Obeying the Father- Part 2

This podcast is made available by Vision Christian Media, thanks to the generosity of our supporters. Your donation today means great podcasts like this remain available to help people look to God daily.

Please make your donation today at vision.org.au. True satisfaction in this life can only be found in the centre of God's will. But how do you get there? As Joshua found it through obedience. Today on Turning Point, Dr David Jeremiah takes a closer look at Joshua and what we can learn from his vivid example of obedience. If you're in need of some God-given comfort, listen, as David introduces the conclusion of his message, Obeying the Father. And thank you for joining us today.

We are so happy to have you. I hope you're getting ready to have a fantastic week. And we want to add value to your week by teaching you the scripture and taking you to the Word of God. This week, we're going to talk about Obeying the Father today, tomorrow and Wednesday about how to bear spiritual fruit, how to be productive in your life.

And then on Thursday and Friday, we'll talk about Committing to Growth. These are motivational messages right from the scripture to help you move through life in obedience to the Lord. Do you know there's no other way to be happy? Did you remember that song we used to sing, Trust and Obey? For there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. Well, here we go with the last part of Obeying the Father. It's Joshua chapter 1, the central passage on obedience, I believe, in the Bible. Let's open our scriptures together.

You know, there's nothing worse than knowing you're supposed to do something, but not knowing for sure exactly what it is. God gave to Joshua a particular assignment. Notice what he said. He said, You are to go over the land and to possess it. And every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, even as I said unto Moses. Verse 2, Now arise, go over and possess.

That's simple. Your job is to possess the land. Now, you know, Joshua may have wondered, Well, Lord, how much of the land can I walk on? And so God is so specific, he gives him the boundaries.

In fact, he draws a map for him. He says, Joshua, from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even to the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, under the great sea, toward the going down of the sun, all of this shall be your border. Joshua, here's your assignment. Here's your land.

Now do it. You know what I've discovered as I've read the Bible? That there are very few things about which I need to be in doubt. You know, we have the doctrine of the doubtful things. And there are certainly some things that may fit into that gray area that we don't have any clear word from God on. But you know, the vast majority of the Christian life is not lived in the doubtful things. The vast majority of the Christian life is lived over here where we have a clear word for God. Now, there are a lot of Christians who like to take the clear word of God and move it over into the doubtful things because that makes them more comfortable when they don't do it. But the scripture is so very clear with personal and particular assignments for the children of God.

We don't have to be in doubt. We're not wandering around trying to figure out what it is that God expects of us. If we will study this book, we'll discover that God has given to us a particular assignment. There's not anything that brings more security to the heart than to know what God expects you to do.

And that's what happened. He was given a particular assignment. Now, with his past accomplishments in his mind and with these proper attitudes instilled within his spirit and with this particular assignment down on paper and ready to go, the next thing God gives to Joshua to get him ready is a plan of action. He gives him an action plan that will help him to accomplish his assignment.

And this is the real core of what I want to share with you. God has given to every Christian, to all of us who are believers, he has given to us a plan of action. And my friends, that plan of action is in this book. It's called Bible.

This is God's plan of action. This is what God has given to us so that we would know what he wants us to do. Now you say, Pastor, I hope it's not going to be another one of those situations where I come to church and the preacher stands up and he naively says, now if you want to be blessed of God, just read the Bible. And then I leave with my Bible under my arm and right back to the same kind of discouragement I've known.

Well, I want you to know I'm not going to let you off the hook that easy. I have some things to share with you from this text that go beyond just a general statement concerning the Word of God. It is true that this book is God's plan of action for all of us. But it is also true that it is conditioned upon our response to the Word of God as we find it in these verses of scripture. And there are several responses, several responsibilities that God gives to us concerning the Bible that determine whether or not we will be successful and prosperous in our Christian experience. So as we look at the plan of action, notice first of all that this book, if it is to work for us in our lives, we must first of all read it obediently. You say, isn't that the way everybody reads it?

