John 15: 9 – 27
No Lone Rangers Here Buddy
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 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. 11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. 12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another. 18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. 20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’ 26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
Are you very popular? Do all the local politicians and town folks like you? If so, is this good? You know that there are distinct differences between being liked and being respected. In today’s scripture our Master and King say this to all of us, not just to us ministers –‘19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.’
So, is it possible that we have been trying to find love in all the wrong places? This applies to how we interact with others in society. It also deals with who and how we court our potential life mate. As a believer even though you might not get married you cannot go it alone. There are no Lone Rangers on God’s team. We are part of His body. We will look at these concerns as we study today’s word.
9 “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 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.
Those who are His not only abide in Him, but also in His love. Those who reveal themselves as truly a part of the vine by their Christian fruitfulness will experience His continual love.
Please take notice that The Lord Jesus’ love for those who are truly His own parallels the Father’s love for Him. What greater love could there be than that? It is overflowing and permanent. Thus the disciples and all of us for the matter whose decision is to abide in His love must also be permanent. It is a once for all dwelling. It is a decision that once made must be final. It is a permanent commitment.
Now make this clear in your thinking - we can only dwell in His love and remain there if we are obedient to what He commands us as revealed in His word. Thus, if we would dwell in His love we must ‘keep’ His word, meditating on it and obeying it.
Our Holy Lord Jesus then cites Himself as their perfect example. He Himself has demonstrated such a life and calls on them and us to follow in His steps. He has kept and is still keeping what His Father has commanded Him, and continually dwells in His love.
In a way you can see how important it is to make sure that the person who you pick to join you in your life is a believer. This person has to be someone who knows that he or she is ultimately answerable to God.
In many weddings the bride and groom want to somehow involve some people who they want to be a part of their wedding but not necessarily in their bridal party. One popular scripture verse the couple asks these friends to read during the ceremony is from the book of 1 Corinthians chapter 13 which many refer as the love chapter.
“1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Now, as I have just stated, our Lord Jesus Is the Perfect example for us to follow. I am going to revise First Corinthians chapter 13 by placing The Lord Jesus Name in the passage and you will see how perfect He and the Word Is.
“1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing. 4 Jesus suffers long and Is kind; Jesus does not envy; Jesus does not parade Himself, He Is not puffed up; 5 Jesus does not behave rudely, Jesus does not seek His own, He Is not provoked, He thinks no evil; 6 He does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 Jesus bears all things, He believes all things, He hopes all things, He endures all things. 8 Jesus never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. 13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Now I want you on your own go and put your name in where I placed The Lord Jesus’ Name. How do you measure up?
There is no compromise being stated here by our Holy God Jesus Christ. Permanent trust and obedience is required, then a permanent dwelling in His love is promised. While the New Testament is aware of the weakness of many Christians it never condones it. Rather it encourages such weak Christians to recognize what God Is doing in them and become strong, and it warns that the final test is perseverance lest any be deceived by a false profession. On the one hand it strongly confirms that those who are His will be confirmed to the end, on the other it warns against complacency. All Christians can have assurance that they are in His love if they know that they are truly looking to Him only for salvation, none can have that assurance if they are deliberately continuing in long term disobedience and neglecting His word. You will never find anywhere in Scripture where it is taught that a fruitless so-called believer who is living in a state of neglect to God’s word is given any assurance of salvation.
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
Our Lord Jesus assures His disciples and us that He wants all His believers to live lives filled with joy, and that if they keep what He has commanded they will be able to do so. This is not ‘happiness’, which is transient and depends on things turning out well, but joy which flows from the soul in all kinds of circumstances even when things are not going well.
Our Lord Jesus had previously promised the disciples peace as indicated in chapter 14 verse 27. Now He promises joy, and joy. Both of these are part of the fruit of the Spirit as we learn in the book of Galatians chapter 5. These wonderful blessings are found for them, as they are for us, by dwelling continually in Him in confident, prayerful trust and obedience to His will, for He is the source of that joy, and in Him they can know that all will finally be well.
