Christ-Abiding Love
John 15:12-17
Jesus has been preparing His disciples for His coming departure. He is seeking to comfort and encourage the eleven remaining disciples before He goes to the cross. Jesus has promised them that while He was away, He would be in His Father’s house preparing a place for them and that He would return to take them there. He would also be working on their behalf by interceding with the Father. In addition, He would send the Holy Spirit to comfort them and enable them to fulfill the ministry Jesus calls them to do.
Their part was to abide in Him the same way that a branch abides in a vine. This is the fundamental principal of a true disciple of Jesus Christ: abiding. Jesus defines abiding with these words (John 15:5): “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit.” The secret of the true disciple of Christ is abiding, “You in me and I in you.”
In John 15 we are learning what this means. John 15 falls into three sections that reflect three areas where this abiding principal is worked out in our lives. The first section, John 15:1-11 focuses on our relationship with Christ. Abiding in Christ changes us so that we bear the fruit of Christ-likeness. As we saw last time this Christ-like fruit will show in our lives through an effective prayer life (John 15:7), a God-glorifying life (John 15:8), a love-saturated life (John 15:9), an obedient life (John 15:10) and a joyful life (John 15:11).
The second section in John 15 describes the change that will happen in our relationships with each other within the community of faith. John 15:12-17 deals with our relationships with each other, fellow disciples. The priority here in the Christ-abiding life is to love one another. Then in the third section, John 15:18-27 we will see how this Christ-abiding life relates to the hostile world around us.
Listen to Jesus’ words about our relationship to each other as we abide in Christ, John 15:12-17,
12 “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 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. 16 You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you 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. 17 These things I command you, that you love one another.”
This section begins (John 15:12) and ends (John 15:17) with Jesus’ command for us to “love one another.” If these commands sound familiar, it’s because Jesus already said it earlier this evening (John 13:34-35), “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.”
Why would Jesus repeat this command on the same night? Perhaps because like us, the eleven disciples that night were slow to learn. Luke tells us that during the Passover supper that night, the disciples got into an argument about which of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24). Not one of them was willing that night to take the position of a slave to wash another’s feet. Jesus had to demonstrate that self-denying love by doing it Himself.
But let’s be careful about trying to take the speck out of the apostles’ eyes with a log in our own. The uncomfortable truth is that many of our conflicts stem from the same self-centered motives. James 4:1-2 says, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask.” The Lord knew our tendency towards selfishness, so during His final hours with the disciples He drilled into them this command to love one another.
Here in these verses Jesus states three ways in which true love will appear. First, Christ-abiding love will show up in our,
1. Self-sacrificing service (John 15:12-14)
Jesus says, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
God gave many commands in the Scripture for people to love each other. As far back as Leviticus 19:18, God put this command into the law saying, “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” James called this the “royal law” (James 2:8) and Jesus said it was the second great commandment, with the first being to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. All the other laws were based on those two (Matthew 22:37-40).
But for Christians, Jesus changed the standard of that love for others from a person’s own innate selfishness (“as yourself”) to His own example of love for them (“as I have loved you”). Jesus’ love for us is the supreme standard for our love for one another. See it again in John 15:12, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”
How did Jesus love us? By giving His life for us (John 15:13), “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” We can define Jesus’ love as “a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved.” The highest good for all people is that they would have their sins forgiven and receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. And, once a person has come to know Christ, his highest good is that he be conformed to the image of Christ. Those goals should be our aim in all of our relationships.
That is why Jesus can command us to love, because is not merely a feeling—it is a caring commitment that acts for the someone else’s greatest good. Listen to it again (John 15:13), “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
Those words are inscribed on the headstone on the grave of Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators, high on the hillside overlooking Glen Eyrie Castle, in Colorado Springs. Trotman was drowned in a boating accident in a lake in northern New York. He and some young people had been taking a joyride, but the boat had swung too sharply and they had all been thrown into the water. One of the girls could not swim and Dawson knew it. He could have saved himself, but instead he swam to this girl, brought her back to the boat, helped the others lift her up into the boat, but by the time her panic had subsided, and they turned around to help him he was gone. Thus they wrote on his grave, “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
You cannot love more than that; that is the point Jesus is making. Some have said, “To lay down your life for your enemies is greater than doing it for your friends.” Paul points out (Rom. 5:8-10) that this is exactly what Jesus did: He died for us while we were His enemies. But in this context, Jesus is speaking about love among friends and no one can do more than to die. He will demonstrate His love for the disciples the next day on the cross. That’s the high standard for our love for one another.
But Jesus surely means more than getting yourself killed on their behalf. If that is what he meant, you can only do that once and then it is over. Laying down your life is self-denying, self-sacrificing service for the good of the one you love. It means to give of yourself, to take part of your life and to give it on behalf of someone else. The place we all need to apply this is by confronting our selfishness in small, daily matters.
