Living Outloud: When Obedience Hurts

We share a raw update on Kelsey’s health and how a disrupted plan forced us to face the cost of obedience. 2 Chronicles 25 gave us language for the tension between pushing through and choosing rest, and what wholehearted trust looks like when money and momentum are at stake.

• update on Kelsey’s ruptured disc and recovery
• how plans for rest turned into crisis management
• the tension between two faithful choices
• Amaziah’s sunk cost and the prophet’s counsel
• “God is able” versus expecting payback
• naming the loss you fear to obey
• examples where obedience cost something
• the danger of partial, yes-but obedience
• pairing gratitude with obedience to guard the heart
• practical steps to apply 2 Chronicles 25 today

If you’ve got some time today, get back into the Bible, check out the whole chapter, 2 Chronicles 25, read this chunk of scripture and ask God, God, what do you see in my heart? Search my heart, oh God, see if there’s any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting, like David prayed

At outloudbible.com, you can find free resources to help you study the Bible. And while you’re there, send us a message to say hi, or start a conversation about having us at your church or event. 

If Outloud Bible has been a valuable part of your understanding of the Bible, please consider supporting the ministry by visiting outloudbible.com.

Chapters

• 0:22 Solo Update And Health News
• 2:44 Plans Upended And Provision
• 4:07 Faithful Options In Tension
• 5:58 Amaziah’s Dilemma In 2 Chronicles 25
• 9:31 The Cost Of Obedience
• 12:28 God Is Able, Not Obligated
• 15:27 Trading Loss For God’s Provision
• 17:22 Wholeheartedness Versus Yes-But Obedience
• 19:31 Gratitude After Obedience
• 21:00 Final Encouragement And Scripture Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:11

