Prevailing Church : Surrender

So they give evidence of divine sonship and divine ownership in their lives.

And the pathway to both divine sonship and divine ownership is this word surrender.

That's how you get there.

And people get to a place of divine sonship and divine ownership through this word called

surrender.

And surrender is rarely external.

Surrender cannot happen in two hours.

You can start the process.

You can symbolically do things that signify surrender.

But really surrender is a voluntary progressive yielding.

It's a voluntary, it's not coerced, it's a voluntary progressive yielding of what?

Of my will to someone else.

In this case, someone else's, Jesus Christ, towards what end?

So that he can reshape it as the song says, to whatever he wants me to be.

That's perhaps a definition of surrender.

To get to a place of divine sonship and divine ownership, both of which should be evident

in a disciple's life, the pathway is surrender.

Surrender may be defined as a voluntary progressive yielding of my will to someone else so that,

in our case, it's Jesus, so that he can reshape it to whatever he wants me to be.

The surrendering of the will is the greatest battle because most other things can be surrendered.

Money can be surrendered.

Even life can be surrendered.

But the will is the hardest thing to surrender.

And yet that is what leads to divine sonship and divine ownership.

And the thing is, God never forces a person to surrender his will.

God never forces a person to surrender his will.

And God never begs.

God does not beg.

Paul would implore people on God's behalf, but God doesn't beg me.

Not because he's proud, but because coercion is not his method.

Coaxing manipulation is not his method.

He doesn't give us sob stories.

He could have really milked crucifixion, but he didn't.

So he doesn't beg and he doesn't force me to surrender my will.

But he waits patiently for me to surrender my will.

The problem is, the more I prolong it and the more I resist surrendering my will,

the less time I have on earth to complete what he wants me to complete.

That's the problem.

The more I prolong a surrendering of my will, the more I resist surrender,

the less time I have on earth.

So any questions before we go on from there or anything you want to add?

Okay, so Oswald Chambers talks about three kinds of surrender.

And so I've taken the subheadings from some of his writings.

And the first surrender is surrender to rest, surrender to rest.

But the way we see rest is very different from how most writers and authors see it.

So the first surrender is to rest.

Is to rest, meaning we surrender our lives to this thing called rest.

We surrender our lives to rest.

And why do I say first?

Because there is an order here.

If you miss this order, things won't go well,

even though you have a desire to surrender.

So the first surrender is to rest in Matthew 11, 28.

Jesus did say, come unto me all that are weary and heavy laden and I'll give you rest.

But the way we see rest will take us back about four or five years when we taught about rest.

So when we say the first surrender is to rest, we are saying that we seize from self-generated

means of sustenance.

We seize from self-generated means of sustenance.

We seize from self-generated means of sustenance.

Meaning rest requires that I let go of ways that I come up with or conceive or fabricate

or manufacture to sustain myself.

It is to seize from self-generated means of sustenance.

This is what God was asking Israel to do in the desert when he said, listen, I don't want

you to bake bread anymore because bread was a usual means of sustenance for most nations

in the time that Israel was going through the wilderness.

And he said, you shall not live by bread and I'll humble you.

And what he meant by humbling there was I'll teach you how to be dependent on me.

And so he said, I'll teach you how to be dependent on me so that you may be sustained by the

proceeding word of God.

And therefore he says, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds

from the mouth of God.

So we are sustained by the proceeding word of God and his presence.

And this is what sustained Israel in the desert even though they were a stiff necked people,

they were sustained by the presence of God and the proceeding word of God.

So the first surrender is to rest.

If you don't get to this phase of surrender, there is no question of going into the other

phases of surrender.

It's not possible.

It will warp.

It will bend.

This is the essence of divine sonship.

Jesus lived like this.

This is what makes us sons because it allows us to live the life of another.

It also means letting the covenants and principles of God go to work for us.

Letting the covenants and principles of God work for us.

So just like gravity works and you don't have to do anything, you don't have to pray, you

don't have to wait in suspended anticipation.

When you throw a ball up, you know that the ball will come down because there is a principle

called gravity and gravity will go to work.

