Seize the Moment – Day 706
When God is With You!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, February 21.
Have you felt like God could not use you because you weren’t big enough or smart enough or significant enough? Well, do I have a story to tell you…
The story of Gideon is a powerful story of God working through a person, not because the person was big, strong, or important, but because God was with him. In Judges 7:2, God instructed Gideon to decrease the size of his army, commenting, “The people who are with you are too many for Me to give Midian into their hands, for Israel would become boastful, saying, ‘My own power has delivered me.’” Even after cutting it in half, the army was still too impressive, so in verse 4 God proclaimed to Gideon, “The people are still too many.” God used only 300 fighting men to achieve the victory (4-25).
From the beginning of Gideon’s story, we saw that God was planning to do a great work amidst His people. Judges 6:15-16 captures an important point of the story: “[Gideon] said to Him, ‘O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.’ But the Lord said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.’”
The victory did not come through Gideon’s power or the size of his army, but through God. The same is true today! Paul made this clear in 1 Corinthians 1:27, “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong.”
Seize the moment and trust that when God calls you to do something for Him that He will be with you. The victory comes from God through you, so be a living sacrifice for His glory today!
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Train to Live on Mission – Week 3
Battle Drill #3:
Cry Out for Discernment!
Proverbs 2:1-9 (NAS95)
Over the last three weeks, we have learned that the overarching battle drill of a good soldier of Jesus Christ is to submit to God. When we are on mission for God, submitted to our Commander, and we come under enemy attack, which we will, we are to resist the enemy by heeding God’s wisdom. If you want to live on mission, then you must remain focused; therefore, you must learn how to recognize the schemes of the devil and resist the enemy who seeks to take you off God’s mission. Often, the best defense is a proactive offense! That brings us to today’s battle drill and how we wisely discern God’s strategy for our lives.
Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine, which we learned from our study of 2 Timothy 2:1-4, to learn how to apply God’s wisdom to our daily lives and train to live on mission today.
Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.
The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is from Proverbs 2:3: “For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding.”
This verb carries an urgency of action that requires you to make a choice in how you are going to proceed forward with your life. There appears to be a life-or-death intensity when this word is translated, “to cry out.” Here are four examples of this from the Psalms:
- Psalm 57:2. “I will cry to God Most High, to God who accomplishes all things for me.”
- Psalm 119:145-146. “I cried with all my heart; answer me, O Lord! I will observe Your statutes. I cried to You; save me And I shall keep Your testimonies.”
- Psalm 120:1. “In my trouble I cried to the Lord, And He answered me.”
- Psalm 130:1. “Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord.”
This intensity is made clear when we put our battle drill back into its context of Proverbs 2:1-9:
My son, if you will receive my words and treasure my commandments within you, make your ear attentive to wisdom, incline your heart to understanding; for if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding; if you seek her as silver and search for her as for hidden treasures; then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk in integrity, guarding the paths of justice, and He preserves the way of His godly ones. Then you will discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course.
Essentially, today’s battle drill is about the urgency of learning how to make wise decisions based on the wisdom of God! Accordingly, if you examine Proverbs 2:1-9 closely, you see that it is one large conditional statement, an “if-then” proposition:
IF you:
- Receive My words (1)
- Treasure My commandments in your person (1)
- Make your ear attentive (2)
- Incline your heart to understanding (2)
- Cry out for discernment (3)
- Lift your voice for understanding (3)
- Seek wisdom as silver (4)
- Search for wisdom as hidden treasure (4)
THEN you will be able to:
- Discern the fear of the LORD (5)
- Discover the knowledge of God (5)
- Discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course (9)
WHY? The passage explains that this “if-then” conditional statement holds true in life BECAUSE doing the IF’s puts you in the pathway of God, who:
- Gives wisdom (6)
- Speaks knowledge and understanding (6)
- Stores up sound wisdom for the upright (7)
- Shields (“He is a buckler” in KJV) those who walk in integrity (7)
- Guards the paths of justice (8)
- Preserves the way of His godly ones (8)
This is the logic loop of God’s Word and just like in computer code, a conditional statement determines pathways. For example, if you take a left out of church this morning you head towards Stacks and if you take a right you are going towards Park Restaurant. If you do this action, then this result will happen. If you don’t do this, then this result will not happen. But unlike computers, you have free will – the responsibility to make wise choices and deal with the consequences. If you stop at a red light, then… If you look both ways before you cross the road, then… There is a rationality to an IF-THEN statement that you can train into your life.
