John 15:9-17 [Easter 6 CWS B] Confirmation Sunday Pastor Ron Koehler Grace—Benson/Vail, AZ May 6, 2018 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 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. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 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. 9
In the name of the One who loved us and gave himself for us, our Savior Jesus Christ, dear friends,
If you were to go to a bunch of the University of Arizona baseball games, after a while, you would be able to recognize the players, right? After all, you can get fairly close to the field and the players wear ball caps, but you can see their faces and sometimes they take their hats off. If you were walking around in the mall, you could likely pick them out; you’d recognize them. Their athletic builds would also help identify them. Certainly a U of A shirt would help too. There are any number of things that would make that U of A baseball player recognizable to you. What about when it comes to Christians? Are people able to recognize and identify Christians? Well, if they saw them in the church, it would be easier, right? But Christians don’t wear a uniform and we come in all shapes and sizes. So what about when Christians are out in the workplace or at school or driving or at the grocery store? HOW CAN YOU TELL WHO THE CHRISTIANS ARE? 1. THEY OBEY JESUS’ COMMANDS 2. THEY LOVE EACH OTHER Jesus’ words tell us about a couple of identifiable features of Christians. As he begins to talk about these things, our Savior says to Christians, the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. How simple is that? Jesus loves you! Many of us have sung the familiar children’s song “Jesus loves me this I know.” And how do we know that? “For the Bible tells me so!” Well this part of John chapter 15 is one of those places where the Bible tells you so! Jesus tells us in words anyone can understand that he loves us. The same way God the Father love Jesus—that’s how Jesus loves you and me. And you can tell Jesus loves you because he showed it. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. The greatest love possible is what Jesus showed. But you know, it was more than just giving his life for someone like a policeman or a secret service agent might do. Jesus’ life was a sinless one. The only reason he lived an earthly life in the first place was because he loved us. He wanted to live a perfect life as a human being. That would be the only kind of life that God the Father would consider a worthy sacrifice, one that would pay for sins. The laying down of his life was much greater than that of a soldier or fireman who dies while saving the life of someone else because it wasn’t just his life that Jesus took to the cross; he also took our sins to the cross. And the laying down of his life was greater still because the Father accepted his life and death as payment for the sins of the whole world. Jesus’ love for sinners moved him to make the greatest sacrifice ever known. You and I have the love Jesus. Jesus says he loves us. We trust him. God says that if we trust in Jesus and his love, then we have eternal life with him when we move from this world to heaven.