This message is one of the Times Square
Church Pulpit Series.
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Square Church in Manhattan, New York City.
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I speak to you this morning on the
surrendered life, the surrendered life.
I welcome visitors all over the building and
the annex, the overflow, and all of the
rooms and auditoriums, and here in the main
auditorium.
God bless you.
We trust that you've been moved by the
Holy Spirit this morning.
Heavenly Father, I need your help.
The Holy Ghost abides in us, and the
Holy Ghost abides in me.
And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you take
control of this temple this morning.
We're the temple of the Holy Ghost.
And Lord, the words that we speak have
to be anointed or they have no value.
I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, to come upon
me in a very unique and special way
and speak your words, not mine, but yours.
Lord, I am wholly, totally dependent upon you
this morning, as are our listeners.
And we pray, Lord, that we will not
walk away here this morning just shrugging it
off, but receive it as from the throne
of God.
In Jesus' name, amen.
The surrendered life.
The word surrender, let's talk about it a
minute.
It means an act of giving up one's
possessions or person into the authority of another.
Giving up your person, your body, or your
possessions to the authority of another.
To surrender means to relinquish your own power,
your own aims, and your own goals.
The word surrender means to give back that
which was given to you.
Give it back.
What that means in spiritual terms.
Surrender is the act of giving back to
Jesus the life that He granted you.
Give it back completely.
It's an act of relinquishing all control over
things that you say, things that you do.
It's a matter of surrendering to the point
that you get your direction from Him, from
the Holy Spirit.
You have no other goal or aim.
A total resignation of your life into the
hands of Him to do as He pleases.
Total surrender is the giving up of all
of your rights and control.
The Bible said Jesus came to live that
kind of life.
He didn't come to live as God, though
He was God in the flesh.
He came to live as man with the
will of man, with the ability to take
or leave His life as He chooses.
Jesus said, for I came down from heaven
not to do My own will, but the
will of Him that sent Me.
He did nothing, He said, on His own.
Nothing.
He made no move.
He said nothing.
He did nothing.
Except what He heard and saw from His
heavenly Father.
I do nothing, Jesus said of Myself, but
as My Father has taught Me, those are
the things I speak.
And He that sent Me is with Me.
The Father has not left Me alone, for
I do always those things that please Him.
He said, I speak the truth which I
have heard from God.
I heard it of God, My Father.
And He said, and I don't seek My
own glory, only My Father's.
This life of full surrender to His heavenly
Father was not imposed on Him.
It was not imposed on Him at all.
Jesus Himself said, therefore does My Father love
Me because I laid down My life that
I might take it again.
No man takes it from Me, but I
lay it down to Myself.
I have power to lay it down, and
I have power to take it again.
This commandment have I received of My Father.
Jesus is saying very clearly, this act of
surrender was within My human willpower.
I had the right.
My Father gave Me that privilege, and it's
a privilege He's given to all of us.
He said, I have the power.
I have the power.
He's not speaking of God in flesh.
He's speaking as the man, Christ Jesus.
The human man.
I've been given the right by My Father
to lay My life down or pick it
up and do as I please.
That's within My power to see how obedient
I would become.
How I would lean upon Him for direction.
That was given to Me.
That power was given to Me.
And My power was given to Me to
go to the cross or to take Myself
from this cup.
But He said, I laid My life down.
He did it because of love.
I have this power.
Folks, none of us are forced by God
to live a dependent life, a surrendered life
to Him.
You can get into Canaan land and stay
on the border and never enjoy the grapes,
the honey, the milk.
You can get right into it, but never
go to the heart of the fullness of
what God intended by bringing you in to
His heart.
Jesus said, I have the power.
And I believe it's within our power to
fully surrender our lives to be directed in
everything we say and do.
To be totally given over to His will
and His purpose while we're here on earth.
He invites us, for example, in the Scripture,
to yield our bodies to Him as a
living sacrifice.
He doesn't impose it.
He doesn't force it.
I believe you can have as much of
Jesus as you want.
I believe you can go as deep in
Christ as you want to go.
I believe you can be as surrendered as
you want to be.
I want to talk about that this morning.
The Apostle Paul chose to follow Christ's example
of a surrendered life.
His name was Saul when he was first
accosted by the Lord.
He's a Christ-hater.
Self-righteous.
Persecutor.
A man with a self-will and ambition.
A man who literally breathes hatred toward the
children of the Lord.
Yet God takes this one of the most
self-dependent, one of the most self-sufficient,
self-determined men on earth.