This battle drill must become instinctive, reflexive, and habitual. You must make crying out to God a habit in your life to help you make right choices so that you abide with Him in the pathway of God’s blessings. Every promise of God comes with this choice – choose obedience, which leads to life, or choose disobedience, which leads to death! These were Moses’ parting words to God’s people before they entered the Promised Land in Deuteronomy 30:19-20:
I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.
Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.
Discernment, according to the Bible, is the capacity for rational thought and the ability to make wise decisions, to understand what is right and true and to act upon it. In other words, the discernment that we are to cry out for is not that God should make the decision for us, but that He would give us the capacity to know what is right, to understand truth, and to act upon that information to make good decisions that glorify Him and manifest the good fruit of His Spirit.
I often say to people, who ask me about the will of God, that discernment is more about how you make the decision, than about what decision you end up making. While I do believe what we do matters (of course it does!), I believe discernment is the why and how of the what! If you learn how to discern God’s will, then you will more times than not choose life and blessing. This is the exact opposite mindset of the Magic 8 Ball, which is the complete absence of rational thought; rather, discernment is the ability to apply the wisdom of God to real life decisions!
It is my desire to train you to be able to understand/discern God’s will accurately in a reflexive, instinctive, and habitual way, no matter the pressure of the situation or the stress you’re under. Like I’ve shared with you before, it is for this reason that I went through the rigors of the US Army Ranger School, to learn how to apply the military decision-making process (MDMP) under duress and in extreme situations. While I learned MDMP in a classroom environment first, like we are today, it had to be trained into me so that it was habitual. I needed to be able to lead my unit in ways that defeated the enemy and accomplished the mission, just like we need to be trained to heed God’s wisdom and make wise decisions based upon it.
Biblically, that process of knowing and proving God’s will for your life begins with the same step for every member of the body of Christ, as Paul explained in Romans 12:1-2:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
We must first decide to gather around the Commander, Jesus Christ, and set our ambition on becoming like Him, gentle and humble in heart, before we can do or decide anything else – this is your spiritual service of worship, being transformed into His image through the renewal of your mind (think of Proverbs 2:1-9 IF-THEN statement)! What differentiates the church from every other team or community is that we gather around Jesus and not around a goal or task, no matter how biblical or spiritual that goal may sound, if it is not around the person of Jesus Christ and becoming like Him, that task can take you off God’s mission and into your own ambition. While the church is a missional organization, our primary purpose is to become like the One who has enlisted us to Himself. Becoming like Jesus is our greatest calling, and it is only through the spiritual transformation process that the church can ever make wise decisions or live on mission or even offer right worship to Him. To put doing before being is the fundamental error of the American church. As Ruth Haley Barton stated in her book Pursuing God’s Will Together:
We are unified by our commitment to be transformed in Christ’s presence through the work of the Holy Spirit so we can discern and do the will of God as we are guided by the Spirit. We participate in Jesus’ prayer “Thy kingdom come; thy will be done” in our own small corner of the world.[1]
Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.
That is why we must prioritize our spiritual formation and seek the transformation through the renewal of the mind that only comes by prioritizing seeking the approval of Jesus Christ, the One who enlisted you to be His good soldier. We must be the ones who receive God’s words (1), treasure His commandments in our person (1), make our ear attentive (2), incline our heart to understanding (2), cry out for discernment (3), lift our voice for understanding (3), seek God’s wisdom as silver (4), and search for His wisdom as hidden treasure (4). When we do this, then we will be able to discern the fear of the LORD (5), discover the knowledge of God (5), and discern righteousness and justice and equity and every good course (9).
