Transcript

I invite you to open your Bibles to Jonah chapter 3. You say, “How in the world are you going to go from Christmas carols back into a book about an ancient disobedient prophet?” Well, you’d be surprised; actually the story of Christmas is right there. We experienced it last week: God sent a savior to Jonah in the form of a great fish.

If you’re familiar with this story, we’ve learned that the forty-eight verses that make up the book of Jonah encapsulate the entire story of the Bible—the entire story of the gospel. It’s the story of Christmas. We’re going to pick up back here in chapter 3.

Now, today we are talking about the most essential principle in the Christian life! How many of you are Christians? Raise your hand. You should know this principle. This principle, as a matter of fact, is the only thing that proves you’re a Christian. This principle is what will fulfill the Great Commission—that God has called all Christians to get on mission with Him in the world. This principle, if it had been obeyed, would have prevented the mass murder in San Bernardino, California this week.

This principle, if it had been obeyed, would have prevented everyone from ever experiencing cancer, Alzheimer’s, disease or death. This principle is what every parent expects from their children, and yet this principle is the most often assumed, ignored and excused principle in the Christian life. Does anybody know what I’m talking about? Obedience! We’re going to talk about obedience, and we’re going to see it here in the life of Jonah.

Look at Jonah 3:1, “Then…” Stop right there. You say, “Trent, if you stop at every word, we’re going to be here all day.” [Laughter] Well, I’ve got to talk about the word “then.” Because it’s summarizing everything that happened in the previous two chapters.

“Then” talks about when the word of the Lord came to Jonah the first time. And Jonah said. . . “yes” or “no?” [Congregation responds.] He said, “No! I’m not going to Nineveh, I’m going to Joppa.” So he went down to Joppa and he caught a boat going to Tarshish. And in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, the Lord sent a storm to get Jonah’s attention. It not only got Jonah’s attention, it got the attention of the sailors, who found that the prophet was disobedient. . .so they threw him overboard.

Notice, disobedience makes you “a man overboard.” And so, there in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, God sends a great fish to swallow Jonah…and for three days, God teaches Jonah some lessons about grace—until finally Jonah surrenders and says, “I’ll be obedient.” He had learned this principle, “salvation is from the Lord.” That’s everything that came before the word “then.” What comes after?

“Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah…” Haven’t we already read that? Yeah, that was the same thing He said in chapter 1. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh…” Same message. “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.’”  So, finally Jonah arose and went to Nineveh. Did he obey or disobey? [This is a participatory church—you have to help me out here.] [Congregation responds.] “Jonah arose and went to Nineveh” [in obedience to God. Scripture says,] “according to the word of the Lord.” That’s enough for today—two-and-a-half verses is what we’re going to spend our time on.

So, we need to understand what obedience is. You say, “Trent, I know what obedience is: it’s when God tells you to do something and you really like and understand what He’s trying to get done, and you go ahead and do that.” That’s called conditional obedience. When God says, “Do this,” and you can look down the path and you can see, “Well, that makes sense! I understand that. That’s generally what my family would want me to do, anyway. That’s what I’ve been brought up to do, and I can see how if I do that, it’s actually going to benefit me anyway. So, sure, Lord, I’ll do that.” That’s called conditional obedience.

You say, “Trent, I know what you’re talking about. I know what obedience is. What you’re talking about. What you’re talking about is a cafeteria-style obedience.”

A couple of weeks ago I went to visit my kids at Cedarville College—I’ve got two kids there—and they took me to the dining hall. I was amazed! There was every type of food available! (No wonder the meal plan is so expensive!) You could go over here and get your fried chicken; you could get your taco over here, you could get your salad over here. I didn’t need that; I went back over here to the burrito bar, and then there was the stir-fry, and you could actually make your own pancakes over here. You know what? I got a little bit of everything except the salad.

That’s cafeteria obedience. . .some of us do the same thing with God. We pick and we choose the parts of the Christian life that we lean into and we just kind of ignore and pretend like, “God doesn’t expect me to do all of that.” That’s cafeteria obedience.

