Abiding in Love

I love my children. I love them and they love me. I love them all the time, no matter what and there is nothing that they could ever do to change that. I know this in my head and in the deepest place in my heart. We truly do love each other. I’m sure that this is true of you as well, that every parent out there this morning would tell me that they deeply love their kids.

But I bet that those same parents would also tell me that sometimes it is easier to love their children than at others. Sometimes, a child’s love and affection makes it easy to love them. When they do all that you ask them to do, when they are loving in their attitudes towards you and towards each other, when they are kind and respectful, and go out of their way to care for you and for one another, it is easy for us parents to show them how much we love them. We want to snuggle them up in a blanket and hold them close forever. In those moments, we want them to live in a state of feeling our love all around them, all of the time.

But there are other days. There are days when loving your children is challenging. There are days when they are disobedient and disrespectful. There are times when their selfishness, laziness, and mistreatment of one another try every ounce of patience that a parent has. Those are the days when Bethany and I are certain that our children must only belong to the other one because no child of mine could ever act that way. There are days that when it is more difficult to express the love we have for them because of the apparent lack of reciprocation. And on those days, bedtime cannot come fast enough!

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to John 15. We’re in the Gospel of John, chapter 15. And as you find your place, you’ll remember the last time that we were together, we were talking about what it truly means to live with Jesus Christ as your source of life. And we were talking about the fact that God put you in this vine to grow and to produce fruit. And, really, there are only two possibilities: either you will grow, and be pruned, and produce fruit as the Father intended because you are truly in the vine of Christ; OR, you will be cut off because though you are hanging with the vine, you aren’t really a part of it.

And all of this comes as Jesus is spending His final hours with His disciples. He knew that His arrest was coming, and so Jesus was preparing them for that moment when they would begin the next part of their faith journey. And we’ve talked about how, in these final moments, Jesus was emphasizing those things that are the most important for us as Christ followers to remember. And so, it shouldn’t surprise us that is is precisely what we find in today’s passage.

So, as we read from John 15 this morning, we’re going to begin together in verse 9. And, as is our custom here, I invite you to stand wherever you are this morning, so that we might honor the Lord as He deserves to be honored at the reading of His Word. Let’s read together:

John 15:9–17 NASB95

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. “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. “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. “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, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. “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.

Let’s pray together: Holy Spirit, we have come into this place to worship You, the King of kings. We want our praises to rise up, that You would be glorified in us. We want the Word of God to permeate our lives, and to teach us things You would change about us through it. We want to be changed from the inside out to be better reflections of Jesus. And we know that in all of these things, we desperately need Your hand to move among us if they are going to happen because we can’t do anything on our own. Lord, God, would You come and move among Your people this morning. Set our hearts on fire for the things You made us to do. Help us to see them and to be challenged by them this morning. Change us, please, that you might be glorified in us. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

Thank you, you may be seated. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says:

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 NASB95

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one! “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

These verses are the beginning of the what is known by Jews as the Schema. The Schema is considered the very heart of Scripture. In it, we are very simply commanded to give everything we are in loving God. We are to give ourselves over completely to Him. Loving God is to consume every aspect of life. Everything that we do or say should be rooted in this singular obsession. Our lives, our strength, our very breath is to be about loving God.

Once, a pharisee asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Listen to how He answered in Matthew 22:37-40:

Matthew 22:37–40 NASB95

And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

My purpose, your purpose is to love the Lord God with everything that you are, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And if we do these two things, then Jesus says we will have obeyed the entirety of God’s Law. That is a wonderful and liberating thought, isn’t it? It is freeing to think that every dot and tittle, every letter of God’s commands for us are fulfilled in these two simple acts of love.

Isn’t that beautiful, beloved? Isn’t it beautiful that the heart of the Gospel is love? Isn’t it beautiful that the heart of our relationship with God and with each other is love? It truly is a magnificent thing. It is something that we should be able to rejoice in. It should be our greatest comfort and source of peace, that God loves us and that in Christ we simply and plainly called to love Him in return and to love others as He loves them.

But with this joy and comfort, friends, I want us to look at and understand these things with sober awareness. Because as we look at this passage, what we see it that the love Jesus is talking about isn’t just lip service. We’re not talking about valentine’s day cards, sunshine, and flowers kind of love. This isn’t an I love you in my prayers, so we’re good kind of love. It is an all encompassing, whole-life-consuming kind of love that Christ is calling us to. And as you get out your listening guide this morning, the first thing that I want you to make sure you remember today is this:

Love is simple, but it isn’t easy

If you don’t remember anything else we talk about today, remembering this in regards to the Christian faith will take you a long way towards where it is that we’re headed. Love is simple, but it isn’t easy.

