The Glory of a Surrendered Life

Carter Conlon from the historic Times Square Church in New York City. You're not surrendered because you come here and just say, I don't drink, I don't dance, I don't go to movies, I don't swear, I don't curse, I don't do this, that. That's not a surrendered life. You're just making that partial journey away from an old lifestyle, but that's not a surrendered life. Your life is surrendered when you finally get to the point of saying, not my will.

That's Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. Welcome to A Call to the Nation. You know the glory of a surrendered life starts when God begins to whisper things that might seem preposterous apart from Him. And if you're really seeking Him in your heart and you want to live a life that glorifies Him, then you respond to those whispers and say, yes, that's the glory of a surrendered life.

Here's Carter with more insight. I want to talk to you about the glory of a surrendered life, the glory of a surrendered life. And I've been at this a long time now. I've had the opportunity of coming out of a place of fear when I first got saved. You know my story, many of you, nine years of panic attacks, a living hell on earth, being afraid to go into a room where there was more than five people, panicking if I was singled out, having to take so many volume that I went through college literally underwater. There's no other way to describe it.

Angry, drinking way too much, and frustrated. But when I came to Christ, I began to look in the Word of God. And I began to see something about a future that I could have. And by the grace of God, I laid hold of that future. I've traveled over most of the world. I was thinking the other day that the only place I haven't been is China. And I got an invitation to China yesterday.

So that's going to take care of that. Praise God for that. And the Lord is so good.

He just fulfills every dream, every desire. I've spoken to presidents. I've spoken to people in government, gathered together to say speak to us. There's not much really that the Lord hasn't allowed me to do. And He took me from a place of really no ability whatsoever.

All I had was a heart for Him. I've seen tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people come to Christ, that God used somebody who couldn't go into a room with five people. And I have preached to crowds as big, they tell me, as a half of a million people. I've seen 100,000 saved in one service alone in Africa one time.

Tens of thousands in other places. I've just lived this. I've watched God do what only God can do. I'm not boasting about anything of myself.

It's really all of Him. And it's really available to anybody who has an open heart and says, God, would you use me in my poverty, in my struggles? When I came to Christ, I had so many struggles. I was sitting in a church one night and the gospel was being preached. I was a brand new Christian. I was a cop back then. I was a brand new Christian.

And I don't remember exactly what the altar call was, but there was something in it that stirred my heart to believe that God was asking me to give everything I had to Him for His purposes, for His glory. And, you know, I was sitting there, I was thinking, I have nothing to give to God. I've got a really bad temper and I'm still dealing with that. I've got struggles galore. I've got a marriage that's on the rocks. I mean, I don't really have anything at all.

I don't even know how to be a father to my son. And I'm still so far back. And the church I was in, the odd thing is that it was a fairly wealthy church. And there were people there that I didn't even know there was such a thing as the book of Ezekiel. I had no idea.

I knew John 3.16, God so loved the world He gave His only begotten Son. And the people in that church, they had so much. They had the information I didn't have. They had knowledge I didn't have.

They had all this stuff. They were raising Christian homes I wasn't. And when the altar call was given, there was only about three of us that went forward from a full church as big as the downstairs here. And I got on my knees and I began to cry. And I said, God, I don't have anything to give you. I don't even have five loaves and a couple of fishes to give you. I've nothing. But if you can take what I am and use it for your glory, then I give it to you.

As mediocre as it might be, I give it to you. The Lord heard me that night and took my life. And it has been an amazing life. It's like a dream come true.

I don't know how else to describe it. I told my wife one time, the only other possibility is that I've been hit by a truck somewhere and I'm in a coma and none of this ever really happened. And if that's true, then this really bad news for you, that means you don't exist. You're just in my mind.

So you better hope that that's not what the case is. But I want to talk to you about the glory of a surrendered life from 2 Corinthians chapter 3. I'm just going to start with verses 16 to 18. I'm going to talk to you from my heart. Can I do that?

Can I do that? I'm trusting God that if this is a baton that God's put in my hand, that there's going to be somebody here that wants it. There's going to be somebody here that says, I want to run that race.

I want to step out of the poverty maybe of where I am or the loathing of myself or just all the struggles that I go through every day. I don't want that to be the focus of my life. God's destined me for something bigger than that. And so I'll take it. I'll take it. If nobody else will, I will. And in that church, there was probably 500 people that should have responded, but only me and two others got out of our seats and went forward and God simply took me that night.

