As we continue in magnifying the splendor of the word of God, this week we look once again to John 15. And in doing so, I think we will be able to see how our joy is to overflow from the word of God to others, and even as that occurs, we will be fulfilling the commandment of Christ in this passage.
Last week we looked at the first eight verses of this chapter as Jesus tells them that he is the vine and they are the branches. He showed them the importance of abiding in him, the importance of abiding in his word, and the importance of allowing the word to move one’s heart to pray in order that he or she might pray God’s will and bear much fruit so that he might be glorified in his or her life.
But what exactly is this fruit that Jesus was talking about? Or what exactly are we to be doing in abiding in him and having his life flowing through us? That is what I believe he answers in these next eight verses, and it is that we will be able to see this morning.
I want to start in verse 10 before I look at verse 9, because I believe it will help us think rightly about that text if we know what Jesus is going to say concerning it.
He says in verse 10, “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.”
Jesus had just told them in verse 8 that God was glorified in them bearing much fruit and proving to be his disciples. And I believe verse 10 is telling us what that means. It means that we must keep his commandments and, therefore, abide in his love.
Obeying the commands of God in Scripture is not only important because God is the creator and knows what is the best thing we should do, it is important in demonstrating our relationship to God.
Do you want to know how to continually remain in the love of God? Jesus tells us to keep his commandments. Do what he says. For it is not only by keeping his commandments that we remain in his love, but he has told us already that by keeping his commandments we show that we love him.
In John 14:15 and 21, Jesus says, respectively, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” and “He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves Me; and he who loves Me shall be loved by My Father, and I will love him, and will disclose Myself to him.”
Do you then see how crucial holiness is in our lives? If we are not keeping God’s commandments, then it is hypocrisy to say that we love God. For Jesus says they are one and the same. And as you love God, Jesus says, you shall be “loved by My Father.” The creator of the world, who made all things, and controls all things, actually has affection toward those who are his and keep his commandments. And, in fact, to those people, Jesus shows himself. If you believe that you do not know as intimate a walk with Christ as you would like, then begin to obey the things that you know to do, and you will find that he will show you more and more of himself.
Obey the commandments that you read in Scripture, and you will abide in his love.
But why is it that we abide in his love and show our love to him by keeping his commandments? I think there are two answers to this question; they are found in the verses that surround verse 10, which we have just read.
First of all, in verse 9, Jesus says, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you, abide in My love.”
Jesus ends the verse giving a command, “Abide in My love” which is synonymous with the keeping his commandments (verse 10). But he begins telling us why we should do that? The reason that we are to obey his commands (and abide in his love) is because Jesus loves us with the same love that the Father loves him (v. 9), and he in fact keeps the Father’s commands himself and abide in his love (v. 10).
Now, this is part of the answer, but let’s stop and ask how this should work. After all, it hardly makes sense (at first thought) to command someone and tell him to obey because you love him. It comes across as a one-sided relationship somewhat doesn’t it? We love him by obeying him, and the reason we should obey him is because he loves us. That hardly makes sense.
However, if you have children, you probably understand a little more clearly why he would say such a thing. For example, when you tell your children to brush their teeth, to eat their vegetables, or not to play in the street, couldn’t you tell them that the main reason you are telling them to obey such commands is because you love them? You want more for them than they can understand don’t you? When they do not want to brush their teeth, you command them to, and you do it because you love them. For they can only feel in themselves that it is not enjoyable, and therefore they don’t want to do it. But you are looking to them in love, and you are wanting them to enjoy years of having teeth, so you command them to brush their teeth—because you love them. Isn’t that what Jesus does in verse 9? He tells them that he loves us like the Father loves him, and then tells us to abide in his love (which is the same thing as keeping his commandments—remember that!).
And what do you do sometimes when your child still seems not to understand? What do you do if they still are not convinced? I remember times growing up when my mom would tell me to do something like brush my teeth, and she would tell me that it was because she loved me and wanted what was best for me. However, I wouldn’t see it, and so I would question still if this was really the best thing to do. And then, she would say to me, “I brush my teeth.” And, man, that carried weight. After all, she wasn’t just telling me that I should do it because she loves me, she believed in the benefit of it enough that she did it herself.
