WEBVTT 00:00:11.679 --> 00:00:14.000 How are we doing this morning, church? 00:00:15.280 --> 00:00:16.719 You ready for the word? 00:00:18.800 --> 00:00:20.960 What a great time of worship. 00:00:21.200 --> 00:00:31.359 I uh feel like sometimes I get up and I finally get to speak and I'm a little bit raw in the throat because just been giving her during what's been going on with our worship the last few months. 00:00:31.600 --> 00:00:33.920 So I want to start this morning with this. 00:00:34.320 --> 00:00:41.600 I want to ask you a question, and I want you to be honest with yourself, not don't nudge the person next to you. 00:00:41.920 --> 00:00:44.079 This isn't for them, this is for you. 00:00:44.560 --> 00:00:46.640 I want you to ask this question. 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:52.479 When was the last time that God asked you to do something and you said, No, I'm good? 00:00:54.320 --> 00:00:57.359 I love the uncomfortable chuckles across the room. 00:00:59.119 --> 00:01:05.680 This often happens, the Lord asks us to do something, and then we say things like, Oh, I'm just praying about it. 00:01:09.760 --> 00:01:11.680 Just waiting on confirmation. 00:01:12.960 --> 00:01:15.039 Oh, I don't have peace about it. 00:01:15.920 --> 00:01:25.599 And sometimes, and sometimes, and sometimes, if we're really honest with ourselves, it's a spiritual way of saying, I heard you, but I'm not ready to listen yet. 00:01:26.400 --> 00:01:29.439 And this morning, I want to talk about surrender. 00:01:29.519 --> 00:01:32.560 We've been in this absolutely fantastic series. 00:01:34.480 --> 00:01:37.760 And the very first one that we had was on the fear of the Lord. 00:01:37.920 --> 00:01:39.039 Just how do we fear God? 00:01:39.120 --> 00:01:40.480 What does a fear actually look like? 00:01:40.560 --> 00:01:44.079 And it gives us a healthy position of how we approach and we see God. 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:51.519 Then we have one where Pastor Brody just laid out what is honor, how do we honor God, how do we honor others, and what happens, the blessing that comes from honoring. 00:01:51.599 --> 00:01:55.599 And then we hear Pastor Malachi just bring an amazing word last week on holiness. 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:06.560 Just powerful, and all of these things lead us to this place that as the Christ follower, you have no choice but to offer up surrender to Him. 00:02:06.959 --> 00:02:10.719 Because when we understand the fear of God, how do we honor? 00:02:10.879 --> 00:02:13.760 How do we exist in a place of holiness? 00:02:14.000 --> 00:02:21.199 The only response that we can have as the Christian, as the Christ follower, as the one who sold out for Jesus is God, I surrender to you. 00:02:22.479 --> 00:02:23.120 That's it. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:27.199 So this is what I want to work with about surrender this morning. 00:02:27.439 --> 00:02:29.280 We love the idea of surrender. 00:02:29.520 --> 00:02:36.639 We post about it, we pray about it, we talk to each other about it, we sing songs about surrender. 00:02:36.879 --> 00:02:42.080 We may have sung some this morning or last week, but surrender without obedience is just a nice idea. 00:02:43.039 --> 00:02:46.479 And obedience without surrender is just us performing. 00:02:47.359 --> 00:02:48.319 So we need both. 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:50.400 They're two sides of the exact same coin. 00:02:50.479 --> 00:02:53.599 So I want to close the gap this morning. 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.560 This is what surrender is, as we just lean into this. 00:02:56.719 --> 00:02:59.439 Surrender is the heart saying, God, you're in charge. 00:02:59.919 --> 00:03:04.240 Obedience is my life proving that he's in charge. 00:03:04.879 --> 00:03:09.919 My problem is that sometimes I get really good at one and I like to avoid the other. 00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:18.719 Oftentimes the one that where I actually move forward in my life and I have to be obedient to what God is asking, that's the one I like to avoid. 00:03:19.039 --> 00:03:25.280 So we're gonna go to scripture and we're gonna talk about this this morning, and there's this something in James that he says that really is important. 00:03:25.919 --> 00:03:32.319 This is what it says in James 1:22, but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 00:03:33.520 --> 00:03:38.319 This scripture, the word deceiving should just stop us right there, and we should just stop. 00:03:38.400 --> 00:03:39.919 It's not calling us lazy. 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:43.359 He's saying that we're lying to ourselves. 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:51.680 We can sit in church, have a Christ-centered worship, lift up our hands, hear the gospel, hear the word, not agree, walk out unchanged. 00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:53.520 Do you know why I know that? 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:57.120 I'm that guy. 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:05.359 I've done it, you've done it, we've done it, we've heard the word, know the Lord, know the Holy Spirit's just pressed on our heart, and we walk out. 