He takes this man and makes him an
example of the most God-dependent, God-filled,
God-trusting man of all men.
He takes him, Paul said, as a pattern.
Paul called his life a pattern to them
which should hereafter believe on him to life
everlasting.
He said, Paul's saying, if you want to
know what it is to surrender your heart,
if you want to know what it takes
to live a surrendered life and to come
into this kind of life, you look at
my life, the pattern.
I'm a pattern for all those who should
follow.
He's a pattern for us.
He said, if you know, if you set
your heart to seek the Lord and you
want to go deeper, you want to know
him like you have never known him, he
said, let me tell you what it's going
to take.
Let me tell you what will happen in
your life if you want to be fully
surrendered to Jesus.
Paul said, Christ saved me and he showed
me mercy and long-suffering, that I may
be a pattern.
Or you can look at my life and
you say you want to serve Jesus with
all your heart and you want to be
a fully surrendered child of his.
He said, look at my life and see
how he works it.
First of all, the path, according to this
pattern, the path to the Christ-surrendered life
begins with a God-led season of helplessness.
Absolute helplessness.
This is where full surrender to Christ begins.
God begins to knock us off our high
horses first.
Saul is on his self-assured way.
He's got his plan in his hand.
He's got the endorsement of the dignitaries.
He knows what he wants.
He knows where he's going.
He's self-assured.
He's been taking the Christians to jail.
And now he's on the road to Damascus,
well-accepted by the religious order of his
day.
His life well-planned ahead, well-educated.
He knew where he was going.
He had the commendation of his spiritual leaders.
And suddenly, a light from heaven, and he's
on the ground on his face, trembling.
You see, I believe there's been an inner
unrest in Saul for a long time.
Because there was something missing in his life.
There was something kicking inside, according to the
Scripture.
Because with all of his study of the
Word, because he was a student of the
Word, he was a Pharisee, he was trained
by the best leaders of the day.
He had zeal.
He had a hunger for God.
But there was something missing to it.
And I believe when he went to Damascus,
he was a very empty man.
And I think it traces back to the
moment he stood by while Stephen was being
stoned.
And he saw something that shook him to
the core.
He saw something that exposed his life.
Because he came face to face with a
fully Christ-surrendered man.
And exposed the emptiness of his own life.
He said, I know the Word of God.
I've had more training than he had.
I had a hunger for God, a zeal
for the things of God.
But I saw a man who spoke with
authority.
I saw a man who knew God like
I've never known him.
I met a man, I heard a man,
and I saw a man.
His words were so convicting.
His words were so cunning.
It cut me.
I've never spoken like that.
He has something I don't have.
You can imagine he's out there to try
to imprison the very kind of man and
woman he has just seen.
Being stoned to death and so convicted him.
And there's something kicking inside.
It had made him all the more miserable
to come face to face with somebody that
was otherworldly.
So unsould, righteous and holy.
It convicted his very life.
He's empty, well-educated, wanting God.
And suddenly he hears the words, I'm Jesus
whom thou persecutest.
And I suggest to you that when he
was on the ground, he was there for
hours.
And he's saying, after all my education, now
I understand this man Stephen.
I understand what he got, what he has,
what he had.
I understand now what it's all about.
It all makes sense now.
Everything about Isaiah that I've read.
Everything I've read in the Old Testament now.
I know it makes sense.
It's all about Jesus.
And I missed it.
I went after the applause of men.
I went after the approval of men.
I went after that which I thought was
right, but I never even knew Jesus.
I missed the point.
Now it starts making sense.
Now I see it was intimacy with this
man Jesus.
I am Jesus whom you've been persecuting.
And now it dawns on him in the
great revelation.
It had burst on Saul's heart.
It's Jesus.
It's been Jesus all along.
I've been on the wrong road.
I've been the wrong way.
And suddenly the revelation comes to him.
Supernatural revelation of who Jesus is.
And revealed not only to him, but in
him.
He said, Christ has been revealed in me.
This was a living revelation, supernatural.
You would think now that he says, Saul
rises up and says, Lord, what do you
have me to do now?
How can I walk with you?
How can I please you?
How can I serve you?
What shall I do?
You'd think that after such a supernatural revelation,
all the education he has, God sent him
out now with a great testimony.
The Lord said, Arise and go into the
city and it shall be told you what
you must do.
Now look at Saul, blind, dumbfounded, being led
into the city by his dumbfounded friends.
His friends are speechless.
But I'll tell you what, if you see
this blind man, confused, wanting only to serve
God, only to serve Jesus and give him
everything in his heart, he's being led, blinded
now, he's being led into the city.
