Don't Just Merge...Yield!

I sometimes like to start off with questions. Today's is, is yielding to another person fun? Is yielding to another person fun? I think all you have to do is see a parent working with a small child and trying to help correct and guide them, and you realize suddenly yielding is not helping someone yield is not fun.

We've been there, or some of us are grandparents, or we've been aunts and uncles. We've seen the kids that tried to touch something hot and been told don't do it and had to be taught to avoid those hot surfaces and things. And sometimes, though, the little kids push their way through or they somehow find that way to get in that situation and they touch something hot, and they have to learn the hard way. That's not what they should have done. Yielding is not always fun, but it's an important part of life. We've also seen the little kids that are running down the concrete driveway with a little bit of a slope, and the parents know those little legs aren't going to be able to keep up. So they swoop run over and they swoop them up and save them, but now it turns into a game with the kids. They think, oh, this is fun. Dad grabs me when I go running, and somehow they wiggle their way out and they end up down that embankment or that slope, and then their little legs just can't keep up. And next thing we know, skin hands and skin knees.

I think we've all seen times where trying to encourage someone to yield, someone to not do what they want to do, is difficult. As children of God, have we ever done something similar?

I'm not going to ask for a show of hands, except maybe from our teens. Who enjoys yielding? Okay, our two teens better raise their hands.

No, it's not always the most fun thing for us to do in life, to yield to someone else.

Might be a shocker, but I don't always enjoy yielding. I think we could each say that at times in life we don't enjoy yielding. Here in lies a problem, which is what I'd like to share with you today. Our human nature wants to merge with God, but God has asked us to yield. Our human nature wants to merge with God, but God has asked us to yield. We've got a couple of props today.

Nothing major, nothing earth-shattering. It's my signs for the day. But as we start looking at God's Word, let's first start off in James 3, verse 17.

James 3, verse 17. Here we have described in James 3, verse 17, the wisdom that is from above, not earthly wisdom, not your and my wisdom, but the wisdom that is from God. James 3, verse 17, says, but the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Of course, you're picking up on the part willing to yield is part of this wisdom that is from above. As human beings, our human nature wants us to merge our lives with God, but God wants us to yield our ways, our lives, to His way. Many of us are familiar with road construction and these signs that I have up here today. And if the road is good, if it's a smooth road and traffic is light, following both of these signs is usually a pretty easy thing to do. But we've also seen those construction projects where many times the situation is made worse or maybe even more dangerous before it's made better.

Before we moved up here, there is a road to highways that intersected and they were redoing the whole interchange. Everything was being torn out and replaced, but yet they're still allowing the flow of traffic, but it's modified. And I remember there's a divided highway where traffic would have to turn in front of this lane of traffic in order to go north. And I also, coming from the other direction, wanted to go north. And so they created a ramp and they created these signs and a way for traffic to flow. But it's amazing that when you can strict the traffic down and the way that a lot of times people either don't even see the sign or they blow right past it. And there were so many times that I would be following and getting into my right, the correct lane. And I didn't have or no, I did have the yield sign on my side, but the traffic in front of me was not going to yield to the flow that was coming up the ramp. And I can't count the number of times I almost saw an accident. I never did. I'm thankful for that. But you see this attitude or this maybe blindness to this yield sign when we sometimes go through life. The question is, isn't this maybe the same with God? It's definitely the same with God in that we are a construction project to Him. We're our work in progress. We at times have been had parts ripped out. We've had a complete transformation of our heart. So we are a construction project to God. He's transforming and changing us as we allow Him to work in our life. But let's think about this merge sign for a bit. As we've journeyed across this country, we've encountered people that treat yield signs like merge signs. They approach the intersection with no intent of yielding to the flow of traffic. They are coming into the flow of traffic one way or another, and hopefully you're not going to be in their way. But those of us who do know how to understand the proper way to merge with traffic, merging takes cooperation with others on the road. You have to speed up to a similar speed as the other traffic. It's kind of like a song and a dance. You got to kind of work with the other person. You can't talk to them, but you're kind of getting a feel of where they're at. What are they going to allow you to do? And it takes cooperation to learn how to merge and merge with others. And now ultimately, you have to insert yourself into the flow of traffic, into their flow as they are going down the road. That's how we merge in cars. And at times, it seems like we try to merge our lives with God. We understand that there's benefits to living his way of life. There are no questions. We're not here to dispute that. I know nobody is here with that mindset because we know that God's way works. It's fundamental to our lives, and it always works.

