The Life of the Gospel

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

And thank you, Dan. Good morning. And we're going to continue our series. If you want, you can open your Bibles to Mark chapter 6. We're going to be in verse 31 to begin with, Mark chapter 6, verse 31 through 34 is where we're going to be reading. First, before we get to that, I really just wanted to, just as you're turning there, I wanted to remember a little bit about what we've talked about in our series of the gospel, because what we're trying to do is we're trying to break out of some simple definitions of the gospel. Now, nothing's wrong with those simple definitions. However, they lack a certain depth. They do not reflect the gospel that is in Scripture because of that lack of depth. And so what we really are seeking to do in our gospel sermon series is to take in all that Scripture says about the gospel, to really look at it like that diamond

and keep turning that diamond in our minds, seeing different parts of the gospel. So the first week, we talked about the person of the gospel, the person of the gospel, that God has specifically come in person to proclaim and demonstrate the gospel so that it is, it is not wrong to say, for example, that everything that Jesus said and did in his earthly ministry is also the gospel. Okay. So, in the person of Jesus, we see the gospel. Then we talked about the message of the gospel. We spent two weeks on the message of the gospel. We talked about how it's the good news that is for us and is salvation for us, but it's also good news of God's in-breaking kingdom, of which our church is a small part, a beachhead, if you will, of that front. We are part of the invading army into the death, the sin and death of culture. We're fighting against sin and death. We're fighting against strongholds of the enemy. And we're doing that

because God, his kingdom is in breaking. It's dawning and it continues to do that. that. Last week, we talked about the method of the gospel where, you know, again, we go back to the fact that the good news, it was given in person first, and that it really always goes out in person. That when you start mass producing the gospel and it's impersonable or impersonal, you really lose something in that and that making disciples was Jesus' plan A for this gospel going out, right? He spent a little bit of time with the crowds. He spent a little bit of time healing, performing miracles. That's all true, but where was the vast majority of his time? Making disciples, making disciples. And so he intends for the gospel to go out through making disciples, and we are a part of that. Remember what we said was, when we're looking at Jesus and going, how? Jesus is looking back at us and going, you, you're my method.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about the life of the gospel. So when someone does believe the gospel, how does that look? How does their life look? And not just making disciples and church attendance and not just those things, but how do they interact with their family? How do they work their job? How do they order their coffee? How do they handle stress? How do they handle grief, frustration, conflict? What's that look like? What does their life look like? And so to really see this, we need to see Jesus's life. We need to see how he did all these things, how he interacted with people. And there's an episode that is very indicative of this in his life. And it's Mark chapter 6, verses 31 through 34, where we're going to be today. I'm going to read that aloud. And he said to them, come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest awhile." So this is Jesus talking to the disciples.

So Jesus is saying, hey, let's go take a rest. Says, for many, still in verse 31, for many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. So they were busy. And they went away in a boat to a desolate place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them. And they ran their on foot from all the towns and got their head up. When he went ashore and saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things." So the scene is this, that Jesus is trying to rest, that his disciples are trying to rest. They're so busy they can't even eat. I don't know if you've been that busy ever, but I have. And it's kind of fun, but you're definitely, by the time you realize you have not even, and it's like 3.30 in the afternoon, you're going, oh, okay. I'm hungry, I'm tired, I'm ready to go home.

I'm all those things that it all kind of catches up with you at once. And so I imagine, if I'm able to do such a thing, I imagine that this is the moment that Jesus and the disciples find themselves in. They've been so busy. They've skipped a meal, maybe two. They've had no leisure even to eat. And Jesus is saying, let's just get away. Let's just get away. And what happens? The crowd and see them get in the boat, anticipate where they're going, meet them there. And I don't know if you've ever been in this place, but this is just me and my flesh. If I were a disciple in that boat, and I'm coming up on the shore, and there's all those people that we just tried to get away from, and they're all looking like, hey, you got more bread and fish? Something, I'm hating those people, right? Like, I'm not excited to see them at all. I'm not thinking, hey, this is gonna be a great time of ministry.

