Obey the King (Praying the King’s Agenda #2)
There is a story in the Old Testament about the nation of Israel and how badly they wanted a king.
They had been ruled by judges, because God was their King. But Israel wanted so badly to be like the surrounding nations that they began to pine for a king — and then to whine for one. They sounded like a petulant two-year-old. Give us a king.
We do not know exactly why. Maybe they thought it would make them more respected. Maybe they genuinely believed it was a better form of government than the judges. Or maybe it was simply that they were rejecting God. All we know is that they kept demanding, and God gave in.
God told the prophet Samuel to anoint a man named Saul. And Saul looked like a king. He stood a head taller than everyone else. He was probably strikingly good-looking. He probably had one of those enviable low, resonant voices — the kind that makes a guy like me wonder why I did not get one. He looked the part, and the people celebrated. At last, a king.
Early on, Saul was actually a bit shy. He had doubts and insecurities. He was not sure he could pull this king thing off. But over time his mind and heart changed. He went from a shy, insecure young man to someone who assumed he could have whatever he wanted — because, after all, he was the king.
The Bleating of Sheep
In 1 Samuel 15 we read about Samuel telling King Saul that God wants Israel to go fight the Amalekites — and that when they defeat them, they are to destroy everything, including the livestock.
Destroying the livestock would be the modern equivalent of one nation defeating another, seizing all its gold and silver and wealth, and then dumping the whole haul down a bottomless pit where it can never be retrieved. It makes no sense. That is the wealth. And yet God says: destroy it all, so that you will trust Me to provide for you.
So Saul takes the Israelites to war and they win. And they kill the livestock. Well — some of the livestock. They keep the best of it.
Then Samuel shows up. King Saul, with the thrill of victory still ringing in his ears, greets him: “The Lord bless you! We have done as the Lord commanded.”
And I imagine Samuel raising an eyebrow. “Really? If you have done what the Lord commanded, then why do I hear the bleating of sheep in my ears?”
Saul takes a step back. “Well — uh — it was the people. The people did not kill everything. They kept the best so we could sacrifice it to God. That is a good thing, right?”
Samuel’s reply is 1 Samuel 15:22: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams.”
Obedience Is Hard
It is hard to obey — whether you are King Saul, an Israelite soldier, a kid, or just a human being. We find it difficult because we see the livestock and we know exactly what it is worth, and we want to keep some. We see the lollipop or the toy in our big brother’s hand and we want to snatch it, whatever Mom said. We look at our paycheck and think, why does the government insist I pay taxes? It is my money, I earned it at my job. We do not want to obey.
Today we are going to hear that King Jesus wants us to obey. But I hope you also hear that it is not because God is trying to take something from us. This is about what God wants for us.
Last week we kicked off our 21 days of prayer with this year’s theme: praying the King’s agenda. But in order to pray the King’s agenda, we first have to hear it — and not just hear it with our ears, or even register it with our minds, but hear it in our hearts, where it compels us to go and do something. In other words, to obey the King’s agenda. That is where we are today.
The Key Passage
Our key passage for this whole series is Matthew 28:18–20. Picture the scene: Jesus is on a mountain in Galilee with eleven disciples — there had been twelve, but Judas had betrayed Him and then taken his own life.
“And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.'”
If this is your first time with us, I should tell you: we open the Scriptures every single week. I was talking with one of our elders recently, and he said the reason he chose to be part of this church was that we do not just have Bible-centered preaching, we have Bible-driven preaching. We believe this is the Word of God. We believe what God recorded generations ago is true and still lands on our hearts and lives today. We believe these Scriptures are meant to turn us into people who look more like Jesus.
Given all the chaos in our world right now, what I think our world needs is people who love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived. And part of how God shapes and molds us into those people is through His Word — which, as we saw last week, is God-breathed and useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Three Clarifiers
This passage has a famous nickname: the Great Commission. It is Jesus’ final command before He ascends to heaven, which you can read about in Acts 1. The command itself is to go and make disciples. But Jesus did not leave it there and walk off while they stood around wondering how. He gave three clarifiers.
Of all nations
“Nations” here does not mean geopolitical lines drawn around geographical regions. The word can be translated people groups. All people.
We get a glimpse of the endgame in Revelation, where heaven in front of God’s throne is filled with every tribe, tongue, nation, and people. In other words, Jesus did not die only for the Jews. This gospel was not only for people inside the Roman Empire at the time. It is not just for white people. This gospel is for all.
