How to Give God What He Wants the Most

This is the Chippengrim sermon podcast brought to you by Living on the Edge.

In this podcast, you'll hear chips teaching unedited and from beginning to end.

Well, here's Chippengrim with today's message, how to give God what he wants the most.

If I ask you kind of over a cup of coffee, where did your spiritual journey really begin

as an adult?

What would you tell me?

Where were you?

What were the circumstances?

For me, it was the night I graduated from high school.

After being with some friends at a party, I realized that was a workaholic.

I had academic success.

My dream of a basketball scholarship was in hand.

I was all-leagant baseball.

I had a really pretty girlfriend, and I sat alone and empty and just wondering, what

in the world am I here for?

My little formula of success will make you happy, didn't pan out.

I remember that night sitting on my bed looking out my bedroom window.

It was a very starry night, I remember, and I started asking the real questions that

adults ask, why am I here?

Is there a God?

What's my purpose in life?

Is there more to life than just setting goals and achieving them?

And that night, although I had a lot of childhood prayers of, you know, get me out of this jam

and please help so and so, and I prayed what I think was my first adult prayer.

And I remember looking at the stars and I said, God, if you exist, reveal yourself to

me in a way and I can understand.

And then I figure everybody wants something and I remember praying, God, what do you want

from me?

If you exist, what do you really want from me?

And that's going to be the question we're going to ask an answer today on our journey

toward true spirituality.

How do we give God what He wants the most?

If you pull out your teaching handout, we're going to walk through this journey and this

journey is going to take us to a point of a very, very important decision.

When you ask the big questions of life, they come back at you in a way where there's

big decisions, decisions about future and priority and relationships.

I mean way more important than jobs and money and details.

And so I want to introduce you to a book that I read.

It was by a Harvard, actually Yale, excuse me, they used it at Harvard Business School,

but by a Yale law professor called Risk Reason and the decision making process.

And it's a series of true stories that are case studies and they read the case study

then they get in small groups and they talk about, okay, what were the risks involved

in making this decision?

What reasons did people make this decision and what would you do?

And so they sort of peel it out, give a case study, let the groups talk a little bit and

then give them more information.

So let me actually, I've got a couple case studies here because here's the deal.

The goal was to teach them to make skillful wise decisions and we're going to be talking

about a very, very important decision and there was just some great insight about making

great decisions.

Very study number one, they're brief but they're kind of fun.

A 32 year old engineer named John loves to go to a state sales to look for antique furniture

and other potentially valuable items.

One weekend he goes to an estate sale in the southern part of the United States.

All the items in this particular house are being sold together for a single price.

Visitors are welcome to make a bid and John learns that the winning bid will be about $95,000.

The house's old and disrepair, probably built during the Civil War period, John, a self-confessed

geek and history buff, recognizes a collection of rifles that seem to be from that time frame.

He then goes downstairs to a damp basement using a small pocket flashlight, finds an old

roller top desk and going through the desk he discovers a false drawer and in the false

drawer is a small leather pouch.

It contains 22 very rare pure gold coins mined by the Confederate Army during the Civil

War.

They could be worth millions of dollars, he believes.

John has to make a decision.

What should he do?

He has $10,000 in savings.

If he can sell his car, his house and everything he owns, he believes he can come up with

the $95,000 in make the winning bid.

What would you do?

Students at Harvard's Business School and MIT and other universities discuss this.

So face value, what would you do?

Think about that.

Case study number two.

Sheila, a 20-something college art teacher at a community college, was traveling in Europe

over the summer.

She had even started a small collection on her limited salary and while in a small village

in southern France, well off the beaten path, Sheila went to an auction where the locals

had all donated family art to be sold to help finance the construction of a much needed

school.

One painting topped the list and was said to be a rare but highly valued copy of Picasso's

work.

It was deemed as a non-original because the signature at the bottom was different from

all of his other works.

Sheila, however, wrote her master's thesis on Picasso and was aware that in the first year

of his work, he did not sign his name but only put his initials there.

She looked and studied the painting carefully and came to the conclusion that she actually

was in the presence of a priceless piece of art.

It was believed there were only two or three of these paintings in existence anywhere in

the world.

If this were so, Sheila was standing before something worth a very great deal of money.

The 25,000 asking price was a joke with regard to what it was worth but it was a bigger joke

with her income.

