Encountering the Risen Christ #6 - Sacrifice
Description
Jonathan Thiede concludes the Encountering the Risen Christ series exploring John 21:18-23. He reveals how Jesus calls each believer to a uniquely personal path of sacrifice rather than comparing our journeys with others. He invites us to find freedom and contentment by fixing our eyes on Jesus and surrendering to God's will, even when our sacrifices seem disproportionate or unfair.
Summary and Application
In this message Jonathan Thiede explores the profound interaction between Jesus and Peter in John 21:18-23. This passage reveals essential truths about what it means to follow Jesus authentically in a world that constantly tempts us to compare our journeys with others.
The Danger of Comparison
The message begins with Peter's question about John's fate after Jesus had just predicted Peter's own difficult future. Rather than providing a straightforward answer, Jesus responds with what might initially seem like a dismissive "What is that to you? You follow me." However, Jonathan suggests this response wasn't meant to be harsh but rather profoundly instructive.
Jesus was teaching Peter a crucial lesson: you cannot effectively build the church or fulfill your calling if you're constantly looking at others. When we take our eyes off God and fixate on our neighbors' journeys, we become ineffective in our own divine assignments.
Three Key Lessons About Following Jesus
1. Our Relationship with Jesus is Deeply Personal
Following Jesus is not a "cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all arrangement." As Bruce Mill notes in his commentary, Peter and John would have vastly different ministries: "Peter would be the shepherd, John the seer. Peter the preacher, John the penman. Peter the foundational witness, John the faithful writer." Peter would die as a martyr while John would live to old age and pass away peacefully.
This truth applies to us as well. Comparing ourselves to others is like comparing apples to oranges. God has uniquely positioned each of us where we will be most effective and bring Him the most glory.
2. The Struggle with Comparison is Universal
Jonathan acknowledges how natural comparison is in our lives. We scroll through social media with a sense of dread, believing we'd be happier if our lives resembled those we see online. He shares his personal struggle after college, watching friends achieve significant life milestones while feeling his own life was going nowhere. The question "When is it going to be my time?" resonated deeply in his heart.
This comparison trap affects us all, especially during life transitions when our paths begin to diverge from those of our peers.
3. Following Jesus Means Trusting Him in Unfair Situations
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of following Jesus is surrendering to His will even when circumstances seem unfair. The message concludes with an invitation to say, "God, if this is what you have for me, I trust that it will glorify you and I trust it is for my good... your will be done."
This surrender acknowledges that while we don't see the whole picture, God grieves with us in our pain while simultaneously using our sacrifices to glorify Himself in new ways.
Finding Freedom in Surrender
The beauty of this message lies in the freedom it offers. When we stop comparing our sacrifices, our callings, and our journeys to others, we find contentment in our unique relationship with Christ. By fixing our eyes firmly on Jesus rather than on those around us, we discover the peace that comes from trusting God's wisdom in placing us exactly where we need to be.
As we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice this Memorial Day weekend, we're reminded that sacrifice is at the heart of following Jesus. Though our sacrifices may differ in form and intensity, each one matters in God's kingdom when offered with a heart of surrender.
Reflection Questions
In what areas of your life do you find yourself most frequently comparing your journey to others? How might Jesus' words "What is that to you? You follow me" apply specifically to these situations?
Consider a sacrifice God is currently asking you to make that feels disproportionate or unfair compared to others. How might surrendering this to God with the prayer "Your will be done" change your perspective?
Jonathan suggests that we cannot effectively fulfill our calling if we're constantly looking at others. What practical steps can you take this week to fix your eyes more firmly on Jesus and the unique path He has for you?
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Let's pray together as we begin. Father, with heavy hearts we come to you this Memorial Day weekend, thinking of those that we have lost. God, we confess to you that in our hearts we feel that in so many situations it is unfair to lose these people God we pray that as we approach this topic of sacrifice that we would submit our hearts to you God we have so many different experiences so many different backgrounds represented in this room we pray very simply that you'd speak to us through your word God, we're so thankful you have not left us in the dark but that you have given us this interaction between yourself and Peter to instruct us. It's your son's name we pray, amen.
