SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You can have a scene if you've got a Bible and invite you to take it and open up to Deuteronomy chapter 30.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we're supposed to start a new series today, but we're going to push that back a week because I've had this kind of a nagging, gnawing sense in my gut since about when about since about Tuesday.
SPEAKER_00: And Wednesday it didn't get any better.
SPEAKER_00: And Thursday it got worse.
SPEAKER_00: And Friday it got worse.
SPEAKER_00: And then yesterday I was privileged to do the funeral of a 50-year-old woman who died of ovarian cancer.
SPEAKER_00: I did not know her.
SPEAKER_00: She was a friend of a uh one of our members, and they called and said, Hey, would you help out?
SPEAKER_00: And so I went.
SPEAKER_00: And it was beautiful, and it was great, and the and the service was raw and real and authentic, and people blurted stuff out in the middle of the service.
SPEAKER_00: It was great.
SPEAKER_00: And a lady followed me out to my truck, and she was like smoking.
SPEAKER_00: I turned around, she's like right in my face.
SPEAKER_00: She goes, Do you know a church in Austin where I can go to church?
SPEAKER_00: I need to get myself in church.
SPEAKER_00: I need to get my bleep together.
SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: You need to go to funerals like that.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta you gotta get sick of going to funerals where it's just like a Hallmark card.
SPEAKER_00: And she's just like, I said, Well, how long has your stuff not been together?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I don't know, a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, thank you, God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so tired of being around safe people.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, we're supposed to start a new series about becoming, we'll start that next week.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to speak to you today about the distinguishing nature of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, this sense that's kind of gnawed in me when I say the distinguishing nature of obedience, what I want to say and what I want to contend for, what I want to point to in the Bible, is that the thing that ought to distinguish you and I and validate and verify that we really are Christians.
SPEAKER_00: We don't just go to church, is that we obey God.
SPEAKER_00: I know that's like rocket science.
SPEAKER_00: You've never heard that before.
SPEAKER_00: But but here's where I'm coming from.
SPEAKER_00: I hear a little too much these days where we kind of celebrate disobedience, a little too much traffic on Facebook about God-fearing church women all celebrating how they went and saw Magic Mike and how awesome that was.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to say, unawesome.
SPEAKER_00: Unamen.
SPEAKER_00: Might be hard for you to convince your lost friends that God really is the biggest priority in your life.
SPEAKER_00: If you're going and you're watching, which by the way, in case you're wondering, and I'm not the moral police, Magic Mike is a movie about male strippers.
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to go, hello, and here's where the alarm just went, whoa, in me.
SPEAKER_00: Last week, a friend of mine who professes to know God.
SPEAKER_00: I think he knows God.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Just because you profess it doesn't mean that you do, because Jesus said, hey, not everyone says to me, Lord, Lord, you're the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And this guy said to me, and I quote, I don't know what the big deal is.
SPEAKER_00: Christians need to lighten up about this magic mic movie.
SPEAKER_00: They make it sound like it's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is a big deal when you and I kind of just spend our money on what the world spends their money on and goes and says, Hey, plunk it down.
SPEAKER_00: I want to go see a movie about this.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, you know that, and then I went to the hospital to see my friend Rosalind, who had her knee replaced, and I walked up to the information desk where the candy stripers, the ladies, they're like 188 years old, were sitting there.
SPEAKER_00: And and I just glanced down.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was reading a book, and she laid it down, and I glanced down, and she's reading a book called Fifty Shades of Gray.
SPEAKER_00: Hello! You're somebody's grandmother.
SPEAKER_00: This is dirty and wrong on so many levels.
SPEAKER_00: And then as I got on the elevator, it dawned on me.
SPEAKER_00: That little voice in me kind of said, Hey, hey, when did my people just come to believe that obedience was optional?
SPEAKER_00: Because here was the best part.
SPEAKER_00: The candy striper lady had her chest festooned with gold crosses.
SPEAKER_00: And that little voice in me, the voice of God, just kind of said, One of these things is not like the other.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to call us back.
