Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayerful attention to Philippians chapter 2 and
part of verse 8. Philippians chapter 2 and part
of verse 8. Obedient unto death. The whole verse reads, and being
found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient
unto death, even the death of the cross. Spoken of our Lord
and Savior, Jesus Christ. Beautiful passage of scripture. Let's read it again from verse
7 or verse 6. Who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself
of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and
was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as
a man, He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow. A beautiful summary
of the Gospel and of the work of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ. that what is upon my spirit are
these words, obedient unto death. If our first parents, Adam and
Eve, had been obedient, it would never have been unto death. It is because of their disobedience,
the disobedience of our first parents, that sin entered into
the world and death by sin. And so the salvation of God's
people, the gift of life, it depends on the obedience unto
death. Unto death firstly of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. And then secondly, that which
flows from that, a believer's obedience unto death as well. And it is those two points that
I desire the Lord's help to bring before you this evening. Christ's obedience unto death,
and then a believer's obedience unto death. We have the summary
here of Christ's obedience. When our Lord was 12 years of
age his parents brought him to Jerusalem and when they returned
They found after a day's journey that he was not in their company. They went back seeking him and
after three days they found him in the temple in the midst of
the doctors, the lawyers, asking them questions and speaking to
them. Mary said, why hast thou dealt
with us thus, thy father and I have sought the sorrowing. And his answer was, wished ye
not that I must be about my father's business. A gentle rebuke to
Mary that his true father was God. She was overshadowed by
the Holy Ghost and that child was to be called the Son of God,
not the son of Joseph. And there, very early on, we
find the obedience. But we know that right from a
babe, right through to his death, in every particular, he was obedient. We cannot even imagine that. Being sinners as we are, we come
forth from the womb, the scriptures assure us, speaking lies. And
disobedience is one of those things that constantly rears
its head and that rising up against any form of authority is so belonging
to our fallen nature. And yet our Lord, He came. He
came to this world. He came to do His Father's will. He gives us the form of prayer,
Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. He gives us
the will of the Father and the will of the Father that He should
come and that he should be obedient and he should fulfil the law
and make it honourable and that he then should walk a path that
his people cannot walk. I think of after our Lord was
obedient in the path of baptism being first, when first sent
into the ministry, John Baptist baptized him. He says, I have
need to be baptized of thee. But our Lord says, suffer it
to be so now that we might fulfill all righteousness. And then immediately
after his baptism, The spirit, not Satan, drives him out into
the wilderness to be tempted of the devil forty days and forty
nights. We would remember that our first
parents, in their innocency, not fallen, were tempted with
one point, with the forbidden fruit. They had all the fruit
of the garden that they could have, And yet Satan tempted with
the one that they were forbidden and they fell. And our Lord it
was to be proved that he was obedient in this same point. And so in one sense it was aggravated
because our Lord fasted those 40 days and 40 nights. And with
not eating, then the very first temptation comes. And it is,
command, if thou art the Son of God, command these stones
that they may be made bread. He could have done it. He had
power to do it, but our Lord wasn't to be the servant of Satan. He was to be obedient unto his
father, not unto Satan. And he replied with the word
of God, man shall not live by bread only, but by every word
that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And two further temptations
followed. The hemrider says, our captain
stood the fiery test and we shall stand through him. His obedience
was tested in every aspect. He endured such contradiction
of sinners against himself. Sometimes we might think that
we are obedient or godly and a right spirit, that we don't
have pride, but brought into a right circumstances, how easy
we are stirred up and how easy we rise up. And yet our Lord
had those that were constantly trying to contradict Him, go
against Him, stir Him up, And yet in all his answers and all
that he did, though many answers were with feeling and very severe
to them, yet in them all no sin. Obedient unto his father's mission
and commission. And when even Peter, you might
say with good intentions, when the Lord made known that he was
to suffer and go to Calvary, Then Peter says, be not that
unto thee, Lord. And he turned to rebuke Peter,
said, get thee behind me, Satan. Now save us not the things that
be of God, but the things that be of men. Before Christ was
