The Kingdom of God and Our Obedience

Thank you. This Advent season we're talking about Christmas in terms of the Kingdom of God. I'm a little startled, all the wicks look like they're brand new. I thought we'd let them last week, so I was kind of startled about how to get started with this. We've talked about the Kingdom of God this Christmas season, because that's what it's really about. Christmas was the King given to us, and so this season is a reflection on the fact that God comes to rule the world, and he is the King of the world, and Christ is that one who's the Lord. We write this second candle to remind us that the King doesn't always live in a world where people submit and obey to him. We've rejected the authority of God, a lot of us, to just do what we think is the right thing. So we light that candle to remind us that this rule of God is dependent on our obedience and submission to him. Today I want to light this third candle to remind us that the things that we do that necessarily reject the authority of God over us are not necessarily wicked or evil things. They're just things that we choose to do as opposed to what God tells us to do. The story in the Bible in your Sunday school classes, your small group meetings, was about the book of Judges today. The book of Judges is a very pessimistic book. It's really a sad book. It starts well in the beginning because it focuses on obedience to God, but by the end of the book there are some very disastrous stories that are told. Terrible things end up happening as a result of what that book tells about. The story of the people of Israel as they moved to the land of promise was that they were to enter this land and God was going to provide a means whereby they could have a place that they could live and serve him. It was necessary for God to do this because in the beginning he established his kingdom in a perfect place to let us know what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God. The Garden of Eden was a place where Adam and Eve lived. God came and said to them, this is the place for you. Everything you need is provided for you. I will tell you what I want you to do and I want you to do it. The kingdom of God starts with God with all authority in heaven and on earth. It continues as it talks about the people who are submissive to the authority of God. And then it's complete when people walk with God day by day as Adam and Eve did in the garden discussing their lives, getting their instructions, reacting to God as if he were a personal friend to them. This is the picture of what the kingdom of God is intended to look like. Now all of this was disrupted because one time Adam and Eve decided that they knew more than God did and chose to do exactly what God told them they shouldn't do. And suddenly God was not in charge. Adam and Eve were in charge of their own life. And the kingdom of God, his rule over his people was broken. They had to leave the garden. God decided though that he was going to establish this kingdom no matter what and he began to look around for someone who could be a person he could depend on who would always say I'll do exactly what God wants me to do. He found that person in Abraham. He said to Abraham, I want to make a contract with you. If you'll do everything I tell you to do, I'll guide you, I'll provide for you, I'll protect you, I'll make your life a great blessing to all the world. All I ask is you do exactly what I ask you to do. In other words, live as if God were the king and he were submissive to that king. Abraham was a man of great promise. But in his lifetime, he only had a few opportunities in which God actually spoke to him. It wasn't a daily event that he was able to carry out. The descendants of Abraham were going to come to the land God promised to them. But he said at the time, I can't give you this right now because the people who are living here belong to this land. They're rebelling against me and the time is going to come when they've rebelled so far that I'm going to destroy all of them and then I will give them this land. The people of Israel were in Egypt in slavery. They were asking God for help. And God brought them out of that land of slavery and he told them, this is the land that I'm going to give you. I want to establish my kingdom here for you and with you. But if you're going to be here, you must be in a place where you give nothing but complete total allegiance to me. He told them when they went that they would have an opportunity for great blessings, but at the same time, they would face trials and difficulties. The Lord was promising them the help that he would give to them because they were willing to do exactly what he wanted them to do. God told them that obedience would bring for them great rewards. Do not make idols set up or images or sacred stone for yourself and do not place a carved stone in your land or bow down before it. I am the Lord, your God. Observe my Sabbaths and have reverence for my sanctuary. I am the Lord. If you follow my decrees and are careful to obey my commands, I will send you rain in its seasons and the ground will yield its crops and the trees of the field their fruit. Your threshing will continue until grape harvest and the grape harvest will continue until planting and you will eat all the food you want and live in safety in your land. I will grant peace in the land and you will lie down and no one will make you afraid. I will remove savage beasts from the land and the sword will not pass through your country. You will pursue your enemies and they will fall by the sword before you. Five of you will chase a hundred and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand and your enemies will fall before you. Then he said to them, all these blessings come. I will look with favor on you if you acknowledge my authority over your life, but if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to follow all my commands