Control

Lamentations 3:22-24

Proverbs 3:5-6

Matthew 8:23-27

Matthew 14:22-23

Proverbs 3:5-6

So my wife and I have been married for almost 18 years. This summer will be 18 years. And, uh, yeah, I, it’s funny, we always clap for that, um, which is great, but it’s still always, I think it’s kind of funny. Um, but, uh, we, so over the course of those 18 years, if you go back to the very beginning, there were certain things that we had challenges in, frustrations and conflict in that we don’t have conflict in now. Uh, but there are other things that we’ve had conflict in kind of the entire time, and it’s just never gone away. And I wanna show you a picture of one odd area inside of our marriage that we have had conflict that I’ll admit it is entirely my fault, but, but it’s an image that some, some of you like. Why would that cause conflict inside of your marriage?

Uh, depending upon where you’re from, uh, where I was from, this was called an Oh no bar. That’s the edited version of what that’s called, but it’s in your car. It’s that spot that right above if you’re in the passenger seat that you can grab a hold of. And what’s happened in our relationship is I knew early on that, that you’re not supposed to be a backseat driver. So if, if your spouse is driving, you shouldn’t be telling them anything really. You just need to be a casual observer and be grateful for the fact that they’re driving and you’re not. And, uh, I realize that. And so I don’t comment when she’s driving, but occasionally, unintentionally something will happen while we’re driving. And I’ll grab onto that bar really forcefully, and it drives my wife crazy because she, she looks over at me, she says, why do you keep doing that?

And I said, I’m not trying to, this is a natural human reaction, the way that my brain is wired for fight or flight, that if I feel like I’m about to die, my hand goes up there and I grab onto that thing. So as much as I wish I could just, just casually accept the fate of death in front of me, my body won’t let me. And I know that I’m not actually about to die. That, that we’ve been through this lots of different times, but I can’t stop the fact that I think I’m about to die and therefore I grab on to that bar. Why do we want to be backseat drivers? Why do we flinch? Because it’s really hard when we’re not in control. I don’t ever flinch when I’m driving. I mean, mean like not one time, even if I’m about to crash into somebody, I don’t flinch because I’m in control. That that word control, if you look it up, the definition of control is the power to influence or direct people’s behavior or the course of events. Doesn’t it actually sound like a great definition? Like it doesn’t sound negative at all. Like, man, I would love the power to influence or direct other people’s behavior or the course of events. The problem with that definition is you can’t actually do those things. But we like to try. We all know someone who is a controlling person. If I asked for a show

Of hands though right now and said, Hey, who here in the room would consider yourself controlling? Almost nobody would raise your hand. You know why? Because no one actually thinks that they are controlling. If I asked you, who here knows someone or maybe is sitting next to someone who is controlling, we’d have a whole lot more hands that would go up if I said, who here knows someone who’s controlling that you wish was less controlling? We’d have hands go up, which is ironic because you would then in fact be controlling if you responded to that. So, so why then? Why is it, what is it about me that wants me to control the people around me, the circumstances around me, the things around me that, that when you really examine it, it control is ultimately about wanting a desired outcome. And it’s often driven by the fear of an undesired outcome.

So because I have a fear of being embarrassed or a fear of rejection or a fear of failure or a fear of suffering, I want to control everything right now to prevent those things from happening in the future. One of the books in the Bible that we don’t read from a lot, uh, but it’s a powerful, powerful book, is the Book of Lamentations. A book of Lamentations is five chapters, and it was written at the time where Jerusalem gets sacked and there’s a lot of pain and turmoil and suffering. It’s coming right after terrible, terrible things have happened to the nation of Israel. What’s beautiful about the book is it’s a book of poetry. There’s five chapters. The first two chapters have 22 verses, 22 lines of poetry. The last two chapters have 22 lines of poetry. There’s 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. So there’s this perfect symmetry.

