Calvary Road Baptist Church
“THE KEY TO ABIDING IN CHRIST”
John 15.10
My text is John 15.10:
“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
I mentioned during our study of John 15.9 that the Lord Jesus Christ finished with His allegory of the husbandman, the true vine, the branches, and the fruit found in verses 1-6. Beginning in verse 9, the Lord elevates His eleven disciple’s understanding of the relationships pictured in the allegory by speaking directly to the matter of love. As we began to see by the way our Lord referred to love in John 15.9, the notion of love that is conveyed in the New Testament, primarily as the concept is referred to in John’s Gospel and Paul’s letters, is very different than the subject is commonly understood in the contemporary culture of that day, particularly in the Greek-speaking and Latin-speaking regions of the Mediterranean.
Allow me to state that without the intentional contrary influence of vibrant and knowledgeable parents, there is no possible way any youngster can grow up in our culture with anything like a Biblical understanding of love. This is because love is wrongly portrayed in our country’s popular culture and the frequency of its distorted caricature in the music and video games that target young people. Only a godly mom and dad can effectively counter the ridiculous notion that love is little more than an emotion, that one falls in love and falls out of love, and that most people have little control over or responsibility for their conduct once they “fall in love.” “I am not responsible for my actions. I am in love.”
The love that is referred to by the Lord Jesus Christ, beginning in John 15.9, and echoing the love the evangelist refers to back in John 3.16, bears little resemblance to the love referred to in modern songs, or to the love portrayed by movies, and to the love written about in novels. From John 15.9, we infer that love from God and Christ’s perspective is eternal, uninterrupted, and perfect.
Love from the Christian’s perspective has not the perfection of God’s love or Christ’s love, but it has the same source. The source of the Christian’s love is God and God’s Son and God’s Spirit. The context of First John 4.19 shows the reference is to the Christian’s love in response to God’s love:
“We love him, because he first loved us.”
In Second Corinthians 5.14 and Galatians 5.22, there is no question about the source of love. It is the Lord Jesus Christ:
“For the love of Christ constraineth us.”
And it is the indwelling Spirit of God:
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love.”
Thus, it is clear from what little study we have just done that the love being referred to here is nothing like what typically passes for love these days, primarily sexual attraction, dominated by lust. Most people think their concept of love is an excuse for irresponsible behavior. On the other hand, God’s love and the kind of love given to and through Christians are right, is a decision made to benefit the one loved and is put on display by commitment and obedience to God.
These things understood, look again to verse 10:
“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
The Greek word translated “if,” and the future tense of the verb abide, the Greek word má½³nw, “ye shall abide,” shows that we have here a third-class conditional sentence, which deals with a probable future condition.[1] Do you see the connection between the believer’s obedience to Christ’s commandments and abiding in His love? The two go together, do they not? Thus, we see that a Christian abiding in Christ’s love is not engaged in anything like mysticism. If you are obeying Christ’s commands, you are abiding in His love, whether you feel any sense of abiding or not. Instead, it is an individual whose commitment to compliance with the revealed will of God runs parallel with that same individual’s abiding in Christ’s love. The two go together. Thus, it is incongruous to think a Christian can play fast and loose with God’s will and at the same time, imagine he is abiding in Christ’s love. No. Obedience and love are fellow travelers.
The second half of the verse shows that the pattern predicted in the first half of the verse follows the path laid by the Savior’s conduct toward His Father. Christ keeps the Father’s commandments and abides in the Father’s love.
The apparent omission to this point in John chapter 15, without which abiding in Christ is impossible, and without which obeying Christ’s commandments is inconceivable, is what? Can you put your finger on that which is so evident as to need no mention? What is the Christian’s absolute requirement to obey Christ’s commands, abide in Christ’s love, and abide in Christ? It is the ministry of the Word of God. Unmentioned, but of crucial importance, apart from the Word of God, one cannot know Christ’s commandments. How else can Christ’s Word abide in you, John 15.7, apart from the ministry of the Word, reading the Word, studying the Word, memorizing the Word, and meditating on the Word? This evening I will speak about interpreting the Word.
It is when the child of God saturates his mind and heart with Scripture that Christ’s Word abides in him. When Christ’s Word abides in him, he knows Christ’s commandments to obey Christ’s commandments. And when Christ’s commandments are obeyed, love for God, love for Christ, and the love of God and of Christ is put on display.
The Christian faith is so practical. It is not mystical. Therefore, there is no absolute distinction between words and deeds. As a man thinketh in his heart (words), so is he (deeds). Thus, to obey commandments and to love is to act out the words (much like exhaling) that are taken into your being, your mind and heart, through your devotions, your study, the teaching and preaching you are exposed to at Church, and the ministry of the Word when you are discipled (much like inhaling).
