Savior: Into Your Hands | Part 5

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

January 2020.

I began reading a book.

Was really excited about this, was can't couldn't wait.

Thought this was my year.

You did too.

And the book was your best year ever.

Boy, was that way off.

Wow, 2020.

And even as I say that, some of you are having PTSD.

I apologize for that because we have gone through it.

Isn't it wild that it's only four years ago?

It feels like a lifetime ago.

It feels like a blur.

It feels like all sorts of different things.

And I remember what part of like with awakening, we're in the season.

God's growing.

We're seeing this explosive growth.

Just as Bailey's saying, like this like movement of the spirits, like, oh, this is exciting.

And then we hear these like, you know, whispers and rumors of this COVID thing.

We don't know what this coronavirus is.

Like, what is going on?

And then I remember it so clearly, March 1st, I was like, okay, we need a plan.

And I came up with a three-stage plan.

So proud of my plan.

You know, I was like, I'm so smart.

Look at me.

We're ahead of the game.

We got this whole COVID thing figured out.

A week later, the plan was kibbutz, you know.

I thought this plan, three stages, would take us months.

So March 1st, we kind of talked through this plan.

March 8th, this church that's booming, growing, half of you showed up.

We didn't know what was going on, but all of a sudden we were like, oh, uh March 15th, we're all sheltered in place.

And March 8th was the last time we gathered in this room for a very, very long time.

Now, here's the hubris or really ignorance.

Um Easter wasn't until April 14th that year.

And so we thought, okay, it's March 15th.

This thing's gonna blow over in like three weeks, right?

Anyone else thought that?

Like, this is not a long-term deal, we're fine.

Uh and we weren't.

Um and you know what?

My tendency when things go wrong, my tendency is to take matters into my own hands.

Anyone else?

So I remember it clearly.

All of a sudden we're in lockdown, and uh that leader drive in me was like it went into high gear.

And and our team did the same.

And we're trying to figure out how do we navigate this, how do we work through this, how do we set up a studio in our offices.

And I remember one night staying there super late, trying to hang these string lights just right, only to see on screen that looked terrible.

I mean, I spent hours, no one even knew I was there.

But there's just something compulsive about us that we when life's out of control, we want control.

And we take matters into our own hands.

And how do you react when things go wrong?

When life doesn't go as planned.

We kind of grit through it, we get through it.

Maybe you just give up, get out, I'm done.

When life is out of your control, what is your response?

Maybe lean into the age-old biblical verse.

It's actually not in the Bible, though.

God helps those who help themselves.

Well, I'm gonna do it, and God, you come along with me.

We're in a series called Savior.

We've been spending the last several weeks looking at Jesus' sermon from the cross.

The pulpit, his cross, he now proclaims seven powerful sayings, utterances from the cross that that are life-shaping and transforming.

And today we come to his final breath of prayer.

His final last gasp.

And in it, in it, he speaks words of life when life goes wrong.

He speaks the powerful truth that your soul, my soul, desperately needs.

We pick it up in Luke chapter 23, verse 44.

Luke 23:44

If you have your Bibles, you can open up to it or open your phones to it.

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon.

It's as if the sun couldn't even look at what took place that day on the cross.

For the sun had stopped shining, and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

And Jesus called out with a loud voice.

Now, scholars tell us uh that um at this stage of Jesus' moment on the cross, he's been hanging all day.

Um this would have taken every bit of strength to cry out with a loud voice.

Uh when you die on crucifixion, uh, by crucifixion, you die by asphyxiation, thank you very much over there.

Um you suffocate.

And so you have the nails in your hand, he's been flogged, he's his back is ripped open wide, and he's hanging there, and there's a little post for his feet, and as he hangs down like this, it begins to put pressure on his lungs, and he cannot get a breath, and so he has to push up and he has to pull himself up and to get a breath.

And you just think about doing this all day long, and eventually your strength gives out, and he's been hanging there and say, get out this gas.

He he doesn't just whisper it.

He doesn't whimper it out.

He declares it.

He shouts it.

Not a cry of defeat, but a shout of victory.

And here is his shout.

Father.

Into your hands.

I commit.

My spirit.

What are you gonna shout when life goes wrong, when life's out of control, when you're at the end of your rope?

Father.

Into your hands, I commit.

My spirit.

When he said this.

When life's out of control.

What's your response?

How do you react?

When things go wrong.

I just want to draw your attention to a few things in our time together.