There’s another kind of obedience—it’s an assumed obedience. See, here’s the thing. . .we’re looking around, and we look pretty good. I mean, we knocked it out of the park in the worship set. You sang louder than you’ve ever sung. You’re clean—most of you—some of you have Christmas sweaters on—and you came to church this morning! Some of you even brought a Bible!

Some of you got your kids here on time and checked them in; you’re a good parent. And because you have done some very good things, we could assume you’re doing everything that the Lord has told you to do. In reality, there is an iceberg under the surface of your obedience filled with disobedience.

So, do you know what conditional obedience is? It’s disobedience. Do you know what cafeteria-style obedience is? What is it? [Congregation responds.] It’s disobedience. Do you know what assumed obedience is? It’s disobedience! Today we’re going to learn some lessons about obedience.

So we’re going to need a definition. Let me just let you know, I have five kids, and I as a father knew, “If we don’t get some kids to obey around here, they’re going to take over.” So, I remember, (and Andrea can verify this) from the very first day (maybe the third day) when you bring them home from the hospital—right?—they’re all bundled up, and they stick that plug in there. . .I remember we brought them into the house. . .and the very first thing I did, I said to Andrea, “I need the child for a few minutes.” She gives me the child.

I take the child, sit it on the couch, prop it up with some pillows so it doesn’t fall over, and I said, “Look at me.” [Laughter.] Of course, at that point, the eyeballs—they don’t even track with you. “Right here. I want you to repeat after me: ‘Children obey your parents in the Lord.’ Ephesians 6:1. Now, try that.” [Laughter.] “That’s okay, we’ll work on it tomorrow.” Every day we started working on this principle, because God wants children to obey.

We even had a little definition, so that the children would understand what we’re thinking when we say “obedience” and “obey.” We came up with a definition. Would you like to know what our definition is? Would you like to hear it from a Griffith kid? Is there a Griffith kid? Oh, look! Here are two! Come up here, Griffith kids.

Here are Alli and Leah. (I’m taking a risk here.) Can you, Leah, tell the good people the obedience definition? [Leah responds:] “Obedience is doing what you’re told to do, when you’re told to do it, with the right heart attitude.” [Trent:] Yeah, there you go—that’s good. [To congregation] Are you impressed by that? You shouldn’t be. She didn’t obey. She just knows how to obey! [Laughter.] You should be impressed when she cleans her room—that would be obedience!

Listen—there’s the obedience definition. How many of you parents would be thrilled if your children what they were told to do when they were told to do it with the right heart attitude? Anybody be excited about that? That would be fantastic! I see some of you taking pictures of the screen right now. You’re preparing a PowerPoint for your children when you get home. I get that. Try it—it will help.

Not only do we need to teach this to our children, we need to get it into their hearts so much that we came up with some motions so they would never forget what the obedience definition looks like. [To daughters:] Do you know the motions? [Response:] “Mmm-hmm.” Alright, so let’s all say it together and let’s show the people the motions. “Obedience is doing what I’m told to do when I’m told to do it with the right heart attitude. Mmm-hmm!” [Girls do the motions.] [Congregation laughs and claps.] [Trent:] Did you get that?

I have no idea why you’re clapping. They’re just motions. They still haven’t obeyed. They’re like trained animals at this point. [Congregation laughs]. Now, I want everybody to get on your feet because we’re going to learn the obedience definition. (This is a participatory church.) [Trent leads congregation through the definition.] “Obedience is doing what I’m told to do when I’m told to do it with the right heart attitude.

Mmm-hmm. Did you get that last part right there? Let’s do it again. “Obedience is doing what I’m told to do when I’m told to do it with the right heart attitude. Mmm-hmm “. . .with the right heart attitude. . .” You may have a seat. [To his daughters:] Get off the stage. By the way, clean your rooms this afternoon, okay?

Now if, as a parent, you would be thrilled if your children obey you…how thrilled do you think Father God would be to see His children doing—not thinking about, not praying about, not planning and strategizing, not procrastinating—but doing what He told us to do, when He told us to do it (and if He hasn’t told you when, you should assume it’s instantly) with the right heart attitude.

