When It Actually Is Spiritual | Different Dedication | Judah Smith

Welcome back church home to weekly service. I want to remind you this content is to be consumed in a group but I mean it doesn't have to be. You can also just watch it by yourself but with a group is ideal. Then you can discuss talk about maybe even pray for each other or disagree which can also be robust and helpful.

Um, so I want to urge you to use this entire month and I do want to remind you that really the entire month of August is kind of one big complete um sermon message in ex Jesus of 2 Corinthians chapter 10. This entire month came out of my own journey of trying to decipher and discern if the chapter and season I'm in is more natural or spiritual.

And so we dedicated these sermons to what do you do when it dawns on you that the chapter or season or month you're in is more spiritual than natural. What do you do? And so we have talked about how you have different standards. We have talked about how you have a different attitude.

We have talked about how you have a different uh weapons. We talked about uh the the work that God does called divine dismantling. And today we're going to talk about a different dedication, a different dedication. And all I can hear is Post Malone in my head. I really do.

Dedicated. Oh man. But anyways, um a different dedication. What does that mean? Let me read the last verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Paul writes to the those living in Corenth who are attempting to follow the way of Jesus. We demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God.

We capture like prisoners of war every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the anointed one. The anointed one. It's a title for Jesus, the anointed one. The word anointed there speaks of literally oil. And if you've ever gotten oil on your clothes, you ever gotten oil on concrete or it just the oil soaks in and it's hard to get out.

Jesus can be like oil in your life. He just it'll it'll be hard to get him out of your life. He'll soak into your whole existence. But I want to draw your attention to we insist that all these thoughts and all these feelings and all these ideas bow in obedience to the anointed one.

So what does this mean? What does it mean to have a different dedication? What is Jesus saying here? And I think it's three things. I think it's three things. and we'll go over these three points and then we'll be done for the month of August. I think Jesus is speaking of denying yourself, denying your will, and denying your own way.

That does not mean that you're not going to sometimes do what you really want to do. By no means do I intend to tell you that sometimes what you will and the decisions you make is what he wills and the decisions he wants you to make. And ultimately there are days where the way you want to go is the way he wants you to go.

And here's the good news. Before we talk about any more of selfdenial, I want to say this. God will put new desires. We already talked about this this whole month. new desires, the new passions in your heart for his plan and his purpose for your life. But this idea of yielding comes up in this passage.

We yield our whole life to the anointed one. We yield our days to the anointed one. We yield seasons of our life to the anointed one. We yield our career to the anointed one. We yield our deepest desires to the anointed one. We submit them to him. We say, "God, my life is yours."

Jesus said, "If you want to work with me, walk with me and watch how I do it. Deny yourself. take up the cross or your cross and follow me. Matthew 16:24. If anyone would come after me, if anyone would have the inclination, desire to follow me, deny himself, take up your cross, and follow me.

I think this yielding to the anointed one is exactly what Jesus outlines in Matthew 16. It is a denial. It's a taking up of the cross and it's a following him. What does that mean? What does it mean to yield everything to the anointed one? To yield everything to Jesus.

I think it means sometimes. Sometimes you say what I want might not be what he wants. What I will might not be what he wills. The way I want to go might not be the way he wants me to go. This yielding includes the submitting of your desires, your decisions, and your directions.

This is a different dedication. It's a willingness to say, "My desires, have them, God. change them, rearrange them. The decision I want to make, where I'm about to make, I yield it to you. The direction I'm intending to go, I yield it to you. Now, I'm going to tell you a true story.

I have been doing what I'm doing right now for more than three decades of my life. And there have been different iterations and chapters and moments in my life. In every one of them, my desire was to go the way Jesus wanted me to go. But I'm going to tell you something about this different dedication.

It has the ability, it has the capacity to change life as you know it. my life. Born and raised in the northwest corner of the United States of America. I thought that was where I would be forever and I would pastor the church my dad and mom started and that would be that until one day slowly but surely I yielded my desires, my decisions and the direction of my life to him. and he changed that and we moved towards a different format.

We moved in some cases to different cities and suddenly I realized he was changing what I want. He was changing my will and he was changing my way. That can have huge impact on your life. Let me tell you, it can change relationships. It can change your income.

