this creates a different type of heart posture. One where you obey not out of fear or obligation, but out of love. The disciples, they're not just cogs in a machine. They know their master's business. They're invited in close to learn from him and do what he says, and all the while, Jesus keeps refining, keeps correcting, keeps transforming every aspect of their lives. This is what genuine friendship with the living God looks like. Now, don't mishear me. Friend doesn't mean equal. The inner circle never forgot who the emperor was, and Jesus, he's the sovereign King with all power and authority, but with that authority, he chooses to call us his friends. So the next question is, how many of y'all approach God like a friend? How do friends approach each other anyway? Think about some of the great friendships that we watched on screens over the years, like Chewie and Han. That friendship is out of this world. Or "New Girl," CeCe and Jess. Yes, we got a yes over here, like that. Woody and Buzz. Hey, spoiler alert, but at the end of "Toy Story 4," when they had to say goodbye to each other, let's just say I had to explain to Haley why Daddy was crying. Or how about this one, Joey and Chandler. I'll be there for you, when the rain starts to pour. Well, now you know why they don't let me sing on stage. But also, we want people to truly be there for us. But have you ever noticed that it's harder to build those types of friendships the older that we get? And that's true for all sorts of reasons. We're busy. We got a lot going on. It can get easy to feel sort of stuck in our own little worlds. I heard a comedian joke once about how men specifically make friends, and sometimes it's at the office, maybe at the gym, maybe in the neighborhood. We're hanging out around the cul-de-sac. Our kids are playing, so we become friends that way. But a lot of times, for many of us, we're like eight years old, and we sit down next to someone in school and we say, "All right, buddy, I'm done. You are going to be my best friend for life." And I'm blessed to have a handful of those relationships. I've known these guys for almost 30 years. And there was a season in my life, all throughout my 20s, where they started getting engaged and married. Eventually, they started having kids. And don't get me wrong, I was happy for them. I celebrated them. I stood behind them while they got married. And it was also hard. Having kids, getting married, those are a couple of those adulthood benchmarks that society says, "Way to go. You're really a grownup now." So it's a little bit lonely when you're looking around, and from society's standpoint, it feels like all of your buddies are growing up without you. So I was talking to one of those guys. I'll never forget this. And I'm sharing some of that with him, and essentially, he cuts me off and he says, "Ben, shut up. We'll be your family." And I watched how they and others pulled me in. They didn't try to clean up their messy, raising young kids, crazy toddler lives. They pulled me in anyway, and they handed me a juice box. They would send a quick text message. They would FaceTime me, check in in. They would invite me over for dinner. That might not seem like much, but in that season, in that time, those sacrifices made all the difference in the world. So married couples in the room, I want to say to you, who are the singles that you can pull into your mess on a Friday night? You do know that there are singles in our midst who are longing for family. So how can you include them? Maybe it is just sending a quick text checking in. Maybe you invite them to a kid's practice or sports game. Maybe you invite them over on Friday for pizza and a movie because everyone likes that. It might seem like they have something better to do, but at least in my experience, that's not always the case. And the Holy Spirit might be nudging you right now, this is your next step. This is what I'm calling you to do. This is how you can bear the burdens of the people around you and be the body of Christ. This is the kind of sacrifice I'm calling you to make. And now we're starting to see the type of friendship that Jesus is talking about because it's one that involves sacrifice. It's why the greatest form of love is willing to die for your friends. It's what Jesus did for us. But hear me, that friendship might have begun on the cross, but that was just the beginning. You see, life with Jesus, it's so much more than praying a prayer and going to heaven. It's not anything less than that. And if you've trusted in him, that's where your story is headed. But the kingdom of heaven is meant to break into every area of your life. How you spend your time, the way you spend your money, how you treat other people, the words you say, and how you say them, all the ways that you navigate the office and your homes and your schools. Jesus just doesn't want you for 70 minutes on a weekend. You see, what we're doing right now, gathering together to worship, it is both fuel and practice for how to follow Jesus every other day of the week. And now we're right back to that word obey. But hear me, I want you to know Jesus isn't breathing down your neck. He's not trying to kill your fun. He isn't even trying to inconvenience you. He has your best interest at heart. And we've been hearing that a lot this series. If you believe in God, believe also in me. And I think what Jesus is really saying here is that if you trust God, then trust in me. That's what Jesus is doing. He keeps asking us to trust him. That's why we allow ourselves to be inconvenienced. That's why we choose him over