Welcome to the InTouch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, July 4th. Most of us would like to have a do-over on a few of those decisions we've made along the way. Today, you'll get help in evaluating long-term consequences before satisfying short-term desires. God the Father called us through His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when I think about how serious obedience is, one of the reasons that it is serious is because.
Of who it is who gives us the commands. It is God. And the Bible says that he is the Holy One. That is, He is not only the Holy One, but He is the Creator. He is the source of everything.
Everything you and I have, we are absolutely, completely, and totally dependent upon Him. He's the source of it all. He's the one who sustains us. He's the one who keeps our heart beating day after day, and week after week, and year after year. He's the one who holds the keys of life and death in His hands.
So when we talk about being obedient, we're talking about doing what we're doing. What the Father says, do. We're talking about. Being obedient and submissive to the God who has the right to control, dominate, dictate every single solitary thing we do. And has the power to enforce every single law that He's ever given to us.
So when it comes to being obedient to Him, It's serious business.
Now, I want you to go back, if you will, to Deuteronomy for just for a moment. And let me remind you of what Deuteronomy is all about. Before God brought his children to the promised land, He took time to instruct them. You recall that he took them from Egypt crossed the Red Sea down to Sinai. and then up to the Jordan and to carry them into the promised land.
Well, of course, you know what happened at that point, but the book of Deuteronomy is God's instruction book, getting them ready for their new life in a new land. And I want you to see how often he says the same thing in different ways, but how often he says, if you obey me, But if you disobey me, but if you obey me, but if you disobey me, but if you obey me, but if you disobey me.
So look, if you will, in Deuteronomy 27. Verse 10. He says, You shall therefore obey the Lord your God and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today.
Well, let me ask you a question. Has that verse been invalidated? That is, is it no longer just as important to be obedient to God today as it was then? Because you see, they were getting ready for a new life and a new land. When you and I are saved, God begins to get us ready.
In our daily walk for a new life. But he's also getting us ready for a life in a new land, that is heaven.
So he said to them, You shall therefore obey the Lord your God and do his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today. Chapter 28, look at it, verse 1.
Now it shall be If you will diligently, listen, diligently obey the Lord your God. Being careful to do all his commandments, which I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. What he was saying to them is this: I've given Moses the law, he's given it to you.
Now if you will obey me, he says all the nations of the earth will look up to you. They will see you as something special. And all these blessings that he had stated, Shall come upon you and overtake you if you will obey the Lord your God.
So he's made some fantastic, wonderful promises in the chapters before. And then if you will notice in verse 15 Of uh the same chapter, chapter 28. Verse 15 says, But it shall come about if you will not obey the Lord your God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes, with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.
Now, If you read the 28th chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, here's what you'll find. You find A whole long list. Of sins, of acts of disobedience, which he says: if you commit these, you're going to be cursed. He said to his very choice nation, If you obey me, you're going to be so blessed, all the nations of the earth are going to say, Look at those Hebrews. But if you disobey me, here's what's going to happen.
And so Here in this chapter, look if you will, in verse 45 of chapter 28.
So all these curses shall come on you and pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed because you would not obey the Lord your God, but keeping his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you. It was extremely important to God to say to them, If you obey me, if you obey me, if you trust me, if you'll do this, here's what I'm going to do. But if you don't, here's what I'm going to do. And so, in the mind of God, it is very, very important that you and I recognize that. Obedience isn't some option I have as a believer, now we make it an option.
We choose to obey, we choose to disobey. But in the eyes of God, obeying His specific commands is very serious business because if you'll notice what He says, But like the Holy One who called you, beholding yourselves also in your behavior. That is. We are to live obediently. That should be our trademark, our lifestyle.
That should be the bent of our life. That is, what governs us most of all is what does it take to be obedient to God?
Now, while we'll stumble and fall at times, and God will forgive us, the issue is, which way is our heart bent? Is it toward selfishness, gratifying self, or is there a deep yearning desire to be obedient to God? And there are times when I talk to people who say, well, I have said thousands of times, like you, I really and truly want to be obedient to God. And sometimes the person will say that and they'll say, But you know, I don't know what obedience is in this issue. And there may be some things that there's not a specific verse that says, Thou shalt not, and thou shalt.
But what I've learned, there are enough of them shells and shell knots to keep me busy that I don't have to worry about a lot of those foggy things because somehow as you do the will of God in the things that are crystal clear, the other things become crystal clear to you. It is very important that you and I recognize that in the mind of God, obeying Him is serious business. Because what we are doing is when we disobey him, we are sort of saying to All wisdom and all holiness I'll do it myself.
