Freedom is one of the greatest privileges that we have access to here in America. It is a privilege (special right) because of those who have fought to protect my right to freedom. I have the rights and freedom to worship God, share my opinions, to vote, and travel/live where I want to. Those are rights and privileges we have here in America because of freedom. It is a privilege because not every country has access to those freedoms. Freedom is available here in America because someone was willing to fight for it for me.
There is also a freedom that comes through surrender. Meaning, there is a peace available to us when we are willing to let go of control.
Have you ever been riding with
someone who made you nervous? Maybe they were driving too fast. Maybe they
waited too long to brake. Maybe they took a route that you would not have
chosen. Even though you were in the passenger seat, your whole body was moving
and reacting as if you were the one driving. Has that ever happened to someone?
• Your foot was pressing an imaginary brake.
• Your hands were gripping the seat.
• You were watching every turn.
• You were shouting instructions: Slow down! Watch that car! Why are you going that way?
The problem was not that the driver did not know what they were doing. The problem was that you were the one driving. Better said, you were not the one who was in control and you were struggling to trust the person who was.
As funny as it sounds, this is almost the exact picture of how we are with God. We say that “God is in in control,” but we sit beside Him with our foot on an imaginary brake. We try to tell Him when to move, where to turn, when to slow down, and what outcome we believe would be best.
We pray, but we still try to manage everything on our own. We ask God to lead, but we get anxious when He takes a road that we did not expect. We tell Him that we trust Him, but we keep reaching for the steering wheel. In the midst of all this, the more we try to control what we were never meant to control the more anxious, frustrated, and exhausted we become.
Control = Our attempt to guarantee an outcome through our limited power, resources, and understanding.
However, life continually reminds
us that we are not in control.
We cannot control:
•
What other people
decide…
•
How someone else
responds…
•
What
opportunities come our way…
•
The diagnosis we
want to receive…
• What happens tomorrow, next week, or next year…
Nevertheless, while we are not in control, we are not without hope. Why? Because…
God is in control.
The freedom of surrender begins when we stop fighting God for the position that only He is capable of holding. And the truth is that your life is safest when its placed in His hands. Better said, peace begins where our control ends.
So how do we experience true freedom by truly surrendering to God?
1.
Recognize
who is in control
The first truth we must establish is
that God is in control. That is an absolute truth. God is in charge, regardless
of what I think about it, feel about it, or believe about it. This is something
that we as Christians don’t have a hard time agreeing with, we have a hard time
believing it and living it out. I believe its because we spend so much time
focusing on the problem rather than turning our attention to Him. Let me remind
you who your God is:
•
Sovereign — God has complete rule and reign. There is no power
above Him. There is no one that He answers to. Nothing or no one can remove Him
from His throne.
•
Omnipotent — God has the power to accomplish everything He
purposes.
•
Omniscient — God possesses complete knowledge and never acts
with incomplete information.
•
Omnipresent — God is fully present everywhere; nothing happens
outside of His awareness.
•
Perfect Wisdom — God always knows the best means for accomplishing
His plans.
•
Provident — God actively preserves and governs through His
creation to accomplish His purposes.
•
Consider the
Scale of What God Governs:
•
Milky Way
•
•
NASA says that
the Milky Way contains 100 billion stars.
•
The observable
universe contains 100 billion galaxies.
•
That suggests
that there are over one septillion stars in the observable universe
(1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars).
•
Psalm 147:4 — “He determines the number
of the stars and calls them each by name.”
•
God knows every
star, where it is located, what its made of, where it began, and how long it
will burn.
•
The Earth
• The ground beneath us is constantly moving.
•
The earth rotates
at nearly 1,000 mph near the equator while orbiting the sun approximately 30 km
per second (65,000 miles per hour).
•
It may feel like
we are sitting still, but we are traveling through space at tremendous speeds.
•
We don’t ever
worry about about the earth staying on its orbit, nor do we ever have to remind
it.
•
The God who
governs the universe also sustains what is happening within us even right now.
•
Colossians 1:17 — “… in Him all things hold together.”
• Job 12:10 — “In His hand is the life of
every creature and the breath of all mankind.”
• Your Body
• Your entire bodily systems are working together right now watching what is happening, communicating information to one another, making adjustments, repairing damage, removing waste, fighting threats, all in a process called Homeostasis. It is constantly adjusting your oxygen, blood pressure, blood sugar, electrolytes, hormones, body temperature, etc.to keep them all within ranges that allow your body to function.
•
Your heart beats
approximately 60 to 100 times a minute. Over the course of a day your heart
beats approximately 100,000 times. In that same day your heart pumps about
2,000 pounds of blood throughout your body.
•
Every time you
inhale, oxygen enters your lungs and moves into your blood. At that same exact
time, carbon dioxide (waste as your cells generate energy) moves from the blood
into your lungs so that you can exhale it. This is absolutely essential for
life.
• Right now while you are listening to this sermon, your brain and nervous system are helping you regulate
-
Breathing
-
Heart-rate
-
Blood pressure
-
Digestion
-
Body temperature
-
Balance
-
Pupil size
-
Blood
distribution
•
All of this is
happening without a conscious consideration. Without realizing it, you are
trusting God with every breath and every heartbeat. This makes us realize that
we are not in control of our life as much as we think we are. You don’t even
consciously control the body you live in.
