Living in Loving Communion with the Triune God

LIVING IN LOVING COMMUNION WITH THE TRIUNE GOD

What the Bible teaches about the true Christian life

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: March 29, 2026

Series: The Basics of the Christian Faith

Note: Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

THE SCRIPTURAL TEXT

Good morning. I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the Gospel of John, chapter 14. We’re going to look at some different verses in chapter 14 and 15, but to begin with, I'd like to read John, chapter 14, verses 21 to 24. Keep in mind that Jesus was giving this instruction on the eve of his arrest and crucifixion. These were among his final words to his followers before he went to the cross. So let's listen in on John, chapter 14, beginning in verse 21:

“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.” (John 14:21-24)

Let's pray:

Father, we thank you for this holy word, this holy instruction that you have given to us. Father, we pray that you would shine the light of your truth upon our hearts so that we would hear with understanding, that we would hear with delight, that we would hear with conviction, that we would hear unto the transformation of our lives. Father, we entrust this time to you and ask you to do a mighty work in our hearts and lives. In Jesus’ name, amen.

SECTION 1: JESUS INVITES YOU TO LIVE YOUR ENTIRE LIFE IN LOVING COMMUNION WITH THE TRUINE GOD

Well, I'd like to get right into it. Jesus invites you to live your entire life in loving communion with the triune God – in loving communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Life is not about mastering some formula or technique in order to – you can fill in the blank – it’s not about mastering some formula or technique in order to go to heaven when you die. Life is not about meeting the minimum requirements so that you feel okay about yourself. Life, as God designed it, is for you to know him and for you to be in loving communion with him and for this relationship that you have with him to shape your entire life.

I'm using the term ‘communion’. I think it's a more helpful term than simply saying ‘relationship’ or ‘fellowship’, though we could certainly use those terms. But ‘communion’ communicates the concept of deep relationship. One dictionary defines communion this way: “the sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level”. And that's good. Communion is deep personal relationship. And you were created for a deep, personal, loving relationship with Creator God.

Now, of course, we enter into this life full of sin. And so we begin with that relationship with God broken. We don't know God as we ought. We aren't in the kind of relationship that we ought to be in with Him. And that's why Jesus came. Jesus came in order to repair the broken relationship between God and humankind. That's why he came. That's why he went to the cross. That's why he died for our sins and rose from the dead and sent His Holy Spirit to us, so that he would mend our hearts and lives and bring us into reconciliation, into peace with the Father.

So I want to talk about this whole concept of being in loving communion with the triune God. We're going to go through this in parts here.

Part 1-A: Jesus’ love for you initiates a special relationship between you and Him

So first of all, Jesus’ love for you initiates a special relationship between you and Him. I'm kind of backing up before this text that I read, right? Jesus said in verse, well, look at verse 15. In chapter 14, verse 15, He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But you have to back up. You could go back to John 3:16 – “For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” And Jesus embodied that love of God. Jesus embodied the grace and truth of His Father (see John 1:14). Or closer to our text, if you look at the beginning of John 13, verse one, which would have come just moments before the instruction we heard In John chapter 14. It says at the beginning of John chapter 13 – Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” (John 13:1) He loved them to the end. Or he loved them to the fullest extent. And of course, in John 13, he washes their feet.

And then if you look over in John 15:13, he says, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Jesus laid down his life for his friends – the good shepherd laying down his life for the sheep who were in grave danger and who required his intervention and sacrifice.

It says in 1 John 4:10 – “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation [atoning sacrifice] for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

So Jesus’ love for you is what initiates a special relationship between you and Him.

Part 1-B: By loving Jesus in return, you enter into special relationship with Jesus

But of course, that love must be reciprocated. And so now, getting closer to our text here in John chapter 14, by loving Jesus in return, you enter into special relationship with Jesus. It's very interesting to contrast this passage with a passage over in Mark, chapter 10.

I'm just going to refer to this well-known passage. You don't have to turn there, but it's a well-known passage between Jesus and the rich young man, right? And the rich young man had inquired about what he must do in order to inherit eternal life. And Jesus told the rich young man, “You know the commandments” (Mark 10:19). And the man replied, “[All] these [commandments] I have kept from my youth.” (Mark 10:20). And he asked: “What do I still lack?” (Matthew 19:20) And it's very interesting to me, and has been for a long time, what Mark 10:21 says was going on inside of Jesus when He counseled this man how to proceed. It says in Mark 10:21, “And Jesus, looking at him, looking at him” – looking at that man who was about to walk away from him – “look at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21).What kind of love? It's agape. Agape love. You can look it up. “Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” (Mark 10:21) He was inviting the man into relationship with himself. His agape love was initiating a relationship between the rich young man and himself. Sadly, the rich young man preferred to have his stuff instead of being in relationship with the Son of God. And so, full of sadness, the rich man walked away.

