_______________________________________
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
John 14:15 ESV
___________________________________________________
If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
John 14:15 ESV
___________________________________________________
True Love Obeys
John 14:15 | November 17, 2019
The topic that we are looking at today is probably one which is of the greatest importance.
I gladly can report that it is probably not going to be something entirely new for our congregation. The good thing about being a part of Hopewell is that the families are all very biblically grounded. But even though I may not uncover any great new truth in today’s text, it does not mean that it is of no consequence.
This is one of the most important of all the lessons we can learn and it is good to hear it again. It is this: true love obeys. Those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ will be people who are committed to developing a biblical way of living.
This may not seem like one of great revelation, but it is of the utmost importance. And you can tell by our passage this morning how much Jesus wanted us to grasp it. Within the span of 9 or 10 verses Jesus repeats is notion 4 times: if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And Jesus emphasized this so much because he knew that much of the evangelical world today needed to hear this message. We’re living in a day and age where genuine Christian living is almost a byword. There isn’t much attention to the law of God and the overall Christian worldview (at least when it comes to the ethical part of the Christian worldview) is virtually obsolete.
We are living in a day where there is a perverted understanding of the doctrine of Grace alone. People are saying Grace and that alone is what Christianity is all about. There’s no real understanding of the place of God’s law in the Christian life.
As the old song goes, people today will sing, “Forgiven, forgiven, what a blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still have remission.”
Because of this pervasive belief that Christians can do as they please, it is important that these words of our Lord be heard.
This morning I want to talk to you about the propriety of Christian living. I want to emphasize this notion that true love obeys, just as Jesus emphasizes here in the upper room. And I want us to talk about the core of Christian living, the concern of Christian living, and the call of Christian living
I. The Core of Christian living
If we could boil down the life of a Christian to one fundamental nugget—if we could summarize the entirety of the Christian ethical system into just a miniature catchphrase or tweet— we could do so by saying this: love.
The real question that you must personally ponder and enthusiastically answer is this: do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?
You see this statement is foundational to everything that Jesus is getting at. It is repeated ad nauseum in this passage:
In every one of these statements you understand that there is something that precedes the commands. There is something that transcends the do’s and don’ts of our faith. It is the condition of the heart. Is there love?
It is this love for God that lies at the core of Christian living. I’ve mentioned before what Louis Berkhof has said. He said that if Christianity is anything, it is a religion of the heart. And long before you can talk about certain commands or what you should or should not do, you have to come back to this: Christianity starts with a genuine love for the Son of God, who gave his life as an atonement for my sin.
I say we need to start there and that this is the core of Christian living, and I need to clear away some of the common mistakes that are made. This is a critical worldview issue. Every worldview has an ethical starting point. And it is important that we understand that this is where Christianity starts when it comes to its moral system.
Christian ethics is built upon the principle of love for God, and not “what is best for the greatest number.” This is what we call utilitarianism. And I want to mention this because it is so prevalent in our culture – especially on TV shows. It is preached through the movie screens and on televisions. And it is the belief that all of ethics boils down to this idea: that you do what is in the interest of the greatest number of people.
So if it makes 10 people happy to do one thing, but it makes 20 people happy to do something else, then you go with the majority. The greatest good for the greatest number of people is what it is trying to say.
But how do you define good? And how do you know if this certain thing will actually make them happy? Have you ever gotten a happy meal and not had the toy in it? You thought it would make you happy, but it didn’t!
Christianity stands against this idea. And it says that we don’t focus on the majority of people and what might make them happy, we focus on God. We rise above men and their happiness and say that ethics centers around a true love for the Lord.
There’s another ethics system that you need to be aware of and it is closely related to utilitarianism. It is this thing call pragmatism. Utilitarianism says let’s do what makes the most people happy.
Pragmatism says, “Let’s do what works.” Pragmatism focuses on the usefulness of something, its success rates, and what may be practically helpful.
And while that sounds good, it stands goes in a different direction than Christian ethics should. You see, people don’t find preaching to be very practical. Sermons can be long and boring, and people will say we need dialog more than monolog. That’s really going to impact people more.
So pragmatism will try and look for what works, what’s more effective, and what is the best solution. It will ask, “which is the lesser of two evils?” and it will go with whatever methods will draw a bigger crowd?
You know that lying can sometimes get you good results, right? That’s why John MacArthur calls it a satanic system.
