TONY EVANS HOUSE
Tony Evans - Returning to God through Surrender
an official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's Extra Help program, my premium is zero, and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. What if you could have a career where the opportunities are as fast as our nation, where it's not about mission statements but a shared mission? At U.S. Customs and Border Protection, we go beyond to protect more than borders, from ship to shore, air to ground, cities to local communities. CBP agents and officers are keeping people safe. Join U.S. Customs and Border Protection and go beyond for something far greater than yourself. Learn more at cbp.gov/careers. The reason why we're not having emerging change on the outside is we're not being transformed on the inside. And Dr. Tony Evans says being transformed on the inside requires yielding to God, rather than the culture. Once surrendering takes place, you say no to the value systems of the world, but God takes over and begins the transformation process. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oakland Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the urban alternative. Dr. Evans says many people worship a designer deity, a guy who conforms to their standards more than they do to his. Today he looks at why we need to come to the Lord on his terms, not ours, as he talks about the benefits and difficulties of absolute surrender. One of the big questions that we all have with our lives is what God wants us to do. How does God want us to do it? What, how do we move forward in this thing called life, given all the chaotic realities that we face? How do we navigate our existence? Paul, the apostle, and one of the famous passages in scripture talks about this. In Romans 12, 1 and 2, he's speaking to Christians. He says in verse 1 of Romans 12, "Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God to present your body, a living, and holy sacrifice. I want you to give all of you to all of God." Surrendering is where you yield your humanity and every part thereof to all of God. Because whatever God is going to do in with and through you, he's going to do it in the context of your humanity. If he wants to speak to you, he's going to have to have access to your ears. If he wants to deliver a thought to you, then he's going to have to have access to your mind. If he wants to speak through you, then he has to have access to your mouth. If he's going to guide you, he has to have access to your feet. So in order for God to do with you what is needed to be done, he must have access, which means that the code must be punched of surrender where you present your body a living sacrifice. His compassionate favor toward us should be the motivating factor of the surrender. He has been 11 chapters talking about the mercies of God before he ever gets to chapter 12. In chapter 1 through chapter 3, he says the whole world needs mercy because the whole world is guilty before holy God. That God can't dumb down his standards in order to meet our needs. He must keep his standards the same. And so all of sin and fallen short of the glory of God from his 323, but he comes in chapter 4 and he says, "But God has come up with a way to provide the righteousness that he demands apart from works by faith in Jesus Christ." He says not to the one who works is the reward given, but to the one who believes on him. It is your faith in Christ that gains you the righteous standard that God demands. In chapter 5, he says, "Having placed faith in Christ, you have access to a whole new world of grace, where even during the tough times of life, God is there to sustain you." In chapter 6, he says, "This gives you a whole new identity because you are buried with him in baptism. You are raised to a new life and you are to look at yourself through new eyes." He comes in chapter 7 and says that does not mean you will not struggle. He says there will be struggle with the old you battling against the new you for control of you, which leads him to chapter 8. In chapter 8, he says, "That's why God has given us the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit can override the flesh so that you can live out the new life that God has provided you at salvation." He comes to chapter 9 through 12 and the question is, "Well, if this is so good, why doesn't Israel, God's people in the flesh have it?" And he says, "They don't have it because they don't believe it and we you don't believe it, you don't get it." And then he says, "Therefore, I urge you therefore, brethren, to present your bodies a living sacrifice because of the favor of God given to those who place faith in Jesus Christ. I urge you, I beg you, I plead with you to give all of you to all of him because your humanity will be the mechanism through which what God has to do will be made manifest, but he must have access to you." He says, "Now, the way you make this presentation is by complete surrender, present your body a living and holy sacrifice." An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Save big this summer with great deals. All in the King Supers app. Get delicious half gallons of King Supers, City Market brand milk for $129 each with your card and a digital coupon. Then get juicy two-pound packages of strawberries for $299 each with your card. Shop these deals at your local Kroger today or tap the screen now to download the King Supers app to save big today. King Supers, fresh for everyone, prices and product availability subject to change, restrictions apply. See site for details. This surrender is all of you. It's not like the story of the chicken and the pig walking down the street one day and they came across a grocery store that said bacon and eggs desperately needed. Chicken looked at the pig, pig looked at the chicken, the chicken said you know the grocery needs some bacon and eggs. Why don't we help the grocery out? I'll give them some eggs and pig you give them a bacon. The pigs looked at the chicken and said you got to be out of your mind. The chicken said well what's the problem? What's the problem? I can give them the egg you can make it. He said no they didn't problem because for you it's a contribution for me it's the whole thing. See what a lot of folks want to do is give God an egg here and an egg there, here and egg there and egg everywhere and egg egg. When God wants some pork chops ham hocks and bacon. He wants the whole thing. He says present your body a living sacrifice. He also says present it holy. The word holy means to be set apart as unique. There's one whole book in the Bible that deals with the holiness of God. It doesn't get a lot of attention because of its ceremonial emphasis and that's the book of Leviticus where the holiness of God is emphasized. God puts up a no trespassing sign to not trample on his holiness and three concepts are there that help us to understand holiness. One concept is profane. The other concept is common and the other concept is holy. Perhaps we can explain it this way. Your dishes in the sink are profane. They're