Jim Van Gelderen: Okay, go in your Bibles to Romans chapter number 6, a wonderful chapter of Scripture. I want to approach it here tonight from an angle that might be a help, hopefully be a help. It is wonderful to see you all here, and I certainly have been enjoying getting to knowing some of you.

I know just very briefly, I certainly hope you've enjoyed your time. I know many of you are first-timers, some of course second and third-timers, but it has certainly been a blessing to have you here. And we're excited about what God is doing on the Thee Generation.

Just a couple of days before the conference, we received a text or an email from a young lady in Australia talking about how Thee Generation has impacted her life. I had the privilege of meeting her this summer in the state of Oregon in a family camp, and she took some great steps there, but I introduced her to the Thee Generation, and she gave a testimony that God was using that website there and the truth there to really encourage her in her Christian walk.

And so it's exciting, literally, are young people around the world that are being touched by the generation. And I hope that tonight we'll have an opportunity for you to join. And I'll say a little bit about that a little bit later.

The generation, now it's, when you go on, it doesn't cost you any money. It's just a pledge that you have to sign. I recently had a young man tell me, he said, I read the pledge and he said, I realized I couldn't keep it, so I didn't sign it.

And I realized that I had evidently not articulated it well. Let me just simply say the reason we have the pledge is a couple of reasons. But let me just simply say the pledge is not a promise of perfection.

It's a decision of direction. How many of you have kept every decision you've made? Can I see your hands please?

I doubt anybody raise their hand. Now I want to ask you a question. Were those decisions important?

And the answer is absolutely. They were not promises of perfection. They were declarations of direction.

And that's important because when you make a decision, you're saying, I want things to be different. I really do want things to be different. I do not want to treat my parents the same disrespectful way before I came here.

It's a declaration, I want things to be different. It's dealing with some sin in your life, I want things to be different. I do want to be free.

I don't want to go back to that. And many of you know that you made decisions, and although you may not have kept them in perfection, they have literally have been directional shifts in your life. So the pledge, that's what it is.

It's saying, that's what I want. And basically the pledge is this, I want to be a Bible-believing Christian. That's the pledge.

Now it's more specific than that, but the idea is I want to do whatever God tells me to do. I want to be obedient to His Word. I want to follow Him.

And we do it specifically so you can realize what that means. And I hope you'll read the pledge thoughtfully. And then you can join, and I know it would be a blessing to you.

And I think tonight when they go out there and sign in, I believe that we'll send you, it'll basically send you an email, and then you can read the pledge and sign it later on. But it's an intent. I want to be a part of this.

But we are excited about what the Lord's doing there. So I certainly am thrilled. That's why it's called the Generation Youth Summit.

And Cola Clash Plus, of course, is the theme, and that's sometimes how it's known. But actually, I think we're going to package it next year so that the Generation Youth Summit is highlighted a little bit more because that is the driving force of what we're doing. Our burden is for your generation.

So, tonight we come to our final night. Certainly it's been a blessing to have you here, but as I'm considering, what do the young people need? What is it the Lord would have us deal with tonight?

I want to deal with the subject of surrender, but perhaps from a different angle. Perhaps you've been in the situation where you say, okay, I know I need to surrender, but how do you do that? I mean that kind of seems to be hard.

How do you surrender to the will of God and do what God wants you to do? Because I've tried to do that before and it hasn't worked. Well some of this has already been dealt with, but I want you to go to Romans chapter 6 and I'm going to deal with a passage of Scripture I've preached on.

Perhaps some of you have heard me go through the passage and certainly we will review a lot of what I've said in the past. But I want to start at verse 13 instead of starting at the beginning of the chapter. Because verse number 13 is perhaps that surrender verse.

There's several surrender verses in Romans chapter number 6. But if you look at verse number 13 it says, Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Now in a moment we're going to start there.

What does that verse mean? We'll work backwards because certainly it's a great verse. Down verse number 16 tells you why it's important.

Know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, as servants ye are, to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. It's like this. It's not a matter, sometimes I think young people have the idea, well, I really don't want to surrender to God, and I really don't certainly want to surrender to the devil.

I just want to do what I want to do. Now, let me just simply say that's not an option. See, either you are surrendered to God or surrendered to righteousness, or you are surrendered to unrighteousness, there is no middle ground.

If you say tonight, hey, I'm just not surrendered to God, doesn't mean I'm a rebel. the truth is there is no in-between ground. You are surrendered, obviously, to doing that which is not right.

And the Bible simply says you cannot choose whether you'll have a master or not, but you can choose your master. It can either be sin or it can be righteousness. You cannot choose them both.

Now I realize teenagers today, some teenagers say, well, you know, preacher, I just, I don't know if I can surrender because everybody I know is surrendered is really not cool. Now I got over that a long time ago because I began to realize I'm not cool. I'm just going to live with it.

But I do remember in high school when I tried. You ever tried to be cool? Now, in the 1970s, being cool was really cool.

You know what I'm talking about? I remember I had some pants I thought were the coolest pants. They, I think, were kind of a maroon.

They came down to the knee, and they changed to like a quilt. And there was this quilt substance that had big, huge bell bottles. I thought those things were so cool.

May I simply say this? The cool of today will be mocked tomorrow. Did you know that?

If you don't believe that, get your parents' yearbook out. How many of you have ever gotten your parents' yearbook out and laughed? Okay, okay.