SPEAKER_00: This is the last sermon that Moses preached.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of calling people to kind of to ratify the covenant, to recommit themselves to being the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: And he says this in Deuteronomy chapter 30, verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you.
SPEAKER_00: Neither is it far off.
SPEAKER_00: Is it not in heaven that you should say, Who shall ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_00: And neither is it beyond the sea that you should say, Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?
SPEAKER_00: But the word is very near you.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your mouth, it is in your heart, so that you can do it.
SPEAKER_00: See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.
SPEAKER_00: See, when you put it in those terms, it's really simple.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I've set before you life and good and death and evil.
SPEAKER_00: If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to take possession of it.
SPEAKER_00: But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them.
SPEAKER_00: I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess.
SPEAKER_00: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob to give to them.
SPEAKER_00: Just three simple points.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to just go ahead and confess, I know this is going to be not cool and not hip and not sexy, because here's my fear is that we've kind of made obedience kind of the optional element of Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to say to you once again, it is the one thing that distinguishes people who really know God from those who don't, who are just kind of into spirituality or they like to socialize on Sunday with other people or network or hand out their business card or sell their pyramid scheme of stuff, whatever they sell to people that's a built-in marketing base or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But if you want to know who knows God, just look at their life and see who obeys God.
SPEAKER_00: That's how you know who knows God.
SPEAKER_00: That's what distinguishes us from everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just the movie we see.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the moral police, I'm not the guy that's going, oh, you should see that, and I see that.
SPEAKER_00: I just I'm I I got a little bit of a nagging concern in me that we have become so much like everybody else that it's hard to tell.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, hey, now wait a minute.
SPEAKER_00: Where where's the salt?
SPEAKER_00: Where's the light?
SPEAKER_00: What's what's different about us and everybody else?
SPEAKER_00: Not that we're good or better, but but but what what what separates us?
SPEAKER_00: And the one word I want to give you and build a case from Deuteronomy 30 is just this.
SPEAKER_00: It's just obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's just, hey, I just to the best of my ability, I just do what God says.
SPEAKER_00: Three things in the passage.
SPEAKER_00: Number one is a command to obey, verses 11 to 14.
SPEAKER_00: And I love the way Moses begins.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like he he eliminates this from the table.
SPEAKER_00: He says, For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you.
SPEAKER_00: Neither is it far off.
SPEAKER_00: It is not in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You should say, Who shall ascend to heaven and bring it to us?
SPEAKER_00: We may hear it.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, It's not beyond the sea.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's not far off.
SPEAKER_00: He's Moses, it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: It's not up in heaven, it's not beyond the sea.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just kind of remove that right there.
SPEAKER_00: You say, Well, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's not that difficult.
SPEAKER_00: If you want difficult, I'll give you difficult.
SPEAKER_00: It's been in the news this past week.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Tom Cruise is getting a divorce.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you knew that or not.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that comes on your TV every seven minutes with live updates from Tom Cruise's compound.
SPEAKER_00: But Tom Cruise is now getting his third divorce.
SPEAKER_00: And Tom, there's one common denominator in all three of these things.
SPEAKER_00: You.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, uh Tom Cruise is a Scientologist.
SPEAKER_00: And Scientologists believe this.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody said to me the other day, hey, what do you know about Scientology?
SPEAKER_00: I know that it's wacky, it's like science fiction craziness from the mind of L.
SPEAKER_00: Ron Hubbard, who wrote a book called Dianetics.
SPEAKER_00: It's new age mind control nonsense.
SPEAKER_00: And the person says, Well, what makes you think what you believe is better than what they believe?
SPEAKER_00: Because what I believe is right and what they believe is wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But beyond that, nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Tom Cruise believes, here's what John Travolta believes, and every scientist talking about it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: Here's Moses going, it's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: It's not up in heaven where you gotta like go get it or beyond the sea.
SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your heart and it's in your mouth.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't rocket science.
