Extreme Diligence; Extreme Reliance – 8/4/24

Good morning, Church. If you’ll turn with me to Acts chapter 16, what we just read. Keep your Bibles open there. We are jumping into the middle of the story of the “Acts of the Apostles.” You may have heard it said, well, it’s actually the “Acts of God in and through the Apostles.” There’s actually something to that. There is this tension, as you read through the book of Acts and specifically in these three stories today, this tension, this ongoing dynamic between God as the primary mover and then the means (how he chooses to use us) in the advance of the gospel.

These three events that we just read (Paul meeting up with Timothy, the Macedonian call, the conversion of Lydia)— they carry the story forward, but there’s this underlying theme that unites each one of these, and that is this: Gospel advance is characterized by extreme diligence and extreme reliance.

When you hear that, I assume that you resonate with one or the other. Some of you love that diligence aspect. You know, “I’m gonna get out there, I’m gonna work hard for Jesus.” But then that diligence, that hard work, that becomes your identity. Some of you resonate with the other side. You communicate this reliance on God, but in reality, you’re just lazy. You’re scared. You’re too comfortable. You don’t want to take risks. You don’t want to get your spiritual hands dirty. But what if the answer isn’t finding the perfect balance between the two, but actually in their extremes? Extreme diligence. Extreme reliance.

Look at Paul. Paul had this unbridled commitment to taking the next step, to pursuing plans, sharing the gospel, making disciples. Yet that was combined with this unwavering trust in the sovereign hand of God, the power of the Word. Those two things were not at odds with each other.

It’s Paul on one side saying, “I worked harder than them all!” Extreme diligence. Yet that was not his identity. That’s not what he held onto. Because in the very next phrase, what does he say?

“…yet not I, but the grace of God that is working in me” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

Extreme diligence, extreme reliance. We’re going to see that in these three stories today, three arenas for our life: making disciples, pursuing plans, and speaking the Word.

First off, we make disciples, but it is the gospel that changes lives. When I was a bit younger, I worked for two summers at a Christian camp as a cook. The head cook was a man named Cal Mair. Cal was a former cook in the Navy, and he was one of the first men who modeled life-on-life discipleship to me. He was always saying, “Have you read your Bible?” “How’s your thought life?” “Are you memorizing Scripture?” His mantra was, “Who is your Timothy?” Who is the person that God has put in your life so that you can lead them to see all of life through the lens of the gospel? So the question for you is, who is your Timothy?

The problem is, too many of us make discipleship an add-on option to our Christian faith. It’s kind of like we’re going to go eat. I’ve got a menu. “Yeah, I’ll take the salvation with a side of eternal life. Hold that discipleship. Doesn’t really sit well with my lifestyle.” No. True disciples will make disciples.

That statement may force some of you to come to grips with what discipleship actually is. Is it a 12-week program? Is it reading through a book together? Sure. But it’s so much more than that. Discipleship happens anytime you help another person see life through the lens of the gospel.

You have the truth of the gospel. Jesus — he lived, he died, he rose again. How does that change the way in which you interact with current culture, politics, social issues, entertainment? How does the truth of what Jesus did impact how you share the gospel and God’s love with those around you? How does the gospel impact how you respond to people who view things differently than you do? How does what Jesus did, how does that change the way you interact with your spouse? Respond to that diagnosis?

It’s like the eye doctor. I have really bad vision. I go to the eye doctor. They take those little things and they go, “One or two? One or two?” I can never really tell the difference. They both seem the same. But eventually, after they’ve done it so many times, finally I can see clearly. Making disciples is putting down that gospel lens so that we begin to see all of life through the vantage point of what Jesus has done for us.

This is what Paul did with Timothy. Read these first few verses of Acts 16. At first glance, it feels like this is just informational. Paul meets this guy named Timothy. He wants him to accompany him. He has Timothy circumcised. They tell it to the churches. There’s so much more that’s happening here.

Paul looks at Timothy and he says, Timothy, you have this cultural issue of circumcision. Should you do it? Should you not do it? The only way that you’re going to know the answer to that question is if you view it through the lens of the gospel.

