Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Are we submitting to the will of God?

Last week, I had the privilege of preaching at University Baptist Church. Preaching is a lot of fun, but the real joy for me is being able to dig into the Word and really begin to understand its riches. 

In the book of James, James digs into Christians hard. He doesn't beat around the bush. He pulls what we around the office like to call a "Mark Driscoll." Every time I read through James, I stand convicted! The Christian life isn't easy and believers often get off course. James is making sure believers are on the right course and people who process faith really are believers. 

In the end of Chapter 4 of James, he asks us if we are submitting to God. Are we submitting to His will for our lives or are we trying to plan out our lives without first seeking God's will. In other words, are we living for His kingdom or ours? The following is the conclusion to my sermon.  

"Submission is merely a bi-product of our humility. When we are humble, we submit. When we are proud, we do not submit. Christians and non-Christians alike tend to think that submitting to God’s will is more of a horrific obligation if you want to follow Jesus. This couldn’t be further from the truth! Submitting to God, the One who knows everything, is the obvious choice. He brings freedom and life. If we don’t submit to Him, we are going go fail over and over again. We will plan out our lives only to be disappointed that they didn’t turn out the way we had planned them out in the end. But, however, if we begin by submitting to God’s will, we will live the life we were meant to live. A person once said, “I am scared that if I submit to God’s will He will make me do something dangerous.” The irony of this is two fold. We don’t have a choice in submitting to God’s will. He will make it happen one way or another. But the second is that the safest place to be is in the middle of God’s will. This is because the will of God comes from the heart of God. Is God a good God? Yes. Is God a loving God? Yes. Then we know that if we are in His will and not our own, even if things don’t seem to make sense in our small “vapor” brains, we will live the best life we could possibly live for His kingdom and not our own. Most of God’s will we can learn in the Bible and we can hold each other accountable for that. But the second part is that we must listen to the Holy Spirit’s leading in our life and follow Him. It is when we follow God’s will that we will live the lives we were meant to live. Our will is always from pride and selfishness, but God’s will is always from His love and perfection. Let’s choose today to make the obvious choice. Let’s humble ourselves and follow God’s will. It is here that we will experience the fullness of life."

To listen to the whole sermon, you can go to http://universitybaptistchurch.com/Sermons and click on June 30th's message. 

1 comment:

  1. Good stuff brother - I'm a big fan of James, too. Also, glad you like preaching so much! Keep up the good work.

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