Your kids are going to do the same to you. Think about this. You're all concerned about being cool, and one day everybody will laugh at your cool because it won't be cool anymore.

So why don't you just realize, hey, I'm just not going to be cool, so why worry about it? Okay, because the cool of today will be the uncool of tomorrow. It's amazing how that works.

And for some of us, we just decided, let's just kind of go with the flow. And since I was uncool yesterday, I'll be uncool today, and then I don't have to spend a lot of money to try to stay in style. Sometimes I'll walk up to a teenager and say, boy, I really like that Aeropostale shirt you've got there.

And they kind of smirk and laugh, it's Aeropostale. I said, I know, I'm just acting like I didn't. But the point I'm making, friends, is sometimes young people today are far more concerned about being accepted by their peers.

We talked about this a little bit this afternoon, rather than being surrendered to God. So I want us just to take a moment, how do you surrender to God? Because this passage of Scripture does tell you.

And when you understand how to surrender to God, I think you'll see that it's remarkable, the truth that God has given. Now, verse number 13, I'm going to just give you a little grammatical point. I hate to throw out the word grammar, because when teenagers hear the word grammar, You know what they do?

Check out. You know what I'm talking about? You can see the pillows coming out.

Not literally, but figuratively. But there's a grammatical point here that is phenomenal. This is what they call in the Greek language the present tense with the negative.

And for all of you Greek students out there, I know you know what that means. It simply is ordering the cessation of an action. So when God says, neither yield ye your members of instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, what he's saying is, stop yielding your body, your body parts, your members, instruments of unrighteousness unto sin.

Stop it. That's what he's saying. He's ordering a cessation of action.

In other words, the people he addressed, the Romans, were doing that. They were yielding their members, which are body parts. They were yielding their bodies to sinful activities to be members of unrighteousness unto sin.

And so God's saying, stop it. Now you say, okay, how do you do that? Well, if you look back at the passage, I want to see just a note, a couple of things.

It says, neither yield you your members of instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, and here's a key statement, as those that are alive from the dead. Now I need to stop at this particular point, young person, because the very first thing you need to do in order to yield is you must know some very important facts. Now if you go back to the beginning of the passage, know what it says in verse number 3.

It says, know ye not. Look at verse number 6. It says, knowing this.

Look at verse number 9. It says, knowing that. Do you get an idea that God wants you to know something?

Now, please hear me and understand this. Knowledge is not everything. Certainly, you can know the gospel and die lost and go to hell.

Knowing the gospel is not enough, but I will tell you this. You cannot get saved until you know the gospel. See, it's not everything, but it is important.

It's foundational. So, knowledge is important. It's important to know the right facts.

Certainly, in life, even those of you that are younger, There's times you've made a decision that you regret. Why? You didn't know all the facts.

You'd have made a different decision if you'd known all the facts. I remember years ago, my dad was preaching some kind of Bible conference for a preacher boy of his who had gotten out and got in his own church and invited my dad to come. And we were having a family vacation.

It made that a part of it. And so my dad was preaching every night. And the family had a lot of kids.

So many kids, I don't remember how many kids they had. Okay? And they had a lot of kids.

And there were four of us. My older brother, pastor, was working his way through college at the time, so he wasn't with us. And I remember we were up in this kind of the second story of this parsonage.

It was kind of unfinished. A lot of the kids lived up there, and they had kind of little makeshift walls, and there were beds and bookcases and whatever. And it was kind of a wooden floor, just literally four by eights, been nailed to the floor, kind of like a half attic, half, you know, a half second story.

And we were up there having a good old time, and it got louder and louder, and pretty soon this old cowboy preacher yelled up the stairs. He said, you better shut up or I'm coming up there. Now evidently his kids knew what that meant.

You know why? Because it was like this. Absolute total silence.

Well you know how kids are. They get amnesia. Did you know that?

And it wasn't long before the noise level got a little bit louder, a little bit louder, a little bit louder. Pretty soon there was no warning. All we heard were cowboy boots coming up those wooden stairs.

I have never seen kids disappear faster in my life. It was literally like they had practiced. I'm telling you the honest truth.

It was like a fire drill. I mean, into trunks, under beds, in barrels. It's like they knew where to go.

They just disappeared. That dad comes up the stairs, and at that point, I'm really glad my last name's different. You know what I'm talking about?

I'm hoping I've got diplomatic immunity. You know, that's what I'm hoping for. That old cowboy preacher came up, looked around.

It's not like he didn't even see me. I wasn't one of his. He looks around, he only sees one kid, a kid that was sleeping, and I will tell you, he slept the entire time, he had nothing to do with nothing.

I'm telling you the honest truth. He sees that kid, he didn't ask any questions, he pulls that poor kid out of the bed in one motion. He pulls his belt off, pulls that kid out, it's like in slow motion, and boom, he starts to give it to that poor kid.

I didn't know what to say, I was just stunned. He gave him a few licks, dropped them, the kid fell back in the bed, went back to sleep. I don't know.

Probably thought he had a nightmare. I don't know. And I will tell you that day, I never said anything to that cowboy preacher.

I probably should. He comes to the conference and I probably should so he can come and get right about it. But you know, he didn't have all the facts.

He didn't know everything. I think he made a bad decision. I'm sure his son probably forgave him because you know how it is.

