John 15:9-17 - Love Like I’ve Loved You

Main Idea: Jesus’ love for us compels us to share it with others.

JESUS’ LOVE FOR US IS EXCESSIVELY LAVISH

• He loves us as much as the Father loves Him.

• His love is intended to bring us complete joy.

• He lived and died and rose again for our salvation.

• He calls us His friends.

• He enables us to accomplish His will.

• He hears and helps our prayers.

OUR LOVE FOR OTHERS IS COMPULSORY

• Our Savior calls us to lay down our lives for others.

• Our Friend commands us to befriend others.

• Our Lord has chosen us to show His love for others.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

We've been traveling through as a church body in the first part of 2026. We are walking through John 11 through 22.

So it's all the conclusion of John, and the particular series that we're in right now, we're looking at chapters 14 through 16, beholding the last words of Jesus. Think about how important perhaps the last words of your loved ones were to you.

Maybe the last time for some of you that a grandparent or a parent said, I love you, I'm proud of you, I'm so excited for what God will do in your life. For many in this room, perhaps a spouse, and the last words that they said to you.

Those words would have been incredibly valuable.

And though Jesus's death was very short lived, certainly as John the Apostle reflects decades later as he's writing this gospel account, Jesus's last words were incredibly important to him, and they are important to us.

Because in those words, Jesus gives us the roadmap of where we're headed, where we will go when we die as believers in Jesus. The fact that Jesus would send the Holy Spirit who now indwells his people.

The fact that Jesus was giving his peace to those that were his children. And then today, we're going to be looking at his command that he gives to us.

That yes, Jesus has done it all and paid it all, and as a result, he says, I want you to mimic me, to love others as he has loved us. We're going to read today.

I encourage you turn in your Bibles, if you have that, over to John 15 verses 9 through 17.

If you don't have a copy of God's Word with you today, there are some pew Bibles that are in the seats in front of you, or you can utilize that sermon handout on the back of the page, are the verses for today, as well as on the screens.

The Bible is the most important thing that we have, and so we want to make sure that we're reading through that together.

As we read through these verses, I want to encourage you, if you feel comfortable, read them along with us, and let's declare together the word of the Lord for our passage for today. Would you read with me?

As the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commands, and remain in His love.

I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be complete. This is my command. Love one another as I have loved you.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants anymore, because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing.

I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have heard from my father. You did not choose me, but I chose you.

I appointed you to go and produce fruit, and that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give you. This is what I command you. Love one another.

This is the word of the Lord. Would you pray with me? Dear Jesus, thank you for your goodness to us.

God, I am just shocked. I am blown away by your love for us. That because Jesus paid it all, Lord, all to him we owe.

And Lord, though you need nothing from us, you give it eagerly to us. And God, you enable us to follow you, to walk in the Spirit, to be able to partake together. Lord, may we love others.

May we love others in this room, those in our lives, as you have loved us. There's someone here today that does not yet know you as Savior. God, I pray that today would be the day that they choose you.

We love you, and we pray all of this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

4:32

Mimicking Divine Love

Jesus says, love as I have loved you. I don't know what comes to mind when I say the phrase mimicking someone.

I know we have several teens that are in the room today, and we got to spend some time in teen class today, and some of them talked about classmates.

I don't know how many of you in the past had a classmate or a teacher or someone that maybe mimicked you or mocked you. They repeated back to you exactly what you said or how you said it, and you went, well, that doesn't feel very good.

I have a five-year-old who's about to turn six in just a couple of weeks, and a three-and-a-half-year-old who's going on 16 if we're walking by SAS levels, and the other day, I had said something, and this came totally out of the blue.

I was, we were in our house, and I was like, man, I'm kind of cold right now. And all of a sudden, my two, like, toddler and post-toddler start going, Oh, are you cold? Do you need a blanket?

And I was like, what in the world, guys? And certainly as a dad, sometimes you tease with your kids, but when it came back at me, I went, what in the world are you doing?

That's not a great version of mimicking, but perhaps a better version is in a drive-through. Let's say, you know, out of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts drive-through, and the person in front of you paid for your drink or for your meal.

And it can be a good thing to mimic the goodness and the kindness that someone passed on to you. They go, okay, well, I'll pay for the person behind me.