Lifting weights is simple, but it isn’t easy. Distance running is simple, but it isn’t easy. These things are hard work. The take endurance. They take hard work. They take commitment, and sweat, and patience, and perseverance, and drive. And love is this way.

It is simple, but it isn’t easy. It’s easy to say that you love someone, but the task of loving isn’t easy. And in this passage this morning, Jesus gives a road map for the love that we are called to. In these verses, we are given a picture of what love is supposed to look like in the life of a Christian. And His love directive for our lives is given to us in these two categories:

Love in two categories: love of God and love of each other

And if we are going to do this, if we truly are going to learn to love God and to love each other, we need to really understand what that means. As I studied this passage this week, there is really too much here for us to bite off at one time, so we’re going to spend the rest of our time together this morning and then we are going to come back to it again next wee, looking at each one of these things over this same set of verses. But there are these two categories of love in Christ that we are called to, and the one we will deal with this morning is loving God.

First is loving God. Let’s look at it together. Verse 9:

John 15:9 NASB95

“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

There are two very clear things we see about loving God in this verse, and these two things will shape the rest of the conversation about loving God. The first is this, that:

Jesus’ love for us is complete and absolute

Jesus loves us completely. How do we know this? Because He loves us with the same amount of love that there is between the Father and the Son. Jesus is saying, as much as the Father loves me, that’s how much I love you. Jesus and the Father are of the same essence. They are equally God with the Spirit, and they have been eternally together. There is nothing lacking in their love for each other. So when Jesus compares His love for you to His love for the Father, He loves you completely, and His love is absolute.

Why do I say absolute? Because He loves us totally and completely and there is nothing that could ever change that because the Father will never stop loving the Son. Even in our imperfect human love we understand that.

A parent doesn’t stop loving their children. Not ever. They may get mad and not speak or hurt each other, but the love for your child is always there and nothing can change that. Your child might do something horrendous to you and to others, and yet you still love them. I know parents whose children have been convicted of violent crimes. And they believe whole-heartedly that their children deserve to be in the prison they are in, but they still love their child with all that they are. And we can understand that, because love is supposed to be unconditional.

Do we not teach this to our children that there is nothing they could do to lose our love? And so, If we can understand that as humans, how much more is it true of the Father and the Son. God the Father loves God the Son absolutely, and this is the kind of love that Jesus loves us with, so you and I are loved absolutely, no matter what. Nothing will ever change that.

Secondly,

Jesus’ love is to be where we live

It is to be our home, our dwelling place. When someone asks where I live, I pipe off an address or a description. If you were in my neighborhood and asked my neighbors where I live, they would point you to the house. If you were to ask my friends where I live, they know. You see, people know where you live. It is evident. It is obvious.

If you came into my home and didn’t know it was mine, you could figure it out because it is full of things that would point to that fact. You and I are to live in the love of Christ. We are to dwell in it. When people ask where we live, where our lives are centered, we should be able to point them to the love of God. When others ask our friends and neighbors about us, Jesus is what should come to their lips because we are told to live in Christ’s love to the point that it is all that matters to us.

And why would we want to live anywhere else, when Christ’s love is complete and absolute. His love is sufficient for us. The love of Jesus should be sufficient for us. To the Christian whose life is hidden in Christ, The love of Jesus is all encompassing. It is overwhelming. It becomes the very definition of peace and happiness and rest and well-being. The love of Christ is to be for us where we dwell.

Look down to verse 16

John 15:16 NASB95

“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.

See, friends, not only is Christ’s love complete and absolute, but

Jesus chose to love you and to use you for His Kingdom

Not only is Christ’s love complete and absolute, but you didn’t do anything to deserve it. On your own, you were an enemy of God. There is nothing that you could ever do to deserve what you have been given through the blood of Jesus Christ. You couldn’t earn it. Romans 5:8 tells us

Romans 5:8 NASB95

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus loves you by His choice. When you and I were given a choice, we didn’t choose to love Jesus. We chose to hate Him. We chose sin and death. We chose self. We chose a destiny outside of the Kingdom of God because we wanted to please ourselves. But Jesus chose to love us even though we continually showed our hatred towards God in our actions.

