Deja De Intentar Controlar A Dios | Con Jon Tyson

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- Lord, thank You that our sins are forgiven.

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Thank You that we have eternal life.

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Thank You that we are going to see You face to face.

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Thank You that You will renew all things,

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and we will rule and reign in a new heaven and a new earth.

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Thank You, Lord, that

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nothing that is formed against us will prosper.

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Thank You that if You are for us, who can be against us?

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That if You who did deliver up Your own Son

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and gave Him freely, will You not freely give us all things?

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Thank You for the confidence we have in You.

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Thank You for the access we have to You.

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And Father, thank You that Your presence is with us.

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Lord, we are here for You, to know You,

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to enjoy You, to worship You.

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And we just pray that You would receive with joy

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the sacrifice of praise that we have offered to You.

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Lord, all over this state today people will be gathering

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to offer a sacrifice of praise to sports,

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to entertainment, to people they love.

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And Father, we just want to say,

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"May our sacrifice be the loudest,

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most joyful sacrifice to Your presence."

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Lord, we give you the highest praise above anything else

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or anyone else that has lifted here today.

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So we thank You that we can gather here

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and we thank You for this time.

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And we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

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You may be seated.

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When your pastor called me and said,

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"You want to come preach at a revival in the woods?"

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I live in the middle of Manhattan, New York.

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He's like, "Have you camped much?"

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And I was like, no.

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But I came partly because what is happening here

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has a rich history in this nation.

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I'm from Australia, if you can't tell.

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Has a rich history in this nation.

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The idea of holidays, like taking a holiday,

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you get it from the word contains the word holy day.

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And on the American frontier

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during the Second Great Awakening,

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one of the things that people would do

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is they would stop everything.

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They would gather together.

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They would set up tents just like this,

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and they would come together with a vision

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of worshiping and encountering God.

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And vacations as we have them in America today

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have their root in the fact that Christians

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wanted to break out of their regular schedules,

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call on the name of the Lord,

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encounter His blessing and His presence,

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and then go back to the rest of their lives

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with favor for what God had called them to.

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That process got secularized,

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where they cut God out of the break

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and instead offered people to get into nature

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to get refreshed and revived.

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They just did it without God.

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So I just want you to know, the fact that

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you are here for God is in itself a sense of revival.

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It's one thing for people to come out here

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to go to a music concert.

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It's another thing to go to a massive festival.

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It's another thing for people like you

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to carve out time for three services a day,

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plus singing in the woods,

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plus all night worship tonight, plus solitary time,

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all to encounter the living God.

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So I just want you to know God likes this

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and you should anticipate His power showing up

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because you have consecrated time for Him to come here.

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[applause] This room is ready.

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And I missed the name of the pastor that prayed earlier,

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but I wanted to just yield my time and say,

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"Sir, you can preach. Keep going."

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That was something, that was beautiful.

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So it is a joy to be here.

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I want to continue on sort of what Brian started

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a little bit earlier by talking about

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learning to really trust that God loves us.

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Did you know in every area of society, trust,

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where you can measure people's level of trust is going down?

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How many of you trust politicians?

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You just like, "These people, man, I trust them.

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They're not doing it for themselves.

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They just want to serve the people."

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How many of you trust politicians?

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Trust in politicians has gone way down.

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How many of you trust the news to be fair

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and honest in what it reports?

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No bias, no angle, no perspective, just the facts.

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How many of you lock your doors at night? Anybody?

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Yeah. Why? Don't you trust your neighbors?

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Trust in our neighbors is going down.

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Trust in religious leaders is going down.

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Trust in parents is going down.

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Trust in spouses is going down.

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Every measurable category in society

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of trust is decreasing.

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Trust in God is going down in our culture.

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And you know what's replaced that sense of trust?

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People have turned into control freaks.

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Are there any control freaks in the house today?

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Is anybody sitting next to a control freak

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who's not letting you put your arm up right now?

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I'm not trying to start any marital fights here,

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but I'm seeing some stuff.

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I'm a control freak.

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I am certainly a recovering control freak.

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But here's what I've learned.

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You cannot be a control freak

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and enjoy God's love at the same time.

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The more you are a control freak, the less aware you are

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of the love of God working in your life.

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And so what I want to do in this time together here

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is I want to talk to you about

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how you can slowly lose your grip

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on having to control everything in your life,

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and you can surrender to God's love for you.

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Now, that may sound nice, that may sound easy,

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but I want to tell you it is hard to surrender to love.

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So in the first part of this talk, I want to talk about

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the danger of what being a control freak actually does.

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And in the second half, I want to tell you

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how you can learn to open up your heart

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and surrender to the love of God.

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I think there's three great temptations

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we see in the scriptures for people to try

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and be control freaks. Here's the first one.

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People try and control the timing of their lives.

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And what I mean by that is they want

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the things they want to happen

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at the time they want it to happen when they want it.

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We want God to run on our time frame.

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Anybody here experiencing something in your life

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right now you feel like God's late?

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Anybody feeling like God's late in my life?

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Maybe you thought you'd be married by no and you're single.

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Maybe you thought you'd have kids by now,

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but it's not working like you thought.

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Maybe you thought the business would be doing better.

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Maybe you thought the relationship would be repaired,

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but it just seems like the timing

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of what you want to happen,

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and the timing of what God is allowing are not lined up.

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And if we're not careful,

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if we don't trust God with the timing of our lives,

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we will try and play God and make what we want to happen

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happen in our own time.

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And that is a brewing disaster for your life.

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This is part of what happened with King Saul in 1 Samuel 13.

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Because there's actually this really remarkable account

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where the Jewish people's like arch nemesis,

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the Philistines, are coming against them,

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and they're lined up ready to have a battle.

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And this is not the account of David and Goliath.

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This is an account where King Saul is getting ready

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to fight the Philistines. They assemble.

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But Samuel has told them you cannot go to war

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until I show up and offer the sacrifice before the battle.

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And one day goes by, and Samuel's not showing up.

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Two days go by, the people start to get a little jittery.

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Day three, day four, "Where is Samuel?"

