I want you to think back to when you were little girls, specifically because this is
Women's Administrative Sabbath, but you guys can think back to when you were little boys.
Do you remember what you wanted to be when you were growing up?
Some of us wanted to be teachers, doctors, astronauts.
That thing that you wanted to be that was so important to you, did you become it?
If you did, is that because you had the support of the adults around you and the encouragement
of your parents and teachers?
If you didn't, what kept you from realizing that dream?
Now think back to when you were a kid at school or church.
You were the cool kids and then there were the rest of us.
Were you the cheerleader, an athlete, captain of the math club or best at the spelling
bee?
If not, maybe you were one of many just trying to belong.
Striving for a sense of purpose and identity along with all the other developing young
people around you.
Maybe you were fortunate to have one or several close friends that you knew always had your
back.
If you were, you were blessed.
Maybe you were on the outside looking in, desperately longing for someone to include
you, struggling to maintain or develop your sense of identity and worth in spite of what
others thought or said.
So let me ask you, do opinions matter?
Does it matter what other people think?
After all, they're only the thoughts of your friends, coworkers and peers.
But what if those thoughts and opinions are those in authority?
What if they're your teachers, your pastor, your parents, those you look up to?
Do then those messages have an impact on your self worth, on your confidence in becoming
who God knows you can be?
I would say most definitely.
So many women and probably men take their sense of purpose and belonging from what they
do rather than who they are.
We probably shouldn't do this, but we do.
I'm a daughter, I'm a sister, I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm a teacher, I'm a nurse,
whatever your role is.
A lot of times when people say, who are you, you say, oh, I'm this.
And that's great.
It's great to have that role.
But what happens if a life event disrupts that area of service?
Do you then lose who you are?
In speaking with many of my fellow sisters, I've come to the conclusion that many of us
have a shared fear.
Maybe you don't, but many of us do.
And that is the fear of failure.
We have come to believe the lie that hard work is the antidote for fear.
Now don't let anyone tell you that I don't believe in hard work, because I do.
I can't tell you how many quarts of strawberries I picked on an Indiana farm when I was growing
up.
But I can tell you that one summer at summer camp I washed 583 loads of laundry in eight
weeks.
And that was a feat.
I'm not a super organized person.
I think that I might be more successful if I was a list person.
I don't make lists very often.
But I love to cross things off a list.
So if, Sarah, you will be if you'll be organized and make me a list, I can then cross it off
and feel great.
I feel great about myself when I can go, oh, wow, look what I did today.
The laundry is done.
Supper is cooked.
The kids have been good.
I went to the grocery.
I got all this done.
I worked a 10 hour day.
This is fantastic.
But what if you can't say that?
What if there's laundry in the hamper at the end of the day?
Supper is a mess.
The kids have been yelling at each other.
And your workflow still has 10 things in it that you weren't able to get done.
Are you then a failure?
I don't know about you, but my entire life I have fought the feeling, the fear that I
was falling short of what was expected of me.
Let me explain.
When I was three years old, my mother and I were in a horrific accident that left her
very literally broken and left me unresponsive.
My parents were told that because of her injuries, she would lose her left arm and that she would
never walk again.
Thankfully, she has proven them wrong.
They were told that my life would be permanently changed as well, as doctors never expected
me to regain consciousness.
They said that if I ever began to come around, that I would be in a vegetative state for
the rest of my life.
As you can tell, that was not an accurate prediction.
For my mother, it was a very slow and painful recovery.
She still suffers limitations and pain from this day.
She has no shoulder joint here and she walks with a limp.
One leg is shorter than the other.
But she is alive.
Her arm is there.
And some of you know her.
She is very successful and she is very a go-getter and gets things done.
I experienced nothing short of a miracle.
After her horrific closed head injury, I lay unresponsive in a coma for two weeks.
The elders and pastor of our church took the counsel of James 1 to heart, anointing both
my mother and myself.
The prayer of those faithful souls proved to be both powerful and effective.
