Choosing to Say “Yes, Lord”

Dannah Gresh: According to Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, we all face an important decision.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Trust or tyranny? That's the option. Trust the promises of God, which will free you to live joyfully under His loving lordship or live under the tyranny of that which you refuse to surrender.

Dannah: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Surrender: The Heart God Controls, for Friday, June 3, 2022. I'm Dannah Gresh.

This week we've been hearing about the joy that comes from surrendering ourselves to God. We've seen how God will provide in four areas in which we tend to fear: provision, pleasure, safety, and relationships. Today we'll hear about what happens when we don't give ourselves to God. Here's Nancy.

Nancy: I think one of the biggest challenges on the front end of surrendering everything to God is not knowing what it's going to mean. What is God going to require? What is He going to ask for?

I can just imagine Abraham and Sarah, who had so little to go on. They didn't have Bible stories that they could read to tell them how it would turn out if they trusted God. They couldn't read the end of the story, and we can't read the end of our story.

Sometimes on the frontend, particularly when we are younger in our walk with the Lord, and particularly for younger people, we think, My whole life is ahead of me. If I give it over to God, what is that going to mean?

What we really would like to have is a detailed contract that God would give us. We want to be able to read small print. We want to know what's ahead. Will He let me get married? Will He let me have children? Will I be healthy? Will I be able to buy the things that I want? Will I live in a place that I like? Then we can decide whether or not to sign the contract.

I'm here to tell you that's not the way God does it. If it were, there would be no faith involved, would there? What God does instead is hands us a blank piece of paper, so to speak, and says, "Now I want you to sign on the bottom here, then give it back to Me and let me fill in the details." And you think, Oh, I want to read it first! I want to know first! What's it going to involve?

We think we could sign it if we would just know what was going to be ahead. And God says, "No, that's not the way we're going to do it. I want you to know Me and trust Me to the extent that you just sign the blank piece of paper and let me fill in the details." Knowing that the details He fills in will be far better, though probably be very different than the way we would have written the script for our own lives.

As I read through the history of the church, I've been so challenged and encouraged in my own faith by the writings of those who signed this blank piece of paper, so to speak. Those who have signed their future to the Lord. I think of one French believer in the late 1800s who wrote,

Father, I abandon my self into Your hands. Do with me what you will. Whatever You may do, I thank You. [That's faith,thanking God in advance.] I'm ready for all. I accept all, only let Your will be done in me and in all Your creatures. I wish no more than this, Oh Lord. 

That's the heart of full surrender.

The heart of the matter for every child of God when it comes down to this full surrender is, Do we trust Him? Do we trust the One who is saying, "Let Me have My way in your life." Do we trust the One who controls the universe, who created the universe, who holds it together by the word of His power? Do we trust Him to manage our lives? Do we believe that He loves us? Do we believe that He has our best interest at heart? Do we believe that He would never do anything but what is best for us?

What if we don't trust God in that way? What if we hold on? What if we don't let go? What if we try to run and manage our own lives?

Well a couple things: first of all, we're going to become useless and spiritually barren.  We're going to shrivel up. That thing that we thought would bring us happiness and peace, which is hanging on to our own lives, is actually going to destroy us. That's why Jesus said in John 12, "Truly, I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone" (v. 24). It's useless; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

Until we're willing to die with Christ, to die to our own reputation and interests and future and plans, we're going to abide alone. But when we let go, then He is going to cause His life to flow through us and give life to others.

Jesus said, "If you want to come after Me, you have deny yourself. You have to take up your cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life [the person who holds on tightly], will lose it; but whoever loses His life [give it up, lay it down, relinquish it] for My sake, he is the one who will save it" (Matt. 16:24–25 paraphased).

Then can I suggest that if we don't trust God's promises, and therefore we don't step out in faith and surrender, ultimately we will find ourselves in bondage to the very things we've refused to surrender. Trust or tyranny—that's the option. Trust the promises of God, which will free you to live joyfully under His loving lordship, or live under the tyranny of that which you refuse to surrender.

That principle is stated powerfully in Deuteronomy 28 beginning in verse 47. Moses said to the Israelites,

Because you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness and gladness of heart because of the abundance of all things, therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the Lord will send against you. In hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and lacking something and He [God] will put a yoke of iron on your neck until He has destroyed you. (vv. 47–48 NKJV paraphrased)

See the alternative there? Trust, let go, let God have His way or tyranny. You will serve something. You will serve someone. We think, I'm so free because I'm running my own life.

Listen, the person who's running his own life is not free; he's a slave. That's why Paul says in Romans 6, "You were slaves to sin, but now you're slaves to Christ. You're slaves to righteousness, and in that slavery is true freedom" (vv. 17–18).

