SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be with you today.
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited for us to continue in our series on prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to travel to Israel and walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It really is a life-changing experience.
SPEAKER_00: And if you have, you may know what you're looking at on the screen right there where uh this picture was taken.
SPEAKER_00: It was taken just a couple of years ago when I had the privilege to be there with some of our church family.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going again, by the way, in February.
SPEAKER_00: Just a shameless plug that if you would like to go, come see me.
SPEAKER_00: We're going in February, and you could have the chance to do that.
SPEAKER_00: But anybody know where this picture is taken?
SPEAKER_00: This is in the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: That's right, at the foot of the Mount of Olives in the Kidron Valley, right across from where the Temple Mount would have been in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And so that is the scene of the text where we will be today.
SPEAKER_00: So if you have your Bible, open it to Matthew chapter 26.
SPEAKER_00: And as you're finding your place there, one other thing I need to let you know, at the conclusion of our service today, we're going to have the privilege of partaking the Lord's Supper together.
SPEAKER_00: And so as you came in, you should have received uh the elements as you came in.
SPEAKER_00: But if you did not, right now, if you would slip up your hand, we have uh deacons who are gonna come down the aisle.
SPEAKER_00: They have these, so if you forgot to grab one, just put your hand up, keep it up till they come to you.
SPEAKER_00: They will make sure that you get one uh so that you've got that for uh just a little bit later in the service today.
SPEAKER_00: But in Matthew 26, Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: And today in our series on prayer, we are coming to the prayer that we've all been dreading uh to consider today, and that is the prayer of surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Um, even just the word, right?
SPEAKER_00: I can feel it.
SPEAKER_00: It like kind of sucks the air out of the room because surrender is all about letting go of something none of us want to let go of, and that is control.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And so today we are going to see the prayer of surrender that Jesus prayed in one of the most profound, uh, powerful moments in Scripture during Jesus' earthly ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We hopefully today, my prayer is that we would understand what is necessary for you and I to be able to come before the Lord in prayer and surrender our will to the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: And so follow along as I read our text this morning out of Matthew 26.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna begin in verse 36.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, Then Jesus went to the place with his disciples called Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: And he said to them, Sit here while I go over there and pray.
SPEAKER_00: And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled.
SPEAKER_00: And then he said to them, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
SPEAKER_00: Remain here and watch with me.
SPEAKER_00: And going a little further, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.
SPEAKER_00: And he came to the disciples and he found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, So could you not watch with me one hour?
SPEAKER_00: Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_00: And again, for the second time he went away and prayed, My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: And again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.
SPEAKER_00: And so leaving them again, he went away and he prayed for the third time, saying the same words again.
SPEAKER_00: And then he came to the disciples and he said to them, Sleep and take your rest later on.
SPEAKER_00: See, the hour is at hand, and the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.
SPEAKER_00: Rise, let us be going.
SPEAKER_00: See, my betrayer is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Father, this morning, as we come to this passage of Scripture, God, I confess it will be challenging.
SPEAKER_00: God, to lay aside our will, to surrender that to you.
SPEAKER_00: God is a scary thing, and we confess that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: But God, this morning I pray that through your word, your spirit would reveal to us the truth and the freedom and the beauty of surrender.
SPEAKER_00: But God, that we would not just walk away with an intellectual understanding of it, but God, we would understand and we would apply it, God, and that we would leave here today able to pray as Jesus prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Father, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: So teach us this morning, I pray.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So the picture we saw just a few minutes ago of Gethsemane in our text this morning probably looks a lot more like this.
SPEAKER_00: The hour is late.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has left the upper room where he shared uh the Passover meal with his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He's washed their feet, he's left that upper room, he's making his way to Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: Judas has already set in motion his plan to betray our Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so at this point, the weight of the cross, the shadow of what is to come is weighing heavy on Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand that because we don't have time to unpack it as deeply as I would love to, but I want you to think because in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see the humanity of our Lord Jesus, fully God, fully man, but we see his humanity take center stage here in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He is, as a man, is feeling the weight of the cross, and he is dreading it.
