As we conclude our series “Knowing and Experiencing God,” it has been my prayer that each and every one of us would experience God and the work of his Holy Spirit in our life in a very real, personal, and powerful way. We would move into a closer relationship with our loving heavenly Father. A relationship where we are attentive to God, where we listen to God’s voice, and desire to do his will, not our own. I believe that if we are truly attentive to God, we will discover he is inviting us to join him in his ongoing work in lives of people around us. In other words we have a part to play in God’s plan. Then each of us has a choice to make, a decision, will we obey God and make the adjustments in our life (or allow God to make the adjustments) Last week we talked about adjustments in our beliefs, relationship, thinking, behavior, priorities and commitments, finances, location, goals, dreams, and desires. In order to join God sometimes major adjustments may be necessary.
Illustration
This past week I received an email from Dale, one of those forwarded stories, but this one I feel fit perfectly with what we’ve been talking about.
A young man had been to Wednesday Night Bible Study. The Pastor had shared about listening to God and obeying the Lord’s voice. The young man couldn’t help but wonder, ’Does God still speak to people?’
After service, he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways. It was about ten o’clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray, ’God...If you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey.’ As he drove down the main street of his town, he had the strangest thought to stop and buy a gallon of milk. He shook his head and said out loud, ’God is that you?’ He didn’t get a reply and started on toward home. But again came the thought, buy a gallon of milk.
’Okay, God, in case that is you, I will buy the milk.’ It didn’t seem like too hard a test of obedience. He could always use the milk. He stopped and purchased the gallon of milk and started off toward home. As he passed Seventh Street he had a crazy thought that he should turn down the street, but he drove on past the intersection. Again, he felt that he should turn down Seventh Street. So at the next intersection, he turned back and headed down Seventh Street.
Half jokingly, he said out loud, ’Okay, God, I will.’
He drove several blocks, when suddenly, he felt like he should stop. He pulled over to the curb and looked around. He was in a semi- commercial area of town. It wasn’t the best but it wasn’t the worst of neighborhoods either. The businesses were closed and most of the houses looked dark like the people were already in bed.
Again, he sensed something, ’Go and give the milk to the people in the house across the street.’ The young man looked at the house. It was dark and it looked like the people were either gone or they were already asleep. He started to open the door and then sat back in the car seat.
’Lord, this is insane. Those people are asleep and if I wake them up, they are going to be mad and I will look stupid.’ Again, he felt like he should go and give the milk.
Finally, he opened the door, ’Okay God, if this is you, I will go to the door and I will give them the milk. If you want me to look like a crazy person, okay. I want to be obedient. I guess that will count for something, but if they don’t answer right away, I am out of here.’
He walked across the street and rang the bell. He could hear some noise inside. A man’s voice yelled out, ’Who is it? What do you want?’ Then the door opened before the young man could get away. The man was standing there in his jeans and T-shirt. He looked like he just got out of bed. He had a strange look on his face and he didn’t seem too happy to have some stranger standing on his doorstep. ’What is it?’
The young man thrust out the gallon of milk, ’Here, I brought this to you.’ The man took the milk and rushed down a hallway. Then from down the hall came a woman carrying the milk toward the kitchen. The man was following her holding a baby. The baby was crying. The man had tears streaming down his face. The man began speaking and half crying, ’We were just praying. We had some big bills this month and we ran out of money. We didn’t have any milk for our baby. I was just praying and asking God to show me how to get some milk.’
His wife in the kitchen yelled out, ’I asked him to send an Angel with some. Are you an Angel?’
The young man reached into his wallet and pulled out all the money he had on him and put in the man’s hand. He turned and walked back toward his car and the tears were streaming down his face. He knew that God still answers prayers.
It is when we obey God and step out in faith and do the things that God asks of us (not on our strength but his) that we experience God working through us in a powerful way. It was only a gallon of milk but what did it mean to the family? God wants to make himself real to us, but first it requires our obedience. In the story the young man came to understand God in a greater way. He understood God does answer prayer and speaks to us, while the couple came to understand God as their Provider, he keeps his promises.
Obedience is Important
Disobedience Means There Are Consequences for Us and Others
Obedience is crucial in the life of a Christian for a couple of reasons. First, if we don’t obey, something here on earth is not done. The story was perhaps a little overdramatic, but if the young man had not been obedient, what would have happened to the child? I realize some people might have been raised in Christian traditions with a strong focus on God’s sovereignty, in other words, God is in control therefore he will take care of it. However as a United Methodist we believe God is in control, but he also gives us the free choice to obey him or not. God will not control our choice, and if we choose the wrong path not only are there consequences for us, but many times for others as well. We are the hands and feet of Christ. It’s important for us to listen and obey. If every Christian obeyed God, I believe there would be no hungry people, and every person would have heard the Good News of Jesus Christ (because every person whom God impressed would have shared.) God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven.
But I’m not here to guilt us into doing something, as we will see in a moment. I just want us to realize the consequences of our disobedience.
