Dr Charles Stanley - God’s Condition For His Full Blessing - Part 2

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
You can expect the very best that God could possibly
conceive of and plan for your life. That is the
very character of God. Why do we resist a full
surrender of our life? Because we'll say, I know he's God,
I know he loves me unconditioning, I know he'll always
do what's right for me. And yet listen, when it
comes to full surrender, we resist it. We recall the

(00:23):
Verse with the words of total surrender. I want to
care about God's love and goodness, and that's a prayer.
But surrender and yieldedness and sacrifice, I don't like those words.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Welcome to in Touch the teaching ministry of doctor Charles
Stanley and the conclusion of.

Speaker 1 (00:42):
His Firm Foundation series.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
One of the hardest things believers have to do is
say I give up.

Speaker 1 (00:49):
But as we'll hear today.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
That's the position God intends for us to take for
our good and his glory. Stay with us now to
hear about making a full surrender to Christ.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
God can absolutely change your life, revolutionize your life, change
your sense of circumstances, and change the flow of the
blessings of God in your life. You say, well, how
can you promise me that? Well, I don't have to
promise you that all I have to say is this.
Here's what God says. He has never lied. And those

(01:27):
of us who've been saved a long time, we've lived
long enough to watch what God does and how he operates,
and how his ways work out in our lives. We
know he will keep his word, not to the last breath,
but through all eternity. I want you to turn, if
you will, to Romans chapter twelve, And the title of
this message is God's condition for his full blessing. There

(01:50):
is a condition in order to experience God's full blessing
in life. You say, well, now, what do you mean
by full blessing? Here's what I mean. I mean to
be able to expelienriance all that God has planned for
your life? Or what is that? Is what it is?
It's whatever. He knows his best in every single area
of your life. He's a good God. He has the

(02:13):
best in store. The issue is do I want his best?
Am I willing to take not God's second best, because
he offers no second best? But am I willing to
be satisfied with far less than God wants to give?
God wants to reveal. God wants to give of himself
or whatever abundance he wants to send our way. Are

(02:35):
you willing to take less when you can have the
very best? Well Romans, Chapter twelve. These first two verses,
he says, therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies
of God, to present your bodies a living and holy
sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
And do not be conformed of this world, but be

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transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you
may prove what the will of God is. What's that
that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Now, when
Paul begins this passage by saying therefore, what he's doing,
he's referring to everything he's written from chapter one all
the way through these first eleven chapters, and he's been
talking about the sinful and helpless condition of mankind. God's justifying, redeeming, saving,

(03:21):
forgiving work on the Cross, the dwelling presence, and the
power of the Holy spirits enable us to live the
Christian life. And now he comes and he talks about
his mercy that he's bestowed upon us, shown us mercy,
and he says, therefore, on the basis of all that
God has done for us. He says, I beseech you,
I urge you, I plead with you to present your

(03:44):
body a living, holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is
the reasonable right thing to do. And he says, stop
allowing yourself to be part of the world's mold. He says,
that's not the best way. The best way is God's wayrifice. Now,
with that in mind, I want to talk about this

(04:04):
one condition in order to receive God's full blessing. They
are not many conditions. There's one ultimate condition that is
the bottom line to receive God's best. And when you
look look at this passage, it's very evident here that
God's condition for full blessing calls for a full surrender.

(04:24):
God's condition for a full blessing calls for a full surrender.
What does he say, I urge your brethren for the
mercies of God, to present your body. He's not simply
talking about your physical body, but that's your whole being, body, soul,
and spirit, the total being as a sacrifice, living holy
sacrifice acceptable to God. God offers his best, He has

(04:46):
prepared his best. And the truth is I can either
be satisfied with less than God has to offer or
I can ask the question, God, what would you do
with me? If I gave you my whole life? What
would you send my way? If I I offered my
life without reservation, without any bargaining, without any kind of
holding back, in any area of my life? What would

(05:08):
you do? What could you do? What are you willing
to do? What do you want to do? One thing?
For certain God has prepared the very best that He
and his infinite wisdom and unconditional love can possibly provide
for every single one of his children. Turn, if you
will to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight a passage
that you certainly ought to circle and memorize it or

(05:30):
however you want to handle it, but certainly market in
your Bible. Listen to this verse. Verse thirty one says,
what then shall we say to those things? If God
is for us, who is against us? Listen? God is
for every single one of his children. He is on
the side of every single one of his children. He
is looking out for every single one of his children.