Now there are other systems out there we could talk about. I just highlight those two to help you realize the point that Jesus is trying to make. When we ask, “Where do we begin?” we don’t answer by conducting a popularity vote or by looking at what we think is most advantageous. We begin with our hearts’ disposition towards God.
Can we really say, “Everything that I do is motivated by a love for Jesus Christ.”
If you love me: that’s the core of Christian living. But let’s talk about the concern of Christian living.
II. The Concern of Christian living
As you see in verse 15, someone who loves Jesus will be concerned with keeping his commands. If you love me, you will what? You will keep my commandments.
Christians are people who are concerned with the Bible’s truth. The commands that Jesus has given in this gospel are their concerns, all of the commands in the NT are the focus of people who love Jesus; they are interested in understanding and applying all the commands of the whole Bible. These are all his commands.
I love the way Sam Storms put it in his sermon on this passage. He said, “It is this profoundly unbiblical and indefensible idea that one can truly love Jesus Christ and be his disciple at the same time one consciously and openly and repeatedly and unrepentantly lives in opposition to what Jesus commanded us to do or not to do.”
If you truly love Jesus, you are going to express that love by seeking to know and apply these principles.
So when it comes to propriety in sexual conduct, the Christian is going to be concerned that he abide by the command to keep the marriage bed pure and abstain from sex until he is married. He’s going to see adultery as wrong. He’s even going to set a guard over his lips and eyes so that he does not violate the commands dealing with sexual purity and coarseness.
When it comes to making promises and respecting other people’s property, he’s going to take that very seriously. He’s not going to violate it by stealing it or damaging it their property. He’s going to put some solemnity when he says he will do something or be somewhere at a certain time.
You get the idea that there is a real, genuine concern for the moral sanctions of Scripture. He loves Christ and is therefore going to seek to keep the commands as best he can.
All in all, the Christian has a biblical orientation and does not fall into what in theology is called “antinomianism.” Antinomianism is a fancy word that simply means “against the law.” There are a lot of so called ‘Christians’ out there who do not have an interest in the law of God. They think that the 10 commandments or some of the 10 commandments do not have any bearing on their lives at all.
Sure, they are keen on Jesus and salvation and certain aspects of Christianity. They will say that God has forgiven all their sins and given them eternal life. But when it comes to the moral imperatives, there’s not the same enthusiasm. They think that they can now live as they please.
For instance, not many years ago I was talking with someone who was kind of interested in the church I was ministering in. Then they found out that I was preaching the commands of Scripture. They decided that that church wasn’t going to be a good fit for them. They told me that we don’t need all those kinds of teachings because “we’ve been freed from the law.”
That’s a misguided understanding of what Scripture says. It is true that we have been set free from the guilt and punishment of the law. We are no longer liable to its condemnation, but we have not been set free from its obligations. We are still to use the law of God as a guide for our daily living.
There are people who claim to be Christians that don’t think that way though. When it comes to business deals, they don’t concern themselves with what Scripture says about such things. They don’t mind cheating and swindling and lapsing on payments. When it comes to marriage, they don’t concern themselves with what Jesus says about divorce. While it may be a tragedy that the marriage has come to this, it is ultimately of no real consequence that it dissolves.
Church is skipped, homosexuality is embraced, worldliness is sanctioned and many other things that Scripture specifically opposes are given credence. And it can all go in the name of “Well, no one is getting hurt in this.”
That’s an antinomian spirit. It is a lack of concern for the truth and moral guidance of Scripture.
You understand that such a spirit is contrary to what Jesus says right here. To be concerned about Biblical law is not Pharisee-ism, as some call it. It is true love for God. It is the practical outworking of that love for the Lord.
Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we realize then that it is biblical to be concerned about the bible because that is the fruit of genuine love for God.
There’s one more thing I want you to take away from this passage though. Yes, true love obeys. And while we can talk about love being the core of Christian living and that the commandments are the concern of Christian living, we need to remember the call of Christian living.
III. The Calling of Christian living
Christians are called to live out their love and live out these commandments in all circumstances, especially circumstances that may not be all that conducive to being obedient.
I want to remind you of the context of these verses. Jesus started out this chapter with the words, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” He’s begun to tell them that he’s not going to be around much longer. He recognizes that he is making an abrupt exit. And the disciples are going to be distraught over all of this. The disciples are going to be scared, confused, and maybe even a bit paranoid. They are going to have a rush of emotions flooding their systems. There will be a swirl of terror, anger, grief, surprise, anxiety. You name it. Jesus summed it up: their hearts will be troubled.
