Why Obey?

In The Divine Conspiracy Dallas Willard argues that Christianity ceases to have an impact on the world when Christians cease to be obedient to Jesus. Contemporary Christians balk at obedience to Jesus for two major reasons. The first is that Jesus commands us to do things that go against our nature and put us at odds with the world around us. Obeying Jesus is costly and painful. The second is that, having been indoctrinated into the concept of “salvation by grace alone”, we mistakenly believe that Christians have been set free from any behavioral standard. Jesus teaches clearly that reconciliation with God and eternal life come to us through Jesus’ action on our behalf, and can never be secured by our good behavior. And yet Jesus teaches repeatedly that if you have been ushered into his new life, your life will look radically different. Your new life in Christ comes to expression in clearly defined, costly, countercultural action.

The difference lies, however, in our motivation. A person who is simply religious believes that good behavior is the way to secure a good life now, and a decent life after death. In other words, the motivation for religious behavior is self-interest and self-preservation. And the point at which the religious behavior stops serving the cause of self-interest becomes the moment at which it is abandoned.

Listen to what Jesus says about obedience to him:

Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.”     (John 14:23-24)

What’s our motivation? Love. Because I love Jesus, I will do what he requires, no matter the cost. If you struggle to do what Jesus teaches – or even struggle with the idea of doing what Jesus teaches – you don’t yet know Jesus. You’re still treating Jesus as an object. As a means to an end. But if you know Jesus; if you know his gentleness, his compassion, his grace that come to us through his poured-out life, then you love him. You see his commands as an expression of his perfect love. Not as an imposition on your life; but as the framework, the foundation, the essence of the new life Jesus gives.   

Sin, Death, and Resurrection Life

In The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus introduces a whole new way of life. But the starting point of this new way of life is not the adoption of a new set of rules, morals or guiding principles. The starting point is that Jesus has ushered in a new reality. Jesus’ teaching is punctuated with references to “the Kingdom of God” and “the Kingdom of Heaven”. Both terms refer to the same thing: the intrusion of God’s presence and God’s restorative power into human space. Jesus’ physical presence on earth initiates a process of world transformation whereby the old rules of death and decay have been replaced with renewal, reconciliation, and resurrection. So when Jesus says, “This is how you must live,” he does not mean, “If you do the right things you will bring heaven to earth.”  He means, “Heaven has come. This is what it looks like to live at the intersection of Heaven and earth.”   

Jesus begins to illustrate this new reality when he turns water into wine, heals the sick and disabled, feeds thousands, and walks on water. “See?” he says, “The old rules no longer apply.”  But Jesus’ words don’t fully make sense until his ultimate sign: Jesus goes to the cross. Is buried, having incontrovertibly been killed. And Jesus rises from the dead. All of a sudden the world has a crystal clear image of the new life Jesus has been talking about.  Resurrection life. Life that death cannot touch.

One of the witnesses of the risen Lord Jesus, the Apostle Paul, devotes a chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 to talk specifically about the resurrection of Jesus.  He concludes the chapter with these words:

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 5:54-57)

What is the connection between sin, death, the law, and Christ’s victory? It’s this:

The inevitability of death has shaped human life for most of our history. In reaction to death, our every instinct is survival – the preservation of our own flesh.  But almost every action made in response to the fear of death puts us at odds with each other and with God. In other words, actions made primarily for self-preservation are almost always sinful.  You can act out of nothing but self-interest until you are unconcerned for your own life. The only way you can be chronically unconcerned for your own life is if you are convinced that you won’t die. Nothing in this world can convince you won’t die except the introduction of a person whose life is untouched by death.  Enter Jesus.

Paul says it is only the victory of Jesus over death that sets us free to live without self-interest and therefore without sin.  Prior to Jesus’ victory over death, overcoming personal sin was seen as the only way to gain salvation.  But that pursuit was impossible.  God’s law, which once and for all made clear what is and isn’t sin, proved to be too high a standard for any human to meet unassisted.  The law served the cause of sin, that is, to force people to be preoccupied with their own survival and self-interest. 

And yet, through Christ, two things become possible.  The first is a life that isn’t ruled by self-interest and personal survival.  The second is true observance of God’s law, summarized in two simple commands: love God with your whole being; and love other people as yourself. Love is nothing if not the willingness to set aside your needs for the needs of someone else. You and I can love with abandon because someone has already set down his life to secure everything we need for body and soul, in life and in death. This is the power of Jesus’ resurrection, his victory over death.  

Who's the Hero?

Passage: 1 Samuel 17

Last year Malcom Gladwell published the book David and Goliath.  He used the familiar Bible story as the backdrop for his discussion of “Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants”.  Gladwell pitches David as the classic underdog.  And argues that a collision of circumstances – including David’s confidence and Goliath being less formidable than he seemed – led to the shepherd boy’s victory over tremendous adversity.

