Sunday Morning Service 01/18/2026 - Starting Well - Surrender

And I wanna tell you again that formula that we mentioned in those first two weeks. The key to seeing God take something, because remember, he gives us seeds, we're the sower. Right? We take the seeds, we plant them, we honor him, and we do our part with what he's entrusted to us, our gifts, our abilities, our resources, our heart. And as we give that out, he multiplies it. Obedience plus God's blessings on what we are doing ends up in this miraculous multiplication. [00:22:20] (38 seconds)  #SowObeyMultiply

Man, it was a set of scripture that I I can be honest with you. I struggled with it. I memorized it even back then because I knew how important it was to my life. I knew it was something that I needed to hold on to. The hard part wasn't hearing about surrender. That was easy. The hard part was doing it, right, and actually living it out. And so conforming these these verses are gonna talk about conforming to the world. That's so easy, right, to get pushed into a mold and to be conformed. But transformation, a lot of times to me even at that age and sometimes now even, seems just out of reach. [00:28:05] (39 seconds)  #SurrenderIsDoing

We put it here as a way for you to be honored and to be glorified, but also to change us, to transform us. And I think because he's speaking to these brothers here and encouraging them to do this, either one, they are actively doing it and he wants to encourage them to keep doing it because he uses the word living sacrifice. It implies something that needs to be done over and over and over again. It's not something that you do one time a day. You take every moment of your day, every minute of your day, every choice that you make, and you offer it up to God placing it there next to him and saying, how do you want me to act? How do you want me to respond? How do you want me to live in this moment? [00:36:02] (53 seconds)  #EveryMomentForGod

And Paul is urging us to recognize that our physical lives, everything that we do, our habits, our health, our work, even our rest. Right? It is a sacred space of devotion to him. Every moment we should give to him. And when you spend time with people that are doing that and you look in their lives, it just blows you away. You look at them and you go, oh, wow. Look how close you are to God. Look at the things that God's doing through your life. Look at the multiplication that's occurring. All of those things are important. [00:37:52] (41 seconds)  #DevoteEveryPartToGod

``I want you to remember. I want you to see Jesus. I want you to recall his love. I want you to recall his forgiveness, his mercy, the grace that he offered you. And I want you to take your life and I want you to place it up for him. I want you to let go of it. I want you to give it like an offering like you would have done if you had lived during the pre Jesus time of sacrifice. And I want you to take that thing that you are bringing as an offering for your sins, but I want it to be you. I want you to bring yourself. I want you to bring your thoughts. I want you to bring your actions. I want you to bring every minute of your day, every choice that you make, and you put that up as an offering to him. [00:44:31] (47 seconds)  #OfferYourAllToJesus

Our time, our abilities, our resources. You don't add God to your goal list. If that's what you're thinking is that a part of that step. You don't add him on to the end or even at the beginning. It's not an addition. That's simple math. What God wants you to do is he wants you to take all of you and give it to him. Your goals, all of them. And when you give those to him, he does something supernatural. He blesses them. And what is the result? The result is multiplication. And that's what I'm trying to encourage you to when we say that we're gonna strive to multiply this year. I wanna see your heart multiplied. [00:45:52] (48 seconds)  #GiveGodYourGoals

Conforming implies an outward pressure. Transformation happens from the inside out. And the confusion that we get is a lot of time as believers, what do we say? In order for me to be a living sacrifice and to live for God and do what I wanna do, I've gotta change the outside. I gotta I gotta start coming to church more. I gotta quit cussing. I gotta quit doing this and quit doing that, and I gotta start doing this and start doing that. And we think by this supernatural transformation on the outside of us that we're gonna somehow get to where God wants us to be. [00:48:53] (34 seconds)  #ChangeInsideOut

And it won't work. I've tried it. It doesn't happen. And he tells us that here and he says, transformation happens when God begins on the inside. He begins to take the wisdom that he's imparting to you. And how do you know that you're finally getting there? How that's finally starting to happen for you because you don't guilt yourself into coming to church or reading your Bible or giving or any of those things. You naturally wanna do that stuff. You you don't begrudgingly volunteer to serve somewhere and to do something. You passionately step into that. [00:49:26] (43 seconds)  #TransformationFromWithin