Which means if in your heart and mind you have a problem with a certain demographic, you are going to find heaven frustrating. If you look at certain people and think you are a little better because of skin color, or economic status, or the region they come from, you may be genuinely shocked when you get there. It is going to be an absolutely beautiful mosaic of people, every tongue and every tribe, worshiping together. Because we are to make disciples of all nations.
Baptizing them
“Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Notice it says name, singular — not names. That is because there is one God who reveals Himself in three persons. This is not modalism, where one God shows up sometimes as the Father, sometimes as the Son, sometimes as the Spirit. It is one God existing as three persons all the time, completely unified. God the Father, whom we so often pray to. God the Son, Jesus, who is speaking these very words. God the Holy Spirit, whom we talked about last week.
And notice that you are baptized into that name. Which means if you say you follow Jesus — you would call yourself a Christian — but you have never been baptized, you are not following the King’s agenda. His desire for you is that you be baptized.
The Greek word behind our word “baptize” carries the sense of identification. When you are baptized you are saying, I identify with the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. That is why we step into the water and say we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — buried with Christ as we go under, raised to walk in newness of life as we come up.
So if you follow Jesus and have not been baptized, let us do this. A sister church has already offered us the use of their portable baptistry. We could bring it right in here. We could rent a facility with a pool, as we have done before. Do not delay. Be baptized. It is part of the King’s agenda. And once you have, you get to go into all the nations — which includes this nation, and the people groups right around us — and baptize them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Teaching them to observe
The third clarifier is in verse 20: teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
I am reading from the English Standard Version, which renders that word “observe.” But I learned this week that the underlying Greek can mean to keep, to protect, to guard, or to obey. Personally I like “obey” best. When I read “observe,” it can sound like I am just looking at something. “Keep” might mean memorizing His commands. “Guard” might mean I respect His words enough to protect them. But “obey” means I actually have to go do something.
And as we already said — obeying is hard. Something in us resists when we are given a command. My wife asked me last night, while I was parked in front of the TV watching football, if I would fold some laundry. And out loud I said, “Yeah, sure, I can do that.” Inside I said something else. I took too long, and she did it herself. She is awesome. I am not.
We see a sign that says do not walk on the lawn and something in us thinks, who are they to tell me that? My feet are not going to destroy your lawn. I have freedom. I have rights. Can I not do what I want?
Not if you are going to follow the King.
So often we resist obedience because it feels confining and restrictive. What I hope you see today is that it actually brings freedom. But getting there requires a change of perspective — what Romans 12:1 calls being transformed by the renewing of your mind. As our minds change about obedience, I believe we will not only be able to obey the King’s agenda, but do it joyfully and willingly, and come into the kind of life all of us want and that God has for us.
First, an Uncomfortable Detour
Before we get to the perspective shift, I want to give some examples. Fair warning: some of these will make you uncomfortable. Honestly, some of them make me uncomfortable. That is because some of what Scripture calls us to obey runs directly counter to where our culture is.
Culture is always changing. The Word of God never does. So there are seasons where culture says, “Oh, I like that part of the Bible” — and then a few years later says, “Actually, no, I do not think that anymore.”
For instance, our culture loves Matthew 7:1, part of the Sermon on the Mount: “Judge not, that you be not judged.” If someone — even a non-Christian — feels judged by you, that verse comes right back at you. Or they will quote verse 12, the Golden Rule: “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them.” Our culture loves those. And I agree — we should live that way.
But in that very same sermon Jesus says things that make us squirm.
Lust
Back in Matthew 5: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Our culture reads that and says: Impossible. That is hopelessly old-fashioned. As long as you do not touch, no harm is done. It is fine and even healthy to look at certain things online — it can help relationships. This is how we are wired. We are only human. And if you do touch, as long as there is consent, what two consenting adults do together is nobody’s business. That verse is out of touch.
Some of you agree that lust is destructive. And some of you are hearing this because you struggle not to look at certain things online. Or because when you are at the store, or on the street, or at the gym, or watching television and an attractive person appears, your mind goes somewhere Jesus is saying it should not go.
You may try to justify it: it is not hurting anyone, I go to work, I function fine, I interact with people normally. But Jesus is saying something deeper is happening, and it is not what is best for you. Part of the King’s agenda is that you not lust — because that person bears the image of God, and you are not to take that image and use it for your own benefit. Instead you are to serve them and help them know Jesus and follow Him.
Divorce
If that was not uncomfortable enough, Jesus does not slow down. Verse 31: “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.”
Now it gets genuinely painful, because I know some of you have been divorced. Some of you have remarried. I have family members and close friends who have walked through it.
