Chapter 2

All right, well, thank you. Good morning and welcome. Glad that you are joining us here this morning, whether on this campus or one of the other campuses or online. As Pastor Jerry said, we are going to be continuing in the Book of Jonah, looking mostly at Jonah 2 today, starting at the very end of chapter one, going into chapter two. And last week, Pastor Leroy made it seem like Jonah was a really hard book to find. But honestly, if you just go one book over from the Book of Obadiah, you should be all right. Y'all are much more alive than the nine o'clock. I like that. If you still have a hard time finding it, you can go to the table of contents, look toward the end of the Old Testament, go a couple of books up, and that will lead you there. Like Pastor Jerry said, he's gonna be in the book for the next two weeks. So, if you would, just go ahead and put a bookmark in Jonah so that he doesn't have to make any bad jokes about how to find it over the next two weeks. Today, we're gonna be picking up at Jonah 1:17. If you remember, last week, we left Jonah in the middle of the ocean because last week we saw Jonah's obedience when God called. God said, "Get up, go to Nineveh." And Jonah got up. Obedience, right? Nope. Okay. He did get that part right. It's your sense of humor that's the problem, not mine, just so you know. So Jonah, he disobeyed, right? He got up, he went the complete opposite direction of where God called him to go. And he gets on this ship and he starts heading out there. And you remember, God hurled the storm out onto the sea in order to begin bringing Jonah back to where He called him to go. He hurls the storm onto the sea, and everybody's freaking out. And Jonah says, "Look, if you want this sea to stop, "if you want this storm to stop and you want to live, "then y'all have to throw me overboard into the sea." And so they do that. They throw him overboard into the sea. And as he's sinking to the bottom of the sea, he starts to realize, "Hold on. "It wasn't a good idea to run from the Lord after all." Turns out that this is not the better option. And so, that's where we find Jonah here. You ever wonder why God didn't let the sailors turn the ship back to dry land? If you remember when Jonah said, "Hey, you've gotta throw me overboard," they were like, "No way, dude. "We are going back to land." In verse 13, they tried to row back to land, but it says that the storm just grew stronger and stronger as they tried to row, and they couldn't get back. Why didn't God just let them get back to dry land? In fact, why didn't God throw the storm on the sea before the ship even took off in the first place? Why did He even leave the door open for Jonah to get that far? Why didn't He just stop him? Why didn't He just take Jonah to the side and be like, "Listen, dude, you're not gonna make it to Nineveh," or, "You're not gonna make it to Tarsus. "You might as well just go out to Nineveh." Why didn't God stop him before? Well, maybe it's because God wasn't trying to get Jonah just to do something. He was trying to bring Jonah's heart in line with His. He was trying to bring Jonah's heart in line with God's heart. And to do that, sometimes we have to wrestle and struggle with our hearts. We have to wrestle and struggle against the things that are going on in our hearts and what God is calling us to do. We have to wrestle and struggle in order to get to a place of true surrender. Sometimes the Lord does that same thing with us, just like He did with Jonah. We begin to run. We begin to go away from the Lord, whatever He is calling us to. We begin to say no, whatever that looks like in your life or has looked like. But He doesn't always immediately stop us. He doesn't always close the door right away. Isn't that what we think He's supposed to do? "Lord, You're just supposed to close the door "before I can even walk through it." Well, He doesn't always do that. Sometimes He lets us walk through in order that we can wrestle and struggle with our heart so that He can bring it to a place of surrender. And what God does often in His mercy is He cultivates a heart of surrender in us. And we find a few ways that the Lord does that here in Jonah 2 today. And so, we are going to start off at the end of chapter one, verse 17. The first thing that we see is that God cultivates a heart of surrender through showing His great power. Take a look at the end of chapter one into chapter two. "Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, "and Jonah was in the belly of the fish "three days and three nights. "From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. "He said: 'In my distress I called to the Lord, "'and He answered me. "'From deep in the realm of the dead I called for help, "'and You listened to my cry.'" So, here at the end of chapter one, we see God's means of rescue for Jonah: The big fish. Now, most people who know anything about the Book of Jonah, they know two things. They know that Jonah ran and they know that he got swallowed by a big fish for three days and three nights. That's what most people know. And we even know the story of Jonah as Jonah and the big fish, or Jonah and the whale, or as my two year old calls it when she sees our little picture book, Jonah and the ♪ Baby shark ♪ ♪ Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo ♪ She sings better than I do, so it's fine. But we get focused in on this fish. And in fact, for decades now, people have