In many of my past sermons, I have established the principle that the Christian’s relationship with Christ is like that of a husband and wife in marriage. In our Wednesday evening Bible study, we are looking at that principle right now. Paul says in Ephesians 5:31, “FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND SHALL BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH. This mystery is great; but I am speaking with reference to Christ and the church.” So then marriage, as defined by God, is an illustration of our relationship with Christ.
In any marriage relationship, the foundation is love. But everyone here surely realizes that for a marriage to work, both members must love one another. It doesn’t work to have just one person loving their mate, but the mate not to respond in love. So it is with our relationship with Christ. There must be love from both parties if it is to be a healthy marriage.
There are two problems in the church today though that threaten the sanctity of this marriage with Christ. The first problem is that for the most part, the emphasis on the responsibility to love is one sided. The church is continually talking about and singing about Christ’s love for us, but hardly anything is said about our love for the Lord. In the church’s relationship with Christ, love is disproportionate. He does all the loving, and we do all the taking. And that kind of one sided love produces a lopsided marriage relationship. In that kind of relationship, the one being loved too often ends up abusing that love, and taking advantage of that person, becoming something of a narcissist, selfishly using the other for their own ends. They end up with a distorted view of their own importance. They end up seeking their own selfish priorities, often at the expense of the one doing the loving.
That isn’t the Biblical view of love, however. 1 Cor.13:5, which is part of the famous text on love, says that love “does not seek it’s own.” In other words, true love seeks to benefit the other partner, not itself. It doesn’t seek it’s own benefit at the expense of others. But unfortunately, this is far too often the church’s perspective on love. It’s one sided. It’s focused on God’s love for us, but hardly ever focused on our love for God.
And yet Jesus said in Mark 12:30 that the foremost commandment was “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.” I would suggest to you that for the most part, most of us fail in that commandment. We love ourselves first and then we probably love a whole list of earthly things, and maybe somewhere down on the bottom of the totem pole we love God. That hierarchy is made evident by our day planners. It’s evident by our checkbook register. It’s evident by our to do lists. Our lips may say we love God, perhaps even our Facebook page says we love God, but our daily priorities and activities say otherwise.
There is a second problem that hinders the church’s marriage with Christ. And that is that we have misunderstood the definition of love. We’ve misunderstood both Christ’s love for us, and our love for Christ. We have misinterpreted what constitutes love. The modern church in particular has adapted the world’s definition of love to the word, and as a result we have essentially “dumbed down” the Bible’s definition of love.
I have talked about this misinterpretation of love so often that I feel redundant speaking of it again. But it is germane to this passage, and it is essential to our relationship with Christ. Let me reiterate briefly; love is not simply a feeling, love is not just an emotion, love is not an experience. Love, in the best sense, is a commitment. It’s an act of the will. There were four words in the Greek that were used for love. Christ and the apostles consistently used the highest form of it; agape love. So in the Bible love is presented as a sacrificial commitment, even to the point of laying down your life for another. Jesus said, “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” That’s agape love. Being willing to lay down, or better yet, lay aside your life, for the sake of another.
That is true love, by the way. It’s being willing to lay down your life for the sake of the one you love. Love is not what you say, but what you do. That love was modeled by Christ when He laid down His life on the cross for us. That sacrificial love is modeled by Christian marriage in Ephesians 5. That is the love of a Christian, who puts the other’s needs above his own. That is the mark of a sanctified believer, one who truly loves God, who has perfected love, because they were willing to lay down their prerogatives for the sake of honoring Christ.
Now it’s interesting to note that Jesus speaks quite often of love in this Upper Room discourse. But notice that the emphasis is on our love for Him. He certainly speaks of His love for the church, but He is emphasizing our responsibility to love the Lord. Four times in this chapter alone Christ talks about our responsibility to love Him. In chapter 14, our Lord reminds us that it is those who love Him who obey His commandments; once in verse 15, a second time in verse 21, and again in verse 23, and then reverses it in verse 24. Really four times makes reference to this idea of our love for God being that we obey His commands or word.
And I would also point out the placement of these statements about our love for God bracket certain promises of God. For instance, look at how these three verses are laid out. Vs.14, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” Vs. 15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Vs. 16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”
Now at first glance, you might think that these are unrelated bullet points. Almost as if John is just giving us highlights of the conversation here rather than a word for word rendition. And that may be true to a certain degree. But I would suggest that there is a purpose in the way that he has arranged it. Because I believe that love for God is the condition upon which these various promises are made.
