Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: I'm going to speak from a very well-known text. Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Let me read it to you in The Message. Are you tired, worn out? Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I love that phrase. You need to recover your life. What an incredible thing it is when you come to know the living Christ and you recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest, says Jesus. Walk with me and work with me. Watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn how to live freely and lightly.

The Lord says to us, "Get a life." That's another translation of recover your life. Get a life. Many people are saying, "Get a life, do this. Get a life, do that." Recover your life. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. Now, what's the context of this? The context of this is religious people. Jesus was not talking to his disciples at this point. He was talking to the bigger crowd of ordinary people, Jews. He wasn't talking to the Pharisees. He wasn't talking to the leaders. He was talking to good people.

Good people that were trying to be good enough for God. Good people that were trying to keep all the rules so that when they got to heaven, God would say, "Well, you kept enough rules for me to let you in, and we'll overlook the rules that you didn't manage to keep." This was very difficult for people in Jesus' day. The Pharisees had 613 rules you were supposed to keep to be good enough for God. Many of them, Paul the Apostle included, just about kept every one of those rules. They'd made most of them from the law up, and they'd laid that heavy burden on those people.

It was a terrible burden to try and do all their religious leaders were telling them in order to be good enough for God so they could go to heaven when they died. Jesus said, "Come unto me, and I've got a different way for you to live. I want to lift this heavy burden of rule-keeping, religious rule-keeping, from you." Religion can be a very difficult thing because we think, "Am I doing this right? Am I doing that right?" We're jumping through all the hoops, and we're just hoping that God is pleased. That becomes a very weighty thing and it weighs you down.

Jesus said there is a better way and there's something I want to tell you. They did a religious survey in Milwaukee years ago, and they asked people, "Do you think you're going to heaven when you die?" Most of the people on that survey, over 80 percent, said yes. They asked, "Why do you think you're going to heaven when you die?" They said, "Well, we're religious. We're good people. We're better than they are. I think God's kind and that if he weighs the good against the bad, I'm hoping I can do enough good things and keep enough rules so that he will let me into heaven."

What people don't know is that you can never keep all the rules. Even if that would get you to heaven, which it would because it would mean you'd be perfect, even if you kept all the rules from now on until you die, what about the ones you've broken in the past? What about God's rules that you have broken in the past?

I don't know if you've ever broken something very special and precious that belonged to anyone. Have you ever broken something and the person that the precious thing belongs to is actually in the room or in the vicinity when you break it? Have you ever looked at their face? I was in New England at a meeting, and the worship leader does all the music for the Promise Keepers' big crusades. What a privilege to be led in worship by this incredibly gifted man.

In the middle of a song, he told a wonderful story. He said, "I'm a grandfather now." He said, "I was left to look after my two-year-old. I left the room inadvertently for a moment, took my eyes off him, and was doing something in the kitchen when I heard this crash. I went into the living room and something very precious that meant an awful lot to me was lying in smithereens on the floor. There was my two-year-old grandson standing in the middle of the mess as if to say, 'Look, aren't I clever? This is what I've done.'"

The little boy caught a look of his grandfather's face. He took one look at what his mess meant to his grandfather and he whirled around, took off down the corridor as fast as he could. The grandfather tells the story, "I took off after him. The little boy realized that was no good. Granddad had longer legs than he did. He stopped dead, whirled around, looked at his granddad, put his little arms out and said, 'I love you, I love you, Granddaddy. I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' and came running towards him." Well, he said, "I just melted, and I picked up the little boy in my arms."

He said God said to him, "Why don't you do that? Why don't you do that?" You see, we've broken something that's precious to God. All of us. Something very, very precious. What have we broken that's precious to God? His rules. His Ten Commandments. Not the 613 added bits that the Pharisees put on. God did give us ten rules to keep, and we have broken them. What we need to do is take a look at his face and see what we have broken, see what that has done to God.

