How to Give God What He Wants the Most, Part 1

If I asked you, over a cup of coffee, “Where did your spiritual journey really begin as an adult?” what would you tell me? Where were you? What were the circumstances?

For me, it was the night I graduated from high school. After being with some friends at a party, I realized I was a workaholic. I had academic success. My dream of a basketball scholarship was in hand. I was all-league in baseball. I had a really pretty girlfriend. And I sat alone, and empty, and just wondering, What in the world am I here for? My little formula of “success will make you happy” didn’t pan out.

I remember that night, sitting on my bed, looking out my bedroom window. It was a very starry night, I remember. And I started asking the real questions that adults ask. Why am I here? Is there a God? What’s my purpose in life? Is there more to life than just setting goals and achieving them?

And that night, although I had a lot of childhood prayers of, Get me out of this jam and please help so-and-so, and I prayed what I think was my first adult prayer. And I remember looking at the stars and I said, God, if You exist, reveal Yourself to me in a way I can understand. And then, I figure everybody wants something. I remember praying, God, what do You want from me? If You exist, what do You really want from me?

And that’s going to be the question we’re going to ask and answer today on our journey toward true spirituality. How do we give God what He wants the most? If you’ll pull out your teaching handout, we’re going to walk through this journey and this journey is going to take us to a point of a very, very important decision.

And so I want to introduce you to a book that I read. It was by a Harvard, actually Yale – excuse me; they use it at Harvard Business School – but by a Yale Law professor called “Risk, Reason, and the Decision-Making Process”. And it’s a series of true stories that are case studies.

And they read the case study, then they get in small groups and they talk about, “Okay, what were the risks involved in making this decision, what reasons did people make this decision, and what would you do?” And so they peel it out, give a case study, let the groups talk a little bit, and then give them more information.

So let me actually, I’ve got a couple of case studies here, because here’s the deal. The goal was to teach them to make skillful, wise decisions. And we’re going to be talking about a very, very important decision and there is just some great insight about making great decisions.

So case study number one. They’re brief, but they’re kind of fun. A thirty-two-year-old engineer named John loves to go to estate sales to look for antique furniture and other potentially valuable items. One weekend, he goes to an estate sale in the southern part of the United States. All the items in this particular house are being sold together for a single price. Visitors are welcome to make a bid, and John learns that the winning bid will be about ninety-five thousand dollars.

The house is old, in disrepair; probably built during the Civil War period. John, a self-confessed geek and history buff, recognizes a collection of rifles that seem to be from that timeframe. He then goes downstairs to a damp basement. Using a small pocket flashlight, he finds an old roller top desk, and going through the desk, he discovers a false drawer. And in the false drawer is a small leather pouch that contains twenty-two very rare, pure gold coins, minted by the Confederate army during the Civil War. They could be worth millions of dollars, he believes.

John has to make a decision. What should he do? He has ten thousand dollars in savings. If he can sell his car, his house, and everything he owns, he believes he can come up with the ninety-five thousand dollars and make the winning bid. What would you do? Students at Harvard Business School, at MIT, and other universities discussed this. So, face value, what would you do? Think about that.

Case study number two. Sheila, a twenty-something college art teacher at a community college was traveling in Europe over the summer. She had even started a small collection on her limited salary. And while in a small village in southern France, well off the beaten path, Sheila went to an auction where the locals had all donated family art to be sold to help finance the construction of a much-needed school.

One painting topped the list, and was said to be a rare, but highly valued copy of Picasso’s work. It was deemed as a non-original because the signature at the bottom was different from all of his other works. Sheila, however, wrote her Master’s thesis on Picasso and was aware that in the first year of his work, he did not sign his name but only put his initials there.

She looked and studied the painting carefully and came to the conclusion that she actually was in the presence of a priceless piece of art. It was believed there were only two or three of these paintings in existence anywhere in the world. If this were so, Sheila was standing before something worth a very great deal of money.

The twenty-five thousand asking price was a joke with regard to what it was worth, but it was a bigger joke with her income. What Sheila would have to do was sell her Volkswagen Jetta, sell her entire art collection, and withdraw her entire savings of six hundred dollars. What should Sheila do? What would you tell her?

Now, I want to give you three principles that flow out of these case studies. Here’s where the meat is for you and me. In every big decision, and I mean big, important, life-altering decisions especially, the number one thing you need is – just write this word down – “truth.” Truth.

The issue here is the validity of the find. If the coins are legit, if they’re true, if it’s a Picasso, if it’s true, and for you, when you’re trying to figure out what you should do with your life and the relationships that you’re in, you need to first and foremost say, “What’s true?”