So right in the middle, uh, the middle chapter, chapter three, it has 66 lines of poetry. So it’s three times bigger than the others. Now, what the author didn’t know at the time is that we would end up with 66 books of the Bible. So there’s this beautiful picture in the poetry, in the symmetry about what central, the central hope and desire and heart of the book. And you really can see it in Lamentations chapter three, verse 22. It’s the most famous verse from the book. It says, the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end. They’re new every morning. Here’s that famous phrase, great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. Now, that phrase the Lord is my portion. Uh, we don’t really know what that means in 2024, but biblically, Hey, here’s what that’s talking about.

If you go back to when the 12 tribes are going into the promised land, after they conquer the promised land, they take the land that they have conquered and they divide it up into different portions for each tribe of Israel. But there’s one tribe of Israel that doesn’t get a portion of the land. It’s the, it’s the tribe of the Levites. They were the priests. And God says to the Levites, I will be your portion now. Now, there’s probably some part of them at the time that says, well, everybody else is getting this great stuff and this cool things and and we don’t get that. And God is saying, no, instead, I want to be your portion. And David picks up on that same phrase. He says this phrase, the Lord is my portion multiple times in the Book of Psalms. And now you have the author of Lamentations.

In a moment when their world has completely been destroyed, everything’s been flipped, upside down, pain, destruction, they can’t understand, they can’t comprehend. And in that moment, what do they say? They say, the Lord is my portion, or, or another way to say it would be the Lord is my inheritance. Or another way to say it would be that the Lord is enough. Even when I can’t understand, even when I don’t get it, even when I don’t like it, the Lord is enough. You see, the opposite of control is surrender. It’s when we have things in our life that we can’t control, we’re willing to lay ’em all down to the Lord and say, God, you are enough. Even when I don’t understand. And now the the danger though when you’re talking about control and surrender, is that you can go overboard and lose sight of the fact that there are certain things that God does ask us to control.

We have been given the responsibility by God to control certain things in our life. And so really when you look at control, there’s three different types of control. There’s things that I can control in my life. There’s things that I really want to control in my life, but ultimately can’t. And then there’s things that I definitely know I cannot control. So let’s talk through those really quickly. Uh, first is those things that I can control, those internal things in my life that I do have the authority, the power, the control, the responsibility over. So you, I we can control our habits. You determine what time you’re gonna set up the alarm clock for tomorrow morning. You determine how you’re gonna spend your day. You determine if you’re gonna work out or if you’re not gonna work out, if you’re gonna eat healthy or if you’re not gonna eat healthy.

You determine whether or not you’re gonna read God’s word. Spend time in prayer. You determine how much time you’re gonna spend doom scrolling or watching tv. So the habits in your life are under your control. Also, the attitudes in your life and my life are under our control. I tell my kids almost every morning, whose choice is it for you to have a good day? They roll their eyes. But I’m trying to help them understand that, that, look, you can’t necessarily determine everything that’s going to happen, but your attitude is something you can control. We, we bring in summer interns every summer in the beginning of the summer. I have the same talk every year with summer interns. I said, look, the way that you’ll be a successful intern is not based off of how talented you are, how smart you are, how amazing you are.

Two things make a really good summer intern. Number one is work ethic, have a really good work ethic. And number two is attitude. You do those two things well, you’ll be an amazing intern, but it’s hard. Why? Because there’s certain days where you’re tired and it’s a lot of work and it’s not very fun. And so in those moments, do you still continue to have a good attitude? That’s something that we can control. We can control our actions, we can control our responses. I can control what someone else does to me, but I can control how I respond to that person. And ultimately, I can res control the responsibilities that God has given me in my life that this can get outta whack. So you can have someone come in and say, well, hey, he preached on surrender and, and I, I’ve been jobless for a while and I’m looking for a job and I’m just gonna surrender that.

And I have no control over that. And so I’m just gonna, I’m gonna sit on my couch and pray and, and prayer should be a first line of defense for everything that we do. But you can control what you’re doing to pursue those things. So you can control how many resumes and interviews and, and do not stop those things if your marriage is unhealthy right now, don’t just sit back and say, well, I can’t control my marriage. It’s falling apart. No, there’s parts of it that you can control. Get into counseling, get into a program, go to church together. Start working on your relationship. So, so there are plenty of things that are under our control that God has intentionally given us control over. And this sermon is not saying to relinquish control over those areas, but there are other parts of our life that we want to control, but it hasn’t been necessarily given to us for our control.

