Sermon Tone Analysis

Obedience

TEMC, Feb 4, 07

 

What does it mean to be obedient?

I am reminded of the movie “ The Ten Commandments” – it is an old movie.

Charlton Hesston is the actor who plays Moses.

He tries to communicate to the Egyptian king that God commands him to obey?

The king is surprised, embarrassed, and offended that anyone would dare challenge him to obey anyone.

In many lands the ruler of the country was served as a god.

We still like to be served as if we are god.

We are born with a desire to have it all our way.

Our tendency is not so much that we want to obey, as that we want others to obey OUR wishes.

What would the circumstances have to be for us to be fully obedient?

Most of us are partially obedient.

We do some things we should – perhaps many things we should, but we also do something we know we should not do.

At different times we all rationalize why we don’t do more right than we do.

We have excuses for NOT doing some good deed.

We are not ready – we are not sure – we are waiting , for something.

For some of us we would be obedient if…….

Life was better for us?

Many people are selectively obedient.

If there is something that they enjoy doing, they are gladly obedient.

If there is something they don’t like doing, - well they seem to find ways to explain why it is to God’s glory that they should not do this or that work.

Here is how it goes….

I would be more willing to pay taxes IF the government was more honest – right?

\\ I would treat my wife better IF she was a more willing spouse, right?

I would treat my husband better IF he was a better man .

Right?

Where do we get this idea from that the joy of our obedience is dependant on the circumstances around us? How did we get to a point where we seem to have a right to do wrong because someone else is doing wrong?

This happens early in life.

Little children make demands that suit them with no regard to what those demands may do for others.

I have on occasion watched little children threaten their parents.

They want mommy and daddy to do something for them, and if they don’t, they throw a fit.

I find it amazing how obedient parents are to their children these days.

G.K. Chesterton, a writer in the mid 20th century once paid a visit to the U.S.

He came back to England and said: “ Of all the things that amazed me in America, what amazed me the most was how well the parents obey their children.

What is happening around us these days is that children are not being trained by the parents for the simple reason we as a society have bought into the lie that children are little adults.

We don’t say it that way, but we live it that way.

My hat is off to those parents who have the courage to take their God given role as a mother and father and stand up for what is right for the little people God has entrusted into their care.

God never gave children to parents so the parents could use them as toys, or to spoil them.

God blesses parents with children in order to train these little ones to grow up and live lives that glorify and honor God.

More and more our society is geared toward a society where the desires of the child become the command of the society.

I find it ironic that before a child is born, the government will pay you to get it killed, it you should so choose, but once the child is born, you severely restricted.

If there is so much as  a hint of abuse, you will be held responsible by the government.

I am not judging the government for making sure parents don’t abuse their children.

It is a good thing making sure children are protected.

What is wrong is that the whole idea of child raising has become “ What does the child want?”

The question should always be: “ What does the child need?”

As a nation we are promoting a selfish attitude in our society.

We are teaching the young generation that they are number one and the world owes them a life.

They grow up and believe that.

Then later on in life when they find out that it does NOT work like that, these children who have now become young adults find it so hard to accept the reality that they need to give in order to be satisfied.

They have to unlearn what they were taught as babies.

Instead of everything now being about them, they now have to learn that they are here to give something back to society.

It is a totally reverse thinking than what they have learned.

What happens in simple language is this: *“They have not learned obedience.”

They have learned selfishness.

*

 

Even in churches I see more and more this ugly fruit coming out.

Think for a minute.

How much do you and I do out of a selfish motive?

How much of what you and I do, is something that we do because we want to honor God?

How much more don’t we think , Ah, this will help ME have it easier, this will make me a more successful person?

Unless we learn to be obedient, we can’t even  be followers of Jesus Christ.

We find it very easy to be obedient to our selfish nature, but hard to be obedient to God’s word.

The writer to the Hebrews makes it clear that we need to be careful to obey the warnings of God.

Hebrews 3:7-19

 

/7 So, as the Holy Spirit says: /

/“Today, if you hear his voice, /

/8 do not harden your hearts /

/as you did in the rebellion, /

/during the time of testing in the desert, /

/9 where your fathers tested and tried me /

/and for forty years saw what I did.

/

/10 That is why I was angry with that generation, /

/and I said, ‘Their hearts are always going astray, /

/and they have not known my ways.’

/

/11 So I declared on oath in my anger, /

/‘They shall never enter my rest.’

”/

/12 See to it, brothers, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.

14 We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

15 As has just been said: /

/“Today, if you hear his voice, /

/do not harden your hearts /

/as you did in the rebellion.”/

/16 Who were they who heard and rebelled?

Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt? 17 And with whom was he angry for forty years?

Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the desert?

18 And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?

19 So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.

/

 

The verses previous to this passage mention that as Moses was faithful in all God’s house, so Jesus too was faithful, and because of his ministry deservers more honor than Moses.

And while Moses was a servant in God’s God’s house, Jesus was faithful as a Son I n God’s house.

And on top of that, we are God’s house, if we hold on to our courage which we claim to have.

*Obedience is urgent.

*

There is a sense of urgency in our call to obedience.

Today.

How had they – Their forefathers heard and hardened their hearts?

If you read the story of Exodus, you find again and again that when they faced hard times, they did what?

– complain.

Never once do we find that those Israelites faced difficulty as though it was an opportunity.

It seemed every time there was a challenge, a struggle, the first thing they did was complain.

Instead of doing what they were told – trusting God for provision, they complained.