We do work to live the proper life, but then something difficult comes up. Maybe it's someone's bad attitude at the store that we're dealing with, or at school, or at work.

Maybe it's a weighty thing of life that suddenly comes on us, and it's difficult to put out on our minds. Maybe we become frustrated, or maybe we even become angry with another person. Maybe we get into our mind because maybe it's that difficult person at work that you've been patient with time and time and time again. But you know what? Today's it. I can't handle any more of this person saying these things, behaving this way, doing these things. This is it. I'm done. This is what I need to do. And we start having this conversation with God. I've done everything I'm supposed to do, but not anymore because this is out of control. This person needs to be told. This needs to be rectified. And this is how I'm going to handle the situation. At this point, this is when our merge mentality starts to kick in. Because we want God to be on our side with this decision that we're trying to convince ourselves to make. We want Him to be in the passenger seat with us as we're trying to merge His way with our way. We have to be honest with ourselves, and we often do need to do that. We can't merge our lives with God. God isn't someone that is on an equal playing ground with us. Yielding allows something external to control us and to have an impact on us. We have to yield to sin. We have to yield to the Holy Spirit working in our life. This isn't us sometimes. I'm in control. Sometimes you're in control when we talk with God. God is always in control. His way always is right. This isn't us. I've submitted to you most of the time, or I've yielded to you most of these examples, most of these times when I've had to deal with this difficult person. So this time I get to do what I want to do, kind of like the merging with traffic. Again, that space is ours. I get up to a similar speed. I can insert myself into the flow, and we're all happy, right? This isn't how it works with God. This isn't us sometimes. I've yielded, or sometimes I've submitted to you God. So next time I get to do what I want to do. There's never a time in life when we should not want to yield to God. Through the Holy Spirit, we are being led by God and by Jesus Christ. It's an important time, as was referenced already. The time of the year we are in between the Days of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Pentecost that comes up in just a short few weeks, we need to be considering and evaluating the power of the Holy Spirit and its impact on our life. This wonderful gift that we have been given. Moving on from the merge sign, let's consider this yield sign for a little bit. Just as we do in a construction zone, we have a choice to either obey the yield sign or to not. As I mentioned, we've all seen people blow right through a yield sign and interrupt traffic, maybe even cause an accident. It seems like they are almost driving with blinders on. They're not even aware there's other cars. They're not even aware that sign passed them.

And at times we drive through our own life with blinders on. If we do not obey the yield sign, we may make it out okay. Like I said, all those cars that were just blowing through it, they inserted themselves into traffic. Sometimes because other people swerved, definitely because other people hit their brakes to avoid the accident. There was no damage in that instance with their car and other people. And sometimes when we choose not to yield to God in our own lives, there may not be damage. We may make it out okay. There is no injury. There is no consequences. But what this can do is it can lead to a searing of our mind. Imagine again that flow of traffic where that person says, oh, I didn't yield that time and I turned out okay. And, well, I didn't yield the past four times.

And I turned out okay. That in time they start to develop, maybe it's not a big deal. Maybe the sign is just, I can ignore it. It's not an important sign. I don't need to yield. And then what this can do is it can lead to a searing of their mind that they think there's no more dangers. It's not something they need to look out for. But we're told of the dangers of allowing our conscience to be seared in 1 Timothy 4, verse 1. Let's look at 1 Timothy 4, verse 1.

