Commitment Versus Surrender

[00:00:00] This audio sermon is provided by AnabaptistSermons.com and may be freely copied and distributed. You may not sell or edit this sermon. Our prayer is that you would be blessed by this ministry. Open your Bibles, if you would, to Romans chapter 8. The title of my message, however, may not make a lot of sense to you. The title is Commitment vs. Surrender, or Surrender vs. Commitment. Let's just read the first 14 verses of Romans chapter 8. [00:00:37] There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh. that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit for they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh [00:01:10] but they that are after the spirit the things of the spirit for to be carnally minded is death but to be spiritually minded is life and peace because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can be So then they that are in the flesh do not please God, but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. [00:01:47] But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, ye are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. [00:02:20] This message has grown out of probably an ongoing desire to understand the will of God with regards to the subject of this thing of doing and being. Probably if I were to, if we were to talk about the Christian life and what divides most Christians or what tends to divide churches, divides individuals, it comes down to the question of [00:02:55] how important is it to do and how important is it to be? and we would all give consent to the idea that being is more important than doing. But every one of us also would have to agree that doing is pretty important. If being actually happens, if being is actually there, then doing is important as well. Now, I think without realizing it, we often put more emphasis on doing than what we realize. [00:03:38] And I would just say this, I hope you can stay with me, I hope I can articulate some of the things that I feel God has laid on my heart. And as we work through this passage and work through some of the ideas that have become more a part of my own experience, I hope I can be clear. One thing that has sort of bothered me and one evidence that I think we think a lot about doing and how we do things is we talk now about doing church. [00:04:14] Have you ever heard someone talk about doing church, or doing a song instead of singing a song, or we do church instead of have church? I don't know, it's a play on words maybe, but I chose to use it just sort of to highlight the tendency we have toward the doing. You see, even in the case of the, you remember when the jailer rushed into Paul after the earthquake, what was the question he asked? [00:04:56] What must I do to be saved? And you find that very prevalent throughout scriptural history, throughout the history of mankind. Doing is important. You remember that Adam and Eve, actually, right after they fell, what was their response? When they knew they were guilty, they tried to do something. The tendency and the temptation is to focus on doing. And let me be clear about it from the very beginning here, that doing is important. [00:05:30] If, however, it boils down to little more than doing, then it's empty, it's dead, there's no life in it. And God calls us to something higher and better than just doing what's right. And to be sure, doing what's right is right, and it's doing what's right is good. But if that's all we ever get done, if it doesn't soak into our hearts, if it is not, if it doesn't eventually become an expression of our own, of who we are in Christ Jesus, then it is dead, it is vain, and it is, I'm going to say, useless in the sense of salvation, certainly not useless for the well-being of mankind. [00:06:25] Well, back to the title that I mentioned, Commitment vs. Surrender. What started me down this road was I read an introduction to a book some time ago where the writer of that introduction spoke of a conversation he had with a Romanian pastor. and he asked the Romanian pastor to give him some idea from his perspective [00:06:57] what's wrong with the Christian church in America. And after a bit of coaxing, the Romanian pastor finally said, well, the problem is the emphasis on commitment. He said in the Romanian language there is no word that is the same as the way we use the word commitment in English. When I read that, I immediately thought back of my own experience when I used to preach in Spanish. [00:07:30] How I would try to, I'd come up to this word, I wanted to find the word commitment. I couldn't find it. There really is no word in the Spanish language, unless Glenn found one, that equals the word commitment in the English language or the way we use the word commitment. Now the way we typically think of commitment is this, that we talk about commitment being important, for example, in the church. [00:08:00] We commit ourselves to the church and we do what the church says. We do what our leaders say. We commit ourselves to our parents. We commit ourselves in marriage. And so we have in some ways, I think, reduced commitment to an experience of our own effort in many cases. Now, we typically will tack on there, but the grace of God, I will do this and that. But too often, it sort of boils down more to a matter of us just simply carrying out what we said we would do. [00:08:35] You know, being men of our word, that's good. It's right that we're men of our word, but I'm afraid sometimes we have ended up doing something with the word commitment that really isn't right, that isn't quite correct. Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to live a victorious Christian life? [00:09:09] You've got these little things that dog you. They may be little habits, not sinful habits even, but just habits that dog you. And you just sort of wish that they'd go away. And sometimes it includes things that are wrong, sinful habits. Have you ever wished that somehow you could just find a formula that would get you past your fallenness? and would help you, would make you walk the way you really want to walk? Well, I think that Romans chapter 8 has a fairly clear indication, [00:09:49] has in it ways or the thing that is so important to learning to walk in surrender. and I'm going to say in commitment as well. Surrender is giving up what rightfully belongs to us or something that we can have. Whereas commitment is investing one's energies [00:10:20] to serve through personal resolve and determination. That's how we typically define it. That's how we usually separate them out. Commitment retains ownership. You see, when you say that I will commit to something, you are taking ownership of something. And I'm not denying the importance of accepting ownership for responsibilities. [00:10:54] But when the bottom line is our commitment, then it is up to us not only to do what we say, it's not only up to us to produce, but it's also up to us that the end result tends to lie in our lap. And without realizing, we end up accepting responsibility that God didn't really intend for us to have. [00:11:26] So how do we get past it? What is the secret? Why is surrender so important? I should have mentioned this, that the Romanian pastor went on to say that the word that they use for the word commitment is surrender. It's giving in. And in the Spanish it's the same way. When I would try to, for those of you who know Spanish, [00:11:57] you will recognize the verb entregar or rendir. Those are the two verbs that come closest. And they both mean to give up, to give up to something, or to deliver oneself to. And as I begin to understand some of the principles that I believe are important for us to get a hold of the concepts that we see then here in Romans chapter 8, [00:12:31] It's important that we understand the value of surrender. This thing of giving up. And I'll try to be more specific as we go through this chapter. Now, the thing that drew me to this passage is when I was... I had these things sort of running through my mind. And I know that it's ideal. Ideally, we find the Scripture. The Scripture says this, and then we fit everything else around it. [00:13:07] Sometimes we have ideas that I think are inspired by God, and then we find the passage of Scripture that sort of speaks to it. And I don't apologize for that. I'm not proud of it, but it's just the way it works for me, at least. And I was coming through my personal devotions here probably about nine or ten months ago, And I came across chapter 8, read it many a time. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. [00:13:40] No condemnation. How do you feel when you have made a commitment to do something and you don't get it done? I know how I feel. I feel condemned. He says here, there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. So what is the tie? [00:14:11] He says here that if we are walking in the Spirit, we won't feel condemnation. So what does that have to do with commitment? How then can we make a commitment, and if we fail, not feel condemned? I think the answer, and perhaps at least one answer, is to be careful how we make our commitments. To be careful what all is a part of our commitment. [00:14:44] That doesn't mean that our commitment somehow needs to be shallow, or that somehow the commitment that we make can be substandard or we somehow keep our sights low enough that we're sure to hit it. That's not what we're talking about. But we're talking about an ingredient in commitment that we often fail to recognize and that is surrender. In Colossians, I believe it is, or is it Galatians, that speaks about I'm sorry, that's getting away from me, the exact quote. [00:15:23] But the idea is this, that the person who is not able to live up to all of the standards of the law lives under a curse. And what he's saying, I believe, is this, that the person who tries to live up to the law won't get it done to begin with. If he tries, and if all he does is try, he lives under a certain kind of curse because he's not going to be able to do it. [00:15:55] This is what this answers in. It speaks about those who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Is it possible that in all of our good intentions to make commitments to Christ, to the church, to the marriage, to the family, to the work, to the job, to the boss, whatever it is, That in all of that, there is an element of self-life that never lets us completely free from, or that never really releases us to do everything that God would call us to do. [00:16:42] It says, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. And sometimes it's pretty easy for Christians to read this and say, wouldn't that be nice? And I'm one of you. I'm on a journey like Brother Glenn said. And so it is something that I walk through, that I work with. Yes, I have my failures. I make my mistakes and I wish they wouldn't be there. [00:17:15] But the ones I feel condemned about are the ones where I have said I will do and then I fail. Now, inherent, or something that has to be a part of our commitment, whatever that commitment is, is a degree of surrender. In fact, this whole concept, I'm still in process on it, [00:17:48] but I just began to realize that, no, it's not really commitment versus surrender. It's not really one or the other, but it is surrender in commitment. Think with me about