The Three Relationships of Life – Part Two – Our Relationship with One Another. (John 15: 12-17)

Study Notes: 

• Title: The Three Relationships of Life – Part Two – Our Relationship with One Another
• Scripture Focus: John 15:12-17

Main Points:

1. Introduction to Relationships:
   • The podcast explores three major relationships: our relationship with Jesus, our relationship with one another, and our relationship with the world.
   • This episode focuses on our relationship with one another, as discussed by Jesus in John 15:12-17.
2. Sacrificial Love:
   • Jesus commands us to love each other as He loved us, emphasizing sacrificial love.
   • The greatest love is shown by laying down one's life for friends, as Jesus did.
3. Jesus' Choice and Command:
   • Disciples did not choose Jesus; He chose them and appointed them to bear lasting fruit.
   • This relationship is not based on servitude but on friendship and partnership.

Seven Reasons God Chose Us.

1. Chosen for Joy:
   • Despite hardships, Christians are called to a life of deep-seated joy.
   • Joy stems from being redeemed sinners and should reflect in our lives.
2. Chosen for Love:
   • Christians are sent into the world to love one another.
   • Jesus exemplified the ultimate love by laying down His life for His friends.
3. Called to Be Friends:
   • Jesus elevates His disciples from servants to friends, indicating a deep, personal relationship.
   • Historical context: Servants of God (Moses, Joshua, David) were highly honored, yet Jesus offers an even closer relationship.
4. Called to Be Partners:
   • Disciples are not just followers but partners in Jesus' mission.
   • Jesus shares His plans and purposes, inviting disciples to collaborate in His work.
5. Chosen to Be Ambassadors:
   • Christians are chosen to represent Jesus in the world, actively engaging and serving.
   • The analogy of knights in King Arthur’s court highlights the call to service and mission.
6. Chosen to Bear Fruit:
   • Bearing fruit involves living a life that reflects the Holy Spirit and attracts others to Christianity.
   • Authentic Christian living is the most effective way to spread the faith.
7. Chosen as Members of God's Family:
   • Prayer is powerful when it aligns with God's will and is offered in Jesus' name.
   • True prayer is unselfish, seeking the good of all God's people and accepting God's answers.

Conclusion:

• Sacrificial Love as a Model:
  • Sacrificial love involves putting others first, even at personal cost.
  • Example of the Salvation Army members on the Empress of Ireland who gave their life jackets to others, showing ultimate love.
• Obedience and Friendship with Jesus:
  • To be Jesus' friends, we must obey His command to love others.
  • Friendship with Jesus involves sharing in His confidence and participating in His mission.
• Final Command:
  • Jesus begins and ends the passage with the command to love one another.
  • Our relationship with Jesus empowers and commands us to cultivate loving relationships with one another.

By understanding and living out these principles, Christians can deepen their relationship with God and with ea

Transcript

The Three Relationships of Life – Part Two – Our Relationship with One Another.  (John 15:12-17)

Full Transcript.

In Chapter 15, beginning at verse 1 and going down through Chapter 16, verse 6, the Lord is talking about relationships. As I said yesterday as I look at these verses, I see three major relationships of life. 

So yesterday we looked at our number one relationship in life, our relationship with Jesus 

Today we will look at verse 12 to verse 17, where Jesus transitions to discussing our relationship with one another.

So welcome to TBPDP.

He says. 

12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s 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 so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

(John 15: 12-17)

In these verses, Jesus now turns to talk about the relationship between believers. The point is immediately made that love expressed between fellow believers should be a sacrificial kind of love. It is the giving of yourself for other people.

The central message of this passage is that Jesus says that his disciples have not chosen him, or each other, but he has chosen us. It was not we who chose God, but God who, in his grace, approached us with a call and an offer made from his love. And our love to one another should always embody and express that understanding

Out of this short passage we can gather a list of things for which we are chosen and to which we are called.

(i)             We Are Chosen for Joy.

However hard the Christian life may be, it should be, both in the journey and in the goal, a way of joy. There should always a deep-seated joy within us even in the midst of hard times. As William Barclay wrote, “A gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms, perhaps nothing in all religious history has done Christianity more harm than its association with black garb and long faces”. Now whilst it is true that the Christian is someone who recognised they are a sinner, but they are a redeemed sinner; and therein lies our joy.

(ii) We Are Chosen for Love.