In Ephesians 5:25 Husbands are commanded to love their wives, “just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.” Husbands, do we? You say, “Oh, sure, I’d die to save my wife from an intruder that was trying to kill her.” But do you die to yourself so that you can serve her? Do you turn off the TV or leave the computer and help her clean up the kitchen or get the kids into bed? Do nurture her with the word of God so that she is becoming more Christ-like? Do say no to your own interests because you cherish time with her? It’s in these small, daily self-sacrificing ways that we love one another as Christ loved us.
That is the first way love appears. It is a matter of self-sacrificing service. Secondly, love appears in
2. Mutual sharing (John 15:14-15)
Jesus says, “You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 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.” Here Jesus is describing the kind of relationship He will have with His disciples. The nature of their relationship could have been marked by the superiority of Jesus over them. He was the master. They were the servants or slaves. The same is true of us. Not only has Jesus created us, but He has also bought us with the price of His precious blood (1 Corinthians 6:20; 1 Peter 1:18-19). If you are a Christian, then you belong to Him. You are His slave.
But in John 15:15 our Lord is lifting these men from the level of mere slaves, who must obey because it is to their best interests to do so, to another, more intimate, level — friends — who want to obey because they have been allowed into the inner secrets of another person’s life.
A master could command a slave, “Fix dinner for 50 guests tomorrow,” but he didn’t need to explain why he was having so many for dinner. But a master who viewed himself as a friend to his slave would explain the situation behind such a large dinner party. Jesus’ point in our text is that He has openly shared with the disciples the things that He has heard from the Father. Friends are ones with whom you share your deepest thoughts, your goals, your motivations.
Abiding in Christ intimately connects us with Christ, so that we not only draw life and strength from Him, but we also come to know His heart and mind. We see hints of this kind of friendship with God in the Old Testament. God called Abraham “My friend” in Isaiah 41:8. When The Lord was about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, He would not keep this from His “friend”:
17 And the LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, 18 “since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? (Gen. 18:17-18).
The same kind of intimacy can be seen with Moses: “So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33:11).
With both Abraham and Moses God revealed things to His “friend” that He did not reveal to others. They heard the Word of God and they believed it.
Throughout the Gospels, we observe that the disciples did not understand much of what Jesus did and said. But after His death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, things became clear to the disciples. And since the apostles wrote the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, they have passed on to us what they learned. And so from the time of Pentecost onward, any believer in Jesus can be an informed “friend” of our Lord, knowing what He is doing, and why, through His Word.
That is what our Lord is describing here. Love is mutual sharing. Then the third mark of love is,
3. Fruitful ministry (John 15:16)
You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you 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.
Here Jesus reminds His disciples that they only had this privileged position of friends because of God’s grace. They did not choose Him; He chose them! The word chose is the word eklegomai from which we get our English word elect. It literally means to “call out.” He called them out of the world and appointed them. The word “appointed” means “set in place” or “strategically placed.” If you are a disciple of Jesus by faith in His death and resurrection you are chosen by Him and appointed by Him. In this verse (John 15:16) In the Greek text, there are two parallel clauses. The first shows why God chose and appointed the disciples; the second shows how that purpose would be fulfilled.
The purpose for which Jesus chose and appointed the disciples is to bear fruit (John 15:16): “I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” Fruit, as we have said is Christ-like character, Christ-like conduct and Christ-like converts. A main reason that God chose to save you is that by abiding in Christ you would live such a Christ-like life that it will bring others to know the Savior.
How do we do that? How do we bear the fruit of Christ-likeness so that others will come to the Savior? John 15:16b, “that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.” Prayer is how God makes this happen in us.
Both Abraham and Moses are called the friend of God. In both cases, God reveals things to His “friend” that He does not reveal to others. And in both cases, on the basis of what God did reveal to His “friend,” this “friend” petitioned God on behalf of others, and the petition was granted. Abraham prayed for Sodom and God saved Lot from the destruction. Moses prayed for the Israelites and God promised to go with them.
Jesus is saying to these men, “Wherever you are, remember that I put you there.” That is what He is saying to us, too. “I strategically placed you right in the midst of those difficult people you have to work with, so that amidst the difficulty, the pressure and the pain you might become more like Me. Bear fruit, and in the process you can ask the Father for the needs of these people and God will begin to move in their lives as well.” Love appears as fruitful ministry as God works through our prayers.
That is what Jesus says it means to “love one another.” Self-sacrificing service, mutual sharing, and fruitful ministry through prayer. That is love.
The bottom line of real Christianity is the abiding life of Christ which bears fruit in a love for God, for other Christians and for a lost and dying world.
