DO YOU POSSESS OBEDIENCE TOWARD GOD?
Hebrews 5: 7 - 9
When Jesus Christ Walked on this earth He was continuously offering up prayers and petitions with loud cries and real tears UP to the Heavenly Father, who could save Him from this death, The Death that he already knew he had to go through in this life......
And God always heard him because of his reverence and submission and obedience...
Although he was the Son, He learned obedience from what he suffered!! and once he was made perfect, He became our source of eternal life and our promise of salvation, free for all those who will obey Him, and be obedient to HIM!!!
One of the most important things you’ll do as a Christian is you, will continuously work on your character as a Christian...
And in order for you to work on your character you must First : work toward achieving the goals of being obedient as well..Just Like Jesus Did!!! AMEN
And I mean being obedient to God
2nd Corinth 5:17 says:
Therefore if any man be in Christ, He is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new...
Jesus told the Pharisees, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.....
Even though on the outside, the Pharisee’s seemed to be obeying God, on the inside something was very very wrong....
The thing about Christianity is you can have two people doing the exact same thing, BUT
one is blessed and the other is cursed...
And a perfect example of this is back in the Old Testament, look at Cane and Abel!!!
So before you can have the art of obedience you have to take one step back....
Its also about humility...
And this was the same humility that Jesus Christ went through here on earth Himself!!
Hebrews 12:28 says:
Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear:
And it goes on to say in VS: 29
For our God is a consuming fire.....
So here we find that the author of Hebrews which is unknown...was talking about how Moses approached God on Mt. Sinai where there was a burning fire, a storm,
and darkness, and gloom.....
Ole Moses was shaking in his sandals
and the people were terrified as well.
BUT with the coming of Jesus Christ, a new kingdom had to come too!!!
one that was even more glorious than that of Moses time!!!
this IS an eternal kingdom...
And in light of the fact that God is in charge of life and death... that our eternity is in his hands...the last thing we want to do is to take God lightly...AMEN
The life of Jesus Christ gives us an illustration as to what submission is all about...
What does it say Jesus did; that showed submission???
He offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death....
Even though Jesus was God, He approached God the Father as someone that he needed desperately throughout his life. In his humility, He wasn’t using all of His Powers.. So he needed God’s help to keep the devil under foot...
And He needed God to help Him stay strong and to do what God told him to do....
I truly believe that submission to Gods will for our life is so important that until you really get a hold of Jesus’ concept...then God can’t fully bless you the way that He wants to....
We need God in our lives to help us stay strong and to do what God has
called us to do!!!!!!!
Jesus Christ’s life was and still is truly the greatest example of what it means to live and be obedient for God... Jesus gave up all His desires and all his passions...and all His life, into the hands of God and lived a life that said,
NOT MY WILL GOD, BUT THINE BE DONE!!!!!
That’s exactly how we have to live...
Not our wants or our will...
But we have to stay in God’s perfect will!!
So as we pray to God the Father
We should be praying not my way God, but your way!!!!!
not my desires first, God; but yours, Father
And for us to be able to say, Take my life oh God and conform it for your glory...
That is one of the greatest things that you could ever do...
This type of lifestyle can only be done
through obedience and nothin less....AMEN
Way to many of us today find this word obedience...OFFENSIVE!!!!!
We are hearing it as a negative instead of a positive....
Its human nature for us not to want to be told what to do...
Wives What If your Husband said Honey tonight you better have supper ready right at 5 o-clock, and a cold glass of ice tea and my remote on the arm of my favorite recliner..
Just What would the atmosphere be like
at your house that evening?????
Or Husbands
What if you were driving and you were pretty sure you were supposed to turn right up ahead but your wife kept insisting that you turn left....
What would you do????
I know what I’d do!!!!!!
When God leads us and w begin to get a grasp on our bibles and we begin to get into obedience to God...We start firing missiles into every new area around us...witnessing for Jesus Christ in all new ways....and with a whole bunch of new people....and it goes on
and on and on and on.....because of WHAT?????
The most of us find it so hard as we try to comply in certain areas of our lives.....
Way to often we are to busy telling GOD
what we want!! and what we need, to even come close to allowing Him to have our attention long enough to see what His will is for us and our families and our lives.....
Psalms 46:10 says:
BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD
And here’s another verse that way to many of us leave out....
