What Motivates a Martyr?

The last third of the book of Acts shows Paul in chains. After being falsely accused of starting a riot and desecrating the temple, Paul will face imprisonment, two assassination attempts, a shipwreck, and then house arrest. And yet, Paul knew all of this would happen. The Spirit consistently warned him that going to Jerusalem would lead him straight into hardship, but he’s still told to go anyway. Paul’s submission to the will of God models for us what it looks like to allow our goals, plans, and outcomes to be formed by Jesus alongside our habits, schedules, and lifestyles. By surrendering our will to God’s will, we too can build courage in the face of adversity and faithfulness in the midst of suffering.

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 Did anyone see that movie Silence? One guy? Uh, 2016 Martin Scorsese film. Uh, one of his best, in my opinion.

Uh, the movie follows a fictional 17th century Jesuit priest. Silence. Named Father Rodriguez. Uh, who’s played by Andrew Garfield, who sets off on a mission to Japan to find his mentor, played by Liam Neeson, who has, uh, apparently, the report is that he’s abandoned his Christian faith. And so Andrew Garfield, Spider Man, and the guy from Taken, uh, are the two stars of this movie, uh, in Japan trying to figure out what’s going on.

And though it stars the guy from Spider Man and the guy from Taken, uh, it’s a slow burn. Just fair warning. It’s long, and it’s slow. But the film chronicles the trials and tribulations that Rodriguez faces while he tries to find his apostate mentor. So, soon after arriving on Japanese soil, Father Rodriguez receives both a warm welcome and a rude awakening.

So, warm welcome. Literally, the moment he sets foot on land, On the beach, he’s, uh, greeted really warmly by Japanese Christians who, uh, have endured years of persecution for their faith in Jesus from the Japanese government. And that’s the Root Awakening. What Father Rodriguez finds when he steps into Japan is that it is hostile soil for Christianity.

Christianity has not flourished and really will not flourish in Japan. So soon, Father Rodriguez’s original mission to find his mentor turned apostate quickly becomes a game of survival. Moving from house to house, from one underground secret church to another, Rodriguez faces increasingly tense temptations, as he’s confronted by members of the Tokugawa shogunate who want him to renounce his faith.

I’m not going to spoil it, but pretty early on he’s captured. And one of the, uh, repeated commands that he and other captured Christians are given throughout the film is this. If they will just step on a small icon or a painting of Jesus, they and the rest of their Christian friends will be released. And that’s the temptation.

Step on the picture, get your freedom. Stepping on the picture, an obvious sign of outward disrespect and belittling, actually causes a lot of inner turmoil for Father Rodriguez, who’s given his life to following Jesus in a monastery like setting. Now I won’t spoil it for you, the film is epic. Excellent.

It explores themes of Western colonialism, the controversy and problematic nature of some of the historical missionary movements, and the tenacity of a personal faith that’s forced into outward expression in a hostile environment. But, I saw this movie three times in theaters, and then I read the 1966 novel that the movie was based on, and every time I went through this story, I always had one question.

Why not just step on the picture? I mean, I get it, really. He’s a priest, it’s an outward sign of disrespect, it’s like renouncing your faith, but even at one point the Japanese officer says, you don’t even have to mean it, just step on the painting and we’ll let you go. I can’t take your personal faith away from you, just step on it, it doesn’t mean anything, and then go on, we’ll let you go.

Why not just step on it? So you and the other Christians could be freed and go on sharing the gospel. Why do some people choose resilience and stubborn defiance in the face of opposition? Instead of doing whatever is necessary for the opportunity to do more ministry. Is this one of those means don’t justify the ends kinds of things?

Or put another way, what motivates a martyr?

Now, we’re at another pivotal moment in the Book of Acts, which I realize is getting a little old. I feel like we say that every time we teach, but honestly, really, from here on out, this is kind of the last third of the book, a lot of things are going to change. Uh, the pace, for example, of the story is going to slow down quite a bit.

Luke is going to go from summarizing Paul’s travels, uh, very quickly to all of a sudden narrowing in and giving us detailed descriptions of the last few years of his life. But the action is going to ramp up. And so here’s where we’re at in the story so far. The apostle Paul has obeyed Jesus’s command, right?

