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Surrender To Submission
Author : kris selinsky
Submission to Surrender
(c)dksinspirations 2005
John 10:28 says, “I give them eternal life and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to Me is GREATER THAN ALL and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hands.”
It is good to be assured of our salvation, amen??
So, now that you are saved and have the assurance that no one can snatch you out of the Father’s hands, what do you do next?
Once we have received our salvation and as we begin to grow as Christians, we begin to understand that God gave us life for a reason. We begin to understand that God has a plan and a purpose that is far greater than ourselves, than our thoughts and our ways.
God did not save us just so we could have eternal life when these bodies die. No, God has a plan for each one of us while these bodies are alive and while we live on this earth and while we are in this world.
If you have been taught about spiritual gifts then you have learned that God has a spiritual gift to impart to each one of His children....a gift which He desires to equip you with and which He wants to use through you. The only problem is ... that before you are able to use that gift there is a step which you, as a believer, must take so you are prepared for whatever gift and call God has planned for you.
God has put each one of us where He wants us. As a missionary, I realized I was in the church, in the country of Africa because that is precisely where God put me. And the same was true for the rest of the team. If we are living surrendered lives to Jesus, then we are where we are because God put us there.
Our God is sovereign. That means He and He alone is in control. God is not in control because He knows everything that will happen...but He is in control because every thing that happens, God has set in motion.
And God, in His sovereignty, has a plan and a purpose for each one of you!
It is imperative that as a Christian we understand that God is sovereign. That God is in control and that God requires much of us. It isn’t good enough to settle and be satisfied just with being saved.
If we remember, John 3:16 says “God gave His only Son to die for us so that we would have life.”
Then it is easy to understand I John 3:16 which says: “By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
If we are to be able to fulfill God’s plan for us, then it will require that we understand our lives are not our own.
Romans 12:1 says “I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present you bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
Present yourselves as a living sacrifice. That means that we lay down our lives, in other words, we give up our lives or more directly it means that we cease to make our desires a matter of importance any longer.
To be a sacrifice you must put yourself aside or yield your own desires.
Romans 12:1 says that is our reasonable service. Being a living sacrifice is not something we attain. It’s not something that we become after being a Christian for a long time. It is the starting point. It is the beginning.
And it is the normal way to be as a Christian. It is not something God will do to you. It is what God asks of you. He says “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice. As your reasonable service!
Now...how are you going to do this? How are you going to present yourself as a living sacrifice to God if it is not something He does to you or for you and it is not a level you attain as a Christian?
You are going to choose to do so! It’s a choice. The only way to be a living sacrifice to the Lord is to choose to be one!
Every sold-out, lover of Christ will choose to lay down their life...whether they feel like it or not! It is an act of your own free will...It is an action that you take. A lover of the Lord will choose to obey His commands. They will choose to allow God to use them. A devoted, servant of God will no longer think of their own selves and desires but instead they will choose to turn their life over to God and will choose to voluntarily do whatever God asks them to do.
Secondly, in order to present yourself as a living sacrifice to God, a Christian must understand that #1 his life is not his own anymore
And #2 that his life is not about him and what he wants anymore.
God is not here to please us...We are here to please God!
God is not here to serve us...We are here to serve God!
If we have not laid down our lives - died to ourselves - then we will have a very difficult time answering God’s call.
We, as Christians, have been set free from sin, set free from death, through Christ, not to do as we please, as we want but to serve.
As believers we have been set free from sin to serve righteousness.
Rom. 6:18 says “having been set free from sin you become slaves of righteousness”
And as believers we have been set free from Satan to serve God.
Rom 6:22 says “having been set free from sin and having become slaves of God”
If we are to please God we must serve Him and His plan and His purpose for His giving us life.
In order to serve God we must be in submission to Him.
Submission means to place oneself under the authority of another.
To place oneself is a choice. And submission means to place oneself under the authority of another - under God’s authority. God will not force you. He will ask of you - as is your reasonable service - to place yourself - to choose to be under His authority.
