How To Stop Striving And Start Surrendering To God
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I think that to live fully a life actually means learning to live. Spirit led. What does it live mean? To live a life that is not only led by the spirit, but empowered by him. And for some of us, that language is really familiar. You know, we hear about being spirit led, and in fact, spirit led is the top value here at our church.
And if you've even walked through our foyer, you would see a big sign out there that's got a whole bunch of our values listed on it. And the very top one is spirit led, and they are more. Than words on a page. They are something that we choose to live out. But for some of you who are in the room or maybe you are watching online, you are like spirit led like.
The holy what? The holy who like. And so I thought that that might be a good place to start today. Who is the Holy Spirit? He's not a vague force. He's not just a feeling that we experience sometimes when we gather in a place like this and worship him. He is God. He is present with us. And for those of you who've chosen to follow Jesus, he's within you as well.
He's the third person of the Trinity as Pastor Ke has, Al has already said Father, son and Holy Spirit. And in the Old Testament you can see the Holy Spirit's presence. Um, right from the very beginning when we read in Genesis, the creation story, we read that the spirit was hovering. Above the waters. And then the whole way through the old Covenant, you read stories of where people encounter and are empowered by the Holy Spirit.
And you see, um, kings that experience his power and his leading. You see prophets, you see leaders. You also see really cool stories like where people, musicians, and craftsmen. Uh, inspired by the Holy Spirit, but then you flip to the new covenant and suddenly he becomes like even more personal. And the New Testament, again, for those of you that might not be familiar, it's simply a collection of writings and letters that were written to.
Kind of say, this is who Jesus is, to point to who he was and to talk to the early church and, and to tell them, this is how you live life. And, and there's a whole bunch of teaching in there about the Holy Spirit. And so the spirit's at work, we see that Jesus is conceived. By the power of the Holy Spirit.
And throughout his lifetime we see him, you know, baptized. And then he is empowered and led by the spirit time and time again, but before he goes to the cross. So he's with his disciples and he's about to literally go to the cross for you and for I, and be taken back up to the presence of God. And he says something absolutely remarkable and it is recorded in John 16, seven, and it says this.
It is better for you that I go because I will send the helper other versions say it is to your advantage that I go because I'm gonna send the advocate. And so just for a minute, think about the disciples. They have literally been walking in the presence of Jesus, the son of God, and he says to them. No, it's better that I go and they're like, no, it's better that you stay.
But he knew something better, didn't he? He knew that the Holy Spirit would come and that he would not just be with them, but that he could be in. Them, that they could be empowered by him and that they would go. And now, as followers of Jesus, his spirit resides in us, the Holy Spirit, our guide, our counselor, the one who brings peace, the one who brings wisdom.
He's the one in whom we are able to live fully alive, and it's because of his power that we are able to be transformed. More and more into the image of Jesus. So he is the presence of God with us, and he's the power of God at work within us. And so that's what I want to talk about today. What does it look like to live a life that is spirit led, and not just in a moment, but a lifestyle.
Moment by moment by moment, a life of daily surrender and recalibration, not something that is strange or super spiritual or disconnected from this real earthly life that we're also living, but an authentic, naturally supernatural life. That's what we have to get to live in his power. Now, some of you have heard me share this story before I shared it a couple of years ago, but when I was preparing for the message today, I was like, this is just a great picture of what the power of the Holy Spirit looks like in our lives.
So I'm gonna share it again. A couple of years ago, our family went on a holiday to Ellie Beach, bucket List Destination, the opportunity to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. Absolutely stunning. And, um, we went out on a boat for the day and we had the opportunity to like go and literally jump in and see the coral and the fish and the turtles and like.
Spectacular. Before we went in, the guides said to us, all right guys, there's a few things you need to know. Here's your equipment. Make sure you grab some snorkel. Oh, a snorkel, not some. You only need one. Um, snorkel, goggles and flippers. And when you hear the whistle, that's your cue to comeback. That was pretty much it.
Not hard to get wrong. In my excitement, I grabbed the gear. I am ready and I dive in and it was everything that I imagined it would be. And a couple of hours later, uh, we hear the whistle and right beside me is my niece Lucy. And so I think at the time she would've only been about 12. So I think, man, we've got a distance to go.
We floated quite the way. And um, so I grab her hand and I think I'll help her back to the boat. Anyway, I. She starts pulling me and I am kicking and kicking. I'm using all my energy and she is just gliding and she's pulling me and it's at that moment and you can't really see it in this picture. She's wearing flippers.
