“9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.
11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. ”
Please think of a public figure whom you respect. She might be an author. He might be a president. He might be a champion tractor puller. She might be a volleyball player. Do you have your person in mind? Now, I want you to consider what it would mean for you to be invited into the confidence of that person.
Imagine that you have been invited to a dinner party by Abraham Lincoln. After the meal is done, most of the other guests make their way for the door and only the members of the cabinet remain. You start to head for the door and Lincoln looks surprised. He says, “no, please stay. There are important matters to discuss.”
Imagine that you are at a private reading given by Jane Austen. She is reading the first few chapters her work in progress Pride and Prejudice. Afterwards she grabs your arm and confides that she is having a hard time making the characters come alive. She wants to know what you think of what she read.
It would be quite remarkable to be invited into the confidence of those individuals. Now you can enjoy the confidence of the most remarkable man who ever lived. You can enjoy the confidence of Jesus of Nazareth. You can be invited in by God Himself. “No, please stay. There are important matters to discuss.”
The apostle John records this invitation for us in this Scripture. He was invited into the confidence of Jesus. If you are a disciple, you are invited in as well.
Jesus’ disciples are invited into his confidence—his love, his joy, his friendship—by his choice. That is the claim of this sermon: Jesus’ disciples are invited into his confidence—his love, his joy, his friendship—by his choice.
We will study this in four points. First: Jesus’ love. Second: Jesus’ joy. Third: Jesus’ friends. Fourth: Jesus’ choice. First, in verses 9-10, we see that we disciples enjoy and respond to Jesus’ love. Second, in verses 11-12, we see that we disciples enjoy and respond to Jesus’ joy. Third, in verses 13-15, we see that we disciples have become Jesus’ friends. Fourth, in verse 16, we see that we disciples have only become so as a result of Jesus’ choice.
First: Jesus’ love. Telling someone that you love them is a big deal. A young man telling a young lady that he loves her is a big deal. A young man telling a friend that he loves him is a big deal. Jesus told his disciples that he loved them, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
Jesus didn’t just say, “I love you,” he put it into action. You can replace the word “love” with “acts of love” if that helps you better understand this verse. “As the Father has done acts of love for me, so have I done acts of love for you.” Jesus had the supreme act of love in mind. He was thinking about the cross.
If you ever wonder how God has loved you, look first to the cross. Love can be a hollow claim for many people, but it is never so for God. He loves in action and that is why His words about love are filled with action; “love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Jesus told his disciples that they had been invited into his love and he further defined that love by talking about his relationship with his Father. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”
Now I can’t comprehend the fullness of the love which Jesus enjoys with the Father. I am often so poor at accepting love that I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to embrace it with perfect vulnerability. I am often so poor at giving love that I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to give it without self-consciousness.
I can’t comprehend the fullness of the love which Jesus enjoys with the Father, but I do have a living parable of it in Jesus. He loves me with the love that he experiences with his Father. His Father must love him with utter abandon and self-sacrifice because that is how Jesus has loved me. His Father must always have Jesus’ best interests at heart and be able to put that best interest into action perfectly because that is how Jesus has loved me. “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you.”
Jesus loves you with the Father’s love to show you what the Father is like. We humans have a very distorted view of God. Even we Christians who have abundant and accurate evidence of God’s character can develop distorted views of God. God sent His Son to remedy that distortion. “No one has ever seen God, but the only begotten Son, who is at the Father’s side—he has made Him known.”
You must listen to Jesus tell you about his Father or you will believe what the culture tells you about God. You must listen to what Jesus tell you about his Father or you will listen to what your flesh tells you about God.
God is love and if you trust Christ, you have entered into that love. Now your life’s goal is to remain in that love. “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.”
You would think that you wouldn’t need to be told to remain in something as marvelous as God’s love. Why would you ever wander away from the sort of love that Jesus showed on the cross? Yet we humans are very silly creatures. Prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God who loves.
You and I need to be taken by the hand and told to remain in what is good for us. Jesus told us how to remain. Verse 9, “Remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in His love.”.
