Good morning, good morning. It is good to be in the house of the Lord, amen? It is good to be here. Well, before we jump into our message today, I want to recap what we have covered thus far in this series of obedience.
How many of y'all are enjoying this series? You're getting something out of it, man. You're already starting to see some life-changing elements in your marriage, in your family, in your workplace, in you individually, yourself. So this morning, just to recap, in the first week, our lead pastor Michael talked about the blessing of obedience.
That's how we kicked off this series. And then in the second week, we looked at and we examined Jesus' life. We looked at why he obeyed, how he obeyed, right, he obeyed unto the mission, he obeyed joyfully, he obeyed unto death, and we obeyed, because he obeyed, right? And then in week three, Pastor Michael also brought true obedience.
That we're true, the verb form of that. We are truing our life. We are aligning our self, our aligning our obedience more and more to Christ, more and more to God. And then last week, you got a great message from Pastor Sam on the fellowship with God, fellowship with God.
We fellowship our way into obedience. Amen. We fellowship our way into obedience. So today is part five.
And we are going to be unpacking. We are going to be looking at the topic of full obedience. Full obedience, not 20% obedience, not 60% obedience, not 73 and 1,5% obedience, not 95%, 100% obedience. Full, total, complete obedience.
God commands you and I to obey him. Amen. He expects us to obey him as his sons and as his daughters. Amen.
But he not only expects us to just obey in church, he expects us to obey him fully. He expects us and he commands us to obey him fully and completely and totally with every aspect and every part of who we are in our life. Amen. So this morning, I want to start off by asking you a question this morning.
Do you love God? That's not rhetorical. Do you love God? Do you really love him, Church?
Not just him. Do you love not only the Father, do you love Jesus? Do you love the Holy Spirit? Do you love his grace?
Do you love his power? Do you love his glory? Do you love his mercy? Do you love his faithfulness?
Do you really, really love God? And I'm assuming and I'm hoping the answer across this whole room is yes. And if it's no, we'd like to come speak with you after the message today. If the answer is yes, Church, if the answer is yes, I love him.
And I can say that for myself too. I love him. Can we honestly, within ourselves say yes to this next question, do we obey him? Yes, I love God.
I love his promises. I love his blessings. Do we also obey him? Do we not only obey him, but we obey his word.
We obey his commands. We obey his laws. All of them. That's the key fully and completely.
See Church, to love God is to obey him. To love God is to obey him. And the flip side is true as well. To obey God is to love him.
See, there's a dualism there. We love God. And therefore, we love him because, and then that ripples into our obedience to him. And then because we obey him, our love for him is grown.
It's just, it's, it's, it's how do I say this? It just builds and it grows. It develops. John 14, 15, Jesus says this.
If you love me, obey my commands. If you love me, obey my commands. Here's the problem, Church. There are so many Christians that claim they love God.
Oh, I love him. I love his promises. I love his mercy. I love his glory.
I love his goodness. But they don't fully obey him. That's a huge problem. And people may not say this.
They might not even think this, but they live in such a way as, I'll be the exception. I can act one way on Sunday. I can act one way on Tuesday, but act totally different on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday. I can, I can worship on Sunday.
I can obey God's commands when it comes to worshiping. When it comes to tithing, but I can gossip and I can tear people down. I can disrespect and lie to other people, but God will have mercy and grace for me because why? I love him.
He's a merciful and gracious God. Again, they may not say that verbally. They may not even think that, but their actions show that. If I serve in church, it cancels out all the stuff I do in secret.
As long as I'm doing good in this area, doing good in this area, God will excuse the rest. God will be pleased with me regardless of my sinful choices. Oh, church. That is a dangerous place to be.
To think that way, to say that, to live especially, to live that kind of way is to be on a path that leads to destruction and to live and think and say those kind of things is to not live in full obedience, to not live as he would intend us to live. Amen? Let's look at this in 1 John chapter 2 verses 4 through 5, whoever says, I know him but does not do what he commands is a liar and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them.
This is how we know we are in him. Before we jump to verse 5, everyone wants to jump to verse 5. That's a great passage. That's a great verse.
We need to stop and look at the warning, the caution that's in verse 4. Church, we must avoid the mistake of calling Christ our master, knowing him. I love him but not doing what he commands, not doing what he says. Church, if we don't avoid that mistake, we are living a lie.
