Lessons in Obedience

Good morning church. Have you ever wondered, I know I've wondered, if somebody asked a question, have you ever wondered how an ugly guy got a pretty girl? Now I know some people say, well yeah we always wonder how you got back. I understand, I understand.

Totally, I understand that. Totally got it. But here's the reason. Here's the reason why some ugly guys get some beautiful women.

They simply ask. They simply ask. There are people out there who, it's amazing. Christmas and Easter, they will show up to church.

The only problem is nobody asks them to come to church with them. Polls, history, society, you look at anything that's Christianity, people will tell you over and over again, people will come to church on Christmas and Easter. And now they're saying mothers are starting to pick up. But one of the problems with that is simply this, people quit asking people to come to church with them.

So, not that you're ugly, but let me encourage you. Ask some people you know who you're going, they only wouldn't come to church, ask them to come to church with you. Amen? Good.

We are in the middle of the series on obedience. We are telling them that we're on week seven of obedience. And this morning's title is Lessons in Obedience. Lessons in Obedience.

That's the title for us this morning. And I say lessons plural because we're going to look at some lessons in life, some from the Bible, but actually some from this real practical life. And I'm going to start out here very simply here this morning, starting with my sermon, totally different. I normally do.

I'm going to tell the story. There was an older gentleman and he and his wife were married for 30 plus years and she passed away. And he said, you know what, I've always wanted to go to China. I've always wanted to check it off my bucket list.

So he saved his retirement money, built up his money, got there, got to China and he's looking around. And somebody says, hey, listen, you need to go on a tour outside the city. You need to go see the valleys. You need to go see the countryside.

And he goes, oh, that's important. Oh, yeah, it's great. He's like, okay, he gets on the tour. He's on the tour bus and he's riding along.

And they come and they stop and it's a little village. And the tour guy says, okay, get out guys. 20 minutes to look around. Remember, this is China.

This is America. This is China. Efficiency. 20 minutes and we're gone.

So this gentleman's by himself and he says, okay, the guy's binoculars and he goes out and he gets away from the crowd and he's sitting over the valley and he's looking. He's just enjoying himself. And he's like, and this is beautiful countryside. This is just a beautiful area of town.

He looks at his watch. It's been 30 minutes. So he goes scurrying back up the hill to find no tour bus. No cell phone, no wallet, no passport.

And he's looking going, that bus is gone. So he makes himself into the village and nobody speaks English. No English, no pan signs, nothing. And the next thing he thinks about the next stop is about three hours away.

Can I walk that far? Probably not. But then he looks at his watch and goes sundowns going to be about two hours. What would you do?

What would you do if you were in his spot? That's a good question. You'd be asked for another girl, huh? Going to the village?

Hope this might communicate with you? But there's a lesson to be learned. When a tour guide gives you 20 minutes, you show up in 19 minutes. You don't wait until 30 minutes.

You don't go off by yourself. That's a simple lesson in life. But how many times has God told us something or somebody's told us something and we've missed the bus? What about this scenario?

What would you do in this scenario? Moms. Moms you and your 11 year old, your 7 year old, and your 5 year old in New York City. Dad's not with you on this trip.

Why are you on this trip? I have no idea. But you decided to take this trip to New York City with your kids and you're having a great time. You saw the Statue of Liberty and now you're about to get on the subway.

And of course, it's a middle of day and rush hour and things are going crazy and chaotic. You got your 11 year old who listens to you right away. Your 7 year old who's kind of like, ah, whatever, but he stands pretty close to you. But your 5 year old and all of a sudden the subway shows up and the 5 year old stumbles onto the subway.

But you and your 11 year old and your 7 year old are not quite there yet. And you get to the doors and they close. What do you do? What do you do?

So those of you who never know New York City and everyone on the subway don't know what that looks like. I promise you, that's a scary moment for anybody. Your 5 year old's gone. You can call the police by the time you find the police.

