No Greater Love

No Greater Love

Pastor Barry Kerner

If you’ll turn in your Bible to John 15, we’ll be looking at verse 1 through 17 today.

In the Gospel of John Jesus uses metaphors to help us better understand justwho he is. In a series of  “I Ams,” Jesus compares Himself to things that would have been familiar to the crowds that followed Him and to us who follow Him today. Bread, light, gates, shepherds, life, vines and more are personified to reveal the true character of Christ.

In John 6:35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life.”

In John 8:12 Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.”

In 10:7, ‘I am the gate for the sheep”

In John 10:11 Jesus said, “I am the Good Shepherd.”

In 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life.”

In 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”

And in John 15:1 Jesus said, “I am the true vine.” and went on to compare his disciples to the branches which when connected to the vine bear fruit.

Read John 15:1-17

It’s that last metaphor with its comparison of the vine and its branches that we’ll look at this morning.

As the Lord spoke with his disciples one last time before the chaos of his crucifixion and resurrection, he told them, “In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you” (14:20). They then made their way from the upper room towards the Garden of Gethsemane. You can imagine the many vines they passed by on their way to Jesus’ special place of prayer. Vines which were just beginning to put forth fresh, new growth. Maybe this is why Jesus used the imagery of a vine and branches in John 15 to illustrate the deeply interconnected relationship that he spoke of as “you in me, and I in you.”

When the eleven heard Jesus say, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine dresser,”  their minds would have undoubtedly flashed back to a series of Old Testament descriptions of their nation.

Mentioned more than any other plant in the entire Bible, the grape vine was very important culturally and economically in biblical times. Because of its centrality in everyday life, it is often used symbolically in Scripture standing for Israel. A fruitful vine was a symbol of obedient Israel, while wild grapes or an empty vine spoke of Israel’s disobedience (Jeremiah 2:21).

In other places throughout the Hebrew Scriptures God continues the metaphor describing His people, the nation of Israel, as a vineyard, a choice plot of ground cultivated and cared for by the Lord – the vine dresser. Jeremiah 12:10; Ezekiel 15:1-8; 17:7-10; 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1

The most famous of these vineyard passages is a song found in Isaiah 5. In it, the prophet sets forth the tragic theme of this vineyard motif of the Old testament – Israel has been an unfruitful vineyard and faces judgment.

Let me sing for my beloved my love song concerning his vineyard:
My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.
He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines;
He built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it;
He looked for it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.
What more was there to do for my vineyard, that I have not done in it?
When I looked for it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?
And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard.
I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured;
I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.
I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and briers and thorns shall grow up;
I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah are his pleasant planting (Isaiah 5:1-7a).

There’s one more OT vineyard passage we should take note of. It is Psalm 80:7-19. This passage is framed by a plea for God to restore and to save his people. It then describes Israel as a vine that God planted and cared for, only to be trampled by wild animals. So the psalmist begs:

Turn again, O God of hosts! Look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,
the stock that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself. (Psalm 80:14-15)

Notice that in the last line, the imagery of the vine morphs into that of a person – a son. That’s what this Hebrew word mean. Although some versions render the word “branch,” the meaning is closer to our idea of offspring. Just as a branch may be considered the offspring of the vine, a son is of his father’s “stock.” But this language also reminds us that Israel – the vine – is also described as God’s “son” found in Exodus 4:22-23, as if the nation could be embodied in a single person.

And of course, that is exactly what the Gospel of John tells us about Jesus. As in John 2:19 Jesus lets us know that he has come to be the ultimate temple when he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”  By transforming the water of purification to wine at the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-10), and personifying the great water and light ceremonies that took place at the great feast days (John 7:37-39; 8:12), Jesus shows that he came to fulfill the Law itself and point to the greater blessings of the Messianic age. By providing food in himself that was greater than Moses gave in the wilderness, Jesus came to surpass even Israel’s greatest leader (John 6:49-51). And of course, by offering himself as the lamb to take away the sins of the world, Jesus came to be the ultimate Passover sacrifice. (John 1:29; 18:39).

As we read Jesus’ description of himself as the “true vine” in John 15, then, what we are seeing is a remarkable claim. Jesus is teaching that he has come to be the vineyard of God. He reveals himself to be the “son” of Psalm 80:15 that ethnic Israel was supposed to be, but failed to be in faithless, fruitless disobedience. And his disciples, intertwined in fellowship with him, would be the first branches to sprout as this regrown vine emerged from the tomb conquering death and promising life.

With this biblical background in mind, here are some important applications from Jesus’ teaching here in John 15.

