Obedience

The thesis of this book can be summarized in a sentence: obedience is always in your best interest. It is always best for you to follow God. God is a rewarder. He rewards those who follow him. We should follow him for reward. We cannot draw near to God unless we believe God is a rewarder. There is no choice between obedience and doing what is good for me. Obedience is always good for me. By the way, this does assume a long time perspective. Obedience is always good for me over the long run. Sometimes, it will cost us in the short run.

This is true not only in a general, global way, it is true in every area of Christian living. The outline of this book is to explore each of these in turn.

The reward of sexual purity. Ever wonder why there is so much sexual immorality in our world? Ever wonder why it is so common, even for preachers and leaders who ought to know better? Here is why: they know they shouldn’t. They don’t see the reward of obedience. A lost job, a lost reputation, a lost life and few teary-eyed blubbering confessions and they start to see God is a rewarder. God doesn’t prohibit sexual immorality because he wants to keep us from pleasure. God says what he does about sex because he wants to give us life and life to the full. More people lose this life because of sexual sin than just about any other thing.

The reward of generosity. Economically, this one makes no sense. How will I be richer by giving my money away? If you understand rich in its fullest sense, this is clearly true. Generous people live richer lives. Science and the Bible agree on this. In this chapter we will look at not only what the Bible has to say, but what the rich, the generous, the stingy and the research have to say.

The reward of forgiving others. Forgiveness is hard. It is hard because we are created in the image of a just God. There is something in us that demands justice. I have a very personal story to tell about how to forgive when forgiving is gut-wrenchingly difficult. It is difficult, but my testimony is that it comes with great reward.

The reward of service. I used to hate this part of Christian living. I liked the singing part and the fellowship part, but I did not like the serving part. Research indicates I was not alone. We live in a society that imagines joy will come from pleasure, leisure and entertainment. The Bible teaches that life—life that is abundant and rich and better than the beer commercials, comes, in part, from work. FLOW happens more often at work than at play.

The reward of commitment. I used to think this was the hidden fine-print of the Christian life. We were promised eternal life as a free gift, only to find later that Christ demands that we sacrifice everything. To not accept that is to be guilty of living cheap grace. Modern research will help us to understand what Jesus always knew: there is no joy without commitment. Leisure and pleasure have limited roles in bringing us happiness. 

You Can Double Your Class in Two Years or Less

We can reach our nation for God with an army of small group leaders like you who have a vision for doubling their class every two years or less.

We can reach our nation for Christ.

We can reach America with an army of small group leaders like you who have a vision for doubling their classes every two years or less. We can do it. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We can be obedient to what God told us to do. I want to do that, don’t you?

Think of it. There are approximately 320,000 churches in America.1 Each one has approximately 75 in attendance and about 7 Sunday school classes. That means there are approximately 24 million peo-ple attending church on any given weekend and a little over 2 million Sunday school teachers. Suppose half, or a fourth, or even a tenth of the Sunday school teachers in America com-mitted to doubling their class ten times in the next 20 years. Suppose, like Gideon’s army, we had only 25,000 teachers from various denominations and churches on board. If each one doubled every two years or less, we would reach Ameri-ca in about 20 years.

I think God would be pleased if we would do that. But it would be nothing special. We would only be doing what God told us to do. Luke 17:10 reminds us that this is no big deal: “So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’” I hate to think what God would say if we didn’t do what he told us to do!

Giving the ministry to people who are using their gifts to grow their groups will get the job done. It is a way to obey the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). In fact, it is the bread-and-butter strategy for reaching a lost world.

Often, we do big projects in our churches. We have program and musicals and mission trips. We build big buildings, hold huge revivals, and have spectacular Easter celebrations.

It is easy enough when we do these things to lose sight of the importance of the basics. We are mesmerized by watching the home run sail over center field and forget the basics of the routine ground ball. Small group work is the basics of the routine ground ball. Most of what it means to be a church happens best in small groups. Teaching, caring, sharing, reaching, loving, admonishing and helping happens best in, through, and around small groups. All these other things are good, but we should never lose our focus on the basics.

We may do all kinds of supplemental things to help us to grow, but it is the work of the small group leader that is foundational to long term growth. Consistently and quietly, growing, reaching, teaching, assimilating, fellowshipping and doing what God tells us to do—this is the bread and butter of our ongoing strategy.