THE BIBLE MEETS LIFE
In the last few years, a new word has entered our vocabulary: selfie. The word refers to taking a picture of yourself with a cellphone, and the word fits our culture perfectly. We have become a “selfie” culture, catering to a self-centered life.
We can experience positive benefits when we’re self-reliant and independent, but that’s quite different from being self-centered and narcissistic. Parents know how strong-willed toddlers can be when demanding their own way—even when what they want may be the worst thing for them. Unfortunately, too many of us never grew out of that phase; like toddlers, our “selfie” culture demands life on its own terms and tends to forget God’s rule.
The “selfie life” is the enemy of spiritual growth. As believers who want to develop a prayer life, we have to surrender our will to find God’s will. We must reject the seeming appeal of a “selfie life,” and when we do, we gain so much more.
WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?
Matthew 6:10
10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Jesus came representing a kingdom totally unlike the political powers so familiar to us. Every aspect of our politics is scrutinized hour by hour to determine the popularity of our leaders and the percentage of constituents who agree with specific policies. But God’s kingdom doesn’t operate by popularity polls. God isn’t running for office. He is the King.
Naturally then, in His Model Prayer, Jesus calls us to focus on His kingdom and His will. In one sense, the kingdom of God and will of God sum up everything that relates to prayer. Consider two aspects of prayer:
1. Those who lack power offer their prayers to the One who has all power. It is an appeal to God who rules His kingdom.
2. Prayer is often a plea for God to make some kind of change. We want God to heal the sick. We want Him to save the lost. We want God to hold the guilty accountable. We certainly want Him to forgive our own sins. In other words, we are constantly praying for Him to change something.
When we pray for His kingdom to come and His will to be done, we are intentionally surrendering our desires and self-interests to the powerful kingdom of God and to His plans. It is impossible to pray deeply until we surrender to the lordship of Christ and the rule of God.
We struggle with letting go of our own will, don’t we? When a friend of mine was a child, he went with his father to a store where he spotted brightly-colored bicycle handlebar streamers. He could easily imagine how cool he would look to the other kids in the neighborhood with those long, bright streamers flowing from the handlebars of his bike. The only obstacle was his father. When my friend tried to convince his dad how necessary those cool, new streamers were, his father was having none of it. The answer was a resounding no.
That’s when things got ugly. My friend began to cry loudly and created an embarrassing scene in the local store where his family often shopped. The drive home wasn’t pleasant. My friend sulked in silence; worried about what he might face when he got home. But when they arrived, his dad opened the trunk and pulled out a brand-new bike! My friend was stubbornly demanding handlebar streamers for an old bicycle when his father had already planned to give him a brand-new one.
We always benefit when we surrender our will to the will of our loving Father. His will surpasses ours in every way. God knows what we need, and He knows what is best.
James 4:6-10
6 But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” 7 Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8 Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. 9 Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
Jesus taught us to pray with God’s kingdom upmost in mind. Yet we cannot focus on God’s kingdom when we’re focused on our own “kingdoms.” We must surrender to God as King—as Lord—and that calls for humility. When we humble ourselves under His lordship, we keep our prayers in alignment with the larger purposes of God.
Pride has no place in our prayers. In fact, pride is the polar opposite of prayer, because prayer is humble dependence on God. Pride is the enemy of the kind of prayer God wants from us. In fact, James warned us pride invites the opposition of God.
Living under Christ’s lordship with a desire for His will begins and ends with humbling ourselves before Him. How do we do this?
- Submit to God. Humility begins with surrender. Surrender is not defeat, but acknowledging that God is God—and we are not. We gladly submit our lives to Christ who knows us better than we know ourselves and loves us deeply despite that knowledge!
- Resist the devil. We are to stop resisting God, and instead, resist Satan. Satan’s quest is to convince us our ways and plans are better, but a life in Christ is always better.
- Come near to God. When we “come near to God,” He comes near to us. Surrendering our lives to His kingdom and will, therefore, is actually a matter of relationship rather than mere religious duty.
- Confess. Turning to God means turning from sin. “Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded.” James expounded on the call to live pure and forgiven before God in verse 9: “Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom.” In other words, be serious about your sin. Culture treats sin lightly, but the believer is to live humbly before God with a repentant heart that weeps over sin.
James 4:13-17
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen
tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
As we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we also are to pray for His will to be done. We focus on His will—His plans—not our own. I heard long ago, “If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans.” Obviously, that doesn’t mean God wants to crush our hopes and dreams, but His plans are always better for us. God knows the future. Unfortunately, we often forget that simple truth.
This reality affects our prayer life. When we pray, we need to keep a light grip on our plans for the future, because not a second of it is promised to us. Even so, James was not calling us to live in faithless uncertainty, but rather, to pray and plan with faithful humility.
