I came across a story the other day that emphasised what I am talking about here.

A member of the British Parliament, named Neil Marten, was giving a group of his constituents a guided tour of the Houses of Parliament. During the visit, the group came across a guy named Lord Hailsham, who was the Lord Chancellor and wearing all the regalia of his office. Hailsham recognised Marten among the group and called out, "Neil!" Not daring to question or disobey the "command," the entire group of visitors promptly fell to their knees! (Today in the Word, July 30, 1993)

Now, that is what I call obedience.

Many of you know that I love dogs, and I enjoy dogs who are obedient. Tessa, my older Border Collie is obedient, she does was I tell her. Smokey on the other hand is still an adolescent dog and behaves like an adolescent dog - he obeys me some of the time, but there are times when we have a battle of wills which I normally win because he knows I will discipline him.

I read the other day about a man whose dog had been killed in a bushfire. This guy worked in the outdoors, and like me, often took his dog with him. This particular morning, he left his dog in a clearing and gave him a command to stay and watch his lunch box while he went into the scrub. His faithful friend understood, because that's exactly what he did. A fire started in the scrub, and soon spread to the spot where the dog had been left. But he didn't move. He stayed right where he was, in perfect obedience to his master's word. With tears in his eyes, the dog's owner said, "I always had to be careful what I told him to do, because I knew he would do it." (Our Daily Bread, January, 19).

We have been looking at adjusting our lives to God, and how this is the second critical turning point in our knowing and doing the will of God. The first turning point was the crisis of belief - that we must believe God is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do. Without faith in God, we tend to make wrong decisions at the first turning point. In adjusting ourselves to God, the second turning point, we go on to obedience which is what we are focussing on today.

Blackaby and King who wrote the book 'Experiencing God' say "To experience God at work in and through you, you must obey Him. When you obey Him, He will accomplish His work through you; and you will come to know Him by experience."

Now a few weeks ago we looked at the relationship between love and obedience. We found that obedience is the outward expression of our love of God. So to refresh our minds on what we looked at back then here are some statements from that week.

• Obedience is the outward expression of your love for God
• The reward for obedience and love is that He will reveal Himself to you.
• If you have an obedience problem, you have a love problem.
• God is love, His will is always best.
• God is all-knowing. His directions are always right.
• God is all-powerful. He can enable you to do His will.
• If you love Him, you will obey Him.

Now just to reaffirm the biblical basis of these statements let's remind ourselves of some passages.

Matthew 12:50

Jesus clearly shows here that by obedience a person indicates his or her love relationship with God.

James 2:20

1 John 2:3-6

If we obey God's commands we know that we have come to know him.

BUT if we say we know Him and don't do what He commands then we are a liar.

And then to re-emphasise the point John says again that if we obey His commands THEN God's love is made complete in us.

What an incredible promise - that God's love is made complete in us.

So, why is obedience important.

1. OBEDIENCE

1. Importance of Obedience

Peter T. Forsythe was right when he said, "The first duty of every soul is to find not its freedom but its Master".

If you know that God loves you, you should never question a directive from Him because He always has our best in mind. When He gives us a directive, we are not just to observe, discuss it, or debate it - BUT we are to obey it.

Jeremiah 7:23

Luke 6:46-49

I enjoy doing woodwork. When I come to build something I spend time thinking about and planning the project before starting anything else. By planning I eliminate thee many mistakes I would have made had I not planned. Here we find Jesus talking about laying the foundations. Like my planning before making something, the foundations are laid to provide stability for everything else that is built upon that foundation.

Now, the question I ask is why on earth would people build a house without a foundation? Perhaps it is to save time and avoid the hard work of preparing a stone foundation - which really comes down to laziness. Possibly it is because the waterfront scenery is more attractive or because beach houses have higher social status than cliff houses - well, they probably do in the Burdekin because there are not many cliff faces. Perhaps it is because they want to join their friends who have already settled in sandy areas. Maybe it is because they haven’t heard about the violent storms coming, or because they have discounted the reports, or for some reason they think disaster can’t happen to them. Whatever their reason, those with no foundation are shortsighted, and they will be sorry.

Do you follow where I am going here? The foundations I'm talking about is our obedience in Christ.. When you find yourself listening but not obeying, what are your reasons? And are those reasons good enough? Well, Scripture makes clear that there is no excuse good enough for lack of obedience to Christ. Disobedience is a serious rejection of God's will, and the cost for disobedience is that we suffer the results of that disobedience. In other words, we are accountable for our own actions and attitudes.

What's the positive side? Well, obedience means that blessing comes that is beyond our imagination. It gives us a firm footing, based in Christ when difficulties of life come against us - and the words used in this passage are "storms of life". You see, we will know spiritual truth and we will be secure in the depth of love that God has for us.

You see, obeying God is like building a house on a strong, solid foundation that stands firm when storms of life come. When life is calm, our foundations don’t seem to matter. But when the crises come, our foundations are tested. The message is be sure your life is built on the solid foundation of knowing and trusting Jesus Christ.

So what is obedience?

Matthew 21:28-30

Now, who was the obedient son in this parable Jesus told.

Obedience isn't what you say you will do, it is doing what has been commanded. We may not like everything God tells us to do - I know I don't. But obedience is that we do what God asks whether we like it or not. I'm sure that the dog I was talking about before didn't want to stay by his masters lunch while a fire raged around him - never-the-less, the dog stayed there. I've said this many times, but I believe our culture has trained us to do only those things we want to do - to stay in our comfort level. But obedience does not consider personal comfort but only what the master directs.

To sum up obedience to Christ

1. Reveals what you believe about Him
2. Determines whether we will experience God's work in and through us. And
3. Determines whether we will come and know Him more intimately.

This sermon has been created and adapted from the book 'Experiencing God' by H.T.Blackaby and C.V.King by Pastor Scott Douglas for teaching in the Burdekin Baptist Church on 20^th June, 1999.