October 27, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is Trustworthy"

Genesis 22:1-19

Four Steps to Total Surrender

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – D.L. Moody said, Spread out your petition before God, and then say, "Thy will, not mine, be done." The sweetest lesson I have learned in God's school is to let the Lord choose for me (as cited on PreachingToday.com). In Christian Reader, Steven Curtis Chapman says: I have learned that we can control where we allow things that we can't understand to fall. They either fall between us and God, and we become angry. Or we allow these things to fall outside of us and press us in closer to God (as cited on PreachingToday.com).
2. Context – Both Moody and Chapman understood one thing: that surrendering to God was the best thing they ever did. Abraham understood that principle as well, and we’re going to learn from him how to surrender ourselves totally and completely to God.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Genesis 22:1-19 – Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, "Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. ² Then God said, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." ³ Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. ⁴ On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. ⁵ He said to his servants, "Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you." ⁶ Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" ⁸ Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. ⁹ When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰ Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. ¹¹ But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, "Abraham! Abraham!" "Here I am," he replied. ¹² "Do not lay a hand on the boy," he said. "Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son." ¹³ Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." ¹⁵ The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." ¹⁹ Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba.
2. Pastor Dave Engbrecht talked about the "white flag principle," the fact that in losing a war, you often win. That’s the principle Jesus tried to teach us when He told us that when we die, we live, and when we give, we gain. Absolute and total commitment to Jesus Christ means surrendering myself with reckless abandon to the cause of Christ. Today we’re going to talk about how to do that.

