This message is Part 6 in the message series “AWAKENING” by Pastor Chuck Bernal. In this message titled, “Awakening To Surrender”, Pastor Chuck talks about how we can go "ALL IN" with God by surrendering all we are and all we have to Him. Using the examples of Moses and his staff, the disciples and their nets and Elisha and his plow, Pastor Chuck challenges each of us to release everything to God in total commitment and surrender. This message was delivered at LifePointe Church in Crowley, TX on Sunday, May 28, 2017.

1. Awakening To Surrender (By Abandoning My Life, I
Find It)
Pastor Chuck Bernal – May 28, 2017
The Gospel costs nothing. You can’t earn it or buy it. It can
only be received as a free gift compliments of God’s grace. It
doesn’t cost anything, but it demands everything. It demands
that we go “ALL IN”, surrendering all that you are and all that
you have into God’s hands. We’re afraid that if we go all in
that we might miss out on what this life has to offer. It’s not
true. The only thing you’ll miss out on is everything God has to
offer. And the good news is this: if you don’t hold out on God,
God won’t hold out on you. The eternal reward always
outweighs the temporal sacrifice. At the end of the day, our
greatest regret will be whatever we didn’t give back to God.
Eternity will reveal that holding out is losing out.
Then Joshua told the people, “Surrender yourselves completely
to the Lord
for tomorrow He will do amazing things among you.” (Joshua
3:5 – ICB)
Our problem is this: we want God to do his part - “amazing
things”,
but we don’t want to do our part – “surrender ourselves
completely to the Lord”.
But you can’t have one without the other!

2. Amazing always begins with surrender and surrender always end
with amazing!
THE PARADOX OF SURRENDER
A "paradox" is defined as a seemingly absurd or self-
contradictory statement
that is proven in fact to be the truth.
If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it.
But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. (Luke
9:24 – NLT)
_____________________________ = _____________________________
_____________________________ = _____________________________
_____________________________ = _____________________________
_____________________________ = _____________________________
_____________________________ = _____________________________
_____________________________ = _____________________________
If your first concern is to look after yourself, you'll never find
yourself. But if you forget about yourself and look to me, you'll
find both yourself and me. (Matthew 10:39 – Msg)
THE PRACTICE OF SURRENDER
Give yourselves to God . . . surrender your whole being to him
to be used for righteous purposes. (Romans 6:13 - TEV)
Give yourselves completely to God—every part of you — you
want to be tools

3. in the hands of God, to be used for his good purposes. (Romans
6:13 – NLT)
So give yourselves completely to God . . . (James 4:7 – NCV)
____________________________________ - “Dropped his staff”
(Exodus 4:1-4)
__________________________________ - “Burned his plow” (1 Kings
19:19-21)
____________________________________ - “Left their nets”
(Matthew 4:18-22)
What are you holding on to today that is keeping you from
experiencing “amazing things” in your life today. When you are
willing to surrender, when you are willing to let go of lesser
things, you will experience God’s best. It’s no longer about who
you are and what you have, it becomes whose who are and
what He can do in and through you.
__________________________ - “_________________________________”
So here’s what I want you to do with God helping you: Take
your everyday, ordinary life —your sleeping, eating, going-to-
work, and walking-around life — and place it before God as an
offering. (Romans 12:1 – Msg)
The world has yet to see what God can do with and for and
through and in and by one life that is fully and completely
surrendered to Him.

4. Why not _______________________? Why not
______________________?
Then Jesus said to his disciples. “Anyone who intends to come
with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s
seat; I am . . . Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is
no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding
yourself, your true self.
(Matthew 16:24-25 – Msg)
He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which
he cannot lose. (Jim Elliot)

5. Weakness = Strength
Down = Up
Give = Gain
Lowest = Greatest
Last = First
Dying = Living
A.W. Milne (1785-1822) was one a one-way missionary. He
set sail for the New Hebrides in the South Pacific, knowing
full well that the headhunters who lived there had martyred
every missionary before him. For 35 years, he lived among
that tribe and loved them. When he died, tribe members
buried him in the middle of their village and inscribed this