I don't know at what point we were anointed, but I am told that a mere three weeks after
my head flew into a telephone pole, two weeks of which I was in a coma, both of us went
home.
I remember being in the hospital and my dad pulling me in a wagon because I couldn't walk.
He tells me that after we returned home, he took both my hands and his, put my feet on
top of his and walked with me through the house.
And it was in that way that my brain started to relearn and some of those connections began
to form again.
I remember lacking dexterity in my fingers.
They put a rubber band around my hand and I had to exercise to figure out how to use
fingers by themselves.
I would have to use my entire hand to do what normal children my age could have done.
I would have to use my hand, yeah, to what kids would have to use one finger.
And they said that I would never speak again.
Any of you who know me knows that that limitation has been overcome.
I struggled with headaches in my early adolescence, but other than that, I really haven't had
any deficits that I know of.
While my mother still bears the physical impacts of that day, scars, limp, pain, and though
my brain was thought to absorb the greatest impact of my injuries, it proved to be my
heart that was infected most that day.
You see, my grandmother's and my Sabbath school friend's moms took turns coming to
the house when we first went home so that just the basics could be taken care of.
My brother was only nine months old at the time, quite a feat for a woman to take care
of two little kids when she couldn't even get herself out of bed.
And these ladies kept telling me over and over, Jennifer, you're a miracle.
You were supposed to be dead.
Jesus must have a very special plan in store for you.
And while I would now argue that Jesus has a very special plan for every one of us, my
little three-year-old heart responded to that message.
I loved Jesus and was so very thankful for what he had done for me, that he had saved
me.
I wanted to give back to him and I wanted to do whatever he asked of me.
But what was he asking of me?
Like any other little girl, people eventually started asking me what I would do when I grew
up after they figured out that I was actually going to live.
I toyed with being an astronaut.
I dressed up as a nurse.
I played teacher with my baby brother.
But the message that Jesus had saved me for a purpose ever rang in my ears.
My parents were good parents.
They read me all the Bible stories and any mission story that they could find.
How many of you heard Jungle Thorns, Singer on the Sand, Nile and the White Crocodile?
Yeah, we read all of those.
I thrilled as I heard Jesus promised to his disciples that he was coming back.
But Matthew 24, 14 says, in this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached to all the world
as a witness to all nations and then the end will come.
I'm a very literal person.
And so I said, well, if this hasn't happened, then this can't happen.
All the world doesn't know.
So Jesus can't come.
My Aunt Valerie went on a mission trip and came home telling us all about it.
I don't know where she went.
Don't know how long she was gone.
Don't know what she did.
But at four years of age, I then knew exactly why Jesus had saved me.
I was supposed to be a missionary.
I was supposed to tell others that Jesus loved them.
So have you ever been so excited about something and so sure of it and have the wind knocked
right out of your sails when somebody tells you that it isn't possible?
My mom wanted to protect me and she wanted to hold me close.
After all, she had just nearly lost me.
At first, my dream of going to Africa, and this was the way it was stated, I'm going
to go to Africa, live in a mud hut and save the heathens.
That's what it was said over and over and over.
And at first, mom was like, oh, that's great, honey.
That's great.
You're four.
That's great.
You'll grow up.
Of course, she wanted me to live for Jesus, to answer whatever call he had for me.
She just wanted me to do that in the backyard where I was safe.
So I was encouraged to be active in Pathfinders, to involve myself at the church.
I was director of personal ministries, I think, when I was 16 or 17, something ridiculous
like that.
She encouraged all of this.
And that was great.
She's an extremely driven person.
She loved the idea that I was getting things done.
They weren't necessarily areas that she would have chosen to get involved with, but that
was okay.
You were all a part of Caleb and Elena's raising over $3,000 for their walkathon.
Yeah.
Guess who the little girl was that was knocking on doors wearing her Pathfinder uniform?
Hi, I'm Jennifer Blackburn, and I'm part of, yeah.
So it was so fun.
