Participants: Tom Waters
Series Code: FC
Program Code: FC000312
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00:31 Welcome to Faith Chapel, I'm Tom Waters with
00:34 Restoration International and I'm excited today, 00:37 we're gonna be talking about something that 00:40 effects every one of us especially if we are 00:44 striving in the Christian experience. 00:47 We're gonna talk about the greatest battle that 00:50 we face as Christians, the greatest battle. 00:55 The one that every one of us deals with, 00:57 if we're honest about serving out Lord 01:00 and Savior. Our greatest battle, 01:03 the battle that every man must face, 01:08 the greatest battle ever fought by man, 01:12 is the surrender of self to the will of God, 01:17 that is our greatest battle. I want you think 01:20 about this for a moment, our greatest battle 01:23 is not self. Our greatest battle is the surrender 01:29 of self to the will of God, you know there 01:33 is an old favorite hymn, and in that hymn it says: 01:38 Have thine own way, Lord! Have thine own way! 01:44 Thou art the potter, I am the clay. Now, 01:49 that's a very classic picture, potter and the 01:55 clay and where do we fit in this verse of the song. 02:00 God is the potter and we are the clay. 02:04 And of course we would naturally agree with that, 02:08 that's the position we would wanna be in as 02:10 Christians. But the difficulty is that 02:14 we may start the day and I hope that's where 02:17 we start the day choosing of the master that 02:20 we're going to serve. Chose you this day whom 02:23 you will serve, as for me and my house we will 02:26 serve the Lord. That's where we need to be 02:28 starting everyday in our greatest battle. 02:32 The reality of it is that for many of us I know 02:35 for myself for many years as a, as a striving 02:40 professing Christian. That the first place that 02:43 I met the battle was in the morning, because 02:48 I didn't feel like getting up. Now, 02:51 who is the potter and who is the clay? 02:54 My God is calling to me, my son he's calling 02:59 to me and he's asking me to get up. 03:02 He's asking me to do something that he can't do 03:05 for me and that is to make a choice, 03:07 now my battle is, will I chose to surrender 03:14 my self, my tired self, will I chose to surrender 03:18 myself to the will of my heavenly Father 03:22 that he might do for me when I cannot 03:25 do for myself? That's the greatest battle 03:28 if we wanna start at right at the beginning 03:29 of the day, but the difficulty is if we start 03:33 the battle in the right place and we connect our 03:36 weakness with his strength at the beginning 03:38 of the day is that it, is the battle over. 03:42 The rest of the day we've made all of our choices, 03:44 one choice in the morning takes us all through 03:46 the day. Absolutely not, because our greatest 03:50 battle, each one of us faces it over and over. 03:56 And when do we face it? Well, we face it when 03:59 we get into our day we face it when self wants 04:03 to do it my way. When we say no thank you 04:07 very much I wanna handle this myself, 04:09 I will take this into my own hands Lord. 04:12 Now, do we say it that way? Rarely. 04:15 What generally happens is when someone or 04:18 some circumstance crosses our will? 04:22 When something doesn't go my way, 04:25 the self begins to rise in us and every one of 04:28 us knows what that feels like. And it's then that 04:31 we're in our greatest battle and it's then at 04:35 that moment that we have a choice to make. 04:38 Our greatest battle in that moment of time, 04:42 when someone cuts us off in traffic, 04:44 when my wife misunderstands me, 04:47 when my child isn't doing quick enough the thing 04:51 I want them to do. It's in that moment when 04:54 self begins to rise that we are in our 04:58 greatest battle. The question is who will win, 05:02 will self win the battle, will God win the battle 05:07 working in me to willing to do of his good pleasure, 05:10 it's at that moment and at that moment the 05:12 choice is mine, the choice is yours. 05:16 Who will win the battle? If I justify myself and 05:20 these are the two basic reactions that each 05:24 of us has, now there maybe more, 05:26 many more variations. But I tell you the two 05:28 basic reactions as I looked at my own 05:32 experience for many years and how I was 05:34 failing in the Christian walk. 05:37 The two basic reactions that I had and 05:40 as I've talked to people all over the world, the 05:44 first is this, when self begins to rise these 05:48 circumstances, these feelings, 05:51 these are mine and now I'm going to justify why 05:56 I wanna honk my horn at the person that cuts 05:59 me off. I wanna justify why I'm irritated when 06:03 they cut me off, I wanna justify the words 06:06 that I wanna speak to my wife when she 06:08 misunderstands me. I wanna justify why I need 06:12 to tell my child in the wrong tone of voice. 