6. epitaph on his tombstone: When he came there was no light
When he left there was no darkness.
The title of our post today is actually story of one man’s
life. A. W. Milne was a missionary around the 20th
century. He was part of a group of radical missionaries
who history has dubbed – “One Way Missionaries.”
What these men and women of God did was pack all their
belonging in a coffin, buy a one way plane ticket to
wherever they felt called by God. Many parts of Africa and
other places around the world was known in those days
and many years after as the “white man’s graveyard.
These men and women of God knew they would never
return home when they decided to go to the mission field.
As for A. W. Milne, he Knew that most of the
missionaries before him died a martyr’s death, still he
accepted the call of God to minister to a tribe in the New
Hebrides. Hebrides is a group of 500 Island in the
northwestern coast of Scotland. There he lived for 35
years. God’s timing and favor had given him a break
through among these people and there he enjoyed favor.
But A. W. Milne would never return home. After many
years of fruitful labor for the Lord, he passed and was
buried in the middle of the town. The inscription on his
tombstone could not have been more clearer: “when he

7. came there was no light, when he left there was no
darkness.
How does this speak to you today? Please leave a
comment – I would love to hear what this story means to
you today. Stay blessed! For me, here is what I’m
thinking:
God can help you succeed where others have failed
God’s timing is crucial to any move of God
Sometimes our harvest come at the sacrifice of others
Sometimes kingdom life involves risks, danger, and even
death.
Are we willing to go even if there is a real possibility that
we could die?
What kind of mark or legacy are we leaving on others?
How much do we want to see the kingdoms of the world
become the kingdom of our God and Christ?
What stories will others tell about you after you leave
this earth?
Truth for Today
Tuesday, January 13, 2015

8. Pack Your Coffin
A band of brave souls became known as one-way
missionaries two centuries ago. They bought tickets to the
mission field without the return half. Instead of suitcases,
they packed their few earthly belongings into coffins. As
they sailed away, they waved goodbye to everyone they
loved and all they knew, knowing they’d never return
home.
A.W. Milne (1785-1822) was one of those missionaries.
He set sail for the New Hebrides in the South Pacific,
aware that the headhunters there had martyred every
missionary before him. Milne didn’t fear for his life because
he had already died to himself. His coffin was packed.
For 35 years he lived among that tribe. When he died,
they buried him in the middle of the village and inscribed
this on his tombstone: “When he came there was no light.
When he left there was no darkness.”[1]
Another intrepid soul cut from the same cloth was
Methodist missionary, James Calvert (1813-1892), who
committed his life to reaching the indigenous peoples of
the Fiji Islands. It is widely reported that upon his voyage,
the ship’s captain warned him to turn back, saying, “You
will lose your life and the lives of those with you if you go
among such savages.” Calvert purportedly replied, “We died
before we came here.”

9. Calvert and Milne understood the implications of Galatians
2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ.” The first and
most essential act of discipleship is firing the planning
committee in your heart and dying to self. Those men
lived powerfully for God because they recognized that the
greatest barrier to discovering all that God has for us is
our preoccupation with self.
That is why Jesus declared unapologetically in Luke 9:23,
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and
take up his cross daily and follow me.” The cross is more
than a religious symbol or shiny piece of jewelry on a
necklace. When Jesus made that statement the cross was
a symbol of death. The Romans reserved it for the worst
criminals. The cross was torture, humiliation and a long
painful death. So with those words you can see that Jesus
is not interested in “How to Win Friends and Influence
People.” You don’t build a faithful following by telling
people they must be at the bottom of the organizational
flow chart of life.
Jesus intentionally used a gruesome symbol to get the
people's attention. He did this to say that following Him
was not a game and it is not easy. In fact, it will cost
you to follow Him as a disciple. But, on the other hand,
it will cost you more not to follow Him.
A.W. Tozer has said, “In every Christian's heart there is a
cross and a throne, and the Christian is on the throne till
he puts himself on the cross; if he refuses the cross, he

10. remains on the throne. We want to be saved, but we
insist that Christ do all the dying. No cross for us, no
dethronement, no dying. We remain king within the little
kingdom of Man's soul and wear our tinsel crown with all
the pride of a Caesar; but we doom ourselves to shadows
and weakness and spiritual sterility.”[2]
So what does it mean to “die to self?” So much could be
said, but allow me to give you a few practical examples of
how this would work in day-to-day living.
· To bear the cross means forgiving, instead of harboring
that grudge.
· It means resisting that temptation to do what
everybody else does.
· It means not having sex before marriage, and being
faithful to your spouse after.
· It means putting down the remote control and picking
up your Bible.
· It means praying when you would rather be sleeping.
· It means "swallowing your pride" and telling someone
about Jesus.
· It means doing what God wants you to do, instead of
what you want to do.[3]
Now let me ask you, “Are you dying to yourself and
taking up the cross?” Have you packed your coffin?