What Is Involved - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Tuesday, March 5th. Most Christians struggle with trying to find the will of God. Today's podcast helps believers see that knowing God's will in major events starts with obedience in the small things. In your life and mine every day, we make decisions based on the laws of God. That is, our sense of values and our set of values as believers is a set of values that came out of this Book. If they come from the Word of God, then they come from the One who knows what is best for us, the all-wise God who not only knows what is best for us but has provided what is best for us, and whose laws are always for our protection. God has not given us a set of laws to keep us from having fun, enjoying life, or prospering, or being contented and enjoying the life that He provides for us. They're not there to keep us from. They're there to protect us from destroying ourselves and hindering our life and destroying those about us. So all of us are making those decisions.

What I want to ask you today is this. When you face a decision, whether it be some moral decision or not, but it is a decision, do you ever stop to ask the question, what would God have me to do? Is there anything in the Bible that relates to this? Is there some clear command in the Scriptures that says, I should do this or not should not do that? And if not, is there some implication in the Scripture that says, though this may not be wrong, it is not wise. This may not necessarily be right or wrong, but it is the wise thing to do. You see, if you and I live with the values given in the Word of God, some things may be up for grabs as far as people's opinions about right and wrong.

But the question is, what is the wise thing to do? If my set of values comes out of this book, I'm going to want to choose the wise thing. But in most issues, it's very clear what God would have us to do. So, when we come to obeying God, the first thing we have to consider is God's commands.

The second thing I want you to jot down a single word is this, and that is the word challenge. Because every time you and I face a decision to obey or to disobey, there is always this challenge. This challenge is a challenge to compromise what we know is a clear teaching of the Word of God or a challenge to compromise what is the wise thing to do. Every single time you and I attempted to disobey God, the temptation may be something on the surface, to steal, to lie, to be lustful, or whatever it may be.

Beneath the surface of that, what is Satan doing? He is attempting to divide our loyalty to Christ whom we call Lord. And secondly, little by little, by offering those things that gratify the flesh, we will soon begin to believe that after all, we don't really and truly have to be all that obedient to God. I mean, after all, God understands.

Ultimately, His purpose is to destroy our faith. There's a third word I want you to jot down, and that word is commitment. Because obedience is more than an attitude. It is an attitude, but it's more than attitude. When we choose to obey God, we make a commitment, we make a decision.

There is action that's going to take place. We count the cost or we look at the alternatives and we say, this is the choice I'm going to make. This is what I believe is the will of the Father. Now, I want to challenge you to think about something. I wish I could say I had always done this, but I can't, I wish I could, but I can't. But a long time ago, when I was a kid growing up somewhere along the way, I did make a decision in my life, Lord, I want to obey You no matter what the consequences. I make up my mind, I choose to obey You no matter what the consequences. Well, nobody can live a perfect life, and I certainly have not. I've sinned against God, I've fallen, I've faltered.

Many times I've made lots of mistakes. But once you set your mind, God, I choose to be obedient to you no matter what the consequences. He's going to keep bringing you back and I can tell you, you'll never be happy, you'll never have peace, you'll never have a contentment, and you'll never succeed in what you're doing until you get right back where you belong. And that is in that commitment of being obedient to God no matter what. Obedience involves a commitment.

Fourth word I want you to jot down. And that is courage. Because oftentimes my obedience is linked with pure courage. God, this is going to be difficult. There's some things God requires of us that takes a lot of courage. They're hard, they're difficult, they're challenging. We don't want to do it because we fear, listen, we fear rejection, we fear loss of material gain, we fear loss of job, loss of relationship, we fear loss of acceptance.

You could just name it. You see, one of the bottom lines of the reason we do not obey God is we fear the consequences. Now watch that because I'm coming back to it. We fear the consequences. Well, you see, if my commitment is to be obedient to God, this is why I say obey God and leave the consequences to Him.

If you're always over here weighing the consequences, it says you are afraid of what the outcome is going to be, that you're not sure what it's going to be, and therefore you just can't make that kind of a commitment. Now my friend, we've got a whole generation of young singles today who are scared to death of marriage. You know what they're afraid of? They're afraid of commitment.

Going together, yes. All these things, fine. And listen, oftentimes because they're not willing to make the commitment, and they're not willing to be disciplined in their life, they find themselves in moral problems because they're disobeying God. Not willing to make a commitment. That's the way we treat God.

