Total Surrender to God

There's an interesting account of Jesus' interaction with the Apostle Peter in Luke, Chapter 5. This is early in Jesus' ministry. It's just when he's launching his ministry. We know from this account that obviously Jesus and Peter had met before. Jesus or Peter's salutation to him shows that they had met before, that they knew each other. But it's a very interesting account here, and it's easy to zip through this and miss something that's very important.

What I want to talk about today in our relationship with God. Verse 1 of Luke, Chapter 5. So it was, as the multitude pressed about him to hear the word of God, that he stood at the lake of Genneth-Etereth, and saw two boats standing in the lake. But the fishermen had gone from them and were washing their nets. So the fishermen had come in. Now remember, Jesus is a professional fisherman. Now they would fish all night. They're bringing him and they're cleaning up their nets.

But he got into one of the boats, which was Simon. Now this is Peter, Simon Peter. And asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. So he goes up to Peter and says, Peter, can we use your boat? Because I need to talk to these people. And there's an interesting reason for this. One, if there's a lot of people, they can all see him.

But you know water, a sound travels over water. If you've ever been out in a boat fishing, the sound travels. So he gets out a little bit so his voice will travel to all the people. When he had stopped speaking, he said to Simon, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. Well, you know, if you've ever been fishing and you like to go fishing early in the morning and they might be running even before dark, there reaches a point where that sun comes off and it's 10 o'clock in the morning and you're not going to catch any fish.

Right? You know it. You keep fishing, but you're not going to catch anything. Because it's just that point where they're not feeding and time changes. So he says, I want you to go out in the deep and let's go catch some fish. But Simon answered, verse 5 and said to him, Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing. He said, Master, okay, Rabbi, Rabbi, you may be really good at the book of Isaiah, but you obviously know nothing about fishing. Okay. This isn't how it works. It's not a good time to catch fish.

We just been out all night. We're tired. We really love listening to you teach. We're glad you came and taught us, but you know something? This isn't what fishing is all about. This doesn't work. I'm a professional fisherman. Take it from me. But then Peter submits to it. Notice what he says. Nevertheless, at your word, I will let down the net. Now, Peter isn't like, oh good, this is exciting. Oh great, we're going to go catch some fish.

What Peter says is, Rabbi, you don't know much about fishing, but I will submit to you. I'll submit to you. So, verse 6, but Simon, or verse 6, and when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. Well, this is the time to catch fish. They throw over the net, and there's so many fish in the net that their net's breaking. So they signaled to their partners on the other boat to come and help them.

And they came and filled both boats so that the boats began to sink. Well, this guy knows a little about fishing. Okay? Wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. This isn't how fishing works. Understand? This isn't how fishing works. Peter knew it wasn't how fishing works, and it was like, okay, we're not going to catch anything. But because you're the rabbi, I know there's a lot of fish in it. Now, at this point, there's nothing that shows that he understood him as the Messiah, okay? Later, you see Peter acting different towards him.

There's nothing at this point. This is early in his ministry. Peter's a fisherman, and there's nothing for him that leads at this point to show that he believed he was the Messiah. But he did believe he was a man of God. And how this thing's happening is a miracle.

They began to sink. Now, remember, Jesus is on the boat with Peter. It's what happens next that's very important, because this is what the sermon is about. Our need to submit to God, but it's not enough. And Simon Peter saw it, and he fell at Jesus' knees, saying, now, in front of everybody, he gets down on his knees before Jesus Christ. His head bowed down so that he's at his knee level, and he says, depart for me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord. I submitted to you, but I had not surrendered to you. I did what you asked.

But now I know what I am before you, and I'm nothing. Verse 9, And he and all who were with him were astonished that the catch of fish was they had taken. And so also were now here's two of his fellow fishermen. Interesting. James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, Do not be afraid, from now on you will catch men. You may have submitted to me, but now everything in your life is going to change because you are going to surrender to me. Now, notice what they did. Verse 11, And when they brought their bows to land, they had a giant fish fry, and went out the next night and fished. That's not what it said. So when they brought their bows to land, they forsook all and followed him. They walked away from their businesses, their jobs. They walked away from some friends. They walked away from a comfortable family life. And they said, We will follow you. Now, there is a huge difference between, yeah, okay, you don't know what you're doing, but I'll submit to you because, well, you're the boss. And I will surrender to you because you are my God. Those are two different things. And yet, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes. It is actually easier to submit than it is to surrender, and the truth is, most of us are still trying to deal with submitting. Most of us are still trying to deal with submitting, let alone surrendering. Let's look at another example. Why is it so hard to surrender? Now, it's hard to submit enough to submit. Okay, God, I don't want to do this. I don't like it, but I'll do it anyways. Okay, that's submission. And the Bible says we are to submit to God. And at the early stages of many things, you do it not because you really want to, but because, well, God wants it. You're not even sure it'll work out. Sometimes you have no faith, but you do it because, well, He's God and I have to do it. But that's not surrendering.

