https://vimeo.com/59784351

I'm Wayne Jacobson and this is Engage. Hopefully by now you've had a chance to explore whether this is the kind of relationship you want to have, whether God's the God you want to know. Because at some point in our journey, it's not a matter of just keeping the taste of this thing. We actually want to participate. And how do we participate in this life? I know we've been taught from a lot of our backgrounds that it's by praying the center's prayer. It's by getting baptized somewhere. It's by affirming a certain creed and then suddenly we're saved and that means we've got to get out of hell free card. But Jesus didn't talk about salvation as a get out of hell free card. Jesus talked about salvation as knowing the Father and knowing Himself. It's a relationship we're invited into. And I'll tell you where that happens for me. Not only at the beginning, but every day of my life. No matter where I get confused, distraught, perplexed, upset, angry, even at God if he's not doing what I think he should. Where my relationship gets back on track is when I have that moment of just surrender to him. Okay, God, not what I want. I want what you want. I want to follow your way. I want to know you. And I realize I can get pretty messed up and think some pretty wild things. And I have found for my own life that surrender, not just the first day I got in this door, but every day that I walk with this journey, surrender is what keeps opening for me, the opportunity to know him. That's why Jesus said, if you want to come after me, you've got to take up your cross, deny yourself, and follow me. And what He simply means is we can't keep living life our own way and ask God to bless it or ask God to invade it. Instead, we want to begin to live the way He's asked us to live. And that begins simply with this act of surrender and giving up. Peter talked about it on the day of Pentecost when 3,000 people were surrounding him wanting to embrace this thing that they were all experiencing, this new life in Christ. Peter told them there's some things you can do. Number one, repent and be baptized. Let's talk about repentance a minute. Repentance isn't the groveling in our shame, promising God, I'll never do something again. All the things we've done with repentance. Repentance is simply that word surrender that I used before. I want to surrender to you. I want to change my mind about the way I've been living and I want to learn to live your ways. Well, that promises, because you can't guarantee you're going to do it next week. You're going to make mistakes, you're going to fail. This is a journey you get to grow in, but the beginning of it is simply I'm tired of doing things my way. God would you teach me to do things your way, abandoning your agenda and embracing His. And then Peter talked about being baptized. I know it seems archaic to some today. We don't have baptism as a regular ritual in our culture like the Jews did back in this day. But for centuries, being baptized in water has been one of those things that provides the most amazing symbol of what it is to die to an old life and begin in a new life. And so if you have been baptized in the past, that's great. If you haven't been, maybe that's something you'd consider. Doesn't take a lot. Just take someone else who knows Jesus in your life saying, would you baptize me? And there's no specific formula you need. I don't believe in any of that stuff. But there is a moment where you celebrate the changing of life from the way I've wanted to do it myself to now I found a God worth knowing. And so now I want to follow His life. Don't do this until you're ready. If you still don't know God's worth trusting, keep exploring that. But when you begin to think that He is, and now I really do want to do things His way, baptism might be part of that as well. And Peter said both of those things is so that you could embrace the forgiveness of sins. That's so important if you're going to be on this journey to know that in fact everything that I've done before has been forgiven by Christ. And He's going to have the patience with me as I struggle into the future. That my sins are wiped out in Him and forgiven. And that's not just something you believe in your head. When it becomes real in your heart, you feel clean. You know you're clean. You know you're not perfect. You know you didn't earn it. But finding your way through an effective repentance, through an effective surrender that allows you to feel forgiven, to know that yes I get to start clean with God today. Find your way into that. Go spend some time with Him until that happens. And then what Peter said, if we repent and are baptized then we'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So important that God comes alive in us. The Holy Spirit is the conduit by which God makes Himself known in our life, by which God speaks to us, by which God makes things clear from the inside. Yes, there's a lot God can do from the outside. But even more, He wants to enter inside of our lives and now make that revelation clear on the inside. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. And that's the gift that He gives every one of us who want to follow Him. All you have to do is ask and let the Holy Spirit take up residence in you. It may be helpful to have another brother or sister who's full of the Spirit pray for you as well. That's often done in Scripture. But in any case, as the Spirit comes alive in you, now you're prepared to be part of something so amazing. This is the new creation. When Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians that old things have passed away and behold all things have become new, that's what he meant. Doesn't mean I'm totally different from that day on. Doesn't mean I'm free from sin from that point on. What he means is I enter into a whole new way of living, the new creation. No longer held captive by the things of the old life or the old creation, now I've become part of something new where I get to live in His love, experience His life, live by His power instead of my own. Now, I know many of you have jumped through some of these hoops before. You've said the sinner's prayer, you've up and baptized, you've done this and you feel like the relationship hasn't connected. I haven't get emails from people that are just certain they've committed the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which is why those things aren't working in their life or that they've done some other sin that disqualifies them from God's grace. Religion will make you feel that way. But if you're listening to these videos, if you have a heart to know God at all, you know what you need to be assured of? Even if you haven't discovered this relationship yet, now's the time to begin and to ask God to take you on a fresh journey. Religion set you up for failure, but don't think it's your fault. Don't look inside and figure out that some reason God's not going to do this with you. When you find enough of Him in your life to begin to surrender to Him and to His ways, that's where this journey takes on meaning. So the next couple of weeks, why don't you spend some time asking God to show you what it is to surrender to His ways? It's really no different than the prayer Jesus prayed in the garden before the cross. Not my will, but what you will. So what do you pray with the disciples a few days before? It's not, Father, save me. It's, Father, glorify yourself. Religion sets it up so that God's got a lot of goodies. And if we jump through enough hoops, He'll give us the goodies. What I'm talking to you about is a life that doesn't begin with that construct. It begins instead with, yeah, God does have all the goodies and He loves you. And He wants to teach you how to live in His way so that you can experience it. Living by ours only led to death and frustration. Now we have a chance by surrendering to Him to learn to live in the fullness of His life.