In this enlightening episode of The Flatline, Rick Hughes explores how Christians can grow in grace and knowledge while navigating life’s challenges. Learn about the essential problem-solving devices for Christian living, the significance of being filled with the Holy Spirit, and the scriptural mandates that guide believers in their daily walk with God.
00:00:08 Introduction to The Flatline with Rick Hughes
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next 30 minutes, please stick around. It’ll be a short time of some motivation, some inspiration, some education, and we say at every show, no manipulation. That’s right. We’re not trying to con you for money. We’re not trying to solicit membership. We’re just trying to give you some accurate information that can help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If I’m able to do that, you can orient and adjust to the plan whenever you feel like it. I hope you will. I hope you will make it a priority in your life to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ because the single greatest decision you could ever make in your life is to accept Christ as your Savior. And so if you’ve never done that, that’s my prayer that you would do that by listening to this show and be encouraged to learn the things that God has done for you through the cross and what Jesus Christ supplied for you. And that’s total forgiveness and a new life and a new opportunity to live your life all over again. Before we get started, let me remind you, as the new year comes through, we have great new books for you. A new book in the Crash Course in Christianity we’ve reprinted, and it’s free. All of our materials are free. We don’t charge for anything. We’re not selling anything. We have a lot of different bookmarks. One of them that’s been very popular is 10 Reasons Why Your Prayers Are Not Answered. And if you’ll get in touch with us through the website, rickhughesministries.org. That’s rickhughesministries.org. We’ll be glad to send you any of these if you so choose. The new book on Christian Problem Solving is available as well. It lists all 10 problem-solving devices. That’s what my pastor taught me years ago, and I reteach it constantly on this radio show, because it’s the secret to living the Christian life and fulfilling God’s plan for you. Today, as we head into the new year, I want to talk to you about obedience. obedience. In the New Testament book of Acts, we find Dr. Luke writing to a man named Theophilus. And this is actually the second of his writings. He wrote the book of Luke and now the book of Acts. And so two of his books that he wrote, two letters that he wrote, made it into the canon of Scripture. And here in this book of Acts, Luke accounts for the first 30 years of the church being established, as well as giving the accounts of the life of the Apostle Paul. But it’s here that we learn how the gospel spread after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the persecution that the apostles faced as they talked about it. And specifically, Luke writes about the life of Peter as he evangelized his Jewish brethren, as well as Paul when he carried the good news to the Greeks or the Gentiles. Here’s what Paul said to the Gentiles. He said in Romans 1.16, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ because it, it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. The power of God is the gospel, the death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior. That’s where the power is. And when you believe that, whoever believes that, that’s when you become a Christian. He that believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. And he that believeth not, the wrath of God abides on him already. That’s quoting from the Bible. Quoting from the Bible, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You don’t have to go forward. You don’t have to go backwards. You don’t have to raise your hand. You don’t have to stand up. You just have to believe. And that’s what the Lord Jesus Christ made plain. They didn’t believe he was a Messiah. Many of the religious Pharisees, Sadducees rejected his claim. And so in order to become a Christian, you believe that he went to the cross, he died for you, he paid the sin penalty for you, and you accept that and you express that belief in prayer to the Father by simply telling him, I believe that Jesus Christ is your anointed son, and I’m willing to accept him as my savior. That’s what it is. That’s how you get saved. That’s what I did. It’s what anybody does, regardless of what someone else may tell you. But in the early stages of the Apostle Peter’s ministry, we find he’s very bold to proclaim Jesus Christ was the Messiah. That didn’t go over too well among the religious crowd. They hated him for that, especially the Orthodox Jewish leaders. So let me read to you what went on in Acts 5, verses 17 and 18. Then the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him, which is the Sadducees, And they were filled with indignation. There’s another word for that. You can figure out what that means. They were PO’d. And they laid, let me roll these notes over. They laid hands on the apostles and put them in a common prison. And here the disciples were forewarned about this. Jesus had already told them that was gonna happen. In John 16, verses two through three, this is what the Lord Jesus Christ told them before he departed. Quote, they will put you out of the synagogue. Yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think he’s offering God’s service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor me. So it wasn’t any surprise what happened to Peter when he wound up in prison because he was talking about Jesus being the Messiah. But in the middle of this opposition, The apostle Peter did not back down even though he was arrested for disobeying the commands of the synagogue. So they put him in prison with the common prisoners and an angel of the Lord appeared to him and opened the gates and took Peter and those that were with him out and told him to go back into the temple and to continue proclaiming that Jesus whom they crucified was indeed the true Messiah. And so when the high priest learned that they had been released from the prison, They immediately ordered them to be rearrested. And once they got them back in custody, they brought them back before the high council. And this is what they said. The captain went with the officers and