SPEAKER_00: This is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Scientology believes that the evil alien ruler Zenu killed millions of aliens called Tetans from around the universe by kidnapping them and bringing them to Earth in a golden DC H space plane, stacking them around volcanoes and blowing them up by dropping H-bombs into the volcanoes.
SPEAKER_00: Scientists, Scientologists believe the souls of these aliens, these souls are called body Thetans, were captured, brainwashed, and released, and they then attached themselves to our ancestors.
SPEAKER_00: Besides explaining why your family is so screwed up, that is craziness.
SPEAKER_00: That is wacko.
SPEAKER_00: And Tom Cruise, one of the most highest paid actors of our day, believes every bit of that.
SPEAKER_00: And he just gets more wacko from there.
SPEAKER_00: It is bizarre.
SPEAKER_00: And you why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_00: Because Moses says, this is not about space aliens coming to Earth in a golden space plane, DC.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_00: You deserve to be divorced, you moron.
SPEAKER_00: See, because what happens, Katie Holmes started thinking for herself and kind of going, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I don't want my kid around this.
SPEAKER_00: See, this command to obey comes down to real simple.
SPEAKER_00: This is life and good and death and evil.
SPEAKER_00: That's not rocky.
SPEAKER_00: You're smart people.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to be religious in here today.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to ever have gone to church.
SPEAKER_00: God stands before his people in the form of his spokesman Moses and says, Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just draw the line.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody that's good that wants to know God and wants to do things God's way, just here's a choice.
SPEAKER_00: It is life and good, and it's death and evil.
SPEAKER_00: So he begins by inviting them to do this, to get rid of all your excuses, which brings me to this question.
SPEAKER_00: What is one excuse you'd be willing to eliminate from your life?
SPEAKER_00: Just think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Just one excuse.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the excuse I use.
SPEAKER_00: If you're wondering, well, I don't think I have an excuse, ask your wife what your favorite excuse is.
SPEAKER_00: She might say, you want them in alphabetical order or what?
SPEAKER_00: Here's my favorite excuse.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll try to be more mindful of that.
SPEAKER_00: Which is just some vague nebulous thing.
SPEAKER_00: My wife said to them, Are you realize that that's really saying nothing?
SPEAKER_00: When you say, I'll try to be more mindful of that, I just, I just do it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll try to be more mindful of doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Second thing.
SPEAKER_00: See, real short sermon today.
SPEAKER_00: See, you have this command to obey, and then you have this definition of obedience, which is so necessary.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: You see, because God knows human nature.
SPEAKER_00: Because if he says, hey, here, choose to obey, what he he knows that what we're gonna do is we're gonna interpret obedience in light of what we're willing to do and what we prefer.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, obedience is not doing your best and expecting God to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is not saying, Well, that's just what I, that's as much of that as I could agree with.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: What is interpreted obedience?
SPEAKER_00: When I was a senior in high school, uh what the the this little kid in my neighborhood, little girl, she sold Girl Scout cookies.
SPEAKER_00: I have loved Girl Scout cookies since 1982.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know they've been around that long, but they have.
SPEAKER_00: Not all the flavors they had now.
SPEAKER_00: Back then, all they had was like thin mint.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I knew they had, because that's all I got.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you get thin mint Girl Scout cookies and put them in the freezer and then get those bad boys out and put a thin veneer of peanut butter on them, that is what is in the Ark of the Covenant.
SPEAKER_00: That is manna.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I was in high school, I would take for lunch a sleeve of Girl Scout cookies, thin mint Girl Scout cookies, and a thing of peanut butter, had it in my locker.
SPEAKER_00: And my friends were like, hey, McClendon will stab you with a butter knife.
SPEAKER_00: Don't jack with his peanut butter.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had my sleeve of Girl Scout cookies in study hall.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, they still have study hall.
SPEAKER_00: Do they still have study hall?
SPEAKER_00: Did anybody have study hall besides me?
