Obedience and Trust in God's Authority

Father, we are grateful for another opportunity to be here this morning, and we're here because we want to have a better relationship with you. We're thankful for all the things you've done for us so that we could spend time any time we're willing to hear from you. But we're here this morning. We know that you've put a message on Doyle's heart for us. We ask, Lord, that you would open our hearts and our minds to that message, that not only would our relationship with you be better, but the people around us would see Christ through us. We thank you for the many that go out through all the world in different places doing the same thing that you ask us to do every day. So we pray, Lord, that as you're with us this morning, that we feel your presence, have a better understanding of your acceptance, and be willing to share the great love you have for us with the people around us. We pray these in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. The story of the Garden of Eden is a very powerful story because it lets us know about ourselves and about our relationship to God. The story is about Adam and Eve in this special place that God provided for them. Everything in the world was given to them. It's sort of a pattern about how God deals with us. I'm going to give you this world to live in. I'm going to provide your needs. I'm going to tell you what you should do. He told them exactly what their rules were to live there, and he told them what they shouldn't do, and he told them the consequences of it. If you eat the fruit of this tree, you will surely die. They lived happily in this wonderful world God made for them. Satan entered it, like he does for all of us, and he began to talk to them. First he did, he planted doubt in their mind. Surely God will not kill you if you eat any of that tree. So suddenly they had a different thought about this. Maybe that's not what's going to happen. And then he said to them, you know, I think the reason God has told you not to do this is because if you do it, you're going to learn something that you've never known before. Boy, he was right about that. What it was they learned was not what they wanted. He said, and then you will be able to be better aware of all the things that are happening around you. You will have experienced a different world. They began to doubt God. Is this really true that we shouldn't do this? Is this really true that this is what we should do? And the more they thought about it, they added to that saying, well, you know, to me it looks pretty good, actually, the fruit on that tree. I think it would taste good, too. It looks like it would. And finally they did that. They ate of the tree. If you had interviewed those two people and said, do you reject God as the creator of the world and the ruler of the world, I think they would have said, no, we don't. They would say, in fact, we believe that God made all these things. We believe he made the world. We believe everything here is part of his creation. But this one thing we're not sure about. And 99% of the time we trust God and we believe him and we obey him. But this one thing we thought our judgment was better than what he told us. And so they didn't really reject God. They just said to him, we don't think what you've asked us to do is really correct. Now, God took that as a personal rejection because he's the Lord and ruler of everything in the world and all the people in the world. And when he told them what they should do, he expected that they would do it since he had created them and made them and put them in that place. He expected them to respond completely and totally in obedience to him. And when they didn't do that, he saw that as a rejection of his authority, as anyone in authority would feel the people who didn't do what they were supposed to were rejecting the authority that they had. Now, this story is sort of in the past. You're never going to be in the Garden of Eden. You're never going to worry about the tree that was there. And so our temptation is to look at that story and say it's sort of in the past. But it's really a story about every day in the life of all the people who live in this world. Because all of us are charged with the responsibility of being completely obedient to God. And if you come to the place in your life where you recognize the authority of God and you say to him at any time, I give my life to you, to live in obedience to you, he expects complete and total submission to him and complete and total obedience to him. I want to read a series of different places in the scripture in which people have come to deal with God, in which they found themselves in situations where they began to question some of the things that God had asked them to do. In positions in which they rejected God in one single part of their life. And what God really had to say about it. I want to start with Matthew chapter 8. In this situation, Matthew chapter 8 verse 21 and 22, Jesus was working with his disciples and one man was listening to him and the crowd began to get pretty big. So Jesus decided that he would ask them to, his disciples, to go on the other side of the lake or the ocean, the sea, the Sea of Galilee is probably what it was. And there he would resume his instructions. But the disciple apparently lived on the side of the sea that they were on and he was reluctant to leave his family. When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. And the teacher of the law came to him and said, teacher, I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus replied, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. And the man, one of the disciples said to him, Lord, first let me go and bury my father. But Jesus told him, follow me and let the dead bury their own dead. Now this is very much like what happened at the Garden of Eden in the sense that here is a disciple and Jesus gave him a direct command. I want you to go around the lake to the other side and then I will join you and