Sacrifice, Submission and Trust

A Country Divided

Four days past election day and we still don’t have a president.

I saw this crazy statistic:

80% of Trump voters thought he would win.

80% of Biden voters thought he would win.

People are divided by fear of the “other guy” and every aspect of our media and culture drives this division.

Individualism - my way or the highway.

See the picture downtown Denver all boarded up. That is a picture of fear. Humans afraid of humans. I’m not sure who is afraid who will win… but that’s lose-lose if that is where our country is.

Human nature and every aspect of our culture will seek to destroy unity and love among us.

Who are we and what the heck are we doing here?

We want to love God. We do that in worship, we do that by ourselves and in community, we ask “what would please God most?’ and we do that thing.

And what is the first follow-up to “Love God?”

Love others! Love one another as I have loved you. Within the community, within the fellowship, that’s what makes us a “fellowship”.

In a world and a culture ruled by fear and divisiveness how can we possibly expect to be successful in loving one another?

Especially if we seek to do crazy things… like be faithful disciples of Jesus. That isn’t going to be any kind of easy.

We see the character and culture of America today. It isn’t good and it isn’t getting better.

What is the character and culture of the church?

Character and Culture of Church

How we do as important as what we do. Often how we do the thing determines if it is even possible to accomplish the mission.

What is our culture?

A year ago November I talked about our “culture of silence” with regard to festering hurts and un-forgiveness in our community. Is that what we want our culture to be? Many of you said “no” and had hard conversations, sought reconciliation, peace and forgiveness… and I love you for it. We need more of that.

What do we want to be our culture? What is our expectation?

I sent out an essay Pastor Rod wrote right around the time this church was replanted here in Thornton. In reviewing our membership materials again this summer, his words lodged in my brain.

Sacrifice, submission and trust.

They aren’t easy. But how desperately they are needed. When we get these right, just about everything else follows for free. When we sacrifice for one another, when we submit to one another, when we trust one another this church has and will again do amazing things together.

So let’s look at these. What are we talking about here?

Sacrifice

John 15:12–13 ESV

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

This is the kind of love for one another to which we are called. To lay down our lives for one another.

But not just once and for all. This isn’t just about jumping in front of a bullet.

Before Jesus sacrificed his life… he sacrificed eternity, intimacy at the right hand of the Father, he sacrificed his power, he “made himself a servant.” He sacrificed his time, his attention, his enjoyment, his pain and suffering, he devoted himself to serving and saving the least… and all that while we were still sinners and enemies.

It is a living, daily sacrifice for one another… and sacrifice for those outside as well.

My favorite moments as a church have been in seeing your eagerness to do this for one another. To help one another with groceries… or moving… or a listening ear… to give time, talent and treasure without hesitation.

To sacrifice and give to the point of suffering. That is what we are called to. That is the footsteps of our Master. That is our Culture.

Church requires sacrifice.

Church, real church, ekklesia - called out, koininea - true fellowship… requires sacrifice.

Submission

Church requires submission. And not just to leaders, not just to me… though that is part of it too. Church requires submission to one another.

Last week we read this verse:

Ephesians 5:18–19 ESV

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,

Love that picture of Spirit-filled life!

But it goes on with thankfulness

Ephesians 5:20 ESV

giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,

and this… “submitting to one another”:

Ephesians 5:21 ESV

submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

The next verse, this is the way “women are called to submit to their husbands.”

Ephesians 5:22 ESV

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.

Some of you may recall from our sermon series in Ephesians. The word “submit” isn’t actually even in that sentence, it borrows the word from the previous sentence.

So “submit” can’t mean something different. Take whatever picture of a wife “submitting” themselves to their husbands, as they would to the “Lord”, Jesus…

Take that picture, and bring it all across the church.

Does that mean that everyone else in the church is more important than I am? Yes! Yes! In fact, Paul says that explicitly to the Phillipians.

