MK040 Sermons
Obedience: Doorway to Intimacy (Audio)
Well, it's really great to be back with you again, be able to bring God's Word to you. As I said in the first service I want to share with you also, I really love your pastor. I've had the privilege of having breakfast with John several times and I love the journey that he's on with Christ. And I love how he's seeking to lead this congregation. You know, being a pastor is not an easy thing and everybody's telling you how to do it. And I love how John is really seeking the Lord to be able to follow him and to lead in what he believes God is showing him. And I so resonate with the journey that he's on because it kind of mirrors the journey that God has me on in my life as well. So I just want to tell you that I enjoy being with him and talking with him and just being in his presence. And I love being here. I feel at home when I come and be with you. I said this in the first service as well. There's just something about this place, you people, that I really resonate with. And so it's just a great opportunity and a privilege to be able to bring God's Word to you. You know, there's an ache in the human heart that longs to be satisfied. There's a longing in that heart that longs to be filled. It's not only true for the person outside of Christ who doesn't know Christ, but it's true for us as Christians as well that there's an ache inside of us that says there's got to be something more. There's got to be something more to this journey than what I'm experiencing. I come to know Christ and but boy, we sang the song. There's something more. I want to be closer. I want to experience you in the fullness of who you are. Now, the world goes after it in many different ways. And we as Christians oftentimes pursue it the same way that the world does. We pursue it through our work that maybe if I get the right job, if I get the right position, if I can find that, that there'll come something into me that will satisfy me, that will fulfill me, that will make me be full. Not sensing this longing, this ache, this emptiness. Some pursue it in gathering of things. You know, I'll get a new boat. I'll buy a new house. I'll stop. You know, a new phone. You know, the next iPhone. You know, that's the one that's really going to do it for me. And yet the problem with these things is after a while they get old. You know, there's a new iPhone. Then what do you do? Do you have to have the next new one in order to be satisfied? Or, you know, that boat gets dinged out there and you go, or the new car, you know, scratch on. Ah, you know, the house, you know, needs painting and being taken care of and it loses some of the glamour that it does when we first got it and thought it would be that thing that would satisfy us. Or it's a relationship. We look at a relationship and think, oh, if I could just have the right relationship, if my wife could just get it together, my life would be so much better. And the wife's thing, if my husband could just get it together, in fact, he's not going to get it together, so I'll just go find a new one. But the problem is, that one doesn't satisfy us either because the one that we take with us is ourselves. And that heart that isn't satisfied is Christians. We pursue that filling in in our endeavors. Maybe it's coming to church on Sunday. Maybe if I come to church and I'm regular in attendance, then that's going to fulfill the ache and the longing in my heart or about the next conference that's coming to town. You know, that next one that everybody's talking about that says, this is the one. This is the one. If you'll go to this conference, you will really have it. I pursued that in my life as a pastor for many, many years. And guess what? They didn't satisfy me. They were great. But I wasn't the person who was doing the seminar. That was the problem. We look for something to change us, to satisfy the ache, the longing that's in our heart. We think that something is the answer. Something. But the answer is really a person. And that person is God. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. We were created from the very beginning of the world to live in union with Him. And when we step out of that relational union, that loving relationship union with Him, there's an emptiness, there's an ache inside of us. And John has led you in this series into slowing down and spending time, sometimes, somehow, some way, different ways to experience God more fully in your lives. And I believe that's the pathway that God has for us, is that to spend time with Him, to live with an awareness, a constant awareness of who God is, is the answer to that ache in our lives. The problem with us is that we're easily distracted from God. I don't know about you, but I'm easily distracted from God. There are bills to be paid. There's work to be done. There's family to do life with. There's church work even. And all these things can distract me from God. I'm distracted by sports. I love sports. I always have since I was a kid. I grew up on sports. I'm loving the Golden State Warriors right now. I'm from California, from San Francisco Bay Area. So I'm just really so they're distracting me right now from God at times. Good thing is they don't come on till 10.30 at night here, most of the time. And so I'm in bed by that time. So I don't stay up till 1.30 to watch them. But you know the things that are distracting you from God. It's life. It's life. Life distracts us from God. And so John has been helping us to step away and pull away and say, "Well, how do I learn how to be present to God?" And if I