I'm just not, sorry. I'm not, that's my flesh. I mean, that's when I'm hangry, I get super selfish, and I think maybe most of us do. But that's not what happened. And Jesus honestly could have even lovingly and tenderly turned them away. He could have said, hey guys, this is some us time, okay, not you time. We just had you time, now we need some us time. That's not what Jesus says. He serves them anyway. It says, out of his great compassion, he had great compassion in them, but they were like sheep without a shepherd. He loved them. Jesus' ministry is marked by sacrificial service. More than just a little bit. It's deeply sacrificial. It's to the point of suffering. I mean, he's missing a meal here, but it goes way more than that. We know that. And just a quick survey, Mark 2, he serves a paralytic. Mark 3, he serves a man with a withered hand. Mark 5, he heals a demon-possessed man.

Mark chapter six, he feeds 5,000. Mark chapter seven, he heals a Syrophoenician woman's daughter. And also in chapter seven, he heals a death mute. Chapter eight, he feeds 4,000. And all of this is sacrificial service. All this is whenever Jesus had other things going on. For example, in Mark chapter seven, he is approached by an official who wants him to heal his child. And on the way, there's a woman with an issue of blood who touches his cloak and he stops and he's like, who touched me? And the disciples, it's funny, their reaction, whenever Jesus stops, they say, who touched you? Everybody touched you, okay? We are pressed in from every side. There's people all over you and you're wondering who touched you. And Jesus said, no, no, no, a power went out from me. He stops down and he's like, who did it? And he wants to bless her. He wants to bless her. He stops. He stops everything that's going on.

He looks at a woman who by all intents and purposes is done in the society that she's in. She has no standing. She has no nothing. And he looks at her and he has compassion on her. He says, your face saved you. Same thing with the Syrophoenician woman who she basically back talks to Jesus. She's like, look, I'm not a Jew, but can I just at least have table scraps? And he's like, that's what I want to see. Yeah, okay, your daughter's healed, go. You see Jesus being interrupted. I mean, pretty much his whole ministry is dealing with interruptions. There's no point at which, and Jesus called ahead and had multitudes there and healed them just on schedule and then moved on to the next town. That's not what you see. You see Jesus dealing with other people's interruption, other people's needs on whatever occasion they had. And what is the cross? What is the cross if not a sacrificial serving and suffering and dying on behalf of other people?

This is exactly Jesus' ministry. It is no overstatement to say that the essence of Jesus' ministry is to serve, to suffer, and to die on behalf of other people. That's exactly why he came. His entire ministry is consumed by that idea. He's driven to serve people who don't deserve to be served. He's driven to suffer and die for people who don't even realize he's suffering and dying for them. This is part of what makes Jesus' compassion so amazing. This is part of why we admire Jesus. But you might be saying, wait, wait, wait, Drew. You said last week that the focus of his ministry was making disciples who will imitate him. Yes, I did, and that's so true. But I will say it this way, the substance of that imitation is serving and suffering and dying on behalf of other people. So yes, he's making disciples and he says, watch me as I do ministry. Okay. But when he says, watch me, what is he doing?

He's sacrificially serving people. So when the disciples see that they should be getting the clue, oh, okay, I'm, I'm going to sacrificially serve other people too. Jesus is trying to get them to understand that. I want to put it a different way, because I really want you to think about this just a couple of different ways. Jesus' life was not just for him.

Jesus was God incarnate, and his life was not for him. In fact, his life of suffering and dying on behalf of other people is our life. Jesus's life is our life. Not just that we have life in him, but that his way of living is our way of living. That whenever it comes to ministry, when it comes to serving people, that we need to look at Jesus and understand that that That will be our lot. Jesus didn't wait for people to deserve our help, and neither should we. Philippians 2 picks up on this. Philippians 2, 4 through 7 says, "...let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of other people, having this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, born in the lightness of men. So you are looking to others. Why? You're looking at others and being

