Obedience Through Faith

The podcast discusses the importance of obedience and forgiveness in the church and the impact it has on the community. The speaker shares a personal experience about changing the sermon last minute and emphasizes the need for unity and focus on advancing the kingdom of God. The passage from Luke 17 is used to highlight the connection between obedience and faith, particularly in forgiving others. The speaker emphasizes the importance of receiving correction and instruction from God for personal growth and protection. The message concludes with the reminder that forgiveness leads to forgiveness and highlights the importance of obedience and forgiveness in the Christian life. Welcome to CCI Fellowship's 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 Luke chapter 17. This side of the church is definitely still more lively than this side. So I want to continue on the topic of obedience. Mondays is when I do my studying and prep for the following Sunday, and then I send the outline to the media team so that they can do their prep throughout the week and come up with something to put on the screen, and that's our flow of preparation. So I did that on Monday. I had everything ready. I sent it to the media team. I got up Tuesday morning and went to my prayer time, and as I came down from my prayer time, God said, I want you to do something different this week. You'll still get the sermon that I had prepared just next week. But this week, as I had come down from prayer, I was talking to Adriana about it, and she said, well, just go sit down and start writing and see what comes out. And in 20 minutes, I had a whole sermon that I believe God really wants to use to impact our hearts and our hope and our looking forward to this year in our unity as a body. I believe that what is going on in the country and what is going on as far as changes within the church, there is an opportunity for some complaining. There's some opportunity for division. There's some opportunity that the devil will use in order to disrupt what God wants to do. In our prayer time upstairs, one of the things that we felt that the Lord was saying, and I've said it before, so it's only confirmation, is that God is going to use this church to ignite revival in this country. But if we, as a congregation, as we as a church, are not ready for that, if we are more focused on other things that are going on or more focused on ourselves, then we will not be ready to be used by him when he's ready to ignite the fire. And I believe that's where this message comes from. Something that came to our attention last week is the law that they have proposed again this year, it was proposed last year, of the laws against violence against women. A lot of the stuff in that law is good. There are good things within that law. But also hidden within that law are other things to subvert the sanctity of the family and the identity that we all have in Christ. And it is something that's wrapped with a pretty bow, but there's not good involved in that package. And when we heard that, it grieved my heart to see that Honduras has arrived at a place where this is something that is being contemplated. And what also grieved my heart is that the reason that we as a country are at this place is because we as a church, church as a whole, the church is not where it should be in influence in this nation. While the church, the national, nationwide church, fights with each other about who should be in charge of representation and arguing back and forth of who's correct and who's not correct. And while we are busy fighting amongst ourselves, the enemy is out there doing whatever he wants to. Ephesians 6 says that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age. And if the church is stuck on themselves, then these principalities and powers, we're not wrestling against them, we're wrestling against each other. And our focus should be advancing the kingdom of God, not worried about our own desires, our own offenses, our own hurts. We need to get through that and move on so that we can be a united body of Christ and be used by God to change this nation into what he has already promised that she will be. So as you see, the title tonight is Obedience Through Faith. We've talked about willing obedience. We've talked about joyful obedience. Tonight we're going to look at this obedience through faith. If you can't tell what the point of the message is, it takes faith to be obedient. And the great thing is that we all have it. And we all actually have enough of it. But are we using it? So Luke 17 verse 1 through 10. It says, Then he said to his disciples, It is impossible that no offenses should come, but woe to him through whom they do come. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he should offend one of these little ones. Take heed to yourself. In other words, a valued self. