Looking Through the Eyes of Jesus...We See Obedience

PASTOR BURCHAM'S SERMON

Sunday, February 20, 2005

Earlier this week, I was watching the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show . Yes, that's right. 110 channels beamed digitally clear via satellite and that's the best I could do. But that's alright. I'm watching the dog show. Something, though, struck me as odd, probably no one else struck odd, but as the commentators were talking back and forth, you'd hear phrases like, “Now if you're going to have this breed for your own, you're going to have to take him to obedience school. Otherwise, he'd be pretty hard to handle.” Or a couple of times, they'd talk about the dogs that are being led around. They'd say, “Now that one, boy, he's an obedient pup. He's doing exactly what his handler wants. He knows what his master wants, and he's delivering. That's a good, obedient dog there.”

Nobody else probably thought anything about that. In fact, haven't we come to expect when we talk about dogs, we say things like “obedience school.” We talk about a dog obeying his master and being obedient. Well, my mind works a little bit differently, as you probably know. And I was thinking about this message, so I thought to myself, “Now I wonder if those same statements were made not about dogs but about people, I wonder how well they'd be received?” Not too well, I don't think. For instance, you can say that, “He's a good faithful employee,” but you probably wouldn't say, “He's an obedient worker.” You might say, “He's a good husband,” but you probably wouldn't say, “Boy, he obeys his wife well.”

There's something culturally about the word “obey” and being obedient that we see in a negative light. We have the connotation if somebody is obeying or if somebody is being obedient, then someone else stronger, larger is imposing their will upon that person. We see obedience and obeying as a weakness, that someone stronger is forcing their will upon someone who is weaker. Now having said that, then what do we do with scripture? What do we do with God's Word that, from cover to cover, talks about obedience? And it talks about how we should obey God. Already in the Book of Deuteronomy, the people are about to enter into the promise land. God speaks through Moses, and He says, “Here you go, Israel , and be careful to obey so that it will go well with you.” Or the prophet Jeremiah talking and lamenting about his people. He says, “From the time I brought your forefathers up out of Egypt and even to today I warned them again and again, obey me.” How about Jesus Himself in the Gospel of John 14? “If you love me, you will obey what I have commanded.” From cover to cover, we have all kinds of instances of God saying we should be obedient, God telling us that we should obey. In fact, the word “obey” occurs 238 times and the word “obedient” another 27 times. There's a lot in scripture that talks about obeying and being obedient. In fact, scripture not only talks about us being obedient but did you catch it in that Philippians passage I read just a moment ago, Philippians 2: “And though being found in the fashion of a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient, obedient unto death, even death on a cross.” That's Jesus they're talking about there, that Jesus became obedient to the Father's will. In fact, He obeyed the Father's will even to the point of giving up His life, not only giving up His life but giving up His life through crucifixion. Scripture talks not only about how we should be obedient, but it describes how Jesus was obedient.

Therefore, I think we need to take a fresh look at the word “obedient” and the word “obey.” What we need to do is we need to stop looking through the eyes of this society, looking through the eyes of culture. Instead, let's look through the eyes of Jesus. Look through the eyes of Jesus and understand what it means in scripture to obey, what it means to be obedient according to God's Word.

The first thing we're going to discover is that obedience is about a relationship. See, obedience isn't something negative. Obedience isn't somebody forcing something on somebody else, and it's not about God forcing us to do something. Obedience flows and stems from a relationship. It did with Jesus. It was Jesus' relationship with His Father that led Him to be obedient and to obey His Father. Jesus described for us in the Gospel of John that there was a connection between Him and the Father. He says, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Now we understand the God head of the trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit but as Jesus takes on flesh and blood, and as a man, He's saying there's a connection between my heavenly Father and me. There is a relationship between the two of us. And because of that relationship, then Jesus is obedient to the Father. You see, Jesus isn't obedient because the Father is making Him. It's not like God the Father said, “Son, you have to go to earth.” It's not like God the Father said, “You must suffer and die on the cross.” It wasn't God forcing it upon Him but instead, it was Jesus willfully, of His own volition, choosing to do so.