The next 48 to 72 hours are going to be quite difficult. And in the midst of this trail, what is Jesus telling them to do? He’s telling them to do one thing: obey. Be obedient.
In difficult times it is difficult to do that. These are the times we want to act on our fears and do what is wise in our own eyes. We want to protect ourselves and we want to try and get peace or safety by our own methods. But Jesus says that in these moments, what is most needful is to act not on the basis of your fears or your anger, but out of love for him. You’re called to obey despite the circumstances and the feelings to the contrary.
I will admit that I am stealing this point from Matthew Henry, the great puritan commentator. He said it so well when he said, “When they were in care what should they do? Now that their Master was leaving them and [they were worried of] what would become of them now, Jesus bids them keep his commandments, and then nothing could come amiss to them.”
I like that last little part: keep his commandments and “nothing would come amiss to them.” That is to say, their lives would be much better off. You see, what happens is that we usually compound the problems with more problems. When we do not act according to the rule of Scripture, we usually add to the problems or increase our misery.
Let’s imagine a scenario. Let’s take a woman. We’ll call her Karen. Karen’s husband is a lawyer and his work is taking up an extra amount of time. He isn’t a workaholic. It’s just this particular case he’s been working on is making it to be a busy season of life and he’s had a lot of extra time at the office. Now Karen starts to worry. She’s worrying about their marriage. Her parents split up when she was a kid and it came as a sudden surprise and was a difficult thing for her as a kid. Now she’s trudging up those old memories and she’s bringing them to bear on her own marriage. Even though there’s nothing wrong with the marriage, she’s having a hard time sleeping at night and she’s brooding on it through the day.
Now, do you see how a tough situation just got a lot more difficult? She allowed herself to worry and failed to fulfill her God given calling in life to be an obedient servant. And as a result, she began to experience a great deal more angst in her life.
Now, she could get a great deal of reprieve if she took the extra time she had on her own and used it in a productive way. Maybe she could plan a romantic dinner for when he did get home or take that extra time to do some extra ministry in her church. Filling her life with something productive and helpful to others would have probably saved her a lot of grief.
Even though the circumstances are a bit different, that is the point that Jesus is making here. Your call in trying times is to show your love for the Lord by being obedient.
Henry further explains, “In difficult times our care concerning the events of the day should be swallowed up in a care concerning the duty of the day.”
I gladly can report that it is probably not going to be something entirely new for our congregation. The good thing about being a part of Hopewell is that the families are all very biblically grounded. But even though I may not uncover any great new truth in today’s text, it does not mean that it is of no consequence.
This is one of the most important of all the lessons we can learn and it is good to hear it again. It is this: true love obeys. Those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ will be people who are committed to developing a biblical way of living.
This may not seem like one of great revelation, but it is of the utmost importance. And you can tell by our passage this morning how much Jesus wanted us to grasp it. Within the span of 9 or 10 verses Jesus repeats is notion 4 times: if you love me, you will keep my commandments.
And Jesus emphasized this so much because he knew that much of the evangelical world today needed to hear this message. We’re living in a day and age where genuine Christian living is almost a byword. There isn’t much attention to the law of God and the overall Christian worldview (at least when it comes to the ethical part of the Christian worldview) is virtually obsolete.
We are living in a day where there is a perverted understanding of the doctrine of Grace alone. People are saying Grace and that alone is what Christianity is all about. There’s no real understanding of the place of God’s law in the Christian life.
As the old song goes, people today will sing, “Forgiven, forgiven, what a blessed condition, I can sin all I want and still have remission.”
Because of this pervasive belief that Christians can do as they please, it is important that these words of our Lord be heard.
This morning I want to talk to you about the propriety of Christian living. I want to emphasize this notion that true love obeys, just as Jesus emphasizes here in the upper room. And I want us to talk about the core of Christian living, the concern of Christian living, and the call of Christian living
I. The Core of Christian living
If we could boil down the life of a Christian to one fundamental nugget—if we could summarize the entirety of the Christian ethical system into just a miniature catchphrase or tweet— we could do so by saying this: love.
The real question that you must personally ponder and enthusiastically answer is this: do you love the Lord Jesus Christ?
You see this statement is foundational to everything that Jesus is getting at. It is repeated ad nauseum in this passage:
- John 14:15 - "If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
- John 14:21 - 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."
- John 14:23 - 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.
- John 14:24 – 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.
In every one of these statements you understand that there is something that precedes the commands. There is something that transcends the do’s and don’ts of our faith. It is the condition of the heart. Is there love?
