Amazed: Obedience
Well, we’re going to continue on our series called Amazed, today, and today’s title is called, “Amazed at Obedience.” Didn’t get any “amens” – I mean come on now. Amazed at obedience, because it is a joy.
I want to start by telling you a little story about our family. Most of you guys know we have four kids and they range now from 24 years old to 15 years old, but say when they were – say Abby was 11, Daniel was about 2, we thought, “Hey we’re going to have a great, family kind of getaway. We’re going to go to the beach for the day, down on Galveston Island.” Now Laura and I grew up in the area. She grew up in Houston, I grew up in Beaumont, Texas, and so we had been to Galveston many times, and we were excited to relive the memories. Just kind of like what we had experienced, and we’re thinking, “This is going to be awesome, I mean, out in a beach and sand and making sand castles. I mean, this is going to be a great memory.” And so we drove down to Laura’s mom’s home in Houston, spent the night there. We get up the next morning and we are headed to the beach. We get everybody strapped in – a little whining, griping and complaining going on as we were dragging them out early, but as we were pulling out eventually the whining increases, and somebody hits another kid and we do the old threat, “If you do that again, we’re going to pull over!” And they gave us great reason to pull over in about 10 minutes, and so we got everybody and we lovingly disciplined everybody, made sure we knew the family rules were all back on the train. Soon as we get back all in the van, then somebody else says, “Daddy, I gotta go to the bathroom, I gotta go to the bathroom.” I say, “Hey you need to hold it.” “I can’t hold it – I’m going to go in my pants. I need to go now. We need to stop.” We pull over, we stop at the bathroom, then somebody else the next time we get going is hungry, and somebody else is mad at another one. I mean, it was a zoo getting down there. It should have taken about an hour and a half – it took two and a half hours. So two and a half hours – we pull up to Galveston, and at least in those days you could drive your van out on the beach, and I’d already pictured this: The minivan just right there by the ocean, wind blowing through, a little pup tent, building sand castles together. I mean, this was going to be awesome. So we get there, we open up the van, we do the deal, and all of a sudden – the wind’s blowing, and Daniel says, “I got sand in my eyes, I got sand in my eyes! I hate the beach! I hate the beach!” So I’m getting some water – “Laura, we need to get the sand out of his eyes,” and all of a sudden, Caleb who’s six is running into the surf, up to his neck. We’re not sure if he can even swim, and so I said, “You take him!” And I run to the beach, rescue him, drag him back – “Don’t you ever do that, don’t you run…” So we got that going on, and I mean, that’s about how the day went. I mean when we got out the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, of course, there was sand in the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
“There’s sand in my peanut butter jelly sandwich! I don’t want my sandwich!”
“You’ll eat your sandwich, and you’ll like it.”
This great adventure, this wonderful day is going south, and so after we had gone in and out of the water, and now the water’s salty and sticky, and we don’t like the water, and we said, “Ok, we’re going to go over to the water slide.” At that time in Galveston, it was just two slides, and we went down, it was within walking distance. We said we were going to go over to the water slides. We get to the water slides, and two of them hadn’t been on water slides before, two had been. So two think this is wonderful, the other two think we’re trying to kill them. And another kind of a zoo-ey, traumatic time there. We get to 5 o’clock, we’re wiped out, man. And we’re just thinking, we’ve got to salvage this deal, so I said, “Ok, we’re going to Wendy’s.” It’s throwdown. Burgers, fries, and Frostys for everybody. We’ve got to get a win here. And so we go to Wendy’s, we do the deal – the burgers, fries, and we get the Frostys, and so alright, we pack everybody up in the car, it’s probably 7 o’clock by now, it starts getting a little dark. One falls asleep, another falls asleep, and I’m thinking to myself, “We could have had such a great day. I mean, I saw it, Lord, I saw it! Why can’t these kids just obey and trust us? Why couldn’t they just follow the instructions? We were going to have so much stinkin’ fun, but they blew it. They didn’t obey!” And it seemed to me as I’m kind of complaining to God, in my mind, that God’s speaking back to me, “Well, that’s what it’s like living with you, s]Son.” I have such a great adventure for you. I have so many great plans. You just wrestle with me all the time. Why don’t you just go with it, why don’t you just go with me and let me lead you? My plans are only good, and never for evil.”