He loved us enough to die on the cross for us, even though we didn’t deserve it. And to those who receive His love and come to abide in Him, you are used by God to accomplish His purposes in and through you. These things are the fruits that we were talking about last week, the things that God will bring about in the lives of those that love Him and are pursuing Him with their whole lives. As we focus on loving and abiding in Him, what we find is that He is more than enough for us. I love the promise that we have there at the end of verse 16 that when we abide in Christ, we can ask for anything in His name and the Father will give it to us because

Jesus provides for those that are living in His love

This doesn’t mean that you won’t suffer. I think we’ve been seeing in our Wednesday night studies in 1 Peter that the opposite is true, actually. You and I should expect to suffer. We live in a broken and sinful world, suffering here is inevitable. But it does mean that as we pursue God’s will, as we pursue the love of God in everything that we do, as we make the love of God the place that we live, something amazing takes place: can ask for anything in the midst of that and know that it will be given. Why? Because when you are living in God’s love, you are only going to ask for those things that are in line with His purposes.

If the love of God becomes you single greatest obsession, you will only be consumed with asking Him for the things that are in line with that. Your healing in illness becomes less important than your peace and opportunities through that illness. Your freedom from pain becomes less important than the glory that might come to the Father when you have endured it. Now, I’m not saying that God doesn’t bring us healing or that He won’t take away pain, He does do these things and we should pray for them. Rather, I’m saying that when we truly are centered in Him, we leave those things in His hands as we pursue His Kingdom in the midst of them, knowing that God’s hand is always at work to bring about His Kingdom purposes.

And this brings us towards our next point. Look at verse 10 with me:

John 15:10 NASB95

“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.

Friends,

The pathway to dwelling in Christ’s love runs through obedience

If we love Christ, we obey Him. The way that we demonstrate our love to Christ is to do what it is that He has commanded us. God loves you, and He chose you, and if you love Him, you will obey the commands that He has given you. Before you knew Christ, you did what you willed. You followed your own will and your own desires.

And while, perhaps, you never vocally professed a hatred of God, and while thoughts of God Himself may have scarcely entered your mind, if at all, still you hated God and showed continually your hatred of Him by the things that you did. We all know the saying that actions speak louder than words, and in our passage this morning we find that it is true. 1 John 5:3 says:

1 John 5:3 NASB95

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

John 14:15 NASB95

“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.

My children say that they love me and that they know that I love them. They have made cards and pictures to tell me so. They have given me hugs and kisses to demonstrate their affection for me. But nothing demonstrates their love and trust of me like their obedience. When they listen to the things that I teach them and do the things that I command them to do, their love is evident in their actions.

You see, this is why the Shema makes sense as the core of Scripture. This is why Jesus can say in absolute confidence that loving God with all that you are and loving your neighbor as yourself will equate to fulfilling the entire law, because a child that loves their Father will obey what the Father has commanded. You will do what the Father commanded if you love Him. If we love Jesus, we will do what it is that He has commanded of us.

You see, Jesus is showing us again here that your actions will reveal who it is that you truly love. And we have been given a perfect example of what this is supposed to look like. Look at verse 10 again

John 15:10 NASB95

“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.

The back half of this verse gives us the road map to the first half. In other words,

Christ’s relationship with the Father is our example of obedience in love

Jesus chose to submit to the Father in everything, even dying on the cross for our sake. His obedience was complete, and perfect. His love for the Father was evident in everything that He said and did; and Christ was able to stand in the face of His immense suffering because of His confidence that He was fulfilling the will of the Father in dying for us. Jesus stands as the example for you and I in how we are to live in loving obedience as well. Jesus was equally God with the Father, and yet He chose in love to submit to the Father. If God the Son, who is equal and one with the Father submitted to the Father in love, how much more so should we who are merely His creations be willing and ready to obey what He commands us to do.

Paul expands on this for us in Philippians 2:5-8, where He writes

Philippians 2:5–8 NASB95

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Christ obeyed the Father because of His great love for Him and for us, and as Christ is our example, you and I should do the same.

Sometimes, I think that we get the wrong idea about obedience. We look at it as a drudgery, an imprisonment beneath a despot king that doesn’t want us to have anything that we want. And make no mistake, we need to obey God because He is the King and sovereign authority; but God is so much more than that. God loves us. He is not only our King, but our loving Father. He loves us so much that He sent His One and only Son to die for us. Jesus, the Son, tells us in this very passage that He loves us as much as the Father loves Him. Jesus loves us, and is deserving of our love. and even as Christ demonstrated His love for the Father through His obedience to Him in all things, so too is our obedience to Christ the way we show Him we love Him.

