Remaining in His Love

If we ever have to ask the question “do I have to?” in connection with serving God, than we need to pray for a greater understanding of his love and his grace.  We are not to suffer, serve, give, or give up anything except for the joy set before us.  The joy is indeed enough, as Christ’s was, to endure the cross.  Remember, the same promise that was set before him is now ours through him.  He won the battle, and we simply share in the spoils.  Nor do we get the dregs, but we are victors with Christ, and in the same way as Christ.  Let us live as aliens and strangers, crucified to this world, not because we’re supposed to, but because we get God’s love so fully, that it is all that makes sense!

That was a quick blurb I wrote last night in the midst of a powerful and emotional time of conviction and prayer, and I would like to elaborate upon it a bit this morning to articulate the beginnings of what God is teaching me.  I have this assurance that this will not be the end of this subject, and in fact feel like I may have just now stumbled upon the heart of Christianity.  I have been diligent in my own life, and diligent in ministering others in a symptomatic fashion.  My eyes have been tuned to see with great clarity the signs of illness in the church, in individual Christians, but I felt last night like an experimenting doctor who had been given a breakthrough.  I have found the actual disease, the symptoms of which I have been fighting so hard to treat.  The illness is quite simple, and it is that we, the church, do not understand fully enough the love of Jesus Christ.  This is such an obvious statement that many people may be tempted to stop tracking at this point, but I would encourage you to stick in there with me as we look together at John 15:9-17.  Jesus gives his disciples the answer of how to succeed in following him in these few verses, and I have always sped over it as simple Christian niceties that everyone knows.  The reality is that we don’t know them though.

Verse 9A: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” – Did any of us catch that?  I would be willing to guess that most of you don’t doubt the love the Father has for the Son.  Check out the beginning of Jesus’ prayer in John 17 for a glimpse of this love.  Jesus talks about how he has had glory with the Father since before the world began.  The Son and the Father have shared in glory for eternity.  This is the Father’s only begotten Son.  They are one and the same.  God the Father shares everything with Jesus, and Jesus says “so have I loved you.”  This is the layout of this statement, everything God the father has, he has shared with Jesus, and everything Jesus has he has shared with us.  Why?  Because the father loves the son, and that son loves us with an identical love.  In Galatians Paul tells us that we are co-heirs with Christ.  All these nice Biblical truths about reigning in glory with Christ, about walking as Jesus walked, they aren’t just things God says so we aim high and then he’ll give us the less he’s always intended for us.  Jesus wants you to be welcomed as a son and daughter of his father into their eternal home.  He wants you as brothers and sisters, not as half-brother/half-slave, full-brother.  The same love the Father has for Him, Jesus has for you!  Hear that with new ears!

Verse 9B: “Now remain in my love.”  This should be an easy command, but I don’t think it is one that many of us practice very often.  My family has this poor old turtle that gets no attention and sits in his own poop water most of the day.  However, the one joy that turtle might have is this heat lamp that bakes down upon one of the rocks in his aquarium.  I imagine Jesus’ love to be like that as I think about this command.  He has had this wonderful beam of warming love continuously raining down on him from above, from the Father, and it is his desire to direct that same beam upon his disciples, upon you and I.  Our only job is to lay out and bask in that love.  We might occasionally spend fifteen minutes thanking Jesus for his love, or maybe Jesus’ love is still just a hazy concept you claim because you know you should, but simply have never gotten it.  Pray that you would get it, and then never stop basking in that light.  Remain in Jesus’ love!  So many of us during the course of our lives start straying from that warming beam, and wander through our poop water.  Simply refuse to leave the warming knowledge of his love.  Strive to know that love more and more.

Verse 10: “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Fathers commands and remain in his love.” 

Oh what beautiful truth!  Some of you after hearing the command to remain in Christ’s love, to stay in that heavenly turtle light, may have been feeling that it was a nice thought, but not practically very helpful to execute.  Some of us might not even know at times where to go to find the light, much less are we able to bask in it constantly.  Why is that Jesus says?  Because we aren’t obeying his commands.  This is not the hidden catch, the small print that many of us wait for when we hear of God’s love.  Jesus is not saying I love you so much, but only if you listen to me.  He is saying I love you so much, and so my commands are trustworthy.  The only thing I want you to do is to remain in my love, and if you follow my commands they will take you on a path that will naturally do that.  Let us imagine that each human being has their own heavenly spotlight of love.  The reality is that all of those beams travel the same path straight to the Father.  They follow the narrow way.  Those beams of light are our individual guides home, to the loving embrace of our father, to the place of our becoming co-heirs with Christ.  Check out the second part of this verse.  Jesus says that he has obeyed his father and thus remained in his love.  Jesus has obediently walked the narrow way set out before him by his father, and thus remained under that spotlight his entire life.  If we could look at the picture of the world from a distance, there would be a lot of spotlights making their way down the narrow way with no one under them.  We’re off wandering in the dark, feeling inadequate and unloved simply because of our lack of choice, because of our lack of decisive obedience.  Remaining in Jesus’ love begins with a choice to obey Him!