I think that is what Jesus is wanting to show us in verse 10. He has already told us to keep his commandments/abide in his love because he loves us. And then in our still questioning look, he tells us the same thing again in verse 10, but then he adds, “Even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” Jesus is showing us the great benefit of obeying his commandments and abiding in his love. And the way he shows us is by allowing us to know that he does it himself. Therefore, if our understanding of what he has said so far is correct, then we should be thinking, “So, this ‘keeping his commandments’ probably is a good thing because Jesus does it.”
And Jesus sees right into our minds and affirms our thoughts in verse 11 writing, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”
Jesus says to us, “You got it! The reason I am telling you to do these things is because I want you to experience the same joy that I do. I want your joy to be made full.”
He commands us because he loves us, and he loves us because he commands us. Do you see that, if he didn’t love us he wouldn’t tell us to do what would bring us most joy, for that is what he is doing in commanding us to obey him.
The most loving thing God can do for us is to invite us to worship him forever. We long for such a thing. That is why we love to gaze at the stars, or mountains, or the ocean. We love to be blown away by the magnitude of something that is far greater than us.
Or to show it another way: would you feel more loved by me if I gave you a toy car and said, “Enjoy delighting in this forever” or if I gave you something that is infinite in its pleasures [you could never run out of joys to behold in this] and said, “Enjoy delighting in that forever?” Of course, you say, the latter. And you would be right. Then, do we see that is exactly what God is doing by taking us out of the center of the universe [where we existed in our minds] and telling us to delight ourselves in him and to let our world revolve around him. To say that God is passionate about his glory in everything that he does and that he loves us is not a contradictory thing to say.
When we read the commands of God, we should see them as an invitation to experience our greatest joy. And that is why we should treasure God’s word.
But where should we go from there? God has loved us, or to say it another way, he has invited us to join in his great joy. So what are we to do? We are to be doing the same thing.
Jesus says in verse 12, “This is my commandment [this is what he has told us to keep], that you love one another, just as I have loved you.” We are to love one another in the same way that God has loved us. And God has loved us by exhorting us to join in his joy. Therefore, I would conclude that we are to love others by exhorting them to join in the great joy that is God. Do you then see how crucial a God-centered theology is for living as God commands us? Do you see how important it is for missions? Your love for people flows directly out of your overflowing love for God and knowing the great joy that he is.
So really, loving others is an overflowing of the joy that you find in God.
C.S. Lewis saw this same thing in the Psalms. He had seen all the commands in the Psalms from God to praise God, and he thought that it made God seem to be like an old lady craving compliments, but then he wrote,
“But the most obvious fact about praise—whether of God or any thing—strangely escaped me. I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor. I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought in to check it. The world rings with praise-lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside, players praising their favorite game—praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars. I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balanced and capacious, minds, praised most, while the cranks, misfits and malcontents praised least … I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise what ever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: ‘Isn’t she lovely? Wasn’t it glorious? Don’t you think that magnificent?’ The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about. My whole, more general, difficulty about the praise of God depended on my absurdly denying to us, as regards the supremely Valuable, what we delight to do, what indeed we can’t help doing, about everything else we value.
I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.” (C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, [New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1958], pp. 93-95).
Yes, Lewis yes! And I would add, that our joy in God is only furthered when we are able to share that with others and enable them to see that beauty.
You love people when you exhort them to obey the commands of God. He has made us his friends by revealing to us what is there behind his commandments. How honored are we!
But lest we think we understand a picture of why God commands us to make much of him throughout eternity because of ourselves, he assures us that we know because he chose us (v. 16).
And so in verse 16, he tells us, “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 of the Father in My name, He may give it to you.”
We have the privilege of having been loved by God and invited to partake and immerse ourselves in the greatest joy in the universe—God. And then we have been appointed to go and obey his commands, bearing fruit as we invite others to join in our joy—in fact, to complete our joy. And therefore, again, let us ask that he would open the door in men’s hearts so that we could show them the love that he has shown us. And let us labor in prayer for ourselves and one another so that we, as his children, may all taste and know the infinite joy of God.
Labor in the word and in praying for obedience to its commands, brothers and sisters. It has been written for our joy. Let us worship a God so great that the most loving thing he can do for us is invite us to delight ourselves in him, for there is nothing greater!
May his grace be with you. Amen.