SPEAKER_00: I had study hall fourth period, which was kind of like, hey, we don't know what to do with you.
SPEAKER_00: You've kind of got most of your classes out of the way, your senior year.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go sit in here.
SPEAKER_00: And study hall was usually monitored by a coach.
SPEAKER_00: I used the word monitored loosely.
SPEAKER_00: Except my coaches loved me.
SPEAKER_00: We had great relationships, and I had Coach Bean for a study hall.
SPEAKER_00: And one day I was in the study hall, had a thing, and I thought, I'm hungry, I'm gonna break in those bad boys a little bit early.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just kind of opened them up and I took out about four of them and stacked them on my desk.
SPEAKER_00: And Coach Bean, I was stacking them up like poker chips, and Coach Bean walked over and said, Hey McClendon, if you eat those cookies, I'm gonna wear you out.
SPEAKER_00: Now that was a long time ago when people could say that to you and do it.
SPEAKER_00: Nowadays, you would have to go to in school suspension.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you would have to get a write-up or something.
SPEAKER_00: In 1982, they beat your backside, okay?
SPEAKER_00: They had a wooden paddle.
SPEAKER_00: I had a coach had a wooden paddle, it was red with three white letters on it, LBS.
SPEAKER_00: He called it his loose booty striker.
SPEAKER_00: He said, if you get loose in the booty, I'm gonna strike you.
SPEAKER_00: And he did.
SPEAKER_00: It was like Thor's hammer.
SPEAKER_00: And Coach Bean said, You eat those cookies and I'm gonna wear you out.
SPEAKER_00: And I knew what he meant, but I interpreted what he meant.
SPEAKER_00: Just like we do with God.
SPEAKER_00: He leaves the room and I picked him up and started scraping the chocolate off of them with my teeth.
SPEAKER_00: Off both sides of them.
SPEAKER_00: And then I put them in my mouth and sucked all the chocolate off and put them back on the desk and got another one and scraped it off.
SPEAKER_00: And turned it over and scraped it off.
SPEAKER_00: And then spit it out like a frisbee and put it in a little stack.
SPEAKER_00: About five minutes ago, because he's up there at the front of the class.
SPEAKER_00: I'm at the back of the class.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine me sitting at the back of the class.
SPEAKER_00: About five minutes before the period's over, he walked back there and he folded his arms and he says, Looks like we've had a little molar madness back here.
SPEAKER_00: And that day I learned the expensive, the cost of interpreted obedience.
SPEAKER_00: See, he said one thing, and I filtered that.
SPEAKER_00: I interpreted it through my own desires and what I wanted to do and what I thought was okay.
SPEAKER_00: So see, when God says, hey, he gives a command to obey, he follows very quickly with a with a definition.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 16, see, I've set before you today life and good, death and evil.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 16, if you see, there's an if-then element to this.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just say, hey, I'm a Christian, and now give me all this.
SPEAKER_00: No, there's a requirement.
SPEAKER_00: If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, and he doesn't just leave it open willy-nilly, like, okay, whatever you think you're willing to do, what fits into your personal persuasion and your political leanings, no.
SPEAKER_00: He defines obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if you obey, and then he says, All the commands I give you today, here's how you by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's this horribly politically incorrect rule, and I mean word, and his rules.
SPEAKER_00: And we live in a country, and the church in America is full of people that don't believe in a God that has rules.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm here to tell you, the God of the Bible, the only God who was and is to is to come, the only God, the real McCoy, has rules.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't follow those rules, there will be a consequence.
SPEAKER_00: Lick the chocolate off all you want.
SPEAKER_00: You say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Defined obedience.
SPEAKER_00: He says it involves three things.
SPEAKER_00: He says, number one, loving the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Loving the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, that phrase the Lord your God appears 431 times in the entire Bible.
SPEAKER_00: 308 of them are in the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: You ever wonder why the Bible says, like the Ten Commandments begin?
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives them these ten rules that we are, as a country, are ashamed of because that might hurt somebody or that might make an atheist feel bad when they go to get their license plate.
