Why Your Weakness Doesn't Disqualify You | Julia Veach

0:39 If you are just joining us, we have been in a series the last few weeks out of the book of Luke. And we've had just an incredible time studying together, learning together, growing together. and if you've missed the last few weeks you can go back and check those chapters out but I'm excited to share out of this series and I love Luke because he presents a more merciful and compassionate gospel than the other gospels writers do and I don't know if you're like me like I could use some more mercy and some more compassion and some more grace amen and I love that more than the other writers, Luke, he emphasizes a few things. He shows that outsiders are welcome. He shows that sinners, they're eligible to receive mercy. And he shows a lot of times the overlook being noticed and seen. And I love that it's that we are being brought near to God and near to the hope of humanity. And I don't know if you're like me, but I'm just so thankful that God has picked and used someone like you and me. And he made room for us with all of our messes and imperfection. So while each gospel has its own emphasis, Luke, he uniquely emphasizes this surprising or unexpected nature of Jesus and his kingdom that's more consistently shown, like just unexpected than any of the other gospels. And Luke points us to Jesus as that compassionate savior. And I love that by the time we get to Luke 9 and 10, which have a lot of stories and is very dense, and I'm going to do my best to teach as quickly as possible today,

2:47 One theme keeps rising to the surface. It's that they are not what he expected. So if you're taking notes today for the next 30 minutes, I want to talk about that thought that it is not what I expected. Now, we all have predetermined expectations. Maybe you had an expectation when you came in the room today. If you are a parent, you know that kids can have expectations sometimes. You know that if you're married, that you entered into that marriage with some sort of envision or expectation. and you know I'm not um I'm not saying that if you're dating that he's not the one I'm just saying uh get ready because if you are thinking that it's God that you're bonding that your guys's aunts have the same birthday month or you both like like the toothpaste crest like there there are going to be some disruptors that are heading your way and I love that like when Chad and I dated it, we were, we were dating for six months. Then we had a three month engagement. Now everyone's like, you guys knew each other your whole life. Do you really know each other? You know? So obviously like we had, we had some surprises that you're like, oh, I, I, okay. I'm like, I kind of just expected things to be a certain way. Like I expected that, you know, that you would care that the optimal sleep temperature in our home should be 68 degrees, not 75 degrees. Like I, I, my circadian rhythm should matter. You know, this is not things that I expected that I needed to talk about in premarital counseling. You know, anyone that's married or has children or is in a

4:54 relationship, you know that life can be filled with some unfulfilled expectations. Sure, sometimes those expectations can lead to disappointment or frustration, but expectation, it also, it shapes our experience. And sometimes expectation can also simply be too small. Sometimes we can shortchange how good and how great God is and how amazing he is about to show off in our lives. Every person in Luke 9 and 10 had expectations about Jesus. They expected what the Messiah would do, what greatness looked like, who belonged in the kingdom, how God would work.

5:48 And over and over again, Jesus responds in ways that nobody saw coming. And so I love that Jesus introduces a kingdom that completely, it flips their assumption upside down. And he still confronts, if we're being honest, our expectations today with our walk, with our lives, with our trust. And because the closer that people got in the gospel of Luke, the more they realized he was more than they expected. How many of you guys are grateful that he is more than we could ever hope for? And Luke 9, maybe it may be one of the most densely loaded chapters in the entire gospels. Gospels, and it has multiple stories, and we've got miracle and confusion and power and failure and revelation. It's beautiful chaos, but we're going to get through it together, okay? We're going to embrace that chaos. And Luke 9, he opens with something that's surprising right away.

7:03 He calls the 12 disciples. So Luke 9, verse 1, the first thing we see is that Jesus uses unexpected and imperfect people. Look at the person next to you and say, yeah, he did. Just kidding. Don't do that. Don't do that. he uses people like you and I, ordinary men he grabbed to fulfill the mission. Verse one, it says, when Jesus had called the 12 together, he gave them power and authority. So he didn't just call them, he gave them access to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. So we start with giving ordinary, imperfect men the opportunity to minister and to be used by God. Now, if you and I were building a squad, like a world-changing dream team, this is not who we're going to pick.

8:11 We wouldn't start with this group of misfits. They were, yes, imperfect, unexpected, impulsive, immature, in process, full of doubt, full of misunderstanding. And yes, they fail just like us. They failed. And yet Jesus not only chose them, he sent them anyway. And one of the first things in the Gospel of Luke shows us this, is that Jesus doesn't wait until people have figured everything out. He doesn't wait until their arrival. He uses them in process. He uses them on their way. And then we skip down a few verses, just a few verses later. Jesus feeds the 5,000 using what seemed completely insufficient.