Because we fear the consequences. Now look at Daniel and his three Hebrew friends. They faced a king's wrath, listen, this king was the kind of king who would chop a king's son to death right in front of them and then put the king's eyes out so that the last thing he remembered was the death of his son being chopped up.

Burned people alive and threw them in fiery furnaces. And here is Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And they're making a decision to eat the king's meat or not to eat it. To obey the law of God or to obey the law of a pagan king. And they have decided we are obeying the law of God.

Furnace, fire, sword, we are obeying the law of God. They made a decision. It took a lot of courage to make it. There's some decisions when you and I make them. What's going to happen? We're going to run in head on collision with the world. You can expect it. You make a decision to be saved, to trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior and let God change your life.

And you're going to lose some of your friends, I can guarantee you. Some folks are not going to understand you. People you work with, they're going to think, well, so and so's got religion now. You tell them, no, you don't have religion. You've got something a whole lot better than religion. You have Christ.

And one of these days you'd be happy to introduce them to your new friend. It takes courage to obey God. Sometimes the people who love us the most don't understand when we obey God. Sometimes the people who think they understand us don't understand us when we obey God. Sometimes obedience to God will cost you your job. Or it will cost you your friends' acceptance of you and they will just turn their back on you.

It's amazing to me how people who are so-called friends can just walk away, never say a word, turn their back on a friend and never even give any explanation. Just don't like what's happened in their life. And you see, listen to me, Mom and Dad, if you don't learn to be courageous in your obedience to God, how are you going to teach your children to stand up for what's right? How do you expect them to stand up in school and say, when they tell you that the Bible is not true and that evolution is the process, you stand up and express your opinion. You're going to get laughed at, mocked, you name it. And as a young lady said to me some time ago, she said, everybody in my class laughed at me.

But she said, you know what, it didn't even bother me because I knew I was right. Godly men and women. But now, parents, listen, if you don't practice it and you send your kids to school, off to college and you wonder why they come back half unbelieving and things that you taught them because they didn't see it in you, they didn't hear it in you. That's why it is so absolutely important that we walk obediently before God and we demonstrate that before our children and we rivet those principles into their mind, into their thinking so that early in life, the principle they live by is to be obedient to God no matter what anybody says to them and no matter if everybody is against them, it doesn't make any difference. We need to grow up men and women of courage who have a sense of dependence upon God that if everybody turns against them, it's okay. You cannot separate obedience from courage.

Next word I want you to jot down is confidence. You cannot separate obedience from faith in God. Where there is no confidence, there is no obedience. I guarantee you, you can talk to anybody, you can go anywhere, you can do anything. The Bible says in Hebrews chapter eleven, he says, without faith it is impossible to please God.

What do you think? It's impossible to obey Him. That is, if you don't have faith, you're not going to obey Him. Now think about this for example with Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. How did they make such a courageous, bold decision to obey God?

I'll tell you how. Because they knew the God who gave the law. You know what the problem is with many people today? Many Christians who sit in church and listen to sermons and make decisions that are absolutely totally unbiblical, erroneous and make decisions that are pure disobedience to God because they don't know the God whom they say they believe in in a serving. If you don't know Him, how are you going to obey Him? If you don't know Him, why obey Him? Who is this God?

And listen carefully. This is why the unbelieving world around us, the society in which we live in, they look at what we believe in, they laugh and they mock and they jeer and they think, that's absolutely ridiculous and stupid. You know why they think that? Listen, they're thinking naturally. That's the way you're supposed to think when you don't know God. That's the way you think when you are blind to the spiritual things.

When you don't know His law, when you don't know His plan, when you don't know His will, when you don't care about a God you don't know. That's the way you act. We don't have to be angry toward them. You know what they're doing?

They're just doing what comes naturally to people who are walking blindly in total spiritual darkness. But you and I know God through His Son Jesus Christ. We know what the Word of God says. We know what the principles are. And if we don't know them, we know where to find them. And so our children need to watch us live out the principles. Courageously obeying God, being obedient to Him. You see, God puts us in situations and circumstances sometime, listen to me carefully, that we try to weasel out of that God wants to use as a demonstration to our children of godly character.

And we want out. Now I wonder how many times God's tried to teach your children something. And you weaseled your way out of it and bragged to them how you got out of it. When God wanted you to suffer, He wanted you to feel the pain because He wanted to demonstrate through the most impressive, listen, the most impressive person in that child's life is dad and mom. When children see their parents standing up for what is right, what is godly, what is good, whatever it may be in life, something etches in their mind.

