Love God, Love your Neighbor

Jesus loves me this I know; but my neighbor? He can go!

John 15:9-17

     With this cold snap we’ve been comfortable over in the parsonage – the baseboard hot water heat works very well. When I was a pastor in NJ we lived in a nice, old house, it had steam heat. Every now and then the old pipes would leak and the steam boiler would lose pressure.  There was a glass tube that serves as a gauge on the side of the boiler that would let you see the level of the water inside.  How do you know if you love God, who you cannot see? Look at the gauge. Your love for your brother is a measure of your love for God.  An unbelieving Greek writer of the 2^nd century AD named Lucian observed the warm fellowship between Christians said “It is incredible to see the fervor with which the people of that religion help each other in their wants. They spare nothing. Their first legislator, Jesus, has put it in their heads that they are brethren.” That theme is at the heart of today’s passage.

Review: This section in John, 13-17, is often referred to as “the upper Room discourse.”  Following the first 12 chapters which emphasized the “signs” that Jesus did, this is an extensive section emphasizing His teaching, given to His disciples, as the Cross drew near. Jesus knew His departure was at hand and He was preparing His disciples to continue on with His physical presence. So he taught them about servanthood in Chapter 13 as He, their Master and teacher, washed their feet, and predicted his betrayal and the Cross. He told them that He was the Way to the Father in John 14, and that He was going to prepare a place for them. He also spoke of another Comforter, the Holy Spirit, who would come after his departure. Chapter 15 started with the images of a vine, a vinedresser, and some branches. We learned that we are dependent on God for life and can only be “fruitful” or effective, as He works on us, in us, and through us. As He continues to prepare His disciples to go on without Him being present, in this paragraph He emphasizes one characteristic, one fruit of the Spirit that should be present in the life of His followers: love.  As Jesus was loved by the Father, so He loved us. That love should overflow in our relationships with one another.   

The Big Idea: Because God has so loved us we ought also to love one another.

I. The Foundation of God’s Family is Love (15:9-11). The starting point is the love of the Father. Think about this: The measure of Jesus’ love for His disciples, His love for us, is the Father’s love for Jesus.  The Father, Son, and Spirit were in intimate, perfect union for all eternity. No sin, no selfishness, no misunderstanding. God’s love. “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you…”  There are times when the love of our parents or our spouses or our brothers and sisters might be uncertain, but God’s love is unquestionable, unbreakable, unconditional.

                 “…abide in my love…”  The word “abide,” i.e., “remain, continue,” takes us back to the Vine and the Branches in 15:1-7.  The branches remain or continue in the vine, they depend on it for sustenance, life, and fruitfulness.  It calls us to remain conscious of His love which is ever present, and never changing.

                “If you keep my commandments, then you will abide in my love…” We have to understand this in its context. It can’t be saying that obedience is the condition of experiencing God’s love, or that God will love us if we obey Him. That would undercut the doctrine of GRACE, God’s unmerited favor, which permeates this passage and the Bible as a whole. Obedience to Jesus, specifically, obedience to His commandment to love one another, will allow us to recognize and experience more fully His love toward us. We are enabled to “abide in His love.” Because God has so loved us we ought also to love one another.

II. Friendship with God means choosing to love each other (12-14). Have you heard it said that we don’t choose our family, only our friends? God has done both!  Loving God is something we affirm, we embrace. Loving one another – we can struggle a little more with that. Remember the old ditty: “To live above with saints I love will certainly be glory! To live below, with those I know, well that’s another story!” People are not always “lovable” but love is a choice!

                V.12 says "This is My commandment, that you love one another…” That should sound familiar, if we look back to 13:34,35 we read, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."  Jesus loves us as He is loved by the Father. We are called to love one another as He has loved us! His disciples didn’t yet understand the extent to which that would go, Jesus alludes to what’s coming in v.13 when He says, “Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends…” He loved them to the end, to the cross. It’s similar to what Jesus said in John 10:11, “…the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” It’s the same verb (“lays down”), the same object (“his life”), the same preposition (“for”).  Substitution. He loved us so much he died for us, He laid down his life for us.  