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Day five, day six.

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It says that the people begin to scatter

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under fear of the Philistines.

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Day seven, no Samuel.

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And so here's what Saul says:

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Bring me the offering. I'll have to do it myself.

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I don't know where Samuel is.

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And this is almost like a Shakespeare play,

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right as he makes the sacrifice

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which God has not ordained him or authorized him to offer,

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Samuel shows up.

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And in 1 Samuel 13, this is what it says:

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Samuel says to Saul, "You have done foolishly.

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You've not kept the commandment of the Lord your God,

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which He commanded you.

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For now the Lord would have established

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your kingdom over Israel forever.

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But now your kingdom shall not continue.

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The Lord has sought for Himself a man after his own heart,

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and the Lord has commanded him

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to be a commander over His people

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because you have not kept

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what the Lord your God commanded of you.

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Taking things into your own hands,

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because God's not moving in your time frame,

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doesn't make the will of God happen faster in your life.

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It sabotages the will of God happening in your life.

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And Saul did this.

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He tried to control the timing of his life

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because people began to scatter,

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and it ended up costing him his leadership.

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Another area where tempted to be control freaks,

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in defining how we obey God.

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A lot of times we do what's called partial obedience.

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Partial obedience is such a temptation.

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It's where you do almost everything God says,

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except a little bit.

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You keep a little bit back.

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And how many of you know if you're in a relationship,

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you're worried about the little bit.

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No woman has ever dated a man, and accepted this excuse.

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"I'm, like, 83% faithful to you.

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I'm, like, mainly faithful.

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Like, every now there's, like a 17%

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where I'm just sorting some stuff out.

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But will you accept the 83% faithfulness

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in our relationship?"

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And the truth is, I think the woman's probably like,

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"The 17% is the only part that matters to me.

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It's the part you're holding back."

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The same thing happens now with obedience.

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We see this again with King Saul in 1 Samuel 15,

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2 chapters later, God says to Saul,

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"I want you to destroy the Amalekites."

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Now the Amalekites, if you were to go back in time,

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would sort of be like the SS in World War II.

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These were nasty people, wicked, evil,

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offering their babies in the fire,

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burning them alive as sacrifices to pagan gods.

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Nasty people.

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And God says, "I want you to wipe them out.

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You cannot let them carry this practice on."

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And so Saul goes in and he mainly destroys them,

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but he keeps the king alive,

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and he keeps all of the animals.

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And then when Samuel shows up,

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expecting there to be a total obedience by King Saul,

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he walks up and he's like, "What's --

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What's the sound of cattle I'm hearing?

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I'm hearing some cows off in the distance, some sheep."

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And Saul was like, "Oh yeah,

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I think you're going to love this one, Samuel.

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I didn't want to waste the animals

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because I thought I could give them to God.

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So I kept them alive, and I kept the king alive, too,

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because he seemed like a pretty nice bloke.

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And, uh, so here's the king,

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and I think I'm going to give this stuff to God."

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And God gives this phrase that has haunted Christians

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throughout history: to obey is better than sacrifice.

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God doesn't care all the religious stuff you do for Him,

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go to church, come to Revival, you tithe,

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you go to a Bible study or whatever.

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If in your heart there's an area of rebellion

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that you refuse to give to Him.

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Just like every woman wants 100% commitment from a man,

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and God wants 100% obedience from our lives.

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And ultimately, if we're not careful,

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we don't just control the timing of our lives,

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we don't just become control freaks

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and try and redefine what obedience is.

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If we're not careful, we end up trying to control other people.

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And this always works out as a disaster.

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David Bennett said this:

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The fearful person may appear deeply loving,

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but fear always interferes with the impulse towards love.

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What he's saying is you can't control

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and love at the same time,

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energy invested in maintaining safety and comfort

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always depletes energy available for the love of others.

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Now, before I got married, I dated this girl.

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It was like my first real Christian relationship.

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I'm 17 years old and I date this girl.

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I don't understand things like red flags. Okay?

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I'm too new.

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I don't have enough data to understand what's going on.

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I start dating this girl, really sincere girl.

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She's dated a guy that was older than her

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before she dated me who cheated on her.

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I don't know this.

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I'm just thinking, "I'm not gonna cheat on you.

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I think you're great."

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But that wounded her heart,

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and she just had this suspicion in our relationship.

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Every time I would go somewhere,

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she's like, "Who are you with?"

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I was like, "Nobody. I was at work."

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She's like, "Yeah, but who were you with at work?"

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I was like, "The people I work with, they're all men.

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I work in a butcher shop."

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She's like, "Oh, just checking, just checking."

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And she just had a suspicion everywhere she went,

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because she was perpetually worried

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that I was going to cheat on her.

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And at one point, I had to sit her down and be like,

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"Yo, homegirl, let me tell you,

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I'm in this because I like you.

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I'm not trying to cheat on you.

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I'm not your old, this old guy or whatever."

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And for whatever reason, that wound was so deep in her

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that she ended up pushing me away and trying to control me

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because she just could not believe that

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ultimately I would not cheat on her.

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And I think in many ways that ends up being

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part of the problem we have in our relationship.

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We get so wounded, we get so hurt,

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we can't trust anybody else, and we end up

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trying to control and manage them.

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Parents try and manage and control their kids.

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Kids try and manage and control other people.

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Spouses try and control one another.

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Adult parents try and control adult kids

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or control grandkids.

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And instead of facilitating love, all it does

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is drive people away

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because people don't want to be controlled.

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People want to be loved.

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This, if we're not careful, though, gets even worse.

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Some people use religion to try and control God.

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And sometimes the church doesn't help with this.

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Sometimes church says the worst stuff ever.

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It says stuff like this:

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if you tithe 10%, you'll never have financial problems

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and God will bless you.

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And you know what? It's not that simple.

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And so sometimes people are like, "God,

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I need you to bless my business, so I'm going to tithe.

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Therefore, I've sort of got power over you, God,

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because I'm using one of your laws

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and because your law says, 'If I give, You'll bless me,

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you have to bless my business.'"