What Sheila would have to do would sell her Volkswagen Jetta, sell her entire art collection

and withdraw her entire savings of $600.

What should Sheila do?

What would you tell her?

Now, you'll notice on your notes I did little observations or questions to ponder and

here's when you get something like this you ask, okay, what are the risks?

The risk is that if the coins are phony and John does that, he loses everything and the

risk for Sheila is if it's not a Picasso, she's going to lose everything.

The potential rewards are, and by the way, later in the study, they have a second page

that the teacher brings out.

The coins are real and they're worth about 30 to 40 million dollars.

The Picasso was real and was worth about 100 million dollars.

So, the rewards were super, if in fact it was true, but the cost and the risk was very

high if it's not.

So with that information, what would you do and why?

Now, I want to give you three principles that flow out of these case studies.

Here's where the meat is for you and me.

In every big decision, and I mean big, important life altering decisions especially, the number

one thing you need is just write this word down, truth, truth.

The issue here is the validity of the find.

If the coins are legit, if they're true, if it's a Picasso, if it's true, and for you,

when you're trying to figure out what you should do with your life and the relationships

that you're in, you need to first and foremost say, what's true?

Write the word knowledge there under your kind of observations.

See, Sheila had knowledge that other people didn't have.

She had done some work, she'd done some study.

She was prepared to take advantage of a situation because she knew things that other people

didn't know.

John the same way.

He's a computer geek, he's a history buff.

When he saw the rifles, he saw the house.

All those things gave him insider's knowledge about what it was really looking at.

And after truth and knowledge, the last thing, just write the word faith.

These are the three keys to making great decisions.

What's true?

Do you have the inside knowledge?

And then faith is literally the courage to pull the trigger.

It's one thing for John to say, hey, I believe this, this is true, I've done some evaluation,

and then can you hear John, you're like, going back and talking to his wife, hey honey,

we're going to empty our savings account, sell the house, sell the cars, everything that

we have, because I just found these gold coins and even if he's absolutely convinced, because

I've watched this happen a lot.

You know there's things you're convinced of that you really believe are true.

Your logic tells you it's true, at times even the Bible tells you it's true, at times

the research in history even says it's true.

But when you look at the weight of the risk, there's a great deal of people that never

have the faith or the courage to pull the trigger and act on what they absolutely believe

is true.

And so they don't make good decisions or they make no decisions which is really a decision

of itself.

Turn the page if you will because these two remind me of a case study by Jesus that

teaches us also about risk, reason, and the decision making process.

When Jesus is teaching this, it's out of Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 and 45, by this time

his popularity is growing and people he is deemed to be the king of the universe, the Messiah.

And he's saying that I'm the king over a kingdom and all a kingdom is is the rights and the

power and the authority that someone has to rule.

And he was teaching a completely new way of life, completely different from the religious

time, completely different.

He was loving and he was kind and he was holy and he was radical and everywhere he went

there was either a riot or revival and there was something fascinating and powerful and

he did things that no one else had ever done.

He raised people from the dead and he spoke about God and he revealed the Father.

And people were following him but as they begin to follow him forced him into very big

decisions, big decisions about the way they used to think, big decisions about other

relationships, big decisions about their time or their money or their future.

And so he gives them two similes or pictures, parables.

He makes them up.

He says the kingdom of heaven, in other words following me and how life works with me as

the king of your life is like a treasure hidden in the field which a man found, then he hit

again and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and he buys that field.

Now that's a very short sermon but there's a lot in there.

And just in case very common in Jewish teaching, parallelism, they'll give you a truth and

just to make sure you get it maybe give you exactly the same truth with a different picture.

So look at verse 45, again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls

and upon finding one pearl of great value, of exquisite value, of over the top priceless

value is the idea.

He went and sold all the pearls that he had and he bought it.

So if you have a pen, pull it out, let's go up to verse 44, I want you to see something.

Here line the two words treasure hidden and then the two words man found and then the

two words hid again and then the two words from joy and then the two words sells all

and then the phrase buys the field.

And if we were doing a little Bible study together, I would say there's four observations

we could make that are very, very simple but unveil what Jesus is saying.

A man number one finds a treasure.

The man after finding the treasure sees how much worth it is, he hides it again.

Number three, he has an emotional response.

He is absolutely exhilarated and joyful that he has come into all this money and then

number four in order to get that field, he sells everything he has so when he owns the

field, he'll get the treasure inside.

