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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

K'dee Elsen Crews

Surrender is Not

It's such a privilege to be here, and I'm so excited to share, and no matter how many times you share, you still get nervous.

So please pray for me, and my hope is, you know, 1 person once told me, if you think about the best sermons you've ever listened to, or if you think about the best evangelists, you don't really remember what the sermons were about, but you remember seeing and sensing the Holy Spirit in them.

So my prayer is that the Holy Spirit may just fill me and may be able to share with you a specific message to your hearts.

Now 3 years ago I was asked to preach and give my testimony here at Advent Hope.

And it's funny how sometimes you can give a whole sermon on a specific topic and people either hear a completely different message or sometimes they latch on to a specific phrase or in this case this older gentleman latched on to 1 word that I said.

He didn't even hear the rest of the sermon.

And he came up to me and I could just sense his sincerity.

And I was like, I did not talk about surrender.

You said in your opening prayer, help us surrender our will to you, God.

And I was kind of caught in my tracks as I thought about, we talk about surrender a lot, but how do I actually surrender?

I had experienced it, but how do I explain it biblically and practically to someone else?

So I want you to take a second to think about what would be your response to that man?

My guess is many of you have experienced it.

But how would you explain it to somebody else who is longing to know how do I surrender?

Now, the man left very content with my answer, kind of skipping along, really happy.

Seconds later, I don't remember what I said.

And I think The purpose of that was, 1, for me to recognize that the Holy Spirit gave him the answer, not myself, and 2, I think God was impressing upon my own heart to seek that answer for myself.

And it's been interesting because 3 years, and I'm still learning about surrender.

I grew up in the faith and had a very strong faith all my life, but surrender to me was through the experiences that I had, but I didn't really know biblically how I could explain it to someone else.

And so today I wanna share with you the lessons I've learned about surrender over the course of these past 3 years.

And so I'll be sharing what surrender is, why it's important, and again, with the purpose of explaining to someone else, not just experiencing it, but explaining it to someone else, so that they too could have that experience.

So before we begin though, I'd like to just have 1 more word of prayer, if you could bow your heads with me.

Dear gracious heavenly Father God, we thank you so much that it's Sabbath.

I know that we take it for granted so often, but I'm excited to just spend a complete 24 hours with you, concentrated with you, with your people, and with your word.

Lord, as we open up your word today and talk about our experiences, I just pray that your Holy Spirit may be sensed and seen in an obvious way, God, not just in my life, but in those here.

God, and maybe somebody is listening to this prayer and already latched onto 1 word.

Lord, if it's 1 word, if it's a sermon, if it's a completely different subject, I just pray that you may speak to each person here individually, that they may leave here having the confidence that they've encountered you today.

It is so humbling to be able to speak on your behalf, and Lord, I just pray that I may be emptied of self and be filled with you.

Now, what passages or texts would you go to?

Think about biblically, how would I respond to this man?

Now, If you think about the word surrender and you look for it in the Bible, you're not gonna find a passage that you're saying, okay, for sure, this is where it talks about surrender and these are the different steps.

If you look for the word, it's only about 20 times in the Bible and most of it's in the Old Testament, and most of the times it's in the context of literal surrender.

You think about an army, right, that they surrendered, or even there are verses that talk about surrendering your animals, but you're like, That doesn't tell me much about the experience of a Christian to surrender.

And then in the New Testament, the only time it's referred to literal surrender is actually when it says that Jesus was surrendered to the people, right?

When they let go of Barabbas and Jesus was surrendered to the people.

So you say, you know, where does it actually talk about surrender?

And what that tells me is that God wants us to more have an experience of surrender than to just go to 1 text and know the different steps.

And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna be looking at several main passages, 2 of my favorite miracles, to learn about what is surrender.

And we'll be kind of building and developing what is surrender.

So if you have your Bibles, you're gonna be using it a lot, so please take them out.

The first story, the first passage is the paralytic man found in Mark chapter 2.

And often when I study God's miracles I get super excited about tiny little details, and I know I'm on a time limit, so I won't, if I get carried a little way, that's, you know, don't mind me.

So Mark chapter 2, and we're gonna read verse by verse, because there's little details in these verses that are important, but as we read, I want you to think about what is this teaching us about surrender, because often we read this and we're like, okay, it's just a miracle, that's wonderful, but there's a lot more about surrender in these texts than what we recognize.

And again he entered Capernaum, he being Jesus, after some days, and it was heard that he was in the house.

Immediately many gathered together so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door.

Now this is describing, it's setting up a situation.

Now when we read our Bibles, we read them quickly, but I want you to experience it.

Imagine this place, absolutely crowded, not even room near the door.

And he preached the word to them, verse 3.

Then they came to him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by how many men?

And when they could not come near him, again, explaining, it is packed, because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where he was.

And when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, son, your sins are forgiven you.

But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts said, why does this man speak blasphemies like this?

"'Who can forgive sins but God alone?' And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, he said to them, "'Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?

"'Which is easier to say to the paralytic, your sins are forgiven you, or to say, arise, take up your bed, and walk.

But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, he said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.

And immediately he arose, took up his bed, and went out in the presence of all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, We never saw anything like this.

Now, I read that a little bit quickly because of the fact that that's typically how we read.

And what's really important for Bible study, when you're studying your Bible, is curiosity.

Now, When I read this, I was curious, why in the world would he ask him to take up his bed?

Like, if I were you, I'd leave that bed there, right?

I've been on that bed for a long time, I'm a paralytic.

And realize that he said it twice, right?

And he commands them, arise, take up your bed, and walk.

And the second time it says, and go your way to your house.

Whenever you have a question, either you look within the text to see if it's answered, or you try to find other places in the Bible that also mention the same thing.

Now is there any other place in the Bible that uses that exact same phrase, arise, take up your bed, and walk.

The Pool of Bethesda, let's turn to John chapter 5.

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Surrender is Not

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