James 1:12-18 | Surrender: the Posture of Human Flourishing

Intro - Me

Good to be with you. Nick Crawford, one of the pastors and elders here at TVC.

If you don’t know me, you may recognize me as that pastor from Mississippi, and you’d be right. And for those of you who don’t know me, I’m usually out in the foyer on most weekends. So if you see me, come up and say hello. I love it when you do that.

That said, I want to get a couple of things out of the way before I get into what God has asked me to do today.

First, when I limped on out here in my boot, I saw the look on your faces, and I know what you’re thinking. I do. You’re saying to yourself, “man, he got some really nice socks for Christmas.” They are. They’re Darn Tough socks. I like the name, and I like how they protect my exposed toes.

I don’t typically make a habit of advertising from the stage, but I feel it’s right to do so. Seeing as how I am in this boot, and you can see my toes.

Nah… seriously, I broke my leg running. I wish I had a better story than that, but that’s the truth. I was running, until I could not run anymore because my leg broke.

I have an appointment next week with my doctor, and I’m praying that he will tell me I’m good enough to go back to wearing normal boots that don’t draw so much attention.

Second, I’ve been in Mississippi for the past week or so. And when I spend any appreciable amount of time there, the accent returns. So, I’m back, and it’s back. The drawl will linger, and the syllables will miraculously multiply. So if you find yourself unable to understand what I’m saying at any point, just throw a hand up. I’ll do my best to translate Mississippi to Texas for you. We’ll get through it together.

Ok! Now that the housekeeping is done, and you know that I have a broken leg, and I talk funny. You’re probably wondering why I’m be kicking off the new year. I mean, you just set your goals and made your resolutions, and you need some fire to help you sustain that momentum.

I agree. I’m not an ideal candidate to be kicking anything off right now, as you can obviously see!

But if I’ve learned one thing in the last few years, it’s this: all your heart is all God requires.

I may be an unlikely one to kick the year off, but you’ll get my heart today because I believe with everything that I have that the all-hearted pursuit of Jesus is the path to human flourishing.

I am a turtle on a fence post.

And you know what they say about a turtle on a fence post: he didn’t get there on his own.

The only way that the turtle got there is because someone put it there.

That’s me.

And so I fully expect and believe that the One who put me here has a word for you today.

That the authoritative word of truth, which is able to pierce your heart and cut you to the quick, which is able to bring life and healing to your bones and transformation to your souls… that powerful and life-giving Word has something for you today.

We

We are kicking the year off with a new sermon series that we’ve been doing for a number of years. Kind of like, same song, different verse. It’s called The Creator’s Heart. Over the next several weeks, we will look at the very heart of God for:

The value of human life,

Ethnic harmony, and

The nations.

And, today we’re looking at: God’s heart is for human flourishing, and how His people are His plan to that end. That’s right. God’s heart is for human flourishing, and His people are His plan to that end.

Today, we’re looking at human flourishing for you. You see, human flourishing for all souls begins with each one. The flourishing of humanity begins with you. And from you, it extends to the world.

We bring flourishing to a world in desperate need of good news. Together, God uses each of us to transform our neighborhoods, workplaces, schools. God's plan is for human flourishing to saturate the earth as the waters cover the sea!

Me. You. We. We are God’s plan! How wonderful! And how terrifying. Matt’s been saying this for a long time, but this is our day. This is our time, and no one is coming to get us out of it. We’re the A-team! God’s people, His Bride, His Church! We are His plan to bring human flourishing, and there’s never, ever been a plan B.

He wants this so bad that He sent His son to save His people, and He sent His Spirit to empower His people.

Look, God can do anything; He just chooses to use us.

God’s will is your flourishing! In fact, Jesus says that’s the very reason that He came to earth in John 10:10: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

Jesus came so that God’s people would flourish in the abundant life! And let me tell you, that is a life worth living!

I know you want it! I mean, you’re here on the first weekend of the year with resolutions, goals, and dreams for this year. Some of you have themes, and maybe even a word for the year. You want to flourish. I want to flourish. God wants you to flourish!

Jesus even invites you to follow Him into the abundant life, laying out the pathway for you to come in Luke 9:23, saying “If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

The all-hearted pursuit of Jesus is the path to human flourishing; surrender is the posture. These are the kind of people that God uses to bring flourishing to a dying and decaying world.

Look, Jesus set His face like a flint towards the Cross, and He beat it through unswerving devotion and surrender to the Father’s will. And He calls you and me to follow Him, as we take up our own crosses.