Now here's what you need to understand.

Jesus isn't talking about money and treasure, he's making a very profound spiritual point

and principle about decision making.

And what he's saying is this, he's saying there's certain things that we can see and certain

things we can't see and the kingdom of God and following me is akin to and this would

be in their day, it would make sense because this actually could happen in their day.

They didn't have 401Ks and so you would take your treasure and you would hide it, dig it

someplace on your land and the goal is you would tell your relatives, your sons or daughters

where it is but sometimes people, they aren't ready quite to hear it and they die before

they tell anyone.

So it could be on a piece of land for two or three or four generations and so the people

realize that this story is really plausible.

And so he says, here's a man who is in a field, maybe he's walking with a stick and he hears

something and he opens it up and there's a little chest and there's a fortune in it and

he covers it back up and he is just exhilarated with what he's just found.

So he recklessly, with abandon, sells everything he has that's not worth very much to get something

that's worth a whole lot.

Same picture with the pearl.

Here's the thesis.

Jesus is saying when you understand who he is and how life really works and what really

really matters now and forever and you get the treasure of what it is to have relationship

with him and the plan that he has for you on this earth, you would with reckless, abandoned

and joy forsake all else to get that.

But in other way, his thesis is total commitment is the channel through which God's biggest

and best blessings flow.

You realize that, I mean, total commitment he sold all that he had, motive, joy.

Above the word in your notes where it says total commitment, would you write the word

surrender and put a box around it, surrender, total commitment.

I mean, it was all or nothing in order to gain that land with the treasure inside.

Now notice, Webster defines total commitment for us because sometimes that word means different

things to different people.

He says it's the alignment of one's motives, resources, priorities and goals to fulfill

a specific mission, accomplish a specific task or follow a specific person.

In the words of Texas hold him, it's you're all in.

Total commitment, surrender.

This is very counterintuitive.

Jesus is this amazing teacher calling people to a life and he says the values are upside

down than the world that you live in.

And the way to gain is to give and the way to life is to die.

And he says, I have a plan and in following me, there is a treasure that's unspeakable.

It's unspeakable for the now, it will transform you, it will transform every relationship.

It has the promise of eternity, it has the forgiveness of your sin, it has focus and purpose

and answers all the big questions of life.

And this treasure I want to give you, but here's the entrance to the decision.

Surrender, surrender is the channel to which God's best and biggest blessings flow.

Now you'll notice at the very bottom I put a spiritual insight because when you talk

like I have just been talking about total commitment and if you really begin to play it out

in your mind and you start thinking about the story about John and Sheila, that's really

nice and you kind of think of the hundred million dollars that Sheila has and you think

about the thirty or forty million dollars that John got out of the deal because they

had inside knowledge and had the courage to pull the trigger, both dead.

By the way, before I go on, is there no compassion in this room?

I notice, does anyone just have a twinge and feel sort of sorry for Sheila?

She gave up her Volkswagen Jetta.

I mean every piece of art that she picked up over those years, don't you think they were

on her teacher's salary, an emotional, and John, if he's been to these estate sales,

when he sold everything he has, don't you think there's a couple antiques from other

sales that really meant a lot to him?

I mean his wife loses her home.

You're a really hard-hearted group.

So you actually are saying you think that thirty or forty million dollars is worth doing

that?

Of course you do.

Now Jesus told these two parables to get into their world in such a way that they would

get a new set of glasses because when you talk to people that want to follow God about

total commitment, it's like, well I know pastors are supposed to be totally committed and

maybe missionaries and there's always like a 98-year-old lady who really prays like

37 hours a day and there's only 24 hours and we know she's totally committed.

But for most of us, we're just regular Christians and that sounds really scary and I really

want to love God.

I'm glad I'm going to have it.

I'm glad Jesus forgave my sins and I would like to be a good person in fact.

I think I'm a little bit better person than most people, but total commitment sounds

like scary.

Like I mean lock, stock, barrel, I mean God has to say on my time, my money, my future,

my family, and so what most of us do is we see the lens of total commitment negatively.

In fact, notice I put it on your notes.

We see total commitment as sacrificial, we see it as self-denial, we see it as noble.

We think people that are totally committed are martyrs.

Have you ever met someone who said, I have renounced all for Jesus?

