Love, Obey, Live.

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This post is adapted from a talk given at St Oswald’s Church, Rugby, on 10th May 2026. The Bible passage referenced is John 14:15-21.

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Have you ever heard this phrase before? As an impatient person who likes things done as soon as is humanly possible, it has been said to me many times. We often use it to tell people to slow down, to focus on the length of the task ahead and not rush into it.

The thing missing from this saying though is that both elite marathon runners and elite sprinters train tremendously hard for their designated events. Sure, a sprinter’s race is done in a matter of seconds, while a marathon will take hours. But both runners will tell you that their training takes a lot of time.

A few weeks ago, over 59,000 people ran the London Marathon. I bet that most, if not all, of them had been preparing for a very long time before they felt ready to tackle such an endeavour. And if they were to run it well, with the highest chance of finishing, they would need to prepare.

In October, I’m set to run a half-marathon to raise money for a charity that means a lot to our family. I was meant to run last year, but the imminent arrival of a certain small child meant that would’ve been a very bad idea. So, when I decided to commit to trying again this year, I needed to start getting myself ready. My preparation for October has already started, even though it’s months away.

I didn’t fully appreciate this until I started my own training, but running a half-marathon is not simply a matter of showing up and running 13.1 miles. I need to plan how I’m going to pace those miles so that I don’t get too tired too soon. I need to assess the best times to drink water to ensure I’m adequately hydrated, and I probably need to have additional fuel on hand to help me sustain my energy. The mantra “nothing new on race day” means I also probably need to train in what I’m going to wear. I can’t go and buy new trainers the day before and expect that my feet would be a fan of that idea. All in all, preparing for this half-marathon is more than just getting myself fit enough to run the distance. There’s a lot more I need to think about.

I’m mostly oblivious to how to do this on my own, so I have an app that tells me what to do, which has determined how much I need to run each week to be ready for my race. And then, it’s connected to my watch, which will aggressively beep at me if I’m running too fast or too slow. There are apps where you can even have someone talk through your headphones, telling you when to run and when to start your recovery walks.

It’s all very fancy and mostly very helpful, but sometimes, I’m frustrated by this computerised plan. It can’t take into account how I slept the night before or how I’m feeling emotionally. If I have an injury, I can indicate that, but the app can’t tell me when I’ll feel ready to get back out there. It’ll just keep reminding me that I’m not running and that I’m falling behind on my plan.

Sometimes, we are inclined to refer to the Christian life as a marathon and not a sprint. I am inclined to tell you this morning that it doesn’t really matter what kind of race you’re running, whether it feels like a marathon or a sprint; training and preparation matter. And every good training regimen requires a coach. So it’s a good job Jesus has left us the best possible one in the Holy Spirit, that’s what this passage tells us from John 14 tells us.

The Holy Spirit

It’s easy to think that the Holy Spirit only appears after Jesus says these words in John 14. And it’s understandable to draw that conclusion as Jesus says: “he will give you another advocate,” somewhat implying that we don’t already have it. But that’s not because the Holy Spirit is a new thing that Jesus conjures up as a continuation of his ministry. The Holy Spirit is an important and equal part of the Trinity, the Christian understanding that God is at once God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we can ascertain that the Spirit has existed as long as God has.

The Bible confirms this conclusion.

In Genesis 1:2, we read that, before any part of creation, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” And throughout the Old Testament, people identified God’s activity in the world as being the work of the Spirit. You may find it translated as the “wind” or “breath” of God because the Hebrew term for the Spirit was רוּחַ (ruach), which means “wind” or “breath” or “spirit”. The work of the Spirit was indistinguishable to them from the work of God the Father, both because they are one and the same, and because the writers of the Old Testament had not experienced God incarnate through Jesus.

A concrete theology of the Trinity is only truly understood in the New Testament and afterwards, even though glimpses of it are seen throughout the earlier Biblical books. But in every case, the Holy Spirit, as identified in the New Testament, is a development of the Old Testament themes.