06:17 That self reaction wants to be justified. 06:20 And if we justify self and we carry through 06:24 the very actions that self wants to carry through, 06:27 we then find ourselves in remorse saying as 06:31 I said many, many times in my experience. 06:35 Why did I do that, I'm not gonna do that, 06:37 I'm tired of doing that and then we move to the 06:39 other side and I know many sincere people have 06:42 experienced the other side, the other basic 06:44 reaction is that when self is crossed 06:47 we say I'm not gonna go there this time, 06:50 I'm not gonna do it, I'm not gonna let myself 06:53 get angry this time, I'm not gonna do this 06:56 if it kills me. And so we try to pull ourselves 07:01 up by our bootstraps, we try to do it in our 07:05 own strength because we know what the 07:06 verses say, we know that if we wanna be in the 07:09 kingdom of heaven. We can't live like devils 07:12 down here, we know all these things, 07:17 but we still lack the power and so I would 07:20 think you know I've got strong will power 07:23 and I'm not gonna let this happen, 07:24 I'll make a new years resolution and this time 07:28 you know I thank God that he does not allow us 07:31 to do it in our own strength. 07:33 We can't do it and he knows that, 07:36 the devil sometimes lays off when we try to do 07:38 it on our own strength, when we try to, 07:40 to grit our teeth and I'm gonna do it as if 07:43 he kills me. And the devil sometimes backs off 07:45 and makes us think we're doing pretty good 07:48 and then all of a sudden he just comes along 07:50 and kicks our feet rid off from under us. 07:53 I tell you friends today what a joy it is to know 07:58 where lies the victory in our greatest battle. 08:01 And I wanna tell you today I understand 08:04 is something that it took me years to understand 08:08 that when we face temptation, 08:10 when we face our greatest battle we needn't 08:13 go first to our justifications, we needn't 08:16 go to our living it in our own strength 08:21 what we need to go to the very first choice 08:26 in temptation. The very first place we need 08:29 to go when we face our greatest battle 08:32 is to submit ourselves under our heavenly Father. 08:36 Now if we've done that at the beginning of the day 08:38 and if we're maintaining that through the day 08:42 then when that temptation comes all it is, 08:45 is a reconfirmation of that commitment 08:49 to God to stay connected to his divine power. 08:52 But when that temptation and self begins 08:55 to rise we have that choice and that choice 08:59 must first be to either maintain that connection 09:02 with God, that power outside of ourselves 09:06 or get reconnected to that power. 09:09 Because without maintaining or getting 09:11 reconnected we will not have the power and 09:14 we will end up justifying self, 09:17 losing our way or we will end up 09:19 trying to do it on our own strength. 09:21 When we try to do it on our own strength, 09:24 what happens to us? When we try to do it 09:27 my way it never works and this is what 09:31 I began to see. Now, I want you to turn 09:33 with me, there's a very precious verse in James, 09:36 get your Bibles, open with me to James. 09:39 We're gonna be looking there at the, 09:41 the 4th chapter of James and we're gonna 09:43 be looking first at verse 7, it says there. 09:48 Submit yourselves therefore to God. 09:51 Now, notice this the first thing it says is submit 09:54 yourself to God, Then resist the devil, 09:58 and he will what? Then he will flee from you. 10:04 Now this is very important, I missed this even 10:08 though I knew this for many years. 10:12 I actually had this scripture memorized, 10:15 but here's what I was missing. 10:19 When temptation would come and if I rationalized 10:23 and justified myself, was I submitting to God? 10:26 No, I was justifying self, lost my way, 10:30 the devil had me. Well, if I recognized that 10:34 I didn't want to do that, I didn't wanna justify 10:36 myself and I wanted to do God's will, 10:40 I try to do it in my own strength and so what 10:42 I did is I tried hard to resist the devil. 