And here in this passage, Jesus invites us not to, if you will, be good in and of ourselves or be good without any frame of reference or to come up with our own idea of what God wants for our lives.

He says, I've given you the blueprint for what your life and your love ought to look like with those around you. And he says, love as I have loved you.

In verse number nine, he starts off by saying, as the father has loved me, I have also loved you, remain in my love. This thought blew me away as I read this. The love that God the father has for God the son is the love that God the son has for you.

I want you to think about that in your life. How many times have you thought, God is angry with me? God doesn't want me?

I angered him too many times? I failed him too often? What we're told is that just as eternal and unending and immense as God the father's love is for God the son, that's the love that Jesus has for you.

So on the days when you feel like you've done great, God loves you. But on the days when you've hit rock bottom and on the days when you go, I've made a wreck of my life, God does not love you any less on those days.

And just as secure as God the son is in the love of the father, so we as the people of God are secure in the love of the son. And that's what Jesus encourages the disciples to reflect on.

When he says, remain in my love, here it is, recognize the love that God has for you. These guys within the next 24 hours would betray and abandon Jesus. Peter would deny three times even knowing Jesus.

And it is to those men that Jesus says, remain in my love. Realize that your failures are your failures. It will not be a failure of Jesus to love you.

And that in your darkest moments, in your sins, Jesus will be right back there to pick you up and to love you. Even as we'll see in a couple months from now, as Jesus interacts with Peter after Peter's failure.

In verse number 10, Jesus says, If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love. So, Jesus tells us, remain in his love. Okay, how do I do that?

Jesus, I keep your commands. Okay, what's the command? Is it the 613 commands of the Old Testament?

He says, just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love. So, big ask, if you want to remain in the love of Jesus, you need to keep his commands. Okay, well, verse number 11 is not my immediate thought.

Where he says, I've told you these things so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be made complete.

If I have to think about keeping myself, about living in, abiding in, having my home in the love of God, and I have a home in the love of God, as a result of me keeping the commands of God, I'm going to be scared. I'm not going to have joy.

I'm going to go, I really hope that I don't screw this up today, and I'm outside of the love of God. But Jesus says his command, his command for you to have a home in his love, this is good news.

This is what totally separates Christianity from any other world religion. It's what sets it apart from how we often think about our relationship with God.

Because Christianity says you are able to experience love and joy, not as a result of your perfection or of how well you keep the rules, but as a result of how well Jesus kept the rules, as a result of the fact that you have a Savior who loves you,

who died for you, who paid the price for your sins, who rose again, who said, I know Bryon, and I know other Bryon, and I know John, and they are going to screw it up sometimes, and so I'm going to put the Holy Spirit inside of you so that you are

able to have a relationship with God that goes beyond your own abilities. And so Jesus says there is joy here in fulfilling the commands of God. And here he gives the command.

10:40

The Command to Love

All right, I got to stay in Jesus' love. I obey the commands. I remain in Jesus' love.

I abide there. I have a home there. What do I got to do, Jesus?

This is my command. Love one another as I have loved you. Oh, OK.

But Jesus, like, don't you need some percentage of my income in order for me to love you? Nah. But Jesus, don't you need me to attend at least three services a month in order for you to love me?

No, how Jesus wants us to live in his love is to love as he loved. What a joy. Now, this isn't easy.

This is a supernatural task. We read at the beginning of John 15, without me, you can do what? Nothing.

So even the command here to love, to remain in the love of God by loving one another as he loved us, this only happens through the power of Jesus. So he says, I'm going to love others through you.

And if you want to remain in my love, you're going to love others as I've loved you. Oh, and by the way, I'm making that happen too. So Jesus sets the standard.

He knows we are incapable of meeting the standard. So he puts his presence in his life inside of us, so that we are able to meet the standard based on his presence and his work in and through us, not based on what we can do on our own.

And then I love what he says here. When he says, love one another as I have loved you, he then tells us for the day to day, what does this actually mean? Because if I say, you know, I love Samantha.

Well, I love Samantha in a different way than if I say, I love Jim. Now, I do love Jim. I love Jim in a different way than I love Samantha.

