Being Obedient To The Word of God — Randy Khran

Let's pray, Lord, thank you for today. This is a day that you've made, we rejoice and we're glad in it. Lord just pray for your anointing that you would speak to us, that we would hear your word, that we could receive it with meekness, that it would be implanted in us, that we would hear something that would convict us, would encourage us, would cause us to press on in Jesus' name, amen.

Obedience to the Word Beyond Surface Belief

Today being what the world would celebrate as Father's Day, we have one Father, even God, but it's not enough that we just acknowledge God as our Father, but that we're obedient to the word of God. I think of the time when Jesus was speaking to the Jews who believed on his name, and then he said to them, Jews that believed on his name, come to me to be free.

Did you know that we as the people of God who believe in the name of Jesus or the name of Yahweh or Jehovah, that we would come to him to be free. It's not enough to confess Jesus with our mouth, we have to have a measure of faith that goes deeper than surface believism, it has to be a righteousness which comes by faith that leads to action.

And when we struggle, and when we're tempted, we must overcome by the power of his grace. And if we have anything less of a Jesus that becomes a little J, not a capital J, then we come into a form of godliness, and we deny the power of God.

Grace, Faith, and the Power of God

The power of God that leads to salvation has been revealed to us, it's in his grace. And that grace comes through faith. It's not of ourselves, it's a gift from God, lest any one of us should boast. But these Jews who believed in Jesus had something of a surface believism, they had a mouth confession.

Jesus could understand that they were Jews, they had Abraham as their father, they loved religion, but they had yet to encounter the relationship with the Christ that is risen. They didn't understand the risen Christ because Jesus was not yet glorified.

And Jesus began to speak to them that they needed to be free. And there's many of us today who lack freedom. Some of us say, well, I have freedom, you know, to live my best life now, because I'm a Christian, and all my sins are forgiven, and my name is written in the book, and I'm forever a child, and I'm eternally secure.

So I have freedom. I have freedom to do whatever I want. I have freedom to go here, I have freedom to go there, I have freedom to make my own decisions. I have freedom to go to church, I have freedom not to go to church, I have freedom to read the Word of God, I have freedom to abstain from reading the Word of God, because nothing I can ever do can change the fact that God loves me, and I'm a child of God.

But you know, I have nine children, and I've had to make the hard choice of asking one of my children to repent or to leave. That was the hardest choice I ever had to make, because I know that nothing can undefile us, can defile us, when we're in the presence of God.

No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God. And when you're a father like our Heavenly Father, we have to come under His authority, and His authority is laid out for us in the parameters of His Word.

And if we're not willing to come to Him to be free, then we have only one other choice to leave. Jesus said to the disciples, He said to those who were following Him after He had fed them with the loaves and the fishes, you know our Father is a good Father.

He's a very good Father. He's good to the evil and even the unthankful alike. But when He invited them to come and partake of the communion, to eat of His flesh and to drink of His blood, they said, who is this kind of man who says, eat of my flesh and drink of my blood?

And they didn't understand His speech. They didn't understand His words. His words were hard sayings. They were difficult. And Jesus said, even to those Jews who believed on Him, why don't you understand my speech?

Why are you not hearing the things that I'm saying? And there was one reason why they couldn't partake of the communion and they couldn't understand when Jesus said, come to me to be free, and they clung to their religion and said, we have Abraham as our Father.

We've never been in bondage to anyone. And the reason why they couldn't understand is because His word had no place in them. You can confess Christ. You can have perfect attendance in church and Sunday school.

You can have a complete 100 up to date on your tithes and on your offerings. You can do all the right things and dot every i and cross every t and miss Christ because His word has no place in you. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power of the realm.

Abiding in Christ and Surrendering All

The power, what kind of power? To feed on Christ. To become bone of His bones and flesh of His flesh. Are you willing to become like Christ in that regard that as He is, so are we in this world? Are you willing to surrender all your hopes, dreams and plans, all your rights that you have in this life and exchange them for a crown to count all things as rubbish and as dung for the excellence of the knowledge of knowing Him?

Somehow we have this kind of understanding and thinking that we can come any which way. We can come any which way, but there's only one way we can come. Jesus said, I am the way. The truth and the life, and no one can come to the Father but by me.

