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Lansing SDA Church

David Shin

Lesson of Surrender


Moses' life can be divided into 3 sets of 40. He lived almost exactly 120 years. And the first set, he was in Egypt as a prince. The second set, he was a shepherd for 40 years. And the third set, he's most notably known for, he was Moses, the deliverer of the Exodus.

And when you look at Exodus chapter 4, This is at a low point in Moses' life. He was in exile. He's approximately 80 years of age, which was not a young man even in those days. And he thought that He had blown it. He had just killed, not just, but a few years before, he had killed an Egyptian and that's why he was there in Egypt or exiled from Egypt in Midian.

He had started a family. And if you are at a place in your life when you're wondering what your future holds, what calling or purpose God could possibly have for your life, this message in Exodus 4, verses 1-5 is for you, amen? And here the call of God comes to Moses. By the way, it was during this second set of 40 that scholars believed that Moses wrote the book of Job as well as the book of Genesis. And Moses answered, Exodus 4, verses 1-5, and said, but suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice.

Suppose they say the Lord has not appeared to you. So the Lord said to Moses, what is that in your hand? And he said, a rod or a stick. And he said, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground and it became a serpent.

Not the most attractive thing for a stick to become. And Moses fled from it, and the Lord said to Moses, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. And he reached out his hand and caught it and it became a rod in his hand. On the screen I have a picture of a snake. And when I was in academy in Arkansas, I was going in my chest of drawers to pick up an article of clothing and I opened my third drawer and there was a four-foot black rat snake that was curled up there that was waiting for me.

I was quite startled and I had the same response that Moses had here in Exodus chapter 4. I ran. This is an interesting story because Moses is called by God to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt into the Promised Land. And between God and Moses, there's this interesting interchange that involves something that Moses is holding in his hand, and it's a common shepherd's staff, a stick, a rod that he's holding in his hand and God says, what's that in your hand? And he said, it's a rod.

And he said, I want you to let it go. I want you to throw it on the ground. And I want to begin by just dwelling upon this staff and what it meant to Moses. You may think that it didn't mean a lot, but for a shepherd, the rod, the staff that they carried was an indication of Moses' or a shepherd's identity. He was a shepherd.

That was his livelihood. His occupation was what defined him for the last 40 years, and It was a means of how he provided for his family. We live in an age today where people, when you ask them their name, shortly thereafter they say, I am a, In my case, I am a pastor. It's an age of existentialism where what we do defines us. We don't say I do pastoral work.

I say I am a pastor, I'm a lawyer, I'm a doctor or a teacher, I'm a professional. What we do defines us for better or for worse. And here God was saying, what is that in your hand? And he said, it's a staff. And that staff meant something to Moses.

For the last 40 years he had been tending sheep. It was a symbol of his identity. It gave him meaning and purpose for his life. He was a shepherd. The other thing that that staff represented to Moses was as a shepherd he provided for his family, it was a source of his income.

That was how he put bread on the table. It was his salary. And when you have a steady job, a stable occupation and income, and someone asks you to walk away from it, It's not easy. It's difficult. This was Moses' security, his stability.

This was the way that he provided for his family. And God said, what's that in your hand? And for Moses up to that point, you may think, oh, it's just a stick. But for Moses, it represented his occupation, his identity, his income, and his security. Everything that Moses had been and done for the last 40 years was bound up in that staff.

The other thing that that stick represented was his influence. Because for a shepherd, that staff was a way that he guided the sheep. He led the sheep with the staff. He also would protect the sheep with the staff when animals would come to take the sheep away. It was a means of protection.

It symbolized his influence. I heard 1 leadership guru say, leadership is influence. You heard that before? Nothing less, nothing more. And for a man like Moses, that staff represented everything that he was for over 4 decades.

His identity, His income, and His influence. And God said, what is that in your hand? He said, it's my staff, it's my identity, my influence, my purpose, everything that I am. And he said, I want you to let that go. Throw it on the ground.

