Freedom Through Obedience

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Turn with me this morning to Genesis 3. I would like to read the entire chapter of Genesis 3. Begin at verse 1. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden. [00:00:35] And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, He shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. [00:01:19] And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. [00:01:51] And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Has thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field, and upon thy belly shalt thou go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. [00:02:32] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, [00:03:05] Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat of the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return unto the ground. For out of it wast thou taken, for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. And Adam called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. [00:03:39] Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skin and clothe them. And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. So he drove out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. [00:04:21] I imagine that this is, well I'm sure this is nothing new to you and we have heard this countless times and I'm not going, I didn't have to read the whole chapter just to get the setting of what I was after but I think it's good for us sometimes just to hear where our sin nature comes from. There's only a few things that I would like to notice here And there's, I'm sure there's many, many things that we could learn from this chapter and we could spend, maybe have a whole message on it. [00:05:02] I would just like to notice the first sin. What was the first sin? I think we all know what the first sin was. She ate of the tree of life and she was not supposed to do it. It's about that simple. Without much elaboration, we could say it's about that simple. But what do we call that? I think we have a word that we use for that particular sin. I think we call it disobedience. [00:05:34] And that's what I've kind of been impressed upon to share about this morning. I've chosen to talk about obedience. I struggled with this quite a bit because when we talk about obedience, we talk about issues that precede the outworking of obedience. And I think it's right that we do. Obedience comes from a heart that's right with God. We could look at temptation and other issues of the heart that bring us to disobedience or obedience, if you may. [00:06:10] Now, I don't know what you think of when you think of obedience, and I don't have this necessarily in my notes, but this went through my head. In our society today, probably millions of dollars are made by people that are trying to call disobedience obedience. If you think about the courts of law that we have in our land, lawyers that are trained to shade the truth and to let people off the hook, how much has that affected our way of thinking? [00:06:47] I hope not at all. The truth will stand. There's something about this, and we all know that because of this sin, we all have that sin nature. We are all bent toward that being disobedient. But may I say, I want to say this, we can praise the Lord this morning that there's victory over that. We don't have to live on the level of disobedience. There's a way back and I'm thankful for that this morning. [00:07:22] I don't want this to be a legalistic message necessarily. I'm not here to give you a set of rules or read the church standard. I would rather have it something that we can take with us as an individual and take the Word of God. I didn't know where to start and stop with it because when you think of obedience, there's just a whole list of verses that commands us to be obedient. [00:07:55] And then the Bible is filled with things that we're supposed to do. And I just would encourage us to go. Our church standard is for practical reasons, practical living, and I appreciate it. I didn't go back and read the whole thing, but I would encourage us to dig in and to see what we're supposed to do as far as obedience to God. You know, God has every right to expect a certain level of behavior from us. [00:08:26] He is the authority. He should be the authority and He will ultimately be the authority at the end. Now, we notice the first sin that took place in verse 7, I believe. No, maybe I'm not looking at this right. Anyway, yeah, when she took of the tree But there's something else In verse 8, something happened there The second thing, what happened there? [00:08:59] I noticed that as soon as she had done this There was a loss of freedom And isn't it always that way? I think we're all, we want that freedom We want freedom, I think all of us want freedom but in order for us to have freedom we need to surrender it's one of those things that is hard to understand sometimes [00:09:31] and I've titled my message Freedom Through Obedience I don't know if that is an appropriate title for something like this but I believe that by obeying we free ourselves From our own limitations and it opens up new avenues that we haven't experienced. There's one thing that we need to note here. Obedience will always, obedience to God will always bring a blessing and disobedience will always bring pain. [00:10:07] It might not be, it might not be, the blessing might not be for today or tomorrow, but think of eternity. We cannot measure the blessings that we receive. And we can also not measure the pain, I don't think. I think we're well aware of that. We have been taught. And I didn't choose to make, I'm not planning to make a whole lot more comment on this chapter, But if we would, I am sure that we could see at the end of this chapter when they were forced out of the garden because of their disobedience and the earth was cursed. [00:10:46] I cannot imagine the difference from the inside of the garden gate to the outside. They lost their blessing because of the disobedience. May I say that? But there is a way back. God did not leave it like that. And I would encourage us, I don't want this to be some message of gloom We have a way back if we are living in disobedience Now what does obedience mean? I think all of us know what obedience is [00:11:18] And we've all come up, most of us have come up in Christian homes where we were taught obedience In just everyday life, there