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And it doesn't work that simply.

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Sometimes we say this, particularly to younger folks,

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"Hey, if you wait until you get married before you have sex,

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when you get married, you will have

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super spiritual, amazing Christian sex."

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Now listen, God's word says that you should wait

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until you get married to have sex,

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because sex is a whole --

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It's a part of a whole life covenant union.

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It is designed as a part of a whole life commitment.

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So that's God's design for it.

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But sometimes we say these terrible things to young people,

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making all of these promises that just don't hold up.

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And so when they get married

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and it's not quite this mystical spiritual sex

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that they were promised in youth group,

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all of a sudden they get angry at God like,

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"God, you owe me a great marriage because of my purity."

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But God's not a formula.

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The Bible's not a set of rules.

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And if we're not careful, we end up making these deals

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that God has to bless us, and then it doesn't happen.

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Sometimes we pray, it used to be the prayer of Jabez

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when I was a new Christian.

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Everyone is just praying that prayer of Jabez.

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And then they're praying the Lord's Prayer.

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And we sort of use prayers like formulas to control God.

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But it doesn't work like that.

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God is not a controllable asset that,

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through our religious performance,

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gets Him to do what we want.

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We're not the prophets of Baal

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screaming louder to get God to act.

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And so if we try and control God,

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it ends up being a disaster.

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Because God doesn't love you

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for what you do or your religious performance,

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and He is not going to bless you

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if your heart is far from you.

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God doesn't want your behavior or your religious effort.

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God wants your free response.

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So I want to say this to you.

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Many of you put your hands up to be control freaks.

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I struggle as a control freak too.

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Well, what do we do?

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Instead of driving people away, what do we do

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instead of trying to manage the time of our lives

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and get God to act when we want?

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What do we do instead of redefining obedience?

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Here's the key, this is big,

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we've got to shift from control to surrender.

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You've got to learn to surrender.

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Listen, this is big.

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A lot of times, Christians talk about obedience.

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How many of you heard obedience, like got to obey,

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trust and obey. Got to obey. You got to obey.

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But here's the problem,

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obedience is often calculated in a moment.

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Obedience says, let me evaluate this decision.

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Will I rebel or will I obey?

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And if it looks good to me, I'll obey this one.

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But that means every time you have a major decision

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you're going to have this war

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of obedience versus disobedience,

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and that will exhaust you.

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What we need instead is a posture of the heart

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that just says, "God, my yes is a permanent, open yes to You

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and whatever You want from me, You've got it."

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Obedience is a momentary decision.

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Surrender is a lifelong posture of the heart.

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Now, the person, I think, who best models

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surrender on earth is the person of Jesus.

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But I want to ask I want to answer this question.

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How did Jesus learn to surrender?

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How did He learn to do it?

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How did He forgive His enemies?

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How when He was pressed on the Cross

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did love come out instead of hate?

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Well, Jesus did this because He was connected to His Father.

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That's why what Pastor Brian said earlier is so important.

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If you don't believe and trust that God loves you

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like He loved Jesus, why will you ever trust Him

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like Jesus trusted Him?

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You've got the most important thing

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is learning to surrender to the Father's love.

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It is the source of all surrender.

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I want you to note

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the first thing Jesus said in His ministry.

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You know what it was?

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As a teenager, teenager, here's what Jesus says,

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"Got to be about My Father's business."

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That's how the gospel is opened.

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The last thing Jesus says, "Father, into Your hands

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I commit My Spirit."

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Jesus opening words and Jesus closing words

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were defined by the Father.

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In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus

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references the Father 17 times.

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In His upper room discourse, which is the thing

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he said to His disciples when He was serving communion.

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He mentions the Father 45 times.

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In John 17, the high priestly prayer

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that was read earlier today, Jesus references the Father

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another six times.

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It was Jesus's connection to the Father's love

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that enabled Him to trust the Father's timing,

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to be fully obedient,

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to love people instead of trying to control them,

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and then not to use His Father as a divine commodity,

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but to surrender to His will on the Cross.

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You got to get connected to the Father's love

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if you're going to stop being a control freak.

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And I want you to note that when Jesus does this,

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it's not like a passive surrender.

00:21:15

He's not kind of like, "Okay, well,

00:21:18

Your plan is better than Mine, so I'm in."

00:21:21

Look at what it says in Luke 23.

00:21:24

It says: with a loud voice, Jesus cried out,

00:21:32

"Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit."

00:21:37

And then He breathed His last.

00:21:40

Now scholars tell us that when you're being crucified,

00:21:43

the number one issue of crucifixion

00:21:45

is you lose your capacity to breathe.

00:21:47

So you're sitting there on the cross.

00:21:49

You can't breathe, and you have to press up on the nails

00:21:52

in order to gather a breath in your lungs.

00:21:55

And it becomes exhausting and almost impossible.

00:21:59

So most people on the cross die from asphyxiation,

00:22:02

rather than just the physical wounds they've received.

00:22:05

And scholars tell us, in order for Jesus

00:22:07

to be able to push up and instead of just breathe,

00:22:10

raise his voice and let it out,

00:22:14

Jesus was making a definitive statement

00:22:17

to the principalities, to His followers,

00:22:20

and even for us in this tent.

00:22:22

And He yells out, "Father, into Your hands

00:22:24

I commit My Spirit."

00:22:25

That that commitment of surrender

00:22:29

has to have some defiance to it

00:22:32

when you're in the middle of experiencing temptation.

00:22:35

So here's what I want you to see.

00:22:37

You're going to have to learn, then,

00:22:39

based on your connection to the Father,

00:22:42

to surrender and make that same declaration with your own life.

00:22:46

You are going to have to say, "Father, I trust You,

00:22:49

and I'm willing to commit these things to You."

00:22:52

So what do you need to learn to trust

00:22:54

in order to really live this surrendered life?

00:22:56

Okay, here's what you have to surrender.

00:22:58

Number one, you've got to learn to trust God with your future.

00:23:02

Gotta learn to trust God with your future.

