No Greater Love

Text: John 15:12-13

John 15:12–13 BSB

12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

PRAY

When have you felt most loved?

Perhaps if you’re married or have been married, you can think of a time when your spouse did something for you or gave something to you or said something to you that made you feel incredibly loved.

Or perhaps another family member or friend has done or said something or given you something that showed a level of love you almost couldn’t believe.

The greatest kinds of love that we experience involve sacrifice. To love is to give up something valuable for the benefit of someone else. That is what love is and does. Love sacrifices something of value for the good of another.

So the greatest love that someone can show is to make the greatest sacrifice, to give what is most valuable. There is something more valuable than all the wealth in this world combined, and that is a person’s life - the life of another human being.

Jesus said that this is the greatest love someone can have.

John 15:13 BSB

13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

What more valuable gift can a person give than his own life? As Jesus also said in Mark 8:37, “Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” There is nothing more valuable that a human being could give than to give up his own life for another person.

This is also why abortion and euthanasia and other forms of murder are such atrocities, because they are taking away what is most valuable from an innocent person.

For whom would you die? Is there anyone that you would lay your life down for? Probably all of us can think of someone, perhaps a child or spouse or other family member, that we would probably be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for if necessary. We would be willing to give our life in order to save their life.

But how about a stranger? Or just a casual acquaintance?

Paul said this in Romans 5:7

Romans 5:7 BSB

7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.

It is rare for someone to give their life for even a good person, and even more rare for a stranger or some other person they barely know.

There are some who make this kind of sacrifice.

My mind goes to stories that I’ve heard during times of war, when a soldier throws himself on a grenade to save the lives of his fellow soldiers. He makes the ultimate sacrifice and gives up his life in order to save the lives of others around him.

And all of those who give their lives on the battlefield are doing so in an attempt to preserve peace and security for their fellow citizens back home. Often we are unaware of the great sacrifices that people are making around the world to preserve our freedom and prosperity here.

Perhaps closer to home, we think of policemen or firefighters and other such professions, where people regularly put themselves in harm’s way to serve and protect their community.

My mind goes immediately to a young man I knew in Elementary School in Greenville, SC.

Allen Jacobs was a couple of years older than me, and although he wasn’t a close friend of mine, he and his family were well known to us because his dad was the principal of the elementary school we studied at.

He volunteered for military service out of high school, and he served in Iraq and other places as well. At 24 years old he began serving on the Greenville police force, and he was known as a tender and compassionate man.

Just after noon on Friday, March 18, 2016, Officer Allen Jacobs was shot and killed after he and another officer tried to talk to a teenager in the Nicholtown neighborhood who had recently gotten out of prison.

Jacobs and the other officer were trying to interview this young man because he had tried to acquire a weapon, and he was a "confirmed and self-admitted gang member."

Officer Allen Jacobs and the other officer were doing their best to serve and protect their community - the community I grew up in. And he made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty.

He had just gotten married the year before, and he and his wife Meghan were expecting a daughter in July of that year. Allen Jacobs never got to meet his daughter, and his wife became a very young widow. He left behind many grieving friends and family members. He was just 28 years old.

What greater love could a person have? What more valuable gift could you possibly give than your own life? There’s nothing in the world that compares with the value of your life - and every human life.

So we return to the words of Jesus:

John 15:13 BSB

13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

There’s no greater love than to give your life in place of others.

So I want us to consider this morning why God’s love in Christ is the greatest of all loves.

Let’s consider first the prayer that Paul prays in Ephesians 3. There he prays for that church and for us, and this is what he says:

Ephesians 3:14–21 BSB

14 ... for this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. 16 I ask that out of the riches of His glory He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. Then you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 will have power, together with all the saints, to comprehend the length and width and height and depth 19 of the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do so much more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, 21 to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Paul’s prayer is that these believers and all believers would comprehend just how long and wide and high and deep Christ’s love is, and that we would know this love that is beyond knowledge. In other words, Paul is asking for a miracle. He is asking God to do what seems impossible.