Can you be healthy when you only exhale? No? Can you be healthy when you only inhale? No. Health requires both the taking in and the giving out. Having grace ministered to you is taking in, with giving out being those times when you minister grace to others. This is practical Christianity. This is abiding in Christ. It is also simplicity in the extreme.
Allow me to illustrate to you the utter simplicity of abiding in Christ, the Savior developing this theme for His men using two main points:
First, WE HAVE THE TEMPLATE OF CHRIST’S ACTIONS AS OUR GUIDE
Consider the second half of the verse and our Lord’s declaration to His men of His actions in connection to abiding in His Father’s love:
“even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.”
As we consider the second half of the verse, I would like to ask you to go along with me regarding something that is not obvious at the outset but which I am convinced you will agree with me about as we proceed along the way. Will you cooperate with me in that way, at least for a while?
To more fully understand this portion of the verse, it is necessary to recognize that what is involved here does not make any sense unless you agree that an implicit requirement, followed by an explicit response, concludes with a resultant blessing.
First, the implicit requirement. For the Lord Jesus Christ to claim, “I have kept my Father’s commandments,” He must first have known God’s will, as well as God’s commandments. Is that not so? That the Lord Jesus Christ knows God’s will so that He might keep His commandments is implicitly understood. That is to say, the Lord Jesus Christ knows His Father’s will and His Father’s commandments. About that, there is no dispute. In the council chambers of heaven throughout eternity, the Triune Godhead’s three Persons have engaged in the most intimate communion, fully expressing and understanding the divine will. Thus, it has ever been that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Godhead, has known both the will and the commandments of God the Father.
Next, the explicit response. Because He is omniscient, the Lord Jesus Christ has always known the will of God and the commandments of His Father. We have His testimony of that in John 8.29 and 14.31, where He said,
8.29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
14.31 But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.
These two verses prove that the Lord Jesus Christ knows the Father’s will and has both received and obeyed the Father’s commandments.
This brings us to the resultant blessing: “and abide in his love.” This is not a complicated template to understand. The principles involved are incredibly straightforward and direct. Zero sophistication is required to grasp the pattern modeled for His men by the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us take a step back and restate for the sake of clarity what we discern here, both implicitly and explicitly, for the Lord to arrive at the resultant blessing of abiding in His Father’s love. Implicitly, we recognize that He had to know His Father’s will and commands. Explicitly, we realize that He declared His compliance to His Father’s commandments. The result was that He was blessed to abide in His Father’s love. Let us now turn our consideration from the second half of our text to the first half of our text.
Where WE HAVE THE TEMPLATE OF CHRIST’S WORDS AS OUR GUIDE
“If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love.”
To remind you what I previously stated, the Greek word translated “if,” and the future tense of the verb abide, the Greek word má½³nw, “ye shall abide,” shows that we have here a third-class conditional sentence, which deals with a probable future condition. With this is shown the connection that exists between the Christian’s obedience to Christ’s commandments and abiding in His love. The two go together, do they not? Does the Lord Jesus Christ make any mention of feelings in this verse, either His own or His disciples’? No. This is because abiding in Christ’s love is a fact and not a feeling.
Having learned from the template of Christ’s actions, concerning abiding in His Father’s love, in the last half of our text, let us now turn our attention to learning, from the template of Christ’s words in the first half of our text, how His disciples come to abide in His love. Would you suppose the template of Christ’s works concerning abiding in His Father’s love and the template of Christ’s words to His disciples abiding in His love would be similar? If so, you would be right.
We begin with the implicit requirement. In both the second half of the verse with the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the first half of the verse with His apostles, we recognize the necessity of an implicit requirement. The implicit requirement for the Lord Jesus Christ to keep His Father’s commandments was that He know those commandments. Because He is omniscient God, the Lord Jesus Christ has always known His Father’s commandments. What was different for the apostles, and what is different for those of us who are now Christians, is not that we must know Christ’s commandments to obey them, but that we are not omniscient, as is our Savior. Therefore, while He has always known His Father’s commandments, we are not omniscient but ignorant, and consequently, we must discover Christ’s commandments. Thankfully, “his commandments are not grievous,” First John 5.3. But His commandments are not known to us. Therefore, we must learn them. And how must we learn His commandments? By studying the Word of God, by learning from the mouths and the actions of other believers, and by the teaching and preaching of God’s Word. Does it also need to be stated that you need to be very careful who you are learning from and what they are trying to teach you, so as not to throw down a spiritual roadblock to you obeying the commandments of Christ, and thus abiding in Christ? Some think not, but I think so. You are hereby warned.
The implicit requirement being recognized for our situation, concerning abiding in Christ’s love, we now concern ourselves with the explicit response:
“If ye keep my commandments.”
