Acts: A Pastor's Surrender

Well, it's good to see. Thank you for being here

with us.

If you have your Bible, it's turning with me to Acts, Acts,

chapter twenty. This morning, we're going to start and we'll

start in verse eighteen this morning.

And we'll read through twenty four.

I want to remind you as we come to Acts

this morning we start. We started last week a series

through chapter twenty of Acts.

And in this passage of Acts, chapter.

Twenty, Paul has gathered the elders at Ephesus from Ephesus,

He's gathered them in mild TuS, and he's was pastored

or ministered in Ephesus.

For three years.

He's leaving now he's headed to I mean, he's headed

to Jerusalem. And these next few messages are basically Paul's

final words. As I mentioned to you last week, final

words are important. Many times we remember the final words

of our loved one or someone dear to us, We

remember their last words. That these are Paul's last words

to these leaders, these elders at Ephesus. And last week

I encourage you. We've been praying for months that God

would raise up from among us men called by God

to serve the church and ministry or men called by

the service elders or deacon or some type of leadership capacity.

And we've been praying for a month that God would

raise us up, that we might grow, that we might go,

that God.

Would raise up among us missionaries.

And I pray that I really believe divinely God has

led us to these passages for such a time as this,

and God's calling people. And I pray that you are

praying that God, that people would hear the calling of

God and surrender.

And so this morning, I want to look. Last week I.

Told you we'd started a series, and last week we

were looking at the pastor's calling. And Paul begins his

last words to the Ephesian elders by reminding them of

his calling, a calling that he had, a calling.

That they had.

And he reminded three parts of that last week, reminders

of a pastor's calling, a calling to be an example,

a calling and to serve, and a calling to preach.

This morning, Paul.

Goes into another aspect of his last words, and here

he talks about surrendering. And this morning Paul reminds them

of how he's living his life as a pastor, surrendering

to God and this morning, I want to look at

how Paul surrendered to God's leading.

You know, I heard the story of a pastor Bruce Larson.

He was a pastor of New York.

City and people would come to him many times that

would struggle with surrendering different aspects of their life to

Jesus and saying, yes, Lord, I will surrender.

No, Lord, I won't surrender.

And many times Pastor Bruce said that he would take

those individuals that he was counseling he was really struggling

with surrendering their life to Jesus. He would take them

out of his office in New York City.

He would try. He would walk them down to the

RCA building on.

Fifth Avenue, and there at the entrance of that building

there's a gigantic statute of Atlas.

Atlas is this man who is who's strong.

In the statue, it sees his muscles straining, and he's

holding on his shoulder the whole world, all the world,

and he and it was a vivid picture of these

who are struggling with surrender. He said, this is an

option for you. Here's the strongest man in the world,

and he can barely stand up under the pressure, under

the burden of trying to carry the word, I mean,

the world. And he would say to that individual, that's

you here. You're straining your life, doing everything you can

to try to carry the world on your own shoulders.

He says, but there's another option.

And he would go across the street from Fifth Avenue

and there was a cathedral there, it called Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

And at the time, behind in that cathedral there was

a little there was an altar, and behind that little

altar was a little shrine of a boy, Jesus eight

nine years old, little Jesus in his hand. This little

boy Jesus was holding the world in his hand.

And he says to.

The individual struggling with surrender, here's another option for you.

You give your life to Jesus and says Lord, I

give you my life. I give you my world, the

whole world, Lord, I will put in your hands.

I ask you today, as we look at Paul talking

about how he surrendered his life and placed his life in.

The Lord's hand, have you done that this morning?

Have you said to the Lord Lord, I give you

my soul. I'll give you my asalvation.

But have you said to him, Lord I'll give you

my life.

I'll give you the direction of my life. I give

you direction of my family. I'll give you direction of

my occupation. I'll give you direction of my gifts. God,

I give you direction of my service.

Lord. There's nothing in my life I'll hold back from you. God.

I'll surrender my life to you. Andrew Murray was a pastor.

And Andrew Murray said, there's not that made. Not a

single moment of my life be spent outside the light

and love and joy of God's presence, and not a

moment without the entire surrender of myself as a vessel

for him to feel.

