John 15:12-17

00:00:00:25 – 00:00:24:24
Clint Loveall
Hey, everybody. Thanks for being with us. We finish out the week here in the Gospel of John. Still working our way through the 15th chapter. We’ll find ourself here in verse 12 as we continue. A section in which Jesus has been talking to the disciples. Kind of in some ways more of the same, but some verses that would probably be familiar, some verses that certainly stand out.

00:00:24:28 – 00:00:45:43
Clint Loveall
Let me read them quickly, and then we’ll come back and discuss them. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends. If you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing.

00:00:45:48 – 00:01:09:43
Clint Loveall
But I have called you friends, because I’ve made known to you everything that I’ve heard from my father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit. Fruit that will last so that the father will give you whatever you ask in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

00:01:09:48 – 00:01:35:08
Clint Loveall
I think particularly here, verse 13, no one has greater love than this has been important in the church. It’s probably a well known verse. The idea of sacrifice and sacrificial love that Jesus is highlighting here in. In other ways, this is a kind of culmination of what Jesus has been saying. And so it probably sounds familiar, you know, love one another.

00:01:35:09 – 00:01:57:55
Clint Loveall
That’s my new commandment. You know what I’m doing? Because you know the father. You know me and therefore know the father. And then a restatement of the last passage we looked at this call to bear fruit in. John here, adds Jesus adds in John fruit that will last, a kind of a testament to the character and the quality of the fruit.

00:01:57:55 – 00:02:24:50
Clint Loveall
So not just here to bear fruit, but to bear good fruit. And then Jesus finally concludes here, giving you these commands that you may love one another because, particularly in this part of John, though to some extent, Michael, through, I think the whole gospel, John is never far away from the idea of love. And we’ve we’ve spoken over the course of this last chapter.

00:02:24:52 – 00:02:51:58
Clint Loveall
So the active nature of love, as John understands it, as Jesus portrays it, love is not here. Some feeling. Love is the production of fruit to to love. Jesus is to love others. To love Jesus is to live in such a way that you’re connected to Jesus, and that fruit is produced in and through your life. But love is the the note that John is going to sound often.

00:02:52:03 – 00:03:16:30
Michael Gewecke
Well, yeah. And it connects to what many consider to be that most famous Bible passage. Right? John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So when John focuses on the idea of Christian community and the call and commandment to love within that community, that’s not John sort of extrapolating Christian moralism, that’s not John saying, well, this is the so what of the gospel?

00:03:16:30 – 00:03:40:19
Michael Gewecke
Not that that’s a literal connection to what God has already done. God has love. So therefore Christian community is a place where that love will be practiced. And it’s a joyful kind of love. I think you’re right to point out that it’s a kind of practice, committed kind of love here, not the kind of falling in love or the kind of emotional giving away that we think of in our own culture.

00:03:40:33 – 00:04:05:11
Michael Gewecke
And that being said, verse 11, these things that Jesus has said, that is supposed to inculcate within us joy, well, that leads directly into this commandment of love. I think that’s such a beautiful movement in the text that Christians might be people filled with joy, which enables us to live out this commandment to love. And and of course, that love is for people that we find easy to love, right?

00:04:05:11 – 00:04:29:38
Michael Gewecke
Those people that we’ve chosen or the people that we find in a good season. Yeah, yeah, love. We celebrate that naturally. But the love that we have here’s the commandment kind of love. That this is the love that is found when we commit to one another, when Christian community becomes a place where we practice sacrificial kind of love, the very kind of love we see Jesus living out in modeling in his life and ministry.

00:04:29:51 – 00:04:53:13
Michael Gewecke
And I think it’s it’s amazing that we have Jesus here talking about how the height of love is the willingness to lay one’s life down for one’s friends. In other words, Jesus is saying, I ask nothing more of you than what I’m willing to do myself. And we’ve already had in the the text Jesus saying, you know, I’m soon going to be leaving you.

00:04:53:13 – 00:05:12:19
Michael Gewecke
So there’s nothing being hidden here. This is absolutely 100% above board Jesus saying, I’m going to believe in you, but you’re going to be able to find the way you’re going to be on the way. Don’t you worry about that. When I’m gone, you’re going to be filled with joy, and that joy is going to lead you to the fullest.

00:05:12:19 – 00:05:37:10
Michael Gewecke
And the greatest commandment, which is to love one another. And when you love one another, then you’re loving as as I, Jesus, have loved you. I think there’s this beautiful circuit that’s happening here. Jesus is connecting all of these things along the way, and if we have the attention to see it, the servant here, which we have named explicitly in verse 15, the servant is no longer a servant because the servant is let in.