Abiding in Jesus is essential to spiritual life. Just as a sprig cannot survive if it is cut away from the vine, there is no spiritual life apart from Jesus Christ. As Jesus makes clear, “If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers” (15:6a).

Throughout the gospel of John some people encountered Jesus and even recognized who he was, but refused to commit to him out of fear (12:42-43; 9:22). It is only through fellowship with Jesus that we can have life.

Jesus guarantees that abiding in him will produce fruit. “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing” (15:5b). There will be true signs of life in us spiritually – what Jesus here calls “fruit” – just as surely as there will be signs of life physically in a living vine and branch. Just as James teaches that genuine faith produces works (James 2:14-26), Jesus says that genuine life produces fruit. If there is no is fruit, there is no life, and God “takes away” that dead branch (15:2a).

Jesus tells us that abiding in him involves pruning. “Every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (15:2b).

While watching a documentary on Israel and its vineyards, I was struck by just how far back the vine dressers pruned the vines. It looked overly severe to me and I thought it would end up killing the plant.  The documentary went on to show that it is necessary for the health and growth of the vine. God’s pruning of us can certainly feel severe at times, but we can be absolutely confident that the Lord knows what he is doing. Just as the vine needs to be cropped to bear even more fruit, our faith needs God’s pruning so that, “it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness by those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:11).

By abiding in Jesus we can enjoy true life, bearing the fruit of Christ’s life in our own, all while enjoying the gracious refining of God. As he said, “By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.” (John 15:8)

Jesus then connects the idea of the vine with the concept of love. The message being that if we abide in Christ the fruit we bear will be love for our God and our neighbor.

Love is one of the most important themes in John, and we find plenty about love both in the Gospel of John and in the First Epistle of John. Verses such as:

“Let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”

“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.” “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear”

“Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

In John 13:34 “Loving”  is called a ‘new commandment.’  What’s new about it?  It’s not human love…it’s a command to love AS JESE CHRIST LOVED!  It’s a new height of love, with a greater quality than we possess on our own!

We’ll find that Biblical love is something we practice regardless of how we feel.  As Christ showed us, though his rejection by Israel and his subsequent punishment and crucifixion, sometimes love involves sacrifice, difficulty, and pain.  And love always involves commitment!

And today, Jesus draws on the metaphor of himself as the vine to talk about the disciples abiding in love. “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 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.” If we abide in Jesus, and Jesus abides in us, then we also remain in Jesus’ love, and therefore remain in the love of God.

But we don’t always want to abide in God’s love, do we? It’s sounds like a nice and a beautiful thing to do, staying in God’s love and  living in God’s love. It would make for a good pop song. But we don’t always actually want it. Or, to say that another way, there are other things we would rather do. There are other places that sound more exciting than just lying around, staying in God’s love. But more to the point, in order to stay in God’s love, we have to stay with God. And we don’t always want to stay with God. Or is it that we don’t want God to stay with us? There are places we’d like to go where we don’t want God lurking around. It’s too much pressure, having God around all the time. We wouldn’t be able to get away with anything. Wouldn’t have any rest or any privacy or any fun.

Because, there are those parts of our lives that we would rather hide from God. There are those things that we know would disappoint God, but we’d rather keep on doing them. So wouldn’t it be best to keep God out of them? That’s most easily done by keeping God at a distance. After all, if we let God in completely, then God might see every part of us, see each of our actions and intentions and thoughts and motives. And if we let God too far into our lives, God might even try to change us.

Saint Augustine of Hippo is one of the giants of the church. In Western Christianity, there is no theologian whose life and writings are more influential than Augustine. He’s the one responsible for the Doctrine of Original Sin, which, for good or for bad, has shaped the way we interact with God for the last sixteen centuries.

Like all of us, Augustine struggled with sin. Augustine’s particular sin was lust. In his most famous work, titled Confessions, he records a prayer that he had addressed to God regarding his feelings of lust. He wrote, “Lord, make me chaste, but just not yet.”

That simple statement so clearly encapsulates a particular part of our human experience. On the one hand, we want for God to accept us fully, to make us a new creation, to perfect us in love. But on the other hand, there are certain things in our lives that we are aren’t ready to let go of. Even if we know they get in the way of the blessings that God wants for us. It’s a kind of double-mindedness. We want to be good. Just maybe not that good. We say, “Let me remain in your love, God… but let me hold on to these things. There’s plenty of time. Just let me keep doing what I’m doing for now, and we can work the rest of it out later.”