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day returns to you saying, I repent, you shall forgive him. Now, the apostles respond in verse 5 in a manner that we probably think is a good statement. And they say, and the apostles said to the Lord, increase our faith. Jesus, you just told us to forgive over and over again. You just told us that we're not supposed to hold somebody to the offense that they've caused. We're supposed to forgive them over and over again, even if it's the same offense. Lord, we need more faith for that. And Jesus' response was this, verse 6. So the Lord said, if you have faith, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, be pulled out by the roots and be planted into the sea and it would obey you. And which of you having a servant plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he has come in from the field, come at once and sit down and eat. Will he not rather say to him, prepare something for my supper and gird yourself and serve me until I have eaten and drunk. And afterward you will eat and drink. Does he thank the servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So likewise, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say we are unprofitable servants, we have done what was our duty to do. Let's pray. Father, we submit ourselves to you, Lord God. With the humble desire, Father, that you would implant in us your word that is spirit and life. Father, that you would remove from us any darkness within us, Lord God. The areas of our hearts, our memories, Lord God, the areas of our feelings, Father, that we have closed ourselves off to you. That we have not let anyone into those places, Father, for what is behind those doors oftentimes is too hard to face. But Father, you simply tell us to obey. To open those doors and allow you to clean them out. Allow you, Lord God, to remove those things that are hindrances so that you can occupy, so that you can be Lord completely of every area of our lives. As we look at this verse tonight, Lord God, I pray that you would speak to us by your spirit, the wonderful teacher. I pray that we would be led in all truth. We would be led in revelation. And that, Lord, as we speak, your Holy Spirit would be influencing our hearts. And helping us to see where the things that we are talking about apply in our specific situations, in our specific lives. Father, that we may surrender all to you. And be used by you as your instruments of righteousness. In Jesus' name, Amen. I was praying a little bit ago before coming into the sanctuary. And I'm like, you know, God, these past couple weeks of preaching have been pretty direct and pretty cutting straight to the heart. And I was like, why, God? Should I change it up a little bit? Should I make it softer? And the Lord said something to me. He said, you don't want to be my instrument? I'm good. I'm good. Forgive me for going down that road. And here's the reason why it is good for us to hear messages that cut our hearts. It has to do with protection. Not necessarily correction. We need correction. In fact, Paul told Timothy, all Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for, among other things, correction and instruction. And so we should be willing to receive correction. Although sometimes it's difficult to receive it. But with the understanding that when God wants to correct us, it's for our own good. And it's for our protection. It's for our advancement in his kingdom. Though sometimes it is difficult to hear. Even when our parents would correct us when we were younger. No one likes to get in trouble. No one likes to get yelled at. No one likes to get punished. But at the same time, our parents were trying to form in us those qualities and those characteristics that would cause us to be good adults. And so God does the same thing. He brings correction to us. He brings instruction to us. So that we may grow from being babies into being mature adults that are able to be used by him in mighty ways. So they say to Jesus, increase our faith. And he said, well, if you want to talk about faith, faith is easy. If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this tree, be uprooted, cast into the sea. That's no problem. I don't have time to get into the analogy of the mustard seed. It's a little misunderstood in regards to its application. But the point being is that it doesn't take a lot of faith to forgive. So we're talking about forgiveness. Jesus is talking about forgiveness and offense. And he says in that response to there, we need more faith. He said, no, you have faith. It's not a matter of needing more faith. You have faith. And then he goes in and talks about this example with having a servant. You don't tell the servant, oh, you had a long day. You go ahead. I'll sit down. Let me serve you. You tell the servant, serve me. As we go through this, as we go through this scripture, you're going to see how Christ relates obedience back to forgiveness. So why are we to obey and forgive? Why are we to obey and forgive? Well, number one, forgiveness reaps forgiveness. Matthew 6, 14 and 15 says, for if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. I think it's a very stern statement that perhaps we don't always want to recognize that it is in scripture. Oh, but God is a forgiving God. He'll forgive me. Yeah, he'll forgive you. Well, so if I don't forgive, does that mean I've lost my salvation? No, that's not what it's saying. It's saying if you do not forgive, because we all know we sin daily, right? Anybody in here perfect? Anyone make it through the day without sinning? I didn't think so. It doesn't affect our salvation, but it does affect our relationship with God. And it affects our relationship with each other. And God puts such an emphasis on forgiving each other. He puts such an emphasis on our relationship with each other. Because our relationship with each other is the visual example that people will have of Christ's relationship with the church. It's not just about lay aside the offenses. It's not just about the freedom that we will have if we forgive people. It is about