John 15:9-17

“These things I command you, so that you will love one another.” The Roman world in which Jesus and the disciples lived was a world that was incredibly divided. Society was rigidly stratified, meaning you did not go outside of your social tier to interact with those above or beneath you. You stayed in your lane. The rich with the rich, slave with the slave, Hebrew with the Hebrew.

But the Christian community was commanded to be distinct, and it was. And the way that it was distinct was scandalous to the outside world. We have letters from the second, third, and fourth centuries written by non-Christians to other non-Christians, writing about the Christian communities in their city. And something that they consistently harp on is the fact that the Christian community is made up of the rich and poor, slave and free, men and women, young and old, from all different regions of the empire, and they all share a table with one another like family. We have a letter from the Emperor Julian in the fourth century lamenting the unstoppable spread of the gospel, and one of the reasons he cited for the popularity of the movement was the fact that there were no beggars among Christians! Because they cared for their poor! He even said that they cared for the pagan poor just as well as they cared for the Christian poor! The church was distinct in many ways, but chief among them was their radical love for one another.

We need to reclaim that distinction, today.

In John 15, Jesus is wrapping up his time with his disciples, so he’s rehashing the main points of his teachings. These are the things he really wants his followers to hear and obey. These are the things that occupy the very center of Christ’s heart. And what is the thing he wants us to hear and obey? “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” So what does the church look like that obeys the central teachings of Jesus? It’s the church that loves to the same degree that it is loved.

So this morning I want to look at two things. First, where is the source of the church’s love? If we’re called to love one another, where does that love come from? Second, how do we love one another? What characterizes our love for one another? So, what’s the source and what’s the character of the church’s love?

Let’s jump into the passage, John 15:9-11:

As the Father has loved me, so have I 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, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

What’s the source of the church’s love? This is an important question, because love is a buzzword in our culture. Everyone knows that they should love others. Call it conscience, or the image of God, or the brotherhood of humanity, or whatever, but if you talk to any random person on the street, and ask them whether we should love others, they will say, “of course!” Would the world be a better place if everyone loved one another? Yes! But let’s bring it a bit more down to earth, would your street be a better place if everyone on it loved one another? Yes! This isn’t really debated.

But as soon as you move from the value of love to the practice of love, that’s when you run into trouble. And one of the obstacles has to do with where your love is sourced. From what reservoir of love are you dipping into in order to love others? Because the source of your love is one of the most critical factors when it comes to your practice of love.

If your source of love is a vague moral obligation, as it is for many people in our area, your practice of love will be inconsistent and underwhelming. If it’s just something you know that you should be doing, you probably won’t do it all that often. I know that I should eat better and exercise more! And yet…that feeling of guilt and obligation is not strong enough to motivate me to get out of that drive-thru line. You know what I’m talking about. Moral obligation can not sustain a life of love.

And this is precisely why Jesus doesn’t make the practice of love contingent on a moral obligation. Instead, our practice of love must be sourced from a relationship of love. Before he commands the church to love others, he commands the church to abide in his love. What does it mean to abide in something? It means to make it your home. Make it the headquarters of your life, so that every action and decision springs from your mindfulness of Christ’s love for you. Jesus says that this is the only source of love that can sustain a life of loving others.

And Jesus puts his own life up as the model. Jesus doesn’t love you because he feels morally obligated to love you! He didn’t suffer on your behalf because of any kind of moral philosophy or vague notion that love is the highest virtue. What, according to Jesus, is the basis of his love for his disciples? Christ’s practice of love was sourced from a relationship of love. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” The love that Jesus experienced in his relationship with the Father is the source, the fountain, the reservoir that powered his love for others.

Let’s put it another way: Jesus loved because he was loved. And this is what he wants to pass on to his disciples. Think of all the obstacles in your life that keep you from living a life of loving others. Bitterness, regret, shame, discontent, anger, pride, selfishness. What’s the remedy? How do you overcome these things? Abiding in the love of Jesus for you. The more you are mindful of his love for you, the more it casts its light on your identity, the more room it has in your heart and mind, the more these obstacles to love will fade away.

Understanding what is the source of our love protects us from self-reliance and self-promotion. I said it last week, and I’ll say it again because it is vitally important we understand it: the key to the church’s engagement with the world is the church’s engagement with the Lord. Our source of love is the love that Christ pours out on us, which means if we are going to love one another and the world, we must abide in his love.

