Surrender to God

Mr. Perriman started in the Gospels. My message is also going to start in the Gospels. Let's go to Luke 5. Luke 5. This is a story from the life of Peter and an encounter he had with Jesus Christ. 1. So it was that the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God, that he stood by the lake and saw two boats standing by the lake, but the fishermen had gone from there and were washing their nets. So, you know, just put this scene in your mind.

Jesus is walking up. There's a crowd there, and he sees some fishermen. Now, he knows these men, by the way. I mean, this isn't the first time he's met them, and we can see by some of the comments that are made. And they've been fishing, and it's probably, you know, if you go fishing, you know by 10 o'clock you're not going to catch much, right?

So you come in. So it's probably, you know, sometime in that early to mid-morning where, okay, the fishing's done, they haven't done very well, they haven't caught very many fish, and they're coming in, and they're, you know, they have to lay out their nets, they have to clean up their boats. I mean, these are professional fishermen. And so they're, you know, have to set up for maybe fishing later that night, things they have to do. And then he got into one of the boats, which was Simon's, this is Simon Peter, and asked him to put out a little from the land.

And he sat down and taught the baltitudes from the boat. So, you know, he comes up to Peter and says, can I borrow your boat a little bit, you know, for a while? Just row out here a ways. You don't have to put up your sails or anything. Let's just get out from the land a little bit so my voice will carry, which carries over water. It's amazing how much sound will carry over water.

And then I could talk to all these people. And of course Peter says, okay. I mean, you know, it's not like some, he feels like some crazy man he doesn't know comes up to him. There had been some contact between them. And he goes out, takes his boat out, and he sits there and he listens to Jesus preach to all these people. And then when verse four, when he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down their nets for a catch.

He said, okay, I'm done. Now, you know, it's way past fishing time. He's a professional fisherman. I understand Peter knows how to fish. It's what he's done all his life. And he says, okay, let's launch out and catch some fish. But Simon answered and said to him, Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing. You know, you're not a professional fisherman here. Now, he doesn't say that, but he said, Master, we fished all night. That's the time to fish. And it's terrible. The fish aren't moving.

You know, maybe the temperature has changed, so they went deeper. See, fishermen know these things. And this isn't a time to fish. So he tells him, this isn't going to work. I understand what you're saying. But he submits to him. He says, nevertheless, still in verse 5, your word, at your word, I will let down the net. So he says, okay, Master, I mean, you are the rabbi here. And so I will do what you say. He had no confidence. This isn't like an enthusiastically, yeah, great, we'll go out and catch some fish. It's like, you know, we're not going to catch anything. You know this doesn't work.

This isn't how fishing works. But because you're the master, okay, I'll go out and do this. So he does. He obeys. He obeys what he says. He submits. But Simon answered and said, okay, he says in verse 5, verse 6, and when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come out and help them. And they came and filled both boats so that they began to sink.

Okay. Now these aren't great big fishing ships, you know, like whalers or something, but they're, you know, they're not just some little robot either. And they've caught so many fish at a time when fish don't, you know, they're not biting. This is, we're not going to catch any fish. Our nets are, we can, we can, can't get our nets deep enough to get them. We're not going to catch any fish. He knows he's not going to catch any fish, but he does it because he submits to it. Then Simon Peter saw it. Now look at his response.

He didn't look at the guys and say, hey, aren't you glad we submitted and obeyed the master, the rabbi here? Then Simon Peter saw it. He fell down at Jesus' feet saying, depart for me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. Something dramatic happens here in the way that Peter is responding to Christ and to God. He submitted, but now something else is happening. And what's very interesting, if you read the rest of the passage, this is where Jesus tells Peter and the other men that were with him. He says, okay, you guys are going to give up fishing.

You're going to come with me and we're going to catch people. And they follow. They do what he says. They pack up the boats, pull them out of the water, put them in some kind of storage, lay out their nets, and off they go. What happened here?

