Do We Forget...

Matthew 22 verses 36 through 38. Let's read it. Do we forget what Christ said here when one of the lawyers asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment of the law? There's a lot of law. You know it. We know it. We're lawyers of the law. But which is the great one? Single it out. And Jesus said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and the great commandment. This is New Testament. He is bringing in, by His sacrifice and all, that, of course, is in process. He's bringing in a new covenant. The lawyer's not part of it. Not at that point in time he's not. Maybe he never did become part of it. Maybe he's the last great day case. But Jesus doesn't hesitate to say, that's the first and great commandment. And, of course, the lawyer's trying to trick him because the lawyer knows, just like Christ knows the lawyer knows, that that is a question that reaches back to Deuteronomy 6, verse 5. And that the lawyer knows what the great, the first and great commandment actually is. Deuteronomy 6, verse 5. And you shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. It is emphasized in the Old Testament. It's emphasized in the Old Covenant. It's emphasized in the New Testament. It's emphasized in the New Covenant because it never changed. And it never will. There will come a day when there won't be such a being as a human being. All human beings will be gone as human beings. They'll no longer be human beings. They'll be spirit glorified beings with the Father and with the Son. And this law, when all mortality has passed, will always be its eternal. It has always been, it always will be, the first and the great commandment. And it supersedes and it takes precedence, it takes preeminence, priority over all others. Do we forget that the eternal ten, the eternal ten, the ten commandments lead off with this? Notice Deuteronomy 5, if you're back here with me. Deuteronomy 5 and verse 7.

When God gives them in codified form, they always existed. The heart and core of them, the spirituality of them, is eternal. But when He gave it to them in codified form, the very first one, you shall have none other gods before Me. The companion parallel Scripture to that is Exodus 20 verse 3. Exodus 20 and verse 3. It says the same thing. You shall have no other gods before Me. That is the first and the great. Anything, anything, including people that you put before God, ahead of God, violates this. Period. Any time you put anything, including people, first and God's second, you're guilty of violating this. Any time God is either left out or comes in second, you're guilty of breaking the first and great commandment. This is always a form, a degree, a measure of idolatry. And again, it is so crucial and so important that not only is it clearly stated in the Old Covenant, the Old Testament, the New Covenant, the New Testament, but in that Eternal Ten, it is the commandment that leads off into the commandments. Do we forget that this was what Abraham was tested on? Let's go to Genesis 22. Do we forget that this was what Abraham was tested on? He was tested on the first and great commandment. He was tested on the commandment, the first one, that leads off all the others. Genesis 22.

Verse 1, And it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham, actually tested Abraham, and said to him, He said, Behold, here I am. I'm here. And he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and you get into the land of Moriah, and you offer him therefore a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell you. Can you imagine how that hit Abraham? Out of the blue, had no idea. Tradition says that Isaac was probably about 30, and that's probably very accurate. 30 years for his heartstrings to be entwined so deeply with his son. He never ever crossed his mind that God was going to require of him to take his son and sacrifice him. We know the response. Abraham obeyed, and you come down to verse 10, And sometimes what's lost in the picture is that Isaac willingly submitted to it. He was a strong young man, but he submitted to it. So Abraham stretched forth his hand. He took the knife to slay his son. God saw Abraham is actually going to do it. He is actually going to obey me. And the angel of the Lord, the messenger of the Lord, called him out of heaven and said, He could imagine that his name was called strongly enough. It stopped him. Abraham. And he said, Here I am. It's like, Yes, Lord. Yes. He said, Lay not your hand to form the lad, neither do you anything to him for... And again, sometimes the King James puts it in the very accurate sense, the most powerful way, the most impactful way that other translations don't quite capture. Now I know. For now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. The whole issue was the first and great commandment. Would God come first? The whole issue was idolatry. Would God come before Isaac? There was no one more dear to Abraham. There was no human. There was no human being that he loved more. There was no human who held his heartstrings more than Isaac. God had to know, and God found out. Again, verse 12, For now I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me. Do we forget that the same applies to us today? God's not going to tell one of us to take a three-day journey to a mountain and to take our son or daughter and offer them as a burnt sacrifice. If a voice tells you to do that, that is not God's voice. That is a classic example to make a point and to accomplish more than one thing with that example. But do we forget that the same applies to us today in the same way of, Does God come first? This is why Christ said, and when Jesus said this in Matthew 10.37, when he said this in Matthew 10.37, He was well aware. He was the one that told Abraham, Take your son Isaac and sacrifice him. He well remembered that. And He also well remembered how that Abraham would not put Isaac in front of God. And so in Matthew 10, verse 37, Christ is aware of all of that when He says this, He that loves father or mother more. He doesn't say you can't love father or mother. He doesn't say you can't love those in your life that are so dear to Him. He doesn't say we can't love them. What He says is, He that loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And He that loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy.