We are setting out on a new path as a church. We’re committing ourselves to a new mission as the Lord sends us to the city of Lawrenceville. As we go and share and show the gospel to a new people, as we seek to make disciples and bring the lost into the family of God, we cannot rely on our own reservoirs of love. This work of church planting is dead in the water if we do. Our source must be Christ. As a body, we must abide in his love if we want to see fruit.

The same must be said about all of our endeavors. If you are a parent. Your innate wellspring of love is too small, too fickle, and too brittle. You need a deeper well, and you don’t need to look for it, because He came looking for you. Let Jesus be the source of your love to your family, and you’ll see fruit that would be impossible if it were up to you alone.

The love of Christ is the source of the church’s love for one another and for the world. Now, what’s the character of our love as the church? In what manner do we love? Look with me at verse 12.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all 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 should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

What’s striking in this passage is that, while at the center of it is this important command to love one another, the vast majority of it has to do not with our love, but with Christ’s love for us. Jesus doesn’t actually tells us how to love each other except to say, love one another in the same way that I have loved you. And what aspect of love does Jesus have in mind? Well, the very next verse gives us a clue: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” The love of the church is characterized by the love of Christ, and the love of Christ is characterized by service and sacrifice.

I say service and sacrifice because for Jesus, they go hand in hand. Earlier in his ministry Jesus told his disciples that he had come not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. Service and sacrifice. Again he said, if anyone would be my disciple, let them deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me. Service and sacrifice. For Jesus, this is what characterizes his brand of love, and so it must characterize our brand of love.

We love one another when we serve and sacrifice for one another. And if this is not our definition of love, than we need to change our definition to be more in alignment with how Jesus understands love. One of the great dangers that the church faces in modern times is the temptation to take our definition of love from the world rather than from Jesus. And the world too often defines love as satisfaction. We’ll say we love our church, when in reality we’re saying our church fulfills our wants and needs. We’re satisfied by what it does for us, and so we love it.

This is not how Jesus understands love. At least not in this context. We love our church and the people that compose it when we serve them and sacrifice for them. This is what it means to love the church.

So how do we love one another and the world in this way? Here are three practical ways:

First, make time in your schedule to love others. We can’t fool ourselves into believing that the culture of business has not infiltrated the church. We all have packed schedules. We all have countless commitments and responsibilities, and if you find yourself thinking, “I’ll make a real focus on loving others as soon as this crazy season of life is over,” please take a moment and remind yourself that unless you are intentional, there will never be enough time. We have to make space in our lives to love, serve, and sacrifice. So if you and your family have a check-in time, or calendar planning time, or whatever - before you put anything else on the page, before the practices, the parties, the vacations, or the projects - allocate time to love the people in this body and in this city. One of the greatest ways to get very practical in loving others is to sacrifice your time for them.

Second, use your resources to love others. When I was praying over this sermon just last night, a question came into my head. Name a resource that Jesus did not expend on your behalf. Name a resource that Jesus did not leverage for your benefit. You see, Jesus kept nothing back when it came to loving us; so we can’t either. We can’t say we love the Lord or one another when there is an area of our life, namely our finances, that we hold back. Can you imagine saying to your spouse, honey, you get all of me, all of me is yours, except this one thing. I’m not giving that to you, because it’s too difficult. No, if we’re going to love like Christ, we can’t hold anything back. We have to use our resources to love this body and the world.

Finally, pray for greater depths of love. In verse 16, Jesus reminds us that he chose and appointed his disciples that they would go and bear fruit, and whatever they ask the Father in Christ’s name will be given to them. You are appointed to bear fruit, to be fruitful. Christ’s love is poured out on you so that it could be poured out onto others through you. This is the will of God. And to accomplish the will of God, we’re going to need the resources of God, which is why he tells his disciples to ask for those resources.

If we are going to make this move to a new city, to serve a new people, to fuel a movement of new churches in Gwinnett County, we’re going to need greater depths of love. If you’re going to love your spouse, disciple your children, share the gospel with your coworkers, and serve this body of believers, you’re going to need greater depths of love. If you’re going to pray for your enemies, stand against injustice, raise up the poor and downtrodden, you’re going to need greater depths of love. So we must pray for more love. Make no mistake, the prayer for more love is in itself an act of love.

So there you have it. Three ways to practically love like Christ. Make time. Leverage your resources. Pray for love. And I’ll add one more. Come to the table. Because it’s in Christ’s presence that we see, and know, and feel, and touch true love. We’ve come to know real love because Jesus laid down his life for us. And that’s what we experience at the table. The love of Jesus who laid down his life for his friends. For you and for me. Our greatest joy in life comes as we make our home in his love.