The Basics of Faith Series #1 - OBEDIENCE
John 14:15-21 Victory Fellowship
January 8, 2023 Rev. Roderick Grabski
Intro: Basics of Faith Series
The most important relationship we have as Christians is our relationship with Jesus Christ. We can optimize that relationship by mastering the basics of the Christian walk.
Consequently, when we choose to build up the house of God, we are spiritually building up -in Christ- our lives and the lives of others. We are ambassadors for Christ, or what I sometimes refer to as being Sons and Daughters of the House of God.
In essence, when we care about God’s church and take the commands of Jesus to heart, we are managing the basics of our faith well.
Starting today I will do a seven part series dealing with the Scriptural guidance in the Basics of our Faith. This includes Obedience, Fear, Praise, Forgiveness, Intercession, Making Disciples, and Giving.
We will start with Obedience because if we aren’t first obedient to God, the rest of it doesn’t matter. The Basic practice of Obedience includes accepting the authority of God and His Word. It includes submitting to God and letting it show through our words, actions, and even our thoughts.
God expects Obedience – even when we don’t feel like it. (long walk or run)
Following Christ, loving Christ, requires obedience. It means that if there is something in Christ’s teaching or God’s word that we don’t agree with – we understand that we are wrong and need to change.
Because of Jesus - through the gifts of the Holy Spirit - we can be obedient to, and in agreement with, God.
Agreement with God puts us in a position of love and power in Christ.
Deuteronomy 11:18-21 "You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your sons may be multiplied on the land which the LORD swore to your fathers to give them, as long as the heavens remain above the earth.
Being obedient to God’s word and the commandments of Jesus takes intentionality of heart and mind to do God’s will over and above ours.
Are we willing to excel at the basics of our faith by first being obedient to God?
PRAYER
SONG: The Basics of Life
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John 14:15-21 “If you love me, obey my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them. And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.” (NLT)