That's where we begin coming to him, so he can lift the burden of our sin and shame and guilt away from us. We have, like the little boy, to open our arms and run towards our Heavenly Father. We will find if we come to him, he will pick us up in his arms. But we have to realize that we have broken something precious to God, and we have to look into the face of God so that we can see what we have done to God.

We have grandchildren which give me lots and lots of wonderful illustrations. I squeezed everyone out of my three children, but now I'm rich with grandchildren. Stephen is Judy, our daughter's, youngest and just a character. When he's done something wrong, Judy calls him and says, "Stephen, come here." Stephen reluctantly comes and stands there. Judy gets down on his level and takes his little face in her hands in an iron grip.

He stands there, and she says, "Stephen, look at me." Well, it is absolutely hysterical. His eyes go left, back, I don't know, I can't do it, roll into his forehead, right, down. She holds him in that iron grip and keeps saying, "Look at me, Stephen," until he looks her straight in the eye. You know, God wants to do that tonight. He wants to take your face in his hands and say, "Look at me. I want you to see how hurt I am because you have broken something precious. No, no, look at me."

Until we see what our sin and what the breaking of the rules of God means to him. So what have we broken? Well, we know the Ten Commandments, or do we? We did a little survey in Milwaukee when my husband was preaching on that. We just went up and down the streets of Milwaukee and said, "Do you know about the Ten Commandments?" "Well, yes, of course." "Can you tell us one of the Ten Commandments?" What would you say if somebody put a microphone under your nose?

Probably we could all think of one or two. Thou shalt not kill. That's easy, that one. Thou shalt not commit adultery. It was absolutely amazing. There were very few people that could even get a couple of them. Most of them got thou shalt not kill. The other stuff we got was "God helps those that help themselves." It was absolutely incredible.

One guy got the other bit. He got the idea right, but he got it the wrong way around. "Do unto others before they can do it unto you," he says. The interviewer said, "Do you go to church?" "Yeah, I live by the Sermon on the Mount." Well, if he didn't know what the Ten Commandments were, I bet he didn't know what the Sermon on the Mount was or where it was or anything else.

This is the mindset. If we do not know what the Ten Commandments are, then how do we know we've broken something that's precious to God? They deal with two aspects of living. We're to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and we're to love our neighbor as ourselves. Most of the commandments have to do with our social relationships, other people, our neighbor.

The two biggest and most important are to do with our relationship with God and the rest are to do with our relationships with our neighbor. They cover things like worshipping and obeying God and not having any idols and not hurting your neighbor by slandering them or lying or stealing from them. Never taking something that doesn't belong to you. And don't covet. If I was God and I had ten things to choose from, I don't know if I would have included thou shalt not covet on that precious stone wherewith his finger he wrote the ten rules that were very precious to him that we've broken.

Covet, what is it? A very simple definition of covet is, "I want what you've got." The deeper bit of coveting is, "And I don't want you to have it either." God, knowing that there is a root of the fruit of sin, said thou shalt not covet because that's where the fire starts. I want what she's got and I don't want her to have it either, so I'm going to take it away from her. That's the root where murder comes from.

Thou shalt not kill. Jesus comes along and says, "Have you ever wanted to? It's the same as the act. The thought is the same as the act." I remember Jimmy Carter getting into terrible trouble being asked, "Have you ever committed adultery?" and he said, "In my mind." He'd thought about it. He didn't say committed it. He said, "I've thought about it." That's where it begins. "I want what he's got, his wife." If you're not careful, you'll say, "And I don't want him to have her either, and I'm going to take her." That's the fruit of adultery.

When we look at what we've broken that's precious to God, I ask you in all honesty, God is taking your face, look at him. Have you broken something that's precious to God? That's where coming to him begins. Jesus said, "You need to come to me because when you realize you've broken something that's precious to me, something happens to you inside." There is an interior grief, and it's called guilt. Guilt. We're busy trying to get rid of guilt. Our society feels that's a disease, and we need to help people quit feeling guilty.