00:23:04

Sounds easy,

00:23:05

until you get the future you didn't want, doesn't it?

00:23:08

It look great on paper, trust God with your future.

00:23:11

Nice. What else? Hit me with number two.

00:23:13

It's hard, man. It's hard to trust God

00:23:16

when it doesn't look like it's going to go your way.

00:23:18

It's hard to trust God when you can't see the other side.

00:23:21

It's hard to trust God in the middle of the drama,

00:23:24

but we can learn from the scriptures.

00:23:27

We can learn from the saints of history.

00:23:28

We can learn from the life of Jesus

00:23:30

that if He puts you on the cross, He will resurrect you.

00:23:33

He will not leave you hanging there.

00:23:35

We've gotta learn to trust Him with our future.

00:23:37

The hardest thing for me when I was young

00:23:40

was to trust God with my future.

00:23:41

I was just like, "Man, I don't know

00:23:43

if he's going to give me a wife or a good wife.

00:23:46

I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to get to serve God."

00:23:49

It was such a wrestle with me, one day I just had

00:23:52

to come to terms with it and just say,

00:23:53

"God, whatever You want for my future. It's yours."

00:23:59

Now, I was actually -- It's weird being at this tent

00:24:01

because I went to this Pentecostal youth retreat.

00:24:06

It was really a festival called Wonder Fest,

00:24:09

and it was in Sydney, Australia.

00:24:12

And they had two bands playing.

00:24:14

One was called White Hart

00:24:17

and the other one was called DC Talk.

00:24:19

That's how old I am. [cheers]

00:24:22

And they're having this massive concert.

00:24:26

And I was like, "I am not into this concert."

00:24:28

So I walk out into the fields and I get this,

00:24:31

I just start praying.

00:24:33

I had a youth pastor that was like,

00:24:34

"Ask God for vision for your future.

00:24:36

Ask God for vision for your future."

00:24:38

And so I was like, "You know what?

00:24:39

I'm not into the music and this feels like

00:24:41

a good time to ask God for a vision for my future."

00:24:44

So I say to God, "God, give me vision for my future."

00:24:46

And I have this vision, really hard to explain.

00:24:49

Almost like Google Maps, Google Earth

00:24:51

before Google Earth exists.

00:24:53

And I'm sort of like up in the air

00:24:55

hovering over these cities in America.

00:25:00

And I'm like, "What is even happening?

00:25:02

I am hovering over cities in America."

00:25:05

I'd never thought about moving to America.

00:25:08

This was not in my life plan.

00:25:10

Point one: move to America.

00:25:12

This was not in my sort of my vision for life.

00:25:15

So I go back to my youth pastor and I say to him,

00:25:18

"Hey, you said to ask God

00:25:19

to give us a vision for our future.

00:25:22

I got a vision for my future.

00:25:23

I'm moving to America."

00:25:24

And he's like, "Look, I appreciate your heart,

00:25:27

but America's full of Christians, mate.

00:25:30

You need to stay here in Australia

00:25:32

where all the pagans are."

00:25:33

And I was like, "You could be right, but I do believe

00:25:36

that I am going over to America."

00:25:38

So you guys, I think you heard my story.

00:25:41

I live in New York City.

00:25:42

For the last 20 years, I've been a pastor in New York City.

00:25:45

A few years ago three families bought a building

00:25:51

that we all lived in in community together

00:25:53

so that we could pray and sort of try

00:25:55

and live the book of Acts in the middle of the city.

00:25:57

So I'm living in the middle of Manhattan.

00:25:59

It's incredible.

00:26:00

But before I know I'm going to come to America

00:26:03

and it actually works, when I'm still in Australia,

00:26:05

I go to the local poster shop.

00:26:08

They just sell frames and posters.

00:26:10

And I say to the guy, "Do you have any pictures of America?"

00:26:14

And he's like, "Do you want to be more specific?"

00:26:16

And I'm like, "I don't know a lot more about America,

00:26:19

so just whatever you've got."

00:26:21

And he gives me this, like, framed print of America.

00:26:25

So I come back to my house

00:26:27

and I put this print on the wall.

00:26:30

And every night before I go to bed, I'm like,

00:26:32

"God, open the door for me to go to America.

00:26:35

Open the door for me to go to America."

00:26:37

And I'm like, it's amazing.

00:26:39

A couple years later, my dad calls me at work one day

00:26:41

and says, "John, I've got a scholarship for you

00:26:45

to go study the Bible." I'm like, "It's incredible."

00:26:47

He goes, "There's only one problem. It's in America."

00:26:49

And I was like, "Problem? Problem? This is my destiny!"

00:26:55

So I end up moving over to America,

00:26:57

and we moved to New York City,

00:26:58

and we start this church.

00:26:59

And we, you know, buy this building,

00:27:02

it's on 45th Street in New York City,

00:27:04

right in Hell's Kitchen. It's incredible.

00:27:07

Now, when I was a teenager,

00:27:08

I was like super, super obsessed with capturing memories.

00:27:13

Okay? This is not like pull your phone out

00:27:15

and get a snap or whatever. Okay?

00:27:17

This was work, and so I had to have a handycam.

00:27:20

And everywhere I went I was, like,

00:27:21

"I feel like I'm going to have an amazing life,

00:27:23

so let me document this."

00:27:24

And everybody would mock me like,

00:27:26

"What's that weird dude with a camera?"

00:27:27

I'm like, "Shut up. You'll see one day."

00:27:30

And I still don't see what that was about.

00:27:31

But anyway, I did it.

00:27:33

And when I moved to the US, I thought

00:27:35

I lost all of the videotapes that I had.

00:27:39

And then one day, my mom was staying with us

00:27:40

in New York City, and she says, "Johnny,

00:27:42

you're never going to believe it." I said, "What?"

00:27:44

She said, "I found all of your old VHS tapes

00:27:47

when you were a teenager."

00:27:49

I'm like, "Are you kidding?"

00:27:50

I run down and get them all digitized

00:27:53

and dropped into a Dropbox folder.

00:27:55

And I'm walking through New York City.