The only way to be in submission to God is to live a surrendered life. There are 6 key points about living a surrendered life, in submission to God, that I would like to give you this morning.
The first key point to living a surrendered life is:
CONSECRATION: You must understand that you have been consecrated to God. Consecration is the act of setting apart as sacred. Our greatest example of a consecrated life is Jesus! Jesus was consecrated to God, set apart, holy to do His will. Turn to John 6:38: “Jesus said, For I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent me.”
Now look at John 4:34. Jesus said “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish His work”.
Jesus shows us by the surrendering of His own life how to be in submission to God. You, as one who has the assurance of his salvation, also have been consecrated by the blood shed by Jesus. You have been set apart as sacred. You are no longer who you once were. You are a new creation, you are now a child of God. You now belong, not to the world and the world’s ways but you belong to His Kingdom. The Kingdom of God. You have been set apart from the world as now being holy - or sacred.
Like an article of clothing or the title of a book, you have been stamped, branded, labeled as belonging to God. You now are under His authority, consecrated to Him.
The 2nd key point to understanding how to live a surrendered life is: DEAD TO SIN
Rom 8:6 says to be carnally minded is death.
Galations 5:24 says: “those who have died have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Therefore, once saved, consecrated and set apart as holy, we have crucified the flesh with Christ and now are free from the bondage of sin.
Again, that means we have a choice to sin or not to sin. As an unsaved person we were slaves to sin..but no more. We can choose to not sin. Because sin no longer has a hold on us, we no longer have to sin. We choose not to! It’s a choice!
The Bible says “thy word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against thee. We have the power through Jesus Christ within us..TO NOT SIN and we must use that power to choose to not sin. Temptation will come but no Christian ever has to answer it.
Christ conquered sin with His blood. We are free from the tiereny of sin. Free from having to sin and sin is no longer our master.
Do you remember what Rom 8:28 says, “for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death!”
What all this means is that as a Christian you can choose to believe that Christ’s death on the cross conquered sin. When you believe that , then when you are tempted by sin you can choose to say NO to it. You may not want to say No but you will because it is the right thing to do. I always tell my granddaughter that right is right and wrong is wrong. And that she must always choose to do the right thing because it is right whether you want to or not. Doing the wrong thing is never right.
If you have hidden the Word of God in your heart - then you will know sin when it comes knocking at your door. When you are dead to sin...you no longer answer its call.
The 3rd key point to living a surrendered life is:
YOU DIED WITH CHRIST.
Gal. 2:20 says “I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in Me.” And
Col. 3:3 says “for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
This goes back to the points made in the beginning.. if you remember it was that we died with Christ and now our lives are not own own.
When you know that your life is not yours any longer - then you know that this life we live, is not about us but, as Christ did His Father’s will, so are we here to do His will.
Understanding that you have died with Christ necessary to living a surrendered life.
The 4th key point to living a surrendered life is:
RESIGNATION
Resignation means that we resign ourselves from our old lives and resign from living under our own power.
We must be resigned to the fact that God is sovereign. We must be resigned to the idea that it is no loner about us.
And we must be resigned to the fact that God is in control and has all the power.
We can see a perfect example of resignation in Job 1:21. Job had just lost all his family and possessions. Job’s response to this great loss was to say:
“Naked I came from my mothers womb.
And naked I shall return there.
The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away.
Then he says:
Blessed be the Name of the Lord.
Job did not get angry with God, nor did he sin against God. In fact, so resigned was Job to God’s supreme authority that He blessed His name saying, Blessed be the Name of the Lord!
Job was resigned to the fact that God is sovereign and in control- using all to the good of His plan.
And again in Christ we see a great example of Christ’s resignation at God’s supremecy. Christ says in Mark 14:36 when it came time for Him to go to the cross... Christ said, “Abba Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me-nevertheless not what I will but what you will.”
Both examples are perfect to show us our own role as Christians, in submission and surrendered to God, resigned to His sovereignty.