Just as Psalm 119:9 simply states, “How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.” We train discernment by abiding in God, hiding His Word in our hearts, and prioritizing our lives around His mission! The more we invest daily time into the meditation upon and memorization of God’s Word, the more instinctive, reflexive, and habitual it will be to remain on the path of God’s “good and acceptable and perfect” will (Romans 12:2).
Action Step #4) Live on mission.
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FOOTNOTE:
[1] Ruth Haley Barton, Pursuing God’s Will Together: A Discernment Practice for Leadership Groups (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 77.
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Seize the Moment – Day 704
Be Thou My Vision
Deuteronomy 31:8 (ESV)
“It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”
This hymn is possibly one of the oldest hymns we have today. The words were originally written around 700A.D by an unknown Irish author, Asking God to lead and guide his life. He was inspired by a well-known missionary to Ireland, St. Patrick. This Scotsman was kidnapped as a young teen, taken to Ireland as a slave, escaped his captors and returned to his family. But God had other plans for him. In a dream, he saw an Irishman pleading for him to come evangelize Ireland. At the age of 30, he returned with only a Latin Bible in his hand. Despite the opposition from the superstitious Druids, Patrick planted over 200 churches and baptized 100,000 converts. So centuries later, his life was still inspiring the people of Ireland. Look at verse 2:
Be Thou my wisdom and Thou my true Word,
I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord.
Thou my great Father, and I Thy true son,
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.
We need to wake up and ask God to give us a fresh vision and purpose for our lives each and every day as we seek to trust and obey His will for our lives. We have to daily surrender to Him.
YOUTUBE:
Be Thou My Vision
naught be all else to me, save that thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
waking or sleeping, thy presence my light.
I ever with thee, and thou with me, Lord.
Born of thy love, thy child may I be,
thou in me dwelling and I one with thee.
Be thou my dignity, thou my delight,
thou my soul’s shelter, thou my high tow’r.
Raise thou me heav’nward, O Pow’r of my pow’r.
thou mine inheritance, now and always.
Thou and thou only, first in my heart,
Ruler of heaven, my treasure thou art.
may I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’n’s Sun!
Heart of my heart, whatever befall,
still be my vision, O Ruler of all.
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Seize the Moment – Day 703
For the Fame of the One Name!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, February 18.
Have you ever done an important job only to be overlooked? While the next three chapters, Judges 6 – 8, tells the story of the next great judge, Gideon, we first encounter an unnamed prophet in verses 7-10:
Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the Lord on account of Midian, that the Lord sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery. I delivered you from the hands of the Egyptians and from the hands of all your oppressors, and dispossessed them before you and gave you their land, and I said to you, “I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But you have not obeyed Me.” ’ ”
That’s it! No name mentioned, but a faithful word given. We may never know who this person was, unlike the prophetess Deborah or the prophet Samuel, but God’s will was done through his faithfulness just the same.
Does your faithfulness depend on recognition, fame, or notoriety?
There is only one name that needs to be put up in lights and that is the name of Jesus Christ. So, don’t be discouraged from doing good if you are overlooked, simply pray that your life will elevate the name of Jesus, the only name by which anyone can be saved (Acts 4:12; Romans 10:9).
Seize the moment and keep serving faithfully for the fame of the One name!
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Seize the Moment – Day 702
Sing a Duet!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Thursday, February 17.
Do you have a favorite duet? Maybe when Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond came together to sing, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” or Faith Hill and Tony Bennett when they sang, “The Way You Look Tonight.” There is something magical about a beautiful duet.
This is a rare discovery because the next closest thing to a duet in the Bible was the Song of Miriam (Exodus 15:20-21), which immediately followed the Song of Moses (Exodus 15:1-19). They may have sounded like a duet, but their songs are not described as one.
Deborah and Barak sang as one of their victory, and they gave God all the glory! Just as foretold, the song gave honor to a woman for the victory, as Judges 5:24 declared of the heroin: “Most blessed of women is Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite; most blessed is she of women in the tent.” But as you listen to their song, they are giving honor to many, not just the champion, but to the many from the tribes who fought, whether volunteer or commander.
Seize the moment and honor the people in your life who are fighting the good fight of faith as good soldiers of Jesus Christ for the glory of God! We are in this together!