It is this love for God that lies at the core of Christian living. I’ve mentioned before what Louis Berkhof has said. He said that if Christianity is anything, it is a religion of the heart. And long before you can talk about certain commands or what you should or should not do, you have to come back to this: Christianity starts with a genuine love for the Son of God, who gave his life as an atonement for my sin.
I say we need to start there and that this is the core of Christian living, and I need to clear away some of the common mistakes that are made. This is a critical worldview issue. Every worldview has an ethical starting point. And it is important that we understand that this is where Christianity starts when it comes to its moral system.
Christian ethics is built upon the principle of love for God, and not “what is best for the greatest number.” This is what we call utilitarianism. And I want to mention this because it is so prevalent in our culture – especially on TV shows. It is preached through the movie screens and on televisions. And it is the belief that all of ethics boils down to this idea: that you do what is in the interest of the greatest number of people.
So if it makes 10 people happy to do one thing, but it makes 20 people happy to do something else, then you go with the majority. The greatest good for the greatest number of people is what it is trying to say.
But how do you define good? And how do you know if this certain thing will actually make them happy? Have you ever gotten a happy meal and not had the toy in it? You thought it would make you happy, but it didn’t!
Christianity stands against this idea. And it says that we don’t focus on the majority of people and what might make them happy, we focus on God. We rise above men and their happiness and say that ethics centers around a true love for the Lord.
There’s another ethics system that you need to be aware of and it is closely related to utilitarianism. It is this thing call pragmatism. Utilitarianism says let’s do what makes the most people happy.
Pragmatism says, “Let’s do what works.” Pragmatism focuses on the usefulness of something, its success rates, and what may be practically helpful.
And while that sounds good, it stands goes in a different direction than Christian ethics should. You see, people don’t find preaching to be very practical. Sermons can be long and boring, and people will say we need dialog more than monolog. That’s really going to impact people more.
So pragmatism will try and look for what works, what’s more effective, and what is the best solution. It will ask, “which is the lesser of two evils?” and it will go with whatever methods will draw a bigger crowd?
You know that lying can sometimes get you good results, right? That’s why John MacArthur calls it a satanic system.
Now there are other systems out there we could talk about. I just highlight those two to help you realize the point that Jesus is trying to make. When we ask, “Where do we begin?” we don’t answer by conducting a popularity vote or by looking at what we think is most advantageous. We begin with our hearts’ disposition towards God.
Can we really say, “Everything that I do is motivated by a love for Jesus Christ.”
If you love me: that’s the core of Christian living. But let’s talk about the concern of Christian living.
II. The Concern of Christian living
As you see in verse 15, someone who loves Jesus will be concerned with keeping his commands. If you love me, you will what? You will keep my commandments.
Christians are people who are concerned with the Bible’s truth. The commands that Jesus has given in this gospel are their concerns, all of the commands in the NT are the focus of people who love Jesus; they are interested in understanding and applying all the commands of the whole Bible. These are all his commands.
I love the way Sam Storms put it in his sermon on this passage. He said, “It is this profoundly unbiblical and indefensible idea that one can truly love Jesus Christ and be his disciple at the same time one consciously and openly and repeatedly and unrepentantly lives in opposition to what Jesus commanded us to do or not to do.”
If you truly love Jesus, you are going to express that love by seeking to know and apply these principles.
So when it comes to propriety in sexual conduct, the Christian is going to be concerned that he abide by the command to keep the marriage bed pure and abstain from sex until he is married. He’s going to see adultery as wrong. He’s even going to set a guard over his lips and eyes so that he does not violate the commands dealing with sexual purity and coarseness.
When it comes to making promises and respecting other people’s property, he’s going to take that very seriously. He’s not going to violate it by stealing it or damaging it their property. He’s going to put some solemnity when he says he will do something or be somewhere at a certain time.
You get the idea that there is a real, genuine concern for the moral sanctions of Scripture. He loves Christ and is therefore going to seek to keep the commands as best he can.
All in all, the Christian has a biblical orientation and does not fall into what in theology is called “antinomianism.” Antinomianism is a fancy word that simply means “against the law.” There are a lot of so called ‘Christians’ out there who do not have an interest in the law of God. They think that the 10 commandments or some of the 10 commandments do not have any bearing on their lives at all.
Sure, they are keen on Jesus and salvation and certain aspects of Christianity. They will say that God has forgiven all their sins and given them eternal life. But when it comes to the moral imperatives, there’s not the same enthusiasm. They think that they can now live as they please.