I can say, I love pizza. I love pizza in a different way than I love Jim or than I love my wife. And so Jesus describes the kind of love that he wants us to have for others.

He says, great, no one has greater love than this to lay down his life for his friends. Now, we observed the Lord's table today. What do you think Jesus is talking about when he says lay down his life for his friends?

He's talking about the cross. He's talking about the crucifixion, that the son of God would have the sins of the world laid on his shoulders so that we would be forgiven. The debt has been paid.

There is no more left to pay because Jesus paid it all. And so Jesus is this one that laid down his life for his friends.

But even as Pastor Ron quoted earlier from Romans 5.8, scripture says, God commends, he demonstrates his love towards us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. I love Samantha, I would totally die for her.

If there was someone that I viewed as my enemy, I would not have any like impetus to go and die for that person that was my enemy.

But while we were enemies of God, while we hated him, while we acted and thought in spoken ways, totally contrary to him, he died for us.

Now, Jesus doesn't say, all right, Dave, I'm sorry, you gotta, you know, climb up on that cross, or I think we got one downstairs, we'd pull out at Easter time. And Dave, you gotta die for Bobby, quite literally. That's not what Jesus has for us.

He doesn't say you need to die. Jesus has the greatest love, but he laid down his life for his friends. Christian love, the love that you and I are called to, is a love of sacrifice.

It is a life that says this other person does not deserve what I am doing for them. They do not deserve the kindness that I am showing to them, other than in Christ Jesus.

That Jesus says, I am laying down my life for others, like Jesus laid down his life for me. If you will, we are living sacrifices.

That day by day we go, all right, I know that my spouse really ticked me off today, but Jesus laid down his life for me, I can lay down my life for this spouse.

Hey, my coworker is just a jerk all of the time, but I am going to choose to have patience. I am going to choose not to gossip.

I am going to choose not to slander the way that I would normally, because I know how Jesus has treated me, and so I am going to treat others in this way. In John 15, 14, Jesus says, You are my friends if you do what I command you.

I think we talked about this a message or two ago. When you love someone, you love what they love, and you do not do what they hate or abhor.

If Samantha was deadly allergic to peanuts, like my brother Samuel is, if I was like, oh, babe, I love you so much. Here's a bunch of peanuts.

You would go, you either don't know that she's allergic to peanuts, or you do not love her because you're trying to kill her through giving her something that she's allergic to.

Our God is the total antithesis of evil in all respects, but certainly in the way that we interact with other people, when we walk in love and when we walk in the way that God loves, we are identifying with him.

We love the things that he loves and we do not embrace the things that he hates. God has never once gossipped or slandered. God does not do anything that is wrong or evil.

And so he calls us to walk in that, that we are the friends of God if we do what he has commanded. Can I ask you today, there are many in this room, and if you're here at 1147 on a Sunday morning, you probably profess to be a Christian.

That might be the name that you give yourself. I know we have people in this room that that doesn't apply to yet.

I'm thankful that you're here, and I encourage you, even as Pastor Ron encouraged you, like surrender to Jesus, turn your life over, receive that gift of grace that Jesus has offered to you.

But if you call yourself a Christian here today, can I ask you, are you doing what Jesus has commanded? Jesus says here, these are my friends.

And I'm so thankful that God doesn't give this moniker friends to the holiest or to the best or the ones that have earned it the most.

Jesus gives this title, friends, to all who will choose to surrender their life, to embrace his love and pass it on. Are you acting as a friend of Jesus today?

Jesus says, I don't call you servants or slaves anymore because a servant doesn't know what his master is doing.

The CEO of McDonald's is not going down to the people perhaps cooking fries at a particular location and going, all right, here is the next like 12 months planned out. Here are all of the meals that we are working on.

Here's all the behind the scenes. No, there's a separation there between the employer and the employee. And Jesus says, that's not the relationship that I have with you.

Jesus is certainly our Lord and our master, but he views us as his friends because he has declared everything that we need to know about life and the Lord and our relationship with him within the Word of God.

18:20

Chosen to Bear Fruit

Then verse number 16, he says, You did not choose me, but I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce fruit so that your fruit should remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give you.