Welcome once again, my name is Johnathan Thiede. I have the pleasure of serving on the adult ministry team here at Orchard Hill and I am delighted at the opportunity to lead you through God's word today. The question I wanna start with is this, what's a food that you didn't care for as a kid but maybe over time you grew to like it? I was a picky kid so I have like a laundry list of these things, but looking back on it the most peculiar thing that I didn't like is probably donuts. When I was a kid, can you believe that? I didn't like donuts.
I didn't care for donuts. I've since developed taste buds, so we're good now, but, I I didn't appreciate donuts as a kid. We had this one donut shop in the town that I grew up in, Salmon's Bakery, and it was one of those like locally famous places. Kind of place that opens at 5AM and by 7AM they're like completely out of donuts. I remember as a kid just being completely surprised by that, completely shocked, like why would why would donuts be this popular?
So some of my best memories as a kid was going to sandwiches with my mom and my two siblings. Instead of getting a donut we would get chocolate milk. There wasn't anything special about it, it's just standard, you know, chocolate milk they have behind the counter, but maybe to a six year old that was the most precious stuff on earth. And one reason it was so precious is because my mom made it that way because, we would have one chocolate milk to share between the three of us. At the time she told us she wanted to teach a lesson sharing now that I'm an adult I know that she just didn't wanna buy three chocolate milks, consequently my therapist tells me that's why I'm always buying chocolate milk because as an adult I'm trying to rewrite, the past.
It's a joke, it doesn't really happen but picture it, you know, me and my older brother and my younger sister and my mom, you know, all sharing one chocolate milk. If you have siblings, you know how this goes like when the milk is full, when the milk is flowing, like it's all good. My brother's taking a sip, he's supposed to pass it. I'm like, no, keep going, keep going, it's fine. But if you have siblings, you know, as you get down to those last few sips, it's like an all out war.
You know, you're savoring every last drop. When the when the milk gets past due, you're just hoping that there's something left. And I also always feel cheated because you don't have to be a math expert to know that, you know, you only have a one in three chance that you're gonna be the one to finish the milk. And that's when I learned right there at six years old in Sammons Bakery in Murray, Kentucky that this world is unfair, right? Life is just so unfair sometimes.
Well, we all learn this lesson sooner or later, right? Whether you have siblings or you're an only child, we have these moments as a kid where even though our teachers and our parents teach us about fairness in the world where we just learn that that isn't the case. It doesn't hold up. And we all face what I'm gonna call today disproportional sacrifice. Some of us have to sacrifice more than others and we rarely sign up for it.
We experience these in small ways but on a day like today and on a weekend such as this, Memorial Day weekend, we're reminded of what I learned as a kid. That when it comes to sacrifice this world can be very unfair Memorial Day weekend reminds us that though life is full of sacrifice the scales are rarely even that though all our brave men and women deserve to come home, it doesn't line up with the reality we experience. That children grow up with parents, that we lose friends at a young age. Memorial Day weekend reminds us that sacrifice is by its very nature out of balance. And if you're honest with yourself as someone who maybe believes in God, maybe you identify as a Christian, this is tough to grip with.
You ask yourself what does the bible say about this? This topic of disproportional sacrifice? You know, surely God, if he's just, if he's fair, surely he has some thoughts on this. Surely disproportional sacrifice is a sign that something somewhere has gone very wrong. According to the book of Ecclesiastes, it's a book in the old testament, Ecclesiastes 2:21.
We find that this personal sacrifice is actually just a normal part of life in a fallen world. The verse in chapter two twenty one the writer says, for a person may labor with wisdom, knowledge, and skill and then they must leave all they own to another who has not toiled for it. What does this mean? It means that god is not trying to cover up our experiences. God is not trying to, make us feel as though we are crazy and thinking the world is fair.