Who's closer to us? You know, you think about it. Who's closer to us than mom and dad and son and daughter? If you have sons and daughters, you have them with your mate, but it's a family thing. If we're not to love father or mother more than God, son or daughter more, doesn't that also mean we're not to love grandma or grandpa more? We're not to love aunt or uncle more than God? See, just like Abraham, God has to know if we will truly put Him first.

We can find ourselves if we're not careful, encapsulated into this scene of mortality and with what happens humanly, and we can forget that God sits above everything and overlooks everything and sees everything, and that God is working off of a perspective that reaches all the way back into the creation of the angels, all the way back into a Luciferian rebellion, reaches all the way back to where allegiances were switched, loyalties were switched, love of God was dropped, love of Lucifer was taken on, one-third of the angels were lost.

God has all of that in mind, and He's wanting to bring us into an eternity with Him and give us powers like we're never given to the angels. The closest to those powers would be Lucifer's powers, but they didn't match what will be put into us. Do you love Me? Will I come first? Do you love Me enough that you won't put someone or something in front of Me or before Me? God has to know. Abraham's greatest testing on this came with another human being. Would God come first?

Was He putting God first here and there and there and there? Absolutely. But what could He be tested on that would prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God would come first and always would, to be tested with another human being that happened to be His son Isaac? Often, and think about it, brethren, often, often our greatest tests will come with human beings. Abraham's case is our classic example simply because he had a choice.

Number one, either obey God and not spare Isaac, or number two, spare Isaac and disobey God. Do we forget that all humans, all humans, no matter how deeply we love them, and God wants us to love them as deeply as we possibly can, and as your capacity to love God grows, it automatically corresponds to a deeper capacity to love the human beings in our lives?

Do we forget that all humans come under the second great commandment? All of them. Matthew 22.39. Matthew 22.39. You know, on the heels of Christ saying, this is the first in great commandment, He goes on to say, and the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Now, if I'm told that I'm supposed to love my neighbor as myself, and my neighbor comes to my door and says, my family, we're starving, we have nothing to eat, do you have any food you can spare?

If I love my neighbor as myself, I say, yes, I will share with you. It doesn't necessarily say, I will give you everything I've got, it means I will share with you. And I share. We're always just naturally concerned about our own well-being. If we match the concern we have for others with the concern we have for ourself, we're going to be doing pretty good, aren't we? You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Christ said, the second, He said, the first and great is to love God.

The second, and I learned in the first grade at age five, that two comes after one. The second comes after first, that they're not equal in the progression. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. Abraham loved Isaac as himself. He would have died for him. If God had, when He got up on that mountain and was ready to sacrifice Isaac, if God had said, Abraham, I've got a change of plans, Isaac can be spared if you will lay yourself on the altar, and with a bolt of lightning I will turn you into a burnt offering. What do you think Abraham would have done? He would have taken Isaac off for the altar, and he would have stretched out on the altar.

He would have died for him. But the second is still the second. And if Abraham had done that, climbed on the altar, he wouldn't have been showing God that God came before Isaac. He would have just been showing God that he didn't want Isaac to die, that he was willing to die instead. And I guess you could say, boy, he would have fulfilled the second commandment wonderfully, but he wouldn't have fulfilled the first commandment.

The second is still the second. It is not the first. It never can be. And to make it so, to make it so against the first one would be sin, obviously missing the mark. But Abraham kept the proper order. He kept the priority straight. And guess what? As we know, God blessed him for it. Do we forget John 13? And verse 34. John 13 and verse 34.

