While listening to the song “Train Up a Child,” Ann’s daughter Emily asked her mom what “train up” means.
Ann explained that it means to teach children about God and the difference between right and wrong.
“Are you and Daddy training me up?” Emily asked.
“We’re trying to,” Ann replied.
Emily turned back to the stereo and muttered, “We’ll see about that” (Ann W., Bradenton, Florida, Christian Parenting Today, Jan/Feb 2000; www.PreachingToday.com).
Even from a very young age, people resist even the idea of obedience, much less living in obedience to any authority. However, if they knew the blessing of obedience, they might resist the idea a whole lot less. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 40, Exodus 40, where we discover the primary benefit of obedience.
Exodus 40:1-2 The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “On the first day of the first month you shall erect the tabernacle of the tent of meeting (ESV).
This is a year after their exodus from Egypt. It took them three months to get to Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:1). So they had been at Mount Sinai for nine months before they erected the tabernacle.
Exodus 40:3-7 And you shall put in it the ark of the testimony, and you shall screen the ark with the veil. And you shall bring in the table and arrange it, and you shall bring in the lampstand and set up its lamps. And you shall put the golden altar for incense before the ark of the testimony, and set up the screen for the door of the tabernacle. You shall set the altar of burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and place the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it (ESV).
God directs Moses to build and furnish the tabernacle and its courtyard. Then God directs Moses to anoint the tabernacle, its furniture, and the priests.
Exodus 40:8-15 And you shall set up the court all around, and hang up the screen for the gate of the court. “Then you shall take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and all that is in it, and consecrate it and all its furniture, so that it may become holy. You shall also anoint the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and consecrate the altar, so that the altar may become most holy. You shall also anoint the basin and its stand, and consecrate it. Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the entrance of the tent of meeting and shall wash them with water and put on Aaron the holy garments. And you shall anoint him and consecrate him, that he may serve me as priest. You shall bring his sons also and put coats on them, and anoint them, as you anointed their father, that they may serve me as priests. And their anointing shall admit them to a perpetual priesthood throughout their generations” (ESV).
Moses built and anointed the tabernacle and its priests just as God commanded him.
Exodus 40:16-33 This Moses did; according to all that the LORD commanded him, so he did. In the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, the tabernacle was erected. Moses erected the tabernacle. He laid its bases, and set up its frames, and put in its poles, and raised up its pillars. And he spread the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent over it, as the LORD had commanded Moses. He took the testimony and put it into the ark, and put the poles on the ark and set the mercy seat above on the ark. And he brought the ark into the tabernacle and set up the veil of the screen, and screened the ark of the testimony, as the LORD had commanded Moses. He put the table in the tent of meeting, on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil, and arranged the bread on it before the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses. He put the lampstand in the tent of meeting, opposite the table on the south side of the tabernacle, and set up the lamps before the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses. He put the golden altar in the tent of meeting before the veil, and burned fragrant incense on it, as the LORD had commanded Moses. He put in place the screen for the door of the tabernacle. And he set the altar of burnt offering at the entrance of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and offered on it the burnt offering and the grain offering, as the LORD had commanded Moses. He set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it for washing, with which Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet. When they went into the tent of meeting, and when they approached the altar, they washed, as the LORD commanded Moses. And he erected the court around the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the screen of the gate of the court. So Moses finished the work (ESV).
Moses finished the work just as God had commanded him. You see that phrase eight (8) times in this section: Verse 16—Moses did according to all that the Lord commanded him; Verse 19—as the Lord had commanded Moses; Verse 21—as the Lord had commanded Moses; Verse 23—as the Lord had commanded Moses; Verse 25—as the Lord had commanded Moses; Verse 27—as the Lord had commanded Moses; Verse 29—as the Lord had commanded Moses; Verse 32—as the Lord commanded Moses.
In fact, this whole last section of Exodus, Exodus 35-40, describes Moses carrying out the directions God gave him in Exodus 25-31. One commentator notices that “in many cases, with the exception of a substitution of the past tense for the future tense, the sections are verbatim” (Dunnam, The Communicator’s Commentary). Moses carried out God’s directions in exact detail, not missing a word! And that’s what you must do if you want to experience the blessing of obedience. Just do what the Lord tells you to do.
OBEY GOD.
Follow His directions exactly without leaving anything out.
In 1914, not long after the sinking of the Titanic, Congress convened a hearing to discern what happened in another maritime tragedy. In January of that year, in thick fog off the Virginia coast, the merchant vessel Nantucket rammed the steamship Monroe, which eventually sank. Forty-one (41) sailors lost their lives in the frigid winter waters of the Atlantic.