He affirms this, that due to the presence of sin in our world life is full of unfair situations. Some are called upon to sacrifice more than others. As we begin this topic of sacrifice I want you to know that this is both good and bad. The bad we know by experience, the bad is pretty obvious. That unfair situations have a tendency to bring out the worst in us.
That unfair situation causes us to question god, to question reality, to question the life that we live. It it tempts us to scream this isn't fair into the air and shake our fist at God. But here's the good, that although unfair situations are caused by sin, God can still redeem them. And as we continue our series today in counting the risk in Christ, in fact as we end our series with this unique interaction between Jesus and Peter, I want you to know that this is actually an exciting opportunity. Because today in God's word, he wants to meet you in your unfair situations.
He wants to show you that he sees you, he hurts for you, and that he hasn't left you. And as he invites you to a deeper faith, he invites you to trust him in a new way. Trusting him even as you go through your unfair fair situation. Our big idea for the day is this, to follow Jesus is to trust him in seemingly unfair situations. To follow Jesus is to trust him in seemingly unfair situations.
We'll flesh out this big idea by looking at disproportional sacrifice under three headings. The first heading, we're gonna see how disproportional sacrifice affects our relationships, it affects the people around us. Secondly, we're gonna see how disproportional sacrifice impacts our relationship with God and what we believe about him. And finally, we'll end by looking how Jesus met Peter in his time of unfairness and in fact, how he meets us in our time of disproportional sacrifice. Well first, let's look at the primary emotion we feel when we're put in unfair situations and that is the emotion of envy or jealousy.
Disproportional sacrifice leads to envy. You've probably experienced this yourself. Say you're at work and it just seems like you always get the toughest clients. You have that one teammate, that one coworker, that one person you work with and it seems like they always get the easy ones. And as a result because you always get the tough clients, your results are kinda spotty but it just seems like this one person, they always get the easy street and so their results are great.
And now maybe this happens over the course of a couple weeks or a couple of months, you can just say it's just it's not a big deal, I can get over it. But say this happens over the course of years over years, this person just it feels like they're getting preferential treatment. How does that paint your view of that person? Over time, how do you feel about that person? Well, I think it's envy, right?
This voice in our head that says, you know, if only I had their situation, their luck, their life, their gifting, then I would be truly happy. It's the voice of envy and we see it in the story, don't we? We see it in John twenty one eighteen through 23 how when we are asked to sacrifice more than others it leads us to just like Peter to looking away from God and looking at others comparing our circumstances to other people. I think this story actually really helpfully shows us how envy works. It shows us that there are always two components when it comes to envy.
First, envy begins with bad news or a bad circumstance. We see this in the bad news Jesus gives Peter about his life is gonna go. And our passage once again, John twenty one eighteen through 23. In verse 18 it begins, it says, when you were younger, you dressed yourself and went where you wanted. But when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you don't want to go.
And then John has this very helpful, this very instructive statement that he ends with Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death for which Peter would glorify God. So envy always begins with bad news or bad circumstance. So what's the bad news? Well Kurt helpfully covered this last week that Jesus is essentially telling Peter that though in this current day he has choice, he has freedom, there will come a day where he will lose all his autonomy, all his sense of agency, his sense of choice, his sense of decision and his life will be taken by force. And if that wasn't bad enough, the bad news goes even further because in the ancient world this phrase stretch out your hands was commonly understood to refer to crucifixion.
So taken together what Jesus is saying is just as he could not avoid the cross, just as he cried out to god the father, please take this cup from me, just as it was god's will to crucify Jesus, it is also God's will that Peter would go to the cross as well. This is hard news that Peter's death would glorify God but it will come at a steep price. A deadly, gruesome, ugly death at the cross. And so envy begins with bad news but this brings us to our second component of envy. Because we inevitably see a turning, don't we?
