In the sermon 'Jesus’ Joy Giving Love' by Jason Dohm, the central theme revolves around the profound and incomprehensible love of Jesus, which mirrors the eternal love of the Father for Him. The sermon emphasizes that abiding in Jesus' love is inherently linked to obedience to His commandments, which in turn brings fullness of joy. The love described is not conditional upon obedience, but rather, disobedience affects the experience of that love as it leads to discipline. The sermon challenges believers to shift from a man-centered to a God-centered perspective, understanding that God's commandments are not burdensome but rather a means to experience true joy and peace. The analogy of the vine and branches illustrates the flow of life and strength from Jesus to His followers, emphasizing that abiding in His love results in fruitful living. Furthermore, the sermon highlights that true friendship with Jesus is evidenced by obedience and transformation through the Holy Spirit. The ultimate goal is to experience the joy that Jesus offers, which is not dependent on circumstances but is rooted in a relationship with Him.

For our sermon text we pick up right after our recitation text, John 15 starting in verse 9 through 14. As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one in this than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. Amen, please be seated. Title of the sermon this morning is Jesus' joy-giving love.

Because we're so man-centered, it's typical for our thoughts to go right to the exhortations for us to obey. They're there, but it's not the heart of the text. The heart of the text is that there is a Savior whose Love, deep love, gives joy. That's the heart. Don't be man-centered in your hearing of our text, in the sermon this morning.

Be God-centered. A God who is full of love that overflows in the joy of His people is right here at the heart of this text. We're not at the beginning of the chapter. The chapter began with Jesus setting forward a word picture of Himself as the vine and His people as the branches, His Father as the vine dresser. The chapter begins with these words, I am the true vine and my father is the vine dresser.

Jesus says that there are some branches that bear fruit. If they bear fruit, the vine dresser prunes them so they'll bear more fruit. And branches that don't bear fruit are cast out and burned. Now in our text Jesus picks up the theme of abiding in verse 4, last week's text he had said, abide in me. Now in our text he says, abide in my love, and he explains what it looks like to abide in his love.

As we go to the text, let's ask the Lord for help. Jesus, please use this text to teach us to abide in your love, So that our joy would be complete. I pray that the great result of being here in this portion of Scripture would be an increase in our joy. We would abide in you. We would abide in your love.

Accomplish this through a work of your Spirit in our souls we pray. Amen. So we'll be subdividing the text this morning. I want to start with verses 9 and 10. So hopefully your fingers are still in John 15.

Follow along as I read, read John 15 verses 9 and 10. Where Jesus says, As the Father loved me, I also have loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my father's commandments, and abide in his love. In these two verses we have an instruction to abide in an incomprehensible love.

So if you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, abide fills in the blank. An instruction to abide in an incomprehensible love. Jesus started with a word picture about a vine and branches. Now He shifts away from this word picture. Why does He shift away from it?

Because it is incomplete. It has been a very useful word picture in that it communicated life and strength and the ability to bear fruit continually flowing from vine to branch. But that word picture is unable to communicate that the foundation for this is love. There's not a lot of love communicated in agricultural word pictures. You don't get a sense that love is at the heart of a vine making branches fruitful.

What Jesus describes now is something that transcends an agricultural example. Why does life and strength and fruitfulness flow from Jesus' love towards His people. Now, what Jesus says is jaw-dropping. When you hear it and just begin to consider it, your mouth drops open because it's so extraordinary. Extraordinary.

Jesus' love for his disciples is like his Father's eternal, unbroken, fully deserved love for Jesus. What's not to love about Jesus? Jesus is all lovely in all of eternity, across all of the universe. There has not been one more deserving of love than the Lord Jesus. What is not to love about Jesus?

As He is set forth in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. What's not to love? That love makes sense. But how can I make sense of Jesus' love for me if Jesus says, it's just like the Father's love to Him? There's only one explanation.

God is love. It is His eternal, unchanging nature to love and to express that love in order to make Himself known. He has to love that way. He can't love any other way because God is love, not shallow love, not ebbing and flowing love, but eternal, Unchangeable love. He has to express that kind of love because of his own nature and character.

He wants to make himself known, and so he loves in this way. As the Father has loved Jesus, so Jesus loves his disciples. Having described the profound depth and nature of that love, it's like his Father's love for him. Jesus then calls his disciples to abide in it. Now think about it.

Jesus has put this instruction, you can call it a command, it is an imperative, abide in my love, but Jesus puts that imperative in the shadow of this incomprehensible love. In other words, He makes it so light. It really does seem like an instruction rather than a command, even though it is an imperative. It's fine to call it a command. Listen to Matthew 11 verses 28-30.