Peter submits to Jesus, even though he doesn't believe it's going to happen. And when it does happen, he now falls at his feet and says, I'm not worthy to have a relationship with you. And this is going to tie in a little bit to what Mr. Pereman talked about.

Can we submit to God? I mean, obey Him. Let's talk in terms of the law. We all believe in the law. We believe the law of God is good. We believe in the Ten Commandments. And we submit to that law, and God expects us to submit. God expects us to obey Him.

But is it possible to submit and still not understand and have a right relationship with God?

This transformation Peter goes through here is very important.

Is it possible to submit? Is it possible to say, I will obey you. I don't think it makes sense, because sometimes it doesn't. I don't like what you're asking me to do, because sometimes we don't. But I'll do it anyways.

You know, the Bible clearly tells us to submit. You know, the Bible also says that you and I are to submit to the secular rulers as long as they don't tell us to do anything against God. It says, submit to them. Do what they say as long as, you know, they tell you to do something against God, and we don't obey. But we are to obey. We're supposed to be good citizens.

He tells us to submit to our employers. Employees are to submit to our employers.

It says, wives, submit to your husbands. That's a command. These are all commands. We are to submit to authority. Now, we've all had to submit to authority, and at the time think, this is really stupid. There are no fish. And you know what? It is really stupid. There are no fish. And we watch the personal authority make a really bad decision. We've all done that, right? We've all had to submit to something knowing this isn't going to work. But he says, submit anyways. Now, once again, if it's something that's against God or something that's destructive, we all understand that. I mean, if your employer says to steal, you're not going to steal. But if your employer says, I want it done this way, and you think, but that doesn't make sense, you do it, and he fails or she fails.

But we submit it. I mean, okay, if you're going to give me the paycheck, and you want me to do this, and it's not going to work.

I remember one time I was out fishing in a small boat in the Gulf of Mexico. My dad and I with a guide. And the guide was one of these tough, I mean, tough, rough guys, you know, salty guy.

And he caught a stingray. And he said, oh man, he says, I want you to see the barb on this, because that barb, I mean, if it hits you, it's not the damage it does by hitting you. It spreads toxins into your system, because it's just, you know, they're bottom dwellers, and they just pick up all this toxin. And he took his knife, and he started to cut the tail. Now, it's still alive. And I said, uh, and he gave me that look, like, I'll throw you overboard. I said, okay. And soon as he touched the tail, that barb came up and went right through his hand, and right out the other side. I just looked the other way, you know, I just said, okay.

I mean, I'm paying you, so you're the boss. But all you had to do is look at the size of the tail, what you were doing. He was cutting, and he did. He ran that barb right through his finger, or hand.

He had to cut it off and cut it out. It was pretty gruesome, but, you know, he was so tough, he didn't even, he didn't even like it, but, and then he cut it out. We all just kept fishing and never said a word. You know, when you're a small boat and 50 feet of water, and a guy's that tough, you just, you just grunt back. That's all you do. So, we've all been in those situations. And if you have authority, you've all done something where people submitted to you shaking their head, right?

If you're a husband, if you're a parent, if you're, I mean, because you have authority as a parent. If you're an employer, right? You've always made, you've all made decisions where you're, everybody else said, oh, that makes no sense at all. That won't work, and it didn't.

Is that how we approach God? We simply submit thinking it's not going to work, because that's what Peter thought. I will submit to you, but this isn't very smart. You don't know anything about fishing. I said, well, we wouldn't say that to God. Do we not, though? You don't know anything about my life. You don't know anything about what I'm going through. You don't know anything about this situation. So your way doesn't work here. But I will submit to it, because, I mean, what am I going to do? You're more powerful than me, so I'll submit to it.

I will even obey the law sometimes, not because I want to, but because you're more powerful. So submission isn't enough. There's something else that has to happen. Now, submission is what we do when we first start in our relationship with God.

But we also have to learn to surrender. We're going to talk about the difference between submission and surrender. They're connected, but there is a difference. You know, when an army surrenders, it's not like, okay, okay, let's stop fighting, well, let's just cooperate with each other. Right? When an army surrenders, what do they do?