I want you to picture that man walking
into the city now, educated, and everything now
has come apart.
But I want you to know something, he's
being led also by the Holy Ghost into
the surrendered life.
He's being led by the Holy Ghost to
three days of silence and quiet, where his
heart's yearning and crying out, Oh God, all
I want, Jesus, I want to know you,
I want to serve you, nothing else matters
now.
It's all dung, it's all waste, all my
past.
Everything I've done in the flesh, it's done,
it's done now.
What do you want me to do?
Days alone fasting and praying, utterly confused.
All his studies of the Word, now he
can't find anything in those studies to satisfy
his heart.
Preached and taught to others and now not
a word comes to him of all he's
learned, all of his past and everything and
everything he had in the past, it doesn't
help him now because he's helpless.
This is the path, the pattern of the
surrendered life.
If you're going to really set your heart
to walk fully surrendered, Lord, God's going to
put a Stephen in your path.
You're going to be a face to face
with some man or some woman, some young
person, some preacher, somebody so given to God,
been so alone with the Lord, they have
a countenance that's different, they speak only about
Jesus, they're not interested in the applause of
men, they're not interested in your car, they're
not interested in hearing about your golf course,
they're not interested in hearing anything about your
shopping patterns, nothing at all.
They talk about Jesus, they sign Jesus, they
talk Jesus, they look like Jesus in their
eyes.
And it convicts you to the car because
you've been complacent and compromising.
And everything you sought for, you have not
sought for the real issue, you have not
seen, you've missed it.
And the Lord will put you face to
face with a spiritual man who will expose
your spiritual bankruptcy.
This is what happens.
You see, it's all of God's doing.
He'll bring you to a place where you
don't understand what's happening to you.
You come to a place where you are
helpless.
I've been there, and He keeps taking me
back there when I start getting a little
self-confident.
He somehow always brings us to this point,
back to utter, utter helplessness.
Where you say, after all the preaching I've
heard, after all the teaching I've done, after
all the blessing I've blessed others, right now
I feel like I don't know anything.
I feel so confused.
But you see, it's God's doing.
He can't bring you into dependent, surrendered life
until He brings you to the end of
all self-reliance.
Until you have totally no more confidence in
your flesh.
That's the beginning.
Secondly, this path leads to much suffering.
Turn to Acts 9, please, and we'll see
it clearly.
Acts 9, verse 10.
There was a certain disciple at Damascus named
Ananias.
And to him said the Lord in a
vision, Ananias.
And he said, Behold, I am here, Lord.
The Lord said unto him, Arise, and go
into the street which is called Straight, and
inquire in the house of Judas for one
called Saul of Tarsus.
For behold, he prayeth.
And it is seen in a vision a
man named Ananias coming in and putting his
hands on him, that he might receive his
sight.
Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard by
many of this man how much evil he
has done to the saints of Jerusalem.
And here he hath authority from the chief
priest to bind all that call on thy
name.
But the Lord said unto him, Go thy
way.
For he is a chosen vessel unto me
to bear my name before the Gentiles and
kings and the children of Israel.
And I will show him how great things
he must suffer for my sake.
Now, look at this for just a minute.
God promises this man, Saul, a very fruitful
ministry.
But he's got to endure great suffering in
the process.
Now, folks, when we talk about suffering, the
subject is so broad and so wide, I
don't even know how to begin to approach
it.
Because you see, there's spiritual suffering, there's physical
suffering, there's mental pain, pains of all kinds.
And it's just impossible to deal with this
subject.
It's so wide and broad.
You think of Saul, how he had a
thorn in the flesh, shipwreck, rejection, stonings, beatings,
mockery, snakebite, robberies, malicious gossip, persecutions of all
kinds.
Now, God's not calling all of us to
the multitude of sufferings or the deepness of
the sufferings of Paul the Apostle.
But in some way, in some manner, we
are going to suffer.
If you're going to live the totally surrendered
life, it's going to be accompanied by much
suffering.
Let me focus on the reason.
I want to just, I'm not going to
try to explain this subject because everyone here
listening to me, you have your own kind
of suffering.
See, young lady in the choir, her sister
was murdered in Philadelphia last week.
She's here now singing.
So Laura's in the hospital and her husband
died last night at 9 o'clock.
And she wasn't there because she's in the
hospital sick.
I don't know what your pain is.
I don't know what your suffering is, but
there's not a person here that knows Jesus
who is not acquainted with suffering.
If you tell me you don't know what
suffering is, you don't know who Jesus is.
