Surrender

Far too many pastors start the year off by encouraging their congregations and audiences to “invite God into their plans” and far too many Christians believe that’s all God expects them — a piece of their plans, a portion of their hearts, just a sliver of their lives. Even a rudimentary reading of scripture reveals that’s not good enough.

Instead of inviting God into our plans this year, at The Hills Church we are kicking off 2026 by considering what it looks like to fully surrender everything, our plans, our hearts, our very lives, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. In this first series of 2026, titled “Surrender,” we are considering four different characters from the Old Testament who struggled with or exemplified four different qualities for complete and total surrender.

In this first message of the series, the prophet Jonah gives us a stern warning of what a failure to surrender completely to God and His call on our lives.