a servant. Why? Because Jesus was. Jesus did the same thing, and he had a better excuse not to do it than you do. He was the Son of God. He could have said, no, no, no, not today. Today I'm going to sit on the throne and be served. And he would have been 100% right to do that, but he didn't. 1 Peter 4 actually says it more emphatically, and I want to let this kind of be our engine for the day. 1 Peter 4, 1 through 2, it says, "...since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking for whoever suffered in the flesh, has ceased from sin, so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh, no longer for human passion, but for the will of God." It says, essentially, Christ suffered in the flesh. He suffered while he was here, and if he did that, then we need to arm ourselves with the exact same way of thinking so as to live our lives for the will of God, not for human passions

but for the will of God. Arm ourselves with the same way of thinking. Jesus saved our lives so that we can spend our lives on other people. This is what Jesus means when he says, you're going to lose your life for my sake. You're going to find it. It's the same thing. It's what he means. Jesus sacrificed and here's kind of the, I think here's the best way to say it. Jesus sacrificed for others. He served, he suffered and he died on behalf of others. He sacrificed for others to birth in us a life that sacrifices for others. Right? So Jesus isn't just whistling Dixie as he's denying himself, as he's continuing to be interrupted, to love people where they are, to listen to people. He doesn't owe a Syrophoenician woman a thing. However, he listens to her, he talks with her, he heals her daughter. He sacrifices for others, But it's not just so that He could be a good dude.

It's not just so that He could be a worthy sacrifice on our behalf. It was also so that it would birth in us a life that sacrifices for others. And so today, for the rest of our time, I wanna grab hold of that idea. I wanna grab hold of arming ourselves with the same way of thinking. How do we do this? How do we think this way? How do we live like this without going crazy? Because I've met people that have done this, that have said, you know what, I'm just going to be selfless for the rest of my life. And I'm like, cool. And it's admirable. I mean, I'm not trying to throw stones, but it's untenable. If you do it the wrong way, it will send you into the abyss. I mean, I've seen people try to do that and then walk away from Jesus.

And so we need to understand that we're not just going to try, We're not just going to white knuckle. We're not going to try really hard. And somehow magically it's going to happen. We need to understand what's going on to answer that question. Well, what we need to do is we need to caution against oversimplification. In other words, there's not some easy, magic, straightforward bullet answer. Right. In other words, if you say, if you say, you know what, I just want to be biblical about this. Well, okay, be biblical. But you can still be biblical and mess this thing up. We need to be thoroughly biblical. And I need to show you what I mean.

The Bible is very clear, very clear that Jesus suffered and died. He's sacrificially served people to be our example. Right. So Mark 8 34, Jesus called the crowd to him with his disciples and he says to them, If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." And he means that literally. He's saying, look, you're going to suffer and you're going to just do what I do. Colossians 3 13, it says, forgive one another as Christ forgave you. So do this because Jesus did this exact same thing for you. Ephesians 5 2, walk in love. Why? As Christ loved us and gave himself up for us. This thinking, Jesus our example, coats the entire New Testament. is biblical. People who claim to follow Jesus live lives like Jesus. They're not perfect, but they strive to look like Jesus. Okay. But people who claim to follow Jesus without following Jesus, they don't strive to live a life that is pleasing to him. They don't

seek to obey him. The Bible calls those people liars. Not mistaken, not sort of just, you immature, but if they're saying one thing but they're not doing it, they're liars. They're liars. The heart has not been changed. They do not want to strive after Jesus. They don't want to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord. And look, on a bad day, on a bad day, neither do I. Right? Just being real. On a bad day, neither do I. But I have those days where I do want to. Right? I have many, many, many, many moments where my heart is saying, okay, I want to live a life that is pleasing to you. In other words, it is always a good question to ask if you're wondering about a relationship. Would Jesus commend this relationship? Does Jesus want me to continue this friendship, to take this action? How would Jesus respond if he were in this situation? Where would he go if given the same choices I have?