That subway, sorry, moved a couple of steps, stopped down the road. Young people, that's always for you. Well, who's the young people? You decide who's young in this room.

What would you do? Every single day of our life, there are lessons in obedience that pop up. Whether it's a tour bus, whether it's a child getting into a subway where you should have stopped and been there with his family. Every single day, God's trying to teach us something.

The question is, are we learning every day? Well, Pastor Michael, this happened this week. Yeah, that's a lesson. Did you obey or disobey?

Or did you sit in the middle and go, I'm not too sure what to do here? Well, yeah, quite all of a sudden. I don't want to get to quiet. I don't want to be a heavy message, but I want us to focus on the lessons and obedience.

And I think the best two people in the entire Bible that we can learn this from are Mary and Joseph. Mary and Joseph had to accept God's plan for their life, especially Mary. You think about Mary and you know, listen, those of us who come from a Catholic background, there's so many warped stories about Mary. So many warped things that are there and so many idolatry and so many things that are just, I mean, just unbelievable.

But if we slow down and just look at Mary's life, we look at a young lady who was obedient, a young lady who broke cultural norms, a young lady who said, you know what? I will do what the angel tells me to do because he only tells me to do what Father God told me to do. So let's pick this up in Luke 1, 1, 2, 6, and 27. We're going to read just two verses at the start, but we're going to pick up this piece of the scripture and it's very important, it says, in the sixth month of Elizabeth's pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee.

And I went and looked up at Nazareth in a town in Galilee. That's like the town of Ego. But it's a couple of hundred miles from the freeway. There's nothing there.

There's no grocery store, there's no stoplight. All you know is a stop sign and turn left to Ego. That's all you have is Nazareth. There's nothing there.

And so Nazareth and Galilee, a virgin pledged. Or maybe your Bible says, be truth. To be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David, a virgin name, the virgin's name was Mary. Now when we read that story, we say, okay, she's betrothed, she's engaged.

But what does that mean? Well, they're going to get married. We think like Americans. We think like, oh, I know exactly what that means.

Some young pimply-faced boy got down and said, well, you please marry me. Not even close. Not even in the vicinity of what that looks like. That word pledge, that word betrothed, has a bigger picture that any Jewish audience would know that.

But most American audience have no idea. Most Americans, we have no idea what that even means to be pledged to or betrothed. So as I began to look at this, I go, I know we're going in lessons and obedience. And Lord said, hold on, your audience is not going to have a very good idea of what that looks like unless you explain what that looks like.

Because when we think about weddings, we think about this, a white dress, an exchange of rings, communion, guys' favorite part, kissing the bride, and everybody else's favorite part, the reception. Some people don't even come to the wedding. They just come to the reception these days. Forget that, church stuff, I'm going to the party.

That's what we think about a wedding. But when you stop and think about a Jewish wedding in that time, in that culture, it's a whole lot bigger deal. And we got to see what that looks like first before we can understand the lesson that God's trying to teach us through Mary. Here's what happens in a Jewish wedding.

They thought about covenant. They understood what covenant meant. It's amazing. We do pre-Meral counseling.

Most couples have said, how many times do you see a wedding in the Bible? Jesus, wedding at Kna, water into wine. I can't think of anything else. But the Jewish audience understood what covenant really looked like.

They also understood it was to have a preparation. And it was also a time of anticipation. You know, I don't do that rhyming stuff very well. So preparation, anticipation, that wasn't on purpose.

But very simply, this is what it looks like. There is a time that's going to set up because we need to understand that this very passage, Luke 1 26 or 27, talks more about Jesus than it does Mary. Because very simply, he says, in John 14, 2 and 3, I don't have the word for existence. It's just a simple and real quick.

He says, I go to prepare a place for you. When there's a pledge, the groom was preparing a place for his bride. And Paul talks about the church being the bride. I mean, he just so many beautiful pictures in here.

And we got to understand this is literally theology in motion. This is literally the entire Bible in these two verses. Pastor Michael, I've never seen that one. I did a hit eye.

