Walking in Obedience

We've been talking for a couple of weeks about how to fulfill the greatest commandment that Jesus talks about in Matthew 22, when he says that we are to love the Lord with all of our heart, soul and mind. He said this is the first and greatest commandment. And we talked about in our vertical relationship with him, how do we express that love? And we've talked about two different ways. Number one, through worship.

What we've just been doing for the last few minutes, like we have worshiped the Lord as an expression of our hearts, where we declare our adoration to Him. Secondly, we talked a couple of weeks ago about serving, that we serve God. That's a way that we express our love to him by loving other people, serving other people, that's pleasing to the heart of the Lord. We're concluding today, and I want to talk to you for just a few minutes about obedience. Obedience.

Now, I want you to take your device or your Bible, if you will. I want you to go to second Corinthians, chapter nine. We're going to begin there. And we're also going to be looking at a verse of scripture out of 2 John, 2 Corinthians, 9 and 2 John. And I want you to stand to honor the greatest book on the planet, the Word of God, this morning.

And as you do, would you do me a big favor? Would you welcome all of the inmates across America who are joining us on the Pando app this morning. Come on, give it up for them, man. We love you.

So glad you could worship with us today. So I'm going to read some familiar verses of Scripture. In fact, I just declared some of them over you just a couple of minutes ago, and I've been doing so for now 21 years. The apostle Paul's writing to the Corinthian Church beginning in verse 10. And this is what he says now, he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge.

Excuse me, will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You'll be enriched in every way so that you can be. Say it with me on every occasion and through us. Your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. This service that you perform, talking about your stewardship, your generosity is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but watch.

It's also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God or worship. Verse 13. Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, others will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession. Of the Gospel of Christ. Come on.

How many of you know talk is cheap?

And for your generosity in sharing with them and with everybody else, one verse in Second John, verse six, it says this. And this is love. That we walk in obedience to his commands. As you've heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love. One other verse.

I don't know if I'll put it in your notes or not. First John, chapter five, verse three. That says this loving God means keeping his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome. Hallelujah. Hey, let's make some declarations before you're seated.

Everybody together in even those of you watching online. You ready? Go. I will hide this word in my heart.

This word is life to my body and health to my bones. I will be a doer of the Word, not a hearer only. And I am confident of this, we'll complete it in Jesus name. Amen. You can be seated, Church.

Now, listen to me. We often make the mistake of separating love and obedience. Let me say that again. We often make the mistake of separating love and obedience. We can say that we love God all day long, but the demonstration of that love is obedience.

Now, I have a dog, a yellow lab. Her name is Daisy. And she absolutely loves me. She adores me. If you follow me on Instagram, you've seen Daisy.

She's my buddy. She's a year and a half old. She will not let me out of her sight. At night, if I'm in my recliner, she's usually in my lap. The dog just.

She loves me. And I felt like it would be a good idea. Maybe not. It's a little risky for Daisy to help me preach my message this morning. Son, will you bring Daisy out this morning?

Will you welcome my dog, Daisy?

This is Daisy. Isn't she beautiful? She's a great girl. Now, we spent a lot of time training Daisy, and she's been trained to obey me. But she doesn't always obey.

Just like you and I, right? We can say we love God, but the Bible says if we love him, we'll obey Him. We'll keep his commandments. So let's see how Daisy does this morning. Take her off her leash.

Daisy, come. Come. Daisy, sit. Daisy, sit. Good girl.

Daisy healed.

So she's been trained to obey. Is he healed? Daisy, sit. Stay. Stay.

Daisy, come.

Daisy, heel. Good girl.

Daisy, sit. Daisy, sit. Daisy, down. Good girl. Give Daisy a big hand, will ya?

So she's obeying. Stay right there. Good girl. Now her nose is going crazy right now, because you see what's on this table? That's some of her treats.

She smells those treats. Now, she wasn't obeying me because of the treats, because I wasn't giving her any treats. She was obeying me because of my voice. Just like we should do with the Lord, right? I'm talking about it right now because it's important that we learn to obey.

But how many of you know, even though we say we love God, there are temptations and distractions that come along in life.

Did you see that? I never released her from being in the down position. But because of the temptation. Come on. Can anybody relate to this?

We say, oh, God, I love you. God, I'm going to obey your word. Whoo. That girl looks good.

