Why Should I Obey? Moving Beyond "Because I Said So"--Parenting Series

            If you’ve ever tried to do something difficult, you know that its not quite enough to know what to do and how to do it. You have to have a good answer for the “why” question—why should I do it? You have to have some compelling reason to put out the effort.

            Many people, for example, have a vague desire to get in better shape. They know what to do and how to do it, but they lack a compelling reason to do it until they are diagnosed with heart disease or diabetes. But we probably all know people who have had a health scare, then all of a sudden their motivation kicks into high gear, because now they have a crystal clear answer about why they should make certain changes.

            Over the last few weeks in this parenting series, we’ve been talking about the need to teach our children not only what they should do according to the Bible, but how they can do it and why they should do it. Until we have answered all three of these questions for our kids, we have not engaged in fully biblical parenting. Now by God’s grace, He can overcome whatever is lacking in our parenting efforts—in fact, He does all the time because none of us are perfect—but our desire must always be to be fully biblical in our role as parents.

            So we must communicate the what, how, and why of the Christian life to our kids. These three aspects form a very powerful dynamic in our lives which will empower us to follow God. Think about parenting, for a moment, like coaching. Telling our kids what they should do is like explaining the basic rules of the game; telling them how they should do it is like explaining the skills and strategy that will allow them to succeed; and telling them why they should do it gives them the drive and motivation to succeed against all obstacles.

            Now we’ve already learned that to teach our kids what they should do, we should teach them the commands of Scripture. These are the basic ground rules for life. To teach them how they can do it, we should point to them to the Gospel. We also learned how a couple of New Testament authors built on this idea. For Paul, pointing our kids to the Gospel revolves around teaching them about the resources that they have “in Christ.” For John, it revolves around the idea of abiding in Christ.

            Today we’re going to add the third side to this triangle, so to speak—the “why” question. When we think about teaching our kids why they should obey us, it is here that we think about that classic conversation that ends with “because I said so.” As the conversation goes, we ask our children to do something and they ask us “why?”—perhaps two or three or a half-dozen times! And normally with a tone of exasperation we say, “because I said so!”

            Now believe it or not, that is a perfectly legitimate answer. It is also a true statement—your kids should obey simply because you have asked them to do something. But why is that? Who made you the boss? This is really the direction that we must go in answering the “why” question—we must point our children not to ourselves as the final authority, but to the one who is the final authority, God Himself.

            Our position of leadership and authority over our children comes from God. We do not have this position simply because we’re stronger than them or because we’ve been alive longer than them and therefore should be wiser than they are. Perhaps our children should have a sense of gratitude, since we have raised them, but ultimately we as parents should remember what Jesus said to Pontius Pilate in John 19:11—“You would have no authority…unless it had been given you from above.”

            So ultimately, teaching our children why they should obey us is a matter of teaching them why they should obey God, since He is the one who has commanded them to obey us. Pointing our children to God as the final authority is very helpful for at least two reasons. First, it keeps us from putting our parenting efforts in terms of a power struggle or a “battle of the wills” between us and our children. Sometimes our children are all-too-willing to jump into that battle because they’ve seen us in action, and they know that if they push the right buttons, they may come out on top! But instead of setting ourselves up as the final authority, we need to point them to God—the One with whom they really must come to terms. Instead of your will versus my will, its your will versus God’s will, and even kids understand that that’s a very different situation.

            Second, when we point them to God, we play the role of our child’s advocate rather than their adversary. As we point them to God, we can explain to them that no one is exempt from obeying God—not even mommy and daddy! We’re simply teaching them to obey God because that’s what we’re required to do, too! This idea sends a powerful message to our kids that we’re all in the same boat. We can teach them that even mommy and daddy and don’t get to play by a different set of rules. Through this process we begin to focus their attention on God, and then we can give them the good news of the Gospel and teach them how the Gospel empowers them to obey.

So teaching our children why they should obey ultimately revolves around teaching them the basics of why they should obey God. In the rest of our time this morning, I’m going to give you a basic answer to this question so you will know what kind of ideas you should pass along to your children.

Why Should I Obey God?

