February 12, 2012 - Obeying (sermon audio) 
Obeying God is critical to abiding in Christ.
This whole Christian gig is much less about us accumulating religious information and much more about us being changed – truly changed – by God. That’s why there’s such a strong emphasis in the Bible on obedience. It’s not because God wants us under his thumb, but because God wants us to enjoy life as he intended. The Apostle John put it this way: “And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands” (2 John 1:6). In another place in the Bible, Jesus said this: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it” (Luke 11:28). There is a relationship between obeying and abiding in Christ.
The real key to starting your relationship with God is humility – to humble yourself before God and to say, “I need help!” Obedience is the key to continuing and advancing our relationship with God. Sometimes this message of obedience has an unintended interpretation that if we obey, then God favors us with his grace. We do not earn grace. We do not obey to get something from God. The marks of a disciple are descriptive of a person who is abiding in Christ – seeking God and seeking to be transformed by what they hear God speaking to them in scripture. Whenever Christians have gotten serious about obeying, the fruit of the Spirit have grown in their lives, and they have become more like Jesus – more giving, more self-sacrificing, more humble, more gracious.
The most powerful practice for abiding in Christ is reflecting on scripture. As we reflect on scripture, God’s word remains in us, and we immerse ourselves in God’s instructions (commands) for living as a follower of Christ. To keep the commands, you have to know the commands. We reflect on scripture, study the Bible and memorize portions of it and the Holy Spirit helps us by bringing things to mind at the time we need them.
The Bible takes another tack on this same idea by going at it from the disobedience side. Psalm 19 says: “Keep you servant also from willful sins: may they not rule over me” (Psalm 19:13). I take that to mean premeditated disobedience. Nothing will nuke your experience of your relationship with God faster than doing something that you know is contradictory to something that Jesus commanded. The first place to start in the spiritual life of following Jesus is to repent from anything you know to be wrong.
We all need help to do life well. To encourage one another, we have to be connected to one another is such a way that there is deep trust. The author of Hebrews writes this: “Spur one another on toward love and good deeds” (Heb. 10:24). We as Christians should be connected enough with other Christians that we open ourselves to a gentle accountability with regard to the mission to which God has called us. This is why smaller groups are so important to the life of the church.
Information is only half the equation; application is the other half. Some simple spiritual math emerges: Information + Application = Transformation. This explains why Jesus told us about the relationship between obeying and abiding. “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you” – When we obey Christ, we live in unhindered relationship with him, and we experience a kind of joy that is far beyond our capacity to produce and far behind the difficulty of our present circumstances.
Obeying God is critical to abiding in Christ.