What are those things that I want to control? Well, other people that man, wouldn’t life be so much easier if just everybody did what I wanted them to do all the time. But when we live with that mentality, here’s what often happens is there are things that we want control over that we create conflict as a result of wanting that control over that ultimately, really it doesn’t matter. I I’ll give you a great example of one. I’ve done a lot of different, uh, marriage talks for newlywed couples who, who were about to go into a wedding. And one of the things that I always bring out to discuss with them seems really simple. It’s a roll of toilet paper and say, it’s, it’s interesting so often inside of marriages that this roll of toilet paper will become a point of contention between you and some people are on the same page.

So it’s not, but for other people, it’s like this massive, massive big deal. And often it comes down to this idea of how do you put the toilet paper onto the toilet paper holder? And so there are some people out there that they think that you put the toilet paper on the holder like that. But unfortunately, the people that don’t believe that this drives them crazy. Like they want to punch someone in the face when they see this. And so, so they, they believe wholeheartedly that it’s supposed to go like this. But there are other people that they don’t really care and they just throw on on however they wanna throw it on there. And, and oftentimes it ends up like this. Those people are wrong, of course, but <laugh>. But, but then you think, well, but it’s, it’s so much more convenient for everybody if it goes like this.

And sometimes people say they fight with their kids over which way the toilet paper goes, I wish I could fight with my kids over which way the toilet paper goes. ’cause that would mean at least they’re putting toilet paper back onto the roll. Never happened before in my house, not one time, but, but he here’s, and I know some of you are gonna say yes, but the answer is actually gonna be no. Um, does this really matter? Yes. Yeah, some That’s those of you that say that, yes, control, that’s what we’re talking about today. <laugh>, like 20 years from now, you’re not gonna be looking back and saying, man, if I look at my life’s regrets, so many of my challenges and struggles and frustrations are really just because people in my household put the toilet paper on wrong. Like it does not matter.

But we try and control it anyway. And, and there’s a thousand things in relationships with people that really don’t matter, but we wanna control ’em anyway. Like I’ll just, I’ll just try and press a whole lot of buttons all simultaneously at the same time. Uh, like it doesn’t matter how the dish is going to the dishwasher, if someone’s actually cleaning the dishes, uh, you don’t need to correct how they’re doing the dishes. I mean, if they’re getting clean, hey, success, we’re there. It doesn’t matter how you fold a towel. Like it doesn’t actually, I know some of you are like, no, it does because of how they fit and how they look and how they, but it doesn’t, does it really? No. There’s, there’s all these things of how we do it. It drives me crazy when, when my my son mows lawn, um, in my mind there’s, there’s like, hey, it needs to have certain lines that go certain ways and he just zigzags all over the place.

<laugh>, but it gets cut. And does it really matter? No, it doesn’t actually matter. But so often what happens is we want to control things that don’t actually matter and we take no big deals and turn it into really big deals. And now, I I’m not saying that you don’t have any influence or control over your kids. So, so don’t hear me wrong. Depending upon the age of your kids when they’re young, uh, you have control over certain things that are going to impact their values, uh, and impact their influences, impact things that are surrounding them. But ultimately, do you have control over your kids? The answer is no. You cannot control your kids’ actions. You can create positives and negatives based off of their actions, but you still can’t control their actions. But we create these, these hills that we’re worth, we’re we’re willing to die on that we, we really shouldn’t be. Have you ever said the phrase or heard someone said this phrase before, are you really going to wear that?

What, what is that phrase doing? It’s a passive aggressive way of trying to control the other person. Now, if you’ve got a kid and they walk out and you’re going somewhere formal and they’re not dressed nice enough, they’re your kid. So just tell ’em, Hey, you’re not allowed to wear that. You don’t need to be passive aggressive. You don’t see are you gonna wear, you just say, Hey, no, we’re going to a nice thing. And so I’m going to change what you’re wearing. You don’t have a choice. But if you ever tell your spouse, are you really going to wear that?