And after truth and knowledge, the last thing, just write the word faith. These are the three keys to making great decisions. What’s true? Do you have the inside knowledge? And then, faith is literally the courage to pull the trigger.

There are a great deal of people that never have the faith or the courage to pull the trigger and act on what they absolutely believe is true. And so they don’t make the decisions or they make no decisions, which is really a decision in itself.

Turn the page, if you will, because these two remind me of a case study by Jesus that teaches us also about risk, reason, and the decision-making process. When Jesus is teaching this, it’s out of Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 and 45.

He says, “The kingdom of heaven…” In other words, “Following Me and how life works with Me as the King of your life is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found, then he hid again, and from joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and he buys that field.”

So look at verse 45. “Again the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking fine pearls and upon finding one pearl of great value” – of exquisite value; of over the top, priceless value is the idea – “he went and sold all the pearls that he had and he bought it.”

So if you have a pen, pull it out. Let’s go up to verse 44. I want you to see something. Jesus isn’t talking about money and treasure. He’s making a very profound spiritual point and principle about decision-making. And what He’s saying is this. He’s saying there are certain things that we can see and certain things we can’t see. “And the kingdom of God and following Me is akin to…”

And this would be in their day; it would make sense because this actually could happen in their day. They didn’t have 401ks. And so you would take your treasure and you would hide it and dig it someplace on your land. And the goal is you would tell your relatives – your sons or daughters – where it is. But sometimes, people, they aren’t quite ready to hear it, and they die before they tell anyone.

And so the people realize that this story is really plausible. And so He says, “Here’s a man who is in a field. Maybe he’s walking with a stick, and he hears something, and he opens it up, and there’s a little chest, and there’s a fortune in it. And he covers it back up and he is just exhilarated with what he’s just found. So he recklessly, with abandon, sells everything he has that’s not worth very much to get something that’s worth a whole lot.” Same picture with the pearl.

Here’s the thesis. Jesus is saying when you understand who He is, and how life really works, and what really, really matters now and forever, and you get the treasure of what it is to have relationship with Him, and the plan that He has for you on this earth, you would, with reckless abandon and joy, forsake all else to get that.

Put another way, His thesis is total commitment is the channel through which God’s biggest and best blessings flow. Do you realize that? Total commitment. He sold all that he had. Motive? Joy.

Above the word in our notes where it says total commitment, would you write the word surrender and put a box around it? Surrender. Total commitment. It was all or nothing in order to gain that land with the treasure inside.

Now, Jesus told these two parables to get into their world in such a way that they would get a new set of glasses, because when you talk to people, who want to follow God, about total commitment, it’s like, “Well, I know pastors are supposed to be totally committed and maybe missionaries,” and there’s always a ninety-eight-year-old lady who really prays thirty-seven hours a day and there are only 24 hours.

And we know she’s totally committed, but for most of us, we’re just like regular Christians and that sounds really scary and I really want to love God. I’m glad I’m going to heaven. I’m glad Jesus forgave my sins and, I would like to be a good person.

In fact, I think I’m a little bit better person than most people. But total commitment sounds scary, like lock, stock, barrel – God has the say on my time, my money, my future, my family…ah! And so, what most of us do is we see the lens of total commitment negatively.

Here’s what I want to tell you. When Jesus taught about surrender or total commitment, it is the channel to get God’s very best in your life. But He said it’s for joy. His motivation is positive, it’s wise, it’s logical, it’s shrewd. It’s not so much renouncing as it is a reevaluation. And that was Jesus’ point. And that’s His message to you.

Remember, this is about how to give God what He wants the most. And I told you it involves a decision. And before our time is over together, we are going to have a very sober and holy moment where I’m not only going to explain exactly how to give God what He wants the most, but it will require a big step of faith, total commitment, and surrender. And what you’ll have to start asking is is how I hang on to things and my view and what I want versus what He can provide – which one of those am I going to trust?

It reminds me of a story I heard many years ago, and it was a story of a little girl who went on vacation with her family. And it was by the seashore, and they had one of those cottages that was right there, and you walk out the door, and the sand is there, and you could walk on the beach, and it had a little pier. And at the end of the pier was a fishing boat with a very old man.

It was in a very small town in New England and the little girl, five or six years old, cute pigtails, the whole bit – you know how they are at that age – and she would walk down to the pier and walk down and there was an old, old fisherman who was just known in the town as the mean one. He was just mean. He was old. He was bitter. His friends had died. He’d had a hard life. And so he just shut everybody out. But there’s something about a little five or six year old girl, you know, “Hi. Hi.”