You remain in the love of Jesus by pleasing Jesus. You enjoy Jesus’ love by pleasing him just like you enjoy any love by pleasing your beloved.
Now pleasing Jesus to remain in his love is not legalism. Jesus isn’t saying, ‘I invited you into my love despite your imperfections but if you want to remain in this love you must be perfect.’ He is saying that those who are invited inside his love will lives that are characterized by obedience to him.
Imagine a young lady who plays basketball for the love of the game. Does she play perfectly? Of course not. Is it obvious that her heart is in the game? Of course. Imagine a young lady who lives for the love of Jesus. Does she obey him perfectly? Of course not. Is it obvious that she wants to obey? Of course.
If you want to please Jesus and you find yourself wishing that you kept his commandments better, don’t worry about being separated from his love. You are remaining in his love.
Now if you can’t see why Jesus has any right to give commandments, you are outside of his love. If you see no connection between Jesus’ love and his commandments, you are outside of his love.
You are outside of a love far beyond anything which you’ve experienced. Go to the cross of Christ. Learn what love is. Enter it. Remain in it.
Christ invites you into his love. He also invites you into his joy. That’s our second point: Christ’s joy.
Jesus was and is a remarkably joyful person. Don’t fall into the misconception that Jesus was merely a man of sorrows. He certainly was a man of sorrows, but he was only so for the sake of joy. It was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross.
He invited his disciples into his confidence for the sake of his own joy. Verse 11, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you.”
Jesus told his disciples that he loved them for the sake of his own joy. Jesus told his disciples how to abide in that love for the sake of his own joy. Jesus finds great joy in you enjoying his love. Jesus finds great joy when you make it your business to live in his love.
This, of course, is a picture of God. If you picture God as rather unaffected by your love, you have made a false image of God in your mind. If you picture God as responsive to your sin but indifferent to your faithfulness, you have made a false image of God in your mind. God finds great joy in the whole salvation project. Why do you think He does it?
Jesus invited his disciples into that joy. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Not surprisingly, the joy which Jesus offers can be found nowhere else but from Jesus. DA Carson is right, “human joy in a fallen world will at best be ephemeral, shallow, incomplete, until human existence is overtaken by an experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus, the love for which we were created.”
Now your experience of that joy will only be complete when all things are made new, but you can enjoy it by degrees today. The Christian life is to be a joyful life. The word always is often, and rightly, attached to the call to rejoice.
Now we often find joy in paradoxical ways. Psychologists can confirm that. Jesus’ words certainly confirm that. He told his disciples to find joy in obeying his commandments. I don’t think there is another way to read verse 11, “I have told you this [meaning obey my commands to remain in my love] so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
That seems paradoxical to us because we, by nature, cringe at commandments. If you watched Pilgrim’s Progressyou saw that. When did Christian’s burden of guilt and shame drop from his shoulders? When did he first find joy? When he obeyed.
Joy comes from keeping the commandments; in other words, joy comes from acts of love because love is the root of all the commandments. That leads us to verse 12, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
You will find joy as you love others. Jesus tells us disciples to love each other so that our joy will be complete. For your joy to be complete you must love others. Martin Luther King Jr. was certainly on to something when he said, ‘Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”’
You don’t find joy in keeping commandments for the sake of keeping commandments. You don’t find joy in keeping commandments to avoid negative consequences. You don’t find joy in keeping commandments so that God will leave you alone. All of that is legalism. You find joy in keeping commandments because God’s commandments are the expression of love for others. You love to see others flourish. If your heart finds no joy in benefiting other people, go to God in prayer and beg him for new affections. Jesus is pro-joy and joy is part of following him.
Christ invites you into his joy. He also invites you in as a friend. That is our third point: Jesus’ friends.
Jesus’ words about friendship were something of a maxim of his day. “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” The Greeks believed that. The Romans believed that. That was the final word on friendship in Jesus’ day.
We understand that. I imagine that we all love the story of the little boy and the blood transfusion. This story has been around for generations in various forms so maybe it is true and maybe not, but its meaning shows the truth of what Jesus said.