Guilt is a pronouncement of what we've done. Guilt is a fact. Shame is the feeling about the fact. "You are guilty," says the judge. The law says you're guilty, and you feel terrible shame as you stand condemned. So guilty is what we are. Shame is what we feel. There is a load of guilt in people's hearts because they're guilty. I had somebody say not long ago, "I'm talking to this woman and she feels so guilty, and I'm trying to help her get rid of her guilt." I said, "Well, is she guilty?"

"Well, that's not the point." Yes, that is the point. She feels shame because she's guilty. If you confess the reason that you feel ashamed because you're guilty and have broken something that's precious to God, God will forgive you. You come to him, and he will forgive you. Only God can heal some things like guilt because every sin against man is a sin against God. When David sinned against Bathsheba, he said, "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight."

That's a strange thing to say. He has sinned against Bathsheba. He has sinned against Bathsheba's husband. He has committed adultery. He has broken up a marriage. He has sinned in all sorts of ways and then lied about it, then covered it up for a year. Yet when he is faced, "Thou art the man, you've done this thing and God isn't very pleased about this," he immediately repents and says, "I have sinned in your sight against thee, thee only have I sinned because any sin against man is a sin against God." You've broken something precious to him. Marriage is precious to him. If we break up somebody's marriage, that grieves him. Grieves him.

That's why we feel guilty. That's why we feel shame. But whatever we have done, if we come to him, he will lift the burden of that guilt and shame. He will forgive us. Now, some people say that God forgives and forgets. I don't believe God forgets because I don't believe he can. God never had a thought he's never had, if you think about that. He cannot forget what he knows. Forgiveness means that God forgives you and then looks at you as if he had forgotten.

It's difficult to grasp, but he looks at you as if he had forgotten what he very well remembers. Only God can do that. Only God can look at you as if you'd never sinned when he knows you did and he can't forget it, and treat you as if he had forgotten. The grace of God is an incredible thing. When we realize what we have done to hurt him and we come to him with our load of sin and guilt, there is a huge load lifted.

I'm just his spokesperson. I am pleading with you on behalf of Christ. Be reconciled to God. That's what Paul went around saying. "I'm an ambassador for Christ, that's all. I ask you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God." What a wonderful thing it is because people become reconciled to God. They come to him. They keep company with him. They get their sins dealt with, and that load is lifted.

This young girl ran up and she said to me, "I cannot bear this anymore." I said, "What is it? Do you want to tell me?" She said, "I hate my mother-in-law." She said, "It isn't dislike, it isn't hostility. I hate her. And this weight, I can't breathe. It is destroying me. And I have tried to give it to God and I've tried to get on my knees and say, 'God, take, I give it to you, I give this burden of hate to you, I give it to you.'"

She said nothing's happened. I said, "Well, let's try this." I took her hands and I said, "Ask him to take it. You can't do anything. You can't even give it to God. We are helpless here. Just say, 'I can't do it. I can't even give it to you. Take it. Forgive me because in hating this person you have broken something that's precious to God.'" She said, "Oh, I know, I know. I learned that tonight. And then I realized that's what's weighing me down. That's what's got me by the throat, and I want to be rid of it."

She came to Christ. We prayed, or she prayed, and I looked at her, and I even felt it in her hands. They just relaxed. She looked at me and she said, before I needed to hear it because it was obvious, "It's gone. It's gone." You come to Christ and you get a life. She had not had a life for a long time because she was burdened with the sin, but she didn't know Jesus. You cannot get rid of those things yourself. You can't get rid of bitterness. You can't get rid of a load of any of that garbage.

You can't give it to him. You can't do anything. You can just come helpless. God waits for us to be helpless. We talked about the shepherd and the sheep. Sometimes a little sheep gets so lost and so messed up and they get themselves in such a mess they're up on the mountain in a little crevice. The shepherd knows that they could fall over that crevice to death at any minute. But if he goes after them before they are totally exhausted, before they are totally starving, before they're at the end of their rope, he knows they'll resist like a drowning man in the water.

