Surrender and Resurrender

We understand what surrender is. When we think of the word ‘surrender’ things that can come to mind is a battle or war in which the side that is losing decides to raise the white flag, symbolizing that they are giving up on their efforts to fight in hopes of their lives being spared, and that maybe they won’t endure as much loss as they would if they knowingly were going to lose and still fought until everything they had would be gone. The definition of surrender is to cease resistance to an enemy or opponent and submit to their authority. Now we’re going to talk about the importance of surrendering in our relationship to God.

This can at first seem interesting to bring up, did we not just say that surrender is submitting to our enemy? So are we saying God is our enemy or opponent? No, their is a deeper understanding to what surrendering to God looks like and means. When we surrender to God, their are many different aspects we can talk about in surrendering to God. Surrendering to God is giving control of our lives (submitting authority) to God BECAUSE we have faith that God has a better plan than our own. From the point of view that the world has of this action, this is outrages, it’s nonsense, crazy. We live in a world that harshly pushes the narrative that we should be seeking to live a happy life, bringing ourselves benefits, and ultimately to gain popularity, wealth, freedom from work, to look out for ourselves.

So from a perspective that has adapted the sense to please ourselves and our fleshly desires, surrendering all of those narratives to God in a step of faith will look like nonsense. But as followers of Jesus, we can see a prime example that Jesus surrendered His life for us. From the time in the garden of Eden when Eve was tempted by satan to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which caused the nature of sin to be present in every one of our lives, we as humans have struggled with selfishness, the desire to please our flesh by giving it whatever it wants, and we live in a world that promotes this narrative, because it has given into the selfish sinful nature that attacks it. So why should we surrender to God? Because God has sacrificed His one and only Son, Jesus, undeserving of any punishment to take upon Himself the worst punishment, that He would break the grip that sin has on our lives so we could instead, give our lives to Him and receive salvation so we could spend eternity with Him, to surrender our lives to Him. Romans 8:2-3 describes it as such: “And because you belong to Him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent His own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving His Son as a sacrifice for our sins.”

The first step in receiving salvation is recognizing and believing that Jesus did sacrifice Himself and saved us from sin, when we believe this, we next would ask Jesus to come into our lives and be our personal savior, that His death was not in vein, and we’d accept Him into our hearts. As we have done this, The Holy Spirit would come into our lives, and be welcomed into our hearts, and we’d receive His salvation. Now, as the Holy Spirit comes upon us, as I’ve talked about in my sermon on holiness, He’d want to start making changes in our lives, to clean up the damage sin has caused, and through our new found faith in Jesus, we would give Him permission to make these changes. In comes conviction, where we will see what God wants us to do and get rid of in order to become more like Him, 1 Peter 1:14-16 says, “So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”

This is where surrendering comes into play. God asks us to surrender our lives to Him to receive salvation. Now, He wants for us to surrender the different aspects of our lives to Him, this can be our hobbies, friendships, relationships, thoughts, plans, possessions, etc. Ultimately God wants us to surrender our will to Him that we may pursue His plan for our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 says, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” God has a calling for all of us, and this calling is the best plan for our lives, in which case it involves us surrendering our wants and desires and plans to Him so that we can seek His perfect plan. We understand that God is the creator of everything that we see, hear, feel, every aspect of this universe. He has given us this beautiful world to enjoy, and has blessed us in it with many wonderful things. Now, when sin entered the world, it had given us the spirit of selfishness to hold onto what we have been given and keep it for ourselves. When we ask God to comes into our lives, were taking on the best possible life that we could live through Jesus, that doesn’t mean life will always be easy, but God will be with us through each circumstance we go through, no matter how deep a valley or high a mountain. We will often see ourselves going through challenges where God will ask us to surrender something we hold dearly to ourselves, in order to test our faith and obedience to Him. We see a primary example of this was Abraham with his son Isaac.

Abraham is remarked in Hebrews as part of the “faith hall of fame.” Hebrews 11:17-18 say, “It was by faith that Abraham offered Isaac as a sacrifice when God was testing him. Abraham, who had received God’s promises, was ready to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, even though God has told him, “Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted.” Abraham reasoned that if Isaac died, God was able to bring him back to life again. And in a sense, Abraham did receive his son back from the dead.” God had promised Abraham a son when him and his wife were sorrowful, thinking they’d never have any descendants to pass on the blessings God had given them to. Genesis 15:1-6

And just when God has fulfilled His promise to Abraham when it seemed it would be impossible for Sarah to bear a child, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac back to Him (Genesis 22:1-2).