Jesus invites us to something more. He invites us into a relationship that brings joy. “So that your joy may be complete,” he says. The catch is that we can only enter into that complete joy if we also allow God complete access to our lives. We can only have that complete joy when we abide completely in God’s love and allow God to live completely in us.

Jesus says we do that by keeping his commandments. And he makes it clear that, “This is my commandment,” he says, and, “that you love one another as I have loved you.” Love one another as Jesus loved us. And how is it that has Jesus loved us? Not the way we’re usually taught that love works. Jesus didn’t send us flowers on our special day. He didn’t write us a love letter. He didn’t fix us breakfast in bed. Jesus didn’t do any of the typical things that our culture associates with love. Jesus would make a poor substitute for the heartthrobs of major motion pictures. Jesus practices a different kind of love than the kind we celebrate in the movies.

I once heard a story about a cultural anthropologist who went to study the Hopi people in the American Southwest. He was out with a Hopi man in the desert, and the Hopi was singing him the songs of his people. After the first song, the anthropologist asked, What was that song about?” The Hopi man answered, “This song is about water.” After he had sung second song, the anthropologist asked him, “And what was that song about?” He answered, “This song is also about water.” He sang a third song, and the anthropologist asked him the same question. “This is also a song about water.” The scientist was beginning to be a get agitated, and he asked, “Don’t you ever sing about anything except water? Don’t you pray for anything except water?” And the man answered that for the Hopi, water is very scarce, and so it is very precious. “We don’t have much of it, and so, yes, most of our songs are about water.” And then the Hopi said to the anthropologist, “I have noticed that on your radio almost every song is about love. Is this because you don’t have very much of it?”

Jesus said, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” To lay down one’s life. And when you think about it, it is absolutely extraordinary. God came into our world as a human being. The creator, the high and almighty, and the exalted one above the heavens, became a human being, ordinary flesh and blood. If it weren’t a story we had heard so many times, it would be unimaginable. And what’s more, that same God who became human in order to reach us, loved us enough to die for us, to lay down his life for us.

In our songs and movies, love is often about possessing someone else. It’s about being able to say, “This person is mine.” But Jesus loved us enough to die for us. And it wasn’t in order to possess us, to own us. It was in order to set us free.

Jesus says, “I do not call you servants any longer, but I have called you friends.” Not servants, who are owned, who have no choice but to serve the master, but friends who have the choice to stay or to leave. Friends who have the freedom to love in return or not to love.

“You did not choose me,” says Jesus, “I chose you.” We did not make the invitation. We did not decide on our own to initiate a relationship with God. Jesus came to us first. Jesus loved us with a love that we can hardly conceive. Jesus invited us into a relationship with God that can make our joy complete. If we will only accept the invitation. If we will only allow God in. If we will only abide in God’s love, and let God abide in us, fully and completely, without reservation.

It is our choice. How fully do we want to embrace the gifts that God has offered us in Jesus Christ? How far are we willing to let God into our lives? How much do we trust that what God has to offer us is indeed better, more lasting, more satisfying, than the things we can get apart from God?  How much do we believe Jesus when he tells us, “I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete?” And are we willing to take the next step, to accept Christ’s invitation and take one step closer to the God who loves us into being?

Jesus comes back to this in John 15 and makes the meaning clear: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12–13). Yes. And how do we love like that? In John 15:9 tells us, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.”

This is our newness. This is the new commandment. “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” Don’t pretend to copy me fruit, stay connected to my vine. Jesus says, “Don’t imitate, participate! Your love for each other is not to be a simulation of mine, but a manifestation of mine. You are the branches. I am the vine. If you abide in me, you can bear fruit, and prove to be my disciples (John 15:8). This is how all people will know you are truly my disciples.

So the reason the love we have for each other shows that we are truly Jesus’ disciples, is that it is only possible because we are grafted into the life and love of Christ and live by the power of the Spirit of God. In 2 Corinthians 13:5, the apostle Paul asks the Corinthian believers a question: “do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?” In Galatians 2:20 Paul wrote, “ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” We love as he loved, because we love with his love.

So, True Followers – True Disciples, in these crucial days, these historic days in the life of our church, this is what Jesus is calling for among us. “Just as I have loved you, that you, my people, love one another.” Go low in foot-washing-like service to one another. Lay down your lives, your privileges, for one another. Love your brothers and sisters across all racial and ethnic lines. Love the weakest and oldest and youngest. Love the disabled. Love the lonely trouble maker and outcast.

How blessed the church — especially the church in transition — that loves like this!

Let us pray…