167 Sermon Illustrations on Obedience

A little boy was tempted to pluck some cherries from a tree which his father had forbidden him to touch. "You need not be afraid," said his companion; "for, if your father should find out that you have taken them, he is too kind to hurt you." "Ah!" said the little fellow: "that is the very reason why I would not touch them; for, though my father would not hurt me, yet I should hurt him by my disobedience."

During Havelock's stay in England, a gentleman went one evening to the house of the colonel, in compliance with an invitation. In the course of conversation, Mrs. Havelock turned suddenly round to her husband, and said, "My dear, where is Henry?" referring to her son, whom she had not seen during the whole afternoon. The colonel started to his feet. "Well, poor fellow! he's standing on London Bridge, and in this cold too! I told him to wait for me there at twelve o'clock to-day; and, in the pressure of business, I quite forgot the appointment." It was now about seven o'clock in the evening. The colonel at once rose, ordered a cab to be called; and, as he went forth to deliver his son from his watch on London Bridge, he turned to excuse himself from his visitor, saying, "You see, sir, that is the discipline of a soldier's family." In the course of an hour, he returned with poor Harry, who seemed to have passed through the afternoon's experience with the greatest good humor.

Nothing can be love to God which does not shape itself into obedience. We remember the anecdote of the Roman commander who forbade an engagement with the enemy, and the first transgressor against whose prohibition was his son. He accepted the challenge of the leader of the other host, met, slew, spoiled him; and then, in triumphant feeling, carried the spoils to his father's tent. But the Roman father refused to recognize the instinct which prompted this, as deserving of the name of love. Disobedience contradicted it, and deserved death.

— F. W. Robertson

A story is told of a great captain, who, after a battle, was talking over the events of the day with his officers. He asked them who had done the best that day. Some spoke of one man who had fought very bravely, and some of another. "No," he said: "you are all mistaken. The best man in the field to-day was a soldier who was just lifting up his arm to strike an enemy, but, when he heard the trumpet sound a retreat, checked himself, and dropped his arm without striking the blow. That perfect and ready obedience to the will of his general is the noblest thing that has been done to-day."

— Oxendon

A pointsman in Prussia was at the junction of two lines of railway, his lever in hand for a train that was signalled. The engine was within a few seconds of reaching the embankment, when the man, on turning his head, perceived his little boy playing on the rails of the line the train was to pass over. "Lie down!" he shouted to the child; but, as to himself, he remained at his post. The train passed safely on its way. The father rushed forward, expecting to take up a corpse; but what was his joy on finding that the boy had at once obeyed his order! He had lain down, and the whole train passed over him without injury. The next day the king sent for the man, and attached to his breast the medal for civil courage.

A Sabbath school teacher, instructing his class on that petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," said to them, "You have told me, my dear children, what is to be done—the will of God: and where it is to be done—on earth; and how it is to be done—as it is done in heaven. How do you think the angels and the happy spirits do the will of God in heaven, as they are to be our pattern?" The first child replied, "They do it immediately:" the second, "They do it diligently:" the third, "They do it always:" the fourth, "They do it with all their hearts:" the fifth, "They do it all together." Here a pause ensued, and no other children appeared to have any answer; but, after some time, a little girl arose, and said, "Why, sir, they do it without asking any questions." 104. 109

1. The money thus collected is to be appropriated to a most noble purpose. 2. It would make people, and especially the members of every family, more circumspect, and watch with more diligence and care over that little member which no man can tame; and thereby prevent much slander and evil speaking, which is the cause, no doubt, of half of the broils and animosities which occur in families and neighborhoods.

### CE AND VALUE OF.

pen now, and calculate the woman of one hundred immortal souls!"

Whatsoever He tells you to do, do. But be sure He says it. Don’t take your ideas. Go and live right at home, go and treat your wife and children right, pay your debts, and do some things of that kind.

One man said he had seen a sign; he said it read, “G. P. C.,” and he understood it to mean, “Go preach Christ.”

Another man got up, and said. “No, that ain’t it; it is ‘Go pick corn.’”

If it is preach the gospel, go preach the gospel; and if it is pick corn, then pick corn.