We understand after this that Abraham went through with God’s request and even went to the point of holding a knife over his head, ready to sacrifice Isaac. But we can imagine what must’ve gone through Abraham’s thinking. God had promised him a son, and just when He had given Abraham Isaac, He wanted Abraham to give Isaac right back. How many of us today would go through with such a request? Do you think Sarah knew? Do you think that if she did know that she would’ve tried to stop Abraham? Do you think everyone that Abraham knew would’ve encouraged him to go through with the sacrifice, or maybe they’d try to convince him that God wouldn’t ask him to do such a thing. Regardless of what went down that we aren’t told, we know that Abraham was willing to give Isaac back because he understand Isaac belonged more to God, who gave him Isaac, then he belonged to Abraham. Abraham had faith and was willing to surrender something so precious to himself in order to obey God. We understand that he didn’t even tell Isaac until the last minute (Genesis 22:6-10).

We have so many blessings in our lives that God has given us, that we may thank Him for, and show our gratefulness, but if God was to ask you one day to give something you hold to so dearly, back to Him, or to sell, or give away to bless someone else with, would we be willing and obedient to trust that God’s plan is better than ours? Would we be willing to stretch our faith to please God?

As we go through our journey of growing to become more like Jesus in His character, we will notice that surrendering different aspects of our lives is not a one and done deal. It’s important for us to surrender daily our thoughts. I believe we all have endured temptation in difference ways, whether that be to take a cookie from the cookie jar when your parents said no, or to lie about a situation when you did something you weren’t supposed to in order to get in less trouble, and for a lot of people today, the temptation of lust, to look at those we are attracted to with wrong intent. Temptation is not overlooked in the Bible, and is absolutely seen as a problem that we all struggle with, even Jesus was tempted by satan in the wilderness. We see the destruction temptation can cause on our lives, when we see that our flesh is really weak when it comes to choosing against temptation. Mark 14:38 says to “Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the Spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

Paul even describes it in this sense, in Romans 7:15-20, he says, “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do what I hate. But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong: it is sin living in me that does it. And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can’t. I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway. But if I do what I don’t want to do, I am not really the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it.” That’s a lot in itself, but it’s true for all of us. That’s why it’s important to surrender our thoughts to God daily, even momentarily, 1 Peter 5:7 says to “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares about you.” God wants us to cast our tempting, anxious, and angry thoughts to Him, because He understands that if we dwell on such things, it will ultimately lead to sin. The temptation is not the sin, but it’s when we don’t give it to God, and let the thought dwell within our minds that we because more and more vulnerable to sinning. So we need to cut the problem off at the root, being conscious about what we let ourselves see and hear, and not shy away to taking a moment and surrendering the thought or problem over to God, even if it’s small, because although it may not be harmful right away, it can and will lead to us falling to satan’s trap if not dealt with properly.

So we can see from this, that surrendering to God can be big and small, but in conclusion is to be obedient to His will, aligning our plans with His, and seeking to grow in our faith in Jesus. This will allow us to be used more and more by God, to experience the life of serving Jesus and bringing others to Christ. The more obedient we are to God’s calling, the more we will walking in a close relationship with Him.

I haven’t always been obedient to God, in fact I often disobey Him with little things in my day to day life. But I have seen the more I’ve sought our His calling and will, seeking forgiveness and grace that I can grow from my mistakes to build my relationship with God, I’ve noticed more and more that I want whatever God wants for my life, whatever calling that is, even if I don’t 100% know what that is, I just want to follow God’s plan. I’ve seen it with a friend of mine, who has told me about her walk with Jesus. She’s told me about how the more she’s grown closer to God, the more she wants to pursue His will above her own. I’ve seen her talk about the things in her life that she wanted to do in the future, the job she’d want to get, to now not knowing what she’s going to do entirely because she just wants to seek God’s plan for her above her own. She’s seeking His guidance and wants to follow Him wherever He takes her.

When we surrender and re-surrender everything to God in order to give Him control, we will experience the change of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and I’ll tell you this, the more I’ve sought out His plans, the more peace I’ve felt, the more joy I’ve experienced, the more I’ve desired to just surround myself with God’s calling. I’ve still experienced valleys, but I can confidently say I’ve seen God in every step of those valleys, right with me, and how He brought me out. I’ve seen here and there what He was teaching me from those circumstances, and although sometimes I didn’t see why certain things happened, I know God was still there, comforting and walking with me through it all.