debated, you'll even find it in some commentaries, people debating, "Well, what kind of fish could this be? "What kind of fish could swallow a man whole? "What kind of fish could have enough oxygen inside of him "in order to keep a man alive for three days? "What kind of fish? What kind of fish?" And the fact is, I don't know, I don't care. And if God cared for us to know, He would've said it. And we focus in on this fish, and it's kind of like saying, debating, "Well, what kind of wood was Jesus' cross made out of?" I don't know, I don't care. I just know that my sin was nailed to it for my salvation. That God put His own Son on the cross in order that I might live. And so, here in Jonah, we focus in on this fish. And anytime we focus on the fish, which, by the way, is only in two verses, we make such a big deal out of the fish, but the Book of Jonah doesn't. The Book of Jonah, two verses, 1:17 and 2:10, we'll see them both today. Anytime we focus on the fish, we miss the real story. The Book of Jonah is not a story about a great big fish. It's a story about a great big God. That's what the Book of Jonah is all about. And what the fish really shows us is not the fish's great power, it's not Jonah's great power, it's God's great power. That's what the fish shows us, that God is sovereign over all creation. That He is sovereign from the highest heights to the deepest depths of the ocean. You notice in verse 1:17 it said that God appointed the fish. It was God who brought the fish there. The fish didn't just happen to find Jonah. God appointed the fish in order for Jonah to be saved. Y'all, the big miracle of the Book of Jonah is not a big fish. The biggest miracle of the Book of Jonah is God turning a wayward heart. That's the big miracle of the Book of Jonah. The story isn't about a great big fish, it's about a great big God. And I want you to know that there is nowhere in all of creation, nowhere in all of creation where God is not sovereign over, and God is not all-powerful in that place. There is no place like that. And as long as you live, there is no depth that you can reach that God cannot reach down and save you. There's no depth. Take a look at Psalm 139:7-8, "Where can I go from Your Spirit? "Where can I flee from Your presence? "If I go up to the heavens, You are there; "if I make my bed in the depths, You are there." Many of you are here today because you've seen God work His great power in your life. Or maybe you're here because you've seen God work His great power in the life of a friend or family member, and you're wondering what this is all about. And if God can show that kind of power to you, and friend, He can. He can, and He does. Our stories look different for each one of us. God shows His power in different ways to each one of us. We all have different grace stories. My grace story: I grew up in a Christian home. I truly came to know Christ when I was eight years old. My story is a story of faithfulness just like Jonah's. Now you're really confused, right? It's not my faithfulness, it's not Jonah's faithfulness, it's God's faithfulness; that He would take me through this far. In all the twists and turns and all the ways I tried to wander over the years, the Lord has always brought me back. He's done it in some hard ways sometimes. He's done it in some easier ways to swallow sometimes. But He has done it throughout my entire life. God is faithful, and He shows His great power to us. Now, Jonah knew in his head all along that God is all-powerful. If you remember back in chapter one, verse nine, it says, "He answered," this is Jonah speaking, "he answered, "'I am a Hebrew "'and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, "'who made the sea and the dry land.'" Jonah knew it in his head all along, but he didn't really know it. He had to come and experience a measure of God's power that he had never seen before to really come to understand that God truly is all-powerful, in order to know by experience that God is all-powerful. You ever experienced anything like this where you know something, but you don't know something yet? You know it, but later you come to know it? As Pastor Jerry said, I am from New Orleans. And nine years ago, when we were first invited to come up to Buffalo and be part of a church plant, my wife and I, we knew that it was cold in Buffalo. But it wasn't until we came up to visit to see if we wanted to live here, we came up to visit in January in 2014, that we really came to know that it's cold in Buffalo. In New Orleans, winter is in January a couple of cool fronts come through. That's winter. And when we got on the plane to come here, it was 58 degrees in New Orleans. When we got here, two, two degrees when we got off the plane. And we had some friends pick us up, they were friends from Louisiana. I don't know what they were thinking, but they picked us up and they took us out to Niagara Falls at 7:00 PM. Negative three degrees, and the wind was blowing. The trees were frozen over like they do when the mist is falling on them. They're frozen over. And me being from New Orleans, I'm wearing jeans and a hoodie. That's the warmest clothes I own. I think I might have had a shirt that was lined with fleece. But it was jeans and a hoodie basically. I had no boots, no warm socks, no hat, no gloves. I just had the little thing in the hoodie to put my hands into. And I was freezing out there. You see, we knew that it was cold in Buffalo, but