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And so he says, he who did not spare his
own son, Speaking of God not sparing, he said he
did not spare Jesus, but delivered him over for us
all that isn't the crucifixion, How will he not also
with him, that is, with Christ, freely give us all things. Listen,
not stingily, but abundantly, freely give us all things. Here's

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a God who has a plan for us. He says,
we'll not want any good thing. He's stored up goodness
for us. And he says, here's what I want you
to see. If I didn't reserve my only begotten son,
if I didn't keep him to myself, and I gave
you the very best that I have, is that not
an indication of what you can expect from me in
your life? You can expect the best. You can expect

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the very best that God could possibly conceive of and
plan for your life. That is the very character of God.
Now let's think about something. Why do we reject? Why
do we recoil? Why do we resist a full surrender
of our life? Because we'll say, I know he's God,
I know he loves me unconditionally, I know he has

(06:55):
the best for me. I know he'll always do what's
right for me. And yet listen, we will declare that
we believe every bit of that. At the same time,
when it comes to full surrender. We resist it. We
recalled the bird with the words of total surrender that
I want to care about God's love and goodness and
as a prayer, but surrender and yieldedness and sacrifice. I
don't like those words. Why do we protest God's idea

(07:19):
of wanting absolute control of our life? And you know,
when I hear somebody say, well, I'll tell you right now,
I'm gonna have it my way only for a while, brother,
only for a while, it is making it as how
much they accumulate, how much prestige, prominence, power and all
the rest. You know what, when you're having it your way,
there's something very important missing in your life. And besides that,

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the things that people are trying to fill up their
life with have no eternal value whatsoever. There's only one
thing that can make you joy us. There's only one
thing that can give you surreal security, and that is
a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. All that other stuff
is just stuff that's passing away and turn the ashes
one of these days? What about it? Why is it
we recoil? Number one fear? That's interesting the attitude people

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have about God. For example, somebody says, well, you know,
I'm just afraid to make a fool surrender because I'm
afraid of what God may require of me. Now what
does that say? It says that my idea about God
is this, He's sitting up in heaven and he's just
waiting for the day for me to give full surrender,
and then he's gonna put it on me. That's the

(08:27):
attitude people have. So people are afraid. But you know what,
it's false fear. What do you and not have to fear?
When we have an unconditioned, loving God who's provided the best.
He says, I've planned the best for you, have a
plan for you. He says it's for welfare, that's good,
not calamity. So people are afraid. They're afraid to surn Listen,

(08:48):
now ask yourself this question. God wants me to give
myself fully and Absoline told it to him. Now, what
is it I'm afraid of? And if you will analyze
what you're afraid of, it has no basis whatsoever. But
there's the second reason. The second reason is because of
our own sense of selfishness. We don't want even God

(09:09):
dictating to our life, telling us what to do, telling
us how to do it and telling us when to
do it. We just don't want God doing that. Now.
We're willing to pray, go to church, read the Bible,
do all those other things, but we don't want God
telling us how to run our life. Well, let me
ask you a question. Does that mean that you and
I are smarter about how to run our life than
God is? That's what the implication is. You see, there

(09:31):
has to be a reason, there is a reason in
our thinking. I didn't say this was a good reason
or right reason. There has to be a reason that
we are responding to God by withholding from him our
total being, our total selves. Has to be a reason.
It certainly can't be because he's bad, because he's evil,
because he'll mistreat us, or any of those things. It
has to be because something in our thinking is not correct.