I'm not in my excitement to get in and experience life of the Great Barrier Reef. I didn't put the flippers on. They were offered to me, but I didn't put them on. And I wonder sometimes how often that is true in our lives, right? We follow Jesus and we kick. And we kick and we expend all of our human energy, exhausting ourselves in our own strength.
And all of the time, the power of the Holy Spirit is right there within us. It's like we haven't put. The flip is on, and that is the undercurrent of what I want to speak to you about today to live. Alive in power is a choice. It's a choice to live a spirit-led life, not just knowing about the Holy Spirit, not just singing about surrender to him, but actually.
Surrendering and choosing to follow and let him lead us day by day, because here is the reality, or at least it's mine, I assume it's for you as well. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, the rest of the week. It gets hard. Life is full. People need you, don't they? People have problems, relationships, there's decisions to be made, patterns rise up.
The stuff from our old family of origin, you know, it rears its head again and frustrations can be real and close to the surface. And in any one of those moments, it is so easy to slip back into the pattern of, I need to figure this out. I need to do it in my own strength. We slip into me. Instead of he.
But a living alive in power is not about trying harder. It's actually. This Christian life that we live was never meant to be lived in our own human strength. It's simply about saying yes to the power of the Spirit. So what does that look like? I hear you ask. I'm glad because there is so much that we can read about.
Um, where I want to take a straightaway this morning is Romans. So Romans is a book that the apostle Paul wrote to guess who. The Romans. I love some of the names of the Bible. They're brilliant. He was helping the early believers in Rome discover about. The beauty of the gospel. The gospel being the good news of Jesus.
And so he's telling them like, this is what it means to live in freedom. And throughout the first few chapters of Romans, he unpacks like, this is what sin is, and this is what grace is. And this is like the struggle of the human heart that we all deal with. And then we get to chapter eight and he starts unpacking what it looks like to live a life that is led by the spirit.
And he says this in Romans eight, verse 11. Hey, it's like it's cool and if the spirit of him who is ra, who has raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, then what?
Where am I? He who raised Christ from the Dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you. This is the incredible truth of living fully alive. It's not a diluted spirit that lives in you. It's the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead that left an empty grave.
The same spirit, not a distant echo of it, the same spirit now lives in you. In your own efforts, you might feel weary, you might feel tired, you might even just feel unsure, but you are not underpowered. Maybe you are just unaware. That's why. I think the word for our year this year is recalibration. It's a constant recalibration because it's so easy to flip back into living from our own strength when this power is available to us.
You know, the other thing that stands out to me when I read this was Lives in you. Lives in You. You know what that tells me? He's not just a visitor. When you read other versions of this, it talks about his spirit who dwells in you. Dwell is not a word that we use a lot these days, but if you were to look, dwell up, it means to live, to reside.
It means to stay in place, typically as a permanent resident. So the Holy Spirit dwells. He lives in us. He doesn't drop in occasionally. He doesn't only appear when the MSOs do a really good job and lead us into a beautiful environment that welcomes the Holy Spirit. He, and they do do that by the way, but we don't need to rely on that because the Holy Spirit lives.
In you, which means he's not just present in the really big moments of your life. He's with you and he wants to be a part of all of your life. He wants to gently shape us and guide us and convict us as we follow Jesus and we learn what it means to live a life where every single part of our life is offered to him as a living sacrifice, fully surrendered to God.
All right, and so then Paul goes on a little bit further in the same chapter, and in verse 14 he says, for those who are led by the spirit of God, are the children of God, it's identity. This is what Pastor Len was sharing with us a few weeks back. Spirit led living is not just for the pastors or the clergy or the select few.
It's for every single one of you who calls who? Who is a child of God and who does God call his child? Anyone? In whom his spirit is. And so I hope that today if you are listening, and even maybe if you're listening online, that, and even if you are just exploring this whole faith thing and trying to figure it out, that you would know that this kind of living is available.
To you too, and I think that someone actually needs to hear that this morning because we talked a little bit about labels, and I'll go off script a little bit, but sometimes we place labels on ourselves when it comes to our intimacy or our relationship with God, and we say, well. That couldn't possibly be me.
I am not enough. I'm not spiritual enough, or I've done this or I've done that, or I don't hear God the way that other people do. And sometimes we even place labels on God, don't we? You might think that God is distant or maybe because of the relationship that you had with your dad. The picture that you have of the Heavenly Father now says that man, he's someone that I have to work really hard.
To earn anything from, but that is not what this says. You are a son and you are a daughter of God, and when you are a son and when you are a daughter of God, you can hear his voice. It's about relationship. So we are not underpowered, but we do have a choice and we can move on. Now, I've got some more scriptures to look at in the book of Galatians, again, written by the Apostle Paul.
