Welcome to Episode #121 of Way of the Bible podcast. This is our first of eight episodes in our sixteenth mini-series, The Obedience of Faith. On this episode we’re going explore the topic of obedience and determine if it is optional for the born-again believer. On future episodes within this mini-series we’ll look at multifaceted ways obedience manifests itself based upon graces and faith given to individuals according to the measure of God’s provision.
Before we get started in our text for today, it is best to backup and look at what we learned in our last mini-series as our faith is built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ. We’ll use the following three key scriptures.
Hebrews 5:8-9 – Although he [Jesus] was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. 9 And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him,
2 Cor 5:21 – For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Hebrews 10:11-14 – But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, 13 waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Jesus the man, was made perfect because of his obedience to God and death on the cross. Paul explains the significance of this obedience in Philippians 2:5-11 – Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus, the Second Adam, the NEW man, God has exalted in heaven to sit at his right hand and made Jesus Lord of both the heavens and the earth. The subjects in the dominion of Jesus Christ either obey him or rebel against him.
Hebrews 5:9 tells us Jesus became the source of eternal salvation (a salvation that will never end) to all who “OBEY HIM.”
That eternal salvation is possible when we believe in Jesus and have a rebirth by the Spirit into new life. Our old life is gone, our new life has come. In our new life, Paul told us in 2 Cor 5:21, Jesus made it possible for us to become the righteousness of God.
Not only do we become the righteousness of God, Hebrews 10:14 tells us, he [Jesus] has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified. We were made perfect, we are perfect, we will always be perfect - those who are being sanctified. And that sanctification is in the truth by the Father through the Spirit; God’s word is truth (John 17:17).
Sanctification in the word by the Spirit pushes us all toward maturity in Christ as Paul described in Ephesians 4:13 – until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Paul had explained why God was sanctifying us in Ephesians 2:10 – For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
We introduced this topic of obedience throughout our previous mini-series anchored in the L
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