The Risk of Obedience

Annapolis, Maryland, USA

August 2021

Deuteronomy 30:1-20

1. What is Love?

Love is an inner feeling of intense affection that defines relationships.

2. The Bridge from Love

John 14:23 Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.

Obedience is listening under authority and compliance with requests. - J.I. Packer

3. Utter Inability

Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?

Man’s power to think lifts him above the beasts of the field. In this age of scientific enlightenment and advanced technology, we have every evidence that man has a brilliant intellect. Yet at the same time it is strangely clouded to spiritual realities; for despite his genius in so many realms, man betrays a most remarkable denseness when it comes to the things of God. He has no natural understanding in this realm at all. His mind, incisive in so many ways, is warped and twisted when it comes to eternal and spiritual issues. The damage wrought by sin runs deep into the very roots of the thinking processes of man. His imaginations are often filthy; his memories often betray him; his deductions are often false; and his conclusions are often wrong. - John Phillips, Exploring Romans

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not give false testimony

17 “You shall not covet

4. The Supreme Example

Luke 2:51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.

What was it like watching him pray? When he saw a rainbow, did he ever mention a flood? Did you ever feel awkward teaching him how he created the world? How did he act at funerals? Did the thought ever occur to you that the God to whom you were praying was asleep under your own roof? Did he ever have to ask a question about Scripture? Did you ever think, That’s God eating my soup? - God came near, Max Lucado

Phil 2:7–8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!

References: for the definition of love - Tyndale Bible Dictionary, Lexham Bible Dictionary.

Photo by Liam Simpson on Unsplash