For instance, look again at vs.14, “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” We talked about last time what it meant to ask in Jesus’s name. That His will being a condition for Christ doing what we ask of Him. We ask according to His will. His purpose. His ministry. But I believe after studying this passage that there is another condition, and that is that you love Him, and to love Him He said is to keep His commandments.
If someone is not living according to Christ’s commands, then I don’t believe that God is under any compulsion whatsoever to grant our requests. In fact disobedience is a hindrance to your prayers. Psalm 66:18 says, “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” You are either living in disobedience as a child of God and as such will receive the discipline of God the Father, or your disobedience is evidence that you are not a child of God at all. But either way, your disobedience nullifies the promise of God to answer your prayers. Because that disobedience illustrates that you do not love God. And if you do not love God, then that is evidence that you are not God’s marriage partner or you are in rebellion to Him.
I’ve said before that I have studied the latter part of James 5 for years, trying to find the secret to answered prayer as illustrated by James’s example of Elijah. The key verse being vs.16, “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” I looked at it from the perspective of perseverance, from the perspective of faith, and just about every which way possible. And then finally one day it hit me. The key to effective prayer, the key to answered prayer, is the word righteous.
In fact, when you look at the complete verse, that becomes clearer. “Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.” The emphasis is on confession of sins so that your prayers are not hindered.
So back in our text, I believe that Jesus deliberately juxtaposes vs.15 about love and obedience between the promise of answered prayer, and that of the promise of the Holy Spirit. Because I believe that love of God demonstrated by obedience is the key to the fulfillment of both of those promises.
Jesus makes the connection between obedience and love over and over again. He obviously is not teaching that Christianity is composed of an easy believism, of lip service without obedience. He is not teaching that God’s love for us is some sort of sentimentalism that winks at sin. He is speaking of love as a commitment, even as a sacrifice of our priorities for the Lord’s. There is a sense in which our God loves everyone in his benevolence and in the fact that He does them good. But His special love for His children is reserved, our Lord says, for those who believe in Him, love Him, and manifest their love in the keeping of His commandments. Vs.23, “If anyone loves Me he will keep My words and My Father will love him and We will come unto him and make our abode with him.” There is a special intimacy that God gives to those who love Him.
Our love for God is the key to the Christian life. And obedience and love are inseparably intertwined in this chapter. You cannot have one without the other. Let’s look at these statements. Vs.15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Vs.21, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” Vs.23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” And then in vs.24 He says it negatively, “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.” Again and again, love and obedience are correlated by Christ, resulting in communion with God.
I often have people tell me that they are having problems in their Christian walk. And the problem they say they feel like God is far away. They pray and they don’t feel like God hears them. They don’t feel like God cares about their problems. Notice how many times the word “feel” was used there. But God’s presence or God’s response to our prayers is not dependent upon feelings. It’s dependent upon obedience. So when someone tells me that he doesn’t feel like God is close to them, I tell them that feelings follow obedience. They rarely precede it. James 4:8 says, “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” As we get into conformity with God, then He will be near to us, and reveal Himself to us. Feelings follow obedience.
Obedience is kind of like trying to get in shape. We hear all the time of the great benefits of exercise. We hear that you will feel so much better if you get into shape. So we join a gym. And we start to work out on an exercise program. But let me ask you, does feeling good precede getting in shape or follow after you have gotten into shape? I would suggest that getting into shape is often painful. It’s arduous. That’s why they call it working out. And that’s why Paul said in Philippians that we are to work out our salvation through obeying. Phil. 2:12
“So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”
When you are obedient, then you will begin to experience the joy and peace of intimate fellowship with God. John Calvin, the great Reformer said, “True knowledge of God is born out of obedience.” As we obey Him, we come to know Him. And out of that obedience comes a closer walk with God, out of obedience comes our sanctification, out of obedience comes our comfort, our fellowship, our assurance of His love for us. As we love Him and keep His commandments, He comes to us and abides with us and makes His home with us as promised in vs.21 and 23.
So the key to Christ granting our requests is our love manifested by our obedience. And that obedience is tied to the next promise as well, that of the Holy Spirit. He is our Helper so that we might do those things which God has commanded us to do. Vs.16, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever.”
This highlights the major difference between the old covenant and the new covenant. A lot of people think that the difference is that in the old covenant they were under the law, but in the new covenant we are under grace. That’s not completely true. It is true that we that are saved by faith are not under the penalty of the law, but under grace, that is the gift of righteousness procured by Jesus’s death on the cross. But the commandments of God still stand. Jesus said I did not come to annul the law but to fulfill it. The difference is that in the old covenant we did not have the power to keep the law, but in the new covenant we have the power of the Spirit dwelling within us to help us keep His commandments. That is why I think Jesus juxtaposes these three otherwise unrelated statements together. He is showing the link which is obedience.
