He will do it! / More Than You're Settling For

KiDZ Message

SLIDE - KiDZ Message

Onramp

Prop: medicine bottle (same one, or a smaller kid-sized version)

Hold it up: "If a doctor gives you medicine because you're sick, are you better the moment it's in your hand?"

Let them answer — no, you have to take it

"What if someone got the medicine, put it on a shelf, and never opened it? Would they get well?"

Preview: Today we're talking about how being saved works kind of like that.

Lesson / Big Idea

Read (paraphrase) Phil 2:12 — Paul tells believers to "work out" their salvation

God gives us salvation like this medicine — real, enough, free. But he wants us to keep taking it, every day, not just hold the bottle.

SLIDE - Big Idea

Salvation is what God does FOR you and IN you

Ask: does holding the bottle make you well? No. Taking it does.

Believing in Jesus is the starting line, not the finish line.

Application

Ask: what's one way you "take your medicine" this week?

Examples: praying when scared instead of just knowing you're supposed to. Saying sorry instead of just feeling bad. Being kind to someone hard to be kind to.

Not to earn anything — that's just what taking the medicine looks like.

Prayer

Thank God for the gift already given

Ask him to help us actually take it, not just carry it

Ask for one specific place this week to let him work

Main Sermon

SLIDE - Title

Onramp / Big Idea

What if getting well costs you something you don't want to let go of?

SLIDE - Man at the pool

John 5 — man at the pool, 38 years, waiting on water that never works for him

Jesus asks: not "can you get well" — "do you want to get well?"

Clarify: his condition wasn't a result of choice. Jesus isn't suggesting it was.

But there's still a question worth asking…

If God offered to heal you from whatever holds you back from being whole and well — would you want that?

What if what’s holding you back isn’t just the pain point that comes to mind, but something you have been choosing all along?

What if getting well is going to require your diligence over a long period of time?

What if getting well will cost you something you don't want to let go of?

› Pick up the bottle

It’s like I just shared with the kiddos.

Doctor hands it to you, promises full healing, you believe him, you're grateful, you tell your friends — but you never open it

A week later — are you healed?

For some of us, the idea of giving my whole life to Jesus sounds great when the pastor is preaching about it, but when it starts to demand something of me in my daily life, suddenly it’s a tougher pill to swallow.

Here's the belief that lets us stay comfortable holding an unopened bottle

Let me give you a little theology lesson to kick things off today...

And I think that is why many Christians are attracted to the theological belief in “Once saved, always saved”

the idea that when I make a choice to accept Jesus and get baptized, I have my golden ticket to eternity, because his grace has washed my sin, past, present, and future.

Salvation is not just a rubber stamp on your paperwork in God’s admin office that get’s you a pass despite your sin.

SLIDE - Big Idea

Salvation is what God does FOR you and IN you

Limit it to FOR, and you never actually let him save you

Limit it to IN, and it's self-help — and self-help doesn't save anyone

This series is reminding us that Jesus told us to be holy.

“ be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect”

which does not mean to be flawless, but to be all grow up, fully mature and fully who God made you to be

If you're still enslaved to the sin, then your salvation is incomplete.

Left to ourselves, can't find our way to him — heart deceitful, beyond even our own understanding (Jer 17:9)

But God’s grace reaches first — true light coming into the world for everyone (John 1:9)

Grace also calls — deny yourself, take up your cross, follow (Matt 16:24). Real choice.

Not capable of healing ourselves. Called to choose.

Yet some of us think that believing the doctor exists and proclaiming that be believe him is enough to get well.

Yet, we leave his medicine on the table untouched.

Transition in: "Paul has a phrase for this. Philippians 2."

Exposition

Philippians 2:12–16 — the command and the promise

SCRIPTURE - Philippians 2:12-13

Land on v.12 — "work out your salvation with fear and trembling"

Unpack "fear and trembling" as reverence — one of our church's core values — not anxiety

v.13: "for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose"

We work it out. He's the one doing the work. Both true, at the same time.

› Finish the John 5 story here

Jesus heals the man at the pool. He picks up his mat, walks.

Later — temple, second encounter: "See, you are well again. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you." (v.14)

Jesus isn’t threatening him with punishment here. He is warning him that receiving God’s handout without learning to obey his teachings will only leave you right where you started, if not worse off.

This is what "fear and trembling" actually looks like — taking that warning seriously enough to stay close, not brushing past the moment Jesus finds you a second time

Our security was never in the decision made at the pool. It's in doing what the healer tells us to do!

Jesus is not a magic talisman, or some good luck charm. Wearing a cross around your neck or hanging it on your home does nothing.

Yet all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved!

So here's the question this leaves each of us with today

will we accept his whole salvation, or just one part of it?

Application Summary

› Pick the bottle back up

Taking the medicine he prescribes is just as essential to your salvation as choosing to place your trust in him in the first place.

SLIDE - Big Idea

Salvation is what God does FOR you and IN you

In the free Methodist church, we talk about pursuing life-giving holiness.

this is not about legalistic judgmental force, driving people to behave right

It is about learning how choosing to accept Christ’s invitations to obey leads to the fullness of life.

It is one important initial choice that informs hundreds of thousands of other choices.

SLIDE - Choosing Salvation

Every time we choose to follow Christ, we are rescued from sin, by Christ, through the Holy Spirit, for the Father's glory, our good, and the good of everything in creation.

Every time we choose — this isn't a one-time transaction. Joshua 24:15, "choose this day whom you will serve" — a standing, repeatable choice, not a single ledger entry. Also Rev 3:20 — Jesus stands at the door and knocks; someone has to open it, and keep opening it.

Rescued from sin — Colossians 1:13–14, rescued from the dominion of darkness, brought into the kingdom. Romans 6:6–7, our old self was crucified so we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

By Christ — Titus 2:14, he gave himself to redeem us and purify a people for himself. 1 Peter 1:18–19, redeemed not with silver or gold but with his precious blood.

Through the Holy Spirit — Titus 3:5, he saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:13, by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body.

For the Father's glory — Ephesians 1, the repeated refrain "to the praise of his glory." 1 Corinthians 10:31, whatever you do, do it for the glory of God.

Our good — Romans 8:28–29, all things working together for good, being conformed to the image of the Son. John 10:10, life to the full.

The good of everything in creation — Romans 8:19–21, creation itself waits in eager expectation, longing to be liberated. Colossians 1:20, God reconciling to himself all things.

Name the ceiling principle: if you leave out any piece of this — the choosing, the rescue, the agent, the means, or where it's headed — you've quietly put a ceiling on the work God intends to do in you.

The risk here is simple. stay unwell. Stay incomplete, stay the less then version of you, distorted from the truest you.

I don’t think you want that. My hunch is that you know that what Jesus has for you is what is best for you.

And you know it because You likely are suffering something.

If Jesus were there with you today, and asked you “do you want to be healed?”

what would you say?

If you have already said yes, and Jesus just ran into you at church and said “See, you are well again. Stop sinning, or something worse may happen to you."

What needs to change in your life today so that you can do what he says?

Write it down and bring it to him this week.

Conclusion

Callback: "Last week — don't settle for staying a sapling. He wants to make you fully grown. Let him."

Jesus is still saving you, and he promises to finish the work, IF you choose to let him

If you have never accepted his forgiveness, let him give it to you today

Offer a prayer of salvation, and an opportunity to accept him. + connect card

If you have already received it, but have not been baptized, don’t wait, let him adopt you.

If you have already been baptized, then

Don't settle for simply being forgiven.

He wants to form you into who he always intended you to be.

Will you Let him?

Prayer