They give up. They put down their weapons and say, I will fight you no more. In spite of how I feel, I will fight you no more. All of us are in conflict with God, and we're in conflict with God a lot, and that's part of the human experience. And we can submit to God a lot and resent God every time we do it. Surrender takes away the resentment. It doesn't take away the pain of it or the difficulty of it. It takes away the resentment. Let me show you a case of surrender, Genesis 22.

We know the story, but we need to go ahead and rehearse this again.

This is a good thing to read before the Passover, because what we have here is a type of God the Father and Jesus Christ. We have a type here of what they actually did. Genesis 22. A type is an event that pictures another event, but the second event is a much greater event.

Verse 1. Now it came to pass after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he says, Here I am. And he said, Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. We read through that, and then we have to think about what went through the mind of Abraham. Abraham didn't say, Oh, okay. He says, I know you love him, but I want you to take him out, and I want you to kill him and sacrifice him to me. Now God actually asked him to do this.

And then he gives him three days to think about it.

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son. And he split the wood for the burnt offerings, and he rose and went to the place of which God had told him. Then on the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place so far off. And then he tells the two men with him, you stay here. And it's a remarkable statement, because I must go worship God. He didn't say, I must go submit to God. He said, I must go worship God. Now remember, worship in Hebrew is to literally to throw yourself flat on the ground.

It is total surrender. I must go surrender to God. Now think about what went through it in his mind.

He's asking me to kill my son. I love my son. I mean, the anguish.

Any of you who have children know exactly. I mean, you're asking me to kill my son. And God said, yes.

But you hate human sacrifice. Yes. But you tell us not to sacrifice our children. Yes.

But I go, I have to go sacrifice my son. Yes. But you promise me, I mean, remember, this is the miracle. You promised me a miracle. We did the whole thing with Hagar, and it didn't work out. We tried it our way. It didn't work out. And I had to take Ishmael and drive him out of my camp. And I loved him, too. I loved Ishmael. He's really my firstborn. He's just not from Sarah.

But I had to drive him out because you said, I didn't tell you to do it that way. I told you I would give you a son through Sarah. So I did it your way. Drove my other son out because you said this son would have children. If I kill him, he can't have children.

Yes. You have three days to think about this over and over and over again.

If this is simply a matter of obeying God, you would come to the conclusion, God is evil, and I will not obey Him.

If it's just a matter of, okay, I'm just going to submit to you because I have to, and you don't know what you're doing, you would say, I will not kill him. I will not because you don't know what you're doing. But Abraham said, I'm going to worship him.

I'm going to surrender to him.

Now, this is the reason this is here. Remember, in the New Testament, Abraham is called the Father of the Faithful. It's interesting that Paul isn't called the Father of the Faithful. He was a man who had great faith. Think of all the great people in the Bible.

And the faith they showed, Daniel. And yet this man, God says, he gets it. This man gets it. You study the life of this man because he gets it. He understood. And so we pick up the story in verse 6. So Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son. And he took the fire in his hand and a knife, and the two of them went together. But Isaac spoke to Abraham and said, Abraham his father, and said, my father, he said, here I am, my son. He said, look, the fire in the wood, but where's the land for a burnt offering? Isaac's carrying the wood that he's about to be sacrificed on. And he's not some little kid. He could have been in his upper teens. Even if he was 12.

I have an interesting situation. He's carrying the wood. And he says, but we don't have the burnt offering. And Abraham said, my son, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering. So the two of them went together. They came to the place in which God had told him, and Abraham built an altar, and he placed the wood on it, and he bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar.

And Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. There's something else here that we read through this and we miss.

Isaac didn't just submit to his father. I mean, how many of you, if your dad walked up and had a knife and said, oh, God told me to kill you. And he's an old man. You would have outrun him.

There was no doubt Isaac can get away. Isaac doesn't have to submit to this.