So, if we're unwilling to trust God in the matter of provision, we're going to be tyrannized by things like greed, stealing, cheating, lying, worshiping, coveting, our lives getting centered around money. We'll be in bondage to things if we can't trust God in relation to provision.

If we're unwilling to trust God with our happiness, our well-being and we insist on pursuing temporal pleasures, we may become dominated by the very thing we thought we were trying to control. We'll become dominated by things like over overeating, getting drunk, using drugs, sexual promiscuity, adultery, pornography, obsession with television or films or movies. If we won't trust God with our pleasure . . . If we say, "I want to have my own pleasure," we're going to end up under the tyranny of the things we thought would bring us pleasure.

Same thing with protection. If we don't trust God with our safety, but we demand that we have human security and protection, we may be overwhelmed by fearfulness, worry, defensiveness, becoming obsessed with weapons, fear of intimacy, tendencies toward violence. We'll become tyrannized by the very thing we thought we was going to bring us protection.

In the matter of relationships, if we don't value Him as our primary relationship, the One whose company matters most to us, then we're going to live in fear— fear of losing human relationships. You'll be clinging to your mate, clinging to your children. That's not love. Love is giving. You'll be holding on. You'll be putting them in prison. You'll make your husband a prisoner of your expectations if you live in fear of losing him. Or if you live in fear of him [your husband] being out from under your control, that's why you've got to trust God to be your primary relationship and not look to your husband to meet needs that only God can meet.

We'll set ourselves up to be tyrannized by such things as possessiveness, giving abuse, taking abuse, adultery, obsessive or controlling relationship. We're going to be slaves if we do not look to God to provide the primary companionship and friendship in our lives.

The fact remains that when we sign that blank contract of surrender, there are no guarantees about where God will lead us, what will happen in our lives, how difficult our journey will be. But we know the character of God in whom we placed our trust.

I am so thankful that the Lord helped me as a young girl to begin to know Him, to trust Him ,and to sign that blank contract, and to turn my life over to Him. There have been times of lapsing into unbelief, times of fear, times of fretting and worrying, but deeper than all that is the confidence that God knows what He is doing. Knowing that God's will is good and perfect and acceptable.

There have been many things in the outworking of that plan for my life that are not what I would have chosen for my life. But I look back over forty years of walking with God, and I can tell you that God has written script that is far more wonderful than anything I could have written.

He has proven to me over and over again that He is faithful and He can be trusted. How foolish I would be to try and run my life myself. There are many days when that's just what I do, but it is foolish because God's plan is good. God's plan is best. We can trust Him. Trusting ourselves to him brings rewards and joy and freedom beyond anything we can have if we were trying to run our own lives.

I received a letter not too long ago from a woman who heard me speak years ago on this subject of surrender. At the close of my message that day, I asked those that were listening to sign a blank piece of paper symbolizing their willingness to surrender everything—past, present, future—everything to Christ's control and to let Him fill in the details as to what that would mean.

Now, years later, this woman was writing to thank me for that challenge, and here's what she said:

The Lord used you and His Word that day to make me see things I had been hanging onto for over thirty years, including bitterness that I had been holding onto since before I got married thirty-three years ago. How wonderful it is to forgive!

That's part of what signing that blank contract meant to her. God filled in the details and said, "You need to forgive."

How wonderful it is, and how much better my life would have been if only I would have realized this years ago. 

Listen, ladies, in a moment or two from now, as God measures time, you and I are going to stand in the presence of the Lord with all of time behind us and all of eternity before us. We're going to look back and the only regrets that we will possibly have are that we didn't trust God more, that we didn't surrender everything, that we held back anything from God. The joys and the fullness and the blessing that we can experience in this life and for all of eternity are the fruit of saying, "Have Your own way, Lord. Have Your own way."

Dannah: As Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has pointed out, we all face a choice. Will we surrender to God or will we be in bondage to the stuff we're trying to hold onto? She’ll be back in just a moment. Is there anything you’re holding on to out of fear? Something that’s keeping you from trusting God with your life completely?

Our new resource, Facing Your Fears: Finding Him Faithful, will help you discover how surrendering to Christ actually frees you from your fears. With content taken from Nancy’s book Surrender, along with specific Scriptures to pray and questions to think through, Facing Our Fears will equip you to step out in faith and leave your fears behind. We’ll give you the details about how to get your own copy of this booklet at the end of today’s episode. Nancy’s back with the second half of her message.  

Nancy: We've been talking about the matter of full surrender to Jesus as Lord and letting Him have His way in our lives and facing our fears of what that will mean, what the price will be. But remembering that God is faithful and His promises counteract our greatest fears about surrender.