Hey, welcome back to the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast. This is Mike. Normally, my wife Kelsey would be here joining me in this conversation, this once-a-week episode of Living Out Loud, where we take a look at something we read earlier in the week on this podcast and just drill down a little bit, go a little bit deeper, and see what there is for us to not just hear, but do. How do we have the Bible change our lives in this particular area? But as I mentioned last week, Kelsey has been a bit incapacitated lately, unfortunately. We did learn, unfortunately, that her back pain and leg pain is a result of a ruptured disc in her spine. And so that's a little bit of clarity anyway, but we're we're anticipating a longer road of recovery. So you can continue to pray for us if uh if that comes to mind. We believe God can heal uh ultimately when we all get to heaven and we're made totally healed and new. Anything before that is just asking him to do it ahead of time. It may be by his direct touch, it may be through someone who is an image bearer of the Lord with skills and uh experience in this. And I don't know. I don't know how God's going to uh to work on this. But in the meantime, it's best if Kelsey rests, and so I'll be running solo here for a bit, if you'll join me. Maybe one of these conversations I can get a microphone set up and over Kelsey on the couch so she can join in on the conversation. I know she desperately wants to. She looks forward to joining us again uh as soon as she can. I'll tell you what, I'd like to open the curtain here into some of our thinking lately related to this situation and also related to what we've been reading here in Second Chronicles. I think I mentioned briefly last week that uh last month I had kind of front-loaded the month to be able to clear out the last half of the month, two, two and a half weeks, so not have to keep up with the regular recording schedule I worked ahead and really kind of carved out a good two to three-week window where we wouldn't have to do the regular week in, week out work and instead focus on some rest, some time with family, and uh some time to kind of pause and cast some vision for the future of Outloud Bible. And uh it uh unfortunately that that time, that carved out time, was not spent resting so much as it was uh dealing with Kelsey's injury and um and helping her, helping her try to find any level of comfort in. And it became much more that than restful. And uh, but you know, I I saw that at the time as a provision of like, hey, God, like I carved out the time for a reason that I thought was a good one, but apparently I carved out the time to be able to better uh be attentive to Kelsey and and help her through this difficult, painful time. Okay, great. You know, sometimes we have our plans, but then God changes those or redefines those, and that's fine. But the problem started to be when we got to the end of that time, Kelsey's still in pain. Kelsey still can't get up and walk around or sit for more than a minute, and it's starting to be time to have to get back to working on things. And so now the time that I had carved out to be a very convenient time to not work on things, now it's the it's bleeding into beyond that. So now it's like, okay, now it's now it's inconvenient again to have to deal with these things. Now not only is there just some weekly work to get back into, but there's also running into some speaking engagements that Kelsey had, a couple projects that we were going to be working on, and uh and now that starts to mean income and connections with people that we're gonna be losing. And so I don't know if you've felt something like that before, but for us it was like, okay, I was okay if you were just taking our vacation time, if you were taking our rest time, but now it's starting to press on our income time and our work time. And I was basically like, okay, God, I was ready to be inconvenienced in the way that I was ready to be inconvenienced for, but I'm not ready to be inconvenienced this way. Right, how ridiculous is that? And so we had to make some choices, and they it was difficult because they they both felt faithful. It felt faithful to both go ahead and try to make these projects and speaking engagements happen in the middle of pain, trusting, hey, God could heal us uh or God could give us the strength we need to be able to move forward with these things even in the midst of pain. That felt like a faithful thing to do, to hey, he provided for us, let's go get that provision. Even if we're in pain, he can help us do it, and we're gonna trust that we can go get the provision and and do what we got to do. That felt kind of faithful. And then there's also the sense of, or we don't go and do those things. We we instead rest, we instead take it easy, kind of like the doctors were recommending, and give up the the right to go work and the right to go do those other projects and income, and trust that God is able to provide for us in other ways that just because he provided that at that time doesn't mean that that was the only time. You see, and that was faithful too. So we're kind of stuck between both of these things that seem like faithful things. And have you ever just been like, God, I I want to be faithful. I just don't know what faithfulness looks like right now. And there's some point, maybe there's more clarity later in the process, but there's at some point where it's like, I don't know. I I guess I'm just gonna, ugh, I don't know. They both seem like good, good things to do. Well, in this scenario, in trying to figure out, okay, do we go get the work and push through pain maybe, or do we let it go and trust that God will, I guess, compensate us for lack of a better word, for, you know, just resting now. This sort of tension was addressed in one of the passages that we read here in 2 Chronicles, and it came to mind as we're talking through these things. And so this was just a real life example of, hey, I recently read this in the Bible. I think this applies in this situation. It at least is a clue in to God's heart here that we can lean on. I'm talking about 2 Chronicles 25, the story of Amaziah. Okay, and this may be the first time, certainly in my life, it might be the first time in history where the story of Amaziah in 2 Chronicles 25 helps someone in real life. I don't know, I don't know. That's probably not true. Um, it's not one of the most commonly taught or preached or applied passages, but uh God uses every corner of scripture, every every piece of scripture is useful for teaching, correcting, and rebuking and and guiding us. So here was no