So just like the bracelets say, what would Jesus do? Okay, right? I know if you're over 20, you know what I'm talking about, if you're under 20, you're kind of lost. It's okay. There used to be bracelets, very, very, very popular. I remember an NBA player had one on and I was thinking, oh man, this is worldwide. This is great. They just had bracelets that said WWJD and it was just what would Jesus do? So this is the thinking, and it's good and biblical, the thinking that Jesus is our example, so we need to do what Jesus did. So Jesus, again, literally is calling us to follow Him. However, it is not enough for Jesus to simply be our example. It is not. It is not enough. It is biblical. It's just not the whole story. It's not the whole Bible. It's not thoroughly biblical. Does that make sense? So sometimes, in other words, people that grab holo, you know, I'll get to that in a second.

They grab holo, they want to do what Jesus is doing, right? But there's something missing. And it's that Jesus, in his service and suffering and dying on our behalf, yes, he set a pattern for us to follow. But deeper than that, more significantly than that, when he served and suffered and died on our behalf, he actually did those things to empower us to do the same thing, to give us the strength, the desire, the heart, the capacity to do those things. You know, Jesus didn't just, you know, if we're all at a track meet and Jesus runs the 40 yard dash in like 3.1 seconds or something, you know, otherworldly, it's not like he finishes that, you know, and he's got the towel, you know, he's wiping the sweat away and he's like, okay, all right, now you go. And you're thinking, okay, I got seven seconds in me, probably. I don't know. I don't know what I got in me, but it ain't three point anything.

It's not even four point or five point anything. I'm praying for eight. So it's not, in other words, it's not just that Jesus did something hard and now we've got to go and try to do something hard. No, it's that Jesus, by suffering and dying on our behalf, actually gives us the power to run a 3.140. It's not just enough to be our example, but also our power. You see, again, I talked about it before, but I really want to drive it home. Mark two, Mark six, Mark eight, Jesus is moved by compassion. He's moved by great love. Romans 5:8 says it pretty plainly, but God showed his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. In other words, Jesus wasn't just sacrificing for other people just to kind of, you know, hey, I did it.

I did it on the victor. Okay. No. He did it because He loved us. He did it because He has compassion toward a deep compassion, a compassion that will take interruption after interruption after interruption after interruption and serve and serve and serve. John 3, 16, for God's soul loved the world that He gave. He gave of Himself. He loved the world this way. Our imitation of Jesus, in other words, maybe we can say it this way, that our imitation of Jesus needs to go all the way down to the motivation. We don't just do what Jesus did, we do what Jesus did for the same reason and in the same power that Jesus did. And we know from Scripture that those are available to us.

I'm not just saying like, oh, on your best day, You know, whenever nothing's bothering you at all, maybe you can do what Jesus did. That's not what we see in the New Testament. The idea in the New Testament is that Jesus has both given us an example and given us the power. He's run the 40 yard dash in 3.1 seconds and he has empowered us to do the exact same that we have access through faith. Not through building up our own muscles, but through faith. So, saying it a different way, yes, Jesus, I'm sorry. Yes, we love because Jesus first loved us, but we also love others with the exact same love that Jesus loved us with, loves us with. So yes, we forgive just as Jesus has forgiven us, we forgive other people, but we forgive out of the same compassion that Jesus has for other people. Jesus does not wanna just stick us out in the cold and go, okay, forgive people.

I forgave you, go forgive people. Jesus wants to train us in that righteousness. Jesus wants to birth in us a deep compassion for other people where we truly care about what other people are dealing with more than what we are dealing with. We truly care about the welfare and the benefit of other people more than we care about our own. And so, it's enough to say this. And I know, you know, as Baptist sometimes, somebody starts talking about the Holy Spirit power We all freak out, right? I get it. But this is why we have Holy Spirit power, right? This is why, like, look man, if you think Holy Spirit power is all about speaking in tongues and done, then you really haven't read the New Testament. That Holy Spirit power is about loving people. It's about having compassion. It's about serving people. When you don't have anything left, you're still serving. Because the Holy Spirit is the one that is empowering you.

