This sermon emphasizes the importance of surrendering all aspects of our lives to God, highlighting the profound love and sacrifice Jesus made for each individual, the power of the Holy Spirit in empowering believers for ministry, and the transformative impact of sharing the Gospel with others. It also stresses the significance of prayer, obedience to God's will, and the eternal value of every soul.

It's the ways of death. God said, I've got no pleasure in the death of a sinner, but that he will turn to me. The prophet said in the Old Testament, come now and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be upon as white as snow. Jesus said, the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Do you realize how important your life is to God? I was sharing with the young people on Friday night, you know, my daughter, our daughter Monica, she's in full-time ministry and I led her to Christ when she was three and a half years old. And then she went to Bible college and went to do some further studies and now she's working with students at Simon Fraser University and trying to lead these students to Christ. And it's an amazing thing, three years ago she led a Chinese student to Christ and when the student got wonderfully saved, the student went back to China. And her mom and dad were Buddhists and she got a bunch of people together in that house and there were about 30 more people in that house. And this Chinese girl, her name was Lisa, not the Chinese name, but her name was Lisa. And Lisa got up amongst all these people and said, I want to tell you how Monica Detroit led me to Jesus Christ. And she told them how she got saved. Twenty-nine people got saved. Last year Monica and her fiancé was in China. They've got an underground church now. And so Monica is, you know, just kind of dear and precious to me. And one night she phoned me just before Christmas. She said, Papa, and I said, yeah. She said, I'm sitting with all these foreign students that I'm working with, you know, Taiwanese and Chinese. And I speak amongst the Chinese. They can't say my name. And they said, what will they call you? I just said, always Sanbon, you know, Chinese. And she got in touch and she said, Papa, we've got all these foreign students. And she said, many are not Christian. Some are. She said, they can't go back to home. It's too far. And she said, what do we do? And God has given us this beautiful house. We have a whole basement, which is my library. And I said, I know, I said, what do you think? And she said, well, what do you mom think? I know it's Christmas. And I said, bring them along. And Christmas Eve, our house was full of Chinese students, lovely students. And so we were talking and playing games and all kinds of things. And there was some other quietness. And Monica turned to me and she said, Papa, and I said, yeah. She said, would you speak to us about Christ? So I began to share with them about Christ, because the next day was Christmas. They just sat there and they were listening, you know, you know, we so need to be in touch with God. Oh, brother and sister, you know, when Jesus said the words that I say unto you, they are the spirit of our life. We really need to walk with God, you know. I mean, I was just sharing my heart with these students. I made two statements. The first was, your life is so important to God, that if you are the only person on this planet, Jesus Christ so deeply loves you, that God's will still send His Son just to die for you on the cross. And as I was sharing, I made another statement that I've made already. And I said to these students, I said, listen here, Jesus said, as my Father sent me, so do I send you. It's going to cost you more to miss the will of God for your life than it's going to cost you to find it. And amongst those students was a Taiwanese girl by the name of Lula. Oh, she was smart. She was finishing her master's degree. She wasn't a Christian. And I sent her to bed in the basement, sleeping on the floor with mattresses and all these sticks. And I said, listen, Monica, set that up the next morning. I was in my little corner meeting with God, and Monica came up, and she looked pretty perturbed. And I said, what is going on? And she said, Papa, we've got a problem. And I said, what is it? Oh, she said, it's Lula. I said, what is it about Lula? She said, Lula never slept last night. I said, what do you mean, Monica? She said, Lula went through the night. I said, how do you know that? She said, she was next to me, and she said her face would be on the pillow like that, and she was just weeping and weeping right through the night. And the pillow was swept, and then she turned her face like this, weeping right through the night, and then she turned the pillow over. I said, oh, my wife's poor pillow, you know. And I said, what do you think? He said, Papa, you're going to need to talk to her. And I said, go and get her. And she got her, and she came and sat in front of me with Monica. And I said, Lula, how are you doing? And the eyes were all swollen up because of the tears. I said, what is going on? And she said, Gerard, you spoke last night. I said, yeah. She said, you made two statements. I said, what was it? She said, you said, my life is so important to God. If I'm the only person on the whole of this planet, Jesus Christ would have come and died for me. She said, did you mean that? I said, absolutely. I said, I wouldn't say it if I don't mean it. And then she said, you said something else. I said, what did I say? She said, you said, it will cost me more to miss the will of God for my life than it will cost me to find it. She said, you meant that, didn't you? I said, I absolutely meant it. She came and sat close to me, and she said, do