Philippians 2:3 ESV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Submitting to one another looks like putting someone else’s opinion, needs, values, struggles, questions above our own. It goes hand in hand with sacrifice: I have to sacrifice my good to submit to yours.

I may have to sacrifice my opinion to submit to yours. To consider you “more significant” than me.

I don’t like it. If everyone in the world would just do what I say we wouldn’t have these problems. But that isn’t the model my Master commands me to. He didn’t give me that option. He said “submit yourself to everyone else, consider them more significant than yourself...” and I have to be obedient to that. As your pastor, as a Christian, as a believer in covenant community with you.

Church requires submission.

Trust

Sacrificing for one another.

Submitting to one another.

That sounds nice, it sounds idyllic, really… but how can we possibly do that.

It comes down to this? Can I sacrifice for you if I don’t trust that you are going to do something worthy with my sacrifice?

Why don’t I “sacrifice” by giving the homeless guy $100 bill? Well, because I’m selfish, there’s that. But also, I don’t know that he’ll use that wisely. I don’t trust that he will.

Can I sacrifice for you in a big way if I don’t trust you?

Can I submit to you if I don’t trust your judgment, your wisdom, your spiritual maturity? Can you submit to my pastoral leadership if you don’t trust me?

No. Well, there it is.This is the the rock on which our fellow-ship founders. Fellow… ship. Get it?

I have always loved Pastor Rod’s visual image of the trust bucket. You fill it up one drip at a time. You give someone an opportunity, they follow through, one drop of trust.

Trust builds slowly, that bucket fills slowly.

But someone betrays that trust… SPLASH! Bucket empty. Trust is built slowly but broken in a moment. The trust bucket empties in a moment and then there’s only one way to fill it back up. Drip. Drip. Drip.

One of our relational challenges in our church is a lack of trust. Why? Buckets have been emptied. Buckets have holes in them. Forgiveness is one thing, trusting again is another.

Can we trust one another? Sometimes. Sometimes no. Maybe mostly no.

Is this the rock on which our fellowship founders?

Here’s the problem: everyone here is untrustworthy. Everyone here is going to fail and doing the wrong thing, the stupid thing, the sinful thing. If they haven’t done it yet… just wait.

Because everyone in this church is a sinner saved by grace. And that means they are going to mess up and prove untrustworthy. I am going to mess up and prove untrustworthy. Probably already have this morning.

Our trust is ultimately in God. Not in man. That story is written across the Scriptures.

Psalm 118:8 ESV

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.

Yeah… that makes sense. Amen and amen!

But because I trust in God, look at the way God has “entrusted” his entire Kingdom into the hands of human beings. Like Peter. Like Saul. Like Dusty. It is ludicrous.

We are all weak and untrustworthy… but even while we build trust with one another, ultimately our trust, my trust is in the Spirit in you, working out His will. Jesus in you, redeeming and restoring you.

1 Corinthians 1:26 ESV

For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

But… it isn’t because you are great and trustworthy… it is because God chose you.

1 Corinthians 1:27–29 ESV

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

So I trust you, not because you are worthy, but I trust the God who has called you His. And even when you fail, He never will. Even when you are weak, He is all the more strong.

Trust me, not because I am the greatest pastor, I am not. Not because I’m not going to mess it up, I will. Not because I have it all figured out: I am broken and sinful and often wrong. Just ask my wife.

Trust me, because this I know: God has called me to serve and lead you as your pastor. Trust one another because God has called us together to be a Body, the local incarnation of the Body of Christ.

Church requires trust.

We trust one another because we trust in Christ who called and saved us, the Spirit that fills us, the Sovereign Father who holds tomorrow in His hand.

The Next Step Church is a community gathered by the Holy Spirit to sacrifice, submit, and trust God and each other. Hence, we are a people who belong to one another and to the Lord. Our future spiritual maturity depends on God working through each of us. We specialize in encouraging and equipping people to “take the next bold steps toward Christian beliefs, maturity, and ministry.”  That is who we are. We are a “next step church” and we are becoming a “next step church.”