00:05:37:10 – 00:05:52:21
Michael Gewecke
Behind the scenes, we get to see exactly what it looks like to love as Jesus loves, because he’s going to demonstrate it, and then that’s going to become the model by which all Christian communities are expected to function, as long as they bear the name of Christ.

00:05:52:28 – 00:06:12:18
Clint Loveall
And I think it’s important to slow down and unpack some of this. If we jump in here in verse 13, no one has greater love than this. So Jesus says something about the character of love that what the kind of love that he is referencing here is a love that gives itself for others, that lays down one’s life for one’s friends.

00:06:12:23 – 00:06:31:24
Clint Loveall
And then Jesus says, when you when you do that right, you are my friends. If you do what I command you. And we have to be careful there, because that can sound like moralism, can sound like Jesus is saying, you’re my friends as long as you measure up. But the standard Jesus has given us for measure is already present here.

00:06:31:24 – 00:07:09:46
Clint Loveall
Love. It’s not legalism that it is. You are my friends. As you love one another, you elevate your status from servant to insider by living a life of love. Because the servant is is told what to do by the master. The friend sets their course by what they love and by whom they love. And so the disciples now are being called to be people who live out a Christlike life, not because they have to, but because they aspire to be like their teacher, to live into the life.

00:07:09:46 – 00:07:39:51
Clint Loveall
The example that Jesus has given them. I’ve made known these things to you. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. It’s not your about your worth. This is not about who you are. This is about who I am. And then finally again, go and bear fruit. And this is always the fruit of love. And again, John, for John’s tendency to use ten words one, three will do.

00:07:39:55 – 00:08:10:01
Clint Loveall
John does us, I think, a great favor here in building this kind of onramp to his main ideas. Love bear the fruit of love and keep rooted in Christ, who is the vine. That was the the last passages that we looked at. And I’m giving you these commands. I’m teaching you this when when Jesus says commands in John, he doesn’t mean rules.

00:08:10:06 – 00:08:43:05
Clint Loveall
He means example. I’m I’m giving you this instruction. I’m teaching you these things that you may love one another. Why? Because loving one another is both the requirement and the witness of what it means to follow the son of God. And so, I think John really does us a favor here, though a word he one he he, he never misses a chance to use more words than he probably needs to, but he says some beautiful things.

00:08:43:10 – 00:09:04:19
Michael Gewecke
I think I want to turn our attention here to the specific wording we have in verse 15. I think it’s really interesting because I have made known to you everything that I’ve heard from my father. There’s many layers of irony in this, because in the Gospel of John, Jesus does consistently teach exactly what he’s heard from the father.

00:09:04:19 – 00:09:26:09
Michael Gewecke
And in fact, he said explicitly that everything Jesus does points to the father. It’s a reflection of the father’s grace and love and power. But here it’s fascinating, this idea that he’s made knowing everything. And yet we know as the reader that the disciples have not comprehended all of it. We know that they don’t understand all of it.

00:09:26:24 – 00:09:45:49
Michael Gewecke
And I think there’s something very powerful in that, because Christians do over the years of faith, I think we come to have this expectation that we should have it all figured out that if well, if I’ve been a Christian for this many years, shouldn’t I know the answers to this question? Or shouldn’t I feel confident talking to someone about this thing?

00:09:45:54 – 00:10:12:03
Michael Gewecke
I think what’s very clear is Jesus here has been teaching the disciples. He’s been making known the father, but ultimately the grace comes in the next verse, verse 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you, that at the end of the day, Jesus is the one who reveals he’s also the one who chooses. And I think there’s a great grace and comfort in that, that when we have been shown the thing, but yet we don’t understand it.

00:10:12:08 – 00:10:32:40
Michael Gewecke
The point isn’t that we need to get it through our thick skulls and get an A on the test. That’s not how the kingdom works. We if we are able to accept the grace of Jesus Christ to say he has chosen me, he he’s called me to be on the way with him. If we can come to that point in our life, then that’s all that we need.

00:10:32:45 – 00:10:53:34
Michael Gewecke
Yes, further understanding will come. Yes, living into the commandment of love will be practiced and will be bore out into our life and experience. But make no mistake about it, there’s a kind of irony here of Jesus saying, yeah, I’ve revealed to you the thing and our awareness of the disciples that they haven’t got it all figured out.

