“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would abide, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. This I command you, that you love one another.
John 15:12-17
Introduction
This passage contains one of the simplest and most profound teachings in all of scripture: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” It is a verse I find myself encountering time and time again from friends quoting it to finding it written in various print materials. Working alongside veterans, it is a verse with a particularly tangible meaning to many of them.
What it teaches us, though, about love is that it is something that requires sacrifice. Selfishness and love do not go together, no matter how much modern American culture wants to press the issue. If the greatest expression of love is a complete and total self-sacrifice, then every other expression of love necessarily includes a level of sacrifice. Whether that is something as small as sacrificing time or as big as giving up your worldly possessions, love requires us to give something up.
Love hurts
I would guess most people can think of loving relationships they have. Parents, siblings, spouses, friends – these all involve love in some way. And I would also guess that most of those relationships that truly do involve love are also some of the most fulfilling and satisfying relationships. Therein lies the paradox of love: the more you give up, the more you gain.
Throughout the gospels, we hear teachings from Jesus like “whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake shall find it.” (Matthew 16:25) This is not a simple exchange where if you want eternal life, you must first give up this one. The prima facie reading might suggest as much, but if you consider it in the context of the body of Christ’s teachings, it too is a teaching on love. Because the more we sacrifice, the more we gain.
And as we love one another in the Church, it necessarily involves sacrifice. You will give up your time to visit widows and orphans (James 1:27), you will give of your wealth for the sake of the kingdom (2 Corinthians 9:7), and you will lay down your life if the situation calls for it (Luke 21:12). But in all these things, the reward you gain both in this life and the next outweigh the sacrifice. When you pour yourself into the body of Christ, the body of Christ pours right back into you. You will find tremendous joy in giving of yourself, seeing the fruit it produces for the sake of the kingdom.
You did not choose Him
In the book of Jonah, God commands the prophet to preach repentance to the evil city of Ninevah. This capital city of Assyria was known not only for its immense wickedness and idolatry, but also the center of cruelty and conquest in the ancient world. When the Babylonians conquered a land, they took the people into their nation. The Greeks would do the same. But when the Assyrians conquered, they were ruthless. As a show of force and prowess, they would destroy and decimate peoples. God even calls the Assyrians the “rod of [His] anger” which He would wield against an unrepentant peoples.
Jonah refused, thinking the Ninevites were unworthy of even the offer of repentance. He believed that a people so cruel and unyielding were not merely beyond the reach of redemption, but utterly unworthy of it. Their sin was too great to forgive in his eyes. But God would not allow Jonah to flee from his duty. Having boarded a ship in the opposite direction, “Yahweh appointed a great fish to swallow Jonah,” forcibly taking the man toward Ninevah (Jonah 1:17). After making the fish spit Jonah out onto dry land, the prophet did relent and go to the great city.
There, he preached repentance and the people turned to God. Jonah was despondent that they repented and retreated to the outskirts of the city. Baking in the hot sun, “Yahweh God appointed a plant, and it came up over Jonah to be a shade over his head” (Jonah 4:6). Grateful for the shade, Jonah rested until, “God appointed a worm at the breaking of dawn the next day, and it struck the plant, and it dried up.” (Jonah 4:7) This hardship was given to Jonah to demonstrate His love for Ninevah, a people He created, is greater than Jonah’s love for the plant that gave him shade.
And every step of the way, God appointed His agents. Jonah to the Ninevites. The fish to Jonah. The plant outside the city. And the worm to the plant. All of it was orchestrated and directed by God.
Jesus tells His disciples, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would abide, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” Your status as a Christian is not due to your own cleverness in understanding the gospel or your weighing of the facts. It is because God chose you and appointed you to bear fruit for the sake of His kingdom. Ask from Him, and He will give it to you because what you ask is meant for the sake of the kingdom.
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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