And I believe He's going to do the same thing for you. This particular chapter in Corinthians finishes by talking about how religion has a blindness. It was of course the Old Testament religion and before the death of Christ and how when people read the Bible without the Spirit of God, there's an inability to see anything other than rules and regulations and laws and such like. But when Christ died, it tore that veil apart and gave us access into something much bigger than what they had at that time.

And it begins, I'd say in verse 16, it says, nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. In other words, there should be no confusion any longer. There should be no doubt about who God is and what He wants to do. Now, the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty.

Now, another translation of that word means generosity. Where God's Spirit is, there's this incredible generosity of God, this incredible freedom that He brings into our lives, but it comes with generosity. It comes like elsewhere in the Bible, the apostle says, if God did not spare His Son, but gave Him up for us, how shall He not with Him freely give us all things? In other words, God didn't go to the extent of sending His Son to a cross to hold back from you and say, no, maybe somebody else would not for you. That would make it almost strange that God would go to that extent, but then pull back and not give you what you need to be a fulfilled witness of who He is. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord of being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

So let me say that again. We have clear access to God and we are given the ability to see something of Him and of what He has accomplished for us. And when we begin to behold it, we begin by the generosity of God and by the Spirit of God within us to be changed from glory to glory. Now, the original word glory means it's a big, big, long definition.

If you look it up in your Greek dictionary, it's going to give you the word doxa. And it's a huge definition. If I can just boil it down, it means that which brings the name of God to reputation.

That's the easiest definition I can give you. So in other words, when I am beholding Jesus Christ, when I am doing it the way that God says that I should, and when my life is surrendered to what I'm seeing, then God does something in my life and through my life that brings His name to reputation. Not mine, His.

He does it. And my only testimony is only God could have done this. That's my testimony. Only God could have done what He's done in my life.

Only God could have taken me where I am today. When I was in college, in the third year, just to save some money, I applied to be a dorm proctor. Do you know what that is? Most of you know that, right? A dorm proctor.

It's not a big deal. It's a floor in a dorm where when new students come, you just greet them, say, this is your room. If you have any problems, come talk to me. How hard is it to do that? And so you had to take a course. You had to go through a little course. And I flunked it. I mean, I flunked a course to be a dorm proctor. And they told me that I, you know, they shouldn't say stuff like that to people.

It can hurt them. But they told me you're not leadership material. I mean, well, maybe so, but here I am. Maybe I'm not, but there's somebody inside of me who is.

You see, that's the point. He does something as we behold Him. He does something inside of us that brings His name to reputation.

Not my name, His name comes to reputation. I stand here saying everything God has done for me, He has done for me. I've not done anything for Him. I don't even like the concept of doing something for God. I can't do anything for God. But what I can do is let God do something through me for His own name set and for the reputation of His own name.

And the Bible says, as I behold Him, He does something inside of me that brings His own name to reputation. So what is a surrendered life? Because the title I gave this message is The Glory of a Surrendered Life. Now a lot of people don't like that or don't have a right concept of what a surrendered life is.

They see it as like a bank robber running down the street with a bag of money in his hand and somebody says, stop right there. Surrender. And so he stops and puts up his hands and says, okay, I'll go to jail and I'll praise God. I'll get some prison religion while I'm there and I'll praise God.

And a lot of young people think that the Christian life is like that. Surrender is like, oh no, no more relationship. I can't have that girl. I can't have that guy. I can't go dancing on Friday night. I can't go to this and I can't do that and I can't watch this. And so I'll just go to church on Friday night, clap my hands and just be bored the rest of my life.

I'll just sit at home and do nothing. And it's just such a bore. The surrender has that concept for youth. You know, it's like, what am I supposed to do with my life? Okay, I'll surrender. I surrender to God.

And so that's why there's such a hesitation. It's like, I'm just not doing this. Realistically, that's not what a surrendered life is. It's not about not doing stuff. That's a small, small part of a surrendered life. What God really is talking about is surrendering to something else. It's surrendering to what He has. Surrendering to what He wants to do. It's not just about walking away. And if you fully saw what God had for your life, you would flee.

You would abandon stuff that tries to occupy your time and just makes your life really a misery in the long run. There's no power to it. There's no purpose to it. You know, when the people of God in the Old Testament got to the border of the promised land, behind them was captivity and barrenness. That's all it was. You know, that's why God didn't lead them through, you know, Palm Springs, because they would have stayed there. He led them through a wilderness. I mean, there was nothing there just but His promise, which the man had represented.