That's not surrendering. Look at a man who had to surrender to God. Genesis 22, another well-known story. But we put these things together and we began to see that many times we will submit to the law of God. Many people who have been in the church for an extended period of time will submit to the law of God, but they have not surrendered to God. If you simply submit to the law of God and have not surrendered to God, you eventually will find a way to break the law of God. Or you will submit to, well, you can submit to a lot of things. You'll submit to other people. You'll submit to a relative. You'll submit to something that God doesn't want you to submit to. Genesis 22. We like this story, but understand that every person's life, and every person's life, we will have to make some choices like this.

Not this exact choice, thank God for that. But we will have to make choices in which we will have to decide not to submit to God, but to surrender to God. Not just to submit, but to surrender. Now it came to pass, verse 1, after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and he said, Here I am. He said, Take down your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go into the land of Uriah and offer them here there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. Now God has never asked me to do anything even closely that hard. But in every way, in every one of our lives, there will come more than once. It happened more than once to Abraham. It happened more than once to Peter. It's interesting to read about the life of Peter as he grew, and he submitted and submitted and submitted and it eventually surrendered. The life of Peter is abandoned and submitted for years, and then finally surrendered. He and Jesus were having conflicts once in a while, because He kept submitting.

But until you surrender, there will always be a point of conflict between you and God.

You know, what happens when an army surrenders? They give up their weapons and there is no longer a conflict. That's what surrender is. When you surrender, you give up your weapons and there is no longer a conflict. You don't fight anymore. You do what the conquerors tell you to do. Well, that's what this is. You and I are the enemies of God, before He calls us. That's what the Scripture says. We are the enemies of God. At some point, we surrender and say, the fighting has stopped and I do. And we surrender. And we surrender and do what you want me to do, because I want to. I put down my weapons. I no longer have any weapons. So you can continue. We can continue to submit to God and never surrender to Him. It's actually possible to do that. I'll show you as we go on what I mean by that.

Abraham is told to do the impossible. He is told to do something that appears to be evil.

Now, we're going to have to go through this and say, how did Abraham come to this conclusion? Did Abraham say, well, you know, God's evil, so I'll submit to whatever God wants. That to kill your son, by definition of good in the Bible, is evil. Unless there's a purpose or reason. I mean, I'll submit to God that I'll hate his guts for it. What if I'd known people that have been asked by God, you know, if you follow this way, your husband will leave you. I've seen it happen where a person had to decide. You know, I had one of my, or two of my brothers-in-law came into the church, and in each case, one case only one parent did, and in the other case, neither of the parents did. And at 17, he came into this way of life, and his parents basically, they didn't disown him, but it wasn't easy.

He had to choose between his family at 17 and God. He chose God. Now, personally, he has a wonderful relationship with his parents to this day. In fact, they're elderly, and he takes care of them. But he had to make that choice at 17. All of us are going to have to make those choices. And some people decide, no, my job is more important than God, then you make that choice. But we have to, at some point, understand we must submit to God. But surrendering is more than just submitting. Just like Peter submitted, you know, the story is so obvious, he submits, and then, not too long or later, when he's got a lot of notice sinking from the amount of fish, he goes and surrenders. Please, leave me alone, because you're so great, you're so wonderful, and I am nothing before you.

And he surrendered. What does he do? Verse 3, so Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him, and I think his son. And he split the wood for the bird offering, he rose and went to the place which God had told him. And on the third day, Abraham lifted his eyes and saw the place afar off. I find, I mean, asking the killing son is amazing. What I find amazing is God made him think about it for three days. You think Abraham slept during those three days? What do you think went through his mind for those three days? Do I love God enough? Do I love God? Do I trust God enough that I will do this? Because I love him and I trust him. I could come up with a thousand reasons to decide that God was wrong here. Could you? I could come up with a thousand reasons why God is wrong. And you don't know much about fishing, then Peter approached. You really don't know much about fishing. I'll throw the net over, but you know what? This won't work and you're going to look really foolish. Or, I will do what you ask because I believe in you. Because I believe that you love me and my son Isaac, and I believe in the promises, and I will do it because you're that good. You're that good and I'm not. It's like Peter's second approach, which was, depart from me because I'm a nothing compared to you. See, we're all in a power struggle with God. We're in a power struggle with God. Now, we don't want to surrender. We want to submit, but we don't want to surrender. He goes on and says, so Abraham took the wood. Verse 5, he tells a young man to stay there, and he goes up with Isaac, and he takes the wood and the knife. For seven, Isaac spoke to Abraham and said, My father, and he said, Here I am, my son. And he said, Look, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a 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. Verse 9, he builds the altar. He puts the wood on the altar, and he takes Isaac, and he lays him down to hear also what's so amazing. It sounds the Holy Name of Abraham. It doesn't tell the conversation. I wonder how long this conversation was. I wonder how long the two of them sat there and cried. As he said to Isaac, You're the sacrifice. God has asked for you to be the sacrifice. Abraham was an old man. He's over a hundred years old. You think Isaac could outrun even I could outrun a hundred-year-old man? Well, some of them.

He can outrun him. He can beat him up. He can do whatever he wants. Isaac does not have to submit. This isn't submission. You know, submission is, okay, God, I'll go fishing.

