Radical Obedience
It’s your radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled, others-focused, love-motivated, hardworking, sacrificial obedience that will change the world.
1. Obedience can change the world.
The New Testament is full of examples of those who were obedient and those who weren’t. Jesus’s messages to the seven churches in Revelation are examples of this. He praises the churches in Smyrna and Philadelphia (2:8-11 and 3:7-13) and rebukes the churches in Sardis and Laodicea (3:1-6 and 14-22). What separates these congregations? Obedience that sprang from a wholehearted love for their Savior.
Obedience not only pleases God, but he also uses our obedience as a tool to bring kingdom change. World Challenge was founded on one man’s obedience to God. A country pastor in rural Pennsylvania was convinced that he had heard from God, and rather than trying to rationalize his feelings, he chose to obey. Pastor David Wilkerson’s love and devotion to God compelled him to go to New York City. The rest is history.
2. Radical obedience can change the world.
What do I mean by radical obedience? I’m referring to obedience that doesn’t ask why, it just obeys. If you’re a parent, you understand this. You don’t want to have to have a long discussion about why your child should obey you. You simply want them to trust your character and love for them enough to obey without conditions and questions. What we now refer to as radical, the Bible simply referred to as lordship.
3. Radical, Jesus-centered obedience can change the world.
We sing songs and pray prayers that refer to Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but then we act like obedience is optional. My wife and I spent thirty years as missionaries in the Muslim World. Twenty years of that was spent living in a country that had a monarchy. The king wasn’t a figurehead. He was the country’s sovereign. What he said went. When he gave orders, he expected them to be obeyed.
The same applies to Jesus. The difference is that our king is flawless. He isn’t trying to make a name for himself or defend his pride. We obey Jesus because he is the King. Popular Christian culture focuses on the love of Jesus at the expense of his glorious power and authority. Yes, he is the Lamb, but he’s also the Lion. He’s the gentle Shepherd, but he’s also the glorious one of Revelation 4 before whom all the nations bow. A proper view of Jesus will lead to obedience.
4. Radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled obedience can change the world.
People generally have a bent toward law or grace. Maybe you grew up in a church that focused on obedience to the extent that it became legalism. If you only focused on my previous point, you might come away with an understanding that I want to scare you into obeying. Nothing could be further from the truth.
As I said earlier, obeying God’s commands doesn’t put you in right standing before God, it is love-centered grace that leads us to proper obedience. Many Christians can quote part of 1 John 4:18. They know the part that says, “…perfect love casts out fear.” That’s a wonderful truth, but we need to read this truth in its context. The whole verse says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (ESV). We don’t obey because we are afraid of God, we obey God because we have come to understand his great love for us.
5. Radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled, others-focused obedience can change the world.
You might be thinking, what does he mean by “others-focused obedience.” Well, we’re talking about an obedience that will change the world. When most Christians think about obedience, they focus on the things they aren’t supposed to do, but as important as those things might be, they won’t change the world. God will change the world not by what we don’t do but by the things we will do in service for him.
We’ll change the world as we uncompromisingly share his Word in both word and deed. We need to preach and serve boldly. The world will be changed when we practice what James, the brother of Jesus called, “Pure religion” (James 1:27) and that was to rescue abandoned orphans and care for the neglected widows” (paraphrase mine).
This world will be changed when we serve the poor, stand for biblical justice, forgive those who do us harm, and love our enemies. In short, we’ll change the world when our love for God moves our attention away from ourselves and helps us focus rightly on others.
6. Radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled, others-focused, love-motivated obedience can change the world.
Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). This saying was part of a much larger block of Jesus’s teaching often called The Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17). These chapters contain the words and actions of Jesus on the night before his crucifixion.
While the disciples didn’t understand what was going to transpire over the next several hours, Jesus did. He knew he was going to live out the title the Lamb of God as he willingly laid down his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Earlier he had washed their feet as an example of servanthood, and he told his disciples to follow his example. He demonstrated his love for them daily in how he lived, and now he would do it in how he died. If we love Jesus, we will obey what he tells us to do, and this obedience will be motivated by his great love for us.
7. Radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled, others-focused, love-motivated, hardworking obedience can change the world.
We don’t often link obedience with being hardworking, but we need to if we’re going to change the world. One of the most grace-filled ministers I know in the Middle East often says, “God doesn’t need any lazy Christians.” Think about what was involved in the Great Commission—Jesus’s command (not suggestion) to go make disciples of all people everywhere. Some of his disciples would travel thousands of miles in a time when travel was difficult and dangerous. They would endure hardship. The Apostle Paul would command his young disciple Timothy to endure hardship while doing the work of an evangelist (2 Timothy 4:5). In his first letter to the Corinthian church, Paul would remind the believers that he worked harder than anyone for the sake of the gospel, but he would make it clear that his hard work was a product of the grace of God in his life.
8. Radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled, others-focused, love-motivated, hardworking, sacrificial obedience can change the world.
Jesus told his followers, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus not only gave himself as a sacrifice, but he lived a sacrificial life.
There are many examples of this, but none stands out more to me than the happenings in Matthew 14. The chapter begins with the murder of Jesus’s cousin, John (the Baptist). Matthew tells us, “As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone” (v. 13a). Jesus was fully God, but he was also fully man.
Hebrews 4 tells us that Jesus fully sympathizes with our weakness because in the incarnation, he experienced the things we experience. Jesus was troubled at the news of John’s death. He wanted to mourn.
But Matthew goes on to tell us, “But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns. Jesus saw the huge crowd as he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (vv. 13b-14).
Jesus was experiencing sorrow, and he was probably mentally and physically exhausted, but he sacrificed his comfort for the well-being of others. For God to change the world through us, we’re going to have to follow Jesus’s sacrificial example.
9. Your radical, Jesus-centered, grace- filled, others-focused, love-motivated, hardworking, sacrificial obedience will change the world.
It’s time to make this personal. It isn’t the obedience of others that we need to focus on, it’s ours—mine and yours. We need to obey the Lord with free abandon. Our obedience needs to be instant, joyful, and determined.
I don’t know about you, but I want to live a life of radical, Jesus-centered, grace-filled, others-focused, love-motivated, hardworking, sacrificial obedience. This kind of obedience will change the world, and in the process, it will change us into his image. Amen.