{"id":32938,"date":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/liberty-of-obedience-to-god\/"},"modified":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-08-26T00:00:00","slug":"liberty-of-obedience-to-god","status":"publish","type":"sermons","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/liberty-of-obedience-to-god\/","title":{"rendered":"The Liberty of Obedience to God"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/19\/2005\/08\/19066.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n<p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\"><strong>Introduction:\nAn architectural wonder.<\/strong><\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">My husband and I had the opportunity to go up\ninto the top of that great arch in St. Louis. I was fascinated to learn about\nits construction. I know nothing about architecture, but a few things sank into\nmy thick head. It was designed by Eero Saarinen, the famous architect.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I was thinking about how he as an architect has\nperfect freedom to design any kind of building he wants, but he does not have\nthe freedom to discard either the plumb line or the level. The mathematical\ncalculations that had to go into the building of that &#8220;first of its\nkind&#8221; structure are staggering. The workers put up these tremendous\nstainless steel triangles one by one on two sides, and they had to bring them\nup to meet at the top with no other support than themselves. A mistake of \nof an inch at the bottom could have spelled disaster at the top.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That&#8217;s a good illustration of my subject, which\nis the liberty of obedience. There is no freedom apart from obedience. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We have freeways in this country, but there\nwould be no freedom for anybody to travel at high speed without interruption if\nmost of the people were not obedient to the laws. You cannot travel any speed,\nany lane, any direction on a freeway. You must obey certain laws, and those are\nwhat give us freedom.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The great question is: What do you really want?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">James\n1:25 brings together three great words: law, freedom and happiness.<\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">James 1:25 says, &#8220;The man who looks closely\ninto the perfect law, the law that makes us free, and who lives in its company,\ndoes not forget what he hears, but acts upon it; and that is the man who by\nacting will find happiness.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I love this verse because it brings together\nthree great words: law, freedom, and happiness. I believe that in God&#8217;s economy\nthose three things are inseparable. Saarinen was free to construct that amazing\nstainless steel arch in St. Louis because he obeyed the laws of the universe,\nthe laws of gravity. He used the plumb line and the level.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">My husband and I live on the ocean. I love the\nsummer when we can watch hundreds of sailboats skimming along the horizon with\nthe most wonderful freedom; but those sailboats would not have the freedom to\nskim along the horizon and stay on top of the water if they were not obedient\nto the laws of wind and wave and if they had not been constructed in obedience\nto certain laws such as the ratio between the beam and the keel.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">In every area of life there is no freedom\nwithout obedience. The world tells us that freedom means doing what you want to\ndo and not doing what you don&#8217;t want to do.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I have a friend who&#8217;s a wise mother. When her\nkids were about 8 and 10 years old, she told her son one Saturday morning that\nit was time to get up. He said, &#8220;I&#8217;m not getting up this morning.&#8221;\n&#8220;Oh,&#8221; she said, &#8220;aren&#8217;t you feeling well?&#8221; He said,\n&#8220;No, I feel fine. But I&#8217;ve decided that this is going to be a free\nday.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Oh,&#8221; she said, &#8220;what does that\nmean?&#8221; He said, &#8220;I&#8217;m just going to do what I want to do, and I&#8217;m not\ngoing to do anything I don&#8217;t want to do, and right now I don&#8217;t want to get\nup.&#8221; She said, &#8220;Do you think that would be a good way for the whole\nfamily to live?&#8221; He said, &#8220;Yes.&#8221; So she said, &#8220;Okay. We&#8217;ll\ntry it.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">At about 11:30 he came stumbling into the\nkitchen rubbing his eyes, and said, &#8220;Where&#8217;s my breakfast?&#8221; She said,\n&#8220;Breakfast?&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Yeah. You didn&#8217;t fix breakfast?&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;No,&#8221; she said, &#8220;this is a free\nday. I didn&#8217;t feel like fixing any breakfast.&#8221; <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">&#8220;Oh.&#8221; He got his Cheerios out of the\ncupboard and managed to get something to eat. While he was eating breakfast, he\nlooked out the window and saw his brother going out of the garage on <em>his<\/em> bicycle. &#8220;Hey,&#8221; he said,\n&#8220;you can&#8217;t take that. That&#8217;s my bicycle.&#8221; The brother said, &#8220;I\nthought it was a free day today. I can do anything I want to do, and I don&#8217;t\nhave to do anything I don&#8217;t want to do.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">So the day went. By supper, it was not necessary\nfor the mother or the father to preach any sermons about the true meaning of\nfreedom. They discovered the two boys had learned that freedom is not doing\nwhat you want to do and not doing what you don&#8217;t want to do. Freedom requires\nlimitations and laws.