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
It is extremely important to recognize that our King and Master Jesus, having informed His disciples that they must dwell continually in Him, now stresses that they must love one another. The Christian life is two way. First of all we must concentrate on our Lord Jesus Christ and seek to dwell continually in Him. But this must not become such that we ignore our fellow Christians. That very dwelling in Him must result in an out flowing love to other Christians. The ‘Lone Ranger’ Christian is now where to be found in Scripture. We worship Him and fellowship together, for the one produces the other.
We need to also note the importance that our Lord Jesus places on this love between Christians. He recognized how vital it was for the continuation of His message. I think you would agree that if the disciples ‘split up’ the cause would have been lost. ‘By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another’ (13.34). How we fail Him when we fight amongst ourselves! We will never see eye-to-eye on secondary things, but in house fighting is a stain on our testimony to Christ. We must agree to disagree, in love.
Our Lord Jesus now goes on to stress the greatness of His love. It is a love which is willing to give its life for those who are loved, His ‘friends’. And this was what He knew He was about to do. Then He adds “You are my friends if you do what I command you”. He accepts them as friends because their hearts were set to obey His commands, and to please God in all their ways.
15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
Here is one of my favorite verses. Can you see the significance of this statement of what our Lord Jesus has just said? Our Holy Master Jesus says that we are His friends. Think on this point. We are God’s friends. God Is our friend! We do need anything else.
It had been no accidental lapse, or careless slip of the tongue, that had made Him call them and us His friends. He has treated them as friends, rather than as servants, because, instead of just asking for blind obedience, He has revealed to them God’s purposes. He has introduced them to the mysteries of God. What a privilege is this, to be party to the inner secrets of God. Have you ever experienced this awesome blessing?
Because we are His friends God does not ask us to act blindly, but shows us what He Is doing. The details may need working out, but the overall pattern is clear. He treats us not as servants but as friends. We are in it together.
16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.
Not only are they and us His friends, but His chosen friends. He has chosen them and He wants them to be conscious of the fact and to be thrilled by it. If believers love Him they will now carry out what He wants them to do, will go and bear fruit, fruit that will be lasting, the fruit of godly lives. This must include the fruit of men and women turning to Christ and becoming in their turn God-like, but the main stress is on the living of a godly and Christ-like life. If more Christians were God-like more unbelievers would respond. Just as we reviewed in 1 Corinthians 13 in His own ministry The Lord Jesus was able to point to the life that He lived, as well as the signs that he did and the words that He spoke. His testimony was effective because of the purity of that life, and all that He did sprang from that purity.
The fruit of faithful lives and the fruit of winning others go together. Both are the fruit of God, and the one will help to produce the other. If at any time they waiver at the task they must recognize that this is what He has chosen them for, and called them to do. They have been appointed, and therefore they can be sure that whatever they need in the task ahead will be given, because they are His representatives. They can therefore ask for resources to carry out His purpose, and be sure of a reply.
17 These things I command you, that you love one another.
One purpose of His command is that we love one another. It is to be the mark of the people of God.
18 “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. 19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
A great quote I heard was when someone commented that ‘if you want to be more like Jesus then do not be surprised if people come running to crucify you.’ The disciples had already seen the response of men to our Lord Jesus Himself. They knew therefore that true goodness was not popular. For a while the world will admire good men because they recognize something in them that their basic conscience approves, but let those good men in some way disturb their consciences and they will immediately turn against them. This hatred arises because they are ‘not of the world’.
The world likes a little bit of goodness, but not too much, for then it becomes a nuisance and interferes with their plans. So the disciples should not be surprised to find themselves hated. Those who hated the One Who chose them, will also hate those who are chosen. They are hated because they are Christ’s representatives, and because they teach the truth which often goes against what men believe.
People of the world on the other hand are ruled by their own suppositions, ideas, ambitions, and lie already in the camp of the Evil One as John will point out to us in chapter 5 verse 19 of his first epistle.