I know it would seem strange if I told you that every boy and girl has to be tied to something in order that he may be free. And yet that is the exact truth. The majority of you no doubt know what the multiplication-table is, and I am sure you have thought it a pretty disagreeable thing. Perhaps you have wondered why seven times eight is always fifty-six, and why your teacher insists that it shall be that every time. You don't see why it can't be fifty-five just once, or possibly fifty-seven. But, no, sir; it is always fifty-six. When you get farther along in life I believe you will be glad to know that seven times eight is always fifty-six, whether you meet it in the grocery-store, or in the bank, or in New York, or in Philadelphia, or in China; for it will be a comfort to know that the multiplication-table does not change, like many other things, as you go from place to place. Whenever or wherever you meet it, it is always the same. Now, because you were tied to that table as a boy or girl, you will be free to go where you like with it in after-life. The same is true about riding a bicycle. You know that in order to be free to ride a bicycle you must obey the rules of riding it; that is, when you are in danger of falling to the right you must turn the front wheel to the right. If you do not, you will fall off. Here again, you see, you must be tied in order to be free. You will find that a rule all through life. That is why your parents and teachers lay down so many rules for you. It is not because they want to hedge you in and torment you, but that you may be free men and women later. Boys and girls who are never tied up, sooner or later find that as men and women they are not free. Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, would not be tied up to any rules as a girl. She was wilful and wild, so in later life she caused the death of her husband and herself. That same rule is even true of stars. Comets are tramp stars. They refuse to be tied up, and they ramble about all over the sky. So they never have trees and flowers on them. Our earth, on the other hand, is tied up to the sun and goes round it like a horse round a racetrack, and so it is bound by seasons and brings forth beautiful trees and flowers. Among other disadvantages of being a comet is that comets are in danger of losing a great part of their substance every time they approach the sun. Halley's comet, which used to be such a wonderful sight, has dwindled away to a very great extent. When it came a few years ago scarcely any one saw it. So it is always: to be really free and to grow you must be tied; and I hope that none of you children will ever be fretful when your parents and teachers make rules that you do not see the meaning of, but which are for your good.

When the Duke of Wellington received a very intrepid battalion returning from a bloody campaign it was observed that he said nothing of their courage, praising only their discipline and subordination to command. Civilians were surprized. The field marshal’s reason was ready--Englishmen are expected to be brave, but obedience is a higher honor. War itself, as a science of slaughter, is not a lofty kind of work, as the most courageous warriors in later days always admit. Yet the military profession is an elevated one in civilized countries, because it is a discipline of character in the principle of authority.--BISHOP HUNTINGTON, _The Forum_.

* * * * *

The Princess of Wales, according to _The Youth’s Companion_, has trained her children so carefully in habits of obedience and veracity that they are nearly models of what children should be in those particulars. Upon one occasion, however, they were sorely tempted. This was when their loving and beloved grandmother, Queen Alexandra, brought them a big box of bonbons. But when the sweets were offered to them, one child after another reluctantly but firmly declined to take any.

“We like them, but mother has forbidden us to eat them,” explained the eldest prince.

“You can have the sugar-plums if I say you may,” said the indulgent Queen. “I will tell mama all about it when she returns.”

Prince Eddie wavered momentarily, then reiterated his refusal.

“We’d like them,” he sighed, “but that’s what mother said.”

The Queen was slightly annoyed by this opposition.

“But if I say you may--” she said.

Prince Eddie stood his ground, a hero between two fires--the wishes of his adored mother and those of his equally adored grandmother. His sisters and his brothers followed his lead. When the Queen went away she put the bonbons on the nursery table and there they stayed for months untouched, a handsome monument to the thoroughness of the princess’s training and the respectful love and devotion of her children. (Text.)

The moon calls to the Atlantic and the mighty seas lift themselves in great tidal waves as they follow their mistress round the globe. It calls with equal insistence to the wayside pool and this passing reminder of yesterday’s shower yields not an inch. The dust speck dances in the sunlight impudently or ignorantly defiant of the law which holds the earth with a grip of steel as it goes bounding along through a wilderness of stars held steady by the same hand. Be it big enough and noble enough, it knows how to obey.

— JOHN H. WILLEY

On June 6, 1981, Doug Whitt and his bride, Sylvia, were escorted to their hotel's fancy bridal suite in the wee hours of the morning. In the suite they saw a sofa, chairs, and table, but where was the bed?

Then they discovered the sofa was a hide-a-bed, with a lumpy mattress and sagging springs. They spent a fitful night and woke up in the morning with sore backs. The new husband went to the hotel desk and gave the management a tongue-lashing.

"Did you open the door in the room?" asked the clerk.

Doug went back to the room. He opened the door they had thought was a closet. There, complete with fruit baskets and chocolates, was a beautiful bedroom!