You know, I've stressed this whole point, and I keep coming back to it on Revive Our Hearts because I believe at the heart of the Christian life is the need to simply trust and obey. I read scores and scores and scores, probably hundreds of emails and letters from our listeners, and I'm always so thrilled to receive those. I love reading how God is working in your lives. I love reading some of the struggles you are involved in in different seasons of life. I relate to some of those. And it's real helpful to me to know some of the issues that some women struggle with.

But as I read letters, many of them difficult situations—women struggling with very tough marriage issues— and I realize there are no easy answers. There are no simple answers. There is no easy way out in the short term in those situations. But as I read those I realize that what God is saying to you and what He is saying to me in every issue of life is, "Find out what My will is. Find out what My Word says, and then just bow your will and say, 'Yes, Lord,' to whatever it is."

In every circumstance and situation of life the challenge is, What does God want me to do? Not, how can I solve my problem? Not, how can I get out of this. But, what is the will of God,? Then just saying simply, "Yes, Lord. Whatever that means, whatever it is, whatever it requires." Trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Many of you have heard the story of William Borden—Borden of Yale, he's often called. William Borden grew up in an affluent socially prominent home in Chicago. He was the heir of the Borden dairy estate, the Borden milk company. The opportunities and options before him were practically limitless.

When he graduated from high school at the age of sixteen back in 1904, his parents gave him, as a graduation gift, a cruise around the world. Young William Borden, Bill Borden as he was known then, had accepted Christ as his Savior when he was young boy. Now as he was sailing from one continent to another, he saw the spiritual needs of the people all around the world.

His heart was broken, and he was drawn. He sensed that God was calling him to serve Jesus as a missionary, so he said, "Yes, Lord. That's what I'm willing to do." Humanly speaking, he had a lot to lose in this decision. He'd never been less than comfortable. He had a wonderful future ahead of him in the business world, but he felt that God was calling him to serve as a missionary.

During his college years at Yale, he made a journal entry that defined what he saw as heart of the issue. He said in his journal,

Say no to self and yes to Jesus every time. In every man's heart there is a throne and a cross. If Christ is on the throne, self is on the cross; and if self, even a little bit is on the throne, then Jesus is on the cross in that man's heart.

So he prayed and this was also recorded in his journal. He said,

Lord Jesus, I take my hands off as far as my life is concerned, and I put Thee on the throne of my heart. Change me, cleanse me, and use me as You will choose.

After Bill Borden graduated from Yale, the time finally came for him to leave for the mission field. He was headed ultimately, he thought, to China where he hoped to reach Muslims with the gospel; but his travels took him first to Egypt, where he planned to study Arabic.

While he was in Egypt, young William Borden contracted spinal meningitis; and less than a month later, he died at the age of twenty-five.

When his will was probated, it was discovered that he had left his entire fortune of roughly $1 million, which is a lot today; it was a lot more back in 1904. He had left that entire estate to be invested in the cause of Jesus Christ. And that didn't include the tens of thousands of dollars he had given away during his short lifetime while he was a student there at Yale.

Bill Borden had said no to self and yes to Jesus. He surrendered everything the world considers important—his plans, hopes, dreams, career, money, future, and ultimately, his life. From earth's vantage point, Bill Borden was a big fat loser. But from heaven's perspective, what did he do? He gave up those things which were only temporary anyway in exchange for the eternal riches of the kingdom of God.

As I've heard the story of Borden over the years, God has challenged my own heart: say "no" to self, say "yes" to Jesus every time. "Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord." Bow the knee. Wave the white flag of surrender. That is a universal symbol that says, "I surrender. I yield. I concede." That's what God is calling us to do every day in every circumstance and situation of life—to relinquish control, to say "yes" to God, to bow the knee. We need to say "yes" to the Word of God in every area where it speaks to our lives, the wisdom of God, the warnings of God as we find them in His Word.

I received a letter from a woman who had heard me speak on waving the white flag of total surrender to God. She shared that when she got home from that conference, she borrowed one of her husband's white handkerchiefs.

Every day she began her quiet time, before she turned to read the open Bible in her lap, she literally waved that hanky before the Lord symbolizing, "Lord, I'm saying 'yes' to whatever You say. Your Word says forgive; I forgive. Your Word says give to those who have need; I'll give whatever your prompt my heart to give. Whatever You say in Your Word, I'll say, 'Yes, Lord.' I wave the white flag of surrender. I bow the knee to Jesus as Lord."

I want to encourage you not only to say "yes" to the Word of God but to the ways of God. That's God's providence and His sovereignty, trusting that what God is doing in your life and in this world is according to His plan.

I have a friend who recently has been going through a very, very painful series of circumstances in her family. She said that the peace she's experiencing in the midst of this turmoil is the result of her determining to accept these circumstances as God's will for her life.

She said, "This is God's will for my life. It obviously is. I had no control over it, so I accept it. This is where God wants me to be."

