Sermon Central
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Knowing God Through Obedience
Contributed by Marty Roark on Aug 22, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: In a society where independence, self-determination and equality are so important in our daily lives, how can something like obedience even still exist!
KNOWING GOD THROUGH OBEDIENCE
3 We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands.
4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him:
6 Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
There are a lot of things in this life that we have no problem doing but for the most part being obedient to anyone is not one of them.
Obey! That’s one word that is not gonna get a lot of Amen’s, AMEN!
We just don’t like to hear it.
In a society where independence, self-determination and equality are so important in our daily lives, how can something like obedience even still exist anyway!
What it comes down to is this: we have a will and it is going in this direction. If your will matches up, fine! If it doesn’t, see you later.
The problem with this is that God calls each of us to be obedient and as far as I can tell, this obedience is not conditional.
3 We know that we have come to know Him if we obey his commands.
This does not say that we have to come to know Him if we only sometimes do what He commands, or we have come to know Him if we really want to do what He commands but we just can’t seem to find the time in our life right now.
It says here that we can only know we know Him if we do what he command us to do.
It then goes on to say something else we’re probably not gonna like:
4 The man who says, "I know him," but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Here it tells us that if we fall into that group that only does part of what he commands or thinks about doing what he commands but just can’t seem to make time for but we still call ourselves a Christian, then we are a liar and the truth is not in us.
We are not called to question the command but to simply obey it.
Probably one of the best examples of obedience is Peter.
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd.
23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,
24 but the boat was already a considerable distance[a] from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.
26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It’s a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid."
28 "Lord, if it’s you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."
29 "Come," he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
Now I want to say something to you that may sound a little strange.
Peter did not walk on the water, he walked on the Word!
It was because of his obedience that he was able to step out of that boat and begin to walk toward Jesus.
Notice something else here,
30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"
It was not until he began to doubt that he started having problems.
It is as if he was saying, wait a minute here, this is a little much with all these waves and wind, I am walking on water and I’m pretty sure that’s impossible.
But we fail to realize that with God, nothing is impossible:
26 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.
27 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God."
37 For nothing is impossible with God."
27 Jesus replied, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."
It really becomes an issue with priorities.
