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The principle of disciplined obedience

Matthew 5:2730:

“Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:  but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

In introducing the Principle of Disciplined Obedience, we need to emphasise the point of verses 27 and 28  that to commit an act of sin is merely the end result. Jesus is saying that God’s concern is less with the final outward act and more with where it comes from. Committing sin is the end result of what has already gone on in your heart.

In the old Testament also, God emphasised to his people the need for circumcision of their hearts, that is, that outward acts of obedience meant nothing unless they reflected an inward submission. Yet they continually gravitated towards keeping the letter of the law.  An example of this can be found in the church where a person may be required to be obedient in certain specific matters. That person nay in turn obey to the letter what was required of him and yet still be wrong if in being obedient he was rebelling or resisting in his heart.

Repentance is not primarily a change of action for it must begin with a change of heart. To properly understand this principle we need to consider verses 2830 in parallel with three other passages.    (see flowchart)

I John 2:1617:  “For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.  And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”

Genesis 3:6 & 2:17:  “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her;  and he did eat.”

“But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.”

James 1;1415:  “But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin:  and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.”

Looking to lust

The first point of this parallel study concerns “looking to lust”. A look does not create lust;  it is the second look, the deliberate focusing on that which I know is there and which I know to be wrong. The meaning of this phrase is that if I look to lust,  look to satisfy a wrong desire.

This equates with “the pride of life”. Pride is an expression of selfwill. It is a desire for selfgratification. When a person’s motive is to satisfy a wrong desire then that person is demonstrating the pride of life.

Eve looked at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and saw it as that which was to be “desired to make one wise”. It seemed to her to be that which would satisfy her desire for selfgratification. She looked at that fruit with the wrong motive. She had, apparently, left the covering of her husband and gone alone to that forbidden tree with the wrong motive. She was curious to investigate the forbidden fruit. She doubtless had convinced herself that she would not touch it nor eat it, yet as she looked at it with lust (wrong desire), she began to believe that it would make her wise.

Now how can a piece of fruit look as if it could make anyone wise? It can if, as you look at it, you choose to believe that you are being denied something that is good for you. Eve chose to believe that God was keeping something good from her. She chose to believe the serpent’s accusations against God (v.3) because they were in line with her own thoughts.

James makes it clear that every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust.

Sin starts with a wrong motive or desire.

You cannot truthfully say “The devil made me do it.” You cannot blame the devil for what you do. When you look to lust, when you want to be gratified wrongly, when you begin to believe that the things God says you should not touch are offering you something good and that God is keeping it from you, then you have developed a wrong motive or desire. And that is where sin starts.

Matthew 15:19 says: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts; false witness, blasphemies.”

The heart is that which is the governing centre of your life. It is the source of your motivations, and that is where sin starts. Of course, sin should not even start. God does not condone sin either in embryo or in its final form. We knows that if we have a wrong motive or desire, we chose to have it. He holds us responsible for that second look, that deliberate desire for something which we know to be wrong. He does not exempt us on the grounds of weakness or any other such excuse. He knows that we deliberately choose.

It is often difficult to get people to admit that they have a wrong motive or desire, but it is even more difficult to get them to accept full responsibility. Of course there usually are various contributing factors which have a bearing on the desires and motivations of people. Things such as parental problems, home environment, perhaps a bad experience during childhood, the influence of some person or another, or circumstances beyond their control. Yet, despite all of that, God says that in the final analysis we are still responsible – and he holds us responsible.

Responsibility is basic to a life that pleases God. If we do not recognise that, then we deceive ourselves and the result will be a life lived far short of God’s standard and without victory over sin.

Enticed

If we allow ourselves the tragic luxury of looking to lust, we will find that it does not end there. The words of Jesus in verse 29 (with regard to plucking out right eyes), sound pretty drastic, but the point is vital for we are speaking of the “lust of the eyes”. This is a further step and it is no longer just a second look. Rather it is a deliberate relishing of that which is wrong, although the act of sin has not yet taken place. It is an involvement with the wrong thing.

When Eve saw that fruit and desired it, she found that the more she locked at it and longed after it, the better it looked. “Bow could such a beautiful piece of fruit be bad for me?”

In referring to James on this point, we see that the next step after being drawn away of your own lust is to be enticed. This means an involvement.  o longer are you standing outside of the wrong thing looking at it longingly. Involvement means opening a door, extending a welcome to that which you know is wrong. It is a demonstration of desiring to sin even whilst still trying to pretend that you do not intend to.

Sin

Jesus then spoke of the right band. This is yet a further step. The hand speaks of action.

After convincing herself that the fruit was really so good, Eve found that there was just one thing she wanted to do. She wanted to eat it. Having become so involved, there was no way she could now walk away. She told herself that it was good for food and that she needed it.

