Sunday: We must enter our spiritual world to experience all that God has for us.

We want to talk about surrender, here’s why.  We walk through life and face things we can’t control.    We can feel a mix of emotions: anxiety, anger, depression, hopelessness and fear.  We want to talk about what it looks like to be at peace.  Based on what we are walking through today, we need God more than ever.  And that’s what we want to talk about.

We can also go to church for years, and never fully surrender.  This can create a weird kind of Christianity.  We have the right information.  We know the right behaviors.  But our hearts aren’t into it.  That can ruin our experience with God.

David wrote this about surrender.

Going through the motions doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you.  I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered.  Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice. MSG Psalms 51:16-17

Do you see it?  Heart shattered lives is another way of surrender.  Many times, the person who has attended church all their lives can become blind to this issue of surrender.  Because we have so much information, we don’t see our need of God.  If we aren’t careful, we can say we believe in God, but we live like He doesn’t exist.

Is the word ‘spiritual’ confusing to you?  Does it even seem helpful to you?  For example, if you are facing hard times, what would you want more?  Something spiritual like a God moment that transforms your heart or something practical like someone putting a million dollars in your bank account?

Many believe the spiritual is different than the real world we live in. We see them as two different worlds.  We think spiritual things are fuzzy and intangible.  Things like prayer and being a good person.  At the same time, we live in a real world.  It’s not fuzzy at all, it’s real.  In our real world we deal with what we can see and what we can touch.  Things like our daily to do list, getting kids to sports fields and paying our bills.  In our real world, ‘things must get done’.

Because we live in a ‘things must get done’ world, we tend to focus on getting things done.  We ignore our spiritual world because we don’t have time for our spiritual world.  And why would we spend time in our spiritual world?  Truth is, we don’t see how it would help us get us in our ‘things must get done’ world – right?  Isn’t that our conflict?

As we live in a ‘things must get done’ world, we are busy getting things done and it tires us out.  We have so many things to do and so little time.  Where do we find relief?  Time off.  Time away.  We call it vacation.  We call it girl’s weekend or guy’s weekend.  Hobbies.  Bing watching.  Endless flipping through social media and games.  We call this, ‘I must check out’ world.  The problem is, we never have enough ‘check out’ time.  We tend to re-enter our ‘things must get done’ world and we are still empty and exhausted.  Don’t you tell people you need a vacation from your vacation?

What about our spiritual world?  We continue to ignore our spiritual world.  We think we need more vacation, more fun times, more wine.  We think checking out is the answer.  Why would we spend time in our spiritual world?  Truth is, it would take time away from my, ‘I must check out’ world – right?  Isn’t this the conflict with volunteering at church or a homeless ministry?

What is interesting is our response to our spiritual world.  We struggle to see the importance of it.  We just don’t see it as a solution.  It’s more of a distraction than a help.  In general, the spiritual world for us stays under the category of a fuzzy and impractical world we don’t fully engage.  We can view our spiritual world as a ‘it’s more stuff to do’ world that we don’t have time for.

We continue to walk through life.  We hide in our ‘I must get stuff done’ world and our ‘I must check out’ world.  We go to church now and then.  And, this is an acceptable way to live.  We feel like we are surviving but then again, everyone is.  For us, this is fine, for a while.  Until something big happens.  The kind of thing we can’t control.  When that happens, we feel anxiety, anger, depression, hopelessness and fear.

Paul wrote to the Christians in Philippi.  And by the way, when Paul wrote this, he was in prison.  This is what he said.

15 So let’s keep focused on that goal, those of us who want everything God has for us. If any of you have something else in mind, something less than total commitment, God will clear your blurred vision – you’ll see it yet! 16 Now that we’re on the right track, let’s stay on it.

