I Commit My Spirit

 

Words from the Cross – “I Commit My Spirit.”

PALM SUNDAY, April 10, 2022

 

Luke 19:28-40

 

After Jesus had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

 

Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them.  As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

 

They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

 

They brought it to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it.  As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road.

 

When he came near the place where the road goes down the Mount of Olives, the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

 

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!” 

 

“Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!”

 

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!”

 

“I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

 

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.

 

 

Luke 23:44-46

 

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

 

Psalm 31:5 - Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.

 

Friends, today is Palm Sunday. And while we’re concluding a sermon series based on Jesus’ last words from the cross, I didn’t want to miss the significance of this day. Jesus came into Jerusalem, hailed as a King, but not even one day had passed before those cheers turned to jeers. 

 

So, this morning, I invite you to come with me on a journey - a journey from the Mount of Olives to the Garden of Gethsemane and ultimately to the Cross. 

 

It was a dry, spring day when Jesus left Caesarea Philippi to make His yearly trek to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. For the Jewish people, Passover was morethan a religious observance; it was a season of freedom. It was the time of year when Jews celebrated liberation from Egyptian bondage. During the time of Jesus, they also used this opportunity to express their longing for political freedom from Rome. In fact, Jews claiming be “messiahs” had so often caused riots during Passover, the Romans brought in extra troops to Jerusalem during the Passover season. And those soldiers did not hesitate to shed blood to keep the peace. 

 

On His journey, Jesus passed through the same Judean wilderness where He was tempted. It was barren, rocky, dusty. I wonder what He was thinking as He walked through that desert place where He was tested. Did He remember how He relied on God’s strength to resist temptation? Did He remember how Scripture flowed from His heart to His mouth to counteract the Evil One? Or, knowing what was coming in the days ahead, did He wonder, “Is there no other way?” 

 

Again, He pressed on in His mission. He passed through Bethany, where His best friends - Mary, Martha, and Lazarus - lived. It had only been days since He raised Lazarus from the dead! And then, He emerged from the wilderness on the eastern side of the Mount of Olives, just as the prophecy said the Messiah would come. 

 

Jesus, the King, fulfilling this prophecy foretold by Zechariah, rode into town on a borrowed donkey, knowing by the end of the week He would lay in a borrowed grave. The people threw their cloaks down on the road before Him and praised God for all the miracles He had done. The crowd shouted, “Hosanna, Hosanna” - a slogan of the ultra-nationalistic Zealots, which meant, “Please, save us! Give us freedom! We’re sick of these Romans!”

 

Surely the Jews were wondering, “Is this the One who will deliver us?” Almost like a parade, the people clamored to see Him as they waved their palm branches. And these palm branches weren’t just a symbol of peace and love; they were a symbol of Jewish nationalism, an expression of the people’s desire for political freedom; a symbol once imprinted on Jewish coins when the Jewish nation was free.

 

Their excitement grew, and their voices rose to such a level that the Pharisees asked Jesus to hush up the people. They feared this Jesus, who questioned their integrity and undermined their authority. They feared the emotion and love the people had for Jesus. And they feared the Romans’ reaction. 

But Jesus, with all the wit He could muster, said to them, 
“I tell you, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  

Then Jesus approached the city of Jerusalem. It was a breathtaking sight of beauty - lush gardens, watch towers surrounded by stone walls, and Jerusalem’s crown - the temple - gleaming like a jewel. But to Jesus, all He saw was a panorama of pain. 

 

Jesus, at last, had come to reveal himself as King, but He was not the kind of King they were looking for. He came as a servant King, the Lamb of God, who was willing to give His life to usher in His kingdom.

 

According to Exodus 12, the Sunday before Passover was traditionally the day the people began the celebration of Passover. And so, the city was already crowded, for this day was “lamb selection day” - the day when each Jewish family picked the lamb that was to die on the following Friday. This was the day when the people would choose a perfect, unblemished lamb for the Passover. 

