It was a hot, arid day in Jerusalem. The smell of falafel and hummus filled the air. Jesus arrived after a long journey, probably from Capernaum. This was a journey He had made this time every year since He was a boy. And I imagine, He was exhausted. Travel wears me out! When He arrived in Jerusalem, He was greeted like a King. But then the religious leaders turned on Him. And questioned Him. And tried to entrap Him. It was exhausting. And He knew what was coming. On that Thursday, He just wanted to spend time with His friends around the table, BE with them, and share His final thoughts.
When they arrived in the Upper Room, something unexpected happened. Jesus knelt down and washed their feet. It was a beautiful act of humility and servant leadership. I imagine everyone was in a vulnerable, emotional state – their hearts and ears hanging on every word their Teacher had to say. Then came the Passover meal. And the best conversations and quality time always happen around the dinner table, am I right?
Jesus gave a lengthy, private teaching to His disciples that night. It came to be known as the Upper Room discourse. Jesus’ words were full of comfort and encouragement. He knew it was important to equip His disciples, His leaders, to live in this world after His death, resurrection, and ascension into Heaven, to guide them in how they would be empowered to live a life of faithfulness after He left.
As part of the instruction, Jesus said:
“If you love me,
you will keep my commandments.
Anyone who loves me
will obey my teaching.
My Father will love them,
and we will come to them
and make our home,
abide and dwell with them.
Anyone who does not love me
will not obey my teaching.
These words you hear are not my own;
they belong to the Father, who sent me.”
Did we hear Him, right? To love means to obey? Yes, Jesus equated love with obedience. He unmistakably meant that obedience to His commandments is both an identifier and a test of His disciples’ love for Him. If we truly love God, we will seek to know Him and keep His commands. If we’re not keeping His commands, we can’t honestly claim to love Him. Jesus made it clear – actions are the result of beliefs.
With tomorrow being Valentine’s Day, what a fitting sermon series we have before us – What is Love?! If God is love, what does this mean for us? Today’s topic is Obedience and Discipline! For whatever reason, though, this an unpopular teaching in today’s society. We would much rather emphasize personal autonomy and free will!
But what would it look like for you to shape your life around the teachings of Christ because you love God? What weight does your love truly have if you’re not expressing it through obedience?
I want to start off with a little Greek lesson. (Shocking, I know.) As I’ve told you before, the Greek language is ranked as the richest in the world, with over 5 million words and 70 million word types. When English writers set out to translate the New Testament, which was largely written in Greek, they had to use many of the same English words for different Greek words. One of those words is LOVE! I love my husband. I love to travel. I love my dog. I love University of North Carolina basketball. I love chocolate! Oh, do I love chocolate. And coffee! I love coffee! Yes, please! Those can’t possibly be the same emotions, yet we use the same word each time. How can that be?
In Greek, there are several different words for love, including –
- philia (brotherly love)
- eros (passionate love)
- ludus (playful love)
- pragma (longstanding love)
- storge (family love)
- agape (unconditional love)
The “love” we see in the John chapter 14, verse 23, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching,” is the same type of “love” we find in other commands, like:
- “Love your enemies” in Matthew 5 and Luke 6.
- “Love one another” in John 13.
- “Though you have not seen Him, you love Him” in 1 Peter 1.
In Greek, this type of “love” is translated Agape. This is love that is considered unconditional. This is the love that is most appropriate for understanding what it means to love Jesus. And this is the love that Paul describes in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. He explains this type of love by what it does and what it does not do.
Agape is patient, kind, rejoicing with truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping in all things, and enduring through all things. In contrast, agape does notenvy, boast, or rejoice in wrongdoing; it’s not arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable, or resentful. Most importantly, agape does not end. It will not fade away like the other types of love, because agape is not based on circumstances. It is not based on emotion, but on the will.
Each characteristic of agape is a deliberate choice to act in a certain manner. So, when Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” He was teaching that loving Him would be a demonstrable action, not an emotional feeling. If Jesus is to be loved as He commanded, then a conscious choice must be made to act according to the pattern described in 1 Corinthians 13:
- We are to bear the fruit of patience and kindness.
