Love and Joy in Christ
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2018 · 11 March 2018
Starting in John 15, we have this definitive statement about distinguishing a false branch from a true branch, a false disciple from a true disciple, a false Christian from a true Christian. He does it with this analogy of a vine and branches. If you are attached to Christ don’t leave. Give evidence that your faith is real. If you leave, you demonstrate that you are a fruitless branch, you never had eternal life, and will be cut off and burned.
In other words, if you are connected to the vine, the life of God, which is pure and holy, will manifest itself through you. You will be characterized by righteousness: by righteous thoughts, righteous words and righteous deeds – not perfect, because that divine nature is still incarcerated in unredeemed human flesh, and only when you get rid of this sinful body will you be perfect.
Our Lord says words that are familiar to us in verse 9 and 10, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. 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.” For us, that statement in verse 9 is so important: “Abide in My love.” “Stay in the place of My love.” Jude 21 says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God.”
Well, how do you stay in that circle? How do you do that? You love Him in return. How do you demonstrate that love? Go back to 14:15. “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:21, “He who has My commandments keeps them is the one who love Me.” Stay in the place where you can receive the maximum outpouring of love. If not you’re going to get disciplined. Hebrews 12:6, “For whom the Lord loves He chastens.”
When we think of friendship, we think of equality. We don’t think of hierarchy. We don’t think of commands, and submission and authority. But that rather strange reality of “you can be my friend if you do everything I say to you” is exactly what Jesus says in this passage. “I want you to be My friend. But if you expect to be My friend, then you must do everything I ask you.”
Verse 12-15, “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.”
Verse 16-17, “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.” It seems strange in calling people friends to keep repeating to them commands, but that’s exactly what our Lord does.
Now, I know there are a lot of things in the Bible that people don’t understand. There are some things that we don’t understand because we can’t, because there is an infinite reality to them and we have finite minds. There are eternal realities we cannot grasp; there are a lot of them. Just try to think of eternity and see how that works. So there are things that we can’t understand because we are finite.
Old Testament writers were actually writing as the Spirit of God spoke to them, and they wrote it down, and then Peter says they read what they wrote to try to figure out what they were talking about, because they were talking about the future and they wanted to know what time, what person they were writing about. The Messiah hadn’t come, and gone through His life and death and resurrection ministry.
I love the things that I can’t grasp because it proves to me the Bible wasn’t written by men; it is one of the marks of its divinity. However, there are some things that people think are hard to understand that are not. One of those things is the doctrine of divine election. God elects people, predestines people to salvation; wrote their names in a book before the foundation of the world.
Just so you know where we are in this text, it is Thursday night of the final week of our Lord’s life. Friday He will die on the cross. The whole evening has been spent with the disciples. They were all there at the beginning, all twelve of them, for the Passover meal in the upper room. After the meal has ended, Judas was dismissed; Satan entered him, and he will come to the garden, arrest Jesus, and put Him on the cross the next day.
It’s an amazing night. It was the last official Passover meal. Our Lord has for all the hours as recorded in John 13, 14, 15, and 16, been making amazing promises to His disciples. He has been giving them some warnings along the way; but primarily, these are words of great promise. And as they walk, the Lord, one more time, gives them an amazing promise: “If you do what I say, you can be My friends.”
And our Lord then, in John 17 summarizes it in verses 25 and 26 with this final statement: “O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. 26 And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” This is where the love of God is promised through Christ to all who belong to Him.
But love hits its high point in John 15:12-17; and the high point, of course, is verse 13: “Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends.” In this paragraph that we just read, the Lord expresses His love and commands His disciples to love Him and to love others, to live in love. We are to love them and love each other. Love defines this relationship.
And it is a very unique kind of love. In verse 14, we read, “You are My friends.” But in verse 15, it says, “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.” Jesus identifies the disciples as slaves or servants who are also friends. This is a new dynamic reality: we are servants who have now become friends.
The word “friend” in the Greek is philos. It’s from the Greek verb phileō which means “to love, to have affection for.” Jesus says, “You are My friends – servants who are loved.” There are no secrets. Verse 15 basically says that I will tell you everything. Everything the Father has revealed, I pass on to you. You know Me better than anyone knows Me. You know Me most intimately.”
If you say you’re a Christian, then immediately you would say, “Jesus is Lord.” That’s what sets a Christian apart. Caesar is not Lord. And by the way, in the ancient world, everybody was confessing “Caesar is Lord.” Along came these other people saying, “No, Caesar is not Lord. Jesus is Lord, and we are slaves of Jesus. We are intimate friends of Him.” You can’t even be a Christian unless you confess Jesus is Lord.
