Freedom of a Surrendered Life

00:00 - Speaker 1 Where the message of the gospel really isn't come to Jesus as a means to an end. It's come to Jesus. He is the end, he is everything, he becomes your life. Paul said that he said when Christ, who is our life, appears, not Christ who is part of our life, and people say that I've made Jesus a part of my life, he's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. 00:27 - Speaker 2 Welcome to the CityLight Church Podcast. Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us. If you want to connect with CityLight Church, feel free to visit us at citylightnyccom. That's citylightnyccom. Pastor Boyan Jancic and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds. As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by His grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you that he has a real hope and a future for you. 01:08 - Speaker 1 Welcome to those joining us online and thank you, worship team. Thank you, jordan, for playing the saxophone. I find that everything in life is better with some saxophone. You could be buttering a piece of toast and you put saxophone behind it, it's better. You could be looking out of a rainy window but you put saxophone in the background, it's better. So, praise God, the more saxophone, the better. Do you still have that saxophone I gave you? Good, it's a good one, so take care of it, praise God. 02:08 She had actually given me her prized saxophone. I didn't even know you know these instruments what they can go for. She said it's worth over $10,000. Here I want to bless you with it. And it was the only time in my life where I, as I took the gift, I knew I was going to give it back to the person giving it to me, because the thought of going on eBay right, I mean because I opened it up and then, like this history came off this axe, like you could feel it, you know, and the intricacy of every button Do you call those things buttons? Okay, I do. I felt the felt the inside of the case. I picked it up, double check to make sure it was over 10 grand, it was. It was a French company, right, was it? Yeah, and then a couple of months later I said, hey, I got a gift for you. That's not, it is it, that's another one. So a true musician doesn't have a saxophone, they have saxi, they have multiples. And so, hallelujah, hallelujah, man, I feel the anointing. There's some messages the Lord just likes and I feel like this morning's message he liked, and it's good to feel the anointing. I've not felt the anointing, that's not good. Feeling the anointing, I've not felt the anointing, that's not good. Feeling the anointing is always good, because the anointing is what gets the job done. Hallelujah, hallelujah. I mean, tell them I'm busy, please, like feeling the anointing. 04:06 I used to have a Harley and it was in this garage where they didn't want you to turn it on, which was weird because it was a motorcycle garage, but they didn't want you to. You know, they wanted you to like duck, walk it out 50 feet and then turn it on in the street. And so you got this 1,200-pound machine. You're're sitting on and you're duck, walking it out, can't turn it on, kind of trying to glide, glide off. That's. That's what it's like doing anything in life, especially ministering, without the anointing. And then you turn it on and now it's easy to go 50 feet, it's easy to go 5,000 feet. The anointing him, putting his super over your natural, makes everything better. Hallelujah, hallelujah. 05:02 You know, the anointing comes when you invite the anointing in your life. If you don't think about the anointing, you won't have much anointing. If you don't reverence the Holy Spirit in your life, sing a song to the Lord, read a few scriptures out loud, talk to the Lord, there'll be a desert, a dearth of the anointing. But when you're in that sweet place of communion and you welcome the anointing, especially in difficult times, makes all the difference in the world. I got into a really strange conversation with a friend in the ministry, a pastor colleague, a while ago and he was having a tough time in ministry. I thought he was doing really well, you know, but he didn't think so. And can I just tell you the Bible says the love of money, the love of money is the root of all evil. But I would say for the number two spot, envy is the root of all evil and we live in an envy amplifying culture, more so than ever before. Let me just put a pause on my story. 06:29 I went down this rabbit hole last night of how kids are growing up Because we have a 90% no-devices policy. Get them for a couple of days of the week, for a small little window, but no devices. And if that's not you as a parent, I strongly urge you to read up on what. What is actually happening, and it's more than what's on the screen. So I noticed a complete shift in behavior when we made these changes a few years back, because, of course, when Victor was born in 2014, people weren't even talking about it it was normal to take the iPad and fling it at your kid and not have to pay a babysitter here. Keep yourself, little Timmy, keep yourself busy with this for a couple hours while I go do that thing. No one even warned you. 07:23 And then the first articles to come out was around 2016, where it came out that top Silicon Valley executives don't let their kids use the apps and use the devices that they're creating. Why am I talking about this? Oh, envy. So I went down this rabbit hole of what is actually happening and I didn't know, because the internet isn't that influential in my life. It is. I use it every single day. But if you're a young person, say between 15 and 25, now there's actually a parallel civilization that's come up alongside the real world and they're more in touch with this digital parallel civilization and the umpteen subcultures. And one common thing that's arising is that kids are incredibly, incredibly depressed because they can't find contentment, they can't find peace, because their favorite influencers and the people forming their minds and forming their ideologies are always dangling a carrot in front of them, and so envy has taken. 