9:07 So now we've got fishes and loaves on the scene and a hungry mass audience. So he grabs the five loaves. He gets the two fishes and he gets the disciples who are still what? In process. They still did not fully understand yet who Jesus was. he was confronting their misconceived perception or their predetermined expectation of who he was. Verse 12, it says, When the day began to wear away, the twelve came and said to him, Send the multitude away that they may go into the surrounding towns and country and lodge and get provisions. For we are in a deserted place here.

9:59 but he said to them you give them something to eat you do it and they said wait a minute we have we have only fishes and loaves unless we go buy food for all these people for there were about 5,000 men and then the children and then the women but then he said to the disciples make them sit down and they do so and he made them all sit down and then he took the five loaves and two fish and looking up to heaven. He blessed it and broke it and he gave it to them and they ate and they were filled and there was excess. So the disciples looked at the crowd and saw limitation. But then Jesus, what did he see? He looked at the same situation and he saw what? Provision. he saw more he saw exceedingly so this this word picture that we get here is the disciples were focused on what what they lacked and Jesus asked for what do you have so they were not what we expected for a dream team, like the world changers. They had unbelief. They had imperfections. And there's that tension for many of us is that we can disqualify ourselves because what we don't feel like is enough. We see, like the disciples, maybe limited resource, limited talent, limited strength, limited confidence.

11:39 And throughout scripture, we see God starting to use what feels insufficient or insignificant. And time and time again, we see God using and breathing on, what do you have? And he uses the disciples and then he uses what they had while they were in process. And what did they do? They placed what they had, their talents, the fishes, the loaves, even their unbelief. They placed it in the hands of Jesus. And they said, use what we have. I wonder sometimes for you and I, if we see all of our shortcomings and we're like, man, that's not enough. But when we put what we have, our unique giftings, our callings that may seem small in the hands of Jesus and say, okay, I know that you see provision and you see more.

12:47 And though I don't expect big things, I'm going to believe with you and through you, you can breathe and perform miracles and break it and bless it and find out there's more than enough. There's surplus. What is placed in the hands of Jesus is never too small. You are lacking for nothing. Surrender maybe that little resource or that little gifting that you might see and say, you know what, God, you gave this to me. And I'm going to believe that what may seem that it's just a little bit is enough for you to run your kingdom through me. Amen.

13:39 I love it. Surrendered things can become multiplied things. If we just say, God, I surrender what you've given me, and I might be frustrated and I might be disappointed, but God, use me and multiply the thing through me. The second thing we see here is that Jesus offers an unexpected kind of life. He doesn't wait for perfection before involving us in purpose. He's like, here we go. We're off. I chose you, and we're getting ready to perform miracles. And we don't have to have everything figured out. And we're going to start describing to these disciples what this life really looks like. So then he goes on a little rant. He starts saying, deny yourself, take up your cross daily, follow me.

14:37 And this also was not the life they expected. See, most of us have a picture or an envision of what our life is going to look like. Now, maybe you're not all like vivid dreamers. Maybe you are a big dreamer, but we all have some sort of picture of what life is going to look like. And I love here that he's teaching the disciples that he's like, oh, actually, a life with me, it's a little disruptive. And it is a paradox of what you think it's going to look like. Just get ready. and the disciples expected power and victory and advancement and influence and all this glory and then Jesus starts talking about okay here we go uh it's actually about crosses and self-denial and um humility that's fun and so he says to them in verse 23 he says whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. Verse 24 says, forever who wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.

16:02 Well, we're having a lot of fun. I imagine the disciples are like, wait a minute, like where's my intro walk-up song, you know? Like verse 25, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet lose or forfeit their very self. So he's giving them this picture of what life is actually going to look like, the unexpected picture. He's saying the more tightly we cling to our lives, the more susceptible we actually are to losing it. So don't hold tight to the control that you actually want. Get comfortable in surrender. So he's like, okay, here we go. I'm going to offer you a life through surrender to pick up that cross and not through self-preservation.