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">When you buy a new gadget and plug the thing in\nand turn it on, and something goes wrong, the chances are that you didn&#8217;t read\nthe instructions. When all else fails, you read the instructions.\nUnfortunately, that&#8217;s often the way we conduct our lives. We assume that we\nknow how to handle things, and we plunge in. We make a mess of things, and then\nwe wonder what went wrong. When all else fails, we might go back to the Book of\ninstructions.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus said, &#8220;If you continue in my word,\nyou are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will\nmake you free&#8221; (John 8:3132). We often hear just that last phrase quoted,\nbut it&#8217;s a violation of the prerequisites. He says, &#8220;<em>If<\/em> you continue in my word&#8221;&#8216;s where you start,\n&#8220;<em>then <\/em>you are my\ndisciples. <em>Then<\/em> you will know the\ntruth, and the truth will make you free.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">My second husband was the dean of a college. He\ndiscovered that the happiest kids on the campus invariably were the musicians\nand the athletes. He pondered that for a while, and he came up with the reason:\nIt&#8217;s because they are kids who have put themselves voluntarily under\ndiscipline. Everybody else is in college with more or less an unmixed desire to\nget a college degree, but everything about the process of getting that degree\nis odious to them. They&#8217;re not convinced that it makes sense to do this\nparticular assignment for this professor, or they don&#8217;t see that this course is\nnecessary in order to be a <span style=\"\" class=\"\">ba. <\/span>When\nit comes to writing a paper or taking an exam, they hate almost everything\nabout it. But the athletes and the musicians are there because they want to be,\nbecause they want to play the game or they want to be in the orchestra.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What do you want? Aristotle said, &#8220;All men\nseek happiness. There are no exceptions.&#8221; Would you agree? Everybody wants\nhappiness, but the differences between individuals lie in <em>where<\/em> they seek happiness. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus has given us the formulas for happiness.\nHe said, &#8220;If you lose your life for my sake, you will find your true self.\nExcept a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if\nit die, it bringeth forth much fruit&#8221; (John 12: 2425). The principle of\nthe Cross is a paradox. We bring him our sins; he gives us his righteousness.\nWe bring him our losses; he gives us his gains. We are obedient; he gives us\nfreedom.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <strong>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\"><strong>Three\nthings to think about: Desire. Dependence. Decision.<\/strong><\/span>\n      <\/strong>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Let me give you three things to think about.\nDesire. Dependence. Decision.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The apostle Paul states simply what he wanted\nmore than anything else in the world. He said, &#8220;All I care for is to know\nChrist, to experience the power of his resurrection, and to share his\nsufferings&#8221; (Phil. 3:10). All I care for is to know Christ. I&#8217;m convinced\nthat there is nothing that can happen to me in this life that is not precisely\ndesigned by my sovereign Lord to give me the opportunity to learn to know him.\nThat&#8217;s what life is about. Everything that makes up what you are God knows\nabout and God knows exactly how to bring into your life the circumstances that\nare going to enable you to learn to know him, and in knowing him to obey him,\nand in obeying him to find the liberty of obedience, the happiness that only\nobedience can give.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">When I was a college student, I began to admire\nfrom a distance another college student on campus. His name was Jim Elliot. My\nbrother, Dave, was a buddy of his, and Dave had been talking about him for\nseveral years. They had been on the same wrestling team. Dave was always saying\nto me, &#8220;You&#8217;ve got to meet this guy Elliot.&#8221; Dave&#8217;s my little\nbrother, and I wasn&#8217;t excited about meeting my little brother&#8217;s friends, so I\ndidn&#8217;t go out of my way to follow his advice.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">But during my senior year, because Jim and I\nmajored in the same subject, we had almost exactly the same classes, and I\nbegan to notice this man. I liked that he was a spiritual leader on the campus,\npresident of the foreign missions fellowship, the kind of guy who was always\ngoing up to people and grabbing them by the lapel and saying, &#8220;Hey, buddy,\nhow come you&#8217;re not going to the mission field?&#8221; If they stuttered and\nsaid, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know. I mean, like, you know, I don&#8217;t really feel\ncalled,&#8221; he&#8217;d say, &#8220;You don&#8217;t need a call. You need a kick in the\npants.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I saw that just about every qualification I was\nlooking for in a husband seemed to be embodied in this man, Jim Elliot. But my\nchances of attracting his attention, I felt, were nil. However, when it came\ntime to get autographs in our yearbooks, I did, with a certain amount of\ntrembling and fear, ask Jim to sign his name in my yearbook, hoping that he\nmight sign something besides just his name. He did.