1 Timothy 4, verse 1.

Here the young pastor Timothy is being encouraged by the apostle Paul and he says, Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits or doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. So, interesting analogy that we have here, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron. The apostle Paul probably referenced what we've all seen in movies or seen in real life, this metal prod that's put into a hot fire that when it touches skin burns, whether it's on an animal to mark an animal or something like that, he's using this as an analogy of this searing aspect to our hearts, to our conscience, this way that we think, that we do a behavior so many times that we develop a callous over the sensitivity of our skin or of our heart, that the nerves are being covered up by this thickness of a callous or this thickness of a burn. It dulls our response to the fact that what we are doing is dangerous and actually harmful. It can actually, in an automobile, you could take another person's life. Also, it provides a false sense of security. While I've blown through that yield sign multiple times, I didn't get hurt. I didn't get zapped. I didn't hurt anybody else. That you develop maybe a false sense of security, just like that driver. We can be comfortable ignoring the yield sign in our own spiritual life until, bam, that accident happens. No longer was it able to be avoided. We ended up clobbering someone. It's that rude, sudden awakening. And maybe we only injure ourselves in the process. But as we know with sin in our lives, and as we live with other human beings, so many times our own sin, our own lack of yielding, injures others around us. There are consequences of our actions. Maybe through life there are times we don't yield when we know we should. But we can't live this type of life because it's dangerous, it's reckless, and it's sinful before God. You may think, as I have before, when do I have blinders on? When do I ignore the yield sign?

But we all have to ask ourselves, am I really healing the sign and truly yielding to God?

This life has a deceptive way of sneaking blinders onto us without us even knowing it. That's why they're called blinders. It's one of these deceptions that we have in this world.

As I've heard before, and I'm sure you have, those who are deceived don't realize that they're deceived or they wouldn't be deceived. It's kind of like the same idea a lot of times with blinders. You don't realize you have blinders on because it's blocking out the things from around. You don't even know that they exist. It's like the horse with the blinders on that's pulling the carriage or whatever. It's changing their perception of things around us. Situations in our lives can influence us and cause us to think differently, therefore putting blinders on us. We can open our mind to ways that sound right. They make sense in our human minds, but they go against God's instructions. Again, now we've got blinders being placed on us.

It's not just about removing the blinders of life when they are revealed to us. It's about maintaining that close relationship with God so we can have revealed to us when those blinders sneak into our lives. This is what's so great about our spiritual family, this family that we have here in the Church of God. We don't have any issues telling each other when our blinders are on, do we? We can go right up to somebody and say, hey, you've got blinders on to this issue. You're not seeing it. We're pretty good at that family. It doesn't normally have an issue with that, but we also have to account that we usually have blinders on ourselves. It's that whole aspect of making sure that we are using the Sword of Truth first on our own lives so that we can more effectively help others. There's a passage in 2 Timothy, one book forward in our Bibles, 2 Timothy 2 and verse 24. I'd like to look at 2 Timothy 2 and verse 24.

Because it gives us instructions on how we can help our fellow brothers and our fellow sisters in this area of life. 2 Timothy 2 and verse 24.

Here again, the Apostle Paul says to Timothy, And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient.

And here's the crux, and humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.

While Paul was talking to a young minister, Timothy, here, the application of this applies to us all. We can't just say, well, that's just the pastors do that. No, we each must be willing to insert ourselves into one another's lives, but to do it in this way, and humility correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses.

It's difficult to be on both sides of this one. It's difficult to be on the receiving side of somebody coming up and saying, I saw something, are you okay? Because I saw something, or this isn't normally how you behave. This isn't normally, you normally have a lot of patience, and for some reason, I feel like something's going on. Is there something I can help you with? It's difficult to be on both the approaching side and also on the receiving side of that, and it takes us first examining ourselves, as I mentioned already, too, really drawing near to God, and even often praying to God that God lead me to help this person, lead me with the right words, lead me to see if the attitude that I'm sensing is even really there, and then God can present a time when maybe it is appropriate to go to your brother and to see if you can help them.

Because oftentimes, like I said, these blinders, just like being deceived, we may not realize that we have them on ourselves. At this point in the message, let's review five points on what yielding involves in the Christian life. These are five points that yielding and what yielding involves in the Christian life.

The first is a heart to obey God, a heart to obey God. Let's look at Colossians chapter 3 and verse 9. A heart to obey God. Colossians 3 and verse 9. We'll break into the thought in the passage just a little bit in verse 9. It says, You have put off the old man with his deeds, and you have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. So we mentioned through the spring hallway days, this is that new heart. This is that heart transplant that we so desperately desire, and we want to have switched out.

