obey

"Obedience"; From a teaching perspective I love that word. Every single person here knows what it means. It's not some dusty "churchy" word. We use it at home with the kids; and whether we like it or not, it comes into play at our jobs.

But if words had press agents, I'm not sure the one for "obedience" has painted a very attractive persona. When we think of "obedience" we think of authority figures; drill sergeants, ruler tapping teachers, state troopers with radar detectors, or a place we take a dog to be brought into line.

When my friend who cuts my hair asked what I was speaking on this week and I said, "Obeying God," she let out a groan that was akin to a notification of an IRS audit.

And here's some happy news. All of Christianity rides on obedience. Check out this passage from Romans,

"Through Him (Jesus)we received graceto call peopleto the obedience that comes from faith." Romans 1:5

The whole Christianity picnic is spread out on the blanket of obedience. When we become a Christ follower, we pray a prayer of accepting God's grace through Christ and we pray for Him to be the leader of our life. Why??;

Ultimately the reason is "because He says so!" Because in His Word, that's what He tells us we're supposed to do; that's the program He gave us.

We may wrestle with the concept of giving our life to Him, but eventually we submit and become "obedient" to His plan. Then after we come into that relationship, life is a series of events and situations that we must choose to go our way or God's way. Like Lenny Kravitz said in the prelude this morning, "Are you gonna go my way?" Are we gonna choose to be obedient?

(ball) Guys, do you remember how every childhood argument ended when you were 8 years old? Either you said or your friend said, "Look--It's MY ball, so if you don't like it, you can just get on home!"

In a similar sense, as a Christ follower, our life is God's ball. And even though many of our decisions about Christianity and within the context of Christianity are made because it "makes sense to us,"; or because we "FEEL it's the right thing to do";

The bottom line is that the most important reason we do what we do as a Christ follower is because our life is His ball and as such, we do it for the reason we naturally loathe; which is, "Because He said so." (lose ball)

Ouch! Doesn't THAT stick in your craw?! If there was ever a reason for doing something throughout my entire life that I HATED; it's "Because so-n-so said so!"

If it's at home or work, I want to know WHY I have to do something. And now my son, Slater, is living there these days. He'll stand right next to me and hold on to my shirt with both hands and throw his head back; and in that sweet yet whiney 5 year old tone, he presses me with, "But why dad? Why do I have to?"

WHY do we ask "why" we should do something? Why does my son, Slater, ask me "why"? Simple; it's so he, and you and me; so WE can decide whether if it's a good enough reason.

Our nature is that we prefer life "a-la carte!" I want to CHOOSE! I don't naturally have a desire to obey authority figures. That was my whole motivation for growing up! As Billy Joel sang, "I don't care what you say anymore, this is MY life!"

And in response to that; it's as if in a Holy Psychiatry office, God sits there in a perfect cardigan sweater with one finger along the side of His perfect face and says to us--- figuratively lying there whining on the couch,

"I'm hearing you say you feel the need to wield decision making power." To which we anxiously nod our head in agreement.

He then says in His grace and irony, "There! Since your need to make decisions is sooo great; I give you the gift of free will."

He then hands us an Old Testament, a New Testament and says, "Take two of these and call me in the morning; but only if that's what you WANT to do." (pause)

And you know; honestly; I really believe most of us want to be obedient to God. But things get in the way. Maybe you're like me and you CAN do just about anything you set your mind to; for about a day and a half!!

For instance, it's easy to realize our need to pray. Throughout His Word, God's pretty clear about it. But perhaps we're good about it during our "Prayer of Jabez" series or for the next week or so after the New Believers class. But then a month or so later, our roaring fire for prayer might barely scorch a marshmallow. Our genes just weren't equipped with that "stick-to-it-ive-ness" that other people seem to have. Maybe that's why we have trouble with obedience?

To get us into what may be another problem with obedience, let's bring in your favorite part of the service; Of course it's time for Morgan's Who's Who!

This is Albert Einstein. And Albert Einstein said, "Everything should be as simple as possible, but no simpler."

Have you ever heard someone say they thought Christianity, and knowing God's will was complicated and mysterious? Or that they wished God would just tell them what He wanted in their life?; That they would be GLAD to do what God wants in their life if they just KNEW what it was?

Friends, when God created the Bible for us, He made hearing His words and His will for our life as simple and as accessible as possible. It could be arguable what percentage of life's issues the Bible covers; 100%?; 90%; 85%?

For the sake of argument, I think it's a safe generalization that His Word covers much more of life than it doesn't. I've got one inexpensive topical concordance that has over 3,700 topics covered in the Bible.