You don't have to exert your sweat, your muscles.

You throw something up, you know it will come down.

And so in the same way, there are covenants and principles that God has established that

we live by.

where a farmer plants a seed and he knows because of Genesis 822 or because his father

has told him that as long as the earth remains, there shall be summer and winter, there shall

be sowing and reaping.

So these are principles of covenants that already exist and they go to work for us.

This is what rest looks like where we do not toil because God has established things that

begin to work for us and we don't mess with them because he's made things well.

You have done all things well, just look at my life.

The fourth one is entering into the joy of God.

This is what rest looks like and this is the first thing we surrender to.

We know that we need to surrender to this because in Hebrews 4, verse 10 and 11, Paul

Hebrews 4:10

actually says that labor to enter into this rest, meaning strive to enter into this rest.

You literally have to surrender your normal way of living that you've been taught as a

child into coming to this place where you surrender.

And so the fourth one is entering into the joy of God.

Entering into the joy of God.

Why?

Because you see the end from the beginning.

Joy of God because you see the end from the beginning.

This is what Jesus saw in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 13, 12 I think, verse 1 or 2 or

Hebrews 12:13

verse 2 or 3 where it says, for the joy that was set before him, he knew the end from the

beginning.

He knew what would happen, that God's son would not see decay, that he would rise again.

That Isaiah 53 already said that from the death of his son will come a harvest.

And so rest requires that I enter into the joy of God because you see the end from the

beginning because rest was always joyful.

The next one is to labor to enter into it.

To labor to enter into it.

And that's the scripture I just gave.

Labor to enter into it.

You have to labor to enter into rest.

You have to surrender to it.

There is an act of the will where you're saying, I surrender, I will strive to enter into it.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 10 says that God has entered into rest, meaning God has ceased

Hebrews 4:10

from all his works, meaning God has already established things and now since he has finished

everything, it is finished, he says, Jacob, why don't you enter into this rest?

Rest with me.

Rest is not the absence of work.

It involves work, but it's not something you do on your own.

It is listening to what God is saying, doing what he asks you to do.

And so we labor to enter into this rest or the seventh day position.

On the seventh day, God rested.

If you go to Hebrews chapter 4, verse 10, Hebrews 4, 10.

Hebrews 4:10

Hebrews 4, 10.

It says that for he that is entered into his rest, he also has ceased from his own works

as God did from his.

Let me read.

For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

The message, God himself is at rest and at the end of the journey, we'll surely rest

with God.

That is unfortunately a bad translation.

That's when you know the message messes up.

In verse 11, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no man may fall by the same

sort of disobedience, which means that if you don't surrender to rest, there is a high likelihood

of you entering into disobedience.

If you don't enter into rest, there is a high likelihood of you entering into disobedience

because you have to do things based on the perspiration of your thinking and your strength.

That's all you really have.

So you're bound to make mistakes.

And he says you will end up in disobedience if you don't enter into rest.

The next one was the next way we work rest into our lives is the very word sabbath or

which means to seize or desist from exertion, to seize or desist from exertion, to seize

or desist from exertion, which is why when Jeevan was talking about how he went up there,

and normally the typical way to go about doing stuff when you go on a mission to Plagueis

is to war and declare and stomp your feet and all that stuff.

And there might be a time and place for that, but sometimes you have to desist from exertion

because these battles are not won by the strength of the horse, by the size of the chariot,

by might or by power, but by the spirit.

And then the last one is, that is six.

And the seventh one is surrendering to rest requires living the life of another, requires

living the life of another, living the life of another, where you decide that this life

that you presently have while it is good doesn't have what it takes to live the way

Christ lived. I no longer live, Christ lives in me, therefore I will live the life of another.

We've talked about this, you can go online and listen to teachings on the feast of tabernacles,

which was basically a festival that celebrated rest.

So the first surrender is the first surrender of the life of another.

So the first surrender is to rest. If you don't get this right, there's really no question

of the next two surrenders because they are so much tougher and if you go there without

learning this, you'll get exploited, you will overextend yourself and you will get exhausted.