Full of his spirit and love. I pray that's your

prayer today. Lord. There's not a moment in my life

that I don't want to live and surrender to you

all of me. Lord, I give to you now. I

remember I was.

I think seventeen, Maybe I just got called in the ministry.

Maybe the next year I'd spent serving the church. I

was an intern in the church, and I had a

youth pastor for a year or so had mentored me,

who had taught me. And it was really his life

in him modeling what it meant to be a pastor,

and to be a youth pastor really impact on me.

And I remember it. Sunday morning he called the youth

group in and it was not normal.

We normally went into our own sundays of classes. This

Sunday he called it different. He calls all into the

I think of the little sanctuary that we have for

the students, and there he stood before us and he

told us he was leaving the church. And I remember

just being devastated. Man, this man I had followed, this man,

he had mentored me, he had served me, he had

taught me what it meant to love the Lord.

And now he's leaving, and my heart was broken.

I mean, if you felt that same thing here at

Bethesda or a different parts in your life, you got

close to a pastor and a pastor mentored you, guided you,

and the pastor stood before you and says, God leading

me somewhere else, and your heart was broken. That's I

want you to hear that today, because that is where

these individuals are in Acts chapter twenty, when Paul's talking

to them and he's telling them he's leaving them. He

spent three years with them, he has mentored them, he

has modeled them. He's taught them how to love the Lord.

He's taught them how to the Lord. And now Paul says,

I'm not coming back. I'm leaving and I'm going to Jerusalem.

And you have to understand, as much as your hearts

have been broken, when our pastor's left you and left

this church to go to another direction, that's where their

hearts are.

What's your question?

My question was when he told us that day that

he's leading, he wants you, and I want to know why.

Why is he leaving? Does he not like us? Is

he not like our church, like this community? To whatever?

What is it? That's the same struggle they're wrestling with.

And in this pastage of scripture, Paul explains, I'm leaving

because I'm surrendered to God. God's got a calling on me.

And as much as I love you and I want

to serve you and want to follow you, God has

got a calling and I will.

Surrender to the Lord. And so this morning, let's look

at how to surrender to God's calling. Would you stand

with me and let's read this passage together.

We'll start verse eighteen and just see how Paul leads

them through what we talked about last week and into

the verses for today. And this is the way it says.

And when they came to him, he said to them,

you yourselves know I lived among you the whole time,

from the first day that set foot in Asia, serving

with all humility and with tears, and with trials that

happened to me through.

The plots of the Jews.

And how I did not shrink from declaring you anything

that was profitable, teaching you in public from house to house,

testifying to the Jews and to the Greeks, repentance towards

God and faith.

In our Lord Jesus Christ.

And now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem, constrained by the

Holy Spirit, not knowing what will happened to me there.

It's that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every

city that imprisonment and affliction await me. But I do

not count my life as any value nor precious as

to myself.

If only I.

Might finish my course and the ministry that I received

from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel.

Of the grace of God. Let's pray together, Lord, I pray.

Today we stand before you God as a body of believers,

as a church. God, I pray that we would be

a church that would surrender to you, Lord, not our way,

not our.

Will, but your will be done.

Lord, on earth as it is in Heaven. God, we

surrender to you. So Lord, I pray corporately, Lord, we

would have a spirit of surrender today. Lord, I pray individually, Lord,

we would all ask Lord what.

You want from us?

And Lord, I pray we would live lives daily that

surrender to Lord your will for us. Lord, we love you.

We thank you Lord for this morning. I thank you

for those that have gathered God today. Lord, I pray

that you would speak through me, that you would feel me,

that I might declare not my words but yours.

Lord. I surrender this message to you. God. Lord, have

your way. Lord. Now we pray, Amen, you may be

see that how do surrender to God's calling? I want

you to see. First, Paul understands and he explains to

them as to have these questions of their mind. Why

are you going? Why are you you going Jerusalem?

Why are you not staying in Ephesus. Paul explains to them,

I'm surrendering to God's calling and how I've done that?

And he explains how to surrender. First, He's surrendered to

the Holy Spirit. Yah. Can I tell you today when

you're discerning, when God calls you to something and you're

discerning how to follow God, the first step for you

and I is to say, Lord, I'll surrender to your spirit.