Just listen. Matthew 11 verses 28-30. Jesus says this, Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." What is a yoke?

A yoke is what you harness an animal with for labor. You work for you. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you. But then he says, it's light. It's a light yoke.

You'll actually find rest for your souls. Somehow Jesus' yoke is a rest-giving yoke. But wait, you use a yoke to harness an animal to work. How can it be a rest-giving yoke? It's so light.

Now Jesus in our text says, Okay, disciples, I'm going to require something of you. Are you ready for the commandment? Abide in my love. What kind of love? Like my Father's love to me.

The eternal one? The unchanging one? The completely deserved love that you enjoy from your Father that makes sense to us? Me, a sinner, your love towards me would be like that, that's your commandment that I just dwell in that love. That is an easy light yoke if there ever was one.

Again, Jesus grounds this in his relationship with his Father. I've kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love, you do the same. From eternity past, I've enjoyed the love of my Father, unbreakable, unchanging, completely deserved love, and I've kept His commandments. I have eternally abide in the love of my Father. I keep His commandments.

You do the same. But remember, Jesus just said this in chapter 14. Look at this in chapter 14. This is the immediate context. Don't let the chapter break fool you.

Jesus said chapter 14 probably minutes earlier than our text. 14 verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments. 14 verse 21, he who has my commandments and keeps them, it is He who loves me. Verse 23, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. So he is saying, to abide in my love, reciprocate my love.

That's what he means by keep my commandments. Love me back. To abide in my love, love me back. Not with a fake love that leaves no evidence that there's really something substantive there, but with a real love that leaves behind something that shows you that's love. There really is love in there.

It's not just talk about love. There's really love in the heart. That's what obedience is. To abide in my love, reciprocate my love. Two-way love.

To abide in my love, love me back. Now admittedly, This all sounds very conditional. Obey me, then I'll love you. It sounds like that. Is that what Jesus is teaching?

Jesus is going to respond to your obedience with love. I think there are two texts, there's actually probably many more than that, but two texts that I'm going to point you to that I think make very clear what Jesus is teaching here, and it's not that. Jesus is not responding to our obedience with love. The first is Hebrews 12. You can turn there but I'm going to be moving fast so good luck.

Hebrews 12 verses 6 and then 11. Hebrews 12 verse 6. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens. Think about that. For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, He disciplines, and scourges every son whom He receives.

Then the author of Hebrews goes on to make an argument that discipline in your life is actually a mark of sonship, and if you don't have discipline in your life, it's proof that you're not really a son. Then this in Hebrews 12 verse 11, No chastening seems to be joyful at the present, who likes discipline, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. The author of Hebrews tells us what we already know. Discipline isn't fun.

It's painful. But the one who is giving the discipline is after fruitfulness. So that settles it. Disobedience is bad. The Bible teaches that from Genesis to Revelation.

Everywhere in Scripture disobedience, rebellion against God is bad. But it does not cause Jesus to stop loving his disciples it does not it does however radically change our experience of his love and his expression of his love. Isn't that what we just saw in Hebrews 12? Let me say it again. Our disobedience radically changes our experience of his love because it puts him in discipline mode.

What kind of love would it be if he just let us go off in rebellion unchecked? That wouldn't be an expression of love at all. So our disobedience radically changes our experience of His love and His expression of His love. In Jeremiah 31 verse 3, God says to his people, I have loved you with an everlasting love. We're so prone to project on God what we are like.

Our love comes and goes, it waxes hot, it cools. God is not like us. God is constant and unchanging. When He determines to love, He loves eternally. That was first.

Hebrews 12 helps us so much in thinking about this. Second, Turn to 1 John chapter 2. Not the Gospel of John, but the first letter of John. Same author, different book of the Bible. It's back close to Revelation.

1 John chapter 2. I'll read verses 3 through 6. 1 John 2, starting in verse 3. By this we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. Do I know him?

How can I know if I know him? Are you keeping his commandments? This is what John says. Verse 4, he who says I know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar, the truth is not in him. But whoever keeps his word, truly the love of God is perfected in him.

Verse 5 again, just look at it again, verse 5, but whoever keeps his word truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in him. He who says he abides in him ought himself also to walk just as he walked. Obedience has a direct relationship with assurance. Whether you obey or not has a direct relationship with how much you feel that you are the Lord's, how convinced you are that you belong to Him.