I've met some people like that and I haven't lot like to be around them very long because

they've renounced all and somewhere in there they think they're way better than you and

me.

Here's what I want to tell you.

When Jesus taught about surrender or total commitment, it is the channel to get God's

very best in your life, but He said it's for joy.

This motivation is positive, it's wise, it's logical, it's true, it's not so much renouncing

as it is a reevaluation.

It's $95,000 as valuable as 30 to 40 million, so it's a rocking science.

Now when we look at it like that, it's easy, but when you look at the treasure that God

has, it gets a little more difficult because you can't see it.

Just as Jesus made up parables to help people in their world understand what's going on,

I took the liberty to make those two parables up.

Please do not feel betrayed.

If I would have come out here, if I would have come out here and said, total commitment

surrender is the channel through which God's biggest and best blessings flow.

Now are you totally committed or not?

Are you going to step up or not?

Are you going to get with the program?

I mean, all your defenses would be what?

And you would have totally missed the point.

I've actually taught that in my early days as a pastor.

You know, where's the few, the proud Christian Marines?

Come on.

And I was one of those religious jerks that thought I was better than anyone because I'm committed.

I totally missed the point.

I didn't understand God's grace.

But you know, all of you who were kind of leaning forward thinking, here's the only

thing you thought about Sheila and John.

I wish I were them, right?

I wish I were them.

And you know what?

Does anyone would say that, oh, Sheila and John were noble.

They were martyrs.

She gave up her jettah.

Right?

They made a big sacrifice.

Where's your focus?

Your focus is like mine, sacrifice, my lands, 34 to me, and the focus was on what they

got.

And that was Jesus' point.

And that's his message to you.

Remember, this is about how to give God what he wants the most.

And I told you it involves a decision.

And before our time is over together, we're going to have a very sober and holy moment

where I'm not only going to explain exactly how to give God what he wants the most, but

it revoke higher, a big step of faith, total commitment, and surrender.

And what you have to start asking is, is how I hang on to things in my view and what

I want versus what he can provide, which one of those am I going to trust?

Reminds me of a story I heard many years ago, and it was a story of a little girl that

went on vacation with her family.

And it was by the seashore, and they had one of those cottages that's right there, and

you walk out the door, and the sand is there, and you could walk on the beach and had a

little pier, and at the end of the pier was a fishing boat with a very old man.

He was in a very small town in New England, and the little girl, five or six years old,

big tales, the whole bit, you know how they are at that age.

And she would walk down the pier and walk down, and there was an old fisherman who was just

known in the town as the mean one.

He was just mean.

He was old.

He was bitter.

His friends had died.

He had a hard life.

And so he just shot everybody out.

But there's something about a little five or six year old girl, you know.

Hi.

Hi.

Well, after day one, day two, day three, day four, his heart starts to melt.

And no one's ever treated him nice.

And every day she would get shells and give him shells, and she'd sit at the end of

the pier with her feet dangling, and pretty soon he's given her little fishing line.

And in their seven day vacation, a bond occurred.

And he realized, no one in the whole world cares about me, and I'm going to die very soon.

He was in his late 80s.

And this little girl does.

And unbeknownst to others, he had little pouches over the years of fishing, and he found

a number of shells and pearls.

And the thing that he noticed about this little girl, she would dangle her feet over,

but she would always clutch.

She had these little plastic beads that you get like at Walmart or Target or the CVS pharmacy.

You know, you're on vacation, kids always want something, you know, $1.99, you're all

set.

And so he noticed how much she liked them, so he took his pearls and stayed up most of

the night, drilled holes in them, took a piece of fishing line, and made a necklace.

He thought, I'm going to give it to this little six year old girl.

And so the next day she came to say goodbye, and the station wagon is all packed, and parents

are, you know, 100 yards away, and okay, honey, get ready, yes, you can go say goodbye.

She runs down to say goodbye, and he says, come here, honey, I have a present for you.

And she walks up to him, and they've been very close, and he says, give me those plastic

beads off your neck.

And then he hung out, glistening in the sun, real pearls.

Now the problem with being five or six years old, and you're very immature, you don't

know what's worth what.

All you know is what you're comfortable with.

All you know is what feels right.

And so he took another step, and he said, here, I have these, these are real pearls.

Now take those off so I can put them on.

And the little girl stepped back, grabbed her necklace, and ran 100 yards, jumped into

the station wagon.

