Surrender To Me and Multiply

Good morning, Summit Church.

Welcome to all of our campuses. If you have your Bible, I'd invite you to take that out now, and I hope that you do have your Bible. Open it to Genesis chapter 22. If you have your multiplied book, if you brought that with you, there's a great place to take notes on page 47 just for this week if you want to turn there as you're doing that. I think I've told you before about one sophomore in one of our local universities around here who was stressed out all semester in anticipation of the notoriously difficult final exam in his ornithology class. Do you know ornithology? The study of birds. That's exactly right.

You're smart. Having made what he regarded to be the ultimate effort in preparation for this final exam, he was dismayed when he walked into the classroom to take the test because instead of the usual multiple-choice essay-based questions on birds and their habitats that he had been expecting, there were no test materials at all. Simply 25 pictures on the screen and not pictures of different birds and all their splendid color, not pictures of their habitats, simply pictures of birds' feet.

And the test was to identify all 25 species of birds by their feet alone. This is insane, the student protested. It must be done, replied the professor. This is your final exam. I won't do it, the frustrated student said.

I am not going to take this exam. I'm walking out. If you walk out, said the professor, you will fail. Fine. Go ahead and fail me, said the student. He said, fine. Then you, said the professor, you are failed.

Tell me your name as the boy walked out. And the student reached out and said, you tell me, professor, you tell me what my name is. That's not really true. But anyway, it sets this up that all of us, I think, probably have the experience of going through a test if you remember back in college that you didn't really feel like reflected accurately your knowledge of the subject at hand. A test is supposed to reveal accurately what you know, what's inside of you. Well, throughout Abraham's life, we see God testing him again and again, but the whole purpose is to prove what is actually inside of him. Abraham, do you really trust me? You say that you trust me, but do you really trust me? Are you really ready to follow me anywhere?

I mean, you think about it. I've asked you, why didn't God immediately give to Abraham this promised son the moment that Abraham started to follow God? Why didn't God whisk him away immediately to the promised land when Abraham said yes? Instead, Abraham has to wait 30 or 40 years to receive the son, and instead of going right to the promised land, God leads him on this circuitous journey that is fraught with all kinds of dangers and heartbreaks and setbacks. Why?

This is so important. I've explained it. It's because God was not just trying to take Abraham somewhere. He was not just trying to give Abraham something.

He was trying to make Abraham into someone. You see, what God is doing in you is just as important as what he is doing through you. God desires not just to take you to heaven, we say. He also wants to put heaven inside of you. So that's what this multiply season is really all about. God is not only wanting to multiply us wide as a church, as important as that is, he also wants to multiply faith and surrender and love and commitment deep into us. And so in Genesis 22, you're going to see a story of Abraham going through another test.

It's a test that you're going to have to go through as well. This one is by far, for Abraham, the most difficult he has ever faced. Give you the context really quickly by Genesis 22. Abraham has finally had his miracle baby. They named this baby Isaac, which means literally in Hebrew, son of laughter, because this whole thing is just funny. They all seem to understand that.

I mean, think about it. Abraham and I, Abraham and Sarah were both about 100 when they had this miracle baby, which means that for their birthdays that year, Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac all got diapers, right? And they just think that that's funny, so they named him son of laughter.

Genesis 22, verse 1, after these things, after all the birth things, Isaac is now, scholars say, about 15 years old. After these things, God tested Abraham, it's a key word if you want to underline stuff in your Bible, and said to him, Abraham. And Abraham responds with, here am I. Now, here am I is not just Hebrew for hello. It is a way of saying, I stand ready now for your command.

It is a statement that indicates surrender. Here am I. I'm ready for whatever you're going to say. To be frank with you, I find that reaction, that response pretty remarkable, considering that every time God has called Abraham up to this point, he seems to ask him to leave something good, to give up something cherished, or to attempt something impossible. I'll be honest, I think by this point in Abraham's life, I'd be tempted to be like, oh no, what is it that you were going to ask me this time? I remember in college, there was a mission speaker who was pretty frequent at the church that I attended, that he was so persuasive and so challenging about the mission field, I just dreaded when he would speak, because I just knew that this was the week that God was going to call me to go to the mission field. I remember one of my roommates was like, who's speaking at church this week?