But Jesus is talking to people in John chapter 14 who had not walked away. Well, Judas just walked away, didn't he? In John chapter 13, verse 30, Judas “went out” (John 13:30). But these other eleven, the other eleven disciples that Jesus is now speaking to, they hadn't walked away. They had come to believe in and love the Lord Jesus. And so they had therefore entered into a special relationship with Jesus.

Faith and love

And I want to say something about the relationship between faith and love, because you might be thinking to yourself, well, I thought that we enter into a saving relationship with Jesus through faith, right? Well, of course, but what kind of faith? Not a dull faith that is dry in its affection for Jesus. That's not saving faith. Saving faith is not beholding the Son of God and finding him boring but nevertheless useful in order to stay out of hell – so I think I'll sign up for this contract. That's not saving faith. Saving faith is, I behold the Son of God, I Behold the Lamb of God, and I find him eminently desirable. My heart is drawn out to him, and so I embrace him with a loving confidence. You enter into special relationship with Jesus through a loving faith. So it's just two sides of the same coin.

Part 1-C: Jesus and the Father respond to your love for Jesus by making their home with you

Now, this is where it gets really good, okay? Jesus and the Father respond to your love for Jesus by loving you with a deeper and more personal love and by making their home with you. Now I have to say that for some of us, I think we may need to have a little correction in the way that we think about the love of God, because some of us have been taught to think that God's love is flat. And by flat, I mean that God has this wonderful sacrificial love – unconditional was the word I meant to say – that God has this wonderful unconditional love for everyone. Well, that just won't stack up to the instruction here, okay? It’s very obvious. The way that Jesus has framed this instruction is that God has a special love for those who love his Son. Let me show you. Jesus says it three times.

John 14:15-17

Go back to verse 15. And what I want you to see in these three examples is how the triune God responds to our love for Jesus by loving us with a deeper and more personal love and by coming to dwell with us. So chapter 14, verse 15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) I'm going to come back to the “keep my commandments” part. But the context is those who love Jesus, right? And Jesus says, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:16-17) Jesus is promising the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Holy Spirit, to those who love him.

John 14:21

Then it comes up again in verse 21: :”Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me” – now notice how God is responding to our love for Jesus – “And he who loves me will be loved by my Father” (John 14:21). Well, you might say, well, I thought the Father loved me when I was dead in my trespasses and sins. Well, right, that's John 3:16. This isn't John 3:16. This is after you've entered into this loving relationship with Jesus, where now the Father takes delight in the fact that you love his son. I mean, I haven't consulted with Alan and Charity about this, but I assume. I assume that they have a special love for a young man named Alex because he loves and is engaged to be married to their daughter Kaylynn. Their love isn't flat towards all young men in general; there's a special relational deep love for one who would love their own daughter. In terms of John 14:21, the Father loves those who love his Son.

And then the passage goes on, and Jesus says, not only will the father love the one who loves me, but “I will love him” (John 14:21). “I will love him [the one who loves me] and manifest myself to him.” (John 14:21) This is all relational language. We can draw so much practical help for understanding this from the world of human relationships. If a man has love for a particular woman and asks her to marry him, well, apparently he's loving her and he's initiating a deeper relationship. He's offering himself to her in marriage and inviting her to enter into that union with him. And if she says no, that limits the depth and scope of the relationship. But ff she says yes and they enter into marriage together, then there is so much more of a person that you get to experience in the marriage relationship – more of that person's strengths and more of that person's beauty and more of that person's character and more of that person's commitment. And Jesus is saying to those who say yes – I will love him, I will show you more of my grace, I will show you more of my glory, I will share with you more of my purpose, I will share with you more of my life.

John 14:22-23

And then, in case you didn't hear it the first time, and in case you didn't hear it the second time, Jesus says it a third time, right? This other Judas, not the traitor Judas Iscariot, but another Judas said, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14:22) And again, Jesus zeroes in on the fact that while the world at large remains indifferent to him, those who love Jesus have special privileges precisely because they're in that special relationship with him. So he says in verse 23, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word” – and here it is again – “and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23) The Father and the Son come to make their home with the one who loves Jesus. I could ask you: Have the Father and the Son come to make their home with you? Which of course, takes us back to another question. Are you one who truly loves the Lord Jesus Christ?

