A Life of Obedience - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, June sixth. If you're a Christian, you may find that God asks you to do things that don't seem logical. Let's continue Dr. Stanley's Life Principles series to learn how to make correct choices in those critical moments. What's the final determining factor when you begin to make decisions in your life? Do you involve God in that decision making process?

Or do you consider that, you know, you'll make what's reasonable and it'll all somehow work out? Obey God, leave all the consequences to Him. And we're not living in a day when people are very interested in consequences. But those of us who are followers of Jesus should be very, very interested in the consequences of our actions. Because they'll have impact either for good or for evil.

Or they may have impact very strongly and maybe some over here not so strongly, but we will have impact. So, I want us to consider this whole idea of consequences and this principle of obeying God, leaving all the consequences to Him. So, when you think about what a consequence is, it's a consequence is that which naturally follows a previous action. That if I commit this act here, there's going to be a consequence. If I make a decision here, there's going to be a consequence. For example, if you spend and spend and spend, then you know that somewhere out there there are going to be consequences to that. Or if you are in a business and you just ignore the people who come to your particular store or buy what you have and you just mistreat them, there are going to be consequences to that. There are consequences to all of our decisions. Some consequences are very, very important. Some may be not considered all that important, but there are consequences. And so, when you ask yourself the question, well, how do I make decisions?

What questions do I ask? Because some consequences are short-lived and immediate. Some consequences last for a lifetime. There are people who make decisions early in life that last all of their life.

And if they had the privilege, they would never have made that decision if they had the privilege of going back and re-looking at it again. So, what about yourself? What area of your life have you sort of isolated for yourself over here and said, you know, I'm going to do whatever God wants me to do. This over here, I mean, one little thing over here never hurt anybody and nobody can be perfect.

Mm-mm-mm-mm. In other words, if I trust Him, I trust Him for everything. If I expect Him to turn all of the circumstances of my life into something good, then I must be willing to trust Him, to love Him, and to surrender it all to Him. Now, are there rewards?

Yes, there are. One of the rewards of obeying God is success. It may not be success in the eyes of the world, but there will be success. And so, there will be a sense of, listen, a sense of serenity and calmness and quietness. There will be a sense within your own heart of peace and joy. But there'll also be conflict and there'll also be suffering.

That's going to be part of it. In other words, you obey God, you can expect some suffering at times. But what is He going to do about the suffering? He's going to do the same thing He did with these disciples because they suffered, they got flogged and beaten, and you name it, but look at this, they transformed their world because they were willing to be obedient to God. Going to be conflict, but there's going to be growth. Think about this.

When do you and I grow? In the midst of conflict, in the midst of difficult decisions, when we choose to obey Him thinking, oh God, I'm going to be obedient, I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to obey You anyway, what happens? God always comes through and He begins to work in your life and little by little, you begin to grow in your Christian life. Now, I want to give you some personal illustrations, different kind of things to say, I know that if you obey God, God is going to bless you in ways you will never figure out. It has nothing to do, what I'm going to share with you has nothing to do, this is not about me, this is about God. So, I want you to be sure you understand that. Obey God, leave all the consequences to Him. We were in the process when we were downtown raising some money and we were buying some property and we'd bought a lot of it and we needed this block right behind us because the church building was seated about twenty-four hundred people and had eighty parking spaces, if you can imagine.

So, we needed the property. So, maybe a couple of weeks or so went by and I and the staff were in our room that we prayed in and had our staff meeting in and so, we were stretched out on the floor praying and so, I began to read the Word and I sort of looked out the window and looked over at His building and it's like the Lord said to me, what did Joshua do? I thought, oh dear Lord, you know, that's not going to happen. They'll all think I've lost my mind. And suppose it doesn't happen, it's like God said to me, march. You march around that building. So, when we got through praying, I challenged them to do just that and I said, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to, we're going to march around this building. But remember this, I said, you cannot tell anybody, especially your wife. You cannot tell her. Secondly, we're not going to tell anybody else in the church about it. This is just between us.

We're going to trust God. They may have put us in jail marching around this building, but we marched around the whole block for six Tuesdays in a row. Think of us on Tuesdays. And seventh Tuesday, I can remember it was cold as it could be, wind blowing, we were all dicked up, overcoats all bundled up, we marched all the way around that block for seven times in the seventh day.