We are saying one thing but we are living a totally different, a complete opposite from how he would have us live. So to live like this church, to live in such a way is to not live in full obedience. So how does a Christian, how does someone fix this? How do we problem solve this?
That's the cure. Is it downloading a fasting app? Is it attending more Bible studies? Is it, well, let's think about listening to more Christian podcasts.
Is that going to solve the problem? Is posting your devotional on your Instagram story? Is that going to solve the problem? As good as those things may be, that's not going to be the cure for this.
The simple, I didn't say easy, I said simple, the simple thing is that you and I need to repent. What area in our life have we not submitted full obedience to God on? And whatever that area is, whatever that thing is, we need to repent and then we just need to simply obey. To bring our life into full obedience.
How else can we come into full obedience? We can't. We sang that song this morning, what can I say? What can I do?
Except offer this heart to you, O God. Completely to you. See church, total complete and full obedience starts with total and complete and full surrender to him. That's where full obedience lies.
That's where it is. And that may look like a full acknowledgement of your sin, that may look like a full acknowledgement of my sin, that may look like a full surrender of our desires, of our wants, of what our needs are, it may look like a full laying down, a full surrender of our plans, for his plans. That may look like a full repentance of our disobedience in our life in whatever area is plural, whatever area that may be in our life church. See again, full obedience starts with a full surrender to God.
In church, when we fully obey God, when we not disobey him but fully obey him, we are complete. We are made whole in him. The first five mentioned early in 1 John. Charles Spurgeon said this, the Lord will not accept a divided heart.
To obey him in part is to insult his authority. Oh, goodness. Let me read that one more time. The Lord will not accept a divided heart.
To obey him in part is to insult his authority. What is Charles talking about here? He's talking about partial obedience. To obey him partially, obey him selectively is disobedience.
And so if you're wondering where we're going to be going this morning, what we're going to be looking at, we are going to be contrasting partial obedience and full obedience this morning. We're going to be examining these two and we've already touched on a little bit of what full obedience is. But let's go further into what full obedience is not. Full obedience is not partial obedience.
Like I said before, it's also known as selective obedience. And when it comes to God's word, when it comes to biblical examples of this, we have the biggest example. We have the poster child, a good example of what not to do in God's word when it comes to partial obedience and that was King Saul. King Saul.
Most of us know he was dethroned by God and he lost his kingship. He missed out on what God had in store for him in his dynasty because of partial obedience. So let's read this story. Let's just look at the cliff notes here.
Let's pick this up in 1 Samuel 15 verses 2 through 3. This is the prophet Samuel speaking. This is what the Lord Almighty says. I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they way laid them as they came up from Egypt.
Now go. Attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them. Listen to death men, in women, children, infants, cattle, sheep, camels and doggies.
This is really clear. This is really clear. God is not leaving out details. He's very, very specific.
He's very black and white. There's no gray area here. This command comes straight from Father God through Samuel to Saul. Basically, you need to go scorched earth on these guys.
Wipe them off of the face of the planet. Destroy the Amalekites. So let's fast forward just a little bit to verse 7. Then Saul attacked the Amalekites all the way up from Havilah to sure near the Eastern border of Egypt.
He took Agag, king of the Amalekites alive and all his people he totally destroyed with the sword. But Saul and the army spared Agag in the best of the sheep and cattle, the fat cabs and lambs. Everything that was good. Uh oh.
We have a problem here, don't we? First let's fast forward a little bit here. Now we come to a meeting that happens between Samuel and Saul. This happens in verse 13 through 14.
As Samuel came close, Saul called out, God's blessings on you. I accomplish God's plan to the letter. To the letter. Samuel said.
So what's this I'm hearing? This bleeding of sheep, this mooing of cattle. Can you imagine that? That's something that I would love to be a fly on for the conference.
Can you imagine how that went? I mean, you know, you got Saul there who's like, Samuel, hey buddy, hey pal, I accomplished God's plan to the letter. Sorry, I accomplished God's plan, I obeyed him. And Samuel's like, for all we know King Agag is off the side, he's like, how's it going?
I mean, it's so funny to me because Saul is like so confident. He's probably coming to Samuel expecting thinking he's going to get some congratulatory message from God and from Samuel. Gold star for you. Oh no, oh no.