Think about what must be involved in God making his home with us. I mean, what is God's home like? God’s home is a place of prayer, a place of peace, a place of rest, a place of love. He befriends you, he shares his life with you, he comforts you, he sanctifies you, he guides you, he strengthens you. I mean, the depth of relationship envisioned here is not, it's not just words on a page. This is supposed to be the experiential reality in our day-to-day life.

Mutual indwelling

And another angle into this whole thing is the language of mutual indwelling that Jesus uses. Let me show you that really quick. In John, chapter 14, verse 20: “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” (John 14:20) And then he says the same kind of thing in John, chapter 15, verses 4-5. In John 15:4-5, Jesus says,

“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:4-5)

Don't miss the fact that the branches are part of the vine, right? And the branches draw their strength and their energy and their life from the vine. The branches are in the vine; the sap and strength of the vine is in the branches.

So you could ask the question – the question we should be asking is – what are you and God doing? I mean, if you're truly a lover of Jesus and the Father and the Son have come to make their home with you, and their Spirit is dwelling within you, then what are you and God doing? What are you and Jesus doing? Because apart from Jesus, you can't do anything truly and eternally productive in God's sight. But abiding in Christ, one’s life should be full of productivity, full of works that matter in the scope of eternity.

In all this, Jesus invites you to live your entire life in loving communion with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

SECTION 2: KEEPING JESUS’ WORDS IS HOW YOU ABIDE AND GROW IN LOVING COMMUNION WITH GOD

Now as I promised, we need to talk about keeping Jesus’ words. The language of keeping Jesus’ words is used in John 14:24. And the language of keeping Jesus’ commandments is used in John 14:15 and John 14:21. Keeping Jesus’ words – keeping Jesus’ commandments – is how you abide and grow in loving communion with the Father and the Son.

Now listen very carefully. I did not say that obeying a set of prescribed rules, being good enough for long enough, is how you get into loving communion with God. I didn't say that because that would be false. And I think that some people really need to hear this. Attempting to keep Jesus’ commandments is not how you fix your loveless bankrupt relationship with God. You see some people, and may God bless them because they need the blessing of God, some people have a very weak sense of God's love for them – there's little to no assurance that ‘Christ is mine and I am His.’ There's no day-to-day rest in the promises of God, in the presence of God. And so their relationship, their practical experiential relationship with God, is very weak. And then they get to thinking to themselves, ‘Well, if I just memorize some Scripture, if I just study the Bible more, if I just do all the stuff, then that will fix my weak relationship with God.’ But none of that is going to solve that problem. Look at what it says in verse 15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15) Attempting to keep his commandments – whatever that means, which I'm going to talk about in just a few moments – attempting to keep his commandments is not how you fix a love problem. Rather, when Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments”, what he means is that keeping his commandments is the natural expression of one who loves Jesus. And of course, one who loves Jesus is one who knows that he is loved by Jesus. And out of the security and dynamic and encouragement of that relationship and that fellowship, fruit and love and obedience follow naturally.

How healthy relationships work

Sometimes we over-spiritualize our relationship with God to the point where we can't relate it to our practical everyday relationships. Well, I'd like to drop us down to the everyday. Before I get into what keeping Jesus’ word involves, let's just think about how healthy relationships actually work, okay? The claim to love another human being is hollow if you don't pay attention to what they are saying. A husband must slow down to truly hear and understand what his wife is saying and must let his wife's sharing of her heart in words actually affect him, influence him, and impact him. A father must slow down to truly hear and understand what his children are saying so that he can demonstrate love to them effectively. And here's the point: loving communion with another person requires effective communication and honorable conduct in light of that communication, okay? There is no healthy relationship where effective communication is not taking place and where honorable conduct in light of that communication is not taking place. You can kid yourself all day long – ‘Oh, I love this person, oh, I feel love for this person, and we’ – I mean, just think about somebody who says this, we're rarely this honest – ‘we love each other, but we don't listen to each other. We love each other, but we don't attempt to understand each other. We love each other, but we don't make changes in order to honor each other. We love each other, but we don't seek to serve one another in practical and helpful ways.’

That's not love. You might wish that the other person would magically change to meet all of your preferences and make life easy for you. But that's selfishness, not love. You can have a home with the greatest professions of love, but without honest, effective communication and without honorable conduct in light of that communication, it is impossible to sustain any meaningful communion.

