We are going to be talking about the idea of surrender

through the context of the story of Mary and her encounter

with the angel Gabriel.

Now, this Christmas season, here's what I know.

All of us have something to surrender.

There is perhaps a relationship that we need to surrender.

Maybe there's a job opportunity.

You're trying to figure out whether you should take or not

and you need to surrender that.

Perhaps it's your future,

because maybe you're well about to graduate here in December

or maybe coming up in May and you're trying to figure out what to do

and you need to surrender that to God.

Maybe it's a wayward child.

Or maybe it's the idea of being generous in the context

of a culture right now where it's easy to try to hold on and control things.

But we need to God saying you need to surrender to a lifestyle of generosity

and being a blessing to people around you.

But before we get started, what does surrender even look like?

I mean, when I think about it, I think about white flags,

I think about raising your hands, I think about tapping out,

essentially it's giving up, right?

...