Faithful Obedience: Lessons from Joseph's Silent Example

But here's what I love about Joseph. Three times he's told, Joseph, this is what you need to do. And the very next verse, what do we hear? And Joseph did it. And Joseph did it. There's no hesitation on his part. We don't have any recorded words from Joseph to say, Lord, are you sure? Lord, I don't like that. We don't have anything like that. All we know is he's told to do it. And the next word, the next verse, he did it. That's obedience. That's obedience. No hesitation whatsoever. [00:30:39] (32 seconds)

Just following the Bible alone is difficult. We might not know exactly what God wants us to do individually, but we know what He wants us to do through the Bible, and that alone is hard enough. We have a world that tells us to do everything opposite of what the Bible wants us to do. We have a flesh that wants us to do its own thing besides what God wants us to do. Everything that we're supposed to be obedient to with the Lord, there's always something that says, no, do it another way. Being obedient in general is hard, but what we learn is from Joseph, be obedient even when it's hard. [00:32:41] (37 seconds)

Be obedient. Just obey. No hesitations. We're not looking for excuses. We're not looking for times to put it off. We're not looking to feel our time, even with good things, fill our time with this, so we don't have to do that over there. We need to be like Joseph and just be obedient to the Lord immediately. [00:33:26] (25 seconds)

There's areas in our life where we think that we know what the right thing is. We know this is the way it's supposed to be. This is the right thing to do. So, this is what I'm going to do. And then all of a sudden, God shows up and says, do this instead. Can we be obedient enough to put aside what we thought was right to be obedient to him? [00:36:18] (23 seconds)

``If we're willing to be obedient to the Lord, no matter what we think is right, or no matter what the culture thinks is right, or no matter what others say or do or think, if we're willing to still be obedient to the Lord in the face of all of that, God will do amazing things. He'll do amazing things. [00:37:41] (18 seconds)

Joseph's story shows us that when we're obedient to the Lord, there's a very good chance our life's about to get harder. Sorry, that's not really an amen part, but that's life right there. But Joseph also teaches us, if we're obedient, we can do what he's called us to do with his help, and God will do great things through it. Great things through it. [00:38:00] (25 seconds)

And so my prayer this morning is this, that we can take Jesus' earthly father, Joseph's example, and just be obedient. And just say yes. No hesitation. We don't have to know all the answers. We don't have to know all the ins and outs of it. Lord, I don't know. Lord, I just want to be obedient to you. And then trust him to do amazing things through you. [00:43:47] (24 seconds)