Isaiah 43:22-26
Ephesians 5:1-10
John 15:9-17

Last week we walked through the first 8 verses of John 15. We thought about the vine imagery used by Jesus as he described how we needed to be connected to the vine, to Him, so that we would produce the fruit that the vinedresser, God the Father, desired for Himself. We talked about there being a single fruit of the Spirit. And that it was all about the fruit.

This week we are picking up where we left off. Remember that in this chapter John is recording Jesus’s words to His disciples on this last night that He would spend with them before His crucifixion. Jesus is doing his best to be plain and clear. He wants them to be ready for the upcoming days when their world would be rocked by His death.

Last week one of the central words of Jesus’s teaching was abide. He told us that we needed to abide in Him and He needed to abide in us for us to bear fruit. In the verses right before our text for today Jesus said

“7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.”

Then he continues,

9 Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

So we might think here that, “Well of course the Father loves his Son. That is what fathers do.” And if we run with that thought then this verse could be something like a comparison or an example of there is love there (Father to Jesus) and here is love like that (Jesus to us). That can be true, but is it all we are seeing in the text? Well, how is this verse tied to the previous verse? The previous verse says that the fruit proves that we are Jesus’s disciples. We bear fruit because we abide in Him and the fruit proves we are his disciples. So God loves Jesus who is our head and He can pass that love on to us. This verse not only provides a comparison, it shows a river, a flow of the Father’s love for us, passed through Jesus.

Does this matter? I think it does. We as Christians often think of Jesus standing between us and the Father. I think we often assume that we are protected from the scary Father by Jesus. But this verse says rather that Jesus isn’t protecting us from the Father, but He is the conduit of God’s love. The Father loves us and Jesus is the way we receive that love. Also we see here, the love of God is not an emotion or a feeling, it has substance. It can be passed from the Father to Jesus and from Jesus to us. When “God so loved the world” there was substance to it substance that changed things, because “He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish.” That love is not a feeling or emotion. It is the source of life. And Jesus says “abide in My love.”

Why does he have to tell us to abide in love? Wouldn’t it be obvious that we should remain there? That should be a no-brainer. God’s love gives life, why would I walk away from it? Jesus says we should stay and enjoy God’s love that he is passing on to us. He is telling us “don’t deprive yourself of this, it is so good.” It seems like he shouldn’t have to say that but look around. There are so many who reject this gracious love.

I am going to introduce our text from Ephesians 5 here.

1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children; 2 and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

As Jason said a few weeks ago, when a text starts with “Therefore” we really need to know something about the part that comes before. I will just quickly (and inadequately) say that Paul in the section before this one has been talking about the importance of not acting in the way we learned from the world, but to put away those deeds of the flesh we learned about in Galatians and to “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children.” Isn’t that a great invitation. Who do children imitate. Their parents, especially early in their lives. And also their older siblings. And here Paul says be like children and imitate the Father and the beloved son, Jesus.

Then the rest of these two verses are an echo of what we are hearing here in John 15. “Walk in love,” like Christ who “loved you and gave Himself up for us.” And also that His offering and sacrifice to God is “a fragrant aroma.”

Think about walking into the produce section when the ripe strawberries or the summer peaches have started coming in. I will just stop and smell that wonderful fragrant aroma. And if I was actually headed to the store for something in particular I can be sidetracked by that smell and end up bringing home fruit that I didn’t intend to buy.

That is what the Spirit’s fruit is like. We see that fruit in Christ and it is a wonderful inviting aroma. And as we go forward keep that in mind. I will try to remember to point it out at each step.

Back to John 15:

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.

If I want to abide in Jesus, I can’t just go thinking my own thoughts and being led by my own sense of entitlement. I have to keep Jesus’s commandments. (Like the command to “abide in My love.”) But we bristle at being told what to do. That is so central to who we are, isn’t it. Just look at a baby. At one month or so a baby doesn’t really even know that their hands are part of their body, but you will know when they have to do something they don’t like.