 

On this day, though, Jesus, the Lamb of God, the sinless Messiah, who would die on humankind’s behalf, appeared on the very day that people chose their Passover lambs. It's almost as if God said to the world, “Here’s my Lamb. Will you choose Him?” But instead of turning to Jesus as the Lamb of God, the crowds misunderstood the proclamation that He was their Messiah. The people were looking for a messiah who offered political deliverance and a political kingdom. Yet they would have nothing to do with the Messiah who offered forgiveness and deliverance from sin. The cheers had already begun to turn to jeers.

 

In response, fully human, fully divine Jesus… wept. The Greek word for weeping, used in Luke chapter 19, means, He “cried aloud, in convulsive sobs.” Jesus didn’t weep for Himself, nor the pain and the curses and the cross He would bear in the days ahead. No, the tears Jesus shed as the people cried out their political “Hosannas” were tears of grief for the hearts of His people. He heard their cries. He saw their future. He knew the people, His people, were seeking peace in the wrong way. He wept for Jerusalem; He wept for you and for me. 

 

There on that donkey, riding down the steep hill from the Mount of Olives and into the Kidron valley, can you imagine Jesus, with tears flowing, looking toward the city walls? He saw beyond the noise and movement to what was ahead of Him: an agonizing journey of betrayal, torture, crucifixion, and death. His unfocused eyes saw what nobody around Him could see. There was melancholy, but also peaceful acceptance. There was insight into the fickleness of the human heart, but also immense compassion. There was a deep awareness of an unspeakable pain to be suffered, but also a strong determination to do God’s will. Above all, there was love - an endless, deep, far-reaching love, born from an unbreakable intimacy with God. 

 

As He moved through the week, the last week of His earthly life, Jesus continuously drew strength from that resilient intimacy with God. He battled every day - in the Temple, in the streets, with His disciples, in the Upper Room, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. 

 

It was in the Garden that His spirit was so overwhelmed with sorrow and grief, He begged God to find another way. He cried out to God so intensely, His brow began to sweat drops of blood. And then, there in Gethsemane, victory was won when Jesus said to His Father, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” He trusted His Father. He yielded His control to His Father. He was confident in putting His life into His Father’s hands. 

 

Again, He pressed on in His mission, until the end of the week, where He found Himself nailed to the cross. At the very end of Jesus’ life, the sun darkened, and the veil curtain of the temple tore down the middle. Then Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into Your hands, I commit my spirit.’ When He had said this, He breathed his last.

 

Think about that. As Jesus hung on the Cross, humiliated and in excruciating pain, He gave us a glorious example of surrender. Being perfect in every way, He didn’t turn in on Himself and wallow in self-pity, anger, or regret. The cruelty He had received from so many did not deter Him from the continual surrender of His life to the Father and to His holy will. 

 

Instead, Jesus chose this most miserable, persecuted state to profess His unending union with His Father. Despite the pain, despite the mocking, despite the agony, despite the sense of horrible aloneness He felt, He dedicated His life. Jesus entrusted His spirit -- His life -- and all that had given it meaning -- to God, in faith. Even at the point of His own abandonment, when the good seemed so very far away, Jesus proclaimed His trust in God, and the darkness could not overcome it. "Father, into Your hands, I commit My spirit." 

 

How often in our own lives, when difficulties come our way, do we begin to lose trust and hope in the Father? We carefully examine our own wounds and ponder the injustices we’ve suffered. We allow hurt and sorrow to turn our eyes from God, and instead, we gaze at ourselves.

 

But this prayer, spoken by our Lord, was spoken, in part, as a lesson to each one of us. It was prayed because it was the perfect expression of who Jesus was. And it was spoken for us to imitate. And that’s where I was convicted this week. How do I, how do we imitate this prayer? How do I, how do we surrender our lives and place them in the hands of our Father? “Into Thy Hands, I commend My Spirit.” 

The Greek word for “commend” means to place with someone, to entrust, to commit. Jesus was not helplessly watching His life slip away, but He consciously placed it in the care of; entrusted it to; committed it to the tender, caring hands of His Father. Theologian Matthew Henry says our souls were forfeited, and His soul must go to redeem the forfeiture. The price must be paid into the hands of God, the party offended by sin. It’s just as if you owed someone a debt. When you went to satisfy that debt, it would only be proper and fitting to place the money into the hands of the one to whom it is owed. While paying the price for our redemption, Jesus placed the purchase price - His life - into the hands of His Father.

