TRUE OBEDIENCE Part 2

Last week I spoke about what obedience means to God. I call it "Peculiar Obedience." Obedience begins in the heart where God graces the heart to give it a “want to” so that when the time for obedience comes to do what you “ought to” do you will “want to” do what you ought to do; and be empowered to do what you want to do; therefore, you will do what you ought to do.

A great illustration of this is in 2 Chronicles 30 when King Hezekiah recovered the Passover for Israel. Israel had forgotten God and Hezekiah broken, grieved, indignant and deeply repentant, sent couriers throughout the land calling the people to repentance and obedience. We read in verses 1-9,

"Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters also to Ephraim and Manasseh, that they should come to the house of the LORD at Jerusalem to keep the Passover to the LORD, the God of Israel. For the king and his princes and all the assembly in Jerusalem had taken counsel to keep the Passover in the second month-- for they could not keep it at that time because the priests had not consecrated themselves in sufficient number, nor had the people assembled in Jerusalem-- and the plan seemed right to the king and all the assembly. So they decreed to make a proclamation throughout all Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, that the people should come and keep the Passover to the LORD, the God of Israel, at Jerusalem, for they had not kept it as often as prescribed. So couriers went throughout all Israel and Judah with letters from the king and his princes, as the king had commanded, saying, "O people of Israel, return to the LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, that he may turn again to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the kings of Assyria. Do not be like your fathers and your brothers, who were faithless to the LORD God of their fathers, so that he made them a desolation, as you see. Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the LORD and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve the LORD your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you. For if you return to the LORD, your brothers and your children will find compassion with their captors and return to this land. For the LORD your God is gracious and merciful and will not turn away his face from you, if you return to him."

What was the response of the people to Hezekiah’s call? In verses 10-11 we read,
“So the couriers went from city to city through the country of Ephraim and Manasseh, and as far as Zebulun, but they laughed them to scorn and mocked them. However, some men of Asher, of Manasseh, and of Zebulun humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem.”

Most of the people did not obey the call of Hezekiah. But there were others who humbled themselves and came to Jerusalem as Hezekiah had decreed. What was it that caused them to respond in obedience?

“The hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded by the word of the LORD.” (Verse 12)

This is peculiar obedience in action. God had commanded “return to me and I will return to you”. Some obeyed God. Why did they obey? Because,“the hand of God was also on Judah to give them one heart to do what the king and the princes commanded.”

This is amazing! This is peculiar obedience. Throughout the scriptures God has promised that He would work in his people to bring about obedience. Here are some examples of those Old Testament promises:

Jeremiah 31:31-33, "Behold, days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. . . . I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it."
Deuteronomy 30:6, "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart . . . to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul."
Ezekiel 11:19-20, "I will . . . put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them."
Ezekiel 36:26-27, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes."
Jeremiah 32:40, "I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me."

The New Covenant promise is that beneath the call to obey and every act of obedience is the enabling grace of God. Behind every “ought to” done in obedience, God graces our hearts with a “want to”. Augustine put it this way: "Give me the grace [O Lord] to do as you command, and command me to do what you will! . . . O holy God . . . when your commands are obeyed, it is from you that we receive the power to obey them.”

God’s sovereign work in our heart is the key to peculiar obedience. Peculiar obedience is where God gives you a new desire so that you will want what you ought to want in order to do what you ought to do and a new power to be able to do what you want to do. That is to say, when temptation comes you will desire God and pleasing Him more than the temptation and its fleeting pleasures and you have the God given power to be able to do it!

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” (1 Corinthians 15:10)
“Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 4:11)
"Now the God of peace . . . equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen." (Hebrews 13:20-21)

We must pray for the desire in our heart to “want to” do what we “ought to” do and God will do give it to you. We can pray Psalm 119:36, “Incline my heart to your testimonies…” Psalm 90:14, "Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days". Hebrews 4;16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help(us to want what we ought to want so that we would do what we ought to do)in time of need.”

May God put in your heart a “want to” like He did in Augustine, who wrote,
“How sweet all at once it was for me to be rid of those fruitless joys which I had once feared to lose! . . . You drove them from me, you who are the true, the sovereign joy. You drove them from me and took their place, you who are sweeter than all pleasure."

Pastor Bill