Morning Grace, how are y'all this morning? Good, it's good to see y'all this morning. How many of y'all are betting on who's gonna win in the Super Bowl today? It's just a sea of different opinions on that, all right.
Let's just stick to church, let's stick to the message. We are in obedience. This is part two, I'm excited, I'm thrilled for the opportunity to be able to bring you part two. Last week, our lead pastor Michael Lemas, his title and his message to kick off our series was The Blessing of Obedience.
And man oh man, what is in store in this series? Life, changing material for you and I. Life, changing convictions, that's gonna put us on a different trajectory and put our family, put our marriages on a different trajectory in life. Amen.
So before I share with you what my title is this morning, what we're gonna be talking about, what we're gonna be examining, I think we all can agree on something. We owe Jesus everything. We owe Jesus everything. Everything that we are, all the gifts, the talents, the blessings that he's bestowed on our life, but also too, think about our marriage.
Think about our family. I don't have a marriage yet, I don't have a family. What about this family? What about being born here geographically?
You could be born anywhere in the world and got placed you here. You were born in this time, in this century, for a purpose. Everything, if you just stop and pause for a second, do an overview of your life, just go out 50, 60, 80,000 feet in the air and look over your life. Everything that's in my life, I can say for myself, I believe all of us would agree, everything in our life is attributed to Jesus.
We owe everything to Jesus. We're righteous church because of Jesus. We will share in his glory, why? Because of Jesus.
All of our sins, as scarlet red as they were, they are washed wide as snow. Because of Jesus, amen. Our relationship with God is now connected. It's mended together.
It's joined together because of Jesus, amen. Because of Jesus, we have eternal life. Eternal life, an inheritance. New titles, new status as sons and daughters of the king.
It's because of Jesus. But more specifically, church, is because of the obedience of Jesus. See, Jesus led the life of obedience. Utter, unwavering, obedience.
And because of his obedience, we are forever. Forever, change, amen. So in this series, we're looking at obedience. That's the title, that's what we're discovering.
And who else could we look at? Who's life could we look at? For an example on obedience. No one.
No one except Jesus. He is the model. He is the example. He is the blueprint for how we should model our life.
When people see us, come in contact with us. They should see a reflection, a mirror of Jesus, and every single one of us. And when they see our lives, obedience should not be an exception to that. Amen?
So if you're looking for a title for my teaching today, it is simply this, Jesus is life. Jesus is life was a life of obedience that was submitted, that was surrendered to God. And so how can we apply that in our life? How can we grow in this area of obedience?
We just need to look at Jesus. And can we agree on something, Church, to be the best in anything? Anything. We need to learn from the best.
Not just be good at something. No, no. If we want to bring mastery to something, we need to go visit the master. We need to sit at the master's feet.
We need to learn. We need to ask questions. And Jesus is the best. He is the master in this area, in living a life of obedience.
So before we look into Jesus' life more closely, let's understand why Jesus had to come in the first place. See, let's pick this up in Romans chapter 5, verse 19. For justice through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners. So also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous.
Two people, two individuals, two different attitudes, two different outcomes. See, because of one man, because of one man's disobedience, many were made sinners. Who is that speaking of there? Adam.
Because of his disobedience, sin entered the world. And then the second part of that, so also through the obedience of the one man, we were made righteous. Who's that speaking of? Jesus.
See, let's stop here for a second, because this is really important for where we're going this morning. Let's look at Adam. Because Adam disobeyed God, sin, condemnation, pain, suffering, evil, sorrow, death entered our world. And each descendant of Adam, ever since the fall of man, every person that enters this world enters a world under the curse of sin.
And also, the tendency to disobey exists because of Adam. You know, we constantly say to maybe our co-workers, or maybe our family friend, and joking with them. You had one job. You had one job, and you couldn't do it.
You couldn't fulfill it. Church, Adam had one job. One job. And he couldn't do it.
And that was simply to obey. All God asked of Adam is obedience. And church, obedience is the only way any creature, any creature can glorify God. So it's not too far fetched.
It's not an overstatement to say church that disobedience is the root of all sin and misery. I thought pride was the root of, yes, Adam in his pride disobeyed. Disobedience flowed out of that pride. Unfortunately, church, what happened when Adam disobeyed, he severed man and God's relationship in the garden.
Disobedience is the root of all sin and misery, what brought evil into this world. But there is a second part to Romans 519, isn't there? Amen. Through the obedience of the one man, many will be made righteous.
See, contrary to Adam, the first Adam, we have Jesus. And Jesus obeyed God. And not only did he obey God, he fully obeyed and submitted to the mission that got placed on his life. And because of the obedience of Christ, church, righteousness came into this world.