SPEAKER_00: So we better take that down off the wall.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how's that working for us?
SPEAKER_00: We've created a country where there are no rules.
SPEAKER_00: God's a God of rules.
SPEAKER_00: And look at me.
SPEAKER_00: And you break God's rules, and you will have divine consequences come down on you and your family.
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize that?
SPEAKER_00: You can't just thumb your nose at God and there'll be no consequence.
SPEAKER_00: And preachers that tell you that are liars.
SPEAKER_00: See, this phrase occurs 431 times, 308 in the first five books of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Israelites were a people group that were owned by another people group.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: The Israelites.
SPEAKER_00: More rain.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, that's another thing you can stop complaining about.
SPEAKER_00: If I had one more person say, what's the deal with all this rain?
SPEAKER_00: Hey, what about last summer?
SPEAKER_00: Remember last summer?
SPEAKER_00: Have you that short of a memory?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, my backyard's flooded.
SPEAKER_00: It's just trash.
SPEAKER_00: It'll grow back.
SPEAKER_00: And if not, send my kids out there and they'll play on the dirt.
SPEAKER_00: It's just, are we that big of babies?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we need some rain.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's too much rain.
SPEAKER_00: You're not in charge of the rain.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you think you are?
SPEAKER_00: You're not the rule maker.
SPEAKER_00: God decides how much rain there's gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: And when God says that's enough rain, it'll stop raining.
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, just let it rain.
SPEAKER_00: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, loving the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: 308 times.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they used to be owned by the Egyptians.
SPEAKER_00: They belonged to, they were slaves in Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: And the Egyptian says, You belong to us.
SPEAKER_00: And when God says, Hey, by the way, love the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: That Lord means I own you.
SPEAKER_00: You belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Then the last part, your God, that's the best part.
SPEAKER_00: It means this: I belong to you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm your God.
SPEAKER_00: Tell me if this sounds familiar.
SPEAKER_00: I'll be your God and you'll be my people.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's just God giving his approval.
SPEAKER_00: Just sending down the rain.
SPEAKER_00: Going, yes, Neil, have a fit more often.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Hey, here's what it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin our definition of obedience to this.
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Get those four words tattooed on the backside of your brain.
SPEAKER_00: Love the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: He is the Lord and He is your God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't separate them.
SPEAKER_00: Live in light of both ends of that.
SPEAKER_00: That I'm on.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience is what comes out of the life of people that are owned who say to God, You are the Lord of my life.
SPEAKER_00: You bought me.
SPEAKER_00: You own me.
SPEAKER_00: I obey you because I am your servant and you are my master.
SPEAKER_00: And we've so ground the edges off of biblical obedience that you hear that, and some of you are like, oh, shut up.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: So obedience, what is the definition of obedience?
SPEAKER_00: It begins with loving the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, walking in his ways.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he says here in verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways.
SPEAKER_00: As a little kid, I grew up on a chicken farm.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you who have been here 10 minutes know that.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember as a little kid, anytime I read in the Bible, walking in his ways.
SPEAKER_00: Despite my dad was not, he was far from a perfect man, deeply flawed.
SPEAKER_00: But I remember as a little kid, my earliest memory was following my dad in the chicken house and trying to step in his steps and walking through there.
SPEAKER_00: And he had the zipped up coveralls with the Red Wing work boots.
SPEAKER_00: And he would just, I mean, he took huge, long strides.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the same thing that God is saying.
SPEAKER_00: When Moses stands before the people and says, hey, here's what it looks like to obey God.
SPEAKER_00: You walk in his ways.
SPEAKER_00: And this is not the first time this is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: In Jeremiah chapter 6, he says, stand by the ancient paths and look for, look, look, look for the ancient ways and then walk in them.
