God Always Rewards Obedience - Part 2

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Wednesday, October 2nd. The life of the apostle Peter reminds us that with a heart bent towards God, even our failures become tools for growth. Let's end the series on the ways of God with a reminder that God always rewards obedience. This is the series, The Ways of God. The ways of God, we mean how he thinks, how he operates, why he makes decisions, why he chooses what he chooses, why he plans our life the way he does, and how he responds to our responses. So, the title of this message is simply this, The Ways of God.

God always rewards obedience. That's one of His ways. That's His nature. That's His character. He's more than willing to reward us for our obedience in large things, simple things, commonplace things.

That's who He is. But now I want you to watch the process as He operates in Peter's life is the very same way He operates in your life and my life. Very important you get this. If you want to live a Christian life, walk in obedience to God, watch this carefully. There are lots of passages you and I can turn to, but this is a very important message because it could save you a lot of trouble, a lot of heartache, a lot of burdens, or you can ignore it and just suffer on through like most people do. And so I've chosen the passage of Scripture in the New Testament that best describes this process, this awesome process by which you and I come to the conclusion and arrive at the conclusion. It's the wisest thing to obey God every single time. So I want you to turn, if you will, to Luke chapter five, and I want us to read this account of an incident that happens in the life of the apostle Peter.

We could choose many others, but this describes it so well. And I think there's something here that all of us need to be reminded of once in a while. But I want to say again, if you've never come to that definite moment in your life when you've said, I'm going to obey God, that's going to be my lifestyle. That's how I'm going to live. That's the bottom line, then listen. If you haven't come to that conclusion, you're just setting yourself up for defeat, for disappointment, suffering, wrong decisions, heartache, and all the rest. If you're wise, you listen carefully to what happens. Now in the fifth chapter of Luke, Peter has this experience and you think, well, what does this have to do with me? Then just give me the opportunity of explaining it.

And you'll understand how very, very important every decision we make can be and the effects in our life. Beginning in verse one. Now, it happened that while the crowd was pressing around him and listening to the Word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats lying at the edge of the lake. But the fishermen had gotten out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, and asked him to put out a little way from the land. And he sat down and began teaching the people from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch. Simon answered and said, Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing.

But I will do as you say and let down the nets. When they had done this, they enclosed a great quantity of fish and their nets began to break. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat for them to come and help them. And they came and filled both of the boats so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw that, he fell down to Jesus' feet, saying, Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For amazement had seized him and all of his companions because of the catch of fish which they had taken. And so also, there was James at John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not fear, from now on you'll be catching men.

When they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed Him. You say, Well now, what does that have to do with obedience? Well, just watch.

Just watch what happens. And what I want you to understand in the very beginning is this, that obedience is a process we learn. And I want you to notice the first request he made was very, very simple. And that request was what? That request was, I want to borrow your boat. Well, that's a simple request, borrow the boat. Well, so lay aside your cleaning of the nets for a moment and I want to borrow your boat, because what I'd like to do is I'd like to be able to speak so that everybody can hear me. Well, Peter didn't object to that, and so what happens? Jesus gets in the boat, and Peter sits down in the boat, and Jesus continues His speaking. Now, that was a very simple request. In fact, it looks like there's nothing significant about, Let me sit in your boat or stand in your boat while I'm speaking.

Now, watch this. First request, very simple. Let me borrow your boat, no problem.

And look how God blessed him. Second request, let's go fishing. Well, I don't really want to go and it's, I'm tired and weary, but I'm going.

You said go, I'm going. And look what happened. Never forgot it. And what an awesome financial plus that was for his life. But more than that, what was Jesus doing? Look at this, because He does this in our life. He sets us up for the blessing. He sets us up for rewards.

He sets us up. And you see, God doesn't, for example, if the Lord spoke to you today, more than likely, He wouldn't walk up to you and say, Next Sunday, you're to preach in the passage pulpit. No, you know what He'd probably do? He'd probably send you to share your faith.

Then next thing you know, you may be teaching a sons' school class. Next thing you know, God may call you. In other words, God knows the process in your life and my life to teach us to obey Him. He's not going to require something of you. He would not equip you to do. He's not going to require something of you that you cannot do apart from the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. That is, because He's going to supply whatever is necessary.

The important thing is this. One of the ways of God is this, that you and I come to the point in our life where we say, from this point on, I'm going to be obedient to God, whatever He calls me to do. By the grace of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to be obedient to Him. I want that to be my lifestyle.