Goodness, peace, he brought with him hope, joy. Instead of death, there's life now because of the obedience of Jesus. And now each descendant of Adam, each descendant of disobedience can now have a relationship with the Father forever. That's all attributed to the obedience of Christ, the obedience of Jesus.
That whosoever, place their hope, place their trust in Jesus. Regardless of the sin, regardless of the past, that person, that individual, whenever they place their hope and faith in the one that only can save them, their Lord and Savior, they are immediately made holy, immediately made righteous. Their status, our status as born again believers is forever changed. And in business, maybe in hotels and airlines, I mean credit cards, there are reward programs.
We're all familiar, we're all aware of them. We like points, don't we? We like benefits, we like perks, we like a fruit basket that comes with that hotel, you know, at night's day. I do, let me do you.
I like rewards unless you're Dave Ramsey, right? So anyways, something else for another time. So Delta Airlines, Delta Airlines, just to use a couple of examples, Delta Airlines has something called their medallion program. It's medallion, it's very, very official.
Silver medallion, then there's gold medallion, then there's platinum medallion, then there's diamond medallion. Ooh, special, special. Marriott, Marriott has silver elite, gold elite, platinum. I don't know if you all know this, but there's a titanium level, you can be titanium elite.
And then by invite only, you can be an ambassador for Marriott. Yes, just the ground that you walk on, I guess, I don't know. You walk in that hotel and they just start you in this ambassador. No.
Yeah. I will never, by the way, I have a Marriott card and I will never forget the day that I walked into a hotel and I had no idea that I had gotten upgraded from silver to gold. And, cause I put all my points and my account number on the company that I was working for, I was allowed to do that. And so I was racking up all these miles and night's days of these hotels working, you know.
And I remember walking in at the front desk of this Marriott and the lady said, oh, Mr. Sweeney, you're a gold elite member. And I was like, I did not know. And I was like, I am, I am.
Yes. I'll take that fruit basket. I was like, yes, come on. Tastes good game, man.
Today's a good week, man. Avas, far rentals, you know, they have preferred plus. And then there's the president circle, right? I mean, there's, Amex is probably the most hilarious to me.
It's probably the most funny. There's platinum. There's platinum pro and then there's centurion level. Who wants to be a centurion for Amex?
Your loyalty is noted here at Amex for being a centurion. And we get so, as a, as Christians, non-christian, in our world, we get so wrapped up on that and the rewards, the perks, the benefits, and I'm not diminishing that. But all of that, church, those are all earthly titles. Earthly statuses that completely utterly pale in comparison to the status that we have in the kingdom of God, amen?
And then I mentioned it was a free upgrade. You and I didn't have to spend enough money, flying up airline miles, doing enough good things in order to receive that upgrade from God. And then our status has been forever changed. We receive salvation because of the obedience of Jesus Christ.
Church, our salvation is a direct result of Jesus' unwavering obedience to the Father. Just like our sin, Church, we need to get this, just like our sin is the result of disobedience, righteousness. Our righteousness is the result of His obedience. Andrew Murray said this, the first object of his salvation was to cut away the evil root, what is that root, disobedience, right?
And restore man to his original destiny, a life in obedience to God. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. The first object of Jesus coming, doing his ministry, dying on the cross for you and me, was to take an axe right at the root where man failed in disobedience and replaced it with his obedience, so that you and I could have life, a new status in the kingdom.
And so as I mentioned before, we are going to look at Jesus' life this morning. And there's so many beautiful examples of his unwavering obedience to the task that God gave him, the mission to Father God himself. There's so many beautiful pictures. But one of them I'm going to share before we jump at this impractical application this morning is a beautiful picture.
And then I read just a couple weeks ago, and it just gripped me. It was the picture of the crown of thorns that Jesus has or had on his head. See, as Tom Goldlin was sharing during worship, he had no idea what I was going to be talking about this morning. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam disobeyed, and God shares with Adam and Eve what's going to happen, the cause of their disobedience, the result of their disobedience, what does God tell them?
He said, there's going to be pain and childbearing, right? The ground is cursed. We must eat from the ground for forever. And one of the things that God says to Adam is, in Genesis chapter three, verse 18, he says, I will produce thorns and thistles for you.
You see, look at this church, symbolically thorns are a result of man's disobedience. And some of y'all may know already where I'm going with this. Jesus took that disobedience and he bore it on his head. Again, went to the root and cut it.
He put it on himself. Of course, he put on all of our sin, all of our shame. But that was a symbolic act right there, going back to the garden. I'm taking man's disobedience and I'm replacing it with something so much about a beautiful transaction was made right there for you and I.