1. To avoid the negative consequences of disobedience

            A. Punishment from those in authority

                        1) Parents

            When we punish our children for disobedience, we give them a very concrete example of the negative consequences of sin. If we are consistent in this, it becomes very clear to them that disobedience brings punishment, but obedience allows them to avoid punishment—and may even bring with it a reward, which we will discuss more in a moment.

            Kids can learn this lesson from their earliest days. If there’s one thing I’ve learned with my daughter, its that she is always capable of understanding more than I think she can. I am confident that that’s true of kids in general, so start training them from their earliest days. When they start crawling and they start touching things that you don’t want them to touch, a firm “no” and a swat on the hand will do. And to help them learn how to avoid that punishment, touch their hand to the object again and say, “no.” Don’t swat their hand if you’re the one who’s touching their hand to the object, but touch their hand to it and say “no” a few times, and they’ll get the picture.

                        2) Legal authorities

            As our kids get older, we’ll have the chance to teach them that some actions are not just sinful, they are also illegal, and they may have to face punishment from the courts if they do certain things. They may have to pay a costly fine or spend time doing community service or even spend time in jail. But all of these consequences can be avoided by obeying God, because God commands us in Romans 13 to obey the government, unless the government commands us to disobey Him. So in most circumstances, if we obey God we won’t find ourselves on the wrong side of the law.

                        3) God

            Hebrews 12 states that because God loves us, He Himself may discipline and punish us when necessary. Far from being an expression of hatred, this is actually an expression of love. Hebrews 12:6 says, “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” Then v. 10 says, “he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.”

            So God’s discipline can help us learn the hard way, but its still preferable to learn the easy way by obeying God in the first place! If we choose to obey, we will not only bear fruit for God, but we will avoid some of these negative consequences as well.

            B. Psychological suffering (guilt, anxiety, etc.)

            When we disobey, we will commonly experience troubling emotions until we confess our sin. In Psalm 32:3-4, King David wrote than when he failed to confess his sin “my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.” What a sad situation, and what a situation to avoid by choosing to obey rather than disobey!

            C. Shame at the moment of Christ’s return

            Christ’s return to this world should be a moment that we highly anticipate, but we might actually feel shame and embarrassment in that moment if we are not following Him closely. In 1 John 2:28, the Apostle John writes, “Little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming.” What a sad thought, to think that that glorious moment might actually bring the sting of shame into our hearts rather than a shout of celebration. But this can be avoided if we choose to obey, and when we fail, if we choose to quickly seek forgiveness from God and others.

2. To enjoy the pleasant results of obedience

            A. The knowledge of bringing glory to God

            This is the idea of giving God the honor and recognition that He deserves. We can certainly do this in our own lives, but we can actually inspire the people around us to give greater honor to God as well. Matthew 5:16 says, “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” If we are grateful to God for all that He has done to save us and bring us into His own family, we should desire to see that He receives the honor and recognition that He deserves, and we work toward that goal by obeying Him.

            B. The normal fruits of obedience

            The book of Proverbs lays out for us the normal outcomes of a wide range of choices. Now God may have other purposes at work in our lives at times—such as in the book of Job when God allowed that godly man to go through a time of suffering—but in general, when we choose to obey God, we will enjoy good things such as greater confidence, peace of mind, stronger friendships, stronger marriages, prosperity, long life, productivity, and many other blessings such as these. Obedience puts us in the position to receive these blessings rather than the bitter fruit of disobedience.

            C. The reward of an honored position of service in Christ’s future kingdom

            According to Scripture, when Jesus returns to this Earth, He will establish a kingdom over which He will reign for 1,000 years. When He does, He will reward His faithful followers with honored positions of service for Him. The Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis actually gives us a great way to pass this idea down to our children. The first book in particular—The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe—puts this lesson front-and-center in the plot (many of you may have seen this movie). When the great lion, Aslan (who represents Jesus) takes back control of Narnia from the White Witch (who represents Satan), Aslan gives authority to rule Narnia to human beings—the four Pevensie children, whom the book calls “the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve,” which points us back to Genesis 1-2 and the plan that God had for us in the first place to have authority over this world under Him.

