The reality is, for the Christian, our life is no longer our own, as Christ purchased it with His own blood. This concept is sometimes difficult to grasp, albeit, scripture backs it up. The reality is, we must lose our life to save it, and serve others to fulfill Christ’s mandate. Selfishness is not a term in unison with Christian character. We must surrender our lives, our desires, our future and past to Christ, who covers all with His precious blood. So, the inevitable question becomes, “have you surrendered all?” Join Carl now for this very challenging broadcast…
Here is a complete transcript of the podcast…(below)
Have we surrendered all? Oh man, pastor, I thought it was going to be easy tonight. Give me something nice and juicy, something to just float with. No, you’re probing again. Have you surrendered all? Have we surrendered all, friends? It’s personal. Have we surrendered all? I had no idea what I was going to preach about. And then two days ago, the Lord dropped it in my spirit. Surrender, the aspect of giving everything to Him. Are there any areas in our life that we don’t trust God with? I’ll tell you right now, mine was finances. Since the age of 11, I had a paper round. Then I started washing dishes. Then I became a waiter. And I did all these jobs. And I was paying through college and paying for pocket money. And I was trading Star Wars figures because I had a little bit of loose change. And I was buying the Millennial Falcon and all the exciting stuff. Shows how old I am. I’m talking about the original Star Wars. But you know, finances, some people don’t want to go there. We’re going to touch it tonight.
Do you realize it’s an act of ongoing maturity to surrender all aspects of our life? The Lord will test us in this matter. Many people have made Jesus Savior for the sake of fire insurance. They want to get saved because they don’t want to go to hell, obviously. But they’ve refused to let the Lord be the Lord of their lives. It’s one thing to make Jesus Savior. It’s another thing to make Him Lord. Because when we’re born again, our spirit man goes from death into life. However, the soul is transformed in this process of sanctification. A slow process where we choose to let go of certain ungodly beliefs and ties in our soul as we move closer and closer to maturity. Or also known as being conformed to his image, right? The image of Christ Jesus. Luke 6:46 says, “and why call me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Whoa, you’re calling me Lord, and you’re not doing the things that are in my word. Are you spending time to even read the word to find out what he said? So we’re making decisions tonight. Big decisions about whether or not Jesus is Lord or Savior. It’s time to give it all. Time to give Him all.
Because when you give over areas where you don’t trust Him, and you may be wounded in certain areas. You know, I had an independent spirit growing up. I had a, you know, I’m going to make it my own way. I’m going to pay my own way. You know, and then when it came to the topic of giving to God, I was like, dude, I’m not doing that. Are you kidding me? Do you realize how hard it is to make a living these days as a paper boy? But that’s actually an aspect of pride. An independent spirit. We’re going to get to that too. Mark Twain said, “it ain’t those parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me. It’s the parts that I do understand.” So there’s some salty words that Jesus spoke, friends. And, you know, we need milk and we need meat, right? When we’re babies, we have milk and then we get weaned off and then we go on to meat.
So, we need to have balance, right? In terms of what we’re eating, we need to have milk every day. And we need to keep feeding on the milk of the word. But sometimes we need meat. And if we’re mature, we can embrace more meat, right? So tonight, we’re going for that meat. So, John’s gospel 12:24-26 effectively says, ‘He who loses his life wins.’ It’s kind of strange. Counterintuitive. Whenever Jesus said, verily, verily, he was saying, get ready. I’m going to tell you something very important. Except a corn of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. The concept of dying is replete in scripture. Dying to our flesh. Choosing not to take the path of the arm of the flesh or the arm of strength in our own strength.
Then he goes on in verse 25. He says, he that loves his life shall lose it. And he that hates his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. So we have the concept of losing our life. Like an aspect of ownership, right? Because you’re bought with a price, amen? You’re no longer owned by yourself. You don’t own yourselves anymore if you’re a Christian. Because Jesus bought you with a price. So whoever loves his life and wants to hang on to it isn’t going to get this eternal life that Jesus was talking about. He then says, if any man serve me, let him follow me. And where I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serves me, him will my father honor. And also in Luke, a very similar scripture again. Luke 9:24-25, “Whoever will save his life shall lose it. But whoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. For what is a man advantaged if he gains the whole world and loses himself?” Notice the concept of exchange. If you gain the world, you lose yourself. Some people have a desire for fame.
They have a desire for money. They’ll do anything to get it. They’ll even lose their own souls to get it. We are not in that category, friend, right? Remember when 1 John said that we’re not supposed to love the world? And we’ll get into that also. We’ll cover that scripture. We shouldn’t be lovers of this world. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. So, do you want to be a loser and celebrate? How many are losers in here? Yes! He who loses his life wins, man. We want to be the number one loser. We don’t want to be an idol. We don’t want to lift up idols before Jesus. Are you clinging on to some parts of your life that you’re reluctant to hand over to the Lord? You know, everybody’s got them. And we’re going to see which one yours is tonight. So, have we considered our death recently? I’m stoked, pastor! Another passage on death. Yes! Galatians 2:20, “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who lives, but Christ lives in me. So, I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Friend, you no longer live.”
