Wednesday, May 9th

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John 15:9-11

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed 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.”

I have rarely had as much fun as I had when I was shoveling concrete in 95 degree heat. It was just about the hardest physical work I have ever done, but it was an absolute blast!

I was leading a group of about 15 high school students and adults on a short term mission trip in the Dominican Republic. Part of what we were there to do was help with the construction of a concrete block building that would be used to care for the poor children of that small village. So when the time came to pour the columns of the building our job was to prepare a huge pile of concrete on the ground, then carry the sloppy mixture in buckets to be poured into the wood forms.

Mixing concrete by hand is hard and dirty work! You use shovels to mix several 100 lb. bags of cement with a large pile of gravel and an even larger pile of sand. Then you pour water from buckets until the mixture is just the consistency of chunky gray pudding and then it’s ready to be carried to the top of the forms and poured to make columns.

One particular day we mixed concrete all day – about 8 hours worth of carrying bags of cement; hauling wheelbarrows full of gravel, sifting tons of sand, and then using shovels to do the backbreaking work of mixing it all together. It was about 95 degrees and humid in the way only the tropics can be. But we were having fun – serious fun!

Think about that. What in the world would cause a group of adolescents, generally considered the most self-absorbed and “work-averse” people on the planet, to sing and laugh while concrete filled their shoes and sweat stained their faces?

The answer is joy.

C.S. Lewis once wrote that, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.” Which means, of course, when we are about the business of heaven, we will experience the joy of heaven.

Jesus said it this way:

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed 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.” John 15:9-11

Jesus is teaching us two incredibly important truths here. First, his deepest desire for us is joy! He wants us to know his joy now through following him; and he wants us to know joy forever through his salvation. He came to bring us joy!

Second, we know this joy by “remaining in his love.” What does this mean? How do we remain in his love?

Jesus says,

If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love…

At first this can sound like he is saying, “If you obey me, then I will love you.” And we hear it that way because that’s the way we, as human beings, tend to love each other – with “conditional love.” But since we know that the love of God is unconditional, Jesus must be saying something else – and he is!

Jesus is saying that his love for us is unconditional, constant and eternal. Like a waterfall that flows around the clock – whether or not anyone is standing under the cascading water, so Jesus’ love for us never ceases. But, the truth is, we can choose to remain in his love or to run from it. He is simply saying that when we surrender ourselves to him in obedience and service, we are choosing to stand in the relentless and refreshing waterfall of his unending love.

And the result is joy.

Joy that is ours even as we shovel liquid concrete in the Dominican Republic.

Do you know his joy today? Are you standing in the waterfall of his love?

Pastor Brian Coffey