Recently I preached on the topic of obedience. So I thought I would share a little bit about it here. Obedience is such a crucial part of the Christian life but it is probably one of the hardest things to be. Why is that? Some would say its pride, some may say its because of ignorance. Here's what C.S. Lewis had to say about obedience -
" The natural life knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centeredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that." C.S. Lewis is saying that the natural life, our sinful selfs (?) want to be in control, want to run the show and in order to be obedient we need to let go of that control and follow the will of another, something our sinful selfs do not want to do. Charles Stanley says this - "The bottom line in the Christian life is obedience and most people don't even like the word." Let's be honest here when you read the title of this post you might have cringed at the word obedience. We all know its hard to be obedient and hate the word because it reminds us of our shortcomings in that area. Let's take a look at someone who was both obedient and disobedient and both enjoyed and suffered the consequences of both. First lets look at the obedience. Exodus 17:1-7 All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. 2 Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” 3 But the people thirsted there for water, and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” 4 So Moses cried to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” 5 And the Lord said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. 6 Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. 7 And he called the name of the place Massah[a] and Meribah,[b]because of the quarreling of the people of Israel, and because they tested the Lord by saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?” (Courtesy of Biblegateway.com) (ESV) Moses was in a tough spot. He was getting grief from the people so he went to God. God then told him to do something that at face value would seem completely ridiculous, to go to a rock, hit it with a stick and then watch the water flow. This leads to one of the first things that we can learn from obedience. I. Obedience is a sign of faith. Moses had the faith to believe that if he was obedient that God would be faithful and uphold his end of the deal, namely bringing forth water from the rock. Moses had to take a step of faith do strike the rock. I think what makes obedience pretty cool is that the more you do it the easier it is to be obedient again. As God proves himself faithful it becomes easier to believe that God will prove himself again. Now as awesome as obedience is disobedience can be devastating. Let's look at a time when disobedience had devastating consequences. Numbers 20:2-13 Now there was no water for the congregation. And they assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron. 3 And the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Would that we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! 4 Why have you brought the assembly of the Lord into this wilderness, that we should die here, both we and our cattle? 5 And why have you made us come up out of Egypt to bring us to this evil place? It is no place for grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.” 6 Then Moses and Aaron went from the presence of the assembly to the entrance of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. And the glory of the Lord appeared to them, 7 and the Lordspoke to Moses, saying, 8 “Take the staff, and assemble the congregation, you and Aaron your brother, and tell the rock before their eyes to yield its water. So you shall bring water out of the rock for them and give drink to the congregation and their cattle.” 9 And Moses took the staff from before the Lord, as he commanded him. 10 Then Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together before the rock, and he said to them, “Hear now, you rebels: shall we bring water for you out of this rock?” 11 And Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice, and water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock. 12 And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” Could you imagine leading a group of people for almost 40 years, to a place promised to be everything you could dream of to lose it all at the end? Now hindsight is 20/20 and looking back at this story we can see that Moses should have just been obedient and listened to the directions given to him by God. II. Disobedience is a lack of faith No doubt Moses was in a tough spot again. The people were thirsty and because they were thirsty were complaining, something that they were prone to do. Moses goes to God again and says what am I to do? God says go to the rock and speak to it and water will come from it. But Moses does not do that does he? He decides that he is going to kind of follow Gods orders and go to the rock but instead of simply talking to it he hits it with his staff. He has to hit it twice, which if I was in Moses' position would have almost immediately put me into a panic. Moses lack the faith to believe that God could bring forth water from the rock when Moses spoke to it. One of my professors while I attending the Word of Life Bible Institute said this " Partial obedience is complete disobedience " What a statement to make and one to follow. If we are not completely obedient to what God has directed us to do we have been completely disobedient. When we disobey God we are telling Him that we are not trusting that His plan is better than anything we can imagine. We show that we think that we know better than God which if we are honest is absolutely ridiculous. Now please don't get me wrong about obedience, sometimes it can be the hardest thing to do. The world we live in today makes the choice to be obedient increasingly harder. Satan has had plenty of time to perfect his methods of appealing to our sin nature that would keep up from being obedient. We need to take a step back and look at our lives and examine it and see if there are any areas that we are not being completely obedient to what God has called us to do.
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