SPEAKER_00: The full weight of the cross is starting to bear down on him as he enters into the garden.
SPEAKER_00: Keep that thought in your mind this morning.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we start to think about what the prayer that he prayed, I want you to think about the prayers that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us come to prayer with the purpose of changing God's mind.
SPEAKER_00: Hoping that when we come to him with with in prayer, right, about a situation or about circumstances in our life, our hope is that through prayer it will somehow change God's mind about our circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus is going to show us something here in this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He is going to show us that the ultimate goal, the deeper goal of prayer is not to bend God's will to our will, but it is to actually surrender our will to His.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer of surrender is a prayer that trusts God enough to say, not my will but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning, the big thing I want you to consider as we work through this text is that surrendering to the will of God will only happen when we trust the heart of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to see how the heart of God is on display through the prayer of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And my hope this morning is that we would come away with a deeper conviction of the heart of God toward us.
SPEAKER_00: Because in understanding it and in believing it, and as Mark said earlier, placing our faith in that the character of God and the heart of God is for me.
SPEAKER_00: It allows us to be able to surrender to him, to surrender our will to his will.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's jump in.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see, first of all, the weight of this moment.
SPEAKER_00: We've already talked about it briefly, but I want you to see in the text how Matthew describes the weight that Jesus bore.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Jesus cries, he says to his disciples, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death.
SPEAKER_00: And then he begs them to pray for him, to support him, right?
SPEAKER_00: He is going through the darkest moment of his earthly life right here as he considers what lies before him just a few hours into the future.
SPEAKER_00: And it is weighing him down.
SPEAKER_00: He's crushed by the cross and what is to come.
SPEAKER_00: Not just the physical suffering, although that is absolutely part of what he dreads.
SPEAKER_00: He knows the pain, the physical pain that lies ahead, but the dread is even deeper for him because he knows that he is about to experience the agony of drinking the cup of God's wrath toward sin for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: And so as his humanity is on display, he's not just detached from this moment.
SPEAKER_00: He is feeling every second of the dread.
SPEAKER_00: But I want you to notice what he does with his sorrow, with his fear.
SPEAKER_00: He takes it to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: First Peter tells us to cowl on him, to cast all of our anxieties on him.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: It says because he, the Lord, cares for us.
SPEAKER_00: And here is the first connection to God's character when it comes to a prayer of surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender requires trust in the fact that the Father cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: He cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: We sang about it just a few minutes ago.
SPEAKER_00: He cares for you, and he proved that in the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus drinking the cup of God's wrath was for you to be able to experience fellowship with him, to have your sin atoned for.
SPEAKER_00: You can trust his character.
SPEAKER_00: He cares for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, in this moment, he doesn't sit back and hide what he's feeling.
SPEAKER_00: And I want you to understand something.
SPEAKER_00: When we talk about a prayer of surrender, we're not talking about hiding our emotions.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about somehow trying to act like what's going on around us is not going on around us.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a naivety that says, oh, everything's great.
SPEAKER_00: No, Jesus in this moment is not saying everything is great.
SPEAKER_00: Things are heavy, and he just cries out, this is heavy.
SPEAKER_00: But who does he cry out to?
SPEAKER_00: The one who cares for him.
SPEAKER_00: Church, we can surrender because the Father absolutely cares.
SPEAKER_00: So do you pray like that?
SPEAKER_00: Do you mask your fear and your sorrows when you pray?
SPEAKER_00: Do you just throw out words and phrases?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you coming to the Lord in prayer?
SPEAKER_00: With the cries of your heart, with your fears, with your confusion, with your with your anxieties.
SPEAKER_00: What are you bringing to him?
SPEAKER_00: He invites you to come to him.
SPEAKER_00: Not hiding, but transparent and authentic.
SPEAKER_00: Want you to see the request that Jesus made of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He not only felt the weight, but he makes a request.
SPEAKER_00: Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_00: This cup, it's talked about in the Old Testament multiple times.
SPEAKER_00: It's the cup of God's wrath toward sin.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus knows that he's about to drink it.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: So that we don't have to, amen.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna take this cup and he's going to drink it.
