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We would think that obedience is everything in God, but there is the little matter of our own will. This week, we will look more into Isaiah 1:19 which shows the connection between having a willingness to obey and the actions of obedience.
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We would think that obedience is everything in God, but there is the little matter of our own will. This week, we will look more into Isaiah 1:19 which shows the connection between having a willingness to obey and the actions of obedience.
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Partial obedience is not enough. In 1 Samuel 15, King Saul is given a clear instruction from God to utterly destroy the Amalekites, but he only partially obeys. He spares the king and keeps the best of the livestock. Samuel confronts him, and Saul tries to justify his actions, but Samuel tells him that obedience is better than sacrifice. Rebellion and stubbornness are seen as serious sins in God's eyes. As a result of his disobedience, Saul is rejected as king. This story serves as a reminder that complete obedience to God's commands is necessary, and partial obedience is not acceptable. Welcome to CCI Fellowships podcast. Thank you for joining us. At CCI Fellowship, we are reaching God, reaching each other, and reaching our community. We pray that this week's message challenges you in your walk with the Lord, causes you to grow in your faith, and encourages you in your love for the Word of God. Open your Bibles to 1 Samuel 15. Thank you. This side didn't seem awake. Are you there? No. 1 Samuel 15. I want to share tonight, and our key verse is actually in Isaiah, but I'll get to that near the end of the message. Obedience is not enough. We think that in God, of course, we just need to obey. And if we obey, things will go right for us and we will glorify God. And the truth of the matter is, that is correct to a certain extent. But there are different levels of obedience. There are different levels of submitting our hearts to God, submitting our actions to God, submitting our thoughts to God. And we'll see as we go through this message that there is something very important that we need to couple with our obedience that unlocks some things in God and brings us again to a place where we have been talking about regarding the declaration of being in position to receive what God wants to pour out on us this year. So here in 1 Samuel 15, we're going to look at an example of King Saul. It is not an example of wholehearted obedience. It is not an example of receiving the instructions from God and fully obeying them in the way that they were given to him. But before we read, let's pray. Father, we thank you for this day. We thank you, Lord God, that it is your breath in our lungs. It is your presence that we want to be poured out in this place. It is you, Lord God, that we want to glorify. It is you, Father, that we want to draw closer to. It is you and in your presence, Father, that we want to know we have visited you. You have visited us in this time that we are together as a body. Now, Lord, as we open your word, may we also open our hearts. May we open our ears, Lord God. May you open our eyes through revelation, Father, to help us understand and help us to evaluate ourselves, Lord God, so that we can obey you wholeheartedly. We thank you, Father, for your grace and your patience and for what you're going to say to us today. In Jesus' name, amen. So, the first thing I want to cover is partial obedience is not obedience. Partial obedience is not obedience. In verse two and three of this chapter, Samuel speaks to the king and says, 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. Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy. Now, when you hear the phrase utterly destroy, what does that convey to you? Somebody answer. Completely. Utterly. With nothing left. 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. You might read that and think, how could God do that? But again, he is punishing them for their sin. The good thing for us is that there is grace through the cross of Christ. And though punishment does come, though correction comes, we always have an opportunity to return to him and to get things correct. Thank you. That was a good amen. Kill them all, Samuel tells Saul. Wipe them out. So they go to battle. God is with them in battle. God gives them the victory over Amalek. And they come back from this battle and Samuel comes up to the king and the king says to him, we have done all that you have asked. All that you required. And Samuel says, but I hear the bleeding of sheep. Why do I hear sheep? You were supposed to kill everything. In verse 9 it says, but Saul and the people spared Agag. Remember the instruction was do not spare. King Saul and the army spared Agag, the king of Amalek, and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good, and were unwilling. I want you to