Sincerity & Obedience

Yesterday Steve preached a sermon entitled "The Peril of the Ark" using 2 Samuel 6:1-11 as his primary text. His main points were:

1) Human ways of doing God's work eventually fail.

2) Sincerity is no substitution for obedience.

3) Our anger and fear keep God from blessing us.

I was particularly entranced with point #2. He pointed out that David was sincere in his desire to bring the ark to Jerusalem but he was not obedient in the process God demanded for transporting the ark (See Numbers 4). The end result of this attempt was tragedy. Utter failure. Uzzah was sincerely trying to help when he reached up to steady the ark. In the end he was struck dead because of disobedience. Steve also told the story of a surgeon in Minnesota who was sincere when he operated on a man with cancer in his kidney. But his sincerity did not help a bit when it was later discovered he removed the wrong kidney.

I think this is where we sometimes get stuck. We serve with sincerity but are we serving in obedience to what God has called us to do? We give with sincerity but is it with obedience to what God has told us to give? We can be sincere until the cows come home but if it's not under the umbrella of obedience, it doesn't matter a bit. Consider how God penned it through the prophet Isaiah (if you aren't familiar with this story, it's fascinating to read it all to see what happened that leads up to this in 1 Samuel 15):

But Samuel replied: "Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the voice of the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. ~ 1 Samuel 15:22-23 (emphasis mine)

Obedience. Such an important although under-emphasized concept in today's church. Good word, Steve. Thanks