Suffering and pain.
Some of you came in, burdened down this
morning.
The annex and overflow rooms, you're totally burdened
down.
Nobody knows.
You hide it well, it doesn't even show
on your face.
But you see, suffering is one area of
our lives that we have little or no
control over.
And that's why it's so important for God
to allow this in our lives.
Because it's that point, I tell you, you
want to talk about losing control?
You go in a hospital and look at
somebody that's being waited on.
They can't bathe themselves, they can do nothing.
They're totally at the hands of others.
Some of you have been there, you know
what that helplessness is all about.
But you see, suffering, you come to the
end of yourself, you say, I can't handle
this anymore.
And this is the school, it's a training
place where you learn total dependence on the
Lord.
You come to a place where you say,
I can't handle this.
God says, good, I can handle it.
I've been waiting for you to yield.
And sometimes God allows severe suffering in our
lives to bring us down from our horses
of self-dependency.
He will bring us to the ground to
our faith there.
Though He can lovingly say, turn it over
to Me.
All your cares, all your worries, everything, I
want you to live a surrendered life.
Surrender even your physical body, your brain, your
mind, everything, give it to Me.
Trust Me because I care for you.
Have you been there?
Now, if you're really going to set your
heart to be totally surrendered to the Lord,
you're going to suffer more than complacent believers
ever suffer.
Because you see, the complacent believer, he will
suffer, those that are in compromise, they'll be
suffering because the Lord is trying to wean
them from some particular sin or from a
very complacent lifestyle.
And there'll be a telephone call, there'll be
something, you see, they haven't prayed in weeks
or months, and there'll be a call to
get you on your knees.
God's not mad at you.
He's not going to let the devil have
you.
And He's going to allow a slap on
the wrist where it just wakes you up
and says, hey, where have you been?
I'm not trying to scare anybody.
I know, I've been there, done that.
And I know what it's like.
And the Lord says, come.
But you see, if you are not setting
your heart, I'm going to go all the
way with the Lord.
I'm not going to live the normal Christian
life that you see today where the Lord
has given His one or two hours on
Sunday, and I just park Jesus on the
back roads of my mind.
No, no, no.
If He becomes everything in your life, He's
going to allow you to go through things
that no one else goes through because He
wants you to be a comfort and a
strength to others.
He's doing it.
You see, the complacent Christian, he will have
suffering, but there are no lessons learned but
in his own life.
No one's going to learn from it.
No one's going to hear about it.
They may complain about it, but nobody is
learning anything about Jesus.
Nobody's learning about how the Lord works.
There's no comfort out of it but for
the individual.
But if you have a heart for people,
if you want the Lord to love you,
if you care for others and you know
it's in your heart, you say, I care
about people, you are going to go through
a different path and suffering is going to
be deeper than others because He wants you
to become wholly dependent on God as an
example and as a source of comfort to
your family and to those around you.
This is important.
I'll wait until those in the annex and
everywhere have it, because I want you to
read it with me.
Please just follow me as I read it.
2 Corinthians 1, starting in verse 3, Blessed
be God, even the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the
God of all comfort, who comforteth us in
all our tribulation, that we may be able
to comfort them which are in any trouble
by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted
of God.
For if the sufferings of Christ abound in
us, so our consolation also abounded by Christ.
And whether we be afflicted, it is for
your consolation and salvation which is effectual in
the enduring of the same sufferings which we
also suffer.
And whether we be comforted, it is for
your consolation and salvation.
Look at me please.
Some of you endure greater sufferings, greater pain,
because He has a wider reach for you
to comfort others around you.
He wants to use you in some special
way.
And the greatest comfort ministries come out of
the greatest sufferings.
I've seen it all my lifetime.
That the God of all comfort would be
known to you, and that our affliction or
my affliction will prove to be a consolation
to others who are suffering.
Now thirdly, we're talking about how God brings
us into this surrendered life.
This path leads to a single ambition, that
I may win Christ.
One ambition.
No other agenda, no other ambition in life,
but to win Christ and to know Him
intimately, and to possess Him fully.
No other ambition.
I asked a godly young pastor this past
week, on a telephone call.
I said, Pastor, you've traveled the country, and
you know ministers, young ministers.
What's the number one problem?
What's the biggest problem in the ministry today?
And very clearly he said, the need to
be successful.
He went on, he said, young pastors see
churches like your church, Times Square Church, spring
up, it seems like overnight, and you've got
to make a church.
And other pastors have struggled in the city
for years, and just a handful of people.