Because everyone knows what temptation and sin are, the truth of this is confirmed in the light of personal experience. We know only too well that the second look begins a slide into actual sin, even whilst we keep telling ourselves that it is not our intention to sin. Within three short steps we can find ourselves saying, “I need it, I’ve got to have it.” Just as Eve did.

We read in James that you cannot get involved to that extent without it bringing forth, or giving birth to, sin. Conception does not take place as an end in itself. It leads to birth.  Neither can we begin the process which leads to sin as if we can avoid finally giving birth to that sin as an act.

Punishment

The final step is related to the words of Jesus (verses 2930) about being cast into hell.

The point is very definite in I John,  The world is going to pass away. If you identify and give yourself to that thing which God says is not for you, you are identifying and giving yourself to that which comes under God’s judgment. The reason why the world is passing away is not because it was not good to start with but because it became bad afterwards, being corrupted by the Fall of Man, It will pass away under God’s judgment.

God had said to Adam and Eve that if they ate of that fruit they would surely die. Eve knew that. She knew that there would be punishment for her if she did not obey God’s clear command.

James says that when sin is finished there is yet a further birth, the bringing forth of death. A man cannot sin without discovering that at the other of his sin there is God’s judgment.

In summary, therefore, we see that sin starts with a wrong motive or desire, it then becomes an involvement, and finally becomes an act  and that must be punished.

Temptation and sin

For the Christian there is no sin bias. That is, sin is not inevitable. Before I was a Christian it was my nature to sin and when I did righteousness it was contrary to my nature. Now that I am a Christian it is my nature to do righteousness and if I sin that is contrary to my nature.

When a person stands at the point where he has the initial opportunity to be tempted to sin, he stands on neutral ground. At that point he can easily choose against the slightest consideration cf the temptation, or he can choose to consider it. It is at least as easy to say no at that point as it is to say yea. To say no, however, does not seem all that vital because everything seems to be under control and you will think that you are easily able to handle a bit of temptation without getting too involved.

What a mistake, though, to afford ourselves the luxury of looking twice as if we really could handle it.

Behind the reasoning that says, “I can handle it”, is a wrong desire. In giving in to that wrong desire we then move away from the neutral point and begin gravitating towards sin. Each step closer towards sin increases our awareness of the need to say no, but at the same time it becomes increasingly difficult to say it until the act of sin becomes inevitable. Yet, back at that initial point when a person can so easily say no, it somehow did not seem to be nearly so necessary.

How easily we deceive ourselves. “I’m not saying yes to sin, I’m lust momentarily considering it”! That is how temptation and sin work. With our own foolish but willing cooperation.

The Devil

Where then does the devil come into all this? After all, he is to blame for our sins, isn’t he? Is he?  We need here to read John 10:10:

“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kilt, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

The devil aces not get directly involved with our motivations until after we “look to lust”. He moves in once we have expressed our own wrong desire and he starts working at the point of enticement. At the point of locking to lust, it is our own wrong desires, and not the devil, which exercise an influence upon us. These wrong desires and motivations place us in a vulnerable position. It is self-deceit to blame the devil for that initial wrong choice. We are wholly responsible and God holds us responsible.

As soon as the devil sees we have a wrong motive or desire, he quickly moves in, as the serpent did with Eve, to entice us to sin. Let us face it, the devil, being the devil, should not be expected to act otherwise! We, however, are children of God. For the devil to act true to his nature should not surprise us, but it is not our nature to sin.

It is, therefore, we and not the devil, who are responsible for our sins  he can only entice us when we give him the opportunity. The devil cones for three reasons: to steal, to kill and to destroy.

In that first move he entices or steals us away from God he dangles the bait because he sees us seriously considering disobeying God. He steals us away from being the person that God has called us to be. There is no position that God will call you to, there is no truth that God will reveal to you, there is no future that God will put ahead of you, that the devil cannot entice you away from if you let him.

We need to understand that doubting comes into this category. Temptations to doubt are not the problem. Every Christian has those. It is in yielding to the temptations and beginning to doubt that we move away from God. If we begin doubting we will be enticed away from the things we once believed. If we entertain doubts, the devil will feed them.

The devil’s next aim is to kill. He intends to bring us under condemnation so that we come under the sentence of death. He knows very well the penalty of sin and he has a desire to bring us under condemnation for our sins. He knows that a Christian is crippled when he is under condemnation. The devil brings us under sentence of death so that, in turn, he might take us into final punishment to destroy us.

He entices us and he leads us into sin so that we come under condemnation and, finally, he aims to destroy us by bringing us to final punishment under God.

Responsibility

Having concluded the part of this study which deals with sin, we come to the vital aspect of responsibility. Here we need to make some reference to Romans 6 and, although all of this chapter is relevant, we will refer briefly to a few cf the more pertinent verses  verses 13:

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin’ live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptised into Jesus Christ were baptised into his death?”