It was fun.
You did not have to drag me out there.
I was like, when are we going to Ink Gathering again?
Because I was being a missionary.
You know the song we sing in Sabbath school, be a missionary every day?
I was all about that.
And that was okay for right then.
Knowing my love for missions and outreach, mom invited me to a Pathfinder leadership
missions presentation by Terry Dodge from the Michigan Conference.
She thought it would interest me.
But I don't think she ever thought that I would find a way to be involved.
We only take kids from Michigan, he said.
We only take one out of state kid every year, he said.
Well who do you think determined to be that one out of state kid?
Here was a real missionary endeavor that I could get involved in.
Pathfinders were leaving their homes and their parents flying all across the ocean to the
Dominican Republic, and they were doing real mission outreach.
I had to be part of this.
I had probably never worked so hard for anything in my life.
And mom supported me.
She helped me write sponsorship letters, she drove me to church members' houses so I could
spend all afternoon in the hot sun working.
She was awesome.
She told me that if she thought that if I got missions out of my system now, that I
would be satisfied to serve God where it was safe.
Unfortunately her plane backfired.
I did get to go to that two weeks in the Dominican Republic, and those two weeks absolutely changed
my life.
It became a defining event for me.
I pulled teeth, cleaned teeth, helped with eye exams, learned to take blood pressures,
gave a shot, filled prescriptions.
You want a shot from a 14-year-old?
I don't know how in the world they let us do that.
I loved every second of it.
I was alive and I was fulfilling the purpose that God had given me.
I promised those kids, as I handed them the toys that I had brought, that I would be back,
that I wouldn't forget them.
I came home filled with purpose.
I knew my mission now, why Jesus had saved me 11 years before.
It was so I could go be a missionary doctor, go across, go to Africa, live in a mud hut,
and tell those less fortunate about me the good news of Jesus' soon return.
The problem was that I knew at the wise old age of 14 that there was no way Earth was
going to last long enough until I was 20.
Jesus had been coming back for a really long time, right?
Haven't we been told that we've been living in the last days for a really long time?
There's no way we were going to reach the year 2000.
No way in the world.
So I was wasting time to go to medical school, so I settled to become a nurse instead.
Made sense to me.
Everything I did from that point forward in some point was geared toward helping me become
the best missionary I could, as soon as I could.
My first paycheck from my first real job after I paid tithe, every cent went to my favorite
missionary organization.
I read the mission magazines backwards and forwards, hoping to glean all that I could
of what I planned would be my future life.
I learned terms like the unreached and the 1040 window.
There was one big problem, however.
All of a sudden, my mom realized that I was serious about what she thought was an innocent
and naive dream.
A fainting dream.
I started being told that this mission to which I felt God was calling me was unreasonable.
That I shouldn't be striving to do it.
That there were many in my own backyard that needed Jesus.
And that I should be happy reaching out to them.
I was wasting my time trying to go across the ocean to people who didn't even want
reached.
They were happy the way they were.
Never mind that we are admonished in Romans 1014 that folks can't believe in Jesus if
they're not told.
And they can't be told unless we go.
They needed told, so I was going.
Someone else will tell them, God isn't really calling you.
This is the message that I got over and over again.
And I began to have a battle rage in my mind and heart.
It hurt so much.
Was I really working off an immature and unrealistic dream?
I had only been four years old when it became clear to me that I was supposed to do what
I was supposed to be doing with my life.
Maybe I was wrong.
I began to doubt my calling, question my talents and ability.
And honestly, this fear has since plagued me my entire life.
For it wasn't until only three months ago that I was able to have a conversation that
clarified these feelings and helped me identify the origin of the fear failure message I'd
been getting.
Now, I want to be clear.
My mom did not mean to squelch me and never would she have thought that she was speaking
in opposition to God's will for me.
But despite her best motives, that's exactly the message that I got.
Because she was someone in authority, someone I loved and looked up to, someone I admired
and wanted to be just like, I internalized the message.
