The Gospel of Jesus is Enough

All right. Well, you can be seated. We’re just going to open the Word a little bit more. Pastor Jay practically gave a message. He could have just given the message. But he asked me to share a little bit. And before Jay started teaching, I was like, “Okay, Lord, what do You want to say?” Because we want to be sensitive to the move of the Holy Spirit.

It’s so easy when we’re in church to just go through the schedule and the rhythm and time — and granted, we have decorating today, so I can take as long as I want. Just kidding. But we want to always be sensitive to what the Lord is wanting to do in this place. We believe in the full expression of the Trinity, that each person of God has a place in this place. And so we want to always just give room for the Holy Spirit to move however He would move.

Setting the stage for baptism

I do have a message, and I’m going back and forth about it. But as the young man we just baptized was up here speaking, I looked in the back, and I saw a young man who — he’s not going to like me for doing this — I believe was the first person that we baptized in this church. Am I correct on this? I’m not trying to tell your business. I’m sorry. I know how much you don’t like attention, but here we go.

He was the first person who asked to be baptized. We had been in this building for a little bit of time, and God had been working in him, had been drawing him in. And so we said, “Yeah, let’s do it. Of course we want to baptize people.” That’s a part of scripture, but we weren’t doing it as a church. And there were a lot of reasons why we could have said, legitimately, why we had not been doing it. For those of you who don’t know, we were churchless for quite some time. And so we just said yes. And then we didn’t baptize anyone for a little bit.

And then there were these three young girls — one girl who’s in kids’ church — who just came to church. They were in eighth grade and just searching for Jesus. They happened to live in the neighborhood, and they decided, “I’m just going to walk into this building because it’s a church, and we want to know more about Jesus.” Our daughter was leading them in a Bible study, and they were going through John, I believe, and the baptism of Jesus came up, and they just said, “Hey, we want to be baptized. Can you talk to your dad about us being baptized?”

And I’m going to tell you that with those young kids’ faith and expectation, it has set the stage for people to encounter Jesus through baptism. It ignited in us — as these pastors, not like in quotations, but as these people who should be leading — this place of almost correction that came so sweetly, because that’s how the Lord does things. He doesn’t shame us into anything, but He just so sweetly and gently said, “This is important to Me.” And so we’ve made a commitment to do baptisms — I don’t know, every other month; I think it’s every three months — and just decide, “Hey, we’re going to put baptisms on the schedule.”

And sometimes it feels like there will be people who come to church, they’ll come visit, and then they leave. And we’ve had a lot of people who’ve been baptized. I think about this one kid who just came in one day, and it was just like, “I’ve been reading scripture, and it says to come to church and that I need to be baptized. I want to get baptized.” And so we’ve just continued to set the stage openly for the Lord to move. And that’s really what our commitment deeply is.

We’ve overcomplicated it

But I was reminded, as I was listening to his story, of the simplicity — how we’ve overcomplicated it, and how He’s always calling out to us if we’re willing to listen. He’s always, as Pastor Jay was saying, drawing us near if we’re willing to pay attention. And one of the songs we sang was about overcomplicating it. We’ve overcomplicated it. He’s just looking. He wants us to make disciples of all nations. He’s called us to people, and we’ve overcomplicated it. And in listening to this young man’s story, he just would be like, “Hey, I want to get baptized.”

And here’s the thing. We baptized someone two weeks ago. He asked if he could be baptized, and this was our baptism date. We had a discussion: do we take this baptism date off the calendar and just move it up, or do we just do what we were supposed to? We had a set plan, and we decided, “We’re going to baptize him, and we’re going to hold the date. We’re just going to keep announcing it.” And then we announce it, and this young man’s at church and is like, “Can I get baptized?” That’s how good God is.

When we try to overcomplicate it and make everything fit — we just decided, “Nope, we’re going to stick to our schedule. Yes, we’ll baptize you. No problem.” And then a young man would walk in hungry for the Lord and hear, “Hey, next weekend we’re having baptisms,” and then we’d be like, “Yes, let’s do it.” That’s how good He is. We overcomplicate it because we want to see God move in these magnificent ways. And He does want to move. But yet we forget that it’s in the simplicity, in those moments when we set the table of expectation, that He meets us in that place.

And I have been challenged. I continue to be challenged. I have lost the simplicity and the faith to see God move mightily — so much so that a young man would come into church and say, “I’ve been wanting to get baptized,” and that would be as miraculous and as good and faithful as someone experiencing full healing in their body. That one does not trump the other. Both are equally important to our heavenly Father. Period. That we would get off of the scale of how God is moving and what is of importance, and we would just say, “God, whatever You do, it’s enough, and it’s good, and it represents who You are.”

