Alliance Christian Church
February 1 2026

      • 2 Corinthians 9:7GS-NETBIBLE

      • Psalm 23NIV2011

  • Awake My Soul
  • How Majestic Is Your Name
  • Lord, I Lift Your Name On High

  • Believe, Obey, Remain, Love

    Introduction
    If you had 24 hours to live, how would you spend it.
    Passing on your legacy.
    Transition
    In the text we are looking at this morning, Jesus knows that by this time tomorrow he will be in the grave. And he has one opportunity to pass on his legacy to his disciples.
    Roadmap
    In chapter 13 we see an example of Jesus’ self sacrifice by washing the disciples feet. And in Chapter 17 we see Jesus’ prayer for his disciples. And not just them, but all those who would believe because of their testimony.
    And in the middle, we get chapters 14, 15 and 16. This conversation that Jesus has with his disciples in the upper room.
    And he basically gives them 4 commands that they are supposed to follow in order to carry on his legacy.
    Point

    John 14:1-11

    John 14:1–11 NET 2nd ed.
    “Do not let your hearts be distressed. You believe in God; believe also in me. There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too. And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.” Jesus replied, “Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the Father residing in me performs his miraculous deeds. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, but if you do not believe me, believe because of the miraculous deeds themselves.

    Believe

    Explanation
    We’ve talked about this before, but the word for believe needs some explanation. Because the english word believe is the closest thing we have to translate what Jesus says here, but we don’t have a good word really.
    In this context, Trust probably better.
    Jesus tells them specifically to believe in Him just as much as they believe in God
    That he is in the Father and that the Father is in Him.
    In other words, their faith needs to be rooted in the idea that He IS the word made flesh, he is the incarnation of God himself.
    Argumentation
    For us in 2026, this is not shocking information.
    The idea that Jesus is God, is so second nature to us as Christians, that it’s the boundary line between what is and isn’t considered Christians.
    There are a lot of things in this book where there is room for debate. Room for interpretation. Room for discussion.
    This one is not one of them.
    There is a very sharp line that says if you acknowledge Jesus is God, you are a Christian. If you don’t, then you’re not. Even if you read the Bible, and believe in His teachings, if you don’t affirm this, then you are part of some other non-Christian religion.
    But for the disciples, this was new, this was challenging.
    They had spent their entire lives reciting the Shema, from Deut 6, Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.
    And Jesus is saying, yeah, and I am one with Him.
    As you think about this passage, I want you to think about how much Jesus was challenging their assumptions.
    That’s why Philip has such a hard time understanding it. He says “Show me the Father and I’ll be content”
    Our Goal as Christians is to carry on Jesus’ Legacy
    And in doing so, one of the things we are signing up for, is allowing Jesus to challenge our assumptions.
    I had always thought about things this way, but Jesus is describing a different reality to me.
    Jesus is describing a different kind of kingdom.
    The kind where the Meek inherit the earth, the kind where the poor in spirit are blessed, the kind where the first are actually last, and the last are actually first.
    And then, Jesus goes on, when he challenges their assumptions, and says if you trust me in this: If you’re willing to believe me
    John 14:12–14 NET 2nd ed.
    I tell you the solemn truth, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
    Think about this for a second. Jesus is promising his disciples that they will perform greater deeds than all of his miracles.
    Greater than walking on water, Greater than feeding 5000 people with a little bit of bread and some fish.
    Greater than raising Lazarus from the dead.
    How is that possible?
    Illustration
    Did you know that Thomas Edison didn’t actually invent the lightbulb?
    I had grown up for so long, thinking that was true. But in 1807, nearly 70 years before Edison’s lightbulb, a british scientist by the name of Humphry Davy produced the first succsesful electric light bulb.
    For that matter, Henry Ford didn’t invent the car.
    The first Gas powered internal combustion engine in a car was invented some 50 years before henry Ford, in Vienna.
    So why do these men, Edison and Ford always end up having their names attached to these inventions?
    The thing that Edison and Ford did that was so revolutionary was not their ability to invent, or anything like that.
    They were business men.
    Edison had a dream of putting an electric lightbulb in every house in america. He knew the right people to talk to in Manhattan to get them to set up central power.
    His contribution wasn’t the invention. It was snowball rolling down hill that put a light bulb in every house in america
    Henry Ford’s dream was to find a better way to build cars so that they weren’t just for the select few.
    His dream was that every single american worker could have a car.
    Application
    As disciples of Jesus, the greater deeds we perform, they’re not greater in quality. Not in that sense of the word
    But Jesus’ vision was of his message that he had been preaching for 3 years in Galilee and Judea to be in every home in the world.
    Your Job is to continue on the Legacy of Jesus by spreading his message.
    God doesn’t want anyone to perish, but he desires that all would be saved.
    And it’s the job of his followers to proclaim the message of Christ to all the nations.
    Transition
    And all of that flows of out Jesus’ first command here, Believe.
    But he doesn’t stop there.
    Point
    John 14:15–21 NET 2nd ed.
    “If you love me, you will obey my commandments. Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you. “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you. In a little while the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me; because I live, you will live too. You will know at that time that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you. The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.”