In the book of John, Jesus encourages us how to walk out this flow, this life that He has called us to – to be his sons and daughters, enjoying the adventure in obeying Him gladly. John 15, starting in verse 9, “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in My love.” This is Jesus speaking. “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full. This is my commandment that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one would lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends, if you do what I command you.” Verse 16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you would ask the Father in my name, He may give it to you.” Awesome. God has incredible plans for us. He has a joy that the Bible describes as, “unspeakable” for those who love and obey Him.
So let me put a little context on this particular passage and go back to the Old Testament. We had a people called the Israelites, the children of Israel. They were called the people of God. They had been chosen by God, and they had been delivered from bondage by God. He had a purpose and a plan that they through their lives may glorify Jesus in the earth. And so on their way to the Promise Land, in this place that would be called the wilderness, Moses goes up to the mountain and he gets these family rules from God. God’s saying, “Look, I know these people, I know how to help them, and I know how to cover them in this journey and so I’m giving you, Moses, these tablets. Now go give them to the people.” And here were the family rules for the children of Israel, went something like this:
You shall have no other gods before me.
You shall not make idols.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Honor your father and your mother.
You shall not murder.
You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not steal.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
You shall not covet.
This is called, obviously, the Ten Commandments. And the Ten Commandments were not given by God in order to constrain or just simply for restraint for the children of Israel, it was for their good, so that they wouldn’t hurt each other, so that they would honor God and fulfill God’s destiny. These basic, kind of rules that were laid out by God for their good, and not for their destruction. And we find that true as parents, right? We all have family rules, and usually as parents, most of the family rules are for their kids’ good. You only want to help them.
When our kids were about the ages that I talked about, that middle stage of their younger years, we lived on Cumberland Avenue, and Cumberland was a pretty busy street. We had an incredible front yard. The kids just loved the front yard, and there was this great tree, and they loved climbing that tree out front, and so we said, “Alright, hey, we want you guys to be able to play out in the front yard, but the only deal is – you can’t step in the street.” So our only rule is, you guys can play outside as long as you want out in the front yard, even though there’s no fence, as long as you don’t step in the street.” Well, you know how that goes. So we let them outside, and we’re looking out the window, and one looks over and puts his foot in the street, looks around, puts the other foot, jumps back, looks at the other one and laughs. I walk out the door. “Come with me.” Took care of that one. Each one would try and attempt to go into the street, the very thing we said not to as if we were doing something evil to them. Now why didn’t we want them to step into the street? We didn’t want them to get hit by a car. We love them, we want them to survive life. So, just don’t step in the stupid street. The other thing is, if you have the boundary of the street, this is a great front yard! If you’ll just enjoy the front yard, and not worry about the street, you’ll be just fine. Well, eventually after the consequences of their sin, they got to enjoy the front yard. They would even say as adults today, they would say, “That was the best front yard. We loved that. You remember playing in those trees? You remember being a part of that?”
God has boundaries for us, and consequences if we break those boundaries. Not because He dislikes us, but He’s actually only has our good in mind that we may be able to enjoy the journey. Well, I’ve often wondered, “What was it about the children of Israel? What couldn’t they just get it together? Why couldn’t they just follow God?” Well, there’s a little passage right after Moses gets the Ten Commandments, and it says that the mountain that Moses just came off of with God is smoking and shaking and all this stuff, Moses said, “Hey come near, children, God wants to speak to you.” They’re like, “No, whoa, no, no, no. You speak to God, and He’ll tell you what to do. We’re afraid of Him. We’re not messing with Him.” And so what they did is they said, “Moses, you hear from God, you tell us what to do, and then we’ll obey, because we don’t want to hear from God ourselves.” You see, ultimately, the reason they were not able to live out the Ten Commandments is because they didn’t know God. They didn’t know God, they weren’t hearing from God themselves. They were relying on someone else telling them what they should and shouldn’t do. They weren’t meeting with God, so they had no power to be Godly. It takes God to be Godly. It takes Him at work in us to walk out whatever He’s called us to do. It takes God to be Godly and they didn’t want to meet with God, and therefore they missed the power that they needed to walk out the will of God.