This heart to obey God, this new man that we have accepted and acknowledged that we will live this new way of life when we came before God at baptism and said, I repent of my sins. I want to be part of your family. I want to follow you. I believe in all that God says, and then we commit ourselves to that walk of life. That's that replacement of that heart, this newness to want to desire to obey. We are working to change out our heart of man and replace it with that heart that will yield and obey God.

This is why we're working towards daily in our life. This is that goal that we try to work towards. This is that type of heart. We know that King David is described as being a man after God's own heart, and one of the ways in which he lived this life is through this transformed heart that he had, this obedience to God. Let's look just quickly at Psalm 119 and verse 34.

Psalm 119 and verse 34. There are many scriptures we could turn to in looking at this heart that David had for God and for his way of life. He wasn't perfect. We all know the stories of the sin that he had in his life and the poor decisions that he made at times. But we'd have to stare at a mirror ourselves and say, yep, I've done my own share of transgressing God's fall, of breaking his commandments, of not following his way, not yielding to his way. And here in Psalm 119 verse 34, it's one of those passages where King David said, Give me understanding and I shall keep your law.

Indeed, I shall observe it with my whole heart. He's proclaiming to God that I will follow your way. I will allow it to transform my heart. I will obey you. It's a powerful example that we do have. We have many examples throughout God's word of people who are willing to yield to God, willing to walk the way that he has called us to walk.

So we must remember that that is one of the first areas that we have to have a heart willing to obey God. The second aspect that we need to develop is humility. As we open our minds more fully to God's words and his ways, we continually understand that we don't have all the answers. Our way doesn't work. The only thing that works in our life is when we follow the yield sign that is before us and we yield to God. It takes humility to yield to someone other than ourselves.

We love to follow the beat of our own drum. Or as the saying goes, it's my way or the highway. But with God, he is the highway and his yield signs must be followed. Let's flip towards the back of our Bibles again to 1 Peter 5. Verse 5. Here the Apostle Peter says, God doesn't ask us to humble ourselves because he wants to keep his thumb on these weak human beings. No different than a parent who says, don't touch the hot stove or don't run down the concrete driveway. It's no different than that. We're not doing it just to keep our kids under our control.

But we see the inherent dangers in these activities that they're involved with. God knows the dangers that exist in our world. He's not saying, humble yourselves and be there just so I can keep my thumb on you weak human beings. This isn't the loving aspect of our Father and this isn't what he wants for us. He understands that without humility, we will just follow and listen to ourselves in our own selfishness and our own pride. He knows we won't listen to anyone else. Again, in Psalm 62 and verse 7, we see a description of mankind.

In the Psalm of David, we have King David first reminding everyone that his strength comes from God, but then he takes it to another level. Psalm 62 verse 7.

Actually, we'll jump around here a little bit. We'll read verse 5 first. Here, King David in Psalm 62 verse 5, My soul waits silently for God alone, for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved.

He says, In God is my salvation and my glory, and the rock of my strength and my refuge is in God.

Am I reading the wrong passage?

Oh, I realize I have the New Living Translation in my notes. We'll continue reading, and I'll finish this up here in a minute. But in verse 8, he says, Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out, and so he's speaking to the nation or to those who would be listening to the Psalm. He says, Trust in him at all times, you people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Surely men of low degree, and this is the key scripture, verse 9, Surely men of low degree are as a vapor. Men of high degree are a lie. If they are weighed on the scales, they are altogether lighter than a vapor. In the New Living Translation, verse 9 says, Common people are as worthless as a puff of wind, and the powerful are not what they appear to be. If you weigh them on the scales, together they are lighter than a breath of air. He's getting down to the crux, that regardless of how we esteem one another or how we even view ourselves, that whether somebody is viewed as the weak of the world or the mighty of the world, the powerful of the world, you add them both together and you put them on a scale, they weigh nothing when compared to God. There is nothing that we inherently have of ourselves that is good or worth the glory about. It's only what God does in us. It's only what He does through us that we can glory. This is why God puts so much value on humility, because people understand, those who are humble, understand and see who they really are. And in the grand scheme of things, we are all children of God, called to serve God and to serve one another. But when you're humble, you realize your place in the world. You realize your flaws. When you're humble, you can look in a mirror and to see where that reflection doesn't match Christ, the image of Christ. And to say, you know what, I still have a ways to go. But when pride seeps in, pride says, no, I look pretty good today. I got that sharp tie and that suit. My hair looks pretty nice. I got it cut. That's deception. That's pride coming in, and that's when we start to fall very short. God says, be clothed in humility. Have a humble, yielding heart and follow my ways. And so we do. We follow God, and we work towards humility. And it's why, in order to yield to God, humility is a critical component.