08:26 My message has nothing to do on envy. This is for somebody here this morning. Envy has come up and it's causing so much depression, so much just self-hatred, even cutting and body hurting and horrible things that young people are dealing with. But when you dig in, what's actually happening is their envy has been amped up. It's good to recognize that. 08:55 And this fellow minister who I thought was happy and was doing well, he said no, he wasn't really that happy, things wasn't growing the way he wanted it to grow, and then in this conversation was very excited and he said I felt like a slave. I don't like, I feel like a slave and I felt like a slave just working for the Lord and I love the Lord. You know you got to say all the right things before you say that one wrong thing. I love the Lord and God is so good. But I'm really frustrated. 09:23 And I just got back and he had met with a very influential, famous minister in another part of the country and got back and said you know, I can do whatever I want. I mean, the Lord is not that prohibitive, I can do whatever. And I immediately went. Oh, because when somebody says I can do whatever, that's never been the start of any great statement by a Christian I can do whatever I want. I said what did this person tell you? And he told me what the person said. The person never said you can do whatever you want. 09:55 But you know, when you're bent on something, people do that to me. This terrifies me. People come and say you know last month that thing you said. I said what thing? And they tell me that thing you said really encouraged me to do, and what they're going to do is crazy. I go how did you get that? I never said that. I wasn't even in the neighborhood of that. You went home, took 20% of what I said, added your own 80%, then put it in a bag, mixed it up even more and 80%, then put it in a bag, mixed it up even more and came up with Satan's will for your life. And now you're pointing to me going thanks for that. I had nothing to do with that. 10:37 So he said, I can do whatever I want. I can start another business, I can go out and have other things and, by the way, whenever a pastor starts doing side hustles, that's never a good sign. The ministry is very, very consuming and it's made that way. It's your relationship with the Lord and then your relationship with God's people. And I had already known, I had been warned, thankfully by wiser men of God, that there is a big trap ministers fall into somewhere around their 50s. You're going to laugh when I tell you what it is. Most ministers never get there because the reality is most pastors, contrary to what the world believes. 11:14 Now that I'm meeting so many unbelievers, you know Long Island is a lot more conducive towards like relating and talking and having conversations. And now it's occurred to me that every person who's not saved believes that pastors fly in jets and live in mega mansions and because, you know, they read the one article about some guy where that's what they see on TV and I have to explain to them that's actually 0.0001% of all pastors. Unfortunately, the majority of pastors have lived their whole lives financially choked and constrained and they're not doing well and that is not God's will and that shouldn't be. But some that actually yield to the Holy Spirit and can flow with the Lord and allow God to build a church where it's sustaining him on salary and other staff on salary and it's a growing thing Then they get bored in their 50s and they start this is the joke inside of me they start restaurants. Why restaurants? Why go into a business with the highest failure rate of any business? But that's the thing. 12:22 So anytime a pastor starts talking about getting involved in something else, I immediately and he starts saying how he can do whatever he wants and he can do this and do that and how he's no longer a slave. But he felt like a slave and I had the audacity to say but literally, the Bible calls us bond servants, a little different than a slave. A bond servant is a servant who does it out of love, realizing I mean, it's not just altruistic, it's not, I'm just doing it out of love. He's realizing. Wow, it's a lot better tied to you than it is out there. And that's how it is with the Lord. We're servants, but in chains of love, in bonds of love. 13:03 And then I quoted this scripture to him in Philippians 2, 19 through 22, paul says I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly. That I also may be encouraged when I know your state now. Paul was a big fan of Timothy this was young pastor Timothy and Paul saw his heart, that it was a yielded heart. It was a surrendered heart. He says he's like-minded. Paul knew he was surrendered. He only wanted what the Lord wanted for him. He said I have no one like-minded who will sincerely care for your state, for all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus. 13:49 And I said to him that's what you're telling me right now. You want to do whatever you want to do. You don't get to do whatever you want to do. You're called by the Lord and it's a holy calling. You're in the pastorate. You have to do what he says to do and if you're going to swerve, deviate off that path. You have to do what he says to do. And if you're going to swerve, deviate off that path. You better have 19 confirmations. 14:07 God appeared to you in bodily form, spoke audibly to you to hear it. I mean, that's what I would need to get me off the track that the Lord has me on. And that really must have rattled him up, because he called me demonic and said I was a slave, which typically, whenever somebody calls you demonic, that's the ultimate. What's that psychological term where you're deflecting. It's usually you're wrestling with a bunch of demons and someone tells you how to get free and then they call you demonic Jesus. The Bible says that we have been bought with a price. And there is this thing I feel like an old guy because I'm saying modern Christianity. That's like what the old people said when I was a kid and I would judge them. I'd go oh, that's that old timey talk, but it is. You reach a certain age and now you have some history and you can see patterns and you can see cycles and then you realize, wow, we really are a selfish people and you don't hear much preaching on the lordship of Christ. 15:11 See, the church had a really bad rap in the 70s. Not very good at public relations at all. 70s, 80s, 90s. Even before I became a Christian 1992, I was 16 years old. I didn't even know what kind of Christianity I was getting involved with. But when somebody mentioned the term born-again Christian, I immediately recoiled, even though I was one. But I was so trained because to me a Christian or a born-again Christian meant a really angry, finger-pointing protester. I never knew what they were angry about something about abortion or something but they were. You know, that's because I grew up with the media and they were the ones who bombed abortion. They weren't, but that's what I thought. 