As the spirit begins prodding our hearts, moving in the hearts,

convicting our hearts. There's a step for you and all

of us that we had to come to a place

where we say, God, I will surrender to your spirit.

Your spirits leading me, and God, I will surrender. I

will follow you. The word here in the Greek is

the word dough. It means to bind, to tie, and

to constrain. The idea is that the Holy Spirit had

taken hold of Paul.

He says that in verse twenty two.

Listening away, he says, and now behold, I am going

to Jerusalem constrained by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's

got a hold of me, is what Paul All is

saying here.

Now. I don't know about you, but I remember when

I was in high school, and you know, it's uh.

You know, guys were trying to find different girlfriends, and

some of my friend group there's a bunch of guys,

and there would be some guys I had girlfriends and

something that didn't. And you know, you always have one

guy and he was a little tougher than everybody else.

And I remember one guy.

Saying, you know what, I ain't gonna get me a girl.

I ain't gonna be tied down to no girl. I'm

gonna be free be a man. You know about that time,

and what is he saying? He don't want a girl

to tie him down. He wanted his freedom to live

and do what he wanted to do. But about that time,

he would say that some girl would come along right

and he would.

He'd catch her.

She would catch his eye right, and next thing you know,

he'd fall in love. And next thing, you know, the

man who I ain't gonna be tied down everywhere she

wants to go, he's going right.

Everything she wants to do, he's doing right. And that's

the idea. The idea is he.

When someone is constrained by something and it is for him,

he's She's all he thinks about. It's the only thing

he wants to do is spend time with her. Can

I tell you when the Holy Spirit listen constrains you.

When it binds you, it gets a hold of your heart.

It's all what you can think of is it's what's

on your thoughts. It's on your mind, it's in the

back of your mind. It's leading you, it's guiding you.

It's in a way it feels like it's controlling you.

It's guiding you. That's what Paul says. Here.

They've got the question in their mind, why are you

leaving us? And he says to them, listen, it's not

because I want to do this. The Holy Spirit's binded

me to do this. It's constrained me to do this.

It's leading me to do this, and I want to

follow the Lord. I can think about this passage of

scripture and I can't. I would love to just sit

here and for the second time, I can't do it.

But just tell you all the different times in my

life that I felt like the Lord's Holy Spirit just

got a hold of me and says, you've got to

do this.

I told you a few weeks ago.

I was seventeen years old, and that was on Sunday morning,

on a Sunday night, and our first Batistyar trail was

sitting in the balcony.

And the Holy Spirit got a hold of my heart

and called me to be a pastor.

But it would not only it would not just be

in that calling, but so many different instances in my

life that I feel the Holy Spirit constraining me to

do something, to leading me to do something that didn't

make sense to me at the time.

Never forget. I was a pastor a church in South.

Carolina and one night I went to bed and just

a normal night, and the Lord put on my heart

to pray for a pastor. I couldn't sleep that night

thinking about this pastor. He was just another pastor in

the community. I kind of vaguely knew him, or casually

knew him, if you will. But that night I just

laid my bed and I prayed for him. The next

day I got up and I had that same spirit

to pray for him.

It was a Thursday night, by the way, prayed for him.

For the next week. I just prayed for him. Every

day I prayed for him. I didn't know why. Again,

his church was about forty minutes from my church. I

just felt that straining of the spirit that I needed

to pray for him. You know, you've sometimes the Lord

Holy Spirit put something on your heart. You kind of

feel like it. Am I losing my mind? Is this

really something the Lord want me to do? Or is

this just like I ate something bad last night?

You know what I mean?

About a week later, the Lord says you need to

call him and tell him you've been praying for him.

And I thought, you know this, Lord, if I call

him and tell him I'll be praying for him, he

probably think I'm weird.

Why is he praying for me? I called him. Listen

to the Lord. He said, you're kidding me. I said, no, sir,

I've been praying for you for a week. He said,

what night was it? He said it was Thursday night.

He says, you didn't know. He said, how did you

know that? And I said, I'm just telling you. The

Lord Holy Spirit put that on my heart.

He says, that night our deacons had gotten together. One

of our deacons had had an affair, and we met

with him that night to remove him from being a deacon.