00:27:57

I'm on 45th Street in Times Square,

00:28:00

about to turn to where we live,

00:28:02

and I pull up this Dropbox folder

00:28:04

and there's a video of me filming my house.

00:28:10

And I turned the corner,

00:28:11

and I almost fall over on the street because

00:28:14

I filmed that random picture of America

00:28:17

that I bought from the mall when I said to the guy,

00:28:19

"Hey, is there a photo of America?"

00:28:22

And I kid you not, the thing I could not believe

00:28:25

is the house we just bought in New York City,

00:28:27

the picture on the wall in my house in Australia

00:28:31

was a photo of 45th Street, exactly where that house is.

00:28:37

I'm a teenager in Australia going, "God, get me to America."

00:28:42

Praying over some random photo of 45th Street in New York.

00:28:46

I didn't even remember it.

00:28:48

And then when I actually buy a place in New York,

00:28:51

it's on the very street I prayed for 20 years earlier,

00:28:54

but I couldn't even remember.

00:28:56

Folks, I simply say this to you

00:28:58

that God has a future for you

00:29:00

better than you are aware of

00:29:02

if you learn to trust Him.

00:29:05

And you can hustle, you can scramble,

00:29:07

you can try and pull it off yourself.

00:29:09

You can partially obey.

00:29:10

But I just want to remind you that if God put you here,

00:29:14

He has a plan and purpose for you.

00:29:17

Trust Him with your future.

00:29:20

Trust Him with your timing.

00:29:22

He will bring your purpose to pass,

00:29:26

if you don't give in and sin and you walk in faith.

00:29:28

You've got to learn to surrender your future,

00:29:30

because God's future is better

00:29:32

than the one you can make up for yourself.

00:29:34

Second thing you need to trust God with, this is hard.

00:29:37

You've got to trust God with your shame.

00:29:40

Now this is hard. You know how this works.

00:29:42

Guilt says I've done something wrong.

00:29:44

Shame says there's something wrong with me.

00:29:47

Guilt is an external reality based on a decision you make.

00:29:51

Shame is an internal state based on how you view yourself.

00:29:54

One scholar said this:

00:29:55

shame is an internalized critical gaze.

00:30:02

And what that means is, when you think of yourself,

00:30:05

all you think is criticizing what's wrong with you.

00:30:10

And part of the challenge is many of us have done things

00:30:12

that are shameful things. We've done things.

00:30:15

If we had to have a lineup, if we said like,

00:30:17

"Hey, how many of you guys just want to confess

00:30:19

your secret sin and your worst secrets right now?"

00:30:21

Very -- People would be like, "I think I'm good."

00:30:24

We would actually be terrified,

00:30:26

even in a loving environment like this,

00:30:28

that we'd be rejected.

00:30:30

And we think, "Well, yeah, listen, if --

00:30:33

I know God can forgive sins, but He can't forgive me of this."

00:30:37

And if we're not careful, we spend a lot of time

00:30:39

trying to pay God back for the Cross,

00:30:42

hoping if we're sorry enough or if we do enough,

00:30:44

finally we can get rid of the shame.

00:30:47

But you can't get rid of your own shame.

00:30:51

God has to take your shame from you.

00:30:53

And the best way that you can get that shame off your life

00:30:56

is to just give it to Him.

00:30:58

Surrender your shame to the Lord.

00:31:01

When my daughter was little, she was like --

00:31:05

My kids were were I had a little boy named Nathan

00:31:09

and a little girl named Hailey.

00:31:10

And I'll never forget this one moment.

00:31:12

My son walks through the living room and says to me,

00:31:15

unprompted, "Boys have a penis and poop comes out their bums."

00:31:20

I'm like, "Great, man."

00:31:22

And then my daughter walks by

00:31:24

with makeup all over her face, in a diaper

00:31:27

with high heels and a handbag on and blows me a kiss.

00:31:31

And I'm just like, this is like boys and girls

00:31:35

in embryonic form, right?

00:31:36

It was the wildest moment.

00:31:38

My son always dirty, always bleeding,

00:31:42

always jumping off things and breaking body parts.

00:31:45

Just like full send little kid. Like, "Watch this."

00:31:48

Just go there, we're in the hospital again.

00:31:50

My daughter, delicate, delicate, feminine,

00:31:55

not enough pink on planet Earth.

00:31:58

There was a season as a dad, I banned glitter from my home.

00:32:02

Everywhere I went, my Pentecostal friends were like,

00:32:04

"I see glory dust on you."

00:32:05

It's like, "I hugged my daughter.

00:32:07

That's just glitter, man." I banned glitter.

00:32:09

I still to this day I'm at war with glitter on the earth.

00:32:13

One day I'm looking after my daughter,

00:32:15

my wife had gone out. I'm looking after my daughter.

00:32:19

I go to put her down for a nap.

00:32:21

And I'm sitting there on my couch.

00:32:22

She's upstairs in a room, and all of a sudden I --

00:32:27

I smell something that doesn't smell Christian.

00:32:32

"What is that?" It's like, "Can't be my daughter.

00:32:36

She's too cute."

00:32:38

And I go upstairs, I go into my daughter's room

00:32:42

and I'm like, "What the what?"

00:32:46

There's poo everywhere.

00:32:49

My daughter is not in the room, like she's done a runner.

00:32:53

I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is like."

00:32:56

So I go down the hall following the smell,

00:33:00

go into a spare room. I walk in the spare room.

00:33:03

There's little like, not Winnie the Pooh,

00:33:05

but like actual poo footprints into the middle of the room.

00:33:10

In the middle of the room is

00:33:11

a discarded diarrhea diaper in the middle of the floor.

00:33:15

No daughter. Just like gone.

00:33:18

I'm just literally the smell is so I'm like,

00:33:20

"What is even happening?"

00:33:22

I look at the wall and there was like

00:33:24

a Jackson Pollock hand painting all over the wall

00:33:29

of these tiny little fingers.

00:33:37

Trying to think how I'm going to explain this to my wife.

00:33:41

And then I see these little tiny poo prints.