Never said a word, didn't tell anybody in church about what was going on. In about two months, Mr. Cuba called me one day and he said, Dr. Stanley, are you still interested in this building? I said, ah, we might be, we could be.

Anyway, we got the building. And now, humanism. If I had gone on human reason, here's what I would have thought. Well, that's what God told Joshua. That was thousands of years ago. This is the twentieth century.

No, he said march. I can remember on one occasion when Southern Baptist Convention, we were having a big battle over whether we believed this Bible is the whole Word of God or whether we believe it's got errors in it. So, it was a big battle. And so, a lot of folks wanted me to be the president. And I didn't want to be. And I went away and fasted and prayed and thought I'd convinced God that I couldn't. The truth was, I was scared. I was. I was afraid. I thought, how can I do that and still be the pastor and all the things going on? It was a bitter fight.

I mean, bitter. And so, we had this prayer meeting, a group of pastors the night before the election. And we were going around talking about it. And so, I thought I knew who ought to be the president. I thought he could do a good job. He was strong. And he was certainly capable of doing so.

And so, I was suggesting that he do it. And so, I left the prayer meeting believing that either he or one other pastor would be the president. So, I went back to my room and I got up the next morning, got dressed, and I started toward the hotel room door.

It's like this is fixed in my image. When I reached for the doorknob, it's like God said to me, don't touch that doorknob until you're willing to do what I tell you. Well, I dropped at the end of the bed just weeping because I knew what He was saying. And the truth is, I knew that I'd just sort of been fudging on God the whole time.

And because I was afraid that I wouldn't do a very good job of it. Anyway, I was elected on the first ballot and served two years. And one of those years, we had almost six, had fifty-six thousand messengers.

It was a bitter, bitter, bitter fight. And yet we won both of those years, turned this denomination around. But it wasn't just me. I just happened to be the point man at this point.

And a lot of Godly men out there who were supportive that made it happen. But I'm simply saying this. If I'd have said, God, I'm not going to do it, I wouldn't be standing here. You can't disobey God. And I knew in my own mind that I couldn't live with myself if I hadn't been willing to. Then I'll give you a couple of examples because I want you to see it's not, it's not me.

Here's what I want you to watch in these other examples. This, watch the overflow of somebody's obedience to God. We were raising all this money to buy some other property, about three million dollars. We weren't borrowing any money. We were just trusting God for it. And so, we'd come down to two weeks and we owed, we had a million and a half. We needed another million, three hundred thousand. And so, I preached one morning and, you know, reminded people that we still need a million, three hundred thousand dollars and weren't going to the bank. Well, this young couple came up on a platform afterwards and they said, we don't have anything to give, but because somebody backed up to our house, emptied our house of everything we owned, the only thing we have is this wedding band. Well, she was pregnant, a little girl, and I thought, oh, Jesus, I can't take that. So, I said, no, I can't, I can't take that.

No, no, no. They said, well, God told us to do it. You don't have anything else?

No, it's all we have, but God told us to do it. I thanked them reluctantly, put it in my pocket, preached the next message. And at the end of the message, I second thought I'd pull this ring out. And I said, let me tell you what happened at the end of the first service. Well, when I told that story and then I gave the invitation like I normally would do, here they came.

They came from every direction, from the balcony. People gave me money. I had to get some folks to help me take all this stuff. It was rings, watches, I mean, promise of a travel trailer, promise of a tent trailer, promise of a car, promise of this, promise of that.

I mean, it was overwhelming. And I remember one lady, I guess I remember, she had on a beautiful necklace and a big diamond sitting right in the middle of it. And she took it off and she said, God's told me to give this.

Well, that couple is on a mission field and God has used them in the most incredible way. The next lady in line took off this gold bracelet. Now, I'm not talking about one of these little bracelets like some of y'all are wearing. I'm talking about heavy gold bracelet. She said, this is the most valuable thing I own.

And for her to have said that, I know where she lived. This is the most valuable thing I owned and God told me to give it. Well, when all that began to take place, I began to realize what happened. That that little ring, one person's act of obedience, this young couple, their act of obedience. There was, they didn't give something. They, that was the last thing they owned besides the clothes on their body.

Their act of obedience ignited that whole church. A little old ring that wasn't worth a hundred dollars because we had to evaluate it. My curiosity was killing me. Had to evaluate it. Less than a hundred dollars igniting what five hundred thousand dollars would not have done.

