“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

2

Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

3

For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

4

To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

5

He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

6

Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

7

“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

8

With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

9

To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

10

At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

11

“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

12

Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

13

That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

14

And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

http://www.graceopcmodesto.org

“How Precisely Should You Obey?”

(John 14:31)

I. Introduction.

A. Orientation.

What are some of the ways

You show the Lord that you love Him?

Do you think about Him?

Desire Him in your heart?

Sings songs to Him?

Tell Him that you love Him?

Gather with His people to worship Him?

Listen to what He has to say in His Word?

All these are very good ways.

But there is one

That shows Him even more –

And that is obedience.

B. Preview.

That’s also how He wants you

To show the world you love Him.

You can tell them.

But, of course, words are cheap –

If what you do

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Doesn’t match what you say

It will undermine your words.

If you really want to show them,

Obey Him.

That’s what Jesus did –

Precisely what the Father told Him.

Notice what He says to His disciples

In our text this morning,

“But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father

commanded Me” (John 14:31).

The Puritans were criticized in their day –

And continue to be so today –

On this very point:

Their precision in religion.

Perhaps you’ve heard me

Use this illustration before

Of a Puritan pastor by the name of John Rogers.

One day a land owner

Saw Rogers riding past his property on horseback.

When he recognized him,

He rode out,

Came alongside him,

And began to censure him

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For being so precise.

After he finished

He backed off a bit and said,

“Being a gentleman in so many other respects,

Why do you insist on being so precise in religion?”

Rogers replied, “Oh sir, I serve a precise God.”

What I would like to consider this morning

Is if you are to show your love

To the Father and to His Son, Jesus,

You need to obey Them precisely.

We’ll see first, that this is what Jesus did.

And second, that this is what He calls you to do as well.

II. Sermon.

A. First, Jesus obeyed His Father precisely.

1. You know that Jesus came

To keep His Father’s commandments

That He might fulfill all righteousness for you.

If He hadn’t obeyed,

You couldn’t be saved.

His obedience didn’t merely qualify Him

To die on the cross for you –

It is the obedience you needed

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To enter into heaven.

2. You know that when He kept the commandments

He didn’t do it under duress –

Nobody forced Him to keep them –

He did so willingly –

From His heart –

Because that’s what He wanted to do.

David, looking forward to Jesus,

Writes in Psalm 40:6-8, “Sacrifice and meal offering You have not desired; My

ears You have opened; burnt offering and sin offering You have not required.

Then I said, ‘Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I

delight to do Your will, O my God; Your Law is within My heart.’”

It was His pleasure

To obey His Father.

3. You know He kept all the commandments –

Not just some of them.

When Jesus came to John

To be baptized,

John tried to stop Him,

Saying, “I have need to be baptized by You,

And do You come to me?”

But Jesus said to him, “Permit it at this time;

For in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.”

Then John baptized Him (Matt. 3:14-15).

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He did everything

The Father commanded Him.

If He had missed just one thing,

He would have failed.

James writes, “For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point,

he has become guilty of all. For He who said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT

ADULTERY,’ also said, ‘DO NOT COMMIT MURDER.’ Now if you do

not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor

of the law” (James 2:10-11).

Jesus is the spotless Lamb of God –

He obeyed all His Father’s commandments.

4. You know Jesus obeyed at all times –

He never took a break from obedience

But lived, ate and breathed His Father’s will –

As we saw in our passage last week,

“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the

things that are pleasing to Him” (John 8:29).

He was not a part-time Christ,

But full-time.

5. But did you know that Jesus

Was also very precise in His obedience?

He says in our passage,

“I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (John 14:31).

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Jesus wasn’t innovative.

He didn’t try to second guess His Father,

Or do something

Other than what His Father

Wanted Him to do.

He simply did what His Father

Told Him to do,

And that was enough.

What a novel idea!

It seems that sometimes

The church is so busy

Trying to decide whether

God will allow it to do this or that,

That it overlooks

What He has said to do.

If we simply focused on that,

We would have plenty to keep up occupied.

Jesus’ desire for precision is,

Among other reasons,

Why He lifted the commandments back up

To where His Father intended

In the Sermon on the Mount –

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“You have heard it said,

But I say to you.” –

Here’s one example:

“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT

MURDER’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I

say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before

the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be

guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty

enough to go into the fiery hell. Therefore if you are presenting your offering

at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,

leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your

brother, and then come and present your offering. Make friends quickly with

your opponent at law while you are with him on the way, so that your

opponent may not hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer,

and you be thrown into prison. Truly I say to you, you will not come out of

there until you have paid up the last cent” (Matt. 5:21-26).

