Sermon Tone Analysis

The Struggle of Obedience

Different examples from my life when obedience was easy and hard

Time when we left everything to plant the church.

We call this our dropping our nets story.

Matthew 4:19-20 “And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”

Even I marvel at what God has done in our lives and in our church, but in that great moment of obedience, many times I don’t share some of the struggles.

Heather’s friend came to town-Lindsie and it was the end of the month and we were just making it day to day trusting in God and we could not even buy chips and dip.

I share that to say even in these times I, Heather and I have had great obedience there are days where obedience is the last thing I want to do.

After that I was like I don’t ever want to rely on God like that again.

God does not just want us to be obedience a couple of times in our life, he wants us to live lives of obedience.

Today we are going to talk about obedience.

Just on the front end some things I thought about obedience where this.

Obedience is a heart issue!

2 Chronicles 16:9 ““For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.

You have acted foolishly in this.

Indeed, from now on you will surely have wars.””

“The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to him.

By God’s help, I aim to be that man.” — D.L. Moody

God is always looking at our hearts.

Today I want to give us some lessons of obedience from Jehosaphat’s life.

The first lesson about obedience that we can learn from Jehosaphat is that:

1. IT (obedience) is not accidental (Chapter 17).

History of kingdom and how it split: South north split and were classified as the north and southern kingdoms.

Or as the Israel (North) and Judah (South).

Once the kingdom split some of the southern kings were good, not all, but basically all the northern kings were evil.

Background

Jehosaphat was growing His kingdom.

He was building up his military in a strong way.

Why was Jehosaphat strong?

Why he obeyed: He worshipped God!

Notice it does not say he was strong because he had built up his army, because he was the king, he was strong because the Lord was with him.

disobedience would have been to seek the Baals.

But it specifically says he chose the way of his father.

Even the people of God can choose to follow the ways of the world.

Jehosaphat was saying no to the Baals and yes to God.

Are you saying yes to God right now?

We were created to worship.

Obedience is tied to what we worship

Many of the reasons we see people do such crazy things is because they are worshipping created things and not the creator.

In Arkansas they worship the Razorbacks:

Let me say that again they worship a PIG!

BUBBA HOG

What do you really worship?

Would this be said about you: THE LORD IS WITH YOUR!

Obedience: He chose it

This was not accidental!

I want to make sure I am clear on this, the reason we can obey is because God first initiated with us.

But because he initiated with us we can choose to obey.

He was not seeking to fit in but to stand out for God.

You cannot stand on the fence.

You either walk in obedience or disobedience.

We want to sit on the fence, but that is impossible.

ISRAEL WAS CAPABLE OF SOME PRETTY EVIL THINGS WHEN THEY WERE NOT WORSHIPPING GOD.

THEIR WERE TIMES IN THEIR HISTORY WHERE THEY WERE LITERALLY OFFERING UP THEIR KIDS IN A FIRE.

Jehosaphat was choosing obedience because he was worshipping.

Idolatry is when we worship something other than God.

Obedience is not accidental

People do not drift toward holiness.

Apart from grace-driven effort, people do not gravitate toward godliness, prayer, obedience to Scripture, faith, and delight in the Lord.

We drift toward compromise and call it tolerance; we drift toward disobedience and call it freedom; we drift toward superstition and call it faith.

We cherish the indiscipline of lost self-control and call it relaxation; we slouch toward prayerlessness and delude ourselves into thinking we have escaped legalism; we slide toward godlessness and convince ourselves we have been liberated.

DA CARSON

The results of obedience: (17:5-6)

The Results of obedience: The Lord Establishes:

God has a role: but here we see man’s role.

His heart was courageous.

He was destroying the very things that people wanted to worship.

People don’t naturally worship God.

What if your idol was a TV-I know that would never happen, but let’s just pretend in America everyon’e idol was a TV.

I just started walking door to door in Shadow Creek and hit people’s TVs with a baseball bat.

That would take some courage and I would probably eventually get shot.

I started walking from house to house destroying peoples TV’s.

Jehosaphat was removing the very thing people were worshipping and these people were not happy about it.

If you want to live a life of obedience it takes courage!

It takes courage to make time for God on a regular basis.

It takes courage to live for Jesus in your home.

It takes courage to share your faith.

It takes courage…I could go on and on.

Don’t you want your life to be established by God.

There are so many times I want to try to establish my own life and fight in my own strength.

But if we obey, God will establish us.

Are you allowing God to establish your life?

The Results of obedience: Revival

This revival began to spread like wild fire.

We see discipleship take place-

We see that power of one

Right now we see a generation in the USA turning away from God.

The stats are dismal, even kids growing up in the church are leaving the church.

But here is the reality, we are also one generation away from a revival.

And God can use one person to spark that.

It can be the king, but it can also be your or me, a mom or a dad.

Illustration: Libby Merritt on Heather’s volleyball team!

Michael and I talking to J-

Do you believe that God can use your life to spark a movement of God right where you are at.

It may be one or two people.

It maybe the whole city of Pearland.

It may be the whole world.

Application:

IS there something God is calling you to be obedience to right now that you are not?