Abiding in Obedient Love

Loving by Abiding Obedience

Obeying by Loving Abiding

John 14:20-24; John 15:1-17

Dylan and the Face Poking

It was an opportunity for a beautiful moment. Dylan was lying right next to me and he had picked out a book for me to read. Sweetness. Arabelle was over in her bed, but she was listening. Logan had seen me lying comfortably on my stomach and decided the best place to lie down was on top of me.

That is getting less comfortable every day.

All cuddled up and I started reading. And Dylan reaches over and punches Logan in the head. Logan smacks him back, and I have to stop them, address the situation. No hitting, etc... Stern Dad. Don’t touch each other or everyone loses books.

I start reading again.

Then Dylan, out of the corner of my eye, reaches out with one finger… … … pokes Logan in the cheek.

Like I can’t see. So now I have to go through with it. Everyone loses books, straight to bed, lights out, kids crying, tears and frustration.

And the worst of it was, I missed out just as much as they did. I was soaking in that relational love moment. And we all lost the beauty of that moment, of what could have been.

Because Dylan didn’t obey my command, we missed out on a loving moment together.

“Loving” moments with God

And that moment stuck with me because I have been wrestling with this idea of our “loving” relationship with God and the place of obedience in it.

There is a song by Jason Grey that goes “it has to be more like falling in love than pledging my allegiance…” And it goes on to say don’t give me rules, I’ll just break them.

And I get that dichotomy, that tension. I don’t want to be just a diligent rule-follower, I want a relationship, I want love. And it isn’t just “what can I do for God…” but I want that sense of abiding, “what can I do with God?”

But it turns out that God gives us lots of rules. Jesus gives us lots of commands. And insists that we follow them, even while insisting that he loves us

Are “loving” God and “obeying” God two different tracks?

Can I love God and not obey him?

Can I obey God without “loving” him?

Book

Context

Back in John, we pick up on Jesus’ teaching in the Upper Room. He is teaching his disciples what life is going to look like after he is gone. And we have three major threads in his teaching. Threaded throughout is the coming gift of the Holy Spirit which will dwell within each believer. When Jesus leaves, God isn’t “leaving”, he is moving in.

And in the midst of this, even as he is describing his leaving and the sending of his Spirit, Jesus teaches his disciples how to “love” him, how to do life “with” him… even though he isn’t physically present with them anymore.

John 14:18-24

18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me.

Now we see these two ideas put in a kind of dependent connection. Love and obedience.

If anyone loves me… he will keep my word (or commands). Love leads to obedience. Always.

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. Disobedience reveals a lack of love.

And then jumping up to verse 21, we see it in the opposite direction. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. Obedience reveals love… but there is an ambiguity here. Obedience reveals love… but it is strongly implied here that obedience reveals love, or is itself the practice of love!

Love leads to obedience. Obedience reveals love, and true obedience to the commands of Jesus leads to love. There is a feedback loop here. One leading to the other. Not because obedience is a place-holder for love but because of the specific content of the commands of Jesus.

Does obedience generally lead to love? No. But obedience to the commands of Jesus does lead into greater love. Why? Here’s a hint, take a look at what Jesus called his most important commands: love God and love your neighbor. And since it is on these commands “all the law and prophets hang” that says that the divine intention of all God’s commands is and has always been to greater love.

Love to obedience, obedience to love, rinse and repeat!

And this answer responds to Judas (not Iscariot) to answer that which distinguishes them, the disciples, from the world. It is this interlocking cycle of love and obedience that distinguishes disciples from “the world.”

Loving obedience. Obedient love. Or in fact, as modeled by Jesus, a tremendously practical love that is more than a “fond feeling” but expresses itself in faithful and practical action.

Then Jesus gives his disciples a familiar metaphor to ground this idea of life-with-God. To root it.

John 15:1-11

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

Especially if Jesus is near the Mount of Olives, maybe nearing the Garden of Gethsemane, he may be gesturing at hillsides covered in grape vines. You are like that.

