I Surrender All // Unstoppable series (part 4) // Pastor Morgan

Heat. Heat.

Well, good morning

collective. Happy Mother's Day,

moms. I want every mom to stand on their

feet. Come on. Come on. Come on. Can we

celebrate the moms in the

room now? Stay standing. I want to just

pray a prayer of blessing over you. I

think what's amazing about Collective is

we're so diverse in the different types

of moms. We have foster moms and moms

that have adopted kids and stepmoms and

single moms and biological moms. all the

different sorts of moms make up

collective. And so we want you to know

that we love you. We see you. We value

you. And we wouldn't be here without

you. So let's just close our eyes. Men

in the room and anybody that doesn't

have a mom, would you or isn't a mom, I

should say, would you just stretch your

hand towards a mom today? God, we thank

you for every mom in this room. God, we

thank you for the life that they have

brought to this earth. God, I pray today

that you would bless them

abundantly. God, that your favor would

go before them, God. That you would give

them rest today. That you would give

them peace in their homes and in their

hearts. God, I pray that the secret

prayers that they are lifting up to you,

that you would turn your ear towards

them, that you would hear their every

cry. God, the moms that are waking up in

the middle of the night, rocking

babies, would you speak to them in those

middle of the night hours?

To the moms today that may not hear from

their

kids, would you be the reminder to them

that you see

them? God, to the moms that may not

be celebrated today by people we know

that you celebrate them, that you see

them, that you honor them today.

God, we just pray your blessing. We pray

your favor and we pray an incredible day

for every mom in Jesus name.

Amen. Thank you. You can be seated. I

want to acknowledge also that I know

that some of you in this room that you

maybe didn't have the best mom or that

your mom is no longer on earth. And I

want to acknowledge that and let you

know that we see you today, too. We know

that this can be a hard day. So, thank

you for showing up. I want to I So, I do

this. How many of you do this the Bible

recap?

Okay, a few of you. Well, at some point,

we're going to do this as a church, but

this is if you don't have this, please

get this. Go on Amazon. I think it's

like only like $15 or something. It

changes, but I am doing this and it

takes you through the Bible in a year.

There are videos if you want. There are

every day you're reading in the Bible

and then this tells you, this breaks

what down whatever you're reading. It is

incredible. I'm telling you, you need

it. I want to give this today to a

single mom who has just in the last

month started reading your Bible. Is

there

anyone? If not, I'm going to keep going

further out. someone who is new to

reading their Bible in the past few

month. You right here. Okay, come on

up. Come on

up. Here you go. I I hope that it

blesses you. Yeah. Alrighty. Well, we

are going to get into the word today.

Um, I want to also say that if you are

someone who maybe today is hard because

you struggle with infertility, I want

you to know that this message I had you

in mind and that it's going to encourage

you and you're going to walk away with

hope today. I promise you that. Well, we

are in a series called

Unstoppable. And the scripture for our

series is Romans 8:38. And I want to

Romans 8:38

read it in the NLT version today. Says,

I am convinced that nothing can ever

separate us from God's love. Neither

death or life, angels or demons, fears

for today or worries about tomorrow. Not

even the powers of hell can separate us

from God's love. No power in the sky

above or the earth below. Indeed,

nothing in all creation will ever be

able to separate us from the love of God

that is revealed in Christ Jesus our

Lord.

Amen. So today we're going to talk about

the line in this that says, "Neither our

fears for today or our worries about

tomorrow can separate us from God's

love.

I want to talk about somebody in the

Bible who loved the Lord and also lived

with worry. We're going to talk about

Hannah today. So, if you would in your

Bibles, go to 1st Samuel chapter

1. This book is towards the beginning.

And if you don't know where it's at, go

to your table of contents in your Bible.

I would love it if you would bring

physical Bibles to church. Um, but if

you don't have that today, just open up

your Bible app. 1st Samuel chapter 1.

Now, we're going to have this whole

chapter on the screen, but I'm going to

be paraphrasing lots of different parts.

So, Hannah was a woman of faith. She

knew the Lord. She loved the Lord. She

had a husband named Elena. and he had

two wives. Back in the day, they had

lots of wives. So, he had Hannah and

Panina. Panina didn't like Hannah

because Elena favored her. And so,

Panina would taunt her, make fun of her.

The Bible actually says that she would

irritate Hannah. And whenever Hannah

would go to the house of God, Panina

would be right there harassing her. So

much so to the point where Hannah would

just weep. She would go through seasons

of not

eating. And what Panina Panina was able

to have kids. Hannah was not able to.

