New Year Sermon: Surrender to God Like Elijah

I found some funny New Year’s resolutions and thought I would share

them…

 I don’t need a New Year’s resolution; it’s the year’s turn to be better.

 Learn the difference between being bored and being hungry.

 Find a way for my body to make less sound when I stand up.

 Lose weight, exercise more and actually use my gym membership for

more than a month.

 Unfriend those that offer unsolicited diets or exercise programs.

 It’s just a game; don’t get so upset about it. Yeah right!

 Gain enough weight that your smartwatch starts sending you concern

notifications.

 Become the GOAT of sarcasm, there are a lot of you better than me.

 Stop procrastinating…tomorrow.

 Be more patient as soon as possible

 Do so much yoga that it actually justifies wearing yoga pants 24/7.

New Year’s resolutions can be good. Usually, they do not last very long.

There is a lot of things about the “New Year” that is really weird. Like

eating black eyed peas. Black eyed peas taste like worm dirt and if you

have ever been fishing with worms you know what worm dirt tastes like.

We all know that there is no luck in eating black eyed peas.

The people that sold blacked eyed peas probably came up with that lie to

get people to eat them. I do not know of hardly anyone that eats black

eyed peas except on New Year’s day. I know that there are the few? How

many of you eat black eyed peas on a regular basis? Once a month or

more?

Let’s talk a little bit of changing your life for the better. And I am going to

use the story of Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal, the Pagan god of

fertility, war and storms. Do you know who the god Baal was really? A

product of Satan. Any god that is Not God is of Satan! Let’s read in I

Kings 18.

Elijah had had it with King Ahab, an Israelite, trying to discredit God. So,

Elijah challenge King Ahab and his god against…. well…. God. I am going

to parallel setting us on fire with this story of God setting the sacrifice on

fire. Maybe just maybe some of this will inspire you to Go light the World.

If you truly want to go light the world and make a difference for God.

Point one tells you to….

1. Prepare your sacrifice – I surrender.

I Kings 18:30-33

Matthew 16:24

What do I mean by preparing your sacrifice? We think we have it under

control. Our walk with God and our obedience comes with limitations,

limitations that are not put there by God but by us. God, I will follow you

wherever you go, as long as you want me to stay right here and live

comfortably. I will do whatever you ask as long as I don’t have to get out

of my comfort zone.

We pray prayers like, “Lord please open the door for the Church to be in

the school system. Reveal Yourself to the students in a way that they will

know that You are real and You love them.” But yet when God opens the

door, very few of us go through it. When there is a baccalaureate service,

a time where God is spoken to the graduating class, not many church

people show up. I can’t imagine what it would be like to get some of the

church people to give a short testimony of how God changed their life.

Surrendering to God’s will isn’t always easy, it isn’t always what we want, it

doesn’t always feel good, but it is what we must do if we are going to light

the world. Watch this short clip from Bruce Almighty.

Jesus said the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. So, pray to the

Lord of the harvest, ask Him to send more workers into the field. If you do

that, you better be ready to surrender, because most likely, the Lord of the

harvest will want you to go work in the field.

We have to surrender ourselves, our wants and desires, and that might just

include our vehicles, our money, our time, our phones and/or anything that

stands in the way of being obedient.

Sacrificing is the place to start and another thing we need to do is point 2.

2. Pray for the fire to consume you.

I Kings 18:36-38

Hebrews 12:28-29 (NIV)

Anyone else in here a pyromaniac? I love to build fires and love to watch

as they burn bigger and bigger. When I throw stuff on the fire it starts to

turn red and soon catches on fire and it makes the fire bigger. If you

throw paper or cardboard on the fire is catches fire quickly, but it also

burns out quicker and it is gone in a matter of moments.

But put a log on a fire it could burn all night long. Put several big logs on

the fire and it can burn for days. Put a tree on the fire and oh boy, here

we go, it continues to get bigger and bigger the more you feed it.

There are many ways to fan the flame that God has put in your life. One

way is reading the bible. I am going to challenge everyone to read the

bible together again this year. I would like you to commit yourself to

reading along together as a body of believer through this next year.

Another way that you can fan the flame of God is to be together with the

Church. Opportunity, after opportunity. We have a bible study on

Wednesday night. We are about to start small groups on Sunday. We take

trips on the bus. We need to do things together. We need to worship

together. If you want God’s fire to consume you, you need to be with

those that are on fire. If you put a log on a good fire, that log will catch

fire, but if you remove a burning log from the fire, it will eventually go out

without ever burning up.

We need to be like the burning bush that even though it was on fire it

didn’t burn up, because the fire was the presence of God. And the

presence of God in your life should set you on fire and consume you. Not

in a way that you burn out, but rather there is nothing left of your old self

and all that is left is the new creation on fire for God.

Another way to fan the flame of God in your life is through prayer. Not just

praying for God to give you the fire, but also praying that God will burn out

those impurities in your life. That God will reveal Himself to you, so that

you will have a better understanding of Who He is and what He expects

from each of us.

Can you imagine the difference God would make in our neighborhood, city,

state, and country, through us if allowed God’s fire to consume us? We

sure would get more powerful results.

Do you want to light the world? It will take some sacrificing on your part

and you will need to allow God’s fire to consume you.

3. When others see the fire of God in you, they will know that God is

God.

I Kings 18:39

John 4:39,42

In November of this year in a Texas high school playoff game, the Wink

Wildcats were playing the Sundown Roughnecks. Wink was up 40-6 and

they were running out the clock to end the game. Wink had the ball on

their own 5-yard line, on first down the Wink quarterback took a knee to

get the clock running. The team waited almost the whole 40 seconds on

the play clock before snapping the ball and taking a knee on 2 nd down.

As they came to the line to set up for 3 rd down the Sundown sideline

started cheering loudly, very loudly even though their team was about to

lose the game. Wink hikes that ball and the quarterback took a knee with

about 15 seconds left on the clock and the Wink coach calls a timeout. He

asked the official to speak to the coach from the other team. The

Sundown coach met the Wink coach on the field and the Wink coached

asked, “What was going on when you subbed in that player and everyone

cheered?” “He is medically unable to play and we try to get him into the

game when we know that nothing can happen to him.”

The Wink’s coach had an idea and the Sundown coach agreed. When

Wink’s team snapped the ball, the quarterback acted like he was going to

run and sort of fell and dropped the ball, a fumble in the endzone. The

student with the medical condition came through the line unblocked and

picked up the ball for a touchdown. Kolt McDaniel was able to live a

dream. I don’t know if Coach Gibson loved the Lord or not, but what a

difference he made. People see him for more than just a coach.

When God sets us on fire, we do things that make a difference. We give

more of ourselves to others. We put other people first. And the more we

love the more people will see God at work in our lives.

Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop

that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a

basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to

everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out

for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.

Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that you get all the

praise….no…so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.