and so violate my covenant, then I will do this to you. I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases, fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life. You will plant seed in vain because your enemies will eat it. I will set my face against you so that you will be defeated by your enemies. Those who hate you will rule over you and you will flee even when no one is pursuing you. If after all this you will not listen to me, I will punish you for your sins seven times over. I will break down your stubborn pride and make the sky above you like iron so no rain would fall and the ground beneath you like bronze so you can't even plow it, it's so dry. Your strength will be spent in vain because your soil will not yield its crops nor will the trees of the land yield their fruit. If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your affliction seven times over as your sin deserves. I will send wild animals against you and they will rob you of your children and destroy your cattle and make you so few things that you do not accept that you will be like deserted. If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction, but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you with your sins seven times over. I will bring the sword upon you to avenge the breaking of the covenant. When you withdraw into the city, I will send a plague among you and you will be given into the hands of your enemy. When I cut off your supply of bread, ten women will be able to bake your bread in one oven and they will dole out the bread by weight. You will eat it, but you will not be satisfied. If in spite of all this you still do not listen to me, but continue to be hostile toward me, then in my anger I will be hostile toward you. I myself will punish you for your sins seven times over. You will eat the flesh of your sons and the flesh of your daughters. I will destroy your high places, talking about idols, cut down your incense altars, pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. I will turn your city into ruins and lay waste to your sanctuaries. I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings. I will lay waste the land so that your enemies who live there will be appalled. I will scatter you among the nations and will draw out my sword and pursue you. Your land will be laid waste, your cities will lie in ruins, then the land will enjoy its Sabbath years all the time that it lies desolate." The promises of great things God would give to people because of the Kingdom of God. But when you read what he said about people who refused to acknowledge his authority, you have to wonder why in the world would anyone ever choose to reject the authority of God if this is going to happen. Well, the story of Judges is a story of what happened to the people. They got this kind of instruction. God said to them, now here's what I want to be sure that you do. Never do the things that you think are right. Always do the things that I say are right. So they walked into the land that God was going to give them. He promised them the victory over all the things that would take place, and they started out exactly the way he told them to. He said, ask me whatever you need to know, and I'll tell you. So starting into the land, they'd had Moses to lead them out before, and Moses talked to God, and God talked to them through Moses. Then they'd had Joshua who was their leader, and God talked to Joshua, and Joshua told them how to fight the battles. Now something new is taking place. Moses was gone, Joshua was gone. God said, ask me what you want to know. They said, God in the beginning, how should we take this land? He gave them a means whereby they could determine that. They had dice like dice that we would say and throw on the ground, and the numbers would tell them the answer to what they wanted. So they said, tell us who's to go first. They threw the Urim and Thummim on the ground, and it said, Judah is to go first. So Judah said, we're the tribe that God has asked us to lead into the land, and we'll do exactly what God's telling us. That first line in the book of Judges, the very first one, and then the next one it says, the people of Judah said, hmm, our brother, Judah was born ahead of brother Simeon, his family or his tribe is also given land next to ours. What if we merged that army with this army, and made a bigger army, and then we went in and both of us could capture our territory together? God had told them, each one of you, go to your own place and capture the territory that I've given to you. It may seem like a very small thing to us, but God wanted them to do what he told them so he could show his power through each tribe that they won the land that God had given them. And now, the first thing they do is to compromise the instructions of God. This always happens whenever we decide we're not going to do things the way God tells us. One decision leads to another. They went to battle, they won the first battle, and the scripture says the Lord was with them and they won the battle. But the next battle they went to, he had told them, I want you to kill everyone in the land, because they have violated my principles, refused to live the way I tell them to, and I want you to eliminate all of them so you will be the only people here, no negative influences will come to you. They went to a town to attack the town, saw a man coming out. They didn't say, God, what do you want us to do about this? Instead, they thought, what would be the shrewdest way by which we could take this town? They said to the man, if you will tell us how to get into this city, we will save you and your family. He agreed to that arrangement. They captured the city, the man and his family escaped, the city's name was Luz, he just went somewhere else and planted the very same city by the very same name. He had just postponed what God had told them to do. By the time the story is over, the people of