SPEAKER_00: But in this moment, in his humanity, he says, Father, if there's another way for you to redeem and restore fallen humanity to us, let it happen.
SPEAKER_00: If it could happen another way, I'd prefer not to drink this cup.
SPEAKER_00: He prays it three times.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Fully God in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: Fully man, but yet he has to pray this three times.
SPEAKER_00: This request that he brings before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And he's honest.
SPEAKER_00: God, if there's another way, Father, let it be so.
SPEAKER_00: He's lamenting what lies ahead.
SPEAKER_00: That's something very freeing.
SPEAKER_00: And I want I don't want to move on from this too quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Honest lament is actually the language of faith.
SPEAKER_00: To come before the Lord and say, God, I am struggling in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like what is before me.
SPEAKER_00: I want something desperately.
SPEAKER_00: But it is clear to me that it looks like there is something else that you want from me, or what I want doesn't seem to be coming to fruition.
SPEAKER_00: God, I don't like it.
SPEAKER_00: We are afraid to pray that prayer, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Because we think God is going to be angry with that prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus prays that prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He says, God, if it's possible, I don't want to do this.
SPEAKER_00: Honest lament is not a lack of faith.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually the language of faith.
SPEAKER_00: That says, God, I want to trust you.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm struggling to trust you in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: So God, would you help me to want to trust you with the thing that I don't want to trust you with?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus wrestles with the Father in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, we're going to see that he surrenders.
SPEAKER_00: But before we get there with the next phrase, I want you to understand what allows Jesus to even wrestle with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: It is that he trusts in the Father's compassion.
SPEAKER_00: He trusts that the Father loves him.
SPEAKER_00: He trusts that the Father understands the weight of this moment, that the Father understands how heavy this is, how hard this is.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' request, Father, if it be possible, flows out of a deep understanding of his relationship with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Does your prayer life reflect that?
SPEAKER_00: When you come before the Lord in prayer, are you praying those honest prayers or are they sanitized?
SPEAKER_00: God's not threatened by your requests.
SPEAKER_00: Hear me.
SPEAKER_00: God is not threatened when you call out to him with the longings of your heart, even if you know maybe they're not the best things.
SPEAKER_00: It is okay to say, God, I don't like this.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand this.
SPEAKER_00: But the only way that honest prayers like that make sense is when we are deeply trusting in the fact that God is a compassionate Father, full of mercy, full of love, who wants us to cry out to him with those vulnerabilities that we all have, to bring those before him.
SPEAKER_00: But now the phrase, that is the phrase that we're building to, right?
SPEAKER_00: The phrase that we need to pray, nevertheless, not my will, Father, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus praying this.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the surrender that he offers in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: He has not denied his desire, he's expressed it three times to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Three times he has gone through this scenario that we're walking through.
SPEAKER_00: Crying out to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But each time he ends the prayer with a prayer of surrender, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has not denied his desire, but here's what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, God, Father, my desire, I am laying it down under your will.
SPEAKER_00: If my desire conflicts with your will, then let your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: Can you pray that way?
SPEAKER_00: This week, this has been a challenge because I, as I've meditated on this scripture, I've had to ask myself time and time again, do I pray this way?
SPEAKER_00: God, if my desire is in, if it conflicts with your will, God, am I willing to place my desire under submission to your will and pray, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: God, if there's an area of obedience in my life that I am resisting out of pride or out of fear, God, am I willing to say, not my will, but your will be done?
SPEAKER_00: If there's a circumstance that is ahead of me and I don't understand it, am I willing to say, God, I will walk through it if that is what you want, because not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_00: That's the surrender that Jesus offers in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: But it reminds me of a garden a few thousand years before Jesus is in this garden.
SPEAKER_00: Paul describes Jesus as the second Adam.
SPEAKER_00: The second Adam, the one who was able to do what the first Adam was unable to do.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, the second Adam, the one who came to reverse the curse that was brought on by the sin of the first Adam.
SPEAKER_00: So in a garden, a few thousand years before Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane, Adam cried out to God, not your will, but mine.
SPEAKER_00: God, I don't want to trust your plan.
