Small Choices That Keep You Stuck

how many of you would say that generally speaking you want to do what's right raise your hand you can type in the comments section I want to do what's right you want to obey God I wish I could say I always want to do what's right but a lot of times I don't can I be real honest today I was in the grocery store and I was in a hurry I'm always in a hurry and I looked up and there was the Express line that allowed 10 items I counted my items and I had 12

and so I thought to myself 12 is really close to 10 12 is a spiritual number Jesus had 12 disciples there should be 12 in the express line so what do you think I did you guessed it I quietly and innocently just tried to take my 12 items into the 10 item line and that's when it happened a little sweet innocent voice from behind me said pastor is 12 the new tin and I looked back and there was a really sweet lady wearing a life shirt shirt and I just I froze I panicked I'm thinking

like do I throw her two items just to make it work do I change my voice and act like I'm from Great Britain and run out the door what do I do what do I do and so I just stared at her blanket I didn't say anything and she smiled and she said pastor why don't you just give me your two avocados and we'll pretend the whole thing never happened and there it was and you say is that whole story true and I would say most of it's true I did get caught by A lady

wearing a Life Church shirt and uh it made me think about how often I'll actually do that with God I'll know that God wants me to do something and I'll do some of it or most of it but not all of it and you might be the same I'm guessing that there may be times where you tell yourself hey I'm doing pretty good and there's just this one area I'm only human I'm I'm a pretty good Christian and if I do this one thing I know I'm not supposed to but no one's really going to

notice it it's really not that big of a deal and God will certainly understand we're in a message series called Christian is if you missed last week we Define Christian is as as someone that has a halfhearted faith that wears the label of Christian without truly following Jesus is kind of a a sort of Christian a almost Christian a a kind of sort of Christian and one of the most common qualities of someone who is Christian is and I know this because I've been there one of the most common qualities of someone who's Christian is

is something I call Selective obedience selective obedience you know what this is like we're going to do what God's word tells us to do as long as it's not too difficult inless God's asking us too much or if we have a better plan or if we're in a hurry and we want to go through the express line it's selective obedience I'll Define selective obedience this way selective obedience is the dangerous illusion that doing some of what God commands is enough when it's really disobedience in Disguise obedience everybody say obedience type that in the comment section

obedience obedience is a tricky subject uh for example some of you love the rules how many of you like following the rules is your love language raise your hand you can type that in the comment section following the rules is my love language others of you not so much I'd tell you to raise your hands but you won't why because you don't want to how many of you would say that uh rules are just dares in disguise right you just want to you just want to break them um what I want to do for a

moment is I want to look at three different verses in the Bible that talk about obedience and then I want to play a little game with you I want you to try to figure out what these verses have in common we're looking for two qualities that these three verses on obedience have in common we'll look at Deuteronomy 5:33 that says walk in obedience to part of no to all that the Lord your God has commanded you why so that anything happens know that so that you may live and prosper walk in all obedience so that

God will bless you let's look at the next verse Exodus 195 now if you obey me partially no I'm giving you a hint there God says if you obey me fully and keep my Covenant someone say it with me next word then you will be my treasur possession let's look at one more uh job 36 that says if they listen and obey God what's going to happen they will be blessed if you look at these three verses there are two things that they all have in common does do any of you see them I'll answer

the question and show you what they have in common two things first of all God is asking for our full obedience if you'll do all if you'll obey me completely God is asking for our full obedience and the second thing is they're actually conditions some of God's blessings are conditional God is asking for all of our obedience and those verses show us that some of his blessings are actually tied to OB obedience now with some of you who are more theologically minded might say but Craig that sounds like Works righteousness if you don't know what

works righteousness is uh Works righteousness is a belief system that we tend to think if we work hard enough and if we're good enough then we can earn the favor and the Forgiveness of God it's working our way to being right with God and I want to be very very clear that this is not good theology the Bible is ridiculously clear that we are not saved we're not made right with God by our good works we're saved by grace the grace of God through the perfect work of Jesus on the cross we're saved by grace

through faith and that alone yet we are blessed many times because of our obedience or God might withhold blessings when we are not obeying we're saved by grace but we are blessed by God and many times by our faithfulness or our obedience does that make sense so let me just explain it a little bit deeper uh with God it's like there's two categories uh there's what I would call unconditional promises that are true no matter what there are unconditional promises and then there are conditional blessings how many of you have a kid raise your hand