Your dad probably said the same thing. That just makes up for the times I missed. You know I'm talking about your dad ever said that?

Okay so but anyway you got to know the right facts young people. You got to know the right facts. Now I want you to understand why surrender is unbelievable because it's based on a set of facts.

Now let's read the facts. Look at verse number three. Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death.

Now let's stop for a moment. The word baptized means immerse. Okay I think most of you agree with that.

The word baptized means immersed. And what the Bible is simply saying is when you got saved, you were taken and God immersed you into Jesus. I like to use the analogy of a sponge.

When you take a sponge and put it in the water, I'm going to ask you a very simple question. Is the water in the sponge or the sponge in the water? And the answer is clear.

It is both. When a man gets saved, is Jesus in the Christian or is the Christian in Jesus? And this is now telling you, you were put into Jesus.

Now friend, if you're saved in a very real spiritual sense, you are in Christ. Which simply means this passage says, his history has become yours. You were literally immersed into his death.

So that when Jesus died, you did too. So that when Jesus was buried, you were as well. And when he was resurrected, you were resurrected.

Now this is key to surrender. Now look at verse number four. It says, therefore, based on this immersion, this baptism, this union, therefore we are buried with Him by baptism, by this immersion into death.

Let like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. Now that simply means, friends, you and I are in a very real sense, His history has become ours, so we're in union with His death and His resurrection.

Now in this passage of Scripture, there is two, and again, I hate to get technical, but that there's power in what the Word of God says here, there are two times the subjunctive mood is used. Now, the subjunctive mood, just keep it simple, is the mood of possibility. And the last, there's only two in the passage, and the last phrase of verse number four is the first subjunctive.

It says there that you might walk in newness of life. Okay, now go back to verse number 13 and notice that phrase, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead. Now that is a key phrase in understanding surrender.

So it's like this, friend. When you and I got saved, we're immersed into Jesus. So that when he died, we died.

When he was resurrected, we were resurrected. Which means, friends, tonight, you are in the resurrected Jesus Christ. The resurrected Jesus Christ is in you.

Which means every teenager in this room that's saved has the glorious possibility of walking on this sin-cursed planet, enabled, energized, animated by Resurrection Life, capital R, capital L. In other words, Jesus lives in you. He is the resurrected life.

And God says when you yield yourselves, don't yield yourselves as you. Yield yourselves believing that you are in the resurrected Jesus. Because the key to surrendered living is not you, it's him.

It's his resurrected life. So first of all, understanding, you don't have to feel this right now. You just need to know that you're in Jesus, dead to sin in Jesus, alive in the God in Jesus, and it brings the possibility you can walk on this planet in newness of life.

There can be a difference in your life because you're in union with Him who is life. Now there's a second possibility found in verse number 6. Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed.

That's that subjunctive mood again. The body of sin might be destroyed. Now, good people disagree on what the word body means.

Some believe, in fact, most scholars would believe it's the human body. I personally take it more that body like we use a body of truth. So body of sin would simply mean every sin out there.

That whole grouping of what we call sin, that the body of sin might be destroyed. Now, the word destroyed can have nuances of meaning, and they're different. For instance, let's imagine you drove to church tonight.

I realize perhaps some of our own teens did. And let's imagine afterwards one of the ushers comes up to you and says, hey, I don't know what happened, but I think we had some teens get in the parking lot and they destroyed your car. You'd probably envision some kid taking a stick of dynamite, lighting it, throwing it up your tailpipe, and turning your car into spare parts.

You know what I'm talking about? But what if they simply came in with some tree cutters and they simply cut your battery cables? They have not obliterated your car, but they have destroyed, notice the word, its ability to operate.

The word here is not destroy in the sense of obliterate, it's destroy in the sense of render ineffective, or destroy its ability to operate. So what God is simply saying is when you died in Christ, and when you were resurrected in Christ, it presented you a brand new possibility that no sin out there has to be effective in your life.

it's been rendered inoperative now let me use an illustration to help let's imagine you live before the civil war imagine you were a slave in civil war time and slavery certainly has existed in other times but that's the one we're most familiar with imagine you have a cruel task master I really want you to think about this imagine you work seven days a week 14 hours a day no relief imagine there's unkindness you're beaten routinely and pretty soon you despair in the master slave relationship

you despair.

I cannot go on. There's only two ways out of that relationship. Number one, to get a new master.

For maybe the master to die or for him to sell you and hopefully you'll get a better master. That would be one way. The second way would be out would be for you to die.

Because the moment you died, your slave master would have no more power or authority over you. Have you ever tried to boss around dead people? If you ever haven't, let me encourage you, go down to the local funeral home, pull out, pack some heat.

And of course, you may not be able to do that here in the city, but Iowa, I'm sure they pack a bunch of heat down there. And you can go into the funeral home and pull out your revolver and start threatening corpses. Buddy, if you don't sit up, I'm going to load you full of lead.

You know, I don't care what you say. I don't know how intimidating you are. I don't say, no matter what you do, you will have no power over that corpse.

You know why? He's dead. And when there's death, friends, the master loses his power.

He loses his authority. Now, before you got saved, you had a terrible master. His name was sin.

He was out to do one thing, take you and throw you into hell. And don't miss this. When you got saved, your master's sin didn't die.

