Surrender must be Absolute
Series title: Victory over Temptation
Pastor Glenn Newton
July 2, 2005
1 Kings 20:1-4 1KI 20:1 Now Ben-Hadad king of Aram mustered his entire army. Accompanied by thirty-two kings with their horses and chariots, he went up and besieged Samaria and attacked it. 2 He sent messengers into the city to Ahab king of Israel, saying, "This is what Ben-Hadad says: 3 `Your silver and gold are mine, and the best of your wives and children are mine.’ "
1KI 20:4 The king of Israel answered, "Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours."
Romans RO 5:6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
This morning as we come together in our church, millions of believers have found their way to their places of worship, we come in with various flavors in worship, various flavors in preaching and singing…. To clap or not to clap… to raise one hand or two…. Do we take communion every Sunday or not…. Many differences when we get here, even in our small community. But if you could boil down the biggest need in the church today, no matter what the name is on the outside, no matter what flavor of worship on the inside, the biggest need in the church today is….. Absolute Surrender.
This morning we will begin a series of sermons that will focus on one of the greatest areas in the Christian life that needs more understanding, more growth in… and that’s the area of “Finding Victory over Temptation”.
I want you to know today before you leave this building, that you can have victory over temptation. Do you believe that? Maybe your experience has taught you otherwise… maybe your experience is that your temptations have won the majority of the battles in your mind, in your life. I want you to know there is hope for you, there is hope for all of us… We can know true, ongoing Victory over Temptation in our life…. Say this with me… I can have Victory Over Temptation….
Let’s find out how:
First, the Key Question has to be answered by you… “Are You Willing to give God your Absolute Surrender?
Let’s look at our passage found in 1 Kings 20:1-4.. Read
Our lack of willingness to absolutely surrender to God will hinder what God can accomplish in our lives. God wants to empower you, mold you and shape you into the man or women that He has created you to be… but we must be willing to give God everything, every area… As the King of Israel answered…
"Just as you say, my lord the king. I and all I have are yours."
Now I need to caution you… if your sitting there and thinking about someone else… man I hope they are hearing this… they need to get rid of those nasty habits… or so and so needs do this or do that… let me tell you a little secret. Total surrender is for everyone, even those who have been in the church for a while. The Bible has a lot more to say concerning self-righteous attitudes, critical spirits, and legalistic teachings than cigarettes, alcohol or some of these other things we are so ready to jump on in the church.
A Critical spirit can cause you to miss heaven just as fast as abusing your body.
Gossip can be as much a habit as lighting up a cigarette, The Bible is much more clear about where Gossip will send a person who refuses to give it up. My point is…. What is it that you might need to deal with… not your neighbor… not your spouse… You. The first question that needs to be answered if we will find the key to victory over temptation is “Am I willing to totally surrender to God?”
Let me tell you the great secret… If you will say Yes to God… give Him absolute Surrender… He will then help you, through His spirit to do what you have promised to do… You need to understand God isn’t asking you to do something that Jesus hasn’t already done…. Jesus knows what it’s like to be tempted in every way.. Listen to this scripture in Heb. 4:15-
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Guess what the Word says that you will find when you come to God with your surrender? Mercy and grace in our time of need.
How can we have victory over temptation? By God’s Mercy and Grace that is poured out into our lives when we come to Him, surrendered…. Not just half-way… not just enough to get us through for this week… total.
How many of us push everything to the limits? I don’t think that many of us here this morning are experts at this total surrender… I think we all probably really need to have a better understanding of what it means in our lives. I think for the most part we may practice the same kind of obedience that we showed our parents growing up…. Listen and see if I’m right.
When I was in my home, under the roof… I for the most part was a model child. I didn’t back talk, I didn’t disrespect my parents, I basically obeyed their rules, not perfectly.. But I wasn’t in rebellion.
Now, when I left the house and I knew I was out of the watchful eye of Mom and Dad, some things changed just a little bit… I began to push the limits… push against what I knew was right…. You could hear swear words, my attitude was different, there were times during my teen years that I choose to do exactly what I wanted to do, knowing full well that it was wrong and not only wrong in my parents eyes, but wrong in God’s eyes.
Now I wasn’t rebellious to my parents, in their home, under their roof…. But was I still rebellious?
I was surrendered in their home, under their roof…. But was I totally surrendered to them? NO.
You know what’s funny? The whole time I was living that double life, thinking to myself that I was tasting what true freedom was…. I was under this huge weight of guilt, I was entangled in these chains of selfishness… what I thought was Freedom, was a trap.
I remember when I broke Free… January, 1988, about 2 weeks after Nola and I were married… we both decided that our lives that we had been living was a nightmare, we felt like flies caught in a web and we couldn’t get free… and we both knew why… our own sin… we wanted our own way… we wanted to live life without the tangles that the church had put on us growing up….
We knelt at our couch and prayed, we told God…Anything He wanted, anywhere He wanted to take us, we would go. We surrendered that night and for the first time in a long time I knew what it meant to be Free. Free to Live, Free to Love, Free to really Sing, Free to Really Worship in church, Free to receive Mercy and Grace, and I want you to catch this last point….
For the last 17 years I have always had to deal with Temptation…. Because we all do, even Christ was tempted. But I have known for the last 17 years that there is no temptation that is greater than the One who lives in me, there is no temptation that is stronger than Christ who died and rose again in order that we might be free.
2 Cor. 10:3-5 3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
2PE 1:3 His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Are you willing to give God your Absolute Surrender? Are you ready to be Free? Do you want victory over temptation? This is the first step….close
