Today I’d like to share something with the church that completely revolutionised my Christian life.
In fact, for me this is so immensely profound that if we as church would only understand and put this into practise the course of our lives would be forever changed. The course of this town would change.
For context, I think it’s important for me recount what led me to this revelation.
Why? I want to keep this message relatable. My deepest desire is that you all leave this place with the understanding that: If God moved in favour of a sinner like me, be assured, 100% that He will move for you!
Hence the reason why God has moved me to share this today!
I remember when I first had the revelation of this message. I was personally in a time of spiritual crisis.
This was roughly around Jan/Feb of 2018 just over 7 years ago, it was just a few weeks after the new year, and the talk of the church at the time was the renewing of our covenants with the Lord.
It was a time where we were all instructed to set goals for 2018, and I believe that one of the key goals or themes for that year was: More of God.
Naturally my 20-year-old self was excited for what God was going to do in that year. But more importantly, the cry of my heart was that I wanted more of God, I wanted to go to a new level of relationship with the Lord, I wanted to go deeper.
But I had a major crisis that was causing me a lot of heartache in this pursuit. I had major issues with sin and holiness. I had just come back to the church after a long period of being away from the Lord.
And in my life, I had many things that I needed to let go. But this was so hard, and I was living a vicious circle where I was very excited for the things of the Lord, but wasn’t able to live in holiness.
I kept slipping up in sin. And I knew that wasn’t ok. And every time this happened my devotional with the Lord would always take a dive.
In my head I knew that in order for me overflow in the Lord, I had to live a life of holiness. For God has no relationship with sin.
For the bible says:
“38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the
present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all
creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Roman 8:38-39
Nothing can prevent you and I from receive this Love that God has to give, except one thing. Sin!
“But your iniquities have separated you from your God;
your sins have hidden his face from you, so that He will not hear.
” Isaiah 59:2
Sin is a very serious problems guys, and I had this understanding.
And don’t worry, I was doing all the Christian things. I was praying, I was reading my bible, I was going to church. And I thought if I could just persevere, God would move in my favour.
But nothing was happening. It was like I didn’t have the strengthen to overcome my troubles.
And my prayer in early 2018, was, God something needs to change. And it was in this moment that God brought me this revelation.
I want to speak to you today about this: The Path to Total Obedience.
First thing we need to question, why are we like this?
Why did God create man with free will?
Some lines of thought would argue that it would nearly be better if a lightning bolt would fall in each of our heads and reprogram sin out of our lives, then there wouldn’t be a problem.
That thought process ultimately poses the question back to God, did He really make the right choice? Yeah!
But what we see in the bible is a God that created mankind to have a relationship with Him. Right at Genesis the bibles tell us that God walked around the Garden with Adam and Eve, implying closeness and intimacy.
In saying that naturally, relationship, intimacy & closeness aren’t things you can have with something that is programmed to love you.
An interesting analogy you can make is about marriage. Imagine you marry someone that has no other response to you other than fulfilling your every desire.
In that situation what guarantee do you have that, that person actually loves you?
None, why? In that situation, that person would merely be acting out of obligation or duty.
Or even, imagine the quality of relationship you’d have, if your wife was to come to you and ask:
Honey, do you love me?
And you were to say:
Of course, honey, what choice do I have? God tells me to love you, so I have to love you!
Does that work? Of course not, because the joy in having a relationship is making the decision to love someone irrespective of obligation. Even though, you also have an obligation!
Are you with me! – Amen
Why am I saying this? God wanted relationship with mankind, and since He wanted a relationship He created mankind with free will.
So, the first thing we need to observe is God wants a relationship.
Second thing:
A relationship with God without love cannot survive.
It seems obvious, but there is something profound here, that many Christians struggle with.
Let’s go to the book of revelations chapter 2:
The Lord speaks to the church of Ephesus:
“2 I know your deeds, your hard work and your perseverance. I know that you cannot tolerate wicked people, that you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them false. 3 You have persevered and have endured hardships for my name, and have not grown weary.” Revelations 2:2-3
Can you imagine if every church was like this. Imagine if the Lord was speaking to you right now and the words of this verse were being spoken about you.
How would you feel?
If only we could match this description, all these things are amazing characteristics of a church.
Harding working, perseverant in the Lord, enduring of hardship for Jesus’s sake. And to top it all off a high-level quality system, better than ISO. They were able to distinguish between true and false apostles. Wow. Imagine being the pastor of a church like this? Easy life for the pastor.
However, on verse 4, our Lord Jesus says:
“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first.” Revelations 2:4
This is profound. We see a church that is doing many things for Jesus, and Jesus himself is recognising their deeds.
However they lack a certain key ingredient, their love for Jesus had diminished.
There is a parallel here with what Jesus said to the pharisees:
8 “‘These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
” Matthew 15:8
We can understand this easier when we compare it to what was said to the pharisees. Because Jesus criticised them a lot. But what He is saying to the church in Ephesus is the exact same thing.
What is the significance of this? Jesus came to this earth to reconcile us to God through a relationship. And, as I said, the key ingredient to this relationship is Love. So, without love, which is born from having an ever-increasing interest in the person of Jesus, all that we have is actions or deeds born out of merely obligation & duty. And this is not in line with God’s design & purpose for my life and your life.