What a wonderful truth that if it was on you and I to like find our way back to God, claw our way back to God, we would never find the way.

In fact, even as some verses that Pastor Ron mentioned earlier, Romans 3 says, there's no one that understands. There was no one who seeks after God. They have all gone out of the way.

They have together become unprofitable and useless. But God is the one that pursued us in Christ Jesus. John would also tell us in the letter of 1 John and chapter 4 that, I just forgot the verse.

I promise you, it's in there. Wonderful verse that says, here in his love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and he gave his son to be the propitiation for us, that we love him because he first loved us.

That was the verse that I was trying to remember. First down for you. What a joy that that is.

That on the days when you go, God, I don't know if I am saved. Like I believe you are the Lord, you are the Savior, you're the one that's in charge of my life. But I'm butchering this thing.

I haven't been loving as you've loved. I've not been acting as your friend. That we remember we didn't start this thing and we can't end this thing.

That Jesus is the one who chose us and us in response to the good Lord and his offer of salvation. What a joy that it is to be God's own.

But then God doesn't just say like, all right, cool, you're his kid and you're on your own right after the adoption. No, he says, I have appointed you to go and produce fruit.

Now, you guys know from last week, is this talking about like apples or oranges or something? No, this is spiritual fruit. That is that we have the character of God, the fruit of the Holy Spirit that is coming out of our lives.

That as Jesus has appointed us to be his children, here he appoints us, he chooses us to produce fruit. If you're a Christian, you have been elected to the position of gardener.

You've been elected to the position of fruit bearing branch, I think if I remember from last week how Jesus phrased all of that. And we are called to live our lives, actually living out the fruit of the Spirit.

Is that something that you pursue in your life? Or do you just go, well, I'm unloving, that's just who I am. I'm a sour puss, I'm a Debbie Downer, that's just who I am.

No, let us embrace the Lord's characteristics of love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control together. And Jesus sends all of this section.

This is what I command, just in case you guys didn't get it the first six times that I said it, that you love one another.

21:26

Lavish Love of Jesus

From these verses, we can see that Jesus' love for us compels us to share it with others. You gotta mimic it. You gotta pass it on.

The father loved him. He loved us. We're called to love others.

You just have two thoughts that I have for us today. It's right there on your handout. First is that Jesus' love for us is excessively lavish.

How has Jesus loved us? He loves us as much as the father loves him, with an eternal and unending, a total, a sacrificial, a communal love. His love is intended to bring us complete joy.

We saw that in the verse together, that he has given this so that his joy would be in us and that our joy would be made complete in him. Joy in life comes not through your circumstances being perfect, but through the love of God.

And as we reflect in and operate out of his love for us, that we're able to have joy because we know who we are in Christ Jesus, and we're able to operate in love and joy, based on the fact that we know everything that Jesus has for us.

Jesus loved us by living and dying and rising again for our salvation. Because of Jesus, we have a perfect track record with our God.

We are fully and freely forgiven forever, and our God has walked through death and will walk with us through our own deaths into resurrection. Jesus loves us by calling us his friends.

I have had coworkers, acquaintances, neighbors, but my greatest affections in life have been for my friends. Jesus does not merely call you servants or his slaves or his citizens or even just his children.

He views you as someone that he wants to talk with, to spend time with, someone that he wants to care for. Do you spend time with Jesus? Do you listen to his voice?

Do you introduce other friends to your best friend? Jesus has loved us by enabling us to accomplish his will.

There, as he has appointed us to bear fruit, God didn't just forgive you or adopt you or befriend you or give you a hope and a home and a future. He is enabling you moment by moment to be like him in your words and your actions today.

And Jesus has loved us by hearing and helping our prayers. There is, we read at the end of verse number 16, whatever you ask the Father in my name, I will give you that Jesus loves us by hearing and helping our prayers.

On top of every other good thing that Jesus has done for us, every time that we pray, Jesus is personally advocating for, interceding for us in heaven, justifying us, pleading for us, and personally orchestrating the answers to every prayer that we

bring him. Praise the Lord.

24:37

Compulsory Love

So Jesus has loved us in some incredible ways, and this means that our love for others is compulsory. Like we cannot help but pass on the love that Jesus has given to us.

