“Holy Obedience” -- John 14:12-21

“Have to” and “get to” are two very different phrases.

The former indicates it’s a requirement, while the latter indicates a desire. Children “have to” go to bed, but they “get to” have ice cream. Teenagers “have to” do their chores, but they “get to” use the car (once they get their licenses).

In our relationship with Jesus, we can look at obedience either as a “have to” or a “get to.” It all depends on how we relate to Him. Jesus brings this truth to our attention in today’s passage.

Background

Today’s passage comes about halfway into Jesus’ final words to His disciples before His betrayal by Judas. Jesus waited until Judas left the meal before He began teaching them.

The focus on the message is on the events coming up over the next few days. Jesus is preparing the disciples for His crucifixion, resurrection and return to the Father. Seeking to reassure them, Jesus tells them of the coming Holy Spirit who will be extension of the Father’s work and Jesus’ ministry. It is in this passage that Jesus first mentions the coming of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus has also told the disciples of a new commandment, the command to love others as Christ loves them. This agape [g1] love is to be the distinguishing mark of the true disciple, and one of the characteristics of this love is obedience to Jesus and His will.

Obedience is also a characteristic of the holy life, which should come as no surprise, since being holy means living as Jesus lived. We model our lives on the One who calls us and saves us. We seek to be like Him, and the way we do so is to live a life of obedience to the holy calling.

Central Truth: The holy life is a life of obedience.

Obedience to Christ:

1. Is an act of faith (12-15)

I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it. If you love Me, you will obey what My command.”

This passage comes immediately after Philip has asked Jesus to show them the Father. Jesus’ response is to tell the disciples that seeing Jesus is seeing the Father. Jesus tells Philip the evidence of this is that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Him, and that everything Jesus has said has come from the Father. Jesus concludes this with, “Believe Me when I that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves” (v. 11).

This is important because of what follows. Jesus transitions from His relationship to the Father and focuses on the disciples’ relationship with Him and the Father. Having told Philip and the others to believe Him and the miracles, Jesus then says that one of the marks of faith is obedience. Jesus’ exact words are, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing” (v. 12a). The emphasis of the statement is that faith in Jesus will enable others to do what He has been doing, but it also implies that the person of faith will also be a person of obedience. The person of faith will want to carry on the ministry of the One who saves, and such a ministry will require a faithful commitment to His words and actions, which will require obedience.

Jesus tells them and us that such a life of faith and obedience will do greater things than Jesus did. The greatness will not be in the acts and words themselves, but the fact that the Father will use these faithful disciples to extend and expand the ministry that was begun in Jesus’ coming to our world. The ministry of the Church will extend the Word throughout the Roman Empire and beyond.

Since this faithful obedience will always be seeking to do Jesus’ ministry, Jesus gives the assurance that an obedient life will be one of prayer, and that those prayers will be answered as we commit ourselves daily to being about Jesus’ will. Jesus will respond favorably to our prayers in order that the Father may be glorified in the things we do.

Jesus concludes these verses with the statement, “If you love Me, you will obey what I command” (v. 15). This lets us know that our willingness to walk in obedient faith is something we want to do, that we choose to do. While our salvation is a gift of grace from the Father, our commitment to living out our faith is a conscious decision on our part to express our love to the Father and the Son by laying our lives down in order to allow Him to live through us and so walk in obedience to the One who calls us.

A life of obedience is a life of faith in Jesus.

2. Enabled by the Spirit (16-20)

And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The word 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, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will love. On that day, you will realize that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.

Jesus never sends us out into the world alone and unequipped. He never asks us to do what He Himself is willing to do. We know this from the promised coming of the Holy Spirit, the other Counselor.

In v. 16, we find the Trinity described for us. There is the Son who has walked among us and shown us what it means to be loved by the Father and to love the Father. There is the Father, the One who initiated the restoration of our relationship with Him. The Father reconciles us by sending the Son as a demonstration of His great love for us. And the Father will never leave us alone, because the Son will ask the Father, and the Father will send “another Counselor,” the Holy Spirit. Their ministry is interwoven, because they are all aspects of the same being: God the Father, God the Son and God the Spirit.

