I got permission from my teammate to repost a sermon she wrote and shared in ministry this month!
Please checkout her blog, and if you can –> support her that would be great too! She is the last member on my team needing to be fully funded 🙂
Checkout her blog at: gracebuxman.theworldrace.org
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Radical Obedience
by Grace Buxman
This month in Cambodia our team has spent a lot of time serving and sharing about Jesus in villages just outside the small town of Takhmao where we were staying.
My team leader asked me in the first week to prepare a short message to share with some of the villagers. I asked the Lord what He wanted me to speak on, and this is what He said: Radical Obedience. So I sat down that night, opened up my bible and let Papa fill me with words and guide my pen.
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Here in Cambodia only 2.0% of the population claims to be Christian. The rest are predominately Buddist. The enemy is definately at work here. There are strongholds that can be felt in the air.
I got the opportunity to share this message multiple times to a couple different villages, and let me tell you, someone was meant to hear this word, and the devil wasn’t having that. Every single time I began to share this message cambodian pop music would begin playing at a deafening volume, and it wouldn’t cease until I had finished practically screaming these words. Like, who blasts music at concert-level volumes at a random village in the middle of nowhere?
But anyway, good news is God is at work here too, and He is so much greater! Someone needed to hear this here in Cambodia, and maybe one of you guys back home need to here this too, so here it goes. . . .
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Our team has recently been going through Genesis together, and right now we are in the middle of the story of Sarah and Abraham. I believe there is a lot we can learn from Abraham. He was a man who lived in radical obedience to God.
One of the first things we hear about Abram is in Genesis 12:1, which says “Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you””.
And Abram went, as the Lord had told Him.
Abram listened to the voice of God, and he did as the Lord said for him to do. He left behind his family, his home, his country, laced up his sandals and started walking.
He had no idea where he was going. God did not reveal to Abram the land that he was supposed to go to. All he knew was that the Lord told him to GO and that the Lord promised him that out of him will come a great nation. And so he went, as the Lord told Him.
He obeyed even though he didn’t know any details He did’t know where he was going, how long it would take, how he would get his next meal and water, where he would rest his head at night, if it was safe, etc.
All he had to hold onto was what seemed like a crazy promise from God.
God doesn’t want us to be obedient just to follow a set of rules. He wants to have a working relationship with us where we listen and obey because God has awesome things in store for our lives when we do.
He is wiser than anyone, and knows exactly what is best for our lives. When we don’t walk in obedience we are walking away from opportunities and blessings that God has for our lives, for the lives of people around us, and the lives of future generations.
So what does it mean to be radically obedient?
To live in radical obedience means to obey promptly, to obey fully, and to have full dependence on the Lord.
Abraham shows all three of these throughout his entire story, but one notable time is in Genesis 22 when he is asked to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham was prompt in that he rose early the next morning after God told him to sacrifice his son.
He does not wait.
He obeys immediately.
He obeyed fully
– in that he prepares every single detail needed for the sacrifice, even down to chopping his own wood for the fire that he will sacrifice his son over.
He fully prepares the sacrifice of his son, not stopping until God speaks to him—knife midair—telling him to stop.
He obeyed wholly.
Abraham was dependent on the Lord. He trusts God to provide and keep His promises even when his own son is lying on the altar—the physical manifestation of God’s promise to Abraham—to be killed.
He was obedient to put God over even his most precious gift—his own son that he had been waiting a lifetime for.
When we were in Chile God taught me a little about obedience (you can read more about it in one of my previous blogs titled “Guss What Hppened Next”).
We decided to go out into town as a team and encourage and uplift through prayer anyone we felt the Spirit was leading us to.
Towards the beginning of our time downtown we met a man who was born with a disability, which prevented him from being able to walk on his own. Rhi my teammate asked if we could pray for him, and he agreed. Everyone laid hands on him as one of us prayed for him.
At the end of the prayer I felt an unsettling in my heart, like we weren’t supposed to let him leave yet…like we needed to continue praying for him. But I let him go.
At the end of our time downtown, two teammates and myself went to the park to sit and ask the Lord if He had anywhere or anyone else to lead us to before we went home. I asked God to reveal an image to me of where we should go next.
Long-story-short God lead us to a building where the same man from earlier was sitting on the ground. I felt the Spirit lead me to pray over him again. I knew exactly why we were back there with him. But we continued to walk.
I wasn’t living in obedience. But God kept nagging me. I felt even more uneasy than ever.
As we were walking away another teammate asked “Grace, do you feel comfortable leaving now?” And I finally said, “No. We need to go back and pray over him one more time.”
I prayed over him this time. I prayed that the Lord would bring him joy in all his days and that He would saturate his life with the love of Jesus, and I prayed that the Lord would heal his legs.
His legs were the same after the prayer as they were before. I don’t know if he knew the words that were spoken over him. I don’t know if he had an encounter with Jesus or not. I don’t know if he was filled with joy and love or not. I don’t know what the bigger picture God has for his life is. But the Lord asked me to pray for Him so I did.
Sometimes the Spirit leads us to do things and we see instantaneous fruit. Sometimes we are only planting seeds and don’t see the fruit. We might not always understand what the Lord is doing, or why He is asking us to step out to do uncomfortable things. Either way, what really matters is that we are always walking in obedience to the Lord.
The same was true for Abraham.
He didn’t always know the bigger picture. He usually didn’t see an outcome or instantaneous fruit. As a matter of fact, although Abraham was obedient, Abraham did not always see God’s promises in his own life. Sometimes it wasn’t until future generations that the promises were revealed. But because he was obedient he was still blessed abundantly, and promised the birth of Jesus Christ in his bloodline who would die to save all of humanity for all of eternity. He may not have known it, but his obedience was a blessing for not only himself, but for his sons, and every generation following him, and to every one of us, and because of his obedience the blessing of Jesus continues to ripple throughout the generations.
In the moment it seemed like Abraham was giving up everything (his family, friends, home, community, reputation etc). But he was WILLING to give up anything and anything to please the Lord, because in the grand scheme of things, those are not big things at all!
Because he was willing to have ridiculous obedience, he received ridiculous blessings. If you are willing to have as much obedience as Abraham, you can have as much blessings as well.
How is the Lord asking you to obey Him?
What is the Lord asking you to leave behind?
What promises does He want you to walk in?
What opportunities or blessings are you passing up by not saying yes when He says “GO.”?