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He signed his sweeping autograph; then he wrote\nsomething else, shut the book, and handed it back to me. I quickly turned to\nthe page and found a Scripture reference. I raced back to the dorm, got my\nBible, and looked up 2 Timothy 2:4: &#8220;A soldier on active service will not\nlet himself be involved in civilian affairs; he must be wholly at his\ncommanding officer&#8217;s disposal.&#8221; I liked that, too.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">I wasn&#8217;t sure why he had chosen that verse,\nwhether it was just for me, in which case I felt that I did have a little hope.\nMaybe he had thought of me more than once. But I liked the second part of the\nverse because it was clear that Jim had decided what he wanted. His desire was\nto serve his Master. He was wholly at his commanding officer&#8217;s disposal. His\nmessage came across loud and clear that nobody was going to deflect him from\nthat primary and supreme aim to please him who had chosen him to be a soldier.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">You must, if you ever want to know the liberty\nand the happiness that obedience brings, make up your mind what you want, what\nyou want above everything else in the world. It&#8217;s tough to say, &#8220;I want\nthe will of God,&#8221; when I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a lot of\nthings in my life that may not fit into that. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">We balk at that idea when at the same time we\nare glibly praying, &#8220;Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.&#8221;\nIf you pray that prayer, the chances are pretty good that God is going to take\nyou up on that.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">That was what happened to me when I went to\nEcuador. Before I had been a missionary for one year, I had three major blows\nto my faith. The informant who was helping me with the native language was\nmurdered. All of my language materials, everything that went into the writing\nof a language that had never been written down before, was stolen. The station\non which Jim Elliot, who was by that time my fianc\u00e9, had been working went down\nthe river in a flood. I don&#8217;t know whether that fits your idea of how God helps\na new missionary, but it didn&#8217;t fit mine.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">When I was 12 years old, I told the Lord that I\nwanted him to work out his will in my life at any cost. When he set about doing\nthat, I was amazed. I didn&#8217;t think it was going to be that way. We never do.\nThe will of God is never exactly what you expect it to be. It may seem to be\nmuch worse; but in the end, it&#8217;s going to be a lot better and a lot bigger.\nWhat is your desire?<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The second thing I want you to think about is\nWhat is your dependence? Christians are people who know they can&#8217;t make it\nalone. Christians are people who have accepted God&#8217;s estimate of them, and the\nremedy. God&#8217;s estimate of us is that we are sinners. We need a Savior. You\nwouldn&#8217;t be a Christian if you didn&#8217;t know you needed a Savior.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">One experience after another in our lives has to\nbring us to the point of stripping. We have to be stripped of all the veneers,\nall the shell, all the accretions that build up whereby we protect ourselves\nfrom reality. God has to peel away the layers the way you peel away an onion\nuntil we get down to reality, and we realize that we cannot possibly take our\nnext breath without God. It&#8217;s easy for us to imagine that what we&#8217;re good at\nwe&#8217;ve done all by ourselves.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The truth is my heart would not take the next\nbeat if it weren&#8217;t for God. No gift I have been given has anything to do with\nme. I&#8217;m dependent. He is my Lord and Master, and I&#8217;ve discovered that every job\nGod has assigned to me has turned out to be too big for me, even things I felt\ncapable of doing.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Do you remember what Moses said when he had that\nstunning encounter with God in the desert? He saw the bush that was burning and\nwasn&#8217;t consumed. God told him that he was going to have to tell Pharaoh to let\nthe people go. Moses said, &#8220;Who am I?&#8221; God reminded him that it\nreally didn&#8217;t make any difference who he was. What mattered was who God was.\nMoses said, &#8220;How shall I speak to them? What will I say?&#8221; God said,\n&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you what to say.&#8221; Then Moses had another objection.\n&#8220;But what if they don&#8217;t listen to me?&#8221; God said, &#8220;Then I will\narise and bear my holy arm.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The point was not who Moses was or what his\ngifts and limitations might be. He was to be dependent on the I Am. God said &#8220;I\nAm is sending you.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The same thing happened with Jeremiah. God told\nhim that he was going to be a prophet, and Jeremiah immediately had his list of\nobjections. &#8220;I&#8217;m just a child. I can&#8217;t speak.&#8221; God didn&#8217;t argue the\npoint. He just said &#8220;I&#8217;m going to tell you what to say.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">The job was too big for Moses, but the men were\nobedient. Toward the end of Exodus, the children of Israel were between the\nEgyptian chariots and the sea, an impossible position. God told Moses to\nstretch forth his hand over the water, &#8220;and Moses stretched out his hand,\nand the Lord rolled the waters back.