I do know it may be hard to discern whether God wants you take the upcoming promotion or if you should look for a new house now or next summer. But, there are many more less mysterious and pertinent things He makes very clear; about our marriage; about our children; about our relationship with Him; about our relationship with people that don't yet know Him;

I say all that to say that mystery and confusion can become pale alibis for not knowing what to be obedient about. Sometimes I wonder when we act as though Christianity is mysterious and confusing;

I wonder if when God hears that, He scratches His head and then thumbs through the Bible muttering something like, "Sheesh, I thought I included so much; I know I went on a bit in Leviticus and I'll give them Revelation; but c'mon!; "

My point is that God really has made understanding what we are to be obedient about quite simple, for the most part. Yes?

Let me wrap this section with this; the essence of obedience is NOT just about being able to keep your shoulder to the wheel, or stick-to-it-ive-ness and it's not just about unraveling all the mysteries about God.

"If anyone loves me, he will obey my teachingHe who does not love me will not obey my teaching." John 14:23-24

"Know therefore that the LORDis the faithful God, keeping His covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep His commands." Deuteronomy 7:9

"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

Friends, we have to understand that obedience is not obedience for obedience sake. Obedience to God is not simply about self-discipline. Obedience to God is not about how much we know about God. Both the most determined and most intelligent Christ followers, have missed the boat without the foundational motivation of love for Christ.

In simple fashion, all of those Scriptures were crystal clear that obedience flows out of love. That love and obedience are woven together in His plan. It's His ball and the rule is obey out of love.//

All of us; all humans are born to love. Springsteen thought we were born to run, but the truth is we were born to love;

Let me show you what I mean (bring out golf cart). At just the SIGHT of this, the person sitting next to you; their heart beat just increased; perhaps their eyes lit up and they thought, "MANnow THIS is church!" Let's look inside; (kind of club; glove; OakBrook golf balls)

I bet the person who owns these has a subscription to Golf Digest?; or else covets thy neighbor's Golf Digest.

I bet the person who owns these never has to be "gently reminded" by their spouse that enough time has been spent working around the house; "What?! It's time for Golf again; (mockingly downcast)Alright."

I bet the person who owns these has no problem wanting to "invest" in new golf shoes, new golf balls, or the newest biggest Bertha.

The person who owns these, loves golf. Their mind thinks about it, they buy magazines to study it and "ooh and aah" over the latest greatest stuff associated with it. And ultimately, we see how much they love by seeing them on the course. Our loves play out in our thoughts and actions.

Right now we could go row by row and ask every single person what they love. And every person would have an answer on the tip of their tongue.

My wife would tell you she loves cooking and making food that tastes and looks good; and she could show you a stack of "Taste of Home" magazines that's large enough to heat a small third world country, should it catch fire.

I would tell you that I love drums and music. My wife would tell you I already have enough "stupid" drums and CDs!----As if someone could EVER have enough drums and CDs??!!!!

Friends, here's the tip of the day; our heart, mind, and most noticeably, our hands and our feet will NATURALLY follow what we love. (repeat)

OK, perhaps we can see how love plays out in our lives and that we are people who naturally love. But playing golf and playing the drums and cooking food aren't exactly good examples of obedience.

So with that in mind let me share this with you. I have a very good friend that I've known for about 10-12 years now. We're the kind of friends that when there's a project that needs done around the house we call each other. (We have a pact that we won't share or craftsmanship-challenged ineptitude with anyone else!)

When we have to drop off a car at the shop, we call each other. When there's painting to be done, we call each other. When he put up a fence, he called me. When we put a roof on, he was one of the first and last ones there. We've replaced commodes together. Put up doors. Painted apartments and houses. Cleaned garages and done yard work together.

(Before I go on, you'll just have to get past the issue that after all those projects were finished, it looked like Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder left music to go into the home remodeling business; )

Seriously; neither of us are really gifted in those departments. I DO NOT look forward to home fix-it jobs, in the least. Home fix-it jobs are to me what kryptonite is to Superman. BUT, when my friend calls, my response is always, "What time do you need me there?" And the same is true on his end.

The reason he comes right over is based on our relationship; it's not for a love of carpentry; it's out of love for me. When I go to his house it ain't because I'm a plumber, but out of my love for him; I go because of the relationship, not for the task.

This is the same model of how obedience to God works. Our obedience flows out of our relationship with Him. It's not that we love the task initially, it's that we love God, or we want to love God.

