Love’s Mysterious Promise

Mother’s Day

John 15:9–17

By Pastor Dan Kennedy

Today we are celebrating Mother’s Day and also continuing in our study of the Gospel of John. The passage we are studying is found in John 15. I believe it is very appropriate for this special day.

John 15:9–17

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I 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. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

God does not want to treat us as mere servants…but as those who have deep mutual love for each other.

God does not want to treat us as those living on dramatically different social statuses, but as those who have enduring care and friendship for each other…those who would give their lives for each other.

16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

Godly love is of great benefit

Sometimes we think we will gain more love if we tightly and selfishly hold on to our special friendships, our place, our power, and our assets, etc., but holding on to something does not prevent it from slipping far away from us!

Living and Loving as God wants us to love will supersede all of these temporal, superficial values and will ultimately give us the far greater blessing of an enduring, eternal reward…fruit, which lasts.

There is a huge emphasis on “Love” in the Bible…God wants us to love Him fervently – with all our heart, and He wants us to love each other deeply and honorably.

•The primary Commandment from God’s Laws, summed up by Jesus, is that we are to “love” the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength (Mark 12:30).

•We are to “love” our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31).

•Husbands are to “love” their wives (Eph. 5:25; Col. 3:19).

•We are to “love one another” (Romans 12:10)

•God is love (1 John 4:8, 16).

•Love is a profound and broad subject in the Scripture…there are over six hundred and fifty references to various kinds of love in the Bible – with the realization that all honorable love originates with God.

•There are few things on this earth, as obvious, enduring, and as sacrificial in the properly exampled, honorable love of a Mother.

What is the “Love” that Jesus speaks about in John 15?

“12–13 Jesus repeated his command to “love each other” (cf. 13:34) because he knew that the future of the work among men depended on the disciples’ attitude toward one another. His stress on love had been underscored earlier in this discourse (14:15, 21, 23, 28).

•Unity instead of rivalry,

•Trust instead of suspicion,

•Obedience instead of self-assertion…

[These] must rule the disciples’ common labors. The measure of their love for one another is that of his love for them (cf. 13:34), which would be further demonstrated by his forthcoming sacrifice. John caught the meaning of the statement and repeated it in his First Epistle: “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).”1

1. Gaebelein, F. E., Tenney, M. C., & Longenecker, R. N. (1981). The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 9: John and Acts (153). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

What is the “Love” that Jesus speaks about in this passage?

•Unity instead of rivalry,

•Trust instead of suspicion,

•Obedience instead of self-assertion…

John 15:9–17

Unity Instead of Rivalry

The Example of the Father’s Love

9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

Obedience Instead of Self-Assertion

Obedience to Christ and His Teaching Critical to Abiding in His 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. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Unity Instead of Rivalry

Loving One Another follows Loving as Christ Loved

Trust Instead of Suspicion

Servant/Master Relationship changed to Friend/Friend Relationship

1. A Relational Change

15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing;

2. An Informational Change

but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.

The Initiative of the Relationship is with Christ as is the Faith, Trust, and Empowerment

In the wide scope of the meaning of Love, there are many definitions of this wonderful attribute…the following is a poem where I have sought to define some of the aspects of human love.

Love

by Dan Kennedy

Trinkets tottering on the edge of emotions,

Cascading down in shimmering falls of grace…

Diamonds master-mined from treasures

Buried deeply in the soul…

Some would consider

these alone to be Love.

Simple oneness, delightful in its ordinary attire,

Slight splashes and nuances of daily color

Enliven its majestic beauty…

Communion, seeking neither

to be coddled, nor flattered,

Gently satisfied in the ever-deepening heart…

Rare sights of these

are but whispered

to be

Love.

Exotics, exclusive birds and gloriously plumed fowl,

Strutting unashamedly back and forth

across a stage called “beauty and brawn”…

Hushed undertones of rumor, mixed with

half - truths and whole lies,

Undermining our pseudo-cultured

elite and any-class…

These too, can also be declared

to be love.

What then, is

Love?

Should a powerful blender of the soul crush and combine

All the ingredients of Life and Love… would this blending successfully

be able to make a concoction of the true Love-potion ?

Or would these broken and jagged shards

Find their same glory, or impotence, with their illusive counterparts…

And bind themselves once again…

In the strata of their own shallowness or profound depth?

What will stand the Test of Time...

What is…Love?

If I were to say, since I have gently tasted

The glorious flavors of its fruit,

I would say that Love is Oneness… Soul Communion…

A Simple, but unfathomably delightful blend of Trust, Respect, Submission & Fellowship,

undergirded by

Faith, and Commitment to God and to Each other,

All the while genuinely

Rejoicing in the Joy of Faithful Passion!

Each of these precious attributes Fused together –

Clinging in Steadfast Patience,

As they, from time to time, endure profound Trial,

being Purified and Sealed Together

in the Furnace of Life…

This is what I call

Love!

The Scripture defines Love much more clearly in 1 Corinthians 13…

1 Corinthians 13

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

As we meditate on the beauty of Love – originating with God, may we continue to understand the critical aspects of the Love for one another spoken by Christ in John 15:

•Unity instead of rivalry,

•Trust instead of suspicion,

•Obedience instead of self-assertion…

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

John 15:12