But look what Jesus says. I abide in My Father’s love. That is a present tense statement. Even as He headed to the garden where he will be betrayed, he is aware of abiding in the Father’s love. That love has substance. It provides Him with what he needs, to know that following the Father’s commandments is good and possible and as a result He can abide in the Father.

That is what Jesus says to us too. Abide in my love that has substance, so that you will know that following My commandments is good and possible and results in abiding in Me.

11 These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

Oh, Joy! Real joy! Again this is one of the attributes of the Spiritual fruit we can bear. And again, look how it is fruit we bear - because Jesus provides it to us by the Holy Spirit. And Jesus spoke these things to us, “keep my commandments,” “abide in My love,” “abide in Me,” so that My joy may be in you. Hmm. My translation (the New American Standard) and the NRSV too, fall down here. The Greek word here is that same word Jesus has been using throughout this chapter. You could translate this “that My joy may abide in you.” I’m sure the translators have a good reason for not using abide, but abide is such a big deal in this text I’m still not sure why they didn’t. We are called to abide in His love and His joy will abide in us. The fragrant aroma of joy will abide in us.

I often don’t feel joyful. I certainly don’t feel like my joy is complete. Am I unusual in this? How can we feel joyful when we read about the sin evident in the news, and experience the sin evident in our families, and can identify the sin evident in ourselves. Nothing seems good. How can we have joy? Because Jesus said His joy abides in us. He knows about all of that sin. He is more aware than us. He died because of it, but he gives us joy.

I found this quote from John Calvin very helpful. He said, “those to whom it has been given to glory in Christ, will not be prevented, either by life, or by death, or by any distresses, from bidding defiance to sadness.” Defiance to sadness. I like to be defiant. And Jesus’s joy abides in us and makes it possible for us to defy sadness. Not that it won’t be there. Not that it won’t be real. But just like death, we can mock sadness as defeated. Not by us, but by Jesus. And when we abide in Him, and keep His Commandments, and abide in His love, and His joy abides in us, then sadness does not get the last word in our lives.

A quick summary, from last week’s text, when we abide in Jesus we will bear the beautiful fragrant fruit of the Spirit. If we don’t abide in Jesus, we can’t bear the fruit God desires. And today’s text goes on to talk about two specific attributes of that fruit, love and joy. Love has substance that flows from the Father through Jesus to us. And joy also comes from Jesus and that joy can abide in us. So abiding in Jesus is the source of fruit of love of joy. Smelling that fruit makes us want to abide and will change who we are. It will enable us to imitate our Father.

From here we see a bit of a shift in Jesus’s teaching. Jesus is moving on from the vine imagery. Now we will see some of the ways abiding will change who we are. This new section is neatly bracketed by verse 12 and verse 17.

12 This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. … 17 This I command you, that you love one another.

First let’s just stop and look at these bracketing verses a little. This is not the only place we see Jesus say this is it? Nope. Actually, we can start further back than the gospels. In Leviticus 19 we find “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.” And in the gospel of Matthew, Jesus widens that to say, “5:43 You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” And earlier in John in chapter 13, Jesus says “34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

So this is not a command that we find in one place in the Bible. It gets repeated. Jesus wants us to love one another.

But what if the person sitting next to me just doesn’t make me feel love? We need to remember, love is not a feeling, it has substance, and it comes from the Father, through Jesus, to us. And verse 12 says, that river of love isn’t meant to stop at us. We are not the end of the line. We are loved so that we (like Jesus) can be a conduit of that love we receive. Jesus says it right there in verse 12. “That you love one another, just as I have loved you.” Just like he passed the Father’s love on to us, we should pass that love on to others. But will there be any left for me? There is no limit to the love of the Father. You can give it away because there will be more. In fact, there are only two ways, I can think of, where you wouldn’t get more, 1st if you don’t abide in Jesus and cut yourseslf off from the river, and 2nd if you get so full you can’t take in more. I can’t hold all the love the Father can produce.