•
If God is not
overwhelmed by managing over one septillion stars or keeping your heart beating
right now, your current situation is not going to be the thing that ultimately
exhausts Him. Admitting that God is in control wakes us up from the illusion
that we were ever in control in the first place.
2.
Trust
the One who is in control
It’s one thing to know that God is in control. It is another thing to trust the
God who is in control. The good thing is that God is trustworthy.
God is:
•
Good
•
Faithful
•
Loving
•
Infinite
•
Proverbs
3:5-6 — “Trust in the LORD with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And
He shall direct your paths.”
• “Trust in the Lord with all your heart…” — Trust
doesn’t mean that we understand everything. Trust is leaning on the God of the
universe. We are asked to trust God that He will take care of us.
•
“Lean not
on your own understanding…” — We
tend to only trust what we can analyze. Here we are challenged to not lean on
what we know because our understanding will always fall short. We only know so
much and can only see so far down the road. God is unlimited in His knowledge
and sees the end from the beginning. Don’t lean on yourself, lean on God.
“Lean not” doesn't mean don't use your brain. It means don't make your limited
human perspective the foundation of your security. Your understanding is a
rowboat; God’s
understanding is an ocean.
• “In all your ways acknowledge Him…” — Realize that you are not the one who is in control, but God is. Acknowledge that God is worthy by seeking Him and His wisdom above our own understanding.
Acknowledging God = Seeking Him
•
“And He
shall direct your paths.” — This is a promise that when we seek God and
acknowledge that He is worthy of our trust, He will actively point us in the
right direction. The right direction does not mean that it’s the direction we
want to go.
• The Trust Test
1.
I feel
more secure when I have a clear plan than when I simply have God’s promise.
2.
I tend to
assume that if I do not make something happen, things won’t turn out the way I
want them to.
3.
I struggle
to believe that God is working when I cannot see any progress.
4.
I pray
about situations, but I continue carrying the same fear and pressure afterward.
5.
I trust
God more easily when His plan agrees with mine.
• If you scored high on this test, don’t feel condemned.
This test is simply meant to reveal where we need to trust God a little more in
our life.
3.
Surrender
what you cannot control
When we recognize that God is in control and trust in Him to lead us and guide
us, that leads us to surrender. Surrender is releasing worry over the
outcome and entrusting it to God. It means faithfully doing what God has
called you to do and then trusting Him with what only He can do.
Surrender is not giving up or being passive. It’s not throwing our hands up in
the air and saying, “whatever happens, happens!” Instead, surrender is taking
100% responsibility for your input while giving God 100% ownership of the
outcome.
There are things that only we can control:
•
Our choices
•
Our attitude
•
Our obedience
•
How we treat
others
•
Prayer and
trusting God
•
There are things
we were never meant to control
•
What people do
•
How others
respond
•
Results
•
Timing
•
Opportunities
& the future
• We must surrender these things to God and allow Him to
do what He does best
Matthew 26:39 — “He went
a little farther and fell on His face, and prayed, saying, “O My Father, if it is possible, let this
cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.””
Jesus shows us what surrender looks
like:
•
Jesus asked God
for what he desired
• Yet in the end He trusted God’s providence over His humanly understanding.
Surrender is not a loss, it is a
trade. You are trading
•
Your fear and
anxiety for God’s peace.
•
You trade your
limited strength for God’s unlimited power.
• You are trading the exhaustion of you trying to figure it out for trusting God to work it out.
How to Surrender your problems to God
1.
Identify
It — Name what you are trying to control
•
You can’t
surrender what you refuse to acknowledge.
•
Identify the
situation (relationships, finances, diagnosis, future, etc).
•
I am trying to
control this, I am not in control.
2.
Release
It — Hand the outcome over to God
•
Release is the
active decision to take your hands off the steering wheel.
•
In prayer,
explicitly give God ownership of the result.
•
It’s saying to God, “I am giving up my right to
dictate how this gets resolved.”
•
It is trusting
God’s way over your own.
3.
Leave
It — Refuse to pick it back up
•
Surrender falls
apart when we pray on Sunday and start worrying again on Monday. This is the
real battle.
•
Leaving it means
that you refuse to pick back up what you just gave to God.
•
When temptation
comes to try to control and obsess over outcomes again, you make a conscious
decision to say: “No, I already handed this over to God. That is no longer my
burden to carry.”
•
Surrender is a
daily practice, not a one time event
•
Resist the urge
to micro-manage God — give Him room to work without you continually trying to
make sure that He’s
doing it your way.
• Trade your worry for worship — When you want to it back up and worry again, turn that anxiety in for praise and remind yourself who God is.
TAKEAWAYS
I.
Control
Is an Illusion; God Is Already in Control
You don't consciously control the
stars, the earth's orbit, or even your own heartbeat—God is already sustaining
your life without your permission. Surrender isn't losing control; it's waking
up to the reality that you were never driving in the first place.
II.
Anxiety
Begins Where Trust Ends
Pressing an imaginary brake from the
passenger seat only wears you out. When you try to guarantee outcomes that only
God can determine, you carry a weight you were never created to bear. True
peace begins the moment you stop reaching for the steering wheel.
III.
Surrender
Means Doing Your Job and Letting God Do His
Surrender isn't giving up or being
passive—it's active stewardship. You are responsible for your choices, your
attitude, and your obedience; God is responsible for the timing, the people,
and the outcome.