remember that word, unwilling. That is going to come back later. They were unwilling to utterly destroy them. Even though the instruction was there. Even though God was clear. Even though they understood who they were as God's people. They understood what their mission was. They received the word from the prophet. They received the instructions from God, but they were unwilling to completely obey. It says, everything despised and worthless that they utterly destroyed. In verse 20 and 21 it says, and Saul said to Samuel, but I have obeyed. I obeyed. I 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. King Saul had a problem understanding the definition of utterly. I have utterly destroyed them, but you know, we saved the king. Verse 21, but the people, 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. Well, don't you see, Samuel? What we did, we spared the king's life. We utterly destroyed everything else, but you know, this people that went with me. I mean, we have plenty of examples in Scripture of somebody trying to pass the buck on somebody else. The first, of course, being Adam. Well, this woman you gave me, it's her fault. And God went to the woman and said, well, this animal that you put in the garden, it was his fault. Passing the buck is as old as time. And King Saul was no stranger to it. In fact, back in verse 15, he said the same thing to Samuel. Oh, but I did obey, but we spared these to sacrifice to the Lord your God. I find it interesting that the king said the Lord your God, not the Lord our God, which goes to show you the condition of his heart, the perspective that he had in obeying the God of Israel. We brought them to sacrifice. Wouldn't that be fabulous? We saved the best ones to sacrifice to God. And Samuel says, you had one job. One job, that's it. It was a simple instruction, Saul. It wasn't that complicated. Kill everything. He couldn't even do that. It's interesting that if you think later on in the Old Testament of Haman, the Agagite in the book of Esther, was a descendant of this king whose life was spared. And later here in the story, Samuel dispatches the king and he doesn't make it. But because Saul failed to obey completely, later on in Israel's history they faced the potential of being wiped off the face of the earth because of one man's disobedience. We can go to Romans and find the same thing where Paul says, because of one man's disobedience, sin entered the world. But because of one man's obedience, life has come. Paul says, I did obey. No, you didn't. You partially obeyed. Partial obedience is not complete obedience. Verse twenty-two, 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 or to submit than the fat of rams. 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 has also rejected you from being king. As you read on, then King Saul all of a sudden turns repentant. He's all of a sudden sorry because of the judgment that has now been placed on him. And he reaches out to grab a hold of Samuel, who was walking away, and he grabbed a hold of his robe and it tore. Samuel turned around and said, Just as you have torn my clothing, God has torn the kingdom from your hands and given it to another that is after his own heart. Tremendous. We like to think, Oh, but I obeyed mostly. Surely God will be pleased with my obedience, even though I have failed a little bit. There's grace. There's grace in Christ. Praise God there's grace in Christ, otherwise we would have been struck dead already, like every day, because not one of us obeys perfectly. Praise God for grace. Praise God for the chance. But it's interesting to note here that when this happens in the duration of Saul's reign, this was relatively near the beginning. And Saul reigned for forty years until David was ready to take the throne. He reigned a long time, knowing that judgment was just one day it was going to be fulfilled. to live under that. How terrible to know that that judgment is coming. I would guess that this played into Saul's demeanor for the next thirty-five years. Knowing that he was not going to continue reigning as king, and knowing that he was not going to get to pass it on to his bloodline. He might have found himself in a place where he said, Oh, well, you know, I've been king for ten years now. Maybe Samuel was wrong. Maybe God wasn't that displeased with my disobedience. And he perhaps would begin to reason, I mean, it's just human nature. We can speculate it by what we know of ourselves. Well, things are going alright. I have victory over my enemies. I'm rich. I'm the king. Things are going okay. Maybe God wasn't that upset. And we do the same thing. We rationalize and reason that our disobedience wasn't that bad. But then there's this verse. This verse twenty-three that we just can't get past. We cannot reconcile. We cannot explain our way free of this verse. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Stubbornness. Stubbornness doesn't sound as bad as rebellion. He starts out with a really strong word. Rebellion. Well, I didn't really rebel. I just didn't obey fully. Well, for God that's the same thing. If it was not the same thing, then God would not have said to King Saul, you're not going to be king anymore. Rebellion was, yes, you obeyed in part, but then you set yourself up as king and judge in my place and decided for yourself to change the instructions. You decided for yourself what would be better. God says, basically, you took my place and tried to sit on my throne. And to do that is the same or the same severity, the same serious case as recognizing the authority that Satan would have or the power that Satan has through witchcraft. Because rebellion denies God of his authority, while witchcraft ascribes authority to the one who has none. You do know that Satan has no authority. He has power, but for those who are Christ's, he has no authority over us. We have authority over him. There's a difference between authority and power. He has a lot of power, but over those who walk obediently and submitted to God, he has no authority over us. When we embrace rebellion and stubbornly refuse to obey the word of God, we have stopped worshiping the Lord and we have begun to worship ourselves. After the one battle in King Saul's life, he went up to this one place and set up a monument to himself. This dude was so vain, he was so stuck on himself that he had a pattern of disobedience. He had a pattern of his heart not being submitted to God. And it culminated in this story we find in 1 Samuel 15. Because he was not looking on the Lord his God, he was obeying the instructions of the Lord Samuel's God. And, therefore, had no conviction about fully obeying. Whose God are you serving? Are you serving the God of someone else? Are you serving God because Pastor John told you how to serve God? Are you serving God because your parents told you how to serve God? Is your faith your faith or are you riding on the faith of someone else? Because riding on the faith of someone else will not get you to heaven. It has to be upon your own faith and your own obedience to God. Outward obedience does not always reflect inward attitude. So the first point was that partial obedience is an obedience. And outward obedience does not always reflect an inward attitude. We can obey outwardly and be in rebellion inside. Just watch a kid. It's a great example. Tell the kid to stop. Sit down. I don't want to sit down. Sit down. I don't want to sit down. I told you to sit. I have this conversation with my dog every morning, too. I tell her to sit and she looks at me. Sit. So the kid...we'll bring it back to the kid. The dog is a great example, but we'll bring it back to the kid. Sit down. OK, fine, I'll sit down, but I'm standing inside. I'll sit down, but I'm not sitting. I'm really not. The outward obedience doesn't match the inward disposition of the heart. So what has God asked you to do that perhaps you're going through the motions and you're doing the things, you're obeying, sort of, what he wants you to do, but really inside you're grumbling and complaining and saying, OK, fine, God, I'll do it. A lot of times if you ask somebody about their calling and how they got into ministry, one of the popular ways to explain it was, well, you know, God was after me for a couple of years and I finally surrendered to the call. I finally surrendered to it, as if God had to twist their arm to use them. God will not twist anybody's arm. If you are an unusable vessel, he'll go find a usable vessel. Well, I surrendered. Why would you have to surrender, willingly obey and do what he told you to do? It's not reluctant obedience. When we obey on the outside, but are resisting on the inside, that is reluctant obedience. Jonah is a great example of reluctant obedience. He ran from what God told him to do. He finally went to Nineveh. He gives them the message that God told him to give. It makes me think, also, in the New Testament when Peter was praying and God spoke to him and said, go down because they're looking for you and you're supposed to go with them to this house of the Gentiles and tell them about me. And Peter gets there and he asks Cornelius, what am I doing here? Because you know that us Jews aren't allowed in your house. We're not supposed to be fraternizing with you. He went because God told him to go, but his heart was not yet in the right place of obedience. And as he was preaching, as he was preaching, the Holy Spirit fell on the people in that house. And Peter says, well, I guess the gospel is for everybody. But it wasn't until he saw God do something for somebody that he considered not reachable that he finally got his heart in the right place. Jonah gives the message to Nineveh and he goes up on the hill outside of the city to sit down and wait. OK, God, let the fire fall. Burn them up, these bunch of heathens. And God said, no, they repented. Gee, God, this is why I didn't want to come. Because I knew if I told them you would forgive