            The plot of that story is thoroughly biblical and thus provides us with a great tool that we can use to teach our children about this powerful motivation to obey Christ.

            These ideas that we’ve discussed today form the essence of the answer to the question that our children have about why they should obey. The core principle is to point them to God as the final authority over their lives. The best way to do that is to model that kind of attitude yourself. Certainly we can communicate these ideas with our words as we have the opportunity, but nothing is more powerful than a living example of these lessons.

            Think about this—when Jesus was born into the world, God had already spoken to people through words for thousands of years. But in Jesus, the apostle John says that “the Word became flesh.” Jesus became a living example of everything that God had spoken to mankind for thousands of years.

            In a similar way, we can become a living example of these lessons for our children, and our example will far exceed any words that we ever speak. Over the last few weeks, we have learned for ourselves what we should do, how we can do it, and why we should do it. Let us embrace these lessons for ourselves and then our children will see clearly the path that they should embrace.

How to Obey God: According to John--Parenting Series

            Its fascinating the way that living in a certain place can shape you in so many different ways. It can shape the way you think by shaping your values and the opinions that you hold or the goals and dreams that you have. You probably wouldn’t dream about becoming a rodeo champion if you grew up in the city, for instance.

            It can shape the way you talk as well. It may shape how fast you talk or what kind of vocabulary you use. You may say “soda” rather than “pop,” or even “soda, don’t ya know.” You might say “warsh” rather than “wash,” or use words like “perti’near.”

            The place you live may shape your hobbies, your habits, your wardrobe, and even the way you drive! In Kansas City, it wasn’t too hard to spot the people who weren’t used to “city driving.” They were usually the ones the rest of us were “politely gesturing” at.

            Today, we’re going to continue talking about how to obey God so we’ll know what kind of ideas we need to pass along to our kids as they grow up. We’re going to look at a word picture from the Apostle John. His word picture draws on this whole idea of finding a home somewhere and allowing it to shape your life. This word picture comes directly from the Lord Jesus, but the Apostle John is the only New Testament writer who took this idea and ran with it.

According to the Apostle John, how can we obey God’s commands?

            For John, the answer to this question is “by abiding in Christ.” The idea of that word is to remain somewhere, to stay there, to make yourself at home and put down roots and drink up the life of the place that you have chosen to call home. As I said, John took this word picture from Jesus, and Jesus placed it in an agricultural context by talking about how a branch draws its life from the vine to which it is attached.

            This idea is very similar to what we learned from Paul last week, but Paul used images taken from the world of law and the courtroom. Jesus and John, however, drew on this image taken from something that the people were involved in all the time—gardening. Its an image that I think all of us in an agricultural setting can really appreciate.

            John records Jesus’ teaching on this whole idea of abiding in John 15. Why don’t you turn there with me, please? I’d like to read vv. 1-11 and talk through them just briefly, then we’ll take a closer look at the blessings of abiding in Christ and the means of abiding in Christ. This passage is from the night before Jesus was crucified. As He was speaking in chapter 15, He was probably walking with His disciples from the upper room where they ate together to the Garden of Gethsemane where He was ultimately arrested. As they walked, they would have likely been passing some vineyards, so Jesus uses that setting to make a spiritual point.

            Let’s read and I’ll offer some brief comments [READ v. 1]. Jesus probably called Himself the “true” vine in contrast to the leaders and the people of Israel. In the same way that we use the bald eagle as a symbol of our country, the people of Israel used a vine as a symbol of their country. This picture was taken directly from the Old Testament, and it was supposed to mean that the nation was bearing God’s fruit in the world. But since they had rejected Jesus, they had rejected God, and so Jesus says that He is the true vine—the one who is truly bearing God’s fruit in this world.

            Let’s continue [READ v. 2]. I think “lifts up” is a better translation here than “takes away” for the branches that are not bearing fruit. I think Jesus is referring to the practice of elevating the vines on a trellis of some kind. In other words, I think the picture is of tender care rather than removal.