We are sent out into the world to love one another. Sometimes if feels to me more like we live as if we were sent into the world to compete with one another, to dispute with one another, or even to quarrel with one another. But the Christian is meant to live in such a way that he shows what it means to love his fellow men.

Here, Jesus makes another of his great claims, saying His answer is, "No man can show greater love than to lay down his life for his friends—and I did that." Many people tell others to love each other, while at the same time their whole life demonstrates that this is the last thing he does himself. Jesus also point out that He will demonstrate that as being fulfilled in himself.

(iii) Jesus Called Us to Be His Friends.

He tells his disciples that he does not call them slaves; he calls them friends. This saying would have been even more astonishing to those who heard it for the first time than it is to us. The title "slave" or "servant of God" was not one of shame; it was a title of the highest honour. Moses was called a slave of God (Deuteronomy 34:5); so was Joshua (Joshua 24:29); and David (Psalms 89:20). It was a title Paul counted it an honour to use (Titus 1:1); and so did James (James 1:1). 

The greatest people in Christian history had been proud to be called slaves of God. Yet, Jesus says, "I have something even greater in store for you. You are no longer slaves; you are my friends." 

Christ offers an intimacy with God at a level no one could have known or experienced before he came into the world.

The idea of being the friend of God has a rich background. Abraham was called the friend of God (Isaiah 41:8). In the ancient rabbinical writings it was said “Wisdom makes men the friends of God”.( Wisdom 7:27). 

This phrase was also illuminated by a custom in the courts of the Roman Emperors and Eastern kings at that time. At these courts, there were a very select group of men called, “the friends of the king”, or, “the friends of the Emperor”. They people always had access to the king; they even had the right to come to his bedchamber at the beginning of the day. The king would talk to them before he spoke to his generals, his rulers, or his statesmen. The friends of the king were those who had the closest and most intimate connection with him.

Jesus calls us to be his friends and the friends of God. This is an amazing offer. It means that no longer do we need to see God as distant and afar. We are not like slaves who have no right to enter the presence of the master. We are not like someone in a crowd whose only glimpse of the king is when he passes by on some great occasion. 

Jesus has offered us this intimacy with God, so that He is no longer a distant stranger, but our close friend.

(iv) Jesus calls us to be His partners.

A slave could never be a partner with his master. In Greek law, a slave was defined as nothing more than a living tool. His master never opened up his thoughts to him; the slave simply had to do what he was told without reason and without explanation. 

But here Jesus says: "You are not my slaves; you are my partners”. I have revealed everything to you. I have told you what I am trying to do, and why I am trying to do it. In fact I have told you everything that God tells me." Jesus has given us the honour of making us partners not only in relationship but in his task. 

He has shared his mind with us and opened his heart to us. The huge choice laid before us is that we can accept or refuse partnership with Christ in the work of leading the world to God.

(v) Jesus Chose Us to Be Ambassadors.

"I have chosen you," he says, "to send you out." He did not choose us to live a life retired from the world, but to represent him in the world. 

When a knight came to the court of King Arthur, he did not come to spend the rest of his days in just feasting and carousing. He came to the king saying: "Send me out on some great task, a great challenge or quest, something which I can do out of chivalry and service for you." 

Jesus chose us, first to come to him, but then he sends us out into the world. This must be the daily pattern and rhythm of our lives as those who have been called by him. Called for a purpose.

(vi) Jesus Chose Us to Bear Fruit.

He chose us to go out to bear fruit, and the fruit we are to produce should be the fruit of the Holy Spirit and as such will stand the test of time. 

The main way to spread Christianity is simply to be an authentic Christian. The way to bring others into the Christian faith is to show them the fruit of the Christian life. Jesus sends us out, not to argue people into Christianity, still less to threaten them into it, but to attract them into it; to live in such a way that the fruits of the Christian faith appear so wonderful that others will want this life for themselves.

(vii) Finally, Jesus Chose Us to Be Members of the Family of God.

He chose us so that whatever we ask in his name, the Father will give to us. Here again we are face to face with one of those great sayings about prayer, but one which we must understand correctly. 

If we come to this concept thoughtlessly, it can sound as if the Christian will receive everything for which he prays. And some to present it that way. However, the New Testament lays down certain definite laws about prayer.

Firstly, prayer Must Be the Prayer of Faith.