The old you. Before you came to Christ, you’re dead, friend. You’re dead. Count yourself dead. And then you can experience this newness of life, okay? Because Christ is living through me. You know, I had a mentor and he kept asking me, have you died yet? Are you dead? A dead man can’t get off the bed and start cussing and, you know, sinning, right? Stay dead. Stay dead. Let the flesh remain dead. The moment we take matters into our own hands by controlling, intimidating, or manipulating, we’ve come off the cross. You’re supposed to stay on the cross and then allow the Father God and Jesus to work through us so that we can bear fruit. I like the complete Jewish Bible version of the same verse. It says, when the Messiah was executed on the stake as a criminal, I was too, so that my proud ego no longer lives. That’s a special word for pastor, amen? It really jumped off the page. My proud ego no longer lives. Ooh. But I’m an independent man. I worked my way through. I was a paperboy. I was a waiter. I’m not going to give to God. I can do it myself. That’s an independent spirit. That’s an aspect of a proud ego, okay? God will bless the work of your hands. You can work like a dog and work for a living, or you can receive the blessing that God will put on your hands by working for Him, right? There’s a supernatural enablement to be blessed by Him.
And that’s what many people are missing out on. But the Messiah lives in me, and the life which I now live in my body, I live by the same trusting faithfulness that the Son of God had, who loves me and gave Himself for me. So, we have this aspect of dying. We have this aspect of losing, right? Another typology of Christ. Did He lose? Yes. He lost His life. Did He die? Yes. And we’re supposed to remain dead. This is an interesting slide. God has a right to burn up our idols. Ouch. And He will periodically test us whether we’re willing to let go of idols in our lives. You could say that those idols are personal rights that we think we have based on culture, based on conventional wisdom, based on traditions of the family. This is what our family does. These are my rights. This is how it is. But we always have to balance that with Scripture, right? He said, have no idols before me, okay? Don’t make any graven images before me and worship them. Some people worship their jobs. Their job is their God. They are slaves to their job. They’re working for a living, okay? Fair enough. It’s a good noble trait. But we still have to have a Sabbath, amen, and enjoy the spoils of what God has given us. So I just threw some random stuff up here.
I don’t know where this came from, but my children. They’re not your children. You don’t own them. My wallet. You don’t own your wallet. My career. None of these things are yours, friend. You’re bought with a price, okay? You don’t own your wallet. You don’t own your house. You don’t own your wife. You don’t own your mouth, okay? You don’t own your friends. Some people have friends they need to let go of. Some friends are holding them back. They need to separate themselves from them. Some people are hanging on to potty mouth, okay? Blankety blank blank. Shouting at the TV, you know, doing stuff like that. Cursing under our breath. Horror movies. Horror movies. Some people don’t want to give up some movies they enjoy getting, but they know the Holy Spirit’s going, I don’t want to be watching people getting mutilated and hacked to death right now, because Christ is living inside of you, amen? So there’s going to be a little bit of a rub there. There’s going to be a conviction.
And then some people are holding things up to God, like a poor self-image, or lustful thoughts, lustful images, or a poverty mindset. You know, my grandfather was poor, my dad was poor, and we’re poor. Okay, well, you can break that chain, right? You can break that cycle, amen? You don’t have to stay that way. Some people want recognition for everything. Honey, you did the dishes great tonight, thanks. Oh, appreciate it. Man, you really vacuumed well, thank you. You really painted that door well. I didn’t hear any compliments on that. Some people want recognition for everything, friend. We don’t need that. We don’t need it. We need some recognition, but let’s get it into balance. Selfish desires, okay? I’m giving some random examples here, but when we pray later, the Lord is going to show you which issue you have. What things are you not giving to Him? What things are you not letting go of? I’m all that and a bag of chips, okay? You need to let go of that.
Okay, we’re bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “What, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?” Whoa, it’s right there. “You’re not your own. For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s,” right? 1 Corinthians 7:23, God paid a high price for you, so don’t be enslaved by the world. We’re in the world, but we’re not of the world, and there’s a difference. We are not to give in, to yield to the temptations of the world. If we mess up, sure, we ask for forgiveness. We move on. We don’t wallow in the failure, okay? But our focus should be to separate us from the cosmos, which is the world system. God paid a price for you. You are no longer autonomous. You are no longer independent. You don’t make independent decisions. Some of you are married in this room.
And how many know that when you’re married, you can’t just run off to Hawaii tomorrow without having a discussion, or wherever that may be, okay? The point is. So your decision-making right now should be, Father, what do you want me to do in my life? Should I take up that second mortgage? Should I do this? Should I do that? These are questions you need to seek the Holy Spirit about. Hey, we love Clint Eastwood, and we love John Wayne. Awesome. But we don’t need to have that spirit, that independent Lone Ranger mentality, okay? I couldn’t think of a female version of that, but somebody can help me out. So, some of us are trying to be the man or the woman, but we need to let the Lord mold us and shape us into who we should be. It’s a yielding mentality. Friend, we’ll pick it up here again tomorrow.
https://carljosephministries.com/podcast/the-righteous-are-as-bold-as-a-lion/
https://www.gotquestions.org/surrender-to-God.html
Title: Have you Surrendered all? Part 1 (LIVE)
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