That's one of the hardest days ever in my ministry.

Holy Spirit led me to pray for him. Can I

tell you the Holy Spirit at times will constrain you.

Sometimes it's praying for someone. Sometimes it's shared the Gospel

with someone someone. Sometimes it's following.

The Lord and serving him, maybe as a.

Teacher, as a deacon, or as a growth group leader,

an elder, serving.

In some capacity. And you can give all.

The different reasons why you shouldn't do it, but the

Holy Spirit is drawing you and leading you and binding

you to say, come, you need to follow me and

do this.

I love what and acts.

We saw that of an Acts sixteen and for the

second time, I won't do that. But look at this passage.

But in Act sixteen Paul wants to go in one area.

If you remember that, the Bible says that the Holy

Spirit forbid him. And Acts sixteen seven, he says he

was wanted to go to bi Athenia, but the Holy Spirit,

the Spirit of Jesus, did not allow them.

Then he has a vision.

You remember, I have a vision of the Macedonian man

calling him. He wakes up that next morning and it says,

God's called me. Can I tell you an access team.

We see the Holy Spirit and Jesus and God the

Father all have a part of leading Paul.

Can I tell you just in.

The same way, if God led Paul, God wants to

lead you. I want to ask you today just I

want you to simply, I want you to think about

something this morning. Darton Martin Lord Joins was a pastor

and he says, when God put a calling upon someone,

he says, a genuine call is marked by an irresistible urge,

often affirmed by others.

Who see God's hand on the individual. He says.

Doctor Lord Johnes says, if you can do anything else,

you would do it, but you can't because the Holy

Spirit's calling upon you.

I want to ask you a question. When was the

last time.

The Holy Spirit led you to do something in your life?

When was the last time the Holy Spirit led you

to pray for someone? When was the last time the

Holy Spirit prompted you to give to something? Yesterday we

were on the way and our students we were in

our little bus and the one that was running, and

we were in it, and one of our students there

was a homeless there, guy there, and one of our students,

led by the spirit, Hey, can we give him our leftovers?

And I said sure, So we opened up the door

and he came along his way and we filled him full.

Of bow jangles. When's the last time as the Lord

led you to give to someone. It was the last

time the.

Holy Spirit led you to serve as a teacher, growth

group leader, greeter, elder deacon. When's the last time this morning?

Have you heard the Holy Spirit's voice.

This morning that the Holy Spirit leads you to do something?

Will you surrender? Paul says, How do you surrender to

God's calling? You surrender to the Holy Spirit. Secondly, I

want you to see you for Paul, how to surrender

to God's calling? You surrender to the Holy Spirit. Secondly,

you surrendered by faith. Paul says this. In verse twenty two.

He says, and now behold, I'm going to Jerusalem. And

then he begins describing going to Jerusalem. He was first

constrained by the Holy Spirit. I'm not doing this because

I want to do it. I'm doing this because God's

calling me to do this, and I'm surrendering to the.

Holy spirits leading in my life. Not knowing and listen

to this.

But there's issues with this calling, Paul says, not knowing

what will happen to me there. Paul says, Hey, God's

leading me to go to Jerusalem, but I don't know

what's going to happen to me there. I don't know

God's planned for me there. I just know God's calling

me to do it.

The one thing.

Paul does, it almost seems like Paul contradicts himself in

this passage because it says I don't know what happened

to me there.

But then Paul does give some details of what he

knows the Lord has showed him.

He says, not knowing what will happen to me there,

except in verse twenty three, except that the Holy Spirit

testifies to me in every city that imprisonment.

And affliction awaits me.

Paul says, Listen, I know God's got a calling on me.

God's calling me to go to Jerusalem. How do I

know that because the Holy Spirit has binded me to

follow him. How do I know that God's doing that

because the Holy Spirit has testified me that as I go,

I will face imprison imprisonment and affliction. I don't know

what's gonna happen. I don't know how we're gonna get there.

I don't know how I'm gonna get there. But I

know that God's calling me that, and I know that

trouble awaits me. You know, Yes, Friday our little brust

broke down, and we, you know, like everybody was trying

to We got thirty thirty students and we're trying to

figure out not we don't want to keep them on

the road, so we're gonna try to get them. So

we found a happy place take them too, so they

would have a little happiness while we were trying to

get the bus together. You know what the happy place

We took them.

