PM Home Bible Study Group; November 13, 2013
John 15:9-17
Theme: This passage shows us how abiding in Jesus’ love leads to fullness of joy.
(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)
The section of John’s Gospel that we’re in tonight is a truly wonderful one. There’s nothing like it in Scripture. It’s as if John—recalling to us what Jesus had said to him and the other disciples several decades earlier—is inviting us to sit with him at Jesus’ feet and hear words of love.
These words are not meant for everyone, of course. They are words that, as Jesus said in Chapter 17, were for His apostles and for those who would believe on Him through their testimony. These words, then, are for genuine believers—united to Jesus by faith and redeemed by His blood. And as such, we can be absolutely confident in the authority and accuracy of these words, and that they are truly the words that the Lord Jesus would want us to hear, because Jesus promised to the apostles that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you” (John 14:26). In studying these words, we truly are sitting at the feet of Jesus!
And note that they are words of love! In them Jesus expresses His own love for us; and teaches us how to abide in that love through obedience. Keeping them, as Jesus Himself has taught in them, will lead us to the fullness of joy.
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These words shouldn’t be read apart from our Lord’s words in 15:1-8. With verse 1, we have the beginning of a discourse our Lord spoke to His disciples while they were on their way to the garden where He would be arrested (see 14:31). The are words of love—but they are words spoken in a context in which love was about to be greatly demonstrated. He was on His way to the cross for those He loved. Much of verses 1-8 had to do with the idea of “abiding” or “remaining” in Christ; and so do the words we’re studying tonight. But as the main focus of verses 1-8 was on abiding unto fruitfulness, the main focus of verses 9-17 is on abiding unto the fullness of joy.
Note that, in these words, we are given . . .
I. THE ASSURANCE OF JESUS’ LOVE (vv. 9-10)
A. Jesus begins by assuring His disciples, “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you . . .” What a wonderful assurance that is! It’s wonderful to know that Jesus loves us. But here, He even tells us how much He loves us. He gives us a standard by which to measure the greatness of His love for us. It’s a love that is as great as the Father’s own love for Jesus. We know something of how much the Father loves Jesus by the fact that He expressed His pleasure in Him. “This is My beloved Son,” the Father declared publically, “in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The Father delights in the Son. And more, the Father reveals all things to the Son and holds nothing back from Him. “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does . . .” (John 5:20). The Father has given all things to His Son. “All things,” Jesus said, “have been delivered to Me by My Father” (Matthew 11:27). Jesus knew “that the Father had given all things into His hands” (John 13:3)—even “authority over all flesh” (17:2). The Father even shares His glory with His Son. Jesus prayed, “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was” (John 17:5). There is nothing that the Father held back from His beloved Son. And so, Jesus loves us in the same way. He shares all that He has with us, and He tells us all that He is doing, and He even shares His own glory and His own inheritance with us. He laid down His life for us so that we would be with Him forever. Truly, as the Father has loved Him, He has loved us!
B. But it’s our duty to abide in that love. Jesus’ command to us is, “abide in My love” (9b). To “abide” in it means to remain in a constant, vital relationship and connection to it. It’s not enough to simply know about that love. We must constantly “walk” in it and “live” in it and function in the context of it. To abide in His love is to abide in Him. “Abide in Me”, He said, “and I in you” (v. 4). We are to constantly live in the fact that He loves us as the Father has loved Him—and, by extension, as the Father Himself also loves us; “for the Father Himself loves you”, Jesus said, “because you have loved Me, and have believed that I came forth from God” (John 16:27). We’re to constantly live and flourish in the realization that Jesus shares all that He is and has with us. And He doesn’t leave it as a mystery how we are to do this. He goes on to say, “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” (v. 10). In John 5:30, Jesus said, “. . . I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.” And just as He abides in the Father’s love by obeying the Father’s commandments, we are to abide in Jesus’ love by obeying His commandments. “If you love Me,” Jesus said, “keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
II. THE PATHWAY TO FULLNESS OF JOY (vv. 11-13).
A. Now; why does Jesus tell us that if we must show our love for Him—and abide in His love for us—by keeping His commandments? He goes on to to tell us, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (v. 11). Jesus truly gives everything He has to those He loves—including His own joy! Jesus’ joy is truly a great joy. It’s a joy that, while He walked on this earth, transcended the things of this earth. The prospect of our eternal fellowship with Him brought Him such great joy that He willingly suffered the cross; “who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). He prayed for us to experience the joy that He experiences with the Father; praying, “But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). What a great and glorious joy Jesus’ joy is! The joys of this world are temporary at best; but Jesus promises us His own joy which “may remain in” us. And He doesn’t simply allow us to enjoy a mere portion of that joy; but promises that we may have our own joy made “full”. All the things, then, that Jesus is telling us in these words are designed to result in the experience of His own joy to the fullest degree. He means for it to not only be our ultimate experience in heaven, but to be our experience right now!—what Peter spoke of as being able to “rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).