The authorities held Osmyn Berry, captain of the Nantucket, responsible and revoked his license. However, during the trial, Berry’s lawyers grilled Edward Johnson, captain of the Monroe, for over five hours. During that cross-examination, Johnson admitted that he navigated the Monroe with a steering compass that deviated as much as two degrees from the standard magnetic compass. According to the February 11, 1914, issue of The New York Times, “Johnson said the instrument was sufficiently true to run the ship, and that it was the custom of masters in the coastwise trade to use such compasses. His steering compass had never been adjusted in the one year he was master of the Monroe. Later the two Captains met, clasped hands, and sobbed on each other's shoulders” (James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love, Brazos Press, 2016, page 20; www.PreachingToday.com).
Just a two-degree deviation led to a terrible tragedy. Precision is important in maritime matters, but even more important in spiritual matters.
Please, make sure the compass of your heart always points in the right direction. Daily, calibrate your heart with God’s Word, so it always points you to God, and don’t deviate from His Word one bit.
Sometimes, believers excuse minor flaws in themselves and others, especially if they have done something extraordinary for God. However, God desires obedience in the small things as well as in the extraordinary good works. Agatho, a desert monk of fourth-century Egypt put it this way: “If an angry man raises the dead, God is still displeased with his anger” (Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated by Owen Chadwick, in “Western Asceticism,” Westminster, 1983; www.PreachingToday.com).
If you want to experience the blessing of obedience, obey God in the little things, as well as the big things. Follow His directions exactly without leaving anything out.
So, how are you doing with that? Have you obeyed God in everything all the time? If you tell me “Yes,” I’ll tell you, “You’re lying.” 1 John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (ESV).
Therefore, all of us are excluded from the blessing of obedience. The Old Covenant system fails, not because IT is bad, but because WE are bad.
Our only hope is Christ, who obeyed God’s law perfectly in all of its details. Then, on the cross, He took the curse of our sin upon Himself, so God could apply His righteousness to our account and bless us unconditionally.
2 Corinthinians 5:21 is very clear: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
God treated Jesus as a sinner so He could treat you and me as saints, that is, those of us who have trusted Christ as Savior. When you depend on Christ, God declares you righteous. Then He begins the process of making you righteous in your everyday life (Hebrews 10:14).
When Anne Graham Lotz and her husband, Denny, attend football games at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina, thousands of people cram in the parking lots, and she can't see where she's going. However, her husband, a head taller at 6'7", can look over the crowd, so he takes her hand and leads them to their seats.
Lotz says, “The way I get from the car to my seat is just by holding his hand and following him closely through the crowd.”
She follows the same procedure with the Lord. “I just try to faithfully follow the Lord step by step and day by day,” she says. “Ten years from now, I just want to look back and know that to the best of my ability I have been obedient to God's call on my life” (Randy Bishop, “Just Give Me Jesus,” Christian Reader, September/October 2000, p.25; www.PreachingToday.com).
Quit trying to obey God in your own strength by your own sheer willpower. You’ll fail every time. Instead, just take the hand of Jesus and let Him lead you on the path of obedience,
If you want to experience the blessing of obedience, obey God as you depend on Christ. In other words, just follow God’s directions. Then…
EXPERIENCE HIS GLORY!
Encounter His overwhelming splendor. Enjoy the brightness of His beauty. That’s what happened to Moses.
Exodus 40:34-35 Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle (ESV).
God’s glory filled the tabernacle and overwhelmed Moses, so that Moses experienced God’s presence like never before. To be sure, He saw God on Mount Sinai. There, God told Moses, “While my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand, and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus 33:22-23). That must have been spectacular, but this was just as spectacular, if not more so. On the mountain, Moses could at least see God’s back. Here, Moses has to keep his distance, because the glory of God’s presence overwhelmed him.
Now, that’s what happens when you do what God tells you to do. You experience the glory of His presence. God shows up in a mighty and powerful way.
You see, God’s company is better than any of His gifts. It’s the chief blessing He offers to those who obey Him.
Tim Keller asks us to imagine being in a situation where you were dating somebody and you seemed to be falling in love. As part of getting to know one another, you let it be known that when you got married you were coming into a significant trust fund. The person who you're falling in love with said, “Oh, really? Well, it doesn't make any difference to me whether you're rich or poor. I love you for who you are.”
Suppose just before the wedding, you learned that you were not going to get that trust fund? When you relayed that to your spouse-to-be, he or she got so disappointed that they called off the wedding. How would you feel? (Rev. Bruce Goettsche, “When Life Gets Slippery”, Union Church Teaching Resources, 10-6-13; www.PreachingToday.com)
You would feel used, because your fiancé stayed with you just for the money.
Tell me. Why do you stick with God? Is it only for His blessings, or do you long for His company, whether He blesses you or not? I hope it’s the latter, because God’s presence will change your life forever. His “blessings” will eventually fade.