now I knew that it was cold in Buffalo. And I'm not gonna give you the details of the great heater incident of January, 2015, but I will tell you at one point our toilet water was frozen. Yeah, not good. Not good. You've probably never experienced that, but I have. Now we knew that it was cold in Buffalo. And we often experience things like this with God's power. We know that God's all-powerful; but He gives us this experience of His power, and now we know that God is all-powerful. Sometimes we have to experience, again, a demonstration of God's power in order for us to truly understand just how powerful He is. And we see in verses one and two that this happened for Jonah. And Jonah essentially says, "I waited till I was sinking to the depths "to cry out to the Lord, "and still He saved me. "I waited till I was at the bottom of the sea essentially, "and still He showed me His power, "and He saved me. "He showed His great power." Church, our God is an all-powerful God. But even more than that, He's a merciful God. Because it's a scary thing to have a God who is all-powerful and is not merciful. But our God is both. He is all-powerful and He is merciful. And He shows mercy and grace when we first come to put our trust in Jesus, we all know that, but He continues to show His mercy and grace throughout our whole lives. He continues to show it. Even when we struggle to surrender, He still shows it to us. And often He does it through showing His great power. Here's one thing I wanna challenge you with today. I want you to go home today. Find a notebook that you can save it, maybe it's a notebook you write in often, whatever it is, find a notebook and write down some of the ways that God has shown His great power in your life. And that way, you can flip back to it later on when you need to be reminded. Just list a couple of ways that He's shown His great power in your life. And even beyond writing it down today, when you walk out of here, don't head straight for the door outside of the atrium. Stick around in the atrium, find somebody else and tell them about something God has done to demonstrate His great power in your life. Go out this week, tell a friend, tell a family member, tell a coworker who needs to hear it. Tell them about God's great power that He has demonstrated in your life, and show the world just who our God is. And so, God cultivates a heart of surrender through showing His great power. But also, God cultivates a heart of surrender through showing us the gravity of our sin. He demonstrates, or He cultivates a heart of surrender through showing us the gravity of our sin. In verses three through the beginning of six, Jonah recounts where his sin has landed him. Let's take a look. "You hurled me into the depths, "into the very heart of the seas, "and the currents swirled about me; "all Your waves and breakers swept over me. "I said, 'I have been banished from Your sight; "'yet I will look again to Your holy temple.' "The engulfing waters threatened me, "the deep surrounded me; "seaweed was wrapped around my head. "To the roots of the mountains." Jonah first thought that he was running away from God in order to find life. Isn't that kind of the story of human history ever since the fall? You remember Adam and Eve, right? They walked with God in the garden. They had this very close and personal relationship with God. And He told them, "Don't eat the fruit from the one tree." And what'd they do? They ate the fruit from the one tree, right? Why? Because Satan the tempter came, and he said, "Look, "God said you would die if you ate this fruit? "No. "God knows that if you eat this fruit, "you'll find life outside of Him." And it wasn't true. You see, sin makes promises that it can't keep. Sin tries to promise us that it can give us life. And instead, it takes us away from the Giver of life. Jonah thought he wanted to get away from God. But as the reality of his sin sets in, he can't stand the thought of not being near to God. Look at verse four again. "I said, 'I have been banished from Your sight; "'yet I will look again to Your holy temple.'" Verse five, "The engulfing waters threatened me, "the deep surrounded me; "seaweed was wrapped around my head." This "deep surrounded me," friends, that's the reality of sin. That's the reality of sin. While we think we're finding life in it, while we think we might run away from God in order to find life, we're actually distancing ourself from God. If you have put your trust in Jesus, I want you to know you don't lose your salvation, but you are no longer as near to God as you once were. You will feel that distance until we surrender. Sin draws us in like cheese on a mouse trap. It says, "Just leave your shelter. "Just leave your shelter behind. "I've got something better for you. "Whatever kind of cheese you like, I got it. "Cheddar, Swiss, "smoked Gouda like they have at the Griffon Gastropub." You gotta try it sometime, it's good, and it's tempting. And it promises us that if we leave our shelter and we go out, that we'll find the good life and the cheese. And it's not until we feel the weight of the trap falling on our necks that suddenly we realize this wasn't a good idea. The cheese was not such a good idea. And we realize what we had in the shelter. We realize how good we had it in the shelter. Well, Jonah finally comes to realize this as he sinks to the depths, as he begins to feel the gravity of his sin. And so often the way