17 Stick with me, friends. Keep track of those you see running this same course, headed for this same goal. 18 There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I’ve warned you of them many times; sadly, I’m having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ’s Cross. 19 But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites. MSG Philippians 3:15-19

Paul is in prison.  He is seeing things with clarity.  He is able to see what matters and what is a waste of time.  What does Paul say?  Enter your spiritual world.  Stay focused on the goal if you want what God has for you.  Don’t do what is the easiest all the time.  Paul said, living that way is proof of hating Christ’s Cross.  That means we don’t want to follow Christ, we do what we want, when we want, how we want.

I would challenge you to think about the world you live in.  Are you living in the ‘I must get things done’ world?  Are you living in a ‘I must check out’ world?  Do you view your spiritual world as a fuzzy, intangible, impractical world?  Do you avoid your spiritual world because it seems like more of a distraction than a help?  Do you realize that avoiding your spiritual world means you also avoid everything God has for you?  Did you ever think that always doing what is easiest, what is most comfortable, might be an indicator of hating Christ’s Cross?

Give this some time and prayer.  Write out where you are with all of this.

Point 1 of this talk.  We must enter into our spiritual world to experience what God has for us.

Tomorrow we share with you what God ways about this.

Monday: What does God say about entering our spiritual world?

What does God say about us entering our spiritual world?  Before I tell you, I want to share a story.  The kingdom of Israel, after Solomon, was split into two kingdoms.  The northern kingdom was called Israel.  The southern kingdom was called Judah.  The Assyrian army attacked Israel and was moving south to take out smaller cities.  They were heading to the city of Jerusalem in Judah.  The leaders saw what was happening and knew they were outmatched.  They felt anxiety, anger, depression, hopelessness and fear.

I want you to enter the story and ask yourself, ‘What would I do?’  If you are in the world of ‘I have to get things done’, you look at what you can do to take care of the problem.  Did you notice what I just said?  You have to look at your resources to take care of the problem.  Not God, you.  If you are in the world of ‘I must check out’, what an annoyance this problem has to be.  I don’t want to deal with another problem.  Where is God, why did He allow this?

Judah makes a deal with Egypt for protection.  Let’s read what God says through the prophet Isaiah.

30 “Doom, rebel children!” God’s Decree. “You make plans, but not mine. You make deals, but not in my Spirit. You pile sin on sin, one sin on top of another, 2 Going off to Egypt without so much as asking me, running off to Pharaoh for protection, expecting to hide out in Egypt. 3 Well, some protection Pharaoh will be! Some hideout, Egypt! 4 They look big and important, true, with officials strategically established in Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south, 5 but there’s nothing to them. Anyone stupid enough to trust them will end up looking stupid – All show, no substance, an embarrassing farce.”

7 Egypt is all show, no substance. My name for her is Toothless Dragon.

8 So, go now and write all this down.  Put it in a book so that the record will be there to instruct the coming generations, 9 because this is a rebel generation, a people who lie, A people unwilling to listen to anything God tells them. 10 They tell their spiritual leaders, “Don’t bother us with irrelevancies.” They tell their preachers, “Don’t waste our time on impracticalities. Tell us what makes us feel better. 11 Don’t bore us with obsolete religion. That stuff means nothing to us. Quit hounding us with The Holy of Israel.”

12 Therefore, The Holy of Israel says this: “Because you scorn this Message, preferring to live by injustice and shape your lives on lies, 13 This perverse way of life will be like a towering, badly built wall that slowly, slowly tilts and shifts, and then one day, without warning, collapses – 14 smashed to bits like a piece of pottery, smashed beyond recognition or repair, useless, a pile of debris to be swept up and thrown in the trash.”

15 God, the Master, The Holy of Israel, has this solemn counsel: “Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves. Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me – The very thing you’ve been unwilling to do. MSG Isaiah 30:1-15

18 But God’s not finished. He’s waiting around to be gracious to you.  He’s gathering strength to show mercy to you. God takes the time to do everything right – everything. Those who wait around for him are the lucky ones. MSG Isaiah 30:18

God was angry because Judah didn’t come to God first.  They ignored their spiritual world.  They were busy fixing their problems themselves.  They looked to their own strength, or lack of, and cut deals.  Never did they go to God.  God called that, sin.