And I told him, and he was like, oh, get ready for conviction. Abraham doesn't respond this way, and it's pretty remarkable, and there's one reason that he doesn't respond that way, and that's because Abraham has learned to trust God. Abraham says, here am I, because you trust God. You see, the difference in a life of drudgery and a life of joy is based on one factor, and that is whether you actually trust God.

I love how the writer of the hymn says it, "'Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take him at his word, just to rest upon his promise, just to know, thus says the Lord." If you have a life of faith and joy, it is because you have learned to trust God. You show me a happy Christian. You show me a consistent Christian, and I'll show you somebody who's learned to trust. You show me a faltering Christian. You show me a Christian who goes through a lot of ups and downs and hot and cold and wandering and following. I'll show you somebody who has yet to learn how good God is and how committed he is to us.

It has nothing to do with how strong of a character you have and everything to do with your confidence in the goodness of God. Verse two, so God says, so God says, take your son. By the way, Hebrew scholars tell us that at this point, the language here in Hebrew suddenly slows down dramatically.

Up until this point, the story's moved at a pretty fast clip. Abraham did this, and then God did this, and then this happened over here. And all of a sudden, the language in Hebrew just slams to a crawl. Scholars say you should almost read it like you would put a period after every couple of words, after every word for emphasis.

So you would read it like this. Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I shall tell you. The word for son in Hebrew, the word ben, is used 10 times over and over and over again. Your son, your only son, the son whom you love. It reverberates through Abraham's soul because what God is asking here seems unbelievable. You see, this child represented everything to Abraham. This was the child of promise. This was what they had left everything for, all their hopes and all their dreams and all their affections centered upon this child. Now as an old man, this is all Abraham really loves and lives for in the world anymore. I mean, think about it. Abraham was rich.

He was an old man, which means that all he basically did every day was play with Isaac. And now God is saying to him about that thing that he loves and he lives for and he trusts himself with. Offer that to me now as a burnt offering.

And I know you might ask the question here, well how could God ever ask something like that? And I will deal with that in just a moment, but for now, for right now, just know that you could let this represent for you that one thing in your life that you treasure and trust the most. That one thing that makes life worth living for you. As the text proceeds, you're going to notice that nobody's talking. Nobody's talking. There's only silence.

What is that one thing for you that if you lost it, you would be speechless, you would just be in stunned silence. Verse three, so Abraham arose early in the morning, saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. And he cut the wood for the burnt offering and he arose and went to the place in which God had told him. Verse four, on the third day, the third day.

Honestly, y'all, I think in three days I would have talked myself out of this. But see, Abraham's faith is not just an initial response. It's not something emotional in a service. Abraham's faith is going to come from somewhere different. I'm going to show you that. Verse five, then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey. I and the boy will go over there and worship.

That's an interesting word that he chose to describe what he was going to do. Going to worship and watch this, we will come again to you. In Hebrew, the word for come again is plural. Which Abraham was going off by himself and he's saying, we're going to come back.

Not just me, there's going to be two of us that come back. He knew somehow, he was convinced that they were both coming back because he knew God had a promise to fulfill. And he didn't know how it was going to work out, but he knew that it was going to work out because God had promised it. Verse six, and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and he laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took the hand in his hand, the fire and the knife, and they both went on together, just the two of them. And Isaac at some point said to his daddy, Abraham, and his daddy said, here am I, my son. And he said, behold, dad, I see the fire and I see the wood, but where's the lamb for the burnt offering?

Isn't that the most important part of the offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son. Now, by the way, you see what Abraham has been doing for three days in that dark silence. He has been rehearsing to himself the promises of God. He was probably recounting the encounter in Genesis 15, where God, if you recall, made himself responsible for both sides of the covenant, not just his part. He made himself responsible for Abraham's promise for part of it. And you can see Abraham walking up that mountain in silence, just saying to himself, and God, God, you said this, this is what you promised. I don't see how it's going to happen, but God, you've got to provide. I don't know what you're going to do.