we'll continue our instruction in a better environment. The man apparently lived on that side of the Sea of Galilee. He apparently had a father who was either dead or near death. And so he waved the instructions of Jesus, I want you to leave here, go around the lake, a good long walk and a greater distance from his home and there I will teach you, continue to teach you what I want you to learn. The man weighed the circumstance of his obligation to his family and his obligation to be obedient to Jesus. He didn't say, I'm never going to come around there and hear you again. That would have been total rejection of God. But what he did say was, I will not do this now. What he was really saying to God was, I don't trust your judgment here. It seems to me that this is not the appropriate time for me to leave my father and family and to go around and get more instruction from you. He was questioning the judgment of God. He was questioning the instruction of Jesus. As if Jesus did not know more about the circumstance of his life and his need than he did. Jesus was saying to him, there are many people in your family who can take care of your father and take care of the needs that he has and even to bury him. But what I need from you is to learn from me while I'm here. And what you learn from me will allow you to be able to live the life that I want you to have. We don't know if this man ever came back to hear Jesus again or not. But in this instance, Jesus made it clear. It's not possible for you to say, I give my life to you and then say, but I have to refuse to do some of the things you tell me I should do to take care of my family. There's not a conflict between the instructions of God and the needs of those around us. And when they appear to be that way, God says, obey me. Now what Jesus is telling us is that sometimes we get in situations where in our own human mind we think that doing the things God's told us to do, reading the Bible, prayer, attendance at the services where we learn what God has to say to us the week we're there, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, whatever it is. When we see those things that we know God wants us to do, that is in our mind, we know that's the proper thing. I don't mean legalism, but you really know inside that that's what you should do. And if you stop and say, but I should stay home with my family or I should do things with my family, you need to be sure that you're not violating the clear instructions of God. For if you do, you find yourself in the same situation this man is in. What God says is, I am the ruler of your life, I am the king, and I expect you to obey me. Now on our Advent wreath, we are talking about the kingdom of God this month. And I'll lift the first candle to remind us that Christmas is really about the coming of our king, Jesus. It's about the birth of the king in our world. And now I light this candle to remind us that if he is the king, he deserves complete and total obedience to all that he says and all that he commands. Well, I didn't do a very good job with that one, did I? But I got it lit. This persistence tells you, gives you some benefits. So what we're looking at is the stories in Scripture where Jesus is dealing with the things that come in conflict with our submission. And families sometimes do. The feeling of our obligation to our family sometimes comes in conflict with the promises that we've made to God. What God asks us to do is, if you know what I want you to do, I want you always to put me ahead, even of your family. This was true of Jesus. He went out on the ministry, he had his whole family came to get him and bring him back because they thought he was destined to destroy his life by obeying what he said God told him to do, and they were right. But because he gave his life in obedience to the Father, you and I have the opportunity for life everlasting. Sometimes the conflict between what God wants and our family seems powerful. Because our families are around, it gives us an obligation to trust them and to respond to them and to do what they need for us. And sometimes we do that at the expense of obedience to what God asks for us. In chapter 19 of the book of Matthew, there's another story that Jesus is dealing with the man who came to say, I'm ready to trust God, but there came one little hitch in what happened in his life. Matthew chapter 19, and I want to begin reading at verse 20. A man came to Jesus and he was disturbed in his life. He felt like his life was lacking something that was really important. He'd been very successful in his business. He was a very faithful member of the synagogue, knew the scriptures. He had kept the Ten Commandments from the time he was a small child. So he wasn't like a wild man, murderer, killer, wicked person. He was a very righteous man and probably in his own community, people looked at him and said, now this is the kind of man everyone here should be. Jesus said to him when he came, you should keep the commandments. He said, I've done those since I was a small child. All these I've kept, the young man said. What do I still lack? He knew there was something spiritually missing in his life. That's God's communication. Now he came to Jesus to say, what is this that's missing? Jesus replied to him, if you want to be perfect, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me. When the young man heard this, he went away sad because he had great wealth. Here's a man who was not wicked. He wasn't a person that did bad things to everybody. He kept the commandments. He went to church. He did all these things. But there was one thing in his life that was more important and precious to him than obedience to God, and it was what he had, what he owned. Jesus here describes a person who does everything they should except in one area of their life, where the material things of their life are more important to them than obedience to the will of God. What God said to him, he didn't ask of everybody in the world. He didn't say to everybody who