Gospel-Grounded Obedience

This past Sunday my good friend Anthony preached an outstanding sermon on Acts 5:12-42. He made the point that much opposition to the gospel that happens in our country happens within the walls of the church, not outside of it. And he said that one of the ways this resistance to the gospel has been spread is through preaching that is more focused on application than on doctrine and theology.

He then shared four simple steps to show that the way to help people become more practically obedient is to help them see God's love revealed in the Gospel:

1. We want people to become obedient and live God-pleasing lives in every sphere.

2. Jesus says, 'If you love me, you will obey my commandments.' Obedience in the practical issues of life is the fruit of loving God.

3. The Apostle John says that we love God because He first loved us.

4. The love of God is most clearly seen and revealed in the events of the Gospel: Christ's perfect life, substitutionary death and resurrection.

Therefore, if we want people to become obedient, we must saturate them with the gospel in our sermons week after week after week. I was thankful for the exhortation, and thought I would add to Anthony's words by showing some specific places in the New Testament where we see the writers of Scripture doing the very thing that Anthony said we all must do:

• To stir them up to generosity with their finances, Paul says, "⁹For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich." (2 Corinthians 8)
  
• To help them overcome pride and arrogance he tells the Philippians, "⁵Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, ⁷but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. ⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2)
  
• To help them overcome anger, Paul told the Colossians, "¹²Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ¹³bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive." (Colossians 3)
  
• To help them handle mistreatment and suffering, Peter encouraged the suffering saints, "²¹For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. ²²He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. ²³When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. ²⁴He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls." (1 Peter 2)
  
• When admonishing the believers for their indifference to the poor, John reminded them of true love, "¹⁶By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." (1 John 3)
  

More examples could be given, but that should suffice. All that to say, I think Anthony is onto something!