Go, that man tried to take my pearls.

And I want to tell you about eight out of every nine Christians that really do sincerely

love God, cling to plastic pearls, and are not receiving anything close in their life

experience, their relationships, or their eternal impact, what God has chosen and

destined for you to have.

Because when he says, give me you, put me first in your time, put me first in your future,

put me first in your decisions, put me first in your family, put me first in your work,

put me first in your money.

I want you to trust me wholly because I have pearls, not stuff.

And if you don't believe he's good.

If you don't know the heart of the Father, then you just stay around him long enough

not to feel too guilty, and some I hope you go to heaven, and you cling on to the plastic

temporal non-treasure.

But when you meet the people that get more and more pearls, you realize it just weighs

them down instead of gives them life.

No commitment, surrender is the conduit, it's the channel to which God's best and biggest

blessings flow.

And so what I want to do in the remainder of our time, I want to define very specifically

what total commitment looks like.

We are not leading up to some emotional moment.

We're leading up to a wise decision where you're going to weigh the risk and the logic

of saying to God in a few minutes, I surrender all to you.

I would sign a blank check made out to you.

I would say to you, from this day forward, I'm all in, I may be a little fearful, but

I'm all in.

But in order to do that, you know what's that look like?

The answer is in Romans chapter 12, verse 1, and after 11 chapters of treasure, of what

God has done, of how much he loves you, of his sovereignty, his goodness, his forgiveness,

his power, his spirit living within you, his gifts, all the plans that he has for you.

In chapter 12, your response to that is therefore, I urge you brothers, sisters, fellow family

members, the Apostle Paul writes, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies a living sacrifice

wholly and pleasing to God.

This is your spiritual act of worship.

Notice the structure, there's a command, there's a motivation, and there's a reason.

I'd like you, if you will, put a box around the word offer, put a box around living sacrifice,

and then put a little box around the word wholly.

And I want you to put a squiggly line under spiritual act of worship.

The command is to offer your body to God, and this isn't metaphorical, this is like your

physical body, your eyes, your head, your hands, all that you are.

And the word offer here is an intense in the Greek language that's punctilier, and what

that means is on a certain day at a certain time.

This passage is not explaining how to have your sins forgiven.

This passage is not explaining what it means to be in God's family.

Salvation occurs at the end of chapter three, four, and right in chapter five, the work

of Christ by grace.

You receive the free gift by faith.

Chapter 12 is saying, how do normal Christians follow Jesus out of gratitude?

And God says, are you ready?

This is what I want.

I want you on a certain day at a certain time to say to me, all I am, all I have is yours.

That's what it means to offer.

I will tell you that tens of thousands of people in America and around the world do not

understand the channel through which God's best and biggest blessings flow.

The average Christian somehow thinks I have received Jesus.

He is my savior.

It's really real.

I read the Bible some.

I'm really trying hard to be a good Christian, but it's not going that well.

The power for the Christian life comes in this moment of offering where, remember how

your garden hose when you're having the water battle gets cranked?

The way to uncrink it is when you say it's the channel, it's the conduit, Lord.

Now it requires faith.

Requires believing in an invisible treasure that you can't see, but it's a historical

living God who's walked upon the earth and died in your place and rose and sits at the

right hand of God and says to you, there's an unspeakable treasure.

Who for joy says to you, let me give you the best.

My first two and a half years as a Christian, I didn't know.

I got to where I was pretty undisciplined, so I'd never read the Bible.

I trusted Christ the summer after my high school senior year.

I went off to college and it took me three or four or five or six months to get where

I could read the Bible maybe three or four times a week.

God spoke to me.

It was exciting.

And then I went to a little Bible study and there was God's presence and loving people

and there was part of it.

It was just amazing.

But then I wanted the basketball team to like me and there were all these girls and so

yay for God, chip, God, chip and Thursday night, oh, I've experienced God's presence and

Friday and Saturday night, we hours of the morning, God, I'm sorry, I'll never do that.

I was a schizophrenic, had all these hidden things in my life.

And the joy of my salvation was creeping, creeping down as I had sort of this salad bar spirituality.

God on my terms, I obey 8.5 of the commands, 85% doesn't pass, no chip.