Acts begins, Jesus is on earth. He gives his disciples one final mission. He says, go and spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. Paul has done that literally to the ends of the earth. He’s taken on philosophers in Athens, prostitutes in Corinth and magicians in Ephesus. He’s moved from city to city. He started new churches.

He’s made new friends. And like we saw last week, he said painful goodbyes to old ones. And with each encounter, the power of Christ and his kingdom is broken through the dark and depraved world of the ancient Mediterranean. But, starting today, with the story that we’re going to read, Paul will never be a free man in the book of Acts again.

Now we’re going to work through this story. Again, it’s quite a bit of scripture, so we’re going to read a lot of it, but we’re going to break it into three scenes. A warning, a riot, and a speech. So first, a warning. Acts 21, starting in verse 1. After we tore ourselves away from them, we set sail straight for Kos.

The next day to Rhodes, and from there to Patara. Finding a ship crossing over to Phoenicia, we boarded and set sail. After we sighted Cyprus, passing to the south of it, we sailed on to Syria and arrived at Tyre, since the ship was to unload its cargo there. We sought out the disciples and stayed there for seven days.

Through the Spirit, they told Paul not to go to Jerusalem. And when our time had come to an end, we left, continued our journey, while all of them, with their wives and children, accompanied us out of the city. After kneeling down on the beach to pray, we said farewell to one another and boarded the ship, and they returned home.

When we completed our voyage from Tyre, we reached Ptolemais, where we greeted the brothers and sisters and stayed with them for a day. The next day we left and came to Caesarea, where we entered the house of Philip, the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and we stayed with him. This man had four virgin daughters who prophesied.

After we had been there for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He came to us, he took Paul’s belt and tied his own feet and hands and said, This is what the Holy Spirit says. In this way, the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and deliver him over to the Gentiles.

You When we heard this, both we and the local people pleaded with him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul replied, what are you doing weeping and breaking my heart? For I’m ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. Since he would not be persuaded, we said no more, except the Lord’s will be done.

The Lord’s will be done. If Paul could only see what the Lord’s will for his life would be. Now at the risk of spoiling the rest of the story of Acts, um, Actually, I’m going to spoil the rest of the story back. This is what’s, I’m going to tell you from here on out. This is what’s going to happen to Paul.

And this is going to take up the rest of the book. First, Paul is going to be falsely accused of desecrating the temple by bringing Gentiles into it before getting beaten to a pulp by an angry mob. Then he’s going to be forced to defend himself in, uh, not one or two, but quite a few different trials, both official legal trials and unofficial trials.

Then he’s going to spend two years in legal limbo while a change of power in Rome happens and a new city governor is inaugurated into local power. Two years waiting in prison to see what his fate is going to be, knowing, uncertain of his future, that the Roman governor could choose to execute him at any moment.

He’ll plead his case in front of the Jewish King Agrippa, who’s the grandson of Herod the Great, the guy who executed James and put Peter in prison back in Acts chapter 12. And Herod’s not gonna buy Paul’s story. Herod knows about Jesus. He’s heard about the gospel message, but he’s not gonna let Paul go.

Actually, he says, I would have let Paul go, but Paul makes a last ditch effort at freedom by saying, I’m going to appeal to Caesar, meaning, uh, you’re not going to listen to me. I demand to be seen by the Roman emperor himself. And King Agrippa is going to say, well, now that you said that, I got to keep you in chains.

Had you not said that, I would have let you go. So because Paul, Paul makes his plea. He demands to see Caesar. That’s going to put him on the trajectory to Rome. Sailing to Rome, he’s going to endure a few assassination attempts, many days at sea, and then he’s going to lift through a shipwreck before crash landing on an island called Malta.

When the Book of Acts ends, Paul is still in chains. He’s on house arrest, waiting his trial in front of Caesar. But he’s preaching the good news. Luke actually writes, he’s preaching the good news with boldness and without hindrance. And that’s the end of the story. All of that starts here with a disturbing and unwelcome prophecy from a weird man named Agabus.

Now this actually isn’t the first time we’ve met Agabus. Back in Acts 11, uh, just as Christianity is starting to gain some momentum, the church in Antioch gets a visit from some prophets who have come down from Jerusalem to give a warning. Agabus is one of these prophets, and the warning is that there’s a famine coming.

