Last Sunday, we shared from John 15 where Jesus was speaking about His identity as the true vine, the source of new life. Jesus was actually comparing Himself as the true vine to the false vine - the nation of Israel who produced bad fruit. Those who derived their lives from the old and saw themselves in light of that old vine. The fruit that came out of the old vine was the feeling of inadequacy, condemnation, failure, hopelessness, or else religious pride.
In a sense the old vine can refer to our old life or the world that we live in. As an apple tree bears apples and a peach tree produces peaches, our fruit will reveal the source of our life. Jesus was saying that if you want your life to produce a lot of fruit you need to be hooked up to Me. Apart from Me you can do nothing.
The purpose for abiding is so that the life of Jesus will flow through us by the Spirit of God, and that that life would blossom into a vibrant relationship with the Lord and with others. Abiding or remaining in the vine determines if we live productive or unproductive spiritual lives. One author said: “It is no cheerless, barren existence that Jesus plans for his people.” God wants us to be fruitful and to produce a lot of fruit and He wants to be joyful and to share this joy in all of our relationships.
As we will observe in this next passage in John 15, the outcome of abiding and remaining in the right kind of love will produce fruit and give us joy. We will experience spiritual growth internally, we will have healthy emotions and motivations, it will have a positive affect our relationships. So as we come to today’s passage John is speaking about God’s great love - the greatest love. Please open with me to John 15:9-17.
9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have 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 would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. 17 This I command you, that you love one another.
It is clear in this passage that Jesus wants us to:
Experience His Love
Experience His Joy
Produce Abundant Fruit
Jesus wants us to:
1. Experience His Love
Everyone longs to love and to be loved. But only when we know the Lord can we experience the greatest love because it originates with Him. Only the Lord’s love is perfect, unlimited, and eternal and only through His Word and His Spirit can we begin to comprehend the immensity and the intensity of this love.
That is why Paul prayed for the church then and in the age to come that from God’s glorious, unlimited resources, He would empower His people, empower us with inner strength through His Spirit, and that Christ would make His home in our hearts. He prayed that our roots would grow down deep into God’s love and that we would have the strength to comprehend the breadth and length and height and depth of His love, fully experiencing that amazing, endless love and that we would come to know practically, personally the love of Christ which far surpasses mere knowledge without experience. He prayed that we would have the richest experience of God’s presence in our lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself (Eph 3:16-19).
There are a lot of things we will do for love, a lot of miles we will travel, a lot of hardships, misunderstandings and heartbreaks we will endure because of love. We all have our particular love languages - the ways we sense we are loved and the ways we express love. Whether love is expressed through buying someone flowers, speaking kind or encouraging words, serving someone, or giving of our time, it is important that we know what makes people feel loved.
How do people in our culture define the word love today? Many times we think of love largely in terms of feelings, of “being in love” or “falling in love” and obviously it can be a nebulous term. The Beatles sang, “All you need is love” but then there was animosity within the band, they broke up, and went their own ways. Then there is a sentimental love - where we allow people in our lives to do whatever and believe whatever they want without any boundaries or consequences. But is that love? Love is the thing we all know we need but obviously we don’t want the type of love that falters and fails. Who is the final authority on Love?
John said, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16). How does God define love? The Bible uses words like agape, philia, storge, etc., but as D. A. Carson said, “There are many kinds of love described in the Scripture, but it cannot be reliably tied to a particular Greek word. Contexts and other factors will decide its meaning.” In other words, the words agape, philia are used interchangeably in the Bible and are clarified by the context. What we do know is that biblical love can involve personal affection, sexual attraction, platonic admiration, brotherly loyalty, familial or parental love, love of country and benevolent concern for others.
One word for God’s love in the OT is hesed. John Oswalt said, hesed is “… a completely undeserved kindness and generosity….it intervenes on behalf of loved ones and comes to their rescue.” Hesed connotes a steadfast, sacrificial zeal for the true good of another. It is a conscious action rather than an emotional feeling.