One account of the story goes like this, ‘many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies necessary to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked if the boy would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I only saw him hesitate for a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “yes, I’ll do it if it will save Liza.” As the transfusion progressed, he lay in a bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color return to her cheeks. This his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “will I start to die right away?” Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood.’
That story is told and retold for good reason. It is told and retold because what Jesus said in the first century is always true, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Now Jesus knew that he was about to put that love into action. Judas had already left to betray him. Jesus knew that the wheels were in motion. These disciples were about to see the following words put into action, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” That is what today is about.
Jesus invited his disciples in as friends. This friendship, like all friendship, is based on revealing one’s self. Verse 15, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”
You don’t let everyone on the inside. You let your friends on the inside. They are only your friends because you have let them on the inside. Jesus had let these disciples on the inside because they were his friends. It may be worth nothing that Jesus didn’t open himself up while Judas was still in the room.
Jesus’ choice to open himself up to you and the Father’s choice to open Himself up to you is what eternity is all about. “This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” If you have been married for fifty years, you know that you haven’t exhausted what it means to know your spouse. You will know Jesus far better ten years into glory than you do now. Scripture doesn’t record everything there is to know about Jesus. It tells you what is necessary to know now to know Jesus forever.
If you belong to him body and soul, in life and in death, Jesus has opened himself up to you. You are a friend of Jesus. Like Abraham, you can rightfully be called a friend of God.
Now how do you know if you are a friend of Jesus? He tells you in verse 14, “You are my friends if you do what I command.”
Jesus wasn’t saying that you could earn his friendship with your obedience; he was saying that his friends obey. I didn’t earn my friendship with my best friend in high school by going to Chinese buffets together, but going to Chinese buffets was something that we did as friends. I didn’t earn my friendship with my housemates in college by playing MarioKart but playing MarioKart was something that we did as friends. I didn’t earn my friendship with Jesus by obeying him, but giving commands and obeying commands is something we do. DA Carson is right, “This obedience is not what makes them his friends; it is what characterizes his friends.”
If you are Jesus’ friend, you are glad that to have your friendship with him characterized by obedience because he was glad to have his friendship with you characterized by sacrifice.
Jesus invites you into his friendship. He invites you into his love, his joy, and his friendship by choice. That is our final point: Jesus’ choice.
In our relationships it is most often the weaker who pursues the stronger. Think about the popularity pecking order that so often invades high schools. It is usually the less popular kid who wants to make friends with the more popular kid. People generally want to “marry up” however they define that. Your relationship with Jesus cannot help but be otherwise. As Jesus put it in verse 16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”
Any relationship with Jesus is predicated on grace. You are invited into Jesus’ confidence for reasons that have nothing to do with you. In fact, you are invited in despite you. Don’t imagine that anything in you gave Jesus pause when choosing you or that anything in you caused him to choose you. Don’t imagine that anything about anyone you know gives Jesus pause or can cause him to make a choice.
Jesus didn’t choose those men around the table for any reason in them, but he did do it for a reason. As he said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit.”
Disciples have been invited into Jesus’ love and they find it so delightful that they want others to enter. Disciples have been invited into Jesus’ joy and they find it so delightful that they want others to enter. Disciples have been invited into Jesus’ friendship and they find it so delightful that they want others to enter.
I hope that you recognize that you have been invited into the most awesome confidence of all by being invited into the confidence of Jesus of Nazareth. When a man is invited into a great man’s confidence, he tends to want to keep that great man to himself. His self-importance is now wrapped up in being one of the few who is close to that great man.
It doesn’t work that way with the confidence of the greatest man. If you have been invited in by Jesus, you don’t want to keep him to yourself. Your self-importance is not wrapped up in being one of the few who is close to Jesus. You want others to enter into his love. You want others to enter into his joy. You want others to enter into his friendship. You want others to have what we enjoy around this dinner table just like the disciples wanted others to have what they enjoyed around that dinner table. Amen.