Transcript from Women’s Winter Festival sermon, August 2020
John 14:15-31
Make a choice.
Tuna Mornay for dinner or Takeaway. Breastfeed or Bottle-feed. The Environment or the Economy. The right to life or the right to choose. Labor or Liberal. Black Lives Matter. All Lives Matter. Compassion or Conviction.
The world demands that we pick a side.
So what it is it going to be? How will you live out your salvation in Jesus? Works? or Faith?
Will you pray, be baptised, receive communion, attend church, give to charity and hope that it’s good enough to secure your ticket to heaven?
or
Will you merely believe that Jesus’ death was sufficient to rescue you from hell and judgment and THAT alone is your ticket to a perfect life after death?
What will it be? Faith? or Works?
or … Love.
There is so much in the two options I presented of Faith or Works that is foreign to the Good News of Jesus.
For example, both seem to focus on a perceived need for whatever happens after we die? Our whole view of “eternal life” becomes avoiding weeping and gnashing of teeth post-death and enjoying blissful paradise in the after life. This is not the full gospel of Jesus, nor is it the full Good News of the whole Bible. Both want to avoid misery and enjoy personal gain and comfort.
It’s a misunderstanding of Works and Faith. Pitting them against each other. Neither being quite enough. One is something I do. The other is something I mentally agree to even if I don’t fully understand it.
Both of these common approaches miss our LOVE for Jesus and the eternal life we enjoy NOW in the Spirit as well as NOT YET.
(EDIT: First century followers of Jesus wrestled with these two categories of Faith and Works, too. In the letters to the churches in the book of Revelation we see churches that likely adhered to the pagan religions around them to live their “best life” now but also adhered to the sacraments of Christianity to secure their best life after death, as well. Their allegiance was divided. And the Ephesians were chided for knowing it all but lacking love. Jesus asks for both our allegiance and our active love. Peter, James, John and Paul all addressed these issues in their own letters to the churches.)
In John 14, Jesus is about to leave his close followers. He will die a gruesome death and come back to life on the third day and shortly thereafter be exalted and return to heaven from whence he came and be glorified and rule as King.
His followers are confused and distressed as he gives them a long goodbye. Preparing them for his absence. Strangely, he tells them that it’s better for them if he goes.
It’s in this moment that he says, “If you love me, keep my commands.” He says it many times. If we don’t do as he commands, we don’t love him. If we love him, he loves us and God, the Father, loves us and they will dwell with us.
It’s at this point that our well trained Presbyterian brains flash with “What about works! Doesn’t Paul say ‘It is by grace you are saved, through faith, not of works.” Keeping commands sounds like an Old Testament attempt to get right with God.
But here’s the problem with memorising one or two verses to make a point. They’re not the whole story, are they?
Let’s look at the whole context for that faith and not works passage. Turn to Ephesians chapter 2:
”As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:1-10
Here is one of the many great summaries of the good news of Jesus.
Faith. Works. Grace. Mercy. Love. - they are all inextricably intertwined all beginning with God and his love for us through Jesus who freed us from death in our transgressions making us alive in Christ in order to show his incomparable grace and kindness.
Even the Old Testament links works to love. Over and over again in Israel’s law is the reminder: Love God and keep his commandments. They were to love him and be grateful to him for saving them from slavery in Egypt, setting them apart as His people to live as an example to the nations of God’s grace and mercy and great love.
So if we love him, we will do what he commands: What did Jesus command? Love God. Love others. Love one another. All of this bound up with loving Jesus.
It’s not faith OR works. It’s love and this love produces good works, what Paul often calls “obedience of faith”.
Have you heard the hymn “Trust and Obey”? Well it’s not either or. It’s not as if you can be better at one and not put much effort in the other. Evangelicals are notorious for this. On any given Sunday, you could ask for a show of hands in church asking how many people trust Jesus. PHOOM! All hands go up. How many obey his commands? Awkward.
If you thought things got messy with intertwining love and faith and works, wait till you see what happens next.
Jesus introduces us to the promise of the Holy Spirit, another advocate: he says that if they love/obey him, he will send them HIS spirit when he’s gone. If we love him, through his Spirit, Jesus will be in us and we in him and Jesus is in the Father and together they will dwell with us.
Here is why it’s better for Jesus to be in heaven now rather than with us here on earth. Confined in his human form he is limited. But ruling as glorified king from heaven now, sending us the Holy Spirit to dwell with all who love him is so much better as we see in the book of Acts and even to this day as the good news of Jesus spreads to all nations and people and languages.
Remember in June when Fiona spoke about Jesus going away to His Father’s house? Can you think of other times when Jesus talks about His Father’s house? What is he referring to? Yes, the temple in Jerusalem. Remember when he was twelve and his parents couldn’t find him? The Tabernacle and Temple were considered the place where heaven and earth meet. Where God dwells with humans.
And then in John 2, Jesus gives that famous provocative prophesy about tearing down the temple and building it back up in 3 days. John gives us a cheeky commentary and tells us that he’s talking about HIS body. Jesus’ body. The place where heaven and earth meet. Where God dwells with humans. Jesus.
And then after he dies, and rises on the 3rd day and is exalted in heaven and sends his Spirit on his people who love him/obey him by loving God, others and each other … where does God dwell now? In our bodies. In 1 Corinthians 6, we are told to stop sinning! Don’t you know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit? The place where heaven and earth meet. Where God dwells with humans.
Hundreds, thousands, millions of people who love Jesus around the world. Obeying him. Dwelling with God now … not WAITING, twiddling our thumbs hoping that one day we can enjoy living in one of the rooms he has gone to prepare for them because we got a ticket because we said a prayer or mentally agreed with the Bible.
It was better for Jesus to go. Instead of one temple. One man. There are millions of people who act as the place where heaven and earth meet. Through whom the world can experience God’s grace and mercy.
Eternal life does not start when you die. You have eternal life now if you love, have faith in, obey Jesus. Eternal life is living a full and abundant life, despite hardship and trials, because the Holy Spirit dwells in you and is working in you and through you doing good works he prepared ahead of time. Through you others will taste the goodness of the hope and life in Jesus. Remember in Ephesians 2? Paul says all this is “in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
It was better for Jesus to go. Instead of one temple. One man. There are millions of people who act as the place where heaven and earth meet. Through whom the world can experience God’s grace and mercy.
Love Jesus. Obey his commands. You have been made alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. Don’t wait till you’re dead to enjoy eternal life. It’s yours now.
Love God. Love others. Love one another. Love Jesus. Trust him. Believe him. Obey him.
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