Pastor’s Pen Pulpit Series: Truth for the Heart

May 22, 2005

LOVE AND OBEY

John 15:9 –17

Here we enter one of the greatest love passages in the New Testament. No less than six times believers are instructed to love one another. Actually the theme for the paragraph before us is love and obedience. Someone has said it is possible to obey Him without loving Him, but it impossible to love Him and not obey Him. This quality of love existed between the Father and the Son. In fact the same degree of love the Father showed for the Son is transferred from the Son to His followers. In John 15:9 Jesus said, “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you.” The relationship between the Father and the Son corresponds to the relationship between the Son and His disciples.

In verse 11 we discover that love and obedience issues in a life of joy. This is the joy of Jesus, Himself. Then if His joy is in us, our joy is complete or full. This joy, in fact provides, strength for our walk with Him. Nehemiah 8:10 reads, “the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Joy is also an element of the fruit of the Spirit – Galatians 5: 22, 23. One writer observes, “It is an inspiring thought that Jesus calls His followers into joy. The Christian life is not some shallow insipid following of a traditional pattern. It is a life characterized by unexhausted and (inexhaustible) power for fresh creation.”

The following statements are truly awesome. “My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.” John 15:13 is one of the most dramatic verses in the New Testament - “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The apostle Paul writes in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” However, one must not divorce this statement from verse 14, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” This statement links friendship with obedience to the command to love.

Sometimes believers become so enamored with the concept of loving God (and we should) that they become somewhat remiss in loving one another. In fact loving one another is one of the greatest expressions of loving God. In I John 4:20 the apostle John makes the statement, “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.”

Because Jesus revealed the intimate family secrets to His own, He no longer calls them servants but friends. An employer doesn’t gather his employees into the family room to reveal the family plans to them. Those plans are reserved for the family. Even so Jesus, the Son, unveils the deepest secrets of the Father’s heart to those in His family. What a blessed privilege this is.

He then talks further about fruit bearing. One of the reasons He chose us (we didn’t choose Him) was to bear permanent fruit. We are to bear fruit and that fruit is to last or remain. Question? What is this fruit? Initially, back in verses 1-5 the fruit seems to be character fruit –or the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22, 23). However, character fruit has a purpose – to reflect the Son of God and to be seen by the world (Matthew 5:16). Therefore character fruit is the impetus to convert fruit or bringing others to eternal life (I Peter 3:15). I believe this is the fruit spoken of in verse 16. Fruit bearing branches are in the will of God and therefore effective in their prayer life. The Father will give whatever we ask in His name. He then closes out this section by commanding them to love each other. A reminder that divine love is the most powerful force in the universe.

The question I have to ask myself is, “How is my love life?” Am I practicing a sacrificial love toward my family, my friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ? Each of us needs to examine our life in the light of this great passage and ask God to enable us to make changes where changes are needed. It may hurt a little but that’s what growth is all about.

God bless. Yours for a more sincere love life,