We have the Holy Spirit so that we can actually and fully follow Jesus. All the way down to the motivation, all the way down to the heart, all the way down to the same love and the same compassion that He has for the people that is being birthed in us so that our lives can be lives of compassion and love toward other people. This is the life that the gospel produces. This is the life of the gospel. It's sacrificial, it is service oriented, it suffers and dies on behalf of other people. This is the life of the gospel. To help you see this more clearly, I'm going to give you some examples. And I really feel like I need to give you examples on both ends. What does it look like to live in your own power, which is where I was going to go before, but I saw myself. But also, what does it look like for this life of the gospel to appear in your life? Because you might be sitting there thinking like,

man, that sounds great, Drew, but I don't know. I don't know how that's gonna be birthed in me, okay? I get hangry like at two o'clock every day. And so I'm not sure what this is gonna look like. Let me just encourage you and warn you and all of that. So first let's talk about what does it look like if we don't grab both? If we don't grab Jesus' example and the power, okay?

If we just grab the example, not the power, then we're going to be trying to imitate Jesus in our own power, but that is not going to produce life in us. That is going to produce death. Now, I know it sounds counterintuitive that you're trying to be a Christian, you're trying to follow Jesus' example, but if you try to do in your own power, That will be very bad. Here's a few ways you can tell. Here's a few ways you can tell you're trying to do what Jesus is doing, but in your own power, okay? Admittedly, this is not an exhaustive list, but I think it'll help you think about maybe where you get, okay, so a few ways you can tell that you're in your own power, number one, you get angry when people ask something of you. You get angry when people ask something of you. The reason you get angry is because you've already checked off the to-do of being sacrificial

that day. What you have done is you have boiled following Jesus down to religious and or moral to-dos, and every day you check off those to-dos, and then you're to-done. And then when you're to-done and somebody says, no, no, no, there's more on the list, you get angry. Somebody's asking for more of me? Do they know how much I've given today? Right? That's the mentality. You get angry. You also, as a fun side note, you also get angry whenever God makes you suffer because you feel like you've already paid him off. You already did the to-dos. So why is God making you suffer? God, I... I preached this morning. Right? I mean, I woke up early. I drove through a snowstorm to come to church today. Don't you dare, God. I mean, we get angry. We get angry because we've already justified ourselves. And we think, we tie that into doing good, suffering, serving other people, that we have a cap on it.

And it might be a soft cap, might be a hard cap, but we have a cap. And when we go beyond that cap, we blow our tops. We get angry, it's not okay. So you get angry, but maybe you don't get angry, maybe you just get burned out. This is kind of the opposite of getting angry. Instead of blaming other people, you kind of blame yourself. You should have been there, you could have done more. You get burned out emotionally, physically, financially, you get burned out. Now we all get tired, that's not what I mean. I mean burned out. I mean you are done with sacrificing for people, right? It means you are swearing that off. You are done being there for people who aren't there for you. You're done with serving people who don't recognize how much it costs for you to do such a thing. Burned out. It's like, and I think burned out is actually a really good metaphor, because it's like you're trying to power a whole city

block with a really small generator in your basement. And I mean, it might work for like 10 minutes, but then that thing's up in flames. It's not equipped, it can't power all of that. And so in your little life, right, all your white knuckling, all your resources, all your money, all your time, all your effort, right, you're trying to power way too much, and it just doesn't work. And you, you are in flames. Maybe another way that you do that, You don't get angry or you don't get burned out, but you fall into despair. Well, the emotional weight, the emotional weight of caring for people's souls is absolutely crushing. It will hurt you in ways that you never thought possible. It will hurt you. Even the best of us. Even the ones that are the most caring, the most long suffering, the most patient, they'll crack, they'll break down. You will find, we will all find that people's real needs,

what they really need go way beyond our ability to repair. You can't save the marriage. You can't fix the finances. You can't undo the damage to families or careers or churches. You just can't undo it. It's too much. It's crushing, even for a group of people, for a ministry, it's still crushing. We cannot do that on our own, and it seems hopeless whenever it's all up to you, even if that you is plural. It seems hopeless. I mean, a really easy example of this would be a ministry that works with homeless people. Okay. Well, if your mission is to end homelessness, I'd give you a week or two until you're into deep despair, because you will see there are some people who are homeless who want to be homeless, and you can't end their homelessness. They don't want you to. So what are you going to do now, Boy Scout? You know, what do you... What you got up your sleeve?