SPEAKER_00: And the people said, We're not going to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Third thing it looks like to obey God is keeping his commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Keeping his commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Have you read the Ten Commandments lately?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe today, after you're taking your rain-induced nap, you could just read the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Starts off with, I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: Translation, you used to be owned by the Egyptians, and now because I delivered you, I'm the sovereign king of the earth, and I rule over humanity, and I delivered you.
SPEAKER_00: Now you belong to me.
SPEAKER_00: So see, what I'm telling you you've got to do, I'm not asking you.
SPEAKER_00: What I'm telling you you have to do is not rooted in your willingness.
SPEAKER_00: It is rooted in who I am.
SPEAKER_00: I am the Lord your God who brought you up out of Egypt, lest you forget.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, You shall have no gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: Translation, don't think about anybody or anything the way you think about me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm that awesome.
SPEAKER_00: Who else can say that?
SPEAKER_00: Don't love deep sea fishing more than you love me, don't love hunting, don't love golf, don't love money, don't love food, don't love popularity, don't love a new house, none of that more than me.
SPEAKER_00: Walking in his ways and keeping his commands.
SPEAKER_00: You ever wonder what would happen if everybody that knew God would keep his commands?
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the book of Deuteronomy, and we're just about done, you still with me?
SPEAKER_00: Turn back to chapter 4 of Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy chapter 4, start reading in verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, see, again, is there a caption above chapter 4 in your Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: Was it Moses?
SPEAKER_00: What commands obedience.
SPEAKER_00: See, the Israelites, they weren't like us.
SPEAKER_00: Moses had to tell them over and over again, you just gotta obey God.
SPEAKER_00: You just gotta obey God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, he says, See, I've taught you statutes and rules, as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do them in the land you're entering to take possession of it.
SPEAKER_00: Keep them and do them, for they will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people, for what great nation is there that has a God so near as it has a God so near to it as the Lord our God is to us.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever we call upon him, and what great nation is there that has statutes and rules, so righteous is the law that I set before you today.
SPEAKER_00: Translation, when you and I obey the people around us say two things, great God and great word.
SPEAKER_00: Man, where did you get that?
SPEAKER_00: Out of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I remember years ago, one of our neighbors walked over and said to me, Hey, uh, can I just ask you what you do?
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: You just seem like you don't worry.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I'm sure I'm tempted to worry like everybody else is, but uh, what do you mean, what do I do?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Yeah, I mean, you and your wife, and you just, my wife and I kind of watch y'all and you kind of, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, I said, we're Christians.
SPEAKER_00: So if you see anything in us, it's because who God is, and we try to live our lives according to the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and and and that's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's just a choice.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of times you come to that fork in the road and you just gotta say, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: I belong to God, I'm gonna do what God says, and we'll trust God for the results.
SPEAKER_00: I disobey because I want to ensure a certain result, and that rarely ever happens.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's like, So you just, your life is what it is because you know God.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And then when he walked off, I thought, whoa, what have I said?
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize the weight of that statement?
SPEAKER_00: Do you realize the implications of saying my life is what it is because I know God?
SPEAKER_00: That means everything I have comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: That means the health of my children depends on God.
SPEAKER_00: That means the well-being and the future of my family depends on God.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do my best, I'll work hard, I'll be at this church as long as they'll have me.
SPEAKER_00: If they get tired of me, Walmart's hiring.
SPEAKER_00: And the guy just walked off.
SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of like, that sounded kind of uh religious, kind of uh, and the little voice said, no, that was exactly right.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly this all depends on me.
SPEAKER_00: Every bit of this depends on me.
SPEAKER_00: All you gotta do is keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this, and I just want to point this out, and and we'll be done.
SPEAKER_00: I'm back in Deuteronomy 30.
SPEAKER_00: He says, verse 17, because he warns him.
SPEAKER_00: He says, uh, by the way, he says, if you do this, uh you shall live and multiply uh in this land.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the Lord your God will bless you in the land you're entering to take possession of it.
SPEAKER_00: But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to point out, I don't have time to preach this.
SPEAKER_00: This is not really the sermon, but it is a truth.