Well, that’s why Jesus came. Because we couldn’t do it on our own, we couldn’t walk out the journey that God called us to on our own. And that’s why Jesus came. John 1:16&17, “For of His fullness (speaking of Jesus) we have all received a grace upon grace. The law was given through Moses, but grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. Jesus comes in order to set us free from the power of sin, but also to give us power to have victory in the journey. Grace, by definition, is the love, pleasure and favor of God toward undeserving people. It also means, “the power of God to do the will of God.” Jesus came to be grace to you, love and pleasure and favor even though you didn’t deserve it, to then give grace and power to walk out who He was, which was truth. He didn’t diminish the truth. The Ten Commandments are like the law of gravity. You break them, you’re going to have problems. You go with it, you’re going to flourish. It’s the law of gravity at work, but He said, “I have come, not to diminish truth, but to uplift truth.” But actually to then step in to your world and walk with you so that you can actually do it. He called us to be with Him in order that we might walk out His ways. You’re not on your own, man. You’re not on your own.
Well, let’s get back to our original passage, John 15, starting in verse 9, He reiterates it this way, “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in my love.” This is Jesus talking to His disciples. He lived the life that He called them to live. He knew that they couldn’t do it, that they couldn’t get rid of sin themselves in their waywardness, so He allowed Himself to be nailed to a cross, taking your sin and my sin, and their sin upon Himself. He died, He was buried. The Father reached into the grave and raised Him from the dead. He appeared to hundreds of people proclaiming the Kingdom of God as the risen Lord, and then He ascended to the Father as they watched. He now sits at the right hand of God, and He literally has made for you to received mercy and grace on a daily basis. On a daily basis, He makes Himself available by the power of the Holy Spirit for you to walk with God, not grasping for God. You are loved by God. He has become everything that you ever needed in order to be freed from the power of sin, to walk into the grace that he’s provided for you. Jesus is enough. And He says that little phrase, “Just as the Father has loved me, I have loved you.” You could not be loved any more than Jesus loves you because He says, “I’m doing it just like the Father does.” It’s so pure and so right. It is so now and available for anyone who calls on the Lord Jesus. Our of His great love, He calls us to walk with Him.
Well, the next phrase, John 15:10, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love. Just as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” If you keep His commandments you’ll abide in His love. We’ve got a relationship going on. It’s already been solidified – He loves us. The question is if whether we love Him. See Laura and I, when we agreed to the covenant of marriage, we said we are in for life, so there’s a covenant between us. But if I am unfaithful to her, if I kind of do my own thing and don’t get in sync with her, then it’s a one-sided covenant. It’s her unfaithfulness or my unfaithfulness, or vice versa. To have a relationship of love, to have joy in our relationship, to have joy in our marriage, strength, we both have to be in it. She’s loving, and I’m responding, I’m loving and she’s responding. It is a mutual relationship of love and response. That’s what brings life to any relationship. And in this invitation from Jesus, He’s saying, “If you love me, you do my commands. My ways are only for your good so come on, man, get with the program, go with the flow, so we can walk together.”
When I came as a new believer to Baylor, in the early 1980s, I was looking for people who knew Jesus, and so as I would meet people who said they knew Jesus, or they went to church, I would get to know them, and I would here a phrase like this – it was a little like a duplicitous lifestyle - I’d say, “Does John really know Jesus?”
They’d say, “He loves the Lord, He just sleeps around with his girlfriend on the weekends.”
“He loves the Lord, He just gets blasted, you know, every other weekend.”
“He loves the Lord, he just lies like crazy. You just can’t trust him. But He loves the Lord.”
And I thought, “You know, I’m no theologian or anything, but I know the Lord loves him, but I don’t think he loves the Lord. Because if he loved the Lord, he’d do what the Lord did. He would want to do what Jesus is doing. He wouldn’t want to do the opposite of what Jesus was doing. Why would he want to do this, if Jesus was over here? Don’t tell me he loves the Lord, but the Lord does love him.”
Now let me get a little balance here. Of course, his intent could have been, “I want to do good, but I’m not doing good. Nobody’s perfect. But to blatantly say, “He loves the Lord, but he lives in absolute sin,” is not true. The love of God is a response to the love that we have received from Him. And when we walk away from other loves, we affirm, “I’m with You. I’m with You, Jesus.” Now, again, we can be saved by grace and still be sinning our eyeballs out. This isn’t about your salvation, this is about your walk with God and your fruitfulness on this earth, and your journey whether you’re going to have it or not. Jesus offers himself not just for salvation, but for a walk of life. A different life. And when we love Him, we obey His commands. When we obey His commands, we abide in that love, there’s a hand in glove thing going on, and we’re in the flow with Him. And when you think about it that way, I like to say it like this, “When Jesus is a person, then sin is conquerable. When I’ve got a relationship with a person named Jesus, then sin is conquerable.” When I’m not walking with a person, I’m just trying to do good, it never works. When Jesus is a person, sin is conquerable. 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you but which is common to man, and God is faithful (So we’re all struggling, right?), but God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, with the temptation will provide the way of escape so that you will be able to endure it.” I can walk with Jesus. When I call on His name, there is power. When I call on His name – two things cannot occupy the same space. Whatever I’m being tempted by, it can’t rule me, when Jesus is ruling me. When Jesus is a person, sin is conquerable.