Opening all the doors in a honeymoon suite is like obeying all the words of Jesus. Discipleship is the door to happiness.

"We should obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29)

Marilyn Louise Harrell loved this verse. She worked for the government agency Housing and Urban Development and ripped off $5 million. She said she gave most of it to poor people, but the government claimed she kept a lot in her own pocket. She was given the nickname "Robin HUD."

==============================

edited version from The New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/23/us/robin-hud-given-a-stiff-sentence.html

‘Robin HUD’ Given A Stiff Sentence

By Jason DeParle, June 23, 1990

“Robin HUD,” a former real estate agent who said she stole from the Government to give to the poor, was sentenced to serve almost four years in prison and pay $600,000 in restitution.

The agent, Marilyn Louise Harrell, drew national attention with one of the more flamboyant stories of abuse at the Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Reagan Administration. As part of a plea agreement, she pleaded guilty to stealing millions of dollars in Government property and lying on her tax forms.

Part of the unusual nature of Ms. Harrell’s case has been her public contrition, apparent as well today. “I have never said that what I did was right,” she said, weeping, in Federal District Court in Baltimore. “In fact, if a person steals five cents, then they should be done with whatever the court sees fit.”

In handing down the stiffer term, Judge Murray said many of Ms. Harrell’s actions had been taken for her own enrichment. “Some of the funds used were admittedly for good purposes,” he said. “But a substantial amount of the whole sum went to you or members or your family.” Attorney General Dick Thornburgh has called Ms. Harrell’s actions the largest individual theft of United States Government funds in history.

Ms. Harrell’s unusual story began in the fall of 1985, when she first began stealing Government money. Under a program begun by the Reagan Administration, private agents like her were hired to handle the closings when the housing department sold foreclosed properties. By letting private agents perform a function previously done by Government employees, the Administration pledged to improve efficiency.

Over the next three years, prosecutors say, Ms. Harrell stole the proceeds from the sale of 99 homes, simply failing to forward the money. Prosecutors said the total theft was $6.1 million. An investigation began in September 1988, when Ms. Harrell bounced $1.2 million in checks to the housing department.

Ms. Harrell said that $5.1 million of the theft went to the needy, but prosecutors said they could find evidence of only $1.1 million in charitable donations. Prosecutors said that the rest was squandered on failed businesses for herself, family and friends and that Ms. Harrell was now indigent.

Four witnesses testified today on Ms. Harrell’s behalf, backing her portrayal of herself as a friend of the deprived. “Marilyn saw that I’d have everything that I needed,” said Carol Ann Swift, a double amputee who lived with a woman supported by Ms. Harrell. “She gave me a home. She went and got me clothes, furnished transportation and paid all my doctor’s bills and medication bills.”

A minister from Prince George’s County, Maryland, outside Washington, where Ms. Harrell lives, said that Ms. Harrell gave $10,000 for a down payment on a rescue mission and treated needy families to groceries at the Giant supermarket. The minister, the Rev. Henry Studer, said Ms. Harrell would “sometimes take two and three familes at a time to Giant at $200 a pop.”

[Used at Christmas Eve service 1989] A summary of the attributes of Joseph, Jesus' earthly parent. Verses back up each attribute:

1. Godly.

2. Compassionate.

3. Law-abiding.

4. Obedient to God.

5. Courageous.

6. Sensitive and unselfish.

Does holiness come by striving after it or by resting in God?

1. The Mystery of Sanctification.

No Christian who treats the Word of God with casual indifference or

approaches it only sporadically and haphazardly will progress much in

holiness.

2. Renewing Our Minds.

3. Watching Against Temptation.

4. Choosing Obedience.

5. Praying for Holiness.

6. Final Dependence.

Father's Day sermon on authority of a father.

1. Society downgrades authority of father.

2. Bible says children should obey fathers.

a. Why they should submit.

b. How they should submit.

3. Fathers should be worthy of authority.

a. Families need a strong leader.

b. Discipline is necessary.

4. Fathers model God.

5. The limits of authority.

a. Only God deserves ultimate trust.

1,400 years ago the great Christian preacher named Chrysostom (golden mouth) made this comment on Ephesians 5:25-33:

“Have you seen the measure of obedience? Hear also the message of love. Do you want your wife to obey you as the Church does Christ? Then care for her as Christ does the Church. And if it becomes necessary that you should give your life for her, or to be cut to pieces a thousand times, or endure anything whatever, don't refuse it... Christ brought the Church to his feet by his great care, not by threats or fear or anything else; so should you conduct yourselves toward your wife.”

