John 15:11,12 - Complete joy

15:11

Why does Christ tells us to obey Him? Is it because He is a hard taskmaster? No, but because He wants our joy to be complete. Joy is not just a feeling, it is so much more than that. It is a life that is lived the way it is meant to be lived, a person who is at peace. We were created with a purpose. We did not come into existence by chance, the fact that we were created at all is fundamental to having a right understanding of who we are. And we were created with a purpose, but we rebelled against that purpose and that is the root of all our problems, of all our discontent. Jesus calls us back to that purpose, He calls us back home. He wants us to have His joy in our lives, and that joy was the joy of loving, obeying and knowing the Father completely. This is the joy that Jesus came to give us, and it is the most precious joy that a man or woman can have.

15:12

“My command is this: Love one another as I have loved you”. So an important part of what it means to obey Jesus is made clear. The question then is how did Jesus love the disciples? Well, He committed Himself to them, He sacrificed Himself for them, and He served them. Vitally, He did all this as One who was obedient to the Father and represented the Father. Jesus’ love is not just sentimental, not just serving, the obedience to the Father is central. He loved the Father above all else. We are to love each other as servants of Christ.

John 15:9,10 - Loving and obeying

15:9

One of the themes that runs through John’s gospel is the similarity between our relationship with Jesus and Jesus’ relationship with the Father. Commentators often focus on the differences. Now at one level this is perfectly right and reasonable (has anyone of us created a universes recently?), but it is actually not doing justice to the text nor to the words of Jesus. Why did Jesus keep saying things like this, “as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you”? Was it because He wanted to emphasise the difference in His relationship with the Father, or was it because He wants us to appreciate the depth and significance of our relationship with Him? The answer is obviously the latter.

Again, we need to make sure that we do not just interpret the word “love” in a sentimental way.

So how has the Father loved Jesus? He gave Him an enormously important task. He shared His thoughts and purposes with Him. It involved Jesus going to the cross. He gave Him the strength to go through with that task. He raised Him from the dead. In the same way Jesus brings us into His confidence, and He involves us in His work. We too may suffer, but we will also see His power at work in our lives. So we must remain in His love. Jesus constantly chose to obey His Father. We remain in Jesus’ love by constantly choosing to follow Him.

15:10

Now we are told how we remain in Jesus’ love, by keeping His commands. The gospel call is a call to obedience. This does not mean in any way that we earn salvation, but it is a call to repent, to turn back to God, to put our faith in Christ. What are we believing? We believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, this means acknowledging our sin so that we can receive forgiveness. We believe that God will give us the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we are born again by the Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do? He works in our life to transform us so that we become increasingly Christlike. We follow Jesus on Jesus’ terms, and that includes obeying Him.

This is also about relationship. Jesus was in intimate relationship with His Father. How do we know that? What was the effect? It was a life of perfect obedience. Obedience and relationship go together.

John 15:7,8 - Whatever you ask

15:7

We now get another promise on prayer. As we said before, notice the context. Prayer is not a slot machine, put your prayer in, get the answer. The promise is given in a context, it is part of a wider purpose. The purpose and context is our bearing fruit for Christ. Prayer is not about getting God to give us what we want. It is about God working in and through us, it is about us bearing fruit for the kingdom. If we are to be fruitful, then prayer is an essential part of that. No prayer, no fruit. The promise here is given to those who remain in Christ, and in whom Christ’s words remain. Ie it is to people who are full of the word of God, whose lives are motivated by, inspired, dedicated to serving Christ. The more like this we become the more our hearts and minds are in tune with God’s heart. Then we ask and we receive. Notice also that when we are living Christlike lives we will need to ask for things. Jesus frequently asked of His Father, we will do the same.

15:8

Just in case it wasn’t clear enough, Jesus emphasises the primary focus of all this, bearing fruit for the Father’s glory. Fruit bearing shows that we are Christ’s disciples. Any teaching on prayer that just focuses on “if you believe you will receive” is a false teaching. It is false because it puts the focus on getting what we want. It is also false because it will leave you frustrated, you will find that it doesn’t work! Why does prayer “work”? Because of who God is. Faith is not a disembodied entity, it is faith in Christ that “works”. Someone might say, well if God only gives us what is according to His will that isn’t much of a promise. Rubbish. That sort of a question shows the poverty of our thinking. We were created to be in perfect fellowship with the Lord, working and living in harmony with Him. Our rebellion spoilt all that and so life became a tale of frustration and pain. When we come back to the Lord we begin to learn to live again as we should live. Utterly dependent upon Him, and that life is a truly glorious life.