We'll talk about that. Any questions on this?

I do think that Acts 29 over the years has learned this, but it is a reminder that we

need to live only like this. It's probably one of my greatest strengths to operate our

arrest. It's probably one of our greatest strengths as a church. Even our services,

show that. We don't do much during a service. Everything just happens. Any questions?

Any questions guys?

To live the life of another is impossible if you don't live out of relationship. Divine

Sonship, at the end of the day, is born out of relationship and that's how you live the

life of another. So go home, listen to it again and remind yourself that, hey, I've

got to come to this place where my first surrender is to rest. It's not to anything else but

rest. Because if you live by the proceeding word of God, if you decide that you will not

live out of self-generated sustenance, if you let the covenants and principles of God

go to work for you, if you enter into joy so that you can be of good cheer even when

things are difficult and overcome because you know the end from the beginning and the

end of the beginning is not some kind of an outcome, it is Jesus Christ. If you begin

to labor every time you find yourself out of rest, if you begin to labor to enter back

and strive to get back into this place where you live by what God says, not an iota more,

not an iota less. If you desist from exertion and learn to be still, if you allow the life

of another that already exists in you to begin to live out from you, then you are now ready

having surrendered yourself to rest. You are now ready to go to the next phase which

is surrender my right to myself. Surrender my right to myself. To surrender my right

to myself. The second surrender is the surrender of my right to myself. And we have a right

to ourselves. It was given us by the creator. Which is why he gave us a will. If we didn't

have a right to ourselves he would not have given us each individual a will. He wouldn't

have done that. But the surrender of my right to myself. In John, sorry in Matthew 16 24

it says, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up the cross and

follow me. I've been reading a few verses like that and it's odd how the follow me is

always at the end. We have a tendency to say follow me and then you can later on deny yourself

and take up the cross and stuff like that. Whenever Jesus talks he usually puts follow

me at the end of the sentence. Before that he says, if you want to, anyone who wants

to, desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up the cross and follow me.

In other words, here's what he's saying. If you want to be my disciple, if you want to

be my disciple, if you want to be my disciple, you must give up the right to yourself. You

must give up the right to yourself to me, as in to him. If you want to be my disciple,

you must give up your right to yourself to me. If you want to be my disciple, you must

give up your right to yourself to me. Amazing religion we have. I love it. It is so difficult

sometimes. Not so difficult, it so goes against the grain of everything that the world says.

So in other words, what he's saying is, and scripture backs this up, you are not your

own. You are mine to plant, bury, break, pour, multiply, distribute as I please.

But again, he does not coerce, he doesn't take over till there is surrender. You are

not your own. You are his. You are mine to send, to plant, to bury, to break, to pour,

to multiply, to distribute as he sees fit. This is the surrender of the will. And just

because I went to, Uttarakhand doesn't qualify me for this, that might be a trip. How about

again tomorrow? How about, and that's just a trip. This is what he's asking for. I find

this a stage that we, I mean a third stage, we don't really talk about it because I don't

think there's enough experiential knowledge in this church to go beyond that.

To go beyond talking about it. But at least we can start working on this, where you surrender

your right to yourself, to him. If you want to be my disciple, you must give up the right

to yourself. And this is something I've been talking to God about, saying, Father could

you teach me this? How I've surrendered to rest and I've learned that well. Now I must

surrender my rights to myself, to you, so that you can send, plant, bury, break, to

the poor, multiply, distribute as you please for the sake of others. Because it's not for

your own sake, it's for the sake of others. So then, I become your servant, but I can't

see you as my servant because you are his servant. That's how it works. It's not reciprocal

relationship where I am your servant, so therefore you are my servant. No, I'm your servant,

you are God's servant. You're not my servant. And so, his guests, he will send you, plant

you, bury you, break you, pour you out, multiply you, distribute you as he pleases. And who

is he doing this to? For? He's doing it for his guests who come to him. And who are his

guests? It can be a believer, it can be a non-believer, it can be a prisoner, it can

be a prince. It doesn't matter who it is. You are now at his disposal. Because the moment

you surrender your right to yourself, look at what you become. Servant son. The moment

you surrender your right to yourself, you become a servant son. If you look at John