Should we then stop with the works? Of course not, but our work before the Lord should be in proportion to our Love for and interest in Him.
This understanding changed everything for me. In 2018, for the first time, the Lord spoke clearly to me on this topic.
Lucas, you are putting your focus & your trust on doing “Christian things”, but your focus should be in getting to know me! – and growing your love for me.
The secret to obtaining strength to overcome your short coming is through a relationship with me!
“13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29: 13
God was blatant. He said, Lucas your heart is in the wrong place!
He said:
Should you read the bible, it should because you want to know more about me.
Should you pray, it’s because you wish to chat with me and have intimacy.
Should you go to church, it should be because you can’t get enough of my presence.
Not merely to tick the box on your devotional or Christian obligations.
God is asking us this question today, where is your heart? Where is your trust truly?
This brings me to third and final point:
Block out the noise!
Let me elaborate – Jesus speaks very clearly in the book of John about what measures he uses to determine whether we Love Him or not.
21 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.” John 14: 21
Remember the title of the message! – The Path to Total Obedience.
What is the measure of your Love for Jesus? Obedience to the commandments.
Let’s look at this practically for a second, let’s look at the Old Testament. Who here knows how many commandments are in the Old Testament? There are 613!
And if you think that New Testament commandments are less onerous than Old Testament, you’d be mistaken!
Jesus said:
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’[e] 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. Matthew 5: 27:28
To my rational brain Jesus is making this harder, not easier. I have to confess, at this point I had yet another crisis. I said, Lord what you’re asking is too much. This borders the impossible! And as I was being ministered by the Lord, I could feel the Lord’s compassion.
I was brought to yet another passage in the bible: Its in Luke 10:38-42.
You all know the story, I’m going to summarise to save time. Jesus is in the house of Martha and Mary. They are sisters, and one of them, Mary, is sitting by Jesus’s feet listening to Him.
While the other (Martha) is running around doing “things”. Vs 40 of Luke 10 very appropriately states she was “distracted by all the preparation”. Martha is working, Mary is sitting doing nothing. What happens, Martha turns to Jesus indignant, and demands that Jesus tells her sister Mary to help her. It is at this point that our Lord Jesus, gives a check mate. But before we go there.
We all need to recognise something.
Martha is relatable. You and I are Marthas! We are running around trying our hardest to be the best version of ourselves.
Imagine if Jesus came to your house. Would you serve Him just anything? Would you not run around and make sure you’d be presenting Him with your best? Of course!
But Jesus is saying to you and me today, what is required is much easier than that!
Let’s read verse 41 & 42.
41 “Martha, Martha,”
the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,
42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:41,42
What is Jesus saying to Martha? What Mary is doing is much more than what you are doing!
Ain’t no way I’m taking her out of here! The Lord spoke very clearly to me.
Lucas you are too worried about the number 613 and the difficulty. This is all noise!
Block out the noise!
Only one thing is enough!
Conclusion:
Naturally, the next question is, what is this one thing that Jesus is talking about?
Jesus was asked the question,
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
He answered immediately without stuttering.
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
Matthew 22:36 37,38
Once again, the Lord spoke to me.
My son, the answer is simple. It seems difficult but all is summarised in a single commandment.
Love and seek me with everything that you got!
We’ve a beautiful example of this in King David’s life:
David was a man like you and me. And, despite being imperfect, the bible tells us he was a man according to God’s heart.
This is David’s heart right after he comes to himself in recognition of his sin with Bathsheba. Follow with me:
In Psalm 51:4
Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.
What was his concern? He had wronged the Lord/Bathseba/Uriah & the people and His main concernquite clearly was, what was God’s opinion of him.
He comes before the Lord in repentance, solely to reconcile the relationship with the Lord.
Also, we see David in the Psalm 27.
One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple.
Psalm 27:4
Love for the Lord, this is the one thing Jesus was talking about!
For it is impossible for you to fulfil this commandment without fulfilling all others. And the Lord started to draw out some parallels before me.How can someone claim to Love me, if they can’t love their neighbour? If you are someone who has constant issues with people, the love for the Lord is not in you.
How can you claim to Love him and not love people for whom he gave His life for!
How can you love me and not have self-control?
If you love me and have true relationship with me, my peace is with you, and you will have self-control.
Beloved the point is, if we are failing in a particular area, the question isn’t “what commandment have I broken?’
The question should be, “how much do I really love the Lord?”
This changed everything for me!
It became much easier, I only had only 1 thing to worry about, and as I changed my posture before the Lord, I was able to testify, and the strength of those sins that once chained me disappeared in a miraculous way.
And since then, I have lived many stories of victory and over coming.
Not that I’ve achieved perfection.
But with my eyes fixed on the Lord, the Lord is strengthening me in my weakness day after day after day.
And I have been living what Solomon said:
“18 The path of the righteous is like the morning sun, shining ever brighter till the full light of day. ” Proverb 4:18
So, the path to total obedience, is to have deep and unshakeable love for the Lord.
If today you are recognising that your posture before the Lord hasn’t been from a place of Love, and as a result you haven’t been able to live this life of total obedience before the Lord,
The instruction Jesus is giving you today is: Repent! – As He instructed the church of Ephesus (Revelations 2:5)
Consider how far you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first..”
The second instruction He has for you is: Change your posture!