The fact that He commands us to love must mean that we have a choice. Apparently, we could refuse. But the Father’s love is the only real love in town. If you stop loving you stop abiding in Jesus and that glorious river will dry up. Not because He stopped loving us but because we chose to pull back.

I don’t want to leave out one important thing, here. We are to love God first, and love others also. Going back to Matthew in chapter 22, Jesus is questioned by someone, “36 ‘Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?’ 37 And He said to him, ‘You shall love the LORD you God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ “ We should not forget that we, each one of us, need to Love God first. Jesus sacrificed and made himself an offering to be a fragrant aroma to the Father. And he is the source of our life and our salvation. In fact,

13 Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

Here Jesus tells us just how much He loves us. The disciples may not have known then, but we know, that as He spoke these words He was walking toward doing this very thing. He was going to lay down his life for his friends, the very next day. Jesus is letting us know just how powerful this love can be. He is about to show how much he loved God and loved us. He is about to show that the Father’s love and His love were so great that he was going to die for us.

And He is saying this same love I’m passing it on to you. His example is meant to captivate us and encourage us, and allure us. Unfortunately, I sometimes let my experience of myself color the way I hear Jesus. I often assume He is trying to shame me into loving others. “I love you this much, it is the least you can do to pass on some of my love.” But that isn’t it. When you love someone you don’t coerese them by shaming them. You invite those you love.

Jesus is saying look how good this can be. He is calling us to imitate Him, our spiritual brother. He is saying you too can bear fruit that has a pleasing aroma to everyone around you and to the Father.

In fact, there is another layer. We know that our salvation was purchased by Jesus death on the cross. But there is no reason to think that God couldn’t have redeemed us with a single word. He created the universe by speaking it into existence. But he decided that just speaking our salvation into existence was not to our benefit. Instead, by sending his beloved Son to die on our behalf, he shows with his own person just how much he cares about our salvation. That is an inestimable sweetness of Divine love, that if we let it can soften our hearts. And with those softened hearts we can pass on the Love that has flowed to us.

14 You are My friends if you do what I command you.

This can be a tricky one I think. Would Jesus really make doing what he commands a prerequisite to being His friend.

But don’t we do this? I will use facebook as an example. I realize no one actually thinks that Facebook friends are really friends, but give me a hearing, please. Have you ever “unfollowed” someone on Facebook because they keep posting stuff that you don’t agree with? Or don’t want to see? (some things can’t be unseen) I’ve done this.

Jesus is saying some people choose not to be my friends. Jesus is not going to force everyone to be His friend and here he simply says if you do what I command, you are my friend. So we can know where we stand.

And isn’t abiding in Jesus something we want. Where else will we find the love of the Father that is so wonderful. Imitating Him by doing what he shows us and tells us to do, makes us more like Him and that should be our desire.

15 No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

We are presbyterian, right? That means we are part of the reformed tradition of the church. I’m going to introduce a word that other reformed churches use a lot more than we do, I mean I think I’ve never heard it here. Maybe I have. “Condescend. Condescended. Condescending.” When I read some reformed authors and participated in prayer with other people from the reformed tradition I am completely perplexed by how much this word is used to describe God’s relationship to us.

To my Gen X ears condescend has no good connotations. It was always negative, no matter what. As in “You are so condescending to me. Do you really think you are better than me?”

But this verse is all about it so let’s figure out what it means when reformed people use the word. First, the modern definition is “showing or characterized by a patronizing or superior attitude toward others.”

That definition is useful for the first phrase of this verse. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing. Why doesn’t a slave know what a master is doing? Because no master of a slave would have condescended to tell a slave anything. The master was by definition superior, and would have a superior attitude. This is why we hate this word. It assumes that one person is somehow actually superior to another. An assumption that our world has completely discarded. (I really shouldn’t go here, but feelings of superiority actually abound in the world. We just don’t want to admit it.)

But in the next phrase Jesus says he doesn’t call us slaves because he has condescended to be human like us and to call us friends and to tell us what He and the Father desire. But when Jesus condescends it is not just a superior attitude. He. Is. God. And back to Ephesians 5 we see that He gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. He is living out an older definition of condescend, “to willingly lower oneself to another’s level.” Jesus is God, but he became one of his creatures and then gave himself over to be murdered by them.