The problem is that this is not the story the Bible tells.  The stakes in the battle with Goliath are not David’s honor or even the honor of his people.  What’s at stake is the honor and reputation of the one true God.  In fact this is what’s at stake in every chapter of the biblical narrative.  The story of the Bible is God’s story.  The story of the God who created and rules the universe.  Who knows and owns every human life.  And whose goal is both to make himself known to humanity and to restore humanity to right relationship with God and the rest of Creation.

The showdown between the Philistines and the Israelites is a showdown between their gods.  In the ancient world this is always the case.  When the Israelites make the battle about themselves and their objectives, they always lose.  When they enter battle in the name of the LORD – Yahweh, the one true God – it doesn’t matter if they’re armed with sticks and stones.  They win.  They win because they are acting as God’s agents.  They win because they serve God’s objectives: to reveal God’s presence and God’s power to an unbelieving world.

In case we’re tempted to think otherwise, look at what David says as he walks onto the battlefield:

David said to the Philistine, “You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord’s, and he will give all of you into our hands.” (1 Samuel 17:45-47)

The battle is always the Lord's.  The Lord is always the hero of the story.  If you insist on being the hero of your own story, you will lose – even when you think you’ve won.  If, on the other hand, you let God be the hero, you can’t lose.  Every battle belongs to him. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

Passage: 1 Samuel 8

One of the reasons people of faith obsess about God’s will is that we’re convinced God wants to give us nothing but happy and comfortable lives.  We assume that if we just figure out God’s will, everything will go according to what we consider “good”.  And that when things seem to go badly for us, it must be an indication that we have strayed from God’s will.  A close reading of the biblical narrative reveals that this is simply not the case.  God repeatedly permits or even actively delivers his people into circumstances that are difficult or even disastrous.  Ironically, God also sometimes gives his people exactly what they want as a way of teaching them a lesson. 

Take, for example, the Israelites’ demand for a king.  The life of God’s people has been haphazard and chaotic ever since they settled in the Promised Land.  They assume the chaos is due to an absence of unified government.  The simple solution?  Get a king.  Actually, their problem is something different – something God predicted right before they entered the Promised Land.  Deuteronomy 8 records God’s words:

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 

If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.

(Deuteronomy 8:10-14; 19-20)

God’s prediction comes true.  As soon as they have tasted the luxury of the Promised Land, God’s people forget God.  They become exactly like every other nation of godless pagans.  And when things unravel for them, they adopt exactly the same strategy as every other godless nation: They have kings?  We need a king, too.  The Israelites go to God’s prophet, Samuel, and demand a king.  Samuel, sensing his own failure as God’s representative, laments the request before God.  God says, “It isn’t you they’ve rejected; today they have rejected me as their king!”  Then God tells Samuel to give the people what they’ve asked for.  Samuel tells them,

“This is what the king who will reign over you will claim as his rights: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 

“He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 

“He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”

God will give the Israelites the thing they want.  But in getting in, they will get far more than they want; and will miss what they really need: the presence and provision of almighty God, the one true King.

Like the Israelites, we run the risk of trading in the currency of God’s blessing for the currency of this world; and mistaking the stuff of this world as the stuff of God’s blessing.  The wealth and comfort and security of this world become a curse when we expect it to do what only God can.  To our detriment, God sometimes gives us exactly what we want.  But God in his mercy has also given us what we most need.  The truth is that we need a king, and receive that king in the person of Jesus Christ.  The true king has come to break the power of sin and death and hell and to set us free.  All we have to do is stop looking around for substitute sources of security.  And embrace the King on his terms.  When we do, we discover that the true King came not to take, but to give.  And that belonging to him means getting more than you dreamed possible.  

I Matter...to the Only One Who Matters

Passage: 1 Samuel 2:1-11

The story of Samuel’s birth is one of the most poignant sections of the Old Testament.  Hannah, Samuel’s mother, is one of two women married to Elkanah.  Elkanah’s other wife has born several children.  Hannah is childless.  Although Elkanah clearly loves Hannah more than his other wife, she feels abandoned and insignificant.  In desperation she cries out to the God that has seemed silent and far away:

LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life…(1 Samuel 1:11)

God answers Hannah’s prayer.  She gives birth, and spends a blissful year and a half raising her boy from infancy into toddlerhood.  But then it comes time to make good on her vow to God.  She brings tiny Samuel to the temple.  And leaves him.

And the heartache that must consume Hanna is in no way reflected in the song of praise that escapes her lips:

My heart rejoices in the LORD;
    in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
    for I delight in your deliverance.

What deliverance; what delight when the child that should have made Hannah’s life complete has been taken from her? 

The deliverance is this: prior to giving birth, Hannah was convinced that she didn’t matter to God.  Her baby is incontrovertible proof that her God is with her; her God hears her prayers; and her God cherishes her.  Nothing – not even her baby – can replace that deepest longing of her heart.  Of every human heart.  So Hannah can do what every parent must eventually do anyway: entrust her child to the care of the Lord. 