brought them without any violence because they feared the people lest they should be stoned. So they didn’t rough them up. They were worried about the people getting mad at them. And when they brought him, they set him before the council. And here’s all these self-righteous religious people. The high priest asked them, did we not strictly tell you not to teach in this name and took you and though you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrines and intend to bring this man’s blood on us? But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we must obey God rather than man. This is what I want to proclaim to you today. We must obey God rather than man. Peter went on to say, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus, who you crucified, who you murdered by hanging on a tree. And it’s him that God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior and to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sin. And we are his witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. So let’s keep that in mind. We must obey God rather than men. This is for you as well and for me. Obedience is something that we have to learn. Here’s some principles that I want to remind you of. obedience to God is mandated in the scriptures. In 1 John 5, 3, the Bible says, this is the love of God that we keep his mandates and they are not hard, they’re not a burden, that we obey him. We keep his mandates and they are not a burden. God is not going to ask you to do something you cannot do. He’s not going to ask you to sacrifice something you can’t afford to sacrifice. As a matter of fact, the Bible promises he will not put more on you than you can stand. But the Bible is very clear that God the Father expects you to obey him. Even our Lord Jesus Christ had to be obedient to God the Father’s plan. Listen to Philippians 2.8. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient, there’s the word, even to the point of death, the death of the cross. So in order to be obedient, it requires some humility, and that’s what our Lord Jesus Christ was noted for. He humbled himself and became obedient. It wasn’t exactly an exciting venue to come to the earth and go to the cross and be crucified, but it was the Father’s plan, and that’s exactly what the Son did. So number three, each one of us have our own volition, and it’s here that we either obey God’s mandates or we disobey. Volitional responsibility is the word you need to become familiar with. Volitional responsibility. And the Bible says in Galatians 6, 7, don’t be deceived. God will not be mocked because whatever a man sows, this he’s also going to reap. So disobedience is a sin. We can all agree on that. There’s no problem there. We know that disobedience to God is a sin. And so what exactly are we supposed to obey? This is where it gets a little tricky because some people want to pile things on you that are not in the scripture. Some people will tell you it’s a sin to smoke. The Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to smoke. Some people will tell you it’s a sin to dance. The Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to dance. Some people will tell you it’s a sin to drink. The Bible doesn’t say it’s a sin to drink. The Bible does comment on these things, but to the abuse of them, not the fact that it’s whether you did that or not. So we make sins out of a lot of things that may not be sins. And so I could go on and on and on about that, but let me tell you things that are sin. Let me set the record straight here. So here’s what we can agree on. Ephesians 5.18, be filled with the Spirit. That’s a command from God through the Apostle Paul. If we disobey God, then we are not filled with the Spirit. And that means you’re either spiritual or you’re either carnal. Right now, this very moment that you’re listening to me, you’re either in fellowship with God or you’re out of fellowship with God. So the question is, why does God demand this and how do we do this? Well, the first problem-solving device is called rebound. 1 John 1.9 says if we confess our sin, he, God, is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and to purify us from all wrongdoing. When we sin, we quench the Holy Spirit if we’re believers. When we sin, we shut down his power in our life and we grieve the Holy Spirit. But when we go to the Father and we do exactly what 1 John 1 says, if we name our sin to God, then he’s faithful and just to forgive us. There’s no sense trying to hide it, no sense trying to act like he didn’t do it. Go ahead and admit it. I just lied. I just lusted. I just this. I just that. Whatever you did, tell the Father. And he will be faithful. He’ll do it every time. And he will be just. He doesn’t compromise his righteousness for forgiving you. He’ll be faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. That means you’re back in fellowship. That means that’s how you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. You’re indwelled with the Holy Spirit the moment you believe in Christ. you’re sealed with the holy spirit the moment you believe in christ you’re filled with the holy spirit the moment you believe in christ but you can quench the filling of the holy spirit you don’t lose the ceiling you don’t lose the indwelling but you can quench the holy spirit and grieve the holy spirit and become carnal and fleshly by sinning so why were we supposed to be filled with the spirit because this is the only way we can truly replicate the life of christ When the Bible talks about stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think, but think in terms of humility, as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word, this is what it requires. We must have some humility to be obedient to the plan of God. And you cannot live the Christian life, you cannot learn the Christian life, you cannot execute the Christian life unless you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. Anything else is just energy of the flesh. Being moral is a good thing. Being nice is a good thing. Being polite is a good thing. But even unbelievers can do that. But no one believer can live the Christian life by means of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Only you can do that. And if you don’t, then all the good works you do, all the good deeds that you do, all the money you gave, all the times you sang in the choir, all the visits you made, That winds up being wood, hay, and stubble and