In July 1976, Israeli commandos made a daring raid at an airport in Entebbe, Uganda, in which 103 Jewish hostages were freed. In less than fifteen minutes, the soldiers had killed all seven of the kidnappers and set the captives free.

As successful as the rescue was, however, three of the hostages were killed during the raid. As the commandos entered the terminal, they shouted in Hebrew, "Get down! Crawl!" The Jewish hostages understood and lay down on the floor, while the guerillas, who did not speak Hebrew, were left standing. Quickly the rescuers shot the upright kidnappers.

But two of the hostages hesitated - perhaps to see what was happening - and were also cut down. One young man was lying down and actually stood up when the commandos entered the airport. He, too, was shot with the bullets meant for the enemy. Had these three heeded the soldiers' command, they would have been freed with the rest of the captives.

Salvation is open to all, but we must heed Christ's command to repent and make him Lord. Otherwise, we will perish with the judgment meant for the enemy.

A grown man awaiting surgery in the hospital was talking with his father. "Dad" he said, "I sure hope I can be home for Father's Day. I felt awful years ago when I was 10, because I never gave you a gift that year."

The father replied, "Mark, I remember that Saturday before Father's Day. I saw you in the store. I watched you pick up the cigars and stuffed them in your pocket. I knew you had no money, and I was sad because I thought you were going to run out of the store without paying. But as soon as you hid the cigars, you pulled them out and put them back.

"When you stayed out playing all the next day because you had no present, you probably thought I was hurt. You're wrong. When you put the cigars back and decided not to break the law, Mark, you gave me the best present I ever received."

Parents don't always deserve honor, but when we give it to them anyway we obey God and reap benefits.

I. Honor is the highest form of love.

A. Attach value to them and treat them like valuable treasures.

B. The only way to achieve real freedom from the effects of a

dishonoring parent is to honor that person.

II. The high price of dishonor.

A. Every time we dishonor our father, we lower our own sense of

self-worth.

B. Rejecting our parents robs us emotionally, but also physically.

C. We rob ourselves of an intimate relationship with God.

III. The way to honor.

A. We honor our parents when we listen carefully to their counsel.

1) Not "obedience no matter what."

B. We honor our parents when we praise them. Prov 20:20

C. When honoring our parents, we must still maintain healthy

boundaries.

IV. Finding freedom in honor.

A. When we choose to bestwon honor, even when it isn't deserved,

we liberate ourselves.

Continuation of article on how we evade responsibility:

8. AMUSING OURSELVES TO DEATH.

If we had no other barometer of American interest in amusement, we could

measure it by the salaries of professional athletes and other entertainers.

By this barometer, we value amusement more than good law, medicine,

government, ministry, education, architecture, or scientific research. For

these are all salary- or fee-compensated professions in which, very often, the

financial rewards pale by comparison with those for baseball players, rock

singers, and talk-show hosts. In a capitalist culture, money is how you keep

score, and in the professions, such as medicine and football, salaries and

fees separate the winners from the also-rans. Thus, the orthopedic surgeon

who examines the anterior cruciate ligament of a bench-sitting guard for a

professional basketball team is looking, and likely looking up, at his

cultural superior.

And, of course, jocks and clowns are important people. We need them and what

they do. Who doesn't need and relish amusement now and then? Who doesn't

need a partly playful attitude toward her own work? Isn't it the sin of

pride that turns so much of human life gray with earnestness? Isn't grace,

not achievement, the light of the gospel and the center of the Reformation?

Still, the value we place on entertainment suggests that it has become a

diversion not only in the sense of a playful relief from the main business of

life, but also in the sense of a distraction from it, an evasion of it, a

sometimes grim, big-business alternative to it.

When people begin to focus their lives more on amusement than on doing their

work well, raising their children securely, gaining an education, and helping

those in need, they begin to evade responsibility. The problem is that the

evasions are lots of fun and therefore very tempting to all of us. It takes

strength to resist them. When we fail, when a whole society fails to resist,

life turns around in such a way that consumerism and the hunger for unreality

converge and the spending of one's leisure becomes one's occupation. Being a

deft and knowing consumer of clothes (ones that make a statement), films,

sports events, pro wrestling, concerts, tapes, compact disks, and video

games-and especially of the entertainment products in which these things

combine-becomes a main goal of one's life and a measure of its success.