Through the years, I’ve shared a story that really changed my whole perspective of this, and I want to share it again this morning. It’s about my daughter, Lauren, and when she was a little girl, she sucked her thumb. It was kind of cute – when you’re one and you’re two, but then as she started to talk and suck her thumb, we thought, “OK – we’re going to need to help her out here, and we started doing everything we could to help her quit sucking her thumb.” It was such a comfort, it was such a habit, that she couldn’t get rid of it. No matter what we did she didn’t seem motivated enough to stop it. Well, she went to school in kindergarten – or first grade, and came back and she said, “Daddy, they don’t suck their thumbs at school. I’m going to quit sucking my thumb at school.” I thought, “Well, good, a little peer pressure – however you’ve got to get there. So she would not suck her thumb at school, but as soon as Laura would pick her up, she would get in the car, she would stick it in. She was making up for lost time. Then, especially at night, when she would lay down to sleep, that was her comfort to go to sleep. We were going through that first year of school, and she had to have her first big dental appointment. She goes to the dentist, and the dentist takes an X-ray of her mouth, and sees because of the thumb sucking, there’s beginning to be a shape around her mouth that would cause permanent change in her mouth, permanent damage. The dentist literally told her that, and she said, “Lauren, do you suck your thumb?”
“Yes ma’am.”
And she said, “Now listen, if you keep sucking your thumb, I want you to look at this X-ray, it’s going to cause irreparable damage. It’s going to cause damage that you can’t change. You have to quit sucking your thumb.”
I mean tears…Laura was there, I wasn’t there. Laura called me and said, “You better get home when I get home, she’s upset.” And so walking in, Lauren falls in my arms, crying, “Daddy, irreparable damage, irreparable damage, Daddy!” She didn’t even know what it was. It just sounded so bad! Irreparable damage, Daddy. I said, “Baby, what happened?” “She said if I keep sucking my thumb my teeth are going to be messed up the rest of my life, Daddy! What are we going to do, help me, daddy, help me.” And I said, “Well, let’s go to Jesus, sweetie, let’s pray.” And so we pray. We said, “Jesus, what are you saying, how can you help us here?” And I did this, I asked her, “What do you think Jesus is saying?” She said, “Well, Daddy, I think I can quit sucking my thumb during the day, and even all night, but I don’t think I can go to sleep without sucking my thumb. Daddy, I need your help. I got an idea.” I said, “Baby, what is it?” She said, “Will you lay down next to me and hold my arms down until I fall asleep?” I thought, “Oh!” “Yes, sweetie.” So that night, we lay down, I pray for her, I hold her arms down, her body just trembling, just shaking, crying. Deep sobs, and after an hour and a half or so, she just wore herself out, you know. She fell asleep in my arms, and I slipped out, just in tears myself half the time. The next night, it was about an hour and 15 minutes. The next night, about an hour holding her arms down. The next night it was 45 minutes, 30 minutes. By about day 5 or 6, I remember praying for her and I looked over and she was asleep. She’s never sucked her thumb again – as far as I know. How did she get through it? How did she get through that habit, that pain, that place of comfort that was not best for her? How did she get through it?
First of all, she realized, “If I don’t stop this, it’s going to cause damage in my life.” The second thing was, “My daddy has power to pull me through because I don’t have power on my own.” When we realize that what we’re doing is hurting us, as much as it is somebody else, and that Jesus has power and He has come by the Holy Spirit to be right beside us, and He literally will hold us through the journey, we know we can make it out of anything. Every sin is conquerable; every addiction can be broken when Jesus is a person, who by the Holy Spirit is by our side. Call on His name! Two things cannot occupy the same space. When Jesus is ruling and reigning, there is power for everything in our lives. The love of God and the obedience of His people creates a flow of joy. In verse eleven, it says, “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that my joy may be made full.” Jesus is saying – “Look, when we’re flowing together, man this is what you’re made for. I’m not keeping you from stuff that you think you’re missing out on, I’m giving you everything you’ve longed for – a flow of life with me.” No guilt, no shame. All this stuff’s broken off, you’re not living fearing that you’ll be found out. You’re free, man, when Jesus is central.