Jesus, in John 14, is preparing his disciples for his soon-to-be death and resurrection. And so, the Holy Spirit makes its appearance in the form we likely most recognise, as the advocate Jesus leaves behind to continue his mission after his ascension to heaven. But the work of the Spirit hasn’t changed; it is, and always has been, to transform the world through divine activity.

Some of that divine activity occurs through us, the people who have committed to following Jesus. From this passage, we can find three things that Jesus instructs us to do, which the Holy Spirit is designed to help us with. And those things can be summarised as Love, Obey, Live, which I know sounds like a New Age-y home decor sign… but it’s what we’re going with!

The work of the Spirit hasn’t changed; it is, and always has been, to transform the world through divine activity.

Love

The first thing that Jesus tells his disciples to do is love him: “If you love me”

The Greek word used for love here is agape. If you’ve been around church for a while, you may be familiar with this concept, but if you have no idea what I’m talking about, let me explain.

In Greek, there are four words for love, each identifying different ways of loving. The word ‘agape’ reflects what we consider to be the highest form of love and, when used in the New Testament, denotes the loving relationship between God and human beings. And so, by using this word ‘agape’ here, Jesus is saying that the disciples ought to love him as he loves them, with a self-sacrificial and selfless love that surpasses all understanding. This is what comes first.

It’s like the passage from Deuteronomy 6: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.

The first thing we ought to do as believers is love. The Bible is very clear on this. We are to love God and love our neighbour. Jesus says that this is the greatest commandment.

When we read in Deuteronomy that “these commandments… are to be on [our] hearts,” we are being told to embrace them fully and make sure they are deeply-rooted within us. It is not enough to hear that we need to love God. We need to do it.

To make it somewhat more tangible…

Andrew and I will celebrate our ninth wedding anniversary this year, which is hard for many people to believe because I look about 5 years younger than I actually am! When Andrew and I got married, we thought we knew what love was… and to some extent, we did. We knew one kind of love. But as we’ve progressed in our marriage and now have two young children to care for, our love for each other has matured, and it looks a little different now from when we were newlyweds. And so, we choose to love each other every day because relying on fuzzy feelings alone no longer suffices. We need to ensure that our wedding vows are written on our hearts, not just a thing we remember from the distant past.

There’s an interesting thing about this love that Jesus is instructing us to do. We cannot simply love him.

Jesus says IF you love me… that’s the important word for us to consider. Jesus neither presumes that the disciples love him nor forces them to do so, and the same goes for us too.

Following Jesus is a choice that is in our hands. We are aided by the Holy Spirit as we make that decision, but ultimately, we have free will and thus cannot be forced into a relationship with God.

Obey.

Jesus then says: “If you love me, keep my commands.” And so, we’re told that obeying Jesus’ commands is not just a thing we do out of our own sheer will and determination. It should be an outpouring of our love for Jesus and all he’s done for us.

Someone positioned towards Christ will keep these commands because it is a natural overflow of our love for him. That’s not to say that we’ll all do it perfectly all the time and that we are no longer true believers when we fall short. It just means that our obedience to Christ should come from a place of deep desire to know him and love him more, not out of a sense of needing to follow the rules. Often, following rules just for the sake of following them comes out of a place of fear.

Jesus invites us to keep his commands from a place of love. When we love Jesus, and we believe what he says is true, the various commands he instructs us to keep make a lot more sense.

This is particularly important as we look at the world around us. We cannot necessarily expect people who do not follow Jesus to keep his commands. Sure, the long-term desire is for all to know Christ, but our first port of call should be introducing the world to Jesus so that they love him and then instructing them to keep his commands.

For example, we can’t go around telling people ‘rich people can’t go to heaven and so we ought to give to the poor’ just because Jesus says something like that in Mark 10. If we don’t first introduce them to the awe-inspiring wonder of Christ himself, they will be left confused and probably a bit annoyed.