So he waits until all the little lamb can do, the little sheep is say, "Blaat." Then he'll climb up, getting his hands thoroughly torn in the process, and he'll rescue the lamb because it's helpless. Jesus says you need to come to me at the end of your rope. You have tried to get rid of whatever it is in your life that is absolutely sinking you, and you can't do it without God.

So you need to get a life. When I ask you to come to Christ, which I am asking in his stead, I am not saying come to Elmbrook. I am not saying come to church. God is not a Methodist. God is not a Catholic. God is not a Protestant. God is not an Evangelical Free. God is not a Baptist. God is not a Pentecostal. God isn't a member of Elmbrook Church.

God isn't any of these things. We are not inviting you to join a denomination or change your faith. We're inviting you to come to Christ. I was working on the streets once among gang street kids and a little boy said to me, "Hey miss, what abomination do you belong to?" Well, I was happy to tell him I didn't belong to any abomination. Not that I believe denominations are abominations. I don't. They're an expression of the body of Christ, church of Christ.

But we are not asking you to come and join another club, Christian club, that has a different set of rules. No, we're asking you to come to Christ. It's your relationship with him that we're talking about that goes right across all denominations, Christian denominations, and is laced into every statement of faith in every church that is a true church, a credal church that believes in the creed, if you wish.

So he wants to carry your sin. He wants to carry your guilt. And he wants to assure you that he is the burden-bearer. He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped and we were healed. All of us have strayed away like sheep. We've left God's paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the guilt and sins of us all. He was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped and we are healed.

He carried our sins, and he also carried our sorrows. He carried life's sorrows. What does this mean? One of life's sorrows is shame. I know people whose lives are ruined with this incredible sense of shame. How could God ever forgive me? I can't forgive myself for what I've done, for what I've been. How could God forgive me? This is a huge burden. It's a sorrow. A soul sorrow. Well, he can carry that.

Maybe you need to have a good dose of Psalm 51, some of you, where David is praying his incredible prayer of repentance after Nathan has faced him up and told him that God isn't very pleased with his adultery and murder of Uriah the Hittite. David says, "I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me." He begins to see things as they really are and call things as they really are. What you have to do when you come to Christ is name things. Give them their real names. That's anger. That's bitterness. That's adulterous thought. That's coveting. That's lying.

A half-truth is a whole lie. We need to call these things by their real names instead of dancing around it and calling them growing up, being mature, etc., etc. David comes in repentance and he says, "Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." There are some things that only God can heal. Some things only God can do. Hyssop was a little plant, grows in Israel. You see it if you travel over there in the walls, little bushy-like sponge-like little thing.

The priests used to dip it in the blood of the lamb that had been sacrificed, and they used to sprinkle the leper, the leper, with the blood of the sacrifice. The leper that God had healed would have to go to the priest. If you remember when Jesus healed ten lepers, he sent them to the priest to make sure that the skin disease had gone. Then the priest would dip the sponge, the hyssop, in a sacrifice that the leper had brought and he would sprinkle him with the blood.

"Cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean." David had done something, and he felt like a leper. Only God can cleanse a leper, and only the life, for the life is in the blood, the life that was shed for us on Calvary can make us clean. Do you want to feel clean inside? Then come to him. "Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow." He will carry your sins, but he'll also carry your sorrows. God can absolutely pick you up and carry your sorrows. Carry your sorrows.

How is this? Because of the Cross. Because he's carried our sorrows to Calvary. Because he carried our sins, because he died for us, that he can lift the soul burdens off us internally. I wrote a little book years ago and I remember the name, Harrow Sparrow. I want to tell you a little story. I haven't read this book. I never read anything I've written. But I had a read of this book, and it's really quite good. I was obviously inspired years ago.

It's a weird thing, but it touched me and that's a really weird thing. I thought, "This shouldn't be touching me. I wrote it." But I wanted to write a book about suffering, about sorrow for children. I wanted parents and children to interact together. So I looked in the Bible and found everything it said about sparrows. It's really very sad. I gathered these sparrows, everything I found, into a family and I gave them all a name. Father Sparrow, Mother Sparrow, Twitter and Tweet were the two brothers and Harrow, three boys.