SPEAKER_00: I want what I want.
SPEAKER_00: And because that was the cry of Adam's heart, sin entered the world.
SPEAKER_00: And it infected it, and it infects us.
SPEAKER_00: And because of sin, death entered the human race.
SPEAKER_00: But in a garden a few thousand years later, Jesus on his face before the Father, wrestling with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: As all the demons of hell are pressing down on him in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: This is the critical moment.
SPEAKER_00: This is the place where if this devil is going to break Jesus, this is the moment where it's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment, Jesus does not cry out, my will, not yours.
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: Not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: The second Adam in his surrender breaks the curse of sin, defeats death, makes it possible for you and I to be able to have a restored relationship with our Creator.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: How was Jesus able to pray this prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Adam and Eve doubted God's character.
SPEAKER_00: They thought God was holding out on them.
SPEAKER_00: They believed the lie of the enemy that said, God really doesn't want you to have the best.
SPEAKER_00: And so they doubted the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is trusting the character of God and the wisdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender, a prayer of surrender requires that you and I trust in the Father's wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: That God's ways are higher than our ways, that his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, that he is sovereign over all things.
SPEAKER_00: And even if we don't understand what is going on around us, with our finite understanding, we can say, I can see such a limited view.
SPEAKER_00: My perspective is so small.
SPEAKER_00: But God, I can trust that you have all wisdom, that you have all authority.
SPEAKER_00: And so even if it doesn't make sense to me, I can trust that you are wise.
SPEAKER_00: Couple that with the fact that you are caring and you are compassionate and you are loving, and I can then say, God, not my will, because I might miss this.
SPEAKER_00: I might be mistaken in what I'm wanting in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: So, God, I am going to choose by faith to trust your wisdom in this moment and surrender my will to yours.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender is not for the faint of heart, is it?
SPEAKER_00: It's not a passive thing, is it?
SPEAKER_00: Surrender takes guts.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender is active.
SPEAKER_00: We have to constantly be surrendering, be reminding ourselves of these truths about the character of God, so that we moment by moment can say, Not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: I love that the scripture gives us, as it moves on, a little insight all three times as Jesus prays this prayer into the weakness of the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is here as a warning, as an encouragement, as an admonition.
SPEAKER_00: But as I thought about it more and more, I am so thankful this is here because it shows me something about the character of God as Jesus prays, and then he goes back and he finds the disciples sleeping each time.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus do in these moments?
SPEAKER_00: He urges them to watch and to pray, does he not?
SPEAKER_00: And he says something to them.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_00: What's he talking about here?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Listen, my spirit, my spirit is able to do in you what you were incapable of doing yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But you've got to cry out to me.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to call on me.
SPEAKER_00: Your eyes have to be on me.
SPEAKER_00: But where are their eyes?
SPEAKER_00: They're closed, they're asleep.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than choose to pray, they're choosing to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was not.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus understood part of the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: He was trusting in the Father's provision, was he not?
SPEAKER_00: The disciples had not learned that yet.
SPEAKER_00: But he gives them a little clue as to what lies ahead.
SPEAKER_00: Is that there was coming a time after Jesus was crucified and buried and he rose again and then he ascended to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: What did he do?
SPEAKER_00: He sent his spirit, just like he promised, to indwell these same men who were asleep in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: And that spirit was going to be provisioned for them to be able to speak the name of Jesus with boldness, to be able to face their own death and their own persecution, to name the name of Jesus and not to shy away from what was to lie ahead.
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment, I think for us, we are in this are meant to see that a prayer of surrender requires that we understand the Father's provision for us.
SPEAKER_00: He does not expect us to surrender to him, to muster up the strength to do it in our own strength.
SPEAKER_00: He knows that we are only capable of surrendering to his will when it is the Spirit's indwelling power working in us to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, the Spirit is willing.
SPEAKER_00: Your flesh is weak.
SPEAKER_00: In and of yourself, we are incapable of this.
SPEAKER_00: But through the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, as a child of God, we can do this.
SPEAKER_00: That's the hope.