Well, after day one, day two, day three, day four, his heart starts to melt. And no one’s ever treated him nice. And every day she would get shells and give him shells and she’d sit at the end of the pier with her feet dangling. And pretty soon, he’s giving her a little fishing line.

And in their seven-day vacation, a bond occurred. And he realized, No one in the whole world cares about me and I’m going to die very soon, he was in his late eighties, and this little girl does.

And unbeknownst to others, he had a little pouch from over the years of fishing and he found a number of shells and pearls. And the thing that he noticed about this little girl is she would dangle her feet over, but she would always clutch, she had these little, plastic beads that you get at Wal-Mart or Target or the CVS pharmacy. You’re on vacation; kids always want something, a dollar ninety-nine, you’re all set. Oooo!

And so he noticed how much she liked them so he took his pearls and stayed up most the night, drilled holes in them, took a piece of fishing line, and made a necklace. He thought, I’m going to give it to this little six-year-old girl.

And so, the next day she came to say goodbye and the station wagon was all packed and parents are one hundred yards away and, “Okay, honey. Get ready. Yes, you can go say goodbye.” So she runs down to say goodbye and he says, “Come here, honey. I have a present for you.” And she walks up to him and they’ve been very close and he says, “Give me those plastic beads off your neck.” And then he hung out, glistening in the sun, real pearls.

Now, the problem with being five or six years old and you’re very immature – you don’t know what’s worth what. All you know is what you’re comfortable with. All you know is what feels right. And so he took another step and he said, “Here, I have these, these are real pearls. Now, take those off so I can put them on.” And the little girl stepped back, grabbed her necklace, and ran one hundred yards, jumped in the station wagon, said, “I want to go. That man tried to take my pearls.”

And I want to tell you about eight out of every nine Christians who really do sincerely love God, cling to plastic pearls and are not receiving anything close in their life experience, their relationships, or their eternal impact, what God has chosen and destined for you to have because when He says, Give Me you. Put Me first in your time, put Me first in your future, put Me first in your decisions, put Me first in your family, put Me first in your work, put Me first in your money. I want you to trust Me wholly because I have pearls, not stuff.

And if you don’t believe He’s good, if you don’t know the heart of the Father, and you just stay around Him long enough not to feel too guilty and semi-hope you go to heaven. And you cling on to the plastic, temporal, non-treasure. But when you meet the people who get more and more pearls, you realize it just weighs them down instead of giving them life. Total commitment, surrender is the conduit. It’s the channel through which God’s best and biggest blessings flow.

And so what I want to do in the remainder of our time, I want to define very specifically what total commitment looks like. We are not leading up to some emotional moment. We’re leading up to a wise decision where you’re going to weigh the risk and the logic of saying to God in a few minutes, I surrender all to You. I would sign a blank check made out to You. I would say to You from this day forward, “I’m all in.” I may be a little fearful, but I’m all in.

But in order to do that, what’s it look like? The answer is in Romans chapter 12, verse 1. And after eleven chapters of treasure, of what God has done, of how much He loves you, of His sovereignty, His goodness, His forgiveness, His power, His Spirit living within you, His gifts, all the plans that He has for you. In chapter 12, your response to that is, “Therefore I urge you, brothers, sisters, fellow family members,” the apostle Paul writes, “in view of God’s mercy, offer your bodies a living sacrifice holy and pleasing to God. This is your spiritual act of worship.”

Notice the structure. There’s a command, there’s a motivation, and there’s a reason. I’d like you, if you will, put a box around the word offer. Put a box around living sacrifice. And then, put a little box around the word holy. And then, I want you to put a squiggly line under spiritual act of worship.

The command is to offer your body to God. And this isn’t metaphorical. This is like your physical body: your eyes, your head, your hands, all that you are. And the word offer here is in a tense in the Greek language that’s punctiliar. And what that means is, “on a certain day at a certain time.”

This passage is not explaining how to have your sins forgiven. This passage is not explaining what it means to be in God’s family. Salvation occurs at the end of chapters 3, 4, and right in chapter 5: the work of Christ by grace. You receive the free gift by faith. Chapter 12 is saying, “How do normal Christians follow Jesus out of gratitude?”

And God says – are you ready – “this is what I want. I want you on a certain day, at a certain time, to say to Me, ‘All I am, all I have is Yours.’” That’s what it means to offer.

I will tell you that, tens of thousands of people in America and around the world do not understand the channel through which God’s best and biggest blessings flow.

The power for the Christian life comes in this moment of offering. Now, it requires faith. It requires believing in an invisible treasure that you can’t see.

But it’s a historical, living God who has walked up on the earth and died in your place and rose and sits at the right hand of God and says to you, “There’s an unspeakable treasure;” who for joy says to you, “Let Me give you the best.”