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Seize the Moment – Day 701
Partnerships for the Glory of God!
Partnerships are necessary for life! There would not be a new generation of babies born if it were not for the partnerships of men and women coming together; it requires healthy partnerships to bring thriving to our homes, churches, and lives.
Deborah was unique during this period because she was judging in the ancient ways of Moses and his appointed judges. She is more akin to Samuel than the other judges of this time, who were all warriors raised up to defeat an oppressive regime. With this understanding in mind, she gave Barak God’s command in an important exchange recorded in Judges 4:6-9:
Then Barak said to her, “If you will go with me, then I will go; but if you will not go with me, I will not go.” She said, “I will surely go with you; nevertheless, the honor shall not be yours on the journey that you are about to take, for the Lord will sell Sisera into the hands of a woman.” Then Deborah arose and went with Barak to Kedesh.
Through their partnership, God won the victory, and the people experienced forty years of rest. But, as we saw in the continuation of this story, it was not herself, but another woman who received the honor for this great victory – Jael (17-22; 5:24).
Seize the moment and work as a part of a God-designed team! It’s amazing what God will do through us when we don’t care who gets the honor, as long as God gets all the glory!
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Seize the Moment – Day 700
A Vicious Cycle!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, February 15.
Have you ever been caught in a vicious cycle that seemed to keep you stuck in a bad place or prevent you from making forward progress in an area of your life? Unfortunately, a common cycle that 20% of spouses suffer is the vicious cycle of domestic violence; whereas tension builds in the relationship until there is an incident, which is followed by the honeymoon phase followed by calm as the tension starts to build.
Judges 3:9-14 describes the vicious cycle of violence in which Israel was caught:
When the sons of Israel cried to the Lord, the Lord raised up a deliverer for the sons of Israel to deliver them, Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb’s younger brother. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he judged Israel. When he went out to war, the Lord gave Cushan-rishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand, so that he prevailed over Cushan-rishathaim. Then the land had rest forty years. And Othniel the son of Kenaz died. Now the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the Lord. So the Lord strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the Lord. And he gathered to himself the sons of Ammon and Amalek; and he went and defeated Israel, and they possessed the city of the palm trees. The sons of Israel served Eglon the king of Moab eighteen years.
Sin ensnared Israel in what we are going to see as a vicious cycle throughout the book of Judges. The people suffered in bondage and cried out to God for deliverance. God responded and raised up a powerful military leader who rescued them. They lived in peace for an extended period, until they did evil in the sight of God and another invader defeated them. Repeatedly, all because they wouldn’t consistently remain obedient to God and His ways. They became complacent in times of peace and prosperity!
Seize the moment and break the vicious cycles in your life by returning to God today! Defeat complacency by committing yourself to growing stronger in your walk with Jesus.
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Seize the Moment – Day 699
Making Right Choices!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Monday, February 14. Happy Valentine’s Day!
There are consequences to choices. God’s Word is clear that obedience leads to blessings and disobedience manifests curses. Before his death, Joshua had confronted the nation with a choice (Joshua 24:14-15). While they told Joshua they would remain faithful to the God who rescued them from Egypt and brought them through the desert into the Promised Land, their actions proved otherwise. Judges 2:20-23 closes with a summary statement of Israel’s condition after Joshua’s death:
So the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and He said, “Because this nation has transgressed My covenant which I commanded their fathers and has not listened to My voice, I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, in order to test Israel by them, whether they will keep the way of the Lord to walk in it as their fathers did, or not.” So the Lord allowed those nations to remain, not driving them out quickly; and He did not give them into the hand of Joshua.
There are two reasons listed in this passage for why God was no longer going to drive out the nations before Israel, like He had during the conquest of the Promised Land. First, to discipline them for their transgressions of His covenant. Second, to test their faithfulness, to see if “they will keep the way of the LORD.” According to Deuteronomy 8:2, this was the same reason God led them in the wilderness for forty years: “You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.”
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Train to Live on Mission – Week 2
Battle Drill #2:
Heed God’s Wisdom! (Obey Orders!)
