Modeling Holiness
John 15:9-17
Today is Mother’s Day, so to all you
Moms out there, I say, “Happy Mother’s Day!”
Now anyone who knows me well at all probably knows that I’ve just given
all of the recognition to Mother’s Day that I would normally want to give in a
Sunday morning message. And the truth is
that as I was studying the Lectionary Scriptures for today, the 5th
Sunday after Easter, there was really nothing that I saw in them that went
along with Mother’s Day. But as I got
into more of the developing of the message, I realized that there’s an
illustration I can share today that goes along with Mother’s Day and being a
good Mom. So bear with me, and I’ll plan
to get to that in a little bit. But
right now, I want to start with something else.
I’m going to do something else today
that I normally don’t do from the pulpit: I’m going to talk about a current
event issue that has caused controversy in our culture. That event was when the President and the
Vice President of the United States both came out publicly in the past several
days saying that they are in favor of same-sex marriages. From the outset, let me state that I am not
going to be talking about politics or candidates today. But I want to look at this issue in light of
the words from today’s Scripture lessons.
And I want to remind you that I didn’t choose these Scriptures because
of current events; rather, these particular Scriptures were chosen for this
week in the church year by the people who put together the Lectionary many
years ago.
One of the big arguments that has come
up with this whole same-sex marriage issue is that people on one side of the
issue point to the Bible to show that it speaks against homosexual
activity. And those people are correct
when they say that. On the other hand,
there are other people out there today who say that Jesus was all about love,
and if two same-sex people love each other, it’s OK for them to get
married. Well, the people who think that
way are half-right. Jesus was—and IS—all
about love. But in today’s Scripture
lessons we can get a good picture about what Jesus means by “love.” Then from
there, I want to show that it’s our understanding of “love” and our
understanding of Obeying Jesus that should make the difference in how we look
at issues in our day.
In the Scriptures we read from John 15,
Jesus is recorded as saying that if we keep His commands, we will abide, or
remain, in His love. Some people look at
that word, “commandments” and conclude that Jesus was talking about the commandments
found in the Old Testament Law. But
that’s not what Jesus said in the context of this passage. Right after He talked about obeying His
commandmentss, He said this in verse 12, “This
is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus then went on to say that there’s no
greater love than someone dying for his or her friends, and He said this knowing
full well that in just a few hours he would be dead, because He was about to
lay down His life for His friends. So, within that context, I’d like to show
that there are two interpretation mistakes that are often made by people when
looking at the words of Jesus from that passage.
The first mistake is when people try to
use the passage to show that Jesus expects everyone to obey all of the commands
found in the Old Testament Law. People
take the word “command” or “commandment” and try to show that Jesus expects His
followers to carry out every command that is spelled out in the Old Testament Law. In a way, this is adding meaning beyond what
Jesus clearly was communicating at that time.
In this passage, He plainly said, “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.” Almost immediately after that He said, “This is my commandment, that
you love one another as I have loved you,” and then explained that the
greatest love is for one person to lay down his or her life for another
person. The context here is important,
because, as I already said, Jesus was just hours away from literally dying for
those whom He loved. So I believe that
it’s a mistake to say that in this passage, Jesus is telling everyone to follow
all of the Commandments of the Old Testament Law.
But there’s a
second mistake that’s also made by many people who read this passage, and that
is to not understand the meaning of love.
It almost seems that some people have the idea that loving someone means
letting them have whatever they want.
Here’s where I want to bring in the illustration that goes along with
Mother’s Day. Those of you who are Moms
have very likely experienced a time when your child wanted something that was
not good for him or her. Any good Mom
knows the importance of saying “No” to her children. Especially when the children are very young,
they don’t know things that Moms know, such as it’s not a good idea to stick a
fork into an electric outlet. As the
children get older, their Moms often seem to know when it might not be a good
idea for their son or daughter to hang out with a certain friend or group of
friends—for whatever reason, because Moms often seem to just know what’s best
in these types of matters. It’s kind of
like a “Mom Radar;” “How did Mom find out about that?” A Mom who loves her
child will do whatever she can to protect her child from harm, even putting
herself in harm’s way if necessary to protect her child. That’s because love means that a person looks
out for the well-being of the other before looking out for his or her own
well-being. The
mistake comes when people look at love as meaning giving someone else what they
want. That’s a mistake because sometimes
a person’s well-being is better served by not
giving that person what he or she wants.
