Proverbs 21:3 | God Wants My Obedience

0:00Rule Followers, just a reminder, you can follow the instructions and still get it wrong. Wait, wait, what are you talking about? How is that possible? Well, if the recipe says to add a stick of butter and then you add a stick of butter, wrapper included, then you follow the instructions, but you miss the point. Okay, I see. That's kind of what happened to King Saul in the Bible. And that the butter part, the missing the point part. Oh, yeah. Of course. God gave Saul two clear instructions in the Bible. One, after waiting seven days, burn and offering. And two, only the prophet Samuel could be the one to make the sacrifice. But Saul got impatient and he didn't wait. He was insecure. So he took over Samuel's role and he offered the sacrifice himself. And to everyone around, I mean, this looked really good. The King was making a sacrifice. He was going to God. It was spiritual. This thing that sold it. But God knew Saul's heart. He was more interested in doing what felt and looked good than he was in obeying God. And we know that from pop, we know from Proverbs that what God really wants is our obedience.

1:03Proverbs 21 verse 3 says, To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. So you may be asking what does that mean for you and me because you know, we're not offering burnt sacrifices these days. It means God doesn't want your big public displays if your heart isn't in the right place. It means he doesn't want your gritted teeth efforts to make yourself better all by yourself. What he wants is your obedience. If obeying him means doing so sloppily, then that's what he wants. If it looks like doing so with a lot of questions, that's what he wants. Let's not let the enemy complicate it. When it comes to following God, the first thing we can do is obey him.