So the Holy Spirit began to show and say, this is very simple. If you'll look at how this Jewish process works, you'll understand what obedience really looks like. So let's run down that 2 and very simply listen, here's stage 1. There's a four part stage, four simple parts to a Jewish wedding system.

Very simply one is this. Shadukim. That basically means the arrangement. Girls, are you ready for this one?

This is really exciting. For those of you who are fathers of grooms, this is an important thing. The father's groom would go look for a wife for his son. And all the guys in the room went, oh man, my dad had to pick the girl for me.

My dad's blind and one eyes got catarack and the other. He's going to look for a girl for me. Oh my lord. Come on.

That's the arrangement. The father was in charge. Oh please listen to his church. Who's in charge of everything?

Father God. And what did he do? He got a bride for Jesus. He looked at you and I and said, that's the bride for my son.

That's the church. That's the bride for my son, Jesus. Jesus 24. I mean, you have very simply Abraham looking for his son, Isaac, his wife Rebecca.

The son had to be obedient to that. Now guys, let's be honest. How many of us are men. If our dad said, I'm going to pick your wife, he'd say, go for it, dad.

Oh, I don't trust him that much. That's the picture we're seeing here. Jesus trusted his father to pick you and I. Isaac trusted his father Abraham enough to trust him to pick the right woman for him.

Are you hearing obedience? Then you have the reverse of that. You have Jacob who goes out looking for Rachel. Sometimes it was the guy looking out there, but guess what?

The father said the sage said, go get her. And during that arrangement, the mohar, the bride price was agreed upon. And this is how important, guys. We don't do anymore in our culture.

I don't know anybody doesn't even want to culture. Maybe Jewish people still do their culture, but still pay a bride price. And it wasn't about buying a woman, what it was doing was compensating the family because guess what? She's no longer working with the family.

It's a compensation. It's not a buying. It's saying she is of so much value to your family, and I'm taking her away from your family. So I want to bless your family to give to you.

Oh my gosh. Where were they in society? How much was she worth? Jacob worked for seven years for Rachel.

He's just 29. And what did I say? It seemed like a few years to him. Guys, could you work for seven years for your wife?

Look at me. Don't look at her. She made nine. Heck yeah.

Heck yeah. 27 years now, if I knew it, I was getting 27 years ago, seven years would have been nothing. Nothing but you know when you're young and done, you don't know what you're getting in that timeframe. And you think, Oh, what's the price?

Why? No, I mean, I knew where I look at it. Hey, I don't get here this morning. This is more of a teaching than big staging in the preaching.

Stage two in this is called the Erosing. This to be Trovel. This is what we're reading right here. This to be Trovel here.

This is the engagement but she's caucus ready for this? It wasn't just a engagement, it wasn't just a, let's get on my knee and ask for your hand in marriage, it was a legally binding covenant. At the betrollville, they were married in the way we think they're married. If it was to be broken off, they'd have to get a divorce.

Now, some of you are going, oh, I've read that before. I understand what's coming next in Matthew. We'll get there to Matthew in a little bit. But here's the interesting thing.

Joseph and Mary had to stand before other people in the betroll ceremony. It wasn't just him asking. It was them together saying, we're committed to life. From this point forward, we're committed.

Even though we're not going to live together, even though we're not going to be around each other for next year or so, we are committed to each other. That's what happened in the betrollville process. And the betrollville process had three parts. Here's the first part.

The covenant was established. The bride and groom stood before witnesses to agree to the marriage covenant. The groom will make a formal declaration of betrollville. Establishing that the bride was now consecrated to him.

What does that mean? You are mine and mine alone. You are set apart for mine and mine alone. The family couldn't give her away to anybody else.

Well, what if somebody came along and had a bigger bucket of gold? It didn't matter. They were in covenant. She was his and he was hers.

Well, come on, church. I mean, literally set apart for each other. Literally the only two that got had for them. The second thing they did was this.