Do we forget?

John 13 and verse 34. Christ said to his disciples, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. And we've always underlined and highlighted this next phrase, at least I have, and I've always encouraged it, as I have loved you, that you also love one another. And that was important enough to Christ that he emphasized it in chapter 15 and verse 12. Same evening, just a little bit later, he comes back to that and he says to them, This is my commandment, that you love one another, and again, underlined and highlighted, as I have loved you. And he says, Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. As I have loved you. And this speaks primarily to his sacrifice, doesn't it? Which showed his depth of love for them.

I mean, when we look at the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you can't take anything away from it short of what a absolutely deep, tremendous love that he has for mankind and for us. That suffering and that death shows the depth of God's love for us. And what he says to them here, his disciples, what they're going to see him endure, all the way up to the horrible death that he would die. Then those words, as I have loved you, are going to really take on meaning. Deep meaning, isn't it? Didn't it? But here's something in that love for them. His love for them never superseded his love for the Father. It never superseded. Just like he said, if you love father and mother, son or daughter more than me, you're not worthy of me. He also was well aware that if he loves his disciples or anybody else more than he did the Father, he wouldn't be worthy of the Father. His love for them never superseded his love for the Father. He never loved his disciples more than he loved God. Yet, look how deeply he loved them, but his love for the Father was greater. He never put them before. He never put them in front of. He never put them ahead of the Father.

Love of another must never, love of another, must never put God second in second place. Now, again, that's hard to do. That's hard to do. You notice that with true Christianity, it's as easy as eating pie.

One of the biggest lies I could tell you would be, folks, being a real Christian in growth and development, and becoming like Christ, and God is as easy as falling off of a rolling log in water. It's as easy as just putting one foot in front of the other. That would be a lie, because that's not the case. Love of another must never put God second in second place. And that's a growth challenge. Love of God first must be the priority. Let's look at a scripture. Let's look at three scriptures. The first one is Romans 8.28. Romans 8.28. We like to go to this one and use it to say, well, everything will always just work out just wonderful, because it's just going to work out wonderful.

There is a clarifier in it. There's a clarifier. Now, we know that all things work together for good, and sometimes people just stop there. We know that all things work together for good. Well, in one sense, generally speaking, overall, they do. Just like all the miseries and pains of this world are going to serve a tremendous purpose of learning and lessons in the last great day, when all these billions that have lived and died, and many times miserable situations come up, it's going to serve a purpose, yes. And God can get mileage out of anything.

God can get mileage out of anything. But who is targeted here? We know that all things work together for good to them, that love God. The first and great commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, might.

And for those called of God, and to set their love on God, yes, things do work out. Even if we sometimes blow it and make a mistake, and it's our fault for maybe the circumstances we're in, God can still get mileage out of it. If we continue to love God and stay with God and do, He can make things work out to where we still wind up. Growing and increasing spiritually and being blessed in the ways that most count. We know that all things work together for good to them, and again, the clarifier that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. So now let's look at a second scripture. I mentioned last week when I was here, get real familiar with Psalm 91. Psalm 91 is extremely encouraging because it's, you might say, God's protection psalm, or the psalm that speaks of God's protection because verse 1, He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And it talks about those falling at your right hand, your left hand, a thousand here, ten thousand there, pestilence stalking the land, etc., etc. So it's a wonderful psalm and it's so encouraging. Look at verse 14. Because He has set His love upon me, therefore will I deliver Him. That's a clarifier. That's a qualification. That's the first and great commandment. That's the first and great commandment because He has set His love upon me, therefore will I deliver Him. And then, third Scripture, Isaiah 26, you know, the practicing of that first and great commandment.

It means a mind that is constantly set on God. And the results of that, Isaiah 26, you know, I have made the statement, I'm not going to hunker down in fear. Do I have concerns? Do I have worries? Do I have things that, you know, when you walk through the valley of the shadow of death three times with your wife and you still don't know for sure what lies ahead? That is a fearful time. She has more courage toward it than I do. I'll just tell you that. I don't have the same level of courage toward that that she does, and she's the one that's going to be under the knife.

But I refuse to hunker down in fear.

