Abide in the Love of Jesus

Abiding in Christ’s Love

Liturgical Setting

Today is the Sunday before the Feast of the Ascension. We are getting close to the end of the festival half of the church year. Notice how the Hymn of the Day, “Dear Christians, One and All, Rejoice” (LSB 556), in its last six stanzas recapitulates this festival half of the church year.

In today’s Gospel, from the middle of Jesus’ farewell message to his disciples (Jn 13:31–17:26), our Lord emphasizes love: his Father’s love to him, his love for his disciples, and his disciples’ love for one another. And his sacrifice is the greatest love. The other propers reinforce this theme. In the Introit, the psalmist declares that “[God] has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me!” (Ps 66:20). In the Collect, we pray to “the giver of all that is good.” In the First Reading, Peter declares that “all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in [Christ] receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43). The Psalm reminds us that God “has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness” (Ps 98:3). In the Epistle, the divinely-inspired John supplements our text with the statement, “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 Jn 5:3).

Textual Notes

V 9: καθώς . . . κἀγώ, “as . . . I also.” As the Father loves the Son, so the Son also loves the disciples. This pericope uses the Greek noun for love, ἀγάπη, four times and the verb ἀγαπάω five times. The disciples are to “abide” (μείνατε) in Jesus’ love. Jesus is developing further his statements from last week’s Gospel of abiding in him and his Word, as branches remaining connected to the vine (see 15:4–7).

V 10: ἐάν (conditional particle) τὰς ἐντολάς μου τηρήσητε, μενεῖτε, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide.” To interpret this as if-then is to miss the vine-branch analogy of 15:1–8 and Jesus’ choosing the disciples (v 16). The initiative is not ours. There is no works righteousness here. Being loved by Jesus is not a result of our obedience. Christ does not choose us because we keep his commandments or love him.

V 11: “that your joy [χαρά] may be full” (πληρωθῇ). Con­sider the Epistle: “This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3).

V 12: ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς, “that you love one another as I have loved you.” This is entirely unlike the ways of the world. This is keeping Jesus’ commandment.

V 14: φίλοι, “friends.” The disciples did not blindly follow orders like slaves.

V 16: ἐγὼ ἐξελεξάμην ὑμᾶς, “I chose you.” It was not our initiative. It is Jesus who chooses his disciples (unusual for the first century, when a would-be disciple would choose a rabbi to follow). The disciple is now “appointed [ἔθηκα]” to “bear [abiding] fruit,” another expansion on last week’s Gospel and the vine-branches analogy.

V 17: ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλου, “that you will love one another.” The fruition of Jesus’ commandment.

Sermon Outline

The Love of Christ Compels Us to Love.

I. We fail to keep Christ’s command to love.

II. But in love Christ calls us to repent and forgives us.

III. Then Christ’s love transforms us to love too.

Sermon

Our text is in the middle of Jesus’ farewell message to his disciples, John 13–17, which makes his words extraordinary. In just a few hours, Jesus will experience betrayal, abandonment, and unlawful arrest. Then he will experience cruel abuse and execution. Yet Jesus speaks of both his and the Father’s love. This is especially noticeable in the use of the Greek noun for love four times and the verb for love five times in the text.

In last Sunday’s Gospel (Jn 15:1–8), Jesus spoke of his relationship with his disciples and with us using the vine-branches analogy. He is the vine; they, we, are the branches. The branches cannot exist without connection to the vine. In today’s text, Jesus expands on the analogy, specifically pointing out the relationships of Jesus and the Father, Jesus and the disciples, and the disciples to one another. And each of these relationships consists of each one loving the other. So that’s the focus of Jesus’ message to us today too. Our text teaches us that

The Love of Christ Compels Us to Love.

I.

We all know how sweet love is, but Jesus also gives us a command to love: “Abide in my love” (v 9); “keep my commandments” (v 10); “love one another” (v 12); “go and bear fruit” (v 16). How well do we fit these descriptions? How are you doing with these commandments? Jesus says, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love” (v 10a). Because of our sinful nature, we break the commandments continuously and constantly, so how could we possible abide in his love? (Give examples of typical sins common among us.)

