John 15: Obedience Opens the Way to the Father's Heart

Introduction

There are two ways to listen to a message, says Jean-Marc Rüfenacht at Gospel Center Lausanne: passively, phone in hand, or by preparing your heart: "Lord, what do you want to say to me this morning?" When you prepare your heart, God starts to speak, sometimes even about subjects the preacher never touches.

The church is coming out of a church weekend in which it experienced a real time of encounter with the glory and presence of God. The preacher is convinced that God wants to continue what he has begun to sow. Hence his opening question: what season are we in, and what does God want to do in me and in my church right now?

His answer comes down to two keys: knowing the Father's heart and obeying him. He unfolds them through John 15, then through the story of Abraham, a man who received promises, who doubted, who tried to fulfill them in his own strength, and to whom God never stopped repeating what he had said.

Outline of the Message

1. Friends of God Through Obedience

Knowing God's heart gives us the opportunity to work together with his will and to take part in what he wants to make tangible in our lives. "If I don't know what God wants to do in my life, I can't work with him either."
Jesus says: "No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn't know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you" (John 15:15). It is by being God's friend that we discover what is on his heart.
This verse is often quoted without the one before it: "You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:14). "I can't just be buddies with God, live my life as I please and not listen to him." Obedience gives access to friendship with God, who reveals the Father's heart to us.
Like any friendship, this one is built: a small step, a trust that grows, time spent together.
The good news is in verse 16: "You didn't choose me, but I chose you." God is the one who takes the first step and tells us: "You, I choose. I want you to be my friend."

2. Abram Receives the Promise and Sets Out

In Genesis 13, after the separation from Lot, the LORD says to Abram: "Now lift up your eyes, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward, for all the land which you see, I will give to you, and to your seed forever" (Genesis 13:14-15). He promises descendants as numerous as the dust of the earth.
The first thing Abram does: he moves his tent and comes to live by the oaks of Mamre, where he builds an altar to the LORD (Genesis 13:18). He hears the promise and acts immediately.
We have all received promises. The preacher points out that this is not only a word heard personally: when God declares in his Word that he wants to heal us, it is a promise we can take hold of for our own lives.
But many have not yet seen all the promises they received come to pass. That was also the case for Abram: his wife was barren.

3. Doubt Does Not Offend God

In Genesis 15, Abram doubts, "and that's normal." God says to him: "Don't be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward." Abram answers that he has no child and that a servant of his household, Eliezer of Damascus, will inherit from him (Genesis 15:1-3).
Time has passed. "If you never doubt, teach me how you do it, because I am starting to doubt."
God answers: a son from his own body will be his heir. He brings him outside: "Look now toward the sky, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." He said to him, "So will your seed be." And Abram believed in the LORD, who credited it to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:5-6).
"The Lord is not offended when we are real with him and come to him with our doubts." We do not need to play the good Christian in his presence. Sometimes it takes humility to let God come and speak to us and remind us of his promise.
God counted Abram's trust as righteousness even though he had doubted at first. For the preacher, this frees us from the idea that we need a perfect faith.

4. When We Try to Fulfill the Promise in Our Own Strength

In Genesis 16, Sarai offers Abram her Egyptian servant, Hagar: "See now, Yahweh has restrained me from bearing. Please go in to my servant. It may be that I will obtain children by her" (Genesis 16:2). Ishmael is born, and Abram is 86 years old.
"Who has ever tried to fulfill God's promises in their own strength? Guilty." Time passes, we lose patience, we take the reins. It happened back then, and it still happens today.
Yet God does not stop there. When Abram is 99, God appears to him: "I am God Almighty. Walk before me, and be blameless. I will make my covenant between me and you" (Genesis 17:1-2). Humanly speaking, with a 90-year-old wife, fulfillment is impossible.
The preacher stresses the phrase "between me and you": God commits himself first. He opens the way, and we can then commit ourselves to him.
For the fourth time, God repeats his promise and changes Abram's name to Abraham, "for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations" (Genesis 17:5). He also changes Sarai's name to Sarah and promises to give her a son.