that God brings us to a place of surrender, the way He cultivates a heart of surrender in us is to let us feel the gravity of our sin. To not let us feel like it's okay, but to feel the gravity of it. Notice, God is the one who is at work in all of this. Look at this. "You hurled me into the depths. "All Your waves and breakers swept over me." It's God that is helping him to feel the weight of his sin. It's God who is showing him the depths of his sin. And as the waters take Jonah down deeper, he sees that it's God who's bringing him there. God didn't cause him to sin. No, God doesn't do that. Jonah did that on his own. But God is helping him to feel the weight and the gravity of that sin. It wasn't until he felt the gravity of it, the gravity of his running, that he began to have a change of heart. And that's so often what happens with us as well. We have to feel it and we have to wrestle with it. I know that this has been true in my own life. To get to a place of surrender, I had to do this in my own life. And God let me feel this in my own life. Back in 2011, the Lord laid on my wife and I's hearts that He was calling us to go to China as missionaries. And so, we had some friends who had been out there, they were in town, and they visited with us and they said, "Hey, we want y'all to pray about "and consider coming out to China with us. "And, we really want you to think about it. "We'd love for you to join our team." And so, I remember on the car ride home, we had only been married for about a year at this point, on the car ride home we're just silent. And we get home and my wife asked me, "Are you thinking about moving to China?" And I said, "Yeah; are you?" And she said, "Yeah." And so, we raised support and we were in China in eight months. Doesn't sound like a struggle, right? That's because the struggle came years before that in order to get us to that place. You see, for me, I knew that the Lord was calling me. In high school I knew He was calling me to some kind of vocational ministry with my life. I knew that's the direction He wanted to go. But toward the end of my senior year in high school, I made the track team at the University of New Orleans where I was about to start school. Many people don't know this about me, but I was actually a division one athlete for one week. That's right, one whole week. I actually never even made it to practice. I basically just got in the team picture and it was done. I was on the track team for one week, but it had started taking my mind and my heart away from it. But, I was only on for one week, because after one week, a small storm named Hurricane Katrina hit the city. It wasn't a small storm in case you didn't catch that. But it hit the city, and it swallowed the city whole. Just like the fish swallowed Jonah, this storm swallowed my city. After being locked out of the city for two and a half months, I finally came back in and I started working with a friend from high school, building fences, being part of the reconstruction effort. And we start building fences, and I start making a lot of money. And that money just starts to get bigger and bigger in my eyes. And that money starts to get bigger and bigger in my heart. And all of a sudden I find myself shifting my heart to the idol of money. And I start pulling away from Christian community, 'cause I'm working 12, 14 hour days, five days a week, six days a week, seven days a week. I start pulling away from my biblical community. I start pulling away from church community, Christian friends. And the more my heart gets set on money, the less I look like Jesus and the less my heart is set on Him. And in 2007, the pastor of my church I grew up in, he called me, I don't know what he was thinking, but he called me and he said, "Hey, we're going on a mission trip to Thailand, "to a fishing village "that had been wiped out by the tsunami a couple years back. "I want you to come with us." And I said, "Well, Thailand sounds nice. "Sure, I'll go; I'll go to Thailand." And I was not expecting what the Lord was gonna do in my life there. As I'm walking through this village where everybody had experienced loss, mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, spouses, sons and daughters, everybody lost someone. And I'm walking around this village. And as I'm walking through all the houses on a street, I'm seeing all these glorified birdhouses out front. And they're painted beautiful, they're huge. They're way out front away from the house. And they've got a little bit of alcohol out on the porch of the birdhouse. This is how ornate they were; they had porches. And there's a little bit of alcohol and a little bit of food. And the missionaries told us, "Yeah, these are spirit houses." The idea is they're giving evil spirits a place to live, and they're giving them a sacrifice so that they'll stay away from their house. And I remember just thinking, "People worship this? "This is crazy," that's what I'm thinking in my mind. And the Lord laid on my heart, "But what are you worshiping? "You're just worshiping a different idol. "You're just sacrificing to something else. "You can see their sin, "but you haven't felt the weight of your sin yet." And the Lord just crushed me in that moment. When I came to realize that what I was doing was worshiping an idol, I came to feel the weight of my sin. And I remember Him just breaking me. And the next morning, we were at a prayer meeting with the missionaries. And I stayed back and talked with one of the missionaries. And I was just bawling my eyes out, man. I don't cry. My wife hates it, okay? I don't cry. I was just ugly crying. It was ugly. All right? And I remember just telling one of the missionaries I was talking to, "I've been running "and the Lord is calling me back." It's a story of faithfulness, not mine, the Lord's, because He helped me to feel the weight of my sin. Even crushing me under that weight was an act of His mercy in order to cultivate a heart of surrender so that I could turn back to Him.