But we have a little problem, a little roadblock on the path to flourishing. We want to follow; we just don’t want the cross.

You see, the cross is the place of surrender. And we are not a people built for it. We are far more willful than we are willing.

We’re not freed up to do God’s will because we’re so full of our own will that we have no room for God’s will.

And so God gives us the Gift of Life’s Trials to purify our hearts and make us whole.

The trials of life are a gift because they bring us to the end of ourselves and to the place of surrender, the place where we cross the threshold from our will to God’s will - the place we find the Creator’s heart.

And our role in the trial is… all-hearted pursuit of Jesus in a posture of surrender.

Surrender is the posture of human flourishing because it’s the posture that gets us to the Creator’s heart, which oozes the Jesus Prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane: “not My will, Father, but Yours be done.”

Surrender is the yielding of control to something greater and beyond ourselves. It’s the activity that allows us to recognize that, despite our toil, trophies, and trappings of success, we are all turtles on a fencepost.

GOD PUT US HERE TO DO HIS WILL.

But surrender is not easy work. It’s hard, super-natural work.

Begs the question… If surrender is so important, what do we do if we’re not built for it? It’s resolution time… What do you do when the outcome is beyond your control, and nothing you do can change it?

We're in James 1:12-18. God’s Word teaches us about the Gift of the Trial, and it’s purpose in our flourishing. 3 thoughts:

1) Perseverance promises flourishing;

2) The Perils of personal desire; and

3) The Provision of a perfect gift.

Jesus is taking us to the place of human flourishing, and He’s calling us toward the posture of open-handed surrender. Are we willing to be led by Him?

God - Illumination - Text and explanation

Point #1: Perseverance promises flourishing (v.12).

Text

Verse 12: Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.

And right out the gate, we have it: Blessed is the man.

Blessed. The Greek word is makarios. It means supremely blessed, fortunate, well off, and get this - flourishing.

It’s the same word that Jesus uses to kick-off the Greatest Sermon of all-time. Jesus began the Sermon on the Mount with 9 consecutive statements, each beginning with: “Blessed are…” Or, “flourishing are.”

The lifestyle of the Jesus-follower, according to Jesus, is not about human striving. It’s saturated with surrender. There’s something to this.

That’s what the blessed and flourishing life is. Here’s what it’s not. It's not a shallow happiness.

Now, some say that the Christian should always be smiling.

James is not telling us to put on a happy face in a hard time. He’s not telling us to “grin and bear it.”

He’s not preaching a Peter Pan gospel here: think of the happiest things; it’s the same as having wings!

No! A flourishing person, a blessed person, may not be “happy” at all. Our emotional state tends to rise and fall with the circumstances of life.

But we can be assured that, whatever those circumstances, if we persevere with faith and commitment to God, we will be the recipients of God’s favor. We will experience true “human flourishing.”

The charge he issues here, is to remain steadfast under trial.

Steadfast. James means to stay under, to remain, to persevere.

So, don’t run from the trial. Remain under it.

The point is to produce steadfastness - endurance, perseverance.

So, take heart, the trial you’re in right now… it is not pointless.

That’s what James says in verses 2-3:

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.”

This gives us the picture of a person carrying a heavy load for a long time.

James says that our trials produce this characteristic quality of the Christian - perseverance, steadfastness. Just like a muscle that gets stronger when it faces resistance, so we learn to remain faithful to God over the long haul when we face the trial… when we stay under pressure.

We’re running a marathon, Church, not a sprint. Perseverance and endurance are necessary for our race.

So stay put, remain under the trial.

Do that, and you’ll be blessed. You will flourish.

I mean, what’s God doing here if He’s not purifying the heart? Remember what Jesus said: Blessed are - flourishing are - the pure in heart.

God doesn’t just give us an aspirational goal or some New Year’s resolution that He won’t actually help you attain. He’s a good God; He’s not cruel like that.

No. He graciously gives us the trial to purify our hearts.

And if we would only surrender to God’s purpose for the trial and persevere unto the Lord in that pressure, God will do the transformational work to make your heart pure, whole, integrous.

REMEMBER, ALL YOUR HEART IS ALL GOD REQUIRES.

In fact, when you stand the test, you get the crown of life … that God has promised to those who love Him!

James’s attention here is on the future culmination of human flourishing, as he reveals the Christian’s great reward.

And the crown he has in mind is the laurel wreath given to the victors in athletic contests.

