Do you think that obedience does not matter?
Life in the Lord’s Vineyard – 4 Sermons
Part 2: “Love and Obedience in the Lord’s Vineyard”
(John 15:9-15, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, November 8, 2009)
9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 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. 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 lays 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.
What does the Lord teach concerning the way of love and obedience?
A: “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.” (John 15:10)
Abide in My Love (9-10)
Some people look at the cross, and when they read something like Isaiah 53:10, “It was the will of the LORD to crush him,” they wonder whether the Father loved the Son at all. We who have come to know the Father and the Son know that there has always been the greatest love between them. Isaiah 53:10 goes on to say the reason why the Son would die, “He has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for sin.” This sad fact of the cross was because of our sin. The Father and the Son had determined that the Son would be the offering for our sin. The verse goes on to give the result of that death saying, “He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in His hand.” It is very clear that it was for some very wonderful result that the Son travelled the pathway of suffering and death. It is also clear that this death was a great grief to the Father, and we know that the Father and the Son are together at this moment, and will be forever. We know that the Father loves the Son.
That it is why the opening words of today’s passage are so outrageously wonderful to anyone who knows the Father and the Son, “As the Father loves Me, so have I loved you.” Take that in for a moment. Jesus loves you as the Father loved Him when His Son was going to the cross. This is important because we have been told that in the Lord’s vineyard we should expect some pruning in order that we might be more fruitful. When we feel the pain of the clippers, we might be tempted to think that Lord does not love us. This is not the case. The suffering that we face is not evidence that God does not love us. It is evidence that the Lord has plans for us that involve pain, and an opportunity to abide in the love of the Lord in the midst of pain. That is why Jesus says, “Abide in my love.”
What does it mean to abide in the love of Jesus? While it certainly begins with His love for us, the fullest relationship of love requires the response of the one who is loved. We are loved by Christ, but we are being told here how to love Him back. I would not want to discount the place for feelings or emotions in our response of love. Our emotional selves are a part of the whole package of who we are. However, the Lord does not mention feelings in His definition of what it means to abide in His love. He tells us that, “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.”
To keep commandments the way that Jesus kept commandments is to keep them perfectly. What this all means is that there must be different experiences among people of this thing that the Lord calls abiding in His love. We know that our peace with God is based entirely on the works that the Lord has perfectly done for us. That is the same for all who are His. Yet among all those who have this peace with God, it seems undeniable that some abide in His love more than others, in terms of their response to His call to perfect obedience. In fact, for any one of us, though the fact of our security in God’s love is the same forever, our response of obedience is not the same at every moment of even our own lives. There is nothing that we can do to change God’s love for us, but there is much that we can change to abide more in His love by attending to His Word.
That your joy may be full (11)
There are important emotional implications connected to this matter of obedience that can have a very significant impact on our well-being. There is an odd thing about obeying God; it may appear to be the way of pain, while the way of disobedience and idolatry promises joy, or at least distraction from pain. This is all very short-sighted. The only way that our joy will be full will be to make a settled commitment to God’s way of doing things.
This is where faith enters into the specifics of your life. You need to have faith that the way that is right according to the Word of Jesus Christ is the way that will actually lead to joy. We can come up with 100 objections as to why Jesus is wrong, and why our way of drowning our lives in false substitutes and distractions is actually the only thing that could possibly work for us. All our arguments can never change some very basics facts: 1. God is God and we are not, 2. His Law is the way out of slavery and our idolatry is the way into bondage, and 3. The cross is the ultimate proof that God has our best interests at heart and can be fully trusted.
Think about these disciples again for a second. The disciples might just like to hide away for the rest of their brief lives and pretend that they never met Jesus Christ. That might seem like the best way to stay out of jail and to enjoy peace with family and friends. Nonetheless, that plan will not do, and to pursue some “Can’t-I-just-go-back-to-the-old-normal-life” story will never work, and we would lose out on such great opportunities that we have for fruitfulness in the Lord’s vineyard. They did not choose that way ultimately. They pressed forward in the
If we will do this, we will move toward true joy, the joy of knowing that we have yielded our hearts and lives to God. Jesus has some joy for you. He lived as a Man of Sorrows here below, because that was what was necessary to obey the Father. Now He has the fullness of joy, and He says, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
Friends of God through the love of Jesus (12-15)
So what is this obedience that the Lord is asking of His disciples and of us? He says, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” That is a very big commandment. Jesus has loved us with the greatest love ever displayed among men. He laid down His life for us.
First consider what this love has accomplished. Through the love of Jesus, we are now counted as friends of God. The debt that was against us because of our sin has been paid. Today the word “friend” can be used with a very low threshold of meaning. We get a little message that says that someone wants to be a friend with us. We can either click on a box that says “Confirm” or a box that says “Ignore.” If we confirm that the person is a friend, and later we don’t want to know about their daily life, we can hide them from our view with yet another click, but they are still officially counted as one of our friends. When I go walking in our neighborhood, I don’t see very many people, but often the people that drive by wave to me. I have never spoken to any of them, and they have never spoken to me, but they wave as if we are somehow friends because that is the custom of the neighborhood. If it is the Christmas season, you can stand outside the supermarket and sing songs about Jesus, people will smile, and some of them who still use cash may actually put a dollar in a red kettle, and no one thinks that anything strange has happened. It is a friendly time, but you can’t do the same thing on July 4th, because we don’t have that custom.
When Jesus made you His friend, it was not some kind of custom; it cost Him His blood. Your sin was placed on Him. When the wrath of God came against Him for your thoughts, words, and actions that were against the commandments, all your sin was finally and fully dealt with. Now God calls you friend, and Jesus treats you like a friend. He has a written message for you, and He treats you like the kind of closest friend that is treated like family. This can never be taken away from you. In heaven, you will be happier, and you will feel more secure, but you will not actually be more secure. You are as secure in your friendship with God through the love of Jesus Christ as you can ever be, because the love with which He has loved you, will never be taken away from you.
But now, your Friend is calling you to consider something more. He wants you to love one another as He has loved you. You cannot reach the end of that deep well of obedience. The best that you can do in this life is to grow in love. As you permit yourself to love others more like Jesus loved you, then you will share your lives with each other in very good ways. God has done this to us in Christ. Jesus said to His disciples, “All that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” Jesus was giving them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
The truth was that one of the twelve was a betrayer, and that he had left to do what he would do. Very soon he would return with those who would arrest Jesus. Within just a little while Jesus would be accused, mocked, beaten, and crucified. He would die as a man who was brutally exposed as a law-breaker, though He had done nothing wrong. He would breathe His last, and He would be buried in a tomb. But within three days that tomb would be empty, because He would do what He had earlier told His friends He would do. He would rise again.
Somehow this needs to translate into a new way of life. A way of being friends that is deeper because of the cross and the resurrection. This is something of the obedience that the Lord is calling us to, this kind of life of loving service, this kind of gospel friendship that treats church like family, because our older brother Jesus did something for us that means everything to us. Our old way of our life is gone. Our lives can never be the same.
1. What is the connection between keeping Jesus’ commands and abiding in His love? Is it possible to be loved by God, and yet not really to be abiding in His love?
2. How can we experience the fullness of joy in our lives now?
3. What is the difference between being the Lord’s servant and being His friend?
4. What has Jesus made known to you?
posted by Pastor Magee at 2:18 AM
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