And he said, young people, young ministers, have
this pressure upon them to overnight produce something.
There's a cry and a hunger for success.
Now we know that's in the secular world,
but it's also a plague in the church
of Jesus Christ today.
I get letters from people from all over
the United States, and they say our pastor
was displeased with the lack of growth in
our congregation, so he went to a conference,
to a large church, a mega church, and
he learned some new techniques on how to
build a church.
One pastor told me, he said, one expert
told me, in so many words, you can't
grow a church if all you give Him
is Jesus.
You can't grow a church if all you
give Him is Jesus.
The pastor came home, one woman in particular
said he came home, and overnight on a
Sunday morning he got up and said, we're
changing the order of this church.
We're going to become, and he named the
kind of church it was going to become.
Going to be more friendly to sinners.
And so they revamped the worship style, everything.
No one was to be offended.
No sinner to be offended, no one.
The worship was changed, everything.
Nothing out of order, everything perfect in time
by the clock.
And see, I hear it over and over
again, we old timers who knew what it
was like to be in the meetings where
the Spirit of God would move, where people
would be touched by the Holy Ghost, and
our kids would be touched, and where you
could worship and praise the Lord and lift
your hands and say, God, it's all gone.
And all of us, as old timers, we
don't know where to go.
The pastor took it away.
It's all gone.
There's no spirit.
There's no life.
You see, there's another agenda.
It's not now all Christ.
It's not just winning Christ.
By today's standard, Paul was a total failure.
He didn't build any buildings.
He had no corporation.
In fact, the message was so offensive, the
preaching of the cross was so offensive, they
stole him.
Every time they got a multitude, they tried
to kill him.
But he taught about dying, not buying.
He never spoke of bigness, but only brokenness.
I have striving young pastors come to me.
I remember one in particular said, Brother Dave,
you don't realize it.
See, you pastor and make a church, and
you have got a worldwide ministry, and you
have had bestsellers and all of that.
And another, somebody said, your reputation is set
for life.
You don't have to do anything.
You've got a reputation.
What's wrong with my going after it?
What about me?
Why can't I go the same path?
And you know, the answer would be, well,
you don't know what I've been through.
But I'm not going to say that.
You don't know the cost I've paid, I
hear people say.
No, no, no, that has nothing to do,
because I know ministers who know God more
than I will ever know Him, have sacrificed
more than I've ever sacrificed, suffered more than
I've ever suffered, paid a price more than
I would ever know.
And they've been faithful, and they've been honest
and holy, and nobody knows their name.
So that's not the issue.
When I stand before Christ at the judgment
day, there's only going to be one measure
of my success, or the success of any
other man or woman of God.
He's not going to look at any of
my books.
He's not going to talk about Times Square
Church.
He's not going to talk about any of
my crusades.
I'm going to be judged on how Jesus
controlled my life.
How yielded I was to His will and
purpose here on earth.
That I had no other will, but His,
no other agenda but His.
That I was fully surrendered to His purpose
for my life.
It's going to be, did I follow the
crowd, or did I wait on Him for
direction?
Did I borrow my messages, or did I
hear directly from the Father?
It's going to be my walk with Him.
I can say with an honest heart before
you today, my greatest joy on earth is
to hear from God.
To stand before a congregation like this this
morning, and know in my heart that words
I speak to you, I heard first from
Him, that worked in my own soul.
And I know the greatest joy in my
life is to hear Him say this is
the way.
Walk in it.
That's the joy.
You can't be a man or woman of
God until that's everything in your life that
I hear from God.
That He speaks to my heart.
My ambition now is to learn more and
more how to be nothing in self.
And be able to say my Father's with
me because I do only His will.
Now finally, the surrendered life, listen closely because
this is very vital and important.
The surrendered life, if you fully surrendered to
Christ, it will bring contentment in where you
are with what you have.
It will bring contentment.
You're not going to be nailing a stake
out in the future and say if I
just get there and throw a lasso there
and a rope and keep pulling yourself to
that point out there in the future, say
if I can just get that or if
I can just be that or do that,
I'll be happy, I'll be contented.
And people, when they get to that point,
it doesn't bring them the joy and contentment
so they throw it further out.
And all they do, they're never satisfied with
what they are, where they're at and what
they have.
There's always some ship coming in.
Restless.
Because they heard a word from a preacher
or they heard a word from their own
flesh that says you're going to be mightily
used of God, you're going to be this,
you're going to be that, and they're living
for that.
And when it doesn't happen on time, live
in total discontentment.
Always living in the future.
