Obey Radically 2

We started Obey Radically last week and looked at these points. Radical Obedience Doesn’t Question! Abraham didn’t question when God told him to sacrifice Isaac. He just obeyed. Radical Obedience Takes Risks like Rahab did when she hid the spies, Radical Obedience Can Get You In Trouble like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego which got them thrown into the furnace but that’s where Jesus is in the midst of, and Jesus showed us that

Radical Obedience means It’s Always His Will First!

Today we are looking at some of the principles we need to do to obey radically.

James 1:19–27 ESV

19 Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. 21 Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. 24 For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. 25 But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. 26 If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this person’s religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

To Radically Obey You Have to Be Doers of the Word!

We all know what we need to do in various areas of our lives but in many cases that’s all we do. We know! For instance, most of us know the difference healthy food and junk food. We know to eat healthy we need to cut salt and sugar intake, eat more greens and trim the fat off a lot of meats and stay away from fried and deep fried foods. We know that but not many of us are doers of it. We know we should exercise regularly but being a couch potato is so much easier. Being a doer of what we learn is much harder. It’s the same with the Word of God. We know what we must do and yet we fall back on the fact that we are imperfect and try to magnify the little we do right. God doesn’t say to do that. He says be doers of the word otherwise we can really deceive ourselves into thinking we are doing good and don’t judge us. We need to check if we are doing the word, consistently getting better at it or are we staying at a comfortable level for us and justifying it. Radical obedience keeps doing and not just staying at the same level.

Luke 6:46–49 AMP

46 Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not [practice] what I tell you? 47 For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like: 48 He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock. 49 But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great.

Radical Obedience =Surviving Life’s Storms!

If we want to get stronger to survive the storms of life, we need to keep obeying God’s word and dig deeper. To me that means we never stop digging through the dirt and sand in our lives until we reach the God standard and build our lives on the Rock of Ages, Jesus. We might have reached the rock and been solid in some things, but there are other things in our lives that still have sand and dirt over them. We might have hit the rock concerning being saved but there still dirt and sand covering the rock of jealousy or hurt feelings, or a past failure, or forgiving instead of holding a grudge, or always remembering the past hurts and who was “responsible” for it. Radical Obedience causes us to dig all that junk up until we reach the rock. We dig by not believing we are always right but by becoming doers of the word in every area we lack. We must keep digging.

1 Samuel 15:1–26 NKJV

1 Samuel also said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over His people, over Israel. Now therefore, heed the voice of the words of the Lord. 2 Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. 3 Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.’ ” 4 So Saul gathered the people together and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand foot soldiers and ten thousand men of Judah. 5 And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and lay in wait in the valley. 6 Then Saul said to the Kenites, “Go, depart, get down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them. For you showed kindness to all the children of Israel when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. 7 And Saul attacked the Amalekites, from Havilah all the way to Shur, which is east of Egypt. 8 He also took Agag king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. 9 But Saul and the people spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling to utterly destroy them. But everything despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed. 10 Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, 11 “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night. 12 So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal.” 13 Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” 14 But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” 15 And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” 16 Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak on.” 17 So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel? 18 Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ 19 Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?” 20 And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. 21 But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.” 22 So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, And to heed than the fat of rams. 23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.” 24 Then Saul said to Samuel, “I have sinned, for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord and your words, because I feared the people and obeyed their voice. 25 Now therefore, please pardon my sin, and return with me, that I may worship the Lord.” 26 But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.”

Radical Obedience is Better Than Sacrificing!

I think in our society we have adopted the issue of seniority. If you have so many years in a company or as a teacher or as a trade, you have established seniority. There is a tendency to justify not working as hard because we have seniority. We’ve done our time sacrificing. There are times that we are a little proud about all that we’ve sacrificed. That cannot work in the kingdom of God. I’ve heard people say and have thought this myself that I sacrifice being at the meetings, being at church, helping others when I could’ve gone beach. I’ve sacrificed for years. But, if we have that attitude we could miss being radically obedient talking about our sacrifices. I have to always remind myself that obedience is better that sacrifice and being disobedient to God is rebellion to Him and rebellion is like the sin of witchcraft. Wow, much better to obey and get off the sacrifice bandwagon.

1 Peter 1:13–16 NIV

13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”

Radical Obedience Causes Holiness!

We are to go forward not backwards. I found in my life if I always have to talk about the past it’s because nothing is going on in the present. What I mean is this, we don’t go back to the attitudes we had in the past. We might have stopped drinking and smoking and fought for a good marriage which is all good. But we could still base our lives on the same attitudes we’ve had we just changed the wording. When we start obeying radically, our past attitudes start to fade and holiness begins to develop in our lives. We become holy because He is holy. God would never tell us to be something we aren’t able to do. We become holy by obeying radically.