And this is a lesson in surrender that many times when God calls us to a mighty work, a higher purpose, a higher calling, that before we can accept the call of God, He asks us to let something go. Why is surrender so difficult? Isn't it hard when God says, I want all of you, not just 99.99%, but 100% of your life? I remember when I first got into pastoral ministry, the brethren at the conference were quite concerned because I was single. They thought that it's not good that man should be alone, Daniel.

And Lauren Nelson, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, thought that this man needs to be sent down to Berrien Springs as a youth pastor in close proximity to Andrews University. Because they say that more than anything else, proximity determines your future spouse. And I was there for 3 years as a single youth pastor, and things were just not working out. I was single, And the brethren were getting more and more worried. And I have a confession to make that this was 1 area of my life that I was not willing to surrender.

I said, Lord, you can have every other area of my life, but marriage and who I marry, I want my fingers in this area. Because I thought that if I surrendered this area that the Lord perhaps did not have my best interest in mind. And after a period of time, I got to a place where I recognized that things were not working out. I was at ministerial up at Camp Asobol and Paul Razzaro was there and he had just given a convicting presentation about surrender, about how giving every area of your life over to God. And I was so convicted, so on the 3 and a half hour ride back to Berrien Springs from Grayling, I had a conversation with God, and it went something like this.

I said, Lord, I don't want to be single. But I tell you what, if you want me to be single for the rest of my life, Like the Apostle Paul, I won't like it, but I accept it. Help me to surrender. And this was 1 area of my life that I was just hanging on to. Now, I'm a pastor.

And I said, Lord, I let it go. I surrender this area of my life. I'm giving you the reins of control. And Lord, if you want me to be single, I'll be single. But whatever it is that you want me to do, I will do.

And I drove into Berrien Springs on Old 31, just having prayed that prayer, and I prayed it with a sense of intrepidation, but once I prayed the prayer, I felt so liberated." I don't know why we hang on to our staffs, our sticks. We're just like, this is so precious to me. But this was 1 thing I was hanging on to, and I said, this is mine. And once I let it go, I felt so liberated, so free. And I said, Lord, you can have total control, and I rode into Berrien Springs, and the moment I passed by Apple Valley, I get a phone call.

It was Tenille. Amen. And she said, hey, me and some friends are going to be getting together. You want to come and hang out? And that was the beginning of a friendship and, You know we're married today hallelujah The lesson of surrender is a lesson of trust trusting that God has your best interest in mind.

Amen? And many times when we let go, God's like, all right, you can let it go. It's not so much the thing that you're hanging on to, but I had placed so much a precedence of marriage in my life that it was kind of like an idol. And God said, I want you to let it go. Once I let it go, he said alright, now you're ready to move on.

And Moses here was at a pivotal point in his life. He's hanging on to the staff and God said I want you to let it go. Your identity, your income, your influence, everything that you are as a man, let it go. And once he let it go, it became alive. Amen.

It became alive. That lifeless stick that he had been hanging on to became a living, breathing organism. Give it up and Your life will become alive. Surrender and your life will be filled with vitality. We're never called upon, Listen to this, this is from Ministry of Healing, 474.

We're never called upon to make a real sacrifice for God. Many things he has asked us to yield to him, but in doing this we are but giving up that which hinders us in our heavenward way, even when called upon to surrender those things which in themselves are good, we may be sure that God is thus working out for us some higher good." Amen? I have a question for you here this morning. What is God calling you to surrender? That area of your life that God is saying, let it go.

It may not be bad in and of itself, but God is saying, I want control, complete control of this area of your life. And God said, let it go, surrender. We're never called upon to make a real sacrifice for God. It was just a simple stick. There was nothing magical about it, but once Moses surrendered it to God, it became the rod of God.

And you notice that throughout the Exodus, every place that Moses went with the children of Israel, that shepherd's stick became a symbol of the power of God. You remember when they were before Pharaoh, He cast down that staff and it became a living serpent. Evidence of God's miracle and God's power, God's grace. At the Red Sea, he put the staff across the Red Sea and the Red Sea divided, a bed of dry land between them and the other side. There were other miracles that happened with Moses and that staff.