Go back again to that Philippians passage in Chapter 2. What did it say? It said, “He humbled Himself.” That's Jesus humbled Himself. In other words, the Father didn't humble Jesus. The Father didn't bring down the screws and kind of make Him do what He wanted Him to do. No, Jesus Himself humbled Himself. Jesus Himself set aside His divine powers for a time. He didn't use them all the time. Sure, He used them when He healed the sick, made the blind see, the lame walk, but He didn't use them all the time. He chose not to. He chose to humble Himself, even to the point of allowing sinful men to nail Him to a cross, even to the point of breathing His last and dying. But it was Jesus who chose to do that. In fact, Jesus Himself said as much in the Gospel of John, talking about Him giving up His life. He says, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” Jesus of His own accord lays down His life. See, it isn't the Father forcing Him. It's because the Son has a relationship with the Father and, because of that loving relationship of Father to Son, so flows out of that Jesus' obedience. So it was Jesus' inner most desire to follow the Father's will, to obey the Father's will.

You and I, if we're going to obey God and be obedient to God, it has to flow out of a relationship with God. Specifically, it has to flow out of our relationship with Jesus. Otherwise, it's not obedience. Scripture tells us that we can do nothing good on our own. In fact, scripture says that nothing we do is pleasing in God's sight unless it is done out of faith. Only things that are done out of faith are counted good in God's eyes. Only things that are done out of faith are counted righteous in God's eyes. That means, unless it's done in faith, then we can't please God and we can't obey God. Only in our faith relationship with Jesus Christ can we do things which are pleasing, can we do things which are good. Only through our faith relationship can we be obedient to God. In other words, we're not being obedient to God because He set the standard that we have to live up to, otherwise we're going to be punished. We're not being obedient to God so we can somehow dodge the bullet and not have His wrath come down upon us. We're not being obedient so we can score points with God so He can look down upon us and say, “Well, you're better than her, I have to tell you.” That's not what it's about. Obedience flows from a faith relationship with God, which means that obedience has just as much to do with our attitude as our actions. Obedience has just as much to do with our attitude as it does our actions, because it's our attitude towards God. It's our response towards God. You see, once you come face to face with God's love and I mean face to face, once you hit that point in your life where you are so guilt ridden, when you have such shame in your life that you don't know which way to turn and you hear that God has completely forgiven you, that God chooses not to remember your sins anymore, when you know and believe in your heart that you can walk out that door as a new person, a new man, a new woman, and leave all of the garbage behind, when you come face to face with God's love, a love that's so great that He's willing to lay down His life for us, there's something that wells up inside of you. It wells up inside of you and you want to respond. And what your inner most desire to do is to please God, which means you want to obey God. You want to be obedient, not in the negative sense but in all of the positive senses. Once you realize that Jesus lived and died for you, you want to live for Him. You want to live according to His ways. You want to walk the path that He walked. Obedience. It's about a relationship, your relationship with God.

And obedience is about trust in that relationship. It's about our trust in God and our trust that He knows best. It was Jesus' trust in the Father that led Him to be obedient to His Father, trusting and believing that His Father had a plan and that His plan was the right plan. You see, from the very beginning, Jesus understood that He was going to have to give up His life for us. He knew that before He left heaven, so He came into this world. He took on flesh and blood, knowing that He'd have to lay down His life. But He became a human being, completely a human being, and as a human being, He wanted to hold onto this life, just like you and I want to hold onto our life. We may know that heaven's up there, but we want to hold onto this life. Jesus wanted to hold onto this life. But, because He trusted the Father, because He believed the Father had a plan, a bigger plan, a greater plan, Jesus was obedient. Even at His darkest moment there in the Garden of Gethsemane , as He falls to His knees and He prays to God, He says, “God, isn't there another way? Father, does it have to be the cross? Do I have to go through hell? Isn't there another way?” But He ends that prayer with trust. He says,”But not my will, Father, yours.” Jesus knew the pain, physical and spiritual, of the cross but yet He trusted the Father. He trusted and believed the Father had a plan, the plan, the only plan.