It can change how people perceive you. But I tell you something. When you yield your wants, your will, and your way to him, here's what it does promise. Contentment, fulfillment, righteousness, peace, and joy. And I got to tell you, you want to talk about wealth, you want to talk about being truly wealthy, money can't buy righteousness, peace, and joy.

Jesus already purchased it. And when you yield to him, why? Because he's trustworthy. Because he's good. Because he's wonderful. Because he knows everything. He is true through and through. When you say, "Okay, God, what I desire might not be what you desire, so I yield it to you.

The decision I want to make might not be the decision you want me to make." Now, sometimes they align, and that's awesome. And I think that's part of becoming more like him, but sometimes they don't. My dad used to say, "When your will and God's will cross, you found the cross.

Take up your cross." And sometimes sometimes your will and God's will it's perfect and that I'm hoping for that. But sometimes they cross and in those moments you say I want what you want. This is not going to be easy. This doesn't feel great right now because I want to make this decision but it's become very clear you want me to make this decision.

This is predictable and known and understood. This is uncharted. This is unproven. This might lead to some pain, but I'm going to trust you. It sounds um how should I say, wonderful. It sounds like a good sermon, but I got to tell you from experience, it can be lonely and it can be painful, but it always delivers.

It always delivers. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but in the process lose his own soul? What are you going to do? Just trust your own desires, rely on your own decisions, determine your own directions? Well, wait a minute, friends. Hold on a second.

Hasn't that proven itself out? When everyone does what is right in their own eyes, do you know what we have? We have cultural chaos and calamity. We have wars and abuse and injustices. We have the marginalization of each other. So that doesn't work. You might argue while watching this telecast, I don't want this.

Just know that the opposite of yielding my desires, decisions, and directions for my daily life is to live by what seems good to me. And if that was going to work, if that was going to heal nations, if that was going to heal divides and gaps and gaping holes between value and love and decency and decorum, it would have by now.

But it hasn't and it won't. So I'm not just here proposing a religious doctrine and dogma. I want to be clear in my climactic conclusion to these sermons uh based on 2 Corinthians chapter 10, we have suddenly happened upon an outline to heal countries, to heal humanity, to heal your family, to heal the aching hole in your soul.

And yet it is counterintuitive. It is counter nature. It is spiritual. It is supernature. It's supernatural. It's not what you want to do by nature. You don't just wake up and go, you know what I want to do? I want to not do what I desire to do.

I want to not decide how I want to decide and I want to not go in the direction I want to direct. No, we we want our desires, our decisions, our directions. I'm going to say it again. We want our desires, our decisions, our directions. We want to vote in somebody with our desires, our decisions, our directions.

We want to go to a church with our desires, our decisions, our directions. We want to have fa friends with our desires, our decisions, and our directions. We want to marry a spouse with our desires, our decisions, and our directions. We want all of our best friends to have our desires, our decisions, and our directions.

And before you know it, you'll be the only one left with your desires, your decisions, and your directions. And you'll wake up one day alone in a home of your own making and the only one right in the whole world is you. Well, how do you know? Cuz I have been there by the grace of God in its infancy that's never reached the point where my wife has left me or my kids don't want to be around me anymore.

But I have had my moments, friends, where you put enough days together where you're following your desires, your decisions, and your directions, and eventually it will wreak havoc in the people you love the most. How much longer are you going to spend your life on this planet following your desires, your decisions, and your directions?

Write me, DM me, call me, get a hold of me, and prove to me that by following your desires, your decisions, and your directions that your life improves. I'm 46 years old and I've never met the man nor the woman who by following their own desires and decisions and directions, their life improved.

Not even a little bit, momentarily. Oh yeah. Long-term. Never sustained goodness. Never. Never. Ecstasy in the moment of following your desires, your decisions, your directions. Oh yeah. Now it it will deliver peaks of ecstasy. But as soon as that, how should I say that that compulsive cortisone uh I don't know if cortisone is the right but that that that endorphin that's released in your body as soon as it subsides.

It's like a bomb went off in your life and there's devastation and the people you love the most seem disillusioned. So I think this is a spiritual moment in your life. I think there's a God so gracious and so grand and so good and so wonderful that he would ask for your own benefit and your own well-being.