type in the comment section I have a kid if you have a kid you know the power of UNC conditional promises and conditional blessings right A promise is kid I'm going to love you no matter what I may not like you Monday through Saturday but I still love you no matter what you do right as a parent I mean there are times your kids going to drive you crazy but you love your kid it's it's unconditional promise but then there are conditional blessings and there are a lot of them like if you do your homework

then you can go hang out with your friends if you eat all your food and wipe that bad attitude off your face and stop picking on your brother and don't back talk me or whatever it is then you can go and play a video game there's there's unconditional promises I love you no matter what and there are conditional blessings now let's take that and apply it to God there's something that theologians call covenant theology covenant theology let's talk about it um all of God's Redemptive plan is is structured around covenants uh what happened uh Adam

and Eve sinned against God they broke God's rules and so God said hey let me make a covering for you and he gave them a covenant All Through the Bible uh there are covenants which they're really their Divine agreements between God and US between God and Mankind and all of the covenants have unconditional promises and conditional blessings I'll show you just a few of the covenants uh there is the creation Covenant there's the abrahamic Covenant there's the Mosaic Covenant I like this there is the davidic Covenant in other words if you want to create a

covenant and your name is David you add I to it and then it's the davidic not the davidic this the davidic Covenant and then there's the Priestly Covenant and there's also the most important which is the New Covenant these are different covenants and God's plan to restore us to him we see through covenants All Through the Bible the final Covenant the New Covenant there's the Old Testament there's the New Testament the New Testament is under the New Covenant each Covenant has an unconditional promise and it has a conditional blessing let's look at the New Covenant

because now we're in New Testament times we're not under the old Covenant we're under the New Covenant and we're going to look first of all at the unconditional promise this is true for everyone that Jesus died and rose again offering forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all who believe we're saved by grace through faith that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord would be saved that's really really good news and that's a promise to anyone then there's not just an unconditional promise but there are conditional blessings and that is this while salvation

is a gift given freely by God through Grace certain blessings flow from obedience to God there's an unconditional promise and there would be conditional blessing so to be really really clear because I don't want anybody to misunderstand this you're saved by grace through faith period only by the grace of God but God blesses you with special blessings when you obey and that's why God doesn't want our partial obedience God wants our full surrender God wants all of us and if I could say just very pastorally I think one of the most dangerous things that I'm

seeing kind of in the modern western church is just a whole heck of a lot of partial obedience God I'm going to do the parts that I like that feel good and the rest of it all well God you just have to understand and God is a holy and a righteous God and he loves you unconditionally but he wants to bless you and pour out blessings and for some people it may be the very reason why you're not experiencing the blessings that you want to experience is because you aren't obeying some of what God says

and so let's just let the Holy Spirit speak to us we'll go back to our main theme and what I want to do is I want to show you um one of the people in the Bible who really represents so many of us we're going to look at Saul in the Old Testament and we're going to see a guy who started off with really good intentions but then over time he was only partially obeying God and if you don't know his story he starts out as a very humble servant and he was anointed to be

um by to be the king over Israel and he started out with a real heart like God I want to obey you and God I want to please you and over time he started one decision by another slow slowly drifting from God and slowly started prioritizing his own desires above God's Will and he would rationalize one sin and then another one and it started to hurt his relationship with God and it ended horribly for him I mean if you watch this story you see a guy that starts out really really strong like a lot of

you and then eventually this old guy is Consulting witches and listening to demonic voices and you kind of ask yourself how'd that happen I mean how do you go from genuinely wanting to live for God and please God and obey God to listening to demonic voices and and and and being completely destroyed in your life and the answer is you do it one step at a time right one moment of rationalizing a sin another moment of saying hey I'm going to do it my way another moment of saying God I I know this is what