As an example, just think about an alcoholic who wants a drink.
So, bringing this Scripture passage to
the issue of same-sex marriage, we can perhaps begin to see why it’s a
controversial issue. On one hand we see
people who are opposed to same-sex marriage saying that they are right because
Jesus told us to follow His commands, and they believe that means following the
commands of the Old Testament Law. On
the other hand, we see people who are in favor of same-sex marriage saying that
they are right because Jesus taught that we should love one another, and they
believe that letting two people of the same sex who want to get married to each
other is showing love for them because we’re letting them do what they want to
do. It’s true that both of those positions can
appear to have some merit, especially if a person is looking at the issue from
a certain perspective. But I submit that
looking at the issue from a perspective that leads to one of those two
conclusions means that the issue is being viewed from the wrong perspective. The proper perspective is something that can
be found in verses 16 & 17 of John 15, when Jesus said, “...I chose you and
appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should
abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you,
so that you will love one another.”
The crux of what
Jesus is saying in John 15:9-17 is to follow His commandments. In that passage, He specifically said that
His commandment is for His people to love one another, the way that He loves
God the Father and the way that He loves us. Jesus said that to love one another
means to be willing to give up everything for that person, just as Jesus was
about to give up His life for His followers.
And here in verses 16 and 17, Jesus gave us an indication of the goal to
which we should be aspiring when we love other people: to bear fruit that will
abide. To abide means to last, or to
remain, or to endure.
When Jesus came
to this Earth, His mission was to reconcile people to God the Father. Jesus knows that people are sinful, and that
sin cannot endure in the presence of the perfectly Holy God. So Jesus came to earth to die in order that
our sin would be taken away, in order that we indeed can live forever in the
presence of God. Jesus also says that
because He loves us. He tells us that we
are to love other people, and that our goal in loving other people is to
continue to carry on His mission of reconciling people to God the Father. The fruit we bear that will endure is the
people whom we can help bring into a relationship with Jesus; Jesus then can
reconcile people to God the Father. When
this happens, people truly will abide, or last, or endure, or remain with God
the Father forever.
But we can’t love other people enough to
reconcile them to God in our own strength, or through our own will. We need the power of God to do these
things. I can’t bring another person to
faith in Jesus Christ, and you can’t either.
All I can do, and all you can do, is bring them to Jesus; it’s up to the
person whether or not he or she will believe.
It’s like the old saying that you can lead a horse to water but you
can’t make it drink. I want to lead
people to Jesus, but they have to decide whether or not they will drink from
the Living Water that Jesus gives. And
to make sure I am not relying on my own strength, I need to ask the Father for
guidance through Jesus. That’s what
Jesus meant when He said that we should ask the Father in Jesus’ name and the
Father will give it to us. We should
want His will in our lives instead of
wanting our own will in our lives. Part
of knowing and doing God’s will in our lives means properly understanding terms
such as sin, love, and holiness.
The root of sin is selfishness. The Christian
is supposed to die to self in order that he or she may live for Christ. But
sometimes it’s not easy to know what God’s will is in a particular
situation. The same Jesus who showed
compassion and mercy to a woman caught in adultery (as recorded in John 8) and who
showed compassion to the woman at the well who had been married to at least 5
different men (as recorded in John 4) is the same Jesus who said in Matthew 5
that not the smallest part of the law would be removed from the Law until all
things are accomplished. That can seem
like somewhat of a mixed message.
The key to understanding and knowing God’s will is death to self, and allowing the Christ to live within us through the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Then we should live as directed by the Holy Spirit within. The more we seek God’s will in our lives instead of our own will in our lives, the more the things we want will be just the things God wants for us. When we ask God the Father for something “in the Name of Jesus,” it isn’t just flippantly saying the words “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of a prayer before saying “Amen.” It means that we are coming before the God of the Universe, saying that we are representing His Son. In other words, we are supposed to ask the Father for the things we believe that the Son, Jesus, wants. And in order for us to know what Jesus wants, we need to continually die to self in order to seek to honor God in our lives. Another way of saying this is, “Not my will, but God’s will be done in my life.”
