Soren Kierkegaard once told a parable about a community of ducks who every Sunday would waddle off to duck church to hear the duck preacher. The duck preacher spoke eloquently of how God had given the ducks wings with which to fly. With these wings there was nowhere the ducks could not go, there was no God-given task the ducks could not accomplish. With those wings they could soar into the presence of God himself. Shouts of "Amen" were quacked throughout the duck congregation. At the conclusion of the service, the ducks left, commenting on what a wonderful message they had heard, and waddled back home.
Too often, we waddle away from church and bible reading just as we waddled in-unchanged. We read our Bibles and we hear our preachers calling us to obedience and telling us that we can do it. So we leave the word and church inspired and hopeful and ready to obey and then find ourselves failing miserably. I have been a Christian for 40 years this year and left to myself, I must admit that I am not a very good at being good and doing obedience. At times I am grieved that after all of these years I am still selfish, egotistical, insensitive, prideful, ambitious, cold, cynical, and impatient. The harder I have tried to live the Christian life, the worse it often times gets. For every good intention, there is often a bad action. For every good action, there is often a bad intention. For every right thing I do, there are two wrongs. I am very skilled at snatching defeat right out of the jaws of victory. Oh how many tears have I cried over my sinfulness.
The apostle Paul describes this experience of himself in Romans 7:14-25, "“For we know that the Law is spiritual, but I am of flesh, sold into bondage to sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do not want to do, I agree with the Law, confessing that the Law is good. So now, no longer am I the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not. For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil that I do not want. But if I am doing the very thing I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but sin which dwells in me. I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord”!
Left to ourselves, our hearts are spiritually and morally flawed. We do not desire what we ought to desire. We do not want what we ought to want. Yet God holds us responsible for our obedience. We may be corrupt but we are culpable for what we ought to do. So how do we obey when we don't want to obey? How do we do what we ought to when we don’t want to? To get to the root, how do our "want to’s” change.
Three of the most liberating truths in my life was when I understood why I don't do what I ought to do and why I do what I do. The truths are simply this:
1. WHEN I DON'T DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO, THE REASON THAT I DON'T DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO IS BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO!
2. I ALWAYS DO WHAT I WANT TO DO.
3. WHEN I DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO IT IS BECAUSE I WANT TO DO WHAT I OUGHT TO DO.
The whole issue of obedience and disobedience is about my desires. Our hearts are spiritually and morally flawed. We do not desire what we ought to desire. The root of obedience has to be a change in my desires, inclinations, and affections. Otherwise our "want to’s" will never be what we ought to want. We won’t desire what we ought to desire and our hearts will go after fleshly desires. Therefore we will do what we ought not to do. Our behavior always follows are hearts!
The longer you walk with God, The more you understand who He is, what sin is, and who you are in Him and apart from Him, the better you become, the more you are ashamed for being bad, not just doing bad. As N.P. Williams said, “The ordinary man may feel ashamed of doing wrong, but the saint refined with moral sensibility, and keener powers of introspection, is ashamed of being the kind of man who is liable to do wrong.”
God holds us responsible for our obedience. We may be corrupt but we are culpable for what we ought to do. So how do we obey when we cannot obey? How do we do what we ought to when we don’t want to? To get to the root, how do our "want to’s” change?
True 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; therefore, you will do what you ought to do, a peculiar obedience!
The New Covenant promise is that beneath 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 obedience. True 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. That is to say, when temptation comes you will desire God and pleasing Him more than the temptation and its fleeting pleasures.
“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 says, “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."
Seeking to want what I ought to want so that I will do what I ought to do for God's glory and my soul's satisfaction,
Pastor Bill
.
No comments:
Post a Comment