Joy in Obedience

This message today is kind of a restatement of the last 2 weeks, as well as a summation of the entire study, and for those reasons, it is possibly the most important message in the series.

Honestly, if we don’t embrace this reality as true and live in it’s truth then nothing we have looked at throughout this series will matter.

Here’s the 7th Reality for Experiencing God:

“You come to know God by experience as you OBEY Him and He accomplishes His work through you.”

The key word in that statement is underlined…OBEY.

You might be thinking: “What a let down! No one likes to talk about obedience!”

Think about it, how many little girls do you know named Grace, Faith, or something like Olivia (which means peace).

In Today’s top 1000 names, those three are toward the top along with Mercy and Nevaeh (Heaven spelled backward).

But what is not there is the name “Obedience”.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, Puritan parents would name their daughters obedience, but it has fallen out of usage over the years.

We can understand why since we usually connect obedience to doing not-so-fun-things because we have to.

But that really is a bad understanding of obedience.

When we think of it like that, it becomes something that keeps us from good things and stifles our happiness.

But that isn’t how God defines obedience.

Obeying God means living according to His ways and within the parameters of His will.

Think of a car driving down the interstate.

There are lanes marked off for you to drive between.

There are warning strips that let you know when you veer too far to the side.

And then there are rails that will ultimately stop you from running off the road into the trees or over the cliff.

Sure the scenery around the highway is beautiful, but if you decided to ignore the lines, ignore the rumble strips, and avoid the guardrails, you and your car would not be enjoying a peaceful drive down the road, right?

Obedience is the struggle and/or the process in which we seek to stay inside the lanes of God’s will where we can ultimately experience Him more fully and go to where His way will lead us.

Obedience is an INVITATION to PERSONALLY and JOYFULLY EXPERIENCE God.

And this is the message Jesus gave to His disciples the last night He was with them before His crucifixion.

John 14:15–31 CSB

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you. 18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. 21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it you’re going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 The one who doesn’t love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me. 25 “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you. 27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. 28 You have heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen you may believe. 30 I will not talk with you much longer, because the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me. 31 On the contrary, so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do as the Father commanded me. “Get up; let’s leave this place.

Last words hold a lot of wait and these are some of the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples and they were about obedience.

I want to talk about 3 things that are required in obeying Jesus.

Obedience Requires:

1) A genuine RELATIONSHIP.

John 14:15–21 CSB

Jesus uses conditional, “if, then”, statements fairly regularly when He is teaching.

He uses them to connect two things together, saying if one is true then the other will be true as well.

In this case, love and relationship are connected to obedience.

“If you love me, THEN you will obey what I tell you.”

These two things are inextricably linked.

And it really works BOTH ways.

Our love for God is EXPRESSED in our obedience to Him.

And out of His love for us He calls us to obey His Word and His ways.

God’s commands are expressions of love.

In the process of experiencing God, obedience is your moment of truth. Your obedience (or lack of it) will: 1. Reveal what you believe about God; 2. Determine whether you will experience His mighty work in and through you; 3. Determine whether you will come to know Him more intimately.

That’s a very different way of looking at obedience, isn’t it?

It isn’t that we HAVE to obey God, but that we are invited to experience His love and His power through listening to and following Him.

Some of you are trying hard to obey without knowing and living under God's deep love for you and so your are just legalists.

Working hard to make sure you hit all the marks so God will be satisfied with you.

That isn't biblical obedience.

Some of you are exploiting God's love.

Claiming the benefits of God's grace and mercy while detaching your decisions, attitudes, actions, and lifestyle from His desires and commands.

But if you love him, you will obey him.

Obedience is motivated by relationship not obligation or demand.

You obey because you trust God.

You trust Him because you love Him.

As you grow in your faith and obey God at every step, you’ll move from a head knowledge of God to a personal, experiential, dynamic relationship with the Him.

John 14:21 CSB

21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”

2) A costly TRUST.

John 14:22–26 CSB

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it you’re going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” 23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 The one who doesn’t love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me. 25 “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

Jesus is asked by Judas (the good one) the difference between their relationship with Him and the world’s relationship. How would they have faith and the world wouldn’t.

And Jesus says the difference will be in trusting in obedience.

“Are you willing to follow me, even if it means sacrifice and even suffering?”

Obedience requires trust and trust is costly.

In another place Jesus tells his disciples

Matthew 16:24 CSB

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Jesus is describing a kind of faith that doesn’t hold back, doesn’t look for the easy way, and doesn’t just show up to church a couple days a week.

It is a faith that pursues, that prays, that studies, that shares, that gives, that serves, that sacrifices, that speaks, and that places Him at the center.

And this kind of faith is costly, but it is the kind of faith that experiences God and finds joy in Him.

John 15:10–11 ESV

10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

True, resilient obedience believes that Jesus came not to make our lives difficult and unfulfilling, but that He came to give us full and abundant lives.

We have to remember that God has the best plan for my life, or else we’ll start making our own plans and thinking we know better than God.

And when we do that, we end up missing out on the great plan God really does have for our lives.

Faith-filled obedience experiences God in all his righteousness, goodness, sovereignty, and power, and trusts that the words coming from his mouth are better than any coming from ours — even if we don’t understand them.

Through that faith-filled obedience, we learn to substitute the perfect judgment and instructions and wisdom of God for our broken understanding of things.

3) A tangible ACTION.

John 14:27–31 CSB

27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. 28 You have heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen you may believe. 30 I will not talk with you much longer, because the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me. 31 On the contrary, so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do as the Father commanded me. “Get up; let’s leave this place.

There is quite a bit of debate about the ending of this verse.

Jesus seems to end his discourse in 31, but this chapters 15-17 seem to continue as if He hadn’t finished.

This could be an example of the southern/midwestern long-goodbye, where we say we have to go, but spend another hour talking before we actually go.

Or it could show a transition from Jesus and his disciples in the upper room now moving to the streets on their way to the garden where He will be given over by Judas.

Regardless, Jesus’s words are powerful.

He has told His disciples that He is leaving, and called them to trust Him and obey His words, and then He ends by says “Now get up and get going.”

We have a tendency to make things way more complicated or complex than they need to be.

I was tempted to make this point way more complicated that it needs to me.

Think back over the stories we have referenced throughout this series.

Noah was told to build the Ark and so he got up and started building.

Abraham walked up the mountain with his only son and raised the knife to offer him as a sacrifice to God.

Moses went to Pharoah over and over again, just as God told Him to do. And when the day came and God spoke, Moses stepped into the dry seabed of the Red Sea.

Joshua marched around the wall.

David faced the giant.

Elijah confronted the wicked King and Queen.

Peter stepped out of the boat.

Maybe it should go with out saying, but Obedience IS action.

If we aren’t doing what God has called us to, even if we say we intend on doing it, believe we really should be doing it, and tell other they should do it, then we are not obeying.

This might be the end of the series, but it can't end here. Perhaps it is just beginning, or restarting, or accelerating your pursuit of, obedience, and experience of God.

If you love him, will you obey him?

If you trust him, will you obey him?

What is it that you need to "Get up, and leave this place” with today

Have you received His salvation?

Do you need to confession a sin that is dominating your life?

Is it time to commitment to pursue God by joining a small group, finding a reading plan, getting connected to a group that will help you?

Are you ready to surrender your legalism and realize God’s incredible love for you?

Do you need to have a conversation with a friend, a gospel appointment?

Is it time to turn over something that is keeping you from obeying Him?

What is it today?

Open hands as a posture of surrender.

Obedience is an INVITATION to PERSONALLY and JOYFULLY EXPERIENCE God.

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