And so the Antioch church, one of the earliest, strongest church of the Christian movement at this time, sends food relief, uh, to help the famine. Everybody lives. It’s a happy ending. Agabus, always the bearer of bad news, comes again, this time with another prophetic warning. But, this is a warning that Paul’s already known about.

In his speech to the pastors at Ephesus that we looked at last week, he reveals to them that in every town the Holy Spirit warns me. Chains and afflictions are waiting for me in Jerusalem. And we just read it. The Christians entire plead with Paul. They’re prophesying in the Spirit, meaning they’re creating space to hear from God what he might want to do through Paul.

And they hear, Oh no, the Spirit’s telling us Paul’s going to go to Jerusalem. He’s going to endure hardship and chains and suffering and persecution and all of that. And they plead with him not to go. And now Agabus, again, Gives more weight to that prophetic warning and admittedly it’s a little bit theatrical and dramatic, right?

Was there really need to take Paul’s belt, presumably off of his waist, tie himself up with it and say this is what’s gonna happen to you if you go to Jerusalem? That’s actually in line with some of the practices of the ancient prophets in the Old Testament. People that were seeing this happen would have understood exactly what’s happening.

This is not a weird thing. If Trey came up and did that to me, that would be weird.

Next week. Well, you’re preaching, so I’ll do it to you next week. This would not have been that weird in this time. They would have understood exactly what’s happening. This is what theologians and scholars call a sign act. It’s when a prophet brings God’s future into the present by way of theatrical demonstration.

Think of it like a visual aid to say, this is what God is going to do. So this is Isaiah, walking around naked for three years, just to show what will happen to the Egyptians in captivity by the Assyrians. This is Jeremiah. This is a weird one. Jeremiah, buying a pair of underwear. Burying said pair of underwear.

Leaving the buried underwear. Coming back to it sometime later, digging it back up and finding it useless. Jeremiah’s like, what is the point of this? Why did I do this? Why did God tell me to do this? God says, you see that pair of underwear? See how useless it is? That’s what I think of the Israelites right now.

So you couldn’t have just told me that, man? It’s kind of weird. Or maybe the most dramatically, Hosea marrying a prostitute to show how God sees his people, again, the nation of Israel. And now Agabus, tying himself up with Paul’s belt to show how serious and fateful his future in Jerusalem will be. But notice the conflict here.

Christians entire prophesied in the Spirit. The Spirit reveals one thing. All the Spirit reveals is, Paul’s gonna go to chains. Go to Jerusalem, go into chains. So they interpret that and they say, don’t go to Jerusalem. Agabus in Caesarea also prophesies that Paul will experience trials if he goes to Jerusalem.

So the Spirit is revealing to at least three groups of people, Paul, the disciples at Tyre, and Agabus, what will happen to Paul in Jerusalem. And they all kind of come to different conclusions. The Tyre disciples say, don’t go. Paul arrives at the opposite conclusion, I have to go. Agabus, uh, he, we don’t read about an opinion, he comes to the party, kills the vibe, puts on a weird show, and then he leaves.

Now on one level, it’s an interesting story about how the spirit, the will of God, is discerned within the context of community. God might reveal something, but we have to do the hard work of interpretation. But on another level, this is Luke just being a really good narrative dramatic writer, right? He’s cluing us in with good foreshadowing.

Paul is going to play a part in bringing the gospel to the ends of the earth. Jesus’s last commandment to his disciples will be fulfilled. But first, Paul will bring himself to pain and persecution in Jerusalem. Next, a riot. Now before we read, here’s the scene. Paul is gonna make it to Jerusalem, and he’s gonna bring some new friends of his.

He’s actually, uh, going to Jerusalem, uh, taking a vow that actually goes back to number six. Uh, we’re gonna skip over this part, but basically Paul’s making a vow to just purify himself, devote himself fully to God, and prove to the disciples or the Jews in Jerusalem that he really does care about Jewish customs and vows and things like that.