Harrow was called Harrow Sparrow because he had a very harrowing life because they did in the Bible. Everything always happened. They got put in a pie, some got sold in the market. Everything always happened. They were all brown and they didn't have nice feathers like ducks or geese or parrots. The story opens on a very sad note really because a little egg is born into the nest, little poor sparrow family, and they give the little bird in the egg a name, Chirpy.

They have an ultrasound so they know that it's a girl. That's not in the book. Should be. Modernize it a bit. The rent collector is Early Bird, and he's the villain. Early Bird's had a very bad childhood, and so he's not very nice. His father was an alcoholic, actually, because he used to eat berries in the forest. When he tries to get back to his nest, he goes like this and his beak's bent because he goes into a tree. Get the picture? He's had a tough life, and therefore he's not very nice.

He comes to collect the rent and the poor sparrows don't have any rent, so they won't open the door. He pecks a hole in the nest, and guess what? First page, little Chirpy rolls out of the hole and goes to birdie heaven. That's sad. Harrow wants to know why. Where's she gone? So the story begins. One day to forget their sorrow they're flying over some birds without wings which are human, and they see a man whose voice sounds strangely familiar.

Of course it's the Sparrow Maker. It's Jesus. Jesus looks around and he needs an illustration and he says, "Behold the birds of the air." They become his companions and he uses them, makes them feel so valued because he starts teaching and they're always with him. I have lots of fun stuff like Harrow going to flight school and he doesn't want to and things like that, learning to fly. Then they all follow Jesus through the teaching, Mount of Transfiguration, on to Calvary.

They get to Jerusalem. They don't know they're going to Calvary. They build their nest in the tree that the Cross is made out of. Then of course the story goes on and the men come and cut down three of these trees. "Look, they're taking our tree to Pilate's house," claimed Harrow. "Who's Pilate?" asked his brother. "He rules the Jews," answered Harrow, pleased that he knew so much. Friendly Town Sparrow had told him who lived in the fortress. "Is he nice?" asked Mother Sparrow.

"Don't know," Harrow Sparrow had to admit. "Hope he is," Father Sparrow interrupted. "He's got Jesus." The birds fluttered around the high rooftops of the fortress, hovering over the open courtyard where they saw the Sparrow Maker standing in the middle of a group of Roman soldiers. The men were laughing, hitting Jesus, spitting in his face. "Stop it, stop it!" cried the little birds. "Don't you know who you're hurting?" shouted Harrow in anguish. "How can you do such a thing?"

The men didn't hear the twittering birds. They were too busy mocking Jesus. Harrow Sparrow was so beside himself with anger that he didn't know what to do. Flying frantically back and forth over the courtyard, he caught sight of the three trees the soldiers had brought to the fortress. Suddenly they looked dark and sinister, as if they were waiting to join in the dreadful games the soldiers were playing with Jesus.

"Father Sparrow, what do you think it all means?" Father Sparrow had a sad and fearful face that made Harrow Sparrow very frightened. "I've seen such a thing once before," Father murmured in disbelief. "A cruel and terrible thing is about to happen. Come away my children. I believe these wicked men will nail the Sparrow Maker's wings to our tree. And then he will fall." Father shook his head sadly.

In horror, Harrow watched as the soldiers forced Jesus to drag one of the oddly cut trees to a small hill outside the city gate. The entire sparrow family screeched with pain when they saw a soldier pin Jesus's wings and feet to the tree with long nails. Then the soldiers turned the tree upright and placed it in a hole. For several hours the birds hovered near Jesus while he suffered, but there was nothing they could do.

"Sparrow Maker, please save yourself," cried Harrow, but Jesus didn't answer. Not long after this, the birds heard Jesus cry out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" "You mean the Sparrow Maker is falling without the Father?" Harrow asked in wonder. "Perhaps Jesus must fall without the Father so that others will not have to fall without him," Mother Sparrow whispered. God never promised a sparrow would not fall. But he did promise a sparrow would not fall without the Father.

