The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Classic Version, 2015Sample

The Blessings of Obedience

When we were children, my sister and I went on a picnic with our parents. The two of us were playing on what we all assumed was a disused railway track. Suddenly my mother shouted, ‘Jump! Get off the track!’ She had seen an express train coming down the track. Thankfully, we didn’t shout back, ‘Don’t threaten us. You can’t scare us.’ If we had done, I would not be in a position to write this now. We both jumped off the track.

The command arose out of a mother’s love for her children. God’s commands arise out of his love for us. As we saw yesterday, they are given for ‘your own good’ (Deuteronomy 10:13). The warnings of Jesus about the coming judgment and how to be ready for it – which we read about in today’s New Testament passage – come out of his love for us. In all the passages for today we see the blessings that come from obeying God. 

Psalm 43:1-5

1. The presence of God

Like many of the great men and women of God down the ages, the psalmist is struggling with spiritual depression. He is ‘downcast’ (v.5). His soul is ‘disturbed’ within him (v.5). Jesus himself cried out, ‘Now my heart is troubled’ and ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow’ (John 12:27; Mark 14:34).

The psalmist is surrounded by an ‘ungodly nation’ (Psalm 43:1a), a ‘deceitful and wicked’ people (v.1b). He is ‘oppressed by the enemy’ (v.2b). There is something very real and authentic about the psalms. Life is not easy. We may face battles, opposition and even depression.

Yet the psalmist’s response is to turn to God. He prays for God’s guidance, and he longs for God’s presence, his ‘joy and delight’ (vv.3–4). The focal point of God’s presence with his people at that time was the Temple in Jerusalem. Built on a ‘mountain’ it was ‘the place where you dwell’ (v.3). In the New Testament Jesus is the temple in whom God dwelt in all his fullness (see John 2:19–21; Colossians 1:19).

On the day of Pentecost, Jesus sent his Holy Spirit as the way in which God now dwells in his ‘holy temple’ – both in the individual and in the gathered community. ‘Church’ should never be boring. It should be a place of joy, delight and praise.

This psalm is the prayer of someone who chooses to turn to God in the midst of depression and darkness. At its heart, obedience is all about turning to God, no matter what the situation. This psalm is a beautiful expression of that. It recognises that what we ultimately need in our darkness is the presence of God – and it is built on the trust that that is ultimately what we will find.

Lord, please send your light and your truth, let them lead me into your presence (v.3a).

Luke 12:35-59

2. The reward of Jesus

Life is a wonderful gift. All of us have been ‘entrusted’ (v.48) with talents and responsibilities. It really matters how we use these. The warnings that run throughout this passage about how we use our lives are given out of love for us. Jesus warns us of the coming judgment and how to be ready.

Jesus calls us to be ‘ready for service’ (v.35). We are to expect Jesus to return today. What a wonderful reward is offered to those who are ready: ‘Blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are those servants whom the master finds awake and alert and watching when he comes’ (v.37a, AMP). We, the servants, will sit and eat with Jesus and he will serve us (v.37b). The grace of Jesus is almost unbelievable. He reverses the roles in a way that most human beings would never even contemplate.

We are to be ready for when he returns (v.40). We are to be like the ‘faithful and wise manager’ (v.42). If we are, we will be richly rewarded, ‘Truly I tell you, [the Master] will put him in charge of all his possessions’ (v.44).

There is a danger in thinking that Jesus won’t come yet (v.45), that we can carry on doing exactly what we like and that there will be plenty of time to put things right.

It is the fact that the master ‘is taking a long time in coming’ that deceives the unwise servant into neglecting his task and not acting as the master would want (v.45). To many people today God seems a distant or irrelevant figure with little impact on their lives. This story is a warning to remind us that there will one day be a reckoning for all that we do, and we would be wise to act on that now.

Jesus says that if you know something is wrong and you do it anyway, that is worse than doing something wrong when you didn’t realise. But the latter is still wrong (vv.47–48).

Jesus calls you to obey and to serve him with faithfulness and wisdom. If you use what God has given you wisely, he blesses you by giving you more responsibility. The more that God has given you, the greater the responsibility to use it well. Jesus says, ‘From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked’ (v.48b).

If you have a happy home, a good education, health, friends, job, food, clothes, holidays; if you have access to the Bible, freedom to meet together and pray, and so on, then you are one of those to whom much has been given. And much will be expected.

Jesus himself did not have an easy life. He says, ‘I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!’ (v.50). Jesus lived under the shadow of the cross. He knew that he was going to have to suffer. When we know we are facing some difficulty or challenge in our lives, we often feel ‘constrained until it is accomplished’ (v.50, RSV). If we feel this with relatively small things, how terrible it must have been for Jesus as he saw ahead the horrors of crucifixion and separation from his Father.

This would be the means by which Jesus would bring us peace with God. Yet Jesus says that at one level we will not always experience an outward peace. Rather, there will be division. ‘Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division’ (v.51). This division can even be with those who are most closely related to us. There may be division between those who are for Jesus and those who are against him.

But we are called to be peacemakers. We are always to ‘try hard to be reconciled’ (v.58).

Lord, thank you that you have given me so much. Make me always ready for service. Help me to make the most of everything that you have entrusted to me.

Deuteronomy 11:1-12:32

3. The strength of God

Jesus was not the first to connect love and obedience. The Law of Moses was given by God out of his love for his people. God called his people to respond in love: ‘So love God, your God; guard well his rules and regulations; obey his commandments for the rest of time’ (11:1, MSG).

The words of God are to permeate our entire being. ‘Place these words on your hearts. Get them deep inside you ... Teach them to your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into bed at night’ (vv.18–19, MSG).

We need to know, learn and teach God’s word and put it into practice in our lives. Great blessing comes from living openly and honestly, walking in the light of God’s truth as he reveals it in his word.

He promises his blessings to those who obey: ‘So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today – to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul – then I will send rain on your land’ (vv.13–14, see also v.22,v.27).

Disobedience is very draining and destructive. I know that in my own life deliberate sin leads to guilt and saps energy. Ultimately, we end up miserable. Moses said, ‘Observe therefore all the commands I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength’ (v.8). Obedience brings the blessing of strength.

We need to make good choices. God says, ‘I’ve brought you today to the crossroads of Blessing and Curse’ (v.26, MSG). If we choose disobedience we end up miserable. If we choose obedience we will be blessed by God. As Joyce Meyer writes, ‘Wisdom is choosing to do now what we will be satisfied with later.’

The temptation is to disobey God because we see everyone around us doing that. Moses says, ‘Be careful not to be ensnared by enquiring about their gods, saying, “How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same” ’ (12:30). He goes on to say, ‘Do all I command you; do not add to it or take away from it’ (v.32).

Lord, help me to love you and serve you with all my heart and with all my soul and to carefully observe all your commands. Fill me today with your love and strength, joy and delight, faithfulness and wisdom.

Pippa Adds

Deuteronomy 11:18–20

‘Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the door-frames of your houses and on your gates.’

Learn verses while you are young. (It is much harder when you are older!) I’m not sure we did a very good job of teaching the Bible to our children. Although, I did stick an occasional verse on the fridge.

Notes:
Unless otherwise stated, Scripture quotations taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version Anglicised, Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 Biblica, formerly International Bible Society. Used by permission of Hodder & Stoughton Publishers, an Hachette UK company. All rights reserved. ‘NIV’ is a registered trademark of Biblica. UK trademark number 1448790.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) taken from the Amplified® Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Scripture marked (MSG) taken from The Message. Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.