Timothy, you know the gospel. You know that Jesus himself was cut off for you so that you would forever be joined with the Father. That physical mark on your body has nothing to do with your salvation. The only question is, how will circumcision or uncircumcision better help to advance the gospel?

For you, Timothy, in this context? Yes. Go ahead. But for Titus, book of Galatians (Galatians 2) Paul says, Titus, I do not want you to get circumcised. I do not want you to

“yield in submission even for a moment” (Galatians 2:5).

Why? So that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

Was Paul wavering by saying yes to one situation and no to the other? Was he just kind of acquiescing to the cultural climate of that day? Whatever is going to be most acceptable for whoever he’s in front of? No. He’s taking the lens of the gospel and applying it to both of their situations. The gospel is the only reliable tool that Paul could use to help them make wise, God-honoring decisions in their particular contexts.

In our context, where Islam is dominant, there are these cultural decisions for Muslim background Christians. We have seen this played out specifically with the hijab, or the head covering for women. There are these situations where we have found that for a former Muslim to wear a head covering becomes a Titus/Galatians type of issue. You can’t wear it because those around you are going to conclude that you’re reverting back to your old faith system. You can’t wear it so that, as Paul said, the truth of the gospel might be preserved.

But in other situations, we found (to take Luke’s words from verse 3) because of the Muslims who were in those places, we actually encourage former Muslims to wear the hijab. It’s a sign of respect and modesty. Wearing it would not impact the purity of the gospel. It actually shows that, in Christ, they are free to wear it. They’re free not to wear it. While these women no longer have to wear a covering as a sign of submission, they can do it as a way not to make a hindrance for the gospel.

How do you make those types of decisions? Obviously, you’re not facing a head-covering decision, but every day you are making decisions within your cultural context, and you’re either making those through the lens of the gospel or some other type of lens.

It could be through the lens of, “What is going to allow me to be accepted by this segment of society?” It could be through the lens of, “What is the most comfortable situation for me and for my family?” It could be through the lens of, “What is going to give me the most control in this particular situation?” How do you choose what you are free to do and what you limit yourself in? If you use anything other than the gospel as the metric by which you make those decisions, you inevitably are going to waffle.

When you need to make a Titus “no” decision — “I can’t do this particular thing” — your heart idols of acceptance and approval are going to just scream, “What are they going to say about me?” Acceptance takes precedence over gospel truth. You do what you know you shouldn’t do, and you do it under the guise of, “Well, I’m doing it for the gospel,” when in reality, you know you’re doing it just for your own protection, your own satisfaction.

When you need to make a Timothy “yes” decision that actually leads you to do something that you would practically prefer not to do — I mean, really, do you think that Timothy, as an adult male, wanted to be circumcised? Rather than letting your personal preferences become the deciding voice, you run to this lens and you say, “This is what I know about Jesus! How he has completely changed my life.” Now I have this framework, I have this metric by which I can make this particular choice.

The same goes for dealing with sin. Do you diligently speak the Word of God to others, trusting that the Word is going to change them? One of the things that we are doing right now is we have five men that are church leaders in training. One of them, a young man, just got married last fall.

I’m sitting with him, a few months after he got married, and he’s just kind of venting and sharing some of his struggles with me. He said, “My  wife, she just is getting so frustrated with me!” And so I explored, “Hey, what’s happening?” And he said, “Well, you know, she needs me for something or she wants to talk to me. But, you know, if I stop my game on my phone, I might lose my points.” (Don’t laugh. Some of you do the same thing.) While my flesh wanted to say, “Grow up! Who cares about points?” That would have felt like this godly gospel diligence, but it wouldn’t have exposed his heart idol that’s leading him to do it. It wouldn’t have exposed him to the gospel truth that could actually change his heart.

So we opened up to Ephesians 5:25,

“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

I looked at my friend. I said, “You know the gospel. Jesus gave himself up for you, so you already have everything you need. If you get points, great. If you don’t get points, equally great. God wants you to give up your points. Give up your phone in order to love your wife, to love her in the same self-sacrificing way that Christ has loved you.” I will never forget: he looked at me across the table and he said, “I never knew that the Bible, the gospel had anything to do with my addiction to phone games.”