burned up at the judgment seat of Christ in 1 Corinthians chapter three. That’s why it’s critical that you are filled with the Holy Spirit. That’s why it’s critical you understand how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You cannot grow unless you’re filled with the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit intercepts the word as your pastor teaches it to you and helps you to recognize truth and understand truth And then you, by faith, have to apply truth. So we have a communicator that communicates the truth to you called a qualified pastor. And the Holy Spirit helps you to capture that information that he gives it to you. And then you comprehend it, and then you comply with it. It’s essential that you understand that. Because the Lord Jesus Christ said, happiness belongs to people who hear my Father’s word and keep it. So if you’re sitting in church and not hearing, you’re wasting your time and the pastor’s time if you’re not paying attention. The most rude thing you can do in church is to talk while the pastor’s teaching, to not pay attention, to check your cell phone, to look at your messages. That’s rude, and that’s wrong. And so I would suggest you park that thing until you get out of there. All right, so the filling of the Holy Spirit is critical for the believer to understand. If it’s not obeyed, the Christian life becomes a charade, going through the motions, but you’ll have no impact in time and certainly no impact in eternity. So obedience, again, back to that word, it requires you submitting to authority. All of that starts in the home. Everywhere starts in the home. Obedience starts in the home. It’s mandated in divine institution number three, the family. In Ephesians 6, one through three, the Bible says, children, obey your parents in the Lord. There’s obedience. For this is right. Honor your father and your mother, which is the first mandate with a promise that if you will do this, You can live a long time on this earth. So here’s a promise. If you get authority orientation and you learn to obey authority, you won’t shorten your life. If you don’t, if you can’t handle authority, chances are you will shorten your life because you’ll do something stupid. So children, obey your parents and the Lord. It doesn’t mean you have to like them. Now listen, let me make one thing clear. If your parents tell you you need money, go down and rob the liquor store. Don’t do that. That’s a sin, that’s wrong, that’s child abuse. But if they tell you to clean your room up, if they tell you to take a bath, take a shower, if they tell you to change underwear, you have to do that. You have to learn to obey your parents. And a lot of parents today don’t want to enforce discipline, but if you don’t enforce discipline, they never respect authority. And the Bible is clear. Fathers, do not dishonor your children. Don’t provoke them to wrath. Bring them up in the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. That means those two words, nurture and admonition, means to put something in their mind or something on their fanny. One of the two ways they’re gonna respond to authority. But it has to start in the home. Divine institution number three, the family, is where we learn obedience by respecting authority. So without learning authority orientation, any child that doesn’t will enter into the adult world as a misfit. And he or she will be maladjusted to society because they couldn’t handle the authority of their parents. They won’t be able to handle the authority of the police officer. They won’t be able to handle the authority of the principal. They won’t be able to handle the authority of their boss because they’ll always be self-centered. They’ll always be arrogant and justifying why they’re right and the rest of the world is wrong. It’s sad to watch people like that. So self-centered arrogance will destroy someone because they can’t be obedient to God’s plan. Now, that’s a problem in America today. You know it and I know it. We have a real problem with authority because a lot of people react rather than respond. Here’s something you need to remember. Authority is not always perfect. Authority can make mistakes. And how you handle it is a different story. I heard a story, I don’t know if it’s true or not, I believe it is because I did ask the daughter, but there was a coach named Bum Phillips who used to coach in the Orleans Saints and the Houston Oilers. And during his tenure as coach at Beaumont High School, he whipped a child for something the child didn’t do. And he thought the kid was cursing a teacher. There were a lot of kids standing around and one of them was mouthing off cursing his teacher and he heard it. He grabbed this boy, took him down to the office and laid the board to him and said, don’t ever talk like that again. If I hear you talk like that again, you’re out of here. You ought to be on the team. It took 10 years before the kid finally told him, you whipped the wrong person. And Bob was really upset about it, and he said, I’m so sorry, why didn’t you tell me? And the guy told him, look, coach, I just kept my mouth shut. Wasn’t no big deal. I figured I could handle it. Don’t worry about it. See, most people that are arrogant and self-centered would throw a fit if they got whipped for something they didn’t do. They can’t handle it because they don’t have any humility. Remember what our Lord Jesus Christ did? He humbled himself and went to the cross. He didn’t get mad. He didn’t lose his temper. He didn’t say, I’m going to kill every one of you people that are crucifying me. He didn’t call the angels down to zap them right there. He went and he obeyed. You have to learn, even authority is not perfect. And then when authority mistreats you, if you get pulled over for something you didn’t do, the police officer stops you. You can react and get mad, get self-centered, justify why you’re right and the police officer’s wrong, or you can just keep your mouth shut, take it, and move on down the road. Nobody’s perfect. No boss is perfect. No parents are perfect. No police officer’s perfect. You can be if you have some humility. To what I mean respond, I mean forgive them. Respond with forgiveness. Isn’t that what God did for you? God forgave you. Doesn’t he forgive you for your sin? He doesn’t get mad. He doesn’t react. He doesn’t stomp you out. Why can’t you do the same thing? Because of your arrogance. So we do have a real problem with authority in America. A lot of people don’t like the police officer, don’t like what he stands for. They think he’s wrong. They think he’s overbearing. And in some cases that may be true, but not all cases, very few indeed. So you have to learn to either react or respond to authority. obedience will respond and if the authorities wrong you forgive them if authorities wrong and you react then you’re wrong here’s another mandate that requires obedience found in the Bible very clearly in second Peter 318 grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ That’s a requirement. That’s obedience must take place here. You are told to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So evidently, When we get saved, we are not born again as mature believers. 