In our story it's a physical turning and we see that in verse 20. Verse 20 says Peter turned and saw the disciple whom Jesus loved, that is John, was following them. When Peter saw John he asked, Lord, what about him? Lord, what about him? And our story very helpfully the turn is physical, but how often does this happen to us in our hearts?
You delivered some hard news you didn't pass the test you got denied for a loan that would have given you your dream house you are told you're infertile or that a loved one has a serious illness And in our hearts we turn and we look at others almost automatically, don't we? We look at other people, we make a judgment decision about our life, we compare it to other people and we say, why is it always me getting the shorts short end of the stick? We say in our hearts, why is it always me? Why am I so unlucky? Why does it feel like God is always picking on me?
Have you ever taken a step back and just asked why? Like, why are we so envious? Why does envy, why does comparison come so naturally to us? Why does it feel like we are wired to judge our lives and compare them with the people around us? Why do we scroll through Instagram with a sense of dread that if we could just be like the people we're scrolling through then we'd be truly happy?
This is actually a personal question that I've had to wrestle with. You know high school and college is a funny thing. It's like four years, four very unique years where you meet all these people and for the most part you're on the same path. You're taking the same classes, you have the same teachers, same assignments. But as time passes after college, what happens?
Some people begin to pass other people by. Big life moments begin to occur. One of your friends gets a job when you haven't had a single interview in your field. One of your friends gets married right out of college when you haven't gone on a date in years. A few years ago I was really struggling with this I just felt like I was going to all these weddings I was celebrating all these friends by these big life moments and my constant credit god was, and when is it gonna be my moment?
When is it gonna be my time? And truly I felt like my life was going nowhere and this dread of scrolling through Instagram, comparing my life with others was all too real. And then I stumbled upon this passage and it was a great solution for me. I I printed it off, the story of Jesus and Peter became so very precious. And anytime I began to feel sorry for myself, anytime I felt myself bending in on myself where, the my very world is being colored by envy for other people, I'd be reminded of Jesus' sobering words.
What is that to you? You follow me. And I did that because I was finally starting to see just how ugly the sin of envy is. You know, sometimes when we list off sins I think envy gets a pass because it's like hey we all do it, it's not really a big deal. But Socrates, the philosopher, he once said about envy, envy is the ulcer of the soul.
The book of Proverbs tells us envy rots the soul. And so we when we experience envy, we start to realize why it's included in the 10 commandments. Thou shall not covet your neighbor's belongings. And for me, I was seeing that firsthand because I was seeing how dwelling on comparison, dwelling on how my life was not measuring up, my expectations, my plans, my desires. I was seeing the impact on the way that that impacted my relationships.
I was seeing the fact that I could no longer be happy for other people. I was going to weddings and and all I could think about was myself, was how my life was unsatisfied. I couldn't be happy for my friends. You see for all of us when we experience envy, we find that even our greatest friends can become our deepest enemies. When we listen to voice of envy, we believe this lie that life is a zero sum game and instead of being happy for our friends when they get the promotion, instead of celebrating our friends engagement, envy has a way of bending us in on ourselves.
So that all we can think of is, well, that's one less good thing for me I guess. I think Aristotle said it best when he said envy is pain at the fortune of others envy is pain at the fortune of others What about you? Do you see a little bit of this in yourself? Do you see a little Peter in yourself today as you turn, as you compare your life to others? Do you find yourself turning away from God and looking at others as if to say if I just had their situation, their luck, their life, then I'd be happy.
Well, if you see in yourself in the story, if the sacrifices that you've been sort of forced to make in your life have made you envious of others who've made it, had it a little easier. Let's continue to dive in these feelings as we move from, looking at how envy, how sacrifice affects our relationships to how sacrifice affects what we believe about God. This brings us to our second heading about disproportional sacrifice that it shows us what we really believe. Disproportional sacrifice shows us what we really believe. Have you ever been offended by someone's low expectations for you?
