How to Give God What He Wants the Most, Part 2

How to give God what He wants the most. And I told you it involves a decision. And before our time is over together, we are going to have a very sober and holy moment where I’m not only going to explain exactly how to give God what He wants the most, but it will require a big step of faith, total commitment, and surrender. And what you’ll have to start asking is is how I hang on to things and my view and what I want versus what He can provide – which one of those am I going to trust?

It reminds me of a story I heard many years ago, and it was a story of a little girl who went on vacation with her family. And it was by the seashore, and they had one of those cottages that was right there, and you walk out the door, and the sand is there, and you could walk on the beach, and it had a little pier. And at the end of the pier was a fishing boat with a very old man.

It was in a very small town in New England and the little girl, five or six years old, cute pigtails, the whole bit – you know how they are at that age – and she would walk down to the pier and walk down and there was an old, old fisherman who was just known in the town as the mean one. He was just mean. He was old. He was bitter. His friends had died. He’d had a hard life. And so he just shut everybody out. But there’s something about a little five or six year old girl, you know, “Hi. Hi.”

Well, after day one, day two, day three, day four, his heart starts to melt. And no one’s ever treated him nice. And every day she would get shells and give him shells and she’d sit at the end of the pier with her feet dangling. And pretty soon, he’s giving her a little fishing line.

And in their seven-day vacation, a bond occurred. And he realized, No one in the whole world cares about me and I’m going to die very soon, he was in his late eighties, and this little girl does.

And unbeknownst to others, he had a little pouch from over the years of fishing and he found a number of shells and pearls. And the thing that he noticed about this little girl is she would dangle her feet over, but she would always clutch, she had these little, plastic beads that you get at Wal-Mart or Target or the CVS pharmacy. You’re on vacation; kids always want something, a dollar ninety-nine, you’re all set. Oooo!

And so he noticed how much she liked them so he took his pearls and stayed up most the night, drilled holes in them, took a piece of fishing line, and made a necklace. He thought, I’m going to give it to this little six-year-old girl.

And so, the next day she came to say goodbye and the station wagon was all packed and parents are one hundred yards away and, “Okay, honey. Get ready. Yes, you can go say goodbye.” So she runs down to say goodbye and he says, “Come here, honey. I have a present for you.” And she walks up to him and they’ve been very close and he says, “Give me those plastic beads off your neck.” And then he hung out, glistening in the sun, real pearls.

Now, the problem with being five or six years old and you’re very immature – you don’t know what’s worth what. All you know is what you’re comfortable with. All you know is what feels right. And so he took another step and he said, “Here, I have these, these are real pearls. Now, take those off so I can put them on.” And the little girl stepped back, grabbed her necklace, and ran one hundred yards, jumped in the station wagon, said, “I want to go. That man tried to take my pearls.”

And I want to tell you about eight out of every nine Christians who really do sincerely love God, cling to plastic pearls and are not receiving anything close in their life experience, their relationships, or their eternal impact, what God has chosen and destined for you to have because when He says, Give Me you. Put Me first in your time, put Me first in your future, put Me first in your decisions, put Me first in your family, put Me first in your work, put Me first in your money. I want you to trust Me wholly because I have pearls, not stuff.

And so what I want to do in the remainder of our time, I want to define very specifically what total commitment looks like. We are not leading up to some emotional moment. We’re leading up to a wise decision where you’re going to weigh the risk and the logic of saying to God in a few minutes, I surrender all to You. I would sign a blank check made out to You. I would say to You from this day forward, “I’m all in.” I may be a little fearful, but I’m all in.

But in order to do that, what’s it look like? The answer is in Romans chapter 12, verse 1. And after eleven chapters of treasure, of what God has done, of how much He loves you, of His sovereignty, His goodness, His forgiveness, His power, His Spirit living within you, His gifts, all the plans that He has for you. In chapter 12, your response to that is, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, sisters, fellow family members,” the apostle Paul writes, “in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.”