You're a disappointment.
You don't measure up.
You can't hear God correctly.
You have to try hard.
You have to work hard.
You aren't good enough.
And so strong did that message become that it almost became my inner voice.
I felt like I was a failure and disappointment to those who mattered the most to me.
That was hard.
And in so many ways, it stunted what could have been.
Was the message I was getting the truth?
No.
But I was young and impressionable.
And though the intent was never to harm or bring me down.
Satan is our enemy and seeking whom he can devour.
He was all too willing to capitalize on that message any way that he could.
So when I was picked last on the playground, I heard you aren't wanted.
When I had some difficulties transitioning from high school to college, I heard you aren't
good enough.
You aren't smart enough.
You'll never measure up.
One of my nursing instructors even said, are you sure you want to be a nurse?
Are you sure?
And when I did become a missionary, go live in a mud hut intent on saving the heathens.
Gotta love that verbing.
There was a day my team leader to whom I was looking for leadership and mentoring told
me blatantly, we didn't want you.
We never asked for you.
We just took you because you needed a place to go.
I was primed for the lie.
You see, John 844 tells us that Satan is the father of lies, that lying is his needed language.
What do you think that did to God's ability to use me?
To accomplish his purpose in and through my life?
Well, I'll tell you, it challenged it.
It snunted it.
Absolutely.
I suddenly realized that that day in Congo Bay, I have recently realized, sorry, that
that day in Congo Bay, hearing you got it all wrong.
You weren't called here after all.
Was a pivotal moment for me.
I worked for that mission my entire life and suddenly I was questioning everything and
had been for the last 16 and have been since I received that message 16 years ago.
The miracle of my childhood healing led me to seek to do whatever I could for Jesus.
That's a noble aspiration.
One that is strengthened by the good worth ethic I was taught and the strong morals.
But I missed that God wasn't looking for me to do for him as much as he was calling
me to be for him.
I was left asking myself and crying out to God.
Okay, I came to Africa like I was supposed to.
I came to tell others of your love.
But these people, these people who know a whole lot more about being a missionary who
I do, who are supposed to be teaching me how to do this for the rest of my life, they're
telling me that I have heard you all wrong.
So now what?
What do you want of me?
This question is asking Micah 6.
Perhaps what do you want of me?
Perhaps you've asked that question too.
And the answer, he has shown you, oh daughter, what is good and what the Lord requires of
you.
But to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
God doesn't need us to do anything.
After all, all our righteousness are as filthy rags.
It's all trash and garbage without him.
Yes, I was called to Africa.
Yes, I was called to befriend the people of Congo to love them, serve them, show them
Jesus.
But I thought it was about me.
I thought the results were dependent upon me.
I was wrong.
And again, I believe the lie.
I accepted the label of failure.
The sense of rejection was keen.
After the fateful day when my team leader told me I wasn't wanted, I really struggled
with depression and my already fragile sense of belonging and purpose began to completely
crumble all the way across the ocean.
Even when I got a new team leader who was as supportive as I could be, I couldn't shake
the sense of discouragement.
Now lacking a sense of direction, my spirit broken, I returned home to the States.
Plagued by the fear that I had failed God.
And this fear began to creep into everything I did, in every relationship I had.
And I wasn't really living.
Oh, I established a new norm.
I started a new job, got involved in a new church, began to make new friends, got a boyfriend
who thankfully saw worth and possibility in me and asked me to be his wife.
On the outside I was living, but on the inside I was dying.
I had failed at my life's mission and purpose.
I feared the rejection if people found out who I really was and found out that I had
given up.
I had let God down.
So how long could that go on?
Well about 10 years.
And though I still taught salvage school, I've still led cooking schools, I've gone
to work every day.
Much of that time it still has taken an effort to keep a smile plaster across my face.
Had God rejected me, I was still reading my Bible seeking a connection with him.
But my fear was bigger.
I have told people I might as well have been reading the newspaper for all the good it
did me.
Because what I read, my heart could not believe.