1. Total Commitment

1. First step – know what it is to surrender our rights of ownership. God tells us, "You need to trust Me with everything you have and everything you are." Abraham understood that. God called to him to sacrifice his son Isaac, the one all the promises God have given Abraham were supposed to be fulfilled through. Abraham had come to a point in his life where he said, "I am simply a steward; You own everything!" That included his son. God told him what to do and he did it, no questions asked. That’s what total surrender requires. How many of us have withheld a piece of our hearts and lives from the Lord? As Dave Engbrecht puts it, "The very areas where you are struggling spiritually could be those areas you haven’t surrendered." We’ve got to sign the blank check of our lives over to God and let Him fill in the amount. That’s what it means to surrender rights of ownership.
2. Second step – act on the surrender with constant obedience. Look at verse three: Early the next morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. Abraham didn’t waste any time obeying God. Can you imagine what must have been going through his mind? I’m not sure we can, but he knew from past experience that he could trust God enough to act on the decision he had made to surrender everything he was and had to God. Abraham signed the blank check, and God wrote Isaac in the amount. But Abraham didn’t flinch. Dave Engbrecht made an interesting observation. He said, "Faith isn’t faith until you step out on the edge." Look at the life of Jesus. He did incredible things where people had faith, but He was able to do next to nothing in those places where they had no faith. The same is true today. As Engbrecht says, "Nothing produces prayer like desperate people, and nothing produces desperate people like living in faith where you step out on the edge and God comes through or you look like fools." I don’t like looking like a fool. I know you don’t either. But I wonder what God would be able to do through us and among us if we didn’t care so much about how we looked. That’s called pride, and all of us are guilty of it at some point. Are we desperate enough to step out on the edge where either God comes through or we and our church look like fools? Are we willing to surrender ourselves with reckless abandon to the cause of Christ? Because when we do that, we’re acting on our surrender with constant obedience.
3. Third step – when God calls, God provides: we can trust in His provision to meet our needs in the midst of His calling. Look at verses six through eight: Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, ⁷ Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, "Father?" "Yes, my son?" Abraham replied. "The fire and wood are here," Isaac said, "but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" ⁸ Abraham answered, "God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son." And the two of them went on together. Abraham had no way of knowing how God would provide, but God did. Abraham believed God would provide because he told his servants "We will worship and then we will return." Abraham somehow knew that, even if Isaac was to die, God could do the impossible and bring him back from the dead. God provided the offering ram for Abraham, but Abraham had to act first. God waited until Abraham was in the very act of following through on God’s command before He stepped in. When Abraham surrendered what was most precious to him in the whole world in obedience to God’s calling, God provided. Dave Engbrecht says, "God wants to do incredible things but He’s waiting for us to step out on the edge in faith where God comes through or we look like fools." All the while we’re still spending our time doing damage control on our images and reputations. Will we step out on that edge of faith in obedience to God’s calling expecting God to provide? When we surrender our rights of ownership and act on that surrender with constant obedience in response to God’s calling, God will provide!
4. Fourth step – experience God’s blessing. That’s what happens when we practice total surrender and radical obedience. Look at verses thirteen through eighteen: Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. ¹⁴ So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, "On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided." ¹⁵ The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time ¹⁶ and said, "I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, ¹⁷ I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, ¹⁸ and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me." Abraham laid it all on the line, so God blessed him. He didn’t live to see the blessing God had for the world through his descendent Jesus Christ, but Abraham took God at His word anyway. Abraham understood that the life God chooses to bless is the life that is totally surrendered to Him lock, stock and barrel. Nothing withheld from God’s hand. Nothing we’ve shoved in the closet and locked up. God wants to bless us mightily, but He can’t do it until we remember the white flag principle and surrender ourselves with reckless abandon to the cause of Christ. Then we win!
5. Absolute total commitment to Jesus Christ comes down to one thing: taking everything you have and are and saying to God, "I trust You with everything I am and have. It’s all yours." Are we willing to do that?
6. Illustration - Sheila Walsh, singer, author, and former co-host of the 700 Club ("Staying Alive," Leadership Journal, Summer 2002) said, In 1992 my life hit the wall. One morning I was sitting on national television with my nice suit and my inflatable hairdo, and that night I was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital. It was the kindest thing God could have done to me. The very first day in the hospital, the psychiatrist asked me, "Who are you?" "I'm the co-host of the 700 Club." "That's not what I meant," he said. "Well, I'm a writer. I'm a singer." "That's not what I meant. Who are you?" "I don't have a clue," I said, and he replied, "Now that's right, and that's why you're here." And the greatest thing I discovered there is sometimes some of God's most precious gifts come in packets that make your hand bleed when you open them, but inside is what you've been longing for all your life—to be fully known and fully loved. I measured myself by what other people thought of me. That was slowly killing me. Before I entered the hospital, some of the 700 Club staff said to me, "Don't do this. You will never regain any kind of platform. If people know you were in a mental institution and on medication, it's over." I said, "You know what? It's over anyway. So I can't think about that." I really thought I had lost everything. My house. My salary. My job. Everything. But I found my life. I discovered at the lowest moment of my life that everything that was true about me, God knew. After I'd been there about three weeks, I remember asking the doctor if I could go to a church service. Two nurses went with me, and I sat at the back of this little Episcopal church in Washington, D.C. God spoke to me through a priest I'd never met before, hymns I'd never sung before, passages I don't remember reading before. But the words of that old hymn described me perfectly: "Nothing in my hands I bring. Simply to thy cross I cling." Jesus knew the worst, and he loved me. What a relief to know the worst about yourself and at the same moment to be embraced by God. It's so liberating to reach the end of yourself. When will we reach the end of ourselves and surrender ourselves with reckless abandon to the cause of Christ where we step out on the edge in faith and either God comes through or we look like fools?

1. Conclusion

1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. Let me ask you a question. Is there any area of your life where you haven’t surrendered to God? Is there anything you’re holding back from Him?
2. I’m going to be blunt with you. Our church needs bunches and bunches of people who are absolutely totally surrendered and committed to Jesus Christ and His cause. Our church needs lots of people who have surrendered themselves with reckless abandon to the cause of Christ, including its pastor. I am surrendering myself totally and completely this morning. If that’s what you are choosing to do this morning, please join me at the altars.