The third way in which we must learn to yield is with personal responsibility. Personal responsibility. With personal responsibility comes the understanding that we each have to account for our decisions and actions of this life. What I allow to dominate or control my mind or actions is my responsibility and mine alone. If you're driving that car and you refuse to yield and you get into an accident, the police aren't going to ticket somebody else. They're not going to ticket somebody in another state.

They're going to ticket you. You are the one that refused to yield to that sign. They're not even going to get the other person because you had the yield sign, not them. This is that personal responsibility that we all understand. We know that Satan is constantly working to trip us, to tempt us, and we live in a world surrounded by his evil influence.

But we're instructed to take personal responsibility for ourselves. Let's look at Romans 6 and verse 13. Actually, you can hold on to that. Go ahead and put in your notes Romans 6 verse 13 because I'm going to quote it from the modern English version. So it may not match exactly what you have.

But this is Romans 6 verse 13 because we're instructed to take personal responsibility for ourselves. And again, this is from the modern English version. It says, Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness. Do not yield your members to sin, but yield yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. Again, do not yield your members to sin, but yield yourselves to God. Doing this takes us acknowledging that we have a choice to make, and the choice is ours alone. Do I yield to myself? Do I yield to myself?

Then I'm a slave to my own human nature. Or do I yield to God? Then I'm a servant of the Most High. That's what it really gets down to as we consider this aspect of personal responsibility. Do I yield to myself because then I become a slave to my own nature? Or do I yield to God and then become a servant of the Most High? In Romans 6 verse 16, we understand that this is scriptural, this concept of either yielding to yourself or yielding to God.

Romans 6 and verse 16. Romans 6 and verse 16. Here Paul says, Do you not know that whom you present yourselves slaves to obey? You are that one slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death or of obedience leading to righteousness. Making the choice to follow God is recognizing that we get the choice to follow, therefore taking the responsibility into our own hands. Again, nobody is going to get ticketed for not obeying that yield sign except for the person who's in the driver's seat, the person with the driver's license.

The person that's responsible for that automobile and adhering to the laws of the land. We also have to take that personal responsibility when we choose to either yield to God or to not yield to His instructions. The fourth way is we must give control over to God. We must give control over to God. It's when we reach this point of having a changed heart, which was our first point, realizing that we don't have all the answers and then that we have personal responsibility. At this point, we can give control of our lives over to someone else.

With our human side working strong inside of us, many times is this easier said than done. We humans really like to be in control of our lives, and giving up that control is really uncomfortable to a lot of people. If it's giving up the control in a health trial, that's difficult because you recognize you want to control the outcome. You want to figure out how am I going to navigate through this illness. If it's giving control of something that's lost in your life, a job, a house, different things like that, we want to control those situations as best as we can.

But many times, the best option is to give it to God because we have our part to play, but He sees everything. He knows everything. He understands everything. And so we have to be willing to give control over to God. To some, it can be frustrating to deny yourself and to deny what you want to do. Yet we do willingly yield to external things in our life every single day, don't we?

We give control over things or people over to things or to people in our lives. We allow people to influence or even possibly control us. We also give control over to pride. We give control over to selfishness. This leads us to living a life of a slave to ourselves, as I mentioned a moment ago. So we do choose to give control over to others or over to outside influences.

The question is, do we do it in the right way? Do we give that control over to God? Because we can give control over to the good shepherd of our life. Let's look at John 10, verse 1. As we can sit there, who is this good shepherd?

