God's Way Or The Hard Way

If I were to ask most of us, if you want to experience God's best in your life, you would answer with an overwhelming yes. And it's because you don't want to go through hell, you don't want to go through difficulty, you want to live a life that you greatly enjoy. But the truth is, I've been doing this for a long time, and I've been living for God for almost 50 years. And I've learned that even good people who really love God are going to make some bad decisions in our life at times, and we're going to need God to bail us out. You say, Pastor, why do we make those bad decisions? Well, number one, it's because we're immature people, and it takes maturity to make good choices, and we don't gain that overnight, right? The other thing is we live in a fallen world with lots of imperfect people, of which we're one of them. And because of that, we make bad choices sometime, and we need some help if God's going to bless our life. David was in one of those seasons in Psalm 51 when he prayed this, God restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. In other words, David had just made a big mistake He committed adultery with Bathsheba. And David got a prophetic word. It was the kind of prophetic word none of us want to receive. And that is your life's going to be difficult. You're going to feel like a sword is piercing your soul. And David had the wisdom to say to God that God, let me live in your joy because I know you still have good for me in life. And God, give me the ability to sustain it. Let me stay on track with you so you can do the things you're thinking about in my life. And I think about that story, and I think back to when I was a teenager. I used to love to read the juicy stories of the Bible in my Bible reading. You know, the stories like Samson and Delilah, David and Bathsheba. You know, it sure was better than the book of Leviticus, right? But the other day I was reading one of those stories, and I couldn't help but think of the people that I've pastored who have experienced so much pain in their heart because they've made poor choices, and today we're going to learn that that poor choice is not the end of the road. As a matter of fact, here's how I want you to see yourself this morning. I heard of a guy who was about double the body weight that he should be, and he decided he was going to lose some weight. So he went to the doctor and he said, I've got to lose a lot of weight. And the doctor said, That's okay. He said, Let's just start with the easy weight. He I want you to just quit eating at night before you go to bed. And he said, wait till the next morning and I promise you, you'll lose 25 pounds before we meet the next time. So the guy said, okay, doctor. And he went home, set his alarm clock for 12.01 A.m. And Then he got up and found some Blue Bell ice cream in the morning. And I want to tell you this morning, I love Blue Bell ice cream, but there's something I love more, and that is I love making choices that keep me on the path of God's blessing in my life. And I want to start by talking about the fact that even good people make bad choices according to the Bible. The Apostle Paul was arguably one of the most influential Christians of the 1st century. And listen to what he wrote in Romans 7, verse 18 and 19. He said, for I have the desire to do what is good, but I can't carry it out. For I don't do the good I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do, this I keep on doing. That's so interesting to me because you notice Paul didn't say, you know, the not so good that I don't want to do, but he called sin what it was. And he said, the evil that I wish I wasn't doing, This is the Apostle Paul talking, and he says, I'm still doing it. So if you're in a battle today, I want you to know it's not uncommon that good people make poor choices. I mean, even Miss Tamara. Whenever referees would call bad calls against her kids, the good that she should have done, turned in, no, I'm just kidding, but pray for her because she has grandkids now and it's still a battle. But listen, we all make bad decisions. This morning I want to read you a story that's going to help us understand what needs to happen in our heart if we want God to bless us beyond those bad decisions. It's in Mark 10 and it tells the story of how Jesus was starting on his way when a man ran up to him, fell on his knees before him, and he asked him, Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now think with me, this man must have been really emotional to not just come up to Jesus and say, I want to know how to have eternal life, but he literally fell on his knees and he said, Lord, what do I need to do to have eternal life? Many of us, maybe we came to an altar or we put our hand in the air, but what a motion for this guy to literally fall before Jesus. But notice Jesus' response to him. Jesus replied, Why do you call me good? Because no one is good except for God alone. Isn't it interesting that Jesus didn't applaud the spiritual hunger that was in this man's heart? But instead what Jesus did was he helped this man overcome the hurdle that kept him from really experiencing what his heart longed to experience. And in this passage we see the mastery of Jesus because first notice this man called Jesus teacher, he didn't call Jesus Lord. And often that's where we start our Christian life. We know Jesus is an amazing person, we know we get a lot of help when we're in church, but But whenever it comes to giving God lordship and following His directions in our life, sometimes even when we say, Jesus is my Lord, there are these areas of life that we're dealing with as people. And Jesus continued, and the Bible says that He said to this young man, He said, You know the commandments. You shouldn't murder, commit adultery, steal, give false testimony. You shouldn't defraud or dishonor. your father and your mother. And next this guy says, But Lord, all these things I have done since I was a