Paul uses the word in this way in 1 Cor. 9:25: “Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to gain a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

It’s the same reward that Jesus promises to suffering Christians in Revelation 2:10: “Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

James says that this is the crown that God has promised to those who love Him.

And it’s secured by the great victory won by the Blood of the Lamb.

So James is expanding the blessing for those who remain under the trial. Yes, we can experience it now, but the eternal blessing is so much more.

Now before we start to think that James is advocating for some kind of “bottom line, what’s in it for me” kind of life, no. He’s spurring us on to faithful perseverance in the difficult circumstances we face here on earth.

Illustration (The Crucible)

The trials, the struggles of life, test our faith. They prove our faith, and make it more genuine.

This testing paints a word picture of the process of refining silver or gold.

And Scripture gives us the image of a CRUCIBLE for this. Proverbs 17:3 says: "The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts."

The struggle is a pressure-cooker, and God uses it to test and refine our hearts.

Like silver in the crucible, heat -- pressure -- is applied to us to burn off the bad stuff so something more precious emerges.

Like the smelter who refines precious metal. God will allow the heat to turn up to burn off the impurities, making the metal more precious.

The trial is a tool in the hands of the Master Smelter to transform us into something that’s more tried, more true, more precious, and more valuable.

The challenge and the charge is to remain in it, in order to receive the kind of blessing that benefits us for the long haul.

If you’re anything like me, I bet you did a bit of reflection at the end of the year. As I have looked back on last year and, really, the last decade, I’ve learned about the gift of trials:

They were not nice, but each one was needed;

They revealed a strength and a substance I didn’t even know I had;

They have taught me the values and priorities that actually matter most, the kind of “eulogy” virtues that stand the test of time.

Each trial has been a test that God has used to refine my heart and prepare me for what my heart truly burns for.

When we surrender to God’s purpose for the trials of life and persevere in them, He will purify our hearts and make us whole and integrous. God will make us all-hearted.

So let’s keep our eyes on the prize for motivation to maintain spiritual integrity when faced with the trials and temptations of our life.

Point #2: The perils of personal desire. (v.13-15).

Text

The direction of surrender is to remain under the trial, but the temptation is to run.

Trials are no fun. Suffering is hard.

The blessing, yeah. Give me some flourishing. All in for the abundant life of following Jesus. But the struggle is real. And heavy. And, it’s hard to stay underneath all that weight.

So in verses 13-15, James shifts the focus a little bit to the perils of personal desire. He tells us that the trial brings temptation.

The temptation is to blame. The temptation is to shift the blame from where it belongs - on me, on us - to others. And James says, even to God.

That’s his concern. “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God…’”

James is concerned about this because it strikes at God’s character:

FIRST, God does not tempt. (v.13) “God cannot be tempted with evil, and He himself tempts no one.”

You see, temptation is an impulse to sin, but God is not susceptible to any sin. And God does not desire anyone to sin.

God may test, and He may allow a trial to strengthen our faith. But He is not the author of temptation. God never seeks to destroy faith, only to strengthen and purify it.

So, James is concerned because he doesn’t want anyone to see God that way.

SECOND, “God is the Giver of every good and perfect gift.” (v.17). So when we blame God for the tests and trials of life, we fail to see them as gifts. And we’re rejecting the Giver of them.

James wants to highlight our individual responsibility for it. “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.” (V.14).

The source of temptation arises when a person is dragged away and enticed by his own evil desire, lust, or inner craving.

The metaphor comes from fishing. The bait on the fish hook entices the fish; and once hooked, the fish is reeled in.

Similarly, the inner craving draws a person out, like a fish drawn out of its hiding place. And then, it entices him, like bait on a hook.

So, a person both builds and baits his own hook.

This enticement to sin comes entirely from our own sinful nature, not from God.

So whatever the struggle is for you right now, the easy way out starts looking pretty good when that weight gets real heavy.

We cut a corner, cook the books, take one more look, double-click, whatever it is.

We build the hook, and we take the bait of our own dis-ordered desire.

Now, temptation alone is not sinful. It’s part of the human experience, just as it was for Jesus - who was tempted in every way, but did not sin.

James shifts the metaphor in v.15 from baiting a hook to biology, using clear steps to show a spiritual regression.

The dis-ordered desire in us conceives and sin is born.

Sin then matures and produces its own offspring, death. It’s a vicious cycle.

The steps are clear: unchecked desire births sin, and unconfessed sin brings death.

Just as a right response to trials can result in spiritual growth, so a wrong response to desire results in decline to spiritual poverty and ultimately to death itself.

