Sermon: "Obedience Leads to Knowing God"

Seventh in the "Experiencing God" series.
Delivered April 9, 2006 (Palm Sunday) by Rev. John Schmidt.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Theme: In our relationship to God, obedience is critical. There is no love without obedience. If we have an obedience problem, we have a love problem.

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Well, today we celebrate Palm Sunday. Today, we remember that on a certain day Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem and as he was riding in people lined the sides of the road. They were carrying palm leaves in their hands because waving those palm leaves was part of the way they showed that they were celebrating. So as they are waving those palm leaves, they are crying out, "Hosanna!", which meant saved, but it became an exclamation of praise. If you were yelling out Hosanna! you were celebrating the power of God to deliver. And so here is Jesus coming into the city, people were lining up, people were throwing their cloaks on the ground so that the donkey carrying Jesus doesn't even have to touch the ground. And yet as Jesus is riding into Jerusalem he knows more than anyone else does-- that all of this celebration is going to be very short lived, that very soon these same people that are saying, "Hosanna! Save! and Praise God!" are going to be saying, "Crucify him!" That's why you have gotten the palm leaves today. It's a reminder of the celebration of the lordship of Jesus Christ, that he rightfully is the Lord of the whole earth. He is the Messiah. He is the one that God has sent and yet it's also a reminder to you of just how fickle our human heart is and how quickly we can take something that is a gift from God and turn away. That is what we focus on at this time of year.

Now the text that we are going to be hearing in just a moment comes right between this triumphful entry of Jesus in to the city of Jerusalem and the cross. In between those two events, Jesus has a meal together with his disciples and after that meal he has a long conversation with them. And Jesus knows that this is that last conversation when important things have to be communicated. You know how that is, when something important comes up and you are getting ready to be separated from somebody. Think about when you send your kids off to college; you get to those last few times when you are talking and you get serious for a little while. You start talking about those things that you really want them to remember. You talk about the importance of your relationship with your family. All of these things come up as you send a child off.

If a good friend leaves us, those few days or few weeks before they go some of those conversations get beyond what we normally talk about and we start talking about things that are a little more important and show a little bit more of our heart about the kind of relationship we have had and we remember together the things that we did that have meant so much in our relationship. When you move away from your parents, it's the other side of that conversation that we talked about, about going to college, but there are certain things you need to say and certain things you need to hear. I can't even send my son or daughter to go to the grocery store without saying, "Drive carefully." I mean it's just the sense that you always have to say that thing that is on your heart.

At a bedside when someone is dying you have those heart to heart conversations and we talked about what life will be in the future for those left behind. We talk about the importance of relationship and about how much we love one another. Those final conversations are important. They reveal something about the core concerns; what's really on the heart of the people involved. And so right now Jesus, in the section we are going to hear, is in a conversation where Jesus is saying goodbye. So let's listen carefully to what he has to say.

"On his last night with the disciples before being arrested Jesus encouraged them with these words. 'If you love me, you will obey what I command and I will ask the father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever. The spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him or knows him, but you know him. For he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in the father and you are in me and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one that loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my father and I too will love him and show myself to him.'

Now Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But Lord why do you intend to show yourself to us, but not to the world?

Jesus replied, 'If anyone loves me he will obey my teaching. My father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.

These words you hear are not mine. They belong to the Father who sent me. All of this I have spoken while still with you, but the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things and remind you of everything that I have said. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

You heard me say I am going away and I am coming back again. If you loved me you would be glad that I am going to the father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not speak to you much longer for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold over me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and I do exactly as my Father commands me. Come now, let us leave.'" (John 14:15-31)

Seventeen sentences or so spoken in the middle of a long conversation that Jesus is having at the end of this final meal with his disciples. They are talking about what really matters and talking about what's really on his mind. Across these chapters that deal with this conversation, Jesus reminds them of how important it is that they follow his example in being servants in this world. He reminds them that they need to love one another; that that was a critical part of their witness to the world. He reminds them that they need to trust him and trust what he has said and to rely on him because they would be a fruit in their lives, there would be results through them that were far beyond what they could imagine if they learned how to rely on him. And he also reminded them that the world was dangerous; that it was going to be dangerous to go out there and to be his people, but that even in that he had victory.

And so in the middle of this long discussion come the words that we heard just now. And in this section Jesus gives a command and he gives a word of consolation or comfort and I would like to focus on both of those, but I want to begin with the command. Jesus here tells us what to do. Take a look at Verse 15. In Verse 15 it says: "If you love me, you will obey what I command". If you love me you will obey what I command. Love and obedience are linked together.

Now there is a lot of ways of telling how important a teaching is. One of the ways of telling whether it's important or not is whether it's in scripture, because everything in the Bible is important. Okay, this is in the Bible; if you love me you will obey what I command. But even within the Bible there are certain differences in teaching; things that stand out to us in urgency or power and one of the ways we notice that is by who is saying it. Well this is being said by Jesus, uniquely important and uniquely powerful. We also then take a look at under when is this said; well this is being said right at the end of Jesus' earthly ministry, so this is important because he is summarizing, he is hitting the important stuff, he's not just beginning to introduce things, he's hitting the most important things one last time. Who is he saying it to? He is saying it to the core group of his followers.