The gospel is enough

See, that’s it. My message is literally called “The Gospel Is Enough,” or “Jesus Is Enough.” The gospel is enough, because it really is. The scripture as it is, is enough. And He gives us the blueprint to navigate with, so we don’t have to walk alone in this. Somehow we’ve bought into this place where we just forget that there’s more to life, that there’s more to what He wants to do — that the goal of this life isn’t to just live a good life. It’s not to hit these markers. So many times — I don’t know if you’ve ever done this — we try to compromise and make God fit into our life, and that’s not the way it’s intended to be. The gospel is absolutely enough.

In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I’m going to start at verse 17. This is Paul speaking: “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect.” Because the cross of Christ is sufficient — that’s what he’s saying. “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” Not just the power of God, but the power of God to move mightily in our lives. It isn’t the power of God just to plug in when we need it, but the power of God so that God would be glorified in this time, because the cross and the gospel are enough.

Verse 19: “For it is written: ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.’ Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness.”

Basically what he’s saying here is the Jews were waiting for a sign. And there are Jews today who are still waiting for the Messiah to come, and He’s already come, died on the cross, and rose again. And then the Greeks — we know now, right, Greek philosophy and these deep, deep thinkers. And he’s saying the cross is foolishness to both of them. “But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks” — basically everybody — “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” Amen.

Foolishness to the world

Let me tell you what it’s saying here, and what we just saw on display right here: the gospel and Jesus, while absolutely enough, is foolishness and nonsense to men. The wisdom of the world will often come in contradiction to the wisdom of God, because the currency and the strategy are not the same.

We have the gospel message that says you’re supposed to turn the other cheek. We have the gospel message that says you’re supposed to forgive. We have the gospel message that says when someone asks for something, give it to them, and give your coat. We have the gospel message that says we’re to forgive someone seventy times seven times, right? That is the gospel message that is contradictory to the world’s message. The gospel message says we’re to forgive. We’re supposed to love. We’re supposed to surrender.

And the world tells us, “You’ve got to hold on to everything you have. You’ve got to make something of your life. You’ve got to be something. And if you’re not doing those things, then what are you doing? You’ve got to make sure that you protect your boundaries, you protect your home, you protect your family.” And the gospel message is saying, “No, you give and surrender everything, because if you try to keep your life, you’re going to lose it, and if you lose your life, you’re going to gain it back.” Because that’s the gospel message. The gospel message does not come into agreement with the world’s message.

And Paul is saying, “Look, the cross and the gospel are foolishness to men.” Are you willing? Am I willing to be a person who’s going to look foolish and weak to other people? See, it says in here, “But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God” — how can God be weak? — “the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

Because when Jesus died on the cross, it was perceived as the ultimate place of weakness. He surrendered everything He had. He was humiliated in front of everybody. He was put on a cross. They mocked Him. And it seemed to be a moment of, “If You were really God, how could that happen?” But in that weakest moment, in man’s perceived eye, it was God’s greatest strength that triumphed over everything — that triumphed over death, that triumphed over sickness, that triumphed over all the things that we navigate today. In that moment of perceived weakness, it was actually strength.

Verse 26 goes on to say, “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world” — the world’s perspective of foolishness when we’re following Jesus — “to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.”

The most foolish ways of God will always be wiser than the most intellectual, wise person in the room. This is why we talk so much about reading your scripture, praying, knowing the voice of God. It’s not so that we can be right, but so that we can operate in boldness and confidence, in that we know what we heard the Lord speak, and God would be glorified through our life. This isn’t just so that I’m right and we build this platform. No, this is about seeing God glorified.

The upside-down way of Jesus

And He says, “I’m going to choose the least likely of you. I’m going to choose the least likely. My gospel message — what I want you, as a follower of Christ, to take your posture in — is, number one, a posture of surrender to Me. And as you surrender to Me, it’ll be a posture of serving others.” The gospel message is about the last being first. Serving others rather than being served. Giving over receiving. Reconciliation and forgiveness over being right. Dying to oneself so that you can find life.

I was listening to Jay speak to the young man we baptized about how, when we read scripture, we have to die to ourselves, because often it’ll contradict our values. We can be like everyone else. There are plenty of places you can find where you can go, do what you need to do, leave, say hi, maybe talk to some people, and move on — and that’s fine. I’m not God. I’m not the judge. Thank goodness. But our heart is that we would be a people here that would learn how to surrender and live out the gospel. And that’s uncomfortable. It requires something of me. It requires a vulnerability from me.

But the cross of Christ, the life in Christ, the hope in Jesus is upside down to this world, because it’s always intended to bring us back to Jesus and not ourselves. The gospel is to bring us back to Jesus, because I cannot do this in my own strength. I can only power through so much. I can only forgive so much. I can only forgive so many times before I start seeing why they’re not worth my forgiveness. I can only be gracious so much, because after that I feel like they’re not deserving. I can only do things so much on my own.