Confident self-assurance is never the key to answered prayer. Our confidence needs to rest in God and His will. God will not refuse the prayer for His kingdom to override our self-interest. When we pray for His will to be accomplished, we can expect His blessing.
Just as we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are to pray for God’s will to be done—nothing less and nothing else. We surrender our lives and our plans to Christ. This goes back to drawing near to God. If we feel far away from God’s purpose, we must seek Him with all our heart. This does not mean we request that He support and endorse our goals; nor do we petition God for an overview of His plans. We discover His plans only after we have aligned with His heart.
LIVE IT OUT
How will the truths of this passage affect your prayer life? Choose one of the following applications:
- Evaluate. Evaluate the things you pray for. Consider if you are more focused on what you want or what God wants.
- Surrender. Ask God to reveal areas of your life that you have not surrendered to Him.
- Fast. One day a week, add fasting to your prayer life to help you focus on God and break the power of “self.”
As believers we must surrender our will to find God’s will. Unlike the empty promise of a “selfie life,” putting God’s kingdom and His will first will lead us to spiritual maturity.
Hope to see you on Sunday!
In His Love,
David & Susan
Teacher Notes:
Teacher Notes:
The Lord’s Prayer should be understood as an example, a pattern, of how to pray. It gives us the “ingredients” that should go into prayer. Here is how it breaks down. The phrase “Our Father in heaven” indicates that God is not only majestic and holy, but also personal and loving. The first line goes on to say, “hallowed be Your name” – this is a statement of praise and a commitment to hallow, or honor God’s holy name. we can honor God’s name by being careful to use it respectfully. If we use God’s name lightly, we aren’t remembering God’s holiness.
Today we will see how Jesus wants us to approach our Father in heaven with every request or need: Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus wants us to approach prayer with humble submission to the will of God – He wants us to SURRENDER!
What ideas or images come to mind when you hear the word “surrender”?
- cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority.
- to give oneself up into the power of another: yield.
- To surrender in spirituality and religion means that a believer completely gives up his own will and subjects his thoughts, ideas, and deeds to the will and teachings of a higher power. ... Surrender is willful acceptance and yielding to a dominating force and their will.
In the last few years, a new word has entered our vocabulary: selfie. The word refers to taking a picture of yourself with a cellphone, and the word fits our culture perfectly. We have become a “selfie” culture, catering to a self-centered life.
The “selfie life” is the enemy of spiritual growth.
- As believers who want to develop a prayer life, we have to surrender our will to find God’s will. We must reject the seeming appeal of a “selfie life,” and when we do, we gain so much more.
I. Pray with a heart of surrender and submission to the Lord.
Matthew 6:10
“Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
What does it mean for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven?
- The phrase “Your kingdom come” is a reference to God’s spiritual reign. God’s kingdom was announced in the covenant with Abraham (8:11; Luke 13:28), is present in Christ’s reign in a believer’s heart (Luke 17:21), and will be complete when all evil is destroyed and God establishes the new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1).
- Truly praying to the Lord will include an attitude of surrender and submission. Pray that God’s name be exalted, His rule be established, and His purpose be accomplished here and now to the same degree and the same intensity as it is in heaven. Praying for His Lordship.
What does it mean to pray for Your will be done?
- When we pray, “Your will be done” we are not resigning ourselves to fate, but praying that God’s perfect purpose will be accomplished in this world as well as the next.
What keeps us from surrendering our will to God’s will?
- Surrender is not something that is easy. It is not hard to say that we are willing to surrender when it doesn’t cost us anything, but true surrender can be painful. True surrender is not subject to our rationale, nor is it true surrender unless it is complete and exhaustive. It means saying to God not only “Your will be done” but also “not my will”.
Lesson: Prayer is often a plea for God to make some kind of change. We want God to heal the sick. We want Him to save the lost. We want God to hold the guilty accountable. We certainly want Him to forgive our own sins. In other words, we are constantly praying for Him to change something. When we pray for His kingdom to come and His will to be done, we are intentionally surrendering our desires and self-interests to the powerful kingdom of God and to His plans. It is impossible to pray deeply until we surrender to the lordship of Christ and the rule of God. We always benefit when we surrender our will to the will of our loving Father. His will surpasses ours in every way. God knows what we need, and He knows what is best.
II. Humbly surrender to the Lordship of Christ.
James 4:6-10
“But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you doubleminded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
What does it mean for us to humble ourselves?
- “Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.” – CS Lewis
Why is humility essential to our prayer?
- Prayer is humble dependence on God.
- Pride has no place in our prayers. In fact, pride is the polar opposite of prayer, because prayer is humble dependence on God. Pride is the enemy of the kind of prayer God wants from us. In fact, James warned us pride invites the opposition of God.
