Jesus was genius at mixing together seemingly incompatible ingredients to produce something stunningly beautiful. One place he does this in John 15:9-15
In John chapter fifteen Jesus says:
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Remain in my love.” (vs. 9)
Being loved by Jesus that was sounds appealing, but how do I do remain in that love?” He answers in the next verse:
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” (vs. 10)
Whoa! That’s sound pretty legalistic, and burdensome. Remaining in His love depends on me keeping His commandments? I thought Jesus did it all on the cross and now I don’t have to do anything. Well that’s what we’ve been told, but that’s not what Jesus says. Remaining in his love is conditioned upon obeying his commandments.
But Jesus, being Jesus, doesn’t just leave it there; He throws more ingredients into the pot and gives it a good stir:
“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” “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. You are my friends if you do what I command you. (vss. 11-14)Look at the Lord’s recipe. We’ve got: “joy”, “laying down our lives for others”, “keeping his commandments” and “love.” How does that all work together? Let’s start with Jesus’ own “joy.”
Perhaps the clearest explanation of Jesus’ joy is in Hebrews:
“let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb.12:1–2)
Jesus’ own joy is not the cross itself, but the joy that lay beyond it and which He reached through it. What might that be? It likely includes being exalted by the Father to His right hand, but judging from the three parables in Luke 15, Jesus’ joy surely included having saved His people from their sin and condemnation (Luke 6:23, 15:7, 9, 20-24).
So far so good, but it may also have included what He Himself became through the cross:
Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And having been perfected, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him. (Heb. 5:8–9)
Quite the contrary to what many theologians say, Jesus before the cross is different from the Jesus after the cross. In His suffering He has experienced what it means to submit His own will to that of the Father. . . even to the point of death. And He has been perfected or completed by doing that!
So I think that what Jesus saying in our passage in John is something like this:
You will remain in my love and experience my joy if you will obey my command to lay down your lives for one another. Just as it has for Me, the joy will flow from what happens in the lives of others when you lay down your own life for them, and it will flow from the person that you will become by that obedient sacrifice.
What would that look like in practice? I think among others things it looks like:
A husband setting aside his own wants and needs, and caring for his wife and children the way Christ did for the Church. . .with no thought for what he will get back from them in return. Setting aside the time and energy that I want to invest in my own passions. . .hobbies, sports, pass-times, career, and using that time and energy to lift up an exhausted spouse, a discouraged childr, a friend going through some trial, and teenager crying out for validation and direction. Putting aside my own plans so that I can enter into my child’s life, taking delight in them as a person.
“But if I really pour myself into those things, what about my own interests, wants, and needs?
First, that’s why it’s described as laying down your life! The model is Jesus. Think about what Jesus personally sacrificed to leave his position at the right hand of the Father and become a human being. Think about what it cost to give up the care and provision and protection of his widowed mother and his six or more siblings, and the people who looked up to him as the godly carpenter of Galilee. Think what it cost him to see his own physical body brutalized, ruined, and tortured to death. through torture. Think of the shame of His semi-naked crucifixion as a blasphemer. Laying down your life for others actually costs you your life! You don’t have it for yourself anymore because you’ve spent it on others.
Second, those things that seem so important to us get replaced by things far more important and far more fulfilling. Suppose I gave up watching my home team play in the Super Bowl so I could help save a friend’s marriage. Would I look back with regret or with joy?
Third, my primary need in life is to be transformed into the man or woman that God created me to be, and letting go of my “wants” and “needs” is critical to the process. Imagine that our life is like a splendid, valuable present wrapped up in beautiful paper and bow. My “wants” and what I think I need are really like the wrapping paper, and the life and joy Jesus has for me is like the present. In day to day life, it’s easy for me to become like an infant who gets absorbed with the wrapping paper and never gets to the gift. It’s easy to focus on my own wants and needs and miss out on the life that Jesus has for me. That’s why He insists that experiencing his love and joy must come through laying down our lives for one another. The life lived in the joy of obeying My Savior and serving others is like His great present. I have to put aside the wrapping paper and get to the present. . . in this case the life, love, and joy that Jesus has for us.
3For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.1 John 5:3
God’s commandments are not burdensome, they bring us life and joy if we love Him and remain in His love. But they are unbearable, and impossible if we are unwilling to lay down our lives for each other.