OBEDIENCE
Authentic Christianity - #7 of 7
Jerry Watts
John 14:15, 24 / 1 John 2:3-6
* The former fisherman turned disciples who morph into a divine writer of Holy Scripture, John, gave us the reason for his writings. In 1 John 5:13 he offers, “I am writing these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you might KNOW that you have eternal life.” That you might KNOW is his reason. Candidly, I have a deep connection with John’s words because my heartbeat is for every person here to KNOW that you are saved so that you may GROW in your salvation & walk with Christ that you naturally SHOW Jesus to everyone you meet.
* In thinking back over the last 40 years things have greatly changed inside the local church. It seems that today, few concern themselves with their eternal destiny. How long has it been since someone has spoken to you (or me) about struggling with their ‘assurance of Salvation?’ There was a time when people gave this a lot of thought because the truth of Matthew 7 was real. How many times have you seen someone come to altar, receive counseling, & praying to be assured they were saved; AND you were surprised at their coming because they exhibited all the attributes of a believer? At the same time, how often have we observed people who were “so confident” of their salvation but their life gave no evidence of Christ, they were mean as snakes, and a prideful as Satan himself?
* I say all of this to hopefully get our spiritual attention that we might check out our lives, our walk with Christ, and even our salvation to make sure we have eternal life and are living like our Lord expects and demands us to.
* Over the past 7 weeks we have walked through a plethora of Characteristics which are found in the life of an authentic believer. THERE IS NO AUTHENTICITY FOUND IN THE LIFE OF A COUNTERFEIT.
* The starting place is ‘followship.’ The call from Jesus is to FOLLOW ME. This is that point in your life where God speaks to you about your sin, the penalty for sin, & the ultimate place you’ll go if you die in that sin. Followship is about a choice you make.
* If you choose Jesus, you must choose to repent of your sin and believe on Him. The repentance you begin when you choose Jesus is the start of a life-long lifestyle of repentance from the ‘sin’ which, the Bible says, so easily besets us.
* When you trust Christ, your life becomes a life on Mission, His mission. He has now called you for a mission with eternity in view.
* What results are some attributes begin to appear in your life. You’ll discover a new way to love both God and people, you’ll discover that your life will begin to bear fruit of an eternal nature (I.E. friendships, new believers, etc), and ultimately you will take on the nature of Christ and want to give (I.E. money, time, energy, life).
* Being His, in an authentic way is a journey, a process, & a lifestyle which changes you forever. Today is about one final characteristic which encompasses all you are.
* It is OBEDIENCE. Pure, simply, & even old-fashioned; OBEY! Let’s read what Jesus says (John 14) and now what John says (1 John 2). Any questions?
* Let’s get our minds around what kind of impact obedience has. It is 3 things:
1. Obedience is a Sign of Conversion – Verse 3 gives us a clear picture of life after the experience of coming to faith in Jesus – you obey His commands. John says, “You can be sure you are His, IF you keep His command.” This echoes the words of Jesus in the upper room which we read in John 14. Scripture repeatedly tell us that one of the characteristics of following Jesus is obedience. And just to be clear, scripture also repeatedly tells us that a sign of NOT BEING A BELIEVER is DISOBEDIENCE! Are you catching what the word of God is throwing? There is no Biblical status for a person to be consistently disobedient and be a believer, a person of faith, or one who is walking with Christ. Jesus says it is the one who doesn’t love me who will not keep my words while John says, “If you say that you love Him and you don’t obey Him, you are a liar.” Not my words, theirs. These are stinging words & revealing words. From the scripture, you cannot serve two Gods!!
* Our text takes this a step further by saying ‘Whoever keeps His word, truly IN HIM the love of God is perfected.” The word perfected means completed, finished, or accomplished. In the Greek this word is from the same root word which Jesus spoke on the cross when He said, “IT is FINISHED.” That is, it is completed, accomplished, or is done! God’s love is perfected and completed accomplished in a changed life.
* That is a life that has been turned around, saved from sin, and secured in Heaven. What follows for that a person is blind obedience! That is the sign of an authentic believer, a true follower of Christ, and a Christian.
2. Obedience is a Sign of Commitment – Look at the last part of verse 5 & verse 6, “This is how we KNOW we are in Him: “the one who says he remains in Him should walk just as HE walked.” In this we discover a combination of followship, mission, love, fruit, and giving! Authentic Christianity is all about living like Jesus lived, responding like He responded, and giving like He gave. It is people seeing Jesus in us because we obey Him so much that people know we are His. Why did the believers at Antioch get called “Christian?” It was because they reminded people of Jesus. They loved each other, lived for Him, and they shared their faith with others.