00:33:44

The door is closed, and I see they lead behind the door.

00:33:49

And I walk over, I open, I pull the door back

00:33:52

and there's my daughter, covered in poo

00:33:56

with little hands over her face.

00:33:59

And I just said, "Hey, Hailey. What's happened?"

00:34:04

And she just looks up to me, puts her hands up

00:34:07

and says, "Poo." Poo has happened to me.

00:34:14

So I'm, like, I grab her by one leg,

00:34:18

try to turn it into a game, get her in the bath.

00:34:21

Can't find soap. I wash her with dishwashing soap.

00:34:25

Like my dad game is so low,

00:34:26

"I'm like, don't get this stuff in your eyes, sweet girl.

00:34:29

But I think this will do."

00:34:30

I clean and she's just the whole time sobbing,

00:34:33

sobbing, sobbing.

00:34:35

She's so just like adorable little princess

00:34:39

in a poo bath in a poo. It's just a disaster.

00:34:43

I eventually get her all cleaned,

00:34:45

get her back down on the couch,

00:34:47

put her in this massive white fluffy towel.

00:34:49

I'm just sitting there going, "All clean. All clean.

00:34:53

Sweet baby Hailey's all clean.

00:34:55

Smells so good. Smells like dove, but so clean."

00:35:00

And eventually her little, like her little,

00:35:02

her little whimper just gives out.

00:35:05

I was sitting there with this adorable tiny little girl

00:35:09

that I'm not angry at. I'm not upset at her.

00:35:12

I'm not mad at her.

00:35:14

She's just eaten something wrong, probably that I fed her.

00:35:18

Something's happened. She can't control it.

00:35:21

She's embarrassed.

00:35:22

She tries to get rid of it.

00:35:24

As she tries to get rid of it, it gets all over her.

00:35:26

As it gets all over her, it's on her hands.

00:35:28

She's trying to get it off her hands.

00:35:30

It's all over the wall.

00:35:31

And she just yields to the poo and hides in the corner.

00:35:33

And I was just thinking the whole time,

00:35:36

if Hailey had just yelled out, "Daddy, poo,"

00:35:39

at the beginning, I would have just come up

00:35:42

and said, "Hey, no worries, no worries.

00:35:45

This is an accident. Everything's good.

00:35:47

Let's get you cleaned up."

00:35:48

And the thing I felt the most sorry for

00:35:52

is the level of shame my daughter had

00:35:54

sitting behind the door, covered in filth, hiding.

00:35:59

Listen, this is not just a cute story.

00:36:02

I pastor a church.

00:36:04

I meet so many people that have

00:36:06

an adult version of that story who thought they were not --

00:36:10

That would never commit a sin like fill in the blank

00:36:12

and they commit that sin, and then they do it.

00:36:14

And before, you know, they can't get it off them

00:36:16

and they try and get it off them, and then they run away.

00:36:19

And their whole life is just sitting there

00:36:21

hiding, covered in shame.

00:36:24

No freedom, no joy. Hiding at church,

00:36:27

never willing to open up,

00:36:29

always worried people are going to find out

00:36:31

about this shameful thing.

00:36:33

And I just want you to know that God's heart

00:36:35

is infinitely greater than mine,

00:36:37

and that if I'm willing to do that for my daughter,

00:36:39

I'm telling you, God would just say,

00:36:41

"I wish you would just bring Me your sin and your shame.

00:36:45

You don't have to carry this any longer.

00:36:48

Let Me wash you. Let Me cleanse you."

00:36:49

Listen, maybe some of you are here because

00:36:52

this is the weekend you surrender your shame.

00:36:55

Why would you drive all the way up here with shame?

00:36:58

Get it off you while we worship

00:37:00

and then leave this weekend,

00:37:02

put all that shame and guilt on top of you

00:37:04

and go home to a life of hiding and fear?

00:37:09

This could be the time you surrender that to Jesus.

00:37:13

But then lastly, I think the ultimate thing is

00:37:16

you've got to learn to surrender your will to God.

00:37:18

You've got to give Him that permanent yes.

00:37:20

Listen to this quote. This is Saint Ignatius of Loyola.

00:37:22

He says this: sin is an unwillingness to trust

00:37:28

that what God wants is our deepest happiness.

00:37:33

Sin, we sin because at the core of our being

00:37:37

we don't believe that what God wants for us

00:37:41

is our deepest happiness.

00:37:43

And so we try and do things that we think

00:37:45

are going to be more fulfilling than what God has for us,

00:37:49

but they always result in misery.

00:37:52

And so it's learning to trust,

00:37:54

Lord, I'm willing to surrender.

00:37:56

I'm willing to hang myself out there

00:37:57

and just believe that I can trust you.

00:38:02

I don't know if you've ever read any of Henri Nouwen's book.

00:38:05

Henri Nouwen was a Dutch psychologist

00:38:08

who became a priest.

00:38:10

His most famous for his book on the Prodigal Son

00:38:12

talking about Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son.

00:38:15

He talked about grace a lot.

00:38:16

But what people didn't know during the course of his life

00:38:19

is he wrestled with same sex attraction his whole life.

00:38:22

Didn't talk about it openly, but his close friends knew

00:38:26

he just struggled with his sexuality.

00:38:28

And right before he retired, I mean, he taught

00:38:30

at the most prestigious divinity schools in the US.

00:38:34

Right before he retired, he wanted to to do something

00:38:38

that would embody his faith.

00:38:40

And so in his 70s, he joined.

00:38:43

And it's appropriate that we're in a tent like this,

00:38:45

looks a bit like a circus tent.

00:38:47

He joined a flying trapeze troupe.

00:38:52

Now, anyone ever been to the circus or seen the circus?

00:38:54

You know what the trapeze is.

00:38:56

The trapeze is where you're on a swing way up in the sky

00:39:00

and you swing and swing and swing.

00:39:03

And then you jump out and you're hanging in mid-air

00:39:06

and someone catches you.

00:39:08

And he felt like by doing this,

00:39:12

learning to swing out and hang in the air,

00:39:15

that this was going to bring him closer to God.