Now, if you go back in the Old Testament, and there's more judgment in the Old Testament than the New Testament, there's a reason for that. And sometimes, in the midst of grace and love and God's kindness to us, we may be prone. to be so emphasizing grace that we fail to emphasize judgment. And the wrath of God.
Now, we're not going to suffer the judgment and wrath of God, but we will certainly experience and suffer the consequences of our sins. And God is going to discipline us. And you remember, if we discipline ourselves, He doesn't have to, but if we don't, He will, because He loves us. You see, a holy God. While he loves his disobedient children, he cannot allow them to just go on in their disobedience and never do anything about it.
And so, what I want you to do is, I want you to turn to John chapter 8 for a moment. Because we have the most perfect pattern in the Lord Jesus Christ. John chapter 8. Verse 28. The Bible says that Jesus learned obedience, but listen to what he says in verse 28.
Jesus therefore said, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught me.
Now, look at this next verse. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him, which meant that Jesus said he always did what? Obeyed what? He always obeyed God.
Let me ask you this question. Is that in your heart? Can you honestly say, Lord, I blow it. I disobey you at times, I've sinned against you, God. But I, my heart really and truly desires to be obedient to you.
I want to please you in everything. You see, this is why we should gain great comfort. in men like David and others in the scriptures. who were not always perfect. They failed, Jacob, Isaac, you name it.
But what did God say about David? He said, He's a man after my own heart. Why? He knew the man's heart. And you see, that's why we have to be careful sometimes.
We judge someone else, we see them disobeying God, and we think, shame on you. And I am sure that many people, really interred deep down inside, would like to please God. They've never been taught. How to please him. They've never been taught.
How to be obedient to God. They've never been taught. What does it take to obey God? Does it take listening a whole bunch of do's and don'ts and striking them off each day? No.
But obeying God begins with all joy when you and I learned that He's our light. The greatest truth we'll ever learn, that he's our light. Then when you and I got saved, we exchanged what we were for what we are now. And though we don't always act the way we ought to act now, the truth is we will never be what we were. And you see, one of the things that makes me know That Obedience is very, very important to God is one of the things that he did.
And that is, he sent the Holy Spirit. To live on the inside of you and me, you know why I sent him? The Holy Spirit didn't come just to make us happy. He came because it was absolutely essential. to the life that we live and to the work that God has called us to do.
You see, you and I can't live a life of obedience apart from the Holy Spirit. We can't do it. And a good, perfect example of that is one we've talked about often, and that's look at Peter. He was always getting into trouble with Jesus and everybody else around him. And you remember what Jesus said to his apostles?
Listen, not simply because of the work they had to do, but because the life they were going to live. He said, sit down in the city of Jerusalem until the Spirit of God comes upon you and clothes you. With power, and then enabled you to live this life of obedience and enabled you to carry out the work that I've called you to do. Apart from the Holy Spirit, every single one of us is a continuing example of defeat. He sent him to live on the inside of us to enable us, to instruct us, and to remind us that there is the power of the resurrected Christ on the inside of us that will enable us in every single instance when we choose to be obedient.
That is, there is the power within us to obey every single time. But what do we do? We forget. And what happens is, we get our focus on the temptation, the focus on the devil, or what somebody's saying to us. And what happens is, we get our focus off of Christ.
How many times have you made a decision, God, this is it? I mean, God, this is really it. Three or four days go by, man, you're walking on top of the world. Everything is absolutely fantastic, and you're just living in the Spirit, and God's blessing you, and something comes along, and bang, you are down, and you think. God, how could I have forgotten that?
That happens to me once in a while, and sometimes I have to think, I can't believe. that I could have forgotten what you just told me. But you see, we have an assistant. Who helps us forget all the good things, and his name is the devil. And if he can keep our minds out of this book long enough and off our knees long enough.
He'll get us to forget. You see, the real truth is this, and this is a startling thing for most people. It is absolutely impossible for anybody to live the Christian life. You can't do it.
Now think about this. It must be very important to God. That you and I live obediently before him, that he would send a person of the Trinity. in order to enable us to live the life. Another reason I know that it's very serious to him is this.
Look what it cost him. In order for you and me to be delivered from our disobedience. It cost God the Father his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, came into this world, he said, not to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved. From what?
