Transcript
Week 3 of the series Yes². Transcribed from the service recording and lightly edited for readability.
Welcome: Still Breaking In 2026
How y'all doing this morning? Y'all know we're still breaking in January. We're still breaking in this new 2026. Y'all know how it is: you get a new car, you've got to break it in a little bit. It's a new year, and we're still breaking it in. But let's get going.
Yes²: Why Is the Formula So Hard?
We're in this series called Yes Squared. It's my yes multiplied by God's yes. It's not added together; we're multiplying this thing, and it's going to bring unimaginable blessings. We started off talking about God's yes: how God's yes is eternal, how God's yes is already there. Then we talked about my yes: how my yes has to surrender to the will and the way of God's yes. Now we have to get to the nitty-gritty. We have to talk about why this formula is so hard to carry out. It's because of the struggle between my yes and my flesh.
Declaration Statement
Before we get started, let's read our declaration statement together:
I am a Christ chaser. I am here to be transformed. I am here to hear the voice of God. God, clear my mind and open my heart to receive Your word. Jesus, do not let me leave the same way I came. I am ready to be changed. Amen.
Scripture Reading: Matthew 26:36–46
This morning's scripture comes from Matthew chapter 26, starting at verse 36 and going to verse 46. In the NIV it reads:
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me."
Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."
Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. "Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?" he asked Peter. "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak."
He went away a second time and prayed, "My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done." When he came back, he again found them sleeping, because their eyes were heavy. So he left them and went away once more and prayed the third time, saying the same thing.
Then he returned to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the hour has come, and the Son of Man is delivered into the hands of sinners. Rise! Let us go! Here comes my betrayer!"
— Matthew 26:36–46 (NIV)
Gethsemane: Where Oil Is Pressed
So here we find Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Gethsemane means oil press. It's in the valley at the foot of the Mount of Olives, which Jesus preached on many times, and Gethsemane is a place where He had gone and prayed many times. That means He wasn't hiding. He knew His death was coming, but He was not hiding.
Gethsemane is the place where oil is pressed. Olives from the Mount of Olives come down to this place, where they gather and press them to get that precious olive oil. Olive oil was also used for anointing. When the priest or the king of the time was anointed, they anointed his head with oil. And that oil came from a place like Gethsemane: the oil press.
We always talk about the fruit. We want the fruit. But this fruit is only going to be useful if it's pressed. I don't know if y'all cook with olive oil, but the only way to get the oil out of the olive is to press it. And this is where we find Jesus before He goes to the cross. He goes to the pressing place to pray.
Every major assignment from God must pass through a season of pressure. We want to be blessed, but we don't want to be pressed. We all want to be anointed, but the anointing only comes once the oil is pressed. Pressure precedes anointing. Crushing releases what's inside. Value comes through pressing. Your yes is going to be tested.
When My Will Collides With God's Will
My greatest spiritual battles happen when my will collides with God's will. As I read the scripture, it's quite funny. Let's think about how this all plays out. They left the upper room where they had the Lord's Supper. Judas goes to do what he has to do; Judas is already on assignment, so Jesus released him to go do it. Now the others are following Jesus to Gethsemane.
Peter, James and John
He gets to Gethsemane, and He only takes three people a little farther with Him. He takes Peter. Peter, the bad boy. Let me just tell the truth: Peter had his blade on. He was prepared. And the two brothers they called the Sons of Thunder. So in perspective, it looks like Jesus has His bodyguards with Him: "I'll leave the rest here, but I'm taking my bodyguards a little farther." But what did He find? They slept too.
There are going to be times in your pressing when it doesn't matter who you've got with you. They aren't going to be able to go all the way with you, because you've got to be pressed by yourself. They had the best of intentions. Even Peter, before they left, said, "Even if I have to die with You, I will never deny You." And all the disciples said the same thing.