            Moving on…[READ vv. 3-6]. Some interpreters read v. 6 as a statement about false Christians or sinning Christians being thrown out into Hell for failing to abide in Christ. In my opinion, this cannot be because of the audience to whom Jesus is speaking. He is speaking these words only to the 11 faithful disciples. Judas had already left to commit his betrayal, so Jesus was speaking only to His faithful followers, whom he said in v. 3 were “already clean.” Thus, the command to abide is for those who are already clean! So abiding is not a way to become clean in the eyes of God, but the way to live as someone who already is clean.

            Let’s finish the passage now [READ vv. 7-11]. This is such a beautiful section of Scripture. You may have already noticed some blessings that Jesus connects with the idea of abiding. Remember that the idea of abiding is the idea of making a home somewhere and taking on the life of that place, just like a branch has its home in the vine to which it is attached and draws its very lifeblood from it. In our lives, we’re talking about finding a home in Jesus and letting Him shape the way we think and act and live—shaping our goals and motives and desires and dreams and the choices we make. Just as the branch simply produces the fruit of the vine, we are to produce the spiritual fruit that God desires to produce in this world. It’s the same idea that we learned from Paul last week, only through a different word picture. We are simply supposed to live out the life of Christ.

Let’s take a closer look now at the blessings of abiding.

1. Bearing much fruit for God (v. 5)

            Look again at v. 5 [READ v. 5]. Its interesting that Jesus said apart from Him we can do nothing—nothing of any spiritual value. We tend to think that the choice to allow Jesus to work in us is like the choice between thriving and just getting by. We think, “Yeah, I know I could thrive if I got to know Jesus better, but I’m getting along okay in my spiritual life.” Well, according to Jesus, the choice is not between thriving and getting by—the choice is between thriving and nothing!

            If we are not allowing Jesus to do His work in us to change us, we will not accomplish anything of spiritual value. If we’re not living out the life of Christ the way that a branch carries the life of its vine, we are accomplishing nothing of spiritual value. But if we allow Jesus to shape us the way that the town we live in shapes us, we will bear much fruit for God.

2. Effective prayer (v. 7)

            Look again at v. 7 [READ v. 7]. Now I confess, when I read a statement like this, I’m the first person to start putting boundaries on it. I think, “surely it can’t mean ‘whatever you wish.’” Then, because I studied Greek in seminary, I think, “surely this is a mistranslation,” so I look at the Greek and it says, “whatever you wish!”

            Now of course, there are two conditions attached to this statement, and we’ll talk more about them in a minute, but let us allow verses like this to move us to prayer. In our parenting efforts, a verse like this should encourage us to pray about anything and everything that we desire for our kids. Are you trying to potty-train a child? Pray about it! Are they having a hard time with math? Pray about it! Are they struggling with motivation? Pray about it! Pray about anything and everything that you desire for your children.

            As you make your home in Christ and draw your lifeblood from Him by allowing His word to have a home in you, it will change the way you pray so that your prayers will become more effective. James 4:4 tells us that one of the reasons that we might not receive what we ask for is that we may ask for something with the wrong motives. But if we allow God’s Word to have a home in us, as this verse says, it will refine our motives and help us pray not only for the right things but for the right reasons as well.

3. Bringing glory to God (v. 8)

            This means that we will enhance God’s reputation and fame. God is already great and wonderful, but our behavior doesn’t always put His greatness on full display. But if we abide in Him, our lives will display His greatness [READ v. 8]. A “disciple” is an apprentice, someone who learns from a master. When we bear the fruit of God in our lives, it shows others that we have learned from Him, and they learn more about what He is like being seeing His fruit in our lives.

4. The knowledge of abiding in God’s love (v. 9-10)

            [READ vv. 9-10] God’s love for us does not change, but our knowledge of it can. If we sin against Him, we put a strain on that relationship, and if we start to experience His discipline, its very easy for Satan to tempt us to think that that discipline is an example of hatred rather than love. But if we obey God, Satan will have very few opportunities to make us doubt God’s love for us, and we will have our eyes open to the examples of God’s love that are all around us.

5. Fullness of joy (v. 11)

            [READ v. 11] By staying connected to Jesus, our joy will reach its fullness, but our joy will be drained if we do not stay connected to Jesus and bear His fruit. The negative consequences of our sin will make life feel like wearisome drag, a mind-numbing exercise in futility where we begin to question our purpose in life. But when we stay connected to Christ—when we make our home in Him—He begins to work in us and through us and we will receive joy from that relationship and from what it produces. That joy will keep building and building until it practically radiates from us!