So, as you face tragedy, loss, disappointment, pain, things you can't understand, things you can't explain, with your children, with your marriage, in your workplace say, "Yes, Lord." Surrender, bow the knee, instead of fighting and resenting and resisting, which is our nature to do, just say, "Yes, Lord. I accept Your ways and Your providence and Your sovereignty in my life."

And then say "yes" to the will of God, to the calling and the plan of God in your life. That's where I love, and I've quoted this often, but the heart of Mary of Nazareth, who when the angel came to her and said, "You're going to have a child, the Son of God," I love Mary's response. She said, "I am the servant of the Lord. May it be to me as you have said" (Luke 1:38). What was she saying? "Yes, Lord. I receive Your will for my life."

You say, "Well, God's not going to give me something like He gave Mary." No, God's giving you something like singleness, perhaps for some period of time or maybe even for a lifetime. If that's God's will for your life, say "yes" to it.

Perhaps you find yourself in a difficult marriage. You need to come to the place where you recognize, that for this moment, that is God's calling and will for your life—that you endure, that you find His grace to love and reverence that mate as difficult as it may be and to embrace the will of God even in that difficult situation.

God may have called you to motherhood. Embrace it. Say, "Yes, Lord, I receive it." God may have called you to not be able to have children. Embrace it as the will of God and say, "Yes, Lord."

That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. It doesn't mean you don't weep. It doesn't mean you don't ever struggle with that, but ultimately we come back to saying, "Yes, Lord. If it pleases You, it pleases me."

God may be calling some to vocational ministry. I heard just recently from a woman who said as we talked about this issue of surrender. She said, "You know, God has been calling my husband into fulltime Christian service, and I've been holding him back." She had fears; she had reservations. She said, "God has spoken to me today, and I need to release my husband for us to follow the will of God."

Whether you are a single woman and God is calling you to vocation service, or maybe as a married woman, God is calling you with your husband, if that's God's will for your life, say "yes." Bow the knee, wave the white flag, say, "Yes, Lord."

Is it worth it? Well, if we could ask William Borden, "Would you do it again?" what would he say? I think he would respond with three phrases that were discovered written in the back of his Bible after his death. Here were the three phrases: "No reserves. No retreats. No regrets."

You say, "But he lost his life at the age of twenty-five. What a loss!" Do you think he had a moment of regret as he stood in the presence of the Lord? Not a chance!

What are you living for? Is it worth dying for? When you stand before the Lord Jesus—shortly, as we all will—will you be able to look back on this earthly life and say, "That's how I lived it. No reserves. No holding back. No regrets. Because I just trusted and obeyed"?

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth will be back in a few moments to help us apply what we’ve heard today. You know, we all have a decision to make. Will you say, “Yes, Lord”? It's not only important that we say it now, but that we say it every day—that we learn to say it more and more. That's why I hope you'll go deeper with today's topic and get a copy of Nancy’s booklet, Facing Our Fears: Finding Him Faithful. You’ll learn how to fully surrender to Christ and overcome your fears as you trust Him.

When you support Revive Our Hearts with a gift of any amount, we’ll send you this resource to say “thanks.” Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959 and ask for Facing Our Fears.

It’s one thing for us to pray and ask God to sweep through our world and effect great changes, to bring awakening in the world and revival in His Church. But it’s another thing altogether to pray, “Lord, start with me.” On Monday we’ll hear a hard-hitting message from Nancy. She’ll call us to repentance, and she’ll take us to a passage in the Old Testament where God says, “Begin at my sanctuary.” She’ll explain, next week on Revive Our Hearts. Now to end our time, here’s Nancy.

Nancy: I wonder if there's anything that God's been speaking to you about from His Word, but you've been struggling with it. You've been wanting to get out of that marriage rather than stay committed to that husband. You've been wanting to give up on somebody that God has called you to love.

You've been wanting to hold onto bitterness toward somebody that God has been calling you to forgive, somebody's who's hurt you deeply perhaps. You've been wanting to hold more tightly to your financial resources, and God's been impressing your heart that you need to be giving, that you've been hoarding and holding onto that out of fear.

I don't know what it is, what circumstance or situation God may have you in right now. Maybe right now it's just a series of little things. Would you just right now think about whatever that circumstance is, that situation, and would you just say, "Yes, Lord. I accept this as from You. I receive Your will for my life. I trust You. Even in the midst of pain or hurt or loss, I will keep on trusting You, and by Your grace, I will obey You."

Lord, I pray that You will give us the faith and the courage to live not only this day but tomorrow and the next, and each day for the rest of our lives saying, "Yes, Lord," bowing the knee, waving a white flag of surrender and acknowledging that You truly are Lord.

As we do, we know the day will come when we will be able to look back and say, "No regrets." We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, calling you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.