Episode 24: Jesus About His Father’s Business

Sermon text here

This week’s song: May the Mind of Christ My Savior by Dust Company
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There are a lot of themes I could draw from this week’s sermon, but for me personally, the one I draw based on where I am struggling right now is in resting in God in all things, and letting that rest be based on the knowledge that God is the perfect Provider.  On one hand, someone may be tempted to look at Jesus as He passed through a life full of hardship and say “Well, of course He was able to live and trust perfectly–He was God!”  But He was also fully man, and felt the same weakness of body that we do.  He hurt, He hungered and thirsted, He was tempted.  The writer of Hebrews wrote of the importance of seeking to fully rest in God’s promise, which is in God through the perfect work of Jesus as our great high priest, saying:

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.–Hebrews 4:11-16

Jesus set the standard for relying on God perfectly, but more than that, He has covered for all the times I don’t.  And ultimately, He has enabled me to look at each day, each frustration and challenge or each joy and moment of excitement, and live open-handedly with it.  Every day believers endure very real strife and turmoil, but because Jesus went about His Father’s business and in fact made it the center of His life and work, we can take rest in God knowing that He understands, that He has endured perfectly, and that He has made the way ready for the children of God.

So I can take that heavy theological truth, and apply it to a daily frustration at work, or a problem at home, or any of a million other things I may encounter in life, and walk through it not fearfully, but resting in the knowledge of God’s goodness and providence in all things.  Easier said than done?  Of course it is!  Saying is always easier than doing.  But I can endure hardship knowing that God uses it all for my good and His glory, and I pray each day that I will have eyes focused on the cross and a heart full of love and grace.  And God’s good mercy has continued to provide perfectly.