Sunday, August 15, 2010

Worship is Obedience

"If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching" – John 14:23

Last time we looked at how worship is reverence and service.  We spent most of the time looking at reverence.  Now let’s study up on service.  So look with me, if you will, to the Garden of Eden.  A man and a woman are in perfect communion with God.  And what is the one condition of this communion?  What is the one thing that could maintain this relationship?  What is the one requirement?  Obedience.  Obedience to one, simple command “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”  Mankind has one, simple rule.  It’s not complicated.  It’s not difficult to decipher.  It’s not hard to understand.  Just don’t eat from the tree, the specific tree—you  know—the one in the middle of the Garden.  Yeah that one, right over there. 

We all know the story.  Satan deceives Eve into doubt and disbelief and disobedience with one phrase  “Did God really say…”  If only she wouldn’t have…  Now, before you pickup stones, remember “…whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.” (James 2:10)  Okay, we’re all guilty,  put the stones down,  go ahead,  it’s alright,  God will be the judge.  God will be the judge…and He will be the sacrifice for your sin…and He will be the One extending forgiveness and mercy.

OK, so no big deal right?  WRONG!  Obedience is central to the very core of Christianity.  “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.” (Rom 5:19)  Adam’s sin condemned mankind and Jesus’ obedience provided salvation for it.

Jesus is spending the last time He has alone with His disciples before He “humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Phil 2:8) and what is He sharing with them?  “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.  My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.  He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.” (John 14:23-24) He is sharing the importance of obedience.

He goes on to picture the vine and the branches.  What is the life blood of the vine?  Love.  How do we know we are remaining in the vine?  Obedience.  He shows us His love, and our response should be to obey Him.  “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love…I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.” (John 15:10-14)

What is His joy in us and our joy complete if not the reward of obedience?  Let us obey for the joy His Spirit will give to us.  Let us obey because we feel loved.  And because we love, let us obey.  Remember the greatest commandment?  “Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deut 6:5; Matt 22:37)  God promises to be our God and we must understand “…he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands.” (Deut 7:9)  Love and obedience these are the core of God’s expectations of us.  Love is shown or proven by obedience (John 14:15, 21, 23-24; 15:10; I John 2:3-6; 3:22-24; 5:3; 2 John 6; Rev 12:14).  Obedience requires us to love (Deut 6:5; Matt 22:37).  All the law and the prophets hang on loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself (Matt 22:40) and there is no commandment greater than these (Mark 12:31).  “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands.  As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” (2 John 6)  “This is love for God: to obey his commands…” (1 John 5:3).

“Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.  He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” (John 14:21)  As Andrew Murray points out in his book “The School of Obedience,”

“Read Deuteronomy, with all Moses spoke in sight of the land, and you will find there is no book of the Bible which uses the word 'obey' so frequently, or speaks so much of the blessing obedience will assuredly bring. The whole is summed up in the words (11:27),

“'I set before you a blessing if ye obey, a curse in ye will not obey.'

“Yes, 'A BLESSING IF YE OBEY'! that is the key-note of the blessed life. Canaan, just like Paradise and Heaven, can be the place of blessing as it is the place of obedience. Would God we might take it in! Do beware only of praying only for a blessing. Let us care for the obedience, God will care for the blessing. Let my one thought as a Christian be, how I can obey and please my God perfectly.”

Our loving heavenly Father, we pray you would help us to obey.  Send your Spirit as you promised and wrought within us the power to obey.  Strengthen our minds, sharpen our will, focus our attention, captivate our hearts until we are so in love with you that obedience is the natural free-flowing expression of our love for you. Help us to obey for the pleasure of loving you and becoming like you.  Help our willing spirit overcome our weak flesh.  Let us learn, we pray, the joy and the blessing of obedience.

References
All Scriptures not specified are quoted from Life in the Spirit Study Bible (NIV). Stamps, Donald C., and John Wesley Adams. Life in the Spirit Study Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2003. Print.