John says that the love of God is perfected or made complete in us as we keep His Word. Assurance that we belong to Him comes into its fullness when we obey. It's convincing evidence even to us that we belong to Him. If you say you abide in Jesus, you ought to walk as Jesus walked. So, not talk as Jesus talked, but walk as Jesus walked.

This is the essence of obeying his commandments. Christ-likeness. Walking as Jesus walked. Disobedience grieves the Spirit. Paul says that in Ephesians 4 verse 30.

Disobedience quenches the Spirit. Paul says that in 1 Thessalonians 5.19. The believer can feel it when his disobedience is grieving the Spirit of God. You feel it. The believer can feel it when his or her disobedience quenches the Spirit.

How could it be any other way than the indwelling presence of the Spirit grieved and quenched. How could it be other than you feel that? You have a sense of that. Let me ask it this way. If a person is truly born again, so we're talking about born again people who have repented and believed the gospel, true saving faith, indwelt by the Spirit, if a truly born again person persists in disobedience, is that possible?

For a while it is possible. Is that Christian abiding in Jesus' love? Let's say I'm persisting, stubbornly persisting in disobedience. Can I say of myself, I am abiding in Jesus' love? No, I can say of myself, I'm running from Jesus' love.

Does that mean Jesus no longer loves me? No. Does that mean I'm no longer abiding in Jesus' love? Yes. The problem is not that Jesus' love is ebbing and flowing.

The problem is, even though I'm a real believer, I'm kicking against the goads. Friends, All of you who are genuinely in the Lord Jesus by faith, abide in His love. The alternate words in Strong's definition, other than abide, If you look at the Greek word and how strong defines it. Remain. Stay.

Dwell. Dwell in His love. Terry. Here's what we should take from this, all who are in Christ. Be careful over your life.

Be careful over your life. Don't be careless as if The enjoyment of Christ's love was of little value. So you can abide or not abide and it will be all the same to you. Those who have been in Christ a while and have been through cycles of discipline for disobedience know it is not all the same. The experience of Christ's love is not all the same.

Be careful over your life to obey from the heart is to abide in His love. Now back to John chapter 15, verse 11 now. Jesus says, These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may remain in you and that your joy may be full." In this verse we have Jesus' intended result. So if you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, result fills in the blank. Jesus' intended result.

What does Jesus have in mind when he tells us to abide in his love by obeying out of love? Here's what he has in mind, that we would be partakers of his joy. That my joy may remain in you. So here's the progression in the text. Verse 14-27, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.

Chapter 15 verse 10, if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love. Chapter 15 verse 11, these things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you. Jesus in our text has established himself as the fountainhead of love, my love flowing to you. The fountainhead of joy, my joy flowing to you. As the fountainhead of peace, my peace flowing to you.

In a way this is an extension of the I AM statements. Last week, we brought together all of the seven I AM statements, where Jesus is essentially proclaiming Himself to be everything that His people need. He is the all in all of His people. This is an extension of that. Where can I get love?

It's His love. You go to Jesus for love. Where can I get joy? It's His joy. You go to Jesus for joy.

Where can I get peace? It's His peace you go to Jesus for it. So Jesus wants His disciples to remain in His love By loving him back through obedience so that they will be ongoing partakers of his joy That's what's at the bottom of this My joy is what Jesus is after Can you believe that is what this text is teaching? Does Jesus want me to abide in His love? Yes, He said that.

Does Jesus want me to express love in return by obeying Him? Yes, He said that. But what's at the bottom of it? He wants me to be filled with joy. That's glorious.

Think of how exactly opposite that is from how the enemy of your soul, the devil, has spun things since the Garden of Eden until now. This is the age old lie of the enemy of our souls. He is whispering to you, God is withholding. He is withholding. He is holding you back from the good things.

See all these commandments He's imposing on you. See how heavy his yoke is. He's just harnessing you to do his work. Keeping you back from good things. That's what the devil has whispered since the Garden of Eden.

He knows you'll be like him. He doesn't want you to be like Him, so He won't let you touch that fruit, even though you can see that it's good. When the truth is, God doesn't withhold us from good things, He withholds us for good things. Because when you go and partake of the joy killers, you can't have the things that give real joy, lasting joy, God's joy. So He withholds you from the counterfeits.

He withholds you from joy killers to preserve you for real joy. He's holding us back from the joy killers. How would our lives be transformed if we really believed true obedience equals joy? True obedience. Not the fake stuff that we do outwardly, and our hearts not in it.