Let’s go on because the wisdom of Jesus once again is going to show up in John 15, verse 12, “This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one would lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.” So now he said, “If you love me, you’ll do my commands, and now He says you’re my friends if you do what I command because what He’s relating this is to is when you are loving people the way that I love people, that is not only being in the flow, but that’s what you’re made for. So in the wisdom of Jesus, He realized that to keep you free from sin, to keep you free from going your own way, not only was He going to be present and powerful, but then He was going to give you a mission, so that you’d be about your Father’s business, so you couldn’t sit around and think about yourself all day. Isn’t He wise? I mean you can’t think about yourself, and going your own weird way, if you’re serving and loving other people around you. It is a safety net, and it is a part of who you’re made to be, and actually, it is sin when we are not serving others. It is as much sin when we’re not serving others, as it is another particular vice or garbage we got going on, because God intended you to be a vehicle of his grace.
This last week, I had the privilege of doing a funeral, of a dear friend named Chris Weatherly. Chris and Becky were involved with us for years here at Antioch, the last two years they lived in Fort Worth. Chris is a dear, loving man. Chris would always stop for the one. He’d always look you in the eye, tilt his head, and say, “Hey, wild man, what’s Jesus doing? Hey, wild man, what’s God doing?” And we found out – I always thought I was the only wild man, but everyone was the wild man. They had a very close family. Chris loved really, really well. And it was wonderful to be able to do one of those kind of funerals where his kids get up, and friends and family get up and they just talk about the ways that he loved them and cared about them, and invested in their lives. But, before his death, I went up to Fort Worth, I was with the family, and different friends were coming and talking about, just saying their last words before he went to be with the Lord, and one particular young lady came in the room, a young adult now. She came in with her mom, and she just came unglued, and said, “Hey, I had to make this special trip, I had to tell you face to face how much you’ve impacted my life. She said when I was 16, you know my dad left us. He said he was a godly man, he said he was a faithful man, he said he’d never leave us, and he did.” She said, “I was devastated, and you and Becky came over and you talked with us, and I remember me saying, ‘Is there a faithful man out there? Will any man ever be faithful?’ And I remember you whispered in my ear to meet you at Starbucks the next morning, and you were faithful to meet with me every week for 12 months. Mr. Weatherly, I don’t know if you know this, but that saved my life. You were the faithful man that I so desperately needed in my most vulnerable place.”
Well, not only is the mom crying, the girl crying, Chris can’t talk, can’t respond back, tears. But, his wife didn’t even know that he had done it. He would meet this friend of the family, no one in the world knew, but God knew, and he would just be faithful and loving to her. Do you know, you guys, there are people in your workplace, people in your neighborhood, there’s people everywhere who just need somebody to listen, need somebody to just be faithful to them. Everybody wants it, but very few are going to ask for it. As we are laying down our lives for others, we are not only being like Jesus, but it keeps us out of trouble. We all knew Chris. He wasn’t a perfect man, but we said, “Chris, because you love people so well, that keeps you out of trouble, bro.” There is that divine wisdom of God to make us hands and feet so that we are busy with righteousness, instead of unrighteousness. Well, sometimes people come back to me when I talk about obedience and following Jesus and those kind of things, and they say, “Look man, my deal is in private, my sin doesn’t affect anybody else.” And first of all, let me just say, it affects your relationship with Jesus. He is not giving in to what you’re doing. But the other thing is, whatever you do privately does affect other people. It does. It eventually comes out somehow, and it affects others people in a way that God didn’t intend for them to be affected.
A few years ago, Laura and I were going to a conference in Florida, and I was excited about getting a break. I was tired, it had been several months of work, and I was like, “We’re going to go to this conference, it’s going to be great.” And we get that great announcement over the loudspeaker, “Mr. and Mrs. Seibert, if you’ll come to the front, you’ve been bumped up to First Class.” Glory to God. God has heard my prayer. He knows I’m tired. The Lord has given me a space and a place to enjoy me for this moment. So we get First Class tickets, and we’re in the first two seats. In this particular plane there were 12 people in First Class. I guess there were more people than that – 16 people in First Class. And I’m just getting situated, settling in, thinking how this is going to be awesome, and in walks in, at the very last minute, a couple. And they’re both drunk. And they’re not only drunk, but they’re talking trash to each other, talking about their intimate life, and they’re arguing, and they’re hugging each other, and it’s just a crazy scene. They plop down, and everybody in First Class is putting on their headphones, and they’re really loud. They’re not just talking, they’re really loud. So we take off, and I’m thinking, surely the Steward – there’ s a guy up there taking care of folks. Surely the Steward will say something! But he says nothing. And I look over at Laura, and I say, “That wimp – he won’t say anything.” So now I’m reading, and Laura says, “You need to say something. You need to do something about this.”