SPEAKER_00: See, all through the Bible, worship and service are paired together.
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that we're seeing at our church, now look at me, beloved, this is your pastor talking to you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, We got a lot of you that love to come and worship, but you don't like to serve.
SPEAKER_00: And in the Bible, you connect worship with service.
SPEAKER_00: You you worship God and you so, yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, where can I facilitate other people getting the right knowledge of this God and coming and worshiping Him?
SPEAKER_00: You don't just come to worship and run to your car and go eat and say, this is the way I prefer it.
SPEAKER_00: Not okay.
SPEAKER_00: Our church will only rise as far as we're willing to sacrifice in the name of service.
SPEAKER_00: It's unsexy, it's unromantic, and it's absolutely necessary.
SPEAKER_00: He says, if your heart is drawn away after these other gods and you worship and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not live long in the land you're going over the Jordan to enter and possess.
SPEAKER_00: What God is saying, beloved, don't miss it, is hey, it it's not a mountaintop experience.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you are content to have about four or five deep spiritual warm fuzzies a year, and that's it.
SPEAKER_00: You're like the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to be long in there.
SPEAKER_00: I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I've set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and holding fast to him.
SPEAKER_00: For he is your life and length of days that you may dwell in the land.
SPEAKER_00: Not visit, dwell in the land.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
SPEAKER_00: To give them.
SPEAKER_00: That's the last part of it.
SPEAKER_00: God just says, Here's, I'll give you an opportunity to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the opportunity.
SPEAKER_00: Choose.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody asked me this week.
SPEAKER_00: They said, uh, tell me when a person's converted in regeneration, I mean, I mean, do you make it sound like that, you know, God just just just acts upon them, and that, and then I said, God doesn't override their will, He changes their will.
SPEAKER_00: Here's how you know that there's this desire to choose God is in you.
SPEAKER_00: All of a sudden, that's what you want to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what that that's that desire in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's just kind of rising up, and you're like, Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: And once what once you say yes to God, then it's a life of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: And the more you say yes, the more you're like, you know what, I want to say yes to that some more.
SPEAKER_00: You so you saw Brad Snyder standing up here.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, people are like, Well, who's that guy talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He's the only person in our church.
SPEAKER_00: He and his wife have like 17 kids.
SPEAKER_00: Uh they homeschool them.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you got to homeschool them.
SPEAKER_00: You got 17, they own like a football team or something.
SPEAKER_00: No, they got five kids.
SPEAKER_00: And it just feels like 17 because I've been to their house for coffee.
SPEAKER_00: And they're everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And there's trucks everywhere, and there's train tracks everywhere, and Brad and Kristen just sat there like the prom king and queen, just sipping coffee.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, hello, one of your kids just tied the other one to the pole out back.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: And he set him on fire, and they're just sipping.
SPEAKER_00: Would you like would you like some more cake?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, they'll get it sorted.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, and here's the thing that that shook me and made me laugh and made me love the Snyders all the more.
SPEAKER_00: I already love them enough, but here's the thing that just made me laugh.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Brad took eight, nine days out of this to go to Romania.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking I'm crunching the numbers in my head and kind of going, you you presided over this, Christian, all by yourself?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we had the modern mom, the new young mom.
SPEAKER_00: She can't even handle one kid.
SPEAKER_00: Got to take it on Mother's Day out three days a week, gotta go to Mops on Friday, and oh, I can't do preschool.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday's my day to get away from my kids.
SPEAKER_00: We don't exist to give you a break from your kids.
SPEAKER_00: They're your responsibility.
SPEAKER_00: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_00: Did you feel that?
SPEAKER_00: My liver kind of quivered.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, ladies, let me tell you, young moms, it's hard.
SPEAKER_00: Get over it.
SPEAKER_00: It ain't sexy.
SPEAKER_00: You can't pond them off on everybody, and church is not just coming and sticking your kid in a room and going, you be his parent for a while.
SPEAKER_00: We got too many of that.
SPEAKER_00: We got too much of that.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's my time.
