Hear it on Sunday, Use it on Monday: Obedience to God 3/19

I learned/was reminded of quite a bunch yesterday... In Sunday school we learned about obedience to God's commands and in church we learned about Jonah and how God works all things to good and controls all things. I am going write my reflections from Sunday School.

Obedience to God

1. God  desires obedience over sacrifice. 

1 Samuel 15:22 "And Samuel said,“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams."

Psalm 119:4 "You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently."

God wants us to obey him rather than to do something else. He desires our obedience to Him and what He has commanded. An example in real life: a mom tells her son John to go mow the lawn. Instead, John cleans the porch and paints the fence and then brings his mom an iced lemonade. Did he obey? Will his mom be happy with him? NO!  

2. Gods law is Holy, righteous and good.

Romans 7:12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

God's law is holy righteous and good, we should not just forget about it because we are now saved from sin, on the contrary, we should seek to obey all he has commanded. That should be our desire.  

3. His law reveals our sin. 

Romans 7:7-11 "What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”  But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead.  I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.  The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me."

1 John 3:4 " Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness."

God's law reveals what sin is. Makes us acknowledge what we have done wrong, that we are truly sinners. 

4. We can only obey Gods law through the help of the Holy Spirit. 

Ezekiel 37:24  "I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.   And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.^"

God gives Christians His spirit so that we can obey his commands; without it, we cannot obey. 

5. Part of obeying God's law is to train other Christians to obey Gods law as well. 

Matthew 28:18-20 "And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. "

Psalm 78:5-7 "He established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments;"

Matthew 5:17-20 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.  For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished. Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.  For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." 
  
"teaching them to obey all I have commanded"- This is so important. We as Christians are supposed to be witnesses to others. We are called to disciple others and to teach them ALL God has commanded, not only to teach them what He has commanded but, to OBEY ALL.   
 

6. Obeying God's law does not mean we pressure non Christians to do what we feel convicted to do/ beat them over the head with it; because they do NOT have the Holy Spirit to help them. (How can we expect them to do, what we cannot do on our own?)

Ezekiel 37:24  "I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries and bring you into your own land.  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you.  And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.   And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.^"


Romans 7:14-25 "For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin.  For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.   For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being,  but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin."


The Holy Spirit is what enables us to obey Gods word.. How  then can we then expect unbelievers without the Holy Spirit  to obey God's words?

7. Obeying God's law does not save one, justify them or make them righteous.

Romans 4:3 "For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Romans 10:4 " For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes."

Ephesians 2:8  "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,"

Romans 3:28 " For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law."

Salvation, Justification and Righteousness, all come through FAITH in Jesus Christ. 

 Based upon the above what should we be doing?

We should be ourselves seeking to obey Gods words AND we should be teaching other beleivers to obey Gods word.