- And I remember just telling one of the missionaries I was talking to, "I've been running "and the Lord is calling me back." It's a story of faithfulness, not mine, the Lord's, because He helped me to feel the weight of my sin. Even crushing me under that weight was an act of His mercy in order to cultivate a heart of surrender so that I could turn back to Him. The Lord does it in different ways in each of our lives. There's all sorts of ways that we run from the Lord. Maybe you're outright rejecting Him. Maybe you're slipping into the idolatry of money or some relationship, or whatever it may be. Friend, God is working on your heart to surrender to Him. God, by His Spirit, is working on you to surrender to Him. And even if you're not running this morning, even if you haven't been running, you still need to feel the weight of sin; because it's when we feel the weight of sin that we're able to see the depths of God's mercy and grace. When we come to see how great our sin is, we see how great His salvation is, because sometimes we get a little apathetic in our worship. We get a little apathetic. It might be a sign that we're losing in our minds and our hearts just how serious our sin is, or we're losing in our minds and our hearts just how deep His grace and mercy is. But if we understand and remember God's great salvation, then we can't help but passionately worship Him. And so, God cultivates a heart of surrender by showing us the gravity of our sin. But finally, God cultivates a heart of surrender through showing the depths of His grace, by showing the depths of His grace. Take a look at Jonah 2:6, the end of the verse. It says, "But You, Lord my God, "brought my life up from the pit." Jonah says, "But." Don't you love that word in the Bible? This is the best word in all of the Bible, but. But God. He says, "But You, Lord my God, "brought my life up from the pit." Now, remember in verse three, it was "You hurled me into the sea. "Your waves and breakers washed over me." Now here in verse six, "You brought my life up from the pit." Jonah 2:7, he says, "When my life was fainting away, "I remembered the Lord." It wasn't until that moment that Jonah remembered the Lord. God is willing to bring us to the end of ourselves in order that we can see our greatest need, which is Him. He is our greatest need. And sometimes we have to come to the end of ourselves in order to see it. Many of us are here today because we were at the very end of our rope. Many of us are are here today because we'd resisted God, turned to everything else for life, thought that running away was a good idea like cheese in a mouse trap; looking at our sin like it's a boat, but it's a boat that can't get us to our destination, nor can it get us back to dry land. Maybe even today, after some time of knowing the Lord, you've been running. Whatever that may look like for you, you've been running away for some time, for some reason, whatever that may be. Or maybe He's placed a call on your life where you've been saying no. You've been saying, "No, Lord, I don't wanna do that." Friend, I want you to know you're not too far. You haven't run too far. The power and sovereignty of God goes beyond any distance that you can run. The power and sovereignty of God runs deeper than any depths that you can sink to. And the grace of God is deep enough to pull you up from the deepest depths that you could possibly find. You're not too far gone. All that's left is for you to see Him and fall on your face and surrender to Him. We surrender to His will. We surrender to His mercy. We surrender to His grace. When we do that, we can worship passionately. We can sing the songs of a, we can sing the words of a song I've come to love. It says, "Praise the Lord, His mercy is more; "stronger than darkness, new every morn; "our sins, they are many, His mercy is more." When we come to the end of ourselves, we can remember that God's grace and mercy is deeper still. And so, finally, what I want you to see is this. God cultivates a heart of surrender, but you still have to surrender. God cultivates it in the heart, but you still have to surrender. And that's what Jonah does in the final verses. "Those who cling to worthless idols "turn away from God's love for them. "But I, with shouts of grateful praise, "will sacrifice to You. "What I have vowed I will make good. "I will say, 'Salvation comes from the Lord.' "And the Lord commanded the fish, "and it vomited Jonah out onto dry land." You've gotta love that picture, vomited him out onto dry land. Jonah finally declares what God has been seeking to teach him all along, and will continue to teach him throughout the book: Salvation comes from the Lord. You can't find it anywhere else. You can't find it in anyone else. And you, friend, are in need of it, just like everybody else in this world. Salvation comes from the Lord. Jonah learns that. And