And the Bible says that Hannah or that

Panina would specifically bother Hannah

about that fact that she couldn't have

kids. And not having kids in that

culture was a very shameful

thing. And so Hannah would weep

bitterly. And she says in verse 11,

"Lord, look upon me. I'm a miserable

servant. Would you remember me and give

me a

son? If you do that, I will give him

back to you to serve you

forever. Have you ever begged the Lord

to give you something or to take a

burden away from you? That's what Hannah

is doing here. She's pleading with God

to give her a child. And she goes on to

say that she is in great anguish and

grief. The CSB version, which is my

favorite version of the Bible, it says

first in 1st Samuel 1:10, it says, "In

her deep hurt, she

prayed." She tells Eli the priest. So

that's like a pastor in their day. She's

she's at the church. She goes to the

pastor and she basically asks him to

pray with her. And so he comes alongside

of her. He encourages her and he prays

with her. And it says that that one bit

of encouragement and prayer led her to

finally eat again. And the next morning

she got up and she worshiped

again. So here we have Hannah.

She is unable to have a child. And

scripture doesn't say this, but scholars

believe that it is likely that she

waited 19 years. I want you to think

about that. Think about being married

and year after year is passing by and

you are wondering if God sees you. Is he

hearing your prayers? Does he even care?

waking up every day to worship God and

not hearing him answer your deepest

longing for 19

years. I can understand when hannah says

that she is hurt by

God. I'm coming to you, God. I'm calling

on your name. I'm going to the temple

every

day. I'm serving you. I'm ministering to

your heart and you're not ministering to

mine. And God feels

silent. And if that were me, I wouldn't

want to always worship after that many

years of infertility. I'm sure that

there were days that she didn't want to

go to the house of

God. And we've all had those days where

we're down, where we're discouraged,

God's not coming through. You see the

Bible sitting on your coffee table and

it makes you mad, right? Anybody else

been there? Yeah. Going to God, it feels

like a

chore rather than the blessing that it

is. I admire Hannah's

incredible persistence in

worship. She is deeply hurt and she's

still going to him in prayer.

And although I admire her worship, I

wonder how many moments that she missed

living because she spent so many of her

days in worry. It says year after year

she did. how many moments of joy that

she missed because she was so focused on

what she didn't have and how God wasn't

coming through rather than being present

where she

was. And then I think about the moments

that I miss or seasons of good that pass

me by because I'm so worried about the

outcome of a situation or I'm dwelling

on things of the past or I'm waiting for

God to provide or reveal the next thing

or mend that relationship and my eyes

are fixated on what I want from God

rather than what he wants to do in me.

And I can think of countless moments in

my life of wishing and waiting, moments

of complete, utter

fear that it's gripped me. And then to

be a few months down the road where I

look back and I'm like, why was I even

worried about that? How dumb, right? I'm

I'm not saying everything you worry

about is dumb, but there are times where

I'm like I'm laughing like why why was

that a fear of

mine? Matthew

Matthew 6:28

6:28, I love this. This is what it says

about worry. Why do you worry about

clothes? Do you see this is I'm going to

say it like I feel

like they're saying it. Okay. Do you see

how the flowers of the field grow? They

don't labor or

spin. Yet I tell you that not even

Solomon in all of his splendor was

dressed like one of these. If that is

how God clothe the grass of the field

that's here today and tomorrow it's

thrown into the fire, will he not much

more clothe you? You of little

faith. So don't worry saying, "What

shall you eat, drink, and wear? The

pagans run after all of these things."

But your heavenly father, he knows that

you need them.

So what does he say to do? He says,

"Would you just seek first his kingdom

and his righteousness in all of these

things will be given to you. So don't

worry about

tomorrow because when tomorrow comes,

there's going to be enough to worry

about."

What this text is saying is that every

day there is an opportunity to worry.

But God gives us an opportunity to trust

him in those

moments. If he dresses the

lilies, how much

more does he care for

you? Worry and anxiety always causes us

to miss out on today.

It causes us to make rash decisions and

lean on our own understanding. It's

discernment. It's scripture and prayer

that leads us to good decisions. And

it's not the moment of anxiety that

hurts us. It is the ruminating there.

It's the staying in that place that

doesn't allow for God to fully move

because we're stuck in a place that God

is not. God is not an anxious God. He is

not a worryfilled God. And so he may

lead us into

opportunities that cause us to choose to

worry, but he doesn't directly lead us

to that feeling. We lead ourselves

there. Our flesh does

that. In Sam 1st Samuel

1:6, I want you to catch this. It says

God closed Hannah's

womb. I want to highlight that it was

not the

enemy. It was not some something of

Hannah's sin. It was God.