- We will rejoice in the truth - bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring through all things.
- We will stray from envy, boastful pride, or rejoicing in wrongdoing.
- Our actions must not be arrogant, rude, selfish, irritable, or resentful.
Jesus was clear that loving Him is a service, and that disobedience is evidence of a lack of love.
So, to love Jesus is to willfully act in such a way that our devotion to Him is proved through our actions toward Him and our obedience of Him. To love the Lord is to follow Him wherever He leads, to obey Him in whatever He asks, and to trust Him whatever the trial.
I feel at this point, I need to confess something to you. I am a self-proclaimed rule follower. If there is a rule, I will follow it. But… in my younger years, I was not very good at the whole obedience thing. There may have been some broken curfews. Perhaps climbing a fence to go into a park after hours. A skipped class here and there. And pranks. Oh, the pranks! Kool-Aid powder in the shower heads. Saran wrap over the toilet seats. Sneaking out in the middle of the night to drop a tractor load of cow manure in the boys’ bathhouse! Oh, Quaker Lake Camp will never be the same! Basically, I held a general belief that rules were made to be broken, and it was better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
Even as a young woman of faith, I found the word “obedience” to be archaic and old-fashioned. So “spiritual obedience” was a bit problematic for me.
- Trust God? Absolutely.
- Love God? Not a problem.
- Seek God? My lifelong desire.
But obey Him? About as compelling as writing 500 times on the youth room chalk board, “I will not roll my youth pastor’s house the night before Easter…” “I will not toilet paper my youth pastor’s house the night before Easter…” “I will not…” Well, you get the idea.
But as a Christian, I can’t avoid that four-letter word “obey.” It pops up in hymns. It's all over the Bible. Like stewardship and justice and mercy, it creeps into sermons. Yet to many of us, “obedience” insinuates dutiful, unquestioning, grin-and-bear-it spirituality. It means following rules, doing the “shoulds” rather than what gives life, or following duty rather than pursuing passion.
So, what’s with this word? When words endure for two thousand years as part of the language of faith, there’s probably a reason. So, I blew the dust off this stodgy word, and pulled it from the shelf of worn-out Christian history, to see that obedience in our day and time must have more to it.
From the writings of my favorite, humble, loving theologian named Henri Nouwen, I realized why this word endures — and the significance I long found elusive. He wrote this… “Obey” comes from the Latin word audire (ow-dear-ie) AUDIRE, which means to hear.
It’s the root of our word “audible.” Going back several centuries, to “obey” God simply meant to do what it takes to “hear” His voice. And to “pray” is to listen to that voice of love, to listen with great attentiveness. “Hearing” God implies relationship, intimacy, stillness. To hear someone, we have to be close and attentive enough to respond.
That’s what obedience is all about. Without listening, we become “deaf” to the voice of love. The Latin word for “deaf” is surdus. SURDUS. To be completely deaf is to be absurdus. ABSURDUS. Yes, that’s where we get the word “absurd.” When we no longer pray, no longer listen to the voice of love that speaks to us in the moment, our lives become absurd lives, in which we are thrown back and forth between the past and the future, the wandering and the paralyzed.
This is where Christ steps in and calls us to simply be, to abide with Him, and to rest in His presence through prayer. When we are fully present where we are, we discover that we’re not alone, and that the One, who is with us, wants only one thing: to give us LOVE. So, the spiritual disciplines that ground us — prayer, study, contemplation, confession, Christian community — are, in essence, our seeking to “obey” God. All are forms of spiritual obedience.
This connection between Agape love, love for Christ, and obedience to Him is a recurring theme in the apostle John’s writings, which is rather appropriate as John is traditionally known as the “Disciple Jesus Loved.”
In the Upper Room Discourse we spoke about earlier, John quotes Jesus saying, “If you love me, keep my commands,” and then a few verses later repeating himself, saying, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching.”
Keeping His Word, keeping His commands, means always referencing His written and spoken Word toward us when we make decisions, which lead to actions. We are to meditate on His Word, so His thoughts become our thoughts, and then our attitudes and actions will be like His.