You've been in the church long enough. You know where I'm going. This isn't a trick question. Who is that good shepherd of our lives?

Because if we want to give control over to another human being, we know where that's going to go. If we want to give our control over to our boss or to our job, we know where that's going to go. We want to give our control over to our own nature. Sadly, we've gone down that road too many times. We know exactly where that's going to go. But here in John 10, verse 1, we can see who we can give control to. John 10, verse 1, Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of the stranger. And it says in verse 6, Jesus uses illustration, but they did not understand the things which he spoke to them. And then Jesus said to them again, Most assured, may I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. Many times when you would have sheep or you'd have a pen that would keep the sheep together to protect them at night, you might have a gate or you might have some sort of opening where the sheep could come and go. And often the shepherd would sit there through the night, kind of leaning between the two posts, blocking it with his own body, but to protect the sheep so that nobody could come in. The sheep couldn't go out. That was a role that many shepherds would take. They would sit there in that gap. And Christ is saying right here, most assuredly, again in verse 7, I am the door of the sheep. All who ever came before me are thieves and robbers. But the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy. I have come that they may have life and they may have it more abundantly.

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But a higher man, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The higher man flees because he is a higher man and does not care about the sheep.

Christ says in verse 14, I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known by my own. It is a wonderful reminder that we have because we get fearful when we think about giving control over to someone else. We get fear because it is out of... I cannot make the decision. What is this person going to do with my life? Imagine you give your... even to another brother or sister sitting here. Imagine you give your life over to another here.

There would be fear because we realize we are all human. We are all flawed. We cannot see into the future. We don't know what is even best in our own lives. But yet, Christ is saying through this passage, I am the good shepherd. I am the one that you can trust who will look out for you. I am the one that knows you. And you know me because he has called us and the Father has called us. And it is through Christ that we can approach the Father's throne and understand through the Spirit the things of God. And so he is saying, I am that good shepherd. Trust me. Give me your life and I will look over it. I will take control and help you. But we must be willing to give that control. Will you and I let God lead us? Will you give control of your prayer life over to God asking Him to show where you are failing to yield to Him? Because if you ask, He will answer that prayer. If each of us go before God and say, God, where am I falling short and yielding to you? He will show it. He will help us to see those areas. But it is a prayer that we must be willing to ask. And then we must be willing to give this control to Him to show us. The fifth way that we can develop a better yielding mentality is through discipline. Discipline. This is a willingness not just to look at what you need to yield to, but then to physically or spiritually yield to it. As much as we are like sheep and that when we are in danger, we seek safety. We want to run to some place that is safe. In those instances, we have the opportunity to choose to have discipline to run. It's not difficult when your life is in danger or you're hurting or something is a bad situation to flee it. You make that decision. It's yours to make. And it takes discipline. And we're all very disciplined in protecting ourselves. We've gotten very good at that. But we need to have this mindset always on a spiritual level and be willing to follow God. But it takes discipline to make these choices. It's kind of like when we know we need to work out or get some exercise in, but we really don't feel like doing it. Or when you have that dinner out and you see in the case that nice piece of pie sitting there staring at you back, and you realize that you've eaten bad most of the week, but you're really wanting that piece of pie anyway. These are very basic and simple illustrations, but during these moments, it really doesn't appear like our life is in danger, is it? It's just one day of missing exercise. It's just one piece of pie. It's not that big of a deal. It's just a choice, right?

We can easily get into the same mindset with sin in our lives. It's a choice, isn't it? It's my choice, right?

But to constantly make the right choices, to do it on a consistent basis, takes discipline.

It's that same with our spiritual walk with God, whether we're talking about exercising in a physical sense or avoiding something we shouldn't eat.

To consistently make the right choices on a spiritual level, it takes discipline. The Holy Spirit is that huge gift in our lives, that benefit, that strength that we have, this power that can prompt our thoughts and grab our attention. But once again, it won't force us to yield if we choose to not do so or if we refuse it.

As with everything in life, Jesus Christ gave us the perfect example of discipline.

He was and remained in complete control, never wavering on who He was and never wavering on what His calling was while He was here on this earth.