00:39:17

I was like, "It'll bring you closer to something."

00:39:21

And as he's getting into it, he learns this,

00:39:24

that the key when you're in the air,

00:39:26

when you climb up and you swing out,

00:39:28

the key when you're in the middle of the air

00:39:32

is to be as still as possible.

00:39:34

Because if you sort of wriggle

00:39:37

and you try and help someone catch you,

00:39:40

you actually make it harder for the person who is swinging out.

00:39:44

So the key is swing out, be as still as you can in the air,

00:39:50

and then let the person who's going to catch you

00:39:52

grab your still body.

00:39:55

And he ends up talking about this beautiful image

00:39:57

about surrender is learning to climb up in faith,

00:40:01

swing out and just be still and trust

00:40:05

that God is going to catch you.

00:40:07

He says that's the essence of surrender.

00:40:10

Now you hear that analogy and you think,

00:40:13

"That's a pretty good analogy, isn't it?

00:40:15

You've got to learn to trust God.

00:40:16

You've got to swing out in faith

00:40:17

and just believe that He's going to catch you

00:40:19

when you put yourself out there."

00:40:21

So I use this story at my church.

00:40:22

And I'm like, "So everybody, you should all surrender."

00:40:25

Everyone's like, "That's great, Pastor John."

00:40:28

Except this one couple come up to me after

00:40:30

and they're like, "Hey, Pastor John,

00:40:32

we take trapeze lessons

00:40:35

and you've missed a very important part of the analogy.

00:40:38

And we'd like to pay for your trapeze lessons

00:40:40

with your wife so you can embody this analogy

00:40:44

and learn the truth for yourself."

00:40:45

And I'm like, "Yeah, great.

00:40:46

Just, you know, tell my assistant, she'll schedule it."

00:40:49

"Literally do not schedule it," to my assistant.

00:40:51

"Do not schedule." That was a polite screen.

00:40:53

Sure enough, she doesn't polite screen.

00:40:55

The day comes and I have this shocking revelation.

00:41:00

Trapeze school takes place in a circus tent in Brooklyn,

00:41:05

and it's way higher than this.

00:41:08

And you know what your boy hates? Heights.

00:41:12

Guess what floor I live on

00:41:13

in my apartment building in New York?

00:41:16

First floor, that's right, friends.

00:41:18

First floor right here.

00:41:19

Every time I fly, I become Pentecostal

00:41:22

and pray in tongues quietly under my breath.

00:41:25

Just need divine help.

00:41:27

So we go out to this trapeze school,

00:41:30

and then I have this realization.

00:41:32

You know what it is?

00:41:34

I'm too fat to be a trapeze artist.

00:41:37

I'm like this out of shape rugby player

00:41:39

does not fly through the air with the greatest of ease.

00:41:41

So I go over to the weight limit and I'm like,

00:41:43

"Hey, hey, sorry guys, I'm not going to be able

00:41:46

to do the trapeze because I'm over the weight limit.

00:41:49

But I'll support you as you, as you do your thing."

00:41:52

And the guy running the school was like,

00:41:53

"Yo, dude, we've had dudes way fatter than you up there."

00:41:57

I'm like, "Great. Appreciate that."

00:42:00

So next thing you know, I find myself,

00:42:03

and I've got a photo of this. It's very embarrassing.

00:42:06

I find myself climbing to the top of a circus tent

00:42:10

with a guy who just gets, like, a sadistic sense of joy.

00:42:15

And he's like, "Okay, man."

00:42:16

It's like you're holding, like, a chin up bar,

00:42:19

but on these giant pieces of wire.

00:42:21

And he's like, "All right, man. Jump and go."

00:42:24

And I'm like, "How about I cut you, then push you off?

00:42:27

How about that?" He's like, "No, man."

00:42:29

There's so much pressure. Everyone's around me.

00:42:32

So I swing out and every physical instinct I have

00:42:36

kicks in, and I am, like, trying to do a permanent chin up.

00:42:40

I'm trying to do a chin up like it's going to help me.

00:42:42

So just think this out of shape rugby player

00:42:45

swinging up in the air trying to do a chin up.

00:42:48

And I do it until the rope stops

00:42:50

and everyone's yelling let go.

00:42:51

And I'm like, "I'm not letting go."

00:42:53

And I do it until I get T-Rex arms that cramp up.

00:42:57

And slowly they give out.

00:42:58

And then I fall in this giant net.

00:43:00

And everyone's just kind of like, "What? What was that?"

00:43:07

I was like, "That was courage." [laughter]

00:43:11

My friends come over to me and they say, "Hey, man,

00:43:16

we want to tell you the missing part of your analogy.

00:43:19

Here's a missing part of your analogy.

00:43:21

When you're learning to let go,

00:43:24

there's someone on the ground

00:43:26

who is the master of the trapeze.

00:43:29

And he can see when you're swinging out,

00:43:32

and he can see when the person who is going to swing out

00:43:34

is ready to catch you, and you're up there

00:43:37

trying to do some sort of permanent chin up,

00:43:40

and you're screwing the whole thing up.

00:43:43

You've got to listen for the word, and the word is hep.

00:43:47

You've got to listen for the word hep.

00:43:50

And when you hear the word hep, leap out and be still,

00:43:55

because the person who's going to catch you

00:43:57

is right there to grab you."

00:44:00

And he says, "Your problem is you think

00:44:01

you can figure out your own timing.

00:44:03

You think you can be still in the air,

00:44:05

but until you know there's somebody

00:44:07

who can see the whole picture,

00:44:08

you're never going to get caught

00:44:10

and you'll never be still."

00:44:12

So a few times later, I get back up, I swing out,

00:44:16

my arms are so sore, but I swing out

00:44:19

with my eyes closed and my ear is tuned.

00:44:23

And I'm waiting for one word, and the word is hep.

00:44:27

And I'm swinging and I'm swinging.

00:44:29

And as soon as I hear the word hep, I let myself go

00:44:33

and I just hang there in midair.

00:44:37

Now, John Ortberg says this.