I don’t know about you, but a lot of times I can get the first two down…it’s the last one that causes me problems, right? I grumble and kick and complain…“Alright, God, I’ll go witness to my neighbor!” You’re scraping down in your wallet: “Take my money! I don’t care!” Do you think God’s pleased with that? No! God wants the right heart attitude to go with it.

We’re going to find out that Jonah got the first two parts right, yet he was tripped up on the third one by the end of the book. We’re going to learn six lessons about obedience. Here’s the first one:

 

• Obedience begins with active listening. (Jonah 3:1)

 

Look at it here in verse 1: “Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah…”  Obedience begins with God speaking. And God’s Word for His people is found in the Bible. The Bible contains everything that God expects me to do.

Please understand, there are specific things that God is going to lay on individual hearts as we read the Bible, but obedience is more about becoming a kind of person than doing specific tasks. If you become the kind of person in obedience to God, that He wants you to be, you’re not going to have any trouble accomplishing great things for God specific to your gifting and your experience and your personality and who God has made you to be.

Obedience begins with active listening. So, how often do you put yourself in a position to hear the Word of God? Do you get up in the morning and grab a Bible, open it up and say, “Lord, speak to my heart. I need marching orders for this day. What changes do You want to make in my life? What direction do You want to set for the course of my life? I’m listening, Lord. Speak.”

Do you put yourself in a position to hear the word of the Lord? Or do you spend more time listening to yourself, or listening to the news, or listening to Christmas carols, or listening to Jimmy Fallon or Jimmy Kimmel. . .or any other Jimmy on the planet—who’s not named Jesus? There are some things that God wants to say to you.

Some of you that feel like, “I don’t have direction in life; I don’t know what I want to do.” My question to you is, have you put yourself in a position even to hear actively what God wants to say to you? Do you know the difference between active listening and passive listening? Active listening is when you actually expect God to speak, and you turn your ear in the direction of His Word. His Word is found in the Bible.

Please understand, the further you move away from the written Word of God, the less confidence you can have that you have heard a word from God. So, visions and dreams and impressions and senses and promptings, and all those things—God will prompt you through His written Word. And if what you feel like what God has said does not line up with the written Word of God, I’m sorry, but you are making it up!

Our hearts are so deceitful and so wicked and so self-absorbed that, a lot of times, when we say, “God told me…” what we mean is, “What I really want to do is…” More damage has been caused in the church following the phrase, “God told me” than any other phrase—unless you’ve got your Bible open and you’re saying, “God used His Word to prompt my heart to do this specific thing in my life.”

So, active listening involves preparing your heart and positioning your heart to hear a word from the Lord, and then embracing the conviction that God’s Word brings. Did you come to church expecting God to speak this morning? So often we come to church: “Oh, I didn’t get anything out of that!” Were you expecting to get anything out of that? Did you ask God to give you something out of that…and did you embrace even the parts of God’s Word that were difficult to receive…even if it made you feel a little guilty?

This week I heard about a college president in Oklahoma. His name is Dr. Everett Piper. He’s President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He published a letter that he sent to his student body. He said, “This past week, I actually had a student come forward after a University chapel service and complain because he felt victimized by a sermon on the topic of 1 Corinthians 13.”

[Trent:] Do you know what the topic of 1 Corinthians 13 is? It’s love! [Continues to read letter.] “It appears that this young scholar felt offended because a homily on love made him feel bad for not showing love. In his mind, the speaker was wrong for making him and his peers feel uncomfortable. I’m not making this up! Our culture has actually taught our kids to be self-absorbed and narcissistic. Anytime their feelings are hurt, they feel like victims!…[Well] I have a message for this young man and all others who care to listen: that feeling of discomfort you have after listening to a sermon is called a conscience!”

“An altar call is supposed to make you feel bad. It’s supposed to make you feel guilty! The goal of many a good sermon is to get you to confess your sins, not coddle you in your selfishness. The primary objective of the church and the Christian faith is your confession, not your self-actualization. So here’s my advice: if you want the chaplain to tell you you’re a victim rather than to tell you that you need virtue, this may not be the university you’re looking for.”