Um, and he's writing to believers who, in this instance had started in an understanding of that grace, but they've been pulled back into striving. Sound familiar. And so he brings them back to something incredibly simple, and he says this, so I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.
Paul does not say, try harder. Come on, dig a little deeper. You've got this. He says, walk. By the spirit. It's step by step by step. It's relational. And then he shows us the tension 'cause there is a tension. And he says that the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit and the spirit. What is contrary to.
The flesh they're in conflict with, with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. So the flesh says, protect yourself. Think about you, control, react, make it all about you, but the spirit, the spirit says, trust, surrender, yield. Love two directions, one choice, self or spirit.
You could say that the choice is me. Or he, and that choice is presented to us each and every day, moment by moment, will I live from and for myself or will I surrender and will I let him lead? And you can read in the next couple of slides. I won't read them all out to you, but Paul continues in verses 19 to 21 and he unpacks.
The acts of the flesh, and they're not pretty. He says basically things like sexual immorality and jealousy and rage and selfish ambition and more, and these are not, that is not a life giving list, is it? Like when we are stuck in that stuff, that is not someone who is living fully alive. There's nothing good there.
But then Paul tells us, if we just were to surrender and if we would allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and to guide us, and if we were to walk in step with the Spirit, then the benefits are very real. Not just for us, but for all of the people that we are in community and doing relationship with this, he says, but the fruit of the spirit is love.
And joy and peace and forbearance, or some of you might know that as patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That is the shift, isn't it? And the beautiful thing about this list is that it's fruit. It's not something that we work hard. To produce. We just stay connected to the Holy Spirit, to the source, and he produces that fruit within us self effort or surrender my way or his way.
And then Paul finishes with this in verse 24. He says, those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. And since we live by the spirit, let us keep in step. With the spirit. I think out of so many, so much imagery that we read in these documents and in these letters, that phrase let us keep in step with the spirit, that one just captures my heart in a way that I don't know.
It is just so real. It's so beautiful, it's so poetic, and in my mind when I think about it, I picture dancing and I think about. Like a ballroom dance, and I don't know how many of you have watched Dancing With the Stars? Okay, not many. Robert Owen, he's a good dancer, but he had to learn from his partner.
Have a think about when you see a ballroom dance. It is absolutely beautiful to watch, isn't it? It's effortless. It. It looks like they are gliding over the dance floor, but the reason that it's so effortless, the reason that it looks so simple and beautiful, is that because only one person is leading. Can you imagine what it would look like if both of the partners were vying for control?
It'd be an absolute mess. There would be feet and toes getting stamped on. There would be tension, there would be confusion. But instead, when someone is leading, the other person offers their trust and their responsiveness and their surrender. And I wonder sometimes if that's what our spiritual life can look like.
We know that the Holy Spirit is there to empower us, but how often do we still try and hang on to control? We try and lead the dance to keep in step with the spirit simply means that we surrender. We surrender leadership. It's no longer what do I want? It's Holy Spirit. What do you want to do in this moment?
What are you doing here? Holy Spirit, what are you saying here? Holy Spirit, how can I use the gifts and the talents and the things that you have resourced me with so that I can bless others as you lead and guide me? Living fully alive is living fully surrendered. That's simply it, but we have a choice.
Will I lead or will I allow the Holy Spirit? Will I surrender? Because he doesn't just. Give us power. He guides us. Like we, you could, you could spend an entire 12 months talking about the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit and, and all of the ways that the Holy Spirit, um, leads and guides and, and comforts and gives wisdom and like all of these different things.
But unless we surrender and allow him to speak. It's, it just comes back to us doing what, what we want to do. And so we need to get to a place where he speaks and we obey, and he leads and we follow. But how, how do you know it's him? How do you know? What his voice sounds like and, and thankfully Jesus even addresses this with us in John 10, he says that the sheep, they will know my voice and they will follow me.
And I think sometimes that sheep kind of get a bad rap. Like we think that sheep are kind of dumb, but. In that passage when Jesus is talking about it, he's phrasing that about relationship and he is saying those sheep, as they get to know the shepherd, they're gonna know his voice. They're gonna recognize, they're gonna trust and they're gonna follow.
And the voice of the Holy Spirit, as I have found in my life, is not a voice of fear, but a voice of love who calls. And so the more you walk with him, the more you will recognize his voice. Not necessarily louder but clearer because you get to know his voice and you'll hear his instructions, and you'll hear his invitations to partner with him in moments, and you'll hear his voice in decisions that you've gotta make and spaces where you need clarity and he just wants to, to lead you.
