Yield Series Overview

Yield Sermon Series

Overview

To yield is to give way, to let someone else take priority. When you come to a Yield sign, you know the other person has priority to go. Yield is also the return on an investment. You plant corn, and later, the corn yields a multiplied return. Your retirement fund yields a certain percentage in a given year. The common thread in both definitions is that yielding is allowing something to be more important than your own agenda, comfort, or even survival.

This series is about prayer. Many of our prayers simply ask God to endorse what we want to happen. We ask for comfort where there is discomfort or ask for a smooth path where there are potential difficulties. It is good to ask God for what you need, as long as that is not the only thing you pray for. If we pray only for what we want, it can start to feel like God works for us when, in fact, God takes priority. God knows better than we do what is needed in a situation and God brings much more power to the table than we do. This season of prayer will be about yielding our will and even our comfort to go where God would lead us, individually and as a congregation. When we pray for God’s will to be done, we will be asking for God’s power and volunteering our own action to do God’s will.

In this unique season of change at Ankeny First, it is more important than ever to bring ourselves and our congregation to God and ask, “What next?”, then really listen for the answer and be prepared to follow! As we yield our lives and our desires to God, our lives will yield more fruit of the Spirit and more impact for the Kingdom of God.

Week 1 - 12 September 2021 More Than We Can Imagine

Ephesians 3:14-21

14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. 16 I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. 18 I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Much of the time, dreaming big seems like a mistake. It would seem to set one up for disappointment, but the truth is that being closed off limits our faith. As we yield more of our lives to God in prayer, let’s take care not to limit the responses God can give to our questions. God can do more than we can ask or imagine, so relax and know that God doing big things is not dependent on us dreaming those big things up on our own! These prayer are not about us. The big things God may do are not for the purpose of making this church great (though that may happen along the way), but so that God may be glorified and so that people can see God’s glory.

Paul wrote to a church that was suffering, but he didn’t pray that their suffering would cease. He prayed that they could bear it to the glory of God, so that they could know the immeasurable love of Jesus. He prayed that they would glorify the God who can do immeasurably more than they could ask for or imagine. Let us pray that God would reveal to us more than we could ask for or imagine in this season and that God would be glorified as we follow.

Not only imagine, but realizing that even our own imagination limits us (THAT is a powerful image)

This is not just for our church, but for us individually as well

God’s will as a first step

Not prayer list

Give God a blank sheet

God might ask us to do something that is bigger than we are willing to do

Week 2 19 September 2021 Listening

Psalm 25:1-5

​1 To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in you I trust; do not let me be put to shame; do not let my enemies exult over me. 3 Do not let those who wait for you be put to shame; let them be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4 Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5 Lead me in your truth, and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all day long.

As you open your mind and heart to God being able to do more than you can ask or imagine, the temptation is to jump on the first idea that crosses your mind. This project isn’t just about dreaming big; it’s about listening to what God wants to do without limiting God’s choices. Even as ideas for action begin to come to us, our task continues to be to yield to God. Listening is the hard part, but it begins as simply as desiring to know where God would lead.

The Psalmist entrusted his life to God and asked God to show him what to do. It is clearly a moment of danger—or at least confusion—and the writer knows where to go for help. We don’t always know when we are in a “turning point” moment, but we can always ask God what to do. This sermon will touch on the spiritual disciplines that help to slow down, to listen to God, and to discern what God has said to us in the moment. As we yielded our imagination to God last week, this week we yield our attention to God.

We also have to reconcile that “God’s Truth” Is not “Our Truth”

Not limiting God’s choices

I bear up my soul my personhood

You must believe that there is some type of God to use this intensity of prayer

You have to trust God before you listen to God

I want to bring my full self here

Sammuel story for kids

How do we know it’s God?

Week 3 Keep Knocking 26 September 2021

Luke 18:1-8

​1 Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. 2 He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. 3 In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my opponent.’ 4 For a while he refused; but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, 5 yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” 6 And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7 And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? 8 I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

When you start praying for God’s will to be done, and you think you have an idea of where God is leading, it’s natural to think the prayers will be fulfilled quickly. In truth, God’s timing is different than ours. The hard part is having your desire for God’s will to be done grow over time, rather than losing heart and allowing your desire cool.