Like when someone over explains something to you and it makes you think like, do they think I'm a complete moron? Like, it's someone's you're meeting someone for a nice dinner and they say, yeah, you probably shouldn't wear sweatpants. You should probably get there fifteen minutes early. You should probably parallel park. I don't know if you know how to do that.
It's like, yeah, I understand the concept of dinner. I've been to a dinner before. But I know I'm guilty of this. I do this other people as well. You know, I have this friend who is, like, chronically late.
Like, we're not talking five, ten minutes late. If we were five, ten minutes late, I would basically consider us on time. I'm talking, like, we have to meet other people at 08:00 and it's 08:30 and he hasn't even started getting ready. And it's happened so often that I I feel like I have to treat him a little bit differently than my other friends. Like, I have to constantly check-in with him when it's time to get ready to the point where I kinda feel like I'm treating him like a kid.
Like, hey buddy, do you have your shoes? Are you are you gonna get your shoes on? Hey buddy, is that what you're wearing tonight? Because last time it took you thirty minutes to pick an outfit. You know, you know, why do we do this?
We do this because people's actions over time shape what we believe about them. People's actions over time shape our expectations for them and it actually impacts how we treat them. We do this with friends, spouses, parents, coworkers, and even with God. And this leads us to our second heading, our second truth that disproportional sacrifice shows us what we really believe. That we have these beliefs that we share in a small group setting, we share with people in our groups, we say I am willing to sacrifice.
This is I'm gonna take up my cross and follow Jesus whatever the cost. We find that when a cross is actually introduced to our lives, it shows us what we really believe about what it means to follow Jesus. And so we return to our story with a new question, what did Peter's envy, his comparison to John? What did this reaction say about what he believed? What were his expectations of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus?
Now Now we're probably in the realm of speculation, but, I don't think it's unfair to conclude that Peter might have thought that a life of following Jesus after Jesus had resurrected might have meant a life of relative ease. You know, Jesus might have talked a lot about suffering and about, dying to yourself but there might have been a, maybe a hope that Peter thought, well that's all in the past, right? How many of us would draw the same conclusion? How many of us still draw the same conclusion? How many of us when we have to make a sacrifice, when we're put in a situation that seems to cost us more, how many of us think that this is sort of a bug in the Christian life?
That this wasn't supposed to happen to me? I did everything right. How many of us look to God in these moments as if something shocking was happening? That even though we paid lip service to this idea of sacrifice, that the moment a cross was introduced to our lives, deep down it it shows these beliefs that deep down we believed as long as we were moral, as long as we kept going to church, as long as we kept praying, kept raising our kids right, that suffering wouldn't touch us. Well it seems Peter learned his lesson and we know it's because of what he writes in a letter a few years later.
In first Peter four verse 12, he says, dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on to you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. He says, don't be surprised when challenges arise. It seems like this lesson that Jesus was trying to share really got through to Peter. And disproportional sacrifice still shines a light on our beliefs. And not only does it tend to reveal what we believe about suffering, but I think it also challenges our beliefs about God himself.
Because so often when we have to sacrifice more than other people, we start to believe the lie that God doesn't really know what he's doing. The NBA playoffs has been going on and this is gonna make me sound really old, I never thought I would be this person, but the NBA is getting out of control. It it just seems like every play, every time there's someone misses a shot, no one really misses shots anymore. It someone got fouled and they're complaining to the ref all the way down the floor. And I feel like I'm aging like forty years into the future because I'm like, just get back on defense, you know?
And it's like, that doesn't do anything. But I promise you, I'm not one of those people that loves to take shots at the NBA. I I really am a fan, but it's not uncommon to see a player just barking at the ref all game. And why do they yell at the refs? You ever asked that yourself that question?