You see, these four Hebrew children that have a big problem because they knew their God. This is why I say you can't live a Christian life and stay out of this book. You cannot. You can't live a Christian life and stay off your knees.

You cannot. Personal relationship and intimacy with Him are absolutely essential if I'm going to walk obediently before God. And I can tell you personally, when I get into disobedience, I know exactly what's happened.

I am off my knees. I get too busy doing God's work and I get in trouble. You see, obedience is not an option. When you and I became a Christian, I want my rights.

What rights? Now I can understand the unbelieving world like that, Shep, I want my rights. But my friend is a believer, you gave them all up when you gave your life to Christ. You say, I didn't mean to give up my rights.

Then think again. Because here's what the Bible says, you're not your own, you're bought with a price. You and I, listen, you and I are the blood bought purchases.

Purchases of Jesus Christ. We belong to Him. We don't even belong to ourselves. I don't have any rights except to obey God. That's the right, that's the privilege. But apart from my trust in Him, I won't do it.

So there has to be confidence. Then one last word and that's consequences. You said I was hoping you aren't going to get to that one. Consequences. There are consequences in obeying God, consequences in disobeying God.

He says we'll reap what we sow, more than we sow, later than we sow. There are always consequences. And there are good consequences. Listen, there are many, many wonderful consequences of obeying God. Some people never discover them, never enjoy them, never experience them because they're afraid of the consequences.

Listen carefully now. If I'm not willing to say, God, I choose to obey You no matter what the consequences. Or I choose to obey You, God, and leave all the consequences to You. If I don't hand over the consequences to Him, then I am not committed to being obedient to God without exceptions. If I'm not willing to say I leave all the consequences to You, then I'm not really willing to say I choose to be obedient to You no matter what.

I have to give up the consequences. And this is why fear is a major problem in obeying God. Now look at Daniel. Well, for them this turned out fantastic. Because by their exercising their faith and their courage in their God, taking His commands, making that vital commitment, what happened? The Scripture says that by eating vegetables and drinking water, they looked better. Secondly, when they stood before the king, they looked better to him.

They were the best looking of the whole crowd. Not only that, the Bible says that they were put in the king's personal service. And not only that, when Nebuchadnezzar had a decision to make, instead of all of his bunch of soothsayers and magicians, he come to Daniel. Daniel and his three Hebrew buddies got the best of everything. Listen, the best of everything, including a pagan king's favor by doing what?

Obeying God and leaving the consequences to Him. Now I want to say this and I want to be sure I get understood. Listen carefully. If you obey God, you will always get the best. Now listen carefully.

I didn't say everything would always turn out your way. Because a little later on these three Hebrew children, Old Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because they wouldn't bow down to an idol, they got thrown in the fiery furnace. But they came out unscathed.

Couldn't even smell smoke in their hair. Daniel is an elderly man now. And they passed the law of the Medes and the Persians. And he's not to pray to anybody, but the law of the land. And so, Daniel didn't wring his hands and say, oh my goodness, what am I going to do? Am I going to get up on top of my roof and pray toward Jerusalem and pray to Jehovah God? Am I going to do that three times a day the way I've been doing it? Or am I going to adhere to the law of the Medes and Persians?

What am I going to do? They'd never even crossed his mind. You know why? Because as a young man, Daniel had already decided, I'm going to be obedient to God no matter what.

So they passed the law. What does he do? He gets up in the morning and does what he's normally been doing. They find out about it, which they knew they would. And they throw him in a lion's den.

So what does he do? He just sleeps with the lions all night long. Next morning the king comes and, oh, Daniel, did your God deliver you? Daniel says, oh, king, relax. The God who allowed me to be put here shut the mouths of the lions.

Well, are you saying that it's always going to turn out good? No, because I want to tell you, my friend, there are millions of people who've died because of their obedience to God. Died, not just got sick, died at the sword, at the torch, imprisoned because of their obedience to God. For some people the consequences of obedience are painful. And they bring heartache and difficulty and hardship and trial and tribulation.

But I want to remind you of one thing before you start feeling too sorry for yourself. It was an act of obedience on the part of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, that makes it possible for you and me to be forgiven of all of our sin, to have our names written in the Lamb's Book of Life in Heaven, and to know for certain today we are Heaven-bound because Christ has become our Savior. It was His one act of obedience that settled your eternal future in one great dramatic act.

Does He not deserve to hear from you and me today, Lord Jesus, I choose to obey you and leave all the consequences to you. Thank you for listening to Part 2 of What Is Involved. For more inspirational messages like this, visit our online 24-7 station. And 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.