20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
The sin of the world is consistent. Where it hates the Master, it hates those who are like the Master. The more Christ-like the disciples are, the more they must expect the treatment meted out to our Lord Jesus. For those who would respond in hatred to The Holy Son of God Jesus Christ will respond to them in the same way. Those who would hate and persecute Him, will hate and persecute them. But in the end this is because they do not know God the Father. If they had they would have recognized the Father in the Son, and then the whole world would have been changed.
Remember that Peter was there in the group when our Lord Jesus said these words. All these words of our Lord got through to Peter so in his first letter chapter 4 he speaks about it to us, 12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; 13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. 14 If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. 15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer, a thief, an evildoer, or as a busybody in other people’s matters. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 19 Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.
22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.
Have you ever asked, heard, or been questioned about the destiny of children. Are they in Heaven? I believe that they are along with people who have mental issues that still think as a child. The apostle Paul teaches this to us in his letter to the Romans in chapter 7 where he states this, “9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died..’ In other words Paul states that as a child he mentally did not understand that he was a sinner. However at some point in his life he became aware of his sinfulness. We refer this condition as the age of accountability.
The Lord Jesus has come as a light into the world. His words have shined like a searchlight piercing into men’s innermost being as Paul makes clear to us. But men shy from the light, for it reveals what they are. They love darkness rather than light because by coming to the light what they do is shown to be evil in God’s eyes (John 3.19). Previously such men had been living in a self-satisfied state, not fully aware of the inadequacy of what they believed. They were not aware of how sinful they were. But by His words Jesus has brought home to them that inadequacy, undermining much of what they cherished, especially their sense of their own spiritual achievements. Thus they no longer have any excuse, and if they are unwilling to admit it, and change, they will hate Him for what He has done. It is always difficult to admit that we have been wrong and to begin again.
23 He who hates Me hates My Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father. 25 But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’
There must be no doubt about this, The Lord Jesus says. He who hates the One Who Is a true revealer of the Father also hates the Father. Our Holy Master and Friend Jesus has fully revealed the Father (14.7-9). Therefore to hate Him is to hate the Father as He really Is. And He has revealed the Father in a life lived, in teaching given, in works of compassion and healing, in raising the dead, in a way that no other has ever done. Thus they are without excuse. It is only by deliberately closing their eyes to the truth that they can refuse to hear Him, and in doing so they make themselves more sinful, and more resentful, because underneath something warns them they are wrong. And this must result in either repentance or hatred. This will always be man’s reaction to God’s truth
26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. 27 And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning.
I can picture the disciples thinking about all that The Lord has said to them. They might have thought, ‘Hey wait a minute, I didn’t sign up for all this.’ Our Lord Is way ahead of them - He assures them that they will not have to do this alone. In fact God will continue to do all things for them.
The Lord Jesus now comforts His disciple by the promise of the coming ‘Helper’ (parakletos) Who will be ‘sent by Jesus from the Father’. Previously the Paraclete has been seen as the One Who is the perfect divine companion and helper, the One Who will teach all things and brings to memory the words of Jesus. Now He Is seen as a witness and testifier, the Perfect Advocate, The One Who will be alongside them in their witness, and will indeed be the prime Witness. Previously He was described as the gift of the Father, sent by the Father in Jesus’ name. But now it is The Lord Jesus Who will send Him from the Father. He comes from both Father and Son. So the coming of the Spirit of truth in new measure will also be as a witness to the world, revealing the truth and revealing Christ.
But this will not make the disciples no longer needed, for it is through them that He will speak. They will be Spirit empowered. And from an earthly point of view they are in a unique position to testify of Jesus, for they have been with Him from the beginning of His ministry. How carefully He has planned His strategy for the future.
Note that the Spirit ‘proceeds from the Father’. The present tense emphasizes a continual process. This has always been so and will always be so. This stresses His divinity. It also stresses the close co-relation between Father and Holy Spirit. They act as One. But He is here also sent from the Son as well as from the Father. The members of the Godhead are at One in Their work. This is why the creed can say ‘He proceeds from the Father and the Son’.