15:56 So the church realized they had a really bad PR problem and these other churches started coming up, called seeker-sensitive churches. They weren't gonna tell you right away the hard truths of the Bible that might scare you off. You'll get to the hard stuff eventually when you've passed through the membership program and we've gotten your signature and you're already too committed and socially entrenched. Then we got you. You can't leave Then like a good old bait and switch, then we'll tell you what discipleship will really cost you. And it started working. And Christianity became softer and more politically correct. And there's a term that was being floated everywhere winsome. You know, you don't want to abrade people. You don't want to tell them any hard truth. Jesus had no problem telling hard truths right off the bat. You know what I found? 16:47 There's two kinds of people, no matter what their lifestyle looks like. I found people who have horrible, horrible lifestyles. They find themselves in a sinful mess, yet still they're aching for truth and they're able to analyze their situation honestly and they still want truth. That person is a lot better candidate to experience life transformation than the second kind of person, which is just somebody who doesn't want truth. And there really are two kinds of people Someone who gravitates towards truth, even if it hurts, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it's unpopular in a false world. They just want truth. And then there's another kind of person and it's almost like they are repulsed just want truth. And then there's another kind of person and it's almost like they are repulsed by the truth and they want to live with their eyes smeared. They want to live in a creamy lie of just deception and where two plus two often is four, but sometimes five Depends how you feel, you know, bro. 17:50 So the message then has for a while been just like come to Jesus and he's a means to an end. Come to Jesus, he'll make your life better, no matter how you live it. Come to Jesus and he'll bless you. Where the message of the gospel really isn't come to Jesus, he's a means to an end. It's come to Jesus. He'll bless you. Where the message of the gospel really isn't come to, Jesus is a means to an end. It's come to Jesus. He is the end, he is everything. He becomes your life. 18:12 Paul said that. He said when Christ, who is our life, appears, not Christ, who is part of our life, and people say that I've made Jesus a part of my life. Dangerous territory, you don't get to take him and put him in a little cubby hole in your life and go. I want you to be the one who pays the bills, make sure I don't get into any accidents or gets hurt, and gives me a nice happy ending. That's where you belong. I'm going to stick you right there. You're a part of my life. No, he becomes your life. He's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all, and this is gospel truth. And if you haven't come to that place of maturity where that's a reality to you, I'm pleading with you in love that you submit to the Lordship of Christ. You cannot have it both ways. He cannot just be your Savior. He has to be your Lord and savior, where every area of your life is submitted to him. He's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. 19:20 And typically people who have a hard time with this message really because I had a hard time with it in the beginning it's because you haven't met God yet, you haven't really tasted of his goodness, so you're still trusting in yourself. I've lost all trust in myself. The Lord was merciful in letting me get out there on my own and I get slapped up, slapped down and then I realize, ow, I want to owie, I want to do things God's way. I don't want to just do whatever's right in my own eyes. That's the phrase throughout the Old Testament Whenever the Lord, through his prophets, rebuked that rebellious people. When the children of Israel would grow rebellious, this is how the Bible would describe them Doing whatever is right in their own eyes. In other words, they're their own God. They do whatever they want, which, in a big sense, is really the number one cultural message right now. And if you've explored Satanism at all, that actually is the message of Satanism In the Satanic Bible with Anton LaVey, and what the key doctrine of Thelema is is do what thou wilt, do what you want, no submission, no bowing of the knee. 20:51 Some parts you like, do those things. If you don't like it, cut that part of the Bible out that irritates you. Get a real holy Bible. Cut out all these passages, fill it with holes and God becomes kind of like Burger King your way right away. You do it how you and now you're not made in his image. Now you're creating a new God in your own image. 21:14 It's so dangerous and the reason why I'm preaching this is because it only leads to pain. It leads to pain, it leads to pain, it leads to frustration and I've known people who've rebelled early in life, like in their 20s. And then that rebellion like, let's say, you want to move somewhere, start a new life, and you know in your heart God is saying no. How do you know? Because in prayer, now you've stopped praying, because every time you go to pray you've got that irritation and the Lord is on you. Now you're avoiding God because of what he might say. So now you go and you want to get fulfilled with your friends, but your spiritual friends, who actually hear from the Holy Spirit, are telling you the same thing that the Lord is telling you in prayer. Now you get angry at them and call them demonic. So you go to do what you're gonna do anyway. 22:09 But now you've taken your whole life trajectory. You're in another. You know what. Moving to another part of the country, everything changes who you're gonna meet, who you're gonna marry, how your kids will grow up, what jobs they might have in that part of the country. Now they're either limited or everything's changed. But you made that decision, apart from the Lord. And then you backslide and 30 years later you come back to church and go oh Lord, forgive me and clean up my life. Well, he'll forgive you instantly. The cleaning up your life part may take time because you've entrenched yourself in 30 years of rebellion. You've entrenched yourself in 30 years of rebellion. The Bible says this. Jesus himself said fall on the rock and be broken, or the rock will fall on you and grind you to a powder. Now I've made a decision multiple times to fall on the rock who is Jesus? And be broken. The good kind of breaking there. The good kind of breaking. There's a good kind of breaking. 