Psalms 4:4 says
Stand in awe (Dread or Terror) and sin not;
commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still!!!!
There’s not any fear of God anymore...
When God calls us to obedience and we listen, Two things will happen:
Heb. 4:7 says
Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts...
#1 God will be glorified....
Rev. 4:11 says:
Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created....
Every thing is created t give God the Glory and that is painfully true when it comes to our obedience......
#2- You will be blessed!!!!
Gen 12:2 says:
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
So you see God wants to bless you BUT
you have to listen to HIM!!!!
And we don’t have to look any further for an example of perfect obedience
Jesus Christ is our perfect example!!!
Turn with me to Mark chap 1 : 9 - 11
14:36
From the beginning right to the very end of Jesus’s Ministry, He wanted to make sure that He was doing what His heavenly Father wanted Him to do....He wanted to make sure that God’s will for his life was being fulfilled!!!!
Obedience is how we put into action what God requires of us!!!!
We have to continuously be examining ourselves in order stay in obedience...
God wants to change you!!!God wants to mold you... and make you more and more in to the image of His Son Jesus Christ...
And the only way to do this is if you’re willing to allow HIM
Little David knew this as he wrote
Psa 119:27
Make me understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works....
He was asking for leadership
in his obedience.....
Psalms 119: 1 - 2
Blessed are the undefiled in the way who walk in the law of the Lord...
Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart!!
Our first step in obedience is seeking God with our whole heart...
If you’re not seeking God with your whole heart your first step right now in the area of obedience is TO START Seeking God!!!
Remember what we said earlier...
How Jesus showed obedience...it was in his prayer life....
He prayed with Loud Cries and Tears...
See Jesus wasn’t to proud to cry to God for help!!!!
Nor was He to sorrowful to beg His Father for help...
Even when he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, he prayed so earnestly to God for help, that his sweat came like drops of blood....
And then on the cross He cried out My God My God, Why hast thou forsaken me...
And finally his last words before he died was:
Father into your hands I commit my spirit..
Jesus did these things because He realized that only God the Father could help him in these trials...He already know that only God could raise him from the dead...and without the cooperation of the Father, He would be nowhere...
He already knew that he couldn’t do it alone
He had to have the power and the strength of our heavenly Father to pull off our Salvation....AMEN
But then what is the Number one thing that happened here.....???????
God heard Him
and not only did He hear Him but He listened to Him...Because of WHAT????
OBEDIENCE!!!!!
God Gave Christ the power and the strength to take the persecution, and the cursing and the beating; to go to the cross; and to die
there for your sins and for mine!!!!!
God’s word told Jesus that he would be led like a lamb to the slaughter...
God’s word told Him that He would be sold for 30 pieces of silver...
And that His hands and feet would be pierced!!!
And the sins of the world would be put upon his shoulders...
And as he experienced that suffering....
He learned just exactly what obedience
was all about!!!!!!!!!!!
As the Son of God Jesus came to accomplish one thing....
To be obedient to His Heavenly Father!!!
We are very similar to this same story of Jesus and obedience.....
Way to many times we have to do lots of suffering....in order to learn obedience!!!
Tonight for you to become Christ like
And to become obedient like Christ was..
There are three things that I’d like to point out to you briefly....and I’ll close..
Number one is that your thought process is gonna be different when you become a Christian.....
The way you think needs to be changed
You won’t be thinking of running around in the bars anymore...You won’t want to drink the alcohol anymore...You won’t want to smoke the cigarettes anymore...
And number two...Your actions are gonna be different....Which is the way you behave
The way you act toward your friends and family...your parents and your teachers your boss and etc. etc.
And thirdly
Your ambitions are gonna be different....
The things important to you are gonna change.....
You’ll want to read your bible and
you’ll be looking forward to wed and sun
and what other days you can go to worship God....
And you’ll want to talk to other people about Jesus...
And you’ll want everybody to go to heaven with you.....
These altars are open tonight for you
Do you want to meet this man that bled and died for your sins on that cruel cross at calvary????
Won’t you come and accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior....
Jesus is among us tonight....
The Holy Ghost is gently tugging at your hearts door.....
Won’t you come into obedience tonight
toward God!!!!
Will you accept Him tonight??????
Please allow us to pray with you tonight!!!