Uh the first thing is simply this.

Yeah, you already know it anyways.

But you have far less control than you think you do.

We get it, we know it, we just like to ignore it.

We'd rather pretend like we have a lot of control, and the reality is you have far less control than you care to admit.

And as kids, we got this, we understood this.

In fact, there was somebody at the first service who had just recently moved from uh Dallas, Texas, uh, to take a football coaching job here.

And I remember I was born in Dallas and I moved when I was eight, but I remember as a kid, you remember things like this as a kid, right?

Uh but in in Texas, they have storms.

Here, I and I get it, I'm a weather wimp.

Like right now it's freezing.

Um this is awful.

I'm like, we pay sunshine tax, okay?

Um I'm a weather wimp now.

In Dallas and Texas, they have storms.

They they have lightning that splits the sky, thunder that shakes the house, and rain that comes down like sheets.

I remember as a kid, the storm would come, and the lightning would crack through the night sky, and the thunder, oh, it would shake and it would shake me to the core.

You know what I did as a little kid?

I ran into my mom and dad's room.

Because that was that's what kids do.

We recognize that we have far less control than we think we do, and so we run into our mom or dad's, we run into their bedroom.

When the night terrors come, we run to our parents who have far more strength and power than we do.

You have far less control than you think you do.

Jesus's first word of his final word was father.

His father was Abba was Abba.

And he's saying this sovereign.

Sovereign means you're in complete control and good.

You have my good.

You are good.

Abba, sovereign and good heavenly Father, one who's responsible for the origin and care of all that exists.

My first cry, my shout isn't just God, Father.

In fact, Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 31, verse 5.

Psalms 31:5

And we talked about this uh last week that Jesus is quoting the psalms from the uh cross, and oh, how we need the psalms, and and this psalm, this is an amazing psalm.

This was the psalm that a like a little uh Jewish mom would teach their child to pray at night.

Into your hands, I commit my spirit.

You know, you maybe you heard, you know, um uh what's the what's the one prayer we always pray?

Um pray the Lord my soul to keep, you know, one of those things maybe your parent taught you.

This is the prayer.

You can just imagine Jesus next to Mary and Mary teaching him this prayer, and he changes one word of it.

It talks about Lord, God, and he says, No, it's Father.

I'm not just running to God who is in control of everything, I'm coming to a perfect heavenly father who cares, who loves, who responds, who's safe, who I can cry for in desperation.

And yet the reality is, and the problem is for us, many of us, is we would rather live in the illusion of control than to cry out to our Heavenly Father.

Taking responsibility back into our own hands.

And we live in this illusion of control because we we we think we can control our circumstances, don't we?

Think about this.

Um, this is a funny one.

Um my buddy Jay had just recently gone to four Warriors games, and he posted this the other day uh after the fourth one.

Been to four Warriors games, they've lost all four games.

No, and here's what I wrote back.

Please stop going to Warriors games.

Because it must be you.

We we even buy into superstitious stuff, don't we, like that?

Like, you know, if I wear the right thing, then I'll get the job.

If I wear just this, I mean sports is layered with that.

But our circumstances, we somehow believe we can impact our circumstances or have control over it.

And yet we know we don't have any control really over the economy, who's gonna be president.

We can't even control the weather, for goodness sake.

And even our own health.

We can do all the right things and still get the wrong report.

The illusion of control follows our circumstances, even timing, right?

The timing about when things should happen.

Well, I should have been here in my life, I'm not quite where I thought I would be because you thought you could control those timings, or where is Mr.

Perfect?

Where is Mr.

Right that we can somehow, well, it should have been happening all the while now?

Or other people.

We try to control other people.

When we do that, it's just manipulation.

Because you can't control another person, or we try actually to control God, don't we?

We think there's certain things and activities that I can do, and if I do those things, then he has to respond in a certain way.

In fact, A.W.

Tozer in his classic, The Knowledge of the Holy, writes this: left to ourselves, we tend to reduce God to manageable terms.

We want to get him where we can use him, or at least know where he is when we need him.

We want a God we can in some measure control.

First thing I want you to realize, us to realize, to remember, you have far less control than you think you do.

And so first we turn to Father, Abba, Sovereign, Good, Heavenly Father.

Secondly, you are not meant to live, and I'm not meant to live under the burden of outcomes.

All those things we can't control.

And we live under them the weight, great weight of anxiety, the burden of outcomes.