So, at the end of those seven days, Paul is there in Jerusalem, and it’s likely Pentecost. Thanks for watching! This is the Hebrew festival of Shavuot, or the festival of harvest, which celebrated God’s giving of the law to Moses at Mount Sinai, way back in the book of Exodus. Jews from all over Asia would have traveled all the way to Jerusalem just to celebrate this feast.

Think Rockefeller Center at Christmas, or Cancun at Spring Break. There’s a lot of people in the city. But then they hear Paul’s in town. Paul, the apostate Pharisee. who’s been traveling around the Mediterranean supposedly teaching everyone that God has done with the Jews, the temple is open to the pagans, and that law that God gave Moses, the whole reason for the party, meaningless.

Let’s pick up in verse 26. So the next day Paul took the men having purified himself along with them and entered the temple, announcing the completion of the purification days when the offering would be made for each of them. That’s the vow. Now, when the seven days were nearly over, some Jews from the province of Asia saw him in the temple, stirred up the whole crowd, and seized him, shouting, Fellow Israelites, help!

This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere against our people, our law, and this place. That’s the temple. What’s more, he also brought Greeks into the temple, and has defiled this holy place. For they had previously seen Trophimus the Ephesian in the city with him, and they supposed that Paul had brought him into the temple.

Now the whole city was stirred up and the people rushed together. They seized Paul, dragged him out of the temple, and at once the gates were shut. As they were trying to kill him, word went up to the commander of the regiment that all Jerusalem was in chaos. Taking along soldiers and centurions, he immediately ran down to them.

Seeing the commander and the soldiers, they stopped beating Paul. This is like when you’re beating up your little brother and your parents walk in and you’re like, Oh, we got to stop. Just me. Okay, cool. I don’t even have a little brother. I have two little sisters. And I did not beat them up. Then the commander approached, took him into custody, and ordered him to be bound with two chains.

He asked who he was and what he had done. Some in the crowd were shouting one thing and some another. Since he was not able to get reliable information because of the uproar, he ordered him to be taken into the barracks. When Paul got to the steps, he had to be carried by the soldiers because of the violence of the crowd.

For the mass of people followed, yelling, Get rid of him! As he was about to be brought into the barracks, Paul said to the commander, Am I allowed to say something to you? He replied, You know how to speak Greek? Aren’t you the Egyptian who started a revolt some time ago and led 4, 000 men of the assassins into the wilderness?

Paul’s like, uh, nope, that’s not me. He said, no, I’m a Jewish man from Tarsus of Cilicia, a citizen of an important city. Now, I ask you, let me speak to the people. After he’d given permission, Paul stood on the steps and motioned with his hand to the people. When there was a great hush, he addressed them in Aramaic.

So what are they so mad about? Well, one, they know who Paul is, but Two, their claim is that Paul has brought the Ephesian Gentile Trophimus from the outer Gentile court of the temple where he would have been allowed into one of the inner courts reserved only for bloodline Jews, a crime punishable by death, also a crime that they cannot prove and that Paul didn’t actually do.

Now let’s get a few of the weird things out of the way before we move on. First of all, who’s this Egyptian? Why is Paul getting confused for some Egyptian assassin? I’m glad you asked. Now, among the many factions and sects of Jews under Roman occupation, there were a group of zealots called Sakkari it’s Hebrew for assassinsthat would violently assassinate Romans and Roman sympathizers.

Their goal was to liberate themselves violently from Roman oppression. Now, a few years before this story, there was an Egyptian who had gathered a few thousand of these terrorists and tried to lay siege to Jerusalem. But the Roman governor failed. Felix, who actually shows up later in the Book of Acts, squashes the rebellion and that Egyptian leader escapes.

The Roman commander sees a Jewish man and he assumes that Paul is this Egyptian coming back to try and lay siege to Jerusalem, but instead of finding a warm welcome, he’s greeted by an angry mob who’s upset that he led his men to death, basically, and then abandoned them. Paul says, that’s not who I am, and he speaks to him in Greek.

So here’s what that’s about. Only highly sophisticated and educated people spoke in Greek. So Paul addresses the Romans in Tyrion to show him, kind of in a subtle way without actually saying it, he uses a language that the Roman commander would have noticed as, like, a reputable language. He’s showing him he’s not a ruffian, a wild man, or a terrorist.