God, I love you, Lord. Oh, God, thank you for the service we had today. Ring. Hello. Hey.

Hey, man. We're having a party tonight. All right, I'm there. I'll be there. We get distracted by the temptations of life.

Now, Daisy's a little distracted, but let me see if I can get her attention.

Daisy, sit.

Now, the problem with us is that sometimes the only time we'll obey the Lord is if there's something in it for us.

You go ahead, sister. You go ahead.

Listen, God wants us to obey him just because we love him. And we're like, well, God, I'll obey you, but what's in it for me? Like, I mean, come on, God, I'm going to obey you. But this is costly, so I need some type of reward for my obedience. But what blesses the heart of God is if we will just obey him because we love him.

We're not trying to twist his arm. We're not saying, God, what's in it for me. Y' all give it up for Daisy one more time. Son, you can take her back to the back. Good job, girl.

You did so good. Good job.

Listen. Paul reminds the Corinthian believers that love and obedience go together, and that obedience is worship. Let me read the verse I read a Moment ago, verse 12. This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord's people, but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. I've said for many years to you that the highest expression of worship is obedience.

It's obedience. So let's get to the point that we don't say, oh, God, I love you. But, you know, in those things that you've asked me to do, there's a few of those things. Can we negotiate on that a Little bit, because I don't really want to do those things. Are they going to be too costly for me to do those things?

No. He says, if you love me, you'll obey me, period. You won't try to negotiate, you won't try to kind of carve out a few things that you are willing to do and the other things that you're not willing to do? No. Whatever the word says, we're going to obey him.

I love the story of a mom who was on the way to church with her daughter and she gave her daughter a $1 bill and a $10 bill. And she said, when it's offering time, you pick which one you're going to give. So on the way home, she says to her daughter, hey, by the way, I gave you a dollar bill and a ten dollar bill on the way to church. Which one did you give? She said, well, Mom, I had every intention of giving the ten dollar bill to the Lord.

But then I heard the pastor say that God loves cheerful givers. And I knew I'd be a lot happier if I kept the 10 and gave the one, so I gave the one.

How many of you know, partial obedience is not obedience at all. It's really disobedience. Obedience is this thing that produces joy in our lives and when we obey the Lord. Come on, some of you know what I'm talking about. There's a joy that comes to us on the inside.

And guess what? That joy just overflows in gratitude. Like God, thank you that I could do that. Thank you, I could bless somebody. Thank you God, that I could resist temptation.

Thank you God, that you've given me the power to obey your word. It overflows in gratitude. And guess what? That just then produces more joy. Now listen, as a true shepherd to you, I've always endeavored to teach you what the word says.

I want to lead you in 2025 into greater joy and greater obedience as it comes to what God's word says. And I've never known anybody who's gotten into a financial mess by obeying the word of God. So I want to talk to you today for a couple of minutes about obedience as it relates to your stewardship and your giving. And please understand this, you may be fairly new to the refuge. I do not want anything from you.

But I do want things for you. And as a true shepherd, one of the joys of my heart is to see the people of God being blessed. And I want to see you blessed. But God can never bless you disobedience Listen, the word of God has a lot to say about stewardship, has a lot to say about giving. As a matter of fact, there are more scriptures about money and possessions than there are about love, hope and prayer combined.

There's about 500 verses in the Bible somewhere around there on faith. There's about 500 verses in the Bible about prayer. But there are some two things. There's thousand verses in scripture that are about money and possessions and stewardship. Do you realize 16 of the 38 parables have to do with money and possessions?

One out of every six verses in the Gospels refers to money or possessions. You say, why would God devote so much time and attention and space in scripture to this thing of money and possessions? Here's why. Now don't miss this. Because money is the number one competitor for your heart, the number one competitor for our hearts.

Look what Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 6, verse 19. Don't store up treasures here on earth where moths eat them and rust destroys them, or where thieves break in and still store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. There's a direct connection between your heart and your stewardship. We need a biblical understanding of money and how to handle it, because money is a test from God.

And how you handle money reveals volumes about your priorities, about your loyalties, about your values and and about your affections. Now, a lot of people will lie to themselves and they'll say things like this regarding tithing and stewardship and giving. They'll say things like this, well, God will understand if we don't do this, that's a lie. They'll say, well, tithing is under the law. It's under the law.