the example that we portray to each other and to the world of God's relationship with us. So important that he said, if you don't forgive someone else, you are preventing me from forgiving you. What you sow, you will reap. Sow forgiveness and you'll reap forgiveness. Number two, forgiveness paves the way to answered prayers. So if we are forgiving others and Christ is forgiving us, then there's no hindrance in receiving from him what he wants to give. So in Mark 11 verse 24 to 26, it says, Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them and you will have them. And a lot of times this verse is used in an isolated incident and it doesn't change the truth of it. But always it is important to know what the context is around a verse. And this verse here about faith, about believing, about praying is wrapped together in the context of interactions one with another. Verse 25 says, And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him that your father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your father in heaven forgive your trespasses. So Jesus is saying, pray for it, believe for it. Whatever you pray for and ask, that you will have if you believe. But oh, by the way, if you're harboring bitterness and unforgiveness in your heart, I may have it. I have the package ready to send. I have the answer ready to send to you. But you need to forgive. So that what you're praying for, so that what you're believing for, so that what you're stepping out in faith to receive, I can fulfill that. But if you don't forgive, that provision is going to have a hard time getting to you. Because there is an obstacle in the way. And he says here, if, how does he say it? Whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone. So this is not talking about if someone has something against you. If you have something against anyone, forgive them. This is like before any apology is ever made. This is before any conversation happens. Of course, Jesus gives us instructions on conflict resolution. He gives us instructions and an order on how to deal with offense, so that we come into a place of freedom. But here he says before any of that takes place, you forgive. Well, they should know what they did. Yeah, but you have to forgive. Because if we go into a conversation with just the motive to prove to somebody that they offended us. And no motive to glorify God. We've come in as the judge. He is the judge. He's the judge. So forgive first. God, why aren't you answering my prayers? God, why isn't this verse working in my life? Why don't I see this? Why am I not experiencing my prayers getting answered? The better question then is to say, God, is there somebody I need to forgive? Is there some bitterness in my heart that I have let grow there so long, but I've ignored it? And I've forgotten that it's there. Show me what it is, God. So that I can get that taken care of. So the blessing and the provision so that the interaction and the intimacy that I have with you, Father, will be unhindered. Now, if we do forgive, we have 100% certainty that God will forgive us. I just don't know if God can forgive that. That's because you didn't read the Bible. That's why you don't know that God can forgive that. Oh no, I've read that verse before. It says he'll forgive. Okay, well then you don't believe. I believe God. I believe his word. Then believe that God can forgive you for that. Oh, I don't know if he can forgive me for that. And go in the same circle. We have 100% certainty, because it's God's word, that he will forgive us when we walk in forgiveness. Three, forgiveness keeps us at peace with God and at peace with each other. Matthew 18, verse 34 and 35, it says, And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. So my heavenly Father also will do to you, if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother his trespasses. Jesus said this. Jesus said some pretty direct and pretty hard things to receive when we look at them from the standpoint of our own pride, our own desires. We want God to give us everything while at the same time taking away from someone else who has wronged us the blessings that he would give them. We want them to suffer while we want ourselves to prosper. But God says, I can't prosper you while you are desiring for your brother or for your sister to fail. It doesn't work that way. And he says when that happens, Jesus said, My Father, just as this man was turned over to the tormentors, my Father will do the same to you if you do not forgive. Unforgiveness most of the time affects the person who is harboring the unforgiveness, not the person who was the offender. You put yourself in a place to be tormented by the enemy when you hold on to unforgiveness. Oh God, the loving God, he wouldn't do that. Bible. Red letters. As if the red letters are more important than the other ones. It's all his word. If you don't forgive, so my Father will turn you over to the tormentors. Oh but God, God's a loving God, why would he do that? To help us learn. To help us value the forgiveness that he has made available to us. To help us to understand the grace that he has poured out to us is the same grace that we need to pour out to other people, because again, our interactions with each other are the visual example of God's love for us. And when we forgive, then we walk in freedom. When we forgive, then we won't be tormented by the enemy. When we forgive, then we can torment the enemy by our obedience to God, rather than being tormented