The key to understanding and knowing God’s will is death to self, and allowing the Christ to live within us through the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Then we should live as directed by the Holy Spirit within. The more we seek God’s will in our lives instead of our own will in our lives, the more the things we want will be just the things God wants for us. When we ask God the Father for something “in the Name of Jesus,” it isn’t just flippantly saying the words “In Jesus’ Name” at the end of a prayer before saying “Amen.” It means that we are coming before the God of the Universe, saying that we are representing His Son. In other words, we are supposed to ask the Father for the things we believe that the Son, Jesus, wants. And in order for us to know what Jesus wants, we need to continually die to self in order to seek to honor God in our lives. Another way of saying this is, “Not my will, but God’s will be done in my life.”
Now it’s important also to
understand, that we can’t have God’s will in our lives apart from Jesus. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through
me.” You see, sometimes well-meaning
people tend to want to point out where other people are falling short of
following God’s Laws—especially the Laws spelled out in the Old Testament. On one hand, that’s OK, because people who
don’t know Jesus will indeed be judged based on how they kept the Law as
spelled out in the Old Testament. The
only problem is that in order for someone to be justified before God through
the Law, that person has to follow that Law perfectly. But the reality is that no one can follow the
Law perfectly.
Let me use the same-sex marriage
issue as an example. According to the
Old Testament Law, having homosexual relations is wrong. Anyone who does that is breaking the Law, and
therefore cannot live in God’s presence.
At the same time, the truth is that if someone doesn’t have homosexual
relations, they will do something else that causes someone to break the Old
Testament Law. Again, that’s because no
one can follow the Old Testament Law perfectly.
But the Bible tells us in Galatians 3:22-26 that the true purpose for
the Law is to be our guardian until Christ rules in our lives.
As Christians, we have the way of
being able to come into God’s presence, through the One who said that He is the way to God the Father—Jesus
Christ. Instead of trying to be
justified by the Law, as Christians we are reconciled to the Father because
Jesus gave His life for us, and we have now died to self in order to live for
Him. And if we’ve died to self to live
for Him, His Holy Spirit lives within us, teaching us His ways as we walk with
Him day by day, and moment by moment.
And as Christians, we are called by
Jesus to love one another the way He loves God the Father and the way He loves
us—by loving others enough that we are willing to carry on Jesus’ mission of
seeing people reconciled to God the Father.
We can try to get people to see their need for God the Father through
pointing out their sin against the Old Testament Law. That’s an absolutely accurate thing to point
out. But often seems to me to be more
loving to others by instead saying to them something along the lines of, “I
know a better way—a way where we die to self in order to live for Christ, who
will then lead us in the paths we should go.
Let me show Him to you.”
To be sure, a lot of what God wants
from us is found in the Old Testament Law.
I need to be clear that generally speaking, 99.9% of the time God wants
us to follow the things He’s told us to do through the Law. He doesn’t want us to steal. He doesn’t want us to murder. He doesn’t want us to lie. He doesn’t want us to commit adultery. But it’s not because He is saying to us “No
fun for you!” He’s saying it because all
of those things hang on what Jesus said are the two greatest commands—to love
God, and to love other people. Truly
showing love for God means to live for Him through Christ and not self. Truly showing love for other people means
showing them the Way through Jesus Christ living in our lives. Love doesn’t mean letting people do whatever
they want just because they want to do it.
Loving people means living our lives in such a way so that people will
see something in our lives that they want—the peace of Jesus Christ leading and
guiding us in all of our ways.
That’s truly what it means to model
holiness—to live our lives day by day and moment by moment through the love,
power and grace of the Holy Spirit, who guides us from within when we know
Jesus. So when it comes to the issue of
same-sex marriage—or any other issue, for that matter—the question is, “What
would Jesus do?” If we are Christians,
we can ask Him, because His Holy
Spirit lives within us. And when we ask
Him what He would do, we need to remember that the goal in whatever He would do
would be to reconcile people to God the Father.
Living our lives in that way is
truly holy living. Let’s model that type
of holiness in our lives.
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