He doesn't have to. I'm going to obey you to kill me. Sorry, dad, you've lost your marbles. I'm out of here. And he doesn't. He surrenders to God. That's why Abraham here is a type of God sacrificing Christ. God says this is what we're going to do, and Christ surrendered to him.

That's what we're going to be celebrating coming up.

Now, he just didn't submit to him. Father, you don't know what you're doing.

I'm not going to do this. Or I'll do it, but boy, am I mad at you. When I'm resurrected, we're going to talk. What's happening is a surrender. I no longer wish to fight. I feel—now, that doesn't mean Isaac saying, oh, good. He feels—I mean, fear, dread. How can my father love me?

How can God—I mean, the same thing has to be going through his mind. How can a loving God do this to me? How can he ask my father to do this to me? But I surrender to it. And then we have to say, why do we surrender? Abraham surrendered because Abraham—here's the thing about surrender here—it's a voluntary trust in God. I don't know what you're doing, but you do.

Submission is, I don't know what you're doing. I'll go along with it. Surrender is, I don't know what you're doing, but you do. And I trust that. I trust in your solutions to problems.

Now, I don't know about you, but that, for me, that's hard. I don't always trust God's solutions to problems. So I either have to decide to submit to it, grumbling, or being upset, or thinking, boy, this is going to fail God. Or at some point you say, okay, you know what you're doing. I don't. And you surrender to that. You put down your weapons, and you're not going to fight God anymore. Not because He's bigger than you, but because you trust what He's going to do.

How did Abraham have the trust to do this? We're told in the New Testament. Go to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11.

Now, let's go to verse 17, the faith chapter. Verse 17 of Hebrews 11. "'By faith,'" okay, trust. Trust is actually a better English word to put in there. "'By trust Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promise, offered up his only begotten Son.' Okay, wait a minute. "'He who had received a promise from God,'" and what was the promise? "'Of whom it was said, in Isaac your seed shall be called.'" "'You promised God.'" Yes. "'But I'm supposed to kill him.'" Yes.

"'This is your solution to Isaac having children.'" Yes.

"'You have to trust me in this.'" This makes no sense.

"'Concluding that God was,'" here was his conclusion, "'that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead from which he also received him in a figurative sense.'" In other words, when Abraham raised the knife, he already had decided to kill him. It already… Have you ever done something in life where it like… you actually see yourself doing it? I mean, it's real quick, and then you do it. You actually see yourself doing it. You know, you're about to do it. If you've ever been in a car wreck, it could be that way. You actually… you see it happening, and then it happens. That the brain is so fast, it's seeing it happening, and then it happens.

Well, this is what Abraham did. He had already killed him. And God said, "'Stop! God never intended him to kill him.'" But Abraham did not know that.

Just like Peter did not know that God was going to create a bunch of fish, or just, I don't know, suddenly you have little buzz and those little fish brains, and all of them would come together. And they'd… I mean, you know, fish brains aren't very… there's not much to a fish, okay?

There's not a lot going on in a fish brain. But whatever, God brought the fish there, or God created the fish. There was no way Peter would know that when Peter said, "'This isn't going to work.'" What's interesting with Abraham at this point, Abraham believed it was going to work. He had already surrendered.

I'm going to worship God. Now, what did he feel? All the things that went through his head, all the things he felt, we can absolutely understand, because it's what we would think, it is what we would feel. He was no different. So why did he do it? It wasn't just like Peter who said, "'It won't go to work, but okay, you're the boss. I'll do it.'" It was, "'Lord, this doesn't make any sense to me, but I will worship you. I surrender to you.'" And Isaac surrendered also. Or this could have never happened.