And if we seek to come in another way, we'll be found as thieves and as robbers. Jesus says, I am the door to the sheepfold. All who came before me, all these other people who were saying I'm the Christ or who were professing that they were someone great, they were thieves and robbers.

But we have to come through the door. That door is Jesus with a capital J coming through the word of God. There's no other way to the Father except through the word. Jesus is the word made flesh and dwelling among us.

We beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Why don't you understand my speech? Because my word has no place in you. Do you have room in your heart for the word of God?

Not just to read it mentally and to have room in your head for the word of God, but do you have room in your heart for the word of God? Has the word become flesh and indwelt you? Have you gone through the word in a year or maybe the last five years?

But has the word gone through you and become a part of your DNA? Has it become part of who you are, your character, your nature, your values, your convictions? When you read the word of God, you come to an understanding of the way in which you should go.

Jesus said, I am the way. It shapes the way you become. It shapes the values you hold to. And when you come into situations, whether it be with outsiders, whether it be people in a fellowship or whether it be your own natural family, you are confronted with the convictions of your conscience and your convictions of the way Jesus has given you a guidance by which you should live.

True and False Wisdom

Many times we say, well, you know, we should use wisdom. Wisdom in the world's eyes is total confusion to God. Worldly wisdom is earthly, it is soulish and sensual, and it comes from the devil himself.

It's demonic. That's worldly wisdom with all the psychology, sociology, and all this kind of nonsense that the scholars of this age would seek to promote in dealing with people with their problems and trying to mask sins with medications and antidotes and serums and lies.

We have an antidote when we are bitten by the snake, by the serpent in the wilderness. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent on a bronze pole in the wilderness, it says, so the Son of Man must be lifted up.

The message of the cross, this is foolishness to them who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. And as Moses lifted up the serpent and said, if you're bit by these snakes as you're traveling through the wilderness, look unto him and be saved.

And it says that he who knew no sin became sin for us. He became the cursed of God. And so that whoever has received of this curse can look to Jesus and find salvation. Because he took our curse upon himself on the tree that we might become the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ through faith in him.

Seeking the Kingdom Rather Than Earthly Comforts

So what has Jesus done for you? Well, he's given me a good life. He's given me $22 an hour. He's given me a place, a roof on my head and some food to eat. Well, these are good things. These are natural things.

These are the things the world is happy if they have them. But he says, you, O man of God, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And all these things, he knows you need them. But we often seek the natural things in accordance with finding whether he's a good father or not a good father.

But you know what? He gives these things to the unbelievers and to the ungodly and to the ones who are sinning to the outermost. He's kind to them also. He gives them their wages. He provides them roofs on their head.

He gives them food to eat, but they don't know him as a loving father. They don't know him as Lord. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. To know him, the power of that resurrection, the indwelling Jesus.

Does Christ dwell in your heart through faith? Have you received of him? As many as received him, to them he gives the right to become the children of God. Are you a child of God? Do you know him? The power of his resurrection?

The Fellowship of Christ's Sufferings

How about this? Have you entered into the fellowship of his sufferings? Not only the power of his resurrection, but also the fellowship of his sufferings. We say we've become a blessing now because he became a curse for us.

But have you made a determination in your heart not only to eat of the loaves and to eat of the leeks and of the onions and to enjoy the good things in this life, but have you now also embraced the cross?

Have you also despised the shame and said I'm following after Jesus now? Have you also been rejected by men but chosen by God and precious? Have you made a decision to surrender your life completely and wholly to him?

For better or for worse? As the covenant suggests, for richer or for poorer? In sickness and in health, are you in it till the death? The scripture says he who endures to the end shall be saved. Many of us like the doctrine once save, always save.

But the scripture says he who endures to the end shall be saved. So brother, sister, make your call and your election sure. Don't neglect so great a salvation. Embrace the sufferings of Christ. For if we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him.

And if we endure, there's not much of endurance spoken of today. Because there's not much of people who really embrace the message of grace. Grace to the extent that it teaches us how to say no to ungodliness and worldly passions.

And teaches us how to live holy and righteous and godly in this present age. From Titus in chapter 2 in verse 11. Have you entered into this kind of grace? I remember when I used to go to church. I had no resurrection life in me.