Proverbs 1:20-33 (NAS95)
Over the last two weeks, we have learned that the overarching battle drill is to submit to God. When we are on mission for God, submitted to our Commander, and we come under enemy attack we are to resist the enemy. That was last week’s battle drill based on Proverbs 1:8-19. James 4:7 succinctly teaches us of this essential fundamental of training to live on mission for God: “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” If you want to live on mission, then you must remain focused; therefore, you must learn how to recognize the schemes of the devil, and resist the enemy who seeks to take you off God’s mission!
Let us continue in our study of the book of Proverbs with the second battle drill. Today, we are going to walk through the four action steps of a soldier’s training routine to learn how to apply God’s wisdom to our daily lives and train to live on mission today.
Action Step #1) Know the Field Manual.
The battle drill we are going to learn and apply this week is Proverbs 1:33: “But he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil.”
Every good soldier of Jesus Christ must learn that if you want to train to live on mission today, then you must listen to and obey God’s wisdom when He brings knowledge. Heed His reproof when He warns you or disciplines you. The book of Proverbs gives us the primary way to discern whether you are a wise person; it is by how you respond to the wisdom of God. Accordingly, King Solomon teaches us that there are only three categories of people: 1) the wise, 2) fools, and 3) mockers (“scoffers”). Fools and mockers hate God’s wisdom and do not heed God’s warnings through it; rather, they turn away from it and hate God’s messengers who bring it. Heed (listen to and obey) God’s wisdom from Proverbs 1:20-33:
Wisdom shouts in the street, she lifts her voice in the square; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings: “How long, O naive ones, will you love being simple-minded? And scoffers delight themselves in scoffing and fools hate knowledge? Turn to my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit on you; I will make my words known to you. Because I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof; I will also laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your dread comes, when your dread comes like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you. Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; they will seek me diligently but they will not find me, because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. They would not accept my counsel, they spurned all my reproof. So they shall eat of the fruit of their own way and be satiated with their own devices. For the waywardness of the naive will kill them, and the complacency of fools will destroy them. But he who listens to me shall live securely and will be at ease from the dread of evil.”
This passage captures one of the major themes of the book of Proverbs – be wise by listening to and obeying God’s wisdom; don’t be like the fools and mockers who do not heed God’s wisdom. Accordingly, fools and mockers will get what they get for not heeding God’s Word because being naive is no excuse for not submitting to the Commander’s Field Manual. Let me make this as simple as possible: Good soldiers of Jesus Christ obey the Commander’s orders!
Action Step #2) Train together as one unit.
Here are a few fun illustrations from my military days. At West Point, the annual Army vs. Navy football game comes with a lot of tradition and pageantry, which includes an over-abundance of rivalry and trash talking (“Sink Navy,” “Beat Navy,” etc.). But, when it is time to fight together to accomplish the mission, that rivalry must be left on the football field so that we can work together as one military. Furthermore, when I was in the 82nd Airborne Division, I boxed in the “Division Boxing Smoker,” which is where the battalions battle each other in the ring. We fought against each other for the pride of our battalions, but when it is time to deploy, you fight as one task force, regardless of who won in the boxing ring.
Listen to how Paul explained this with this very familiar body imagery, found in Ephesians 1:22-23; 4:11-16:
Heeding God’s wisdom allows us, the Church, to continue the mission as one unit. Obeying orders and working together is not the mission itself, but you must train these battle drills into your mind and heart so that they are reflexive, instinctive, and habitual!
Action Step #3) Seek the Commander’s approval.
And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.
In praising the centurion, Jesus was not praising Rome nor affirming the military occupation of Israel. Jesus was not rubber-stamping might makes right, political coercion, nor the subjugation of a people. Jesus, the Prince of Peace, was praising the centurion, a Roman military officer, for understanding authority and submission to authority, in a way that military people uniquely understand – good soldiers reflexively, instinctively, and habitually follow orders!
Jesus was responding to the centurion’s faith. Let us especially note how this Roman centurion called Jesus, kyrios, the Greek word for “Lord,” which was a term reserved for Caesar in recognition of his ultimate authority as divine, as practiced in the Emperor’s (Imperial) Cult – the religious practice of Rome to see their Caesar as a god within their pantheon of gods. In the same way, Paul used the soldier imagery for the same reason in 2 Timothy 2:3-4 – to teach us how to be under authority and focused on the mission of God for the glory of the King of Kings.