You did. And when he died, when you died, excuse me, he lost his authority over you. Can I put it this way?

Sin's not your boss anymore. And the Bible says this truth means that the body of sin, every sin out there, has been rendered ineffective. It has been destroyed in the sense that his authority, his power over you has been destroyed.

Now, if you ever notice this once you get saved, your old master's sin still tries to boss you around. Have you ever noticed that?

every teenager out here says oh wait a second preacher my sin my master's sin he's still bossing me around okay no there's a different picture let's use let's bring it to 2017 let's imagine you get out of high school you get a job and we're just imagining and and it's not a good job and your boss is mean and and constantly rails on you and never compliments you you work hard and and somebody else gets their credit pretty soon you say I'm done I'm out

of here so you go resign you get yourself another job,

and two weeks later, you walk off the job excited about, I'm out of here, this is done, you check out for the last time.

You go down to your new job, love it, you're there about three or four weeks. And unbeknownst to you, your former boss is just pining away. That old former boss found so much satisfaction and fulfillment in making your life miserable, and you're not there anymore.

So about three weeks later, he just can't stand any longer. Middle of the night, he picks up the phone. Hey, buddy, get in here on the double.

I need you in here right now. Now, what would you think if you got dressed and went into your old, you say, no way, preacher. I don't have to do that anymore.

He's not my boss anymore. That is exactly what Jesus is trying to say to every one of you. So why do you listen to lust anymore?

He's not your boss anymore. So why do you listen to disrespecting your parents? Disrespecting your parents isn't your boss anymore.

You're dead in Jesus. He's lost his authority. Oh, he's trying to boss you around.

He wants you to think you have to obey him, but you don't. His authority, his power has been taken away. You don't have to listen to anger anymore.

You don't have to listen to frustration anymore. You don't have to listen to lying and cheating and covering your sin anymore. You see, young person, you've got to know the facts.

Surrender is based on facts. And it's based on the fact that in Jesus, you died and sin lost its power over you. So you've got to know the right facts.

So the two possibilities are sin, the old master, has been rendered powerless or rendered he's lost his authoritative power over you. And the second truth is the resurrected Jesus is in me. I'm in the resurrected Jesus, which means I can now walk on this planet enabled to live a new life, live a newness of life.

It's genuinely real. You ought to hear me. I'll be out here and say, preacher, I've been a pretty defeated Christian most of my life.

Well, you may be, but the truth is, the Bible says you're in Jesus, you're dead to sin in Jesus, and alive in the God in Jesus. That's reality. You've been living in deception.

Now that brings us to a second thought. Okay, you say, preacher, I think I'm starting to see it. You've got to know the right facts, and you do.

But you not only have to know the right facts, don't miss this, you have to agree with them. Look at verse number 11. Again, we're taking a rocket ride through.

It says, likewise reckon ye all yourselves to be dead indeed into sin, but alive in the God through Jesus Christ our Lord. The word reckon is an interesting word. Only the folks from Tennessee will really know what its definition is.

But the point is, it really is an accounting term. That's what it is. And I don't know about you, have you ever noticed that accounting does not involve your emotions?

Do you know that? Now back in the olden days, we used to go to the bank to do our banking business. Doesn't that sound really neat?

In fact, I still go to the bank. You say, why? There's free cookies.

Why else wouldn't you go to the bank? I mean, good grief. Okay, so here it is.

You go down to the bank, and you got your checkbook. You know how it is. You probably don't know how it is.

Okay, ask your mom or dad. Okay, so we used to go down there with the checkbook, and we have our $500. We just save $500.

You know, we have our paycheck, and we write out our little thing, you know, deposit. you know, you're saving money for college or whatever, and you put your $500, and you put it in there, the teller goes ding, ding, ding, ding, and then she puts out a deposit slip, and you open up your checkbook, there's a little column that says deposit, you write down the date, you write down deposit, and in that column you would write, please tell me, $500.

Now you could write $5,000, you know what that's called? Wishful thinking, that's what it's called. But it's not going to change anything.

In fact, you could be there and get that deposit slip and say, oh man, I've had a terrible day. I've got a migraine headache. I mean, I've got a test coming.

Man, I just don't feel like 500 bucks just went in my bank account. You know, it really doesn't matter how you feel. You see, accounting has nothing to do with how you feel.

It has nothing to do with your emotions. It has everything to do with what is. So you would write down $500.

Now friends, that's what God is saying. Open up the ledger of life and write down dead to sin in Jesus. Alive unto God in Jesus.

See, it's like this, friends. You may feel very alive unto sin. But the Bible is simply saying, account it to be true.

Why? Because it is. Now understand, you're not dead to sin in and of yourself.

You're dead to sin because you're in union with him who is dead to sin. And you're not alive unto God in and of yourself. You're alive unto God because you're in union with him who is alive unto God.

Are you getting it? You've got to agree with the right facts. Now here's the problem.

We have an enemy who is very effective at weaving deception around us. Now don't get me wrong, Satan has power, and he certainly has more power than any of us in this room. But I'm convinced Satan does not near the power that you think he does.

You say, why do you say that? Because in Isaiah 14 it says when he's cast into hell, people are going to look at him and say this, is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms? People are going to say, that's the devil?

Now he has more power than us, but his great power, don't miss this, is his ability to deceive. He weaves around you temptation so you feel like, I've just got to sin. And young person, may I say it, it's a lie.