God is angry because when He sent spiritual leaders and pastors to invite them into their spiritual world; they wouldn’t listen.  They didn’t want to be confronted with truth; they wanted to hear things that made them feel better.  Positive things.  Happy things.  And because they refused God’s message, God said, their lives would shatter and fall apart.

God tells them, the way to approach life is spiritual.  Stop trying to muscle through on their own strength, on their own resources, leveraging their own network of relationships.  Settle down in complete dependence on God.

God tell us, put your spiritual world first.  Come to me, I want to bless you and protect you.

Let’s process this.  Is this an outdated, Old Testament story?  Do you think this applies to us today?  Have you ever thought that not surrendering to God, not going to God first, is a sin?  How do you go through life, do you feel like you have to muscle through on your own strength?  Do you check out, do the least possible and watch the years go by?  How do you view truth from pastors?  Does the truth bug you?  Do you find yourself walking away from your pastors frustrated because you wanted to hear about nice, positive and happy things?

Point 1 of this talk.  We must enter into our spiritual world to experience what God has for us.

Point 2 of this talk.  God moves when we enter our spiritual world.

Tomorrow we talk about how we enter into our spiritual world.

Tuesday: How do we enter into our spiritual world?

Our spiritual world matters.  In fact, it’s the most important world we could spend time in.  I want to share something that might be a surprise.  Spiritual things are real and tangible.  When we say spiritual, we are taking about reality.  The reality of what is happening in your heart.  The reality of your relationship with God.  The reality of how you treat others.  Spiritual things are real, and they matter most.

I want you to think through this.  If you have low self-esteem and jealousy in your heart, it can harm how you live.  That’s real.  If you have anxiety and depression in your heart, it will impact how you live.  That’s real.  If you have unresolved issues from your childhood, it will impact how you treat others as an adult.  That’s real.  If you were raised by an angry or distant father, it will impact how you view God for the rest of your life.  That’s real.  If you live with unforgiveness, it will ruin you.  That’s real.  Do you see it?  Spiritual things are real and matter most.

This is why Proverbs says:

Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life. NLT Proverbs 4:23

The Bible doesn’t tell us to get more things done.  It doesn’t tell us to check out.  It tells us, the most important thing you can do in your life is to protect the condition of your heart.  Why?  Because it will determine how you live.

The problem is most people want to ignore the reality of their heart.  They want to hide in their ‘I am getting things done’ world or their ‘I want to check out’ world.  When people hide in those worlds, they do enormous harm.  Harm to themselves by staying stuck and living an empty life.  They do harm in their relationship with God because they don’t fully enjoy God’s presence.  They do harm in their relationship with others.  If you can’t enjoy God, you certainly won’t be able to enjoy and love others.

To avoid damaging our lives, we must enter into our spiritual world.  We must see that it is the most important world we could engage into.  But how?  We surrender.

Paul explained it like this.

4 You know my pedigree: 5 a legitimate birth, circumcised on the eighth day; an Israelite from the elite tribe of Benjamin; a strict and devout adherent to God’s law; 6 a fiery defender of the purity of my religion, even to the point of persecuting Christians; a meticulous observer of everything set down in God’s law Book. 7 The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I’m tearing up and throwing out with the trash – along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ.

All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung. I’ve dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. MSG Philippians 3:4-9

Paul had it all.  He was 100% Jewish.  He followed all the religious laws better than anyone else.  He had the respect of all the religious leaders of that time.  Before he was Paul, his name was Saul and he hunted down the Jesus followers.  He was so good at it, they feared him.  Paul had everything going for him in life.  After Paul came face to face with God and spends years walking through the pain of starting churches to share God’s grace, He writes;

…everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung.

To surrender means, everything I ouce thought was important is insignificant – dog dung – compared to my relationship with God.

