“Whom Do You Love Most?”

(John 4:34)

I. Introduction.

A. Last week –

We saw what eternal life is: That you may know God & Son Jesus (John 17:3).

Jesus came that you might know of, about, Him, know Him.

Goal of your coming to Him, of learning, of knowing, of becoming like Him,

Is that you might better know Him

By experiencing His power and suffering

That you might better love, serve/glorify Him.

B. What was Jesus like?

What is this image you’re to be growing into?

The first thing we’ll look at is His love for His Father:

How He loved Him most of all,

And served Him with His whole being and life.

If you would know Jesus, this is what you must do:

1. You must love God above all,

2. And serve Him with your whole life.

II. Sermon.

A. Paul says you were predestined to become like Jesus (Rom. 8:29),

And part of that image is loving God most of all.

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1. That’s what Jesus did.

This is what He’s always done.

Let’s not forget, He is the Son of God from all eternity –

Eternally begotten –

John calls Him, “The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father”

(John 1:18).

This means He was loved by Father from all eternity.

But it’s also true that He has eternally loved Him in return.

They have always delighted in each other.

Ill: When you love someone with your whole heart,

You want to be with them.

You’re thrilled just to spend time with them.

They’re all you think about.

This kind of love the Father and Son have,

Only their love is infinitely strong and has been going on from all eternity.

For Edwards, this love and delight they have in each other

Is none other than the Holy Spirit.

This is how he explains the eternal procession of the Spirit.

He is the love of God.

We’ll see the importance of this in a moment.

2. The point is:

If you know Jesus Christ,

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If you’re experiencing His life in you,

This is the kind of love you have for God (the Father and the Son),

And the kind of love you are to be cultivating:

You delight in Them,

You want to be with Them,

You’re excited to be in a relationship with Them,

And to spend time with them:

They are on your mind constantly,

And thrill your heart more than anything else.

Do you love Them in this way?

If you’ve received their grace and mercy, you do.

Jesus, in His high priestly prayer,

Prayed that the love with which the Father loved Him, would be in you (John

17:26) –

That the Father would put His Spirit in your heart

That you might love Them.

That’s why you came to Christ in first place:

Why you want to spend any time with God at all.

Why you want to be with Him at the end of your time here –

Because of His Spirit dwelling in you.

If you have this love, why isn’t it stronger than it is?

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Maybe it’s because you haven’t been cultivating that love as you should.

Ill: If we don’t recharge the batteries in these microphones,

They’ll eventually run out of power and stop working.

If you don’t recharge the spiritual batteries of your soul

By using the means God provides,

Your desire for Him will weaken,

Though thankfully, it won’t go away entirely.

You need to spend time with Him –

In His Word, in prayer, with His people, in His service –

If you are to be spiritually strong,

If you are to charge your spiritual batteries.

But you also need to avoid the things that drain that power.

There’s something else that can weaken that love

Besides not charging your spiritual battery through the means:

And that’s from charging the other battery in your soul.

When you draw power from the world –

By spending time in the world –

You feed another principle/power source in your soul,

One that weakens the influence of the Spirit – that is your flesh.

The more you drink from the world’s fountain –

The more you listen to its message,

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Desire what it has to offer,

Spend time with its people,

And give yourself to serve it,

The more you strengthen your flesh,

The more you weaken the Spirit’s influence in your soul,

The less you love God,

And the less you are like Jesus.

Obviously, this is counterproductive –

If you want to be like Jesus, you can’t do this –

It will set you back – it will stunt your growth.

The Spirit’s work is so precious –

And so necessary to your spiritual growth in love –

That you should do everything you can to increase it,

Everything you can to preserve it, by not grieving/quenching Him;

And everything you can to drain and kill the power of the flesh in your soul.

If you want to know Jesus –

If you want to love God as He did –

You must be filled with the Spirit,

And kill your sins.

B. What can you use to measure just how much you love Him?

In the same way you can measure it in Jesus:

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By looking at your life to see just how devoted you really are to Him.

1. Jesus is the perfect example of devotion to God.

This is what our Lord said He would be like.

In our call to worship, He declares, “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your

Law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).

His obedience was the evidence and the measure of His love for the Father.

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

His love was so strong that obeying Him trumped even His concern for His

basic needs:

“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work”

(John 4:34).

It trumped life itself:

He willingly gave His life, as the Father commanded,

That He might bring you life.

Note too that His love didn’t come in spurts:

He had a strong and continual desire to fulfill His Father’s commandments,

Especially the greatest: To love the Lord His God with all His heart, mind, soul

and strength (Mark 12:30).

We would expect this, because Jesus is God in human flesh.

We would expect it because He was filled with the Spirit above measure.

2. What we often don’t expect is that this is what we are to be like as well –

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That’s why God gave us His Holy Spirit.

That’s why Jesus came into the world –

To put His Spirit in your heart,

That you might have this love for Him and His Father,

That you would delight in doing the Father’s will,

That you would show the world you love Him by obeying Him,

That you would want to obey Him more than seeking your necessary bread,

That you would love and serve Him:

With all the desire of your heart,

With every thought of your mind,

With all the strength He gives you each day,

With every faculty of your soul.

This is the goal of Jesus’ work –

The reason He came into the world –

That you would love and obey Him.

He says to you this morning,

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

“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” (John 15:10).

Do you know Jesus in this way?

Is His love in your heart?

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Do you love Him with all your heart, mind, soul and strength?

Does your life show you do through your obedience?

When you have a choice between submitting to God or to your flesh, which do

you choose?

When you have a choice between doing what gives Him pleasure or doing what

gives you pleasure,

Between obedience or disobedience, which do you choose?

Do you choose what you know Jesus would choose?

If not, why not?

If it’s because you don’t love Him,

Then you must come to Him –

Pray that He would give you the grace to do so.

If it’s because your love is too weak:

Then stop drinking from the polluted well of this world –

Stop refreshing your flesh –

Drink instead from the fountain of His grace –

Spend time with Him,

Be refreshed in His presence, by His Spirit,

That your love might grow,

And that you might become more like Jesus Christ.

If you really want to know Him, that’s what you must do. Amen.

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