Notice the structure. There’s a command, there’s a motivation, and there’s a reason. I’d like you, if you will, put a box around the word offer. Put a box around living sacrifice. And then, put a little box around the word holy. And then, I want you to put a squiggly line under spiritual act of worship.

The command is to offer your body to God. And this isn’t metaphorical. This is like your physical body: your eyes, your head, your hands, all that you are. And the word offer here is in a tense in the Greek language that’s punctiliar. And what that means is, “on a certain day at a certain time.”

This passage is not explaining how to have your sins forgiven. This passage is not explaining what it means to be in God’s family. Salvation occurs at the end of chapters 3, 4, and right in chapter 5: the work of Christ by grace. You receive the free gift by faith. Chapter 12 is saying, “How do normal Christians follow Jesus out of gratitude?”

And God says – are you ready – “this is what I want. I want you on a certain day, at a certain time, to say to Me, ‘All I am, all I have is Yours.’” That’s what it means to offer.

I will tell you that, tens of thousands of people in America and around the world do not understand the channel through which God’s best and biggest blessings flow. The average Christian somehow thinks, I receive Jesus, He’s my Savior, it’s really real, I read the Bible some, I’m really trying hard to be a good Christian but it’s not going that well.

The power for the Christian life comes in this moment of offering where, remember how that garden hose, when you’re having the water battle, gets kinked? The way to unkink it is when you say, it’s the channel, it’s the conduit, Lord…now, it requires faith. It requires believing in an invisible treasure that you can’t see.

But it’s a historical, living God who has walked up on the earth and died in your place and rose and sits at the right hand of God and says to you, “There’s an unspeakable treasure;” who for joy says to you, “Let Me give you the best.”

See, the issue is not He wants to take something good away. The issue is any good thing that stands between you and Him that’s an idol will destroy your relationship with Him. And by the way, it’ll destroy your relationship with the idol.

So it’s a living sacrifice, you make the commitment, but then it’s daily renewing and living. And it’s holy. That’s the last word. It’s holy.

See, this is not a: Get with the program, be a superstar or a Christian Marine. This is a: let your Father love you. Let’s remove the barriers.

And the final reason is your spiritual act of worship. In other words, what God really wants. We started out with a question that leads to a decision. The question is: How do you give God what He wants the most? Are you ready for this? It gets real simple. God wants you, all of you, every aspect of you.

See, you can read the Bible, you can pray, you can come to church, you can give some money, you can go on a missions trip, you can try and be a good moral person, you can do all kinds of things.

There was a group in the New Testament that did all that and more, and Jesus said the harshest things that ever came out of His mouth about those religious people because their hearts weren’t His. They were in control and they used their religion, and they thought they were better than other people. They weren’t tender. They weren’t broken. They weren’t loving.

Left to ourselves, we are a people who will create some little grid or model about how we’re okay with God because we’re doing this, this, this, this, and this as we gain and keep control. And your control always is shown by where your money goes, where your time goes, where your energy goes, and what you dream about. And when He has your heart in those areas, I’ll tell you what, those things get transformed.

And then – are you ready – you discover why you’re here. You discover what your purpose is. You discover there really is more to life than setting goals and accomplishing them. You experience the treasure both now and the promise forever. He wants you.

As you turn to the back page, I wanted to just give you two pictures that have been very helpful to me. One is a blank check.

And I want to tell you. Please do not hear: Everything will be easy and wonderful and great. In fact, many of you will be tested. Abraham didn’t take a rubber knife up there. It may get worse before it gets better.

The Holy Spirit would say, “Well, how’s it working for you your way?”

And today: Pay to the Order of Jesus Christ. And there’s a date, and you’ll write today’s date and then you’ll sign your name.

And there’ll be a sense of fear in your heart, but it’ll be a step of faith and you’ll say, I’m all in, God. You can cash this. You can cash this with my future, You cash this with my relationships, You cash this with my finances, You cash with my career, You cash it with my geography. I will do whatever You want me to do. I believe You’re that good and that kind. And I actually believe that You can pick out what’s better for me than I could pick out for me.