practice some things that will allow me to be present in a specific time, maybe I'll be better at being aware of God on an ongoing basis, attentive to Him in my journey day by day. God wants to meet us. He wants us to experience Him. And I use that word experience on purpose because we get a lot of head knowledge. We get a lot of information. Our whole culture is built upon you getting information, you getting teachings. But if you read the Scriptures, what you find is people who experienced God. And what we keep doing is we keep learning about them rather than experiencing God like they experienced God because sometimes we just don't know how to do so. But every time you pray should be an experience with God. It's not just a thing. It's an encounter with the living God. It's communion with God. That's what prayer primarily is, communion with God. When you open your Bible, it's not an encounter with a book, but it's an encounter with the living person, Jesus Christ. It's an encounter with God. It's an experience of God. When you come to Sunday morning service like this, it's not a sermon. It's an experience with God. If I don't enable you to experience God this morning as I speak, I have failed. Or you have failed. I have failed as the one delivering the message of God. Or you have failed as one who has been distracted and unable to hear God through the clamor that's going on in your brain as you come into this service this morning. Let me tell you, God won't fail. He has something for every one of us here this morning. And I pray that I not be the distractor from you hearing God this morning. So let's pray and let's ask God to open up our hearts this morning. God our desire this morning is to have an encounter with you to experience you and experience that that transforms us. An experience that draws us into greater communion and union with you. Lord, lead us and guide us in Jesus name. Amen. As we continue this series this morning on slowing down and experiencing God more deeply experiencing Jesus more deeply. What I want to talk about is I want to talk about obedience as the doorway to intimacy. Obedience as the doorway to intimacy. You say what? How is obedience a doorway into intimacy? When we think of obedience we usually think of it in the terms of legality and the terms of this is what I have to do so I need to do this. I read some articles this week just to see what secular culture was saying about obedience. And what I found is the secular psychologists are pretty much negative on obedience. They're more into critical thinking that you respond by critical thinking rather than listening to those in authority and just obeying because they stand in that place. And I understand why they have gone there. I understand the reason that they have gone there is because authority has not been good authority. And so we instead of instead of changing our understanding of authority and changing authority we want to change the idea of obedience and following authority. But obedience is a critical piece in our relationship with God. It's crucial the Christian life in so many ways is about obedience. But it's not obedience from a legal, from a legal perception or a legal construct or a legal understanding. Obedience in the Bible is a relational word, not a legal word. Here me say this again. Obedience is a relational word, not a legal word. And we tend to even look at it within the Scripture as a legal word because it ties to the word law and it ties to the word commandment. And so we put it under the legal construct. But it is not in that construct. It is in the construct of relationship. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to John chapter 14. When I was here last time I spoke out of John chapter 15 I've come to love the gospel of John because it's just full of deep rich theology. It just unfolds God for us. It draws us into this union that God wants us to experience with Himself. And that's really what theology is. A union with God. A communion with God. A relationship with God. So in John chapter 13 Jesus is sharing the Lord's suffer with His disciples. And then as I said last time I was here, at the end of John chapter 13 Jesus gets interrupted and a lot of questions follow along. And then in verse 8 of chapter 14 Philip says, "Lord show us the Father and is enough for us." And Jesus said, "Have I been with you so long?" So forth and so on. And what He does is that Jesus said, "Hey, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one." He's saying, "Philip, you haven't got it yet, but we're in this union with one another. We are living tight with one another. So if you have seen me, you have seen the Father." And then He goes on and He says, "When you live with me, you will work the same works that I do." Isn't that amazing? Because Jesus did some pretty amazing things. So He says, "If you will live in relationship with me, if you will live in union with me, as I live in a union with the Father, you'll do the same works that I do." The problem is most of us aren't living in that same kind of union with Him. Because we've got a lot of junk, a lot of garbage in the way. The problem isn't with God. The problem isn't that God is waiting for you to attain a certain level. God has given you all that you're going to get. He's given you Himself. That's what Peter says in Acts 2, 38, that you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Ephesians chapter 3 that you'll be filled up with the fullness of God. Peter says that you'll be a partaker. Listen to this, you'll be a partaker of the divine nature. Whoa! Whoa! You'll