My point is; that when God makes it onto the list of things we love; somehow our obedience problem seems to diminish. As our love for God increases; our trouble with obedience decreases. (repeat) //

You're probably wondering by now what this velvet rope is for. This is your velvet rope; and this is my velvet rope. And when God calls us to be obedient to Him; what He's really asking is to be included in a particular area of our life.

Like I said earlier, God gave us free will. So like a good friend said to me a couple weeks ago, we're like little museum curators who keep certain areas of our life roped off and subtly tell God, "Don't touch"; "No one allowed beyond this point."

When you think about it, our life with Christ is just a series of velvet ropes. If you're here today and you've never accepted Jesus Christ; well, first of all, thanks for making time to be here.

And you need to know that your whole life is still behind a velvet rope. God stands on the other side and He patiently waits and He says, "I'll take you just as you are; I'd love to come in there; I'd love to take all the junk you've been carrying and just wash it away; I'd love to adopt you into my family; No, don't clean yourself up first.";

Then the question is ours; will we unhook the velvet rope and let Him in; will we take Him up on His offer of grace; of unconditional love?; Will we take this very first step of obedience and unhook the rope?

For everyone else, God is like a precocious kid who goes to all the virtual inner rooms of our life, and He says, "What's in there?; Can I come in there?; I'd really like get my hands on the stuff in there!"

When we unhook the velvet rope and we submit our obedience to God; we let God into our marriage; our job; our worship; our relationship with our kids; our bodies; our minds.

Friends, with everything under the sun, in our lives, we eventually decide whether to unhook the rope and let God in, and submit that area of our life, or our whole life, to His authority. Or we decide to leave it up.

I love the irony of God. God is all powerful. He's the same God that parted the Red Sea; But only you and I have the power to unhook the velvet rope.

And honestly, I don't know if you and I will ever see a day on earth when we run out of velvet ropes; rather we just get better at unhooking them. (pause)

When it comes to obedience I think the question we have to honestly ask ourselves is, "How much of God am I looking for?"

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please; not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep; but just enough to equal a cup of warm milk, or a snooze in the sunshine; I don't want enough of Him to make we want to love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation; I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please." (big pause)

My whole life, I have stood at the velvet rope and determined how much of God, if any, I was going to let in. I was in my early 20s before I let him in at all. Then there were several years after that, where I left Him standing in the foyer and allowed Him no more access than that, with most of my life still roped off.

I remember the struggle, that took YEARS, before I came to Christ. I thought, "I don't really want my life to be like 'THOSE' people!" In a lot of respects, I LIKED my lifestyle. And even after coming into a relationship with Christ; there were similar struggles. "Hey I like the way I talk; where I spend time on the weekends; the kind of things I like to do!"

What we say when we make those kinds of statements, are statements about what we love. For a long time, I loved my lifestyle more than I love God. I liked being able to avoid difficult conversations with people I was close to, more than I loved God. And the bitter pill God has led me to swallow in past months is, I loved how I preferred to eat, more than I loved God.

I saw God's ironic humor when I unhooked the velvet rope in the area of food in my life. Then God hooked it back up, across the front of the pantry; -)

Do you want to know the biggest lesson God has revealed to me this year? It's that my hands and my feet clearly follow what I love, NOT what I say I love. (repeat) There's a strong cup of holy espresso for all of us in that statement.

If we want to grow in obedience, we have to look at our life; we have to LOOK to see what our minds, hands, feet and checkbooks follow. Because those are the things we REALLY love. My mind is easily mislead; it will say that I love God with all my mind, body, heart and soul. By my feet and my hands will be the proof of that. //

Let's look at the truly amazing Experience with God, that happens when we obey. In the $3 Worth of God piece, the author wrote, "I want ecstasy, not transformation."

In simplest terms, transformation for a Christ follower is loving things and people we could never imagine loving. And it's turning away from areas in our lives that we thought we never could turn away from.

Out of our loving obedience, God transforms and amazes us with our own new--transformed behavior we never thought possible.

This is transformation for me; once I couldn't imagine being a Christ follower; now I work in a church as a Minister of the Gospel----now I can't imagine any other way of life;

If you would have told me in Dec. that by today I would have lost 42 lbs. through simply adjusting how I eat; I would have told you it would be easier to fly to the moon. But, God is transforming how I deal with this area of my life.

When we submit ourselves as obedient to what God clearly tells us, He transforms us into people that love His ways more than our ways. His love makes our heart, our mind and our desire do a 180º! Our hands and our feet will follow after what we love. And the more we love Him, the more we will unhook the velvet rope and embrace obedience.

