Stop striving. Start soaring.

Introduction - talk about yourself

Hi if it’s your first time here at predestine church like me I just want to say welcome home. If this is your second time here or you are now just part of the building since you have been here so many times. To you I say welcome back home. Turn to your neighbour and say “it’s good to see you” hahahha

I have been given this awesome opportunity by my cousin and elder Melemele to share God’s word for us today. A little bit about me is I am 26. I come from a family of 4. I love to workout, I love music, I love sports and the most important one. Anyone take a guess. Correct. I am single. Hahhahaha I am kidding the most important one is I love the Lord.

Sports

One thing as I mentioned Is I love sports. I have my main sports but I love sports in general. Surfing unlike other sports where you try to will yourself against the opposing team. You can’t fight the wave. You literally cannot, try and fight it and the next thing you find is you’re in emergency fighting for your life hahaha. In order to surf the wave the surfer must position themself to ride it. They can’t put pressure on the wave otherwise they’ll break it. It will come crashing down. They have to surrender and ride the with the wave.

In cycling if you watch the tour de france. When you’re going down hill it’s much faster to let the bike take you instead of you trying to pedal and control it. You’ll find if you try to control every movement. There’s a strong chance you will lose balance and go flying off.

Another place where you cannot fight but have to surrender is here. This is quick sand. If you ever find yourself stuck in the desert in this unlucky situation. First off this will sound very hard to do ready. Don’t panic. Hahahahaha well whenever you’re done with yelling and screaming and maybe crying. You have to relax and fall on your back. You sweep your arms like so and then after roll to solid ground.

We find this in daily life. I also like dancing and zumba. It’s a great way to exercise yet you find it’s much easier to enjoy the dancing when you dance to the beat. If you try and force your moves the music will make you look not great hahaha.

Here’s one that we all go through. Being in heavy traffic. Bruh hahahah. It does not matter if you are the driver, passenger, or the backseat driver lol. No one enjoys it. You can try to change lanes to see which one has less vehicles. Though many times you’ll end up worse than before. You’re frustrated. The person sitting next to you is telling you this is why I said go this road hahaha. Though when you accept where you and surrender to what has happened. Not only will you be ok yet you will still have peace. You just may not want to go on that road again.

Something we all can find hard to do is surrender. Throughout history we find if you surrendered during war you were usually killed or taken as a POW. Though in scripture we can find surrender is not the end of life. It is the beginning of a new life in Christ. Today we’ll be talking about how to experience victory through Jesus in a surrendered life. Our big idea for today’s sermon is this:

Surrender and soar. Turn to someone and say “he’s talking about you”

In saying that “Join me as we pray.” Start prayer

Talk about the book of Isaiah - It is a prophetic book. Talk about the tone of this book. Give context.

For anyone new and for anyone who does not know Isaiah first things first. That’s ok, turn to the person on your left and say “you’re ok” hahaha, well Isaiah is a prophet who in those times were God’s messengers. Whatever God said they would do. In this book Isaiah there is ongoing debate whether the prophet wrote this it was write before exile or the other writers wrote it after. Though whether it was written before, during or after. The messages of Isaiah are powerful and relevant to our time. Something that is important to understand is that the book of Isaiah from chapters 1-39 is depressing. Talks about israels judegment, their rebellion and God expressing his frustrations to them. In chapter 40-66 there is massive change. These chapters talk about restoration, hope, comfort and a mighty warrior, servant and saviour.

Our main verse today is well-known and it is found In Isaiah 40:31 “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”

Before we get here let me read from verse 28. Isaiah 40:28–30 “Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;” So first off God paints a picture that he does not get tired. He does not get exhausted. He is the one who gives power and increases strength.

Then we get to 31. “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not be faint, they will walk and not grow weary”

When the israelites were in captivity. They would be expecting for God to save them. This book already prophecied they would be saved if they waited. Though waiting in the hebrew is very different to waiting in society. If you were to read it surface level you’d go “I hate waiting” makes sense. By society’s definition of course. The the hebrew word for wait is qavah. And qavah comes from the original word qav which means “to bind together” or “to gather”. So wait in hebrew isn’t to look at our watch and think “aw when’s it going to happen?” it’s “an active wait” meaning I’m not sitting around hoping God will do what he said. It’s I believe God will do what he said and I am aligning my heart in preparation for it. It is me being proactive not to force God to do it but to being ready for when it happens.

"To wait upon God is not to remain idle or disengaged but to prepare the heart to receive His blessings and to be active in living out His Word in the present. The waiting is a position of readiness.”