Moms and dads, you have little Timothys running around your house. Every time your child sins, you have an opportunity to address that sin — either through your own anger and frustration, or maybe indifference, or through the lens of the gospel.

So on your way to church this morning when one of your kids is screaming at another one of your kids. Instead of joining in the screaming yourself and saying, “Stop it! What’s wrong with you?” (Which we’ve all done). Or maybe you say, “Now, now this is just a little phase. They’ll get past this, right?” No. It’s saying in loving discipline, “What is it, son, in your heart that you love so much that you’re willing to hit and scream to get it?”

Then connecting that to the gospel: Jesus gave up all of his rights for you. (Philippians 2). He did that so that you don’t have to fight to get what you want. You can give up your rights for your brother. You can entrust yourself to a faithful God who always does the right thing.

Or maybe it’s your daughter listening to this artist, or dressing like that, or craving the likes on social media. There was this void in her heart that says, “Doing these things is going to give me the affirmation, the acceptance that I so long for.” You can look at her with compassion and say, “No, Jesus was rejected by his Father on the cross to earn for you an acceptance and affirmation that will never be lost. So no matter what anyone says about you or to you, or likes or dislikes, you were already fully accepted.”

You know why this is so hard for most of us? It’s because you’re not doing it to your own heart first. What is it that your heart loves so much that you do take that look? You love pleasure, and yet this leaves you empty and distant and weighed down. You’ve got to die to that momentary, life-sucking pleasure. No amount of grit is going to do it. You’ve got to look at it through the lens of what Jesus has done for you. Remember Psalm 16,

“There are pleasures at God’s right hand now and forevermore.”

Do you believe that? Do you believe that Jesus is better than? Or what is it that your heart loves so much that you are constantly fearful about your kids, about your husband, your future, your retirement, your next medical check, other people’s opinion of you? You love control. You love security, and it’s paralyzing you. You’ve got to die to that false God that promises you that you can control, that you have a certainty about your situation. See through the gospel lens what David said, Psalm 139,

“Before one of my days came to be, they were ordained for me. They’re already written in this book.”

Trust that. Believe that. Disciple your own heart with the gospel. And while you’re doing that, don’t ever forget the Father’s heart towards you as he is discipling you.

Our youngest son, Owen, has Down Syndrome. When you look at him, compared to a typical kid … Typical kid, you teach him how to do something two or three times, they’re going to pick it up really fast. Owen? A thousand times, ten thousand times, and maybe he’ll get it.

I think that’s how I am spiritually. It’s not like I read the Bible, “Love one another,” and go, “Yeah! Thanks God! Got it.” It’s a thousand times. ten thousand times, and I’m still learning how to obey and trust.

I remember my wife Sarah sitting in front of Owen, helping him to learn how to speak. Thousands and thousands of times, her sitting there going, “Duh, duh, duh.” And just when she’s about ready to pull her hair out and think, “Is this ever going to work?” He looks back at her and he goes, “Duh!” You’re like, “Yeah! That’s my boy! You did it!” Sarah did this with speech, with walking, with reading.

Me? I helped Owen with the important stuff: learning how to hit a wiffle ball. I thought I was going to need Tommy John surgery — the amount of throws in our backyard, pitching it to him, helping him get that stance right, choking up on the bat, not look like he was hitting a fly flying around him. One day we’re in the back yard and he makes this solid connection, bat on ball. And the look in his eyes, he knew what he had done. And I looked at Owen and I said, “It’s about time. What took you so long?” No, I didn’t do that. I started dancing all around the yard. “Yes, you did it! You hit the ball!” I can’t help but believe that’s how God is when you and I, we don’t get it over and over and over again. And then we do. He looks at you and he says, “Yes! You didn’t gossip. You looked at that person as I see them, as an image bearer, and you spoke truth, you spoke love.” “Yes! You didn’t fear that thing that was fearful. You trusted me. You laughed at the time to come.”