Listen, I'm not gonna teach on this today, but tithing predates the law by over 700 years. So it's not just a law thing. Some people will say, tithing is not for the New Testament church or believer. Obviously you don't know scripture well, because Jesus himself said you ought to tithe. It is a New Testament thing.

Some people will say, well, I'll start tithing, I'll start giving when, when I get the raise, when we pay off these bills, whenever we're in a better financial position, when, when, when. And they never end up moving into a realm of obedience as it relates to their stewardship. Let's talk for a moment about this concept of first fruits that's mentioned in the Bible all the way back in Exodus chapter 34. A lot of people don't understand this concept, but it really lays the foundation for stewardship. Exodus 34, verse 26.

Bring the best of the first fruits of your soil to the house of the Lord your God. The word first fruits comes from a Hebrew word, bacirim, and it means a promise to come. Shares the same root word as the word that means firstborn. It's the most mentioned feast in the Bible, second only to the feast of Passover. The concept of first fruits is mentioned multiple times throughout Scripture.

But here's the concept. In ancient days, families would watch for the first budding of grain or fruit as the springtime would begin to set in. And as soon as they saw the first branch that would begin to bud or the first stalk that would begin to bud, they would take a red string and they would tie it around that branch or around that stalk so that they could identify those fruit, that fruit, or that grain. And so whenever they would harvest, they would take that branch. Watch.

This is beautiful. They would present it to the priest in the temple. The priest would hold it up before the Lord. The priest would wave it as an offering to God of thanksgiving. And by doing so, it would sanctify the first fruits and it would redeem the rest of the harvest.

It would say, this offering, this obedience to God, blesses the rest. That's why I've said for many, many years, the 90% that's blessed by God will go way further than the 100% that's under a curse.

And it takes faith. Like, you can't create a spreadsheet that'll make that make sense.

But we don't operate by calculation. We operate by revelation of the Word of God. Are you still with me this morning? That's why tithing is so important, because it's the primary way that we acknowledge that God is first. And when the first portion is given to God, guess what?

It redeems the rest. Just like the harvest is redeemed, it redeems the rest of our finances. Think back to when the Israelites came into the Promised Land. The very first city that they would encounter there was the city of Jericho. What was God's instructions about Jericho?

God said, when you go into Jericho, when you take that city, every bit of that belongs to me. That was first fruits of the Promised Land. But God said, if you'll give me that, if you'll give me Jericho, everything else is yours. All the rest of the Promised Land, all of the produce and all of the blessings will belong to You. And that's what the Israelites did.

Now, God has a distribution plan for each one of us. He involved the disciples in that. You remember the story of when the disciples were tasked by Jesus to feed a massive crowd of people and the best they could come up with was the little discounted snack meal from Zaxby's or from Long John Silvers, right? Five loaves of bread, two fish. But Jesus involves them in the distribution plan.

And he teaches them a valuable lesson that if you'll take the little that you have and you put it into the hands of Jesus, he will bless it, he'll give it back to you, and then he'll allow you to use that and to steward that for the benefit of the kingdom. And that's what happened with the disciples. They watched a miracle take place with the distribution plan of God. Now, we're instructed throughout Scripture that we are blessed so that we can be a blessing. We're instructed throughout Scripture that we are to participate in the distribution plan of God.

Everything that's been entrusted to us. And that there's a systematic way and a strategic way that we can do that. And the way that he's given us is tithing and giving offerings. And those are not the same thing. And just to be clear, tithing is not about law.

It's about love. It's about love. Now, there was a point that Daisy started obeying me because there was a reward in it for her rather than just obeying my voice. She had to overcome the distraction, certainly, but she did so because she saw man. There's a reward.

There's something in it for me. But we've got to get to the place that we say, God, I'm not doing this because there's promises attached to it. Although he's a keeper of His Word, His Word works. He's faithful to his promises to you and I. But we don't do it for that reason.

We do it because we adore him. We do it because he's worthy. We do it because we love Him. This is an act of worship, our obedience, Lord. It's just worship to you.

We're just ascribing glory to you, saying, God, what you've entrusted to us, we're grateful for this, God. We're grateful for this. And the minimum that God requires is the 10%. The 10% of saying, God, I return. That's what scripture says.