He’s an educated man of high social class from a somewhat important city that can argue for himself. But he doesn’t speak to his own people in Greek. So when he finally gets a chance to defend himself against what he calls his Jewish brothers and fathers, he uses Aramaic. He doesn’t even use, uh, ancient, it’s a dialect of Hebrew, but it’s not the oldest dialect of Hebrew.

It’s an ancient language that was actually understood by most people. So Paul is doing something brilliant here. He’s trying to get their attention, not just with what he’s saying, but how he’s saying it, using a language that they would have understood, the language of the common man. So lastly, a speech.

Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense before you. When they heard that he was addressing them in Aramaic, they became even quieter. He continued, I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city, educated at the feet of Gamaliel, according to the law of our ancestors. I was zealous for God, just as all of you are today.

I persecuted this way to the death, arresting and putting both men and women in jail, as both the high priest and the whole council of elders can testify about me. After I received letters from them to the brothers, I traveled to Damascus to arrest those who were there and bring them to Jerusalem to be punished.

Now quickly, here’s Paul again, like Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, taking on a Jewish mob by strategically highlighting parts of his story that might appeal to his audience the most. So at first he captures their attention by appealing to their devotion. He’s saying, I’m not just from Tarsus, I’m raised in Jerusalem, the sacred city itself.

Paul didn’t just learn to be a rabbi, he was trained by Gamaliel himself, like the Billy Graham of Judaism. He received letters and instructions from the high priests and from the council of elders, men whom most in the audience wouldn’t have ever even spoken to. You have to imagine the audience is leaning in at this point.

They’re impressed. Paul’s Jewish resume was better than they expected. He’s not an Egyptian ruffian, a secret Gentile, or a zealous fanatic. He’s got the work experience and credentials of a well seasoned Pharisees. Now the Jews listening to him loved the law that they were defending, but more than that, they were devoted to Yahweh himself.

And Paul’s devotion and zeal for the righteousness of Yahweh puts theirs to shame. But then he mentions Jesus. Verse 6. As I was traveling and approaching Damascus about noon, an intense light from heaven suddenly flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

I answered, Who are you, Lord? He said, I am Jesus of Nazareth, the one that you are persecuting. Now those who were with me saw the light, but they didn’t hear the voice of the one who was speaking to me. I said, What should I do, Lord? The Lord told me, Get up, go to Damascus, and there you will be told everything that you’ve been assigned to do.

Now, since I couldn’t see because of the brightness of the light, I was led by the hand by those who were with me and went into Damascus. Someone named Ananias, a devout man according to the law, who had a good reputation with all of the Jews living there, by the way, came and stood by me and said, Brother Saul, regain your sight.

And in that very hour, I looked up and saw him. And he said, The God of our ancestors has appointed you to know his will, to see the righteous one and to hear the words from his mouth. since you will be a witness for him to all people of what you have seen and heard and now what are you why are you delaying get up and be baptized wash away your sins calling on his name now if the crowd of Jewish elites were going along with par so far this is when they slowly start to lose their minds what infuriates the angry mob is the same thing that captures redirects it to a holier and more righteous and it’s an encounter with the Yeah.

Amen. Verse 17, after I returned to Jerusalem and was praying in the temple, I fell into a trance and I saw him telling me, hurry and get out of Jerusalem quickly because they will not accept your testimony about me. But I said, Lord, they know that in the synagogue after synagogue, I had those who believed in you, imprisoned and beaten, and when the blood of your witness, Steven was being shed, I stood there giving approval and guarding the clothes of those who killed him.

He said to me, go, because I will send you far away to the Gentiles.

And that’s the story.

Paul’s speech. His main point is to show that it’s precisely his commitment to the righteousness of Yahweh, that he’s trying to bring the Gentiles into that same communion with God that his brothers and fathers, the Jews, have. Now after this, the mob goes crazy. It says they’d listened to him up until that point, but then they lost their minds and started shouting again.

They try to beat him up, and then that Roman commander has to keep Paul in prison. And for the rest of Paul’s story in Acts, again, he’s going to be a prisoner. He’s going to face the Sanhedrin, which is like the Jewish law court, and then represent himself against a hired lawyer in front of the Roman governor, Felix.