Jesus bore man's disobedience and replaced it with his obedience. In church, only Jesus, only Jesus could undo what man did through obedience. So this morning, let's look at three ways, three ways that Jesus obeyed. Jesus obeyed in three different ways.
Number one, Jesus obeyed the mission. He obeyed the mission, Philippians chapter two, verses six through eight. This is in the Philip's translation. Let Christ himself be your example as to what your attitude should be, for he who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his prerogatives as God's equal, but stripped himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man.
And having become man, he humbled himself by living a life of utter obedience. So church, Jesus didn't discover a plan, a mission for his life. He submitted to the plan that the Father put on his life. And Jesus gave up everything.
He gave up everything. We're seeing that song this one. Here I am in your presence. Jesus came down, came down off of his throne and stepped into darkness.
He surrendered his authority, surrendered his power, he surrendered his comfort, he surrendered his will to the will of God. He laid down everything to obey the mission that God placed on his life. What a picture, what a challenge for you and I church. He sacrificed everything to obey the will of Father God.
So what is the will of God? What is the will of the Father? Well, we have the answer in John chapter 6, verse 38 through 39. For I have come down from heaven not to do my will, but to do the will of him who sent me.
And this is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day. So what's the will of the Father? That whoever, who shall ever, anyone, everybody, whoever puts their hope, puts their faith, puts their trust, and Jesus could have a relationship for eternity with the Father. That was the will of Father God.
He loved you and I so much that his one purpose, one mission that he gave to his son was to men to join that relationship again so that you and I could have a relationship with the Father again to restore what had been undone in the garden. Jesus came with one mission, one purpose, and he submitted to it utterly, I mean, just surrendered unwaveringly to the Father with obedience. So church at this point, I want to ask you something. Whose will are you submitted to?
Whose mission am I submitted to? Are you submitted to your mission? Your goals? Or are you submitted to God's goals?
God's mission for your life. Here's the second question we need to ask yourself, is my life shaped by my will or surrendered to his? What does that mean? Your decisions.
The decisions every single day that you and I make, does that point more and more toward, is that guiding you more and more toward the will, the mission, the plan that God has for your life, or the plan that you have for your life? Well, this is what I want to do. This is what I want to be. This is what, oh, see church, when we are saved, when we're born again, when we accept Jesus into our heart, and make him our Lord and Savior, we subject ourselves to obedience.
We subject ourselves to obedience to Jesus and to follow his commands, amen, as Lord and Savior. But here's the key, church, how we maintain our salvation, how we keep our salvation, how we keep our righteousness, is through living a life of obedience, to following his plans, to following that mission. See church, like Jesus, each and every single one of us have a mission. As I said at the very beginning of this message, you're born for such a time as this.
God's place to destiny, God's place to calling, God's place to purpose on your life. He has a mission for you, has a mission for me. And if we are not submitted to that mission, to the Father's mission, rather we're living by our own will, by our own goals, we just have to be honest with ourselves. We're not modeling our lives after Jesus.
And therefore, church, sadly, we're living in disobedience if we don't submit to the will, to the mission of the Father. So again, I asked church, whose mission are you submitted to? Are you submitted to your plans, your mission, your goals, or God's mission, God's goals? And church, I'm up here today and I'm speaking from a place of progress.
I have not come to full perfection in this year. I don't think anyone in here has come to perfection. We speak with humility up here on these subjects. And when it comes to this in particular, there's something recently, I'm talking about in the past two months of my life that I've had to work on, that I've had to course correct in my life.
And that was at the very start of my day. At the very start of my day, my priority shifted from what God wanted me to do to what I want to do, what I needed to do in that moment. I looked at my to-do list and I was like, what's the most important thing? Whatever lands on my plate, that's just running and gunning.
You know what I mean? That's a commons, it's like, and over the past two months, it's been a red line season, it's been busy. And over time, I started getting frustrated at the end of the day because I was like, yeah, I didn't get this, I didn't get that done, what I should have done. It was this and this and I didn't do that.
I was productive, but not in the way that I could have and should have. And I got so fed up with myself that I went to my dad and I just said, I am struggling in this area. I am trying to do this, I'm trying to get this done. And my dad, without hesitation, if you know my dad, he doesn't parse words, he just was like, at the beginning of your day, in your quiet time, do you ask God, what do you want me to do today?
What's your will for today? And obviously my answer was, no, I'm not doing that. I'm not sitting quietly before God, before I go into my workplace, before I go to the gym or I go to class, or I'm not sitting there and I'm not getting still before the Lord and learning to hear his voice on what he would have to do. Said, I got so wrapped up with what I needed to do, what I wanted to do.
