OBEDIENCE
When I was in school, the thing that could strike fear in the hearts of almost every student was the Pop Quiz. The unannounced examination is a great way for the student to know, “am I getting what the teacher is teaching?” In our evangelism studies, we were given a question that would be very revealing as to whether or a person really understood what salvation was all about. That question is quite simple and it goes like this:
“In your personal opinion, what do you understand it takes for a person to go to heaven?”
I would guess that almost everyone here would get 100% if this were a Pop Quiz. Let me ask you to do this: along the edge of your bulletin, write a brief answer to that question. Just take a few moments and jot down a few words that capture the idea.
Many times the answers that people give you go something like this:
Live by the Golden Rule. Be a good person. Treat everybody fairly. Keep the Ten Commandments. Love your neighbor. Serve God.
These are all good things to do, but they do not agree with God’s word regarding the “How” of salvation.
As good students of the Bible most of us would know that the answer of “How” we are saved and “How” we become eligible to go to Heaven is found in such scripture verse as Eph 2:8-9.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
That’s “HOW” our salvation is made available to us. Does this mean that everyone is saved? NO! We also need to know HOW to receive or appropriate that salvation. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. (Acts 16:31) That if you shall confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. (Rom 10:9)
That’s HOW! If you recall going to school and the things you were taught, most of them were about how things work. How to spell, how to punctuated, how to add, how to divide, how electricity flows through conductors, how water evaporates, how, how, how.
What about WHY? Let’s ask the WHY question about the most significant thing that has ever or will ever happen in your life. WHY DID GOD SAVE YOU?
If this were a pop quiz, what would you write down on your paper? There are many possible answers that can be considered good, truthful answers. One that should be obvious is that “God saves us because He loves us.” We see this clearly in John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That answers the motive (on God’s part) of Why He saved you. But WHY can also refer to PURPOSE. So let’s ask the question again. WHY (meaning for what purpose) did God save you?
We started out looking at How and found the answer in Eph 2:8-9. The answer to “WHY” is immediately after the answer to HOW. Look at verse 10
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
The purpose is fairly simple and we can reduce to just a few words. God has jobs for you to do. God has jobs for me to do.
How would you characterize the jobs He has for us? “Good works.” Do you remember the list we talked about early – the typical answers you get to the question of how does a person go to heaven: Live by the Golden Rule. Be a good person. Treat everybody fairly. Keep the Ten Commandments. Love your neighbor. Serve God. Since you are in Christ Jesus and He is living His life through you, then you are now able to do all these things that speak to the purpose for which we are saved.
How would you describe a person who did these things? The word “Obedient” comes to my mind. Another word that I have trouble separating its meaning from the meaning of the word obedient is “Faithful.”
An obedient person is characterized by obedience. A faithful person is characterized by faithfulness. Are these characteristics important to God? Absolutely!
Just how important they are is found in Moses’ discourse to the Children of Israel immediately before they were to enter into the promised land. Turn with me to Deut. 28.
1 ¶ If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth.
2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
3 You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country.
4 The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
5 Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed.
6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
7 The LORD will grant that the enemies who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
(Plus seven more verses of blessings.)
Are these blessings worth having? Are these meant only for the Nation of Israel in their time? Would they apply to an individual, to our churches or are they only for nations? (We’ll come back to this question.)
When we see such great promises in God’s word, do we stop and think that there is another side to this “coin?” What happens if we don’t obey?
15 ¶ However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come upon you and overtake you:
16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country.
17 Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed.
18 The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks.
19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.
20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.
21 The LORD will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess.
66 You will live in constant suspense, filled with dread both night and day, never sure of your life.
Are these problems worth avoiding? You’re probably thinking, “That’s a dumb question.” It would be if it were not for the fact the evidence shows that so few believe it! Notice that nowhere does God (through Moses) say to them, “You will stop being my chosen people.”
I believe these are what I would call universal truths. That is, they apply to individuals, to churches and to nations. They apply to the situation nearly 3500 years ago when Moses spoke these words and they apply to our situation today.
Let’s look first at our nation.
In 1620 when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, the House of Burgesses was in session at Jamestown, Virginia. The Plymouth Rock Pilgrims were not the first, yet we find great significance in the New England history primarily because of the motives of the people who came to the new land. Yet we mark the beginning of our nation not with an act of commerce but with an act of conscience.
It is not without reason that we call these early settlers "Pilgrims" They were Pilgrims: they journeyed a long distance for a sacred purpose. We know that purpose was Freedom of Worship. Notice that it was not just Freedom; but Freedom of Worship. The Virginia Company of London came looking for financial treasure, while those on the Mayflower came looking for a far greater treasure and that of freedom to worship God and to avoid being persecuted for their beliefs.
Many times we think of these early settlers as somewhat primitive people, yet it is we who came after them who substituted the ignoble idea of freedom from worship for that sacred purpose for which those pilgrims came. We have grabbed the word "freedom" (forgetting we are to worship God in our freedom) and have worshipped instead the concept or idea of “freedom.”
I have often thought that if some future civilization were to find the remains of our civilization that they would conclude that we worshipped at the Shrine of Freedom and that we worshipped the goddess Liberty -- in fact, we even erected a huge statue of this goddess in the harbor near one the large cities. One glimpse at our daily lives, one introspective examination of what really motivates us and we too can conclude that freedom is high on our list of priorities. For some, "freedom" as they define it, is more important than family, community, country, the church, the Kingdom of God, and the God of the Kingdom.