And it is easy for us to say that our

heartache or our pain or the thing

that's causing us to worry is from the

enemy. We say that a

lot. And it's easy to say because we

don't like the enemy. But it is hard to

say that your heartache and your pain

might be coming from your loving and

your gracious

God. That's a hard reality to think

about. And I wish that I could go

through all I I wish I could go deep in

that today, but that is another message.

You can come talk to me after about the

scriptures that dive into that. But you

will see all throughout scripture that

God leads people to suffering seasons.

He leads people into difficult seasons,

not answering their prayers that the way

that they'd like, seeming to be silent,

and at times walking us into dark

seasons to bring us closer to him.

Hannah after 19 years, that is

6,935

days that she waited and her prayers

were finally

answered. I wrote this question down

when I saw that in the scriptures. I I

wrote this question. Was God good all

along or was he not good? until the

moment that he answered her

prayer. And I think for us at different

points in our life have to answer that

question. Is he good along your journey

or is he only good when the journey is

full of your answered

prayers? And the reality for Hannah is

that Hannah could not see tomorrow.

Hannah could not see 40 years, 60 years

down the

line. And some might say, why didn't God

just tell her in one of those 6,000

days, in one of her prayer times, why

didn't he just say, in 19 years, Hannah,

I'm going to give you what you've been

asking

for? And I would say that had Hannah

been told that, she would have never

built faith. She would have never had to

overcome

worry. She would have never had to learn

how to consistently pray and take your

worries to God no matter what. She would

have never went to the depths with him

that she did. And had God answered her

cries and prayers when she wanted, she

would have never birthed the man that

God would use to lead the people into

Israel. I believe that he would have

chose somebody else or would he would

have done it a different

way. And for us today, there are things

that God wants to use you for. There are

ways and places that he is not moving

yet because it's simply not the

appointed

time. And

sometimes we try to move the hand of God

quicker than what he wants. And some of

you in this room, you are wanting to be

somewhere in life that God is not moving

you to yet. And you have to trust him.

We have to trust him in that because if

he were to do it today, either you could

not carry it well or what he had in mind

would not fully come to

pass. Trust the process. Let him

lead. I've had moments in my life ridden

with anxiety and

fear. Times where I felt so clouded. I

remember we had Aria. She was in the

NICU and I would walk my living

room thinking that at any moment I was

going to get fired from my job. Such an

irrational thought. There was nothing

behind it. What I had was postpartum

anxiety. And if that's you, if if

there's some if there's a chemical

imbalance, talk to your doctor. That's

what I was experiencing then. Uh,

somebody the computer up here is

dinging. If somebody can mute that,

that'd be great. Um, but most of my

fearful moments have not been chemical

imbalances. It was fear that I needed to

overcome and surrender. And I'm going to

give you an example of one. Every time

that I preach a message, I want you to

know my real life today

uh struggles in in this area. I want you

to know that I've not overcome. I'm no

different than you. I'm on the same

journey that you're on. So, I want to

give you a real life example that I have

a tendency to be anxious about. God,

this is my question to him. When are you

going to give us a

building? When will we have to no longer

worry where we're going to hold events?

When do we not have to know when do we

no longer have to have a setup team?

When will we have our own place that our

worship team can rehearse in? A place

that we can counsel and have meetings

other than our dining room

table where we don't have to climb into

the rafters of our storage unit in the

dead of

winter or have to worry about is the

truck going to start this Sunday. Yeah,

these are my Hannah moments with

God. We're praying. We're fasting for a

building. We're calling upon his name.

We're building his church. His church.

And God isn't providing the way that I

thought by this point. In fact, he's

providing in other

ways. His provision is here. Oh, we have

to move for the summer. God opens a door

in one

day. He is in the portable season. He

wants us here.

And I feel him always asking me, "Do you

have eyes to see what I'm doing?" And in

my human eyes, it only makes sense for

God to give us a building right

now. But God keeps reminding me, and you

still can, Lord, today you could. But

God keeps reminding me, he did not call

me to look with human eyes. He called me

to look with spiritual eyes and I can't

see the future and I don't hold the

future and there is a reason for the

weight and what I know is that God is

not done moving in this season because

if he was we would not be here

right and maybe you felt similar maybe

you worry about the

future maybe it's your job. Maybe it's

the hard conversation that you have to

have. Or maybe your kids are difficult

to raise right now or they don't know

Jesus yet. Maybe your dreams are not

being fulfilled or you're on an

infertility journey. Maybe it's your

finances or your marriage or who is

going to be my

spouse? And maybe you feel like you've

done all the right

things. You're showing

up. You're going to him faithfully.

