How Jesus Learned Obedience Through Hardship (Heb 5:8)
"He learned obedience through the things He suffered." (Heb 5:8)
Everyone who wants to make a success out of his or her life has to remain teachable. Jesus humbled Himself by temporarily setting aside His rights to take on the form of a man. Through the ordeals of life Jesus’ humanity was made perfect through suffering. Even though he was the Son of God, it was necessary for Jesus as a human being to learn obedience not because he was disobedient, yet so He could obey God in areas He had never experienced before. Through practice, we finely tune our senses to discern good and evil.
Application: Without a learner’s attitude we will miss out on many valuable lessons that the Lord wants to teach us in His quest to perfect us in every area.
Illustration: Dirty Room
A friend often told me about the problems he had getting his son to clean his room. The son would always agree to tidy up, but then wouldn’t follow through. After high school the young man joined the Marine Corps. When he came home for leave after basic training, his father asked him what he had learned in the service.
“Dad,” he said. “I learned what ‘now’ means.”
Contributed by Jan King, Humor in Uniform, Readers Digest, May, 1996, p. 174.
1. Jesus taught His disciples that people would only obey those who they know and trust. The more we know the Lord’s attributes they more we are able to trust Him. A close relationship with the Lord enhances our ability to obey Him in all areas of life and ministry. Those who struggle to obey the Lord are lacking in their knowledge and trust in the Lord’s complete characteristics. Jesus told the disciples, "If the world persecutes me, they will also persecute you. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me." (John 15:20,21) The greatest challenges today involve helping people know, love and trust the Lord with all their heart – obedience will follow.
Illustration: Faithful Dog
How we admire the obedience a dog shows to its master! Archibald Rutledge wrote that one day he met a man whose dog had just been killed in a forest fire. Heartbroken, the man explained to Rutledge how it happened. Because he worked out-of-doors, he often took his dog with him. That morning, he left the animal in a clearing and gave him a command to stay and watch his lunch bucket while he went into the forest. His faithful friend understood, for that’s exactly what he did. Then a fire started in the woods, and soon the blaze spread to the spot where the dog had been left. But he didn’t move. He stayed right where he was, in perfect obedience to his master’s word.
With tearful eyes, the dog’s owner said, “I always had to be careful what I told him to do, because I knew he would do it.”
Our Daily Bread, January, 19
2. Jesus exemplified a teachable attitude from the time of his youth. After three days of frantically looking for their lost twelve year old son, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple courts sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone in the temple were amazed the level of His understanding and answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished. He mother said, "Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you. Jesus said, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house? (Lk. 2;47-50)
Illustration: First Duty
Peter T. Forsythe was right when he said, “The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master”.
The Integrity Crisis by Warren W. Wiersbe, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, p. 22
3. Jesus continued to grow in wisdom throughout His life. Doctor Luke writes about Jesus, "And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men." (Luke 2:52) Every believer has a responsibility to grow mentally, socially, culturally, morally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. When we cease to grow we are subject to regressions.
Illustration: Motivations For Obedience
The believer is assured of salvation from hell and is eternally secure, since that salvation is based solely upon the finished work of Jesus Christ (John 10:28,29; Rom 8:38,39). Therefore, it is inconsistent with the Gospel and with Scripture to seek to gain or keep eternal salvation by godly living. The Scripture, however, does present several motivations for obedience in the Christian life.
1. A powerful motivation for living the Christian life is gratitude to God for saving us by His grace (Rom. 12:1,2; 2 Cor. 5:14,15; Gal. 2:20).
2. Believers should also be motivated by the knowledge that their heavenly Father both blesses obedience and disciplines disobedience in His children (Heb. 12:3-11; Lev. 26:1-45).
3. Finally, every Christian must stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, not to determine his destiny in heaven or hell, but to assess the quality of his Christian life on earth (2 Cor. 5:10; Rev. 22:12). Anticipating either reward or loss of reward at the Judgment Seat should also motivate believers to perseverance and to faithfulness to God’s revealed will (I Cor. 3:10-17, 9:24-27; Jas. 5:8,9; 1 John 2:28).