Nobody in our culture says divorce is fun. What our culture says is: yes, it hurts, it is painful, you committed yourself to someone and it fell apart, that is too bad — but there is someone else out there for you. Go get remarried.
I once walked alongside a woman whose husband divorced her with no cause whatsoever. She did not want it. She could not stop it. Their state had no-fault divorce, and he simply wanted nothing to do with her. It hurt, and it was devastating. And our culture’s response is essentially, it is not that big a deal, you will get over it, there is someone else.
Jesus says no. Apart from marital unfaithfulness — and I believe you can make a solid biblical case for abuse as well — He says you cannot be casual with this. In Matthew 19:6 He says what God has joined together, let no one separate. Scripture describes two becoming one flesh, and we are not to rip that flesh apart.
And I know the replies. You do not know what she is like. She is wonderful in public and impossible at home. Or, I am nasty? You are married to your job. You are never here. You are checked out in front of the TV. I am done. I cannot stand it. I know Jesus says it is sin, but I cannot take it anymore. I am out.
I told you obedience is hard. Which is exactly why we need the change of perspective.
1. To Obey Means to Respond Immediately
Another way to say it: His agenda is more important than my agenda.
When my family and I moved so I could take a young adult pastor role at a church a couple hours south of here, the senior pastor took me under his wing. It was the first time anyone had ever reached out to disciple me like that, and I came to deeply respect him. I only got eleven months with him — he died of prostate cancer less than a year after we met — but those eleven months were a gift.
One thing he said has stayed with me: delayed obedience is not true obedience.
Do not misunderstand either of us — I would rather you obey late than never. But he was right. If you delay, it is not really obedience. To truly obey means to respond immediately.
When you are tempted to go look at those things, whether in a movie or online, and the Spirit says do not do it, that is not My best for you — you respond immediately. When you find yourself reaching for yet another drink and the Spirit says you are to be controlled by the Spirit, not by alcohol — you respond immediately. When you are about to buy something you do not have the money for and the King’s agenda says trust Me, I can provide for you — you respond immediately.
Because when you respond immediately, you are saying with your actions that His agenda matters more than yours. Your agenda wants this thing. God has something better.
(We will get to God’s grace in our mistakes and our sin in a moment. Stay with me.)
2. To Obey Means to Trust
In other words: His agenda is better than my agenda.
Too often when we hear a command — from a parent, a boss, the government, or God Himself — we simply do not want to do it. It feels confining. But when God calls you to something, it is not to restrict you or rob you. It is the opposite. He has something better for you. It is actually for your joy.
This is true with money. I nearly made a bad purchase this past December. I wanted it. I had myself completely convinced. I delayed — and ended up with something better.
It is true with sexual ethics. Our culture says certain things are fine, and God’s agenda differs — not because He is withholding something from you, but because He has something better for you.
It is true in our relationships with other people. We have to get to the place where we say, God, I trust You. Because it is not only that His agenda is more important. It is better.
3. To Obey Means to Surrender
In other words: it is all about His agenda, not mine.
Most of us wake up with our plans and our schedule already loaded. One of the first things I do — actually I do it the night before, while I am brushing my teeth — is check tomorrow’s calendar. Because that is my schedule.
James, the brother of Jesus, warns us about that in the only letter of his we have, chapter 4 verse 13: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’ — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'”
We need to surrender our plans, our schedules, our agenda — because our life is meant to be about His agenda.
This week I had a lot of interruptions. And to be clear, they were all genuinely good interruptions. I was at the building when a friend I had not seen in a long time drove by. He had not seen our new space, so he stopped in, I gave him a tour, and then we sat in the office and talked for well over an hour. It was wonderful. I had not planned a minute of it. A couple of meetings I thought would take this long took this long. A few unexpected phone calls came in that turned out to be really good phone calls — none of which I had planned for.
So when Thursday afternoon rolled around and I had not started this sermon, I got frustrated. I like to start on Tuesday. If not Tuesday, then Wednesday. Here it was Thursday and I had nothing, and I was not scared exactly, but I was irritated, wondering what Friday and Saturday were going to look like.
Then I started studying. I got to the section on obedience. To obey means to surrender. And I read that passage in James, and I thought: I was not surrendering my schedule to God. Those were God-placed moments He put in my week, and I watched Him do some wonderful things in them, and I would have missed every one of them if I had insisted on my own agenda.
God gave me a sermon illustration this week by interrupting me with good things I almost resented.