According to 1st John chapter 2, obeying God actually “completes” or perfects our love of God. Without obedience to His Word, we are not fully loving God. We are only partially loving God.
The best example I could think of is the relationship between a child and parent. We may obey a parent out of fear of punishment, but as parents, wouldn’t we much rather our children obey us out of love? This week, I was talking with Olga and Igor, our Russian global mission partners. They’re expecting a baby girl in three weeks! And I asked how their toddler son, Ivan, was doing. Igor quickly spoke up, without knowing what I was preaching on today, and said, “Ivan is a good boy. He is very obedient. We know he loves us and will love his sister, because he is obedient.”
Children, and adults alike, often struggle internally between their own self-serving desires and their desire to please and do the right thing. It’s the same with us and God. Our obedience is outward proof that our profession of love and admiration and trust in Him is not just lip service. The daily struggle becomes… Do I REALLY love God enough to give up my own selfish desires and demands to obey Him? Do I REALLY love God enough to follow His commands, His teachings, His Gospel message?
These commands involve the full scope of Christ’s revelation in John chapter 8, where Jesus said, “If you hold on to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a child belongs to it forever. So, if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
Friends, once we believe and receive the truth of who Jesus is, we are set free. As we read in our communion liturgy, once we confess and leave our sins at the foot of the cross, Jesus frees us for joyful obedience. It’s pure delight to delight in the ways of God. To follow Christ’s commands is not burdensome, but a blessing.
In fact, that is our memory verse for today. First John 5:3 says: “Loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.”
To be a humble child of God is to love, trust, and obey our heavenly Father. Joyful obedience flows from a heart that loves the Lord. So, when we gladly obey and do not murmur, just going through the motions, we honor God. Obedience joyfully expressed fulfills our souls. Delayed and disgruntled obedience endangers the health of our souls. We’re not just checking the box of good behavior; we’re cheerfully following Christ.
Jesus knew pure joy came from staying pure to His purpose - the shame, scorn and suffering of the cross. Joyful obedience is not always easy, but it endures into eternity. It’s not always met with man’s approval, but we know it makes our Savior smile. Joyful obedience is its own reward. Christ kept His grace filled composure and followed the command of His heavenly Father to completely obey by His death on the cross. Complete obedience consummates complete joy. Yes, it’s the joy of Jesus that resides in His followers. Our obedience releases Christ’s love and joy within us.
Friends, perhaps you fear the thought of obedience, especially to the almighty, all-knowing, and all-powerful Creator of the universe. Perhaps you cannot seem to find a way to consistently choose Him over yourself. Perhaps you cannot seem to be able to live for His affections over those of the world. As hard as you try in various seasons, you just can’t be obedient.
I’ve been there. I’ve had those seasons. But obedience is the key to spiritual vitality. God’s desire is always to love us to a place that our obedience would be a natural overflow of our love for Him. He longs for us to live a lifestyle of love-based obedience.
And me? Once I finally came to know and love the word obedience, my heart yearned to obey. I long to grow to the place where I am so in love with Jesus that I long to choose Him in every situation. I long to be a servant so in love with my King that I would die for Him, or anyone else He asked me to.
The love of God and for God is so real, so powerful, and so transformational, that it can mold and shape us into people who no longer live for this temporary world, but seek first an everlasting kingdom. If we will simply be people, who let God love us in every moment, we will naturally be people who are obedient to God’s perfect will for us.
Take time today, this week, to be attentive to God’s presence and voice and to receive the transformational love of your heavenly Father. Allow His love to lay a foundation on which you pursue wholehearted obedience. May you be filled with affection for your King today, as you receive the wealth of unconditional agape love He has for you.
Lord, we praise You because when we fully obey with our hearts,
we experience Your best
and enjoy the satisfaction of pleasing You
because obedience always leads to Your blessing.
Jesus pointed out that Your blessing comes from obeying the truth,
not just knowing it.
Father, help us not to just wonder about obedience,
but to continue to pursue it
all of the days of our lives.
Amen.
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