This is so important. Listen, what drove Abraham up the mountain was not the strength of his character. It was not Abraham saying, you can do it, you can do it, be a brave man.

What he was saying in his heart is, God is faithful. The only thing that will drive you onward as a husband, as a father, in ministry, through difficult times, through financial hardship, in a season where you feel like you don't know what's going on, the only thing that drives you onward is your confidence in the goodness and the character and the promises of God. Even the youth shall falter. Even the strongest men shall utterly fall, says Isaiah, but it's those who wait upon the Lord. They are the ones who will renew their strength. They're the ones who will mount up with wings as eagles. They're the ones who will walk and not be weary.

They're the ones who will run and never grow faint. You want to fly like an eagle, it has nothing to do with you being a superman or superwoman, it has to do with you understanding and believing the promises of God. That's what turns people into heroes of faith. Verse 9, when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built that altar there and he laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and laid him up on the altar on top of the wood. By the way, kudos to Isaac here, right? If Isaac were strong enough to carry the wood, he definitely would have been strong enough to evade or overcome a frail old man. Remember, scholars say he was at least 15.

Some say he may have been 20 years old by this point. Here he is crawling up on the altar trusting God and his dad. Would your teenager do that? If you're a teenager, would you do that for your parents?

Not going to know over there, is that what I heard? The only way Isaac could do this is if he had inherited his daddy's trust in God. And the way that he did that is by hearing his daddy talk about the promises of God all the time.

And then he saw his daddy live out his faith in the promises of God. It's not bringing your kid to church. It's not calling them a Christian.

It's not sending them to a Christian school that's going to do this. It's when they hear you in difficult times rehearse the promises of God and you live it out so consistently and so faithfully that their trust, your trust, becomes their trust. And when it comes time for them to get on the altar, they do so without question. Verse 10, then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

Now let me take a moment to address the question many of you asked a moment ago. How could God ever command something like this? Well see, this was not just a command to murder Isaac. If so, Abraham could have just stabbed him in the tent and been done with it.

Something much deeper is going on. You see, the offering of the firstborn in the Old Testament was supposed to symbolize the debt that every man and every woman owed to God. Throughout the Old Testament, God lays claim to our firstborn because our firstborn represents our very lives. So in the Hebrew sacrificial system, God requires the firstborn of the cattle or the sheep to be sacrificed to Him as well as the first fruits of the grain. The only way you could spare the life of the firstborn was to make a substitute sacrifice to give something to release the firstborn from its obligation.

So for example, at the Passover when God delivers the children of Israel, He kills the firstborn of every household in Egypt except the ones that have taken a firstborn lamb and taken the blood and put it on the doorpost. In other words, the life of the firstborn was forfeit unless some sort of redeeming sacrifice was made. God was showing through this that there is a debt that every family owes to Him and it goes to the core of our very lives.

It is a debt we owe because of our sin. We, all of us, are underneath the condemnation of death and so this firstborn represents the debt we owe to God. That's why Abraham understood what God was asking of him. One Old Testament teacher says it this way, if Abraham had thought God had told him kill Sarah and then I'll know that you love me, he would never have done that.

He would have concluded that he had been hallucinating because God would not have commanded senseless murder like that and God would not have said it because it would have been senseless murder. But when God said to Abraham, offer Isaac, Abraham knew exactly what that meant. It meant the firstborn.

It represented his very life and his hope and the debt that every man and every woman and every family owes to God. Back to verse 11, with the knife now suspended in the air, the angel of the Lord suddenly appears from heaven and says, Abraham, Abraham, and he said, here am I. Verse 12, do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know, now I know, says God, that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son. You have not withheld your only son from me.

I see now the love that you have for me. I see the commitment to me because you wouldn't even withhold Isaac. Abraham proved himself. Abraham passed the test. Abraham showed that there was nothing he would not trust to God. There was nowhere he would not go with God. Verse 13, and Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, watch this, and behold behind him was a ram.