Holiness, Leadership, and the Standard of Scripture

But mere religious attendance, outward form, outward show. And many like me were put into leadership. I used to teach Sunday school. You could become an usher or a deacon, perhaps even be the pastor in some churches.

For today, even homosexuals and abominable, disobedient, disqualified can lead in pretty much over half the denominations now. It's craziness what's going on. But we have a standard, not made up in our own heads, but written in red letters by the words of Paul.

You say, well that's not red letters. Yes it is. Because all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And it is good for doctrine, for studying, for reproof and correction. And Paul, under the unction of the Holy Spirit, in Romans, he spoke that no homosexual, nor drunkard, nor sexually immoral, nor fornicator, nor liar, nor thieves, or whoremongers shall have any inheritance in the kingdom of God and Christ.

It also speaks that such were some of us. But we were washed. How were we washed? Well, we all partook of a baptism. We're washed in water. But first and foremost, we were washed in the blood, covered in the blood of Jesus.

And this is how we can have a good relationship with a good father because of what Jesus did for you. If Jesus didn't do for you what he did on the cross, then there'd be no reconciliation back to God.

We would no longer, or not even ever, be able to experience him as this loving father. This good, good father that we know him to be today. You know, God is all about covenant. We in our culture don't understand covenant.

Covenant, Authority, and Patient Suffering

Because when the going gets tough, we bail. If things aren't working out, we cut and run. Whenever stuff gets difficult, we don't need to deal with that. We don't need to take this. You know what? That's not the way of suffering.

It says when you go and you work for a boss that is unruly, he talks down to you, and you bear it, and you take it patiently, it says it's commendable to God. That's commendable. And if you come under the authorities that God puts in your life and you suffer for being a Christian by doing the right thing, it's commendable to God.

But many today, they have no concept of suffering. Suffering is not part of the vocabulary. We do everything in our life to try to avoid this kind of suffering. We want to sit on the right hand of Jesus and on the left.

We want to do great things for God, but we're not prepared to drink of the cup. What cup? He asked the brothers, James and John, they said, the mother came and said, I want my sons of a special place beside you in the kingdom, one on the right, one on the left.

He says, that's not for me to give, but he said, are you prepared to drink of the cup? What's the cup? It's the cup of suffering, my friend. When Jesus went into that garden of Gethsemane, the real battle, you want to know where it was fought?

In Gethsemane. That's where he had to decide to surrender his will completely to the will of his father to go through with God. That's where, when he asked his brothers to pray with him and he said, please watch and pray with me, lest you enter into temptation.

And they fell asleep because they had not yet understood the way of the cross. When Peter once confronted the Lord, the Lord tried to share his secret with him. It says he shares his secrets with those who fear him.

Peter, the Cross, and the Resurrection

He said, Peter, I want you to understand something. Who do men say that I am? He said, you're the Christ, the son of the living God. He said, flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, Peter, but my father in heaven.

And he says, I am going to go to the cross and I'm going to suffer many things at the hands of sinners. You know, and he talked about these things and Peter said, Lord, you will never go to the cross.

So long as I'm around, I'll see to it that you're protected. I'll make sure that doesn't happen on my watch. And the Lord rebuked Peter. And he said to Peter, Satan, get behind me. You're an offense to me.

You are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men. Men do not have an understanding of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that will follow. Peter in that point in time, without the Holy Spirit, did not understand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow.

It was necessary for the Christ to die and not only to die, but to be raised again. And it is necessary for you to be buried with him in baptism unto death, so also that you might be raised in the likeness of his resurrection.

It is necessary. Unless you've experienced both the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you're still dead in your sins. You're still a religious man. You've not entered into the knowing of him. You know about him.

Perhaps he's with you. Perhaps he's been guiding you along the journey. But his longing is to be in you, both to have and to will for his good pleasure and for his glory. Will you surrender all to Jesus?

Will you lay it all at his feet? Will you say unto the Lord, have thine own way? Mold me and shape me after thy will. And I'm not going to make it happen while I'm waiting, yielded and still. Get thee behind me, Satan, you're an offense to me.

You know what he was speaking to? He was speaking to the flesh that Peter was speaking from. Because the Satan works through the flesh. He speaks through the flesh. The mind of the flesh is hostile to the things of the spirit.