That's not true obedience. You know that doesn't count? It doesn't count. It impresses our neighbors, but it doesn't count. Because God can see right through that and see your heart's not in it so that's not true obedience but true obedience overflow of the heart obeying God in love equals joy You get fullness of joy from that.

Let me ask this question. What do you think that last phrase of verse 11 means? That your joy may be full. What do you think that means? I think it means this.

I am regulating joy in my life. And so are you. Meaning, I could have more joy. I could have as much as I wanted. I could have joy to overflowing if my heart was in obeying this good God.

I could have more joy. I could have it to overflowing. In fact, the thing that's holding me back from true joy that can't be touched by circumstances. The joy that the world offers lasts as long as everything is great. And then a ripple in life happens and you lose it.

God's joy is nothing like that. In fact, God's joy thrives under difficult circumstances. When the world's joy evaporates, God's joy thrives, because it's not rooted in circumstances. I think Jesus is telling me here, I can have all of it I want. I can have it until it's flowing over the rim.

And I'm regulating it by my disposition towards Him and how that impacts whether I obey Him or don't obey Him. I'm regulating joy in my life. So are you. You want more joy? Jesus is telling us here how to have it.

Finally, verses 12 through 14. I say finally like we're almost done. We're not almost done. So, warning. John 15, 12 through 14.

We're not almost done. Warning. John 15, 12-14. Jesus says, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. He's just said, obey my commandments.

Then he says, This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." So he's just said, obey my commandments. Then he says, this is my commandment that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do whatever I command you." These verses we have the key to abiding in Jesus' love. So if you're taking notes on the handout and filling in blanks, key fills in the blank.

The key to abiding in Jesus' love. Flip back to chapter 13 verses 34 and 35. Again, the same discourse, this is all happening around the Last Supper. This is 24 hours before Jesus goes to the cross, one sitting with his disciples. One sitting with his disciples.

Chapter 13 verses 34 and 35. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. As I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another." So this is a repetition of that. Jesus just said it, I don't know, an hour earlier, and now He's saying it again.

Love one another. It is a command to love, which is not new. Commands to love are all over the Old Testament, but a command to love in the radical self-sacrificing way demonstrated by the Lord Jesus is new because no one has ever seen a sinless man go die for sinners before. You didn't have the context before. You couldn't love as Jesus loved before he went to the cross and showed you what that looked like.

That's the newness of that command. As I have loved you is the standard for Jesus' love. Listen to Ephesians 5 verse 2. Paul says this in Ephesians 5 verse 2, and walk in love as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling aroma. What do we learn in Ephesians 5 verse 2?

We learn that Christ's love, particularly expressed in the cross, is an example. So the exhortation from Paul is that Christians walk in love as Christ has also loved us and given himself for us, but that it's not just an example. It's such a huge mistake to think that the cross is only an example of self-sacrifice. It is that, but that's just the icing on the cake. The cake is that sinners deserve the anger of God against their sin, that the wages of sin is death.

The only way out of that predicament, if you're a sinner, is that an innocent one dies for you. That's at the heart of the cross. It is a tremendous example of self-sacrifice, but I cannot self-sacrifice for you in that way, because I would have my own sins to die for. I could never die for your sins. If the wages of sin is death, I would just have to be paid my own wages for my sins.

There would be no goodness to apply to your sins. Christ is the only one, because He lived a sinless life, who can go and willingly trade places with me so that my sin passes to him and is dealt with, the justice of God is preserved, and his righteousness comes to me." So yes, the cross is an example of tremendous, wonderful self-sacrifice. But if you go no further than that, you do not have a saving gospel. A saving gospel requires an innocent one to die for the guilty one, so that the guilty one can go free. Or listen to this, 1 John 3.16.

1 John 3.16. Not John 3.16 which shows up at all the football games. 1 John 3.16. By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.

So here's the chain. To abide is to obey. And to obey is to love. Abiding, obeying, loving. That's the chain.

Abide in my love. What does that mean? Well, you obey to abide in his love. What does it mean to obey? You love others.

In verse 14, our last verse, Jesus says, you are my friends if you do whatever I command you. This is easily misunderstood as Jesus saying, earn my friendship. Go work for it. When you do enough, when you obey enough, then I will be your friend. This isn't what Jesus is teaching.

What Jesus is teaching is actually much more straightforward than that. My friends are not the ones who talk about being my friends. My friends are the ones who act like my friends. That's the very straightforward thing that Jesus is teaching. My friends aren't the ones who talk about being my friends, they're the ones who act like they're my friends.