be a partaker of the divine nature. I'll let you wrestle with that one yourself. But isn't that what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit? To be filled up with the fullness of God? So Jesus tells us that we'll do the very same works that He does. And then He says in verse 15, if you love me, you will what? Keep my commandments. Right there Jesus ties together obedience and love. Obedience is an expression of love. Kids hear this. Obedience is an expression of love to your parents. You ever thought of obedience as an expression of love to your parents? God says that's what it is. You say well my parents they don't know. Oh yes they do. They're looking out for you. They have your best interest in heart. They love you. They're not asking you to do something that's not out of love. They're asking you because they love you and care for you. And your response of love is one of obedience to them. That's an amazing thing to me. I didn't get it as a kid and most kids don't get it. And I wish I was better at expressing that love to my children in that way so that they could have gotten it. Because that's the reality of relationship. That's how it works. Jesus says if you keep my commandments you are expressing your love to me. Last time I was here I talked a little bit about commandment and this word because again we tend to put it into the legal construct. We tend to put it into here's the command and I must obey and if I don't keep this command then boom something's going to happen to me. If this word command, I want to remind you, is not the word demand. There are two different words. And to demand if God was to demand it would dehumanize us. So he doesn't use that word. But we are humans and so he commands and that first part of that word is the word to come. What is that word? That word is an invitation. God invites us into this relationship with him. And you can say yes or you can say no to what he wants. But he's inviting you into this relationship and he's inviting you into it because he loves you. And he invites you in to join him in his mandate, his way that life works for your good, for your flourishing as a person on earth. The commandments aren't to restrict you just like your commandments aren't risk protection for your children. They are the way that life works and God says come and join me in the way that life works. They're not loarding it over you. He's telling you to come because I love you. And I desire the very best for you. And I want your life to flourish. Our culture doesn't like that word obedience because it comes with the ideas of losing control, of being less than. It comes with the ideas of domination. It comes with the ideas of submission. And those are so contrary to our culture today because our culture puts the emphasis on freedom. The highest value in America today is freedom. And that's my freedom. It doesn't matter how it affects your freedom. The Bible is not predominantly about freedom. It is about love. And you cannot have love without freedom but you can have freedom without love. And so under love is freedom. And our primary goal as human beings in the creation of God is how he designed love to work or life to work is to love God and to love others. Now why do we love God? Because he first loved us. See we have to, that's what I talked about the first time I was here. We have to know that God loves us. And it's not just in our heads, it's in our hearts. We have to experience that love of God. Because only as I know that God loves me that then it makes sense that I'm to love God back. And that I'm to love other people will flow out of that love for God. So Jesus says here in John 14, 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. We have a tendency to place God in a legal relationship rather than in a love relationship with human beings. I want to suggest that we rethink this. When Jesus came to the earth he established that God was first and foremost a father, not a judge. Israel saw God as judge and so they developed a whole legal system. And we have a tendency to first see God as judge, not father. But Jesus said, oh no, when you pray, say our father. Father. Now a father judges in his life as well. But he judges as a father, not as a legal setting. As a father, I judge my children differently than if I was sitting on a judicial bench and making decisions about someone's behavior in the world. And so God sits his father and he judges us. But that judgment is always with redemption, bringing us back into union with him as its key component and essential element. And our obedience is an expression of our love for Jesus. The way that I show Jesus that I love him is my obedience. It's not necessarily my coming to church and clapping my hands and singing my songs. God says to Israel, God wasn't satisfied with that. Because they did that without the loving response of obedience. They weren't showing real love for God. So God calls us to obey. Why does he call us to obey? Because he loves us. Why does he call us to obey? Because he wants our lives to flourish, to bloom, to blossom, to come into the fullness of the humanity that he created us to be living in perfect harmony and union with him. It's not calling us to do something. He's calling us into this relationship with himself. Now obedience is not a small thing. It's quite a difficult thing. You are joining God and you are saying yes to God. In John chapter 15 verses 9 and 10, it says, let's begin in verse 9 and 10, just as a father has loved me, I have also loved you, abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. So