12, 24 to 26, it kind of sums up this whole idea of I will break you, pour you, bury you,

and do what I want with you because you have decided that you're surrendering yourself

to me. John chapter 12, verse 24. Listen carefully. Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the

John 12:24

ground dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried,

it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on

to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love,

you'll have it forever, real and eternal. If anyone of you wants to serve me, then follow

me. Then you'll be where I am, ready to serve at a moment's notice. The Father will honor

and reward anyone who serves me. John 12, 24 to 26. Guys, it's necessary first to surrender

to rest, which we talked about. If you want a photograph of what we wrote on the board,

you can get it from Maurice and he may charge you. But the reason we have to surrender to

rest, which is to live by the proceeding word of God, is because if you surrender your right

to yourself without surrendering to rest, here's what's going to happen. You won't

know when you're being exploited. You won't know how much is enough because now you've

become a servant, but you've become a servant to the whims and fancies of environment, people,

conditions, church, pastor. And now you're not necessarily hearing God. You're hearing

everything and everyone. What happens then is you get exhausted, you get exploited. Nothing

wrong with being exploited, but why get exploited unnecessarily? Get exploited by unbelievers,

not necessarily by believers, if you can avoid it. You get exploited, you get exhausted and

you get overextended. In the sense you never know which is God and which is not God. This

is why it is first important to surrender to rest before you surrender your right to

yourself. And when people don't, you operate, you will literally destroy yourself if you

are not careful. You will destroy yourself. Because let's assume you're a servant and

you get a call tomorrow saying, come and serve here. While you're serving there you get another

call saying come and serve here. While you're doing that someone else says come and do this.

What are you going to say no to? And how are you going to discriminate if you first didn't

learn how to surrender to living by the proceeding word of God? Any questions? Yep. Live the

life of another. To live the life of another is to live the life of another by being a

survivor. The other is to let Christ in me either do all the work or take advantage of

the work he has already done. The example I usually give is this. If you're in the hospital

and if someone has to have, what are those things called that you hook to somebody else

when they breathe? Respirator. Yeah. So they take a patient into the hospital and then

they take a bedpan and they knock you out. Because if you hook the respirator to a person

while they're breathing then your breathing begins to conflict with the respirator. So

they normally give you some kind of a sedative. In the olden days they would just knock you

off with the bedpan. But now that they have sedatives they give you a sedative and you

kind of doze off. And when you doze off they connect you to the respirator so the respirator

can start breathing for you. Otherwise there's always a conflict. To live the life of another

is to either let what Jesus has already done go to work for you or let the Jesus who lives

in you begin to do the work while you sit back and take the credit. So it completely

removes all anxiety, all pressure, all need to do stuff to make stuff happen. You just

listen to him, do what he tells you to. Living the life of another is what Jesus was doing

in John chapter 10 and John chapter 11. Lazarus is dead. Lazarus is dead. And he instead of

John 10 · chapter mention John 11 · chapter mention

reacting from his own strength and power and knowledge of his father does something so

different where he does not go to raise a sick man. When the sick man dies he still

does not go. When the sick man has been dead for four days he finally goes. Why? Because

he's living only by one thing, the proceeding word of God, nothing else. And the strange

thing is Jesus did not heal anybody because he had the power to heal them. Jesus healed

everybody because of the presence of the Spirit in his life to heal. He was as limited when

it came to healing as I am. This is very hard for people to sometimes agree to or understand

but the fact remains that Jesus was as limited as I am when it came to healing people. And

all his healing happened by the power of the Holy Spirit. And he got it right every time

because he learned how to let the life of God in him work through him. He never had

a problem with how am I going to take care of my mother and my four brothers and sister.