“Honey, what am I going to do?”
“You need to do something.” And then she says, “If you don’t, I will.”
I said, “Ok, I’ll do it.”
So I’m sitting there thinking, “What am I going to do?” I mean these guys, they’re still going at it. Everybody is distracted by what’s going on. And so, I’m on the front seat, I get off the seat, on my knees, I lean over to this couple, and I said, “Hi! I couldn’t help but notice that you guys were having a little conflict. I’m a pastor, I love to pray for people, is there any way I can pray for you?” Everybody in First Class, now they want to know what’s going on. So I’m on my knees, leaning over this seat, having this conversation, and the lady says, “You know growing up, I went to a Catholic school, I haven’t been real in touch with God recently,” and she said, “Actually I’ve been drinking every day for the last month. My mom died a month ago. She was my best friend.” She said, “I don’t know what to do with myself. And I got him. I don’t know what to do with him.” And so I said, “Well, tell me a little about it,” and we get to talking, and we go back and forth, and I just start talking to her about Jesus. I said, “That’s why Jesus came. That’s actually why I turned around. Jesus cares about you, He cares about what’s going on in your life and He wants to bring you peace in all this turmoil. We talked for a long time. I prayed for them. I sensed the peace of God, and so I prayed for them. They nestled in their seats, and they fall asleep. She falls asleep immediately, he falls asleep. I turned around and looked at Laura – “Ok, I did it.” I sat there, opened my book back up, and this lady leans across the aisle and says, “That was awesome! I’m a Christian! I can’t believe you did that! Way to go!” I was like, “Th-thank you.” You know it’s a little awkward, and then this big dude gets up to go to the bathroom and he says, “That’s alright, dude,” and he walks by. Before it was over, everyone had personally congratulated me or encouraged me in some way. And what this messed up couple didn’t realize is their sin was affecting all of us, right? But, you know what, somebody needed to say something. When it says we are to lay down our lives for one another, it means that we’re to get involved. To not passively watch destruction going on in other’s people’s lives, to step in lovingly and graciously, and we extend that hand of Jesus. Because you know what, ultimately, people want out of sin, but they just don’t know it. They want Jesus, they just don’t know it yet. By taking just a moment, just an awkward few moments, loving these people, not only did these guys get affected, but everyone around, I guarantee still tells the story. Everybody is affected when somebody obeys. And everybody is affected when somebody disobeys.
Jesus has called us to be his people, to walk in His ways. He’s called us to be His instruments of grace by loving and reaching out to those around us. And ultimately what happens when our hearts are in line, in love with Him, wanting to honor Him with our lives, trusting and believing that He is the answer to everything that we long for, when Jesus is present we have victory over sin, we have ability and power to help other people, and ultimately we walk into the destiny He has for us. Again John 15:16, “You didn’t choose me, but I chose you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain.” God has a divine purpose for everybody in this room. When we align our hearts in love with Him, and when we align our lives to obediently follow Him, not because we have to but because we want to – when everything is clicking in our relationship with God, you can’t not hear God for His leadership in your life. We’re all wanting to know: Who do I marry? Who don’t I marry? Or what job do I take or not take? Or what do I do as a vocation? Or how do I raise these kids? Or how do I deal with this problem? Or all the things that when the pipes are clear between you God, there’s always confidence in His leadership of our lives. The Jesus that called you to purity, the Jesus that called you to Himself, the Jesus that called you to serve, when you’re in a flow with Him, it’s almost impossible to miss the will of God. The will of God is not elusive. If anyone wants to tell you, it’s God. If anyone wants to lead you, it’s Him. He has a great adventure for you. Quit resisting and wrestling! Just give it all up, go with the flow, and let Him lead you in every decision that you need, because He promises that it will be full of joy, and full of great fruit. It’s all about Jesus, man. When Jesus is central, life flows righteously, and there is joy in the journey. Let’s stand together.