Why? What, what’s the root of the reasoning that you do that? It’s it’s about control. But why do you want control? Because there’s an undesired outcome that you see ahead in the future. What’s the undesired outcome? Embarrassment. We’re gonna go to this place and I’m dressed this way and you’re dressed that way, and we’re gonna show up and everybody’s gonna look at us, and I’m gonna feel embarrassment because of how you look and want control. We try and control other peoples and their values and how they act and what they do. Especially if you’re a parent, you, when your kid becomes an adult, you, you can’t control ’em anymore. But man, do we try to, don’t we, we try to influence their parenting influence what they’re doing, influence their life, but it’s something we don’t really have control over. Then there’s this third area, and that third area is things that I can’t control, external things.

So what do I have absolutely no control over? I have no control over really what happens to me? So, so let’s, let’s take one, um, that that’s easy to see both sides of it. Think about your health. So for your health, there are parts of your health that you can control with your habits. You control your diet, you can control how you work out. You can control big pieces where whether you wear sunscreen, I mean, there’s a lot of pieces to your health that you can control, but there’s a different part of your health that you have no control over your DNA. There are certain things about your DNA that you have no way to change, but there are healthy people, a hundred percent healthy people that die every single day. They did everything they could and it did not matter. So there are certain parts that we just, we can’t control and we can’t control the world around us. That there are events happening in the world all over the world right now that you and I cannot control. If you hadn’t noticed, we are in an election year and everybody wants to control their desired outcome of the election year. And there will be people that will be stressed and anxious and focused the rest of the year on that election. When ultimately can you control what happens in the election? The answer is no. Now. Now, can you influence? Sure.

Shouldn’t you be involved in politics? Yes, as a Christian, you should vote, you should be engaged, you should vote biblically. But do you have control over it? The answer is no. And so what do we do then when there’s so much of our life around us that we don’t have control over? When the most famous verses in scripture comes outta Proverbs chapter three, verses five and six, it says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding in all your ways, acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight. When I want control, when I want authority, when I wanna just have the whole world do what I want it to do, when I’m in that crossroads, what do I do with it?

I’ve let it go. I say, okay, I’m gonna trust God. And said, you see, here’s the challenge. Here’s the unfortunate part. When I get so focused on controlling the future outcome, I get so focused and so stressed and so anxious about what’s going to happen in the future that what am I sacrificing the fullness of the present, that when I’m trying to control tomorrow or a week from now or a month from now, I’m missing out on what God would have me right now in this moment living it for him and to the fullest that I can. If you’ve got a Bible, turn with me to Matthew chapter eight. If you don’t have a Bible, you can fall along in the Cherry Hills mobile app. We’ll also have it on the screens like we always do. Uh, we’re gonna look at two different stories in Matthew.

Uh, they’re both about Jesus and storms, but we often look at ’em separately from each other. I think in context it makes more sense to look at ’em both at the same time. So Matthew chapter eight, we’re gonna start in verse 23. And it’s talking about Jesus. This is what it says. And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him, and behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, said that the boat was being swamped by the waves, but he, Jesus was asleep when they went and woke him saying, save us Lord, we are perishing. And he said to them, why are you afraid? Ou of little faith. Then he rose and he rebuked the wind and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled saying, what sort of man is this that even wind in sea obey him now where they probably about to die, probably.

No, they’re overreacting. They’re getting stirred up. They’re scared and they’re responding based off of that. And they run and they grab and say, we’re gonna die. Please save us. And he says, Hey, you have little faith, calm down. And then, and what had to have been a really cool moment, you have this crazy storm and Jesus says a word, he rebukes it and it’s gone. It’s calm. Now, just a few pages later, in Matthew chapter 14, we have another story that involves a storm. Matthew chapter 14, sermon in verse 22. It says, immediately he talking about Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. And after he dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from the land beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.

