Experiencing the Complete Joy of Jesus

Scripture — John 15:8-11

My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I 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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

Devotion

Today I finish the devotional series I’ve called Experiencing the Fullness of Joy.  In the last seven weeks, we’ve looked at joy from a variety of perspectives. Our exploration has been based on Scripture and enriched by insights from psychological research on joy.

I’d like to begin this final devotion by asking a couple of questions which, at first glance, might seem odd, even unrealistic. Would you like to experience the joy of Jesus? Would you like to know complete joy?

I’m guessing you answered “Yes” to both of those questions. I know I did. But I wonder how. How can we experience the joy that Jesus experienced? How can we know complete joy? Doesn’t that seem out of reach in this age? Don’t we need to wait for such joy until the age to come?

To be sure, the joy we experience now pales in comparison to the joy we will know in the future when we are in the immediate, unfiltered presence of the Lord. But in John 15, Jesus offers joy beyond what we might imagine to be possible. This chapter begins, as you know, with the imagery of a grape vine. Jesus is the vine; we are the branches. When we are deeply connected to the vine (AKA abiding in Jesus), then we will bear much fruit. Doing this, we will live as faithful disciples of Jesus, and God the Father will be glorified.

Now, Jesus could have stopped right there, and we’d have every reason to abide in him. Surely, we want to live fruitfully. And, surely, we want to glorify God. Jesus has already given us more than enough to go on if we wish to live well. But, in fact, Jesus has more to say, “As the Father has loved me, so I 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. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete” (vv. 9-11).

Did you catch that? Jesus says that his joy can be in us, and we can have complete joy. That’s why he talked about our being branches that abide in him and therefore bear much fruit. That’s also why he added that we abide, not only in him in a general way, but specifically in his love. Abiding in the love of Jesus isn’t just an emotional experience. It also has to do with keeping his commandments. We abide in him and his love through how we live each day in all parts of life.

To lay this out very clearly, Jesus offers us his joy and the possibility of experiencing full, complete joy. How can we take Jesus up on this offer?

First, in John 15, we learn that we should keep the commandments of Jesus if we want to know his joy. Most of all, we are to obey his commandment to love one another. Right after promising full and abundant joy if we keep his commandments, Jesus adds, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (15:12). If we focus on loving others in the self-giving, gracious manner of Jesus, then we are on the way to knowing his joy.

Second, looking at what comes before Jesus’s comment on joy, we see his emphasis on bearing fruit. In verse 8, he says, “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples.” If we live fruitfully, if we contribute to God’s work in the world, then we will be true followers of Jesus, and God the Father will be glorified. As this happens, we will also experience the joy of Jesus.

So, the way to experience his joy includes keeping Jesus’s commandments, loving each other, and bearing much fruit. But keeping, loving, and bearing are not the main exhortations in John 15. Rather, they rest on what is most essential if we want to live so as to experience the complete joy of Jesus. And what is this essential activity? Abiding in Jesus. In verse 4, he says, “Abide in me as I abide in you.” Then he explains that, just as a branch cannot bear fruit unless it abides in the vine, so it is with us. Our fruitfulness depends not on our intentions or efforts, but on our abiding in Jesus. In fact, Jesus notes that if we abide in him, we will bear much fruit. If we don’t abide in him, we “can do nothing” (v. 5).

Therefore, though our fruitfulness matters if we are going to glorify God and experience the joy of Jesus, we must understand that fruitfulness is a result of abiding. New Testament scholar Marianne Meye Thompson, one of my Fuller colleagues, writes in her excellent commentary on John, “Strikingly, Jesus does not exhort his disciples to bear fruit; rather, he exhorts his disciples to remain attached to him, the source of life” (p. 324). If we abide in Jesus, if we make our home in him, if we are deeply connected to him and his life, then we will bear fruit that matters, which will help us to experience the full, rich joy of Jesus.

Here’s the bottom line. Though what we experience in this age is never perfect, Jesus says we can indeed experience his joy. Not only that, we can also experience joy that is full, rich, and even in some sense complete. What we do with our lives contributes to our joy. On the way to divine joy, we keep Jesus’s commandments, love each other, and bear much fruit. But these activities depend on something greater and deeper, namely, abiding in Jesus. Having a strong, life-giving, intimate, and resilient relationship with Jesus is the foundation for a fruitful life and, indeed, for a joyful life. Thus, if we want to experience the fullness of joy, we must begin by accepting the invitation of Jesus, “Abide in me as I abide in you” (v. 4).

Find all Life for Leaders devotions here. Explore what the Bible has to say about work at the unique website of our partners, the Theology of Work Project’s online commentary. Reflection on today’s Life for Leaders theme can be found here: I Am the Vine and You Are the Branches (John 15).