Success is Obeying God

 

What is success? I have asked myself that question for forty-five years. Is it numbers of people, is it numbers of baptisms, is it the number of compliments?

 

Listen to John 14:15, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

 

Success to Jesus is obeying God.

 

There were great people of faith in scripture who would not be considered successful in today’s church culture.

 

Jeremiah who preached for about forty years saw little or no success as far as people who changed because of his preaching.

 

Noah is called a preacher of righteousness in 2 Peter 2:5. No one responded to his preaching and only his family was saved.

 

Most of the Old Testament prophets were not listened to, rejected, and even persecuted.

 

So, were they successful? Yes, because they obeyed God.

 

In Ezekiel 3, God gives Ezekiel an unusual command.

 

Ezekiel 3:4-7

And He said to me, “Son of man, go to the house of Israel and speak with My words to them. For you are not sent to a people of foreign speech and a hard language, but to the house of Israel – not to many peoples of foreign speech and a hard language, whose words you cannot understand. Surely, if I sent you to such, they would listen to you. But the house of Israel will not be willing to listen to you, for they are willing to listen to Me; because all the house of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.”

 

God tells Ezekiel to take His word to the people of Israel, God’s chosen and beloved people. Then God tells Ezekiel that the people of Israel will not listen to what Ezekiel has to say because they will not listen to Him. The people of Israel have a hard forehead and a stubborn heart.

 

God calls Ezekiel to be a prophet to His exiled people and then tells him that the people will not listen to him.

 

Then why bother? Then send me somewhere else! That is what I would have been saying to God. It would be like God telling me to go pastor a church and that the church will not listen to what I preach or follow my leadership.

 

What we see in the rest of the book of Ezekiel is that God was right and the people ignored what Ezekiel proclaimed to them.

 

What does this truth in Ezekiel teach us?

 

That God isn’t interested in His followers trying to produce results, He is interested in His followers being obedient and faithful to do what God tells them to do.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about faithfully obeying God.

 

Now, God hasn’t told us that all the people we proclaim the gospel to will not listen and reject it. But we know experientially that most people won’t believe. As we watch our nation move farther and farther away from God, we know to two things; God has called us to proclaim the gospel in word and in service, and salvation belong to God and to Him alone.

 

That means that as I obey God to faithfully proclaim and live out the gospel, I am successful regardless of the response of people.

 

Now, in verse 8 God does something extraordinary in Ezekiel.

 

Ezekiel 3:8-9

Behold, I have made your face as hard as their faces, and your forehead as hard as their forehead. Like emery harder than flint have I made your forehead. Fear them not, nor be dismayed at their looks, for they are a rebellious house.

 

God did not violate the free will of His people by forcing them to listen and accept His word but He gave Ezekiel a godly determination in continuing to share His word with the people of Israel. He gave Ezekiel a forehead like flint.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is allowing God to place within us a persevering spirit.

 

There are have been many times in my life when I have felt like a failure because people were not responding to my teaching or that my church was not as large another church or that people thought another pastor was a better preacher than me. I have even thought about quitting because I didn’t feel or see myself as being successful.

 

But as I grow older and hopefully wiser, God has shown me that success is obeying God by doing what He says and doing it when He says and doing it the way He says to do it.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is obeying God.

 

Obediently Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                       Joe