Now if these are the blessings of abiding, what are the means of abiding? How do we do it?

1. By giving Christ’s words a home within us (v. 7)

            Christ tells us in v. 7 to let His words abide within us—to have a home in our hearts. Obviously, this revolves around knowing what He has taught, so we must study His teachings and internalize them.

            Does God’s Word have a home in your heart, or is it more like an occasional visitor? Have you made a home for yourself in God’s Word, or do you just drop in every so often? Think about the idea of living somewhere versus visiting. If you’re only visiting a place, it doesn’t shape your life the way I that mentioned at the beginning of the sermon. If you visit New England sometime, you won’t really develop a New England frame-of-mind; in fact, you’ll probably feel just a little uncomfortable until you get back home.

            Where you make your home will shape who you are. If you make your home in Christ and His teachings, they will shape who you are. Then, we fully abide in Christ…

2. By obeying the commands of Christ (v. 10)

            Once we’ve learned what Christ asks us to do, we must simply choose to do it. When we do, God’s power will work in our lives to produce His fruit, just as the life of the vine flows through the branch to produce its fruit. This may seem far too simple—just knowing Christ’s commands and then choosing to obey them—but this is really all there is to abiding in Him. There is a big temptation for us to make the Christian life seem far more complicated because then we can shift the blame for our sins onto something beside our own choices. So we may tell ourselves that there must be something that we still lack—perhaps some emotional experience with God or something that we didn’t receive in our upbringing—and then we can place the blame for our sins on those things.

            But in reality, abiding in Christ is just a matter of learning what to do and choosing to do it. That’s not to say that its easy to obey Christ, its just not complicated—that’s all! Its not easy because we have sinful desires that pull us in the other direction, but if we will choose to obey Christ, the fruit of holiness will flourish and leave little room for the weeds of sin to thrive.

            Perhaps you can see how this idea of abiding is similar to what we learned from Paul last week. To Paul, we are Christ’s ambassadors, living with His very identity upon us and living out His life in this world. To John, we are like branches that Christ, as the vine, as sent out into the world to bear His fruit. The result is the same, only the pictures are different, but that’s helpful because they resonate with us in different ways.

            The world of nature all around us provides us with many opportunities to pass this idea of abiding onto our kids. As they work with us in the garden or on the farm, or as we take walks together, we can pass this lesson down to our kids and shape the way that they think about themselves and their purpose in this world. By molding that self-image and sense of purpose, we will set them up for a very fruitful life, indeed.

How to Obey God: According to Paul--Parenting Series

            A triangle is one of the strongest shapes to use in construction. Its three sides support each other in a powerful way to bear the weight of other objects. A few weeks ago as we talked about the subject of parenting, we looked at the what, how, and why of our task as parents. We determined that we must also give our children the what, how, and why of their responsibility to obey both us and the Lord. We can think about these three parts—the what, how, and why—as three sides of a triangle that will help our children bear the weight of the pressure that the world places upon them to live an ungodly lifestyle.

            The “what” question, you may remember, is answered very simply by all of the commands in the Bible—particularly for us, the commands of the New Testament. These commands make up the standard for living that we are supposed to pass along to our children.

            Now, as I stated a few weeks ago, I don’t think the “what” question is our greatest challenge as parents. We know pretty well what God’s commands are. It’s the “how” and “why” questions that really trip us up. Today, we are going to begin to take a closer look at the “how” question—how can we successfully live out the commands of Scripture? Once we can answer this question for ourselves, we can then pass this lesson along little by little to our children. Today, I will offer you a basic answer to this question, then we’ll take a closer look at how the various authors of the New Testament build upon this answer.

How Can We Successfully Live Out the Commands of Scripture?

            The basic answer to this question is “by constantly reminding ourselves about the message of the Gospel.” This is the path to spiritual success for each one of us, so it is the path on which we want to set our children as well. We want to continually point them to the Gospel, then after they hopefully accept Christ as their Savior, we want to keep pointing them back to the Gospel as well.