(09:56):
Why would you not surrender your life totally and completely
to God, who has your best in mind, who's planned
the best for you, who's promised you the best, who
loves you unconditionally, who's written your name in the Lamb's
Book of life, who's forgiven you of your sins, Who's
going to take you home to heaven and spend all
eternity with you. Why would you not do it acting

(10:19):
any other way but in full sern That doesn't even
fit who we are. Who are we? We're the purchase
sons and daughters. But listen, were owned by him. We
are owned by him. He has the right, so on us,
we have no right. And imagine us telling an omnipotent
God you can't have all of me would be like
this pen saying I'm not gonna write for you and

(10:42):
anybody whom the Lord has called to preach the gospel,
the mission feelers serve him in a way, my friend,
for you to tell Almighty sovereign God that you're not
going to do it, have you thought about how serious
that is. God's called you to teach a son in
the school class of young boys who need a fo
the image they come from broken homes, no father, looking

(11:05):
for somebody to be an influence of that life. And
you say, God, I'm not going to do that. Can't listen?
Do you realize what you're telling God? When he owns you,
he possesses you, he is the right to control. He
could swipe you out and never even bat one of
his divine eyes. And you're telling him no, my friends,

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you haven't been thinking very wisely that you're going to
tell God know about any aspect of your life. He
has a right to call for full surrender, and we
protest it because we are selfish, and because we have
an erroneous view of God, and because our attitude is
such that we think He's going to abuse us in
some fashion. Now, with that in mind, let's get down

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to the hard, cold fact of what is and what
is involved in this whole issue of making a full surrender.
I want you to jot down three words. Here's what
is involved in making a full surrender of your life
to Christ. Now remember this, say two things. When you
got saved more thannlikely nobody ever told you what you've

(12:12):
heard this morning. You just got saved. They told you
it was going to go to heaven when you died,
and that was good enough for you. Then you did
the best you could. You read your Bible and praise.
I'm not being critical. I know exactly how this is.
Nobody told me anything about that either. And so you've
sort of struggled through your life and made decisions on
your own, never thinking about, for example, that God's interested
in your job. But God's interest in your family, God's

(12:33):
interest in your children, and God's inst where you're going
to school. In other words, you just sort of made
those decisions. God's been interested in every single one of those.
I'm not being critical, I'm just saying I want you
to understand something. Three words. The first word is definite, definite,
The second word is deliberate, and the third word is voluntary.

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To think about this. By definite, I mean a specific decision.
By deliberate, I mean carefully evaluated, you thought about it,
thought through it. Voluntary That is, it is an act
of your will, the choice that you've made. What is
involved in a full surrender It is a definite, deliberate,

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voluntary transfer of undivided possession, control, and use of our
entire being, body, soul, and spirit to the Lord Jesus Christ,
to whom we rightfully belong. That's the total being transfer listen.

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Voluntary transfer of undivided control, use, possession to Jesus Christ,
to whom we rightfully belong. That's what a full surrender requires,
a deliberate, definite, voluntary transferring. What we're saying is this,
We're saying God, from this point on, I've had it

(14:17):
my way. But from this point on, it's your call.
Whatever you want, that's what I want. That's what I'm
going to do. Whatever you require, that's what I'm going
to do. Wherever you say go, that's where I'm going.
Whatever you want, that's what I want. And when I
don't want it, I'm going to trust you and obey you.
Even when I don't want what you say. There may
be something in my flesh, and it's not easy oftentimes

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to be obedient. You know what. It's not a matter
that I always feel good about it. It's the matter
that I acknowledge his right to require, and a life
fully surrendered has transferred listen undivided so that I don't
have I'm not running part of the show, and he's
running part of the show. It's not part of me
and part of him doing this, and not part of

(14:59):
his possession. I'm claiming something for myself, undivided, undivided possession,
control and use of our total being, body, soul, and
spirit transfer to Jesus Christ him rightfully belongs. Only then
is he practically the lord of my life. Here's what
that requires, here's what it calls for. Lord, here's my life.

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No reservations, no bargaining, total absolute surrender. Is that difficult, Yes,
it is. Listen to this. That's why he sent the
Holy Spirit to enable you and me listen to trust
him that when we yield everything to him and surrender

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everything to him in a definite, deliberate, voluntary decision on
our part, that from that point on, watch this. If
he owns us, he possesses us, He's responsible for us.
God assumes full responsibility for the life fully surrendered to him.