B. But what is it that Jesus tells us that leads to this joy? It’s that we obey His commandments. Just as we abide in His love by our obedience, we are led to fullness of joy by that same obedience! And Jesus tells us specifically what that obedience means when He goes on to say, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (v. 12). This, of course, is what He told us was His “new commandment” back in John 13—”A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35). He defined how He loved us when He said, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (v. 13); and in the same way, we are to be willing to love one another. It may not be that we are called upon to lay down our lives literally for one another—although that’s possible. But if we share together in the love that He has for us, then we should love one another in the same way as He loved us—through sacrificing our own interests for the good of one another in practical action. “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in Him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth” (1 John 3:16-17).
III. THE OBEDIENCE THAT LEADS TO FULLNESS (vv. 14-17).
A. Now; Jesus said that greater love has no one than this, that to lay down one’s life for his friends. And according to that measure, we have no greater Friend than Jesus Himself; for “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). That’s how He expressed to us that He is our Friend. And how do we express to Him that we are His friends? Jesus said, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you” (v. 14). We show our friendship to Him by making Him our Lord and Master in all things. But even then, it’s a remarkable relationship of service; because Jesus says, “No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you” (v. 15). That’s not the way that earthly ‘masters’ operate. They feel no obligation whatsoever to inform their servants of what’s on their heart. The only thing their servants need to know is what it is that the master commands to be done. The master feels no need to have a friendship with his servants. But in the case of our Lord Jesus—who is the greatest Master anyone could ever serve—we are brought into the fullness of His own heart as His dear friends. He keeps nothing from us. He unfolds everything to us that He had received from the Father. (We have proof of that simply by the fact of this very portion of John’s Gospel—in which Jesus shares so intimately with us what is in His heart.).
B. And it’s not simply that we have first chosen to be His servants/friends. He placed His love on us first! He took the initiative of love. He said, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you . . .” (v. 16a). That’s what a great Friend He is! He made the first move. We couldn’t have chosen Him. We were dead in our trespasses and sins. But He didn’t wait for us to choose Him. He chose us and appointed us. And notice what it is that He chose us and appointed us to: “that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you” (v. 16b). Our relationship of love and obedience to our Lord Jesus is a great adventure! He calls us to service; and that service is a joy! It’s a meaningful service, because it is one in which ‘fruit’ is genuinely born. It’s an enduring service, because our ‘fruit’ remains and has an eternal impact. And it’s a powerful service; because in Him, we are brought into a full freedom of relationship with the Father that enables us to go to Him and ask for anything in our Lord’s name. Can you think of any other kind of service like that? Have you ever had a job on earth—under any earthly master—in which you felt you bore fruit, that your fruit remained, and you had the full authority to ask for anything you needed in the doing of it? Our relationship with the Lord Jesus is one in which He is our Master, and we are to obey His commandments; but there’s no other Master we could serve that gives us as much joy in our service as Him! There is no other Master who is so good and dear a Friend!
C. And notice how He sums that service up: “These things I command you, that you love one another” (v. 17). Our obedience to this command is the fulfillment of the most basic command of God’s requirements for us. When the lawyer asked Jesus, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:36-40). “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this”, the apostle Paul tells us, “’You shall love your neighbor as yourself'” (Galatians 5:14; see also Leviticus 19:18).
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Many people say that they love Jesus; but they don’t make it the pattern and passion of their lives to do as He commands. They treat His authority as if it were an optional matter in life. And we can be certain that the same people do not—and cannot—experience the fullness of joy that Jesus intends for His followers to experience. Fullness of joy comes through relationship with Jesus. And full relationship with Jesus in love comes through obedience to His commandments—just as His joy came from His obedience to the Father’s commandments.
Examine your joy. Do you experience joy in your relationship with Jesus? If not, stop and examine your obedience to Him and the instructions He gives us in His word. “I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8). Obedience to Jesus’ commands—that’s how we ‘abide unto joy’.