Love Grows Along the Path of Obedience

Scripture: 1 John 1.5-2.3, 15-17


The Princess Bride is William Goldman’s fairytale novel about a young princess named Buttercup and the handsome young Westley that she pines for set in a weird kingdom of giants, witches, and a swordsman named Indigo Montoya. The young Buttercup, before she is a princess, is served by this Westley on her farm. Westley is smitten with the girl and will do anything for her. At first, the girl treats the boy as if she has only contempt for him – “boy, fetch me that bucket. . .boy clean out the horse stall. . “ And after every order that the Buttercup gives, the Westley answers with the trace of a smile and the words, “As you wish.” Soon the young woman can no longer hide her affection for the boy beneath a mock contempt. The two kids love each other! But if the story ended there it wouldn’t be much of a story, would it? They are separated by cruel fate. Much later in their story, after Buttercup has been forced to be affianced to the evil Prince Humperdinck, her true love comes to her in disguise as the dread Pirate Roberts. “Dread Pirate Roberts” chastises the Princess for betraying her true love and heaps abuse on her, all the while the Princess is unawares that he is in fact her farm boy, her true love himself. The Princess feels guilty enough and can take only so much mockery and pushes the Dread Pirate Roberts down a steep ravine, as the Princess watches the masked young man fall deep into the crevasse she hears these words floating up toward her, “AS YOU WISHHHHHH. . .” Immediately, Buttercup recognizes that this pirate is in fact her true love, Westley. She throws herself down the ravine after her true love.

It’s a story about true love. And it’s a story about how love demonstrates itself in obedience and faithfulness. Love conquers as long as obedience never fails.

I’m preaching a series on Love this month and I realized going into it that this is a very difficult topic to preach on because we’ve all her it all before. Listen to me right now. Probably seventy-five percent of what you’ve heard about Love is garbage. It’s time to sift through some of the refuse and hold on to what is true and pure.

John the Apostle writes in chapter four of this letter, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. . .”

In chapter one, John has already written, “We know that we have come to know Him if we obey his commands.” In other words, we know that we know God if we do what God tells us to do. Obedience is the faithful sign of the presence of love, and therefore, the presence of God in a person’s life.

There’s a cute story about a boy, maybe you’ve heard it before, a boy who is running away from home. He’s angry with his parents and he tells them he’s leaving. He packs a duffel bag and gets on his bicycle and begins to ride away from his home. An hour later a police cruiser in the neighborhood observes this boy riding his bike around the block, duffel bag in hand. The officer continues to watch the boy for another twenty minutes just circling and circling the block on his bicycle. Finally, the officer gets out of his car and stops the boy and asks, “Son, what are you doing riding around the block in circles for so long?”

“I’m running away from home,” answers the boy.

“But you’re not getting anywhere just riding around your block in a circle,” the officer says.

“I know,” says the boy, “But I’m not allowed to cross the street.”

Jesus tells a story with a similar point. He says there was a man who had two sons. The father went to the first son and said, “Son, go work in my vineyard today.” The son answered, “No. I won’t do it.” But then, the son later changed his mind and went and did the work. The father went to the second and said the same and the second son answered, “I will go father,” but then never showed up for the work. “Which of the two sons,” Jesus asks, “did the will of his father?” The first, the first, they answered him.


There is something about obedience that tells us more about Love than any emotion, any oaths or pledges of faith, any poems, cards, or pretty songs. In a marriage, for example, there daily opportunities to show love through obedience- “honey, can you get me a glass of water, can you mail those things for me, can you take the kids here tonight.” And that doesn’t account for all the unspoken opportunities to serve another in love, things we call favors, kindnesses, courtesies, from buying someone lunch to picking up dirty socks to drying the dishes. These are building blocks of Love. More than physical attraction, romantic spark or chemistry, these are Cupid’s arrows that strike to the heart of what it really means to love one another. Where there is service and obedience Love grows.

It’s interesting that in this Love Letter from John, one that we should probably read as often if not more than the Apostle Paul’s famous Love chapter in Corinthians, dealing with one’s sin honestly before God precedes obedience. It doesn’t mean you have to have your life in perfect order morally before you can obey God and love God. John tells us that we simply must come clean! We must be honest. “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”

Maybe we can learn to be as gracious with each other as God is with us. Maybe if we learn to forgive each other’s weaknesses and failings in honesty and grace then we will find a strength in the everyday obediences and services that we did not know was there. A wise man once wrote, “It is not Love that sustains a marriage. It is the marriage that will sustain your Love.”

Obedience is the simple gestures that unleash the power of Love in our lives. It is not a coincidence that Love and Obedience, simply put, are not how you feel, they are what you do.