When we see what we have done with the concept of freedom, we have cause to wonder whether God will still bless America.
In Congress, on July 4, 1776, in a unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, fifty six men signed their names to a document that helped change the course of world history. In the second paragraph they stated:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...”
Wait a minute! You mean that the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence – the Founding Fathers of our country, the architects of our government were Creationist?
“ . . . . we are endowed by our Creator!” they said.
It is our generation who have moved from these self-evident truths and tolerated an untruth that denies the God of Creation and makes mankind a chance happening of some highly improbable scheme called evolution. Surely we do not honor God by denying Him the credit for creating this His universe and suggesting that it all "just happened". He who honors God; him will God honor.
Considering what we have done with the concept of "God our Creator" we can wonder whether God will continue to bless America.
Among the unalienable rights are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. These men believed in the sanctity of LIFE. They believed that it is a Creator-God given right to not be denied life. This concept is God honoring. It is our generation that has moved from this God-honoring concept to a hellish, devil-inspired idea that life is cheap.
Jesus warned us that the devil came to steal, kill, and destroy. Since Roe vs. Wade, scores of millions of unborn human lives have been destroyed because they would have been an inconvenience to someone who valued freedom above someone else’s life. While it may be noble to value freedom above your own life, it is ignoble to sacrifice unborn children on the altar of irresponsibility, falsely called freedom.
When we consider our disregard for God-given life we can again wonder whether God will bless America.
There is no question that God has blessed American. Surely God has blessed our nation – it began well. It began with great and noble ideals, God honoring ideals. We began in Godliness – obedience - faithfulness and we shall continue only in Godliness.
In Galatians 3:3 Paul asks the question:
Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
We might ask ourselves as a nation:
Are we so foolish? Having begun in Godliness, are we now being perfected in Godlessness?
There is still hope. We are a nation of people who embrace the concept of simple solutions to complex problems. There is a simple, one-word solution that would allow us to answer "Yes" to the question of "Will God bless America?" That one word is REPENT. We must turn back to God who is the author of true, responsible freedom that is founded on the truth of the Word of God. We, who are the Church, must lead the way.
Let’s look at the Church. Our present day concept of the church is that we are a collection of individuals who believe that Jesus is God’s Son and that He died to save us from an eternity in hell. That is a true statement; but, I fear that the emphasis is on “individuals” rather than on our being the body of Christ and Christ being the head of the Body. Many of our churches are weak and anemic because they are fed a diet of a watered down gospel. Many have filled themselves with “feel-good” religious platitudes and have no room left and no appetite for the meat of the word of God. We have lost sight of our purpose. We have little or no concern about our performance related to accomplishing the Great Commission. Church services are designed to entertain those in the pews and the only performance we care about is how well is the sermon delivered and how well did the choir and the soloist sing.
Look back to the words of God through Moses in Deuteronomy 28 and apply them to the church. (I have repeated the verse we read before and substituted words that could apply to the church.)
1 ¶ If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands that I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the INSTITUTIONS on earth.
2 All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God:
3 You will be HIGHLY ESTEEMED in the city and in the country.
4 MANY PEOPLE WILL COME TO GOD THROUGH YOUR MINISTRY AND THE LAND WILL PROSPER BECAUSE OF GODLINESS.
5 YOUR MEMBERS WILL BE EAGER AND WILLING TO DO THE WORK TO WHICH I HAVE CALLED THEM.
6 You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
7 The LORD will grant that the ACLU AND GODLESS HUMANISTS who rise up against you will be defeated before you. They will come at you from one direction but flee from you in seven.
Look at the other side of the coin:
15 ¶ However, if you do not obey the LORD your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these problems will come upon you and overtake you:
16 You will be DESPISED AND RIDICULED in the city and in the country.
17 YOU WILL FIND YOURSELVES EXPENDING YOUR ENERGY AND RESOURCE AND SEE NO RESULTS.
18 PEOPLE WILL JOIN YOUR CHURCHES BECAUSE IT IS SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE AND THEY WILL BE A HINDRANCE TO THE GROWTH OF THE KINGDOM.
19 You will ENCOUNTER PROBLEMS when you come in and when you go out.
20 The LORD will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you TURN INTO A SOCIAL CLUB because of the evil you have done in forsaking him.
21 The LORD will plague you with FALSE PHILOSOPHIES until he has DIMINISHED YOUR INFLUENCE from the land you are entering to possess.
Which condition do you think describes many of the churches of the 21st century?
We, in the church, have a tendency to think that all the problems of the world are because of the bad behavior of the godless people. We hear the news and learn of all the terrible things people are doing and we think “It is people like that who are responsible for what is wrong with this country.” This is just playing the blame game. Where does the responsibility lie? Is the problem the perverts or the atheist? Not according to the word of God. Turn to 2 Chronicles 7:14.
if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
If a nation is not obedient and faithful and the problem can be traced the churches, then can we say if our churches are not obedient and faithful that the problem can be traced to individual Christians? We started out talking about the Purpose for which we are saved. What did we say the purpose was? God has jobs for us to do. We are not talking about earning your salvation, but we are talking about responding to your salvation. If the Spirit of God is in us and the life of Jesus is being lived out through us, then we should be doing the works that Jesus did.