his obedience, but if he'd have followed Peter's advice, he would
not have been obedient. We think of our David. King David
as well, when he was fleeing from Saul before he was king. And even us, when he was king,
when fleeing from Absalom, there were many times that those that
were with him were trying to get him to do things that were
not according to the word of God, especially in killing the
Lord's anointed Saul, King Saul. the time in the cave, the time
when he was in a deep sleep and David was able to take his spear
and the crew's water from his bolster. Those times he proved
to King Saul that he could have killed him, he came so close
to him, but he didn't. And as David testifies to Saul
some day, me that I killed them, but I would not. And so there
were those that were trying to get David to do that, which was
disobedient. David, of course, was a sinner
as well. And we think of the time when
he went to send his men to get supplies from Nabal in a time
of sheep shearing, a time of plenty. And when Nabal wouldn't
give him anything and said, who is David and why should I give
my plenty to this man, that David then was so stirred up with anger,
he was going to kill every male in that whole household. And it was only Abigail, having
been told of the situation, that went and pacified David's anger. And David was thankful. that
she had stopped him from shedding blood unnecessarily and taking
the vengeance in his own hand. And so reminded David, though
he was a man after God's own heart, yet there are those things,
those situations that arose. And then later on as well with
Bathsheba, in the lust of the flesh, proved that given the
right situation, he fell, he was not obedient. And yet our
Lord Jesus Christ, in those things that he went through in his life,
in every aspect he was obedient. If he was not, he would not be
that spotless lamb. He would not be suitable to lay
down his life for his people. He wouldn't have been able to
offer the sacrifice that was so needed to put away sin, because
he would have needed an atonement for his own sin. In all the Old
Testament types, the blood of bulls and of goats can never
put away sin, but they pointed to that one sacrifice at Calvary,
and that obedience that is spoken of here unto death. It was vital
that his walk, his conduct, his life was obedient, but it be
right unto death. What if Christ's obedience would
have led him right to the garden and then when Peter takes up
the sword, the Lord then says, now I can pray my father and
he will send me 12 legion of angels and we shall escape the
cross and not have to go ahead with this offering. But no, he
says, how then shall the scriptures be fulfilled? The Son of Man
goeth indeed as it was determined. But woe is that man by whom he
is betrayed, Judas who betrayed him. But our Lord was delivered
by the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God, taken,
and by wicked hands crucified and slain. But he made it very
clear. He said, no man taketh my life
from me. I lay it down of myself. This commandment I received of
my Father. I have power to lay it down,
and I have power to take it again. making it very clear that this
right at the end of his life was an act of obedience, willing
obedience, not under sufferance, but willingly. God commendeth
his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. There's love inscribed upon what
our Lord did, in obedience to his father. The people were given
him, thine they were, thou gavest me, and he laid down his life
for his sheep, his people, laid it down in their place, suffering
in their place, enduring the wrath of God instead of them. This is the obedience that is
so vital in our law. It's an exact mirror, as it were,
man's disobedience that led to death. Christ's obedience unto
death that led to life. Life for Christ, risen from the
dead, the empty tomb, and life for all of the people of God. Reversing. more than reversing
what was lost at the fall, and it is through death. No other way, no other way to
ransom, to set free. And that was so highlighted in
the deliverance of the children of Israel from Egypt. Egypt, a type of this world,
a type the children of Israel there as a type of God's people
under bondage and captivity and held under sin and held under
hard servitude and death and impossible to be set free from
that position. And when God then sent Moses
to deliver them, we had nine great signs that reduced that
land to complete ruin. but the people were not let go. And it was not until the blood
was shed on that Passover night, when I see the blood I'll pass
over you, the lamb was slain, the blood was put on the doorpost
and on the lintel, the destroying angel went through that night,
and everyone that was sheltering beneath the blood, the firstborn
they lived, but where the firstborn died. There was not one place
in all of the dwellings of the Egyptians that did not have the
blood in which there was not death. And in that very night
they were thrust out of Egypt. And we are reminded in that,
that it is only the blood that does release from sin, that sets
free, that pays the debt, that redeems the people of God. Redeem
Israel, O God, out of all his troubles. It is the only way. Some have likened publicly the
things that have been happening in our nation of different ways.