And church, can I tell you, over the past month, the two months, I have changed that and I have seen dramatic growth in my life. There's huge benefits to doing that, to sitting before God at the start, that's so practical, so simple. Sitting before God at the beginning of your day and saying, Lord, what's your will for my life? What do you want me to do?
Who do you want me to reach out to and speak with? I mean, how do you want me to incorporate God into the conversation of your daily life? That's just a simple way that you and I can obey the mission just like Jesus did. Jesus did that same exact thing.
Church, at the beginning of the day, before the disciples woke up, you know what I mean? Before he went and did his ministry, he spent time with the Father to get wisdom, to get knowledge, to get insight. Oh, church, something so simple, but so powerful that we can apply in our life. And if you're sitting here today, church, and you're saying, I don't know what the mission is of my life, have you asked him?
Have you asked him? Have you gone to him in prayer and asked me? Because he wants to show you. He wants to reveal that to you, but you just need to simply ask him.
Church, this topic of obedience, this topic of obeying God's will for our life is important because obedience to the mission, to the plan that God has for our life, separates you and I from the lost. It separates us from everyone else. And we actually find this in Matthew 12, verse 50. He then stretched out his hand as Jesus, toward his disciples.
Look closely, these are my brothers, and brothers, obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys my heavenly father's will, is my brother and sister and mother. Church, obedience is the defining characteristic for a true Christ follower. It is the obedience is thicker than blood.
He who obeys the will of my father, that's my sister, that's my brother and Christ. Are you a brother and sister in Christ this morning? Then obey the mission. Obey the mission.
So that's the first way that Jesus obeyed. He obeyed the mission. Here's the second way that Jesus obeyed. He obeyed with joy.
O, he obeyed with joy. Yes, he obeyed the mission, but how he did it, he did it with joy. He did it with a smile on his face. So often we hear that word, obedience, obey, and it sounds so restrictive.
We have to obey this. We have to obey. That means there's rules, there's limitations, there's parameters. And most people don't have a bounce in their step whenever they, especially children, they don't have a bounce in their step.
They don't have a smile on their face, whenever they hear the word obedience. But Jesus isn't most people. So let's pick this up in Hebrews, chapter 12, verse two. Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before him endeared the cross, despising the shame and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
What gave Jesus joy in the midst of his suffering? In the midst of torture, agony, coming off of his arm and being a man and having the same, he's fully man and fully God. So he's dealing with a lot of the same motions that we deal with. He understands and he knows.
So what's giving him joy in the midst of being here? Well, it's the mission that God gave him. Jesus rejoiced to see that by his suffering, by his obedience, he would open a way. He would open a door for salvation for you and I.
That's what gave him joy. See, even in the midst of his suffering, he knew what the end result was. That was the joy set before him. So whenever he's given that crown of thorns, he's being whipped, he's on the cross, or he's doing ministry.
Oh my God, I'm so tired, I'm just, oh my God. Peter, are we going over to the Kia's house tonight? God, no, that wasn't Jesus' attitude. He obeyed and he obeyed joyfully.
Look at this quote by Andrew Murray, the secret of joy and obedience lies in knowing God and in knowing that his will, his love come on. Jesus didn't see obedience as some harsh, restrictive command that God was giving him and continually revealing to him. He saw God for who he was, a loving father, a loving father. And he obeyed a loving father.
So while fulfilling, while submitting and obeying the will of God, the mission, Jesus had an abounding joy, a fullness of joy in him. And I'm also too, church, joy was the source of his strength. Saying that this morning, didn't we? I mean, me not knowing what the set list was until Thursday.
And then Stephen, not knowing what I was going to preach about. I mean, obedience and joy. It's our strength. It was Jesus' strength too.
We find this in John chapter 4, verse 34. Jesus said to them, my food is to do the will of him who sent me and accomplish his work. My food, where I get my strength, is from doing the will of God, doing the mission that he's placed on my life. That doesn't sound like someone who's whining and complaining, church.
That sounds like someone who is excited, who's got a bounce in their step. Man, serving other people, doing the mission, doing what God's calling me to do. Man, that gives me strength. That gives me joy to keep going.
Gives me endurance. Jesus had joy because of obedience search, because he obeyed. He found joy in that. And at the same time, church, in obedience, he had joy.
Get that, sure. So are you joyfully serving God? Are you joyfully serving and living out and walking out that mission that he has for your life? What about on the Fenn team?