A final way of taking a look at how important something is, is how often is it said. Verse 15, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." But let's take a look because it goes on beyond that. Verse 21: "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me." In fact, Jesus is going to say this four times in these few verses. Let's go down to Verse 23. Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching." Verse 24: "He who does not love me, will not obey my teaching." Four times Jesus hits the same thing in almost the same words, but he goes on beyond that and he points to himself as a model of this principle. In Verse 31 Jesus says, "But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me to do"; that Jesus is an example of this very principle of what he is asking the disciples to live out in their lives. So what this tells us is that this is important stuff. This is not an add-on. This is not for just a certain elite. This is basic stuff of the discipleship; basic stuff of what it means to follow Jesus.

I would like to look at this command in two different ways. Going back to Verse 15, "If you love me, you will obey what I command." There is no love without obedience. If we have an obedience problem, that means we have a love problem. Obedience is the way that our love is shown concretely in the world. We know that actions are necessary in any kind of relationship with people; that actions substantiate the words that we use. Any kind of relationship we have, it's important in a close relationship to say I love you. It's important to apologize. It's important to affirm people; to say thank you. These words are important, but if the words are never substantiated by action, we start to mistrust what the words say. And so somebody says, "Oh I love you", but then when you get on the phone with them they say, "Oh I am sorry. I can't see you for the next month or so. I'm real busy and besides I've got to wash my hair." We know that there is something about the actions that are not quite constant with the "Oh, yes I love you."

If we have a relationship with someone, but we are never willing to serve them or we are never willing to do what they want to do; that begins to say something about our relationship. We can tell how important this is. Whether you have to remember back to the dating days or whether you are in them right now or whether you are looking forward to them, there is a certain dynamic that happens early in a relationship and that's when you say, "Oh would you like to go out?" And the other person says, "Yes," and you say, "Where would you like to go?" "Oh, I don't care, anywhere you would like to go." The person says back, "Oh no, anywhere you would like to go." And this whole conversation is happening because you are desperate to show the other person that you really take their desires seriously so you keep batting it back and forth. "Oh no, you decide." This is important.

Jesus says that the critical issue of importance in showing our love is obeying God. Luke 6:46 says "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do what I say?" But the kind of obedience is talking about and this is the second point that I want to make about this command, it's not an obedience that comes out of fear, it's not an obedience that comes out of a slave sense of relationship to God, but out of love. That is why he uses himself as a model, when he says in Verse 31, "The world must know that I love the Father. I love the Father and I do exactly what the Father has commanded me." It's out of love. In a good relationship where there is real love and affection people want to do these good things for one another and that's the kind of thing that Jesus is talking about in our relationship with God.

Now I can remember the days before copy machines, quite a ways back and in those days I know of a college student who copied a whole semester of German notes for her boyfriend. Her boyfriend was not doing well in German and didn't have good notes because he missed a number of the classes. I know a lot about this and she copied the whole semester of German notes. They weren't even dating yet and she copied all of the notes. The boyfriend still failed German, but that sort of effort we have a word for it. We call it a labor of love. If you think about it in a family where a mother and wife spends all day running the kids around, cleaning the house and doing all kinds of errands then comes home and makes a special meal that is a favorite of someone in the household, even though its harder than doing something else, but she does it to show love.

Debbie's father made every one of his children a grandfather clock and each one of the grandfather clocks were different. He would have a conversation with his children and their spouses and figure out what kind of house, what kind of color and what kind of size they wanted and then he made that for each couple. Now why did he do that? Did he have to do that? Did he sign something when we got married that says if you take my daughter or my son, I will give you one clock in return? No, he did this out of love because he wanted to share something of himself. It's from the overflow of love that action came out.

This is what we are used to in human relationships. A child takes just an extra minute before they come inside so they can gather up a few wild flowers to go inside and hand their mother a handful of flowers. Action, growing out of the fullness of the heart. Love leads to action and Jesus is saying that the action that leads from our love for God is obedience. We want to put God first. We want to please God. We want to know God better and so we obey and that's the other thing I would like to point out about obedience, is that as we obey God we grow closer to God. We understand God better and have a deeper experience of fellowship.

A number of years ago I was taking timpani/kettledrums from a private teacher and my teacher had played with the symphony and was older now and was playing with the New Orleans opera and with various other musical groups in the city. Music was his life and I would go to lessons and for quite a while I didn't obey very well. In other words, I didn't practice. I didn't go home and do the very things he told me to do.

But as I did, as I did start to obey, as I did start to learn and practice, our relationship grew deeper because we were able to talk about things that I would not have understood before. We were able to talk about the difference between the German grip and the American grip in playing the drums. We were able to talk about the superiority of the Dresden model timpani, which I still believe are the best kind of timpani they can make. We were able to talk about the stylistic differences of how you handle a drum differently because of the style of music you were playing. All of these things are things I would not have understood and some of you might not understand what I was talking about, but I was able to understand then because I had learned and obeyed.