Grace Evangelical Society Affirmation of Belief (brochure), Grace Evangelical Society, Irving, TX.
4. Jesus knew that the biggest obstacle to success would be a person’s pride. The Lord said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls." (Matt. 11:28,29) It is only when we recognize our inadequacies that we will be able to learn what the Lord wants to teach us. God cannot teach people who are proud, arrogant or self-absorbed.
5. Jesus encouraged others to learn more about Him by assuming ministry responsibilities. Jesus told people, "Take my yoke upon you and learn of Me." The Lord wants all of us to learn more about Him, His will for our life and our own capacities through ministry experiences. Only when we are able to get out of the security of our own shell are we able to realize the potential we have in Christ. Many people remain as spiritual infants because they lack the faith and obedience to take on service responsibilities.
6. Jesus taught that unless everyone assumes the innocent teachability of children we would never enter heaven. Jesus said, "Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven… therefore whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3,34) The Lord praised the children’s’ trusting, unpretentious and teachable attitudes. It is better to humble ourselves before God than to be embarrassed by our own prideful stupidity.
7. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit to be our ever-present teacher. The Lord said, "But, when He the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13) Only when we are walking in close relationship with God are we able to hear the voice of the Spirit. Make every effort to spend time every morning receiving instructions from the Spirit of God for what He wants you to do.
8. Jesus knew that everyone would consistently have to ask God for wisdom. James, the brother of Jesus no doubt heard Jesus teach this wonderful truth that is recorded in James 1:5 which says, "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him." Our Lord knew that wisdom is given to those who humbly and earnestly seek for it. Most of the great wisdom we acquire will be through a combination of life long study and practical experience.
Illustration: “It is the impassioned pleading of a quiet little Scottish lady that linked my life with the Soudan,” wrote Rowland Bingham (a founder of S.I.M.). “In the quietness of her parlor she told how God had called a daughter to China, and her eldest boy (Walter Gowans) to the Soudan. “She spread out before me the vast extent of those thousands of miles and filled in the teeming masses of people. Ere I closed the interview she had place upon me the burden of the Soudan.”
A year and a half later Bingham returned to Canada, alone. Walter and Thomas Kent lay buried in Nigeria’s interior. “I visited Mrs. Gowans to take her the few personal belongings of her son,” he recalled. “She met me with extended hand. We stood there in silence.
“Then she said these words: ‘Well, Mr. Bingham, I would rather have had Walter go out to the Soudan and die there, all alone, that have him home today, disobeying his Lord.’” Our success in this venture means nothing less than the opening of the country for the gospel; our failure, at most, nothing more than the death of two or three deluded fanatics. Still, even death is not failure. His purposes are accomplished. He uses deaths as well as lives in the furtherance of His cause.
Walter Gowans, 1983, a founder of SIM. On Dec. 4, 1893, Walter Gowans and Rowland Bingham of Toronto, Canada, and Thomas Kent of Buffalo, N.Y., landed at Lagos, Nigeria. Their aim was to establish a witness among the 60 million people of what was then commonly known as the Soudan, the area south of the Sahara between the Niger River and the Nile. Gowans and Kent died in the first few months. Bingham returned to Canada, formed a council, and went back to Africa in 1900. That attempt, too, was unsuccessful. In 1901 Bingham sent out a party that succeeded in establishing the Mission’s first base, at Patigi, 500 miles up the Niger River. When these first SIM pioneers landed in Nigeria, Gowans was 25 years old, Bingham was two weeks away from his 21st birthday, Kent was 23.
9. Jesus knew that learning begins by learning the art and science of asking good questions. The Lord asked more than 300 questions throughout the four gospels. A famous proverb says, "Whoever asks a question may appear to be a fool for the moment, but whoever fails to consistently ask questions will remain a fool for life."
Conclusion: My Share
Lord, it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and serve Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.
If life be long I will be glad,
That I may long obey;
If short--yet why should I be sad
To soar to endless day?
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than he went through before;
He that to God’s Kingdom comes,
Must enter by this door.
- Richard Baxter
