Incredible Sermon

Today, our pastor Isaac Guess preached a powerful sermon from Eph. 5:18-21. He has been preaching on this passage for several weeks but brought to light some things that I have never considered before. He began by talking about the authority of God and how we must place ourselves under the influence of the Spirit of God. All authority belongs to God -- excluding NOTHING!! He even has authority over our sin of pride. He can and does make us submit to His authority. He brought up a comparison to the military. The following are notes that I took during his sermon: "When you join the military you are no longer an individual, you are now part of something that is bigger than yourself. You sign away your rights to many aspects of your life. You are under the authority of the military. This is a form of discipline designed to make you work as a group; this prevents chaos. This breaks your individuality, you are now part of a team. Christians are to do voluntarily what people are forced to do in the military. We are unable to meet God in peace without submission. We have fled to refuge to Christ. Submit yourself to the authority of Christ, the God of all things in the universe. He decides my activities, my food, my sleep -- He governs all. Complete submission goes against the grain of humans. I have no where else to flee -- this is the best thing for Christians. We actually find freedom under this submission to Christ. Be relinquishing our own self, motivation, plan of life -- we find freedom. There is no substitute for submitting to the authority of Christ who wants the very best for me. We are not supposed to think of submission only in terms of the law. Think of it in terms of relationship, connection to Jesus Christ. We are the sheep of His pasture, His possession, His treasure, His purchase. The relationship we have with Christ is love. We place ourselves under the authority of Christ because we love Him. Love is the most powerful of motivators. Submit in the fear of Christ (fear here is respect; the fear of disappointment). Love allows us to accomplish things that we could not accomplish otherwise. I am His and He is mine. The gospel can cause us to submit and make us happy about it. We should never plan to disappoint our Savior. We should dread the thought of being a castaway. We can find the grace of joy and life by submitting ourselves to Jesus Christ." These are the notes that I took. Anyone who knows Bro. Isaac, knows that he can talk five times faster than I can write. Everything he said was so powerful and true, that I wrote it down the best that I could. It has given me a lot to think about this coming week. I know that he spoke with more clarity than I could capture in my notes, but I wanted to post it to remind me of everything he said.