And we just have to listen. And so what does that look like? It's all well and good to say all of that, but what does it practically look like? Lived out. And I thought the easiest way to share that this morning was just to tell you what it looks like in my life. And so firstly, for me, it is daily surrender.
It's daily surrender. My prayer is probably the simplest prayer that you could pray. Holy Spirit, I need you. I can't do today without you. Holy Spirit, would you speak to me? Would you teach me? Would you lead me? And you know, it could look like. Anything. Holy Spirit, would you help me in my parenting? Holy Spirit, would you help me in this business decision?
Holy Spirit, would you lead me? I will choose to follow. And then after sort of daily and sometimes even multiple times across a day, recalibrating and remembering to surrender again. I think the next thing for me that I've learned is that I have to be aware. I have to live. Intentionally. I can't just live on autopilot running from one thing to the next, and I can be very guilty of that 'cause I like to be a bit productive and so I can line the meetings up back to back and get the checklist down and get the things done.
But if I find I lean too far that way. I miss the opportunities where the Holy Spirit is trying to speak to me and I'm thinking about what's on my list instead of maybe what's on his list. And so for me it's about just intentionally being aware of what he might want to do. And so I try and keep an ear on what's going on here in front of me and an ear on what the Holy Spirit is trying to say.
And. What's happening beneath the surface here? Holy Spirit, is there something that we need to do? You know what, what's going on here? Um, yesterday when I was preparing this message, I was asking for the Holy Spirit's help. Obviously we do that all the time. And to be honest, I was asking him, what parts do I need to cull?
'cause there's a lot that you could say, but instead. He dropped this memory into my mind and I was like, nah, I'm not gonna share that. 'cause it's not even like an exciting one. I didn't lead someone to the Lord, or, you know, even pray with anyone. It was the most random memory. But then he kept speaking to me and now I know why I have to share it.
So all of that to set up a very boring story. Um, just before Christmas, I was with Hannah. My niece, she's somewhere there. We were on our way to Robina Town Center, which is an ordinary Saturday afternoon. We had stuff to do and our staff group chat. Pinged and it was a message saying, Hey, a package has been delivered for the junction, but they got the address wrong and it's been delivered somewhere along Junction Road and here's a photo and if anyone's close by, could you go and check it out?
And so I tell Hannah, 'cause you know. Got the message. She responds, yes. Side quest. Now, if you are 40 like I am, you might respond a what? Apparently a side quest for those who aren't in the know is a phrase that. The young people use now, and it was kind of birthed out of gaming, you know, where you've got one main mission to accomplish, but along the way there's side quests that you can do.
And I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me yesterday, that's what life is about. Like we can all be on mission. Getting about our daily lives, working with our families, doing stuff that we need to do with work. And if you are attuned and if you are aware, and if you have an ear on the spirit and an ear on what is going on around you, there are going to be side quests.
There are gonna be times where the Holy Spirit says, I want you to go and pray for that person sitting by themselves over there. I want you to send that text message to that person that just popped into your mind. I want you to go and be generous in this way to that. I don't know what it is. It could be anything.
It's the Holy Spirit's leading you, but I just wanted to say as weird as that story was and uneventful, live out the spirit led side quests. That's what makes life exciting. And it might seem tiny, and it might seem small, but it's a part of what God is doing using you in the world around us. Alright, so we are surrendering, we are living aware.
Part three. Nice and simple. You gotta do something, you have to respond right When he nudges, follow, obey. Send the text, like I said, encourage that person. Do the thi make the decision. Sometimes the clarity comes through obedience, so we've gotta act on it, stay in his presence, hear his voice, and. One of the simplest ways I've learned to do that is through soap devotions, and I know we talk about that all the time, but honestly, that tool for me has been revolutionary because when I, soap, scripture, observation, application, prayer, that's as simple as it is.
I'm reading his words and I'm asking the Holy Spirit. Would you reveal something for me today? That is for me. And then I take that observation and what he's revealed and I apply it. I live it out. How am I gonna live differently because of what I've just read. And then in prayer, I surrender that again to him and say, help me Holy Spirit, to live that out.
And the cool thing about soap is that it kind of. It tunes your heart to the objective truth of scripture, and that way when you are out and about living your life day to day. You will recognize his voice and you will recognize his leading in the subjective part of life that happens. And so when the random thought comes or the nudge comes and you discern it, you can go back and say, yes, this aligns with what I know, my God to say.