SPEAKER_00: Is that we can surrender our will to the will of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: But we get lazy in our spiritual walk.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than fall on our faces and wrestle with the Lord in prayer, going to the pages of His Word to try to get our will and submission to His will, we choose to distract ourselves with other things.
SPEAKER_00: This is an admonition, this is an encouragement for you and I to understand that we must run to the Father because only there will we find provision for the stuff that we will face in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Finally, I want you to see the strength that Jesus received in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: After he prays three times, he comes back to the disciples, wakes them up again, and he says, Rise.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: What did he do?
SPEAKER_00: He set his face to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Think about how we entered the garden and how we left the garden.
SPEAKER_00: He entered the garden weighed down with sorrow and fear.
SPEAKER_00: He left the garden with resolve.
SPEAKER_00: We read this account in the Gospel of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: It says that the angels came and strengthened him in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: See, his prayer in the garden did not change the path that he was on.
SPEAKER_00: But it did change his posture.
SPEAKER_00: He went from saying, Lord, if it's possible for this cup to pass from me without me drinking it, please let it be so.
SPEAKER_00: But he left the garden saying, let's go to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Father, this is your will.
SPEAKER_00: This is your plan.
SPEAKER_00: And I submit to your plan.
SPEAKER_00: It was the strength of the Father that allowed Jesus to pray that prayer of surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Church, for you and I, a prayer of surrender means that we have an understanding that it is the strength of God that will enable us to walk through this life.
SPEAKER_00: He is the one who will sustain us.
SPEAKER_00: He never abandons us.
SPEAKER_00: He walks with us, sustaining us and strengthening us through it.
SPEAKER_00: Um I wasn't gonna tell this story, but but I'm but I'm I am I changed my mind.
SPEAKER_00: Um 13, 14 years ago, my father passed away of cancer.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a difficult time.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he fought, wanted to be here, has eight kids.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them were young at the time.
SPEAKER_00: And so there was this desire, like, I want to fight this, I want to get well.
SPEAKER_00: But it really became clear in the summer of uh 2011 that that was not the Lord's plan.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord was going to take him home.
SPEAKER_00: And so we were, uh we took a trip.
SPEAKER_00: We realized this will be our last chance to do something, and so we made a trip to Atlanta to go see the Braves play.
SPEAKER_00: And um on the way down, um I put in a CD, because that's what we had at that time, um, in our car player.
SPEAKER_00: Like if you don't know what a CD is, then I don't want to talk to you.
SPEAKER_00: Um but but we put in a Need to Breathe CD.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a song on there that's never been released as a hit, it's never been on the radio, but the song is called Garden.
SPEAKER_00: And it is their take on the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: There's a picture hanging on my wall with the words to this song.
SPEAKER_00: And it says, Let the songs I sing bring joy to you.
SPEAKER_00: Let the words I say profess my love.
SPEAKER_00: Let the notes I choose be your favorite tune.
SPEAKER_00: Father, let my heart be after you.
SPEAKER_00: I think that captures the heart of Jesus in the garden.
SPEAKER_00: I sang that song at my dad's celebration of life service when he went home to be with the Lord because that was the song he sang on repeat for the last two months of his life.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: This is not what I would have chosen, but if this is what you have chosen, God, I want to trust you and I want my life to sing a song that pleases you.
SPEAKER_00: And it was in those two months that I saw my dad surrender to the will of God, and it was a beautiful picture, and it has been something that has sustained me and been an example for me throughout my life these last 13 and 14 years.
SPEAKER_00: There is a beauty in surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus surrendered to the will of the Father, and he defeated sin and death and now reigns.
SPEAKER_00: He sits at the right hand of the Father, he has sent his spirit to indwell you and I.
SPEAKER_00: Because of that, we can now surrender to his will in our own lives because his spirit dwells in us and empowers us to do so.
SPEAKER_00: So why do we resist it?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we resist surrendering our will to the Father?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think one reason is because of what we've looked at.
SPEAKER_00: We miss the character of God.
SPEAKER_00: We don't attach surrender to our understanding of God's compassion and his care and his wisdom and his provision and his strength.