the things that, let's say you make a New Year's resolutions or something that some people make. And I think I have made them already. I'm sure that I have also broken them. [00:18:19] For many people they're a joke because they make them on New Year's Day and by the second or third day they've already broken them. So I don't put a lot of stock in New Year's resolutions. But here's the thing. What's important in order to keep a resolution? Is it to do what you said you're going to do? Or what about surrender? You see, where we are confronted with a choice, [00:18:53] we can say that we will do something, But unless there is an accompanying giving up of something else, it won't happen. Last winter we were here with my in-laws and we were here for about a week over the holidays. And you know what happens during the holidays often times. There's more food around than anybody needs. and one morning, the last morning we were there, I bent down to tie my shoes [00:19:28] and I made a disappointing discovery that I couldn't tie my shoe and breathe at the same time. I said, something's got to change. Now, what had to change was not, I just will quit eating. You know what I had to do? I had to surrender my appetite over and over and over again. [00:19:59] And I wish I could tell you I was always successful. Just this past week, I failed to surrender my appetite a time or two. You see, the effort that we put forth in determination to get it done has got to be coupled with an element of surrender. There's always a counterpart to the thing that we're trying to do. And that counterpart lies within our selfish nature. [00:20:30] And so unless we come to the place where we can take, where we can surrender that thing, whatever it is, that so desperately wants to have its way in ourselves, it stands in the way of us fulfilling our commitment. And somehow, I believe there is a strange connection, not a strange connection, but I believe there is a connection between the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus [00:21:02] that makes us free from the law of sin and death, and our ability to surrender. What is this saying here about the spirit of life in Christ Jesus? What is the spirit of Jesus? What is the spirit of Christ Jesus? Later he tells us quite simply that if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his. I want to be careful how I use that verse because I realize that we typically have said that the spirit of Christ [00:21:36] Christ is the Holy Spirit, and I am not disagreeing with that, because it is capitalized there in verse 9, or whatever it is that I read from, yes, verse 9. But what is the Spirit of Christ Jesus? If you were to think of the one thing that you think of that was notable about Jesus Christ, what would you say that it is? We could talk about his love. We could talk about a lot of things. [00:22:11] I personally think that it was his surrender to the Father's will. That was the outstanding thing about Jesus, and that, to me, is the Spirit of Christ. This thing of giving up. We would all agree, and we've heard it said over and again, that Jesus loves us. That's why he died on the cross. And I don't disagree with that, but that's not quite the way the Bible says it. [00:22:44] How does the Bible say it? Who loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten son? It was God. And so I myself have often said, well, it was the love of Christ that took him to the cross. It was His love for us. And there is an indication in 2 John, or is it 1 John, about chapter 5. [00:23:15] It does speak about Jesus' love for us. But it is abundantly clear that it was God that loved this world. It was the Father that loved the world. In fact, those of you who have children or would know from experience that it would take for you to give your child, let me say it a little differently. We say that we would be willing, it would be an act of love for us to give ourselves, to give our lives for another person. [00:23:55] But you fathers know full well that it would be a much greater act of love for you to give your child. It would be a whole lot easier for me to give my life for someone else than to ask my son to give his life for someone else. Just purely because of the parental love. And this is why, and I don't think we have to make a big deal about Whether God loved us more or Jesus loved us more, the point is this, that Jesus surrendered himself to the will of the Father. [00:24:31] And if you follow Jesus' footsteps throughout his experience on this earth, he over and over again in John speaks about, he does these things because he loves his Father. Over and again. It was surrender in a lot of ways. I see the spirit of the law being connected to our self-life and our intention to do right and our determination to do right. And I see the spirit of Christ, the counterpart, this thing of surrender, this thing of giving up. [00:25:09] Giving up the things that make commitment difficult. Giving up the things that stand in the way of us fulfilling our promises. You know, people disappoint us. Husbands and wives can disappoint each other. The thing is this, what do they disappoint about? I mean, what is it that digs for us when another person lets us down? There's something in us and it has to do with what we want or what we wanted. [00:25:40] That's where the disappointment comes out of. Now when we learn to give up the thing that we wanted so badly, and it can be as simple as getting to church on time. I dislike coming to church late. My wife dislikes getting to church late. But do you know that when we do it, when we get there late, that it's pretty easy for us to, at least in our minds, figure