Under Pressure
But here is Jesus at the point of His ultimate distress. Luke even says He was so distressed that His sweat was like drops of blood. I'm kind of smart, but I ain't that smart. It's scientifically possible; people can be stressed to the point that they bleed. Go find a doctor, look it up, Google it, ask Siri. She'll tell you. That's how distressed He was.
God in the Flesh Felt It Too
God in the flesh felt in His flesh the same thing you feel in your flesh when you're getting pressed. And your yes is proven not in your excitement, but in your endurance. In your endurance, because you're going to have to go through some things. You're not just going to get blessed just because.
First of all, Satan isn't going to just let you get blessed. He got kicked out of heaven. He doesn't want you to have the things he knows God already has for you. Because what did we say? God's yes is eternal. The yes has already been said. So Satan already knows what God has for you, and he's doing everything in his power to keep it from you. But as long as you're faithful, as long as you endure, you're going to get exactly what God has for you.
I'm trying to take my time, but let me work through this. Yes requires surrender, not strength. Peter had his blade on, and he's asleep. The Sons of Thunder: bad boys. They were so powerful they thought they could call down fire on people and it would happen. They knew what kind of power came with that connection. But even they slept.
Meanwhile Jesus is saying, "God, I know this is our plan. We, the Creator of the universe, three in one, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, put this whole thing together. But I'm the one about to go through this. Do I really have to do this? Are You sure We can't come up with another way?" And He's distressed. Because He's holy, and now the Holy One is going to die for something He did not do. "I'm about to take on sin, and I ain't sinful. I'm about to die for stuff I had nothing to do with. But God, not My will. Your will."
Not My Will, But Yours
God is not asking me to be strong. He's asking me to surrender. He's asking me to surrender.
Gideon
Think about Gideon. Gideon was another man we find in some strange places. Gideon was hiding. He was in a winepress threshing wheat. Wine and wheat don't go in the same spot, but he was hiding. And even in his hiding, God called him a mighty warrior. God was saying, "Forget what you think about yourself. Just do what I'm telling you to do."
Even Gideon tried to do this strength thing. He found himself a whole bunch of men: "We're going to war." God said, "You need to weed some of these men out." "What do You mean?" "You've got too many." "What do You mean I've got too many? I've never heard of going to war and somebody saying we've got too many people." Can y'all imagine? We've got the whole military signed up: the Marines, the Navy, the Air Force. And God says, "You've got too many. Send the Marines home." "No, no, I need the Marines. They're crazy. I need them." "Send them home. Send the Army home. Matter of fact, send everybody home. We're going with the Coast Guard." Huh? But God said, "I've got this."
Are You Willing to Be Pressed?
God says, "I'm going to do something in your life so magnificent that I don't want anybody else to even have a chance of getting the credit." But are you willing to get to that point? Are you willing to let God press you and put you in an uncomfortable position, so that when He does something in your life, you have no choice but to give Him all the honor and all the glory?
The reality is, our true strength comes after we say yes, not before. A lot of us think we have to have all this strength before we can make a move. A lot of y'all are trying to fix yourselves before you get right with God, before you start serving God. "Yeah, I come to church, but I'm going to start serving God once I cut out this foolishness over here." No. Sometimes you've got to start doing what God told you to do and let Him cut the foolishness out for you. God's power shows up when I release my need for control.
How many of us, whenever we get in the car, have to be the one driving? And when you're not, you're always hitting that imaginary brake on your side of the car. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Anytime anybody else is driving: "Where's that brake?" Wishing you were in that driver's ed car with a pedal on the other side. But God says, "Release control. All control." And that's scary. We have to admit it's scary. We have to admit we're afraid. We have to admit we don't trust God: "God, I really don't trust You with my life. I know You gave it to me, but I don't trust You with it. I think I can run it a little better than You. I've made it this far." And yeah, you have. But you don't know the reason you've made it this far.