23:10 You know a Middle Eastern shepherd when he had a particularly mischievous and rebellious sheep, typically a lamb, young in age. You know the whole herd is going to the right and that naughty lamb keeps going off in the bramble bushes on the left. He would take the little lamb and break his two front legs and put them over his shoulders. Now those legs would start to mend and heal. But that shepherd would carry that lamb for a long time, weeks and weeks, as those limbs mended. The sheep would begin to smell like the shepherd and not the other way around and catch the rhythm of the shepherd, hear the voice of the shepherd, hear the heartbeat of the shepherd, eat with the shepherd, sleep with the shepherd. When those legs were fully mended and the shepherd would let that little lamb go on now he can walk and run around it wasn't going to the left anymore, it just wanted to be near the shepherd and hear his voice and follow his heart. And when the shepherd and the herd went to the right, that little lamb who had been so gloriously broken is now first in line. That's the good kind of breaking. 24:31 The bad kind of breaking is when you don't do the good kind of breaking and fall on Jesus and come to the end of yourself. See, and the breaking I'm talking about I'm not talking about before I was saved. That isn't. Everything is broken. Then I'm talking about after I got saved and as you're learning the will of God and as you're learning how to tap into the wisdom of God. And then you remember, oh yeah, that was that thing I knew was the wisdom of God, and trusted Christians in my life agree that was the wisdom of God. But then I crept up all alone into my own head and I started letting that monkey brain working and I started rationalizing and talking my way out of what I knew was the wisdom of God and the will of God, because I just wanted what I wanted. And now, a little bit after that, I need to deconstruct. 25:18 I got hurt at church. Who hurt you? Was it the pastor? The honest answer is no, I hurt me because I knew what I should do. I did the opposite. You can't just do whatever you want to do and ask God to get in on it. I mean you can, but pain comes. I'd rather fall on the rock and be broken than the rock fall on me and grind me to a powder. That's the bad kind of breaking. There's no coming back from that Good breaking. You don't get to just say, Lord, I'm going to do X, y, z. Come on along and bless what I'm doing. Many Christians live their lives that way. No, you pray and you figure out what is the Lord doing and get in on that. You find out where the oil, where the peace, where the presence of God is. Hallelujah, james, the book of James. 26:21 He scolds the wealthy businessmen in the church. He's not scolding the Bible doesn't scold unbelievers. You know what unbelievers do? They sin. Sinners sin. You don't scold. Why are you doing it? Well, that's because that's what they're born to do. Literally, that's their nature. They have a sin nature. They're going to sin. He's scolding the Christian businessmen who are a little proud and arrogant and lofty because they had money. He said come now, you who say you'll go to such and such city and buy and trade and do you're wheeling and dealing and doing your own things. He scolds them. He said you're nothing. He calls them. He said what you ought to say if the Lord wills, we will go and do X, y, z, hallelujah. The will of God is important. It should be prized. And I just have to say this when you arrive at that beautiful understanding and you accept it in your heart that the will of God is number one and you don't want to go outside the will of God because that's where it's dangerous, then it's important also I'm talking to people on the other side of the spectrum don't get hamstrung and get the paralysis of analysis where you don't do anything because you're waiting for God to speak to you about it in an audible voice. Because there's Christians like that too. 27:36 They pray over what color socks they should put on in the morning. Lord, I'm just waiting for your peace. Should it be the black ones, or the crimson ones, or the good old white tube socks that have been with me all these years? Hallelujah. Well, it's a good time to read a Christmas passage Luke, chapter 1 and verse 26. We decorated for Christmas just this week, which we had always waited for Thanksgiving first. That's it. I'm just letting you know, since I'm reading a Christmas passage, but it doesn't feel off. You know, alexa, play Bing Crosby. Christmas, put the lights up. Everything's wonderful. Hallelujah. I don't want to get less than a month. Yeah, some people who are hostile, anti-god get a whole month. I don't want 27 days, 25 days or 23 days. No, I'm taking a month and a half. I've determined I'm going to have a good time at church this morning. I encourage you to join me Now. 29:04 In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary and, having come in, the angel said to her imagine what this is like. Historically speaking, she must have been 15 years old 16 years old max and now and not just any angel, because there are rankings of angels At the top are the archangels, then the seraphim, then the cherubim. It goes down. This was an archangel coming in glory and power on behalf of Yahweh God, and he says Rejoice, highly favored, when the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. 29:58 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her Do not be afraid, mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest and the Lord. God will give him the throne of his father, david, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end. And then Mary asks a fair and logical question how can this be, since I've never had sex? That was the SV, the street version. And the angel answered and said to her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore, also, the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. 30:48 Now, indeed, elizabeth, your relative see, it's getting Christmasassy already here this morning. Elizabeth, your relative has also conceived a son in her old age and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God, nothing will be impossible. No spoken word of God is impossible for him to perform. Now, how many of you would agree? 