 

In the midst of the pain and agony, Jesus dedicated Himself into the hands of God. Not only was He depositing His life into His Father's hands, but He was dedicating it and entrusting it into His Father's meticulous, assiduous, tender-loving care. And He dedicated His spirit, His life, to God prior to the victory of the Resurrection. Most of us don’t have a problem dedicating ourselves to God while enjoying victory. But can we be dedicated in the face of what looks like defeat? Can we be dedicated while we’re still being attacked? Can we be dedicated when others are gossiping about us, laughing at us? Can we be dedicated before God delivers on His promises? Can we be dedicated in the midst of pain and agony? 

 

In the midst of pain and agony, Jesus prayed this prayer, and once again He quoted Scripture. Psalm 31:5, to be exact: “Into Your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.”

 

In everything Jesus did and said, He fulfilled the will of God and the Word of God. Even in the throes of death, our Lord was sensible of His mission and pointed those around Him to the fulfillment of prophecy. Christ died with Scripture in His mouth. The Scripture assisted Him, as He made this dedication of His own spirit to the Father. The Scripture assisted Him in relinquishing control to the Father: 

·      “Not thy will, but Yours be done.” 

·      “Into Your hands I commit my spirit.” 

When we pray, we ought to include the Word - Scripture - in our prayers. We give our prayers power when we use the Scripture to agree with the Lord’s covenant promises for our lives. 

 

In the midst of the pain and agony, Jesus also let go, allowing God to take care of the outcome. Perhaps there’s someone here who understands the despair that comes from trying to manipulate and control everything and everyone around you. Yes, I’m a self-professed control-freak, and I often ask God if He needs my help! I’ve seen how jumbled things get, and I often offer my help to control my outcome. But Jesus is teaching us how to let go. This text is tailored to teach us control freaks how to avoid ultimate frustration by learning how to let go and trust God. When the situation isn’t working out the way you want — Let go! When you’ve done your best, and your best is still misunderstood — Let go! When people seem intent on bringing you down — let go! Jesus let go. 

 

 

Finally, in the midst of pain and agony, Jesus placed His spirit into the hands of God. For some time now, He had been in the hands of men:

·      The hands of His friend Judas betrayed Him. 

·      And the hands of Peter emphatically denied Him. 

·      It was men’s hands that arrested Jesus and dragged Him before Caiaphas, the high priest. 

·      It was the Council’s hands that voted Jesus guilty. 

·      The soldier’s hands beat Jesus and held the whips that scourged Him. 

·      Their hands placed the crown of thorns upon His head and pressed it into His flesh. 

·      The mob used their hands to plead the release of Barabbas. 

·      They clenched their hands into fists, demanding that Jesus be crucified. 

·      Their hands had dragged Him to Golgotha and nailed Him to the cross.

·      Their hands had lifted His cross into the air. 

·      Their hands threw the dice to see who would get His cloak. 

 

Jesus had been at the mercy of hands that had no mercy. 

 

But now, He prays this final prayer, "Father, into THY hands, I commend my spirit." 

 

A perfect life lived. A terrible death died. All for the sake of bringing you and me into the near presence of that same Father, now and forever. Friends, things change when we commend our spirits to God. Things change when we yield our trust to our Father. Things change when we pray words of Scripture and place everything into God’s hands. 

 

How deep is your surrender to the Father in Heaven? How often do you pray this prayer – Father, into Your hands, I commit my spirit? And when you pray it, how completely does this prayer become an action in your life? To surrender is to act. It’s more than a decision; it’s a continual act of our will that deepens our surrender until it is complete and total.

 

Reflect, today, upon this perfect prayer of our Lord. “Father, into Your hands I commend my spirit.” Pray it over and over. Make these words your own. If you can, get on your knees or lie prostrate before our Lord (like ERIK! ). Utter it from the depth of your heart. Offer your life continually, and join with Jesus in this perfect and final offering to the Father. 