Your solution. He must have said, Isaac? Because Isaac would have said, I don't care if he was 12, 17, some say he was up maybe 25. I don't know. It's hard to figure out exactly how old he was. But we do know, he was old enough to say, but you've told me God promised that I would have children and we would be a great nation. Is God breaking his promise? And Abraham must have said to him, no, he's going to resurrect you. This is going to be like that. They knew how to cut the arteries so there wasn't any pain. And so I'll cut the artery. You'll be out in 60 seconds, and I'll burn you. And then God will resurrect you. And Isaac must have believed it also because he didn't run away. That's surrender. That's why when you really look at Abraham's life, it's like, wow, I'm not even close to that. I'm not even close to that. So why do we have such a hard time surrendering? I mean, we submit. We submit, but I've met a lot of people through life.

That resent God or truly, okay, no, God would not expect me to do that. God would not expect me to lose my job over something like, you know, the Feast of Tabernacles. God would not expect me to lose my friends because of, you know, I won't go out and do things with them on Friday night anymore. God would not expect, and we can just fill in the blank. Surely God would not expect that.

You mean God actually expects me to submit to the federal government when they say I have to pay taxes? Yeah, He does. Scripture says it. Jesus said it and Paul said it. He was telling them to pay taxes to the Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was even more evil than our government, if that's possible. It was more evil than our government. Surely He doesn't mean that when He says that He doesn't mean that. Yes, He does. So we can submit to it and not like it. He didn't say like it, by the way. But surrender is I will do it because God says so. It's His solution. And then you give up any resentment. You give up any anger at God. You give up, okay, I will do what He says, and He will bless me for it. Why do we have such a problem surrendering? Well, first of all, we all have to really recognize we have an inflated view of ourselves. Plus, we have the weakness of our own humanity. Now those two things create a problem right away.

I am really important, but so I want to do my own solutions to all my problems.

And God says, well, you are important, but my solution is the other ones that work.

And we have a real problem with that. No, no, no, no, no. If I do what you're asking me, I won't be happy. If I do what you're asking me, bad things will happen to me.

I mean, if I do what you're asking me, I mean, think about Paul. If I do what you're asking me to do, those people are going to stone me. That's why Jeremiah at one point said, you know, enough bad things have happened to me for doing what you asked me to do. I'm not even going to mention your name anymore. There.

And God basically said, are you done? Okay, here's what I want you to do.

Elijah goes through the same thing. I'm out here hiding in a cave because I did it your way. Doesn't work. So I just want to die here in a cave. Get some sleep. We'll talk about it later. That was God's response. Get some sleep. We'll talk about it later.

All you see through the Bible is people learning how to submit and then learning how to surrender, to actually believe you know what you're doing. And how I feel isn't the issue.

How I feel isn't the issue. Only by doing things God's way that we actually learn how we're supposed to feel.

Turn to Proverbs 3. When we submit to God only because we want to reward or we're afraid of punishment, and that's what we start with. I mean, isn't that what you do with children?

A lot of children learn why, how. Fear of punishment or they want to reward. God does that with us. But as we mature, something else happens. Something else must happen in our relationship. Let me show you what I mean. How many times have you been at a public pool? I remember doing this with my own kids. And they got their floaties on. You know, they looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy. They couldn't drown if they tried. And they're standing on the side and they're standing on the side and Dad's out in the water saying, Jump! And they're going, Jump! I'll catch you!

Okay. Now, there's two things that happen here. One is, the Dad finally says, If you jump, I'll give you a donut. Or if you jump, if you don't jump, I'm going to spank you. In other words, reward or punishment. And the child jumps because they want the reward or the punishment.

And then, or the other thing is, Dad looks him in the eye and says, I'm going to catch you. And the child jumps because they trust the Dad. Two different things.

One is submission, the other is surrender. One is submission, the other is surrender.

The surrender is, Dad will catch me. But boy, is this scary and I don't like this.

And when I got in the water, I got some water up my nose, so you could, you know, but Daddy, you said you would catch me. I did, but I got water up my nose. I didn't tell you you wouldn't get water up your nose. I told you I'd catch you. Did you die? No? Well, I, you got some water up your nose. But okay, you caught me. Yeah. But even when I catch you, doesn't mean everything always is perfect. It's not exactly always the way we think it's going to be.