“If you want to complain about a sermon that makes you feel less than loving—and not showing love—this might be the wrong place for you. If you don’t want to feel guilt in your soul when you are guilty of sin. . .if you want to be enabled rather than confronted, there are many universities across the land that will give you exactly what you want.”

“At [our school], we teach you to be selfless rather than self-centered. We are more interested in you practicing personal forgiveness than political revenge…We don’t believe that you have been victimized every time you feel guilty, and we don’t issue trigger-warnings before altar calls.”

“[Our school] is not a ‘safe place,’ but rather a place to learn: [a place] to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you had when listening to a sermon is called guilt; that the way to address that guilt is to repent of everything that’s wrong with you rather than to blame others for everything that’s wrong with them. This place is where you will quickly learn that you need to grow up! This is not a daycare. It’s a university.”

I appreciate Dr. Piper’s frankness on the matter! [Applause.] As much as we welcome you around here at Harvest Bible Chapel, we’re not real subtle. As much as we want to decorate and celebrate the grace that God has given, we are not here to make you feel good. We are here to make Jesus look good and to get you headed in the right direction, in obedience to Him—for His glory and, eventually, for your good.

 

• Obedience is the path to fresh starts and second chances.

(Jonah 3:1)

 

Again, in verse 1 (did you notice this?): “The word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time…” Now, this is not an announcement—but—if I were God, I think I would have found somebody else at this point. How much effort and patience and love and grace and even tolerance has God put out to deal with a disobedient prophet like Jonah? Why didn’t God choose somebody else? I think it is because God not only wanted to get something done through Jonah—He wanted to get something done in Jonah. He wanted to teach him the beauty of obedience.

So God came to Jonah again and gave him the exact same message, and gave him a second chance to obey. Now, how many of you have obeyed everything God has told you to do when God has told you to do it with the right heart attitude? All the perfect people, please stand up. You are now dismissed…because this sermon is not for you. This is for people who need second chances.

Is there anybody here who is grateful to God for giving you a second chance—because you’re a little thick-headed and it took you a little while to learn the lessons of grace and obedience? You may have strayed so far, you may have sunk so low, that you feel there is a never a way to get back. Listen, if you are here today, the message for you is the message to Jonah…God is the God of second chances. No matter where you are, the grace of God is available to rescue you. We talked about that last week.

Obedience is the only rational choice for people who have experienced the grace of God who gives second chances. And yet, second chances are not to be taken for granted. As a matter of fact, some of you may be sitting here thinking, “I’m so glad God’s the God of second chances, because I really don’t feel like obeying today. Maybe God will give me a second chance tomorrow,” and you’re delaying your obedience today because you’re presuming there will be a second chance. That’s not receiving grace, that’s abusing grace.

Christians so rarely get this balance right, between grace and obedience, and yet there is great harmony all through the Scripture between grace and obedience. Obedience always follows grace. Here’s the principle: the same God who extends grace expects obedience. So don’t presume upon God’s grace.

Over in the New Testament, the person that wrote most about the grace of God is a man named the apostle Paul. As a matter of fact, in the book of Romans chapter 3, chapter 4, chapter 5 – he is exalting the superiority of grace. He is proclaiming that you can never be made right with God through your obedience. Because none of us has ever perfectly obeyed. So give up on religious rule-keeping and embrace grace!

Over three chapters, Paul is making grace sound so good, that it’s as if Paul—in his mind—is thinking, “I wonder if I’m making this sound too good. I’m wondering if there are some stubborn, disobedient people out there who are going to take this concept of grace and begin to use it as a license to justify their disobedience. “After all, if God loves grace, and loves to extend grace, then I want to give Him many opportunities in my life to extend grace! So, the more I sin, the more opportunity I give God to show grace! I love God, because God loves grace and I love sin. I love God so much!” If that’s your mentality, you do not understand what it cost God to extend grace.

Do you know what the apostle Paul said, after he thought this thought—and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit? He said to those people, as a warning never to abuse grace or take advantage of second chances, he said this: “What shall we say?” It’s almost as if he’s hearing them out there. “Don’t you ever say, ‘We could continue in sin so that grace may abound.’” It’s almost as if he’s shouting at this point: “By no means! How can we who have died to sin still live in it?” And Paul is talking to some of you in this auditorium who have been given chance after chance after chance after chance…and you sin and you sin and you sin…and you refuse to repent because you love your sin, and you’re presuming on and abusing God’s grace in your life today.