was a certain set of rules Well you had to pick up your clothes and hang them up as a child There were things that you had to do and were expected of you and you were called to obedience and there was probably some pain if there wasn't obedience. But what does obedience actually mean in the original Hebrew? And I didn't spend a lot of time in this, but it is interesting in the Hebrew translated in English as obedience. [00:11:58] It means to hear. It means that we hear. And when we hear something, we do it normally when we are instructed. The New Testament agrees with this in the Greek. The word means to hear or listen in a state of submission or attentive hearkening. And then another use of the same word would mean to trust. Again, there's things that, in this thing of obedience, I think we, there's things that precede or come before obedience. [00:12:36] Submission, surrendering to God, we obey when we do that. And it frees us. Now, I would like to, this morning, just look at a few of the, what I call the heroes of faith. and I am not, I would, I was just impressed with the way that they struggled in their own lives to obey. You know, when we think of Abraham, the father of, of the children of Israel, it's amazing some of the things that he had to go through to get where he was. [00:13:14] And I think all of us know this story. I'm not going to read a whole lot. I will read a little bit then in Genesis chapter 22. But he left his father's house. He left the family. I think his father was an idol worshiper. And but what really caught my attention in this thing of obedience and the where he got his blessing or one of the times when the Lord blessed him was when God asked him to offer his own son, his only son. [00:13:52] It was the only one that he had and the struggle that must have been going on in his chest as he proceeded to obey God in this. And I would like to read just a little bit in Genesis 22, starting at verse 15. And this is following the experience that Abraham had there. And I think we heard this story the other evening that Brother Andrew read to us. But I guess the reason for saying this this morning is I think sometimes we struggle. [00:14:31] We're called to do something. I would imagine that some of you have been called to teach a Sunday school class last Wednesday evening, or you had some other responsibilities that you gained, or maybe you have something that you feel that you should do on the job or otherwise. We have many things that we struggle with, and yet we feel that God is asking this of us. I would like to notice the blessing that Abraham received in his obedience and I'm going to start reading in verse 15 of Genesis chapter 22. [00:15:12] And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, that in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the sea, the seashore and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies [00:15:42] and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice. Now, I don't know if any of you would desire to have a blessing like that. I guess I would desire to have it, but it seems almost far out. But you know what? We have the same God watching over us this morning that Abraham did. The same God that wants to bless us. He is calling us to obedience to Him. Because He obeyed, because Abraham was faithful, all nations received a blessing. It says all nations. We think often of a blessing as something that I receive, something that will make my life go well. [00:16:33] But I think the blessing of obedience is something that comes to people and flows out and blesses other people. I think that when we are obedient to God, we can expect, as I think Nelson read it this morning, Rivers of living water will flow out from us. It doesn't always feel that way when we are called to obedience. And yet I think it's necessary that we we follow. [00:17:04] We don't see the way many times. Moses was another one that I noticed in studying this. And I was amazed. I guess I didn't realize some of the struggles until that Moses had. I knew it, but I had forgotten it. But if we read in Exodus chapter 3 about the experience at the burning bush, almost all of that chapter is of that account and part of chapter 4 in Exodus. [00:17:41] Again and again Moses would say, God, but what if they don't believe me? What if I go, what am I supposed to do? And he kind of, he didn't want to. And I can understand that. I can feel for Moses in that. And I don't know if I would have done any better because I sometimes have the same questions. The Lord asks you to do something. But what I would like to notice is some, at the end there in chapter 4, [00:18:14] I think I'm going to read Exodus chapter 4 starting at verse 10 and read maybe to verse 14. The Lord's response to Moses. I'm just going to read it. And Moses said unto the Lord, O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant, but I am slow of speech and of a slow tongue. And the Lord said unto him, Who hath made man's mouth? Or who maketh the dumb, or deaf, or the seeing, or the blind? [00:18:49] Have not I the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say. And he said, O my Lord, send, I pray thee, by the hand of him whom thou wilt send. and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. That's what I would like to notice this morning. If we are disobedient, if we, I don't think there is anyone here that would like to hear that. [00:19:24] The anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. And the story doesn't end there, praise the Lord. Moses was, I think the Bible says at one point, he was the meekest man on earth. We definitely know that he was an able leader. There's many things that Moses did that are a great blessing to us today. But at one point, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. I think we need to be aware that if we are not obedient, willingly obedient, we are going against an almighty God. [00:19:58] I don't think any of us would like the wrath of God to be upon us. Then just a little bit further down, and this was something that was a little obscure to me, I don't know if I had come across this, at least not recently, in verse 24, we see that again God dealt with Moses. And this time he had refused to circumcise his son. Let me just read a little bit here. [00:20:29] And it came to pass, by the way, in the inn, that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Well, I'll just read. Then Zipporah