I want to start off by saying that obedience is a gift of grace. What do I mean by this? To be obedient is to say yes to God’s invitation in our lives to be a part of His plan. He doesn’t need us, He doesn't have to include us, but He loves us and wants us to be a part of what He is doing. This is a concept that I’ve started learning recently, and it’s so freeing. It’s not something that we do in our own power, or because we feel burdened by the obligation, but rather, obedience is how the Spirit compels us to respond to the love that was shown to us on the cross.
2 Corinthians 5:14-15 puts it this way:
“For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.”
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When it comes to obedience, I have found myself discouraged at the moment because I don’t understand why the Lord has me in a certain place, doing certain things. About a year ago, I went on a mission trip to Chicago and these feelings of discouragement and confusion were flooding my mind. My team was doing street evangelism at a park in a small suburb, trying to spark Gospel conversations with people in the community. I don’t know about you, but speaking to strangers about the Gospel is hard and honestly scary. Fears of rejection and judgment were stirring in my mind, and I had to constantly ask the Lord for boldness. Throughout our time, we had some good conversations, but mostly a lot of rejection of the Gospel. I left that day feeling frustrated, confused, discouraged, and sad for the people that we spoke to. I questioned why God would have us do something that didn’t seem to have an impact. In the midst of this confusion, the Lord pointed me to Isaiah 6.
Isaiah 6:8-11 says,
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here I am. Send me!”
He said, “Go and tell this people:
“‘Be ever hearing, but never understanding;
be ever seeing, but never perceiving.’
Make the heart of this people calloused;
make their ears dull
and close their eyes.
Lest they see with their eyes,
hear with their ears,
understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed.”
Then I said, “For how long, O Lord?”
In this passage, Isaiah is willing to obey before he even knows what the Lord is calling him to– and the calling is not an easy one. He doesn’t understand it, and he even questions, “For how long, O Lord?”, but he still obeyed. Though he didn’t understand what the purpose was then, here we are today reading the book of Isaiah over 2,000 years later, being encouraged by his words, and experiences.
I had recently read that passage in an Old Testament class that I was taking, and was honestly very troubled by the calling that the Lord had on Isaiah’s life. But while I was on my mission trip in Chicago, I read back over this passage and was hit with a truth that is so freeing and encouraging. It became my fuel for the rest of the trip, and continues to be an encouragement in my everyday life: all the Lord asks of me is to be obedient. This statement is so simple, but it brings so much freedom. We can see this in Isaiah– that our obedience has nothing to do with us or what we can gain from it, but it has everything to do with the Lord getting the glory, and His name being known, even if it’s in a way that we can’t understand. The burden of what happens next is not ours to bear, because ultimately it's the Holy Spirit that brings conviction, salvation, and all sorts of growth. We are simply imperfect vessels that he graciously uses.
Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 3:5-9:
What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who causes the growth.
I am humbled by this acknowledgement, and we get to rest in the truth that God is in control of every situation. Regardless of how “satisfied” we are with what we are called to, we can find confidence and comfort in knowing that God is always satisfied with our “yes.” Even through discouragement, we can labor on and rejoice knowing that if the Lord has called us to it, our labor is not in vain. In 1 Corinthians, Paul reminds us of this idea and encourages us to remain steadfast in our obedience:
1 Corinthians 15:58
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Praise the Lord that we can be confident and encouraged in that truth! Our momentary feelings don’t define what the Lord is doing and/or is planning on doing with the situation!
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Unlike Isaiah, we now have the Perfect Example of obedience to look to and we are living on the other side of so many promises that God made through the prophet Isaiah and through so many others who were willing to obey. We can now look to Christ, who was obedient to the point of death on a cross so that we could be in relationship with Him because He knew that there was no possible way we could get to Him on our own. Because of this reality, our response to Him is a life of obedience, which in itself is a gift of grace; our imperfect obedience is exactly what God chooses to use to bring glory to His name.
Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Philippians 2:1-11
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