And Church, spiritual poverty and death are the opposite of human flourishing.

Illustration (My Calloused Hands)

Part of the work for human flourishing to occur is to deal with your desires. But the heart is intangible, confusing, and fickle. So we’re more apt to AVOID our issues, which leads to a hard heart.

In Matthew 13:15, Jesus warns against this. Quoting Isaiah, He says: "this people’s heart has grown dull; and with their ears they can barely hear; and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn, and I would heal them."

Jesus gives us the image of a callous to describe the hard heart. Their "dullness of heart" means to cover over with a callous.

Believe it or not, there was a day when I wasn’t in a boot, and I played baseball.

One of the nicknames my teammates gave me was “Dirtbag” because I was usually the one with the dirtiest uniform.

And you know, true dirtbags don’t wear batting gloves. I sure didn’t.

Well, that’s all fine and good. Except the friction of the bat produced these deep callouses that I still have. Gross!

A callous is formed by repeated pressure or friction on the skin, causing the skin to die and form a hard, protective surface.

Over time, my hands would experience so much friction that the entire callous would get dislodged, and I'd wind up with a deep hole in my hand - despite all the warnings from the training staff to take care of my hands.

Just like that... When we don't tend to our hearts, they get hard. They get brittle. They get wounded. After enough friction and pressure, we could even develop a deep hole.

And here’s what I know…

2025 has some runway. We have about 360 days left in this year. That’s about 8,600 hours.

Not to be Mr. Dreadful and Foreboding here. But on one of those days and in one of those hours, something is going to happen that will turn the heat up on you a little bit.

Your school will retire, you’ll have a surgery, you’ll get sick, your job will be tested, you’ll send a kid to college, you’ll watch idly by as your kid struggles, the market will take a turn, whatever it is…

In this world, you will have trouble. And that will press on you. What will you do? Where will you go?

Will you run from it, taking the bait of temptation and avoiding the trial?

Or, will you bring it to the Lord, trusting His purpose in it? Do you have a community? Now’s a good time to jump in if you don’t.

DEEP WORK. OVER TIME. IN COMMUNITY. You don’t have to soldier-on all alone!

There's pressure all around us, and it grates on our hearts with much friction.

But pressure can be good. It reminds you of what matters. It tests you!

You feel the pressure of that work project, that deadline (or sermon😉) because it matters.

You feel the pressure of conflict because that relationship matters.

Parents, you feel the pressure that culture puts on your kids because they matter.

But sometimes, the pressure can be too much for us to hold.

So when the heat is turned up and you feel it, when the cares and worries mount, they have to go somewhere.

That’s energy, and it’s headed somewhere. Or to someone. And we take the bait, we sin, and give birth to our own anti-flourishing.

When we meet the trial, the temptation to run away can be too great. When we take the bait of the easy way out, we miss out on the opportunity to flourish in Jesus. So rather than choose the path of human flourishing, we choose the path that leads to spiritual poverty.

So again, eyes on the prize. When the heat’s on and the pressure’s turned up, Hebrews 12 instructs us: … “let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” And this takes us home.

Point #3: Provision of a perfect gift (v. 16-18).

Text

God is actively involved in our flourishing through the gift of life's trials.

Look, it’s God's unchanging and steadfast nature that invites us to depend on His stability.

And ultimately, it’s the provision of God’s goodness, offered through the person of His Son, that ensures human flourishing.

So when we’re struggling for air to survive, drowning under the weight of whatever we’re facing, and all we want to do is run… Remember, God gives us the gift of life’s trials to purify our hearts and make us whole.

THE TRIAL IS THE GIFT.

And James doesn’t want us to miss that. So he leads into it with strong language: “Do not be deceived.” (v.16).

“Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no shadow due to change.” (v.17).

James repeats the same idea - every good gift; every perfect gift - to make a point about the origin of the best gifts.

James goes to God the Father as God the Creator. He’s the source of the gift.

You see, the word for “lights” here is often used in reference to the “lights” that appear in the sky: the sun, moon, and stars.

The Greek words for “variation” and “change” often refer to astronomical phenomena in the ancient world, all of which turn, rotate, move, and orbit in response to a Greater Power.

James lifts our gaze, using the language of the cosmos to show that God doesn’t change like the heavens do. God doesn’t change like we do. God doesn’t need the refining work of transformation.

Because God is perfect, whole, and complete!

God is the Giver of every good and perfect gift.

God is the Source of all flourishing.