My word to them would say wake up
and live.
Get a life.
Now, listen to what
God told Saul.
Your chosen vessel to bear My name before
the Gentiles and kings and the children of
Israel.
God said I'm going to use you mightily.
God does give words like that.
I heard that when I was eight years
old.
So Saul goes forth straightway preaching Christ in
the synagogue that He's the Son of God.
Saul increases the more in strength, confounds the
Jews at Damascus and after many days were
fulfilled, the Jews took counsel to kill him.
God says I'm going to call you to
the Jews.
Only the first time He gets to speak
to the Jews, they want to kill Him.
So He goes to Jerusalem.
But the disciples were all afraid of Him
and believed not that He was a disciple.
This is some start for a ministry where
God says I'm going to use you mightily.
But you see, God's teaching Paul to be
content one step at a time.
Where I am with what I have, where
I am.
I'm not going to worry about everything else.
If God told me that's fine in His
time, in His way in the meantime, I'm
going to rest in Him.
I'm going to live my life to the
fullness of Jesus right here, right now.
So much for His call to reach the
Jews.
And now He's rejected by His own brethren.
But He's thinking in His heart at least
I have the Gentiles.
He said I'm going to win the Gentiles.
But when Cornelius gets a word from the
Lord, who does he call?
Peter.
I wonder what went through Paul's mind.
What a wonderful surrendered man he must have
been because when he goes up later to
Jerusalem, Peter stands up.
Peter rose up and said unto them, men
and brethren, you know how that a good
while ago God made choice among us that
the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the
word of the gospel and believe.
And that's the word God gave to Paul.
He said you're going to be the man
who wins the Gentiles.
Peter.
Paul had to listen to all these reports
coming out of the house of Cornelius how
the Holy Ghost had fallen and that Christ
had revealed Himself now to the Gentiles.
He goes to Antioch finally to preach to
the Gentiles later.
And the Jews rejected Paul so he said
I'm going to turn to the Gentiles.
And many Gentiles were converted in Antioch.
Great revival breaks out.
And the word of the Lord was published
throughout all the region.
But the Jews stirred up the women and
the chief men and expelled Paul and Barnabas
out of their coast.
What kind of message was he preaching that
made everybody so mad?
The cross.
The surrender of self.
So he goes to Iconium.
Great multitudes of Jews and of Gentiles believed.
Paul's saying now God's keeping His word to
me.
It's a great revival there breaks out.
Once again there was an assault made both
of Gentiles and of the Jews and their
rulers.
So much for ministering to kings.
And their rulers used them despitely and stoned
them.
Here's a man who's called to minister to
kings and rulers.
To Jews and Gentiles they end up cursing
him and stoning him.
But I read of no complaining.
I read of no murmuring, no questioning because
I hear him instead say I have learned
in whatsoever state I am therewith to be
content.
I am content that God is leading me.
I may not see now what He's shown
me, what He's revealed to me.
I may not see it but I'm going
on because I have in me a contentment
in Christ.
My pursuit is not anything the world is
pursuing.
I'm pursuing Jesus.
Now I can pursue Him anytime, anywhere.
I can grow here and now.
See Paul's in no hurry.
He has a promise he's holding to.
God's going to use him alright.
In the meantime he's willing to speak to
a little group of women in a prayer
meeting along a river bank.
He'll speak to a sailor.
He'll speak to a jailer.
He'll go one-on-one even though he
has a worldwide commission.
He says I'm going to be faithful here.
And you find Paul speaking to one here,
leading one here, one here.
Small groups.
When he does get a multitude he loses
them.
He's not jealous of younger ministers who he
taught who pass him by now while he's
in prison.
They're outreaching the world, both Gentiles and Jews.
There's no envy because a surrendered man knows
how to be abased as well as to
abound.
Paul said godliness with contentment is great gain.
And having food and raiment let us therewith
be content.
You've got a whole world starving.
You say you've got food, you've got raiment,
you've got protection.
Be content.
Most of all because you have Jesus.
You have Christ.
Clothes in just a few months of it.
You know what the world would say to
Paul?
Paul, you're at the end of your life
now but you have no savings.
You don't have a chariot.
You only have one change of clothes.
You have no investments.
And oh, but I have a life.
I won Christ.
You could say to Paul that Paul, the
devil harasses you.
You suffer more than anybody.
You go from one suffering to another suffering
from shipwreck to snake bite to this and
to that.
And you have this great testimony of knowing
Jesus and you suffer!
The devil is always harassing you.
You have constant pain like no one around
you.