Israel have not been able to drive out their enemies, they have not been able to clear the land of the negative influences of idol worship, and they were living in the middle of people all around them who did not serve God. What they began to do is to look around them at the people who lived there before they did and thought, these people have lived here a long time, they know how to farm this ground. The people of Israel were not farmers, they had just been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. So their neighbors said, we grow good crops because our God, Baal, gives us rain. If you plant crops and you go over and you make a sacrifice to Baal, he will give you rain, your cattle will have children, and you will be able to have success in the farming industry. Having never farmed before, they did not say to God, what shall we do? They did what seemed right to them at that time. Not anything that they did was wicked or evil or vile. It was just that they said, we are not going to do what we know you've told us to do. We're going to take the advice of our neighbors and our friends. The story in the book of Judges is a horrible story. One after another, disaster comes to the people of God. They came into the land and established themselves, and the first thing they knew, the enemies around them had gotten stronger and came in and took over their territories. They sat down and said, why is this happening to us? Why are we having so much trouble? God promised us this land, but now our enemies have our land, they're taking our food, we have nothing. Then they remembered. God said, I want you to do everything I'll tell you, and I will bless you if you do. You'll be productive. One soldier can fight off five people. If you have a hundred, you can fight off five thousand. But now you're losing. You're in this trouble because you've ignored what I've told you to do. Then they would turn to God and say, God, we're so sorry for what we've done. We're going to worship you and you alone. And God would give them a leader, and they would drive out their enemies. One generation, they realized because of what they'd gone through, it was very important to obey God. But then the children come along. I don't know if you have grandparents that went through the Depression or not, but when they tell the horrible stories my dad used to tell about walking in his bare feet because he didn't want to wear out his shoes because those were the only shoes he had for a whole year, I never worried about that. I didn't go through it. It's not my problem. So the next generation came along, and they began to live like their neighbors did. They weren't wicked or evil. They just did not do what God told them. What they did was what they thought was right. See the big difference between being ruled by God and ruling your own life is a decision to say, I'm going to say to God, I will do what you tell me is right. The difference between being in the kingdom of God and out of it is when you say, I'm going to do what I think is right, without regard to God. And so when you say to God, I'm going to live the way you tell me I should, it means that you pick this book up and you begin to learn what this book has to say. Because as you learn what it has to say, you know what he wants you to do. And you learn what it has to say to you by putting it in practice. You accept his authority, you learn what he has to say, and you live day by day in submission and obedience to him. The people in the book of Judges didn't do this one time. Over and over again through the book, it happens to every other generation. By the time you read through the book, you think, why didn't they learn? Because every time it happened, they thought they were doing what was right, but they didn't measure what they were doing against what God said was right. They failed to acknowledge the authority of God. And when you read through that book, over and over again, it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse, until by the end of it, the priest actually murders people. The priest who is supposed to be leading them murders someone. The very last story in that is a very tragic story. The leaders of the nation of Israel and some of the tribes got in a fight, a civil war they had. Here were these people, all of them God's people, and they were having civil war, killing each other. And they killed all the women and children in one of the tribes. A few of the men escaped. So the leader said, do we want this one tribe to disappear from the nation of Israel? No. But they had made a promise. When we get through fighting with the Danites, the tribe they were against, there won't be anybody left. But there were some men who hid. So they said, surely God doesn't want us to get rid of all the Danites, but they have no wives. And we made a promise not to give them any of our women. So they made a plan. They said, there's going to be a great festival. All the girls will be out dancing for that festival. So we'll tell the Danite men to hide in the bushes. When the girls come out, they can get out and capture and kidnap them, take them off. We would call rape them. The very leaders of the nation concocted this system of violating the children of their own nation. And the book of Judges ends by saying, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Everyone did what he thought was fit. Most of us do that. We try to do the things that we think are right, the very best we know how. And when God looks down on us, he sees people not listening to his authority, but deciding in their own minds, by their own wisdom and their own knowledge, what the right things are and the wrong things. Now, here's a good picture. He says, if you do this, you will find that I will prosper you. I will give you direction so that you make good choices. I will provide the things that you need in your life. I will protect you from the things that will destroy you, and