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:11.680 And sometimes I've thought in my life that hearing is the same as obeying. 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:12.800 Obeying. 00:04:13.039 --> 00:04:15.199 I'm in church, God, I hear you. 00:04:15.359 --> 00:04:16.960 Why is that not good enough? 00:04:17.199 --> 00:04:22.240 But James, he calls us out in this scripture, he calls it self-despect self-deception. 00:04:22.319 --> 00:04:24.080 We're not responding in faith. 00:04:24.400 --> 00:04:37.280 Where there is a question that comes from even that statement that forces us, the question is what changes is in my life if I'm not just a hearer, but also a doer? 00:04:39.200 --> 00:04:41.200 So I just want to pray and we just want to get into this. 00:04:41.280 --> 00:04:42.560 Lord, you're so good. 00:04:43.520 --> 00:04:45.280 We're ready to hear your word. 00:04:45.440 --> 00:04:49.520 We want to operate in a place of surrender and obedience to you, Lord. 00:04:49.600 --> 00:05:00.080 And as our worship has prepared us for us to be open, Lord, that your words just penetrate our hearts and we leave this place changed by your Holy Spirit. 00:05:00.320 --> 00:05:03.040 We leave this place different than when we came in here. 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:06.400 More of you in this place on each of us in Jesus' name. 00:05:06.720 --> 00:05:07.360 Amen. 00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:09.040 Thanks, Michael. 00:05:09.760 --> 00:05:11.680 So I want to tell a story, is that okay? 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:14.080 You're okay, you're here, so you have no choice. 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:22.880 So when I was in my late 30s, I decided one day that I wanted to be an RCMP officer. 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:26.080 Usually I get snickers with that one. 00:05:26.160 --> 00:05:28.800 I'm not sure why you're just kind of sitting there, but I wanted to be. 00:05:28.960 --> 00:05:29.280 What's that? 00:05:30.640 --> 00:05:31.840 Yeah, thanks guys. 00:05:32.000 --> 00:05:34.480 Wow, that did not go the way I was I was expecting it. 00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:36.800 Surprised me every time. 00:05:37.120 --> 00:05:40.240 But for like four or five years, I pursued the RCMP. 00:05:40.320 --> 00:05:47.360 I did the eye tests and the medical and the obstacle course, like three or three times, I think. 00:05:47.760 --> 00:05:51.760 Second time I almost blocked out and they had to have parents and paramedics next to me. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:55.440 I want to tell you that I'm in great shape, but that would just be a lie. 00:05:55.920 --> 00:06:00.880 And I was like, and so, but I realized after a while like RCMP isn't necessarily what I do. 00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:04.160 I didn't want to get shipped to like Newfoundland or anywhere like that. 00:06:04.320 --> 00:06:08.160 Like, not the hey, hey, sorry, my new fie friends, I apologize. 00:06:08.480 --> 00:06:12.560 I personally did not want to go to that side of the country. 00:06:12.800 --> 00:06:14.160 I apologize. 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:19.600 So I decided one day that instead I'm gonna apply for the Calgary Police. 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:31.840 And so I spent another couple years doing the same things medical, eyes, testing, all that kind of stuff, obstacle courses, and all of it kind of just blent into one, blended into one, and I just spent a lot of money and time doing this. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:34.880 And after about four or five years, it just didn't work out. 00:06:35.040 --> 00:06:38.000 And so I'm like, okay, so I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing. 00:06:38.240 --> 00:06:40.480 I uh we ended up moving to Prince George. 00:06:40.640 --> 00:06:43.520 Yes, I chose to go there before anyone says anything. 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:45.600 I loved Prince George. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:46.480 Woo! 00:06:47.440 --> 00:06:50.720 There's always one person for Prince George, like, that's my home. 00:06:51.520 --> 00:06:53.280 But we worked out there, and I was like, you know what? 00:06:53.360 --> 00:07:01.040 I still have this desire in my heart to just go to the RCMP or Calgary, and so I was like, well, I'm gonna switch from Calgary back to the RCMP. 00:07:01.120 --> 00:07:02.640 And so I was like, oh, corrections. 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:06.560 If I get into corrections, maybe this will be a good way into it. 00:07:06.960 --> 00:07:17.440 So I spent a few months talking to people, getting everything all ready, doing the application, which is like 150 pages of asking really personal questions about myself. 00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:32.480 And you get to this application, and I'm I'm pretty sure that the day of or the day before that I was dropping off my application, there was a federal hiring freeze for corrections for 18 months. 