He weaves around you, I've just got to get angry, or I've just got to be disrespectful, or I've just got to lust, or I've just got to fill in the blank. But you know, when he weaves that around you, it's actually deception. It's a lie.

Now let me prove it. How many of you out here have ever been discouraged? Would you raise your hand?

That's most everybody. A few people didn't. If we had another message, we preached on lying.

Okay, but anyway, everybody's been discouraged. Do you know what discouragement is? A lie.

When you're discouraged, I want to ask you a question. Is God about you? And the answer is, no, God's not up in heaven wringing his hands thinking, oh, this one's got out of hand.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm not trying to be irreverent, but God's clearly not doing that. God's up in heaven and says, okay, he's got it all worked out.

So what is discouragement? It's a lie. Satan weaves around your perimeter, around the external circumstances of your life, a lie.

And you get discouraged, and when you do, it is unbelief. And you have given in to a master that's not your master. It's that old boss calling you up in the middle of the night, get in here.

you wonder why do you get dressed and go in he's not your boss anymore see so um perhaps this illustration will help that was several years ago now I'm guessing I mean Stephanie was I think six and Jana four so that you do the math that's a long time ago and um there was a group of folks going down to the Milwaukee Museum and going to watch one of the IMAX presentations on flight I'd never been before and I took the girls,

we kind of made it a date and I don't even know if they remember this but we went down there and the IMAX of course in Milwaukee, most of the folks from here know what it is,

it's like an eggshell other places I understand it's more like a screen but it's like an eggshell which means it's very immersive you're looking around you and there's screen everywhere and so it's very sensory and since it was on flight they had taken cameras and they had slapped them on the bottom of Blue Angel jets. So you literally felt like you were in the cockpit of a Blue Angels jet. I mean, you felt like Superman.

You're flying through the air. That's how you felt because you couldn't even always see the plane. It was just on the bottom of the plane.

So it was very sensory. So sensory at the end of the presentation, I remember as we walked out, my two girls told me later they saw teenage boys at the garbage can losing lunch. Now, do you know why those guys were losing lunch?

I'm going to tell you why they're losing lunch. because they believed a lie. They weren't spinning around.

They believed in illusion. And it upset them so much, they literally lost lunch. Okay, you say, preacher, what about you?

Well, I had a similar experience. I'm sitting up there. Now, you know, I'm going to be honest with you.

I don't normally have conversations with myself, but I do have a theory. I believe every person is compartmentally insane. I believe that.

We all got our compartment. You know what I'm talking about? And sometimes your wife's the only one that sees it.

Okay, but anyway. So I don't normally talk to myself, but I did have thought processes. And without doing damage to the truth, I'm going to turn them into a conversation.

So I'm sitting there, and I don't know the Blue Angel. You know how Blue Angel jets go up sometimes, and they stop, and then they free-for-all. I mean, it was very sensory, and something like that was going on.

And it was like my stomach said, hey, I'm in trouble. And my brain responds to my stomach and says, listen, we are seated completely still. This is not moving.

This is an illusion. It's a screen. So really, stomach, you don't need to be worried about it.

And my stomach said to my brain, I don't care what you say. I'm in trouble. And the guy in front of you is going to be in real trouble if you don't do something.

So my brain says to my stomach, hey, stomach, I'm going to prove to you that we're seated completely still. So my brain takes my eyes off the screen and puts them right on the seats next to me.

it's like my stomach said hey we're seated completely still my brain says yeah I told you that and so then my brain says you doing alright because I don't want to miss this thing I paid good money for this thing and so the brain goes puts it back and now the ground is spinning you know like this I mean we're going toward the ground and my stomach says you know we're in trouble again and my brain says not arguing with you this time took my

eyes put them back on the seats I did that several times every time I took my eyes off the illusion and put it on the seats you know what I was doing?

I was reckoning you know what I was doing? I was rejecting the illusion and accepting reality next time you're tempted young person here's how you yield, Jesus I'm in you, that means I'm dead to sin sin's lost its power over me, he's not my boss I'm in you, which means you're in me and your resurrected life is my life and I can depend on you,

I can do all things through Christ and in just a moment you'll see you take a step of obedience instead of a step of disobedience expecting to intervene and enable but it starts with agreeing with the facts every time you and I sin we buy into the illusion and we reject reality and I'm telling you friend there's not a Christian in this room you say well preacher you don't understand my problem I'm telling you based on the Romans chapter 6 there's not a Christian in

this room that has to obey sin comes knocking.

By the way, there's another verse that says something like, every temptation, there's a way of escape. You believe that verse? That's what Romans 6 is talking about.

It's the way of escape. So you've got to agree with the facts. Now you might be out here and say, well, you know, are you saying, preacher, that when we reckon, it makes it real?

No, it's real before you reckon. But the reality does not benefit you if you don't believe it. It'd be like this.

Let's imagine you went to the Chicago Botanical Gardens or something like that. It was recently there, and it is a beautiful place. You go to some botanical gardens, and you have your eyes closed.

And you're going around in some tour group, and they're telling about this and this, and people are snapping pictures, and people are oohing and aahing, and your eyes are closed. You're thinking, man, this is an oversell. There's nothing here.

This is boring. Well, the problem is not with the garden, because the garden is real and it's beautiful. What's the problem?