by him. Forgiveness number four, pleases the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 4 verse 30 says, And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. I don't know how many times in my life I've heard this verse, how many times in my life I've read this verse, how many times in my life I've read through Ephesians. And for whatever reason, this time, it stood out to me that where this verse is located, we preach a lot. People preach a lot about grieving the Holy Spirit. They talk a lot about not making the Spirit sad and not by doing this or that. But for whatever reason, it never occurred to me where this verse is located in that, you know, know the context of the verse thing. In verse 25, it says, Therefore, putting away lying, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor. For we are members of one another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need. What a turnaround. Let him who steals, who stole, steal no longer. So that no longer you're taking from somebody else, but you are putting your hands to productive use so that you can be a giver, not a taker. Verse 29, Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. With all malice. You're supposed to remove these things from your life with extreme prejudice. Violently almost. Don't be angry with one another. Be angry with the sin that is in you and put it away from yourself. Thirdly, Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. And forgiveness applies to ourselves too. We must forgive ourselves for the things that we have done. If God, the righteous judge, before whom we will stand on the day of judgment, says that he forgives us, what right do we have to not forgive each other? What right do we have not to forgive ourselves? None. But this verse about grieving the Holy Spirit is surrounded in the context of our interaction with each other. If we want the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, we need to evaluate how we are interacting with each other. It's a really good list of things that we need to put away from ourselves. There's your homework for this week. Ephesians 4, 25-32. Consume it, chew it, meditate on it, pray about it, allow the Holy Spirit to teach you. So we have that forgiveness breeds forgiveness or it reaps when you sow forgiveness, you receive forgiveness. Forgiveness paves the way to answered prayers. It keeps us at peace with God and with each other and forgiveness pleases the Holy Spirit. But what does all of this have to do with Luke 17? I'm glad you asked. Two things I want to show you out of this. Between verse 5 and verse 10. Now, of course, verse 10 says, we are unprofitable servants. What does that mean? What is an unprofitable servant? Does that mean that you haven't done anything? No. The word and the connotation here is, paints the picture that we as God's servants have not brought to the table anything of value to which we would be able to say, I helped God do this. We have nothing. We bring nothing to the table. We bring nothing of value, just our willing hearts to obey. And Jesus says, in one translation it says, we are useless servants. But it does come back to the truth that we have not brought anything into this equation. God has put everything on the table. In the negotiation with God of, He wants us to obey and we are His servants, we can't say, well, God, I did bring this to the table, so I don't have to serve so much in this. I don't have to obey so much in this. We brought nothing. He brought everything. So likewise, when we have done what is required of us, we simply say, we're just servants, doing what is our duty to do. And Jesus said this in the context of forgiveness. They said, increase our faith. He said, increase your obedience. That sums up those five verses. Increase our faith. And Jesus said, no, you don't need faith. You have faith. You need obedience. And you are a servant. Therefore, you need to obey. The great thing, like I said last week, is that when we are the friends of God, when we are the friends of God, we get to understand what our obedience will bring. The benefit of our obedience, what it will produce. We get more of the information that though we are unprofitable servants simply doing our duty, the relationship and the intimacy we have with God brings understanding to us so that when we are obeying to forgive somebody else, we know and are assured of that there is something that's going to come from the Father because we were obedient to forgive one of his children or even somebody that isn't. Jesus said, you don't need more faith. You need obedience. Now, if we look at verse 7 through 9 in the context of verse 10, I want us to look at this from two different perspectives. If we look at 7 through 9 in light of verse 10, we get the application that Jesus is saying to us, you don't get to choose here. There's no negotiation happening here. Forgive. It's not a situation of faith. It's a situation of obedience. You forgive because I told you you need to forgive. A servant must obey the Master. Now, if we look at verse 7 to 9 in the context of verse 5 and 6, they said, increase our faith. He says, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, this won't be any problem for you. It doesn't take great faith. It just takes growing faith, maturing faith. You don't need more. You have it. It is within you to forgive. There is enough faith in you to forgive somebody's offense, even when that offense is the worst thing that you can think of in