How deep is your love?
Readings: John 14. 23-29
We’re continuing on from last week’s sermon with another part of Jesus’ farewell discourse, the discussion he’s having with his disciples during the Last Supper. And again one of the theme’s Jesus is speaking on is the theme of love. Last week it was love for one another, now it’s our love for him that’s in view. And so having last week asked a question from a 90’s dance anthem; what is love? I thought this week we’d keep that theme too with a question asked by the Bee Gees in the 70’s, and again by Calvin Harris in 2015: How deep is your love?
‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching’. That’s how Jesus opens our reading today. This is the third time he’s said this during this conversation and he’ll say it at least once more. Earlier he phrased it a little differently ‘Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me’.
I wonder, how good are you at doing what you’re told? Now, some of us will instantly recoil at even that question. Doing as we’re told? We’re grown adults, not children. But think in the broadest sense. We’re constantly being given instructions in one form of another. Right now in this service for example, please stand, please sit. When we’re driving, do we slow down at the amber light or speed up before it goes red? On the train: please stand back from the platform edge. Mind the gap. During COVID with masks and distancing and isolating. In the shops do we queue? We Brits we love a queue don’t we, but it’s the done thing, the social convention, so we do it, or do we?
How good are we at doing as we’re told? Some of it comes down to personality. Some of us will gravitate to doing what’s expected, not rocking the boat. Some of us will want to know why, and not bother listening if it doesn’t make sense to us. Some of us may even not like following at all, doing things our way, forget the system. But personalities aside, what it really comes down to is whether we trust the one giving the instructions and how familiar we are with what’s happening. If we don’t trust the person telling us what to do, we’re very unlikely to listen, we’re just as likely to do the opposite as do nothing. If we trust them, we’ll listen and do as they say. Likewise if we’re making a dinner we do all the time, we can ditch the recipe and play around with it, we know what we’re doing. But if we’re making something for the first time, unless you’re Katy, you’ll usually stick pretty close to the instructions.
‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching’ Jesus really is talking about love here, but alongside it is trust. Love without trust is a fragile thing, if it can exist at all. Do we love Jesus enough to trust him? To listen to what he says and put it into practice? It’s easy to listen to whatg he says, but will we trust him enough to put it into practice? Is our love for him deep enough to not just be hearers, but doers of his word? Will we only trust him with the unfamiliar stuff but do what we like with what we feel we know better on? How deep is your love? Your trust? Our love for Jesus is revealed by our obedience. The depth of our love revealed by how much of our lives we’re willing to trust him with.
Now for some of us alarm bells may be ringing. Particularly if you’ve done any Safeguarding training recently. Isn’t this manipulative? If you love me, you’ll do as I say. If you don’t do whatever I want, you don’t really love me. Alarm bells ringing. And that leads us to a bigger question: should Jesus be trusted? Is it safe to love him like this? Is he for our good?
It’s an important question, and the context of these words gives us the answer. Jesus is having this conversation with his disciples as he’s sharing with them the final meal before he is executed, although the disciples don’t know that yet. In a few verses at the end of this chapter they’ll get up from the table and continue the conversation as they head over to the Mount of Olives where Jesus will pray before his arrest.
He’s saying these words as he’s preparing to go and die for them, die for us. If we’re wondering if we can trust Jesus, he loves you to hell and back, literally. He has loved us when we were utterly unloveable, when we rejected not just God, but all of God’s ways, turned in defiance and forged our own path, up to our necks in our sin and brokenness and darkness, down into death and misery. We’ve all done that. Can Jesus be trusted? Well in seeing what we have done, in seeing where we are headed, he in love for us did not stand by but left heaven, leaving behind his glory and majesty, entered our world and became human. And right as he’s saying these words he is walking firmly and deliberately towards his crucifixion, an utterly agonising death, so that he can take upon himself all our sin and mess and rubbish, so that we don’t have to bear it anymore. Can Jesus be trusted? The day after he says this, he’ll shoulder all our guilt and shame, carry it down with him into death, right down into the hell it deserves so that he can leave it there. To rise again triumphant three days later and bring us with him into new life, life without end. How deep is your love? Well, look how deep his is for you.
Jesus is for our good, endlessly for our good, he has proven it to the uttermost. If love is revealed by the depths you’ll go for the one you love, no-one has gone further than Jesus. No-one has gone lower, stooped deeper than he has. If alarm bells are going off when Jesus says ‘if you love me, obey my teaching’, fix your eyes on the cross. He isn’t here to use you, or manipulate you, or get stuff from you at your expense. He’s here to bring life, fuller, more wonderful life. As he himself says in our passage today ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid’. He is for our good, our deep and perfect and ultimate good. Gifting us even his peace to calm our anxious and weary souls.
Jesus gives us commands to bring us life, it’s why he teaches, why we find his words in Scripture, all of Scripture, because in listening to his voice and doing as he says we find true life. Not life as we would have it, because we often choose poorly, but life as he has made it to be. How deep is your love? Will you, in looking at the depths of his love for you, listen to his voice and do as he says, keep his commandments?
There are plenty in our world who know what Jesus says but have no interest in listening, in following. Jesus tells us that that demonstrates they don’t love him. Love is an action, not just an agreement, it must be more than words. We can say and sing the words all we like, but if we don’t live them, do we really love him? I was reading JC Ryle this week, the first Bishop of Liverpool, and he was talking about how if we profess to have faith and yet find ourselves joyless and without peace in our believing, heavy hearted and downcast, is it that actually in our lives, in our actions, we reveal that we don’t love Jesus that much, are forgetful of his commands and live as we please. If so, then of course we have little joy and peace and life. As he writes ‘if we want to be eminently happy, we must strive to be eminently holy’.
But here’s the more wonderful thing. Jesus doesn’t just say, I’m off, show your love for me by doing what I say. He doesn’t demand and then leave us to it. No in his love and grace he gifts us the Spirit. Jesus leaves, but the Holy Spirit comes. And as Jesus says, the Spirit will enable us to remember what Jesus has said. But more than that, the Spirit enables us to live as Jesus commands. Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us not just to recall his words, but to put them into practice. We have the Spirit of God dwelling within us, empowering us, guiding us to live as we are commanded to. We’re not left alone, no even that is covered by his goodness, by his grace, the Spirit enabling us to grow and change and become the people he made us to be. Our love for him strengthened by his Spirit at work in us, his Spirit working through us.
How deep is your love? How much are you walking in the way Jesus calls? Are there areas of your life you’re struggling to trust him with? To allow him to speak into? If it worries you don’t beat yourself up, instead look to his cross. See the depths of his love for you, pouring down, and may that sight strengthen your love and your trust that he truly is for your good, wanting to bring life in all it’s fullness, even if we cannot see how. Pray that the Spirit would strengthen you to walk in the way of his commands, walk with him in newness of life.
If the depth of our love is revealed by our obedience, may we daily walk with greater trust, growing in greater love, and know the truth of Jesus’ words ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid’.
Amen.