10:48 Because I knew if I could resist him, 10:49 he's gonna flee from me. The problem is I missed 10:52 the very important part of this text that I needed 10:55 to first submit myself to God and I tell you when 10:59 we first submit that means surrender ourselves 11:02 to God. When I first do that I have never lost 11:06 a battle is because the Lord shall fight for you. 11:10 And ye shall hold your peace, that is the promise 11:13 of the Lord. If we are surrendered, 11:16 if we first submit to God it is the strength 11:18 of God that conquers the temptation, 11:21 working out his will in us, to will and to do of 11:25 his good pleasure. It's us that makes the choice, 11:29 it's us that makes the choice to connect to God, 11:32 it's us to make the choice to submit, 11:34 to surrender to God. It is God that works in us 11:37 as we make the choice to resist the devil, 11:40 to resist the temptation and he will flee from us. 11:44 Now, it's interesting, if you have your Bibles 11:46 there continue on with verse 8, 11:51 I like verse 8 because it really is a continuation 11:55 of verse 7 it saying in a different way. 11:57 Draw nigh to God, and he will what? 12:00 Draw night to you that are the emphasis to 12:02 that verse. That I wanna focus on for a moment. 12:06 If we will, in verse 7 submit, in verse 8 draw 12:12 nigh, notice that in both of those God is asking us 12:16 to do something to get close to him in 12:19 order to overcome temptation. 12:23 The beautiful part of this is that as God sees 12:27 our weakness, he gives us two verses that 12:31 say the same thing because he knows the 12:33 dullness of our minds. That's whats I love about 12:36 the gospels, Jesus didn't just write one gospel, 12:40 he let us have four different gospels. 12:44 And he wanted to show us in so many different 12:46 ways how to reach our hearts and to show 12:50 himself to us. So, we didn't miss it, 12:52 so in verse 7 he says submit yourselves, 12:56 surrender yourselves, in verse 8 he says draw nigh. 12:59 If we draw night to God, he promises that when 13:03 we make that choice that he's gonna draw 13:05 nigh to us. The result is we are going to win 13:09 the greatest battle that we face and that battle 13:12 is the surrender of self to the will of God. 13:16 I wanna share an illustration with you, 13:18 I was on an airplane, I had completed an seminar. 13:21 A weekend of meetings in the church, 13:25 it was Sunday in morning. Now, 13:28 usually in my family or my wife in a portion 13:32 of my family because our ministry is a 13:34 family ministry we often travel together. 13:36 But this one particular weekend I was by myself, 13:40 Sunday morning I was exhausted and I was 13:44 sitting there, it was in Dallas. 13:47 Before I was sitting on the airplane 13:49 I was sitting on the side of the airplane 13:52 had three seats. I was sitting by the window; 13:55 there was vacant seat in the middle. 13:58 And then there was a nicely dressed gentlemen 14:01 sitting in the aisle seat. As I was sitting there 14:05 waiting for the plane to prepare for take off, 14:10 I was just relaxing and I saw the in-flight magazine 14:15 in the seat pocket the seat ahead of me. 14:18 And as I was reaching for that in-flight magazine, 14:23 the Lord called to me. No, audible voice that still 14:28 small voice, the Lord called to me in quietness 14:33 of that moment. And as I was reaching 14:35 for the in-flight magazine, the Lord called to me 14:39 to take out my Bible. Now, I'm gonna be very honest 14:42 with you, because this is how our greatest battle 14:44 works and this is why I'm using this illustration. 14:46 This is real life and this is how it works for 14:49 everyone who struggles with being a real living 14:52 Christian. And that moment all I wanted to do was 14:56 relax, is there anything wrong with relaxing? 15:00 No, the Lord wants us to come apart and rest, 15:03 but I will tell you what the Lord does not want. 15:05 He does not want us to relax or hold upon 15:09 divine power and there I was reaching for the 15:13 in-flight magazine and the Lord said take out 15:16 your Bible and I began to argue with the Lord 15:18 like we often do. I began to justify that 15:22 I was tired, Lord, I'm tired. The Lord it's been 15:25 a long weekend, my mind is so weird. 15:28 I just wanna relax. The Lord brought this 15:32 thought to me, I don't need to hear your excuses, 15:38 what I need to know is my son. 15:42 Will you give me your heart? Immediately that 15:46 brought that verse to my mind, 15:49 my son give me that heart. 15:50 Proverbs the 23rd chapter and the 26th verse: 15:56 "My son, give me thine heart, 16:00 now the question is are we really willing when 16:06 we wanna do my way, are we really willing 16:09 to give him? This is to submit yourselves 16:11 therefore, this is the surrender in this moment. 16:15 It's not whether we're willing to do it at the 16:17 beginning of the day, right now my son are you 16:20 willing to give me your heart in these 16:23 circumstances. You see God doesn't need our 16:25 excuses, God doesn't need to know all of why 16:30 we're tired, he knows all these things. 16:32 Yes, we can tell him, he loves to hear but 16:35 he doesn't want us to excuse not staying 16:38 in his will. God was calling me to stay in his 16:42 present will, so there is my greatest battle. 