When someone speaks from the flesh, you're speaking from Satan himself. Because Satan doesn't ever speak from the Holy Spirit. He only speaks from the flesh. The natural man, the human wisdom, save your life, man.

You live your best life now. We're going to set up our earthly kingdom now. We don't have to die. We don't have to suffer. It's not knowing the ways of God, but the wisdom of God. It's foolishness to them that are perishing.

The Fear of the Lord and Spiritual Discernment

But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. There was a time when I had someone confront me and exhort me about a decision that I took, saying my decision was foolish and I would come in years from now to regret my decision.

And I based the decision on conviction, not only of conscience, but of the Word of God. And I said to this family member, I said, I'll submit to your counsel if you can answer me one question. It came from the Holy Spirit.

I said, you're my senior in years. If you can answer me this one question, I'll submit to your wisdom. I said, what is the beginning of wisdom? Answer me this one question, I will submit to your wisdom because you're my senior in years.

They could not answer me correctly. I said, the wisdom that comes from God is first pure. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When we have to come right down to it, the plumb line between first pure, then peaceable and gentle, willing to yield, the plumb line is the fear of the Lord.

If it doesn't pass the purity test when it comes to the conviction and the Word of God, then it is not wisdom, it's man's wisdom, which is earthly, sensual, and demonic. But the wisdom, which is from above, which comes from God, passes the purity test, then it is peaceable and gentle, willing to yield.

If it's not a purity issue, then you can give your back. You can submit yourself. You can accept wrong, but when it comes to the purity and the conviction of the Word of God, you need to stand with Jesus and be counted, to suffer with Christ for His name's sake.

If you compromise your convictions, then you will stand for nothing. You will fold like a cheap tent when persecution comes. But if you stand with Christ, and you hold to His Word, and you love His Word like you love the Lord, because the two are inseparable, you cannot love Jesus apart from the Word of God.

You cannot love God apart from loving Jesus, then you will be counted worthy to suffer for His name, to receive the reward of His suffering. May the Lord give you understanding in these things. I say, seek the Lord while He may be found, and call on Him while He's near.

Complete Surrender and Faithful Obedience

You know, when Jesus said to those Jews who believed on His name, come to me to be free, we have areas in our life, some of us, who are not yielded. We're holding to our own will, we're holding to our pride, we're holding to our integrity, some of us.

Some of us are still holding on to sins. We're not letting go. We've not surrendered all to Jesus. We find ourselves fighting in the flesh and ultimately fighting against God. Come to Jesus. All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give.

All your hopes, all your dreams, and all your plans, hold them like this and ask Jesus. If He wants them, take them and make them for His glory and for His purposes. Otherwise, at the end of the day when we stand before Him, we'll stand as paupers, bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, with nothing to offer Him.

When we come with all of our wood and our hay and our stubble, and He puts the fire to it, there'll be ashes. But if you continue to walk by faith, and you persevere and persist in the faith, then your faith will become refined as gold is refined in the fire.

Gold, silver, precious stones, these are the things that will have eternal value in the kingdom of God, your faith. That which is done for Christ by faith, a righteousness which comes by faith. Brothers, you say, well, what are you talking so much about faith?

Because it says, faith without works is dead. Your faith will translate into the works that come from Christ. Not works that come from patting yourself on the back, not getting the cart before the horse and doing religious duties to somehow please God by your activities, but a works that results from sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Resting in God's Work and Feeding on His Word

You know, there's a word that says, six days a man shall work, and the seventh day he should rest. There is a rest for the people of God, and when you enter the seventh day rest, you cease from your works and your labors, and you enter into the works of God.

These Jews who ate the bread and were filled said, what must we do that we might work the works of God? And Jesus said, believe on him whom he has sent. If you want to work the works of God, you need to have saving faith in Christ, and when you have saving faith in Christ, then Jesus becomes your feast.

He becomes your flesh that you feed on, the bread that you eat, in that man doesn't live by the natural things alone, but by every word of God. That's where your life comes from. Life that comes drawn from the blood of Emmanuel's veins, you drink of that life.

You find your life in him. He becomes your source. He becomes the reason why you eat and drink and move and have your being in Jesus. And all the other things that we get to enjoy in this life are byproducts of a surrendered life to the Lord.

