The Love Commandment: Sermon John 15:9-17

Most of us remember Jackie Robinson as the first black man to play Major League baseball. In his first season with the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson faced adversity nearly everywhere he traveled. Pitchers threw fastballs at his head. Runners spiked him on the bases, brutal epithets were written on cards and spoken from the opposing dugouts. Even the home crowds in Brooklyn saw him as an object of reproach. During one game in Boston, the taunts and racial slurs seemed to reach a peak. To make matters worse Robinson committed an error and stood at second base humiliated while the fans hurled insults at him. Another Dodger, a Southern white man by the name Pee Wee Reese, called timeout. He walked from his position at shortstop toward Robinson at second base, and with the crowds looking on; he put his arm around Robinson's shoulder. The fans grew quiet. Robinson later said that arm around his shoulder saved his career.

We spent last week discussing God’s love. We talked about how God’s love is accepting of us even though we do not deserve it, also that God’s love is forgiving, we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and yet God did not hesitate to send his only Son to take the punishment for us. We talked about God’s love being supporting. He lifts us up when we are down and he provides people in our lives that give us strength in our times of need and finally that God’s is freeing and that we have to accept that freedom in order to be truly happy. We also talked about how we must in turn be all of those things to our brothers and sisters. This week I want to continue that theme and talk a little more about the kind of love that Jesus commands that we have for one another and for Him.

The Scripture lesson today contains the final speech, the final lesson from Jesus to his disciples. They are walking through the garden on the Mount of Olives and Jesus is talking to them. He his teaching them but I also believe that Jesus was preparing them for the horrors of the next 24 hours. He was also preparing them for the mission he was about to put them on and the mission that we as the Body of Christ continue today; to make disciples of all people. As part of this final pep talk and lesson, Jesus begins to talk about love and about abiding. He says “As the Father has loved me so I have loved you: abide in my love.” We heard this word abide last week in our lesson from John’s first letter. What does it mean to abide? One definition is “to remain stable or fixed in a state” and another is “to continue in a place”. So when we follow Jesus and we obey his commandments we abide or we remain stable or fixed in the state of his love. That is what Jesus was talking about when he said “abide”. We are surrounded and bound together by the love of Christ. The Body of Christ, the Church is held together forever by the love of Christ. But if we want to abide in this love forever we must be willing to extend the love and demonstrate the love to other people. I have said many times in the two months that I have been your pastor that we are being watched. We set ourselves apart when we tell others about our faith. And so when we demonstrate the love that we have experienced through Christ, then we abide in that love. That demonstration, that expression of God’s love to other is the commandment given to the disciples by Jesus. Jesus expects our love in return and he expects the same love to others that we have for ourselves. Jesus says “This is my commandment, that you love me as I have loved you.” There is one word in that sentence that makes all the difference, it is that word that makes this commandment one the most challenging in the Bible and the word is the shortest one in the sentence, only has two letters “as”, love others as I have loved you. This brings a whole new challenge. Not only are we to simply love other people, but we are to love those people as Christ has loved us. Loving others as God himself loves us. That seems like an overwhelming task, almost impossible to do. Where would we even start? Within the verses in John 15 Jesus gives the disciples a description of the kind of love that he expects his children to have for one another.

First, we our love should be joyous. Jesus said that he talks about the love of God so that “joy might be in you, and that your joy may be made complete.” We, as Christians are the blood bought children of God. We are so loved by God that he sent is Son so that we can be with God for all time. The Bible says that we are made only a little lower than God. If that is not reason enough to be joyous I don’t know what is. We have no reason not to be the most joyous and happy people on the Earth and yet we are not. And its ok to be depressed sometimes, its ok to be down in the dumps sometimes because sometimes life is hard. Some of us have times that we get depressed and even grumpy but some of us stay in that state constantly. We have to realize that God loves us more than any of us know or can comprehend. The love of God brings joy into our lives when we are down. We sang the song last week called “Love Lifted Me” and the words are true. The love of Christ lifts us when we are down and keeps us safe and secure through all of life’s ups and downs. Joy is so much better than sorrow and depression and the joy that we have in our lives is contagious to others. People will look at us and say “There is something different about so and so, she is always in a good mood. Many of you may know Brother William Suddath, who was pastor at Elkton Baptist Church for many years. I was never a member at the church but I would see Brother Suddath occasionally in the community. One thing that I always remember about Brother Suddath is that he always had a big smile on his face, in fact I cannot remember a time in which I didn’t him smiling. He had the joy of Christ’s love within him. He knew that God loved him beyond words and he demonstrated, we reciprocated that love to everyone he met. His joy was contagious, you always felt happy being around him. I hope that one day someone can say that about me, I know I have a lot of work to do to accomplish that, but it is something that we all should aspire to accomplish. Let’s all try to be more joyful and I am speaking to myself as well as you all.

The love that Christ commands us to have is a joyous love and it is a love that we can work to achieve, but that love is not always sunshine and daisies, sometimes love is tough and sometimes live gives us hard choices to make. The love that Christ expects from us is sacrificial. When we surrender to the work of Christ in our lives we become new creations, with new focuses and new goals. Sometimes it takes a while to clean out the old baggage in order to make room for the new things Christ has for us. Everyone, including myself, struggle with this, I have had to give up friends and I continue to struggle with old habits but when we are free of the old, then the new shall come and we are made new by Christ. Jesus told his disciples that “No one has greater love than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus was referring to his sacrifice on the cross for his friends; he was once again telling the disciples what was going to happen. Hopefully we will never be faced with the choice to sacrifice our lives for our friends and family. However, there are sacrifices that we can make for our fellow human beings out of love. We might sacrifice some money to a needy person, we might sacrifice some time to work at a soup kitchen or visit a neighbor. We might sacrifice some canned goods to those you are hungry, but all these sacrifices should not be done because we feel obligated to do it or because we are afraid of God’s punishment if we don’t do it, but because of the love that we have for one another, the love that is expected of us by Jesus.

Jesus reminded the disciples that they were chosen specifically by Jesus. Each one was chosen for a reason and they had been appointed to go and bear fruit, just has we have been chosen and appointed to go and bear much fruit. Fruit is used as a metaphor many times in churches. In fact it would be hard to go to a district or conference meeting without hearing fruit used to describe the good the Church is doing. Fruit is the result of our ministries as a church. Fruit is the result of our joy and the spreading of that joy. Fruit is the result of all the sacrifices we make in our lives. All of us in this room this morning are fruit. Someone in our lives planted the seed and nurtured us in our faith and we have become mature fruit of God’s Church. Jesus continues by saying that the fruit that we bear for God is the kind that lasts. It does not wither or rot and it does not come or go with the seasons, but it is preserved for all times.

We are friends with Christ. We are workers in the kingdom of God. When we share the love of Christ with the world then we are connected with Christ; we abide in Christ and he abides in us. We are unified together as children of God within his love. Our connection with that love and our sharing of that love to our brothers and sisters serves as our Christian IDs, our identifying mark as Christians; it is the mark of Christ. Our love should be joyous, our joy should spread to all those around us. Our love is sacrificial; we sacrifice the old ways to make room for new blessings from God and we make sacrifices of ourselves to help others. Finally our love bears fruit. The fruit of our love is the bringing new people into the church and bringing help to those who are in need. This is what our love should be and it something that we must strive toward. Love others as I have loved you. It is not easy, but with the help of Christ it is possible.