31:11 This is a lot to take in. I mean, she must be thinking I'm not even married, I'm just betrothed and my belly's gonna start showing and the village is gonna wanna take me out and stone me. Also, there's an archangel talking to me, telling me that God is to become incarnate within me. It's a lot, her response, and this is why I believe God chose mary, because of her heart, because of her obedience, because she's. And this is how we must be like a drop of water in the Lord hand, flexible, malleable. He goes to the, she goes to the left. He goes to the right, she goes to the right. Her words, her knee-jerk response is behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. In other words, may God's will be done. And so I'm pleading with you this morning. I'm asking you a question. None. And so I'm pleading with you this morning. I'm asking you a question Whatever happened to the will of God? What happened to the will of God? The will of God is to be sought. He's a God who must be sought, and the will of God is to be instantly embraced. Will it hurt sometimes? Yes, there's always the pain of a crucifixion before a resurrection. But there's always the pain of a crucifixion before a resurrection, but there's always the glory of a resurrection. You know, just last night. It hits me so often. I know I talk about it a lot, but this is real to me. I lived for five and a half years in a windowless basement where the church met at 121 East 7th Street in the East Village of Manhattan. That's where CityLight started. It was not fun living in those quarters. I had a little cot smaller than a prison cell. I had to shower in the church bathroom. We built the showers and the kitchen was behind the worship. The worship said, but there was no heat in the church bathroom. We built the showers and the kitchen was behind the worship, behind that and the worship's there. But there was no heat in the kitchen. So where I'd be living I could get it up to 75 degrees. But you go in the kitchen, you could see your breath, because that was the part of the building sticking out. It was an add-on Mice everywhere's campering about every morning in the kitchen you leave those little black rice pellets everywhere. I'm like, oh, you can't just like scoop that up, bust out the 409, get out the chemicals, the antibacterial, the and I complained to the Lord about that. Lord, I don't come from this. Even back in Yugoslavia we didn't live like this. And now my parents immigrate here. I get a great education, I surrender it all to you to go into the ministry. And now look at me, I'm living. Like what is it? Like? That's okay, the Lord's not intimidated by that. Lord, I followed you, I did what you said and I sensed in my spirit. Don't worry, I'll get you, don't worry. So last night I'm just walking, my wife and kids, they're in Pennsylvania. I had a family thing there, so I'm alone. So what does a guy alone do? I walk through my house, I'm worshiping God and then it just hit me. I'm like Lord, you really did do what you said you'd do. You did do that, hallelujah. And the way you did it. You know I couldn't have. If you told me 100 ways, write down 100 ways. The Lord is going to come and give you a breakthrough. If I wrote down 100 ways, I wouldn't. He did it the 101st way. He's not man that he should lie, and the Bible says those who put their trust in him will never be ashamed. They'll never have their hope in him disappointed, hallelujah. So there is pain when you surrender to the will of God initially, but over time a harvest, a hundredfold harvest, fruit will be born and I'm just encouraging you here this morning to receive the full lordship. If you want the full glory of God displayed in your life, you've got to receive the full lordship of Jesus into your life. You can't do half and half. You can't. Some people seems like it can, but you don't know what's going on in their inner world. Just concerning wealth, the Bible says that God will make you rich and add no sorrow to it. Your favorite influencer might be rich, dying on the inside, if he doesn't have Jesus Full of sorrow. Hallelujah, hallelujah, john, chapter 2. Mary became a great fan of the will of God. The first message she preached if you can call it a message was an encouragement to surrender to the will of God. I've been outside of his will. What an ugly feeling. It's like taking a shower with your socks on. You're still getting wet, but it just feels way off. Just doesn't feel right. And I know how I ended up there. Let's read that one from Philippians first, then we'll get to John 2, because I'm thinking how I got there. This tells you how you get there. Philippians, chapter three, verses 17 through 19. Paul says brethren, join in following my example and note those who so walk, as you have us, for a pattern For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now I tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ. Who are these people? Whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly. That means their own appetites, what they want. It's like Samson. When he saw Delilah, the exact first words out of his mouth were she looks good to me Famous last words she looks good to me. Last words. She looks good to me. When the Bible says God is your belly, it means you're a slave to your own appetites, to your own self, to what you want, doing in your own way, and you think you're the smartest person in the room and you know best. And it's going to end with you flat on your face and sand in your mouth. God's way is always better. It's always more fruitful. And to get to that place it won't be easy. It'll require you to yield. Catherine Kuhlman said I have died a thousand deaths. How many deaths have you died? Every time you say no to self, no to the world, and you remember that your life is hid with God in Christ and you've been crucified with him and your heart cries Lord, I want to do your will. That's a prophecy about the Messiah. When Messiah came into the world, it was, quote to do your will, oh God. Every single one of us, as little Christs, christians, little Christs, our hearts cry throughout the day should be to do your will, oh God. Not to do my own thing Not to figure out how much I can get away with in doing my own thing, with you somehow still being with me and me making heaven. The breakthrough comes with a totally surrendered and yielded heart. All right, now let's go to John, chapter two, verses one through five. And I sympathize because it is harder than ever, because the brainwashing is stronger than ever and the ideology forming is stronger than ever, all thanks to the