16:47 The greatest battle that you face, 16:49 the greatest battle that I face everyday 16:52 often moment by moment is will I go my way 16:56 or will I yield to the potter who says, 16:58 I am the potter you are the clay. 17:01 Will the clay strive with the potter; 17:06 will we strive with our maker? Oh! 17:08 We often do and there I was in my 17:10 greatest battle and I sat therefore you know 17:13 this happened in split seconds. 17:16 And I'm thankful to say when the Lord called 17:18 to my heart and reminded me that all he needed 17:20 was my heart and not my excuses. 17:23 I, re-surrendered myself and I took out my Bible. 17:28 And I said Lord what do you want me to do? 17:30 And I opened my Bible and it fell open to 17:32 Ecclesiastes the third chapter. 17:36 And I began to read, that I hadn't read there 17:38 and it's, to everything there is a season you 17:40 know the verses and the plane began to take off 17:46 on the runway. And as we were going up through 17:49 the clouds within moments we were in one of the 17:52 most violent thunderstorms I have 17:54 ever been in my life. The plane, a big plane, 17:59 it was buffed, it was racked, was tossed. 18:02 And I tell you before we had been off the ground 18:07 for less then three minutes, suddenly out my 18:12 window, out the left side of the aircraft, 18:13 I was sitting so I could look right down the 18:16 leading edge of the wing. Suddenly there was 18:20 a flag there, fire lightning struck the wing 18:25 of the airplane. And rolled into a huge ball of fire, 18:30 now I wish for a moment you could have been 18:33 on that airplane with me and heard the sounds 18:36 of dignified people. Sounds that you wouldn't 18:41 expect from some people, but that plane came alive 18:44 with very interesting sounds and quickly 18:47 there after the captain came out and he said 18:50 this is your captain. He said we've just had 18:52 a direct strike from lightning, 18:54 everything is okay, but it always curls my skin 18:58 he said. I tell you it curled a lot of people's 19:02 skin that morning on that flight. But I wanna tell 19:06 you that I had chosen by faith to be in the will 19:09 of my heavenly Father. I'd chosen to not reach 19:13 for the in-flight magazine, does that mean that 19:15 I don't ever read an in-flight magazine? 19:16 No, that's not the point, the point is this, 19:19 in that moment of time God wanted me to reach 19:22 for my Bible. He had something else in mind and 19:25 very shortly after the captain went off the air 19:28 the man who was sitting in the aisle seat turned 19:32 to me and he said I noticed that you're 19:36 reading in Ecclesiastes the third chapter when 19:38 the lightening hit the plane. Wow, 19:40 very observant, he said I also noticed that you did 19:44 not have the kind of reaction that so many 19:46 people had on this airplane. He said, 19:49 tell me about it, tell me about what is making 19:53 the difference in your life right now? 19:57 Oh! What an opportunity for the next 20 20:00 or 25 minutes, God gave me an opportunity to 20:03 share this simple gospel of Jesus Christ and how 20:07 it works in the individual connection with God 20:11 in our greatest battle and then he asked me, 20:14 how does it work in your marriage? 20:16 And I began to share with him that it works 20:19 first in our marriage because as we connect 20:21 ourselves with God and we experience real 20:23 power that our wife will be the first one that 20:26 will be the recipient of that good news, 20:29 that we're experiencing. And he said, 20:31 and how does it work in parenting situations and, 20:34 we just talked for 20 or 25 minutes and 20:37 then the Lord gave me the opportunity to ask him 20:41 a question. I said so what you do? 20:46 He said I'm Associate Professor of Marriage 20:49 and the Family at Brigham Young University. 20:53 And I said praise the Lord, quietly, 20:57 praise the Lord that I did not do what self 21:02 wanted to do, not because of the in-flight magazine, 21:06 but because God had a bigger plan, 21:08 God had a soul there. And that man asked me 21:11 for all the things that our ministry produces 21:14 on the personal walk, asked for the things that 21:17 we produce on the marriage, on the family. 21:21 What an opportunity, I didn't know, 21:24 but I wanna tell you something today 21:26 very simply and very practically that if 21:28 I would have argued against God and self would 21:31 have won out and I got the in-flight magazine out, 21:35 I got my way and I left my Bible in my briefcase. 