I'll make you a good influence on all the people around you. You will be a blessing to others around you. If you don't, I will take those things away from you. You will find yourself making stupid decisions that are destructive to you, and your family, and your community. You will find yourself in a situation where there never seems to be enough. Not enough food, not enough way to live. You will find yourself in constant danger by the people that are around you. And you will find yourself that others will look at you and say, what a disaster their life and home really is. Those are the warning signs of someone who lives outside of the kingdom of God. Now, it can be sometimes that these things happen to us because God wants us to learn to trust Him, so that we trust Him even though bad times come, and He gives us the victory over them. But in the long run, we always find the promise God made. I will guide you correctly. I will provide for you. I will protect you, and I will make your life a great blessing to the world around you. So whenever you look at your life and you say, why is this such a mess? There is a signal. A signal that lets you know that something in your life is outside the kingdom of God. He is not ruling your mind. He is not ruling your choices. He is not ruling your behavior. And it will only get worse. You saw in the passage what God said, I will give you trouble, and if you don't listen to me, then I will increase the pressure. And if you don't listen to me, I will increase the pressure. And if you don't listen to me, I will increase the disaster until finally it is deadly to you. It can be deadly to your business, it can be deadly to your marriage, it can be deadly to your relationships with your family, it can be deadly to your body even. Because what God does is He removes His protection from you. Because if you are not going to take His advice, He will quit giving it. I don't know if you have ever had people come to you and ask you for advice or direction and you talk to them and tell them what you think is right, and they never do it. So they come back and say, you know, I've got trouble again, tell me what I should do. And you say, well, you never do what I tell you, I'm not going to tell you anymore. It's a waste of my time and yours. And God does. But also, another thing He says is, I will become your enemy. You see, if you are on God's side, but you are really not on His side, He knows it. So He becomes an enemy to you, to let you know that the consequences of your choices are deadly to you. And in the Bible, God lets us know for sure, because He makes sure that the promises He gives us come true when we live in the Kingdom of God. When we say, okay God, I'll accept your authority over my life and I'll learn from this book the way you want me to live, that's accepting His authority. That's how you enter the Kingdom of God. And then He says, I want you to learn the things that I want you to do, but you know exactly what the right things are. That's where the Bible comes in. So He provides churches for you to learn that. He has a Bible for you to be able to read what you should do. He provides teachers with the skill in Sunday school and other places to teach you the truth of it. He gives pastors an ability to be able to proclaim the truth for you, so you have all these things that you can do. Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. In our land, there were days gone by that almost every church on the block had Sunday morning, Sunday school, Sunday night service, Wednesday night service, week-long revivals where people would put aside all their activities for the week and every night of the week would come to church and hear the preaching of God's instruction to them. Because they were hungry to know what they should do to be able to live. Little by little, people have gotten less and less interested in that. Churches don't have Sunday night services because people don't come. Wednesday night because they don't come. Sunday morning still hangs on, and many have less interest in what God wants us to do. We shouldn't worry or wonder why it is that things don't go quite as well as they should. When we don't know what we're supposed to do, and we do what seems right to us, it is a recipe for disaster. You can cover it over, you can act like it's not happening, but it's real. It is either the kingdom of God or disaster. That's the line that God draws. He gives us these disasters a little bit at a time, so suddenly we wake up one day and say, why are all these things happening to me? What's wrong with my life? What he wants to say is, you are not following the instructions I gave you. The things that happen in the book of Judges were not necessarily wicked things. Let's gather together with our brothers and decide how to do this job. We must ask someone to help us so we can take this city and we'll make a contract with this guy, even though God said don't make a contract. They didn't see anything wrong with what they were doing. They didn't see anything wrong with it. And it was not evil, except this one thing. It was opposite of what God said they should do. You may be making the very best choices in your life every day that you know how, but you look around and look back and you say, something's not right here. Why all these things seem to happen? Why is our life not going right? I urge you, sit and ask yourself, have you ever made a promise to God to live in obedience to him, doing everything he tells you as best you know how? If you haven't done that, then you're in this picture of God's increasing pressure to destroy you. Loving God wouldn't do that. Well, he will. Because your presence as a disobedient person creates a problem for everyone around you, a negative influence. God wants to redeem people. He wants to give them life in all of its fullness. But he cannot do it unless they're prepared to listen and be obedient to him. The