GYCSE 2018: Given to God

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GYC Southeast

Michael Dant

The Root of the Problem

Heavenly Father God, we desperately need you.

And Father, I pray that you will be here, that you will flood this place with your presence, that we will have the privilege and the joy of fellowshipping with you right here tonight.

Father, I pray that you will overwhelm our hearts with your Holy Spirit.

Open our minds and give us clear understanding.

Help us to see a vision of where you want us to be and how you can get us there.

Last night we asked the question, how can I enjoy God?

Perhaps 1 of the most important questions that we as Christians can ask because love is the great motivator.

Love transforms the Christian life from a should do, must do experience into a get to love relationship.

And we saw that if we want to love God with all of our heart, with all of our mind, with all of our soul, with all of our strength, what are we going to need to do?

Give God all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul, and all of our strength.

My friends, love for God only comes from God.

He commands it, He gives it, we have to receive it.

And we looked last night at the cost of receiving that love, of letting God plant that love deep into our hearts.

It is an all-or-nothing, unreserved, unresisting, unrelenting surrender to let the Almighty God be Almighty God in us.

What is it about us that causes us to resist all of the blessings, the goodness that God is pouring on us?

Why do we want to go our own way instead of God's way?

Let's look at that question a little bit here tonight.

On the 1 side of the bullfighting ring is a skinny little guy in a funny little costume, who weighs about 180 pounds, and if he were an Olympic sprinter, he would be able to run 20 miles an hour for a very short period of time.

On the other side of that bullfighting ring is 1, 300 pounds of barely restrained fury that is about to unleash itself on this poor little guy in the funny little costume and he can run twice as fast.

The bull is bigger, the bull is stronger, the bull is faster, and the bull almost always loses.

1 of the reasons is this thing called the red cape.

You see, the bull has this fascination, this focus on this red cape.

And he puts all of his energy and all of his horns into shredding that cape to pieces.

No matter how much time and energy he puts into tearing that cape to shreds, he is no closer to winning the battle.

If he really wants that cape to lie lifeless in the dust, he needs to get rid of the 1 who's holding it.

What would happen, do you think, if, just theoretically here, just bear with me, let's just say that for once the bull would say, hey, it's not the red cape I'm after, It's that funny little guy in the funny little costume I'm after.

What do you think would happen if he just decided to focus on his true enemy?

The Bible tells us that we are to be more than conquerors through Christ who loves us.

And yet a lot of times as Christians, and this was true in my life as well for so many years, I was not a conqueror.

There was a whole bunch of not victory going on in my life.

And you know, we live in an age of the church where you see that all around us.

Our parents may have that same problem, and sometimes even our pastors have that same problem.

Why can't we let God give us the victory?

And this is a problem in the spiritual life as well.

1 of my favorite authors puts it this way, It is only labor and vain to pick leaves off a living tree.

The ax must be laid at the root of the tree and then the leaves will fall off, never to return.

My friends, do you want to find the root of the problem?

And do you want to collaborate with God to do whatever it takes to attack the root of the problem so that the leaves of sin fall off and never come back?

Then let's find the root together tonight.

The Bible, after all, says that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in heavenly places.

So yes, the devil is an enemy, but there's 2 things that you and I should know about the devil.

1 is if we try to fight him directly, we lose, period.

But the second thing, and this is wonderful news, the Bible tells us that Jesus came in the flesh, that through death, he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil.

In other words, the devil is not only not our direct enemy, he is a defeated foe.

Or does God have any other enemies besides the devil?

Yes, yes God does have other enemies besides the devil.

In fact, he has about 7000000000 of them.

And in some ways, these enemies are worse than the devil.

Paul tells us, we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of flesh.

Paul calls this sinful nature the flesh, and he goes on, the mind set on the flesh is what?

Hostile toward God for it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not even able to do so and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

My friends this is our natural condition.

When Adam sinned, our very nature became broken.

You know, I don't know if you've ever thought of this before, but when Adam and Eve, before they sinned, do you know that their natural desire, their craving, their delight was to do God's will?

But after they sinned, their natural desire, their craving, their bent was to go away from God.

We have become like Adam, and we are told that as soon as Adam sinned, he was in harmony with the first great apostate, and at war with God.

You know, a lot of people understand that it's cold in the winter and hot in the summer, but we don't necessarily always know why.

And I'm sure there's some good astrophysicists in the room this evening that could tell us why.

But some people believe that it's cold in the winter because in the winter the Earth is farther away from the Sun.

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The Root of the Problem

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