Verse 11:  “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”  _________ tells us that for the joy set before him Jesus endured the cross.  It was for joy that Jesus obediently suffered on the cross.  This is the beautiful turning point of our walks with God.  Verse 10 tells us to obey so that we might remain in his love, and verse 11 promises that if we are faithful in obeying there will come a point that our joy in remaining in his love will be so great that it will create obedience, rather than the other way around.  At the beginning we obey so as to stay under that beam, but at some point we will actually be filled with a supernatural joy at walking in and under that beam of love, so that our obedience will be derived from love and not the other way around.  This is the divine gift of son and daughter-ship God wants to give you.  Hear this verse further.  Jesus says that His joy, the joy that drove him freely to the cross will well up in us if we remain in his love through obedience.  I have treated the symptom of joylessness before, and this is a good point to check ourselves.  Do you constantly have a joy about you for what great love the Father has lavished on you.  If not, go back to the beginning and simply seek the knowledge of Jesus’ love.  Seek to remain in it so that you might have complete joy, real joy. 

Verse 12:  “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”

This is probably the most used portion of this section of text.  We continuously remind ourselves to love each other.  This is our mission as Christians, and so we want to tell all Christians their mission, and get them sent off doing it.  God is teaching me that I, and we as the church, may be too hasty to attempt such a task though.  It seems that as soon as someone has checked the “I’m a Christian,” or “I’m converted,” or “I’m saved,” box than we need to get them out loving each other as Jesus has loved them.  The reality though is that for many of us in the church this command is impossible to carry out.  Why?  Not because it’s just too lofty a goal, and another example of Jesus setting the bar too high.  No, it is impossible for many of us to love each other like Christ loves us because we quite frankly don’t know how much Jesus loves us.  We have not learned how to remain in that love, we do not live basking in it, and so we really cannot give something we do not have.  Isn’t it interesting that this is not the first thing Jesus tells his disciples to do.  Before he gives them this command, he first teaches them how to remain in his love, and subsequently be filled with his joy.  Only after these first steps will they be able to do the latter, and when they do love each other at that point it won’t be something they have to strive constantly for, it will be an overflow.  His yoke is light and easy remember.  Are we living like it is?  Think about the disciples after the crucifixion.  Talk about straying from Jesus’ love.  They feel, and perhaps rightfully so, that Jesus lied to them when he said that his love for them was the same as the father’s love for him.  He had seemingly abandoned them.  He had promised great things, and then went and let himself get killed.  They were not remaining in his love, they had no joy, and they were surely not loving others in a missional way.  But, then Jesus comes back, and the pieces fall into place, and the reality of the gift of love that is being poured down upon them from Jesus.  The reality that he has done all this so that they might reign with him in his father’s kingdom wells up in them such a joy, that they literally become an unstoppable force of love sweeping across the world.  They blow up because they are remaining in his love!  We must do the same, and before we continue to beat our head against the wall of this command.

Verse 13: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” 

This verse now gives us an opportunity to reflect a bit more about what loving others with Jesus’ love for us looks like.  First, I think we should remember that if we are loving like Jesus loves us, and Jesus is loving like the father loved him, than I am supposed to love Joe Blow on the street corner in the same way that God the Father loves Jesus the Son.  Don’t pass by that truth too quickly!

Secondly, Jesus is laying out the practicality of this love, the reality of it.  Sometimes we too try to skip over the preliminary steps to get to this point, or at least to be able to talk nicely about laying our lives down for others.  It’s been a point of manliness that I have been trying to build up in myself from a very early age.  I remember sitting in church when I was very little and planning how if someone attacked the church, I would heroically save everyone, but die a martyr’s death (I was probably 6 or 7).  We must remember to remain in Jesus’ love, as he remains in the father’s.  However, Jesus is teaching us here what will happen when we succeed in that venture.  The reality is if we live a life constantly remaining in Jesus’ love the father need not worry about us.  He has captured us by the power of his Holy Spirit, and has wooed us down the narrow way toward his kingdom.  We shall not be lost if we remain in that love, just as Jesus could not be lost because he was remaining in that love (Do not start thinking that this means you cannot be tempted out of remaining in that love, though the more you are gifted that joy Jesus talked about, the harder it will be for Satan to have any hold over you.)  The reality is though, that once we are in a position of remaining so fully in his love that we can’t be lost, our Earthly life need not be prolonged for our own benefit.  God need not give us more days so as to woo us.  He may, and maybe even probably will give us many days here to bring others into that same status, but we also to some extent become expendable.  Like Christ, we have nothing to lost, because of the joy set before us.  That is what made Jesus so dangerous, and also what made the early church like Paul and Peter so dangerous.  They had nothing to lose.   They were living so fully in the land of the Father’s love, basking so constantly on that turtle rock, that the poop water had no hold on them.  We often turn Jesus’ statement above in verse 13 into a nice sentiment, but is simply a true reality of things.  The one whose earthly life suddenly becomes just a tool in the hands of their maker, is the same one who is remaining in their maker’s love.  They have reached the pinnacle of love, and are completely wrapped up in that love, and thus they are free to lay down their lives if need be.  It is not the act of dying that gives them that great love, it is the great love affair they are remaining in that gives them the act of dying.  Please don’t twist my words into some kind of Jihadist agenda.  This is Jesus’ love that frees us to lay down our lives FOR OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS, not some fearlessness of death that drives us to fight some kamikaze Earthly war.  “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.” 2 Cor. 10:3