            Now this focus on the Gospel may seem a little odd because we often think of the Gospel as being a message about our future. We think of the Gospel as being the good news that by placing our faith in Jesus we can go to heaven rather than hell after we die. That is certainly good news, but how does that help me in the here and now? That’s kind of like Social Security—it’ll be a nice benefit once I retire, but it doesn’t help me pay my bills right now!

            What we have to realize is that the Gospel is not just a message about our future—it is a message about our past and our present as well. The Gospel is the good news that I am no longer defined by my past, with all of its sinfulness and dysfunction. Instead, I now have a vibrant relationship with God in the present that will simply reach its fullness in the future when I live with Him in heaven. When we think of the Gospel in all three tenses—past, present, and future—we will begin to see the power that it gives us to have spiritual success today.

How do the authors of the New Testament build upon this basic answer to the question about successfully living out God’s commands? In the rest of our time today, we’ll look at how the Apostle Paul expounded on this thought, and I have no doubt that we will be encouraged by what we see.

According to the Apostle Paul, How Can We Obey God’s Commands?

            For Paul, the path to spiritual success is all about recognizing the resources that we have “in Christ.” I put that little phrase in quotation marks because it is one of Paul’s favorite phrases. Paul wrote 13 books of the New Testament, and in those 13 books he uses phrases like “in Christ” or “in Christ Jesus” around 170 times. He constantly wrote about the new identity we have in Christ and the new power that we have in Christ. In many of his letters, he spent the first half writing about all the theology of this “in Christ” idea, then he shifted gears for the second half and said, “Now let me show you what this looks like in daily life.” We can summarize what Paul had to say about our resources in Christ by looking at them with respect to each of the three persons of the Trinity.

1. We have a new relationship with God the Father

            First of all, we are at peace with Him, according to Romans 5:1. We used to be enemies of God—according to that same passage—because we were in rebellion against Him. We were hostile to Him because we knew that He disapproved of our sinful lifestyle. But now that we have confessed our sins to Him and accepted Christ by faith, we are at peace with God. We have a peace treaty in Jesus Christ, and now God is our ally rather than our enemy.

            Along the same line, we no longer face God’s condemnation, according to Romans 8:1. God has rendered His verdict about us, and His ruling is that all the demands of His law have been met by Jesus, and His innocence has been placed on our account through faith. We have been sent out of God’s courtroom never to return again! Our lives will be evaluated by God someday, but we won’t be like defendants in a courtroom. We will be like a diver, or a gymnast, or a figure skater—standing before the judges to see if we’ve won the prize. We may receive a greater or lesser prize based on our obedience to God, but we won’t bear the eternal penalty of our sins because that matter was settled when we accepted Christ.

            Third, we are now God’s adopted children (Rom. 8:15; Eph. 1:5). God has committed Himself to do all the things for us that a father is supposed to do—He provides for us, protects us, loves us, and disciplines us. We no longer relate to God primarily as our judge, but as our Father. There is intimacy and affection in our relationship with Him.

2. We have a new identity as Christ

            This is a life-changing idea when you understand it. I said we have a new identity as Christ for a reason—according to Paul, when we accept Christ, on a spiritual level His history becomes our history. We are united to Him spiritually so that we become part of His story and actually share in His destiny. This spiritual unity is so complete that Paul wrote in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Notice all the details of Christ’s history that have now become our spiritual history:

·         We were crucified with Him (Galatians 2:20)

·         We died with Him (Romans 6:3-7)

·         We were buried with Him (Romans 6:3-7)

·         We were resurrected with Him (Romans 6:3-7)

·         We have been seated with Him in heaven (Ephesians 2:4-6; Colossians 3:1-4)

·         We will be with Him in His future glory (Colossians 3:1-4)

·         We will reign with Him in His earthly kingdom (1 Corinthians 6:2; 2 Timothy 2:12)

            When we placed our faith in Christ, we were placed into His story, so that we are now literally living out the life of Jesus. Let me offer a couple of illustrations to help you understand this idea. You may be familiar with the witness protection program, which relocates people who serve as witnesses in a trial who may be in danger because of their testimony. When a person enters that program, they go through a complete and radical change of identity. They receive a new name and a new background and are moved to a totally new location. Their old identity just sort of dies out, and everything they do is now done under their new identity.