came, now go sell what you have and give it away to the poor. He still doesn't do that to everyone. But what Jesus saw in this man's life was the things that he owned were more important to him than obedience and submission to God. And so he needed to bring in sharp conflict the one place in this man's life where he had said to God, this is off limits to you. Everybody might have in their life a part of their life, some people describe it as one room in their life, they keep the door closed to God, this is just for me. I do this on my own, it has nothing to do with you God and I won't give it to you. It could be all kinds of things, addictions that a person might have, it could be their business that they have here, it was the man's possessions. So when the king who owned everything and ruled everything and who this man had said the first commandment, I will have no other gods beside you, no other person will rule my life but you. When the ruler said some of the money and stuff that I've given you, I'd like you to sell the things you have and give it to the poor, he said no, I will not do that. Now if you'd asked the man about himself and say, are you rejecting God? He would have said, oh no, I believe the Ten Commandments, I believe the Bible, I live those things. What he was really doing was saying here is one place in my life where I say no to you. The man went away sad and Jesus followed this by saying it's impossible for wealthy people to enter the kingdom of heaven. See this man thought he was in the kingdom of heaven, he just needed a little bit more nudge of some kind. Jesus was saying he really isn't in the kingdom. Now it seems silly to us sometimes that one little thing a person has in their life keeps them out, but it disqualifies them. Joyce, you worked in surgery for a long time in your life, didn't you? Do you have to wash your hands when you get in surgery? If a lady said, you know, I want to work in surgery, but water chaps my hands in the winter, I'm not going to do it in the winter, would she have a job very long? No, it's over. One little thing, washing your hands, the rule is so critical that it cannot be neglected. What Jesus says to these people is, unless you are willing to give me all of your life, you can't enter the kingdom of heaven. For I can't be your king unless I'm the king of everything in your life. And this man had a wonderful religious life, but he still was holding on to his authority to control the things that were around him. There's another story I want to read for you. This one is Luke chapter 12. Luke chapter 12, the story begins with verse 13. It's a story of a man who was also very wealthy. He had had a very successful year as a farmer, and he was trying to make plans for the future. His crops were doing very well. He said, then, this is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I'll say to myself, you have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy, we might say retire, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said to him, you fool, this very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you've prepared for yourself? This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God. This man didn't reject giving his things to the poor. He just ignored God. He went about his life planning the things he was going to do, working on the things he was going to work on, planning his own life, planning his retirement, and the spiritual dimension of his life didn't exist. Now if you had gone to him and said, do you believe there's a God, I mean a Jewish man in those days, of course he would have believed there was a God. Do you believe the Old Testament, which was their Bible, is right? Do you believe the Ten Commandments are correct? He would have believed all those things. But the spiritual dimension of his life was not important to him. What was the big issue was, how can I make enough money to be able to have enough so I can retire and live in the leisure that I'd like to? It was the focus of his life. Now the end of your life is coming and you will not be prepared to stand before the king and say, I have used my life as you've asked me to use it. He will ask what spiritual dimension you've had and you'll have no reply to him. I didn't read the Bible, I didn't go to church, I didn't do the things that you told me to do, I used all the things that I had for myself, I didn't give any back to you to show that you really are the owner of everything. This night, your soul will be required of you. You are a fool. You prepare all of your life knowing that when you die you will stand before God in judgment and yet you have not prepared yourself for that moment or that time, acting as if it were not to occur. It's like someone who closes their eyes when there's danger around them, thinking it will go away. It won't. What Jesus shows us in this story is a man who was rebelling against God. Now if you'd asked this man in an interview with him, are you rejecting the authority of God? He probably would have said, no, not really, I've just been busy with my life, doing the things I needed to do, making a living for myself and my family. I've had after all, I've built a big farm here and I'm taking care of that. I didn't reject God, but God looked at him and said, you've lived in my world, you've farmed my ground, you've used my cattle for yourself, you've ignored who I am, the owner of everything that you have. How dare you act as if I do not exist? Your own body was made by God, the kids in your family were gifts from God, the money that you have is a gift from God, everything we have is a gift from the King. What he asked us to do is to acknowledge our responsibility to him. Ignoring God and living your life, doing all the things that you need to do and want to do is the same as saying to God, I refuse to accept you as the ruler of the world. Now, it may have been just one small thing in this man's life, but it was so big that it let everybody know that he had rejected who God was and the final