I want to ask you where you are with God.  Have you surrendered your life to God?  I didn’t ask if you attend church now, I asked have you surrendered your life to God?  Have you surrendered all the areas of your life to God?  Your money.  Success.  Sex.  Relationships.  Your future.  Your wounds.  Your mouth.  Your attitude.  Issues of control.

Imagine if you were talking to the Youth Group at MRC, what would you say to them?  Would you say, look at what I do, how busy I am and all my hard work?  Or, I just pay the bills, watch reruns, do the least possible and just try to get by?  Or, would you say something like, everything I thought was important in my life, all of it, is insignificant compared to God’s presence in my life?

Last question, if you have kids or nieces and nephews, what are you modeling for them?  Do they see you hide in your ‘I am getting things done’ world never to enter your spiritual world?  Do they see you hide in your ‘I am checking out’ world never to enter your spiritual world?  Do they see you and hear about your entering your spiritual world?

Point 1 of this talk.  We must enter into our spiritual world to experience what God has for us.

Point 2 of this talk.  God moves when we enter our spiritual world.

Point 3 of this talk.  We enter our spiritual world when we surrender our lives to God.  That means, everything I once thought was important is insignificant – dog dung – compared to my relationship with God.

Wednesday: Surrender is about who will control our lives.

Remember, surrender means everything I once thought was important is insignificant – dog dung – compared to my relationship with God.

Romans 6:12-14

12 Sin must no longer rule in your mortal bodies, so that you obey the desires of your natural self. 13 Nor must you surrender any part of yourselves to sin to be used for wicked purposes. Instead, give yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life, and surrender your whole being to him to be used for righteous purposes. 14 Sin must not be your master; for you do not live under law but under God’s grace. GNT

Verse 14 in the Message Version.

Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God.

There is a battle in your life and my life.  It’s a battle over who has control in our lives.  The battle is between every selfish natural desire you have vs. giving yourself to God.  When we give into our selfish natural desires, we surrender our lives to sin.  We give control to sin.  It’s like we invite sin in and say, hang out in my life and do whatever you want.  And when this happens, we are prisoners to sin.

However, when we give ourselves to God, we surrender our lives to God.  We give control to God.  It’s like we invite God in and say, hang out in my life and do whatever you want.  And when this happens, sin has no influence in our lives.

Scripture talks about this battle.  And it lists for us the results of our choices.

19 When you follow your own wrong inclinations, your lives will produce these evil results: impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, 20 idolatry, spiritism (that is, encouraging the activity of demons), hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group-and there will be wrong doctrine, 21 envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties, and all that sort of thing. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

22 But when the Holy Spirit controls our lives he will produce this kind of fruit in us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. TLB Galatians 5:19-23

If you are wondering if you are surrendered, ask yourself what is coming out of your life.  What things do people around you experience when they are with you?

…hatred and fighting, jealousy and anger, constant effort to get the best for yourself, complaints and criticisms, the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those in your own little group-and there will be wrong doctrine, envy…

Or …love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

I want to ask questions and give a quick recap.

Do you experience that battle between selfish desires vs. God’s will?  Who do you think has control of your life, sin or God?  Are you still hiding in your ‘I must get things done’ world?  Do you still hide in your ‘I must check out’ world?  What do others experience when they are around you?

Quick recap.

Point 1 of this talk.  We must enter into our spiritual world to experience what God has for us.  Remember that scripture in Philippians?

There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I’ve warned you of them many times; sadly, I’m having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ’s Cross. But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.

Point 2 of this talk.  God moves when we enter our spiritual world.  Remember the scripture in Isaiah?

Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves. Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me – The very thing you’ve been unwilling to do.

Point 3 of this talk.  We enter our spiritual world when we surrender our lives to God.  Remember what Paul said?

All the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung.

Point 4 of this talk.  Surrender is a battle about who will be in control and there are ramifications.