He hadn't noticed that before. Caught in a thicket by its horns, a thorn bush by its horns, and Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering in the place of his son. So Abraham called, watch this, the name of that place the Lord will provide. As it is said to this day on the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided. He called it Jehovah-jireh, which means God is my provider. Now see, when you give a name to something in Hebrew, it's very significant because it is supposed to encapsulate or summarize the significance of what happened there. Do you not find it interesting that the name of the place is the Lord will provide, not how Abraham obeyed? Isn't the whole story about how Abraham obeys? Why would he call the place the Lord provides? It's because you see something more important than Abraham's impressive obedience that is being demonstrated to us here.

It is God's commitment to us that is being demonstrated. You see, centuries later another son, another one and only son whom the father loves, would walk up a mountain. And again, that son would willingly crawl up on the wood, but this time the knife would not be stopped in mid-air.

This time the knife would slash straight into the heart of the beloved son, Jesus, God's son. By the way, these mountains of Moriah that we notice, you ever wonder why did he make him walk three days to the mountains of Moriah? There were closer mountains to where he was.

The mountains of Moriah, scholars tell us, were right outside of what later became Jerusalem. Scholars say that is precisely the place where Mount Calvary would have been, where Jesus was crucified on the cross. In other words, on the very mountain where Jesus would one day die, a drama was enacted hundreds of years before Jesus came. It is as if Abraham plays the part of God. The father in Isaac plays the part of Jesus, the son. But only up until the moment that God stopped the sacrifice and pointed to the lamb caught in the thorn bushes.

By the way, the fact that it was caught by the horns in the thorn bushes means that its body was still unblemished. More than a thousand years later when Jesus walked up the same mountain, no substitute lamb would be provided because he was himself the unblemished lamb. No angel would stay the hand of God as he took the knife of justice and plunged it into the son's chest. The son's chest, God would willingly, Jesus would willingly stay on the altar and because of that, we could know that the father loves us since he has withheld, not withheld his son, his only son from us. You see, this story is not first and foremost about Abraham's commitment to God. It is about God's commitment to Abraham, which is why they named the place God will provide, not Abraham will obey.

But there's a profound connection you see between the two. There's a connection between your understanding of God's commitment to you and your, and your willingness to give everything to him. It is only when you see that God has not withheld his son, his only son, the son that he loves for you, it is only then that you will release everything that you have to him. For those of you who will not give God everything, for those of you for whom the Christian life is drudgery, it is precisely because you do not understand the commitment of the Lord Jesus Christ to you that though you were rich for your sake, though he was rich for your sake, you became poor so that he, you through his poverty might become rich.

Watch what happens as a result of all this. Verse 15, and the angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven and he said, by myself I have sworn declares the Lord because, if you underline stuff in your Bible that's what you underline, because you've done this and you have not withheld your son, your only son, I surely will bless you and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven as the sand that is on the seashore. And in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because you have obeyed my voice. It is because of obedience that the blessing will extend to the earth. It was because of Jesus's obedience to willingly crawl up on the altar that you and I got to be saved. By extension, listen to this, it is also by Abraham's obedience and our obedience that the blessing extends to the rest of the world. It's not that God needs our Isaac, he does not need our Isaac.

God could make as many sons as he needed to from Abraham. It's that when we take our first and our best, when we take what is most precious to us and we offer it in surrender to God, that is the means by which God multiplies the kingdom in the earth. It is the means by which other people come to faith in Christ.

It ought to make you, it ought to inspire you and scare you, but what you do literally changes the eternities of people around the world. You and I are sitting here because Abraham by the grace of God obeyed. There are other people who will one day sit in the kingdom as sons and daughters of the king because you and I do the same thing that Abraham did in this chapter here, which leads me to two I would say profound questions I need to ask you about your life.

The first one is very important, do you actually understand the gospel? Because see a lot of people read stories like this one and think it's all about how well that they can obey. They think, oh am I going to be like Abraham? I don't know if I can be as surrendered as Abraham. I hope that maybe if God let Abraham in maybe he'll let me in, but I'm not as good as Abraham. This story is not about how well Abraham obeyed compared to how well you obey. This story is ultimately about the fact that Jesus would obey in your place. He is the son who did it all so that you could go free. You're Isaac in this story. You get to go free while the lamb dies in your place.