authority of who God was. I want to read another story in the scripture. In this passage, in Luke chapter 12, Jesus is telling us a story about this man who made everything in the world out of his own money, made his money and his own job more important than anything in the world, and now Jesus turns to talk about the inside of people's lives. It's not necessarily the things that we have on the outside that are so critical for us, but also the things that are on the inside of our lives. And I want to read from Matthew 5, chapter 5, beginning with verse 21. Here Jesus is sort of expanding on the Old Testament story where the Ten Commandments were given. He is explaining to us that not only are the outside actions important to God, but the inside actions are also important to God. There are many people who live their life, even religious people, church people, and they have little things about their life that are not under the control of God. I remember talking to a person one time, and they were saying they had gotten mad about something that happened in the church, and they had said things that they shouldn't have said, and this person said, well, that's just the way I am. I have a temper. Jesus addressed this issue in chapter 5. He said to the people, you have heard that it was said to people long ago, do not murder. And anyone who murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. Now notice when he says if a person murders someone, he is subject to judgment. What he means is a condemnation of God. You are a murderer, and you deserve the result that should come to a murderer. Now he says, but if you are angry with your brother, you will also be subject to the same judgment. Jesus holds that anger is a very serious violation of what he wants us to do and how he wants us to live. Again, anyone who says to his brother, Rekha, is answerable to the Sanhedrin. What he is talking about is, if you say something libelous about someone, you say this person is stolen from a friend, and you tell that story, they could sue you for libel and take you to court, and you would receive the punishment of human beings for what you said. And then he says, but if anyone says you fool, he'll be in danger of the fire of hell. Now when he uses the word fool, we think of people every day saying people did foolish things or they're foolish. But what the word means in the Bible is a much different kind of idea. It is the concept of where you say something about a person that degrades their character and their nature. We use language that's not very proper for us to talk about when someone says you're a son of a bitch. They're saying you're not a human, you're the result of a dog and your mother is a dog. When we say to someone you're a bastard, we're saying you're not a normal person, but you're born in circumstances that are vile. A way to degrade the nature of a human being. Why does God see this as such a critical issue? Because each and every human being born in this world is a gift and a creation of God. And for you as another person to look at them and to treat them and to call them as if they were less than human is an insult to God, as well as an insult to that person. But because God made this person, it is a powerful insult to Him. It's like you were to prepare for Thanksgiving or Christmas a wonderful dinner, you women are doing that, and you've done your very best and everything's on the table, and your family comes in and they look at the food and they taste it and say, this is horrible. How would you feel? You've done your very best, you've presented what you have, it's an insult to your skill as a cook. If a guy, you know, comes to the house and his wife says, I want this fixed and you build me this and you build something that's really nice and you're proud of it, and you say to your wife, come in and look at this wonderful thing I've made, and she comes in and says, oh, I wouldn't have that in my house, all of a sudden you're overwhelmed with a feeling of inferiority. And when God makes a human being, whatever kind it is for us, He expects us to see someone made in His image. Now, whenever you live your life and you do good things, but you have one part of your life where anger controls you sometimes, to where you get out of control and you say things you shouldn't say or do things that you shouldn't do. If you were to go to someone who's that way and you say, do you believe in God? They might say, yes, I do. You go to church, they might say, yes, I do. Say, do you think that Jesus Christ is the Lord of the world? They might say, yes, I do, and I've given my life to Him, and then you say, but you get very, very angry, lose your temper, and say things you shouldn't. Well, that's just one little part of my life. Ninety-nine percent of my life belongs to God. Jesus said, if you get angry like this, you will stand before God in judgment. What He's trying to say to us is, there's not any way you can be a part of the Kingdom of God unless He's the King of everything in your life, even the things that are inside of you, even your attitude toward other people, because He requires to be the Lord of all and the Lord of everything. In Luke chapter 6, Jesus deals with the same issue in a little bit different way. In chapter 6, verse 29 of that chapter, Jesus is addressing relationships again. Relationships are a big issue for God. The relationship between Himself and us and the relationship between people. One of the things that happened when Adam and Eve ate the fruit was they began to see each other in a different way. They felt threatened by each other, so they had to put clothes on that they'd never had before. They were changed in their attitude toward God. Before when He came, they rushed out to meet with Him, and now they were afraid of Him. There's a change between the two of them in Adam and Eve, because when Jesus, whenever God came to talk to them, they each one began to blame the other one for their problems. There was conflict between them. Separation and