1 Peter 2 says, as newborn babies desire the pure milk of the word so that you may grow thereby. God wants you to grow, but you have to start off with the milk. You don’t start off with the deeper doctrines, imputation, justification, sanctification. You don’t start off with all of that. You start off with those 10 unique problem-solving devices, learning how to be filled with the Holy Spirit, learning how to operate under the face rest drill, learning what grace orientation and doctrinal orientation are, developing your personal sense of destiny, developing a personal virtuous love for God and using impersonal love with others. Learning how to share the happiness of God and being occupied with Christ. 10 unique problem-solving devices. It requires you learning them. This is how we grow up. So we’re not born mature believers. We have to learn. I mean, when I got saved, I went to Bible college and they gave me a test with 100 different questions. I answered one. What color is the Bible? Black. Okay, you got that right. I didn’t know anything about the Bible. I just never went to church. And then I got saved and went back to college, went back to a Bible college and had to learn, learn about the Bible, learn what God wrote and learn how to apply it into my life. You know, it’s a shame, but some people have been saved for years, but they’ve never obeyed this mandate to grow up spiritually. In Hebrews 5, verses 11 through 16, the Bible says this, We have much to say, but it’s hard to explain since you’ve become dull of hearing, which means you’re not interested. For though by this time you ought to be a teacher, in fact you need someone to teach you again the very first basics of the Word of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For anyone who partakes only of the milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness. He’s just a baby. Solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that’s mature. That is those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. And you may think that means nice and bad, and it doesn’t. Good and evil are both tactics of the devil. Human good, divine good, evil is the opposite of grace. There’s a lot to be said right there. I could take that and teach on that for a long time. So you have to learn what evil is. Evil is a copy of the original. And good can be divine good or human good. You have to understand these things in the Christian life. So here’s another principle, obedience. Adam and Eve committed the first act of disobedience in the Bible recorded in Genesis 2, 16. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree in the garden you can freely eat, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat it. For in the day that you eat that, you will surely die. That was the first sin. And the Bible says, For by one man sin came into the world, and death by sin. And then Romans 13, 3 through 4, this passage says, Avoid civil disobedience. Civil disobedience and unlawful violence is bad. It’s wrong. And you’ll be protected by the client nation and the laws of divine establishment if you’ll avoid that. We do have a civil responsibility, such as military service, paying our taxes, fulfilling certain civic responsibilities like voting, but this does not include violence, does not include destruction of property, does not include intrusion on the privacy of other people, or any form of civil disobedience. We are to obey the government. Civil disobedience is what we call moral degeneracy. It’s when you use force to get your way, to get what you want. We call that crusader arrogance. And it’s the righteous indignation out of control. It ignores the honorable and the judicial system to regress our grievances. The crusader believes in vigilante solutions which bypass the government law and order. Hence, crusader arrogance practices and advocates civil disobedience. Can’t do that. That’s wrong. So whatever sin you’ve committed before your salvation is an act of disobedience. And listen to what the Bible says about all of your disobedience before you became a Christian. Isaiah 43, 25. I, even I, am the one who blots out your sins for my own sakes. Therefore, I will never remember your transgressions. What a wonderful promise that is. So when God’s children become disobedient, God can discipline to correct us. In Hebrews 12, 11, for the moment, all discipline seems not to be pleasant, but painful, yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields a peaceable fruit of righteousness. So there are hundreds and hundreds of divine mandates about obedience in the Bible. Ephesians 5.22, wives obey your husbands. 1 Peter 3.7, you husbands in the same way live with your wives in understanding way as with someone weaker since she is a woman and show her honor and as a fellow heir of the grace of life so that your prayers will not be hindered. Husbands love your wives, Ephesians 5.25. Ephesians 4.32, be kind to one another. 2 Timothy 2.15, be diligent to present yourself approved to God. A workman does not need to be ashamed. Over and over and over, the Bible demands obedience. I hope you’re listening. I hope you will look at your life and decide, have I been obedient to the plan of God? If you need more information about this, don’t hesitate to contact us. We’ll be glad to send you any material, copies of this message, transcripts, whatever you need. Thank you for giving me some time today. I hope you’ve enjoyed this message. Until next week, when I get back, same time, same place, same station. This is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you so very much for listening to The Flatline.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