And in the fourth watch of the night, that’s somewhere between 3:00 AM and 6:00 AM the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it’s a ghost. And they cried out in fear. Now, as a pause side note, ’cause sometimes people give grief to disciples for their response to it, but that’s gotta be the most normal human reaction possible to what just happened. Like, have you ever been woken up at three o’clock in the morning, four o’clock in the morning and just responded? I dunno about you, but I respond terribly in the middle of the night. Like if a kid, if one of my kids comes in and just stands over me, I like, whoa, I jump always, every single time. Uh, not more than two weeks ago, we’re in bed, it’s in the middle of the night, and I sit up in bed and I don’t even know why I sit up in bed, but I I was a hundred percent certain that there was a firefly in my bedroom.

Uh, so much so that my wife wakes up and it’s like, what? What are you doing? And I’m trying to catch it. I have not left the bed. I’m just trying to catch like I am, I’m reaching up ’cause there’s a blinking firefly that’s like right there. I’m like, do you see it? Do you see the firefly? And, and Lord, my wife’s like, I mean, I think so maybe I’m not, I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. I was so freaked out that, that I got my, my phone out. I turned on the flashlight to say, why is there a firefly in my room? And the house that we’ve been in for almost three years? I looked at the fire alarm that was blinking. Um, it wasn’t even making a noise, it was just blinking at me. But I was certain at four o’clock in the morning that that was a firefly that was in my room.

Why? Because it was four o’clock in the morning and I do not think straight at four o’clock in the morning. And the same is true of disciples. So it’s somewhere between three o’clock and six o’clock in the morning. There’s a wind, there’s a wave. They see somebody walking on the water and their immediate response is, it’s a ghost. That’s totally normal. If, if you put me on a boat at three o’clock in the mo morning and there was wind and waves, and I saw a person walking out, I’m a pastor. And my first response would not be, I bet that’s Jesus. Like I would, I would also be saying it’s a ghost. Like that’s a normal human response. Verse 27 says, but immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart in his eye. Do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

Peter, every one of us has a little bit of Peter going on at some time in our life where he’s just impulsive and reactive and he just responds to whatever is going through his mind. Like, just imagine Peter, some of the other disciples, they didn’t grow up as fishermen. Like one of ’em was a tax collector like that. That guy’s probably terrified and scared. Peter’s chilling out. Peter’s like, Hey, I grew up on this boat. I’m used to there being wind and rain and it’s just no big deal. And then they see Jesus walking and he’s like, everybody else is like, Hey, that’s Jesus. What’s going on? We think it’s a ghost. And Jesus says, well, no, it’s me. And what’s Peter’s instant reaction? He says, well, okay, if it is you tell me to come out to you. That just seems like a crazy response to me.

Like if I had a hundred responses to pick from, that’s not towards the top of my list. It says, Lord, if is you, command me to come to you on the water in verse 29. And Jesus responds, just one word, come. So Peter got outta the boat and walked in the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him saying to him, oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased and those in the boat worshiped him saying, truly, you are the son of God. Now, I I wanna point out two things that are interesting. The, the first thing is that Peter, who would’ve been very comfortable in the boat, he’s a fisherman, grew up on the boat in a situation where he’s in total control, he steps out of the boat.

And so there’s this piece of Christianity and following after Jesus that is surrendering our control, entrusting in God. You, you see that demonstrated by Peter that, that he’s willing to leave his comfort zone in order to chase after Jesus. But there’s this second piece to the equation that’s fascinating to me, that just a few chapters before this, Jesus calms the storm crazy stuff going on. Jesus just in a word, and it’s gone. And Jesus sees Peter get out of the boat and start making his way towards Jesus. And then what happens to Peter, it says that he saw the wind, he saw the rain, he gets focused on the stuff. He, he’s left, left behind the control of the boat, the safety of the boat. And now based off that fear, he, he starts to struggle and he starts to sink. And then he is crying out, Jesus saved me. And now there’s a few different ways that Jesus could respond. One way that Jesus could have responded is that he could have calmed the storm. Like he, he knew Jesus is God. He’s omni. He, he’s, you don’t even have to be omnipotent to look at the situation and recognize the reason that Peter gets distracted is ’cause he’s scared of all the storm. So Jesus could be like, oh, hey, my bad, let me just, now it’s calm. Now you don’t have to worry about that. Get your eyes focused back on me.