SPEAKER_00: We separate those things.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We leave all of these amazing truths about his character over here, and we just say, Lord, I've got to surrender.
SPEAKER_00: I can't think about that at the moment.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the first thing I want you to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Don't detach surrendering your will to the Father from under from a deep understanding and an application of his character into your life.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do it.
SPEAKER_00: But there's one other lie that we choose to believe about surrender.
SPEAKER_00: And I had this lesson taught to me uh by my oldest daughter many, many years ago when she was about four years old.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody know what these are?
SPEAKER_00: Little swimmies, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's what we call them anyway.
SPEAKER_00: You put floaties, you put them on your arms for the pool.
SPEAKER_00: So my daughter, she's about four years old.
SPEAKER_00: We were at the beach with my grandparents.
SPEAKER_00: Um we had gone down to the beach that day, and then uh we had gotten enough sand, and so we decided to come back up to the pool.
SPEAKER_00: And so we were there by the pool.
SPEAKER_00: We blow these things up, we put them on Avery's arms.
SPEAKER_00: I get in the water, I reach for her, she climbs in the water, and I'm thinking she's just gonna go.
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm gonna kind of give her a little push, and she's just gonna swim and kick around, and she's just gonna play, and it's gonna be wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I did not know a four-year-old's arms could be as strong as hers were in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: She had a vice grip around my neck.
SPEAKER_00: She would not let me go.
SPEAKER_00: She was terrified of me letting her go swim in the water by herself.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, Daddy, no, I don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00: Please don't make me go, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sitting here and we're causing a scene in the pool, and it's it's bad.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but I and so I'm trying to pry her hands off my neck, and I finally do, but they immediately go from my neck to the edge of the pool.
SPEAKER_00: And she's now, you know, just like her knuckles are turning white, holding on to the edge of the pool.
SPEAKER_00: Daddy, I don't want to go.
SPEAKER_00: Don't make me go out and swim.
SPEAKER_00: Like I want to stay here with you.
SPEAKER_00: So I pry her hands off the side.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Avery, we're gonna do this, right?
SPEAKER_00: Trying not to cause a scene for the other people there trying to enjoy the pool, but her hands go from the side of the pool back to my neck, right?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, okay, we're not getting anywhere here.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm trying to reason with her.
SPEAKER_00: You can't reason with a four-year-old.
SPEAKER_00: I learned that.
SPEAKER_00: But um, I was trying to say, honey, you'll enjoy this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be right here with you.
SPEAKER_00: This is going to be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you're safe.
SPEAKER_00: You've got floaties on.
SPEAKER_00: I am right here beside you, nothing's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: No words that I could say would change her mind about the danger of the spot she found herself in.
SPEAKER_00: So I whisper in her ear, I say, honey, you have two choices.
SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, you are gonna get out there in the water.
SPEAKER_00: You are not going to be scared of the water.
SPEAKER_00: So we can do this one of two ways.
SPEAKER_00: One, when I say go, you can let go of my neck and you can just swim out into the middle and you can enjoy the water.
SPEAKER_00: But if you don't choose that option, the second option is that I will pry your arms off my neck, I will spin you around, I'll put my hand under your cute little bottom, and I will launch you into the middle of the pool.
SPEAKER_00: And then you will learn that you can trust me, that these things will keep you afloat, and that the water is something to enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to read my book on parenting tips, I'm about to write it.
SPEAKER_00: But um, Avery chose option two.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I kept my word, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh she went sailing.
SPEAKER_00: What she didn't know is that as she was flying through the air a few feet away, I was swimming to the very spot where she would land.
SPEAKER_00: So that I was right there.
SPEAKER_00: But what happened?
SPEAKER_00: She pops up after she goes under, you know, she sputters for a minute, and then she realizes I can fly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm good to go.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, this is a few moments after that.
SPEAKER_00: She's like, this water is fun.
SPEAKER_00: I am chilling, I am having the time of my life in the water.
SPEAKER_00: Surrender, but what did she have to do?
SPEAKER_00: One, she had to learn that she could trust me.
