Surrender

Introduction

Good morning brothers and sisters in Christ, the topic of discussion will be the act of surrender. What is it? What does it look like? and why is proper surrender necessary?

You mightve heard someone say “you must surrender to Christ” but actually, that language isn’t really found in the Scriptures. The actual term “surrender” is only really used when talking about war in the Bible, and not in the spiritual sense. However, the idea of “surrendering your life to Jesus” is definitely found in the Scriptures if we consider the following definition of the word surrender. Webster's dictionary defines surrender as “the act of yielding, giving up possession, or abandoning control often under struggle or pressure.” So we have this idea of not just “giving something up”, but giving control over to another power.

When I think of surrender, I immediately think of being overwhelmed by an enemy force. I picture a scene in the muddy trenches of WW1 and somehow the trench gets overwhelmed by the enemy and you're trapped. Now you're left with two choices, you could fight to the death, or surrender to the will of your captors. Say you choose surrender and instead of killing you immediately, there is a pause, you are at their mercy because there are so many. All you can do is drop your weapon, get on your knees and put your hands in the air hoping they understand and have mercy on your helpless state.

Now it doesn’t take a stretch of the imagination to start to apply this illustration to spiritual realities. The main point of my message today is this.

Main Point

God is most glorified and we find our peace, when we are most surrendered to him.

Why does this matter?

Surrender to God is essential to salvation, sanctification, and God is glorified

Outline points summary

I want to highlight three things. 1; there is a surrender that leads to death. 2; there is a surrender that leads to life. 3; there is a need for constant surrender to God. Jesus.

Surrender to elemental spiritual forces

Surrendered to Our sinful desires.

The reality for each of us here today as that we sin, and when we sin, we surrender ourselves over to our sinful desires. Do we not?

If left to our own devices, we are enslaved by sin and live a life surrendered over to it’s power. We surrender our lives to what the apostle Paul calls an “elemental spiritual force” both in Galatians 4:3 and Colossians 2:20.

Galatians 4:1–3 ESV

I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world.

If left to our own devices we are a slave to our fleshly desire and it’s power over us.

Romans 6 contrasts two realities, we are either slaves to sin or slaves to righteousness. Naturally, if left to our own devices, we are slaves to sin. Before our hearts change, we are obedient to our every desire and we surrender our bodies, our resources, and our affections over to our sin. We live a surrendered life to sin.

Surrendered to the devil

There is also the reality that as unfaithfull people, we live a life surrendered to the power of the devil.

Galatians 4:8 ESV

Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Transition

Surrender to the flesh and to the devil is a reality that all live in apart from God, no matter how free it may feel. We know that a life like this leads to death and eternal punishment, there is however, a hope.

John 8:34–36 (ESV) Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

I have highlighted for you the first kind of surrender. The surrender to sin that leads to hopelessness and eventually death. This is a surrender each of us has taken part of, we have all surrendered to sins power. However, for us in Christ there is now freedom from this slavery. Jesus offers us freedom from this slavery.

So going back to the illustration in the trenches, lets say you are overpowered by the enemy. You are powerless to it’s power so you submit to a prison camp where you work to no end simply because you were not strong enough to defeat it. Now lets say your working in this prison camp, it’s minus thirty and you and your whole squad of soldiers are laying down rail for the enemies supply trains. For the sake of the illustration, lets say that once your done building the rail, the first thing this train will do is take you and all of your fellow prisoners to an execution camp. Not only are you powerless under the enemy, you are actually working for them in your slavery. All of a sudden you hear a cheer, the war is over and victory is won. The enemy soldiers put down their weapons and leave their posts. You stand there in almost an unbelief, you no longer have to do this work and can go home. The enemy has been defeated and you see your fellow prisoners put down their hammers and join the army that set you free. How silly would it now be for you to keep hammering the railway spikes. How pointless would this be, the enemy has been defeated, you have been freed.

Surrender to Jesus

Initial surrender (salvation)

This is what Jesus has done for us, he has defeated death on the Cross and freed us from our sin. He freed us from the punishment we deserved by taking it on himself. He freed us from the penalty of sin and also offers us freedom from the power of sin. Being freed from sin comes when we surrender our lives over to Jesus, the only one who can save us.

Matthew 10:39 ESV

Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Surrendering our lives to Jesus is absolutely necessary for eternal life, because we are utterly helpless without him.

Matthew 11:28–30 ESV

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.

Come to Jesus, who has set you free from sin. When we think of surrender we often think that we had to give something up in order to become a follower of Jesus. However, when were being honest about it, we had nothing to give up that was worth anything we simply give up our worthless attempts at righteousness, admit we are un-righteous, and he is faithful to clothe us in his righteousness. We simply had to admit the truth, I need him, I “surrender” then we are made sons of God and heirs with Jesus Christ in his victorious army.

Jesus has saved us from the penalty of sin and he has also given us strength to overcome the power of sin.

Constant surrender (sanctification)

Now we are free people, do we now just kick our feet up?

We still have a struggle however we are no longer surrendered to our sin and to the devil we fight both our sinful desires and the devil from Christs victory with the power of the Holy Spirit. However, it is still a fight and the only way to win is to continually surrender to Jesus.

1 Peter 2:16 “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.” The NIV uses “slaves”

in 1 Pet 2:11 Peter tells us to wage war against sinful desires. Just as our sins were crucified on the cross with Christ, we must continually crucify our flesh with it’s passions and desires because those are in the flesh cannot please God. We must continually surrender our sinful desires over to the cross and present ourselves to God as Romans 12:1-2 tells us as living sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable.

Submission

James 4:7 ESV

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Self Denial

Matthew 16:24 ESV

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

There is a point where we must admit that we are defeated by sin. This is where our surrender to God takes an unnatural turn. Normally when we surrender something we give in to the thing that defeats us. In a sense, in our opposition toward God we do surrender to him because we realize that judgment is coming. However, when we admit defeat to sin, we do not surrender to sin as we hopelessly have before. We surrender to God, we know that God is more powerful than sin and so we go to him on our knees saying God I cannot defeat sin, I am overwhelmed, It has me sorrounded and I am completely helpless, unless you help me. Surrendering to God for salvation and for sanctification is just that, it’s admitting defeat.

So what’s the trade off? We seemingly have a choice but it really isn’t one. We can live as slaves to sin, which leads to death. Or we can turn ourselves over to God who promises wonderful things for us.

“We are not our own but we belong both body and soul, both in life and death to our Lord Jesus Christ” Ryan Campbell

Surrender Glorifies God

Romans 12:1 this is our spiritual worship

Going back to our main point, God is most glorified in us when we are most surrendered to him. How true is this, when we live out our surrender in front of other people, we make much of God and not of ourselves. There are many “good works” that are done out of sinful intentiion or even just by “our own strength”. But look at how Jesus lived, he lived absolutely obedient to the fathers will, and how greatly has God been glorified by Jesus Christ.

John 8:50 ESV

Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge.

When we conform to Christ we must echo this verse. “yet I do not seek my own glory; there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge.”

We are nothing apart from him, if you think you are something look around. We are like grass that withers away, only the gospel will last forever. Our only hope is found int he word of God that saves us. We are nothing apart from the finished work on the cross and we are nothing apart from the sanctifying work of the holy Spirit who claims our surrender from us. Andrew Murray wrote

“God claims it, God is worthy of it and without if God cannot work his blessed work in us”

Philippians 2:13 ESV

for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

Conclusion

God demands your surrender still, he demanded it when you were dead in your sin and he demands it until our work on earth is finished.

Restate theme

Challenge