Well, they yell at the refs because to be simple, you know, they think they need help. They think the refs need to know that they missed something. And this is us, isn't it? This is what's going on in our hearts when our lives aren't turning out as expected. We've become spiritual referees when we won't rest until every slight, every sacrifice, every unfairness is a counter for.
When we don't trust God in those moments to to make everything right we say it's up to me And why do we do this? For the same reason. Because these sacrifices that we have to make are revealing about what we believe about God. That maybe like a referee maybe God has lapses. Even though we might have learned when we were a kid that God is everywhere all at once, that God knows everything, we start to believe this lie that maybe he doesn't know what he's doing after all.
Maybe he doesn't see me. Maybe this whole relationship with God thing was overblown. Going back to chocolate milk, you know, is this exactly what kids do? You know, when they feel slighted, when they feel like they're being treated unfairly, when they feel like their siblings are getting the better of them, they look up and they complain. They say to the parents, aren't you seeing this?
You have to do something about this. Well, I don't know where you're at with this, I don't even know if you believe in God but in a room like this I think it's fair to assume that there's something in your life going on right now that feels very unfair. There's a sacrifice that you're making, maybe it's a big one, maybe it's small daily sacrifice, I don't know. Maybe it's public, maybe it's just between you and God. But there's something in your life, there's a sacrifice that you're making that feels very personal and very unique to you.
And so I think it's fair to ask the question how has this sacrifice changed your relationship with God? Maybe you hear someone who's speaking vibrantly about prayer and you think I don't know, I don't know if that really works I had that thing that happened to me ten years ago. I tried praying back then and God didn't come through for me back then. Is it possible that this sacrifice has changed your whole relationship with God and maybe you didn't even notice it until today? Is it possible that in the midst of this unfair situation that truly is unfair, I can't stress that enough, but that this deep sacrifice he's asked you to make you've said in your heart just like Peter, if this is what it means to follow Jesus, I I don't know if I want any part of it.
Well, if that's you, I invite you today to be honest with him about that. God loves to hear our complaints. The book of Psalms is full of people who are crying out to God saying, God, please do something about my situation. But I also wanna challenge you to trust in the wisdom of God. That just as God knew what he was doing with Peter, just as God knew what he was doing with John, just as he knew the perfect fitting for their giftings and their roles and how to build the church, he knows how to best glorify, best use you to glorify God.
He sees your sacrifice and he has a purpose in it and he's absolutely using it to make you more like his son and to build the church well so far we've discovered two things about disproportional sacrifice we've seen how it impacts others toward envy we've seen how it distorts our belief in God and the good news is we haven't even touched on the most important part of our story yet and that's Jesus' response to Peter. So let's take a look at our third heading, how Jesus meets us in our sacrifice. How Jesus Meets Us in Our Sacrifice Well, one of the things that makes this passage so hard to understand is that if we're honest Jesus' response is kind of unsatisfying His response is really not what we would expect from him. What our hearts are hoping for in in a passage like this is for Jesus to take the sacrifice off the table, right? For him to say, yeah, that you're right.
That's really not fair. I I I made a mistake. But on the surface, this response from Jesus seems kind of harsh and I think it's okay to admit that. Going back to the work example from earlier, you know, imagine you get fed up with always having to take on the tougher clients. And so you gain the courage to go to your boss and you say, why does it seem like my assignments are always tougher?
How is that fair? And imagine your boss dismisses you by saying, we'll deal with it or that's none of your business. And I think it's okay to be honest if that's how you feel about this response from Jesus because look at what he says, you know, we've seen Peter receive some hard news, we've seen him turn around and say, well what about him? Referring to John. And here's Jesus response in verse 22, he says, if I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?
You must follow me. And so if our third heading is how Jesus meets us in our sacrifice, I think it's pretty clear. Jesus meets us in our sacrifice harshly. Jesus meets us in our sacrifice by essentially telling us not to question him, by telling us to put your head down and get back to work. But I wanna challenge that notion because I think Jesus' response is supposed to be striking.
