Surrender: Giving It Up

Today we're looking at another critical aspect of being a disciple of Jesus—to become a fully devoted follower of Jesus. This characteristic of discipleship has to do with surrender.

Luke 14:28-33

²⁸ Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? ²⁹ For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰ saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' ³¹ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³² If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³ In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Give up everything, Jesus said. Everything? Here is another one of those particularly hard sayings of Jesus!

To "give up" is a picture of surrender:

• The SWAT team surrounds the fugitive holed up in the building. The leader lifts the megaphone and shouts, "Give yourself up!"

• Troops on the battlefield surrender by waving a white flag and laying down their weapons.

• The chess player knocks down his king and announces, "I resign." His king "bows" to the opponent.

When Jesus says we must give up, he's saying we must surrender.

• When we surrender to Jesus, we can't hold anything back for ourselves. We must lay it all on the table.
• When we surrender, all we are and all we have belongs to Jesus.

Jesus gave two examples of what it looks like to "give up everything":

1.    "Estimate the cost" before building (v 28). Other versions say: Calculate the cost (NASB), count the cost (NKJV), compute the cost (NET), figure out how much it will cost (CEV).

We need to count the cost so we can finish what we start. Starting a project is good; finishing it is better.

Some people have difficulty getting started. They cannot focus or get organized. The complexity of the problem discourages them from trying. They have trouble getting motivated.

But if you're going to be a disciple of Jesus, you must take that "first step." You have to begin the journey if you're going to be a follower!

Other people seem to have no trouble getting started. Their problem is finishing. They may be good sprinters for the short haul, but they are no good in the marathons. They burn out. They get frustrated and discouraged when the road gets rough or the journey too long. They realize too late that they didn't prepare adequately; they didn't calculate what it would take to finish.

Jesus warns us to "estimate the cost"—to make sure we understand what's required for the long-term investment and make that commitment.

2.    "Ask for terms of peace" instead of going to war (v 32).

Asking for terms of peace means to surrender! It's about waving the white flag and giving up rather than picking a fight.

The problem is it's hard to surrender! It's not easy to give up. Surrender is the same as being defeated, and it's humiliating to admit defeat. Victory is exhilarating and thrilling, but defeat leaves a horrible taste in your mouth. Nobody enjoys losing. Human nature does not want to lose.

But Jesus comes to defeat our human nature. Jesus comes to conquer us! He comes to take authority over our lives. He comes to rule us and by ruling us to put our lives in order.

Human nature fights for independence. Human nature battles for self-autonomy and struggles to maintain control over its own destiny.

On the other hand, Jesus says if we want to be his disciples, then we must ask for terms of peace! We must surrender to him! We must give up control over our own destiny and stop fighting for independence.

Here's the deal: when you come face to face with Jesus Christ—when you discover who he is and what he wants to do in your life—when you encounter Jesus as Lord, it's like the clash between two kingdoms! This is an epic struggle between the kingdom of self and the kingdom of God.

You can give up or you can hold out. People think they will be independent if they resist his authority and walk away from his love, but there's great danger in that decision! It's very hazardous to be free from God!

If you refuse to surrender to God, the danger is that God allows you to go your own way. He could conquer you by force, but he wants to win you with love. The danger is that if you don't want to be rescued, God won't rescue you from yourself!

So it's imperative that we surrender. We must count the cost! We must ask for terms of peace. We must give up everything.

Here are three basic ways we can surrender so we can become disciples—fully devoted followers of Jesus.

1. Stop fighting. Stop resisting God.

Watchman Nee: A drowning man, fighting and clawing for air, struggling to keep his head above water, will grab a would-be rescuer and push him down in order to get up higher. If only the drowning man would stop struggling; if only he would relax enough to put himself in the hands of the lifeguard; if only he could surrender; then he could be saved. But as long as he continues to fight, he sabotages the very thing he wants and needs: rescue!

So many people want to maintain their own personal autonomy. They don't want someone else ruling over their lives, telling them how to live and what to do and where to go. They want to remain independent—and they will fight for their independence!

What they don't realize is that they cannot be entirely independent. No one can be completely autonomous. John Donne wrote: No man is an island, entire of itself. We are all connected somehow to other people and to other things.

We can't escape this fact! If you try to separate yourself, you are still connected somewhere else. If you resist one thing you cannot help but give in to something else. And if you fight against God and his plan for your life, you're surrendering to your human nature.

If you don't give in to God and allow him to conquer you, then you will be conquered by your own sinful nature. Be conquered by God or be conquered by sin. If God doesn't rule over you, your own passions and desires will rule over you. Everything else will rule over you. If you determine to be free and independent from God's authority, then you will be a slave to your own sinful nature!

You will undoubtedly be ruled by something or someone. You can choose to surrender to God and let him rule over you, or you can choose to resist God and let your own sinful nature rule over you.

Romans 6:16 - ¹⁶ Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or [slaves] to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

2. Let go of your "stuff."

Jesus said to give up everything because he knew how much the stuff of this world has power over us.

We think we own stuff, but the truth is that our stuff owns us.