00:07:33.600 --> 00:07:37.360 So almost like the Lord was like, that's not what you're gonna do. 00:07:38.240 --> 00:07:38.800 Right? 00:07:39.040 --> 00:07:40.640 So I thought that was gonna be a good thing. 00:07:40.720 --> 00:07:48.720 And everything that I had been building towards, all the time and all the effort, all the exercise that I had to do, it was gone just overnight. 00:07:48.880 --> 00:07:49.600 Just like that. 00:07:49.680 --> 00:07:56.560 And there was a just a moment of like, okay, I've tried everything, the Calgary police, I got to the end, they said I'm just not good enough. 00:07:56.800 --> 00:07:59.200 Then I get to corrections, and now I can't get into corrections. 00:07:59.360 --> 00:08:00.400 Like, Lord, what are you doing? 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:02.480 What am I doing with my life? 00:08:03.440 --> 00:08:21.520 But one of the questions that came out of that, even as I was thinking about this week, the question that I was not ready to ask myself then, but I'm okay to ask it now, was I willing to surrender something I had been holding on to for years and obey a God whose plan looked nothing like mine. 00:08:24.080 --> 00:08:40.240 The question really wasn't about the RCMP, the question was whether or not I trusted God enough to release what I was holding on to and follow him into something that I could never or never even thought of, or never even think that I was ready to do. 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:43.680 The question that I asked is not a new question. 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:46.399 Many of us in this room have asked this question. 00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:49.360 We've wondered about surrender, we've wondered about obedience. 00:08:49.519 --> 00:08:52.240 God, how does this does this work in my life? 00:08:52.480 --> 00:08:55.680 Well, we all face this as Christ followers, amen. 00:08:55.920 --> 00:08:57.120 We're all facing God. 00:08:57.200 --> 00:09:00.480 I hear you speaking to me, and I need to be obedient. 00:09:01.279 --> 00:09:02.879 But how do I do that? 00:09:03.200 --> 00:09:14.160 And so this morning I want to show you a story in the Bible that's really interesting that actually is about a man who closed that gap and how much it cost him. 00:09:14.240 --> 00:09:21.840 And before we get into this and we get to work onto this little passage, I want to give a little bit of historical context to Abraham so that we have something to work with. 00:09:21.920 --> 00:09:24.240 So when I get into the passage, you know what I'm talking about. 00:09:24.399 --> 00:09:26.480 You need to understand what's behind this passage. 00:09:26.720 --> 00:09:34.480 So Abraham waited 25 years for a son because God told him at 75 he was going to have a child. 00:09:35.680 --> 00:09:38.480 An advanced age, he was gonna have another child. 00:09:38.639 --> 00:09:40.960 Sarah at the time was 90. 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:46.879 And so he had to wait 25 years from 75 to 100 to actually have that baby. 00:09:47.120 --> 00:09:52.879 So 25 years of silence, 25 years of disappointment, all trying to make it happen on their own. 00:09:53.040 --> 00:09:57.600 And then Sarah laughed at God when it was finally gonna happen. 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:12.480 Because she was also advanced in age and she was not able to have babies, and she was name, so she told Abraham to go impregnate another woman named Hagar, and they had a son named Ishmael. 00:10:12.639 --> 00:10:18.320 But one thing I love about this story is that God's instructions were very, very clear to Abraham. 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:26.080 The covenant goes through Isaac, it doesn't go through Ishmael, not anyone else. 00:10:26.240 --> 00:10:33.360 Isaac is the only one, the only thread connecting Abraham to everything that God had promised. 00:10:33.759 --> 00:10:38.000 Descendants like stars, lands, blessings, all of it ran through Isaac. 00:10:38.160 --> 00:10:40.800 Poor Isaac, so much pressure on this kid, right? 00:10:41.120 --> 00:10:50.720 So when you hear God, what God asks Abraham to do, and in the passage I'm gonna read, I want you to feel the weight of what's online on the line here. 00:10:51.200 --> 00:10:58.160 This is God asking Abraham to put the promise that he was given by God on the altar. 00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:01.920 So let's read through Genesis 22, verse 1 to 14. 00:11:02.480 --> 00:11:12.800 All of these things God tested, and after all of these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, and Abraham said, Here I am. 00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:22.480 He said, Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. 00:11:22.720 --> 00:11:33.200 So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him, and his son Isaac, and he cut wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. 00:11:33.360 --> 00:11:37.440 On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. 00:11:37.680 --> 00:11:45.040 Then Abraham said to his young men, Stay here with the donkey, I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. 