            This illustration gives us a very helpful way to think about our new identity in Christ. Spiritually, my identity as Tim Erickson has died out! As Paul said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.”

            Here’s another helpful illustration—some of you will remember the old TV show “Quantum Leap.” In that show, Scott Bakula’s character, Sam Beckett, would leap around through time and space into the body of a different person for each episode. While he was in that person’s body, he was living out their life, and normally he would solve some kind of problem for them. His own identity as Sam Beckett faded into the background every time he leapt into a new person, and that person’s identity became the focus.

            If you want to think of your relationship with Christ that way, that’s fine too! We have leapt into the story of Christ, so that we are now supposed to live out His life in this world. We are so closely identified with Jesus that Paul says we are now His ambassadors (2 Cor. 5:20). An ambassador is someone who is authorized to speak for another person with that person’s same authority.

            Ambassadors in Paul’s time had a more important role than they do today. Today, if President Obama wants to speak to a world leader, he can just pick up the phone and talk to him. Back then, communication was obviously more difficult, so when an ambassador was sent to a far-off country, he was given the authority to speak as if the king himself were right there doing all the talking! The ambassador literally stood in the place of the king.

            My friends, this is the role that you and I occupy today for Jesus! Jesus is not physically here in the world right now; He is in heaven, but He has sent us out as His ambassadors, to speak for Him and share His message with others. This is an amazing concept, and it gives such meaning and purpose to our lives. We are living out the life of Christ!

But we don’t have to just muster up our own power to live His life!

3. We have a new power through the Holy Spirit (Romans 8)

            In Romans 8:1-4, Paul writes about the new power that we have through the Holy Spirit to obey God [READ Rom. 8:1-4; in v. 2 when Paul mentions “the law,” he is talking about a power inside of us; in vv. 3-4 he is talking about the Old Testament Law].

            In essence, Paul is saying that the Holy Spirit, who now lives in us, gives us a power to obey God’s commands that we did not have in our sinful state. Before we accepted Christ, we did not have the power to obey God on our own. We were in bondage to the influence of sin, and it had the power to boss us around. But now, we have been set free from sin’s influence by the power of the Holy Spirit.

            One of my professors in seminary explained it this way. He had been in the military as a young man, and he would tell us that if his old drill sergeant marched into the room and started barking out orders, he just might obey him because he had been so thoroughly conditioned to respond to that voice. But in reality, he could stop himself and say, “Wait a minute! I’m a civilian now. I’m not under your authority. You don’t have the power to boss me around anymore!”

            That’s what our relationship to sin is like. Sin used to have the power to boss us around, and we were helpless against it. But sin doesn’t have the power to boss us around anymore! We don’t have to sin “yes” to our sinful desires ever again! Now those desires are still appealing to us because sin is like that old, familiar voice that calls us to come back to old habits; sin is like that old drill sergeant who we were conditioned to obey.

            But now, the Holy Spirit lives within us and His power is available to us! Sin is no longer our master—Jesus is! And the Holy Spirit will empower us to obey Jesus when we make the choice to do so.

            These ideas from Paul are part of the answer to the question of how to live an obedient life. These are ideas that we must first embrace ourselves, and then as our kids grow we can plant them in their hearts as well. Remember the pattern from Deuteronomy 6—first of all, love God yourself and internalize His truth, then just teach your kids to do the same thing.

            Obviously, when our kids are young, they won’t fully grasp these concepts, but we can start to introduce them on a simple level from a very young age. Kids like to play make-believe, right? We can tell them how God has a very special role for them to play—that they are actually playing the part of Jesus in this world.

            Kids like to daydream about having super-powers. We can tell them that they have a super-power in their heart—the power to do what’s right. We can explain that this may not seem like an impressive super-power at first, but this is when we emphasize the “why” of obedience, like the possibility of avoiding bad consequences and receiving a blessing instead.

            So this is the gist of the “how” question—point your kids to the gospel, then after they hopefully receive it, keep pointing them back to it all the time!