God’s message to you is this: “Obey! Now!” Because God is a God of grace, and because He is worthy of your obedience. “Turn around! Wake up! Get with the program, and hear what God says to you…about your finances, about your sex life, about your parenting, about every component part of your life. Turn your ear and obey what God has said. How dare you abuse the grace of God, after He’s been so good to you.

Some of you grew up in grace-less environments…maybe a family, every time you didn’t bring home the A’s. Every time you didn’t clean your room. You got punished, you became an outcast. And because you were abused, when you heard about grace, you took it to hyper grace. And now you don’t think you have to do anything—because of grace. Again, you don’t understand grace.

Grace demands more of you than the law ever demanded of you. But here’s the great news about grace…grace actually gives you the power to obey God in a way that you never could under the law! And so the good news about grace is, we all get second chances. We wake up—His mercies are new every morning—and every day is a new opportunity to obey God!

Here’s the third lesson about obedience:

 

• Obedience is the overflow of love for God. (John 1:15, 21-24)

 

We’re going to chase this theme, even into the New Testament. So, in the book of John, Jesus is talking to His disciples. How many of you think that Jesus wanted His disciples to obey Him? He looked at them, and He was like, “There’s a motivator. You’ve got to get the motivator right.” The motivator for obedience is not guilt. Guilt is a good thing, but that’s not the motivator. The motivator for obedience is not fear.

You work at a job, you do your job, you want to get good job reviews—so you obey—so you don’t want lose your job. That’s a motivator of fear. But, what did Jesus say is the motivator for obedience? Love for God. Look at this: [Jesus said:] “’If you love me, you will keep my commandments.’” Jesus: “I mean, I don’t even have to talk about the commandments a whole lot. If you love me, you’re just going to obey.”

Now, flip that around. What’s the indication if you don’t keep the commandments? What’s the reason? You don’t love Him! You love yourself. Those that love God love God’s commandments. If you have a problem with some of the harder things in Scripture, it’s just because you’re not all jazzed up about who Jesus is in your life. But if “You love me, you’ll keep My commandments. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father. . .’”

That little phrase we say at the end of the service, “You are loved,” you could translate this way: “You should obey,” because you are loved. “You are loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” The word manifest is “make Myself known unto him.”

Jesus goes on: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.” (John 14:23-24) Do you understand that obedience will determine how much you know of God? Does God seem distant? Does He seem unknowable to you? The reason is because we haven’t kept the commandments that He has given us.

Again, it’s important that we get the sequence right. We don’t obey God to get Him to accept us. Because He accepts us, therefore we obey God. Because He loves us and because we want to know more of His love, we pursue Him, we follow Him, we stay within the boundaries that He has given us. And yet, if you don’t, and you stray and you disobey and you stop at the point of saying, “I’m not going any further than that,” that’s the point at which you will lose intimacy with God.

Obedience without love is legalism. Love without obedience is impossible! So I would say to you, if you’ve got an obedience problem, you’ve got a passion problem! And you need to work on your love relationship with Jesus Christ.

The fourth lesson about obedience is this:

 

• Obedience is the foundation of the Christian life.

(Matthew 7:24-27)

 

This is the most foundational truth for every Christian, and we read that in Matthew 7, at the end of the chapter. Jesus has been speaking for three chapters. He’s been giving us principle after principle: the Beatitudes, the Sermon on the Mount, how to treat our neighbor, how to forgive, how to love. He gets to the end of it and He says this, “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house upon the rock.” And then He goes on to describe that this house will endure the wind and the waves of the storms of life, and it won’t fall.

Then Jesus says, “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand.” And that man experienced the same wind, the same waves, the same storms of life, and Jesus said, “That house will fall, and great will be the destruction of it.”

Do you know what these verses do? They tell us this: the measure of your maturity as a Christian is not how many sermon podcasts you have downloaded on your phone. It’s not how much you know about the Bible. The measure of your maturity is not based on how much you know—it’s based on how much you obey what you know. The only difference between these two guys was not what they knew. It’s what they did in obedience to what they knew.

