Coming to Surrender

Terry Cavanaugh

Getting Through What You are Going Through • Sermon • Submitted 7 years ago

2 Samuel 12:16–19

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Welcome back for our third installment in this series of Getting Through What you are Going Through. I am so excited you are here is morning. If you are guest with us this morning, I am really thrilled you have joined us. This is a great day to be here at First UMC.

We are in the middle of series of Bible teachings on Getting Through what you are going through. The truth is we all have to face loss. The loss maybe the loss of a job, or the loss of a relationship, or it might be the loss of family member. There are thousands of losses we will need to go through some are life altering, some force us to find a new normal. Life will never be the same, but we can find a new way to live. That is what this series has been about. A few weeks ago we looking at how you survive the shock of loss. Last week we looked at how you get through sorrow, and today, I want us to see what the Bible has to say about Coming to the point of surrender.

“It is our tragedy that there is so often some part of our lives, some part of our activities, some part of ourselves which we do not give to Christ. Somehow there is nearly always something we hold back. We rarely make the final sacrifice and the final surrender.” -- William Barclay

I want to suggest four steps to complete and final surrender to God.

First Step in Surrender is Accept What Cannot be Changed

2 Samuel 12:22–23 NIV

He answered, “While the child was still alive, I fasted and wept. I thought, ‘Who knows? The Lord may be gracious to me and let the child live.’ But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

Rick Warrens sermons and stuff SURRENDER: THE PATH TO PEACE

That’s the first thing I have to do on the path to peace. That’s the first step in surrender. I have to accept what cannot be changed.

David had a child that was dying. He could not change that fact. Even though he was the most powerful man in Israel, some say in the world at that time, he was powerless to change the fact, he was about to loss his son. He called out to God to save this boy, but the child died. While the boy was still alive David prayed.

The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive The Lord’s Beloved

We’re told that when David went through this grief process … look at verse 16 … he got on the floor. They couldn’t get him off the floor. He got on the floor, and they could never get him up.

When TWA Flight 800 crashed, that week in the Time magazine that came out, they ran an article, a one-page essay, by a woman named Susan Cohen who had lost her only child, her daughter in the wreck, in the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie seven and a half years ago.

She wrote a one-page essay about what she went through. It’s so striking to be studying this and read what she said. When they came and they told her what happened, she said, “If I’d had a gun I would’ve shot myself, but all I could do was cry, scream, and crawl along the corridor floor of my motel.” Same thing as David. All he could do was cry and scream and crawl along the floor.

David had a child that was dying. He called out to God to save this boy, but the child died. While the boy was still alive David prayed. The

There is much in life we cannot change. You cannot change the weather. You cannot change other people. You cannot alway change situations you are in, just like David.

Keller, Timothy J. The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive. New York City: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013. Print.

David had a child that was dying. He called out to God to save this boy, but the child died. While the boy was still alive David prayed. The

There is much in life we cannot change. You cannot change the weather. You cannot change other people. You cannot alway change situations you are in.

When you fight against what cannot be changed, you have not energy left to work on what you can change.

There is much in life we cannot change. When you fight against what cannot be changed, you have not energy left to work for what can be changed.

There is much in life we cannot change. When you fight against that cannot be changed, you have not energy left to work for what can be changed.

Some people are hung up on the past, trying to change it.

Let me tell you what the biggest distraction for most people. Your past. Some of you refuse to let go of your past. You keep holding on to it. Either guilt – things that I’ve done to others – or resentment – things that others have done to me. You won’t let go of the guilt or the grudges or the grief. As a result you are stuck in the past. You cannot get on with the present. And you can’t certainly get on with God’s future for you if you’re stuck in the past. You need to let it go. Your past is past. It’s over. You’ve got to let it go so you can get on with the future. Stop rehearsing the past. Release it. Let it go.

I love this quote, I wish I knew who said it first, “You can't start writing the next chapter in you life, if you keep re-reading the last one.”

Some of you need to prayer this prayer by Reinhold Niebuhr. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. -Reinhold Niebuhr

Surrender is not giving up- it is going FORWARD.

Second Step is to Look for the Rest of the Story

2 Samuel 12:23 NIV

But now that he is dead, why should I go on fasting? Can I bring him back again? I will go to him, but he will not return to me.”

David understood he could not change the past. The child is dead, but that is not the end of the story. David had wept, but the time of weeping is over, he had fasted, but the time of fasting is over, he had laid on the floor but now it is time to get up.

David needed to begin to look for the next chapter in his life’s story. What does he do.

2 Samuel 12:24 NIV

Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him;

The New International Version (1984) Nathan Rebukes David

Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The LORD loved him;

David, experiencing the pain still, turned to his wife to comfort her.

Surrender is not giving up- it is going FORWARD.

Third Step is Take Care of Yourself

2 Samuel 12:20 NIV

Then David got up from the ground. After he had washed, put on lotions and changed his clothes, he went into the house of the Lord and worshiped. Then he went to his own house, and at his request they served him food, and he ate.

What reversal, David had been weeping, fasting, lying on the floor. He was so despondent his servants were afraid to tell him his son had died.

Look down in verse 18

2 Samuel 12:18 NIV

On the seventh day the child died. David’s attendants were afraid to tell him that the child was dead, for they thought, “While the child was still living, he wouldn’t listen to us when we spoke to him. How can we now tell him the child is dead? He may do something desperate.”

2 Sam

The servants were afraid that David might hurt himself. They were fearful he would broken or shattered beyond repair.

The Hebrew word used their for harm is רָעַע (rāʿaʿ) which means to break or shatter.

Livingston, G. Herbert. “2192 רָעַע.” Ed. R. Laird Harris, Gleason L. Archer Jr., and Bruce K. Waltke. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament 1999 : 856. Print.

Instead, with the new David gets up, cleans himself up, and eats for the first time in days. Why! He had come to surrender. Remember he had gone through the shock, he had gone through the sorrow, and now it is at the point of surrender.

Let me pause here and say, some people show their sorrow opening, others sorrow silently, but both are real, authentic, and genuine expressions of grief.

Surrender is not giving up- it is going FORWARD.

Fourth Step is Refocus on God

2 Samuel 12:20 NIV

2 Samuel 12:20

Notice what David did, he showed and shaved, and splashed on some Drakkar Noir Aftershave, and head off to, why, church. He went to the house of the lord and worshiped.

After a loss, some people back out of the church, but David understood he needed God more now then ever. So before he went to his own house to enjoy a meal of southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and Green beans, with a toss salad on the side, he went to church.

When you are faced with bad news, and your world is coming apart at the seams, do you turn to God. David said...

Psalm 73:16-17

Psalm 73:16–17 NIV

When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

Listen to the prayer he prays in Psalm 51

Psalm 51:15–17 NIV

Open my lips, Lord, and my mouth will declare your praise. You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.

Timothy Keller said it well when he said, “Suffering is like a very dark room. The Bible will give you enough light not to see into every corner, not to see everything that’s in the room, not to answer all your questions, but enough light to live by, enough life to walk by so you don’t stumble and fall and knock your teeth out.”

Surrender is not giving up- it is going FORWARD.

1 Keller, Timothy J.

Surrender is not giving up- it is going FORWARD.

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