Walk the Walk: Walking in Obedience
Sunday Morning, June 7th, 2026

Those who know Jesus walk like it.

A mature, growing love for God is born through walking in obedience. Love for God becomes visible through daily, steady, even small acts of obedience that shape us into people who walk more like Jesus did.

You preserve a path by walking on it. 👣

• If we are troubled by the condition of the world around us, the first question is not “What is wrong with them?”

• The first question is: How are we walking?

Last Week’s Reminder 🌅

• Last week we talked about walking in the light, which allows us to enjoy true fellowship, relationship and community, with God.

• This fellowship cannot be enjoyed until we deal honestly with our sin and come out of the dark.

1–3 John were written to address a network of faith communities under John’s care. Every word of this letter comes in response to something the church needed to hear.

• They were surrounded by:
Confusion
Compromise
Competing claims of truth

• So John brings them back to the essentials:
The real Christ
Real love
Real obedience

• 1 John will not allow us to separate:
What we believe
How we love
How we live

• Words like obey and commandments can sound threatening, static, or impersonal to modern Christians.

• We can become too quick to dismiss how vital obedience is to our love relationship with God.

• The greatest expression of your love for God is that you enter, by the blood of Christ, into a relationship with God that is expressed by your willingness to walk the walk of obedience.

Shema: Hearing and Obeying 👂

• In ancient Hebrew, the same word used to describe hearing, shema, is also used to describe obedience.

• To listen and obey, in the language of the Bible, are two sides of the same coin.

• John is making a case against simply having an intellectual appreciation of God.

• It is not enough to think good thoughts about God based on:
What we have learned about His deeds
Religious stories
Doctrines we have studied

• And love for God is also more than an emotionally warm feeling.

• Only approaching God in the right emotional state, or when our intellect is satisfied, is not an evidence of a growing relationship.

• The richness of the Christian life is not to know about God, but to know Him personally.

• Not a mushy feeling we occasionally get, but an intimate knowing.

• “Truly made complete” carries the idea of maturity. We will not be fully complete on this side of Heaven, but we are maturing little by little.

• Our love for God and our relationship with Him should be growing up and expressing itself more fully.

• According to the text, the engine for a maturing love relationship is not feelings or perfect conditions, but obedience to His Word.

Maturing Love Changes Our Relationship with Sin 🪞

• This does not mean we are sinless in our actions.But our life should be moving in a direction of obedience to God’s Word today.

• We no longer:
Love it
Brag about it
Plan for it
Remember it fondly
Enjoy it comfortably
Feel at home living in it

• Question:
How mature is your love for God?
How do you feel about sin in your life?

Have you come into agreement with God about it through confession, or do you tolerate it regularly?
There is a love problem there.

Maturing Love Changes How We See God’s Commands 📜

• To obey God is not a burdensome thing, like some part of our life is being robbed from us.

• Sin always has a price.
The price of gossip may be a tarnished reputation.
The price of lust may be fractured trust with your spouse.
The price of a lie may be mistrust of your testimony.
The price of ignoring wisdom may be the chaotic life you have now.

• The cost of sin is always a heavier burden than following the life-giving commands of God.

Obedience is walking as Jesus walked. 👣

• Jesus Himself is the full embodiment of walking in obedience as the ultimate expression of love for the Father.

• We can be confident that we are living in him,w hen we commit to walking our walk in a similar way.

• The heartbeat of God’s love is sacrifice.

• Our expression of love, though infinitely lesser, is also sacrifice.
We lay down our will and take up the perfect will of God.

• This unfolds through daily acts of obedience.

• The reward of obedience is the strengthening and maturing of a special relationship.

• Jesus did not say, “If you keep My commands, I will save your soul.”
He said that if we keep His commands, we remain in His love.
That is the prize.

• If someone claims to be living in fellowship with God, it will be verifiable by the sort of life they live in the world.

• Obeying Christ makes Him your Lord in deed, not just your Lord in theory.

• But there is also a warning. As close as our relationship can be, we have to give concern to remain there.

The Stakes Are High ⚠️

• There is a rupture in our relationship when we fall out of obedience.

• It is like a branch cut away and withering:
Ineffective
Not producing
Not connected

• Nothing is a greater stumbling block to the onlooking world than Christians who claim to know Jesus but are so unlike Him.

• Our personal relationship suffers.
The reputation of Jesus in the world is affected.

• How long are we willing to endure:
Stagnant faith
No growth
No production
At what cost?

• How much ground are we willing to lose for the Kingdom because we are not abiding in His love?

• Notice the close association between loving God and loving His children.

• We cannot love and obey God while being unloving, uncaring, and uninvolved with God’s people.

• Jesus’ heart was heavy. John the Baptist had just been executed.

• Jesus tried to withdraw to a solitary place to be alone, pray, and mourn.
But the crowds found Him.

• Even though He needed to get away, His compassion led Him to heal, feed, and minister. Jesus loved God’s children at His own expense.

Obedience moves us from intentions of love to realities of love. 🌱

• A Christian who does not love God or keep His commandments is of little effective use in the body of Christ.

• If I am unwilling to sacrifice some of myself in love for the body of Christ, I am not helping the body.

• Our love and obedience to God is undeniably linked to how well we love others.

• This brings us back to shema: to listen and obey.

• We cannot just hear the Word of God like any other noise around us.
We have to shema. If we do not obey, we have fooled ourselves into believing the wrong thing about our relationship with God.

Response Question 🙏

• Measure your love by the quality of your obedience today.
Do you love God?
Is your love maturing?

• How has your obedience been?

• Let the Holy Spirit speak to you today.

Thanks for being with us this morning.
If your heart was was stirred by the maturity of your love for God being driven by acts of obedience, we hope you'll allow us to spend some time connecting with you in the days ahead. Feel free to come talk with us after the service.

You can send in a prayer request on our website:
https://www.TheChurchofJoy.org/prayer

The most important decision.
If you know you've never fully surrendered your life to Jesus, and you feel that you're far from a relationship with Him, we would love to spend some time talking with you about making the decision to follow Him. Come see us after the service or get in touch through our church website.