The NXR Podcast - QUESTIONS - Does Obedience Always Bring Blessing In This Life？

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, real quick before we get started I have a small request. If you've been blessed by our

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00:00:14.680 gets out to as many people as possible. Thanks. Are those who obey the word of the Lord and still

00:00:24.000 suffer in this life blessed? So that's the obedience blessing thing. You guys give your

00:00:28.620 thoughts, and I already talked about it, but I'll do my thought at the end. So, are those who obey

00:00:33.780 the word of the Lord in this life, obedience, and still suffer, they get cancer, they get fired from

00:00:38.580 the job, are they blessed because of obedience, regardless of the circumstances, situation?

00:00:45.520 Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, the blessings and curses are promises from God, right? And so,

00:00:52.140 everybody suffers to some degree, and at different times, and all of that, and so

00:00:58.940 if this was kind of an undoing of the blessings, then nobody would be blessed,

00:01:04.960 but we know that people are blessed, and even, you know, even if you think of our own lives,

00:01:09.520 right, like, you know, oftentimes when we're in the suffering, we're not thinking, maybe we should

00:01:15.320 be thinking how blessed we are, but we're not often, but regularly when we come out of it,

00:01:20.620 And we recognize God's blessings in our life, his mercy in our life and all of that.

00:01:25.520 So, yeah, absolutely.

00:01:30.240 OK, so I'm trying to.

00:01:31.900 So suffering isn't really qualified.

00:01:35.060 I mean, I was thinking of the Sermon on the Mount.

00:01:36.880 Blessed are you when men revile and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you for my sake, for great is your reward.

00:01:42.420 So there's that.

00:01:44.720 Right. And but I think maybe this is more focused on this life.

00:01:49.020 and and um so the two things one is when when we are suffering trials produce endurance we gain

00:01:56.940 maturity we become closer to god listen to like johnny erickson tata talk about her testimony and

00:02:01.920 how blessed she feels to have this ailment that ended up this infirmity that made her closer to

00:02:08.200 god so that that's that is part of it there is a blessing here even even though that stinks right

00:02:12.980 but then the looking forward to the anticipation of heaven and and I don't know I think that might

00:02:19.480 be heightened I get that sense from people that are really godly that suffer whether it's persecution

00:02:24.180 or whether it's uh like a medical issue like sometimes there is this that sense of like they're

00:02:30.500 just so looking forward to seeing Jesus in ways that I can't really like imagine and so um so I

00:02:38.620 Yeah, I think the answer is yes, but I'm not taken away from the challenge.

00:02:42.820 I know some people suffering in some very bad ways that it's a struggle.

00:02:47.480 And so I'm not trying to make it sound easy.

00:02:49.100 Like, I don't want cancer, right?

00:02:51.020 But I just, one step at a time.

00:02:53.400 And if that ever happened, like, the Lord would give me grace in that.

00:02:57.520 So I would say obedience will always be blessed.

00:03:00.880 And when I say obedience, Romans 14, anything not done in faith is sin, right?

00:03:05.640 So a common grace, a pagan, can do things that outwardly, in their behaviors, their actions, their speech,

00:03:11.860 they can do things that outwardly align with the moral will of God, the moral law of God,

00:03:16.360 but it's ultimately filthy rags in God's sight because they're not doing it in faith.

00:03:21.360 They can cure cancer. They can help an old lady cross the street.

00:03:23.580 They can do all these things. They can keep their vows in their marriage, never cheat on their wife,

00:03:27.420 never cheat on their taxes, all these different things, outwardly aligning with the moral will of God,

00:03:31.480 but it's still actually not obedience because it's not done in faith.

00:03:35.300 To do something in faith, I would hold, is the simplest, you know, truncated definition that I could have.

00:03:41.760 To do something in faith is to do it with a reliance on God's grace and a desire for God's glory.

00:03:45.680 A reliance on God's grace, a desire for God's glory.

00:03:48.060 So what the unbeliever's going to do is a reliance on his own strength for his own glory,

00:03:52.220 or in a best-case scenario, a reliance on the strength of humanity for the good of humanity.

00:03:56.220 One small step for man, one great, but not ever with a reliance on God's grace and a desire for God's glory.

00:04:02.500 So I say obedience is always blessed, and qualifying obedience, I mean Bible definition of obedience,

00:04:07.520 which means it outwardly aligns with the moral will of God, and it's done in faith,

00:04:11.460 a reliance on God's grace with a desire for God's glory.

00:04:14.660 It will always be blessed in the life to come, and I would add, in this life, if nothing else,

00:04:19.740 by a heightened sense of the presence of God, the sweetness and intimacy with Christ,

00:04:23.600 further sanctification, endurance, patience, all the things that John said.

00:04:27.400 But often, I would also say beyond that, this is what I was getting at in my talk,

00:04:31.040 I would say ordinarily it also results in material blessing and what I mean by that is I would say

00:04:37.040 that all poverty is a direct effect of the cause of sin and I would say the same thing about

00:04:45.620 sickness so remember the disciples they act they asked Jesus they say well whose sin made this man

00:04:50.240 born blind his parents or his and Jesus he doesn't say notice he doesn't say sin didn't make him

00:04:55.660 blind no he simply says neither his or his parents but jesus knows if it weren't for sin in a general

00:05:01.880 sense entering the world nobody would ever be sick so so so sin is always the cause of sickness

00:05:07.100 indirectly or directly right and in the same way sin is always the cause of poverty lack

00:05:12.640 poverty is simply the lack of provision god set up his world and said it was good he provided

00:05:18.720 right so whenever somebody's poor whenever somebody is lacking it's not because our god

00:05:24.140 set up the world in such a way that the pie can't grow a zero-sum game and then maniacally

00:05:31.500 maliciously commanded his image-bearing creatures to be fruitful and multiply knowing that their

00:05:36.420 obedience to his commandment would actually lend in their own destruction sitting back twiddling

00:05:41.440 his fingers and laughing god is not cruel he's creator sustainer and provider so whenever there's

00:05:48.440 not provision it's not because god failed to provide it's not because the world is overpopulated

00:05:54.020 it's not because god failed in his provision or or we're obeying too much and trying to be fruitful

00:05:59.320 multiply it's sin and it's either the individual sin right the one who doesn't work doesn't eat

00:06:05.140 right he's lazy or or to not oversimplify it's the sin of other people right so there are a lot

00:06:13.220 of people who would work hard in north korea but are still hungry that's not their sin but it is

00:06:18.300 someone's sin it is someone's sin so all i'm saying is obedience always leads to blessing

00:06:23.220 true obedience meaning obeying the moral law of god or our behavior but also in faith relying on

00:06:29.140 his grace desiring god's glory and i believe it always leads towards blessing certainly the life

00:06:34.320 to come and certainly spiritual blessing even in this life sanctification the presence of the lord

00:06:39.300 sweetness and intimacy and ordinarily even a material blessing in this life but one of the

00:06:44.960 things that sometimes hinders that is sin the reason why that has been less hindered in a nation

00:06:49.760 like America and the reason why the whole world wants to be here and wants to get into America

00:06:54.160 is because America has ordinarily and historically had less sinful, wicked laws in place.

00:07:01.820 So America, I would say, is proof positive that when sin is not hindering people's work and

00:07:07.800 faithfulness and obedience, it produces material blessing. And that's why this country has been so

00:07:12.380 rich. Thanks so much for listening. But real quick, before you go, do us a small favor,

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The NXR Podcast - April 01, 2022

QUESTIONS - Does Obedience Always Bring Blessing In This Life？

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