00:11:45.279 --> 00:11:55.040 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, laid it on Isaac his son, and took it, took his hand, the fire, and the knife, so they both of them went together. 00:11:55.279 --> 00:11:59.840 And Isaac said to his father, Abraham, my father, and he said, Here I am, my son. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:03.680 He said, Behold the fire in the wood, but where is a lamb for the burnt offering? 00:12:03.920 --> 00:12:08.240 Abraham said, God will provide himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. 00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.480 And so they went, both of them together. 00:12:10.800 --> 00:12:20.399 When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:21.920 Poor Isaac. 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.360 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son. 00:12:25.519 --> 00:12:32.080 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham, and again Abraham responds, Here I am. 00:12:32.320 --> 00:12:36.960 And he said, Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him, for I know you fear God. 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:40.480 Seeing you've not withheld your son, your only son, from me. 00:12:40.720 --> 00:12:52.240 Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his swords, and Abraham took, went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 00:12:52.879 --> 00:13:00.639 So Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide, and as it is to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. 00:13:01.040 --> 00:13:02.639 This is a heavy passage. 00:13:02.960 --> 00:13:04.000 You with me? 00:13:05.840 --> 00:13:10.480 I thought when I was reading, I have two sons, who do I pick? 00:13:11.040 --> 00:13:13.040 That was one of my thoughts. 00:13:14.560 --> 00:13:17.519 Good thing they weren't there as part of my thinking process. 00:13:19.120 --> 00:13:21.519 But I don't know what I would have done. 00:13:22.879 --> 00:13:26.240 And probably the right response is, I just don't know. 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:30.320 If the Lord was gonna ask me, that passage causes me some discomfort. 00:13:30.480 --> 00:13:33.120 Lord, I don't want to be asked to do something like that. 00:13:33.920 --> 00:13:34.480 Right? 00:13:34.800 --> 00:13:40.399 God asks a man to go out, put his son on an altar, and kill his own kid. 00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:51.360 So we can sit back and we can look at Abraham from a bit of a distance and just kind of think, oh, we know that, but we'll miss the whole point. 00:13:54.240 --> 00:13:59.200 The question I see about this, Lord, am I already doing what you're asking me to do? 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:05.120 So we start with this surrender is not a feeling, it's a response. 00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:07.440 Right? 00:14:07.920 --> 00:14:09.759 Surrender is a feeling, it's not a response. 00:14:09.920 --> 00:14:11.440 Genesis 22, 1 to 3. 00:14:11.519 --> 00:14:13.279 I just want to read just quickly through these. 00:14:13.440 --> 00:14:19.120 After all these things, God tested Abraham, and he said, Here I am, say here I am. 00:14:19.600 --> 00:14:26.560 And he said, Take your son, your only son, whom you love, go to the land of Moriah, and offer him up as a burnt offering. 00:14:26.800 --> 00:14:36.240 There's a few things that we see in this passage of scripture that I, when I was reading through the commentaries and I learned about this, look at the war, the way the Lord sets this up for us. 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:38.879 He doesn't say, Bring, just bring Isaac. 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:52.560 He stacks it like this: your son, your only son, the one whom you love, every time he asked him, that phrase added more weight, more intentionality, more purpose to what he was gonna say to uh to Abraham. 00:14:52.800 --> 00:14:59.279 God is making sure that Abraham feels the full weight of what he is about to do before he takes that first step. 00:14:59.440 --> 00:15:14.720 And it's something that's worth noticing in this that I didn't actually know is that this is one of the first times that the word love shows up in the narrative of scripture like this, used in such a way that the example of a father willing to sacrifice his son because he trusted God. 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:18.960 Almost like we have an example of that already. 00:15:19.920 --> 00:15:25.759 The whole reason this command was so devastating to Abraham was that it was his son. 00:15:28.879 --> 00:15:29.759 It was his son. 00:15:29.840 --> 00:15:32.480 He God asked him to kill his own son. 00:15:33.360 --> 00:15:44.800 So when we experience that church, we understand we walk in the fear of the Lord, we walk in honor, we walk in purpose, we walk in intentionality between the Lord, we lift up his name. 00:15:44.960 --> 00:15:47.279 We sang it this morning, he is holy. 00:15:47.920 --> 00:15:51.360 One of our responses is surrender. 00:15:52.639 --> 00:15:53.759 We see this. 00:15:54.960 --> 00:16:05.200 We develop this relationship with God that's so deep in love that we choose to surrender not because of obligation or we feel like we have to, but because we want to. 00:16:06.160 --> 00:16:07.600 Do you see the difference? 