No. In fact, there are two mentions in this text of a principle which the more I understand about it, but the more I believe is the most dynamic principle in Bible study that you'll find any place in the scripture. If I had to say there's one principle in the Word of God that will open up the scriptures to you more than any other principle, it's right here, and here it is. It's wrapped up in this phrase, observe to do. Observe to do. Notice verse 7, only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do.

Verse 8, this book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night that thou mayest observe to do. Read it obediently. Now what that means, men and women, is that when you open this book and begin to study its contents, you do it with one perspective, with one goal, and that goal is wrapped up in that phrase.

You're observing it to do it. You're reading it to understand it that you might put it into practice in your life. Most Christians read the Bible in order to discover what it says so that they can then decide whether or not they want to do it. And that's why more of the Word of God is not opened up to Christians. You see, the Bible teaches us that God will only give to us that which we implement in our lives. To those who have, he gives more.

To those who have not, he takes away. In other words, if you don't put into practice what God teaches you from this book, your Bible knowledge ends there. That explains why some men of God who have risen to the top in Christianity as leaders, as teachers, as educators, as preachers, many of them have been men without any formal training at all. Men who have come up through the method of personal Bible study where they've just opened this book every day and read it and studied it and whatever they read, they went out and did it. And the more they read and the more they did, the more God revealed to him of his will.

So that as they walked in the light, they were given more light. And God is saying to Joshua as he says to us that if you want to know the blessing of God in your life, if you want to know what it means to be prosperous and successful, principle number one in your plan of action must be that you read the Word of God with a determination that whatever God says to you as you read it, that's what you're going to do. No holes barred, no conditions, no hidden agenda. Lord, this is your revelation to me and as I study it and read it and understand it, by your grace, I'm going to do it. Read it obediently.

And then God says, now Joshua, that's not all. After you understand that, I want to teach you another principle about your plan of action. You not only read it obediently, but number two, you must meditate in it continually. Notice what it says in verse eight. This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night. Once you understand that you're supposed to do what you understand, then you need to understand more.

And you need to make the book a part of your life. You need to make the scripture a part of your being. You need to so involve yourself in the Word of God, meditating upon it, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, so that as it becomes a part of your life, it literally takes over.

It becomes the controlling factor in your conduct. That's what it means in the New Testament. It says we're to bring every thought into captivity, unto Christ. As we let the Word of God so fill our lives and our minds and our spirits, it literally gets into the driver's seat in our being so that every time we face a challenge during the day, every time we have a decision that we have to make, we have so filled our minds with God's Word, that God's Word just takes over and makes the decision for us. We are so saturated with the truth from this book because we have meditated in it day and night. Notice thirdly, not only was he to read it obediently and to meditate in it continually, but he was to believe it totally. Joshua, if he followed the Lord's instruction, could never have been a modern-day liberal preacher because God did not give him the option of choosing which part of this book he was going to implement in his ministry.

He told him that he had to do all of it from the beginning to the end. Verse 7 says, All the law that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law. This book of the law, verse 8 says, shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein. Wouldn't it be nice if we could choose which part of the Bible we liked? I can tell you some sections right now I'd like to get rid of because they really bother me, and I really struggle with some of that truth. Wouldn't it be nice if the Lord would give you a four out of five, you know? Five parts, and you only have to take four. Or it could be a multiple choice, but it isn't like that, is it? God has given us the whole thing, and we have to believe it from the beginning to the end.

That's what we call plenary inspiration. It's all God's Word, and it's culturally understood and interpreted and all of that. I know all of that, but the truth of this book is ours from the beginning to the end, and God makes us responsible for it all, the totality of it. He is to read it obediently and meditate in it continually and to believe it totally.

Now, here's where the rubber meets the road. He is to follow it exclusively. Notice verse seven. Only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee.

Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left. He was to set his face like a flint upon the star of the Word of God, and he was to keep his eyes on that, and he wasn't to go off here or off there, but to stay right in the groove. This was to be the sole source of instruction for his life. Every time he had a question, he was to come back to this book. Every time he didn't know what to do, he was to let this book solve that problem in his life, and he wasn't allowed to compromise it at all.

He had no leniency given to him to go this way or that way. Oh, if there's anything that's going on in the Christian church today, it certainly is that. Men and women are compromising the Word of God, and I hear it all the time. We explain it away by way of our culture. We say that certainly God wouldn't expect this of us in a day such as this day.

We explain it away in terms of our own habits and our own practices, and I've learned that one of the most dangerous things that happens to all of us as Christians is that sometimes we determine what we're going to do, and then we try to figure out a way to make our theology fit our practice, and we begin to compromise what God's book has to say. God said to Joshua, Joshua, here's my plan of action. Now, it's not one of many plans of action, and it's not something that you mix with your own thoughts or the thoughts of a humanistic world, but here is my plan, and you follow it exclusively. You stay right on track.

Don't you go this way or that way. Let this be your goal and your guide, the exclusiveness of the Word of God. I remember reading some time ago a statement written by Henry Drummond in which he said, There's a great instrument for finding God's will. This instrument can penetrate where others cannot go.

It is a name which every child may understand, even as the stupendous instrument itself with all its mighty powers is sometimes moved in infant hands when others have tried in vain. The name of that instrument, he said, is obedience, willingness to obey. Perfect obedience would be perfect happiness if we had perfect confidence in the power that we are obeying.

God says that the secret to success and prosperity in your life is all wrapped up in this thought, that you have his plan and you're willing to do it. You know, that's the source of frustration that all of us face. That's the source of the frustration in your life if you're a Christian today. You know what God has said and you know where you are and you know what God's standard is and you know where you're living and you just are struggling continually to get up to where God's standard is because you don't want to obey.

And sometimes even when we obey, we do it with the wrong spirit. I remember a story about a little boy who was misbehaving at the breakfast table one day and his mother finally in exasperation said, Johnny, you go and sit in that chair until I tell you you can get up. Well, he didn't do it. He just sort of played around by the table and finally she said to him again, Johnny, I'm not going to tell you again. You get in that chair and you sit there until I tell you you can get up. And finally, after he sat on the edge of the chair for a moment and got up, she went over, as parents are prone to do, and she took hold of him by the shoulders and she literally put him over in that chair and she sat him down with authority and she said, Johnny, you sit in that chair.

A few minutes later he looked up at her and he said, well, okay, I'm sitting down on the outside but I'm standing up on the inside. That's the way a lot of Christians obey the word of God. They're doing what God wants them to do on the outside, but there's not a willing obedience in their heart to do what God asked them to do. God has given to Joshua all he needs to know to be successful as he takes on this new assignment and that success is wrapped up in his plan of action. Now let me just add one thing. Along with the plan of action, God comforts Joshua with the promise of assistance.

This is the most exciting thing in the whole text. Verse 9 says, For the Lord thy God is with thee wherever thou goest. You know, you have all that God has done for this man. You have his instruction, his plan of action, but the most important thing that he needed to hear from God as he took on this overwhelming assignment was the reality that he wasn't going at it alone, that God was going to be with him. How was he going to be with him?

Remember what he said earlier? As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not fail thee nor forsake thee. If you go through the scripture, you will find almost inevitably that wherever God gives us a difficult command, there is always attached to it a promise of his assistance. Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age. The promise of God's assistance. Are you aware of the fact that if you're in the center of God's will, being obedient to his word, doing what he's asked you to do, that you have been guaranteed by the scripture the personal presence and assistance of Almighty God?