Will my kids turn out okay?

Will my relationship make it?

Will this marriage make it?

What about this dating relationship?

This friendship, how will we survive?

Will I get promoted?

Will I be successful?

Will I be healthy?

We are not meant to live under the burden of outcomes, actually to abandon our outcomes to God.

In fact, when it comes to the burden of outcomes, we actually have three options.

We either take matters into our own hands, we entrust them to someone else's hands, or we entrust it to the hands of our Heavenly Father.

Matters into our own hands, that's my natural tendency.

Sometimes we go, hey, somebody else has maybe the agency to bring about the desired outcome.

Maybe it's a marriage partner, maybe it's uh an expert.

Or we entrust it into the hands of our Heavenly Father.

Uh this Jesus says, Father, into your hands.

Hands means the power to direct or determine, understood by the directing power of a hand, perhaps with an emphasis on dominion.

Palm Sunday, we remember that five days before this point, Jesus comes into Jerusalem.

It's at capacity, festival capacity, millions of people there.

And as he rides in on a donkey, what are they saying?

We sang it, you can say it.

Hosanna, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

This is the son of David, the king is here.

And something you'll see in Jesus and you'll read is that he did not entrust himself to men because he knew their hearts.

But he entrusted himself to his heavenly father.

We can entrust and take matters into our own hand, entrust it into someone else's hand, or simply go, God, this is in your hands.

Sovereign, good, wise, God, only you know, and only you have the ability to determine outcomes.

Uh, there's a picture that I draw, um, and I've drawn it quite a bit.

I remember my buddy in uh once uh probably 20 years ago drew this for me as during a challenging time of ministry.

And he drew this picture for me, and it so helped.

Because I think when we say, okay, well, we're not supposed to live under the burden of outcomes, oh, thank you very much.

Well, then do I just kind of, you know, passively go through life?

Do I do nothing?

And this picture was so helpful.

And he drew just a column, you know, and made three columns in the left-hand column.

Uh, what is it only I can do?

What am I in control of?

And then in the right column, he said, what is it only God can do?

What are the things that only he is responsible for?

Now, I love the middle column.

It's my favorite.

The older I've gotten, the longer this list has gotten in the middle column.

And in the middle column, it's stuff I don't know.

Stuff I don't know.

See, what happens, and we're gonna do a whole series on anxiety, but much of our anxiety, and I'm not talking about some of the clinical side of this, but but so much worry and angst in our life is we're trying to do and control only things that God can control.

And we're like, how do I do this?

And we're not focused on the very things that we are able to do.

In fact, I've drawn this quite a bit.

We've had a ton of marriages that are just struggling lately.

I've had the opportunity, my wife and I have had the opportunity to get to meet with them, walk with them, drawn this up.

And so let's just take this for the example.

Maybe you're in a struggling marriage, and by the way, we have a marriage class coming out of uh Easter.

Hope you're able to make it.

But what is it that only God can do?

Well, first, He can only change their heart, and He can only heal their marriage.

You're like, if only she would change, if only He would change.

And I gotta figure out how to change their hearts, and no, only God can do that.

And only God can heal the marriage, only God can redeem what you have wrecked or they have wrecked.

So, what is it that only you can do?

Well, first, only you can do well is pray.

And right when I say prayer, some of you dismissed it.

Like, yeah, I can pray.

And I got a little bit on my uh, anyways, soapbox last service.

Oh, here we go again.

Oswald Chambers said it this way Um, we do not pray in order to fit us for the greater work.

Prayer is the greater work.

Oh, that we would be a people of prayer, that we would recognize our own dependence and inability to affect and come before the Heavenly Father who loves to hear our voice and is moved on our behalf.

Prayer.

We can pray, we can get counseling, maybe even marriage counseling.

You know, I like to say it this way: no matter how flat a pancake, there's always two sides, right?

You're like, well, she's the problem, well, he's the problem, well, you're both married, so one of you, maybe a bigger part of the problem, but you're both the problem.

Why don't you just start working on your part of the problem?

Why don't you focus on your relationship with Jesus?

Grow deeper.

Begin to do the work.

Right?

Now, here's the stuff I don't know.

I don't know if my marriage will heal.

I don't know how long this will take.

I don't know if this will be that redemption story that we hope for.

But I will entrust that into the very hands of God because if I meddle in that right column, what I do know is I can really make a mess of all of it, and it makes a mess of me.