Surrender is, okay, God, I'll let you kill me. That's surrender. Why would Isaac submit to this? We actually know why, the Bible tells us. Why would Isaac submit to this? Why would he surrender his life? Actually surrender his life. Why would Abraham surrender the life of his son? This goes way beyond submission. And he's called the father of the faithful, the example for our lives. And I can't protect myself, and I can't protect you from the fact that the Almighty God, our loving God at times, is going to ask us, do you love me, and do you trust me enough? Because what I'm going to ask of you is surrender.

Some people won't surrender to God. They just won't? But God required them to surrender.

We know the story. Isaac surrendered, he submitted. He raised the knife, and God said, don't do this. I wasn't, I was going to make you do this. But you had to surrender. And Abraham's mind, he killed his son. He didn't say, oh, thank you, Lord, you stopped me because I wasn't going to do this. When he stopped him, he was in the action of doing it. And Isaac was in the action of closing his eyes and getting ready to die because, well, if this is what God wants, I surrender to the will of God. Did he understand it? No. Surrender doesn't always mean understanding. It means you lay aside your weapons. You do say, I will not fight you anymore because you know what you're doing and I don't. You are greater than I. You are more worthy than I am. My boat is filled with fish. It shouldn't happen. You are more worthy than me. So I am down at your knees worshiping you. You cannot become a true Christian without surrender. I see lots of people in my life submit, submit, submit. It's hard to surrender. We'll explain why in a little bit. This is all based on the fact that you believe God will provide. See, we can submit because I'm not sure this will work, but you're bigger than I am, so I'll do it. This is a good time to fish, but I'll put my nets over the side. You told me to. Or we can put our nets over the side and say, I don't know what's about to happen, but whatever it is, it's going to be interesting, because God, if nothing else, is interested. But there's some point we believe it's good.

It's good. And at some point we say, my life has no value except with you. Because it has no value except with you, I surrender it to you. I don't surrender my money. You know, people say, well, I surrender my... I give my tithes. Now, when you give tithes, you're just submitting to God. That is a requirement. If you don't tithe, you will be cursed. It's that simple.

Well, I do this, I do that, but have you surrendered?

When we talk about surrendering, it means to accept God's right over your life. Now, there is, in every one of us, I have it, you have it, I've never met a human being that doesn't have it.

There is an emotional and mental process that keeps us from surrendering to God.

And it is highly emotional. And it's a process that's actually inside of every one of us. Inside every one of us is a process. You have to understand, it's inherent. It's in us. It was developed in us before we even were conscious, or while we were too conscious, you know, a little baby, unable to understand what was happening. But it isn't a complicated, it is a process that seems logical, and it is highly emotional. It is driven by how you feel. And this process, the emotional and intellectual process that keeps us from surrendering to God and let us submit, but not surrender, is called pride.

It's a simple word, pride. But pride is the incredibly complicated process inside the human being.

You know, I talked about the sermon a few weeks ago. I talked about a servanthood.

But everything we seem to talk about, we talked about cleaner and clean meats, of why that's, you know, a holiness issue. All the things we talk about, but every issue that we talk about, whether each of us surrender to the Word of God or not, depends on pride.

No matter what the issue is, it depends on pride. That process we all have that we all go through.

Well, so I'm not proud. Every human being is proud. And I'm talking about the wrong way. And sometimes we're not pride, pride, don't have pride in the right way. I mean, there's the right kind of pride, you know. You do a good job and you step back and say, wow, that looks good, that's a good job. That's the right kind of pride.

So let's look at how pride keeps us from surrendering to God.

First point, pride is an inflated view of self. Here's what it is.

Now, maybe you haven't done this, okay? I'm going to confess here because I've done this.

I like being an assistant to God. And He assists my life. Okay, God, I'm doing it pretty good here. I'm making all my decisions. I have a problem. Would you assist me? And I'll assist you. Or I like to cooperate with God. You know, God, can't we just cooperate here? Maybe we'll come up with a better solution than yours.

Maybe the net shouldn't be thrown over the side right now. What if the others had some rest and we'll come back out tonight? Okay? And we'll cooperate with each other.

Pride, because we have an exaggerated viewpoint of self, we actually think that we are dealing with an equal.

So we negotiate with God.

We negotiate with Him. And we see ourselves when we're cooperating with God. And we submit. Oh, yeah, I submit. I don't steal. I'm submitting to God.

Remember when an army surrenders, it's not like, oh, okay, well, tomorrow let's play another battle.

When an army surrenders, they give their lives to the conquerors. I mean, how many times in history what does an army do when they conquer another army? They bow down their arms. They go in and kill all of them.

Because when you surrender, you've given your life to the conquerors. You don't know what the conqueror is going to do. What's nice about God is we know what his motivation is. We don't always don't know what he's going to do, but we know what his goals are. We know what the conclusions of what he does.

Everything he does has a conclusion that we can know. Now, the journey between now and the conclusion, sometimes, that's tough.

But the conclusions are always there. He always tells you, this is the end.

This is what I want to do with your life. We always don't know how he's going to get us there.