    Obey

    Statement
    Jesus second command to his followers is “OBEY”
    Keep his commandments.
    This is a tough one. We don’t like word “obey”
    For a lot of people, it feels even strange to say it out loud.
    Illustration
    I was having a conversation with a young man just this week actually. And he’s searching. He’s been through a lot, he’s trying to make sense of the world, trying to understand what to believe.
    And he knows that I’m a minister. And he was asking me questions about faith , and the Bible. and all of that.
    And it was almost like there was a block in his mind.
    And he couldn’t get passed the idea of why would God create all of these rules and expect us to obey them, and then punish us when we fail to do so.
    And I tried explaining it again, but he kept coming back to “Why would God send someone to hell, for not obeying him.” Why would God create people, and then expect them to believe and obey him, and then punish them for not doing it correctly. He said I don’t know how I can reconcile that in my mind.
    Explanation
    And the problem we have is that a lot of us have this narrative in our minds that says
    God is the big rulemaker in the sky. He created people and wanted them to follow orders. But he gave them free will, and they messed it up. So he punished them by kicking them out of eden.
    And then God spent the next several thousand years punishing the Israelites. Because he gave them a set of impossible standards to follow.
    And now God is threatening to punish you by sending you to hell if you don’t step in line.
    That’s the narrative that so many people have in their minds.
    But it gets even worse, because people who operate under that narrative are also the ones who will say.
    It’s ok, though, because God had a plan. He sent his own son, and he punshed instead of us.
    Jesus came to earth, God made him suffer. God’s wrath was satisfied. And now we get to live forever.
    As long as we fall in line, of course.
    For one, that’s not ever how the Bible describes the process of God working through history.
    You won’t find that story in Scripture
    It’s something that we have added to sort of make sense of the story of the Bible.
    But honestly, what it does is it Paganizes God.
    It treats God the same as all of the fake pagan gods that the nations believed in.
    It turns God into this wrath monster, who really just wants to punish.
    And honestly it even turns the Gospel into some weird sick scenerio.
    Like Jesus was punished to Get it out of God’s system.
    And it creates a narrative that says
    You should obey, so that you don’t go to hell.
    Let me be clear, hell is a reality.
    But narrative behind it ought to look a little more like this.
    God created the world.
    He wanted them to exhibit His greatest quality: Love
    and he gave them life.
    And he asked them to participate with him in building a perfect kingdom.
    But the people wanted more.
    They wanted separation from God
    They wanted to be their own gods.
    And god had told them that He was the source of life. And if they chose separation from him they would be willingly choosing death.
    But they wanted the power, the ability to decide good and evil for themselves, more than they wanted life.
    And then God spent all of history desperately trying to rescue them form themselves.
    Like a kid running out in traffic.
    And At the fullness of time, God took on flesh, he became human, and he shoved us out of the way of the trafric and stepped out in front of the bus that barreling towards us.
    Application
    And as I was trying to explain this, it still wasn’t clicking.
    Pray for this young man, by the way.
    And he still kept getting caught up on “why would God want to force me to obey him.” That doesn’t seem very loving.
    And I was thinking to myself, read what Jesus says.
    John 14:15 NET 2nd ed.
    “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.
    If you are afraid of burning in the fires of hell you will obey my commandemnts....
    Oh wait, that’s not what it it says.
    Transition
    The second commandment Jesus gives them here, obey, we do it out of love.
    Chapter 15, Jesus gives his disciples third commandment

    John 15:1-10

    John 15:1–10 NET 2nd ed.
    “I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener. He takes away every branch that does not bear fruit in me. He prunes every branch that bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit. You are clean already because of the word that I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it remains in the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. “I am the vine; you are the branches. The one who remains in me—and I in him—bears much fruit, because apart from me you can accomplish nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is thrown out like a branch, and dries up; and such branches are gathered up and thrown into the fire, and are burned up. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you. My Father is honored by this, that you bear much fruit and show that you are my disciples. “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; remain in my love. If you obey my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.

