Episode 1434: We Love One Another

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1, 434 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

[00:00:08] Kelli Calabrese: I'm Kelly Calabrese and I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to live a life of whole life wellness is key and one way to be inspired is.

[00:00:30] To do that by listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.

[00:00:46] Scott Maderer: That, if anything, tells us that joy is not in happy endings, but in reaching out in love and giving yourself over to loving, even when it costs you something to do joy sustains even when our [00:01:00] arms grow tired in the labor of love. So what are you called to do? What will you do to find your joy in Christ?

[00:01:08] Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in yourself, invest in others, and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

[00:01:41] In today's Spiritual Foundation episode, 1 John Chapter five verses one through six, and John chapter 15 verses nine through 17. I share what it means to follow the commandments of God and I also share how we are called to honor Christ by loving [00:02:00] ourselves and each other.

[00:02:06] One John chapter five verses one through six says, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this, we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

[00:02:29] For whatever is born of God conquers the world, and this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. not with the water only, but with the water and the blood.

[00:02:49] And the spirit is the one that testifies, for the spirit is the truth. John chapter 15 verses 9 through 17 says, As the [00:03:00] father has loved me, so I have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. I've said these.

[00:03:12] Thanks to you so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. This is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends.

[00:03:40] Because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last, so that the father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commandments, so that you may love one [00:04:00] another.

[00:04:02] Obey. Commandments. I command you. At first glance, it's easy to look at the two scriptures that I just shared and hear how we are just to do what we are told. That this is the right way to follow God. And I do believe that. But I often think we also misunderstand what it means by the command and by obey.

[00:04:26] Let me tell you a story. When I was a kid growing up, my mom often would find a new way to rearrange things in the house or in the yard. You know what I mean. Something new came into the house and now we had to find the perfect place for it. We had to rearrange this, move that, and nope, that's not it.

[00:04:45] It's not perfect. Let's try this instead. And eventually we'd find the right setup for things. And often I was roped in as manual labor to move things around and get them just right with her. Now as [00:05:00] a kid I often prayed that I would have. somewhere else to be or something else to do on those days. If God answers prayers, I wouldn't be stuck doing what she said and moving things around.

[00:05:11] But inevitably, I was available, and I was doing it. And at the time, it was with reluctance, but truthfully, I did it because it brought my mom some joy to find things that made the place we lived a bit more homey, a bit more perfect. It brought her joy. And I found joy in that time of serving her. It was a way I found to show love, and with age and time, I see that even more now than I did then.

[00:05:42] Her joy brought me joy, and it came from a desire that she had to show love for us, and from me to show love for her. My mom and I still have that kind of relationship today. I love and honor her, and she loves and honors me too. [00:06:00] I think that may be the secret Jesus is trying to share in these passages from John and the secret that the writer of 1 John was trying to share with us in that passage as well.

[00:06:12] There is a lot of stuff in these passages. And these passages in the Gospel of John is part of what I, what's called Jesus's farewell sermon. And there is a lot of big stuff in that message. A lot of things that Jesus is sharing. We could talk about obedience, that's definitely in there. We could talk about that odd little statement about who is choosing who, that's in verse 16.

[00:06:40] We could talk about sacrifice, how Jesus says there's no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends, right before he goes and lays down his life for his friends and for his enemies. And for those that don't even know or care about him, there is no greater love, [00:07:00] he says. That would be a powerful conversation.

[00:07:04] But instead, I wanted to focus on verse 11. I was intrigued by that verse. It says, I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full. And joy is one of those elusive qualities, one of those I'll know it when I see it kind of things, or maybe it's a I'll know it when I feel it.

[00:07:28] It tends to be a momentary experience. It isn't a all day thing. Instead, it's a passion that grips us, that lifts us up, and that makes us something more than we were before. And at times, I wonder if we could only hold on to it. If you Google Joy and look for images and do that if you can right now, the most common image that comes up is for people named Joy, and that may not be terribly [00:08:00] helpful, but some of the others are interesting.

[00:08:02] There's usually images of movement, of dance, of running, of jumping. We even talk about it, jumping for joy. It's like when joy hits us, we can't be still. And often there's more than one person in the picture. You can't keep joy in and you can't keep it to yourself. Mark Twain supposedly once said that grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.

[00:08:33] I'm not sure that Mark Twain was right about the grief part, but I'm 100 percent sure he's right about the joy part. Joy is a shared experience rather than a solitary one. And that might help us understand what Jesus was saying when he said that, My joy may be in you, and your joy might be full. He is saying that our joy, that human experience, that fleeting but powerful passion that fills us up and threatens to [00:09:00] burn us out, is not complete until it is joined to His joy.

[00:09:06] That holy, divine joy that knows that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends. And he's sharing this mere days before he goes on to do that very thing. Our joy is complete, or mature, or perfect. It's all the same word in the Greek. Only when woven into his joy. Not our joy, but his.

[00:09:33] God's joy is bigger than ours. Joy is fleeting when we attempt to generate it from within. We can only sustain it so long. We can only be on the mountain so long. We can only be up so long. But when we abide in him, when we are the branches of the vine, and there are rivers of living water flowing from the heart, coming from that never ending source, that [00:10:00] overwhelming joy, Then that eternal joy is a gift that comes from Jesus And it comes from abiding in him and he tells us that to abide in him is to obey his commandment to do what?

[00:10:11] To love one another as he loved us. That's it. That's the big commandment that he says trumps all others It's not about looking in the bible and picking out a few verses here or a few verses there Or to focus on this or say that's the rule that we have to follow And isn't it funny that often when we say follow the commandments in the Bible, we're very careful to focus on the ones that we aren't currently struggling with, but instead focus on those that others are doing wrong.

[00:10:43] Instead, what Jesus is calling for us to do is to love as he loves. It is to look outward. Joy is found not in the contentment of satisfying our own desires, but in service to those we love as he loves. It's an [00:11:00] act of service. It's in healing. It's in helping. It's in holding shaky hands and calming troubled hearts.

[00:11:07] It is in honoring those we love. Joy's soul lies in the doing. That was from William Shakespeare. That, if anything, tells us that joy is not in happy endings, but in reaching out in love and giving yourself over to loving, even when it costs you something to do joy sustains even when our arms grow tired in the labor of love.

[00:11:32] So what are you called to do? What will you do to find your joy in Christ? Thanks for listening.

[00:11:45] Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to [00:12:00] live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.

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