00:16:11.120 --> 00:16:16.800 What do we see is that all of this, God wasn't asking Abraham for something bad. 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:27.840 It's really oftentimes in my own life when I struggle with sin or some kind of addiction or something like that, it's easy for me to say, God, I want to give these up for you. 00:16:28.480 --> 00:16:31.519 I want to give up the addiction, I want to give up the smoking. 00:16:31.600 --> 00:16:34.240 I struggle with smoking for years, I want to give that up. 00:16:34.399 --> 00:16:38.240 And that is the obvious choice is to give up sin, to surrender sin. 00:16:38.399 --> 00:16:39.360 That is the obvious choice. 00:16:39.440 --> 00:16:40.160 You with me? 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:42.720 Feels like that, you know, that's what you're supposed to do. 00:16:42.879 --> 00:16:44.320 I'm gonna give up sin. 00:16:45.519 --> 00:16:51.279 But in this, Abraham responds with this word, here I am. 00:16:52.480 --> 00:16:55.279 I love this because it's not a location report. 00:16:55.360 --> 00:17:00.560 And if you read deep into this Hebrew word, it I'm not gonna try and pronounce it. 00:17:00.800 --> 00:17:03.279 It means I am at your disposal. 00:17:03.440 --> 00:17:05.839 Whatever comes next, I am in. 00:17:06.079 --> 00:17:10.960 This is how he responded to God with the instruction he got about his own son. 00:17:11.359 --> 00:17:12.319 Here I am. 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:16.400 So then we see in this in verse 3, it says Abraham rose early. 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:19.440 No argument, no negotiations, no delay. 00:17:19.600 --> 00:17:22.319 We see all through scripture, Moses argued. 00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:24.960 Gideon asked for more information. 00:17:25.200 --> 00:17:31.839 Wasn't enough that an angel came to and came to him in a grain elevator, but he asked for more. 00:17:32.079 --> 00:17:34.559 Jonah ran, Abraham just got up. 00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:39.360 And sometimes I argue with God about if I should buy someone lunch. 00:17:39.680 --> 00:17:42.000 And it's not even talking about sacrificing my own son. 00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:44.079 It's like, should I do this or shouldn't I do this? 00:17:44.160 --> 00:17:46.720 And like, uh, I don't know, Lord, that's an extra$20. 00:17:48.000 --> 00:17:53.360 Abraham was asked by God to take his son up and offer a sacrifice. 00:17:54.960 --> 00:17:59.360 So we see in this text it's a series of actions, verbs. 00:17:59.600 --> 00:18:00.799 Action, verbs. 00:18:00.960 --> 00:18:05.200 He moves, he rose, he saddled, he took, he cut, he went. 00:18:06.079 --> 00:18:09.360 Surrender, church, is not the moment you feel okay with it. 00:18:09.519 --> 00:18:12.400 Surrender is the next step you take when you don't. 00:18:13.360 --> 00:18:14.559 That surrender. 00:18:15.759 --> 00:18:19.360 And what we see here is not two separate moments. 00:18:19.600 --> 00:18:25.039 It's not in one verse where he sendles, we see in one verse where he surrenders just like an internal thing. 00:18:25.120 --> 00:18:26.400 Yes, God, I'm you're in charge. 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:30.640 And then we see in another verse where he obeys, we see it's one thing. 00:18:30.880 --> 00:18:34.000 It's one motion, the heart releases, the feet moved. 00:18:34.160 --> 00:18:40.640 This is how I believe that we see in scripture all the way through that God has designed surrender for us. 00:18:41.759 --> 00:18:44.880 That when we surrender, we walk in a new move. 00:18:45.039 --> 00:18:51.440 We walk in a direction that is different, one that just it moves our feet to be able to go into the direction He's called us to do. 00:18:51.600 --> 00:18:52.240 Amen? 00:18:52.880 --> 00:18:55.920 So here is where we get a little bit uncomfortable. 00:18:56.400 --> 00:18:57.680 We okay, church? 00:18:59.120 --> 00:19:02.240 It's easy to surrender in the abstract. 00:19:04.960 --> 00:19:11.440 It's easy to say on a Sunday morning, God, I give you everything. 00:19:13.279 --> 00:19:15.600 Because it doesn't have any cost to it. 00:19:16.240 --> 00:19:19.200 We can say, God, I give you everything. 00:19:19.519 --> 00:19:22.000 He didn't say to Abraham, I give you everything. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:23.360 He was specific. 00:19:23.839 --> 00:19:30.000 He asked, he said, your son, your only son, the one whom you love is Isaac, and then he asked him to surrender this. 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:32.319 Vague surrender is free. 00:19:33.360 --> 00:19:37.279 Specific surrender that we are called to actually cost us something. 00:19:37.600 --> 00:19:41.759 God had Abraham hear the name before he asked for the sacrifice. 00:19:45.360 --> 00:19:47.120 You're awfully quiet out there. 00:19:52.240 --> 00:19:56.240 And then we see that obedience is sustained, not spontaneous. 