Joyce Meyer - What Will It Cost Me To Follow Christ? (08/20/2019)
We are chosen by God the Father, sanctified by the Holy Spirit, and set apart for obedience to Jesus Christ. Salvation is a gift received by grace, but we must work it out by yielding fully to God, obeying through the Holy Spirit's power, enduring unjust suffering patiently like Christ, and submitting to Him first so the devil flees—leading to true joy, peace, and God's amazing plan for our lives.
Chosen, Sanctified, and Set Apart by God
First Peter chapter 1, verse 2. It says, We were chosen and foreknown by God the Father and consecrated. That means sanctified and made holy. That means set apart for a special purpose.
Let me tell you something. You are not like everybody else out in the world who doesn't have Christ as their Savior. You don't get to do everything that they do. You don't get to act like they act. You have been... When the Holy Spirit came upon you, when Christ made you His home, He took you and set you apart for something special.
He sanctified you and in your spirit, He made you holy. You are a spirit. You have a soul. You live in a body. You're a tri-part being. In your spirit, when Christ comes to live in you, you have everything that you need in there to live a godly life and to behave the way Jesus would if He were here doing it today. It's all in you.
Working Out Your Salvation with Joy
It's not a matter of what's in you. What I'm working on is trying to get it out of you. Philippians 2:13, Work out your own salvation. That doesn't mean work for salvation. We know that we're saved by grace and grace alone. It's only God's undeserved favor that our sins are forgiven.
But then He says, Take this salvation that's been given to you as a gift and work out your own salvation now with fear and trembling. So after you receive Christ as your Savior, your number one goal in life from that point on should be to learn how to do everything that God wants you to do to let Him own you and possess you entirely and to be of value to Him.
And let me tell you, the more you do that, the happier you're going to be. You're going to get so happy people are going to think you're crazy if you give your whole life to God. It's our selfish self-centeredness that makes us unhappy.
Obedience Brings True Joy and Freedom
It is very important that we get about the business of obedience. God is not alive to serve us. We are alive to serve Him. Now, if I could just take a little aside here for a minute. God loves you. He wants you to be blessed.
The Bible says if you delight yourself in God, He'll give you the desires of your heart. God wants you to have nice things. He wants you to be the head, not the tail, above and not beneath, lend to many nations, never have to borrow. Everything you lay your hand to should prosper and succeed. He wants to give you favor everywhere you go, open doors for you.
But that's not all He wants. He wants us submitted, committed, on the altar, ready to do what He wants us to do every single day of our life. We must stop living for the purpose of trying to get God to give us what we want.
You might be thinking, well, yeah, that doesn't sound like much fun. Please. When we obey God, we have a joy on the inside of us that you cannot get from anything else. You just can't get it anywhere else.
Choosing Spirit Over Flesh
Now, we can make our flesh happy for a few seconds at the price of our spirit being miserable, or we can let our flesh be unhappy for a little while at the price of our spirit being free and full of joy and peace. Got to make your mind up which one is the most important to you.
Sanctified, made holy by the spirit so we are chosen, foreknown by God the Father, consecrated, sanctified, made holy by the spirit in order to be obedient to Jesus Christ the Messiah. Wow, wow, wow.
And there's another scripture just like it. 1 Peter 1, verse 22. Sends by your obedience to the truth through the Holy Spirit. We can't obey God except through the Holy Spirit.
I have to keep saying this over and over and over and over. I'm not trying to drive you into self-effort and self-determination but to tell you that the moment that you turn in God's direction to do what He wants you to do, at that moment He links up with you and gives you the power to be able to do it.
God never asks us to do anything without giving us the power and the ability and the equipment to do it. You can do whatever God asks you to do through Christ who strengthens you.
Enduring Unjust Suffering Like Christ
How many of you, it's very hard for you when somebody mistreats you to just wait on God to bring deliverance? You ain't gonna like these scriptures, I might as well tell you ahead of time.
You who are household servants, be submissive to your masters with all proper respect, not only to those who are kind and considerate and reasonable, but also to those who are surly, overbearing, unjust, and crooked.
You have got to be kidding. I mean, the first time I read this, I thought, this is nuts. I ain't gonna be nice to somebody that's a jerk.