Even Christian worship has been affected by the national obsession with

amusement, perhaps in part because worshipers watch a lot of television and

some of them watch a lot of televised worship. But worship does not fit the

television medium very well, just as the music of a string quartet does not

fit well into the warm-up events of Saturday night auto races. The reason,

as Neil Postman observes, is that we cannot consecrate the space in which we

experience TV religion -- it is the same room and the same screen we

associate with sitcoms, hockey games, and cartoons. Moreover, we are able,

and we know we are able, to change channels on anything, including a prayer

that lacks pizzazz. Everything about our experience of TV tells us that it

is an entertainment medium; everything about our experience of TV religion

tells us that its producers know this at least as well as we do. After

watching many hours of Robert Schuller, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, and

others, Neil Postman reports what every sober viewer can see with her own

eyes. On TV, "everything that makes religion an historic, profound and

sacred human activity is stripped away; there is no ritual, no dogma, no

tradition, no theology, and, above all, no sense of spiritual transcendence.

On these shows, the preacher is tops. God comes out as second banana."

These developments remind us that corruptions of true religion generally

proceed in the same direction as corruptions of the general culture, and that

our contemporary religion, to borrow some words from John Henry Newman, would

therefore benefit from becoming "vastly more superstitious, more bigoted,

more gloomy, more fierce" -- not because these qualities are desirable, but

because they would serve as an antidote to our superficial cheeriness,

because they would shorten the grins on the happy faces of show-biz religion.

DERELICTS

At the heart of all such evasive maneuvers lies a more fundamental evasion,

or perhaps two others. The sinner who abandons his children, or who goes on

permanent safari within his own psyche, or who shuffles back to bed instead

of helping someone who is being stabbed in the street has turned his back not

only on his neighbor, but also on God, and even, in some way, on himself. By

refusing his calling he extracts his own core, hollowing himself out to a

shell of a human being, without weight or substance.

How so? Our neighbor is God's child just as we are: to sell a neighbor short

is therefore to sell God short and to fail a brother or sister. We ourselves

are God's children: to fail God and our brothers and sisters is to shrink our

own role in the great drama of redemption and to cut some of the lines that

attach us to its center. The gospel, after all, is a portrait of the courage

of Jesus Christ -- the one who "set his face like flint" to go to Jerusalem

and meet its terrors, the one who gathered himself to undertake there the one

piece of work that was harder than the creation of the world.

The gifts of God -- vitality, love, forgiveness, courage against evil, joy at

our depths, and everything else that flows from the terrible work of Christ --

may be found only in the company of God. And we keep company with God only

by adopting God's purposes as our own and following through on them even when

it is initially difficult or painful to do so. To place ourselves in range

of God's choicest gifts, we have to walk with God, work with God, lean on

God, cling to God, come to have the sense and feel of God, refer all things

to God. Contrary to our self-interested impulses, we have to worship God

with a disciplined spirit and an expectant heart.

Despite certain modern assumptions, life with God isn't mainly a matter of

knuckling under to our superior, the image that modernity so much detests.

We do have to trust and obey, not first of all to be "happy in Jesus," but

rather to rise to the full stature of sons and daughters, to mature into the

image of God, to grow into adult roles in the business of redeeming the

world. God wants from us not numb obedience but devoted freedom, creativity,

and energy. God wants not slaves but intelligent, grownup children who show

enthusiasm for the family business.

In short, we are to become responsible beings: ones to whom God may entrust

deep and worthy assignments, expecting us to respond by making something

significant of them -- expecting us to make something significant of our

lives themselves. No one of our lives is an accident. None of us simply

finds herself here in the world. We have been called into existence,

expected, awaited, equipped, and assigned. We have been called to undertake

the stewardship of a good creation, to create sturdy and buoyant families

that pulse with the glad give-and-take of the generations. We are expected

to show hospitality to strangers and to express gratitude to friends and

teachers. We have been assigned to seek justice for our neighbors and,

wherever we can, to relieve them from the tyranny of their suffering. Some

of us have been called, in imitation of Christ, to bear unusual suffering of

our own.

But we have also been called, and graced, to delight in our lives, to feel

their irony and angularity, to make something sturdy and even lovely of them.