God is looking at you and he’s saying, “Yeah! That’s my girl. That’s my boy. They believe me. They’re obeying. They’re growing.” This is how God disciples you, and that is how he invites us to disciple others.

When the gospel is shaping your heart, when it is not just a profession of what you believe, but it is transforming your heart in the nitty-gritty of life, when you see every sin, every circumstance through that lens— you’re going to find yourself naturally discipling others, helping them to see the gospel connections in their life. Why? Because you’re being changed, you know the joy that comes from those baby steps of growth, and you want them to have it as well.

But one step further, when you have experienced the power of the gospel practically in your life, changing you in a way that is inexplicable, that no self-help book can ever do, you are not going to try to change people with your methods, your strength, your power. You’re going to realize that you have zero control to change your own heart, much less your kids or your neighbors. You’re going to rely fully on the power of the gospel to do the same work in them that it’s doing in you. We make disciples, but it’s the gospel that changes hearts.

Number two, we make plans, but God directs our steps. We see this here in verses 6-10. Paul wanted to go to Asia, to Bithynia, and finally God leads him to Macedonia in the city of Philippi.

My wife and I started missions work in China in 2006. God sent a severe test of faith: our daughter was born with a life-altering heart defect, and very quickly, God shut the door to China. We began to take other missions paths and experienced abusive leadership with another organization, not our current one, praise God. God gave us another child with a life-impacting disability of Down’s Syndrome. It just seemed like every gospel plan was being foiled until God used those medical challenges, those difficult experiences, to lead us to an island where simultaneously we can focus on an unreached people group and be within just a few hours of sound medical care for our kids.

Now, because of what we thought were foiled plans — we had a plan for China. But God had purposefully woven every one of our steps to bring us specifically to this people group, and now they are experiencing the life of the gospel.

Paul diligently pursued plans for Asia, for Bithynia, but he did it with an opened hand. Those two closed doors, they opened the way for him to go to Philippi, where we see that Lydia had her people, later on in the chapter, the jailer and his family, the church at Philippi was born.

It’s so important for us to see here that Paul didn’t have “gospel plans” on one side and “life plans” on the other. All of life was a gospel plan for him, whether that was actively embarking on a missionary journey, making tents, or going to the market. Gospel plans and life plans are inseparably linked.

If you get that first point (the Timothy situation), that all of life is discipleship (both the scheduled times and the unscripted moments), if you get that, then every plan you make—whether that is a move to a new neighborhood or a new city, a new job, or simply how you plan your daily schedule—everything you do will also be made through that gospel lens. Am I making this decision for my comfort, for money, an easy path forward? Or am I making it because my life has been changed by the gospel, and now every plan I make is shaped by that reality?

Two observations from this middle section here: number one, hold tightly to God and loosely to your plans. Back in 1966, Elisabeth Elliot (the wife of the martyred missionary to the Waodani Indians) wrote a novel called No Graven Image. It was about a missionary lady to Ecuador. In it, she highlighted the reality that we can have an idea of what God will do, and that idea, our expectation of God, it can actually become our God. Shortly after the book was published, Elliot gave a lecture at a university, and two of the young students there were Tim and Kathy Keller. Tim remembers,

“She went on to explain to us that the graven image, the idol of the title, was a God who always acted the way we thought he should. Or more to the point, he was the God who supported our plans, how we thought the world and history should go. That is a god of our own creation, a counterfeit god. Such a god is really just a projection of our own wisdom, of our own self. In that way of operating God, is our accomplice, someone to whom we relate as long as he is doing what we want. If he does anything else, we want to fire him, unfriend him, as we would any personal assistant who is insubordinate or incompetent. But at the very end, Margaret [the main character in the novel], realizes that the demise of her plans had shattered her false god, and now she was free for the first time to worship the true one. When serving the God-of-my-plans, she had been extraordinarily anxious. She had never been sure that God was going to come through for her and get it right. She was always trying to figure out how to bring God to do what she had planned, but she had not really been treating him as God— as the all-wise, all-good, all-powerful one. Now she had been liberated to put her hope not in her agendas and plans, but in God himself.”

