Revving Up - Ep 24: Surrender

RevvingUp_David: you you you And welcome back to wrapping up with David Ross. I'm your host David. Glad to be with you here for me a Sunday afternoon ⁓ I'm looking forward to spending some time with you. Going to be a little bit different format today. ⁓ really. It's just a different run at it. ⁓ kind of winging it from some notes from a few weeks ago, from a lesson I taught. It's something that stuck with me and has been resonating and I just feel to share it. So my prayer is that this will be a blessing to you. and that you will gain something from it, find something beneficial, and that it will be a plus into your life. So thank you for joining me today. I really am trying to get some guests in here. My schedule's busy. I've had a few of them that we've just been unable to connect at the times that were available. So I should be freeing up here in the next few weeks. Hopefully some other people's schedules will also ⁓ stabilize. and we can get some repeat guests and some new guests in here to join you with me. So looking forward to being able to share that with you. But anyway, today I'm going to take off on a topic I have been teaching on Wednesday nights at my home church from the life of Samuel. It is basically life lessons from Samuel. when we read the Bible, we look at the Bible, 1st, 2nd Samuel, 1st, 2nd Kings were all one book originally. And so we see first and second Samuel, you think, okay, well, this is going to be two books covering the life of Samuel. But really Samuel himself is only in the first Samuel and, you know, through about, you know, time he anoints a couple of kings, Saul and David, and then he's out of the picture. And by then he's a much older man when that time comes around. So he steps into the role of judge. He was the last judge because he did anoint the first king. So no more judges. We're now moving into the idea of a monarchy. And so He did that very late in his life. He'd been judging Israel for a number of years. And at the end of his life, they're looking at his kids saying, they're not going to be good judges. We want a king. And so he steps into that role. So he's the last judge for that reason, but he's ⁓ just a very fascinating, pivotal character that kind of is this transition figure, right? He takes us from the time of judges where people did what was right in their own eyes and leads us into a kingdom that was not God's original will, was basically did not want them to have a king, but they insisted on that. But in the sovereignty of God, he knew that from a lineage of a king would come the King of Kings, the Messiah that would redeem everything in Jesus Christ. So he needed a lineage from Jesus to come from. So there's a reason behind it all. you know, and even Samuel at the time it came time to anoint Saul, he's like, I don't want to do this. I don't want to anoint a king. You know, this is not right, God. And God basically said, yeah, I know, but go no hand to King. And so he was obedient in that. But backing up to the promise of Samuel and the wonderful story of his mother, Hannah, what a woman of faith. ⁓ that I would have the faith that she had. mean, lots of things come out of that, but the one in particular that has just stuck with me and has resonated for quite some time now. is the idea of her surrendering that child to Eli in the temple. And I don't know what I would do. So if we study it out a little bit, know, of Hannah comes, she prays, she, God hears her, she walks away and God honored that prayer. She names him Samuel, which means God has heard is one interpretation of his name. God heard my prayers and but in her prayer for the child, she did something I don't think we should do. She made a deal with God. She bargained with God. If you will do X, I will do Y. I hesitate to do that in my life because often I know that I may not do Y. And I'm not, I should not be trying to place God in a position of negotiation. God does not negotiate with us. He makes covenants with us and he makes promises to us. that are contingent upon us being in faithful relationship with Him. But He doesn't bargain. He's sovereign. He's God. I'm not. Right? And so we have to always keep that in the back of our mind when we start thinking about these things. But she did, and God did honor that, and she did her part. And she brings this child, he's probably somewhere in the age range, five to seven, eight years old, somewhere in that timeframe. Because it did say that he had been weaned. And they did wean, they did nurse much longer than we do in modern, you know, modern culture. And then there was a year that, the, the, you know, she had to wait till the next year when they made the pilgrimage to Shiloh with her husband, Elkena. And so she, she brings this five, six, seven, maybe eight year old boy and hands him to this old man, this older man. He's got grown sons that are worthless named Eli, who happened to be a judge. And says, remember me? I was here a few years ago. You, you talked to me and here's this