church, we should know it better than Jonah did; because even though Jonah knows that salvation comes from the Lord, we know how salvation comes from the Lord. We know how salvation comes from the Lord. Jonah lived hundreds of years before Jesus came. We can look back 2,000 years and see Him go to the cross and rise from the dead for our salvation. We should praise God for it even more than Jonah did, because Jonah's ultimate salvation comes the same way that our salvation does. It's not by God sending a big fish. It's by God sending His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have everlasting life. On the cross, we see the gravity of our sin collide with the mercy of God in the greatest display of power that God has ever shown on this earth. We see it all right there on the cross. And when we look to the cross, we see our sin displayed as we see the Son of God, as the only One who can take our sin to that cross. And we see God's mercy covering our sin by the blood of His Son. Friends, that's good news. That's the Gospel. We see the true and better Jonah on the cross, the One who didn't go to the depths of the sea, but He went to the depths of the grave. And He didn't go to the depths of the grave for His own sin. He went to the depths of the grave for our sin. And He didn't stay in the depths of the grave, but He burst forth in power, in new life, raised from the dead, raised from the dead, from the grave, and lives forevermore. Let me show you one last verse in Revelation 1:18. This is the resurrected and glorified Jesus speaking. He says, "I am the Living One; "I was dead, "and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! "And I hold the keys of death and Hades." Friends, the One who holds the keys of death and Hades, it's because He has broken the power of death and Hades. And the One who holds the keys to death and Hades is the One who holds you. You cannot out-sin Him. You cannot outrun Him. He will out-grace you by the blood of the cross. This is our salvation, friends. This is who we have salvation in. It's not by your own doing, there's nothing you can do to save yourself. It's by the power of the cross. It's by Jesus Christ taking our sin to that cross, nailing it on that cross, dying the death we deserve, and raising to new life. That's the only means of salvation. Jesus saves us, and He calls us to surrender to Him. And when you do, He begins to conform your heart to look more and more like His. Throughout the rest of your life, He will conform your heart to look more and more like His. And as believers, even when we sin, even if we've come to trust in Jesus, even when we sin, we can look to the cross and we can remember that He has covered our sin by His blood, and we can turn in joyful surrender to Him. God has begun to change a wayward heart in Jonah. And He's shown Himself to be greater than all of Jonah's sin. And friends, He has shown Himself to be greater than all of our sin. And in the end, He has the fish vomit Jonah out to new life. That's good news, y'all. He turns a wayward heart and He gives new life. Let's go ahead and bow our heads. What's God doing in your life to bring your heart more in line with His? What's He doing this morning? What's He been doing for the past couple weeks, maybe the last year or two? He's always working on our hearts. What's He doing in yours this morning? Maybe you've been living in surrender already. Your response is to passionately praise Him, knowing that He's the One who's cultivated that heart of surrender to you. Maybe you're living and surrendering, your response is just to surrender today. It's a daily surrender. Jesus told us to pick up our cross daily and follow after Him. But maybe you've been running and He's brought you to the end of yourself. Or maybe He's calling you to surrender something that you have made an idol in your life. Maybe He's calling you to surrender to a different path, a different life path than you ever expected to be on, that He has been calling you to. Maybe He's calling you to go to hard places. Maybe it's that hard family member or hard coworker or hard neighbor. Maybe it's going to dangerous places in this city. Maybe it's going to the hard places in the world, places where people have never heard the name of Jesus, and you would have to pack up and go to get there. I don't know what He's calling you to surrender in this morning, but I do know that today is the day to stop running. Today is the day to surrender to Him and to look to the cross where we see that our sin is so deep, but His grace is deeper still. And let's surrender all to Him. I'm gonna pray in just a moment. We're gonna have our prayer partners come on up, and they'll be up here now and afterwards for you to pray with. We'd invite you to do so. But let's go before the Lord in prayer right now. God, we are so thankful to You that You are an all-powerful and all-merciful God, that You are willing to bring us to the end of ourselves in order to see our greatest need, which is You. You're willing to bring us to the end of ourselves in order that we may find eternal life in You. Lord, I pray that if there is anyone here today who needs to surrender, in fact, we all need to surrender in some way, whether it's just surrendering our day or our life, Lord, whatever it is, I pray that You will move by Your Spirit in our hearts this morning. Would You do that, Lord? We love You. It's in Jesus' name I pray. Amen.