Now, I haven't come here today to talk about marriage and family life, but if what I just said speaks to you, don't point the finger at someone else in your family, okay? Start with yourself and learn to do what love requires.

Abiding and growing in loving communion with God

Now let me remind you of this larger point: keeping Jesus’ words is how you abide and grow in loving communion with God. It's not how you get into loving communion with God. It's how you abide in and steward and grow in and deepen the loving communion that you already have with him through grace. So I want you to see how this works out in our passage, okay?

Look at verse 21: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.” (John 14:21) Just notice, very simply, keeping Jesus’ words is how you express love for Him.

Now go to chapter 15, verses 9 and 10. Jesus says,

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 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 15:9-10)

So keeping his commandments is not only how we express our love for him, it's also how we abide in his love for us. Do you see? Keeping his words is at the heart of abiding and growing in communion with Him.

THREE QUESTIONS FOR YOUR SPIRITUAL WALK

Now I want to ask you – I'm going to ask you three questions that I hope challenge you, encourage you, and spur you on in your spiritual walk.

Question 1: What are you doing with Jesus’ words?

And here's the first question: What are you doing with Jesus words? And I'm not asking you what you're doing with your religious checklist that tells you to read the Bible and you're making checks off the page. That's fine. But that’s not what I’m talking about. What are you actually doing with his words? What does it actually mean to keep his words? Well, I think it means a whole range of things.

Some translations jump right to obedience. I wish they didn't. Keeping his commands includes obedience, but there's a whole lot more going on, okay? Keeping – the word is keeping, guarding, watching over. So you're receiving his words as a treasure that's worth holding onto, that's worth keeping, that's worth watching over, and that's worth digging into, and that's worth understanding. You treasure it, you value it, you pay attention to it. You mull it over in your mind over and over again. And you make it the subject of your conversation. You want to guard it. You don't want it to be lost through inattention or forgetfulness. You have to keep it in lively use and you have to be calling it to mind. And so it fills you. And then also you pray it. I mean, look at John 15:7. Jesus says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7) Get the picture: the words of Jesus so filling our heart and mind that it shapes the way that we pray. And remember what I said about how a healthy relationship involves effective communication and honorable conduct in light of that communication. It works both ways. It's not only that we are listening to Jesus. Jesus is promising us that as we live this life in loving communion with him, the Father is going to listen to us – not in the sense that he has to obey us, but he's going to listen to us and he's going to do for us what we wish as the outflow of Jesus’ words shaping the way that we desire and the way that we pray.

And of course, if you have received the words and instructions of Jesus as a precious treasure and you hold onto them and you value them, and you mull them over and you meditate on them day and night, and you pray them, of course you must do them, obey them, put them into practice.

Question 2: What are you doing with each other?

Let me ask you a second question: What are you doing with each other? Now at first this might seem like a topic change, but I assure you I have not changed the topic. I've put the emphasis this morning on the individual believer's relationship with Jesus, because that's what Jesus is doing. The language of ‘whoever’ (John 14:21, 24) highlights individual application. Several weeks ago, we looked at the fact that the church as a whole is the dwelling place of God. That's powerful. But today we're looking at the fact that the individual believer is the dwelling place of God, and we abide in that loving communion with him by keeping his commandments. Well, what does this have to do with each other?

Quite a bit, because Jesus especially emphasized our love for one another in John chapters 13 through 17. So of all the commandments that he's given us, this is singled out for special importance: love one another. Let me show you it. Go back to John chapter 13. In John chapter 13, verses 14-15, after Jesus had washed his disciples’ feet, he says,

“If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you.” (John 13:14-15)

It's as if he's saying, ‘I have loved you by condescending and humbling myself in order to wash your feet. And the way that I want you to love me in return is not by just having ethereal love feelings for me. The way that I want you to love me in return is by humbling yourselves before one another and washing each other's feet.’

We see the same thing in John 13:34. Jesus says, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” (John 13:34) Respond to Jesus’ love for you by loving each other in a sacrificial and generous manner.

And then he singles it out again in John chapter 15, verse 12. Jesus says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12) So this links up to the 1 Peter 4:8-11 passage that we studied recently from Alistair Begg: we're called to love one another (v. 8), we're called to show hospitality to one another (v. 9), we're called to serve one another and build one another up with our gifts (v. 10-11). And we're called to welcome each other in Jesus’ name (Romans 15:7). We're called to forgive one another (Colossians 3:13), which is a great way to wash each other's feet and keep the relationships whole.

