The Rhythm of Surrender (Luke 22) | Pastor Keith Pittman

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If you have your Bibles, I would love for you to join me in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

I believe this is the word that God has for us today.

In the Gospel of Luke, chapter 22.

Luke 22 · chapter mention

If you don't have your Bibles, it's okay.

It'll come up on the screens in just a moment, but we would love to gift you with one.

So if you don't, please let us let us give you the word of God.

I believe it truly can change your lives.

Can I get a good amen to that?

The word of the Lord says this.

Starting at verse number 39, it says, And and he came out and went as was his custom to the Mount of Olives.

And the disciples followed him.

And when he came to the place, he said to him, Pray that you may not fall into temptation.

And he withdrew for them about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed, saying, Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.

Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done.

And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.

And being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground.

I believe that this is God's word for us today.

Over the past seven weeks or so, we've been in a series that we've entitled Rhythms.

And it's really been about how do we keep in step with God.

And so each week we've talked about a different thing that we can do on our end to connect and be at pace with the Spirit of God.

And God is bringing us to a place where I think is the foundation of all of it, and that is around the idea of surrender.

Because unless we live a true surrendered life to Christ, we won't be able to engage the word, we won't be able to pray, we won't be able to fast, we won't be able to come to church.

It's all built on the foundation of living a life of surrender.

So today I just want to spend a few moments talking about it, and we're gonna come back and continue to worship and pray for some people.

But but if you're taking notes, I just simply want you to make note of this.

The words of Jesus should be the words of us, and it's simply this Thy will be done.

Thy will be done.

Lord, we thank you so much for your faithfulness.

We thank you for your goodness, we thank you for your grace, and we thank you for your presence.

Lord, I just pray that you continue to do a deep work.

Lord, this is our invitation.

Holy Spirit, you move.

This is your church, these are your people.

So, Lord, we all decrease so that you can increase.

God, I ask that you give us open eyes to see you.

I ask that you give us open ears to hear your truth.

And Lord, I pray that you give us open hearts to receive what it is you want to do in us today.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray.

Amen.

Amen and amen.

I want to go ahead and dismiss our middle and high school students.

And as they are slipping their way out and connecting with their leaders in the back, would you turn to someone around you and say that the Eagles are winning the Super Bowl, the Eagles are winning the Super Bowl, the Eagles are winning the Super Bowl.

I prophesy, I declare and decree that this is the year of the bird.

Come on.

Come on.

You know, family, I've I've been thinking quite a bit about this concept of of image.

You know, a a simple definition of image is it's the representation or projection of something.

The representation or when we project something, it's image is important.

How how else would we make sense of the fact that you can be in an environment and we will take 38 pictures of that environment because we want it to be just perfect?

Image can sometimes be everything.

And I understand the importance of it.

I understand the importance of trying to frame it up just the right way, making sure that whatever we project, that it that it communicates the reality that we may be feeling on the inside of us, image is so, so important until it begins to creep its way into the way in which we follow God.

Because sadly, what I have found is that we're also consumed with image inside of the context of the church.

How can I respond to that altar call when I'm a leader?

What will that say about me?

How can I lift my hands up and invite God to move in this area of my life?

People are looking at me.

I have to be mindful.

We have to protect the image.

We live in a world whose economic image and whose economic engine is image, but but we also live inside of a kingdom where surrender is the thing that invites the power of God.

So they seem to be diametrically opposed to one another.

The world is telling us to protect our image while the kingdom is telling us that we need to surrender all things to him so that we can experience the power and strength of God.

The Bible tells us about the apostle Paul, and this is a man who had a lot of influence and he had an image to protect.

He was known for being an intellectual, he was known for being able to debate with the best of scholars, and yet Jesus meets him on the road to Damascus and radically alters his image.

There's this moment where he loses his sight, and and a and a man named Ananias that you don't hear much about beyond or before that, he comes and lays hands on Paul, he declares a word over Paul, and that alters the path of Paul's life.

Paul later goes on to summarize his own journey with Christ, but but in a season when he was dealing with affliction and prayed that God would heal him, there's a moment where God responds to him and by proxy us as it relates to image.

2 Corinthians chapter 9, chapter 12, verse 9 says this My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 9 · chapter mention

Therefore I will boast more gladly in my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

I want you to notice that Paul was no longer consumed with his image.

In other words, what he was saying is I'm willing to be vocal about the areas of my dysfunction, because that is actually when I experience the power of God.

The kingdom of God is showing us there's a different way by which we can access the presence and power of God, and it is through our surrender.

The text tells us that Jesus has just concluded having his final meal with his disciples.

Judas has already left to lead the assailants to come and capture Jesus.