This, I believe, is also an apt definition for agape. It is the deepest, purest kind of love, unconcerned for self. It expresses the kind of love God demonstrates toward His children according to His nature and truth (steadfast, faithful, loyal love, gracious, merciful and kind). This love has always existed in eternity between the Trinity. Here in this text God’s love for the world is steadfast and unrelenting. God showed His unfailing love in self-sacrifice and through an unconditional commitment to those He loves. God’s love is an unselfish interest in us for our sakes. God loves us for what he can give to us or make of us, both in the original creative act and in his continued relationship with us. His love is a… feeling of unselfish concern, and a resolve to act toward us in such a way as to promote our welfare. Love definitely affects our emotions - when we know that we are loved there is a feeling of acceptance and security.
Vv. 9-10 says:
Just as the Father has loved Me, I also have loved you; remain in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will remain in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and remain in His love.
Jesus is telling His disciples that He has expressed the same kind of love for them that His Father has always shown Him. Jesus is saying “I have loved you from the very beginning and will love you to the end. I don’t just want you to know about and talk about this love, I want you to experience this love.” Remain is defined as “rejoicing in its reality, depending on its support, doing nothing to grieve it, but on the contrary engaging in that which delights the Lover.” If this love is your source you will want to follow Him wherever He leads.
Jesus said in v. 10, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love. If you follow Christ and his teachings, you will experience the benefits and blessings of His love. But if you do not obey Him, if you do not follow Him, you will never experience the greater dimension of His faithfulness, His mercy, His goodness, patience, you will never see His power exercised in your life. We will never know His peace, His care and we will never see God’s incredible, beautiful plan unfold in our lives. We will be missing out on the impossible things God wants to do in us and through us. But if we rejoice in the reality of God’s love, allow it to strengthen us, and engage in what delights the One who loves us, He will do the impossible in our lives, He will make the impossible, possible in our circumstances. Haven’t we seen God do the impossible, haven’t we experienced His love? Don’t you think God wants us to go deeper and to experience Him in a greater way? This is why Jesus spoke these things – this is his motive behind calling us to obedience. So that we would:
2. Experience His joy. V. 11 says:
These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.
Who doesn't want to share their joy with others? We all love to share good news with our friends. What was Jesus’ joy? It was knowing He would fulfill God’s plan of redemption for this world. The writer of Hebrew 12:2 wrote,
who for the joy [of accomplishing the goal] set before Him endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God [revealing His deity, His authority, and the completion of His work].
Jesus is now seated at the right hand of His Father in heaven. Can you imagine the joy He has when one person turns to Him, places their whole weight of trust on Him, and when their destiny is changed forever? Jesus wants us to experience the joy of knowing that we have fulfilled the will of God and the impact it will have on all of eternity. Abiding in His love means rejoicing in the reality of His love and truly experiencing the life and the purpose for which we created. Being in this safe place enables us to love appropriately, to love faithfully, to love in line with biblical expectations of what it means to love and to get up when we fail. When we live this way our joy will be complete.
In vv. 12 & 13 Jesus said,
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.
Jesus is calling us to love one another -How can I overcome my hurt feelings, overlook offenses? How can I be set free from resentment, bitterness, and anger towards those who have treated me unjustly, spoken against me, or lied about me? How can I love others, my spouse, my kids, my friends, and my enemies when I am even struggling to see myself the way God does? Naturally speaking it is impossible. Only God can make this possible by the pouring out of His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It is only possible to love others when we actively abide in His love.
The greatest way Jesus expressed His love and His Fathers love is by laying down His life for us, His friends. Laying down His life means that He did it “on behalf of” and “in the place of us.” Now imagine that the One who is Love personified sacrificed himself for you. Imagine that the eternal, loving fellowship of the divine community sent out one of their own to die not just for their friends but for those who mocked God, His Word, or even denied His existence and wrote books trying to prove He was dead. Why would this loving fellowship do this? To make the enemies friends, of course. Jesus laid down his life not only for his friends, He died for his enemies, although they would not receive Him although he would get nothing from them in return. He is a real friend of sinners - concerned with our good for our own sake, not for what he can get from us. His love for us and for this world is unselfish. Now look at vv. 14-15:
You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, because all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
The word friend or Philia here speaks to the object or recipient of Jesus’s love. Jesus spoke to His followers as His friends. What does it mean to be a friend of God? Abraham and Moses were called friends of God and had extraordinary access to the mind of God. God always let them know what He was thinking. Here Jesus is sharing God’s thoughts, God’s heart, God’s plan and purposes with His disciples. Those who follow Jesus, those who hear His words will know the very thoughts of God, His love and His joy. This is what real friendship is all about - sharing and pouring out our lives and love to others.