 

And maybe that is something you’d like to start today. There is always opportunity for you to be in prayer. Enjoy time there in your seat. Perhaps come to the altar kneelers here at the front of our sanctuary. We have leaders from the prayer ministry team, who would love to pray with you, if you’d like. But I will invite you now to center your hearts, and pray these words with me: 

 

Jesus, I want to make my own life a perfect offering to the Father. 

Help me to learn from Your prayers and example, to hold nothing back. 

I commend my life into Your hands. I surrender all to You so that my life may be offered to the Father, in union with Your perfect sacrifice. 

Take me, dear Lord, receive me and do with me as You will. Amen.

 

Father, Forgive Them

 

Words from the Cross: Father, Forgive Them

Luke 23:32-38

 

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals — one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

 

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

 

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

 

There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.

 

It was the end of the longest day ever. Jesus had gathered with His disciples in the Upper Room to observe the Passover meal. And He shocked them all by washing their feet. The ultimate act of humility and servant leadership. Following the meal, He took His three best friends – Peter, James, and John – to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. He just needed time with His Father.

 

He knew what was coming. He knew that His time was up. He knew that His time had come to die. The tension was so palpable, the stress so heavy, that He actually began to sweat drops of blood. He asked His Father to take the cup from Him, to take this pain away, but He yielded His will to that of His Father. 

 

Then Judas, one of His closest friends, with a band of Roman soldiers, entered the Garden and arrested Jesus. They brought Him to the courts, blindfolded Him, and struck Him over, and over, and over again, mocking Him all the while. They took Him then to Pontius Pilate, who didn’t have the courage to profess Jesus’ innocence, so Pilate took Jesus to the crowd, and the shouts of the people prevailed. Pilate sentenced Jesus to death by crucifixion. From there, the flogging began, likely 39 lashes, as 40 would have killed Him. His back was no longer even recognizable. 

 

The soldiers placed a crown of thorns onto His head, a purple robe around his shoulders, pointed to the cross and told Him to pick it up and carry it – well over 100 pounds for 650 yards – down the Via Dolorosa to the place they called Golgotha. His body screamed with pain with every excruciating step. He was exhausted. He was in agony. The Son of God, the King of Glory, couldn’t do it by Himself. He was so beaten, so worn, that He fell …three times…  A man named Simon from Cyrene came to His aid to help Him carry His cross. 

 

When they arrived at the place of the skull, they nailed His wrists and feet to the cross and raised Him. Before long, He was suffocating, unable to grasp breath. Each and every breath was a battle. 

 

Can you imagine just how hard it would have been to form a word and speak it? Yet seven times, Jesus mustered the strength to say seven different things. And if it took Him this much effort just to speak, how incredibly intentional and purposeful those statements must have been.

 

The four New Testament Gospels record these seven “words”, or sayings, from the crucified Jesus of Nazareth. And during these next Sundays of the season of Lent, we will be examining each of these phrases as we journey toward the empty tomb and Easter Sunday.

 

In the traditional order, the first saying is from the Gospel of Luke, which Steven read earlier: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

 

In Jesus’ time, crucifixion was not against the law. It was carried out by the law. It was an exceptionally gruesome method of torturing a person to death, carried out bythe government, and not in secret dungeons, but in public. They were placed on a busy roadside as a form of public announcement: “These miserable human beings that you see before you are not of the same species as the rest of us. They do not deserve to live.” The crowds understood that their role was to jeer, to mock, and to degrade those who had been designated unfit to live.

 

For Jews and Gentiles alike in those days, a crucified person was as low and despised as it was possible to be. As the Romans put it, such a person was “damnatio ad bestias”, meaning “condemned to the death of the beast.” 

 

It was deliberately intended to be obscene – and obscene is defined as “disgusting, repulsive, filthy, foul, abominable, loathsome.” It was purposefully designed to humiliate, to strip a person of human dignity. 