The cup was shared. They had a couple of wine together. Those people who were anti-wine, they had a wine together. They would drink a couple of wines, symbolizing what?

The life and covenant of Christ. The only thing that's going to give between us is Christ. And the only thing that's going to give between the two of us is the Holy Spirit and His death. Because we're going to drink this cup together until death do we part.

Patriches was just be truth. Oh, come on, church. Let me take you again. Some deep theology.

Matthew 26, 29, I will not drink this fruit of the vine from now on until the day when I drink it with you and my fathers in my father's kingdom. Another beautiful theological picture. We are here together. Come on, church.

We got to get this. The third thing here is this is the time that the groom had to ante up. He had to bring his money to the table. He had to pay the bride price, the mochar.

How much was she worth? Ten goats, silver shekels. What was she worth? And what does Peter tell us?

Not with perishable things like gold or silver, but you were purchased with a precious blood of Jesus. First Peter 1 18 19. Big picture here, church. And here's the best part.

After the betroval, they would separate. Hold on, what? After the troll, they would separate. They were legally married, but they would not live together or consummate the marriage.

And this process lasted about a year. Why did it last about a year? What are we? We're on a hurry, aren't we?

Let's engage. Let's get married. Let's set a date. Let's get a party together.

Let's get a party together. Let's get a party together. I mean, some families, the second the guy asked the engagement, all the sudden the family goes into high gear. Oh, we're into the hall.

We got a caterer. We got the flowers. We got the dress. And she was culture.

It wasn't about a day. It was about a process. Now, some of you grubby, handy guys. Oh, man, I couldn't stay away from my bride for a year.

Hold on a second. Because that's your heart. And this guy, these men were being obedient. Ladies, what if our culture lived this way today?

Teenage pregnancies? Wouldn't happen. All the problems, all the STDs, all the issues would just stop. I'm not saying this is the perfect thing.

So Joey is okay. She doesn't have to worry about this. Her dad's not waiting for some dad to come find her. I trust the Holy Spirit in her.

But we're not going through this long period. But very simply, we got to get this sometimes church. Because we reach scripture, we go pledge, betrothed, and we keep on reading. And we don't understand the background.

It's about to happen. The third stage of the preparation process, and this is the fun part, the groom would go back to his father's house. And he would begin to build an addition to his father's house. He would make a room for you.

Did we hear that from Jesus? I'm going to my father's house to make room for you. Here's the groom who's going to his father's house to make a side room, to make an addition to the house. And he couldn't go and get his bride until guess what?

The house was finished. And he couldn't go get the bride until the house was finished. And his father said, my stamp of approval. Come on, do you know your Bible?

What are we talking about here? The son doesn't know the hour or the day the father's sitting to come back and get his bride. The Jewish audience knew all of this in this picture. And so here he is, he's getting things together, he's putting things together, getting ready for this.

And so what's the woman doing? The exact same thing. She's preparing herself, preparing, getting her stuff together to become a wife, to become a mother, to become what all God called her to be in that home. She's getting her clothing together, her dishware, her stuff that she needs to be an effective wife, preparing the way.

And here's the cool thing. She was getting oiled together. Why is she getting oiled together? Because when the groom came, he normally came at night.

Again, those of us who know our Bible, Jesus is coming at night. You know, she was snatched away, taken away, she went snatched away, her name from her father's house. It came as a surprise to her. What night is he coming?

When is he coming for me? Oh man, that is so powerful. When is the groom coming for me? Which is stage four, Nisoan, the wedding of marriage ceremony.

Patrick, Michael, you are giving us a lot of histories when I am because we're going to get to something so powerful. When the father finally approved, the preparations he would go get his bride. Now here's the cool thing. The Greek word harpadzo is the one from 1st and that's the only four seventeen, that whole called away, that whole picture deal.

But what would happen is they would show up in the middle of the night, him and his buddies. Now girls check this out. This is one of the wild ones. The groom and his buddies would show up to your house and your parents would be there.