And when Moses surrendered to the Lord, we can read this quotation and know it was true for Moses, it can be true for each 1 of us here today. There is no limit to the usefulness of those who put self aside, make room for the working of the Holy Spirit upon their lives, and lives wholly consecrated to God. What is God calling you to surrender today? I believe that every person in this room, God has plans for your life. He's got a vision for your life that is higher than the heavens or higher than the earth.

Do you believe that? He's got a purpose for you, and here Moses is 80 years of age. He thinks that he's blown it. He doesn't think he has a future ahead of him and he's thinking to himself, what possibly can God do through me? And God says, what's that in your hand?

What's that you're holding on to? Let it go. And you will see miracles happen before your very eyes. The question comes to us, how can I surrender? We hear this all the time, surrender to God, give your life to God, give your heart to God, how do you do it?

And I think that all of us can relate that it's easy to give a part of our lives to God, but there's always a portion of our lives, it seems, that it's difficult to hand over the reins. And I believe that surrender is a progressive part of the Christian walk. In other words, there may be a part of your life that God is asking you to give up now, but in the trajectory of your Christian experience, as you walk closer and closer to Him, He's like this area of your life. And then He goes to another area of your life, until you're living a life of total dependence upon God. That's the Christian walk.

This is a daily experience. It's not a 1 and done thing. How do I live a life, an attitude of surrender? I think of a Jewish writer that was consumed in a novel. He wanted to be a New York Times bestselling novelist, and he had devoted years of his life to writing this particular book.

He was in a kibbutz in Israel, and he was basically living to write. Made no income, just made barely enough to eat and write. And the novel was coming together beautifully, and there were a series of circumstances. He met the Lord, heard about the Sabbath, was baptized into God's church. He was experiencing the joy of salvation.

And he was in his room 1 day in that Jewish kibbutz, and the Holy Spirit came to him. And when you read his autobiography, this Jewish writer says it was almost an audible voice came down from heaven and said, it's either the book or me. The book or God. You need to make a decision. And he said it was the most difficult thing that he'd ever done because here he was at the crossroads.

God said, surrender that book. And he's like, look, that book's my life. It's my identity. It's my future income. Everything that I am up to this point is bound up in that book.

How do I get rid of it? And the question was there, it's either the book or me, what's it going to be? And he prayed to the Lord and said, Lord, help me because I can't help myself. He prayed, got down on his knees, asked the Lord for victory. He got up, took that precious manuscript of which there was only 1 copy, put it on the hot burner, turned it on, and he watched it go up in flames.

He said he swept the ashes out on his front porch and went to bed. That man is the editor of our Sabbath School Quarterly, Clifford Goldstein. Arguably, 1 of the greatest modern contemporary contributors to Adventism. He's written quite a few books. And in the end, when he let it go, God had much more in store for Cliff Goldstein.

Amen? He's at the general conference right now. Then the language of the soul will be, Lord, take my heart, for I cannot give it. It is thy property, keep it pure, for I cannot keep it for thee. Save me in spite of myself, my weak, un-Christlike self.

Mold me, fashion me, raise me into a pure and holy atmosphere where the rich current of thy love can flow through my soul. What a wonderful prayer. It's found in Steps to Christ. And each 1 of us can pray this prayer today, saying, Lord, I can't even give my heart. Please take it.

I can't even keep it pure, keep it pure for me. Help me in spite of myself, my weak, unchristlike self. This is the prayer of surrender. How many of you want to pray that prayer with me here today? Say, Lord, help me.

Take my heart because I can't give it. Let's bow our heads together as we pray. Our Father in heaven, We thank you for the example of Moses today. He was at a point in his life when he thought he had no future. What could the Lord possibly do through a murderer like Moses?

He had blown it. And Lord, yet you came to him and said, what is in your hand? That stick, that staff represented everything that he was and once he let it go, it became alive. And Lord, you were able to do wonderful things through Moses, and I believe that every person here, you have a plan for their life. You have a purpose.

You have a dream. You have a vision. And we pray that each 1 of us would pray this prayer of surrender. Lord, take my heart, because I can't give it. In the quietness of our own hearts, we pray that each 1 of us, whatever we may be hanging on to, whatever it may be that we may be clinging to, We pray that you would help us, work in us, to will and to do of your good pleasure to let it go.

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