Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Power to Be Disciples"

Text: John 14:15-21

Jesus’ own definition of what it means to be his disciple:

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

That must be important,

because he repeats it just a moment later:

"They who have my commandments and keep them

are those who love me."

Our love of Christ

needs to be more than just a matter of emotion,

or even of intellect.

It must be a whole way of life.

And so, our discipleship has to be

more than just believing the correct doctrines, whatever those may be,

or feeling all warm and fuzzy about God.

Discipleship is, in large part,

a matter of obedience.

But "obedience" isn’t a very popular word any more, is it?

It has so many negative meanings in our minds:

slavery, servitude …

it implies, perhaps, a dictatorship or tyranny.

We’re not much interested in offering "obedience" to anyone or anything;

surely we would end up being used,

or misused, or abused.

In fact, it often angers us at least a little

when someone or something demands our obedience.

We may say, or at least think to ourselves,

"who are you to tell me what to do?"

We are more than a little put off by

the notion of having to keep anyone else’s commandment.

After all, we have a hard enough time keeping our own!

(Remember those New Year’s resolutions of just four months ago?!)

And yet, there is it,

straight from the son of God himself:

"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."

If you truly want to be a disciple,

you will do as I say;

you will do as God says.

Well, it’s a cliché, but it’s true:

our actions do speak louder than our words.

What we do,

how we act out our faith through obedience,

has much more meaning to each other,

and to the world outside the church,

and to God,

than our most eloquent or deeply-felt words.

Being a disciple means acting like a disciple,

acting like Christ himself,

not just going around talking about how much we love him.

So then, what does Jesus mean,

to what is he referring,

when he says, "keep my commandments"?

Most of us, when we hear the word "commandment,"

probably think first of the Ten Commandments …

and we probably think of the movie

even before we think of the Book of Exodus! …

The Ten Commandments are good things to follow,

but that’s not what Jesus was talking about here.

He explains himself a few moments later in the scripture,

in John, chapter 15:

"This is my commandment,

that you love one another as I have loved you."

And just a couple of sentences later,

"This I command you,

that you love one another."

And that’s it;

that is the commandment.

All of Jesus’ other teachings about how to live

are a fleshing out of that commandment;

they are demonstrations for the disciples and for us

of how the commandment of love gets worked out in our everyday living.

But those teaching are not themselves the commandment.

Some of them apply to us today pretty exactly;

we can be literal about them.

And some of them must be interpreted and differently applied,

given the world and the times that we live in,

and the requirement that we love one another.

And that’s the material

for lots of future sermons!

But the commandment, the one commandment,

we must obey, if we love Christ,

is to love one another,

as God in Christ has loved us.

If we could just do that,

there would be no need for

any other commandments, or laws, or rules.

But therein, of course, lies the problem.

We don’t, very often,

live lives of obedience to even that one commandment.

We’d like to; we try to,

but that one commandment is a tall order.

A lot of people give up trying.

A lot more of us, I think,

become thoroughly frustrated with the whole thing,

and we keep asking the question, "How?!"

How, given the realities of our own lives,

and the realities of the people we have to live and work with,

how do we find it possible to obey

even this one commandment?

Even more difficult,

given all the people who are different from us,

and who do not value the same things we do,

how do we obey this one commandment?

In this world that we live in,

how can anyone be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ?

It’s a very good question.

And it’s what the rest of this passage

from John 14 is about.

Not only does Jesus say that

if we love him, we will keep his commandments …

he also says,

that he will pray for God to send us

the Spirit of Truth, the Counselor, the Holy Spirit.

And it is the Spirit who gives us

power to be disciples.

We cannot do it on our own.

It is humanly impossible.

Oh, we may come close;

and for a long time we may fool ourselves into thinking

that some day, if we work at it hard enough,

we will achieve discipleship.

We hate to admit that we need help,

even from God.

But if we are really serious

about making discipleship a part of our lives,

it’s the Holy Spirit that we must ask for.

And the Spirit will indeed come to us with guidance,

with prayers, with truth, with gifts.

And believe it or not,

that’s really all that we need.

You and the Holy Spirit,

we and the Holy Spirit,

as long as we stick together,

we have the power, and the courage,

and the resources, to be disciples;

even in the midst of all the other demands

that our life places on us.

Several of you have shared with me

about times that you were asked to help a friend with a problem,

and you found yourself saying wise things

that you didn’t even know you knew …

that’s the Holy Spirit, speaking through you!

People who give a tithe or even more of their income,

find that somehow, the Holy Spirit sees to it

that their needs are met,

even though they are living on noticeably less money

than their neighbors and colleagues.

The Holy Spirit gives us the power

to be obedient disciples.

The Spirit gives us the will and gives us the way.

Okay, but here’s where we have to be careful …

The Spirit provides for our needs,

not necessarily for our wants,

or even for what we think we need.

I remember, quite a few years ago now,

something I read that was kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time …

and let me hasten to add that

the two principal characters I’m about to mention

appear to have changed for the better since that time …

but this took place not very long after

the downfall of televangelist Jim Bakker.

There was an interview with Bakker and his tearful Tammy Faye,

and they were quoted as saying that

they would like to begin a new ministry,

but they didn’t have any cameras or any money.

That made me sad … it made me roll my eyes, but it also made me sad …

because there is so much ministry that needs doing,

and so many ways for them, or any of us, to be disciples,

but they had chosen to hang back and set conditions for God.

It’s as if one of us were to say,

"Okay, God, I’ll agree to be on the visitation committee,

just as soon as you get me a nice Lexus to go visiting in."

"Lord, I promise to increase my pledge

just as soon as you dictate to me the winning numbers for the lottery."

"Okay, okay, I’ll be nicer to the people at work

just as soon as you make them all nicer to me first!"

The Spirit does provide …

but the Spirit provides what we need

to be disciples in the world,

not what we want to make the world a more comfortable place for ourselves!

TV cameras, and Lexuses (Lexi?), and winning the lottery,

have nothing to do with,

"Love one another as I have loved you."

Which is, after all,

the only commandment that we really need to worry about.

If we can just obey this one,

everything else is going to fall into place.

And, if we can just swallow our pride long enough

to ask for the Holy Spirit’s help with that obedience,

we will have what it takes to be faithful.

We will have the power

to live the life God has called us to live,

and to be Christ’s faithful disciples.

It is the hardest thing in the world,

and it is the easiest thing in the world.

And it is the only thing that matters.

Amen.

© 2005 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)