Put in your notes John 6, verse 38, where Christ says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. John 6, verse 38. Christ was disciplined in all aspects of His life. That's a whole sermon and a whole for a whole other day, just to view the way that Christ was disciplined His entire life and the way that He handled Himself.

We have to ask ourselves a question. Will you and I practice discipline in our lives?

It takes work to yield our will to God's will for us, but over time, as we yield and we yield and we yield again, we begin to develop discipline in our lives.

This leads to better decisions and it leads to better yielding over time.

But on that same vein of thought, what happens when we yield to our human nature side?

And then we yield again to that side and we yield again to it and we yield again to our human nature.

We know where that one goes as well.

Leading a life of yielding to God is a lifelong process and proper yielding leads to discipline, which then leads to growth.

On the last day of Long Oven Bread, we looked at the example of Joshua. We spent a lot of time there.

He was a man that could have had fear over what was set before him. He could have had trepidation.

He didn't know how everything was going to work out. He didn't know what God was going to ask him completely to do.

But even what he did know was overwhelming for any of us to really put ourselves in his shoes.

Joshua, looking over the city of Jericho, contemplating how was he going to take the city? How was he going to lead Israel against it?

And then the man of God shows up. The Lord Himself shows up and gives instructions to Joshua.

And do we see Joshua trying to merge his train of thought with how he thinks the city should be taken?

With how God said? Once again, we talked about how they were to march around six days consecutively, and on the seventh day, to march around the city seven times, and then to give out a shout.

And those walls would come down.

I've seen some places where maybe they had insults thrown at them.

Because here's this army walking around this walled city. Maybe they were even laughing.

I don't know if anybody has seen the Veggie Tales movie.

Where the two peas... I can't remember some of the lines, but the two peas are on top of the wall shouting insults to the nation of Israel in the cartoon way as they were walking around.

Maybe Joshua could have even thought, hey, how about we walk around twice, let's cut to the chase, get to day seven and what we're supposed to do there, and then the walls will come down.

That sounds pretty good. Either way, you're performing and delivering the city into our hands.

But as we went through that story, we don't see any aspects where Joshua is trying to merge his ideas with the Lord.

He's completely and fully yielding the entire way with God, saying, you are the one that's in control here.

And ultimately, he gets down to even saying, as for me and my house, we will follow the Lord.

This yielding of life displayed by Joshua is what God desires from each of us, a willingness to hear him through the Holy Spirit in us and to respond to it.

But we have another example of someone who tried to merge his thoughts and ways with God, and it's the prophet Jonah.

So you've got Joshua on one side that says, I'll yield. You've got Jonah on the other side that says, let's merge.

We know that story too, because God told Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh and prophesy to them, saying with the destruction that's about to come.

And Jonah didn't have a lot of love for Nineveh.

In fact, some of the commentaries say he probably hated the people of Nineveh, the Assyrians, and those who were in those cities.

And so he made the decision, I'm not doing this. I'm going to run.

And he tried to run as far as he could.

In God's word, it talks about some of the city where he was trying to go to is probably on the outskirts of pretty much their trade boundaries of what they would work with in their nation and their society around them.

This trip to Nineveh would have been over 500 miles on foot.

That's quite a trip to go to a city to prophesy for the Lord. It wasn't an easy task, so Jonah decided to run.

God is abundantly full of love and mercy. We see that throughout his word.

Yet Jonah was afraid of just that very thing happening to the city that God would spare in Nineveh in the end.

Again, Jonah wanted God to merge with Jonah, with his ideas.

He wanted the city to be destroyed. It wasn't worth saving.

Kind of like when you have that person at work that's not worth trying to be patient with anymore.

And yet we know that God is full of patience for us. He's full of mercy for us.

And here, Jonah, on multiple levels, if we spend another whole sermon just going through that book, there'd be tremendous things we could take.

Jonah's desires and feelings did not fit with God's desires and feelings.

Jonah was trying to merge with God instead of trying to yield to God.

It's another great example that we have.

At one point in our life, we were completely lost and enemies of God.

But while we were sinners, Jesus Christ died for us that we may have our sins wiped clean and no longer be enemies of God, but his children.

