Obeying God When It's Costly

We live in troubling times. 

Ok, sure, that's both cliché and a bit ominous. But consider this: we live, for the first time since the days of Constantine, in a Western culture that is actively pushing against you if you hold to a Christian worldview. 

Gone are the centuries of Western culture where Christianity was what nations went to war to defend. And gone are the days in America where it was socially advantageous to claim Christian faith. 

In one way, this is good as it purifies Christ's body and weeds out false converts. But it also presents unique challenges: how do we spread the good news of the gospel in the face of growing opposition? How do we fulfill the Great Commission when the teachings of scripture are viewed as hate speech? How do we as Christians live for Christ when it could cost us our job, our reputation, and our relationships? 

The Two Wills of God 

We hear it all the time: 

"I'm doing God's will"

"Make sure you know God's will for your life!"

"I think it's God's will for us to be together" 

And the list goes on.

When we say or hear things like this, what we need to do is get specific. Which will of God are we talking about? Perhaps you hadn't even considered that "God's will" can refer to two different things: either God's moral will or God's sovereign will. 

God's moral will 

Very simply, God's moral will is defined as what God commands us to do. We are all responsible for obeying God's moral commands as expressed in the Ten Commandments. For example, we obey God's moral will if we tell the truth, which is obedience to the 9th commandment: "You shall not bear false witness". 

God's sovereign will 

On the other hand, God's sovereign will is defined as what God ordains to occur according to his sovereign purposes. For example, God sovereignly ordained the family you were born into, the college you ended up attending, and what you ate for breakfast this morning. (It's accurate to say that God is both ordaining all things and that we also make free choices, but that's a topic for another time) 

Why It Matters 

Now that we’ve drawn the distinction between these two wills of God, we must zero in on this crucial truth: that God has revealed one of these wills to us, and has concealed the other. More specifically, God has revealed to us his moral will, as expressed in the Ten Commandments and the applications of those ten throughout scripture. 

But he has not revealed his sovereign will to us. We don’t know the future. This is why the sovereign will of God is also known as his secret will. 

So the question then is: how do we live our lives in light of this truth? When faced with difficult situations in a rapidly transforming culture, how do we do God's will? 

In a phrase, the answer is to simply control the controllables.

What do I mean by this? It means that we are simply called to obey God’s moral will, and to trust God when it comes to his sovereign will. Just as the name suggests, God is sovereign over his sovereign will; it is immutable. As his creatures, we are unable to alter it, and neither is any other creature.

We tend to have disdain for this, at least implicitly--we would rather control our own destiny. But this is actually a liberating plan from God! This means that we are incapable of thwarting God’s sovereign purposes. His sovereign will is not dependent on our knowledge or charisma. He will accomplish that which he desires. Consequently, no one else can thwart God's sovereign plans either. God's promise to work all things for good for his people will not be thrown off course by the schemes of the devil or his followers. 

Obedience Despite the Cost 

This concept will prove to be crucial as persecution comes to those who are in Christ, and it is promised to come (2 Tim. 3:12). Some have unfortunately held to the belief that we need to maintain a reasonability with the world, the assumption being that we need this for the world to listen to us when we share the gospel. But God doesn’t call us to maintain a certain amount of “cultural capital” in order to reach the lost, he calls us to obey. God will figure out how to use our obedience to accomplish his sovereign will. To quote Pastor Jared Sparks, we should not “sacrifice obedience on the altar of public witness”.

While we should aim to “live peaceably with all” (Rom. 12:18), God never calls us to achieve this peace at the expense of obedience to his law. Note that Jesus tells us in Mark 12 that all of God’s law can be summed up in the commands to “love God”, and “love your neighbor”. But Jesus places these commands in their proper order: loving God is the greatest commandment, and loving neighbor is the second greatest. 

Consider these two truths that were posed recently by Stuart DiNenno:

1) The culture is extremely perverse, wicked, and blasphemous.

2) The churches are at peace and persecution is almost non-existent.

How are both of these true at the same time if the church is being obedient to God? Is the reason for this, perhaps, that many in the church have placed the second greatest commandment above the greatest? That many today love their neighbor more than they love God? Do we love the praise of our neighbors more than the praise of God? Or do we let our assumptions regarding God's sovereign will dictate how closely we obey his moral will? These are challenging questions that each Christian ought to reflect on.

Barring a great move of the Holy Spirit, the days ahead will likely see a growing chasm between what God loves and what our neighbors love, as society continues in its rebellion against Jesus Christ. What will matter as this happens is which is your greater love: God or neighbor? Will you seek to obey God's moral will, or seek to follow what you assume is God's sovereign will? If you are anchored to your neighbor as your highest love, you will slowly drift further from God as your neighbor does the same. If you are anchored to God, your neighbor will begin to see you as more and more outside the mainstream culture, and it may cost you greatly.

We are called as Christians to love God, and that means obeying his commandments. Loving God will lead to true love of neighbor. If we flip the priority of these two greatest commandments, we will inevitably "love our neighbor" in a manner that's defined by the world rather than by God's Word. Likewise, obedience that wavers based on our presumptions regarding God's sovereign will is also faulty. If we are obeying God’s moral law, we can rest in his sovereignty, knowing that regardless of what comes are way, whether easy or hard, he has promised to work it all for good.