And the Bible says that Jesus is beginning to feel the literal weight of the world on his shoulders.

What do you do when you feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders?

Where do you go when you feel a great sense of being overwhelmed and you and you don't quite know what to do with those feelings and that exhaustion, that anxiety, and that stress?

Jesus models for us that when he was feeling the weight of the world, he had a sacred place that he would go to.

And that sacred place was called the Mount of Olives.

The Mount of Olives is pretty significant in biblical geography because the Mount of Olives is the same Mount of Olives that David retreated to when his close friend betrayed him and his son Absalom stole the throne from him.

He went to the Mount of Olives in shame and brokenness after being rejected as king.

And here we are, Jesus, centuries later, going to that exact same mountain after being betrayed by his friends and knowing he's going to be denied, he goes to that exact same space.

But Jesus not only went there as a space that he could live at sometimes, he would he would teach from there, he would encourage from there, he wept over the city from there.

The Bible tells us he ascended into heaven from there, and it also tells us that he's going to return to get his church in that exact same space.

In other words, the Mount of Olives was a spiritual base of operations for Jesus.

It was his sacred space by which he could live a surrendered life.

Jesus had a regular rhythm of going to his sacred space.

I once heard it said that when the pressure comes, we don't rise to the occasion, we fall to our preparation.

We don't just magically somehow muster the strength to endure.

The truth of the matter is we are able to fall to the thing that we've been preparing for.

Jesus had been living a life of preparation, a life of surrender to God.

So when the pressure came, he knew exactly where he was going to go.

Listen to me, family.

The rhythm you keep when nothing is wrong is the rhythm that carries you when everything is.

What you do now will be the thing that sustains you.

So if you do nothing, then you're gonna have nothing to pull from.

But if you have a rhythm by which you go into the presence of God on a regular basis, when the pressure comes, you will know exactly where to go.

The Bible tells us that Jesus goes to an area that is referred to as the Mount of Olives, but he doesn't stop there.

It says that he goes a little bit further.

Somebody say further.

The Bible describes the further distance, not with anything that we can measure, but it says that he goes about a stone's throw further.

Now, depending on who the quarterback is, a stone's throw can look a little bit different.

Because our church is surrounded around God's team, the Philadelphia Eagles, Jalen Hurts has been known to throw the ball about 70 yards.

That's a good distance to go.

But if you're of any of the other teams, it's a weaker throw, so it may not be as far for you and your team, and we will pray for you.

But what we can admit is that it was far enough away that he gave himself some space to be alone, but close enough that he still could be seen and heard.

Jesus went further.

His disciples followed him to the Mount of Olives, but they didn't follow him into Gethsemane.

They could have gone a little bit further.

And I think it's possible for us as followers of Christ that we can be followers of Christ and yet still find ourselves stuck because we refuse to go any further.

We can come to church every single Sunday.

We can sing the songs and still feel like we're in a rut because maybe God is begging us to come closer and we haven't been willing to go a little bit further.

We can give God our tithes and really be freed up and knowing that we're partnering with the mission, but if we're honest with ourselves, the tithe is very, very comfortable, and God is challenging us to go a little bit further.

I believe it's possible that you can serve on a team and you can show up every single week and still go home and no one knows your name, no one knows your life because God is challenging you to get deeper into relationship and he wants you to invite people into your world and he wants you to show up when you're invited into people's world.

But unless we do that, we will come to a space, we will we will serve faithfully, we'll go home not knowing known because God is calling us to go a little bit further.

I believe that there's been some of us that have been praying about some things that God wants to do on our behalf, but we've been praying, we've been seeking God, but God is saying, I hear your prayers, but I need you to consecrate and set yourself apart.

I need you to enter into a season of fasting, I need you to go a little bit further.

I believe that God is challenging some of us.

I need you to go just a little bit further.

The miracle that we see of the cross is the fact that Jesus went further than his disciples.

And I believe that there's some things that God wants to do in us that may be on the other side of us saying yes and going just a little bit further.

Don't miss what God wants to do because you're comfortable, because the disciples were comfortable, and because they were comfortable following Jesus, they fell asleep when he needed them the most.

But if you're willing to go further, you can be exactly where God is commissioning you to be.

The Bible says that Jesus goes further into a space called Gethsemane.

It literally means olive press.

And what's so significant about this idea is that there would have been olive trees, and then when the harvest came, they would have plucked the tree, the the fruit off the tree, and it would have gone through a series of crushing in order to get all of the oil out of the olives.

I will not go through the scientific metrics of all of that.

Pastor Lindsay actually preached an incredible message on this a few months ago, so you can go and listen to that in its detail.