He would bring you, take you back with his buddies. Your family would come as well. But literally, y'all would go. He would take you.

Now for some of you young people, you go, what in the world? For some of us old people you're going, what in the world? They would literally, the groom and bride would go into their new, uh, hupa and they would go into the new addition to the house. While everybody was partying and having a reception, they were having sex.

They were consummating the marriage. I heard them. I heard that from the back row back there. What?

They were consummating the marriage and the best man in the bride room would wait, not near the door, but he would wait and when they would come out he would say, it's consummated. It's gone. It's together. Let me go.

Woo. Holy cow. What in the world are you talking about here? Very simply this.

This is a wedding ceremony where very simply it was serious. It was real. It was a part of life that coder said, we're in this together and guess what? They party for seven days.

And some of your dad said, my wallet doesn't go that deep. Well, it's a seven day party is what they had just agreed to. Well, passion Michael, I got that. I understand that.

Okay. So let's pick back up in Luke one, 28 to 38. Man, we spent a lot of time discussing the Jewish wedding ceremony. Yes.

Because we got to pick up from there. Luke one, 28, 38 and the angel went to her and said, greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wonder what this greeting might be.

But the angel said to her, do not be afraid. Mary, you have found favor with God. You will conceive and give birth to a son and you will call him Jesus. He will be great and we call the son of the most high.

The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end. Verse 34, how will this be? Mary asked the angel since I am a virgin.

See, we ring that go. Okay. I got that. She had to be truth herself.

She had committed herself to Joseph. And here's God. Here's the angel of God coming saying, you're about to have a kid. You're about to get pregnant.

How is this going to happen? Number one, I'm already committed to somebody else. Number two, I've never slept with a man. How in the world am I going to become pregnant?

I love Gabriel. And the angel answered, the Holy Spirit will come on you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. So the Holy One is to be born with the son of God. Even Elizabeth, your relative is going to have a child in her old age and she who is said to be unable to conceive in her six months.

He's filled her with faith. Even Elizabeth is going to get pregnant. People she can get pregnant, but you are too. For no word from God will ever fail.

And Mary says, I am the Lord's servant. Mary answered, may your word to me be fulfilled. Then the angel left her. Holy cow.

14, 15, 16 years old committed to be married, went through the arrangement process. The mohars already been paid. The control process standing before witness is saying, Joseph, I'm your girl. And here they're in the preparation process.

Joseph is back at his family house. Joseph is built his house. So many times we read this, thank you. Hold on, Joseph and Mary are together.

They're not together. They're in the preparation process. She's here. He's over there.

And she gets word. You're not to be pregnant. Yes, Lord. I'm your servant.

That's obedience. Not only is it obedience, it's walking in the things of God saying, God, I have no idea how this is going to happen. Because Joseph had the legal right to divorce her. Oh, man, that's a lot of stuff in a real small passage.

Yes. That's what true obedience looks like. So it begs the question, are you willing to respond with faith when faced with challenges in obedience? Are you willing to respond with faith when faced with challenges in obedience?

What can Mary have done? Nah, I'm out. She wasn't asking the question going, is she doubting? She's trying to figure out how this process is going to happen.

I've never had sex. Now I'm going to be pregnant. Lord, how in the world does this thing going to happen? But here's the other side of that thing.

Joseph. Remember I told you Joseph and Mary weren't together? Guys, let's be honest for a minute. If you were engaged to a woman and you found out she was pregnant, what would you have done?

We're in church. We're going home. We're being sterile. I'm just not too sure.

Yeah, you do. We're out of here, chick. Good luck. I don't know what happened to you, but God bless you.

Or who is he? I'm going to be the crap out of him and bless the two of you. Come on. What happened here?

So we pick up Joseph's story in Matthew 1. And it's really cool. We pick up Joseph's story in Matthew 1, 28-25. This is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah came about.

His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph. There's the pledge. There's the betrayal. But before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law. Did you catch that? He was a faithful man to the things of God, faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace. He had in mind to divorce her quietly.