internet. I went down a weird rabbit hole last night. Did we talk about envy in this service In the beginning? Okay, so what happens when you have services back to back so close? Did everybody talk about Victor, but I talked about envy? Okay, well, it was just last night. Did I talk about the parallel civilization in this service? That was in this service, thank you all, because I didn't plan on sharing any of that. So it came out off the cuff in the first service and I don't know. In fact, 80% of this isn't in my notes. Hallelujah, but I was just making the point once again that that we're being programmed I mean so much more than a couple of generations ago. It's nonstop To somebody in tech, you're just a product and there's an algorithm designed to keep you engaged and keep milking you. There's nothing for free. If something's for free, you're the product. On the third day, there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Now, both Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding and when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to them they have no wine. And Jesus said to her woman what does your concern have to do with me? What a sexist huh way, the way he spoke to her, and he probably said it like that too, not woman, woman. What does your concern have to do with me? My hour has. How many of you ever read that and went, oh, Jesus being rough with his mom? You know what I learned early on. Whenever you have that feeling when you read something in, how many of you ever read that and went, ooh, Jesus being rough with his mom? You know what I learned early on. Whenever you have that feeling, when you read something in the scriptures and something seems off, immediately understand that you're the one who's off, and not Jesus. Just go. Oh, I must not be seeing this. And let's start with God is right and I'm wrong. And now, let me read that now, with the understanding that God is right Because people have gotten so bent out of shape. I mean about this there was a woman back in high school, in the senior year of high school I worked in the mail room at Credit Suisse over at Tower 49 on 49th Street on Madison Avenue in the early 90s and there was a woman who had just gotten saved and she said she then like weeks later she was very upset because she saw in the Bible that God created the woman to be a help meat for the man. And she went I'm not a piece of meat. And she was all like frothing. She went on the whole thing, I'm like I'm just here to bring the mail. But she knew I was a Christian, I'm not a piece of meat. They called me a help me and I said I thought I didn't say anything, I was two, I didn't know, I was only 18. And I'm like I wish I said something. But I was two, I didn't know, I was only 18. And I'm like I wish I said something. But I thought to myself I think you might be confusing M-E-A-T with M-E-E-T, which means a companion of equal value, an associate called alongside to help. So people have you know when somebody, when somebody wants to be offended, they'll find something to get offended about. Boy, does that speak to our current culture? You want to find and be offended. You want to feel that dopamine rush of being offended, clutching your pearls? Oh well, I never. There's plenty, plenty of opportunities. By the way, Jesus here is not being rude to his wife. He's actually engaging in some clever wordplay because she comes to him and says hey, we have no wine. What is wine a symbol of? What does wine represent the Holy Spirit? So it's like she's saying what does wine represent the Holy Spirit? So it's like she's saying hey, Jesus, we have no Holy Spirit. And he goes hey, woman, what does your concern have to do with me? My hour has not yet come. Whenever Jesus talks about his hour, what is he talking about? His crucifixion? Over and over again, he says when he goes, he goes my hour has finally come. His hour is the crucifixion. What happened after the crucifixion? Now that the sin problem has been cleared and taken out of the way, the Holy Spirit, God new wine, could come. So here she is talking about physical wine and as a wink wink, Jesus says hey, I can't give him the Holy Spirit because my hour has not yet come. Amen, and just calling her woman was a common thing in Aramaic Hallelujah. Next verse, his mother said to the servants now, this is what Mary's message is, and she actually has no message of her own, other than to say whatever he says to you, do it. So, after having submitted to the will of God, she becomes a champion of the will of God. And, by the way, what she's saying didn't make sense in the natural, because Jesus is asking them to fill up six water pots full of water. You don't just get the garden hose and fill them up. The Bible is specific. It actually says how much they contained, and it was 20 to 30 gallons per water pot. That's a lot. It's a lot If you got to use a garden hose. It's even more when you gotta draw all that up from a well and then do it for six pots. So that means 150 gallons to 180 gallons. That's a lot. Because the servants would say hey, why are we doing this? After like the 50th time they go to fetch water, why are we filling these? Well, he just wanted to. He didn't even say what he was going to do. He just said do that. I mean, what an opportunity to say forget this, he can do it himself if that's what he wants. But she said you got to submit to the will of God, do what he's saying. And then did I give you extra verses? Did I stop here? We know what happened. Jesus turned the water into wine and they said it was the best tasting wine they ever had, which I shared in the first service and wondered if I'd share in the second. I will share in the second. What's so beautiful about this is that that wine was the best tasting properly aged wine. How old was that wine? Well, five seconds old, right. Yet it tasted like it's been perfectly stored for 100 years Chateau, the whatever Kept in the cellar at the right temperature and the right humidity. And why six water pots. God here is speaking to creation. You know there's a big debate. People try to sideline you in your faith when it comes to how old the earth is and people can have a belief in God and his creation. But then some egghead scientist comes around and says well, actually I carbon dated this rock and it's 2 billion years old. Maybe, maybe God made it old when God made Adam. How old was Adam? Adam was one second old when he was formed, but yet he probably had the body of a 25, 30 year old right when God made the oak tree, he didn't make a little seedling, he made a fully formed oak tree that looked like it was several hundred years old, but it was just seconds old. The six water parts are like the six days of creation, and if God could take water and turn it into finely aged wine. Jesus is, I believe, saying that in the six days of creation God made that mountain old, already hundreds of millions years old. God made everything look old Because people will do the genealogical math and say, hey, it looks like we have a young earth. The earth is only 6,000 years old, but how come, when we carbon date it, it looks like it's hundreds of millions years old. Now you know Hallelujah, because God could have made it a trillion years old. So how old is it then? It's a second old, but it's also a trillion years old, just like the wine. Hallelujah. 