To McDonald's, the Golden Arches, buddy. And so we were

stuck at a little gas station.

And you know what I did, like anybody does now,

I got my phone up handy phone and pulled up

Google Maps. I looked at restaurants and found a little McDonald's.

I said, I want to go to that one. And

you know the amazing thing about the maps now is

it says, okay, you're here, you need to take a

left on this road and you need to go two

miles and then you're gonna see it needed to show

you where gas stations are on the way right, and

you're gonna take a left here and it's down.

On the left.

It's the beautiful things about maps now, right, it'll tell

you exactly turn by turn where you should go, how

you should go, and what's along the way as you go.

But listen, following God's plan for your life doesn't work

that way. God doesn't lay out they plan for you

and says, I tell you what I'm gonna lead you

to do this, and this is what you're gonna do here,

and this is what you're gonna do there, and.

This is gonna be the stops that are along the way.

No, God says, go sir, and I will show you

what to do when you get there. You know many

times we say, God, i'll go, i'll surrender, I'll follow

your Holy Spirit.

But God, will you lay me out of Google.

Map picture of what it's going to be like over

the next four years.

And God, I'll do it if you'll tell me what.

Happened next year, what I happened next month, what happened

to the month after that. But God, I don't know

that I can what step out on faith and just

follow you God, not knowing what steps are to come.

Now, I want you to imagine. I want you to

imagine today. Imagine.

The Lord says, I'll tell you what I'll give you.

I'll give you a map. But it's the incomplete map.

It doesn't tell you all the turns. The only thing

that tells you is where the trouble is going to be.

That's what he told Paul, right He says, Paul, You're

going to Jerusalem, and I'm not going to tell you

exactly what will happen you there, but I will tell

you the trouble that you're going to have. I tell you,

I don't know about you, but I'm just not gonna

be super spiritual.

I don't know.

If the Lord gave me a half plan and just

told me to trouble, I think I would say, I

don't know if I want that plan. Now, imagine if God.

Imagine if you could say that was God's plan. But

imagine if you had another plan, and in that plan

there was comfort. In that plan, you knew where all

the turns are, you know what was ahead, and you

were in control.

You're in the driver's seats. Which plane would you pick?

You know?

In John chapter twenty one, Jesus is talking to Peter.

Peter denied him three times, and after Jesus rose again,

he appeared to Peter and all the disciples, and he

had a meal with him on breakfast, and then he

confronts Peter about his denying. He asked, Peter, do you

love me? You remember that passage, beautiful passage of scripture.

But in that passage, right after he confronts Peter about

denying him and whether.

Peter really loves him or not, he has these words.

I want you to look at them with me, John

twenty one, if you want to turn there, John twenty one,

eighteen through nineteen, He says to Peter, Peter, truly, truly,

I said to you. When you're young, you used to

dress yourself and walk wherever you want to. But when

you're old, you'll stretch out your hands and another will

dress you and carry where you do not want to go.

And this, he said, this show by what kind of

death he was to glorify God. And after he said this,

he said, follow me. He said, Peter, there's a day

that you are in control of your life. You determine

what clothes you want to wear, where you want to eat,

what you want to do. But there's a come in

a time in your life that you will follow me,

and you'll go where you don't want to go, and

you'll do what you don't want to do. And he

says Peter, follow me. Can I tell you there are

two road maps in your life. There is God's word

map in your life, and many times that's an incomplete picture.

And there's another roadmap in your life, and that is

whose map, that's your map.

The one that is complete is in control. And you

know every turn is not God's planets plan. And you

know what, many times we don't choose God's plan. We

choose our plan because we can be in control.

And we know what's ahead. But listen, there's no faith

in following our plan.

There's a comess a time for you and all of

us if we're going to surrender to God.

We said, God, Lord.

I give you my plans, I give you my life,

and God, I want you to drive.

God.

I want you to take me where you want me

to go, and I'll follow you, Lord of no matter

what lies ahead, I will surrender my all to you.

Jesus, I ask you today, as you.