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Isn&#8217;t that a marvelous picture of how man&#8217;s will\nand God&#8217;s will work in harmony? What could Moses&#8217; hand have done against that\nsea? Moses&#8217; hand was useless and futile by itself, but God worked in response\nto Moses&#8217; obedience. The liberty of obedience. The children of Israel would not\nhave been freed if Moses had not done that seemingly useless thing. He\nstretched out his hand, and the Lord rolled the sea back.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jim Elliot graduated from college with highest\nhonors. He went to the jungle of Ecuador to be a missionary to the Quechua\nIndians. He had to start from the bottom rung of a language ladder. He had to\nlearn Spanish as the national language of the country. Then he had to start at\nthe bottom of an unwritten language, Quechua. He had graduated with highest\nhonor in classical Greek, and he couldn&#8217;t speak a word of one of the easiest\nlanguages in the world. The Indians could only reach the conclusion that the\npoor man was retarded, because they had never heard of anybody who didn&#8217;t speak\nQuechua. <\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Then they discovered that he didn&#8217;t know how to\nthatch a roof. They&#8217;d never seen a man who didn&#8217;t know how to thatch a roof.\nThen they tried to get him to pole a canoe. He didn&#8217;t know how to pole a wooden\ncanoe up the rapids. To them, he was a bumbling idiot.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">He was totally dependent not only on God but on\nthese Indians who didn&#8217;t know half of what he knew.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What&#8217;s the job God has asked you to do? Do you\nfeel qualified? Do you think you&#8217;re adequate for the job? You&#8217;re not. That has\nnothing to do with whether or not you must be obedient. If you are going to be\nobedient, you&#8217;re going to have to trust God to do what you can&#8217;t do.\nDependence. It&#8217;s time you declared your dependence. Nobody is ever adequate for\nany job that God has assigned. It&#8217;s a cooperation between you and him to do the\njob in his strength.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">When you have decided that what you really want\nis the kind of happiness that God offers, when you have declared your\ndependence, then you must accept his strength for your weakness. There was at\nleast one thing that Paul had that he didn&#8217;t want, that was a thorn. Paul said\nthat he asked the Lord three times to remove the thorn, and the answer was no.\nThe answer was, &#8220;My grace is all you need.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">What is the thing in your life that you don&#8217;t want\nthere, that you feel hinders your happiness and is an obstacle to your freedom?\nHave you been asking God to change that thing? Perhaps he&#8217;s saying that his\ngrace is all you need. You have to make a decision. Are you going to do what\nGod asks you to do? Or are you going to do your thing? &#8220;If you continue in\nmy words, then you are my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth\nwill make you free.&#8221;<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Jesus Christ chose to be weak so that you and I\nmight be strong. He chose to die so that we might live. He chose to become poor\nso that we through his poverty might be rich. Do you want to be free? Do you\nwant to be happy? The root to freedom and happiness is obedience.<\/span>\n    <\/p>\n    <p>\n      <em>\n        <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Elisabeth\nElliot hosts a daily radio broadcast, Gateway to Joy. She is author of <\/span>\n      <\/em>\n      <span style=\"\" class=\"\">Through\nthe Gates of Splendor<em> and <\/em>Passion and\nPurity<em>.<\/em><\/span>\n    <\/p>\n\n<p><span style=\"\" class=\"\" align=\"@align\">&copy; Elisabeth Elliot\nPreaching Today Tape #182\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtodaysermons.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.PreachingTodaySermons.com<\/a>\nA resource of Christianity Today International<\/span><\/p>\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading is-style-article-subhead1\">For Additional Preaching Today Resources:<\/h2>\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.preachingtoday.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"\">www.preachingtoday.com<\/a>\nPerfect web site for Pastors! Get sermon illustrations, relevant articles, preaching tips, and more!<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[308],"tax_ctp_authors":[1519],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_field_guide_subcategory":[],"tax_ctp_field_guides":[],"tax_ctp_format":[170],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[412],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_sermon_series":[],"tax_ctp_tags":[4018,4303,4552],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-32938","sermons","type-sermons","status-publish","hentry","tax_ctp_authors-elisabeth-elliot","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-freedom","tax_ctp_tags-joy","tax_ctp_tags-obedience"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Liberty of Obedience to God - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermons\/liberty-of-obedience-to-god\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Liberty of Obedience to God - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Introduction: An architectural wonder. My husband and I had the opportunity to go up into the top of that great arch in St. Louis. I was fascinated to learn about its construction. I know nothing about architecture, but a few things sank into my thick head. It was designed by Eero Saarinen, the famous architect. 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