Jesus didn’t do

What the people expected of Him –

He actually did what God required

Because He loved Him

And because He wanted

To show the world that He did.

When Jesus said,

“I love the Father.”

How could you know

Whether He was telling the truth?

Only by the fact

That His life agreed

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With His Words.

He showed the world

That He loved His Father

Through His precise obedience.

B. Second, so how precisely should you obey?

As precisely as Jesus.

1. If you are to show the Father and the Son

That you love them –

And if you are to show the world –

You need to obey as Jesus did –

You need to follow His example –

Jesus says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15).

2. There is one difference

Between your obedience and His:

Jesus kept the commandments

To fulfill all righteousness,

That He might provide you

With a perfect righteousness.

You won’t keep them for that reason

Because, for one thing, you can’t.

For another,

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To try and keep them for that reason

Would put you under the curse.

Paul writes, “For as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it

is written, ‘CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO DOES NOT ABIDE BY ALL

THINGS WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF THE LAW, TO PERFORM

THEM.’ Now that no one is justified by the Law before God is evident; for,

‘THE RIGHTEOUS MAN SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.’ However, the Law is

not of faith; on the contrary, ‘HE WHO PRACTICES THEM SHALL LIVE

BY THEM’” (Gal. 3:10-12).

Since you can’t keep them well enough –

Because even your best works are still sinful –

Every time you would try

To offer your works to God,

You would only deserve death,

As Paul writes, “The wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23).

That’s why you can only have eternal life

By faith –

You must turn from your sins,

And trust Jesus –

Only His obedience

Can make you right with God.

3. But this one aside,

You are to follow Him in every other area:

You are to keep the commandments willingly,

You are to keep them all,

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At all times,

And in all places,

Not to save yourself,

But as evidence that you have

The blessing of the New Covenant –

God’s Law in your mind,

And written on your heart.

The author to the Hebrews writes,

“FOR THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH THE HOUSE

OF ISRAEL AFTER THOSE DAYS, SAYS THE LORD: I WILL PUT MY

LAWS INTO THEIR MINDS, AND I WILL WRITE THEM ON THEIR

HEARTS. AND I WILL BE THEIR GOD, AND THEY SHALL BE MY

PEOPLE” (Heb. 8:10).

4. You will also be precise in your obedience,

Like Jesus.

You won’t try to offer Him

What you want to do,

But what He wants you to do.

When Saul fought against the Amalekites,

And spared some of the livestock

To sacrifice to God –

When God had commanded him

To destroy everything –

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“Samuel said, ‘Has the LORD as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices

as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than

sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams’” (1 Sam. 15:22).

He doesn’t want your sacrifices,

He wants you to obey Him.

And knowing He wants you to follow

What He says to the letter,

You won’t be content

Generally to understand what He wants –

You will study

To know precisely.

5. Will you succeed as Jesus did? No.

But that won’t keep you from trying.

Many believe God only requires

What you’re capable of doing.

That isn’t true.

Jesus said to His disciples –

And to you –

“You are to be perfect,

As your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48).

That’s what Paul tried to do,

And what the Lord

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Calls you, through him,

To do as well.

He writes to the Philippians,

“Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press

on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ

Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one

thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies

ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in

Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, have this attitude; and

if in anything you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you”

(Phil. 3:12-15).

These passages seem to imply

That you can be perfect,

And there are some

Who believe that you can be in this life.

But John reminds you that you can’t,

“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in

us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).

But again, the fact

That you can’t be perfect

Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try

By God’s grace.

Perfection is the standard

Even though you will always fall short.

What this means is

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That you will need Christ’s mediation –

You will need Him

To stand between you and His Father

To bring you together

And keep you reconciled –

Until you finally arrive in heaven.

If you trust Jesus,

He will do it.

6. And so, with regard to yourself,

Follow Jesus:

Obey Him,

Obey all His commandments,

All the time,

From the heart

As precisely as you can!

But don’t forget

To follow your Lord also

In His love and patience with others.

Don’t condemn those around you

Who aren’t perfect.

As you learn more about

What God requires,

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And as you grow in your obedience,

You will be tempted

To look down on everyone around you

For not seeing things as you do,

For not living as you live.

Don’t forget that Jesus

Didn’t stand over His disciples

And continually condemn them

For their imperfection,

But encouraged them

To strive after it.

Make sure in your desire

To be like Him,

You not only imitate His precision,

But also His love.

This will not only show

The Father and Son that you love them,

But will give the world

The witness He wants you to give them.

May the Lord help us to do so. Amen.

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