And the problem is clearly you've got your eyes closed. So how do you solve the problem? The answer is you open your eyes.

And when you open your eyes, you don't make it real. You now are being able to benefit by the beauty of that which was always real. Are you tracking with me?

Most Christians are going around their Christian life with their eyes closed. So when some Christian gets up and says, isn't Jesus wonderful? Isn't it great to be saved?

Isn't it wonderful to be used of God? They're kind of thinking, ah, that might be a little oversell. Oh, no, it's not oversell.

The problem is not with the Christian walking with God. The problem is you've got your eyes closed. And when you open your eyes, you're reckoning.

You're accepting what is. That's what reckoning means. So we're learning a little bit about surrender.

You've got to know the right facts. You've got to agree with them. But then there is an action statement.

Look in verse number 12. We're almost to our text, verse 13. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that she should obey it in the lust thereof.

Now this again is the same grammatical phenomenon of the present tense with the negative. And so what this is basically saying is, it's ordering a cessation of action based on everything we just learned. Notice the little word therefore?

If you can take verses 1 all the way through verse 11 and stuff them into the therefore, that's exactly what you ought to do. So what God is saying is this to every young person in this room, based on what we've just learned, stop letting sin boss you around. Stop it.

Stop letting lust call the shots in your life. Lust isn't your boss anymore. God is saying, stop letting anger rule you.

Stop it. Stop letting frustration call the shots in your life. Stop it.

He's not your king anymore. You can fill in the bank, friends, but I'm telling you, friend, what God is trying, and I always feel very insufficient on verse number 12, trying to illustrate to you what God is trying to say. He is getting in our faces, and he is saying, listen, don't you get it?

Stop it. Sin is not your boss anymore. Listen, young man, you don't have to have a dirty brain.

You don't have to be defeated in what you look at. You do not have to listen to lust. You do not have to watch the latest movie that compromises your conscience and grieves the Holy Spirit.

You don't have to do that anymore. Sin is not your boss anymore. And see, the great thing, friends, understanding this, it's not just dead to sin, it's alive unto God.

See, some of you say, oh yeah, preacher, there you are. I can't do this, can't do that. Have you ever thought about the fact that sometimes when you have a relationship with someone you dearly love, what you can't do is really not a big deal?

For instance, one day I'm sure most of you young people in this room hope that you will be married. And when you come to the marriage altar, something really negative happens. I mean, it's unbelievably negative.

It's so negative, it amazes me that most people don't even complain about it. But you're going to come to the front, and you're going to have vows, and the preacher's going to ask you, young man, to repeat after him. And he's going to say this, forsaking all others.

Now, what would you think of this young lady? Here's your groom. He's standing there.

The preacher's doing the vows, and your husband-to-be. Forsaking all others. He's supposed to repeat it.

And he looks up and says, hey, preach, you mean I've got to forsake all the girls in the world just for this one? You think you might have a problem with that? That groom would be eating roses.

You know what I'm talking about? That thing might be over. Listen, young man, when I came to the wedding altar, when I said forsaking all others, I didn't think it was negative at all.

I wanted to forsake all others for the one and every young lady out here you get that and so do you guys you get that you don't think oh that's negative if you think not watching garbage that grieves the Holy Spirit is negative you don't understand how to have a relationship with Jesus Christ because I will tell you friends forsaking garbage so you can have Jesus the garbage that's exactly what it is garbage who needs garbage when you can have T-bone steaks. You with me?

And some of you kids out here are so affixiated, well, I'm going to have to give up this, or I'm going to have to give up this, or I'm going to have to give up this. Listen, friends, what God wants you to understand, what this passage is preaching is not negative, it's positive. It's saying you don't have to let sin boss you around and destroy your life anymore.

Jesus will have a relationship. You can be alive unto God. In other words, God's real to you, and you have a relationship with God.

You have to understand that. It's all about God. knowing him, loving him, and having that relationship that it just surpasses all others.

So that's what the passage is telling us here. Stop letting sin call the shots in your life. And then it comes to verse 13.

We'll come back where we started. It says, Neither yield you your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. Now remember again, the yielding has everything to do with our union with a resurrected Christ.

I can do all things with Christ. Listen friends, as I mentioned this afternoon, everything God is calling you to do, He will enable you to do. Faithful is He that calleth you who also will do it.

Listen, I am talking to young people in this room, if you will follow Jesus and you will follow His call on His life, on your life, and you will depend on Him to enable you to do what He calls you to do, I'm looking at young people that are going to see absolute miracles in reaching people.

And I look back in my life and I realize just as Brother Balzer said, I certainly, and Brother Gilmore said, I certainly have not lived the Christian life perfectly and there certainly are regrets of times I should have obeyed the Lord when I didn't. But I look back at very key times when I did obey the Lord. I remember my freshman year coming home from college and God began to burn something in my heart.