You and I obey God when we trust Him. We're obedient to God when our relationship turns into our hearts so we trust God, that we really believe He has a plan and that His plan is better than our plans, that God has a much broader view than we do and God can see things clearer than we can see them and so we trust and believe His way is the right way.

Now let's be honest, when things are going well, that's not too tough, is it? When things are going great, things are going your way, “Hey, I'm obeying God. I'm walking the straight and narrow. Just you and me, God. We're going down this way and everything is wonderful.” But as soon as life starts to unravel, that's when trust kicks in. That's when trust kicks in. Trust kicks in when you have to decide are you going to trust God and follow His ways or are you going to follow the ways of the world? Because what you're going to find out is there are a lot of ungodly people out there who are despising God, rejecting God, doing everything against God and they're doing well for themselves and they're prospering. And the more they prosper, it seems the more you're not prospering. And when you're hit face to face with that, that's when you have to decide do you trust God? Are you going to obey God? Are you going to stay obedient to God? What I mean is when everyone else is doing well on the biology test because they're cheating because the teacher doesn't pay attention, are you going to stay true? Are you going to follow God's way or their way? Are you going to trust? It means when your pal tells you about a little line item on the IRS form most people don't know about, IRS it's a one in a million chance they'll audit you anyway, you can just scribble down a few numbers, you do the calculations. It's going to save you two grand. What are you going to do? God's way? Or their way? Are you going to trust and believe that His way is the right way, the best way? What about when your loved one is laying flat on their back in the hospital and they've taken care of themselves. They've been healthy their whole life. You see other people who abuse their body and they're doing great. They're not in the hospital. Are you going to believe that God's way is the best way? See, that's when trust gets in. That's when the promises of God come in. And you say even though I can't see it, I know all things work together for the good of those who love Him. And I'm going to trust and believe that God has a better plan than I have, that God's vision is greater than my vision. That's when trust kicks in. That's when we obey God, because of the relationship we have with Him.

And then obedience is about the blessings of God. It's about the blessings that God showers upon us. It's the blessings that God showers upon because Jesus was obedient. Where would we be if Jesus was not obedient to the Father, if Jesus didn't obey the Father unto death, even death on a cross? But because Jesus was obedient, each and every one of us can walk out of here with a clean conscience. Because Jesus was obedient, we don't have to have shame and guilt in our life. Because Jesus was obedient, we can walk in confidence throughout life. Because Jesus was obedient, we can stand by the grave side of a loved one. And because of the faith in their heart, we know they're in heaven and eternal joy. And we know that one day we'll be there too. Because Jesus was obedient, He's given us a new life. The blessings of God. God even talks about the blessings to us when we obey Him. The blessings are that we return to the original relationship God had designed. Think about it for a moment. If we're obeying God, if we're in step with God, we've returned to the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden before sin was there. The perfect relationship between God and man. When we're obedient to God, we're walking in His ways. We've got that relationship once again. Now this side of heaven we know that because of sin, we're going to fall out of that. We know we're not going to enjoy it constantly but we can still come back to it. We can follow God's path, enjoy that relationship. We know that when we're faced with tough decisions, difficult choices, we have a trusted source for truth. We have God's Word and His leading and His guiding and they can be trusted. It gives us an inner confidence, an inner peace. It's the blessings of obedience, of obeying God.

You see, obedience isn't negative, not in God's eyes. It isn't something being forced upon us. Now you look through the eyes of Jesus and you see that obedience is about a relationship, your relationship with Jesus. It's about trust, trusting that God knows best.

Let's pray. Christ, through obedience, you followed the Father's will. In fact, it was your inmost desire, because of your love for Him and your love for us, you laid down your life. You even laid it down on a cross. Jesus, we desire to obey you to walk in your ways. We desire we would be so touched by your love and forgiveness that we're going to lead a life that is worthy of this calling we have. We're going to lead a life that follows the path that you laid before us, so give us your spirit. Give us your power. Let us be obedient to you. In your name we pray, Amen.

Copyright 2005 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church