Then, in v.18, James says that God, of His own will, brought us forth by the word of truth.

He’s talking about bringing forth new life, as from the womb.

And this new life comes from “the word of truth” - logos - the divine expression of God!

James is talking about the new birth in Jesus - the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us!

We can’t experience true flourishing without a NEW HEART!!!

God gives His children a new birth and a new heart, and He gives the gift of trials to complete the work of transformation. To refine His children into something altogether new!

This is the result of the ongoing work of surrender - FULL AND COMPLETE TRANSFORMATION!

So, remember the gift of life’s trials comes from the Giver of every good and perfect gift, the Father who’s creating something new in you and in me.

Our response is to surrender to His will. ARE YOU WILLING??

“Not my will, Father, but Yours be done.”

As worship team comes up…

The Bible is full of examples of TURTLES ON FENCEPOSTS, just like you and me, who knew the path to flourishing, and embodied the posture of surrender, believing with their whole-heart that God’s will was better than their own:

King David - took his armor off, didn’t soldier on, he exposed himself and faced into the challenge of Goliath in full faith that the God of armies would deliver him;

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego - didn’t suppress the truth, they didn’t bend the knee to a lesser power, and they found God right there in the fiery furnace of the crucible;

Saul - in his zealous persecution of Christians, was struck blind, was forced to surrender, and was transformed into the mighty missionary force named Paul; and

Then there’s Jesus - in the Garden of Gethsemane said, “not My will but Yours, Father, be done.” Then He walked to the cross, where Jesus cried out with a loud voice and yielded up His spirit. Jesus finished the job that we couldn’t, and He did it through surrender.

Illustration (Caleb = all-hearted)

Kristen and I have 3 awesome kids [PICTURE]:

Coy is our oldest. He’s 10. You met him a few weeks back when Adam Paa showed a video of Coy preaching his own little sermon to show that God loves to use unlikely people, whose hearts beat for a cause.

Kennedy Vale is 7. She’s our middle child. She was one of the children reading Scripture during Advent. She was the one with the reindeer antler headband!

Our youngest is Caleb. We call him “Cal”, but his name is Caleb. He’s about a year and a half.

I call him our “delightful surprise.” Everything about Caleb is a miracle.

We were told that we couldn’t have children anymore, so his very existence is a miracle.

When we learned that Kristen was pregnant, we enjoyed sharing the news with family and friends.

But our excitement turned to fear and dread, as a routine, genetic scan flagged some irregularities.

We soon found out that Caleb had Down Syndrome.

And not only that, he had a hole in his heart that would require major, open-heart surgery to repair.

He was born on Mother’s Day of 2023 in an emergency-fashion.

He spent his first 3 months in the NICU, before being discharged with the news that he’d be back for heart surgery.

He did have that heart surgery in October of 2023, and it was more involved than we thought.

The surgeon did a miraculous job, essentially constructing the four chambers of his heart because he basically had only one.

That surgery was a success, except for one valve that we’re praying only needs to be repaired and not replaced.

So, he has another major procedure that we just learned is tentatively set for NEXT WEEK.

We’ve gotta get this done. He’s so small, barely 17 pounds at a year and a half. He’s not even on the growth chart!

You see, his little heart isn’t whole yet. It has to be repaired. [PICTURE]

And that will require SURRENDER. We’re going to have to hand Caleb to the anesthesiologist and watch, as he’s carried off to a room that we won't be allowed in.

There’s a picture of the last time that happened, and we’ll be right back there pretty soon.

Surrendering him is the only path forward to make his heart… WHOLE.

You can’t physically live without a whole heart, and you can’t live spiritually without it either.

The heart is everything! When I learned about the hole in his heart, I was shook. I was really sad. Then I got real angry. Like, go into the backyard and chop wood kinda angry.

Try as I might, I have not been able to do anything about it. There has been no amount of my own striving, strength, or the force of my own will that can change these realities. Totally outside my control. We can’t even influence the results.

We didn’t choose Down Syndrome, and we didn’t choose all the heart issues.

We’ve struggled with grief and what has felt like an avalanche of losses. Life is just a lot more different than we had ever imagined.

But we wouldn’t trade it. He is the most delightful child and so loving, so much so that you can even tell it at 18 months.

Watching Caleb in and out of the hospital, struggling to grow has been quite a test.

The only thing we can do is surrender.

Now, I want to tell you why we chose the name Caleb…

Caleb is a Biblical name, with a couple of meanings.