I said, oh, but I glory in my
afflictions because that's when I'm really strong.
He said, I don't measure it the way
the world measures it.
But Paul, don't you know a Paulist has
the crowds?
He's eloquent.
You minister mainly to small groups and your
speech is contemptible?
He said, none of that moves me because
I'm having a revelation of the glory that
awaits me.
I'm not of this world.
But Paul, what about God's promise to you?
You're going to be a witness to the
kings.
And all you did was stand before them
in chains as a defendant.
Where's the fulfillment of the promise God made
to you?
And Paul would answer, oh, but God did
keep His word because as a defendant He
gave me a pulpit I could have never
had.
And he said, boy, did they get convicted!
I preached Christ in fullness because I had
the right as a defendant to say what
I will.
Nobody could stop me.
I did reach kings.
God was faithful.
Not the way I thought He would do
it.
But He did it in His way.
God kept His word.
Paul, you're a fool.
Everybody in Asia has turned against you.
The more you love, the less you're being
loved.
No one seems to appreciate your dedicated labor.
Even pastors are mocking you.
Some try to ban you from their churches.
Why do you stay in a ministry?
Why do you keep on?
You're not a success.
Paul would say, I've quit this world.
I have no other ambition.
I don't need the praises of men.
I don't have to keep up with the
competition.
Because, you see, I was caught up into
paradise.
And I heard unspeakable words, which is not
even lawful to a man to utter.
I'm telling you, I'm the winner.
I've been to heaven.
I saw what's waiting.
You take this world, with all its competition,
and all of its strivings, and all of
its self-centeredness, but I'm determined to know
nothing among you but Jesus Christ and Him
crucified.
And His one ambition now is to stand
face to face with Him who is loved.
Not many want to go down this path.
Not many want to go this way.
They want to take a shortcut.
They want to go to a meeting somewhere
and have some prophet or somebody lay hands
on them, speak a word that's going to
bounce them right into the presence of the
throne of God.
No way.
Does the suffering ever end?
Oh, it's going to end one day.
It's going to end with a trumpet blast.
A trumpet blast.
It's coming.
And then the apostle says, and with this
I close, he said, all the sufferings of
this present time are not to be compared
with the joy, the glory of their ways.
Paul said, I've got a crown on my
head even now that I want only to
lay at His feet.
Hallelujah.
Let's stand.
Hallelujah.
Lord, help us this morning to stop right
now before we leave this building and examine
our hearts.
Lord, have I been seeking You for direction?
Have I just been doing what I want
to do and just saying whatever comes out
of my mouth?
Oh God, I open my heart to the
Holy Ghost to be searched this morning.
Lord, put it in my heart to go
deeper.
Put it in my heart to lay down
everything that is in my flesh and self,
all my ambitions and my desires.
Help me, Lord, to lay my future down.
Just say, Jesus, one day at a time
with You.
Take it all.
I yield that all Lords speak to me.
Lord, there are some who are going to
have to admit that they haven't spent quality
time with You to hear Your voice, to
know Your mind.
Lord, You're so anxious to lead us.
You said in all Your ways acknowledge me
and I'll direct Your path.
In all Your ways.
Lord, we haven't been doing that.
We've just been acting on our own, so
forgive us.
And Lord, I pray for those that walked
into this building this morning that have been
complacent.
They've truly, honestly been complacent with You.
Oh, Lord, it doesn't mean that You've turned
Your back on them.
It doesn't mean You're mad at them.
It means, Lord, they're missing.
They're missing the contentment.
They're missing the joy that we should have
now.
Lord, in the midst of all the suffering
in the United States, in the midst of
the tragedy, we can be contented in Christ.
We can have a peace that passes all
understanding.
And we can walk among men saying, I
hear from God.
He leads my path.
I hear from Heaven.
God, You want to do that for every
one of us, not just the pastors, not
just the staff, but for every member of
this body, every part, every one of us
that we can walk in that surrender to
You, Lord.
You're just waiting for us to come before
You and say, begin the work in me.
Begin the work.
I'm going to open the altars in the
annex, here in the main auditorium.
I'm going to limit it just to this,
if you will, please.
Because, you see, what I'm talking about, you
can do in your seat right now to
make a commitment.
I want this.
You start praying about it.
Ask God.
I want to know Jesus like I've ever
known Him.
And I want to surrender everything I am
and all I have to You.
I want a surrendered life.
Lord, no matter what it costs, I want
You.
But You have to put that voice, You
have to put that in my heart.
