|
 1 of 3
 
SERMONCostly, Messy, Beautiful ObedienceFinding favor in the eyes of the LordMatt Woodley
|
|
| Word file (full transcript)
$4.95
If you are a member, login below.
|
| |
|
|
|
Introduction
The key word in the title of this message is "obedience." When I did a Google search on obedience, the most popular sites fell into two categories: dog obedience or the Stanley Milgram experiments.
In the early 1960s, Milgram, a PhD student at Yale, started a series of experiments called Obedience to Authority. Participants included a learner, a teacher, and an experimenter. The experimenter represented the voice of authority. The teachers, who were ordinary people like you and me, were supposed to administer electric shocks to the learners whenever they answered a question incorrectly. The teachers didn't know it, but the learners were actually paid actors. When they received the shock, they would cry and groan, but in Milgram's experiment, most of the teachers obeyed the instructions of the experimenter and kept increasing the level of the shock. Ultimately, over two-thirds of the teachers kept obeying the experimenter in the white coat until they punished their learners with the maximum shock of 450 volts.
Based on this little survey, apparently obedience is a nasty word. We're suspicious of obedience. It's something that you do for dogs but not human beings. It's also mindless, scary, and hurts people.
Or is it? Our text, Genesis 6, tells the story of messy, costly, beautiful obedience from an ordinary man named Noah. It's not what we might expect about obedience. Through his story, we learn it's when we're loving God, knowing God, and experiencing God that we're living a life of active obedience to God.
God makes the first move.
To begin with, the story of Noah's obedience—like every story of obeying God—does not begin with Noah; it begins with God. In the midst of the human disaster of Genesis 6:5, there is this bright ray of hope: "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord." Noah found grace because God, in his grace, found Noah.
The world is filled with ancient flood stories, but there are crucial differences and themes in the biblical story that set it apart. The Babylonian flood stories, for example, emphasize the heroic image of the main character. The biblical Flood story begins with God and emphasizes his grace. Only then does it tell us about Noah's simple, humble, but costly response to God's grace. It all begins with God.
Here we have a foretaste of the Good News of Jesus. In the New Testament, we're told over and over again that God saves us, favors us, chooses us, forgives us, and sets us free from the power and penalty of sin and the sting of death. We are also reminded it is not by our own moral effort or progress; it's all by his grace. Some people say, "I've heard this before; I want to move on to the 'deep stuff.'" I'm sorry, but there's nothing deeper than the Gospel. Nearly every problem in the spiritual life—pride, elitism, a failure to love others, joylessness, impatience, lust, greed, and a failure to be generous—can be traced back to a failure to apply the work of Jesus on the cross and the sending of his Spirit.
That raises another very important question I hear often: "If I'm saved by God's grace in Jesus and it isn't based on my good deeds, then why would I want to be good? Couldn't I just live the same life I've always lived and then just ask forgiveness?" No, because once you understand God and his grace, you want to change. Jesus is the one who set you free from the bondage of sin. He redeemed you when you were utterly lost, and as a result, you love him. When you're in love, it changes everything about you—your actions, attitudes, motivations, and affections.
So this story of obedience is first a story of God's grace. When you're chosen and loved beyond your wildest imagination, you will love God in return. When you love him, it changes everything. You will live a life of costly, messy, beautiful obedience.
The radical obedience of an ordinary guy
All of this leads us into the story of Noah, the man who epitomizes costly, messy, beautiful obedience. Genesis 6:9 tells us "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God." The word for blameless meant free from defect, wholesome, sound. It does not imply Noah was perfect or sinless, but it does imply something special about Noah: he was consistently obedient to God. Notice the following verses:
• 6:22—"Noah did everything just as God commanded him."
• 7:5—"And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him."
• 7:9—"as God had commanded Noah."
• 7:16—"as God had commanded Noah."
• 8:15–16, 18—"Then God said to Noah, 'Come out of the ark' … So Noah came
out."
Noah's motto was, "Just do it—God's way." Did you notice Noah never speaks for the entire story? God gives four little speeches, but Noah just keeps his mouth shut and does his job. Now, he's not a mindless robot. He's a flesh and blood human being with real problems and struggles. When you come to Christ, God doesn't expect you to be a mindless robot either. John Polkinghorne, the brilliant physicist, said, "Many people think that faith involves shutting one's eyes, gritting one's teeth, and believing six impossible things before breakfast, because the Bible or the Pope … tells us so. Not at all! Faith may involve a leap, but it's a leap in the light, not the dark. The aim of the religious quest, like that of the scientific quest, is to seek motivated belief about what is the case … It's not a technique for whistling in the dark to keep our spirits up. " Noah may well have questioned, doubted, and argued along the way, but all we have is the end result of his journey. He received God's grace and then he responded by listening and obeying God. Noah perfected the art of obedience—not the art of thinking about obedience. He acted, putting faith into practice, and as Noah put his faith into practice, he shows us that obedience is costly, messy, and beautiful.
Obedience is costly.
Obedience will cost you something. Notice the details of the ark in Genesis 6:14–16. Someone has estimated that the dimensions imply Noah's boat was 95,700 square feet. That's much smaller than the modern ocean liner Queen Elizabeth II, but it's also much larger than Columbus's Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria. The length of 450 feet equals one and a half American football fields. This was a massive project! Imagine what obeying God cost Noah. It wasn't a hobby; it consumed his time, money, energy, and life. When you're in love, it affects everything about you. Obedience is the flow of God's love in your life.
My 19-year-old son has recently become my teacher in this regard. My son wants to spend the next semester in Nairobi, Kenya. This declaration came right after a friend of mine, who recently visited Nairobi, told me she considers it one of the most dangerous places on earth. When I told Matt I was reconsidering where he wanted to spend his next semester, he nonchalantly replied, "Dad, you better get used to me facing danger. God has called me to the mission field, so you can say 'no' to Nairobi now, but you can't protect me forever."
I hung up the phone, got down on my knees and prayed, "Father, change my heart. Let my faith cost me something. Make it a daring and dangerous adventure of following you."
Does your faith cost you anything? Does it cut into your lifestyle at all? Does your worship cost you anything? When King David entered a worship service, he said, "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God offerings that cost me nothing" (2 Samuel 24:24). So if you come up to me after a worship service and say, "Thanks! That was a perfect service—exactly what I wanted," I will say, "I'm so sorry worship cost you nothing this morning. I'm so sorry we had cheap worship, and you didn't offer anything valuable to God."
| | |
|
Printer view
by 2 members.
back to top