It was for teenagers.

and it was like the Lord said I want you to go out and I want you just to witness the teenagers now I was a Christian school kid I didn't hang around public school kids when I was growing up it was the 1960s I thought a public school kid was going to take a needle and try to shove it in you you know and turn you into a drug addict you know that's that's how you had this envision you know you feared them you know

it was overkill clearly and I remember God burdening my heart go out there and talk to him and I'll never forget that first night I left the house walked down the block and two boys Lenny Orlando,

Tony Prasha still don't remember their names I just started talking to them and involved them in the gospel conversation, gave the gospel, they didn't get saved but I got their names down saw them several other times, not many of the people I talked to got saved, I didn't understand what I understand now, but I will tell you friend, I may not have helped them but I know they helped me God began to give me a burden to reach teenagers,

and I would not be here tonight friend, if I had not taken those steps of obedience, almost every night of that summer I was not in church, I was down on the streets trying to witness the teenagers give them the gospel.

It absolutely transformed my life. And I will tell you, friend, from that point on, you know where I learned to preach to teenagers? I learned to preach to teenagers with 10, 20 teenagers gathered around me mocking, making fun, throwing things, not throwing things, but throwing literally words at you and trying to, what about this, mocking God.

And I remember talking to groups like that and absolutely loving it.

the rougher the group the more I loved it in fact you guys are way too tame I like rough groups it's just it was remarkable you know if I had not taken that step my freshman year I don't think I'd be here tonight you see God has a will for your life but you got to get out of the boat and friends understand we want to make this very clear what we're talking about is a total dependence on supernatural strength to enable you to do

what you can never do unless God enabled you to do it.

Sure, you have physical strength. When the Bible talks about strength, it's not talking often about physical strength. When it says, I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me, it's not talking about physical strength.

It's talking about His strength, which is spiritual, supernatural. Do you know how much spiritual, supernatural strength you have, teenager? Do you know how much you have without Jesus?

Do you know how much spiritual strength you have without Jesus? And the answer is, you don't have any. and if you really understand it, that ought to thrill you because his strength is made perfect.

Anybody know? That word weakness, if you look at it, is the complete absence of strength. It's clearly, I believe, talking about spiritual strength.

His strength is made perfect when we embrace our spiritual bankruptcy and says, God, it's not that I have a little bit of strength. I don't have any strength spiritually, but you have more than enough. And young person, when you follow Jesus and you get out of the boat and you begin to obey the Lord Jesus, he will enable you to do what you could never do unless he enabled you to do it.

And I'm talking to young people that will go to unreached people groups and I'm talking to some of you who are going to preach and see people saved like nobody's business. And I'm just telling you, young person, it only come when you realize I can't in my own strength. But Jesus lives in me.

He's got all the strength I need and I'm going to obey him and dependence upon him. That's yielding as those that are alive from the debt. Believing that you're in union with a resurrected Savior who has spiritual resurrection life that you don't have in and of yourself.

So that's the yielding. Now you say, okay, preacher, what does it look like? Well, notice it says, stop yielding your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin and start yielding your members, I'm just putting contrast here, as instruments of righteousness unto God.

Now the word members is simply body parts. Did you know you can't sin without body parts? Think about it.

Do you know there are certain people who get certain disabilities and they can't sin. Do you know blind people, there are certain things they can't do? Do you know blind people can't watch things they shouldn't?

Did you know that? Did you know that deaf people can't listen to the wrong kind of music? Did you know that?

There are certain sins. In fact, every sin takes body parts. You say, preacher, what about worry?

Well, that takes a brain.

which all the blonde people don't have to worry about but no I'm just teasing I didn't say that I didn't say that okay I love to make blonde jokes you know why because they're sitting there thinking what did he just say I don't they didn't get they never get them they never get them so you don't have to worry about it okay and of course being blonde you can make jokes because you're joking about yourself but okay and I will say this because it really

is true blonde is not a hair color it's a state of the mind or the lack of it okay but anyway okay but we said it we're moving along.

But it takes body parts. It does. It takes body parts to sin.

And here's what God is saying. Take the same body parts you used to yield towards sinful activity and take those same body parts based on the truth we've just learned and yield them to righteousness. Now let me just give you a practical illustration.

Most of you are teenagers so you may not, your mother may not do this to you but certainly one day your wife will and you're off somewhere my wife will call me or text me and say, stop by the store and get bread, milk, and eggs. I'm going to ask you ladies this. Why is it always bread, milk, and eggs?

That's so boring. You know what I'm talking about? So one of being a good husband or one of being a good son, you stop by the grocery store.

And of course, oh, I get the bread. I get the milk. I get the eggs.

And I get the half-calon ice cream. You know what I'm talking about? My wife says, I didn't ask for ice cream.

I don't know. How'd that get in there? I'm not sure.

It was on sale. That's the line my wife uses on me. Okay, but anyway.

so you're there to try to be a blessing and of course you're there are all good motives and you come to the checkout line and you're about to check out the groceries you didn't come there for any wrong reason but all of a sudden there's a picture that catches your eye you never came there for it and when that happens young person and even adults you're at a crisis because you're going to yield you will either yield to purity or you will yield to impurity

but somebody's going to win and somebody's going to lose.

Are you tracking one thing? So at that moment, you look away. Hopefully you've trained yourself to look immediately away.

And at that moment, you're in a crisis. In the olden days, what you would have done is felt like, well, I'm just lost over. And you obey sin.