But I’m going to tell you that when I begin to get Christ’s perspective, it begins to change things. It begins to re-evaluate even my whole life, because I go from thinking, “This is mine, and I have to hold on. I’ve got to keep. I’ve got to protect,” to then living freely and open-handedly, and seeing God glorified in my life and other people encountering Jesus.

How many times have you ever been in a place where you’re trying to share things that God is either doing or wants you to do, and people — sometimes in the church — are like, “That doesn’t make sense. How’s that going to happen? Where are you going to get the money for that? Why would you do that?” You know, in scripture, in Matthew, it talks about not throwing our pearls before pigs. And the idea there is that we wouldn’t give sometimes the best things that God is showing us to just the world and anybody, because what God asks of us sometimes will seem so out of the realm of things that we can talk ourselves out of it. And sometimes people with very good intentions, including myself — I know that I’ve done this plenty of times — talk people out of it because it doesn’t make sense in our mind.

Where I still need to surrender

When you read about the church in the book of Acts — I’m going to just quickly share this, and then I’m going to be finishing up. I saw this video. I was walking the dog, and I was scrolling, and I don’t know how I found it, but it was this pastor, and he was preaching. I don’t know what he said before. I don’t know what he said after. It was just a clip. I just know I had to work it through in my mind.

He was talking, and someone brought money up to the stage as he was talking — so just picture me talking and someone brings up money. I don’t know if this is how they do offering; I have no clue. And then all of a sudden he’s sharing that he senses there’s someone in this room the Lord wants to bless, and he’s like, “Is that anyone here?” And then this person stood up and was like, “Me.” He’s like, “Come up here.” And then he just said, “Church, we’re going to just take an offering for him. We’re not going to count it. We’re just going to bring it up.” And all of a sudden people are like, “Just bring what you have,” and people are just giving.

And I’m going to be honest — it made me a little uncomfortable. And I was glad that I was uncomfortable, because I’m like, “Lord, I never want to just do things a certain way because that’s the way that I’ve always thought it needs to be done.” I don’t know what God was asking him. I don’t even know the context of the church. I know nothing about it. But I just know that I was really uncomfortable, and that uncomfortability was saying, “There are still places that you won’t surrender to Me, Suzie. There are still places about the church that you’re not willing to surrender to Me yet. You have this way that everything needs to be. Are you willing to just surrender the way things ought to look and what people think?” This is just for me. And this was just on Wednesday. I wish this was months ago. No, this was Wednesday. Because so many times we stifle what God wants to do because it doesn’t line up with the wisdom of man.

Verse 26 goes on to say — I’ll start again — “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen.” God has chosen the things that are despised by the world. God has chosen the people who are most marginalized. God has chosen the things that people say we don’t have time for. “And the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus” — I am in Christ, we are in Christ — “who became for us wisdom from God — and righteousness and sanctification and redemption — that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’”

This is the hope and the promise: that in Christ we’ve been made right. In Christ we have sanctification. In Christ we have redemption, because He paid it all. That is what this was about — the redemption that only Christ can do, the calling out that only Christ can do.

And I’m going to finish off with this, in chapter 2, verse 1. It says, “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech” — thank the Lord, because sometimes that’s me — “or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” Paul is saying, “Everything I knew, I decided I no longer needed to know. All I need to know is Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Our response

I’m going to tell you, it’s saying this: Jesus is enough. Humility is the posture. Our strength and confidence only come from the Lord, and that is key. And He wants to be glorified, so that we trust Him over the direction of man, over the direction of our own wisdom. His desire is to be more mighty in our life so that He can be glorified.

So what is our response today? Our response is really simple. Do we want to see God glorified in our life? All right. So you said it. So we’re going to stand up.

And here’s the thing: I can’t live your faith out for you. I can say it all, but there’s nothing that I can do. I quite literally have a dog who I thought I trained really well, and he doesn’t even follow my instructions. So if I can’t even train a dog with treats and all the love, then there’s nothing that I can make anyone do. I’m not comparing you to animals. I’m just saying, if something that is intended to follow my instruction won’t follow my instruction, how much less can I make any human person do anything? I cannot make you respond to the Lord. I can give you the opportunity, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re just going to pray.

Because I’m in this with you guys. I think I said this last week: I am in this with you. I am walking out my calling. I am walking out being a child of God. I am walking out being a wife, a mother, a daughter. I’m walking it out just like you. We all have different things we’re facing. There are places of faith that I need God to grow me in, clearly, as I shared. There are rooms I need to walk into knowing God sent me there, and I still walk in indifferent toward people, indifferent toward situations. I don’t want that. And I don’t know if you want that, but whatever it is, you know where you find yourself.