conflict because of their failure to obey. So Jesus talked a lot about relationships because it is the result of failing to live in obedience to the King. If someone strikes you on the cheek, turn to him your others also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. If he takes your coat, then give him your overcoat too. Give to everyone who asks of you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. In verse 27, but I tell you who hear me, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who mistreat you. Here Jesus tells us it's not only important for us not to be angry with people, but he tells us that there's a positive step we should take with the people with whom we are angry. When the word love is used in the Bible, it's not an emotion, it's an action that God has. For example, the word love describes self-denial, sacrifice, and service. So for another person, whenever you want to do something that's loving in the Bible, you do something that costs you something, you have to deny your own desires or interests, and you have to pay the price to do it, and you have to submit to that person. So he says when you have an enemy, here's the way I want you to treat them. Your human nature will say get angry and pay them back for what they've done to you. That's what you'll feel like, but that's Satan saying to you, here's the way I want you to act. Now here's the way I want you to act. Every person who hurts you, who's your enemy, who hates you, what I want you to do is to love them. I want you to begin to ask me how you can do something for them that will cause their life to be better. And when I tell you what it is, you'll have to deny your feelings because you won't want to do this, because you don't like them and you know they hate you. You won't want to do it, but I want you to do it anyway. I want you to sacrifice in doing it. Pay the price to do whatever it takes to serve that person, and then you become a servant to them. Now our human nature tells us to do something quite different. And much of the time when we get angry with people and we want to get even with them, we don't even feel very bad about it at the moment we're doing it. But if you'll think about what happens to you after it's all over, you do feel bad. And the reason you do if you're a follower of Christ is because he said to you, don't do this. This is not the right way to act. Jesus lets us know, I tell you who hear me, this is your command, love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. You should have a list of people that you think don't like you. That's your list of people you should be serving. Now normally we want to be nice to the people who are nice to us. That's our human nature. But when the king is controlling your life, he wants you to be nice to the people who hate you. Who've done bad things to you. Because he wants you to show them how much he loves them. You are the witness to the character and nature of God. And that's why it's so critical for him. Now when you meet people who get mad, lose their temper and say things they shouldn't or do things they shouldn't, you ask them, do you believe in God? They might often say, well yeah I do. But I just have this little weakness in my life. It's not a weakness, it's a rebellion against the authority of God. And God sees it as someone who's saying, I will not allow you to control this part of my life. God's letting us know that living under him as the king is a matter of submitting everything in our life to him. So if someone strikes you on the cheek, your first temptation is to pay them back. Make sure they get everything they've given to you and maybe a little more so they won't do it again. That's the way we would treat animals. Animal doesn't behave yourself, you punish him until he learns to do the right things. But with the people who are made in the image of God, it's quite different. You don't raise your hand, you just turn the other cheek. And Jesus showed this on the cross, it is possible for you to do it. Is it hard? Yes, you must deny your own feelings. Yes, you must suffer painfully what people do to you. And you must do what you don't want to do, that is return good for evil. What Jesus is describing here is exactly what it was with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I'm telling you how you should live. I know that you're going to think sometimes it's not the best way for you to live. But I expect you to trust me. If I tell you that this is poison, get it out of your life. If it's anger, resentment, or bitterness, or materialism, or greed, get it out of your life. It will kill you spiritually. And if it's controlling you, then I cannot control you. I hear people often say in relationships that the person knows how to push their buttons. What they mean by that is they know how to touch them in a way that really makes them get upset. And they know when they get you upset that you're going to act in a certain manner, in a certain pattern. What God wants to do is to change your button. So that no matter how hard they push it, love and servanthood comes out. Because he wants you to reflect in the world the love of God. The love that allowed Jesus on the cross to look at the people killing him and said, Father, forgive them, they don't understand the seriousness of what they're doing. To live in the kingdom of God is not a part-time adventure. He expects complete, total surrender of our lives to him. If you've never committed your life to Christ, I encourage you to do that today. It's the way by which you find what you were put in the world to do, the kind of person you were put here to become. All you do is to say to God, I believe that you're the ruler of heaven and earth, and today I give my life to you completely. Now, you're going to find out when you do that, that there are parts of your life that are not under God's control. Even though you've made that promise. It may be money, it may be your temper, it may be your relationships. Whenever you discover those, you stop and