“Why Do We Obey God?” – John 14:15-21

When people talk about growing up, it’s not unusual for the conversation gets around to discipline and respect. There’s talk of the switch or the belt, and there’s talk of how we did what our parents told us because we respected them. We also feared the switch and belt, but we also wanted to please our parents. In the mind of a child, punishment equated to dislike, while smiles and acceptance equated to love. We carry that idea over as we grow up, believing that we have to earn someone’s love, whether it’s our parents, our co-workers, our children or our spouse.

Something else dictates the reason we do things as adults, though. As we grow and develop relationships with friends, we want to do things with them because we enjoy their company and the fellowship. When we begin to fall in love, we want to do what pleases them because we want to make them happy. Perhaps hidden in there is the idea that if we’re nice to our friends or to our boyfriend/girlfriend, they’ll like us back. That can carry over into our marriages.

It can be healthy to ask why we do what we do. Are we constantly seeking approval and acceptance? Is it because we seldom experience unconditional love? Even in the love we receive from our parents, there is the perception that they only love us when we’re good.

That extends to the way we relate to God. We forget that God demonstrated His love for us in that He sent Christ to die for us even though we had done nothing to warrant such a display of love. In fact, all you and I have done in regard to our relationship with God was to distance ourselves from Him and spurn His efforts to reach out to us. It wasn’t until we came to realization through the Spirit’s prompting that we needed to be saved that we turned away from our rebellion against God and became God’s children.

And yet, we still believe that we have to somehow earn God’s love, acceptance and approval. There are those who tell us that we have to do certain things to keep in God’s good graces. There are those who tell us that we have to do certain things and not do certain other things if we want God to continue to love us.

Nothing could be further from the truth. God’s love is unconditional. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God will only love us as long as we jump through His hoops. Even today’s passage which seems to say that does not equate God’s love to our obedience. It turns the idea of obedience around from trying to earn God’s love into because we have God’s love, and because we trust Him, we want to obey Him.

Background

The issue of works versus grace has been with the Church for as long as there has been a Church. There were those who insisted that true belief in Jesus meant not only accepting Him as Messiah, but it also required adherence to the Laws of Moses. They reasoned that Jesus said He had come to fulfill the law and the prophets and that not the least dot or dash in the Bible would disappear until He returned. It stood to reason that the fulfilled law had to be obeyed to the letter. To this way of thinking, the obedience we gave to God through Christ was an extension of what the Pharisees had taught—God’s judgment would come upon those who failed to obey, and God’s favor would fall upon those who obeyed. In this way of thinking, God’s love is conditional on how well we do or do not do what the law says.

The apostle Paul believed differently. He understood what the full grace of God stated, and he argued repeatedly that our obedience to God was a result of our being saved and was a demonstration of our faith in His words and in our love for Him. In writing to the Galatians, Paul wrote a searing letter condemning in the strongest terms the thought that was being taught to obey the law as a means of obtaining salvation.

In Acts 15, the issue came to a head. The work in Antioch was bringing many Gentiles to the Lord, and a delegation from Jerusalem came to them and said, “Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved” (Acts 15:1b). Paul and Barnabas strongly disagreed with this idea, and it was decided to send a delegation to the Jerusalem to ask the apostles what it meant to be a Christian.

Paul and Barnabas and those with them from Antioch were greeted warmly by the apostles and the Jerusalem Church, and the discussion soon began. In v. 5, we are told, “Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, ‘The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to obey the law of Moses.’”

Peter finally got up and reported all that God had done through him with the Roman general Cornelius. Part of Peter’s words, as recorded in vs. 8-9, were, “God, who knows the heart, showed that He accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as He did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, for He purified their hearts by faith.” Peter concluded his remarks with the question, “Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of the disciples a yoke that neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear?” (v.10). Peter concluded with a firm comment that salvation comes by grace and grace alone.

Having listened to all the ones who wanted to speak, James said, “It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. Instead, we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood” (vs. 19-20).

Still, there are those who today who hedge their bets by insisting that we must do certain things in order to stay in God’s good graces. There are those who say that a person has to be baptized in order to be saved, that they have to partake of the Lord’s Supper in order to be saved, or that they have to do this or that in order to be saved.

In today’s passage, Jesus Himself speaks to us about obedience and love. He wants to know that our relationship with the Father and the Son is made real through the presence of the Spirit within us. It is as a result of our relationship with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that leads us to act in obedience. We do it not because we have to, but because we want to.

Central Truth: Our obedience to God is one way of expressing our love for Him.

Jesus’ promise is that our obedience will grow out of:

1. Love for Him and the Father (15, 21)

“If you love Me, you will obey what I command you. . . . 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.”

This passage begins with Philip’s request of Jesus: “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us” (v.8). Jesus then begins to show them that He and the Father are one. To see Jesus is to see the Father. Jesus is the fullest revelation of God that we will ever have. Toward that end, Jesus tells us that anyone who has faith can do what He has been doing and can do greater things. He promises the disciples and us, “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” (vs. 13-14).

Twice in this paragraph Jesus spoke of obedience and love for Him being closely tied together. In v. 15, He tells us that our obedience is an expression of our love for Him. In v. 21, the obedience is tied to not only love for Christ but also the knowing and keeping of His commands. It harkens back to the idea of the wise person being a doer of the word as well as a hearer. In both instances, the idea of our obedience grows out of our relationship with the Father and the Son.