Do we surrender? Do we surrender? Proverbs 3. Proverbs 3.

Verse 5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Every bit of our emotional being, every bit of our motivations, our deepest thoughts, has to be based on trusting God.

And if we don't do that, what happens when the times come when he says, surrender, we take up our arms and we fight God. We fight him.

But God, if I do it that way, you know what I may lose?

That says, well, you know what you will gain if you do it my way? But you know what we're always afraid of is losing.

I'll lose this if I do it God's way.

So we fight him. We fight him. And we refuse to surrender.

But God says, yeah, but what I'm going to give you makes this look insignificant.

But we can't give it up. We can't give it up.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and leave God on your own understanding.

This is that process of pride. It is an emotional process. It is a thought process.

And it motivates us.

It motivates us. So we won't submit. And when we do submit, we won't surrender.

And all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths.

Do not be wise in your own eyes. Fear the Lord and depart from evil.

And it will be health to your flesh and strength to your bones.

He says your life will be so much better, but you do we believe that.

And most of the time, actually, we don't.

We don't believe our lives will be better by obeying God.

I'll cast my net over, but you're not much of a fisherman. See, how much are we saying that to God? Or I'm not going to cast my nets over now. I've been out all night. Okay?

You don't know anything about fishing.

Is that how we approach submitting to God?

But at that point, we're still a long way from surrender.

To giving up of life.

I think gave up life.

You know, when I talked about that, let me go back and show you why they were able to do that. Let's go to...

Let's see, where do I want to go? Hebrews...

I did write it down. In fact, I remember where it is. Hebrews 11. Let's go to Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11. Let's start in verse 17. By faith, Hebrews 11, 17. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac. And he who had received the promise offered up his only begotten son. Now, realize what that statement is. God had promised Abraham something. He said, I'm going to give you a child, and Isaac is the child. He had had Ishmael, and God said, no, that's not the child I'm going to give you. But poor Ishmael had been told all his life, you are the son of promise. And then one day, Abraham sent him down and says, God, you're not the son of promise.

To this day, Arab peoples feel cheated out of their promise. It's become a generational effect, passed on to them. But we were told we were the children of promise.

It's amazing how things can pass on from generation to generation. The sins of the fathers are visited upon the third and fourth generation. And here it is, hundreds and hundreds of generations, and it's still my promise.

And my cousins over there stole my promise.

My brother stole my promise.

But Isaac was promised to have children. How do you kill the man, or boy, he might have been a young man at the time. How do you kill this boy and have children?

How did Isaac reason it out so that he surrendered his life to die?

I don't know about you. I've never been asked by God to surrender my life to die. I hope I've never asked that.

It's not just Abraham. He has a surrender. How did Abraham surrender, I will kill my own son, I will give up my own son?

Because I love you and I trust you. He didn't do this hating God. He didn't do this saying, you're no different than the pagans. He didn't do this with that attitude. He did it with surrender. He was torn up. He was sad. He was despondent. I mean, what are his emotions? How can we even understand the level of what he's going through? And yet, he's doing it. Why?

How much do you trust God? Here's what Abraham did, verse 18.

Of whom it is said, And I that your seed shall be called, Wait a minute, by killing, I have no seed, I have no promise, I have no nation, I have none of the things you promised me. Concluding, this is Abraham's thought process that overrides his emotional process.

He couldn't just do this by submitting this to surrender. You don't let your own father cut your throat by submitting. It's through surrender. Concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

He sat down with Isaac and said, I'm going to cut your throat and bleed you out and burn you up, and that God is going to resurrect you. Do you believe it? And Isaac said, yes. Yes, because he promised me. He promised me, and I know he loves me, so therefore I will let you slit my throat, and I will let you burn my body up, and then he'll resurrect me and we'll give each other a big hug.

Now that is surrender. It's not just Abraham here, it's Isaac. That's surrender. You and I have to surrender to God, and every one of us from time to time will face a point in life where we must surrender. And we may lose something in the process. Well, we have to believe that's okay. God said, whatever I give you will make this look insignificant. That's a remarkable conclusion, isn't it? Either Abraham was a crazy man, either he was a crazy man willing to kill his own son, or he was a man who believed God and believed God loved him and loved God back so much that he said, it's a horrible price, but I'm bowing at your knees, depart from me, I'm not even worthy to be around you, so whatever you ask of me is good.

Second point about pride. Pride can act very moral and respectable. A very prideful person can keep the Ten Commandments in the letter very exactly. A very prideful person, many times, is very cognitive of their own keeping of the letter of the Ten Commandments. And they are also very aware of everybody else's faults. A prideful person always looks at everybody else and is always looking at everybody else's faults. That's how they spend their time. If you say, I don't have any pride, then we first have to say, okay, are you willing to sacrifice your life for God?