00:10:53:34 – 00:11:13:53
Michael Gewecke
They don’t understand the depth of that revelation. And that’s okay. Jesus is going to carry them on every step of their journey, and that’s enough. And I think that’s a beautiful grace woven into a text which we could turn into legalism. We could say either Christians love to this level or we kick them out. And I just don’t think that’s the spirit of the text.

00:11:13:53 – 00:11:18:19
Michael Gewecke
That’s not what’s coursing behind what Paul is sharing in Jesus’s words here.

00:11:18:34 – 00:11:55:39
Clint Loveall
Well, I appreciate that John gives us that path, that the idea is not are we Christian enough? Are we good enough that the the measuring stick here is clearly does the way that we live and the way that we treat others reflect the kind of love we see in Jesus Christ? For for John, that is the standard. Not how many times you go to church, not your theology on some issue, not not whether you messed up ten times or 20 times, those things aren’t unimportant.

00:11:55:44 – 00:12:24:09
Clint Loveall
But ultimately, for John and the Jesus portrayed in the Gospel of John, it is about whether our lives reflect the goodness, the love, the sacrifice, and the dedication to to God’s holiness that we see in Christ. We are to imitate that. And that’s the point. That’s the purpose, and that’s the path.

00:12:24:14 – 00:12:55:54
Michael Gewecke
I think it would be easy for us to read words like this and to trivialize them. To be honest with you, I think, you know, verse 12 is very well known. Love one another as I have loved you. Oh, we can easily turn that into placemats or greeting cards. But realistically, the kind of love that Jesus calls the church to in Christians, to Clint is always, by definition, a costly love.

00:12:55:58 – 00:13:27:10
Michael Gewecke
It demands something of us. And John follows that no one has greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And so I think we have to recognize the call that we’ve been given is a call that asks everything of us. When Jesus says that the servant isn’t greater than the master, Jesus means that in the most literal, functional life lived sense, Jesus means that we give up everything for the sake of relationship and communion with other people.

00:13:27:25 – 00:13:55:22
Michael Gewecke
And that’s not a reflection of guilt. It’s not a reflection of coercive ness. It’s not a reflection of taking one’s individuality and stripping that away. It’s a self-giving vulnerability that comes when we’ve determined that we’re willing to be open to give to another. Why? Because that’s what has already been done for us. Jesus makes a new path. He creates for us a doorway where others before him simply saw another turn on the winding road.

00:13:55:22 – 00:14:24:47
Michael Gewecke
And I think the question of faith is ultimately will we live out this kind of command? Because make no mistake about it, Christian love is often not going to feel comfortable. It’s not going to feel, even in some cases, appropriate. It’s not about feeling. It’s about the commandment we’ve been given to love our neighbor. And I think that Jesus, when he gives this teaching, he sets on one hand in front of us a concrete vision of what it means to be the church.

00:14:24:52 – 00:14:46:19
Michael Gewecke
Now, on the other hand, if you stick with us in the study, when we come back to the next passage, it’s going to contrast Christian community from the world in which we live. And it’s supposed to look radically different. And I think that Jesus is showing us and a teaching like this, how we get to that difference. And it’s not because we have, you know, measuring sticks that we we sort of hold people to.

00:14:46:30 – 00:14:55:16
Michael Gewecke
It’s rather that it flows out of the reality of Christ living in us. And the Christlike character is the one that will demonstrate itself in self-giving love.

00:14:55:21 – 00:15:19:04
Clint Loveall
We said this about the Gospel of John. There are no surprises Jesus, when he says these things, knows where love is taking him, his love of God, his love of the disciples, his love of humanity. He knows where that’s delivering him, which is the cross. And so there’s no sense in which Jesus doesn’t understand the cost of living this way.

00:15:19:04 – 00:15:29:06
Clint Loveall
He’s well aware at this point. He’s already predicted it to the disciples, and yet he commits himself to it and and calls others to the same commitment.

00:15:29:11 – 00:15:48:39
Michael Gewecke
We certainly hope that that commitment and call still comes to us today. Glad that you’ve been are willing to spend some time with us if this video has been interesting, challenging for you, give it a like it helps others find it and certainly subscribe so you can stick with us on studies like this. Just to remember. For those of you who are joining us for the study component, we’re going to be off next Monday and we will be back on Tuesday.

00:15:48:39 – 00:15:49:58
Michael Gewecke
I look forward to studying with you then.

00:15:50:04 – 00:15:50:49
Clint Loveall
Thanks, everybody.