Surrendering to a sovereign God
Genesis chapter 2:1-9
Introduction
Genesis chapter 2:1-9
I hope that the title of the message this morning caught your attention. Surrendering to a sovereign God.
The two words that I hoped jumped out is surrender and sovereign.
The first part is us and how we must surrender our lives to God,(which is hard for us)
and the second part is the character of that God.
Romans 6:13 in one translation says:
“Give yourself to God...surrender your whole being to Him to be used for righteous purpose.”
Surrender is a unpopular word, almost as bad as submission.
It implies losing.
It is an image of defeat in battle.
Forfeiting or yielding to a stronger opponent.
It has a negative to it. Criminals surrender to authorities when they have run out of options.
Yet the Bible teaches , rather than trying to win, succeed, overcome, conquer;
spiritually we are to yield, submit, obey, and surrender.
Everyone has heard me say unless this is your first time here me say:
Get out of the box , Never give up,
Keep moving forward, Succeed and take someone with you.
But spiritually when it comes to our relationship with God, it is not a fight we try to win, it is a surrendering of our being to God Almighty.
It is truly about obeying, submitting, and surrendering.
Surrendering is best demonstrated in obedience. Cooperating with our creator.
Saying Yes lord to what ever He asks us to do .
No Lord is a contradiction of our faith.
You cannot claim Jesus as your Lord and refuse to obey Him.
You cannot say that you trust Him and not do what He tells you to do.
Peter modeled surrender after a night of failed fishing. Jesus told him to try again.
Actually, go right back where he failed.
“Master, we worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down my nets.”
Surrendered people obey God’s word. Even when it does not make sense.
It is one thing to buck authority with your boss, parents, leaders, but it is another thing todisobey and challenge God’s authority.
I want you to see this:
Big bang theory has come under a lot of fire lately. It has holes in it. (Thank God)
Articles have been written to challenge the atheist scientist of the world.
Down with the big bang.
The big bang goes kurplouwee
Sorry, the big bang is a dud.
I don’t care how many letters are put behind your name. Those PHD’s in astronomy cannot get past the first 5 words of the Bible in Genesis 1:1
“ In the beginning God created”.
You look at a new baby born and tell me that is not a miracle of God.
Babies are a miracle of God.
The miracle of Mt. St. Helens May 18, 1980.
Mt. St. Helen erupted in an explosion equivalent to 20 million tons of TNT or 1500 atomic bombs, and that area was changed for ever. It continued to spree lava for 15 hours with a force of 400 million tons of TNT or 30,000 atomic bombs. The jet stream carry the ash from coast to coast. In some spots 25 foot of ash fell in a single spot as the ash was blown by.
Yellowstone National park where 27 layer of Forrest which scientist claimed were deposited by millions of years of evolution. The exact same scenario was formed at the bottom of Mt. St. Helen after 15 hours of eruption.
What I am saying.
I am saying that the thought of human evolution and the big bang theory is a dud.
God can prove in hours what man in his limited wisdom has tried to piece together in evolution.
God tells us to surrender to Him, not because He is this authoritative monster, but because He is God.
He is set far above what we can even imagine God to be.
Isaiah 55:8
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.”
“In the beginning God created”
“So it is with my word, that goes out of my mouth; it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”
Listen to me
You must understand dissatisfaction to appreciate satisfaction.
You must understand where you don’t want to be so you will appreciate where you want to be.
You must know emptiness to know fulness.
You must understand who God is to be able to surrender your life over to Him.
Here is the text this morning. Genesis chapter 1
“In the beginning God created”
He made the light from darkness
He created the sky and the waters
He made the land, birds, fish.
And on the sixth day God created man.
Genesis chapter1:26
“Then God said; let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
And in the midst of all that creating put man in the garden of Eden- In paradise.
Genesis chapter 2:8
“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the East in Eden. And there He put the man he had formed. And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground. Trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.(v15) The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden. To work it and take care of it. And the Lord commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”
God created everything. If He did not do it directly, he did it indirectly through man that he created.
He place him in the garden of Eden and told him that he could have and eat of any tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Man he created, in a garden that he created , directed to eat of the trees that he created.
Freedom without restrictions is chaos.
Tony Evans gives an example that what if there were no boundaries at a football game. If the players could go out of bounds, up in the stands, hide behind the crowds, it would be chaos. Baseball games with no foul poles, you just hit the ball and start running.
Bring that thought closer to home
what if your 8 year old suddenly felt like he was big enough to be a man and don’t want to listen to you anymore.
what if he felt he knew enough about life to make his own decisions.
You would reel that boy in real quick..
You would let him know that he has not seen enough life to make that decision.
You would tell him, and maybe show him he better get back in the game, back within the boundaries, and start listening to the rules.
Be fruitful and increase in numbers- no problem God.
Subdue the earth- no problem God.
Take authority over animals, birds, plants,- no problem
God gave us the authority over these things.
Everything that has breath, man is over. But he did not give us authority over Him.
We cannot tell God what we will or wont do.
We do not have that right- we do not have that authority.
Article in National Geographics called “Are you alone?” scientist finding out that there is life outside of our galaxy the milky way.
Able to take these amazing pictures of these new planets by shielding the light of the sun and looking into the new dimension of another galaxy.
Seeing other planets gravitating around other stars, believing that some of those planets can sustain life.
God told us that in Genesis chapter one that He is the creator.
He put this world as we know it into existence. And any other world we may not know about.
How dare we think and act like we are God
How do we tell God no to anything he has told us in his word or the direction he desires for our life.
I’m closing:
God is sovereign. He does not answer to anyone else.
He asks us to surrender our lives to Him because He has our best interest. Because He cares.
In his book, I Surrender, Patrick Morley writes that the church’s integrity problem is in the misconception that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior.”
We can either be like atlas and try to carry the world on our shoulders, or we can come to the point of God being in charge and say God, I give up. I am not going to fight you any more.
You are God and I am not I am tired of fighting you. Here’s my life. Here is my world.
Illustration-Billy Graham tells the story about a little child the was playing with a very valuable vase. He put his hand into it and could not withdraw it. His father too, tried his best to get it out, to no avail. They were thinking of breaking the vase when the father said, “Now my son, make one more try. Open your hand and hold your fingers out straight as you see me doing, and then pull.” To their astonishment the little fellow said, “O no, dad, I couldn’t put my fingers out like that because if I did I would drop my dime.”Smile, if you will but thousands of us are like that little boy, so busy holding on to the world’s worthless dimes that we cannot accept liberation. Drop the trifles in your life.
Surrender Let go, and let God have His way in your life.
Illustration-
How do we surrender? I want to show you a great example of surrendering from a recent film. Jim Carey, in the film Bruce Almighty, finally comes to the end of himself and surrenders to God in prayer. His prayer is a good model to follow. As Bruce kneels he says to God, “You win. I’m done. Please, I don’t wanna do this anymore. I don’t wanna be God. I want you to decide what’s right for me. I surrender to your will.” You could not pray a better prayer. Stop trying to be God. Tell God he wins and that you want him to decide what’s right for you, and surrender to his will. When that happens, you will receive the forgiveness of your sins and be filled with the Holy Spirit. You will have a relationship with God that is free of conflict and marked by mutual love.
Stanley Jones said, “If you don’t surrender to Christ, you’ll surrender to chaos.” We see that a lot in today’s world.
Altar Call