17:00 Now, listen, we live in a world and a culture that is all about self-preservation. Protect yourself, promote yourself build your brand build your kingdom build that strong boundary around you you know do not let the mother-in-law call you you know like they're just boundaries okay you know and then we weaponize boundaries we weaponize self-protection and self-provision because we get to this place that it's like no one is coming in and god does not have access to speaking into the places that require surrender. And Jesus starts saying, oh, actually, let's deny yourself. Let's lose yourself. Why don't you just take up that cross that actually represents death? He's saying, okay, when we carry a cross, We're not talking about something that's like heavy and inconvenient.

18:05 We're talking about an instrument that is meant to get rid of the old you. That's what we're doing today in baptisms is that we're saying the old life is gone. And I'm picking up the cross not to carry an extra load, but to say that, oh, that thing is dead. That life is behind me. And then the life that I now live is filled with life and what life more abundantly. And so I love that he's like, oh, my old life. Yeah, it no longer leads us. It's not meant for us. And one of the great dangers in life is that our instinct for self-preservation can can quietly become what? that prison. It can be a wall and it could be a barrier for God to have access to our heart because we spend so much time controlling things and we spend so much time protecting things and we spend so much time keeping everything together. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine, you know, and in the process us, we can miss the very thing that Jesus came to give us. And eventually what you refuse to release can actually exhaust us. Now, Chad and I, we're like, not like professional hikers. We're like, we're like, we're like on the bench hikers, you know, like we like dabble, like a few like Malibu hikes, but like we don't have gear and like we've never like put like a hiking backpack on. But I would imagine if you're a proper hiker, like we're in 32B. If you're like a first class hiker, you've got like this gear and it's heavy and that's weight that you're carrying.

20:02 But if you release the thing that is exhausting you, you have more energy to continue in the life that he has for you. But a lot of us, we refuse to release it. This is easier for me. This is easier for me to control and to protect and to preserve. And the unexpected truth of the kingdom is this, is that Jesus does not call us to a smaller life, but he calls us to that what? Surrendered life. and he calls us to that life that is bigger and better than we could ever think or imagine the third thing we see is that Jesus leads us down unexpected paths he leads us to places that sometimes we don't want to go and you're like oh don't I know it like I'm barely hanging on and I have felt the twists and the turns of the journey and it feels oh it feels like motion sickness okay like I'm I'm I'm here but this path is not what I signed up for and I love that he addresses it and in a beautiful way, he combines two different, drastic different stories together. And as he leads us down these unexpected paths, he shows us in verse 28 that he takes the disciples up to the mountain to pray. And then during that prayer, his appearance changes. And the disciples, they They call this the transfiguration.

21:55 And the disciples are a bit overwhelmed. And they're like, well, this is incredible. And I actually feel like I need to just process what happened. And it's Peter actually that's like, oh, can we stay on the mountain? And can we just like sit in the glory and sit in the moment and talk about what just happened? And Jesus is like, actually, no, we are going to go get back to work because I'm on mission. So he leads them back down the mountain. And the first thing he encounters is a desperate father with a sick child. So we have this awe moment, like tonight at night of worship, we're like baking in the moment. But then Monday is coming.

22:48 You know, it's like we can't live on this mountain forever. Jesus is like, oh, okay, here we go. We got to get back down into the valley where the mission is. Mountain is nice, but it actually is giving us power for those valley moments, for that valley ministry. And so he's like, okay, we're up here. You saw my glory. You saw my power. but we're going to use that and we're going to go down the mountain. And it says, verse 37, it says, The next day when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. A man in the crowd called out, Teacher, I beg you to look at my son for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him and he suddenly screams. It throws him into convulsion so that he foams at the mouth. He's having severe epilepsy and seizures.

23:45 And he said, I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not. So you see the contrast, the glory on the mountain, the brokenness in the valley. And the real transformation here is proven in how we love people after those worship moments end. And he's like, okay, life and paths are going to happen. And I'm going to lead you in a path that doesn't always look like success. It actually has moments of both. And even though it's unexpected, there's going to be beauty in both. And the next thing we see in verse 51 is that Jesus calls for unexpected commitment. you're like, wait a minute, I just barely got myself to church on a Sunday.

24:49 Can we give myself a shout out? And I mean, I love that Luke is, he shows Jesus's merciful and compassionate and forgiving tone of Jesus, but make no mistake, Jesus is very clear about what our requirement is to become a follower of his way. And he's like, man, I love you and I love you where you're at, but I need you to get ready to commit to me. In verse 51, it says, as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem some translations here it says he set his face towards Jerusalem and it was a turning point in the gospel here because Jesus knows that suffering is ahead rejection is ahead the cross is ahead and still he moves forward with unwavering resolve and commitment.