Those are my real friends. Listen to Matthew 12, 46-50. Listen to Matthew 12, 46-50. While Jesus was still talking to the multitudes, behold, his mother and brothers stood outside, seeking to speak with him. Then one said to Jesus, look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, seeking to speak with you.

But he answered and said to the one who told him, Who is my mother and who are my brothers? And he stretched out his hand toward his disciples and said, Here are my mother and brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." Jesus there in Matthew 12 is saying, my family are the ones who do the will of my Father. It's not my bloodline. At the most fundamental level, my family are not the ones who share the same blood with me.

They're the ones who do the will of my Father in heaven. This is very similar. What Jesus is teaching here in John 15 in our text is very similar. It is not those who talk about friendship with Jesus, but have no evidence of actually being his friends. It is those who give evidence of friendship.

Listen, if Jesus is your friend, He transforms you. There are no secret friends of Jesus. Jesus is such a friend that if He is your friend, He transforms you. So Jesus doesn't have friends that don't act like his friends because he controls that. He sends his spirit to dwell in them and transform them.

The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. By the way, I've talked about love, joy, peace in this sermon because they're here in chapter 14 and 15. They're the fruits of the Spirit. Jesus sends His Spirit to produce that fruit in you. It's an Almighty Spirit.

He does His job. He is a Holy Spirit and He makes His home holy over time. I know it doesn't happen all at once. I've been in this a while. I know it doesn't happen all at once.

I know sometimes it feels painfully slow. But the Holy Spirit is almighty. When He indwells you, you have evidences of being Jesus' friend. All the talking in the world won't make you His friend. When He befriends you, He'll transform you.

So Jesus is simply describing his friends. They obey whatever he commands them. Maybe you've heard this modern day saying, with friends like that, finish it. Who needs enemies? With friends like that, who needs enemies?

Think of Judas. Judas is the perfect example of this. Judas, Are you my friend? Sure, here, let's have a kiss. You're betraying him with a kiss.

You talk like a friend, you're no friend with friends like Judas who needs enemies. Jesus is saying something very similar to that here. The point is this, we who call ourselves the friends of Jesus should demonstrate our friendship. There should be proof of it. There's no proof of it.

Chances are there's no reality at all underneath it. Underneath the talk, there's no reality. There's no substance. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Applications.

I'll give you three. Application number one, Happy Easter! As the Father loves Jesus. Jesus loves his disciples. He has laid down his life for his friends.

John 10 verse 11, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. Only this good shepherd rises from the dead. So that he's not just a dead friend to memorialize he's an alive friend who helps you this minute and tomorrow and through eternity because he's alive there's an empty grave out there no it was not a body to be found He's at the right hand of his father interceding for his people. Number two.

Increase the joy in your life. If it's true, if you buy the premise that I'm regulating the joy in my life and you are too, then go for the joy. Increase it. God gives you the faucet. Turn it all the way on.

If this is the right understanding of what Jesus is teaching, then joy is not out of your reach at all. Joy is not out of your control at all. Abide in His love by obeying out of love. You'll see your joy increase. If this is true, you will.

It's true. You will. That's number two. Increase the joy in your life or go for the joy. Number three.

Number three, if you are born again, let the friendship of Jesus have profound implications in your life. Let me see where the New Testament starts. Right here. Old Testament. New Testament.

New Testament? In all of the Old Testament, only Abraham is explicitly called God's friend. In the fat side of the book. Only Abraham is explicitly called God's friend. Does God have more friends in the Old Testament?

I suspect Moses and others were his friend. But only Abraham is called out as his friend in the New Testament. Jesus' disciples are his friends. This should have profound implications in our lives. Starting with prayer.

How would you pray if you were convinced you had a dear friend at the right hand of God the Father? How would you pray? You should start praying like that. We might get some answers to our prayers if we prayed like that. We might pray more.

If we were convinced we had a dear friend sitting right next to God the Father, pleading for his friends, let's pray. For his friends. Let's pray. How sweet it is to consider the truths of this text. We don't have a rope long enough to lower it down into this well and hit the bottom that Jesus is your Father loves you so you love those who have entrusted themselves to you.

How could it be the same love? And yet, it's said so clearly in our text. I thank you for your great love for your people. I pray that you would help us to abide in that love. Not to kick against the goads, not to wander, be so careful over our lives so that we could experience the fullness of joy that you desire for us.

Thank you for holding us back from the joy killers. Thank you for keeping us back from the things that promise all that they can ever Make promises that they never deliver. Pray that our hope would only be in your son. Pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.