John 15:5,6 - Fruitful

15:5

“I am the vine; you are the branches”. This is such a vital element of understanding. We are completely dependent upon Jesus. Man thinks he can exist without God, he says there is no God and sees no need for God, but he is utterly deluded. If we look around us we see the outcome of a society that rejects God and it is definitely not heaven on earth. As Christians we need to have this basic understanding as well, as churches and and as individuals. If we seek to do things in our own strength we will get nowhere, if we start basing things on our own understanding rather than God’s understanding we will quickly veer off in the wrong direction (Prov 3:5,6).

So there is a stark choice before us. If we remain in Christ we will bear much fruit, there is no question about it. If we do not remain in Him we will produce nothing good.

15:6

The consequences of not remaining in Christ are made all the clearer here. In the natural, if a branch is cut off from the tree or vine that it is part of it will look okay for a short while, but then it will wither and shrivel up. The same will happen to us. But that is not the end of the story. That shrivelled branch will be thrown on the fire. Judgement will come upon those who cut themselves off from Christ. So we see a passive and active judgement. There is no direct mention of hell in John’s gospel (he makes up for this in Revelation!).

John 15:3,4 - Remain in Me

15:3

In Greek the word for “prunes” also means “cleans” and is very similar, so it seems better to interpret this verse as Jesus saying “you are already pruned” rather than in the sense of “already washed”. Why were they pruned? Because of the word that Jesus had spoken to them. So how do Jesus’ words prune us? They cut away a lot of our futile thinking. When we listen to Jesus we do away with all of our self-sufficiency (which is one of the reasons why people are so reluctant to believe). We repent of our sins, turning from our ways to God’s ways. So Jesus is actually saying the the disciples are ready to bear fruit. And when we turn to Jesus we become ready to bear fruit, for the dross has been cut away from our lives.

15:4

So they were ready to bear fruit, but they must not get above themselves. They must remain “in Jesus”. One of the dangers Christians face when we are set free from something by Jesus is to then imagine we can go back to living under our own steam. This is not true. We need to remain in Him, and He in us. We come into a partnership with the Lord, though a partnership of utter dependency.

Without Jesus we cannot bear fruit. There is no debate about this, no question about it. If we are to bear fruit we must remain in Christ.

John 15:1,2 - The True Vine

15:1

Up until chapter 13 the teaching has been directed to the whole of Israel, since that point Jesus had been focusing on His disciples, both the original disciples and the millions of us who have come afterwards. The Father sent the Son to influence the world, now He sends us and through the Holy Spirit will bring His salvation to many. Just consider what a privilege it is to be part of God’s plan, and how amazing it is that God includes us as integral parts of His plan.

The vine analogy has two references, one is to Scripture and the other is to the temple. Scripturally the vine is often used when talking about Israel, Isaiah 5 is perhaps the best example, see also Psalm 80:8,9. The other reference is to the temple, where there was a vine.

15:2

We see here, and in this whole section, the importance of fruit bearing. What is the fruit? We should not look at too narrowly. Ie it is not just “soul winning” and it is not just living a righteous life. Rather it is the totality of our lives lived under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Israel had not produced good fruit, but now the true Israel would. Now this must not be taken as saying Israel no longer has any part of God’s plan. It does, but it is only in Christ that Israel will find her destiny, and it was always God’s plan that salvation would go out to all the world.

These words are a severe warning that relying on ancestry or anything else is futile. If we do not produce kingdom fruit we will be cut off. It is also a warning against “once saved always saved” teaching that says we can live how we like and it makes no difference to our salvation. There is no support for that in Scripture.

It also teaches us how God will work in our lives. If we are part of the true vine we will be pruned so that we produce even more fruit.

The Next Day: A sermon John 6:26-40

A sermon on John 6:26-40.