The Going Will Get Tough

Read John 15.1-27

In “The Gospel of John: When Love Comes to Town,” Dr. Paul Louis Metzger writes the following about our reading for today:

“In the surrounding context of John 15, we find that Jesus is leaving shortly for the cross. His followers are beginning to experience spiritual vertigo as they make their way with Jesus toward the Mount of Olives, where He will face His enemies. Having left the upper room and no doubt passing by vines on their way, Jesus tells His followers that they must be like branches that draw life from Him as the true vine if they are to bear much fruit while He is gone…only as we depend on our triune God’s loving care for us and love one another in loving obedience to Jesus will we bear much fruit. We bear fruit as we obey Jesus’ word; and we obey His word as we love one another as Jesus loves us. And we love one another because Jesus has first and foremost loved us with a selfless, sacrificial love: ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends’ (John 15.13). As Jesus’ friends, we lay down our lives for one another, just as Jesus has first loved us. Of course, we will experience spiritual vertigo as we let go of our lives and take hold of Jesus, His word and one another. But after all, falling in love is what life’s all about.”

“Jesus doesn’t want us to experience unpleasant surprises, so He goes on to warn us that we will experience unpleasantness and urges us not to forget. I think that some of the disillusionment we experience as Christ-followers today is the result of entitlement thinking, and this entitlement thinking results from forgetting that Jesus has warned us that we will face trials, hardship and persecution. We need to warn one another that disillusionment results from not remembering Jesus’ warning, and we need to encourage one another that we are entitled to certain spiritual benefits in the face of the persecution that awaits us: Jesus’ abiding presence, abundant fruitfulness in ministry and one another’s abounding love.”

“Persecution awaits Jesus’ servants, just like hard times happen in any meaningful relationship. Hardships can either break relationships or make them. Entitlement thinking will surely break them. You owe it to yourself not to make the mistake that so many of Jesus’ followers make by putting yourself above Jesus and by pulling out when the going gets tough. And it will get tough.”

Lord, when the going gets tough, makes us spiritually tough…and then help “the tough to get going!”