How am I going to take care of them? Because he knew that if he didn't take care of his

family as the oldest one he was worse than an infidel. He said it himself. So he had

to take care of them. How he could take care of them he doesn't know. How he would pay

taxes he didn't know. How work would come he didn't know. But he was so sure that he

could one depend on God doing stuff because he knew what his father could do. This is

living the life of another where you do not do anything except what he tells you to. Not

an iota more. It is absolute splendid rest. But when he tells you to do something you

do it with all your strength. You are not lazy. Like Rhonda was reading out when you

have to when you should run you will run not walk. So it is not an absence of work ethic

but it is absolutely the absence of any strain, any machination, any exertion of strength

or mind power that is self generated. You will use your mind power when he tells you

to use it. You will use your physical strength when he tells you to use it. But you do not

create things for yourself through your thinking or your own strength. I know you have heard

this before but for the sake of the tape and for those that haven't heard it before Ezekiel

Ezekiel 44:17–19

44 verse 17 to 19. When you come to minister before me God said to the Levites you will

not wear linen turbans or linen loincloths because I do not want you to perspire. And

the reason he said do not perspire is not because he had a problem with it but because

he wanted to bring out a point that when you come before me I do not want you to exert

your human thinking and I do not want you to exert your human strength. And so he forbade

the Levites from wearing anything except linen turbans and linen loincloths because anything

else would cause them to perspire and he did not want the ministers before him to perspire.

Fascinating! No self-exertion Jacob. Absolutely no self-exertion. Was there self-exertion

in the quail being brought into the wilderness? No. Was there self-exertion in the water that

came out of the rock? No. Was there self-exertion in the makeshift slippers that were worn out?

No. Was there self-exertion in the clothes that were not wearing out? No. Was there self-exertion

in keeping the scorpions and the serpents away? No. Was there self-exertion in bringing

shade during hot days and warmth during cold nights? No. There was absolutely no self-exertion.

Because they work, yes, you had to go with baskets and collect. You had to strike the

rock or speak to the rock. That was all they did. They lived by the proceeding word of

God and the presence of God and that is the surrender that is first asked of us. If you

do not surrender to rest, you cannot successfully surrender your right to yourself because you

will be someone who destroys yourself.

Because you will either be exploited or you will exhaust yourself or you will over extend

yourself through flesh driven ideas of servanthood. But the moment you surrender your rights to

yourself, remember what you become. You become a servant son. Philippians 2.7. Philippians

2.7. Can someone read it out kind of loudly from a decent version? Philippians 2.7. What

is a decent version? We will find out when you read it. Philippians 2.7.

Gave up the right to himself and became a servant. Now a servant, and we talked about

this I think in 2010, a servant is permanently, this is what giving up the right to yourself

looks like, is permanently subjected to his master. Is permanently subjected to his master.

This is what giving up your right to yourself means. This is why it is harder than lifting

up your hands in a service and saying I surrender. Two, a servant is totally dependent on his

master. It's a deliberate separation from other means of dependence like my boss, like

my salary, like my inheritance, like my relatives, like my family. It's a deliberate separation

from all other ways that we actually connect our dependence to. A servant is totally dependent

on his master. Three, he serves his master's guests. He serves his master's guests. It

doesn't matter that it might be your neighbor, it might be someone you don't like, it might

be a prince, it might be a prisoner, it might be a believer, it might be an unbeliever who

killed your dad or mom. It doesn't matter. Four, a servant functions along with his master

alongside other servants. So there is order here and the functions are not the same. And

sometimes based on functions, some servants may be higher up the pecking order from the

view of the world but not in the eyes of God. At the end of the day, all God looks at in

every servant is faithfulness. And so it doesn't matter whether you're bottom rung

or top rung, your faithfulness determines your expansion. Five, he works without expectation

of pay. He works without expectation of pay. Really, he works without expectation of pay.

Yes, because he had an opportunity when he received Christ on the cross to be set free.