For instance, not many years ago I was talking with someone who was kind of interested in the church I was ministering in. Then they found out that I was preaching the commands of Scripture. They decided that that church wasn’t going to be a good fit for them. They told me that we don’t need all those kinds of teachings because “we’ve been freed from the law.”
That’s a misguided understanding of what Scripture says. It is true that we have been set free from the guilt and punishment of the law. We are no longer liable to its condemnation, but we have not been set free from its obligations. We are still to use the law of God as a guide for our daily living.
There are people who claim to be Christians that don’t think that way though. When it comes to business deals, they don’t concern themselves with what Scripture says about such things. They don’t mind cheating and swindling and lapsing on payments. When it comes to marriage, they don’t concern themselves with what Jesus says about divorce. While it may be a tragedy that the marriage has come to this, it is ultimately of no real consequence that it dissolves.
Church is skipped, homosexuality is embraced, worldliness is sanctioned and many other things that Scripture specifically opposes are given credence. And it can all go in the name of “Well, no one is getting hurt in this.”
That’s an antinomian spirit. It is a lack of concern for the truth and moral guidance of Scripture.
You understand that such a spirit is contrary to what Jesus says right here. To be concerned about Biblical law is not Pharisee-ism, as some call it. It is true love for God. It is the practical outworking of that love for the Lord.
Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And we realize then that it is biblical to be concerned about the bible because that is the fruit of genuine love for God.
There’s one more thing I want you to take away from this passage though. Yes, true love obeys. And while we can talk about love being the core of Christian living and that the commandments are the concern of Christian living, we need to remember the call of Christian living.
III. The Calling of Christian living
Christians are called to live out their love and live out these commandments in all circumstances, especially circumstances that may not be all that conducive to being obedient.
I want to remind you of the context of these verses. Jesus started out this chapter with the words, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” He’s begun to tell them that he’s not going to be around much longer. He recognizes that he is making an abrupt exit. And the disciples are going to be distraught over all of this. The disciples are going to be scared, confused, and maybe even a bit paranoid. They are going to have a rush of emotions flooding their systems. There will be a swirl of terror, anger, grief, surprise, anxiety. You name it. Jesus summed it up: their hearts will be troubled.
The next 48 to 72 hours are going to be quite difficult. And in the midst of this trail, what is Jesus telling them to do? He’s telling them to do one thing: obey. Be obedient.
In difficult times it is difficult to do that. These are the times we want to act on our fears and do what is wise in our own eyes. We want to protect ourselves and we want to try and get peace or safety by our own methods. But Jesus says that in these moments, what is most needful is to act not on the basis of your fears or your anger, but out of love for him. You’re called to obey despite the circumstances and the feelings to the contrary.
I will admit that I am stealing this point from Matthew Henry, the great puritan commentator. He said it so well when he said, “When they were in care what should they do? Now that their Master was leaving them and [they were worried of] what would become of them now, Jesus bids them keep his commandments, and then nothing could come amiss to them.”
I like that last little part: keep his commandments and “nothing would come amiss to them.” That is to say, their lives would be much better off. You see, what happens is that we usually compound the problems with more problems. When we do not act according to the rule of Scripture, we usually add to the problems or increase our misery.
Let’s imagine a scenario. Let’s take a woman. We’ll call her Karen. Karen’s husband is a lawyer and his work is taking up an extra amount of time. He isn’t a workaholic. It’s just this particular case he’s been working on is making it to be a busy season of life and he’s had a lot of extra time at the office. Now Karen starts to worry. She’s worrying about their marriage. Her parents split up when she was a kid and it came as a sudden surprise and was a difficult thing for her as a kid. Now she’s trudging up those old memories and she’s bringing them to bear on her own marriage. Even though there’s nothing wrong with the marriage, she’s having a hard time sleeping at night and she’s brooding on it through the day.
Now, do you see how a tough situation just got a lot more difficult? She allowed herself to worry and failed to fulfill her God given calling in life to be an obedient servant. And as a result, she began to experience a great deal more angst in her life.
Now, she could get a great deal of reprieve if she took the extra time she had on her own and used it in a productive way. Maybe she could plan a romantic dinner for when he did get home or take that extra time to do some extra ministry in her church. Filling her life with something productive and helpful to others would have probably saved her a lot of grief.
Even though the circumstances are a bit different, that is the point that Jesus is making here. Your call in trying times is to show your love for the Lord by being obedient.
Henry further explains, “In difficult times our care concerning the events of the day should be swallowed up in a care concerning the duty of the day.”