“Surrender: verb
1 a: to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand
b: to give up completely or agree to forgo especially in favor of another”
During the First Gulf War a common occurrence was the immediate, unconditional surrender of members of the Iraqi Army. Resistance against US and coalition forces would often just evaporate as our troops pushed Saddam Hussein’s forces out of Kuwait. There were two reasons for this. First, the Iraqi military was no match for ours. Second, they anticipated American kindness to prisoners of war. At that point in history captivity to US forces would have been preferable to life under Saddam Hussein. Surrender is a good thing when you have no chance of winning and your cause isn’t worth fighting for.
Surrender is also a good thing when it comes to the accomplishment of goals and objectives. Laura and I surrendered to the point system of Weight Watchers in February. We count everything we eat and keep our daily of food intake under a certain number of points. As a result we’ve lost nearly 15 lbs each. Recovering alcoholics must surrender to weekly meetings at AA support groups and to an accountability system to break free of their addictions. Whatever your aim you’ve got to surrender to the program to move forward.
Surrender is good in relationships. If you want to have friends you’ve got to surrender your self-interest and be interested in them. You have to surrender your natural tendency to protect yourself to let others in so that they really know you. In order to maintain peace in relationships you have to surrender your ego from time to time in order to ask or extend forgiveness. The crown of all relationships, marriage, isn’t even possible without surrender. Think of what you have to give up, husbands, to love your wife with sacrificial love as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. Think of what you have to give up, wives, to respect your husband and submit to his leadership.
Surrender is good in so many ways. Why is it so difficult? You have to trust whatever or whomever you’re surrendering to. Before you’ll surrender to a superior military force you have to trust that they will treat you reasonably well and not torture or murder you. Before you’ll surrender to a course of action you’ve got to believe that it will work. Before you’ll surrender to another person you have to trust that they’re basically good and have your best interests at heart. It’s even easier to surrender if you know that they love you.
Today we conclude the book of Genesis. It has taken 10 months and 38 sermons, but we’ve finally arrived at the end. I hope you’ve seen a pattern emerge as God interacted with sinful human beings. God presents His way, the people go their own way, the people experience the misery, pain, and destruction of their own way, God comes to them and presents His way again and again and again. His way brings blessing and peace and joy and delight in knowing and walking with the Creator of the universe. God’s way brings the satisfaction of being used for His purposes according to His design. In order for sinful human beings to enjoy His presence and plan what’s the one thing they must do – from Adam to Joseph? Surrender. What determines whether or not people surrender to God? You’ve got it … trust.
The final chapter of Genesis is really just a summation of this idea. Moses wrote this book so that the generation entering the Promised Land would trust the Lord and surrender to Him. The Holy Spirit preserved this book so that we too would trust and surrender. Just to make sure we get it, the Lord inspired Moses to include …
Good Reasons to Trust God
Unlike some overly rigid parents God doesn’t say to us, “Surrender because I told you to” or Surrender or else.” He makes surrender as easy as possible by giving us reasons to trust Him. Here are three statements God makes to each of us through the concluding verses of Genesis, which He’s really been saying throughout the entire book. First …
“Expect fulfillment of all My promises”
In the final chapter the reader is treated to 15 verses detailing Jacob’s death, funeral, and burial. Lots of odd details are included in the account like this:
Then Joseph directed the physicians in his service to embalm his father Israel. So the physicians embalmed him, taking a full forty days, for that was the time required for embalming. And the Egyptians mourned for him seventy days. Genesis 50:2-3
The Egyptian embalmers preserved Jacob like a mummy. They officially mourned for him 70 days. Historical evidence tells us that these actions were reserved for the kings of Egypt. Jacob received a royal funeral by the Egyptians. Even the funeral procession was fit for a king:
So Joseph went up to bury his father. All Pharaoh’s officials accompanied him—the dignitaries of his court and all the dignitaries of Egypt … Chariots and horsemen also went up with him. It was a very large company. Genesis 50:7, 9
If you saw the vice president and Obama’s cabinet members riding behind the hearse and joining in a graveside funeral service in Lexington, you’d conclude that somebody extremely important had died. That’s what the Canaanites thought when they saw the immense Egyptian entourage weeping for Jacob 7 days in their own territory. They assumed an Egyptian pharaoh had died. Only a great man would receive such a lavish ceremony.
Why did Moses include these details? He wanted to demonstrate that God fulfills all of His promises. A couple of centuries earlier God made Jacob’s grandfather, Abraham, this promise:
“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Genesis 12:2-3
Here God fulfilled the promise to make his name great. The royal funeral by the Egyptians tells us that they held Abraham’s family in high esteem. Jacob and Joseph had great names in Egypt. The children of Abraham had a great name and it would only become greater.
Think about all the obstacles God had to overcome to fulfill his promise. He brought Abraham, an obscure nomadic sheik, out of an idolatrous culture and established a covenant with him. God preserved that family through threats by pagan nations, at least four famines, internal strife, and a whole lot of self will and sin. At several points it looked like Abraham’s family would not survive or that the scoundrels who were members of it would drop a relationship with the true God to go their own way. Yet, in the end, God fulfilled His promise
That’s a pretty good reason for trust, wouldn’t you say? Nothing can stop God’s fulfillment of His promises to us. Not even sinful human choice against God can overcome the fulfillment of His promises.
One of the top reasons people follow a leader, studies show, is faithfulness. People who do what they say they are going to do are trusted and others are put at ease in surrendering to their leadership. The same is true in following God’s leadership. He is faithful to fulfill His promises.