promised child. And she turned around and walked away and left that child in the care of this older man at the temple. And one side note to that is the faith of Eli because he's, he's got kids. He's old enough to be a grandfather probably at this point. And this lady hands in this young boy and leaves and he's like, okay, well. God, what are we going to do to raise this boy? ⁓ Lots of things in that. So in that moment where she knew, I'm leaving him literally in the hands of the Lord and in the hands of this older man. What must have been going through her mind? How did she feel walking away from Shiloh with her family? I finally got this promise from God and I'm leaving it. And so as I was preparing the lesson and I was teaching the lesson and I began to study this out and look into it in greater detail and just really dive into it, I just can't get away from her story. I just can't. The idea, because we talk about making sacrifices, we talk about giving things over to God and surrendering things from God. I'm stumbling in my notes here because I had it pulled up before I started the recording and now I can't find it. So let me find it again here. and pull up this meaning again. If I look up the definition of surrender, There are, it's a transitive verb. There are several possible meanings. One, and the one we kind of think about is the idea of compulsion or demand to yield to the power, the control or the possession of another upon compulsion or demand. The guy comes up to you with a gun, me your money. Yes, sir. Right. You hand over the money, right? I'm surrendering this money to this thief. because he's got force on me at that point. ⁓ Another definition is to give up completely or agree to forgo, especially in favor of another. So I'm surrendering my rights in this situation for you. Second one is to give oneself up into the power of another, especially as a prisoner. that's, know, again, the cops surround the guy, puts his hands up, you know, I surrender, don't hurt me. Right. And then also to give oneself over to something such as an influence. And so there's surrendering of self and there's surrendering of things outside of ourselves. And when I think of surrender and I think of what Hannah did, right, left that child in the care of God. and walked away. And then so it is in my life as a child of God. Once I'm filled with this Spirit, I've been baptized in His name, I become a child of the Most High God, I begin a journey of surrender. And I begin a journey of yielding myself over to someone else, to give myself up over to something. But I am surrendering to God. to yield, to give oneself up to the power of another. And so it is with us, God calls us to surrender. But here's the thing that really hit, there's two things that came out of this that have just, will not let me go. And I want to share them with you. Number one, and this is where God brought me up short in prayer here a few weeks ago. I had reached a point, I'm in a situation in my family, several situations in my family, and they are not going the way that I want them to. And they're not going as fast as I want them to. And I seem stuck in some of them. And some of them are negative, some of them are just stuck. It's just, it's a... I need to write a book. Nobody would believe it. And I go to God in prayer about these things, and I begin to ask Him, what's going on here? Right? And I talk about those dangerous prayers, search me, break me, send me. And we're all in the journey of discovery. We're in a journey of relationship with God. We're in journey of surrender. And we're not all walking the same pace, right? We're all children of God, but ⁓ the speed at which we move in these things, the calling that's on our lives is all differently. And so I do have to remind myself, a pastor in the region recently was preaching, know, every now and then I have to get to the point that I go back and remind myself the enemy in God. You know, God, I am your child. I was baptized in your name. I was buried in the name of Jesus. Your spirit lives within me. I am your child. I may not be the best one. But I am one and I need to walk in that and I'm surrendered to him. And when I begin that journey of surrender, I am not my own. I do not have any rights. I'm a redeemed slave. I serve a sovereign God. His name is Jesus. His name is supreme. He is king. He is God. And I am not. His will should prevail in my life. And here's the lesson, lesson number one from this. ⁓ probably a fairly short podcast. When I surrender something over to God, I don't get to tell him what to do with it. And my prayers had become accusatory. My prayers about my situation had become questioning. And I was not in the best place I should have been. I was not in a healthy place at that moment when I was making some of those prayers. There is a difference between asking God questions and being curious. as opposed to questioning God. And I had crossed that line because I was telling God, He was not doing it the way that I feel it should have been done. He