no exception. Uh, but in 2 Chronicles 25, you can go back and listen to the episode or read it again if you'd like. But Amaziah is the king of Judah, he hires a hundred thousand mercenaries from Israel, which honestly seems like a good thing because he is it the king of the southern kingdom and the it's split from the northern kingdom of Israel, and by hiring these mercenaries to go fight enemy nations, it seemed like an opportunity to kind of unite the kingdom again and and get brothers and cousins working together again. Well, God says that that would have been fine, except then at this point God provides some more clarity and he says, Don't rely on them. I'm not with those men from Israel. If you go fight with them, you're gonna be defeated. Don't rely on them, you rely on me. Okay? And so Amaziah, who wants to be faithful to the Lord, is like, okay, I I'll do that. Kind of like in my position, I was like, okay, I guess I think you want us to rest. That seems to be the lesson that you're teaching us, and and the way that you are kind of walking with us right now is resting through the pain and not trying to work through it. However, Amaziah had a question, just like Kelsey and I had a question. Okay, but God, what about the money? In in Amaziah's case, he had already paid a hundred talents of silver to this army and then was told to give it back, no refunds. And in our case, it was, okay, well, we're gonna we're gonna rest. I think that's what you want us to do. However, what about the money that you provided that we're not gonna be able to have? We gotta we gotta know that obedience always costs you something. Saying yes to God means saying no to something else, and that something else has some value. Obedience feels expensive. Obedience often is expensive. You may need to end a relationship that you know is not honoring God. That's costly, that's painful. You're gonna lose something. You may have to walk away from a business deal that seems like it could change your life, it could change your family, it could change your work, but if it compromises integrity, you may have to walk away from that. You may have to do any number of obedient actions involving, you know, maybe like returning money or apologizing is costly, confessing is costly, stepping back from something, stepping up into something scary, choosing purity, choosing to be generous, forgiving someone costs you something. Telling the truth costs you something. All of these actions are obedience that's costly. The cost is real, and God doesn't sugarcoat it. Now, to him, he has a different perspective on what things cost, of course, but he's not pretending that it's not going to cost you anything. He understands that it will. For Amaziah, the cost was real. There was a real dollars and cents cost to it. What loss are you looking at in the area that you know you should probably know what you need to do. You know that God's nudging you in a certain direction. There's just a cost associated with that. And that cost is just causing you to pause a little bit. Okay, but what about this? What is that? Name that thing that you're currently afraid of losing. Say it out loud. Write it down. We gotta this is something we gotta do. You know, we're not just here to listen. Let's let's do something about it. I I named what I was afraid of, I I named what we're wrestling and and kind of working through. What are you what are you thinking? What's coming to mind? And then let's take a look at the rest of our story here, because a prophet comes to Amaziah, a prophet from the Lord, who says, in response to Amaziah's question, yeah, but what about the money I already paid? I'm gonna lose that. I can't get that back. The prophet says, Oh, God is able to give you way more than that. Okay, and now here's the heart of the conversation. This is actually the quote. God's able to give you way more than that. That's the quote that kept floating in our minds as we were wrestling with this idea of what is the correct thing to do. And now that I know what I what I think we should do, I'm dealing with this loss of potential loss of of income and and opportunities here. If I do what I think is right, I'm gonna lose those things. Then this is where the Bible starts to show itself as the living, active word of God, where just a simple quote like this is God is able to give you way more than that. That's not just embedded in Second Chronicles applying to Amaziah to encourage, you know, uh the readers at 300 BC. You know, this is this is a glimpse into the heart of God. God is able, that's just a that's just a declaration of truth. God is able to give you far more than that. Now notice he did not promise God will give you far more than that. Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be nice if God said, Oh, a hundred talents of silver? How about I'll give you two hundred talents of silver if you obey me? That would have been easier. That would have been a no-brainer, forget easier. That's just all right, done deal. I'll take it. God did not promise that he would provide far more than that, or how much more? He didn't clarify any of that. He just said, God is able. That's still a promise, that's still hope anchored into the heart of God. Is that enough to sway your decision? Just knowing that God is able to, not that he's promising that he will, but the fact that he is able to, is that enough? Is that enough to say, okay, I'll do the right thing, I will I will obey, trusting that you're able to compensate me, but your job is not to compensate me and you don't owe me that, but just the fact that you're able to is enough to push me to do what's right anyway. Ooh, that's tough. That's that's not an easy thing, but that's how we have to kind of find ourselves at this crossroads of faith and what the Bible says and what we're looking at in our real life circumstances, and and do what the Bible says. We're not necessarily looking for the Bible to tell us what to do or what will happen if we do it. Now, some sometimes the Bible is clear, a lot of times it's not, and a lot of times it looks more like, okay, so in this story, I see what God is like. I see what God is able to do, or I see what God has done for someone in the past. I don't know if that's gonna be the same thing for me, but I'm gonna act in faith that he is able and he may even be willing, but whether or not he does it, I gotta do it anyway. That's that's rubber hitting the road sort of stuff with applying the Bible in our lives. What's this look like in your situation? It's just the fact that God is able to give you more than what you you would lose from your obedience. Is that