Well, the truth is you're going to run out of tricks, and that homelessness is still going to be there. You have to have a different aim. We talked about this, that's kind of another sermon, but suffice it to say, if you are in your own power and you are trying to help something end or trying to accomplish something great, it's gonna be crushing, you're gonna fall into despair. Lastly, and these might even go in sequence, you get angry, then you get burned out, then you fall into despair. And lastly, and maybe not lastly, maybe you don't do any of those three, but when you try to work in your own power, you eventually become plagued by resentment, plagued by it. You begin to hate others' needs because you know that you cannot fix them, or you know that you can and they don't want you to. And you resent them for it. You hate others. You might hate others because they're not as self-sufficient,

self-sustaining as you. You hate them. You think, well, you're just writing your own script, man. You just don't want help. Well, look, I mean, let's be real. The Lord has the exact same complaint against us. You don't want help. It's true, it's true. We don't want help sometimes, oftentimes, if we're honest. And so we're plagued by resentment. So because you begin to hate and resent other people because their problems are their fault or they don't want help, or they don't want to fix it the way you want them to, you actually lose your ability to deeply care for people. You lose your ability to emotionally become available to what people are going through. Because you can't. You're just calloused. How do we escape this? How do we escape the anger, the burned out, the despair, the resentment? How do we escape it? How do we, and put it positively. How do we imitate Jesus then in both action and in motivation?

How is He our example and our power? How do we steer our lives, if we can think of it this way, how do we steer our lives toward a sacrificial life of the gospel? How do we do that? I got three points in a prayer because I'm a preacher. But it does kind of come out to three, doesn't it? The first, I think that what you can do is, you can check your motivations and you can confess them. Admittedly, now let me say all three of these, this is the first of three, they are all gonna be difficult to do on your own. Self-awareness on the level that I'm talking about is not easily achieved. This is why we have life groups, this is why we have friends that we care about, this is why we are honest with people, This is, this spouses are really good, can be really good at this endeavor, okay?

But we need to check our motivations and confess them. Now, again, being self-aware of your own motivations is hard, it's hard. We don't see our motivations all the time. We see scenarios and then we respond to those, but we're not, sometimes we are not able to get outside of ourselves and find out what that motivation is, okay? So it's a good idea to ask the question, what's my motivation? But it's a better idea to ask somebody else, what do you think my motivation is? And then listen, don't get too defensive, just listen. Check your motivations.

The key to this really is finding the moment that you are slipping into your own power. Finding the moment when you are slipping into your own power. Is it a crisis that you respond to? Is it stress that you're dealing with? So if you run to go help people, do you try to do that in your own power? If you're feeling overwhelmed, do you try to fix it in your own power? What's your trigger? Everybody's got a trigger. What's yours when you're slipping into your own power? And then those things that I talked about before, those are good indicators. Like, am I angry right now when somebody's needing something? Am I burned out? Am I depressed? Am I resentful? encouragement. And this is where we all need to start. You need to confess that to Jesus. You don't need to hide. You don't need to fall for the trick of feeling guilty for being angry. It's like a, it's like a dipsy dude, right? It's like the devil's giving you the jab and then he comes

around for the haymaker. It's the, somebody asks you to help. You get triggered. You're angry. angry, right? So the devil's like, okay, good, they're angry. But then you start to realize, okay, I'm angry right now. And the devil's like, Oh, what a moron you are for being angry. So look, you need help, right? This is not simple stuff. You need help. It requires self-awareness. It requires talking it out. But when you confess it to Jesus, the encouragement is Jesus already knows Jesus isn't gasping in heaven that you got angry at somebody because they asked you to do so, or that you're burned out. Jesus isn't wondering why you're burned out. He's not surprised by it at all. In fact, he's got a whole plan that includes you being burned out and confessing it to him. It's actually really great. It's in the Bible. You should read about it. Okay. When you do, when you dispel that...