them that they would repent. And they deserve to die. And he was just angry about it. And he set up a shelter and God caused a tree to grow to provide him shade. Even in the midst of his grumbling heart, God still took care of him. And we need to not confuse God's sovereignty and his love for us and his abundant opportunities for us to get our heart right. We should not mistake that for God's approval of our bad attitudes and disobedience. This is good stuff. So the next morning in Jonah's story, I find it interesting how the book of Jonah ends, because it just ends. There's no conclusion. God sends a worm to eat the tree that sprouted up and was given Jonah's shade and he got mad about it. And God said, what right do you have to be mad about this? Aren't I the one that decides? And then the book ends. That's it. Kind of like in Job, when God says, where were you when I did all of these things? And Job says, my bad. And then the book ends. We need to remember in all of the amazing things that God has provided for us, in all of the authority that he has given us through the name of Jesus Christ, through the blood that was shed for our salvation, in all of the fact that we are seated in heavenly places with him, that as he is seated far above principalities and powers, so are we. But we need to remember in all of that, that we are still to be willing, obedient servants of the Most High God. There is a difference between being confident in your identity, which is one of my favorite topics. There's a difference between being confident in your identity and being cocky in your identity. Because this is sinful and prideful over here. Well, this is who God made me. I'm God's special person. You're not any more special than all of God's other people. Because we all come to him the same way, through the sacrifice of Christ. And there's nothing in and of ourselves that we have that we can say we are better than anyone else. We all start the same. Well, it just seems like God does more for that person than he does for me. Have you checked your obedience meter lately? Have you reviewed how submitted you are to God's Word? Are you obeying on the outside, but on the inside, not so much? So this brings us to the third. Obedience with a willing heart reaps abundant fruit. Isaiah 1 verse 9. Isaiah 1 verse 9. If you are willing. Sorry, 119. It's up there. It's here. I just read the wrong thing. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. You see, obedience is not enough. We can go through the motions of obedience. We can follow what God tells us to do, even to the letter. Better than King Saul did. I did all that you told me to do. I don't understand why you told me to do it, and I really didn't want to do it. I'm not in agreement, God, with this instruction, but I'll go ahead and do it because I fear you and I don't want to face the consequences of being disobedient. So I'll go ahead and do it. But you see, there's not a willing heart in that circumstance. There is a reluctant heart. There is a, I'm going to do it because I'm afraid, not I'm going to do it because I'm submitted to you. God throughout Isaiah here is rebuking the people and basically telling them, you're going through all the motions, you're doing the sacrifices, you're keeping the feasts, you're doing all of these things, but I'm tired of it, really. You can keep it, God says. I don't need it. Why? Because their heart was not willing. They had gotten themselves into the place of trusting in the outward obedience, not in the condition of their heart. And if you look at Jesus' teachings, he's always dealing not with the outside actions, which is what the law produced, but he's dealing with the heart, the condition of the heart. The people had come to this place where they saw their rituals, they saw their sacrifices, they saw their festivals as a way to manipulate God into doing what they wanted. Our prophetic declaration is a declaration of faith. It is not a declaration of manipulation. And if God is going to pour out what we believe he's going to pour out, then we must find ourselves willingly obedient to do what he instructs us to do. The end of verse 13 says, I cannot endure iniquity and the sacred meeting. I can't endure your sin while you're pretending to play church. It's a stench. In my reading through the Bible, I've been reading through Leviticus, and it goes through all of the sacrifices and how the blood on the horns of the altar and the burning carcass of the animal on the fire is a sweet smell, a pleasing aroma to the Lord. I'm like, God, I don't know what you're smelling, but burning flesh is not a great smell, unless you know you put some olive oil and some garlic and there's that. That smells good. We're there for that. But the burning of an animal on the fire, it doesn't smell good, God. And he says, but it's mine. To me it's a sweet smell. It's a pleasing aroma, because it's obedience out of a willing heart. But they had gotten themselves into a place