Sermon:
Today’s Text: Exodus 1:6-14


You cannot stay where you are and go with God in obedience to His will. - Henry Blackaby



GOD CALLS YOU TO HIS BEST

God speaks to you with the purpose of communicating His will, and when He reveals His will He is showing you His best. God does not speak to you so you can pass the baton to someone else. The information you receive is given as a personal invitation to embark on a quest for His best.

The corpus of this sermon series will not be devoted to knowing and understanding God’s will. Plenty of books already exist on the subject matter of learning to comprehend the will of God. Quest for His Best is dedicated to helping you “follow” and “pursue” His will with all your heart once God’s desire is made known.


OBEDIENCE LEADS YOU TO HIS BEST

I wish to clarify that pursuing God should have nothing to do with working and putting forth effort to earn His favor, for God already loves you unconditionally (Eph 2:8-9; 1 Jn 4:10). You are to pursue Him because of your love for Him.

Just as a person seeks to woo and romance his or her spouse out of sheer love, you must seek to romance the Lord. You quest after Him because you want to know and love Him more (Mk 12:30). If you love the Lord you will want to be obedient to Him when He calls. The Bible says, “And this is love, that we walk after his commandments” (2 Jn 1:6; cf. Jn 14:15, 21, 23; 1 Jn 3:18, 5:3).

Your love for God is manifested through your obedience to walk by faith. We read, “Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb 11:6).

The overflow of your love relationship should lead you to a walk of obedience, and through obedience you enter God’s best for your life. The Lord told Israel, “If you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God . . . [I] will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God” (Dt 28: 1-2).

Walking in obedience will lead you to God’s best, so you need to turn that walk into an all-out pursuit and diligently seek Him! Be certain not to spend time on the apathetic side of life, for the Bible teaches that failing to walk in obedience leads to missing His best (Heb 4:9-11).

In the Old Testament knowing the Lord and reaping the rewards and benefits of being one of His children was a privilege granted to the seed of Abraham; however God’s best was far from automatic. As a Hebrew, one still had to live in obedience to the Lord - and God expects nothing less from you!


THE TEMPTATION OF SETTLING DOWN

In pursuit of God, Israel was to set her sights on the land of Canaan (Gn 17:5b-6, 8), the land of promise; however there were many distractions to questing after God’s best.

The first distraction is known as the “middle ground.” Nichole Nordeman elaborates, “The gate is wide; the road is paved in moderation. The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in. Welcome to the middle ground.” The middle ground is a place of little resistance and highly guarded against change.

Whenever you place personal comfort ahead of God you become distracted from pursuing His best. When this happens you go into hibernation mode and progress comes to a standstill;