There are many illustrations of this found in God’s Word. One of the most famous is found in the rejection of King Saul for his disobedience to God’s commands. Listen to the conclusion of this story from 1 Samuel 15:13-23, which should be a warning from God to every one of us about the urgency of today’s battle drill:
Samuel came to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have carried out the command of the Lord.” But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; but the rest we have utterly destroyed.” Then Samuel said to Saul, “Wait, and let me tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak!” Samuel said, “Is it not true, though you were little in your own eyes, you were made the head of the tribes of Israel? And the Lord anointed you king over Israel, and the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are exterminated.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord, but rushed upon the spoil and did what was evil in the sight of the Lord?” Then Saul said to Samuel, “I did obey the voice of the Lord, and went on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and have brought back Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took some of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the choicest of the things devoted to destruction, to sacrifice to the Lord your God at Gilgal.” Samuel said, “Has the Lord as much delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He has also rejected you from being king.”
Heed God’s wisdom! Do not be a fool or a mocker! It’s not whether you can afford to obey God’s wisdom, you can’t afford not to obey God’s wisdom! Choose today, that no matter the apparent cost you will have to pay, train to live on mission today by training obedience to God’s Word as the habit of grace in your life. Train yourself to respond to every situation just as Joshua led his family and commanded all the families of God’s people, from Joshua 24:14-15:
Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
Action Step #4) Live on mission.
Listen to these two missional verses. First, from one of our theme verses for this sermon series, 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” Second, Paul based that on Jesus’ Great Commission from Matthew 28:18-20:
And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
We are to pass on to others and teach others to observe (obey) all that Jesus commanded, so that the gospel of Jesus Christ will be proclaimed generation after generation, and nation to nation, until we come to the end of this age. We see that Paul, in Romans 12:4-21, utilized the body imagery to give specific instructions of what it looks like to heed God’s wisdom as a good soldier of Jesus Christ living on mission as a member of one unit:
For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honor; not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
Listen and obey God’s wisdom – train these things into your everyday life! As a good soldier of Christ Jesus, you will be asked to obey orders that you may not completely understand, but don’t be a fool or a mocker; be wise and heed God’s wisdom! Make this battle drill a reflexive, instinctive, and habitual part of your Christian life so that you can CM – Continue the Mission! Persevere unto the end and you will receive the reward from the One who enlisted you for this very purpose.
Therefore, live on mission today and train the battle drill of the week for the glory of God.
You can listen to Pastor Jerry’s message here:
You can watch the video by clicking HERE.
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Seize the Moment – Day 697
Today’s hymn focus will be
“Trust and Obey”
“ But now as the prophets[h] foretold and as the eternal God has commanded, this message is made known to all Gentiles everywhere, so that they too might believe and obey him.”
This hymn was taken from a testimony given by a young man at an D.L. Moody evangelistic meeting in Brockton, Massachusetts. The song leader for the meetings, Daniel Towner, heard the young man share about his confidence of his salvation and that he was certain God would save him from his sins: “I’m not quite sure, but I’m going to trust and I’m going to obey.” He wrote down those words and stuck them in his pocket.
He later shared them with a friend, John Sammis in a letter. Sammis quickly took those words and created the hymn’s chorus and soon had five stanzas to go with it. He sent them back to Towner who composed the melody that we still sing to this day.
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy in Jesus.
But to trust and obey.”
YOUTUBE:
Trust and Obey
in the light of his word,
what a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
he abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
not a sorrow we share,
but our toil he doth richly repay;
not a grief or a loss,
not a frown or a cross,
but is blest if we trust and obey. [Refrain]
the delights of his love
until all on the altar we lay;
for the favor he shows,
for the joy he bestows,
are for them who will trust and obey. [Refrain]
we will sit at his feet,
or we’ll walk by his side in the way;
what he says we will do,
where he sends we will go;
never fear, only trust and obey. [Refrain]
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