00:19:57.600 --> 00:20:01.920 On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw this place from afar. 00:20:02.880 --> 00:20:04.160 Three days. 00:20:05.600 --> 00:20:06.880 Three days. 00:20:09.120 --> 00:20:10.880 This is such an interesting passage. 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:14.640 I've never I've read this many times in my life, but I've never seen it like this. 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:15.680 Three days. 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:26.000 He got up, he cut, he saddled, he went out, he did things, and three days, 72 hours of walking with the full weight of God's command about his son in his life. 00:20:26.400 --> 00:20:32.079 No angelic reassurance, no confirmation, no one saying, Hey Abraham, you're doing a good job. 00:20:32.319 --> 00:20:33.279 None of that. 00:20:33.519 --> 00:20:36.319 There's no voice from heaven saying anything, it is just him. 00:20:36.640 --> 00:20:37.920 Silence, just a command. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:39.839 We don't see anything in that passage of scripture. 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:43.279 Three days a talk took him to walk to the top of the mountain. 00:20:44.400 --> 00:20:45.600 What do we see from this? 00:20:45.759 --> 00:20:48.640 Surrender doesn't happen at once. 00:20:49.279 --> 00:20:53.600 Sometimes we think that if we surrender, that's it, we don't have to try anymore. 00:20:56.640 --> 00:21:01.440 Abraham had to keep surrendering every step for three days. 00:21:04.400 --> 00:21:07.440 It's hard for me to go to the gym two days in a row. 00:21:10.799 --> 00:21:17.120 He gets this command from God do this really, really hard thing, and for three days he has to live with it. 00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:22.079 Every mile was another opportunity for him just to turn around. 00:21:22.319 --> 00:21:27.519 Every hill that he had to climb was a chance for him just to be like, I'm not gonna do this and look the other way. 00:21:28.079 --> 00:21:32.799 Or never every time he went to sleep, he's like, ah, maybe I just misheard God in this moment. 00:21:33.360 --> 00:21:35.440 All things that I've said in my walk with the Lord. 00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:37.759 I didn't really hear the Lord say it like that. 00:21:38.480 --> 00:21:46.480 And here's this is a lot of us, me included, think that sometimes that surrender is a one-time altar moment where it happens right here. 00:21:46.559 --> 00:21:50.400 And like we come to church, we have that altar moment, we cry. 00:21:50.640 --> 00:21:52.000 You want to know, church? 00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:56.480 Some of the biggest, best things that have ever happened in my life has happened at this altar. 00:21:57.519 --> 00:22:06.960 At this all in this church, where God did something in my life and I came up and I just surrendered what I had going on in my life and said, God, you got to do something because I can't do it. 00:22:07.120 --> 00:22:10.079 I am not coming down on those moments. 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:20.480 But we have those opportunities in church on a Monday even or when you're in a worship service or anything, we can't leave this place not responding to the Holy Spirit. 00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:24.240 We can't respond to I'm not mocking these things. 00:22:25.200 --> 00:22:27.680 I think it's incredibly valuable what we're doing. 00:22:29.200 --> 00:22:36.559 Well, what do we see in Abraham's story that teaches us is that the altar is not where surrender ends, it's where it starts. 00:22:38.400 --> 00:22:44.559 The real surrender calls back to you and is a problem when you walk back to your seat. 00:22:45.279 --> 00:22:47.839 The real surrender comes on Monday. 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:50.160 The real surrender comes on Tuesday. 00:22:50.319 --> 00:22:53.279 When now you're like looking at your situation and nothing has changed. 00:22:53.519 --> 00:22:54.400 God, what's going on? 00:22:54.480 --> 00:22:55.759 I don't can't see what you're doing. 00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:57.519 Comes on Wednesday. 00:22:57.759 --> 00:23:00.400 No one's standing there behind you, encouraging you going forward. 00:23:00.480 --> 00:23:02.799 That's when real surrender heart there starts. 00:23:03.120 --> 00:23:09.200 We can romanticize Abraham's walk because we know how the story ends, but he sure didn't. 00:23:11.120 --> 00:23:12.720 We read ahead. 00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:14.240 We've read this before. 00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:15.279 I read it to you all. 00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:16.880 We know what was going to happen. 00:23:17.279 --> 00:23:19.360 Abraham didn't know any of what was going to go. 00:23:19.600 --> 00:23:26.799 And all he knew that was on day two, the same thing he knew on day one, God said go, and he wasn't there yet. 00:23:27.920 --> 00:23:31.279 And if I'm honest, that's I have day one energy. 00:23:33.200 --> 00:23:34.720 I'm ready to go. 00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:36.000 Heard the Lord speak. 