You take neck muscles, you take eyes, and you look at something you shouldn't. You take your brain and meditate on the filth and that's what happens in sin. I'm trying to be careful and appropriate here.

so the same thing occurs you say wait a second lust isn't my boss anymore I'm dead to sin in Jesus I'm alive in the God in Jesus so here's what I'm going to do I'm going to take those same body parts but I'm going to yield them to purity so you take those same neck muscles and you look up at the store and you say well there's a light out over there there's some cobwebs they don't do a very good job of cleaning the ceiling

and you look up I had one guy say well preacher I don't look up I look down I know all about the tile okay that'll work that'll work But then you take your eyes,

look somewhere else, and then you take your mind, which is the key, and you meditate on purity.

You say, preacher, how do you meditate on purity? Proverbs 30, verse 5. Every word of God is pure.

Some of you young people need to memorize just loads of verses. You've got a problem with wrong thoughts, memorize Proverbs 5. Memorize the last part of chapter 6.

Memorize Proverbs chapter 7, because it gives you the lie of pornography. Great chapter.

you begin to meditate on purity you see that's the idea so God there's many things we can give one other illustration let's imagine you have a younger how many have a younger sibling brother or sister and I won't ask you a question if they drive you up a wall but anyway so you have that younger brother or sister and they've got you down they know how to hit the buttons pull the lever and watch you explode and it's so predictable they do it for entertainment

you know what I'm talking about they got your number.

So here you are, you come back from the Thee Generation Youth Summit, and they're just waiting for you, man. They've missed the volcano. And so, you know, pretty soon they're doing their irritating thing over here, and they're irritating over the thing, you know, over here, doing what they do, hit the button, hit the other button, and down comes the lever.

And they're waiting for the explosion, and you're going, wait a sec, wait a sec, wait a sec. Anger's not my boss anymore. Could I put it this way?

Grievous words aren't my boss anymore. Because before you would take body parts, tongue, mouth, and you'd frame some grievous words and boy, if I'm there, you'd be into it. And it stirrups up anger.

And boy, pretty soon you might even be on a wrestling match, which goes to fist flying, which goes to whatever. We'll leave it there. Now my point simply is, at that moment you say, wait a second, anger's not my boss anymore.

I'm dead to sin in Jesus. I'm alive unto God in Jesus. Now wait a second.

So I'm going to yield those same body parts to a soft answer. And you look at that young brother, I love you. You're just so great, I love you.

I don't know what will happen at that point, but… My point simply is this, friends, is what God is simply saying, stop yielding your body parts unto that which is sinful, start yielding those same members to that which is righteous, believing that you're alive from the dead in the resurrected Jesus. And that reality means, friends, that He can enable you to have victory.

I'm talking to young men in here and say, I can't preach, preacher. I can't preach. But the resurrected Jesus can preach.

You say, preacher, I'm not good at foreign language. I think God's called me, British and Fili. I'm just not good at it.

God can enable you. Read the biography of Jonathan Goforth and find out what God did for him. God can do whatever God calls you to do, He can enable you to do.

but you will never see it happen if you don't get out of the boat. That's the only people who walk on water. And you will never see Jesus do the supernatural in your life until you yield to Him.

And the idea here of yield, by the way, friend, is the same word found in Romans 12 and verse number 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye… Same word.

It has the idea not just of passivity yielding, it has the idea of presenting. It would be like this. In a war, you become a POW, but instead of going into a POW camp, you change uniforms and you join the opposing army.

So the idea is you're here fighting for the devil, you yield to Almighty God, but you don't go to God's POW camp, you change uniforms to God's side, and you present yourself as a soldier of Jesus Christ. Get the picture? That's the idea of that word yield, yield, present.

And I will tell you what God's waiting for a young person here. It doesn't matter how much garbage has been in your life. It doesn't matter how defeated you've been.

It does not matter the problems you've had in the past. Certainly those things you need to deal with as we've been talking about. The point is, Jesus can change you.

But it comes when you know the right facts, you agree with the right facts, and then you yield yourself and present based on those facts. You see, like this young person, when I was growing up, I got the wrong idea. It certainly didn't come from my father.

I know preached it right. But I just got the idea, if I did certain things, I would be a good Christian. And although there may be some element of truth in that, the emphasis of the Bible is not so much do and you'll be.

The emphasis of the Bible is because you are do. This is who you are in Jesus Christ. You are dead to sin.

You are alive unto God. Believe it. Reckon it so and then act on it.

Whether it's gospel giving, whether it's getting right with your parents, whether it's witnessing to a next door neighbor, whatever it might be. Watch God work. I remember in 2007, there was a preacher's kid I'd met along the way who contacted me, and I wouldn't do this very often, but he said, I'd really like to travel with you for a week.

And I want to do it my senior year. I think it was his year. So I talked to his dad, and we felt the Lord was in it.

So he joined us for just a week. I don't remember if it was that week or he came to some of the conferences here, but he heard the truth of Romans chapter 6 presented, and he told me later, that truth changed my life. He had struggles in relationship with one of his parents and a lot of issues in his life which would have seemed to bring disaster, but he got a hold of Romans chapter 6.

He's just entered the field of evangelism, and it's just a joy to get his reports just tearing it up. You know what I began to think? That's what happens when people get a hold of Romans chapter 6.

He's no exception, friends. He's the rule. You live Romans chapter 6, God will do something in your life too.

So friends, you ready to yield to the lover of your soul, the one who loves you? Are you willing to forsake all others so you can be his and he can be yours? Live a life of total surrender to Jesus Christ and total dependence on His power to do what He wants you to do.

Could I ask every head bowed please and every eye closed?