Get Out Of Your Own Way & Allow God To Take Control Of Your Life

Hello and welcome to Social Media Ministries. My name is Spencer Coffman. Thank you so much for tuning in today. We’ve got a good message for you. The goal and purpose of Social Media Ministries is to use social media to spread the Word of God to as many people as possible and help them interpret and understand the scriptures in the Bible.

So, we’re preaching from the Bible today, as every day. Hopefully, you like that. Hopefully, you can also share one of our sermons, one of these videos, on one of your social media channels, so that you can help us reach more people, in that way. We thank you for that. Hopefully, also hit the “like” button and the “subscribe” button on the channel.

So, I got a story for you. There was once a violinist, a really terrible, terrible, violin player who would, every time they would try to play the violin, it was really awful. It was like screeching and nails on the chalkboard type of a play.

They just were not good. No matter how many times they practiced, no matter how hard they tried, it didn’t seem like anything was happening. They weren’t getting that much better. Yes, it was a little better, but not great. It was just awful.

One day, a symphony violinist came by, a first chair, let’s say, symphony violinist, and heard this awful noise. He went in and tried to find what it was. He saw this poor person trying and trying and trying to play the violin.

The symphony violinist said, “Excuse me. If you want, I can take control of your body. I can come there and come in and I can help you and play.”

The person said, “Okay. Thank you. Yep. What do I have to lose?”

So, the person started playing, and this symphony violinist came and took over. All of a sudden, this beautiful music was coming out of this violin.

As it’s going, the horrible violin person said, “Okay, thank you.” “You can release me now.”

The symphony violinist said, “Okay,” and let go.

Instantly, the screechy horrible noises came back, and the person said, “Wait come back! Come back! Come back!”

So the symphony violinist took control once again, and there was beautiful music.

What’s the point? The point is, you are that terrible musician. You, me, everyone else in the world. We are all horrible, horrible musicians, and God is that symphony violinist who wants to take control of our lives. If we let Him, we can do beautiful and wonderful things.

The second we say, “Alright God, I got this,” disaster happens, and we’re screaming out, trying to get back with God. And a lot of times, it is only when disaster happens, that people even look to God. So, the point is that you need God to take control of your life. We all need God to take control of our lives, and that’s the point of this message. The whole topic is going to be on allowing God to take control.

So, there are a few things that we need to do, that we need to recognize, in our minds and in our hearts, to allow God to take control. The first thing is, that we need to recognize we are imperfect. We are not good. We are terrible. We are the bad musician. So, you could write that down, if you want. You are the bad musician, and you need God to come in and take control.

What does that mean? Well, the second that you became a Christian, you became alive in Christ. You are a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. That comes from a Bible verse, it’s in 2 Corinthians 5:17. If you have your Bible, you’ve had plenty of time to turn with me to 2 Corinthians 5:17. If not, all of the references will be in the description below.

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, the old is gone, the new has come.” What does that mean? Well, it means that the second you become a Christian, you ask Jesus to come into your life to be your Lord and Savior. That’s the first step. You need to recognize that He died for your sins and that you need Him to come and be the Lord of your life so that you can get into Heaven.

A lot of people do that, and then they still don’t give God complete control of their lives. So they may be a Christian, but they are a Christian who is kind of flip-flopping back and forth. Like, “God, you take control of this. It’s too hard for me.” “Oh God, I got this. I can do this part.”

That’s not good. We need to have God control every single aspect of our lives. We need to have so great a communication and clarity with the Holy Spirit that literally everything we do is directed by God through the Holy Spirit. That is a goal that few people achieve, but that we should all continue to strive for.

So, the second you became a Christian, you became a new creation. Your old self is dead. We were children of the devil. We’re born as children of the devil. We’re in a horrible world. It is a great world, don’t get me wrong. But, our kingdom is a heavenly realm— a heavenly kingdom. We are not of this world. This world is fallen, it is sinful, and we were born here. The devil has control and rules this world.

God controls everything and only allows the devil to do what He wants him to do, or what He allows him to do. Even though the devil controls this earth, God still has control over the devil and over this earth.

However, He allows the devil to have the illusion of control, because mankind gave up their rights when the devil tricked them in the Garden of Eden. When he tricked Eve, and then Eve gave it to her husband, who was with her, right there, and he got tricked as well, they gave up their right to rule the earth. So humans no longer rule the earth, simple as that.