you think Jesus could save me? On Christmas morning, she would say. You see, there is a place we know not where. There is a time we know not when. It seals the destiny of men. If you are in the service this morning, you've never been saved. Don't you go out that door. Because the same sun that is softening the butter is the sun that is hardening the clay. You don't know if God will speak to you again. You don't know. Didn't we go a step further? Most of us who sit here this morning, we are Christians. You say, what happened to me when I became a Christian? Well, they said to the Apostle Paul, Ephesians chapter 1, after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of your inheritance. You see, by grace are you saved through faith. It is not of your own. It is the grace of God. You see, the Romans calculated the Spirit of God. What is my Spirit? I am a child of God. So, here is the amazing thing. When you and I became Christians, we received the Holy Spirit. Now, let me clarify something to you. You received the Holy Spirit when we said the Holy Spirit is a person. That means when I received the Holy Spirit, I didn't receive a little part of the Holy Spirit because you can't cut personality into pieces. You can't do that. So, you received the Holy Spirit in your life. He is in your life. But you know where is the Father? He is resident and yet He is not present. There are areas of our lives that we have never surrendered to Him. Most of us who are here asking this morning, my brother, can I ask you a question? Have you laid your wife on the altar for God? You can't do the work of the Holy Spirit in his life or in a wife. My brother, my sister, can I ask you if you laid your husband on the altar for God? Have you given your children to God? You know, we see the area where we pray. God didn't give us children to pop in hell. No, no, no. He has given us children so that they will walk with God. But you can't do the work of the Holy Spirit. Since you went the extravagant. Well, let me tell you what the Bible says. The Apostle Paul said, I beseech you by the mercies of God that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. Oh, I love this. Listen, can you imagine the Jew of the Old Testament? Here is the sacredness of the tabernacle. Here is the worship system of the people of Israel. Here is the ministry of the priests. And here are the Israelites. And here is this Jew and he said, I'm going to bring, I'm going to come and bring an offering. And I'm going to bring one of my lambs. And then he walks amongst his sheep and here is a little lamb and the fingers cripple and it's sinking. It's going to die. It's not going to make it. And he said, I'm just going to take this one and I'm going to bring it to the priest and he's going to sacrifice it and he's going to shed the blood for my sins and for my iniquities. And he will do it. He will never ever do that. Shoot. He will go amongst them and find the really best one that he can ever find and then he will bring it and it's the most sacred little one and then he's going to bring it and he's going to bring it to the tabernacle and then they're going to sacrifice the lamb for his sins and it will be the best. And you sit here this morning as a Christian and there are areas of your Christian life where you are giving God the worst of it. I mean, how dare you do it? You say, what do I have to give? I have to give everything. You say, what is it going to cost me? It's going to cost you everything. It's my life and it's relationships. It's my heart and it's affections. It's my body and it's instincts. It's my mind and it's thoughts. It's my personality and it's prejudice. I need to be abandoned to God. It's the reason. It's everything or nothing. And do you know how many of you see a church that will be full of people that will be full of God? And you need to know God has given me enough of this. I so deeply care enough for them and these two beautiful children. You better thank God that he has allowed this little pastor to, I shouldn't say little, you know. I don't know. God never comes in small packets or watches anybody, you know. But you know, I remember the first time when I saw him. He was in youth and I saw this thing coming and I looked at this thing. I saw it coming and I said to the pastor, this is the brother. Oh, you see, he's my new pastor. And I nearly thought, can any good thing come out of this brother? And I admit it. These two guys have a secret code. And most of you will know me, you know. Most of us are seniors here and it's the same with our youth pastor. I mean, the guy is in his seventies, but it's the same. It's the same with Pastor Sterling. He and I have got this thing that we want to do one day. We want to go fly fishing. And I told him last night, I drove in a lake surrounded in grisly country and I sat there and it takes me hours to find out where the fish is and hours to find out what they are taking. And once I know where they are and what time it is, I just harass them hour after hour, you know. And I said, Sterling, you wouldn't believe this. When I sat on that lake, I said, I listened through the news system and on audio every week when I was there. And I said, you wouldn't believe how many fish I caught in the book of Acts, you know. And I said, Sterling, you should see him. He's sitting here and he's in his nineties, you know. And he said, I can't wait to fish with Gerard. Oh dear, don't record that. But let me ask you a question this morning. Most of us who are seniors, have you got a little prayer list? Are you praying for your pastor and his wife, children every day? Are you praying for the youth pastor and his wife, children every day? Sterling and his wife, anyone else who is in leadership? Surrender to God. You know what, Gerard, our time is gone. I was in a place some time ago where my wife's birthday was one day. It's time to bring this thing down. You see, the Holy Spirit is a person. And Jesus turned to them and he said to them, you shall receive power when my spirit will come upon you. Let me talk to you about this word power. You see, it's the Greek word dunamis. And the word dunamis is found in 119 places in the New Testament. And brother and sister, in our translation of the Bible, this word dunamis has 16 different meanings. 