out who gets the blame? [00:26:18] You probably don't do that, but people in Kansas do. And the thing, you see, it's because of how it makes us look. And so, if we learn to give up what makes us look good sometimes, it is a whole lot easier to accept what people do to us. That, to me, is the spirit of Christ Jesus. Verse 3, For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sent his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. [00:26:55] You notice, the law, try as they would, they committed themselves to following Christ. They committed themselves to ten commandments. They did, maybe not their best, but they tried. But why was the law so weak? It was because it was rooted in nothing but pure commitment. That said, well, I shouldn't say nothing, but as long as that was all it was, I will do this. You're faced with an obstacle. And that's yourself. And so it has its limitations. But that's what it says then. That's why God dealt with the law, with the fleshly effort of people by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin. [00:27:54] In the flesh. And that's because Jesus came and he gave himself, he surrendered himself to the will of the Father. That's why he came. I don't think that Jesus died on Calvary's cross with a sense of, with a euphoric sense of infatuation for his people that he was dying for. He was dying because he surrendered. He gave himself. He gave himself because God asked him, the Father asked him to do that. [00:28:33] He condemned sin in the flesh. He showed himself more powerful than sin by living, or he condemned sin, I should say, by showing that he, through his surrender to the Heavenly Father, was stronger than sin itself. That's the Spirit of Christ. And I realized we could say, well, Jesus had the power as God to do what he wanted to do. [00:29:09] And one of the things that mystifies us as men is how could Jesus be 100% God and 100% man at the same time? We don't understand that. I think sometimes we err, we almost don't give Jesus the right to be fully a man like the Bible says he was. and we make him more fully God. We're sort of hesitant to put on him the cloak of manhood. [00:29:42] But if I understand the scriptures right, he was fully God and he was fully man. So we could say, as some people would assert, that Jesus was able to live his walk sinlessly because he was partly God. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says that he was in all points tempted like as we were, like as we are, yet without sin. And why was it that? Why was that? This is conjecture partly on my part here, but I think it was his surrender to God. [00:30:18] It was his surrender to the will of the Father. And you see, that's the heart. That needs to be the heart of your commitment and my commitment. This thing of surrender, this thing of giving up, giving up to God and letting God do the work in us. It says that he did this that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Is it making sense? I mean, do I come clear? [00:30:50] That I think the flesh and our determination are sort of one and the same. But our surrender and the spirit somehow are tied together. I don't know that I can explain it. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit. For to be carnally minded, verse 6, is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Can't say it better, can you? [00:31:23] You see, when all of it is personal effort, when all of it is just a matter of getting it done, it's up to us. And we don't get it done. We're carnally minded and we end up feeling condemned. On the one hand, we experience death. On the other hand, to be spiritually minded is life and peace. And one of the things, friends, that releases us, if we surrender, we are not responsible for the outcomes. [00:32:02] Does that mean that we don't have a responsibility? Yes, we do. I hope I'm making myself clear here. But when we have given it, when we have given it what we can, we have given it to the Lord, we have surrendered to the Lord, it is up to the Lord. The outcomes are up to the Lord and other people. And this is not just an easy way of washing our hands, but this is to say that as we surrender to God, as we truly surrender, every part of us, [00:32:39] Then God takes over. That's where the grace of God comes in. But he has to have our surrender. He has to have our giving up in order for him to take over. So, the person that makes a New Year's resolution to get up out of bed at 5 o'clock every morning to read and pray And when the alarm clock goes at five o'clock, is unwilling to surrender his right to a warm bed in the covers, there's no way that the Lord can work with that. [00:33:21] And then, you know what happens. You feel condemned. And see, it's, and maybe I'm oversimplifying it. but it is in large measure as I understand the scriptures in my own heart and observe people a matter of giving up the things that we'd like to do it's the things that we'd like to do that get in our way because the carnal mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God [00:33:52] neither indeed can be you see you see what it's saying here The carnal mind, it says, is at enmity with God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. The carnal mind is this, the carnal mind says, I will do this. The spiritual mind, on the other hand, rather than saying, I will do this, the spiritual mind says, I'm going to give in. [00:34:28] I will give up my right. to this. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now that makes it sound sort of hopeless if we think that sheer commitment and sheer determination are going to accomplish it. It simply says, so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But they that are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. [00:34:59] Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. Now, I realize that I'm taking some liberties here that the scriptures maybe don't give. They don't say it quite the way that I'm saying it. And yet, as I observe my own experience and understand my own heart, this is what it comes about. It comes back to the Spirit of Christ deals with the things, we have to give up things. [00:35:39] The Spirit of Christ is a spirit of surrender. It is a spirit of releasing our rights, of giving up our rights. And, you know, I think it's fair to say this for those of you husbands and wives who commit yourselves to loving each other. You understand pretty clearly that when you struggle with that, when you struggle with whatever the obstacle is in your relationship, [00:36:12] all it takes is for you to give up something that you wished you could have had. And that, my friend, is the Spirit of Christ. And it's amazing how that kind of thing can turn things around. There's a book that's out by the title of Love and Respect. Some of you may have heard of the book. And the idea there is that wives are to respect their husbands and husbands are to love their wives. [00:36:47] And it talks about sort of a cycle that marriages can go through, that relationships will go through. It's sort of a tit-for-tat kind of thing, you know. You can sort of end up going in circles, and he calls it the craziest cycle. My mom would not approve of that language. But it's a cycle where you just sort of feel confused and you sort of end up blaming each other all the time. [00:37:19] Now he says, he makes this comment, how do you break that? And he said, either one or the other can break that. But it's always with a cost. Because the one that breaks it is the one that's going to surrender his right. Now, he makes this appeal that the one that is the strongest will or ought to break that. And so it is a bit of an underhanded way of telling you that if you don't break it, you're the weaker one of the two. [00:37:58] And that's true. That's simply a fact. That, and this doesn't just apply in husband and marital relationships, this applies in relationships in general. That we can, of our own, we decide who's the stronger of the two. You know, we all like to quote this verse, I say we all do, at least some of us do. We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak. Good verse, isn't it? Well, then prove yourself that. [00:38:32] But it comes by surrendering, it comes by giving up, it comes by releasing the things that we want so desperately for ourselves. Going to verse 11 then, But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Now here, you'll notice he moves from the, he's no longer, he's actually giving us a promise about our mortal bodies, about the physical part of us, the part that sits in these pews this morning. [00:39:13] It says, you shall quicken your mortal bodies by the spirit that dwelleth in you. And I don't think this is now speaking about the time that we will be quickened, that our mortal bodies will be quickened after death and the resurrection. I think this is speaking about your body, what you see up here will do what's right when the spirit of Christ, when the spirit of Jesus, the spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead, dwells in me. Then it will quicken this mortal body. [00:39:47] Verse 12, Therefore, brethren, you are not debtors to the flesh to live after the flesh. We don't owe anything to our flesh. We, my friends, are called to something higher, and that is something that is painful, that is surrender, that is giving ourselves up. For if you live after the flesh, you shall die, but if through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. This is that quickening of your mortal body that you speak of, I believe, in verse 11. [00:40:19] For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Well, this morning I realized that I have taken two words in the English language and maybe have stretched their meanings a little bit. But I hope that you, or at least I have maybe done something to the word commitment [00:40:49] that militates against what we've been taught, that we need to commit ourselves. And yet, what has happened, I'm afraid, is that we have divested the element of surrender and commitment so often that commitment has boiled down, has become just sort of an effort, sort of a self-effort, and then when we don't make it, we feel this condemnation that it speaks about in the first verse. The Lord does not want us to be condemned. [00:41:19] The Lord does not want us to feel condemned. And so when we have given up our wills, when we have surrendered, you see, even the person that gets out of bed at 5 o'clock to read his Bible and pray, He gives up that urge to stay in bed. There may be other things that come up that he doesn't get his Bible reading and prayer done. He may get a phone call that time of the morning for whatever reason. [00:41:50] The baby may have cried. But you know what? You are freed in your spirit because you gave yourself up. And things beyond your control may have changed that. But you're no longer held responsible for that. But it's the person that lies in bed. I'm just using that for an example. And just simply ignores or just does what he feels like doing instead of doing what he knows he ought to do. It is this matter of surrender. [00:42:22] For surrender to God and to others becomes the basis of our commitment. We indeed are able to mortify the deeds of the body spiritually. and live forever. However, commitment without surrender can easily be