CHRIST the OBEDIENT ONE: “By one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous” (Rom 5:19). Oh how vital was the obedience of the Lord Jesus! We read with amazement, “Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (Heb 5:8). Not in heroic self-will did He go to Calvary: “He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross” (Phil 2:8). He declared it to be the purpose of His coming, “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—In the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God,’” a missing element in animal sacrifices. Alexander Maclaren writes, “There is one thing that makes life mighty in its veriest trifles, worthy in its smallest deeds, that delivers it from monotony, that delivers it from insignificance. All will be great, nothing will be overpowering, when, living in communion with Jesus Christ, we say as He says, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me.” —Sermons Preached in Manchester, p 282