26:05 He's modeling like, you know what? I don't want to go to the cross, but here we go anyways. And I am going to show you my commitment to you. And it's an unexpected path and it's an unexpected way. And he's like, okay, here we go. we are facing towards Jerusalem and we are going down. And these disciples, they expected some sort of comfort and glory. But Jesus, what does he do here? He's starting to model sacrifice and commitment. So they start going down. And as Jesus continues toward Jerusalem, several people who are interested in following him. They're like, okay, I heard of the miracles.

27:00 I heard what's going on. So we're going to just, we're going to jump on the bandwagon and I'm going to show up. So you see at the end of chapter nine that Jesus is heading in his mission. He knows what he's called, what the father has called him to do. And then you see one man coming up to him and saying, okay, verse 58, he says, foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head so he starts describing to people that are interested interested in following him like you and i he's making it clear he's like okay this path is is not a path of convenience or comfort it's a path of commitment and so he's like it's it's really just not a comfortable place to lay my head so do you want to jump on the like the train you know I would imagine they're they're just walking and he's like oh I'm in I love a party let's go and he's like well careful what you sign up for. This is not as easy as it looks. Foxes have whole birds, birds of the air have nests, but we may not have a place to lay our heads. Are you ready for that kind of commitment?

28:23 And he's, he's, he's confronting this, this cost of security and, and convenience. And then, then he talks a little bit more about like sacrifice and endurance. Now, and jump down in verse 62, he says this way, he says, no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. So now we're using a vivid agricultural picture to show that this man who is moving forward and plowing a field has to stay focused on the path and the mission ahead, that he can't turn and look back. He has to move forward and not long for the thing, whether it's good or it's bad, for the thing that was behind him.

29:16 But then he's saying here that actually I am worth following. Even when the path seems difficult, even when it feels like I don't know what I signed up for because the path of surrender ultimately leads to life, that resurrection life that we were singing about. And the last thing, worship team, you can come join me, is that Jesus values unexpected priorities. And we get to Luke chapter 10, and at the end of 10, he concludes these two chapters with the story of Martha and Mary. And he closes this section with intimacy. And he talks about relationship and proximity. And so after we talk about mission and sacrifice and following and surrender, he says in this passage, he says, Now, I'm team Martha.

30:47 I'm a firstborn. I like to work, okay? She was responsible. It was her home. She paid the mortgage. Mary's the freeloader. She came to him and asked, Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do all this work by myself? Tell her to help me. And the Lord says, Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed. So he's teaching the disciples and the crowds that there's an unexpected way and truth about following Jesus. He's like, full disclosure, it can be uncomfortable. It can be a little twisty. There might be some disruptions, some delays, disappointments. That's a lot of words in one.

31:41 It's like a hybrid, you know? but he says, Martha, Martha, you are worrying and upset about many things, but few things are needed or needed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her, and we see these two chapters that are filled with kind of an underlying theme of expectations and in getting a revelation or getting an understanding of who Jesus is. But I love that he ends it, that the goal of discipleship is not just activity or sacrifice alone, but that it's closeness with Jesus. So the truth was that, sure, Martha was doing good things, but Mary chose, what does it say?

32:36 The better thing. And Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem and he didn't focus on the mission and he didn't die just to merely make us productive. He died what? To bring us near. So that we could receive relationship. And Martha, she chose serving and Mary chose presence. And the greatest gift that we can give Jesus today is not our productivity, although that would be easier for me, but it's our presence. It's our proximity. It's our yes to receiving who he is. and I love that the closer that people got to Jesus in the gospel of Luke, the more they realized that he was not what they expected. Maybe that's still true for us today. Maybe you're in here today, and you're like, yeah, he's thrown me a few surprises.

33:50 but what a gift the surprise of mercy and forgiveness is and compassion and empathy that he gives us and I think that sometimes the greatest surprise is that his way is better than our way, and I love that just because it's not what I expected doesn't mean that it can't be better than I imagined, and I know that he's got good things in store for you. Amen. Come on. Would you stand to your feet today? I love that Luke 9 and 10, Jesus offered something deeper. He offered a cross, a calling, a kingdom. But ultimately, at the end of chapter 10, what did he offer to Martha?

34:48 He offered himself. And what a beautiful picture that he's longing for relationship with us and his expectation is that you and I would have proximity with his presence. Amen. Come on, let's worship together.