Verse 14: “You are my friends if you do what I command.”

Again, how beautiful are these words.  Most of the time when we think of people giving us commands it automatically puts us in a rung lower than them: a master gives a slave command, a father gives their child a command, a teacher their student etc.  However, Jesus says it is his friends that do what he commands.  All too often we with a false sense of humility put ourselves in this subservient position to Jesus.  I too have been guilty of this as I have treated the symptoms and not the disease itself.  I have been so wrapped up in obedience, that I have forgotten that Jesus’ obedience is not normal obedience.  Believe me too, it is a dangerous thing to call yourself a slave, when Jesus calls you friend.  This statement simply reflects the real truth that if we choose obedience, we will remain in his love, and we will realize to the completion of our joy that Jesus calls us friend.

Verse 15: “I no longer call you servant’s, because a servant does not know his master’s business.  Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you.”

Again we see this beautiful pattern of Jesus receiving from the Father, and then passing on the same goods to us.  At the end of Luke, Jesus comes alongside two of his disciples (unbeknownst to them) and travels with them to Emmaeus.  Jesus becomes their co-journer, or more aptly, they become co-journers with him after the resurrection.  This is the truth of this statement.  Jesus’ life has been about showing the way of obedience, of remaining in his father’s love to the extent that he would lay down his life for his friends, and then take it up again, defeating death and sin.  Now though, if we are to enter into the same love that he did, if we are to claim our position as co-heirs with Christ, than his business just became our business.  Just as we are to love as he loved, and lay down our lives as he did, so too we are to join in our master’s business.  The gift of Christ’s call on us is so complete, that he calls us not only to follow him to our own salvation, but actually invites us to join him as his partner’s in the business of redeeming the world.  We knowingly share in Jesus’ work, and thus we are not servants, but his friends in whom he has confided to God’s plan for the world.

Verse 16; “You did not choose me, but I chose you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.  Then the father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

Our bearing fruit is that plan that God has for the world, and we did not sign up for it.  Jesus wants to make it abundantly clear to his disciples that they did not get his attention and ask if they could follow him.  He picked them and called him, and it was through their obedience that they entered into this relationship.  Jesus always initiates!  Jesus has just told his disciples the key to remaining in his love, and laid out for them the joy and friendship that they will have when they remain in that love, but now he redirects them to the beginning when he said, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  This is their final reminder that everything stems from the Father.  They will only bear fruit – fruit that will last that is, to the degree that they remain in the love of God, and seek and ask the Father for what they need.  Just like when we try to love others like Jesus loves us without understanding Jesus’ love, it might appear that we are producing fruit, but it won’t be fruit that will last.  If we do not fully remain in the love of Jesus, and continue to feel those rays upon us we can begin to forget where from these gifts come, and it is a trap Jesus knows to start doing things under our own power.  At this point we stop asking the Father for what we need, and things start to look earthly, rather than lasting and eternal.  It is important to note thought that by redirecting them to the Father, and reminding them that they did not initiate this gifting they are about to receive, Jesus in no way revokes their status as his co-heirs, or his friends.  It is perhaps the most frequent error of the modern church to see as humility, the false humility of degrading one’s self as an unworthy, black-hearted worm in front of Jesus.  Again, I would make the point that it is a dangerous thing to call yourself something less than what God has called you!

Verse 17 – “This is my command: Love each other.”

After reminding them that everything derives from their being chosen by him, that all the love, and all the power flows from the Father, through Jesus, and to them, than Jesus simply reissues his command.  He says simply love each other.  He need not elaborate about doing so as he has loved them, or go into detail about loving with joy etc.  He has already given them the keys.  If they choose to obey, they will remain in his love, they will be filled with an unsurpassing joy, as they realize that God has called them friend, and they will with a love that would gladly lay down their earthly life, love each other, and all those who have yet to remain in Christ’s love.  Let us choose to obey, to bask in Christ’s love.  Ask for the power of the Holy Spirit to ground you, to help you remain in that love through obedience.  Expect that joy to reach you, and accept Jesus’ title for you of friend.  Then we shall be free to love!