And so I'm gonna lean into God, this is what you've called me to.

And if I lean into that left column, regardless of how the story ends, I'm closer to Jesus.

I'm a person of character.

I'm better off than when I started.

Dallas Willard says we must accept that we do not have in ourselves, uh in our own heart, soul, mind, and strength, the wherewithal to make this come out right, whatever this is.

Instead, let us entrust our souls to a faithful creator in doing what is right.

You have far less control than you think you do.

And you're not meant to live under the burden of outcomes.

I like how Mark Sayers says it.

Taking things into your own hands doesn't seize your destiny, it sabotages it.

And just think if Jesus took things into his own hands up here, on the night he was betrayed, he's mobbed by these armed armed mob, I guess is what you call them.

Yeah.

And one of his disciples takes matters into his own hands, cuts off at ear.

If you're doing our Bible reading plan, you would have just read this with us.

And Jesus tells them not to.

And you know what he says?

If I wanted to, I could call 12 legions of angels.

But not my will be done.

And if Jesus took matters in his own hand, we wouldn't have Resurrection Sunday.

We wouldn't have redemption.

We wouldn't have new life.

We wouldn't have that relationship that we desperately needed, the healing, the salvation, the grace, the purpose.

We would have missed out on all of that.

And he said, Into your hands I commit my spirit.

I trust you in this darkness, in this darkness that you will bring resurrection out of this.

And so, Jesus knew on the cross.

And what we need to know in the midst of life's difficulties, the dark nights, you're strongest when you're fully surrendered to your heavenly Father.

You're strongest when you're fully surrendered to your heavenly father.

He says, Father, into your hands I commit.

Commit means to give into the care or protection of someone, to entrust for safekeeping.

Give over, entrust, commend.

Into your hands I give over for protection.

I entrust it for safekeeping.

I make a decision to turn my life and will over to the care of a loving heavenly father.

And you know what we tend to believe is when we're fully surrendered, we're actually really weak.

Don't we?

Because I should be able to figure this out.

I should be able to make this work.

Somehow, if I can get it into my hands and that rugged individual.

You're strongest when you're fully surrendered.

And the truth is, isn't it, that many of us, come on, many of us uh are we're partially surrendered.

Jesus, I love you, you're my savior, you're the Lord of my life, um, but don't mess with my sexuality.

Jesus, I love you, you're the savior of my life, but don't mess with my finances.

Jesus, I love you, savior, but don't mess with my addiction.

Jesus, I love you, save me, but don't mess with that relationship.

Don't mess with that habit.

I love you, save me, and we are most strongest when we're fully surrendered.

Jesus, into your hands I commit what?

He said, My spirit.

My spirit.

It's the Greek word pneuma, it's my breath.

Goes on.

The immaterial you, your inner being, that which animates or gives life to your body, the source and seat of insight, feeling, will, the inner you, all of me.

I wonder what God might want to do if you would surrender all of you.

I wonder what we are missing out when we only give part of us.

Isaiah said it this way.

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you.

Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord Himself, is the rock eternal.

Thou swill it again.

The secret to peace.

As the great apprentices of Jesus have long known.

It's being abandoned to God.

Being abandoned to God.

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

One commentator said this: even on the cross, Jesus died like a child falling asleep in his father's arms.

Your anxiety, by the way, decreases as your understanding of your heavenly father increases.

When you recognize the one you're entrusting your life to.

I mean, he's one of the one of the great uh writers on spirituality of the 20th century.

Um he died, I believe it was 1996, and he died at age 64.

And so for the last five years, and I love this, he's like this spiritual giant.

This is amazing.

The last four or five years of his life, he went to the circus and he became completely enamored with the trapeze.

And he he wanted to talk to those in the the company, uh the trapeze company, um uh the the flying, I think it was Rodley's is what their name was.

And and he began to talk with them, build a friendship, and they said, Why don't you come on the road with us?

And so he does.

He spends a whole week with them, and they're like, Do you want to try?

He says, Absolutely.

And so, like the last five years of his life, this is so amazing.

At 60 years of age, he's learning to be a trapeze artist.

Here's a picture with him with the group.

And it is a little distracting.

We'll turn that off now.

And he was asking the leader, who everyone gives all these great applauses, you know, because he flies through the air, does his somersaults, and you're like, wow.

And he says, you know who the hero is.

It's not me.

My job's actually easy.

It's Joe the catcher.