SPEAKER_00: It's my break.
SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the worship of yourself and your preference.
SPEAKER_00: And it kills the American church.
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, you preside over this.
SPEAKER_00: Their sun comes out.
SPEAKER_00: Going to the park.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, what, what, what?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's going to play basketball with his friends.
SPEAKER_00: Ride his bike to the park.
SPEAKER_00: One's going to work.
SPEAKER_00: Two of them are in there.
SPEAKER_00: One of them walks through shirtless.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just like, do you have like a bag of squirrels and a kangaroo here or something?
SPEAKER_00: And Brad left all that and went to Romania and led a mission trip.
SPEAKER_00: And he held it together, telling you about it, but he sat at his kitchen table having coffee and homemade bread.
SPEAKER_00: Because apparently the bread they sell at Walmart's not any good.
SPEAKER_00: But it was a crazy, and here's the crazy part.
SPEAKER_00: This woman with five kids made homemade bread and homemade jelly.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Name Smuckers ring a bell.
SPEAKER_00: So here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: When these young moms tell me about how busy they are and they don't have time, I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: Because I mean just preside over the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you missing one?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, she's here somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Aren't you worried?
SPEAKER_00: We're sitting there, straight dog shows up in the backyard.
SPEAKER_00: Look, go get that dog.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, ooh, easy.
SPEAKER_00: No, that dog goes out there in the house where the prosum is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you have a pet possum?
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: That's like your homeschool ag project?
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing here?
SPEAKER_00: Here's my point.
SPEAKER_00: Bedlam.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he took eight, nine days and led a mission trip to Romania.
SPEAKER_00: And somebody said to me, How does he find time to do that?
SPEAKER_00: Obedience.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, God said, go to Romania.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: See, your life and my life is set up around one of two things, and I'm done.
SPEAKER_00: It is set up around obedience, or it is set up around preference.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to tell you which one it is.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the general manager of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're always getting your way, let me just give you a hint.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to obedience, you don't always get your way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't always get my way.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the kicker.
SPEAKER_00: That is a great thing.
SPEAKER_00: I love.
SPEAKER_00: I've been not getting my way for so long.
SPEAKER_00: I love not getting my way.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even ask my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even say, this is where I want to go eat.
SPEAKER_00: I just say, where are we eating?
SPEAKER_00: And not because of her.
SPEAKER_00: I just have grown accustomed to I just, it's better when God gets his way in my life.
SPEAKER_00: It's better when God gets his way in your life.
SPEAKER_00: My fear is that we all gravitate towards these parenting styles that validate what we want.
SPEAKER_00: Or this view, this world view or this view of life that kind of go, yes, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: I just want to say, beloved, obedience.
SPEAKER_00: God commands it, He defines it, and He gives you an opportunity to obey.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_00: This is my prayer.
SPEAKER_00: It is my plea.
SPEAKER_00: Let the thing that distinguishes us as your people in this church is that we are people that obey you.
SPEAKER_00: Let everything come what may, we want to be people.
SPEAKER_00: We pledge ourselves to be people that obey you.
SPEAKER_00: That's our prayer, God.
SPEAKER_00: It is our understanding today.
SPEAKER_00: And it is your invitation.
SPEAKER_00: We accept it.
SPEAKER_00: And to signify our acceptance, all God's people said.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a guest today, normally I'm very passive.
SPEAKER_00: Let me say this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not angry.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not, don't leave and kind of go, oh boy, preacher's mad today.
SPEAKER_00: No, I just I'm just I have a little bit of alarm in me that we're kind of making what God says is necessary optional.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Stand to your feet.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out and speak a blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: You're the sons and daughters of God, and as such, he relates to you unlike he relates to anybody and anything else in this world.
SPEAKER_00: And he expects you to endure drought and storm.
SPEAKER_00: So stop complaining when they both come.
SPEAKER_00: He is your God and you are his people.
SPEAKER_00: Depart now and obey the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength for his glory and your pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.