Proverbs 3 verse 5, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. And all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil. Then we read through those nice little, you know, they become cliches, Proverbs become cliches. And yet that's a very important lesson.

Don't always trust your own solutions. Trust God's. But a lot of times His solutions are different than ours. And I don't like that. I keep trying to make God, you know, just let me be the king of the world and I'll fix everything. Let me control everything. Of course that's stupid.

I mean, you talk about making seven billion people unhappy. Make me the king of the world.

It'd be a disaster. But we want the world to center around us. And God says, no, no, no, no. Don't trust your own understanding. Trust me. Trust what I say.

And when we do this, we begin to put God in our lives where He's supposed to be.

See, we deny God as having a rightful place in our lives. You're there to help me. You're there to forgive me. You're there to serve me. But, you know, you really don't understand what it's like, what I'm going through. And your solutions, come on. Okay, I'll go fishing, but it really isn't very smart. I will do this even though it seems silly. Or do we say, I trust, I know you know what you're doing, but it makes no sense to me. That's okay. It's okay to say that. God says, I know it doesn't make sense. It didn't make sense to Abraham except, huh, he wants me to kill him so he can resurrect him. This is painful, but he wants me to kill him so he can resurrect him. Okay. And in his mind, he'd already done it. That's the way he was able to deal with what God had asked him. Psalm 34, 18. Psalm 34, 18.

David writes, "'The Lord is near, He's near to those who have a broken heart and save such that have a contrite spirit.'" Now, does that mean God wants us to be depressed? No. But what it means is the broken part of us is our broken pride, our broken sin, our broken self-will, our broken selfishness, our stubbornness. Those things are broken so that we have said, I put my weapons down, I surrender.

I surrender because you know better than I do. You know what life is all about, and your solutions don't make sense, but I trust they're better than mine.

Submission is, I'll go fishing, but master, you know nothing about fishing.

Surrender is, I go fishing. I don't know what's going to happen next, but it's going to be interesting. I really don't know what's going to happen next, but it's going to be interesting because God's going to do something. That's surrender.

That's surrender. Isaiah 57. Here's what happens when we have this kind of spirit.

God inspires Isaiah in chapter 57, and verse 15. For it thus says, the high and lofty one, the Creator that's created everything, that's more powerful, more righteous, more good, is better than anything.

You know, and that's not arrogance on God's part. It's a statement of fact.

Statement of fact.

He says it inhabits an eternity, and His name is holy. He lives without time, and He is separate than everything. He's beyond everything. He's holy.

I dwell in the high and holy place with Him. Here's who He dwells with. Here's who He lives with. That's the idea that God lives with people. The idea that even Christ said, the Father and I will abide in you. We will live in you.

A relationship with God in which your mind and His mind is connected. That's what God wants.

I want to be connected to you. But for that to happen, you have to surrender to this, or we're just going to be in a fight. We're going to be a war for eternity. You saying, God, that's not a good idea. That's not how it should work. That's not what I want to do.

That won't make me happy.

God says, no, we can't live in war. I want to live in peace forever. So you're going to have to trust me here that I actually... Since I created everything, I know how this works.

And He says, here's the person I want to live with.

I will dwell in the high and holy place with Him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. He says, because I want to heal you. Now, the only way God says, I can heal you and really bring you joy and love and peace and long suffering and mercy and gentleness and faith. The only way that you can experience those things is you're going to have to let me take your pride and smash it all up and get rid of it and take your self-will and break it. It's broken. I got to break it all up, pound it, I get rid of it. I got to take this selfishness. I got to break it all up and get rid of it. And then you start to actually love each other. And that's when you really have joy.

That's when you really have happiness. Otherwise, we're just fighting each other all the time.

We're all in a war. And God says, surrender. The war should be over. You and I have been called to get out of the war. The word is now over. Surrender. Surrender. And part of this is this pride that we don't want to surrender because we'll lose control. If I surrender, I no longer have control. I don't have control of my life.

