Let's turn to God's Word. John, chapter 14, verse 15, John 14, verse 15, while you're turning, let me encourage you with this short quote from J.G. Lockhart, who wrote concerning the death of Sir Walter Scott. He says this in his writings, Sir Walter Scott expressed the wish, as he lay dying, that I should read to him. And when I ask him from what book he said, need you ask, there is but one, I chose the 14th chapter of St. John's gospel. And then Sir Walter Scott said, well, this is a great comfort. Let's read together from John 14, 15, that we also would be comforted from the Word of God and that it would have its work on us. John, chapter 14, verse 15, Jesus saying, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. May the Lord bless the reading of this, his holy and inerrant Word. Jesus has been comforting the disciples in these last hours before he has crucified. That's what we've been reading about throughout the most of 13 and certainly through 14. He's comforting them because of their angst and anxiety over his departure. He's about to announce to them the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's where this teaching and that which is immediately before it is heading. He is laying the groundwork now for the introduction to them of the coming of the comforter when he himself is physically removed from their presence. He is prefacing his promise of the Holy Spirit with this reminder that they are continue to follow him in just the same way he has shown them. Let me repeat that because we need to set ourselves in a frame of mind where we understand what he's saying here. He's saying, once I am departed, you will follow me in just precisely the same way that I have taught you to follow me while I am physically present with you and that their obedience will have their love for him as motivation. That really is the kernel of the truth in the passage that we read just now. Jesus is saying, keep on following me even when I'm not with you and in the next passage he's going to tell them how that's going to be able to occur. He'll grant to them the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of Christ remaining with them and then he says in your motivation for doing this is going to be because of the quality of your love for me. Just a little while earlier in that same night, Jesus had given them a new commandment. We were to go back to 1334. If you have your Bible still open, I encourage you just to move your finger over and find that passage. He says a new commandment I give to you that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another and he even goes on further to say that it's by that love that people will know that they are disciples of Christ. Their love will be their testimony of the authenticity of their discipleship. They were to love one another as he had loved them and they were to love others just the same. He commanded them in other ways too. He commanded them to keep on believing in him. He commanded them to pray in his name. He commanded them to pray to him and now he's recapping by telling them again their obedience will be the testimony of their love. How important is this? Is this a passing comment? Surely it's not. We could go back to 1 John which we've studied at length which as I'm looking at 1 John again in my study of this passage, I find the book of 1 John to almost be a commentary on John chapter 14. At least it's working very well that way in my own study. I encourage you to read 1 John as you go through John 14 in your own time. But if you were to look at chapter 15 verse 10, you read there something very similar. If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love, this linking of obedience to the commandments and abiding in love which he is commending to the disciples in 14 verse 15. He repeats again in 15 verse 10 but that's not the last time. As long as you're in 15, look at verse 17. These things I command you so that you will love one another. We find love being conditioned with command but then we also find that command is conditioned by love. We're only able to obey as we love but then love itself is only made possible because of our willingness to obey. First of all to believe to pray in his name and to pray to him. By making love the motive behind and in fact the golaw of obedience, Jesus is insisting on moving from ritualism to transformed living. This is essential for us in the days in which we live. There are many who are trying to find religion but what they will find is sometimes very beautiful very well done but nevertheless simple ritualism not transformed living. Transformation occurs from the inside out. It's internal character transformation rather than simply external religious observance. No matter how grand the church hall may be, no matter how eloquent the preacher may be, no matter how many voices or how beautiful the choir may be or how new the accoutrements of a church might be, it is still ritualism unless there is an internal and a character change that comes from the heart of the individual. He's talking about what Paul would describe later in more formal terms as being a circumcision of the heart rather than a circumcision of the flesh, a changing of the heart. The emphasis on heart and character is not a new teaching. Jesus is not introducing this for the first time. We find this throughout all of the pages of scripture like in Isaiah 29, 13, this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. In Luke 16, 15, our Lord Himself, you are those who justify yourselves before men but God knows your hearts. Paul in Romans 8, 27, gives commentary to this when He says, God searches our hearts. God observes and looks at the heart. It's the heart of a man translated as the Christ-like character of a man that God is observing. Not the external obedience is which is why the Pharisees could never find a place with Christ. That's why I called them whitewashed tombs beautiful in their external observances and yet on the inside rotten and decaying. No number of attendances to services could cleanse what only the spirit of Christ can cleanse in the internal part of a man. Proverbs 4, 23, commands keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life. Human conduct will flow from the heart bearing testimony of a person's character. It flows from the heart, a person's