people of Israel thought we can live our life doing what we think is right and fit. And they did. But it's the most disastrous story in the history of Israel. It's true of every nation, it's true of every church, and it's true of every life. Life outside the kingdom of God is deadly. You can look around you at the people who live outside of the kingdom of God. You can look at nations that live outside the kingdom of God. They've seen it in their own time. The Russian government said we're going to outlaw church and religion in our nation. You saw what happened to them. God is still at work exactly like he was then. You start by saying, God, I give you my life to live in obedience to you. And then you listen to what he has to say. That's the Bible, learning that, listening to the preaching and teaching about it. And finally, you walk with God every day. You get up in the morning and you say, God, here's what I've got to do today. Do you have any direction for me? The day comes along and something happens you don't know what to do and you say, God, I don't know what to do about this. Get me out here. And when you ask, he puts in your mind the very things that you ought to do. Sometimes they won't seem quite right, but he asks you, do what I tell you. And even if it doesn't seem right to you, I will make it work because I want to show you my power. I want to show you my wisdom. So everyone around you will say, why is that person's life so much better than mine? And I want you to say, it's because I've given it to God, I try to follow his instructions, and I walk with him day by day, letting him guide me. And my life is the result of the power of God. The kingdom of God is what God wants all of us to experience. This season is about the next step God takes. Okay, I'm going to send somebody in this world who will live under my kingdom and he will tell you exactly what to do. That's Jesus. That's why Jesus is our Savior. He's our King. He knows how to live in this world. He knows what we go through. And he says, if you want to find life, don't do what you think. Deny that. And you obey me, no matter how difficult it seems, and you will find life in all of its fullness. God is looking for citizens of his kingdom. And he wants everyone in the world to be his citizen. But he needs you to trust him. God, I trust you more than my own judgment. I trust your instructions more than my own wisdom. I trust your power more than my own strength. Would you bow your heads, please, for a moment? The gift of Jesus is only wonderful if it's received. The Christmas season can be celebrated by a lot of people. And the police department says the Christmas season, holiday seasons, are one of their busiest times. Because what should be a wonderful day turns into disaster, heartache, suffering, and pain. That's what happens outside the kingdom of God. I come before you, God said to his people of Israel, to give you a choice, life or death. What are you going to do about it? If you wonder why these things seem to keep happening to you, you may need to ask yourself, do I do what seems fit or right to me, or do I do what God tells me is right? If you surrender your life to Christ, it means you start reading the Bible regularly. You start coming to church regularly. Because you want to know how. And it means that you start your day by saying, God, I'm yours. Guide me this day. Every time you have a problem, you say, God, how do I solve this? And in your mind, he tells you. And you do that day after day after day. And suddenly you find your life has become full and complete. You enter the kingdom of God, not by enrolling somewhere, but right here where you're at. Saying, okay, God, my life's in such a mess, I want something different. And you say to him, today I make a promise to you. I will live my life doing what you say is the right thing, no matter how hard it is, all the rest of my days. And when you say that to God, he brings you into his kingdom. You are now a citizen of my kingdom. His wisdom comes to you. His strength comes to you. His power comes to you. His provision comes to you. His protection comes to you. Maybe you've entered the kingdom of God, like the people of Israel, but you've sort of compromised yourself. You find yourself not doing what you know God wants you to do. You're not doing anything bad, but you're just not doing what God wants you to do. I urge you, look around you. You should see the signs and consequences of that. Repent of it. Turn away from it. It'll only get worse until you fall on your knees before the Lord and say, take me back. As I've been talking to you, God is here. He's the one that's been talking to you by putting thoughts in your mind. Have you listened to those? Has he pointed out things in your life that need to change? Are you resistant to it? You don't want to hear it? You may even get angry with God. But this is real. God is here. You listen to what he tells you because these are words that bring life. And in these moments, you do what you know God wants. We're going to take just a moment of quietness. You're going to play if you would. In these moments of quietness, you listen to what comes to your mind. And you will either say yes to God or no to him. Your answer will determine what your life becomes. If you want to make a promise to God and share that with us, I'll be here at the front. Debbie will be here. If you want us to pray for you, we will do that. If you're ready to commit your life to Christ and you know that they should do that, and you just get up where you are, come to the front. You know God wants you to be a part of this church. You just get up from where you are and come and tell us what you know God wants you to do. We'll pray for you, help you know how to do that. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Would you stand please for a moment? Lord, we know you're a God of great patience. We see what you did in the Scriptures.