First, in this, we see that our Savior calls us to lay down our lives for others. Jesus, during his time on earth, spent time with stupid, argumentative, competitive, needy people and he loved them and called them his friends.

Jesus died for them and for us. And as a result calls us to die to ourselves to help others. Having boundaries in your life can be good and healthy.

But today, I'd argue that most Christians don't follow this practice of laying down our lives for one another nearly enough.

Instead of choosing from the heart forgiveness and releasing of bitterness and grudges, we'll cut someone out of our life and baptize it as for our mental health.

When real mental health would say, I can limit access and expectations with this person, but this person will still receive love from me because Jesus calls me to love them.

We refuse to die to ourselves or to lay down our lives in some friendships, because we love the way that the other person makes us feel, or we love that people view us as particularly fun or trustworthy or helpful.

And so we continue cycles of sin or gossip or harmful advice or assisting our friends in bad choices because we have to have them like us.

Dying to ourselves for love of our friends would mean that we draw godly boundaries where sin doesn't get to determine our choices. So Jesus, he laid down his life for us, and we're called to lay down our lives for others.

Our friend commands us to befriend others. Not every person is outgoing and gregarious and will have five best friends and a thousand regular friends.

But unfortunately, we often take a category like introvert or extrovert and say, I don't need to seek real human relationships with community and accountability because I'm shy or I'm not a people person.

Jesus could have went to the cross and purchased salvation without spending years of his life with the 12, the 70, and other groups. He, our model and our Lord, chose to have legitimate human relationships and friendships.

He had best friends, Peter, James, and John. He had close friends like the 12. He had regular friends with the 70 and with many of the women that accompanied those groups and many acquaintances.

Now, you don't have to have 12 close friends like Jesus did. You don't have to have three best friends. But if you're a Christian, our overarching life's command is not be good and don't do bad stuff.

Our overarching command is go and make disciples. How did Jesus make disciples?

He spent time with people talking about real life, talking about agriculture, talking about current events, sharing meals together, and having at the forefront his relationship with God that he wanted them to share.

Who are you discipling in your life right now? If you're not obeying command number one of being a Christian, in what way are we really following Jesus? And then lastly, our Lord has chosen us to show his love for others.

One difficult thing for people to process in today's world is Christianity's claim that Jesus loves them when the Christians that they know are some of the most unloving people that they know.

Your tone of voice, your vocabulary that you use to talk about others you disagree with, your volume that you use to argue, your social media habits, all of these things communicate much louder to a lost and dying world than the fact that you go to

church for an hour on Sundays. If there's ever been a day for the people of God to operate in love and kindness, it's today. Our world and its very systems, they will only be kind, they will only be loving to the people that they agree with.

If you agree with Trump and the GOP, they'll love you. And if you don't, you're crazy and demented and no one should listen to you. If you agree with Schumer and the Democrats, they'll love you.

And if you don't, they'll say you're deplorable and fascist. Our world only knows how to hate. And unfortunately, many Christians have learned how to talk and post from those in the world, not from our Savior.

Those around you don't need a mini Westmore or a copycat Mike Johnson. They need a little Jesus in their life, a Christian.

They need the truth from God's word spoken to them in love with a genuine desire from the heart to see the other person become their brother or sister in Christ, not merely to win an argument.

This lost and dying world needs us to be generous to the poor and needy, both spiritually and physically. This lost and dying world needs us to not insult them when hundreds of thousands of other people would do that.

They need us to have them over for a meal or to mow their lawn or to take their kid to school. Jesus has a way for your neighbor or your co-worker or your family member or your spouse to receive his love, and it's you.

God so loved the world that he gave his son, and his son so loved the world that he gave you, his child, his friend, his ambassador.

We read in 2 Corinthians 5 and verses 14 and 15, the love of Christ compels us, since we have reached this conclusion, that one died for all, and therefore all died.

And he died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for the one who died for them and was raised. Jesus has loved us with an everlasting love.

Jesus has loved us in countless ways that we could never pass on to another person, but he has called us to love one another with the sacrificial love that he had for us. Today, who have you been refusing to love in your life?

And who can you choose to love as you are a friend of Jesus Christ, the friend of sinners? And who can you befriend and disciple today?