"But if anyone obeys His Word, God's love is made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him."

Since January of this year, God has made me so vividly made aware of how in all the areas of my stubbornness; areas that I kept the velvet rope up for so long; that the whole time He was just on the other side of it; that in my pride and refusal to go His way; He stood and waited the entire time.

And when I unhooked the velvet rope; what I got was His unconditional love; not a lecture; I have been so moved by His amazing love that wouldn't give up on me; amazing love that waited for me to come to His senses.

I gave him my pride and obedience and He gave me love and transformation. He gave me amazing love.

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from His love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't, and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." -Romans 8:38-39 NLB

We have talked about a lot of great stuff in this Experiencing God series. We talked about how He invites us to join His works. We've talked about how we hear God speak. About how that often leads us to a crisis of what we truly believe. And last week Mark Matthews told us how that leads to adjustments in our lives.

Friends in our walk as a Christ follower, there's nothing more important than our love for Christ. Our love of Christ is the holy fuel that enables us to make adjustments, to be obedient, to become transformed.

In Matthew, a Pharisee asked Jesus, "'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?' Jesus replied, 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.'" Matthew 22:36-38

When I thought I had a weight problem; God showed me I have a heart problem---that my hands and feet follow what I love rather than what I say that I love. He wanted me to unhook the velvet rope and make Him the most important thing in that area of my life.

I haven't worked on my weight as much as I've been trying to love God and look for ways to weave Him through my days and nights. As I've focused more on God and less on food, God has been transforming me spiritually and physically.

God made following Him as simple as possible but no simpler, when He told us the greatest commandment was to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

As the worship team comes up I'd like to share a true story with you. And this story has a singular purpose; to show us why loving God IS the greatest command. And after this story, we will engage in worship. The reason worship is so important is that it is a powerful obedience that God uses to transform our hearts to love Him more. Here's the true story.

The Sunday before Easter, the TV show, Good Morning America, interviewed an old Jewish man who lived in New York City. They went behind his house and he had erected a makeshift altar of old stones and rocks that he had piled up and every day he went out to that pile of rocks and gave thanks.

His story was that he was a prisoner in Ravensbrook Concentration Camp in WW II Germany; And as he was there, every evening the German guards would call out a number and whoever represented that number, they would drag him to the middle of the yard, put a bullet in a gun and shoot him in the head.

While they were doing it, they would announce over the loud speaker, "We're doing this because we're powerful and strong and the Jews are dogs. And the only reason we don't kill all of you is that bullets are too valuable."

It was a tough thing to go through, and especially one evening when his number was called and he just broke down and cried and yelled,

"No, that can't be the right number. Please somebody, you don't understand. I have a wife and kids who are out there. I need to be a dad. I'll change my life God, anything, help me!"

They were just dragging him forward like everybody else who had pleaded for mercy. As he was about half way through the yard a Catholic priest, also a prisoner at Ravensbrook, raised his hand and said in German, "I'll take his place." The German guards unbelievably stopped, shrugged their shoulders, went to the Catholic priest, dragged him to the middle, put a bullet in a gun and shot him in the head. Three months later that man was free having survived the hideous concentration camp.

When the TV crew went to the man's house, they showed his family and his friends, and his extended family, and children, and great- grandchildren and all of that was possible because of a Catholic priest who raised his hand and took his place.

And then they showed him alone with this pile of rocks, and he said with tears in his eyes, "I never knew that man's name. But every morning at 6 am, I come out to this altar and give thanks to the man who raised his hand and took my place."

And my friends; that story is our story. It's a story about Jesus of Nazareth who raised His hand to take my place; to pay for my sin. And He took your place; and He paid for your sin.

When I need to get in touch with my love of Christ, I have to go to the cross---much like the old Jewish man went to his alter; to give thanks; and to remember what was done for me.

The cross is a place where a King raised His hand and took my place; a place where he was condemned and that made my acceptance into His family possible. He raised His hand and died for me knowing that many a day, I would stand by my velvet rope and keep Him at arms length.

Friends in just a minute we are going to raise this roof in worship. We are able to worship because He raised His hand and took our place. If you're a Christ follower and you don't like worship, you're uncomfortable singing around other people;

Then I'm pleading with you right now---- to unhook the velvet rope in this area of worship in your life and be obedient and simply sing with us; not from your great voice but from your heart of appreciation for a King that's died for you.

Let's all unhook the velvet rope as we sing these truths; as we acknowledge and thank Him for raising his hand and taking our place.