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.

First Use of Worship in the Bible

One of the rules of hermeneutics (the interpretation of Scripture) is the law of first mention.  Usually the first mention of a topic in the Bible is indicative of the rest.  It gives us a snapshot, a context, a reference point of how the topic should be viewed and interpreted in the rest of the Bible.

Genesis 22 contains the first mention of worship in the Bible.  Let us look closely at this passage to gain insights about worship.

    ¹ Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!"
      "Here I am," he replied.

Ø Abraham was actively listening and responded in submission.  His initial openness and attentiveness led to further instructions from God.

    ² Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about."

    ³ Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about.

Ø Abraham obeyed the instructions he received from God.

Ø Abraham made preparations for the sacrifice.  He came prepared.

⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you."

The word worship here is defined by Strong's as to prostrate, pay homage to God, bow, humbly beseech, do obeisance, do reverence,... worship

             

            Hebrews 11:17-19  ¹⁷By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, ¹⁸even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." ¹⁹Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and figuratively speaking, he did receive Isaac back from death.

Ø Abraham had faith in what God had promised him, that thourgh Isaac his lineage would be maintained.  He believed (had faith that) he and his son would return, even if God had to raise him from the dead.  Abraham over-came his personal obstacles to worship.

    ⁶ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?"      

"Yes, my son?" Abraham replied.
      "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?"  ⁸ Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together.

Ø Abraham had faith that God would provide the sacrifice.  He understood that where God leads, He provides.

    ⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son.

Ø Abraham was ready to sacrifice that which was extremely important to him in honor of God. It was a sacrifice of love.

Ø Abraham was tested in is belief in what God had spoken to him.  He had a total abandonment to God’s will.

¹¹ But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!"
      "Here I am," he replied.

Ø Here again Abraham is actively listening and immediately responding to God.

¹² "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

Ø Abraham feared God. He held God in reverence or awe and dared not to disobey Him.  God was testing Abraham’s obedience with something He Himself had promised and something Abraham truly cherished.  God was asking Abraham to lay down the thing of most importance.  After all, God was not asking Abraham to do anything He would not.

Romans 8:32  He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?

 ¹³ Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram ^[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided."

Ø Here God provides where He has led.  Verse 14 is translated “And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh. As it is said to this day, In the mount of Jehovah it shall be provided. ” in the American Standard Version.  This is the only place I found in the Bible where God is called Jehovah-Jireh or Jehovah will see (to it).

 ¹⁵ The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring ^[b] all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me."

Ø Great Sacrifice is rewarded with Great Blessing.  God promises that through Abraham’s lineage the Messiah will come and all mankind will be blessed through Abraham’s seed.

Romans 12:1-2  ¹Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual^[reasonable] act of worship. ²Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Here is the essence of worship -- when we actively listen to God and respond immediately with total obedience and reverence, no matter the cost, He will reveal Himself to us as our provider, provide for us, and bless us for our 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.