But that’s not what Jesus does. Jesus doesn’t calm the story. And and then what’s even kind of funnier is then he says, you have little faith. He helps him up. He he walks on the water to the boat. And then what happens? As soon as they get into the boat, the weather stops. Like if you’re Peter, you gotta be like, I mean, come on man. Couldn’t you have done that two minutes ago? Wouldn’t that have been easier for me? And and here’s a hard truth that we see inside of scripture, and that is this. Sometimes Jesus calms the storm, but sometimes Jesus calms us in the midst of the storm. Jesus could have calmed the storm, but instead he calmed Peter, uh, to put it differently. Sometimes we pray to God and God changes our circumstances, but oftentimes God uses our circumstances to change us.

And that’s hard. But that’s what God does. You see, here’s the reality. When we think of control and we think of anxiety that they are both related to each other. They’re both driven by the fear of a future outcome. Now, why do people control as much as they can around them? Because they’re scared, they’re afraid of what is going to happen. That by controlling all these different things, it’s going to fix that outcome. What is anxiety about when you lay in bed at night and you can’t go to sleep? Oftentimes it’s one of two things. Oftentimes it’s either because you’ve got this list of things going through your mind, like your to-do list and all these things that you gotta do. Or it’s because you’re thinking about future events that haven’t yet happened yet. And you’re letting those future what ifs drive so much of your life.

What’s going to happen if, what if this kid, what if my health and those what ifs can drive us crazy? And so how do we combat control? How do we combat anxiety? Well, what do we do with those things if we surrender them to God? And surrender sounds pretty easy. It’s easy to sing a song about, Hey, I surrender all, but, but what does it mean to surrender? How do I surrender? We surrender by doing this, trusting we trust in God. That’s what it means in Proverbs three, five and six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways. Acknowledge him. He will make your past straight easy to put that on my wall, hard to live it out. There’s a really famous story that, that I shared probably two years ago, and it’s just one of the most profound stories that I’ve heard. It’s, it’s impacted my life. It’s worth repeating. There’s a Jesuit priest named John Kavanaugh and John Kavanaugh. This is probably 40 years ago. John Kavanaugh,

Uh, was at this crossroads in his life. He didn’t know what to do. He was trying to figure out, should I go this way? Should I go that way? And so he, he was really pursuing clarity and direction and he decided that the one person in the world that he saw that had more clarity and direction than anybody else was a woman named Mother Teresa. And if you know much about the story of Mother Teresa, just this amazing godly woman, uh, who spent her life in Calcutta, India, loving on people that were dying. I mean the poorest people in the world, she would just love on them, love on them, love on them. And so, hey, he, he looked at the life of Mother Teresa and said, man, she’s got it figured out. I’m gonna get there, have a conversation with her, have her pray for me, and it’s gonna solve all this directional problems that I’ve got in life.

And so he gets on a plane, he goes over there, uh, he serves in Calcutta as, as part of her, her, her sisterhood, that that’s loving on people. And in the course of serving in his very first day there, he comes into a conversation with Mother Teresa. He runs into her, starts having a conversation with her, and then she asks him, Hey, what can I do for you? And here’s his response. He, he says, um, what can I do for you? Kavanaugh asked, will you please pray for me? And she says, what do you want me to pray for? She asked, and he answered with the request. That was the very reason he traveled thousands of miles to India. Pray that I have clarity. Mother Teresa said, firmly, no, I will not do that. She says, clarity is the last thing that you’re clinging to and you must let go of when Kavanaugh said, but you always seem to have clarity.

She laughed and she said, I’ve never had clarity. What I’ve always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God. And then she goes on to say this, the point of the dark helpless places is to strip us of absolutely everything so that only surrender and trust remain. That is the daily and severe Christian calling. What’s fascinating about the life of Mother Teresa is when she had that conversation externally, everything seemed in her life like it was perfect, wonderful, awesome, that she had total clarity and control. But after Mother Teresa passed away and died and a book came out and the book’s called Come By Come Be My Light. And that book was a collection of all the letters, the correspondence that she had written with a whole bunch of different people. And what that book revealed was all kinds of doubts that she struggled with that when she was 36 years old. Uh, at that time she was a nine and she had spent 17 years teaching in Calcutta, India. She was an educator for children. So she was 36 years old. She was on a bus. She was headed to a retreat. And while she was on that bus, she felt like she heard the audible voice of God say this. She heard God say, come, come carry me into the holes of the poor. Come be my light. And so at 36 years old, she hears