Here’s an amazing statement about God’s faithfulness to His promises:
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes” in Christ. And so through him the "Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God. 2 Corinthians 1:20
Whatever promise God has made to His people will be fulfilled. He will do what He said He’s going to do. Jesus was and is and will be the fulfillment of all God’s promises. All of His promises in the Bible point to Christ and either have been or will be brought to pass by Him. Look back at Genesis 12. God told Abraham, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” That promise was fulfilled by the perfect life, perfect sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul informs us in his letter to the Galatians:
The Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, “All nations will be blessed through you.” Galatians 3:8
A second good reason to trust is that God says:
“Accept that I am always on your side”
Jacob’s death created quite a bit of anxiety among the brothers. They feared that perhaps Joseph, who’d treated them so kindly for the past 17 years, would now set aside his mercy and grace and repay them for the evil they’d perpetrated against him. Knowing Joseph would respect a word from their father they told him old Jacob had commanded Joseph to forgive the brothers. It’s not altogether clear whether they made this up or Jacob actually said it before his death. To show their sincerity, the brothers fell at Joseph’s feet and offered themselves as slaves if only he’d be merciful to them. Genesis tells us that Joseph wept. After all those years they still didn’t get it. He told them, point blank:
“Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Genesis 50:19-20
Many scholars believe that verses 20 is the point of Genesis. God intends our good at all times. Circumstances may look like they were created to harm us, sometimes other people do intend to harm us, sometimes we foolishly harm ourselves, but over and above, all around, and beneath there is a God who says, “I am always on your side.”
In the latter chapters of Genesis, Joseph is God’s representative. At times he seemed to be against his brothers – speaking to them roughly, accusing them of being spies, tossing them in jail, holding one hostage, planting incriminating evidence on them, generally scaring the wits out them – but all along Joseph was on their side. He desired their repentance, forgiveness, and healing. He sought reconciliation. He provided land and food to preserve their lives. He did not want his brothers to be his slaves. He desired their friendship and unity.
The same is true with God. He doesn’t desire your surrender out of fear that He’s going to thrash you. He wants you to surrender because you trust Him, realizing that He is always on you side. He’s always seeking your best even when you’ve walked away from Him. Understand that when you gaze at the universe there is a Person smiling back at you.
If you’re a parent or have ever been a parent ask yourself this question: Do you want your children to obey you because they are terrified of your punishment or because they love you? Do you want them to follow your instruction out of fear or trust?
Don’t get me wrong. There is a proper place for fear. Psalm 111:10 say “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.” There is good reason to fear a holy, righteous, and just God. But fear is only the beginning. The place God wants to take you is trust because you realize that He is always on your side. Those who stop at fear never fully surrender. If avoidance of hell is what motivates your morality, you’ll give God a bare minimum. If you accept that He’s always on you side, you’ll trust and surrender all.
This leads us to God’s third reason for trust:
“Rely on My way for real life”
There are a couple more details of the story that we need to reckon with. They seem to be mentioned only in passing, but the original hearers would have picked up on their significance immediately.
Joseph stayed in Egypt, along with all his father’s family. He lived a hundred and ten years and saw the third generation of Ephraim’s children. Genesis 50:22-23
Joseph’s age was significant. To the Egyptians 110 was considered the ideal lifespan. You’re not dying too young or too old. It was a sign of God’s blessing. Joseph also lived to see his great great grandchildren. Throughout the Old Testament a person is considered blessed by God if they live to see their grandchildren. Joseph went way beyond that, seeing his great great grandchildren. The point: Joseph was blessed beyond his wildest dreams. He enjoyed the kind of life God intended. How? He surrendered to God’s plan.
Joseph went God’s way rather than his own way and experienced real life. He was enslaved, but never gave up his faith in God. Joseph was tempted sexually and with shameless self-promotion. But he maintained his purity and integrity though it cost him even more of his freedom. When he was promoted in Egypt he refused to use his position to exact revenge or jump the gun and bring his family to there before God’s appointed time. Joseph surrendered and the final details of Genesis inform us that he had real life, the kind that God intended, the kind that God blessed.
I want you to remember that when you run across one of God’s commands that you’re tempted to toss aside and do things your own way. When God says it is more blessed to give than to receive and our culture says “the one who dies with the most toys wins.” You have a choice to make don’t you? Are you going to go your way or God’s way? When someone hurts you God says to forgive and be reconciled, but your natural reaction will be revenge – by word or deed. Which will you choose? Do you trust that God’s way leads to life? God says, “Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure” and that “the adulterer and all the sexually immoral” will be judged, but your flesh says I want it and I want it now. You’ve got a choice to make. It really comes down to whether or not your really trust God. What’s going to bring real life, His way or your way? Sin is ultimately an issue of trust. Which lead to real life, His way or your way?
The call of Genesis and the Bible as a whole is “Surrender!” Surrender absolutely to the God who is absolutely committed to your good. Jesus said the same thing. No where in His word will you find the Lord saying make a one time decision for Me and then forget about it. He said:
“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self?” Luke 9:23-25
Surrender absolutely to the God who is absolutely committed to your good. The degree to which you surrender is determined by your trust. In his devotional classic, Oswald Chambers described what a surrendered life would entail:
“…we will have to give up claims to our rights to ourselves. Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives? Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?”
Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, March 8
Surrender absolutely to the God who is absolutely committed to your good.