And having been set free, he goes back to Christ and says, here is my ear. Can you nail

my earlobe to the doorpost? Because even though you set me free, I come running back to be

a servant. And at the end of the day, after having done everything for you, Jesus, I will

say that this was just my duty and I'm an unprofitable servant. It's just nuts how this

kingdom works. And the sixth one is he owns nothing but stewards everything on behalf

of his master. He owns nothing but stewards everything on behalf of his master. This is

what giving up the right to yourself looks like. I think we'll stop here because there's

still a long ways to go and I don't want to rush it. I'll just let you know. Or maybe

I'll complete just this section. We'll leave the third section for next time. So when I

give up the right to myself, when I decide that, yes, I've learned how to surrender to

rest, I learn how to surrender to doing only what God tells me, nothing else, no other

means of self-generated sustenance. Having learned that now with God, I come and say,

I would like to learn how to surrender my right to myself. And the moment I surrender

my right to myself, I realize that, oh shucks, I've just gone from son to servant son. It

was great to be, I'm a child of God, yes I am, but now I'm a child of God and a servant.

And then this kicks in, that I'm permanently subjected to the master. So this is not voluntary

work anymore. I've nailed my ear to the door and I'm saying, I am here for you to send

to break, to pour out, to bury, to multiply and to distribute to whomsoever you choose

to do that with. Then I realize I'm permanently subjected to the master. And this is the great

thing about the whole story of Isaac on the altar. He stayed on the altar. I do not pull

myself off the altar. And these are the things we must learn. I pray God that we learn how

to stay on the altar and not take time off. And then I realize that since I have surrendered

my right to myself, I now am also saying that I will not fend for, work for, try to support

myself, because I'm totally dependent on the master. Imagine what I'm saying, eh? That

I won't fend for, I won't work for, I won't try to create ways for me to sustain myself,

because this kind of servanthood is the kind of servanthood where this benevolent, wonderful

God master that I have, I can be totally dependent on. Because otherwise I will serve two or

more masters. You cannot. I'm at the beck and call of two or more masters otherwise.

Three, I will serve the masters' guests and it is not left to me to discriminate. I don't

have a choice. Father forgive them for they do not know what they're doing. The great

thing is Jesus epitomizes this. God at his heart is a servant. One of the core essences

of God is that he's a server. Servant makes it sound more noble. Let's just call him

server. The core essence of God is that of a server. So the third thing then becomes

I'll serve my masters' guests and I do not have a choice in who. I do not have a choice

in who. One of the things that's happened to Christianity all around the world, especially

to western Christianity, is we let our personalities dictate where, whom, how, when. That's just

not me. Who's asking? Nobody asked you. You're a servant. I'm not talking about you being

my servant. Like I said, I am your servant but I can't expect you to be my servant. You

are God's servant. That's how this works. It also means that if I surrender my right

to myself, that I function alongside other servants and some of them may have positions

that they aren't fully fulfilling well but that is when Jesus turns to you and says,

what is it to you? I once remember talking to the Lord about a person who was being unfaithful

and the Lord said to me, who are they being unfaithful to? I said to you and I felt the

Lord saying, so then what is it to you? Because if they're being unfaithful to me, if you're

feeling terribly righteous and indignant about it, tell me why. They didn't do me any harm.

So if a servant is being unfaithful in his function, I must learn that I still work alongside

other servants because his house cannot be run by one steward or one servant. There

are scores of them and some of them you will find are iron sharpening iron and that's exactly

what they think of you too. But you work alongside servants that function in different capacity

and God does not look at their function, he looks at their faithfulness. I'm very sure

of this. There's not some cliched line that makes us all feel equal. It is just that functions

are not equal but faithfulness is the measure and that is the only thing that will have

you hear those marvelous words and surprisingly the marvelous words are not well done good

and faithful son. Go figure. This is so precious to God. It is not well done good and faithful

son. If I surrender my right to myself, I must work without expecting anything from

God. I don't need to work without the expectation of pay meaning there is no if I do this for

you what will you do for me. My God I dislike it when I hear stuff like okay what has God

done for me lately. Why should I still follow him? Thank God we don't think like that but

do not entertain that for a second right. We work without the expectation of pay because

the garden of Eden. Why would you need pay when you have everything that Adam had in

the garden of Eden is provided to you. Why would you expect pay? What was provided in

the garden of Eden? Dignity and worth. Doesn't matter that you're a bond servant you have

dignity and worth. Made in his image. What was provided in the garden of Eden? Security.