They say, what comes next? Is it the locusts? They're even
likening it to those things that happened in Egypt. But we know
however much is sent to us or any other nation or us personally. The hymn writer says, judgments
nor mercies, ne'er can sway the roving heart to wisdom's way. It is only when Christ dies,
it is only then that the people of God are set free. He might
have many things happen in our lives, terrible things, or great
mercies, and yet it will not move or turn our heart at all. And sometimes we'll be completely
staggered, we'll wonder what will be needed to do it, what
will bring us repentance, what will bring us to faith, what
will bring us to believe, what will bring us to be separated
from our sins, when it is only through Christ's obedience, through
his sufferings, his atonement, his satisfying the justice of
God, his appeasing the wrath of God, and then bestowing the
blessing of life upon those whom he has suffered for. I give unto
them eternal life, they shall never perish, Neither shall any
man pluck them out of my hand. The gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of sin, they are death. But our Lord, to deliver from
those wages being due to be paid, He paid the debt, obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross, the most cruel, painful,
terrible death, but a death which the Old Testament Scriptures
pronounced as bearing a curse. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
upon a tree. Our Lord then, Paul says, was
made a curse for us, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. So Christ's obedience was unto
death, unto that sacrifice offered at Calvary. God raised him from
the dead. The empty tomb, the assurance
given unto all men, that that sacrifice was accepted, that
his obedience was a perfect obedience. And Christ's obedience is to
be imputed or put to the account of his people as if it was their
obedience. And yet, even though that is
imparted, yet we have, and I want to bring this then before you,
a believer's obedience that is also unto death. A believer's obedience unto death. It is not the same as Christ's. There's no atonement there. It's
a working out of what Christ works in. It is the effect of
what the Lord does in a sinner's heart. And I want to just trace
it briefly through in five points through these scriptures. The first is that of which Paul
sets before the Galatians in Galatians chapter 2 and verse
19. He says, for I through the law
am dead to the law that I might live unto God. Obedience unto death. When God
works and begins to work in a sinner's heart, he is brought to realise
himself as a sinner, that is, he has transgressed and broken
the law of God. And his first reaction to that
will be to try and be obedient to that law of God, to obey it. The fact that he's already disobeyed
all the days of his life to then and also disobeyed in Adam, He
still desires to make amends and to make atonement. His aim
and his desire is to find acceptance with God through obeying the
law. The word of God is very clear,
that by the deeds of the law shall no man living be justified. By the law is the knowledge of
sin. The Apostle Paul, as a Pharisee,
he felt he could obey the law, and outwardly, no doubt, he was
a very upright man. But he says that, I was alive
without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived
and I died. There are many that have no concern
about obeying the law of God in any way at all. no consciousness
of their transgression against it. But where God does begin,
it will have that desire in that person to do good. The Apostle
Paul in Romans 7, he says, when I would do good, then he says,
when I would do good, then evil is present with me. To will is
present with me, but how to perform that which is good, I find not,
O wretched man, that I am. And it is through the law, it
is actually through the trying to obey the law, through the
law that is so severe and you might have thought in the Old
Testament how severe that law is. It never was ever intended
that man should have life through that. The whole end of the law
and the law being brought into a sinner's conscience and heart
and the desire to do what is right is so that all the world
is brought in guilty before God. And that sinner brought in guilty
before God, in other words, under the sentence of death, realizing
that under the law he is dead, and so his obedience, or his
seeking obedience and seeking to walk in the right ways of
the Lord, has resulted in him being, as it were, dead. no hope in self. He says, I through
the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. We can
be sure of this, that those who still think that they can obey
the law and live before God or abide in acceptance, accept to
be before God, will never know the preciousness of Christ's
obedience. nor of his righteousness, nor
of his sacrifice. And so, in the experience of
a believer first, it is obedience unto death. And obedience, he
realizes, is not obedience, and it brings him to be as dead and
condemned, but then dead to the Lord. because he knows that whatever
that law says, it says to them that are under the law, and it
brings in guilty. The end result of that is that
that soul is sentenced as dead, guilty. But then there's a reckoning,
a reckoning that we are to make as well. And this is what Paul
sets forth in Romans chapter 6 and verse 11. And he says this, Likewise reckon
ye yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has just said before us, in
the previous verses, our Lord Jesus Christ and the relationship
of the people of God with Him. He says, now if we be dead with
Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. Knowing that
Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more, death hath
no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died
unto sin once. But in that he liveth, he liveth
unto God. And so in the experience of God's
people, obedience unto death is to reckon ye yourselves to
be dead indeed unto sin, as that we have an ear not open unto
sin. He says, let not sin therefore
reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lust
thereof. He says, know ye not that to
whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are
to whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto
righteousness. And in this sense, it is obedience
unto righteousness, but we may say obedience unto death, being
dead unto sin. so that our ear is not open unto
sin, as if it's closed to it, that we don't want to have anything
to do with sin. Now if a person is dead, then
however much you say and tempt that person or bring before them
things you think they'd like, there's no response at all. And
that's the picture that the Apostle would have us to walk as regards
sin. And in the third place, and again
in the same chapter, Romans 6, those who are brought to believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, to trust in his one sin-atoning
sacrifice, there is an obedience that the Lord would have them
walk in, and that is the ordinances of the house of God. He says
in verse three and four, Know ye not that so many of us, as
were baptised into Jesus Christ, were baptised into his death? Where therefore we are buried
with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised
up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also
should walk in newness of life. The Lord's Commission to his
people, his apostles and ministers, was to go into all the world
and preach the gospel, the good news of salvation, to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. And that obedience that is wrought
in a sinner's heart, obedience to the gospel, to flee from the
law, to flee from wrath, to flee to Christ, to trust in Him and
His salvation and His atonement and His sacrifice and His obedience
and what He has done. That obedience is to be shown
forth in baptism, identifying with His death and being buried
with Him in the believer's baptism and risen again. in newness of
life. It sets forth the hope of the
people of God that arises from death, death to themselves, and
arises from that hope in him that was dead and that rose again. The candidate in baptism doesn't
remain in death, but he doesn't remain under the water, that
would be death, but he's brought up again in newness of life. And so a believer's obedience
unto death will be an obedience unto the ordinances of the house
of God. Then we have, fourthly, that
obedience unto death in the way that we minister to the saints. We have in 1 John chapter 3,
And verse 16, hereby perceive we the love of God, because he
laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives
for the brethren. It's not spoken as it were in
the same terms as unto death, but it's spoken of as laying
down our lives. The Lord laid down his life for
his people. And when we have a sense of that,
when we see a brother, a sister in need, We have the application
here in verse 17. But whoso hath this world's good,
and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him. So the
obedience unto death will be in that way, in a love to a brother,
ministering to one another. We cannot, by laying down our
lives literally, Redeem a brother. But in laying down our lives,
what we were going to do on one day and dropping our tools, as
it were, to help another brother or to, instead of living to ourselves,
live unto another. In that way, it is no obedience
unto death, unto laying down of our lives. Then there is in
the fifth place, that endureth unto the end. Many times this
is said before us in scriptures, he that endureth unto the end
shall be saved. Our Lord tells us in Matthew
24 and verse 13, speaking of the end of the world or of the
desolations of Jerusalem, and he says this, But he that shall
endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. The people of
God, not only to begin well, to begin in obedience, but obedient
all the way along the way. What changing scenes there is
when we, perhaps it is called, as I was when I was 20, And now
in 60s, three times life, as it were, gone by, and still there
is that need to continue, continue in obedience, continue following
the Lord right to the end. He that endureth unto the end
shall be saved, for obedience unto death. It is really the
real test of the work of God, and yet God has really promised
it for His people, that He will keep them, He will help them,
and they shall bring forth fruit, even in old age. He shall still
be with them, still uphold them, but that path of obedience will
be walked as much by those in with the whole head as those
that first begin to do so, maybe in their youth. And so we have
not only Christ's obedience unto death, but we have a believer's
obedience unto death as well. And we know that when the Lord
comes and the Lord takes his people home, then they shall
have no more a sinful body, no more a tempting devil, no more
a world that allures. They shall be out of reach of
the enemy. They shall, through death, actually
obtain that deliverance completely from all that threatens their
life, their comfort, their joys. Absent from the body and present
with the Lord, where there shall be no more death and no more
sorrow and no more crying. May we have truly set before
us Christ's obedience and that work in us, in our hearts and
in our lives, an obedience that mirrors that to the honour and
glory of God. Obedience unto death. The Lord add his blessing. Amen.