It means dogged and gritty. And my Caleb has sure proven to be a fighter so far.

Caleb is also a compound word in the Hebrew: Ke + Leb. Ke means all, and Leb means heart.

Together, his name means all-hearted, or whole-hearted.

Caleb’s heart will be whole, and God has used this little joy-bringer to refine my heart and make it more pure and more whole.

God has given Caleb to us to help us grow in the posture of human flourishing because He has taught us how to open our hands in surrender.

You see, Kristen and I have been faced with the daily choice to: run from the trial or remain under it.

This is God’s gift to us.

The Down Syndrome. Look, I don't fully know what all that extra chromosome does. But I do know one thing that it gives him.

He is predisposed to joy. He’s the greatest picture of true flourishing I know.

And when he looks at me, and I see his face light up with full and robust joy, I get an inkling of how the Father sees me.

Let me tell you, when you look into that little boy’s eyes, you will feel the same way!

Human flourishing always extends to others. You see, the beautiful thing about the all-hearted pursuit of Jesus in a posture of surrender is that God USES YOU TO BLESS A MULTITUDE!

All your heart is all He requires.

Back to the choice…

You - application

Blessed is the man. Flourishing is the one.

Human flourishing starts with you.

Flourishing is the one who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love Him.

This is not a may-be. It’s a will-be. It’s a sure thing. You will receive the crown of life. You will experience human flourishing now.

You have a choice: 2 paths – the path to decay and the path to flourishing.

You can run from the trial. And face up to it all by yourself, mustering up whatever strength you can find and striving to push and grind through it.

I’ll tell you where that path ends: it ends in spiritual poverty and spiritual death.

When you run from it, suppressing all of the emotion: the shock, surprise, sadness, confusion, frustration, disappointment, anger. You can stuff all that down. And you become hard-hearted. And the heart becomes calloused.

We can soldier-on, hardening our hearts and never really dealing with the heart of the matter.

OR… you can choose to remain under the trial, surrendering to the Good Father’s purpose for it.

That choice leads to flourishing, for the Good Father will purify and make your heart whole and vibrant.

You will receive the abundant life that Jesus offers, if you but take up your cross and follow Him into an all-hearted life of surrender.

Us - conclusion

The Creator’s heart is for human flourishing, and His plan starts with you.

But it doesn’t end with you.

So, think for a second. When your heart is whole and alive, what does it beat for? What does it hunger and burn to see?

A movement of Christ amongst the Next Generation?

A multiplying, disciple-making effort in your home group?

A leveraging of the super-powers of the differently-abled among us that the world might experience the joy that they naturally access?

For people of all tongues, tribes, nations to worship the One True King in unison?

The gospel to the ends of the earth?

Whatever it is, are you willing to let God lead you into it? Will you commit to sitting before in Him in prayerful discernment, so He might oxygenate that glowing ember in your heart until it catches flame?

Will you make room to pray for it this year?

We are His plan to bring true flourishing to a dying and decaying world.

All your heart is all He requires.

God loves to use regular people, turtles on fenceposts, to bring it!

The pathway to flourishing is all-hearted pursuit of Jesus, and

Surrender is the posture.

Let’s pray.

Father, You are good. You are the giver of every good and perfect gift, and there is no variation or turning of Your character. You care for us, and You desire the very best for us. Transform us by Your grace. Help us to embrace the trials of life, as tools of Your grace to make us more beautiful, more like Jesus.

Bless these men and women. Keep their hearts soft before you. Help them to surrender each day. Help them to pursue You with all their heart. Amen.

Communion

We’re entering into a time of Communion, and this is a Family Meal. By that, I mean that this meal is reserved for those “in the family” - those that have confessed with the mouth that Jesus is Lord and believed in their heart that God rose Him from the dead.

And so we say it each week, we reserve this meal for our members and those coming to us from another church as members in good standing.

So if you aren’t yet a believer in Christ, I want to know that Jesus’ heart - His desire - is to dine at this table with you.

In fact, He says in Revelation 3:20, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to Him and eat with him…”

Today, Jesus is at the door calling for you. Just turn the knob, and join Him at the table.

On the worst night of Jesus’ life, He would pray “not My will, but Yours, Father, be done.” Before that prayer, He presided over a meal with His friends - just a bunch of turtles - and He said, “as often as you gather in My name, do this in remembrance of Me.”

Saints, this is the Body of Christ, broken for you. Take, and eat.

This is Christ’s blood, the blood of a new covenant, shed for you. Take, and drink.

Amen.