How can you ever go wrong? In my reading, I was reminded of how easy it is for us to rebel against God and how quickly we leave off our obedience because we are afraid that if we are totally given over to God and committed to him, that he will ask us to do something we don't want to do. I can remember growing up thinking that, you know, if I said to the Lord, Lord, you can have my life, that he would ask me to do something I didn't want to do. I don't even remember what it was. It may have been to go to the mission field of some dark continent.

And I know a lot of Christian people who are just hanging on to the reins of their lives because they're afraid that God will tell them to do something to which they will not want to be obedient. I came across an unusual testimony about a famous preacher in England named Champness who said that when he was a boy living in the city of Manchester, he got up early on a Saturday morning and he did all of his work, all of his chores, and by noon he had finished everything that was on his assignment sheet for the day from his father. And so he went to his dad and he said, Dad, I've done all my work and I've done it well and now I want to know if I can go to the football game, which is really over there, a soccer game, but they call it football.

Could I have enough money to go to the football game? His father, responding not at all to the boy's request of a gift to go to the football game, said, Son, I have a big package here and I want you to deliver it to the paper man on the other side of town. Father laid upon the boy a package that was heavy, it was bigger almost than he was, and he was to take this package to the other side of Manchester and deliver it to the paper man. Well, the kid was heartbroken. He never spoke a word of disappointment in return, but he was really, really shook. The father laid upon him the burden and the boy replied, Yes, sir, and he obediently struggled with the big package and finally he made it to the railway station and he pushed the thing up on the streetcar that he was going to take across town and finally he got to the destination and he got off with this big old heavy package and he struggled with it until he finally brought it to the man who makes paper and gave the package to him.

The man picked it up and put it on the scales and looked it over and he said, Son, this will make fine linen paper. The boy's lips were quivering and he was really feeling bad. His father hadn't even answered him.

He'd worked so hard and he felt so disappointed. He started to walk out of the store with his eyes full of tears and finally as he was walking out, the proprietor of the shop said, Young man? He said, Yes, sir? He said, There's a letter here from your father. The boy turned back and the man looked at the letter and he began to read it and he looked up at the boy and he said, Son, your father says for me to weigh the paper and to give the money to you so that you can buy a ticket to the football game. And he weighed the paper and he gave the young boy more money than he could ever spend in one afternoon of football if he spent it every minute.

And the boy realized as he walked out of the shop that the football stadium was just around the corner. And he was heard to say as he walked out, I wish the package had been four times heavier. Sometimes when God asks us to be obedient, we don't understand. And the load seems awful heavy. And it sometimes seems like he asked us to do something that's really not what we want to do, that it takes us clear in the other direction.

It's a heavy assignment. And in our spirit, we get disappointed because we forget that just as that boy's father planned it all for him, our father is planning it all for us. And though he does not always tell us why he asks us to do what he asks us to do, he has us in mind and his plan is infinitely better than anything we can know if we could only understand that to trust and obey, there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but just to trust and obey. Amen. Amen.

I hear the music of that song playing in my ears, and some of you do, too. We are beginning this new week with the conclusion of the obedience chapter. Tomorrow, one of the key passages in the Bible on how to be productive, how to be a fruit-bearing Christian, what does it mean to bear spiritual fruit? If you want to read ahead, jump into John 15 and the first eight verses and you'll be ready for the teaching tomorrow as we open our Bibles together.

Thank you so much for listening. Be sure and join us tomorrow for the next edition of Turning Point. . Our message today originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and Dr. David Jeremiah, the Senior Pastor. Would you like to tell us how Turning Point ministers to you?

Please write to us, Turning Point, Post Office Box 3838, San Diego, CA 92163. Or visit our website at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio. Ask for your copy of Jack Countryman's new book, God's Blessings, just for you. It features 100 inspirational readings and reflections and it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smart device or search in your app store for the keywords, Turning Point Ministries.

That's for instant access to our programs and resources. Visit davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio for details. I'm Gary Hoopfleet. Join us tomorrow as we continue the series, The Life God Blesses. That's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. . Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us go to vision.org.au