Think about surrendering to God today, who is control of

your life?

This morning? Would you be willing to surrender a direction

of your life to Jesus?

Maybe today you would say, just honestly to me, pastor Lord,

today I've been the one in control of my life.

I've been determining in.

The direction of my career, determinative direction of everything in

my life. And God, You're not really in control of

me today. I'm in control.

Lord. I want to surrender my life to you. I

want to follow your plan for me.

Thirdly, I want you to see in this passage to

finish up, Paul says, how to surrender God, Surrender to

the Holy Spirit, Surrender by faith.

It's gonna be time where we just.

Say God, I'm going to surrender by faith to your plan. Lastly,

surrender to the finish. You know you if you think

about Paul, Paul's an amazing man. He's really surrendered a

lot already in his life. You need to surrender to

leave Hatmas and go to antiox Syria and preach there

with Barnabas. When God called him an antiox Syria, I said,

after him and Barnabas I grew the church are over

or many many, many thousands. He left that church and

went on his first missionary journey. Throughout his first missionary journey,

he surrendered to the Lord city by cities, starting churches,

and in the midst of that he faced persecution. After persecution,

he started the second missisonary journey. Were just finished it now,

as or chapter twenty, just finished this second one. He's

went through all the different churches and a whole different

area Asia and different areas Corinth and Ephesus, and he's

finishing that. And you know, you could think it would

be easy for Paul to say, you know, you've done

a lot. Two missionary journeys started a vibrant church. He

in Church of Antioch, started to all these churches. Thousands

upon thousands of pound thousands come to know the Lord

through Paul's ministry.

The church is growing. It easy for Paul to.

Says, you know what, Hey, there's time to sit back

and chill.

But that's not what Paul says.

Paul says, listen, my goal in leaving and going to

Jerusalem because I'm following the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, I'm stepping out on faith. I don't know what's

gonna happen to me.

I just know God's calling me and I'm gonna I'm gonna.

Follow surrender in faith to the Lord's leading in my life.

Number three, Paul says, listen to verse twenty three, is

that the Holy Spirit testifies me in every city that

imprisoned in affliction awaits me. But I do not count

my life of any value nor as precious to myself.

Only if only.

I might finish my course and the ministry that I

received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel

of the grace of God. I love this what Paul says.

You know what, I don't know what has gonna happen

to me. I know imprisonments and afflictions is going to

happen to me. But I'm not worried about that. I'm

not worried about the trouble ahead of me. I'm not

worried about what's gonna happen to me in Jerusalem.

The only thing.

I'm concerned about, the only worries that I have is

I want to finish the course. God had a calling

on me Damascus, and I want to follow God.

I want to surrender to God to the very end.

Listen, you know, every there's gonna be a lot of

great people who can start the race, but it's another

thing to finish the race.

Paul started well his ministry. But for Paul, and.

As he speaks to the Ephesians, he wants them to see.

I want to finish as strong as I started. I

started my ministry and surrendering to the Lord. And I

want to finish my ministry and surrendering the Lord. And

I no obstacles, no imprisonments, No, not my plans or

not knowing what's gonna happen is gonna stop me from

following the Lord. I want to surrender till the finish.

So how do we surrender to God's call? We surrender

to the Holy Spirit, We surrender.

By faith, and we surrender to the finish.

Can I tell you, students, God's gonna call you now

at a young age and start surrendering little thing that

little things of your life. And it's going to be

important that as you start your life to surrender to

the Lord right now and continue in that. But it's

not just important that you start surrending your life to

Jesus now, but it's important that as you go to

the end, that you finish your life at the end

of your life in surrendering your life to the Lord,

from the beginning to the end.

Lord, I'll live my life and surrender to you. Heard

the story of a of a man. His name was

Archbishop Kramer. He's a Protestant.

Mary Tudor meaning of all may know her in history

as Bloody Mary. She actually forced him to watch two

of his other Protestant friends burned to death. After watching

them burn to death and out of fear of his

own life, he signed documents saying that he would return

to Catholicism and a knowledge of the authority of the probe.

But Bloody Mary really wanted him dead anyway, so she

made plans to have him killed, and on the day

of his trial to have him killed Cramercannon.