say to God, God, I really want you to control my life, but here's a part of my life that I can't control. I want you to take it over. I apologize for what I've done, the way I've lived, the choices I've made, what I've said, and I ask you to forgive me. And I want to start over saying, God, help me to live completely in submission to you. God will forgive you. You will start over with a clean slate, as if nothing in your past ever has happened. That's the way God changes us. But in the story of Adam and Eve, if you read it, there was no sense of repentance. God told them the consequence of what they were going to do, and they didn't say, gosh, we're sorry, we apologize, forgive us, we want to start over again. No sign of that. When you live in the kingdom of God, you're going to make the same mistakes as those outside the kingdom, except for one thing. When you make those mistakes, when you commit those sins, you stop and say to God, I admit to you my failure. Forgive me of this. Help me to start over. He will wipe the slate clean and start you again as a child of His. But if you hold on to that little part of your life that's not His, that little room where your secret stuff is, then you will never find the closeness to God that you want. You're like the man who says, I've got everything, but there's some emptiness. I've got everything, but something's wrong. And what's wrong is you're living in the world ruled by a king, and you're disobeying the king, and he's holding you accountable. Now, you may have in your own life some areas that you don't like anyone in the world to know about. God knows about them. You know about them. What He asks of you is that you say, as my king, I acknowledge my violation of your law. I give this and my life to you. Forgive me and clean me up. Make me the person you want to be, because my life is yours. Would you bow your head, please, for a moment? So I need to ask you, have you ever come to a place in your life where you recognize that God was the king of this world and Christ is the ruler of this world, and you said to Him, take my life. I will live from this moment on in obedience to you as best I can. And when I fail to obey you, I will stop and admit it, ask you to forgive me, and turn over that part of my life that's out of your control back to you. If you do, you know what it's like to live under the king. Maybe you're at a place in your life where there's something in your life that's not in God's control, and you're aware of it. Get it straight before it's too late. God will not honor and bless you. When you claim Him as the king and yet live against His rules. Maybe if you felt like in your own life that there's something you need like that rich man. I have a lot of things, wonderful things, but there's just something missing. I want to tell you what it is. It's a submission of your life to Christ and your pledge to live His way. And when you find that, you will find that missing ingredient in your life. And here's what you do about it. You say to Him right now in the quietness of this moment, I believe what He's saying. I believe you are the king. Today I want to promise you, Lord, that my life belongs to you. From this moment on I'm going to be reading the Bible, being in church so I can hear what you want to say to me, finding the places in my life that you want to change and allowing you to change them. My life now is yours. The moment you do that, you will feel peace come over your heart, your mind and your life that you've never experienced. For the king has come to His throne in you. So Lord, you know us, you know what we are. You know if there's a little piece held out away from you or a big chunk or if our life belongs to you. So for each one of us, tell us today, is there something you want us to do? And give us the courage that whatever it is we know you want, that we wouldn't let money or family or fear or people stand in the way. We would say, yes Lord, I will do it. I want to ask the pianist to play. I want you simply to think about what you've heard today and what in your own mind you think God wants for you. And He may want you to become a part of this church. He may want you to stand openly and say to Dad, I've given my life to Christ. He may want you to say, I have some things in my life I need to turn over to God and today I do that. See, this is not about me, it's about you and God. Is He in charge of your life? And whatever He asks you to do, you will immediately think of reasons why you shouldn't do it. And that's the Garden of Eden story. The snake is there with you. You listen to the snake or you listen to God. Who is your king? As the pianist plays, I'll be at the front. I think Rusty is going to come and stand with me. If you want somebody to pray with you, you just make your way here. Tell us what you'd like us to pray about or the promise or commitment that you make to God. For more information, visit www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org www.fema.org This evening in our evening service, in the end of Matthew, Matthew 20, chapter 27, we're looking at the crucifixion of Jesus and what His life was like in the last moments of His day. He asked us to do difficult things, and the most glaring practice of what He wants us to do with other people who hate us is shown there. This is our model. Six o'clock in the annex. Father, we're thankful for a king who always knows the right things to do and say. We have to admit that sometimes when you ask us to do and say things, it's beyond us. But you've promised your strength to enable us to do what we've promised to do, obey you. I ask for every persons here that you talk to us all. And today we know what you want from us. Give us the courage and faith in you to do what we know we should. We ask that our lives would reflect you to all the world around us. No matter what happens, people would know by our behavior that we're controlled by you. In the name of Christ, we ask for the ability to do this and the power to live it. Amen.