Do you have a joy in serving on that Fenn team, on that first impressions ministry? Oh, man, Rick Young scheduled me again for first impressions. Oh, man. I'm tired.
Are you joyfully serving? What about on the Shepherd's team, the audio and video, the worship team? Are you joyfully serving others and joyfully serving God? I mean, see, if we don't have joy in our obedience, then we're not living like Jesus did.
We're not obeying the same way Jesus did. My parents told me this all the time, church, growing up. They said, if you're going to do it, you might as well do it with a smile on your face. And at first, whenever I heard that, I was like, all right, all right.
But that's so true. We're going to obey. We're going to do the will of the Father. You might as well have a bounce in your step while doing it.
Not have this doom and gloom countenance that so many people have. I mean, it's fine joy in what God's called you to do. So Jesus obeyed the mission. And he obeyed that mission with joy.
And here we come to the last and final point. Jesus obeyed unto death. He obeyed unto death. What a great place.
What a great third point for us to end on today. Philippians chapter 2, verse 8, being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. We need to stop and realize, Church, there were so many, so many, there were astronomical amounts of opportunities that Jesus had to partially obey, to opt out of a situation, opt out of doing the will of God. I mean, just to give you a few examples, the temptation and the wilderness.
40 days without food and water. The rejection in his hometown in Luke 4. Sanity questioned by his family in March chapter 3, verse 21. His disciples walking away from him after he's been teaching to them.
John chapter 6, verse 66. There were so many opportunities for Jesus to be like, oh man, this is just hard. I don't know if I can do this anymore. I mean, I'm going to just take a two month, three months of radical.
I'm just going to go maybe to the Bahamas for a little bit and just chill out. I need to get away from all these people. I mean, just Jesus had the opportunity to water down the message. Man, this is going to offend some people, Pharisees, the people in the synagogue, the higher ups.
They're not going to like this. If I share this and I say that there were so many opportunities around Jesus to partially obey or to opt out to back up, but Jesus did not. He fully obeyed. He fully surrendered.
And all of these examples that I'm listing here at church, all of these pale, I think we'd all agree on this, it pales in comparison to the test of his obedience in the Garden of Gethsemane. When he knows what's coming next, let's read this in Luke chapter 22, verse 42. He says this, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me, yet not my will, but yours be done. And some people look at this.
And some people, I've heard people say this. They're like, man, Jesus was getting weak at this point. He's wavering in this area. Oh, no, no, not at all.
Because we need to understand this. This doesn't negate Jesus' obedience at all. If anything, it reinforces it. Because Jesus, again, being fully God and fully man, he's dealing with all of these thoughts that we all have, these emotions that we all have.
And he knows what's coming. And yet, regardless of all that, of what he, the suffering, the torture that is about to happen, what's going to come on his life, he chose anyway to obey. And he said, Lord, not my will, but your will be done. See, a test of obedience unto the point of death.
Jesus wasn't detached from his emotions. He was sitting there in prayer with God in the Garden of Gethsemane, and he was counting the costs. He was like, I know what's about to happen. But yet, God, you have a mission on my life.
May your will be done. May you be glorified through this. May your plan come to fruition. He was fully committed, fully surrendered, and fully obedient, obedient to the end.
So as we're coming to a conclusion today, what was the result of the obedience of Christ? What was the result of his obedience? Well, let's look at Philippians chapter two, verses eight through 11. We already read verse eight, but let's add this on verses nine to 11.
Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason, for this reason also, God highly exalted him so that at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Because of the obedience of Jesus, sin was defeated. Amen.
Because of the obedience of Jesus, death was conquered. Because of the obedience of Christ, salvation was secured for you and I. So if we look at Jesus' life, he doesn't just set the bar high for obedience, he is the bar. And we are to become more and more like him, more and more obedient church.
So what are our three points, the three ways that Jesus obeyed Jesus, obeyed the mission, he obeyed with joy, and Jesus obeyed unto death. Let me ask you something here, church, which area of Jesus' life challenged you today? Which area of his life did it challenge you today? We have real eternal life because of the obedience of Jesus.
For what he gave, what he surrendered, church, may we go forth and may we be obedient servants to the Father. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus.
If you all want to, thank you, Lord. Go on, just bow your heads and close your eyes with me as I pray this out today. Father, thank you so much for the greatest gift that you loved us so much to give us a free gift of salvation, God, through your Son, Lord. I pray that Lord, this message today, this series would convict us, help us to change, see the areas, recognize the areas that we need to grow in, and we would move forward from there, God.
We thank you for your love and your mercy and your grace. And it's all in your Son's name, we pray. Amen. Have a blessed Sunday.