Well, how much do you mean? See, that's my question to God all the time. I want to cooperate here. But how much do you mean? And he says, well, I mean everything. Well, okay, let's negotiate. Okay, let's negotiate, God. I could keep this much of my life. Maybe you've never done that. I do. I try to negotiate instead of surrender. Whenever I surrender, life turns out good. Whenever I don't and you try to negotiate with God, boy, are we overmatched. We're just overmatched here. So, as you're always trying to negotiate with God, you're refusing to surrender. You're refusing to even submit. Then that's pride. If you find yourself constantly being driven by condemning others, looking at others, looking at others, finding their sins, that's pride.

That's pride. Mark 12. Mark 12. It's funny, the more pride we have, the more we'll argue that we don't have it. Mark 12. 38. Then He said to them in His teaching, now this is Jesus, Beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, and best eats in the synagogue, in the best places of the feast, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense to make long prayers.

These will receive greater condemnation. The condemnation here comes from God. So in other words, if we find ourselves always trying to say, I need to be the center of attention, and everybody else isn't as good as me, and everybody else gets better privileges than I do, then that's pride. Because you're looking at other things and other people and not at God. This was in fact like Peter being in the boat, and the two boats are sinking, and he looks at Jesus and says, James and John have more fish than I do.

The boats are sinking because God's giving all this blessing. And here argument is, James and John got more fish. What does Peter do when he finally realizes, whoa, whoa, I submitted, but now I need to surrender? He fell at his knees. He's down on the boat, bottom of the boat, saying, maybe, maybe just leave me alone, because I'm not worthy of this. I'm not worthy of you. And Jesus didn't say, that's right, Peter, you low-life.

What did Jesus say to him? Good! You surrendered! Now come follow me. You can't believe what we have to do. Do you think Peter at that moment realized? Of course he did. What was going to happen? That he was going to travel all over the world preaching the gospel? He was going to be put in prison. He was going to have, you know, the life half beat at it at times. He was going to spend decades serving God. That he was going to walk through places and say, be healed, that people were going to be healed. Do you think that was going to happen?

No! He just thought, well, I guess the rabbi needs some help. But I better surrender to him because this isn't some horrible guy! God has come into each one of your lives. He's come into all of our lives. And we get caught up in this pretense. This is the emotional process and the intellectual process, known as pride. Third point, pride denies God's rightful place in our lives. Once again, it makes him somebody we can negotiate with.

We don't have to totally surrender. God, you really don't mean, I have to give up all my drinking buddies, right? You really don't mean that. Well, yeah, I do. No, you don't. Let's negotiate that. Hey, you know, God, if you let me spend Friday nights with my drinking buddies, I might be able to convert them. No, I want you to give them up. No, no, I didn't. You don't know much about you and relationships, do you? I can help convert these people.

No, no, I'm telling you that don't do that. And I can show you lots of places in the Bible where it says, don't hang out with drinking buddies, okay? It's there. But I'll help convert my drinking buddies.

So you end up in jail for drunk driving, and you say, God, why did you do this to me? And there's no answer. Why has God abandoned me? And there's no answer. This is what we do all the time. Psalm 34, 18. Psalm 34, 18. The Lord is near. How much do you want God near you? Sometimes you can submit to God and never even have a relationship with Him. Oh, yeah, I don't have any idols in my house.

I'm submitting to God. I don't take God's name in vain. I'm submitting to God. But surrender to God? Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm a Texan. I don't surrender to anybody. I hate to tell you this, but Texas is not the kingdom of God. The United States is not the kingdom of God. It's a great place to live, but it's not the kingdom of God. Better than most places that live, but it's not the kingdom of God. The Lord is dear to those who have a broken heart and save such as have a contrite spirit.

In that contrite spirit, if you look that up the way it can be translated, in fact, in some translations it's translated, crushed in spirit. God is close to people who are crushed in spirit. So we say, oh, well, God's close to people who are depressed. God is close to people who have low self-esteem and walk around feeling sad all the time. That's not what it says. That's not what it means. Crushed in spirit.

You and I will never surrender to God until we go through a very, very painful process. And I wish I could say this happens once in your life, but it doesn't. It happens multiple times in your life. But we'll never surrender to God until there is a point when you let God crush your self-will. You let God crush your pride. You let God crush your sinful habits.

It's painful, but that's what this means. I will never be near to God. And you know when you're most close to God? You say, well, I'm close to God because I'm sad or depressed. But sometimes we're sad or depressed over life or things that happen to us. That's not what he's talking about here. My girlfriend dropped me, so now I'm crushed. So I'll be close to God. Well, what he means is when things happen to you, you go to God and say, okay, God, my life isn't working out. I surrender to you.

So if that wasn't the girl I was supposed to marry, I surrender you to bring the right woman into my life.

Boy, I've talked to people who have told me, oh, no, I don't ask God to help me in the person I marry because I want to pick the kind of person I want to marry. I've actually had people tell me that. Well, that's why you've been divorced three times. So that's why you've been divorced three times. Well, yeah, but God might not pick the right person. What if God doesn't pick anybody for me? Now, that's hard. That's hard. I was blessed with a wonderful marriage.