00:44:39

The word trapeze, the little bar between the ropes,

00:44:42

that is a trapeze artist has to let go of

00:44:45

comes from the ancient Greek word trapeza, meaning table.

00:44:49

About the only time it's used in the New Testament

00:44:52

is when the writers claim that

00:44:53

Jesus gathers His friends around the table,

00:44:56

the trapeza, what we now call the communion table,

00:44:58

and teaches them that He will have to let go

00:45:01

of His life for them.

00:45:03

And the only way to let go, to hang on to your life

00:45:06

is to lose it.

00:45:07

Then he climbs the tree, the Cross, and He lets go.

00:45:11

He hangs above the earth for three hours

00:45:14

with his hands stretched out, not moving a muscle,

00:45:17

and He declares, "Father,

00:45:18

into Your hands I commit My Spirit."

00:45:20

And when He did that, He breathed his last,

00:45:22

and he was saving us, and He was also teaching us about trust.

00:45:27

Here's the leap. God comes and He said, "Let go.

00:45:31

Will you let go? My Son, let go for you,

00:45:35

trust Me with your life."

00:45:37

And I think that that's part of what it is

00:45:39

that God wants to do for you today.

00:45:41

God wants you to launch out in faith

00:45:44

and to let go of being a control freak

00:45:46

and learn to surrender to the Father's love

00:45:49

and to give yourself to Him,

00:45:50

trusting that if Christ died for you,

00:45:53

the Father will catch you

00:45:55

no matter what you are going through.

00:45:57

Jesus yelled out, "Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit."

00:46:01

But let me ask you today,

00:46:03

what do you need to commit to the Lord?

00:46:06

What's your thing you need to let go of?

00:46:08

What do you need to declare over your life.

00:46:10

Father, into your hands I commit what?

00:46:14

See, for some of you,

00:46:15

this weekend may be a weekend of freedom,

00:46:17

but it's going to come on the other side of Gethsemane.

00:46:20

And for some of you this weekend,

00:46:21

you're going to have to wrestle with the Father

00:46:24

to trust His love and to trust His will.

00:46:28

Listen, can you imagine in the Garden of Gethsemane

00:46:31

if Jesus, as He's sweating blood, said,

00:46:34

"You know what, Father? I can't do it.

00:46:36

I can't do it. I can't do it.

00:46:39

I know that people are worthy of dying for.

00:46:41

I know You've got a plan. I just don't have it.

00:46:44

I can't trust You."

00:46:45

And what if Jesus shrunk back and the Cross never happened?

00:46:50

What if Jesus's surrender never happened?

00:46:52

We wouldn't be here today.

00:46:54

And I want to say all of the blessings of the Cross

00:46:58

come to us on the other side of Jesus's surrender.

00:47:01

And the blessings that God has for you

00:47:04

may come on the other side of your surrender.

00:47:07

So if you've got something you need to surrender to Jesus,

00:47:09

could you just bow your head right now?

00:47:11

I want us just to be able to respond

00:47:13

to what God's saying to us.

00:47:17

Maybe you're here, maybe it's about a relationship

00:47:22

and there's an area of disobedience

00:47:24

and you're trying to play God.

00:47:27

And God's saying to you, "Will you surrender that to Me?

00:47:30

Will you trust Me in that?"

00:47:32

Maybe it's in your finances.

00:47:34

Maybe you're not obeying God's will in your finances.

00:47:36

You've got partial obedience and you're like,

00:47:39

"I'll sort of obey You, but I'm going to do this my way."

00:47:41

And God's just saying, "I want you to surrender that."

00:47:44

Maybe it's your future plans.

00:47:46

Maybe you're just a control freak and you just,

00:47:50

you just can't trust God with your future.

00:47:54

And here is God saying, "I have a future

00:47:56

better than the one you can make up yourself.

00:47:59

Surrender this to me."

00:48:02

Maybe it's your shame.

00:48:04

And maybe 10, 15 years ago, you did something

00:48:07

or something happened, and it's just buried in your life,

00:48:11

but it is controlling you.

00:48:14

And maybe today the Lord's like, "Bring it to My love.

00:48:18

Bring it to the Cross. Bring it into the light."

00:48:21

If there's something you need to surrender,

00:48:23

would you just put your hands out in front of you

00:48:25

just to the Lord and just put them face down.

00:48:27

Just face down.

00:48:32

And whatever that thing is, you sense the Lord saying to you,

00:48:34

"Come on, this is a little Gethsemane moment.

00:48:36

I want you to surrender that."

00:48:38

Just name that before the Lord.

00:48:41

Control, your future, relationships, money,

00:48:45

sexuality, bitterness, anger, family,

00:48:47

whatever it is, whatever it is,

00:48:49

and just say to the Lord, "Lord, you see this.

00:48:53

And I just, I want to hand this over to You,"

00:48:55

almost like you're pushing it to the Cross.

00:48:57

"Lord, I'm just -- I'm giving this to You.

00:48:59

I just -- take this out of my life and I give it to you."

00:49:05

And then, just in a sign of surrender,

00:49:08

just turn your hands up towards the Lord.

00:49:10

Turn them over and just say, "It's Yours, Lord.

00:49:13

It's Yours. I receive Your grace.

00:49:18

I receive Your forgiveness. I receive Your mercy.

00:49:23

I receive Your love.

00:49:25

I receive all that You have for me.

00:49:28

And more than anything, Lord, receive my will

00:49:30

and my life as an act of service to you."

00:49:35

Father, I thank You for these

00:49:37

thousands of acts of surrender

00:49:40

that have happened from Your people.

00:49:42

Lord, thank You for the Cross

00:49:44

and Your blood that makes us clean and free.

00:49:48

And Father, as we surrender these things to You,

00:49:51

we know that it makes space for Your presence,

00:49:55

Your power, Your friendship, and Your blessing.

00:49:59

So we exchange control, guilt, shame, whatever it is,

00:50:06

and we receive Your blessing in its place.

00:50:09

And we pray this in the name of Jesus.

00:50:12

And everybody said Amen. [applause]

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