Fear is not a faith. And as we read last week, fear is not of God's love. Do we fear many times? Are there things that can come to make us fear? Yes, because we're human. Do we need to grow out of that? Yes. Do we need to grow beyond that? Yes. And to the degree that we really can and do love God and grow in our love of God, whether heart, soul, mind, mind, and being, the more, Isaiah 26, verse 3, what it speaks of, takes place in us, the peace of God. You shall keep Him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because He trusts in you.

Jesus didn't love His disciples more than He loved God. God came first. The Father came first. His love of God the Father came first. Notice John 4.34.

In John 4, in verse 34, Jesus said to them, they came to Him. He's been talking to the Samaritan woman here at the well. They're hungry. They're ready to eat. And they come to Him. And like verse 31, in the meanwhile His disciples prayed Him or requested of Him saying, He tells them that I have meat to eat that you know not of. And it's like, well, if somebody brought Him something to eat, we didn't know about. And so He says in verse 34, Jesus answered them, My meat, what sustains me, what I feed on, my meat is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work. Priority. Focus on God, the first and great commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, being, is to do the will of Him that sent me and to finish His work. Matthew 26, down close to the finish line. Matthew 26, verses 39, 42, 44. Matthew 26, verse 39. And He went a little further. He fell on His face. He prayed, saying, Oh, my Father, if it be possible, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will, your will be followed. Verse 42. And He went away again the second time and prayed, saying, Oh, my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me except I drink it, your will be done. And then verse 44, it says, He loved them. He went away again. And He prayed the third time, saying the same words. Jesus, out of love for the Father. Don't you think about this? Jesus, out of love for the Father, gave up His glorified life with the Father for a time, in order that the Father could and would have a family. Gave up His glorified life as the Father with Godhead for a time, in order that the Father could have a family. In order that the Father would have a family. It's His love of the Father that leads to the Father having a family. It's His love of the Father that leads the way in His love of us. He loves us. He loves us so much more deeply than we are able to humanly grasp. But it's His love of the Father that leads the way in His love of us, and it's His love of the Father that will not allow Him to allow a disruptor into that family. Jesus Christ shows us how dearly He loves us. Anybody who can't see that by the sacrifice He made would be blind, wouldn't they? He shows us how dearly He loves us, but He loves the Father more. He has always kept the two great commandments. He's kept them perfectly. And He's kept them in the proper order. When we say, do we forget? And if you haven't figured it out by now, that's the title of the sermon. Do we forget? Do we forget? Do we forget? Do we forget?

What we mean is, do we fail to practice? See, in God's eyes, failing to practice is a type of forgetting. Do we forget what made the difference with Abraham? James 2, verse 23.

Did He put God first? Absolutely. Did He put Isaac before God? No. Case is classic. It proves. What made the difference with Abraham? God had told Abraham that His descendants would come through Isaac. A dead man doesn't have kids. He doesn't have kids after he dies. So Abraham had to know that God, who told him to do that, He was going to do it. That God would restore Isaac back to life. Whether He did it immediately or did it later, couldn't resurrect him back from the grave, because he would have been a burnt offering, but simply would have resurrected him, which God has that power, obviously. But see, James captures what made the difference with Abraham. James 2.23. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness. He believed God. And that was imputed for righteousness, and he was called the friend of God, because he believed. It's a simple little word. Faith. Faith. Abraham's faith generated obedience. His faith generated obedience. If he hadn't had faith, obedience would not have been generated. But he had what we call living faith. Living faith. Living faith has acts of obedience, and these acts of obedience are the fruits of faith, and these fruits are the proofs of living faith.

It's a shorter formula. If you have living faith, there will follow acts of obedience. These acts of obedience are the fruits of faith, and these fruits are the proofs that there's living faith there. Again, this chapter is so important to that in James 2 here, verse 17. Even so, faith, if it has not works, is dead, being alone. What works is he talking about? Being dead. Faith is dead if it has not certain works. What works? Works of obedience is what he's talking about. And verse 20, which we read this section so many times, but will you know, O vain man? Verse 20, that faith without works is dead. Faith without works. And again, what kind of works? Works of obedience is what it's talking about.