quick and easy pleasures. That's why we do what he says. And we do so remembering that he's a companion that longs to move in close and redeem and restore even the darkest and most difficult parts of our stories. And he does so not as some distant God who's far away, who doesn't have time for us. Scripture invites us to cast all of our anxiety on him. That means we can go to him with every worry, every doubt, every fear, every question, every insecurity, every everything. We can lay it at his feet, trusting, one, that he loves us, and also, when we do that, he's not going to treat us like a bad boss who doesn't have time for us. No, my Jesus moves up close, pulls up a chair, and sits down like a friend to comfort and encourage or simply offer us his presence through it. Even if you're not in a storm, direct access to the King of the universe, that changes things. Like the emperors of old and their inner circles, Jesus, he's saying to you, "Come. Come. Be with me. Let's hang out. Let me remind you how much I love you. Let me into that part of your life that you don't want anyone else to know about. Let me show you what it looks like to show love and grace to others. Let me tell you about my kingdom. Let me tell you about my plans for this world that I love and this creation that I never gave up on, and how I'm going to make everything right again." When the storm does come, even through tears and groans, you'll experience a joy that can only come from him. It's a joy that doesn't ignore the trouble, but it's also not swallowed up by it either, and we'll come back to that next week. But it's like Jesus is saying to us, "Invite me in. Let me build a home in your heart that flows into everything you do so that every word, every act, every prayer, becomes a glimpse of the kingdom I am building on Earth." And look around, because Jesus has kept building his friend group. He doesn't just call his disciples friends. If you are trying to obey, if you, with his help, are trying to take that next step of obedience, then he calls you friend, and then he calls you to get to work. If you want to write something down in your notebooks today, if you're taking notes to reflect on and pray about this week, here it is. Friends of Jesus bear fruit. The cross guarantees it. And there's some cool wordplay going on in the Greek that makes that point explicitly, so hang with me. I'm going to put on my Bible scholar hat for a moment, because once I saw this, I couldn't unsee it. So Jesus says that love involves sacrifice. That's the word tithemi in the Greek. Everyone say tithemi. Tithemi. You guys can do better than that. Sites too. Tithemi. Tithemi. Yeah, there you go. And then, with his next breath, he says that he has appointed them, and then us, to go and bear fruit, and that word in the Greek, it's the very same word. Tithemi. So that word, it can lay down sacrificially like Jesus did for us, but it can also mean to place or set down, like a beautiful tray of fruit that you want the world to see and eat and experience. There's just something about a good piece of fruit, right? It's attractive. It's bright. It's colorful. It's nourishing. It tastes good. When you eat a good piece of fruit, it almost makes you want to meet the farmer. And I think that's what Jesus is getting at. He laid down his life. He sacrificed himself so then he could then set us down that an unbelieving world might see our fruit and ask about the one who is growing it in us. Now, if you've been studying scripture with us with First Five over these last several weeks, this is something we've learned a lot about. If you haven't, you should be, because it's such a simple yet profound way to study God's Word, so hop on the app and join us. But at First Five, we've been talking about this fruit of the Spirit that God grows in us, things like love and joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. These are the qualities that I pray for as a husband, as a dad, as a friend, a coworker, a son, a brother. I want my interactions with other people to be so life-giving, it's like a refreshing piece of fruit on a hot summer day. Now, if you're here, and maybe you are new, or you're skeptical, or maybe you're just thinking about some of the fruit that you've seen and things that followers have done or said in the name of Jesus, and honestly, that fruit is just plain rotten. And you know what? You're right. You're right. That's a fair point. Imperfect people can do a terrible job representing Jesus, and honestly, it breaks my heart when I see and hear the things that people do in the name of my Savior. But hear me. Never let the spoiled fruit of another person leave such a bad taste in your mouth that you want to spit out the teachings of Jesus altogether. And if you're willing, let us show you a different kind of fruit. Again, we're not perfect, but we're committed to learning about and living out the fruit that we see in the Bible. And everything does go back to remaining in him, resting in him, experiencing his presence and his love. So if we turn a corner a little bit, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how we enjoy God's presence throughout the week. What habits do you have? If you're one of the people I was just talking to, maybe you are skeptical and you're not sure this is true, say that. Say you're not sure God exists. That won't throw us at all. Maybe you can share a question that you have. That would be cool. But talk to each other. What habits do you have to enjoy God's presence throughout the week? So there are a lot of right answers to these questions. Who