your life or the worst thing that you have experienced in your life. How can I forgive that person for that? By faith and by obedience. He says, if you have faith, you can do it. You can obey. You can forgive. And then he says, which of you having a servant says to the servant, no, it's all right, you rest, I got this. Every time that we set ourselves up to do something in our own strength and in our own understanding, in our own ability, what we are doing is saying to the servant, you sit down, I got this. I'll do this in my own strength. And Christ here is showing us that faith is the servant. Do you see it? Faith is the servant. Faith is our servant. We can, like they did, say, increase our faith. Jesus say, increase your obedience. And we say, nah, it's too hard. And Jesus says, but I've given you a worker. I've given you a servant. And I've given you a helper who's standing over there leaning on a shovel just waiting for you to put them to work. Why is life so hard in God? Because heaven put faith to work for us. There's a double application here. We are to say before God, we're simply your servants doing what you have told us to do. Faith is there waiting to say the same thing. I'm here. I'm here for you. You want me to help you with that? I've got all the tools you need to accomplish what you're trying to do on your own. I'll help you. All you've got to do is put me in the game. Let me punch the clock. I'm in. But too often we let faith sit by the sideline or we limit the work of faith to salvation or we limit the work of faith to God answer my prayers and we forget to put faith to work in order to obey what God has told us to do. That's why this message is called Obedience Through Faith. We don't need more faith to obey God. We just need to put faith to work for us. He's our servant. Faith is there for us. Faith is there to be used, to be employed. And he likes it. Faith likes to be used. Will you use it? Will you use it? Let's stand together as a worship team comes. When God called me to the ministry, I was 11 years old. And I was sitting in a Sunday night service, not paying attention. The Holy Spirit dropped two verses in my heart to look up. I looked them up. I knew that God was using those verses to call me into ministry. So our church always had an altar call at the end of every service. And so I went up and the pastor came over to pray for me. How can I pray for you? I said, I think actually he said, so why are you up here? I said, I don't know. All I know is that God spoke to me over there in my seat, told me to do something. And so I came up here as a response, an act of obedience to say, I hear you and I will obey. And so as we sing this chorus, I want you to take a step of obedience. If you're struggling with unforgiveness in your life, if you're struggling with not putting faith to work in your life, if God has been speaking to you during this time, even if it's just one of you, I want you to step out of your seat and come forward. Don't be embarrassed. Every one of us has that one thing that we're still trying to forgive. That one person that we're still trying to get rid of those roots of bitterness in our heart. But if you've heard the Spirit tonight, touch your heart, and you want to respond by saying, I hear you and I will obey. I invite you to come up. We're not going to come and say to what issue is, tell me who you haven't forgiven. It's not a counseling session. I'm not even going to have people lay hands on you. Because Jesus said you don't need more faith. You don't need somebody to lay hands on you. You don't need prayer. You just need to take what I've already given you and obey. So in an act of obedience, I invite you to come to the altar. Father, we thank you for this day and for your Spirit here. I thank you, Lord God, for these that have come forward and have responded, Lord, to what your Spirit is speaking to them. Father, you have given us everything pertaining to life and godliness, including the ability to forgive. Teach us, Father, to put faith to work, that we may obey and forgive, that in that forgiveness we'll find freedom, freedom with you and freedom with others. We thank you, Lord God, that the Holy Spirit inside of us gives us strength to obey. We thank you, Lord God, that there's joy that lies ahead, the joy of freedom, the joy of restoration, the joy of no more torment. Holy Spirit, continue to work in us even as we leave this place. I pray, Lord, that you would break the chains that bind, that you would set free, that you would speak, Lord God, to each one of these, that, Father, there would be victory. We thank you, Lord God. We thank you for victory. We thank you, Lord God, that though offenses will come, we don't have to live in them and we don't have to suffer under them. We thank you that you have put enough faith in us for this. And we thank you that you have made clear, Lord God, our obedience is required. But we also thank you, Lord, that you infuse in us the strength to obey as we surrender our will to you and make you Lord of every area of our lives. Father, we praise you and thank you. 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 Colonial Trepici, just off Boulevard Sollapa, near Una. If you would like prayer or more information about our church, contact us at fellowship.cci at fellowship.cci at fellowship.cci at fellowship.cci at fellowship.cci at fellowship.cci at fellowship.cci or follow us on social media. We hope to see you or hear from you soon. Blessings.