was not moving as fast as I felt He should. He was not doing enough as I felt He should. It's, know, God, why is this happening is a curiosity question. But if I change the tone and the attitude, God, Why is this happening? That becomes an accusation to God. I'm questioning God Himself. I'm questioning His motives and His goodness and His sovereignty and all of those things like that. Right? Why is this happening? That is curiosity. Why is this happening, Lord? With that implied tone, it should not be happening. That's questioning God. so God brought me up short and reading about Hannah, it just really resonated at home. If I surrender something to God, I don't get to tell him what to do with it. And guess what? That includes me and my life and my family and my circumstances and my situations. I'm having some issues that we're working through with children. I dedicated those children to the Lord before they were born. And after they were born, we had a dedication ceremony where we dedicated those children unto the Lord. And I surrendered them to him to try to raise them as best I could in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. They were not mine. Those are not my children in that sense. Those are God's children. And I surrendered them to him. He is working it out. in the way that he wants to work it out. He loves them in a way that I cannot. And the biggest thing is he knows more about the circumstances that are coming and currently are than I ever will. And so as he chooses to work things out for my sons and for our relationships, he gets to do it his way. When I surrender something to God, I don't get to tell him what to do with it. And so it is with anything I surrender to God. If I surrender something over to Him, it is His. And He will do what He will do if He chooses to in His timing, in His way. And it will always turn out better than I could have imagined. God is fair, sovereign, just, but He's also good. And we're told that all things work together for the good of those that love God and fear Him and seek after Him. It may not be good, it may not feel good, it may not look good, but it is good when it's put all together with what God knows that he's doing. So that's lesson number one. Lesson number two is a corollary to that. And it's the fact that God, in his sovereignty and in his justice, will not owe anything to anybody. Number one, he doesn't know anything anyway. He is the giver of life. I would not be here to have a conversation about him or with him had he not so deemed so. Had he not stepped out into nothing in eternity past and said, let there be light. You know, he stepped into nothingness created everything. And then from that, here I am. So number one, he doesn't owe me anything because he's already provided the fact that I'm even here, but Also, I thank God in his sense of ultimate fairness and justice. If I do truly see something over to him and yield it over to him, he is going to return it to me in ways that he will not. The scales will be overbalanced back the right way. It may not be like for like many times. It's not just because I give him a hundred dollars doesn't mean he's obligated to return to me that you know, pressed down, shaken together. So many preachers try to say he may return it to me in peace. He may return it to me in joy. He may return it to me in increased health. I don't know how he's going to do that. I really never really surrender anything to him anyway, because whatever I give over to him comes back to me in greater measure. And then the final lesson from surrendering is that by surrendering something to God, God is then able to take that and use it to bless other peoples. lives, sometimes mine, but often for other people. And so we have examples of that from Scripture. The young boy brings his lunch to Jesus and he surrenders it to God. whatever Jesus chose to do with it at that point, that boy may go hungry. He did not know what God was going to do with that lunch. Right. And God multiplied it, blessed it, and everybody got fed because that boy had surrendered that meal. over to Jesus. And so it is with Hannah. She surrenders Samuel over to God into the care of Eli. And a nation was blessed as a And I also see that we, I personally think that Eli got a blessing out of it because at the time Samuel enters the picture, Eli is watching his two sons sleeping with women, doing things they shouldn't do, messing around with the high calling of the priesthood. and doing it in a way that was profane and not the way God wanted him to do it. And he tried to talk them into not doing it. So he messed up raising his boys. Again, we all make our own choices. His boys chose to go that path. But could it be that maybe he wasn't as diligent as he could have been? And so here comes this young boy and this woman leaves this child with him. And it put a burden and a responsibility and an opportunity into the life of Eli. And he, and did he take it from that and say, I've got a chance to get it right this time. And I'm going to get