So basically, you’re going to pray, I’m going to pray over you, and you’re going to respond to this word. That’s how that works. And not just, “Hey, I hear you.” I have kids. I love them. They’re like, “I hear you,” and then they just go on. And I’m like, “Did you hear me, or did you not? I’m not really clear, but we’re just going to say it again.”

You don’t need to hear from me. What you ultimately need is to hear from the Holy Spirit. And not only do you need to be confident that you hear the Holy Spirit today, but you need to be confident that you hear the Holy Spirit tomorrow, and Monday, and Tuesday, and all those other places, because you’re walking this out. Because you are called. Because He called you by name. Because He’s fashioned your days just like He’s fashioned my days.

And I’m telling you, the enemy wants us to be asleep and inactive to His Word. The enemy wants us to think it doesn’t matter. The enemy wants us to think we have plenty of time. The enemy wants us to think, “Oh, when I have this together, then I’ll start following Jesus.” Those are all lies from the enemy, from the pit of hell. I’m telling you that life in Christ is fuller than you could have ever expected, fuller than you could ever think, greater than you could ever imagine. But it requires you to respond and say, “Yes, Jesus, I’m going to follow You today. Yes, I’m going to live in surrender today. Yes, I’m going to go do this in obedience today.” Only you can make that decision.

So we’re going to pray, and I’m going to be praying for myself. We’re going to continue to pray for the work that the Lord is doing in the young man we baptized today. He is faithful and just to continue it, to finish it. You are called. The Lord has set you apart for this time. The timing of it is not by accident. You don’t need to know more. You don’t need to do any of that. He wants you to walk in obedience, just like you walked in obedience last week and today — to continue to walk in obedience.

People are hungry. And we need people that are older that will call something out in someone, and we need the younger people — because I am no longer there — that have the strength, that have the velocity, I’m going to say, that have the oomph to go places that we cannot go. And the only thing sometimes that we can do as older people — because I’m in that category now — is to pray, to equip, and to train. And it’s for you younger people to go out and walk in obedience in the places that we cannot go, to walk in the confidence that God has called you in. See, that’s how the church works, because we work together and we begin to see His will fulfilled through us.

A prayer that the gospel is enough

All right, let me pray. You can raise your hands. You guys have got to pray for yourselves. I’m going to pray, but you have to pray for yourself, because it’s between you and the Lord.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your goodness, God. Lord, I thank You for the sweet reminder today that You are calling people. The world would tell us that this generation of young people is not listening, that they’re lost. But God, everything continues to tell me otherwise. I’ve seen time after time in this church how You are calling our young people by name, and that there are young people who are willing to walk in obedience without fully knowing or understanding, but turning to You.

God, we thank You for the work that You’re doing in this young man, Lord Jesus. That is also representative of what You’re doing in that generation. God, we pray that You would continue to give him dreams and understanding in scripture. Lord, we thank You for the work that You’re doing in him, and that he would continue to be deeply formed in You. We declare that the young people in this church would continue to be deeply formed in You, that they would continue to walk and pursue and choose You, God.

Father God, I pray for us older people, Lord Jesus — that the work that You’ve established and done in us, the faithfulness, the glory of how we’ve encountered You before — that we would be people who would rise up and help lead and encourage and pray for this younger generation. That we would move as a body — not that one is better than the other, Lord — but that You would continue to mold us and bring us together and knit this church, Dwelling House, to be a place where You would freely move, where You would have Your way, God. That we would be a people who would give words of encouragement, that we would see young people and young people would see us, and we would see You move mightily in this place, Lord.

We thank You, and we declare that You are enough. That the cross is enough. That in the cross there was life when people saw death. On the cross it seemed like You were paying a debt, and really the debt You were paying was redemption for all of us. God, we thank You that You are doing a mighty thing, Lord Jesus, that we don’t need to have all the wisdom and all of the understanding, but that the gospel of Jesus Christ is enough.

God, I pray that this week we would walk in that boldness and confidence to declare that You are good, to declare that there is hope, to declare that there is life where there seems to be death, to declare that there is hope and healing where there seems to be bondage. God, we declare that You would move mightily in this place. Lord, we thank You that You are breaking strongholds in Jesus’ name, that Your Word is enough. It says in scripture that we can take every thought captive, and it must come under the authority of Jesus Christ — that Your Word and Your name can break strongholds, that there is power in the name of Jesus.

So we declare the name of Jesus over this place. We declare the name of Jesus over the sickness that is in this place. We declare the name of Jesus where we have no direction. We declare the name of Jesus over our families, over our cities, over our children, over our co-workers, God. God, I pray that You would stir us up to walk in boldness and courage this week, Lord. We thank You for who You are. We thank You that You are enough. And we thank You that the best is yet to come, Lord Jesus. Until You return, You are perfecting all of us. Lord, open our eyes, open our ears, and help our flesh walk in obedience to You. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Transcribed from the message recording and lightly edited for reading.