I will provide and I will be there for you. And He brought them to the border of an incredible promise that a land of provision that literally staggers the mind. A place of power to overcome giants. And they stood there and they wavered on the border. And He was asking them to surrender to the promise. Does it make sense to you? Not just to surrender the wasteland behind them.

That wasn't all that hard. But to surrender to the promise that was before them. I've got something for you so profound. I got something so powerful.

I got something so supernatural. I got something so only God could do this. You see, the purpose of the people of God of that time and our time is that they should bring praise to His name in the earth. They should live in such a manner and be blessed in such a manner that His name again would be brought to reputation. And so He was asking them to surrender to the promise, even though it looked almost impossible to achieve it. And I love the fact that when the spies went in to look at their promised land, that when they came out, two of them had a beam on their shoulders.

You know, it was a long beam and they had a bough of grapes so big it hung in the middle and it virtually touched the ground and they came out with this bough of grapes. And that's a perfect picture of Calvary. You have the two thieves and you've got Christ right in the middle. Everything pointed to where you and I are today, to the cross of Jesus Christ and the incredible promise of new life that is ours. Beholding the glory. Like Paul says, but we all with an unveiled voice, beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same. So what is beholding the glory all about? What is beholding? What does it mean to behold the Lord? But a lot of people don't know what it means to behold the Lord. They come to church like this and they get a, okay, Jesus. They get this image of a painting of Jesus. Maybe they saw somewhere a picture of Jesus in their mind and they start trying to behold Him. Because of a lack of understanding, if you try to behold Him and you're not doing it the way that He prescribes to do it, it leads to spiritism.

Do you understand that? It leads to a sensual experience. It leads to coming to church and you need smoke and flashing lights and you need noise and music and you need to throw confetti in the air and create all this thing to convince you that Jesus is actually there because you're not beholding Him the right way.

That's really not what we're called to do. As a matter of fact, in the early church, they didn't have electricity so they didn't have any of that. The only smoke they had is if your house was on fire.

That's the only time you could have smoke or even light at night. Paul says it's the best. Here's what Paul says. Let me just read it to you in Ephesians chapter one. He says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power towards us who believe according to the working of His mighty power, which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, power, might, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He's put all things under His feet and gave Him to behead over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. You see, when you behold Jesus, we begin to start pondering His victory. We start thinking about the fact that He is the head.

We are the body. He won the race. He sits at the right hand of all power. Everything that is His is ours.

Everything He won is mine and yours. Every promise of God is true. So when we begin to behold, in a sense, it starts there. We begin to understand that Jesus won the victory for me. Jesus made a way through the veil of darkness and the struggles and trials of my life.

Jesus covers me as I'm moving forward to get to know Him in the fullness of His power and become the person that God's calling me to be. It's all in Him. My victory is in Him. The cleanness of my life is in Him. My hope for the future is in Him.

Everything I have is in Him. So when I begin to behold that, and you can't behold it outside of the Word of God. You can't behold Him through sensory experience. You don't get trapped by any of these churches that just produce a big sensory experience and just lead people into spiritism.

You can't behold Him outside of the Word of God. When I was a young cop, you know, when I first got saved, I worked radar. I don't even know if they call it that anymore, but it was radar back then.

And, you know, where you're catching speeders and stuff like that. And I used to pray for rain because the machines we had then didn't work in the rain. And God was so good one summer. The summer I got saved, I'm telling you, it rained and rained and rained and rained.

So I could park behind a warehouse. I could park behind a building somewhere and I would open the Bible and I would read from Matthew to Revelation and I would cry and I would cry and I would cry because the Word of God was washing over me. And I started to see the victory. I started to behold Jesus. I started to see what He had done for me.

I started to understand who He was. I started to see the calling of God and where the power comes to perform it. I started to understand that the promises of God were for me. All these things that are spoken in the Bible are not for somebody else. It's God's letter to me.

It's God's promise to me. I am a co-inheritor of the victory that God won through His Son Jesus Christ. He is the head. I am the body.

You cannot separate the head from the body. If the head is sitting at the right hand of God, then I'm already in Him. Paul says we're in Him in heavenly places. We're already seated at the right hand of God. I'm already more than a conqueror. Therefore, God has a call on my life.

That's why Paul says if we could see the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, if we could fully behold what He has for us. And you can't get that apart from seeking Him. You can't get that apart from saying, Lord, I surrender to your plan for my life.

This other stuff is not even worth talking about behind me. All of what I thought was fulfilling and the plans I thought were fun and all of the things that I thought were going to fulfill my life, those are not even worth talking about. I surrender to your plan for my life. Whatever that looks like and wherever it takes me and whatever it makes me into. But you already won. I'm already with you at the right hand of God. I'm already more than a conqueror and you are willing to fill me. You have all authority. You are above every name, all principality, all power, all might and all dominion.