I'm supposed to do but this just isn't convenient for me and I mean besides it's the year 2025 I mean you got to understand these are my needs and this is what I want to do one step at a time and we see a very powerful example in 1st Samuel 15 in this odd story and I got to tell you it's a little bit odd where God told Saul to go and attack and destroy the Amil because they were so evil I mean these people were ridiculously Wicked and so God told Saul destroy them kind

of like as my righteous judgment and when you do uh don't spare a thing that's how evil they are and so Saul started out obeying he gathered 200,000 troops and he attacked the amikit and he was obeying God until he didn't verse 7 tells us this then Saul attacked the amikit he's obeying God he took AAG King of the amikit alive uh-oh he was supposed to destroy everything but he didn't do it and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword so he did most of what God asked him to do not all of

it but Saul and the Army who who was supposed they're supposed to destroy everything they spared AAG and the best of the sheep and cattle the fat Cales and the Lambs everything that was good Saul did what God asked him to do for a little while he obeyed God and then he looked up and noticed this perfectly good bunch of animals nice sheep nice Lambs not fatted Cals and very likely Saul heard a whisper some of you would know this whisper The Voice Whispers to you hey you've done so much for God already certainly you've

already done enough Saul you destroyed almost everything that God asked you destroy but those are some valuable animals There's real value there those are some nice sheep and some fat cows and Saul you want to be a good Steward don't you you don't want to waste something perfectly good Saul maybe you should keep some of them for yourself and then Saul has an idea I know I'll keep them and then I'll make a sacrifice to God that's what I'll do that that sounds so spiritual and God will like that surely God will understand and so

what do you see God told Saul to destroy everything and he didn't do it what led to his compromise it's the very same voice that tempts us all Disobedience always starts with a whisper with a whisper hey you're a pastor and you got some really important things to do even though you have 12 items and it says only 10 you're important enough to sneak on in there when everybody else has to follow the rules and you know how it goes the voice tells you go ahead and look no one's going to know go ahead and

take it you deserve it everybody else does it hey go ahead and say it they deserve it anyway go ahead and do it not that big of a deal it's just this one time right here's the problem disobedience is rarely a one-time event when you do it once you think well I've already done it now well I lost my virginity so might as well have a party couple of you laugh cuz you've been there right disobedience is rarely a onetime event and here's what happens what you allow in the moment often owns you in the

future you think it's no big deal and you let it into your life and one day you realize that one act of Disobedience turned into two and three and four and it takes you to a place you never wanted to go you thought it was just one look and then it was too many you thought it was just one drink no big deal not really a send to drink alcohol just send to get drunk I can drink a few right and then it costs you your marriage you thought it was just one bet I mean

you're just like entertainment like going to a movie like going out to dinner it's just 20 bucks just 40 bucks and then it cost you a lot you thought hey they deserve it so you're going to raise your voice and the next thing you know you've lost trust with those around you who don't feel safe not that big of a deal but what you allow in the moment often owns you in the future so at the beginning of the message we prayed and asked God to to speak to us and to convict us and what

I want to do is I want to ask you this question and give you a moment just to let God perhaps speak to you and I want to ask you where are you let letting sin whisper in your life where are you letting sin whisper in your life God speak to us uh it could be for some of you you're partially obeying you're not taking revenge against the person that hurts you but you're also not forgiving them as Jesus asked you to do it could be that you're not completely neglecting your time with God you

still do your little verse of the day or whatever it is but it's more of a check the box for you than it is really seeking after the heart and the will of God it could be that um you're not looking at porn all the time you're just going to the Graham looking on the explore page seeing if there's anything that might be interesting because you have to stay current on the latest bikini fashions and you compromise and look at something that takes you to a place that you probably didn't want to go you're not

recklessly spending too much you're just a little bit of debt and you're still not trusting God with the tithe you're not cheating on your spouse but you are hiding a few things you got some Secrets you're spending money and not talking about it or there's someone at work that you're enjoying just a little bit more than you should Christian if claiming Jesus but not really fully obeying him and so I ask you is there some place that you're letting sin whisper its way into your life now once you have an answer to that question where

are you letting sin whisper its way into your life I want you to think about what it is I want you to look at someone sitting next to you that you do not know and confess it to them don't do that I'm just joking just I just just want don't do that please I mean you can if you want to but but I'm I'm just joking you don't I'm not really asking you to do that but I do want you to be open to what God might say to you and then it is wise to

confess to God and then to your life group if you're not in a life group you're probably missing out one of the reason Reon why you might be struggling is because you don't have a group of people praying for you supporting you and we get into our group and we confess our sins the Bible says confess your sins to one another and pray for each other that you may be healed we confess to God for forgiveness we confess to people for healing and so is there an area in your life that you're partially obeying and