I return the tithe to you. Notice it doesn't say you give the tithe. Why? Because you cannot give something that doesn't belong to you. You see, the tithe, that first portion is consecrated to God.

So that's why we return it to him and then we give offerings over and above the tithe. George Barn, I did some research just a couple of years ago in 2022, and he found this. 2 out of 10 practicing Christians, 2 out of 10, that's not just those who say, yeah, I'm a born again Christian. These are practicing Christians. Only 2 out of 10 set their church giving at 10% or more of their income.

25% of practicing Christians never give a dime to their church. Only 5% of the United States of people in the US tithe, only 5%. 80% of Americans only give 2% of their income. And that's not just to the church. That's just charities or whatever it might be.

A lot of adults were asked in America, do you understand the word tithe? 39% of them said, I understand that word, tithe. I've heard of that word and I understand what it means. But 39% said, I have no clue what you're talking about. I don't know what that word means.

That's why I'm teaching you today. Listen, I'm gonna be faithful to teach you what God's word says. This is my commitment to you and has not changed for 21 years. You gotta decide if you're gonna obey the word or not. That's up to you.

You're adults. I'm not gonna stand there and say, hey, you know, we're not gonna send letters out to you. Some denominations do that. We're not gonna do that. I'm just gonna teach you what the word says and say, look, if you wanna live a blessed life, this is how you do it.

If you wanna live under a curse, that's up to you. But the scripture's clear. I just wanna see you blessed. I wanna see you blessed. Among Christians, 43% among church givers said that they can, they can decisively say what the tithe is, but so many others can't.

The word tithe just simply means 10th. That's it. 10% 10th. Now listen to this. And then we're going to close.

If all Christ followers in America tithed, I want you to listen. If all Christ followers in America tithed, there would be an additional $165 billion available for the kingdom.

What could we do with that? Just listen. $25 billion could relieve global hunger within five years. 25. Or, pardon me, $12 billion could eliminate illiteracy around the world.

In five years, 15 billion could solve the world's water and sanitation issues. And a billion could fully fund all overseas missions work in the world. And guess what? There would still be over $100 billion left over after doing all of that. Think of the ministries.

Think of the impact. Think of, of what we could do on the seven mountains of influence in the world if every Christ follower obeyed just out of love for him. So I want to ask you today, where's your heart?

Are you saying you love God but yet you're not obeying Him? I'm not throwing stones at you. I love you. You're. I want to see the best for you.

But we can't separate love and obedience. They go together. If we love him, we will keep his commandments. We will obey Him. Does it take faith?

Absolutely. Here's what the Bible says in Matthew, pardon me, in Malachi, chapter 3, verse 10. You've heard these verses. Bring the whole tithe. This is clear, into the storehouse.

What is the storehouse? It's the house of God. It's not these different parachurch ministries. It's not different missions works. No.

You bring the tithe into the storehouse. And you guys know that the refuge endeavors to distribute everything that comes in here with the highest level of integrity. And our full GAP audit every year verifies that we do that.

We're going to distribute that through the House of God to ministries and missionaries around the world and to organizations here locally like Love Life and like Cooperative Christian Ministries and others that are right here in our own community. Now watch this. The only time in Scripture that God gives us permission to test him is right here in Malachi, chapter three. Test me in this, says the Lord Almighty. Test me in what?

In returning the tithe to the storehouse. And see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it. Listen, I know it takes faith to tithe. I understand that it takes faith. But God said, test him.

Test him, return the first fruits to him, even though it's not going to make sense. And you're going to say, we've got this bill and this bill, and I can do the math and I can add it all up, and it's not adding up to what my net income was this week. God says, test me. Test me. Exercise your faith and see if I will not throw open the windows of heaven.

We hear testimonies all the time. Unexpected blessings, refunds, tax return. Just different things. Again, you're not doing this so that you can try to arm twist. God, you're not doing it so you can say, okay, God, come on, where's the treats?

I obeyed and now you owe me. No, no, no. You're saying, lord, you're worthy and I bring my offering to you, God, I lay my crowns down at your feet. God, this is the income that you've entrusted to me, and, Lord, I bring it to you. I return that 10% that's consecrated.

I give offerings over and above my tithe simply because you are worthy.