little boy. Now notice what Jesus didn't do. Do you notice that He addressed six of the Ten Commandments, but they were the commandments that deal with how man treats man. They're what we call the man-to-man commandments in the Bible. But there's four other commandments, and these deal with how our heart relates to God. God said, you should have no other gods before you. God said, you shouldn't have any images that cause you to love anything more than me. God said, I want you to never use my name in vain. I want you to honor my name because it shows how much I want to bless your life. And then God said, I want you to honor the Sabbath because you understand how important it is to honor me if you want to live in the blessings that I have for your life. So Jesus understood in this passage that this man called him teacher twice, but he never called him Lord. And he knew there were two issues in his life. Issue number one, he believed he could be more good to himself than God would be good to him. Issue number two, he was struggling with honoring God, as he should, so that God could have full control of his life. And it's interesting that the next part of the scripture, we see this man's solution and we see our solution as well when it says, Jesus looked at him and he loved him. And he said, one thing you lack, go sell everything you have and give it to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven, and then come and follow me. And we read that at this the man's face fell because he was sad he had great wealth. So what do we need when we're getting ready to make a bad decision? We need an understanding of Romans 8:28, that God says, I'll work for good in the lives of everyone who loves me and who lives called according to my purpose. Why did this man struggle? Because he thought he could make his life more good than God could make his life. And instead of loving Jesus, he wanted to love the life he could create if he was allowed to live life his own way. And I read this and I thought, I'm not going to be too hard on this guy because when I was a college student and I started following God with all my heart, I didn't, I was broke as a spoke. How many of you know what that means, right? I mean, I would give plasma for money to do some things that I wanted to do. But what if my dad was like Rockefeller and Jesus came up to me and he said, if you really want to follow me, I want you to leave all of this behind, which is why we see Peter respond the way that he did when this is over. The Bible says Peter spoke up like he always did. And he said, Lord, we've left everything to follow you. And listen to this amazing promise. Jesus replied, No one has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me in the gospel who will fail to receive 100 times as much in this present age And all those things, along with persecution, and in the age to come, he'll have eternal life. So can we see that the very life that this rich young man had, he was missing out on. Why? Because he couldn't leave everything and trust the love of God. And that's the battle that we fight whenever, you know, we're struggling to follow God into His will for the next season of our life. And that's what Galatians chapter 4 is going to address today, where the Apostle Paul begins to talk to us about there's a hard way and there's God's way in our life. And this is what makes it difficult, is sometimes what is the hard way looks like it's the right way because it works out in the beginning. he's so handsome and I really want to get married, but inside you have this feeling that maybe this isn't God's choice for you. And then down the road, you realize you followed the hard way and you didn't follow God's way. Or did you know that 50% of of Americans deal with career regret. 51% of people who get a bachelor's degree wish they could go back and start over. And it's because we kind of thought we knew the way, but we learned we took the wrong way, which became the hard way, instead of taking God's way. And that's what Paul's talking about in Galatians 4 when he says, now I want to ask you a question. Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? says, For it's written that Abraham had two sons. They were Ishmael and Isaac. And one, Ishmael, was born by the slave woman named Hagar, and the other was born to Sarah. And he says, I want to give you an illustration, and that is Ishmael was born according to the flesh, but Isaac was born according to the promise of God. And here's the point that God is making through the Apostle Paul, and that is the law or the moral code of God calls us to work on better behavior as people. But God's promises in our life don't just come to pass because we work on better behavior, but they come to pass because of how the Holy Spirit is working in our life. And that's what Abraham had to learn. We talked about it two weeks ago. At 75 years old, God spoke to him and said, man, I'm going to bless you. The world is going to be blessed because of your children. And I want you to believe that I'm going to give you a son, and you're going to teach him to walk with me, and they're going to bless the world. Anybody happy to be in the 21st century, knowing you're part of the seed of Abraham, the church, and we're called to bless the world in a big way because of what we know about Jesus. Anybody excited about that today? And all that started in Abraham's heart. And God said, I'm going to give you a son. Well, he was 75. His wife, Sarah, was 65. And I'm sure we have medical people who are listening to my sermon today. Women quit making eggs at 60 years old. So this was going to have to be a miracle. And they tried for 11 years. And finally, Sarah looked at Abraham after he In years. And she said, we've got some plumbing problems, bro. We need to think up of another solution besides God. And she said, here's what we'll do. You take my servant girl, Hagar, and you have a baby through Hagar, and then God can bless your son, and