Chapter 21. Type 3. Love, Obedience. He keeps all the commandments of God, and he does so with all his might; for his obedience is in proportion to his love, the source from which it flows. John Wesley. All his commands are for our benefit and founded in the necessities of our natures. They are only so many instructions to become more happy than we could be without them. William Law. He will feel what Paul felt when he said, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." J. C. Ryle.
In a small town in central Honduras, the local residents had always enjoyed eating ice cream on hot days. At least, they thought they enjoyed eating ice cream. However, it turns out that what they believed to be ice cream was actually only frozen dessert containing little or no cream or milk fat. It was imitation ice cream. However, no one realized it because they had never had the real thing. Then some missionaries from the United States opened an ice cream shop selling authentic ice cream.
They made the ice cream from scratch using milk and cream from their own dairy herd. The profit supported a children's home they operated. Most of the local Hondurans had never tasted real ice cream before, and they immediately noticed the difference. As word got around, people thronged to the new ice cream shop. Once they tasted authentic ice cream, they didn't want to go back to imitation ice cream. It's the same with love, obedience.
When all we've ever experienced is fear, obedience, or dutiful servant obedience, we may think we know what obedience to God is all about. However, the truth is that we've never tasted the real thing: love, obedience. Fear, obedience, and dutiful servant obedience bring us most of the responsibilities of the kingdom life, but with only part of its blessings. Love, obedience is both the easiest and most joyful way to walk with the Lord. It's one of the key secrets to the kingdom life.
But exactly what is love, obedience? Love, obedience. Love, obedience flows from a deep, warm love relationship with Christ. It's the obedience of the kingdom life. When Christ abides in us thoroughly and completely, we obey him out of love, not fear. Love, obedience is the obedience of a child rather than a mere servant. To live the kingdom life, we not only need to obey God's commandments, but we need to actually love them. But why would we love them?
It's because we believe that following God's laws is the best and happiest way to live. The psalmist wrote, "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in his commandments." Psalm 112, verse 1. A lot of Christians fear the Lord, but how many can honestly say that they delight in his laws? Of course, this is the answer to the great paradox we spoke about at the beginning of the book. If we delight in Christ's laws, those laws prove to be a light burden.
How can they be a heavy burden when we find pleasure in obeying them? This is another secret to the kingdom life: having more of Christ, not less of him. The more we lose ourselves in Christ, the easier his yoke becomes. Luke and Lydia Love-Joy. Luke and Lydia Love-Joy are living the kingdom life. Their obedience is marked by humility, kindness, love, and joy. They want to obey Christ because they know that God's laws are given for their good. They know that none of his laws are arbitrary commandments.
Like other Christians living the kingdom life, they love God's laws. As a result, the Love-Joys have made a commitment to follow all of God's laws. There's no picking and choosing for them. While they recognize that some commands are weightier than others, their desire is to follow all of Christ's commandments. They don't try to determine if a particular commandment is a salvation issue; they realize that our Lord never gave an unnecessary or an optional command.
The Love-Joys know that every commandment of Christ was given solely out of his love for us. We can't reject his commandments without rejecting his love. Discovering the reasons behind God's commandments. Christians living the kingdom life want to understand why a commandment was given. To be sure, they will obey every one of Christ's commandments whether or not they understand the reason behind the command. But they will search for the reason because they grasp that all of God's laws have a purpose.
They know that his laws are parts of the universe of reality, the universe that God and his angels inhabit. God's laws stand in contrast to the universe of unreality, the universe made up of this world, our fallen flesh, and Satan and his minions. Medieval writer Richard of St. Victor made the following observation: "The Sermon on the Mount is neither impractical idealism nor a collection of unlivable moral precepts.
It is a superb analysis of right action in the light of things as they really are and not as they appear to be." The same can be said about all of Christ's commandments. George MacDonald writes about Christians living the kingdom life: "Although the Lord would be pleased with any man for doing anything because he said it, God will show he is pleased with this man by making him more and more dissatisfied until he knows why the Lord had said it.
God wants him to see that he cannot obey any command in the deepest sense of the word until he sees the reasonableness of it." The Parable of the Three Bricklayers. In 1194, during the High Middle Ages, a visitor was ambling down the main street of Chartres, France. He walked through the marketplace, which was bustling with all kinds of commercial activities. In one area, the meat and vegetable sellers congregated, hawking their goods. In another area stood the textile merchants, displaying their colorful fabrics.
Money changers sat on their benches, where they exchanged foreign currency for the local money. Wine merchants plied their wares. As he walked past the market, this visitor spied a group of men laying bricks.
Curious what they were working on, he approached the nearest bricklayer and said, "Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I'm curious what you're doing." Without looking up, the worker curtly replied, "I'm laying bricks." That didn't really answer the visitor's question, so he walked over to the second bricklayer and asked him the same thing: "Excuse me, but could you tell me what you're doing?" Without missing a beat, the second worker replied, "Can't you see that I'm laying bricks?" Growing frustrated, the visitor
finally walked up to the third laborer and said, "I hate to bother you, sir, but I'm curious as to what you're doing." The third worker turned around, smiling, and with a gleam in his eye proudly announced, "I'm building a cathedral." Seeing the Big Picture.