But I know people that have had to go through hard times. But, you know, everybody has their burdens. Everybody has their burdens. And everybody has to surrender to God. There's some point where God has to crush that pride because this is not a warfare between equals. And God will not accept you and I to be at war with Him forever. Could you imagine if He changes us and we're fighting forever? He won't accept that. There's some point where we say, you know what you're doing. I surrender to you. I lay down my weapons. My life is yours. If you wish to sacrifice me, do so. And I will praise you while you do it.

It's a different kind of Christianity, isn't it? Well, isn't that what Abraham did? Peter started with, you know, much of a fisherman. And Peter ended up being killed for Christ. It's quite a change, isn't it? How do you go from one point to the other point? You go from submission to surrender. Yes, Lord, I will make this marriage work.

Because I surrender to you.

Yes, Lord, I will give up the booze. Because I surrender to you.

Yes, Lord, whatever the price, I will do it. Because you're that important. See, what we're in is a power struggle with the most powerful being in the universe.

So, there's a couple points in the prophets where God says, I laugh at them. Yeah, okay, let's fight. You know, let's fight. Go ahead. Give me your best shot.

And so we're in a fight with God.

This broken spirit is a hard thing. But you know something? Because sometimes it's not like low self-esteem. Oh, I'm a bad person. I'm a terrible person. I can't feel good about myself. It has to do with relating to God and saying, as Peter said, I'm unworthy before you. You really are that great. So I surrender to you. Isaiah 57.

Isaiah 57, verse 15.

For thus says the high and lofty one. I like the way God puts this. So thus says the one who really is greater than all of us. Now, you know, God isn't a prideful being. He's simply stating the facts. You know, God's not ashamed of who He is. Well, okay, I'm God, but I wish I wasn't God. You know, there's too many responsibilities here, and I'm really not qualified to be God. In fact, would you be God for me? We don't, oh yeah, great. It's about time you step aside, right? That God is, He's not ashamed of who He is, because He is who He is, and He knows. He's self-aware of His own perfection. And He says, thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity. He's, I live for eternity, folks. I was there before there was anything. I'll be there as far as you can think of it in the future. I'll always be there. I inhabit eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place. I dwell in the high and holy place with all good. We'll know who God lives with. I want to live with God. Don't you want to live with God? Is there some point we all have to get tired of living with ourselves? Do you want to live with God every day in your life? Do you want to live with God? Well, this is who God lives with. I 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 God who I once. He says, I want to revive your spirit. I want to give you purpose and meaning and happiness. God wants to make you happy. Here's the great deceiver of pride. Pride tells us that we're the... I'm the only one who can determine how I'm happy. That's what pride tells us. I'm the only one who can tell me how I'm happy. And everybody and everything else that keeps me from being happy is evil and bad. And God says, I will revive you, but I can't do it when you see life that way. I can't do it. Why? Because we won't let Him.

We won't surrender. We'll only submit. The fourth point, pride causes us to believe that we're the center of the universe. One of the biggest drawbacks we have to surrender to God is it is absolutely frightening. Surrendering to God is absolutely frightening because you're giving up control. What's the thing we all fear the most? Not having any control. That's what you and I fear the most in life. What's the worst thing you can think of?

How about being in a prison in one cell in darkness when, what, today someone comes in and brings you a little bit of... gives you some gruel and takes out the pot that you went to the bathroom in? No control. If we all talked about our greatest fears, how horrible would it be to be totally paralyzed?

No control. No control over anything. Now, what's interesting about God is the more you give control to Him, the more things work out the way they're supposed to. But He's just our greatest fear. God is asking every one of us to face our greatest fear and say, you control it, okay? Take your son and go sacrifice. Well, He can outrun me and tell him and your son says, well, if that's what God wants, I don't understand this, but, you know, when He resurrects me, we'll talk to Him about it. But He resurrects me. Because He said, I would have children and I don't have any kids yet, so...

If He'd already had kids, He'd probably be really scared. Although, this is it! But He hadn't any kids yet! You don't think they were scared to death? You don't think they were petrified? You don't think they were crying out to God?

You don't think tears were running down their faces? When Abraham licked at his knife, the knife had shut his eyes. But why were they willing to do that? Even that's a myth. You see why people make it a myth? How cruel God is! No, it's not. The point is, we weren't designed to be our own gods. We were designed to be His children.

You know what that means? We have to let Dad run the household. And that's what we know what to do. But we were designed to be gods. We were designed to choose right, or know the difference between right and wrong, and choose, okay, I decide this is good and this is evil. We don't have the ability to make up what's good and evil. Only God can tell us that. We don't have that ability. We were designed to be literally be pending gods. We're designed to be His children. And so we live in this fear, giving it up. Giving up control is frightening. Because what if God says, what happens when God says, okay, I'm not going to heal you?

What happens when He decides that? Why, I've submitted, I've submitted, I've submitted. Didn't we hate Him? This isn't easy. This is tough. We all have our struggles with God. If you never struggle with God, even you're totally surrendered to Him, or you haven't even faced this yet. Maybe your life's a lot easier than mine. But I've tried to negotiate, I've tried all of it. Being His assistant, you and me, God, yeah, I'll just assist you.