of obedience out of procedure and practice. It had nothing to do with their heart. So God says, it doesn't please me anymore. You know what pleases me? A willingly obedient heart. Mark 7, verse 6 says, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. They honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. Where is your heart? Do you serve God simply out of practice? Do you come to church on Sunday simply because it's on your calendar and you can't imagine not coming to church on Sunday? It's just what you do. Do you serve at church simply because somebody asked you to or because you have a heart that's willing to serve God and to serve his people? What is your motive? Of course this brings us back to Hebrews 4.12, that the Word of God reveals and discerns every motive of our heart. Today of course is our first weekend, our first Sunday where Pastor Jose and Liz are fully committed to the other service. And I will, I have admitted that when it was first proposed to me, there was no willingness in this heart. There wasn't. Just to be frank and honest. The willingness was, well if God says it, then we'll do it. But still that was, well if God says it, we'll surrender to it. We don't like it, but we'll surrender to it. But you see, in God's spectacular grace, he gives us an opportunity to get our hearts in line with what he wants to do. And when we do that, we will see the fulfillment of these things that we're declaring and we will enjoy the fruit of the land. A well-known minister was talking about this verse, talking about his journey in growing in God. He would quote Scripture to God. God, your Word says this. God, your Word says that. Why isn't this working in my life, God? If this is your Word and your Word is infallible and your Word has power, why am I not seeing this function in my life, God? I'm obeying. And God simply said, yeah, but you're not willing. All right, well we'll take care of that right now. And he said as soon as he got his heart in line with his outward obedience, when he had a willing heart to do what God told him to do, then he started seeing the Word of God function in his life. Are you willing? Are you obedient? To reap the good of the land, this is the disposition that we must have. Willing obedience, or it could be said as heartfelt obedience. Obeying out of the condition of the heart, not obeying simply out of action. Amen? Let's stand together as the worship team comes. Partial obedience is complete lack of submission to God. Partial obedience is complete lack of submission to God. Oh, I'm submitted to God. Maybe you want to check your heart. Scripture says if we will judge ourselves, we will not be judged by others. And many have taken that verse and other verses to be able to say, you can't judge me. Only God can judge me. And God says, just judge yourself. What are we judging ourselves against? The Word of God. If we judge ourselves, if we evaluate ourselves, if we by the Word of God are asking for him to reveal the motives and the dispositions of our heart, if we do that for ourselves, we will find that nobody can bring a judgment against us that has any base of truth to it, because we have already submitted ourselves to the judgment of Scripture. So I encourage you tonight, judge yourself and make sure that you're obeying out of a willing heart. Let's pray. Father, we magnify you. I pray, Lord, this week that you would show us, even as we read your word, even, even as we may all be in different parts of Scripture, I pray that somewhere in your book, Lord God, you would speak to each one of us this week and reveal to us the condition of our heart. Father, we want to partake of the good of the land. We want, Lord God, for there to be a bountiful harvest in our lives. We want, Father God, for you to do the miraculous in our lives, but may we not be the obstacle you have to get over in order to provide for us. We submit to you, Lord, and ask your forgiveness in the times that we have been outwardly obedient and inwardly resistant to the things that you want. So I pray for each person here. I pray, Lord God, if they're, they're thinking, wow, this really speaks to my situation. I pray that you would continue by your Holy Spirit to work in them, even as we leave this place today. And that, Lord, you would draw them close to you, cause them to know your grace and your love, cause them to be able, and I pray, Lord God, give them the strength for heartfelt obedience. In Jesus' name. Amen. Thank you for listening to this week's podcast. If you are ever in the Tegucigalpa area and looking for an English-speaking congregation, please join us on Sunday afternoon at 4 p.m. in the main auditorium of Iglesia CCI in Colonio Trapeze, just off Boulevard Sollapa, near Una. If you would like prayer or more information about our church, contact us at fellowship.cci at gmail.com. That's fellowship.cci at gmail.com, or follow us on social media. We hope to see you or hear from you soon. Blessings.