It is a spiritual realm, and so we need to recognize that. When you became a Christian you gave up that devilish creation side of you. You are no longer a child of the devil, you are now a child of Christ, and you are a new creation. So, you need to stop resisting that old creation.

It’s going to keep trying to come in. Why? Why? If we are a new creation, why does the old keep coming? It is because this is where we live. We live in the old world. We are not in Heaven yet, not until we die. When you die, then you get released from this cell of a body. We are in a prison with no door, and we can’t get out until we die.

So, we need to resist all of the influences of this world, of the old self that we used to be. When we let that old self die, we will be able to truly release control and allow God to take over and then be that beautiful symphony violinist that creates that beautiful music.

There’s a book that, if you haven’t read it, you should definitely read. It’s called The Great Divorce and it’s by C S Lewis. There is a point in there. The synopsis is, the book is about these spirits who are on their way to the next life, to Heaven, and they are seeing all of these different things.

In one instance, there is a spirit or ghost, — whatever you choose to call it, — who, he has this lizard. A lizard on his shoulder, a little pet, and the lizard speaks to him, or talks to him. Whether it is a lizard or a reptile, or dragon, whatever, it’s a little thing on his shoulder that speaks to him and says, “Oh, let’s do this,” or “Let’s do this.”

This person, this ghost, because he’s dead, this person is going and then doing these things. It is kind of like his little friend, it’s been with him all his life. There is a heavenly being there, and he is speaking with this ghost, trying to talk to him about what’s next. and he says that, “That thing on your shoulder isn’t good.”

“Oh, but I like him.”

“Well, can I kill it?”

Then the ghost comes up with another excuse. “No, no, he’s my friend.”

“It’s influencing you in bad ways. Can I kill it?”

“Nope, nope, I like listening to the voice.”

“Can I kill it?”

“Nope, I think I need him.”

“Can I kill it?”

“No, I really think that it’s a part of me.”

“Can I kill it?”

“I don’t think so.” and

Then eventually, he says, “Yep. Fine, okay kill it.”

The heavenly being reaches out and chokes the life out of this lizard, and screeches come out, and it’s horrible, and the lizard dies. At that point in time, a huge transformation occurs. The ghost becomes what he’s supposed to do. The lizard turns into this great stallion, and they ride off and complete their journey.

What is the point of that? It’s that we all are clinging on to this old sinful self, that is speaking these negative influences in our ear, that is showing us things to do that aren’t right. We need to kill it. That is it. We need to kill it, and let God take control so that we can truly become the right person; the person that God wants us to be.

So, you can resist God, and your life is going to be difficult. It will. There’s no doubt you will struggle. You will have a lot of difficulties in life. His Will is still going to persist and prevail. God’s Will will be done. If you accept God, and allow Him to work through your life, then things are going to go a lot better.

It is not going to be perfect. As a person who is living for Christ, the world is going to hate you. You will be full of light in a world of darkness. Yes, certain people will like you, and your world is not going to be horrible, but it is not going to be perfect or easy all of the time. But it will be better than it was before.

Let’s go to Romans 8:38 and check that out. Romans 8:38 says, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, neither angels, nor demons, neither the present, nor the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ our Lord.”

So, no matter what, you can resist God. You can keep resisting Him, but He will still pursue you. Nothing can separate you from His love, and that is a great, great feeling. Why is it so great? Well, it is because you can try hard — God is still gonna come after you. He’s still going to want to take control of your life, and when He does, your life goes so much better.

So, there are a few things that you need to recognize. One is that you are imperfect, and you need God to take control. The second is, we need to realize that God has control. We need to trust Him. God is trustworthy. He is worthy of our trust. So we can allow Him to lead our lives with complete trust.

That’s the next thing — you need to know that you can trust God. How do we know that we can trust God? Look around. He created all of this for us. Read the Bible. God — the main thing is — this is how you know that we can trust God.

He sent His son, Jesus, to die, to pay for your sins — for your sins, so that you could have a relationship with Him and go to Heaven. He sent His only son. Not just His son, His only son. He only had one, and He sent him to die, not out of condemnation or punishment or anything, but it was an act of love.

