Surrender, Submission and Sharing 8-19-07
Do you remember the “Rubik’s Cube” that crazy cube made up of rows and rows of colored squares that would rotate in every direction? The idea was to line up the little squares in such a way that all six sides contained only one color. Do you remember that crazy thing? Do you remember how badly you wanted to try it the first time you saw it? How many of you ever played with a “Rubik’s Cube?” How many of you ever completed it?
The “Rubik’s Cube” is just one in a long list of things that I started but I never finished. It would stand right alongside my trumpet lessons and that scale model of the aircraft carrier Saratoga that I tried to build back in Jr. high.
I’m sure if you think back through your life it won’t take long to compile a list of things that you started with the greatest of enthusiasm, things that went by the wayside as you lost interest in them, things that you started with great expectation and optimism. What caused you to lose interest?
We lose interest as we begin to see ourselves as unable either physically or mentally to complete the project. We are unable to understand the basic concepts that would allow us to finish whatever it is that we have started. We decide that even while others may be able to do it, we can’t perform at that level. We can’t make it work.
There is no shame in a “Rubik’s Cube” hidden away in your closet each side still being multicolored and unsolved. With some things it’s O.K. to just give up. Problem is we don’t always demonstrate good judgment on which things are O.K. to give up and which things are not.
Giving up on that “Rubik’s Cube”, putting it in the back of the closet and forgetting about it probably saved you hours of frustration. It might even symbolize your conclusion that life has more to offer than fun and games.
The problem comes when we do the same thing with Christianity, some people give up, they set it aside, they start out full of enthusiasm and excitement but slowly, over a period of time, they lose their focus. They decide it doesn’t work for them. The joy they experienced with salvation stagnates with neglect into the traditions of religion and soon they become disillusioned with the entire experience. Some fall away never to return others remain in the church long after they have given up on experiencing a meaningful relationship with God. They hang on to the habit of church no longer even expecting to experience growth or maturity.
In Revelation Chapter two we have the letter to a stagnate church in Ephesus. Do you remember what was written to them?
Rev 2:4-5
You have forsaken your first love. 5 Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place
I ask you with all sincerity this morning have you lost your first love, have you traded the Gospel of Jesus Christ for a ceremony called church? Have you laid aside the teachings of Christ for the traditions of men? Are you still actively in his service or having claimed salvation through his blood have you been content to slide back into the world?
For a person to remain active in Christianity we have to do more that merely attend a weekly worship service. If we are to remain in Christ and not fall away we must forever be active in Christ.
If we are to continue in His service and not become disillusioned we must understand the different stages of Christian maturity and how they work.
There are three stages to Christianity and while they are not unique from each other they are distinguishable from each other. It doesn’t matter where you are in the process as long as you are involved in always moving forward to the next level of growth.
The three stages of Christianity that we are going to look at biblically today are surrender, submission and sharing. Every Christian should be able to identify where he is in this process and have a plan that will provide growth and maturity to take him to the next level. Those who are content to stay at their present level, no matter what that level may be, risk becoming stagnate and falling away. They forfeit the blessings and rewards that God wants them to have.
The example that Jesus left for us to imitate is so foreign to our worldly nature that no man will ever master it.
No matter how much you grow and mature in Christ there will always remain the opportunity to take your Christian experience to the next level of application and performance.
In this life Christian maturity is not a destination to be reached but rather a continual journey to be experienced and enjoyed.
That journey begins with surrender. Surrender was a different term in biblical times. It is hard for us to understand the concept that would have come to mind for people in the first century when they heard the word surrender. To them it meant occupation, torture, rape, plunder, humiliation and possible death at the hands of your enemy. Surrender was a powerful word. Today when we conceptualize surrender in the Christian sense it no longer carries the common 1st century meaning, and that’s good, the problem is it no longer represents the biblical meaning either. Today we confuse surrender with verbal compliance and recognition. We say that Bob surrendered his life to Jesus today in the worship service when what we really mean is that today Bob came forward and made a public profession of Jesus as his Lord and Savior. Surrender is not the result of what comes out of your mouth but is reflected by your willingness to surrender your life, your desires and your will to Jesus Christ.
Today there are many who have professed Him who have never surrendered to Him. They have fallen for the lie of an easy salvation that requires one to only stand up and express a belief to obtain eternal life. To repeat a canned prayer off some tract or a 3x5 card, followed by a dip in the baptistery is not proof absolute of a life surrendered to Jesus Christ.
I do not preach a salvation by works because salvation can never be earned through works. We are told in the book of Ephesians that salvation comes by grace through faith, it is the gift of God- not by works, so that no one can boast.