I'm gonna give you one quick line around it.

The olive oil needed to go through a series of crushings in order to get what was in it out of it.

I'm not sure if you caught that just of yet, but but there's some things that are on the inside of us that will only come out of us when we undergo a little bit of crushing.

And some of us have been convinced that the pressure that we're feeling is possibly the enemy trying to kill us.

The pressure that we're feeling could possibly be that God has withdrawn his hand from us.

But what if I were to tell you the pressure that you're feeling is God putting you in a space that allows an anointing to flow out of you that can ultimately bring you to a place of utter freedom and victory?

The crushing is meant to break chains because the word of God declares it is the anointing that destroys the yoke.

And sometimes the anointing can't flow out of you in perfect condition.

It requires the pressure to be applied, but when that pressure is applied, the anointing will flow from it.

God has something he wants to do even in a season of your crushing.

The text tells us that when Jesus is in this place experiencing the crushing weight, the text says that he he bows to his knees, and Matthew's description says that he actually gets down on his face.

The ultimate sign of submission.

This is the kind of submission that literally shapes your soul.

This is one of those moments where our bodies come into alignment with our spirits and we begin to demonstrate what God is doing on the inside of us.

We don't lift our hands because we think that it draws God's attention anymore.

We don't kneel because we think that God's going to respond quicker.

We don't come to the altar because we think God pays more attention.

The truth of the matter is when our body does it, it does something on the inside of us.

It tells our flesh that we will surrender to the things that God wants to do in us.

Jesus lays down face down a man who's not consumed about image.

The man who created all of creation is now laying on the ground of his creation to demonstrate to us that this is where true strength and power comes from.

There's this moment where Jesus begins to declare out loud, Lord, if there's if there's another way by which you can redeem all of mankind, then can we go that route?

I honestly believe that one of the biggest mistakes that we can make as followers of Christ is something that we call in the counseling world, which is spiritual bypassing.

That means that whenever we find ourselves in a season of discomfort, in a season of sorrow, our first instinct is just to hurry up and find a Bible verse that we could put a band-aid over a wound that is still bleeding.

I'm so sorry you lost your loved one, but at least they're in a better place.

Let's not sit with it, but let's hurry up and try to cover over it.

But let me show you that the Bible says that while Jesus was aware of what his calling and purpose was, that when the weight of the world was on his shoulders, he was like, Lord, if there's another way, if there's if there's any other way, this will be a good time for you to put me in on a secret.

Because I don't want to go to the cross, I don't want to endure this suffering, I don't want to go through the pain, I don't want to go through the mocking, I don't want to go through the through the through the being rejected and denied.

But nevertheless, not my will, your will be done.

I don't I don't know if there's any greater connections of words in scripture that inspires and challenges me more than thy will be done.

This is not the first time that Jesus has said those words.

The Gospel of Matthew tells us in chapter 6 that when Jesus was on the Mount of Olives teaching disciples about what it meant to be a person committed to Christ, teaching his disciples about what a prayer life looks like.

He literally says, Thy will be done on earth.

Come on, somebody reads the Bible as it is in heaven.

So watch this.

Jesus preached those words during the day and he lived them at night.

There's a big difference between quoting a scripture and walking it out when it needs to be applied.

Jesus was saying, I'm not just telling you thy will be done, I'm actually going to show you what it looks like to really surrender ourselves to the will of God.

The same mouth, the same sentence, the same surrendered life.

Surrender is not the absence of preference, it's the presence of a yes that has more authority.

So there will be times when thy will be done means I'm going to lay down what my preference is for something that's greater in the context of the kingdom.

Scripture tells us that after Jesus makes this profound prophetic statement, that the word of the Lord says that an angel came and strengthened him.

Strength came on the other side of his surrender.

An angel came and strengthened him after he said, Thy will be done.

And when you read this in the original Greek, you actually find that the word indicates that it's continuous.

It wasn't a moment of transaction of strength came there, but it said strengthening, continuation, which means he was strengthened in that moment and he was continued to be strengthened in the moments that came.

That means that he was strengthened when Judas walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek and betrayed him.

He was strengthened in that moment.

He was strengthened when the disciples left him all alone and the Spirit of God strengthened him in that moment.

He was strengthened when he was standing before Pontius Pilate and fighting against all these false accusations.

He was strengthened in that moment.

He was strengthened when he had to drag that rugged cross up onto the hill of Calvary.

But somehow, even in the weakness of his flesh, he was strengthened to be able to do it.

He was strengthened in that moment.

He was strengthened when he was nailed to the cross and they began to mock him, but he didn't lose sight of his vision.

He was strengthened in that moment.