life and their desires and their quest, if you will, flows from the heart, humility, meekness, respect, obedience, love all these flow from the heart, which is the character of a man. Jesus has to connect authentic discipleship or translate discipleship here as obedience with authentic love for him because it's simply not natural for our hearts or actions to be inclined towards obedience to God. That's where our problems all began in the garden is we're not naturally inclined to be obedient to God. We reject as at the very core of our being authority over us. We reject it outright. Oh, we would love to have God's blessings on our wayward ways but we reject authority over us. It's the natural state of fallen man and women to reject authority that is placed over us. We despise, command authority over our lives and yet that's what God requires. Romans 8, 7 through 8 teaches that the natural mind is hostile to God and will not submit to his law. One of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin observed rightly how many observe Christ's birthday? How many few or how few rather observe his precepts to his easier to keep holidays than commandments? Matthew 7, 21 through 22 Jesus describes in disturbing terms the condition of the heart and its natural estate itself seeking and selfish estate. He said these words, for from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts sexual immorality theft murder adultery coveting wickedness deceit sensuality envy slander pride foolishness all these evil things come from within and they defile a person. Our being defiled before God is not something that was splashed upon us because of Adam's sin. It comes from within us our very selves. We're not simply victims because Adam's sin and because we're born in the same genetic stream as Adam was his sin somehow got rubbed on to us. It comes from within the heart of every person. What can save us from such a wretched estate? That's an apt description isn't it? It sounds like old English but really is there a more appropriate word that we could use than wretched. It is a wretched estate such as the language we find in the him amazing grace who saved a wretched like me. The writer there certainly had an idea of the wretched estate of man. God's grace affects a change in the heart that changes our moral conduct from within. Morality ethics which is simply observed without an inward change of character is hypocrisy. Morality and ethics which is observed without an inward change of character is moralism and legalism and Phariseism but morality and ethics that is the result of an internal change of character as a sanctified life and an obedient life in the life of a disciple. That very thing is prophesied by Ezekiel in 36 verse 26 27. Listen to the prophets words and the promise of how God would accomplish this impossible work in the heart of man. He says, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit. I will put within you, I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit in you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules and so obedience comes only from rebirth and that rebirth is brought about only by the work and the operation of the Holy Spirit, a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit and that's of God's initiative proving that we love Him only because He first loved us. By Jesus stating something that might appear so obvious, he's acknowledging it is difficult and unnatural. What happens to us? Once we resolve to obey Christ as we do when we first come to faith or if we are raised in the faith and we finally come before the church because we know that we belong to Christ and we have that zeal and that enthusiasm and we take up the scriptures and we study them and we speak to our neighbors and our friends and our family about the love of God and the grace of Christ and the gospel of Jesus. What happens to that zeal and that enthusiasm, that commitment to observe our duties and to be obedient even to the great commission. What happens? It's not uncommon to us if we read in Revelation 2 verses 4 and 5 the church in Ephesus also struggled with the same issue that we do. Many began their Christian life well but soon they falter in their obedience to his commands. Here the words that were written to this church but I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember therefore from where you have fallen. Repent and do the works you did at first. If not I will come to you and remove your lamp stand from its place unless you repent. The lack of obedience which some will label as works but we do not promote of course works righteousness but works on account of the righteousness of Christ given to us. A lack thereof simply is a lack of love for God the two are yoke together. An observance and a sense of willingness to do that which God has commanded our Christian duties is a result of the love which we have for God consequently a resistance to completion of the duties which God has given to us as disciples must also bear evidence of a lack of love for God some will cry you're preaching works you're preaching legalism you're preaching Phariseism to which John replies and first John two verse three by this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments you see scripture doesn't give obedience as a condition of salvation but it does hold it out as evidence of our rebirth as the natural consequence that flows from one who is born again it's the inevitable outcome there is no other way there is no other fruit that we would bear except the natural consequence of conversion which is obedience following after God living a life as Christ lived his life drifting from our love for Christ as natural to man just as swimming in water as natural for a fish we live in a fallen world we work from material rewards and we're concerned to keep the affections of others around us anything that causes us to be exalted in our own mind we love and we are drawn to like a moth to the flame yet first John two 15 through 17 teaches that love given to such things is in fact adultery against God and if anyone does love such things the love of God simply is not in him not my words but God's words and so we learn that this short sentence that the Lord has given if you love me you will keep my commandments by that our Lord gives unqualified love the