#45c. Ideas That Hinder Obedience: The Threat to Grace
Like me, were you ever the person at school who hated every subject you weren’t intuitively good at? The need to save face meant avoiding the areas where one’s incompetence could be exposed. Which meant it took me decades to realise there is more to enjoying something than being the best at it. It’s possible to learn to do new things. There’s much pleasure, when we’re willing to be seen for the duffers we are, while we fumble around learning something new.
It’s natural to dislike the word ‘obedience’, after all, none of us are very good at it. And perhaps we’re scared of loving it, lest we land in the trap of legalism, thinking our obedience is more than a dirt rag before the holy God. We’re nervous about teaching our kids to obey Jesus, cautious that they will think their obedience is the basis of their acceptance with God. When we’re hazy about obedience, we tend to treat it as the enemy of grace. We reflexively—allergically—steer wide of it altogether. We only talk about obedience long enough to say that it’s a bad thing. When we have a complex distaste for obedience, it’s inevitable that we’ll struggle to attend to it with our kids. Teach them to obey everything I’ve commanded doesn’t make sense to us, so we leave it undone.
Sometimes, we don’t mind talking about obedience when it’s in reverse: the picture of everything we fail to do (although it’s more common to talk rather of “brokenness” and “weakness” and “inadequacy” which has more to do with our psychology than an objective measure from an authority outside ourselves; it’s possible to talk an awful lot about our brokenness and not about sin—and when we erase the idea of sin, we end up erasing the very gospel itself, soon finding ourselves outside of Christian orthodoxy). Perhaps we can tolerate the word “obedience” when we’re lamenting how we’re not; when we’re talking about our sin being exposed; the thing that leads us to see our need for mercy in Jesus. And certainly, we must see something of our own sinfulness before the gospel of grace means anything to us. But that is where we like to leave obedience: the picture of things we fail to do. Then we move on to forgiveness and all talk of obedience recedes behind us.
Obedience isn’t just the hypothetical standard, that reveals our need for forgiveness. Have you read Matthew 5-7 lately? Obedience in Jesus’ kingdom is far deeper and more thorough than the rules of the Pharisees. Jesus brings about righteousness that surpasses that of the legalists (Matt 5:17-20). That righteousness is not merely a vague legal status idling out of sight in the heavenly realms (although it certainly is a secure legal status, in God’s heavenly courtroom, where through Jesus God justifies the wicked—see Romans 4). That objective reality of being justified in Christ (so desperately needed because of our disobedience) is meant to lead us into a way of being that we once detested. Obedience is our new wonderland, our new playground where we get to test out God’s provisions in making us new creations. We get to look like duffers as we grow into our true selves, our obedient selves bearing the likeness of our perfectly obedient older Brother. Our justified status, being counted as righteous in the heavenly realms, is meant to translate, to bleed holiness into everything we touch in this realm. In other words, obedience isn’t meant to be an abstraction. We’re saved to love obedience, to actively pursue conformity of our whole being to God’s ways. As this happens, it will naturally have an honoured place in our families.
What if, when Jesus tells us to love our enemy, he didn’t have in mind just exposing our sinful nature, but actually changing us into people who do love our enemies? What if by saying, “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength,” Jesus was doing more than revealing our failure to do this? What if his grace is actually changing us into people who learn to? When Jesus says, rejoice and be glad (in the face of unjust hostility for Jesus’ sake!), what if he means for us to stop being indignant grumblers and to start being more joyful? When he says do not lust, do not be angry in a way that kills relationships, seek reconciliation, be a peacemaker, be ruthless about dealing with your own sin (down to your very own eyeballs); when Jesus says, don’t be flippant about marriage and divorce, be truthful and frank and simple and direct with your words, so that yes means yes and no means no (even in this world of nuance where we flinch against words carrying weight and commitment); when Jesus says don’t be a calculating giver; pray for those who curse you, pray in secret; what if his intention is to actually make it so, to make us so? To bring about his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven? What if, in his great Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was making sin plain, exposing our need for forgiveness, but also showing the effects his salvation would have on his people?
Obedience is the basis of our salvation, by the way—but not our own obedience. Jesus’ obedience in life and death is what makes sinners right with God. Jesus’ obedience brings dead people back to life. Jesus’ obedience is vital in every sense of the word—it’s absolutely necessary and it’s life giving. Jesus’ obedience is the reason Christians should love obedience. We can’t say that something Jesus loves to do, something he’s perfectly good at, is a bad thing. Let’s not hate a good thing just because we’re bad at it. Let’s keep longing and mourning the absence and seeking it, receiving the gift of obedience Jesus gives. His own, in our place. His own obedience that changes us into his likeness.
Settled in the security of Jesus’ obedience for us, the Father is growing us into Jesus’ likeness as his Spirit works in us. His perfectly obedient likeness. Obedience isn’t a threat to the gospel of grace, it is one of the distinguishing accomplishments of the gospel. God is forming an obedient people for himself. It has been his intention from before Creation and every step of history since. Obedience has always been a marker that God’s people are taking shelter in God’s grace. In Christ, God is bringing about the kind of obedience that could never happen apart from him. When we’re tending to obedience in our families, we’re helping our children see the story we belong to.
Let’s start by labelling it accurately: obedience is good. And we’re saved to love and devote ourselves to what God says is good.
If you struggle with how obedience fits into the gospel of grace, then stop trying to make it fit. This isn’t algebra! Read more of the Bible and allow space to agree with the parts. You don’t need to tidy it up, resolving every digit into a neat sum. You need the whole of Scripture going to work on your heart and mind, doing its rending and remodelling work in you. Read the Bible and watch out for what God has to say about obedience at every stage of his unfolding work of saving a people for himself. Instead of trying to make it fit, you’ll start to see that obedience been there from the beginning, preceding sin itself. Obedience has always been a feature of glad fellowship with God. It’s the clear sky hidden by clouds, always there. It’s what we were created for and redeemed back into. True obedience has never been tyranny, but fullness of life. It’s always been a product, a symptom, a sign of God’s grace. Obedience is lovely.
As you read your Bible, look for all the places where satisfying joy happens. Look for the things God’s people are meant to long for. Use the Bible’s words to pray your way into those same longings. Look for what happens when God’s people trust his gracious provisions. Let the Bible rework your relationship with the idea of obedience, and give in to the doing and being of obedience. As you do, your instincts for teaching your children to obey Jesus will mature. We can’t figure out delighted obedience with our kids if we haven’t found it ourselves.