If you know what happens, we're about to read it. But if you know what happens, he gets anything but a gold star. Let's look at this in verse 19. This is Samuel speaking.
Why did you not obey God? Why did you grab all this loot? Why? With God's eyes on you all the time, did you brazenly carry out this evil?
Saul defended himself saying, what are you talking about? I did obey God. I did the job God set for me. I brought in King Agag and destroyed the Amalekites under the terms of the Holy Band.
So the soldiers say back a few choice sheep and cattle from the Holy Band for sacrifice to God and Gilgal. What's wrong with that? He's justifying his partial obedience. And he's also, if we're looking at this, he's kind of blame shifting this onto his soldiers.
The soldiers did that. So what is Samuel's response? Well, we pick it up in verse 22 through 23. Samuel, in his reply, he says this, Saul, to obey is better than sacrifice because you have rejected the word of the Lord.
He also has rejected you all. See, because Saul had partial obedience, he was rejected by God, sure. He missed out. Who knows what Saul could have been, what he should have been, what he should have been, what he should have been, what God would have done in and through him over his kingship in his kingship through Israel.
We don't know. We don't know because of his partial obedience. In search of your taking notes, write this down. Partial obedience is complete disobedience.
Partial obedience is complete disobedience. It will cause you and I to miss out on the plan, on the blessings. It will hinder us from coming into the fullness of what God has for you and I in our life. And what does this look like?
I mean, we're looking at Saul's life, like I said before, he's a good example of what not to do, but fast forward to now, fast forward to 2026 here and now. How does this practically affect you and I? What does this look like from day to day? Well, let's take a simple example, sin.
God looks at the sin in my life, in your life, and us being good Bereans, reading his word, we know God's laws are very clear. Very black and white to us on what we should do and what we should not do. And God looks at our life when it comes to sin and he says, destroy it. Kill it.
Don't spare it. Don't let it breathe another minute, another hour, another second. Kill it where it stands. He looks at my sin, he looks at your sin, he looks at all sin the same.
He looks at lying and he says, destroy that. He looks at our envy and he says, why do you still have that? Don't spare that. He looks at our, the sexual immorality.
He looks at selfish ambition. He looks at pride and he's like, kill that thing. Don't spare it. So church, this morning, are you sparing sin that God has commanded you to destroy?
What secret sins, you know, I can use air quotes for that because it's not a secret. God sees all he knows all. I mean, it's my secret sin. It's like, it's as if he's standing in the room watching you.
I mean, what secret sins are we hiding? What unforgiveness are we harboring towards other people? What relationships does God not want us to have anymore that we're holding on to, that we're sparing? And he's saying, destroy it.
Get rid of it. Simply obeying. Church, when we partially obey, we disobey. And when we disobey, we can be removed from his blessings and we can be removed from that fellowship that Sam talked about last week.
We are no longer aligned with God, but we are misaligned. And God, church, there's a wonderful promise and a wonderful truth to you and God wants nothing more than for us to be aligned with him. He wants to have fellowship with you and he wants to pour out his blessings, his mercies on you and I, but he's like, I can't do it when you haven't surrendered that to me, when you haven't repented of that. If you haven't been fully obedient to me in this area, well, I'm tithing.
I'm going to church. I'm doing this right. I was like, no, I'm asking you to be fully obedient to me, fully surrender to me. That's what God is asking.
Church, it is simply a choice. It is simply a choice. No one in here would willfully voluntarily raise up their hand and sign up to not receive God's blessing. Everyone in here, I'm assuming, I'm hoping that everyone in here wants God's good.
They want God's plans to come to fruition in their life. They want to fulfill their destiny. You want to reach a hundred percent. Amen.
I don't know about you, but at the end of my life, I want to hit the tape. I want to come to everything that God has called me to be. No one signs up willfully and voluntarily to have a life of destruction, to live in a way that is not under the umbrella of God. No one does that, but all of us, we can, if we're not careful, we make decisions that put us in that place.
And God is saying, do a 180 in this area, this area in your life that you haven't surrendered to me. You need to give that up. You need to surrender that to me. Don't be partial.
Don't let your heart be divided. Give it all to me. See, Church, this is the point when we, as we sing about today in that song, abandoned. I'm sold out.
I'm sincerely abandoned. Everything I have, everything I am, is yours. Full tilt. Nothing held back.