Now Felix won’t know what to do with Paul, so he’s going to keep him in prison in hopes that Paul will bribe his way out of jail. Two years. All of Paul’s troubles and misfortunes for the rest of Acts start here. With a false accusation, and a defense speech. And it could have been avoided if he listened to Agabus’s warning.

So back to the question we started with, what motivates a martyr?

What could bypass the natural human instinct to preserve the self, that intrinsic fight or flight response to a dangerous threat? How could Paul say, I’m ready to die for Jesus? What could Paul and the disciples who don’t want to see him go What could they have seen that causes them to completely reorient their expectations and notions of a good life to include the possibility and likelihood of tragedy, suffering, and death?

Why not step on the picture?

I have an answer. It’s really unsatisfying and simple. But it’s the only answer I can see studying the life of Paul so far like we’ve done the past few months in the book of Acts, and that is surrendering to God’s will. I know, unsatisfying, it’s unclever, not that surprising, you kind of get that vibe.

It’s the last thing the disciples say to him as he goes off to Jerusalem, the Lord’s will be done. But I believe that surrender to the will of God has been the single through line of Paul’s whole life since meeting Jesus on a road trip to Damascus. So he has an encounter with the risen Lord who calls him out.

Paul has been murdering God’s people. What should he expect to get in that moment? Are you ever thinking about that? Paul’s on the road to Damascus and all of a sudden, Jesus says those words that he was not expected to hear and probably strike terror into his heart. I’m Jesus, the one that you are persecuting.

What should he expect? Certainly more than a slap on the wrist and temporary blindness. Paul deserves to die. If this really is that Jesus whom he’s been persecuting, he deserves the fire and brimstone wrath of God right there on the spot. You But he doesn’t get that. He gets a firm and stern yet loving invitation to see what God is doing behind the scenes, or what Ananias says, you’ve been blessed to see the will of God.

He gets Jesus and an invitation. God gives Paul some vague instructions so that he can participate in the story that God is writing. He can play a part in God’s redeeming of the entire world, and all he has to do is say yes. Now for the record, Luke is going to tell and retell and retell Paul’s conversion story three times in the book of Acts.

We’ve read two of them, Acts 9 and just now in Acts 22. Later, Paul is going to recount, uh, how he met Jesus to King Agrippa in Acts 26, who’s going to kind of shrug off Paul’s mystical and dramatic experience. Three times. Either Luke needs a better editor, or he’s trying to make a point. It’s that very moment that Paul learns the most important lesson anyone can learn.

Submitting to God’s will is the most challenging, yet rewarding thing that you can do. See, in that moment, on the road to Damascus, Paul gives Jesus his ideas of what success looks like. He gives up his beliefs on righteousness, holiness, and zeal. His central identity is handed over to Jesus, and he’s redefined.

Ananias again says, you are going to be a witness for this Jesus. Put more simply, Paul learns what it really means to yield. Again, his passion and zeal is confronted and redirected by God himself. So what motivates Paul to go to Jerusalem to become an eventual martyr? What’s beneath that resolve to head once again into the belly of the beast straight towards pain and suffering?

He knows the only hope for a satisfying life is obedience to God. He knows what it means to yield his will at the feet of Jesus in the middle of a desert road. Now, I always thought the hard part of submitting to God’s will was the God’s will part, right? Growing up, I dealt with all those adolescent questions, and that really was the hardest part.

What should I do with my life? Where does God want me to go to college? Who does God want me to marry? What job does God want me to accept? But, honestly, over time, I’ve learned that God’s will just kind of gets a little easier to discern. It’s a combination of life experience, knowledge of the scriptures, growing intimacy with Jesus, an increasing awareness of the Spirit’s presence in my life, and then life done in community with others that have all helped cut through the noise of the world and the noise of the soul.

Jesus himself said, my sheep know my voice. What gets really hard isn’t discerning God’s will, it’s submitting to it. The Lord’s will be done. Those are the last words that the Christians in Caesarea say to Paul before sending him off to his suffering and eventual death. Even Jesus had a hard time praying this prayer in the garden.

Not my will, but your will be done. So how do we do that? How do we submit to God’s will? Three things from the life of Paul. First, we submit our goals.