Jesus’ words should be understood as a test—“If you really love Me, you’ll do what I want.” Such a statement is one of manipulation and a play for power. Jesus is neither a manipulator nor does He need to seek power over us. His statements about obedience and love are the realization that the relationship between us and God and Jesus is one that is built upon faith and trust. Our faith is in the validity of Who Jesus says He is and Who God has shown Himself to be through Jesus. Our faith brings us into accepting the call of the Holy Spirit to believe and follow Jesus. The trust is that Jesus’ ways are the best ways, and that His commands, rather than being a display of His power, are expressions of His love for us and for our world.

Look at it this way. When you and I became employees for the first time, we were told what was expected of us. We were told of the rewards that would come our way if we showed ourselves to be good employees, and we were warned of the consequences of not being good employees. The boss had the power and he made the rules. He gave the orders. Whether you were employed by the military, the government or the private sector, you had to follow orders. If you were the owner of the business, you expected orders to be followed. The purpose of the orders was to advance the goals of the company or the unit or the bureaucracy.

Jesus’ orders are not designed to put us into a performance based way of living. His orders are designed to further the kingdom, yes, but they are also designed to help us to grow in our faith and trust. As we walk in obedience to Jesus, we learn that He fulfills His promises, and we learn to trust Him more. The relationship grows as we obey.

Our obedience to Jesus grows not out of a sense of duty, but out of a sense of faith, trust and love.

2. The Holy Spirit within us (16-20)

a. We know the Spirit (16-17)

“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 nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. “

Think back on all the friends we’ve had in our lives, and we can probably all find the friend that was least understood, or the one we know least about. It’s not that we don’t like the person or that we haven’t spent a lot of time with them, but there was something about the relationship that kept us from really getting to know them better.

I believe that is true of our relationship with the Holy Spirit. There is a lot the Bible tells us about God the Father and God the Son, but there is relatively little spoken of about the role of the Holy Spirit. The most Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit is found in the Upper Room Discourse in John 13-17. One of the first things Jesus tells us about the Spirit is that the Holy Spirit will enable us to walk in obedience to the Father. Verse 16 builds on the statement of v. 15, expressing the immediacy of the Spirit.

Once we come into relationship with Christ, once we embrace His love and express our love to Him, the Spirit enters into us. Looking at what Jesus tells us about the role of the Holy Spirit in these verses, we learn a few things.

First, the Holy Spirit will act as a counselor for us. That is to say, the Holy Spirit will give us sage advice and guidance. His counsel will be the same as Jesus’ counsel, because the Spirit will teach us and remind us of all that Jesus said (v. 26) and He will lead us to the truth (16:13).

Second, the Spirit will always be with us. The Spirv.it is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in Matthew 28:20 that He will be with us forever.

Third, the Spirit is truth. Jesus is truth (cf. v. 6). Because the Spirit is truth, we can be certain that the Spirit’s counsel will always be correct and will always be for God’s glory and our best interest.

Fourth the relationship between the believer and the Spirit is unique. The world does not understand the Spirit, because the world has no relationship with the Spirit. Paul wrote that, “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them” (1 Corinthians 2:14). The believer knows the Spirit and has a relationship with the Spirit.

With the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit, with the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit within us, we are better equipped to do God’s will, do obey Jesus’ command. The Spirit is a gift from God that comes to us because of His great love for us. We listen to the Spirit and follow His leadership because of our great love for Him.

b. Christ lives in us through the Spirit (18-20)

“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 My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.”

I cannot begin to imagine the plight of an orphan. A child who has lost both parents or who was abandoned by his or her parents must truly feel alone and unloved. No matter how good an orphanage is, it cannot ever fully replace the love and acceptance that comes being in a family.

Jesus understood that and tells us that God’s plan is not to make us orphans, but to make us His children (cf. John 1:12-13). The way we enter into the family of God is by faith and through the work of the Father. Jesus tells us that He will come to us. He does this through the presence of the Spirit that lives within each believer. Jesus’ promise is that we will enjoy eternal life because Jesus lives. At the time the disciples first heard this, they did not and could not understand the full import of this promise simply because they did not know that Jesus was about to lay down His life for us only to pick it up again. They were not aware of the resurrection and the eternal life that will come through Christ’s sacrifice and resurrection.

I use the example of a sponge to explain v. 20. Jesus tells us that we will be in Him, and He will be in the Father and He will be in us. Think of a sponge placed into a tub or sink filled with water. We are the sponge. Jesus is the water, and God is the tub or sink. As we lower the sponge into the water, it fills the sponge. The water is contained within the tub or sink. Like a sponge, when the sponge is squeezed, it releases the water it has soaked up.

In the same manner, we who are called to follow Jesus, we will want to express our love for Him by allowing Him to be seen in us. He is seen in us in the way we react and respond to the world around us. We reflect Christ in our obedience to Him.

Conclusion

There is a difference between “having to” and “getting to.” We do what we have to do because it’s required of us, not because we necessarily want to do it. We have to go to work, we have to go to the doctor when we are sick. We have to pay our taxes. These aren’t things we really want to do, but it is required of us and expected of us.

Getting to do things means that these are things we want to do. We get to see friends and family. We get to eat ice cream. We get to go on vacation. These are things we look forward to, that we anticipate with growing excitement.

In our relationship with Jesus, the question of obedience is not a question of having to obey Him. Rather, it is a question of getting to obey Him. The fact that God sent His Son, and that the Son gave Himself for us, and that the Spirit came and lives in us should give each of us the desire to express our gratitude by walking in obedience to the One who enables us to do so.