Let me take my time. We have to acknowledge that true power doesn't come from us. It comes from God. Everything we have, everything we possess, He gave us. And some of it has nothing to do with us. It has to do with great-grandma, great-great-grandma. Even the Israelites talked about being the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jesus is called the Son of David, and God said David would always have someone on the throne. Now God is setting the stage for Jesus Christ, the Son of David, to be on the throne forever. But to get Him there, He takes Him to the pressing place.
Scared of What It Takes
I've got to be honest with you. God has shown me some things, and the scary part is that I'm scared of what I'm going to have to go through for Him to get me where I need to be. From early in my ministry, I've thought: we're in Houston. Houston and Dallas are cities of megachurches. When most people see a megachurch, they think, "Oh, that's nice." When I see it, I get scared, because that's a lot of souls placed under somebody's responsibility. "I don't want that responsibility, God. I really don't. I'm very responsible. To be honest, y'all are really too many for me." But God says, "Derrick, just stand where I tell you to stand. Say what I tell you to say. And be foolish enough to believe that I can use your sorry behind to move mountains."
You think you're bad, but look at Jonah. Jonah went the other way, but he still ended up doing what God called him to do. You wonder why you're in the belly of the fish right now? It's because you aren't listening, and God is going to get you where He has to get you, no matter what. Why? Because you were created for a purpose. When God created you, He designed something specific for you to do. And He's going to do everything in His power and everything in His will to get you where He needs you to be. So we have to get to the point where we say what Jesus said: "Not my will, God, but Yours."
Here we go. We're going to try to bring this home. Yes produces resurrection power. Y'all hear me? Resurrection power. You can't resurrect anything that isn't dead. Come here, Lazarus. For Jesus to resurrect Lazarus, Lazarus had to die. There are things in your life that need to die so God can get you where He wants you to be. Every surrendered yes leads to a supernatural breakthrough. That's what I'm telling you. The sign kind of messed up on them, because I couldn't fit all the words on it, but it's unimaginably blessed. Why? Because it's going to be supernatural, which means it isn't going to make sense in the natural.
Right now you're broke? You won't be. Right now you're addicted? You won't be. Right now your body is hurting, you're in pain, and you want to be delivered? It'll happen just like that. All you have to do is let God's yes match up with your yes. God already told you yes. All you have to do is have enough faith to believe He's going to do what He said He's going to do. "D, it ain't going to happen for me." You're right. Why? Because you don't believe. But once you believe, it will happen for you. Why? Because God can do whatever He wants to do. You have to believe He can do it through you.
The death of my will makes room for God's power. Jesus could do whatever He wanted. If He had said, "I ain't getting up on this cross," He didn't have to get up on that cross. Matter of fact, while He was on the cross, He could have gotten off. He could have called down angels. If He can raise people from the grave, He could have gotten off that cross. But He said, "I'm going to hang on this cross, because I'm about to do a supernatural miracle. I've got thousands of years of people who need to be grafted into the family of God. They need a way to heaven. So I'm going to do whatever I have to do."
Who in your life is waiting for you to die to yourself so they can see God's power? Are we going to be selfish, hold on to our will and our way, and let the people around us go to hell, because we're not willing to let God transform us so they can see it's possible He can transform them too?
At the End of Your Rope
Here we go. What feels like the end to me may be the beginning of God's purpose. Are you at the end of your rope? At the point where you just can't do this anymore? Ready to throw in the towel on your life, your relationships, your work, whatever you've got going on? You might be right where God wants you to be. Get to the end of yourself, so that He can begin to use you for what He brought you here for.
None of this looks the way we want it to look. Mary and Martha said, "Jesus, we called You days ago." "I know he'll rise again in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said, "No, he's going to rise today." Why? Because He knows what He's capable of.
From Religion to Relationship
The thing I always find very interesting is that in the Bible, the characters who seem to have the most faith are the least religious. There was an army officer whose servant was sick. He called on Jesus, and Jesus said, "I'll come by there." And he said, "No, You don't have to come to my house. Just say the word, and it's done. Because when I say the word, my soldiers do whatever I tell them. So You say the word, and Your angels are going to move, and it's going to happen."