Church, it is a choice. It is a choice. Deuteronomy 11, chapter 11, verse 26-28. Behold, I set before you today a blessing and a curse.
The blessing if you obey the commandments of the Lord or God and the curse if you do not obey. Church, it is really simple. It is really simple. If you and I choose to obey, and not just obey, right?
We're talking about full obedience. If you and I choose to obey fully, then we will receive the blessings of God. The opposite is true as well. It's a choice if we choose to not obey, but rather disobeye.
Or as we're talking about, partially obey, we receive the consequences of that. Andrew Murray said this. Andrew Murray said this. God does not ask how much you obey, but whether you obey fully.
See, this sums up Samuel's reply to Saul. Here Saul is, you know, yeah, I obey God. What are you talking about? I obey God.
I brought in King Agate. So what? I spared the sheep and the cattle for a second. What's wrong with that?
And Samuel's like, Saul, come on, man. You're not getting it, Saul. God's not asking how much you obey. He's simply asking, he's searching for those who would obey him fully.
So church, who or what in your life is your King Agag? What are you sparing? That God has commanded you to destroy. In what areas of your life are you partial?
Are you divided in with God? As I was working on this teaching last night, the Lord brought me to a teaching that happened at CRTC a week ago. And by the way, just a testimony here, side note, CRTC was incredible. Oh my gosh, a week ago.
For those of you guys in who went, you know, it was absolutely phenomenal. I know that everyone says this every year, but I mean, it was one of the best ones we've ever had. It was absolutely incredible this year. When it came to the worship, which was led by Stephen LaVinque, when it came to the small group times, which were just rich and full.
I mean, we ran out of time every small group that I was in. I mean, it's just like, oh my gosh, and the teachings were just powerful. So I mean, just walking away from every message and just being like, oh, got it. I need to work on that.
Oh, thank you, Lord. I need to move forward in that area. I got to fix that. I got to work on that.
And as I mentioned, I was working on this teaching last night. God brought me back to a message that my older brother, Matt Sweeney, did at CRTC and he did a message on integrity. And in his message on the PowerPoint, he had this pie chart. And in this pie chart, you know, first off, integrity, that was his message title.
Integrity means wholeness. It means wholeness. And so what he did with this pie chart and his message is he divided up our most common areas of life. We have our work life, we have our personal life, you know, we have our professional life, we have our marriage, we have our family, we have our hobbies.
You know, and so often in his message, he's speaking and how he used it was how we need to be the same in every area. We need to have integrity in the area and how Jesus needs to be on the throne of every area in our life. And last night, I was working on my teaching and God brought me back to that pie chart. I'm like, wow, church.
I'm sitting there. I'm like, God, is there any area of my life that you're not on the throne of when it comes to what I need to give to you, what I need to surrender to you? Am I divided? Is there some division when it comes to my obedience?
Is it not whole obedience? Is it not total obedience? God. I'm not going to be in the area.
Bring that to the surface so that I can lay that at your feet, I can lay that at the altar, I can get it right. God, don't let me be partial when it comes to obedience. I don't want a partial blessing. How about you?
I want a full blessing. So therefore, we need to live in such a way as full obedience church. Amen. Amen.
So we've talked about partial obedience as we're coming to a close here this morning, but what we're going to end is full obedience. We're going to unpack this just a little bit further. Full obedience church, it is a high bar to live life at. I will make no apology for that.
It's a higher calling. It's a higher standard to live at. And without going too far into the ditch, I will also say it is not some place of perfection. That's not what full obedience is.
If full obedience is not someone who examines all of God's word, all of God's laws, and it's like, if I mess up, then I'm not living in full obedience, no, that's not what that is. Full obedience is not perfection. Actually, it's achievable through the grace of God for all of us. It's not some spiritual merit badge.
It's not only available for the select few. All of us are capable of living a life of full obedience. And God being a loving father, God being who he is, he's not standing next to us or standing over us with a baseball bat for whenever we mess up. That's not him.
He is simply looking at our heart. His eyes are searching to and fro from the earth who would earnestly seek him as Hebrew 16 says. He's looking for those who desire him, who long for him, who will commit themselves to him. God is looking for those who will echo David's prayer in Psalm 40.