I want that to be the way I live. Obey God, leave all the consequences to Him. Obey God, watch Him work. Whatever He says, I'm going to do what He says whether I like it or not like it. I'm going to be obedient anyway because you don't know what God has in store for you on the next request.

Now watch this. First request, very simple, I want to borrow your boat. Next request, a little bit more demanding.

I want us to take, spend time and I want us to go fishing. Don't like it, but I'm going to do it. Both times, Peter was rewarded for his simple act of obedience. Satan will reward you for your simple act of disobedience. That's why the Scripture says in Hebrew, it speaks of the pleasures of sin for a season, notice. So, wherever you are in life, whatever the situation, the circumstance, the issue is simply this. And that is, it's maybe a simple request of God, but it's very important. When you read the Scripture, and let's say there's something in your life that shouldn't be there, and God says to you, you need to get that out of your life. And you know it's true.

You know it's true, nobody else has to tell you. When you read the passage of Scripture and the Spirit of God convicts you about something that needs to go, there are only one of two answers to God. Yes, it'll go.

No, I'll keep it. How many times has God spoken to you and told you what to do and you rationalized it? Oh, well, I know it's what the Bible says, but you know what? That was written so long ago and besides that, that doesn't apply to me. Listen, that's what this book's all about. This is God's instruction book that teaches how to walk in obedience to God and to do so successfully and to do so, listen, willfully, joyfully, happily, confidently, boldly, with great expectation. What has God said in His Word to you that needs to go in your life and you're still holding on to it?

Do you realize what's happening? Same thing that would have happened to Peter if he'd have said, bar somebody else's boat, too tired to go fishing, not going. There'd have been no second. And there certainly would never have been an invitation to come join me in the most important ministry that will ever exist, this life-transforming ministry of Jesus Christ who came into this world to die for the sins of the world. They fellowshiped with this man. They touched him. They knew him. And there they see him, here's the Son of God, dying for the sins of the entire world, and He's our friend. Dangerous to disobey God.

Watch this. It isn't just dangerous because of the reward or the penalty of disobedience. It's dangerous because of what you'll miss in life, what you'll miss for not being obedient to Him. You can't consult your friends whether to be obedient to God or not. They're going to tell you most of the time what they would do or what they think they would do or what they think you ought to do.

That's never the issue. The issue is what is the will of God? And you see, that's why you need to come to a place in your life where you say from this moment on, this is where I'm going to make all my decisions.

I'm going to be obedient to God no matter what. Now, I know what you're thinking. You're saying, well, now wait a minute, Peter wasn't all that sanctified and holy and all that pure about everything because he made some mistakes.

And I'm glad you brought that up because I want to talk about it. Because he did make some. He was not perfect by a long shot. In fact, what I want us to consider is five failures in the life of Peter.

Now, he's been obedient to God and God's just blessed him, blessed him, blessed him. But I want us to look at some failures in his life and you're familiar, but I'm going to bring them up and let's just see because what I want you to see is this. That all, watch this, all rewards are not lost because we fail. We fail sometimes in our weakness and our frailties and our sinfulness. We fail at times. Well, you say, well, you lose that.

Well, watch this. This is the awesome grace of God. Here's the goodness and love of God. Here's Romans eight twenty-eight. He causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, to those who are called according to His purpose. Now, you and I either have a spirit of obedience with God or a spirit of disobedience, a rebellion against God. And nobody can tell you that.

You have to know your own heart about that. But I want you to look at these five instances in which he failed, but look at the lessons he learned, which really turned out to be a real reward for him. And let's just begin with the first one.

The first one was this. In Matthew chapter sixteen, Jesus was telling His disciples, first time He never mentioned to them, that He was going to be crucified, betrayed by these Pharisees, sad, deceased, die, rise again. And when He said that, Peter said, mm-mm, that's not going to happen to you. And the Bible says that Peter rebuked Jesus. Well, what was significant about that?

Simply this. This was a failure on His part to understand the mission of Jesus and His purpose. So, He learned to listen.

God's ways are not our ways, His ways are higher than our ways, His thoughts are higher than our thoughts, which is a part of the Scripture in Isaiah fifty-five. The second failure on His part was this. They were out in the ship in a storm. And you recall what happened? Ship was about to sink and here comes Jesus walking across the water. And so, Peter said, Lord, if that's You, bid me come to You. So, out of the boat He hops and starts walking across the water. Now the Bible says He looked at the storm and what was going on around Him, took His eyes off the Lord and decided, you know, now that I'm walking, I can handle it. What's the lesson? In the midst of the storms of life, you take your eyes off of Jesus Christ and you're going to sink into despair, into depression, wherewith all kinds of terrible things happen.

