His Obedience

Do you ever really think about obedience as part of your life? We often look at Jesus’ leadership lessons, His building of His Church, how He treated those around Him, and His wondrous miracles, but all of those things came from His obedience and desire to do the will of His Father. Obedience to His Father’s will was so important to Him that He called it His FOOD (John 4:34). He literally could not live without obedience.
This week we remember the sacrifice Jesus made for each of us. We celebrate His Resurrection with our friends and family and are grateful for the free gift of grace it allows. What I want us to remember, also, is that Jesus didn’t come down from heaven to accomplish a personal agenda of wiping out sin.
He came to earth, lived and died as a human, to carry out the will of the One who had sent Him (John 6:38).
He was intent on being obedient “to the point of death” (Phil. 2:8). In His incarnation, He chose to submit Himself to the plan of redemption, even though His obedience to His Father meant increasing opposition and hatred from his enemies.
The mighty Lamb of God “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” In those days, nobody wore a cross on their necklace and they certainly weren’t in churches. The cross meant one thing in Jesus’ time—it was the most horrific and shameful kind of death any human could face. Cicero, a famous Roman philosopher, called crucifixion “a most cruel and disgusting punishment,” “the worst extreme of the tortures inflicted upon the slaves.” And there, on Golgotha, over 2,000 years ago, the innocent, righteous Son of God died that death. On a cross. A cross made from a tree.
Deuteronomy 21:23 states that anyone hanged on a tree is “under God’s curse.” Paul quotes this verse in Galatians 3:13 when he says, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.” Along with the painful, humiliating death, crucifixion brought with it a Divine curse.
This Good Friday, as you think about the Lord’s sacrifice for sinners, take a moment to dwell on what it meant for God the Son to be cursed by God the Father. He’d done nothing to cause His Father’s wrath. He only ever deserved to know His Father’s delight and love. Because of His obedient sacrifice, He was cut off from the joy of His heart. For the first time in all of eternity, He felt what it was to know His Father’s displeasure. No wonder He cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
Our sin did that. 
He endured wrath meant for us. 
He endured so we might be saved. He lived in obedience so we might have the opportunity to live with Him for eternity. As Followers of Jesus, we know the joy of having accepted Christ by grace through faith alone. We know of His sacrifice and we can rest in it, knowing that we are saved. We share this Good News with others so that many come to know Him, too!
This weekend, don’t just go through the motions. Worship Him as the Lamb of God who was slain. Know that with His blood He purchased you, snatching you from the jaws of the enemy. Thank and praise Him because He became sin on your behalf so you might become the righteousness of God in Him. Think on these things, and on what obedience looks like in your own life, as you shout to the heavens: Worthy is the Lamb!