1. Samuel 15. Verse 20. There is no sweeter pillow to sleep on than the pillow of a clear conscience. And Saul said to Samuel now just a little bit of background here Saul was doing his Frankie thing, I did it my way, his Burger King thing your way right away. And he was king and he had. He had. I'm sorry, I'm chuckling, because I'm remembering being like 19, 20 years old and reading through the Old Testament the first time. And God gives these great specifics to how to build the tabernacle, right down to how many nails to use Like really specific. And there's this instance where God says use four beams. And the guy uses five, something like that, and as he does that, fire comes down from heaven and consumes him. I'm reading this for the first time and I think to myself this is odd. I'm on the floor, reading, praying, drawing into the Lord, and I go, I go, Lord. What are you saying here? And I knew right away. He's saying I prefer it my way. Saying I prefer it my way, do it my way. If I say four beams, use four beams. If I say three nails, don't get cute. If I tell you, go live in a basement and I'll get you back on the other side, do it. Whatever I tell you to do, do it, don't be the problem. Do it my way, I'll make sure you reap a mighty harvest. Here's Saul. He was king, not a priest. He shouldn't have been making sacrifices, so he went out of bounds. And that's really what I'm talking about here is staying in bounds. You cannot live your life out of bounds. There's no number of prayer lines you can call, no amount of times you can go to the ministry team, no amount of times you can get me to pray for you, meet with you. That can help if you're just consistently, intentionally out of bounds. Saul said to Samuel I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me and brought back Agag, king of Amalek. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites, but the people took of the plunder sheep and oxen they weren't supposed to take any plunder the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed to sacrifice to the Lord, your God in Gilgal. So Samuel said has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than exterior or external religious activity. That's what sacrifice means in this context. Religious activity, that's what sacrifice means in this context. God is after our obedience more than anything we can do externally that might demonstrate that we're loving him, we're serving him, we're keeping in touch with him. Whatever it may be, this is not a message where the pastor is now beating you oh, you got to submit, you got to submit you, you gotta receive his lordship. This is me wanting to end unnecessary pain and suffering. This is me inviting those who are still playing hokey pokey with the Lord with one foot in and one foot out, one foot in and one foot out, playing these games and you're frustrated and, yeah, you love the Lord. You tell yourself whatever you gotta tell yourself you love the Lord. You tell yourself whatever you gotta tell yourself you love the Lord. He knows your heart. You know God knows my heart. Yes, he knows your heart. He loves you, but he knows your heart is wicked right now and you're in rebellion and you need to stop. Stop doing it your way. You've tried that. Now, what has it gotten you? And now you're gonna. I mean it's a form of insanity to do the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. Right, and now you're just chronically in rebellion. It's not going to change. Do you really want your gravestone to say here lies so-and-so made it to heaven by the skin of his teeth. It was the mercy and grace of God. They still believed it was the mercy and grace of God. They still believed and so we believe they're with the Lord. But really their life was riddled with just rebellion and doing things their own way their whole life. So quiet here today. Luke 6, 46, worship team come on up when I had had my life intertwined in rebellion. Because it's one thing to just do something and then oh, repent and immediately come back. But if you persist in a rebellious course of action, relationships develop Other things, other elements, even finances, relationships, social structure all those things get intertwined. That makes it more difficult to just cut and turn. But God is an expert knot unraveler. In Daniel it actually says they had an anointing to unravel knots. You ever see a good knot you have. If you had kids, take one of their shoes. It's like six sailors got nothing on a kid's knots. I've had shoes where I'm like that's it, I'm throwing these out. It's cheaper for me, for my mental health, to get a new pair of shoes than sit here for another hour trying to make these two straight laces. That's how I felt, like my life was in the course of rebellion. But I asked the Lord to help me and you know what he did and you know what he did. He helped me and he came in and he disrupted what needed disrupting and with minimal blowback, he got me back to where I needed to get to, and he'll do the same for you. I'm trying to tell you that Satan could be lying to you right now, saying, oh, you know what he's saying is true, you know this is the word of God, you know the message is true. But if you listen to this message and if you submit to the Lord, oh, the pain you're going to endure, oh, it'll be like 10 Goliaths coming against you. Everything in your life will change. And then Satan is trying to get you to quit and just keep on doing it your way. No, no. Let the song of your heart this week be Lord, help me. You can be still entrenched in your rebellion, but with a sincere heart, cry out Lord, get me on the right path. Lord, I realize this is stupid, I realize I was stupid. Help me, Jesus. Help