Motivations for Obedience

As a parent, what motivations for obedience are you teaching your children. Even if you don’t have children, what motivations for obedience to God in your marriage, relationships, friendships, or work, are you instilling in yourself?

Recently, on the way to the pool, my kids were potty mouthing. To help motivate them to stop, I told them to keep the consequences and punishment in the back of their minds. I thought to myself, “That’ll do it”. Later on, I distinctly felt like God rebuked me. Fear-based obedience isn't true obedience and fear of punishment will never break sin’s power over anyone. Obedience to avoid punishment comes from self-centered motives. It’s not gratitude-based and it’s not worshipful. Also, our hearts never change. So what then?

When considering obedience, a better thing to keep in the back of our minds is God's love and grace shown on the cross. Our kids need to be learning about God's amazing love in light of their sin, and God’s grace on the cross for their sins. Paul said to the church in Rome, "For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace" (Romans 6:14). He later says, "But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit and not in the old way of the written code" (Romans 7:6). And he continues, “Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law" (Romans 3:31). Paul is saying that through the freeing power of the gospel, we uphold the law because we have new and better motivations to do so: grace.

The gospel of grace cultivates true obedience that is gratitude-based and worship-based, not fear-based. I asked God for an opportunity to clean up my tracks and correct myself. The next day, I had that opportunity and took it. I told them that I love them no matter what and to listen to me, first and foremost, because of my unfailing love for them. And I told them that more importantly, God loves them no matter what, even in light of their sin, and He died for them on a cross. Their obedience to God in how they use their words should come from gratitude for that grace. Beauty is what motivates us with proper motives, not fear-based motives. And there is nothing more beautiful than God's costly sacrificial grace on the cross. Of course they won't totally understand all of this right now, but I have to be speaking that language and discipling them in that. There will still be consequences and punishment for them, just like there are still consequences for us as adults for our sin. However it's all about our motivations for obedience.

I missed it that day. But it also showed me how my own operating principles can be so deceptively fluctuating. I am a genuine, gospel-believing Christian, and yet in that moment I taught my children as if we were still under the law, not under grace. My prayer now is that God makes up for my lack and resets them on the path of grace. I trust Him.

So again, as a parent, what motivations for obedience are you teaching your children? Even if you don’t have children, what motivations for obedience to God in your marriage, relationships, friendships, or work, are you instilling in yourself? Kids or no kids, I think we all need this reminder to reset our operating system to grace.

- Pastor Brian