I will put you in a garden east of Eden. They were secure there. What was provided in the

garden of Eden? You know I remember me preaching this at the church in Chennai and Chad's dad

summed up the whole thing because I was speaking in a Tamil service and he came and said to

the congregation you need to understand that nobody can touch you or lay a hand on you

because you are secure in God. I thought to myself man that's taking my message to an

extreme. I wouldn't probably have said that but the moment he said that I knew that that

is what I must expect for you, for me and for us. If security is what he is giving then

it is that kind of security that he is giving when nobody can lay a hand on you because

he guarantees the essentials of Eden to his servants which is why we work without expectation

of pay. Third, what was provided in the garden? He said I will give you provision. He didn't

say work and I will give you provision. He said I will give you provision and then because

I work you work. What was given in the garden of Eden? You were given companionship and

intimacy both with Eve and with God who walked with Adam and Eve in the cooler garden. Guaranteed

intimacy the same kind that Jesus had. Hey you and I get there we will say with Jesus

sitting at the well my food is to do the will of the Father and to finish it. That's what

we will say. What else was given in the garden of Eden? They were given purpose. What is

our purpose? It is very simple. Make disciples of all nations and build Christ reflecting

mature churches that prevail. This is our purpose. If this is not your purpose then

we will have to preach about destiny and big dreams and stuff like that. All of it is true

but if the horizon does not have this singular purpose that Jesus Christ's purpose was make

more disciples, make disciples of all nations, build Christ reflecting churches that prevail.

If that is not the end goal then it does not matter whether you are a businessman, whether

you are an engineer, whether you are a naval architect, whether you are a construction

worker. If that is not the final purpose then your purpose is unworth squat. What else did

he have in the garden of Eden? Dignity, security, provision, companionship, purpose, freedom.

Freedom to eat of anything except one and that was put so that he would have to make

a choice. If free will was not given there wouldn't be a tree. The tree was necessitated

because of the free will given to man. Freedom. Freedom to everything is permissible for us

but because we are servants we don't think in terms of permission we think in terms of

beneficial. Freedom to engage with the father just like Jesus did. Freedom to have the spirit

of God live in us and live through us. Freedom to dance under the sun. Because we have been

provided these essentials as a servant you work without the expectation of pay. And final

one, however we will stop at this, is that once I give up my right to myself I realize

that all that I presently possess I do not own and that it may be taken any time, not

taken, it may be asked of me any time to take what I have at present for breaking, pouring,

distributing, multiplying. So I own nothing but I possess everything but I cannot exert

ownership over it. And so the moment I say I surrender my right to myself every morning

it becomes more important to pray give us this day our daily bread. Because you want

two things now, you want God to tell you what to do with what you have and also provide

what you need because nothing you own is any longer yours and this becomes difficult.

This is not theoretical. This is not theoretical. I am pleading with God please help me do this

because I definitely am not able to do this. I am not here at all. But it is a cry now.

So we will stop here but the third stage is when you surrender your right to self determination.

You surrender your right to self determination where to simply put it you have written it

down a certain way. It is to want what your will does not want. It is to want what your

will does not want. Father take this cup away from me but not your will but mine. I have

preached this. I have believed this. I have preached it and it may be true while we are

young but once we are old it changes. What did Jesus say to Peter and John? He said when

you were young someone dressed you and they took you but now that you are old someone

will tie your hands together and take you where you do not want to go. It is a surrender

of the right to self determination where you do not even get to choose what you want because

you now begin to choose what your will does not want to choose. I am talking about stuff

I don't know but Jesus is like that. He is the one who is going to take you where you

want to go because I often say God won't send you anywhere you are not ready for and

that you don't want to go which is true but he is yearning that you will say anywhere

oh God because I will will to go where I don't want to go but we will talk about that later.

So I will just ask Jane to come back and sing the chorus of that song.