And so, one day he came with The Man of LaMancha score, laid it out in front of me and we worked on it together and he started to show me the different ways of playing it and I practiced it. And after I had learned a little bit about that score he said I want you to come with me. I am playing in The Man of LaMancha and I want you to be in the pit, sit with me, watch me play and experience that together. So there I was about 14 or 15 years old and I got a chance to sit there with the orchestra while he played, but I understood so much of what he was doing because of our experience that led up to that point.

This is the way relationships are. This is the way our relationship with God is. We have experiences because we have joined God in his work and out of those experiences we grow to know God better. A few weeks ago we talked about Moses at the end of his life. Moses comes to the end of his life and the burden on his heart is that he know God better and see God's glory and experience God. And what had led him to that point, that hunger, and that intimacy was the fact that for 40 years he had experienced things with God, he had seen God deliver Israel from Egypt with mighty miracles because he had obeyed God. He saw God provide for Israel for years in the wilderness. God forgive Israel. God forgive him and each step of the way Moses was walking with God. Obedience led to experience. Experience led to knowing God; that's why we have been talking over these weeks about experiencing God. So obedience is part of all of this.

But thankfully in this passage it's not just a command. There is a consolation, a comfort as well, because Jesus in this passage specifically talks about the work of the Holy Spirit. Let me read Verses 16-19 again. "And I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever; his spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him or knows him, but you know him for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live." And then going down to Verse 25 and 26: "All of this I have spoken while I am still with you, but the Counselor, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything that I have said to you." I will send my spirit to make this kind of life possible. That is what Jesus is saying here.

God is at work inside of us and so we hear the word that outside of us, that gives us direction, that shows us what God wants to do in life, but inside of us, there is a response inside because God is at work in us to want to do that, to want to grow close to God, to want to pursue this relationship, to want to obey. The Holy Spirit will teach and remind. The Holy Spirit is in us. Jesus has come back to us. We are not orphans left behind. Jesus is present in us and we live because he lives. That's all the things that he points out in this passage and it's all based upon the things that we are going to be looking at in this next week; the cross of Jesus Christ and his resurrection.

So all that we have been talking about today about obedience is not something that we drummed up on our own. It's something that God is working out in us. It brings the desire to pursue a new life, to obey, to want a relationship with God and to give us the power to actually do it. Command and consolation. I just want to give a few more points about obedience. Obedience is important. That is the first thing that we have got to remember as we look at Jesus' words here. It's important, that's why Jesus talked about it here.

The second point is, that the big struggles with obedience are not going to be in these issues of life where we say God should I go to this line of work or to that line of work; should I marry this person or not that person; should I study this or study that; should I move here or move there? All of those are important issues that we should be seeking God about and if we hear and sense God's leading should obey. But that's not where the real battle is. The real battle is on the things that are already clear that we need to obey. It's already clear that we are supposed to love one another. It's already clear that we are supposed to forgive people who have wronged and to be generous and hospitable, that we are to seek unity among believers, that we are not supposed to gossip, that we are supposed to preserve our sexual purity, that we are supposed to control our anger. These are clear and that's where the big battle is.

So the first thing is, obedience is important. The second is the big battles are the things that are already clear to us and not the judgment calls. The third thing is we need to do what we can to build our faith because this is not a matter of willpower alone. It's a matter of trust. We've got to trust God to live this kind of life. We've got to rely upon God to live this way and Jesus is talking about trusting him all through the passages that we haven't read today that surround this. Prayer. Praise. Thanksgiving. Obeying God on the little things; all of these things set a pattern of life and lay a foundation for the big moments of obedience to come. Obedience is important. We need to obey what we already know and we need to do what we can to build our faith, to study the scriptures, to think about what is says.

Across the next week one of the things we do as a church is one of these things that helps us build our faith. We are going to walk through the week and reflect upon what happened in Jesus' life and as we are able to participate in those things, it helps us understand and build our faith. So on Thursday we are going to have a worship service that focuses in on the Jewish Seder service, which is the very meal that went on right before Jesus had this conversation. So we are going to remember that together. Then on Good Friday, we are going to have worship services and opportunities to have an experience of worship on a personal connection with God throughout different ways within this building and that too again is to focus our eyes on these critical things that are happening in this group that we remember.

Thursday, Good Friday and then we go in to the weekend where on Saturday we will have a service that celebrates the resurrection, but right at the start of it we are going to remember again just the darkness of that weekend and the three services on Sunday to declare that God won, that we can proclaim a new kind of life because of what God has done. So that is what we do together. So remember that this week ahead is a week that Jesus lived out out of obedience. Jesus is telling them in Verse 31 that as he goes into this terrible week, he is going in out of obedience and that obedience is out of love. So let's prepare our hearts. Hear Jesus' words one more time just beginning in Verse 28 to help prepare our hearts for the week ahead.

"You heard me say that I am going away and I am coming back to you. If you love me you will be glad that I am going to the Father for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not speak with you much longer for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Come now, let us leave."

Let's pray. Lord, these words that we have read and heard read are your very words to us. Open our hearts now to respond to you in faith, to step out and live the very kind of life that Jesus lived and the kind of life that he calls us to in this passage. Help us to love you and then to obey. For we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2006, Rev. John Schmidt
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org