Let's go to James 4. James 4. Because this sort of brings all this now down into a couple of very important concepts.

Let's start in verse 6 because this is interesting.

James is talking about a lot of different things here. Talking about strife in chapter 4, verses 1 through 5. He's talking about why there's so much strife between people because there's strife between us and God. And then he quotes the book of Proverbs. He says, he gives more grace, but he gives more grace. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Grace is God's favor. It's where God is giving you what you can't have, what you don't have.

So God gives to us what we can't have when we surrender. But our fear is, if I lose control, if I give up control, I won't have what I want. And God says, no, it's the exact opposite. And that makes no sense to us. If I give up control and I let you control my life, then what if you decide that I should be persecuted? What if you decide that I'm never going to receive promotions in my job and I'll never make more money than I am right now? What if you decide that? Or what if you decide I'm going to become a prophet and I'm going to go out and have to walk around in goat skins and eat honey and locusts? I don't want that.

How do you decide that?

What if you decide for different priorities I have to give up a career, or that I have to make a marriage work that I really don't want to put that much work into it, but it says I have to. But that's not what I want.

And He says, well, you're going to have to trust Me, because then I will give you what you cannot do. See, the problem is so much in life we're faced with what we cannot do. We can't deal with the loss, the pain, the stress, failing health as you get older. And He says, I can't deal with this. And God says, I can give you what you cannot do. I can give that to you. But you're going to have to surrender to Me so I can give it to you. Or you're just going to be resisting Me all the time. I don't like getting older. I go to God all the time and say, I don't like this. I had to go buy new reading glasses because last week I could hardly read the Bible. And I complain to God about that. You know, next month I turn 63, my eyes should be back. Come on, give me some good eyesight, okay? Go get reading glasses. I don't like that solution. You're supposed to heal me. Come on, boy, just go get some reading glasses. Nope. So I didn't. For two months I didn't get reading glasses and I couldn't read anything. I could, but I was doing this. God, I don't like your solution. I don't want to buy because, you know, one more setting and I have to go get a prescription. Right? I just keep working through the reading glasses. One more setting and I got to go get a prescription. Nope, not going to do that. That's not the solution I wanted. I want you to give me perfect eyesight. I really have come to the conclusion. He may. I really doubt if he's going to do that.

I doubt if I wake up tomorrow and have perfect eyesight. I'm used to having really good eyesight. I'm losing something. This isn't fair. And it says, come on, just trust me a little bit. You're only going to live another 15 years anyway. Wow, okay. That puts a whole new light on it, doesn't it? Get glasses, boy. You're only going to live 15 more years. Then you get resurrected. Then you have to worry about eyesight. Everything is taken care of. See, it's a different viewpoint. The solutions are so different than what we think. Then he goes on, therefore, submit to God. Now, he talks about submitting to God, but he puts this in the context of more than just, okay, do what God says. Just do what God says. Look how James goes on and discusses this. Resist the devil. He will flee from you. Draw near to God. This is part of this relationship. I will dwell with him who gets all these things broken up, and so they surrender to me. And James is using the same context. Draw near to God. Don't just obey because he tells you to. Draw near to God because he's saying jump, and you have to trust he's going to catch you. You know what's so terrible to a child? When the father says, jump, and they're afraid, and then he doesn't catch them because he thinks it's funny. Because that breaks a trust. That breaks a trust. He says, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

He says, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your heart, you double-minded. To be double-minded is, I do what I'm told, but I don't think God knows what he's doing. I do what I'm told, but I just don't like this. I mean, I don't say we don't like a lot of things God tells us to do, but we have to trust. Double-minded is, I do it, but I don't trust him. I do it because I have to. I do it because I'm afraid he's going to hurt me. That's double-minded. I do it because I'm afraid he's going to hurt me. I really never expect him to catch me.