* If you follow the 2nd Chapter of 1 John down here are some truths we must come to grips with; You cannot hate your brother and be saved, let alone committed. This is God’s word. You cannot love the world and be in ‘that number’ because to love the world means the love of God is NOT perfected in you because the love of the Father is not in you – “IF YOU LOVE THIS WORLD.” When we obey Him, we demonstrate our commitment to Him. It is easy to ‘say’ “I Love God”, but the proof is in your actions. You can stand before this church & say, “I just love everybody” and make it sound so warm & fuzzy. But you prove otherwise with your mean & ungodly spirit. When our walk doesn’t match our talk, people know.
* You remember the old story of the man who was expressing his love for his fiancé and said, “I love you more than anything in this world. I’d swim the oceans, brave the storms, walk through fire, fight the battles, and climb mountain to get to you. And I’ll see you next Sunday, if it doesn’t rain.” (It always rains.) Satan is always putting up road blocks to battle your commitment to the Father.
3. Obedience is a Sign of Conviction – Obedience does not come naturally to us, we tend to fight being obedient. Journey with me to the last chapter in the gospel of John. The last chapter can be seen as an ‘add-on’ to the gospel. Yet it carries a significance which we cannot fathom. We’ll focus on Peter, but first a little context,
* For three years, Jesus had poured His life into the disciples. Peter was his right hand man, but was somewhat of a hard head & hard case. In the Upper Room Jesus was trying to teach the disciples some final lessons & Peter was, well, Peter. Jesus started to wash Peter’s feet and Peter wasn’t having it. When Jesus explained it, Peter went overboard. Then Jesus was explaining how they would be scattered & afraid & that some of them would deny Him. Prideful Peter said, “Not me Lord.” Jesus knew that when Peter’s heart was finally right, he would be an incredible force for the Kingdom. Jesus said, “Peter before the cock crows in the morning, you’ll deny me 3 times.” Then in the garden when Jesus surrendered to the guard, it was Peter who drew the sword cutting off a stray ear. It is easy to surmise at this point in Peter’s life, he was a mile wide & an inch deep.
* This type of commitment causes one to follow Jesus from ‘afar’ (which Peter did) & follow with, “I don’t know Him.” Matthew, Mark, and John, record that after Peter denied Jesus the third time, Peter simply remembered Jesus’ words & went off to cry. Dr. Luke gives us a sobering word. He writes that after the third denial, the rooster crowed, and “Jesus turned to look at Peter.” Know what? Every time you deny Jesus, He looks. Every time you disobey Jesus, He looks. His looks convicts.
* If you love me keep my words: ‘Whoever confesses me before men’, ‘love one another as I have loved you,’ ‘I appointed you to go out and bear fruit,’ ‘Go & make disciples,’ and ‘As the Father sent me, so send I you.’
* It is not enough to know what He says. All of us KNOW, but what are we doing?
* Imagine if you will, that you work for a company whose president found it necessary to travel out of the country and spend an extended period of time abroad. So he says to you and the other trusted employees, “Look, I’m going to leave. And while I’m gone, I want you to pay close attention to the business. You manage things while I’m away. I will write you regularly. When I do, I will instruct you in what you should do from now until I return from this trip.” Everyone agrees. He leaves and stays gone for a couple of years. During that time he writes often, communicating his desires and concerns. Finally he returns. He walks up to the front door of the company and immediately discovers everything is in a mess--weeds flourishing in the flower beds, windows broken across the front of the building, the gal at the front desk dozing, loud music roaring from several offices, two or three people engaged in horseplay in the back room. Instead of making a profit, the business has suffered a great loss. Without hesitation he calls everyone together and with a frown asks, “What happened? Didn’t you get my letters?”
* You say, “Oh, yeah, sure. We got all your letters. We’ve even bound them in a book. And some of us have memorized them. In fact, we have ‘letter study’ every Sunday. You know, those were really great letters.” I think the president would then ask, “But what did you do about my instructions?” And, no doubt the employees would respond, “Do? Well, nothing. But we read every one!”
* It is not enough to know, we must go. There is no such thing as “partial obedience” for that is ‘disobedience.
* When Jesus turns to look at you like He did Peter, what does He see? Does He see an Authentic Christian or a counterfeit?