James 5:15 states that prayer must be genuine and insired by the Holy Spirit. When prayer is mere formality or routine, just a repetition of words, it cannot be answered. 

When prayer is not heart felt it is hopeless and it cannot be effective. 

There is little use in praying to be changed if we do not believe it possible that we can be changed. To pray with power, we must have an invincible belief in the all-sufficient love of God and his desire to answer prayers offered in His will.

Secondly, prayer Must Be in the Name of Christ.

We cannot pray for things of which we know that Jesus would disapprove. As a general rule I do not believe we should pray for personal possession unless specifically lined to our ministry life. We also cannot and should not pray for something forbidden.

We cannot pray for personal ambition if it means someone else must be hurt. We cannot pray in the name of Him who is love for vengeance on our enemies. Whenever we try to turn prayer into a means to realize our own ambitions and satisfy our own desires, it is ineffective because it is not real prayer at all.

Thirdly, at heart prayer Must Say: "Thy Will Be Done."

When we pray, we must first realize that we can never know better than God. The essence of prayer is not to try and say to God, "My will be done," but, "Thy will be done." Real prayer is often not asking God to send us the things we want but asking Him to make us able to accept the things He wants us to have.

Prayer must never be selfish.

Jesus said that, “If two people agree in asking anything in his name, it will be granted”. (Matthew 18:19). This does not mean mobilizing enough people to pray guarantees an answer. Rather, it means that no one should think only of their own needs when praying. 

When we pray, we must ask, not only: "Is this for my good?" but: "Is this for the good of all of God people" The greatest temptation in prayer is to pray as if nobody but ourselves mattered.

Jesus chose us to be privileged members of the family of God. We can and must take everything to God in prayer, but we must also accept the answer that God, in His perfect wisdom and love, sends to us. The more we love God, the easier it will be to do that.

This is the example the perfect standard of love that the Lord has given us: "Greater love hath no man than this, that he would give his very life." The principle, of course, is not that you have to die to prove that you love somebody. The point is that you sacrifice yourself by putting the other person first. 

How about giving some of your time, your money, or your concern to encourage someone? Sacrifice your interests and your time to minister to somebody else. That’s the true model of love.

A number of years ago, there was a ship named the Empress of Ireland that sank. Although the ship was equipped with watertight compartments and, in the aftermath of the Titanic disaster two years earlier, carried more than enough lifeboats for all aboard, she foundered in only 14 minutes, and people could get quick enough to access either the lifeboats or the life jackets. The passengers included 167 members of the Salvation Army. These travellers, all but eight of whom died, were members of the Canadian Staff Band who were travelling to London for an international conference. When rescuers reached the ship and found survivors, they discovered that all those 159 salvation army officers had gone down without life preservers. What they learned from the survivors is that when they couldn’t get access to the jackets quickly enough all those Salvation Army officers had life jackets took them off  and gave them to others, saying, “I know the Lord. I’m going to heaven. You take my life preserver.”

The motive to do this sort of thing is our relationship to the Lord. He said in verse 14, “You are my friends if you do what I command you. Henceforth, I call you not servants, for a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing. I have called you friends.” 

Listen to me very carefully. To understand the Gospel of John, what I’m about to say is of the utmost importance. You cannot read this book carefully without concluding that, in order to go to heaven, you must do one thing: believe and trust Christ. 

But to be a friend of the Lord, in order to abide/remain in Him, you must do something else, and that is you must also obey Him.

 “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” 

Because of our relationship with Him, we should obey, and the command to obey is to love other people. If you do that, then you will be my friend, he says not just my servant. 

A servant only sees what his master does, but a friend is someone the master brings into his confidence and shares with him what he is doing.

Love others so that you can have an intimate friendship with the Lord because you are being and becoming like Him.

“You did not choose me; I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit,” He says.

He wants us to go and be fruitful by loving so that we can be on that intimate basis with Him. That’s why he said, “These things I command you, that you love one another.”

Jesus starts this section in verse 12 and ends in verse 17 with the same command: That is that we, “love one another”. 

In the first 11 verses, He says to remain in Him. 

In these next verses, He says. “To love one another”. 

In the first section, He is talking about our relationship with Himself. 

In these next verses, He is talking about our relationship with one another. 

He says, “I have chosen you; I’ve called you, I’ve commanded you, I’ve commissioned you, I’ve confided in you”. 

Now I want you to go and love each other and other people.