To Encourage You

Hebrews 5:8 “Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.”

Why do you obey the law?  For example, your vehicle can obviously travel much faster than the speed limit. There are lots of reasons to drive as fast as you can (it’s more fun, you can get there faster). So, why don’t you?  Surely, one of the reasons is that you might get ticketed for speeding.  A $150 fine is a pretty powerful deterrent for most of us.  However, if that’s the only reason you obey the law, then if you know that the police are busy elsewhere, or you have a “Fuzzbuster” on board, chances are you’ll drive as fast as you want, regardless of the speed limit. 

The Bible has a lot to say about obedience to the laws of God that it contains.  You see, in God’s eyes, the motives for obedience are more significant than the act of obedience itself.  In other words, there are various reasons for which and ways by which we can “obey” the laws that God has established, and some of those reasons and ways are much better, in God’s view, than others.

For example, some people obey God out of fear.  It’s like God is the omnipotent policeman, and they are afraid that if they don’t do what He has said, something bad will happen to them.  And that is one wise reason to obey.  Obviously, Noah was wise to obey God in building the ark and getting in it, for he knew if he didn’t a very bad thing would happen to him.  However, if obedience is only on that level, if falls short of what God desires of us. 

Some people obey the law, including God’s law, because they believe that it’s a way to earn favor with Him.  They are trying to earn points with Him by doing one thing or the other.  The apostle Paul was like this before he really knew God. He described himself “as to righteousness under the law, blameless” (Philippians 3:6).  He felt pretty good about himself, as a result, until he was blinded in his vision of Jesus on the Damascus Road and found out that that kind of obedience was a far cry from what God desired.  He had been like those Pharisees that Jesus had condemned as “blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel” (Matthew 23:24). What Jesus meant by this was that these men were fastidious about obeying the Jewish dietary laws. They went so far as to strain their soup through a cloth so that they wouldn’t swallow the tiniest “unclean” animal, a gnat, by mistake. However, at the same time, they “neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness” (Matthew 23:23).  As a result, they were, in essence, “swallowing a camel,” one of the largest “unclean animals” in the Old Testament law.  Their “obedience” to a set of laws that were relatively easy to obey blinded them to their disobedience to those laws that were much more in line with God’s heart. As a result, their form of “obedience” earned them no points with God whatsoever. Rather, it condemned them.

And then there is obedience that is motivated by a desire to look righteous before other people. Jesus spoke about those who prayed long public prayers to impress others or who gave in such a way that everyone would know what they were giving.  They would actually “announce it with trumpets” (Matthew 6:2)!  Of this Jesus said “They have received their reward.”  By this He meant that the praise of men they were seeking was all the praise they would get, because they would get none from Him.

So, what is the type of obedience that God desires? What does it look like?  We find the answer in the verse above that points to the type of obedience that Jesus demonstrated while He lived, and died, on earth.  Jesus was the very Son of God. As such “though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped” (Philippians 2:6). You see, if anyone was in a position that they shouldn’t have needed to suffer, especially at the hands of the people that He Himself had created, it was Jesus. He told Peter, who tried to defend Him in the Garden of Gethsemane with his sword as the mob came to arrest Him, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26:53).  So why didn’t He?  Why did He subject Himself to suffering in this way? Why did He go to the cross, knowing what awaited Him? 

One reason was that He knew it was God’s will, although He knew that to obey that will would cost Him His very life.  He agonized in the garden over this, praying that if it be possible that the Father would take this cup of suffering away from Him. But in the end, He said this: “Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).  But why? What was His motive? Why on earth did He voluntarily submit Himself to such agony, when He could have done otherwise, for after all, He was God?  We find the reason in this beloved verse: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16) as well as in this one: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13).  It was Jesus who spoke both of these things, and in His words, we see His supreme motive of obedience – it was love. 

Jesus obeyed God the Father in going to the cross because He loved the Father, and Jesus obeyed God the Father in going to the cross because He loved us.  You see, love is the supreme motive for obedience. Jesus told us that “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).  That’s not a kind of obedience that strains out gnats yet swallows camels.  Love motivated by obedience doesn’t see how close it can get to towing the line of disobedience.  It’s not an obedience motivated only by fear of something bad happening to me if I disobey.  It’s an obedience motivated by a heart of gratitude and love for the One who obeyed His Father and us so much that He was willing to give His life on a cross.  And it’s a willing obedience that will “go the extra mile” and “turn the other cheek.” That’s the loving obedience of Jesus, and that’s what God-honoring obedience is like.   That’s exactly why Romans 5:10 says “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” 

May God help us to learn that true obedience that honors Him is motivated preeminently by love, for that’s the type of obedience that He deserves.