When it comes to God's commandments, Christians who live the kingdom life look at the big picture. The first two workers in our story could only think of the immediate task at hand: laying bricks. That's all their job meant to them. However, the third worker saw the bigger picture: building a cathedral. As a result, he received a sense of joy and accomplishment from his work that the other two men didn't. It's the same with those who live the kingdom life.
They look at the bigger picture and the purpose of God's various commandments. This gives them an appreciation and joy for his commands. As a result, they find that God's commands are not grievous or burdensome. Love, obedience versus servant obedience. When I was in my 20s, Deborah and I had a friend who played violin in the local community orchestra. The entire orchestra was made up of unpaid volunteers who played because of their love for music. Even the conductor worked without pay.
The orchestra gave free concerts every year in order to introduce live classical music to our community. One day, our musician friend told us about an event that well illustrates the difference between love, obedience, and servant obedience. The orchestra was going to perform a concert that required certain musical instruments that were underrepresented within the community orchestra. So they hired musicians from the symphony orchestra of a nearby city to fill in the gaps.
One night, when they were rehearsing, the local conductor was not quite satisfied with how the orchestra was playing a certain work. The concert was only a few days away, and he wanted to smooth out some of the rough edges. So he had the musicians play the piece over and over, trying to get everything perfect. As a result, the rehearsal went longer than planned. The orchestra was making considerable progress when suddenly the hired musicians stopped playing and began putting their instruments away into their cases.
The conductor was bewildered, and so he asked the musicians what was happening. One of them explained they were all union members, and under their union contract, they could not be required to rehearse past 10 at night. With that, they walked off the stage and made their way to the parking lot. The volunteer musicians were playing purely for their love of music. They were quite willing to stay late in order to get the musical piece just right. In contrast, the union musicians were hired employees.
They had arrived on time for the rehearsal and had played very well, but they weren't going to do one iota more than their contract required. Those playing out of love cared about the big picture, how the final concert was going to sound. The mercenary musicians were only looking at the terms of their contract. If the piece wasn't played quite perfectly at the coming concert, so be it. Being molded into God's image. Like the volunteer musicians, Christians living the kingdom life are interested in the big picture.
They know that the ultimate purpose behind each New Testament commandment is to help mold us into the character of God. God wants to spend eternity only with people who are like him. He wants to enjoy eternity with people who love the same things he loves and who detest the same things he detests. Imagine spending eternity with somebody who is utterly incompatible with you. If we have not been molded into God's image, then living with him forever would be eternal punishment, not eternal bliss.
Because those living the kingdom life desire to be like God, they want God to mold them in his image. Therefore, they welcome God's commandments. They know that God's commands help us to understand what he is truly like, and his commandments help us to know what we must do to become compatible with God. An example of the big picture. Let's analyze one of the New Testament commandments to see how things appear when we look at the big picture.
We'll use the commandment God gives us in 1 John 2:15: "Do not love the world or the things in the world." That portion of the passage contains the entire commandment. What follows is not further commandments but the explanation of why we must not love the world. John explains this to us: "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father but is of the world.
And the world is passing away, and the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever." 1 John 2:15-17. So John points out that if we love the world, we don't have the love of the Father in us. As I said, this part of the passage is not a commandment. It's simply a statement of reality. It gives us a good barometer by which we can measure our own hearts. If we find that we love the world and the things in it, then the love of God is not in us. It's that simple.
Either we have never been born again, or else we aren't producing the fruit that God expects. After an honest examination of ourselves, most of us will find that we love some things in the world but reject others. This tells us that, most likely, we do love God, but that our love is not perfect. We don't love God with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. I say that because once we reach that level of love, there will be no love of the world left in us. Why is that?
Because everything the world values, the desires of the flesh and eyes, as well as the pride of life, are totally contrary to God. Looking at Jesus. Because the Father dwells in the spirit realm, it's often hard for us humans to picture how he would respond to the everyday things we encounter. That was one of the reasons why the Son of God became man, so that we can see what divinity looks like wearing sandals and walking on earth. As Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." John 14:9.
Think about the character of the man Jesus for a moment. He was not tempted by sensuality, nor was he impressed by showmanship. He didn't look upon women with lust, nor did he try to attract attention to his own body. He had no desire to artificially make his body look different than his Father made it. In fact, this whole business of showing off one's material possessions to impress others was utterly foreign to him. He coveted nothing, and he did nothing for the purpose of grabbing attention.
That's why John tells us, "If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." John doesn't say this to burden us or to beat us down. He simply explains the way things are. When God's image is thoroughly stamped upon us, we'll view the world no differently than Jesus did when he was a man. Now let's look at another example of how these three types of obedience play out in real life.