For such undertakings, we have to find emotional and spiritual funds from the

very God who assigns them, turning our faces toward God's light so that we

may be drawn to it, warmed by it, bathed in it, revitalized by it. Then we

have to find our role within God's big project, the one that stretches across

the border from this life into the next. To be a responsible person is to

find one's role in the building of shalom -- the rewebbing of God, humanity,

and all creation in justice, harmony, fulfillment, and delight. To be a

responsible person is to find one's own role and then, funded by the grace of

God, to fill this role and to delight in it.

The alternative is more hopeless than we ever imagined on the rainiest Monday

morning of our lives. For when we flee responsibility, we turn our backs on

God's presence and blessing, we walk out on the one work project that will

outlast every recession, and we begin the slow process of converting

ourselves into derelicts. We "hate the light and do not come to the light."

Instead, we gather all we have and make our way toward a far country, toward

the outer darkness, toward a place of self-deprivation, a place of our own

making.

********************

Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., is professor of systematic theology at Calvin

Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the author of "Assurances

of the Heart" (Zondervan). This article is adapted from the preface and

concluding chapter of "Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin," to

be published next month by Eerdmans.

Copyright (c) 1994 Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIANITY TODAY Magazine

#3520

*

How concretely can we trust God?

I. God's promises can be problematic.

A. What he seems to promise doesn't always come true.

B. Despite his promises of protection, Christians still get hurt.

II. The nature of the promises.

A. Requirements of promises.

1) Some are conditional upon our obedience.

2) All require our faith.

B. General promises. John 3:16; Phil 4:19

1) For many people, of all times.

C. Specific promises.

1) To certain individuals, for unique situation, at a given time.

2) The Holy Spirit impresses them on our hearts.

a) Claim them carefully.

1> Don't read your own wishes into them.

b) Read them rightly.

1> Look at the context.

2> Don't be purely subjective.

3) Daniel's example.

a) He comes across God's promise through Jeremiah.

b) He prays about it.

1> Opens with confession.

2> Reviews with God the situation they are in.

3> Reminds the Lord of his character.

c) He makes his request based on what God has promised.

1> He requests, but does not demand.

III. Unfulfilled promises.

A. Obedience on our part is required.

B. Undermined by unbelief. Mark 6:5-6

C. Our lack of patience.

1) We need the proper heart attitude for claiming the promises.

IV. The nature of the Promiser.

A. When God says "no" He has a reason.

1) The prayer of Gethsemane received a "no" answer.

a) Not because Jesus was sinful or request invalid.

2) He let his Son die on the cross for a higher goal.

B. We must submit to a higher will than our own when we pray. Mk 14:36

1) "God's will is what you would choose if you knew everything

He knows."

V. Standing on the promises. Psalm 119:140

A. God's promises demonstrate his goodness and faithfulness.

1) They also glorify himself.

B. Whether God grants them or not, our deep confidence is that his

perfect will, founded in his love for us, is working

itself out.

#4416

*

The prophet Jeremiah learned to surrender to God even when His plans seemed to lead repeatedly to disaster.

1. He surrendered his future.

a. His very purpose in life was put on the line.

b. His first lesson in faith was to receive God's plans without fear.

c. His calling will not be an easy one.

2. He surrendered his family.

3. He surrendered his reputation.

a. He faced ridicule.

4. He surrendered his life.

a. He is beaten and imprisoned.

5. He surrendered his hope.

a. The destruction of Israel was his greatest test.

b. Yet he emphasized God's promises.

c. He never lived to see the restoration of the nation.

Jeremiah stands as a model of faith.

1. He had a certainty of purpose.

2. He knew God's promises, believed them, and asked God to fulfill them.

3. Jeremiah understood obedience.

#4421

*

When you cling to your own agenda, you can miss God's gentle nudges.

Jesus lived the antithesis of what we are taught about programs, plans, priorities, and schedules.

God tailors unique opportunities for each of us to obey His word, to love Him, and to love others.

1. Ignoring God.

2. If I could Just Manage My Time.

3. Beyond Programs.

4. Growing in Obedience

a. Practice listening.

b. Be honest.

c. Be willing to be weird.

5. One moment at a Time.

*

Suppose you looked out your window and saw a tornado coming for your house. T.V. is telling everyone in your area to go to basement, go to west wall, get under heavy object. Would you reason: "A tornado hit my parent's home years ago; they didn't go to the basement and they're o.k. I'm not going either!" Or, "My neighbors don't even have a basement and they're good people. If they can't go then I'm not going to either." NO! Go to basement--go to west wall--get under object and then, if there's enough room, you might let your

wife and children under!