But neither do I preach a salvation that includes no works because the very next verse in Ephesians; verse 10 of chapter 2 says this:
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
In an attempt to simplify things the modern church often substitutes surrender with a public profession and then, once you have made your public profession, as long as you continue to attend the worship services with only a modest amount of regularity, you will be recognized by the church as a Christian. There are many in this country on the church rolls, listed as members who will be nothing more than fodder for the fires hell unless they surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. If you think you can have the assurance of eternal life because you stood up and made a public profession of Jesus and then put your bible away in some closet like an unsolved puzzle to gather dust, then your lost; and without true surrender, you my friend, are a candidate for the fires of hell.
If you are counting on your public profession to be your ticket to salvation then you need to examine
Matt 21:28-31:
28 "What do you think? There was a man who had two sons . He went to the first and said, ’Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’
"’I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
"Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, ’I will, sir,’ but he did not go.
"Which of the two did what his father wanted?"
Those who place their faith in a public profession that produces no works are no better off than the son who said he would, but then did not go. Many have professed their faith without ever surrendering their lives.
A stagnate Christian that produces no fruit is not surrendered to Christ. We cannot always be a good judge of the fruit of others but we should at least check our own branches for fruit.
If we are truly surrendered there will be growth because if you are surrendered then you will be in submission and if you are in submission there will be growth.
We can see the process in the story of the two sons. When the son said no I will not go we see rebellion. Part of our surrender is to realize that we are in rebellion. So what happened between “I will not go” and the fact that he went? He surrendered his will to the will of his father and changed direction. That is surrender that brings about salvation. Notice in the story that he not only surrendered his will but went into submission by doing what the father ask him to do: and that is the second level of the process of Christian maturity: Submission. Surrender brings about submission.
If you claim you have surrendered then you must be continually growing in submission as you always aspire to emulate Christ.
In the first stage of Christianity, surrender, we come to the knowledge of our own sin, we come to the knowledge of the salvation that we have been offered by the blood of Christ which brings us to a state of love and appreciation for a God that would sacrifice His Son for us. So our surrender is an acknowledgement of our love for God, it is in this step that we confront the first and greatest commandment:
"’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
Step 2, submission, is the process of learning and applying God’s rules for our lives as we learn to let others see Jesus living in us and it is during this process that we discover in our attempt to serve God that we serve God when we serve those around us. It is in our state of submission that we, imitating Jesus, learn the second greatest commandment.
“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
If we are to be like Jesus then we must live as He lived and He tells us clearly in Matt 20:28
“the Son of Man did not come to be served , but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
And as we seek to serve Him we are told in Matt 25:40 what we must do as Jesus proclaims:
’I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
Doing for others is serving Jesus. It is a never ending process that we build on the rest of our lives as we aspire more and more to be like Him.
It is this second step, submission: learning to love our neighbors that will lead you to the third stage of Christianity: Sharing.
By submission to His will for your life the Holy Spirit will build such a great love within you for others that you will not be able to sit on the sidelines while a world full of lost people, each one made in the very image of God, goes to hell for lack of the gospel message. As we grow and mature into the 3rd phase of Christian maturity we find ourselves compelled by compassion to reach the lost by whatever means are available. The third stage of Christian maturity comes when we can read the great commission and take it as a literal and personal command from God to us as individuals.
Matt 28:19-20
go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
Those who have no desire to reach the lost are not in submission to His will nor are they fully surrendered to Him.
As you sit in your pews this morning trying to assign a level of Christian maturity to everyone sitting around you. As you ponder whether your friends are in level one or level two or somewhere between two of the levels I want you to stop and ponder this:
Where am I in this process? Am I still growing? Do I have a plan for my life that will help me to grow and mature to the next level, or have I become content and secure in my own profession of faith to the point that no longer feel the need for submission or outreach? Are you surrendered, are you fully surrendered or do you have areas of your life that still belong to the world?
Are you actively growing in your faith or have you become stagnate in the process? It is easy to become overwhelmed and discouraged as we face the challenges of this life, but we cannot afford to lay our Christianity aside like some incomplete puzzle that we have lost interest in. Salvation is at stake and not only yours but of all those who you will ultimately affect if you stay on track in your Christian growth and maturity.
It doesn’t matter where you are in the process but it does matter whether or not you are still involved in the process.
Check your own branches, do you find any fruit, if not it is time to rededicate your life to Him, to refocus your life. Its time to revisit your profession of faith, to knock the dust off it and continue the journey of Christianity. Just like the Church at Ephesus it is time for many of us to remember our first love and the joy and peace that His promise of salvation brought us as we first surrendered to Him.
This morning if you don’t know where you are in this process maybe it is time to declare a fresh start, a time of renewal, a time of return to; surrender, submission and sharing, or perhaps you have never known Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. It is time to begin the journey. It is time to surrender. Won’t you come?