21:39 I tell you that opportunity would never 21:41 have happened for that man, because God wanted 21:46 to reach into that man's heart. Oh! Friends, 21:52 there is a bigger picture in the salvation of man 21:55 then just myself. There is a bigger picture, 21:58 God wants to reveal himself hurting humanity, 22:04 people that have needs. You have needs today, 22:09 just like I do, I know my need more day by day 22:14 because I recognize that without the Lord 22:17 regardless of what I've done yesterday, 22:19 regardless of how much good I might have done. 22:23 There was someone last week under the influence 22:28 and power of God that today is a new day. 22:31 And I need to meet the battles of today 22:34 in the strength of Jesus Christ that I cannot 22:38 fight those battles justifying myself and doing 22:40 what I wanna do. And I cannot win those battles, 22:44 by trying to do it in my own strength. 22:48 It's only as we give ourselves wholeheartedly, 22:54 you see for many years I didn't understand 22:57 my greatest battle. For many years 23:00 I thought that I had a strong will you see what 23:04 I came to understand is that will power and 23:08 divine power are very separate. 23:12 Many people that I've need confuse will power 23:15 with divine power, they think if they have strong 23:18 will power, if they have power to do what is right. 23:21 And I tell you will power is for one thing 23:25 only friends, for one thing, will 23:28 power is choice power. Will power is the power 23:34 that God gives to every man, woman and child, just 23:37 like he gives to every woman, man, child, 23:40 youth, a measure of faith will power is given 23:45 to make choices. And those choices either 23:48 connect our weakness to his enduring might 23:53 or those choices hold on to our selfishness and 23:56 we play out our sinful self to the hurt of the 24:01 cause of God and to the hurt of ourselves 24:03 and those that we love. So, will power 24:08 is choice power, will power is the choice 24:12 to connect us with God, it is not the power 24:16 to overcome sin. When I began to understand this, 24:20 I recognized this is the difference I've been 24:25 missing, when temptation comes instead 24:28 of thinking about the temptation, 24:31 how good it looks, how good it smells, 24:33 how good it feels. Instead of focusing on all 24:36 those things like Eve did at the tree of the 24:39 knowledge of good and evil. She focused on all the 24:42 things that met her senses and she lost her focus 24:48 upon God. She lost her submission to God, 24:51 she lost being drawn nigh to God, 24:54 she began to question God, she began to 24:57 rationalize herself. And this is what we do 25:00 and so when temptation comes friends 25:01 I wanna encourage you that when it comes, 25:05 instead of focusing on what's in the refrigerator. 25:07 Instead of focusing now what I wanna say 25:09 to my wife when she doesn't agree with me, 25:11 instead of focusing upon the irritation that you're 25:14 starting to feel when someone cuts you off. 25:19 The first work that we have in our greatest 25:21 battle is to connect our weakness, 25:25 to make a choice, to use my will power, 25:29 to connect my weakness, to make a choice, 25:33 to say Lord if all you can say and I've said 25:36 it before. If all you can say is Lord, 25:39 save me and you connect your power, 25:44 you're weakened for your power to the 25:47 enduring power of Jesus Christ, 25:50 you will win in your greatest battle. 25:54 You will have power to rise above the difficulties 25:59 that we face day by day, our choice needs 26:04 to be first to connect with God. 26:08 As we connect with God the temptation begins to 26:12 lose it's strength, as we look at the temptation 26:16 it gets bigger it smells better, it looms larger. 26:20 But as we say Lord I submit myself to you, 26:25 Lord Keep me, keep my weakness, 26:27 keep my frailty. Lord, I give myself to you, 26:32 then we connect to his strength, 26:37 we need that strength to be victorious in our 26:41 greatest battle. And I wanted to take 26:43 a moment right now before we close, because 26:45 I feel such a need myself for the power, 26:49 the life changing power of God to win my 26:52 greatest battle. I want you to pray 26:53 with us right now, will you 26:55 bow with me where you are? 26:57 Father, we come to you because we know 26:59 that you have the strength and the power 27:01 and the mighty to give us the victory in our 27:04 greatest battle. And Lord, we give ourselves 27:08 to you that we use our power of choice to 27:10 connect our weakness with your strength. 27:13 That in the strength of Jesus Christ 27:15 we can win in our greatest battle against self, 27:17 that we will surrender self to your 27:19 will in Jesus name Amen. 27:25 You know I wanna encourage you today, that 27:28 you can be victorious, if you've never been 27:32 victorious before, if you've had a floundering 27:36 experience. Surrender yourself unconditionally 27:40 to Jesus Christ today and you will have the 27:44 power of God to win in your greatest battle. 27:48 You're greatest battle; you're greatest battle 27:51 will be the difference that Jesus can make. |
Revised 2014-12-17