How do you divorce her quietly? She's a Nazareth, a town like Aego, where everybody knows your business. If you sneeze, they know which cleannecks you used. Mary was betrothed Joseph and now she's pregnant.

I love her. I love her. But after he had considered this, an angel Lord appeared to him and dream and said, Joseph's son David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. Because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus. Because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet. The Virgin will conceive and give birth to his son and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

Then Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son and he gave him the name Jesus. I love the amen and come on people because I'm telling you what, if I was Joseph, I'd be messed up. Then Joseph contemplating this.

The Bible gives us all kinds of room for interpretation, but Joseph contemplated this. He had to think about this. He thought about it. He's like, hold on.

Say what? Mary's pregnant? I know it's not mine. That's the first thing he said, I know it's not mine.

Guys, I'm clean. My hands are clean. Who was it? What is she doing?

Who is she? Think about her parents. We sterilize these stories so sterile. What would her parents do?

Her dad had just agreed for her to be married. Her dad had just took the money for her to be married and she shows up pregnant. Joseph's dad is coming saying, hey, dude, what are you doing with your daughter? What kind of easy woman is she?

Who is she running around in town with? Oh, must be hanging around that cousin Elizabeth. That little easy one. That cousin Elizabeth was pregnant too.

So now your daughter's pregnant too. Come on. Let's make this real life. Real life.

And you're having to make decisions based on obedience. And Joseph is contemplating, he's awake going, what in the world am I supposed to do? He's potteries thinking. Now listen, this was one of those knee-jerk reactions.

He went to sleep. That Joseph's better man than I am. I'm not sure I would have went to sleep. I would have stayed up all night long.

And I probably would have gone to my donkey and rode over to the ashes and figured out what was going on. Come on church. I think this is important for us to understand sometimes because sometimes the Bible stories we read them and go, oh, we just gleaned through them. But there are real lessons in obedience.

And God's trying to teach us something. In real life, some of us in this room understand that life sometimes was curveballs. People we know got pregnant before they should have. People did things they shouldn't have done.

Life was all these things. But how are we going to walk through it? Are we going to stand with those who are struggling through life? Well, that's his fault.

No, no, no. Well, we stand with them and see them come to pass. That's the other lesson obedience here with Joseph. He's like, hey, I'm staying in here.

But it seems a man of the law. Not always he a man of the law. Joseph also had to understand the prophecies about Jesus. Isaiah 7, 13 to 14.

Then I say I said here now your house of David, it is not enough to try the patience of humans. Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore Lord will give him a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Emmanuel.

Church, we know our Bibles. If we're going to be obedient, we need to know our Bibles. Let me say we're Bible. What do we mean by the word Bible?

I mean the word Bible. There are 66 books in the Bible. Well, Pastor Michael, I'm a New Testament guy. I've read Matthew to Revelation back and forth six, seven different times.

But what about the Old Testament? The whole of the Bible. Wait, I got glad again all of a sudden on me. I must have been a point somewhere because so many Christians stuff themselves all your long with proverbs and psalms and the gospels, the epistles, we have no idea what the Old Testament says.

It's hard to obey when we don't know different books of the Bible. When's the last thing you wrote first and second Kings? Ezra, Amos, Micah, Naeum, Titus, Philemon. Those are books.

Come on. Come on. Yeah. Listen to me Church.

This is important. Verse 24 says, when Joseph woke up, that must have been a bad dream. I ate some bad pizza last night, had some bad root beer, I had some bad additives to my tea. I'm going to hell it's something just weird.

You know, psychedelic, no, no. He had a dream. The angel spoke to him and he got up and said, I'll obey. Why?

Because the word of the Lord was in the dream. And when you know the word of the Lord, it's easy to follow behind. No questions, no pushback, just obedience. And if you, pages that I realized part of says, he took her home.

I'm going to get my pregnant wife. I think of those words for a second. I'm going to get my pregnant wife. And I'm taking her out of Nazareth and I'm bringing her to my home with my dad and my mom.