You can sit in this church, take piles of sermon notes…you can be in church every day of your life, have a seminary degree, and yet you are a foolish man if you don’t obey. Do you know what these verses do? They explain why some of your lives are in absolute chaos.

It’s why your relationships never work out, it’s why you never have any money, it’s why you can’t keep a job. It’s not because of what you don’t know—it’s because of what you don’t obey. God is trying to set you up to win, if you would just obey. That’s what the fifth principle is about:

 

• Obedience is rewarded by God. (Deuteronomy 28:1, 15)

 

God is trying to give you a gift! He’s trying to save you trouble! In Deuteronomy, one of the very first books in the Bible, God [through Moses] says this: “If you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.” How many of you would like God to lift you out of the muck and the mire that you swim in every day, and just kind of set you a little bit higher and get you out of all that?” The path to that is obedience.

He goes on about fifteen verses later and flips it around: “Well, what happens if I don’t obey?” He answers it this way, “But if you will not obey the voice of the Lord your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.” The principle is this: Choose to sin, choose to suffer. God has given you a path to peace and security and joy and delight.

It doesn’t mean that obedience fixes everything in your life, but it sure saves you from a lot of junk that otherwise would entangle you and trip you up. God created you and knows how your life is supposed to work. He’s given you an instruction manual. When you follow the instructions, do you know what you end up with? You invite the blessing of God upon your life!

Do you know people like this? Things always just seem to kind of work out for them? And yet, when you investigate, the foundation of their life has been what God has said, and not what somebody else has said.

Here’s the last thing:

 

• Obedience is the proof of genuine salvation.

(1 John 2:3-4; 3:6-9, 24)

 

Obedience is the only proof of genuine salvation. Are you saved? Are you going to Heaven? Sin’s forgiven? “Heaven is my eternal home.” You’ve got a confidence of that? You say, “I hope so!” You want to know how you can know so? You need to investigate your obedience!

1 John talks all about it. He goes on and says this, “And by this we know that we have come to know him…” It’s not our church attendance, it’s not our moral attitude, it’s not our good behavior, it’s not how we treat our grandmother.

“By this we [will] know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says ‘I know him,’ – Hands raised! Everyone who knows Him raise your hands! “Yeah, that’s me!” He says, “Whoever says ‘I know Him!’ “but does not keep his commandments is a liar…” Put your hand down—that’s not you. You don’t keep His commandments? You don’t have evidence of obeying the Word of God in your life? You just keep going on and on in sin? You refuse to surrender and humble yourself? You’re cocky and arrogant when it comes to what God has said? That’s not good. You’re not saved! You’ve never been born again by the Spirit of God, “and the truth is not in [you]…”

John goes on: “No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him.” People are real quick to try to find the loopholes in that verse. Before you start searching for loopholes, why don’t you stare at what it’s saying? If your life is marked by continual unrepentant sin, you don’t know God!

Now listen, as we said earlier, no one obeys God perfectly. But the evidence that you know God is that you obey God increasingly. The pattern, the direction, the destination of your life is, “God, what do you want me to do? And I’m going to make choices on a continual basis, no matter how hard it is—no matter how difficult; no matter who understands or who doesn’t; no matter how much money it costs; no matter what I have to leave or give up…”

“Lord, I belong to You. I’ve been made a subject of Your grace and, God, my life belongs to You. I want to obey!” If that is not your attitude, and that attitude is not evidenced in behavior that is marked by obedience, I don’t care how long you’ve been in church—I don’t care how much of the Bible you know—you’re not saved. And you need to get saved. Today! So that you can start to obey.

Jesus says this: “Whoever keeps My commandments abides in God, and God in him.” If you’re not saved, if you’ve never been born again—if there’s never been a moment in your life when you have surrendered completely, entirely to the Lordship of Christ—there’s only one command God wants you to obey this morning. It’s this, repent of your unbelief; stop acting like you are God and surrender to God! Put yourself under His Lordship and obey God from a heart that has been radically changed by His grace.