he can be a blessing to the world. And Abraham showed what's wrong with all men, and that is we just don't think things through very well sometime. And he agreed, and he ended up having a baby. And this catfight started that Abraham then had to deal with for years. And the truth is, if you go to Israel today, and you look at the Arab and the Israeli conflict, all of it is really rooted way back here whenever Abraham made a bad choice. And sometimes we have consequences to deal with because of some bad choices, maybe even other people made that have affected our life. But I want you to know God always wants to bless you on the other side of our bad choices. And to receive that, there's two parts. Yes, we have to obey God's law. Even when I was a teenager, listen, I didn't want to live like people who were living unholy lives, because when we break God's law, how many of you know we end up getting broken by God's law, right? So I'd be a Christian if all I did was obey the law. But I learned when I was 19 years old, there's something else that's called the Spirit-filled life. And that's what this passage is calling us to. And listen to these three things that Paul makes very clear in this text today. Number one, he tells us that when we take things in our own hands, he said it's going to lead to the hard way. Again, Ishmael was birth to the flesh. And Abraham made the point that there were two sons, but the Holy Spirit only blessed the one son because that was God's plan. Now here's something important to understand in Scripture, and that is God gives us Fathers to form maturity in us so that we can make the right choices so God can bless us. I could never do today what I'm doing as your pastor if God hadn't have been gracious to me to give me John Osteen to father me and to teach me how to pastor a church that's similar to the one that we have. Well, in the same way as Christians, God gave us two fathers. He gave us Abraham. And we talked about it two weeks ago that Abraham is our father in the faith. And we learned from him how to give glory to God, how not to get weak in faith, how not to waver until God brings to pass the things that He's told us to have faith for because He's made us a promise. But after God gave them the father Abraham, God gave them another father. His name's Moses. And Moses was the founding father of Israel. And listen to me, that's why it's so important in this hour that we as believers, man, we do everything we can to help our neighbors see that we want to be one nation under God again, y'all. How many of y'all don't want to live in a nation broken by unrighteousness? You want to live in a nation that's blessed because we're honoring the righteousness of God, right? See, there were two fathers. One was Abraham, and he helped us learn that if we want God to bless our life, we have to have to live by faith. The other father was Moses, who taught us if we want to be a blessed nation, we need to honor God's laws. Here's the second thing that he teaches us in this text, and that is that putting things in God's hands is the best way. Now, this is my favorite part of the passage because Paul goes on to say that these two women represent two covenants. One covenant, is from Mount Sinai and it bears children who are going to be slaves. And for all of us here today, the law, if you're going to obey God's law, it's going to make you a slave because you have fallen flesh and it's going to get gratified by the wrong things. If you don't believe that, just go on a diet and leave some bluebell in your refrigerator and say to yourself, I'm going to be healthy. I'm not going to eat that bluebell. And then how many of you know when you walk by the refrigerator, you got to be a slave to something, right? And Paul's saying the law's the same way. It just keeps you from getting broken by disobeying the laws that keep your life blessed. But it's not how promise comes into our life. And he says, the second one is not Ishmael who was born of Hagar, but he says, there's also the Jerusalem that's above, and she's free. She's the one who's our mother. And he says, for it's written, be glad, barren woman, you who never bore a child. Shout for joy and cry aloud, you who were never in labor, because more are the children of the desolate woman than of her who has a husband. What he's saying is you can be more blessed in the area you didn't have the power to bring blessing to pass than you were ever blessed by giving your very best effort in an area of your life. And this is my favorite part of the scripture because when it says, for it's written, where was it written? Well, Paul's quoting Isaiah 54 when he says, be glad, you barren people who couldn't birth what God wants to birth in your life. What comes before Isaiah 54? Isaiah 53? What's Isaiah 53? It's the passage where God gives us the circumstances that were prophesied regarding Jesus as Messiah. It's the chapter where God gives us the promises that we should expect God to fulfill in our lives because Jesus is the Messiah. And here's the circumstances that were predicted. We were told that people would reject Him and they would esteem Him not. We were told that His body would be marred more than any body to the point people could hardly even look at who Jesus was. But you know what we were told the purpose of Jesus going to that cross was? God wanted to heal us. God wanted to love us. God wanted to bless us more than we ever dreamed we could be blessed as people. Can you say, Amen? See, the promise doesn't come the way through our own effort. It comes through the work of the Spirit of God. I'll prove it to you. When Jesus was starting the church, what were the disciples doing? They were afraid. They were behind closed doors for fear of the Jews. What did Jesus do? He came and taught them the Bible for 40 days. Then did Jesus say to them, now that you know the Bible, just go out and start teaching the Bible to everybody and the world's gonna listen to