What happens when God changes your plans? The answer isn’t to just not make plans.

“Go to the ant you sluggard; consider her ways and be wise” (Proverbs 6:6).

Make plans. Instead, can you see that God is uprooting your life? Maybe the cause is a poor decision you made. Maybe it’s someone else’s sin. Maybe it is something that is completely outside of your control. Can you trust that God is strategically putting you in the place where the gospel is going to have maximum impact in your life and the people that you’re around?

The answer is to find out what it is that you love so much that when your plans are upended, you’re not just disappointed, you’re done. How you respond at those times when your plans are upended—whether those are big life plans or just simple daily plans—how you respond to those times reveals what your heart loves most.

If you love approval, you’ll think, “What’s everybody going to say?” You’re making your plans not because of what God wants, but because of what others want, what they’re going to say about you. I’m sure that Paul had told the church in Antioch, “I have these great plans for Asia.” Maybe there was this internal pressure, “But what are they going to say when I don’t go there? I end up going to Philippi.”

Maybe a comfort idol is just kind of, “Why is this so inconvenient? I had these plans, and now…” Imagine Paul saying, “I already had my visa in hand for Asia. I’d already learned the Bithynian language. My boat tickets were nonrefundable.” An idol of control is going to attack and say, “But these were my plans! These were my plans!” Friends, do you realize how little control you have over your life? You are one moment away from a phone call or a diagnosis that could change everything.

But if you are making your plans through a gospel lens, then you have already taken a massive step towards holding your plans loosely, because your focus isn’t on the plan itself or on the move, or the situation, or the outcome. The focus is on, “What is God doing in my heart, my family, so that others can better see Christ as he is?” Hold tightly to God, hold loosely to your plans.

Secondly, obey today in spite of an unknown future. If you look at Paul in these verses, Paul is going. He’s on his way to Asia, the Spirit stops him. He is on his way to Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus prevents him. Look at verse nine, “A vision appeared to Paul.” The word that Luke uses here is that figurative lightning bolt from the sky. But did you notice that Paul did not wait for this to happen before he went?

Paul didn’t look at Timothy and Luke and Silas and said, “Guys, let’s just wait for God to make it super clear, another sign. Remember that Damascus Road experience I had? Let’s wait for another one of those.” No, Paul was already going. He was already obeying. He was already spreading the Word. Then God chose to redirect his steps.

Friends, you have the Word of God. You have godly leadership. You have more than enough to take the next step today. So many people are waiting for that lightning bolt experience from God, a sign to direct them where to go, when God has already given you the green light. Go make disciples wherever you are. Be extremely diligent. And then, in extreme reliance, he will show you where to go in his timing. So we make disciples, the gospel changes lives. We make plans, God directs our steps.

Number three, we speak the Word, but it is God that opens hearts. We plant seeds, but the earth produces the fruit. Paul spoke the Word to Timothy, he’s now speaking it to Lydia. Friends, the Word was primary. This isn’t just a momentary emphasis here in Acts chapter 16. It actually bookends the whole story of Acts. Back in Acts 2 Peter, the day the church was born, he gives this message based on the Old Testament. Jump to the very last chapter of Acts 28, verse 31, the last verse in the book. It says, Paul was

“proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance.”

So from the beginning, the emphasis has been, wherever you go, lead with the Word.

We’ve been working among a people group that is 99.9% Muslim. We’ve been with this people group for about a decade. I remember about six years ago as a team, we made a prayer card. On that prayer card, we said, “God, would you give us three Bible studies in this people group?” To be very honest, at that time it felt impossible. They were just so resistant, so entrenched in Islam and animism.

The message that God put on replay in our hearts was this: get them into God’s Word. Why? Because God’s Word will do the work that it was intended to do. Mark chapter 4 says that the sower, he sows the seed, he sleeps, and he rises night and day. And then what happens? The earth by itself produces the fruit.

