Another great commission

 This week's Bible study is on John 15:12-17:

My commandment is this—to love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. This I command you—to love one another.

I think these verses are every bit as important as the "great commission" where Jesus tells his disciples to go make disciples of the whole world. It's tempting for a church to put its focus solely on that great commission, because it turns the whole congregation into salesmen, which is good for numbers and the annual budget. But it doesn't really tell them what they are selling. These verses do a better job of that.

 Just like the great commission, Jesus is giving his disciples (including us) a command. He is telling us how we are supposed to live our lives. We are supposed to love one another like Jesus loved us. In other words, we don't hold back on each other.

He says he doesn't call us slaves. Do we consider other people to be our slaves? Not overtly, I'm sure, because it's politically incorrect to do so, but what about in the context of things like courtesy, giving us a break on things, doing us favors, and so on, even though we don't pay them? If we love other people, we don't treat them like that. Maybe they don't always behave the way we want them to do, but they are still our friends.

But with us, he's saying we're friends because we know the Gospel. We understand why he lays his life down for us, and why he is the way he is with us. We're not slaves to be beaten and ordered around under the law anymore. We have a relationship based on love.

So he's saying that's how we should be with other Christians. Instead of trying to control them and being self-righteously angry with them, we should encounter them the way Jesus encounters them (and us). We should lay down our lives so that their sin can be erased. 

Jesus says we didn't choose him, but he chose us. In other words, he made the first move. We didn't encounter him, pre-crucifixion, and negotiate a deal, or demand that he clean up our mess. He made that offer of his own volition, before we knew we needed it. Shouldn't we be the same with our grace towards others?

This grace and servant-living is the fruit that serves as evidence of Jesus' proactive act of self-sacrifice for us. In other words, if you're going to go and make disciples, this is the product sample you should have in your briefcase, not just the address of your church and the name of your pastor. You can't disciple people for the kingdom of God if you don't know how people behave in that kingdom.

This is the fruit he has appointed us to go and bear. We're not to be just a social club for people who want to listen to a concert with happy songs once a week and the occasional pep talk to make us feel good and righteous. What he's saying is that we need to have such an understanding of what he has done for us on the cross, and such an admiration for it, that we join him in living it out. We model it for each other, the way he modeled it for us. We do it of our own volition.

Have you ever really loved someone? I'm not talking about puppy love infatuation, but a genuine desire for someone's life to go well, even if it means some extra costs on your end. You find yourself wanting to help them, right? That's how Jesus is saying we should be towards each other, the way he has been with us. If we're true disciples, helping each other should be as natural as that.

The great news is that God takes care of us in this. We lay our lives down, but we get them back again in the end. Whatever we ask, in that context, he will provide for us. "Help me to love others more and to give more of myself" is a prayer that is guaranteed to be answered.

Unlike the disciple-making great commission, which is obviously also important, Jesus repeats this one twice. This I command you—to love one another.  It's only when we obey this command, that we are capable of obeying the other more famous one.