dirty. That's why they're in the sink. You've eaten off of them. You put them in the sink because they have gotten dirt on them. We'll call those the profane dishes. The dishes in your kitchen cupboard are common because they're the ones you regularly use. They're in the cupboard. They're not profane. They're not dirty but they're regular. But in this other room, the dining room is a whole nother set of dishes. Those are holy dishes. Those are holy plates, cups, saucers because those aren't used commonly. You don't use those every day. Those are for special guests, special occasions. They have been set apart as special or unique. When the Bible uses the word holy about God, it refers to his uniqueness and set apart as not being certainly not profane but he doesn't even want to be treated regular. He wants to be super unleaded. He wants to be given the glory to his name. He wants his uniqueness to be noted and reverent. He wants to be treated for the God that he is. So the holiness of God, while it includes the righteous standards of God, refers to the uniqueness of God for which he is to be held. He says, "I beg you, brethren, to give all of you to all of him, to surrender yourself to God. Without the surrender, there is not the worship." So unless there is the willingness of yielding all of me to all of him, then you can wave your hand in the air like you just don't care but you're not worshiping. You can shout, you can sing, you can speak the word, you can amen, but it is not worship if it's not including surrender. He then comes in verse two and he says, "And be not conformed to this world." When the Bible speaks of the cosmos, the world, it is referring to that system headed by Satan that leaves God out. Whenever God is excluded, you have become worldly. You see it all around us today where the rules have changed at warp speed and they want to make you accept it. They've changed in education. They've changed in media. They've changed in corporations. They've changed in Disneyland. And they want to force in their children and your youth are in this conforming thing. And you know how you feel when your child comes home and you say one thing and then they say, "But my friend said, well, when God hears what the world is doing to us," he says, "I don't care what your friends say. I don't care what they say out there. I'm your God." But we're being squeezed and pressured and pressed to adopt the value systems and I want you need to know in this post-modern age the pressure is going to keep coming. And that's why you have to fight spiritually because they're going to press you to adopt a system of values that leave God's value system out. Dr. Evans will have more for us on choosing whose values we're going to adopt when he continues in just a moment. First though, today's lesson is part of Tony's new message collection called The Return, dedicated to creating in you and me the kind of believer God wants us to be. In this 13-part series, Dr. Evans explores the many different ways and official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out of pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Save big this summer with great deals. All in the King Supers app. Get delicious half gallons of King Supers City Market brand milk for $129 each with your card and a digital coupon. Then get juicy two-pound packages of strawberries for $299 each with your card. Shop these deals at your local Kroger today or tap the screen now to download the King Supers app to save big today. King Supers, fresh for everyone, prices and product availability subject to change restrictions apply. See site for details. We can bring ourselves back into a closer connection with God and others, increasing our effectiveness as believers who have a vital role to play in God's kingdom. As we bless those around us in God's name, we become people who make a difference in the world rather than someone who's merely overrun by it. We want you to have this powerful two-volume collection of full-length CDs or digital downloads as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution toward Tony's ministry. And when you do, we'll also send you as an extra bonus, a copy of his insightful booklet, The Grace of God. Just visit TonyEvans.org to request your copy of The Return and The Grace of God. We have a link right on the homepage to make it easy. That's TonyEvans.org. Or give us a phone call at 1-800-832-22, where our team members are ready to help with your request. That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, Dr. Evans will return with more of today's message right after this. The biblical roles of husbands and wives, the source of our authority as believers, understanding the concept of grace, winning spiritual battles. They're all important subjects, but seem as different as night and day. Would it surprise you to know there's a common thread running through all four? You can discover what it is by taking the course on Ephesians in the Tony Evans Training Center. One by one, you'll dig into the powerful themes of this book and make new discoveries about what Jesus' death accomplished, how to maintain unity at home and at church, what spiritual armor is all about. The course includes custom content from Tony, not available anywhere else. Work through it at your own pace, collaborate with other students, get your specific questions answered through our online forum. Connect with the Tony Evans Training Center at TonyEvans.org. It's like having a seminary on your smartphone or other device. Start today, TonyEvans.org. I was in New York a number of years ago, and I was walking on 34th Street, and I passed Macy's, and there was a crowd outside the window at Macy's. Pretty big crowd. When I walked around and looked, everybody was looking at this statue in the window. It was a living statue, and the only reason you knew it is because the eyes were blinking. But apart from that, this lady didn't budge. But the reason that the crowd gathered was a lot of the kids who were in the front were trying to get her to move. Making faces they were trying to get. So they were just trying to get this lady to move or trying to disturb her, trying to distract her, but apart from the eyes blinking, she didn't budge. And because Macy's was paying her to be a living statue, she committed herself to Macy's, not the crowd on the other side of the glass. Well, you got a world that's trying to distract you from the father that you need to take care of you. So you better stick with the father and not with the crowd. He says, be not conformed to this world. Don't let this world system up determine your value system, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Conform is outside pressure. Transform is change within. The butterfly is embedded in the caterpillar, becomes a crystalist, and then a cocoon, and then it emerges. The reason why we're not having emerging change on the outside is we're not being transformed on the inside. And the reason we're not being transformed on the inside is because the world is conforming us, and we haven't surrendered. Once surrendering takes place, and you say no to the value systems of the world, the word transform in the Greek is passive, God takes over and begins the transformation process. What God will begin to do as you take the truth of his word, having surrendered the life, having said no to the values that discard God and his truth, is he will begin to reshape and reorder your thinking because you're now bringing your thoughts in line with him. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero, and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. He will not allow that to germinate within you if he has to compete with the values of the world that you embrace. But he says, I will transform your mind and bring my thinking into your thinking so that my thoughts become your thoughts. Well, the question is, well, what's the payoff for this? If I go this way, if I go this route, what's the benefit? He tells you in verse two, so that you may prove what the will of God is that was as good, acceptable, and perfect. Guess what the payoff is? The will of God for you. God has a will, a plan for every life. When you accept Christ, you have now entered into the plan. That plan covers every detail of your existence from the time of your conversion to the time of your death or the rapture. We deviate from that will because of our own carnality, our own fleshliness. But when we get on track through submitting to God and saying no to the world, there's a transformation of thinking that takes place. And you will prove what is the will of God. In sports, there's a rule book that applies to every team. Every team has the same rules from the organizing entity, the NBA order, NFL. They got a rule book and that rule book applies to all the players, all the team, all the coaches. But every team has a different playbook. Everybody has the same rule book, but everybody has different playbooks because they have different offenses, all different defenses, different approaches, different plays. And those plays change from week to week or game to game or season to season. The plays are always changing. The rule books don't. The Bible is God's rule book. It applies to everybody. But when it comes to you living your life, you need your own playbook because God's will for you is different from God's will for that person and God's will for that person. All those are different things. So you need a playbook unique to you while everybody is ascribing to the same rule book. And that is the will of God. It is the playbook where God governs, guides, directs through the ups and downs of reality, your life. He says, you will prove what the will of God is. Now, let me give you the good news. The good news is if you give God all of you, give the world none of you become renewed in your thinking, you won't have to find God's will. God's will will find you. He says, you will prove. That means you will see unfolding. You will see working out the will of God because he's gone ahead of you. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the law with all your heart, lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and he will direct your path. It is his governing guidance through situations, circumstances, people, even through problems that he begins to steer things and interrelate things. Women have been uniquely, sovereignly constructed so that when a woman gets pregnant and when a woman has a baby, her body knows it's time to produce milk. She has been so awesomely created that the body is so in tune to the pregnancy and the delivery that it knows it's time. And so the milk is prepared to flow because the conditions are appropriate for it. What God is saying is when you make the conditions appropriate for it, my will will flow. It will naturally express itself because you have positioned yourself to receive it. And when you do, you will discover that my will is good. That means the best possible thing. Acceptable. The best beneficial thing. Then he says, perfect. It means it will complete its goal. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out of pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or a married couple who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. If you don't want to live an incomplete life, he says, operate in the will of God and you do that by giving God all of you, giving the world none of you and letting God shift your thinking into his value system. And then he feels comfortable to govern, guide, direct, correct, change, tweak. The beautiful thing about it is you can make that decision now. We don't have to continue to live in uncertainty with regard to what God is doing. Not because we know it all, but because we know he's going to shape our thinking and bring his thoughts into our thoughts so that our thoughts are his thoughts so that we know how to think in terms of his will. Dr. Evans will come back in just a moment with one final thought to wrap up today's message. First, though, this lesson comes from Tony's brand new series called The Return. Now's the time to get in touch with us and request the full-length version of all 13 messages in this extensive two-volume collection, including material we haven't had time to present on the air. They're available for just a few more days now as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. Along with the audio messages, we'll also include a copy of Dr. Evans' booklet, The Grace of God. In a world that talks a lot about different ways to reach God, this booklet explains why life is really about what God did to reach us. If you're tired of feeling like you just don't measure up, you're in for some good news that can change your life. So be sure to take advantage of this special double offer while there's still time. All the details are waiting for you at TonyEvans.org, where you can make contributions online and sign up for Tony's free email devotional. Again, that's TonyEvans.org or call us at 1-800-832-22 and let one of our resource team members help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. A little piece of bread and a tiny cup of grape juice. To some people, that's all there is to communion. But tomorrow Dr. Evans will explain why finding the richness in the ritual can help us get reconnected to God. Right now though, he's back with his final thought for today. One of the great experiences of life is seeing God change your mind. You are thinking you're about going one direction and he brings things around so that you think differently about that thing, about that job, that career, that move that you want to make or reinforce your mind about something. It's where he enters into your thought processes or myriad of different ways in order to guide you according to his will. The alternative with Dr. TonyEvans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and it's made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. Maybe you can save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp. Paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human services.