This new covenant promise is prophesied in Ezekiel 11:19, “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.” He repeats that promise word for word again in Ez.36.
The same promise is made again in Jeremiah 31:33, “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.”
That’s the purpose of sending the Holy Spirit folks. He is not some sort of experience. He is not a feeling. He is not an emotion. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of Truth. And He is given to us that we might know the truth, and that we might be obedient to the truth. He is given to lead us in the truth. He is given to write the law of God upon our hearts, so that our desire is to be obedient, because we love the Lord with all our hearts and want to please Him. He gives us a new heart that is able to love Him, and is able to obey Him because our desires are changed.
Vs. 26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” So He is our teacher, our helper, that we might know the truth of Christ. He will bring it to our remembrance so that we might keep His word. That is why in vs.17 Jesus calls Him the Spirit of truth.
In chapter 15, you are going to see in the next couple of weeks that Jesus goes to great lengths to reiterate His commandments. It’s important to realize that in the New Testament, every one of the 10 commandments is reiterated except one. And that one that isn’t is the law of the Sabbath, because it is a ceremonial law. And when the ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ, they were no longer necessary. They were a picture of something to come, but once He had come, the ceremonial laws were no longer in effect. But the point that Jesus makes is that the law of God is fulfilled in two positive commandments, as opposed to negative ones. The negative commands say don’t do this, don’t do that. But the positive commandments of Christ are to do something, first, love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. And He said all the commandments are fulfilled in those two.
It’s also interesting to draw a correlation to the passage on love I referenced earlier, that of 1 Corinthians 13. In that chapter and the one preceding it, we see that love is a gift of the Spirit. Of all the gifts of the Spirit, love is the one that remains when the others cease. Love is the greatest gift. 1Cor. 13:8, “Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.” But the gift of love is going to endure, it will not cease, it will not fade away. As it says in vs.13, “But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
Well, Jesus is showing that the way to accomplish His command to love Him and obey Him is through the Holy Spirit. The Helper is given that we might do the works of God. And He does that by leading us us in the truth. John 16:13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”
So then the Holy Spirit helps us love God, because we come to know Him through the word of God, of which the Holy Spirit is the author. And He brings the word to our minds, that He might lead us in the truth. So that we might know what to do, what His will is, what His commands are. And then when we don’t do what we should, He convicts us so that we might repent and be conformed to Christ’s will. John 16:8, “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”
When we sin, we grieve the Holy Spirit. And we limit the Holy Spirit. That is why it is necessary to have a daily filling of the Spirit. To confess your sins, and commit to love the Lord and be obedient to His will, so that the Holy Spirit may fill us with His power to do God’s will.
Next time we are going to continue in this chapter and really focus more on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But for now let me just say that the Helper (or Comforter in some versions) comes from the Greek word Paraclete. That’s the transliteration in English. Greek it’s Paraklētos. Klētos is a verb form of a verb kaleō which means to call, pará means alongside like parallel – so to call somebody alongside. That’s what the word means, somebody called alongside.
And then there is another word, Állos which is used here. It means another of the exact same kind; and Jesus uses that: “I will give you állos Paraklētos. “I will give you another exactly like I am, which is to say that I’m going to send you a Helper exactly like the Helper that I have been,” and that defines for you the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We have the power of Christ in us, the words of Christ written down for us, and the mind of Christ ministering to us through the Spirit of Truth. That we might be able to be obedient to the truth. That we might know the truth, and the truth make us free. Free from the penalty of sin, and free from the power of sin.
Listen, we know that the devil is a deciever. He loves to confuse. He loves to twist doctrines. And so there is an effort on his part to confuse two vital doctrines of scripture, that of love and the Holy Spirit. We see both of those doctrines perverted and confused in the church today to the church’s detriment. We need to know that love is evidenced by obedience to God’s will. And we need to know that God has sent His Spirit that we might know His will and have the indwelling power of God to help us to do His will. And in both of those doctrines, the flow is outward, not inward. It’s not just about God’s love for me, but my love for God, manifested by my obedience. And it’s not about how the Spirit of God makes me feel, or what manifestation of God I experience, but He helps me to manifest Christ to the world. That is what discipleship is all about. Loving God and loving one another. We love because He first loved us. And then we love one another because that is His command to us, and how we show that we love God. And in both of them, the Spirit is the originator, and the supplier of our needs in all that we do. As we yield to Him on a daily basis, then we will love God by obedience to God’s commands. And then we will experience the blessings of God upon our lives.
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