Obedience Reveals Our Love for God
The second reason obedience is important is because, as Jesus said, our obedience reveals our true love for God. John 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
God tells us he wants us to love him with all of our heart, with all of our soul, with all of our mind, and all of our strength. Obedience then is the litmus test of our love of God. What is a litmus test? When I was a chemist we used a colored litmus paper to determine how acidic something was, we call it pH. If you have a swimming pool you know what I am talking about. When it turned a certain color you knew approximately how acidic it was. I thought I was all done with those days, but recently I started a salt-water aquarium and now every week I pull out little colored strip of paper and check the levels of pH along with ammonia, nitrates, nitrites every week to make sure my tank is not polluted and is running at an optimum level for the health of my fish. I could just look at the tank and guess everything seems okay, the fish are swimming around, they seem healthy, they’re eating, but without a litmus test I don’t really know what’s going on inside my tank (visual on PowerPoint). The litmus test for our love for God is not how we feel about God, our affection for God. The litmus test for our love is measured by our obedience. Are we obeying his commands, following his teachings, doing what he tells us to do? Everything else is just giving God lip service. Anyone can say they love God, but the proof is when we obey God.
Notice, we obey God’s commands because we love God. The reverse never works, we can’t obey our way into a love for God. In other words I can’t make myself love God more by doing certain things like following God’s commands. Martin Luther and John and Charles Wesley all discovered that you can’t obey your way into loving God. All three were clergyman, they tried to do all the right things, they tried followed every commandment, every church teaching, but instead of experiencing God’s love and grace, they were empty inside, Luther was even angry and bitter over how miserable his life was in trying to follow all of God’s rules and regulations. It wasn’t until they were awakened to the incredible love God has for them in Jesus Christ, they were set free from the law so that they might love God. As they were in a loving relationship with God, they longed to follow God’s commands. We fail to appreciate God’s commands as ways to help us, to give us life. We become legalistic and start trying to force others to follow the rules. That’s why we began this series talking about a personal love relationship with God, because obedience without relationship is just rule keeping.
How many of you love the police more when you obey the speed limit? How many love the IRS more because you paid all of your taxes? No, obedience doesn’t grow our love for God, it flows out of our love for God.
How many of you have kids? When you ask your kids to do something, what are your expectations? That they will do it. Your kids may do what you ask for several reasons. Perhaps they do it because they are afraid of the punishment they might receive if they don’t. They are afraid of being grounded, given time out, etc. In other words fear is the motivation. Perhaps they do it because they know they will be rewarded. Maybe their allowance is tied to whatever you were asking them to do. Perhaps they do it because they know you will make them feel guilty about not doing it. Or they might do what you ask because they know you love them, and they want to please you (I know it doesn’t happen that way very often). What happens when your child grows up, moves out of the house. Which ones are going to be the most well adjusted and which ones will likely rebel and start trying anything and everything? This is the interesting thing, we can be similarly motivated to obey God. We can be motivated by fear (hell, punishment), reward (heaven, crown of righteousness, Jesus saying to us “well done good and faithful servant”), guilt (you sinner), but God desires for us to be motivated out of love for him.
What happens when we obey God out of love? Let’s look at John 14:21
Jesus Reveals Himself to Those Who Love and Obey
John 14:21 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."
Notice in this passage, who is the one Jesus shows himself or reveals himself to? The one who loves and obeys him. This is exactly what we have been focusing on for the last several weeks. God wants you to experience him in your life. Jesus wants to reveal himself. He wants you to personally experience his spiritual presence, his power.
If you are wondering why you aren’t experiencing God in a personal way, perhaps you need to ask yourself, am I obeying what God has already revealed for me to do, or what he has laid on my heart to do through the Bible, prayer, sermon? Perhaps God is not sharing more with us because we haven’t obeyed what God has already revealed to us. Our obedience determines what God will be able to do through us. The ceiling or limit on our experience of God is our obedience. We can’t go any higher or deeper with God than our level of obedience.
If we aren’t making the adjustments, if we aren’t doing what God has told us, than we are preventing, to some degree, the work of God’s Spirit. Jesus taught that those who have proven themselves faithful in small matters, we might say are obedient in small matters, are the ones who are given greater responsibilities in God’s kingdom (Luke 16:10; 19:17). If we haven’t been faithful with what God has already revealed to us, how can God share more with us? Too often we want God to do something, but we aren’t willing to respond when he does.
Likewise churches do not experience the revealed Jesus, the Spirit, when they are not exercising their obedience to what God has already revealed, when they don’t fulfill the great commission (making disciples of all nations), when they are not loving each other. In fact in the next chapter (15) Jesus tells us his command is to love each other just as he loved us.
Does God love us any less if we are disobedient? The Bible is clear that God loves us unconditionally no matter what we do. As a parent do you love your children any less because they disobeyed. Sure, you might disappointed, upset, perhaps even angry with them, but you still love them. Because of our disobedience God may be disappointed, upset, perhaps angry with us, but his love for us is unfailing.
Conclusion, transition into Communion
I want to remind us that while our love and obedience for God fails, God’s love for us is unconditional and everlasting. Communion reminds us of God’s love for us. In our sin God sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sin, to remove our guilt, to set us free.
It’s easy to beat ourselves up knowing we haven’t been obedient.
During communion we are called in light of God’s love to examine ourselves. To ask ourselves if there is any way within us which does not conform with God. Have we failed to obey God? We lay ourselves before God’s throne of grace and ask for God’s forgiveness in light of Christ’s work on the cross.