He says, he'll mare and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Oh, what's that mean? That means you get all crushed up here and it hurts. He's not saying that we're being depressed all the time. He says, but sometimes, to get broken so that God can work with you so you can surrender, that all this sin has to be sort of smashed up and broken, it's painful. It's painful to have parts of you who you are broken up and smashed up because God says, nah, that won't work. You've got to let go of that. You've got to let go of that envy. You've got to let go of that greed. You've got to let go of that lust. You just have to break this up and let go of it. If you don't, eventually you won't even submit to me because you'll figure out a way not to. It's a funny thing. If we don't submit to God because we really love Him, eventually we'll find a way not to submit. We'll find a way to compromise. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up. You know, thinking about the child jumping into the water, I've done it myself. I've watched scores of men do this over the years. Come on, jump out, catch you. And you know what happens when the child jumps into the water and they splash and they get some water up their nose, their eyes, and they're like shocked. And then you see the father hold him up.

Hold him up. You did it! You did it! Right? You see that all the time? You did it! You jumped! Now the child, the next time, jumps in by themselves. Or the next time dad says, jump, they do it. They trust. You don't have to give them a donut. They do it because they trust you. It's part of a relationship.

The benefit the child gets is the relationship. This is the way it is with God. Jump because I'm your father.

See, we... No, I'm going to submit because I have to. Jump! Boy, is this going to be exciting. But I'm scared. I know. But watch what happens. Watch what happens. And he lifts us up. James says he lifts us up.

In Luke 5 we read how Jesus, or Peter, submitted to Jesus. And at the end, he surrendered to Him. He submitted. In fact, it's a remarkable submission.

It is a remarkable submission. We're not going to catch any fish, but you're the master, so I'll do it. And it's a commendable obedience. But he found out God expected more of him. As a Jew, he was very submissive to God. He was very obedient to God. But he was afraid to jump.

Now Christ said, come on out, we're going to have you jump. Okay, but it won't work. And then he surrendered. Because as soon as they got the fish, he stopped working. It's very interesting. He went over, fell on his knees before Jesus, and said, you shouldn't even be in my boat. I'm not worthy to have you in my boat. He was surrendering. He was a broken… That part of me, that pride that I know better than you do, has been all broken up. And he was broken. And before him, and Jesus didn't correct him. You know what I said? He didn't correct him. He just helped him haul the fish in and rode into the shore. And then said, now you think that was an adventure. You can't believe what I'm going to have you do next. You think Peter would have followed him if he would have known that someday he would die for Jesus? Not at this point. He wasn't ready for that yet. He wasn't ready for that yet. But he was ready to start surrendering. Okay? We're okay. It's more than obedience here. I have to trust him. I have to trust him. What is the greatest act of surrender in the entire Bible? Anybody have an idea? It's him saying, if this can be taken away, let's do it. He knew the solution, and he's still saying emotionally, this solution is hard. Is there another solution? But not my will be done but yours. That is surrender. That's not submission. I mean, it is submission, but it's beyond submission. You see, it's beyond just, I obey. It is okay. This is what we have to do. And what's very interesting in Luke, Luke's account of that, you know, immediately, he goes back to God and he says he sends him an angel to help him. Then he goes back to the disciples and says, you guys are asleep, you have no idea what you're about to face. He was ready to face it because they show up and he walks out and greets the soldiers coming to get him. He's run away. Here I am. In other words, he surrendered. He even surrendered to the soldiers. When you and I keep the Passover, we will be celebrating this act of surrender that is to show us what surrender really is. We obey God's law and we submit to God's law. And then he says, but I want something else. I want you to trust me. I want you to take that obedience to another step that says, I obey you because I love you. Not because I want a reward or that I just fear punishment. Now we should want a reward and we should fear punishment. I mean, we don't give those things up, but they're not our main motivations. Our main motivations are, I trust you and you know what you're doing and I don't. So as we keep the Passover this year, think about how we submit to God, but think about how also we must surrender to God. And especially during that Passover service, really think about, here is the example of Jesus Christ who became flesh like us, so he could show us what it is like to surrender to God.