it right. Was he a little bit more intentional about his training and his coaching and his parenting of Samuel? Because he saw, I got these two boys. We don't know about his wife, whether she's out of the picture. She's not mentioned. don't know, but you know, he's these two sons of mine are gone off the rails. I messed it up with him. and I've got this promised child that this woman has entrusted to me. I've got to get it right this time." And so by her surrender, she gave Eli a second chance to get it right. And he took advantage of it. And he helped shape Samuel into the man of God that was able to lead this nation effectively for many, many years ⁓ as a unique character in the fabric of the Bible. He was a Levite, so he was qualified to be a priest. So he was a true priest. He was a Nazarite. He was a prophet. He was a judge, and ultimately he was an anointer of kings. What a calling! And he was also a pastor to kings. And Saul messed up, and he brought him up short as well. So what a remarkable man! that we get out of this story, all because this woman in a truly heartfelt prayer ahead of time surrendered Samuel over to God and turned him loose into God. And when she walked away, she had no say so in whatever happened in Samuel's life, a once a year trip to bring him a coat. And that was about all that we know of her direct influence in his life from that moment on. So from the five, six, seven, eight years old till is adulthood. was out of the picture. She had surrendered to God and look what God did with it. So my encouragement to everybody in this episode today is to step back, take a look at your life, take a look at what you've got in your life and ask yourself some questions about, ⁓ I willing to surrender this to God? If you are, praise God. But what you have to do is in that moment of surrender, You have to take your hands off of it and allow God to do what only God is going to do with it. I don't get to tell God what to do with anything that surrendered to him. And as it's true in my life, that's true in anything I give over to him. And God very well will use that to bless other people if I surrender it in the proper attitude. There's a lot of other lessons that we can draw from the life of Samuel. I'm doing a four-week study that I'm finishing up this week. I'll probably come back at some point in the near future and kind of maybe recap, re-encapsulate some of the other life lessons that we get from them. There are so many, there are so many, it's a fascinating read in first Samuel. Those first five or six chapters alone are full of so many things and so many nuggets and so many amazing and even kind of weird stories that just, what are you doing in this God? You know, the story of the Philistines with the, with the, with what they did with the Ark and how they send it back and what happened after that, all those things like a fascinating race. So Samuel, ⁓ take a look at him. This Nazareth, Levite, priests, King, anoint her judge, but look at Hannah's life. Look at the surrender she did and look at your own life. So my prayer for you from this podcast is that you would step back, surrender something to God, and then take your hands off of it and see what he will do with it. Lord, I pray. Praise you for this opportunity to come to these people. I pray Lord that in this short time that I've been able to share what you've been given me and this burden that's on my heart about surrender, that you would use these words, God, that if somebody's struggling with surrendering something to you, that they would seriously look into doing that because you will make it more than fair when it's all said and done, Lord. But I know there's somebody out there that their life is not going the way they want it to. Their life is off the rails, so to speak. Maybe they're not surrendered to you. And they need to do that. Maybe they are surrendered to you, but it's still not going well for them. The diagnoses are still not changing. The health situation is still bad. The relationship is still broken, God. But if they have surrendered it over to you, Lord, help them take their hands off of it, have the right attitude and understand that what we've surrendered to you is yours to do with as you please. And may me walk in the peace and the comfort that you will work it out right. because you are good and may our trust and our grace and our faith be in you in that and I ask it Lord in the name of Jesus in the name of Jesus Lord let it be so and amen. So thank you for participating with me on today's episode of Revving Up. I will have people, I will have conversations. Those days are coming but for right now we're going to wrap it up for this episode and I look forward to catching you on the next one. This has been Revving Up with David Ross. Be sure to like, be sure to click, be sure to share. Help get the word out if this is being a blessing to you. If it is not, please let me know how I can do it better. I'm always looking to improve. And with that, we will catch you in the next episode.