And of course, you can come down to verse 26. For as the body without the spirit or without the breath is dead. I mean, again, James could not have picked a more clear example and made it so simply clear that just like your being your body without air, without breath, is dead. You know, once that's taken away, once the breath of life, air, oxygen, is taken away, you have minutes at the most and you're dead. For as the body without the breath is dead, so faith without works is dead also. One of the things that God established with Abraham is that Abraham is our classic example of faith. He's our classic example of the living faith that generates obedience. Do we forget the same faith is required of us? Hebrews 10 and verse 38. Hebrews 10 and verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith. The just shall live by faith.

If you read something in God's word one time, is that enough to obey it? In other words, if you were to read one time in God's word that it's a sin to bear false witness, would one time it being mentioned be enough or would you say, Well, to make sure that that should be followed, I need to find it femtoh someplace else. To bear false witness is sin. No, we all know that if we're told... How many times does God have to say in Scripture that the seventh day is the Sabbath? One time is good enough, you know, for that matter. Not that that's just necessarily one time per se, but my point is one time is good enough. So if God repeats something, and there are a number of places where God will say something twice, just like using verily, verily, or truly, truly, any time something is repeated and it's twice, that's for emphasis. That is to... I mean, it's like this is important. This is really important. You better pay attention to it. It's for emphasis. Well, what about when it's four times? Two and two are double emphasis, and that's exactly what it is. It's double emphasis. Well, the just shall live by faith. You'll find that in four places in the Bible. I'll just tell you the locations if you want to jot these down. You have Romans 1.17, Romans 1.17. You have Galatians 3.11, and you have Habakkuk 2, chapter 2, verse 4. Those are Romans 1.17, Galatians 3, verse 11, Habakkuk 2, verse 4. It's like back in the prophecies, speaking of a coming time of great tribulation, it says, As though Noah, Daniel, or Job be in this time of trouble, they shall deliver only their own souls. They shall not deliver such and such and such and such, son, daughter, etc. And if you go back and look at that, God says that same thing, mentions it four times. Double emphasis. Really, really drive home the point. Now, the just shall live by faith. Hebrews 11, verse 6, right here. But without faith, it is impossible to please Him. I want to please God. You want to please God. We want to please God. And we're told, okay, you want to please God? You've got to have faith. You've got to exercise faith. For He that comes to God must believe that He is, that He exists. Well, you know, we've established that. That certainly there is not one iota of doubt in my mind on that. I absolutely know that. Only an idiot says there's no God. And we do have some idiots, sadly. And that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. That search and seek and strive to apply that first and great commandment. That He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Because, see, without faith, it is impossible to please God because we draw back. Notice verse 38 again, where we were, chapter 10, verse 38. Now the just shall live by faith. You can't go forward without it. But if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in Him. But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.

So crucial. You know, look at chapter 3, verses 17 through 19. And especially...19, but Hebrews 3, verse 17. But with whom was He grieved forty years? In the wilderness, Israel. Was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcasses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear they should not enter into His rest, but to them that believed not?

The giants are too big. There's too many of them. We can't do this. God's not big enough. God can't secure us. God can't take care of us. God can't lead and won't lead the... It wasn't just that He couldn't, it's that He won't. He's not going to take care of us. Verse 19. So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Like a faith. See, without faith, it's impossible to please God because what do we do? We draw back from obedience. We don't go forward in obedience. We draw back from what we should be doing. Do we forget how displeasing this is to God and what it costs us?

Let's look at 2 Corinthians 1.24 because there is ministerial meaning here, and there is lay membership meaning. There is pastoral meaning, and there is lay membership meaning.

Ryan and I have to know where our bounds are. You have to know where your bounds are. You have to know where our bounds are. We have to know where your bounds are. We all need to know the bounds. Notice 2 Corinthians 1, 2 Corinthians 1, verse 24. Paul says, not for that we, talking about the ministry, have dominion over your faith. As we say, you can't legislate somebody's faith. We don't have dominion over your faith. As I've said, my faith can't stand in for you, your faith can't stand in for me. We understand we're to be helpers of your joy because here's the bottom line on faith, for by faith you stand. You will stand by your faith, not by mine. I will stand by my faith, not yours. Hopefully we all will stand by faith, but the point is, it's a personal responsibility to attend to that with God. We stand by our own personal individual faith. And it is so crucial because without faith we fall. Without faith we fade. Without faith we withdraw. As the lingo is, you ain't seen nothing yet.

