No Shame. No Striving. Surrender.

Let the Spirit do the Work.

16 Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law. And we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law. For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.”

Galatians 2:16

Preaching is often made to be seen as this glamorous thing, unless you’re a preacher like me. God often has me share things that have hit home first. It typically means that I get the correcting first, the reminding first and the encouragement first. If you know me, you know I don’t typically take correction from God the “wrong way”. I know he loves me, thus corrects me because he loves me. However, recently I read a quote that may describe what is happening in me.

“The thirstier a man is, the more he’ll prize a cup of water; the more our sins break and burden us, the more we’ll treasure our Healer and Deliverer”. -Thomas Wilcox

Let’s just say the sin “burdened me” hard body this week.

This is my first Sunday delivering a message here at BCF, but it’s not my first rodeo. I am a pastor’s kid and my dad has a video tape of me at the age of 8 delivering a message for the first time on the book of revelation. HARDCORE, I know.

I grew up in the church, have been involved in tons of ministries from children’s ministry at 8 and youth ministry at 16. There was even a season in my life where I could single handily run a complete service on my own (I clearly hadn’t learned the lesson on delegation).

I had the blessing of knowing who my creator was and was given the opportunity to foster a relationship with Him at a young age. I remember as a child LOVING GOD. I remember creating plans on how I would ensure that the gospel would be shared with the whole world. I was that kid who asked for a five-volume Vernon McGee commentary for Christmas and was stoked when I received it.

However, as I grew up my relationship with God became more about striving well in the eyes of men, then allowing the Spirit to complete the good work in me.

Galatians says (5:9) that this false teaching (striving to complete a good work in yourself) is like a little yeast that can spread through the whole batch and it certainty had spread in me.

For those of you who don’t know, my real walk with God started on one of the most devastating days in Joshua’s life. I’ve known Joshua since I was 14 years old, we started dating when I was 19 years old and we broke up for the first and last time when I was about to turn 21. What I thought to be a mutual breakup was the seemly “death of a promise” for Joshua.

The date was April 4th, 2010. I remember this day so well because after breaking up that Easter Sunday I got into my red Subaru Impreza and prayed to God. I told him I was tired of just going through the motions, tired of striving and just wanted Him. I wanted His Spirit to do the good work in me, no more distractions just me and him. This event, at a stop light led to an unforgettable year. God and I became best friends. Like we were tight, together all the time. He was the first person I spoke to and the last person I said goodnight to. I discovered the secret place (Joshua’s not the only person obsessed with that place) and began a love for fasting! Yup, a love (we can talk about that another time). Life was sweet and God was good.

During this time I had been spending my summers doing missions trips. I would spend summers traveling to Honduras, Nicaragua, Haiti and this summer was no different. I was accepted into a program called World Teach to teach English in a rural part of Costa Rica. During this time, I began a relationship with a Nicaragüense. I sought the Lord about this relationship and believed I had the green light to pursue it. I dated this guy for 4 years long distance and though it started out pretty it ended really ugly.

After spending 4 of my summers in Nicaragua and I was planning to marry this guy. I had gotten a full-time job teaching English in Nicaragua, had picked out the house we were going to live in, car we were gonna drive and even our wedding venue. Everything was set. I informed my current job in the US that it would be my last year teaching there and was ready to make the move. Until I return home from Nicaragua that summer. I got home and everything began to change. This guy became cold, short and dishonest with me. His feelings and attitude towards me were changing, what seemed to be a gift from God was quickly becoming a huge warning sign that I needed to flee from this toxic relationship. I started to pray hard and ask people closest to me for prayer. God responded by giving me dreams with Joshua. I was so confused by this and chalked it up to me craving a healthy relationship and my relationship with Joshua was the closest thing to healthy. When the guy I had been seeing came to visit me in December, we broke up.

It was January 2015 and I was devastated. I felt like I had heard wrong from God, invested my time in the wrong thing and super discouraged with my ability to hear from God. As spring approached, my brother insisted that I pursue a friendship with Joshua. He mentioned that Joshua had grown a lot and he felt we had so much in common and would benefit from at least a friendship with him. After lots of resistance, on both sides, God allowed us to reconnect and the rest is history. God provided a wedding and engagement ring, he provided a wedding venue and even a honeymoon at no cost to us. It was clear God wanted us together and here we are. Promises fulfilled and we are in this together.