Author Philip Yancey describes a moment of profound wonder and awe in Alaska's wilderness. He was driving down the road when he came upon a number of cars pulled off to the edge of the highway. Like any of us would have done, he stopped to see what everyone was looking at. Yancey describes the scene:
Against the slate-gray sky, the water of an ocean inlet had a slight greenish cast, interrupted by small whitecaps. Soon I saw these were not whitecaps at all, but whales—silvery white beluga whales in a pod feeding no more than fifty feet offshore. I stood with the other onlookers for forty minutes, listening to the rhythmic motion of the sea, following the graceful, ghostly crescents of surfacing whales. The crowd was hushed, even reverent. For just that moment, nothing else—dinner reservations, the trip schedule, life back home—mattered. We were confronted with a scene of quiet beauty and a majesty of scale. We felt small. We strangers stood together in silence until the whales moved farther out. Then we climbed the bank together and got in our cars to resume our busy, ordered lives that suddenly seemed less urgent (Steve DeWitt, Eyes Wide Open: Enjoying God in Everything, Credo House Publishers, 2012, p. 68; www.PreachingToday.com).
The glory of those whales transformed their mundane existence, if only for a little while. Now, imagine how the glory of God’s presence can transform your life forever. That’s what happens when you do what God tells you to do. You experience the glory of His presence.
More than that, you experience the glory of His guidance, as well. God not only shows up in a mighty and powerful way. He guides you every step of the way to the Promised Land. That’s what happened to the nation of Israel under Moses.
Exodus 40:36-38 Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys (ESV).
God led them all the way! And God wants to lead you all the way to glory if you choose to follow Him.
She is the most famous celebrity whose name you don’t know. She is the actress who plays Flo in all those Progressive commercials. Yes, she is a real person.
Her name is Stephanie Courtney, who was once a struggling comedian trying to make it big. She sent tapes of her performances to Saturday Night Live, and she drove to failed auditions in a car that didn’t go in reverse—and without the money to get it fixed. Eventually, Courtney landed a small role in an insurance ad, and (as they say) “the rest is history.”
Her comedy career is still non-existent, but she makes millions of dollars a year doing what she never wanted to do for a living. New York Times reporter Caity Weaver once asked Courtney, “Who has a better job than you?”
Courtney replied, “There are times when I ask myself that. The miserable me who didn’t get to audition for ‘S.N.L.’ never would have known, how good life could be when she was denied what she wanted” (Todd Brewer, “Flo Settles for Contentment,” Mockingbird, 12-12-23; Caity Weaver, “Everybody Knows Flo from Progressive. Who Is Stephanie Courtney?” The New York Times, 11-25-23; www.PreachingToday.com).
God may not give you what you want, but He will lead you to places beyond your wildest imagination if you choose to follow Him. Now, I cannot promise you that your bank account will be full, but your life will be full.
In dependence upon Christ, obey God and experience the glory of His presence and His guidance. Just do what He tells you to do and encounter His overwhelming splendor.
Most people never heard of Samuel Pierpont Langley, but in the early 20th Century a lot of people knew him. The U.S. War Department gave him $50,000 to invent a flying machine. He had everything he needed to succeed. Money was no problem. He held a seat at Harvard, worked at the Smithsonian, and was extremely well-connected. He knew and hired the best minds money could buy. The New York Times followed him around everywhere, and lots of people were rooting for Langley; but today, hardly anyone remembers him.
A few hundred miles away in Dayton, Ohio, Orville and Wilbur Wright, had none of what most people consider the recipe for success. The Wright brothers had no money, so they paid for their dream with the proceeds from their bicycle shop. Not a single person on the Wright brothers' team had a college education, not even Orville or Wilbur. And The New York Times followed them around nowhere.
Orville and Wilbur were driven by a cause, by a purpose, by a belief. They believed that if they could figure out this flying machine, it would change the course of the world.
Samuel Pierpont Langley was different. He wanted to be rich, and famous, but that only led to failure. No one remembers him anymore because he failed to build a flying machine.
On the other hand, the Wright brothers had a few people who believed in their dream. Those people shed a lot of blood, sweat, and tears as they worked with the Wright brothers. They tell stories of how every time the Wright brothers went out, they would have to take five sets of parts, because that's how many times they would crash before supper.
However, on December 17th, 1903, the Wright brothers took flight, and no one was there to even experience it. A local paper reported it a few days later, and eventually, the whole world knew what they had done.
What happened to Samuel Pierpont Langley? He quit on the very day the Wright brothers took flight. He wasn't first, he didn't get rich, and he didn't get famous, so he quit (Simon Sinex, “How Great Leaders Inspire Action,” TED Talk, Accessed 4/3/21; www. PreachingToday.com).
The Bible says, “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).
What are you pursuing in life? I urge you. Pursue something bigger than yourself. Pursue God’s will for your life and live forever.