Christ’s love is so great, so far beyond our comprehension, and yet Paul prays that we would in fact comprehend it, understand it, know His love, even though it is beyond our capacity to know.

Our hope for an answer to this prayer is in v. 20. God is able to do so much more than all we ask or imagine. Paul prays for God’s supernatural working in believers so that we will come to a deeper, fuller knowledge and experience of the love that God has shown us in Christ.

This is a great prayer to pray for yourself, for your children, and for other believers. We all need a fuller understanding of Christ’s love so that we also may be more loving.

The love of God displayed in the gift of His Son is the greatest love, and we need to know this great love.

2 Reasons that this is the greatest love:

The love that God gives us in Christ is greatest because…

There is no sacrifice of greater value than the perfect Son of God.

God is love, which means God is a giver. And the greatest and most valuable thing God can give us is Himself, in the person of His Son.

The worth and value of God is infinite because God is infinite and perfect in every way.

Anything else that God could give would be less valuable, because everything else is finite and limited in some way, so our enjoyment of it would come to an end; but because God is infinite, we can enjoy Him forever.

And the eternal Son of God took on flesh, was born as a baby in Bethlehem, lived a perfect life, and gave Himself in our place on the cross to rescue us from our sins. Then He rose from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and even now intercedes for us.

The death of another human for us can protect our physical life, but the death of Jesus for us accomplished much more than the preservation of our physical lives.

Consider some of what Jesus’s sacrifice accomplished for us:

Jesus’s sacrifice for us removes God’s wrath

- several verses (Romans 3:25, 1 John 2:2, 4:10) speak of Christ being a propitiation (“atoning sacrifice”) for our sins - and one part of that is that through His death, Christ satisfies the wrath of God against our sin by bearing that wrath on Himself. He suffered God’s righteous wrath so that we wouldn’t have to. He became a curse for us, so that we would not be cursed.

Jesus’s sacrifice for us secures our Justification

- we are declared righteous on the basis of Christ’s sacrifice and our faith in Him. Romans 5:9 says that “we have now been justified by His blood” and earlier in Romans 3:24 Paul says that we are “justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

Jesus’s sacrifice for us brings about the New Covenant

- back in the OT, God had promised a new covenant, one that would be better than the old covenant. Hebrews 7:22 says that “Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.” He is a greater high priest, and in Hebrews 8:6 it says that “the covenant He mediates is better [than the old covenant] and is founded on better promises.” When Jesus instituted the Lord’s Supper on the night He was betrayed, He told His disciples as He handed them the cup, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood, which is poured out for you.”

Jesus’s sacrifice for us provides Forgiveness of sins

- one of God’s New Covenant promises is the forgiveness of sins. In Hebrews 8:12, quoting from Jeremiah, God says, “I will forgive their iniquities and will remember their sins no more.” And Paul says in Ephesians 1:7, “In Him [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace.”

Jesus’s sacrifice for us Reconciles us with God

- God made us for relationship with Him, but that relationship has been broken by sin, both Adam’s and ours. But through Christ we are reconciled to God, brought back into friendship with God. Paul says in Romans 5:10, “For if, when we were enemies of God, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life!”

Jesus’s sacrifice for us gives us Eternal life with God

- we all probably know John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Jesus’s sacrifice for us is the basis of His Ongoing intercession for us

- If you are a believer, Jesus is praying for you. Hebrews 7:25 says, “Therefore He is able to save completely those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede for them.” It is on the basis of His atoning death for us that He intercedes, prays to the Father for us.

Jesus’s sacrifice for us Purifies our conscience

- Hebrews 9:14 tells us, “how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from works of death, so that we may serve the living God!” Through Christ’s sacrifice, we are free from the guilt and shame that come from our sin.

Jesus’s sacrifice for us Frees us from slavery to sin

- Revelation 1:5 says that Jesus Christ “loves us and has released [freed] us from our sins by His blood.” Jesus had said in John 8 that “everyone who sins is a slave to sin,” but “if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” And by His death He has set us free from our slavery to sin, so that now we can live for Him.