God is great and his love for us is never-ending.

In his love, he desires so strongly that we yield to him in his way of life.

It's not out of control or wanting to keep us down that he would ask us to yield. It's true love that he asks, knowing that if we do, we will live a joy-filled and peaceful life in him.

And it's in this love that he desires to give us all things.

And it's in this love that he looks down on us as a wonderful Father.

As we climb a close, let's look at a few passages.

The first is in Ephesians 1 and verse 7.

Let us be reminded of the way that God looks at us.

Let us be reminded of the way that he values and treasures us.

Ephesians 1 and verse 7.

Because sometimes we lose sight on exactly who we are to God.

Ephesians 1 verse 7.

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he has purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, which are in heaven and which are on the earth in him.

In him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him, who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory.

And then verse 13, we have our part of this process.

In him you also trusted, each of us have also trusted, after you have heard the word of the truth.

The gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.

It's a powerful passage that when you realize all that God has that he wants to give us, as any good parent, any good aunt and uncle, any good grandfather, wants to give everything that he has to their children, God has done things and put a system in place to give and bring all things to us.

This is the joy that fills his heart to above us and to have us as part of his family.

And we have our part of faith, of chance transforming our life, of giving ourselves, of yielding consistently to God, Another wonderful passage is in 1 Peter 1.

1 Peter 1 and verse 3. We read through this passage last week in relation to the helmet of salvation, parts of this passage, but I'd like to read it from this slightly different angle.

Again, I find this passage incredibly encouraging when we are hit with life's difficulties.

1 Peter 1 and verse 3.

Think about it when you hit those trials in life that you don't want to merge, or you want to merge, that you don't want to yield.

Think about those weighty health trials that may come, those difficulties with a job or with somebody else.

When you want to merge your thoughts with God, think about it from the standpoint of yielding through those difficult situations.

1 Peter 1 and verse 3.

2 Peter 1 and verse 3.

3 Peter 1 and verse 3.

4 Peter 1 and verse 3.

5 Peter 1 and verse 3. 6 Peter 1 and verse 3.

Again, personalizing it for us.

7 Peter 1 and verse 3.

As we yield our lives to God, we can have an ability to praise Him, to honor Him, to glory in Him, as we follow His instructions and we yield our lives.

Verse 8.

As we count the days or the weeks that we still have left to Pentecost, let us keep in mind who we are to God.

And why He desired to put into our lives His Holy Spirit. He wanted to equip us with the most powerful tool in the world to help us on our physical and spiritual journeys to His Kingdom. God's Spirit gives us the ability to yield.

I have a cute illustration, kind of getting to this point.

The illustration says, The captain of the ship looked into the dark night and saw faint lights in the distance. Immediately he told his signalman to send a message. Alter your course 10 degrees south.

Promptly a return message was received. Alter your course 10 degrees north.

The captain was angered. His command had been ignored. So he sent a second message. Alter your course 10 degrees south. I am the captain.

Soon another message was received. Alter your course 10 degrees north. I am Seaman, 3rd Class Jones.

Immediately the captain sent a third message, knowing the fear it would invoke. Alter your course 10 degrees south. I am a battleship.

Then the reply came. Alter your course 10 degrees north. I am a lighthouse.

That's from the Leadership Magazine, Spring of 1983.

Times in life, does it seem like that? Maybe in our discussions with one another, our discussions with God. We're saying, God, you need to merge with us. You need to alter the direction that my life is going. But he is that steadfast rock. He's that solid light, that beacon in the night. And yet we're trying to navigate with God.

Sometimes it can be as foolish as maybe this captain was, thinking that he was the captain of this battleship, where God is the captain of our lives.

We are now a week out from the days of Unleavened Bread, and since that time, we have all had perfectly wonderful, sin-free lives, right?

No? I thought I might have been the only one.

Yielding is that lifelong process that you and I will have to apply and practice until our life ceases to exist in this physical form. Instead of trying to merge with the flow of society, or merge with the flow of our own nature, let us heed the yield sign that God has opened our minds to see.

And as a final scripture, let's turn to Galatians 2, verse 20.

Galatians 2, verse 20.

Galatians 2, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.