For one is regarded favorably, is approved, acceptable, and thankworthy if, as in the sight of God, he endures the pain of unjust suffering. After all, what kind of glory is there in it when you do wrong and are punished for it if you take it patiently?
But if you bear patiently with suffering which results when you do right, now that is, and that is undeserved, now that is acceptable and pleasing to God. For even to this were you called.
Following Christ's Example in Trials
Huh. Man, that's like the death quiet that you get sometimes. Well, why in the world would God call us to suffer? I thought we'd been delivered from all that.
There are certain things that we have been delivered from. Thank God we don't have to suffer for our sins and misdeeds that Jesus paid the price for them. Thank God we don't have to go to hell that we can live in God's presence.
But there are other things that we are going to have to go through in order to get out in the world and glorify God and behave the way He wants us to behave. And some of it involves not coming back at people who don't treat you the way that you think you should be treated.
Now I'm not saying that you should let somebody abuse you and walk all over you. My mother let my dad abuse me. She knew what he was doing. She did not leave him and she was wrong in doing that. She was irresponsible and wrong and it caused me a lot of pain.
Basically some of the other things my dad did destroyed my brother's life. I'm not saying to sit around and be abusive. Here's what I am saying. Don't just do what you feel like doing. Hear from God first and then do what God tells you to do.
There have been places that I've been in that I wanted to get out of so bad I don't even know how to tell you how bad I wanted to tell them off and say I'm out of here and God would say not yet. I don't want you leaving with a bad attitude. I don't want you leaving angry. You wait. I'm preparing something.
Submit to God First, Then Resist the Devil
And oh my gosh, when God did promote me, oh, nobody could believe it, including me. I'm still having a hard time catching up with it. I had to learn how to retire from self-protection and self-care.
Verse 21, for even to this you were called, it is inseparable from your vocation, for Christ suffered for you, leaving you his personal example so that you should follow in his footsteps.
Verse 22, he was guilty of no sin, neither was deceit or guile ever found on his lips. Now watch verse 23. When he was reviled and insulted, he did not revile or offer insult in return. When he was abused and suffered, he made no threats of vengeance, but he trusted himself and everything to him who judges fairly.
Once again, I'm not telling you to sit around and let people abuse you. I'm just saying you go to God before you shoot your mouth off, before you make a decision about what you're going to do.
You go to God first and you say, how do you want me to handle this? Should I talk to them? Should I wait on you? Should I get out of here? Do you want me to stay a while? What do you want me to do?
Then when the voice comes to you, you give a decision based on what you know that God is asking you to do. You don't consult your own will. You don't ask yourself what you think. You don't run to 10 of your friends to get their advice.
You know, half the time we ask people what we ought to do because we really don't want to hear from God to start with. We already know what we ought to do. Bottom line is that we already know and we're hoping we can find somebody that'll tell us we don't have to do it.
James 4:7 says, submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee. It does not just say, resist the devil and he will flee, which is the way we normally quote it. Submit yourself to God, resist the devil and he will flee.
You know what, when we submit ourselves to God, we're not going to have that much trouble with the devil.
Living to Glorify Christ in Desperate Times
This may seem a little foolish, but I'm just going to say, please. I am begging you. We are living in desperate times in the world today.
The Bible says, Christ in us, the hope of glory. Can I tell you something? I don't believe that's just talking about because Christ lives in us, we can be glorious. I think that him being in us is his hope of being glorified in the earth today.
If you don't want to do this for any other reason, do it for God. Do it because of what he's done for you. Do it because he's so beautiful, so amazing, so awesome that he sent his only son to die and suffer in your place.
And let's don't act like it's the end of the world if we've got to put up with something for just a little bit and wait on God to make it happen. Don't do things that go against your conscience. Don't do things you don't have peace about.
Please, please, please. God has got an amazing plan for your life. Eye has not seen and ear has not heard all the good things that God has made ready, prepared, and stored up for those who love him and obey him with affectionate reverence.
This is not about, oh, what a terrible life we're going to have because now you have to obey God. God is good. Everything he does is good. He's got good things for you, and I want you to get on the narrow path so you can get to him and find him.