 

We don’t understand it because we’ve never seen anything like it. But the situation was different for everyone 2000 years ago in Israel. Everyone had seen crucified men along the roadsides of the Roman Empire. Everyone knew what it looked like, smelled like, sounded like – the horrific sight of naked men in agony, the sounds of their groans and labored breathing going on for hours, and in some cases, for days. 

 

I tell you these things not to make you uncomfortable… Well, no, I want you to feel uncomfortable. I want me to feel uncomfortable… because I need to be reminded what Jesus went through for me. What He went through for you. There was nothing religious, nothing uplifting, nothing inspiring about a crucifixion. No one at that time was wearing a cross around their neck, or feeling the warm and fuzzies when admiring a cross. 

 

I need a reminder that crucifixion is an enactment of the worst that we are, an embodiment of the most sadistic and inhumane impulses that lie within us as human beings. And the Son of God absorbed all that. He drew it into Himself. The mocking of Jesus, the spitting and the scorn, the “inversion of His kingship”, the “studious dethronement” with the crown of thorns and purple robe – all were part of a deliberate procedure of shaming, that unfolded in several stages, and ultimately culminated in crucifixion. In walking through Jesus’ last day, we are reminded of the absolute worst people can do.

And yet here we find Jesus. Exhausted. In agony. Shamed. Belittled. And what were Jesus’s first words from the Cross? He doesn’t pray for the good and the innocent. He prays for people doing terrible things. He prays for men who are committing brutal acts, and offers them to His Father’s mercy. It’s for His enemies that He prays, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

 

As I sat in many airports over the last few days, I read and re-read this passage. 

 

In light of everything going on in the world right now – an invasion, war, murder, merciless acts - I sat in awe, dumbfounded of how my Savior could forgive those inflicting excruciating pain upon Him. How did He do it? How could He possibly forgive? At first glance, I had the audacity to think, “Sure…wasn’t His whole ministry about forgiveness and reconciliation? He brought those on the margins to the center of God’s love! Of course, Jesus would, in His final moments, speak the words that comprise His mission and ministry. Of course, He would speak words of forgiveness.”

 

But then I remembered, Jesus is fully divine but also fully human. And me? Sadly, I’m too human on most days. Forgiveness is not often found in my first words; sometimes not even in my last words.

So, I took this statement piece-by-piece, and these were my three take-aways: 

 

First, Jesus prayed to His Father.

 

It seems Jesus was always in prayer, always taking time to withdraw from the world to draw strength from His Father. So, this was His instinctive response - to reach out to God. In His hardest moment, Jesus prayed. At the time of His greatest physical and emotional pain, Jesus called out to His Father. The Father whom He knew. The Father whom He loved. The Father who was present with Him in every moment. The Father whom He trusted to hear His cries. What if we made this our instinctive response, to first cry out to God, even in our most painful situations, in our valleys, in our lowest of lows? Jesus taught us that we can trust that when we call out to God, He will hear us. He will be present with us.

 

After He cried out to His Father, Jesus asked His Father to forgive. 

 

This fact is remarkable in itself. At the time of His most extreme ordeal, Jesus nevertheless found the courage to pray – not for Himself, but for others. I don’t know about you, but when I’m tired, when I’m exhausted, when I’m in pain, I’m not thinking about others. I have a self-centered, one-track mind, trying to shut the world out. Talking is the last thing I want to do, and forgiveness is the last thing on my mind. 

 

Jesus’s prayer for God to forgive His persecutors, in the same moment they were torturing Him, leaves an example for us. We are called to forgive others when they sin against us. Even when they don’t recognize their sin or ask for forgiveness, we’re instructed to show mercy to our enemies, just as Jesus showed mercy to His. 

 

Henri Nouwen wrote, “Forgiveness is the name of love practiced among people who love poorly. The hard truth is all people love poorly, and so we need to forgive and be forgiven every day, every hour increasingly. Forgiveness is the great work of love among the fellowship of the weak that is the human family.”

If we can’t practice forgiveness, then perhaps it’s not that we don’t practice love poorly… it’s that we don’t practice love at all. And so, we are reminded to practice. And perhaps that is the secret. We simply need to practice forgiveness as our first words, in order to learn to love – perhaps poorly at first, but more completely in time. Where to begin? A first step may be joining Jesus in His plea, His prayer, and His loving hope, by saying the words, “Father, forgive them….”