But thankfully God's love, mercy and grace for us is bigger than our fears and perceived
failures.
Because it hurt so much to think that I had disappointed God, I tried to compensate in
other areas.
I tried to be the best nurse, the best wife and by this time thankfully the best mother
that I could be.
Tried to make up for being a failure in one area for succeeding in others.
Did that work?
Probably not.
But I probably wouldn't have realized it if something dramatic hadn't happened.
August 19, 2018 dawned a beautiful bright sunny Sunday.
The day before we had just enjoyed a lovely Sabbath celebrating Caleb's birthday with
my mom.
Sunday morning after breakfast the kids and I baked another cake.
The plan was to take it over to Cliff and Nettie in the afternoon so that we could enjoy
a little bit more birthday fun.
While the cake cooled I was going to use my time wisely and accomplish some yard work.
But the fun was never had, the cake was never delivered, the yard work was not finished.
For shortly thereafter smoke and flames were rolling out of the house that I considered
home.
I raced into the house intent on squelching the flames but I failed.
I could not save my home.
And with Caleb, Elena and our dog I huddled under a tree in our front yard while that
fire destroyed everything that we held dear.
After a fire we had literally nothing.
We had the clothes on our back, our vehicles and by God's grace we had each other most
importantly.
I never felt so helpless in my entire life.
I had two little kids depending upon me.
My self definition centered around my roles and life kicked in.
How could I be a good mom if I had no stories to read my kid?
No clothes in which to clothe them.
I didn't even have any food to give them.
How could I be a good wife if I didn't have a lunch to pack for my husband?
No home to make for him, no groceries to cook for him.
I couldn't tell him where we were going to sleep that night.
How could I be a valuable part of my church family if I had nothing to offer, if I couldn't
even make it to Salva School sometimes?
I was understandably anxious through this horrible ordeal, sometimes seemingly paralyzed
because these roles had come to define me but now they meant nothing.
But I missed something.
I missed that simply being is exactly what I needed to be doing.
It was in that moment that God showed his strength, his might and his amazing capacity
to provide for us.
And this is when he became incredibly real and showed me unmistakably that this had nothing
to do with my efforts.
Other than the moment when our house was burning, we never truly were in need.
It was a faith journey for sure.
Rarely did we know where the next step would take us.
But literally God was two steps ahead of us.
Remember, I'd been reading my Bible before the fire.
That's what all good Christians do.
But that day I saw it actually applied.
I had no other place to turn.
And as God started just showering us with miracles, there literally was no other way
to explain what was happening to and for us.
We didn't expect Becky or Jose or Todd to come stand in our front yard with us and comfort
us with their presence while our house was burning down.
Nor did we play any part in the amazing party that you all threw for us six days later that
helped reassure our kids that they were loved and valued, that they had a church family
to support them.
We didn't ask Mary and Bill to open their home for us, yet they did for an astounding
three months.
We didn't ask a neighbor to jump the creek and give Darren $200 while our house was still
burning.
We didn't even know him.
And we didn't ask for that same neighbor to organize a clothes drive that would provide
every stitch of clothing we owned for the next several months.
Grace and Anthony brought us pizza in the middle of our front yard while we had a fire.
They didn't know that, well, they assumed, I'm sure, that that would be supper that night,
but it would be lunch the next day.
It would also be reassurance that we were not alone.
We didn't ask for assistance with the kids' school bill, yet an anonymous angel provided
a month's worth of funds for both kids so I didn't have to focus on work.
I could focus on survival.
We didn't ask Joe and Jimmy to offer us their home for a long-term use when it was no longer
possible to stay with Bill and Mary.
And we certainly didn't ask the congregation in Somerville, whom we still haven't met,
to fill my car to the brim with household items.
I barely could get in my car to get home.
Every single one of those things happened.
You are not alone.
It is not up to you.
You are not alone.
So why did those things happen?
Was it because we are so wonderful?
Because we are somehow worthy of tremendous blessings?