Jesus’ emphasis in these verses is the close relationship that exists between the Father and the Son with Jesus’ disciples. Jesus describes the Holy Spirit as “another Counselor.” The implication of this description is that the Spirit is similar to Jesus in His ministry and guidance. “Another” means one like another. “Counselor” is someone to walk beside, to provide guidance and to intercede when intercession is necessary.

Jesus also describes Him as the “Spirit of truth.” Jesus had earlier described Himself as the Truth to Thomas. Again, the implication is that if Jesus is the Truth and the Spirit is also of truth, there is a strong correlation between Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Jesus further lets the disciples that this Spirit, while new in that they have never experienced the indwelling presence, is not unknown to them. “But you know Him because He lives with you and will be in you” (17b). The know the Spirit because He is like Jesus. When they look at Jesus, they see the Father. When they walk with Jesus, they walk with the Spirit. More importantly, this Spirit of truth will live within them and us.

Jesus seeks to further reassure the disciples by telling them He will not leave them as orphans. The term “orphan” was used to describe a child without a parent, but also was used to refer to disciples whose teacher has left them. Jesus’ promise that He will not leave us orphans is true because the Spirit continues the work of Christ in our world. In fact, Jesus tells us that He will come to the disciples. This will be done by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The intimacy of the relationship between us and the Father and the Son is found in the indwelling presence of the Spirit. When the Spirit comes, Jesus promises that we will realize that He is in the Father, and we are in Him, and He is in us. I’ve likened this description as a sponge being immersed into a tub full of water. See the Father as the tub and the Son as the water. We are the sponge. When the sponge goes into the water, immediately the sponge begins to absorb the water. When the sponge is removed from the water and squeezed, what comes out is not sponge, but water.

Just as Jesus’ life reflected the words and the will of the Father, so will we reflect the words and will of the Son as the other Counselor indwells us.

One other thing that Jesus promises is that we will live. “Because I live, you also will live” (vs.19b). Because of the ministry of Jesus Christ, we are brought into eternal life, and that eternal life is knowing God the Father and God the Son. They are known through the indwelling presence of God the Spirit.

If you and I will live holy lives, we must walk with the Spirit of God who lives in us and through us.

3. Grows from our love for Him (21)

Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love Him and show Myself to him.”

When Melissa was in East Asia, she was able to speak with Muslim people about their religion. She said that a recurring them was that their hope was that they would be counted worthy to find favor with Allah. They did the things they did according to their understanding of Islamic teaching in the hopes that they could and would be accepted by their god.

Islam is not alone in this. Most religions—even many professing to be Christian—require that we do things to be in God’s good graces.

That’s not what the Bible teaches. The Father, by His own volition, loves us and expresses that love through His Son Jesus Christ. This love was demonstrated in the sending of the Son while we were dead in our sins. We are given new life not because anything we have done, but because of God’s grace and mercy. We are brought into the family of God and are made His children by His own will and His own actions. All we are asked to do is to accept the free gift of salvation through Christ.

I say this because this this verse, on the surface, seems to indicate that obedience will result in the Father and the Son loving us. That’s not what Jesus is saying. The obedience does not result in God’s love, but is instead the result of God’s love. It is because the Father and the Son love us, and because of what the Father has done for us through the Son and the Spirit that we learn to love the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. We learn to trust God and to believe that His ways are the right ways and the only ways. It is because of this love and this faith that we then will walk in obedience to the commands of the One the Father sent.

“Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me” is a statement that our demonstration of our love for Christ is seen in the way we live our lives. If we love Him, we obey Him. This isn’t Jesus telling us that we have to prove our love to Him; He is telling us that our love for Him will be expressed in our obedience.

It is as we walk in obedience that we are reminded of God’s great love, because our obedience points us always to the Father and the Son as the Spirit guides us. Our obedience teaches us to lean on the everlasting arms, to trust and obey. Obedience reinforces our awareness of God’s grace, glory and power and we find ourselves reassured by His loving presence.

We obey not out of a sense of “have to,” but of “get to” simply because we love God and want to be pleasing to Him in all we do and say.

Conclusion

Someone once said that if we make a career out of what we love, then we never have to go to work. We can earn our income by doing what we enjoy, by finding confirmation and pleasure in the thing we do for a living.

Walking with Jesus should never be a chore. It should never be a “have to.” Walking in obedience to Christ can be our greatest joy and our greatest reward. When we obey, we are committing ourselves to live a holy life.

[g1]