Jesus says, just as a father has loved me, I have also loved you. How much did the father love Jesus? He loved him with all that he had. The father was constantly pouring himself out for Jesus. When Jesus came and prayed, the father was there to meet with him. When Jesus needed guidance in what to do, the father was there to meet him. I only do what I see the father doing. I only say what I hear the father saying. So the father and Jesus were in constant communication and constant living together with one another. And Jesus obeyed what the father was saying, what the father was showing, because he was loving back the father as well as loving us. And Jesus says, I love you in the same way. I want to have that same kind of intimate relationship with you as you journey through your life that the father and I had as we were journeying on this life. He says, if you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. The way that I abide in the love of God is by keeping his commandments, by just doing what he's showing me to do. Because he says, that's what I did. I lived in the father's love because I kept doing what he was saying to do. And I knew the father loved me constantly because he was showing me what to do. And I did it. And I saw the results of what my life and God's life joined together would accomplish and fulfill. And that's what it really is all about is our lives being joined with God in such a way that we see God working through our lives in marvelous and wonderful ways. It doesn't mean that life is going to be easy, but it means that we're going to see the living God of the universe partnered with us in what we were doing. This is what happened with Moses. Moses partnered with God. What did he have to do? He had to obey. He had to go back into Israel, a man and his brother, two guys, go against the Pharaoh of Egypt and say, hey, let my people go. Pretty scary thing to do. But he obeyed and gets what God did. God brought them out of Egypt and across the Red Sea and into the promised land. Moses didn't get to go, but the people did. And we remember Moses today and Moses flourished under God. He said, wow, I know you. I know you. Noah, the same thing. God says I want you to build an arc. The people must have laughed at him. The movie, what's the one of it that's made up out of that movie? It's being replayed on HBO right now. And Moses had to look silly out there, building an arc when they never reigned before, when they never experienced this. But Moses, Noah, obeyed and he experienced God in his life. And so his life was transformed because it was out of experience that he found God. It wasn't out of a book. See, we read the book and we leave it in the book rather than our experience of God. God wants us to experiencing him today, today, right now. He's calling you to experience him to have a divine encounter with him in this very moment of your life. He's right here in this room. He's not only beside you as the long sun, but he's right inside of you if you're a follower of Jesus Christ. He couldn't get closer. And so he wants to live in this partnership with you. I mean, think about Mary. Mary had to obey. God comes and says, this is what I want you to do. Oh, sure, I'd love to do that. I'll look like an adulterous, like a fornicator. But okay. And she becomes the mother of God. Whoa. See, God was letting her come into the fullness of who he created her to be as she obeyed her. And that's what God wants for your life is he wants you to come into the fullness of who he created you to be. And each of us has our own unique journey and path with God. And so he's calling us to obey in different ways and in different settings in our lives so that we can come into a life of flourishing in who we are. Now, the journey is not easy. Sorry to tell you, the journey is difficult. All we have to do is look at the life of Jesus. Philippians, chapter two, you want to flip over to that in your Bible. I encourage you to do so. Again, it's one of my favorite passages in all of the Bible. It's saying being found in verse eight, it says, being found in the appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient. There's our word obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Even death on the cross for this reason also got highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every name will bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So here we have our word obedient in there. So Jesus became obedient to the point of death. I humbled himself to the point of death. Now, the Father was loving Jesus and sending him to the cross. You say, what? Yes. The Father wanted Jesus to flourish. He wanted Jesus to be exalted. He wanted Jesus to be lifted high. He wanted his name to be above every name. That's what God wants for you. He wants your name to flourish. He wants to exalt you. At the end, every need of every person, whether you have believed in Jesus on this earth or not, will say that Jesus Christ is Lord. And Jesus was loving the Father in going to the cross as well as loving you and me. He said, Father, I'll do it. I'll obey. Now, it wasn't easy. All we have to do is go to that encounter in guest seminy where Jesus is there with his disciples and tells them to watch and pray. And then he goes off and he says, Father, Father, if there's another way, if there's another way, let this pass from me. And then he comes back to the disciples. He goes again, he says, Father, Father, if there's another way. And it says that in Luke's gospel that he sweat like drops a blood from his own body. I mean, he was