So in this verse Jesus is saying. “A human master would never condescend to the level of his slaves and tell them what he was doing, but I will do even more, because I am God and I have condescended (willingly lowered myself) to tell you everything that the Father has told me.” I hope that having this grating word to describe this helps to think about just how far Jesus is willing to stoop to love us.

The second part of this verse is: for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. I just want to acknowledge that I respond with “All things?” There is a lot I don’t know and it sure seems like God is happy to not tell me “why” in some cases. Well I have two ideas here which may or may not satisfy you (I mean me).

First idea, I think we should believe that Jesus has told us everything we need to know for salvation. I think He intends that the gospels are comprehensive and tell us all we need to know for Him to provide our salvation. That is why he had three years of ministry, called apostles, and spent a lot of time teaching. We need to assume that if we need to know it for salvation it is here in Scripture.

Second idea, actually a name, Holy Spirit. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to be the Mediator while he is gone. The Holy Spirit lives in us. The Holy Spirit knows what the Father desires. He will guide us to help us produce the fruit the Father desires.

Jesus has told us everything we need to know.

16 You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

Let’s start with You did not choose Me but I chose you. Just on the surface we can say Jesus is talking to His disciples and they literally were chosen by Jesus. We have the story of a lot of those calls in the first chapters of John’s gospel. And these that are his hearers right now, many will become Apostles gifted with the office of preaching to the church and guiding the beginnings of the church. He says to them that I ))appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain.

But is this all it is? I think there is also a word here for us. Remember last week when we talked about verse 5, “for apart from Me you can do nothing”? This is another instance where we see that without Jesus we can do nothing. We can’t actually even decide to abide in Him without his invitation. I’m not going to go too far down this path, but there is a lot, a lot, a lot of spilled ink about this topic. I will just quote from Calvin, because I find his comment helpful. “I chose you, I was not chosen by you, claims … that a man is not moved of his own accord to seek Christ, until he was sought by him.” As far as that quote goes I can wholly agree. I believe for myself that I responded to God’s substantial love that got to me through Jesus and my Christian parents and teachers. That love was a fragrant aroma that invited me to respond. And as a result I too, like everyone who has responded to Him, have been appointed that I would go and bear that same fruit,

Then Jesus says, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This is very similar to verse 7 from last week. I’ll just say that if Jesus appoints us to bear fruit that we can count on the deep reserves of help that the Father can provide so that we can also bear fruit.

Then we get to;

17 This I command you, that you love one another.

We have gotten to the end of our text. And what have we seen.

First, last week I said that it is the spiritual fruit that is compelling to our neighbors and friends. And this section shows in detail how one attribute of that fruit, love, compels. The substantial love of the Father can change everything. It is the only source of life. And we are allowed the gift of being a conduit of something so rich and fantastic.

Second, to be a conduit we must allow that love to be changing us. Abiding in Jesus calls us to change from our natural selves to be branches that are cultured and pruned by the Father. To bear this love we must bear all of the attributes of the fruit. This change reaches deep into us. Back to Ephesians 5, Paul said: “3 But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints; 4 and there must be no filthiness and silly talk, or coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.” Clearly Paul thinks that what we say and how we say it reflects on our fruit. Is shocking with our language worth it? This is about each of us imitating Christ for ourselves, not forcing others to do something they are not inclined to. But it is all about the fruit, fruit with a fragrant pleasing aroma.

And finally, this text invites us over and over to imitate Jesus. He is the author and founder of our faith.

Grace Fellowship, be God’s beloved children. Abide in Jesus. Allow yourself to be changed by the fruit that we are appointed to bear. Love each other and the world with God’s substantial love that is received from Jesus that has nothing to do with emotion but everything to do with imitating and obeying Jesus. And know that God delights in your fruit.

Preached at Grace Fellowship Community Church on May 19, 2019.