Your act of obedience, you cannot measure that. Now, I'll give you another part of that story because it's just one of God's acts of grace and you feel worried about, well, what am I going to do about this? And so, when the lady with the gold bracelet dropped her bracelet, I can still see that drop in my hand and say, this is the most valuable thing I had. It's like God said to me, you've never given me anything of value. I said, well God, I've given you my travel trailer and this and so forth, but that's not valuable. I thought, oh my Lord, I knew what was coming.

Because the only thing I had of value was my camera equipment, which I really enjoyed. So, I knew what I had to do. So, I went back and I didn't struggle much because I knew it had to happen. And so, I got it all together the next day, took it down to my friend. And so, I said, I've got to sell you all my camera equipment back.

Well, he was, he couldn't figure that out. I said, well, just do the best you can and I know how much I need, but you tell me how much I can get for it. I gave it to the church, moved on.

I didn't tell anybody about it. And so, I gave it physically, but I'll have to admit, I still had it in my heart. I hadn't really given it up. I wanted to give it up and I thought, Lord, now I'm willing to, you know, you know how you talk to God and you just hammer on around and not getting to the point. And so, it took me a few weeks to finally say, okay, I don't need to do any more photography. I give it up, I leave it up to you.

I'm sitting in my study at home and it's three, about three days before taxes due and I'm working my income tax. Doorbell rings and I go to the doorbell and peep through the peephole and there's a lady standing out there and I said, yes, ma'am. She says, are you Dr. Stanley? I said, yes, ma'am. She said, well, I have something for you. Well, so I open the door and she had this satchel and a case and a grocery bag and she turned around and when she turned around, it's like God blotted her face out of my mind. And she started down the steps and I said, ma'am, I said, well, tell me who you are. Where'd you come from? What all this?

She never said a word. So, I picked it up and brought it in the house and opened it up and somebody found out and had gone down to the camera broker and bought every single one of my cameras, all my lenses, all my filters and my flash and gave them back to me. Now, but it's, what I want you to see is that God let enough time go by that He had my whole heart that I gave it up. Now, I think about this and this is what's so significant to me.

That lady said, this is the most valuable thing I had. Suppose I'd have said, well, Lord, my camera equipment's not worth all that much and besides that, I'll come up with some money. But my camera equipment, that's the only fun I have, God.

I mean, what's the deal? Let me tell you what I would have missed by one act of disobedience. I would have missed owning the best camera equipment you can buy. I would have missed traveling thousands of miles and seeing the awesome beauty across this country and around other countries in the world that I've been privileged to see. I would have missed the wonderful fellowship I've had with my buddies as we photographed together.

I would have missed some of the happiest times in my life if I'd have said no over a few really sort of inexpensive cameras. Here's what I want you to see. You obey God, leave all the consequences to Him. And I think about all I would have missed because I wasn't willing to trust God for a piece of equipment.

What I want you to see is this. You can't ever go wrong obeying God. You know why? Because you know what the consequences are. His consequences for obedience are always good. Could they be good and painful at the same time?

Yes, they could. Now remember this. God is responsible for the consequences of our obedience. Mark it down. We're responsible for the consequences of our disobedience.

Mark that down. Then make a decision. I am going to be obedient to God no matter what because He will do the same thing in your life, in your circumstance, in your situation. It won't be the same as in my situation, but it'll be the same.

In other words, what fits you? What does God have in mind for you? Obey God.

Don't rush and marry somebody because somebody's putting pressure on you. What's the consequences of being obedient to God? You can hold back to your tithe and say, you know what, I know what God says, but I can't afford to give ten percent. What you mean is I can't afford to be obedient to God.

Yes, you can. And I want to challenge you to be wise enough to make a decision in your life from this point on. God, I may not understand everything you do. I may not even like everything you do. I may suffer in some points.

I may have difficulty doing it. But I'm going to obey you and leave all the consequences to you because I trust you and because I love you and because I know you will only do what is best for me. And because I believe that you'll turn every circumstance of my life for my good in response to my obedience. And Father, how grateful we are that you take personal interest in every single one of your children. And Lord, if you could just give all of us a little glimpse of what the future holds as a result of being obedient to you, we would all fall upon our knees instantly praising and worshiping You for being so good and so gracious and kind.

But we can't because You're not going to show us all that. You want us to trust You and to live it out and to experience it day by day. That is my prayer for every person who is listening to this message in Jesus's name. Amen. Thank you for listening to part two of A Life of Obedience. 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.