The audible voice of God saying, you are supposed to go and do this. Love that who the world saw as unlovable be my light to them. And so that’s what she does. When she first started her ministry, it was her and a few other nuns that she’d convinced that they were supposed to do this to. They didn’t even have a place to stay. They literally stayed on the street with the homeless and the sick and the dying. Uh, there was a Jesuit priest that was there locally that continued for a few years to try and talk her out of it. He said, you are crazy. What are you doing? You are nuts. And over and over and over again. She said, no, I, I heard God tell me to do this. This is what I’m going to do. And so externally, people saw that and said, man, she must have had such strong conviction and understanding and clarity.

But when you read the letters that she wrote, here’s what it reveals is that for the rest of her life, she heard God’s voice when she was three, six for the rest of her life, she never heard God’s voice. One time for 51 years, she continued to serve and do what God had called her to do, always questioning. In 1979, she wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Everybody would’ve looked at her and said, man, just her life’s off the charts. She’s doing everything right. And yet, in 1979, the same year she won the Nobel Peace Prize, she wrote this to a friend. She said, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see. I listen and do not hear. She was struggling. And so how did she keep going with so much lack of clarity? It was so much lack of control.

It was so much lack of understanding what allowed her to keep going. It was the same answer that she said to Kavanaugh. She said, I don’t have clarity. I do have trust. And every day, mother Theresa prayed the same prayer. And that prayer was this, Lord, I believe help my unbelief. I don’t know what situations you have going on in life today. I don’t know what brings you in, but but here’s what I’m certain of every single person in the room, that there’s some piece of your life that you wish you had more control over, that you don’t.

And so often we let those things that we want to control rule our lives. But the the biblical picture, what God is calling us to do is to surrender those things and not surrender the things that we do have control over. The responsibilities that God has given us are habits, our actions, our responses, our attitudes control those things. But these things that we want to control are these things that we can’t control saying, God, I, Hey, I surrender and I don’t understand, but I am going to trust. Just like in Lamentations chapter three, when their whole world was literally burning to the ground. What do they say? They say, the Lord is my portion. The Lord is enough. I don’t understand, but I can trust. We’re gonna end service a little bit different today. And that is our, our band’s about to come out and we’re gonna do a song of response.

And so here’s my challenge to you in the Song of Response, this is a song where if you look at the, the lyrics that matches up with what we’ve been talking about today, this, this idea of surrendering and trusting to God, Hey, I might not understand. I might not get it, but I’m going to lean into you and trust. And so maybe during this song, you want to stand and worship and sing these songs to God. Maybe during this song you wanna stay seated and just spend some time in prayers. And God, how can I release control? I also wanna remind you that, that we have a place, especially if you’re new at the back here called Trailhead to my left to your right. That’s a place where if you don’t know Jesus, maybe you’ve never had that moment where you’ve surrendered your life to God.

Today can be that day where you go to them and say, Hey, what, what does it mean to surrender my life to God? Or maybe you’re hearing you would say, Hey, I’ve got these things that I really don’t know how to let go of. I want control, I want clarity. And I have a hard time trusting. We would love to pray with you about those things. Or lastly, maybe you’re hearing you’re brand new and you’ve maybe been kicking the tires and, and just visiting the church, but you’d, you’d love to get better connected. We have a gift for you back there. We’d love to help get you connected into the life of our church. Why? Why is that important? Because it’s so much easier to trust and surrender when you’re walking alongside other people who are doing the same thing. So as we sing this song of response, you let the Holy Spirit work in your life however he wants to. Heavenly Father, I thank you for today and I thank you for the privilege to come and worship. You gotta know that each and every one of us struggle with control, struggle with things that we wish would go exactly how we wanted them to. And yet all of us will encounter things in life every single day that are outside of our control. So in those moments, God help us, teach us to trust. Teach us to surrender the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.