said reading the Bible? Like getting into scripture. Yeah, getting into God's Word, whether you do that with yourself, like by yourself, or with other people in a Bible study. That's one. Prayer. That ongoing back-and-forth conversation with God. Maybe you intentionally find ways to remove distractions because it's so easy to get distracted these days. Fasting. That's one. You take something that's a normal part of your routine, and instead, you don't do that, and you replace that with time with Jesus. Listening to worship music, getting into nature, getting outside, enjoying the beauty of our Creator. All of those are ways that we can experience his presence. But can I give you one more that doesn't come easily or very naturally to me? Simply be and rest and not move, and remember the fact that there is a God, and we are not Him. You want to hear my paraphrase of Psalm 46:10? Replace striving with being still, and trust that your friend and king is at work for your good. People, that's a better way to live. When we live that way, we remember that we don't have to have it all figured out. We recognize that it's okay to ask for help. We remember that our identities, they're in Jesus. They're not in our performance or what we produce. And we seek the wisdom of the Spirit. He's the one who helps us obey anyway, and we remember that He is always leading, He's always prompting us, He's always showing us, "This is what you do. This is your next step. This is what I'm calling you to do. Oh, don't go that way, go this way." And when we do screw up, when we step off course, it's the Spirit who brings us back. It's the Spirit who points us back to the grace of the Son. It's the Spirit who points us back to the love of the Father. So we go back to this one true God, remembering that He is always at work, and there is always grace and forgiveness and mercy on the other side, and then we do it all over again. That is what small steps of faith look like. That's how we obey. And in the kingdom of God, small steps produce great fruit. So keep close to Him. Let Him remind you how loved you are, and then with His help, love as you have been loved. Have you ever noticed that love is sort of a catch-all phrase for how to follow Jesus? The fruit of the Spirit that we just talked about, it begins with love. Paul, he calls love the greatest of all spiritual gifts. In Colossians, he says that love binds every Christian virtue together. So you can't talk about following Jesus without talking about love, but what is it? If you're an atheist here today, you might tell me that love is just some chemical reaction in your brain. If you're into philosophy like I am, you might hand me a copy of Plato's "Symposium," or you'll tell me a story about your family, or show me a picture, or show me a letter from a friend, and you can't quite explain it, but you say, "Somehow, this is what love looks like." Hollywood would have us believe that love is an intense emotional experience, a desire to be close to someone. They've reduced love to a romantic feeling. "You complete me." Well, all due respect to Jerry Maguire, but is that it? Followers of Jesus, they've been trying to wrap their minds around the bigness and the wonder of God's love from the very beginning, and there's good reason to think that they too were looking for a definition. You see, not too long after this conversation with the disciples, after Jesus died and rose again, He appeared before them again, and essentially he said, "Fellas, I want you to go. You need to get out of town to the ends of the earth. I want you to go and make disciples and baptize, and then I want you to find just ways to teach people how to follow me. What does it look like for them to remain in me?" And that's exactly what they did. Tradition says that Peter went to Syria and later to Rome, Andrew to Greece, Matthew to Ethiopia, Thomas to India. These guys went around the world, and they taught people what they learned from Jesus. And John too, the one who recorded the words we're looking at, he also had followers. A lot of scholars think that John wrote at least one of the letters in our New Testament that bear his name, First, Second and Third John, to instruct these disciples. Now, we don't know for sure. It's an interesting thought. We do know that John calls them his children, which is sometimes how a rabbi would refer to his students. It, by the way, is the very same word that Jesus uses when talking about the 12, so there's that. So there's a chance that John's talking about his followers when he writes this letter, but even if he's not, we can read the letter and make some guesses about who these people were. They were confused. They were divided over their beliefs. They had questions about Jesus and who He was and what it meant to follow Him. And all the while, they were trying to figure out, "How do I get unstuck? How do I keep growing in my faith?" Now, does that sound familiar to anybody? And John, he straight up answers this question, what is love? He says, "This is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down His life for us." So there it is. That's the best definition of love. Jesus shows us the truest form of love by going to the cross. But then John, he makes it even more personal when he says, "Because Jesus loved us this way, He laid down His life, then we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters." So is Jesus asking everyone here to physically die and give their lives for the sake of their friends, for His sake? I pray I'm never in that situation. I'm also grateful for the freedom that we have