So that what produces in your life, what your life produces is righteousness, peace and joy, contentment and fulfillment and ease and rest, satisfaction, respect, honor and decorum from the people you love the most. How is any of that possible? By simply yielding my desires, my decisions, and my directions. by yielding what I want, what I will, and the way I want to I want to go.

God, here's my desires. I want what I want. I'm not going to lie. I want what I want, but I want what you want more than I want what I want. So, here's my desires. God, I got a will and it's going in a certain way. certain direction.

I I got some decisions I want to make, but I want you to decide. I don't want to decide the course of my life. I don't know enough to decide the course of my life. I don't understand enough to decide the course of my life. God, I I want you to decide.

I want you to decide. And lastly, God, I I actually have tried to go in the direction that I wanted to go, and it hasn't been good. I've had my moments, but generally, I get myself into more pain and more problems. I I want what you want. I want your will and I want your way.

Jesus said, "Well, then come on. Come on." And later in other passages, Jesus will promise that that kind of yieldedness, that kind of brokenness will lead to an abundant life. An abundant life. Counterintuitive, isn't it? By yielding, by stilling yourself, by trusting and letting go, it'll lead you to a life so abundant people will want to know your secret.

And I can attest to some abundant life. I must admit, God has been gracious and good to me. But I can claim no credit because all I did was yield. All I did was say, "I don't know what you want, but I know enough to know I should want what you want.

Not sure what your will is or the decisions you're going to make with my life, but I trust it. And I don't know the direction you're going to take me, but I want it. Not my will. Your will be done. Much has been made of these words and this teachings of Jesus.

Um, as long as I've been alive, I've heard more sermons on this particular passage than just about anyone ever. But I've never quite seen it the way I see it now. I do not, and I want to say it here, want my desires, decisions, and directions to lead my life.

I want Jesus to lead my life. And I think I have enough evidence at my age to know that that's the abundant life. And so I want to end this month where we've been talking about what do you do when it actually is spiritual? By giving the ultimate invitation.

Do you want to yield your desires, decisions, and directions to the most trustworthy person, ever in galaxies known and unknown, because he has a name and he's a person, and it's Jesus. And he gives this grand and gregarious invitation to us all. If you want to roll with me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.

And that's what this means. And so I invite you into the abundant life. Man, that's the best way to go. And I pray in some small way that this lands with you and resonates with you. If there is any way our community can help you, it is literally why we're here.

Pray with you. A pastor chat as you as perhaps you give it all up to him. You let go of it all. How wild would that be? After everything you've been through, you finally get to that yielded, surrendered state. You'll never regret it. Promise you, you'll never regret it.

Can I pray for you? God, I thank you for words that were written thousands of years ago, but feel like they were written today. Thank you for speaking to us and meeting us. We love you. If you're watching this and you would like to receive the free forgiveness that only Jesus offers, you can do that by simply saying, "That's me and I want it."

And there it is. It's done. His life is now your life and your life is now his life and you'll never be the same. May his grace find you in every desire and decision and direction you take. I love you, church home, and I'll see you next month.

((music playing)) You must become greater. I must become less. You took all my sin and shame. Gave me righteousness. The world's on your shoulders. You loved and redeemed. You've given eternal life to those who believe. What a story. What an author. Give you glory. give you honor unto you. God be the glory.

Unto you, God be the praise. You are the famous one, the name above all names. We lift you high above the music. We lift you high above the noise. You are the famous one, the name above all names. And we give you gloryy. ((music playing)) Yes, we give you glory.

Jesus, ((music playing)) you must become gater. I must become less. Nothing in this world's compares to your holiness. The cross that you cared, the nails in your hands, your love and your sacriice redeemed all of man. What a story. What an author. give you gloryy, give you honor unto you.

God be the glory unto you. God be the praise. You are the famous one, the name above all names. We lift you high above the music. We lift you high above the noise. You are the famous one, the name above all names. And we give you glory. ((music playing)) Yes, we give you glory, Jesus.

((music playing)) All gloryy, all honor to you, my king. Yes, we give you gloryy, all gloryy. All honor to you, my king. when it doesn't make sense. We give you glory in every circumstance. We give you glory in the middle of a mess. We give you glory, Jesus. ((music playing)) Heat. Heat.

Heat. ((music playing)) Heat. Heat. ((music playing)) Heat. ((music playing))