Obedience Matters

I was sitting talking to a bunch of Christians about how important it is to Christ that we obey Him, when one of them said, “Oh, I just realized something. You live in a world where rules matter.” By that, I took the guy to mean, “Oh, you’re a lawyer, so you’re a rules guy. Kind of like the Pharisees. That’s why you’re talking about obedience.”

Okay, I admit that this bugged me. It bugged me because when you’re a lawyer—and a Christian lawyer at that—you hear a lot of lawyer jokes. Even in church. None of them are very flattering. “What do you call it when a lawyer is eaten by a shark? (Pause, sly smirk) A good start! (big belly laugh).” Yeah, that’s just hysterical. Especially when you’ve spent your professional life taking significant personal and financial risks to defend those who are under attack and fresh out of hope. And it’s not just me (of course). Lots of lawyers view their job as a calling and a ministry, not just a profession. So if you want to love me as Christ has loved you, don’t tell me lawyer jokes. It hurts my feelings.

But that’s not what really bugged me about this comment.

Was Jesus a rules guy? One day, Jesus' disciples got worried about whether He was getting enough to eat. "My food," said Jesus, "is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:34). Jesus loved us by doing what His father told Him to do. Later, Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command” (John 14:15). Our obedience demonstrates that we love Jesus. Isn’t that what it means to follow Jesus as Lord? Isn’t that the essence of faith—obedience in the face of danger or even doubt? Yeah, I think obedience is a very big deal to Jesus. He's a grace guy, but He's also a rules guy. Everyone lives in a world where rules mattter, because rules matter to Jesus. What would make us think otherwise?

Well, I tried to make a short list of reasons. This may look a little like I’m talking to myself (which, of course, I am). Send me your comments so that I’ll at least look a little less crazy:

1. “We are saved by grace, so obedience doesn’t matter.” Dave: We are saved by grace, but that doesn’t mean that we keep disobeying (Rom. 6). We were created in Christ to do good works, and we can’t do the work without obedience (Eph. 2:10) and the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. “No one can obey perfectly.” Dave: Agreed. That doesn’t mean we don’t try, by God’s grace and with His help, to obey perfectly. We need to rest in the assurance of Christ’s love, and know that His love is not dependent on our perfection (good thing!). He loves us for who we are. If we focus on our failures instead of Christ’s love for us, our quest for holiness can spiral into depression and self-condemnation, which is obviously not what Jesus had in mind.

3. “Focus on obedience leads to self-righteousness and judgmentalism.” And we start looking like the person in the photograph in this post. Dave: Not necessarily, but I agree that this is a danger. We need to let Christ’s perfection and the Holy Spirit keep us humble. This is the flip-side of obsessing over our failures (#2). If we ignore our failures, we lapse into pride. Rather than fall into either of these two extremes, we need to consider ourselves with sober (balanced) judgment (Rom. 12:3).

4. “Yeah, but lots of crazies do bad things because ‘God told them to.’” Dave: Sometimes I think that Satan has a better PR firm than God. He convinces people to do horrible things, and then whispers in their ear, “Tell them God told you to do it.” That way, Satan gets his job done, and hurts God’s reputation in the process. True obedience—true Godliness—is the best way to overcome Satan’s PR war. Jesus said, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).

Let’s love one another as Jesus has loved us, in joyful obedience to Him.