you're rationalizing it this is what Saul was doing and so there was a guy who is a prophet named Samuel and he kind of got up into Saul's business he's like Saul bro you're better than this you know you love God why are you disobeying what do you think Saul did did he say oh you're right I'm so sorry I shouldn't have done it no he did what a lot of us do he doubled down on his Disobedience and he said this he says scripture he said but I did obey the Lord hey I went

on a mission the Lord assigned me and I completely not true he's lying I completely destroyed the amikit and I brought back AAG their King and then watch as he blames someone else for what he did he said the soldiers those other people my men that I told them not to do this but they did it anyway the soldiers took the sheep and the cattle from the plunder the best of what was devoted to God and watch out how he distances himself from God watch this he says they took the best of what was devoted

to God in order to sacrifice them to the Lord not my God but the Lord your God at gilgal because here's the deal sin never needs a good reason sin just needs a good excuse and he's making an excuse and we have to remember watch as he's not the Lord my God the Lord your God why is he now distancing himself from God because every sin we justify builds a wall between us and God every time we sin God is a holy God and that's why he sent Jesus to deal righteously with our sin but

whenever we we're sinning against him it's almost like we're saying God I'm I'm I'm putting something between us and this is exactly what Saul was doing and so I want to tell you I want you to feel there's an unconditional promise that God loves you he loves you so much he loves you he loves you he loves you and he wants to bless you he loves you and he wants to bless your obedience and so whenever he says in his word keep your body pure that doesn't mean have sex with eight people before you get

married doesn't mean do naked gymnastics but don't go all the way and call that Purity he means the body is meant for God honor it with sexual Purity whenever God says don't look lustfully at someone he's not trying to rob you of your righteous visual entertainment he's saying that he wants you to have the mind of Christ there is something way better if you'll protect your heart and your mind and your eyes there is the blessing of Purity in a god-honoring covenantal marriage that can be yours if you'll obey along the way if God says

this he says hey let there be no unh wholesome Talk Amongst you that doesn't mean we're allowed to gossip and call it a prayer request doesn't mean that we're allowed to cuss and take God's name in vain it probably means we shouldn't be watching shows that have more bad language in it than the gospel of Mark has the name of Jesus in it right when scripture says don't get drunk what do you think that means don't get drunk and for those of you who are technical don't get high don't get stoned don't get blasted but

but instead there's something better be filled with the spirit of God it's like it's better it's better it's better instead instead let let the spirit of God you you think that there's any high that this world offers that's better than the presence of God directing your steps Saul was making excuses and in verse 22 Samuel replies to him does the Lord Delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in what as in obeying the Lord and Samuel says to oby is better than sacrifice to obey is better than sacrifice why does God love for

us to obey him because he loves us because he loves to bless our obedience God loves it when we obey because every Act of obedience is a demonstration of our love to the one who loved us first God I'm Loving You by obeying I'm loving you it was John who said this this is love for God do you want you want to know what love for God is it's not just your worship it's obedience this is love to keep his commands and his commands what they're not burdensome for everyone born Bor of God overcomes the

world the commands of God they're not confining or restricting they're freeing and they're liberating and that's why love and obedience they are inseparable in our relationship with God what does God do God loves you unconditionally and so his love motivates you to want to obey him and because your obedience it demonstrates your love for God and then what does God do God honors your obedience by blessing you and then you grow closer to him and you sense his power and his presence with you and then he continues to love you and his love makes you

want to obey him even more and your obedience demonstrates your love and loyalty because you are not like this world you're better than that you're not going to be conformed to the patterns of this world but you're being transformed by the renewing of your mind then you can test and prove what the will of God is good pleasing and perfect will and so you obey God and He blesses you and you get to know him even more and obeying him not because you have to to get his approval but because you want to because he

already approved of you through Jesus oh it's it's not partial obedience we're not perfect but we want the Holy Spirit to continue to perfect us and make us more like Jesus so I'll ask you again and just be really open to what the Holy Spirit might say to you because dang God's been speaking to me all week long preparing this oh there's some things he's working on me about what's the whisper of compromise that you've been justifying name it because partial obedience isn't obedience it's sin and every sin we justify it builds a wall between

