How Christian Surrender Means Victory

We don’t like patience and surrender! Why? Because the heart of sin, the heart of the fall is that we want our own way. This is the essence of all of our struggles against God and against each other. We are angry and scared about giving up our way, what we  think is best for us, what we want. Rationalize it as you want, Christian surrender is not something that we usually want to do.

In our younger years, we have to have this one guy even though he’s not a Christian. Or he’s married. We want to go to this college. We want to have this career. Maybe we want to drink more than we should; maybe we want to sleep around.

Then we grow up and learn a thing or two about how life works and we let go of more juvenile sins. But we still want our own way, so we want to be self-righteous. We want to gossip. We want to judge. We want to hate people who are our political opposites. We want to despise people like Muslims or Wiccans instead of crying out to God for their salvation. We all do it, we all do it.

And it is all sin: pride and impatience and the unwillingness to surrender to God and His will, which seems to take so long! It all comes from pride and demanding our own way.

Impatience comes from pride. WHY should I wait?! we cry. We cry out to God!

⁸ The end of a matter is better than its beginning,
    and patience is better than pride. (Eccl. 7:8)

This is the key: It is GOD who works in you for His good purpose. God doesn’t want to destroy us, he wants to patiently save us! Yet being human, we have to have our own way, we have to fulfill our desires NOW. So while we may look attractive on the outside, on the inside where it counts our souls look like an episode of Hoarders!

⁴ Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, forbearance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness is intended to lead you to repentance? (Rom. 2:4)

Q: What does impatience feel like to you? It can be short-term like in a long line at the grocery store or long-term where you keep waiting for something to happen.

Surrender

Now to the second dirty word: when we become patient before God we surrender. When we don’t, it is because we are experiencing pride and fear. “I know what’s best for me!” we cry. Except that we don’t. It is not us that achieves growth and meaning. It’s God teaching us and acting through us. And this is a high and holy matter. Paul says in Philippians:

¹³… for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.” (Phil. 2:13)

We simply WILL NOT get it right in our impatience for good things. We need to wait, to be still, to seek the Lord in peace, to trust. To be patient. To surrender our impatient will to God’s patient one.

Because no matter how imperfectly we surrender, no matter how messy we still are inside, God patiently uses us just as we are.  God himself is patient, beautifully patient with our shortcomings and our weaknesses.

When have you moved from impatience to patience and surrender?

We don’t LIKE surrender. Honestly people never do. Especially in the West with our rugged individualism.

• “Give me liberty or give me death.” (Patrick Henry)
• “Young men, never, never, never give up!” (Winston Churchill)
• “Whether I’m right or whether I’m wrong, I did it my way!” (Frank Sinatra)

And in fact, NOT surrendering to some things is the right thing to do!

• It’s a good thing that General Washington did not surrender to Lord Cornwallis.
• It’s a good thing that England did not surrender to Germany during the Battle of Britain.
• It’s a good thing when a struggling alcoholic does not surrender to a drink.

The problem only starts when we refuse to surrender PERIOD even when we should. This is really true when we refuse to surrender to God. What does it mean to surrender to God? Is it our pride that is an issue? Our distrust of God? Our desire? I suspect that it is all three.

Let’s read Genesis 3: The fall of humankind. This is a chilling chapter by the way.

• Pride. This was pretty much the root of the sin in the Garden of Eden. MY way, MY path, MY life. We want to set ourselves up as gods. [The serpent said] “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Gen. 3:5)

• Distrust of God. What is it that the serpent told Eve when he suggested she eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. (Gen. 3:4) It sowed the seeds of distrust. No faithful Christian wakes up one morning and cheerfully announces that she doesn’t believe in all this stuff anymore, and skips off to the mall. Most of the time distrust is subtle and sneaky, it sneaks up on us from behind. I’m not talking about the great crises of faith, as when a husband or child (God forbid) dies and you must struggle with God. I’m talking about the everyday sneaky little voice where we wonder if we can really trust Him or  not in all things. Because motice that the serpent did not say “You certainly will NOT die.” It did not set itself up on direct opposition to God, which Eve may well have rejected. Instead it said “You will not CERTAINLY die.” It was daring the woman to take a chance. And she did, and we fell.

Desire. The serpent didn’t suggest to Eve that she burn down the garden. She would have rejected something this terrible and obvious. Instead he suggested that having the knowledge of good and evil would lift her up, would empower her and give her wisdom, would make her more important. As with distrust of God, we don’t wake up one day and suddenly desire something hideous. We talk ourselves into these things! The desire to be important, to matter, to have something physical, to be happy, to be healthy. Are these things bad? My goodness no! All earthly desire rises out of impulses that at one time were good! We ARE important. We DO matter. We were created just a little lower than the angels! But even so, we try to get the short-term desire met that is right in front of our noses. Eve was the mother of all humankind, she was a Queen, she was mighty. But she wanted to be a goddess. And so she fell, and Adam fell too, and all of their children fell with them.

True surrender leads to victory.

Pastor Ron Edmondson wrote: “Surrender is less about a formula and more about knowing the person of Christ.“Surrender is less about an action plan and more about devoting one’s self to Jesus. Surrender is less about finding answers and more about obedience to His plan as He reveals it. Surrender is less about solving a specific problem and more about creating a lifestyle of following Christ. The more you know Him, the more you will know His voice and the better you will hear His commands…And the more willing you will be to follow Him wherever He leads.”

Questions:

• What is God asking you to surrender?