enough to sway you into doing what you know you should do? It's not always financial. It's God's more is not always a financial thing. Sometimes it's peace, sometimes it's clarity, sometimes it's freedom or opportunities, a door opens that you didn't know existed. It could be new relationships that he's bringing into your life. So obedience positions you into God's provision instead of having to rely on your own hustle, on your own understanding. When you obey, you gotta understand you're not losing in the sense that we we tend to think of losing something. We're trading up. We're putting ourselves in a position where we're at God's mercy instead of any other situation. And when we're under God's mercy, now he doesn't owe us anything just because we obey. Obedience i is the reward. However, he understands what we lose and he wants to demonstrate that that is a big trade up despite whatever we think we lose. We see throughout scripture obedience costing something. Gideon in Judges chapter seven and and the chapters surrounding that, uh, God reduces the army that he assembled to go fight against the Midianites. He lost army, uh he lost men through multiple tests that God led him through, until his army was inconceivably small. However, what did he gain by his obedience? He gained recognizing God's glory and he gained the the spoils of war. David lost the armor that Saul was giving him to go fight Goliath, but he gained the increase of God's reputation and he gained honor among the rest of the kingdom of Israel. Peter left his nets, that was his livelihood. When Jesus said, Follow me, Peter left his livelihood as a fisherman, but gained more money? No, not no, not really. But he gained a place among Jesus' best friends and becoming the rock that Jesus' church was built on. Obedience is a sacrifice. It does gonna it is gonna cost you something. However, it's an investment with a guaranteed return. A guarantee that your obedience is going to result in an increase in some area. Something that you may notice now, you may not notice until you get to heaven. However, never are you going to regret obeying God. Never are you gonna regret, even if it's not a matter of obedience one way or another. But in our case, like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna err on the side of trusting God with the finances, okay? And so never is God gonna be like, oh wow, why'd you trust me that much with your finances? Why'd you why'd you trust me that much? You should have just muscled through and and done it. I provided for you. Why didn't you, why didn't you try to to just go get it? I'm like, I'm gonna err on the side that is gonna result in God saying, You trusted me. Okay, I'm gonna that's that's just me. It but obedience or tr leaning in on the trusting of God's character and what he says about himself in scripture, if we lean on that side, we're never gonna regret that, we're never gonna be disappointed. But here's one more warning from Amaziah's story before we wrap this up. That at the beginning of Amaziah's story here, God gives his judgment on what the reign of that king was like. In 25 verse 2, it says, Amaziah did what was pleasing in the Lord's sight, but not wholeheartedly. Ooh, that's a tough assessment of your life, isn't it? He did what was right, but not wholeheartedly. And that lack of wholeheartedness, I believe, caused the downfall in the rest of his story. Because Amaziah did obey. He let the mercenaries go, he took the loss, and he went into battle without them. He got the victory. However, after defeating the Edomites, he brought back their gods. He brought back their gods expecting that he now could have favor with their gods, which it sounds stupid, but I think if I were to guess it, I think he was trying to maybe recoup some of his losses with the spoils of war. That oh, I see how God's gonna provide for me by giving me access to all this new line of income and and power. No, that's that's obedience, but we can't have obedience but that's we can't have, you know, someone who says yes, but is not really a yes. We can't have yes but obedience, okay? Partial obedience is usually where we try to regain or keep some control. And so are you saying yes but to God? Is there an area where you're saying yes, I I I want to obey you, but I need to or I want to, or not if oh, like that's that is ob doing what's pleasing to God, but not wholeheartedly. And that led to Amaziah's downfall one thing after the the rest. It just showed up in pride, it showed up in compromise. How can we fight this? I would encourage you to practice gratitude immediately after making the obedient choice. Because if we practice gratitude, then we'll be content. If we practice gratitude, then that then we'll recognize our place before God. If we practice gratitude after being obedient, then that it takes the the focus off of us and more back on God. Let's pair gratitude with obedience so that our obedience doesn't result in us thinking, oh wow, I did make the right call. I did I handled that pretty well. I'm a pretty good follower of God. Because those little seeds are enough to grow into a pride issue further down that results in us just making compromising decisions. So let's bring this home. Obedience will cost you. Yes. However, God is able to give you far more than what you lost when you obeyed him. Doesn't mean he will. Promise what that looks like, but that should be enough to nudge you to do what you ought to do in the first place. And then after you obey, practice gratitude, practice contentment. Thank God for what he's given you. Thank God for what he's done and about to do. And let that position you to be able to receive whatever God has for you next. You don't have to fight and scrap to fulfill your own prayer. You don't have to answer your own prayer by trying to provide for yourself. Let God do what he does. This is how we live out loud. This is how we go through our real life circumstances in light of what we learn about God and ourselves in the Bible. If you've got some time today, if this conversation kind of struck you and you're like, ooh, I need to think about that some more, get back into the Bible, check out the whole chapter, 2 Chronicles 25, read this chunk of scripture and ask God, God, what do you see in my heart? Search my heart, oh God, see if there's any wicked way in me. Lead me in the way everlasting, like David prayed. Pray that sort of prayer with your Bible open and just see what God is willing and able to do. I think that can wrap up the conversation for today. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time on the Out Loud Bible Project Podcast.