See, my job as the flyer is just simply to do nothing.

He goes, What do you mean, do nothing?

Well, if I try to catch the catcher, it's the worst thing I could possibly do.

If I try to catch the catcher, I could break his arm, break my arms, it would end our careers both the time.

What I'm to do is to simply stretch my hands out and let him catch me.

Joe the catcher, it is on him, and I have to trust completely that he'll catch me, and my job is to do nothing, and Joe's job is to do everything to catch me.

And he saw it as such a profound picture for the spiritual life.

Our job.

Stretch our arms out and let our heavenly Father catch us.

In fact, we worship sometimes this way, don't we?

To reach our arms and you know what we do when we're flying or maybe falling.

What we naturally do is we flail.

We reach out.

Woo! I don't know what that does.

Maybe I'll get wings, right?

We just we we naturally do that.

And he says, no, no, no, just trust, trust that the catcher is good and wise and perfect and sovereign and has your best interest.

Would you trust him and would you just let him catch you?

Would you let him catch you in the heartache and the pain?

When the relationship's not going the way you thought it would.

When life's not turning out the way you hoped it would.

When it's so easy to take matters back into our own hands.

I commit.

Into your hands.

I commit.

That's what surrender is.

When you take all of you, God, if you just catch me, you got me.

You know, the name we call someone determines the type of relationship we have with them.

The other day I was at the park and I heard uh this uh voice, hey coach, and it's Carter.

I'm like, what's up, Carter?

Um, some of my kids' friends, you know, they call me uh Mr.

Ingram.

You know, some of you call me Pastor, Ryan, some of you call me names I don't want to know.

But the name we call someone like reveals the type of relationship we have with them.

Only three people on this planet call me dad.

Three people have my heart, like almost no one else.

Three people, regardless of what they've done, where they've been, where they go, they will always have a safe landing here.

Three people that if they call, I come running.

Now you got all me.

You have all my resources, all my time, all my energy.

All that I have is yours because you're my kid.

Let me ask you.

Do you know your heavenly father?

Do you know God as your heavenly father?

I think a lot of us, we know God as like Mr.

Deity.

Maybe you even know God as like coach, like he's out there, he's gonna help my life, but but do you know him as father?

I once had a dear friend mentor about a decade ago say to me, Ryan, you really know what it's like to be a servant.

My prayer is that you learn how to be a son.

Many of us, you've gone through the Christian life and you know what it's like to be a servant, and you're good at doing the right things, but do you know what it's like to be a daughter, what it's like to be a son?

Do you know that that whether you have your quiet time or not, he still loves you and delights in hearing your voice?

Do you know that there's no length you can go or depth you can dive or how far you can go away, that he doesn't just want to welcome you back.

And all of heaven's resources are at your disposal, not because you've earned it, but because you're his kid.

Do you know God as your heavenly father?

Because when you know him as Father.

Man, yeah, you can catch me.

You can catch me.

I think there's some here that you didn't even know you could have a personal relationship with God.

That it's not just like, oh God, help me, but it's like, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

And as I've been talking, like if you really want to have relationships with him, he says, today is the day, and the spirit of God is drawing you.

There's something like burning in you.

You're like, I don't know what this is all about, but I want that.

And today you can experience the daughtership, the sonship, enter the family of God.

And as we close, I just want to pray and invite you and give you an opportunity to step into the family of God.

And would you pray with me?

And if you're here and that's where you're at, you want to begin a relationship, step into the family of God, experiencing God not just as the supreme being, but as your perfect, good Heavenly Father.

Would you pray this after me?

Lord Jesus, I need you.

I believe you are the Son of God who died for my sins and rose from the grave so that I might have life now and forevermore.

I open the door of my life and receive you as my Savior and my Lord.

Take control of my life and make me the kind of person you want me to be.

Thank you for forgiving me, for giving me new life.

Making me a part of your family.

If you are here and you prayed that prayer, would you just keep your eyes closed, everyone?

I just would love to be able to pray over you now.

Would you raise your hand if you prayed that with me?

Amen.

Amen.

Go ahead, keep those hands high.

Amen.

God, I pray for my friends.

Rightly so, my brothers and sisters.

God, would you help us simply to entrust all that we have to you?

Thank you for those who stepped for the very first time into your family today.

Got new brothers and sisters in heaven's partying.

Overwhelm us afresh now in this moment with your love, your kindness, your grace.

We hope you are blessed by this message.

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