And I remember going to a conference where what I just shared was taught, it was a life

of Abraham and the man who was just 30 or 40 people in a little room at a conference

and he walked us through God's school of faith and he got to chapter 22 where God says to

his son, his only son, Abraham, take your son, your only son whom you love and take him on this

mountain and sacrifice him to me.

And Abraham gets up early, he's been with God over, he's 100 years old now.

And we learn later that he's learned that when God says something, you can bank on it.

And although it seems so illogical, so irrational, he did it.

And he got the knife up and he was ready to come down and God said, stop.

Now I know that you are loyal to me because you gave your son your only son whom you love.

And prior to that time, God had made some promises to Abraham about his descendants and

about the future that were about this big.

And after that moment of surrender, read in chapter 22, God expands, expands, expands.

There's no, Abraham, this is what I'm going to do now because Abraham, I never wanted your

boy. I would never want to sacrifice.

What I wanted was your heart and that boy became an idol.

And anytime there's anything in front of God's relationship with you and you have an

idol, you will destroy the idol, the idol will destroy you and that will destroy your

relationship with God.

And those are the beads.

Those are the plastic pearls and they can be work and they can be family, they can be

a relationship, it can be money, it can be ego, it can be your body.

All of us have Isaacs.

And unless a grain of wheat fall into the earth and die, it remains by itself alone.

But if it dies, it bears forth much fruit.

That's Jesus.

So I need to take my idols in my case, it was basketball and my girlfriend.

And it was like, God, I'll do whatever you want.

Don't mess with basketball and don't mess with my girlfriend.

And at the back of that little 30 or 40 people, I remember I made the most transformational

decision of my life apart from receiving Christ as my Savior.

I'm with fear and trembling.

I got on my knees and I said, God, I am scared to death because I'm afraid that you're

going to either make me single the rest of my life or worse, I'll marry some ugly person.

I'm not just telling you, okay?

Like I'm 20 year old, what do I know?

And then I said, and God, you know, I've just been playing hoop my whole life and just

when I get the ball in the middle on the break, I just love this game.

But if you, you're God.

I mean, please don't take that away, but it's an idol.

And I want you to know that I'm all in.

I don't know what it looks like, but I will do life.

And I'm sure I'll mess up later, but I will do life your way moving forward.

Whatever your word says, if it says it, I'm making a pre-decision.

I may mess up, but I'm going to come back to this moment.

I surrender my heart, my goals, my future, my money, my dreams, I want to do life your

way.

That's what it means to offer your body.

And then notice it's not just one big emotional experience.

What's the next box?

It's living sacrifice, right?

Many of you in this room will make that step today.

Many in this room have already taken that step.

But it's you off your body, how, as a living sacrifice, so the living sacrifice is a lot

like marriage.

You know, in 1978, I said to Teresa, I surrender to you, nobody else but you.

And she said, I surrender to you.

And we said, let's do this together forever, no matter what.

But I've had to renew that commitment almost every day.

And with this time, we needed marriage counseling.

We've had hard times with some of our kids and we've had health issues and we've had cancer.

We had all kind of problems.

But no matter what, because we said, boom, we commit to one another, no matter what.

It was that commitment that's kept us together.

And it's been the channel of God's biggest and best blessings.

I've got a great wife.

I've got a loyal wife.

I've got the best friend I've ever had.

I've got a relationship I never saw in my family growing up.

I never dreamed.

Has it been easy?

No.

It's been great.

And then God, what's he do?

He's got such a sense of humor.

I give away basketball and, you know, it took me a while.

So, you know, I pulled my quad completely out, missed most of that year.

Then I got injured again and then they changed coaches and finally it was okay.

I'm going by my senior year, I'll do it your way.

Surrender.

And God turns around after I graduated and I played in every country in South America.

And I was just a little NAIA.

And that's like division three, little school.

And then once I surrendered, God said, you know, he got me on this team and I'm planning

against Olympic teams all over South America and later with an Australian team throughout

all the Orient.

See the issue is not, he wants to take something good away.

The issue is any good thing that stands between you and him that's an idol will destroy your

relationship with him and, by the way, it will destroy your relationship with the idol.

So it's a living sacrifice.

You make the commitment but then it's daily renewing and living and it's holy.

That's the last word, it's holy.

You can't come and not deal with your stuff.

There's some of you, you're sitting here at this moment, you're thinking of I surrender.

This relationship with this rotten guy or this girl that I know isn't God's will but

I sure love her.

God would say, you know it's not right.