All you do is believe and receive it. I've compared coming to Christ before like waking up in an ambulance. You wake up in an ambulance and the doctor and the EMT that are there doing this emergency treatment of you tell you you've been in a terrible wreck and you are about to die, but it's okay we got you just in time and we've saved you. They're not asking you to jump up and save yourself.

In fact that would probably hurt the process. They're asking you just to lay there and consent because they're doing the saving. To come to Christ means that you wake up and you realize that Jesus Christ has obeyed perfectly in your place and he just says let me do it and you consent to let yourself be saved. That's what it means to come to Christ. But see what happens then is in response to that in response to that you realize that a God who saved you when you were hopeless and gave everything up for you in your place is a God who deserves the full and total and unrestricted offering of your life back to him. I love how the hymn writer says when I survey when I survey the wondrous cross on which the prince of glory died then my richest gain I count the loss and I pour contempt on all my pride see from his head his hands his feet sorrow and love flow mingled down did air such love and sorrow meet or joy over saving me composed so rich a crown and then the writer writes almost like an involuntary reaction were the whole realm of nature mine that would be a present far too small love so amazing so divine demands my soul my life my all that word demands there's not like a tyrant demands you got to give me this or I'm going to punish you that word demands me deserves in light of how hopeless I was in light of the nothingness that I had a God who rescued me this way there's nothing I can withhold from him everything has to be a blank check that I laid down at his feet because that is what he is worthy of and that's what he deserves full and total sacrifice comes from understanding the sacrifice that Jesus made for you which leads me to the second question in response are you fully surrendered in all things to him in response are you fully surrendered in all things to him in response to what God's done for you have you offered yourself as a living sacrifice back to him have you given him that blank check that we often talk about a blank check that says anywhere anytime any place you cash it whenever you want for whatever amount my name is signed to it because all that I am all that I have all that I ever hope to be now and forever is your possession I owe my life to you you see the point I got I want you to understand this this is very important the point is not that you identify your Isaac and give it to God as if that what's that's what God needs from you the point is that you give God all things which includes your Isaac your Isaac just represents that one thing that makes full surrender difficult for you what is that for you what is that thing that would make full and total surrender difficult for you that kind of last holdout that says God you can have anything but don't touch this the point is not that God needs your Isaac the point is that in every single part of your life in response to God's extravagant gift you have offered yourself back without restriction to him you see Abraham's offering on this mountain encapsulates the things that we have said should should characterize how we offer ourselves back to God during this season I've told you multiply is not about us supplying some need for God and doing something for God in the world that he needs done multiply is primarily about us saying back to God God you we owe you everything and God you have promised to bless us so as you've given yourself to us we're going to offer ourselves back to you and we've given you a tool for those of you that are a part of our church now if you're a guest here this is your first week I'm not talking to you but we've given you a tool this card and this card is supposed to represent one part of your life in which you are going to respond to God like Abraham responded to God and there are several things and what Abraham did here that ought to characterize what you end up as a part of the summit church end up putting down on this in the week to come they give you three words that should be reflected on there that you'll see in the story of Abraham the first word is faith the first word is faith Abraham trusted God with his future he didn't know how it was going to work out but he said God this is my this is my future what's your future plan uh Abraham it's Isaac what's your retirement plan it's Isaac what's your hope in the world it's Isaac what I want from you Abraham is Isaac and he puts it there and he trusts God I've told you that apart from faith there is no work that God does in and through us it's always supposed to feel like a risk because that's what it means to live by faith remember that in the analogy of the seed I used it the first week when a farmer takes seed and he plants it a seed is a risk because you can take most seeds and grind them up for food and consume them but to take a seed and put it in the ground you're taking a risk because you're saying if the sun doesn't shine and the rain doesn't come then that seed is just going to go to waste there's a risk that is involved that's why I've told you C.S. Lewis is what in the mere Christianity he says the only safe guideline the only safe guideline that I can give you for giving says C.S. Lewis they can't give you a rule because there's no rules in the New Testament about this he said the only safe guideline that I can give you is to give in a way that scares you because only when it scares you do you know that you're taking a risk and do you know that you're trusting God he's got to multiply both for your provision and for the blessing of the world when we looked at Cain and Abel last