Now, Paul’s life since encountering Jesus was aimed at what he believed God wanted it to be aimed at. When we submit the destination of our lives to God, we are submitting to God’s will. And we might say that we’re good at this, but honestly, this gets really hard. Most of us deal with discomfort, discontentment, things that we want to be better in our lives, Things that we’re trying to change.

Most of us, if we’re honest, our lives are actually aimed at trying to change our circumstances so that we can be happy, healthy, wealthy, wise, joyful, all of those things. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. But I would argue that by holding on to our conceptions of where we want our lives to end up, where we want to end up with our lives, by holding on to those things, we are withholding blessings from God.

I love Derek’s story. It fits into this. What do you want out of your life? What are you holding on to that you think is going to get you there? What if the Lord wills you to stay where you are? Even though you’re yearning for greener grass and another church, city, job, or marriage. Or what if the Lord wills you to leave?

Right when you’re just starting to find the meaning, purpose, community, and belonging that you’ve searched for your whole life. What if the Lord wills you to put behind the relationship you’re in because it’s sinful and not going anywhere holy?

What if the Lord wills you to take up that project, to give sacrificially, to make amends with that person, or to invite that couple over for dinner?

See, God’s will isn’t always the most difficult choice available to us, but more often than not, it’s aimed right at our growth edge. To surrender our goals to God means to let Him decide where we’re going and what our life will look like. Two. Plans. Now Paul’s life was focused, but it was slow. He took plenty of detours getting to the places that he was headed.

He was listening to the Spirit. His plans were interruptible, just like Jesus. One of my favorite character traits of Jesus was that he was never hurried. He was interruptible. You could interrupt him. You could have a conversation with him. Think about the woman who reached out and touched his cloak in the middle of a crowd while he’s going to heal someone else.

We yield our plans to God and we allow his voice to shape our decisions and our choices. And there’s more to say here, and again, we might say that we’re good at this, but think about not just the big choices of our life, here’s what I’ve realized and learned about submitting to God’s will, is it doesn’t start with the big life decisions, it starts with the everyday decisions.

The decisions you don’t even think about. We’re not talking about like what shirt you should wear, how long you should brush your teeth or whatever choices you make in your day, I don’t know you, I don’t know what choices you make in your day to day lives. But think about little things like who you prioritize in your life.

Who you give your time and attention to. Where you spend your resources. Now you may say your life is aimed at God, but what is your calendar and bank account really aimed at? And I’m gonna stop there. Three outcomes.

What success looks like. Maybe the hardest thing of all, honestly. Because at the end of our obedience, there’s no guarantee of fame or recognition or respect or admiration. The outcome of Paul submitting his will to God’s will was chains. All because he said yes to Jesus in the middle of a desert road.

Rejecting a life where he could have made his way up the ladder, the Jewish ladder, become maybe a high priest or something like that because he was full of zeal and credentials and work experience that he just communicated to this Jewish crowd. He says no to that and yes to Jesus.

Paul’s submission to the will of God models for us what it looks like to allow our goals, our plans, and our outcomes also to be formed by Jesus. alongside our habits, our schedules, and our lifestyles. And honestly, there’s a lot more I could say. Pastorally, I know enough of you to know that this is a wrestle for you.

Surrendering to God’s will. I get that. But I don’t think it’s my place to say what God is inviting you to give up to him. All I want to do is close the gap between you and God’s invitations as best I can. And so I just want to end with a question. What race are you running?

What is the finish line of all your efforts?

What is your energy aimed at? The trajectory of your life as it’s going right now, what do you get when it’s over? Or put another way, if you hold both hands open, and you imagine suddenly receiving from God everything that you desire, everything that you’ve asked for and prayed for, what is it that you’re holding?

I’m not saying those are bad things, I just I want to invite us to consider what it, what are those things? Is God inviting us to give those up? Is God inviting us to hold on to them and use them for the kingdom? I don’t know.

But that’s the idea here. Paul runs a race. Because he said yes to Jesus. And our hope and our prayer here at Passion Creek is that we learn how to do that. One little invitation, one little response after another. So why don’t we do that? Why don’t we stand and why don’t we respond?