For some of you you're realizing, we probably living together is not an option if I surrender.

For others of you you go, oh my gosh, you know my priorities are so out of whack, I'm

a workaholic or my finances are a mess.

See it's holy.

No blemish sheep.

He's just saying, you come as you are but there's this commitment to say, God, I'm not playing

games.

I'm going to do life your way and then I'm going to bring all of me and that's not only

the good stuff but you're going to come and say, I'm bringing my fears of rejection,

I'm bringing my fears of the future, I'm bringing my fears of what you might do.

I trust you're a good God.

In fact notice the motivation.

The motivation is not get with the program, it's the mercy of God, the mercy of God.

He's looking back on the last 11 chapters but he's saying God's asking for all of you

but what's he done?

He's loved you.

He's forgiving you.

He's paid for your sin.

He's caused the spirit to come into your body.

He's taken you from the kingdom of darkness and put you in the kingdom of light.

He's adopted you as a daughter or as a son.

He has a purpose for your life.

He's creating a place at this very moment in heaven for you.

He's laid down his life.

He says, can't you trust me?

You know, this is like someone who's who you've given a million dollars and they come

to you and they say, hey, you think I could borrow 20 bucks?

He goes, I don't know.

I don't know if you pay it back and you're, what do you mean?

I don't know if you pay it back.

I gave you a million dollars.

Yeah, well, I don't know.

See, you start to get the kingdom logic, how could you not to a God who has demonstrated

why you were his enemy and I was his enemy laid down his life?

How can we not believe that he's good, that he's compassionate, that he's kind?

See this is not a get with the program, be a superstar or a Christian Marine.

This is a let your father love you.

Let's remove the barriers.

And the final reason is your spiritual act of worship.

In other words, what God really wants.

I mean, we started out with a question that leads to a decision.

The question is, how do you give God what he wants the most?

Are you ready for this?

It gets real simple.

God wants you, all of you, every aspect of you.

See you can read the Bible, you can pray, you can come to church, you can give some money,

you can go on a mission strip, you can try and be a good moral person, you can do all

kind of things.

There was a group in the New Testament that did all that and more.

And Jesus said the harshest things that ever came out of his mouth about those religious

people because their hearts weren't his.

They were in control and they used their religion and they thought they were better than

other people.

They weren't tender, they weren't broken, they weren't loving.

Left to ourselves, we are a people who will create some little grid or model about how

we're okay with God because we're doing this and this and this as we gain and keep control.

And your control always is shown by where your money goes, where your time goes, where

your energy goes and what you dream about.

And when he has your heart in those areas, I'll tell you what, those things get transformed.

And then, are you ready?

You discover why you're here.

You discover what your purpose is.

You discover there really is more to life than setting goals and accomplishing them.

You experience the treasure both now and the promise forever.

He wants you.

As you turn to the back page, I wanted to just give you two pictures that have been very

helpful to me.

One is a blank check.

And I want to tell you, this, please do not hear, everything will be easy and wonderful

and great.

Many of you will be tested.

Abraham didn't take a rubber knife up there.

It may get worse before it gets better.

The Holy Spirit would say, well, how's it working for you your way?

And today, pay to the Order of Jesus Christ and there's a date and you're right today's

date and then you'll sign your name.

And there'll be a sense of fear in your heart, but it'll be a step of faith and you'll say,

I'm all in God.

You can cache this.

You can cache this with my future.

You cache this with my relationships.

You cache this with my finances.

You cache with my career.

You cache it with my geography.

I will do whatever you want me to do.

I believe you're that good and that kind.

And I actually believe that you could pick out what's better for me than I could pick out

for me.

Do you see how arrogant it is when we say to God, oh, I want your forgiveness and your salvation,

but I'll run my life because I'm way smarter than you.

I mean, you created the universe, but look at me.

So I really want you to think, risk, reason, that this is your making process.

What it means to fill out the check I came across a small excerpt of a prayer by a lady

named Ruth Myers.

And just lean back.

You can even shut your eyes.

When you think about what it means for you to sign this check in just a moment, think

of a prayer that might go something like this, Lord, I'm yours.

Whatever the cost may be, your will be done in my life.

I realize that I'm not on earth to do my own thing or to seek my own fulfillment or my

own glory.

I'm not here to indulge my desires or increase my possessions or to impress people,

to be popular or to prove I'm somebody important or to promote myself.