to worship in this country. We are blessed. Amen. Amen. But I also recognize that there are believers around the world who face this threat every single day. And if you're here right now and you're listening to my voice online, you need to know that we are with you, we're praying for you, and you are not alone. But love does involve sacrifice, and John makes it clear that sacrifice is more than just physical. He says, essentially, you find little ways to put the needs of others before your own. And John specifically mentions material possessions, but I think we can broaden that a little bit. All the ways that you here at this church give your time to serve and join teams, the way you hang out with our students on a Wednesday night telling them they matter, the way you care for our kids in Kids' Crossing, pouring coffee, directing traffic, leading groups, facilitating conversations around tables, pressing buttons that I don't know what they do back there in broadcast, and pointing cameras, making sure the lights are working behind me, all of that is sacrifice. But it's not just time, it's also your resources. Those of you who give faithfully to the ministries of The Crossing as an act of worship, thank you. Thank you for being a part of what God is doing here, that the message of Jesus might spread around the globe. Or how well you take care of our city, the ways that you, through outreach initiatives, are telling our city that we are for it and we love it, and also practical ways like a fall collection, all of that, all of that is fruit that this world will notice. And it's not just that stuff, it's also the everyday normal stuff that doesn't really feel like a big deal. When you share a kind word with someone who isn't expecting it, when you notice that someone is having a bad day and you don't know the situation, but you can just tell they are in it, and you stop, and you pause, and you pray for them. You don't know their situation, and they'll never know you did it, but Jesus does. He sees that, and He honors it. I don't know all the ways that you people are bringing the love of Jesus into your homes, and your schools, and your neighborhoods, and your offices, but Jesus does. He sees that fruit. In some way, that we won't fully understand this side of eternity, He is using it in His grand mission to make everything right and new again It's a mission that began way back in Genesis 3 with God's promise to undo the brokenness of creation. It continued through God's people, Israel, and was fulfilled by our Savior, Jesus, and now that same Savior is sending us. He's telling us that, "By my power, I want you to go and love as you have been loved. I want you to take this message of hope and grace and tell people they're invited in. They can be a part of the story that I'm writing today." That's what John did. John never got over how much his Savior loved him. John wrote a gospel so that 2,000 years later, we can keep talking about the love of Jesus. It's why he had followers and disciples, and he answered their questions, and the Spirit inspired him and used him, and the mission continued from Jesus to John, all the way to one of John's disciples. This larger-than-life, action hero kind of guy who made disciples, encouraged believers, pastored churches, and ultimately laid down his life for the sake of his faith. You guys remember the guy we talked about at the beginning, the wild beasts and gruesome deaths? Yes. Do you want to hear what John's disciple, Pagratius, said right before they lit the fire? "86 years I have served him, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and Savior?" Those are the words of a man who understood the immense worth and cost of following Jesus. He was someone who never got over how loved he was, and then in turn, he went and loved others, so much so that his name became synonymous with the fruit that God was growing in his life. If you Google his first name, you probably won't even see it first. You'll see his nickname, Polycarpos, St. Polycarp, which literally translates to "the one who bears much fruit." This world needs believers with a faith that leads to obedience, a deep-rooted faith that lasts through every situation, a faith that doesn't just live in our heads or shows up on the weekend, but goes with us every single day of the week as we seek to love others as we have been loved and show grace and let them know there is a Savior who loves you, who is for you, and isn't finished with you, so let me introduce you to him. That's what we're called to do. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we love like Jesus, and the world will notice, and it'll make all the difference in the world. So now, you , you friends of Jesus, the King, keep meeting him in the inner room of your heart, and then let him show you what it looks like to love as you have been loved, to go to people, not with harshness or coldness, but with love, because that'll make the difference. So let's do that. Let's point people to Jesus. Let's invite them to church. If you have questions about what it looks like to trust in Jesus for the first time, or maybe you feel stuck and you're trying to figure out, "What is my next step?" Come talk to us. There are pastors down here. It would be our honor to talk to you. I'm not at the 86-year mark yet, but I am committed to spending the rest of my days learning what it looks like to trust and follow my Savior. So join me. Go and bear fruit this week, not out of obligation, but in step with this God who loves you. So get out of here, and go in the love of your friend, Jesus. Amen.