In the end, every gift of God that we covet and long for and live for is just a placeholder.  Just a symbol of the thing we need most: the attention, care, and love of God.  The fundamental need with which we were all created is this: to know and be known by God.  To matter to God.  Even when our earthly desires are unmet and our flesh’s appetites are unsatisfied, we can know beyond the shadow of a doubt that we matter to God.  How?  Because God took on flesh and made his dwelling place among us.  He came to us in the person of Jesus – Yeshua, “the LORD saves”.  Jesus who is also called Christ – the Anointed One. 

Hannah concludes her song of praise with this:

The LORD will give strength to his king
    and exalt the horn of his anointed.

The irony is that in Hannah's lifetime Israel has no king.  1 Samuel follows on the heels of Judges and Ruth, whose steady refrain is, “At that time there was no king in Israel”.  So who is Hannah talking about?  The ultimate king, and deliverer of God’s people, Jesus Christ.  Because he has come, and delivered, we too can sing Hannah’s song of praise – no matter our circumstances.  

God the Leveler

Passage: Jeremiah 39

Jeremiah chronicles the days leading up to the exile of God’s people into Babylon.  Jeremiah the prophet is commissioned by God first to warn his people against continuing to flout his laws and turn their backs on God; second to state plainly the judgment that will befall them for ignoring the warnings.  God tells his people that the instrument of his judgment will be the Babylonian Empire under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar.  In fact, God goes so far as to call Nebuchadnezzar his servant:

 With my great power and outstretched arm I made the earth and its people and the animals that are on it, and I give it to anyone I please. Now I will give all your countries into the hands of my servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; I will make even the wild animals subject to him.  All nations will serve him and his son and his grandson until the time for his land comes; then many nations and great kings will subjugate him. (Jeremiah 27:5-7)

The day finally comes that Nebuchadnezzar and his forces sack the city of Jerusalem and take its people captive.  And the story of the exile contains a very interesting detail:

But Nebuzaradan the commander of the [Babylonian] guard left behind in the land of Judah some of the poor people, who owned nothing; and at that time he gave them vineyards and fields. (Jeremiah 39:10)

One of the transgressions God repeatedly holds against his people is their failure to observe his law and take care of the poor; the displaced; the homeless and the marginalized.  When God commands his people to take care of the vulnerable and under-resourced, he adds that if they don’t take care of them, God will. 

And so God does.  God removes from his people the privilege of serving his purposes.  And gives that privilege to their enemies – the pagans whom God’s people have always condemned.  Here in a great reversal, God claims the Babylonian king as his servant, and passes his own people by in order to accomplish his purposes.  God once and for all wrests power and wealth from the hands of the powerful and wealthy.  And ensures that the poor whose cries have been ignored will receive the blessing he promised them, too. 

God offers us the privilege of serving his purposes.  Bringing the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ to our neighbors and the nations.  Acting as agents of justice and shalom – leveraging our resources and influence on behalf of those who have none.  But God will not hesitate to bypass us in order to fulfill his purposes.  And God will level out the inequalities that plague humanity – whether we participate or not.  God is in the business of reconciling the world to himself.  And God is in the business of renewing creation.  What a tragedy to pass up the opportunity to join God in this great work.  Be claimed as God’s child through Jesus Christ.  Having been claimed, claim your role as his servant.  Embrace God’s work of leveling and making right.  

Go Buy a Field

Passage: Jeremiah 32

The Book of Jeremiah is full of dire warning and divine condemnation.  Through his beleaguered  prophet, God tells his people repeatedly that their idolatry and infidelity have reached a critical point.  God has insulated them from the consequences of their wild abandon as long as divinely possible; and now they will be abandoned to their inevitable downfall.  God’s people will fall into the hands of his instrument of cosmic judgment: the marauding Babylonians.

And yet, sprinkled throughout this narrative of impending doom are kernels of hope.  Jeremiah, whose prophecy comes to expression both in words and symbolic actions, buys a field.  Why?  Why, after declaring that the Babylonian scythe is poised to raze the Promised Land to stubble does Jeremiah lay claim to prime wasteland? 

Because it won’t always be wasteland.  The God who burns also plants.  The God who lays waste also renews.  Where human eyes see only irreversible devastation, the eyes of the Lord see new life.  The Lord tells his prophet,

Take these deeds, both this sealed deed of purchase and this open deed, and put them in an earthenware vessel, that they may last for a long time. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Houses and fields and vineyards shall again be bought in this land.’  (Jeremiah 32:14-15)

How often do we find ourselves confronted with the devastation of our short-sighted and self-serving behavior?  A failed marriage; a failed business; kids who won’t talk to us; friends who will no longer acknowledge us; a neighborhood blighted by our neglect; a city torn by our prejudice?  We survey the devastation, pull up stakes, and move on.  Because our efforts can only ever land us here – failure; brokenness; wasteland.  Could it be that what landed us here was a failure to trust in God right from the beginning?  And could it be that the God we ignored in the beginning is still right here – inviting us to turn to him; inviting us to trust him; inviting us to follow his way instead of ours?  Stop trusting strategies that have only yielded disappointment.  Start trusting the one true God – the only one who can turn wasteland into fertile ground.