00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:37.440 I'm going to do what he's called me to do. 00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:38.160 We're fired up. 00:23:38.240 --> 00:23:41.440 We're getting, I got my good shoes on, we're going to go walking up this mountain. 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:42.559 We're going to go hard. 00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:49.360 Then day two comes around, and all the emotion and energy from day one is gone because that hill was hard. 00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:56.960 You know, Pastor Brody took me up to the top of Knox Mountain, and he starts laughing immediately. 00:23:57.200 --> 00:23:59.279 He was very generous when he came up there. 00:23:59.519 --> 00:24:03.600 I think he had to preach the next Sunday, and he was talking about it, and he was very generous with his description of me. 00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:05.360 I couldn't breathe. 00:24:06.559 --> 00:24:07.600 It was horrible. 00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:10.559 And he tried not to laugh the whole way up. 00:24:10.960 --> 00:24:13.759 Again, I thought I was in good shape, but I was not. 00:24:14.720 --> 00:24:18.000 But it got hard, and I really wanted to quit. 00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:19.039 Halfway up. 00:24:19.200 --> 00:24:20.960 Actually, first hill was really tough. 00:24:21.120 --> 00:24:22.559 It's quite sharp. 00:24:23.440 --> 00:24:27.440 And and he's the Pastor Brody's the most encouraging human being in the whole world. 00:24:27.600 --> 00:24:30.880 He knows I'm gonna suffer, but he's like, No, you got this. 00:24:31.279 --> 00:24:32.079 You got it. 00:24:32.240 --> 00:24:42.319 When I get up to the top, I'm pretty sure that the the I was had tunnel vision, it was all black, and I could only see like this, and he's got a hand on my shoulder guiding me towards a bench. 00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:44.559 Just like, what's going on? 00:24:46.480 --> 00:24:48.079 It was not great. 00:24:48.559 --> 00:24:50.079 But I wanted to quit. 00:24:50.319 --> 00:24:53.839 And it was I could I could actually see the top from where I was, and I wanted to quit. 00:24:54.000 --> 00:24:59.039 Abraham ran for through or walked for three days with the weight of that command. 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:03.360 Your situation hasn't shift, nothing looks any different, and you just want to quit. 00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:09.440 And the question is no longer whether you or not you've surrendered, the question is whether or not you're still walking. 00:25:12.640 --> 00:25:20.960 Some of you have started conversations with people, maybe with a spouse, that God said you needed to have, but you didn't finish because it didn't go well. 00:25:21.440 --> 00:25:23.680 Some of you said yes to generosity. 00:25:24.000 --> 00:25:25.200 God, I'm gonna be generous. 00:25:25.279 --> 00:25:27.440 Then you saw the bill and your hand closed up. 00:25:30.079 --> 00:25:35.200 Some of you committed to being at church every Sunday, and by Wednesday the excuses start rolling through. 00:25:36.960 --> 00:25:41.360 Some of you said, This is a tough one, God, yes, I'm gonna forgive them. 00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:44.720 Then you saw them, and you didn't forgive them. 00:25:45.600 --> 00:25:47.680 That was an uncomfortable laugh if I ever heard one. 00:25:48.160 --> 00:25:49.279 That's not me. 00:25:51.279 --> 00:25:53.120 And this is the thing. 00:25:53.680 --> 00:25:57.519 Day two is where obedience quietly dies. 00:25:58.799 --> 00:26:10.960 Day two of our walk, not because we rebelled, not because we shook up our fist up at God and said we can't do anything, we just stopped walking quietly without anyone noticing around us. 00:26:12.240 --> 00:26:15.839 And it's not a modern problem, it's not something that is just for us. 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:22.000 Jesus saw this with a rich young ruler in Matthew 19, such an interesting story. 00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:29.920 The rich run, your young ruler calls to him, and Jesus says to him, Sell everything you have and follow me. 00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:34.400 And the verse says, He went away sorrowful. 00:26:35.920 --> 00:26:40.480 The rich young ruler went away sorrowful because he didn't want to sell everything that he had. 00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:43.600 Thing about this is we never hear from that guy again. 00:26:43.839 --> 00:26:45.519 There's no context of scripture. 00:26:45.680 --> 00:26:52.559 The story moves on, Jesus keeps preaching, disciples are discipling, and that man just disappears from the whole text. 00:26:53.039 --> 00:27:03.039 What gets me about this one when I was thinking about it is not that he lost his faith in some big dramatic fashion and had like this big blowout and went back to the things that they were doing before. 00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:05.680 He just stopped walking on day two. 00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:09.360 And the story went on without him. 