I desire to do your will, O God. I desire to do your will, not my will, but your will, O God. In 2 Chronicles 16, verse 9, most of us know this, the eyes of the Lord search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. Church, this morning, God is searching.
God is searching. He's looking for those who would be fully committed to him, who would be fully obedient to him. You see, if you look at those two words fully committed in the original Hebrew, what that simply means is undivided, whole and complete. The complete opposite of partial obedience.
Instead of having a divided heart, a divided life, you have an undivided heart that surrender to God, a whole heart, a whole surrender, a whole obedience, a full obedience to him, Church. God is searching for those who are loyal to him, who will commit themselves to him. Again, not perfection, but we're striving. We're aggressively seeking him.
We're asking the Holy Spirit, and I do this daily. I do this all the time. Holy Spirit, bring to my mind, bring to my heart if there's anything I have not gotten right with you that I need to ask for repentance for, that I need to be more obedient in. Let me know.
I need to get that right with you because why I want to live in full obedience. Is there any territory in my life where my flag is planted, my banner is planted instead of your banner? I'm going to yank that flag out of there. It needs to be your banner, God.
You need, is there any area of my life where you're not on the throne? Now I love that song. Take your throne. Take your throne.
Take your throne in my marriage. Take your throne in my family. Take your throne in my life, my ministry. Church this, like I said before, this is not calling.
This is not the intent. Church, I hope you've grasped this and you understand this. The intent and purpose of this series is not a weekly bashing session to find out how much we disobeyed. No, this is not a calling out.
This is a calling up. And when it comes to obedience, Church, this is going a little bit higher. This is going a little bit deeper when it comes to our obedience, our loyalty to God. Church God is looking for those who, like his son Jesus, will be obedient unto death.
In Church, just like Jesus' obedience, cost him his life. Full obedience may cost you and I something. It's going to sting. It may hurt.
It may be outside of your comfort zone, but the blessing that's there. The fellowship, the connection that you'll have with God, Church. And then I want to be that man. I want to be that man.
I want to be obedient to him unto death. Like I said at the beginning of this message, Dean of my life, I want to have to tape. I want to be able to look back on my life and be like, I was obedient. I was obedient.
Not partial. Not divided. See, unlike Saul, Jesus obeyed fully. Not partially.
He obeyed fully. So as we're coming to a close here today, Church, I want to read you up. It's a little bit of a lengthy quote by Andrew Murray, but my goodness, it's a great place for us to land this morning. Andrew Murray said this, let him have all.
Give up your life to be as full of him of his presence, his will, his surface as he can make it. Give yourself to him, not only to be saved from disobedience or just to be happy, but to live your own life without sinning and trouble. Both so completely that he may have you holy for himself as a vessel, as a channel which he can fill with himself with his life and love for men and use in his blessed service. Oh, that's good.
Let him have all. Let him have all. Church, full obedience, full obedience is not the result of stronger effort, rather it is the result of surrendering deeper. Full obedience is us not going to more and more Bible studies.
It's not reading more and more and more. It's just simply surrendering to him and obeying. That's what full obedience is, Church. It's a challenge, Church.
It's a good challenge, amen? It's a challenge to live higher, to live at a different standard. I was sitting there doing worship today. It's not going to be on the PowerPoint.
I mean, this is just thinking about it. And Lord brought this to my mind. There's a quote by DL Moody and simply this, the world has yet to see a man fully consecrated to God, fully yielded to him. And then if you read the rest of it, though, DL Moody says, by the grace of God, I would be that man.
The world has yet to see that kind of man who's fully yielded, fully committed to him. But by the grace of God, I'm going to be that man. It's a challenge. In Church, I want to be that man.
I want to be that man. How about you today? So here's your challenge for this week, Church. Here's your challenge for today.
If God were to place his finger on one area of your life that you need to surrender to him, would you argue with him or would you just let him have it? Would you surrender? If you all would, just by your heads and close your eyes today as I close this out in prayer. Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, God. Lord, thank you for your presence. Thank you for being with us here today, God. I pray that everyone here, Lord, including myself, we have a blessed day.
We have a blessed weekend, you, Lord, that we would recognize areas that we need to grow in when it comes to our obedience, Lord, and we would become more and more obedient. We would love you more and more every single day, God. And it's on your son's name, we pray, in Jesus Christ, amen. And have a great Sunday, Church.