it. No, when Jesus got done teaching for 40 days, and trust me, I wish I could have been there those 40 days because my sermons would be a lot better on Sunday morning if I'd been there those 40 days, but Jesus said, now listen guys, don't think you can take my sermons and convince the world like I just convinced you, but you need to pray in the upper room and you need to have the anointing of the Holy Spirit on your life. You need signs and wonders, and you need the Holy Spirit to do great things. I can tell you for seven years, I stood for righteousness with my family. I was the first one to come to Christ and my family. For seven years, I had very little fruit. And then God dealt with me about what I'm gonna teach on this summer, about loving like I mean it, and the Holy Spirit started moving. I got words of knowledge, and I'm telling you, I haven't had one family member who passed away without giving their life to Jesus. Jesus before they passed away, somebody. See, I can't do it in my own strength. You can't do it in your own strength. And Paul's saying, listen, when you make a bad choice, remember Abraham. He had almost 20 years that were defined by a bad choice. But God wants your life defined by His blessing. How does it happen? Number one. We remember when we take things in our own hands, we're taken the hard way. It may look like the easy way. It may look like we found a solution like Sarah did, but it's the hard way. When we put things in God's hands, it's the best way. Now here's the final point, and that is our choices determine whether our effort or God's empowerment is going to characterize our life. Listen to how Paul closes. He says, the son, who was born according to the flesh, Ishmael, persecuted the son that was born by the power of the Spirit. And it's the same now. If you're going to live a Spirit-filled life, you're going to get persecuted. But what does the Scripture say? Get rid of that slave woman and her son. In other words, get rid of anything that keeps me from obeying the power of the Holy Spirit. I love this. It comes from Dallas Willard, who is one of the greatest Bible teachers of his day. And this is what he said. He said, Grace is not opposed to effort, but it is opposed to earning. What he was saying is we should love God's law because God's law is part of His covenant. And if we break the Ten Commandments, and anybody want to know who was the first person to break all Ten of the Commandments at once? It was Moses when he came down and he was so mad, he threw the tablets and he broke all Ten Commandments at one time. But listen, if we break the Ten Commandments, our lives get broken by the Ten Commandments. So Jesus said, I didn't come to abolish the law. He said, I came to fulfill the law. I want you to honor the law. But he also said, My ultimate blessing in your life is not gonna come just because you obey the law. It's gonna come when you overcome the hurdle in your heart that keeps you from knowing I love you more than you could ever love yourself. I can lead you into blessing you could never experience any other way than having my leadership in your life. So will you follow me and will you love me more than anything else that you could ever do? Now I wanna close with an illustration and then a story, and the illustration has to do with all of us who are married this morning. If you're married, you have marriage problems. Some of you know that's just true. If you say you're married and you don't have marriage problems, you've deceived yourself, and the truth isn't in you. That's just all there is to it. Because two imperfect people come together in marriage, and when you come together, here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna look at her, you're gonna think, man, if she just got better, we wouldn't have this trouble. And she's gonna look back at you and she's gonna say, man, I thought I married this amazing guy and I married a bozo, man, what's this dude doing today? And sometimes you're gonna come home and you're gonna think, why is she spending so much money? And you're gonna be tempted to say something about it and she's gonna think, why did this dude give me kids that are getting sick all the time and they got their crooked teeth from him, how does he expect me not to spend money? And here's what's going to happen. If you try to straighten your marriage out by the law, it's just going to be two imperfect people who could criticize each other for the rest of your life. But how many of you know if you let the love of Jesus get involved in your home, He'll bless your marriage, He'll bless your kids, He'll make things more wonderful than you ever dreamed they could be. That's what Paul's saying. The law is good. Life in the Spirit's awesome. Can you say amen? And here's the picture I want to leave you with today. Dr. Chris is going to love this. This is a major league baseball player. He played for the Yankees. Everybody say the Yankees. If you hate the Yankees, I'm sorry. If you love the Yankees like Dr. Chris, this is your favorite illustration, right? But this guy's name's Jim Abbott. And he actually pitched a no-hitter for the Yankees years ago. But I want you to notice something about Jim Abbott. You see this arm? He doesn't have a hand. And he was that way from the time he was a little boy. He loved baseball, but he only had one hand. And he thought, how am I going to be a great baseball player if I just have one hand? Fortunately, his daddy was a salesman. And his daddy said, son, you can achieve your dreams. And when he was just a young kid, his daddy taught him, he was a left-handed pitcher. He would put his glove on the stub of his right arm, and he would throw left-handed like this, and then he would take the glove off the stub, and he would play defense with the stub. That dude pitched a no-hitter for the New York Yankees. Listen, I want to tell you, your bad situation doesn't have to have the final say. You have a God who loves you. Amen?