Well From something the Bible clarifies. In Ephesians 2 he says, wherein in times past you were dead in your what? Trespasses and sins. He says, You were walking according to the course of this world. That was your former lifestyle.
That's the way you walked. That's the way you thought. Your attitude determines your actions in life. And he says he sent the Lord Jesus Christ to save us from what? He says, before we were sons of disobedience.
He saved us in order that you and I May be forgiven of our sins, but that's not all He saved us for. He saved us that you and I could walk obediently before Him, living epistles, that you and I would represent Almighty God and represent His Son here on earth. And so we're to live obediently before him. He says, We ourselves also are to be holy in all of our behavior. That is, it is to be a lifestyle.
It's just the way we think. We just think. How does it please God? You see, that's why it's difficult for me to think. And to understand how some people can call themselves Christians and think they're right with God, who seldom open this book.
Who seldom get on their knees and cry out to God? And who simply just get down by the bed at night and say, Lord, I want to thank you for your goodness today, and I want you to forgive me of my sins in Jesus' name, amen. Hop into bed, and I'm here to tell you, that's not what forgiveness is all about. The Christian life It's just walking obediently before God. And doing what he says do when he says do it, how he says do it, but you can't do it.
In your own strength, apart from the Holy Spirit, no way. Why did Jesus come? He didn't come simply to save me from hell and take me home to heaven. If he had, he'd have saved me when I was 12 years of age that morning in that Pentecostal church. I'd have gotten saved that morning, told my mom goodbye, and gone to heaven.
But you know what? He doesn't just want to save us. You see, listen to this. He wanted to come down. and get on the inside of us.
and demonstrate to others the unbelieving world What he's like.
Now, how can he demonstrate To your friends and the people around you who are walking in darkness, how can he demonstrate what he is? They're not going to get in the book and find out. All of us have friends who, then I'd about to open that book. They say they don't believe it. You know why they don't open it?
Scared to death to open it. Afraid of what they may find.
Now, how are they going to know God? If they don't see him and you and me. And how are they going to see him in us? Unless he's living in us. and unless we have agreed to allow him to live his life.
There was. They want. I think there are times in people's lives When they come to some fork in the road in their life, and only God knows when that is. And they make a decision to obey God or not to obey God. And when they make that decision, To disobey God?
It doesn't make any difference what happens. They'll never be able. to enjoy the Lord. the way he intended or to accomplish what he wanted them to accomplish. If you think about that, when God created you, He had something in mind.
And therefore, obedience to him is very important because you know what? Because he loves the finished product. You see, we look at ourselves and we think, Oh, dear Lord. He looks at us and thinks, wow. Still working on them.
Still learning. Still shaping him into the likeness of my son. That's what he said he was doing. Obedience is serious business with God. because of what he has in mind.
And what he has in mind is conforming us to the likeness of his son. And so, some of those decisions that we make that we think are insignificant about this job or that job or this relationship or that. Are these finances what we got to do? All that's important to God. Because you see, he never loses sight of the big picture.
He's got your past, present, and future in mind. And he knows, you see. He has done and will do everything in his divine power. To see to it that you and I Become everything he desires us to be. But if I fight against him in disobedience, I slow up the process.
and frustrate the process. Obedience is very important to him. It's serious business. If you're in the process of making a decision in your life, And you've asked a lot of people. And you maybe have gone to council.
I want to ask you this.
Now listen carefully. Is there a deep, sincere yearning? Almost like you could just sort of weep. Oh dear God, I really and truly want to be obedient to you. Is there this hungering, thirsting, yearning, insatiable something inside of you that we cannot really explain that just desires above everything else to obey God no matter what?
But I'll tell you this. He will show you exactly what to do. God always honors that kind of hunger and thirst to know what's right. Are you in the process of going through some difficulty or hardship in your life and You're not sure whether you want to obey God or not. It looks a little easier over here if you don't.
It looks real difficult if you do. I just want you to ask yourself this question. Do I have a real hunger in my heart for God? How does your yearning for anything else in life weigh against your yearning to walk obediently before God? This is a personal conviction.
A lot of you would not agree with it, and it's perfectly all right. I don't believe that you can have In the desire. Any yearning. Any commitment. to anything in life.
That equals The love you ought to have for Jesus. It doesn't work that way. He is he the first And foremost, and this may have its place. I'm not against happiness and joy and peace and having a good time. But I just want to ask you.
Which Has the highest level of your emotional intensity. A desire to obey him. or anything else in life. And nobody can answer that. But you.
Thank you for listening to Obeying God: A Serious Decision. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