When you start recognizing that it is all about His agenda, then the things that divert your schedule are not necessarily the wrong thing. They may be a God thing.
4. To Obey Means to Begin Again
In other words: you have to leave your past mistakes behind in order to take up His agenda again.
I think when Jesus stood on that Galilean mountain with the eleven, He already knew they were going to fail. He told them to go into all the nations, and at first they did not. He knew we would sometimes say the wrong words, and sometimes not do what He asked. And that is why He finished with, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
That is not only a promise of His presence. It is also a declaration of His forgiveness. When Jesus died on the cross, it was not only for our past sins. It was for our present and future sins too. He is saying: I know you will fail. Leave the past behind, put your eyes forward, and pick up My agenda again.
Look at Peter. He is standing on that mountain as one of the eleven, hearing this final command — and just forty days earlier he had denied that he even knew Jesus. Not once. Not twice. Three times in a single night.
And in John 21 Jesus takes Peter for a walk along the shoreline, has a conversation with him, and restores him. Peter takes his eyes off that enormous failure and turns them forward.
Jump into Acts. In chapter 3 Peter and John are walking to the temple to worship, and there is a man who cannot walk, begging — he cannot hold a job, so he asks for money. Peter looks at him and says, “Silver and gold have I none, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.” He takes the man by the hand, the man’s legs go strong, and he is up walking, leaping, praising God. A crowd forms. And with a crowd in front of him, Peter does exactly what he was told to do — he makes disciples. He preaches Jesus.
The temple officials do not care for it. The guards arrest Peter and John and haul them before the Sanhedrin — the Jewish high court, their supreme court. If you want a power imbalance, here it is: two uneducated fishermen standing before the most respected, most educated, most powerful men in their society. And those men tell them to stop preaching about Jesus.
If Peter’s eyes had been fixed on the rearview mirror — if all he could see was I failed — he would have wilted on the spot. That is not what happens. Acts 4:19–20: “But Peter and John answered them, ‘Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.'”
Apparently the court was not persuaded, because in the next chapter Peter is arrested again and brought before the very same men. Chapter 5 verse 28: “We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” Be quiet, they say again. And verse 29: “But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than men.'”
Peter knew he had failed enormously. He denied the Messiah, the Son of God. And he left it behind and looked forward, because his King had said: here is My agenda. Go and make disciples. Peter, you can do this. Go feed My sheep. Begin again.
Some of you are trying to drive through life staring into the rearview mirror. Kids, that is not how you drive. You look through the windshield. The mirror is there for reference — you learn what is behind you so you can move forward. Following the King’s agenda means you do not stare at your past mistake. You recognize it has been forgiven at the cross of Christ, and you move.
Where Does This Land for You?
Some of you need to let go of the past. You are holding onto something, and by holding onto it you are effectively telling Jesus, “I know You died on the cross for the forgiveness of my sins, but it was not quite enough — I still have to beat myself up over this.” In order to obey the King’s agenda, you are going to have to release it. Confess it, and let it go so you can go forward and begin again.
Some of you need to grow in surrender. You have plans, things you want to accomplish. Surrendering does not automatically mean it is over, that you have to give it up, that God will never use you that way. To surrender means saying, God, I am going to let You do with this what You need to. Maybe He does not want you doing it at all. Maybe He is going to change it, because He intends to do it better.
Some of you need to grow in trust. You need to say, God, I am struggling to trust You because of this thing in my past, because that happened and it did not seem like You were there. You need to get to the place where you know His agenda is genuinely better than yours.
And some of you need to confess your delay. God has told you what He wants, and you have been putting it off. Go help that neighbor. Reach out to that difficult person at work, or at school. Go and do this. For some of you it may be overseas missions. For others, full-time ministry. And you keep delaying because you are not sure you can do it — while God keeps saying that He wants you to.
Father, hear the prayers of Your people. As they surrender, as they seek to grow in trust, as they confess their delay, as they say they need to begin again — meet them right where they are. Minister to their hearts. Let them hear Your love and Your forgiveness. Let them sense Your presence and Your call to follow and obey the King’s agenda.
King Jesus, thank You. Thank You for Your grace, for Your forgiveness, and for Your willingness to use broken vessels like us. We have sinned. We have been unfaithful. We have been hypocrites. We have fallen short — and yet You still delight in us and still want to use us. So we commit ourselves to You. Thank You for Your love, for Your grace, for the sacrifice of Jesus. And that is exactly why we commit ourselves, once again, to obey. Amen.
Go in the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Go and be a blessing. Go and follow Him.