I'm not sure who I'm talking to, but right now we're recognizing that there's a void of strength.

But but what if our strength that we're seeking for is not going to be found in our strategy, it's not going to be found in our logic, but it's going to be found when we say, Thy will be done.

God, I want you to have your way in my life and recognize that God's grace meets you at the place of your surrender.

Jesus lived a life that was surrendered and submitted to God, and God strengthened him to endure what it was he was facing.

And maybe some of us knows what that feels like.

That entering into season that seemed inconceivable in another period of time, but the moment that you yielded it to God, somehow he gave you the strength to endure it.

I'm speaking to some people in here right now that you've walked through some things that logically you shouldn't be surviving, but somehow God strengthens you.

I'm talking to some people right now that have undergone many things where you've been betrayed before and you thought that it would have killed you, but somehow God strengthened you.

I'm talking to some folks that have lost family members and loved ones, and somehow God strengthened you.

God's grace meets you at the space of your surrender.

God will strengthen you.

The Bible says that Jesus received the strength that he needed to endure what was inhead of him.

And the way that he did that is because he lived a life of surrender.

One of the fascinating things that I find about this in court, this entire discourse is that Jesus is having the Last Supper with His disciples, and while they're having this powerful moment, it says that they broke out and they sang hymns and psalms together.

To be led in song and worship by our Lord.

Jesus sitting with his disciples, they began to sing songs and declare the goodness of God, even while the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

He sung songs, he surrendered, he was strengthened, he finished his assignment.

It's almost as if there's a pattern that's beginning to emerge here.

That God is revealing to us that when we can truly exalt the name of the Lord, that that paves the way for us to live a surrendered life, and that surrendered life is the thing that actually gives us the strength that we need.

So right now, we're we're gonna we're gonna follow the pattern of Christ.

We've designated this Sunday as worship Sunday.

The truth of the matter is every day and every moment is an opportunity to worship.

But I want to rewind time and join Jesus in that upper room with his disciples where it says that they they sang songs and hymns and declared the goodness of God in preparation for what God was about to do.

So let's all stand on our feet.

We're gonna go into some more songs of worship, some more opportunity of surrender.

And here's where I want to encourage us, and here's where I want to challenge us.

Whatever is your normal way in which you engage God in moments like this, go further.

Maybe when you come into spaces like this, your worship flows from your personality.

God's wired you the way that He has, and I completely understand it.

But sometimes, if I can be honest, that can be a lid to experiencing what God wants to do because we can we can stay in our comfort zone.

So that means that maybe when we come to church, maybe, just maybe, when it comes time to worship, we're one of those half-mass hand up type worshipers.

I'll I'll I'll slip up one hand and that's that's kind of enough.

Like that's uh that's good enough.

It's enough that I know that God sees me, and I don't I don't want someone to see me.

I don't want someone to think that I'm one of these crazy Pentecostals.

That's not my personality, but watch this.

That seems really comfortable, but what would happen if you just went a little bit further?

Maybe you're one of these ones that you look at the words and you sing melodies in your heart.

I get it.

The Bible says, make a joyful noise unto the Lord, and maybe when you sing, that's exactly what it is.

That's why we keep the volume up so that you can just get lost in your own little space like you're in your car, and nobody knows you can't sing.

No, nobody knows you can't keep the note.

But but what if we went a little bit further?

What what if there's there's a nudge or or something that God's doing in you that's that's leading you to respond to His His Spirit and His presence, but but it's comfortable back here.

I don't want anyone to think that something is going on in my life, but but what if we went a little bit further?

We're gonna create some space and we're gonna worship and then I'm gonna come back up and we're gonna pray for some people, but but what I'm asking you to do is let us not be consumed with the image of this world, but let us be conformed into the image of Christ.

Let us follow that pattern and go a little bit further, lifting our hands, lifting our voices, kneeling the same way that Jesus did.

But whatever you do, don't stay comfortable.

Lord, we thank you so much for your faithfulness.

We thank you for the the truth that is found in your word and how you're calling us to be people that live surrendered lives.

So, Holy Spirit, have your way.

This is a moment that's about you.

We fix our eyes on you.

We're not looking to the left, we're not looking to the right, but this is a moment where we can draw closer to God and we choose to go further.

If that means coming to the altar, so be it.

If it means lifting our hands, so be it.

But what we're not going to do is stay comfortable because our breakthrough happens when we go further.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Come on, family, let's worship together.

Thank you for joining us to learn more about Celebration Orlando, a church devoted to reaching the lost, equipping the found, and helping the hurting.

Follow us on social media using the handle at celebrationorl or visit our website, celebrationorl.org.