This beautiful story however, left me feeling broken and confused. There were still issues unresolved with God and healing that needed to take place. That is what God has been doing with me for the past two years. He has been restoring and healing me and during this week he took me back to April 2010, when I surrender it all to him.

See as I was preparing this message, it was clear that the Lord wanted me to share my testimony. I thought it was because it would show you how faithful God was or because of what he did that year in 2010. However, as I wrote down my testimony the Lord revealed shame in me. I was ashamed of my story. Ashamed that it started really well and seem to end with “I was the broken girl who got to marry the really great guy”. I cried a lot this week and my feelings were all mixed up. Where was this coming from? Do I have a testimony to share? Who is God now in my life?

As I sought the Lord he spoke to me and said “This shame comes from your striving (aka efforts). Your striving to prove yourself to your husband, your church and your pastors. No shame, No striving, let the Spirit do the work. Surrender.” 

I realized that my testimony ends where it had begun. Galatians 3:2-6 says:

2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!

5-6 Answer this question: Does the God who lavishly provides you with his own presence, his Holy Spirit, working things in your lives you could never do for yourselves, does he do these things because of your strenuous moral striving or because you trust him to do them in you? Don’t these things happen among you just as they happened with Abraham? He believed God, and that act of belief was turned into a life that was right with God.

To strive means to “make great efforts to achieve or gain something”. But how can we make efforts to achieve or gain something that has already been given to us? The Spirit does the work in us, our job is simple: surrender and believe, have faith in Him who is great in you.

I was struggling to see the beauty in my story. I wanted to modify or edit it to be better, stronger, bigger. I wanted my story to say something else. Anything else, but that there was brokenness. (Ah, pride) It was clear that I was striving again. I was desiring to finish my story for myself. Write a different ending to my walk.  Trying to complete a good work in myself. Trying to perform. Trying to prove myself, but this is USELESS.

Why? Because Christ has already finished my story. He has already perfected it.

It is a beautiful thing how God prepares you for these hard lessons before-hand. About two weeks ago the Lord began to speak to me about my identity. He wanted to show me how he saw me. During a Thursday night study, He said “you are my bride, you are beautiful, you are pure, worthy of love and worthy of spending a lifetime with”. He then told me to ask Joshua how he saw me the day I walked down the aisle. So a few days after, without prompting Joshua responded answering the EXACT SAME things. “you were my bride, you were beautiful, you were pure, worthy of love and worthy of spending a lifetime with”. God sweetly whispered to my spirit, “If he was able to see you in the same light, how much more am I?”.

Fast forward to this week and my sin of striving being revealed and the temptation to stay there, be ashamed of my failure and mess up, of my current state---God reminded me of how He sees me. As if God was speaking Galatians 5:1 to me, “Hey, Hey! I set you free from all this striving already, don’t get stuck there again. No shame, no striving, let the Spirit do the work. Surrender. I already made you my bride, I already see you pure, I already see you beautiful, I already see you worthy of spending a lifetime with. I have already set you free”.

So what did I do? I had to choose to speak life. I had to remind myself this week several times that there will be no shame in my life, no more striving to write my story. I had to proclaim that the Spirit was going to do the work and that my job was to surrender and believe. I had to remind myself of how He sees me.

And Church I feel that it is also my job to remind you of this today. I believe that many of us find shame in our story or in our current situation. I believe that many of you are striving to write you story or accomplish things by your own strength. So church I’m here to speak life into us. To remind you that He started a good work in us, he is doing a good work in us, he will finish the good work in us. We won’t doubt it for a second.

I’m here to encourage you to ask Him how he sees you and promise you that he will show you. And then I’m here to ask you to speak that truth over your life and own it.

I’m here to proclaim with you that there will be no shame in where you’re at in your walk with God right now, no more striving to accomplish a good work in yourself, we will let the Spirit do the work.

Will you allow me to speak life over us?

So, Church in the name of Jesus, NO more shame. 

In the name of Jesus, NO more striving.

Church in the name of Jesus, Surrender and let the Spirit do the work.

Phil 1:6 says:

“And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns”.  

He started the good work.

He is doing a good work.

He will finish that good work in us.

Amen and Amen.