We buy a house or a cabin or a boat because we want to enjoy the good things of life. And no doubt there are pleasures and benefits in owning all that stuff. But let me tell you about the "benefits" of home ownership: When the grass grows, I have to mow it. When the lawn mower breaks down, I have to fix it. When the toilet overflows, I have to unplug the toilet and clean up the mess. When the roof leaks, when the garbage disposal shorts out, when the deck floor rots, when the bushes take over the sidewalk, when the paint peels, when the windows get dirty, when the furnace stops, when the water heater rusts out...

The stuff we own becomes our master! We become slaves to the stuff that owns us.

Jesus calls us as disciples to live on another level. In one sense, as long as we are on this earth, we will have to deal with stuff. But in our hearts and in our spirits, Jesus calls us up higher, where our stuff does not interfere with our commitment to follow Jesus.

Col 3:1-3 - ¹ ...set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. ³ For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.

The stuff of our earthly life—our possessions, our reputation, our ambitions, our accomplishments, our relationships, our successes, our failures—all these things can get in the way of what God wants to do in us.

Material things become obstacles that prevent Jesus from being the King of our lives! When all this stuff controls our lives, Jesus cannot rule. He can't lead and direct us until we surrender—until we give up everything.

Charlemagne conquered the Saxons (NW Germany) in 804, compelling them by military might to become "Christian." (His armies killed, ransacked, pillaged and massacred to convince them to give up their pagan ways.) So the Saxons surrendered and consented to become Christian — on one condition, a condition to be revealed only at the time of their baptism. So, when the Saxon warriers were put under the water as a symbol that their old way of life was dead, they went under — all except their right arms. They held their arms high, lifted above their heads. Their right arms, which were used for holding swords and fighting, were never Christianized. People today consider themselves to be Christian without surrendering completely. [E. Stanley Jones, The Christ of the Indian Road, p. 12]

3. Yield control. Stop trying to fix yourself. Stop trying to take matters into your own hands.

If you invite Jesus to your house—to let him live in your home, to let him clean out all the junk, to let him fix all the broken parts—you must allow him into every room in your house. You must give the keys to every room in your house. You cannot give him access to all the rooms except for one. You cannot say, You can go into every place in my house, every corner, every closet...but I'm sorry. I cannot let you go into the attic.

If you restrict Jesus from any area of your life, then he is not really Lord (boss, master, owner). If he is not Lord of all, that he's not Lord at all.

When you surrender to him, you are giving him permission to enter every part of your life—the attic, the basement, the garage, the closet in the back room. When you surrender your life to Jesus and make him Lord, you allow him to make changes in your life.

And if you're sincere about your commitment, you can be sure that Jesus will put his finger on the secrets you've got hidden away in the corners of your heart. He wants to clean it out. He wants to set you free from the hold those secrets have over you. Jesus wants to overcome things like: pride, pornography, selfishness, anger, envy, resentment, regrets, bitterness, etc.

Maybe you can push your past out of sight—hide it in a back closet behind closed doors. But you don't let Jesus deal with it; if you don't give him access to that back closet; if you don't let him clean it out, then one day it will reemerge to exert its influence and control over you again.

A Haitian pastor illustrated to his congregation the need for total commitment to Christ. His parable: A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn't afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door. After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail. The Haitian pastor's conclusion: "If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ's habitation." [Leadership, Vol X, #3 (Summer, 1989), p. 35.]

Some people say, Well, I'll come to Jesus after I straighten out my life. I don't want to bother him. They want to use self-discipline or self-help to fix the broken areas of their life—but they don't want to surrender. They don't want to admit they have a problem that is bigger than they are.

This is another form of independence and rebellion. Even good things can get in the way of surrendering to the Lord! Self-discipline, human effort, good works, even works of righteousness.

Titus 3:3-5 - ³ At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. ⁴ But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit...

As long as we try in our own strength to gain control over our personal problems (sin, addictions, failures, past)—and as long as we try to fix ourselves separate from God's help and power, we will only get in the way of the supernatural deliverance we truly need.

As long as we stubbornly hold on to the control of our lives, rely on our human effort, and trust in our own ideas, we have not surrendered. And that means we will not be able to be Jesus' disciple.

Celebrate Recovery Step One: We admitted we were powerless over our addictions and compulsive behaviors, that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step one is to admit we are powerless. Step two is to believe we need God's power. Step three is "to turn our lives and our wills over to the care of God." In other words—when we can admit we're powerless and that God's power and control is what we need, then we're ready to surrender!

[Campus Crusade] As long as we sit on the "throne" of our lives, making the choices, and ruling our own lives, then we cannot be Christ's disciples. It's the clash of two kingdoms, the kingdom of self against the kingdom of God. Until we get off the throne of our lives and surrender all authority and rule over to the Lord Jesus Christ, we will sabotage our spiritual destiny. We will destroy ourselves by making bad decisions and ruling in the wrong way.

This is why we need to surrender control of our lives over to the Lord! We must allow him to take over, to direct our lives, to rule us in a way that will lead us into a life of eternal purpose.

Jesus must be the king. We must surrender. We cannot be his disciples until we can surrender all—until we can give up everything.