About eight years ago, one of our Indonesian teammates that we have trained, he and his family began evangelizing a family from this particular people group that we live with. They would show them physical love. They would communicate gospel truth to them. And at times, this family was very open and communicative. Other times, they would completely cut off communication for months at a time.

This went on for seven years until about a year and a half ago the lady especially said, “We’re ready to study the Bible with you.” So my teammate and I, we started having Bible studies regularly with them.

The questions she was asking showed that God was doing a work in her heart. We felt convinced that she was truly a follower of Jesus, but we didn’t want to put that title on her. We wanted her to come and say, “Yes, I am believing, I am following Jesus as the way and the truth and the life.”

One week, she comes into our Bible study and she tells us a story. She says, “This past week I was meeting with a group of Muslim ladies in our village. We meet every month, and one of them looked at me. She said, ‘You’re being a bad Muslim. What’s wrong with you?’” And our friend, she said, “I stood up and I said, ‘The reason I’m being a bad Muslim is because I’m now a follower of Jesus Christ — not because anybody forced me to do it, but because of what this Book says.’”

Many of the women in that group were very angry with her. Others were very interested, curious. We continued to meet with her and her husband and her children. Six months later, her husband and her 12-year-old daughter also followed the Lord and believed in him. Praise God for the power of the Word to change hearts. About three months ago (three months ago tomorrow, actually, May 5th, 2024), this family —husband, wife, 12-year-old daughter — in a swimming pool full of other Muslims, publicly professed Christ through believer’s baptism. Let me give you a little bit of a taste of it here.

Amen. These are some of the first fruits of life among this people group. So now, far more than just these three prospective Bible studies, we have three families who are believing. One that you just saw, who has been baptized. Four more active Bible studies. Two little seedling churches, through the faithful communication of the Word of God.

We shouldn’t be surprised. Isn’t this exactly what happened with Paul? With Lydia? Look with me at verse 13. In the middle of the verse, it says,

“…where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.”

What do you think Paul spoke? You know exactly what he spoke. Look back at verse 10. After the vision had led them to Macedonia, he says,

“…concluding that God had called us to preach [what?] the gospel to them.”

Paul speaks the gospel, look at verse 14, the Lord opened Lydia’s heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.

Do you see where Paul’s work finished, God’s work continued? Paul had a role. We all have a role to diligently proclaim the Word of God, to speak the gospel into the lives of those who do not yet believe, whether that’s your children, your coworkers … But ultimately, it is the Lord that opens hearts.

What do you feel when you hear that? I think what Paul wants us to feel, what Jesus wants us to feel is a confident relief, a freedom. I can go to my friends on these islands, to my neighbors, to my own children, and joyfully, boldly communicate the Word of God to them, all the while crying out to God, “God, will you open their hearts?”

Why is this so difficult in all three arenas — making disciples, making plans, speaking the Word? Why is it so hard for us to have this extreme diligence and this extreme reliance? I think the reason that you still find this so difficult is that there is an idol still in your heart that is screaming, “Don’t let go!”

You see, if you crave approval, this discipleship thing is going to crush you, because it’s just messy. There is no time frame that within X amount of months you can have this trophy disciple. Your Timothy that you’re training may turned out to be a Demas, and rather than approval, you actually feel rejection. Or maybe even worse, your Timothy turns out to be really awesome, and you take the credit for it.

If you crave comfort, meeting up with other Christians who have heart issues is uncomfortable. It takes your time, going over to an unbelieving friend’s home and eating whatever they offer you. It’s risky. Adjusting your kids’ sports and music involvement to be more invested in discipleship and sharing the gospel. What are you going to have to lose?

Or maybe you crave control and you’ve got this just death grip on your kids and on your idea of an ideal future. And anything that threatens that control, even God, becomes an enemy. Do you believe it’s worth it? The reality is that most of you don’t. You still want to take control of your life. You want God, but not so much that it changes your schedule, your location, your kids’ future.

What is it that’s going to change you? What is it that’s going to set you free? I can promise you it is not Peter saying you’ve got this activity to do and pressure from the leadership. It’s not this internal guilt that says, “I’ve got to do it.” Both of those things are going to crush you.