I've tried the cooperation. Hey, look, I'm cooperating with you, okay? I've tried, you know, a bunch of fishermen, but I'll do it anyways. I've tried all of it. I think it even works just when I surrender. I said, it works. I said, then it works.

Now, that doesn't make sense to us. And yet, it's the truth. It only works when you surrender. When you finally say, okay, I'll let my father cut my throat. Okay, I will cut the throat and burn the body of my son. And then when He's resurrected, we'll ask you why. We all have to go there. The last point. This is real important. I mentioned I would like to do a sermon on negative emotions, and I still haven't put it all together. Then I'll spot off another sermon.

I'm working on another sermon on resentment. And it's like every time I prepare a sermon, it always spins off two or three other sermons. Pride, and I want you to listen to this. Pride enslaves us to certain emotions. If you are driven all the time, I mean it's a regular, daily, normal expression that you are driven by anger towards other people. It's pride. If you are driven by bitterness towards other people, you just are bitter towards other people all the time, and you have lots of people in your life you're bitter towards, that's pride.

If you see yourself as a victim, everybody's bad to be. That's pride.

When we find ourselves enslaved to anger, bitterness, and feeling like a victim, that is actually pride. And at that point, you cannot respond to God. You may even submit once in a while, but you will not surrender to God.

You're letting other people keep you from God.

Surrending your life means giving up control. Now, God doesn't say you don't have control over nothing. That's what's so interesting. When you give up control, He gives a little back. And the closer you are to Him, the more control He gives you.

It's not like, oh, I give up, I'm going to go lay in my bed and wait for God to hurt me.

The more you give up control to God, the more He gives you back. You know why He gives it back to you? Because you learn how to use it. Oh, I know how to use control now. And the more you... that's why the Bible says, you know, one of the fruits of God's Spirit is what? Self-control. You say, well, how can I be a fruit of God's Spirit? Because you give up control, then He teaches you control.

And He gives it back to you a little piece at a time as you learn it. So one of the fruits of God's Spirit is that God controls everything you do. It's self-control.

Taught by God.

Taught by God.

But the only way we ever get out of this is, you know, it's just the world is angry and bitter and...

Well, that's what, you know, the gauntlet you had to run through out there before services. And we were saying, you know what we were talking about? We were talking about different things. We were talking about when Jim Dove beat me up one time. But we were talking about how crazy people are getting. Every place we go, people are crazy. Absolutely crazy. The world is going crazy. And people are filled with anger, and they're filled with bitterness, and they're filled with these things. That's pride.

And everybody sees themselves as a victim. That's pride.

James, chapter 4.

Here's the encouraging set of verses on dealing with this issue of what we're talking about. James chapter... I'm sorry, James chapter 4. James 4.

It's part of the problem of the self-esteem movement. You know what people are taught in the self-esteem movement is the purpose of life is to always feel good about yourself. And anybody or anything that doesn't make you feel good about yourself is bad.

You know what that is? That's pride. We have an entire society that teaches our children to have a wrong kind of pride.

The purpose of life is to feel good about yourself. The purpose of life is to be happy because you're in a right relationship with God and a right relationship with other people. If we're not in a right relationship with God, you know what? You can't be in a right relationship with other people. Not in a godly sense. Oh, you can have friends. Yeah, you can have drinking buddies. But you can't have a right relationship with other people, especially other people of God, unless you have a right relationship with God first.

If you surrender to God, it gets a whole lot easier. That isn't what James says in verse 6. But he, talking about God, gives more grace. Do you want God's grace? Do you want God's favor? Do you want God's blessing? Do you want God's mercy? Well, here's how to get more grace from God. God will just give you and give you. This is the way God is. God is a giver. He gives and gives and gives and gives.

And the most important thing we want is His grace. His absolute attention. His favor. His forgiveness.

Grace is a huge concept. He says, you want more of it? Okay. Then he quotes the Old Testament. Therefore, he says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. You want to be pushed away from God? You feel pushed away from God? There's times in my life I felt pushed away from God.

And I'll just tell you from experience. I've never been pushed away from God because He was having a bad day. And I've never been pushed away from God because He was throwing a temper tantrum, like the 11-year-old boy in the Exodus movie.

Every time I've been pushed away by God, it was because of my problem.

I've only lived 58 years, so maybe I don't know. But I can only tell you from 58 years' experience. Well, not quite.

I really started to understand God a little bit when I was 7, so I'll say, for 51 years of experience, I've been pushed away at times.

God has resisted me at times. He was always mindful. Always.

So if you're being pushed away from my God, God resists the pride. He resists us in this prideful state. He pushes us away. But gives grace, His favor, His love pours out, or what? The humble. Humble doesn't mean that you hate yourself or you just walk around saying, everybody hates you. No, you just get the good job because I'm not worthy of that. I'm going to go live in a cave someplace because I'm not worthy of that. That's not humility. I don't know what that is. I really don't. That's some kind of mental problem.

Humility is what Peter showed when he submitted and then said, oh, my, I need to surrender at the knees of Jesus said, I'm not worthy to be around you. And Jesus said, good, come be around me. You know what He said to him? Come follow me. Let's be around each other all the time, Peter. You and I don't get along just fine.