You are the head of the church and you are the one who is willing to fill all with your presence, your power, your calling, your glory. That's what it means to behold His glory. That's what a surrendered life looks like. You're not surrendered because you come here and just say, I don't drink, I don't dance, I don't go to movies, I don't swear, I don't curse, I don't do this, that. That's not a surrendered life. You're just making that partial journey away from an old lifestyle, but that's not a surrendered life.

Your life is surrendered when you finally get to the point of saying, not my will, thine. Whatever it is, Lord, you have for me. Remember, you spoke through Jeremiah said, the plans I have for you are more than you can comprehend. The eye has not seen, the ear has not heard the things that God has planned for those who love Him.

It's amazing. I've had an opportunity to live this life, but yet I feel there's more. My prayer lately to the Lord is, as I read it, the glory of the latter temple should be greater than the former.

The wine should taste the best at the end of the feast, at the end of the wedding feast instead of the beginning. And so, Lord, I'm looking forward to the next 15 years if I have that long. I'm looking forward to it with all my heart. I'm going back to door greeting here on Sunday night because I felt the Lord wanted me to do it. And I'm really, really enjoying it.

It's amazing. People are stunned. They meet me at the door. One guy said, Pastor, is something wrong?

Nothing's wrong. I started as a door greeter in the house of God, and it's no step down to finish as one. Praise be to God. Bless the Lord, oh my soul. And there's just joy in my heart that just doesn't go away.

And it's not circumstance dependent. It's not ministry dependent. I'm really happy to be a Christian. Now, John chapter 16 verse 13, Jesus said these words, However, when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth. So the Holy Spirit is not here just to give you a tingly feeling in a meeting somewhere. He will guide you into all truth. He will guide you into this book. He will quicken as you begin to read it. I've had over the years just verses of scripture and passages that jump off the page literally and become part of my life. This is the only book that can do that, that a verse of scripture actually becomes branded in your heart.

Didn't God say, I will write my laws in their heart and in their minds? And suddenly you just can't put it down. You own it. It's yours. God says, this is yours.

I'm giving you this. When the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come. He will tell you things in your life to come. The glory of a surrendered life starts when God begins to whisper things that are preposterous apart from him, but you really are seeking him in your heart and you really do want to live a life that glorifies him. And when he begins to whisper into your life, you just say, okay, all right, you, you put the ticket in my hand, I'll go. And, and you don't offer any excuses.

You don't waiver at the border. That's the glory of a surrendered life. He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. In other words, he will, he will show you things to come in your life and he will take the victory that I won for you and he will show it to you. What has God called you to be? What is he whispering to your heart?

Now you may not know, every time he opens the door, I go through the door and trust him. And I've, I've done things all my life that I'm not trained to do. I'm on national radio now. I'm on national radio.

Can you believe that? 39 States, 625 stations just got picked up by I Heart Radio. Anybody here know what I Heart Radio is? This got picked up by I Heart. They tell me it's a miracle. I Heart Radio has 19 million listeners potentially and they want a half hour program a week. Amazing.

Amazing. I, I've never been trained to do radio. They sent somebody here from California to try to train me and they gave up.

It's hopeless. They try to tell you how to use a radio voice, how to modulate and drop down and go up and drop down. So they tried to train me and they just kind of shook their heads and then I sent word back to the people that own the radio distribution company and I said, look, I said, your house is on fire. It's two o'clock in the morning. I'm walking down the street and you're sound asleep. How do you want me to tell you that?

And they got the message. I said, it is what it is. Either, either take it the way I, I, I can't. I felt like a, you know, I felt exactly like when Saul tried to put his armor on David for real. I mean, it just was, it felt foolish. I can't, I don't talk like that.

I don't know what all that was about. I'm just doing stuff still, still doing stuff that I'm not qualified to do. I've never been qualified to do it, but that's the beauty of it, isn't it? Your life is not behind you. It's just, it's all ahead of you. Now, if you make the choice to surrender, the glory of the Lord will be yours. The glory of the victory will become yours. I'm not saying it's always going to be easy, but it will be worth it. It will be worth it. By God's grace, it will be worth it.

You will not regret this. Thank you for joining us this week for A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon from Times Square Church in New York City. For more information, log on to tsc.nyc. That's tsc.nyc. You can count on a powerful message each week on A Call to the Nation with Carter Conlon.