The 5th key point to living a surrendered life is:
SUBMISSION
The key to success and victory as a Christian in this life on earth is submission to God and to His authority. There is no authority greater than God’s. We are told not to exalt ourselves above our God, yet everytime we choose to do anything contrary to God’s word, we have exalted ourselves above God. When God calls us to service and we refuse, we exalt ourselves above God. Because what we have done is declared that we know more, are better able to decide what we should do and what we are able to do.
Submission to God and His ways are the key ingredient in our walk as a Christian. It is the key ingredient to our service to the Lord, it is the key ingredient in every aspect of our lives: as an individual Christian, as a church, as a team, as missionaries, as parents, as a husband or wife, as a family member and even as an employee.
The Bible says in Col 3:23 “and whatever you do, do it heartily as unto the Lord and not to men.”
It is impossible to do all things as unto the Lord without being able to submit yourself to His control, His commands and His sovereignty.
God is the absolute supreme authority on all matters.
Remember in the Gospels when Jesus calmed the wind and the sea and the men in the boat exclaimed, “who is this man that even the winds and the sea obey Him?”
Even nature is subject to God!
During the time I was a missionary in Africa, I watched the interaction of the team -as individuals, as couples, as friends, as brothers and sisters- and I saw that it was an absolute must for each one of the team to learn to submit to one another.
But we also had to learn to submit to: a new culture,
To: new customs in a new land
To: a changed lifestyle
To: new foods
To: different finances
To: our leadership authority in Africa
To: the ministry
And to: the Lord.
Looking at that big list brought new meaning to dying to self, surrendering to all.
It means, for us, that we must do in each one of those areas the same thing all of us, as Christians, must do with God. We must be in submission to His divine will. We must die to ourselves and our own desires.
We must put off the old. We must cease to desire what we have always known and what we have always thought for what is now and what is new.
If we, as a missionary team, and we all, as Christians, cling to the old we will perish in the new.
If we cling to the old...we will perish in the new.
But if we surrender the old and submit to the new - then- hallelujah! We shall prosper greatly in ways far beyond our own imaginations.
Remember that Col 3:23 said ..do all as unto the Lord.
Col 3:24 says.. “knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance - for you serve the Lord Christ.”
Submission is key point #5.
The 6th key point to living a surrendered life is:
UNQUESTIONABLE SERVICE
This means we must commit ourselves to God as a devoted servant. We all know that Christ is our best and ultimate example of a devoted servant. Christ always did what the Father sent Himto do.
In John 14:10 Christ said “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me? The words I sepak to you I do not speak on my own authority but the Father who dwells in Me does the work.”
Noah was a devoted servant: Gen 6:22 tells us: According to all that God commanded Him, so Noah did.”
David said in Ps. 40 verse 8k, I delight to do your will, O My God and your law is within my heart.
In the Old Testament we can see that a man could be in bondage as a servant until his debt was paid or 7 years, which ever came first. But at the end of that time he could choose to be freed or to remain as a bond servant to his master. This means that he could choose to willingly give up his rights and to serve his master, instead of himself, for the rest of his life.
As Christians, Christ paid a debt for us on the cross and we, too, are free to choose to willingly serve Him for the rest of our lives as unquestionable servants.
As a servant to Christ, to God, we can choose to be deboted, give 100% of ourselves to Him and His will, His call, His plan and His purpose for us.
Remember Isaiah, when God said, whom shall I send and who will go for us, Isaiah said, unquestioning.....Here am I, send me. No questions asked. Submitted, surrendered and willing, choosing to serve without question.
This is the 6th key point....unquestioning servant.
What this all comes down to is: Each one of us has a choice...and we are each free to make that choice.
We can choose to surrender our selves, our lives to God.
We can choose by our own free will and desire to surrender ourselves to Him, to submit to His authority. It is a choice, freely made. Understanding these 6 key points will help you to make that choice to serve our God.
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