Points: God’s grace helps us overcome our weaknesses and the attitudes that create conflict with others. All other relationships in our lives will be positively affected by submitting ourselves unto the Lord. A truly repentant person will have a broken spirit before the Lord. God accepts repentant persons, restores them to usefulness, and moves them to seek reconciliation with others.
Living under Christ’s lordship with a desire for His will begins and ends with humbling ourselves before Him.
III. Humbly surrender your plans to God’s plans.
James 4:13-17
“Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
One of my favorite books is A Man Called Peter, by Catherine Marshall. It’s the life story of her late husband, Peter Marshall, who served as pastor of New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC, and later became chaplain of the U.S. Senate. She told how her husband was invited to preach at the baccalaureate service for the December graduating class of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis. He had prepared a sermon, but during the week before the service he had a strange feeling that he should preach on a different topic. He couldn’t escape the feeling, and on Sunday morning he shared it with the chaplain at the Academy. The chaplain encouraged him to go with his instinct if it was that strong. Dr. Marshall took his text from James 4:14: Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. The date was December 7, 1941. As Dr. Marshall drove back to Washington that day, he heard the news on the radio about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. He knew then why God had led him to change his sermon. Many of the men in the graduating class that day soon went to war, and many of them did not return home.
- Most of us remember where we were on September 11, 2001. We had no idea that a major calamity was going to happen that day. Some 3000 other people had plans that day, too, but they never returned home. It was a grim reminder that only God knows the future. It makes you realize your life is in God’s hands. Your time on earth is temporary.
- I remember what my Dad told me on my 21st birthday: “You think these first 21 years have gone by slowly, but you’ll be surprised at how fast the next 21 years go by.” That was 30 years ago, and he was absolutely correct!
None of us know what the future holds. We can make plans, but we never truly know whether we’ll have another day on earth. That’s why James warned his readers against presumption. Some TV preachers give the impression that God is our servant, and He is obliged to do what we demand. Scripture teaches quite the opposite. We are His servants, and we must pray not with presumptuous arrogance, but in humble submission to His sovereign will.
What can we do this week to place our plans for the future in God’s hands?
- Even though we recognize the frailty and uncertainty of life, as believers we still can live with confidence and complete trust in God. We are to include God in all our planning and allow His will to shape what we do. As Christians, we not only are to avoid doing evil, we are also to determine to do the good.
Should our only prayer be, Your will be done?
- Just as we pray for God’s kingdom to come, we are to pray for God’s will to be done—nothing less and nothing else. We surrender our lives and our plans to Christ.
LIVE IT OUT
Sadly, many Christians don’t reach a point of complete reliance on the Lord. Pride, discouragement, and distraction can ruin our focus and perseverance. Paul reminds us to fix our eyes on the goal of maturity in Christ (Phil. 3:14). Learning to die to self is painful, but ironically, it’s the only true way to life.
Total Surrender – Billy Graham
The 12th chapter of Romans says: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God” (verses 1, 2).
It says be transformed; be changed. That’s what we need today. Among young and old alike, we need a change—a spiritual change, a moral change. God calls on all of us to make a total surrender to His Son Jesus Christ. If you want a change in your life, if you want forgiveness and peace and joy that you’ve never known before, God demands total surrender. He becomes the Lord and the ruler of your life.
- We are surrendering all the time. When we fly in an airplane and we sit down in the seat, and we’re surrendering to that plane. Nothing we can do about it.
- If we’ve been operated on before, we didn’t negotiate with the doctors. As they took the knives out and put the anesthetic in, we put our full trust in those doctors that they were going to do the right thing.
God said, “I know the plans I have for you, … plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV). That’s what God says. He’s not here to condemn you. He’s here to bless you and love you and take you into His arms and say, “I forgive you. I’ll change your life. And when you die, you will go to Heaven.”
That’s what God is saying, if you will surrender totally and completely. But you can’t hold anything back.
1. First, surrender your mind. Now, when you surrender your mind to God, it means not only what we think but how we think. Some think that when you come to Christ, you have to leave your mind behind. Our faith is not irrational. Jesus will stand the inspection of any scientist, mathematician or intellectual in the world. I read that by the time you reach college age you will have seen more than 200,000 television commercials. Can you believe that? Congress debated what influence advertising was having on children’s behavior. The average 21-year-old has seen 10,000 hours of violent programs. No wonder we have shooting in our schools. Our minds get saturated with violence or swearing or sex or whatever it is. A survey found that 77 percent of all allusions to sex on network television involve sex outside of marriage, and that cheapens love. The Bible says, “You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new” (Ephesians 4:22, 23, NIV). You can be made new. You see, your mind is more than a computer. In a computer, the programs don’t get stronger the more you use them, but it’s not true with what you see and hear. What is repeated is reinforced in our minds. What we remember influences what we do. The Bible says, “For as [a person thinks] in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). What do you think in your heart? What are you really like down inside? Television also creates a problem or a dilemma and then in 30 minutes neatly resolves the problem, and the viewer enjoys a feeling of release. But that’s not the way it is in real life. In real life, our problems won’t go away rapidly. We’re conditioned to want things immediately, right now: “I want gratification now. I want my way now.” The Bible says, “Whatsoever things are true and honest and just and pure and lovely, think on these things” (Cf. Philippians 4:8). Is that what you think about? Good things? Or do you think about things you know are not right? The Bible says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind”—your mind—“is stayed on You” (Isaiah 26:3). Get your mind on Christ every day, all day long, because the devil is fighting for your soul. There are two forces at work inside of you. One is satanic, and one is God. Don’t let the devil corrupt your mind. “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5), the Bible says.