You're serving in the house of God. And

God is still not providing in the area

that you're seeking for. And what's

happening is that you're becoming

bitter. And your heart and your mind are

filling with worry and fear.

And I want to encourage you today that

when you have done all that you

can, you just keep doing what you know

to do and allow God to do what he

desires to

do. Because the sin is not found in the

worry that's rising up in your mind. The

sin is what you do when the worry

comes. Where do you place your anxious

thought?

Do you just kind of go like

this and hold tightly to it? Do you sit

in it? Or do you place it on Jesus and

put it in his hands to worry

about? Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane

was worried. So much worried that he

sweat blood. But where did he place his

worry? He placed it on his father by

saying, "Father, if you desire, would

you let this cup pass from

me?" And the father's

answer was, "No. You're going to walk

through this brings even

Jesus to

suffer. And life is going to bring us

sad and challenging and scary seasons.

We cannot escape it.

They're going to cause us to worry, but

you get to choose where you place

it. And in verse 11, Hannah makes a vow

to the

Lord. She says that if you, Lord, would

give me a son that she would give him

back to the

Lord. And so after Samuel was weaned

somewhere between the ages of three and

five, can you imagine this? taking your

three-year-old, your 5-year-old,

grabbing his hand, saying, "Hey, we're

going to go to church, and she knows

that she is she's giving him

up." In verse 26, she says, "Pardon me,

my lord." And she's speaking to Eli the

priest. She says, "As surely as you

live, I'm the woman who stood beside you

praying to the Lord. I prayed for this

child and the Lord has granted me what I

asked of him. And so now I give him to

the Lord for his whole life. He will be

given over to the

Lord. And so Samuel grows up. He's

ministering to the Lord. He's in his

presence day and night. He becomes a

judge, a prophet, a leader of the

Israelites. He anoints Saul as the first

king. He fulfilled the prophecy that a

king would be established to lead the

nation. And it started because Hannah

made a vow to surrender to

God. And Hannah got a lot right that we

can learn from. Probably the greatest

thing is that in verse 10 when she says

in her deep hurt by God, she worshiped.

Hannah knew how to worship. I can

picture her now getting up early in the

morning, running to that temple to offer

up praise and worship to the God that

she

loved. She knows that worship is to be

her first

response. But here's where we can learn

from Hannah's

mistake. is that for 19 years she

thought that what favor looked like was

God's blessing by way of what she

thought was God's

blessing because suffering never looks

like blessing from our

eyes and yet in first Peter

1 Peter 4:13

4:13 it says

revelation

joy glory how do you get those things

those things are revealed to those who

endure

suffering. God's blessing is often what

we call suffering. It doesn't look like

blessing. It looks like hardship. It

looks like struggle. It looks like

disappointment. It looks like brick

walls. It looks like shut

doors. And we often say, "Oh, it must

not be God if the door is not opening."

That's not true. It often times is

him. It's just are we going to have

those spiritual eyes to see what he's

doing. God sees the beginning and he

sees the end. He sees your today. He

sees your tomorrow. We can only see

right

now. And so oftentimes our response to

the suffering is we start to get

anxious. We start to get depressed.

We no longer open our

Bibles. We lack in our faith because it

looks like God has

left. When Jesus was on the

cross, it looked dark and it looked like

darkness had won. And maybe your story

looks like darkness has won. It looks

like you're never going to get out of

this mental state.

It looks like he's forgotten

you. It looks like the pain and the deep

dark pit is his hand turning away from

you and not towards

you. It feels like God is

silent, but he is working.

And the thing is, band you can come on

up. The thing is that when you know that

about

God, when you know that he is always

working things for your good, your

prayers begin to sound different. And

what your prayers begin to sound like is

God, not my will, your

will. Not my answer, but your answer.

Not my timing, but your timing.

And I want to give some takeaways today

that I want you to write

down what we can learn from Hannah.

There's three things. The first one is

go to God in hurt and in

anguish. Don't just go to him on the

mountaintop. Go to him in the hurt

because he can handle

it. Hey, thanks so much for watching

today's message. Our prayer is more than

the words that were spoken in the

message that you would remember the

things that God spoke to your heart.

Yeah. And no matter what it was that God

spoke to you, I know that part of your

journey is other people being in a

community because we are better

together. So if you made a decision to

follow Jesus today, would you click the

link below and fill out the form? This

is going to help us so that we can

celebrate with you and equip you with

some tools so that your next steps are

great steps. Yeah. Thanks so much for

watching. We're praying for you. We're

cheering you on. We believe that the

best days are ahead of you.