Obey – audio

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Mark Twain famously quipped, “It ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me; it is the parts that I do understand.”

I’m not sure exactly how he meant that, but in some ways I agree with him. There’s a lot about the Bible I don’t grasp, but I have plenty to do just to work on the parts I get.

Here is one of the parts I do understand: God wants us to do what he says.

You already knew that, of course, but it doesn’t hurt us to be reminded. It’s easy to get lulled into a sense of complacency and forget some of the basics.

James emphasizes this point here, and his in-your-face approach shows how serious he is about making himself clear:

“But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:20-26).

It jumped out at me recently how often God tests people’s faith by telling them to do something that doesn’t make any sense at all.

In Abraham’s case, what God commanded him not only didn’t make sense, but it was also completely contrary to God’s nature. Did Abraham trust him enough to do something sinful? Did he believe in God strongly enough to offer a child sacrifice, a horrible practice he’d turned his back on when he began walking with God? Yes he did. By this point in his life he’d learned just to trust God . . . to do whatever he said.

And that’s a pretty good lesson for all of us – do whatever he says.

It’s not hard to do right when it’s relatively low sacrifice. It’s easy to follow Jesus when the road is smooth. But I think God is interested in something more substantial than that. He wants to know if our faith will lead us to do something more significant than attend church services, smile pretty, and act christianly.

I think he wants to know if we have real faith – genuine, life-changing, God-honoring trust.

He wants us to have the kind of faith that obeys even when what God said does not make sense to us. Even when it’s different from what we want to do. Even when it hurts. James’ major point in this section is that there’s no such thing as a faith that refuses obey. That’s a faith that’s dead, which is not faith at all.