(White, Prophets and Kings)

So when the Israelites heard Isaiah say this they understood. Before God moves in the physical realm. They’d prepare myself. How do they do that? They would be praying. They would be encouraging themselves. They would be aligning themselves to God’s word. Today you may be waiting on God to give you breakthrough. Yet how you’re waiting is like this *look at imaginary watch telling God “yep anytime now”. Whereas God is like “Bind yourself to me, prepare yourself for the breakthrough. Prepare yourself for the job. Prepare yourself for the game. Prepare yourself for the workout.” You heart may be longing for God’s deliverance yet the posture of your heart is sitting down. You think you’re waiting on God. Maybe God is wanting you to wait differently. Proactively. Placing yourself in a position to breakthrough. Placing yourself in areas to breakthrough. By doing this we find that the verse continues “they shall renew their strength” it’s not just so we can see God move. Yet it’s also for us to be reminded that God’s mercies are new every morning. That is how great his faithfulness is. (Add workout analogy? Maybe...we’ll see after)

As we come down to this next part of the verse. We have this picture being painted of humans soaring on wings like eagles. Israel soaring on wings like eagles. It’s common to believe yep I’ve seen eagles on TV. On movies, internet wherever it maybe. I know they can fly. So God is saying “When I bind myself together with him I will fly on top of the challenges right?” Turn to your neighbour and say “you’re on the right track.” Here is the hummingbird. The humming bird is a very. very, very x1000 fats bird. It flaps its wings x80 per second. If you’ve never seen one than Imagine a bee that goes bzzzzz. It doesn’t fly far yet it flies fast and also gets tired very quickly. The humming bird. when you take a stepback and look it wastes a whole lot of energy not doing much hahaha. The hummingbird flies but it doesn’t soar. The eagle though. This bird soars, and soars means to rise up, ascend, go higher. Yet the thing about the eagle is it soars on this thing here called upthermal winds. The cool thing is the eagle barely uses any energy. It just glides. What I learnt from this is “Stop striving. Start soaring” Though waiting is active. What the Israelites would be thinking at times is “it’s all on me” yep I know God will do it. But maybe it’s this way. Like where abrahams wife sarah told abraham maybe God meant you can have a baby through my servant. That’s not what God said. turn to your neighbour behind you and say “he didnt say that”. This next statement will make sense “Stop controlling. Start surrendering” What God is telling the Israelites is this. You have to release control. Control will not lead you to breaktrhough. It will only lead to stress, heartache, anxiety, nervous. We can get impatient thinking it’s meant to happen but it hasn’t happened yet so we take matters into our own hands. This happens in our life. You may want to keep your friends together as you knew them from highschool or friends for many years so you instead of understanding life happens we all go our separate ways. We keep in contact where we can. Instead of maintaining you try to control and think “Na I spent all that time with them I’m gonna make sure we all stay close...” that’s very tiring honestly. You hang out with family oooo we’re getting serious now haha. You hangout with family and you want to control how people see your kids. So you exaggerate certain things like my kid did this and this and this and this haha. Next thing you know you’ve told them your kids have done 1000 things when the truth is they may have done 5 awesome things. There’s nothing wrong with wanting people to like you, friends, family etc. There is a problems when you don’t allow people to have their own opinion. Here’s a big one and everyone listen to me. We listen we don’t judge. Repeat with me. We listen we don’t judge. We see control in church. Ah ah ah. Please listen to what I am saying. We can try to control church in the sense of “aw man this isn’t what I am used to, I don’t have a passion for this ministry. I don’t like this, I dont want to do that I am gonna make sure we do this instead.” We can even think aw man I have to be in control or the church won’t survive. Ok I get that. It’s noble to think that. Though God’s church was there from the beginning. And when you move, leave, live or pass away. God’s church will still be here. If you want to soar on the goodness of God and thrive in life you have to release control and surrender to soar.

Today...you may have positioned yourself, aligned yourself, prepared yourself but tried to control the timing. Sheesssh. You may have prepared for the job, prepared for to celebrate and try to force the opportunity. Oh man that’s a word. When we surrender we allow God to move freely. When you recognise that you may be in control Instead of surrender I want you to picture to sing the words of this song. “Dont worry about a thing cos every little thing is gonna be alright”

GOD UNDERSTANDS. GOD KNOWS. GOD PROVIDES.

The last part in this verse is not a maybe, is not a statement. It is a fact. This word here pay attention the word “will” is a helping verb. It gives more information to what is happening here. It is talking about a future action. What will be happening when the future comes. So now when God says this is “When you are serving, when you are leading, when you are walking, when you are declaring, when you living in the fullness of my promises and goodness. You will have the spiritual fitness to do my will. You’re spiritual fitness is capable because it Is I who gives strength to the weary and empowers the weak.”

Something beautiful about this passage. About this book of Isaiah is it paints the clear picture of Jesus. Jesus gives strength to the weary. Jesus strengthens you beyond anything in physical, mental, emotional and most definitely through the spiritual realm. Jesus is the eagle, he rose above death and through his life. By accepting, believing and surrendering to him. We live in victory. Not trying to gain it. But because through him we are victorious. In order to that. We have to do this

Surrender to soar. We cannot experience true victory until we surrender our way to the way. We cannot live in victory until we surrender our life to his life. What does this look like? It means to look at our lives and say “How am I serving in my family? How am i serving in my job? In my community? Am I opening myself to accept what God is doing? Am I releasing the need to be in control of my life? Or...Am I trying to force things to happen? Am I trying to control everything?

Wherever you are at:

Be actively waiting. Preparing for breakthrough.

Stop controlling. Start surrendering.

Surrender to soar.

Let us surrender to not live for the sake of living. Let’s surrender to live a purposeful life. Let’s surrender to soar on the victory found only In Jesus Christ. Amen.