3 Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.

So we have this image now. Jesus is the root, the vine connected into the soil. And the Father is overseeing that vine, caring for it, nurturing it, growing it. And then out of that strong central branch, drawing up the life and water from the soil, all of the branches are connected. And those branches will produce fruit… as long as they stay connected to the vine.

The job of the branches is to stay connected to the vine. The vine will take care of sending the life and nutrients out through the branches and that is what will then produce the fruit.

The job of the branches is to stay connected to the vine. And this is what Jesus connects to “abiding” in him. And if we (verse 7) abide in him and his words abide in us, ask whatever we wish and it will be done for you. Implying that answered prayers, prayers in his name or in his service, will be the fruit.

But connect this for me Jesus: how do I abide in you? How do I stay connected to Jesus. Is it morning devotionals, is it a feeling I nurture within, is it regular church attendance? Make it practical.

And of course he does. He connects this cycle of love and obedience now into this idea of abiding in Jesus:

10 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. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Now we have all three words together in verse 10.

If you keep my commandments… you will abide… in my love.

The abiding happens in the context of love as we are in the process, the actions of, keeping the commandments. But just as the love and obedience was a cycle, this is beautifully ambiguous too. As we abide in his love we will be keeping the commandments. It is a feedback loop.

But the point of action for us is obedience. We don’t foster love by pretending to feel love, by straining to feel love. We engage in the practices of love… which is obedience to the loving commands of Jesus.

We have another phrase we have used for this. It is a term that fills the Old Testament. Righteousness. And we defined it this way.

Right relationship which leads to right living which leads to right relationship.

This is the same cycle, different words.

Love leads to obedience leads to love and the whole thing is abiding life in Jesus.

Love leads to obedience leads to love and the whole thing is abiding life in Jesus.

The fruitful branch connected, rooted in, the vine.

Abiding Obedience in Story Time

When I have my kids with me, that is time with Dad. Special, beautiful time. But there are a whole host of commands that make that time possible and fruitful. They have all done their nighttime routine. They have picked out books. Nobody is punching anyone in the head or poking anyone in the face.

And it isn’t that I stop loving them or they stop loving me when something goes wrong. But the commands are there to allow us to enter, to even guide us into special moments of togetherness, of intimacy that we couldn’t have otherwise.

They obey me because they love me and they know I love them and that obedience leads into greater love. Right relationship leading to right living leading to right relationship.

That is life together. That is how life together with God works.

Our active piece, our role, is to receive the love of God and respond, as an act of love, in obedience. That fosters our experience and even feelings of love… which allows us greater understanding and appreciation and experience of the love of God, which spurs us to deeper and greater obedience. This is an upward spiral to glory. To joy. Not to an easy life (more about that next week) but certainly to living abundant life.

The Starting Command

How do we get on this upward spiral? Where do we start? Forget next step, what is the first step?

Jesus has already given it, and he gives it again. He has demonstrated what this first commandment looks like in the Upper Room. He has commanded his disciples to do it, indeed assigned as a new identity of being a disciple of Jesus. And now, again, he commands it as the first step in this spiral of love and obedience:

John 15:12-17

12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. 17 These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

The true starting point, the reason we can choose to obey, that we can abide in his love… is that he chose us. We love because he first loved us.

We choose him because he first chose us.

But the gospel is opposed to earning, never to effort. Even here, right after he stresses that it is his love that chooses, foreshadowing his sacrifice that saves. Right after that he reaffirms that our responsive action is still to obey.

These things I command you, so that you will love one another.

We are going to sing and reflect on this idea, of entering into love with Jesus. Choosing to call on Christ in me.

But I want us to do a little mental translation. I will “choose to be in love with you” is not willing ourselves to feel more than we feel. That isn’t how we choose to love anyone.

“Choose to be in love” is to choose to live in right relationship and right living, to do the things he has commanded us to do.

10 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. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.