John 15:9-17
What the World Needs Now
In 1965 Burt Bacharach wrote a song he didn’t believe in. He and Hal David offered it to performer Dionne Warwick, who turned it down. Bacharach was reluctant to play it for Jackie DeShannon, but he finally did, and she liked it. Together they recorded, “What the World Needs Now is Love.” The hit made it to #7 in the U.S., #1 in Canada. (Later, even Warwick sang it!) Since then, it has been performed by over 100 artists in a variety of settings, some wholesome, some not so much. It has also been used in times of crisis. For instance, when Robert Kennedy was shot in June 1968, LA radio stations played it over and over for a 26-hour vigil until he died. Pop stars sang it at the 2016 Democratic National Convention as a protest against gun violence. Broadway for Orlando recorded it later that year to raise money for the victims of the Orlando night club shooting.
Think about the song’s title: “What the World Needs Now is Love.” Isn’t that the truth? Love is the antidote for loneliness, for apathy, for worry, for hatred, for bitterness, for purposelessness. Love feels the voids of our lives. Our world is in desperate need of love, and we have it. Loves comes from God. In fact, 1 John 4:8 tells us, “God is love.” To know the true character of love, get to know God.
In today’s passage, Jesus is preparing his disciples for his imminent departure to heaven. He has trained and led them for three years. Now he only has hours to live. And what does he talk about? He talks about love. This is not your puppy love from school days. This is not romantic love. This is a different kind of love, agape love: willful, purposeful, decisional, sacrificial. Jesus teaches us at least three things about it as we listen in with the disciples. First, he urges us to...
1. Draw on love’s source (v. 9)
In verse 9, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” From Father to Son, to all of God’s children, God’s love flows to us. Notice the tense. The Father “has loved” Jesus. Jesus “has loved” us. It’s already happened. Our job is but to “remain” in that love. Other translations use the word “continue”, “dwell” or “abide.” In modern vernacular, we might say to “hang out” with Jesus’ love. The “Message” paraphrase quotes Jesus as saying, “Make yourselves at home in my love.” The “Passion” paraphrase says, “You must continually let my love nourish your hearts.”
When I think of drawing on love’s source, I think of Corrie ten Boom. I’ve shared this story before, but it’s the perfect illustration. Her family had all died in the Nazi concentration camps. Their crime? Hiding Jews in their home. Somehow Corrie survived. The war had ended, the camps had been liberated, and Corrie was speaking in various churches, sharing about God’s love and faithfulness, even in the midst of horror. She writes in her best-selling book, “The Hiding Place”: “It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, [my sister] Betsie's pain-blanched face.
“He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. ‘How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.’ He said. ‘To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!’ His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
“Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
“As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.”
God is our source of love, and his supply never runs low. When you have trouble loving someone, whether friend or enemy, ask God for the love you need. He will surely supply it, for it is in his very essence and will. Draw on love’s source, and ...
2. Choose to love (vv. 10, 12, 17)
Our society likes to portray love as a feeling, and it is. But much more so, love is a decision. If you’ve been married more than a week, you know that at times you have to choose to love your spouse. Marriage is a laboratory to learn selflessness. Every healthy marriage requires commitments of both husband and wife to choose to love at times. And the funny thing is, as you make that choice, the feelings usually follow. But it’s not just in marriage do we choose to love.
Listen to Jesus’ language here: Verse 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.” Verse 12: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” And Jesus’ wrap-up in verse 17: “This is my command: Love each other.”
You cannot command an emotion! I cannot say to you, “Be happy!” I guess I can say it, but whether you’re happy or not can’t be forced. So, if love was simply an emotion, how could Jesus command us to do it? Therefore, love is more than an emotion; it is a decision. And Jesus links it irrevocably here to keeping his commands. To summarize, he says, “If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love. And by the way, one of my commands is to love each other the way I have loved you.”
What radical love this is! It sounds nice, until someone really gets on your nerves. You know they’re cheating at that card game! You hate the way they gossip about everybody. You feel hurt they left you out of their gathering. You’re angry they never call you. What will you do then? Will you give into temptation to think ill of them in your heart? Or will you CHOOSE to love them, and in so doing, stay in Jesus’ love? Choose love and see what God will do. And lastly,
3. Love until it hurts (v. 13)
Jesus gives an example of love that Veterans can identify with. In verse 13, he says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This is the ultimate love, the love that sacrifices whatever the cost for the well-being of the other. This is the primary reason soldiers pull the trigger: not for love of country, or for self-preservation, but primarily to protect those on either side of them.
Without doubt, this verse would be fulfilled most perfectly just a day after it was spoken: Jesus would lay down his life for his friends. He would give himself up for you and for me, for all who would believe. He knows what it’s like to love until it hurts.
Mother Teresa once said, “I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” Some of you know what it’s like to love until it hurts. And when you do so, you are most like Jesus!
Whether we’re talking marriage partner, friend, son, granddaughter, neighbor, staff member: it doesn’t matter. Every relationship in your life requires some level of sacrifice. If you’re going to love, you’re going to need to go to the source for that love; you’re going to make a choice to love; and sometimes you’re going to love until it hurts.
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No not just for some but for everyone.
What if it began right here, right now, in this place today, with each one of us? What if we chose today to remain in Jesus, to obey his commands, to allow his love to fill us and overflow to those around us? This little congregation could change the entire village overnight! Our love would prove infectious to many. The gospel would spread. Lives would change. Eternal destinies would reverse. And it could start right here, right now, as we choose to love. Let us pray:
Father, your commands are not burdensome. And you have given us a couple here: to remain in Jesus, and to love each other as Jesus has loved us. Help us to do this, Father. Help us, Jesus. Help us, Holy Spirit. Give us your love as you gave it that day to Corrie ten Boom. Amen.