took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. And so he let him go. Moses, there's not a whole lot of background here, but Moses had refused or had not done what God had asked him to and it says simply the Lord met him and sought to kill him. [00:21:02] Now I don't know what that means. It would not seem that the Lord would kill him, kill somebody as such but maybe in a spiritual sense we die too if we're not obedient. We do know that Moses did obey and it says that the Lord let him go. We also see by this that God will not accept partial surrender or partial obedience, but he requires absolute and universal obedience from us. [00:21:37] I think we are aware that there needs to be a yielding of hearts. We need to yield our heart. I need to make mention though here, I don't want to leave Moses like that in your minds because Moses was a tremendous leader, did tremendous things, and I think he learned from his mistakes. And I think we can too. If we are disobedient, if there are things in our lives that shouldn't be, we can learn from that. [00:22:11] Now, what brings obedience to our lives? And I would like this to be practical. I know that I thought about, I pondered this and I don't know if I have an answer and I would like to have some input after this message about this. But there was one verse and I think that we operate a lot better out of a heart that is changed I don't think that ever brings obedience the way that we should have it. But Paul writes this in 2 Thessalonians, and again this is saying how the Lord will deal with those that don't obey Him. [00:22:50] 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 8 says this, In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. That really caught my attention. If we are unwilling to obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, there's really only one destined. There's only one place that we will go. I think we're all aware of that. The only way that we can have true freedom through obedience, I think, is through a close relationship with God. [00:23:26] When we commune with God and we get in the book and we see what God wants of us, I think for the born-again believer, obedience becomes probably a way of life. We understand that we need that in order to be in right standing with the Lord. When we become born again, we are no longer looking for ways to disobey God, but we are looking for a higher level of obedience. [00:23:57] Jesus said at one point that the truth will set us free. If we are looking for freedom, we need that truth that comes from God. Where is that truth? I think that truth is right here in the Word. And I was reminded, this is just a practical illustration of that, I was reminded and I had completely forgotten about this, but when I was going to school, as a, I don't know how old I was, but softball was the game that we played and I remember one day that we had, I don't know if we had some difference on the ball diamond about some rules, [00:24:43] I quickly finished my work and I got the encyclopedia out and I wanted to make sure that I knew the rules. I wanted to know the rules of the game so that we could do it properly. Well, I think if we are concerned about obeying and doing things the right way, we will get in the book. We will be looking for the truth in God's word. Now, that's just something very practical. I don't know if it carries any weight with you, but I think that we need to know what we stand for, to know truth. [00:25:19] Now there is a, God has an order of obedience, I think we're all aware of that, and I just have, I jotted down several of these and I don't have an exhaustive list of this. But if we think of obedience, we have an authority. He placed us in an authority structure. We have civil government. We have the church. We have parents, earthly masters, and we have scripture for all of that. We read about civil government in Romans 13, verse 1 to 7, the church, Matthew 18, 17. [00:25:58] There's numerous, and I'm just going to skip over. I don't think I have time for all of them. But obedience to this authority structure is required of us as long as we don't violate a principle in God's word. I think we are aware of that, that we have to take a stand. We have a government, we appreciate our government, but at the same time we sense that there's things that our government does that we cannot follow. [00:26:31] We have to stand on truth and to be obedient to God in this. And I was reminded of the verse in Acts 5.29 when Peter and the rest of the disciples were called in front of the council. And they said simply this. They said when the council got after them, they asked them, why did you go and teach? We ask you not to do it. And they said, we ought to obey God rather than men. [00:27:05] And I think that really, we need to keep that in mind. God, if we have a question, we need to go to the word and we need to make sure that we are obedient to God above all men. And yet, I believe that the authority structure that God has, I don't want to take away from that. We need that authority structure. I'm not trying to excuse us from that. And there are many things that could be said about this, different things that have happened. [00:27:43] We need to be very careful. Now, what if obedience makes us uncomfortable? I don't know if you've ever gotten to the point where you felt uncomfortable because you were taking a stand or you had to do something that made you uncomfortable. And we are not necessarily guaranteed an easy life as such. Jesus suffered intensely because of his obedience to the Father. [00:28:14] And as I was studying, I went and read some of the stories in the Martyrs Mirror. And I was amazed at the obedience that these people had. the commitment that they had there were fathers burning at the stake and there were children watching there was a wife and children watching at times intense suffering that was there and many of these people went to the stake willingly gave their lives because of their obedience to God [00:28:45] where are we in this? I would just like to in closing say this what is our point of rebellion in our struggle? Or what is our struggle? Maybe we don't have a struggle. But whatever you know to be God's will, to which you are yet disobedient, is your point of rebellion. And it is at this point that we must surrender to Christ. And we will never find peace or freedom in Christ until we yield our lives to Him.