He recanted that he of what he said before.

He stated that he believed in Jesus Christ, he believed

in being a Protestant, and that salvation was by faith alone,

in Christ alone, and he deemed the pope to be

then to Christ.

Kramer. They then took him and they drugged him to

be burned.

They had the fire there, and while he was headed

to the fire, the right hand in which sound his

decoration at the very beginning that he would recant his faith,

he wanted it to be burned. First, he put his

hand in the fire, and his hand turned tend to ascender,

and as he was dying, he said Father into thy hands.

I commit my spirit, my spirit.

You know, the beautiful part of this story, it's not

just how we start, it's how we finish.

Beautiful part of this story is that he failed.

But you know what, God still had a plan and

he knew even then. There was a time that he failed,

there was a time there was still time left to

make things right.

There's still time left to surrender, I ask you today.

You know, many times we think about our life and

we think about God's calling on our life, and we say, well,

I've heard so many testimonies of people and they maybe

there was a period of life they served the Lord

and they were active in teaching or active in singing,

and then something happened in the church and they got

upset and mad and left the church and haven't been

in the church since. I've seen other times where people

treat their serving the Lord as a prison sentence. I've

done my time, you know what I've done for the Lord.

I've spent this amount of years doing this and done that,

and I've done my time.

It's time for me to sit back. Can you imagine,

just imagine.

With me, Imagine standing before the Lord one day and

Lord saying, what did you do with the life that

I gave you?

Well, I served you, Lord for ten years.

Can you imagine the Lord says, well, what did you

do with the other sixty eight that I gave you?

Can I tell you it's not just how we start,

it's how we finish.

We need men and women of.

God who said, God, I want to surrender my life

to you to the end. I just want to give

you a portion of my life. I want to give

you all my life. And listen, there be some of

you today, and that's you. You've served for a time,

but there's a time something you got hurt and you

backed off of following the Lord and surrender to life.

Time.

Listen, it's time to give the rest of your life

to the Lord. There's time some time of some of

you who've served and you got tired, and you got

burned out and you stepped away. It's time to say,

you know what, I've still got time left. I want

to serve to the end, and I courage you today.

God's calling Holy Spirit speaking today, will you surrender?

Can I tell you?

The Holy Spirit's calling you to follow him. He's not

giving you all the directions. He's not telling you all

that's going to happen. He's just saying following me by faith.

Would you say, God, I'll surrender you surrender your spirit.

By God, I'll surrender and faith. Would you say to

the Lord today, Lord, I want to surrender till the end.

I want to surrender to the finish God all of

my life. I want to.

Live and surrender to you. Will you pray with me? Lord?

I thank you for this morning. I thank you for

what you've done. Lord.

It is evident this morning and your holy spirits in

this place. There's a spirit here. God, you drawing people

to you, some in simple steps of praying for someone,

some simple thing of doing an act of kindness for someone,

giving something to someone, caring for someone who's in need. God,

you're calling some to go share to the gospel with someone. God,

You're calling some to serve you in some capacity in

the church, to use their gifts that you've given them.

Here.

God, you're calling some as elders. You're calling some to

be a pastor. God you're calling some to be a deacon,

calling some to be a teacher, to be a greeter,

or to care for children, whatever it may be. I

pray those today as.

You're calling them to serve you, or.

I pray there'd be those who would answer that call

today by fate, Lord, I pray that be those today that's.

Been hurt in the church.

Times they felt like they've given up the I don't

know if it's worth it. Or I pray thee be

those that say, Lord, you know the pain that I've faced,

you know my hesitancy. You know Lord, I'm tired, I've

been burned out. But Lord, I want to give you

the rest of my life. I want to finish till

the end. Or I pray they'd be those who would

step up and say, Lord, what do you have for me?

How do you want to use me? God?

Or we thank you for this morning, We thank you

Lord for your word. Lord, We surrender this time of

response to you.

Lord.

I pray there be those that come to this alter

and just lay their life before you God and say, Lord,

I place my life in your hands. Lord, But mayor

will be done in me.

Lord.

However you lead us, Lord, may we Lord follow and

surrender Lord to your call. Today and your name, we pray, Amen,

you first pained

And all two fish