us and the God who loves us and so how do we end up one day like well forget the church I don't really like God I'm far from God how do we end up there one step of Disobedience at a time how do we get close to God one step of repentance One Step God I'm sorry one step and when you draw near to him guess what immediately in the moment God draws near to you because there's an unconditional promise that he loves you and he always will he'll never stop loving you but there's some

condition blessings if you obey me fully then I'm going to bless you in this way so how do we get close to him one step of obedience toward him then we're not Christian in name only we're not Christian is we're devoted we're not perfect but we're being perfected when we mess up we just turn from our sin and we turn back to him We're devoted faithful and we're obedient because God doesn't want our partial obedience what does he want God wants our full surrender so as a church family let's be open to what God wants

to say to us what he wants to do in us and then what he wants to do through us holy spirit speak to us we pray speak to us convict us and change us today at all of our churches if you would recognize and I'm going to tell you right now my hand is going up if you would recognize there's some area of compromise in your life where you're partially obeying God and today by faith you want to ask God to help you fully surrender if that's you today and say I I want to be

fully obedient to God would you lift up your hands high right now all of our churches lift up your hands I want to be fully obedient to God type in the comment section I want to be fully obedient to God you can even leave your hands up in an act of worship if you want God we just acknowledge you are the Lord of all the king of all Kings you're a holy and a righteous God and God help us to know you as friend but also Revere you as a righteous King God we thank you

that the fear of the Lord is beginning of wisdom and so God we do we we accept your grace through Jesus but we also God we truly want to honor and obey you so Holy Spirit just speak to us God show us any area of our life that we've been rationalizing compromising and we confess our sins to you and God we thank you that you are faithful and just to forgive all of our sins God and cleanse us from All unrighteousness Holy Spirit do a work in us as you keep praying today nobody looking around

man this message is so heavy on my heart and I just want to say um I'm I'm just really pretty sure there's many of you that you you are like I was I I went to church I believed in God I did some kind of look Christian looking things but I was Christian is I I wore the name of Christian but I wasn't fully devoted to Jesus and you may say okay so you weren't working for him no I wasn't receiving his grace I didn't know him how are you made right with God I want

to say it again I want to be as clear as I can you you cannot work your way to God there is an unconditional promise and that is that God loves you period no matter what you do he loves you he loves you so much that He sent Jesus his son who is perfect in every way and Jesus Paid the price for our evil he prayed he paid the price for our unrighteousness Jesus died for our sins and God raised him from the dead and then there's a conditional promise that if you call on the

name of Jesus like you got to do something you can't earn it but you have to trust it's for you you receive the gift when you call on the name of Jesus God hears your prayers and forgive your forgives your sins and you're made right with him not because you're good but because he's good some of you today is the day of your salvation to receive the gift and when you truly receive the gift of forgiveness through Jesus your only reasonable response is not partial obedience but full and total surrender today at all of our

churches and those of you online if you recognize you're only partially surrendered to Jesus or maybe not at all today is the day of your salvation when we step away from our sin when we call on him he'll hear your prayer he'll forgive your sins he'll make you brand new at all of our churches those who say I I'm I'm not sure where I stand with him maybe I've only partially surren to him today I want to give it all to him I want to trust that he forgives me that he makes me new I

want to give him my whole life Savior and Lord today I step away from my sin I give my whole life to Jesus that's your prayer lift your hands high right now all of our churches and say here praise God for you right here and right over there God bless you here as well others right back up there oh come on Church others who say yes that's me Jesus I Surrender lift up your hands and say I'll be the Lord of my life up here God bless you as well right back over here oh my

gosh come on somebody the presence of the Lord is in this place online type in the comment section I'm surrendering my life to Jesus just type it in the comment section I'm surrendering my life to Jesus in this holy moment would you pray with those around you pray Heavenly Father forgive all of my sins I receive salvation through Jesus alone thank you for loving me for saving me now take my life I want to know you I want to obey you I want to live for you my life is not my own I give it

all to you thank you for New Life you have all of mine in Jesus name I pray can you worship God church can you give him praise today welcome those Born Into the family of God come on did this message resonate with you if so check out these videos to learn more about living like Jesus tap here to start watching [Music]