week we saw two two young men who made an offering to God both of them were generous offerings the only distinguishable difference between Cain and Abel's offering I showed you was that Abel gave of his first he gave before the rest of it came in which meant the first and the best went to God and he trusted God with what God would provide after Cain's by contrast was very generous but Cain waited until it was all in so he could see what he had and then he gave out of the excess Cain is I told you what we call a December giver somebody who waits to the end make sure everything's taken care of and then out of the excess they give to God they were both generous offerings but God was pleased with Abel's and he disliked Cain's and the reason is not because of the amount the reason is because of the faith that either one declared Cain had no faith and Abel did and without faith it is impossible to please God as the writer of Hebrews so faith ought to be reflected in in what you go through number two sacrifice sacrifice this is about what Abraham loved and cherished most in the world we often define sacrifice here as giving up something you love for something you love even more and God says to Abraham the way that I know that you love me the way that I know that you honor me is because even that thing that is most precious to you you've laid on the altar and said God even that is something that you are in control of you see what we do ought to record ought to reflect the fact that our heart is declaring to God this is what I love you it costs me it costs me but this is my declaration of your value to to me it's a story I haven't told you this time around but it's one of the most profound stories in the old testament about about giving to God about responding to God it is a story that king David right toward the end of his life king David is going to make an offering to God and he's going to give the piece of property that will one day become the property they build the temple on and so a God comes to David and says David I own this piece of property that would be great for the temple why don't I just give it to you and then you just give it to God and David responds second Samuel 24 24 by saying no I must pay you full price because I cannot give to the Lord that which costs me nothing now if this had been about supplying the needs of God then David would not have said that because he would have been like here's the property hey I didn't have to pay anything it just goes straight to God but David knew that his response was not about meeting the needs of God his response was about making a declaration to God about the amount that he loved him and so he said I can't give unto the Lord that which cost me nothing I've got to give unto the Lord that which cost me dearly because only then will I be able to make a statement that shows that I love him you see you measure generosity in the bible not by the size of the gift you measure generosity in the bible by the size of the sacrifice you measure by the size of the sacrifice and the depth of the obedience you see there are some of you there are some of you who could write a check that would would would what I mean it would like just blow everybody away just the amount and the size of it but a hundred thousand dollar check doesn't mean anything to the guy who has 10 million dollars at his disposal it's something that's almost second thought to him God says what I want from you is I want you to respond to me in a way that declares to me does your how you respond to God declare where your value is and and the love that you have for him I got to know this week from Jamie Warren who's sitting right down here in front of me who helps direct some of our prison ministry initiatives here and has been instrumental in helping us get this campus begun there in the weight correctional facility she said this she said one of the guys from Wake County maybe he's here this week wanted to be able to give an offering but doesn't have access to money because you know I'm being imprisoned but had postage stamps so he put those in the offering last week he mentioned to me that I might should mention it to you because he's sure whoever took the offering was pretty confused and may have thought that someone was crazy but he assumed that the church mailed stuff out and we do a lot and could probably use those stamps and it's all that he had so I was what I think okay so this is probably the clearest and best illustration of a story like where the two mites you know the woman who gives the two half pennies and Jesus says they gave more than all the rich people combined because they gave what they had that's one of the clearest stories I've ever seen demonstrations in our church God measures the generosity not by the size of the gift it's by the size of the sacrifice the question is does what you how you respond to God what does what you do during this season does it show God that you love him and does it bless his heart the way that Abraham's offering did here's letter C full surrender and this might be the most important of all of them listen very closely to this surrender surrender is different than sacrifice because you can make a lot of sacrifices and still be in charge you just get to choose which ones you're going to sacrifice you you can you can surrender is different than obedience because you can obey like 99.9 percent of the laws of God and you can still be fully in charge of your life and not have given over the thing that is your Isaac in fact I would say we got a lot of people in the church that probably are in that category surrender is a blank check surrender is no restrictions no limitations all that I have there is nothing off limits it all belongs to you surrender is like a die that bleeds through everything else in your life it certainly affects what you sacrifice it certainly will control