What does it mean to keep Christ’s commandments? Terá½³w, translated keep, is a Greek word that refers to guarding and observing, and is used in this way almost seventy times in the New Testament.[2] Does the Christian’s compliance with the directives of Christ rise to the level of obedience Christ exhibited for the commandments of the Father? No. We are not capable of the perfect obedience so characteristic of our Savior’s earthly ministry. Perhaps this is the reason the first half of the verse is constructed as a third-class conditional statement. It reflects our inability to obey with complete consistency and the absolute necessity of every believer in Jesus Christ to walk and live by faith. Recognize that to the degree the child of God knows the commandments of Christ and obeys the commandments of Christ, that believer is fulfilling the requirements of this conditional statement. Again, notice that the explicit response is not an emotion, is not a feeling, but is an activity, an action, compliance to the will, the directive, and the commandment of Jesus Christ.
This brings us to the resultant blessing for the believer: “ye shall abide in my love.” How important it is that we recognize the nature of abiding in Christ, abiding in His love. There is nothing about abiding in Christ or abiding in His love that stimulates the five senses. One does not see, hear, smell, taste, or touch abiding in Christ or abiding in Christ’s love. This is not to say God will not provide for you a sense of contentment and joy and well being by His indwelling Spirit. But such is the consequence of apprehending truth, rather than any stimulation of one’s senses. Why am I so insistent as to make mention of this so forcefully in this message? It is because so much of Christendom is given over to mysticism that is profoundly reliant upon feelings and supposedly sensory stimulation. If one feels a certain way, one concludes that he or she is abiding in Christ. Not so! A believer in the Lord Jesus Christ is abiding in Christ, and abiding in His love, when that Christian has gone to the lengths of studying God’s Word so that he might know Christ’s commandments, and then consciously and conscientiously commits himself to obey what he knows to be Christ’s commands. Regardless of how he feels, that individual is abiding in Christ and is abiding in His love. Is it possible for a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to abide in Christ and Christ’s love and also be discouraged, to be emotionally down? Yes. Is it possible for a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ to feel very good about himself and his relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ while, because of known sin and disobedience, he is not abiding in Christ? Also, yes. Understand that feelings are not a guide to whether one is or is not abiding in Christ. The determinant for abiding in Christ is whether or not the Christian is consciously and conscientiously obeying the commandments of Christ. Thus, the criteria are not feelings. Neither emotions. But compliance.
It is possible to experience euphoria while you are abiding in Christ. It is possible to experience despondency while you are abiding in Christ.
It is possible to be happy while you are abiding in Christ. It is possible to be sad while you are abiding in Christ.
It is possible to feel pretty good about yourself while you are abiding in Christ. It is possible to not feel so good about yourself when you are abiding in Christ.
It is possible to be hungry while you are abiding in Christ. It is possible to be thirsty while you are abiding in Christ.
It is possible to be full after a meal when you are abiding in Christ. And it is possible that your thirst is quenched while abiding in Christ.
It is possible to be healthy while you are abiding in Christ. And it is possible to be sick while you are abiding in Christ.
There are all kinds of possibilities related to abiding in Christ. However, there is one impossibility related to abiding in Christ.
Regardless of how you feel, and regardless of your sense of well-being about yourself, unless you are conscientiously keeping the commandments of Christ as you understand them, you are not abiding in Christ.
Singing choruses all you want, with palms held extended, and facing upward with eyes closed, swaying back and forth and feeling intoxicated by the moment, you are still not abiding in Christ so long as you are disobedient.
Do you refuse to engage in ministry? You are not abiding in Christ. Do you refuse to gather with the saints for public worship? You are not abiding in Christ. Do you withhold your giving to the cause of Christ, the grace of giving? You are not abiding in Christ. Do you withhold Christian witness and testimony to the lost? You are not abiding in Christ. Do you neglect your daily devotions and your personal prayer life? You are not abiding in Christ.
These are the reasons your prayer life stinks, and your prayers go unanswered John 15.7. These are the reasons you bear little fruit, John 15.5.
What was the significant feature of the Lord Jesus Christ abiding in the love of His Father? What is the notable feature of the apostles abiding in Christ’s love? And what one word best describes the key to you and me abiding in Christ and His love?
It is a single word.
It is the word obey.
Find out what He wants, do what He says, abide in His love.
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[1] Ray Summers, Essentials of New Testament Greek, (Nashville, Tennessee: Broadman Press, 1950), page 109.
[2] Fritz Rienecker & Cleon Rogers, Linguistic Key To The Greek New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Regency Reference Library, 1980), page 251.
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Pastor@CalvaryRoadBaptist.Church