Do you see how arrogant it is when we say to God, Oh, I want Your forgiveness and Your salvation, but I’ll run my life because I’m way smarter than You. You created the universe, but look at me. So I really want you to think: risk, reason, the decision-making process.

What it means to fill out the check, I came across a small excerpt of a prayer by a lady named Ruth Myers. And just lean back – you can even shut your eyes – when you think about what it means for you to sign this check in just a moment, think of a prayer that might go something like this.

“Lord, I’m Yours. Whatever the cost may be, Your will be done in my life. I realize that I’m not on earth to do my own thing or to seek my own fulfillment or my own glory. I’m not here to indulge my desires or increase my possessions or to impress people; to be popular or to prove I’m somebody important or to promote myself. I’m not even here to be relevant and successful by human standards. I’m here on this earth to please You. And so now I offer myself to You, for You are worthy. All that I am or hope to be, I owe to You. I am Yours by creation and I’m Yours by the purchase price of Your Son on the cross that paid for my sin.

“And so, right now, I give You my body and each of its members, my entire inner being. I give You my mind, my emotional life, my will, my loved ones, my marriage or my hope for marriage. I give You, right now, my abilities and my gifts, my strengths and my weaknesses, my health and my status – whether it be high or low. I give You my possessions, my past, my present, and my future. And I even give You when You want to bring me home to be with You. I’m here to love You and to obey You and to glorify You.”

You ready to take that step? It’ll be the greatest decision you ever, ever make.

And for some of you that are a little bored, if you play lots of video games, watch a lot of TV, have to go to a lot of movies, find yourself shopping or eating a lot, you know what those are? Those are symptoms of a life of boredom. That’s a symptom of nothing of genuine purpose and focus. That’s a symptom of medicating yourself with plastic pearl beads.

But I have to tell you, when I turn on the old TV and the World Poker Texas Hold ‘Em is on, I just have to check it out. And here’s what I love, because there’s a great principle. It’s the final table. They’ve got all these stacks, millions of dollars. The pot’s worth fourteen point seven million dollars. Two low hold cards – risk –hmmm, these are good cards. Reason…evaluating everything I’ve seen this guy do in response. Action…faith…you can probably finish it with me, right? I’m all in.

And then, what happens? Electricity happens. The game completely changes. Then he steps up. He starts walking around. Why? Here’s why. Because something’s going to happen. There’s no reward until you get to the point where you say, “I’m all in.” He’s either going to get a bracelet and multiple millions of dollars or he’s going to lose.

And I want to tell you that the God of the universe brought you in this room on this day for you to say to Him, I’m all in. And when you do, you will begin to experience power and excitement and challenge and purpose like you’ve never known because just like in Texas Hold ‘Em, the game never really gets interesting until you’re all in.

And my sad observation is the great majority of Christians that I know are just trying to be nice people, trying to get a little bit better mobility for their family, trying to figure out how to balance all the demands, be a little bit more polite than most people, read their Bible now and then and come to church and put a little salve on the guilt of your soul. And your heavenly Father, I think with tears in His eyes, says, Why won’t you taste the treasure?

Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. But those that come, must believe that He is and that He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Father, as we bow our heads and You are working deeply and powerfully inside the hearts and minds of the people in this room, I pray that You would grant faith and courage to sign the check, not just the perfunctory action of doing it in just a moment, but the signing of the check from their heart, even with the fear and concern and say, “God, I am Yours. All I am, all I have, all I hope to be. You deal.”

Lord, I pray for those that know that there’s real hard decisions that need to be made, that You would give them the courage to mentally make that, to tell You in their heart right now what they are going to do, and find a trusted friend that they can share that with.

Lord, for those that this is the first time, God, I pray for supernatural grace. We love You. Help us to turn in our plastic pearls for the real thing. Amen.