Absolutely not.
It is simply because God loves us.
Jesus told his friends that God loves to give good gifts, and James 1.17 tells us that every
good and perfect gift is from above.
We were cared for in such a tremendous way, not because of who we were or what we had
done, but because of who he is.
And I firmly believe that it was to bless others.
I can't tell you how many people came up to me in the months following and said that they
had been and continue to be blessed by watching how things unfolded and progressed for us.
I'm still not quite sure what was meant by some of those comments because quite honestly,
I felt like I was falling apart.
But somehow God was able to take our tragedy and turn it into a tool for growth and edification.
And I praise him for it.
I had never felt so weak, so out of control, so ill-equipped.
But that is when God was able to show up and do what he does best.
My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness, had never felt
so appropriate.
Ironically, it was when I had the least to offer that God felt the most real and alive
in our lives.
That day as I watched everything I owned be destroyed, something very important happened.
My heart that had been closed and locked up in fear was reopened, if just a crack to God's
goodness and mercy.
Sure, I'd had problems before and prayed for assistance, but now I was in a place where
I didn't know what to ask for and couldn't pray because I was frozen in shock.
But God did miracles for us.
And we didn't even ask.
You guys ask, I'm sure.
We didn't ask.
We didn't know what to do.
Doors opened for us.
Needs were met.
People stepped forward to help.
And I hadn't done a thing to start the process.
I saw things happen that could have only been God ordained in spite of my inability to do
for myself and my family.
It was my weakness that showed his strength.
And it was his blessings in the face of my emotional paralysis that finally started to
communicate a truth to me.
It wasn't about me.
It never had been.
Do you remember the story of Israel at the Red Sea?
Look at Exodus 14.
Israel has just left Egypt.
We don't know how long they've had their freedom at this point.
But God leads them to a place that just seems to be impossible.
The sea is in front of them.
Mountains are on each side.
And now they've got the Egyptians breathing up their neck.
They're stuck.
They're in a place where they can do absolutely nothing to help themselves.
But does God berate them?
Ask them, what in the world are you thinking?
No.
He reassures them, don't be afraid.
Don't be afraid when the Egyptians are going to annihilate us.
Don't be afraid that I can't do anything to save my family.
What in the world are you talking about?
And God comes back with, stand still.
Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will accomplish for you today.
The Lord will fight for you.
And what will you do?
Hold your peace.
A version of this happened again in 2 Chronicles 10 and 15.
Jehoshaphat and his people are facing defeat from Ammon and Moab.
Jehoshaphat is king.
He's supposed to be responsible for these people.
He's supposed to take care of them.
But he realizes that he can't do anything.
So God tells him he's a failure, right?
No.
Listen to this.
Don't be afraid or dismayed because of this great multitude.
For the battle is not yours, but God's.
Don't fear or be dismayed.
Tomorrow go out against them for your Lord is with you.
God says in essence, you're stumped.
You don't know what to do.
Your back is against a wall.
Fantastic.
I'm so glad you asked for help.
This is my specialty.
So often we strive to prove ourselves.
That's normal.
Kids wrestle and compete with each other.
The stronger feels great about himself while the weaker wants to hide.
That's kids stuff.
But oftentimes we continue that mentality as we come into adulthood.
And then we project the need to prove ourselves into our relationship with God.
But you know what I finally learned?
He's not comparing you to anybody else.
He doesn't label you strong or weak.
And Matthew 25, did he expect the guy to whom he gave two talents to have the same return
as the guy to whom he gave five talents?
No.
He just asked, take what I have, do your best with it.
And as long as you do your best, I'm happy with that.
The guy who was only given one talent, he thought it wasn't worth his effort.
He thought it wasn't going to make that big of a difference.
He'd only gotten one talent back.
He too would have received the message, well done, good and faithful servant.
So, God is not asking for Sally's best or Susie's best or Henry's best or Frank's.
He's asking for your best.
You don't have to be afraid or view yourself as a failure.