He gives all he says, therefore, submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

Go to God and say, give me a contrite heart. I don't know what that means. Give it to me. But in mercy, please.

You don't want to just ask, okay, God, make me humble. Don't do that.

Go and say, God, in Your love, in Your grace, in Your mercy, help me to learn to be humble.

Because if you just go say, God, you know what? I can handle this. Make me humble. And then the next day you wake up and your house is burnt down and your wife left you and your car blew up and your dog died. And they fired you from your job and you break out in boils. Sounds like Job doesn't.

So don't get in a fight. Don't go pick a fight with God.

Just go to God and say, I want to have a contrite heart. This will tell you how much you will just surrender to God.

Will you take time to pray even fast? Will you take time to pray fast? And go to God and say, give me a contrite and humble heart. If you won't do it, why?

Ask yourself, if I won't go fast and pray for a contrite and humble heart, give it to me in mercy and talk to me. Why won't you do it? It's either because you believe you already have it, which is an issue of pride, or you don't want it, which is an issue of pride.

See, I'm sorry. There are certain alleys you could down there. There are blind alleys. There's no way out of it. This is what God does. He puts us in an alley where there's no way out.

Why wouldn't we do this? He says, draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Clend your hands, you sinners. Purify your heart. You double-minded.

Here's what it is if you're not surrendered to God. You have a double mind. You submit to God when you want to, and you don't submit to God when you don't want to. And you live a double life. You honor your parents when you want to honor your parents.

And you don't honor your parents when you don't want to honor your parents. Like Mr. Brooks said, you give and serve and love others when you want to, and you don't when you don't want to.

Everything is about your criteria, not God's. So you're double-minded. You live two ways at one time.

It's the greatest danger facing the church. We're half in the world and we're half in God's way. And we live half and half. We're double-minded. Why are we double-minded? Is it because we're not submitting to God?

Well, most of you are at least keeping the Ten Commandments, right? You're not worshiping idols. Most of you keep the Sabbath. Most of you aren't committing adultery.

But have you surrendered to God?

Or are we double-minded?

Verse 9 says, well, meds and mord and weep. Why do you know God wants us to be depressed? No, He's saying, go through the process of having your spirit crushed once in a while.

Go through the process of going before God occasionally and saying, give me a contrite and crushed spirit in mercy, in gentleness, but I wish to surrender to you and I don't know how. How do I lay down my arms?

I've been shooting at you all my life. Tell me to lay down my arms, God. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. And what will happen?

How will yourselves in the sight of the Lord have He will lift you up?

God will bring you up out of despair. God will bring you up out of this feeling of absolute worklessness. God will bring you up out of your sins. God will bring you up from where you are. But how does He lift you up? Because you go, let Him lift you up. And you let Him lift you up by surrendering to it.

I lay down and you may lift me up. Remember having your child for the first time jump into the swimming pool? And you're standing here saying, jump? Now every once in a while you and that kid, I raise and they jump, but they're jumping the pool. But you know, not most of them do that. You know what they mostly do?

Daddy will catch you. Now you can make him submit. If you don't, I will smack you. Right? Or you can make him surrender. And you can look him in the eye and say, I will catch you.

And when they're flying through the air, they're hoping you catch them. They do it because they trust. He says we have to become like little children. We're not little children. We're rebellious. It's not those kids. That's what we are.

When God says, I'll catch you, we don't believe it. We just don't believe it. So we don't jump. And if you never jump, you'll never be lifted up.

Remember the thrill when they finally jump and you catch them? And you go in here and you say, look, they're laughing and they're all good. I'll never do that again. But that was wonderful.

And they're laughing and they're hugging you and they're lifted up. They're happy. The joy. I jumped and Daddy caught me. Right? But you see in their eyes, how do I know? I'll drown. I'll fall. I'll get hurt. I don't want to do this. And yet when they do it, they're lifted up. He says, you do this and I will lift you up. You surrender. Pay whatever price it is. Give up your arms. Get down at his knees and say, I am not worthy. Whatever you ask, I will do.

And he'll lift you up. He'll lift you up. In Luke 5, we read how Peter submitted to Jesus. Eventually, we saw how he surrendered to Christ. He submitted to Jesus the man. He surrendered to Christ when he realized who he was. Total surrender to God is a lifetime experience. So let's end in Micah 6. Micah 6. Because this sums it up. This is it. This brings everything I talked about today into one simple little sentence. Verse 8. He has shown you, O man, what is good. God always gives us the outline and he always gives us the endgame. He says, let me show you. God has shown you, Micah said, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? What does God want from us?

It's a simple. To do justly. To treat people right. To do justly. Which has to do with also a bagel wall. To love mercy. Not judging everybody, putting everybody down and gossiping about each other. Look how these people get this and I don't get this and this person gets more money and I don't get this. No! To love mercy towards everybody. Hope for God's mercy. Even pray for God's mercy on your enemies. Pray that they repent. And the last thing, and to walk humbly with your God. It's that simple. Do justly. Love mercy. And to walk humbly with your God.