5. From the Laughter of Abraham and Sarah to the Birth of Isaac

Abraham falls on his face and laughs: "Will a child be born to him who is one hundred years old? Will Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?" He adds: "Oh that Ishmael might live before you!" (Genesis 17:17-18).
God does not come to confront this laughter or this lack of faith. He restores and strengthens what he promised: Sarah will bear a son, Isaac, and the covenant will be established with him (Genesis 17:19).
Our picture of the Father is often distorted by our experiences. "I expect God to be angry, to send lightning bolts." But God is full of love and patience: he passes over the laughter and repeats the truth.
In Genesis 18, three men sent by God announce that Sarah will have a son. Sarah laughs in her turn at the entrance of the tent. "Sometimes we can be very persevering in our lack of faith."
The LORD answers: "Is anything too hard for Yahweh? At the set time I will return to you, when the season comes round, and Sarah will have a son" (Genesis 18:14). At some point, the Lord steps in and decrees.
In Genesis 21, the LORD remembers Sarah as he had said. Isaac is born at the appointed time, and Abraham is one hundred years old. Sarah says: "God has made me laugh. Everyone who hears will laugh with me" (Genesis 21:1-7).
God uses our circumstances to speak to those around us. The preacher asks: how do I receive other people's testimony when I am myself on the third reminder of a promise I cannot yet see?
Later, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22). Without going deep into the text, the preacher draws one posture from it: what God gives and accomplishes does not become our possession. It is a gift he entrusts to us, and the testimony of what he has done belongs to him.

6. A Season to Expand Our Faith

Since the beginning of August, the church has heard about living faith, faith for healing, a season of acceleration, the character of God, meditation on the Word, worship and the Holy Spirit. The preacher is convinced that God is preparing hearts to work together with his will and is pushing each person to expand their faith.
As God persevered with Abraham, he perseveres with us. "Ah Lord Yahweh! Behold, you have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for you" (Jeremiah 32:17). The God of the impossible: that is his nature.
He revealed himself to individuals: the blind and the paralyzed healed, Lazarus raised. He also revealed himself to crowds: the Red Sea opened, the walls of Jericho fallen after the people had marched around them, a crowd of 5,000 men, perhaps 15,000 or 20,000 people with the women and children, fed with five loaves and two fish.
If God did that with what a child brought, how much more with the little we can offer him. "And the little we can offer him is our obedience."
For God, there is no level of difficulty. We have more faith for some things than for others: the preacher admits he has more faith to feel God's presence than to see a dead person raised. "But it's the same God."

7. Letting Go, Grieving, and Returning to Obedience

The preacher names a few steps: letting go of our control, trusting God and believing that he is good to me. Abraham had to grieve, in the natural, the idea of having a child by his own strength.
If you carry disappointments, things you tried that did not work out, walk this path of grieving with God. The pastoral team can walk with you. As long as anger remains in us, it is hard to welcome a new faith for the impossible.
"Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (Proverbs 13:12). You are free to bring this deferred hope to the Father and find healing there.
He shares his own disobedience: God had asked him to stop social media for a season. At first he said no. After God repeated it several times, he stopped. He found a new lightness, and reading the Bible became an inspiration again, no longer a burden. He makes clear that he is not asking everyone to quit social media.
"Obedience costs us something, but we can trust God: after obedience, what he has for us is good." The Father's heart says: "I have so many things to set free, I just need a small yes."
The message ends with a shared prayer of repentance: asking forgiveness for the disobedience God puts on our hearts, thanking him for his patience and forgiveness, and rejoicing to walk with him in prompt obedience. Repentance is not heavy: it is good and light, and it brings us closer to the Father's heart.

Key Takeaways

Knowing the Father's heart and obeying him are the two keys to entering into what God is doing in our season.
Obedience gives access to friendship with Jesus, and it is in that friendship that he makes known to us what he has learned from the Father.
God is not offended by our doubts: with Abraham, he repeated and strengthened his promise instead of condemning him.
Trying to fulfill the promises in our own strength does not make God give up: he remains the God of the impossible.
The little we can offer God is our obedience, and repentance brings us back lightly to his heart.

Personal Application

How are you listening to the Word right now: passively, or by preparing your heart to hear what God wants to say to you?
Which promise of God are you still waiting to see fulfilled, and do you dare to talk to him about it with your doubts?
In what area have you tried to fulfill a promise in your own strength?
Is there a disappointment or a deferred hope that you need to grieve before the Father?
What request from God have you left unanswered, and what "small yes" can you give him this week?

Verses Cited

Frequently Asked Questions

How can we know what is on God's heart?

Jean-Marc Rüfenacht draws on John 15:15: Jesus calls us his friends and makes known to us everything he has learned from the Father. But verse 14 sets a condition: "You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you." Obedience gives access to this friendship, and it is in this friendship that the Father reveals his heart.

Does God get angry when we doubt his promises?

No. Abraham doubted, and he even laughed when he heard the promise of a son at one hundred years old. God did not strike him down: he repeated his promise and strengthened it. After his doubt, Abram believed in the LORD, who credited it to him for righteousness (Genesis 15:6). God is not offended when we come to him with authenticity.

Why is repentance not a burden?

For Jean-Marc Rüfenacht, we often see repentance as something heavy, when it is good and light: it brings us closer to the Father's heart. God has many things to set free and simply waits for "a small yes," a first step of obedience.