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You cannot lose, you said, Now, wait a minute, is
that a one time thing? That listen carefully. I do
believe that there is a point in a person's life
where they understand what we are talking about, and for
the first time in their life, they recognize, genuinely, truly
recognize that he has a right for absolute control, and

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they make that decision, Lord Jesus, I choose to make
a definite, deliberate voluntary transfer of all possession, all control,
and all use of my life, no exception, no reservation,
transfer to you, Lord Jesus, to do with me what
you choose, when, where, and how. I think there is

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a definite time now following that, every time a decision
comes up that would cause me to want to lean
and move from some of the direction I have to renew.
I must renew my position fully surrendered. Yes, Lord, fully surrendered.

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And this is one of the wonderful things about your
time of prayer and meditation, because what happens every time
that we get on our knees. Are we getting to
the Word and read asking God to speak to our heart,
what happens. It is a wonderful time and it should
certainly be daily, at a minimum, daily to say, Lord,
I want you to check my life. Is there anything
that I've tried to take control of the day. Is
there any aspect of my life Lord that I'm trying

(17:40):
to want to manipulate? I just lay that down. I
just reaffirm totals full surrender. I want you to be
absolute boss, because I trust you much better than I
trust myself. You know what, It's really very simple when
you look at it. Obey God, leave all the consequences

(18:03):
to him because he assumes full responsibility for the life
fully surrendered to him. He calls for a full surrender
listen because He wants the best for us, and those
who are willing to make that surrender will experience a
joy they have never known a peace, they have never
known a confidence, They have never known a sense of security,

(18:26):
they have never experienced. That is the gift and so
much more if you're willing to trust him with your
whole life, which belongs to him anyway, And what you're
saying in essence is this, No longer will I have
it my way from this point on, I want it

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your way. And Father, how grateful we are. You've put
up with us for so long. You watch us struggle
and freaten, fume over things, and there you sit upon
your throne with the very best that you could possibly offer,
waiting to bestow it upon us, when we position ourselves
in obedience and surrender to you, to pour out your

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blessing upon us. I pray that every person who hears
this message would stop and think seriously about their life,
where they're headed, what they may have missed, what they
don't want to miss, and be wise enough to say

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all to Jesus. I surrender all to him, I freely give,
I will ever love and trust him and in his presence,
but the power of the Holy Spirit daily live, fully committed,
fully surrendered. But we ask it in Jesus' name.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
Amen, thanks for joining us on in Touch, the teaching
ministry of doctor Charles Stanley. Surrender to Christ is a
lifelong exercise, and you'll find that as you yield to
the Lord, he gives you the desire and ability to
deliberately choose Him every day. You can listen again by

(20:10):
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(20:31):
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You're listening to in Touch. Each believer is called by
God to make an impact. Here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

Speaker 1 (22:22):
If you are a follower of Jesus, do you see
yourself as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, servant
of the Most High God? You said, well, I never
really thought too much about wanting to be a servant.
That's the problem that we don't think about that we
think of servants as somebody down yond on a low level.

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The truth is, every single child of God is a
servant of God, and the only difference is whether we
recognize it or not and live it out in that
light of humility. That's who we are. Things haven't changed,
The Bible hasn't changed. The truth is you and I
are predestined as followers of Jesus to spend eternity serving

(23:09):
the Lord God. Now you say, well, how are we
going to serve? Our place of service according the scripture
is going to be depending on how we live down here.
We are servants of the Lord God. And listen, when
the Church of Jesus Christ, when the body of Christ
finally begins to realize who we really are, then we

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can make an impact on this world. That's absolutely irresistible.
Servants of the Living God, walking in humility before him,
recognizing that he's our Lord Master and that our responsibility
is simply to obey him.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Learn more about how to make serving Christ your normal
life at in Touch Dorg. And if this program has
been part of your faith journey, please let us know
Tomorrow on in Touch. We often carry things from our
past that can get in the way of following Jesus wholeheartedly.
Learn how you can unload that baggage. Wednesday on in Touch,

(24:09):
the Teaching Ministry of Doctor Charles Stanley. This program is
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