    Remain

    Point
    Statement
    Jesus third commandment in this conversation “Remain in him”
    Your Bible might say “Abide”
    The word Jesus uses here, it can either give the sense of remain, as in staying true, staying faithful.
    Remain in Jesus’ teachings, don’t depart from him
    Or it can give the idea of abide, or dwell.
    And here I think it’s clear, based on the parable that Jesus uses of a vine being attached to branches, that in some ways, both senses of the word make sense.
    Explanation
    As followers of Christ, one of the things that we are reminded of over and over and over again in scripture is to stay faithful.
    To remain in the faith. Don’t depart from it.
    On tuesdays we’re doing our revelation Bible study.
    in the beginning of Revelation, Jesus speaks to seven different Churches
    John, wrote revelation, by the way.
    Notice how John really has a thing for sevens.
    But Jesus tells these seven churches, basically one of two things
    To the churches who were being unfaithful, he tells them: Repent. Turn around. Come back to the faith.
    And for those who are faithful he tells them
    Remain faithful.
    Stay that way.
    And Jesus here in John, says “Remain in me” stay faithful.
    But there’s also the other side of the word, abide. Dwell. Live in Christ.
    Like you’re a branch connected to the tree
    The tree is the source of life. There no life outside of the vine.
    As followers of Christ we ought to stay firmly rooted in Christ, because he is the source of life. Apart from him we can do nothing.
    Argumentation
    And he tells us, if we dwell and abide in him. If we stay grafted into him, we will produce fruit.
    Our lives will produce rich beautiful fruit of goodness and kindness and mercy. And faithfulness.
    If we abide in him, if we remain faithful to him.
    Application
    One of the hardest things about becoming a disciple of Christ is realizing that it’s not just a quick fix to our problems.
    It’s not something check off the list. It’s not something we just go through the motions on.
    Paul uses the same branch and vine imagery and he describes it this way.
    We are like branches that had previously been cut off, lying on the ground.
    Dying.
    And god in his great mercy picked us up, and grafted us into the tree of life.
    And As long as we stay grafted in, we have life, we have joy, we have the power of the Holy spirit regenerating us daily.
    But don’t think for a second that if we decided to cut ourselves off, if we decided to separate ourselves that we would stay living.
    Not the only way we have life is if we remain grafted into Jesus.
    Transition
    Believe, obey, remain.
    And then Jesus says this.

    John 15:11-17

    John 15:11–17 NET 2nd ed.
    I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. My commandment is this—to love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. This I command you—to love one another.

    Love

    Explanation
    If we want to carry on the legacy of Jesus
    We have to love.
    The Christian life is one that ought to be marked and defined by love.
    And not just the kind of love like “I love chocolate” Deep abiding self-sacrificial humble Christian love
    Paul says in 1st corinthians
    I’m going to paraphrase this, so please forgive me.
    If I can speak in the tongues of angels but I dont’ have love, I’m worthless.
    If I have all the money in the world and I give it to the poor, but I don’t have love,
    If I have all the faith, and all the knowledge, and I have the kind of faith that moves mountains but I don’t have love I AM AM NOTHING
    There’s a reason why Jesus says that Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18 are the most important commandments in the entire Bible.
    Love God and Love your Neighbor as yourself.
    Because it’s on this love that all of the entire bible rests.
    Matthew 22:40
    Galatians 5:14
    Romans 13:10
    James 2:8
    And honestly, if you really wanted to, you could go through every single command in the entire bible, Old and New Testament. I haven’t done this experiment , myself, but I’m trusting in what Jesus says, and what Paul says in Romans 13:10, and what James says in James says in James 2:8, and what John says in 1st John, and what Paul says again in galatians 5:14
    That you could go through every single commandment in the entire Bible, and explain it either as loving God or loving your neighbor as yourself.
    That is the mark of a Christian
    That is the way that Jesus expects his disciples to carry his legacy.
    Conclusion
    I want to point your attention back to John 16. Jesus turns to hisdisciples and says
    John 16:1–3 NET 2nd ed.
    “I have told you all these things so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue, yet a time is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me.
    And he gives them this beautiful promise that he’s going to send them the holy spirit, and the Spirit is going to be an advocate for them.
    But all throughout this promise is also promises of pain and suffering.
    They’re going to put you out of the synagogues, they’re going to hand you over to death.
    In verse 20, he promises them that they’re not going to see him again, and that are going to weep and wail. the world is going to rejoice at their grief and pain.
    [Expand] the promise that life as a disciple will be hard. Why would anyone sign up for that? Victory in Christ.

      • John 14:1–11NIV2011

      • John 14:12–14NIV2011

      • John 14:15–21NIV2011

      • John 14:15NIV2011

      • John 15:1–10NIV2011

      • John 15:11–17NIV2011

      • John 16:1–3NIV2011

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Alliance Christian Church
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https://www.alliancechristian.church
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