result that results in obedience his love is unqualified it's it's maybe not unqualified but it's without in his infinite love that results in obedience is for us a matter of spiritual life and death what are the commands that he gives then what is it that Jesus has commanded that's so vital if our spiritual life and death if our spiritual health at the very least depends on these then what is it that the Lord has commanded John 13 he simply says love one another as I have loved you and so we would ask how is your love towards others how is your love towards other people before you answer want you to consider these characteristics of love firstly service service to others Jesus had just demonstrated this in action he humbled himself to act as a servant when he took the towel and he wrapped it around his waist when he took the basin and he washed their feet Peter protested against that and he said that the work was beneath Christ this is not work becoming of the Lord Christ said however the work fits himself very well and it demonstrates meekness meekness power that is controlled authority that is ruled blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth isn't that fulfilled in Christ Jesus himself Christian service is selfless it forfeits time it forfeits resources it forfeits its own rights and it gives for the good and the progress and the happiness of others and firstly it's service secondly it's sacrifice serving and loving others is not scheduled at our convenience is it it is responsive serving others isn't without cost it always cost in my notes I've written always in all capital letters it always costs it's the nature of service it always costs Jesus took the bread and he said this is my body which is given for you how do we measure the cost of service we measure it against the service of Christ himself who took upon himself the sins of all mankind serving man by dying in our stead if it's service and it's sacrifice it's also a sharing with one another our life was not given for us to use it up on ourselves to burn it up on our own pleasure on our own work on our own deeds on our own joy our own happiness which ultimately is not even accessible unless we receive our happiness through Christ the chief end of man we know is to glorify God the scriptures teaches how that is to happen like clay in a potter's hand so were we in God's hands created for his purposes to live and show forth his grace and testify of his love to be obedient to the great commission and finally in verse 23 we read something similar but phrased differently it reads if anyone loves me he'll keep my word in chapter 14 verse 23 I believe the expositor h a iron side is correct in his 1942 commentary where he rightly sees a subtle but an important difference in the way these things are expressed the reason for bringing it up is if you look at verse 15 it says if you love me you'll keep my commandments and in verse 23 if anyone loves me he'll keep my word and so we have here two different words that are used one we keep his commandments and then the other we keep his word a command is easy to find isn't it there's a list or a table of ten of them that we could turn to right away there's also a finite number of them if we were to do a textual study of all of the scripture and write down all of the commands there's a finite number we would eventually arrive at the last word of scripture and our list of commands would be complete we would have all the commands recorded for us in scripture and so there is a finite number of them granted some of them even though there's a finite number or all encompassing of life but that is beginning to get at what I believe John is teaching a man keeping a list of external expressions of commandments might be tempted to never deal with the internal disposition of the heart but when Jesus says to keep his word that's a broader a broader application of the idea of love and obedience iron side in that commentary the reason I was drawn to this explanation he gives an illustration of a young girl simply named Mary I'm sure it's made up name Mary is the only donor of a widow mother Mary goes to school and her mother acts very little of her knowing the demands of life and a family where there is only mother and daughter the only thing that she ask of Mary is that she take care of her own space that she keep her room clean and she keep it straight and so every morning as Mary prepares to go to school she does in fact tidy up her room and clean it up and make it all prepared so that her mother has no concern over that part of all of the responsibilities for the widowed mother has to keep in order Mary loves her mother and she keeps that commandment she keeps it to the letter with a glad heart no matter where she is going no matter how much of a hurry she is in she always stops to make sure that she has managed her own room according to her mother's wishes one day after school Mary's planning on playing tennis with friends and she gets home and she hears her mother tell a neighbor that there is a large company coming that night and she has a meal to prepare but she hasn't been feeling very well at all and that she's not looking forward to the labor Mary goes to her mother though she has plans of her own and she tells her to lie down that she'll peel the potatoes she'll prepare the meat and she will get everything ready for the guests to arrive her mother of course protests but Mary insists that she couldn't be happy knowing that her mother was ill and had this need of her in the morning Mary kept the commandment in the afternoon she kept her mother's word by counting it a duty and a privilege to honor her mother by sharing in her mother's work one is obedience and the other is devotion but devotion is also obedience Christian journey to obedience and devotion begins and ends with Christ the family is the is the work ground it is the workshop where children learn the lessons that then later or apply to their to their own walk with Christ the Christian journey and obedience and devotion beginning and ending with Christ begins with a listening to his word observing his work learning of his expression of love and service on the cross of atonement and as we grow in our love for him his life becomes ours and it becomes our life to obey his commands out of our love for him