But remember what Jesus said, I have the
power to take it up or lay it
down.
Now, you can walk out here and take
up your own will, take up your own
ambition, or you can say, Lord, I lay
down everything to You and I'm going to
trust Jesus.
I'm going to lay everything down, my life.
But I'm asking only for those to come
forward, here in the main auditorium, for those
who this morning have been complacent or backslidden
or you've been walking the wrong direction.
Others who don't know Jesus.
I'm going to open this altar and I'll
pray with you and I'll pray in faith.
I want you to step out of the
crowd upstairs in the balcony, go to the
stairs on either side and come down any
aisle.
And those that are in the annex, if
you go directly into, is that 204 or
206?
206.
Just go into 206 and we have people
there that will pray with you.
Just get on your knees.
Find a chair and just get on your
knees.
In fact, those in the big hall, you're
facing 206.
And those in 206, if you want to
just fall on your knees right there, if
God speaks to you by His Holy Spirit,
please don't do anything unless the Spirit is
moving.
If there's something that was said in the
message this morning, the Holy Spirit made real
to you, something you have to make right
with God, then follow the leading of the
Holy Spirit and we'll meet you right here
and I'll pray with you in just a
moment while we sing the hymn.
Now Father, finish the work that you've begun.
There are many here, Lord, that have been
so complacent, Lord, and it's going to take
an honesty to walk down the aisle and
say, Jesus, by this I'm telling you, I
want to go all the way with you.
Not just to the edge of the promised
land, but I want to go in and
taste the good things of God.
I want the peace and the contentment.
And I want the assurance.
I want that all.
I want all of Jesus.
Not this world.
I'm tired of materialism.
God's not after your materialism.
He's just after the spirit of materialism.
Father, finish this good work now.
In the annex, in the overflow rooms and
all over this audience and in the balcony.
We're not trying to build the numbers here.
We just want the Holy Spirit to have
time to convict you and finish the work
in your heart.
You can still come while I'm talking.
You can still come.
You that are here and in the annex,
listen closely to me.
I'm not going to preach another sermon.
But you see, I start out by saying,
surrender is an act of the will.
You have to begin this process.
God will take you as fast as you
want to go, as you yield, as you
seek His face.
But you begin now, where you're at.
Those of you that have come forward, there
has to be something in your heart and
mind that says today, Lord Jesus, You said
I can take up my life or I
can lay it down.
By an act of faith, I lay down
my will.
Now that's when the Holy Spirit comes in
and He empowers you.
That was the Holy Spirit that drew you.
It's the Holy Spirit that put the Word
in your heart.
It's all the work of the Holy Spirit.
That's His covenant work.
But right now, you have to respond to
that and say, Lord Jesus, that's what I
want.
You're calling me.
I want You to touch my life.
Right now.
Wherever you're at.
Now, the whole audience, while I pray, would
you let your heart just go out to
the Lord right now and say, Jesus, in
this service this morning, help me to come
into this surrender.
Deal with my stubbornness and my self-will.
Oh, Jesus, move me into Your presence where
I can pray and seek Your face until
I can hear from You.
Now, Father, I pray that all over this
building, wherever my voice is heard, Holy Spirit,
You would finish the good work that You've
begun.
You started this morning in our worship to
walk among us.
We felt and experienced Jesus.
The Holy Spirit abiding and breathing life into
us.
And now, Holy Spirit, we come to bow
our hearts before You and say, come, Lord
Jesus, and be everything.
Take my life.
Lord, I want to surrender everything.
Lord, there are some that have burdens on
them and pain.
Lord, just lay it down now at Your
feet and say, Lord, I surrender it.
And some, Lord, are worried about their jobs.
Some are worried about their future.
Worried about their bills, how they're going to
be paid.
But, Lord Jesus, You said we're not to
carry that kind of a burden.
You're the one who cares about these and
You will supply our need.
You will take care of us.
We're not to fear.
We're to trust You, Lord.
And that's a part of being surrendered to
You.
God, we don't try to figure it out.
We don't try to think it out.
We rest in Your grace and Your love
and Your power.
God, You're going to take care of Your
children.
You're going to take care of every one
of Your people.
Not one are going to have to beg
for bread.
Lord, I thank You now.
Before you walk out of here in the
annex and all over the place, please, we
have people from all over the world visiting
us.
And some of you know each other.
But men can hug men.
Women can hug women.
And just love somebody truly from your heart
or a good handshake.
God love you.
God bless you.
Let there be peace and contentment.
God is good.
God is so good.
That's it.
This is the conclusion of the message.