Look down at verse 14 with me:

John 15:14 NASB95

“You are My friends if you do what I command you.

Our obedience is the way we prove our love for Jesus.

When is it that Jesus says we are called His friends? When we have obeyed His commands. When we have shown love to Him with our everything, in every way, in every relationship, even up to our very last breath, that is how we show our love. It is how we put our money where our mouth is.

When you are driving on a highway or interstate, after every on ramp, after every major junction, and after every so many miles, you find signs on the side of the road that tell you what road you are on. If you look up at your GPS, what you find is that your pathway is highlighted and it tells you the name of the road you are on. Why? Because you should be able to look at the map and look at the proof in front of you, and you should be able to know with certainty that you are on the right road.

Jesus, beloved, is our roadmap, and our obedience are those road signs, pointing to the fact that we are on the right road.

And the primary way that we live and dwell in that love is by obeying Him. Our obedience is a fruit of our love for Him. And as we grow in obedience, our love for Him will grow as well because obedience to God will bring about good things in our lives. It will bring the growth of God’s fruit in our lives, the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control that we talked about last week from Galatians 5:22-23.

It is easier for us to keep going, when we know that the end will bring about results in our lives. That’s why I love the mileage markers on the highway. Because once I know whether we are counting up or down, I can easily track our progress; how far we’ve been and how far we have to go. We like to see the fruit of progress in our lives. And the good news is that Jesus promises some of that to us here in the last verses we will look at this morning.

One of these is verse 11:

John 15:11 NASB95

“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

Why does Jesus share these things with us? Why does He tell us to abide in Him? Why did He tell us that apart from Him we can do nothing? Why did He so strongly emphasize to us that if we are truly branches that are part of His vine that we must bear fruit?

Because He knows the truth, that

The fruit of obedience is the fullness of joy

Let me tell you something. God doesn’t promise you riches. He doesn’t promise you fame or comfort. No, He tells you that the pathway is narrow, that it’s hard to find, that those who find it will suffer because of it. He tells us that we will be sifted and tested, that we will fail and fall. But He also says that if we listen to Him and do what He says that we will have His joy, that the joy of Jesus Christ will be the joy inside of us. We will have the joy of Jesus, and the joy of Jesus will fill you. He will fill you completely.

When you have the joy of Christ, there is nothing that you lack. And in the midst of your trials, your suffering, your pain, your waiting, you will have joy because joy of Christ fills you. It permeates through the Spirit into every part of your life and being.

Jesus doesn’t call us to obey to bring us pain. He isn’t trying to limit our joy but to fill us with it. We are not being called to these things to bring us sorrow, but to bring into our lives the greatest fullness of joy that it is possible to experience.

You see, the final thing is this; look at verse 15

John 15:15 NASB95

“No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Friends,

When you abide in thelove of Jesus with all that you are, you are His friend and no longer a slave

A friend obeys because he knows and trusts and loves His friend. A slave obeys because he has to. A slave does his tasks without understanding of the purposes that his master has for him, but our master has just given us the road map. He has shown us exactly what His purposes are in the things that He as called us to.

Through His love, Jesus made a way for you and I to be with Him, and when we choose to follow Him, loving Him with all that we are, we are no longer enemies, nor are we slaves, we are friends. What greater thought could you have this morning, but that the Creator and Sustainer of the universe would call you His friend. What higher aspiration could you have in all of creation but to call yourself a friend of God.

What place could you find in all the universe to abide that is better than the love of God? Today is your day. Today is your day to step out of your love of self and your pursuit of those things that won’t make it past tomorrow. Today is your day to abide in the eternal love of God forever, to find yourself called the friend of God. If today you hear Him calling, harden not your heart. Won’t you let today be the day that you finally surrender to His love? Let’s go to the Lord together in prayer:

PRAY: Lord, Jesus, we are here this morning in overwhelming awe of your love, for we have seen that you love us as no one can love us, and that You have given for us what no one else could give. And we stand here this morning in need of Your love and ready to receive it. Lord, Jesus, would You draw us to Yourself? Would you strip away from us those things that are not of You? Holy Spirit, would You empower us to come and to dwell in the love of Christ through our obedience to Your will for our lives, that the Father would be glorified in us and that we may be called friends of God. You love us completely, Lord would You help us to live before you in a manner worthy of those that are called by Your Name. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.