SPEAKER_00: That what I said was true, that I was not going to leave her, that I wasn't telling her something or asking her to do something that I wasn't confident was best for her.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted her to enjoy the water.
SPEAKER_00: But it required that she surrendered her will to mine.
SPEAKER_00: But surrender without trust is what we were experiencing in the first few minutes: fear, dread.
SPEAKER_00: But then she learned to trust.
SPEAKER_00: And so surrender brought freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Church, that's the beauty of surrender.
SPEAKER_00: That is the beauty of this prayer, is that when we trust the heart of the Father, there is freedom to say, God, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what's gonna happen, but I know you do, and so I can trust you.
SPEAKER_00: So this morning, in the time that we have left, I want to implore you to not get up.
SPEAKER_00: We're about to sing two songs, and uh a lot of times people choose to get up during this time and make their way uh to the FLB for your growth group.
SPEAKER_00: The growth groups aren't out yet, so please, please stay in the room because we're gonna do two things here.
SPEAKER_00: One, we are gonna have some time where you, just at your own pace, can take the elements of the Lord's Supper.
SPEAKER_00: And then I want to give you space to be able to wrestle with what is your not my will, but your will moment that you're wrestling with right now.
SPEAKER_00: And so our our worship team is gonna come and they are gonna begin to lead us and they're gonna begin to sing.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in this moment, the first thing I want you to do during these two songs is if you have placed your faith in Jesus as Savior, then I want you to sit and to contemplate his body that was broken and pierced for you.
SPEAKER_00: And his blood that was shed for you.
SPEAKER_00: How fitting that we've been looking at the passage from the Garden of Gethsemane.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus let his hands and his feet be pierced.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah says, by his stripes we are healed.
SPEAKER_00: His broken body allows us to find healing in life.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus drank the cup of God's wrath so that we could drink the cup of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: And so as you consider the trusting the character of God to allow you to approach these, not my will, but your will be done moments that we're all going to face in life.
SPEAKER_00: Start with just remembering the character of God that is on display through the work of salvation that Jesus purchased for us on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Now you may want to do this just by yourself, right there where you sit.
SPEAKER_00: If you're with your family, you may want to, or some friends, maybe you want to circle up and do this together.
SPEAKER_00: You may want to come here and use the altar and use this as a place where you or your family can come and partake the Lord's Supper together.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna give you space to just guide yourself through that.
SPEAKER_00: But this is for those who have placed their faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If you have never placed your faith in him and trusted him, then the first thing you must do is bow your knee to the Lord Jesus, to accept his gift of salvation for you, and you will have a moment to do that in this service if that is where you are.
SPEAKER_00: But then the second thing that I want you to do, after you've had a time to worship the Lord and remember him through communion, I want you to take a couple of moments, and I want you to consider what is that not my will, but your will be done, moment that you are facing right now in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And are you willing to submit it to the Father, to lay it down and say, nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you need to do that right here.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you just need to come and simply lay it down at the altar.
SPEAKER_00: We'll also have uh we'll have uh ministers down front who will be glad to pray with you about those things, or you can just come by yourself and just pray, God, I'm laying it down before you.
SPEAKER_00: Because I want what you want more than I want what I want, or at least I want to want it more than I want to want what I want.
SPEAKER_00: So God help me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm wrestling with this, but I'm gonna start praying a prayer of surrender until I can really lay it down.
SPEAKER_00: But would you use these two songs as a chance to worship the Lord through communion and then to start wrestling with a prayer of surrender?
SPEAKER_00: Father, would you take this time that we're about to have?
SPEAKER_00: God, would you do what only you can do in this moment?
SPEAKER_00: God, if there's anyone here in this room who does not know you, who have never surrendered their life to you and place their faith in you and your finished work on the cross as the thing that can restore their relationship to you.
SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that they would meet me or one of these ministers down front during these songs to understand how they can accept you as Savior right now.
SPEAKER_00: For the rest of us in this room, I pray that we would be bold to do business with you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Would you stand as we sing, as we partake of the Lord's Supper?
SPEAKER_00: You have freedom in this moment.
SPEAKER_00: But let's do that together.