Right? Because it's his word. And so is the thing that you feel like you need to do, does it contradict. What the word says. Yeah. Then that would be a moment to discern and ask the Holy Spirit, and you can, you just keep asking the Holy Spirit and listen to his voice and ask him, what do you want to tell me in this moment?
The other cool thing is we're in community. You don't have to discern something alone. You can reach out. To your family and we can figure it out together. Spirit led life is not about perfection. I certainly do not get it right. Sometimes you wonder, sometimes you miss things, but it's a relationship and the more that you hear and the more that you recognize, and the more that you trust, the more that that relationship builds.
So I asked a few people last week after the service. A simple question. I said, what does it look like to be spirit led in real life? Because I thought I could share a bunch of different stories with you, but it would be better to hear from a few different voices. So just before, um, I come back up, let's take a look at this video.
Speaker 2: Spirit led to me means doing something that God's told you to do, not something that you thought of yourself. I don't know. I'm thinking of a whole lot of different things and then something that I'm not thinking about will jump in across my, across my thought processes. This sometimes happens in the cafe when I'm working during the week, and God will show me something about their demeanor or something, and I'll talk to them more than I would talk to the average customer because I believe I've been spirit led to do that.
Speaker 3: Like the parable that Jesus taught about the talents, our blessings and our gifts are not meant to be buried in the earth. But rather to be out and to be used to impact others and advance the kingdom.
Speaker 4: My son started working at the cafe this last week, started lamenting thinking, oh, I didn't even pray for him.
Didn't give him any good wisdom. A little bit later I was like, oh, I could just message him, say, don't be afraid to ask questions. Just a little thing. But later on, who told me? Yeah. Your message came through right at a moment. I was with a customer and I. Didn't know what to do. I feel like it was the Holy Spirit leading me in a very simple, small thing
Speaker 5: when I took my three boys to the movies, which we don't do very often, and we went gold class and paid all that money, got popcorn, got an ice cream.
Um, and the movie, actually, it was a kids' movie. It turned quite. Um, unsuitable and dark almost, and I just felt something say to me, you need to leave you, you know, you can't subject your, your children to this. In the mid, in the middle of the movie, we got up. I'm so glad that we left and I listened to that voice and it just gave me more strength to know that I can do that.
You know, going forward
Speaker 6: it's like as if the spirit lives in you. Like I have swallowed the spirit when I became a Christian and. He is living in me
Speaker 4: and I've chosen a project management as a career, and sometimes I'm frustrated with the Holy Spirit that there isn't a consistent process to follow.
Speaker 2: If you won't do it straight away, he'll keep annoying you and reminding you until you do it.
Speaker 7: My opinion being spirit led is a gift that I can give to others. By doing that, I get failed as well.
Speaker: Oh, I love that, and I loved how diverse the answers were, but what I loved was how ordinary the answers were and the responses they were real. When he speaks, it's not always loud and dynamic. I mean, it can be, but often it's a still small voice.
That prompts your heart or your mind. Sometimes it's a quiet nudge. Sometimes it's peace. Often for me it's a lack of peace and I'm trying to, you know, figure out what's going on and in a conviction, um, scripture that comes to mind, a thought. Sometimes he gives us a picture or a song. Sometimes a message through somebody else, but over time you learn to recognize his voice, and it's not weird and it's not forced.
It's just ordinary people walking in obedience to God listening. Trusting, responding and obeying. That is the spirit led life. There is more to life than living for ourselves. Living fully alive recognizes that everything that I have. Is his and how can I live surrendering it all back to him and be used by him stepping into the promises that Jesus had for us.
You know, yesterday was Anzac Day and that's a significant day in our family. Um, it's a chance for us to pause and to remember. Remember an honor, like the sacrifice that was given so that we could walk in freedom, and I was thinking about that yesterday and how often in military settings we think about surrender in terms of the white flag.
Right, like the white flag of surrender goes up and that means defeat. That means the fight is over and that hope is gone. But in the kingdom of God, it's upside down. It's a counterculture kingdom, and suddenly what the world might look at as defeat is actually reimagined as life. Abundant life. It's the beginning of a walk of victory when you surrender your life to Jesus.
You walk in victory. Remember the works of the flesh and the fruit of the spirit. Only one of those lists was life giving. Choose life. The spirit. Led life is not just a value that sits on a poster on a wall. It's something that you have to choose to live out. It's a way of life, and it's something that we as followers of Jesus get to do.
As we become contagious carriers of his presence to the world around us. Imagine a church, a community, not exhausted by trying harder, but walking in freedom, fully alive and empowered by him as we learn to live. Spirit led so this week, don't kick harder, put the flippers on recalibrate. Choose surrender because the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you.