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:12.960 This is real. 00:27:13.440 --> 00:27:19.680 The biggest threat to your walk with God might be might not be some massive sin that's in your life. 00:27:21.279 --> 00:27:23.759 It might not even be a crisis of faith. 00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:31.839 You might just have you might just be firing on all cylinders, but it's the quiet decision to stop moving when it gets hard. 00:27:33.680 --> 00:27:38.160 Surrender is the continued moving when things get hard. 00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:42.720 So what happens when we park our obedience? 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:46.640 Obedience is the one thing, I think I said at the beginning, that I'm actually good at avoiding. 00:27:46.799 --> 00:27:48.559 We wait for the feeling that never comes. 00:27:48.720 --> 00:27:51.200 We just feel, need to feel right about this. 00:27:51.600 --> 00:27:56.160 Abraham could have made any kind of the excuses, but he gave him three days. 00:27:56.480 --> 00:28:01.039 Every reason, every mile, gave him permission to quit, but something kept him on that road. 00:28:01.120 --> 00:28:02.000 And what was it? 00:28:05.519 --> 00:28:07.680 Willpower won't keep you going. 00:28:09.200 --> 00:28:11.039 You can change behavior. 00:28:11.440 --> 00:28:13.200 Just change what you're doing, but that won't last. 00:28:13.279 --> 00:28:18.160 You need heart transformation, heart understanding, heart reassurance. 00:28:21.600 --> 00:28:24.799 Discipline will only carry you so far. 00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:30.240 Emotion will only fuel this for so long. 00:28:31.440 --> 00:28:33.680 Something deeper was driving Adam. 00:28:42.960 --> 00:28:47.519 What drives both surrender and obedience is knowing who God is. 00:28:49.600 --> 00:29:03.600 Verse 17, by faith, Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, and whom it was said, through Isaac, shall your offspring be named. 00:29:04.000 --> 00:29:06.079 This next part is key for us, church. 00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:12.880 He considered that God was able to raise him even from the dead. 00:29:14.319 --> 00:29:16.960 From which, figuratively speaking, he did not receive him back. 00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:18.160 Or he did receive him back. 00:29:18.240 --> 00:29:20.880 What Abraham was calculating this whole time. 00:29:21.360 --> 00:29:23.920 God promised the descendants would come through Isaac. 00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:27.120 Abraham believed that God was going to follow through in his prophecies. 00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:34.799 So God says Isaac is the line, and God also put Isaac on the altar, and so then God must have a solution for Abraham. 00:29:37.680 --> 00:29:44.160 Understand that when God asks you to surrender something and be obedient to him, he has a solution for you. 00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:53.440 His surrender was not built on what he could see, it was built on already who he knew God was. 00:29:55.519 --> 00:29:59.200 That's the difference between knowing God and not knowing God. 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:02.079 It wasn't buying blind faith. 00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:02.720 I love this. 00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:04.640 It wasn't a blind faith thing. 00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:07.039 He was doing the math on what he already knew. 00:30:07.360 --> 00:30:09.039 How many of you are math people? 00:30:10.000 --> 00:30:11.839 I got six hands. 00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:17.120 Maybe I should have used a different uh illustration for that. 00:30:21.759 --> 00:30:26.480 What God had already promised, he landed on the one conclusion that God was able. 00:30:26.640 --> 00:30:31.600 He didn't know the solution, he didn't know what the end result was going to be, he just surrendered and was obedient. 00:30:31.759 --> 00:30:36.319 He didn't need to understand the plan, he needed to know the person behind it. 00:30:39.039 --> 00:30:50.880 And that kind of faith, church, is built one step at a time, one experience at a time, one Sunday at a time, one Sunday morning at a time, one worship time at a time, one prayer, one Bible reading at a time. 00:30:50.960 --> 00:30:52.720 It is one step at a time. 00:30:52.960 --> 00:30:54.559 So here's the honest tension. 00:30:54.720 --> 00:30:58.079 Some of you are saying, Well, I don't have 25 years of experience like Abraham does. 00:30:58.160 --> 00:30:58.880 You don't need it. 00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:00.799 You need one experience with God. 00:31:01.039 --> 00:31:02.000 That's it. 00:31:03.120 --> 00:31:05.680 And that experience brings you around. 00:31:06.160 --> 00:31:09.680 What about that one experience where you got healed when you didn't think you were gonna get healed? 00:31:09.839 --> 00:31:14.640 The resource came in when you didn't think it was gonna come, a door opened that you didn't think was gonna happen. 00:31:16.400 --> 00:31:17.839