How easy it is for us to abuse God’s grace as a handy way of avoiding final punishment and as a means of continuing in sin. We are not to sin that grace may abound. It is our responsibility to do that which God says is right.

Verses 7 and 12:

“For he that is dead is freed from sin.  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.”

Because we are free from sin we are not to let it reign in our mortal bodies. We alone are responsible for whether or not it does. It is so easy to cry out to God to deliver us from that over which he has given us the power of choice and for which he has given us responsibility.

Likewise, some would prefer to consider themselves as the helpless victims cf some demon spirit. Although there are certainly genuine cases of demon possession, it is often a sign of gross irresponsibility and immaturity when Christians prefer to label their disobedience as demonic and, therefore, instead of being responsible to obey God, they run from meeting to meeting or from minister to minister seeking “deliverance”.

Verse 12 plainly says, “Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body”. If you choose to let sin reign, it is not the devil’s fault but yours.

Verse 13: “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.”

To what do you yield your members? Your body is the vehicle of expression of all that is within you whether in word or in action. If you yield your bodily members as instruments of unrighteousness, that is exactly what they will be. Your body is essentially neutral, it cannot lead you into sin. It will be as good as you let it be, or as bad as you make it. Your body will never lead you anywhere you do not want to go. My body has never yet lead me into sin, but I have led it into sin.

Verse 16:“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?”

You give yourself to whatever power you will and you become the slave of whatever you choose to give yourself over to. Jesus said that “he that sins is the slave of sin”. Sin will never be anyone’s servant. By nature, sin is a master. You either have nothing to do with it or you become its servant. No one can “take it or leave it”.

We read further about responsibility in I Corinthians 9:2427: “Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but 1 keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I hare preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.”

Such Scriptures relating to personal responsibility are quite contrary to much of the “super spiritual” talk of some Christians. Paul does not say, “God will get you there”, because it is understood that God will always do his part. What he says is, “You run, because if you do not you won’t make it.”

The word “temperate” literally means selfcontrol. It seems that so many are afraid of that word “self”. We need to understand that we are stuck with ourselves and God is stuck with us too, so we need to learn selfcontrol!

When things get tough we like to take our hands off the wheel, jump into the back seat and say, “God it’s all yours.” But God would say, “Who told you to get out of the driver’s seat?  I am going to teach you to control yourself in my way”! The Bible says that he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. This is a beautiful blending together. God did not cast you out when he came into your life. He came into you, and became one with you. Unless you realise that, you will be thinking in terms of “It’s all God”, rather than “It’s God in me”.

The words of verse 27 are strong. A literal translation of part of that verse is: “I bruise my body and bring it into bondage”. Yet this is no stronger than the language of Jesus concerning plucking out right eyes and cutting off right hands! Paul made It clear that he did not allow himself to get away with anything. A most common and dangerous form of selfdeception is when a person thinks better of himself than he obviously is. When a person fights to defend and justify himself and to build up his own image, he is in a dangerous position.

Paul looked at himself with a more critical eye than did others. He did not wait for others to point out where he was wrong because he was looking harder than they. If it were possible, he was even looking harder at his own life than God was. He was determined that he would not be a castaway.

To be a castaway does not necessarily mean to end up in hell, but it does mean that a person is set aside as no longer useable by God. There is never a time when the possibility of the greatest man of God becoming a castaway ceases to exist. It is always close at hand. I have seen great men of God go this way because they no longer believed they could become castaways. We need to be hard on ourselves, not allowing ourselves latitude in the things we know to be wrong.

Our responsibility is once again spelled out in James 1:26-27: “If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this. To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

Does this definition of “pure religion” seem a little too unspiritual? It is interesting that instead of saying that it is God’s job to keep us unspotted from the world, we are clearly told that it is our responsibility to keep ourselves. In essence, this demand for responsibility says, “Bridle your tongue, attend to the needs of others and keep yourself unspotted from the world.”!

We must discipline ourselves to obey God simply because we will never just “fall” into being obedient. Obedience does not just happen. It is a deliberate act.

The point that Jesus made so strongly in teaching this principle of Disciplined Obedience is that it is our responsibility to obey at all costs.

About the author

Tony Kostas was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1941, where at the age of seventeen, he committed his life to Jesus at a Billy Graham Crusade. In 1967 he founded the Melbourne Outreach Crusade, a non-denominational evangelistic outreach. This later grew into Outreach International, which is now a worldwide body of believers, who share a God-given calling and are committed to live in love with Him and with one another.

Tony’s life is a true expression of all that God has revealed to him throughout the years, in its purity and focus on loving God. His passion is for God to have the desire of His hears: a people who truly represent Him because they are His and His alone.