This is a preview. This is a prelude to what's coming down the line.

Don't know when, but it's a preview. It's a prelude. As I said last week and as I titled that message, A Warning Shot Across the Bough. A warning shot across the bow of the nation, and in one sense the world, and also very much so a warning shot across the bow of the church. Without faith we fall. We fade. We withdraw. In other words, just very simply, without faith we simply fail. Without faith, God's purpose can never be fulfilled in us. Without faith we will not be fully obedient.

Think about it. Will God settle for half obedience? God, I've got a ledger here, and there's two columns. And each column lists the things that I see that are required of me as acts of obedience to you. But God, if you notice, I've divided them into these two sides. This side, I'm willing to give you everything on this side, but on this side over here, uh-uh. God says, that's half-way obedience. That's 50%. That's not total obedience.

That doesn't get it. God says, why are you not stepping out into that side of the ledger? Well, that might cost me too much. That's harder. Would that satisfy God? We know the answer to that. It wouldn't satisfy Him, would it? God says, you need more living faith. Well, help me, Father. Help me to have more living faith. Okay, I'll help you, but you've got to exercise what you do have, and what I do give you, you've got to exercise it if you want more.

See, without faith we won't be fully obedient, because faith and obedience always go together. They always go together. They are inseparable. You cannot separate them. Do we forget that obedience and God's Spirit go together? Notice Acts 5.32. Acts 5.32. Obedience and God's Spirit go together. This is why this Scripture is so significant, because it bears that out. Where Peter said, Acts 5.32, and we are His witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to them that obey Him. Those who obey God are the ones given His Holy Spirit.

You might keep your finger here. I will come back. Whom God has given to them that obey Him, and that without God's Spirit, and this is something that is not pleasant to think about, but without God's Spirit, we are neither none of His, nor can we be resurrected. It's that simple. Again, those are not my opinions. That's Scripture. Keep your finger here, and go with me please to Romans 8, verses 9 and 11. See, the scriptural dots can be connected to present an accurate picture. That's what we want, because we want to be successful.

We want to be in God's love. We want to be in His love in the way that His love can truly be fulfilled in us. We want that, and we want that for our loved ones. God's Holy Spirit, given to them that obey Him. Now, notice in Romans 8, verse 9. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.

Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. If you don't have the Spirit of Christ, which is the same Spirit as the Father, the Holy Spirit, if you don't have it, this is just a simple, straightforward statement. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. That's simple.

It doesn't mean that God doesn't love the person. It doesn't mean that the person is not going to be worked with by God in God's due time. I mean, there's billions and billions of people on this planet today who do not have the Spirit of God. And they're not His in that sense. There's no spiritual ownership of them. But it makes a statement, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.

And why is that so important? Look at verse 11. But if the Spirit of Him, which is the Holy Spirit, that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, the Holy Spirit, by which God works, by which Christ was raised from the dead, if that Spirit of God, Holy Spirit, dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by the Spirit that dwells in you.

That's how crucial it is to have God's Spirit. And God's Spirit is only given to those who obey Him. So when you look at that, how do you separate faith, obedience, and God's Spirit, and the resurrection, and all of that? You really can't.

And if you notice here in Romans 8 and verse 14, it says, For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And again, that brings us back to Acts 5.32, that the Spirit is given to those who obey Him, and to a verse that speaks to God coming first, the just living by faith, which is verse 29 in Acts 5. Again Peter and the other apostles answering, in Acts 5 and verse 29, Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.

Any time man's laws contradict God's laws, God comes first, period. The just having the faith to put God first and showing it by their actions of obedience. Do we forget that faith and obedience go together? They're inseparable. Do we forget that it's on this basis that we have and that we retain God's Spirit? Do we forget that faith and obedience is tied inseparably to our salvation? It's tied to it. Let us not forget. Let us remember these undeniable and indispensable truths, and let us learn to fully live by them to truly practice these in our lives.