Jesus willingly died for you, went through all of that torture, that pain, and died for you. That’s how you know you can trust Him. He went through all of that. You can trust Him. He’s got you. So now all you need to do is let Him get you. Let Him take control.

Luke 9:23-24 says, “Then he said to them all, ‘If anyone would like to come after me, — this is Jesus speaking now — ‘he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for Me will save it.”

This is like that lizard. That person, that ghost, wanted to keep his life, keep his lizard, didn’t want to kill it. He was living in this ghostly form with this little lizard speaking to him. It wasn’t a good situation. However, it was the only situation that that guy knew, so he didn’t know any different. Finally, when he allowed the lizard to die, he became the new creation he was supposed to be.

So, allow the world to die. Take up your cross. What does that mean? That means that you stop listening to the influences of the world. You become the light of the world, the salt of the earth. Then, what happens is, yes, people will not like you. Some people will not like you because of how you’re different.

That’s taking up your cross. You’re being different. You’re gonna share Jesus. You’re gonna share the Gospel. You’re gonna live the great commission that Christ commanded us to do; to go and preach the Gospel to all nations.

Yes, you’ll still have sin inside of you, or sin around you, because we live in this imperfect world and we are not perfect people. We cannot be perfect. Jesus was perfect. We cannot get there. We can try really hard.

Paul said this great verse — that it is the sin in me when I do what I do not want to do, I know I should not do it. It is the sin in me that does it, not me who does it. That is kind of a paraphrase, but it’s right on, because we want to live for God. We want to be righteous, we want to be holy, and then, all of a sudden, we slip up, and do something wrong. We know it was wrong, and we say, “Wait a minute, how did that happen? Why did I do that?”

It might not be something that we even thought about doing. It might be something like, someone asked us a question and we just answered with a lie — Ya know? Wait a minute, no, why did I lie? It didn’t even matter. It wasn’t like I was going to get into trouble. It wasn’t anything.

Might be someone said, “Oh yeah, did you hear on the news yesterday that this and this and this?”

“Oh yeah, I heard that,”when really you didn’t.

“Wait a minute, why did you, why did you say that?”

We just slipped up and a sin happened. It wasn’t you that consciously did it; it was the sin still in you. Somehow, some way, you need to kill all of that sin. How do you do it? Meditate on the Word, day and night. You got to be reading the Bible, praying to God, getting information like this, watching these sermons, going to church, fellowshipping. The more you pour yourself into the Spirit, the more the Spirit will fill you up; and that is the goal.

Jesus says, anyone comes near to me — if you draw near to me I will draw near to you. So draw near to God. Ask Him to take control of your life, and let Him take control of your life.

Don’t be like a child who says, “Dad, I want your help.”

Then the dad starts helping and he says, “Oh, no no, I got it. I got it. Stop.”

Go all the way. Let Him take control of your life and lead you exactly where you need to go, and show you what you need to do. How will He show you? You gotta be praying, asking God, be silent, read the Bible, stay in His Word, and He will speak to you.

We have talked about this before; on how you can hear God’s voice. How you can communicate with God. Allow Him to do that, and He will lead you every single place you need to go. Allow Him to take control of your life, and your life will be much, much better.

Let’s pray.

Father Yahweh, thank you so much for this time together. Thank you for everything that you have done for us; for creating us, for giving us this world to live in.

Thank you for sending your son, Jesus, here to pay for our sins. Even the sins that we don’t even know we’re doing, that we don’t even want to do, but they still happen.

Please help each and every one of us to be better, to stop sinning, to kill that, that old self, to let it die, and to truly embrace our new creation through your son, Jesus Christ, so that we can have a personal relationship with you. Thank you so much for allowing that to happen.

I ask that each and every person out there really takes advantage of that and dives in full force and wants to learn and study and become more one with the spirit and that the spirit would fill them.

If there are people out there who haven’t made that choice to follow you, Lord, I ask that you would work on their hearts, soften their hearts, and keep knocking on the door. We know that you stand there and knock. I ask that those people would invite you into their lives to be their Lord and Savior. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Thanks again for tuning in today, for giving us your time. I really appreciate it. Hopefully, you found something useful in this message. Get out there and stay in the Word. Read the Bible. Pray day and night, as often as you can. Always be praying. Ask God to fill you with that Holy Spirit, and guide your life to take complete control. God bless.