That's where our righteousness and our peace and our joy come from in the Holy Spirit. If you've not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I would encourage you to ask a good father, even on Father's Day today, a good father, if you ask him for the Holy Spirit for bread to feed on him, he's not going to give you a stone.

If you ask him for a fish, he won't give you a scorpion or a snake. And even we fathers who have done our best carnally and naturally being evil, he says, give good gifts to our own natural children, how much more will our heavenly father give the Holy Spirit and good things to those who ask of him?

We don't have because we've not asked. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be open. You know, if you need something, you want something, you have a desire, a real burning passion for something, after service, we'll get in our pickup or in our car and we'll head down someplace and we'll go buy it.

Because we just know that we need to have it. If you were that urgent and that desperate to receive the Holy Spirit, you could have it. But the problem is the flesh in us is way more stronger than the faith in us that desires the things of the spirit.

Feeding the Spirit and Crucifying the Flesh

And that's the reason is because of what we feed. Being Father's Day, my father taught me this parable and he said, there's a black dog and a black and a white dog, and speaking basically of the flesh and of the spirit, I was often referred to as the black sheep.

You heard the term. And he said, if the black dog or the flesh and the white dog from the spirit, if they fight, who will win? Which one will win? And the answer is the one that you feed. The one you feed.

If you feed the flesh, the flesh will always win in your life. You'll always be defeated in your life because you've not been crucified with Christ. You've not reckoned yourself dead to sin and alive to God.

You may have had a baptism, but you're not walking in the true baptism, denying self, self-denial, the sufferings of Christ. But if you walk in the spirit and you feed the spirit, then you will make no provision for the flesh.

This black ugliness that rises up from time to time that we need to reckon dead. You'll make no provision to give an inch to him to obey him and his lusts. It says, if by the spirit we put to death the deeds of the flesh, we will live.

And it says, as many as are led by the spirit of God, these are the sons of God. And the sons of God do not let the flesh control them in their mortal body. They surrender their will to the Lord Jesus.

And you need to have your own Gethsemane experience with Christ. To come to that knowledge of being crucified with Christ, picking up your cross, denying of self, and saying, Lord, you give me all things richly to enjoy, but I'll not be brought under the power of anything.

I'll not become the tail in this life. I want to be associated with the head, which is Christ. Not many weeks ago, we were going up to the creek, up to the camp, and I saw this dog chasing his tail. He was just going.

Going hard, chasing his tail, and I just thought, you know what? That's just a picture of a man chasing after the flesh. He's going after it. He can see it. He's going hard after it. He's exhausting himself.

At the end of that thing, that dog collapsed on the ground, just panting away. But as I was passing by, he got up again. I saw him going right after that same tail. You know how foolish it is? We keep doing the same things over and over and over again, thinking it's going to bring us joy.

It only brings temporary joy and happiness, and we have an appetite called the flesh that never has enough. It's like the grave. But if we can lay hold of that for which Christ has laid hold of for us, to enter into the fullness, then we can have all the riches that God promised us, and all the blessings and all the promises which are in Christ, yes and amen for you.

Faith in the Unseen and Perseverance

If only you can see them through the eyes of faith, and you can count them, those things which are not, as though they are something. But we so easily are breaker trips to see those things in the natural as being the things that are.

And those things which we cannot see with our naked eyes is nothing. But everything that we can now see in this natural was created from nothing. All those atoms and molecules, when the Father told Jesus to proclaim that word by the Spirit, and those atoms came together and became everything that we see today, including you and me.

And so it is important that we come to this kind of mature faith, whom having not seen, says about the Lord, we love. Whom having not seen, not any of us has laid our eyes on the Father. We love Him, and we obey Him, and we've left everything to follow Him.

We've left family, we've left jobs, we've left people, we've left friends to follow Christ, whom we've not seen, but we love. That is faith, my friends. Faith is the evidence or the assurance of things hoped for, of those things that are unseen.

And by it, you can obtain a good testimony if you persist in faithful obedience to Christ. May the Lord help you to walk the faith walk. You're not alone in it. You have a good, good Father. He's left you the comforter and the Holy Spirit.

He's with you. And some of you, He's in you. And He has a longing and a thirst that you would go further with Him. We have, but we ask for more. Come Lord Jesus, take us farther. Lead us and guide us in the way that leads to life, in Jesus' name, amen.