What greater joy is there than to have God, the most powerful being in the universe, our Creator and Redeemer, the only One who can love perfectly offer us His friendship? Because of the power differential, it is easy to view our relationship with God as slave-to-master, or even employee-to-employer but God chose to make our relationship with Him on a friend-to-friend basis. Is there anyone like our God?
Jesus chose these followers and not only shared everything with them, but He also called them to share this love they had between themselves, the very same love He had with His own Father, with others so they would:
3. Produce Abundant fruit
Jesus said,
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another (John 15:16-17).
Fruitfulness is connected to our relationships. Our relationship with God, with our spouses and family members, with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and with the lost.
In Romans 12:10, Paul urges us to be devoted to one another (literally, be ‘family-lovers’ of one another, using storge) in brotherly Philia. Can you imagine knowing the heart and mind of God and that your prayers reflect that relationship? Can you imagine the fruit we will see when we pray for what God’s desires for our families, friends, and colleagues and what will result when we share God’s thoughts and His love with them? Can you imagine the joy they will experience when they personally come to know the love of Christ? The greatest love of all?
So when it comes to loving God, who loves us with unrelenting steadfast, faithful, loyal, sacrificial love, it’s easy to love Him back. But what about loving each other? What about loving our spouse, the kids, our siblings, people in the church, or someone you are dating? We long for intimacy and we know it takes openness but usually people try to get there using one of two approaches. The first approach is to read about and study intimacy by becoming an intimacy expert. The second approach is by getting your heart open. Some people simply throw open their hearts and run headlong into a situation, hoping and praying they don’t get crushed. This option is quite careless and a lot of people do it. The moment you open your heart to someone you are vulnerable, set up to be hurt, set up to be disappointed. That is why caring in and of itself is risky business. The deeper you care, the greater the risk. This goes for every relationship we have, except the one we have with a perfect God.
But Jesus wants us to love each other, and it takes vulnerability. That is why it is impossible unless God is the source. Jesus wants to free us from the slavery of the fear of people, need for their affirmation, and free us from holding grudges. He wants to lift our heavy burdens and then wants to share the greatest love and deliverance with others. Do we believe God wants us to be fruitful in our relationships with others? Do we believe that God wants our church to be fruitful?
This Tuesday is Valentine’s Day and when it comes to expressing love to our spouse or friends, but we don’t always get it right. I’ve heard a lot of good feedback from the course that Scott Hayes had for the single women and has just started for the men. Longing for companionship, romance, marriage, and sex is natural and we know that a healthy philia friendship or love can turn into romantic love. God himself created the gifts of romance, marriage, and sex for us to enjoy and to bring Him glory (Gen 2:18; Prov 5:18; Song of Sol; 1 Cor 7:5; 1 Tim 4:4, 6:17). But when these yearnings remain unfulfilled there is sometimes a temptation to turn to other things to fill the void. It could lead to relationships we know won’t lead to marriage. We can easily confuse love with lust but there is a marked difference. Lust focuses on pleasing oneself, and the fruit of it leads to unwholesome actions to fulfill one’s desires with no regard to the consequences and harm it may cause to others. Lust is a longing that can never be satisfied. Christian love is expressed from a place of fullness, it marked by a life of selflessness, living for others and holy living. The fruit of a life lived for Jesus is marked by love, joy, peace patience, kindness, goodness and meekness etc. It is only when we follow Him will we experience the intensity and the immensity of His love for us and for the lost.