Jesus’s sacrifice for us Frees us from fear of death

- whether people think about it consciously or not, by nature we are afraid of death. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, “Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” By His own death, He has defeated death, so that we no longer have to fear death. Not even death can separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38-39).

Jesus’s sacrifice for us Secures all good things for us

- perhaps in summary of everything else, because there is so much more, the sacrifice of Christ for us secures every other blessing that God gives us. Romans 8:32 tells us, “He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also, along with Him, freely give us all things?”

So this is the greatest love, because it is the greatest possible sacrifice. It is the gift of greatest possible value that brings with it so many other gifts.

There is no less deserving recipient of this great gift than rebellious sinners like us.

In order for us to understand the greatness of God’s love, we need to see Jesus Christ as infinitely valuable, but we also must see ourselves and infinitely unworthy and undeserving of His love.

Paul said in Romans 5:7 that someone might give his life for a good or righteous man.

Romans 5:7 BSB

7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die.

But such is not the case with us. We are neither good nor righteous, and we do not deserve in any way to have this love.

We were dead in sin

Ephesians 2:1 BSB

1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

We were enemies of God

Romans 5:10 says that we were enemies of God. In that same passage he says that we were still sinners, that we were ungodly.

Ephesians 2:3 BSB

3 All of us also lived among them at one time, fulfilling the cravings of our flesh and indulging its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.

Even our best deeds are repulsive to God

Isaiah 64:6 BSB

6 Each of us has become like something unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all wither like a leaf, and our iniquities carry us away like the wind.

There is nothing that we have done or could do that could merit God’s favor or love.

When we come to see the glory of Christ and the depths of our sinfulness, we will marvel at the greatness of God’s love. How could He love me?

This is why so many of the great old hymns speak with amazement at God’s love:

O the deep, deep love of Jesus,

Vast, unmeasured, boundless, free!

Rolling as a mighty ocean

in its fullness over me.

Love divine, all loves excelling,

Joy of heav’n to earth come down

I stand amazed in the presence

of Jesus the Nazarene

And wonder how He could love me,

a sinner, condemned, unclean.

How marvelous! How wonderful!

And my song shall ever be

How marvelous! How wonderful

is my Savior’s love for me!

O how He loves you and me;

O how He loves you and me!

He gave His life,

what more could He give?

What wondrous love is this, O my soul?

How deep the Father’s love for us,

How vast beyond all measure

That He should give His Only Son

To make a wretch His treasure.

The love of God is greater far

Than tongue or pen could ever tell.

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain?

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing Love! How can it be?

That Thou my God shouldst die for me?!

There’s a reason that there are so many songs about God’s love. The more that we come to know the infinite worth of Jesus Christ and the depths of our sin and depravity, the more we will praise and worship Him for His amazing, awesome love.

For all eternity we will be worshipping and praising Him for His amazing love displayed at the cross.

But before He could go to the cross, Jesus had to be born. That’s what we celebrate here at Christmas. The infinite, eternal Son of God entered time and space, humbled Himself and was born as a tiny, helpless baby in Bethlehem. As we celebrate the birth of Christ, we remember why He came - He came to save His people from their sins. And He did that by giving His life for us.

This infinitely precious gift of love is yours, if you will believe. If you will trust and receive His love, it’s yours forever, and it will change your life and make you a loving person.

But you must believe. You must personally receive this gift of love.

1 John 4:16 (BSB)

16 And we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us.

My hope and prayer is that everyone here will know and trust the love of God that He has displayed in sending His Son to be born, to live, to die, to rise, and to reign forever.

God is love, and His love is for you if you will receive it.

And Christian, Paul’s prayer for you and mine as well is that you would come into a fuller knowledge and experience of the love of God. It is truly beyond our comprehension, and yet by His supernatural power, may God cause each of us to know His love more fully and to live in His love toward everyone around us.

texts: John 15:12-14, Romans 5:6-8, & Hebrews 2:5-18. 1 John 4:7-11, 16, 19. Romans 8:31-39. Ephesians 3:14-21. .