in agony. In fact, if you want to know the truth, it was in the garden that he really died. He died to self. He died to self in the garden and went to the cross. And he had to go to the cross in order to what? To experience resurrection. You see, there's always a death and then there's a resurrection. And it's the resurrection in which is the glorified life, the life that comes to the fullness, the life that takes care of that. That life that that life that takes care of that that longing that's within your heart, it's in resurrection. But in order to get resurrection, you've got to die. That means you got to die to yourself. That's the hard part. That's where we say, no, God, I don't want to go there. I'd rather just live like I am with that ache in my heart, with that longing in my soul and not die. But we can never experience resurrection life without dying to sell. And that's what obedience is. Obedience is an ongoing death to sell. But there's always the promise of resurrection. Always the promise of resurrection, of transformation in your life and in your soul. And so God calls us into this relationship of obedience. God's not going to ask you, invite you to do anything that is not rooted in love. Nothing, nothing in your life that God allows to come into your life. The trials, the pains, the sorrows, the sicknesses, all those things. They don't come into your life without them being rooted in the love of God for you. Do you got that? Okay. It's hard to believe sometimes. I mean, the cross looks pretty unrooted in love, but it is. That's what you have to believe. That's what you have to hold on to in those moments is this is rooted in the love of God for me. And he has resurrection life on the other side of this for me. And I must step into that place in my life. Now this plays out in our practical lives. In your household, how is God calling you to obey your husband? Husband, how is God calling you to obey your wife? Parents, how is God calling you to shape your children? How is God calling you to obey your parents for your flourishment in your life? Most parents aren't saying, "I don't want my children to flourish." Heck, I don't care about that. No, every parent wants their child to flourish. At least a 90%. I'll give them that. And your parents probably aren't one of those if they're here this morning. When you go to the office, the question should be, "God, how do you want me to obey you today?" You see, we think we have the answers, but so often we don't have the answers. And so when we come up against things that we don't know what to do, the question we need to ask ourselves is, "God, I don't know what to do. Help me." And I believe God wants to come and say, "Here, this is what I want you to do." And if you're willing to take the risk of obedience and what you believe you heard God say, "I believe there's the opportunity for resurrection life and transformation to take place in your soul." And for that ache and that longing to begin to slip away because you experience God's love in your life. God wants you to experiencing oaths moment by moment, to not live a life that is distracted, but to live a life that is with Him. You see, we have a heavenly Father who loves us and wants our lives to flourish, be rich, not in money, full, abundant. Jesus said, "I came that you might have life and might have it abundantly." He wants that for you. But the pathway to that intimate relationship is through obedience. Now, I know some of you have come out of a legal background, you know, a legal kind of theology. And it's hard for you, you know, you kind of come into understanding God's grace and so you kind of cast aside obedience. I want to encourage you this morning not to cast it aside, but to embrace it for what it is, not a legal thing, but a relational thing, a relationship with the God who loves you deeply and wants your life to flourish. And that flourishing takes place as we join ourselves in union of God because when I say yes to God, I'm joining in union with Him. I am literally getting an opportunity to partner with Him on this earth in a very real substance kind of way. And the spiritual and the physical come and join themselves is one because they are not two things, but they are one. And so we connect with God and join Him in His mandate for life to experience Him in all of His fullness. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You so much that You desire this, this marvelous relationship with us. And God, it's hard for us to comprehend. We wish, Lord, that there were three steps and we would get it. But God, that's not how relationships work. And we confess God that we're so easily distracted. And God, we are foolish people who think we have the answers. We think we know what to do. God, this morning we come and we submit. We die to ourselves and declare before You, O God, help us where we want to obey. We can't even obey in our own power, but we say we want to. So teaches the pathway of obedience as You taught Jesus the pathway of obedience. And these things we pray in Your name, Lord Jesus, our Savior, our Lord, our Mother. Amen. Thank you, Bill. Thank you, Bill. As we prepare to take communion in just a moment, I want to just invite you to continue in prayer. So if you wouldn't mind just joining me, just bowing your heads, and I want to give you a moment to just talk with God about the thing in your life that might be more difficult than you know. And right now you don't have any idea what to do with it. Just give you a moment to bring that to God and say, "God, here it is. I need You." Amen. Amen.