Spiritual Growth
The Marks of Spiritual Growth – Obedience and Holiness
May 28, 2006

If you love me, you will obey what I command. John 14:15
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. John 14:21
If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. John 14:23


Loving God.

• The great commandment (Matthew 22:37) and Deuteronomy 6:1-8.

o Obedience to God’s commands, decrees, laws.
o Observe them, keep them, obey them.
o Use all manner of memory devices to obey.
o Obedience to God is equated with love for God.

This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome. 1 John 5:3

• · Biblical obedience is a willingness to listen to the authority and will of God and to submit to it.

· Only obedience from the heart, motivated by love, is acceptable to God.

But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed. Rom 6:17

We should obey God because he has won our hearts in love. If he has not, our focus should not be so much on obedience as on knowing His love. For once we get that solidly in place, obedience begins to take care of itself. David Benner

• Seeing God’s heart in giving us His law to obey.

• Realizing that God is indeed a God of love, but this does not in any way diminish His holiness or His command for our holiness. Obedience is the only pathway to holiness.

But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the scriptures say, You must be holy because I am holy. 1 Peter 1:15-16

• Cruise-control obedience versus race-car obedience.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27

• How do we develop a whole-hearted obedience that is prompted by love?

o Take your failures to obey to the cross.

o Meditate on and respond to His love for us.

We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:19

o Overcome guilt and condemnation by turning to Christ.

How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! Heb 9:14

The obedience of Christ.

• Jesus was a model of loving submission and obedience to God.

I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him. John 8:28-29

• He affirmed the law as having value forever.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Matthew 5:17-18

• He told His disciples (includes us) that their obedience was the measure of their love for Him. (John 14 verses above)

• Learning from His example.


The relationship between law and grace.

• Grace is supreme and always precedes the law. (See preamble to the Ten Commandments, New Testament epistles).

• Legalism versus antinomianism.

“The law sends us to the Gospel, that we may be justified, and the Gospel sends us back to the law to inquire what is our duty in being justified.” Puritan writer.

• The Christian is not under the law...

o As way of justification.
o As a dynamic of sanctification.

• Shouldn’t we be led by love, not law?

Love is the driving force behind the law.
Law is a guide for our love.


The blessings of obedience in Psalm 119:

Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart. 2
How can a young man keep his way pure? By guarding it according to your word. 9
Your testimonies are my delight; they are my counselors. 24
Lead me in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it. 35
When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O LORD. 52
It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes. 71
Forever, O LORD, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. 89
If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. 92
Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day. 97
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. 105
Your testimonies are wonderful; therefore my soul keeps them. 128
My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. 136
The sum of your word is truth, and every one of your righteous rules endures forever. 160
Great peace have those who love your law; nothing can make them stumble. 165

But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.

James 1:25