I'm not even here to be relevant and successful by human standards.

I am here on this earth to please you.

And so now I offer myself to you for you are worthy.

All that I am or hope to be, I owe to you.

I am yours by creation and I am yours by the purchase price of your son on the cross

that paid for my sin.

And so right now I give you my body in each of its members, my entire inner being.

I give you my mind, my emotional life, my will, my loved ones, my marriage or my hope

for marriage.

I give you right now my abilities and my gifts, my strengths and my weaknesses, my

health and my status where they be higher low.

I give you my possessions, my past, my present and my future.

And I even give you when you want to bring me home to be with you.

I'm here to love you and to obey you and to glorify you.

You ready to take that step?

It'll be the greatest decision you ever, ever make.

And for some of you that are a little bored, if you play lots of video games, watch a lot

of TV, have to go to a lot of movies, find yourself shopping or eating a lot.

You know what?

That's symptoms of a life of boredom.

That's a symptom of nothing of genuine purpose and focus.

That's a symptom of medicating yourself with plastic pearl beads.

I had a little struggle growing up long before I was a Christian.

I like adventure, I like excitement, I like risk.

And so someone early introduced me to cards, I played cards Friday night, gambled.

And then I was fascinated with horse racing.

So by my senior year, Tuesday and Friday nights, I played the horses.

And I just can't tell you the thrill that it is to put down two dollars, your very first

bet and win a hundred and three dollar quenella.

I thought what an easy way to make money.

And so that sent me on a journey where I found myself about a year and a half later,

in the boys' bathroom, I put my feet up on the commode so they couldn't see me.

And when the three linemen on the football team that I owed a few hundred dollars to were

coming to collect in a very inappropriate way to my body, I decided to quit gambling.

I wasn't a Christian, wasn't anything spiritual to it, it was like this is nuts.

And I got a problem.

But I have to tell you, when I turn on the old TV and the world poker, Texas hold him

is on, I just have to check it out.

And here's what I love, because there's a great principle.

You know, it's a final table.

They got all these stacks, millions of dollars, the pots worth, you know, $14.7 million,

two low-hole cards, those risk, these are good cards.

Reason, evaluating everything I've seen, this guy do in response, action, faith.

You could probably finish it with me, right?

I'm all in, and then what happens?

Electricity happens, the game completely changes, then he steps up, he starts walking around.

Why?

Here's why, because something's going to happen.

There's no reward until you get to the point where you say, I'm all in.

He's either going to get a bracelet and multiple millions dollars or he's going to lose.

And I want to tell you that the God of the universe brought you in this room on this

day for you to say to him, I'm all in.

And when you do, you will begin to experience power and excitement and challenge and

purpose like you've never known, because just like in Texas, hold him.

The game never really gets interesting until you're all in.

And my, my sad observation is the great majority of Christians that I know are just trying

to be nice people, trying to get a little bit better, mobility for their family, trying

to figure out how to balance all the demands, be a little bit more polite than most people.

Read their Bible now and then and come to church and put a little saviour on the guilt

of your soul.

And your heavenly Father, I think, with tears in his eyes, say, why won't you taste the

treasure without faith it's impossible to police God?

But those that come must believe that he is and that he's a reorder of those who diligently

seek you.

Father, as we bow our heads and you are working deeply and powerfully inside the hearts

and minds of the people in this room, I pray that you would grant faith and courage

to sign the check, not just the perfunctory action of doing it in just a moment, but the

signing of the check from their heart, even with the fear and concern and say, God, I'm yours.

All I am, all I have, all I hope to be.

You deal.

Lord, I pray for those that know that there's real hard decisions that need to be made,

that you've given the courage to mentally make that, to tell you in their heart right

now what they're going to do and find a trusted friend that they can share that with.

Lord, for those that this is the first time, God, I pray for supernatural grace.

For those that have made this commitment before as they sign it, could you help them reaffirm

and be reminded?

This is what the Christian life's all about.

And then finally, Lord, for those that in their heart of hearts just say, in integrity,

I couldn't sign that.

I got to deal with something.

I've got to resolve a couple of things.

Lord, would you help them to be honest with themselves and honest with you and get help?

We love you.

Help us to want more of you.

Help us to turn in our plastic pearls for the real thing.

Amen.

This is Living on the Edge with Chippengrim.

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