Oh, sorry, excuse me. When you confess that, you dispel it. When you say, okay, Jesus, hey, I'm mad and I don't really know why and I have no reason to be, but I know somebody's, I know I'm looking at suffering. I'm looking at serving somebody. I'm looking at sacrificing for somebody and they might not even realize it. And it might not be a good return on investment, but I'm looking at it and I'm mad. And Jesus said, okay. And then at that point, you are dropping your guard and you are saying, Jesus, come and help me. In this moment right here that I'm in, help me. And you begin to be vulnerable with the Lord. And that's step two, then you begin to repent toward the gospel. So you do need to confess, but you also need to repent toward the gospel, okay?

What am I mean by toward the gospel? Jesus is part of Jesus' motivation. And if we can speak of Jesus having motivation like that, I mean, I will. Part of that motivation is... And I know it because it's also part of our motivation, is that Jesus' life, our life, is part of God's big plan, right? So there's a point at which we feel like our lives are out of control, but as we are repenting toward the gospel, We then step into the reality that God is in control of everything that's going on. Repenting toward the gospel is rehearsing the truth that God has a plan for us and that he's moving us in that direction. Jesus is not speaking to us with the Holy Spirit so that we can play Marco Polo and find out exactly what we need to do. We're not looking for a needle in the haystack. The Holy Spirit wants to be clear and wants us to make decisions and wants us to do specific things.

I believe that with all my heart. You see it in the New Testament? It doesn't have to be that complicated when you are repenting toward the gospel. The gospel says that Jesus is actually moving through you to love other people. Jesus is actually, through the Holy Spirit, saying, I want you to speak to this person. I want you to sacrifice for this person. I want you to do this. I want you to write that check. I want you to do all these things. And I'm going to give you the power to do it, and I'm going to sustain you all the way through it. That's what the gospel says. And if that's what the gospel says, then repenting toward the gospel is saying, quite simply, saying, Jesus, I have forgotten all of that. Would you remind me? Would you speak to me? Would you help me in this moment, remember what's true, rehearse what's true. So check your motivations, confess them,

and then repent toward the gospel. Lastly, then you're asking Jesus for the power and the opportunity, which is really cool. It's not just the power, but also the opportunity. So we serve a mighty savior, okay? And I wanna just encourage you, do not be afraid to ask Jesus to give you a win. Don't be afraid to say, okay, Jesus, Help me see where I need to sacrifice for somebody. Help me see a relationship where I can begin to intercede for them. Help me see someone where I can begin to kind of pour into them and love them and sacrifice and serve for them. Help me do that in a way that just takes me where I'm at now. Right? Maybe you're not looking for like level 40 stuff. Maybe you're looking for level 2 stuff. Okay, just ask the Lord for the opportunity and the power to do it. And look, trust Him. Trust Him. Right? If you're just scared out of your mind to like talk to your cashier at Walmart,

you're probably not going to Kenya to be a missionary next week. You just aren't. I don't know, maybe you are. Lessics? But start where you are is all I'm trying to say. Start where you are. You're already there. And I'm up against it, but I'm not going to be too bad of a hurry. It's almost done. Okay, so that's what to do. But then let's now let's talk about what a life in the gospel can look like. and this is real quick here, but what does it look like for your life to be of the gospel, sacrificial, right?

Well, the sacrificial life pours and pours and pours without expectation, without worrying about a return on investment, right? So then, so what does it look like? Well, then you serve people, you serve people, but you don't become a doormat. You don't become so, you know, like you're not, You're not serving people because you're afraid of them. You're serving people because you love them. And it's different. Loving people and being afraid of people aren't the same. And they sometimes can look the same because you'll do what they say, or you'll give them what they need. But you can serve people free of that. You don't need to be a doormat. You can also serve people without becoming angry. So you're not frustrated by their need Because again, that compassion, that service, that sacrifice being birthed in you, you recall the sweet and kind ways Jesus has dealt with you,

and that begins to change who you are. You can tell that it's working as you sacrifice for other people without worrying about your own need. So you don't just give because you have something to give you have too much of something. You don't just give to make people owe you. You give because God has given abundantly to you. God has given you a desire to be free and generous with your money. And I don't mean just checks at church either. I mean in all cases. I mean hospitality. I mean generosity that exceeds a checkbook that bleeds into family time, bleeds into the square footage of your house. It bleeds into your friendships, all of them. And then how can you tell it's working? Well, you feel the pain. You feel the pain, but you can fight the despair. You feel the pain, but you can fight the despair.