I think it's supposed to be strong. I think he's trying to communicate something to Peter. He's trying to help Peter as he does his individual job of building the church. We have to understand that this interaction comes right after Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep, that Peter will be instrumental in building the church. And I think Jesus is trying to help him to understand you can't build the church if you're looking at John.
You can't do anything if your eyes are not firmly set on the task before you and your eyes are not set on God himself. When we take our eyes off God and put our eyes onto our neighbor we are not effective in what God has called us to do. And so I wanna challenge this notion because I don't think Jesus' response is merely a deal with it sort of dismissive response. Let's look at three things we can learn about what it means to follow Jesus from this response. The first thing we learn about following Jesus is that our relationship with Jesus is deeply personal.
It's deeply personal. This primarily means that following Jesus is not a cookie cutter, one size fits all sort of arrangement. Peter needed to hear this because he clearly thought that to be a student of Jesus was to receive the same homework, the same assignments, to have the same tests, the same exams, but Jesus pushes back on this, doesn't he? Bruce Mill in a on in a commentary on John, he says this, the ministries of Peter and John would be different. Peter would be the shepherd, John the seer.
Peter the preacher, John the penman. Peter the foundational witness, John the faithful writer. Peter would die in the agony and passion of martyrdom. John would live on to great age and pass away into quiet serenity. And so it is with us and so it is with us anytime we compare ourselves to others it's merely apples to oranges.
When we're comparing how God has gifted us or the sacrifices or the calls that he's asked to make Jesus reminds us here that we need not compare And he reminds us to trust in the wisdom of God that he has placed us where we are going to be the most effective. He has placed us where we are gonna bring the most glory to God. And I know for some this is a hard message to receive. But I hope you see the freedom that this gives us. Because the comparison game is an exhausting one.
It is exhausting to be a sp- spiritual referee for yourself. It is exhausting to continuously compare your lives to others, that anytime something negative happens, all you can see is the negative. So while it's true that there's an aspect of rebuke and what Jesus tells Peter, I think there's also an aspect of invitation. He's saying stop looking around and fix your eyes on me. Enter the rest that I have for you and accept the sacrifices that I have for you.
And he offers the same invitation to you. To you who has been resisting sacrifice, running from it. To you who have been looking at your sacrifice as a bug in the system. To you who has been holding a grudge as if God isn't holding up his end of the deal. Today he invites you to pick your heads up so that your eyes are fixed on him and he invites you to follow him and to finally experience this thing the bible calls contentment.
Well first thing we learned that following Jesus is deeply personal. It's different for each person. The second thing we learned is that frankly we don't always like this. You know, if you've been in Christian circles you've likely heard the phrase that Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. Not a religion, but a relationship.
And I wholeheartedly agree with this, there's really nothing wrong with saying that. But isn't it funny that when things start to go wrong we wish that Christianity function functioned more like a religion? Because what we've established is that following Jesus because in its very essence is a relationship and its very essence it's not cookie cutter it's not one size fits all Jesus is gonna ask us to do different things because our relationship with him is different but religion on the other hand is by its very nature cookie cutter it's by its very nature one size fits all there is a law and we either do it or we don't imagine you get a new job and you know it's a standard office job maybe you clock in at nine and leave at five While you're at the office within those hours there's a lot that your boss can ask you to do, but once it hits 5PM you're no longer bound. That's a relationship based on religion, based on law. You know, you do your part, your boss does theirs.
You go home and you don't speak to each other. But what this passage reminds us is that following Jesus is a lot more like a marriage or a deep friendship. In no healthy marriage can you say, hey I'm clocking out, I've done my part for the day. But what this passage shows us is that when life gets really hard, when we feel like we're sacrificing more than others, putting in more hours into our Christian life, we wish that our relationship with God had a little more religion. But the beautiful, wonderful, difficult, hard to swallow message of the gospel is that through Jesus Christ, we no longer relate to God on the basis of law, but on the basis of grace.