16. So Jesus said, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit will come upon you. One of those meanings of those words is, it will be power to left, right, 24 hours a day. Dunamis. It will be power to do something for God. You see, what you're talking about, let me try to explain to you. You remember in Matthew chapter 25, Jesus talked about the parable of the talents. And as he spoke about the parable of the talents, he made this statement. You see, he gave them talents according to their several ability. Do you know what's that word ability? It's the Greek word dunamis. You see, every one of us that sits in this church this Sunday morning, every single one of us, we have the ministry that God has given to us. My sister, my brother, those of us, we were just in the Sunday school class, and I challenged the people, I said, what are you going to do if God will separate you into a ministry of intercessory prayer, and he's going to wake you up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, and suddenly the burden of God is going to be there, and he's going to force you to pray. You see, all of us, you're not the passenger in the bus, you know. I mean, if you want to be a passenger in the bus, don't be part of this church. You're not going to be a help, you're going to be a hindrance. So God has given us talents. I was in Chicago some time ago, and I was reading about this other man in his seventies, and God took a hold of his life in his seventies, you know. You can meet with God, even if you're older here, and God took a hold of his life, and he said, God, what do you want me to do? I can't preach, I can't stand up, I can't do all these things. And he prayed and prayed, and God let him down by his life, and he said, I'll tell you what you do. You just get bundles and bundles of Christian gospel tracts, and you're going to stand in the corner of the street in Chicago, and he said, you pray about those tracts, and then if someone comes by, you're standing with a tract, and you're just in a very lovely way, and he said, can I give you something to read today? And that became his ministry, and he was so broken before God, you know, the atmosphere that we carry with us is an explanation of the way that people react to us. And he would stand there, people passed by him, and he said, can I give you something to read? And he was so nice, they never threw the tracts away, and one day he was walking to his house, and as he was walking towards his house, brother and sister, God spoke to him in his heart, this little inner voice of his conscience, see, I want you to go to that house, and he said, oh, but now I can't do that. And he kept walking, and as he walked, God spoke to him again, and said, I want you to go to that house, and he said, I can't do it, and the third time when God spoke to him, he turned around, he was so convicted, and he had these tracts with him, and he turned around, and he came to his house, and he knocked at the door of the house, and he began to knock, and guess what, no one opened the door. And the seventh time that he knocked, he heard these loud footsteps, and someone just swung the door open, and there was a guy, a guy standing, and he's looking at him, and as he looked at him, he said, what do you want? And he said, sir, he said, I'm sorry, I just want to give you something to read. And the man grabbed it, slammed the door, and the old little guy went back to his house, and he's come to his knees, and he said, you spoke to me, God, and I did it, and he probably said, don't do it again, and I did it. Listen, two weeks later, he passed the house again, and as he passed the house again, God spoke to him and said, why don't you go back to the house, and he said, oh, no. He went back to the house, knocked at the door, and the door just swung open. This is man's house. He looked at him, and he said, wow, it's you. He said, come in. He took him to the kitchen. He said, two weeks ago, I was standing in that box. You see that beam? There was a rope around that beam. I had a rope around my neck. I was going to take my own life. And he said, you began to knock at the door of my house, and I said, I'm not going to go. And he said, you kept knocking, and after the seventh time that you knocked, he said, I took this rope off, and I came, and I walked, and I grabbed the strap, and he said, I came back, and I sat in this box, and I read this, and he said, I got on my knees, and I said, Jesus Christ, if you could save me, save me now. Thank you, Jesus. God brought his young husband, his wife, and his other staff members. And I was wondering this morning, God, why did you allow me to come to this place? He kept coming. Maybe we have come together. We've come together to pray. This has been a weekend of prayer for me. This may be possible that you're going to give birth to something new. You're going to raise some people to see my face. You're going to fill this place with people that are hungry for God. You're going to regulate the traffic. Bring the right ones in, keep the wrong ones out. Because she said, my house will become a house of prayer. My challenge to this morning, what are you going to do?