But my third lesson from this passage was the biggest lesson I learned this week - Jesus interceded for those “who knew not what they did?”

 

For whom, exactly, was He interceding? The Roman soldiers who were doing the immediate, hands-on deeds? Or maybe He was forgiving Caiaphas, the high priest and his kangaroo court? Maybe Pontius Pilate, who washed his hands of Him? Or maybe Judas, one of those closest to Him who betrayed Him? Or Peter, His #1 disciple, who had denied Him three times? Perhaps it was for the criminal to His right, who used His final breaths to mock Jesus? 

Maybe, just maybe, Jesus left the prayer open-ended on purpose – He wanted to invite everyone who heard these words to receive His forgiveness. 

 

When I was studying this passage, I found myself in Leviticus… as one does… And the book of Leviticus prescribes various religious sacrifices that should be made by people who have “unwittingly” broken the laws of God. Even if they “knew not” what they have done, they are judged guilty and must seek atonement 

 

The basic idea in the sacrificial rituals of Leviticus is that atonement, or forgiveness for sin, COSTS SOMETHING. Something valuable must be offered in restitution, usually an animal sacrifice, with a sense of awe at the shedding of blood, to represent this payment. This is what it means in Hebrews 9:22, which says, “Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.” The blood represents the ultimate cost to the giver. 

 

Jesus went to the cross knowing what it would cost Him. But He went because He knew His mission was to fulfill God’s redemptive plan. He knew that His death, His sacrifice, would bring our forgiveness. And He considered us – He considered you, He considered me, He considered every human being - to be worth the cost. Jesus forgave those who tortured Him unjustly. But He also forgives us for the sin that put Him there. 

 

There is a suggestion here that human beings are in the grip of something they do not fully comprehend. The evil that lodges in the human heart is greater than we know. This means at least two things. It means that there is nothing that you or I could ever do, ever say, or ever be, that would be beyond the reach of Jesus’ prayers. Nothing at all. And it also means that no one else, no one at all, is beyond that reach. His prayer for the worst of the worst comes from a place beyond human understanding. 

 

For the apostle Paul, this is all due to the righteousness, the greatness, the decency, of God. Paul’s favorite word is “justification”, which means the same thing as “righteousness” - in Greek and in Hebrew. Paul says in Romans 4 that we are justified by the blood of Jesus. A better translation may be - we are being made righteous through Jesus’ death on the cross. This is more comprehensive and more revolutionary than forgiveness itself. 

 

In Romans chapter 5, Paul gives our memory verse of the week. This is the heart and soul of the Christian message, and what the death of Christ means for every human being: 

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly… But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

 

And who are these ungodly people? Friends, that’s us. That’s you, and me, along with Abraham and Isaac, Moses and Joshua, Peter and Paul, Mary and Martha. There are elements of myself that are indefensible. There are elements of YOU that are undesirable. If we don’t understand our own defenselessness in the grip of sin and death, we can’t understand the magnitude of what Jesus did on the cross. 

 

But while we recognize ourselves as guilty and condemned, we can fully know at the same moment, we, ourselves, are the ones for whom Christ died - for He is the One who justifies the ungodly, the One who forgives, the One who will incorporate us into Himself and remake us after His own image in the company of all saints, rejoicing with the Father, who awaits us with arms flung wide open at His overflowing banquet in the Kingdom of Heaven. 

 

From that sphere of divine power, we can hear these words today as though they were spoken for the first time, as though they were being spoken at this very moment by the living Spirit, spoken to each one of us: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” 

 

And isn’t this, in fact, what we do when we remember and participate in the sacrament of Holy Communion. It’s right there in the liturgy that Carl read earlier – “Hear the Good News! Christ died for us, while we were yet sinners. That PROVES God’s love toward us. In the name of Jesus Christ, YOU are forgiven. Glory to God.” 

 

Amen.

What is Love? Obedience & Discipline

 

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 1^st 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.