You, little sparrow, may fall. But you won't and you don't need to fall without the Father because he did. Because he did. The Sparrow Maker and his eye indeed is on the sparrow, so you know he cares for you. He has promised that he will not only carry your sins, he will carry your sorrows. What have you broken that belongs to your Father? And what are you carrying that you cannot bear?

Come to him. Come to him. You cannot carry what you're carrying. Some of you are carrying so much, so many things, so many bad things like happened to little sparrow family. Just one thing after another has happened to you. The Father says, "I want to carry you." I watched Dave, our oldest son, and I watched one of his children when they were little come to him with their arms full of such a load of stuff. All their stuff.

I watched their daddy bend down and pick the little child up with all that stuff in his arms and he carried the child. No, the child had to carry the load, but the father carried the child. When you come to Jesus, he'll carry you. He'll carry you. And there isn't a load that he cannot carry. Some of you are saying, "Ah, but if I come to Jesus, I'm just going to get into a whole lot of other things. It's going to be another burden being a Christian."

Jesus said, "Well, my yoke, take my yoke. But my yoke's easy and light because I'll be bearing it with you." There's a legend that Jesus in Galilee made the best yokes of all. He was a carpenter, and he would make yokes. The yoke was tailor-made to fit each ox. Above the door may have been the sign that read, "My yokes fit well." In this passage of scripture, Jesus is saying, "I have tailor-made a yoke for you."

Yoked together, you and me. We will plow, we will work. Walk with me, work with me. You come to Jesus in salvation and then you come to him in discipleship. You give him your sins, you give him your guilt, you give him your shame, you give him your sorrows, and then he says, "I will work with you. Walk with me and work with me, and together we will plow. We will do work together."

"And I will, as it were, the old horse carry the young horse in this yoke that yokes us together. My burden is easy and light." So when you come to Christ, I would be remiss not to tell you that you have to come and give up everything if it's going to work. You have to come and let Christ yoke you to him in order to work for him and do those good works that God before ordained that you should do. It's not easy, but it's possible. The word means possible.

In fact, it says in the Bible that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. Nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort. Nothing is ever wasted. Those of us that have lived our life without meaning, without purpose, blaming our environment or our father or our husband that left us or whatever it is that's happened to us, whatever it is, we need to realize that there is a freedom, a liberty. Yes, we need to get a life, and yes, we need to get a lift. But we need to get liberty.

How does that happen? True freedom, true liberation, is being yoked to Christ, doing what he planned for us to do. And there is a burden that is like no other burden. Let me tell you about it. It is the burden of having to have our own way. That is a burden. The burden of having to have our own way. Of having to get what we want. Let me tell you another Stephen story. This is a winner.

Stephen asked his mommy for something he wanted very badly, and he wanted to get his own way. For whatever reason, Judy said, "No, Stephen, you can't have that." She didn't think anything of it, walked outside and started to talk to two neighbors that were standing in their driveway. Stephen appeared with his hat and coat and gloves on and announced that he was leaving home.

Why? Because he couldn't get his own way. So his little determined form strode purposefully away from home and shelter and food and family down the path. Well, one of Judy's neighbors said, "Go after him, don't let him go." "Oh," says Judy, "he'll be back. Don't worry about it." It's in a busy Chicago suburb. Stephen disappears around the corner. Off he goes. Judy just goes on talking to her neighbors.

Sure enough, five minutes, Stephen appears around the corner still walking very purposefully. Walks up to his mother and says, "I'm going to give you another chance." I love that story. You see, you don't come to God because you're disappointed you asked him something and he didn't give it you and so you're going to leave home. You don't come back to God and say, "Well, I'm going to give you another chance."

He says to you, "I'll give you another chance." Like Judy said to him, "Excuse me?" God leans out of heaven and says, "Excuse me?" Some of us are so mad at him because we can't get our own way that we're like Stephen. We need to get the whole thing around the other way. The freedom from the everlasting burden of always having to get my own way. That is a weight.