We take our eyes off the Lord. Awesome lesson. And He learned that. The third failure in His life, if you think about how He failed, was that up in the upper room when Jesus was, we call it the Last Supper, the Lord's Supper. And while this was going on, Jesus took the town, the basin, and He started washing feet. Now, the person who did that in a home was the lowest form of a servant, the lowest form of servanthood was the fellow who meets you at the door and takes off your sandals, bathes your feet in the water and cleans them so you can walk in the household and be refreshed. So when Jesus gets to Peter, Peter said, you're not washing my feet because to have your feet washed is to humble you.

Listen carefully. It was very humiliating for Peter to sit there and watch the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ, the Lord of lords, the King of kings wash his feet. What was the lesson? Humility comes before service. Very difficult for him to learn that lesson.

We don't like to be humbled. Very important that he learned that lesson. And learning that lesson, it was a reward for him. That is, anything you and I learn that helps us to be more obedient to Him, however it comes, it's like God in His grace rewarding us right in the midst of our disobedience or our wrong attitude. And it's not that God rewards wrong, it's just that by His grace He sort of comes around the backside and blesses us anyway, and that's exactly what Romans eight twenty-eight says. He causes all things. My failures, my sins, if my attitude is right, and that's the key, when my attitude is right and my response is right, He turns all of that for our good.

So we're rewarded by the right spirit even in our failures. And so what does He learn? He learns something awesome. And that is by His failure to recognize Jesus' right to wash His feet. He learned a very sobering lesson right in front of everybody else.

The next failure was this. He gets in the garden with Jesus and the apostles, you know about Gethsemane, and here come the Romans and Judas, and so what does He do? Right when things got really hot, He just pulls out His sword or His knife and it whops off the ear of this Roman. Well, that certainly wasn't the right thing to do. Certainly wasn't an act of obedience. But He was responding out of His naturalness and His devotion to Jesus.

Now watch this. What an absolute interesting story. Just about to kill that guy. We don't know whether he really meant to cut his head off or hit him in the ear, but anyway, that's when he started to fight right in front of Jesus. What's the lesson here? Don't try to fight Jesus' battles. Don't fight Jesus' battles. When you get in a situation or circumstance in life and you're being obedient to God and somebody's on your case and they're fighting against you, don't fight back at that. You give it to God. You let Him handle His battles.

Listen to this. Anytime Satan attacks you, it's God's battle. When other people attack you, it's God's battle.

You know why? Because you are a child of God. And our response must be the response of an obedient child of God, to trust God for the circumstances because God's going to turn it out for your good when you obey Him.

Remember this. God is absolutely, with His supernatural omnipotent power, is always on your side when you're walking in obedience to Him. You can't lose. There's no way to lose with God. You say, Well, I don't understand it. He didn't say you'd understand it. He said, Trust me. Never does He say, I'm to do what I understand.

Just trust me. Because you see, God is the one who fights our battles. And if we're going to fight Him at all, we fight Him on our knees with Him alone in the closet. And then what happens is we watch Him work. Well, there's one more failure in the part of Peter. At the most critical, crucial moment in Jesus' life, what happens? Walks up to this fire, He's outside while they're in there talking to Jesus and accusing Him. This young lady says to Him, You're one of those. And Peter, in that awesome moment of terrible weakness, he said, I don't even know Him. I'm not one of them.

I don't even know Him. What's the lesson? Don't ever boast about how strong you are. Don't boast about what you will do and what you will not do. It's always in the spirit of humility and always recognizing watch this, any one of us could not only betray Him, deny Him, or fall into sin apart from the help and the strength and the power of Almighty God.

Remember the first question? Have you ever committed yourself at some point in your life to make a decision that once and for all, the way you're going to live, your lifestyle is going to be, obey God, leave all the consequences to Him. And the truth is simply this, if you'll make that decision, won't be easy, Satan will, listen, he will make you a long list of the things in life that you're going to miss if you make that decision. Don't listen to the liar.

He's the big liar. Jesus said He's the Father of them. If you look at His list of all the things that He says you're going to miss if you obey God, don't forget to look over here on this side of all the things, which is a list many times greater than that, of all the things that you're going to gain by simply being obedient to Jesus Christ. You cannot lose being obedient.

You cannot win being disobedient. Wise men and women and young people, make a decision that my lifestyle will be, obey God, leave all the consequences to Him, He can handle them. Thank you for listening to God Always Rewards Obedience. For more inspirational messages like this one, 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.