Loving one another also means taking each other with great seriousness. Consider the fact that the Father and the Son have made their home with people that, if you're honest, you don't want to make your home with. But what are you going to do? God Almighty, the same God who has stooped low to make his home with you, has made his home with another. And so there should be a great sense of valuing each other and a great sense of expectancy as we gather together – one dwelling place of God meeting with another dwelling place of God. How can that not be encouraging and nourishing and life-giving and strengthening? And if God dwells with you, and if God dwells with me, and if God dwells with him, and if God dwells with her, and we all come together in his name, what a beautiful experience of worship and fellowship that ought to be.

Question 3: Are you living your life from a place of loving communion with God or from some other source?

Here is the final question: Are you living your life from a place of loving communion with God or from some other source? Jesus promises to show us himself In John 14:21, he promises to give us his peace in John 14:27, he aims to give us his joy in John 15:11, he ministers to us so that we're filled with God's love in John 17:26. So we're to be filled with his life (John 15:1-8) and his glory (John 17:22) and his peace (John 14:27) and his joy (John 15:11) and his love (John 13:34, John 15:12-14).

A week and a half ago I was listening to another pastor preach on this passage. And to be honest with you, it was one of the best sermons I ever heard. And what I'm about to do, I'm borrowing in part from him. He was asking this question, and I want to ask this question: Are you living your life from a place of communion with God, which involves life and rest and peace and joy? Are you living your life from a place of communion with God? Or are you living your life from a place of urgency, fear and panic?[1]You know how often we can just be overwhelmed by the circumstances in front of us and we respond frantically? God's not anxious. Why are you? He's made his home with you. You're to abide in that place of communion with him.

Do you live your life from a place of communion with God? Or do you live under the pressure of other people's expectations and opinions? Other people's expectations and opinions will crush you. You have to know of God's approval, God's friendship, God's kindness, God's encouragement to you.

Do you live your life from a place of communion with God? Or do you live from the religious to-do list, walking on eggshells, hoping lightning doesn't strike?

Do you live your life from a place of communion with God? Or do you live your life from the flesh? Just fleshly appetites. Just gotta feel something – I gotta get some sensation or some pleasure in me, I've gotta have food, or I've gotta have drink, or I've gotta have some entertainment, or I've gotta have sex.I've gotta have something dramatic? But in that place of communion with God, we learn to be quiet, humble, and at peace.

Finally, do you live your life from a place of communion with God? Or really are you just living for yourself? It's always a dead end. Those who live for themselves end up turning in on themselves, end up bankrupt.

How are you living your life? What quality of life are you bringing to the people around you? It might be a useful exercise, not in terms of living under the opinions of others, but in terms of honest self-evaluation, it might be helpful to ask this question, with each of us putting our own specific name into the question. For me this means asking, ‘Would people say that when Brian shows up, it's as if God is showing up too?’ Because that's what ought to be happening? If God has made his home with me and I'm abiding in communion with him, then when I show up, it should be as if God is showing up. ‘But is that true? Or would people say that, you know, when Brian shows up, we feel urgency, panic, fear, lots of rules, lots of judgments.’

Maybe you don't want to ask that question for yourself. I'm kind of at a point where I do want to ask that question because I'm realizing that life is fleeting, life is very short, and I don't want to live in an illusion. I want reality. I want loving communion with God, with my brothers and sisters, period. And that's what we should aim for.

Let's pray:

Father, I pray that you would take these words and go deeper than the words. Go deeper than the words through the Holy Spirit. Transform us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Show us more of Jesus. Show us more of what it means to dwell with you and for you to dwell with us. Give us life and strength and joy, Lord Jesus – in your name we pray, amen.

ENDNOTES

[1] See Artie Farve, “The Promise of His Presence” (John 14:15-24). March 15, 2026. Sermon Podcast from Christ Community Church (Ardmore, OK). Available on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sermon-podcast-from-christ-community-church/id349622067?i=1000756161351. With respect to this first question that I’m asking, I’m following Artie Farve’s articulation in “The Promise of His Presence” very closely. He said, drawing upon the transcript available at Apple Podcasts:

“I have to retrain myself to learn to live consciously from the place of communion, not the place of urgency and reaction. And that’s how we know, that’s how we identify where we’re living from.

“Am I living from the energy of fear, panic, and urgency? Or am I living from the energy of peace, love, and patience from the Spirit of God who dwells in me? That helps me understand whether or not I’m purposely living from communion.”