When you're yoked to Christ, you give him your will, you give him your mind, you give him your heart, you give him your dreams, you give him your ambitions. If he says marry, you marry. If he says don't, you don't. If he says pick up and go to the far corners of the world, you pick up and go. If he says stay here, you stay there. If he says give your money to this, you give the money. You are not your own.

To come to Christ and to have him forgive you means that he puts his yoke on you. But oh, what a burden. How could we call it a burden, that is? Oh, what a liberty it is to be doing purposeful work and to feel complete and useful perhaps for the first time in our lives. To even be able to help other people find Jesus Christ. Do you know what a gift that is? Money can't buy things like that. Money can't buy it.

So I ask you, why won't you come if you are not? Are you having too much fun and feel he's a spoilsport? Like Augustine, you're saying, "Lord, make me holy but not just yet." Well, you haven't got to the stage where you're a little lamb or a sheep on that ledge and you've had it, Lord. With all your self-effort to find happiness and satisfaction outside of total submission to Christ.

No peace without submission. Talk to a girl not too long ago. She said, "I just want peace. I just want peace." I said, "Have you submitted your life fully to Christ?" "No, but I just want peace. I want to do it without the submission." It doesn't work that way. No salvation without submission. No peace without submission. It doesn't work that way. No peace without surrender if you wish.

How do we do this? I remember lying in a hospital bed saying to the girl that led me to Christ, "Yes, yes, yes, I want it, I want it, but how do I get it? How does Christ get into my life?" I felt so stupid. Here I was at Cambridge University. I should have known. Shouldn't I have known how to come to Christ? Shouldn't I have known how to come to faith? Well, I didn't. Nobody had ever told me.

There was this missing piece of the puzzle and I didn't know how, and I felt like such an idiot. I felt like such a naive person and I said, "Help me." I was able to say to this woman, "Help me." She said, "I'd love to. I'll pray a prayer. You pray it after me." Like a little child, she led me to Jesus Christ and I have never been the same again.

That moment is just as fresh in my mind as I tell it to you as it was years ago. You never really recover from God walking into your life. How could you? I always remember lying in bed clean on the inside. Know how necessary that was for me. Clean on the inside. Though God had not forgotten, he looked at me as if he had and smiled, opened his arms wide and said, "Come on, come on. Come to me."

So will you pray with me at this point? I'm going to lead you in a prayer of surrender. You don't need to use my words, you're quite capable of using your own, but if you'd like to, borrow them. Climb inside my prayer if you wish and make these words your own. Very simple commitment prayer and please don't pray it unless you mean it.

O Lord God, dear Father, I have broken things that are precious to you. Your special precious rules you gave me as great gifts of grace and told me to keep them and Lord, I have shattered them. They lie at my feet. I look in your face in this moment as you take my face in your hands and say, "Look at me."

I see your sorrow and I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've broken something very precious to you. I ask you to forgive me, to cleanse me, cleanse me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than snow. Some of us feel like a leper. Only you can heal a leper. We come to you, Savior, and we ask you to save us. We don't really know what we're asking, but we will find out the other side of this. We will discover all that we're going to do in the days that lie ahead.

So Lord Jesus, please come into my life, be my Savior, be my friend, be my companion. There are so many burdens I bring to you, Lord, the burden of sin, the burden of guilt, the burden of hatred, the burden of bitterness, the burden of shame. The burden of sorrow. Huge sorrow. Sorrow that is eating me, engulfing me, swallowing me. This is such a burden. I ask you to take it, Lord, even now.

By your spirit fill my life. May I in the days ahead know the witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart that you are there, that you heard this prayer, that you came in, you answered it. Lord, as I come to you, I would take your yoke upon me. I would be your disciple. I would stay close to you as we plow whatever furrow it is that you have chosen for me.

I know, Lord, that I will find this incredible privilege of this burden of service for you, of work for you, easy and light. For you are bearing it with me, Lord. What more could I ask? I thank you, Lord, for hearing me. I thank you that the angels are rejoicing in heaven as you bring me home. In Christ's name I pray, Amen.