A famous example from literature is found in Charles Dickens A Tale of Two Cities. You remember the famous scene where Sidney Carton slips into the cell of the condemned Charles Darnay, drugs him, changes clothes, and then goes to the guillotine in his place. “It’s a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before…”  We are not going to be asked, most of us, to literally lay down our lives for another. It does mean choosing to love. Considering the needs of our brother or sister before our own. John writes a lot about this in his first Epistle:

1 John 2:9-10 The one who says he is in the light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now.  ¹⁰ The one who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

1 John 3:14-16  We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.  ¹⁵ Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.  ¹⁶ We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

1 John 4:7-11  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  ⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.  ⁹ By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.  ¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  ¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another…”   

There is much more, but you get the idea?  We are not usually going to be called to literally lay down our life for another… That was the attitude of the early church.  The church father Tertullian said: “It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of our opponents. “Look!” they say,. “How they love one another! Look how they are prepared to die for one another!”

                It does mean however that we put others first. This passage talks about ‘joy’ in verse 11. Do you remember the acrostic for JOY: Jesus first, others second, yourself last!  We choose not to be selfish. We choose to go out of our comfort zone to help someone else. To look out not for our own personal needs, but also for the needs of others.  Often the greatest sacrifice is our time.   Because God has so loved us we ought also to love one another.

III. Friendship with God means receiving the Word of Christ (15:15). We have the revelation of God, His Word in written form! The Creator of the Universe, invisible, omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, has spoken, He has told us about himself, He has laid out in human language what He has done for us and what He expects from us. There is much we don’t know about God, but what He has revealed is true and trustworthy. And He invites us to call Him “Father” (I John 3:1).

                Servants don’t know what the master is doing – they follow orders, they do as they are told. God has revealed His plan to us, we even know the end of the story!  We read through the Book of Revelation, all 22 chapters, on New Year’s Eve.  It took us a little less than two hours. Spoiler warning: Hold your ears if you don’t want to hear the ending: JESUS WINS! God is at work, carrying out His mission in the world, and He has chosen to use us. And He has revealed His plan to us.  William Barclay wrote:

“This phrase is lit up by a custom practiced at the courts both of the Roman emperors and of kings in the Middle East. At these courts, there was a very select group called the friends of the king, or the friends of the emperor. At all times, they had access to the king; they even had the right to come to his bedchamber at the beginning of the day. He talked to them before he talked to his generals, his rulers and his statesmen. The friends of the king were those who had the closest and the most intimate connection with Him…”

                The NIV says, “I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” That’s a pretty comprehensive statement – it’s an evidence of His love, His trust in us. We are part of the family. He has given us His Word, His “love letter,” a true and reliable revelation of who He is and guidebook to learn what He expects from us.  One of the best New Year’s resolutions you could make is an intentional decision to be in the Word on a daily basis. His Word is a Lamp to our feet, a Light to our paths.  It implies here that it is a demonstration of the truth that we are a friend of God: “I have called you friends for everything… I made known to you.”  Because God has so loved us we ought also to love one another.

IV. Friendship with God means we have been chosen by Him for a mission (15:16-17).  The most loving thing we can do for our brothers and sisters is intercede on their behalf, in the name of Jesus. Certainly the most loving thing we can do for our neighbors is point them to Jesus.   Bruce Milne calls this “the ultimate encouragement in mission.” He said: “We go, not because we are worthy, or equipped, or attractive, or skilled, or experienced, or in any way suitable and appropriate. We go because we are summoned and sent. Since he has called us he will equip us and enable us for our witness” (The Message of John, p.223).

What is God saying to me in this passage? Because God has so loved us we ought also to love one another.

What we He have me to do in response to this passage?  I hope the title to this message is not misunderstood: “Jesus loves me this I know, but my neighbor? He can go!” That’s not the message! The point is, that should not be our attitude. If Jesus so loved us, we need to love one another. That means choosing to invest ourselves in each other’s lives. It means bearing one another’s burdens. It means watching for those who need a ride, or need a meal, or need an encouraging word.  Is someone missing this week? Give a call, ask is there something you can pray about.  Someone sick?  A visit or a call would say so much at a time like that.  “By this men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”