It's not about us.
Remember, everything we have is like filthy rags if it isn't filtered through the grace
of Jesus.
And Jesus said that his strength is made perfect in weakness.
Who are we to argue with God?
Maybe your perceived weakness is exactly what God needs from you.
I've recently learned that my fear of failure led to a fear of rejection.
Don't know if anybody can relate.
I was afraid of voicing my fears and insecurities.
It seemed as if my dreams had been dashed, that I had been devalued and my efforts tossed
aside.
I guess I projected that attitude from a significant few onto the world at large and onto God himself.
If these people aren't satisfied with me, then no one else can be either.
But that was a lie.
How do I know?
And this didn't dawn on me until just a couple of weeks ago.
Isaiah 53, 11, he shall see the labor of his soul and be satisfied.
This is the chapter in which we get the description of Jesus' sacrifice for us.
We all know he is bruised for our iniquities by his stripes we are healed.
And everybody understands that.
But do you understand that verse 11 means Jesus thinks it was worth it?
And it wasn't just worth it.
He's satisfied, completely satisfied.
I'm satisfied when I get to the end of my day and my list is done.
My list that I don't make.
When I'm bone tired, but I can see a reason for it.
I ache and it's because I've worked really hard.
But I've recently had the realization that's exactly how Jesus felt about the price he
paid on Calvary for you.
And remember that while hanging on the cross, Jesus could not see through the portals of
the tomb.
Desire of Ages tells us, hope did not present to him his coming forth from the grave of
Victor or tell him of the father's acceptance of the sacrifice.
He had to hang on to that by faith.
He feared that sin was so offensive to God that their separation would be eternal.
But Jesus was willing to go through all that even if it meant eternally being separated
from his father.
Why?
For you and for me, of course.
So it's easy to look back and say, well, of course, Jesus is satisfied that you're in
his family.
But God is not the God of the masses.
He isn't interested in what we understand about the world as a whole.
He wants to know, OK, Jen, do you now understand how does this information impact your relationship
with me?
I have to look and realize that if Jesus couldn't see through the tomb, he couldn't see the
millions that would accept him.
He couldn't.
He hung there in faith so that I would have a chance to accept him.
And because I did, he's satisfied.
He would have gone through all of that just for me.
And you know what?
He would have gone through all that just for you.
He looks at you and is satisfied.
He sees who you are.
He sees what you've done, what you strive to be.
He is your champion.
John 4, 4 says, greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world.
A lot of times we approach God out of fear.
We fear the same kind of rejection from God, the same kind of judgment from him that we
have experienced from others, the same kind of unrealistic expectations.
But it's just not true.
We are told that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, that there is no fear in
love because perfect love casts out fear.
We love him.
Why?
Because he first loved us.
He took that first step.
When I couldn't walk, it was my daddy who held my hands and taught me to walk again.
That's what Jesus is doing for us.
The love he has for us is already there.
The only thing we can do is reciprocate.
It's not about what we can or should or might be able to do for God.
It's all about what God has already done for us.
I love this.
This idea was not mine.
The gospel is not good news.
Something for us to ponder and figure out how to make it happen.
I'm sorry, the gospel is not a good idea.
Something for us to ponder and figure out how to make it happen.
It's good news.
It's already happened.
It's done.
All we can do is accept it.
That makes us so strong.
First John 5, 4 says that whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
This is the victory that overcomes the world.
Not what we do, not who we are, but our faith.
As long as we don't give up, guess what?
We're victorious.
We aren't just victors.
Elina did a great job reading for us.
Romans 8 tells us that we are more than victors.
How do you get to be more than a victor?
You either win or you lose.
But that's not what Jesus says.
He tells us that the battle is already won, that the victory is ours, that we have been
accepted, that we have been brought into his family, and that the only expectation is that
we choose to be his because he has already chosen you.
There's no way we can lose.
God has amazing plans for us.
There are plans to prosper us and not to harm us.
Plans to give us a hope and a future.