Can you mind him facing your dad and saying, Dad, I know you heard the rumors and they're true. Say what? Yeah, she's pregnant. Well, who's kid is it?

The Holy Spirit. Say what? Yeah, it's God's dad. Joseph, you need your head examined, bro.

Again, we make these things all sterile and all, you know, religious, but when we put rubber meets the road, he had to go face his mom and dad. He had to go face his brothers and sisters, his cousins, his family. You're taking this woman who's already had a kid, who's already pregnant. And you don't even know, you're saying the Holy Spirit.

Listen, we believe in God, but man, you guys are crazy. Oh, Mary, who do you think you are? You're the one God chose. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm just trying to be obedient to what Daniel told me. Not even a human.

No, no, no, Daniel told me this. Okay. All right, Mary. Well, all right, Joseph.

And you guys are going to walk around town and you're going to be a part of our town and her stomach's going to get bigger and everybody's going to know that's not your son. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So what do we do with the marriage ceremony? We've done the arrangement. We've done the patrol, but we've done the preparation, but there's still a marriage ceremony supposed to take place. There's still to be a reception that takes place.

What do we do with all this stuff? I agree with you because the Word of God is trying to teach us something. And here's why I believe the Word of God is trying to teach us. These are four simple lessons and they're on the screen behind me.

Obedience in the little things. Tour guides, bosses say show up at nine o'clock. I'm supposed to be there at eight thirty. Obedience to authority.

Young people, parents. My dad wants to pick my wife. Yeah. Obedience to leaders.

Obedience to government. Obedience to the plans God has for us. Pastor Michael, I've been searching that out. I've been searching the Word of God.

Old and New Testament. Revelation, dreams, visions, written it down. Well, I got an idea where I'm going to go and get it written down. Doesn't that back at all?

So write the vision down so those who read it can run with it? God's called me to be this. And I'm going to run with it. Obedience to the Word of God.

Knowing the Bible. You went a long way around to give us to a real obedience lessons. Yes. Here's why, I believe the Lord is really pulling us in this direction.

So many times we say obedience is a in the moment. No, obedience is in the preparation. How prepared am I to be obedient? How prepared am I to be obedient?

I read my Bible every day and this day just happens to be the right day that this happens and two hours later here comes an example for me to walk it out. Or I read my Bible for months and it's like I don't see anything in today's the day that the lessons are being taught. See, it's in the preparation ceremony. It's in that year span.

I think the Lord really showed me in this process is this. We get so excited in the moment. I went to CRTC. Whoo!

I'm excited. But Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and I come in church. I go to fit in the PLBFW, you name it. I go to something like, I will study.

Oh, this book is so great. It's in the preparation that obedience comes. So I just want to close with this. Somebody about their head for a second.

How are you preparing yourself? How are the different lessons in obedience that happen daily, weekly? Have you been prepared to be obedient? See, we've been talking as a series, the blessings of obedience, full obedience, by faith in obedience, all these different pieces of obedience.

But in the lessons of obedience, how prepared have you been? And I believe I want to say a couple of things. That's why I want you to focus on you. Nobody else, this you.

I believe God is calling some of us to a deeper place of fasting, to a deeper place of prayer, to a deeper place of knowing the word of God. Stop glancing and start reading. Stop running through stories like this one, events like this one, and missing things like pledged. Be truth.

Well, I got a plan to get to my Bible in this year's time. Maybe you don't get stuck on some passages for weeks, months, for what God's preparing you for. That just came out of the blue. Yeah, I can't allude to you, not God.

Lord, I pray this morning that we would learn every lesson, everything we need to be obedient, fully obedient, by faith we would walk in obedience. Lord, and we would experience the blessings of obedience. Guys, we prepared ourselves before the time ever came. Father, I pray your blessing over this congregation.

I pray your blessing over each and every one of us to feel your presence, to know your presence, to walk in you in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.