Romans 10:9-10, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” And 1 Corinthians 12:3 says, “No one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.” It is an essential required confession and belief, and it demands heart submission.
“Jesus is Lord.” That is the Christian confession, it is the word Kurios. The word “Lord” means “one who has power, ownership, and absolute authority.” It is used 750 times in the New Testament, and its meaning is not in question. When the New Testament refers to Jesus, it primarily refers to Him as Kurios, Lord. The lordship of Christ is clearly declared throughout the entire New Testament.
When you say “Lord,” that’s slave talk. You are saying, “He is the Master with absolute power and absolute dominion.” But now the church is much less interested in theology; and practically speaking, evangelicalism. It’s really all about me. They have really been influenced by the culture. The church has become an assembly of people who think they are there to tell God what He needs to do for them, what He needs to give to them. Jesus said in Luke 6:46, “Why do you call Me Lord and do not the things which I say?
Christians are servants. The Bible doesn’t condone slavery. It recognizes that it is and has been a social construct, but it assaults every unrighteous abuse of every kind of relationship, including that one. But we recognize, that that may be the best of all possible relationships because you are bought and owned, and cared for, and protected, and provided for, and rewarded, and loved.
Have you heard the word doulos? It means slave. It appears 130 times in the New Testament. Now, you won’t find them because almost all of those are translated by the word “servant” or “bondservant.” A slave is someone who is bought and owned. A slave was somebody who had no personal rights and no freedom. That is very different from being a servant. A servant is someone who serves. A slave is someone who is owned.
I’m not free under Christ. My freedoms are defined by Him. My duties are defined by Him. My convictions are defined by Him. My words are defined by Him. My actions are defined by Him. My relationships are defined by Him. Everything in my life is defined by Him. When I said, “Jesus is Lord,” I have yielded up total submission to the control and commands of the Lord.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul says, “You are not your own, you were bought with a price.” Acts 20:28 says again, “the church of God which He has purchased with His own blood.” 2 Peter 2:1 refers to “the Lord who bought them.” Revelation 5: 9, “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seal; for You were slain and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
What does it mean to be a Christian? Oh, Jesus wants to come into your life and fix everything, make you happy, and give you what you want. That is an absolute lie. That’s the same thing the devil promises to people. The message of the cross is, “Jesus is Lord and if you want to follow Him and receive forgiveness of sin and salvation, you confess Him as Lord, and you become His slave.”
The whole New Testament is based on it. We are chosen. Do you see what He said in verse 16: “You didn’t choose Me, I chose you”. I went into the slave market of sin. I chose you. I bought you. I own you. I care for you. You’re dependent on me. I discipline you, I reward you, I protect you, and you obey Me so willingly because your heart has been changed, that you’re not just slaves, you’re also friends.”
I’m so blessed to be His slave; to be chosen, bought, owned, provided for, all my needs protected from all harm, and one day, I will be more than a friend; I will be a son with full inheritance. I will be a joint heir. Revelation says I will be in heaven, sitting on the throne with Christ, my brother, and inheriting everything that God has. You are a slave who became a son; Jesus is a son who became a slave.
You are a slave who will receive all the glories of heaven when the reality of you being a son is fulfilled. He was a Son who possessed all the glories of heaven and emptied Himself of them to become a slave. Jesus shows us what that slavery is: “Not My will, but Thine be done, all the way to the cross; if it means death.” That’s taking up your cross, emptying yourself, denying yourself, and following Jesus all the way to death.
And as a result Philippians 2 9 says, “Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name.” That’s the name Lord. Revelation 2:17 says, we too will be given a a name of honor that no one knows except him who receives it.” We will have a personal name that God gives us in our exalted condition. All you should want at the end of your life is to hear, this, “Well done, good and faithful slave.”
The New Testament shows the same pattern, Matthew 20:16 says, “Many are called but few are chosen.” John 3 says that “the Holy Spirit saves whom He will, when He will.” And this is a divine work. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are you saved through faith, and that is not even of yourself, it’s a gift of God.” James 1:18 says, “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth, He regenerated us by the word of truth.” Revelation 13:8, “Those whose names are written from the foundation of the earth in the book of the life of the Lamb.”
Why does God do the choosing? Because no man on his own seeks after God. And more importantly, He does it because He is God, and it is for His glory. Do you think you did something that made God obligated to do something for you? No, Romans 11:36 says, “For of Him and through Him, and to Him are all things to whom be glory forever.”
Is there injustice with God? No. Because, as He said to Moses in Romans 9:15-16, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy.” Salvation is His choice, He chooses to make us willing, and then makes us His own. This is the doctrine in the Bible that crushes pride, exalts God, produces joy, grants honor, motivates holiness and gives hope to us as believers. Let us pray.