I had my plans for fulfilling God's plan in my life.
I had good plans, maybe great plans.
Maybe they were the best plans.
But my enemy, the devil, had set out to derail me.
Through no fault of my own, my plans failed.
Not only did I fail, but I learned, not only did they fail, but I learned to believe and
embody a lie.
A lie that was touching every facet of my life.
Because my plans failed, I believed I had failed.
That I was a failure.
I feared that God was disappointed in me and that he would reject me.
But nothing could have been further from the truth.
Because I believed the lie, Satan was successful in hijacking the potential that Jesus had
for me.
But no more.
Ephesians 2, 4 and 5 says, but God who is rich in mercy because of his great love with
which he loved us, when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
For by grace you have been saved.
Let me restate that.
God is rich in mercy because of his great love for us.
His acceptance of us has nothing to do with who we are or what we do.
Even when we were dead, he made us alive in Christ.
He didn't do it because he was expecting anything from us.
He made us alive in Christ before we did anything.
We all know that.
We say it.
We say we believe it.
We repeat it.
But do we let it sit in our hearts and define how we act and how we approach God?
Because of what this passage says about God's relationship and expectations of us, you're
going to think we're on a rabbit trail, but bear with me for a second.
We're going over to Job.
Job chapter 1 and chapter 2, verse 8 of Job 1 and verse 3 of chapter 2 basically say the
same thing.
Twice God says of Job that he's a blameless and upright man, one who fears God shuns evil,
that there's none like him on all the earth.
That's a pretty tough act to follow.
You can get pretty discouraged.
But based on all we've looked at today, I don't think Job's actions are what prompted
Job and God to make Job his poster child of the day.
If you look at the end of chapter 2, verse 3, God's description of Job is that he still
holds fast to his integrity, though you incite me against him to destroy him without cause.
So Cindy, you reminded me of you when I was doing this.
What is integrity?
Of course, integrity is being honest and having upright principles.
But in this case, I think a more important definition is being whole and undivided.
Job didn't understand what was happening to him.
He probably never understood the bigger picture, but he was undivided, unwavering in his certainty
that God was in control, that he could trust God no matter what.
How in the world could he do that?
Job had something to do with his intimate friendship with God, mentioned in chapter
29, verse 4, which I'd also missed for the past however many years.
They were intimate friends, and Job understood God's faithfulness.
He understood God's habit of giving unmerited favor, no strings attached.
Job was content to let God be God no matter what, to trust him, to trust God to make us
alive in Christ however he saw fit.
God has chosen you, each of you, and he's not going to compare you to anyone else.
He's not going to load you up with unrealistic expectations or be critical of you.
God is crazy in love with you.
It has nothing to do with what you've done, what you can do, who you are.
It has everything to do with who he is, the value he's placed on you at the cross, and
what he is confident that he can do through us.
Maybe this hasn't been your struggle, but it certainly has been mine.
But I've learned that I no longer have to look at life through a lens of fear, being
worried that my next innocent misstep will lead to rejection.
This is a promise of unlearning.
I'm not nearly there, but I invite you also to live a life of freedom and possibility,
excitement and anticipation in what God can do in and through us.
Can this book be trusted?
Can the God who gave it be trusted?
Then what I want to do is challenge each and every one of you.
Don't accept what others say about you, the labels they put on you, the limitations they
give you.
Seek what God says about you.
Read this going, okay, what is God saying to me?
Cling to the value that he has invested in you.
Philippians 1 6, being confident in this very thing, that he who has begun a good work
in you will be faithful to complete it.
I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed
to him until that day.
I will be forever grateful to Elena's teacher for giving her the memorabilia of Deuteronomy
7 9.
The Lord your God is the only God.
He's a faithful God who keeps his promises.
Every promise in here he is going to keep.
We have a good God.
We have the only God.
We have a faithful God who's crazy in love with you.
And that knowledge should help each and every one of us to let go of our death grip on fear
and begin growing in the confidence of Christ.