John 15:1-17
Jesus Makes Our Joy Complete
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7 If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
9 “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.
The Father and Son bring us Joy...It is a feeling of Joy that we are following Them as good as we can, and we continue to do better in Their teachings...Their Joy is a different than a joy you might have on earth...Their Joy is not one of emptiness, but a Joy of Abundance...Their Joy is a feeling of good pleasure and happiness that is dependent on who Jesus is rather than on who we are or what is going on around us...This Joy follows the Truth, the Way, and the Life of the One who tells us He can make our Joy Complete...This Joy comes from the Holy Spirit, abiding in God's Presence and from hope in His Word...And though we may have troubles and sorrows come by, our belief in the Father and Son, after your grief will make your heart rejoice, and no one will take this Joy from you...If we remain in His LOVE and keep His commands, then He makes our Joy Complete...
Charles Haddon Spurgeon, who preached in the 1800's, is one of the most influential preachers of the last several centuries...Spurgeon had these things to say about the Father and His Son...“Nothing teaches us about the preciousness of the Creator as much as when we learn the emptiness of everything else.”...“Have your heart right with Christ, and He will visit you often, and so turn weekdays into Sundays, meals into sacraments, homes into temples, and earth into heaven.”...“God helps those who cannot help themselves.”...“A Jesus who never wept could never wipe away my tears.”...“You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.”...“To rejoice in temporal comforts is dangerous, to rejoice in self is foolish, to rejoice in sin is fatal, but to rejoice in God is heavenly.”...“When your will is God’s will, you will have your will.”...“O child of God, be more careful to keep the way of the LORD, more concentrated in heart in seeking His glory, and you will see the loving-kindness and the tender mercy of the LORD in your life.”...“As for His failing you, never dream of it — hate the thought of it...The God who has been sufficient until now, should be trusted to the end.”...“The greatest joy of a Christian is to give joy to Christ.”...“I bear my testimony that there is no joy to be found in all this world like that of sweet communion with Christ...I would barter all else there is of heaven for that...Indeed, that is heaven...As for the harps of gold and the streets like clear glass and the songs of seraphs and the shouts of the redeemed, one could very well give all these up, counting them as a drop in a bucket, if we might forever live in fellowship and communion with Jesus.”...“It is not great talents God blesses so much as likeness to Jesus.”...“His mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners after great lengths of time and then gives great favors and great privileges and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God!”...“If Christ is not all to you He is nothing to you...He will never go into partnership as a part Saviour of men...If He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything He is nothing to you.”...“Remember that the LORD Jesus came to take away sin in three ways; He came to remove the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and, at last, the presence of sin.”...“It was the mighty power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in Him by which Jesus overcame the world–and that same quiet power, if it dwells in us, will make us win the same victory by faith.”...“He bequeaths us His manger, from which to learn how God came down to man, and His cross to teach us how man may go up to God. ”...“Jesus!...it is the name which moves the harps of heaven to melody...Jesus!...the life of all our joys...If there be one name more charming, more precious than another, it is this name...It is woven into the very warp and woof of our psalmody...Many of our hymns begin with it, and scarcely any, that are good for anything, end without it...It is the sum total of all delights...It is the music with which the bells of heaven ring; a song in a word; an ocean for comprehension, although a drop for brevity; a matchless oratorio in two syllables; a gathering up of the hallelujahs of eternity in five letters.”...“I must take care above all that I cultivate communion with Christ, for though that can never be the basis of my peace – mark that – yet it will be the channel of it.”...“God is so boundlessly pleased with Jesus that in Him He is altogether well pleased with us.”...