April 27 Sermon: Love and Obedience

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth. John 14:15,16

A mother was trying to put her three-year-old son to bed for a nap. When she was unsuccessful, she put him in her bed and laid down with him to encourage him to rest. She fell asleep, but he didn't. When she woke up, she saw him sitting on a chair at the end of the bed, and asked,
"Luke, what are you doing?"
"I'm playing God," he replied.
"Playing God?" she asked.
"Yes," he said. "I'm watching over you while you sleep."

Children understand more than we do sometimes. God IS watching over us. Jesus gave that promise in talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit. Not only will God watch over us but through the presence of the Holy Spirit, we will be reminded of what it means to "Love Jesus and keep his commands." And God will help us to create the environment of love, grace, faith and security that we need for our homes today. Our challenge is to listen to the Holy Spirit and to trust Christ.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments… This is my commandment: That you love one another as I have loved you. John 14:15; 15:12

In our culture, when Jesus mentions the word “love”, we preachers feel obligated to remind you that he’s not talking about love in the ordinary sense of the word – love as a warm, sentimental feeling. Christ-like love is no mere feeling or evanescent emotion. Love is an action, a specific action that is directed toward another person.

Human love is mutual – I love and am loved in return. I give and I receive. Christ’s love is greater than human love.

Jesus Christ defines what he means by love on the cross. It is self-giving and even sacrificial. Christ-like love is given, expecting nothing in return. It involves putting others first –even sacrificing my needs for theirs – and so may be a tough thing to do because we’re constantly encouraged by the world to think first of ourselves.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments… They who know my commandments and keep them are those who love me,14:15, 21

In our short gospel Jesus repeatedly links love and obedience. Christ-like love is something we are commanded to do – not to feel, but to do – in response to His love for us.

A little boy was riding his tricycle furiously around the block, over and over again. Finally a neighbor stopped and asked him why he was going around and around. The boy said that he was running away form home. The neighbor asked why he kept going around the block. The boy responded,
"Because my mom said that I'm not allowed to cross the street."

The point is clear--obedience will keep you close to those you love – and love expresses itself in obedience. Jesus gives his command as a means of His continuing presence with us.

Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. 15:9,10

There is a correlation between love and obedience. We are commanded to love, but the world doesn’t work that way. We are commanded to witness to Jesus’ love for us; the world tells us to keep quite about our faith. Just go along to get along.

So obedience is required: a dogged determination to obey Jesus and walk in his loving way, no matter what others are doing. That will take obedience. Keeping His commands, walking in His way, is the path to abiding in Christ’s love.

How can we frail, all-too-human people be expected to love others as Jesus loves us? – to live up to His high demands?

The Lord commands us to love and gives us His Spirit to enable us to obey his command.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth ... John 14:15-17.

In order to love in this obedient, Christ-like-way, we are not left to our own devices. Rather, we are enabled to love by the gift of the Holy Spirit. A major work of the Spirit is to enable us obediently to love.

When Jesus calls you to follow Him, he doesn’t expect you to be some kind of spiritual superhero. He wants you to follow Him in obedience by opening yourself to the Spirit’s guidance.

In linking the command to obedience with the gift of the Spirit to strengthen obedience, we are reminded that the faith is not to be lived alone. It is meant to be lives in complete dependence upon the love and presence of Christ.

Jesus says this companion, the “advocate, the Holy Spirit, will abide with you and be with you”.

The great blues master Jimmy Reed was a share-cropper's son. Reed brought the throbbing harmonica-and-guitar-driven black rhythm-and-blues of the Mississippi Delta into the popular rock-and-roll mainstream.

There's an interesting story behind the Jimmy Reed records. If you listen very carefully, you begin to notice something curious. There can sometimes be heard, ever so faintly in the background, a soft woman's voice murmuring in advance the next verse of the song. Jimmy Reed was so absorbed in the bluesy beat and the throbbing guitar riffs of his music that he simply could not remember the words of his own songs. He needed help with the lyrics, and the woman's voice was that of his wife, coaching her husband through the recording session by whispering the upcoming stanzas into his ear as he sang.

Christians can recognize a parallel experience.

The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all I have said to you. 14:26

Jesus tells his followers that the role of the Holy Spirit is, in effect, to whisper the lyrics of the gospel song in the ears of His followers. When Jesus was present, he was the one who instilled in them the right words, coached them through the proper verses, taught them the joyful commandments. But now that the disciples will be on their own without him, that task is to be handed over to the Holy Spirit:

The primary task, then, of the Holy Spirit is reminding us of
the truth, jogging our memories about all of his commandments so that we can keep them in love, whispering the lyrics of
the never-ending hymn of faithful obedience in our ears. It may surprise us to think of the Holy Spirit in this way, as a quiet, whispering teacher of the commandments of Jesus.

Often the Spirit is advertised in flashier terms: The Spirit gives ecstasy; the speaking in unknown tongues; the Spirit prompts dramatic and miraculous healings. Indeed, the Holy Spirit of God does perform such deeds, but these are all derivative
of the one, primary activity of the Spirit -- reminding the children of God about everything that Jesus taught and commanded, whispering the gospel lyrics into the ears of the forgetful followers.

Today’s gospel linking Jesus command to love others with the gift of the Spirit to strengthen our ability to do it reminds us that the Christian faith is not meant to be lived alone. Rather, we are dependent on Christ and on our brothers and sisters. Our love for others is dependent upon – derives from – Christ’s love for us.

Jesus doesn’t expect you to do it on our own. He doesn’t leave you alone. He sends you the Holy Spirit, that constant, near presence of God to embolden you, to strengthen you, to enable you to be more than you could be on your own.

In His teaching, Jesus would show us how to live in relationship with others -- how to live life in the way we were created for. We learn to love like Christ by doing it practicing it in our families, among our brothers and sisters in the church family.

Christ commands us to love one another, to link up with one another in mutual concern, and to feel responsibility for one another. We are God’s family and we are to act like it – to be brothers and sisters to each other. We believe God created us – and Christ has commanded us – to lean on one another – to be there for each other. The test of a Christian’s faith is not first of all a matter of belief, but a matter of love.

Christ has given us His Spirit to empower and energize us so that we might share His love with others, and be “little Christ’s” for those around us.

Share the love of Christ with others, and you will know the joy of believing. Amen.