A woman came to Jesus and begged, and He said, "I didn't come for y'all. I came for the Jews." She said, "Even the dogs get the scraps. All I need is a little bit. I'm not asking for a lot." We have to get outside of our religious knowledge and have a true experience, a true relationship with the Creator of the universe. Let go of how you think things are and let this word, the word of truth, speak and move through your life.
We sing these songs and quote these scriptures, but we don't believe them. "What do you mean I don't believe them?" If you believed them, it would be evident in your life. We sing "I Surrender All." No, you don't.
Don't Grow Weary in Doing Good
I had to put a scripture on my phone. It's Galatians 6:9: "Let us not become weary in doing good." Because every day I'm weary in doing good. "I'm tired of this. I'm tired of doing right while everybody else gets ahead but me. I'm tired of struggling. Lord, when is my breakthrough coming?" So I have to remind myself not to grow weary in doing good, because in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.
I'm telling you, we're about to see some awesome things happen. All you have to do is believe. That's where my yes comes in. My yes is believing what God said will happen. And the reality is, you're going to start believing when you're honest with yourself and tell Him: "God, I don't believe. I don't trust You. God, I think You're crazy. Matter of fact, I don't even want to go through everything You tell me I'm going to have to go through. So You're going to have to show me. You're going to have to give me the strength to keep going. God, let the scales fall from my eyes so I can see things like You see things. Lord, I have to see myself the way You see me, because I really don't feel worthy." And here's the thing: we aren't worthy. But when I get hold of the fact that I'm not worthy and He's still giving to me, I have no choice but to give Him all the honor, all the glory, all the praise.
Saying Yes in Our Gethsemane
Church, this is sobering. I'm trying to take us somewhere, but I've got to be honest: what it's going to take to get there isn't going to be easy. But it's going to be worth it. When we can say yes to God in Gethsemane, we can say yes to God anywhere: the place of pressure, the place of wrestling, the place where our flesh speaks loudly but our spirit decides.
Your yes is going to be tested daily, because God isn't impressed with just our words. He's impressed with our behavior. If we want to see true resurrection power, if we want to see God transform not just our lives but the lives of the people around us, we've got to be like Jesus and pray in the garden. We've got to take all our thoughts, all our concerns, all our troubles, all our anxieties, lay them at the cross, submit our will to His will, and say, "God, whatever You've got for me, whatever You're about to send me through, I'm ready." Because I don't know about you, but I want to be anointed with oil. And to get that oil, I've got to be pressed.
The cool thing about it is, if we're being pressed by God, we're still in His hands. He's not going to do anything to harm us. He's not doing it to punish us. He just wants the best out of us. So the question is: are you going to run like Jonah? Are you going to hide like Gideon? Are you going to fall asleep like the disciples? Or are you going to follow Jesus and stay exactly where He puts you, knowing that what's on the other side is a blessing you can't even imagine? God is about to do some mighty things, church. God's word never returns void. God does everything He says He's going to do. And here's the thing: your yes is going to cost you everything.
Weekly Challenge
All right, let's wrap it up.
- Reflect: Where is my flesh resisting what God is asking me to do?
- Act: Choose one area this week where you will surrender instead of resist.
- Pray: "Lord, help me say yes even when my flesh says no. Strengthen my spirit, break my will where needed, and bring resurrection power into my life through obedience."
Closing Prayer
Most gracious and heavenly Father, have Your way. Father God, give us the strength to surrender to Your will and Your way. Open our eyes and show us where we are truly resisting Your will. Some of these ways of ours we've had for a long time, Lord, and we just think, "This is how I am. This is who I am." But Father God, if we've got stuff in the way that's keeping us from being the people You created us to be, I pray that You remove it, so that we can receive all that You have in store for us. Father God, we love You and praise You. In Jesus' name, amen.