2. Second, surrender your body. One of the great debates today is who owns the body. Doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and juries debate the moral, ethical and legal sides of this issue. And the questions surrounding suicide and euthanasia and abortion center on the issues of who owns and controls your body. Who controls your body? The Bible says if you’re a Christian, your body does not belong to you. It belongs to God. And the Bible also says that it’s God’s temple. Your body is God’s temple, and He dwells in you if you really know Christ (see 1 Corinthians 3:16). Well, you say, “Billy, what do you think about sex?” I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for sex, and you wouldn’t be either. God created sex. He made us sexual human beings, men and women. The scholar Eugene Kennedy wrote that sex is being used for a whole host of reasons for which it was never intended. And that’s true. There’s no such thing as free sex or free love. There’s a price tag of broken relationships and broken hearts and broken bodies and broken families. God created us as sexual beings. But from the beginning, God planned that the full expression of sex is to be within marriage. What about you? If you have made a mistake in this area, you can ask God to forgive you and change you and give you power to resist temptation. He’ll do it. The Bible says, “Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers … will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9, 10, NIV). In other words, you can’t go to Heaven unless you get it cleared up. And the only way to get it cleared up is at the cross where the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses from all sin. Jesus said, “[You] must be born again” (John 3:7). You can start all over with a new life. He’ll forgive all the past and give you power for the future. Your heart can be changed. It’s changed through prayer. It’s changed by reading the Bible. It’s changed by listening to the Holy Spirit. Everybody is tempted. The devil tempts everybody, every one of us. I’ve been tempted hundreds of times; so, have you. Temptation is not sin. It’s when you yield to temptation that it becomes sin. Christ died to give you a new heart and a new desire.
3. Third, surrender your will. Before Jesus healed or helped people, He would normally say, “Will you? Are you willing?” And I’m asking you, will you surrender to Christ? Will you let Christ dominate your life and be the Lord of your life? Will you? That’s the question He asks. The Scripture says, “Whosoever will, let him come” (see Revelation 22:17). You say, “Lord, I will receive you into my heart tonight. Forgive me of my past, the things that I’ve done wrong. I want You to give me a new direction in my life. I want You to fill up this empty place in my life.” Have you ever surrendered yourself unconditionally to Christ? Have you ever given Him your mind and your body and your will? When you come to Christ, that’s just the beginning because you must live for Him. And in living for Him, that means that the dominant feature of your life will be love. Whatever the color of someone’s skin, you love them. You go out of your way to be friends with people of another race. That’s how you love.
What does it mean to surrender to God?
This world is a battleground. Since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:17-19), the world God created has been in conflict with Him (Romans 8:20-22). Satan is called the "god of this world" (2 Corinthians 4:4), and due to Adam's sin, we are born on his team (Romans 5:12).
When we reach the age when we can make moral choices, we must choose whether to follow our own sinful inclinations or to seek God (see Joshua 24:15). God promises that when we seek Him with all our hearts, we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13). When we find Him, we have a choice to make: do we continue following our own inclinations, or do we surrender to His will?
Surrender is a battle term. It implies giving up all rights to the conqueror. When an opposing army surrenders, they lay down their arms, and the winners take control from then on. Surrendering to God works the same way. God has a plan for our lives, and surrendering to Him means we set aside our own plans and eagerly seek His. The good news is that God’s plan for us is always in our best interest (Jeremiah 29:11), unlike our own plans that often lead to destruction (Proverbs 14:12). Our Lord is a wise and beneficent victor; He conquers us to bless us.
The more areas of our lives we surrender to Him, the more room there is for the filling of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we exhibit traits of His character (Galatians 5:22). The more we surrender to God, the more our old self-worshiping nature is replaced with one that resembles Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17).
Romans 6:13 says that God demands that we surrender the totality of our selves; He wants the whole, not a part: “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.” Jesus said that His followers must deny themselves (Mark 8:34)—another call to surrender. The goal of the Christian life can be summed up by Galatians 2:20: "I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Such a life of surrender is pleasing to God, results in the greatest human fulfillment, and will reap ultimate rewards in heaven (Luke 6:22-23).