me, clean my life of this unnecessary baggage. Get me into the perfect center of your perfect will, where I know there is safety, there is blessing, there's provision, there's peace. Get me there, Lord, of your perfect will, where I know there is safety, there is blessing, there's provision, there's peace. Get me there, Lord, and he'll do it. And the beautiful thing is that he won't. I mean, I joke about me and I call myself stupid and I call myself like how I behave, but you know that scripture in James where he says ask of the Lord. He gives all willingly and upbraideth not. You know what that means. It means he won't make you feel dumb, he won't make you feel bad about yourself. Never, ever, does he do that. I may do that to me. If I've done it to you, forgive me, but the good news is the Lord is way better than me and he'll never do that to you better than me, and he'll never do that to you. Now, these are the words of Jesus. But why do you call me Lord? Lord and do not the things which I say? That's a mic drop. Why? Why call him Lord if he's just Lord sometimes? No, you've then recreated God in your own image, a God who winks at rebellion and is okay with you doing your own thing, and he's not. Whoever comes to me and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. So Jesus has two types of people one who just hears what I say, doesn't do it, and one who hears what I say and actually does it. The one who actually does it, he's got a deep foundation. He's building his house, the house of his life, on a rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently and immediately it fell and the ruin of that house was great. Heavenly Father, I pray that this church is full of people who are submitted and yielded and building their house upon a rock. Who is Christ? Everybody, stand to your feet right now. Hallelujah, father. Let all rebellion, let all pride, let all stiff neckness doing whatever's right in our own eyes, let it all fall by the wayside. In Jesus' name, I want to invite you to pray a prayer of dedication and consecration, like Jesus did when he said Not my will but yours be done. If you want to participate, surrender your life to the Lord afresh. Say this prayer at the top of your lungs. Say it with your whole chest Dear Lord Jesus, you gave me your life, I give you mine. I surrender to your lordship, but I cannot do it alone. I'm powerless. Help me, fill me with the Holy Spirit, guide me, break chains off of me, cause me to be in your will, only In Jesus' name, amen. Hallelujah yeah, I felt that. Lift and pop off. Hallelujah, hallelujah, go ahead and be seated. We should also have. You know, we have testimonies how people celebrate the great things God has done. I wonder if anyone's ever tried reverse testimonies Like we should, because I'm always sharing but I can't share. I feel like I'm more transparent than most pastors. I mean, guys, if you've been with me for a while, you know everything about my life, the good, the bad and the ugly. I hold nothing back. I mean, there's stuff. If you're new, you're like wonder what he's talking about? Wild stuff. What you'll have to do is watch 2,000 hours of sermons on YouTube to figure out what I'm talking about. So I can't be the only one talking about where I got it wrong. We should have reverse testimonies where it's like 10 people who say this is what I was doing, I went off course and this is exactly what happened as a result of my rebellion. That's what I'm talking about. Everybody will leave totally depressed. There's no hope there, but something would have been learned. Are you all ready to honor the Lord with your tithes and offerings? Give with joy, give with a glad heart, give in faith. Give in faith means you're believing. You're not just giving away your money. You're sowing seed and you're going to reap a harvest in return. If you would, let's just Well. Whenever they're giving yeah, the QR code. There's three different ways to give. And eventually and it's not even worth putting up this week because the graphic came in too small, you can't see it past the third row. But we have this end of the year giving campaign. Our goal is $100,000, first, feuds of the future. This is for people who are saying I'm going to sow now into my 2026. I'm going to give whatever the Lord has me to give. What am I asking you to do? I'm asking you to simply ask God what would you have me give specifically to this campaign? Last year we were like halfway met and then somebody said I'll get the other half. That's awesome. I love how God does that. That's beautiful for the couple that said they'd do that. Lovely, but it's not ideal. Still, it's great for them, but it's not ideal. Ideal is that everybody does their part. Everybody asks God. I mean, if you can't hear God on what to give, how are you going to hear him about other parts of your life? What to give is like the quickest thing he re-answers, the quickest thing you hear. So just ask God what would you have me give? Some people don't ask because they're afraid to ask, like Lord, I know you. Some people don't ask because they're afraid to ask. Lord, I know you, you're generous with my money. I'm not going to ask you. And he's like well, that's your problem. You still think it's your money. So aren't you glad that I'm not getting up here going? Some of you can give $500. Some of you there's 10, yes, there's 10 people in here who can give $10,000, yes, no, I'm asking you to go to the Lord, ask him what he'd have you give. If you want prayer, go to the ministry area, that blue-ly lit section. If you need the blues prayed off of you, go to the blue area. They'll lay hands on you. See, the anointing of God come upon you. Let's all stand. Hey, sing this song. Don't just jet out this song is perfect, because that's what we're asking for the refiner's fire to burn us out of us. That's what I want I get in my own way. Refine us, oh God, be blessed. CityLight Church. 01:03:02 - Speaker 2 This is the CityLight Church podcast. If you've missed any part of today's message or if you would like to find out more about Pastor Boyan Jancic and CityLight Church, visit us at citylightnyc.com. That's citylightnyc.com. Feel free to visit us online or in person anytime. We would love to connect with you. We pray that you have been encouraged today, that you have been reminded how much God loves you and that you are surrounded by grace. Thank you for listening. Make sure that you subscribe to CityLight Church Podcast wherever you find your favorite podcasts worldwide.