your obedience but it is more than sacrifice and it is more than obedience it goes down to the very root of who you are surrender is the response of a grateful heart that says God you gave everything for me and without you I'd have nothing so in response here is all that I have does that make sense it's different and some of you are measuring the wrong thing you're measuring sacrifice and obedience but what God says is in response to the gospel you're supposed to say we're the whole realm of nature mine that would be a present far too small love so amazing so divine it is my soul my life my all I've often thought of it like this and I think I've explained this to you before if you eat eggs and bacon for breakfast both the chicken and the pig contributed apart to your breakfast and you're grateful for both of them but in profoundly different ways the chicken made a generous contribution but the pig he was surrendered he was surrendered right he went all in when Jesus calls us to follow he didn't call us as chickens he calls us as pigs and that probably is not in the bible written anywhere just like that that's straight out of the jdv okay so you write that one down Jesus don't call chickens Jesus call pigs what God calls us to in this season and every season is simply to offer without restriction everything we have to him what he calls you to in this season will be different than what he asked me or anybody else to do so your question is not in any way what does somebody else do and your question is what does God want from me what is he asking for me and my family it is really important this season that you're not listening to me you're not listening to anybody else but it is essentially important that you get alone with the holy spirit of God and you say you want me to follow you what is it that you want from me one of our campus pastors lance pastor lancer over the chapel hill campus points out he said you know if i'd have been abraham i would have thought like this when he said this i was like that's totally me he said i would have said you know god technically i have another son the son i had outside of marriage ishmael you said all you said was son so i'm gonna kind of step over here and do that because that's a lot less costly i think about how many times in my life god's called for obedience and i've given him compromise i said i'll go most of the way but i'm not going to go all the way and god says half obedience is full disobedience you see this story would have turned out a lot different if that's what abraham would have done what abraham gave is exactly what god asked nothing lasts nothing more so see what we are asking you to do if you are a part of the summit church and again i'll tell you listen if you're a guest if this is your first week like what did i just walk into um i'm not talking to you but if you are a part of this church whether you're technically a member or not we are asking you to take this card that we've given you and wrestle with it if you haven't already over the next week and we're saying we want you to fill this out i give you a couple of things in fact i put it here on the screen because you can probably see it better there's going to be blanks for you to fill out and i don't want you to get hung up on trying to fill out every blank but it's supposed to represent the total that you plan to give to the summit church in the next couple of years not just like like an above and beyond gift but just the total you'll see on there it says this is what you normally do and this is what god you've asked the holy spirit and what he's leading you to that involves faith and sacrifice and and your love and and just what you know obedience to the holy spirit and you're supposed to fill that out um then you multiply it times a couple years because that's what we're looking at then you'll see it says gift from stored resources let me talk about that for a minute there's an exercise we do periodically at the church all right this is about our hearts this is about this when i say isaac this is exactly what i mean the exercise goes like this i do it and i commend it to you um you write down in a piece of paper consult with your spouse if you have one what are the five most expensive things that we have what are the five most expensive things that we have and let's just just ask the holy spirit this probably represents in some ways my isaac so god are there any of these that you want to transfer release from a earthly investment to a heavenly one he might not put his finger on any of them and that's fine because you've asked the question but the point is god i want to make sure that everything in my life you're in control of and i'm not really withholding anything from you so here they are and i lay it out before you and say god is any of these five that you want to ask for to release from an earthly to a heavenly investment um we had a group of leaders get together here on friday night the room was filled and we just a lot of our leaders here at the church went ahead and did this in advance some of those amazing stories you hear there was a family that stood up here and and they said our family of six feels like god has told us that we live in kind of a dream house we've always wanted to live in but we're downsizing because we want to be able to take that excess and transfer that to the heavenly kingdom and and that's what they did i know of other people who did that with a car you know they took a car and said this is not you know i'm gonna i want i want that to be a heavenly investment not an earthly one um i know um somebody at least one person who said we my wife and always saved so we got to retirement we could just live like kings and queens and said i want to spend the last 15 20 years of my life before i meet king jesus living in luxury that's what heaven's about so i want to transfer this to a heavenly