The only thing that’s going to truly change you is when you think long and hard about the One who pursued your salvation with complete diligence, complete reliance on his Father. Think about his diligence. Christ made himself nothing. He set his face like a flint for you. Look at his diligence.

Yet, when it mattered most, look at his reliance on the Father.

“Not my will, but yours.”

“Into your hands, I commit my spirit.”

And the moment that Jesus took away your guilt, the moment that God accepted you — not for anything that you do or anything that you don’t do, but solely because of the work of Jesus Christ — he took away any need for you to protect yourself in that pseudo-reliance. He took away any need for you to prove yourself in that self-reliant diligence.

Some of you are so consumed with this idol of acceptance that you just do, do, do so that others say, “Yes, good job! You’ve done it!” Or maybe you’re so consumed with approval that you actually only do the things that you know you can succeed in. You never take the efforts, the risks that you know that the Word of God and God himself are calling you to do because you’re afraid you’ll fail.

God isn’t concerned about your success or failure per se. He’s concerned about your heart, your obedience. You have that idol of acceptance and approval. Look to Jesus on the cross. He said,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus took your sin on himself. He was rejected by his Father so that you will never be rejected. So even if no one ever notices your gospel efforts, gives you those accolades — you’re not doing it for that. You’re not doing it to gain other people’s approval. You’re doing it because you already have the Father’s approval.

Maybe for you it’s a loss of control over your kids’ future, your own future. You’re gripped by fear that if you give it all for Jesus, he’s somehow going to say, “I’ve got you now. I’ll give you a kid with an issue or a health thing, or send you to some place that you don’t want to go.” How silly we are.

If God was good enough, powerful enough to take Jesus through the hell of your sins and bring him back to life, don’t you think you can trust him to control your life? Disabilities, diagnoses, abandonment, and everything?

Maybe you’re bound by this idol of comfort and the thought of changing your routines, giving up your version of the American dream that literally makes you sick to your stomach. Look to Jesus,

“… who for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2) …”

He endured the cross for you. He left every comfort to be with you, to suffer for your sins, not for his own. And he did it to gain for you an eternal comfort with the Father. But not just then, right now, a comfort with his Spirit. And if that is your reality, what risk isn’t worth taking?

If others can look at your life, and it’s explainable (“Yeah, it makes sense how you live your life”), it could it be that something is wrong. It could be that you’re living in that so-called safe in-between. Not too much diligence, not too much reliance. But in reality, it’s not safe at all. You’re missing out on so much, so much joy in seeing God show himself strong as he really is, not as you’ve imagined him to be.

Aren’t you grateful that Jesus didn’t live in that safe in between? A little bit of diligence for your salvation? A little bit — No. He gave it all for you on the cross. And to the degree that you see Christ fully accepting you, fully in control, completely satisfying your every heart need. You’re going to joyfully say, I’m going to give it all for him as I fully rest in him.

Right now, we have an opportunity to think a little bit longer and a little bit harder about what Christ has done for us. In just a minute, we’re going to take the Lord’s Supper. As we do that, we remember what Jesus did. Jesus lived on this earth, and the night before he went to the cross for you, he gave his disciples, he gave us a picture, an image: the bread and the juice. He said, I want you to do this, to remember me. But what is it that we should remember?

There are so many things we could remember as we reflect on this. But as you, in a few moments, take that bread, and as you chew on it, and that bread representing the body of Christ is crushed between your teeth, think of how Jesus was crushed for you, and let that sober you. That’s what your sin did. Then let it fill you with joy that Jesus was crushed so that you never have to be. Then, as we take the juice representing the blood of Jesus Christ, remember that blood flowed so that you are accepted by God.

In just a minute, the men and women are going to come and pass it out. I invite you, if you’re a Christian, partake. If you’re not a Christian, just pass it on to the next person beside you. We’re going to have two songs that we’re going to sing and listen to. Take time now to reflect, to think long and hard about what Jesus has done for you.