It is only when we love Jesus ourselves that we can understand more of what Jesus said about money. We begin to see how money draws us in and takes us away from God, not because having money is inherently bad, but because we are somewhat predisposed to desire power and status and material things - all of which money can provide. But a love of money is also empty and temporary. Only God can truly satisfy our every need.

But that’s difficult, and given how difficult these commands are to do in our own strength, the only way we can possibly keep them is with help.

This is why Jesus says he will give us “another advocate to help [us] and be with [us] forever.” (v.16) That advocate, sometimes referred to in other translations as the “comforter,” is the Holy Spirit.

Finding a translation for the Greek word found here, παράκλητος (paraklētos), is quite difficult as no word in the English language quite suffices. “Advocate” is perhaps the right choice, as the word in Greek was sometimes used to describe witnesses in court, but our English word loses some of the pastoral and comforting manner in which that was done. In any case, the Spirit fulfils a role similar to the one that Jesus filled whilst on earth - a more tangible experience of God the Father.

And because of this powerful indwelling of the Spirit on earth, we are invited into something incredibly wonderful: life at its fullest.

We are invited to live.

Earlier in the Gospel of John, Jesus says these now-famous words:

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

It is through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection that we can access this kind of life. He says here in John 14: “Because I live, you also will live.”

The important thing here is that it is through Jesus only that the fullness of life comes.

It is because Jesus lives that we can experience life here on earth.

Which takes me back to where I started…

“It’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

In Hebrews 12:1-2, we read this: “And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” A race has been marked out for us, and it’s a good one - however little you may like running!

But we need someone to help us with it.

You don’t have to love running to start running. But, in time, if you’re doing it well, you should come to at least like it. I love running, but I don’t love every moment of every run. There are times in every run where I’m tempted to give up. But I keep going. Why? Because the reasons why I started running in the first place haven’t gone away. So every time I want to give up, I think of the people I’m fundraising for, and my own personal connection with the charity I’ve chosen. This is what keeps me going.

Don’t forget why you started running the race. Don’t forget the reason that brought you here this morning. I won’t pretend that I come to church every Sunday filled with joy and excitement. I bring all of myself, and sometimes that person is struggling and broken. But I come anyway because Jesus changed my life, he saved me, and so I press in and keep coming back when it’s hard.

Frequently, the Holy Spirit will prompt me to read particular passages in my morning Bible study because he knows what I need in that moment. Even though I sometimes begin these studies reluctant, tired, or sceptical, I always leave changed by the power of God’s Word, which is alive and breathing because of the Holy Spirit.

Unlike the running coach on my phone, who does not adapt to my individual needs, the Holy Spirit knows me intimately and instructs me accordingly. He guides me to parts of the Bible that I ought to read to help me in that moment. Or, even when I’m following a particular plan, the Spirit reveals new things to me each time that help me relate the passage to where I am in that moment.

I often say that “I want to want to read my Bible more”, but sometimes life gets in the way. But then I remember the eagerness with which I read my Bible when I first became a Christian. I remember the overwhelming love and gratitude I had when God literally saved and changed my life. I remember the various ways Scripture has helped me through dark and difficult times. And then it doesn’t feel as difficult to find the time for Jesus. The Holy Spirit unlocks those memories, reminding me of God’s goodness towards me, and my desire to be more like Jesus and keep his commands is renewed in me afresh.

When our deepest longing is to honour Christ, we will keep his commands as the Holy Spirit will help us do so. And so, I encourage you to invite the Holy Spirit to have his way, to be your coach, your advocate and your guide as you go through this week.

Ask him to show you how you can be a better disciple of Jesus, and how you may participate in the divine activity God is doing here on earth.

I hope this was helpful, or at least provoked some interesting thoughts. Please feel free to send it along to someone and encourage them today. If you want to connect with me in other ways, you can follow me on Instagram.

With much love and gratitude,
Stephanie