investment i had a young professional say well i'm nowhere near any of that that you just said but i have a mountain bike and i felt like god is the holy spirit has said this is what i want you to put down in front of me and we have a group of kids right here um at our all of our campuses at the summit church and many of them this weekend are bringing their favorite toy their favorite toy because they're saying my first and my best belong to god what god does with that is not between you and me it's not for you to compare to anybody else it's simply a question that you're supposed to ask to god does god have your first and your best are you fully surrendered in all things to him you see my wife and i we've been wrestling with this now for a while and we've gone through this process me and all of our staff i asked our staff to i was like you know i don't want us to get into this as a church a hundred percent of them have already walked through this process my wife and i've been here for about 15 years and so we've been with this church pretty much every step of the way and so every season we're kind of like all right we want to lead the way so this year again we just said okay god we're in a new chapter of our lives what represents full surrender what represents our first and our best what represents our statement of love about your value what represents the fact that we live for your kingdom and not our own because we want this to be a season of worship worship because worship is declaring what you trust it's declaring what you treasure it's declaring your value where you place it what i want you to do this week like never before is worship and i want you to wrestle with it this is not about you and somebody else it's about you and and god now i will say and i said this last week and i say it again i know there are some of you that just right now you're thinking well i want to walk out of here because i hate it when churches talk like this and you know i understand and what i've told you and i'll say it again i give you full permission if you just feel like you know i just can't stand this i want you to become a radically generous follower of jesus i really do and if me talking about this gets in your way then i want you to become a radically generous disciple but i give you permission to give it somewhere else in fact in some ways i request that and the reason i say that is two reasons i'll put all my cards on the table reason number one is for a bunch of you i just want to call your bluff it ain't got nothing to do with trust it's got to do with the fact that you don't trust god and you're not going to let him touch that part of your life so quit telling you and everybody you're quit telling yourself all the lies you're telling got nothing to do with us and me it's just got to do with the fact that you don't want god touch that part of your life and you won't be healed from that until you're honest about it so i'm just like i'm like be radically generous give it somewhere else if that's your hang-up so i'm trying to call you up number two for those of you that have had a legitimately bad experience and i sympathize with you because i know that there's a lot of those out there and you're just like i just can't i can't trust you what i just don't want that to get in the way it's more important to me that you become a radically generous disciple of christ than you get hung up about what's going on here now having said that i'll tell you that is not a healthy place for you to be long term you see god's plan a for reaching the world is the local church and you don't have a better plan and so you should be a part of a local church we are very transparent and open here about where every dime of what we receive goes we are under the direction of a group of locally based what we call lay elders which means people that don't work for me that i can't control who oversee every single dime that the summit church spends part of learning to trust god is it learning to extend that trust to the group of his people that he has led you to join yourselves with so if you really are cynical i hope you'll ask whatever questions you need to ask and i will hope that you'll get the healing you need to get so that you can join up with god's people with full and open abandon summit church what god is doing here is amazing and we should never take it for granted he's multiplying his ministry wide through us what's going to happen in this season is going to change not only us it's going to change our city and it's going to change the eternity of thousands of people and families and so many leaders that have already gone before this all of our staff like i mentioned have already committed very generously we had one member of our church hadn't been here that long but a guy and his wife who who set up a wire on friday said i'm so committed and so full of faith about what god's doing here that i'm wiring you a million dollars to be able to go forward in this season that you have now that group is asking you to take this card to take that card and listen to god not listen to anybody else but listen to god and so that's what i invite you to do to take a week and worship why don't you bow your heads with me if you would bow your heads in just a moment our campus pastors are going to come and they're going to lead us in a time for us to reflect on the goodness of god to us expressed in the lord's table the body and blood of jesus father i pray that you would open our eyes to the extravagance of your gift to us and that you would move this congregation at all campuses you would move them to say a full and unqualified yes that we would respond with grateful hearts because of the gift that you've given to us we pray in Jesus name you keep your heads bowed at all campuses our worship and our campus teams will come and they'll lead us to take the lord's table