I don't wanna be Pollyanna about this. Serving people hurts. And it doesn't just hurt you. Me serving people hurts my kids. hurts my wife. It's true. And I make no apologies for it. Now, obviously, I'm not trying to hurt my family, but I'm pulled away. My attention's divided. I'm going to miss out on family time with them. I'm going to miss moments that are important to them. I'm just... I'm going to. And I'm going to because I am serving and sacrificing on behalf of someone else. It's going to happen, right? We live in a fallen world, it will happen, it will be painful. So not just what you're missing, not just what your family missing, but also you're going to give and give and give, and somebody's just going to walk away from you. Somebody's going to say something to hurt you. This is hard. This is hard. This is the hard part of ministry that you serve and love people,

and then they just turn their nose up. It's hard. So you feel the pain, but you fight that it's very... You can fight the temptation to believe that it's unnoticed. There's a deep temptation to just believe that you... There's a deep temptation to believe that 10 people gathered at a Sunday morning in a service and that God didn't notice. Or that you prepared a whole song set and there's only nine people here to enjoy. That's a real temptation. not just when you're on a stage, but just when you are serving people, that God doesn't notice, or that it's not worth it. We can fight the temptation, and we can rest in knowing that God sees and that God will provide. That's how you can tell it's working, because you can, although you feel the pain, you can fight the temptation to believe that it's going unnoticed. And you will find that in the end, your life then is being guided by this

overarching purpose of sacrifice, of serving other people. And you're not perfect man, you're not, you won't get there, but you will find that your motivations are changing. You will find that you are actually taking joy in serving other people, not for a return of investment, not just to see what the Lord's gonna do, but you're just serving, and there's joy there. And then you will begin to live the sacrificial life of the gospel. I'm gonna say one more thing in closing.

And that is, it's kind of a quote from John 12, but I'll just read it. I'll say this about the life that the gospel produces. There is no other way to live. That is to say, there is no other way worth living. It doesn't compare. It doesn't compare. Put me in a palace, give me servants, all of that. And it won't be anything compared to serving you people here as your pastor. Nothing. It won't even compare. And that's not to say that my job is better than yours, that my calling is better. But it is to say that there is no better way to spend your life. None. And this is how Jesus puts it in John 12. 1224 says, truly, truly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life, loses it. And whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. What Jesus is saying is, I came to die. And what he's saying to us is, your life,

If it's not going into the ground and dying, it will remain alone. It will remain ineffective. You might have kept your life, you might have kept your palace, your 401K might be rocking, but you are alone in your significance. In terms of historical gospel perspective, your life is amounted to nothing. But what if, but what if, what a great dream to die, to suffer and die on behalf of other people, because what happens? What happens is that you go into the ground and a hundredfold comes up. You invest, you suffer, you sacrifice for other people, and what comes up? life in other people, right? Jesus suffered for us so that we it would birth that life in us. What do you think he's going to do with our suffering but birth that life into other people? This, this is how the gospel goes out. This is how the gospel is lived truly in the midst of suffering. I'm not saying we

can't have good times as a church. We can. God give glory. Yes, amen. However, we must learn that suffering is part of our life and we must be able to do that together and encourage one another in it. As we pray, I'm just going to pray over us and if you want to respond, I know there's just 10 of us here, but instead of doing a normal invitation, if you want to respond, if there's something that you want to do, if there's something the Lord's been kind of moving you to do, just catch me, just hang after the service and catch me, I will be willing to stick around for a while, okay? So let me pray for us and then we'll be dismissed. Jesus, thank you so much for suffering, for serving and sacrificing and dying on our behalf. Jesus, we thank you that you've called us to this life and that you've given us so much joy and that you've shown us that there's no better way to live.

You were the king of the earth and you still came and suffered on our behalf. Help us to walk in your footsteps and in your name that we pray.