May 25, 2025 Sermon - Guest Minister Rev. Drakar Druella
Guest Minister: Rev. Drakar Druella
Sermon Title: “Love One Another”
Scripture: John 14:23-29
John 14:23-29
23Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me. 25I have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29And now I have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe.”
In the last evening that Jesus spent with the disciples before his death, he tried to show them two elements of reality that seemed quite opposite one another: he was going away, yet he would not be leaving them completely stranded and alone like an orphan. These are two realities that probably blended together like oil and water for his disciples when he presented it to them.
Naturally, this led to a lot of questions on the part of his disciples. After all, how could somebody as profoundly loving and spiritually powerful as Jesus go away and everything still be okay? Imagine yourself as one of his disciples. This is the man you have been following and trusting for quite some time – somebody who has performed miracles and embodied a miraculous form of love that you have never encountered before. And now he is telling you he will be going away. If I were one of them and he said that to me, I would be feeling anxiety in the pit of my stomach! I would want to know where he was going, when, and why. And I would want concrete answers.
And even crazier than the notion of him “going away and coming back and going to the father” was him stating that some unseen “spirit” would teach them things and be there with them. We’ve heard this story many times, and we understand what this Spirit means and what it is but imagine how that would sound if you had never heard of it before. Peter asked Jesus in John 13:36 “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus’ answer was, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” Thomas asked in John 14:5, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” And finally, Judas (not Iscariot) in John 14:22 said to Jesus, “But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” All of them were asking questions or making requests of him as he was preparing them for his departure, and his answers did not bring clarity for them in the moment. How could they, when not one of them knew what was coming or what any of it meant?
The scripture that we are looking at today addresses, in large part, the question that Judas asked in response to what Jesus said in verse 19: “In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.” Naturally, Judas pressed Jesus for more information, as I would have done, because it would not have made sense to me, either. After all, how could Jesus reveal himself to his disciples and not to the world? In this context, it was just confusing to them.
From the way Judas asked this question, I would imagine he was expecting Jesus to reveal secrets, to give his followers some kind of special knowledge hidden from the world at large. Most likely, Jesus’ answer was not what Judas expected and took the conversation into another direction than anticipated, because Jesus was never interested in hiding knowledge from anyone. In fact, it was quite the opposite, for he wanted them to understand his truth more deeply and to learn to embody it more wholeheartedly. What his disciples did not understand at the time was the simple truth that although the world would not see Jesus in person any longer, it would see his followers. And this was a significant truth that Jesus wanted to convey to his disciples, because through loving him, the world would see his followers keeping his word. But this is not just about his followers loving Jesus, himself. It is about more than that. It is about how his followers would go about loving him through their actions in the world, because to keep the word of Jesus means to keep his commandments as stated in John 14:15, 21. It is to wash one another’s feet, to love one another (John 13:24). As the disciples keep the word of Jesus, they will be a community characterized by mutual regard, love and service.
Throughout this scripture, which is essentially a farewell discourse, Jesus emphasizes to his followers to love him through serving others. Have any of you here read the book, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman? One could say that Jesus’ love language here is “acts of service.”1 It would be easy for many to distinguish between loving Jesus and keeping his word through serving others – to imagine that we could do one without doing the other. However, Jesus does not recognize that distinction and for good reason, for God loves each and every person that exists on this planet equally. None of us would be here without God, so how could there be a distinction between loving Jesus and one another for God? The clause in John 14:23b is a condition of fact: “Those who love me will keep my word…”2 Love for Jesus simply is love in action. And love in action is about acts of love and kindness toward one another. This is how we keep this commandment, and as many of us have found, it is deceptively simple and can be profoundly challenging at times!
Whether the disciples knew it or not, to live that kind of love, they would need the constant presence of God in their midst. Jesus offers that presence with the promise that he says of himself and the Father about those who love him: “We will come and make our home with them.” From the first chapter of this gospel, we know that prior to anyone’s love for Jesus, “The Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14). No one would be able to love Jesus if the Father had not first loved the world enough to send his Son into it. Yet, there’s also another aspect of God dwelling amongst us that is often overlooked, and that is the reality that he dwells within each and every one of us. In Luke 17:21, Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
In keeping his word through extending love and compassion to one another as he would, we expand that kingdom within us and allow the spirit of God to express amongst us and through us. This cohabitation that Jesus speaks of is not a reward for good behavior. It is simply a statement of where God likes to spend time. It hearkens back to the first chapter of the gospel and forward to the reality envisioned in Revelation: “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them as their God; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them” (Revelation 21:3). And it also hearkens to the reality that to dwell amongst them, he must also dwell within them and through their actions with one another as a community. He will find a home within his community if the individuals in that community allow him to find a home within their hearts first. By allowing this indwelling, God’s spirit can flow through their actions with and toward one another. This means that when we love one another, we are loving him.