Jesus told a story of a widow, whose only power in her time was persistence. She knocked on a judge’s door, demanding justice until she wore him down. Jesus said that, if an unjust judge will relent through someone’s perseverance in asking, think how much more God will answer prayer when we persist. As we yield to God even our motivation to pray, our desire for God’s kingdom to come on earth will grow.

We put too short of a timeline on God

We can’t limit our prayer life to this series

This gives a lot of context

Our prayers don’t both God

Human nature we want to see it as soon as I say amen

Spiritual disciplines

Will he find faith that see’s beyond the outcome that you are hoping for

Often my pestering of God doesn’t change God’s mind, but it does ours

condemnation of getting bored with it

Week 4 Volunteering 3 October 2021

Luke 10:1-9

​1 After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2 He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3 Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4 Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5 Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6 And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7 Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house. 8 Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9 cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’

Jesus was doing a trial run of his larger plan: to entrust his mission to the people. He was sending out 70 people. Jesus said many more people were necessary. There is way too much harvest, way too many people who are ready to follow Jesus than even 70 people could reach. Jesus told them to pray to the Lord of the harvest, the One who is ultimately responsible to reach these people. Ask God to send out more laborers. These 70 were the first answer to Jesus’ prayer to send out more. When you and I pray that God would send more people into the world to reach people and to transform the world, we are volunteering to be part of the answer to our own prayer.

Jesus’ instructions were really an extended warning. Do not trust your equipment or your techniques, but rely on God completely. As we offer ourselves, we are entrusting ourselves to God’s direction and trusting that God will provide everything we need along the way.

Any meaningful respond step is meaningful because it is coated in prayer

Pope Francis Quote

Don’t put your hope in your tools

Programs

Music

Friendships/connections

Making yourself available

Know that you are giving that blank check

World Communion Sunday

you deserve to be paid you don’t deserve to milk it

lambs in the midst of wolves - you will not be prepared

The preparation week you don’t need to be prepared you just need to be eager just do it!

Week 5 Doing God’s Will 10 October 2021

Luke 22:39-46

39 He came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples followed him. 40 When he reached the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not come into the time of trial.” 41 Then he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed, 42 “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done.” [[ 43 Then an angel from heaven appeared to him and gave him strength. 44 In his anguish he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground.]] 45 When he got up from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping because of grief, 46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not come into the time of trial.”

In this important conversation in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus confessed to the Father that he was stressed out about the prospect of a tortuous death and Jesus would rather not do it. No message to Jesus from the Father is recorded. It’s like the Father just gave Jesus a look that said, “Go ahead.” Jesus yielded his will to his Father: “Not what I want, but your will be done.”

We sometimes pray for God’s will to be done in resignation. We don’t know what to pray for, so we staple those words onto the end of our prayer to hedge our bets. In truth, prayer and action are not two separate steps in world transformation. They are both part of living God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. When we pray and see what the world needs or where God is leading us, in that moment we are called to yield our will to God and do what God wants done. As our verbal prayers begin to shape our souls more into the likeness of Christ, our actions must keep pace for the sake of Jesus’ mission in the world, for the sake of the residents of Ankeny, and for the benefit to even our own souls. The end of the series on prayer is the beginning of a lifestyle of prayer and action, where every thought is captive to the obedience to Christ and every action becomes worship.

Think about the cop-outs we give God, the bargaining we do with God, and the excuses we make for not following or often times even listening to God

He prayed God’s will to be done and then he got up and did it

Racial justice

Get personally involved

Find the little things from God

The end of prayer is action and the end of action is prayer

Providence Hymnal section (guidance of God)

The fact that Jesus (fully human) needs help is interesting

Will you help me understand this

We are laying ourselves out there but at the end of the day it’s God

that act of going to the cross is still yielding (producing)

You might be tired and depressed but don’t stop praying