We no longer relate to God based on a system, but based on a person, the person of Jesus Christ. That through Jesus Christ, through our relationship with him, we can have a relationship with God himself. Our relationship is no longer based on the law. The book of Romans said says, and now a relationship with God comes that is apart from the law, and it is grace. It's no longer based on this handshake deal where you do your part and God's does his and you go home without say seeing each other, but it is now based on a passionate dance with God as he calls us to sacrifice for him in the same way that he has already sacrificed for us.
To lay down our lives for the for the body, to lay down our lives for others in the same way that he laid his life down for us. This is the gospel not a deal, but good news. It's not mechanical in how it works but it's a real passionate organic relationship with Jesus. And so we've learned that following Jesus is personal that we don't always like this and finally this passage shows us that to follow Jesus means we have to trust him. To follow Jesus means we have to trust him.
I don't know how you come here today but I can imagine for many of you this is not the message you were expecting. The heart of disproportional sacrifice longs for, to have a load taken off, not to be told to just follow Jesus. But what this passage reminds us is that the sacrifice you're enduring, the taking care of an aging parent, the caring for a child with unique needs, the loneliness of infertility and everything in between These things in our life that we look around and we don't see anyone else dealing with, what this passage reminds us is that these sacrifices are not randomly assigned. These are not signs that something has gone wrong, these are not signs that our life is falling apart but they are assigned by a good God who cares about us. A God who is wise enough to give us the challenges in our lives to shape us to mold us to become more like Jesus just as he was good doing to Peter.
But if God's wisdom and power isn't enough for you let's close by looking at his love because if you're ever struggling with sacrifice I say to you today that God's love for you is what uniquely qualifies him for you to trust him because Jesus didn't approach Peter as a dismissive boss he didn't approach Peter as an uncaring parent but Jesus approached Peter as someone who had been to the cross and bore it for himself. He approached Peter as one in giving him this unfair death sentence as the only person who ever died unfairly. The one who gave Peter a message would give him sorrow was the man of sorrows himself. And don't you know the same is true for you today? That God does not approach you uncaring.
He doesn't he doesn't just dole out these things randomly, but God has given you these crosses to bear because he cares about you. He's given you these crosses to bear so that you would trust him and so that you would grow in your faith. The same God who gives you your unique cross to bear is the very same God who in the garden instead of saying to God the father, you know, send John or send Peter, he looked up to the father and he said nevertheless your will be done. I may not understand what you're doing but your will be done. And the really exciting thing is that for those of us who identify as Christians, for those of us who are followers of Jesus, we look we get to look forward to in a hundred years.
We will we will gather once again and we will be able to see exactly what God was doing. We will be able to see why we trusted the wisdom and the power and the love of God. But as for now if we consider ourselves followers of Jesus, if we want to follow the Jesus who suffered at the cross we must learn to echo his words your will be done. In what area do you need to say this today? What is the unfair thing that you're going through right now?
May I invite you today to confess this to God? To tell God about it? To yes, to even pray that it might go away? But in the case that it doesn't, may I invite you just to surrender this to God and say God if this is what you have for me I trust that it will glorify you and I trust it is for my good God if this is what you have for me then your will be done to follow Jesus is to trust him even in unfair situations. Let's pray.
God we ask that you would give us the strength and the courage to say your will be done. God we confess that this is a difficult message. It's difficult when we don't see the whole picture but God I pray for the faith to trust in these situations I pray for every single person that in in these situations God that they would see that you grieve for them that you hurt for them but also that you are using their unfair situations you're using their sacrifice to glorify you in a new way God we thank you for the opportunity to sit under your word and we pray that we would do it today it's in your son's name we pray amen thank you for joining us have a great week
This transcript was automatically generated, please excuse any errors.