Using Jesus’ analogy, as branches, how connected are we to the vine? How can we abide in his love if that connection is weak? We hardly love others as we are loved by Christ. We live in a world where “after me, you first” prevails. (Give examples.) Are we bearing abiding fruit? Jesus says to “go and bear fruit,” which might indicate the intention to witness to others so that they may come to faith in Christ. That’s one of the most important ways we can love our neighbor. How evident is that fruit of yours?

Jesus’ words certainly do not describe those who are unbelievers, those branches who are cut off from the vine. Apart from faith in Christ, we are all spiritually blind, spiritually dead, and enemies of God (2 Cor 4:4; Eph 2:1; Rom 5:10). We all inherited this sinful nature from Adam and Eve. Because of this and the resulting actual sins of which we are guilty, we deserve both physical death and eternal punishment in hell.

We’ve all failed to keep Jesus’ command to love.

II.

But Christ does not want us to perish spiritually and eternally, and in love he calls us to repent. When we do repent, it is by God enabling us. He warns us by his Law—like the words we just heard—but then he makes his loving purpose immediately evident as well. The Augsburg Confession teaches:

True repentance is nothing else than to have contrition and sorrow, or terror, on account of sin, and yet at the same time to believe the Gospel and absolution (namely, that sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ), and this faith will comfort the heart and again set it at rest. (AC XII 3–5, Tappert, German)

When we repent, then God forgives us of our sinful nature and all our actual sins. He forgives us for the sake of Jesus Christ. How? By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul writes: “For our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Cor 5:21). Sin was destroyed at Calvary even as Christ carried all of it for all of mankind in his own body. At the cross, Jesus is your substitute. He suffered and died in your place to pay the penalty for your sins and satisfy the wrath of God. And every Sunday we proclaim the Easter message that Jesus rose again from the dead, victorious over sin, Satan and death, bringing us new life in the face of death. And so forgiveness, life, and salvation are available through faith in Christ Jesus. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (v 13). Christ has proved his great love for us by laying down his life for us, and now he declares us his friends!

III.

Friends of Christ, forgiven, saved, and living eternally. Yet even more, the love of Christ is transformational. The evidence of faith in Christ is seen in the changes that take place in our lives. Scripture uses words like born again, rebirth, regeneration, renewal, and transformation to describe what Christ’s love does to us. We are not only free from sin and the effects of sin, but we are free also from the power of sin. We are thus free to keep his commandments, free to abide in his love, and free to bear abiding fruit—that is, free to witness, as Peter proclaims in today’s First Reading, “that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43).

Recall our words from the Augsburg Confession: “sin has been forgiven and grace has been obtained through Christ.” They go on: “Amendment of life and the forsaking of sin should then follow” (AC XII 6, Tappert, German). When we have been loved by Christ’s forgiveness, we love too.

In order to strengthen and increase our faith, love, and obedience, God gives us the Means of Grace, his Word and Sacraments. The Word of God transforms us as it’s read, spoken, expounded, and prayed individually and in groups as in this Divine Service. The Word of God connected to the water of Holy Baptism drowns the old Adam and raises us to a new life of love. The Word of God in Holy Absolution gives comfort and consolation in having the forgiveness of sins applied personally and individually. The Word of God together with bread and wine nourishes us for loving living with the true body and true blood of Christ given and shed for us. Obedience to God’s command to love does not earn his love, but rather it is evidence that flows from God’s love applied to us individually in these Means of Grace. As we heard in today’s Epistle: “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:3).

There are many examples in history and literature of loving so much as to give one’s life for a friend. But no sacrifice comes near that of Christ’s love for us! As we learned during the Lenten season, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. . . . While we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom 5:8, 10).

Our text began with Jesus saying, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love” (v 9). Jesus spoke all the words of today’s Gospel so that his joy may be in us and that our joy may be full. Indeed, we rejoice abiding in his great love! Amen.