Surrender - Adjust - Obey Series

April 23, 2022

At the center of our life of discipleship is Jesus. We have chosen to hold fast to, cling to, bond to, attach ourselves to, be faithful to ---- HIM.

This is only a part of the equation, however, because the very essence of the Christian life is not just to hold fast to Jesus, but to become LIKE HIM.

Paul saw the formation of Christ in the life of a believer as his primary mission:

• Romans 12:2 - Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -- his good, pleasing and perfect will.

• 2 Corinthians 3:18 - And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

• Galatians 4:19 - My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,

Before we can start becoming like Him, there are a few things we have to commit to every moment of the day ---- SURRENDER and OBEDIENCE and this require a little ADJUSTING.

Surrender

Have you ever heard the saying, “God is my co-pilot.”? It sounds all nice and spiritual, but is it really? If God is only the co-pilot, that makes me the pilot. I remain in control of my situation and only call on Him when I can no longer control the plane on my own. Definitely a very human view of surrender.

God’s view of surrender is that we hand the controls over to Him and go sit in the back of the plane and enjoy the complimentary beverage service. This makes us very uncomfortable and will require an adjustment in our thinking, because what if He takes us somewhere we don’t want to go? What if the landing is bumpier than we’d like? What if the plane….. crashes?

• Listen to the words of Ken Gire from his amazing little book, “Windows of the Soul” - “It came the summer after my senior year in high school when I was at a Young Life camp in Colorado. During a twenty-minute time of silence after one of the evening messages, I felt compelled to answer Christ’s love as it called to me from the cross. That night, while sitting under a tree, I answered that call with my life, thinking my life would be of little use to Him, but still, if He wanted it for something, it was His for the taking.

Answering that call seemed so natural. So much had been given; so little had been asked in return. How could I not entrust my life to so great a love? And yet, somewhere in the subterranean places of my heart flowed a very quiet but very real fear of trusting too much. I feared that if I got too serious about my relationship with God, that if I got close enough to where He could see the whites of my eyes, He might call me out from the crowd, call me by name, send me somewhere I didn’t want to go….. I remembered the story of Jonah…. That could be me if I wasn’t careful how I worded things. He might send me to Nineveh. I remembered the story of Abraham too…. What if God asked me to take a knife to all the Isaac’s in my life? You get on a first-name basis with God and who knows what could happen to you?”

In order for this transfer of power to be successful, we have to go limp…….

Lifeguards know that it is virtually impossible to save a drowning person who struggles and fights against his rescuer. The only way to be rescued is for the victim to go limp - to surrender. Only then can the lifeguard put his arms around him and pull him to safety. As long as the victim fights, he is destined to drown.

But that is exactly what God wants. He wants us to give up our insistence on being the “directors of our own destinies” to our “self-determination” to our “YOU are NOT the boss of ME!!” thinking and go limp {surrender} in His arms, trusting in His promises and ability to fulfill HIS plans and purposes for our lives.

Because truth be told, not a single plan you can come up with holds a candle to the plan God has for you… {Jeremiah 29:11 & 1 Corinthians 2:9}

In David McCasland’s biography on Oswald Chambers, he recounts a period in Oswald’s life when he experienced a great struggle over his life’s work, the direction God wanted to take him, and the surrender of his life to God. This period lasted for 4 years – “Finally, the long night was over and peace had come. The citadel of his heart had fallen, not to a conquering Christ, but to the gentle knocking of a wounded hand…… Chambers crisis of full surrender to God in 1901 profoundly altered his life. The things he once held dear were willingly sacrificed and traded for complete reliance upon God. ‘All I have to do is come as a spiritual pauper, not ashamed to beg, to let go of right to myself, it is never do, do and you’ll be with the Lord, but be, be, and I will do through you. It is a case of ‘hands up’ and letting go, and then entire reliance on Him’” [Oswald Chambers: Abandoned to God pg. 87, 89]