Jesus also announced the advent of the Spirit among the believers. He said that during the time between his leave-taking and life in the new Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit “will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” (John 14:25). Have you ever picked up a book you read when you were in high school or back in college and read it again later in life, or watched a movie again years later only to find that your perception and understanding of it is different? When we explore things again and reflect upon things later, we glean new understandings and greater wisdom. In remembering things again, we see things differently and often more deeply. This is the same with our spiritual understanding, and Jesus seemed to understood this. The Holy Spirit accompanies the church as it remembers. The Spirit guides us and the church as we think back over what we have experienced of Jesus, and as we seek to let our love for him show up in the ways we relate to others. The Spirit helps us to understand Jesus and his word and to love Jesus by keeping his word on behalf of the world. This is what Jesus was explaining to his disciples. The Spirit will teach you everything you need to know and will remind you of his teachings through your experiences with one another when you put his word into action. When you love one another, you love him. And when you love him this way, you will be guided by the Spirit and learn what it means to truly follow him.
Jesus speaks of the home that the Father will make with those who love him. He promises the guidance of the Holy Spirit as his followers remember him. Finally, he gives his own peace to those he is about to leave. The gospel of John includes no mention of peace until Jesus speaks it here, on the eve of his death. He describes the peace he offers as his own and says that he gives it “not as the world gives.” The question is how is this different than the way the world gives? There’s lots of things that demand our love and devotion. But how many of those things actually come with the gift of peace? How many of those demands come without scare tactics and fearmongering, feeding on our personal sense of scarcity or lack? How many of those things point us towards the good of others instead of only thinking of ourselves?
The difference that Jesus was talking about is how he would offer peace again and again as he appears to the disciples after the resurrection (cf. John 20: 19, 21, 26). He does this without a fee or a surcharge. No interest. No bargain. No guilt trip. It is all offered for free without any strings attached. Although he does not describe the peace he offers, we could safely conclude that his peace offers the disciples both comfort for troubled hearts and courage in the midst of fear. Throughout the events of his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, as well as in the resurrection, Jesus embodied the peace he offered them, and this offering of peace continues into our lives today. He offers us peace continually. All we need to do is to surrender into it and allow it to penetrate our lives through the loving actions we extend to one another and our willingness to receive it.
I would like to close with the words of Chelsey Harmon from Calvin Theological Seminary’s Center for Excellence in Preaching:
“Look again at what Jesus says about the process of loving him. Remember that the law of God is not meant to be punitive, but to point us to the fullness of life and community that can be lived as blessings to others. Remember that knowing the Father’s love is knowing the care and affection of a provider, a sustainer, and a caring and doting God who sings over his children. Remember that loving Jesus becomes a journey of having the fullness of God dwell inside of you and the body of believers to which you belong. Remember that loving Jesus is about becoming God’s home: your life and your church community is a space and reality that God LOVES to be a part of.
And Jesus doesn’t just describe this cause and effect, he tells us how we can give ourselves to it. He promises that God’s very self, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, will teach us everything and remind us of all that Jesus has said to us. The Advocate will advocate for the Father and Son’s love just as much as the Advocate will act on our behalf with the Father and Son. The Holy Spirit is the way that the Father and Son make their home in us. The Holy Spirit helps us to feel and know and understand God’s love—let alone gives us the power to actually be obedient to the kind of life the Creator has designed.
“I do not give as the world gives,” Jesus says. And how true is that. Jesus humbled himself and took on our humanness in order to show us a life and death of love. In fact, God provides all that we need to love and be faithful, equipping and empowering us with the forgiveness and presence of his very self, setting us free from any sense or need to earn our salvation so that we can live an abundant life of blessing. This is God’s peace!”
So, let’s love one another as he has done for us.
Rev. Drak Druella
1The concept of “love languages” has been popularized by Gary Chapman, The Five Love Languages (Chicago: Northfield Publishing, 1995). See also www.5lovelanguages.com.
