January/February 2004

HE ASKED ME TO REMIND YOU

Obedience is Dangerous!

Let me give you a truth that may shock you: The most dangerous threat to your walk with God is your obedience—when you’re aware of it.
I know, I know. You want some Scripture. Okay, turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 10:12 where we read: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” Flip over to James 4:6 and you will read that God gives grace to the humble.
Add to that the story about the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee brought his goodness to God, and the tax collector brought his sin, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” Jesus said that the tax collector went away justified before God.
Jonathan Edwards is probably one of the most misjudged and misunderstood figures in American history. Most folks know him only from his sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”
Jonathan Edwards was a child prodigy and at the age of ten wrote an essay on the nature of the soul. At age 13, he entered Yale University and graduated in 1720 as the valedictorian of his class. He eventually became the president of Princeton and one of the finest philosophical and theological minds to ever come out of America.
Jonathan Edwards was sometimes harsh, sometimes offensive and sometimes wrong…but he loved people and understood grace in a profound way.
A friend of mine gave me a quote from Jonathan Edwards. Let me give it to you:
“ Some people are full of talk against legal doctrines, legal preaching and the legal spirit. Yet they may understand very little of what they are talking against. A legal spirit is far more subtle than they imagine…as long as a man is not emptied of himself and of his own righteousness and goodness, he will have a legal spirit. A spirit of pride in one’s own righteousness, morality, holiness, experience or any other goodness is a legal spirit…. It is even possible to have a self-righteous spirit about one’s own humility.”
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I guess I told them this morning, huh? I put the Pharisees and the self-righteous twits in their place. And,
better yet, I told them about your grace and love. Nobody will ever be able to say that no one ever told them.
I suppose.
What do you mean, “I suppose”? I thought it was a great sermon.
Quite proud of that, aren’t you?
Well…uh…maybe a little.
A little? Child, did you ever think that you are self-righteous about your humility?
Wait! Hold it! Maybe we had better talk. You know I told them the truth. What’s your problem?
I don’t have one. It’s your problem, and your problem is that you think you will bring your faithfulness to me, and that I will somehow love you more. Not only that…
I’ve never said that!
Quit interrupting. As I was saying…not only that, you feel that you’re a bit better than the Pharisees because you aren’t one. Isn’t that sort of like being proud of your humility or arrogant about your lack of it?
Oh, I see your point.
And then, what’s worse, you come to me with your pride and arrogance and think that I ought to pat you on the back and tell you how great you are.
You’re right, of course. Are you angry?
Why don’t you try to apply some of the truth you teach to yourself? I’m not angry…not because of anything you do or don’t do. It’s my Son’s righteousness and his alone that makes you righteous. It isn’t anything you do or don’t do. And if you remained arrogant and prideful, I still wouldn’t be angry.
Okay. I’ll do better.
STEPHEN!
Sorry.
I’ll try to remember that you love me and that my righteousness doesn’t have anything to do with it.
And, I do love you, you know?
Yeah, I know.
Try to remember that!
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When I said that the greatest threat to your walk with God is your obedience when you know it, am I suggesting that God doesn’t want you to be obedient? Of course not! I’m simply saying that most of us go about it the wrong way.
Not only that, I’m saying that your obedience is beside the point. Jesus didn’t die to make you good. He died to make you his.
Obsession with getting better is probably the biggest reason we don’t get better. It is only when we are obsessed with Christ’s love that we get any better. It is only when we know for a fact that if we don’t get better, we’re still his and he loves us…that we ever get any better.
Did you hear about the Catholic elementary school? At the head table in the cafeteria, one of the nuns had placed a big bowl of bright, red, fresh and juicy apples. Beside the bowl, the nun placed a note which read, “Take only one. Remember, God is watching.”
At the other end of the table was a large dish full of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven. Beside the dish was a little note in a child’s handwriting. It read: “Take all you want. God’s watching the apples.”
Most of us are sure God is watching to see how good we are, and that he will, once he knows, reward or punish on the basis of what he finds.
He’s watching alright. But we’re so often mistaken about the reason for his watching.
He told me to tell you that he was watching…and to tell you why.
— Steve Brown

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